The Thousandfold Thought Part 16

Early Spring, 4112 Year-of-the-Tusk, Xerash

Kellhus's tactics and the Enathpanean terrain were such that Achamian had few opportunities to appreciate the Holy War's diminished size. Despite the spoils of their victory on the Tertae Plains, Kellhus commanded that they forage as they go, forcing the Holy War to disperse across the rugged countryside. From what Achamian could glean from those conversations he cared to overhear, the Fanim in no way resisted their advance. Aside from hiding their daughters and what grain and livestock remained to them, all the villages and towns of eastern Enathpaneah capitulated.

The Men of the Tusk, with their plundered apparel and sun-bitten faces, looked far more Fanim than Inrithi. Aside from their s.h.i.+elds and banners, only their weapons and armour distinguished them. Gone were the long war-skirts of the Conriyans, the woollen surcoats of the Galeoth, and the waist-bound mantles of the Ainoni. Almost without exception, they wore the many-coloured khalats of their enemy. They rode his sleek horses. They drank his wine from his vessels. They slept in his tents and bedded his daughters.

They had been transformed, and in ways that struck far deeper than mere accoutrements. The men Achamian recalled, the Inrithi who'd marched through the Southron Gates, were but the ancestors of the men he saw now. Just as he could no longer recognize the sorcerer who'd wandered into the Sareotic Library, they could no longer recognize the warriors who'd marched singing into the Carathay Desert. Those other men had become strangers. They might as well have brandished weapons of bronze.

The G.o.d had culled the Men of the Tusk. Over battlefield and desert, through famine and pestilence, He had sifted them like sand through His fingers. Only the strongest or the most fortunate survived. The Ainoni had a saying: breaking enemies, enemies, not bread, made brothers. But not bread, made brothers. But being broken, being broken, Achamian realized, was more potent still. Something new had arisen from the forge of their collective suffering, something hard and something sharp. Something Kellhus had simply lifted from the anvil. Achamian realized, was more potent still. Something new had arisen from the forge of their collective suffering, something hard and something sharp. Something Kellhus had simply lifted from the anvil.

They're his, Achamian would often think, watching their grim ranks file across ridge and hillside. Achamian would often think, watching their grim ranks file across ridge and hillside. All of them All of them. So much so that if Kellhus were to die ...

With rare exceptions, Achamian spent every moment either directly attached to Kellhus in the Sacral Retinue or in his vicinity within the canvas warrens of the Umbilica, as the Inrithi had started calling their Prophet's stolen pavilion. Until they learned something specific to the contrary, they could only a.s.sume that the Consult would eventually hazard some kind of a.s.sa.s.sination attempt. Kellhus's ascendancy threatened far more than it had already exacted.

With the Holy War afield, the opportunities to interrogate the two captive skin-spies became sporadic at best. The abominations travelled under Spires guard with the baggage, each in a covered wain, trussed upright in a network of hanging iron shackles. Achamian now partic.i.p.ated in all the interrogations, plying the creatures with those few Gnostic Cants of Compulsion he knew-to no avail. The various torments Kellhus devised were likewise ineffective, though for hours afterward Achamian could scarce blink without glimpsing these sessions. The things convulsing in the fecal darkness, screaming and squealing, their voices fractured into b.e.s.t.i.a.l choruses. Then, through throats of gravel and mud, laughing. "Chigraaaaa ... Woe comes, Chigraaaaa ..." "Chigraaaaa ... Woe comes, Chigraaaaa ..."

Achamian couldn't decide what unnerved him more: their many-fingered faces clenching and unclenching, or the hallowed calm with which Kellhus regarded them. Never, not even in his Dreams of the First Apocalypse, had he witnessed such extremes of good and evil. Never had he felt more certain.

Achamian also attended Kellhus's every audience with the Scarlet Spires-for the predictable reasons. They struck him as strange, b.u.mbling affairs. Eleazaras, it was obvious, had taken to drink, which had the effect of rendering his manner stiff and awkward-a startling contrast to the loquacious contempt that had so characterized him at Momemn. Gone were the despotic self-a.s.surance, the measuring looks, the demonstrations of jnanic expertise. Now he seemed little more than a juvenile come to realize the fatal enormity of his boasts. At long last the Holy War marched on s.h.i.+meh, the stronghold of the Cishaurim. There would be no more begging out of battle. Soon the Scarlet Spires would close with their mortal foe, and their Grandmaster, Hanamanu Eleazaras, was terrified ... of making mistakes, of burning in Cishaurim fire, of destroying his storied School.

