The Warrior Prophet

by R. Scott Bakker

  Among those Kellhus needed to dominate, Ikurei Conphas was an especially problematic case. Not only did he suffer pride—almost lunatic in proportion—he possessed a pathological disregard for the estimations of other men. Moreover, like his uncle the Emperor, he believed that Kellhus himself was somehow connected to Skeaös—to the Cishaurim, if Achamian could be believed. Add to that a childhood surrounded by the labyrinthine intrigues of the Imperial Precincts, and the Exalt-General became almost as immune to Dûnyain techniques as the Scylvendi.

  And he planned, Kellhus knew, something catastrophic for the Holy War …

  Another mystery. Another threat.

  The Great Names moved on to bicker about further things. First Proyas, using arguments he’d rehearsed, Kellhus surmised, with Cnaiür, suggested they send a mounted force to Hinnereth with all dispatch, not to take the city but to secure its surrounding fields before they could be prematurely harvested and sheltered within its walls. The same, he declared, should be done for the entire coastline. Under torment, several Kianene captives had said that Skauras, as a contingency, had ordered all the winter grains in Gedea harvested as soon as they became milk-ripe. Swearing that the Imperial Fleet could supply the Holy War entire, Conphas argued against the plan, warning that Skauras yet possessed the strength and cunning to destroy any such force. Loath to depend on the Emperor in any way, the other Great Names were disinclined to believe him, however, and it was agreed: several thousand horsemen would be mustered and sent out on the morrow under Earl Athjeäri, Palatine Ingiaban, and Earl Werijen Greatheart.

  Then the incendiary issue of the Ainoni host’s sloth and the constant fragmentation of the Holy War was broached. Here masked Chepheramunni, who had to answer to the Scarlet Spires, found a surprise ally in Proyas, who argued, with several provisos, that they actually should continue travelling in separate contingents. When the issue threatened to become intractable, he called on Cnaiür for support, but the Scylvendi’s harsh assessment had little effect, and the argument dragged on.

  The first Men of the Tusk continued shouting into the night, growing ever more drunk on the Sapatishah’s sweet Eumarnan wines. And Kellhus studied them, glimpsed depths that would have terrified them had they known. Periodically, he revisited the thing called Sarcellus, who often gazed back, as though Kellhus were a boy with fine shanks that a wicked Shrial Knight might love. It taunted him. But such a look was merely a semblance, Kellhus knew, as surely as the expressions animating his own face.

  Still, there could be no doubt—not any longer … They knew Kellhus could see them.

  I must move more quickly, Father.

  The Nilnameshi had it wrong. Mysteries could be killed, if one possessed the power.

  Lounging beneath the bellied crimson canvas of his pavilion, Ikurei Conphas spent the first hour verbally entertaining various scenarios involving the Scylvendi’s murder. Martemus had said little, and in some infuriated corner of his thoughts Conphas suspected that the drab General not only secretly admired the barbarian but had thoroughly enjoyed the earlier fiasco in the amphitheatre. And yet, by and large, this bothered Conphas little, though he couldn’t say why. Perhaps, assured of Martemus’s actual loyalty, he cared nothing for the man’s spiritual infidelities. Spiritual infidelities were as common as dirt.

  Afterward, he spent another hour telling Martemus what was to happen at Hinnereth. This had lightened his mood greatly. Demonstrations of his brilliance always buoyed his spirits, and his plans for Hinnereth were nothing short of genius. How well it paid to be friends with one’s enemies.

  And so, feeling magnanimous, he decided to open a little door and allow Martemus—easily the most competent and trustworthy of all his generals—into some rather large halls. In the coming months, he would need confidants. All Emperors needed confidants.

  But of course, prudence demanded certain assurances. Though Martemus was loyal by nature, loyalties were, as the Ainoni were fond of saying, like wives. One must always know where they lie—and with absolute certainty.

  He leaned back into his canvas chair and peered past Martemus to the far side of the pavilion, where the crimson Standard of the Over-Army rested in its illumined shrine. His gaze lingered on the ancient Kyranean disc that glinted from the folds—supposedly once the chest piece of some Great King’s harness. For some reason the figures stamped there—golden warriors with elongated limbs—had always arrested him. So familiar and yet so alien.

