The Great Ordeal (Aspect-Emperor #3)

Such tales we will tell.

Cnaiür urs Ski?tha does not acknowledge them in any way. If he stares at the smoke, then he holds his focus as a finger in a stream, immobile, for his gaze does not move. Achamian shocks her by exploiting his inattention, striding to the fire and sitting to his immediate right as he might have twenty years previous, when they had shared a fire in the First Holy War. Mimara hesitates, knowing from her years on the Andiamine Heights that the old Wizard’s presumption was at once provocation. Only when the thing-called-Serw? took a seat to her consort’s left did she kneel at Achamian’s side. The boy followed suit, sitting opposite the wicked simulacrum.

The birch logs wheezed for burning wet, sizzled steam from sodden marrows.

“You sought Ishu?l.”

The Scylvendi speaks with a harsh, chopping cadence. His voice, even when conversational, is husky, wide … as if carried on distant roaring. He continues gazing at some indeterminate point above his fire.

“I confronted him with your accusations after the Fall of Shimeh …” The old Wizard’s eyebrows pop up, the way they always do when he is surprised by some recollection. “Just after Maithanet had crowned him Aspect-Emperor upon the heights of the Juterum, before all the Great and Lesser Names, no less.” He peered at the barbarian’s profile as if seeking approval for his daring. “As you might imagine, I had to flee the Three Seas. All these years I’ve been living in exile, pondering what had happened, the prophecies, and searching for some clue of Ishu?l in my Dreams …

“The truth of man, I had reasoned … lies in his origins.”

She has difficulty focussing upon Cnaiür, despite his seething presence. The wane image of his consort leans hard against her periphery, like menace painted in oils. Serw?, her sister’s namesake, even more beautiful than legend, like the girl-child of some God …

“What I told you that final night was not truth enough?”

“No,” Achamian said. “It was not.”

The King-of-Tribes spits gristle into the flames.

“Did you doubt my honesty or my sanity?”

Mimara’s breath catches on the question.

“Neither,” the old Wizard says, shrugging. “Only your vantage …”

The King-of-Tribes grins, still staring into nothing. “My sanity, then.”

“No,” the old Wizard protests. “I—”

“Only the World makes Men mad,” Cnaiür snaps. At last the brutal visage turns, and the white-blue eyes fix Achamian. “You sought Ishu?l to settle the matter of my madness.”

The old Wizard stares down to his thumbs.

“Tell me, then,” Cnaiür continues on a growl. “Am I mad?”

“No …” Mimara hears herself say aloud.

The white-eyes seize as much as regard her.

“Anas?rimbor Kellhus is wicked,” she says lamely.

We are tired, little one. That is all …

Achamian turns to her with the downward manner of those beleaguered by old furies, speaks as though reprimanding her soiled knee. “And if he turns out to be the Saviour?”

“He won’t,” she retorts, her voice revealing more pity than she would have liked.

“And how could you know this?”

“Because I have the Eye!”

“And it told you the D?nyain were evil, not Kellhus!”

“Enough!” the Scylvendi King-of-Tribes barks. Men who grow old in the dungeon of their hearts, she has noticed, often grind their voices into faraway thunder. Cnaiür has whetted his into one that claps the ears.

“What is this Eye?”

The question inhales all the air remaining. The old Wizard warns her to silence with one final scowl, turns back to Cnaiür, who has not finished ransacking her with his shining gaze.

“She has what is called the Judging Eye,” he begins, parsing his words too carefully to sound anything but disingenuous. “Very litt—”

“The God of Gods,” she interrupts. “The God-of-Gods looks through my eyes.”

Cnaiür urs Ski?tha almost seems a thing of stone, his scrutiny is so motionless.

“Prophecy?”

“No …” she replies on a swallow, realizing that this was the masculine question. She draws an even breath to calm her demeanour. “Judgment. I see … judgment.”

The thing-called-Serw? does not so much as blink.

The King-of-Tribes nods. “You see the facts of damnation, then.”

“This is why we hasten to Golgotterath,” Achamian says in a clumsy attempt to intercede. “So that Mimara may gaze upon Kellhus with the Eye … So that we mi—!”

“The Eye,” Cnaiür grates. “It has apprehended me?”

She dares match his gaze. “Yes.”

The great man lowers his face as though to ponder her words and a hang-nail together. A shudder passes through his shoulders. “Tell me, Daughter-of-Esmenet. What did it see?”

She glances at Achamian … He is begging her to “lick feet”—to lie. The vacancy in his expression shouts as much.

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