had turned away in apparent boredom, gnawed at what looked like a section of dried meat. But the woman continued watching as intently as before.
'You are a king, Sorweel, and when you return to Sakarpus you will rule as your father had ruled, with all of your privileges intact. But here, you are a soldier and a vassal. You will salute others in accordance to rank. In the presence of myself or my brother and sister, you will kneel and lower your face, so that when you look straight ahead, your eyes are focused on a spot one length before you. You may then look at us directly: This is your privilege as a king. When you encounter my father, no matter what the circumstance, you are to place your forehead to the ground. And never look at him unless invited. All men are slaves before my father. Do you understand?'
The tone was gentle, the words were nothing if not politic, and yet there could be no mistaking the cutting edge of reprimand. 'Yes,' Sorweel heard himself say.
'Then show me.'
A breeze bellied the eastward canvas panels; ropes creaked and poles groaned. There was a burning tightness to the air, like the tinkle of old coals in an old fire, making breathing not only uncomfortable, but dangerous. It happened without him even willing it to happen: His knees simply bent, folded like stiff leather, then fell to the crude-woven mat that had been rolled across the floor. His chin dropped on the swivel of his neck, as though obeying an irresistible accumulation of weight. He found himself looking at the Prince-Imperial's sandalled feet, at white skin and pearl nails, at the yellow-orange calluses climbing the pads of his toes.
Forgive me…
'Excellent.' A breathless pause. 'I know that was difficult.'
His every sinew, it seemed, tensed about his frame, cramped about his father's bones. Never had he been so utterly immobile-so utterly silent. And somehow, this became his accusation.
'Come, Sorweel. Please stand.'
He did as he was instructed, though he continued staring at the General's feet. He looked up only when the silence became unbearable. Even in this, they were unconquerable.
'You've made a friend,' Kayыtas said, gazing at him with the amiable air of an uncle fishing for some reluctant truth. 'Who is it? Zsoronga? Yes. It only stands to reason. That interpreter of his… Obotegwa.'
The young King's shock was such that he paid no heed to his expression. Spies! Of course they were watching him… Porsparian?
'I have no need of spies, Sorweel,' the Prince-Imperial said, snatching the thought from his face. He leaned back and with a gentle laugh added, 'My father is a god.'
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Since all men count themselves righteous, and since no righteous man raises his hand against the innocent, a man need only strike another to make him evil.
Where two reasons may deliver truth, a thousand lead to certain delusion.
The more steps you take, the more likely you will wander astray.
Early Spring, 19 New Imperial Year (4132 Year-of-the-Tusk), The Osthwai Mountains
The Scalpoi called the mountain the Ziggurat, apparently because of its flat summit. None among the Skin Eaters knew its true name-perhaps even Cleric had forgotten. But Achamian had dreamt of it many, many times.
Aenaratiol.
When the Nonman had first mentioned the Black Halls, Achamian had thought only of the expedition, of reaching Sauglish by midsummer. By the time they made camp that evening, the relief had all but evaporated and the implications of what they were about to attempt-for want of a better word-stabbed at him. The world was old, strewn with ancient and forgotten hazards, and short of Golgotterath, few could match the peril that was Cil- Aujas.
The Skin Eaters had their own lore. Given that it flanked the southern approaches of the Ochain Passes, the Ziggurat and the derelict Nonman Mansion that plumbed its foundations had been the subject of countless fireside speculations. What shreds of fact they might have possessed had been burned long ago as fuel for brighter wonderings, and what remained was out-and-out fantastical. Pestilence. Exodus. Invasion. It seemed they had concocted every tale to explain the fate of the Black Halls save the actual one.
Refuge.
When Achamian began telling the true story, he found himself the focus of all attention, to the point where it almost seemed comedic: hard and warlike men hanging on his words like children, asking the same guileless questions, watching with the same timid impatience. Xonghis, in particular, would begin calling out what he thought would happen next, only to catch himself and trail mumbling. Achamian would have laughed, had he not understood what it meant to be stranded as these men were stranded, had he not known the power of words to parent the orphaned present.
The true name of the mountain, he told them, was Aenaratiol.
Smokehorn.
More and more Skin Eaters gathered about their fire as he spoke, including Sarl and Kiampas. Mimara sat with her head resting against Achamian's shoulder, her eyes lifted high and searching each time he glanced at her. The flames tossed and twined in the mountain wind, and he basked in its heated glow. Sinking from the clouds, the sun leaned hot and crimson against the mountains, before slipping behind the uneven teeth of the mountains, trailing a shrinking patina of gold, violet, and blue. The land was tossed to the horizon, slopes and sheer drops, growing ever more black.
He told them about the Nonmen, the Cыnuroi, and the glory of their civilization in the First Age, when Men lived as savages and the Tusk had yet to be written. He told them about Cu'jara Cinmoi, the greatest of the Nonmen Kings, and the wars he fought against the Inchoroi, who had fallen in fire from the void, and how those wars left the survivors mateless and immortal, with no will to resist the Five Tribes of Men. And then he told them of the First Apocalypse.
'If you want to look at the true ruin,' he said, nodding to the barren knoll where the Captain sat alone with his inhuman lieutenant, 'look no farther than your Cleric. Reduced. Dwindled. They were once to us as we are to Sranc. Indeed, for many among the Nonmen, we were little more.'
He described the Meцri Empire, the great White Norsirai nation that once had ruled all the lands on the Long Side of the mountains, as the Scalpoi called it, the wilderness that was their hunting grounds. He described its destruction at the hands of the No-God, and how the great hero, Nostol, fled south with the remnants of his people, and found refuge in the lands of Gin'yursis, the Nonman King of Cil-Aujas. He described how the two of them, hero and king, defeated the No-God and his Consult at Kathol Pass, and so purchased a year's respite for the entire world.
'But what does it mean,' he asked the faces about the fire, 'when angels walk the very ground we trod? What does it mean to be mortally overshadowed, to toil in the dazzle of another race's glory? Do you admire? Do you bend knee and acknowledge? Or do you envy and hate?
'Nostol and his Meцri kinsmen hated. Dispossessed, they coveted, and coveting, they maligned those they sought to rob. They did what all men do, you, me, throughout the entirety of our lives. They confounded need for
