The mortal mind can grasp concepts to a degree, and can channel energy safely within the context of its own experiences and imagination. Generally it is the fear of going beyond the familiar that causes failure in the use of the arcane science, for the mystics finds themselves in an undiscovered territory for which they have no basis for understanding.
The use of analogy and metaphor provides a framework within the abstraction, yet it is the abstraction that is the ultimate goal: the concept of manipulating energy without the constraints of what a person should do. There is only what a person can do. Let each person judge the right of their application of power according to mortality and ethics, but remember that Īa does not do so.
Īa itself has a depth of understanding and a complexity of mental process—if one accepts the hypothesis that the mind and soul are inextricably linked, as demonstrated by the ability of spirits in the ahm to retain memories of their lives, and to learn and retain knowledge—that those who dwell on Īa do not. The only way for us to gain true insight, and to harness the breadth of our true capability, is to expand our context, and our consciousness.
To be more than we are, we must forget what we can do, and awaken what slumbers within: to go beyond our limitations and realize what can be done if we lose our need to exist only as we are, and not as we could be…
Indris read the last passage again, to ensure he had translated it correctly. He swore to himself, then swore more loudly at the man who had led him here. Like the teacher he was.
Here, in the encircling arms of the Ancestor’s Shroud, in what seemed to be the center of the Pillars of Sand, was part of what Indris had come to find.
“Awakening,” he breathed. The energy serpent within him shifted. Vortices opened like flowers facing the sun, and filled Indris with a sense of warm expectation.
Indris read the works of brilliant minds until his own could take no more and his eyes burned from fatigue. He patted his stomach as it grumbled. There was no passage of time other than what his body observed by its needs, and Indris knew he could go for long periods with neither food, drink, nor rest. He had no idea how long he had tracked the knowledge he was after, moving from pillar to pillar and back again, the story growing more complete each time.
He admitted he would learn no more after the fifth reading of the same paragraph of Seethe characters. Part of his fatigue came from the constant changing of thought processes, from language to language. There were whole columns written in the imagery-laden and dreamy Hazhi’shi, something he struggled with, where one word could mean different things in the context of the words around it.
The library was filled with secrets, and haunted by its past. There were times when Indris felt eyes upon him. Heard whispers among the stars, or saw shadows moving between the columns. He called out, but nobody answered. Now there was a light in the distance, and Indris moved toward it. Set amid gentle hillocks of clover and violets was a towering ziggurat, bedecked with hanging gardens and water features. The fountains and waterfalls played a delicate melody that Indris found relaxing. He explored the ziggurat, moved from lighted room to darkened room, to scriptorium, to dining hall, to laboratory, to observatory, to rooms for the teachers and students. Most of the rooms were empty, but some still held the possessions of their former inhabitants. Indris wandered from room to room, idly flicking through sketchbooks, journals, and half-finished scrolls. Inkpots were stained and flaky next to dried brushes, the bristles falling free when Indris touched them. Musical instruments. The tools of carpenters, blacksmiths, and jewelers. Clothes millennia out of date from when the Avān had ruled an empire and a world.
Isenandar had been a city of learning, now hidden between folds of space and time. Now empty, except perhaps for the Nomads that abided in the corner of Indris’s eye, or in their age-old whispers. Indris felt the presence of the students everywhere about him, the concentrated presence of vast intellects and growing power. Unlike in the Dead Flat beyond and about the library, Indris felt eddies of the ahm as it flowed through him. Changeling was quiet, lost in her own ruminations, her shape warm and comforting.
Indris reached felt for the bag of shards of Changeling’s ruined blade. One of them felt different from the others; he drew it out, the metal oily, tinted with dark blood that would not wash off. Indris ran his finger along the raised pattern of the Emissary’s blood and felt more keenly the disentropic taint, days after she had been killed. He coughed away the onset of tears, lost for a moment in grief for what his wife—for he could still not think of her by name—had become. Safer, and saner, to believe his wife had died years ago, when he thought she had, than associate her with the agent of the Drear that he had killed at Tamerlan. Changeling crooned in question; the faintest trickle of comforting energy flowed into Indris, helping assuage the guilt he should not feel. He had lost his wife years ago. He loved another now.
