R. Bakker - The Judging eye

For now.

Not a watch passed, however, when the last fissure came to an end, closing above them like clutched palms. After passing through yet another hallway with historical friezes set like grillwork over deeper friezes, they came to a chamber so vast that the walls opened above and beyond the reach of either his or Cleric's light, so that it seemed they crossed a ground suspended in the void. Shrinking from the abyssal dark, the scalpers pressed close, to the point where they continually ran afoul of one another. Even Mimara walked with her cheek pressed against Achamian's arm. Not a moment passed without someone softly cursing this mule or that man. Few words were traded otherwise. Those who did call out were silenced by the sound of their own echoes, which returned so transformed as to seem another voice.

Though unnerved by the blackness, Achamian actually felt more relieved than otherwise. For the first time since passing the Wolf Gate, he thought he knew where they stood in Aenaratiol's mazed bowels. This, he was certain, was the Repositorium, where the Nonmen had shelved their dead like scrolls. And it meant not only that they had travelled almost half the way, but more importantly, that Cleric actually did remember the path through the ruined Mansion.

For the longest time nothing loomed out of the encircling darkness. With the dust chalking the air about their ankles and knees, it almost seemed they crossed a desert on some sunless world. Once Cleric called them to a clanking halt, and the entire company spent several dozen heartbeats simply standing, ears pricked, listening to the iron-hard silence… The sound of their entombment.

The appearance of bones at their feet caused more curiosity than alarm-at first. The skulls were so ancient they crumpled like beehives beneath their soles, and the bones flattened like paper. Clots of them emerged here and there, like flotsam dropped by eddies in long-dried waters, but after a while the floor became thick with them. The dull sound of the Skin Eaters' trudging became the whisk and thump of men kicking through sandy leaves. A battle had been fought here long, long ago, and the toll had been high. Soon the murmur of prayers could be heard among the men, and wide eyes sought confirmation of their fear. Sarl laughed as he always did when he sensed apprehension getting the best of his "boys," but the echoes that fell back out of the blackness sounded so sinister that he went as rigid and as pale as any of them.

Then, out of nowhere, a great slope of debris reared before them, forcing a general halt. The company milled in blank-faced confusion while Lord Kosoter and Cleric consulted. Because of the dark, it was impossible to determine the scale of the obstruction. One of the young Galeoth, Asward, began babbling in a panicked voice, something about fingers reaching up from the dust. Both Galian and Xonghis tried to talk some sense into the young man, casting wary glances at their Captain while doing so. Sarl watched with an expression of repellant satisfaction, as though eager to exercise some bloodthirsty Rule of the Slog.

Tired and annoyed, Achamian simply walked into the blackness, leaving his sorcerous light hanging behind him. When Mimara called out, he simply waved a vague hand. The residue of death stirred no horror in him-it was the living he feared. The blackness enveloped him, and when he turned, he was struck by an almost gleeful sense of impunity. The Skin Eaters clung to their little shoal of light, peered like orphans into the oceans of dark. Where they had seemed so cocksure and dangerous on the trail, now they looked forlorn and defenceless, a clutch of refugees desperate to escape the calamities that pursued them.

This, Achamian thought to himself, is how Kellhus sees us…

He knew the sound of his arcane voice would startle them, that they would point and cry out at the sight of his mouth and eyes burning in the blackness. But they needed to be reminded-all of them-of who he was…

He spoke the Bar of Heaven.

A line appeared between his outstretched arms, shimmering white, bright enough for the blood to glow through his hands. Then it sundered the shrouded heights, brilliant and instantaneous as lightning. In a blink, the Repositorium lay revealed unto its farthest corners…

The ruined cemetery of Cil-Aujas.

Great ribs and sockets of living stone ravined the ceiling. Hanging from its contours, hundreds of ancient chains cluttered the open reaches, some broken midway to the floor, others still bearing the bronze lantern wheels that had once served as illumination. The floors beneath stretched for what seemed a mile, white with illumination and dust, puckered and furrowed by the long wandering lines of ancient dead. In the distances behind and to either side of the company, walls had been hewn from the scarped confusion, gaining heights easily as great as any of Carythusal's famed towers. Tombs pocked them, row upon row of black holes framed with graven script and images, lending them a wasp-nest malignancy. Immediately before the company, however, the enormous sheaves of debris continued climbing and climbing, sloping up to the very ceiling… Some kind of catastrophic collapse.

The implication was as obvious as it was immediate: The way was barred.

Everyone-save Lord Kosoter and Cleric-gawked and blinked at the spectacle. Achamian could feel the Captain's bone-hollowing gaze as he walked toward the others. The Bar faded like a furnace coal, allowing the darkness to reclaim its dominion. Within heartbeats, the company was every bit as stranded as before.

Kiampas, answering to some unseen signal, suddenly declared the day's march over, though no one had any way of knowing whether a day had in fact passed. As awed as they were dismayed, the Skin Eaters began stumbling about, preparing camp. Mimara clutched Achamian's arm, her eyes alight with a kind of enthralled greed…

"Can you teach me that!" she cried under her breath.

He knew her well enough to see she was bursting with questions, that she would likely plague him for hours if she could. And to his surprise, he found himself disarmed by her interest, which for the first time seemed honest instead of fraught with anger and calculation as before. To be a student required a peculiar kind of capitulation, a willingness not simply to do as one was told, but to surrender the movements of one's soul to the unknown complexities of another's. A willingness, not simply to be moved, but to be remade.

How could he not respond? Despite all his violent resolutions to the contrary, his was a teacher's soul.

But the time wasn't right. "Yes-yes," he said, speaking with gentle impatience. He grasped her shoulder to forestall her protest, sought Cleric through the commotion. He needed to know just how much the Nonman remembered. Their passage through the Repositorium was blocked, thanks to the ancient calamity heaped before them. If Cleric knew of no other way through the peril that was Cil-Aujas, they would be forced to backtrack, to begin the long trek back to the Obsidian Gate. If he pretended or remembered falsely, they could very well be dead.

He was about to explain as much to Mimara when Lord Kosoter suddenly appeared next to them, reeking in his hoary old Ainoni armour and dress. Steel grey hairs manged his plaited beard. Beneath his mailed breast, his Chorae hummed with unseen menace.

"No more," he said, his voice as flat as frozen water. "No more"-his tongue tested the edge of his teeth-"antics."

It was impossible not to be affected by the man's dead gaze, but Achamian found himself returning his stare with enough self-possession to wonder at the man's anger. Was it simple jealously? Or did the famed Captain fear that awe of another might undermine his authority?

"What?" Mimara said angrily. "We should have stumbled on through the dark?"