A keening shriek pealed through the air. Kellhus saw the larger gandoki player stumble and fall beneath the fists of several Galeoth who’d broken from the crowd. But the screaming came from his smaller opponent. Kellhus glimpsed the man between shadowy legs, blistered from the fire, smoking coals still embedded in his right shoulder and arm.
Others came rushing to the larger man’s defence … A knife flashed. Blood slopped across the packed ground.
Kellhus glanced at Sarcellus, who stood rigid, utterly absorbed by the mayhem unfolding before them. Pupils dilated. Arrested breath. Quickened pulse …
It possesses involuntary responses.
Its right hand, Kellhus noted, lingered near his groin, as though straining against some overpowering masturbatory compulsion. Its thumb stroked its forefinger.
Another cry rang out.
The thing called Sarcellus fairly trembled with ardour. These things hungered, Kellhus realized. They
ached
.
Of all the rude animal impulses that coerced and battered the intellect, none possessed the subtlety or profundity of carnal lust. In some measure, it tinctured nearly every thought, impelled nearly every act. This was what made Serwë so invaluable. Without realizing, every man at Xinemus’s fire—with the exception of the Scylvendi—knew they best wooed her by pandering to Kellhus. And they could do naught but woo her.
But Sarcellus, it was clear, ached for a different species of congress. One involving suffering and violence. Like the Sranc, these skin-spies continually yearned to rut with their knives. They shared the same maker, one who had harnessed the venal beast within their slaves, sharpened it as one might a spear point.
The Consult.
“Galeoth,” Sarcellus remarked with an offhand grin, “are forever cutting their own throats, forever culling their own herd.”
The brawl had been cut short by the ranting of Earl Anfirig. Carried hanging from arms and legs, three bloodied men were being hurried from the fire.
“‘They strive,’” Kellhus said, quoting Inri Sejenus, “‘for they know not what. So they cry villainy, and claim others stand in their way’ …”
Somehow the Consult knew he’d been instrumental to the Emperor’s discovery of Skeaös. The question was whether his role had been incidental or otherwise. If they suspected he could somehow see their skin-spies, they would be forced to balance the immediate threat of exposure against the need to know
how
he could see them.
I must walk the line between, make myself a mystery they must solve
…
Kellhus stared at the thing for a bold moment. When it feigned a scowl, he said, “No, please, indulge me … There’s something about you … About your face.”
“Is that why you watched me so in the amphitheatre?”
For a heartbeat, Kellhus opened himself to the legion within. He needed more information. He needed to know, which meant he needed a weakness, a vulnerability …
This Sarcellus is new.
“Was I
that
indiscreet?” Kellhus said. “I apologize … I was thinking of what you said to me that night in the Unaras at the ruined shrine … You made quite an impression.”
“And what did I say?”
It acknowledges its ignorance as any man would, any man with nothing to hide … These things are well-trained.
“You don’t recall?”
The imposter shrugged. “I say many things.” With a smirk it added, “I have a beautiful voice …”
Kellhus simulated a frown. “Are you playing with me? Playing some kind of game?”
The counterfeit face clenched into a scowl. “I assure you, I’m not. Just what did I say?”
“That something had happened,” Kellhus began apprehensively, “that the endless …
hunger,
I think you said …”
Something like a twitch—too faint for world-born eyes—flickered across its expression.
“Yes,” Kellhus continued. “The endless hunger …”
“What about it?”
A near imperceptible tightening of pitch, quickening of cadence.
“You told me you weren’t what you seemed. You told me you
weren’t a Shrial Knight
.”
Another twitch, like a spider answering a shiver through its silk.
These things can be read.
“You deny this?” Kellhus pressed. “Are you telling me you don’t remember?”
The face had become as impassive as a palm. “What else did I say?”
It’s confused … Uncertain as to what to do.
“Things I could scarcely credit at the time. You said you’d been assigned to coordinate observation of the Mandate Schoolman, and to that end you’d seduced his lover, Esmenet. You said that I was in great danger, that your masters thought I had some hand in some disaster in the Emperor’s court. You said that you were prepared to help …”
The creases and wrinkles of its expression jerked into a network of hairline cracks, as though sucking humid night air.
“Did I tell you why I confessed all this?”
“Because you’d hungered for it too … But what’s this? You really
don’t remember,
do you?”
“I remember.”
“Then
what is this?
Why have you become so … so
coy?
You seem different.”
“Perhaps I’ve reconsidered.”
So much. In the span of moments, Kellhus had confirmed his hypotheses regarding the Consult’s immediate interests, and he’d uncovered the rudiments of what he needed to read these creatures. But most important, he’d sown the threat of betrayal. How could Kellhus possibly know what he knew, they would ask, unless the original Sarcellus had actually told him? Whatever their ends, the Consult depended, through and through, upon total secrecy. One defection could undo everything. If they feared for the reliability of their field agents—these skin-spies—they would be forced to restrict their autonomy and to proceed with more caution.
In other words, they would be forced to yield the one commodity Kellhus required more than any other:
time
. Time to dominate this Holy War. Time to find Anasûrimbor Moënghus.
He was one of the Conditioned, Dûnyain, and he followed the shortest path. The Logos.
The surrounding crowds had settled into rumbling conversations, and both Kellhus and Sarcellus looked to the bonfire. A towering Gesindalman, his hair bound into a war-knot, raised the gandoki sticks high against the night sky, crying out for more challengers. Laughing, the thing called Sarcellus seized Kellhus by the forearm and pulled him into the raucous circle. The crowd began thundering anew.
