Free The Warrior Prophet by R. Scott Bakker Page A

but it was plain that she didn’t speak a word of Sheyic. “This isn’t to be uttered aloud. Ever again. Do you hear me?”
    “But the Cishaurim, Xerius! Think of it! At your bosom all these years, wearing the face of Skeaös! The Emperor’s only confidant! That vile tongue clucking poison for counsel. All these years, Xerius! Sharing the hearth of your ambitions with an obscenity!”
    Xerius had thought of this—had been able to think of little else these past days. At night he dreamed of faces—faces like fists. Of Gaenkelti, who had died so … absurdly.
    And then there was the question, the question that struck with such force it never failed to jar him from the tedium of his routines.
    Are there others? Others like it …
    “You lecture the educated, Mother. You know that in all things there’s a balance to be struck. An exchange of vulnerabilities for advantages. You taught me this.”
    But the Empress didn’t relent. The old bitch never relented.
    “The Cishaurim have had your heart in their clutches, Xerius. Through you they have supped on the very marrow of the Empire. And you would let this —an offence like no other—go unpunished now, when the Gods have delivered to you the instrument of your vengeance? You’d still pull the Holy War up short? If you spare Shimeh, Xerius, you spare the Cishaurim.”
    “Silence!” His scream pealed throughout the chamber.
    Istriya laughed fiercely. “My naked son,” she said. “My poor … naked … son.”
    Xerius leapt to his feet, shouldered past the circle of his slaves, his look wounded, quizzical.
    “This isn’t like you, Mother. You were never one to cower before damnation. Is it because you grow old, hmm? Tell me, what’s it like to stand upon the precipice? To feel your womb wither, to watch the eyes of your lovers grow shy with hidden disgust …”
    He’d struck from impulse and found vanity—the only way he knew to injure his mother.
    But there was no bruise in her reply. “There comes a time, Xerius, when you care nothing for your spectators. The spectacles of beauty are like the baubles of ceremony—for the young, the stupid. The act, Xerius. The act makes mere ornament of all things. You’ll see.”
    “Then why the cosmetics, Mother? Why have your body slaves truss you up like an old whore to the feast?”
    She looked at him blankly. “Such a monstrous son …” she whispered.
    “As monstrous as his mother,” Xerius added, laughing cruelly. “Tell me … Now that your debauched life is nearly spent, are you filled with regret Mother?”
    Istriya looked away, across the steaming bath waters. “Regret is inevitable, Xerius.”
    These words struck him. “Perhaps … perhaps it is,” he replied, moved for some reason to sudden pity. There had been a time when he and his mother had been … close. But Istriya could be intimate with only those she possessed. She no longer possessed him.
    The thought of this touched Xerius. To lose such a godlike son …
    “Always these savage exchanges, eh, Mother? I do repent them. I would have you know that much.” He looked at her pensively, chewed his bottom lip. “But speak of Shimeh again and I will put your platitude to the test. You will regret … Do you understand this?”
    “I understand, Xerius.”
    There was malice in her eyes when she met his gaze, but Xerius ignored it. A concession, any concession, was a triumph when dealing with the Empress.
    Xerius studied the young girl instead, her taut breasts upswept like swallow’s wings, her soft weave of pubic hair. Aroused, he held out his hand and she came to him, reluctantly. He led her to a nearby couch and reclined, stretched out before her. “Do you know what to do child?” he asked.
    She opened her lithe legs, straddled him. Tears streamed down her cheeks. Trembling, she lowered upon his member …
    Xerius gasped. It was like sinking into a warm, unbroken peach. If the world harboured obscene things like the Cishaurim, it harboured