ARC: TWP Chapter 21

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TheCulminatingApe

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« on: November 04, 2018, 07:46:58 pm »
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And We will give over all of them, slain, to the Children of Eanna; you shall hamstring their horses and burn their chariots with fire.  You shall bathe your feet in the blood of the wicked.
- TRIBES 21:13, THE CHRONICLE OF THE TUSK
Sez who?
Seswatha, that's who.

TheCulminatingApe

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« Reply #1 on: November 30, 2018, 07:34:55 pm »
Saubon enlists the support of the recovering Proyas for his bid to become king of Caraskand.

Proyas discusses this with Cnaiur.
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Proyas was still sick - grievously so, it appeared.  He sat bundled beneath wool blankets in a camp chair, his normally hale face drawn and pale.  In any other man, Cnaiur would have such weakness disgusting, but Proyas wasn't any other man.  Over the months the young prince had come to command something troubling within him, a respect not fit for a fellow Scylvendi, let alone an outlander.  Even sick he seemed regal.
He's just another Inrithi dog

Not sure this Cnaiur - Proyas relationship actually ends up going anywhere.  What then is its purpose in the story?

Cnaiur lost ownership of his madness at Anwurat. 
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...For weeks he'd been little more than a corpse bound to maddened horse.  How his soul had galloped!

He misses the desert - impossible to leave tracks.

Before finding Serwe
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... he'd spent weeks alone with the man - weeks alone with a Dunyain.  Now, after watching the inhuman fiend devour heart after Inrithi heart, it scarcely seemed possible he'd survived.  The bottomless scrutiny.  The narcotic voice.  The demonic truths... How could he not take Serwe after enduring such an ordeal  Besides beautiful, she was simple, honest, passionate - everything Kellhus wasn't.  He warred against a spider. How could he not crave the company of flies?
Yes... That was it!  He'd taken her as a landmark, as a reminder of what was human.  He should've known she'd known she'd become a battleground instead.
He used her to drive me mad!

I think we have already learnt this from Kellhus. But, we see an example of Cnaiur's perceptive intelligence.

He wonders what Proyas would do if he learns the truth. 
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He eats you, and you know it not.  And when he's done, there will be only bones...
  Foreshadowing the Great Ordeal

Saubon has been approached by a Fanim traitor.  With a group of about 50 men, including Cnaiur, they scale the city wall.

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There was a hate that eclipsed the hater, a hunger that encompassed the very ground of appetite.
Bent low, his broadsword before him, Cnaiur urs Skiotha stole across the heights of the wall toward the postern gate, thinking of Kellhus, Moenghus, and murder.
Need me... I must find some way to make him need me!
Yes... The madness was lifting

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The Galeoth Prince's grin broadened.  "Truth shines," he said.
Cnaiur squashed the urge to sneer.  "So do pigs' teeth".
He spat across the ancient stonework.  There was no escaping the Dunyain - not any more.  It sometimes seemed the abomination spoke from every mouth, watched from all eyes. And it was only getting worse.
Something... There must be something I can do!
But what?  There pact to murder Moenghus was a farce.  The Dunyain honoured nothing for its own sake.  For them only the ends mattered, and everything else, from warlike nations to shy glances, was a tool - something to be used.  And Cnaiur possessed nothing of use - not any more.  He'd squandered his every advantage.  He couldn't even offer his reputation among the Great Names, not after the degradation of Anwurat.
No.  There was nothing Kellhus needed from him.  Nothing except...
Cnaiur actually gasped aloud.
Except my silence

They open an unlocked door.  They enter the gatehouse and butcher the Kianene. 
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Despite the blood threading his face, there was a majesty to his look, a paternal confidence that chilled Cnaiur's heart.  Coithus Saubon was already king, and he belonged to Kellhus

One of the Galeoth kills an adolescent, and starts shouting 'truth shines'.  Cnaiur nuts him to death.

