The Pillars of Sand

by Mark T. Barnes

  Mari cocked a skeptical eyebrow. “My sword is made from the sun?”

  “Well, not the sun, no,” Indris said. “But the Sûnsmiths learned their techniques from the Elemental Masters, who in turn learned from older powers besides. The light in your blade mimics that of the sun, the lattices in the metal releasing the power stored there.”

  “Why is it burning now?” Ekko glared about, eyes wide, khopesh held at the ready.

  “Because it, like Changeling, senses better than we what lingers here,” Indris replied. “Everything about this place feels tainted. I think there’s a rift beneath it, like under Īajen-mar. But it’s energy from the Drear that pools here. Something about the way Tamerlan was built allows the Drear energy to filter up through the stone and into the fortress above. It would ruin anybody who dwelled here too long.”

  “That would explain the Dowager-Asrahn,” Mari muttered. And why I never felt at ease here. “The things I’ve seen make more sense.” Mari went on to tell her friends about the sacrifice at the Sea Shrine, and the thalassic horror that had taken her cousin, Dhoury.

  “Faruq ayo, Mari,” Shar breathed as she shook her head in disgust. “Parho iotha a bae shahat haylo.”

  “I don’t speak Seethe, but I assume you weren’t saying anything nice then.”

  Shar smiled, and clapped Mari on the shoulder. “Not so much, no.”

  “Fair play,” Mari said. She looked around. “Beauty may be skin deep, but the ugly of Tamerlan is like rot to the core. Indris, how do we destroy this place?”

  Indris laughed sourly. “Destroy it? We don’t. There’re too many questions to be answered in places like this. All we can do is try to ensure it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands again. But this creature you speak of, and the Sea Shrine. Both sound important to your grandmother.”

  “We checked the shrine twice,” Leonetto replied. “Once at high tide and once at low. We never saw sign of anybody. That said, we never knew these tunnels existed either.”

  “My grandmother keeps dangerous company,” Mari warned. “Be on your guard.”

  Together Mari, Indris, and their comrades marched onward. The floor and walls became damp, rivulets of seawater trickling down the center of the passageway. Light came from ahead, and Morne gave the order for the lamps to be hooded. Indris darkened the fire in his lantern, yet Mari’s Sûnblade flared ever brighter. Mari caught Indris’s glance, and shrugged. “I can’t turn the damned thing off,” she whispered. She sheathed the weapon with a mumbled curse, hand never leaving the hilt.

  Mari rounded the bend to see a broad cavern. Pools of water were scattered across the uneven floor, the stone worn smooth by the passage of the sea. There were several arches that looked out across the bay, and Mari saw the pillars of the Sea Shrine through a stone screen covered in coral growth. Around the edges of the cavern were rock shelves, each higher than the tide line. Chairs and bedding were there, and the air retained the warmth of firestones.

  “Somebody was here recently,” Ekko said. The lion man bounded up the stairs to scout the shelves, Shar close behind. Mari watched as they sifted through blankets, bowls, and plates. Ekko crouched on the edge of the shelf to report. “I estimate there were perhaps sixty people hidden here.”

  “And not gone long,” Shar said. “The water in the urn is still hot.”

  “We’d best get back to the fortress,” Mari suggested. “My grandmother and her supporters can’t be far from here, and I’ve no doubt she knows her way around Tamerlan better than anybody. She’s cunning, and won’t give Tamerlan up while she lives.”

  The courtyard near the Sea Shrine was in turmoil. Light flashed from weapons and armor. The clamor of struck metal, creak of leather, hacking of flesh, and screams of the wounded and dying broke the air. Mari inhaled the smell of war: voided bladders, bowels, and veins, and opened bellies.

  A throng of Tamerlan’s soldiers and nahdi loyal to the Dowager-Asrahn were in the thick of it. They attacked the defenders on the stairs to the port, and its nearby skydock. Others loyal to the Dowager-Asrahn held the gates between the yard and the Sea Shrine. Warriors of the Immortal Companions, and those nahdi who had abandoned the Dowager-Asrahn, fought to dig them out.

  Mari scanned the crowd for the Dowager-Asrahn, Jhem, and Nadir. The flash of silks beyond the Sea Shrine gate revealed them. The Dowager-Asrahn stood knee-deep in the turbulent waters, screeching exhortations in a language Mari did not understand, surrounded by her grim-faced Sea Witches.

