The white-luck warrior ta-2

by R. Scott Bakker

"I have pulled aside the harem beads," Kellhus said. "And you find my wives ugly…"

  The Exalt-General coughed aloud, such was his consternation. "What?"

  "Your question," Kellhus said, chuckling. He spoke in the wry, warm tones of a friend who has always dwelt several paces closer to the peace that truth delivers. "You wonder how it is you can doubt after so many years of witness and miracle."

  "I… I'm not sure I understand."

  "There's a reason Men prefer their prophets dead, Proyas."

  Kellhus stared askance at his Exalt-General, one eyebrow hooked in Do-you-see? curiosity.

  And Proyas did see-he realized that he had understood all along. His question, he suddenly realized, was no question at all but instead a complaint. He did not doubt so much as yearn…

  For the simplicity of simple belief.

  "We begin believing when we are children," Kellhus continued. "And so we make childish expectations our rule, the measure for what the holy should be…" He gestured to the ornamentation about them, spare as it was compared with the fleshpots of the South. "Simplicity. Symmetry. Beauty. These are but the appearance of the holy-the gilding that deceives. What is holy is difficult, ugly beyond comprehension, in the eyes of all save the God."

  Just then, the Pillarian Seneschal announced the visitors.

  "Remember," Kellhus murmured as a mother might. "Forgive them their peculiarities…"

  Three striding figures resolved from the gloom, hooded in black cloaks that shone as though slicked in rain.

  "And beware their beauty."

  The foremost figure paused immediately below them, threw back his cloak, which slipped into a pool of kneaded folds about the heels of his boots. His scalp gleamed with the pallor of cold mutton fat. His face was alarming, as much for its perfection as for its resemblance to the Sranc. He wore a hauberk that was at once a gown, one that baffled the eyes for the wrought delicacy of the chain: innumerable serpents no larger than the clippings of a child's nails.

  "I am Nin'sariccas," the Nonman announced in High Kuniuric, a language Proyas had spent years mastering so he could read The Sagas in their original tongue. "Dispossessed Son of Siol, Emissary of his Most Subtle Glory, Nil'giccas, King of Injor-Niyas…" His bow fell far short of what jnan demanded. "We have ridden long and hard to find you."

  Kellhus regarded him the way he regarded all penitents who found their way to his feet: as someone who had stumbled out of wintry desolation into the warm, sultry glow of summer.

  "You are surprised," he said in a voice that easily matched the melodious resonance of the Nonman's. "You thought us doomed."

  A serpentine blink. The preternatural eyes clicked to the Aspect-Emperor's right-to the sorcerous arras, Proyas realized. He understood what Kellhus had meant by peculiarities. Something about the ghoul's manner followed unexpected lines. For the first time he noticed that the Nonman stood nude beneath the gleam of his nimil hauberk.

  "Nil'giccas sends his greetings," Nin'sariccas said. "Even in an age so dark, the light that is the Aspect-Emperor shines for all to see."

  A leonine nod.

  "Then Ishterebinth is with us?"

  The Emissary's air of vague distraction lapsed into outright insolence. Rather than answer, Nin'sariccas peered across the Eleven Pole Chamber's airy interior, then, with the remote reserve of those careful to conceal their disgust, considered Proyas and the Pillarian Guards flanking him. Weathering the inhuman scrutiny, Proyas suffered a strange twinge of inadequacy, one he imagined caste-menials felt in the presence of nobles: a presentiment of bodily and spiritual inferiority.

  Like the angels of a long-dead god, the Nonmen stood rigid with a pride that had out-lived their glory. Only the mien and manner of the Aspect-Emperor dwarfed them-a sun to their moon.

  "The memory of your forefather's treachery…" the Emissary finally replied, his gaze lingering on Proyas, "burns bright with us. For some, Anasurimbor is the very name of Mannish arrogance and disorder."

  At this, several Pillarians loosened their broadswords in their scabbard. Proyas was quick in raising his hand to restrain them, knowing the Nonman spoke from the vantage of ages, that for them, generations of Men were as fleeting as mice. They had no grave to swallow their ancient grudges.

  Kellhus betrayed no consciousness of the affront. He leaned forward in a familiar way, rested his elbows on his knees, clasped his haloed hands.

