Scott Bakker's brother shares some insights from the D&D campaign that created the world of Earwa

Scott Bakker's brother Bryan has shared some insights into the 1980s Dungeons & Dragons campaign that resulted in the creation of the world of Earwa, the setting for Scott's Second Apocalypse series (subdivided into the Prince of Nothing trilogy and Aspect-Emperor quartet).

Artwork by the excellent Jason Deem (aka Spiral Horizon)

He includes some reminiscences about the games they played as kids, some maps and illustrations, and even a poem that arose from their gaming. It's interesting seeing standard D&D races like gnomes existing alongside well-known Second Apocalypse names like Scylvendi and Mekeritrig.

At the end, Bryan shares some thoughts on Scott's radio silence for the last couple of years and the prospect of future books in the series. Famously, Scott was debating on whether leaving The Unholy Consult as the last word on the series, as he'd originally planned, or proceeding with a concluding duology/trilogy. That debate still seems unresolved.

For those interested in the now, some have commented on the fact that Scott has been quiet online in recent years. Suffice it to say he has gone through a lot. His singular focus right now is raising his daughter and building his family's future.

As for the future of the series, I've heard him say two things, over the years, about how the Second Apocalypse should end:

One was that there would be a third trilogy outlining the blow by blow of 'you know who's' rise. I know outlines exist for such a story, but just outlines.

The other is that the story is finished. That 'The Unholy Consult', is a fitting way to end a sprawling epic about the death of meaning.

For my part, I can't help but to think that this massive story was where Scott's creative life began and, it would not surprise me if, after his real life trials are complete, he doesn't return to it, before the end.

Like a favourite old coat - warm and comfortable - and smelling of sulfur (:

Sometimes, life does come full circle.

A HISTORY OF EARWA updated through THE UNHOLY CONSULT

My History of Earwa PDF, a guide and story-so-far to Scott Bakker's Second Apocalypse series, has now been updated through the events of The Unholy Consult. This will stand readers in good stead for when Bakker publishers the next book, whenever that might be. You can read or download the PDF here.

As before, thanks to Jason Deem for his amazing artwork which really fleshed out the project.

Cities of Fantasy: Golgotterath

Many of the cities of fantasy are places which are, at worst, dystopias: places which might not be great places to live but at least people can survive there on a day-to-day level. The bastions of true evil – the Barad-dûrs and Skull Kingdoms and Shayol Ghuls – generally go unexplored in fantasy, being relegated to vague descriptions of off-screen badness.

In Canadian fantasy author R. Scott Bakker’s Second Apocalypse series, comprising the Prince of Nothing, Aspect-Emperor and No-God sub-series, the primary bastion of evil goes by many names – Incû-Holoinas, Min-Uroikas, the Pit – but one stands out more than any other: Golgotterath, stronghold of the Unholy Consult.

A map of Golgotterath's exterior, by R. Scott Bakker.

Location

Golgotterath is located in the far north-west of the continent of Eärwa. It is located in the midst of an arid landscape known as the Black Furnace Plain, contained with a vast impact crater known as the Occlusion, surrounded by the Ring Mountains. These are not true mountains, but massive heaps of rock and dirt thrown into the sky and then down again by the cataclysmic event known as Arkfall, the crash-landing of a multi-million-ton vessel which took place many thousands of years ago. To the north and west lies the colossal Yimaleti Mountains, whilst the south lies the Neleöst, the Misty Sea. Extending east from the Ring Mountains for several hundred miles to the River Sursa is a massive area of wasteland known as the Field Appalling, Agongorea. This land is desolate, with nothing growing at all. The ground won’t even accept footprints.

In ancient times the region was bordered by Cûnuroi (whom humans call Nonmen) Mansions, with Viri lying to the east and Ishoriöl to the south, beyond the sea. After the arrival of the Four Tribes of Men in Eärwa, human nations arose to the south (Kûniüri) and east (Aörsi). These nations were destroyed two thousand years ago in the savage war known as the Apocalypse. Since this time Golgotterath has stood alone, the nearest settlements being Ishterebinth (the modern name for the much-reduced Mansion of Ishoriöl), the secret Dûnyain redoubt of Ishuäl, and the human cities of Atrithau and Sakarpus, both more than a thousand miles distant. The densely-populated kingdoms of the Three Seas lie almost two thousand miles away to the south. The lands between, including the vast Istyuli Plains, are crawling with millions of Sranc, the foul and abominable servants of Golgotterath. Anasûrimbor Kellhus, the Aspect-Emperor of the Three Seas, has led the 300,000-strong army known as the Great Ordeal onto the plains with the goal of destroying Golgotterath, but the outcome of this expedition remains in question.

The Golden Horns of Golgotterath. Artwork by Jason Deem.

Physical Description

Golgotterath defies easy exposition. The area consists of a series of fortresses, a city (of sorts) extending above and below ground, and the most titanic walls ever built, extending for dozens of miles. But these complexes, which outshine anything in the Three Seas, are utterly dwarfed into insignificance by the Golden Horns of the Incû-Holoinas.

The Incû-Holoinas is a space-faring vessel. At some point in the past – claimed by some Nonmen to be eight thousand years ago, others maybe six thousand – the vessel crashed into Eärwa in a titanic roar which was heard as far away as the shores of the Three Seas. Defying rationality, the vessel was not destroyed but instead survived mostly intact, with more than two-thirds of its length buried underground. Only the rear-most projections of the vessel – the Horns themselves – extend above ground.

The two horns are gold in colour and covered in what appears to be a script written in the Cincûlic language, the ancient and indecipherable language of the Inchoroi species. One of the Horns was damaged in the crash and lists slightly to one side, thus their frequent depiction as the “Canted Horn” (the western-most of the two) and the “Upright Horn”. The Horns are titanic: during the Great Investiture, the siege by the combined armies of Kûniüri, Aörsi and Ishterebinth during the First Apocalypse, the mages of the Sohonc School spent years conducting exacting measurements of Horns by measuring their shadows and the occlusion of the Sun. They concluded that the Upright Horn measures over 13,000 feet – or over two-and-a-half miles – in height from its base to its tip. Nonmen records, curiously, suggest a height of almost twice this amount, suggesting either that the Ark is slowly sinking over the passage of time or that one or both of the two counts are highly erroneous. The function of the Horns is unclear, but the Inchoroi used to refer to them as the “Oars of the Ark”, suggesting they were involved in its propulsion through the void.

The two Horns meet the ground in a massive mound of stone and slag, known as the Scab. When the Golden Ark slowed to a stop, the heat of its arrival melted the surrounding rock down to lava. This came rushing in above the vessel and then slowly cooled and hardened. The Scab prevents access from the surface directly to the hull of the Incû-Holoinas; the vessel is only accessible via the Horns themselves. The Scab is rocky, hard to cross and drops away to the surrounding plain via a massive escarpment on all sides bar the south-western. Although the escarpment is effectively unclimbable, the Consult have raised tall walls (some rearing 90 feet above even the escarpment edge) above it, punctuated by watch-towers. On the south-western side, the toil of Inchoroi, Nonmen and men over millennia has cleared a path from the base of the Upright Horn, where the only accessible portal to the vessel is located, down to the plain. This stretch of land, modest in overall size, has seen more blood spilled than anywhere else in the history of the World. It is the grave of heroes.

This stretch of land begins outside the walls of Golgotterath, on the plain-within-a-plain known as Ûgorrior. This is the dead field that lies immediately before the gates of the fortress and is a kill-zone within easy missile range of the walls and fortresses. Titanic walls, taller than the walls of great cities like Momemn, Carythusal or Domyot, rise from the floor to seal the gap in the escarpment. These walls are hinged on the twin fortresses of Domathuz (in the south) and Corrunc (in the north). In the middle of the two is Gwergiruh, a pentagon-shaped gatehouse of huge size. Between the arms of the fortress lies the Ûbil Maw, the Extrinsic Gate of Golgotterath itself.

Beyond, the escarpment has been smoothed down into a series of tiered terraces, known as the Oblitus. Nine large terraces rise from ground level. The ninth and tallest terrace lies before another fortress, the High Cwol, which stares down at the plain below. Within the High Cwol is a bridge leading over an abyss at the base of the Upright Horn. The final portal into the Golden Horn, and into the Incû-Holoinas itself, lies at the far end of the bridge, the famed Intrinsic Gate of myth.

Golgotterath is a city as well as a fortress, with heaps of buildings, shacks and structures located on the terraces. Most of these lie in the so-called Canal, the ground level inside the walls beneath the First Terrace. Sranc, Nonmen and men in the service of the Consult dwell in these rude dwellings.

