“Only apparently. There are … insinuations, scattered throughout, and descriptions of the Anasûrimbor as he was, before he gained the Gnosis and became almost all-powerful.”

“Are you saying this Mandate Schoolman knew … that he knew what the Aspect-Emperor was?”

Zsoronga paused before answering, looked at him as though rehearsing previous judgments. Among those who would contest the power of the Aspect-Emperor, Sorweel understood, no matters could be more essential.

“Yes,” Zsoronga finally replied.

“So. What does he say?”

“Everything you might expect a cuckold to say. That’s the problem …”

An ambient eagerness bloomed through Sorweel’s limbs. The knowledge he needed was here—he could sense it. The knowledge that would cleave certainty out of mangled circumstances—that would see his honour redeemed! He squeezed the reins tight enough to whiten his knuckles. “Does he call him a demon?” he asked almost with breath. “Does he?”

“No.”

A vertiginous, dumbfounded moment, as if he had leaned forward expecting an answer to brace him. “What then? Do not play me on such matters, Zsoronga! I come to you as a friend!”

The Successor-Prince somehow grinned and scowled all at once. “You must learn, Horse-King. Too many wolves prowl these columns. I appreciate your honesty, your overture, I truly do, but when you speak like this … I … I fear for you.”

Obotegwa had softened his sovereign’s tone, of course. No matter how diligently the Obligate tried to recreate the tenor of his Prince’s discourse, his voice always bore the imprint of a long and oft-examined life.

Sorweel found himself looking down at the polished contours of his pommel, so different from the raw hook of iron on Sakarpi saddles. “What does this-this … Achamian say?”

“He says the Anasûrimbor is a man, neither diabolic nor divine. A man of unheard-of intellect. He bids us imagine the difference between ourselves and children …” The black man trailed into silence, his brows furrowed in concentration. He had this habit of staring down and to the left when pondering, as though judging points buried deep in the ground.

“And?”

“The important thing, he says, isn’t so much what the Anasûrimbor is, as what we are to him.”

Sorweel glared at him in exasperation. “You speak in riddles!”

“Yusum pyeb—!”

“Think to your childhood! Think of the hopes and fears. Think of the tales the nursemaids told you. Think of the way your face continually betrayed you. Think of all the ways you were mastered, all the ways you were moulded.”

“Yes! So?”

“That is what you are to the Aspect-Emperor. That is what we all are.”

“Children?”

Zsoronga dropped his reins, waved his arms out in grand gesture of indication. “All of this. This divinity. This apocalypse. This … religion he has created. They are the kinds of lies we tell children to assure they act in accord with our wishes. To make us love, to incite us to sacrifice … This is what Drusas Achamian seems to be saying.”