I can't resurrect the No-God, but I
can ressurect this thread. And I shall.
I just wanted to revisit this in light of the dream Achamian has, from Celmomas's perspective, in
The Great Ordeal:
(from p. 218 of the American edition--obviously, there are spoilers here for TGO)
Gilgaol, the Dread Father of Death, the All-Taker.
Brave, broken King...
...
He opened his hands, and lo! Another stood within the curved palms, another man, bright as a ceremonial knife. A Norsirai, though his beard was squared and plaited in the fashion of Shir and Kyraneas. His dress was strange, and his arms and armour bore the glint of Nonman metals. Two decapitated heads swung from his girdle...
Behold the son of a hundred fathers...
Behold the end of the World...
"He says... he says such sweet things to give me comfort. He says that one of my seed will return Seswatha--an Anasurimbor will return..."
That sure looks like a true vision of Kellhus, doesn't it, right down to the Decapitants? One way or another, the Celmomian prophesy appears to have some absolutely true element of what came after determining what came before. Or something. The future influencing the present (from Celmomas' perspective). I'm assuming this is one reason that "Drusas Achamian awoke screaming," and perhaps also a further goad to question his urge for revenge.
In any case, this doesn't seem to be viramsata, does it? Neither Seswatha nor Celmomas is making it up, at least according to this dream (though Celmomas kind of massages things--not sure how "Behold the end of the World" falls under "such sweet things").
Now, there are still open questions here: what's the source of Achamian's dreams? Is it actually--somehow--still Seswatha? Or is someone else controlling his dreams (which would be one way to explain how he has dreams that are detached from Seswatha)?
Or if it is a true depiction of the pre-death experience Celmomas has, what is
its source? Is it actually Gilgaol? If the gods' awareness extends forward and backward in time, that could account for it, but why would one of the Hundred put this prophesy out there? But then, what
is the prophesy? In the version we get from the Mandate, it's rather ambiguous, that an Anasurimbor will return at the end of the world. But
here the sense of it seems to be slanted toward the idea that Kellhus
is the end of the world (i.e. he's the bad guy in this story after all).
I don't know. Thoughts?