The Darkness That Comes Before

by R. Scott Bakker

  Frantic messages were dispatched, imploring the lords to await the others, but Calmemunis in particular was a stubborn man. When Gotian, the Grandmaster of the Shrial Knights, intercepted him north of Gielgath with Maithanet’s summons, the Palatine of Kanampurea allegedly said, “It’s a sad thing when the Shriah himself doubts.”

  Confusion and tragedy, rather than fanfare, had characterized the departure of the Vulgar Holy War from Momemn. Since only a minority of those gathered were affiliated with one of the Great Names, the host possessed no clear leader—no organization at all, in effect. As a result, several riots broke out when the Nansur soldiery began distributing supplies, and anywhere from four to five hundred of the faithful were killed.

  To his credit, Calmemunis acted quickly, and with the assistance of Tharschilka’s Galeoth, his Conriyans were able to impose order on the mobs. The Emperor’s provisions were distributed with a modicum of fairness. What disputes remained were settled at sword point, and the Vulgar Holy War soon found itself prepared to march.

  The citizens of Momemn swamped the city walls to watch the Men of the Tusk depart. Many jeered at the pilgrims, who had long ago earned the contempt of their hosts. Most, however, remained silent, watching the endless fields of humanity trudge toward the southern horizon. They saw innumerable carts heaped with belongings, women and children walking dull-eyed through the dust, dogs prancing around countless feet, and endless thousands of impoverished low-caste men, hard-faced but carrying only hammers, picks, or hoes. The Emperor himself watched the spectacle from the enamelled heights of the southern gates. According to rumour, he was overheard remarking that the sight of so many hermits, beggars, and whores made him want to retch, but he’d “already given the vulgar filth his dinner.”

  Though the host could travel no more than ten miles a day, the Great Names were generally satisfied with their progress. By sheer numbers alone, the Vulgar Holy War created mayhem along the coasts. Field-slaves would notice strange men filing through the fields, an innocuous handful soon to be followed by thousands. Entire crops would be trampled, orchards and groves stripped. But with the Emperor’s food in their bellies, the Men of the Tusk were as disciplined as could be expected. The incidences of rape, murder, and robbery were infrequent enough that the Great Names could still dispense justice—and more important, still pretend they led an army.

  By the time they crossed into the frontier province of Anserca, however, the pilgrims had turned to outright banditry. Companies of fanatics ranged the Ansercan countryside, by and large restricting their depredations to harvests and livestock, but at times resorting to plunder and carnage. The town of Nabathra, famous for its wool markets, was sacked. When Nansur units under General Martemus, who had been instructed to shadow the Vulgar Holy War, attempted to restrain the Men of the Tusk, several pitched battles broke out. At first it seemed that the General, even though he had only two columns at his disposal, might bring the situation under control. But the weight of numbers and the ferocity of Tharschilka’s Galeoth forced him to retire north and ultimately to shelter within Gielgath’s walls.

  Calmemunis issued a declaration blaming the Emperor, claiming Xerius III had issued edicts denying supplies to the Men of the Tusk, in direct contravention of his earlier oaths. In point of fact, however, the edicts had been issued by Maithanet, who had hoped this action might stall the horde’s southward march and purchase enough time to convince them to return to Momemn.

  With the Men of the Tusk slowed by the need to forage, Maithanet issued further edicts, one rescinding the Shrial Remission previously extended to all those who took up the Tusk, another punishing Calmemunis, Tharschilka, and Kumrezzer with Shrial Censure, and a third threatening all those who continued under these Great Names with the same. This news, combined with the backlash against the bloodshed of the previous days, brought the Vulgar Holy War to a stop.

  For a time even Tharschilka wavered in his resolve, and it seemed certain the core of the Vulgar Holy War at least would turn and begin marching back to Momemn. But then Calmemunis received news that an imperial supply train, apparently headed for the frontier fortress of Asgilioch, had miraculously fallen into the hands of his people. Convinced this was a sign from the God, he called together all the lords and impromptu leaders of the Vulgar Holy War and rallied them with inflammatory words. He asked them to pause and judge for themselves the righteousness of their endeavour. He reminded them that the Shriah was a man, who like all men made errors in judgement from time to time. “The ardour has been sapped from our blessed Shriah’s heart,” he said. “He’s forgotten the sacred glory of what we do. But mark me, my brothers, when we storm the gates of Shimeh, when we deliver the Padirajah’s head in a sack, he will remember! He will praise us for remaining resolute when his heart faltered!”

