Part 47 (1/2)
His father staggered against the panels that pitted the walls. Snakes curled out of the recesses, s.h.i.+ning and black. They curled about his throat, like eyes that strangled.
Kellhus stepped back, focused his eyes on a point the size of a thumbnail held at arm's length. What was one became many. What was soul became place. place.
Here.
Calling out from bones of things.
With three voices three voices he sang, one utteral pitched to the world and two inutterals directed to the he sang, one utteral pitched to the world and two inutterals directed to the ground ground. What had been an ancient Cant of Calling became something far, far more...A Cant of Transposing Transposing.
Blue fractal lights mapped the air about him, coc.o.o.ned him in brilliance. Through scribbling filaments he saw his father press himself upright, turn with his asps to the girded corridor. Anasurimbor Moenghus ... that he could look so pale in the light of his son!
Existence cringed before the whip of his voice. s.p.a.ce cracked. Here was pried into there. Beyond his father he saw Serwe, Serwe, her blonde hair tied into a war-knot. He saw her leap out of the black ... her blonde hair tied into a war-knot. He saw her leap out of the black ...
Even as he toppled into one far greater.
Drusas Achamian shouted out destruction. Light scored the creature, parabolas of knifing white. Molten blood flecked the gra.s.ses. Chits of fiery flesh sailed like kicked coals.
Waves of heat burned Esmenet's cheeks. She stared as one transfixed, though she could not bear to watch. Surrounded by withered, burning gra.s.ses, he stood behind his sheets of light, at once glorious with power and dreadful with frailty. But the thing was upon him, a raving nightmare, hammering and clawing, blows that cracked the stone about her, that brought blood to her nose. Wards buckled and fractured. Achamian called out great concussions and the demon's head was battered. Horns snapped. Spider-eyes ruptured light.
Its a.s.sault became a frenzy, a jerking blur of violence, until it seemed h.e.l.l itself tore and gnashed at his gates.
Achamian staggered, blinked white-burning eyes, cried out- An instant of wasted voice.
Rats screamed through its exultant roar. Achamian falling, his mouth working. The closing of dragon claws ...
Achamian falling.
She could not scream.
The monstrosity leapt into the sky, punis.h.i.+ng the air with rent wings.
She could not scream.
”I live!” Ikurei Conphas cried one more time, only to hear nothing above the crack and thunder of sorcerous battle, both near and far. No resounding cheer, no individual shouts of relief or acclaim. They couldn't see him-that was it! They mistook him for one of their own. For a man ...
He whirled back to his stunned rescuers.
”You!” he shouted to a dumbstruck Selial Captain. ”Find General Baxatas. Tell him to join me here at once!”
The man hesitated-for scarcely an eye-blink, but it sparked a cold fire in Conphas's belly. Then the fool was off, sprinting through gra.s.s and clover toward distant formations.
”And you!” Conphas snapped at a run-of-the-mill Columnary. ”Find some hornsmen. Quick-quick! Tell them to signal the general advance!
”And y-” He broke off. There was was shouting on the wind. Of course! It had just taken them time to recover their hearts. To gather their wits. The hapless fools ... shouting on the wind. Of course! It had just taken them time to recover their hearts. To gather their wits. The hapless fools ...
They thought me dead!
Grinning, he turned back to the vista of his army ...
Only to see the hors.e.m.e.n he had glimpsed earlier, several hundred of them, riding unchallenged along the stationary flanks of the Selial Column. ”There are no more nations!” ”There are no more nations!” a voice cried from their galloping midst. a voice cried from their galloping midst. ”There are no more nations!” ”There are no more nations!”
For several moments Conphas could scarce credit his eyes-or even his ears, for that matter. They were obviously Inrithi, despite their white-and-blue khalats. The banner of the Circ.u.mfix hung above the forward riders, trailing a skirt of golden ta.s.sels. And behind it ... the Red Lion.
”Kill them!” Conphas howled. ”Attack! Attack! Attack!”
For an instant it seemed nothing would happen, that n.o.body had heard. His army continued to mill in imbecile crowds; the interlopers continued to ride unmolested among them.
”There are no more nations!”
Then the white-clad knights abruptly changed direction, began riding toward him him.
Conphas turned to the remaining Columnaries, at once laughed and snarled. And he remembered his grandmother, back when her beauty had yet burned as bright as legend. He remembered her drawing him up onto her lap and laughing at the way he squirmed and kicked his legs.
”It's good you prefer to keep your feet on the ground! For an Emperor that is the first thing ...”
”And what is the second?”
A laugh like a clear fountain. ”Ahhh ... The second is that you must ceaselessly measure.”
”Measure what, gramama?”
He could remember tapping his fingers on her cheek. How small his fingernails had been ...
”The purses of those who serve you, my little G.o.dling. For if you ever find them empty ...”
Of the dozen Nansur Columnaries who faced him, two fell to their knees, weeping, and three offered their swords. Five ran like madmen, and two simply walked away. He could hear the rumbling climb into the sky behind him.
”I defeated the Scylvendi,” he said to the remainder. ”You were there there ...” ...”
Hooves pounding the turf. The ground s.h.i.+vered through his sandals.
”No man man could do such a thing,” he said. could do such a thing,” he said.
”No man!” one of the kneelers cried. The soldier clutched his hand, kissed his Imperial Ring.
Such a deep deep sound, the charge of the Inrithi. Thunder about horses snorting, gear clanking. So this was what the heathen heard. sound, the charge of the Inrithi. Thunder about horses snorting, gear clanking. So this was what the heathen heard.
The Emperor of Nansur turned, not really believing ...