The Incû-Holoinas itself is allegedly inhabited. During the First Apocalypse, Anasûrimbor Nau-Cayûti and Seswatha, founder of the Mandate, stole into the Ark to rescue Nau-Cayûti’s concubine and retrieve the fabled Heron Spear. During their descent into the bowels of the vessel, they reported finding a cavernous hold (one of many, if Nonmen records are to be believed) in which a miserable and decrepit city of Sranc, Bashrags, men and other piteous servants of the Consult could be found.

The environs around Golgotterath, cartography by Jason Deem.

Population

The population of Golgotterath is unknown.

It is known that only two Inchoroi have survived the passage of ages since Arkfall: Aurang, the Warlord, and his brother Aurax, master of the Tekne. Cet’ingira, the Man-Traitor, has brought many Nonmen into the fold, mostly Erratics driven insane by the passage of ages, but many of them were lost in the Apocalypse and, much more recently, the four-year assault on Ishuäl. Men, followers of Shaeönanra, the ancient Grandvizier of the Mangaecca who went over to the foe three thousand years ago, also serve the Consult, but in numbers unknown.

The foul creations of the Inchoroi are far more numerous. Largest of all is the population of Sranc, ancient and foul perversions of the Nonmen into ravenous and lustful savages. A tall, powerful breed known as the Ursranc are found within the walls of Golgotterath, whilst many thousands more can be found breeding in the Yimaleti Mountains. Far more still can be found to the west, on the Istyuli Plains, in hordes hundreds of thousands strong. Rarer and more formidable are the Bashrags, tall and broad doubled-headed monsters. Rarest of all are the Wracu, called dragons by men, sorcerous creatures of formidable power. Most of the Wracu were annihilated during the ancient Cûno-Inchoroi Wars, and several of the survivors were slain in the Apocalypse thousands of years later. It is unknown how many Wracu survive.

Arkfall, by Jason Deem.

History

Over six thousand years ago (and maybe closer to eight), the Incû-Holoinas came to the World. Within, it carried the Inchoroi, an ancient, foul and obscene race. The Inchoroi believed that they were damned, that upon death they would roil and burn for eternity in flames. They could only avoid this fate by reducing the population of their homeworld to 144,000. But, this achieved, they found they were still damned. Using their vast vessel, they travelled from world to world, raining death down on each on, reducing the populations to the same level. But still they found themselves condemned to the hells.

Finally, they stumbled across the Chosen World, the world on which the continent of Eärwa rests. Why this world was different is unknown. They prepared to cleanse it, but an accident took place (the details of which remain unclear). The Ark of the Heavens instead fell to the ground. The Inchoroi triggered the Inertial Inversion Field, a blast of energy which created a landing field for the Ark as well as dramatically slowing its descent. But this force was not as effective as it should have been. The Ark’s impact blasted millions of tons of rock, earth and rubble into the skies, sending a reverberating crack around the world. A firestorm scoured the land in all directions for hundreds of miles. The storm lashed even the walls of Viri, the nearest Nonman Mansion, killing thousands whilst earthquakes killed tens of thousands more in the deeps.

Inside the Ark, the impact was calamitous. The vessel survived, but many inside were killed instantly, more still being heavily injured. One of the two Horns, the great Oars of the Ark, became unhinged and canted, robbing the vessel of the motive power to take off again. Most of the Arsenal, the dread cache of weapons which had near-extinguished life on dozens or hundreds of worlds, was destroyed or rendered inoperable. It is unknown how many died inside the Ark, save that the Inchoroi put the combined death-toll of Arkfall (inside and outside the vessel) at over ten million. Eventually, it fell to one of the Inchoroi, Sil, to rouse his battered fellows. He loosed Wutteät, the Father-of-Dragons, the Wracu template and his greatest weapon, and flew from a portal high on the Upright Horn to observe the World. Inchoroi scouts left the vessel (borne from the high portal to the ground by Wracu, as the boiling cauldron of what was to become the Scab was fatal to even approach) and in time two of these were captured by the Cûnuroi scout and fabled warrior Ingalira. Unable to approach the vessel, Ingalira took the creatures back to Viri, now a conquest of the bold High King Cû’jara Cinmoi of Siöl. Cû’jara Cinmoi bid the creatures explain themselves, but the noises they made were without meaning. Dubbing the creatures Inchoroi, or “People of Emptiness”, Cû’jara Cinmoi put them to death (their ugly appearance offended him) and set a Watch on the Fallen Ark whilst he made war on the other Mansions.

The Inchoroi were masters of the Tekne, the art of machines and science. Discovering their lacked the biological ability to communicate with the Nonmen, they grafted Nonmen-like faces onto their own bodies and learned the Nonman language. A delegation of Inchoroi then slipped past the watchers and infiltrated Viri. There they contacted Nin’janjin, the former King of Viri, and offered him a deal: they would offer military support to him in ejecting the Siölan invaders in return for his help in achieving their goals. Nin’janjin agreed. Viri rebelled and a great host of Inchoroi and Viri troops gathered on the field of Pir Pahal, beyond the Neleost, to confront the armies of Cû’jara Cinmoi. However, many of the Viri objected to the Inchoroi’s obscene appearance and their practice of wearing festering bodies as garments of war. They rejected Nin’janjin’s command and declared common cause with Cû’jara Cinmoi against the creatures.

The Inchoroi took the Nonmen too lightly, trusting in their weapons – particularly their spears of light which could inflict horrific damage from heat over vast distances – too much. They had no knowledge of sorcery and were unprepared for the power of the Gnosis. Although they inflicted hideous casualties on the Nonmen, they were swept from the field and Sil, High King of the Inchoroi, was slain, his Heron Spear taken up by Cû’jara Cinmoi. Cinmoi was unable to complete his victory, instead having to confront rebellions in distant corners of his empire. A renewed Watch was placed on the Ark.

A century or more later, the Inchoroi sued for peace through their representative, the Traitor-King Nin’janjin. Cû’jara Cinmoi, by now aged and approached death, was amazed to see his once-vassal was untouched by the passage of time. Nin’janjin begged for peace and asked what boon the Inchoroi could provide to win their freedom. Cinmoi replied that he wanted the same gift that Nin’janjin had received, to be able to live forever and have the threat of death removed. The Inchoroi agreed, and administered the Inoculation, the treatment that rendered the Nonmen immortal.

Over one hundred years later, the depth of the Inchoroi plan was revealed. The Nonmen were immortal, but then the entire female half of their species fell ill, sickened and died. The Womb Plague killed over half of the entire Nonman species, millions upon millions of them. In utter fury, Cû’jara Cinmoi raised the forces of all nine High Mansions against the Inchoroi and fought them on the Black Furnace Plain before the Ark, which was now called Min-Uroikas, the Pit of Obscenities. The Battle of Pir Minginnial was long, hard-fought and filled with victories for both sides. But ultimately the battle was won by the Inchoroi, the Traitor-King Nin’janjin striking down and beheading Cû’jara Cinmoi himself. The Nonmen fled and for five centuries suffered setbacks and defeats. Great Scaldings blasted the walls of Mansions large and small, Wracu and newly-forged Sranc and Bashrags unleashed in their thousands and Tekne trinkets known as Chorae defying the Gnosis itself.

The Cûno-Inchoroi Wars ended, however, in defeat for the Inchoroi. Nil’giccas, High King of Nihrimsûl and Ishoriöl, raised a great host and defeated the Inchoroi at the Battle of Isal’imial, throwing down the gates of Min-Uroikas and finally storming the Golden Ark itself. The Inchoroi were massacred, the Sranc destroyed in such numbers that for centuries they were reduced to mere inconveniences scrabbling at the margins of Eärwa, and apparently the endless war was won. Though it took twenty years, the Ark was cleansed, passage-by-passage, room-by-room and chamber-by-chamber. All aside one.

Deep in the Ark lay the Golden Court of Sil, the throne-room of the Inchoroi King. In this chamber, there was also an artifact of unknown capability and origin: the Inverse Fire. Every Nonman who beheld this object went insane on the instant, declaring that the Inchoroi were right and that the Nonmen were damned to an eternity of fire and hell as well. This was the room which had turned Nin’janjin and countless Nonmen Qûya mages to the foe, convincing them to create the Chorae and betray their people. Nil’giccas sent his three greatest heroes, the warriors Misariccas and Rûnidil and the mage Cet’ingira, to investigate further. Misariccas and Rûnidil returned gibbering and raving, but Cet’ingira was silent. Nil’giccas demanded his report and Cet’ingira replied that his comrades had gone over to the foe and needed to be put to death, immediately. Nil’giccas complied. He then ordered that the Ark be evacuated and a sorcerous barrier, the Barricades, be placed over the remaining portal to prevent entry. The Ark could not be destroyed, so instead it was abandoned, sealed off and forgotten.

