Drusas Achamian did scream at that point, his voice as ragged as papyrus fetched from the inferno. He roared at the empty tracts, at his predicament, and at his confusion, the utter absence of clarity, above all.
The two women watched scowling, then Esmenet turned to her daughter, her expression blank, and both erupted into laughter. The old Wizard stood gasping, staring in horror, determined to glare away their outrageous behaviour. But they closed upon him, foul heap that he was, hands squeezing, arms hugging tight, and suddenly he was laughing as well, cackling like an old loon, sobbing for relief, for gratitude, to find himself so beset by those he truly loved …
A memory of the old vitality rose through him as a perfumed vapour. He extricated himself with the nodding air of men recovering their wits, if not their courage. “Let’s see if he still lives,” he said, at last admitting the possibility Esmenet had been arguing all along.
His sorcerous voice rose as mist about them. He saw the light of his mouth spark white in their beautiful eyes. With outstretched palms he oriented the sorcerous Lens toward the famed Himonirsil, the Accusatory, taking heart, the way he always did, in the demonstration of his power. A circular distortion fastened upon the distance and miraculously brought it near—showing the very thing his eye had sought, the very terror …
Proyas hanging nude … a thing like wet garbage, rubbish pulped and glistening …
And breathing.
A deeper shadow fluting his flank, slow and steady … indisputable.
Achamian gasped, cried, “Sweet Seju!”
“Kellhus hasn’t … hasn’t slung him,” Esmenet said, transfixed by the image. “See … How the rope about the waist runs to his elbows? See the weight it bears? He wants Proyas to live … not to die.”
This occasioned a shared look, a recollection that there were no accidents here.
“To witness tomorrow’s battle?” Achamian asked. “To show him the righteousness of his cause?”
Esmenet slowly nodded. “That’s better than the other option.”
“What other option?” he asked.
Mimara stood with her hands upon the white bulb of her abdomen, somehow more aware and less invested than either of them. “To suffer.”
But the Blessed Empress of the Three Seas frowned. Like himself, Esmenet was not so quick to assume her husband wicked in addition to ruthless.
“No. To lure us … remove us from the Great Ordeal.”
This scraped a dagger point across Achamian’s sternum.
“Why? What happens today?”
Esmenet shrugged. “The Great Ordeal makes ready …”
Void brushed his stomach.
“How?” Mimara asked from his side.
“The Lords of the Ordeal are to gather in the Umbilicus to accept his benediction this afternoon,” she said, looking from face to face. “He’s calling it the Last Whelming.”
The Son of Harweel watches himself turn to see himself watching as he navigates the crowds about the Umbilicus, at the very moment the Mandate Schoolman paws his arm.
“How-how—” Eskeles stammers, “how have you kept, your Glory?” The man isn’t simply skinny, he’s emaciated, but his smile is every bit as mealy as before. “I would have sought you out upon your return, but … but …”
Such a lonely little flute …
He has been.
Eskeles, frowning as he and Mu’miorn laugh at his poor, belaboured pony. He reaches out through the milling crowds, clutches his elbow and says, “How have you kept, your Glory?”
Such a lonely little song … a bewildered wail upon the abyss.
“I would have sought you out upon your return, but …”
Sunlight flares and flared. The White-Luck Warrior frowns, then grins in recognition, saying, “This land eats manners.” They embrace—something in the Schoolman’s manner demands it. He looks past the leuneraal, sees himself kneeling before the Holy Aspect-Emperor, leaning forward to kiss the mountainous knee, the ancient pouch palmed in his right hand. The black sails of the Umbilicus encase the infinite blue.
“That motif …” Serwa says, “the triple crescent …”
“What about it?” he asks, tingling for the proximity of her gaze to his groin.
At last her eyes climb to meet his own. Her look is cool, remote in the way of old and prideful widows.
“That is the Far Antique mark of my family … the Anas?rimbor of Trys?.”
He turns to find himself encircled by damned Ordealmen, walking with the shrunken corpse of Eskeles, who says, “I would have sought you out upon your return, but … but …”
The Lords of the Ordeal howl in terror and incredulity.
The White-Luck Warrior grins, awaiting what has already happened. He glimpses the Son of Harweel watching him, mere heartbeats away.
What was a lonely wail has become a mighty chorus. His breathing lover ignites his flesh, makes a votive of him for the Dread Mother.
“This land eats manners.”
Anas?rimbor Serwa had come unannounced, dressed in flashing ceremonial billows, trailing a Pillarian who bore a lantern and a joint of horse roasted the previous evening. Kelmomas immediately fell upon the meat, made like a dog sitting cross-legged on the mats, while she strolled about Father’s baggage, scrutinizing him with shameless intensity.
“Did you murder all of them?”
Kelmomas spared his sister a melancholy glare, then fell back to his meagre repast.
“Only Sammi,” he said with his mouth full.
The spare edge to her appearance was new, but not much else, save perhaps the bruising about her eye and a vague air of … desperation, perhaps. Serwa had always been remote. Even as a young child, she’d always managed to express a certain grandiosity of image and character, effortlessly expressing a feminine noblesse that other girls her age could only ape. The battlefield, the little boy realized with no little annoyance, had honed that into something almost mythic.
“But then, not really,” she said.
“No … Not really. All I killed was his meat.”
“Because you believe you are Sammi.”
“Father knows. Father knows I speak the truth. And Inrilatas did too!”
“But Mother …” she said, letting her words hang rather than asking an honest question.
Chewing. Swallowing.
“Blames me for everything. Inri. Uncle Holy. Even Thelli.”
His sister visibly bristled.
“What do you care?” he cried.
“We are as crazed as cracked plates, brother. Our hearts are not bowls. They cup no compassion.” She approached, becoming more the Grandmistress of the Swayali with every step, and less the girl who had so studiously ignored him ever since he could remember. “But our understanding, little brother. Our intellect! What we lack in compassion we recover in sanity …”
He gazed at her for several placid heartbeats then fell back to his greasy repast. “You think me mad, then …” his said, stuffing his mouth. “Like Inrilatas.”
She resumed her arbitrary inspection of Father’s stores. “Inrilatas was different … He confused transgression with Godhead.”
“And what of me, Grandmistress? What is my madness, then?”
Her reply terrified for being instantaneous. “Love.”