He had raised his gaze to the assembled Ishroi as he spoke—his true audience, Sorweel realized. A bead of oil hung from either hairless brow, each gleaming with a miniature replica of the assembly.
“I weary of pandering to your delicacies while we—we!—dwell in such fear of Hell as to become Hell unto ourselves, husks—husks!—about a roaming madness. We! We are the bulwark! That is why we crumble! While you are cosseted? Relieved of the martial obligations of your Kinning? Your Race? Spared so you might be spared our curse?”
A heartbeat of silence, fraught with inhuman intimations.
“I am spared your glory and your respect,” Oinaral Lastborn replied, his manner mild. “That much is true. But no one is spared the treachery of your blood, Son of Viri.”
Something sharp crept into the gaze of Nin’ciljiras then, and Sorweel understood, not simply the brute meaning of the words, but the circumstantial intricacies as well. The ghoul who was King was the grandson of Nin’janjin …
Nil’giccas was no more. What remained of Ishterebinth had been cloven in two.
“Such words meant death not so long ago,” Nin’ciljiras said in a voice like a wire.
Oinaral snorted in amusement.
“We age better than our meanings, it se—”
“You shall accord me as you accorded my cousin!” Nin’ciljiras screamed wroth. “You! Shall! Accord! You shall reckon my holy station, for it flows from the blood of the Kinning Most High-and-Deep, the Kinning of Kings! I! I am the last Son of Tsonos in this House, and only Tsonoi may rule!” He threw down his arm in a gesture that was both alien and familiar, sending a spatter of oil across the black grillwork. “I alone can claim the blood of Imimor?l!”
“Then perhaps,” Oinaral said mildly, “the Canons of the Dead serve only the dead.”
“Sacrilege! ” the Nonman King raved. “Sacrilege!” His voice scraped across the near curves of the Concavity, hung as reeds upon the high air. At first Sorweel assumed the outburst meant doom for the ghoul called Oinaral Lastborn, but the bewildered, hunted expression of the Nonman King assured him otherwise. His overseer did not so much risk as provoke, Sorweel realized. He did not so much dare as demonstrate …
The fact that Nin’ciljiras was being eaten by the Dolour before their very eyes.
“None here contest your right, Tsonos,” Lord Cilc?liccas declared, stepping forward to intervene, scowling at Oinaral as he did so—but not in fury. He towered over Sorweel to stand before the Lastborn, his nimil hauberk a lucid contrast to the sordid gold worn by Nin’ciljiras—a soggomant hauberk, the youth dimly realized. A great deal was shared in their momentary, mutual look. The Quya clapped a white hand upon Oinaral’s shoulder, fairly wrenched the Nonman to his knees before turning to join him.
All those across the Iron Oratorium joined in their obeisance, knelt with their fingers clasped across the small of their backs.
“Y-yes,” Nin’ciljiras said, scowling for confusion. “We are one Mansion! What better sentiment with which to conclude?”
“But the matter of this mortal and Fertility remains unresolved,” Cilc?liccas said to the Nonman King.
Nin’ciljiras squinted at the Lord of Swans, scowled as if the matter were inconsequential. He angrily waved away Harapior’s attempt to intervene.
“Yes-yes-yes …” he said with an air of phony impatience.
And Sorweel realized that the Nonman King could not remember … that he attempted to disguise this fact in a more general contempt for details.
“So we are agreed then?” Cilc?liccas said.
“Yes … Of course.”
The resplendent Quya stood, nodding as if in acquiescence as he did so. “O’ Tsonos, your wisdom is ever our beacon. If war has overthrown the Niom, how are we to treat this Son of Men? How should we protect our Mountain from the wrath of the Hundred?”
Oinaral kept his eyes fixed upon the floor throughout this exchange. Sorweel could not help but notice the way Cilc?liccas continued squeezing his shoulder in reassurance with his large, pale hand.
“Yes! Yes! He is a Blessed Ward of Ishterebinth,” Nin’ciljiras declared.
“A King of Men, and a God-entangled enemy of our enemy … He is not to be obstructed.”
Sorweel fairly snorted aloud, given that his arms remained bound about a pole wedged behind his back.
The Lord of Swans stood, his silk bolt wrapped as blood around him, beaming with insincere admiration. The peerings glinted across his nimil gown, shattered by thousands of miniature swans.
“You are most wise, Tsonos. He will, of course, require a Siqu …”
Why did he feel that somewhere unseen and unknown, he burned?