The Judging Eye (47 page)

"...we remain fragments
of the God, nonetheless."

Was this why the Kiünnatic
Priests had demanded that all Three Seas missionaries be burned? Was this why
spittle had flecked their lips when they came to his father with their demands?

Had they been a bush, fearful of
the tree in their midst?

"I keep forgetting that
you're a heathen!"

After darkness fell and
Porsparian's breathing dipped into a rasping snore, Sorweel lay awake, riven by
thought after cascading thought—there was no thwarting them. When he curled
beneath his blankets, it seemed he could see
him
as he was on that day
of war and rain and thunder, the Aspect-Emperor, ringlets dripping about a long
face, beard cut and plaited in the way of Southron Kings, eyes so blue they
seemed a glimpse of another world. A glaring, golden figure, walking in the
light of a different time, a brighter sun.

A friendly scowl, followed by a
gentle laugh.
"I'm rarely what my enemies expect, I know."

And Sorweel told himself,
commanded himself, mouthed about clamped teeth,
I am my father's son! A true
son of Sakarpus!

But what if...

Hands lifting him from his
knees.
"You are a King, are you not?"

What if he came to believe?

"I'm no
conqueror..."

***

He awoke, as had become his
habit, several moments before the sounding of the Interval. For some reason, he
felt a kind of long-drawn relief instead of the usual clutch of fear. The
plains air, the breath of his people, sighed through his tent, made the
bindings creak where Porsparian had tied them down. The silence was so complete
he could almost believe that he was alone, that all the rolling pasture about
his tent was empty to the horizon—abandoned to the Horse-King.

Then the Interval tolled. The
first calls to prayer climbed into the skies.

He joined the Company of Scions
where their Standard had been planted the previous evening, numbly followed
Captain Harnilias's barked instructions. Apparently his pony, which Sorweel
called Stubborn, had done some soul searching the previous night as well,
because for the first time he responded wonderfully to Sorweel's demands. He'd
known the beast was intelligent, perhaps uncommonly so, and only refused to
learn his Sakarpic knee-and-spur combinations out of spite. Stubborn had become
so agreeable, in fact, that Sorweel breezed through the early on-the-march drills.
He even heard several of the Scions call out,
"Ramt-anqual!"
—the
word Obotegwa always translated as "Horse-King."

When chance afforded he leaned
forward to whisper the Third Prayer to Husyelt into the pony's twitching ear.
"One and one are one," he explained to the beast afterward. "You
are learning, Stubborn. One horse and one man make
one warrior
."

A bolt of shame passed through
him at the thought of "one man," for in fact he was not a man. He
never would be, he realized, given that his Elking would likely never happen. A
child forever, without the shades of the dead to assist him. This set him to gazing,
once again, out over the marching masses that engulfed his surroundings.
Shields and swords. Waddling packs. Innumerable souls behind innumerable faces,
all toiling toward the dark line of the north.

How could wonder make a heart so
small?

When Sorweel finally settled
next to Zsoronga and Obotegwa in the column, the Successor-Prince commented on
his haggard expression.

Sorweel paid no attention,
simply said, "The Ordeal. What do you think of it?"

Zsoronga's expression went from
bemusement to concentrated worry as he listened to Obotegwa's frowning
translation.
"Ke yusu emeba—"

"I think it may be the end
of us."

"But do you think it's
real
?"

The Prince paused, gazed out
across a landscape dizzy with distances. He wore what he called his
kemtush
over
his Kidruhil tunic, a white sash dense with black hand-painted characters that
listed the "battles of his blood," the wars fought by his ancestors.

"Well, I think
they
believe
it's real. I can only imagine what it must seem like to you, Horse-King. You
and your stranded city. Me? I come from a great and ancient nation, mightier by
far than any of the individual nations gathered beneath the Circumfix. And
still, I have never seen the like. To concentrate so much glory, so much power,
for a march to the ends of the Eärwa! This is something no Satakhan in history,
not even Mbotetulu! could have brought about—let alone my poor father. Whatever
this is, and whatever comes of it, you can rest assured that it will be
recalled
...
Recalled to the end of all time."

They rode in silence for some
time, lost in the thoughts.

"And what do you think of
them
?"
Sorweel eventually asked.

"Them?"

"Yes. The
Anasûrimbor."

The Successor-Prince shrugged,
but not without, Sorweel noticed, a quick glance around him. "Everyone
ponders them. They are like the mummers the Ketyai are so found of, standing
before the amphitheatre of the world."

"What does 'everyone'
say?"

"That he is a Prophet, or
even a God."

"What do you say?"

"What the lines of my
father's treaty say: that he is a Benefactor of High Holy Zeüm, Guardian of the
Son of Heaven's Son."

"No... What do
you
say?"

For the first time, Sorweel saw
anger score the young man's handsome profile. Zsoronga momentarily glared at
Obotegwa, as though holding him responsible for Sorweel's relentless
questioning, before turning back to the young King with mild and insincere
eyes. "What do you think?"

"He's so many things to so
many people," Sorweel found himself blurting. "I know not what to
think. All I know is that those who spend any time with him,
any time with
him whatsoever,
think him some kind of God."

The Successor-Prince once again
turned to his Senior Obligate, this time with questioning eyes. Though the
drifting pace of their parallel horses meant that Sorweel could only glimpse
Obotegwa's face on an angle, he was certain he had seen the old translator nod.

While the two exchanged words in
Zeümi, Sorweel struggled with the dismaying realization that Zsoronga had
secrets, powerful secrets, and that compared to the intrigues that likely
encircled him, his friendship with an outland king, with a sausage, could be
little more than diversion. The Son of Nganka'kull was more than a hostage, he
was a
spy
as well, a chit in a game greater than Sorweel could imagine.
The fate of empires bound him.

