For what seems a long interval, Yantek Korsar is silent; and when he begins to speak again, his words are cause for further concern in both Arnem and Niksar. The yantek offers more mocking comments on the possibility of the Bane having attempted the life of the God-King, sentiments that Sixt Arnem shares and might have echoed, mere minutes ago; but now his mind and heart are in turmoil. The identity of the old lunatic in the street (a realization so fraught with evil possibilities that Arnem dares not speak the man’s name aloud, even to Korsar), as well as this detachment of Lord Baster-kin’s Guard, combine to make the yantek’s air of caustic dismissal seem ill timed. No, the sentek suddenly realizes; it is more than that — it is careless. Carelessness: a trait that even Korsar’s enemies among the younger leaders of the city — who have never known the perils of war, and see little in Yantek Korsar save an old man of sacrilegiously ascetic habits — have never accused him of exhibiting. Yet the yantek seems consumed by it, even though the Guardsmen are plainly committing every deprecating word to memory. Whatever the case, Korsar’s mood quickens his pace along the Celestial Way, so that the younger men must rush to match his speed.
When the group passes into the First District, the yantek’s behavior changes yet again: his stream of cynicism seems to be exhausted, and Arnem, trying hard to focus on duty rather than doubt, hopes that his commander has finally realized that he should do the same. But a mere glance at Korsar’s face offers no such assurance. As the yantek silently casts his scarred, seasoned gaze at the splendid stone residences of Broken’s wealthiest nobles and merchants — structures known as Kastelgerde,† which rise to two and even three stories in height, and are built from the blocks of granite cut from the mountain to create the seamless expanse of Broken’s outer walls — unmistakable disgust emerges through the grey beard and under the long, tangled eyebrows.
“Observe, Arnem,” Yantek Korsar says, and Arnem studies anew structures that he, like his commander, disdains. Disdains, not merely for their size, but for the statues of their illustrious forefathers with which the various merchant clans have filled their gardens: all are rendered with legs of exaggerated power and idealized features that Arnem finds absurd. “You didn’t see much of this as a boy, did you, Sixt? Not really the style, in the Fifth District.”
“The people of the Fifth find their own ways to obey Kafra, Yantek,” Arnem replies. “And I can assure you that, though humble, they are equally—enthusiastic.”
Korsar’s broad chest heaves with a lone laugh that betrays no true merriment. “Yes. I suppose that everyone in this city, even the miserable souls of your district, must find some way to perpetuate the dream of a god that loves them for both their avarice and their cruelty.”
“Yantek?” Arnem whispers urgently; but Korsar ignores his subordinate’s concern, forcing Arnem to try drawing the yantek into a safer discussion. “The society that venerates achievement and perfection also venerates hope and strength, Yantek — your own life demonstrates it. Only consider your actions in my case. In what other kingdom would a commander elevate a man with my past to the command of a noble legion?”
Korsar laughs: once again, without humor. “Dutifully recited, Arnem.” Then, to the linnet of Baster-kin’s Guard, the yantek adds, “I trust you take note of the sentek’s piety, Linnet! As for me—” Yantek Korsar coughs up a smattering of phlegm, and spits it hard onto the cobbled avenue; and with it seems to go, finally, the last of his defiance, and his voice is transformed from a deliberate bellow into a resigned murmur: “I can see neither hope nor true strength in any of it. Not anymore …”
“I don’t take your meaning, Yantek,” Arnem says. He has known Korsar to be irascible and moody since the death of his wife; and he has known him to take great chances as a commander, as well; but he has never seen him court personal disaster in so fatalistic, so defeated, a manner.
“You will understand, Sixt, my friend,” Korsar replies, in an ever more melancholy tone. “All too soon, I fear.”
Arnem says nothing, but is deeply alarmed, for all his silence: Korsar’s words are uncomfortably close to those the sentek heard from the apparitional old man he met on his way to the Fourth District …
The party, keeping a brisk pace, is now approaching the High Temple, which stands atop the mountain’s highest formation of granite; and as they do, the sounds of the Stadium beyond that sacred structure grow louder. Some of the hundreds of voices are frantic with enthusiasm, while others cry out in desperation; and occasionally the crowd, which can number in the thousands when the stadium is full, breaks into wine-slurred song. But these chants always fall back, after only a few repetitions, into the deep, disorganized moaning that attends so many disappointed hopes. Yantek Korsar seems to grow sadder, on hearing these sounds: even his sarcasm can find no voice strong enough to rise above the roars of the three-tiered stone oval.
Trying to explain Korsar’s melancholia to himself, Arnem returns to thoughts of the yantek’s wife, the foreign-born Amalberta, and especially to memories of her death. The couple had endured a childless marriage for many years; for so long, in fact, that the yantek had resigned himself to Amalberta’s being barren — until, at the remarkable age of thirty-seven, she conceived, safely carried to term, and delivered herself of a son. Amalberta’s joy was great, although perhaps not so great as that of her husband, whose pride took a particularly martial form, inspiring his planning and successful execution of that same campaign against the eastern marauders during which the conduct of young Sixt Arnem first came to his attention. Arnem has always felt that the yantek’s championing of his own interests was due in no small part to Korsar’s new paternal instincts, which the sentek believes had so welled up over the years that, once loosed, they could not be confined to one object of affection. Whatever the truth, the first ten years of the child Haldar’s life were the most important of Sixt Arnem’s, as welclass="underline" for it was largely through the example of the yantek’s family that the talented soldier from the Fifth District came to know a side of Broken that had been remote to him, as it was to most who hailed from that part if the city — a side that prized faithful service, and valued perfect affection as much as perfect appearance. Thus, for Arnem as for many soldiers, Haldar Korsar became a symboclass="underline" as much a breathing talisman as a boy. It seemed natural and good when, at the age of twelve, Haldar announced his desire to enter military service as a skutaar†, which would require him to serve a linnet selected by his father, and to live within the Fourth District. After this term of service, which would conclude with his own elevation to linnet, Haldar would naturally assume a position of importance somewhere in the army, and carry on his father’s work—
But such had not been the will of Kafra. At the coronation of the God-King Saylal (a ceremony during which the new monarch was never actually seen by anyone save his priests, though he had full view of the large audience inside the High Temple), Haldar, along with two or three other youths and young ladies, was noticed by the Divine Personage amid a children’s chorus composed of the offspring of Broken’s most successful families; and priests soon arrived at the Korsar’s door, to announce that the boy had been selected for service to the God-King. Honor though such selection was, the thought of losing forever a child whose arrival had been so long delayed was a mortal blow for the yantek and his wife; and there were those who said that Amalberta’s heart began to wither the day she saw her son disappear forever through the gates of the Inner City. By this time, Arnem had married, and fathered the first of his own children, also a son: he could scarcely imagine having such a scion as Haldar snatched away so young, no matter the spiritual rewards that a life of service in the Inner City might bring. Yantek Korsar was a creature of duty, and eventually learned to exist, if not truly live, with the loss; not so Amalberta, who, after several years of trying to make a life without the boy who had become her life’s purpose, as well as her solace when Korsar was campaigning, seemed to simply surrender her will to live. Korsar, frantic over his wife’s steady decline, begged the Grand Layzin to release Haldar from divine service; but his requests were consistently refused, the last disappointment proving too much for Amalberta, whose heart quietly ceased to beat when the yantek brought her word that there was no hope of their ever being a family again.