The Warrior Prophet (93 page)

Read The Warrior Prophet Online

Authors: R. Scott Bakker

Wild terror lanced through its cringing thoughts: it knew what failure meant, but it couldn’t move. There was only obedience before the Architect, the Maker.
“But it wasn’t me! It was
them!
The Cishaurim command the Padirajah! It was their—”
“
Fault,
Gaörta?” the Old Father said. “The very poison we would suck from this world?”
The thing called Sarcellus raised its hands in desperate warding. All the monstrous and monumental glory of the Consult seemed to crash down upon him. “I’m sorry, please!”
The tiny eyes closed, but whether in weariness or in contemplation, the thing called Sarcellus could not tell. When they opened, they were as blue as cataracts. “One more task, Gaörta. One more task in the name of
spite
.”
It fell to its belly before the Synthese, writhed and grovelled in agony. “Anything!” it gasped. “Anything! I would cut out any heart! Pluck any eye! I would drag the whole world to oblivion!”
“The Holy War is doomed. We must deal with the Cishaurim some other way …” Again, the eyes clicked shut. “You must ensure this Kellhus dies with the Men of the Tusk. He must not escape.”
And the thing called Sarcellus forgot about snow. Vengeance! Vengeance would balm his blasted skin!
“Now,”
the palm-sized expression grated, and Gaörta had the sense of vast power, ancient and hoary, forced through a reed throat. Here and there, small showers of dust trailed down the broken walls.
“Close your face.”
Gaörta obeyed as he must, screamed as he must.
 
Proyas’s missive crumpled in his right hand, Cnaiür strode through a carpeted corridor belonging to the humble but strategically located villa where the Conriyan had chosen to sequester his household—or what remained of it. He paused before entering the bright square of the courtyard, stooping beneath the florid double-arched vaults peculiar to Kianene architecture. A dried orange peel, no longer than his thumb, lay curled in the dust encircling the black marble base of the left pilaster. Without thinking, he scooped it into his mouth, winced at the bitterness.
Every day he grew more hungry.
My son! How could he so name my son?
He found Proyas awaiting him near one of three brackish pools at the centre of the courtyard, loitering with two men he didn’t recognize: an imperial officer and a Shrial Knight. Mid-morning clouds formed a ponderous procession across the sky, drawing their shadows across the sun-bright confusion of the hills that loomed over the courtyard’s shaded porticos, particularly to the south and west.
Caraskand. The city that had become their tomb.
He does this to gall me. To remind me of the object of my hate!
Proyas caught sight of him first. “Cnaiür, good—”
“I don’t read,” he growled, tossing the crumpled sheaf at the Prince’s feet. “If you wish to confer with me, send
word,
not scratches.”
Proyas’s expression darkened. “But of course,” he said tightly. He nodded to the two strangers, as though trying to salvage some rigid semblance of jnanic decorum. “These men have made a claim—of sorts—in a bid to secure my support. I would have you confirm it.”
Struck by a sudden horror, Cnaiür stared at the imperial officer, recognizing the insignia stamped into the collar of his cuirass. And of course, there was the blue mantle …
The man frowned, exchanged a smiling, significant look with his companion.
“He grows lean in wits as well,” the officer said in a voice Cnaiür recognized all too well. He suddenly remembered it floating across the corpses of his kinsmen—at the Battle of Kiyuth. Ikurei Conphas … The Exalt-General stood before him! But how could he fail to recognize him?
But the madness lifts! It lifts!
Cnaiür blinked, saw himself seated upon Conphas’s chest, carving off his nose the way a child might draw in the mud. “What does he want?” he barked at Proyas. He glanced at the Shrial Knight, realizing he’d seen the man before as well, though he couldn’t recall his name. A small, golden Tusk hung about the Knight-Commander’s neck, cupped in the folds of his white surcoat.
Conphas answered in Proyas’s stead. “What I want, you barbaric lout, is the
truth
.”
“The truth?”
“Lord Sarcellus,” Proyas said, “claims to have news of Atrithau.”
Cnaiür stared at the man, for the first time noticing the bandages about his hands and the odd network of angry red lines across his sumptuous face. “Atrithau? But how is that possible?”
“Three men have come forward,” Sarcellus said, “out of the piety of their hearts. They swear that a man—a veteran of the northern caravans who perished in the desert—told them there was no way Prince Kellhus could be who he claims to be.” The Shrial Knight smiled in a peculiar fashion—obviously the burns, or whatever marred his face, were quite painful. “Apparently the scandal of Atrithau,” Sarcellus continued inexorably, “is that its King, Aethelarius, has
no live heirs
. The House of Morghund is about to flicker out—forever, they say. And this means that Anasûrimbor Kellhus is a pretender.”
The faint throb of Kianene drums filled the silence. Cnaiür turned back to Proyas. “You said they want your support … For what?”
“Just answer the blasted question!” Conphas exclaimed.
Ignoring the Exalt-General, Cnaiür and Proyas exchanged a look of honesty and admission. Despite their quarrels, such looks had become frighteningly common over the course of the past weeks.
“With my support,” Proyas said, “they think they can prosecute Kellhus without inciting war within these cursed walls.”
“Prosecute Kellhus?”
“Yes … As a False Prophet, according to the Law of the Tusk.”
Cnaiür scowled. “And why do you need my word?”
“Because I trust you.”
Cnaiür swallowed.
Outland dogs!
someone raged.
Kine!
For some reason a look of alarm flickered across Conphas’s face.
“Apparently the illustrious Prince of Conriya,” Sarcellus said, “will have no truck with hearsay …”
“Not,” Proyas snapped, “on a matter as ill-omened as this!”
Working his jaw, Cnaiür glared at the Shrial Knight, wondering what could cause such a strange disposition of burns across a man’s face. He thought of the Battle of Anwurat, of the relish with which he’d driven his knife into Kellhus’s chest—or the thing that had looked like him. He thought of Serwë gasping beneath him, and a pang watered his eyes. Only she knew his heart. Only she understood when he awoke weeping …
Serwë, first wife of his heart.
I will have her!
someone within him wept.
She belongs to me!
So beautiful …
My proof!
Suddenly everything seemed to slump, as though the world itself had been soaked in numbness and lead. And he realized—without anguish, without heartbreak—that Anasûrimbor Moënghus was beyond him. Despite all his hate, all his tooth-gnashing fury, the blood trail he followed ended here … In a city.
We’re dead. All of us …
If Caraskand was to be their tomb, he would see certain blood spilled first.
But Moënghus!
someone cried.
Moënghus must die!
And yet he could no longer recall the hated face. He saw only a mewling infant …
“What you say is true,” he finally said. He turned to Proyas, held his astonished, brown-eyed gaze. It seemed he could taste the orange peel anew, so bitter were the words.
“The man you call Prince Kellhus is an imposter … A prince of nothing.”
 