Thousands of years passed. The Four Tribes of Men invaded Eärwa through the Great Kayarsus Mountains, throwing down Siöl itself in the Breaking of the Gates. The Nonman Mansions fell, only Ishoriöl and Cil-Aujas surviving. The Norsirai, proudest of the Tribes, settled the North, raising towns and then cities along the Aumris River Valley and later the first kingdoms and empires. Peace was forged between Man and Nonman, Nil’giccas sending his greatest Qûya and warriors among the humans to teach them the ways of the Gnosis and bind them as allies. So began the Nonman Tutelage, and for the first time the words Incû-Holoinas and Min-Uroikas became known to men, albeit at first as legends and myths.

Cet’ingira was one of these teachers, a Siqû, and he found himself willing students and allies among the Mangaecca, a newly-founded Gnostic school of sorcery. He had lied when he had said he had resisted the Fire. Instead, he had been struck by its power but also retained his instinct for self-preservation. Now he told the Mangaecca of the location of the Golden Horns and soon they had located it. Basing themselves in the ruins of Viri and pretending to scour its depths for secrets, instead they put themselves to work on the Golden Ark. They raised the walls around the fallen vessel and rebuilt the fallen Extrinsic Gate. They then put themselves to the task of removing the Barricades, the construction of the fabled Artisan Emilidis, but could not succeed. The Barricades defied every attempt to remove them for almost four hundred years.

Then Shaeönanra, Grandvizier of the Mangaecca, and Cet’ingira combined their powers. They found a weakness and unravelled it. In the Year-of-the-Tusk 1111 the Barricades fell and they entered the Golden Ark. They found the last two surviving Inchoroi, Aurax and Aurang, and thus the Unholy Consult, the pact of damnation which would echo through eternity, was forged. Barely eight years later the Consult claimed their first victim. Shaeönanra and Aurang slew Titirga, Grandmaster of the Sohonc and the greatest sorcerer in history, and the greatest threat to their plans. A few years later Shaeönanra declared the Mangaecca’s discovering, claiming that within the Ark he had found a way of negating the threat of damnation that was the lot of every sorcerer. He was reviled and his school outlawed, its few remaining practitioners fleeing to the Incû-Holoinas, or as the entire complex was now known, Golgotterath. Shaeönanra survived, kept alive by a fusion of the Tekne and the Gnosis.

One thousand years later, the Unholy Consult finally achieved their goal. The Nonmen had an inkling of what was happening – an Apocalypse in the waiting – and warned their greatest ally, Seswatha of the Sohonc. Seswatha in turn raised the alarm to his friend Anasûrimbor Celmomas II, High King of Kûniüri. Celmomas assembled the greatest army in history, the First Ordeal, backed by the power of Aörsi and Ishterebinth, and marched on the Golden Ark. Two sieges of the vessel proved ineffectual. At one stage Seswatha and Celmomas’s son Nau-Cayûti stole inside the Ark to recover the Heron Spear, but the Consult allegedly slew Nau-Cayûti in response, defiling his grave afterwards. Furious, the armies of Kûniüri re-invested the Ark but just a few months later suffered the event known as Initiation: the birth of the No-God. The ferocious Whirlwind of the No-God, directing a horde of Sranc numbering in the hundreds of thousands, destroyed armies of Kûniüri on the Black Furnace Plain and then obliterated what was left on the Fields of Eleneöt. The Horde of the No-God ravaged Earwa, destroying the Meörn Empire, Akksersia, the Shiradi Empire and even fabled Kyraneas, the jewel of the Three Seas.

It fell to the remnants of shattered Kyraneas to engage the Horde of the No-God at the Battle of Mengedda. As the Whirlwind raged above, King Anaxophus V raised the Heron Spear he had salvaged from the Eleneöt Field and cast a beam of light into its heart. The No-God was killed, its horde scattered to the winds and the Consult forced to withdraw to Golgotterath.

For two thousand years since, the Ancient North has been covered in Sranc, preventing any expedition from striking out for Golgotterath and finally destroying it. The kingdoms of the Three Seas soon feel to internal bickering, religious strife and political chaos. It was only during the Holy War, the attempt by the Men of the Tusk to reclaim the Holy City of Shimeh from the heathen Fanim, that the Consult’s existence again made itself known, through the revelation of skin-spies and the arrival of Anasûrimbor Kellhus, first the Prince of Nothing, then the Warrior-Prophet and then the Aspect-Emperor of the Three Seas. Kellhus subdued the Three Seas and ordered the assembly of the greatest army in history. Their goal would be to cross the Istyuli Plains, circle the Misty Sea, cross the River Sursa and finally cast down the Horns of Golgotterath in ruin.

Thus began the Great Ordeal.

Origins and Influences

R. Scott Bakker conceived of The Second Apocalypse series whilst running Dungeons and Dragons campaigns for his brother and his friends in the mid-1980s. Initially he conceived the series as a trilogy, ending on a bold (but likely controversial) ending. This is the story that was eventually to make up the first seven books of the series, culminating in the soon-to-be-released Unholy Consult (July 2017). Later he decided this ending might not be entirely satisfactory, so expanded the series to include a revised ending and conceptualised the whole thing as a trilogy.

 He developed the world and the story over a period of about fifteen years before he started writing The Darkness That Came Before, which was published in 2003. It was followed by The Warrior-Prophet (2004) and The Thousandfold Thought (2005), the three books collectively known as The Prince of Nothing. Bakker had conceived the entire story as a trilogy, but the three books only covered the first third of the story. His original “middle volume” of the series became its own series, The Aspect-Emperor, expanding (after several unforeseen delays) to four volumes: The Judging Eye (2009), The White-Luck Warrior (2011), The Great Ordeal (2016) and The Unholy Consult (2017). A further series, The No-God, currently planned to be a duology, will conclude the entire saga.

The Second Apocalypse fuses real-life history, particularly that of the Crusades and Alexander the Great, to religious imagery and mythology, as well as drawing in a strong science fiction focus, with side-stories exploring everything from quantum physics to genetic engineering to Biblical numerology. But Bakker was also inspired by more obvious sources: J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, Frank Herbert’s Dune and (much later in the developmental process), George R.R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones. In particular, Tolkien resonated strongly with Bakker, whose own creation myths, immortal Nonmen and horrible monsters echo many elements found in the earlier work.

Bakker was also impressed by the idea in Dune of a messiah (Paul Atreides) arising and it initially appearing that he was the good guy, but later on it being revealed that he had inadvertently killed billions of people. Anasûrimbor Kellhus, the protagonist of the series, can be seen as a mixture of Paul Atreides, Jesus and the Mentats of Dune, human computers capable of computing the outcome of almost any circumstance. However, Bakker felt that Herbert had later sold out on the thematic ideas of the series as he added numerous and unnecessary sequels, and was determined not to do the same thing.

For the bad guys of the series, he settled on the Inchoroi: space aliens who didn’t just kill people, but used technology and pheromones to make them love them first, a horrible perversion of human emotion and spirit. And every race of Dark Lords needs it Dark Tower. The Inchoroi do things on a stupendous scale, so their base of operations similarly became huge and towering in scope: a crashed biotech spacecraft called the Ark of the Skies and the dark city that grew up around it, Golgotterath. For six novels our hero, the wizard Achamian, has dreamed of the Ark and its towering Golden Horns, using his sorcery-imbued visions of the First Apocalypse to explore it. But in The Unholy Consult, Achamian and the Great Ordeal will finally reach Golgotterath and discover the revelations that wait within.

Websites of interest: Golgotterath at Prince of Nothing Wiki.

A History of Earwa (web articles).

A History of Earwa (expanded and downloadable PDF).

Thank you for reading The Wertzone. To help me provide better content, please consider contributing to my Patreon page and other funding methods, which will also get you exclusive content weeks before it goes live on my blogs. The Cities of Fantasy series is debuting on my Patreon feed and you can read it there one month before being published on the Wertzone.

R. Scott Bakker on his next Earwa books

R. Scott Bakker has held an Ask Me Anything session on Reddit and spilled some beans about his plans moving forwards, with The Unholy Consult (the final book in his Aspect-Emperor series) having been published last month.

