The Great Ordeal (Aspect-Emperor #3)(7)
This is how she learns the astonishing truth of his identity. Cleric is none other than Nil’giccas, the last of the Nonman Kings.
She dares tell Achamian as much. Taking advantage of darkness and preoccupation, she crawls to a point behind where the old Wizard lays trussed and gagged. She tells him of the child—his child—in her womb. She tells him of her love … her hope.
The Captain discovers her, whips her with his belt before the leering others. But in doing so, he simply reminds her who she has always been: someone who cannot be broken for violence alone, someone who always has “one sip remaining.” The following morning, the Judging Eye opens, reveals the degrees of damnation awaiting each of her captors—none more than the Captain. And she understands that the tragedy of their circumstance dwarfs her own.
Though her silence gulls the scalpers into thinking her broken, their eventual arrival at the Library of Sauglish finds her strong, resolved in a manner she had never known.
Fearing treachery, the Captain bids Cleric accompany Achamian to the Library alone while he and the others hang back, holding Mimara as surety. As much as the prospect of leaving Mimara behind terrifies the old Wizard, he cannot but see the arrangement as a profound opportunity, given what Mimara has told him of Cleric. Seswatha was an ancient friend of Nil’giccas, the King of Ishterebinth: perhaps he can use his knowledge of the ancient Sohonc Grandmaster to prise the Erratic from the Captain’s homicidal influence. So they depart, and Mimara finds herself stranded with the last four surviving Skin Eaters aside from Lord Kosoter—Sarl, Pokwas, Xonghis, and Galian—as well as the sole surviving member of the Stone Hags, Koll.
Achamian plies the Nonman as they pick their way through the wooded ruins of Sauglish, bidding him time and again to recall who he really is: Nil’giccas, the Last Nonman King, anything but Cleric, the slave he has become. Too late does he realize his mistake: tragedy and farce, atrocity and slaughter: only these can make an Erratic remember. By declaring Seswatha’s ancient love in Seswatha’s own voice, Achamian has simply whetted the ageless Nonman’s appetite for loss. When they at last reach the ruined Library, they find the entrance to the legendary treasury of the Sohonc destroyed. If the surrounding blight were not sign enough, the smell and the spoor are unmistakable: Wracu …
A Dragon has made a den of the Coffers.
Mimara remains with the Captain in the camp, watching apprehensively as Galian, emboldened by Cleric’s absence, begins baiting his legendary leader. The surviving scalpers, it seems, have been plotting mutiny for some time, biding their time, waiting for this very opportunity. Horrified, she watches them cut down Lord Kosoter, a man she had thought immortal for sheer ferocity. The last of the Skin Eaters turn to her …
Cleric and the old Wizard, meanwhile, dare enter the ruined maw of the Coffers, where they find Wutte?t, the famed Father of Dragons, coiled about a great heap of Far Antique treasure. Achamian attempts to bargain with the Wracu, offering to exchange Truth for the map to Ishu?l.
“TURN FROM THIS PLACE,” the beast croaks. “TURN! COME TO ME WHEN THE WORLD HAS TRULY ENDED.”
As the leader of the mutiny, Galian is the first to assault Mimara. He tears her clothing away, promises to kill the unborn infant in her womb …
Achamian and Cleric assail the undead Dragon in tandem—Man and Nonman, as in days of ancient old. The Coffers become a furnace of killing light.
No more than a league distant, the Judging Eye opens, and Mimara apprehends the extent of Galian’s damnation, the eternity of torment that awaits his final heartbeat. She tells him what she sees, and he hesitates for the certainty of her warning, the pity in her gaze. Then he is flopping across the humus, writhing about the knife in his back. Mimara looks up and sees that Koll, the sole, travel-wasted survivor of the Stone Hags, has saved her.
Together, Achamian and Cleric drive Wutte?t roaring from the Coffers, fleeing like a moth afire into the skies. Thinking their triumph might seal some compact between them, Achamian once again appeals to the Nonman Erratic, to Nil’giccas, but the Last Nonman King has already forgotten. Cleric turns his fearsome sorceries upon the old Wizard.
Stunned, Mimara watches Koll battle Galian’s confederates, Xonghis and Pokwas. Sarl retreats, hugging his beloved Captain’s severed head, cackling and crooning nonsense. Koll, she realizes, is not Koll at all, but Soma—or, rather, the skin-spy that had replaced him so very long ago.
An agent of the Unholy Consult has saved her … Why?
Cleric hammers Achamian with ancient and inhuman sorceries, howling out his final, cryptic sermon as he does so. The Last Nonman King wants only to die, the old Wizard realizes, for he attacks only, and raises no sorcerous defenses. The antique Hero has given Achamian a choice: kill him, or be killed.
Between Xonghis and Pokwas, the thing called Koll is overmatched, but the two scalpers have overlooked Mimara, who is nowhere near as helpless as she appears. Using their distraction, she kills the two scalpers with Galian’s sword. One cannot raise walls against what has been forgotten.
Heartbroken, Achamian strikes Nil’giccas from the sky above him.
Mimara runs to where the thing called Koll lies, demanding to know why it has saved her. But Sarl falls upon the thing with his knife, cackling about the bounty for “spiderfaces”. The forest burns about the sordid scene.
The old Wizard returns to the scalper camp in horror and dismay, only to be overjoyed to find Mimara alive. Together they flee to the Library of Sauglish. They raise a bier to provide Nil’giccas a proper funeral. As the Last Nonman King’s body burns, they ransack the Coffers, find the ancient map described in Achamian’s dreams, the map to Ishu?l—the hidden stronghold of the D?nyain, the birthplace of the Holy Aspect-Emperor.