Then She opened her vast, hill-sized eye and fixed its putrescent yellow gaze on him. She called his name.
He screamed.
The Emissary was perched on the head of his bed, leaning forward so far he wondered how she did not fall. The thunderhead of her over-robe was draped about her, merging with the shadows of the room. Things slithered against each other under her robe, a dry hissing coming from the secret places amongst its folds.
“You’ve seen She Who Writhes in the Deep,” the Emissary whispered reverently. “The sister-mother of the Black King of the Wood and the Storm Rider. Paramour of the Heart Which Burns in the Night. They’re—”
“It was an obscenity!” he gasped, scuttling to the foot of his bed. He turned back to see the Emissary, an angular thing of contrasts looming like some shrine daemon. Her mottled skin shone. Her broken sapphire eyes glowed eerily in the dim room. “Are these what you serve?”
“They’re what nature intended them to be and true to their nature, beyond the comprehension of that which is born, lives, and dies. Serve them or not, it makes little matter. They are. They do. They endure.”
Corajidin’s fists curled in the silk sheets, trembling. The Emissary’s voice had been so gentle. It reminded him of when he had spoken to his children about their Ancestors and the boundless love of those who came before. His lip curled in disgust, then he pressed them together against what felt like snakes fighting in his belly. His bowels churned. Bile rose in his throat. Flinging himself from the bed he barely made it to the bath chamber where he vomited a rank mess, stained red brown, into an urn. He wiped his mouth with a shaking hand. It came away with streamers of blood-tinted spit.
“If you’re quite done,” the Emissary asked from the open door, “your people would speak with you in your office.”
“You were of the Sēq once. Does it not bother you that I bring about their destruction?”
Her expression was glacial, neither confirming nor denying. “What does it matter what I think? You say you’re serving destiny by clinging to your notion you’re fated to do this thing. If it’s meant to be, then it’ll happen. Or it won’t. My Masters would have me help you. Neither understanding, nor my agreement, are required for my obedience.”
“To me?”
The Emissary gestured towards the door to his chambers, waiting for him to take the lead. She fell into step at his side, her high split-toed boots making the barest sound as she walked, tails of her over-robe sighing across the floor.
His sons stood by Corajidin’s desk, speaking quietly to each other. Wolfram and Sanojé, Elonie, and Ikedion stood close by, having a heated, if quiet, debate. Kimiya stood in Wolfram’s shadow, listening intently, only occasionally touching the thick collar around her neck or rubbing at the bruises on her wrists. Nix crouched with his back against the wall, nimble fingers turning the pieces of a puzzle sphere, a burned and blackened thing of scuffed precious metals. The man mumbled to himself, head waggling from side to side.
“You do know what you’re toying with there?” Kasraman asked Nix.
“Do you mean whether I know this is a Dilemma Box? Yes. Is there an elemental daemon locked inside? No. The Soul traders also had some that were empty—old relics from the Petal Empire—I could use for practice. The different shaped boxes open uniquely, and they’re not the kind of thing you want to get caught on the hop with.”
“Just as bloody well,” Sanojé muttered anxiously.
“If you are quite done chatting,” Corajidin asked tersely as he took his seat, “has anybody seen Jhem or Nadir?”
“We’ve not seen them since you took your rest, Your Majesty,” Wolfram said. “The two of them left the qadir a couple of hours ago.”
“Revenge is on the menu, I’d think.” Nix bashed the sphere against the floor with a loud chime. Frustrated he shook it, then chewed on it, before he resumed trying to solve it. He looked up with a sly grin, fingers still working the puzzle. “Looks like one snake dying wasn’t enough. They decided to empty the nest. Except for Wolfram’s bed-warmer—sorry, apprentice.”
“Your mouth will be the death of you,” Belamandris murmured.
“Poison in his food will be the death of him.” Kimiya glared at the little man. “Or a snake in his bed.”
“You’d climb into my bed, dove? That’s sweet. And flattering. And on any other day… but Wolfram wouldn’t like that one little bit,” Nix giggled. He sobered when Wolfram glared at him through the jagged fangs of his hair.
