'He fights us with pins rather than swords!' Nganka'kull exclaimed.
Malowebi had read The Compendium by this time. The book found its way to High Domyot more by accident than anything-or what amounted to the same, the Whore's whim. An Ainoni spice merchant named Parmerses had been seized under suspicion of spying, and the manuscript was discovered among his belongings. Of course, the man was summarily executed once his captors discovered the falsity of the charges against him, long before the importance of the work was understood, so questions regarding the book's provenance remained unanswered.
But once it was read, it was quickly traded among the wise and mighty. Malowebi had been gratified to learn that he was the sixth person to read The Compendium — no less than seven people before that fool, Likaro!
Drusas Achamian's revelations occasioned more than several sleepless nights. The wry humility of the tome, as well as the numerous references to Ajencis, convinced him the exiled Mandate Schoolman was a kindred intellect. The difficulty lay in the sheer audacity of what the Wizard alleged about the Aspect-Emperor: the idea of a man so quick, so cunning, that he, Malowebi, among the foremost sorcerers of his age-greater than Likaro by far- was nothing but a child in comparison. It was a thing too strange to credit. In all of the Kuburu, the accumulated legends of Zeum, the hero's exalted trait was always strength, skill, or passion-never intellect. A miraculously accurate archer. A miraculously ardent lover…
Never a miraculously penetrating thinker, one who used truth as his primary instrument of deception.
But why? Malowebi found himself asking. It was a puzzle that deepened as more and more of his brothers expressed their skepticism of The Compendium. 'A cuckold's fancy,' Likaro had sneered, thus confirming its veracity in Malowebi's more discriminating eyes.
Why should the notion of a Thought-dancer rest so uneasy in the souls of Men?
Because, the Mbimayu sorcerer realized, they made what they already believed the measure of what others believed. Not the World, and certainly not Reason. This was what rendered them blind to a being such as Anasurimbor Kellhus, one who could play on innumerable strands of thought and weave that agreement into designs of his making. It reminded him of a passage from Ajencis, a thinker he secretly esteemed more than Memgowa: 'The world is a circle that has as many centres as it has men.' For someone who assumed he was the centre of his world, the thought of a man who occupied the true centre, who need only walk into a room to displace all those present within it, had to be as odious as it was incomprehensible.
Was the Aspect-Emperor a prophet as he claimed? Was he a demon as Fanayal believed-Kurcifra? Or was he inhuman in a more mundane sense, the harbinger of a new race, the Dunyain, dreadful for the symmetry between their strength and human frailty…
A race of perfect manipulators. Thought-dancers.
If he were a prophet, then he and Mandate Schoolmen were right: the Second Apocalypse, despite what all the oracles and priests claimed, was evident, and Zeum should enter into an alliance with him. If he were a demon, then Zeum should arm for immediate war, now, before he achieved his immediate goals, for demons were simply Hungers from the abyss, insatiable in their pursuit of destruction.
And if he were Dunyain?
Malowebi did not believe in prophets. You must first believe in Men before you could do that, and no serious student of Memgowa or Ajencis could do that. Malowebi most certainly believed in possessing demons-he had seen them with his own eyes. But demons, for all their cunning, were never subtle, certainly not to the degree of the Aspect-Emperor. No demon could have written the magisterial lies told in the Novum Arcanum.
Dunyain… whatever that meant. The Aspect-Emperor had to be Dunyain.
The problem, the Mbimayu sorcerer had realized, was that this conclusion in no way clarified the dilemma facing his nation and his people. Would not a Dunyain bend all his effort and power to prevent his own destruction? Even without Drusas Achamian and his allegations, one could easily argue that Anasurimbor Kellhus was among the greatest intellects to walk the earth. What could induce such a man to tip the bowl of the entire Three Seas, drain it to its dregs, in the name of warring against a nursemaid's cruel tale?
Could these truly be the first days of the Second Apocalypse?
Nonsense. Madness.
But…
When his family first yielded him to the Mbimayu, the Pedagogue of the School had been an ancient soul named Zabwiri, a legendary scholar, and a rare true disciple of Memgowa. For whatever reason, the old man had chosen him to be his body-servant for his final, declining years-a fact that some, like Likaro, begrudged him still. An intimacy had grown between them, one that only those who care for the dying can know. The pain had become increasingly difficult for the old man to manage, toward the end. He would sit in his little garden, shivering in the sunlight, while Malowebi hovered helpless about him. 'Question me!' he would bark with amiable fury. 'Pester me with your infinite ignorance!'
'Master,' Malowebi once asked, 'what is the path to truth?'
'Ah, little Malo,' old Zabwiri had replied, 'the answer is not so difficult as you think. The trick is to learn how to pick out fools. Look for those who think things simple, who abhor uncertainty, and who are incapable of setting aside their summary judgment. And above all, look for those who believe flattering things. They are the true path to wisdom. For the claims they find the most absurd or offensive will be the ones most worthy of your attention.'
Without fail the Mbimayu sorcerer's heart caught whenever he recalled these words: because he had loved Zabwiri, because of the way this answer embodied the wry, upside-down wisdom of the man. And now, because of the direction they pointed him…
The Aspect-Emperor a genuine prophet? The myths of the No-God's resurrection true?
These were the claims that Likaro found the most absurd and offensive. And in all the world there was no greater fool.
Horns were clawing the sky by the time she tripped clear of the tenement's gloom. Imhailas stood motionless in the middle of the street, his face raised in the blind way of those who peered after sounds.
The horns did not belong to either the Army or the Guard-yet she knew she had heard them before. They blared, climbed high and long enough to flush her heart with cold.
'What happens?' she asked her Exalt-Captain, who had not seen her, such was the intensity of his concentration.
He turned-looked at her with a fear she had never before seen in his face. A soldier's fear, not a courtier's.
'The horns…' he said, obviously debating his words. 'The signals… They belong to the Shrial Knights.'
Several heartbeats separated her soul from her dread. At first, all she could do was stare up into the man's beautiful face. She thought of the way his eyebrows arched just before he reached his bliss. 'What are you saying?' she finally managed to ask.
He looked to what sky they could see between the dark facades looming to either side of them.
'They sound like they're coming from different parts of the city…'
'What are they signalling?'
He stood rigid. Beyond him, she could see several others down the winding length of the street, mulling and listening the same as they did.
'Imhailas! What are they signalling?'
He looked to her, sucked his lips tight to his teeth in an expression of deliberation.
'Attack,' he said. 'They're coordinating some kind of attack.'
Running simply seized her, threw her back the way they had come.
But Imhailas was upon her in a matter of strides, clutching her shoulders, begging her to stop, to think, in hushed and hurried tones.
'Smoke!' she heard herself cry. 'From the room! I saw smoke to the east! The palace, Imhailas! They attack the palace!'
But he had known this already. 'We have to think,' he said firmly. 'Calculation is what sorts rash acts from bold.'
Another proverb he had memorized. Her hands fairly floated with the urge to scratch out his eyes. Such a fool! How could she conspire, let alone couple, with such a fool?
'Unhand me!' she gasped in fury.
He raised his hands and stepped back. Something in her tone had struck all expression from his face, and a
