The Darkness That Comes Before

by R. Scott Bakker

  “Madness!” Istriya spat, unmoved by her grandson’s defection. “What? Do we then war against the Kianene under the conditions of some secret treaty? Why should we give them anything now, when we’re at last in a position to seize? To break the back of a hated foe! And you would parlay with them? Say, ‘I will lop off this and this limb but no other’? Madness!”

  “But are ‘we’ in such a position, Grandmother?” Conphas replied, the filial deference now absent from his tone. “Think! Who’s ‘we’ here? Certainly not the Ikurei. ‘We’ means the Thousand Temples. Maithanet swings this hammer—or have you forgotten?—while we merely scramble to pocket the pieces. Maithanet beggars us, Grandmother! So far he’s done everything in his power to geld us. That’s why he invited the Scarlet Spires, is it not? To avoid paying the price we’d demand for the Imperial Saik?”

  “Spare me your picture-book explanations, Conphas. I’m not yet such an old, doddering fool.” She turned to Xerius, glared at him with scathing eyes. His amusement must have been plain. “So, Calmemunis, Tharschilka, and countless thousands of others are destroyed. The herd is culled. What then, Xerius?”

  Xerius could not help smiling. Such a plan! Even the great Ikurei Conphas was in awe! And Maithanet . . . The thought made Xerius want to chortle like a imbecile.

  “What then? Our Shriah learns fear. Respect. All his mummery—all his sacrifices, hymns, and wheedling—will have been for naught. As you said earlier, Mother, the Gods cannot be bribed.”

  “But you can.”

  Xerius laughed. “Of course I can. If Maithanet commands the Great Names to sign my Indenture, to swear the return of all the old provinces to the Empire, then I will give them”—he turned to his nephew and lowered his head—“the Lion of Kiyuth.”

  “Splendid!” Conphas cried. “Why didn’t I see it? Thrash them with one hand in order to soothe them with the other. Brilliant, Uncle! The Holy War will be ours. The Empire will be restored!”

  The Empress stared at her progeny dubiously.

  “What do you say, Mother?”

  But Istriya’s gaze had drifted to the Prime Counsel. “You’ve been awfully silent, Skeaös.”

  “It’s not m-my place to speak, Empress.”

  “No? But this mad scheme is yours, isn’t it?”

  “It’s mine, Mother,” Xerius snapped, irked by her assumption. “The wretch has spent tedious weeks trying to talk me out of it.” Even as he gave breath to these words, he knew he’d blundered.

  “Is that so? And why’s that, Skeaös? As much as I despise you and the inordinate influence you have over my son, I’ve always found your thinking sound. What insights have you to shed?”

  Skeaös stared at her helplessly, said nothing.

  “You fear for your life, don’t you, Skeaös?” Istriya said mildly. “As you should. My son’s justice is harsh and utterly devoid of consistency. But I’m not afraid, Skeaös. Old women are more reconciled to death than old men. By bringing life to the world, we come to see ourselves as debtors. What’s given is taken.” She turned to her son, her lips pursed in a predatory smile. “Which leads me to my point. From what Conphas says, Xerius, you give the Fanim little, if anything at all, by giving them the first half of the Holy War.”

  Biting back his fury, Xerius replied, “Surely a hundred thousand lives is more than a ‘little,’ Mother.”

  “Ah, but I speak of practicalities, Xerius. Conphas says these men are dross, more an impediment than an advantage. Since Skauras undoubtedly knows this as well, I ask you, my dear sweet son, what has he demanded in return? I know what you take, so tell me, what have you given?”

  Xerius stared at her pensively. Memories of his meeting with the Cishaurim, Mallahet, and his arcane negotiations with Skauras flashed before his soul’s eye. How cold that summer night now seemed! Cold and hellish . . .

  The Empire will be restored . . . At all costs.

  “Let me,” Istriya continued, “make it simple for you, hmm? Tell me where the line falls, Xerius. Tell me where the second, useful half of the Holy War, of necessity falters.”

  Xerius locked eyes with Conphas. He saw the hated, knowing smirk that resided nowhere in his face but found agreement there—the only place he really needed it. What was Shimeh compared with the Empire? What was faith compared with imperial power? Conphas had sided with the Empire—with him. Suddenly the air seemed musky with his mother’s humiliation. He relished it.

