The Darkness That Comes Before

by R. Scott Bakker

  She touched slack fingers to her neck. Her face crumpled.

  I mean something?

  “More than you can imagine,” he whispered.

  She collapsed into his chest, and he held her as she soundlessly screamed. Then she howled her anguish, bawled as she had as a child, her body shuddering, her hands crushed between them. He rocked her in his arms. Rolled his cheek against her scalp.

  After a time, he pressed her back, and she lowered her face for shame. So weak! So pathetic!

  With soft strokes he dabbed the tears from her eyes, watched her for a long while. She didn’t entirely calm until she saw the tears streaming from his own eyes.

  He cries for me . . . for me . . .

  “You belong to him,” he said at last. “You are his prize.”

  “No,” she croaked defiantly. “My body’s his prize. My heart belongs to you.”

  How had this happened? How had she been pried in two? She had endured much. Why this agony now? Now that she loved? But for a moment she almost felt whole, speaking their secret language, saying tender things . . .

  I mean something.

  His tears slowed in his trim beard, gathered and then plummeted onto the open book—stained the ancient ink.

  “Your book!” she gasped, finding relief in a sense of guilt for an object of his concern. She leaned from her blanket, naked and ivory in the light, and ran her fingers across the open pages. “Is it ruined?”

  “Many others have wept over this text,” Kellhus replied softly.

  The distance between their faces was close, humid—suddenly tense.

  She grasped his right hand, guided it to her perfect breasts.

  “Kellhus,” she whispered tremulously, “I would have you come in . . . into me.”

  And at last, he relented.

  Gasping beneath him, she looked into the dark corner where the Scylvendi lay, knowing that he could see the rapture on her face . . . on their faces.

  And she cried out as she climaxed—a cry of hatred.

  Cnaiür lay still, his breath hissing between clenched teeth. The image of her perfect face, turning to him in anguished rapture, crowded the light wavering across the canvas slopes above.

  Serwë giggled girlishly, and Kellhus murmured several things to her in that accursed tongue of hers. Linen and wool whisked over smooth skin, then the candle was snuffed. Pitch black. They pressed through the flap and the scent of fresh air wound through the pavilion’s interior.

  “Jiruschi dan klepet sa gesauba dana,” she said, her voice thinned by open space and dulled by canvas.

  The rasp of charcoal as someone threw wood onto the fire.

  “Ejiruschina? Baussa kalwë,” Kellhus replied.

  Serwë laughed some more, but in a husky, oddly mature way he’d never heard before.

  Something more the bitch hides from me . . .

  He groped in the darkness; his fingertips found the leather of his pommel. It was both cool and warm, like human skin bare to the chill of night.

  He lay still for several more moments, listening to the hushed counterpoint of their voices through the pop and rush of building flames. He could see the firelight now, a faint orange smear through the black canvas. A lithe shadow passed across it. Serwë.

  He raised the broadsword. It rasped from its sheath. A dull orange glimmer.

  Dressed only in his loincloth, he rolled from his blankets and padded across the mats to the pavilion entrance. He breathed heavily.

  Images from the previous afternoon flitted through his thoughts: the Dûnyain and his bottomless scrutiny of the Inrithi nobles.

  The thought of leading the Men of the Tusk into battle stirred something within him—pride, perhaps—but he was under no illusion as to his true station. He was a heathen to these men, even to Nersei Proyas. And as time passed, that fact would come home to them. He would be no general. An adviser on the cunning ways of the Kianene, perhaps, but nothing more.

  Holy War. The thought still yanked a snort of breath from his nose. As though all war were not holy.

  But the question, he now knew, was not what he would be but what the Dûnyain would be. What terror had he delivered to these outland princes?

  What will he make of the Holy War?

  Would he make it his whore? Like Serwë?

  But this was the plan. “Thirty years,” Kellhus had said shortly after their arrival. “Moënghus has dwelt among these men for thirty years. He will have great power. More than either of us could hope to overcome. I need more than sorcery, Cnaiür. I need a nation. A nation.” Somehow they would exploit circumstance, knot the harness about the Holy War, and use it to destroy Anasûrimbor Moënghus. How could he fear for these Inrithi, repent bringing the Dûnyain to them, when this was their plan?