Against all reason, Achamian actually pitied the man, the way those of hale const.i.tution might pity those of weak in times of sickness. There was no accounting for it. The temper of every man in the Holy War had been tested. Some survived stronger. Some survived broken. Some survived bent. And all of them knew who was who, and which was which.

At no time did the chanv addict, Iyokus, attend any of these meetings, nor was he mentioned-small mercies for which Achamian was thankful. As much as he hated the man, as much as he had wanted to kill him that night in the Apple Garden, he could do no more than exact a fraction of what he was owed. When the Hundred Pillars had taken the knife to his red-irised eyes, Iyokus had suddenly seemed a hapless stranger ... an innocent innocent . The past became smoke, and retribution an act of abominable conceit. Who was he to pa.s.s final judgement? Of all the acts committed by men, only murder was absolute. . The past became smoke, and retribution an act of abominable conceit. Who was he to pa.s.s final judgement? Of all the acts committed by men, only murder was absolute.

Had it not been for Xinemus, Achamian doubted he would have done anything at all.

The practical concerns of the march monopolized Kellhus's days. A continuous train of Inrithi caste-n.o.bles conferred with him, bearing intelligence of the lands ahead, disputes that required resolution, and, more and more once the Holy War crossed the frontier into Xerash, counsel on matters of war.

Achamian typically found himself floating in and out of the various parties that formed about Kellhus. Sometimes, out of curiosity, he would pay heed to the issues discussed. Since he often remained while others arrived and departed, he was able to witness, time and again, the prodigious depths of Kellhus's intellect. He would listen to him recite, word for word, messages and admonitions that had been delivered days previously. There was not a man whose name he failed to recollect, not a detail that he missed, even when it came to mundane matters of supply. Achamian lost count of the times he turned to others-particularly Kellhus's Seneschal-Secretary, Gayamakri-in disbelief. They would grin and shake their heads, their brows pinned high in joy and awe. Their astonishment became their confirmation. "What have we done," the man once said to him, "to deserve such wonder?"

Aside from discussions involving Great Names, Achamian soon lost interest in these small dramas. His thoughts would wander much as they had before, when he'd marched with the livestock and baggage. The arriving caste-n.o.bles would still acknowledge him, but he would quickly fade into the fluid backdrop that const.i.tuted the Sacral Retinue.

In spite of his lack of interest, the absurd gravity of his charge was not lost upon Achamian. Sometimes, during moments of boredom, an odd sense of detachment would overcome him as he watched Kellhus. The surreal glamour would fall away and the Warrior-Prophet would seem as frail as the warlike men about him-and far more lonely. Achamian would go rigid with terror, understanding that Kellhus, no matter how G.o.dlike he seemed, was in fact mortal mortal. He was a man. Was this not the lesson of the Circ.u.mfixion? And if something were to happen, nothing would matter, not even his love for Esmenet.

A strange zeal would creep through his limbs then, one utterly unlike the nightmare-born fervour of Mandate Schoolmen. A fanaticism of person person.

To be devoted to a cause alone was to possess momentum without direction or destination. For so long, wandering wandering had been his twilight mission, beaten forward by his dreams, leading his mule down road and track, and never, not once, had been his twilight mission, beaten forward by his dreams, leading his mule down road and track, and never, not once, arriving arriving. But with Kellhus all this had changed. This was what he could not explain to Nautzera: that Kellhus was the incarnation incarnation of the abstractions that gave their School purpose. In this one man lay the future of all mankind. He was their only bulwark against the End of Ends. of the abstractions that gave their School purpose. In this one man lay the future of all mankind. He was their only bulwark against the End of Ends.

The No-G.o.d.

Several times now, Achamian thought he had glimpsed golden haloes about Kellhus's hands. He found himself envying those, such as Proyas, who claimed to see them all the time. And he realized that he would gladly die for Anasurimbor Kellhus. He would begrudge no sacrifice, despite his unrequited hate.

To his dismay, however, Achamian found it increasingly difficult to sustain these feelings across the seasons of the day. His thoughts began wandering, so much so that he sometimes doubted his ability to protect Kellhus should the Consult attack. He would shake his head, eye the distances with a hawkish scowl. He would try to scrutinize every pet.i.tioner who approached Kellhus.

As always, Esmenet remained his greatest distraction.

