Read The Warrior Prophet Online
Authors: R. Scott Bakker
The Warrior Prophet (48 page)
But what was this other than greed or jealousy? The Second Apocalypse was imminent. Hadn’t the time come to arm all the Three Seas? Hadn’t Seswatha himself bid them share their arsenal before the shadow fell?
He had …
And wouldn’t this make Achamian the most faithful of all Mandate Schoolmen?
He resumed walking, as though in a stupor.
In his bones he
knew
that Kellhus had been sent. The peril was too great, and the promise too breathtaking. He’d watched as Kellhus consumed a lifetime of knowledge in the space of months. He’d listened, breathless, as Kellhus voiced truths of thought more subtle than Ajencis, and truths of passion more profound than Sejenus. He’d sat in the dust gaping as the man extended the geometries of Muretetis beyond the limits of comprehension, as he
corrected
the ancient logic then drafted
new
logics the way a child might scribble spirals with a stick.
knew
that Kellhus had been sent. The peril was too great, and the promise too breathtaking. He’d watched as Kellhus consumed a lifetime of knowledge in the space of months. He’d listened, breathless, as Kellhus voiced truths of thought more subtle than Ajencis, and truths of passion more profound than Sejenus. He’d sat in the dust gaping as the man extended the geometries of Muretetis beyond the limits of comprehension, as he
corrected
the ancient logic then drafted
new
logics the way a child might scribble spirals with a stick.
What would the Gnosis be to such a man? A plaything? What would he discover? What power would he wield?
Glimpses of Kellhus, striding as a god across fields of war, laying low host of Sranc, striking dragons from the sky, closing with the resurrected No-God, with dread Mog-Pharau …
He’s our saviour! I know it!
But what if Esmenet were right? What if Achamian were merely the test? Like old, evil Shikol in
The Tractate,
offering Inri Sejenus his thighbone sceptre, his army, his harem, everything save his crown, to stop preaching …
The Tractate,
offering Inri Sejenus his thighbone sceptre, his army, his harem, everything save his crown, to stop preaching …
Achamian halted once again, was bumped forward two steps by his mule, Daybreak. Stroking his snout, he smiled in the lonely way of men with hapless animals. A breeze swept across the shining reaches of the Sempis, hissed through the trees. He began trembling.
Prophet and sorcerer. The Tusk called such men Shaman. The word lay like a ziggurat in his thoughts, immovable.
Shaman.
No … This is madness!
For two thousand years Mandate Schoolmen had kept the Gnosis safe. Two thousand years! Who was he to forsake such tradition?
Nearby, a crowd of young children was gathered beneath the sweep of a sycamore, chirping and jostling like sparrows over spilled bread. And Achamian saw two young boys, no more than four or five, making arm-waving declarations each with a hand firmly clasped in the hand of the other. The innocence of the act struck him, and he found himself wondering how old they would be when they saw the error of holding hands.
Or would they discover Kellhus?
A whining sound drew his eyes upward. He nearly cried out in shock.
A naked corpse had been nailed to the rafters of the tree above, purple and marbled with black-green. After the surprise passed he thought of kicking or cutting the man down, but then where would he carry him? To some nearby village? The Shigeki were so terrified of the Inrithi he’d be surprised if they looked at him, let alone touched him.
A pang of remorse struck him, and inexplicably, he thought of Esmenet.
Be safe.
Leading Daybreak, Achamian continued past the children, through the sun-dappled shade and toward Iothiah, the ancient capital of the Shigeki God-Kings, whose walls wandered across the distance, belts of faint stone glimpsed through dark eucalyptus limbs. Achamian walked, and wrestled with impossibilities …
The past was dead. The future, as black as a waiting grave.
Achamian wiped his tears on his shoulder. Something unimaginable was about to happen, something historians, philosophers, and theologians would argue for thousands of years—if years or anything else survived. And the acts of Drusas Achamian would loom so very large.
He would simply give. Without expectation.