The messages in the pillars swam before his eyes. Indris stretched, and yawned. He was hungry, and he was tired, and he desired the company of friends. There was no absolute direction to anything in Isenandar, so Indris pictured Mari in his head and walked. Isenandar orientated around Indris until he was at the place he was. He knew his legs moved, the same way he knew his hearts beat and that he drew breath, yet the sense of movement without him going anywhere was unnerving.
The Wanderer was canted on her damaged landing gear by a wide pond. The star-shot sky was pale, hued by a fake dawn by ilhen lanterns shedding light where none was needful. His companions sat in an oasis, on spongy clover, surrounded by a ground covering of native violets, palm trees, and trees laden with figs, apples, and persimmons. Mari caught sight of him, yelled a greeting, and dashed across the grass to throw herself into his embrace. They kissed, and walked together back to the makeshift camp.
“I don’t remember how we got here,” Mari said nervously. She looked up at the unwavering sky. “And I’ve no idea how long we’ve been here either.”
“What do you remember?”
“You, sitting in the sand, still as a bloody stone,” Mari grumbled with real anger in her tone. She elbowed him in the ribs, almost hard enough to hurt. “I fed and watered you for days. We were attacked by the Fenlings, and some of the orjini. Belam and Sanojé wanted to drag you aboard the Wanderer and leave, but the rest of us decided to give it time.”
“How long?”
“Nine days or so. Then we were here, wherever here is.”
“Where have you been?” Sanojé asked petulantly as Indris and Mari arrived. “Is this the Pillars of Sand? There’s nothing here! How can I learn if there’s nothing here?”
Indris remained silent. Though the Wanderer’s ilhen lanterns paled the stars above and below, he could see the long line of columns that marched away beyond the oasis, all equidistant from each other, as the trees were. Everywhere is its own center. But Mari, Shar, Ekko, and Belamandris nodded at Sanojé’s sentiment. Curious, Indris went to one of the trees and touched it, to find that it, too, was made of sand and the knowledge of trees, rather than wood. The oasis was exactly that for his friends, a place of respite, something their assembled minds had built and felt at ease in. Indris focused his mind, and to his eyes the trees lengthened, straightened, and became the columns he had become familiar with.
“I’m sorry I can’t explain more, but I don’t have many answers about this place,” Indris said. “Have you tried exploring?”
“We’ve not been here all that long, I don’t think,” Belamandris said. “Long enough to set up camp and dress our wounds—
“And get hungry,” Ekko said. “Thankfully there are fish in the pond.”
Shar playfully ran her fingers through Ekko’s mane, something he tolerated with a wide-eyed stillness. “Poor baby. When he saw all the fruit trees, Ekko thought he was going to starve!”
“There’s what seems to be plenty of food and water,” Mari said. “But how long are we going to be here? Morne and the Immortal Companions will have reached the Sēq long before now
.”
“We’re useless here,” Belamandris added. “We need to get to where my father is, and help stop him before he goes too far. Kasra won’t scruple to fuel Father’s ambitions, and the Emissary…” He looked apologetically at Indris, who had felt his expression harden with the memories of what his wife had become. “Sorry. I didn’t think.”
“It’s not your fault. She was what she was, and there’s no changing that.”
“Even so,” Sanojé said, “we can’t wait here. It’s been nine days already. The Asrahn can cause a lot of damage in nine days.”
Shar suggested they eat, and talk later. They parceled out what remained of the food they brought with them, supplemented by fish and fruit from the oasis. Though the conversation was kept light, it was clear to Indris that his friends—including Mari—were not keen on staying. Sanojé was the worst, the tiny witch anxious at her lack of connection with the ahm, and the temporary loss of her abilities. After their meal, Indris took Mari by the hand and led her away, where they could talk in private.
