Free The White-Luck Warrior by R. Scott Bakker

run so deep as to throw a face into the furnace...
    Across the crazed bourne of opposites. Into the lapping glitter. Into the needling agony.
    Into the light.
    His beard and hair whooshed into tinder. He expected agony. He expected to scream. But something was tugged from him, sloughed like flesh from overboiled bone... something... essential .
    And he was looking out from the fire, into a thousand faces—and a thousand more. Enough to wrench the eyes, dazzle and bewilder the soul. And yet somehow he focused, turned from the battering complexity and took refuge in a single clutch of men, four long-bearded Men of the Ordeal, one gazing directly at him with a child's thoughtless fixity, the others bickering in Thunyeri... Something about rations. Hunger.
    Then he was out, on his rump in Kellhus's gloomy chamber, blinking and sputtering.
    And his Lord-and-God held him, soothed his face with a damp cloth. "The absence of space," he said with a rueful smile. "Most souls find it difficult."
    Proyas padded his cheeks and forehead with fumbling fingertips, expecting to feel blasted skin, but found himself intact. Embarrassed, he bolted upright, squinting away the last of the fiery brightness. He glanced about and for some unaccountable reason felt surprised that the iron hearth burned exactly as before.
    "Does it trouble you that I can watch men from their fires?" Kellhus asked.
    "If anything, it heartens me..." he replied. "I marched with you in the First Holy War, remember? I know full well the capricious humour of armies stranded far from home."
    Afterward, he would realize that his Aspect-Emperor had already known this, that Anasûrimbor Kellhus knew his heart better than he himself could ever hope to. Afterward, he would question the whole intent of this intimate meeting.
    "Indeed you do."
    "But why show me this? Do they speak of mutiny already?"
    "No," Kellhus replied. "They speak of the thing that preoccupies all stranded men..."
    The Aspect-Emperor resumed his position before the hearth, gestured for Proyas to do the same. A moment of silence passed as Kellhus poured him a bowl of wine from the wooden gourd at his side. Gratitude welled through the Exalt-General's breast. He drank from the bowl, watching Kellhus with questioning eyes.
    "You mean home."
    "Home," the Aspect-Emperor repeated in assent.
    "And this is a problem?"
    "Indeed. Even now our old enemies muster across the Three Seas. As the days pass they will grow ever more bold. I have always been the rod that held the New Empire together. I fear it will not survive my absence."
    Proyas frowned. "And you think this will lead to desertion and mutiny?"
    "I know it will.
    "But these men are Zaudunyani ... They would die for you! For the truth!"
    The Aspect-Emperor lowered his face in the yes-but manner Proyas had seen countless times, though not for several years. They had been far closer, he realized, during the Unification Wars...
    When they were killing people.
    "The hold of abstractions over Men is slight at best," Kellhus said, turning to encompass him in his otherworldly scrutiny. "Only the rare, ardent soul—such as yours, Proyas—can throw itself upon the altar of thought. These men march not so much because they believe in me as they believe what I have told them."
    "But they do believe! Mog-Pharau returns to murder the world. They believe this ! Enough to follow you to the ends of the World!"
    "Even so, would they choose me over their sons ? How about you, Proyas? As profoundly as you believe, would you be willing to stake the lives of your son and daughter for my throw of the number-sticks?"
    A kind of strange, tingling horror accompanied these words. According to scripture, only Ciphrang, demons, demanded such sacrifices. Proyas could only stare, blinking.
    The Aspect-Emperor frowned. "Stow your fears, old friend. I don't ask this question out of vanity. I do not expect any man to choose me or my windy declarations over their own blood and bones."
    "Then I