"What did you find?"

The man blinked. Panic flashed from the stoic weariness of his expression. "A child," he said hoarsely. "A dead child . . . We were following this trail, something worn by goatherds, I think, cutting across this hillside, and there was just this dead child, a girl, no more than five or six, lying in our path. Her throat had been cut . . ."

"What happened next?"

"Nothing . . . I mean, we simply ignored her, continued riding as though she were nothing more than discarded cloth . . . a-a scrap of leather in the dust," he added, his voice breaking. He looked down to his callused palms.

"Guilt and shame wrack you by day," Kellhus said, "the feeling that you've committed some mortal crime. Nightmares wrack you by night . . . She speaks to you."

The man's nod was almost comical in its desperation. He hadn't, Achamian realized, the nerve for war.

"But why?" he cried. "I mean, how many dead have we seen?"

"But not all seeing," Kellhus replied, "is witness witness."

"I don't understand . . ."

"Witness is the seeing that testifies testifies, that judges so that it may be judged. You saw, and you judged. A trespass had been committed, an innocent had been murdered. You saw this. You saw this."

"Yes!" the man hissed. "A little girl. A little girl! A little girl!"

"And now you suffer."

"But why?" he cried. "Why should I suffer? She's not mine. She was heathen! heathen!"

"Everywhere . . . Everywhere we're surrounded by the blessed and the cursed, the sacred and the profane. But our hearts are like hands, they grow callous to the world. And yet, like our hands even the most callous heart will blister if overworked or chafed by something new. For some time we may feel the pinch, but we ignore it because we have so much work to do." Kellhus had looked down into his right hand. Suddenly he balled it into a fist, raised it high. "And then one strike strike, with a hammer or a sword, and the blister breaks, our heart is torn our heart is torn. And then we suffer, for we feel the ache for the blessed, the sting of the cursed. We no longer see, we witness we witness . . ." . . ."

His luminous eyes settled upon the nameless knight. Blue and wise.

"This is what has happened to you."

"Yes . . . Yes! B-but what should I do?"

"Rejoice."

"Rejoice? But I suffer! suffer!"

"Yes, rejoice! rejoice! The callused hand cannot feel the lover's cheek. When we witness, we The callused hand cannot feel the lover's cheek. When we witness, we testify testify, and when we testify we make ourselves responsible for what we see we make ourselves responsible for what we see. And that-that-is what it means to belong."

Kellhus suddenly stood, leapt from the low platform, took two breathtaking steps into their midst. "Make no mistake," he continued, and the air thrummed with the resonance of his voice. "This world owns owns you. You you. You belong belong, whether you want to or not. Why do we suffer? Why do the wretched take their own lives? Because the world, no matter how cursed, owns us owns us. Because we belong we belong."

"Should we celebrate suffering?" a challenging voice called. From somewhere . . .

Prince Kellhus smiled, glancing into the darkness. "Then it's no longer suffering, is it?"

The small congregation laughed.

"No," Kellhus continued, "that's not what I mean. Celebrate the meaning of suffering. Rejoice that you belong belong, not that you suffer. Remember what the Latter Prophet teaches us: glory comes in joy a sorrow. Joy and sorrow . . ."

"I s-see, see the wisdom of you-your words, Prince," the nameless knight stammered. "I truly see! see! But . . ." But . . ."

And somehow, Achamian could feel feel his question . . . his question . . .

What is there to gain?

"I'm not asking you to see," Kellhus said. "I'm asking you to witness." Blank face. Desolate eyes. The nameless knight blinked, and two tears silvered his cheek. Then he smiled, and nothing, it seemed, could be glorious.

"To make myself . . ." His voice quavered, broke. "To m-make . . ."

"To be one with the world in which you dwell," Kellhus said. "To be in a covenant of your life."

The world . . . You will gain the world.

Achamian looked down to his parchment, realized he'd stopped writing. He turned, looked helplessly at Esmenet.

"Don't worry," she said. "I remember."

Of course she did.

Esmenet. The second pillar of his peace, and by far the mightiest of the two.

It seemed at once strange and fitting to find something almost conjugal in the midst of the Holy War. Each evening they would be exhausted from Kellhus's talks or from Xinemus's fire, holding hands like young lovers, ruminating or bickering or laughing about the evening's events. They would pick their way through the guy ropes, and Achamian would pull the canvas aside with mock gallantry. They would touch, brush as they disrobed, then hold each other in the dark-as the together they could be more than what they were.

A whore of word and a whore of body.

