The Darkness That Comes Before (The Prince of Nothing, #1)

by R. Scott Bakker

“All of you—your kinsmen, your wives, your children, even your foes beyond the mountains—cannot see the true sources of their thoughts and deeds. Either they assume they’re the origin or they think it lies somewhere beyond the world—in the Outside, as I’ve heard it called. What comes before you, what truly determines your thoughts and deeds, is either missed altogether or attributed to demons and gods.” The flat eyes and tight teeth of unwanted recollections. My father has already told him this . . . “What comes before determines what comes after,” Kellhus continued. “For the Dûnyain, there’s no higher principle.” “And just what comes before?” Cnaiür asked, trying to force a sneer. “For Men? History. Language. Passion. Custom. All these things determine what men say, think, and do. These are the hidden puppet-strings from which all men hang.” Shallow breath. A face freighted by unwanted insights. “And when the strings are seen . . .” “They may be seized.” In isolation this admission was harmless: in some respect all men sought mastery over their fellows. Only when combined with knowledge of his abilities could it prove threatening. If he knew how deep I see . . . How it would terrify them, world-born men, to see themselves through Dûnyain eyes. The delusions and the follies. The deformities. Kellhus did not see faces, he saw forty-four muscles across bone and the thousands of expressive permutations that might leap from them—a second mouth as raucous as the first, and far ...