CHAPTER EIGHT

MOMEMN

Kings never lie. They demand the world be mistaken.

—CONRIYAN PROVERB

 

When we truly apprehend the Gods, the Nilnameshi sages say, we recognize them not as kings but as thieves. This is among the wisest of blasphemies, for we always see the king who cheats us, never the thief.

—OLEKAROS, AVOWALS

Autumn, 4111 Year-of-the-Tusk, the Northern Jiünati Steppe

Yursalka of the Utemot awoke with a start.

A noise of some kind . . .

The fire was dead. Everything was blackness. Rain drummed against the hide walls of his yaksh. One of his wives groaned and fussed with her blankets.

Then he heard it again. A tap against the hide entrance. “Ogatha?” he whispered hoarsely. One of his younger sons had ambled off the previous afternoon and had failed to return. They’d assumed that the boy had been caught by the rain, that he would return after it passed. Ogatha had done as much before. Nevertheless, Yursalka was worried.

Always wandering, that boy.

“Oggie?”

Nothing.

Another tap.

More curious than alarmed, he kicked his legs free, then crept nude to his broadsword. He was certain it was just Oggie playing games, but hard times had fallen upon the Utemot. One never knew.

He saw lightning flash through a seam in the conical ceiling. For an instant, the water dripping through seemed quicksilver. The subsequent thunder left his ears ringing.

Then another tap. He became tense. He carefully picked his way between his children and wives, paused before the entrance of his yaksh. The boy was mischievous, which was why Yursalka doted on him so, but throwing stones at his father’s yaksh in the dead of night? Was that mischief?

Or malice?

He worked the pommel of his sword with his hand. He shivered. Outside chill autumn rain fell down, down. More soundless lightning, followed by air-hammering thunder.

He untied the flap, then slowly pulled it to one side with his broadsword. He could see nothing. The whole world seemed to hiss with the pasty sound of rain across mud and puddles. The roar reminded him of Kiyuth.

He ducked out into the sheeting water, clenched his teeth so they wouldn’t chatter. His toes closed about one of the stones in the mud. He knelt, retrieved it, but could see next to nothing. It wasn’t a stone, he realized, but a section of jerky, or maybe even a piece of wild asparagus—

Another flash of lightning.

For a moment, all he could do was blink away the brightness. Understanding rumbled in with the thunder.

A section of a child’s finger . . . He held a child’s severed finger.

Oggie?

Cursing, he threw the finger down and peered wildly through the surrounding darkness. Rage, grief, and terror were all overwhelmed by disbelief.

This isn’t happening.

Incandescent white cracked the sky, and for an instant, he saw the entire world: the desolate horizon, the sweep of distant pastures, the surrounding yaksh of his kinsmen, and the lone figure standing not more than a dozen yards away, watching . . .

“Murderer,” Yursalka said numbly. “Murderer!”

He heard steps slosh through the mud.

“I found your son wandering the Steppe,” the hated voice said. “So I’ve returned him to you.”

Something, a cabbage, hit him in the chest. Uncharacteristic panic seized him.

“Y-you live,” he sputtered. “I’m s-so relieved. All of us w-will be so relieved!”

More lightning, and Yursalka saw him, like a hulking wraith, as wild and as elemental as thunder and rain.

“Some things broken,” the voice grated from the darkness, “are never mended.”

Yursalka howled and flew forward, sweeping his broadsword in a great arc. But iron limbs caught him in the darkness. Something exploded in his face. His sword fell from senseless fingers. A hand throttled him, and he beat at a forearm made of stone. He felt his toes drag grooves through the muck. He gagged, felt something sharp arc above his groin. There was a steaming rush across his thighs, the uncanny sensation of being gouged hollow.

He skidded and slapped into the mud, convulsed about his entrails.

I’m dead.

A brief flutter of white light, and Yursalka saw him crouching above, saw deranged eyes and a famished grin. Then everything went black.

“Who am I?” the blackness asked.

“Nnn-Cnaiür,” he gasped. “M-man-killer . . . M-most v-violent of all men . . .”

A slap, open-handed as though he were a slave.

“No. I am your end. Before your eyes I will put your seed to the knife. I will quarter your carcass and feed it to the dogs. Your bones I will grind to dust and cast to the winds. I will strike down those who speak your name or the name of your fathers, until ‘Yursalka’ becomes as meaningless as infant babble. I will blot you out, hunt down your every trace! The track of your life has come to me, and it goes no further. I am your end, your utter obliteration!”

Then torchlight and commotion flooded the darkness. His earlier cries had been heard! He saw bare and booted feet stamp in the mud, heard men curse and grunt. He watched his younger brother do a bare-chested pirouette into the mud, saw his last surviving cousin stumble to his knees, then topple like a drunk into a puddle.

“I’m your Chieftain!” Cnaiür bellowed. “Challenge me or witness my justice! Either way, justice will be done!”

Curiously numb, Yursalka rolled his head through the muck, saw more and more Utemot gather about them. Torches sputtered and hissed in the rain, their orange light bleached white by sporadic flashes of lightning. He saw one of his wives, wrapped only in the bear pelt his father had given her, peering in horror at the spot where he lay. She stumbled toward him, her face vacant. Cnaiür struck her hard, as one might strike a man. She toppled from the pelt, fell motionless and naked at her chieftain’s feet. She looked so cold.

“This man,” Cnaiür thundered, “has betrayed his kinsmen on the field of battle!”

“To free us!” Yursalka managed to cry. “To release the Utemot from your yoke, your depravity!”

“You’ve heard his admission! His life and the lives of all his chattel are forfeit!”

“No . . .” Yursalka coughed, but the numbness was reclaiming him. Where was the justice in this? He’d betrayed his chieftain, yes, but for honour. Cnaiür had betrayed his chieftain, his father, for the love of another man! For an outlander who could speak killing words! Where was the justice in this?

Cnaiür extended his arms as though to grapple the thundering sky. “I am Cnaiür urs Skiötha, breaker-of-horses-and-men, Chieftain of the Utemot, and I have returned from the dead! Who dares dispute my judgement?”

