Actually, here is the text from The Thousandfold Thought where two characters speak of the Gnostic Cants. After devouring R. Scott Bakker’s The Prince of Nothing series, of which TTT is the third of the trilogy, I, and many others, have come to regard him as the Isaac Asimov of fantasy. It is definiely literary fiction. This excerpt helps to frame his perspective of sorcery:
To limit Kellhus’s vulnerability to Chorae, they had agreed they should start with everything—linguistic and metaphysical—short of actual Cants. As with the exoterics, instruction in the esoterics required prior skills, arcane analogues to reading and writing. In Atyersus, teachers always started with what were called denotaries, small precursor Cants meant to gradually develop the intellectual flexibility of their students to the prodigious point where they could both comprehend and express arcane semantics. Denotaries, however, bruised students with the stain of sorcery as surely as any Cant, which meant that in some respects Achamian had to start backwards.
He began by teaching him Gilcûnya, the arcane tongue of the Nonmen Quya and the language of all the Gnostic Cants. This took less than two weeks.
To say that Achamian was astonished or even appalled would be to name a confluence of passions that could not be named. He himself had required three years to master the grammar, let alone the vocabulary, of that exotic and alien tongue.
By the time the Holy War marched from the Enathpanean hills into Xerash, Achamian started discussing the philosophical underpinnings of Gnostic semantics—what were called the Aeturi Sohonca, or the Sohonc Theses. There was no bypassing the metaphysics of the Gnosis, though they were as incomplete and inconclusive as any philosophy. Without some understanding of them, the Cants were little more than soul-numbing recitations. Whether Gnostic or Anagogic, sorcery depended on meanings, and meanings depended on systematic comprehension.
“Think,” Achamian explained, “of how the same words can mean different things to different people, or even different things to the same people in different circumstances.”
He racked his memory for an example, but all he could recall was the one his own teacher, Simas, had used so many years ago. “When a man says ‘love,’ for instance, the word means entirely different things depending not only on who listens—be it his son, his whore, his wife, the God—but on he who he is as well. The ‘love’ spoken by a heartbroken priest shares little with the ‘love’ spoken by an illiterate adolescent. The former tempered by loss, learning, and a lifetime of experience, while the latter knows only lust and ardour.”
He could not help but wonder in passing what “love” had come to mean for him? As always, he dispelled such thoughts—thoughts of her—by throwing himself into his discourse.
“Preserving and expressing the pure modalities of meaning,” he continued, “this is the heart of all sorcery, Kellhus. With each word, you must strike the perfect semantic pitch, the note that will down out the chorus of reality.”
Kellhus held him with his unwavering gaze, as poised and motionless as a Nilnameshi idol. “Which is why,” he said, “you use an ancient Nonman tongue as your lingua arcana.”
Achamian nodded, no longer surprised by his student’s preternatural insight. “Vulgar languages, especially when native, stand too close to the press of life. Their meanings are too easily warped by our insights and experiences. The sheer otherness of Gilcûnya serves to insulate the semantics of sorcery from the inconstancies of our lives. The Anagogic Schools”—he tried to smooth the contempt from his tone—“use High Kunna, a debased form of Gilcûnya, for the same reason.”
“To speak as the Gods do,” Kellhus said. “Far from the concerns of Men.”
Following a fleet survey of the Theses, Achamian moved on to the Persemiota, the meaning-fixing meditative techniques that Mandate Schoolmen, thanks to the Seswathan homunculus within them, largely ignored. Then he delved into the technical depths of the Semansis Dualis, the very doorstep of what had been, until the coming of the man who sat before him, a final precursor to damnation.
He explained the all-important relation between the two halves of every Cant: the inutterals, which always remained unspoken, and the utterals, which always were spoken. Since any single meaning could be skewed by the vagaries of circumstance, Cants required a second, simultaneous meaning, which, though as vulnerable to distortion as the first, braced it nonetheless, even as it too was braced. As Outhrata, the great Kûniüric metaphysician, had put it, language required two wings to fly.
“So the inutterals serve to fix the utterals,” Kellhus said, “the way the words of one man might secure the words of another.”
“Precisely,” Achamian replied. “One must think and say two different things at once. This is the greatest challenge—even more so than the mnemonics. The thing that requires the most practice to master.”
Kellhus nodded, utterly unconcerned. “And this is why the Anagogic Schools have never been able to steal the Gnosis. Why simply reciting what they hear is useless.”
“There’s the metaphysics to consider as well. But, yes, in all sorcery the inutterals are key.”
Kellhus nodded. “Has anyone experimented with further inutteral strings?”
Achamian swallowed. “What do you mean?”
By some coincidence two of the hanging lanterns guttered at the same time, drawing Achamian’s eyes upwards. They instantly resumed their soundless illumination.
“Has anyone devised Cants consisting of two inutteral strings?”
The “Third Phrase” was a thing of myth in Gnostic sorcery, a story handed down to Men during the Nonman Tutelage: the legend of Su’juroit, the great Cûnuroi Witch-King. Bur for some reason, Achamian found himself loath to relate the tale. “No,” he lied. “It’s impossible.” |
