“Yes … One of the Hundred acts through him.”
This loosed a susurrus of exclamation among the gathered Ishroi.
The Nonman King affected indifference, turned to ladle more oil upon his scalp. “The Fertility Principle,” he said tilting his profile to strings of pulsing translucence.
“Yes, ” Oinaral replied. “The one the Tusk names Yatwer.”
The shining face turned.
“Do you know what this means, Oinaral Oir?narig?”
A pause.
“Yes.”
The Nonman King now stared at Sorweel frankly, though without directly meeting his return gaze. “Do you think this is why the Anas?rimbor sent him to us? He knows that Fertility moves against him, does he not? Perhaps he suspects Her interest in this one.”
An apprehension struck the Horse King, one both spear-sharp and inchoate. Was that what he was? Something wielded like axe or hoe? A dumb instrument?
Narindar, Zsoronga had called him. Holy assassin.
“The youth has been under the Aspect-Emperor’s thrall for months,” Oinaral explained, his tone rigid in a way that revealed the extent of his animosity for not mellowing. “Why exile a threat that is more easily killed?”
The Nonman King gazed upon the Lastborn with alarm and scowling indecision. How strange it was to witness human passion on the face of a Sranc. How natural and obscene.
“So Her track runs through us …” Nin’ciljiras said.
Sorweel heard the legendary assembly stir behind him, the murmuring clamour of souls too ancient to be astonished, yet astonished all the same.
“We are now bound to this one,” Oinaral called through the clamour. “Irrevocably.”
The Nonman King turned to the basin once again, doused himself while the uproar of the Ishroi waxed and faded across the Iron Oratorium. “Lord Cilc?liccas!” he finally called over Sorweel’s head. “What say the Quya?”
The Lord of Swans stepped from his fellows. The bolt of Injori silk he wore affixed to his shoulder and wrapped crosswise about his torso was so fine as to become crimson paint where it flattened against his nimil gown.
“Oinaral Oir?narig speaks true, Tsonos,” he said.
The Nonman King pondered the legendary Quya with open distaste, then returned his gaze to Sorweel’s keeper. “And what of the brother and sister?”
Sorweel suffered another swell of apprehension, like pins pricking just deeper than ice-numbed skin.
“The son knows nothing,” Oinaral said. “Tsonos.”
“And the daughter?”
The son of famed Oir?nas paused. “Surely Harapior has told you …”
An oily smile.
“I would hear your thoughts, Lastborn.”
Oinaral shrugged. “What your allies told yo—”
“You mean our allies!” Nin’ciljiras snapped.
The Nonman tested his sovereign with three heartbeats of silence. “Nothing sorcerous can compel her,” he finally replied. “Nothing. Even more, she has proven entirely indifferent to Harapior’s … other inducements. Indeed, if anything, she torments him.”
“That is a lie!” Harapior cried from his station beside the Black Iron Seat.
“It must trouble you,” Oinaral said, “the way the Goddess so effortlessly followed this boy into the Thresholds, into the place where your tresspasses cannot be seen. Do you tremble, Lord Torturer, knowing your infernal room has hidden nothing from their eyes—that all your crimes have been counted?”
Harapior stood sputtering—and obviously terrified.
Oinaral turned from him in disgust, shouting, “She is proof!” to the assembled Lords of Ishterebinth. “Proof of her father’s blood! Proof tha—!”
“Enough!” Nin’ciljiras screeched.
Murmuring alarm hung as a cloud about the platform. Sorweel could do naught but roil in animal terror … Other inducements? Weeks? What was happening here?
How could he know all these ghouls?
“We are one Mansion!” Nin’ciljiras keened, glaring wildly, then turning to his oil for respite once again. “One!” He raised his face to better savour the looping chill, then paused to regard the brown-eyed Emwama child, who promptly tried to huddle into invisibility.
“What do you advise?” Lord Cilc?liccas called from the assembly.
“That we honour the Niom,” Oinaral began, “as we have across each and every Age befo—”
“And what?” the Nonman King grated. “Ally ourselves with Men! The beasts that burned Holy Si?l, scattered her Sons! That cut Gin’yursis’ throat! What? You would have us cling to mere words, when all of us, Erratic and Intact”—he looked about in triumph—“can be saved from Hell?”
Oinaral Lastborn said nothing.
The Son of Ninar grimaced as if at some discomfort of the bowel. “I tire of this, Oinaral Oir?narig. I tire of perpetually treating for your soul, always sparing you horror … as you care to define it …”