  "Is Ishterebinth with us?"

  A long, cold gaze. For the first time Proyas noticed how the two Nonmen accompanying Nin'sariccas held their eyes down as though in ritual shame.

  "Yes," the Emissary said. "The Sacred Ishroi of Injor-Niyas will add voice and shield to your Ordeal… If you retake Dagliash. If you honour the Niom."

  Proyas had never heard of the Niom. Dagliash, he knew, was the fortress the ancient High Norsirai had raised to guard against Golgotterath. It stood to reason that the ghouls would want some guarantee of success before casting their lot.

  "Have you seen the massacre we have wrought?" Kellhus cried in the semblance of a more impassioned ruler. "No Horde so great has been overcome. Not Pir-Pahal. Not Eleneot. No age of Man or Nonman has seen a host such as the one I have assembled!" He stood to peer into the Emissary's inhuman face, and somehow the World seemed to lean with him, milky with the roar of intangible things.

  "The Great Ordeal will reach Golgotterath."

  The Exalt-General had seen innumerable men-strong, proud men-shrivel beneath the Aspect-Emperor's divine scrutiny, so many that it had come to seem a law of nature. But Nin'sariccas remained as remote as before.

  "If you retake Dagliash. If you honour the Niom."

  Proyas took care not to look at his Lord-and-God directly, knowing that the sight of subordinates watching their rulers would be taken as a sign of weakness. But he found himself desperately curious as to the intricacies of Kellhus's expression-the art. Proyas had witnessed many men deny the Aspect-Emperor through the years, either through him, as was the case with King Harweel of Sakarpus, or directly. But never in circumstances so extraordinary.

  Daring souls, and foolish, given that so few yet breathed.

  "Agreed," the Aspect-Emperor said.

  A concession? Why did he need these inhuman ghouls?

  Once again, Nin'sariccas's bow fell far short of what jnan demanded. He lifted his aquiline face. His glittering black gaze fell to Kellhus's waist, to the abominations hanging from his hip.

  "We are curious…" the Nonman said. "The Ciphrang bound about your girdle. Is it true you have walked the Outside and returned?"

  Kellhus resumed his seat, leaned back with a single foot extended. "Yes."

  An almost imperceptible nod. "And what did you find?"

  Kellhus propped his face with his right hand, two fingers pressed to his temple. "You worry that I never truly returned," he said mildly. "That the soul of Anasurimbor Kellhus writhes in some hell and a demon Ciphrang gazes upon you instead."

  The Decapitants, as the demonic heads had come to be called, were something wilfully ignored by many among the Zaudunyani. A kind of indigestible proof. Proyas was one of few who knew something about their acquisition, how Kellhus, during one of the longer truces that punctuated the Unification Wars, spent several weeks studying with Heramari Iyokus, the Grandmaster of the Scarlet Spires, learning the darkest ways of Anagogic sorcery, the Daimos. Proyas had been among the first to see them when he returned from Carythusal and perhaps the first to dare ask Kellhus what had happened. His reply loomed large among the many unforgettable things the man had told him over the years: "There are two species of revelation, my old friend. Those that seize, and those that are seized. The first are the province of the priest, the latter belong to the sorcerer…"

  Even after so many years, his skin still prickled in revulsion when he glimpsed the Decapitants. But unlike many of the faithful, Proyas never forgot that his prophet was also a mage, a Shaman, not unlike those so piously condemned by the Tusk. His was the New Covenant, the sw
eeping away of all the old measures. So many former sins had become new virtues. Women had claimed the privileges of men. Sorcerers had become priests.

  Obscenity should hang from the waist of Salvation, or so it had come to seem.

  "Such thefts…" Nin'sariccas said with passionless tact. "Such substitutions. They have happened before."

  "Why should you care," Kellhus said, "if your hatred is satisfied, your ancient foe at last destroyed? Ever have Men been ruled by tyrants. Why should you care what soul lies behind our cruelty?"

  A single inhuman blink. "May I touch you?"

  "Yes."

  The Emissary instantly stepped forward, sparking cries and the baring of weapons throughout the gloom.

  "Leave him," Kellhus said.

