"Why have you summoned me?"

"To warn you . . . You must flee. The Council convenes shortly . . ."

"But the Padirajah commands the approaches, rules the countryside. Besides, I cannot abandon those who follow me. I cannot abandon you."

"But you must! They will condemn you. Even Proyas!"

"And you, Coithus Saubon? Will you condemn me?"

"No . . . Never!"

"But you've already given them your guarantees."

"Who said this? What liar dares-"

"You. You say this."

"But . . . But you must understand!"

"I understand. They've ransomed your city. All you need do is pay."

"No! It's not that way. It's not!"

"Then what way is it?"

"It . . . It . . . It is what it is!"

"For all of your life, Saubon, you've ached for this, the trappings of a tyrant-the effects of old Eryeat, your father. Tell me, to whom did you run, Saubon, after your father beat you? Who dabbed your cuts with fleece? Was it to your mother? Or was it to Kussalt, your groom?"

"No one beat me! He . . . He . . ."

"Kussalt, then. Tell me, Saubon, what was more difficult? Losing him on the Plains of Mengedda, or learning of his lifelong hate?"

"Silence!"

"All your long life, no one has known you."

"Silence!"

"All your long life you've suffered, you've questioned-"

"No! No! Silence!"

"-and you've punished those who would love you."

Saubon slapped burly hands about his ears. "Cease! I command it!"

"As you punished Kussalt, as you punish-"

"Silence-silence-silence! They told me you would do this! They warned me!" They told me you would do this! They warned me!"

"Indeed. They warned you against the truth. Against wandering into the nets of the Warrior-Prophet."

"How can you know this?" Saubon cried, overcome by incredulous woe. "How?"

"Because it's Truth."

"Then fie on it! Fie on the truth! Fie on the truth!"

"And what of your immortal soul?"

"Then let it be damned!" he roared, leaping to his feet. "I embrace it-embrace it all! Damnation in this life! Damnation in all others! all others! Torment heaped upon torment! I would bear all to be King for a day! I would see you broken and blooded if that meant I could own this throne! Torment heaped upon torment! I would bear all to be King for a day! I would see you broken and blooded if that meant I could own this throne! I would see the God's own eyes plucked out! I would see the God's own eyes plucked out!"

This last scream pealed through the hollow recesses of the audience hall, returned to him in a haunting shiver: pluck-plucked-out-out . . . pluck-plucked-out-out . . .

He fell to his knees before his throne, felt the heat of his King-Fires bite tear-soaked skin. There was shouting, the clank of armour and weaponry. Guards had come rushing . . .

But of the Warrior-Prophet there was no sign.

"He-he's not real," Saubon mumbled to the hollows of his court. "He doesn't exist!"

But the gold-ringed fists kept falling. They would never stop.

He'd spent days seated upon the terrace, lost in whatever worlds he searched in his trances. At sunrise and sunset, Esmenet would go to him and leave a bowl of water as he'd directed. She brought him food as well, though he'd asked her not to. She would stare at his broad, motionless back, at his hair waving in the breeze, at the dying sun upon his face, and she would feel like a little girl kneeling before an idol, offering tribute to something monstrous and insatiable: salted fish, dried prunes and figs, unleavened bread-enough to cause a small riot in the lower city.

He touched none of it.

Then one dawn she went out to him, and he wasn't there.

After a desperate rush through the galleries of the palace, she found him in their apartments, unkempt and rakish, joking with Serwe, who had just arisen.

"Esmi-Esmi-Esmi," the swollen-eyed girl pouted. "Could you bring me little Moenghus?"

Too relieved to feel exasperated, Esmenet ducked into the adjoining nursery and plucked the black-haired babe from his cradle. Though his dumbfounded stare made her smile, she found the winter blue of his eyes unnerving.

"I was just saying," Kellhus said as she delivered the child to Serwe, "that the Great Names have summoned me . . ." He reached out a haloed hand. "They want to parley."

He mentioned nothing, of course, about his meditation. He never did.

Esmenet took his hand, sat beside him on their bed, only just understanding the implications of what he had said.

"Parley?" she suddenly cried. "Kellhus, they summon you to condemn you! condemn you!"

"Kellhus?" Serwe asked. "What does she mean?"

"That this parley is a trap trap," Esmenet exclaimed. She stared hard at Kellhus. "You know this!"