  “Have you ever stared at it before, Martemus? I mean, truly stared?”

  For a moment the General looked as though he might be too far into his cups, but only for a moment. The man never truly got drunk. “The Concubine?” he asked.

  Conphas smiled pleasantly. Common soldiers commonly referred to the Over-Standard as the “Concubine” because tradition demanded it be quartered with the Exalt-General. Conphas had always found the name particularly amusing: he’d drawn his cock across that hallowed silk more than once … A strange feeling, to spill one’s seed on the sacred. Quite delicious. “Yes,” he said, “the Concubine.”

  The General shrugged. “What officer hasn’t?”

  “And how about the Tusk? Have you ever laid eyes upon it?”

  Martemus raised his brows. “Yes.”

  “Really?” Conphas exclaimed. He himself had never seen the Tusk. “When was that?”

  “As a boy, back when Psailas II was Shriah. My father brought me with him to Sumna to visit his brother—my uncle—who for a time was an orderly in the Junriüma … He took me to see it.”

  “Did he now? What did you think?”

  The General stared into his wine bowl, which he held poised between his wonderfully thick fingers. “Hard to remember … Awe, I think.”

  “Awe?”

  “I remember my ears ringing. I shook, I know that … My uncle told me I should be afraid, that the Tusk was connected to far bigger things.” The General smiled, fixing Conphas with his clear brown eyes. “I asked him if he meant a mastodon and he swatted me—right there!—in the presence of the Holiest of Holies …”

  Conphas affected amusement. “Hmm, the Holiest of Holies …” He took a long sip of his wine, savoured the warm, almost buzzing taste. Many years had passed since he’d last enjoyed Skauras’s private stock. He could still scarcely believe the old jackal had been bested, and by Coithus Saubon … He’d meant what he’d said earlier: the Gods did favour the soft-of-head. Men like Conphas, on the other hand, they tested. Men like themselves …

  “Tell me, Martemus, if you had to die defending one or the other, the Concubine or the Tusk, which would it be?”

  “The Concubine,” the General replied without a whisper of hesitation.

  “And why’s that?”

  Again the General shrugged. “Habit.”

  Conphas fairly howled. Now that was funny. Habit. What more assurance could a man desire?

  Dear man! Precious man!

  He paused, collected himself for a moment, then said, “This man, Prince Kellhus of Atrithau … What do you make of him?”

  Martemus scowled, then leaned forward in his chair. Conphas had once made a game of this, leaning forward and back, and watching the way Martemus’s pose answered his, as though some critical distance between their faces must always be observed. In some ways, Martemus was such a strange man.

  “Intelligent,” the General said after a moment, “well spoken, and utterly impoverished. Why do you ask?”

  Still hesitant, Conphas appraised his subordinate for a moment. Martemus was unarmed, as was custom when conferring alone with members of the Imperial Family. He wore only a plain red smock. He cares nothing about impressing me … This, Conphas reminded himself, was what made his opinion so invaluable.

  “I think it’s time I told you a little secret, Martemus … Do you remember Skeaös?”

  “The Emperor’s Prime Counsel. What of him?”

  “He was a spy, a Cishaurim spy … My uncle, ever keen to confirm his fears, noted that Prince Ke
llhus seemed peculiarly interested in Skeaös during that final gathering of the Great Names on the Andiamine Heights. Our Emperor, as you know, is not one to idly brood over his suspicions.”

  Martemus blanched with shock. For a moment, it looked his nose might fall off his face. Conphas could almost read his thoughts: Skeaös a Cishaurim spy? This is a little secret?

  “So Skeaös admitted working for the Cishaurim?”

  The Exalt-General shook his head. “He didn’t need to … He was … He was some kind of abomination—a faceless abomination!—and of a species the Imperial Saik couldn’t detect … Which means of course he must have been Cishaurim.”

  “Faceless?”

  Conphas blinked, and for the thousandth time saw Skeaös’s oh-so-familiar face … unclutch. “Don’t ask me to explain. I cannot.”

