Shimeh encircled the nearing ground, dark save where fires scored her. They sensed the mortals, loping like monkeys down murky streets, raping, murdering, warring ...
Would that they could devour it all.
But the Voice! The Voice! Like a thing of needles. More agonizing than the million teeth of this surrounding world.
They soared toward the city"s heart, following the yaw and pitch of the eastern wind, then alighted, one after another, on the eaves of the First Temple.
The Voice approved.
They flattened like beetles against the slate. They could sense the eyeless ones within, waiting.
Fall upon them! the Voice screeched. the Voice screeched. Rend them! Only in their midst will you be safe from the Chorae! Rend them! Only in their midst will you be safe from the Chorae!
They smashed through the shingles, tore aside the braces, cracked the great stone lintels asunder, then dropped in a hail of debris. A dozen saffron-robed men scrambled about them, blue lights flashing from their foreheads. Great arcs of energy sizzled across their incandescent hides.
Sohorat roared, and plaster rained throughout the forest of columns. Flies burst from his maw. Raving wolves bubbled from his palms, smashed the sheets of light, gorged on those cringing behind them. Zioz swept burning threads into his fist, wrenched souls from their housing meat. Setmahaga clawed aside flimsy defences, struck heads from bodies, gloried in the blood that smoked across his limbs. He squealed like a thousand pigs, such was his exultation.
"Demon!" A voice like a thunderclap. A voice like a thunderclap.
They turned from the blood-soaked marble, saw an old, eyeless man approach from the deeper temple. Something flashed from his forehead, like a stolen star. Others spilled between the flanking columns. More blind men.
Flee, the Voice whispered in his soul. the Voice whispered in his soul.
Setmahaga fell first, struck in the eye by an absence absence affixed to the end of a stick. An explosion of burning salt ... affixed to the end of a stick. An explosion of burning salt ...
Flee!
Then Sohorat, his slavering form caught in torrents of light, screamed.
Zioz leapt into the clouds.
Return me, manling! Throw off these chains!
But the Scarlet Schoolman was obstinate.
One last task ... One more offending eye ...
Water everywhere, falling in thundering cataracts, singular drops, and draping sheets. Kellhus paused next to one of the shining braziers, peered beneath the bronze visage that loomed orange and scowling over his father, watched him lean back into absolute shadow.
"You came to the world," unseen lips said, "and you saw that Men were like children."
Lines of radiance danced across the intervening waters.
"It is their nature to believe as their fathers believed," the darkness continued. "To desire as they desired ... Men are like wax poured into moulds: their souls are cast by their circ.u.mstances. Why are no Fanim children born to Inrithi parents? Why are no Inrithi children born to Fanim parents? Because these truths are made, made, cast by the particularities of circ.u.mstance. Rear an infant among Fanim and he will become Fanim. Rear him among Inrithi and he will become Inrithi ... cast by the particularities of circ.u.mstance. Rear an infant among Fanim and he will become Fanim. Rear him among Inrithi and he will become Inrithi ...
"Split him in two, and he would murder himself."
Without warning, the face re-emerged, water-garbled, white save the black sockets beneath his brow. The action seemed random, as though his father merely changed posture to relieve some vagrant ache, but it was not. Everything, Everything, Kellhus knew, had been premeditated. For all the changes wrought by thirty years in the Wilderness, his father remained Dunyain ... Kellhus knew, had been premeditated. For all the changes wrought by thirty years in the Wilderness, his father remained Dunyain ...
Which meant that Kellhus stood on conditioned ground.
"But as obvious as this is," the blurred face continued, "it escapes them. Because they cannot see what comes before them, they a.s.sume nothing nothing comes before them. Nothing. They are numb to the hammers of circ.u.mstance, blind to their conditioning. What is branded into them, they think freely chosen. comes before them. Nothing. They are numb to the hammers of circ.u.mstance, blind to their conditioning. What is branded into them, they think freely chosen.
So they thoughtlessly cleave to their intuitions, and curse those who dare question. They make ignorance their foundation. They confuse their narrow conditioning for absolute truth."
He raised a cloth, pressed it into the pits of his eyes. When he withdrew it, two rose-coloured stains marked the pale fabric. The face slipped back into the impenetrable black.
