Anasыrimbor Kellhus I.
They were plain men-warriors. They understood that doubt was hesitation, and that hesitation was death, not only on the field of war, but on the field of souls as well. Only believers persevered.
Only believers conquered.
What was Sakarpus compared to this? And who was he, but the son of another Beggar King?
These were the questions that Sorweel could not but ask whenever he looked to the shield line of the horizon. Men. Wherever he turned his gaze, he saw more and more armed and armoured Men.
The Great Ordeal.
For Sorweel, it existed in series of circles, each radiating outward, from his squad in the Company of Scions to the very limit of the world. In his immediate vicinity, all was the close tedium of riders on the march, defined more by sound and smell than sight: the must of fresh dung, the equine snorts and complaints, the swishing percussion of endless hooves through grass, the rattle of the small almost chariotlike carts that each of the doughty little horses pulled. A glimpse was all it took to surpass this mundane circle: Striding legs became scissoring forests, men rocking in their high-backed saddles became slow-filing fields of thousands. And beyond this, individuals vanished into many-coloured masses, their armour winking in the high-sky sun. The shouts and calls and laughter dissolved into a white ambient roar. Mobs congealed into ponderous columns strung with vast trains of mules and teetering ox-carts.
The host did not so much cross the greening pastures as they encompassed them, a slow flood of warlike humanity. Everything and everyone became a link in a far greater articulation. Only the high-jutting banners retained their singularity: the signs of tribes and nations, each married in some fashion to the Circumfix. And farther, moving beneath the silence that was the sky, even the banners became abstract, hooked threads on the carpet that had become a darker earth. The very ground seemed to move, out to the vanishing line of the plains.
The Great Ordeal. A thing so great that not even the horizon could contain it. And for a boy on the cusp of manhood, a thing that humiliated far more than it humbled.
What honour could dwell in a soul so small?
Officially, the Company of Scions was touted as one of the most elite units in the Kidruhil, but unofficially, it was known to be largely ceremonial. The power of the Aspect-Emperor or more importantly, the rumour of his power, was such that many rulers beyond his sway sent their own sons to him as means to guarantee their treaties with the New Empire. They were observers, perhaps even prisoners, but they certainly were not warriors-let alone Men of the Ordeal.
For Sorweel, this was a source of many contradictory passions. His blood ran hot at the prospect of battle- how long had he pestered his father for an opportunity to ride to war? But at the same time, the dishonour-if not the treachery-of riding beneath his enemy's banners alternately gouged his belly with horror and squeezed his heart with abject shame. He even caught himself taking pride in his uniform from time to time: the fine tooling of the leather-stripped skirts, the soft castor of the gloves, the interlocking motifs stamped into the cuirass, even the white cloak of his caste-nobility.
For as long as he could remember, Sorweel had always thought betrayal a kind of thing. And as a thing, he assumed, it was what it was, like anything else. Either a man kept faith with his blood and nation, or he didn't. But betrayal, he was learning, was far too complicated to be a mere thing. It was more like a disease… or a man.
It was too insidious not to have a soul.
It crept, for one thing, not like a snake or a spider, but like spilled wine, seeping into the fractures, soaking everything its own colour. Each betrayal, no matter how trivial, seemed to beget further betrayals. And it deceived as well, postured as nothing less than sense itself, as reason. 'Play along,' it told him. 'Pretend to be one of their Kidruhil-yes, pretend.' Wise counsel, or so it seemed. It failed to warn you of the peril, of how each day playing leached your soul of resolution. It said nothing of the slow collapse of pretending into being.
He tried to remain vigilant, and in the deep of night, he clung to his recriminations. But it was so hard, so hard to remember the taste of certainty.