  Though several thousand did defect and eventually filtered back to the imperial capital, the bulk of the Vulgar Holy War pressed on, now entirely immune to the exhortations of their Shriah. Bands of foragers scattered across the province, while the main body continued south, growing ever more fragmented. The villas of local caste nobles were looted. Numerous villages were put to the torch, the men massacred, the women raped. Walled towns that refused to open their gates were stormed.

  Eventually, the Men of the Tusk found themselves beneath the Unaras Mountains, which for so long had been the southern bulwark for the cities of the Kyranae Plain. Somehow, they were able to rally and reorganize beneath the walls of Asgilioch, the ancient Kyranean fortress the Nansur called “the Breakers” for having stopped three previous Fanim invasions.

  For two days the fortress gates remained shut against them. Then Prophilas, the commander of the imperial garrison, extended a dinner invitation to the Great Names and other caste nobles. Calmemunis demanded hostages, and when he received them, he accepted the invitation. With Tharschilka, Kumrezzer, and several lesser nobles, he entered Asgilioch and was promptly taken captive. Prophilas produced a Shrial Warrant and respectfully informed them that they would be held indefinitely unless they commanded the Vulgar Holy War to disband and return to Momemn. When they refused, he tried reasoning with them, assuring them they had no hope of prevailing against the Kianene, who were, he insisted, as wily and as ruthless as the Scylvendi on the field of battle. “Even if you marched at the head of a true army,” he told them, “I would not throw the number-sticks for you. As it stands, you lead a migration of women, children, and slavish men. I beg of you, relent!”

  Calmemunis, however, replied with laughter. He admitted that sinew for sinew, weapon for weapon, the Vulgar Holy War was likely no match for the Padirajah’s armies. But this, he claimed, was of no consequence, for surely the Latter Prophet had shown that frailty, when suffused with righteousness, was unconquerable. “We have left Sumna and the Shriah behind us,” he said. “With every step we draw nearer Holy Shimeh. With every step we draw closer to Paradise! Proceed with care, Prophilas, for as Inri Sejenus himself says, ‘Woe to he who obstructs the Way!’”

  Prophilas released Calmemunis and the other Great Names before sunset.

  The following day, thousands upon thousands congregated in the valley beneath Asgilioch’s turrets. A gentle rain washed over them. Hundreds of sacrificial fires were lit; the carcasses of the victims were piled high. Shakers covered their naked bodies in mud and howled their incomprehensible songs. Women sang gentle hymns while their husbands sharpened whatever weapons—picks, scythes, old swords and maces—they’d been able to scavenge. Children chased dogs through the crowds. Many of the warriors among them—the Conriyans, Galeoth, and Ainoni who’d marched with the Great Names—watched with dismay as a band of lepers climbed into the mountain passes, intent on being the first to set foot on heathen soil. The Unaras Mountains were not imposing, more a jumble of escarpments and bare stone slopes than a mountain range. But beyond them, drums called dusky, leopard-eyed men to worship Fane. Beyond them, Inrithi were gutted and hung from trees. For the faithful, the Unaras were the ends of
the earth.

  The rain stopped. Lances of sunlight pierced the clouds. Singing hymns, blinking tears of joy from their eyes, the first Men of the Tusk began filing into the mountains. Holy Shimeh, it seemed to them, must lie just beyond the horizon. Always just beyond.

  When the news of the Vulgar Holy War’s passage into heathen lands reached Sumna, Maithanet dismissed his court and retired to his chambers. His servants turned all petitioners away, informing them that the Holy Shriah prayed and fasted, and would do so until he learned the fate of the first wayward half of his Holy War.

  Bowing as low as jnan dictated, Skeaös said, “The Emperor has asked that I brief you on the way to the Privy Chamber, Lord Exalt-General. The Ainoni have arrived.”