His School. His calling. His life …
The Gnosis would be his sacrifice.
Behind her mighty curtain walls, Iothiah was a warren of four-storey mud-brick buildings welded continuously together. The alleyways were narrow, screened from above by palm-leaf awnings, so that Achamian felt as though he walked through desert tunnels. He avoided the Kerothotics: he didn’t like the look of triumph in their eyes. But when he encountered armed Men of the Tusk he would ask them for directions, and then pick his way through a further welter of alleys. The fact that most of the Inrithi he encountered were Ainoni concerned him. And once or twice, when the walls opened enough for him to spy the monuments of the city, he thought he could sense the deep bruise of the Scarlet Spires somewhere in the distance.
But then he encountered a troop of Norsirai horsemen—Galeoth, they said—and he was somewhat relieved. Yes, they knew how to find the Sareotic Library. Yes, the Library was in Galeoth hands. Achamian lied as he always lied, and told them that he was a scholar, come to chronicle the exploits of the Holy War. As always, their eyes brightened at the thought of finding some small mention in the annals of written history. They instructed him to follow as best he could, claiming they would pass the Library on their way to wherever it was they were stationed.
Noon saw him in the shadow of the Library, more apprehensive than ever.
If rumours of the existence of Gnostic texts had reached him, wouldn’t they also have reached the Scarlet Spires? The thought of jostling for scrolls with the red-robed Schoolmen filled him with more than a little dread.
“What do you think?” he asked Daybreak, who snorted and nosed his palm.
The idea that Gnostic texts might have lain hidden here all this time wasn’t as preposterous as it seemed. The Library was as old as the Thousand Temples, built and maintained by the Sareots, an esoteric College of priests dedicated to the preservation of knowledge. There was a time, during the Ceneian Empire, when it was law in Iothiah for all those entering the city in possession of a book to surrender it to the Sareots so that it might be copied. The problem, however, was that the Sareotic College was a religious institution, and as such, it necessarily forbade any of the Few from entering the famed Library.
When, many centuries later, the Sareots were massacred by the Fanim in the fall of Shigek, it was rumoured that the Padirajah himself had entered the Library. From his vest, the legend went, he pulled a slender, leather-bound copy of the
kipfa’aifan,
the
Witness of Fane,
bent to the shape of his breast. Holding it high in the airy gloom, he declared, “
Here
lies all written truth. Here lies the one path for all souls. Burn this wicked place.” At that instant, it was said, a single scroll spilled from the racks and came rolling to his booted feet. When the Padirajah opened it he found a detailed map of all Gedea, which he later used to crush the Nansur in a number of desperate battles.
kipfa’aifan,
the
Witness of Fane,
bent to the shape of his breast. Holding it high in the airy gloom, he declared, “
Here
lies all written truth. Here lies the one path for all souls. Burn this wicked place.” At that instant, it was said, a single scroll spilled from the racks and came rolling to his booted feet. When the Padirajah opened it he found a detailed map of all Gedea, which he later used to crush the Nansur in a number of desperate battles.
The Library was spared, but if it was closed to Schoolmen under the Sareots, it might well have ceased to exist under the Kianene.
There very well could be Gnostic texts in this Library, Achamian knew. They’d been discovered before. If there were any reason, aside from their dreams of the Old Wars, why the sorcerers of the Mandate were the most scholarly of the Schoolmen, it was their jealousy of the Gnosis. The Gnosis gave them a power far out of proportion to the size of their School. If a School like the Scarlet Spires were to come into its possession—who could say what might happen? Things wouldn’t fare well with the Mandate, that much was certain.
But then, all that was about to change—now that an Anasûrimbor had returned.
Achamian led his mule into the middle of a small walled courtyard. The cobble had long ago been ground into red dust, save for the odd stones surfacing here and there like turtle shells. The Library itself presented the square front of a Ceneian temple, with columns soaring to brace a crumbling lintel pocked by figures that may have once been gods or men. Two large Galeoth swordsmen reclined in the shade against the two pillars flanking the entrance. They acknowledged him with bored stares as he approached.
