friendship
could be advantageous. Men, he was always saying, liked to see their words
proved right.
"Are we going to see the
monster now, Momma?" Samarmas asked in a voice as small as his eyes were
wide. She looked to the child, grateful for the excuse to ignore the mob. Over
the past year, ever since deciding the twins were not like the others, she had
found herself retreating from the mad polity around her into the realm of
maternal cares. It was more instinctive, and certainly more gratifying.
"There's no need for you to
fear," she said, smiling. "Come. Lord Sankas will protect you."
***
Though the name was the same,
the Truth Room was one of the palace chambers, subterranean or otherwise, that
had been drastically expanded in the years since Kellhus's uncontested march
into Momemn. The original Truth Room had been little more than the personal
torture chamber of the old Ikurei Emperors, and every bit as dark and closeted
as their peevish souls. The enormous chamber she now entered with her children
was nothing less than an organ of state, a pit with walls tiered by walkways,
some possessing cages for prisoners, others lined with various instruments of
interrogation, and one, the uppermost, adorned with columns and marble
veneers—a gallery for observers from the land of light. It was, the architect
had told her, an inverted replica of the Great Ziggurat of Xijoser, carved so
that the mighty monument on the Sempis Delta would fit if tipped into its
hollow. Esmenet could remember Proyas quipping something to the effect that
"sometimes Men must reach down" when seeking the Truth.
She led the children to the
ornate balustrade of the highest tier, where the others awaited her. Her
Master-of-Spies, Phinersa, and her Vizier, Vem-Mithriti, knelt with their faces
to the floor, while Maithanet and Theliopa stood with their faces lowered in
greeting. Imhailas was ushering out the last of the stragglers, his humour at
once officious and curiously apologetic, the air of someone executing the
irrational demands of another.
Theliopa, her eldest daughter by
Kellhus, bowed in a stiff curtsy as they approached. Perhaps she was the
strangest of her children, even moreso than Inrilatas, but curiously all the
more safe for it. Theliopa was a woman with an unearthly hollow where human
sentiment should be. Even as an infant she had never cried, never gurgled with
laughter, never reached out to finger the image of her mother's face. Esmenet
had once overheard her nursemaids whispering that she would happily starve
rather than call out for food, and even now she was thin in the extreme, tall and
angular like the God-her-father, but emaciated, to the point where her skin
seemed tented over the woodwork of her bones. The clothes she wore were
ridiculously elaborate—despite her godlike intellect, the subtleties of style
and fashion utterly eluded her—a gold-brocaded gown fairly armoured in black
pearls.
"Mother," the sallow
blonde girl said in a tone that Esmenet could now recognize for attachment, or
the guttering approximation of it. As always the girl flinched at her touch,
like a skittish cat or steed, but as always Esmenet refused to draw back, and
held Theliopa's cheek until she felt the tremors calm.
"You've done well,"
she said, gazing into her pale eyes. "Very well." It was strange,
loving children who could see the movements of her soul through her face. It
forced a kind of bitter honesty on her, the resignation of those who know they
cannot hide—not ever—from the people they needed to hide from the most.
"I live to please you,
Mother."
They were what they were, her
children. Bits and pieces of their father. The truth of him—perhaps.
Only Samarmas was the exception. She could see it in his every stitch, in the
ardent affection with which he clung to Lord Sankas's hand, in the round way
his eyes probed the shadows beyond the rail, in the anxiousness that warbled
through his limbs.
could be advantageous. Men, he was always saying, liked to see their words
proved right.
"Are we going to see the
monster now, Momma?" Samarmas asked in a voice as small as his eyes were
wide. She looked to the child, grateful for the excuse to ignore the mob. Over
the past year, ever since deciding the twins were not like the others, she had
found herself retreating from the mad polity around her into the realm of
maternal cares. It was more instinctive, and certainly more gratifying.
"There's no need for you to
fear," she said, smiling. "Come. Lord Sankas will protect you."
***
Though the name was the same,
the Truth Room was one of the palace chambers, subterranean or otherwise, that
had been drastically expanded in the years since Kellhus's uncontested march
into Momemn. The original Truth Room had been little more than the personal
torture chamber of the old Ikurei Emperors, and every bit as dark and closeted
as their peevish souls. The enormous chamber she now entered with her children
was nothing less than an organ of state, a pit with walls tiered by walkways,
some possessing cages for prisoners, others lined with various instruments of
interrogation, and one, the uppermost, adorned with columns and marble
veneers—a gallery for observers from the land of light. It was, the architect
had told her, an inverted replica of the Great Ziggurat of Xijoser, carved so
that the mighty monument on the Sempis Delta would fit if tipped into its
hollow. Esmenet could remember Proyas quipping something to the effect that
"sometimes Men must reach down" when seeking the Truth.
She led the children to the
ornate balustrade of the highest tier, where the others awaited her. Her
Master-of-Spies, Phinersa, and her Vizier, Vem-Mithriti, knelt with their faces
to the floor, while Maithanet and Theliopa stood with their faces lowered in
greeting. Imhailas was ushering out the last of the stragglers, his humour at
once officious and curiously apologetic, the air of someone executing the
irrational demands of another.
Theliopa, her eldest daughter by
Kellhus, bowed in a stiff curtsy as they approached. Perhaps she was the
strangest of her children, even moreso than Inrilatas, but curiously all the
more safe for it. Theliopa was a woman with an unearthly hollow where human
sentiment should be. Even as an infant she had never cried, never gurgled with
laughter, never reached out to finger the image of her mother's face. Esmenet
had once overheard her nursemaids whispering that she would happily starve
rather than call out for food, and even now she was thin in the extreme, tall and
angular like the God-her-father, but emaciated, to the point where her skin
seemed tented over the woodwork of her bones. The clothes she wore were
ridiculously elaborate—despite her godlike intellect, the subtleties of style
and fashion utterly eluded her—a gold-brocaded gown fairly armoured in black
pearls.
"Mother," the sallow
blonde girl said in a tone that Esmenet could now recognize for attachment, or
the guttering approximation of it. As always the girl flinched at her touch,
like a skittish cat or steed, but as always Esmenet refused to draw back, and
held Theliopa's cheek until she felt the tremors calm.
"You've done well,"
she said, gazing into her pale eyes. "Very well." It was strange,
loving children who could see the movements of her soul through her face. It
forced a kind of bitter honesty on her, the resignation of those who know they
cannot hide—not ever—from the people they needed to hide from the most.
"I live to please you,
Mother."
They were what they were, her
children. Bits and pieces of their father. The truth of him—perhaps.
Only Samarmas was the exception. She could see it in his every stitch, in the
ardent affection with which he clung to Lord Sankas's hand, in the round way
his eyes probed the shadows beyond the rail, in the anxiousness that warbled
through his limbs.
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