The Thousandfold Thought (The Prince of Nothing, Book 3) (5 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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From the outset, he uses his claim to caste-nobility to insinuate himself into the councils of Proyas and the other Great Names. He proceeds cautiously, patiently laying the groundwork of his domination. From his readings of Inrithi scripture, he learns what the Men of the Tusk expect from a prophetic figure, so he sets out to emulate—as far as he can—all of those characteristics. He becomes a pilot of souls, crafting others’ impressions of him with subtle inflections of word, tone, and expression. Soon, almost all those who know him find themselves in
awe
. Throughout the Holy War men whisper that a prophet walks among them.
At the same time, he plies Achamian with particular care. While mining him for his knowledge of the Three Seas, Kellhus subtly conditions him, instilling the passions and beliefs that will eventually force him to do the impossible: teach Kellhus the Gnosis, the deadly sorcery of the Ancient North.
In the course of his study, however, he discovers dozens of skin-spies mimicking men in various positions of power. He realizes, moreover, that they now
know
he can see them. One of them, a high-ranking Shrial Knight called Sarcellus, approaches him, probing for details. Kellhus uses the opportunity to make himself even more enigmatic, into a puzzle the Consult will be loath to destroy before solving. As long as he remains a benign mystery to the Consult, Kellhus realizes, they will not move against him.
He needs time to consolidate his position. Until the Holy War is his, he cannot risk an open confrontation.
He says nothing to Achamian for much the same reason. He knows the Mandate Schoolman believes him to be the Harbinger of the Second Apocalypse, and that the only thing preventing Achamian from telling this to his Mandate handlers is the recent death of his former student, Inrau, as a result of their machinations. Knowing that Kellhus could actually
see
Consult agents in their midst would prove too much. And as Achamian himself admits, the Mandate would likely seize Kellhus rather than treat with him as an equal.
Once the Holy War secures Shigek, Kellhus begins asserting himself more and more, giving what are called the Sermons of the Ziggurat. Though many now refer to him openly as the Warrior-Prophet, he continues to insist he is simply a man like any other. Knowing that Achamian has succumbed—that he believes him to be the world’s only hope—Kellhus finally asks the Schoolman to teach him the Gnosis. But when Achamian leaves for the Sareotic Library to meditate on this request, he is abducted by the Scarlet Spires.
Assuming Achamian lost, Kellhus turns to Esmenet, not out of any errant sense of lust, but because her extraordinary native intelligence makes her useful both as a subordinate and as a potential mate. The differences between the Dûnyain and the worldborn makes his bloodline invaluable. He knows that whatever sons he produces, especially by a woman of Esmenet’s intellect, will prove powerful tools.
So he begins seducing her by teaching her to read, by showing the hidden truths of her own heart, and by drawing her ever deeper into his circle of power and influence. Far from proving an obstacle, her bereavement actually facilitates his plan by rendering her more emotionally vulnerable and prone to suggestion. By the time the Holy War enters the desert, she has willingly joined him and Serwë in their bed.
Despite its calamities, the journey across the desert provides ample opportunity for him to exercise his otherworldly abilities. He rallies the Men of the Tusk with demonstrations of indomitable will and courage. He even saves them, using his preternatural senses to find well-springs beneath the sand. By the time the remnants of the Holy War fall upon Caraskand, thousands upon thousands openly hail him as the Warrior-Prophet. At long last he yields to the title.
He names his followers the Zaudunyani, the “Tribe of Truth.”
But now he faces an added danger. As the numbers of Zaudunyani swell, so too do the misapprehensions of the Great Names. For many, following the dictates of a living—as opposed to a long-dead—prophet proves too much. Ikurei Conphas becomes the de facto leader of the Orthodox, those Men of the Tusk who repudiate Kellhus and his revisionary Inrithism. Even Proyas finds himself increasingly troubled.
The Consult, as well, have been watching Kellhus with growing trepidation. In the confusion of Caraskand’s fall, Sarcellus leads several of his brother skin-spies in an assassination attempt that very nearly costs Kellhus his life. Knowing that it might prove useful, Kellhus saves one of their severed heads.
Shortly after this attempt, Kellhus is finally contacted by one of his father’s agents: a Cishaurim fleeing the Scarlet Spires. He tells Kellhus that he follows the Shortest Path, and that soon he will comprehend something called the Thousandfold Thought. Kellhus has innumerable questions, but it is too late: the Scarlet Spires approach. To avoid compromising his position, Kellhus beheads the man.
When the Padirajah arrives and seals the Holy War up within Caraskand, the situation becomes even more dire. According to Conphas and the Orthodox, the God punishes the Men of the Tusk for following a False Prophet. To defuse their threat, Kellhus plots the assassination of both Conphas and Sarcellus. Neither attempt succeeds, and General Martemus, Conphas’s closest adviser, is killed.
The dilemma now facing Kellhus is almost insuperable. The Holy War starves. The Zaudunyani and the Orthodox stand upon the brink of open war. And the Padirajah continues to assail Caraskand’s walls. For the first time, Kellhus is confronted by circumstances he cannot master.
He sees only one possible way to unify the Holy War under his leadership: he must let the Men of the Tusk condemn him and Serwë, and trust that Cnaiür, driven to avenge Serwë, will save him. Only a dramatic reversal and vindication can possibly win over the Orthodox in time.
He must make a leap of faith.
Serwë is executed, and Kellhus is bound to her naked corpse. Then he is lashed to a circumfix and hung from a great tree to die of exposure. Visions of the No-God plague him, as does Serwë pressed dead against him. Never has he suffered so …
For the first time, Anasûrimbor Kellhus weeps.