Some days she rode, and though uncertain at first, she'd swiftly learned both beast and saddle. Even attached to Kellhus's immediate entourage at the fore of the Sacral Retinue, Achamian saw her regularly. Sometimes he would wax melancholy, silent while Kellhus and his caste-n.o.ble commanders droned in the background. Sometimes he would simply wonder-at the mere sight of her, at her acts of mannish boldness, at the way she wielded unquestioned authority over those in her train. Everything about her would seem brisk and decisive. She would seem a stranger.

Usually, however, Esmenet travelled in what others began to call the Black Palanquin, a luxurious litter borne on the backs of some sixteen Kianene slaves. A scribe would ride with her, and throughout the day Achamian saw men on horseback come to confer with her on inscrutable matters. He saw her physically only when Kellhus rode alongside the Palanquin, bearing questions or instructions. Through intervening limbs and torsos, he would glimpse her painted lips beneath the curve of bundled sheers, or her forearm across a raised knee, her fingers hanging from a relaxed wrist. The urge to crane his neck, or even to call out her name, often struck him with the force of pain. He almost never saw her eyes.

Most of their encounters occurred after the march, in the moat of activity that encircled the Umbilica. As these meetings were public, she typically afforded him little more than a courteous nod. Achamian had thought her cruel at first, suspecting that she, like so many, nursed grudges to better cultivate hate. What better way to eradicate the remains of their love? But after a time he realized she behaved this way for his his sake as much as for hers. Everyone knew they'd been lovers before Kellhus had taken her. Though no one dared mention it, he saw it in their looks from time to time-especially with Proyas. A sudden consciousness of another's shame. A sudden pity. sake as much as for hers. Everyone knew they'd been lovers before Kellhus had taken her. Though no one dared mention it, he saw it in their looks from time to time-especially with Proyas. A sudden consciousness of another's shame. A sudden pity.

Any warmth she showed him would simply remind others of his humiliation. His disgrace as a cuckold.

Five days out of Caraskand, after the slaves had hoisted and furnished the great pavilion, Achamian withdrew to his chambers so he might change into his evening attire, and there she was, there she was, standing in the canvas gloom, waiting for him, dressed in a panelled robe of gold and black, her hair bound in a Girgas.h.i.+ headdress. "Achamian," she said, not "Akka." standing in the canvas gloom, waiting for him, dressed in a panelled robe of gold and black, her hair bound in a Girgas.h.i.+ headdress. "Achamian," she said, not "Akka."

He struggled with his composure, beat down the desire to sweep her into his arms.

To his dismay, she spoke only on matters regarding the security of Kellhus's person. He half expected her to cite the articles of his service, as though she were an empress and he a foreign counsel on indenture. Achamian found himself playing along, answering her questions concisely, astonished at the absurdity of their new circ.u.mstance, impressed by the rigour and insight of her interrogation.

And proud ... so very proud of her.

You've always been my better.

Where others were simply walls to him, Esmenet was an ancient city, a maze of little streets and squares, where once he had made his home. He knew her hospices and her barracks, her towers and her cisterns. No matter where he wandered, he always knew that this direction led here and that direction there. He was never lost, though outside her gates all the world might confound him.

He knew the habit of lovers, their inclination to make scripture out of self-deception. There was little difference, he had often thought, between the devotional verse of Protathis and the graffiti that marred the bath-house walls. Love was never so simple as the marks with which it was written. Why else would the terror of loss come upon lovers so often? Why else would so many insist on calling love pure or simple?

What he and Esmenet had shared had been inexplicable, as was what she shared with Kellhus now. Achamian would often overlook the innumerable horrors she had endured. The death of her daughter, Mimara. The hungry seasons. The anger in all the faces grimacing over her. The bruises. The danger. With the exception of Mimara, she would speak of these things with dismissive humour-something that Achamian, for his part, had encouraged. How could he bear her burdens when he could scarce bear his own? The honesty would come later, in the way she squeezed his fingers, or in the momentary terror that flickered through her gaze.

He knew this, and yet he said nothing. He shrank from the work of understanding. He put his trust in the inexplicable. I failed her, I failed her, he realized. he realized.

Small wonder she'd failed him in turn. Small wonder she had ... succ.u.mbed to Kellhus.

Kellhus ... These were the most selfish-and therefore the most painful-thoughts.

