The Thousandfold Thought by R. Scott Bakker Read Free Book Online

would be your tormentor.”
    Mekeritrig backhanded him with a ferocity that made Achamian jump. Droplets of blood sailed down the wall’s mangled length.
    “I will strip you to your footings,” the Nonman grated. “Though I love, I will upend your soul’s foundation! I will release you from the delusions of this word ‘Man,’ and draw forth the beast—the soulless beast!—that is the howling Truth of all things … You will tell me!”
    The old man coughed, drooled blood.
    “And I, Seswatha … I will remember! ”
    Achamian glimpsed fused Nonman teeth. Mekeritrig’s eyes flared like spears of sunlight. Orange-burning circles appeared about each of his fingertips, boiling, seething with fractal edges. Achamian recognized the Cant immediately: a Quya variant of the Thawa Ligatures. With volcanic palms, Mekeritrig clenched Seswatha’s brow, serrated both body and soul.
    Nautzera howled in voices not his own.
    “Shhhh,” Mekeritrig whispered, clutching the old sorcerer’s cheek. He squeezed away tears with his thumb. “Hush, child …”
    Nautzera could only gag and convulse.
    “Please,” the Nonman said. “Please do not cry …”
    And Achamian howled, Nautzera! He couldn’t watch this, not again, not after the Scarlet Spires. You dream, Nautzera! You dream!
    Great Dagliash stood mute. Terns and crows swept and battled through the air about them. The dead stared vacant across the thundering sea.
    Nautzera turned from Mekeritrig’s palm to Achamian, heaving, heaving chill air. “But you’re dead,” he gasped.
    No, Achamian said. I survived .
    Gone was the scaffolding and the wall, the stench of rot and the shrill chorus of scavenger birds. Gone was Mekeritrig. Achamian stood nowhere, struck breathless by the impossibility of the transition.
    How is it you live? Nautzera cried in his thoughts. We were told the Spires had taken you!
    I …
    Achamian? Akka? Is everything okay?
    Why did he feel so small? He had reasons for his deception— reasons!
    I—I …
    Where are you? We’ll send someone for you. All will be made right. Vengeance will be exacted!
    Concern? Compassion for him?
    N-no, Nautzera. No, you don’t understand—
    My brother has been wronged! What more must I know?
    An instant of mad weightlessness.
    I lied to you.
    Then long, dark silence, at once perfect and raucous with inaudible things.
    Lied? Are you saying the Spires didn’t seize you?
    No—I mean, yes, they did seize me! And I did escape …
    Images of the madness at Iothiah flashed through the blackness. Iyokus and his dispassionate torments. The blinding of Xinemus. The Wathi Doll, and the godlike exercise of the Gnosis.
    Remembered men screamed.
    Yes! You did well, Achamian—well enough to be written! Immortalized in our annals! But what’s this about lies?
    There’s a —his body in Caraskand swallowed— there’s a fact…a fact I’ve hidden from you and the others .
    A fact?
    An Anasûrimbor has returned …
    A long pause, strangely studied.
    What are you saying?
    The Harbinger has come, Nautzera. The world is about to end.

     
    The world is about to end.
    Said enough times, any phrase—even this one—was sure to be leached of its meaning, which was why, Achamian knew, Seswatha had cursed his followers with the imprint of his battered soul. But now, confessing to Nautzera, it seemed he’d never uttered these words before.
    Perhaps he’d simply never meant them. Certainly not like this.
    Nautzera had been too shocked to be outraged by his admission of betrayal. A troubling vacancy had dogged the tone of his Other Voice—even a premonition of senility. Only afterward would Achamian realize that the old man had simply been terrified, that, like Achamian himself a mere few months earlier, he feared himself unequal to the events unfolding before him.
    The world was about to end.
    Achamian began by describing his first meeting with Kellhus, that day outside Momemn’s walls when Proyas had summoned him to appraise the