  “We need to get to the Sea Shrine!” Mari shouted to Indris over the din. He nodded, and took position beside her.

  Belam danced in the rain of blood, his ruby armor and shield glistening with thousands of serill ingots so red it was as if the blood never touched them. Sanojé was in his wake as she spun her witchery. Belam fused the movements of his body, shield, and Tragedy into an art form. Never still, he flowed effortlessly from technique to technique in combinations Mari had rarely seen before. Adder Tongue became Gryphon Claw, and his sword rising in the air turned and swooped down in Falcon Strikes Low, then across in the Horse Cutter, his sword devastating, shield used as weapon often as not. Everywhere he went, Sanojé followed in her dreadful Aspect of the six-armed mummy dressed in rags, her form held together by shredded light. She flung darts of mystic fire, and hurled concussive bolts of air at those who defied her.

  Mari and Indris matched Belam’s and Sanojé’s movements. They sidled closer, Mari’s swords humming as Indris served as her mystic support. Her Sûnblade flared like an edge of the dawn. Indris’s shield was rimmed in sunlight; his Scholar’s Lantern blazed, more spear than staff. Changeling howled with joy. Mari and Indris, Belam and Sanojée, worked together: attacking and defending, feinting, coming together and breaking apart like the sea over rocks.

  The last defender fell before the Sea Shrine, and Indris smashed the gates off their hinges with a gesture of his hand. During a lull in the fighting, Mari paused to gauge their progress. Shar and Ekko, alongside Morne and Kyril, fought in tandem and scythed their enemies down. A trident took Ekko through the thigh, pinning him. The Tau-se roared in pain, even as Shar severed the trident to set him free. Ekko stood, towering over all but Morne, and bared his fangs in a terrifying snarl. Blood streaming from his leg, he took up his sword and set to the business at hand, not slowed in the slightest.

  “I need you,” Mari said to Indris as she launched forward, Belam and Sanojé close behind. The glowering clouds hung low over an ocean that rose up to meet them. The sea defied the tide, crashing over the sea wall. Jhem and Nadir watched over the Dowager-Asrahn as she yelled her exhortations, her personal guard and Sea Witches intractable. Over her shoulder she said, “Indris, Belam, and Sanojé with me. The rest of you, the guards.”

  Mari did not wait to see whether her orders had been followed. She lengthened her stride, feet light as they splashed across the soaked stone. Indris and Sanojé wove formulae and hexes as was their nature. A series of translucent panels and spinning fractals appeared around them, deflecting both arrows and the arcane effects of the Sea Witches’ onslaught. Indris swore at the power of their concerted assault, and bolstered the defenses to fill the gaps where Sanojé’s hexes failed.

  Behind the Dowager-Asrahn the sea became more choppy. Gray-green tentacles flailed beneath the foamed surface. Mari gagged at the stench. Her stomach turned queasy at the memory of Dhoury being dragged into the depths. She sounded a battle cry, giving voice to her fear.

  The two groups of warriors crashed together. Mari angled her body so that Jhem’s cut skidded across the metal scales of her armor. She pivoted on one foot and elbowed the man in the face, following through with the backhand of her fist, wrapped tightly about the hilt of her amenesqa. Jhem’s scaled mask caved in. A crunch as his nose broke. Mari felt Jhem’s knife pierce her flank: a trickle of blood and a sharp burn of sliced skin. She spiraled around Jhem, deflecting his serpent-quick strikes as she struck back. Jhem’s knives found their target as often as not. M
ari slid back and sideways, in search of distance: Jhem’s knives were better suited to close-quarters fighting than her swords. The two traded blows, came together and moved apart as each sought advantage.

  Jhem wound inside Mari’s defenses. Stabbed twice: shoulder and forearm. Her Sûnblade clattered to the ground, its light dimmed. Mari bludgeoned him in the face with the pommel of her amenesqa. Blood poured from within his mask, yet his dead eyes betrayed nothing.

  The Blacksnake’s blades bit again. Screeched off of armor to pierce her bicep, and between the scales to pierce her belly. Several passes later, Mari felt nauseous. Her reactions slowed. Vision blurred. Poison!

  Side to side they came together. Mari slipped between Jhem’s stabs. Used her leg to entrap his; her sword held in gauntleted hands became a lever. She pivoted, her sword cutting across Jhem’s throat, then around. She threw him down, his limbs splayed, head half severed. Mari collapsed to her knees, strength failing.

