The Thousandfold Thought Part 8

"Headaches," Gothyelk added, clenching a grey-haired fist. "He's delivered many a headache ..."

"I simply demand what's mine by right right!" Saubon snarled. "Proyas-you agreed to support me, Proyas!"

The Conriyan Prince glanced uneasily at the Dunyain, then stared evenly at the would-be Caraskandi King. During the siege, he had refused to eat more than his men, so he was gaunt, and he looked older now that he was growing his beard out square like his father's kinsmen. "No. I'll not renege on my pledge, Saubon." Indecision slackened his handsome face. "But things ... have changed."

The debate was a sham, the preserving of certain motions to advance a sense of continuity. Proyas had fairly shouted this, though he would never admit to it. Only one decision mattered.

All eyes had climbed to the Warrior-Prophet. Fierce before his peers, Saubon now seemed petulant-a king unmanned beneath the vaults of his own palace.

"Those who carry the war to Holy s.h.i.+meh," the Warrior-Prophet said, his voice falling upon them like a knife-p.r.i.c.k, "must do so freely ..."

"No," Saubon said hoa.r.s.ely. "Please, no."

At first this answer escaped Cnaiur, then he realized the Dunyain had forced Saubon to choose his own d.a.m.nation. He returned their choices to them only when he needed them to be accountable. Such maddening subtlety!

The Warrior-Prophet shook his leonine head. "There is nothing to be done."

"Strip him of his throne," Ikurei Conphas said abruptly. "Have him dragged into the streets." He shrugged in the manner of long-suffering men. "Have his teeth beaten from his head."

Astonished silence greeted his words. As the first among the Orthodox conspirators-and as Sarcellus's confidant, no less-Conphas had become an outcast among the Great Names. In the Council preceding the battle, he'd contributed little, and when he did talk, it was with the awkwardness of one forced to speak an unfamiliar tongue. It seemed that his patience had at last been exhausted.

The Exalt-General looked to his astounded peers, snorted. He wore his blue mantle in the Nansur fas.h.i.+on, thrown up and across the stamped gold of his breastplate. Among all those a.s.sembled, he alone seemed unmarked, unscarred, as though mere days had pa.s.sed since that fateful Council on the Andiamine Heights.

He turned to the Warrior-Prophet. "Such things lie within the scope of your power, do they not?"

"Insolence!" Gothyelk hissed. "You don't know what you're saying!"

"I a.s.sure you, old fool, I always know what I'm saying."

"And what," the Warrior-Prophet said, "what might that be?" Conphas managed a defiant smile. "That this-all of this-is a sham. That you"-he glanced again at the surrounding faces-"are a fraud."

Whispers of hushed outrage rifled through the chamber. The Dunyain merely smiled.

"But this is not not what you say." what you say."

It seemed that Conphas sensed, for perhaps the first time, the impossible dimensions of the Dunyain's authority over the men surrounding him. The Warrior-Prophet was more than their centre, as a general might be; he was their centre and their ground ground. These men had to trim not only their words and actions to conform to his authority, but their pa.s.sions and hopes as well-the very movements of their souls now answered to the Warrior-Prophet.

"But," Conphas said blankly, "how could another-"

"Another?" the Warrior-Prophet asked. "Don't confuse me with any 'other,' Ikurei Conphas. I am here, with you." He leaned forward in a way that made Cnaiur catch his breath. "I am here, in you in you."

"In me," the Exalt-General repeated.

He had tried to sound contemptuous, Cnaiur knew, but he sounded frightened instead.

"I realize," the Dunyain continued, "that you speak these words out of impatience, that you've chafed at the changes my presence has wrought in the Holy War. I know that the strength I've delivered to the Men of the Tusk threatens your designs. I know that you're unsure as to how to proceed, that you don't know whether to offer the same pretence of submission that you offer your uncle or to discredit me with open words. So now you deny me out of desperation, not to prove to others that I'm a fraud but to prove to yourself that you are in fact my better you are in fact my better. For an obscene arrogance dwells within you, Ikurei Conphas, the belief that you are the measure of all other men. It is this lie that you seek to preserve at all costs."

