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Authors: R. Scott Bakker

BOOK: The Darkness that Comes Before
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“When I
what,
Mother?” Xerius glanced nervously at the small crowd surrounding them. This was not the place for such a conversation.
“Is this why you’ve sent my grandson to his death?” she cried.
There it was finally, her true motive for this seditious interrogation. Her beloved grandson, poor sweet Conphas, who at this very moment marched somewhere on the Jiünati Steppe, searching for the dread Scylvendi. This was the Istriya that Xerius knew and despised: devoid of religious sentiment but obsessed with her progeny, with the fate of the House Ikurei.
Conphas was to be Restorer, wasn’t he, Mother? You didn’t think me capable of such glory, did you, you old bitch?
“You overreach, Xerius! You grasp for too much!”
“Ah, and for a moment I thought you understood.” He had uttered this with offhand certainty, but much of him believed her, enough that sleep now required a full quart of unwatered wine. Even more this night, he imagined, after the incident with the birds . . .
“I understand well enough,” Istriya snapped. “Your waters aren’t so deep that this old woman can’t wade in them, Xerius. You hope to extort signatures for your Indenture, not because you expect any Men of the Tusk to relinquish their conquests, but because you expect to
wage war against them afterward
. With your Indenture, you’ll be immune to Shrial Censure when you subdue the petty, undermanned fiefdoms that are sure to arise in the Holy War’s wake. And
that
is why you’ve sent Conphas on your so-called punitive expedition against the Scylvendi. Your plan requires manpower you do not have so long as the northern provinces must be guarded.”
Dread churned his innards.
“Ah,” she said wickedly, “it’s one thing to rehearse your plans in the murk of your soul and quite another to hear them on the lips of another, isn’t it, my foolish boy? Like listening to a mummer parrot your voice. Does it sound foolish to you now, Xerius? Does it sound
mad?
”
“No, Mother,” he managed to say with some semblance of confidence. “Merely daring.”
“Daring?”
she cried, as though the word had unlatched something deranged within her. “By the Gods, how I wish I’d strangled you in your cradle! Such a foolish son! You’ve doomed us, Xerius. Can’t you see? No one, no High King of Kyraneas, no Aspect-Emperor of Cenei, has ever defeated the Scylvendi on their ground. They are the
People of War,
Xerius! Conphas is dead! The flower of your army is dead! Xerius!
Xerius!
You’ve brought catastrophe upon us all!”
“Mother, no! Conphas assured me he could do it! He’s studied the Scylvendi as no other! He knows their
weaknesses!
”
“Xerius. Poor sweet fool, can’t you see that Conphas is still a child? Brilliant, fearless, as beautiful as a God, but still a child . . .” She clutched at her cheeks and began clawing. “You’ve killed my child!” she wailed.
Her logic, or maybe it was her terror, swept through him with the force of a cataract. Panicked, Xerius looked to the others on the balcony, saw his mother’s fear on all their faces, and realized that it had been there all along. It wasn’t Ikurei Xerius III they feared, it was what he had done!
Have I destroyed everything?
He stumbled. Bony hands steadied him. Skeaös. Skeaös! He understood what he did. He had glimpsed the glory! The brilliance!
He whirled, gripped the old Counsel by his draped robe, and shook him so violently that his brooch, a golden eye with an onyx pupil, snapped and clinked across the ground.
“Tell me you see!” Xerius cried.
“Tell me!”
Clutching his robe to prevent it from unravelling, the old man kept his eyes dutifully to the ground. “Y-you’ve made a wager, God-of-Men. Only after the number-sticks have been thrown can we know.”
Yes! That was it!
Only after the number-sticks have been thrown . . .
Tears spilled from his eyes. He grasped the old Counsel by the cheeks and was shocked by the coarseness of his skin. His mother had told him nothing new. He’d always known that he’d wagered everything. How many hours had he plotted with Conphas? How many times had he been moved to wonder by his nephew’s martial brilliance? Never had the Empire possessed an Exalt-General such as Ikurei Conphas. Never!
He will overcome the Scylvendi. He’ll humble the People of War!
And it seemed to Xerius that he knew these things with impossible certainty.
My star enters the Whore, bound by twin portents to the Nail of Heaven . . .
A bird shat upon me!
He dropped his hands to Skeaös’s shoulders, and was struck by the magnanimity of the act.
How he must love me
. He looked to Gaenkelti, Ngarau, and the others, and suddenly the cause of their doubt and fear seemed so very clear to him. He turned to his mother, who had fallen to her knees.
“You—all of you—think you see a
man
who’s made a mad wager. But men are frail, Mother. Men are fallible.”
She stared at him, the lampblack about her eyes muddied by tears. “And are not emperors men, Xerius?”
“Priests, augurs, and philosophers all teach us that what we see is smoke. The man I am is but smoke, Mother. The son you birthed is but
my
mask, one more guise I’ve taken for this wearisome revel of blood and semen you call life. I am what you told me I would be!
Emperor
. Divine. Not smoke but
fire
.”
At these words, Gaenkelti fell to his knees. After a moment’s hesitation, the others followed.
But Istriya clutched her eunuch’s arm and pulled herself to her feet, all the while gaping at him. “And if Conphas should die in the smoke, hmm, Xerius? If the Scylvendi should ride from the smoke and put out your ‘fire,’ what then?”
He struggled to contain his outrage. “Your end approaches, and you cling to the smoke because you fear that smoke is all there is. You’re afraid, Mother, because you’re old, and nothing bewilders so much as fear.”
Istriya regarded him imperiously. “My age is my own affair. I’ve no need of fools to remind me.”
“No. I suppose your tits scarce let you forget.”
Istriya screeched, flew at him as she had in his childhood. But her giant eunuch, Pisathulas, restrained her, catching her with fists that dwarfed her forearms. He bobbed his shaved head in terrified stupefaction.
“I should’ve killed you!” she shrieked. “Strangled you with your own cord!”
Unaccountably, Xerius began to laugh. Old and frightened! For the first time she looked pedestrian, far from the indomitable, all-knowing matriarch she had always seemed. His mother looked pathetic!
It was almost worth losing an Empire.
“Take her to her chambers,” he said to the giant. “See that my physicians tend to her.”
Sputtering and shrieking, she was carried bodily from the balcony. The immensity of the Andiamine Heights swallowed her murderous cries.
The rich colours of sunset had paled into those of dusk. The sun was half down, framed by a cloudy mantle of purple. For several moments Xerius simply stood, breathing deeply, wringing his hands to silence the tremors. His people watched him nervously from the corners of their eyes. The herd.
At last Gaenkelti, whose Norsirai heritage made him more outspoken than was seemly, broke the silence. “God-of-Men, may I speak?”
Xerius waved irritated assent.
“The Empress, God-of-Men . . . What she said—”
“Her fears are warranted, Gaenkelti. She simply spoke the truth dwelling in all our hearts.”
“But she threatened to kill you!”
Xerius struck the Captain full on the face. The blond man’s hands balled into fists for a moment, then unclenched. He glared fiercely at Xerius’s feet. “I apologize, God-of-Men. I merely feared for—”
“For nothing,” Xerius said sharply. “The Empress grows old, Gaenkelti. The tides have drawn her out of sight of shore. She’s simply lost her bearings.”
Gaenkelti fell to the ground, placed his lips firmly to Xerius’s right knee. “Enough,” Xerius said, drawing his Captain to his feet. He let his fingertips linger on the gorgeous blue tattoos webbing the man’s forearms. His eyes burned. His head ached. But he felt an extraordinary calm.
He turned to Skeaös. “Someone brought you a message, old friend. Was it news of Conphas?” A mad question, but strangely trivial when asked in the absence of breath.
When the Counsel hesitated, the tremors returned.
Please . . . Sejenus, please.
“No, God-of-Men.”
Dizzying relief. Xerius almost staggered.
“Well, then? What was it?”
“The Fanim have sent an emissary in reply to your request to parlay.”
“Good . . . good!”
“But not just any emissary, God-of-Men.” Skeaös licked his thin, old-man lips. “A
Cishaurim
. The Fanim have sent a Cishaurim.”
The sun went down, and so it seemed, all hope with it.
 
