The Great Ordeal (Aspect-Emperor #3)(10)
Young Kelmomas, meanwhile, observes his mother’s struggles in the Imperial Synod. A messenger arrives bearing dire tidings from Shigek: news that Fanayal has invaded the Sempis River valley, and has already overthrown the walls of Iothiah. Shaken, Esmenet dissolves the Synod and takes Kelmomas to her apartments, where she reveals the entrance to the network of secret passages that riddle the whole of the Andiamine Heights. Their palace has hollow bones. In the event of any crisis, she tells him, he is to await her in these tunnels.
The following day Kelmomas overhears his mother asking Theliopa about Maithanet. Esmenet has come to distrust her brother-in-law, and wants to know how she could possibly sound his true intentions. Theliopa is unsure, but she knows that aside from their father the only soul who could do such a thing is Inrilatas, Kelmomas’s mad brother. Of all the Imperial siblings, none possesses more of Father’s strength than Inrilatas, or less ability to manage it. For years now he has been imprisoned in his room at the summit of the Andiamine Heights.
Esmenet decides to use him to test the loyalty of her husband’s brother, the Holy Shriah of the Thousand Temples. Kelmomas decides to talk to Inrilatas first. At first he tries to convince the chained adolescent that he must kill their Uncle, but Inrilatas can see through him. He can even see the soul of Samarmas within him, whispering warnings! Kelmomas retreats in dismay, but not without leaving a small file behind him …
Malowebi, meanwhile, tours the savaged streets of Iothiah with Fanayal, as repulsed by the brutality of the Fanim as he is amazed the great and ancient city was taken at all. He is impressed: by Fanayal’s martial instincts and acumen, by the ferocity of his warriors, and by the awesome power of Meppa, the Last Cishaurim. But it is the weakness of the New Empire that impresses him most of all. The Aspect-Emperor, he realizes, has left it all but defenceless.
Esmenet visits Inrilatas, asks him if he would sound the truth of his uncle’s heart. Though she is usually immune to his wiles, he manages to slip past her defences, speak truths that make her heart roil. But he agrees to do what she wishes, to question Maithanet, but only so long as Kelmomas alone is in attendance.
In Iothiah, Malowebi watches as Fanayal reviews the captives and apportions them among his Grandees. Psatma Nannaferi, the Mother-Supreme of the Yatwerian Cult, is dragged before the Bandit Padirajah. Her youthful beauty transfixes all present, yet she speaks and carries herself as an old crone. Where other captives had wept and begged, she stands tall and laughs, declaring that all of Fanayal’s accomplishments are due to the Dread Mother of Birth. Meppa intercedes, and in the course of their exchange Malowebi realizes that Yatwer indeed inhabits her, that the Hundred Gods truly ruled these events. The Fanim are no more than puppets, Nannaferi declares, props to prepare the way for the White-Luck Warrior.
Witless to the peril, beguiled by her beauty, Fanayal takes her as his own portion.
Kelmomas begins exploring the shadow palace that lies in the bones of the Andiamine Heights. Esmenet, meanwhile, enters into negotiations with Maithanet possessing a greater confidence in her own abilities. She insists that he submit to Inrilatas’s questioning as a condition of their future cooperation. When Maithanet asks her how she came by her suspicions, she merely replies, “Because you are D?nyain.” Maithanet agrees to the interrogation, but reminds her, as Theliopa already has, that the boy’s madness renders any determination he might make moot.
As per Inrilatas’s instructions, Maithanet and Kelmomas alone enter his chamber. Maithanet surprises the two brothers by jamming the door behind them, locking all three of them together. The mad adolescent immediately begins by asking the Holy Shriah whether he intends to murder their mother. Maithanet denies this, repeatedly, but Inrilatas’s questions morph, begin turning on ever more subtle observations. “Uncle Holy”, as the Imperial siblings refer to him, admits that he has always been concerned by the way their father has, over the years, allowed his concern for Esmenet to compromise the Shortest Path …
The way Kellhus has allowed love to cloud the Thousandfold Thought.
Maithanet is unimpressed, pointing out that whatever Inrilatas can see, his father has already seen. He declares the interrogation yet another example of Esmenet’s failing reason. “Mother?” Inrilatas asks, surprising both his brother and uncle. “You think Mother arranged this?”
Kelmomas stands horrified as Inrilatas reveals his crimes to their uncle, how he first murdered Samarmas and then Sharacinth. Why would his brother betray him this way? Maithanet, genuinely surprised, turns to the eight-year-old, demanding to know what he has done. This is when Inrilatas strikes, whipping his chains about his uncle’s throat, strangling him. But Maithanet employs a blade concealed upon his elbow to stab the adolescent, killing him.
The door is battered down, and Esmenet enters to find her son dead. Kelmomas accuses Maithanet of murdering Inrilatas after he revealed his intent to usurp her. Uncle Holy storms from the palace, which has been thrown into uproar.
Later that night, Esmenet calls Lord Sankas to her chambers, asks him to contract an assassin.
So she finds herself stealing through the streets of Momemn in disguise several days following. Imhailas, Exalt-Captain of the Eothic Guard, leads her to a derelict tenement in a district not unlike the one she had lived in during her days as a prostitute. She meets with the Narindar alone in his room to spare any of her servants the threat of damnation, not knowing that the assassin Sankas had contracted in truth lies murdered underneath the bed—not knowing that she parlays with the White-Luck Warrior.