The rain continued to spiral down. Save for looks of awe and terror, none dared dispute the madman. Then a woman, the half-Norsirai mongrel Cnaiür had taken wife, burst from the others and threw herself at him, weeping uncontrollably. She feebly beat at his chest, wailing something unintelligible. For a moment, Cnaiür held her tight, then he sternly pressed her back.

“It’s me, Anissi,” he said with shameful tenderness. “I am whole.”

Then he turned from her toward Yursalka, a demon by torchlight, an apparition by lightning strike.

Yursalka’s wives and children had gathered about their husband, wailing. Yursalka felt soft thighs beneath his head, the flutter of warm palms across his face and chest. But he could look only at the ravenous figure of his chieftain. He watched him catch his youngest daughter by the hair, snuff out her squeal with sharp iron. For a grisly moment, she remained fixed on his blade, and he shook her like a skewered doll. Yursalka’s wives screamed and cowered. Looming above them, the chieftain of the Utemot hacked, again and again, until they groped and shuddered in the mud. Only Omiri, the lame daughter of Xunnurit whom Yursalka had married the previous spring, remained, weeping and clawing at her husband. Cnaiür seized her with his free hand, hoisted her by the back of the neck. Her mouth worked like a fish about a soundless shriek.

“Is this Xunnurit’s misbegotten cunt?” he snarled.

“Yes,” Yursalka gasped.

Cnaiür cast her like a rag to the mud. “She lives to watch our sport. Then she suffers the sins of her father.”

Surrounded by his dead and dying family, Yursalka watched Cnaiür loop his bowel like rope about scarred arms. He glimpsed the callous eyes of his tribesman, knew they would do nothing.

Not because they feared their lunatic chieftain, but because it was the way.

Late Autumn, 4111 Year-of-the-Tusk, Momemn

Since Maithanet’s declaration of Holy War a year and a half earlier, untold thousands had gathered about Momemn’s walls. Among those well placed within the Thousand Temples, there were rumours of the Shriah’s dismay. He had not, it was said, anticipated such an overwhelming response to his summons. In particular, he had not thought so many lower-caste men and women would take up the Tusk. Reports of freemen selling their wives and children into slavery so they might purchase passage to Momemn were common. A widowed fuller from the city of Meigeiri, it was said, actually drowned his two sons rather than sell them to the slavers. When dragged before the local ecclesiastical magistrate, he allegedly claimed he was “sending them ahead” to Shimeh.

Similar tales tarnished nearly every report sent to Sumna, so much so that they became more a matter of disgust than alarm for the Shrial Apparati. What disturbed them were the stories, rare at first, of atrocities committed either by or against the Men of the Tusk. Off the coast of Conriya a small squall killed more than nine hundred low-caste pilgrims who’d been promised passage on unseaworthy ships. To the north, a cohort of Galeoth freebooters wearing the Tusk destroyed no fewer than seventeen villages over the course of their southward march. They left no witnesses, and were discovered only when they attempted to sell the effects of Arnyalsa, a famed missionary priest, at market in Sumna. At Maithanet’s direction, the Shrial Knights encircled their encampment and killed them all.

Then there was the story of Nrezza Barisullas, the King of Cironj and perhaps the wealthiest man in the Three Seas. When several thousand Tydonni who’d contracted his ships defaulted on their payment, he sent them to the island of Pharixas, an old pirate stronghold of King Rauschang of Thunyerus, demanding they storm the island in lieu of monies owed. They did, and with abandon. Thousands of innocents perished. Inrithi innocents.

Maithanet, it was said, wept at the news. He immediately placed all of House Nrezza under Shrial Censure, which voided all obligations, commercial or otherwise, to Barisullas, his sons, and his agents. The Censure was quickly rescinded, however, once it became clear that the Holy War would take months longer to assemble without Cironji ships. Before the fiasco was concluded, Barisullas would actually win reparations in the form of Shrial trade concessions from the Thousand Temples. Rumour had it that the Nansur Emperor sent his personal congratulations to the canny Cironji King.

But none of these incidents provoked anything approaching the uproar caused by the march of what came to be called the Vulgar Holy War. When word reached Sumna that the first Great Names to arrive had capitulated to Ikurei Xerius III and signed his Indenture, there was a great deal of concern that something untoward was about to happen. But without the luxury of sorcerers, Maithanet’s entreaties, which extolled the virtues of patience and alluded darkly to the consequences of defiance, did not reach Momemn until Calmemunis, Tharschilka, Kumrezzer, and the vast mobs that followed them were days gone.

Maithanet was wroth. In ports around the Three Seas, the great state-sponsored contingents were finally preparing to embark. Gothyelk, the Earl of Agansanor, was already at sea with hundreds of Tydonni thanes and their households—more than fifty thousand trained and disciplined men. The gathering of the Holy War, the Shriah’s advisers estimated, was mere months from completion. All told, they said, the Men of the Tusk would have numbered over three hundred thousand, just enough to ensure the heathens’ utter destruction. The premature march of those already gathered was an unmitigated disaster, even if they were largely rabble.

Frantic messages were dispatched, imploring the lords to await the others, but Calmemunis in particular was a stubborn man. When Gotian, the Grandmaster of the Shrial Knights, intercepted him north of Gielgath with Maithanet’s summons, the Palatine of Kanampurea allegedly said, “It’s a sad thing when the Shriah himself doubts.”

Confusion and tragedy, rather than fanfare, had characterized the departure of the Vulgar Holy War from Momemn. Since only a minority of those gathered were affiliated with one of the Great Names, the host possessed no clear leader—no organization at all, in effect. As a result, several riots broke out when the Nansur soldiery began distributing supplies, and anywhere from four to five hundred of the faithful were killed.

To his credit, Calmemunis acted quickly, and with the assistance of Tharschilka’s Galeoth, his Conriyans were able to impose order on the mobs. The Emperor’s provisions were distributed with a modicum of fairness. What disputes remained were settled at sword point, and the Vulgar Holy War soon found itself prepared to march.

