The Thousandfold Thought Part 4

It was the first time he had seen the two of them together.

"So what will it be the next time I die?"

Kellhus stood before one of the apple trees, watching him with gentle expectation. He wore a white silk ca.s.sock patterned with a grey arboreal brocade. As always, the pommel of his curious sword jutted over his left shoulder. Like Esmenet, he bore a Trinket, though he had the courtesy to keep it concealed against his chest.

"You need never kneel in my presence," he said, waving for Achamian to join him. "You are my friend, Akka. You will always be my friend."

His ears roaring, Achamian stood, glanced at the shadows where Esmenet had disappeared.

How has it come to this?

Kellhus had been little more than a beggar the first time Achamian had seen him, a puzzling accessory to the Scylvendi, whom Proyas had hoped to use in his contest with the Emperor. But even then there had been something, it now seemed, a glimpse of this moment in embryo. They had wondered why a Scylvendi-and of Utemot blood, no less-would seek employ in an Inrithi Holy War.

"I am the reason," Kellhus had said. Kellhus had said.

The revelation of his name, Anasurimbor, had been but the beginning.

Achamian crossed the interval only to feel strangely bullied by Kellhus's height. Had he always been this tall? Smiling, Kellhus effortlessly guided him between a gap in the trees. One of the dolmens blackened the sun. The air hummed with the industry of bees. "How fares Xinemus?" he said.

Achamian pursed his lips, swallowed. For some reason he found this question disarming to the point of tears.

"I-I worry for him."

"You must bring him, and soon. I miss eating and arguing beneath the stars. I miss a fire nipping at my feet."

And as easy as that, Achamian found himself tripping into the old rhythm. "Your legs always were too long."

Kellhus laughed. He seemed to shine about the pit of the Chorae. "Much like your opinions."

Achamian grinned, but a glimpse of the welts about Kellhus's wrists struck the nascent humour from him. For the first time he noticed the bruising about Kellhus's face. The cuts.

They tortured him ... murdered Serwe.

"Yes," Kellhus said, ruefully holding out his hands. He looked almost embarra.s.sed. "Would that everything healed so quickly."

Somehow these words found Achamian's fury.

"You could see the Consult all along-all along!-and yet you said nothing to me ... Why?"

Why Esmenet?

Kellhus raised his brows, sighed. "The time wasn't right. But you already know this."

"Do I?"

Kellhus smiled while pursing his lips, as though at once pained and bemused. "Now, you and your School must parlay, where before you would have simply seized me. I concealed the skin-spies from you for the same reason you concealed me from your Mandate masters."

But you already know this, his eyes repeated. his eyes repeated.

Achamian could think of no reply.

"You've told them," Kellhus continued, turning to resume their stroll between the blooming queues.

"I've told them."

"And do they accept your interpretation?"

"What interpretation?"

"That I'm more than the sign of the Second Apocalypse."

More. A tremor pa.s.sed through him, body and soul.

"They think it unlikely."

"I should imagine you find it difficult to describe me ... to make them understand."

Achamian stared for a helpless moment, then looked to his feet.

"So," Kellhus continued, "what are your interim instructions?"

"To pretend to give you the Gnosis. I told them you would go to the Spires otherwise. And to ensure that nothing"-Achamian paused, licked his lips-"that nothing happens to you."

Kellhus both grinned and scowled-so like Xinemus before his blinding.

"So you're to be my bodyguard?"

"They have good reason to worry-as do you. Think of the catastrophe you've wrought. For centuries the Consult has hidden in the fat of the Three Seas, while we were little more than a laughingstock. They could act with impunity. But now that fat has been cooked away. They'll do anything to recover what they've lost. Anything Anything."

"There have been other a.s.sa.s.sins."

"But that was before ... The stakes are far higher now. Perhaps these skin-spies act on their own. Perhaps they're ... directed."

Kellhus studied him for a moment. "You fear one of the Consult might be directly involved ... that an Old Name shadows the Holy War."

He nodded. "Yes."

Kellhus did not immediately reply, at least not with words. Instead, everything about him-his stance, his expression, even the fixity of his gaze-grew sharp with monumental intent. "The Gnosis," he finally said. "Will you give it to me, Akka?"

He knows. He knows the power he would wield. Somewhere, beneath some footing of his soul, the ground seemed to fall away.

"If you demand it ... though I ..." He looked to Kellhus, somehow understanding that the man already knew what he was about to say. Every path, it seemed, every implication, had already been travelled by those shining blue eyes. Nothing surprises him Nothing surprises him.

"Yes," Kellhus said with a peculiar moroseness. "Once I accept the Gnosis, I yield the protection afforded by the Chorae."

"Exactly."

In the beginning Kellhus would possess only the vulnerabilities of a sorcerer, none of the strengths. The Gnosis, far more than the Anagogis, was an a.n.a.lytic and systematic sorcery. Even the most primitive Cants required extensive precursors, components that d.a.m.ned nonetheless for being inert.

"Which is why you must protect me," Kellhus concluded. "Henceforth you will be my Vizier. You will reside here, in the Fama Palace, at my disposal." Words spoken with the authority of a Shrial Edict, but infused with such force of certainty, such inevitability, that it seemed they described described more than they demanded, that Achamian's compliance was some ancient and conspicuous fact. more than they demanded, that Achamian's compliance was some ancient and conspicuous fact.

Kellhus did not wait for his reply-none was needed.

"Can you protect me, Akka?" you protect me, Akka?"

Achamian blinked, still trying to digest what had just happened. "You will reside here ..." "You will reside here ..."

With her.

"F-from an Old Name?" he sputtered. "I'm not sure."

