The Judging Eye (69 page)

And at long last Mimara broke
her silence.

"Cleric," she said.

INTERLUDE: MOMEN

The sound of discord carried on
the breeze. A riot in faraway streets.

Kelmomas stood with his chin on
the balcony rail, staring out over the Enclosure at the stately passage of
clouds crossing the light of a moon too low on the horizon to be seen. Woollen
blue wisped across the starred firmament, condensing into bellies of black.

The Nail of Heaven flared white
from a sailing summit. A distant chorus of shrieks and bellows signalled
another brutal torch-lit incursion.

He had no name for his rapture.
Calm and slow breathing. Stationary. Stationary amid the clash of all things.
The repose of a soul peering out from the world's shrouded centre. The unmoved
mover.

The ruler unseen.

Across the sky he heard a
many-throated song of defiance crumbling into cries of outrage, shouts of fear
and dismay. The heave of hundreds breaking. The clash of arms.

You,
the voice murmured.
You
made this.

"What are you doing out
there?" his mother called out from the dark entrance to his room. She
pulled aside the sheers to see him better.

"I'm scared, Mommy."

Her smile was too fraught to be
reassuring.

"Shush. You're safe.
They're not that many."

She held out an arm and he fell
into it, hugging her about the waist. It was one of the innumerable habits
linking little boys to their mothers. They walked to his bed together, into the
light cast by a solitary hanging lamp. His new nurse, Emansi, had snuffed all
the others.

The lantern's flame was a point
that blistered to look at, that could not be touched, that threw all the
shadows outward, away from the burnished ring of illuminated things. The
crimson embroidery—ducks with interlocking wings—gleamed along the folds of his
half-drawn covers. The mosaic of dancing bears stretched in a floriated arc
into the darkness of the ceiling.

She pulled aside the covers and
guided him into the folds with a gentle hand—yet one more thing he cherished
with the ferocity of tears. Then she crawled in after him, cupped his small
body in the warm palm of hers. She told herself, he knew, that she came here
for his sake, that the loss of a brother was trauma enough, let alone the loss
of a twin. Think of how intense their bond had been in infancy!

This was what she told herself,
he knew.

He closed his eyes, followed the
inner drift to the hazy outskirts of sleep. Her love seemed to encase him, to
hold him hot and dry and safe. There was a nothingness in her arms, an oblivion
indistinguishable from bliss. All cares fell away and with them, the
cold-pocketed world that was their foundation. There was only here. There was
only now. Another point of lantern-light, though no longer blistering, because
he was the illumination.

Let others burn their fingers.
Let them turn aside their eyes.

He rolled and snuggle-wriggled
so that he could face her on the pillow. They stared into each other's eyes,
mother and son, for several long moments. The immediacy of her was so vivid, so
close, that nothing else could ever be as real. She was the only thing.

He ran a fingertip along the
embroidered lip of the top blanket, a small proof of texture. He bent his face
into the semblance of petulant concentration.

"I miss Sammi..." he
lied.

She swallowed and blinked.
"Me too, sweetling. Me too."

A part of him, the snake-sneaky
part, laughed. Poor Samarmas. Poor-poor Samarmas.

"I didn't get to see
Father."

Her eyes hardened beneath a film
of tears.

"I'm sorry, Kel. We're at
war. Your father, he... he has to make sacrifices. We all have to make
sacrifices. Even darling little boys like you..."

She fell silent and remote, but
he could see her thoughts clear enough.
He does not mourn him. My husband
does not mourn our son.

"Uncle Maithanet," the
little Prince began, "he..."

A kind of wariness crept into
her expression. Her eyes blinked away the fog of self-pity and suddenly became
alert. "What about your uncle?"

"Nothing."

"Kel. What about your
uncle?"

"He... watches you
funny."

"What do you mean
watches
?
How?"

"Is he angry at you,
Mommy?"

"No. He's your uncle."

An inward look of cycling
thoughts and worries.

"Which means he's my
brother," she added, but more for her own benefit, he knew, than for his.
She reached out to cup his cheek in her left hand, the one bruised by what she
called her "ancient tattoo."

The Prince-Imperial fluttered
his lids as though overpowered by warmth and weariness. "But he has more
power..." he whispered, pretending to fall asleep. He would open his eyes
later, when her breathing slipped into the long trough of dreams.

Unseen rulers never slumbered,
not truly.

CHARACTER AND FACTION
GLOSSARY

House Anasûrimbor:

Kellhus
—the
Aspect-Emperor.

Maithanet
—Shriah of the
Thousand Temples, half-brother to Kellhus.

Esmenet
—Empress of the
Three Seas.

Mimara
—Esmenet's
estranged daughter from her days as a prostitute.

Moënghus
—son of Kellhus
and his first wife, Serwë, eldest of the Prince-Imperials.

Kayûtas
—eldest son of
Kellhus and Esmenet, General of the Kidruhil.

Theliopa
—eldest daughter
of Kellhus and Esmenet.

Serwa
—second daughter of
Kellhus and Esmenet, Grandmistress of the Swayal Sisterhood.

Inrilatas
—second son of
Kellhus and Esmenet, insane and imprisoned on the Andiamine Heights.

Kelmomas
—third son of
Kellhus and Esmenet, twin of Samarmas.

Samarmas
—fourth son of
Kellhus and Esmenet, the idiot twin of Kelmomas.

The Cult of Yatwer:

The traditional Cult of the
slave and menial castes, taking as its primary scriptures
The Chronicle of
the Tusk
, the
Higarata
, and the
Sinyatwa
. Yatwer is the
Goddess of the earth and fertility.