SPOILERS FOR THE UNHOLY CONSULT FOLLOW:

The big news is that work is underway on the third and concluding arc in the Second Apocalypse saga. This sub-series will be called The No-God, which is interesting as it breaks the pattern of naming for the first two series (The Prince of Nothing and The Aspect-Emperor). The current plan is for a duology, but an expansion to a trilogy is entirely possible.

Scott doesn't have a name for the individual books in the series yet, not a clear idea of when they might be published. He also doesn't have a publishing deal yet, which may be contingent on how well The Unholy Consult does for Overlook and Orbit. He did confirm that the third series commences just a few weeks after the cataclysmic events at Golgotterath in The Unholy Consult and unfolds from there.

A HISTORY OF EARWA: PDF version available

You can download a free PDF of my 146-page History of Earwa series here. This is an updated version of the same article series that ran on this blog last year and earlier this year, with some extra information and all compiled into a single handy document.

There are no spoilers for The Unholy Consult, so you can use the document as a super-detailed way of getting up to speed ahead of the arrival of the novel at the start of July.

The artwork is by the excellent Jason Deem, aka SpiralHorizon.

Thank you for reading The Wertzone. To help me provide better content, please consider contributing to my Patreon page and other funding methods, which will also get you exclusive content weeks before it goes live on my blogs. The Cities of Fantasy series is debuting on my Patreon feed and you can read it there one month before being published on the Wertzone.

A spectacular new map of Earwa

Artist Spiral Horizon (aka Jason Deem) has updated his spectacular map of Earwa (from Scott Bakker's Second Apocalypse series). The map includes new material revealed by Bakker as well as information from the new maps in the Aspect-Emperor books.

The map is enormous (at 300dpi and over 9MB in size) but well worth a look. This is now one of my favourite fantasy maps of all time, a real labour of love.

A History of Eärwa Part 7: The Great Ordeal

Part 1 can be found here.

SPOILER WARNING: THIS ENTRY CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE FIRST THREE NOVELS OF THE ASPECT-EMPEROR SERIES.

Drusas Achamian, former sorcerer of the Mandate and now the only Wizard of the Three Seas.

At one time Drusas Achamian was an agent of the Mandate, a sorcerer haunted by dreams of Seswatha, hero of the First Apocalypse, and by fears that the Second was coming. During the chaotic swirl of the Holy War he found a man whom he believed could save humanity and lead it to victory over the ancient foe, the Unholy Consult. Anasûrimbor Kellhus led the Holy War to victory, but in doing so he stole away Achamian’s love, Esmenet, and subverted the religious fervour, faith and love of millions to build himself an empire.

Faced with the choice of kneeling to the Aspect-Emperor or repudiating him, Achamian chose the latter. Unimpeded, at the Aspect-Emperor’s express command, Achamian fled into the wilds of Galeoth, erecting a tower to live in solitude and meditate on one question: “Who is the Aspect-Emperor?”

A History of Eärwa Part 6: The Unification Wars

Part 1 can be found here.

Word of the great victory at Shimeh spread to all the corners of the Three Seas. The Holy War had triumphed. The heathen Fanim had been put to rout and the Holy City restored to the Faithful. But even more remarkable were the stories that accompanied the news. A new leader had emerged from the ranks of the Holy War. He had survived death, performed great miracles and pulled the battered, bloodied remnants of the crusade to a victory against odds unthinkable. Here was a story from the very Sagas brought to life.

Anasûrimbor Kellhus was born in 4076 in Ishuäl. A Dûnyain monk, he left his home in 4109 at the command of his order, to search for his father whom it had feared had gone mad amongst the Worldborn. By 4112 he had joined and conquered the Holy War, mastered the Gnosis and been crowned Aspect-Emperor of the Three Seas, the greatest - and most reviled - figure in history since Triamis the Great.

Anasûrimbor Kellhus was proclaimed the Aspect-Emperor of the Three Seas by the Shriah of the Thousand Temples. Tens of thousands of Men of the Tusk, forged in the burning heat of the Great Carathay and tempered on the battlefields of Caraskand and Shimeh, swore themselves his eternal subjects, his Zaudunyani, the “Tribe of Truth”. Even three of the sorcerous schools (the Imperial Saik, the Scarlet Spires and the Mandate) had sworn to his service. His victory, his rule, seemed unquestionable.

But history is never so simple. Across the Three Seas there was shock that this man, this prince of nothing, had come out of nowhere and seemingly subverted the Holy War to his own ends. Many dismissed him as a fraudster, or even a Ciphrang, a demon from the Outside sent to lead men to their destruction. Some who may have been tempted to hear him were disgusted to hear that he preached of the threat of the Consult and the Inchoroi: children’s stories that no-one but those doddering old fools in Atyersus took seriously. Armies were summoned, swords forged and bows strung as the opponents of the new Aspect-Emperor, the Orthodox, braced themselves for war. Likewise, Maithanet’s support for Kellhus had shattered the Thousand Temples, leading to many priests – the Schismatics – taking up arms in defence of the faith.

Only one nation declared for Kellhus in its totality: Conriya, united under the rule of Nersei Proyas. Every other nation splintered, the entire caste-nobility of the Three Seas divided. Provinces and palatinates and principalities declared for or against Kellhus, often depending on the zeal of their troops and rulers still encamped with the Holy War around Shimeh. Most of civilised Eärwa teetered on the brink of civil war, moreso in the Nansurium after the unexpected deaths of both Emperor Ikurei Xerius and his heir, Ikurei Conphas, on campaign, with no heirs left to them.

But the Holy War was not done. Refreshed, reinforced (by the Mandate and other sorcerers flocking to Kellhus’s banner) and resupplied, the Holy War struck south and west into Kian proper. The long war had exhausted the fighting strength of the Fanim and they could offer no effective resistance. Fanayal ab Kascamandri was unable to rally his people and melted away into the Carathay Desert. By the end of 4113 the Holy War had seized Nenciphon and installed the Emperor and Empress in the White-Sun Palace. Many soldiers formerly loyal to the Empire now switching their loyalty to Anasûrimbor Kellhus. Massar ab Kascamandri, the brother of Fanayal, underwent the Whelming, the spiritual induction into the ranks of the Zaudunyani, and swore his entire nation to the service of Kellhus.

In 4114 Kellhus published a tract on sorcery. The Novum Arcanum attracted great attention for its revelations and insights into sorcery and logic. The following year Kellhus announced a great gathering of sorcerers from across Eärwa and they came in unprecedented numbers to learn from him and hear his great Rehabilitation of Sorcery. All Shrial and Tusk condemnations of the practice were rescinded and sorcerers were no longer held to be anathema. Through such acts Kellhus won every sorcerer of rank and power in Eärwa (save one) to his side, the sorcerous schools united under his banner.

A witch of the Swayal Compact. Steeped in the Gnosis and outstripping the other Schools in sheer numbers, the Swayal may be the most powerful force in Eärwa save only the Aspect-Emperor himself.

Kellhus also made his second great proclamation: the Manumission of the Feminine. All limitations – legal, spiritual or moral – placed on the comportment of women were struck down. Women now had full equal rights to men across the Three Seas. This was initially a more controversial declaration, and seized upon by Kellhus’s opponents as proof of his madness, but it was also popular amongst, of course, the women of the Three Seas, particular with regard to inheritance and property rights. Even more dramatic was that the combination of the two declarations effectively ended the ban on women joining the Few. For centuries women wielding sorcery had been scorned as witches, burned at the stake or stoned to death even by those men who trafficked with sorcerers themselves. Now they were allowed to come out of the shadows, in numbers which caught the men of the Three Seas by surprise.

Even more breathtaking was what Kellhus did for these women: he commanded the Mandate to instruct them in the ways of the Gnosis, and gave to them the abandoned Cûnuroi Mansion of Illisserû in Holy Amoteu as their stronghold, now renamed Orovelai. He made them a simple promise, to support and empower them in return for their support in turn. This became known as the Swayal Compact, the name also taken by the witches (a name many of them now wore with pride). Within a decade their knowledge and mastery of the Gnosis rivalled that of the Mandate and their numbers far outstripped them.

