plots deeper ways to secure sole possession of his mother's heart.
He will tolerate no rivals.
In the city of Iothiah, meanwhile, the White-Luck Warrior reveals himself to Psatma Nannaferi, who summons all her High Priestesses to plot the destruction of the Anasurimbor. None other than Yatwer, the monstrous Mother of Birth, moves against the Aspect-Emperor. As the Goddess most favoured by slaves and caste-menials, she commands tremendous temporal power. Unrest spreads among the servile poor.
Even as the first rumours of this sedition reach his mother in Momemn, young Kelmomas continues his own devious insurrection. Where before he had driven Mimara away, now he engineers the death of his idiot twin, Samarmas, knowing that grief for his loss will make his mother even more desperate for his love.
Capsized by the death of Samarmas, bewildered by the possibility that the Hundred themselves now hunt her family, Esmenet turns to her brother-in-law, Maithanet. He reminds her that the Gods can see neither the No-God nor the coming Apocalypse and so perceive her husband as a threat instead of a saviour.
At his bidding, Esmenet summons Sharacinth, the officially sanctioned Matriarch of the Yatwerians, with the intention of setting the Cult against itself. When they fail to cow the woman, Kellhus himself arrives and breaks her will to resist with sheer force of presence. The blubbering Matriarch yields, promising to wrest her Cult from Psatma Nannaferi. The Aspect-Emperor returns to the Great Ordeal, dismaying his Empress with his indifference to their son's death.
Realizing that his mother turns to him the more circumstances turn against her, Kelmomas sets out that very night, using his Dunyain blood to steal across the Imperial Precincts, and murders Sharacinth and her retinue.
Rumours of her assassination travel quickly, igniting the embers of sedition among the slaves and caste- menials. Riots erupt across the New Empire.
Esmenet does turn to Kelmomas for comfort. At night, she takes to embracing him in her bed while the smell of smoke and the sound of screams and shouts waft through windows. Intoxicated with success, the young Prince- Imperial begins plotting against his uncle, Maithanet, knowing that the man alone possesses the ability to see through his deception.
CHAPTER ONE
Without rules, madness. Without discipline, death.
Spring, 20 New Imperial Year (4132 Year-of-the-Tusk), the 'Long Side'
Even when the Skin Eaters walked ways sheeted in sunlight, some shadow of Cil-Aujas lingered in their eyes. The reflection of friends lost. The glint of things not quite survived.
Not two days had passed since they had escaped the derelict underworld mansion. There was madness in the deep, and the scalpers wore it more as fact than trophy. Decimated by Sranc. Pursued through serpentine deeps to the very brink of Hell. They had been transformed, these men who had survived seasons of hunting and harvesting inhuman scalps in pursuit of the Holy Bounty. Their hearts, which had been heaped with scars, now stood cracked open. They walked raw, whether trekking across mountain ridges or filing through forest tunnels. And for all their regret they were thankful. Gentle breezes carried the kiss of blessings. Shadows. Rain. Any sign of an open sky, no matter how indirect, occasioned some small rejoice.
They walked with the wonder of those who could not fathom their breath, their heartbeat. Who could not believe they still lived.
Too few of them remained for the old scalper discipline to hold-or so it seemed to the old Wizard. If any Rules of the Slog remained, they would have to be discovered on the way.
The Captain still commanded them. If anything he seemed more archaic, more inscrutable and cruel. His Ainoni garb, which was tattered before, had been reduced to black-stained rags. His shield, which he wore slung over his back, sported innumerable dents and clefts. But his authority, like everything else, had been transformed by their passage-not so much eroded as superimposed over other possibilities. Events had sorted them.
Sarl was the primary example. Once the mouthpiece of the Captain, he now skulked in the rear of their ragged line, his eyes fixed on his drunken steps, his fingers picking at the scabbed remnant of the wound on his cheek. Periodically he would cackle, a sharp, glutinous sound that jarred the others from their marching reveries. He spoke to no one, content to endlessly mutter to himself-nonsense about seeing Hell mostly. Once or twice a day he would begin barking about the Coffers. 'The Slog of Slogs! Yes! Yes!' The few glances he spared his Captain were filled with wounded terror.
If the decimated company yet possessed a second it was Galian. The Nansur had emerged almost unscathed from Cil-Aujas-a tribute to his luck and a boost to his prestige. Aside from soldiers, no one understood the importance of luck quite so profoundly as scalpers. Galian, along with Pokwas and Xonghis, had become a nucleus of sorts, a kind of conspiracy of the sane within the greater company. Strangely enough, they found their power in keeping their counsel. When the Captain described this or that course of action, the Skin Eaters' eyes inevitably turned to the Nansur Columnary. Almost without exception Galian would pause for the sake of words unspoken, then nod his head aye: he was never so foolish as to contradict the Captain.
And the Captain was never so foolish as to provoke his contradiction.
As always, Xonghis ranged ahead, continually trotting where everyone save Cleric trudged. Were it not for his hunting skills, the expedition would have almost certainly perished. Pokwas, his scalp gruesome with clotted blood, rarely ventured from Galian's side. Every dusk the three would find a place apart from the others, gnaw sorcery- cooked meat, and trade murmurs. Xonghis was always glancing about, fingers combing his slight Jekki beard, his almond eyes sorting his surroundings even as he spoke or listened to his comrades. He rarely laughed. Pokwas invariably ministered to his great tulwar, sometimes praying as he did so. Something in his voice continually seemed to swing about the possibility of outrage, like a drunk nursing grudges. His laughter typically boomed. Galian always seemed to be sitting between them, even though their little triangle possessed no centre. The former Columnary was forever scraping the stubble from his chin. He seemed to watch his scalper brothers to the exclusion of the world, his eyes as keen as an alarmed father's. His laughter was always silent.
For whatever reason, Soma and Sutadra found themselves on the outside of this impromptu cabal. The gaunt Kianene, Sutadra, remained silent and watchful the same as before, though an intensity had crept into his eyes that was almost audible. He looked like a man hanging on the words of his wife's murderer, waiting for a confession. Soma was perhaps the least changed, the one most inclined to speak and act in the old ways. And true to form, the Nilnameshi caste-noble seemed utterly oblivious to the distrust that this incited in his comrades.
Nothing should be the same after Cil-Aujas.
The surviving Galeoth formed another small faction, one that was at once more mutinous and more complacent. If they were more liable to bellyache or, worse yet, openly question the expedition, then they were also more inclined to shrink from the scalding chill of the Captain's gaze. For whatever reason, the underworld trial had exacted the heaviest toll from them. Wonard's injuries, which he took to hiding like a wounded dog, had become septic. He marched with the flat-eyed look of someone who simply carried himself from place to place without wit or comprehension. Hameron continually cried out in his sleep, and seemed to sob as much as breathe over the course of the day. Only Conger seemed to improve as the days wore on. Despite the endless trudging, his limp had all but vanished.
But no one had been more transformed in the collective eye than Cleric. Where before they had walked with an enigma, one rounded warm and smooth by long acquaintance, now they walked with a Nonman Ishroi
… a Quya Mage.
Even for men so bitten, it was no small thing to walk with a legend. And for a Wizard steeped in the ancient ways, it was cause for more than a few sleepless watches…
