These are the quotes at the start of chapter one:
There are three, and only three, kinds of men in the World: cynics, fanatics and Mandate Schoolmen.
- Ontillas, On the Folly of Men
The author has often observed that in the genesis of great events, men generally possess no inkling of what their actions portend. This problem is not, as one might suppose, a result of men’s blindness to the consequences of their actions. Rather it is a result of the mad way the dreadful turns on the trivial when the ends of one man cross the ends of another. The Schoolmen of the Scarlet Spires have an old saying: “When one man chases a hare, he finds a hare. But when many men chase a hare, they find a dragon.” In the prosecution of competing human interests, the result is always unknown, an all too often terrifying.”
- Drusas Achamain, Compendium of the First Holy War
Drusas Achamian (Akka), a gnostic sorcerer and Mandate Schoolman is in Carythusal, in the part of town known as The Worm; he’s meeting Geshrunni, a captain in the javreh, the slave-soldiers of the Scarlet Spires. This chapter gives us a lot of introduction on the political side of sorcery: sorcerers are called Schoolmen, and the Scarlet Spires is the most powerful school. It virtually controls High Ainon. Akka is part of the School of Mandate, founded by Seswatha, a gnostic sorcerer from the legendary School of Sohonc, back in the time of the First Apocalypse. Gnostic sorcery is the sorcery of the Ancient North, the Kuniüric nations that were destroyed during the First Apocalypse. This sorcery is more powerful than the sorcery of the other schools, as Akka admits that it’s the only reason the Mandate is taken somewhat seriously. The Mandate is hampered because it’s foe, the Consult, hasn’t been seen in over three hundred years, making their warnings against them seem silly. Yet they can’t help themselves, because of Seswatha’s mission: Seswatha knew that, over time, the terrors of the First Apocalypse would fade, so he has made it so that all Mandate Schoolmen relive parts of his life (from Seswatha pov) in their dreams. In this chapter, Akka himself dreams the dream of Anasurimbor Celmomas II’s death. Seswatha was the driving force behind the war against the Consult, who were responsible for the No-God, though this isn’t explained in depth in this chapter.
As Celmomas is dying, he tells Seswatha:
“The darkness of the No-God is not all-encompassing. The Gods see us yet, dear friend. They are distant, but I can hear them galloping across the skies. I can hear them cry out to me.”
“You cannot die, Celmomas! You must not die!”
The High King shook his head, stilled him with tender eyes. “They call to me. They say that my end is not the world’s end. That burden, they say, is
yours. Yours, Seswatha.” [/quote]
Celmomas tells Seswatha his son is waiting for him, and he “tells him such sweet things to give me comfort. He says that one of my seed will return, Seswatha-an Anasurimbor
will return… At the end of the world.”
For those who have read
The Judging Eye and
The White Luck Warrior:
There is an interesting point in Akka’s reliving the moment of Celmomas’ death, which resonates with The Judging Eye and The White Luck Warrior; as Celmomas is dying, he talks to Seswatha about his son. He means Nau-Cayuti, his favourite son, who once “stole into the deepest pits of Golgotterath”. “My son… Do you think he’ll be there, Seswatha? Do you think he’ll greet me as his father?” From the later books we know that Seswatha is in fact Nau Cayuti’s father. Could Celmomas have been aware as well?
Mandate Schoolmen have recurring nightmares, but Akka notes that this time, the dream of Celmomas’ death is more powerful than usual. Even though better scholars than him have made entire studies of the dreams, Akka stubbornly keeps his own records about the dreams, in an attempt to analyse them.
As Akka wakes from this dream, he “drew his hands to his face and wept, a short time for a long-dead Kuniüric King and longer for other, less certain things.” Akka has suffered in life, but he’s a man of sensibility.
Geshrunni knows that Akka is a Mandate Schoolman, and he uses a Chorae to make Akka admit the truth. Chorea, Tears of God, are not found in creation but apparently manufactured, are a deathly threat to sorcerers, but harmless to everyone else:
“Chorae. Schoolmen called them Trinkets. Small names are often given to horrifying things. But for other men, those who followed the Thousand Temples in condemning sorcery as blasphemy, they were called the Tears of God. But the God had no hand in their manufacture. Chorae were relics of the Ancient North, so valuable that only the marriage of heirs, murder, or the tribute of entire nations could purchase them. They were worth the price: Chorae rendered their bearers immune to sorcery and killed any sorcerer unfortunate enough to touch them.”
