begging Sorweel, somehow…
Begging him to be someone High Holy Zeьm could trust.
'Petatu surub-'
'Have you heard the story of Shimeh, of the First Holy War?'
Sorweel shrugged. He felt at once honoured and gratified. A prince of a great nation confided in him. 'Not much,' he admitted, careful to pitch his voice at the same low tenor as his friend.
'There is this book,' Zsoronga said, the squint in his eyes complementing the reluctance in his voice. 'This forbidden book, written by a sorcerer… Drusas Achamian. Have you heard of him?'
'No.'
Zsoronga's bottom lip pressed the line of his mouth into an upside-down crescent. He nodded, not so much in affirmation or approval, but as though to acknowledge his succinct honesty. 'Bpo Mandatu mbal-'
'He was a Mandate Schoolman, like your own tutor.'
Sorweel found himself glancing about, fearing that Eskeles would arrive any moment. Men had a way of hearing their names, even when spoken across the arc of the world. 'And?'
'Well, he was present when the Anasыrimbor joined the First Holy War. Apparently he was his first and dearest friend-his teacher, both before and after the Circumfixion.'
'So?'
'Well, for one, the Empress-you know, the woman on the silver kellics, the mother of our dear, beloved General Kayыtas-Achamian was her first husband. Apparently the Anasыrimbor stole her. So at the conclusion of the First Holy War, when the Shriah of their Thousand Temples crowns the Anasыrimbor Aspect-Emperor, this Achamian repudiates him before all those gathered, claims he is a fraud and deceiver.'
Something of the old Zsoronga had returned, as though he were warming to the gossip of the tale.
'Yes…' Sorweel said. 'I'm sure I've heard this… or a version of it, anyway.'
'So he leaves the Holy War, goes into exile, becomes, they say, the only Wizard in the Three Seas. Only the love and shame of the Empress prevent his execution.'
'Wizard?'
Another grave turn in his ebony expression. 'Yes. A sorcerer without a School.'
The Company of Scions was but a clot in a far larger column of Kidruhil companies, and a conspicuous one, given that its members had leave to wear native ornamentations over their crimson uniforms. They had followed the column over the crest of a scrub-choked rise, then leaned back against their cantles as they descended into a broad depression. The black track became viscous with water and muck. The susurrus of countless hooves stamping marshy ground rose about them-the wheeze of sinking grounds. What had looked like mist from the sloped heights became clouds of midges.
'And this is where he writes this book?' Sorweel asked, pitching his voice over the tramping clamour. 'In exile?'
'Our spies brought my father a copy some six years ago, saying that it had become a kind of scripture for those who still resist the Anasыrimbor in the Three Seas. It's titled A Compendium of the First Holy War.'
'So it's a history?'
'Only apparently. There are… insinuations, scattered throughout, and descriptions of the Anasыrimbor as he was, before he gained the Gnosis and became almost all-powerful.'
'Are you saying this Mandate Schoolman knew… that he knew what the Aspect-Emperor was?'
Zsoronga paused before answering, looked at him as though rehearsing previous judgments. Among those who would contest the power of the Aspect-Emperor, Sorweel understood, no matters could be more essential.
'Yes,' Zsoronga finally replied.
'So. What does he say?'
'Everything you might expect a cuckold to say. That's the problem…'
An ambient eagerness bloomed through Sorweel's limbs. The knowledge he needed was here-he could sense it. The knowledge that would cleave certainty out of mangled circumstances-that would see his honour redeemed! He squeezed the reins tight enough to whiten his knuckles. 'Does he call him a demon?' he asked almost with breath. 'Does he?'
'No.'
A vertiginous, dumbfounded moment, as if he had leaned forward expecting an answer to brace him. 'What then? Do not play me on such matters, Zsoronga! I come to you as a friend!'
The Successor-Prince somehow grinned and scowled all at once. 'You must learn, Horse-King. Too many wolves prowl these columns. I appreciate your honesty, your overture, I truly do, but when you speak like this… I… I fear for you.'
Obotegwa had softened his sovereign's tone, of course. No matter how diligently the Obligate tried to recreate the tenor of his Prince's discourse, his voice always bore the imprint of a long and oft-examined life.
Sorweel found himself looking down at the polished contours of his pommel, so different from the raw hook of iron on Sakarpi saddles. 'What does this-this… Achamian say?'
'He says the Anasыrimbor is a man, neither diabolic nor divine. A man of unheard-of intellect. He bids us imagine the difference between ourselves and children…' The black man trailed into silence, his brows furrowed in concentration. He had this habit of staring down and to the left when pondering, as though judging points buried deep in the ground.
'And?'
'The important thing, he says, isn't so much what the Anasыrimbor is, as what we are to him.'
Sorweel glared at him in exasperation. 'You speak in riddles!'
'Yusum pyeb-!'
'Think to your childhood! Think of the hopes and fears. Think of the tales the nursemaids told you. Think of the way your face continually betrayed you. Think of all the ways you were mastered, all the ways you were moulded.'
'Yes! So?'
'That is what you are to the Aspect-Emperor. That is what we all are.'
'Children?'
Zsoronga dropped his reins, waved his arms out in grand gesture of indication. 'All of this. This divinity. This apocalypse. This… religion he has created. They are the kinds of lies we tell children to assure they act in accord with our wishes. To make us love, to incite us to sacrifice… This is what Drusas Achamian seems to be saying.'
These words, spoken through the lense of wise and weary confidence that was Obotegwa, chilled Sorweel to the pith. Demons were so much easier! This… this…
How does a child war against a father? How does a child not… love?
Sorweel could feel the dismay on his face, the bewilderment, but his shame was muted by the realization that Zsoronga felt no different. 'So what are his wishes, then? The Aspect-Emperor. If all this is… is a fraud, then what are his true ends?'
They had climbed out of the shallow marsh and now crested a low knoll. Zsoronga nodded past Sorweel's shoulder, to where, in the congestion of the near distance, the young King could see Eskeles's absurd form fairly bowing the back of his huffing donkey. More lessons…
'The Wizard does not say,' the Successor-Prince continued when he glanced back. 'But I fear that you and I shall know before this madness is done with.'
That night he dreamed of Kings arguing across an ancient floor.
'There is the surrender that leads to slavery,' the Exalt-General said. 'And there is the surrender that sets one free. Soon, very soon, your people shall know that difference.'
'So says the slave!' Harweel cried, standing in a flower of outward-hooking flames.
How bright his father burned. Lines of fire skittering up the veins wrapping his arms. His hair and beard a smoking blaze. His skin blistering like pitch, shining raw, trailing lines of fiery grease…
How beautiful was his damnation.