"Not true!" Conphas cried, bolting from his chair.

"No? Then tell me, Exalt-General, how many times have you thought yourself a G.o.d G.o.d?"

Conphas licked tight lips. "Never."

The Warrior-Prophet nodded sceptically. "It is peculiar, isn't it, the place you find yourself standing? To preserve your pride before me, you must endure the shame of lying. You must conceal conceal who you are, in order to who you are, in order to prove prove who you are. You must degrade yourself to remain proud. At this moment you see this more clearly than at any other time in your life, and yet still you refuse to relinquish, to yield to your tormented pride. You trade the anguish that breeds anguish for the anguish that breeds release. You would rather take pride in what you are not than take pride in who you are. You must degrade yourself to remain proud. At this moment you see this more clearly than at any other time in your life, and yet still you refuse to relinquish, to yield to your tormented pride. You trade the anguish that breeds anguish for the anguish that breeds release. You would rather take pride in what you are not than take pride in what you are what you are."

"Silence!" Conphas screeched. "No one speaks to me this way! speaks to me this way! No one! No one!"

"Shame is a stranger to you, Ikurei Conphas. An unbearable stranger."

Wild-eyed, Conphas stared at the congregated faces. The sound of weeping filled the room, the weeping of other men who'd recognized themselves in the Warrior-Prophet's words. Cnaiur watched and listened, his skin awash with dread, his heart pounding in his throat. Ordinarily, he would have taken deep satisfaction in the Exalt-General's humiliation-but this was of a different order. Shame itself itself now reared above them, a beast that devoured all certainties, that wrapped cold coils about the fiercest souls. now reared above them, a beast that devoured all certainties, that wrapped cold coils about the fiercest souls.

How does he do this?

"Release," the Warrior-Prophet said, as though a word could be the world's only unbarred door. "All I offer you, Ikurei Conphas, is the Warrior-Prophet said, as though a word could be the world's only unbarred door. "All I offer you, Ikurei Conphas, is release release."

The Exalt-General stumbled back a step, and for a mad moment it almost seemed that his knees would buckle-that the Emperor's nephew might kneel kneel. But then a curious, almost blood-chilling laugh escaped his throat; a hidden madness flashed through the cracks of his mien.

"Listen to him!" Gotian hissed plaintively. "Don't you to him!" Gotian hissed plaintively. "Don't you see, see, man? He's the man? He's the Prophet Prophet!"

Conphas looked at the Grandmaster without comprehension. His beauty seemed all the more astonis.h.i.+ng for the blankness of his expression.

"You are among friends here," Proyas said. "Brothers."

Gotian and Proyas. Other men and other words. These apparently broke the spell of the Dunyain's voice for Conphas as much as for Cnaiur.

"Brother?" he snarled. "I'm no brother to slaves! You think he knows knows you? That he speaks the hearts of men? He does not! Trust me, my 'brothers, ' we Ikurei know a thing or two about words and men. He plays you, and you know it not. He tacks 'truth' after 'truth' to your heart to better yoke the blood beating underneath! Gulls! Slaves! To think I once congratulated myself on your company!" He turned his back to the Great Names, began shouldering his way toward the crowded entrance. you? That he speaks the hearts of men? He does not! Trust me, my 'brothers, ' we Ikurei know a thing or two about words and men. He plays you, and you know it not. He tacks 'truth' after 'truth' to your heart to better yoke the blood beating underneath! Gulls! Slaves! To think I once congratulated myself on your company!" He turned his back to the Great Names, began shouldering his way toward the crowded entrance.

"Halt!" the Dunyain thundered. the Dunyain thundered.

Everyone, including Cnaiur, flinched. Conphas stumbled as though struck. Arms and hands clasped him, turned him, thrust him into the centre of the Warrior-Prophet's attention.

"Kill him!" someone to Cnaiur's right cried. someone to Cnaiur's right cried.

"Apostate!" pealed from the benches below. pealed from the benches below.

Then the tiers fairly erupted in hoa.r.s.e outrage. Fists pounded the s.h.i.+vering air. Conphas looked about him, more stunned than terrified, like a boy struck by a beloved uncle.