“How will we proceed, father?” Kasraman asked in an effort to divert attention.
Corajidin outlined his plan. Zadjinn had made it clear with his statement about Vahineh he could not be trusted. If one word out of the man’s mouth was a lie, chances are the others were also. As much as it would have been of benefit to have the Sēq on his side, it was not to be. He would have preferred a foil to the witches, something to keep them in check, yet had to work with what fate was giving him.
Amenankher was too tough a diamond to break. The Sēq were burrowed into their place of strength like ticks. His plan was for the witches to cause such a distraction the Sēq would be forced out into the open, where the witches could face them on a more even footing. Then the witches could take their revenge, leaving the way clear for an esoteric order that would follow Corajidin’s dictates.
“This will be the end of Shrīan as we know it, father.” Belamandris stood with his fists clenched, golden brows drawn together. “Are we sure we want to do this? With respect to my brother and our witch allies, the Sēq got involved in the Scholar Wars because the witches tried to seize power. Is opening the door on a second scholar war really in our best interests?”
“He’s right.” Sanojé turned the golden bands on her thumb. “Once our blood is up, we will fight until this is over. It will be chaos.”
“And Shrīan and its people will burn in the middle of it.” Belamandris stood tall, catching his father’s gaze and holding it. “This is a no-win situation for you, Father. For any of us. If the Sēq are victorious, you’ve lost the witches and will be executed, or exiled for life. The Great House of Erebus will be more infamous than the Empress-in-Shadows for what it’s done. If the witches win, you lose the Sēq, who were the only force to counter them. You’ll have unleashed an esoteric plague with nothing to stop it.”
“The Empress-in-Shadows and the Sēq in Pashrea would take the field.” The Emissary seemed to savour the taste of the words in her mouth. Wolfram and Sanojé looked at her with suspicion. “Can you imagine it? Truly immortal esoteric masters wielding all the power they’d gathered over the millennia?”
“Father,” Belamandris said imploringly, “what then when the Catechism uses the covens to seize political power in Shrīan and we live, albeit briefly, on the funeral pyre of a nation you set out to save? I’m not sure even you’re prepared for so much irony.”
“We would see sights such as had not been seen in a very long time,” the Emissary said wistfully.
Kasraman looked askance at the Emissary, then gave his brother a reassuring smile. “We’ll control the witches. Breaking the Sēq only snaps the back of a monopoly, giving us options. Other groups will rise to fill the gaps, and we’ll benefit from it.”
“I’ll follow you,” Belamandris said, “though am filled with misgivings. But Father, what of conscience and consequence? How much can we tread on sende, before our boot prints mask it entirely? We abandoned the old ways for good reasons.”
Corajidin shivered as a cold streak raced up his spine, to settle at the base of his skull. The vision of tentacles so large a dozen men with arms extended could not encircle them; the mad gibbering in the depths and the bitter cold that seemed to know nothing of sun-warmed grasses, the myriad scents of spring or the joy of… anything he could understand. Perhaps he had been right in not drinking too deeply of the gifts the Emissary had given him. Destiny had chosen him for this task, yet was it his fate to survive and prosper as the result of it? What purpose if
Corajidin were to be the father of empire, if only to sing the eulogy as the entire world died to make way for a new one he would never see?
Kasraman and Belamandris. Wolfram. These were men he could trust, who had bled for and almost died for him. Wolfram had served three generations of the Erebus and would, events conspiring, be there to lend his wisdom to Kasraman when we was Awakened. Yashamin should have been here to share this with him. He closed his eyes for a moment, hoping to hear her voice. Opening them again he stared into the corners where shadows pooled like the edges of doors into worlds unseen, for the smallest hope she was there.
Nothing. I do this for you, my love, he thought. This was your dream as much as it was ever mine. And soon, the soul of your murderer will be flung to the deepest parts of the Well of Souls, there to face your wrath until you choose to be reborn again, or I come to join you and share the time stolen from us.
His thoughts went to dark, proscribed places. So many of his beliefs had been brought into question. It was said the victor determined the right of what they had done, yet how far was too far? At what point did he forsake everything he believed in, to satisfy his own needs?
