The dimensions of what had upended his life had escaped him-he had floundered in his ignorance. The Great Ordeal. The New Empire. The Second Apocalypse. These were little more than empty signs to him, sounds that had somehow wrought the death of his father and the fall of his city. But here at last, in the talk of other places and other times, was a glimmer-as though understanding were naught but the piling on of empty names.
'Aside from skirmishing with Sranc,' the Successor-Prince was saying, 'Zeьm has had no external enemies since Near Antiquity… the days of the old Aspect-Emperors. In our land, we worship events more than gods. I know that must sound strange to you, but it's true. We do not, like you sausages, forget our fathers. At least the Ketyai keep lists! But you Norsirai…'
He shook his head and cast his eyes heavenward, a mock gesture meant to tell Sorweel that he simply teased. Expressions, it seemed, all spoke in the same language.
'In Zeьm,' the Prince continued, 'each of us has a book that is about us alone, a book that is never completed so long as our sons are strong, our samwassa, which details the deeds of our ancestors, and what they earned in the afterlife. Mighty events, such as battles, or even campaigns such as this, are what knot the strings of our descent together, what makes us one people. Since everything that is present hangs from these great decisions, we revere them more than you can know…'
There was wonder here, Sorweel realized, and room for strength. Different lands. Different customs. Different skins. And yet it was all somehow the same.
He was not alone. How could he be so foolish as to think he was alone?
'But then I'm forgetting, aren't I?' Zsoronga said. 'They say your city has stood unconquered for almost three thousand years. The same is the case with Zeьm. The only real threats we have ever faced hearken back to the days of the Ceniean Aspect-Emperors and the armies they sent against us. The Three Axes we call them, Binyangwa, Amarah, and Hutamassa, the battles we regard as our most glorious moments, whose dead we implore to catch us when we at last fall from this life. So as you can imagine, that name, 'Aspect-Emperor,' is engraved in our souls. Engraved!'
The same, of course, had been true in Sakarpus. It seemed beyond belief that one man could incite such fear on opposite ends of the world, that he could pluck distant kings and princes like weeds, then replant them together…
That one man could be so powerful. One man!
And in a rush, Sorweel realized what it was he had to do-at last! He fairly shouted aloud, it struck with such sudden obviousness. He needed to understand the Aspect-Emperor. It wasn't his father's weakness or pride or foolishness that had seen the Lonely City fall…
It was his ignorance.
The Successor-Prince's eyes had drifted inward with his retelling, his face brightening with each turn and digression as though at some minor yet critical discovery. 'So, when news arrived that Auvangshei had been rebuilt… Well, you can imagine. Sometimes it seemed the Three Seas and the New Empire was all anyone could speak about. Some were eager, tired of living in the shadow of greater fathers, while others were afraid, thinking that doom comes to all things, so why not High Holy Zeьm? I had always counted my father among the former, among the strong. The Aspect-Emperor's emissaries would change all that.'
'What happened?' Sorweel asked, feeling an old timbre returning to his voice. Zsoronga was no different than him, he decided. Stronger perhaps, certainly more worldly, but every bit as baffled by the circumstances that had carried him here, to this conversation in this wild and desolate land.
'There were three of them in the embassy, two Ketyai and one sausage like you. One of them looked terrified, and we assumed he had simply been overwhelmed by the dread splendour of our Court. They strode beneath my father, who glared down at them from his throne-he was very good at glaring, my father.
'They said, 'The Aspect-Emperor bears you greetings, Great Satakhan, and asks that you send three emissaries to the Andiamine Heights to respond in kind.''
Zsoronga had leaned forward in the course of reciting this, hooked his arms about his knees. ''In kind?' my father asked…'
The Prince held the moment with his breath, the way a bard might. In his soul's eye, Sorweel could see it, the feathered pomp and glory of the Great Satakhan's court, the sun sweating between great pillars, the galleries rapt with black faces.
'With that, the three men produced razors from their tongues and opened their own throats!' He made a tight, feline swiping motion with his left hand. 'They killed themselves… right there before us! My father's surgeons tried to save them, to staunch the blood, but there was nothing to be done. The men died right there'-he looked and gestured to a spot several feet away, as though watching their ghosts-'moaning some kind of crazed hymn, to their last breath, singing…'
He hummed a strange singsong tune for several heartbeats, his eyes lost in memory, then he turned to the young King of Sakarpus with a kind of pained incredulity. 'The Aspect-Emperor had sent us three suicides! That was his message to my father. 'Look! Look what I can do! Now tell me, Can you do the same?''
'Could he?' Sorweel asked numbly.
Zoronga pulled a long hand across his face. 'Ke amabo hetweru go…'
'I'm too hard on my father. I know I am. Only now can I appreciate the deranged bind that gesture put him in. No matter how my father responded, he would lose… Perhaps he could find three fanatics willing to return the message, but what kind of barbarity would that be? What unrest would that cause the kjineta? And what if they lost heart at the penultimate moment? Who would the people call to account for their shame? And if he refused to respond in kind, would that not be an admission of weakness? Tantamount to saying, 'I cannot rule as you rule…''
Sorweel shrugged. 'He could have marched to war.'
'I think that's what the devil wanted! I think that was his trap. The provocation of rebuilding Auvangshei, followed by this mad diplomatic overture. Think of what would have happened, what a disaster it would have been, had we taken the field against his Zaudunyani hosts. Look at your city. Your ancient fathers weathered Mog-Pharau, turned aside the No-God! And the Aspect-Emperor broke you in the space of a morning.'
These words hung between them like lead pellets on sodden cloth. There was no accusation in them, no implication of fault or weakness, just a statement of what should have been an impossible fact. And Sorweel realized that his question-his discovery-was the same question everyone was asking, and had been asking for years. Everyone who was not a believer.
Who was the Aspect-Emperor?
'So what did your father do?'
Zsoronga snorted in derision. 'What he always does. Talk, talk, and bargain. My father believes in words, Horse-King. He lacks the courage your father showed.'
Horse-King. This was the name they used for him, Sorweel realized. Zsoronga would not have spoken with such ease otherwise.
'And so what happened?'
'Deals were struck. Treaties were signed by flatulent old men. Whispers of weakness began circulating through the streets and halls of High Domyot. And here I am, a Successor-Prince, hostage to an outland devil, pretending that I ride to war, when all I really do is moan to sausages like you.'
Sorweel nodded in understanding, smiled ruefully. 'You would prefer the fate of my people?'
The question seemed to catch the Successor-Prince by surprise. 'Sakarpus? No… Though sometimes, when my ardour overmatches my wisdom, I do… envy… the dead among you.'
For some reason, the hooks of this reference to his overthrown world caught Sorweel where all the others had skipped past. The raw heart, the thick eyes, the leaden thought-all the staples of his plundered existence-came rushing back and with such violence he could not speak.
Prince Zsoronga watched him with an uncharacteristic absence of expression. 'Ke nulam zo…'
'I suspect you feel the same.'
The young King of Sakarpus looked to the red disc of wine in his bowl, realized that he had yet to take a single sip. Not one sip-all his pain seemed condensed in this idiotic fact. Mere weeks ago, simply holding wine would be cause for celebration, another pathetic token of the manhood he had so desperately craved. How he had yearned for his first Elking! But now…
It was madness, to move from a world so laughably small to one so tragically bloated… Madness.
