The Darkness That Comes Before

by R. Scott Bakker

  She raised another stone in her right hand, hoping they would duck and run. As a child, before her body bid her to other vocations, she had worked the wharves, earning bread or quarter-coppers by throwing stones at scavenging gulls. She had been very good.

  But the tall one struck first, throwing a fistful of dirt at her face. Most of it missed—the fool threw as though his arm were made of rope—but some grit momentarily blinded her. She frantically rubbed at her eyes. Then an explosion in her ear sent her staggering. Another stone bruised off her fingers . . .

  What was happening?

  “Enough! Enough!” a hoarse voice boomed. “What are you boys doing?”

  The fat boy still wailed. Esmenet blinked at the sting, saw an old man wearing stained Shrial vestments in the boys’ midst, brandishing a fist like the knob of a leg bone.

  “Stoning her!” the half-handsome instigator called out. “She’s a whore!” The others eagerly seconded him.

  The old priest scowled at them for a moment, then turned to her. She could see him clearly now, the liver spots, the miserly hunch of someone who had screeched in innumerable faces. His lips were purple in the chill.

  “Is this true?”

  He snatched her hand in his own, which was shockingly strong, and studied the tattoo. He peered into her face.

  “Are you a priestess?” he barked. “A servant of Gierra?”

  She could tell that he knew the answer, that he asked only out of some perverse urge to humiliate and instruct. Staring into his bleary eyes, she suddenly understood her peril.

  Sweet Sejenus . . .

  “Y-yes,” she stammered.

  “Liar! This is a whore’s mark,” he cried, twisting her hand to her face as though trying to shove food into her mouth. “A whore’s mark!”

  “I’m a whore no more,” she protested.

  “Liar! Liar!”

  A sudden coldness descended on Esmenet. She graced him with a false smile, then wrested back possession of her hand. The sputtering old fool stumbled backward. She looked briefly at the crowd that had gathered, glanced scathingly at the boys, then turned back to the road.

  “Do not walk away from me!” the old priest howled. “Do not walk away from me!”

  She continued walking with what dignity she could muster.

  “Suffer not a whore to live,” the old priest recited, “for she maketh a pit of her womb!”

  Esmenet halted.

  “Suffer not a whore to breathe,” the priest continued, his tone now gleeful, “for she mocks the seed of the righteous! Stone her so that thy hand shall not be tempt—”

  Esmenet whirled. “Enough!” she exploded.

  Stunned silence.

  “I am damned!” she cried. “Don’t you see? I’m already dead! Isn’t that enough?”

  Too many eyes watched her. She turned away, continued limping toward the Karian Way.

  “Whore!” someone shouted.

  Something cracked against the back of her skull. She fell to her knees. Another stone bruised off her shoulder. She raised warding hands, stumbled to her feet, tried walking quickly forward. But the youths were capering around her again, bombarding her with small, river-round stones. Then she glimpsed the tall one in her periphery, hefting something as big as his hand. She cringed. The concussion snapped her teeth together, sent her teetering, toppling. She rolled in cold muck, pulled herself to all fours, raised one knee from the ground. A small stone slapped into her cheek, brought stinging tears to her left eye, then she was up, walking as best as she could manage.

  This entire time everything had seemed nightmarishly practical. She needed to leave as quickly as she could. The stones were no more than gusts of rain and wind, impersonal obstacles.

  Now she was weeping uncontrollably. “Stop!” she shrieked. “Leave me alone!”

  “Whore!” the priest roared.

  A much larger crowd had gathered about her now, jeering, reaching to the gravelly mud at their feet.

  A numbing thump near her spine. Shoulders jerking backward. An involuntary hand reaching. An explosion in her temple. Then the ground again. Spitting grit.

  Stop! Pleassse!

  Was that her voice?

  Small, sharp, against her forehead. Arms up. Curling like a dog.

  Please. Someone.

  The sound of thunder. Then a great shadow blotting the sky. Through tears and fingers, she looked up, saw the veined belly of a horse and above, a rider peering down at her. Handsome, full-lipped face. Large brown eyes at once furious and concerned.

  A Shrial Knight.

  The stones had stopped. Esmenet wailed into her muddy hands.

  “Who started this?” a voice boomed.