Kellhus won loyalty, even fanatical and maddened loyalty, in his own way. Within a year of the fall of Nenciphon, his missionary-zealots had begun making their way across the Three Seas. They became known as the Zaudûn Angnaya, the “floating college” of young aspirants who learned from Kellhus whenever they could. They sought to persuade through argument, reason and, whenever that failed, conviction. Horrified stories spread amongst the Orthodox of “suicide sermons”, when Angnaya would slit their own throats in front of the vast crowds to prove their absolute faith. At first they used such demonstrations as proof of Kellhus’s danger and insanity, but the unshakeable faith and certitude of the zealots shook the Orthodox, who had no spiritual answer for them.

The Unification Wars. Between the fall of Shimeh in 4112, at the end of the Holy War, and the capitulation of Nilnamesh in 4122, Anasûrimbor Kellhus conquered the entire Three Seas, eventually being decreed its political, military, religious and sorcerous leader: its Aspect-Emperor. More than 75 million people lived and died at his command.

By the end of 4114 war had come: the Fanim inspired a massive uprising in Shigek, but this had been crushed by Rash Soptet, Lord of the Sempis. The growing rift in the Thousand Temples erupted in bloodletting, the War-between-Temples. Nilnamesh, long separated from its Inrithi brethren by the width of the Kian Empire, also declared against Kellhus.

In 4115 Prince Shoddû Akirapita assembled a large army in Nilnamesh and moved to defend the border. The Zaudunyani were defeated at the Battle of Pinropis, to their surprise. Kellhus took time to regroup, during which time his allies achieved greater victories: in 4116 Coithus Narnol declared for Kellhus and delivered Galeoth almost intact to his banner. King Hringa Vûkyelt likewise unified Thunyerus in Kellhus’s name and expelled the Schismatics from the kingdom. The following year both Ce Tydonn and High Ainon became divided in a bitter civil war, followed by the declaration of Ce Tydonn for Kellhus in 4118. Cironj also fell in this year.

High Ainon presented Kellhus with a major problem: the nation was vast and unruly at the best of times but unified in its fear of the Scarlet Spires. But the Holy War had almost destroyed the order altogether, with barely a dozen sorcerers-of-rank surviving the conflagration at Shimeh. To their humiliation, Kellhus award the Mandate command of Kiz, the former Scarlet Spires stronghold in Carythusal. From there the Mandate was able to bring the rule of the Aspect-Emperor to lower Ainon, but the full capitulation of the kingdom took longer. In 4120 the Sack of Sarneveh took place, Kellhus himself leading the capture of the city. Although successful, the Toll of casualties (a meticulous accounting of the cost of victory) recorded more than five thousand children slain. This news escaped the city, encouraging further resistance to Kellhus. However, by the end of 4121 High Ainon had fallen and declared for Kellhus.

At this point, a curiosity took place, one which even the most fanatical Zaudunyani have struggled to reconcile with their extolling of Kellhus as a messenger of the divine. Following the conquest of High Ainon, Kellhus spent four months in Kiz as a student of Heramari Iyokus, the famed Blind Necromancer and a master practitioner of the Daimos, the sorcerous art of communing with demons. At the end of this tutelage Kellhus emerged with the two grotesque heads of demons bound to his hip by their hair: the Decapitants. Kellhus demurred on explaining their origin, often ignoring the question altogether. Rumour said that the Aspect-Emperor had somehow plumbed the very Hells themselves and returned with the heads of trophies of war, and to remind the Aspect-Emperor of the fate awaiting all those who were damned.

Also in 4121, the Nilnameshi capital of Invishi had finally fallen to the Zaudunyani. However, Prince Akirapita refused to capitulate, gathering a new army. It was not until this army was destroyed at the Battle of Ushgarwal in 4122 and the Prince slain (his body was found in a well in Girgash in 4123) that Nilnamesh could finally be said to have been brought into the fold. This left only Fanayal ab Kascamandri out of the Aspect-Emperor’s many foes, and his forces were reduced to a few tribesfolk of the Great Salt.

The Unification Wars were declared over in 4122. Maithanet, having won the War-between-Temples, crowned Anasûrimbor Kellhus the Aspect-Emperor of the Three Seas in Momemn, which Kellhus had taken as his capital.  Kellhus and his wife, Esmenet, now had several children – Kayûtas (b. 4112), Theliopa (b. 4114, in Nenciphon), Serwa (b. 4115) and Inrilatas (b. 4117) – and more would follow, the twins Kelmomas and Samarmas (both b. 2124). They had also adopted the son of Cnaiür urs Skiötha and Serwë, Moënghus II (b. 4111) as their own. The result was that they had already established a dynasty, one with the power to rule the Three Seas for generations to come.

But the new goal of the Anasûrimbor family was not to simply rule. Kellhus declared war on Golgotterath and the Unholy Consult. He declared his goal was to destroy the dread Ark and cast down its Golden Horns forever. His purpose was to forestall the return of the No-God, prevent the Second Apocalypse and to save the World itself. To this end he commanded the establishing of the greatest army in human history. Swords and armour were forged on a titanic scale. Horses were bred in their tens of thousands. Supply caches were established in the northern Empire, near the Kathol Pass leading to the vast Istyuli Plains. Sorcerers were called to train and learn as they never had before, and to prepare for the war to come, which would be known as the Great Ordeal. 

Credits

The artwork for this article was created by Jason Deem, known as Spiral Horizon, and used with his permission. You can find more of his spectacular work here. The maps are from Scott's website, adjusted by myself.

The Prince of Nothing Wiki was helpful in providing spelling checks and putting the timeline of events in better order.

Scott Bakker wrote the Second Apocalypse novels, for which this history is merely the backdrop and the scene-setting that comes before. Those novels are:

The Prince of Nothing

The Darkness That Comes Before (2003)

The Warrior-Prophet (2004)

The Thousandfold Thought (2005)

The Aspect-Emperor

The Judging Eye (2008)

The White-Luck Warrior (2011)

The Great Ordeal (2016)

The Unholy Consult (2017)

Thank you for reading The Wertzone. To help me provide better content, please consider contributing to my Patreon page and other funding methods, which will also get you exclusive content weeks before it goes live on my blogs. The Cities of Fantasy series is debuting on my Patreon feed and you can read it there one month before being published on the Wertzone.

THE UNHOLY CONSULT cover art revealed

Overlook Press have revealed the cover art for The Unholy Consult, the fourth and concluding volume in R. Scott Bakker's The Aspect-Emperor quartet, the second part of The Second Apocalypse mega-series.

The Unholy Consult brings this particular part of the saga to a close, but Bakker plans to write another series - either a duology or trilogy - to wrap up the saga of Kellhus and the Second Apocalypse for good. Apparently the name of this final series would be a spoiler, so will not be revealed until after The Unholy Consult is released.

The Unholy Consult will be released in the United States on 4 July 2017. It will be accompanied by an extensive "Encyclopediac Glossary" (similar to the one in The Thousandfold Thought) revealing a lot more about the history of Earwa.

R. Scott Bakker's PRINCE OF NOTHING trilogy optioned for TV

According to the author, a television production company has optioned the rights to the Prince of Nothing trilogy: The Darkness That Comes Before, The Warrior-Prophet and The Thousandfold Thought.

More details are to follow, but this is startling news. Given the overwhelming "heaviness" of the books, with their dark atmosphere, brooding introspection and at times scenes of stomach-churning horror, this is neither an easy sell nor an easy project to get on the screen. There's also the fact that this series would require a budget, at the very least, as high as Game of Thrones in order to sell its scenes of vast armies marching, demons being summoned and sorcerous forces clashing in the skies.

Hopefully we will get more information soon so we can see how serious the offer is and how likely this is to happen. But interesting news nonetheless.

A History of Eärwa Part 5: The Holy War

After the great disaster at Eleneöt Fields and the resulting fall of Kûniüri, the house of Anasûrimbor was presumed destroyed and its line extinguished. But this was not so. Anasûrimbor Ganrelka survived the disaster and managed to escape to Trysë. There he gathered his household and retreated to Ishuäl, the stronghold that Celmomas II had constructed high in the Demua Mountains as a last redoubt. After their arrival, a sickness spread through the refugees and killed them all, one by one, until only Ganrelka's bastard son and his court poet, a man of dubious repute, survived. The poet was hurled to his death from the ramparts of the fortress by the young boy, but the prospects for his survival were bleak. Only the arrival of more survivors saved him.

The Holy War was declared by Maithanet, the Shriah of the Thousand Temples, in Sumna in the spring of 4110 Year-of-the-Tusk. The vast army spent almost a year gathering in and around Momemn before departing in 4111. Shimeh fell to the Men of the Tusk over a year later, in the late spring of 4112. The most important battles were at Mengedda, Anwurat, Caraskand and Shimeh itself.

