The Darkness that Comes Before (88 page)

Read The Darkness that Comes Before Online

Authors: R. Scott Bakker

BOOK: The Darkness that Comes Before
10.06Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
He had rediscovered the Consult, but he knew nothing of their plans, nor of any way to discover them again. He didn’t even know how they’d been discovered by the Emperor in the first place. They concealed themselves in a way that could not be
seen
. The single, tremulous line joining “The Consult” to “The Emperor” was devoid of any significance, save that they were somehow connected. And if the Consult had infiltrated the Imperial Court with this . . . this
skin-spy,
he could only assume that they had likewise infiltrated all the Great Factions, the entire Three Seas—perhaps even the Mandate itself.
A face opening like palsied fingers from a skinless palm. How
many
were there?
Suddenly the name, “The Consult,” which had been so isolated from the others, seemed spliced to them in a terrifying intimacy. The Consult hadn’t just infiltrated factions, Achamian realized, they had infiltrated
individuals,
to the point of becoming them. How does one war against such a foe without warring against what they’ve become? Without warring against all the Great Factions? For all Achamian knew, the Consult
already ruled
the Three Seas and merely tolerated the Mandate as an impotent foe, a laughingstock, in order to further fortify the bulwark of ignorance that shielded them.
How long have they been laughing? How far has their corruption gone?
Could it have reached as far as the Shriah? Could the Holy War, at its pith, be an artifact of the Consult?
A cascade of heart-pounding implications flushed through him, beading his skin with the cold sweat of dread. Disconnected events found themselves woven into a narrative far darker than ignorance, the way disjoint ruins might be bound by the intuition of some lost bastion or temple. Geshrunni’s missing face. Did the Consult murder him? Take his face to consummate some obscene rite of substitution, only to be thwarted when the Scarlet Spires discovered his body shortly after? And if the Consult knew of Geshrunni, would that not also mean they knew of the secret war between the Scarlet Spires and the Cishaurim? And wouldn’t that explain how Maithanet also knew of the war? Explain Inrau’s death? If the Shriah of the Thousand Temples was a Consult spy . . . If the prophecy of the Anasûrimbor—
He looked to the parchment once again, to
ANASÛRIMBOR KELLHUS
 
still disconnected, though in troubling proximity to “The Consult.” He raised his quill, about to scratch a line between the two names, but hesitated. He set the quill down.
The man, Kellhus, who would be his student and his friend, was so . . . unlike other men.
The Anasûrimbor’s return
was
a harbinger of the Second Apocalypse—the truth of this ached in Achamian’s bones. And the Holy War would simply be the first great shedding of blood.
His head swimming, Achamian pulled a stunned hand over his face, through his hair. Images of his former life—teaching Proyas algebra by scratching figures into the earth of a garden path, reading Ajencis in the fretted morning sunlight of Zin’s portico—brawled through his thoughts, hopelessly innocent, poignantly wan and naive and utterly wrecked.
The Second Apocalypse is here. It has already begun . . .
And he stood in the very heart of the tempest. The Holy War.
Deranged shadows frolicked and cavorted along the canvas walls of his tent, and Achamian knew with appalling certainty that they plumbed the horizon, that some measureless frame had stolen unawares upon the world and fixed its dreadful course.
Another Apocalypse . . . And it’s happening.
But this was mad! It couldn’t be!
It is.
Breathe in. Now exhale—slowly. You’re a match for this, Akka.
You must be a match for this!
He swallowed.
Ask yourself, What is the question?
Why would the Consult want this Holy War? Why would they want to destroy the Fanim? Does it have something to do with the Cishaurim?
But in the relief of posing this question, a second stole into his thoughts, one whose terminus was too painful for him to deny. A thought like a winter knife.
They murdered Geshrunni immediately after I left Carythusal.
He thought of the man in the Kamposea Agora, the one who he’d thought had been following him. The one who had seemed to change his face.
Does that mean they’re following me?
Had he
led them
to Inrau?
Achamian paused, breathless in the diffuse light, the parchment numb and tingling in his left hand.
Had he also led them . . .
He brought two fingers to his mouth, drew them slowly to and fro along his lower lip.
“Esmi . . .”
he whispered.
 
