The Great Ordeal (Aspect-Emperor #3)(181)

“The truth of man, I had reasoned … lies in his origins.”

She has difficulty focussing upon Cnaiür, despite his seething presence. The wane image of his consort leans hard against her periphery, like menace painted in oils. Serw?, her sister’s namesake, even more beautiful than legend, like the girl-child of some God …

“What I told you that final night was not truth enough?”

“No,” Achamian said. “It was not.”

The King-of-Tribes spits gristle into the flames.

“Did you doubt my honesty or my sanity?”

Mimara’s breath catches on the question.

“Neither,” the old Wizard says, shrugging. “Only your vantage …”

The King-of-Tribes grins, still staring into nothing. “My sanity, then.”

“No,” the old Wizard protests. “I—”

“Only the World makes Men mad,” Cnaiür snaps. At last the brutal visage turns, and the white-blue eyes fix Achamian. “You sought Ishu?l to settle the matter of my madness.”

The old Wizard stares down to his thumbs.

“Tell me, then,” Cnaiür continues on a growl. “Am I mad?”

“No …” Mimara hears herself say aloud.

The white-eyes seize as much as regard her.

“Anas?rimbor Kellhus is wicked,” she says lamely.

We are tired, little one. That is all …

Achamian turns to her with the downward manner of those beleaguered by old furies, speaks as though reprimanding her soiled knee. “And if he turns out to be the Saviour?”

“He won’t,” she retorts, her voice revealing more pity than she would have liked.

“And how could you know this?”

“Because I have the Eye!”

“And it told you the D?nyain were evil, not Kellhus!”

“Enough!” the Scylvendi King-of-Tribes barks. Men who grow old in the dungeon of their hearts, she has noticed, often grind their voices into faraway thunder. Cnaiür has whetted his into one that claps the ears.

“What is this Eye?”

The question inhales all the air remaining. The old Wizard warns her to silence with one final scowl, turns back to Cnaiür, who has not finished ransacking her with his shining gaze.

“She has what is called the Judging Eye,” he begins, parsing his words too carefully to sound anything but disingenuous. “Very litt—”

“The God of Gods,” she interrupts. “The God-of-Gods looks through my eyes.”

Cnaiür urs Ski?tha almost seems a thing of stone, his scrutiny is so motionless.

“Prophecy?”

“No …” she replies on a swallow, realizing that this was the masculine question. She draws an even breath to calm her demeanour. “Judgment. I see … judgment.”

The thing-called-Serw? does not so much as blink.

The King-of-Tribes nods. “You see the facts of damnation, then.”

“This is why we hasten to Golgotterath,” Achamian says in a clumsy attempt to intercede. “So that Mimara may gaze upon Kellhus with the Eye … So that we mi—!”

“The Eye,” Cnaiür grates. “It has apprehended me?”

She dares match his gaze. “Yes.”

The great man lowers his face as though to ponder her words and a hang-nail together. A shudder passes through his shoulders. “Tell me, Daughter-of-Esmenet. What did it see?”

She glances at Achamian … He is begging her to “lick feet”—to lie. The vacancy in his expression shouts as much.

“Tell me,” Cnaiür repeats, raising his fluted face.

She tries to match the glacial intensity of his gaze. Turquoise set in sclera shot with murderous memory. Something pricks, and though the very God of the Gods steeps her, her look falters, falls to her hands where they strain finger against finger on her lap.

“I have never seen …” she murmurs.

“What?” A voice like a father’s swat.

“I-I have never seen one-one … so … so damned …”

The black-maned head lowers in contemplation once again, like a stone sagging upon a stalk of clay. Mimara isn’t sure what her words should have provoked. The man is too mercurial and far too canny for her to trust any assumption. But she expected some kind of reaction—for when all was said and done, he remains a mortal man—a soul. He might as well have been a Sempis crocodile.

She looks to Achamian, who spares her no more than a resigned and be-seeching glance. If they survive, a petulant part of her notes, she will never hear the end of this night. He will curse her for her honesty, she knows. And who could blame him?

The thing-called-Serw? has been watching her this entire time on a tangent to the flames, a vision that lulls as much as warns for its beauty.

“Seeeee …” it coos to its Scylvendi lover. “Salvation … This is the dowry that only my father can off—”

“Stop your tongue, abomination!” Achamian cries.

But the King-of-Tribes looks to Mimara alone.

“And when you looked upon Ishu?l with the Eye, what did you see?”

Inhaling hurts.

“Crimes. Unthinkable and innumerable.”

A longing creeps into the brutal visage. A desire to burn … He even turns his gaze back to the fire, as though he casts images behind his eyes to the flame. His voice surprises her, so intent is he upon the wax and shimmer of the fire.