The Obsidian Heart

by Mark T. Barnes

  “So it may not know who killed my beloved?” Corajidin heard the steel in his voice. Though he could not make the Emissary pay for her earlier affront, his vassals were another matter. “If you have wasted—”

  “The question has been asked already, Your Majesty,” Wolfram’s eyes were bright behind the long spears of his brindle hair.

  “Mahsojhin is where history will say your Renascence began,” Sanojé’s voice held a hint of awe. “A rebirth of classic Avān learning, new teachings, and discoveries, rather than the limits the scholars impose on us.”

  Corajidin felt a tremor of excitement. To be free of the scholar’s yoke over the government. To finally sever all ties with the Empress-in-Shadows and rekindle the fire in the Avān spirit. This was what he was fated to do. The oracles had said so. Everything he had done, all he had endured, echoed the truth of their foretelling.

  A chill shadow stretched across him. The wind increased in speed. Corajidin looked to the west to see the sun almost balanced on the horizon. Fear coiled in him. The Communion Ritual was less than an hour away. The Emissary had promised if he dosed himself on her potion he would survive, yet doubt was ever his companion when it came to her.

  “I am ready,” Corajidin said with as much certainty as he could muster.

  Sanojé opened the Chepherundi Box.

  Corajidin took an involuntary step backward. Surrounded by ancient gilt- and gem-encrusted weapons, fetishes, scrolls, candles, and embroidered banners in bright primary colours, was a skeleton seated on a gilt throne. Its eye sockets were set with amethysts and it had polished milkstones for teeth. A baroque crown was set amidst ropy, dreadlocked hair. Where not draped in vivid scarlet silk, the exposed bones were graven with rows of High Avān characters, encrusted with gems and set with bands of precious metals. Rings were on every finger and toe. A trick of the afternoon light caused the eyes to glow purple as if fires shone in their depths.

  “What in Erebus’s name—” Corajidin choked out. This was a profanity! To keep a small part of an Ancestor in a reliquary was customary. Better were it a prized possession. To keep an entire skeleton, to ornament it so, was an invitation for Nomads to flock! The dead were burned, their ashes interred. This was the Avān way.

  “These are the remains of my father, Chepherundi ap Navaskar,” Sanojé said reverently. “In Tanis, where the oldest ways of witchery have not been forgotten, this is how we venerate our Ancestors—”

  “This is a—”

  “Necessary thing, my rahn,” Wolfram interjected smoothly. The decrepit witch looked on the skeletal remains with interest. “This is the oracle who will tell you what you need to know.”

  “It is a Nomad!” Corajidin’s voice teetered on the edge of a shriek. He turned to where Jhem stood by, though the man seemed neither surprised nor perturbed. “Jhem? You knew?”

  “I have served in the Conflicted Cities, my friend,” the Blacksnake said quietly. There was the echo of terror in his serpent’s eyes. “It is a different world outside of Shrīan. There were certain beliefs I needed to overcome in order to survive. To face one ally’s Ancestor is nothing compared to what horrors and madness the Golden Kingdom of Manté can conjure.”

  “The lich is here, Your Majesty,” Wolfram urged. “It has the answers you need. Make use of it while you may, and if you choose to never speak of, or to, it again, then none of us will argue. Regardless, no others will know of what transpired today. If you don’t take this chance, I can’t think of any other sure way we can find what you’re searching for.”

  The air cooled again. Corajidin noticed his breath had started to steam. His skin prickled. There was the sensation of being appraised. He slowly turned his head to look at the remains of Chepherundi ap Navaskar.

  “A question has been asked of me.” The voice sounded like the humming wind across a deep well. Though the jaws of the Nomad moved, no sound came from them. Rather it echoed about, a multipitched voice from everywhere and nowhere. “Who is it who would hear my answer?”

  “My thanks, Revered Ancestor,” Sanojé dropped to one knee. “I have requested this boon on behalf of Rahn-Erebus fa Corajidin, who has taken your daughter into his patronage.”

  Corajidin took another step back. Then another. Jhem placed his hand on Corajidin’s shoulder to steady him. Then he walked forward with him until he stood directly in front of the glittering Nomad.