When Zsoronga returned his gaze,
the pinch of merriment that characterized so much of their discourse had
utterly vanished, leaving a curious, questioning intensity in its place. It was
almost as if his brown eyes were begging Sorweel, somehow...

Begging him to be someone High
Holy Zeüm could trust.

"Petatu surub—"

"Have you heard the story
of Shimeh, of the First Holy War?"

Sorweel shrugged. He felt at
once honoured and gratified. A prince of a great nation confided in him.
"Not much," he admitted, careful to pitch his voice at the same low
tenor as his friend.

"There is this book,"
Zsoronga said, the squint in his eyes complementing the reluctance in his
voice. "This
forbidden
book, written by a sorcerer... Drusas
Achamian. Have you heard of him?"

"No."

Zsoronga's bottom lip pressed
the line of his mouth into an upside-down crescent. He nodded, not so much in
affirmation or approval, but as though to acknowledge his succinct honesty.
"
Bpo Mandatu mbal—"

"He was a Mandate
Schoolman, like your own tutor."

Sorweel found himself glancing
about, fearing that Eskeles would arrive any moment. Men had a way of hearing
their names, even when spoken across the arc of the world. "And?"

"Well, he was present when
the Anasûrimbor joined the First Holy War. Apparently he was his first and
dearest friend—his
teacher
, both before and after the
Circumfixion."

"So?"

"Well, for one, the
Empress—you know, the woman on the silver kellics, the mother of our dear,
beloved General Kayûtas—Achamian was her
first
husband. Apparently the
Anasûrimbor
stole her
. So at the conclusion of the First Holy War, when
the Shriah of their Thousand Temples crowns the Anasûrimbor Aspect-Emperor,
this Achamian
repudiates him
before all those gathered, claims he is a
fraud and deceiver."

Something of the old Zsoronga
had returned, as though he were warming to the gossip of the tale.

"Yes..." Sorweel said.
"I'm sure I've heard this... or a version of it, anyway."

"So he leaves the Holy War,
goes into exile, becomes, they say, the only Wizard in the Three Seas. Only the
love and shame of the Empress prevent his execution."

"Wizard?"

Another grave turn in his ebony
expression. "Yes. A sorcerer without a School."

The Company of Scions was but a
clot in a far larger column of Kidruhil companies, and a conspicuous one, given
that its members had leave to wear native ornamentations over their crimson
uniforms. They had followed the column over the crest of a scrub-choked rise,
then leaned back against their cantles as they descended into a broad
depression. The black track became viscous with water and muck. The susurrus of
countless hooves stamping marshy ground rose about them—the wheeze of sinking
grounds. What had looked like mist from the sloped heights became clouds of
midges.

"And this is where he
writes this book?" Sorweel asked, pitching his voice over the tramping
clamour. "In exile?"

"Our spies brought my
father a copy some six years ago, saying that it had become a kind of scripture
for those who still resist the Anasûrimbor in the Three Seas. It's titled
A
Compendium of the First Holy War
."

"So it's a history?"

"Only apparently. There
are...
insinuations
, scattered throughout, and descriptions of the
Anasûrimbor as he was, before he gained the Gnosis and became almost
all-powerful."

"Are you saying this
Mandate Schoolman
knew
... that he knew what the Aspect-Emperor
was?"

Zsoronga paused before
answering, looked at him as though rehearsing previous judgments. Among those
who would contest the power of the Aspect-Emperor, Sorweel understood, no
matters could be more essential.

"Yes," Zsoronga
finally replied.

"So. What does he say?"

"Everything you might
expect a cuckold to say. That's the problem..."

An ambient
eagerness
bloomed
through Sorweel's limbs. The knowledge he needed was
here
—he could sense
it. The knowledge that would cleave certainty out of mangled circumstances—that
would see his honour redeemed! He squeezed the reins tight enough to whiten his
knuckles. "Does he call him a demon?" he asked almost with breath.
"
Does
he?"

"No."

A vertiginous, dumbfounded
moment, as if he had leaned forward expecting an answer to brace him.
"What then? Do not play me on such matters, Zsoronga! I come to you as a
friend!"

The Successor-Prince somehow
grinned and scowled all at once. "You must
learn
, Horse-King. Too
many wolves prowl these columns. I appreciate your honesty, your overture, I
truly do, but when you speak like this... I... I fear for you."

Obotegwa had softened his
sovereign's tone, of course. No matter how diligently the Obligate tried to
recreate the tenor of his Prince's discourse, his voice always bore the imprint
of a long and oft-examined life.

Sorweel found himself looking
down at the polished contours of his pommel, so different from the raw hook of
iron on Sakarpi saddles. "What does this-this... Achamian say?"

"He says the Anasûrimbor is
a
man
, neither diabolic nor divine. A man of unheard-of intellect. He
bids us imagine the difference between ourselves and children..." The
black man trailed into silence, his brows furrowed in concentration. He had
this habit of staring down and to the left when pondering, as though judging
points buried deep in the ground.

"And?"

"The important thing, he
says, isn't so much what the Anasûrimbor is,
as what we are to him
."

Sorweel glared at him in
exasperation. "You speak in riddles!"

"Yusum pyeb—!"

"Think to your childhood!
Think of the hopes and fears. Think of the tales the nursemaids told you. Think
of the way your face continually betrayed you. Think of all the ways you were
mastered, all the ways you were moulded."

"Yes! So?"