The Thousandfold Thought (The Prince of Nothing, Book 3) (40 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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Charaöth. The ancient stronghold of the Xerashi Kings.
The Lords of the Holy War gathered in its ruined halls, staring about in wonder and impatience as they awaited their Warrior-Prophet. Achamian overheard Palatine Gaidekki claiming that King Shikol’s raving could be heard on the night wind. He saw a man—some client of Gothyelk’s—gathering chips of marble into a cloth.
As the only feature visible above Gerotha’s black curtain walls, Achamian had found himself pondering Charaöth from the first day of the Holy War’s siege. He knew it had been abandoned with the ascendancy of the Thousand Temples in the days of the Ceneian Empire, but he had always assumed that the Fanim would have demolished it. Afterward he would learn from Gayamakri that the Kianene actually revered it as one of their holiest shrines. And why not, when so many Inrithi thought it the very heart of malevolence?
The original walls had been pulled down, so that from within Gerotha’s bone-coloured expanse could be clearly seen. The voluptuous imprint of Nilnamesh was unmistakable, in the bellied columns and pilasters, in the curving stairs that ended nowhere, and in the four-winged Ciphrang that flanked every threshold. Even roofless and ruined, the architecture seemed over-heavy, though in a manner strangely at odds with the post-and-lintel monstrosities of ancient Kyraneas or Shigek. The surviving shoulder-arches proved that the antique Xerashi builders had understood the rudiments of stress and load. But the heaviness was different, as though everything had been constructed to bear weights unseen.
Could it simply be that
Shikol
had once ruled from this place? Like most Inrithi children, Achamian had been weaned on tales of the lecherous old king. “Behave,” his mother always warned, “or he will find you, do unspeakable things!”
Achamian waited, doing his best to ignore Esmenet, who sat on a gilded chair not four paces to his left. He stood on the broad arc of what had been the dais of the primary audience hall. A series of steps and a ring of pilasters, their false lintels still intact, separated it from the great floor. According to
The Tractate,
the Xerashi Kings had ruled from their beds, and Shikol in particular was famed for making sport with children as his court peered through the sheers ringing his dais. Knowing the way histories tended to paint their antagonists, Achamian had always dismissed the tale as propaganda. But there, dead centre in the dais, was an ancient stone footing for what looked like a bed.
Probably an altar of some kind.
Across the great floor below, the Great and Lesser Names milled beneath the fat columns, decked in the regalia of the lands they had conquered. White banners bearing the Tusk and Circumfix in black and gold had been roped between the free-standing columns about them. The rumble of their talk thinned. Wondering whether they had glimpsed Kellhus, Achamian glanced over his shoulder, following the stair that rose from the dais’s rear to the ruined gallery above and behind him. He saw nothing of Kellhus, though he spied something, a point of fluttering black, hanging over the distant network of streets and alleyways that rose up into the haze. He blinked, frowning … Was that the
Mark
he sensed?
A sorcerous bird?
“We have
arrived,
” a resonant voice called.
Startled, Achamian glanced back to the stair, saw Kellhus descend to the first landing, his beard plaited in the fashion of ancient Shir, his white vestments chased with shimmering gold. It was strange—even terrifying—to sense the Mark on him as well. It dirtied him somehow, even as it augured an unthinkable future.
Achamian turned back to the sky, but the bird was nowhere to be seen.
“At long last,” Kellhus continued, casually descending the final turn of the stair, “we tread the very ground of scripture.”
Achamian’s thoughts raced. What should he do? Was the Consult planning an attack, or was it simply the Scarlet Spires, up to some damnable scarlet mischief? He resolved to remain wary, to ignore the tidal pull of Kellhus’s oratory.
The Warrior-Prophet crossed the dais to Esmenet, placed what seemed a luminous hand on her shoulder. “From this very place,” he said, “old Shikol looked to his debauched court and asked, ‘Who is this menial who speaks as King?’” He gestured to ruined Charaöth—an expansive wave. “From this very place—here—Shikol raised the Gilded Thighbone …
“He judged my brother.”
As always, Kellhus spoke as though his words had no significance outside the Truth that shone through them—as though they were consumed by their meaning.
Attend only to these simple things,
his tone said,
and you shall be astonished
.
Achamian struggled to remain alert.
“At long last, we holy travellers, we Men of the Tusk, tread the very ground of scripture.” Kellhus’s expression darkened, and he looked about, to the lintel hanging above, to the columns queued across the floors before him. What had been hushed expectation escalated into something more profound, as though all present had become as breathless as the stone about them.
“This,
this is the very house of my brother’s oppressor. This is the house of he who would murder Inri Sejenus, asking ‘Who is this menial who speaks as King?’”
“Think! Think of how far we have come. Think of all the lands, both sumptuous and severe. Think of all the steaming cities. Think of all that we have
conquered
! And now we have arrived at the very
gates
…ʺHe reached out to the eastern haze with his right hand, and again Achamian saw it, the disc of ethereal gold, the halo …
Someone cried out in rapture.
“One last horizon!” Kellhus cried, his voice at once rumbling from the skies and whispering into every ear. “One last horizon and we shall see the Sacred Land. One final march, and at last,
at long last,
we shall raise sword and song to Holy Shimeh! Even now
we rewrite the scripture of this place
!ʺ
The Great and Lesser Names, who had watched rapt, erupted in shouts of ardour and worship. And Achamian could not but wonder what they must sound like to the Gerothans skulking the alleys below. The mad conquerors …
“Never!” Kellhus thundered. “Never has the world seen such a band as we … We Men of the Tusk.” Suddenly he swept his sword, Certainty, from its sheath. It glared milk-white in the sun. Achamian watched its reflected light bounce across the Lords of the Holy War. Men squinted and blinked.
