The White-Luck Warrior (55 page)

As a young child, one of Proyas's duties had been to bear his mother's train at public ceremonies. All he remembered of the toddling farce was stumbling after the long-dragging hems, clutching embroidery, losing it, then stumbling after the hems again, while all the Conriyan court roared in adoring laughter around him. In so many ways, Kellhus made him feel the same tender fool, always chasing, always stumbling...

"If I have fail—"

Kellhus interrupted him with a warm hand on his shoulder. "Please, Proyas. I'm just saying we grapple with
earthly
things tonight..."

"Earthly things?"

A broad smile cracked the flaxen curls of the Aspect-Emperor's moustache and beard.

"Yes. The Nonman King has finally answered our call."

Earthly, Proyas reflected, was not a term many would accord the ghouls.

"Even now his embassy waits here in the Umbilicus," his Lord-and-God continued. "We will receive them in the Eleven Pole Chamber..."

Within a matter of heartbeats, Proyas found himself immersed in the organizational carnival that perpetually characterized life behind the veils of power. Slaves took him in hand, washing his hands, brushing and perfuming his field armour, oiling and combing his hair and beard. A part of him always found it remarkable, the degree of coordination required for even the simplest and most impromptu of state occasions. An Imperial Eunuch festooned in insignia from across the Three Seas led him out into the airy chill of the Eleven Pole Chamber. Kellhus already stood on the low dais, dispensing trivial instructions to a small mob of functionaries. The Ekkinû, the sorcerous arras that framed the throne, writhed gold on black with the utter absence of motion. Glimpsing Proyas, Kellhus gestured for him to stand at his side.

His thoughts racing, the Exalt-General took his place next to the throne, convinced he could feel the sinuous, symbolic twine of the Ekkinû in the air behind him. He had never been able to fathom the significance of the Nonmen to the Ordeal—especially since whatever strength they could muster would be but a fraction of their former glory—and scarcely anything at all compared with the might of the Great Ordeal—at least in his humble, human opinion. But Kellhus had sent hundreds to their death, if not thousands, in his perpetual attempts to contact Nil'giccas: small fleets charged with leaving the Three Seas and running the coasts of Zeüm, thence into the mists of the Ocean and the legendary shores of Injor-Niyas.

All in the name of striking an alliance with a ten-thousand-year-old king.

Another question to trouble their discussions.

Proyas gazed up into the gloom of the tented heights. Only three braziers had been lighted, so they seemed a small island of illumination surrounded by half-glimpsed Circumfix banners and walls and panels so dim as to be nothing more than the ghosts of structure.

The slaves and functionaries withdrew, taking the air of carnival bustle with them. Save for the shadowy guards posted about the chamber's perimeter, it was just the two of them.

"I have pulled aside the harem beads," Kellhus said. "And you find my wives ugly..."

The Exalt-General coughed aloud, such was his consternation. "What?"

"Your
question
," Kellhus said, chuckling. He spoke in the wry, warm tones of a friend who has always dwelt several paces closer to the peace that truth delivers. "You wonder how it is you can
doubt
after so many years of witness and miracle."

"I... I'm not sure I understand."

"There's a reason Men prefer their prophets
dead
, Proyas."

Kellhus stared askance at his Exalt-General, one eyebrow hooked in
Do-you-see?
curiosity.

And Proyas did see—he realized that he had understood all along. His question, he suddenly realized, was no question at all but instead a complaint. He did not doubt so much as
yearn
...

For the simplicity of simple belief.

"We begin believing when we are children," Kellhus continued. "And so we make childish expectations our rule, the measure for what the holy
should
be..." He gestured to the ornamentation about them, spare as it was compared with the fleshpots of the South. "Simplicity. Symmetry. Beauty. These are but the
appearance
of the holy—the gilding that deceives. What is holy is difficult, ugly beyond comprehension, in the eyes of all save the God."

Just then, the Pillarian Seneschal announced the visitors.

"Remember," Kellhus murmured as a mother might. "Forgive them their peculiarities..."

Three striding figures resolved from the gloom, hooded in black cloaks that shone as though slicked in rain.

"And beware their beauty."

