The Darkness that Comes Before (56 page)
Read The Darkness that Comes Before Online
Authors: R. Scott Bakker
If he knew how deep I see . . .
How it would terrify them, world-born men, to see themselves through Dûnyain eyes. The delusions and the follies. The deformities.
Kellhus did not see faces, he saw forty-four muscles across bone and the thousands of expressive permutations that might leap from them—a second mouth as raucous as the first, and far more truthful. He did not hear men speaking, he heard the howl of the animal within, the whimper of the beaten child, the chorus of preceding generations. He did not see men, he saw example and effect, the deluded issue of fathers, tribes, and civilizations.
He did not see what came after. He saw what came before.
They rode through the saplings on the stream’s far bank, ducking branches hazed by early spring green.
“Madness,” Cnaiür said. “I don’t believe you . . .”
Kellhus said nothing, steered his horse between trees and slapping limbs. He knew the paths of the Scylvendi’s thoughts, the inferences he would make—if he could forget his fury.
“If all men are ignorant of the origins of their thoughts . . .” Cnaiür said.
Anxious to clear the brush, their horses galloped the last few lengths to open, endless ground.
“Then all men are deceived.”
Kellhus secured his gaze for a crucial instant. “They act for reasons that are not their own.”
Will he see?
“Like slaves . . .” Cnaiür began, a stunned scowl on his face. Then he recalled at whom he looked. “But you say this simply to exonerate yourself! What does it matter enslaving slaves, eh, Dûnyain?”
“So long as what comes before remains shrouded, so long as men are already deceived, what does it matter?”
“Because it’s
deceit
. Womanish deception. An outrage against honour!”
deceit
. Womanish deception. An outrage against honour!”
“And you’ve never deceived your foes on the field of battle? You’ve never enslaved another?”
Cnaiür spat. “My enemies. My foes. Those who’d do the same to me if they could. That’s the bargain all warriors strike, and it
is
an honourable one. But what you do, Dûnyain, makes all men your foe.”
is
an honourable one. But what you do, Dûnyain, makes all men your foe.”
Such penetration!
“Does it? Or does it make them my children? What father does not rule his yaksh?”
At first Kellhus feared he’d been too oblique, then Cnaiür said: “So that’s what we are to you? Children?”
“Didn’t my father wield you as his instrument?”
“Answer my question!”
“Children to us? Of course you are. How else could my father have used you so effortlessly?”
“Deceit! Deceit!”
“Then why do you fear me so, Scylvendi?”
“Enough!”
“You were a weak child, were you not? You wept easily. You flinched each time your father raised his hand . . . Tell me, Scylvendi, how is it I know this?”
“Because it describes every child!”
“You prize Anissi above your other wives, not because of her greater beauty but because she alone weathers your torment and still loves. Because she alone—”
“She told you this! The whore told you this!”
“You hunger for illicit congress, for—”
“I said
enough!
”
enough!
”
For thousands of years the Dûnyain had been bred to the limits of their senses, trained to lay bare what came before. There were no secrets in their presence. No lies.
How many frailties of spirit did the Scylvendi suffer? How many trespasses of heart and flesh had he committed? All unspeakable. All gagged by fury and endless recrimination, hidden even from himself.
If Cnaiür urs Skiötha suspected Kellhus, then Kellhus would pay the wages of his suspicion. Truth. Unspeakable truth. Either the Scylvendi preserved his self-deception by abandoning his suspicion, thinking Kellhus a mere charlatan whom he need not fear, or he embraced the truth and shared the unspeakable with Moënghus’s son. Either way Kellhus’s mission would be served. Either way Cnaiür’s trust would eventually be secured, be it the trust of contempt or the trust of love.
The Scylvendi nearly gaped at him, his eyes pinned wide by bewildered horror. Kellhus looked through this expression, saw the inflections of face, timbre, and word that would calm him, return him to inscrutability, or extinguish whatever self-possession remained.
“Is it this way with all many-blooded warriors? Do they all flinch from the truth?”
But something went wrong. For some reason the word “truth” struck the violence from Cnaiür’s passion, and he went drowsy-calm, like a foal during bloodletting.
“Truth? You need only speak something to make it a lie, Dûnyain. You do not speak as other men speak.”
Again his knowledge . . .
But it was not too late.
But it was not too late.
“And how is it that other men speak?”
“The words men utter do not . . . belong to them. They do not follow tracks of their making.”
Show him the folly. He’ll see.
“The ground upon which men speak is trackless, Scylvendi . . . Like the Steppe.”
Kellhus instantly recognized his error. Fury sparked in the man’s eyes, and there could be no mistaking its source.
“The Steppe,” Cnaiür grated, “is trackless, eh, Dûnyain?”
Is this the path you took, Father?
There could be no question. Moënghus had used the Steppe, the central figure of Scylvendi belief, as his primary vehicle. By exploiting the metaphoric inconsistency between the trackless Steppe and the deep tracks of Scylvendi custom, he’d been able to steer Cnaiür toward acts that would have otherwise been unimaginable to him. To be faithful to the Steppe, one must repudiate custom. And in the absence of customary prohibitions, any act, even the murder of one’s father, became conceivable.
A simple and effective stratagem. But in the end, it had been too simple, too easily deciphered in his absence. It had allowed Cnaiür far too much insight into the Dûnyain.
“Again the whirlwind!” the man cried inexplicably.
He’s mad.
“All of this!” he ranted. “Every word a whip!”
