Free The Darkness that Comes Before by R. Scott Bakker

other. Sooner or later, everyone sees the whip.”
    “No. We’ve not seen this ‘kind’ before. None has moved this fast, or with such cunning. Maithanet is no mere enthusiast. Within the first three weeks of his tenure two plots to poison him were uncovered—and here’s the thing— by Maithanet himself . No fewer than seven of the Emperor’s agents were exposed and executed in Sumna. This man is more than simply shrewd. Far more.”
    Achamian nodded and narrowed his eyes. Now he understood the urgency of his summons. Above all the mighty detest change. The Great Factions had prepared a place for the Thousand Temples and its Shriah. But this Maithanet, as the Nroni would say, had pissed in the whisky. More unsettling still, he had done so with intelligence.
    “There is to be a Holy War, Achamian.”
    Stunned, Achamian searched the dark silhouettes of the other Quorum members for confirmation. “Surely you jest.”
    Nautzera strode from the shadows, pausing only when he stood close enough to tower over him. Achamian resisted the urge to step back. The ancient sorcerer had always possessed a disconcerting presence: intimidating because of his height and yet pathetic because of his great age. His skin seemed an insult to the silks that draped him.
    “This is no jest, I assure you.”
    “Against whom, then? The Fanim?” Throughout its history, the Three Seas had witnessed only two prior Holy Wars, both waged against the Schools rather than the heathens. The last, the so-called Scholastic Wars, had been disastrous for both sides. Atyersus itself had been besieged for seven years.
    “We don’t know. So far Maithanet has declared only that there will be a Holy War. He has not deigned to tell anyone against whom. As I said, he’s a fiendishly cunning man.”
    “So you fear another Scholastic War.” Achamian could scarcely believe he was having this conversation. The possibility of another Scholastic War, he knew, should horrify him, but instead his heart pounded with exhilaration. Had it come to this? Had he grown so tired of the Mandate’s futile mission that he now greeted the prospect of war against the Inrithi as a disfigured species of relief?
    “This is precisely what we fear. Once again the Cultic Priests openly denounce us, refer to us as Unclean.”
    Unclean. The Chronicle of the Tusk, held by the Thousand Temples to be the very word of the God, had named them thus—those Few with the learning and the innate ability to work sorcery. “Cut from them their tongues,” the holy words said, “for their blasphemy is an abomination like no other . . .” Achamian’s father—who, like many Nroni, had despised the tyranny exercised by Atyersus over Nron—had beaten this belief into him. Faith may die, but her sentiments remain eternal.
    “But I’ve heard nothing of this.”
    The old man leaned forward. His dyed beard was cut square like Achamian’s own but meticulously braided in the fashion of the eastern Ketyai. Achamian was struck by the incongruity of old faces and dark hair.
    “But you wouldn’t have, would you now, Achamian? You’ve been in High Ainon. What priest would denounce sorcery in a nation ruled by the Scarlet Spires, hmm?”
    Achamian glared at the old sorcerer.
    “But this is to be expected, is it not?” He suddenly found the whole idea preposterous. Things like this happen to other men, at other times . “You say that this Maithanet is cunning. What better way to secure his power than by inciting hatred against those condemned by the Tusk?”
    “You’re right, of course.” Nautzera had the most infuriating way of owning one’s objections. “But there’s a far more disturbing reason to believe that he’ll declare against us rather than the Fanim . . .”
    “And what reason is that?”
    “Because, Achamian,” a voice other than Nautzera’s replied, “there’s no way that a Holy War against the Fanim could succeed .”
    Achamian peered into the darkness between columns.