The foremost figure paused immediately below them, threw back his cloak, which slipped into a pool of kneaded folds about the heels of his boots. His scalp gleamed with the pallor of cold mutton fat. His face was alarming, as much for its perfection as for its resemblance to the Sranc. He wore a hauberk that was at once a gown, one that baffled the eyes for the wrought delicacy of the chain: innumerable serpents no larger than the clippings of a child's nails.

"I am Nin'sariccas," the Nonman announced in High Kûniüric, a language Proyas had spent years mastering so he could read
The Sagas
in their original tongue. "Dispossessed Son of Siol, Emissary of his Most Subtle Glory, Nil'giccas, King of Injor-Niyas..." His bow fell far short of what jnan demanded. "We have ridden long and hard to find you."

Kellhus regarded him the way he regarded all penitents who found their way to his feet: as someone who had stumbled out of wintry desolation into the warm, sultry glow of summer.

"You are surprised," he said in a voice that easily matched the melodious resonance of the Nonman's. "You thought us doomed."

A serpentine blink. The preternatural eyes clicked to the Aspect-Emperor's right—to the sorcerous arras, Proyas realized. He understood what Kellhus had meant by peculiarities. Something about the ghoul's manner followed unexpected lines. For the first time he noticed that the Nonman stood nude beneath the gleam of his nimil hauberk.

"Nil'giccas sends his greetings," Nin'sariccas said. "Even in an age so dark, the light that is the Aspect-Emperor shines for all to see."

A leonine nod.

"Then Ishterebinth is with us?"

The Emissary's air of vague distraction lapsed into outright insolence. Rather than answer, Nin'sariccas peered across the Eleven Pole Chamber's airy interior, then, with the remote reserve of those careful to conceal their disgust, considered Proyas and the Pillarian Guards flanking him. Weathering the inhuman scrutiny, Proyas suffered a strange twinge of inadequacy, one he imagined caste-menials felt in the presence of nobles: a presentiment of bodily and spiritual inferiority.

Like the angels of a long-dead god, the Nonmen stood rigid with a pride that had out-lived their glory. Only the mien and manner of the Aspect-Emperor dwarfed them—a sun to their moon.

"The memory of your forefather's treachery..." the Emissary finally replied, his gaze lingering on Proyas, "burns bright with us. For some,
Anasûrimbor
is the very name of Mannish arrogance and disorder."

At this, several Pillarians loosened their broadswords in their scabbard. Proyas was quick in raising his hand to restrain them, knowing the Nonman spoke from the vantage of
ages
, that for them, generations of Men were as fleeting as mice. They had no grave to swallow their ancient grudges.

Kellhus betrayed no consciousness of the affront. He leaned forward in a familiar way, rested his elbows on his knees, clasped his haloed hands.

"Is Ishterebinth
with
us?"

A long, cold gaze. For the first time Proyas noticed how the two Nonmen accompanying Nin'sariccas held their eyes down as though in ritual shame.

"Yes," the Emissary said. "The Sacred Ishroi of Injor-Niyas will add voice and shield to your Ordeal... If you retake Dagliash. If you honour the Niom."

Proyas had never heard of the Niom. Dagliash, he knew, was the fortress the ancient High Norsirai had raised to guard against Golgotterath. It stood to reason that the ghouls would want some guarantee of success before casting their lot.

"Have you seen the massacre we have wrought?" Kellhus cried in the semblance of a more impassioned ruler. "No Horde so great has been overcome. Not Pir-Pahal. Not Eleneot. No age of Man or Nonman has seen a host such as the one I have assembled!" He stood to peer into the Emissary's inhuman face, and somehow the World seemed to lean with him, milky with the roar of intangible things.

"The Great Ordeal
will
reach Golgotterath."

The Exalt-General had seen innumerable men—strong, proud men—shrivel beneath the Aspect-Emperor's divine scrutiny, so many that it had come to seem a law of nature. But Nin'sariccas remained as remote as before.

"If you retake Dagliash. If you honour the Niom."

Proyas took care not to look at his Lord-and-God directly, knowing that the sight of subordinates watching their rulers would be taken as a sign of weakness. But he found himself desperately curious as to the intricacies of Kellhus's expression—the art. Proyas had witnessed many men deny the Aspect-Emperor through the years, either through
him
, as was the case with King Harweel of Sakarpus, or directly. But never in circumstances so extraordinary.

