The Judging Eye

The Keneyian Empire ruled over the Three Seas for a thousand years. Now a New Empire of Anasurimbor Kellhus I has arisen on its bones.

The days of the First Holy War are over, but the Great Ordeal is not yet finished. There is no war anymore—except for two, called holy. The one led by the aspect-imperor against the wicked Golgotterath. And the more mundane one—those scalp-hunters, the Skorodery, have been fighting the Shryankh for nearly eleven years, for a bounty. Golgotterath must be destroyed no later than in a year. This Second Apocalypse must end before it begins!
The Great Ordeal is on the march! Golgotterath must be broken before the Non-God is resurrected. The success of the Great Ordeal remains the main goal that determines all other goals. Nothing and no one may be allowed to become more important. No rebellions. No collapse of the New Empire. Not even… Behind the last edge of civilization stands, both cruel and enlightened—a New Empire outpost, the city that has endured stubbornly for nearly three thousand years. A lonely City that became “the edge of the world”…

Druh Aukhaiom held a special place among people, living two lives—two moments of time, Cethvattha and Aukhaiom, separated by millennia. Those days are gone when he wandered the Three Seas, moving from one royal court to another, holding his head high before mocking kings and rulers—still remaining a sorcerer of the Covenant. Twenty years passed, and not a single day went by. The appearance of Mimara shook him more than he was willing to admit—distrust, resemblance to his mother, sharp questions, their ill-fated brief connection—but if Mimara had not appeared, the consequences would have been disastrous. Now, at least, he knew why Fate sent her to him: it was a kick in the rear. She had nowhere else to go. Like him, she was rootless. And just as mad. And just as obsessed. But she has what the ancients called the Eye of the Judge—she possesses a special vision, a priceless, unique gift that in rare cases allows her to see the moral aspect of things, all their good and bad sides.

And so! An expedition with corrupt, indifferent-to-feelings mercenaries—scalp-hunters—prepares to “set out onto the trail.” How many of these men will die? How many souls will Aukhaiom lay down for the chance to learn the truth about the man-god, whose profile decorated every coin these people craved? How many souls did he sacrifice? “And all this is for revenge? That’s right?” Ahead lies a journey with no way back, into the Wastes, far to the north, to the ruins of Sauglish and the Shokonk treasury. And who exactly is the aspect-imperor?

Meanwhile, the High Priestess of the cult of the goddess Yatwer Pstam Nannaferry gathers the sisters. Only once since pagan times has the Table of Blows been convened. It was a joyful time, a time of celebrations—because the cult, at last, has regained its place: the earth womb of the Great Goddess, where a long line of sisters lives, awaiting their Second Birth on the Other Side. Back then, they praised the shrai and its Sacred War, and thought only about what they would be able to regain for themselves in the future. They did not notice the Demon slumbering, destined to take hold of that war, to turn it into a tool of suppression and blasphemous tyranny. They did not notice the aspect-imperor. Their goddess was preparing for war. A Warrior of Good Fortune appeared to her—one who would rise against their valiant aspect-imperor…