"And yet part of them fears. For even unbelievers share the depth of their conviction. Everywhere, all about them, they see examples of their own self-deception ... "Me!" everyone cries. "I am chosen!" How could they not not fear when they so resemble children stamping their feet in the dust? So they encircle themselves with yea-sayers, and look to the horizon for confirmation, for some fear when they so resemble children stamping their feet in the dust? So they encircle themselves with yea-sayers, and look to the horizon for confirmation, for some higher sign higher sign that they are as central to the world as they are to themselves." that they are as central to the world as they are to themselves."
He waved his hand out, brought his palm to his bare breast. "And they pay with the coin of their devotion."
"And what of you, Akka?" Esmenet said, her voice become scathing. "Haven"t you yielded your precious Gnosis as readily as I"ve yielded my womb?" Why couldn"t she just hate him, this drab and broken sorcerer? It would all be so much easier then.
Achamian cleared his throat. "Yes ... yes, I have ..."
"Then tell me why, why, Holy Tutor. Why would a Mandate Schoolman do such an unthinkable thing?" Holy Tutor. Why would a Mandate Schoolman do such an unthinkable thing?"
"Because the Second Apocalypse ... It comes ..."
"The very world is at stake and you complain complain that he makes weapons of all things? Akka, you should rejoi-" that he makes weapons of all things? Akka, you should rejoi-"
"I"m not saying he"s not the Harbinger! He may even be a prophet for all I know ..."
"Then what are are you saying, Akka? Do you even you saying, Akka? Do you even know know?"
Two tears threaded his cheeks.
"That he stole stole you from me! Stole!" you from me! Stole!"
"Picked your purse, did he? That"s funny, because I feel more s.h.i.t than gold."
"It"s not like that."
"Isn"t it? You love me, yes, Akka, but I"ve never been anything more than a-"
"But you"re not thinking not thinking! You see only your love for him. You"re not thinking of what he sees when he gazes upon you when he gazes upon you."
A moment of silent horror.
"But he lies! The Scylvendi lies! I"m Nansur Nansur. I know-"
"Tell me, Esmi! Tell me what he sees what he sees!"
She shook. Why was she shaking? The earth seemed like stone beneath her knees.
"The truth," she murmured. "He sees the truth!"
Somehow his arms had scooped her to her feet. And she clutched him, sobbed and wailed into his shoulders.
He whispered into her ear. "He doesn"t see, see, Esmi ... He watches." Esmi ... He watches."
And the words were there, at once deafening and unspoken.
... without love without love.
She looked up to him, and he stared at her with an intensity, a desperation, she knew she would never find in Kellhus"s endless blue eyes. He smelled warm ... bitter.
His lips were wet.
Eleazaras gazed across the infernal landscape. He could hear himself cackle, but he knew not the voice. What was this he felt? Glee, dark and gloating, like watching a hated sibling struck at last. Remorse, and fear-terror, even! It was as though he dropped and dropped and never struck ground.
And, yes ... omnipotence omnipotence. Like liquor burning through his veins, or opium sweltering his soul.
Like the spectres of decapitated snakes, dragonheads reared above various cadres and masticated about streaming fire. To his immediate right, someone-Nem-Panipal?-sang boiling clouds of black. Lightning flashed out in a blinding skein. Stone exploded outward. Sheering along a diagonal, a tower fell onto the ruins of its own foundation, where it lay like an overturned hull.
The Grandmaster cackled as the wave of dust rolled over him. Shimeh burned! Shimeh burned!
Somehow Sarothenes, his shield-bearers nowhere to be seen, had found his way to his side. Why would the fool risk- "You press too hard!" the rail-thin sorcerer cried. Lines of black scored his rutted face, where he had wiped at flecks of soot, no doubt. "You exhaust us on women, children, and dumb stone!"
"Kill them!" Eleazaras spat. "I care not!"
"But the Cishaurim, Cishaurim, Eli! We must conserve ourselves!" Eli! We must conserve ourselves!"
For some reason, he thought of all the slaves who had swallowed his member, of clutching tight silken sheets, of the luxurious agony of release. This was what it was like, he realized. He had seen them, the Men of the Tusk, filing back from battle, matted in blood, smiling with those terrifying eyes ...
As though to show those eyes to Sarothenes, he turned to the man, held out a hand to the sulphurous calamity before them.
"Behold!" he spat contemptuously. "Behold what we-we!-have wrought."
The soot-stained sorcerer stared at him in horror. Lights flashed across his sweaty cheek.
Eleazaras turned back to exult in the wages of his impossible labour.