These survivors called themselves the Dûnyain. Their true origins are unknown, but are theorised to lie in the ecstatic sects that arose across the Ancient North prior to the Apocalypse, prioritising reason and intellect ahead of passion, sentiment or emotion. They believed that true volition and control - a union with the Absolute - could only come through the Logos, or reason unmarred by sentiment, and the ability to adapt to circumstances rather than clinging to them out of ideology or obstinacy. Their primary belief was that if a person can master "what comes before", they can control and predict all the outcomes that follow. Before the Apocalypse they were, reluctantly, part of the world and its problems. But, fleeing the shadow of the No-God, they stumbled across Ishuäl. Its utter isolation gave them a chance to fulfil what they saw as their destiny.

The Dûnyain and Ishuäl fell out of history for almost two thousand years. Left alone in the high peaks, they continued to develop their skills of reading faces and voices and developing the skills of pure reason. Things may have stayed that way, but in the 4070s Year-of-the-Tusk they were discovered by a roving band of Sranc, unusually driven into the high peaks. The Dûnyain destroyed these creatures, not knowing what they were (having lost their own history along the way). Concerned that Ishuäl's location had been compromised, they selected one of their number to go out into the world and investigate. They chose Anasûrimbor Moënghus.

Anasûrimbor Moënghus after blinding himself and becoming a Cishaurim, known as Mallahet. His lack of emotion and passion meant that he was unable to fully master the Water of Indara.

 

Moënghus's exploration of the outside world confirmed that Ishuäl remained safe, and that the lands were filled with these ravaging Sranc for hundreds of miles in all directions bar to the south, where a city of men known as Atrithau lay at the feet of the Demua Mountains. The Dûnyain were satisfied that they were secure, but became convinced that Moënghus had been "polluted" by his contact with the outside world. He was accordingly sentenced to die.

Moënghus survived the execution order and fled into exile. He travelled south, past Atrithau and across the Sranc-infested lands of Suskara to reach the Jiünati Steppe. There he was captured by the Utemot tribe of the Scylvendi and forced into servitude in the household of their chief, Skiötha urs Hannut. Moënghus had soon seduced Skiötha's wife and turned his son Cnaiür against him. Cnaiür murdered his father, securing his leadership of the Utemot, but Moënghus soon departed, disguised as a Scylvendi warrior. Cnaiür, realising the depth of his betrayal, became enraged and vowed vengeance. Moënghus passed south into the Kianene Empire but was soon taken prisoner and sold into slavery.

Again, Moënghus rose to a position of power and influence. He travelled to the Holy City of Shimeh to learn the Psûkhe, the ways of channelling the Water of Indara, but even after putting out his eyes he discovered that he was unable to use more than a trickle of sorcery. Too late, he realised that the Psûkhe relied on passion to empower it, the very trait the Dûnyain had bred out of themselves. However, in this process of trying to master the Water he also trained his other senses to compensate. During a discussion with one man, he noted many discrepancies in his manner of speech that could not be explained by simple lying or emotion. He subjected this man to torture and eventually discovered the truth: the man was a "skin-spy", a creation of the Consult. For three centuries, since the last Consult agent was publicly slain by the Mandate, the Consult had infiltrated these creatures into positions of power across the Three Seas as part of their plan to bring about the Second Apocalypse. Moënghus learned from the skin-spy that the Consult believed they could resurrect the No-God and unleash the end of the world in a matter of decades, at best.

For three centuries the Consult infiltrated the Three Seas through the use of their skin-spies, such as this one taking the appearance of Esmenet of Sumna. The skin-spies were defeated by Dûnyain analytic conditioning, which allowed them to be identified through inconsistencies in their skin and bone structure.

Moënghus determined that the destruction of the world would not be an optimal outcome for the Dûnyain struggling to master the Logos and it should be prevented. He sent in motion a multi-pronged plan to this end. He had sired a number of children by world-born women but all but one of them had shown significant defects, abnormalities and mutations (the Dûnyain had experimented on themselves in far Ishuäl and may not be considered entirely human any more). He had them all put to death apart from one: Maithanet. Although not a true Dûnyain, Maithanet was intelligent and canny with considerable skills at manipulation. Moënghus ordered him to enter the Thousand Temples in Sumna and rise to a position of power and influence. Maithanet complied, within a matter of years rising far through the religious orders thanks to his intellect, reason and expertly-feigned religious fervour.

As Maithanet rose high in the ranks of the Temples, Moënghus used the little of the Psûkhe he had mastered to send a Cant of Calling to Ishuäl. Speaking to the Dûnyain in their dreams, he demanded that they send his son, Kellhus, to his side. The Dûnyain debated and decided that Moënghus had gone insane and was a danger to the security of their order. Anasûrimbor Kellhus was dispatched with a simple mission: to find and kill Moënghus. The Dûnyain knew he dwelt in a distant city called Shimeh, but nothing beyond that.

In the rest of the Three Seas, controversy had arisen around the rise of the hitherto unknown Maithanet to the rank of Shriah of the Thousand Temples. Maithanet exposed and defeated three plans to assassinate him, and using his considerable charisma and power he soon had the fractious religious leaders of Inrithism unified as they had not been in centuries. The leaders of the Mandate learned that Maithanet planned to announce a Holy War, but they feared this would be directed against the sorcerous schools. They ordered one of their number, a worldly agent called Drusas Achamian, to travel to Sumna to investigate further.

In Sumna Achamian reunited with his lover, a prostitute named Esmenet, as well as several political allies. They awaited the news of the Holy War's target and were relieved to learn that it was to be directed against the heathen Fanim of Kian. As thousands of warriors from across the northern and eastern Three Seas converged on the Nansur Empire, which guarded the frontier with Kian, a shocking alliance was announced: the Thousand Temples had forged an agreement with the Scarlet Spires, the sorcerous rulers of High Ainon, to provide a counterbalance to the Fanim Cishaurim (with whom the Spires had been fighting a secret war for a dozen years). These great and unthinkable events saw Achamian ordered to accompany the Holy War and spy on it for the Mandate.

Meanwhile, the Nansur Empire had instigated a military confrontation with the Scylvendi. At the Battle of Kiyuth, early in 4110 Year-of-the-Tusk, a Nansur army under Exalt-General Ikurei Conphas, the nephew and heir to the Emperor, defeated a significant Scylvendi army under the overconfident King-of-Tribes, Xunnurit. The defeat was unprecedented, the Scylvendi driven from the field in disarray with tremendous loss of life and Xunnurit taken in chains back to Momemn. Among those forced to flee the battlefield was Cnaiür urs Skiötha. In the years since the betrayal of Anasûrimbor Moënghus, Cnaiür had become the chieftain of the Utemot, famed for his both his savage intelligence and his unrelenting skill at war, the self-declared "Most Violent of All Men", but despised for the perceived treachery against his father. In the aftermath of Kiyuth, Cnaiür visited the graves of his ancestors only to find a wounded man of the north, surrounded by hordes of dead Sranc. Helping him heal, he learned that this man was Anasûrimbor Kellhus, travelling to south to kill his father, the hated Moënghus. Cnaiür decided to travel with Kellhus to help him achieve this goal. Crossing the steppe and approaching the Nansur border, they slaughtered a band of Scylvendi slavers and freed a young woman named Serwë. Serwë revealed that the armies of the Three Seas were gathering around Momemn, the capital of the Nansur Empire, in preparation for the gruelling march on Shimeh, eight hundred miles or more to the south.

The Holy War gathered its strength, tens of thousands of soldiers - Men of the Tusk - marching from Galeoth and Thunyerus, Ce Tydonn and Conriya, High Ainon and the Nansurium itself. However, the Nansur Emperor, Ikurei Xerius III, saw a chance to manipulate the Holy War to his own purpose. He agreed to provide the Holy War with his armies, the support of his sorcerous school, the Imperial Saik, and the leadership of his famed general Ikurei Conphas, in return that the lands conquered by the Holy War should be returned to Nansur control, as the heir to Cenei. This demand proved incompatible with the notion of a Holy War fought for one religious purpose, with thousands of troops from other nations potentially slaughtered for the gain of the Emperor in Momemn. As the debate raged, the first contingent of the arriving armies decided to march on Shimeh immediately rather than wait for the rest of the host to assemble. The so-called Vulgar Holy War was destroyed at the Fourth Battle of Mengedda, the heads of its leaders sent back to Momemn. Xerius attempted to use this knowledge to press home the need for experienced Nansur leadership in the war to come.