"Pride," the Warrior-Prophet said, silencing the chamber like a carpenter sweeping sawdust from his workbench. "Pride is a sickness ... For most it's a fever, a contagion goaded by the glories of others. But for some, like you, Ikurei Conphas, it is a defect carried from the womb. For your whole life you've wondered what it was that moved the men about you. Why would a father sell himself into slavery, when he need only strangle his children? Why would a young man take the Orders of the Tusk, exchange the luxuries of his station for a cubicle, authority for servitude to the Holy Shriah? Why do so many the Warrior-Prophet said, silencing the chamber like a carpenter sweeping sawdust from his workbench. "Pride is a sickness ... For most it's a fever, a contagion goaded by the glories of others. But for some, like you, Ikurei Conphas, it is a defect carried from the womb. For your whole life you've wondered what it was that moved the men about you. Why would a father sell himself into slavery, when he need only strangle his children? Why would a young man take the Orders of the Tusk, exchange the luxuries of his station for a cubicle, authority for servitude to the Holy Shriah? Why do so many give, give, when it is so easy to take? when it is so easy to take?

"But you ask these questions because you know nothing of strength. For what is strength strength but the resolve to deny base inclinations-the determination to but the resolve to deny base inclinations-the determination to sacrifice sacrifice in the name of one's brothers? You, Ikurei Conphas, know only in the name of one's brothers? You, Ikurei Conphas, know only weakness, weakness, and because it takes strength to acknowledge weakness, you call your weakness strength. You betray your brother. You fresco your heart with flatteries. You, who are less than any man, say to yourself, 'I am a G.o.d.'" and because it takes strength to acknowledge weakness, you call your weakness strength. You betray your brother. You fresco your heart with flatteries. You, who are less than any man, say to yourself, 'I am a G.o.d.'"

The Exalt-General's reply was little more than a whisper, but it resounded across every crook and span of the chamber. "No ..." "No ..."

Shame. Wutrim. Cnaiur had thought that his hatred of the Dunyain was without measure, that it could be eclipsed by nothing, but the shame shame that filled this room, the bowel-loosening humiliation, knocked his rancour from him. For an instant he saw the that filled this room, the bowel-loosening humiliation, knocked his rancour from him. For an instant he saw the Warrior-Prophet Warrior-Prophet, not the Dunyain, and he stood in awe of him. For an instant he found himself inside inside the man's lies. the man's lies.

"Your Columns," Kellhus continued, "will disarm. You will then decamp for Joktha, where you will await pa.s.sage back to the Nansurium. You are no longer a Man of the Tusk, Ikurei Conphas. In truth, you never were."

The Exalt-General blinked in astonishment, as though these words these words had offended his person and not those preceding. The man, Cnaiur realized, did suffer some defect of the soul, just as the Dunyain had said. had offended his person and not those preceding. The man, Cnaiur realized, did suffer some defect of the soul, just as the Dunyain had said.

"Why?" the Exalt-General asked, recovering the force of his old voice. "Why should I accede to these demands?"

Kellhus stood, approached the man. "Because I know," know," he said, stepping from the dais. For some reason, leaving the illumination of the braziers did nothing to diminish his miraculous bearing. He wore all light to his advantage. "I know the Emperor has struck treaties with the heathen...I know that you plan to betray the Holy War before s.h.i.+meh is regained." he said, stepping from the dais. For some reason, leaving the illumination of the braziers did nothing to diminish his miraculous bearing. He wore all light to his advantage. "I know the Emperor has struck treaties with the heathen...I know that you plan to betray the Holy War before s.h.i.+meh is regained."

Conphas shrank before his aspect, retreated until caught in the arms of the faithful. Cnaiur recognized several among them-Gaidekki, Tuthorsa, Semper-their eyes bright with something more than hatred. For some reason, they looked a thousand years old, ancient with cert.i.tude.

"Because," Kellhus continued, looming over him, "if you fail to comply, I will will have you flayed and hung from the gates." The tenor of his voice was such that the word "flay" and the skinless images it conjured seemed to linger. have you flayed and hung from the gates." The tenor of his voice was such that the word "flay" and the skinless images it conjured seemed to linger.