  “Then it is I who owe you a debt in return,” the voice in the wind was as empty as it was emotionless. “Gift for gift. Blood for Blood. Life for life. This is the way of things.”

  “I do not…” Corajidin looked at the Emissary, who smiled at him grimly. Where had his obsessions led him? “I do not think I can—”

  “You wanted to know who murdered your beloved Yashamin,” the Emissary sneered. “This is how you find out. The dead know things the living don’t.”

  “Nobody told me we would be using Nomads!” Corajidin spat as rage fired up in him. “My Ancestors turned their backs on our Mahj because she became a Nomad! The dead go to the Well of Souls—”

  “Scholar’s teachings,” Wolfram said flatly. “Before the scholars rose to power, it was Sedefke himself who perfected his communion with the dead. He, a man you admire, was a witch before he was a scholar.”

  “And he never stopped perfecting his communion with the dead,” the Emissary pressed on. “What exactly do you think Awakening is, Corajidin? You speak with your Ancestors at will. You traffic with them. You’re even linked with the great mind of Īa, upon which things die every second of every day! Death is a constant. What difference between a spirit in the Well of Souls and one that clings to existence and experience—much like you! You need to open your eyes if you’re serious about your cultural rebirth and using the witches as allies to get what you want.”

  Corajidin felt her words like blows on his conscience. He stared at her, common sense at war with instinct and years of conditioning.

  “Think it through, Corajidin,” the Emissary said. She came closer, a woman who had been presumed dead yet had instead undergone a profound transformation. Wolfram gazed at Corajidin, wolf-eyes bright as he nodded. Corajidin reached into the folds of his coat to touch the smooth amber of Yashamin’s funerary mask. He needed, in these of all places and times, her wisdom. Yet the mask was simply a mask and her voice was not there to bring him wisdom.

  In desperation he reached out with his Awakened spirit to see whether there was any lingering connection with his Ancestors. The veils between the waking here and the living parted to monochromatic flashes like moonlight on rushing water. Try as he might there was no conclave of those who had come before. His ears were deaf to anything they may have had to say.

  He lurched towards the Nomad in the palanquin. Shadows clung there in the dying light of the afternoon. What little there was, shone coldly on gems, precious metal and inscribed bone. With little care for the consequences he grasped the open door to the palanquin and thrust his head inside.

  “Very well, dead thing,” he snarled. “To begin something new I need to end something old. Tell me. Tell me who it was who cut Yashamin’s throat and let us begin my new age with vengeance!”

  The answer was given as easily as the question was asked.

  “It was Rahn-Selassin fe Vahineh who murdered your wife.”

  Principles that had once meant so much, the foundations upon which he had built the house of his life, seemed like stones in his boots now. Solid footing broken over the years with every compromise and betrayal. Today had been the day for it. Releasing the imprisoned witches—enemies of his nation, no less!—trafficking with Nomads and now, by no means least, he would use the tools of the Drear to falsify his own success at the Communion Ritual.

  No doubt there would come an accounting, yet if he managed to unify the Avān and bring them back to their place in the world, he would face whatever history and his Ancestors, would say of him.

  It all came to this. Natural stone columns curved upward to the
distant, jagged top of the cavern called the Elhas Shion, the Ancestor’s Heart. Crystals in the living rock reflected the light of ilhen pillars like stars in the deep. The air was close and damp. Cascades poured from dozens of crevices in the cavern walls like sheets of lit, wavering crystal. Some fell into pools higher up, where they fed myriad streams in their journey to the red-tinted pool that filled the Heart basin. Others were launched into the air where they became heavy mist. Each pool and fall swirled into a natural basin at the central point of the cavern floor. The sound was phenomenal. Corajidin felt the roar of the world crash against him. It drummed against his skin, pounded through his boots to cause his whole body to vibrate.

  He ducked his head involuntarily with the sense of the colossal weight of the mountain above. Beside him Kasraman stood mute in wonder, though it was not the first time he had walked the Heart with his father.