Esmenet had loved joking about c.o.c.ks. She marvelled at the way men fussed over them, cursing, congratulating, beseeching, coaxing, commanding, even threatening them. Once she told Achamian about a deranged priest who had actually held a knife to his member, hissing, "You must listen!" After that, she said, she understood that men, far more than women, were other to themselves. He had asked her about the temple prost.i.tutes of Gierra, who believed that despite the hundreds of men who used them, they coupled with only one, one, Hotos, the Priapic G.o.d. She laughed, saying, "No deity could be so inconsistent." Hotos, the Priapic G.o.d. She laughed, saying, "No deity could be so inconsistent."

Achamian had been horrified.

Women were windows through which men could peer into other men. They were the unguarded gate, the point of contact for deeper, more defenceless selves. And there had been times, Achamian could now admit, when he feared the raucous crowd that scrutinized him through her almost guileless eyes. All that had consoled him was the fact that he was the last last to bed her, would always be the last. to bed her, would always be the last.

And now she was with Kellhus Kellhus.

Why was this thought so unbearable? Why did it cramp his heart so?

Some nights he would lie awake and remind himself, over and over, of just who who it was that Esmenet had chosen. Kellhus was the it was that Esmenet had chosen. Kellhus was the Warrior-Prophet Warrior-Prophet. Before long he would demand sacrifices of all men. He would demand lives, not just lovers. And if he took, then he gave as well-such gifts! Achamian had lost Esmenet, but he had gained his soul gained his soul. Had he not?

Had he not?

Other nights Achamian would toss to and fro, silently howl with jealousy, knowing that she gasped and bucked upon him, him, that he used her in ways Achamian never could. Her climax would ring higher. Her limbs would tingle longer. And afterward she would make jokes about sorcerers and their stubby little c.o.c.ks. What was she thinking, rolling with a fat old fool like Drusas Achamian? that he used her in ways Achamian never could. Her climax would ring higher. Her limbs would tingle longer. And afterward she would make jokes about sorcerers and their stubby little c.o.c.ks. What was she thinking, rolling with a fat old fool like Drusas Achamian?

But most of the time he simply lay still in the darkness, smelling the extinguished candles and censers, longing for her as he'd never longed for anyone or anything. If only he could hold her, he would tell himself, recounting recent glimpses of her the way the greed-stricken might count coins. If only he could hold her one last time, she would see, would she not? She had to see!

Please, Esmi ...

One night, lying exhausted after the Holy War's first march into the Xeras.h.i.+ plains, Achamian was struck numb by thoughts of her unborn child. He ceased breathing, understanding that this, more than anything else, was the measure of the difference between her love for him and her love for Kellhus. She had never surrendered her wh.o.r.e's sh.e.l.l for Achamian. She had never even mentioned the possibility of children.

But then, he realized with a tear-blinking smile, neither had he.

With this recognition, something either broke or mended within him; he could not tell which. The following morning he sat at one of the slave fires, watching two nameless girls tear up stalks of mint for tea. For a time he stared in a blinking stupor, still awakening. Then he looked past them, where he saw Esmenet standing in the near distance with two Nascenti in the shadow of dark horses. She caught his eyes, and this time, rather than nod without expression or simply look away, she smiled a shy and dazzling smile. And somehow he just knew ...

Her gates had been closed. She was a direction his heart could no longer go.

Memories of that other fire ...

They came to Achamian as an affliction now. Esmenet leaning against him in laughter. Serwe clapping her hands in delight, her face beaming innocence. Xinemus with his eyes. Kellhus saying, "I was scared!"

"You were scared scared? Of a horse?"

"The thing was drunk. And it was looking at me! You know ... the way Zin looks at his mare."

"What?"

"Like something to be ridden ..."

How they had loved teasing Kellhus! What joy they'd found in his feigned frailties! And that was the least of what they had lost.

That other fire. So different from this one, with its silk and awkward misery. Now they reclined with ghosts.

Achamian had come to Proyas's pavilion out of boredom more than anything else. He could tell from the Kianene body-slave's reaction that all was not right with his presence, but he'd been drinking, and he felt belligerent. The idea of annoying another struck him as justice.

The gold-chased streamers were drawn aside. He saw Proyas, dressed in a robe more appropriate to convalescence than to entertaining, sitting before a small iron-grilled fire-pot. Xinemus sat to his left, and a woman sat across from him.

Esmenet.

"Akka," Proyas said with a nervous and telling glance at the Consort. His face was drawn. After a moment's hesitation he said, "Come in. Please join us."

"I apologize. I'd hoped to find you alo-"

"He said 'come in'!" Xinemus barked with that antagonistic good nature only inveterate drunks could master. He had his profile turned to the air, as though he aimed his left ear.

"Yes," Esmi said.

