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Authors: R. Scott Bakker

The Warrior Prophet (108 page)

BOOK: The Warrior Prophet
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And then, for the first time, he heard the
question
—even though it was not spoken.
An uncanny silence fell across the Werigda, and Aëngelas understood that all of them had heard the impossible voice … The question had resounded through the souls of all his suffering people.
Then he saw …
it
. An abomination walking through dawn twilight.
It was half-again taller than a man, with long, folded wings curved like scythes over its powerful frame. Save where it was mottled by black, cancerous spots, its skin was translucent, and sheathed about a great flared skull shaped like an oyster set on edge. And within the gaping jaws of that skull was fused
another,
more manlike, so that an almost human face grinned from its watery features.
The Sranc howled with rapture as it passed, and jerked at their groups as they fell to their knees. The mounted Nonmen lowered their shining scalps. It studied the rows of hapless humans, and then its great black eyes fell upon Aëngelas. Valrissa sobbed, a mere length away.
You … We sense the old fire in you, manling …
“I am Werigda!” Aëngelas roared.
Do you know what we are?
“The Great Ruiner,” Aëngelas gasped.
Noooo,
it cooed, as though his mistake had aroused a delicious shiver.
We are not He … We are His servant. Save my Brother, we are the last of those who descended from the void
…
“The Great Ruiner!” Aëngelas cried.
The abomination had walked ever closer throughout this exchange, until it loomed over his wife and child. Valrissa clutched Bengulla to her bosom, held out a tragic warding hand against the hoary figure.
Will you tell us, manling? Tell us what we need to know?
“But I don’t know!” Aëngelas cried. “I know nothing of what you ask!”
Effortlessly, the Xurjranc snapped Valrissa’s tether, and hoisted her before him, held her as though she were a doll. Bengulla shrieked,
“Mama! Mama!”
Once again the question thundered through Aëngelas’s soul. He wept, tore at the turf.
“I don’t know! I don’t know!”
Beneath the monstrosity’s claws, Valrissa went very still, like a calf caught in the jaws of a wolf. Her terrified eyes turned from Aëngelas, and rolled upwards beneath their lids, as though trying to peer at the figure behind her.
“Valrissa!” Aëngelas screamed.
“Valrissssaa!”
Holding her by the throat, the thing languorously picked her clothing away, like the skin of a rotten peach. As her breasts fell free, round-white with soft-pink nipples, a sheet of sunlight flickered across the horizon, and illuminated her lithe curves … But the hunger that held her from behind remained shadowy—like glistening smoke.
Animal violence overcame Aëngelas, and he strained at his leash, gagged inarticulate fury.
And a husky voice in his soul said:
We are a race of lovers, manling …
“Beaaassee!” Aëngelas wept. “I don’t knoooowww …”
The thing’s free hand traced a thread of blood between her bosom across the plane of her shuddering belly. Valrissa’s eyes returned to Aëngelas, thick with something impossible. She moaned and parted her hanging legs to greet the abomination’s hand.
A race of lovers …
“I
don’t know!
I don’t! I don’t! Beaase stop!
Beaasse!
”
The thing screeched like a thousand falcons as it plunged into her. Glass thunder. Shivering sky. She bent back her head, her face contorted in pain and bliss. She convulsed and groaned, arched to meet the creature’s thrusts. And when she climaxed, Aëngelas crumpled, grasped his head between his hands, beat his face against the turf.
The cold felt good against his broken lips.
With an inhuman, dragon gasp, the thing pressed its bruised phallus up across her stomach and washed her sunlit breasts with pungent, black seed. Another thunderous screech, woven by the thin human wail of a woman.
And again it asked the question.
I don’t know …
These things make you weak,
it said, tossing her like a sack to cold grasses. With a look, it gave her to the Sranc—to their licentious fury. Once again, it asked the question.
The abomination then gave his weeping son—sweet, innocent Bengulla—to the Sranc, and once again asked the question.
I don’t know what you mean …
And when the Sranc made a womb of Aëngelas himself, it asked—with each raper’s thrust, it asked …
Until the gagging shrieks of his wife and child became the question. Until his own deranged howls became the question …
His wife and child were dead. Sacks of penetrated flesh with faces that he loved, and still … they did things.
Always, the same mad, incomprehensible question.
Who are the Dûnyain?
 