  “No!” Nadir bellowed from where he stood beside the Dowager-Asrahn. He raced forward—

  Into Belam, who bludgeoned Nadir in the face with his shield. Nadir staggered backward and tripped over a fallen body. Belam strode forward, only to be denied as the Dowager-Asrahn’s guard formed ranks, cold-eyed and relentless.

  “You need to retire from the field,” Indris said to Mari. He quickly inspected her as weapons and armor crashed around them. Her skin was clammy, throat tight. “I need to—”

  “When it’s done!” Mari snarled. She sheathed her sword, and picked up the Sûnblade. It flared into brilliance. “Help me finish it, Indris. Otherwise it’s for nothing.”

  Indris rested his hands against her brow and crooned a gentle song. Mari’s vision sharpened, and strength returned. She vomited blood and bile down her chest. “I’ve given you about five minutes. See it done, Mari.”

  The two raced toward the Dowager-Asrahn, her guard, and her witches.

  Tentacles flailed from the water. Mari gagged on the reek of rotten flesh, and breathed through her mouth to lessen the nausea she felt. The leathery skin was mottled, barnacles affixed to it. She quailed as the tentacles moaned. One rose high, its suckers irregularly formed. Mari swore when she saw that each of the tentacles was a skewed face, each different, with puckered mouths lined with needle fangs and eyes pale and staring. Water poured from the mouths. It washed over her, burned her skin with the chill. Her jaw went slack, and she stood still, overcome by dislocation and the need to scream until her throat bled.

  “Now you see, girl!” the Dowager-Asrahn cried. “Now you know that for everything I give to the sea, the sea gives back!”

  The tentacle hammered down. Mari’s Sûnblade rose to meet it. Severed it. Cauterized the wound, so the amputated length—as long as Ekko was tall—coiled uselessly. Water foamed as the monster writhed. The mouths on the tentacles wailed. More tentacles thrashed. They coiled about friend and foe alike as they dragged screaming victims into the sea.

  The strength Indris had given Mari waned, yet there was vengeance to be had. The Dowager-Asrahn, and the remaining Sea Witches not killed by Indris or Sanojé, urged the monster on. Something dark crested the waves, its back covered in spines like leprous coral. Its dimensions boggled the mind, more like a hill rising from the ocean than a living thing.

  “No, you don’t!” Indris slammed the butt of his lantern hard into the ground. Stone split. The lantern flared in a sphere of brilliance. Shadows dwindled to fine scratches. Color bleached away. The monster gibbered and howled, its leathery skin seared.

  Mari leaped forward. She crossed the distance between herself and the Dowager-Asrahn in heartbeats. The old woman sneered at Mari as the tentacles wavered about her. They whipped forward, as much as something the size of a sapling could whip, but Mari was never there when they smashed into the stone, or the water. The smile froze on the Dowager-Asrahn’s face.

  The Shark of Tamerlan had not drawn her flanged maul before Mari’s first cut severed her arm at the elbow. Her grandmother took a sharp intake of breath that was silenced, as Mari’s Sûnblade cauterized the new cut in her throat.

  The Dowager-Asrahn’s body fell limply into the foaming sea. The crone was alive as a tentacle wrapped itself around her, the fanged suckers adhering to her flesh. Though her mouth was open, her eyes wide with fear, the Dowager-Asrahn made no sound as she was dragged beneath the waves.

  Mari swayed on her feet as her comrades turned their attention to the monstrosity before them.

  Her vision dimmed. Her hearts slowed. And Mari slumped into the frigid water.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “Sometimes one will awaken, and realize they have traveled too far down a road for them to ever turn from it, despite knowing that other directions may lead to better outcomes.”

  —from Honor and Loyalty, by Erebus fa Mahador, Knight-Lieutenant of the Petal Guard

  Day 61 of the 496th Year of the Shrīanese Federation

  Corajidin strode through the camp, squinting at the sun. He had not slept well, his head filled with the esoteric whispers of his Ancestors.

  Feyd locked step with Corajidin and updated him on the latest reports: patrols not returning, and snatch-and-grab attacks by the wetlands Fenlings. Corajidin had heard the screams, and knew too well the Fenlings’ taste for living flesh. Soul Traders had been seen wandering the camp, windswept and cadaverous in their ages-old finery now turned to monochromatic rags. The skeletal ruin of their wind-galley hung low in the sky, reminiscent of an aged vulture.