The Scions were scarcely a hundred strong, far and away the smallest of the Kidruhil's three-hundred-odd companies. They rode with the strange sense of being a sliver in a great fist, an intrusion that inflamed and irritated. Kidruhil troopers were selected according to their skill and their ardour. If anything made the Scions anathema to their fellow Kidruhil, it was their lack of faith. Though the officers were always careful to observe the semblance of diplomatic decorum, their men understood, enough to allow a general contempt-and in some cases even outright hatred-to shine through.
But if the Scions were an outcast within the Kidruhil, then Sorweel was even more an outcast within the Scions. Of course everyone knew who he was. How could any Son of Sakarpus not be the talk of the Company, let alone the son of its slain king? Whether it was pity or derision, Sorweel saw in their looks the true measure of his shame. And at night, when he lay desolate in his tent listening to the fireside banter of the others, he was certain he could understand the questions that kept returning to their strange tongues. Who was this boy who rode for those who murdered his father? This Shit-herder, what kind of craven fool was he?
At the end of his sixth day, as he stood so that Porsparian could remove his gear, a black-skinned man with an ashen pallor pressed his face through the flap and begged permission to enter.
'Your Glory… I am Obotegwa, Senior Obligate of Zsoronga ut Nganka'kull, Successor-Prince of High Holy Zeьm.' He fell to his knees as he said this, making three waving flourishes with each of his hands and lowering his chin to his chest. He was dressed in the finest silks, a padded yellow jacket stencilled with thin black floral motifs. His ebony skin, which was a shock to Sorweel-until the coming of the Great Ordeal, he had never seen any Satyothi-shone in the day's failing light. His receding white hair and high-climbing beard had been trimmed close to the apple-round contours of his skull. There seemed to be a sturdy honesty both to his bearing and his voice, which possessed a raspy earthiness despite its high tone.
As the son of an isolate nation, Sorweel had little grasp of etiquette between nations. Even his own father had seemed at a loss as to how to deal with the Aspect-Emperor's first fateful emissaries. Sorweel found himself flustered by the man's elaborate display, as well as bewildered by his command of the Sakarpic tongue. So he did what all young men did in such circumstances: he blurted.
'What do you want?'
The Obligate raised his face, displayed a grandfather's wise smile. 'My Lord Master requests the pleasure of your company at his fire, your Glory.'
The young King accepted the invitation, his cheeks burning.
All Sorweel knew of black men was that they hailed from Zeьm, an ancient and great nation in the distant west. And all he knew of Zeьm was that its people were black. He had noted Zsoronga earlier, both during assembly and exercises. The man was difficult to miss, even among the large retinue of black-skinned companions and servants that rode with him. Men born to authority, Sorweel had noticed, often stood apart from others, not merely in appearance, but in demeanour and comportment as well. Some positively swaggered with prominence-or self-importance as the case might be. Though Zsoronga communicated his station with a similar intensity, he did so without any overt gestures whatsoever. You simply looked at his party and knew that he was the first among them, as though consciousness of rank possessed a kind of visual odour.
Obotegwa waited outside while Porsparian finished ministering to the young King. The old Shigeki slave muttered under his breath the whole time, periodically fixed him with a yellow-eyed glare. Words or no words, Sorweel would have asked him what was amiss, but too many worries plagued his thoughts. What could this Zsoronga want? Amusement for his cohort? A lesson for his fellows, a living example of how base the blood of nobles could be?
He watched his enigmatic slave scowl over his uniform, swallowed against a sudden, almost maniacal urge to scream. Never. Never in his life had he suffered such consistent uncertainty. It plagued him, like some bone-deep fever of the soul. Everywhere he turned he found himself faced with the unfamiliar, whether it be wondrous, blasphemous, or merely novel. He knew not what was expected of him, by others, by honour, by his Gods…
And perhaps even more debilitating, he knew not what to expect of himself.
Certainly something better than this. How could he have been born with such a despicable heart, hesitating like an old man whose life had outrun his trust in his heart and frame? How could Harweel, strong Harweel, wise Harweel, have given birth to such a craven fool as he? To a boy who would weep in the arms of his murderer!