  “This is war, Mother. As in a game of number-sticks, who can say what triumphs—or catastrophes—lie in the future?”

  The grand Empress stared at him for a long while, her face disconcertingly blank beneath its skin of cosmetics.

  “Shimeh,” she said at last in a dead voice. “The Holy War is to perish before Shimeh.”

  Xerius smiled, then shrugged. He turned back to the river. By now the rowers’ shouts were rifling the sky and the first of the longboats was passing by. Trailing long ropes of hemp, they towed a great, lumbering barge, so immense it seemed to bow the shining back of the river. He could see the black monument cradled in timbers, as long on its back as Momemn’s gates were tall: a great obelisk for the temple-complex of Cmiral in Momemn. As it ploughed before him, it seemed he could feel the erotic warmth of basalt in the sun, radiating from the great planes and the massive profile of his face, the terrible visage of Ikurei Xerius III, at the pinnacle. He felt his heart overflow, and real tears spilled down his cheeks. He envisaged the monument being raised in the heart of Cmiral amid thousands of wondering eyes, its imperial countenance turned forever to the white sun. A shrine.

  His thoughts leapt. I will be immortal . . .

  He returned to his settee and reclined, consciously savouring the flares of hope and pride. Oh, sweet godlike vanity!

  “Like an immense sarcophagus,” his mother said. Always, the asp of truth.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  MOMEMN

  Kings never lie. They demand the world be mistaken.

  —CONRIYAN PROVERB

  When we truly apprehend the Gods, the Nilnameshi sages say, we recognize them not as kings but as thieves. This is among the wisest of blasphemies, for we always see the king who cheats us, never the thief.

  —OLEKAROS, AVOWALS

  Autumn, 4111 Year-of-the-Tusk, the Northern Jiünati Steppe

  Yursalka of the Utemot awoke with a start.

  A noise of some kind . . .

  The fire was dead. Everything was blackness. Rain drummed against the hide walls of his yaksh. One of his wives groaned and fussed with her blankets.

  Then he heard it again. A tap against the hide entrance. “Ogatha?” he whispered hoarsely. One of his younger sons had ambled off the previous afternoon and had failed to return. They’d assumed that the boy had been caught by the rain, that he would return after it passed. Ogatha had done as much before. Nevertheless, Yursalka was worried.

  Always wandering, that boy.

  “Oggie?”

  Nothing.

  Another tap.

  More curious than alarmed, he kicked his legs free, then crept nude to his broadsword. He was certain it was just Oggie playing games, but hard times had fallen upon the Utemot. One never knew.

  He saw lightning flash through a seam in the conical ceiling. For an instant, the water dripping through seemed quicksilver. The subsequent thunder left his ears ringing.

  Then another tap. He became tense. He carefully picked his way between his children and wives, paused before the entrance of his yaksh. The boy was mischievous, which was why Yursalka doted on him so, but throwing stones at his father’s yaksh in the dead of night? Was that mischief?

  Or malice?

  He worked the pommel of his sword with his hand. He shivered. Outside chill autumn rain fell down, down. More soundless lightning, followed by air-hammering thunder.

  He untied the flap, then slowly pulled it to one side with his broadsword. He could see nothing. The whole world seemed to hiss with the pasty sound of rain across mud and pud
dles. The roar reminded him of Kiyuth.

  He ducked out into the sheeting water, clenched his teeth so they wouldn’t chatter. His toes closed about one of the stones in the mud. He knelt, retrieved it, but could see next to nothing. It wasn’t a stone, he realized, but a section of jerky, or maybe even a piece of wild asparagus—

  Another flash of lightning.

  For a moment, all he could do was blink away the brightness. Understanding rumbled in with the thunder.

  A section of a child’s finger . . . He held a child’s severed finger.

  Oggie?

  Cursing, he threw the finger down and peered wildly through the surrounding darkness. Rage, grief, and terror were all overwhelmed by disbelief.

  This isn’t happening.

  Incandescent white cracked the sky, and for an instant, he saw the entire world: the desolate horizon, the sweep of distant pastures, the surrounding yaksh of his kinsmen, and the lone figure standing not more than a dozen yards away, watching . . .

  “Murderer,” Yursalka said numbly. “Murderer!”