  Fucking words.

  “So you think this Prince Kellhus is a Cishaurim spy as well? A contact of some kind?

  “He’s something, Martemus. Just what remains to be seen.”

  The General’s astonished expression suddenly hardened into something shrewd. “Like the Emperor, you’re not one to harbour idle suspicions, Lord Exalt-General.”

  “True, Martemus. But unlike my uncle, I know the wisdom of staying my hand, of letting my enemies think I’m deceived. To observe, and to observe closely, is not to remain idle.”

  “But this is my point,” Martemus said. “Surely you’ve purchased informants. Surely you’ve had the man watched … What have you learned so far?”

  Surely. “Not much. He camps with the Scylvendi, seems to share a woman with him—quite a beauty, I’m told. He spends his days with a Schoolman named Drusas Achamian—the same Mandate fool my uncle contracted to corroborate the Imperial Saik regarding Skeaös, though whether this is anything more than a coincidence, I don’t know. Supposedly they talk history and philosophy. He belongs, like the Scylvendi, to Proyas’s inner circle, and he wields, as fairly the entire Holy War witnessed tonight, some kind of strange power over Saubon. Otherwise, the caste-menials seem to think he’s a poor man’s prophet—a seer or something.”

  “Not much?” Martemus exclaimed. “From your description, he sounds like a man of power to me—frightful power, if he belongs to the Cishaurim.”

  Conphas smiled. “Growing power …” He leaned forward, and sure enough, Martemus leaned back. “Would you like to know what I think?”

  “Of course.”

  “I think he’s been sent by the Cishaurim to infiltrate and destroy the Holy War. Saubon’s idiotic march and that nonsense about ‘punishing the Shrial Knights’ was simply his first attempt. Mark me, there will be another. He bewitches men, somehow, plays the prophet …”

  Martemus narrowed his eyes and shook his head. “But I’ve heard quite the opposite. They say he denies those who make more of him than he is.”

  Conphas laughed. “Is there any better way to posture as a prophet? People don’t like the smell of presumption, Martemus. Even the pig castes have noses as keen as wolves when it comes to those who claim to be more. Me, on the other hand, I quite like the savoury stink of gall. I find it honest.”

  Martemus’s face darkened. “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Always to the quick, eh, General? Small wonder I find you so refreshing.”

  “Small wonder,” the man repeated.

  Such a dry wit, Martemus. Conphas reached for the decanter and refilled his bowl with more of the Sapatishah’s wine. “I tell you this, Martemus, because I would have you play general in a different sort of war. Quite against all reason, you’ve become a man of power. If this Prince Kellhus collects followers to a purpose, if he courts the mighty, then you should prove well nigh irresistible.”

  A pained expression crept into Martemus’s face. “You want me to play disciple?”

  “Yes,” Conphas replied. “I do not like the smell of this man.”

  “Then why not just have him killed?”

  But of course … How could he be so penetrating and so dense by turns?

  The Exalt-General inclined his bowl and watched the blood-dark wine roll in the bottom. For an instant, its bouquet transported him back years, to his days as a hostage in Skauras’s opulent court. He glanced once again to the Over-Standard behind its curtain of incense. His sweet Concubine.

  “It’s strange,” Conphas said, “but I feel young.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  MENGEDDA

  All men are greater than dead men.

  —AINONI PROVERB

  Every monumental work of the State is measured by cubits. Every cubit is measured by the length of the Aspect-Emperor’s arm. And the Aspect-Emperor’s arm, they say, stands beyond measure. But I say the Aspect-Emperor’s arm is measured by the length of a cubit, and that all cubits are measured by the works of the State. Not even the All stands beyond measure, for it is more than what lies within it, and “more” is a kind of measure. Even the God has His cubits.