Lashed together, the pleasure galleys swelled gently on the Meneanor outside of Momemn’s fortified harbour. It was a tradition, centuries old, to gather thus at the Feast of Kussapokari, which marked the summer solstice. Most of those on the galleys were of the two high castes: the kjineta of the Houses of the Congregate and the priestly nahat. Men from House Gaunum, House Daskas, House Ligesseras, and many others gauged one another and tailored their gossip according to the murky webs of loyalty and enmity that bound the Houses together. Even within the castes there were a thousand increments of rank and reputation. The official criteria for such rank were clear, more or less—nearness to the Emperor, which was easily measured by the hierarchy of stations within his labyrinthine ministries, or, at the opposite pole, affiliation with House Biaxi, the traditional rival of House Ikurei. But the Houses themselves had long histories, and rank between men was inextricably bound to history. So concubines and children would be told, “That man, Trimus Charcharius, defer to him, child. His ancestors were once Emperors,” even though House Trimus was out of favour with the Emperor and had been despised by the Biaxi since time immemorial. Add to this the measures of wealth, of learning, and of wit, and the jnanic codes that braced all their intercourse became as indecipherable from the outside as they were bewildering from within—a shrouded bog that quickly devoured the stupid.
But this welter of hidden concerns and instant calculation did not constrain them. It was simply the way, as natural as the cycle of constellations. The fluid things of life were no less necessary for being fluid. So the revellers laughed and talked as though careless, leaning against polished rails, basking in the perfection of the late-afternoon sun, shivering when they fell into shadows. Bowls rang. Wine was poured and spilled, making sticky-ringed fingers even stickier. The first swallow was spat into the sea—propitiation to Momas, the God who provided the ground of these proceedings. The conversations were a wash of humour and gravity, like a promenade of voices, each vying for attention, each hinged on the opportunity to impress, to inform, to entertain. The concubines, dressed in their silk
culati,
had been driven away by the harsh talk of the men, as was proper, and wallowed in those subjects they found endlessly amusing: fashion, jealous wives, and wilful slaves. The men, carefully holding their Ainoni sleeves so they fell into the sun, spoke of serious things, and regarded with amused disdain anything that fell outside the realm of war, prices, and politics. Those few breaches of jnan risked were tolerated, even encouraged, depending on who made them. It was part of jnan to know precisely when to transgress it. The men laughed hard at the sounds of obligatory shock that passed through the women within earshot.
Around them, the waters of the bay were hard blue and flat. Looking like toys in the distance, Galeoth grain ships, immense Cironji carracks, and others moored outside the mouth of the River Phayus. The after-storm sky felt deep with clarity. Toward land, the shallow hills surrounding Momemn were brown, and the city itself looked old, like the ashes of a fire. Through the perpetual haze of smoke, the great monuments of the city could be discerned, like darker shadows hunching over the grey smudge of tenements and chaotic alleyways. As always, the Tower of Ziek oppressed the northeast. And in the city’s heart, the Great Domes of Xothei rose above the confused temple-complex of Cmiral. The keen-sighted among the Biaxi faction swore that in the midst of the temples, they could see the Emperor’s Cock, as Xerius’s latest monument had come to be called. Controversy ensued. There were some, the more religious, who balked at this bawdy joke. But they were swayed by more argument and more wine. They were forced to concede that the obelisk, after all, possessed a wrinkled “head.” One of the drunkards among them even drew his knife—the first real breach of etiquette—when it was recalled that he’d kissed the obelisk the previous week.
It was outside the walls of Momemn where things had changed. The surrounding fields were dust, trampled grey by countless feet and textured by sun-baked ruts. The land had broken beneath the weight of the Holy War. The groves were dead. Cesspits festered. Flies.
The Holy War had marched, and the men of the Houses discussed it endlessly, recounted the Emperor’s humiliation—no, the
Empire’s
humiliation—at the hands of Proyas and his mercenary Scylvendi. A Scylvendi! Would the fiends now hound them on the field of politics as well? The Great Names had called the Emperor’s bluff, and though Ikurei Xerius had threatened not to march with the Holy War, he had in the end conceded defeat and sent Conphas with them. The attempt to bend the Holy War to Nansur interests had been a daring gambit, they all agreed, but so long as the brilliant Conphas marched with them, the Emperor might still succeed.
Conphas
. A man like a God. A true child of Kyraneas, or even Cenei—of the old blood. How could he fail to make the Holy War his own? “Think of it!” they cried. “The Old Empire restored!” And they raised yet another toast to their ancient nation.
Most had spent the pestilence months of spring and summer at their provincial estates and had seen little of the Men of the Tusk. Some had grown wealthy supplying the Holy War, and even more had precious sons under Conphas. They had few practical reasons to celebrate the march of the Holy War south. But perhaps their considerations were deeper. When the locusts descended, they grew rich emptying their granaries, but they still burned offerings when the famines ended. The Gods detested nothing so much as arrogance. The world was painted glass—shadows of ancient, unimaginable power shifted beneath.
Somewhere distant, the Holy War travelled the roads between ancient capitals, a great migration of sturdy Men and sun-glittering arms. Even now, some claimed they could hear its horns faint through laughing voices and the stationary sea, the way the peal of trumpets might linger in ringing ears. Others paused and listened, and though they heard nothing, they shivered and rationed their words with care. If glories witnessed moved men to awe, glories asserted but not seen moved them to piety.
And judgement.
Appendices
 
Character and Faction Glossary
 
Anasûrimbor Kellhus
(Ah-nas-soor-imb-or Kell-huss),
a thirty-three-year-old Dûnyain monk
Drusas Achamian
(Droo-sass Ah-kay-me-on),
a forty-seven-year-old Mandate sorcerer
Cnaiür
(Nay-yur),
a forty-four-year-old Scylvendi barbarian, Chieftain of the Utemot
Esmenet
(Ez-men-net),
a thirty-one-year-old Sumni prostitute
Serwë
(Sair-way),
a nineteen-year-old Nymbricani concubine
Anasûrimbor Moënghus
(Ah-nas-soor-imb-or Moe-eng-huss),
Kellhus’s father
 
Skiötha
(Skee-oath-ah),
Cnaiür’s deceased father
The Dûnyain
 
A hidden monastic sect whose members have repudiated history and animal appetite in the hope of finding absolute enlightenment through the control of all desire and circumstance. For two thousand years they have bred their members for both motor reflexes and intellectual acuity.
The Consult

Other books

The Returning by Ann Tatlock
Horizon by Helen Macinnes
Eve Vaughn by Rebellion
Trickster by Nicola Cameron
Maya's Notebook: A Novel by Isabel Allende
The General's Daughter by Nelson DeMille
Just Desserts by Tricia Quinnies
Trouble In Triplicate by Stout, Rex
Tats Too by Layce Gardner