The Thousandfold Thought (The Prince of Nothing, Book 3) (64 page)

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Authors: R. Scott Bakker

Tags: #Fiction, #Science Fiction, #General, #Fantasy

BOOK: The Thousandfold Thought (The Prince of Nothing, Book 3)
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Death came swirling down.
Led by the fury of Lord Proyas, the Conriyans broke the heathen horsemen and recovered the Palatine’s ravaged corpse. The Mongileans melted into the surrounding streets. Howling mighty oaths, the bereaved Ankiriothi raced after them.
But the Prince pulled Ingiaban aside.
“What is it?” the burly Palatine said, his voice ringing through his war-mask.
“Where are they?” Proyas asked. “The Fanim.”
“What do you mean?”
“They only pretend to defend their city.”
All Kellhus could see of his father were two fingers and a thumb lying slack upon a bare thigh. The thumbnail gleamed.
“As Dûnyain,” the disembodied voice continued, “you had no choice. To command yourself, you had to master circumstance. And to master circumstance, you had to bind the actions of the worldborn to your will. You had to make limbs of nations. So you made their
beliefs
the object of your relentless scrutiny. It was axiomatic.
“You realized those truths that cut against the interests of the powerful were called lies, and that those lies that served those interests were called truths. And you understood that it had to be this way, since it is the
function
of belief, not the veracity, that preserved nations. Why call an emperor’s blood divine? Why tell slaves that suffering is grace? It is what beliefs
do,
the actions they license and prohibit, that is important. If men believed all blood was equal, the caste-nobility would be overthrown. If men believed all coin was oppression, the caste-merchants would be turned out.
“Nations tolerate only those beliefs
that conserve
the great system of interlocking actions that makes them possible. For the worldborn, you realized, truth is largely irrelevant. Why else would they all dwell in delusion?
“Your first decision was elementary. You claimed to be a member of the caste-nobility, a prince, knowing that, once you convinced some, you could demand that all act accordingly. And through this simple deception, you secured your independence. No other would command you, because they believed they had no
right
to command you.
“But how might you convince them of
your
right? One lie had made you their equal; what further lie might make you their master?”
Whatever their old ardour, their bodies remembered. When he closed his eyes, she was
there,
beneath him,
about
him, enclosing his every languorous thrust, gasping and crying out, gasping and crying out. He could feel himself balled like a fist within her, alive to her heat, her liquid clutch.
She reached out for his face, pulled him down to her hot mouth. She sobbed as she kissed him.
“You were dead!”
“I came back for you …”
Anything. Even the world.
“Akka …”
“For you.”
Esmi. Esmenet. Gasping and crying out …
Such a strange name for a harlot.
Sheets of mist wheeled out from the mighty subterranean cataract, soaking his hair to his scalp, his robes to his skin. False tears slipped down his cheeks as he listened.
“You understood that beliefs, like Men, possessed hierarchies, that some commanded more than others, and that
religious belief
commanded most of all. What better demonstration could there be than the Holy War itself? That the actions of so many could be pitched with single purpose against so many native weaknesses: fear, sloth, compassion …
“So you read their scriptures, scrutinized the authority of words over men. You saw the primary function of Inrithism: to anchor belief in what cannot be seen, and so assure the repetition of the manifold actions that give nations their form. To doubt the order, to question
the way things are,
is to question the God-who-was-their-creator. The God becomes the warrant of Men and their station, and the arbitrary relations of power that are the truth of the Emperor and the Slave are covered over, nary to be seen. Not only do questions become hazards, heresies, they also become
futile,
for their answers lie nowhere in this world. The servant shakes his fist at the heavens, not his master.”
His father’s voice—so much like his own—swelled to seize all the dead Nonmen spaces.
“And here you saw the Shortest Path … For you understood that this trick, which turns the eyes of the oppressed skyward and away from the hand that holds the whip, could be usurped to your ends. To command circumstance, you must command action. To command action, you must command belief. To command belief, you need only speak
with the voice of heaven
.
“You were Dûnyain, one of the Conditioned, and they, with their stunted intellects, were no more than children.”
From the heights of the ruined Shrine of Azoreah, Inrithi hornsmen, Tydonni belonging to Gothyelk’s own household, saw it first: a twinkle followed by a thunderous roar.
The Lords of the Holy War had scoured the surrounding plains, had even sent scouting parties into the cloven roots of the Betmulla, but they had found no sign of Fanayal or his heathen army. Aside from yielding Shimeh, which the Inrithi commanders found difficult to believe, this could mean only one thing.
The scouts, stationed across what heights the Shairizor Plains offered, were ready, as was Earl Gothyelk, who held his several thousand surviving Tydonni in reserve, though for years assailing Shimeh’s walls had been his heart’s most ardent dream. They had expected the Kianene to take the field, where their speed and mobility could be exercised to their full advantage.
The
manner,
however, confounded them.
Reports were sent to the Earl, who waited with his men just to the east of the encampment, describing heathen activity in the southeastern quarters of the Holy City—the vicinity of the Tantanah Gate. He dispatched messengers to Chinjosa’s Ainoni, whose flanks lay nearest to the movement, then ordered a general advance. Should the Fanim host begin issuing from one of the eastern gates, he was, as per the Warrior-Prophet’s hallowed instructions, to assemble along the River Jeshimal, securing its two bridges and one—quite treacherous—whitewater ford. Following standards bearing the Circumfix, black on gold, the mail-draped Tydonni knights took the lead, trotting forward on their stolen horses. To their left, Holy Shimeh boomed and smoked. Men laughed and pointed to Ainoni pennants on the many-towered Tatokar Walls. The pace was practised, leisurely even. The inveterate old Earl did not consider time an issue, since it would take hours for the heathen to trickle through the gates, let alone form up for battle.
But the gates were not thrown open.
For weeks the sappers had laboured, undermining the foundations of their own defences. Walls meant nothing, their bright-eyed Padirajah assured them, when Schools went to war. Mathematicians from Nenciphon were consulted, as was the great architect Gotauran ab Suraki. Then the Cishaurim were employed.
For a time the hornsmen at Azoreah could only stare in astonishment. Light flashed, white haloed by blue and indigo, then the faraway Tantanah Gate and tracts of adjoining wall simply
dropped,
dissolving into gigantic blooms of dust. The breeze was slow in drawing the obscuring clouds sheer. Several heartbeats passed where they could see only lumbering shadows. Then they saw them—mastodons, dozens of them, ramping the debris with broad timber rafts. By the time the hornsmen sounded their pealing alarm, the first of the Kianene horsemen were already racing across the Shairizor Plains.
The sound of the heathen drums suddenly redoubled.
“You need only convince them that the distance between their intellect and yours was the distance between the World and the Outside. Do this, and they would yield to you absolute authority, cede to you their utter devotion.
“The path was narrow, to be certain, but it was very clear. You cultivated their awe and their inklings, telling them things
no man
could know. You appealed to the spark of Logos within them. You mapped the logic of their commitments, showed them the implications of the tenets they already held. You showed them beliefs fixed by
truth
rather than function. You made their fears and weaknesses plain—you showed them
who they were
—even as you exploited those weaknesses to your advantage.
“You gave them certainty, though all the world is mystery. You gave them flattery, though all the world is indifference. You gave them purpose, though all the world is anarchy.

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