“Behold the Object,” the burnt D?nyain announced on a grim call.
The surface revealed itself to be a lid like those found on sarcophagi, a graven plate that spontaneously lifted then tipped to draw down one side, where its ink-black polish fractured and reorganized the light of the Inverse Fire.
Malowebi could see nothing of its interior … nor could he assemble any coherent thought.
“But why anything so elaborate?” the Anas?rimbor asked. “If the extermination of Men is your goal, then why not use the weapon you employed in Dagliash?”
And Malowebi could only think, No-God …
The No-God lay before him.
“We could restore only one,” the unscathed D?nyain said, mirrored in gold. “Even if more existed, they’re too indiscriminate, especially when used in numbers.”
“Our Salvation lies in the art of human extinction, not the fact,” his burnt brother explained
“Only the Object can Shut the World against the Outside,” the one-eyed D?nyain explained.
“Yes …” the Aspect-Emperor said, “the one hundred and forty-four thousand …”
“The Object is a prosthesis of Ark,” the teeth-baring D?nyain continued, his reflection no larger than a pinky for his position at the end. “A code lies buried in the ebb and flow of life on this World. The more deaths, the brighter this code burns, the more Ark can read …”
“So the Ark is the No-God?” Anas?rimbor Kellhus asked.
“No,” the burnt D?nyain replied. “But then you know as much.”
“And what is it I know?”
“That the No-God collapses Subject and Object,” the one-eyed monk replied. “That it is the Absolute.”
The Holy Aspect-Emperor of the Three Seas lowered his head in thoughtful affirmation. The reflections of the Mutilated paused in collective anticipation of his next words. For all the image’s curious distensions, Malowebi could plainly see the Anas?rimbor gazing down into the Carapace …
Mulling?
Yearning?
“And you think I’m the missing piece?” Kellhus asked. “The Subject that will revive this … system?”
Was that why the Chorae had been removed from the Carapace? For him? It seemed to Malowebi that he strangled …
The nearest of the disfigured D?nyain, the burnt one, nodded. “The Celmomian Prophecy foretells your coming, Brother.”
The wail owned all but the most booming voices. Mo?nghus had yet to test his own, for he stood as dumbstruck as most of the others, his fingers numb upon the black parapets of the Akeokinoi. The Scylvendi tongue defeated him, but what happened was clear. As the boggling size of the Sranc host became apparent, his father had ordered the People to shelter on the far side of the Occlusion (using their Excursi to bar the passes), while taking up position with his chieftains and commanders here … watching sights that unmoored as much as unmanned.
Rising like gaseous gums from the Horde’s forward teeth, the Shroud had gradually drawn the whole of the Shigogli within its fetid embrace, a pale gauze that had turned black in the afternoon glare, becoming ever more impenetrable, until they could no longer discern the surviving Horn’s gleam rising through the veils. Save for sorcery glimmering like silver kellics deep in nocturnal waters, the Shroud was all that could be seen, sheets braided with more septic plumes, fat as the Occlusion and as high as the blackening Vault of Heaven.
And it dismayed the Prince-Imperial, bruised with a profundity that evil Harapior could only pretend to … for he had been raised on tales of this, the ultimate moment, the day when the Fate of Men was at last sorted. The meaning of all their souls would be stamped this day! It reeked of conspiracy, how the Shroud fit into the radial arms of the Occlusion, like a receptacle embracing a dark and epic offering …
The land itself had become an altar to horror!
Kay?tas was in there … Serwa!
“Surely your plan wasn’t to chew rations and watch!” Anas?rimbor Mo?nghus boomed over the Horde’s wail.
The Holy King-of-Tribes turned on him with an intensity both grinding and homicidal. “The plan, whelp, was to surprise the Ordeal while still encamped, to seize the Chorae Hoard and butcher your entire family!”
The words were meant to provoke him.
“And you expecte—?”
“I expected what I always expected when vying with Him!”
The other Chieftains looked on stone-faced above crossed arms.
“And what might that be?” Mo?nghus asked, chastened. For all his life, he had always been the most intemperate, the most driven by inner fury, hardened and impelled.
The barbarian grinned a charnel house grin. The scars about his mouth smiled in vertical counterpoint, and Mo?nghus had the disconcerting sense that all the man’s countless swazond grinned with him.
“That I will fail.”
“That is madness!” Mo?nghus blurted before thinking.
“Madness? But that is the very kernel of it, is it not? The very insult his existence inflicts upon us! The very excrement he smears across our cheeks—our nostrils! That we be as gripe-moths on the plain, forever jumping from the tracks, stepping sideways, leaping blind to all inclination, laughing as blackbirds spear daisies. That we must be mad to be free!”
“You are!” Mo?nghus cried horror. “You are insane!”
“Yessss!” the Holy King-of-Tribes roared, clapping him about the nape, glaring with bloodthirsty hilarity. “Because it alone is sane!” he boomed on a cackle, turning back to the grim spectacle of the Shroud towering black above them all. Cnaiür urs Ski?tha spat down the sheer ramps of the Nonman ruin. He raised both hands, thumbs and finger cupped …
“Until I see His shadow,” the most violent of men cried to the ponderous maelstrom, “I do not leap!”
All was uproar. At last Vippol the Elder was roused from his stupor—only to fall into another possessing far more horrific consequences. He turned to the isolated clutch of Mysunsai, his eyes coin-wide for rabid fury. “Sioli tiri himil!” his voice cracked from the shrouded heavens, “mi ishorioli tiri himil!” Only Valsarta, the sole Swayali witch upon the breach, understood the dread import of his words …
“The blood of Siol is the blood of Ishoriol!”
The Madborn stalked the Mysunsai, who yielded space as he advanced. They recalled well the tragedy of Irs?lor, where the Vokalati and the Mandate had gored each other for the act of one madman, Carind?s?. Like some primeval wraith out of myth, the deranged Quyan Archmage bore upon them, queer for the array of wire screens that he wore affixed to a harness about his cadaverous gowns—his archaic Chorae armour.
“Ishra Vippol!” Cilc?liccas boomed. “Insiqu! Siralipir jin’sharat!”
The Madborn hesitated, hung blinking, his image fogged for his seething Wards. He looked to the cyclopean ramparts, the High Horn soaring into occlusion, its mountainous mirror faces scored with chiaroscuros of dancing white and gold. He glared as though bewildered across the gaping spaces once blotted by the Canted Horn …
“Ishra Vippol!” Cilc?liccas bellowed across registers beyond sound and hearing.