“We don’t want to stay,” Mari said. “But neither can you leave. What are we to do?”
“What do you think is happening out there?” Indris asked.
“Very bad things, most likely.”
“Things you can stop?”
“Most likely.”
Indris chewed his lip, staring at the woman he loved. I am so close to the answers we need…
“There’s more happening in the world than what I’m doing here,” he admitted.
“True enough.” Mari took his hand and massaged it, her thumbs working the skin, relaxing him. “But what you’re doing here is important. For all of us.”
“Anything we can do to stop your father is important, Mari. And this isn’t a fight anybody can win on their own.”
“Not even the great and powerful Indris?” Mari smiled, and he relaxed. She stepped closer to him, placing his hands around her waist in an enforced hug. She nuzzled his neck, her breath warm. When she spoke, her voice resonated on Indris’s skin. “Not even the Dragon Eye? The Tamer of Ghosts? The Prince of Tides?”
“You forgot the Knight of Diamonds,” Indris murmured. He kissed her deeply, which turned into hungrily, his fatigue forgotten. They parted, breathing deeply.
“We have to go, Indris.” Mari’s voice was hoarse with desire. She felt good in his arms—strong, and warm, and soft in the places he liked.
“Do you have to go now?”
“I think I’ve some time to spare…”
The two of them sorted through the pile of discarded clothes, and dressed. They shared lopsided grins and few words.
As they returned to the others, Indris asked Mari, “Where will you go?”
“Depends. With the Water of Life we can lift off and get the Wanderer east, out of the Dead Flat. There, Sanojé will be able to mindspeak the other witches to find out what’s been happening. If we’re lucky, Father doesn’t know about Belam’s defection yet. It’ll kill him, Indris. Father loves Belam so much…”
Indris held her hand as they walked, and discussed options.
“If the Sēq have decided to join the party,” Indris said, “then there’s a good chance we can stop your father.”
“Let’s hope so, love.” Mari gave a sorrowful smile. “I don’t want my father dead, but he can’t be allowed to cause any more harm to our nation, or its people. I’ll do what needs to be done, should it come to it.”
They said their good-byes, in words, gestures, and caresses that would have to last them until they saw each other next. Saying farewell to his other friends was just as heart wrenching, but the tears were ones of love, and nothing to be ashamed of. Belamandris hugged Indris, and whispered a promise that he would die before allowing any harm to befall Mari. The two men nodded to each other, and Indris wondered at the friendship they might enjoy.
Indris stood by the side of the pond as the Wanderer took to the air, ilhen light clinging to her lines. She circled upward, set a course, and then vanished into a curtain of wavering light. No sooner were they gone than the oasis disappeared, the trees transformed into columns of lore, and the sky and the ground mirrored each other.
A deeper understanding and awareness of Awakening had started to unfold in Indris’s mind, the paths that Ariskander had opened in Amnon widening with the new knowledge.
But there was more.
Fatigue tugged at Indris’s limbs. He emptied himself of thought and the need for action, and allowed Isenandar to flow around him until he arrived at the dormitory. There were hundreds of balconies on a sweeping ziggurat backdropped by a sea of stars. The scent of lavender and vanilla was soothing. Indris entered the first room he found, and collapsed on the bed. He doubted the previous occupant, millennia dead, would mind very much.
As Indris dozed, there came the sound of a plaintive, mournful song: one of profound loneliness and regret. The song plucked at the strings of loneliness Indris had known in Amarqa, the sense of deep isolation and stillness that he had hated. He lay there, letting the sadness wash over him, feeling part of it, as he drifted away to sleep.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“We are, and we do, or we do not. Life is as simple as that.”
—From the Nilvedic Maxims
Day 78 of the 496th Year of the Shrīanese Federation
The Wanderer soared through clear, cold skies, eastward over a high plain in the Mar Ejir. The snowline stretched thick fingers down the mountainside, touching mountain ponds and rivers. Giant mountain harts, goats, and ponies grazed below, and the smoke from a lonely homestead plumed from a lopsided chimney. A trapper, shaggy in her furs, looked skyward and waved as the ship flew by.
