Read Online The Judging Eye by R. Scott Bakker - Free Book Online
Authors: R. Scott Bakker
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Some hang like leaves from the branching of more
substantial truths. Others stand like trunks, shouldering the beliefs of entire
nations. And a few—a desperate few—are seeds.
He was running through all the
details that might allow him to date the dream—which Knight-Chieftains still
had favour at the High-King's table, which rings Seswatha wore, the fertility
tattoos on the Queen's inner thighs—when one of the children's voices piped
through the drone of his failing concentration. "Yeah, but from how faaaaaar?" A girl's warbling, squeezed into a reed by the distance. Little Silhanna, he
realized.
A woman replied, something
tender and inaudible.
It was the accent more than the
voice that sent him stumbling to the open window. He found himself blinking,
gripping the cracked and pitted sill against the sudden vertigo. It was Sheyic,
the common tongue of the New Empire, but lilting with southern nuances. Nansur?
Ainoni?
He glanced out to the horizon,
across what had once been the Galeoth province of Hûnoreal. The skies were iron
grey with the chill-spring promise of summer blue. Climbing and falling
canopies jostled across the near distance, a patchwork of tender greens so new
that swales of ground could be seen through them. The morning sunlight was still
barred from the ravines, so the landscape possessed an oceanic quality; the
sunbathed summits and ridge lines resembled yellow islands in a shadowy sea.
Even though he couldn't make out the white-backed tributaries of the Rohil, he
could see their winding stamp on the disposition of the distant hills, like
cables laid across love-tossed sheets.
Strange, the way distances grew
in the chill.
The ground immediately below
fell away in a series of stubbed terraces, so that looking directly down made
it feel as though he were being tugged out the window. There were the
outbuildings, little more than lean-tos actually, staking out their humble
circle of habitation, and the nearer trees, elms and oaks, winding to heights
that would have been eye level had the ground been even. And there were the
bare stretches, whose bald stone carried premonitions of smashing melons and
broken skulls. He could see nothing of the children, though he did spy a mule
staring with daft concentration at nothing in particular.
The voices continued to chirp
and gaggle somewhere to the left, on a blade of level earth that formed the
foundation for several hoary old maples.
"Momma! Momma!" he
heard young Yorsi cry. Then he spied him through the weave of branches,
barrelling up the slope. His mother, Tisthanna, strolled down toward him,
wiping her hands on her apron and quite—Achamian was relieved to
note—unconcerned. "Look!" Yorsi cried, waving something small
and golden.
Then he saw a petite woman
climbing in Yorsi's wake, laughing at the four blond children who danced around
her, their questions rising in chiming counterpoint. "What's your mule
called?" "Can I chop your sword?" "Can I? Can I? Can
I?" Her hair was Ketyai black and half-cropped, and she wore a leather
cloak whose many-panelled manufacture shouted caste-noble even from such a
distance. But given his high vantage and the way she looked down at her little
interlocutors, Achamian could see nothing of her face.
He felt a tickle in his throat.
How long had it been since their last visitor?
In the beginning, when it had
just been him and Geraus, only the Sranc had come. He had lost count of how
many times he had lit up the hillside with the Gnosis, sending the vile
creatures howling back into the forest deeps. Every tree within bowshot carried
some scar of those mad battles: A sorcerer poised on the edge of a half-ruined
tower, raining brilliant destruction down on fields of what looked like raving,
white-skinned apes. Geraus still suffered nightmares. Afterwards, with the end
of the Unification Wars, it had been the Scalpoi, the innumerable Men—Galeoth,
Conriyans, Tydonni, Ainoni,
substantial truths. Others stand like trunks, shouldering the beliefs of entire
nations. And a few—a desperate few—are seeds.
He was running through all the
details that might allow him to date the dream—which Knight-Chieftains still
had favour at the High-King's table, which rings Seswatha wore, the fertility
tattoos on the Queen's inner thighs—when one of the children's voices piped
through the drone of his failing concentration. "Yeah, but from how faaaaaar?" A girl's warbling, squeezed into a reed by the distance. Little Silhanna, he
realized.
A woman replied, something
tender and inaudible.
It was the accent more than the
voice that sent him stumbling to the open window. He found himself blinking,
gripping the cracked and pitted sill against the sudden vertigo. It was Sheyic,
the common tongue of the New Empire, but lilting with southern nuances. Nansur?
Ainoni?
He glanced out to the horizon,
across what had once been the Galeoth province of Hûnoreal. The skies were iron
grey with the chill-spring promise of summer blue. Climbing and falling
canopies jostled across the near distance, a patchwork of tender greens so new
that swales of ground could be seen through them. The morning sunlight was still
barred from the ravines, so the landscape possessed an oceanic quality; the
sunbathed summits and ridge lines resembled yellow islands in a shadowy sea.
Even though he couldn't make out the white-backed tributaries of the Rohil, he
could see their winding stamp on the disposition of the distant hills, like
cables laid across love-tossed sheets.
Strange, the way distances grew
in the chill.
The ground immediately below
fell away in a series of stubbed terraces, so that looking directly down made
it feel as though he were being tugged out the window. There were the
outbuildings, little more than lean-tos actually, staking out their humble
circle of habitation, and the nearer trees, elms and oaks, winding to heights
that would have been eye level had the ground been even. And there were the
bare stretches, whose bald stone carried premonitions of smashing melons and
broken skulls. He could see nothing of the children, though he did spy a mule
staring with daft concentration at nothing in particular.
The voices continued to chirp
and gaggle somewhere to the left, on a blade of level earth that formed the
foundation for several hoary old maples.
"Momma! Momma!" he
heard young Yorsi cry. Then he spied him through the weave of branches,
barrelling up the slope. His mother, Tisthanna, strolled down toward him,
wiping her hands on her apron and quite—Achamian was relieved to
note—unconcerned. "Look!" Yorsi cried, waving something small
and golden.
Then he saw a petite woman
climbing in Yorsi's wake, laughing at the four blond children who danced around
her, their questions rising in chiming counterpoint. "What's your mule
called?" "Can I chop your sword?" "Can I? Can I? Can
I?" Her hair was Ketyai black and half-cropped, and she wore a leather
cloak whose many-panelled manufacture shouted caste-noble even from such a
distance. But given his high vantage and the way she looked down at her little
interlocutors, Achamian could see nothing of her face.
He felt a tickle in his throat.
How long had it been since their last visitor?
In the beginning, when it had
just been him and Geraus, only the Sranc had come. He had lost count of how
many times he had lit up the hillside with the Gnosis, sending the vile
creatures howling back into the forest deeps. Every tree within bowshot carried
some scar of those mad battles: A sorcerer poised on the edge of a half-ruined
tower, raining brilliant destruction down on fields of what looked like raving,
white-skinned apes. Geraus still suffered nightmares. Afterwards, with the end
of the Unification Wars, it had been the Scalpoi, the innumerable Men—Galeoth,
Conriyans, Tydonni, Ainoni,
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