  Conphas looked up from his handwriting, dropped his quill in his inkhorn. “Already? They said tomorrow.”

  “An old trick, my Lord. The Scarlet Spires is not above old tricks.”

  The Scarlet Spires. Conphas nearly whistled at the thought. The mightiest School in the Three Seas, about to take up residency in the Holy War . . . Conphas had always possessed a connoisseur’s appreciation of life’s larger inconsistencies. Absurdities such as this were like delicacies to him.

  The previous morning had revealed hundreds of foreign galleys and carracks moored in the mouth of the River Phayus. The Scarlet Spires, the households of the King-Regent and more than a dozen Palatine-Governors, as well as legions of low-caste infantry had been disembarking ever since. All High Ainon, it seemed, had come to join the Holy War.

  The Emperor was jubilant. Since the departure of the Vulgar Holy War weeks earlier, more than ten thousand Thunyeri under Prince Skaiyelt, the son of the infamous King Rauschang, and at least four times as many Tydonni under Gothyelk, the bellicose Earl of Agansanor, had arrived. Unfortunately, both men had proven immune to his uncle’s charms—violently so. When presented with the Indenture, Prince Skaiyelt had ransacked the imperial court with those unnerving blue eyes of his, then wordlessly marched from the palace. Old Gothyelk had kicked over the lectern, and called his uncle either a “gelded heathen” or a “depraved faggot”—depending on which translator one asked. The arrogance of barbarians, particularly Norsirai barbarians, was unfathomable.

  But his uncle expected better of the Ainoni. They were Ketyai, like the Nansur, and they were an old and mercantile people, like the Nansur. The Ainoni were civilized, despite their archaic devotion to their beards.

  Conphas studied Skeaös. “You think they do this intentionally? To catch us off balance?” He waved his parchment to dry in the air, then handed it to his dispatch—orders for Martemus to resume the patrols south of Momemn.

  “It’s what I would do,” Skeaös replied frankly. “If one hoards enough petty advantages . . .”

  Conphas nodded. The Prime Counsel had paraphrased a famous passage from The Commerce of Souls, Ajencis’s classic philosophical treatise on politics. For a moment Conphas thought it strange that he and Skeaös should despise each other so. In the absence of his uncle, they shared a peculiar understanding, as though, like the competitive sons of an abusive father, they could from time to time set aside their rivalry and acknowledge their shared lot with simple talk.

  He stood and looked down on the wizened man. “Lead on, old father.”

  Caring nothing for the fine points of bureaucratic prestige, Conphas had installed himself and his command on the lowest level of the Andiamine Heights, overlooking the Forum and the Scuäri Campus. The hike to the Privy Chamber on the summit was a long one, and he idly wondered whether the old Counsel was up to it. Over the years more than one Imperial Apparati had died of “the clutch,” as the palace inhabitants called it. According to his grandmother, past emperors had actually used the climb to dispose of aging and quarrelsome functionaries, giving them messages allegedly too important to be trusted to slaves, then demanding their immediate return. The Andiamine Heights was no friend of soft hearts—literally or otherwise.

  Prompted more by curiosity than malice, Conphas pressed the man to a brisk pace. He’d never seen anyone die of the clutch before. Remarkably, Skeaös did not complain, and aside from swinging his arms like an old monkey, he showed no signs of strain. With easy wind, he began briefing Conphas on the specifics of the treaty struck between the Scarlet Spires and the Thousand Temples—as far as they were known. When it seemed clear that Skeaös had not just the appearance but the stamina of an old monkey, Conphas grew bored.

  After climbing several stairs, they passed through the Hapetine Gardens. As always, Conphas glanced at the spot where Ikurei Anphairas, his great-great-grandfather, had been assassinated more than a century before. The Andiamine Heights were filled with hundreds of such grottoes, places where long-dead potentates had committed or suffered this or that scandalous act. His uncle, Conphas knew, did his best to avoid such places—unless very drunk. For Xerius the palace fairly hummed with memory of dead emperors.