Geshrunni hates his masters, and agrees to inform Akka. He tells Akka a valuable secret: the Scarlet Spires’ former grand master, Sasheoka, was assassinated by the Cishaurim (the sorcerers of the nation of Kian to the south) in the inner sanctums of the Scarlet Spires themselves. Akka calls the Chishaurim “the only heathen school”; the Kianene apparently don’t follow The God or the Thousand Temples.
There was a saying common to the Three Seas: “Only the Few can see the Few.” Sorcery was violent. To speak it was to cut the world as surely as if with a knife. But only the Few -sorcerers- could see the mutilation, and only they could see, moreover, the blood on the hands of the mutilator-the “mark,” as it was called. Only the Few could see another and another’s crimes. And when they met, they recognized one another as surely as common men recognized criminals by their lack of a nose.
Not so with the Cishaurim. No one knew why or how, but they worked events as grand and devastating as any sorcery without marking the world or bearing the mark of their crime. Only once had Achamian witnessed Cishaurim sorcery, what they called the Psûkhe-on a night long ago in distant Shimeh. With the Gnosis, the sorcery of the Ancient North, he’d destroyed his saffron-robed assailants, but as he sheltered behind his Wards, it had seemed as though he watched flashes of soundless lightning. No thunder. No mark.
Only the Few could see the Few, but no one-no Schoolman at least-could distinguish the Cishaurim or their works from common men or the common world. And it was this, Achamian surmised, that had allowed them to assassinate Sasheoka. The Scarlet Spires possessed Wards for sorcerers, slave-soldiers like Geshrunni for men bearing Chorae, but they had nothing to protect against sorcerers indistinguishable from common men, or against sorcery indistinguishable from the God’s own world. Hounds, Geshrunni would tell him, now ran freely through the halls of the Scarlet Spires, traind to smell the saffron and henna the Cishaurim used to dye their robes.
But why? What could induce the Cishaurim to wage open war against the Scarlet Spires? As alien as their metaphysics were, they could have no hope of winning such a war. The Scarlet Spires were simply too powerful.
Later, Geshrunni is attacked by someone who was in the background when he met Akka. Since he himself is a warrior, and larger than the man, he sees no reason to worry, but the man is incredibly strong. Geshrunni fears his masters are on to him, but the man is not touched by Geshrunni’s Chorae, so he’s not a sorcerer.
“Who are you?” Geshrunni asked.
“Nothing you could understand, slave.”
…
“Who are you?” Geshrunni grated. “How long have you been watching me?”
“Watching you?” The fat man almost giggled. “Such conceit is unbecoming of slaves.”
He watches Achamian? What is this? Geshrunni was an officer, accustomed to cowing men in the menacing intimacy of a face-to-face confrontation. Not this man. Soft or not, he was at utter ease. Geshrunni could feel it. And if it weren’t for the unwatered wine, he would have been terrified.
…
Stunned, Geshrunni looked down at his senseless hand, watched his knife flop on to the dust. All he’d heard was the snap of the stranger’s sleeve.
…
“What a task we’ve set for ourselves,” the stranger said ruefully, following him, “when even their slaves possess such pride.”
Panicked, Geshrunni fumbled for the hilt of his sword.
The fat man paused, his eyes flashing to the pommel.
“Draw it,” he said, his voice impossibly cold-inhuman.
Wide-eyed, Geshrunni froze, transfixed by the silhouette that loomed before him.
“I said draw it!”
Geshrunni hesitated.
The next slap knocked him to his knees.
“What are you?” Geshrunni cried through bloodied lips.
As the shadow of the fat man encompassed him, Geshrunni watched his round face loosen, then flex as tight as a beggar’s hand about copper. Sorcery! But how could it be? He holds a Chorae-
“Something impossibly ancient,” the abomination said softly. “Inconceivably beautiful.”
As Akka informs his masters about his valuable informant, he is called back to his headquarters, at Atyersus, where the Mandate has its School and fortress.[/quote]