The citizens of Momemn swamped the city walls to watch the Men of the Tusk depart. Many jeered at the pilgrims, who had long ago earned the contempt of their hosts. Most, however, remained silent, watching the endless fields of humanity trudge toward the southern horizon. They saw innumerable carts heaped with belongings, women and children walking dull-eyed through the dust, dogs prancing around countless feet, and endless thousands of impoverished low-caste men, hard-faced but carrying only hammers, picks, or hoes. The Emperor himself watched the spectacle from the enamelled heights of the southern gates. According to rumour, he was overheard remarking that the sight of so many hermits, beggars, and whores made him want to retch, but he’d “already given the vulgar filth his dinner.”

Though the host could travel no more than ten miles a day, the Great Names were generally satisfied with their progress. By sheer numbers alone, the Vulgar Holy War created mayhem along the coasts. Field-slaves would notice strange men filing through the fields, an innocuous handful soon to be followed by thousands. Entire crops would be trampled, orchards and groves stripped. But with the Emperor’s food in their bellies, the Men of the Tusk were as disciplined as could be expected. The incidences of rape, murder, and robbery were infrequent enough that the Great Names could still dispense justice—and more important, still pretend they led an army.

By the time they crossed into the frontier province of Anserca, however, the pilgrims had turned to outright banditry. Companies of fanatics ranged the Ansercan countryside, by and large restricting their depredations to harvests and livestock, but at times resorting to plunder and carnage. The town of Nabathra, famous for its wool markets, was sacked. When Nansur units under General Martemus, who had been instructed to shadow the Vulgar Holy War, attempted to restrain the Men of the Tusk, several pitched battles broke out. At first it seemed that the General, even though he had only two columns at his disposal, might bring the situation under control. But the weight of numbers and the ferocity of Tharschilka’s Galeoth forced him to retire north and ultimately to shelter within Gielgath’s walls.

Calmemunis issued a declaration blaming the Emperor, claiming Xerius III had issued edicts denying supplies to the Men of the Tusk, in direct contravention of his earlier oaths. In point of fact, however, the edicts had been issued by Maithanet, who had hoped this action might stall the horde’s southward march and purchase enough time to convince them to return to Momemn.

With the Men of the Tusk slowed by the need to forage, Maithanet issued further edicts, one rescinding the Shrial Remission previously extended to all those who took up the Tusk, another punishing Calmemunis, Tharschilka, and Kumrezzer with Shrial Censure, and a third threatening all those who continued under these Great Names with the same. This news, combined with the backlash against the bloodshed of the previous days, brought the Vulgar Holy War to a stop.

For a time even Tharschilka wavered in his resolve, and it seemed certain the core of the Vulgar Holy War at least would turn and begin marching back to Momemn. But then Calmemunis received news that an imperial supply train, apparently headed for the frontier fortress of Asgilioch, had miraculously fallen into the hands of his people. Convinced this was a sign from the God, he called together all the lords and impromptu leaders of the Vulgar Holy War and rallied them with inflammatory words. He asked them to pause and judge for themselves the righteousness of their endeavour. He reminded them that the Shriah was a man, who like all men made errors in judgement from time to time. “The ardour has been sapped from our blessed Shriah’s heart,” he said. “He’s forgotten the sacred glory of what we do. But mark me, my brothers, when we storm the gates of Shimeh, when we deliver the Padirajah’s head in a sack, he will remember! He will praise us for remaining resolute when his heart faltered!”

Though several thousand did defect and eventually filtered back to the imperial capital, the bulk of the Vulgar Holy War pressed on, now entirely immune to the exhortations of their Shriah. Bands of foragers scattered across the province, while the main body continued south, growing ever more fragmented. The villas of local caste nobles were looted. Numerous villages were put to the torch, the men massacred, the women raped. Walled towns that refused to open their gates were stormed.

Eventually, the Men of the Tusk found themselves beneath the Unaras Mountains, which for so long had been the southern bulwark for the cities of the Kyranae Plain. Somehow, they were able to rally and reorganize beneath the walls of Asgilioch, the ancient Kyranean fortress the Nansur called “the Breakers” for having stopped three previous Fanim invasions.

For two days the fortress gates remained shut against them. Then Prophilas, the commander of the imperial garrison, extended a dinner invitation to the Great Names and other caste nobles. Calmemunis demanded hostages, and when he received them, he accepted the invitation. With Tharschilka, Kumrezzer, and several lesser nobles, he entered Asgilioch and was promptly taken captive. Prophilas produced a Shrial Warrant and respectfully informed them that they would be held indefinitely unless they commanded the Vulgar Holy War to disband and return to Momemn. When they refused, he tried reasoning with them, assuring them they had no hope of prevailing against the Kianene, who were, he insisted, as wily and as ruthless as the Scylvendi on the field of battle. “Even if you marched at the head of a true army,” he told them, “I would not throw the number-sticks for you. As it stands, you lead a migration of women, children, and slavish men. I beg of you, relent!”

Calmemunis, however, replied with laughter. He admitted that sinew for sinew, weapon for weapon, the Vulgar Holy War was likely no match for the Padirajah’s armies. But this, he claimed, was of no consequence, for surely the Latter Prophet had shown that frailty, when suffused with righteousness, was unconquerable. “We have left Sumna and the Shriah behind us,” he said. “With every step we draw nearer Holy Shimeh. With every step we draw closer to Paradise! Proceed with care, Prophilas, for as Inri Sejenus himself says, ‘Woe to he who obstructs the Way!’”

Prophilas released Calmemunis and the other Great Names before sunset.