  —IMPARRHAS, PSÛKALOGUES

  Early Summer, 4111 Year-of-the-Tusk, the Plains of Mengedda

  “They celebrate my uncle’s honour,” Earl Athjeäri said as he led Kellhus through carousing mobs of drunk Northmen. The Galeoth preferred leather wedge tents with heavy wooden frames adorned by tusks and crude animal totems. Without the need to stake guy ropes, they were able to arrange them board to board, canvas to canvas, in large circular enclosures about a central fire. Athjeäri led him through enclosure after enclosure, prompted by Kellhus’s questions to explain the various peculiarities of his people’s appearance, customs, and traditions. Though annoyed at first, the young Earl was soon beaming with wonder and pride, struck not only by the distinctiveness and nobility of his people, but by a new self-understanding as well. Like so many men, he’d never truly considered who or what he was.

  Coithus Athjeäri, Kellhus knew, would never forget this walk.

  At once so easy and so difficult …

  Kellhus had taken the shortest path. He’d acquired crucial background knowledge concerning Saubon’s heritage, and he’d gained the confidence and admiration of his precocious nephew, who hence would look on Prince Kellhus of Atrithau as a friend and more, as someone who made him wiser—better—than he was with other men.

  Eventually, they shouldered their way into an enclosure far larger, and far drunker, than any of the others. On the far side Kellhus glimpsed the Red Lion banner of House Coithus rising above the shadowy congregation. Athjeäri began pushing his way toward it, cursing and berating his countrymen. But he paused when they neared the enclosure’s centre, where a bonfire whisked sparks and smoke into the night sky.

  “This will interest you,” he said, grinning.

  A large clearing had been opened before the fire, and two Galeoth, breathless and stripped to the waist, stood facing each other in its heart, holding what appeared to be two staffs between them. Each, Kellhus realized, had their wrists bound by leather straps to the end of each pole, so they were held from each other. Gripping the polished wood, they leaned each against the other, their white chests and sunburned arms taut with veins and straining muscle. The onlookers hooped and roared.

  Suddenly the nearer man pulled rather than pushed with his left, and his opponent stumbled forward. Then the two men fairly danced around the fire, heaving, yanking, shoving, thrusting, whatever it took to bring their opponent to the packed earth.

  The larger man staggered, and for a moment looked as though he might lurch into the fire. The crowd gasped, then cheered as he caught himself just short of the fiery column. With a roar he jerked the smaller man into his long shadow, then drove him back, only to suddenly falter, shaking his head fiercely. A small flame puffed from his cropped mane, at the sight of which literally dozens doubled over with laughter. The man cried out, cursed. For an instant, it appeared he might panic, but someone sent what looked like beer or mead slapping across his scalp. More booming laughter, punctuated by cries of foul.

  Athjeäri chortled, turned to Kellhus. �
�These two really hate each other,” he called over the ruckus. “They want blood or burns more than silver!”

  “What is this?”

  “We call it gandoki, or ‘shadows.’ To beat your gandoch, your shadow, you must knock him to the ground.” His laugh was relaxed and infectious, the laugh of a man utterly certain of his place among others. “The picks,” he added, using the common derogatory term for non-Norsirai, “they think we Galeoth are a race without subtlety—and so women say of men! But gandoki proves that it’s not entirely true.”

  Then suddenly, as though stepping through a door from nowhere, Sarcellus stood between them, wearing the same white and gold vestments as at the amphitheatre. “Prince,” he said, bowing his head to Kellhus.

  Athjeäri fairly whirled. “What are you doing here?”

  The Shrial Knight laughed, fixing the Earl with large camel-lashed eyes. “The same as you, I suppose. I wished to confer with Prince Kellhus.”

  “You followed us,” Athjeäri said.

  “Please …” the thing replied, pretending to be offended. “I knew I’d find him here, enjoying the largesse”—he looked sceptically at the surrounding crowds—“of the Battle-Celebrant.”

  Athjeäri glanced at Kellhus, his look, his heart rate, even the draw of his breath striking a note of scarcely concealed aversion. He thought Sarcellus vain and effete, Kellhus realized, a particularly repellent member of a species he’d long ago learned to despise. But then, that was likely what the original Cutias Sarcellus had been: a pompous caste-noble. Sarcellus, the real Sarcellus, was dead. What stood here in his stead was a beast of some kind, an exquisitely trained animal. It had wrenched Sarcellus from his place and had assumed all he once was. It had robbed him even of his death.