  Nin'sariccas had paused immediately above the Aspect-Emperor, the hem of his chain gown swaying. For the first time he betrayed something resembling indecision, and Proyas realized the creature was, in his own inhuman manner, terrified. The Exalt-General almost smiled, such was his gratification.

  The Emissary extended a sallow hand…

  Which the Aspect-Emperor clasped in a firm, human grip. For a heartbeat, it seemed that worlds, let alone the shadowy confines of the Eleven Pole Chamber, dangled from their grasp.

  Sun and moon. Man and Nonman.

  The clasp broke with the gliding of fingers.

  "What did you see?" Nin'sariccas asked with what seemed genuine curiosity. "What did you find?"

  "God… broken into a million warring splinters."

  A grim nod. "We worship the spaces between the Gods."

  "Which is why you are damned."

  Another nod, this one strangely brittle. "As False Men."

  The Aspect-Emperor nodded in stoic regret. "As False Men."

  The Emissary retreated from the dais, resumed his place at the fore of his voiceless companions. "And why should the False Men lend their strength to the True?"

  "Because of Hanalinqu," the Holy Aspect-Emperor of the Three Seas declared. "Because of Cu'jara Cinmoi. Because four thousand years ago, all your wives and daughters were murdered… and you were cursed to go mad in the shadow of that memory, to live forever, dying their deaths."

  Nin'sariccas bowed yet again, this time deeper, yet still far short of honouring jnan.

  "If you retake Dagliash," he said. "If you honour the Niom."

  As he had every morning since the Battle of the Horde, Sorweel awoke before the Interval's toll. He lay aching in his cot, more pinched than warmed by his woollen blanket, blinking at the impossibility of his straits. Other than a residue of warmth that made cold dismay of his every waking, nothing sensible remained of his dreams. He knew only that he dreamed of better places. He could only dream of better places.

  Zsoronga lay on his side as he always did, one arm thrown askew, his face the image of boyish bliss. Sorweel regarded him for a bleary moment, thinking as he often thought that the man's future wives would love him best like this, in the innocence of his mornings. The young King crept from his cot, fumbled with his gear in the dawning pallor, then slipped outside so as to not disturb his brother from Zeum.

  He savoured the chill of breathing open sky, rubbed his bearding chin as he gazed out across the encampment. He felt the clamour to come, the rousing of thousands about him, and the warring of doubts within. Another day marching with the Great Ordeal. The discomfort of long watches in the saddle. The ligatures of sweat. The ache of perpetual squinting. The anxiousness of the accumulating Horde. And for a fleeting moment, he knew the peace of those first to awaken-the gratitude that accompanies solitary lulls.

  He sat on his rump to labour with his riding boots.

  "Truth shines…" a voice chimed.

  "Truth shines," habit replied for him.

  Anasurimbor Serwa stood before him, her silken billows knotted tight about her slight form. She had appeared without the merest inkling. From his first glimpse, Sorweel knew he would crouch peering after her departure, looking for her footfalls across the trampled dust. She stood to his left, beneath the arch of the bluing sky. Crimson gilded the edges of the tents jumbled behind her.

  She drew back a lick of flaxen hair from her cheek.

  "The Charioteer you and my brother found… Father has met with them."

  "The Embassy…" Sorweel said, squinting up at her. "Kayutas said your father hopes to forge a treaty with Ishterebinth."

  She smiled. "You know of Ishterebinth in Sakarpus?"

  He scowled and shrugged. "From The Sagas… None thought it real."

  "The mightiest among the Quya dwell there still."

  He did not know what to say so he turned back to his boots. He never felt the Goddess so fiercely as when he found himself before Serwa or Kayutas. His cheeks literally prickled. And yet at the same time, he never felt so unworthy of the Mother's dread design. To stand before the Anasurimbor was to doubt… things old.

  "The Nonmen have invoked Niom," she said. "An ancient ritual."

  Something in her tone seized his attention. She had sounded almost embarrassed.

  "I don't understand."

  Her gaze had recovered its remote vantage. She considered him with a serenity that he yearned to muddy with his passion…

  Evil. How could someone so beautiful be evil?

  "The ancient Nonmen Kings found Men too mercurial," she explained, "too proud and headstrong to be trusted. So in all their dealings they demanded hostages as a guarantee: a son, a daughter, and a captive enemy. The two former as a surety against treachery. The latter as a surety against deception."