  He heard steps slosh through the mud.

  “I found your son wandering the Steppe,” the hated voice said. “So I’ve returned him to you.”

  Something, a cabbage, hit him in the chest. Uncharacteristic panic seized him.

  “Y-you live,” he sputtered. “I’m s-so relieved. All of us w-will be so relieved!”

  More lightning, and Yursalka saw him, like a hulking wraith, as wild and as elemental as thunder and rain.

  “Some things broken,” the voice grated from the darkness, “are never mended.”

  Yursalka howled and flew forward, sweeping his broadsword in a great arc. But iron limbs caught him in the darkness. Something exploded in his face. His sword fell from senseless fingers. A hand throttled him, and he beat at a forearm made of stone. He felt his toes drag grooves through the muck. He gagged, felt something sharp arc above his groin. There was a steaming rush across his thighs, the uncanny sensation of being gouged hollow.

  He skidded and slapped into the mud, convulsed about his entrails.

  I’m dead.

  A brief flutter of white light, and Yursalka saw him crouching above, saw deranged eyes and a famished grin. Then everything went black.

  “Who am I?” the blackness asked.

  “Nnn-Cnaiür,” he gasped. “M-man-killer . . . M-most v-violent of all men . . .”

  A slap, open-handed as though he were a slave.

  “No. I am your end. Before your eyes I will put your seed to the knife. I will quarter your carcass and feed it to the dogs. Your bones I will grind to dust and cast to the winds. I will strike down those who speak your name or the name of your fathers, until ‘Yursalka’ becomes as meaningless as infant babble. I will blot you out, hunt down your every trace! The track of your life has come to me, and it goes no further. I am your end, your utter obliteration!”

  Then torchlight and commotion flooded the darkness. His earlier cries had been heard! He saw bare and booted feet stamp in the mud, heard men curse and grunt. He watched his younger brother do a bare-chested pirouette into the mud, saw his last surviving cousin stumble to his knees, then topple like a drunk into a puddle.

  “I’m your Chieftain!” Cnaiür bellowed. “Challenge me or witness my justice! Either way, justice will be done!”

  Curiously numb, Yursalka rolled his head through the muck, saw more and more Utemot gather about them. Torches sputtered and hissed in the rain, their orange light bleached white by sporadic flashes of lightning. He saw one of his wives, wrapped only in the bear pelt his father had given her, peering in horror at the spot where he lay. She stumbled toward him, her face vacant. Cnaiür struck her hard, as one might strike a man. She toppled from the pelt, fell motionless and naked at her chieftain’s feet. She looked so cold.

  “This man,” Cnaiür thundered, “has betrayed his kinsmen on the field of battle!”

  “To free us!” Yursalka managed to cry. “To release the Utemot from your yoke, your depravity!”

  “You’ve heard his admission! His life and the lives of all his chattel are forfeit!”

  “No . . .” Yursalka coughed, but the numbness was reclaiming him. Where was the justice in this? He’d betrayed his chieftain, yes, but for honour. Cnaiür had betrayed his chieftain, his father, for the love of another man! For an outlander who could speak killing words! Where was the justice in this?

  Cnaiür extended his arms as though to grapple the thundering sky. “I am Cnaiür urs Skiötha, breaker-of-horses-and-men, Chieftain of the Utemot, and I have returned from the dead! Who dares dispute my judgement?”

  The rain continued to spiral down. Save for looks of awe and terror, none dared dispute the madman. Then a woman, the half-Norsirai mongrel Cnaiür had taken wife, burst from the others and threw herself at him, weeping uncontrollably. She feebly beat at his chest, wailing something unintelligible. For a moment, Cnaiür held her tight, then he sternly pressed her back.

  “It’s me, Anissi,” he said with shameful tenderness. “I am whole.”

  Then he turned from her toward Yursalka, a demon by torchlight, an apparition by lightning strike.