The Holy War is in the city, and start pillaging.
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The Men of the Tusk cast the bodies from the rooftops.  They rifled the pockets of the dead, tugging rings from grey fingers, or just sawing at the knuckles to save time.  Shrieking children were torn from their mothers, tossed across rooms and caught on sword point.  The mothers were beaten and raped while their gutted husbands wailed about their entrails.  The Inrithi were like wild-eyed beasts, drunk with howling murder.  Moved by the God's own fury, they utterly destroyed all in the city, both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and asses, with the edge of the sharp sword.
The anger of the God burned bright against the people of Caraskand.

The 'Old Name' flys above the city watching the skin-spies hunt Kellhus.  Kellhus has to die - he is an Anasurimbor.
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...They were so near!  So close!  Soon the Children would gather, and they would rain ruin upon this despicable world!  The End of Ends was coming...
One did not gamble with such things.  They would kill this Anasurimbor Kellhus, then they would seize the others, the Scylvendi and the women, to learn what they needed to know.

Kellhus lures them into a dark cellar, where they cannot see him.  They can smell him, but he removes his clothes to trick them.  He kills four of them, taking a head, and 'Sarcellus' flees.

The Holy War lays siege to the Citadel of the Dog.  But there are Cishaurim inside.

Kellhus has identified many skin-spies and given the Zaudunyani instructions. 
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The Holy War must be purged

The Scarlet Spires enter the fray.
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Kellhus watched, wondering at the spectacle and at the promise of deeper dimensions of understanding.  Sorcery was the only unconquered knowledge, the last bastion of world-born secrets.  He was one of the Few - as Achamian had both feared and hoped. What kind of power would he wield?
And his father, who was Cishaurim, what kind of power did he already wield?...
... Uncanny hymns ached in Kellhus' ears.  How could such things be said?  How could words come before?

A fleeing Cishaurim comes to him.  With a message from Moenghus.
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"you walk the Shortest Path.  Soon you will grasp the Thousandfold Thought"
Father?
Sheathing his sword, Kellhus opened himself to every outward sign the man offered.  He saw desperation and purpose.  Purpose above all...
"How did you find me?"
"We see you.  All of us."  Behind the man, the smoke rising from the Citadel opened like a great velvet rose.
"Us?"
"All of us who serve him - the Possessors of the Third Sight"

Moenghus
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...knows the Pragma sent me as an assassin... He needs to be certain of me ...

"I must warn you," Hifanat was saying.  "The Padirajah himself comes with the South.  Even now his outriders ponder the smoke they see on the horizon"

Kellhus kills him as the Spires approach.

Kellhus warns Esmi that
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"The trial is about to begin, Esmi.  The true trial"

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Akka and Xin sail past the wreckage of the Imperial Fleet.  The greatest naval defeat in Nansur history.

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"What about the Holy War?" Achamian asked.
"I'm an old sailor.  I've seen enough voyages blown off course, enough vessels, to know the God gives no guarantees, no matter who the captain or what the cargo."  He looked back to Achamian.  "There's one thing certain about this Holy War: there's never been a greater bloodletting."
Achamian knew different, but refrained from saying as much...

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Achamian now heard dread in Xinemus' every word.  It was as though something horrific loomed in the blackness, something he feared might recognise the sound of his voice.  As the weeks passed, it was becoming more and more apparent:  the Scarlet Spires had taken more than his eyes; they had taken the light and devilry than once filled them as well. With the Cants of Compulsion, Iyokus had moved Xinemus' soul in perverse ways, had forced him to betray both dignity and love.  Achamian had tried to explain that it wasn't he who'd thought those thoughts, who'd uttered those words, but it didn't matter.  As Kellhus said, men couldn't see what moved them.  the frailties Xinemus had witnessed were his frailties.  Confronted by the true dimensions of wickedness, he'd held his own infirmity accountable."

Kellhus can do all this without sorcery.

The captain tells them about the 'new prophet'.  Kellhus lives, and therefore in Akka's mind so does Esmenet.
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Esmenet and Kellhus.  They lived!  The woman who could save his heart, and the man who could save the world...

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There will be fire when I return, Zin"
Sez who?
Seswatha, that's who.