Or for love. Could Yashamin be returned to him? Her body remade to rule by his side as the perfect metaphor for the birth of a new world? The Emissary had said her Masters were powerful beyond the petty imaginings of mortals. For them, all things were possible—though for a price he had feared to ask, lest he willingly pay.
All decisions came with a price, each choice made a door opened that could never be closed. The consequences of cause, hidden by the mists of effects yet to be seen. Witches. Scholars. The Empress-in-Shadows. The fate of his people. The war machine of the Iron League, who would invade Shrīan whether Corajidin was Asrahn or not. Sometimes there were only bad choices to be made where a current situation was untenable and doom waited, either way.
He looked to dark Kasraman and broken Wolfram. To golden Belamandris. Saw faith when they looked back at him. Corajidin smiled then.
“Conscience and consequence are words for those without the conviction that they do right.” Corajidin stood and rested his knuckled fists on the hard surface of his desk. He looked to each of them in turn, resting last on Belamandris and Kasraman. My instruments in this. The men who will rule the world after I am gone. “Such words keep the timid cowed and the cautious still. Belamandris, gather your Anlūki and finish what you started. Leave no two stones together if you have to, but bring Vahineh back to me. Alive.”
“Nix?” The little man stopped his playing to look at Corajidin. “Unleash your daemon elementals. I want the people of Avānweh to see the horrors that hide in the dark places of the world.”
“Your wish is my welcome command,” Nix said with a wicked grin.
“And Mari?” Belamandris asked quietly.
“She chose her new friends over her family.” Corajidin looked at Kasraman, his lips a hard band against his teeth. “Gather the witches you trust, the ones we’ll take on our grand journey. Rouse the rest, the fodder, from the Mahsojhin. We’ll let them finish their war, though it be the last thing they ever do. Summon whatever spirits, shed whatever blood, make whatever bargains you deem necessary—but draw the Sēq from their halls so we can break them. Let us give our people the crisis they need—an unprovoked attack by the Humans of the Iron League—so we can save them.”
“REGRET OVER THE PAST AND FEAR OF THE FUTURE ROB US OF TODAY.”
—From The Ternary, by Sedefke, inventor, explorer, and philosopher (586th Year of the Awakened Empire)
DAY 357 OF THE 495TH YEAR OF THE SHRĪANESE FEDERATION
The gardens that hung from the narrow, sculpted terraces on the mountain had been flattened. Bodies crushed flowers, and bled onto long grasses whose blue flowers were spattered with red. Flurries of wind were not enough to remove the metallic hint of open wounds from the air. There was a brief shadow. The blur of motion. Indris parried the incoming Anlūki’s blade, then backhanded him across the face with the sheathed Changeling. The weapon moaned as the kirion scabbard smashed into the Anlūki’s temple, sending him to the ground.
Indris spared a glance for his friends. Ekko—surrounded by the dead and dying, his khopesh stained and dripping red, his armour and fur likewise slick with blood—breathed heavily. The great Tau-se favoured his right leg, which had a deep gash in the calf. Shar danced amongst the Anlūki and those other soldiers who flew the colours of Corajidin or his supporters. Her voice was raised in a song that raised Indris’s spirits, while it seemed to lower those of her opponents. Her serill blade flickered like a blue-tinted net, chiming as it struck metal, though more subdued when it pierced flesh. There was a long bloody track down her cheek and jaw and her right arm was held close to her chest, her fingers curled into a claw. She winced with every blow. A grey-faced Hayden puffed like a bellows, lips flecked with spittle, wheezing with each swing of his sword. One eye was sealed closed, the skin swollen and bruised. One of his ears bled profusely. Blood flowed down his neck and onto his buckskins from a gash on the side of his head. The old man took a sword to the thigh—but Mari swooped in, blade a humming plane of light. She hacked through the Anlūki’s arm at the elbow. Covered in blood—though Indris could not tell how much was hers and how much from those she had killed—she stood over Hayden while the man squeezed the wound in his leg closed, teeth gritted against the pain.