The following day, thousands upon thousands congregated in the valley beneath Asgilioch’s turrets. A gentle rain washed over them. Hundreds of sacrificial fires were lit; the carcasses of the victims were piled high. Shakers covered their naked bodies in mud and howled their incomprehensible songs. Women sang gentle hymns while their husbands sharpened whatever weapons—picks, scythes, old swords and maces—they’d been able to scavenge. Children chased dogs through the crowds. Many of the warriors among them—the Conriyans, Galeoth, and Ainoni who’d marched with the Great Names—watched with dismay as a band of lepers climbed into the mountain passes, intent on being the first to set foot on heathen soil. The Unaras Mountains were not imposing, more a jumble of escarpments and bare stone slopes than a mountain range. But beyond them, drums called dusky, leopard-eyed men to worship Fane. Beyond them, Inrithi were gutted and hung from trees. For the faithful, the Unaras were the ends of the earth.

The rain stopped. Lances of sunlight pierced the clouds. Singing hymns, blinking tears of joy from their eyes, the first Men of the Tusk began filing into the mountains. Holy Shimeh, it seemed to them, must lie just beyond the horizon. Always just beyond.

When the news of the Vulgar Holy War’s passage into heathen lands reached Sumna, Maithanet dismissed his court and retired to his chambers. His servants turned all petitioners away, informing them that the Holy Shriah prayed and fasted, and would do so until he learned the fate of the first wayward half of his Holy War.

Bowing as low as jnan dictated, Skeaös said, “The Emperor has asked that I brief you on the way to the Privy Chamber, Lord Exalt-General. The Ainoni have arrived.”

Conphas looked up from his handwriting, dropped his quill in his inkhorn. “Already? They said tomorrow.”

“An old trick, my Lord. The Scarlet Spires is not above old tricks.”

The Scarlet Spires. Conphas nearly whistled at the thought. The mightiest School in the Three Seas, about to take up residency in the Holy War . . . Conphas had always possessed a connoisseur’s appreciation of life’s larger inconsistencies. Absurdities such as this were like delicacies to him.

The previous morning had revealed hundreds of foreign galleys and carracks moored in the mouth of the River Phayus. The Scarlet Spires, the households of the King-Regent and more than a dozen Palatine-Governors, as well as legions of low-caste infantry had been disembarking ever since. All High Ainon, it seemed, had come to join the Holy War.

The Emperor was jubilant. Since the departure of the Vulgar Holy War weeks earlier, more than ten thousand Thunyeri under Prince Skaiyelt, the son of the infamous King Rauschang, and at least four times as many Tydonni under Gothyelk, the bellicose Earl of Agansanor, had arrived. Unfortunately, both men had proven immune to his uncle’s charms—violently so. When presented with the Indenture, Prince Skaiyelt had ransacked the imperial court with those unnerving blue eyes of his, then wordlessly marched from the palace. Old Gothyelk had kicked over the lectern, and called his uncle either a “gelded heathen” or a “depraved faggot”—depending on which translator one asked. The arrogance of barbarians, particularly Norsirai barbarians, was unfathomable.

But his uncle expected better of the Ainoni. They were Ketyai, like the Nansur, and they were an old and mercantile people, like the Nansur. The Ainoni were civilized, despite their archaic devotion to their beards.

Conphas studied Skeaös. “You think they do this intentionally? To catch us off balance?” He waved his parchment to dry in the air, then handed it to his dispatch—orders for Martemus to resume the patrols south of Momemn.

“It’s what I would do,” Skeaös replied frankly. “If one hoards enough petty advantages . . .”

Conphas nodded. The Prime Counsel had paraphrased a famous passage from The Commerce of Souls, Ajencis’s classic philosophical treatise on politics. For a moment Conphas thought it strange that he and Skeaös should despise each other so. In the absence of his uncle, they shared a peculiar understanding, as though, like the competitive sons of an abusive father, they could from time to time set aside their rivalry and acknowledge their shared lot with simple talk.

He stood and looked down on the wizened man. “Lead on, old father.”

Caring nothing for the fine points of bureaucratic prestige, Conphas had installed himself and his command on the lowest level of the Andiamine Heights, overlooking the Forum and the Scuäri Campus. The hike to the Privy Chamber on the summit was a long one, and he idly wondered whether the old Counsel was up to it. Over the years more than one Imperial Apparati had died of “the clutch,” as the palace inhabitants called it. According to his grandmother, past emperors had actually used the climb to dispose of aging and quarrelsome functionaries, giving them messages allegedly too important to be trusted to slaves, then demanding their immediate return. The Andiamine Heights was no friend of soft hearts—literally or otherwise.

Prompted more by curiosity than malice, Conphas pressed the man to a brisk pace. He’d never seen anyone die of the clutch before. Remarkably, Skeaös did not complain, and aside from swinging his arms like an old monkey, he showed no signs of strain. With easy wind, he began briefing Conphas on the specifics of the treaty struck between the Scarlet Spires and the Thousand Temples—as far as they were known. When it seemed clear that Skeaös had not just the appearance but the stamina of an old monkey, Conphas grew bored.

After climbing several stairs, they passed through the Hapetine Gardens. As always, Conphas glanced at the spot where Ikurei Anphairas, his great-great-grandfather, had been assassinated more than a century before. The Andiamine Heights were filled with hundreds of such grottoes, places where long-dead potentates had committed or suffered this or that scandalous act. His uncle, Conphas knew, did his best to avoid such places—unless very drunk. For Xerius the palace fairly hummed with memory of dead emperors.

But for Conphas the Andiamine Heights was more a stage than a mausoleum. Even now hidden choirs filled the galleries with hymns. At times clouds of fragrant incense fogged the corridors and haloed the lanterns, so it seemed one climbed not to the summit of a hill but to the very gates of heaven. Had he been a visitor rather than a resident, Conphas knew, bare-chested slave girls would have served him heady wines laced with Nilnameshi narcotics. Pot-bellied eunuchs would have delivered gifts of scented oil and ceremonial weaponry. Everything would have been calculated to hoard petty advantages, as Skeaös might say, to distract, ingratiate, and overawe.

Still unwinded, Skeaös continued regurgitating an apparently endless train of facts and admonitions. Conphas listened with half an ear, waiting for the old fool to tell him something he didn’t already know. Then the Prime Counsel turned to the topic of Eleäzaras, the Grandmaster of the Scarlet Spires.