  But was this the plan? Or was it simply another Dûnyain lie, another way to pacify, to gull, to enslave?

  What if Kellhus was not an assassin sent to murder his father, as he claimed, but a spy sent to do his father’s bidding? Was it simply a coincidence that Kellhus travelled to Shimeh just as the Holy War embarked on a campaign to conquer it?

  Cnaiür was no fool. If Moënghus was Cishaurim, he would fear the Holy War, and he would seek ways to destroy it. Could this be why he had summoned his son? Kellhus’s obscure origins would allow him to infiltrate it, as he already had, while his breeding or training or witchery or whatever it was would allow him to seize it, capsize it, perhaps even turn it against its maker. Against Maithanet.

  But if Kellhus served rather than hunted his father, then why had he spared him in the mountains? Cnaiür could still feel the impossible iron hand about his throat, the pitching depths beneath his feet.

  “But I spoke true, Cnaiür. I do need you.”

  Could he have known, even then, of Proyas’s contest with the Emperor? Or did it just so happen that the Inrithi needed a Scylvendi?

  Unlikely, to say the least. But then how could Kellhus have known? Cnaiür swallowed, tasted Serwë.

  Could it be that Moënghus still communicated with him?

  The thought sucked all air from his lungs. He saw Xunnurit, blinded, chained beneath the Emperor’s heel . . .

  Am I the same?

  Still speaking that accursed tongue, Kellhus teased Serwë some more. Cnaiür could tell because of Serwë’s laugh, a sound like water rushing among the Dûnyain’s smooth stone words.

  In the blackness Cnaiür extended his broadsword, pressed its tip through the flap, which he drew aside the width of a palm. He watched breathlessly.

  Their faces firelight orange, their backs in shadow, the two of them reclined side by side on the barked olive trunk they used for a seat. Like lovers. Cnaiür studied their reflections across the smeared polish of his sword.

  By the Dead-God, she was beautiful. So like—

  The Dûnyain turned and looked at him, his eyes shining. He blinked.

  Cnaiür felt his lips curl involuntarily, a pounding rush in his chest, throat, and ears.

  She’s my prize! he cried voicelessly.

  Kellhus looked to the fire. He had heard. Somehow.

  Cnaiür let the flap fall shut, pinch golden light into blackness. Desolate blackness.

  My prize . . .

  Achamian would never remember what he’d thought or the route he’d taken on his long walk from the Imperial Precincts to the encamped Holy War. He suddenly found himself sitting in the dust amid the litter of celebration. He saw his tent, small and alone, mottled and weathered by many seasons, many journeys, and cast in the silent shadow of Xinemus’s pavilion. The Holy War swept beyond it, a great canvas city, matting the distances with the confusion of flaps, guy ropes, pennants, and awnings.

  He saw Xinemus slumbering next to the gutted fire, his thick frame curled against the chill. The Marshal had been concerned by the Emperor’s peremptory summons, he supposed, and had waited all night by the fire—waited for Achamian to come home.

  Home.

  Tears brimmed at that thought. He�
�d never had a home, a place that he could call “mine.” There was no refuge, no sanctuary, for a man such as he. Only friends, scattered here and there, who for some unaccountable reason loved him and worried about him.

  He left Xinemus to his slumber—today would be a demanding day. The great encampment of the Holy War would disassemble itself from within, the tents felled and rolled tight about poles, the baggage trains drawn up and heaped with gear and supplies, then it would begin the arduous yet exultant march south, toward the land of the heathen, toward desperation and bloodshed—and perhaps even truth.

  In the gloom of his tent, he once again withdrew his parchment map, ignoring the tears that tapped against the sheet. He stared at

  THE CONSULT

  for some time, as though struggling to remember what the name meant, what it portended. Then, wetting his quill, he drew an unsteady diagonal line from it to

  THE EMPEROR

  Connected at last. For so long it had simply floated in its corner, more the wreckage of ink than a name, touching nothing, meaning nothing, like the threats muttered by a coward after his tormentor had gone. No longer. The bitter apparition had bared its knuckled flesh, and the horror of what was and what might be had become the horror of now.