Achamian comes to him wild with rage because of Esmenet. Kellhus tells him about the skin-spies, about his visions of the impending Apocalypse.
Then, miraculously, he is cut down, and he knows that at last the Holy War is his, and that they will have the ardour and conviction they need to overcome the Padirajah.
Standing before the exultant masses, he grasps the Thousandfold Thought.
THE FINAL MARCH
CHAPTER ONE
CARASKAND
My heart shrivels even as my intellect bristles. Reasons—I find myself desperate for reasons. Sometimes I think every word written is written for shame.
—DRUSAS ACHAMIAN,
THE COMPENDIUM OF THE FIRST HOLY WAR
Early Spring, 4112 Year-of-the-Tusk, Enathpaneah
There had been a time, for Achamian, when the future had been a habit, something belonging to the hard rhythm of his days toiling in his father’s shadow. His fingers had stung in the morning, his back had burned in the afternoon. The fish had flashed silver in the sunlight. Tomorrow became today, and today became yesterday, as though time were little more than gravel rolled in a barrel, forever brightening what was the same. He expected only what he’d already endured, prepared only for what had already happened. His past had enslaved his future. Only the size of his hands had seemed to change.
But now …
Breathless, Achamian walked across the rooftop garden of Proyas’s compound. The night sky was clear. The constellations glittered against the black: Uroris rising in the east, the Flail descending to the west. The encircling heights of the Bowl reared across the distance, a riot of blue structures pricked by distant points of torchlight. Hoots and cries floated up from the streets below, sounding at once melancholy and besotted with joy.
Against all reason, the Men of the Tusk had triumphed over the heathen. Caraskand was a great Inrithi city once again.
Achamian pressed through a hedge of junipers, fouled his smock in the sharp branches. The garden was largely dead, the ground rutted and overturned during the height of the hunger. He stepped across a dusty gutter, then stomped about, making a carpet of grasses gone to hay. He knelt, still searching for his breath.
The fish were gone. His palms no longer bled when he clenched his fists in the morning. And the future had been … unleashed.
“I am,” he murmured through clenched teeth, “a Mandate Schoolman.”
The Mandate. How long since he had last spoken to them? Since it was he who travelled, the onus was on him to maintain contact. His failure to do so for so long would strike them as an unfathomable dereliction. They would think him mad. They would demand of him impossible things. And then, tomorrow …
It always came back to tomorrow.
He closed his eyes and intoned the first words. When he opened them, he saw the pale circle of light they cast about his knees, the shadows of grass combed through grass. A beetle scrambled through the chiaroscuro, mad to escape his sorcerous aspect. He continued speaking, his soul bending to the sounds, giving inner breath to the Abstractions, to thoughts that were not his own, to meanings that limned the world to its foundation. Without warning, the ground seemed to pitch, then suddenly here was no longer
here,
but everywhere. The beetle, the grasses, even Caraskand fell away.
He tasted the dank air of Atyersus, the great fortress of the School of Mandate, through the lips of another …
Nautzera
.
The fetor of brine and rot tugged vomit to the back of his throat. Surf crashed. Black waters heaved beneath a darkling sky. Terns hung like miracles in the distance.
No … not here
.
He knew this place well enough for terror to loosen his bowels. He gagged at the smell, covered his mouth and nose, turned to the fortifications … He stood upon the top tier of a timber scaffold. A shroud of sagging corpses loomed over him, to the limits of his periphery.
Dagliash.
From the base of the walls to the battlements, wherever the fortress’s ramparts faced the sea, countless thousands had been nailed across every surface: here a flaxen-maned warrior struck down in his prime, there an infant pinned through the mouth like a laurel. Fishing nets had been cast and fixed about them—to keep their rotting ligature intact, Achamian supposed. The netting sagged near the wall’s base, bellied by an accumulation of skulls and other human detritus. Innumerable terns and crows, even several gannets, darted and wheeled about the macabre jigsaw; it seemed he remembered them most of all.
Achamian had dreamed of this place many times. The Wall of the Dead, where Seswatha, captured after the fall of Trysë, had been tacked to ponder the glory of the Consult.
Nautzera hung immediately before him, suspended by nails through his thighs and forearms, naked save for the Agonic Collar about his throat. He seemed scarcely conscious.
Achamian clutched shaking hands, squeezed them bloodless. Dagliash had been a great sentinel once, staring across the wastes of Agongorea toward Golgotterath, her turrets manned by the hard-hearted men of Aörsi. Now she was but a way station of the world’s ruin. Aörsi was dead, her people extinct, and the great cities of Kûniüri were little more than gutted shells. The Nonmen had fled to their mountain fastnesses, and the remaining High Norsirai nations—Eämnor and Akksersia—battled for their very lives.
Three years had passed since the advent of the No-God. Achamian could feel him, a
looming
across the western horizon. A sense of doom.
A gust buffeted him with cold spray.
Nautzera … it’s me! Ach—
A harrowing cry cut him short. He actually crouched, though he knew no harm could befall him, peered in the direction of the sound. He gripped the bloodstained timber.
On a different brace of scaffolding farther down the fortifications, a Bashrag stooped over a thrashing shadow. Long black hair streamed from the fist-sized moles that pocked its massive frame. A vestigial face grimaced from each of its great and brutal cheeks. Without warning, it stood—each leg three legs welded together, each arm three arms—and hoisted a pale figure over the heights: a man hanging from a nail as long as a spear. For a moment the wretch kicked air like a child drawn from the tub, then the Bashrag thrust him against the husk of corpses. Wielding an immense hammer, the monstrosity began battering the nail, searching for unseen mortises. More cries pealed across the heights. The Bashrag clacked its teeth in ecstasy.

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