Never, it seemed, had his heart felt so flaccid and cold.
The many-pillared audience hall of the Sapatishah’s Palace was as immense as old King Eryeat’s dank gallery in Moraör, the ancient Hall of Kings in Oswenta, and yet the glory of the Warrior-Prophet made it seem the hearth room of a hovel. Seated upon Imbeyan’s throne of ivory and bone, Saubon watched his approach with trepidation. Cupped in gigantic bowls of iron, the King-Fires crackled in his periphery. Even after all this time they seemed to offend the surrounding magnificence—the imposition of a crude and backward people.
But still, he was King! King of Caraskand.
Draped in white samite, the man who’d once been Prince Kellhus paused beneath him, standing on the round crimson rug the Kianene had used for obeisance. He did not kneel, nor did he seem to blink.
“Why have you summoned me?”
“To warn you … You must flee. The Council convenes shortly …”
“But the Padirajah commands the approaches, rules the countryside. Besides, I cannot abandon those who follow me. I cannot abandon you.”
“But you must! They will condemn you. Even Proyas!”
“And you, Coithus Saubon? Will you condemn me?”
“No … Never!”
“But you’ve already given them your guarantees.”
“Who said this? What liar dares—”
“You. You say this.”
“But … But you must understand!”
“I understand. They’ve ransomed your city. All you need do is pay.”
“No! It’s not that way. It’s not!”
“Then what way is it?”
“It … It … It is what it is!”
“For all of your life, Saubon, you’ve ached for
this,
the trappings of a tyrant—the effects of old Eryeat, your father. Tell me, to whom did you run, Saubon, after your father beat you? Who dabbed your cuts with fleece? Was it to your mother? Or was it to Kussalt, your groom?
“No one beat me! He … He …”
“Kussalt, then. Tell me, Saubon, what was more difficult? Losing him on the Plains of Mengedda, or learning of his lifelong hate?”
“Silence!”
“All your long life, no one has known you.”
“Silence!”
“All your long life you’ve suffered, you’ve questioned—”
“No! No! Silence!”
“—and you’ve punished those who would love you.”
Saubon slapped burly hands about his ears. “Cease! I command it!”
“As you punished Kussalt, as you punish—”
“
Silence-silence-silence!
They told me you would do this! They warned me!”
“Indeed. They warned you against the
truth
. Against wandering into the nets of the Warrior-Prophet.”
“How can you know this?” Saubon cried, overcome by incredulous woe.
“How?”
“Because it’s Truth.”
“Then fie on it!
Fie on the truth!
”
“And what of your immortal soul?”
“Then let it be damned!” he roared, leaping to his feet. “I embrace it—embrace it all! Damnation in this life! Damnation in
all others!
Torment heaped upon torment! I would bear all to be King for a day! I would see you broken and blooded if that meant I could own this throne!
I would see the God’s own eyes plucked out!
”

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