Shimeh burned ... Shimeh Shimeh.
"Our power," he grated. "Our glory glory!"
From the parapets of the Mirraz Gate, Proyas gazed in disbelief.
A vast plate of clouds-dark, churning in unnatural, ingrown ways-moved in ponderous revolutions about the city, taking the Sacred Heights as its axis. Simply staring at it dizzied his footing. From where he stood, the First Temple seemed impossibly near. He could even see armoured men-Fanim-emerge from the darkness beyond the outermost ring of pillars, bounding down stairs and across landings before disappearing behind the battlements of the Heterine Wall. But what dismayed him was the great curtain of smoke and fire that approached the Heights from the ruins of the Ma.s.sus Gate. Chalk-white streamers. Mists of ochre dust. Rolling veils of grey. Plumes like liquid basalt, solid and black. And through them, glowering fires, threads of lightning, and flying cataracts of gold. Whole tracts of the city had been blasted and consumed, reduced to a great thumb of smouldering ruin.
Ingiaban laughed maniacally. "Have you ever seen such a thing!"
Proyas turned to rebuke him, only to glimpse a figure draped in shimmering crimson picking his way over the matted dead immediately behind them. The man teetered for a moment, skidding in blood. His iron-grey braid swung across his left shoulder.
"What are you doing?" Proyas cried.
The Scarlet Schoolman ignored him, took up a position facing west, and stretched his arms wide beneath the sky.
"You"re destroying the city!"
The old man whirled, so quickly that his ornate gowns were a heartbeat in following. Despite his phlegmatic eyes and stooped frame, his voice was as forceful as it was furious. "Conriyan ingrate! The Cishaurim own the skies. They use the darkness to hide their Chorae! If we lose this contest, then all is lost, all is lost, do you understand? do you understand? Holy Shimeh Holy Shimeh ... Fie on your f.u.c.king city!" ... Fie on your f.u.c.king city!"
Shocked as much by the man"s bearing as by his vehemence, Proyas retreated a step, speechless. Cursing, the Schoolman returned to his task, and Proyas found himself peering down the wall to the nearest tower. Tiny figures teemed atop the parapet, and among them, another white-bearded Schoolman stood leaning against the battlements, his arms held out to the west, his eyes flaring bright as he sang. Black clouds ribbed the sky above, though the Meneanor beyond still winked blue and white, bathed in distant sunshine.
The sorcerer before Proyas began singing as well. A sudden wind bellied his gaping sleeves.
And a voice whispered, No ... not like this No ... not like this.
Screens of tumbling water, breaking the world beyond them into glittering lines and smeared shadows. Kellhus had ceased trying to penetrate them.
"Power," Anasurimbor Moenghus said, "is always power over over. When an infant may be either, what is the difference between a Fanim and an Inrithi? Or between a Nansur and a Scylvendi? What could be so malleable in Men that anyone, split between circ.u.mstances, could be his own murderer?
"You learned this lesson quickly. You looked across Wilderness and you saw thousands upon thousands of them, their backs bent to the field, their legs spread to the ceiling, their mouths reciting scripture, their arms hammering steel ... Thousands upon thousands of them, each one a small circle of repeating actions, each one a wheel in the great machine of nations ...
"You understood that when men stop bowing, the emperor ceases to rule, that when the whips are thrown into the river, the slave ceases to serve. For an infant to be an emperor or a slave or a merchant or a wh.o.r.e or a general or whatever, those about him must act accordingly must act accordingly. And Men act as they believe believe.
"You saw them, in their thousands, spread across the world in great hierarchies, the actions of each exquisitely attuned to the expectations of others. The ident.i.ty of Men, you discovered, was determined by the beliefs, the a.s.sumptions, of others. This This is what makes them emperors or slaves ... Not their G.o.ds. Not their blood. is what makes them emperors or slaves ... Not their G.o.ds. Not their blood.
"Nations live as Men act," Moenghus said, his voice refracted through the ambient rush of waters. "Men act as they believe believe. And Men believe as they are conditioned. Since they are blind to their conditioning, they do not doubt their intuitions ..."
Kellhus nodded in wary a.s.sent. "They believe absolutely," he said.
He found himself clutching her hand, pulling her away, toward the derelict mausoleum. He saw her smile despite her tears, her face so heartbreakingly beautiful, while beyond her, just to the left of her cheek, the First Temple, freckle-small in the distance, presided over smoke and burning streets.