"He came to you, didn't he? The father of the Warrior-Prophet." Diminutive amus.e.m.e.nt flickered across the creature's face. "The Dunyain Dunyain."

The Chieftain of the Utemot gazed at the thing, his thoughts battered senseless by a chorus of conflicting pa.s.sions: confusion, outrage, hope ... Then at last he recalled the only track remaining-the only true true track-though his heart had known it all along. The one certainty. track-though his heart had known it all along. The one certainty.

Hate.

He grew very calm. "The hunt is over," he said. "Tomorrow the Holy War marches for Xerash and Amoteu. I am to remain behind."

"You have been moved, nothing more. In benjuka, every move bespeaks a new rule." The small face regarded him, its bald scalp shining beneath the white moon. "We are that new rule, Scylvendi."

Eyes tiny and impossibly old. An intimation of power, rumbling through vein, heart, and bone.

"Not even the dead escape the Plate."

When Achamian found Xinemus in his rooms, the Marshal was as drunk as he had ever seen him.

Xinemus coughed-a sound like gravel crashing across the planked box of a wain. "Did you do it?"

"Yes ..."

"Good-good! Were you injured? Did he hurt you in any way?"

"No."

"Do you have them?"

Achamian paused, unsettled that Xinemus hadn't said "Good" in response to his second answer as well. Does he want me to suffer? Does he want me to suffer?

"Do you have them?" Xinemus exclaimed.

"Y-yes."

"Good ... good!" Xinemus said. He bolted from his chair, but with the same rigid aimlessness with which he seemed to do everything now that he had no eyes. "Give them to me!"

He had shouted this as though Achamian were a Knight of Attrempus.

"I ..." Achamian swallowed. "I don't understand ..."

"Leave them ... Leave me!"

"Zin ... You must help me understand!"

"Leave!"

Achamian started, such was the intensity of his cry.

"All right," he muttered, moving for the door. His stomach heaved and hitched as though the floor pitched asea. "All right ..." He yanked the door wide, but for some perverse reason simply stood still for a heartbeat then slammed it shut as though leaving in fury. He stood breathless, watching his friend turn and stride toward the westward wall, his left hand pawing the air before him, his right clutching tight the bloodstained cloth.

"Finally," Xinemus muttered under his breath, either sobbing or laughing. Xinemus muttered under his breath, either sobbing or laughing. "Finalleeee ..." "Finalleeee ..."

He stamped palm and fingers across the wall, moving to his left. He left a trail of blood-prints across the cerulean panels, then the Nilnameshi pastoral. When he reached the mirror, he stopped, his finger fluttering across the ivory frame as he positioned himself squarely before it. He became very still-so much so that Achamian feared he would hear the breath that rasped so loudly in his own ears. For a time it seemed Xinemus gazed into the phlegmatic pits where his eyes had once laughed and fumed. There was an air of longing to his blind scrutiny.

With horror Achamian watched him fumble with the cloth, then bring one hand to each of his sockets. When he drew away his hands, Iyokus's weeping eyes stared askew from phalanges of angry skin.

Walls and ceiling lurched.

"Open!" the Marshal of Attrempus wailed. He jerked his dead and b.l.o.o.d.y gaze about the room, pausing for a heart-stopping moment on Achamian. "Ooopen!" "Ooopen!"

Then he began thrashing through his apartments.

Achamian slipped through the door and fled.

In the dark, Eleazaras clutched his friend, rocked him back and forth, knowing that he held a far greater dark in his arms.

"Sh-shhhh ..."

"E-Eli," his Master of Spies gasped. The man shook and blubbered, yet somehow seemed wane even in his anguish. "Eli!"

"Shhhh, Iyokus. Do you remember what it is to see?"

A shudder pa.s.sed through the addict's form. The translucent head rolled in a drunken nod. Blood spilled from the linen dressings, traced dark lines across his transparent cheek.

"The words," Eleazaras hissed. "Do you remember the words the words?"

In sorcery, everything depended on the purity of meaning. Who knew what blinding might do?

"Y-yessss."

"Then you are whole."

CHAPTER FOUR.

ENATHPANEAH.

Like a stern father, war shames men into hating their childhood games.

-PROTATHIS, ONE HUNDRED HEAVENS

I returned from that campaign a far different man, or so my mother continuously complained. "Now only the dead," she would tell me, "can hope to match your gaze."

-TRIAMIS I, JOURNALS AND DIALOGUES

Early Spring, 4112 Year-of-the-Tusk, Momemn

Perhaps, Ikurei Xerius III mused, tonight would be a night of desserts.

From the vantage of the Imperial Apartments on the Andiamine Heights, the Meneanor seemed a vast shining plate beneath the moon. Xerius could scarce remember ever seeing the Great Sea so preternaturally calm. He considered summoning Arithmeas, his augur, but decided against it-more out of hubris than generosity. The man was a fawning charlatan. They all were. As his mother would say, every man was a spy in the end, an agent of contrary interests. Every face was made of fingers ...

Like Skeaos.

Despite the vertigo, he leaned against the bal.u.s.trade, staring, clutching tight a mantle of fine-brushed Galeoth wool against the chill. As always, his eyes were drawn southward, to the dark sockets of the coast. Shimeh lay out there-and Conphas. It seemed perverse, somehow, that men might plot and strive so far beyond his capacity to see or know. Perverse and terrifying.