  The sun broke behind her. Light unfurled in a burning fan about her silhouette.

  "And I am to play the enemy," he said, holding a hand out against her glare.

  What new twist was this?

  "Yes," her shadow replied against the high drone of the Interval.

  He had expected her to vanish, to wink out of existence the same way she had winked in. But she simply turned and began walking at an angle to the eastern sun. Her shadow floated across the trampled earth, drawn as long and slender as a felled sapling. With every step she became smaller, a mere wisp before the enormity of dawn…

  Ever more lonely and afraid.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Momemn

  This one thing every tyrant will tell you: nothing saves more lives than murder.

  — Merotokas, The Virtue of Sin

  No two prophets agree. So to spare our prophets their feelings, we call the future a whore.

  — Zarathinius, A Defence of the Arcane Arts

  Early Summer, 20 New Imperial Year (4132 Year-of-the-Tusk), Momemn

  "I gutted a dove in the old way," the long-haired man said, "with a sharpened stone. And when I drew out the entrails, I saw you."

  "Then you know."

  The Narindar assassin nodded. "Yes… But do you?"

  "I have no need of knowing."

  The Gift-of-Yatwer leaned against the door he had already entered. The way was not barred.

  The room was little more than a cellar, even though it hung some four storeys above the alleyway. The plaster had sloughed from the walls, leaving bare stretches of cracked brick. Near the slot that served as a window, he saw himself speaking with a man, his tunic grimed about the armpits. A cloak of road-beaten leather lay crumpled upon the spare bed. His hair was waist long, a peculiarity among the Ketyai. The only thing extraordinary about his dress was his war-girdle: a wide belt stamped with the images of bulls. A variety of knives and tools gleamed from holsters along the back.

  "I gutted a dove in the old way," the long-haired man was saying, "with a sharpened stone. And when I drew out the entrails, I saw you."

  "Then you know."

  "Yes… But do you?"

  "I have no need of knowing."

  The Narindar frowned and smiled. "The Four-Horned Brother… Do you know why he is shunned by the others? Why my Cult and my Cult alone is condemned by the Tusk?"

  The White-Luck Warrior saw hims
elf shrug.

  He glanced back, saw himself climbing stairs that had crumbled into a narrow slope.

  He glanced back, saw himself pressing through packed streets, faces hanging like bulbs of garlic in shifting fields of cloth, soldiers watching from raised stoops, slave-girls balancing baskets and urns upon their heads, teamsters driving mules and oxen. He glanced back, saw the immensity of the gate climbing above him, engulfing sun and high blue sky.

  He glanced back, one pilgrim among others braiding the roadway, watching Momemn's curtain walls wandering out to parse the hazy distances. A monumental fence.

  He looked forward, saw himself rolling the long-haired man through his blood into the black slot beneath the bed rack. He paused to listen through the booming of the streets, heard tomorrow's prayer horns yaw deep across the Home City.

  "The Four-Horned Brother…" the long-haired man was saying. "Do you know why he is shunned by the others? Why my Cult and my Cult alone is condemned in the Tusk?"

  "Ajokli is the Fool," he heard himself reply.

  The long-haired man smiled. "He only seems such because he sees what the others do not see… What you do not see."

  "I have no need of seeing."

  The Narindar lowered his face in resignation. "The blindness of the sighted," he murmured.

  "Are you ready?" the Gift-of-Yatwer asked, not because he was curious, but because this was what he had heard himself say.

  "I told you… I gutted a dove in the old way."

  The White-Luck Warrior glanced back, saw himself standing upon a distant hill, looking forward.

  The blood was as sticky as he remembered.

  Like the oranges he would eat fifty-three days from now.

  Esmenet felt a refugee, hunted, and yet somehow she also felt free.

  Twenty years had passed since she had trod through the slots of a city as great as Momemn. When she married Kellhus, she had exchanged her feet for palanquins borne on the backs of slaves. Now that she walked again, alone save Imhailas, she felt as naked as a slave dragged out for auction. Here she was, easily the most powerful woman in the Three Seas, and she felt every bit as powerless and persecuted as she had as a common whore.