  “The ground is treacherous, and pretty much every living thing out there is happy to kill us, and quite capable of it,” Feyd said. “This is a sorry place to make war. The Soul Traders make everybody nervous. None of us understand who they may, or may not, steal at the moment of our death. We should send them on their way, Asrahn. They’re an abomination.”

  “On the subject of the Soul Traders, I agree,” Corajidin replied. But the Emissary would take unkindly to me evicting them. Besides, are they any worse than the marsh-puppeteers, when all is said and done? Both are parasites who revel in death. “But there are larger concerns at play, and the Traders may yet prove beneficial. But we are not making war, Feyd, as much as we are taking control of resources vital to Shrīan’s survival. I will send a Letter of Intent to Siamak, registered with the Magistratum and the Arbiter’s Tribunal. We are as transparent in our mission as can be expected, Feyd.”

  “Except for our breaking every tenet of sende by making war on the civilians of Fandra,” Feyd replied. “And then giving prisoners to the marsh-puppeteers, which was tantamount to execution, for which they had committed no crimes.”

  “They took up arms against their Asrahn, Feyd!” I had never thought you to have a conscience, you wily old butcher. Perhaps your silence might best be bought by your eternal sleep, here in the mud. Corajidin smiled, though, and looked the man in the eye. “We will register our intent with the authorities. What we do here will be made right.”

  Feyd looked unconvinced, yet remained silent as they arrived at the wind-skiff. Tahj-Shaheh was at the pilot’s station, and had spun up the Disentropy Spools and the Tempest Wheels. Corajidin stared at the way the spools threaded energy from the air around them, spinning dumbbells that reeled in gossamer strands as light as spiders’ silk. Nix waited there, skin and clothes the color of the marshlands, a stiletto spinning between his fingers. Kasraman, Wolfram, and Kimiya waited nearby, Wolfram’s former apprentice staring at Kasraman with what Corajidin took to be awe.

  Corajidin gestured for his inner circle to follow him aboard the skiff, two squads of the best Anlūki in their heavy-layered armor marching behind. Corajdiin gave orders for the boarding ramp to be pulled up and the skiff to take to the air. A faint blur detached itself from the Soul Trader’s galley. It drew closer to the wind-skiff, and Corajidin saw the vaguely humanoid shape trailing rags and dust as it flew with them. Nomads were all but invisible under sunlight, and Corajidin wondered whether it was the power inherent in the Rōma
rq, and his Awakening, that allowed him to see the things when others could not.

  The Soul Traders were here, while the Emissary who represented them was absent—and had been for too long. Time he would have been grateful for, but the lack of her presence left him more concerned than her being in his orbit ever had. Her intimations of a long and fruitful association with the Erebus continued to leave a bad taste in Corajidin’s mouth. Had his predecessors dealt with the Soul Traders, also? Nix had mentioned his relationship with them, and that of Nix’s father, Rayz. Rayz had been a contemporary of Corajidin’s parents. Do I unknowingly walk the same paths as those who have come before me? He was far from the first Erebus to give himself over to the pursuit of power, regardless of the cost to others, satisfied that he knew his road to be the right one for himself and those of similar mind. But he had reached the point where the cost of his ambitions outweighed the quality of the goods he had bought. How much further had others of his line gone? History spoke of the Erebus as a tidal force, washing in with heroism and idealism for generations, but dragging all the good they had done with them when the waters washed away from shore, drowning everything and leaving those that survived in their wake to swim, but more often to sink.

  I am the son of a line that has bred Mahji, and Asrahni. How could I do other than is in my nature to do, or be other than is in my blood to be? I will strive for nothing less than that which my forebears knew.

  Corajidin leaned on the rail and looked out at the blemished mirror of the Rōmarq where it rolled below. At this altitude he felt the power of the place, its energy infusing his limbs, keeping his illness at bay. Neither food nor drink had passed his lips, yet he was neither hungry nor thirsty. Sleep had been more from habit than any sense of fatigue. Life teemed down there among the reeds and the grasses that rippled in the breeze. Ponds reflected the sky and light like shards of glass, and streams flowed slow and lazy, filled with circling fish and rainbow-colored serpents. Vivid butterfly drakes soared low over flowers, each drake as long as Corajidin’s arm, swooping to take up fat beetles, mice, and other prey in their claws.