Chapter 12:
Nau-Cayûti. He had dreamed he was Anasûrimbor Nau-Cayûti... and more.
He had dreamed not the experience, but the fact of his ancient assassination.
Again, I feel very doubtful that these Dreams are from Kellhus. Just too many details that were unknown. And why show this? I feel it is either Seswatha, or something even deeper, although what I don't know...
Each night they force Qirri upon him.
She receives her measure willingly.
The Qirri is certainly a way to keep everyone in line, as well as assure they live through the Slog...
This is the prize the Captain has cast upon the balance of their transaction. Cleric yields up his power, and Lord Kosoter offers him memory. Men to love. Men to destroy...
Men to remember.
And yet Lord Kosoter is Zaudunyani—one of her stepfather's fanatics. Why else would he protect her from the bent lusts of the others? And if he is Zaudunyani, then he would never deliver his expedition into destruction unless... Unless his Aspect-Emperor has commanded it.
I can imagine that Kellhus was in contact with Kosoter as long as they were Hûnoreal, so he probably does know of the Slog. I don't think that he knows everything after though.
If he were to choose to annihilate the Skin Eaters...
Only Achamian could possibly hope to stand against him—were he free to speak.
So, they believed that refusing the Qirri was the start of a rebellion by Akka.
More days pass before she is able to piece things together. Sarl, especially, provides her with pivotal insights. He tells her how Lord Kosoter, famed for his cruelty and marshal zeal, had come to the Aspect-Emperor's attention during the Unification Wars. How he had been promised a special Shrial Remission by none other than her uncle, Maithanet, for founding a scalper company and remaining in the vicinity of Hûnoreal—where he could regularly check on the Wizard.
"He is born of Hell," the madmen tells her, his face squished into I-knew-all-along glee. "He is born of Hell, the Captain. And he knows it—oh ho! He knows it. He thinks your gurwikka, there, will pay his toll..." His squint pops open in mock alarm. "Deliver him to paradise!"
"But how?" she protests.
"Because of him!" the madman cackles. "Him! The Aspect-Emperor knows all..."
So, Kosoter was there to watch Akka. He takes the contract because he still has to keep an eye on him. No way is it coincidence that Cleric falls in with them. Drawn to Akka, perhaps by Seswatha? Or, somehow by
memory of Seswatha?
If she could simply walk into the old Wizard's room, Mimara reasons, then so too could her stepfather.
I'm buying this, because it most certainly seems true. If Akka is free, it is because Kellhus has allowed him to be. I still think it is because of the Seswatha factor, that he wants to see what it is that it is driving Akka toward. The only way Akka's freedom makes sense to me is if it is Kellhus thinking that the known-agent is better than the unknown-agent.
What Lord Kosoter does, she finally decides, depends on what he thinks his lord and master, his god, desires.
I think this part is true, tied to what Mimara deduces earlier. I don't think he actually is in contact with Kellhus, so he is just guessing as to what he should do now...
The lie is a foolish one: he need only guess at the length of her term to realize there is no way she could have been impregnated in Momemn. But then, what would a man such as him know of pregnancy, let alone one borne of a divine violation? Her mother had carried all her brothers and sisters far beyond the usual term.
Perhaps support for my crack-pot theory that Dûnyain really are basically a separate species.
"How did she die?"
A single tear falls from his right eye, hangs like a bead of glass from his jaw. "With the others... Cir'kumir teles pim'larata..."
"Do I resemble her?"
"Perhaps..." he says, lowering his gaze. "If you wept or screamed... If there was blood."
Hmmm, a hint, in a very cryptic form, that she was murdered?
"Nil'giccas..." he murmurs. "I am Nil'giccas. The Last Nonman King."
Why leave Ishterebinth? My only guess would be that his erraticism drove him out to
remember.
"The child is yours," she whispers sobbing. "Can't you see?
"I bear my mother's child..."
Hmm, we've seen that for Yatwer, time is not linear, the White-Luck Warrior walks in all times at all times. Is this something similar? I don't know, but something is/will be special about this child.
That night, as always, the old Wizard dreamed of the horror that was the Golden Room. The moaning procession. The eviscerating horn. The chain heaving him and the other wretches forward.
Closer. He was coming closer.
Yet more Nau-Cayûti dreams, fittingly at the end of the chapter...just as it began.