The Great Ordeal (Aspect-Emperor #3)(105)
“Why?” he spat at Saubon without looking.
The man’s face turned in his high periphery.
“Because I am a mighty warrior.”
“No! Why you—you!—over me?”
Mere weeks ago the possibility of bickering like this would have been unthinkable. But somehow, somewhere, a twist had complicated the line of what had been thoughtless and unquestioned.
The Meat had climbed into all things.
“Because,” his fellow Exalt-General grated, “Men are reckless with things they hate.”
“And what, pray-tell, is it I hate, brother?”
A grinning sneer.
“Living.”
“Luxury blots it!” the Holy Aspect-Emperor cried from on high, his voice parsing across the thundering tracts, at once booming and cooing.
“Comforts conceal!”
Pinpoint lights shone across whatever polish yet existed in the arms and armour of the Ordealmen. The shouting warbled and faltered, then trailed into miraculous silence. The Southron Men gaped in astonishment, for their Holy Aspect-Emperor both exhorted them from above, and regarded them from each and every mirrored surface, as though he in fact stood everywhere, hidden at right angles to what could be seen. Be it the dimpled plane of the shield covering the back of the man before them, a helm’s mercurial sheen, or a sword’s shaking length, there it was, apprehending each, their beloved Warrior-Prophet’s bearded face, a thousand thousand aspects, exclaiming …
“GIFTS ONLY DECEIVE!”
The Host of Hosts erupted.
“You think I seek death?” Proyas cried to Saubon.
“I think you seek excuses to die.”
These words fairly winded the Believer-King of Conriya.
“And why would that be?”
“Because you are weak.”
“Weak, is it? And you are strong?”
“Stronger. Yes.”
They fairly faced each other now, enough to draw the attention of their fellow Believer-Kings. “And why is that?”
“Because I never needed to believe in him to serve him …” A Galeoth snort, the one that so marked him as a barbarian in high company. “Because I’ve been throwing the number-sticks all along!”
And with that, all fight slipped from Proyas—as did any other species of will. He turned from the tall Norsirai. A numb detachment tugged his gaze from point to point across the mob, face to rapturous face, some vicious, others pained—their teeth bared in the manner of the Saved. The light of their Prophet’s face gleamed blue across beards and wet-cheeks. Many wept, while others ranted, bellowed declarations, their brows scored with the common hatred that was the wage of their devotion.
“You are one with the God only when you suffer!” the voice from over their shoulders cried.
Proyas glimpsed the numberless chips of luminous blue—the reflection of Anas?rimbor Kellhus in their eyes. Man after man, rank after rank, formation after formation, the same shining blue dots …
Fading as the false reflections faded before them.
“WHEN! YOU! SACRIFICE!”
Booming waves of adulation.
“You could never understand!” Saubon cried in his ear.
“Understand what?”
So much of the issue between Men turns on who is weary and who is in need.
“Why he made me your equal!”
There was honesty in this, enough to seize his attention entire.
Saubon wagged his hand in a contemptuous gesture, at once indicating and dismissing the crazed spectacle about them. “All this time you thought he warred to bring about Righteousness! Only now do you see how wrong you were.” The Norsirai Exalt-General spat, darkening an archipelago of timber between Proyas’s booted feet. “Piety? Zeal? Bah! These are simply his tools!”
Incredulity, too raw to be hooded. “Tools for wha …?”
Proyas trailed, his voice caught out high and angry against a sudden silence. He looked up, his eyes drawn by the peripheral presentiment that all the World did the same. The breath was yanked from his breast …
“You despair,” Saubon grated in his ear, “because like a child you thought that Truth alone could save the World …”
For in fact, he alone looked up.
“But it is strength that saves, Brother, not Truth …”
He alone could see their Lord-and-Prophet hanging above them.
“And strength burns brightest upon Lies!”
To a man the Ordealmen had been captured by the blue-and-golden images shimmering from all but the most meagre polish, the tackiest gloss about them. Their Holy Aspect-Emperor hung in plain sight and yet unseen, head thrown back, the light of meaning pulsing from his mouth, singing words that no soul could comprehend …
And yet they heard, “THIS, YOUR SACRIFICE—YOUR OR-DEAL!”
They leapt in rapture, cowered in worship.
Every reflection glimpsed exhorted, boomed, “THE GOD KNOWS YOUR MEASURE!”
The Men of the Three Seas screamed, jubilant, deranged.
The Meat … Proyas thought, too cold to betray his gagging horror.
The Meat had taken Anas?rimbor Kellhus.
They wheezed in the dark, misbegotten lungs drawing foul, misbegotten air. Hulking, lurid thoughts heaved in their hulking, tripartite skulls. Lice teemed. They peered and peered through glutinous eyes, but saw nothing save the dark. They bristled, clacked teeth, barked warnings in their crude tongue. Like old dogs nursing old pains, they periodically snapped and roared, clawed the blackness of innumerable others …