  “See here!” the priest roared. “These matt—”

  The Shrial Knight leaned forward and struck him with a mailed fist.

  “Pick him up!” he commanded the others. “Now.”

  Three men scrambled to pull the priest to his feet. Spit and blood trailed from his trembling lips. He loosed a single, coughing sob, looked about in dazed horror.

  “Y-you haven’t the authority!” he cried.

  “Authority?” he laughed. “You would like to debate authority?”

  While the Shrial Knight bullied the priest, Esmenet struggled to her feet. She wiped the blood and tears from her face, then brushed at the mud caked to her woollen robe. Her heart hammered in her ears, and twice she feared she would swoon for lack of breath. The urge to scream almost overcame her, not in terror or in pain, but in disbelief and naked outrage. How had this happened? What had happened?

  She glimpsed the Shrial Knight striking the priest again, and cursed herself for flinching. Why should she pity that obscene ingrate? She breathed deeply. Wiped at more burning tears. Calmed.

  Her hands cupped before her, she turned to the youth who had started it all. She glared at him with all the hate she could muster, then slipped her pinky finger from the others so that it wagged like a tiny phallus. She glanced down, to be sure he noticed, then smiled at him wickedly. The boy paled.

  He looked to the Shrial Knight, all fright and apprehension, then to his friends, who had also noticed Esmenet’s derisive attention. Two of them grinned despite themselves, and one, possessed of that uncanny and unsettling ability of the young to conspire with those they had tormented only moments earlier, cried out, “It’s true!”

  “Come,” the Shrial Knight said to her, holding down a hand. “I’ve had my fill of these provincial fools.”

  “Who are you?” she croaked, once again overwhelmed by tears.

  “Cutias Sarcellus,” the man said warmly, “First Knight-Commander of the Shrial Knights.”

  She reached up, and he took her tattooed hand.

  Men of the Tusk hastened throughout the darkness—tall figures, mostly in shadow save for the rare glimmer of iron. Leading his mule, Achamian hurried among them. Their bright eyes afforded him only passing interest. They had, Achamian supposed, grown accustomed to strangers.

  The journey troubled Achamian. Never before had he threaded his way through such an encampment. Each firelight he skirted seemed a world filled with its own amusement or desperation. He heard drifting fragments of conversation, glimpsed combative faces over fire. He moved between these pockets, part of a shadowy procession. Twice, he climbed hills that rose high enough to reveal the River Phayus and its congested alluvial plains. Each time he was stilled by awe. Shining fires peppered the distance—those near pocking the darkness with glimpses of canvas and warlike men, those far forming constellations that glittered across the slopes. Years ago he’d watched an Ainoni drama held in an amphitheatre near Carythusal, and he’d been struck by the contrast of the dark onlookers and the illuminated performers on the floor. Here, it seemed, were a thousand such dramas. So many men, so far from home. Here, he could sound the true measure of Maithanet’s strength.

  Such numbers. How can we fail?

  He pondered this thought, “we,” for some time.

&nbs
p; To the west, he could discern the winding circuit of Momemn’s walls, her monstrous towers capped by the glow of torches. He veered toward them, the ground becoming more bald and packed the closer they loomed. Daring the light of several Conriyan fires, he asked where he might find the contingent from Attrempus. He crossed a creaking footbridge over the stagnant waters of a canal. Finally he found the camp of his old friend Krijates Xinemus, the Marshal of Attrempus.

  Though Achamian immediately recognized Xinemus, he paused in the darkness beyond the firelight, watching him. Proyas had once told him that he and Xinemus looked remarkably similar, like, as he put it, “strong and weak brothers.” Of course it had never occurred to Proyas that this comparison might offend his old teacher. Like many arrogant men, Proyas thought his insults an extension of his honesty.

  Cradling a bowl of wine, Xinemus sat before a small fire, discussing something in low tones with three of his senior officers. Even in the ruddy firelight, he looked tired, as though he spoke of some issue far beyond their ability to redress. He scratched absently at the dead skin that, Achamian knew, perpetually bedevilled his ears, then unaccountably turned and peered into the darkness—at Achamian.

  The Marshal of Attrempus scowled. “Show yourself, friend,” he called.

  For some reason, Achamian found himself speechless.

