Part 8 (1/2)

”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.