“Our agents in Carythusal say his formidable reputation scarcely does him justice. He was little more than a Subdidact when his teacher, Sasheoka, died of unknown causes some ten years ago. Within two years, he was Grandmaster of the greatest School in the Three Seas. That speaks of daunting intelligence and ability. You must—”

“And hunger,” Conphas interrupted. “No man achieves so much in so little time without hunger.”

“I suppose you would know.”

Conphas cackled. “Now that’s the Skeaös I know and love! Surly. Seething with illicit pride. You had me worried, old man.”

The Prime Counsel continued as though he’d said nothing. “You must exercise great caution when you speak to him. Initially, your uncle thought to exclude you from this meeting—that is, until Eleäzaras personally requested your presence.”

“My uncle what?” Even when bored, Conphas possessed a keen ear for slights.

“Excluded you. He feared the Grandmaster would exploit your inexperience in these matters—”

“Exclude? Me?” Conphas looked askance at the old man, for some reason reluctant to believe him. Was he playing some kind of game? Fanning the fires of resentment?

Perhaps this was another one of his uncle’s tests . . .

“But as I said,” Skeaös continued, “that’s all changed—which is why I’m briefing you now.”

“I see,” Conphas replied sceptically. What was the old fool up to? “Tell me, Skeaös, what’s the point of this meeting?”

“Point? I fear I don’t understand, Lord Exalt-General.”

“The purpose. The intent. What does my uncle hope to secure from Eleäzaras and the Ainoni?”

Skeaös frowned, as though the answer were so obvious that the question simply had to be a prelude to mockery. “The point is to secure Ainoni support for the Indenture.”

“And if Eleäzaras proves as intractable as, say, the Earl of Agansanor, what then?”

“With all due respect, my Lord, I sincerely doubt—”

“If, Skeaös, what then?” Conphas had been a field officer since the age of fifteen. If he wanted, he could make men jump with his tone.

The old Counsel cleared his throat. Skeaös, Conphas knew, possessed administrative courage in excess, but he had no pluck whatsoever when it came to face-to-face confrontations.

No wonder his uncle loved him so.

“If Eleäzaras spurns the Indenture?” the old man repeated. “Then the Emperor denies him provisions, like the rest.”

“And if the Shriah demands my uncle supply them?”

“By then the Vulgar Holy War will have been destroyed—or so we . . . assume. Leadership, not provisions, will be Maithanet’s primary concern.”

“And who will that leader be?” Conphas had spat each question hard on the heels of each answer, as an interrogator might. The old man was beginning to look rattled.

“Y-you. The L-Lion of Kiyuth.”

“And what will be my price?”

“Th-the Ind-denture, the s-signed oath that all the old provinces will be returned.”

“So I am the linchpin of my uncle’s plans, am I not?”

“Y-yes, Lord Exalt-General.”

“So then tell me, dear old Skeaös, why would my uncle think to exclude me—me!—from his negotiations with the Scarlet Spires?”

The Prime Counsel’s pace slackened. He looked to the florid whorls stitched across the rugs at their feet. Rather than speak, he wrung his hands.

Conphas grinned wolfishly. “You lied just now, didn’t you, Skeaös? The question of whether I should attend his meeting with Eleäzaras never even arose, did it?”

When the man failed to respond, Conphas seized him by the shoulders, glared at him. “Need I ask my uncle?”

Skeaös matched his eyes for moment, then glanced down. “No,” he said. “There’s no need.”

Conphas released his grip. With sweaty palms, he smoothed the front of the old man’s silk robes.

“What kind of game are you playing, Skeaös? Did you think that by wounding my vanity, you could provoke me to act against my uncle? Against my Emperor? Are you trying to incite me to sedition?”

The man looked positively panicked. “No. No! I’m an old fool, I know, but my days on this earth are numbered. I rejoice at the life the gods have given me. I rejoice at the sweet fruits I’ve eaten, for the great men I’ve known. I even—and I know you’ll find this difficult to believe—exult because I’ve lived long enough to witness you grow into your glory! But this plan of your uncle’s—to deliver a Holy War to its destruction! A Holy War! I fear for my soul, Ikurei Conphas. My soul!”

Conphas was dumbstruck, so much so he utterly forgot his anger. He’d assumed Skeaös’s insinuations to be yet another of his uncle’s probes and had responded accordingly. The possibility that the fool acted on his own had never occurred to him. For so many years Skeaös and his uncle had seemed different incarnations of the same will.

“By the gods, Skeaös . . . Has Maithanet ensnared you as well?”

The Prime Counsel shook his head. “No. I care nothing for Maithanet—or Shimeh, for that matter . . . You’re young. You wouldn’t understand my motives. The young can never see life for what it is: a knife’s edge, as thin as the breaths that measure it. What gives it depth isn’t memory. I’ve memories enough for ten men, and yet my days are as thin and as shadowy as the greased linen the poor stretch over their windows. No, what gives life depth is the future. Without a future, without a horizon of promise or threat, our lives have no meaning. Only the future is real, Conphas, and unless I make amends to the gods, I’ve no future left.”

Conphas snorted. “But I understand all too well, Skeaös. You’ve spoken like a true Ikurei. How does the poet Girgalla put it? ‘All love begins with one’s own skin’—or soul, as the case may be. But then, I’ve always thought the two interchangeable.”

“Do you understand? Can you?”

He did understand, and better than Skeaös realized. His grandmother. Skeaös conspired with his grandmother. He could even hear her voice: “You must bait both of them, Skeaös. Poison them against one another. Conphas’s infatuation with my son’s madness will wane soon enough. Just you wait and see. He’ll come running to us, and together we’ll force Xerius to abandon his mad plan!”

He wondered whether the old drab had taken Skeaös as a lover. Likely, he concluded, and winced at the accompanying image. Like a prune fucking a twig, he thought.