  Now the others were staring at him also. He heard one of them, Dinchases, mutter something about wraiths. The man to his right, Zenkappa, made the sign of the Tusk.

  “That’s no wraith,” Xinemus said, coming to his feet. He ducked his head as though peering through fog. “Achamian?”

  “If you weren’t here,” the third officer, Iryssas, said to Xinemus, “I’d swear it was you . . .”

  Glancing at Iryssas, Xinemus suddenly strode out toward Achamian, his expression one of baffled joy. “Drusas Achamian? Akka?”

  Breath finally came to Achamian’s lips. “Hello, Zin.”

  “Akka!” the Marshal cried, catching him like a sack in his arms.

  “Lord Marshal.”

  “You smell like an ass’s ass, my friend,” Xinemus laughed, pushing him back. “Like the stink of stink!”

  “The days have been hard,” the sorcerer said.

  “Fear not. They’ll grow harder still.”

  Claiming he’d sent his slaves to bed, Xinemus assisted him with his baggage, saw to the care of his mule, then helped him pitch his battered tent. Years had passed since Achamian had last seen the Marshal of Attrempus, and though he’d thought their friendship immune to the passage of time, their talk was awkward at first. By and large they discussed trivialities: the weather, the temperament of his mule. Whenever one of them mentioned something more substantial, an inexplicable shyness forced the other to give a noncommittal reply.

  “So how have you been?” Xinemus eventually asked.

  “As well as one could expect.”

  For Achamian, everything seemed horribly unreal, so much so that he half-expected Xinemus to call him Seswatha. His friendship with Xinemus was one born of the far-away Conriyan court. To meet the man here while on mission embarrassed him in the manner of someone caught, not in a lie, but in circumstances that, given enough time, were certain to make a liar of him. Achamian found himself racking his soul, wondering what he’d told Xinemus of his previous missions. Had he been honest? Or had he succumbed to the juvenile urge to appear to be more than he was?

  Did I tell him I was a broken-down fool?

  “Ah, with you Akka, one never knows what to expect.”

  “So the others are with you?” he asked, even though he knew the answer. “Zenkappa? Dinchases?”

  Another fear had assailed him. Xinemus was a pious man, among the most pious Achamian had ever known. In Conriya, Achamian had been a tutor who also happened to be a Schoolman. But here he was a Schoolman through and through. There would be no overlooking his sacrilege here—in the midst of the Holy War, no less! How much would Xinemus tolerate? Perhaps, Achamian thought, this was a mistake. Perhaps he should camp elsewhere—alone.

  “Not for long,” Xinemus replied. “I’ll send them off.”

  “There’s no need . . .”

  Xinemus held a knot up to the dim firelight. “And the Dreams?”

  “What of them?”

  “You told me once that they waxed and waned, that sometimes details in them changed, and that you’d decided to record them in the hope of deciphering them.”

  The fact that Xinemus remembered this unsettled him.

  “Tell me,” he said in a clumsy attempt to switch topics, “where are the Scarlet Spires?”

  Xinemus grinned. “I was wondering when you were going to ask . . . Somewhere south of here, at one of the Emperor’s villas—or so I’ve been told.” He hammered at a wooden stake, cursed when he smashed his thumb. “Are you worried about them?”

  “I’d be a fool not to be.”

  “They covet your learning that much?”

  “Yes. The Gnosis is iron to their bronze . . . Though I doubt they’d try anything in the midst of the Holy War.” For a School of blasphemers to be part of the Holy War already beggared the understanding of the Inrithi. For them to actually speak their blasphemy in pursuit of their own arcane ends would be beyond all toleration.

  “Is that why . . . they sent you?”

  Xinemus rarely referred to the Mandate by name. They were always “they.”

  “To watch the Scarlet Spires? In part, I suppose. But of course there’s”—an image of Inrau flashed across his soul’s eye—“more . . . There’s always more.”

  Who killed you?

  Somehow Xinemus had secured his gaze in the darkness. “What’s wrong, Akka? What’s happened?”

  Achamian looked to his hands. He wanted to tell Xinemus, to recount his absurd suspicions regarding the Shriah, to explain the deranged circumstances surrounding Inrau’s death. He certainly trusted the man as he trusted no other, inside or outside of the Mandate. But the story just seemed too long, too tortuous, and too polluted by his own failings and frailties to be shared. Esmenet he could tell, but then she was a whore. Shameless.