"What can you mean?" Serwe exclaimed. "Everyone loves Kellhus . . . Everyone knows now."

"No, Serwe. Many hate him-very many. Very many want him dead!" Serwe laughed in the oblivious way of which only she seemed capable.

"Esmenet . . ." she said, shaking her head as though at a beloved fool. She boosted little Moenghus into the air. "Auntie Esmi forgets," she cooed to the infant. "Yeeesss. She forgets who your father is!"

Esmenet watched dumbstruck. Sometimes she wanted nothing more than to wring the girl's neck. How? How could he love such a simpering fool?

"Esmi . . ." Kellhus said abruptly. The warning in his voice chilled her heart. She turned to him, shouted, Forgive me! Forgive me! with her eyes. with her eyes.

But at the same time, she couldn't relent, not now, not after what she had found. "Tell her, Kellhus! Tell her what's about to happen!" Not again. Not again! Not again. Not again!

"Listen to me, Esmi. There's no other way. The Zaudunyani and the Orthodox cannot go to war."

"Not even for you?" she cried. "This Holy War, this city, is but a pittance compared to you! Don't you see, Kellhus?" Her desperation swelled into sudden anguish and desolation, and she angrily wiped at her tears. This was too important for selfish grief! But I've lost so many! But I've lost so many!

"Don't you see how precious you are? Think of what Akka said! What if you're the world's only hope?"

He cupped her cheek, brushed her eyebrow with his thumb, which he held warm against her temple.

"Sometimes, Esmi, we must cross death to reach our destination." She thought of King Shikol in The Tractate The Tractate, the demented Xerashi King who'd commanded the Latter Prophet's execution. She thought of his gilded thighbone, the instrument of judgment, which to this day remained the most potent symbol of evil in Inrithidom. Was this what Inri Sejenus had said to his nameless lover? That loss could somehow secure glory?

But this is madness!

"The Shortest Path," she said, horrified by the teary-eyed contemptuousness of her tone.

But the blond-bearded face smiled.

"Yes," the Warrior-Prophet said. "The Logos."

"Anasurimbor Kellhus," Gotian intoned in his powerful voice, "I hereby denounce you as a False Prophet, and as a pretender to the warrior-caste. It is the judgment of the Council of Great and Lesser Names that you be scourged in the manner decreed by Scripture."

Serwe heard a wail pierce the thunderous outcry, and only afterward realized that it was her own. Moenghus sobbed in her arms, and she reflexively began rocking him, though she was too frightened to coo reassurances. The Hundred Pillars had drawn their swords, and now thronged to either side of them, trading fierce glares with the Shrial Knights.

"You judge no one!" someone was bellowing. "The Warrior-Prophet alone speaks the judgment of the Gods! It is you who've been found wanting! You who shall be punished!"

"False! False!-"

It seemed a thousand half-starved faces cried a thousand hungry things. Accusations. Curses. Laments. The air was flushed by humid cries. Hundreds had gathered within the ruined shell of the Citadel of the Dog to hear the Warrior-Prophet answer the charges of the Great and Lesser Names. Hot in the sun, the black ruins towered about them: walls unconsummated by vaults, foundations obscured by heaped wreckage, the side of a fallen tower bare and rounded against the debris, like the flanks of a whale breaching the surface of a choppy sea. The Men of the Tusk had congregated across every pitched slope and beneath every monolithic remnant. Fist-waving faces packed every pocket of clear ground.

Instinctively pulling her baby tight to her breast, Serwe glanced around in terror. Esmi was right . . . We shouldn't have come! Esmi was right . . . We shouldn't have come! She looked up to Kellhus, and wasn't surprised by the divine calm with which he observed the masses. Even here, he seemed the godlike nail which fastened what happened to what She looked up to Kellhus, and wasn't surprised by the divine calm with which he observed the masses. Even here, he seemed the godlike nail which fastened what happened to what should should happen. happen. He'll make them see! He'll make them see!

But the roar was redoubled, and reverberated through her body. Several men had drawn their knives, as though the sounds of fury were grounds enough for murderous riot.

So much hatred.

Even the Great Names, gathered in the clear centre of the fortress's courtyard, looked apprehensive. They gazed blank-faced at the thundering mobs, almost as though they were counting. Already several fights had broken out; she could see the flash of steel and flailing monkey limbs amidst the packed mobs-believers beset by unbelievers.