The greater world had receded into shadow. He thought of Inrau less over the days, and pondered the concerns of his life-Esmenet-and Kellhus-more and more. Even the threat of the Consult and the Second Apocalypse had become something banal and [garbled]like rumours of war among pale-skinned peoples. Seswatha's Dreams still came as fierce as ever, but they dissolved in the softness of her touch, in the consolation of her voice. "Hush, Akka," she would say, "it's only a dream," and like smoke, the images-straining, groaning, spitting, and shrieking-would twist into nothingness. For once in his life, Achamian was seized by the moment, by now now . . . By the small hurt in her eyes when he said something careless. By the way her hand drifted to his knee of its own accord whenever they sat together. By the nights they lay naked in the tent, her head upon his chest and her dark hair fanned across his shoulder and neck, speaking of those things only they knew. . . . By the small hurt in her eyes when he said something careless. By the way her hand drifted to his knee of its own accord whenever they sat together. By the nights they lay naked in the tent, her head upon his chest and her dark hair fanned across his shoulder and neck, speaking of those things only they knew.

"Everyone knows," she said one night after making love.

They'd retired early, and they could hear the others: first mock protests and uproarious laughter, then utter quiet bound by the magic of Kellhus's voice. The fire still burned, and they could see it, muted and blurred across the dark canvas.

"He's a prophet," she said.

Achamian felt something resembling panic. "What are you saying?"

She turned to study him. Her eyes seemed to glitter with their own light. "Only what you need to hear."

"And why would I need to hear that?" What had she said?

"Because you think it. Because you fear it . . . But most of all, because you need it."

We are damned, her eyes said.

"I'm not amused, Esmi."

She frowned, but as though she'd noticed nothing more than a tear in one of her new Kianene silks. "How long has it been since you've contacted Atyersus? Weeks? Months?"

"What is it with-"

"You're waiting, Akka. You're waiting to see what he becomes."

"Kellhus?"

She turned her face away, lowered her ear to his heart. "He's a prophet."

She knew him. When Achamian thought back, it seemed that she'd always known him. He'd even thought her a witch when they met for the first time, not only because of the ever-so-faint Mark of the charmed whore's shell that she used as a contraceptive, but because she guessed he was a sorcerer before he uttered scarcely five words. From the very beginning, she seemed to have a talent for him. For Drusas Achamian.

It was strange, to be known-truly known. To be awaited rather than anticipated. To be accepted instead of believed. To be half another's elaborate habits. To see oneself continually foreshadowed in another's eyes.

And it was strange to know. Sometimes she laughed so hard she belched. And when disappointed, her eyes dimmed like candles starved of air. She liked the feel of knives between her toes. She loved to hold her hand slack and motionless while his cock hardened beneath. "I do nothing," she would whisper, "and yet you rise to me." She was frightened of horses. She fondled her left armpit when deep in thought. She did not hide her face when she cried. And she could say things of such beauty that sometimes Achamian thought his heart might stop for having listened.

Details. Simple enough in isolation, but terrifying and mysterious in their sum. A mystery that he knew knew . . . . . .

Was that not love? To know, to trust a mystery . . .

Once, on the night of Ishoiya, which Conriyans celebrated with copious amounts of that foul and flammable liquor, perrapta, Achamian asked Kellhus to describe the way he loved Serwe. Only he, Xinemus, and Kellhus remained awake. They were all drunk.

"Not the way you love Esmenet," the Prince replied.

"And how is that? How do I love her?" He staggered to his feet, his arms askew. He swayed before the smoke and fire. "Like a fish loves the ocean? Like, like . . ."

"Like a drunk loves his cask," Xinemus chortled. "Like my dog loves your leg!"

Achamian granted him that, but it was Kellhus's answer he most wanted to hear. It was always Kellhus's answer. "So, my Prince? How do I love Esmenet?"

Somehow a note of anger had crept into his tone.

Kellhus smiled, raised his downcast eyes. Tears scored his cheek.

"Like a child," he said.

The words knocked Achamian from his feet. He crashed to his buttocks with a grunt.

"Yes," Xinemus agreed. He looked forward into the night, smiling . . . Smiling for his friend, Achamian realized.

"Like a child?" Achamian asked, feeling curiously childlike.

"Yes," Kellhus replied. "You ask no questions, Akka. It simply is is . . . Without reserve." He turned to him with the look Achamian knew so well, the look he so often yearned for when others occupied Kellhus's attention. The look of friend, father, student, and teacher. The look his heart could see. . . . Without reserve." He turned to him with the look Achamian knew so well, the look he so often yearned for when others occupied Kellhus's attention. The look of friend, father, student, and teacher. The look his heart could see.