Where had this treacherous joy come from? You will show her! Win her! You will show her! Win her!

"No," Kellhus said evenly. "From yourself."

Achamian stared, glimpsed Nautzera screaming beneath Mekeritrig's incandescent touch. "If I cannot," he said with a voice that seemed a gasp, "Seswatha can."

Kellhus nodded. Motioning for Achamian to follow, he abruptly turned, pressing through interlocking branches, crossing rows. Achamian hastened after him, waving at the bees and fluttering petals. Three rows over, Kellhus paused before an opening between two trees.

Achamian could only gape in horror.

The apple tree before Kellhus had been stripped of its blossoming weave, leaving only a black knotted trunk with three boughs bent about like a dancer's waving arms. A skin-spy had been pulled naked across them, bound tight in rust-brown chains. Its pose-one arm trussed back and the other forward-reminded Achamian of a javelin thrower. Its head hung from drawn shoulders. The long, feminine digits of its face lay slack against its chest. Sunlight showered down upon it, casting inscrutable shadows.

"The tree was dead," Kellhus said, as though in explanation.

"What ..." Achamian began in a thin voice, but halted when the creature stirred, raised the shambles of its visage. The digits slowly clawed the air, like a suffocating crab. Lidless eyes glared in perpetual terror.

"What have you learned?" Achamian finally managed.

The abomination masticated behind lipless teeth. "Ahh," "Ahh," it said in a long, gasping breath. it said in a long, gasping breath. "Chigraaaa ..." "Chigraaaa ..."

"That they are directed," Kellhus said softly.

"Woe comes, Chigraaa. You have found us too late."

"By whom?" Achamian exclaimed, staring, clutching his hands before him. "Do you know by whom?"

The Warrior-Prophet shook his head. "They're conditioned-powerfully so. Months of interrogation would be required. Perhaps more."

Achamian nodded. Given time, he realized, Kellhus could could empty this creature, own it as he seemed to own everything else. He was more than thorough, more than meticulous. Even the swiftness of this discovery-wrested, no less, from a creature that had been forged to deceive-demonstrated his ... inevitability. empty this creature, own it as he seemed to own everything else. He was more than thorough, more than meticulous. Even the swiftness of this discovery-wrested, no less, from a creature that had been forged to deceive-demonstrated his ... inevitability.

He makes no mistakes.

For a giddy instant a kind of gloating fury descended upon Achamian. All those years-centuries!-the Consult had played them for fools. But now-now! Did they know? Could they sense the peril this man represented? Or would they underestimate him like everyone else had?

Like Esmenet.

Achamian swallowed. "Either way, Kellhus, you must surround yourself with Chorae bowmen. And you need to avoid large structures, anyplace where-"

"It troubles you," Kellhus interrupted, "to see these things."

A breeze had descended upon the grove, and countless petals spun through the air as though along unseen strings. Achamian watched one settle upon the skin-spy's pubis.

Why bind the abomination here, amid such beauty and repose-like a cancer on a young girl's skin? Why? It seemed the act of someone who knew nothing of beauty ... nothing.

He matched Kellhus's gaze. "It troubles me."

"And your hatred?"

For an instant it had seemed that everything-who he was and who he would become-wanted to love this G.o.dlike man. And how could he not, given the sanctuary of his mere presence? And yet intimations of Esmenet clung to him. Glimpses of her pa.s.sion ...

"It remains," he said.

As though provoked by this response, the creature began jerking, straining against its fetters. Slick muscle balled beneath sunburned skin. Chains rattled. Black boughs creaked. Achamian stepped back, remembering the horror of Skeaos beneath the Andiamine Heights. The night Conphas had saved him.

Kellhus ignored the thing, continued speaking. "All men surrender, Akka, even as they seek to dominate. It's their nature to submit. The question is never whether whether they will surrender, but rather they will surrender, but rather to whom to whom ..." ..."

"Your heart, Chigraa...I shall make it my apple ..."

"I-I don't understand." Achamian glanced from the abomination to Kellhus's sky-blue eyes.

"Some, like so many Men of the Tusk, submit-truly submit-only to the G.o.d. It preserves their pride, kneeling before what is never heard, never seen. They can abase themselves without fear of degradation." submit-only to the G.o.d. It preserves their pride, kneeling before what is never heard, never seen. They can abase themselves without fear of degradation."

"I shall eat ..."

Achamian held an uncertain hand against the sun to better see the Warrior-Prophet's face.

"One," Kellhus was saying, "can only be tested, never degraded, by the G.o.d."

"You said 'some,'" Achamian managed. "What of the others?" In his periphery he saw the thing's face knuckle as though into interlocking fists.

"They're like you, Akka. They surrender not to the G.o.d but to those like themselves. A man. A woman. There's no pride to be preserved when one submits to another. Transgress, and there's no formula. And the fear of degradation is always present, even if not quite believed. Lovers injure each other, humiliate and debase, but they never test, test, Akka-not if they truly love." Akka-not if they truly love."

The thing was thrashing now, like something brandished in an invisible fist. Suddenly the bees seemed to buzz on the wrong side of his skull.

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because part of you clings to the hope that she tests you ..." For a mad moment it seemed Inrau watched him, or Proyas as a boy, his eyes wide and imploring. "She does not."

Achamian blinked in astonishment. "What are you saying, then? That she degrades me? That you you degrade me?" degrade me?"

A series of mewling grunts, as though beasts coupled. Iron rattled and screeched.

"I'm saying that she loves you still. As for me, I merely took what was given."

"Then give it back!" Achamian barked with savagery. He shook. His breath cramped in his throat.

"You're forgetting, Akka. Love is like sleep is like sleep. One can never seize, never force love."