He heard the approach of sandalled feet behind him.

"G.o.d-of-Men," his new Exalt-Captain, Skala, said in a hushed voice. "The Empress wishes to speak with you."

Xerius exhaled, surprised to find he'd been holding his breath. He turned, looked up into the towering Cepaloran's face, which seemed ugly or handsome by turns of shadow or light. His blond hair tumbled about his shoulders, crimped into tails with silver bands-a sign of some fierce tribe or other. Skala wasn't the most pleasing ornament, but he'd proven an able replacement ever since Gaenkelti's death.

Ever since that mad night with the Mandate sorcerer.

"Show her in."

He drained his bowl of Anpleian red. Seized by a sudden recklessness, he cast it at the southern horizon, as though daring the distances to be anything other than what they appeared. Why shouldn't he be suspicious? The philosophers said this world was smoke, after all. He He was the fire. was the fire.

He watched the golden bowl pirouette out, then sink into the obscurity of the lower palace. The faint ring and clatter brought a smile to his lips. He felt such contempt for things.

"Skala?" he called to the withdrawing man.

"Yes, G.o.d-of-Men?"

"Some slave will steal it ... that bowl."

"Indeed, G.o.d-of-Men."

Xerius belched, though with decorum. "Whoever it is, have him flogged."

Expressionless, Skala nodded, then turned to the golden interior of the Imperial Apartments. Xerius followed, struggling not to reel. He directed the flanking Eothic Guardsmen to close the folding doors and draw the drapes behind him. There was nothing to see out there, save calm seas and endless stars. Nothing.

He lingered over the flames of the nearest tripod, warming his fingers. Already his mother was ascending the steps from the lower suites, and he found himself clenching his thumbs, trying to purge the slop from his thoughts. Only wit, Xerius had learned long ago, could preserve him from Ikurei Istriya.

Peering over stair and past tapestried wall, he glimpsed her giant eunuch, Pisathulas, looming over his Guardsmen in the antechamber. Not for the first time he found himself wondering whether she ever f.u.c.ked the oiled whale. He should should be wondering at her motives, he knew, but she had seemed so ... predictable of late, and besides, the mood had come upon him. Had she but pestered him moments later, he was sure he would have been ... indisposed. be wondering at her motives, he knew, but she had seemed so ... predictable of late, and besides, the mood had come upon him. Had she but pestered him moments later, he was sure he would have been ... indisposed.

She did look beautiful, for an old hag. A headdress of wings worked in mother-of-pearl adorned her dyed hair, with a veil of tiny silver chains hanging just past her painted brows. Bound tight against her figure with golden ribbon, her gown was both simple and traditional, though the printed blue silk, he imagined, had cost him a war galley. He knew he needed to blink the wine from his eyes, but she seemed more supple than wiry ...

How long had it been?

"G.o.d-of-Men," she said, cresting the last step. She lowered her head in perfect jnanic form.

For a moment Xerius stood speechless, quite disarmed by this uncharacteristic display of respect. "Mother," he said carefully. When a vicious dog nuzzled one's hand, it meant it was hungry-very hungry.

"The Saik have been here to see you."

"Tha.s.sius, yes ... He must have pa.s.sed you on his way out."

"Not Cememketri?"

Xerius snorted. "What is it, Mother?"

"You've heard something," she said stridently. "Conphas has sent a message."

"Bah!" He smacked his lips, turning from her. b.i.t.c.h. Always yelping over her bowl.

"I raised raised him, Xerius! He was my ward-far more than he was ever yours! I deserve to know what happens. I deserve." him, Xerius! He was my ward-far more than he was ever yours! I deserve to know what happens. I deserve."

Xerius paused, keeping her figure in his periphery. It was strange, he thought, the way the same words could infuriate him at one moment yet strike a tender chord at another. But that was what it all came down to in the end, wasn't it? His whims. He looked her full in the face, struck by how luminous, how young young her eyes seemed in the lantern light. He liked this whim ... her eyes seemed in the lantern light. He liked this whim ...

"They know," he said. "This imposter, this ... Warrior-Prophet Warrior-Prophet or whatever they're calling him, accused Conphas-accused or whatever they're calling him, accused Conphas-accused me me!-of plotting to betray the Holy War. Can you imagine?"

For some reason, she seemed unsurprised. It occurred to Xerius that she she could be the one who had betrayed their plans. Why not? Hers was an unnatural commingling of the masculine and the feminine intellect, driven by both an excessive need for approval and an equally excessive obsession with security. As a result, she saw rashness and cowardice everywhere she looked. In her son most of all. could be the one who had betrayed their plans. Why not? Hers was an unnatural commingling of the masculine and the feminine intellect, driven by both an excessive need for approval and an equally excessive obsession with security. As a result, she saw rashness and cowardice everywhere she looked. In her son most of all.

"What has happened?" she asked, her tone lilting in concern.

Oh yes, one mustn't forget her precious nephew's skin.

"Conphas has been turned out. He and what remains of his Columns are to be interned at Joktha to await transport back to the Nansurium."

"Good," she said, nodding. "So your madness ends."

Xerius laughed. "My madness, Mother?" He graced her with a smile all the more cutting for its genuineness. "Or Conphas's?" madness, Mother?" He graced her with a smile all the more cutting for its genuineness. "Or Conphas's?"