  “Well enough, I suppose,” Achamian said breezily, tugging on the ropes. “It’ll keep the rain off me at least.”

  Xinemus studied him for a wordless moment. Thankfully, he did not press the issue.

  They joined the other three men about Xinemus’s fire. Two were captains of the Attrempus garrison, leather-faced contemporaries of their Marshal. The senior officer, Dinchases—or Bloody Dench, as he was called—had been with Xinemus for as long as Achamian had known the Marshal. The junior, Zenkappa, was a Nilnameshi slave Xinemus had inherited from his father and later freed for valour on the field. Both, as far as Achamian could tell, were good men. The third man, Iryssas, was the youngest son of Xinemus’s only surviving uncle and, if Achamian remembered correctly, Majordomo of House Krijates.

  But none of the men acknowledged their arrival. They were either too drunk or too engrossed in discussion. Dinchases, it seemed, was telling a story.

  “. . . then the big one, the Thunyeri—”

  “Do you blasted idiots even remember Achamian?” Xinemus cried. “Drusas Achamian?”

  Wiping eyes and stifling laughs, the three men turned to appraise him. Zenkappa smiled and raised his bowl. Dinchases, however, regarded him narrowly, and Iryssas with outright hostility.

  Dinchases glanced at Xinemus’s scowl, then reluctantly raised his bowl as well. Both he and Zenkappa inclined their heads, then poured a libation. “Well met, Achamian,” Zenkappa said with genuine warmth. As a freed slave, Achamian imagined, he perhaps had less difficulty with pariahs. Dinchases and Iryssas, on the other hand, were caste nobles—Iryssas one of true rank.

  “I see you pitched your tent,” Iryssas remarked casually. He possessed the guarded, probing look of a dangerous drunk.

  Achamian said nothing.

  “So I suppose I should resign myself to your presence then, eh, Achamian?”


  Achamian met his gaze directly, cursed himself for swallowing. “I suppose you should.”

  Xinemus glared at his young cousin. “The Scarlet Spires are actually part of this Holy War, Iryssas. You should welcome Achamian’s presence. I know I do.”

  Achamian had witnessed countless exchanges such as these. The faithful trying to rationalize their fraternization with sorcerers. The rationale was always the same: They are useful . . .

  “Perhaps you’re right, Cousin. Enemies of our enemies, eh?” Conriyans were jealous of their hatreds. After centuries of skirmishing with High Ainon and the Scarlet Spires, they had come, however grudgingly, to appreciate the Mandate. Overmuch, the priests would say. But of all the Schools only the Mandate, steeped in the Gnosis of the Ancient North, was a match for the Scarlet Spires.

  Iryssas raised his cup, then emptied it across the dust at his feet. “May the gods drink deep, Drusas Achamian. May they celebrate one who is damned—”

  Cursing, Xinemus kicked the fire. A cloud of sparks and ash engulfed Iryssas. He fell backward, crying out, instinctively beating at his hair and beard. Xinemus leapt after him, roaring: “What did you say? What did you say?”

  Though of slighter build than Iryssas, Xinemus pulled him to his knees as if he were a child, berating him with curses and open-handed cuffs. Dinchases looked to Achamian apologetically. “We’re not with him,” he said slyly. “We’re just piss drunk.” Zenkappa found this too hilarious to remain seated. He rolled on the ground in the shadows beyond his log, howling with laughter.

  Even Iryssas was laughing, though in the hounded way of a henpecked spouse. “Enough!” he cried to Xinemus. “I’ll apologize! I’ll apologize!”

  Shocked both by Iryssas’s insolence and by the violence of Xinemus’s response, Achamian watched, his mouth agape. Then he realized he’d never really seen Xinemus in the company of his soldiers before.

  Iryssas scrambled back to his seat, his hair askew and his black beard streaked with ash. At once smiling and frowning, he leaned forward on his camp stool toward Achamian. He was bowing, Achamian realized, but was too lazy to lift his ass from his seat. “I do apologize,” he said, looking to Achamian with bemused sincerity. “And I do like you, Achamian, even though you are”—he shot a ducking look at his lord and cousin—“a damned sorcerer.”