"This has nothing to do with you, Proyas. I am past you."

The tone as much as the words chilled Proyas to the pith.

"Then why are you here?"

"Because of all the Great Names, only you can understand."

"Understand," Proyas repeated, feeling the old impatience rekindle in his heart. "Understand what? No, let me guess . . . Only I can understand the significance of the name 'Anasurimbor.' Only I can understand the peril-"

"Enough!" Achamian shouted. "Can't you see that when you make light of these matters you make light of me? make light of me? When have I ever scoffed at the Tusk? When have I ever mocked the Latter Prophet? When?" When have I ever scoffed at the Tusk? When have I ever mocked the Latter Prophet? When?"

Proyas caught his retort, which had been all the harsher for the truth of what Achamian said.

"Kellhus," he said, "has already been judged."

"Have care, Proyas. Remember King Shikol."

For the Inrithi, the name "Shikol," the Xerashi King who had condemned Inri Sejenus, was synonymous with hatred and tragic presumption. The thought that his own name might someday possess the same poison caused Proyas no small terror.

"Shikol was wrong . . . I am right!"

It all came down to Truth.

"I wonder," Achamian said, "what Shikol would say . . ."

"What?" Proyas exclaimed. "So the great sceptic thinks a new prophet walks among us? Come, Akka . . . It's too absurd!"

These are Conphas's words . . . Another unkind thought. Another unkind thought.

Achamian paused, but whether out of care or hesitation Proyas couldn't tell.

"I'm not sure what he is . . . All I know is that he's too important to die."

Sitting rigid in his bed, Proyas peered against the sun, struggling to see his old teacher. Aside from his outline against the blue pillar, the most he could discern were the five lines of white that streaked the black of his beard. Proyas sighed loudly through his nostrils, looked down to his thumbs.

"I thought much the same not so long ago," he admitted. "I worried that what Conphas and the others said was true, that he was the reason the anger of the God burned against us. But I'd shared too many cups with the man not to . . . not to realize he's more than simply remarkable . . ."

"But then . . ."

From nowhere, it seemed, a great cloud crawled before the sun, and a dim chill fell across the room. For the first time, Proyas could see his old teacher clearly: the haggard face, the forlorn eyes and meditative brow, the blue smock and woollen travel robes, soiled black about the knees . . .

So poor. Why did Achamian always look so poor?

"Then what?" the Schoolman asked, apparently unconcerned with his sudden visibility.

Proyas heaved another sigh, glanced once again at the parchment upon his table. Distant thunder rumbled in on the wind, which whisked through the black cedars below.

"Well," he continued, "first there was the Scylvendi . . . His hatred of Kellhus. I thought to myself, 'How could this man, this man who knows Kellhus better than any other, despise him so?'"

"Serwe," Achamian said. "Kellhus once told me the barbarian loved Serwe."

"Cnaiur said much the same when I first asked him . . . But there was something, something about his manner, that made me think there was more. He's such a fierce and melancholy man. And complicated-very complicated."

"His skin is too thin," Achamian said. "But I suppose it scars well."

A sour smirk was the most Proyas could afford. "There's more to Cnaiur urs Skiotha than you know, Akka. Mark me. In some ways, he's as extraordinary as Kellhus. Be thankful he's our pet, and not the Padirajah's."

"Your point, Proyas?"

The Conriyan Prince frowned. "The point is that I questioned him about Kellhus again, shortly after we found ourselves besieged . . ."

"And?"

"And he told me to go ask Kellhus himself. That was when . . ." He hesitated, groping in vain for some delicate way to continue. More thunder piled through the balcony doorways.

"That was when I found Esmenet in his bed."

Achamian closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, his gaze was steady.

"And your misgivings became genuine doubts . . . I'm touched."

Proyas chose to ignore the sarcasm.

"After that, I no longer dismissed Conphas's arguments out of hand. I mulled things over for a time, at once anguished by all that happened-that happens still!-and terrified that if I sided with Conphas and the others, I would be striking sparks over tinder."

"You feared war between the Orthodox and the Zaudunyani."

"And I fear it still!" Proyas fairly cried. "Though it scarcely seems to matter with the Padirajah waiting with his desert wolves."

How could it all come to this? Such a pass!

"So what decided you?"

"The Scylvendi," Proyas said with a shrug. "Conphas brought forward witnesses who claimed to know a man from the northern caravans, a man who, before he died in the desert, claimed that Atrithau had no princes."

"Hearsay," Achamian said. "Worthless . . . You know that. It was probably a ploy on Conphas's part. Dead men have a habit of telling the most convenient tales."

"Which is what I thought, until the Scylvendi confirmed the story."

Achamian leaned forward, his brow knotted in angry shock. "Confirmed? What do you mean?"

"He called Kellhus a prince of nothing."

The Schoolman sat rigid for a time, his eyes lost in the space between them. He knew the penalties for transgressing caste. All men did. The caste-nobles of the Three Seas cherished their ancestor scrolls for more than spiritual or sentimental reasons.

"He could be lying," Achamian mused. "As a way to regain possession of Serwe, maybe?"