“We’ve been gone how long?” Mari asked Sanojé with disbelief.
“It’s been sixteen days since we arrived in the desert,” Sanojé affirmed. “Asking me a third time isn’t going to change the fact.”
“I count three days searching, then nine days waiting in the desert for the stranger to arrive,” Belam said. “I don’t remember us waiting another four days in Isenandar.”
“None of us do, Belamandris,” Ekko said. “But the world has spun on, regardless of whether we were aware of it or not.”
The witches had been nearly hysterical when Sanojé made contact. It took a couple of hours, with Sanojé mindspeaking different witches, to get a comprehensive, if manic, account of what had happened since she and Belam left Avānweh.
“The nation is in an uproar,” the Tanisian witch said. “Elonie, who was the closest thing we had to a leader, is dead. Best I can understand, the Asrahn’s made good on his pact with the malegangers for access to the treasures in the Rōmarq. There was a massacre at the Qadir Selassin—”
“Massacre?” Mari snapped. “What happened? Is Vahineh safe?”
“If you’ll let me finish?” Sanojé replied. “Apparently there was a fight between the Asrahn’s forces and some elements of the Federationists. There are also a number of people gone missing in the subsequent violence in the capital. One thing that is confirmed is that the last of the Selassins, Vahineh and Martūm, are dead.”
Mari sat, deflated as the witch related the rest of what she knew: How there had been some sudden and dramatic reversals in those who had not enthusiastically endorsed the Asrahn’s policies. Of how some of those who were once loyal to Corajidin had crossed the political floor, their faith lost. That other factions were walking away from their self-serving neutrality and choosing sides away from the center of the floor. The Arbiter-Marshall and the Secretary-Marshall have officially declared this to be a time of change, but neither of the predominant factions could even agree on that.
None of it changed the fact that Vahineh was dead. After everything she had endured, and their escape from Tamerlan, she had died in her own qadir! “How did Vahineh die, Sano?” Mari asked.
Sanojé’s grin was wicked. “Trying to kill the Asrahn. Don’t shake your head; that’s the story! Vahineh was found dead, with a k
nife clutched in her hand, covered in your father’s blood. Apparently Wolfram, as well as a couple of the Anlūki, were chased away from Vahineh’s body as they were retrieving the Asrahn’s. Nobody knows if the Asrahn’s alive or dead. There’s talk among the witches that he was critically injured, and taken back to the Rōmarq.
Mari settled back against the rail, the hammerblows of grief painful in her chest. Vahineh dead, and her father’s fate unknown. It was always going to come to this, wasn’t it? But knowing it, versus feeling it, was quite different. Are you truly dead, Father, or will you rise once more to plague the nation?
“Sayf-Näsaré fa Ajomandyan, the Sky Lord, has been appointed the Arbiter of the Change,” Sanojé reported. “But the opposing faction is refusing to recognize his authority, as he has known Federationist sympathies. The Imperialists are calling for a vote on who should be Arbiter of the Change.”
“That’s a decision for the Magistratum to make,” Belam said. “They’ll ratify old Ajo in the role. Avānweh’s his city and he’ll keep the peace.”
“Where do we go now?” Shar asked into the depressing silence. In lieu of Indris, both Shar and Ekko turned to Mari for a decision. Belam and Sanojé kept their opinions to themselves, but Belam had sworn himself to Mari, and Sanojé to Belam.
“We’ve no armies of our own,” Mari said. “Individually we’d not make much of a difference. So let’s go somewhere where we can. We go to Avānweh, and pledge ourselves to the Arbiter of the Change.”
Shar circled the Wanderer around Avānweh, the galley buffeted by the howling mountain winds. Smoke rose from many buildings, and there was a thick layer of pale ash in the Bone Gardens, where the powdered remains of the dead were planted. The streets were dotted with color where banners had been ripped from homes and trampled underfoot.
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