A starved fanatic with a knife managed to slip past the Hundred Pillars, rushed the Warrior-Prophet . . .

. . . who pinched the knife from his hand as though he were a child, clasped his throat with one hand and lifted him from the ground, like a gasping dog.

The pocked grounds gradually quieted as more and more turned their horrified eyes to the Warrior-Prophet and his thrashing burden-until shortly only the would-be assassin could be heard, gagging. Serwe's skin pimpled in dread. Why do they do this? Why do they dare his wrath? Why do they do this? Why do they dare his wrath?

Kellhus tossed the man to the ground, where he lay inert, a heap of slack limbs.

"What is it that you fear?" the Warrior-Prophet asked. His tone was both plaintive and imperious-not the overbearing manner of a King certain of his sanction, but the despotic voice of Truth.

Gotian shouldered his way past the interceding onlookers. "The wrath of the God," he cried, "who punishes us for harbouring an abomination!"

"No." His flashing eyes found them from among the masses: Saubon, Proyas, Conphas, and the others. "You fear that as my power waxes, yours will wane. You do what you do not in the name of the God, but in the name of avarice. You wouldn't tolerate even the God to possess your Holy War. And yet, in each of your hearts there is an itch, an anguished question that I alone can see: What if he truly is the Prophet? What doom awaits us then? What if he truly is the Prophet? What doom awaits us then?"

"SILENCE!" Conphas roared, spittle flying from his contorted lips.

"And you, Conphas? What is it that you hide?"

"His words are spears!" Conphas cried to the others. "His very voice is an outrage!"

"But I ask only your your question: question: What if you are wrong? What if you are wrong?"

Even Conphas was dumbstruck by the force of these words. It was as though the Warrior-Prophet had made this demand in the God's own voice.

"You turn to fury in the absence of certainty," he continued sadly. "I only ask you this: What moves your soul? What moves you to condemn me? Is it indeed the God? The God strides with certainty, with glory glory, through the hearts of men! Does the God so stride through you? Does the Does the God so stride through you? God so stride through you?"

Silence. The poignant hush of dread, as though they were a congregation of debauched children suddenly confronted by the rebuke of their godlike father. Serwe felt tears flood her cheeks.

They see! They at last see!

But then a Shrial Knight, the one named Sarcellus, whose face alone remained pious and devoid of hesitation, answered the Warrior-Prophet in a loud, clear voice.

"'All things both sacred and vile,'" the Knight-Commander said, quoting the Tusk, "'speak to the hearts of Men, and they are bewildered, and holding out their hands to darkness, they name it light they name it light.'"

The Warrior-Prophet stared at him sharply, and quoted in turn: "'Hearken Truth, for it strides fiercely among you, and will not be denied.'"

Possessed of beatific calm, Sarcellus answered: "'Fear him, for he is the deceiver, the Lie made Flesh, come among you to foul the waters of your heart.'"

And the Warrior-Prophet smiled sadly. "Lie made flesh, Sarcellus?" Serwe watched his eyes search the crowds, then settle on the nearby Scylvendi. "Lie made flesh," he repeated, staring into the fiend's embattled face. "The hunt need not end . . . Remember this when you recall the secret of battle. You still command the ears of the Great."

"False Prophet," Sarcellus continued. "Prince of nothing nothing." As if these words had been a sign, the Shrial Knights rushed the Hundred Pillars, and there was the clash of fierce arms. Someone shrieked, and one of the Knights fell to his knees, grasping in his left hand the gushing stump where his right hand should have been. Another shriek, and then yet another, and then the starving mobs, as though sobered from a drunken stupor by the sight of blood, surged forward.

Serwe screamed, clawed at the Warrior-Prophet's white sleeve, grasped her baby with fierce desperation. This isn't happening . . . This isn't happening . . .

But it was hopeless. After several moments of howling butchery, the Shrial Knights were upon them. With nightmarish horror she watched the Warrior-Prophet catch a blade in his palms, break it, and then touch the neck of his assailant. The man crumpled. Another he caught by the arm, which suddenly went limp as sackcloth, and then drove his fist through his face, as though the man's head were a melon.

Somewhere impossibly far away, she heard Gotian roar at his men, thunder at them to stop.

She saw a manic-faced Knight rush her, sword raised to the sun, but then he was on the ground, fumbling with a fountain of blood that had bloomed from his side, and then a rough arm was about her, tiger-striped by scars and impossibly strong.