The Thousandfold Thought (The Prince of Nothing, Book 3) (30 page)

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Authors: R. Scott Bakker

Tags: #Fiction, #Science Fiction, #General, #Fantasy

BOOK: The Thousandfold Thought (The Prince of Nothing, Book 3)
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“Sompas says lights were sighted on your private terrace,” Conphas remarked. His tone was offhand in the probing way of devious family members. “What was it?” he asked, glancing at the man. “Some four or five days ago?”
“The night of the rain,” the General said, barely looked up from his plate. He obviously harboured reservations, regarding either his Exalt-General’s feckless manner or the whole notion of dining with their Scylvendi captor. Probably both, Cnaiür mused—and much more besides.
Conphas stared in open expectancy of some kind of reply. Cnaiür matched his gaze, sheared the meat from a drumstick with exposed teeth, then returned his attention to his plate. He had suffered an unaccountable hankering for fowl of late.
He slurped back more unwatered wine, glimpsing the Exalt-General as he did so. There were still signs of bruising about his left eye. Like his Generals, he wore ceremonial military dress: a tunic of black silk chased in silver embroidery under a cuirass stamped with stylized falcons about a colourless Imperial Sun. That the man had managed to have his wardrobe dragged across the desert, Cnaiür mused, spoke volumes.
Every time he closed his eyes, he saw blood arcing across the walls.
Cnaiür had ostensibly summoned Conphas and his Generals here to discuss the arrival of the transports and the subsequent embarkation of his Columns. Twice now, he had quizzed the man on the matter, only to realize afterward that the answers the fiend provided only made apparent sense. But in truth, he cared nothing for the transports.
“
Unnatural
lights,” Conphas continued, still staring at Cnaiür in expectation of an answer. Of course, Cnaiür’s earlier refusal to reply—as obvious as it was—had accomplished nothing. Men such as Ikurei Conphas, the Utemot Chieftain understood, did not embarrass.
Fear, however, was a far different matter.
He took another deep drink, watched Conphas’s canny eyes following his wine bowl. There was cleverness to his look—an appraisal of potential weakness—but there was worry also. The matter with the sorcerer had spooked him, as Cnaiür had known it would.
Was this, he wondered, how the Dûnyain felt?
“I wish,” Cnaiür said, “to speak of Kiyuth.”
Conphas pretended to occupy himself with his meal. He ate in the effete twin-fork manner of the Nansur caste-nobility, drawing each piece of food as though searching for pins. Given the circumstances, perhaps he did search for pins. His eyes were hooded when he looked up, but the taint of elation was unmistakable. In fact, there had been something …
exultant
about his manner since his arrival.
He plans something. He thinks me already doomed.
The Exalt-General shrugged. “What about Kiyuth?”
“I’m curious … What would you have done if Xunnurit had not attacked you?”
Conphas smiled in the manner of men who saw entire conversations from beginning to end. “Xunnurit had no choice,” he said. “That was the genius of my plan.”
“I don’t understand,” Tirnemus said, spilling duck from the corners of his mouth as he did so.
“The Exalt-General had taken every factor into account,” Sompas explained with a soldier’s first-hand confidence. “The seasons and the demands of their herds. Their sense of honour and the acts that would incite them. And most importantly, their arrogance …” Sompas cast a quick glance at Cnaiür as he said this, one that somehow managed to seem both vicious and worried.
Of all the Generals present, Biaxi Sompas puzzled Cnaiür the most. The Biaxi were the Ikurei’s traditional rivals in the Congregate, yet the man could scarce speak without licking Conphas’s balls.
“The Scylvendi think buggery taboo,” General Imyanax exclaimed in his thick accent, “the greatest of obscenities …” He had lifted his eyes ceiling-ward while saying “greatest”; now he fixed Cnaiür with a gloating look. “So the Exalt-General had all our captives raped in open view.”
