fill of lightless bellies. Small wonder the scalpers were anxious.
Tree darkness, Sarl had said.
For the first time, it seems, she understands the sheer enormity of the task the Wizard has set for them. For the first time she understands that Cil-Aujas was but the beginning of their trial—the first in a parade of unguessed horrors.
The shallow cliff dips and collapses into a rugged slope, spilling gigantic stones into the forest verge. The expedition picks its way down and files into the Great Mop...
Into the green darkness.
CHAPTER TWO
The Istyuli Plains
We belittle what we cannot bear. We make figments out of fundamentals, all in the name of preserving our own peculiar fancies. The best way to secure one's own deception is to accuse others of deceit.
— H ATATIAN, E XHORTATIONS
It is not so much the wisdom of the wise that saves us from the foolishness of the fools as it is the latter's inability to agree.
— A JENCIS, T HE T HIRD A NALYTIC OF M EN
S PRING, 20 N EW I MPERIAL Y EAR (4132 Y EAR-OF-THE- T USK), T HE H IGH I STYULI
The Sakarpi tell of a man who had two puppies in his belly, the one adoring, the other savage. When the loving one nuzzled his heart, he became joyous, like the father of a newborn boy. But when the other gored it with sharp puppy teeth, he became desperate with sorrow. Those rare times the dogs left him in peace, he would tell people he was doomed. Bliss can be sipped a thousand times, he would say, whereas shame need only cut your throat once.
The Sakarpi called him Kensooras, "Between Dogs," a name that had since come to mean the melancholy suffered by suicides.
Varalt Sorweel was most certainly between dogs.
His ancient city had been conquered, its famed Chorae Hoard plundered. His beloved father had been killed. And now that he found himself in the Aspect-Emperor's fearsome thrall, a Goddess accosted him, the Dread Mother of Birth, Yatwer, in the guise of his lowly slave.
Kensooras indeed.
The cavalry company that was his cage, the Scions, had been called to the hazard of war. The collection of young hostages who composed the Scions had long feared their company was naught but ornamental, that they would be cozened like children while the Men of the Ordeal fought and died around them. They pestered their Kidruhil Captain, Harnilas, endlessly. They even petitioned General Kayûtas—to no apparent avail. Even though they marched with their fathers' enemy, they were boys as much as men, and so their hearts were burdened with the violent longing to prove their mettle.
Sorweel was no different. When word of their deployment finally arrived, he grinned and whooped the same as the others—how could he not? The recriminations, as always, came crashing in afterward.
The Sranc had ever been the great foe of his people—that is, before the coming of the Aspect-Emperor. Sorweel had spent the better part of his childhood training and preparing for battle against the creatures. For a Son of Sakarpus, there could be no higher calling. Kill a Sranc, the saying went, birth a man. As a boy he had spent innumerable lazy afternoons mooning over imagined glories, chieftains brained, whole clans annihilated. And he had spent as many taut nights praying for his father whenever he rode out to meet the beasts.
Now, at long last, he was about to answer a lifelong yearning and to embark on a rite sacred to his people...
In the name of the man who had murdered his father and enslaved his nation.
More dogs.
He gathered with the others in Zsoronga's sumptuous pavilion the night before their departure, did his best to keep his counsel while the others crowed in anticipation. "Don't you see?" he finally cried. "We are hostages !"
Zsoronga watched with an air of frowning dismissal. He reclined more than the others so that the crimson silk of his basahlet gleamed across his cheek and jaw. Plaits of his jet medicine-wig curled across his shoulders.
The Zeümi Successor-Prince remained as generous as
Tree darkness, Sarl had said.
For the first time, it seems, she understands the sheer enormity of the task the Wizard has set for them. For the first time she understands that Cil-Aujas was but the beginning of their trial—the first in a parade of unguessed horrors.
The shallow cliff dips and collapses into a rugged slope, spilling gigantic stones into the forest verge. The expedition picks its way down and files into the Great Mop...
Into the green darkness.
CHAPTER TWO
The Istyuli Plains
We belittle what we cannot bear. We make figments out of fundamentals, all in the name of preserving our own peculiar fancies. The best way to secure one's own deception is to accuse others of deceit.
— H ATATIAN, E XHORTATIONS
It is not so much the wisdom of the wise that saves us from the foolishness of the fools as it is the latter's inability to agree.
— A JENCIS, T HE T HIRD A NALYTIC OF M EN
S PRING, 20 N EW I MPERIAL Y EAR (4132 Y EAR-OF-THE- T USK), T HE H IGH I STYULI
The Sakarpi tell of a man who had two puppies in his belly, the one adoring, the other savage. When the loving one nuzzled his heart, he became joyous, like the father of a newborn boy. But when the other gored it with sharp puppy teeth, he became desperate with sorrow. Those rare times the dogs left him in peace, he would tell people he was doomed. Bliss can be sipped a thousand times, he would say, whereas shame need only cut your throat once.
The Sakarpi called him Kensooras, "Between Dogs," a name that had since come to mean the melancholy suffered by suicides.
Varalt Sorweel was most certainly between dogs.
His ancient city had been conquered, its famed Chorae Hoard plundered. His beloved father had been killed. And now that he found himself in the Aspect-Emperor's fearsome thrall, a Goddess accosted him, the Dread Mother of Birth, Yatwer, in the guise of his lowly slave.
Kensooras indeed.
The cavalry company that was his cage, the Scions, had been called to the hazard of war. The collection of young hostages who composed the Scions had long feared their company was naught but ornamental, that they would be cozened like children while the Men of the Ordeal fought and died around them. They pestered their Kidruhil Captain, Harnilas, endlessly. They even petitioned General Kayûtas—to no apparent avail. Even though they marched with their fathers' enemy, they were boys as much as men, and so their hearts were burdened with the violent longing to prove their mettle.
Sorweel was no different. When word of their deployment finally arrived, he grinned and whooped the same as the others—how could he not? The recriminations, as always, came crashing in afterward.
The Sranc had ever been the great foe of his people—that is, before the coming of the Aspect-Emperor. Sorweel had spent the better part of his childhood training and preparing for battle against the creatures. For a Son of Sakarpus, there could be no higher calling. Kill a Sranc, the saying went, birth a man. As a boy he had spent innumerable lazy afternoons mooning over imagined glories, chieftains brained, whole clans annihilated. And he had spent as many taut nights praying for his father whenever he rode out to meet the beasts.
Now, at long last, he was about to answer a lifelong yearning and to embark on a rite sacred to his people...
In the name of the man who had murdered his father and enslaved his nation.
More dogs.
He gathered with the others in Zsoronga's sumptuous pavilion the night before their departure, did his best to keep his counsel while the others crowed in anticipation. "Don't you see?" he finally cried. "We are hostages !"
Zsoronga watched with an air of frowning dismissal. He reclined more than the others so that the crimson silk of his basahlet gleamed across his cheek and jaw. Plaits of his jet medicine-wig curled across his shoulders.
The Zeümi Successor-Prince remained as generous as
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