  This horror. His horror.

  Why? Why would Fate inflict this revelation upon him? Was she a fool? Didn’t she know how weak, how hollow, he’d become?

  Why me?

  A selfish question. Perhaps the most selfish of questions. All burdens, even those as demented as the Apocalypse, must fall upon the shoulders of someone. Why not him?

  Because I’m a broken man. Because I long for a love I cannot have. Because . . .

  But that road was far too easy. To be frail, to be afflicted with unrequited longing, was simply what it meant to be man. When had he acquired this penchant to wallow in self-pity? Where in life’s slow accumulation had he come to see himself as the world’s victim? How had he become such a fool?

  After three hundred years, he, Drusas Achamian, had rediscovered the Consult. After two thousand years, he, Drusas Achamian, had witnessed the return of an Anasûrimbor. Anagkë, the Whore of Fate, had chosen him for these burdens! It wasn’t his place to ask why. Nor could such questions relieve him of his burden.

  He had to act, choose his moment and overcome—overwhelm. He was Drusas Achamian! His song could char legions, tear the earth asunder, pull dragons shrieking from the sky.

  But even as he returned his scrutiny to the parchment, a great hollow opened in the heart of his momentary resolution, like the stillness that chased ripples across the surface of a pool, drawing them thinner and thinner. And in the wake of this hollow, voices from his dreams, nagging half-remembered fears, the fog of inarticulate regret . . .

  He had rediscovered the Consult, but he knew nothing of their plans, nor of any way to discover them again. He didn’t even know how they’d been discovered by the Emperor in the first place. They concealed themselves in a way that could not be seen. The single, tremulous line joining “The Consult” to “The Emperor” was devoid of any significance, save that they were somehow connected. And if the Consult had infiltrated the Imperial Court with this . . . this skin-spy, he could only assume that they had likewise infiltrated all the Great Factions, the entire Three Seas—perhaps even the Mandate itself.

  A face opening like palsied fingers from a skinless palm. How many were there?

  Suddenly the name, “The Consult,” which had been so isolated from the others, seemed spliced to them in a terrifying intimacy. The Consult hadn’t just infiltrated factions, Achamian realized, they had infiltrated individuals, to the point of becoming them. How does one war against such a foe without warring against what they’ve become? Without warring against all the Great Factions? For all Achamian knew, the Consult already ruled the Three Seas and merely tolerated the Mandate as an impotent foe, a laughingstock, in order to further fortify the bulwark of ignorance that shielded them.

  How long have they been laughing? How far has their corruption gone?

  Could it have reached as far as the Shriah? Could the Holy War, at its pith, be an artifact of the Consult?

  A cascade of heart-pounding implications flushed through him, beading his skin with the cold sweat of dread. Disconnected events found themselves woven into a narrative far darker than ignorance, the way disjoint ruins might be bound by the intuition of some lost bastion or temple. Geshrunni’s missing face. Did the Consult murder him? Take his face to consummate some obscene rite of substitution, only to be thwarted when the Scarlet Spires discovered his body shortly after? And if the Consult knew of Geshrunni, would that not also mean they knew of the secret war between the Scarlet Spires and the Cishaurim? And wouldn’t that explain how Maithanet also knew of the war? Explain Inrau’s death? If the Shriah of the Thousand Temples was a Consult spy . . . If the prophecy of the Anasûrimbor—

  He looked to the parchment once again, to

  ANASÛRIMBOR KELLHUS

  still disconnected, though in troubling proximity to “The Consult.” He raised his quill, about to scratch a line between the two names, but hesitated. He set the quill down.

  The man, Kellhus, who would be his student and his friend, was so . . . unlike other men.

  The Anasûrimbor’s return was a harbinger of the Second Apocalypse—the truth of this ached in Achamian’s bones. And the Holy War would simply be the first great shedding of blood.