Sompas blanched, while Baxatas scowled at the pugnacious Norsirai fool. Areamanteras laughed into his wine bowl but otherwise didn’t dare look down the table. Both Sanumnis and Tirnemus cast discreet glances at their commander.
“Yes,” Conphas said blithely as he worked his forks. Tap-tap. Scrape-scrape. “So I did.”
For a long moment no one dared utter a word. Devoid of expression, Cnaiür watched the Exalt-General chew.
“War …” Conphas continued, as though it were only natural that men should hang on his enlightened discourse. He paused to swallow. “War is no different than benjuka. The rules depend on the moves made, no more, no less.”
Before he could continue, Cnaiür said, “War is intellect.”
Conphas paused, carefully set aside his silver forks.
Cnaiür pushed his own plate aside. “You wonder where I heard that.”
The man pursed his lips and shook his head. He dabbed his chin with his nap. “No … You were there that day … when I explained my tactics to Martemus. You were there, weren’t you? Among the dead.”
“I was.”
Conphas nodded as though an old and arcane suspicion had been confirmed. “I’m curious … It was just Martemus and I that day …” He looked at Cnaiür significantly. “We had no escort.”
“You wonder why I did not kill you?”
The Exalt-General smirked. “I was going to say ‵
try.′
”
A slave’s youthful hand reached from the darkness, drew Cnaiür’s plate away. Gold and bones.
“The grasses,” he said. “They knotted about my limbs. They bound me to the earth.”
A door had opened somewhere. He could see it clearly in all their eyes—even in those of his so-called subordinates. A door had opened, and terror had stepped into their midst.
I see you.
Only Conphas seemed oblivious. It was as though he lacked the required organs.
“But of course,” he said, grinning. “The field was mine.”
No one laughed.
Cnaiür leaned back, stared down into the palms of his great hands. “Leave us,” he commanded. “Everyone.”
At first no one moved—no one even breathed. Then Conphas cleared his throat. With an intrepid scowl he said, “Do it … do as he says.”
Sompas began to protest.
“Now!” the Exalt-General barked.
When they were gone, Cnaiür’s eyes clicked onto the man’s chiselled face. His own brow, even his nose, were ghosts on the fringes of his periphery…a reminder of what watched.
Cnaiür urs Skiötha …
Conphas nodded as though he entirely understood. “I would have lost Kiyuth,” he said, “had you been King-of-Tribes.”
… most violent of all Men.
“That,” Cnaiür said, “and more.”
The man chuckled into his wine bowl. Arching his eyebrows, he said, “The Empire as well, I suppose.”
Cnaiür studied him, suffused with a faint kind of wonder. The voice was the same, yet it seemed impossible that the boy before him could be the Imperial Exalt-General who had surveyed Kiyuth that morning so long ago. That man had been all-conquering. He had towered over the pastures, and the innumerable dead had all mouthed his name. The Great Ikurei Conphas.
And now here he was, the “Lion of Kiyuth.” His neck as slender as any Cnaiür had broken.
The Exalt-General pushed back his plate, turned to him in a manner at once jocular and conspiratorial. “What is it that resides in the hearts of hated foes, hmm? Save the Anasûrimbor, there’s no man I despise more than you …” He leaned back with a friendly shrug. “And yet I find this … unlikely repose in your presence.”
“Repose,” Cnaiür snorted. “That is because the world is your trophy room. Your soul makes flattery of all things—even me. You make mirrors of all that you see.”
The Exalt-General blinked, then cackled in laughter. “Let’s not mince words, Scylvendi.”
Cnaiür hammered his knife into the heavy table. Bowls, platters, and Conphas all jumped.
“This,”
he grated. “This! This is what the world is in truth!”
Conphas swallowed, somehow managed to maintain his façade of good humour. “And what might that be?”
The barbarian grinned. “Even now, it moves you.”