“Greetings,” he called, hoping they spoke Sheyic. “I am Drusas Istaphas, chronicler to Prince Nersei Proyas of Conriya.”
When they failed to reply, he paused. Achamian found himself particularly unnerved by the one with a scar that dimpled his face from his hairline to his chin. These didn’t seem like friendly men. But then, what cheer would a warrior find guarding something as useless as books?
Achamian cleared his throat. “Have there been many other visitors to the Library?”
“No,” the scarless man replied, shrugging his shoulders beneath his hauberk. “Just a few thieving merchants, is all.” The man spat something across the dust, and Achamian realized he’d been sucking on a peach pit.
“Well I can assure you I’m not of that caste. Assuredly not …” Then, with a mixture of curiosity and deference: “Do I have your leave to enter?”
The man nodded to his mule. “Can’t bring that thing,” he said. “Can’t have a donkey shitting in our hallowed halls now can we?” He smirked, and turned to his scarred friend, who continued to stare at Achamian. He looked like a bored boy deciding whether to poke a dead fish.
After gathering several things from his mule, Achamian rushed up the steps past the two guards. The great doors were gilded in tarnished bronze, and one of them lay ajar enough to admit a single man. As Achamian ducked into the gloom he heard one of the Galeoth—the scarred one, he thought—mutter “Filthy pick.”
But the old Norsirai slur didn’t bother him. Rather, he was
excited
. A sudden urge to cackle almost overcame him. Only now, it seemed, did the fact that this was the
Sareotic Library
fully strike him. The damned Sareots, hoarding text after text for over a thousand years. What might he find? Absolutely anything, and not just Gnostic works, might lie hidden within.
The Nine Classics,
the early
Dialogues of Inceruti
—even the lost works of Ajencis!
excited
. A sudden urge to cackle almost overcame him. Only now, it seemed, did the fact that this was the
Sareotic Library
fully strike him. The damned Sareots, hoarding text after text for over a thousand years. What might he find? Absolutely anything, and not just Gnostic works, might lie hidden within.
The Nine Classics,
the early
Dialogues of Inceruti
—even the lost works of Ajencis!
He passed through the darkness of a great vaulted antechamber, across a mosaic floor that once, he decided, had portrayed Inri Sejenus holding out haloed hands—at least before the Fanim, who’d obviously never used this place, had defaced it. He retrieved a candle from his saddlebag and ignited it with a secretive word. Holding the small point of light before him, he plunged into the hallowed halls of the Library.
The Sareotic Library was a warren of pitch-black hallways that smelled of dust and the ghost of rotting books. Englobed by light, Achamian wandered through the blackness and filled his arms with treasures. Never had he seen such a collection. Never had he witnessed so many ruined thoughts.
Out of the thousands of volumes, and thousands upon thousands of scrolls, Achamian would be surprised if more than several hundred could be salvaged. He found nothing that even hinted at the Gnosis, but he did, nevertheless, find several things of peculiar interest.
He found one book by Ajencis he’d never seen before, but it was written in Vaparsi, an ancient Nilnameshi language he knew well enough only to decipher the title:
The Fourth Dialogue of the Movements of the Planets as They Pertain to
… something or another. But the fact that this was a dialogue meant that it was exceedingly important. Very few of the great Kyranean philosopher’s dialogues survived.
The Fourth Dialogue of the Movements of the Planets as They Pertain to
… something or another. But the fact that this was a dialogue meant that it was exceedingly important. Very few of the great Kyranean philosopher’s dialogues survived.
He found a heap of clay tablets written in the cuneiform script of ancient Shigek and draped by cobwebs woollen with dust. He retrieved one that seemed in good shape and decided he would try to smuggle it out, even though it might be a granary inventory for all he knew. It would make a good gift, he thought, for Xinemus.
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