“We are the God’s own
knife,
cast in the crucible of plague, thirst, and starvation, tempered by the hammers of war, doused in the blood of countless enemies!
“We …” He trailed without warning, smiled as though caught in the commission of some harmless vice. “It is the wont of Men to boast,” he said ruefully. “Who among us hasn’t whispered lies in a maiden’s ear?” Laughter rumbled through the headless pillars. “Anything that might make them ponder the swing of our kilts …” More laughter, this time booming. Gone was the high oratory; the Warrior-Prophet had become the Prince of Atrithau, their wry and even-handed peer. He shrugged, grinned like a man among those about to drink.
“Even still, what is, is … War watches through our eyes. Doom itself echoes in our call.
“What is,
is
. The glory of our undertaking will outshine that belonging to
any
of our forefathers. It will be a beacon through the Ages. It will astonish and gratify, and yea, it will even outrage. It will be recited by a thousand thousand lips. It will be committed to memory. And the children of our children’s children will take up their ancestor lists and invoke our names with reverence and awe, for they shall know their blood is blessed—blessed!—by our greatness.
“We, we Men of the Tusk, are
more
. We are giants! Giants!”
Roaring exultation. Captured by the momentum of his words, Achamian found himself crying out as well. Wry to resounding … from where had this bursting passion come? He saw tears course down Esmenet’s cheek.
“So who?” Kellhus bellowed through the trailing thunder. “Who is this menial who speaks as King?”
Sudden silence. The buckled stone, with its lattice of weeds and grasses, seemed to hum. The Warrior-Prophet held out both shining hands—a welcome, an appeal, a breathtaking benediction. And he whispered …
“I am.”
Without exception, men submitted to the hierarchy of the moving and the immovable. They stood
upon
the earth, they travelled over the land. But with Kellhus, even this fundamental orthodoxy was upended: with his every step he seemed to
carry
the world with him.
So when he descended the dais and gestured to Incheiri Gotian to lead the Lords of the Holy War in prayer, it seemed the world itself was bent. As the intonations boomed between the walls, Achamian blinked the sweat from his eyes, breathed deep the humid air. He thought of Esmenet lying with such a man, and he found himself fearing for her, as if she were a petal falling into a great fire …
He’s a prophet!
So what did that make of Achamian’s hate?
From paths cut through the scree, slaves produced a long table and several chairs, which they set in the centremost aisle between the columns for Kellhus and the Great Names. With the Tusk and Circumfix hanging above, they sat as if for a ritual dinner, though they drank only watered wine. Achamian stood rigid throughout the ensuing discussions. It seemed surreal, but it was the conquest of Amoteu they plotted—the approaches to Shimeh! What Kellhus had said earlier was true …they
had
arrived. Almost.
The proceedings were remarkably civil; gone were the days of bickering fuelled by wounded or overweening pride. Even if Saubon and Conphas had been present, Achamian couldn’t imagine any of the Great Names resorting to their old antics. Kellhus dwarfed them in a manner so absolute that, much as children, they had lost all care for the cubits between them. They were his unto death … Kings and disciples.
Disagreements arose, to be certain, but the dissenters were neither scorned nor judged for merely expressing contrary opinions. As Kellhus himself said, where Truth was tyrant, the clear-eyed need fear no oppression. Proyas, especially, asked hard questions, and old Gothyelk somehow managed to restrict his outbursts to exasperated groans. Only Chinjosa seemed to play with his number-stick beneath his hand. Reasons were demanded and given, alternatives were explored and criticized, and as though by magic, the
best way
seemed to unfold of its own volition.
Prince Hulwarga was given the honour of the van, since it was deemed that his Thunyeri would be the most able to weather any possible Fanim surprise. Count-Palatine Chinjosa and his Ainoni, along with Proyas and his Conriyans, were to constitute the Holy War’s main body. They would march directly on Shimeh, gathering food and siege materials as they went. Gotian and the Shrial Knights were to ride with them, as the personal guard of the Warrior-Prophet and his Sacral Retinue. Earl Gothyelk and his Tydonni, meanwhile, were given the task of isolating and overcoming Chargiddo, the Kyranean Age fortress that commanded the southwestern reaches of the Amoti and Xerashi frontier.
No one, not even Kellhus, seemed to know what the heathen had planned. All reports, especially those provided by the Scarlet Spires through Chinjosa, suggested that the Psûkari, the Cishaurim, would not abandon Shimeh. This meant that Fanayal would either contest their advance into Amoteu or fall back on the Holy City. Either way, he would give battle. The survival of the Cishaurim hung in the balance, which meant the survival of
Kian
hung in the balance. There could be no doubt that even now Fanayal mustered all possible means to overthrow them. Though Proyas counselled caution, the Warrior-Prophet was adamant: the Holy War must strike with all haste.
“We diminish,” he said, “while they grow.”
Several times Achamian dared glance at Esmenet in her nearby seat. A string of discreet functionaries came and went, kneeling at her side, either asking questions or bearing tidings. By and large, however, she remained attentive to the discussions on the floor before her. Achamian found himself studying the white-robed Nascenti, who stood in a group immediately behind their Warrior-Prophet—Werjau and Gayamakri foremost among them. And the strangeness of it dawned on him, the way the Holy War, which had been little more than a migratory invasion led by a raucous council of chieftains, had somehow reorganized itself into an imperial court. This was no Council of Great and Lesser Names; Kellhus merely consulted his generals, nothing more. All of them had been … redeployed. And true to benjuka, the rules governing their conduct had been completely rewritten. Even the ones that held Achamian motionless, here, as vizier to a prophet …

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