  Before them the path led into the ruddy water. Halfway between this shore and the next was an ilhen pillar, upon which sat a stone bowl the size of a man’s head. The Communion Font. A rough frosted geode, which legend had it Sedefke himself broke in two. One half remained here while the other half was locked in the great treasury of Mediin, used as part of the coronation ritual for the Mahj. One day soon Corajidin hoped to drink from that half, too.

  On ledges above him, partially wreathed in mist and fractals of light caused by the moisture on his eyelashes, were the Witnesses. Corajidin could see the black, white, and grey coat of Kiraj, the Arbiter-Marshall. The heavy purple folds of Padashin’s over-robe as the Secretary-Marshall. Rahn-Narseh, his only friend from amongst the Witnesses, in her grey-green armoured plates and over-robe of the Knight-Marshall. Lastly the haughty Femensetri, a shadow amongst shadows, mindstone flickering with a black corona and the witchfire of her Scholar’s Crook shining like a hook of moonlight.

  “Drink now, father!” Kasraman urged. His son took Corajidin’s head in his hand and brought it close to his own. Even with their heads together Kasraman had to raise his voice to be heard. “Pretend a moment of pious contrition and I’ll stand between the Witnesses and you so they can’t see.”

  Corajidin smiled his thanks to his son as he dropped to his knees. Kasraman stood before his father, coat and over-robe partially soaked from the spume.

  With hands that trembled as much from nerves as from agony and fatigue, Corajidin popped the stopper on the potion. This close to the source of the Water of Life, the tiny motes of light held in blue suspension flared to incandescence. He looked up at Kasraman in surprise, who stepped closer to his father’s to hide the brightening glow.

  “For the love of Erebus, drink before the others see!” Kasraman almost shouted into the tumult.

  Corajidin downed the vial in one draught.

  There was no warning. No delay. It was like an explosion that started on his tongue then trailed down his gullet. Fire scourged his veins, so much so Corajidin thought he saw his veins burn through his layered clothes and skin. From the base of his spine up to his skull he vibrated. He could feel every drop of moisture burst on his skin. Each breath thundered in his lungs. The movement of the air caressed him. Played him like a sonesette. Strummed his manhood. He could see the flickering of this world and all the worlds that crashed upon it in an endless symphony of light and sound and motion and there was so much to see his eyes began to flicker in time with the millions upon millions of pinprick detonations of pleasure in his head that flared like blossoming flowers in his eyes—

  Filled with light he sprang to his feet. Kasraman’s expression was shocked, though Corajidin had neither thought nor care for what his son bore witness to. He felt like he could punch the mountain away with a thought. Could drink the great basin of the Ancestor’s Heart dry. The voices of his Ancestors sang in his head. He could feel the grasses in the breeze of Erebus Prefecture, see through the eyes of the hawk as it banked, run with the horses as they thundered across the fields. And more. And more. So much more. This is what it was to be Awakened!

  Corajidin strode forward. The red-hued Water of Life swirled around his ankles. Unlike other years, where there had been a shimmering opalescence where he touched the water, this time the water shone as if the moon rose from within it. Blue-green light burned about him, igniting the water for metres in every direction.

  Waist deep in the pure waters the Avān called the blood of the world, Corajidin took up the Communion Font. The geode was warm in his hand. The crystal shone in response to his touch. Without hesitation he dipped the geode into the water. Filled it to the brim.

  The Communion Font was hot to touch, something he had never experienced before. Water droplets landed on his hand, raising the skin in small blisters, which healed almost immediately. He felt the nettle-sting as mist kissed the exposed skin of his face, neck, and hands. He paused, uncertain. This was the greatest test his people knew: to face the power of Īa itself and be judged worthy or to be destroyed utterly, consigned to agony and writhing madness before somebody brought a swift and merciful end. It had happened before. He had seen it.

  Yet to not drink was to admit he had been found wanting. He had come too far to slink away and give up everything in favour of his successor. No! Come what may, Corajidin would be Asrahn like his father and other Ancestors before him. They would see him and know he had their measure. He needed to trust the Emissary had done all she could to help him survive.

  He raised the broken geode to his lips and drank his fill, desperate to end the ritual as quickly as he could.