 
Appendices
 
Character and Faction Glossary
603
Map of Eärwa
608
Map of the Western Three Seas
610
Character and Faction Glossary
 
Characters
 
Drusas Achamian,
a forty-seven-year-old Mandate sorcerer
Coithus Athjeäri,
Saubon’s nephew
Bannut,
Cnaiür’s uncle
Nersei Calmemunis,
Proyas’s cousin and Conriyan leader of the Vulgar Holy War
Cememketri,
Grandmaster of the Imperial Saik
Chepheramunni,
King-Regent of High Ainon and leader of the Ainoni contingent
Cnaiür,
a forty-four-year-old Scylvendi barbarian, Chieftain of the Utemot
Ikurei Conphas,
Exalt-General of Nansur and nephew to the Emperor
Eleäzaras,
Grandmaster of the Scarlet Spires
Esmenet,
a thirty-one-year-old Sumni prostitute
Geshrunni,
slave-soldier and momentary Mandate spy
Hoga Gothyelk,
the Earl of Agansanor and leader of the Tydonni contingent
Incheiri Gotian,
Grandmaster of the Shrial Knights
Paro Inrau,
Shrial Priest and former student of Achamian
Ikurei Istriya,
Empress of Nansur and mother of the Emperor
Iyokus,
Eleäzaras’s Master of Spies
Kascamandri,
Padirajah of Kian
Anasûrimbor Kellhus,
a thirty-three-year-old Dûnyain monk
Kussalt,
Saubon’s groom
Maithanet,
Shriah of the Thousand Temples
Mallahet,
powerful member of the Cishaurim
Martemus,
General and Aide-de-Camp to Conphas
Anasûrimbor Moënghus,
Kellhus’s father
Nautzera,
senior member of the Mandate Quorum
Nersei Proyas,
Prince of Conriya and former student of Achamian
Cutias Sarcellus,
First Knight-Commander of the Shrial Knights
Coithus Saubon,
Prince of Galeoth and leader of the Galeoth contingent
Seökti,
Heresiarch of the Cishaurim
Serwë,
a nineteen-year-old Nymbricani concubine
Seswatha,
survivor of the Old Wars and ancient founder of the Mandate
Simas,
member of the Quorum and Achamian’s former teacher
Skaiyelt,
Prince of Thunyerus and leader of the Thunyeri contingent
Skalateas,
mercenary sorcerer
Skauras,
Kianene Sapatishah-Governor of Shigek
Skeaös,
the Emperor’s Prime Counsel
Skiötha,
Cnaiür’s deceased father
Ikurei Xerius III,
Emperor of Nansur
Krijates Xinemus,
Achamian’s friend and Marshal of Attrempus
Xunnurit,
Scylvendi King-of-Tribes at the Battle of Kiyuth
Yalgrota,
Skaiyelt’s giant bondsman
Yursalka,
Utemot tribesman
 
Factions
 
The Dûnyain:
A hidden monastic sect whose members have repudiated history and animal appetite in the hope of finding absolute enlightenment through the control of all desire and circumstance. For two thousand years they have bred their members for both motor reflexes and intellectual acuity.
The Consult:
A cabal of magi and generals that survived the death of the No-God in 2155 and has laboured ever since to bring about his return in the so-called Second Apocalypse. Very few in the Three Seas believe the Consult still exists.
The Scylvendi:
The ancient nomadic peoples of the Jiünati Steppe. They are both feared and admired for their prowess in war.
 
Schools
 
A collective name given to the various academies of sorcerers. The first Schools, both in the Ancient North and in the Three Seas, arose as a response to the Tusk’s condemnation of sorcery. The Schools are among the oldest institutions in the Three Seas, and they survive, by and large, because of the terror they inspire and their detachment from the secular and religious powers of the Three Seas.
The Mandate:
Gnostic School founded by Seswatha in 2156 to continue the war against the Consult and to protect the Three Seas from the return of the No-God, Mog-Pharau.
The Scarlet Spires:
Anagogic School that is the most powerful in the Three Seas and has been de facto ruler of High Ainon since 3818.
The Imperial Saik:
Anagogic School indentured to the Emperor of Nansur.
The Mysunsai:
Self-proclaimed mercenary School that sells its sorcerous services across the Three Seas.
 
Inrithi Factions
 
Synthesizing monotheistic and polytheistic elements, Inrithism, the dominant faith of the Three Seas, is founded on the revelations of Inri Sejenus (c. 2159-2202), the Latter Prophet. The central tenets of Inrithism deal with the immanence of the God in historical events, the unity of the individual deities of the Cults as Aspects of the God as revealed by the Latter Prophet, and the infallibility of the Tusk as scripture.
The Thousand Temples:
An institution that provides the ecclesiastical framework of Inrithism. Though based in Sumna, the Thousand Temples is omnipresent throughout the Northwestern and Eastern Three Seas.
BOOK: The Warrior Prophet
8.62Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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