Unhewn Throne 01 - The Emperor's Blades(72)

The abbot broke off and for a long time the two older monks simply stared at Kaden, as though expecting him to finish the story.

“There’s a way,” he said finally, testing the idea as he spoke it. “The Csestriim used the gates, so there is clearly a way.”

Neither responded. Kaden stilled his heart and ordered his mind.

“The vaniate,” he concluded. “It has something to do with the vaniate. If we master it, we become like the Csestriim, and the Csestriim could use the gates.”

Nin nodded at last. “A person cannot become nothing, not completely. He can, however, cultivate a nothingness inside himself. It seems that the god will allow someone carrying the void to pass through his gates.”

“The Keeper of the Gates,” Kaden said, thinking back to the start of the conversation. “That’s why I was sent here. Something to do with these gates.”

Nin nodded, but it was Tan who spoke.

“The Csestriim did not always slaughter their prisoners. Intrigued by our emotions, they kept a small number of us for study.”

The words sounded strange coming from Rampuri Tan’s lips. Of all the monks at Ashk’lan, he seemed just about the least likely to have any appreciation of human feeling.

“Some of those imprisoned,” Tan continued grimly, “did clandestine studies of their own—they watched, they listened, they learned about their captors. They were the first to discover the secret of the gates and, in so doing, the vaniate. They vowed to one another that they would escape, develop their new knowledge, and use it to destroy the Csestriim.”

“They were the first Shin,” Kaden said slowly, the ramifications dawning on him.

Tan nodded. “Ishien, in the old tongue: ‘those who avenge.’”

“But what does this have to do with the empire, or with me?”

The abbot sighed. “Patience, Kaden. We are coming to that. When the humans finally defeated the Csestriim, a large part of that final victory was attributed to the Ishien. Although the war was over, the Ishein continued to watch the gates, convinced that their enemies were not vanquished, only dormant.”

“There were reasons,” Tan interjected, his voice hard. “Our people hunted down Csestriim for hundreds of years after the close of the war. Then we started to forget.”

Nin acknowledged the point with a slight nod of his head. “As the years turned to centuries, the charge lost its urgency. Some began to forget the Csestriim altogether. Meanwhile, generations of Ishien had discovered the quiet joy of a life lived in pursuit of the vaniate. They began to venerate the Blank God for his own sake, not for revenge on a long-dead foe. They put aside their armor, their blades, and took up less … agonistic pursuits.”

“Not all of us,” Tan said.

“Even you, old friend, arrived here in the end. One cannot hunt ghosts forever.”

Tan’s lips tightened, but he remained silent.

“Our way is not easy,” the abbot continued, “and as the imperatives of the mission slipped, fewer and fewer young men joined the order. There were some, however, who had not forgotten our desperate fight for survival, and as the Shin diminished, as gate after gate was abandoned, these monks feared lest the Csestriim return.

“It was at this point that your ancestor, Terial, took the throne of a teetering kingdom torn with civil war—”

“—and at this point that the Shin abandoned their charge,” Tan added.

“We did not abandon it. We passed it on. The Annurian state had grown too large for one man to control. Rebels and rival claimants rent the land. Terial had heard of the gates and realized the power they held for his own political ends. An Emperor who could instantly visit any corner of his empire need not fear rebellions of distant commanders or the misleading reports of provincial ministers. An Emperor able to use the gates could bring unity and stability to entire continents.”

“He made a deal with the Shin,” Kaden said, the pieces falling into place.

Scial Nin nodded. “If they would teach him the secret of the gates, the vaniate, he would commit his imperial resources to keeping those gates against the return of the Csestriim. The Shin, who had long ago lost both the ability and the will to carry out their original task, agreed. From that time on, all heirs to the Malkeenian line have trained here, with us. It is no coincidence that they have also enjoyed an unbroken line of succession.”

“Keeper of the Gates,” Kaden said, repeating the old title, understanding it for the first time. “We’re guarding against the Csestriim.”