And then, for no apparent reason, the assassin would simply … stop.
It was narcotic for simply being so strange. Several days passed before Kelmomas realized that no one … no one … ever witnessed the man acting this way. In the presence of others he would be remote, taciturn, act the way a terrifying assassin should, always careful to assure the others of his humanity, if nothing more. Several times it was Mother who encountered him, coming about a corner, through a door. And no matter what she said, if she said anything at all (for in certain company she would rather not encounter the man at all), he would simply nod wordlessly, then return to his room, and stand …
Motionless.
Issiral ate. He slept. He shat. His shit stank. The general terror of the slaves was to be expected, as was the hatred of Uncle Holy’s many intimates at the Imperial Court. But what was more remarkable still was the degree to which the man went unnoticed, how he would sometimes tarry in one spot, unseen, only to inexplicably pace five steps to his left, or his right, where he would stand unseen as a gaggle of scullery slaves passed teasing and whispering.
The enigma soon began to tyrannize the Prince-Imperial’s thoughts. He started dreaming of his vigils, reliving the stark discipline that occupied his days, except that when his body turned about to slip back in the labyrinthine tunnels, his soul would somehow remain fixed by the louvres, and he would simultaneously watch and crawl away, riven by a horror that plucked him to his very vein, the World shrieking as the face in the flint turned and ever so slowly swivelled up to match his incorporeal look—
As the game continued, this became one more thing to fret and dispute in the academy of his skull. Were his dreams warning him of something? Did the Narindar somehow know of his observation? If he did, he betrayed absolutely no discernible sign. But then the man betrayed no sign of anything.
Watching the man simply whetted the edge of this concern, especially as Kelmomas came to fathom just how much the assassin knew. How? How was the man able to so unerringly intercept his mother, to know, not simply where she was going without any communication whatsoever, but the precise path she would take?
How could such a thing be possible?
He was Narindar, the boy reasoned. A famed Missionary of the evil Four-Horned Brother. Perhaps his knowledge was divine. Perhaps that was how he had managed to overcome Uncle Holy!
This sent him to his mother’s Librarian, an eccentric Ainoni slave named Nikussis.
Nikussis was a slight, dark-skinned man—every bit as skinny as Theliopa, in fact. Possessed of some murky ability to spy insincerity, he was one of very few worldborn souls who could somehow see past the boy’s capering glamour. The man had always treated him with an air of reserved suspicion. During one fit of despair, Kelmomas had actually considered murdering the man for this very reason, and he had never quite relinquished the idea of using him to test various poisons.
“They say one stalks these very halls, my Prince. Why not ask him?”
“He refused to tell me,” the boy lied glumly.
A squint of approval.
“Yes, that doesn’t surprise me.”
“He told me the ways of Gods do not answer the ways of Men …”
Lips like oiled mahogany, pursing into a smile pained for inversion. Disgust never looked so happy.
“Yes-yes …” Nikussis said with the sonorousness of wisdom correcting youth. “He spoke true.”
“And I said the ways of my Father are the ways of the God.”
Fright never looked so delicious.
“And … ah …” A half-concealed swallow. “What did he say?”
Terror, the boy had long since realized. Fear was his father’s true estate, not adoration or abjection or exaltation. Men did what he, little Anas?rimbor Kelmomas, bid them to do out of terror of his father. All the yammer about love and devotion was simply cotton to conceal the razor.
The Librarian hung pale on his response.
“The assassin said, Let your Father ask then.”
The eyes of skinny people bulged when they were frightened, he realized watching Nikussis. Would Thelli’s eyes bulge? Was she even capable of fear?
“So I cried out, ‘Sedition!’”
He screeched this last word, and was gratified by how the old Librarian started—the fool almost kicked the sandals from his feet!
“Wha-wha-what did he say then?” Nikussis stammered.
The young Prince-Imperial shook his head in false incredulity.
“He shrugged.”
“Shrugged?”
“Shrugged.”