Like tattered cloth in the wind, the braziers fluttered in the small courtyard Gaenkelti had selected for the meeting. Surrounded by dwarf cherry trees and weeping hollies, Xerius squeezed his Chorae tight, until it felt his knuckles would burst. He probed the gloom of the adjoining porticoes, unconsciously counting his shadowy men. He turned to the lean sorcerer on his right: Cememketri, the Grandmaster of his Imperial Saik.
“Do you have enough?”
“More than enough,” Cememketri replied, his voice indignant.
“Heed your tone, Grandmaster,” Skeaös snapped from Xerius’s left. “Our Emperor has asked you a question.”
Cememketri bowed his head stiffly, as though against his will. Twin fires reflected in his large wet eyes. “There are three of us here, God-of-Men, and twelve crossbowmen, all bearing Chorae.”
Xerius winced. “Three? Only you and two others remain?”
“It could not be helped, God-of-Men.”
“Of course.” Xerius thought of the Chorae in his right hand. He could humble the pompous mage with a touch, but then that would leave only two. How he despised sorcerers! Almost as much as he despised needing them.
“They come,” Skeaös whispered. Xerius clenched his Chorae so tight the script engraved across it felt a brand in his palm.
Two Eothic Guardsmen entered the courtyard, bearing lamps rather than arms. They took positions on either side of the bronze doors, and Gaenkelti, still dressed in his ceremonial armour, filed between them, accompanied by a cowled figure draped in black-linen robes. The Captain led the emissary to the designated spot, where the spheres of light cast by the four braziers overlapped. Despite the illumination, Xerius could see only portions of the man’s lips and left cheek beneath the cowl.
Cishaurim. For the Nansur the only name more hateful was Scylvendi. Nansur children—even the children of Emperors—were weaned on tales of the heathen sorcerer-priests, of their venereal rites and their unfathomable powers. To simply speak the name was to strike terror in the Nansur breast.
Xerius struggled to breathe.
Why send a Cishaurim? To kill me?
The emissary drew back his cowl, pulling it wide over his shoulders. Then he lowered his arms so that the robe fell to the ground, revealing the long saffron cassock he wore beneath. His bald scalp was pale, shockingly so, and his face was dominated by the black sockets beneath his brow. Eyeless faces always unnerved Xerius, always reminded him of the dead skull beneath every man’s expression, but the knowledge that this man could nevertheless
see
awakened a pang at the back of this throat, one that could not be silenced by swallowing. Just as his childhood tutors had claimed, a serpent coiled about the Cishaurim’s neck—a Shigeki salt asp, black and shining as though oiled, its flickering tongue and surrogate eyes suspended next to the man’s right ear. The sightless pits remained fixed upon Xerius, but the asp’s head bobbed and turned, slowly scrutinizing the breadth of the courtyard, methodically tasting the air.

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