Ikurei Conphas licked his lips. Fine features tightened about clenched teeth. Why did anger always look so bland on beautiful faces? “I can assure you,” Conphas said evenly, “I fear no—”
Cnaiür struck, cuffed him so hard he toppled backward.
“You act as though you live this life a second time!” Cnaiür leapt into a crouch upon the table, sent plates and bowls spinning. Eyes as round as silver talents, Conphas scrambled backward through the cushions. “As though you were assured of its outcome!”
Conphas had turned, was fighting his way clear of the depression. “Somp-Somp—!” Cnaiür vaulted across the table, hammered the back of his head. The Exalt-General went down. Cnaiür unfastened his belt, snapped it free. He yanked it about the sobbing man’s neck, hoisted him to his knees. He wrenched him back to the table, threw him onto his chest. He smashed his face against its own reflection—once, twice …
He looked up, saw the slaves cringing in the shadows, their arms upraised. One of them wept.
“I am a demon!” he cried. “A
demon
!”
Then he turned back to Conphas shuddering on the table beneath him.
Some things required literal explanation.
Sunrise. Light speared through the eastward columns, glazing them orange and rose. A faint breeze carried the scent of cedar and sand. It seemed he could hear all Joktha stir to the touch of morning.
Cnaiür swatted a wine bowl from the sheets. It clanged across tiles before being silenced by the carpets. He sat at the edge of the bed, pinching the bridge of his nose, then strode to the bronze washbasin set into the west wall. He stared at the geometric frescoes—ovals interlocking—while rinsing away the blood and soil smeared across his thighs. Then he walked naked onto his terrace, into the sunlight. Like a bead of oil dropped in water, Joktha spread outward as he approached the balustrade, stark and silent in the early morning light. Sand-doves squabbled on the eaves. To the east, black against the silver-gold sea, a fleet of ships lay anchored beyond the mouth of the harbour.
Nansur
ships.
So, it would be today.
He dressed without his body-slaves, though he dispatched one with a summons for Troyatti. The Captain intercepted him on his way to the barracks’ mess.
“Send men out to those transports,” Cnaiür said. “We lower the harbour chain only when each and every one has been searched. Then I want you personally to gather Conphas and his Generals, bring them to the harbour—the Grand Quay. Take as many men as can be spared.”
The taciturn Conriyan had listened dutifully, scratching the swazond across his right forearm as he did so. He crushed his beard to his chest with a nod.
“And Troyatti—no matter what happens, make sure you secure the Ikurei.”
“Something worries you,” the Captain said.
For a heartbeat Cnaiür found himself wondering whether they were friends, Troyatti and himself. Ever since riding with him in Shigek, Troyatti and the others had called themselves the Hemscilvara, the Scylvendi’s Men. He had taught them the ways of the People—they had seemed important then—and with the strange capacity of the young to worship, they had followed, and had continued to follow even after Proyas had reassigned them.
“This fleet … it has arrived too soon—I think. There is a chance it was dispatched
before
Conphas’s expulsion.”
Troyatti frowned. “Instead of retrieving Conphas, you think it brings him reinforcements?”
“Think of Kiyuth … The Emperor only sent a fraction of the Imperial Army with Conphas. Why? To guard against my kinsmen, when they have been ruined? No. He saved his strength for a reason.”
The Captain nodded, his eyes bright with sudden understanding.
“Secure Conphas, Troyatti. Spill as much blood as you have to.”
After sending word to Sanumnis and Tirnemus, Cnaiür rode with several of the Hemscilvara to the so-called Grand Quay, which was essentially a stone and gravel berm built out into the water, set about with wooden docks like hoardings upon curtain walls. Discarded oyster shells cracked beneath his sandals as he strode out to its terminus. His men fanned out, press-ganging the Enathi squatters, fishermen mostly, who continually availed themselves of unused berths. Cnaiür’s presence ensured the absence of incident. Drying nets were dragged away. Shanties were kicked down.

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