Daring souls, and foolish, given that so few yet breathed.

"Agreed," the Aspect-Emperor said.

A concession? Why did he need these inhuman ghouls?

Once again, Nin'sariccas's bow fell far short of what jnan demanded. He lifted his aquiline face. His glittering black gaze fell to Kellhus's waist, to the abominations hanging from his hip.

"We are curious..." the Nonman said. "The Ciphrang bound about your girdle. Is it true you have walked the Outside and
returned
?"

Kellhus resumed his seat, leaned back with a single foot extended. "Yes."

An almost imperceptible nod. "And what did you find?"

Kellhus propped his face with his right hand, two fingers pressed to his temple. "You worry that I never truly returned," he said mildly. "That the soul of Anasûrimbor Kellhus writhes in some hell and a demon Ciphrang gazes upon you instead."

The Decapitants, as the demonic heads had come to be called, were something wilfully ignored by many among the Zaudunyani. A kind of indigestible proof. Proyas was one of few who knew something about their acquisition, how Kellhus, during one of the longer truces that punctuated the Unification Wars, spent several weeks studying with Heramari Iyokus, the Grandmaster of the Scarlet Spires, learning the darkest ways of Anagogic sorcery, the Daimos. Proyas had been among the first to see them when he returned from Carythusal and perhaps the first to dare ask Kellhus what had happened. His reply loomed large among the many unforgettable things the man had told him over the years:
"There are two species of revelation, my old friend. Those that seize, and those that are seized. The first are the province of the priest, the latter belong to the sorcerer..."

Even after so many years, his skin still prickled in revulsion when he glimpsed the Decapitants. But unlike many of the faithful, Proyas never forgot that his prophet was also a mage, a Shaman, not unlike those so piously condemned by the Tusk. His was the New Covenant, the sweeping away of all the old measures. So many former sins had become new virtues. Women had claimed the privileges of men. Sorcerers had become priests.

Obscenity
should
hang from the waist of Salvation, or so it had come to seem.

"Such thefts..." Nin'sariccas said with passionless tact. "Such
substitutions
. They have happened before."

"Why should you care," Kellhus said, "if your hatred is satisfied, your ancient foe at last destroyed? Ever have Men been ruled by tyrants. Why should you care what soul lies behind our cruelty?"

A single inhuman blink. "May I touch you?"

"Yes."

The Emissary instantly stepped forward, sparking cries and the baring of weapons throughout the gloom.

"Leave him," Kellhus said.

Nin'sariccas had paused immediately above the Aspect-Emperor, the hem of his chain gown swaying. For the first time he betrayed something resembling indecision, and Proyas realized the creature was, in his own inhuman manner,
terrified
. The Exalt-General almost smiled, such was his gratification.

The Emissary extended a sallow hand...

Which the Aspect-Emperor clasped in a firm, human grip. For a heartbeat, it seemed that worlds, let alone the shadowy confines of the Eleven Pole Chamber, dangled from their grasp.

Sun and moon. Man and Nonman.

The clasp broke with the gliding of fingers.

"What did you see?" Nin'sariccas asked with what seemed genuine curiosity. "What did you find?"

"God... broken into a million warring splinters."

A grim nod. "We worship the spaces between the Gods."

"Which is why you are damned."

Another nod, this one strangely brittle. "As False Men."

The Aspect-Emperor nodded in stoic regret. "As False Men."

The Emissary retreated from the dais, resumed his place at the fore of his voiceless companions. "And why should the False Men lend their strength to the True?"

"Because of Hanalinqu," the Holy Aspect-Emperor of the Three Seas declared. "Because of Cû'jara Cinmoi. Because four thousand years ago, all your wives and daughters were murdered... and you were cursed to go mad in the shadow of that memory, to live forever, dying their deaths."

Nin'sariccas bowed yet again, this time deeper, yet still far short of honouring jnan.

"If you retake Dagliash," he said. "If you honour the Niom."

—|—

As he had every morning since the Battle of the Horde, Sorweel awoke before the Interval's toll. He lay aching in his cot, more pinched than warmed by his woollen blanket, blinking at the impossibility of his straits. Other than a residue of warmth that made cold dismay of his every waking, nothing sensible remained of his dreams. He knew only that he dreamed of better places. He could only dream of better places.