"He could be . . . Given the way he reacted to her execution-"

"Serwe executed!" the sorcerer exclaimed. "How could such a thing happen? Proyas? How could you let let such a thing happen? She was just-" such a thing happen? She was just-"

"Ask Gotian!" Proyas blurted. "Trying them according to the Tusk was his idea-his! He thought it would legitimize the affair, make it seem less like . . . less-"

"Like what it was?" Achamian cried. "A conspiracy of frightened caste-nobles trying to protect their power and privilege?"

"That depends," Proyas replied stiffly, "on whom you ask . . . Either way, we needed to forestall war. And so far-"

"Heaven forfend," Achamian snapped, "that men murder men for faith."

"And heaven forfend that fools perish for their folly. And heaven forfend that mothers miscarry, that children put out their eyes. Heaven forfend that anything horrible happen! I couldn't agree with you more, Akka . . ." He smiled sarcastically. To think he'd almost missed the blasphemous old bastard!

"But back to the point. I did not condemn Kellhus out of hand, old tutor. Many things-many!-compelled me to vote with the others. Prophet or not, Anasurimbor Kellhus is dead."

Achamian had been watching him, his face emptied of expression. "Who said he was a prophet?"

"Enough, Akka, please . . . You just said he was too important to die."

"He is, Proyas! He is! He is! He's our only hope!" He's our only hope!"

Proyas rubbed more sleep from the corner of his eyes. He let go a long, exasperated breath.

"So? The Second Apocalypse, is it? Is Kellhus the second coming of Seswatha?" He shook his head. "Please . . . Please tell-"

"He's more!" the Schoolman cried with alarming passion. "Far more than Seswatha, as he must be . . . The Heron Spear is lost, destroyed when the Scylvendi sacked ancient Cenei. If the Consult were to succeed a second time, if the No-God were to walk again . . ." Achamian stared, his eyes rounded in horror.

"Men would have no hope."

Proyas had endured many of these small rants since his childhood. What made them so uncanny, and at the same time so intolerable, was the way Achamian spoke: as though he recounted rather than conjectured. Just then the morning sun flashed anew between a crease in the accumulating clouds. The thunder, however, continued to rumble across wretched Caraskand.

"Akka . . ."

The Schoolman silenced him with an outstretched hand. "You once asked me, Proyas, whether I had more than Dreams to warrant my fears. Do you remember?"

All too well. It was the same night Achamian had asked him to write to Maithanet.

"I remember, yes."

Without warning, Achamian stood and stepped out onto the balcony. He vanished into the morning glare only to reappear moments afterward, hoisting something dark in his hands.

By some coincidence, the sun vanished the moment Proyas reached out to shield his eyes.

He stared at the soil- and blood-stained bundle. A pungent odour slowly filled the room.

"Look at it!" Achamian commanded, brandishing it. "Look! Then send your quickest riders out to the Great Names!"

Proyas recoiled, clutched at the covers about his knees. Suddenly he realized what it seemed he'd known all along: Achamian wouldn't relent. And of course not: he was a Mandate Schoolman.

Maithanet . . . Most Holy Shriah. Is this what you would have me do?

Certainty in doubt. That was what was holy! That! "Save your warrant for the others," Proyas muttered. With a flourish he kicked free the sheets and strode naked to the nearby table. The floor was cold enough to ache. Shivers chattered across his skin.

He snatched Maithanet's missive, held it out to the scowling sorcerer. "Read it," he murmured. Lightning threaded the sky beyond the ruins of the Citadel of the Dog.

Achamian set down his reeking bundle, grasped the parchment, scanned it. Proyas noticed the black crescents under his fingernails. Instead of looking up in stunned shock as Proyas had expected, the sorcerer frowned and squinted at the sheet. He even held it to what light remained. The room trembled to the crack of thunder.

"Maithanet?" the sorcerer asked, his eyes still riveted to the Shriah's flawless script. Proyas knew the line he pondered. The impossible always left the deepest marks on the soul.

Assist Drusas Achamian, though he is a blasphemer, for in this wickedness, the Holy shall also follow . . .

Achamian set the sheet upon his lap, though he still pinched the corner with his thumb and forefinger. The two men shared a thoughtful gaze . . . Confusion and relief warred in his old teacher's eyes.

"Aside from my sword, my harness, and my ancestors," Proyas said, "that letter is the only thing I brought across the desert. The only thing I saved."

"Call them," Achamian said. "Summon the others to Council." Gone was the golden morning. Rain poured from black skies.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR.

Caraskand

They strike down the weak and call it justice. They ungird their loins and call it reparation. They hark like dogs and call it reason.

-ONTILLAS, ON THE FOLLY OF MEN ON THE FOLLY OF MEN

Late Winter, 4112 Year-of-the-Tusk, Caraskand Rain fell in windswept skirts of grey. It sizzled across the rooftops and the streets. It gurgled through the gutters, rinsing away flakes of dried blood. It pattered against the still-skinned skulls of the dead. It both kissed the uppermost twigs of ancient Umiaki and plummeted through his darkest hollows. A million beads of water. Converging at the forks between branches, twining into strings, threading the darkness with lines of glittering white. Soon rivulets spiralled down the hemp rope and dropped like marbles along the bronze ring, whence they branched across skin, both living and dead.

Across the Kalaul, thousands ran for cover, shielding themselves with wool cloaks and mantles. Others wailed, held out their hands, beseeching, wondering what the rains omened. The lightning blinded them. The waters bit their cheeks. And the thunder muttered secrets they could not fathom.

They held out their hands, beseeching.