During this controversy, Cnaiür, Kellhus and Serwë arrived at the city, as well as Drusas Achamian, who had attached himself to the retinue of Krijates Xinemus, the Marshal of Attrempus. In his youth, Achamian had served as tutor to Crown Prince Nersei Proyas of Conriya. Although Proyas loved Achamian, he became a devoted follower of Inrithism and severed his ties with the schoolman, whom he considered damned. Although Proyas refused to talk to Achamian as their retinue marched on Momemn, he permitted Achamian to travel with them under Xinemus's parole. Achamian and Proyas met the three strangers from the north and Proyas saw an opportunity to outflank the Emperor's unreasonable demands.

Meanwhile, in Sumna, Esmenet was visited by a man who somehow bewitched and seduced her to gain intelligence on Achamian's activities. Horrified by the ease of the man's success and believing that he may be linked to the Consult, Esmenet travelled to Momemn to try to find and warn Achamian. Along the way she was almost stoned to death in an Nansur village for bearing the caste-mark of a prostitute, but was saved by a Shrial Knight named Sarcellus. He offered her protection on the road to Momemn.

In Momemn the leaders of the Holy War gathered to discuss the situation. To everybody's shock, Nersei Proyas proposed that the Holy War accept Cnaiür as their battle commander. Cnaiür had helped engineer a great Scylvendi victory over the Kianene at the Battle of Zirkirta several years earlier and knew the ways of their mutual enemy. Cnaiür also unexpectedly acquitted himself well in a verbal battle of wits with Ikurei Conphas (Ikurei was unaware that Cnaiür had overheard his victory speech after Kiyuth and was able to turn his own arguments back against him). Kellhus, posing as a Prince of Atrithau who had foreseen the Holy War in his dreams, offered a reasoned analysis of the situation which cut to the heart of the matter, whether the Holy War should be polluted to worldly, political and unholy ends by the Emperor. The assembled nobles agreed to accept Cnaiür as their commander and the delegate of the Holy Shriah commanded the Emperor to provision as the Holy War as required under religious order. Outmanoeuvred, the Emperor was forced to stand down. So as not to appear petty, he also allowed the imperial forces to join the Holy War under Ikurei's command. However, during the meeting Kellhus visually identified one of the delegates, Skeaös, as having something wrong with his face. The Emperor noted Kellhus's interest and had Skeaös seized and interrogated. In this way, the Emperor came to learn of the existence of the skin-spies, and that the mad old stories of the Mandate may have some truth to them.

The Holy War marched from the Nansur Empire, crossing the mountainous frontier with the northernmost Kianene province of Gedea. However, attempts to delay the march to allow consolidation of the main army with late-arriving elements met with disapproval from the leading forces, most notably Prince Coithus Saubon and his headstrong forces from Galeoth. On the advice of Kellhus, whose intelligence, keen analysis and prophetic dreams were the talk of the army, Saubon marched and secured an early victory at Mengedda. This battle was hard-fought, with many of the Shrial Knights slain and the Kianene only withdrawing once the bulk of the rest of the Holy War arrived, but the victory enhanced Saubon's position and made him more trusting of Kellhus.

The rest of the Holy War consolidated. Esmenet was reunited with Achamian, who, in violation of Mandate law, declared her his wife, but Kellhus immediately identified Sarcellus as a skin-spy. He chose not to give this information away, knowing it risked exposing himself as well.

Gedea and the northern half of Shigek fell to the Holy War, the Kianene armies retreating south of the Sempis. Kellhus gave a series of sermons under the famed Ziggurats of Shigek which attracted thousands of listeners. More than a few of the army began to refer to him as the Warrior-Prophet.

Drusas Achamian, a sorcerer of the Mandate, turns the Gnosis against his captors from the Scarlet Spires.

Achamian taught Kellhus in the ways of the world, finding him a quick and formidable study in history, mathematics and philosophy. Achamian soon discovered that Kellhus was one of the Few and could use sorcery, but refused to betray his school by teaching him the Gnosis. Torn by his respect for Kellhus, his desire for Esmenet and his loyalty to the Mandate, Achamian sought solitude to think things through, but was captured by the Scarlet Spires. The Spires had long desired mastery of the Gnosis, which eclipsed their own sorcery, and had now learned of the existence of the skin-spies. Eleäzaras, the master of the Spires, put Achamian to the question, even blinding his friend Xinemus to try to get Achamian to talk. He failed: part of Seswatha's gift to his school was an immunity to torture so the secrets of the Gnosis could never be surrendered. Achamian was eventually able to escape and turn the full might of the Gnosis upon his captors.

The Holy War marched on without Achamian (an absence that caused Esmenet great distress), crossing the Sempis Delta and fighting a major battle under the fortress walls of Anwurat. Despite heavy losses the Men of the Tusk prevailed and marched on into Khemema. This was the most dangerous part of the journey, as Khemema was where the Great Carathay Desert met the Meneanor Sea. No food grew there and no water could be found. The Holy War had to brave the desert coastlands southwards for almost two hundred miles. To survive the crossing the army had to be resupplied with food and water by the Imperial Nansur navy. But the Kianene Padirajah had anticipated this move and deployed the Kianene fleet to intercept. In a great battle in Trantis Bay, the Nansur armada was defeated and put to rout. The Holy War was cut off from succour and left to die in the burning wastes.

But the Holy War survived. Anasûrimbor Kellhus found great reserves of water far below the desert sands and the army was saved, although much-reduced. The army burst from the desert and besieged the great, ancient mercantile city of Caraskand. Although ravaged by disease and starvation, the Holy War was able to take the city, helped by treachery, and sacked it savagely. No sooner was this done, however, than the Padirajah himself took to the field. Kascamandri ab Tepherokar led a vast army out of the south to besiege Caraskand and starve the Men of the Tusk into surrender or death.

Around this time Kellhus received a message from his father, borne by a Cishaurim. Moënghus told Kellhus that soon he would grasp the Thousandfold Thought. The nature of this concept eluded Kellhus, save it was an extension of the Dûnyain method of foretelling future events through probability trances, predicting the future by mastering what comes before. He was forced to execute the Cishaurim to maintain his cover before he could learn more.

The Holy War had become torn between traditional Inrithi, led by Sarcellus and Ikurei Conphas, and those who revered Kellhus as the Warrior-Prophet. The former became known as the Orthodox and the latter, led by Nersei Proyas and Coithus Saubon but with Esmenet placed high in their ranks, as the Zaudunyani, the Tribe of Truth. The tensions between the two sides rose resulting in a failed assassination attempt on Kellhus and a failed counter-assassination attempt on Sarcellus and Conphas. The chaos finally resulted in a trial. Sarcellus and Conphas won this trial and had Kellhus denounced as a false prophet. Serwë, whom Kellhus had taken as wife, was executed and her body was tied to Kellhus, who was then hung upside down from a tree on a massive iron ring, a circumfix. Achamian returned at this point, learning that Esmenet was pregnant by Kellhus (and that Serwë has borne a son, named Moënghus for Kellhus's father, given to Esmenet to raise). Furious, he confronted the dying Kellhus only to be told that many skin-spies had infiltrated the Holy War and only Kellhus could identify them. Reluctantly, Achamian begged for Kellhus's release but was rebuffed by Ikurei Conphas.

But in this moment Cnaiür exposed Sarcellus as a Consult skin-spy by defeating him in battle and severing his head. This causes the creature's face to return to its normal appearance, to the horror of the witnesses. The Holy War repented, lowering Kellhus from the Circumfix to find that he had survived. During his ordeal Kellhus had nearly been broken, weeping and having visions of the Apocalypse, including hearing the voice of the No-God. He recovered swiftly.

The Warrior-Prophet, now hailed as something more than a man, led the Men of the Tusk from Caraskand in a direct assault on the Padirajah's army and, despite their starved frames and lesser numbers, defeated it, with Kellhus himself killing Kascamandri. Fanayal, Kascamandri's son, was declared the new Padirajah and fled the field with as many surviving Kianene forces as possible. The Holy War had triumphed and the road to Shimeh lay open.

At this time the Consult descended upon the Ancient North. From the Neleöst to the Cerish Sea and beyond hordes of Sranc suddenly acted with purpose, turning on remote tribes of men who had survived - or been allowed to survive - on the Plains of Gâl or the Istyuli Plains. Caravans daring the great crossing from Sakarpus to Atrithau were taken prisoner and everywhere one question was asked, again and again: "Who are the Dûnyain?"

