The Warrior Prophet (44 page)

Read The Warrior Prophet Online

Authors: R. Scott Bakker

As Kellhus had known he would.
 
General Martemus had always considered himself a practical man. He was someone who always clarified his tasks, then methodically set about achieving his goals. He had no birthright, no pampered childhood, to cloud his judgement. He simply saw, appraised, and acted. The world was not so complicated, he would tell his junior officers, so long as one remained clearheaded and ruthlessly practical.
See. Appraise. Act.
He had lived his life by this philosophy. How easily it had been defeated.
The task had seemed straightforward, if somewhat unusual, in the beginning. Watch Prince Anasûrimbor Kellhus of Atrithau, and attempt to gain his confidence. If the man collected followers to some insidious purpose, as Conphas suspected, then a Nansur General suffering a crisis of faith should have proven an irresistible opportunity.
It did not. Martemus had attended at least a dozen of his evening sermons, or “imprompta,” as they were calling them, before the man had even acknowledged him with a single word.
Of course, Conphas, who always faulted his executors before his assumptions, had held Martemus responsible. There could be no doubt Kellhus was Cishaurim, because he was connected to Skeaös, who was indubitably Cishaurim. There could be no doubt the man played the prophet, not after the incident with Saubon. And there could be no way the man
knew
that Martemus was bait, since Conphas had told no one of his plan other than Martemus. Therefore,
Martemus
had failed, even if Martemus was too obstinate to see this for himself.
But this was merely one of innumerable petty injustices Conphas had foisted on him over the years. Even if Martemus had cared to take insult, which was unlikely, he was far too busy being afraid.
He wasn’t quite sure when it happened, but at some point during the long march across Gedea, General Martemus, as eminently practical as he was, had ceased believing that Prince Kellhus
played
the prophet. This didn’t mean he thought the man
was
in fact a prophet—Martemus remained practical in that respect—only that he no longer knew what he believed …
But soon he would, and the prospect terrified him. Martemus was also an intensely loyal man, and he treasured his position as Ikurei Conphas’s aide de camp. He often thought he’d been
born
to serve under the mercurial Exalt-General, to balance the man’s undeniable brilliance with more sober, more dependable observations.
The prodigy must be reminded of the practical,
he would often think. No matter how delectable the spices, one could not do without salt.
But if Kellhus was in fact … What happened to his loyalty then?
Martemus pondered this while sitting among the steaming thousands who’d gathered to hear Prince Kellhus’s first sermon since the madness of reaching Shigek. Before him loomed ancient Xijoser, the Great Ziggurat, a mountain of corniced and polished black stone so massive it seemed he should cover his face and fall to his belly. The luxuriant plains of the Sempis Delta swept out in either direction, embellished by lesser ziggurats, waterways, reed marshes, and endless rice paddies. The sun flared white in desert skies.
Throughout the crowds, men and women talked and laughed. For a time Martemus watched the couple before him share a humble repast of onions and bread. Then he realized those sitting around him were taking care to avoid his look. His uniform and blue cloak probably frightened them, he thought, made him appear a caste-noble. He looked from neighbour to distracted neighbour, trying to think of something he might say to set them at ease. But he couldn’t bring himself to utter the first word.
A profound loneliness struck him. He thought of Conphas once again.
Then he saw Prince Kellhus, small and distant, descending Xijoser’s monumental stair. Martemus smiled, as though finding an old friend in a foreign market.
What will he say?
When he first started attending the imprompta, Martemus had assumed the talks would be either heretical or easily dismissed. They were neither. Indeed, Prince Kellhus recited the words of the Old Prophets and of Inri Sejenus as though they were his own. Nothing of what he said contradicted any of the innumerable sermons Martemus had heard over the course of his life—though those sermons often contradicted one another. It was as though the Prince pursued further truths, the unspoken implications of what all orthodox Inrithi already believed.
To listen to him, it seemed, was to learn what one already knew without knowing.
The Prince of God, some called him. He-who-sheds-light-within.
His white silk robes shining in the sunlight, Prince Kellhus paused on the ziggurat’s lower steps and looked over the restless masses. There was something glorious about his aspect, as though he’d descended not from the heights but from the heavens. With a flutter of dread Martemus realized he never saw the man
ascend
the ziggurat, nor even step from the ruin of the ancient godhouse upon its summit. He had just … noticed him.
The General cursed himself for a fool.
“The Prophet Angeshraël,” Prince Kellhus called, “came down from his fast on Mount Eshki.” The assembly fell absolutely silent, so much so that Martemus could hear the breeze buffet his ears. “Husyelt, the Tusk tells us, sent a hare to him, so he might eat at last. Angeshraël skinned the Hunter’s gift and struck a fire so he might feast. When he had eaten and was content, sacred Husyelt, the Holy Stalker, joined him at his fire, for the Gods in those days had not left the world in the charge of Men. Angeshraël, recognizing the God as the God, fell immediately to his knees before the fire, not thinking where he would throw his face.” The Prince suddenly grinned.
