I hadn't picked up on that before, but yeah, the ritual used to separate them seems to point verrrry directly at the theory that one of the Hundred accompanies Kelmomas - specifically, Ajokli, given that Bakker has been pretty clear associating his characters with their respective gods since the beginning of TSA and everything indicates the Trickster would be Kel's patron. Maybe what the Voice says in your last quote alludes to Ajokli's purpose in possessing the boy: another cruel joke for life to play on Esmenet, taking away the last thing she loves. I figure this will somehow relate to Esmenet seeing her beloved son for what he really is.
Indeed, I think it is mostly to get at Esmenet, but not so simply to just kill her. Which is interesting, in and of itself. Perhaps though, I am thinking too shallow, perhaps it is more to get at Kellhus? If it was solely about Esmenet, there have been plenty of opportunities to get to her that were never taken.
Chapter 6:
Then the Captain said, "What lies in Sauglish?"
The words fairly knocked the blood out of Sarl's ruddy face. Perhaps there were consequences for misreading the Captain's interest. Perhaps the man had simply wandered too far out on a drunken limb. For some reason, Achamian had the impression that Lord Kosoter's voice always had this effect.
So, I was buying the "Sarl as the hooded traveler" in the prologue, but after this and the rest of the scene, I'm really not so sure. I even have some doubt that Sarl is a skin-spy here at this point. Then again, was he sent there originally just to watch Cleric? Now, it is flustered by this unexpected complication?
The hood bowed to the tabletop. "I can no longer remember. I have known Ishterebinth, I think... But it was not called such then."
Hmmm, Ishterebinth having another name? What does that even mean?
"You're a learned man," Sarl added, speaking through strings of phlegm. An uncommon intensity had fixed his rodent features—as if some life-or-death opportunity were on the verge of slipping from his grasp. "Tell me, what do you think of the concept of coincidence? Do you think things happen for reasons?"
Perhaps he is a skin-spy and he is now realizing why he was actually sent to watch Cleric?
"I remember..." the blackness wrapped by the cowl said. "I remember the slaughter of..."
A peculiar sound, like a sob thumbed into the shape of a cackle.
"Of children."
"A man," the Captain grimly noted, "has got to remember."
I wonder what they refers to? The Womb-Plague? The Sack of Sauglish, as Akka dreams of it?
The same eye-pinching grin. "I've been with the Captain since the beginning," he cackled. "From before the Imperial Bounty, in the wars against the Orthodox. I've seen him stand untouched in a hail of arrows, while I cringed behind my shield. I was at his side on the walls of Meigeiri, when the fucking Longbeards fell over themselves trying to flee from his blood-maddened gaze. I was there, after the battle of Em'famir. With these two ears I heard the Aspect-Emperor—the Aspect-Emperor!—name him Ironsoul!"
So, is this a lie then? He doesn't say it will Kosoter around, but why make it up at all then?
"You, Seswatha," the High-King said, returning his gaze to the plate. "You are the only one. The only one I trust."
Achamian thought of his Queen, her buttocks against his hips, her calves hooked hot and hungry about his waist.
The High-King moved a stone, a move that Seswatha had not foreseen, and the rules changed in the most disastrous way possible. What had been opportunity found itself twisted inside out, stamped into something as closed and as occluded as the future.
Achamian was almost relieved...
"I have built a place... a refuge..." Anasûrimbor Celmomas said. "A place where my line can outlive me."
Ishuäl...
What does it mean that Akka is "almost relieved?" Glad that Celmomas had a plan, that he had Ishuäl?