“You and my grandmother,” he said, “hope to save the Holy War from my uncle. A commendable undertaking, save that it verges on treachery. My grandmother I can understand—she has him bewitched—but you, Skeaös? You know, as few others do, what Ikurei Xerius III is capable of once his suspicions are roused. A bit reckless, don’t you think, trying to me pit me against him like this?”

“But he listens to you! And more important, he needs you!”

“Perhaps he does . . . But either way, it’s immaterial. Your ancient stomachs may find his fare too undercooked, but my uncle has laid out a feast, Skeaös, and I for one do not intend to gainsay it.”

No matter how much he despised his uncle, Conphas had to admit that provisioning Calmemunis and the rabble that followed him was a move as brilliant as any he himself had made on the field of battle. The Vulgar Holy War would be annihilated by the heathen, and in a single stroke the Empire would cow this Shriah, perhaps compel him to demand that the remaining Men of the Tusk sign the Imperial Indenture and demonstrate to the Fanim that House Ikurei bargained in good faith. The Indenture would ensure the legality of any military action the Empire might take against the Men of the Tusk to retrieve her lost provinces, and the deal with the heathen would ensure that such military action would meet with little resistance—when the time came.

Such a plan! And devised not by Skeaös but by his uncle. As much as that fact galled Conphas, it must, he decided, gall the old Counsel more.

“It’s not the feast we dispute,” Skeaös replied, “it’s the price! Surely you can see this!”

Conphas studied the Prime Counsel for several long moments. There was something curiously pathetic, he thought, about the notion of the man plotting with his grandmother, like two beggars sneering at those too poor to give more than coppers.

“The Empire? Restored?” he said coldly. “I should think your soul a bargain, Skeaös.”

Skeaös opened his toothless mouth to retort but then closed it.

The Emperor’s Privy Chamber was an austere room, circular, ringed by black marble columns, with a surrounding gallery for those rare occasions, mostly ritual, when the Houses of the Congregate were invited to observe the Emperor signing edicts into law. A small herd of ministers and slaves milled about the room’s heart, clustered around the head of a mahogany table. Conphas glimpsed his uncle’s reflection floating beneath the table’s polish, like a corpse in brackish water. There was no sign of the Scarlet Schoolmen.

The Exalt-General loitered near the entrance for several moments, studying the ivory plaques set into the walls: renditions of the great lawmakers of antiquity and the Tusk, from the prophet Angeshraël to the philosopher Poripharus. He wondered inanely which of his dead relatives the artisan had used to model their faces.

The sound of his uncle’s summons startled him.

“Come. We’ve only a few moments, Nephew.”

The others had withdrawn, leaving only Skeaös and Cememketri at his uncle’s side. The surrounding galleries, Conphas could not help noticing, were filled with Eothic Guardsmen and Imperial Saik.

Conphas took the seat his uncle indicated. “Both Skeaös and Cememketri agree,” Xerius was saying, “that Eleäzaras is an infernally clever and dangerous man. How would you snare him, Nephew?” His uncle was trying to sound jocular, which meant he was afraid, as perhaps he should have been: no one yet knew why the Scarlet Spires had deigned to join the Holy War, and this meant no one knew the School’s intent. For men like Skaiyelt and Gothyelk, the purpose was plain: redemption or conquest. But for Eleäzaras? Who could say what motivated any of the Schools?

Conphas shrugged. “Snaring him is out of the question. One must know more than one’s opponent to trap him, and as it stands we know nothing. We know nothing of his deal with Maithanet. We don’t even know why he would condescend to make such a deal—and to take such a risk! A School of its own volition joining a holy war . . . A holy war! In all honesty, Uncle, I’m not sure that securing his support for the Indenture should even be our priority at this point.”

“So what are you saying? That we should simply probe for details? I pay my spies good gold for such trifles, Nephew.”

Trifles? Conphas struggled with his composure. Though his uncle’s heart was too whorish for religious faith, he was as jealous of his ignorance as any zealot. If the facts contradicted his aspirations, they did not exist.

“You once asked me how I prevailed at Kiyuth, Uncle. Do you remember what it was I told you?”

“Told me?” the Emperor nearly spat. “You’re always ‘telling’ me things, Conphas. How do you expect me to sort one impertinence from the other?” This was perhaps the pettiest and most oft used weapon in his uncle’s arsenal: the threat to read counsel as commandment. The threat loomed over all their exchanges: You would presume to command the Emperor?

Conphas graced his uncle with a conciliatory smile. “From what Skeaös says,” he said smoothly, “I think we should simply bargain in good faith—as much as we can, anyway. We know too little to snare him.” Stepping to the brink then stepping back by pretending no such step had been taken—this had always been his family’s way, at least until his grandmother’s recent antics.

“My thought precisely,” Xerius said. At least he still remembered the rules.

Just then, a chamberlain announced the imminent arrival of Eleäzaras and his retinue. Xerius bid Skeaös to tie his Chorae about his hand, which the old Counsel did while Cememketri watched with distaste. This was something of a small dynastic tradition, adopted more than a century earlier, and observed whenever members of the Imperial Family conferred with outside sorcerers.

Chepheramunni, King-Regent and titular head of High Ainon, was announced first, but when the small Ainoni entourage filed into the chamber, he followed Eleäzaras like a dog. The Grandmaster’s entrance was brisk and, Conphas thought, anti-climactic. His demeanour was more that of a banker than a sorcerer: impatient of spectacle, hungry for the ledgers. He bowed to Xerius, but no lower than would the Shriah. A slave drew his chair back for him, an d he sat effortlessly, despite his trailing crimson gowns. With rouged cheeks and reeking of perfume, Chepheramunni sat at his side, a chalky look of fear and resentment on his face.

The obligatory exchange of honorifics, introductions, and compliments was observed. When Cememketri, Eleäzaras’s counterpart in the Imperial Saik, was introduced, the Grandmaster smiled disdainfully and shrugged, as though dubious of the man’s station. Schoolmen, Conphas had been told, were often insufferably haughty when in the company of other Schoolmen. Cememketri flushed in anger, but to his credit did not respond in kind.