  Despite the Emissary’s potion the ponderous awareness of Īa was not entirely fooled. His stomach knotted. Bile burned his throat as some of what he drank dribbled through his clenched teeth. No! He must not spit the Water of Life out, lest he fail. The veins stood out like blackened cords on the backs of his hands, rising centimetre by centimetre as the Water of Life infused his the weakened vessel of his soul.

  Corajidin slammed the Communion Font back into the pillar, where it rocked for several heartbeats, almost toppling. Once more the muscles of his stomach knotted. His thighs trembled. He wanted to—needed to—void his bladder and bowels to get the Water of Life out of his system. Vomit filled his mouth. The others could never see, never know.

  Despite the pain he refused to surrender. He had sacrificed too much honour and integrity in the name of power to stop now.

  Forcing himself upright, Corajidin concentrated on taking one step after the other to the other shore of the basin. There, out of sight of the witnesses, he frantically stripped off his clothes before he covered himself in his own soil. He vomited the Water of Life in an explosive heave, the clear waters tinted red with his blood.

  Kasraman helped clean the mess, his face expressionless. Corajidin looked down at the blackened crescents of his finger and toe nails. At the additional seams that had appeared on his hands. When asked, Kasraman dutifully reported there was more white in Corajidin’s hair and that his face was now more gaunt, the eyes sunken. It was the face of a mad man, or a prophet. Yet it was the face of a living man.

  “Was it worth it?” Kasraman asked.

  “I am alive and have another five years before I need do this again,” Corajidin rasped through a burned throat. Unless I get everything I want and change the laws that keep us beholden to the Sēq and their traditions! The Emissary’s potion was already doing what it could to heal him, though the pain was almost debilitating. “I would do it again tomorrow if it meant success, though hope to never do it again.”

  It took some time to push his aching body back into the complex folds and layers of his clothes. His eyesight was poor, though with each minute gained focus.

  Together Corajidin and his heir made their way through the short corridor that led to the Tyr-Jahavān, the Assembly, and the pending vote for Accession. The Witnesses had seen him pass Īa’s hardest test. Now came the time to pass the test of his peers, another outcome he hoped he had skewed in his favour.

  It was a weakened Corajidin who arrived last a
t the Tyr-Jahavān, though he was feeling somewhat stronger than when he had left the Ancestor’s Heart. He was shocked to see how many chairs were empty. Too many counsellors absent from this, the most important vote in five years.

  A restrained Siamak accepted the congratulations of his friends as he was declared Rahn-Bey fa Siamak, and Bey Prefecture was returned to his custodianship. The Beys had not governed their prefecture for nearly five centuries, and the giant man stood proud amongst his peers. There was a… wonder… in him now. His eyes seemed brighter, as he saw wider vistas than ever before. On leaving Avāweh, Siamak would return to his prefecture, there to achieve Unity with the consciousness of Īa, and to bind his body, mind, and soul with the lands he and his descendants would rule for generations to come. Quite the homecoming for the man, and one his Ancestors will no doubt rejoice in. Corajidin still remembered the wonder of his first Unity, walking under stars and the Ancestor’s Shroud, barefoot through snow, field and sand alike, all the while feeling the consciousness of Īa and the presence of his Ancestors blossom in him. Everything had seemed sharper: his vision and hearing, the scent of pine needles and the grass that broke under his feet. There had been nothing to compare to the way he had made flowers grow and blossom at his touch, or to feel the life in the wheat fields as he had walked them alone under moonlit skies. He had known, even from the beginning, how he could summon storms, cause floods, lower waters, heal livestock… with the uttermost effort even raise the dead, should he so want—Yashamin!—but he never had. In those days there were some abuses of which he was still respectful. But times, like needs, change.

  He envied Siamak the experience he would have, all the while fearful of his reach for Unity with his own prefecture. No doubt the others would undergo their own private rituals. It came as no surprise Roshana and Nazarafine were confirmed in their positions. Corajidin could barely contain himself when Vahineh, who sat drooling on herself and unaware of her surroundings, was also confirmed. It was a travesty she was even allowed to be tested, let alone the insult she had succeeded.