Since dawn, wave after wave of flesh and steel had hunted Indris and his cohort down, with no relief in sight. First they had fought Nadir, Ravenet, and their huqdi. As the sun rolled across a cloud-shredded sky, Indris and his friends had been driven from one battle to the next, each further away from the Eyrie. Though the huqdi had run, the street dogs had brought more of their mongrel pack back with them. Defeated, they would scatter, only to return with bigger dogs. And bigger. Until eventually it was wolves in steel they faced: Belamandris’s Anlūki, the heavy Kadarin infantry, and the Exalted Names and bravos in Corajidin’s colours out to make reputations for themselves.
Towering mountain shadows collapsed across Avānweh as the last score or so of enemies flung themselves out of a side street. Indris led his friends in a fighting retreat up a set of stairs carved into the mountain, a slack-featured Vahineh stumbling before them, Omen serving as her moving shield, the shafts of spent arrows ratting in his Shroud like quills. They made their stand in a flattened stone turret between bends in the stair.
With an exhausted grunt, Mari levelled a scything blow that cut the throat of the final warrior to come against them. Then she staggered to one knee and leaned on her Sûnblade, which smoked from the blood that burned off its blade. Mari rubbed a thumb against her split lip, her cheek swelling outward as she probed the inside of her mouth with her tongue. She leaned forward to spit out blood, as well as a small chip of tooth.
All day Indris had been expecting help to arrive, but nothing. At the very least the Avānweh kherife should have intervened. Indris had seen some of the green-coated kherife a few times during the day, though the constabulary had not interfered, and Indris did not know why. Even if nobody else came to help, Roshana certainly should have gotten involved if for no other reason than to save Vahineh. Besides, it was Roshana’s foolish action that had started the violence at a time when the nation was meant to be at peace.
Indris held Changeling in both hands and let her trickle energy into him. Within moments the worst of the fatigue was gone. It was tempting to take all she could offer. The sense of overwhelming euphoria, the belief he could do anything and that he had no limits. Yet that euphoria, he had learned from bitter experience, was hard to let go. He loved and loathed the blade in near equal measure, though none of what she did for him was malign. She simply gave him what he wanted, so that he could do what was needed.
His friends were almost done, all wounded in some way and breathing hard. Even Omen’s ceramic body had large divots missing from the once-smooth surface, two fingers were missing, and one emerald eye had been shattered.
Shar’s skin flickered with a combination of rage and pain. She cradled her arm like it was broken. Hayden’s leg was leaking a lot of blood, which would have been much better off inside his body. Ekko took a hesitant seat with his back to a worn stone crenulation, carefully cleaning the blood from his nicked khopesh. They were silent, save for the Vahineh’s loud and panicked breathing.
“We can’t do this anymore,” Mari said as she rose to her feet, stretching the soreness from her muscles. She shot a glance at the mountain, behind which the sun was hiding, invisible on its journey from evening and into night. The sky on the western horizon was as bruised as Indris felt. “They’ll keep coming until we’re dead, or taken.”
“You’re right,” Indris made his way to Hayden’s side. The old man’s face was waxy beneath a layer of sweat and dried blood flecks. His moustache bristled with pain, and blood from his wounded leg seeped between his fingers. Moving Hayden’s hands away, Indris pressed his own hand to the wound and channelled enough energy to seal the cut, then a little more to restore some of the colour to Hayden’s chalky features.
“Is it a little late in the piece for me to go home now?” the old man wheezed.
“Soon.” Indris patted Hayden’s leg, then looked to Ekko, who nodded towards Shar, giving her precedence. Shar smiled her thanks, a brittle thing too easily gone from her lips. Indris inspected her forearm, his gentle touches eliciting a string of muttered invective. The forearm was broken in two places and cut in quite a few more. He could treat the cuts, but the broken bone was not something he could treat where they were, not in the limited time they had. Indris told her as much.
“Faruq ayo, hir ajet,” she whispered in breathy, backward-sounding Seethe. “A lot. Do what you can.”
“I know it hurts, Shar. I’ll take care of the cuts and numb the pain. We’ll find somewhere you can rest and I’ll set that bone for you. Preferably on the way out of Avānweh.”
The Obsidian Heart Page 33