  Yursalka’s wives and children had gathered about their husband, wailing. Yursalka felt soft thighs beneath his head, the flutter of warm palms across his face and chest. But he could look only at the ravenous figure of his chieftain. He watched him catch his youngest daughter by the hair, snuff out her squeal with sharp iron. For a grisly moment, she remained fixed on his blade, and he shook her like a skewered doll. Yursalka’s wives screamed and cowered. Looming above them, the chieftain of the Utemot hacked, again and again, until they groped and shuddered in the mud. Only Omiri, the lame daughter of Xunnurit whom Yursalka had married the previous spring, remained, weeping and clawing at her husband. Cnaiür seized her with his free hand, hoisted her by the back of the neck. Her mouth worked like a fish about a soundless shriek.

  “Is this Xunnurit’s misbegotten cunt?” he snarled.

  “Yes,” Yursalka gasped.

  Cnaiür cast her like a rag to the mud. “She lives to watch our sport. Then she suffers the sins of her father.”

  Surrounded by his dead and dying family, Yursalka watched Cnaiür loop his bowel like rope about scarred arms. He glimpsed the callous eyes of his tribesman, knew they would do nothing.

  Not because they feared their lunatic chieftain, but because it was the way.

  Late Autumn, 4111 Year-of-the-Tusk, Momemn

  Since Maithanet’s declaration of Holy War a year and a half earlier, untold thousands had gathered about Momemn’s walls. Among those well placed within the Thousand Temples, there were rumours of the Shriah’s dismay. He had not, it was said, anticipated such an overwhelming response to his summons. In particular, he had not thought so many lower-caste men and women would take up the Tusk. Reports of freemen selling their wives and children into slavery so they might purchase passage to Momemn were common. A widowed fuller from the city of Meigeiri, it was said, actually drowned his two sons rather than sell them to the slavers. When dragged before the local ecclesiastical magistrate, he allegedly claimed he was “sending them ahead” to Shimeh.

  Similar tales tarnished nearly every report sent to Sumna, so much so that they became more a matter of disgust than alarm for the Shrial Apparati. What disturbed them were the stories, rare at first, of atrocities committed either by or against the Men of the Tusk. Off the coast of Conriya a small squall killed more than nine hundred low-caste pilgrims who’d been promised passage on unseaworthy ships. To the north, a cohort of Galeoth freebooters wearing the Tusk destroyed no fewer than seventeen villages over the course of their southward march. They left no witnesses, and were discovered only when they attempted to sell the effects of Arnyalsa, a famed missionary priest, at market in Sumna. At Maithanet’s direction, the Shrial Knights encircled their encampment and killed them all.

  Then there was the story of Nrezza Barisullas, the King of Cironj and perhaps t
he wealthiest man in the Three Seas. When several thousand Tydonni who’d contracted his ships defaulted on their payment, he sent them to the island of Pharixas, an old pirate stronghold of King Rauschang of Thunyerus, demanding they storm the island in lieu of monies owed. They did, and with abandon. Thousands of innocents perished. Inrithi innocents.

  Maithanet, it was said, wept at the news. He immediately placed all of House Nrezza under Shrial Censure, which voided all obligations, commercial or otherwise, to Barisullas, his sons, and his agents. The Censure was quickly rescinded, however, once it became clear that the Holy War would take months longer to assemble without Cironji ships. Before the fiasco was concluded, Barisullas would actually win reparations in the form of Shrial trade concessions from the Thousand Temples. Rumour had it that the Nansur Emperor sent his personal congratulations to the canny Cironji King.

  But none of these incidents provoked anything approaching the uproar caused by the march of what came to be called the Vulgar Holy War. When word reached Sumna that the first Great Names to arrive had capitulated to Ikurei Xerius III and signed his Indenture, there was a great deal of concern that something untoward was about to happen. But without the luxury of sorcerers, Maithanet’s entreaties, which extolled the virtues of patience and alluded darkly to the consequences of defiance, did not reach Momemn until Calmemunis, Tharschilka, Kumrezzer, and the vast mobs that followed them were days gone.

  Maithanet was wroth. In ports around the Three Seas, the great state-sponsored contingents were finally preparing to embark. Gothyelk, the Earl of Agansanor, was already at sea with hundreds of Tydonni thanes and their households—more than fifty thousand trained and disciplined men. The gathering of the Holy War, the Shriah’s advisers estimated, was mere months from completion. All told, they said, the Men of the Tusk would have numbered over three hundred thousand, just enough to ensure the heathens’ utter destruction. The premature march of those already gathered was an unmitigated disaster, even if they were largely rabble.