“Like a young man on his wedding night, he erred in his eagerness …”
Martemus laughed with a thousand others. Somehow the sun flashed brighter.
“And the God said, ‘Why does our Prophet fall to his knees only? Are not Prophets Men like other Men? Should they not throw their faces to the earth?’ To which Angeshraël replied, ‘I find my fire before me.’ And peerless Husyelt said, ‘The fire burns across earth, and what fire consumes becomes earth. I am your God. Throw your face to the earth.’”
The Prince paused.
“So Angeshraël, the Tusk tells us, bowed his head
into the flames
.”
Despite the close, humid air, Martemus’s skin pimpled. How many times, especially as a child, had he stared into some fire, struck by the errant thought of plunging his face into the flames—if only to feel what a Prophet once felt?
Angeshraël. The Burnt Prophet.
He lowered his face into fire! Fire!
“Like Angeshraël,” the Prince continued, “we find ourselves kneeling before just such a fire …”
Martemus caught his breath. Heat flared through him, or so it seemed.
“Truth!” Prince Kellhus cried, as though calling out a name that every man recognized. “The fire of Truth. The Truth of who you are …”
Somehow his voice had divided, become a chorus.
“You are frail. You are alone. Those who would love you know you not. You lust for obscene things. You fear even your
closest
brother. You understand far less than you pretend …
“You—
you!
—are these things. Frail, alone, unknown, lusting, fearing, and uncomprehending. Even
now
you can feel these truths burn. Even now”—he raised a hand as though to further quiet silent men—
“they consume you.”
He lowered his hand. “But you do not throw your face to the earth. You do not …”
His glittering eyes fell upon Martemus, who felt his throat tighten, felt the small finishing-hammer of his heart tap-tap-tap blood to his face.
He sees through me. He witnesses …
“But
why?
” the Prince asked, his timbre bruised by an old and baffling pain. “In the anguish of this fire lies the God. And in the God lies redemption.
Each
of you holds the key to your own redemption. You
already
kneel before it! But still you do not throw your face to the earth. You
are
frail. You
are
alone. Those who love you
know you not
. You lust for
obscene
things. You fear even your closest
brother
. And you understand far
less
than you pretend!”
Martemus grimaced. The words had drawn a pain from his bowels to the back of his throat and sent his thoughts reeling in giddy recognition of something at once familiar and estranged.
Me … He speaks of me!
“Is there any among you who would
deny
this?”
Silence. Somewhere, someone wept.
“But you
do
deny this!” Prince Kellhus cried, like a lover confronted by an impossible infidelity. “All of you! You kneel, but you also
cheat
—cheat the fire of your own heart! You give breath to lie after lie, clamour that this fire is
not
the Truth. That you are
strong
. That you are
not
alone. That those who love you
do
know you. That you lust
not
for obscene things. That you fear
not
your brother in any way. That you understand
everything!
”
How many times had Martemus lied thus? Martemus the practical man. Martemus the realistic man. How could he be these things if he
knew so well
of what Prince Kellhus spoke?
“But in the secret moments—yes, the
secret
moments—these denials ring hollow, do they not? In the secret moments you glimpse the anguish of Truth. In the secret moments you see that your life has been a mummer’s farce. And you weep! And you ask what is wrong! And you cry out, ‘Why cannot I be strong?’”
He leapt down several steps.
“Why cannot I be strong?”
Martemus’s throat ached!—ached as though he himself had bawled these words.
“Because,” the Prince said softly, “you lie.”
And Martemus thought madly:
Skin and hair … He’s just a man!
“You are frail because you
feign strength
.” The voice was disembodied now, and it whispered secretly into a thousand flushed ears. “You are alone because
you lie ceaselessly
. Those who love you do not know you because you
are a mummer
. You lust for obscene things because you deny
that you lust
. You fear your brother, because you fear
what he sees
. You understand little because to learn you must admit
you know nothing
.”
How could a life be cupped into a single palm?
“Do you see the tragedy?” the Prince implored. “The scriptures bid us to be godlike, to be
more
than what we are. And what are we? Frail men, with peevish hearts, envious hearts, choked by the shroud of our own lies. Men who
remain
frail because they cannot
confess their frailty
.”
And this word,
frail,
seemed pitched down from the heavens, from the Outside, and for an instant, the man who’d spoken it was no longer a man but the earthly surface of something far greater.
Frail
… Spoken not from the lips of a man, but from somewhere else …
And Martemus understood.
I sit in the presence of the God.
Horror and bliss.
Chafing his eyes. Blinding his skin. Everywhere.
The presence of the God.
To at last be
still,
to be braced by that which braced the very world, and to see at long last how far one had plummeted. And it seemed to Martemus that he was
here
for the first time, as though one could only truly be oneself—
be here!
—in the clearing that was God.
Here …
The impossibility of drawing sweet air through salty lips. The mystery of moving soul and furtive intellect. The grace of thronging passions. The impossibility.

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