Her voice sounded forced, but her eyes looked sincere. It was only as Achamian drew up a reluctant pillow that he realized she'd spoken more out of pity for Xinemus than out of any real desire for his company. He was such a fool.

She, on the other hand, looked a breathtaking beauty. It almost galled him to glance at her, not only because all men secretly rank the relative beauties of women they've lost, but because she had been but a lovely weed when she was with him, and now she seemed an astonis.h.i.+ng flower. Pearls on silver strings. Hair like s.h.i.+ning jet, fixed high on her head with two silver pins. A gown with a s.h.i.+mmering print. Dark and troubled eyes.

The body-slave busied himself collecting spent bowls and plates. Both Proyas and Esmenet paid the man extravagant attention. Everyone seemed stricken, with the exception of Xinemus, who gnawed meat from sawed ribs-pork stewed in some kind of sweet bean sauce. It smelled delicious.

"How are the lessons?" Proyas asked, as though just recalling his manners.

"Lessons?" Achamian repeated.

"Yes, with ..." He shrugged, as if unsure of their old ways of referring. "With Kellhus."

Simply speaking the name had become something like twisting a tourniquet.

Achamian brushed at his knees, even though he could see nothing that blemished them. "Good." He did his best to sound lighthearted. "If I somehow live to write a book about these days, I'll call it On the Varieties of Awe On the Varieties of Awe."

"You stole my t.i.tle!" Xinemus exclaimed, reaching out to fumble for some more wine. Proyas quickly intervened, pouring a deep bowl for him, smiling despite the brittle exasperation in his eyes.

"Why?" Esmenet asked. Achamian winced at the sharpness of her tone. Blind as he was, Xinemus saw slight everywhere. He had become worse than the Scylvendi. "What's your t.i.tle, Zin?"

Xinemus slurped some wine, then in his cla.s.sic deadpan muttered, "On the Varieties of a.s.s." "On the Varieties of a.s.s."

They howled with laughter.

Achamian looked from face to beaming face, pressing away tears with his thumb. Memories flooded him. For a moment it seemed that Esmi need only reach out and clasp his hand, press the pad of her thumb against the nail of his own, and everything would be undone. Everything that had happened since s.h.i.+gek.

All of them are here here ... all the people ... all the people I love I love.

"My sense of smell!" Xinemus protested. "I'm telling you, my sense of smell reaches farther than my eyes ever did! Into the deepest of cracks ... You, Proyas, you think you ate mutton last night ..." He looked to empty s.p.a.ces, grimacing. "But it was really goat."

Esmenet rolled back on her cus.h.i.+ons, chortling, kicking her small feet. Xinemus swung his head toward the sound of her laughter. He wagged a knowing finger, which he then brought to his nose. "There's beauty-so much beauty-in what we see," he said with mock eloquence. "But there's truth truth in what we smell." in what we smell."

Their laughter became brittle then, suddenly keen to a dangerous s.h.i.+ft in his manner. In a moment it trailed away altogether.

"Truth!" Xinemus cried with savagery. "The world stinks of it!" He made as though to stand up, but rolled back onto his rump instead. "I can smell all of you," he said, as if in answer to their shocked silence. "I can smell that Akka's afraid. I can smell that Proyas grieves. I can smell that Esmi wants to f.u.c.k-"

"Enough!" Achamian cried. "What's this madness? Zin ... who's this fool you've become?"

The Marshal laughed, possessed of a sudden, improbable lucidity. "I'm the same man you knew, Akka." He shrugged in a drunk's exaggerated manner, holding his palms out. "Just minus my eyes."

Achamian fairly gaped. How had it come to this? Zin Zin ... ...

"My world," Xinemus drawled on, smirking in a lurid approximation of good humour, "has been shorn in half. Before, I lived with men. Now, I dwell with a.s.ses."

No one laughed.

Achamian found himself standing, thanking Proyas for his hospitality. The Conriyan Prince sat as one broken, silent as the grave. Despite his fl.u.s.ter, Achamian understood that the Prince had made Xinemus his punishment. By overturning all the old reasons, Kellhus had rewritten the regrets of many, many men.

Xinemus coughed, and Achamian saw Esmenet start at the sound. More than foul humours ailed the Marshal. He seemed worse every time Achamian saw him.

"Yes," Xinemus said, "by all means, flee, flee, Akka." His sneer seemed hale despite his pallor. Akka." His sneer seemed hale despite his pallor.

"I'll return with you," Esmenet said to Achamian, who could only nod and swallow.