Throughout her entire life she’d looked upon things and people that stood apart. She was Esmenet, and that was her bowl, the Emperor’s silver, the Shriah’s man, the God’s ground, and so on. She stood here, and those things there. No longer. Everything, it seemed, radiated the warmth of his skin. The ground beneath her bare feet. The mat beneath her buttocks. And for a mad instant, she was certain that if she raised her fingers to her cheek, she would feel the soft curls of a flaxen beard, that if she turned to her left, she would see Esmenet hovering motionless over her rice bowl.
Somehow, everything had become here, and everything here had become him.
Kellhus!
Bakker, R. Scott (2008-09-02). The Warrior Prophet: The Prince of Nothing, Book Two (Kindle Locations 7344-7349). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
She breathed in. Her heart battered her breast.
He scraped the passage clean!
In a single exhalation, it seemed, a lifetime of condemnation slipped from her, and she felt shriven, truly shriven. One breath and she was absolved! She experienced a kind of lucidity, as though her thoughts had been cleansed like water strained through bright white cloth. She thought she should cry, but the sunlight was too sharp, the air too clear for weeping.
Everything was so certain.
He scraped the passage clean!
Then she thought of Achamian.
Bakker, R. Scott (2008-09-02). The Warrior Prophet: The Prince of Nothing, Book Two (Kindle Locations 7349-7356). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
The past crumbled, and the future evaporated. Her every heartbeat belonged, it seemed, to a different heart. She could remember the accumulating signs of death, wasting, as though her body were a candle notched with the watches— a light to read by. She could remember wondering at Serwë, who’d become a stranger in Kellhus’s arms. She could remember wondering at the stranger who walked with her own limbs.
Bakker, R. Scott (2008-09-02). The Warrior Prophet: The Prince of Nothing, Book Two (Kindle Locations 8759-8761). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
His clear eyes reminded her of who she was: Esmenet. She drew up her waterskin and extended it with unwavering hands. She watched him pour her muddy life into a stranger’s mouth. And when the last of it trailed like spittle, she understood— she apprehended— and with a brilliance no less ruthless than the sun.
There’s more than me.
Bakker, R. Scott (2008-09-02). The Warrior Prophet: The Prince of Nothing, Book Two (Kindle Locations 8765-8768). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
They alone spoke. They alone gazed and understood that they gazed. They alone loved, across all lands and all waters, to the world’s very pale. It seemed all passion, all knowing, was here, ringing in one penultimate note. There was no way to explain or to fathom the sensation. It wasn’t like a flower. It wasn’t like a child’s careless laugh.
They had become the measure … Absolute. Unconditioned.
Bakker, R. Scott (2008-09-02). The Warrior Prophet: The Prince of Nothing, Book Two (Kindle Locations 8780-8783). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
Grief for his compassion. Delusion for his revelation. Sin so he might forgive. Degradation so he might raise her high. He was the origin. He was the destination. He was the from where and the to which, and he was here!
Here!
It was mad, it was impossible, it was true.
Bakker, R. Scott (2008-09-02). The Warrior Prophet: The Prince of Nothing, Book Two (Kindle Locations 8807-8810). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
Men, Kellhus had once told her, were like coins: they had two sides. Where one side of them saw, the other side of them was seen, and though all men were both at once, men could only truly know the side of themselves that saw and the side of others that was seen— they could only truly know the inner half of themselves and the outer half of others.thesis, antithesis
The measure of wisdom, Kellhus had said, was found in the distance between these two selves.That last bit would be a synthesis yielded.
Bakker, R. Scott (2008-09-02). The Warrior Prophet: The Prince of Nothing, Book Two (Kindle Locations 8886-8887). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
For Kellhus, there was no distance between seeing and being seen. He alone was whole. And what was more, he somehow stood from without and saw from within. He made whole …
She bent her head back and gazed up into his eyes.
You’re here, aren’t you? You’re with me … inside.
Bakker, R. Scott (2008-09-02). The Warrior Prophet: The Prince of Nothing, Book Two (Kindle Locations 8890-8893). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
And note that Esmenet pulls off the exact same trick in TTT when she is interroraped by the Consult.How so?
It frightened her, sometimes, the way he effortlessly commanded these men. But then it could be no other way. Where others blundered from moment to moment, scarcely understanding their own wants, hurts, or hopes, let alone those of others, Kellhus caught each instant— each soul— like a fly. His world, Esmenet had realized, was one without surfaces, one where everything— from word and expression to war and nation— was smoky glass, something to be peered through …
Bakker, R. Scott (2008-09-02). The Warrior Prophet: The Prince of Nothing, Book Two (Kindle Locations 10105-10109). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
But then, why did the ground thrum so? And the stars … What did she see?
Something … Something without compare.
Her skin tingled. The Thanes of the Warrior-Prophet watched her, and she looked through their faces, glimpsed their yearning hearts. To think! So many deluded souls, living illusory lives in unreal worlds! So many! It both boggled her and broke her heart.
And at the same time, it was her triumph.
Something absolute.
Her heart fluttered, pinioned by Kellhus’s shining gaze. She felt at once smoke and naked flesh— something seen through and something desired.
There’s more than me … More than this— yes!
“Tell us, Esmi,” Kellhus hissed through Serwë’s mouth. “Tell us what you see!”
There’s more than them.
“We must take the knife to them,” she said, speaking as she knew her Master would have her speak. “We must show them the demons in their midst.”
So much more!
The Warrior-Prophet smiled with her own lips.
“We must kill them,” her voice said.
Bakker, R. Scott (2008-09-02). The Warrior Prophet: The Prince of Nothing, Book Two (Kindle Locations 10119-10130). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.
I always found those passages deeply disturbing.
Poor Esmi. She really had no chance.
I always found those passages deeply disturbing.
Poor Esmi. She really had no chance.
Given the nature of Earwa, I think we have to wonder who stuck her in harm's way?