Conphas stared up in abject horror. His lower lip quivered, and his face broke into a soundless sob, only to stiffen, then break again. Cnaiur found himself clutching his breast. Why did his heart race so?

"Release him," the Warrior-Prophet murmured, and the Exalt-General fled through the entranceway, s.h.i.+elding his face, waving his hands as though pelted with stones.

Again Cnaiur stood outside the Dunyain's machinations.

The accusations of treachery, he knew, were likely a contrivance, nothing more. What would the Emperor gain from abetting his ancestral enemies? Everything that had transpired, Cnaiur realized, had been premeditated. Everything Everything. Every word, every look, every insight, had some function function ... But for what end? To make an example of Ikurei Conphas? To remove him? Why not simply cut his throat? ... But for what end? To make an example of Ikurei Conphas? To remove him? Why not simply cut his throat?

No. Of all the Great Names, only Ikurei Conphas, the far-famed Lion of Kiyuth, possessed the force of character to retain the loyalty of his men. Kellhus would brook no compet.i.tors, but neither would he risk what remained of the Holy War in internecine conflict. That alone had preserved the Exalt-General's life.

Kellhus had withdrawn, and the Men of the Tusk stood and stretched on the tiers, calling, laughing, wondering. And once more Cnaiur found himself watching them with two sets of eyes. The Inrithi, he knew, would see themselves forged and reforged, their temper improved for the want of impurities. But he knew otherwise ...

The dry season had not ended. Perhaps it never would.

The Dunyain simply culled the wilful from his herd.

Struggling to remain stationary in the crush of bodies, Proyas scanned the milling crowds once again, searching for the Scylvendi. Only moments earlier the Warrior-Prophet had withdrawn to thunderous acclaim. Now the Lords of the Holy War rumbled amongst themselves, exchanging exclamations of hilarity and outrage. There was much to discuss: the Ikurei plot uncovered, the Nansur Columns cast out of the Holy War, the Exalt-General humiliated-debased ... ...

"I wager the Imperial Loincloth warrants changing!" Gaidekki cried out from a nearby knot of Conriyan caste-n.o.bles. Laughter boomed through the packed antechamber. It was both merciless and full-hearted-though not, Proyas noted, without strains of apprehension. The triumphal looks, the shrill declarations, the avid gestures and protestations, all spoke to the youth of their conversion. But there was something else as well, something Proyas could feel haunting the corners of his own aching face ...

Fear.

Perhaps this was to be expected. As Ajencis was so fond of observing, habit ruled the souls of men. So long as the past governed the present, those habits could be depended on. But the past had been overturned, and now the Men of the Tusk found themselves stranded with judgements and a.s.sumptions they could no longer trust. They had learned that the metaphor cut both ways: to be reborn, Proyas had come to realize, one must murder who one was.

It seemed such a small price-ludicrously small-given what they had gained.

With the Scylvendi nowhere in sight, Proyas sorted the faces into those who had condemned Kellhus and those who had not. Many, like Ingiaban, stood quiet between outbursts, their eyes wide with contrition, their lips pinched in chagrin. But others, like Athjeari, spoke with the easy bravado of the vindicated. Watching them, Proyas felt envy claw through him, forcing his eyes downward and away. Never, it seemed, had the need to undo undo so overwhelmed him. Not even with Achamian ... so overwhelmed him. Not even with Achamian ...

What had he been thinking? How could he, a man who had meticulously hammered his heart into the very shape of piety, have come so close to murdering the G.o.d's own voice G.o.d's own voice?

The thought still dizzied him, struck him nauseous with shame.

Conviction, no matter how narcotic its depth, simply did not make true. This was a hard lesson, made all the harder by its astounding conspicuousness. Despite the exhortations of kings and generals, despite the endless lays, belief unto death was cheap. After all, the Fanim threw themselves against the spears of their enemies as readily as the Inrithi. Someone Someone had to be deluded. So what ensured that that someone was had to be deluded. So what ensured that that someone was someone else someone else? Given the manifest frailty of men, given the long succession of delusions that was their history, what could be more preposterous than claiming oneself the least deluded, let alone privy to the absolute?