"She's become your ground," Kellhus said.

"Yes . . ." Achamian replied.

She's become my wife.

Such a thought! He beamed with a childish glee. He felt wonderfully drunk.

My wife!

But later that same night, he somehow found himself making love to Serwe.

Afterward he would scarcely remember, but he'd awakened on a reed mat by the remains of the fire. He'd been dreaming of the white turrets of Myclai and rumours of Mog-Pharau. Xinemus and Kellhus were gone, and the night sky seemed impossibly deep, the way it had looked that night he and Esmenet had slept out of doors at the ruined shrine. Like an endless pit. Serwe knelt above him, as flawless as ivory in the firelight, at once smiling and crying.

"What's wrong?" he gasped. But then he realized she'd hiked his robe to his waist, and was rolling his cock against his belly. He was already hard-insanely so, it seemed.

"Serwe . . ." he managed to protest, but with each roll of her palm, bolts of rapture shuddered through him. He arched against the ground, straining to press himself into her hand. For some reason, it seemed that all he needed, all he'd ever needed, was to feel her fingers close about the head of his member.

"No," he moaned, digging his heels into the turf, clawing at the grass. What was happening?

She released him, and he gasped at the kiss of cool air. He could feel his own fiery pulse . . .

Something. He needed to say something! This couldn't be happening!

But she'd slipped free her hasas, and he trembled at the sight of her. So lithe. So smooth. White in shadow, burnished gold in firelight. Her peach hazed with tender blond. She no longer touched him, yet her beauty flailed at him, wrenched at his groin. He swallowed, struggled to breathe. Then she straddled him. He glimpsed the porcelain sway of her breasts, the hairless curve of her belly.

Is she with- She encompassed him. He cried out, cursed.

"It is you!" she hissed, sobbing, staring desperately into his eyes. "I can see you. I can see! I can see!"

He turned his head aside in delirium, afraid he would climax too soon. This was Serwe . . . Sweet Sejenus, this was was Serwe! Serwe!

Then he saw Esmenet, standing desolate in the dark. Watching . . . He closed his eyes, grimaced, and climaxed. "Guh . . . g-guh . . ."

"I can feel feel you!" Serwe cried. you!" Serwe cried.

When he opened his eyes Esmenet was gone-if she had ever been. Serwe continued to grind against him. The whole world had become a slurry of heat and wetness and thundering aching thrusting beauty. He surrendered to her abandon.

Somehow he awoke before the horns and sat for a time at the entrance to his tent, watching Esmenet sleep, feeling the pinch of dried seed on his thighs. When she awoke, he searched her eyes, but saw nothing. Through the hard, long march of the following day, she chastised him for drinking and nothing more. Serwe didn't so much as look at him. By the following evening he'd convinced himself it had been a dream. A delicious dream. The perrapta. There could be no other explanation. Fucking fish liquor Fucking fish liquor, he thought, and tried to feel ruefully amused. When he told Esmenet, she laughed and threatened to tell Kellhus. Afterward, alone, he actually wept in relief. Never, he realized, not even the night following the madness with the Emperor beneath the Andiamine Heights, had he felt a greater sense of doom. And he knew he belonged to Esmi-not the world.

She was his covenant. Esmenet was his wife.

The Holy War crept ever closer to Shigek, and still he ignored the Mandate. There were excuses he could assemble. He could ponder the impossibility of making discreet inquiries, bribes, or dissembling suggestions in an encampment of armed fanatics. He could remind himself of what his School had done to Inrau. But ultimately they meant nothing.

He would rush the enemy ranks. He would see his heresy through. To the end, no matter what horrors it might hold. For the first time in a long and wandering life, Drusas Achamian had found happiness.

And peace had come.

The day's march had been particularly trying, and Serwe sat by the fire, rubbing her toes while staring across the flames at her love, Kellhus. If only it could always be like this . . .

Four days previous Proyas had sent the Scylvendi south with several hundred knights-to learn the ways into Shigek, Kellhus had said. Four days without chancing upon his famished glare. Four days without cringing in his iron shadow as he escorted her to their pavilion. Four days without his dread savagery.

And each of them spent praying and praying, Let him be killed! Let him be killed!

But this was the one prayer Kellhus wouldn't answer.

She stared and wondered and loved. His long blond hair flashed golden in the firelight; his bearded features radiated good humour and understanding. He nodded as Achamian spoke to him about something-sorcery perhaps. She paid scant attention to the Schoolman's words. She was too busy listening to Kellhus's face.