Kellhus saw only murder and riot in his face. Shining vengeance in his eyes.
By the end of the Steppe. I need him to cross Scylvendi lands, nothing more. If he hasn’t succumbed by the time we reach the mountains, I will kill him.
That night they gathered dead grasses and wove them into rough sheaves. After they’d accumulated a small stack, Cnaiür set them alight. They sat close to the small fire, gnawing their provisions in silence.
“Why do you think Moënghus summoned you?” Cnaiür asked, struck by the peculiarity of speaking that name.
Moënghus
. . .
Moënghus
. . .
The Dûnyain chewed, his gaze lost in the fire’s golden folds. “I don’t know.”
“You must know something. He sent you dreams.”
Glittering in the firelight, the implacable blue eyes searched his own.
The scrutiny begins,
Cnaiür thought, but then he realized the scrutiny had begun long before, with his wives in the yaksh, and it had never ended.
The scrutiny begins,
Cnaiür thought, but then he realized the scrutiny had begun long before, with his wives in the yaksh, and it had never ended.
Measure is unceasing.
“The dreams were of images only,” Kellhus said. “Images of Shimeh. And of a violent contest between peoples. Dreams of history—the very thing that is anathema to the Dûnyain.”
The man continually did this, Cnaiür understood, continually seeded his replies with comments that begged for retort or interrogation in their own right. History an anathema to the Dûnyain? But this was the man’s purpose: to deflect the movements of Cnaiür’s soul away from the more important questions. Such maddeningly subtlety!
“Yet he summoned you,” Cnaiür pressed. “Who summons another without giving reasons?”
Unless he knows that the summoned will be compelled to come.
Unless he knows that the summoned will be compelled to come.
“My father needs me. That’s all I know.”
“Needs you? For what?”
This. This is the question.
This. This is the question.
“My father is at war, plainsman. What father fails to call on his son in times of war?”
“One who numbers his son among his enemies.”
There’s something more here . . . something I’m missing.
There’s something more here . . . something I’m missing.
He looked to the Norsirai across the fire and somehow knew the man had seen this revelation within him. How could he prevail in a war such as this? How could he overcome someone who could smell his thoughts from the subtleties of his expression?
My face . . . I must hide my face.
My face . . . I must hide my face.
“At war against whom?” Cnaiür asked.
“I don’t know,” Kellhus replied, and for instant he almost looked forlorn, like a man who’d wagered all in the shadow of disaster.
Pity? He seeks to elicit pity from a Scylvendi?
For a moment Cnaiür almost laughed.
Perhaps I have overestimated
—But again his instincts saved him.
For a moment Cnaiür almost laughed.
Perhaps I have overestimated
—But again his instincts saved him.
With his shining knife, Cnaiür sawed off another chunk of
amicut,
the strips of dried beef, wild herbs, and berries that were the mainstay of their provisions. He stared impassively at the Dûnyain as he chewed.
amicut,
the strips of dried beef, wild herbs, and berries that were the mainstay of their provisions. He stared impassively at the Dûnyain as he chewed.
He wants me to think he’s weak.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE HETHANTA MOUNTAINS
Even the hard-hearted avoid the heat of desperate men. For the bonfires of the weak crack the most stone.
—CONRIYAN PROVERB
So who were the heroes and the cravens of the Holy War? There are already songs enough to answer that question. Needless to say, the Holy War provided further violent proof of Ajencis’s old proverb, “Though all men be equally frail before the world, the differences between them are terrifying.”
—DRUSAS ACHAMIAN,
COMPENDIUM OF THE FIRST HOLY WAR
COMPENDIUM OF THE FIRST HOLY WAR
Never before had Cnaiür endured such a trial.
They travelled southeast, by and large unseen and unmolested. Before the catastrophe at Kiyuth, Cnaiür and his kinsmen had not been able to travel more than a day without encountering parties of Munuäti, Akkunihor, or other Scylvendi tribes. Now three or four days typically passed before he and Kellhus were intercepted. They crossed some tribal lands without any challenge at all.
At first Cnaiür had dreaded the sight of galloping horsemen. Custom protected any Scylvendi warrior on pilgrimage to the Empire, and in better days such encounters were occasions for gossip, exchanges of information, and familial greetings. A time to set aside the knife. But it was uncommon for a lone Scylvendi warrior to be accompanied by a slave, and these were not better days. In desperate times, Cnaiür knew, men rationed nothing so jealously as tolerance. They were more strict in their interpretation of custom and less forgiving of uncommon things.
But most of the bands they encountered consisted of boys with girlish faces and sapling limbs. If the sight of Cnaiür’s scarred arms did not awe them into stammering deference, they would posture the way juveniles do, taking pride in aping the words and manner of their dead fathers. They would nod sagely at Cnaiür’s explanation and scowl at those who asked childish questions. Few of them had seen the Empire, so it remained a place of wonder. All of them, at some point, bid him to avenge their dead kin.
Soon Cnaiür found himself yearning for these encounters—for the escape they offered.
The Steppe unfolded before Cnaiür and Kellhus, featureless for the most part. Indifferent to the desolation between them, the pastures grew thicker and green. Purple blossoms no bigger than Cnaiür’s fingernail bobbed in the wind, which combed the grasses into sweeping waves across the distance. His hatred dulled by boredom, Cnaiür would watch cloud shadows sail ponderously toward the horizon. And even though he knew they rode through the heart of the Jiünati Steppe, it seemed he travelled through a stranger’s land.
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