Psatma Nannaferi
—Mother-Supreme
of the Cult, a position long outlawed by the Thousand Temples.

Hanamem Sharacinth
—Matriarch
of the Cult.

Sharhild
—High-Priestess
of the Cult.

Vethenestra
—Chalfantic
Oracle.

Eleva
—High-Priestess of
the Cult.

Maharta
—High-Priestess of
the Cult.

Phoracia
—High-Priestess
of the Cult.

Aethiola
—High-Priestess
of the Cult.

The Imperial Precincts:

Biaxi Sankas
—Patridomos
of House Biaxi and an important member of the New Congregate.

Imhailas
—Exalt-Captain of
the Eöthic Guard.

Ngarau
—eunuch Grand
Seneschal from the days of the Ikurei Dynasty.

Phinersa
—Holy Master of
Spies.

Porsi
—caste-slave
nursemaid to Kelmomas and Samarmas.

Thopsis
—eunuch Master of
Imperial Protocol.

Vem-Mithriti
—Grandmaster
of the Imperial Saik and Vizier-in-Proxy.

Werjau
—Prime-Nascenti and
Judge-Absolute of the Ministrate.

The Great Ordeal:

Varalt Sorweel
—only son
of Harweel.

Varalt Harweel
—King of
Sakarpus.

Captain Harnilias
—commanding
officer of the Scions.

Zsoronga ut Nganka'kull
—Successor-Prince
of Zeüm and hostage of the Aspect-Emperor.

Obetegwa
—Senior Obligate
of Zsoronga.

Porsparian
—Shigeki slave
given to Sorweel.

Thanteus Eskeles
—Mandate
Schoolman and tutor to Varalt Sorweel.

Nersei Proyas
—King of
Conriya and Exalt-General of the Great Ordeal.

Coithus Saubon
—King of
Caraskand and Exalt-General of the Great Ordeal.

The Scalpoi:

Drusus Achamian
—former
Mandate Schoolman, lover of the Empress, teacher of the Aspect-Emperor, now the
only Wizard in the Three Seas.

Idrusus Geraus
—Achamian's
Galeoth slave.

Lord Kosoter
—Captain of
the Skin Eaters, Ainoni caste-noble, Veteran of the First Holy War.

Incariol
—mysterious
Nonman Erratic.

Sarl
—Sergeant of the Skin
Eaters, longtime companion of Lord Kosoter.

Kiampas
—Sergeant of the
Skin Eaters, former Nansur officer.

Galian
—Skin Eater, former
Nansur Columnary.

Pokwas (Pox)
—Skin Eater,
disgraced Zeümi Sword-Dancer.

Oxwora (Ox)
—Skin Eater,
Thunyeri son of Yalgrota.

Somandutta (Soma)
—Skin
Eater, Nilnameshi caste-noble adventurer.

Moraubon
—Skin Eater,
former Shrial Priest.

Sutadra (Soot)
—Skin
Eater, rumoured to be a Fanim heretic.

Xonghis
—Skin Eater,
former Imperial Tracker.

Ancient Kûniûri:

Anasûrimbor Celmomas II
(2089-2146)
—High-King of Kûniüri and tragic principal of the First
Apocalypse.

Anasûrimbor Nau-Cayûti
(2119-2140
)—youngest son of Celmomas and tragic hero of the First
Apocalypse.

Seswatha (2089-2168)
—Grandmaster
of the Sohonc, lifelong friend of Celmomas, founder of the Mandate, and
determined foe of the No-God.

The Dûnyain:

A 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 hidden in the ancient fortress of Ishuäl, breeding
their members for motor reflexes and intellectual acuity.

The Consult:

The cabal of magi and
generals that survived the death of the No-God in 2155 and has laboured ever
since to bring about his return in the so-called Second Apocalypse.

The Thousand Temples:

The institution that provides
the ecclesiastical framework of Zaudunyani Inrithism.

The Ministrate:

The institution that oversees
the judges, the New Imperium's religious secret police.

The Schools:

The collective name given to
the various academies of sorcerers. The first Schools, both in the Ancient
North and the Three Seas, arose as a response to the Tusk's condemnation of
sorcery. The so-called Major Schools are: the Swayal Compact, the Scarlet
Spires, the Mysunsai, the Imperial Saik, the Vokalati, and the Mandate (see
below).

The Mandate:

Gnostic School founded by
Seswatha in 2156 to continue the war against the Consult and to protect the
Three Seas from the return of the No-God, Mog-Pharau. Incorporated into the New
Imperium in 4112. All Mandate Schoolmen relive Seswatha's experience of the
First Apocalypse in their dreams.

WHAT HAS COME BEFORE...

Wars, as a rule, fall within the
compass of history. They mark the pitch of competing powers, the end of some
and the ascendency of others, the ebb and flow of dominance across the ages.
But there is a war that Men have waged for so long they have forgotten the
languages they first used to describe it. A war that makes mere skirmishes out
of the destruction of tribes and nations.

There is no name for this war;
Men cannot reference what transcends the short interval of their comprehension.
It began when they were little more than savages roaming the wilds, in an age
before script or bronze. An Ark, vast and golden, toppled from the void,
scorching the horizon, throwing up a ring of mountains with the violence of its
descent. And from it crawled the dread and monstrous Inchoroi, a race who had
come to seal the World against the Heavens, and so save the obscenities they
called their souls.