Unhewn Throne 01 - The Emperor's Blades(159)

“I’m just trying to imagine holding court while buried up to my nose in gravel,” Kaden replied. “My subjects might have difficulty looking up to me if I’m constantly scouring the privy.”

“It will be difficult,” the abbot agreed, nodding his bald head, “and yet, I can see no other way.”

“What about Akiil?” Kaden asked, remembering his friend for the first time.

Nin raised an eyebrow. “What about him?”

“Can he…” Kaden trailed off. It was one thing for Rampuri Tan to accompany the delegation. It was quite another to expect Akiil to simply leave the monastery. Monks were free to come and go as they chose, but Akiil was still an acolyte. Until he completed his training, he was bound to the Bone Mountains. “Never mind.”

“Do not grasp things so tightly,” the abbot suggested, his voice a shade more gentle than normal. “You must be prepared to let go of homes, friends, family, even yourself. Only then will you be free.”

“The vaniate,” Kaden said wearily.

The abbot nodded.

“Tell me something,” Kaden continued after a long silence. “Do you really believe that there are Csestriim out there, lurking somewhere, plotting?”

“I believe,” the abbot replied, “what I can observe. What I observe is that the world is ruled by men—good men and bad, desperate men and those with principles. I may be wrong—Ae knows it would not be the first time—but I see no Csestriim.”

“But Tan—”

Before Kaden could finish the sentence, the door burst open, and as though summoned by the mention of his name, Rampuri Tan strode into the room, a parchment in one hand, the strange naczal spear in the other. Sweat beaded his forehead, and his jaw was tight.

The abbot looked over. “Kaden and I were speaking in private, brother,” he began, voice severe.

“It will have to wait,” Tan replied curtly. “Altaf caught a glimpse of what’s been killing the goats. Down in the lower meadow. He painted it.”

The monk slapped the parchment down on the table and spread it open. Kaden struggled to make sense of the image—black lines slashed across the page in a jumble of limbs and claws. The smith had drawn something like a spider—eight legs, heavy carapace, segmented body—except whatever killed the goats was too big to be a spider.

“What’s the scale on this?” the abbot asked.

“It’s the size of a large dog.”

And the size was the least of it. The creature looked like something out of the depths of nightmare, with legs like blades or shears, savage hacking members designed by some cruel god to cut and to crush. Worse, dozens of eyes, glassy orbs the color of spilled blood, protruded from it everywhere, even from the limbs, as though they had been grafted on by some unholy kenning. Kaden had studied a thousand species during his time at Ashk’lan, creatures as strange as the albino stream crab and the flame moth, plants he couldn’t have dreamed up in a year of dreaming. They had been bizarre, but not unnatural. If Altaf’s painting was anything to go by, there was something wrong about this creature. Something twisted.

“I’ve never come across anything like it,” the abbot said after a long silence, steepling his fingers and turning his gaze to the other monk.

“That’s because it should have been extinct thousands of years ago,” Tan replied.

“I gather you know what it is?” Nin asked.

“If I’m right,” the monk said grimly, “and I hope I am not, it is an abomination. An abomination and an impossibility.”

Kaden frowned. The word abomination wasn’t part of the Shin lexicon. It implied hatred, emotion.

Tan grimaced at the painting, as though trying to accept what he saw, then went on. “What Altaf has drawn looks like an ak’hanath.” He indicated the serrated legs, the claws. “A creature of the Csestriim.”

Kaden drew in a sharp breath.

“So they are still around,” he said. Then, when no one responded, “But we won. Remmick Ironheart killed the last of the Csestriim on the fields of Ai.”

“Maybe,” Tan said.

“Maybe,” Nin acknowledged with a weary nod.

“And now that Altaf has seen this thing,” Kaden interjected, “this ak’hanath, you think the Csestriim have returned.” It was impossible, like hearing that the young gods had come to walk the earth once again.