And to make such obvious conceit the grounds of condemnation ... of murder ...

In all his life, Proyas had never wept so hard as he had at the Warrior-Prophet's feet. For he, who had decried avarice in all its forms, had proven the most avaricious of all. He had coveted nothing so much as the truth, and since truth had so roundly eluded him, he had turned to his beliefs. How could he not when he'd spent a lifetime abasing himself before them, when they afforded him such luxury of judgement?

When they were so much who he was who he was.

The promise of rebirth was at once the threat of murder, and Proyas, like so many others, had opted to kill rather than die.

"Hush," the Warrior-Prophet had said. Mere hours had pa.s.sed since Kellhus had been cut down from Umiaki. Blood still soaked the bandages about his wrists, forming black rings. "You need not weep, Proyas."

"But I tried to kill kill you!" you!"

A beatific smile, jarring given the obvious pain it contradicted. "All our acts turn upon what we a.s.sume to be true, Proyas, what we a.s.sume to know to know. The connection is so strong, so thoughtless, that when those things we need to be true are threatened, we try to make make them true with our acts. We condemn the innocent to make them guilty. We raise the wicked to make them holy. Like the mother who continues nursing her dead babe, we act out our refusal." them true with our acts. We condemn the innocent to make them guilty. We raise the wicked to make them holy. Like the mother who continues nursing her dead babe, we act out our refusal."

Kellhus had paused in the breathless way he so often did, as if communing with voices that others could almost hear. He raised his hand in a curious gesture-as though to ward away hard words. Proyas could still remember the blood smeared like ink into the whorls of his palm, dark against the gold that haloed his outstretched fingers.

"When we believe without ground or cause, Proyas, conviction is all we possess, and acts of conviction become our only demonstration. Our beliefs beliefs become our G.o.d, and we make sacrifices to appease them." become our G.o.d, and we make sacrifices to appease them."

And as simply as that, he had been absolved, as though to be known was to be forgiven ...

Without warning, the Scylvendi floated into view, towering above those crowded about the entrance to the audience chamber. Rather than a s.h.i.+rt, he sported a vest of coins netted in leather string-to let his wounds breathe, Proyas imagined. He wore the same iron-plated girdle as he had from the first, cinched over a kilt of black damask. His scarred arms were things of statuary, and Proyas noticed several flinch from them, as though the slaughter they signified might be contagious. Without exception, the Men of the Tusk shrank from his path, as dogs might before a lion or tiger.

There was something about the Scylvendi, Proyas knew, that sent panic muttering through the bones of even the most granite-hearted. It was more than his barbarous heritage, more than the feral power that seemed to emanate from every cord of his frame-more even than the air of brooding intelligence that lent such profundity to his look. There was a sense of void about Cnaiur urs Skiotha, an absence of constraint that suggested any brutality could be possible.

The most violent of men. That was what Kellhus had called him. And he had told Proyas to take care ...

"Madness has claimed him."

For not the first time, Proyas considered the puckered wound about the barbarian's throat.

Heeding his gaze, Cnaiur soon hulked before him, his glacial eyes all the more striking for the black of his crazed mane. He nodded curtly when Proyas bid him follow. As Proyas turned, Xinemus caught his elbow, and the Conriyan Prince found himself leading both men through the red-glazed galleries of the Sapatishah's Palace. No one said a word.

Pausing in the long shadows of the processional courtyard, he turned to the Scylvendi, resisted the urge to step outside the circuit of his reach.

"So ... what did you think?"

"That Conphas will laugh himself to sleep," Cnaiur snapped contemptuously. "But you did not summon me to sound my thoughts."

"No."

"Proyas?" Xinemus asked, as though only now realizing the impropriety of his presence. "I should leave you two ..."

He came because there was nowhere else to go.

Cnaiur snorted.

The Scylvendi, Proyas imagined, had little use for the maimed. "No, Zin," he said. "I trust you as no other."

The barbarian scowled in sudden recognition. For an instant Proyas glimpsed something untoward in his eyes, an incestuous fury, as though the man berated himself for overlooking a mortal danger.

"He sent you," Cnaiur said. sent you," Cnaiur said.

"He did."