It believed me.
Did it improvise? Was it acting out of panic? Or was this its intent all along? There was no question of refusing the challenge, not in the company of warlike men. The resulting loss of face would be crippling.
Washed by the heat of the bonfire, they stripped, Kellhus to the linen kilt he wore beneath his blue-silk cassock, Sarcellus to nothing, in the fashion of Nansur athletes. The Galeoth howled in ridicule, but the thing called Sarcellus seemed oblivious. They stood a length apart, appraising each other while two Agmundrmen bound their wrists to the poles. The Gesindalman jerked each pole to ensure it was secure, then without a glance at either of them, he cried, “Gaaaan
doch!
”
Shadow.
Bare skin yellow in the firelight, they circled each other, lightly grasping the ends of their poles. Though still roaring, the crowds trailed into silence, fell away altogether, until there was only one figure, Sarcellus, occupying one
place
…
Kellhus.
Sheets of muscle flexing beneath fire-shining skin, many anchored and connected in inhuman ways. Dilated eyes watching,
studying,
from a knuckled face. Steady pulse. Tumid phallus, hardening. A mouth made of gracile fingers, moving, speaking …
“We are old, Anasûrimbor, very, very old. Age is power in this world.”
He was bound to a beast, Kellhus realized, to something, according to Achamian, begot in the bowels of Golgotterath. An abomination of the Old Science, the Tekne … Possibilities bloomed, like branches twining through the open air of the improbable.
“Very many,” it hissed, “have thought to play the game you now play.”
Losing was the simplest solution, but weakness incited contempt, invited aggression.
“We’ve had a thousand thousand foes through the millennia, and we’ve made shrieking agonies of their hearths, wildernesses of their nations, mantles of their skins …”
But defeating this creature could render Kellhus too much a threat.
“All of them, Anasûrimbor, and you are no different.”
He must strike some kind of balance. But how?
Kellhus thrust with his right, heaved with his left, tried to draw Sarcellus off-balance. Nothing. It was as though the poles had been harnessed to a bull. Preternatural reflexes. And strong—very strong.
Strategies revised. Alternatives revisited. The thing called Sarcellus grinned, his phallus now curved like a bow against his belly. To be aroused by battle or competition, Kellhus knew, occasioned great honour among the Nansur.
How strong is it?
Kellhus leaned into the poles, elbows back, as though holding a wheel-barrow, and
pushed.
Sarcellus adopted the same stance. Muscle strained, knotted, gleaming as though oiled. The ash poles creaked.
“Who are you?” Kellhus cried under his breath.
Sarcellus grunted, its fists shaking, sinking to its waist, then it yanked. Kellhus skidded forward. The instant of his imbalance, it jerked around, as though throwing a discus. Kellhus caught himself, heaved back on both poles. Then they were dancing around the clearing, jerking and thrusting, matching move with countermove, each the perfect shadow of the other …
Between heartbeats, Kellhus tracked the shift and sway of its centre of balance, an abstract point marked by the peak of its erection. He observed repetitions, recognized patterns, tested anticipations, all the while analyzing the possibilities of the game, the manifold lines of move and consequence. He restricted himself to an elegant yet limited repertoire of moves, luring it into habits, reflexive responses …
“What do you want?” he cried.
Then he improvised.
From a near crouch, he kicked down on the left pole while throwing up his left arm, and punching out with his right. Its right hand slammed to the earth, Sarcellus doubled forward and was thrown back. For an instant it resembled a man bound to a falling boulder …
It kicked free of the ground, trying to somersault back to its feet. Kellhus yanked the poles backward, tried to slam it onto its stomach. Somehow it managed to pull its left leg, knee to chest, underneath in time. Its right foot scooped into the fire …
A shower of ash and coals went streaming into the air, not to blind Kellhus, but to
obscure
the two of them, he realized, from the watching Galeoth …
It jerked both arms back and out, thrust itself forward between the poles, kicked. Kellhus blocked with his own shin and ankle—once, twice …
It means to kill me
… An unfortunate accident while playing a barbaric Galeoth game.
Kellhus jerked his arms inward and across, caught the thing’s third kick with the bisecting poles. For a heartbeat, he held the advantage in balance. He thrust it backward, heaved it nude into the golden flames …
Perhaps if I injure …
Then yanked it forward.
A mistake. Unharmed, Sarcellus landed running, barrelled Kellhus backward with inhuman strength, slammed him into the packed Galeoth masses, bowling men over and forcing others to scramble clear. Once, twice, Kellhus almost fell, then his back slammed against something heavy—a tent frame. It collapsed with a crack and the wedge tent went down, under, and they were in the darkness beyond the enclosure—where the thing, Kellhus realized, hoped to kill.
This must end!
His feet caught hard earth. Bracing his legs, grasping the poles, he dipped and wrenched upward, wheeling Sarcellus high into the night air. The thing’s astonishment lasted only a heartbeat, and it managed to crack one of the poles with a kick … Kellhus slapped it to the ground like a flag.
The place became a man, slick with perspiration, breathing deep.
The first of the Galeoth sprinted over the demolished tent, calling for torches, stumbling in the sudden darkness. They saw Sarcellus pressing himself to his hands and knees at Kellhus’s feet. As astounded as they were, they bawled out Kellhus’s name, acclaiming him victor.
What have I done, Father?
As they unbound his wrists, slapping him on the back and swearing they’d never seen the like, Kellhus could only watch Sarcellus, who slowly pulled himself to his feet.