After these jnanic preliminaries, the Grandmaster turned to Conphas. “At long last,” he said in fluent Sheyic, “I meet the famed Ikurei Conphas.”

Conphas opened his mouth to reply, but his uncle spoke first.

“He’s a rarity, isn’t he? Few rulers possess such instruments to execute their will . . . But surely you haven’t come all this way just to meet my nephew?”

Though Conphas could not be certain, Eleäzaras seemed to wink at him before turning to his uncle, as though to say, “We must suffer these fools patiently, mustn’t we?”

“Of course not,” Eleäzaras replied with damning brevity.

Xerius seemed oblivious. “Then might I ask why the Scarlet Spires has joined the Holy War?”

Eleäzaras studied his unpainted fingernails. “Quite simple, really. We were purchased.”

“Purchased?”

“Indeed.”

“A most extraordinary transaction! What are the details of your arrangement?”

The Grandmaster smiled. “Alas, I fear that secrecy is itself part of the arrangement. Unfortunately, I’m not able to divulge any of the details.”

Conphas thought this an unlikely story. Not even the Thousand Temples was wealthy enough to “hire” the Scarlet Spires. They were here for reasons that transcended gold and Shrial trade concessions—of that much he was certain.

Changing directions as fluidly as a shark in water, the Grandmaster continued, “You worry, of course, about how our purposes bear upon your Indenture.”

There was a sour pause. Then Xerius replied, “Of course.” His uncle chafed more than most at being premeditated by another.

“The Scarlet Spires,” Eleäzaras said demurely, “cares nothing about who possesses the land conquered by the Holy War. Accordingly, Chepheramunni will sign your Indenture—gladly. Will you not, Chepheramunni?”

The painted man nodded but said nothing. The dog had been trained well.

“But,” Eleäzaras continued, “there are several conditions we would see met first.”

Conphas had predicted this. Civilized men haggle.

Xerius protested. “Conditions? But for centuries the lands from here to Nenciphon have been—”

“I’ve heard all the arguments,” Eleäzaras interrupted. “Dross. Pure dross. You and I both know what is truly at stake here, Emperor . . . Don’t we?”

Xerius stared at him in dumb astonishment. He wasn’t accustomed to interruptions, but then, he wasn’t accustomed to parlaying with men who were more than his equals. High Ainon was a wealthy, densely populated nation. Of all the rulers and despots across the Three Seas, only the Padirajah of Kian possessed more commercial and military power than the Grandmaster of the Scarlet Spires.

“If you don’t,” Eleäzaras continued when Xerius failed to reply, “then I’m sure your precocious nephew does. Hmm, young Conphas? Do you know what’s at stake here?”

Conphas thought it obvious. “Power,” he said with a shrug. A strange fellowship, he realized, now existed between him and this sorcerer. From the outset, the Grandmaster had accorded him the status of kindred intellect.

Even the foreigners know you’re a fool, Uncle.

“Precisely, Conphas. Precisely! History is only a pretext for power, no? What matters . . .” The white-haired sorcerer trailed with a small grin, as though he’d stumbled upon a more effective tack with which to make his point. “Tell me,” he asked Xerius, “why did you provision Calmemunis, Kumrezzer, and the others? Why did you give them the means to march?”

His uncle opted for the rehearsed reply. “To put an end to their depredations. Why else?”

“Unlikely,” Eleäzaras snapped. “I rather think that you provisioned the Vulgar Holy War in order to destroy it.”

There was an uncomfortable pause.

“But this is madness,” Xerius finally replied. “Damnation aside, what would we have to gain?”

“Gain?” Eleäzaras repeated with a wry grin. “Why the Holy War, of course . . . Our deal with Maithanet stripped you of whatever leverage you possessed with the Imperial Saik, so you needed something else to barter. If the Vulgar Holy War is destroyed, then it will be far easier for you to convince Maithanet that the Holy War needs you—or should I say, the now legendary military acumen of your nephew, here. Your Indenture will be his price, and the Indenture effectively cedes to you all the proceeds of the Holy War . . . I must admit, it’s a splendid plan.”

This small flattery was Xerius’s undoing. For a brief instant his eyes flashed with jubilant conceit. Stupid men, Conphas had found, tended to be excessively proud of their few brilliant moments.

Eleäzaras smiled.

He plays you, Uncle, and you cannot even see.

The Grandmaster leaned forward as though aware of the discomfort generated by his proximity. Eleäzaras, Conphas realized, was a master practitioner of jnan.

“As of yet,” he said coldly, “we don’t know the specifics of the game you play, Emperor. But let me assure you of this: if it involves the betrayal of the Holy War, then it involves the betrayal of the Scarlet Spires. Do you know what this means? What it entails? If you betray us, Ikurei, then no one”—he glanced darkly at Cememketri—“not even your Imperial Saik, will be able to preserve you from our wrath. We are the Scarlet Spires, Emperor . . . Think on that.”

“You threaten me?” Xerius fairly gasped.

“Assurances, Emperor. All arrangements require assurances.”

Xerius yanked his face away, intent on Skeaös, who was fiercely whispering in his ear. Cememketri, however, could contain himself no longer.

“You overstep yourself, Eli. You act as though we sit in Carythusal when it’s you who sit in Momemn. Two of the Three Seas lie between you and your home. Far too far to be uttering threats!”

Eleäzaras frowned then snorted, turning to Conphas as though the Grandmaster of the Imperial Saik did not exist. “In Carythusal they call you the Lion of Kiyuth,” he said nonchalantly. His eyes were small, dark, and nimble. They scrutinized him from beneath bushy white brows.

“Do they?” Conphas asked, genuinely surprised that his grandmother’s moniker had travelled so far so fast. Surprised and pleased—very pleased.

“My archivists tell me you’re the first to defeat the Scylvendi in pitched battle. My spies, on the other hand, tell me your soldiers worship you as a god. Is this so?”

