tension, as if an inner winch cranked at every thread of his being, throttled him vein by vein…
And he found it curious, just as he found this curiosity curious.
'Samarmas died playing a foolish prank,' Maithanet said evenly. 'I was there.'
'And my little brother. He was there also?'
'Yes.'
'And Kelmomas, does he not share our gift for leading fools?'
'He could… in time.'
'But what if he were like me, Uncle. What if he were born knowing how to use our gifts?'
Kelmomas could hear all three of their hearts, his beating with rabbit quickness, his uncle's pounding as slow as a bull's-his brother's dancing through the erratic in-between.
'You're saying he murdered his own brother?'
Inrilatas nodded the way Mother nodded when affirming unfortunate truths. 'And others…'
'Others?'
Kelmomas stood, immobilized by astonishment. How? How? How could everything turn so quickly?
'Turn to him, Uncle. Use your portion. Gaze into his face and ask him if he is a fratricide.'
What was the mad fool doing? His uncle was the one! He was the one who needed to be humiliated- destroyed!
The Shriah of the Thousand Temples turned to the boy, not as a human might, frowning, questioning, but with the glint of void in his eyes. As a Dunyain.
'The sum of sins,' Inrilatas continued. 'There is nothing more godly than murder. Nothing more absolute.'
And for the first time Kelmomas found himself trapped within the dread circuit of his Uncle's scrutiny.
Hide! the secret voice cried. He glimpses… glimpses!
'Come now, Kelmomas,' his mad brother cackled. 'Show Uncle Holy why you should be chained in my place.'
'Liar!' the boy finally shrieked in blubbering denial. 'Lies!'
'Kelmomas!' the Shriah shouted, his voice yanking on every string of authority, from parental to religious. 'Turn to me! Look to me and tell me: Did you murd-'
Two clicks, almost simultaneous. Two screeches-a noise as small as mice trampled underfoot. The whirr of flying iron. Links snapping. File-weakened links snapping. One chain whooshed over the boy's head, while the other hooked behind his uncle…
They intersected, lashed in opposing directions about the post of Uncle Holy's neck. Wound like whips.
Kelmomas had scarcely torn his eyes away from his uncle, when his brother heaved, throwing his arms out and back like wings, his spine arched like a bow. Maithanet flew headlong to his feet.
Then Inrilatas had him, pulled him, for all his stature, like a child, against his chest. He roared in bestial exultation, wrenched at the chains again and again…
And Kelmomas watched the Shriah of Thousand Temples strangle.
Maithanet was on his knees, his face darkening, frantic hands grubbing at the chains. His silken sleeves had dropped down, revealing the fine-wrought beauty of his vambraces.
Inrilatas screamed and twisted, his arms, chest, and shoulders grooved with exertion. Maithanet surrendered his breath, fought only to protect his carotid artery. Inrilatas wrenched once, twice, violently enough to lift Uncle from his knees. But in a heartbeat of dropping slack, Maithanet's left hand fluttered across the vambrace on the forearm opposite. A blade appeared, jutting a finger's length beyond his elbow. It gleamed as though wet.
The first strike puffed the spark from Inrilatas's eyes. The second, low on his ribs, occasioned no more than a flinch. The chain slipped from the adolescent's grasp. Maithanet fell forward to his hands. He choked for air as would any mortal but recovered far more quickly. In mere heartbeats, it seemed, he had cast aside the chains and whirled to confront his dying nephew.
Inrilatas had staggered back two steps, his mouth gaping, his hand pawing the blood welling from his side. No words needed to be exchanged. Muffled shouts and hammering could already be heard at the door. The Shriah of the Thousand Temples could not trust a madman's dying words. He raised his fist. His strike caught the adolescent utterly unprepared. His left brow and socket collapsed like bread crust.
The Prince-Imperial fell back. The clink of iron accompanied the slap of his nude body across the floor. He jerked as if possessed by fire. Blood chased the creases between floor-stones.
'Soft…' Maithanet said, as if noting a natural curiosity. He turned to the dumbstruck boy, his right sleeve crimson with blood. 'And you?' he asked without a whisper of passion.
'Do you have your mother's bones?'
The bronze door burst open. Both uncle and nephew whirled to the faces massed beyond the threshold. Angry and astounded eyes probed the gloom, sorted the living from the dead.
'Mommy-mommy-mommy!' Kelmomas shrieked to the lone porcelain mask in the crowd's midst. 'Uncle moves against you! He killed Inri to keep you from knowing!'
But his mother had already caught sight of her prostrate son, had already jostled her way to the fore.
'Esmi…' Maithanet began. 'You have to und-'
'I don't care how it happened,' she interrupted, drifting more than walking toward the form of her son on the floor, his flushed nakedness becoming ever more grey. She teetered over him as if he were a fatal plummet.
'Did you do this, Esmi?' the Shriah persisted, his voice imperious. 'Did you plan this to-'
'Did I do what?' she said in a voice so calm it could only be crazed. 'Plan for you to murder my son?'
'Esmi…' he began.
But some sights commanded silence-even from a Dunyain. For several giddy, horrifying moments, Kelmomas did not so much see his mother slump to her knees as he saw the Empress of the Three Seas collapse. A stranger. He told himself it was the mask, but when she pulled it from her face, the profile of cheek and brow did not seem familiar to him.
Holding the thing in ginger fingers, she set it upon Inrilatas's shattered brow.
Low thunder rumbled through the cell. Rain hissed and thrummed.
'Before,' she said, her head still down. 'Before, I knew I could defeat you…'
The Holy Shriah of the Thousand Temples stood imperious and scowling. 'How?'
She shrugged like someone weary beyond all suffering. 'A story Kellhus once told me about a wager between a god and a hero… a test of courage.'
Maithanet watched her with the absolute absence of expression.
She looked up to him, her eyes red and welling. 'I sometimes think he was warning me… Against him. Against my children… Against you.'
She turned back to her dead son.
'He told me this story revealed the great vulnerability of the Dunyain.' She brushed a lock of hair from the mask upon Inrilatas's face. Blood had continued to drain, pooling, chasing the seams, soaking the nethers of her gown. 'You need only be willing to sacrifice yourself…'
'Esmi… You have been decei-'
' I was so willing, Maitha. And I knew you would see… see this in me, realize that I would let all the Empire burn to war against you, and that you would capitulate the way all the others have capitulated to my sovereign will.'
'Esmenet… Sister, please… Relinquish this madn-'
'But what… what you have done… here…' Her head dropped like a doll's, and her voice faded to a whisper. 'Maitha… You have killed my boy… my… my son.'
She frowned, as if only now grasping the consequences, then glared at her Exalt-Captain.
'Imhailas… Seize him.'
They crowded about the entrance, a small mob of astounded souls. Until now, the statuesque Norsirai officer had stood motionless, watching with a horrified pallor. Now Kelmomas almost giggled, so comic was his shock. 'Your Glory?'
'Esmi…' Maithanet said, something dark growling through his voice. 'I will not be taken.'
He simply turned and began striding down the marmoreal halls.
