'We are curious…' the Nonman said. 'The Ciphrang bound about your girdle. Is it true you have walked the Outside and returned?'
Kellhus resumed his seat, leaned back with a single foot extended. 'Yes.'
An almost imperceptible nod. 'And what did you find?'
Kellhus propped his face with his right hand, two fingers pressed to his temple. 'You worry that I never truly returned,' he said mildly. 'That the soul of Anasurimbor Kellhus writhes in some hell and a demon Ciphrang gazes upon you instead.'
The Decapitants, as the demonic heads had come to be called, were something wilfully ignored by many among the Zaudunyani. A kind of indigestible proof. Proyas was one of few who knew something about their acquisition, how Kellhus, during one of the longer truces that punctuated the Unification Wars, spent several weeks studying with Heramari Iyokus, the Grandmaster of the Scarlet Spires, learning the darkest ways of Anagogic sorcery, the Daimos. Proyas had been among the first to see them when he returned from Carythusal and perhaps the first to dare ask Kellhus what had happened. His reply loomed large among the many unforgettable things the man had told him over the years: 'There are two species of revelation, my old friend. Those that seize, and those that are seized. The first are the province of the priest, the latter belong to the sorcerer…'
Even after so many years, his skin still prickled in revulsion when he glimpsed the Decapitants. But unlike many of the faithful, Proyas never forgot that his prophet was also a mage, a Shaman, not unlike those so piously condemned by the Tusk. His was the New Covenant, the sweeping away of all the old measures. So many former sins had become new virtues. Women had claimed the privileges of men. Sorcerers had become priests.
Obscenity should hang from the waist of Salvation, or so it had come to seem.
'Such thefts…' Nin'sariccas said with passionless tact. 'Such substitutions. They have happened before.'
'Why should you care,' Kellhus said, 'if your hatred is satisfied, your ancient foe at last destroyed? Ever have Men been ruled by tyrants. Why should you care what soul lies behind our cruelty?'
A single inhuman blink. 'May I touch you?'
'Yes.'
The Emissary instantly stepped forward, sparking cries and the baring of weapons throughout the gloom.
'Leave him,' Kellhus said.
Nin'sariccas had paused immediately above the Aspect-Emperor, the hem of his chain gown swaying. For the first time he betrayed something resembling indecision, and Proyas realized the creature was, in his own inhuman manner, terrified. The Exalt-General almost smiled, such was his gratification.
The Emissary extended a sallow hand…
Which the Aspect-Emperor clasped in a firm, human grip. For a heartbeat, it seemed that worlds, let alone the shadowy confines of the Eleven Pole Chamber, dangled from their grasp.
Sun and moon. Man and Nonman.
The clasp broke with the gliding of fingers.
'What did you see?' Nin'sariccas asked with what seemed genuine curiosity. 'What did you find?'
'God… broken into a million warring splinters.'
A grim nod. 'We worship the spaces between the Gods.'
'Which is why you are damned.'
Another nod, this one strangely brittle. 'As False Men.'
The Aspect-Emperor nodded in stoic regret. 'As False Men.'
The Emissary retreated from the dais, resumed his place at the fore of his voiceless companions. 'And why should the False Men lend their strength to the True?'
'Because of Hanalinqu,' the Holy Aspect-Emperor of the Three Seas declared. 'Because of Cu'jara Cinmoi. Because four thousand years ago, all your wives and daughters were murdered… and you were cursed to go mad in the shadow of that memory, to live forever, dying their deaths.'
Nin'sariccas bowed yet again, this time deeper, yet still far short of honouring jnan.
'If you retake Dagliash,' he said. 'If you honour the Niom.'
As he had every morning since the Battle of the Horde, Sorweel awoke before the Interval's toll. He lay aching in his cot, more pinched than warmed by his woollen blanket, blinking at the impossibility of his straits. Other than a residue of warmth that made cold dismay of his every waking, nothing sensible remained of his dreams. He knew only that he dreamed of better places. He could only dream of better places.
Zsoronga lay on his side as he always did, one arm thrown askew, his face the image of boyish bliss. Sorweel regarded him for a bleary moment, thinking as he often thought that the man's future wives would love him best like this, in the innocence of his mornings. The young King crept from his cot, fumbled with his gear in the dawning pallor, then slipped outside so as to not disturb his brother from Zeum.
He savoured the chill of breathing open sky, rubbed his bearding chin as he gazed out across the encampment. He felt the clamour to come, the rousing of thousands about him, and the warring of doubts within. Another day marching with the Great Ordeal. The discomfort of long watches in the saddle. The ligatures of sweat. The ache of perpetual squinting. The anxiousness of the accumulating Horde. And for a fleeting moment, he knew the peace of those first to awaken-the gratitude that accompanies solitary lulls.
He sat on his rump to labour with his riding boots.
'Truth shines…' a voice chimed.
'Truth shines,' habit replied for him.
Anasurimbor Serwa stood before him, her silken billows knotted tight about her slight form. She had appeared without the merest inkling. From his first glimpse, Sorweel knew he would crouch peering after her departure, looking for her footfalls across the trampled dust. She stood to his left, beneath the arch of the bluing sky. Crimson gilded the edges of the tents jumbled behind her.
She drew back a lick of flaxen hair from her cheek.
'The Charioteer you and my brother found… Father has met with them.'
'The Embassy…' Sorweel said, squinting up at her. 'Kayutas said your father hopes to forge a treaty with Ishterebinth.'
She smiled. 'You know of Ishterebinth in Sakarpus?'
He scowled and shrugged. 'From The Sagas… None thought it real.'
'The mightiest among the Quya dwell there still.'
He did not know what to say so he turned back to his boots. He never felt the Goddess so fiercely as when he found himself before Serwa or Kayutas. His cheeks literally prickled. And yet at the same time, he never felt so unworthy of the Mother's dread design. To stand before the Anasurimbor was to doubt… things old.
'The Nonmen have invoked Niom,' she said. 'An ancient ritual.'
Something in her tone seized his attention. She had sounded almost embarrassed.
'I don't understand.'
Her gaze had recovered its remote vantage. She considered him with a serenity that he yearned to muddy with his passion…
Evil. How could someone so beautiful be evil?
'The ancient Nonmen Kings found Men too mercurial,' she explained, 'too proud and headstrong to be trusted. So in all their dealings they demanded hostages as a guarantee: a son, a daughter, and a captive enemy. The two former as a surety against treachery. The latter as a surety against deception.'
The sun broke behind her. Light unfurled in a burning fan about her silhouette.
'And I am to play the enemy,' he said, holding a hand out against her glare.
What new twist was this?
'Yes,' her shadow replied against the high drone of the Interval.
He had expected her to vanish, to wink out of existence the same way she had winked in. But she simply turned and began walking at an angle to the eastern sun. Her shadow floated across the trampled earth, drawn as long and slender as a felled sapling. With every step she became smaller, a mere wisp before the enormity of dawn…
Ever more lonely and afraid.