Conphas smiled, deciding the Grandmaster would lick his ass as clean as a cat’s if given the opportunity. For all his penetration, Eleäzaras had misjudged him.

It was time to set him straight. “What Cememketri said just now is true, you know. No matter what your deal with Maithanet, you’ve delivered your School to its greatest peril since the Scholastic Wars. And not just because of the Cishaurim. You’ll be a small enclave of profanity within a great tribe of fanatics. You’ll need every friend you can get.”

For the first time something like real anger surfaced in Eleäzaras’s eyes, like a glimpse of coals through a smoky fire. “We can make the world burn with our song, young Conphas. We need no one.”

Despite his uncle’s gaffes, Conphas left the negotiations confident that the House Ikurei had secured far more than it had surrendered. For one, he was almost certain he knew why the Scarlet Spires had accepted Maithanet’s offer to join the Holy War.

Few things reveal a competitor’s agenda more thoroughly than the process of negotiating a deal. Over the course of their haggling, it became obvious that the heart of Eleäzaras’s concern lay with the Cishaurim. In exchange for Chepheramunni’s signature on the Indenture, he demanded that Cememketri and the Imperial Saik surrender all the intelligence they’d amassed on the Fanim sorcerer-priests over centuries of warring against them. Of course, this was to be expected: the Scarlet Spires had gambled its very existence on its ability to overcome the Cishaurim. But there was an undeniable intensity in the way the Grandmaster uttered their name. Eleäzaras said “Cishaurim” in the same manner a Nansur would say “Scylvendi”—the way one names an old and hated foe.

For Conphas, this could mean only one thing: the Scarlet Spires had been at war with the Cishaurim long before Maithanet had declared the Holy War. Like House Ikurei, the Scarlet Spires had embroiled itself in the Holy War in order to use it. For the Scarlet Spires the Holy War was an instrument of revenge.

When Conphas mentioned his suspicions, his uncle sneered—initially at least. Eleäzaras, he insisted, was too mercantile to risk so much for a trifle like vengeance. When Cememketri and Skeaös also endorsed the theory, however, the Emperor realized he’d harboured the same suspicions all along. It was official: the Scarlet Spires had joined the Holy War to bring some pre-existing war with the Cishaurim to conclusion.

In itself, the conjecture was comforting. It meant the Scarlet Spires’ agenda would not cross their own until the end—when it no longer mattered. It would be difficult for Eleäzaras to make good on his threat once he and his School were dead. But what bothered Conphas was the question of what had motivated Maithanet to call on the Scarlet Spires at all. Certainly, of all the Schools, it was the most apt to destroy the Cishaurim in an open confrontation. But on the face of it, Conphas could think of no School more unlikely to join a Holy War. And as far as Conphas knew, the Shriah had approached no other School—not even the Imperial Saik, which had been the traditional bulwark against the Cishaurim through the Jihads. Only the Scarlet Spires.

Why?

Unless Maithanet had somehow learned of their war. But this answer was even more troubling than the question. With nearly every imperial spy in Sumna now dead, they had plenty of reasons to be wary of Maithanet’s cunning as it was. But this! A Shriah who had penetrated the Schools? And the Scarlet Spires, no less.

For not the first time, Conphas suspected that Maithanet, and not House Ikurei, occupied the centre of the Holy War’s web. But he dared not share his misgivings with his uncle, who tended to be even more stupid when afraid. Instead, he explored this fear on his own. No longer did he gloat over future glories in the dark hours before sleep. Rather, he fretted over implications that he could neither stomach nor verify.

Maithanet. What game did he play? For that matter, who was he?

The news arrived days afterward. The Vulgar Holy War had been annihilated.

The reports were sketchy at first. Urgent messages from Asgilioch related the terrifying accounts of some dozen or so Galeoth who had managed to escape across the Unaras Spur. The Vulgar Holy War had been utterly overcome on the Plains of Mengedda. Shortly afterward, two couriers arrived from Kian, the one bearing the severed heads of Calmemunis, Tharschilka, and a man who may or may not have been Kumrezzer, the other bearing a secret message from Skauras himself, and delivered, as per the Sapatishah’s instructions, to his former hostage and ward, Ikurei Conphas. It simply read:

We cannot count the carcasses of your idolatrous kin, so many have been felled by the fury of our righteous hand. Praise be the Solitary God. Know that House Ikurei has been heard.

After dismissing the courier, Conphas spent several hours brooding over the message in his quarters. Again and again, the words rose of their own volition.

. . . so many have been felled . . .

We cannot count . . .

Even though he was only twenty-seven years of age, Ikurei Conphas had seen the carnage of many fields of war—enough that he could almost see the masses of Inrithi sprawled and tangled across the Plains of Mengedda, their dead-fish eyes staring into earth or across endless sky. But it wasn’t guilt that moved his soul to ponder—and perhaps in a strange way even to grieve—it was the sheer scale of this first accomplished act. It was as though until now, the dimensions of his uncle’s plan had been too abstract for him to truly comprehend. Ikurei Conphas was in awe of what he and his uncle had done.

. . . House Ikurei has been heard.

The sacrifice of an entire army of men. Only the Gods dared such acts.

We have been heard.

Many, Conphas realized, would suspect it had been House Ikurei that had spoken, but no one would know. A strange pride settled through him then, a secret pride disconnected from the estimations of other men. In the annals of great events, there would be many accounts of this first tragic event of the Holy War. Responsibility for this catastrophe would be heaped upon Calmemunis and the other Great Names. In the ancestor lists of their descendants, they would be names of shame and scorn.

There would be no mention of Ikurei Conphas.

For an instant, Conphas felt like a thief, the hidden author of a great loss. And the exhilaration he felt almost possessed a sexual intensity. He saw clearly now why he so loved this species of war. On the field of battle, his every act was open to the scrutiny of others. Here, however, he stood outside scrutiny, enacted destiny from a place that transcended judgement or recrimination. He lay hidden in the womb of events.

Like a God.