Rested and, to an extent, resupplied, the Holy War issued forth from Caraskand and marched south, though ancient Xerash and Amoteu. Kellhus, now universally accepted as the Warrior-Prophet, had grasped what his father called the Thousandfold Thought: a web of probability and consequence designed to defeat the Consult and halt the resurrection of the No-God and the destruction of the world. Kellhus again asked Achamian to teach him the Gnosis and this time Achamian complied. Kellhus told Achamian that the time for sorcerers to be hated and feared and damned was over. In addition, Cnaiür's public revelation of the skin-spy Sarcellus, Achamian's relating of the Celmomian Prophecy (confirming that an Anasûrimbor would return at the end of the world) and the awe that Kellhus was now held in combined to convince the Men of the Tusk that the ancient stories were true: the Consult was real and working to bring about the return of the No-God. The Mandate overnight were transformed from a joke to prophets and guardians standing against the Second Apocalypse. At this time Maithanet himself visited Atyersus and forged an alliance with the Mandate, exposing several Consult skin-spies in their ranks.

Meanwhile, Cnaiür was given the task by Kellhus of arranging the death of Ikurei Conphas, whose mad dreams of becoming emperor and bringing about the rebirth of Cenei and Kyraneas now posed a threat to the Warrior-Prophet. The deed was to be done in the port city of Joktha, but Conphas turned a trap on Cnaiür and almost killed him. The Scylvendi was rescued by a detachment of Consult skin-spies, eager to win the allegiance of one of their former minions (the Scylvendi having fought for the Consult in the Apocalypse), and fled into the wake of the Holy War, with Conphas in pursuit.

Meppa, the most powerful Cishaurim to survive the Holy War.

The Holy War marched on. Mighty Gerotha, capital of Xerash, fell. To avoid a brutal sacking the masters of the city were commanded to killed four-tenths of the city's population. Twenty thousand were put to the sword to appease the Men of the Tusk. This example spread ahead of the Holy War and cities and fortresses and towns the length of Xerash and Amoteu threw open their gates to avoid the same fate. Fanayal's forces skirmished with the Holy War, eventually destroying their main scout formation, but ultimately had to fall back on Holy Shimeh, leaving the way open for one last push by the Holy War.

And at that moment, the Inchoroi came before Anasûrimbor Kellhus.

Using a vessel known as a Synthese, taking the form of his lover Esmenet, Aurang spoke to Kellhus, trying to divine the nature of the Dûnyain and that of Kellhus himself. Instead, it gave up more of itself and its goals. Kellhus learned that the Inchoroi considered themselves a race of lovers, consumed by appetites of the flesh. This was their nature and they were damned for it by the metaphysics of the universe, condemned by the Hundred Gods to burn for all eternity in scouring fire. To avoid this fate the Inchoroi had to rob the Gods of their belief, the thing that gave them substance, and the only way to do this was to destroy the source of that belief: the people of the world. By slaughtering the population of the world and bringing about the return of the No-God, the Inchoroi would seal shut the world from the Outside (the domain of the Gods), barring it from the view and the judgement of the gods. Only then could the Inchoroi die, satisfied that they would not suffer eternal damnation as their slain kin had and as sorcerers still did.

Kellhus gave little in return, but told Aurang that the No-God spoke to him in his dreams, that Mog-Pharau blamed the Inchoroi and the Consult for his defeat on the plains of Mengedda and he would have his revenge.

The confrontation yielded little useful intelligence for the Consult, but it served to distract Kellhus whilst an attempt was made on Achamian's life, to deny Kellhus the Gnosis. This also failed.

The Holy War reached Shimeh and prepared to assault the city. The Scarlet Spires summoned a Ciphrang, a demon of the Outside, to cause panic and terror in the city and divert the attention of the Cishaurim. A final push would ensure victory, but the Men of the Tusk were divided by the need for a rapid, final assault and the need for caution: less than a sixth of the forces that set out from Momemn over a year and a half earlier survived. Any prolonged siege or assault would sap their strength dangerously. At the moment of the great battle, however, Kellhus left them. He commended the battle to the valour of the Men of the Tusk, but he had a task to attend to elsewhere.

Kellhus struck west for Kyudea, an ancient and ruined city built near the remains of an old Nonman mansion. In that mansion Kellhus finally found his father: Anasûrimbor Moënghus, known to the Kianene as Mallahet. Moënghus told Kellhus that he knew that Kellhus's journey would open his eyes to the secrets and mysteries that he had encountered himself, setting out from Ishuäl thirty years earlier, and he set the Holy War in motion to clear the way for Kellhus's journey. However, Moënghus was unable to predict what would happen when the Holy War turned on Kellhus and tried to kill him. When Kellhus explained how he survived, through having visions of the Apocalypse and the No-God, Moënghus concluded that his son had been driven insane. Kellhus, as befitting a Dûnyain, analysed the possibility but rejected it.

Moënghus revealed that twelve years earlier the Cishaurim had discovered the first skin-spies. Reasoning they were the creations of the Scarlet Spires, they assassinated the Grandmaster Sasheoka, beginning a clandestine war between the two orders. He then interrogated the skin-spies and learned of the Consult and the threatened Second Apocalypse. Kellhus realised that if his father accepted that he was damned to eternal torment he may take the same view as the Inchoroi, that destroying humanity may be the only way to seal the Outside and end the threat. To remove the danger, Kellhus stabbed his father and then left, using a Cant of Transposition to transport himself to Shimeh.

In the meantime, Cnaiür had returned to the Holy War and sought out Achamian. He told the sorcerer of the Dûnyain and the true nature of both Kellhus and Moënghus. He and his skin-spy liberators then left, following Kellhus's trail to the dying Moënghus. Achamian tried to convince Esmenet to abandon Kellhus's cause but she refused.

Drusas Achamian uses the Gnosiss to defeat Zioz, a Ciphrang demon unleashed upon Shimeh by the Scarlet Spires.

The Holy War launched its assault on Shimeh. Initial successes turned sour when it was revealed that Fanayal and the Cishaurim had prepared a trap, allowing part of the Holy War to enter the city before trapping and destroying it. The ferocity of the Men-of-the-Tusk again took the Fanim by surprise, but their numbers were no longer enough to deliver them victory.

Ikurei Conphas's Nansur columns, pursuing Cnaiür, prepared to enter the fray. Having learned of the death of his uncle in Momemn, Conphas had declared himself Emperor and prepared to use his military might to end the threat of the Warrior-Prophet once and for all. However, Conphas overreached and was killed on the battlefield by Saubon. His forces were then redeployed against the Fanim of Kian, helping deliver a shocking defeat to them. Elsewhere on the field the Scarlet Spires, driven into an enraged frenzy to avenge their slain Grandmaster, drove the Cishaurim to the brink of defeat, aided by the late-arriving Imperial Saik. But victory was still poised on a knife's edge. It was only gained when Kellhus translocated himself into the midst of the last surviving Cishaurim, slaying them before they even knew what was happening.

The Warrior-Prophet delivered Shimeh to the Men of the Tusk.

For this last, great victory, Anasûrimbor Kellhus was proclaimed Aspect-Emperor of the Three Seas, acclaimed so by the Holy Shriah, the Thousand Temples, the School of Mandate, and all the princes and kings who had followed the Holy War on its great journey. He was acclaimed by all...bar one.

Drusas Achamian came before his former pupil and repudiated him. He renounced his role as tutor and advisor to Kellhus, his place in the Mandate, he renounced his prophet and his wife before going into exile. Kellhus told him that the next time he came before the Aspect-Emperor, Drusas Achamian would kneel.

Credits

The artwork for this article was created by Jason Deem, known as Spiral Horizon, and used with his permission. You can find more of his spectacular work here. The maps are from Scott's website, adjusted by myself.

The Prince of Nothing Wiki was helpful in providing spelling checks and putting the timeline of events in better order.

Unlike the first part, I didn't request any new information for this third installment, so any errors or confusion are on my part.

Scott Bakker wrote the Second Apocalypse novels, for which this history is merely the backdrop and the scene-setting that comes before. Those novels are:

The Prince of Nothing

The Darkness That Comes Before (2003)

The Warrior-Prophet (2004)

The Thousandfold Thought (2005)

The Aspect-Emperor

 The Judging Eye (2008)

The White-Luck Warrior (2011)

The Great Ordeal (2016)

The Unholy Consult (2017)

 

There will be a final part recounting the story of the Great Ordeal and its struggle to reach Golgotterath, but that will not be written until before The Unholy Consult is published a year from now.