  But for Conphas the Andiamine Heights was more a stage than a mausoleum. Even now hidden choirs filled the galleries with hymns. At times clouds of fragrant incense fogged the corridors and haloed the lanterns, so it seemed one climbed not to the summit of a hill but to the very gates of heaven. Had he been a visitor rather than a resident, Conphas knew, bare-chested slave girls would have served him heady wines laced with Nilnameshi narcotics. Pot-bellied eunuchs would have delivered gifts of scented oil and ceremonial weaponry. Everything would have been calculated to hoard petty advantages, as Skeaös might say, to distract, ingratiate, and overawe.

  Still unwinded, Skeaös continued regurgitating an apparently endless train of facts and admonitions. Conphas listened with half an ear, waiting for the old fool to tell him something he didn’t already know. Then the Prime Counsel turned to the topic of Eleäzaras, the Grandmaster of the Scarlet Spires.

  “Our agents in Carythusal say his formidable reputation scarcely does him justice. He was little more than a Subdidact when his teacher, Sasheoka, died of unknown causes some ten years ago. Within two years, he was Grandmaster of the greatest School in the Three Seas. That speaks of daunting intelligence and ability. You must—”

  “And hunger,” Conphas interrupted. “No man achieves so much in so little time without hunger.”

  “I suppose you would know.”

  Conphas cackled. “Now that’s the Skeaös I know and love! Surly. Seething with illicit pride. You had me worried, old man.”

  The Prime Counsel continued as though he’d said nothing. “You must exercise great caution when you speak to him. Initially, your uncle thought to exclude you from this meeting—that is, until Eleäzaras personally requested your presence.”

  “My uncle what?” Even when bored, Conphas possessed a keen ear for slights.

  “Excluded you. He feared the Grandmaster would exploit your inexperience in these matters—”

  “Exclude? Me?” Conphas looked askance at the old man, for some reason reluctant to believe him. Was he playing some kind of game? Fanning the fires of resentment?

  Perhaps this was another one of his uncle’s tests . . .

  “But as I said,” Skeaös continued, “that’s all changed—which is why I’m briefing you now.”

  “I see,” Conphas replied sceptically. What was the old fool up to? “Tell me, Skeaös, what’s the point of this meeting?”

  “Point? I fear I don’t understand, Lord Exalt-General.”

  “The purpose. The intent. What does my uncle hope to secure from Eleäzaras and the Ainoni?”

  Skeaös frowned, as though the answer were so obvious that the question simply had to be a prelude to mockery. “The point is to secure Ainoni support for the Indenture.”

  “And if Eleäzaras proves as intractable as, say, the Earl of Agansanor, what then?”

  “With all due respect, my Lord, I sincerely doubt—”

  “If, Skeaös, what then?” Conphas had been a field officer since the age of fifteen. If he wanted, he could make men jump with his tone.

  The
old Counsel cleared his throat. Skeaös, Conphas knew, possessed administrative courage in excess, but he had no pluck whatsoever when it came to face-to-face confrontations.

  No wonder his uncle loved him so.

  “If Eleäzaras spurns the Indenture?” the old man repeated. “Then the Emperor denies him provisions, like the rest.”

  “And if the Shriah demands my uncle supply them?”

  “By then the Vulgar Holy War will have been destroyed—or so we . . . assume. Leadership, not provisions, will be Maithanet’s primary concern.”

  “And who will that leader be?” Conphas had spat each question hard on the heels of each answer, as an interrogator might. The old man was beginning to look rattled.

  “Y-you. The L-Lion of Kiyuth.”

  “And what will be my price?”

  “Th-the Ind-denture, the s-signed oath that all the old provinces will be returned.”

  “So I am the linchpin of my uncle’s plans, am I not?”

  “Y-yes, Lord Exalt-General.”

  “So then tell me, dear old Skeaös, why would my uncle think to exclude me—me!—from his negotiations with the Scarlet Spires?”

  The Prime Counsel’s pace slackened. He looked to the florid whorls stitched across the rugs at their feet. Rather than speak, he wrung his hands.

  Conphas grinned wolfishly. “You lied just now, didn’t you, Skeaös? The question of whether I should attend his meeting with Eleäzaras never even arose, did it?”

  When the man failed to respond, Conphas seized him by the shoulders, glared at him. “Need I ask my uncle?”