“But the knife itself was not destroyed,” Father said. “Intact, it began leaching its poison. A venomous thorn, thrust deep into the breast of Being, an infected tusk goring ours … the Holiest of Worlds …”
The long tails of the Ekkin?, the ensorcelled arras suspended behind his father’s chair, waxed bright for no explicable reason. The boy glimpsed the mouths of the Decapitants masticating, as if the one murmured into the ear of the other …
Serwa’s palm upon his cheek pressed his face forward.
“For Ages we have bled, pierced, impaled. For millennia we have been sickened, and we have marked the passing of our Ages according to the wheel of our fevers. Whole civilizations have convulsed about its intrusion, first the Nonmen of yore, Cu’jara Cinmoi and his Ishroi, and then the Men of the Ancient North, the fury and might of my forefather, Anas?rimbor Celmomas and his Chieftain-Knights.”
Kelmomas exulted hearing his ancient namesake—of course Father wanted him here! He embodied both home and history. Serwa had spoken true: there was meaning to be found in Father’s dominion. Why had he always hated and feared him so?
Because he could see the game we were playing with Mummy.
“Both those great Kings stood, as we stand now, on these awful plains. Both raised arms and perished in the shadow of this place.”
Because he scared us …
“For want of God,” his father said.
The warlike assembly erupted into a tempest of raw voices. Shouts. Cries. Murderous declarations. Men leapt to their feet across the tiers. And Kelmomas could feel it, the way they each vibrated as strings on his father’s loom. For the first time, it seemed, he understood the beauty, the symmetry between his malformed soul and faith.
Yes! Samarmas exclaimed. Father! Father!
I will give myself to him! I will give myself to him and he will see! See that we’re true!
It was so clear, the fool he’d been. Nothing save Father’s distraction had afforded him his games. Such Strength! This was what these gulls celebrated, though they knew it not. The mastery of their master! Their own enslavement!
“We suffer no such want!” the Most Holy Aspect-Emperor boomed and the Lords of the Ordeal roared their affirmations, stamped their feet and brandished their fists in furious martial display.
“Mog-Pharau awakens—even now the No-God stirs! Even now, the Enemy congregates about His carcass, shriek tongues fallen from the Void, performs rites ancient, lewd, and more evil than any sinner can imagine. Even now the Consult beseeches Him!”
And the little Prince-Imperial fairly cackled for glee. There was fun in this! How could he have been blind to this, the game of games? And what was the difference between saving and pocketing the World?
“Aye, my brothers, we are the bulwark. I stand where Cu’jara Cinmoi stood. I stand where Anas?rimbor Celmomas stood! Ancient, obstinate souls. Proud. Domineering. I gaze upon you, my noble stalwarts, souls grim for slaughter, bright for vicious ardour, the way they gazed upon their most violent champions.”
Father’s voice resonated, thrummed and growled across registers that none save Kelmomas and his sister could hear, tones that plucked each according to how he had been tuned.
“And I say to you … We shall succeed where they faltered! We shall smite the ramparts! Kick down the wicked gates! We shall raze the fell bastions! Crack open the citadels! We shall descend upon the Unholy Consult in righteous fury! For! We! Have! God!”
Men who had been battered blunt now roared on the keen edge of outrage and hatred, their eyes flashing as bright as razors.
“For between us we have gathered a Host unlike any the World has seen! A Host of Hosts for the God of Gods, the Great Ordeal! We shall seize our foe by his throat, cast his corpse from the golden heights!”
The Southron Men swayed and shouted and gesticulated, and the boy’s eyes once again ranged out across the plate of Shigogli, to the Horns soaring into the woolen gullet of the sky. Such a game! he thought, blinking tears.
For once his brother was not cruel.
Father stood immobile, not so much basking in the fanatical adulation as somehow measuring it, somehow urging the Lords of the Ordeal to redouble their howling demonstrations without the least perceptible sign. And then, somehow, he was waiting, and the chorus dwindled and sputtered, before trailing into silence altogether.
“You …” he said, his voice at once cryptic and conversational. “It all lies with you.”
He clasped his hands before him—a curiously disarming gesture.
“Last night I wandered among you. Many of you greeted me, enjoined me to partake of the comforts of your abode … such as they were …”
The rumble of laughter from the tiers. Father had trained them thus, the young Prince-Imperial realized.
“But I did not seek out the company of the great alone. I also walked among the camps of our vassals, those with mighty will, if not blood. I came upon an Ainoni, a youth named Mirshoa”—he turned the Believer-King of High Ainon—“one of your brave boys, Soter.”
“That depends on what he said!” the Holy Veteran cried in reply.
Another swell of deep-chested laughter.
The Holy Aspect-Emperor wagged a finger and smiled. “He told me the story of his cousin, Hatturidas …” He looked from face to face.
“You see, Mirshoa joined the Ordeal out faith as Zaudunyani, to save the World, where his cousin had joined to keep Mirshoa safe …” The Aspect-Emperor trailed, seemed to hold his breath for every soul in the Umbilicus. “And as far as he was able, Hatturidas fulfilled his charge, battling at Mirshoa’s side every encounter, risking his pulse time and again to save his beloved cousin’s softer skin. And Mirshoa would wonder at his ferocity, for he thought himself righteous, the way all souls think themselves righteous, believed that he warred for the God, that he fought for me …
“And yet, here was his cousin fighting harder … for him …”
He allowed the concrete of this to set in the hearts of his audience.
“So I asked him why he thought that was.” A rueful grin. “Verily, it’s not often that an Ainoni is at a loss for speech …” Another prolonged rumble of laughter. “But finally, Mirshoa told me how his cousin, Hatturidas, had died at Dagliash, felled by a javelin in the Battle of the Shore. Losing his cousin, he said, had halved his heart, showed him how he had been fighting for Hatturidas all this time, and not me …”
His father turned as if envisioning young Mirshoa standing next to him. “Bold,” he said, beaming admiration. “The way he stood. The way he spoke! Daring me—aye, challenging me, to deny him …”
An interval of suspense, exquisitely timed to the syncopations of a hundred hearts.
“I did not,” the Holy Aspect-Emperor conceded. “I could not. For he had spoken the truest words I heard last night … Indeed …”
His father looked down to his palms, and the haloes burnished the Kyranean intricacies of his beard. The boy could swear he heard the collective heartbeat of the congregation slow.
“The truest words I have heard in a long time.”