stood on the low dais, dispensing trivial instructions to a small mob of functionaries. The Ekkinu, the sorcerous arras that framed the throne, writhed gold on black with the utter absence of motion. Glimpsing Proyas, Kellhus gestured for him to stand at his side.
His thoughts racing, the Exalt-General took his place next to the throne, convinced he could feel the sinuous, symbolic twine of the Ekkinu in the air behind him. He had never been able to fathom the significance of the Nonmen to the Ordeal-especially since whatever strength they could muster would be but a fraction of their former glory-and scarcely anything at all compared with the might of the Great Ordeal-at least in his humble, human opinion. But Kellhus had sent hundreds to their death, if not thousands, in his perpetual attempts to contact Nil'giccas: small fleets charged with leaving the Three Seas and running the coasts of Zeum, thence into the mists of the Ocean and the legendary shores of Injor-Niyas.
All in the name of striking an alliance with a ten-thousand-year-old king.
Another question to trouble their discussions.
Proyas gazed up into the gloom of the tented heights. Only three braziers had been lighted, so they seemed a small island of illumination surrounded by half-glimpsed Circumfix banners and walls and panels so dim as to be nothing more than the ghosts of structure.
The slaves and functionaries withdrew, taking the air of carnival bustle with them. Save for the shadowy guards posted about the chamber's perimeter, it was just the two of them.
'I have pulled aside the harem beads,' Kellhus said. 'And you find my wives ugly…'
The Exalt-General coughed aloud, such was his consternation. 'What?'
'Your question,' Kellhus said, chuckling. He spoke in the wry, warm tones of a friend who has always dwelt several paces closer to the peace that truth delivers. 'You wonder how it is you can doubt after so many years of witness and miracle.'
'I… I'm not sure I understand.'
'There's a reason Men prefer their prophets dead, Proyas.'
Kellhus stared askance at his Exalt-General, one eyebrow hooked in Do-you-see? curiosity.
And Proyas did see-he realized that he had understood all along. His question, he suddenly realized, was no question at all but instead a complaint. He did not doubt so much as yearn…
For the simplicity of simple belief.
'We begin believing when we are children,' Kellhus continued. 'And so we make childish expectations our rule, the measure for what the holy should be…' He gestured to the ornamentation about them, spare as it was compared with the fleshpots of the South. 'Simplicity. Symmetry. Beauty. These are but the appearance of the holy-the gilding that deceives. What is holy is difficult, ugly beyond comprehension, in the eyes of all save the God.'
Just then, the Pillarian Seneschal announced the visitors.
'Remember,' Kellhus murmured as a mother might. 'Forgive them their peculiarities…'
Three striding figures resolved from the gloom, hooded in black cloaks that shone as though slicked in rain.
'And beware their beauty.'
The foremost figure paused immediately below them, threw back his cloak, which slipped into a pool of kneaded folds about the heels of his boots. His scalp gleamed with the pallor of cold mutton fat. His face was alarming, as much for its perfection as for its resemblance to the Sranc. He wore a hauberk that was at once a gown, one that baffled the eyes for the wrought delicacy of the chain: innumerable serpents no larger than the clippings of a child's nails.
'I am Nin'sariccas,' the Nonman announced in High Kuniuric, a language Proyas had spent years mastering so he could read The Sagas in their original tongue. 'Dispossessed Son of Siol, Emissary of his Most Subtle Glory, Nil'giccas, King of Injor-Niyas…' His bow fell far short of what jnan demanded. 'We have ridden long and hard to find you.'
Kellhus regarded him the way he regarded all penitents who found their way to his feet: as someone who had stumbled out of wintry desolation into the warm, sultry glow of summer.
'You are surprised,' he said in a voice that easily matched the melodious resonance of the Nonman's. 'You thought us doomed.'
A serpentine blink. The preternatural eyes clicked to the Aspect-Emperor's right-to the sorcerous arras, Proyas realized. He understood what Kellhus had meant by peculiarities. Something about the ghoul's manner followed unexpected lines. For the first time he noticed that the Nonman stood nude beneath the gleam of his nimil hauberk.
'Nil'giccas sends his greetings,' Nin'sariccas said. 'Even in an age so dark, the light that is the Aspect- Emperor shines for all to see.'
A leonine nod.
'Then Ishterebinth is with us?'
The Emissary's air of vague distraction lapsed into outright insolence. Rather than answer, Nin'sariccas peered across the Eleven Pole Chamber's airy interior, then, with the remote reserve of those careful to conceal their disgust, considered Proyas and the Pillarian Guards flanking him. Weathering the inhuman scrutiny, Proyas suffered a strange twinge of inadequacy, one he imagined caste-menials felt in the presence of nobles: a presentiment of bodily and spiritual inferiority.
Like the angels of a long-dead god, the Nonmen stood rigid with a pride that had out-lived their glory. Only the mien and manner of the Aspect-Emperor dwarfed them-a sun to their moon.
'The memory of your forefather's treachery…' the Emissary finally replied, his gaze lingering on Proyas, 'burns bright with us. For some, Anasurimbor is the very name of Mannish arrogance and disorder.'
At this, several Pillarians loosened their broadswords in their scabbard. Proyas was quick in raising his hand to restrain them, knowing the Nonman spoke from the vantage of ages, that for them, generations of Men were as fleeting as mice. They had no grave to swallow their ancient grudges.
Kellhus betrayed no consciousness of the affront. He leaned forward in a familiar way, rested his elbows on his knees, clasped his haloed hands.
'Is Ishterebinth with us?'
A long, cold gaze. For the first time Proyas noticed how the two Nonmen accompanying Nin'sariccas held their eyes down as though in ritual shame.
'Yes,' the Emissary said. 'The Sacred Ishroi of Injor-Niyas will add voice and shield to your Ordeal… If you retake Dagliash. If you honour the Niom.'
Proyas had never heard of the Niom. Dagliash, he knew, was the fortress the ancient High Norsirai had raised to guard against Golgotterath. It stood to reason that the ghouls would want some guarantee of success before casting their lot.
'Have you seen the massacre we have wrought?' Kellhus cried in the semblance of a more impassioned ruler. 'No Horde so great has been overcome. Not Pir-Pahal. Not Eleneot. No age of Man or Nonman has seen a host such as the one I have assembled!' He stood to peer into the Emissary's inhuman face, and somehow the World seemed to lean with him, milky with the roar of intangible things.
'The Great Ordeal will reach Golgotterath.'
The Exalt-General had seen innumerable men-strong, proud men-shrivel beneath the Aspect-Emperor's divine scrutiny, so many that it had come to seem a law of nature. But Nin'sariccas remained as remote as before.
'If you retake Dagliash. If you honour the Niom.'
Proyas took care not to look at his Lord-and-God directly, knowing that the sight of subordinates watching their rulers would be taken as a sign of weakness. But he found himself desperately curious as to the intricacies of Kellhus's expression-the art. Proyas had witnessed many men deny the Aspect-Emperor through the years, either through him, as was the case with King Harweel of Sakarpus, or directly. But never in circumstances so extraordinary.
Daring souls, and foolish, given that so few yet breathed.
'Agreed,' the Aspect-Emperor said.
A concession? Why did he need these inhuman ghouls?
Once again, Nin'sariccas's bow fell far short of what jnan demanded. He lifted his aquiline face. His glittering black gaze fell to Kellhus's waist, to the abominations hanging from his hip.