  His head swimming, Achamian pulled a stunned hand over his face, through his hair. Images of his former life—teaching Proyas algebra by scratching figures into the earth of a garden path, reading Ajencis in the fretted morning sunlight of Zin’s portico—brawled through his thoughts, hopelessly innocent, poignantly wan and naive and utterly wrecked.

  The Second Apocalypse is here. It has already begun . . .

  And he stood in the very heart of the tempest. The Holy War.

  Deranged shadows frolicked and cavorted along the canvas walls of his tent, and Achamian knew with appalling certainty that they plumbed the horizon, that some measureless frame had stolen unawares upon the world and fixed its dreadful course.

  Another Apocalypse . . . And it’s happening.

  But this was mad! It couldn’t be!

  It is.

  Breathe in. Now exhale—slowly. You’re a match for this, Akka.

  You must be a match for this!

  He swallowed.

  Ask yourself, What is the question?

  Why would the Consult want this Holy War? Why would they want to destroy the Fanim? Does it have something to do with the Cishaurim?

  But in the relief of posing this question, a second stole into his thoughts, one whose terminus was too painful for him to deny. A thought like a winter knife.

  They murdered Geshrunni immediately after I left Carythusal.

  He thought of the man in the Kamposea Agora, the one who he’d thought had been following him. The one who had seemed to change his face.

  Does that mean they’re following me?

  Had he led them to Inrau?

  Achamian paused, breathless in the diffuse light, the parchment numb and tingling in his left hand.

  Had he also led them . . .

  He brought two fingers to his mouth, drew them slowly to and fro along his lower lip.

  “Esmi . . .” he whispered.

  Lashed together, the pleasure galleys swelled gently on the Meneanor outside of Momemn’s fortified harbour. It was a tradition, centuries old, to gather thus at the Feast of Kussapokari, which marked the summer solstice. Most of those on the galleys were of the two high castes: the kjineta of the Houses of the Congregate and the priestly nahat. Men from House Gaunum, House Daskas, House Ligesseras, and many others gauged one another and tailored their gossip according to the murky webs of loyalty and enmity that bound the Houses together. Even within the castes there were a thousand increments of rank and reputation. The official criteria for such rank were clear, more or less—nearness t
o the Emperor, which was easily measured by the hierarchy of stations within his labyrinthine ministries, or, at the opposite pole, affiliation with House Biaxi, the traditional rival of House Ikurei. But the Houses themselves had long histories, and rank between men was inextricably bound to history. So concubines and children would be told, “That man, Trimus Charcharius, defer to him, child. His ancestors were once Emperors,” even though House Trimus was out of favour with the Emperor and had been despised by the Biaxi since time immemorial. Add to this the measures of wealth, of learning, and of wit, and the jnanic codes that braced all their intercourse became as indecipherable from the outside as they were bewildering from within—a shrouded bog that quickly devoured the stupid.

  But this welter of hidden concerns and instant calculation did not constrain them. It was simply the way, as natural as the cycle of constellations. The fluid things of life were no less necessary for being fluid. So the revellers laughed and talked as though careless, leaning against polished rails, basking in the perfection of the late-afternoon sun, shivering when they fell into shadows. Bowls rang. Wine was poured and spilled, making sticky-ringed fingers even stickier. The first swallow was spat into the sea—propitiation to Momas, the God who provided the ground of these proceedings. The conversations were a wash of humour and gravity, like a promenade of voices, each vying for attention, each hinged on the opportunity to impress, to inform, to entertain. The concubines, dressed in their silk culati, had been driven away by the harsh talk of the men, as was proper, and wallowed in those subjects they found endlessly amusing: fashion, jealous wives, and wilful slaves. The men, carefully holding their Ainoni sleeves so they fell into the sun, spoke of serious things, and regarded with amused disdain anything that fell outside the realm of war, prices, and politics. Those few breaches of jnan risked were tolerated, even encouraged, depending on who made them. It was part of jnan to know precisely when to transgress it. The men laughed hard at the sounds of obligatory shock that passed through the women within earshot.