The Pillars of Sand

by Mark T. Barnes

  “Rosha is correct, Mari.” Ajo rested his chin on his walking cane, expression sorrowful. “There are only so many ways to end this.”

  “There are, but not the way you think. We assemble a small force, comprised of warriors from the Houses and Families. With the support of the Sēq, they infiltrate Corajidin’s position, capture him and as many of his senior officers as they can. They then bring their prisoners back for trial and the let the Arbiter’s Tribunal and the Teshri—that which remains—judge them according to the law.”

  “That which remains?” Siamak asked.

  “Belam has already told us our father trafficked with the malegangers.” Mari’s disgust was evident in her clipped speech. “And Sanojé said that he wanted to subvert the Teshri with them. It’s pretty damned clear we need to find out who has been compromised, and get the Teshri under control.”

  “Our father did it,” Belam added. He curled his fingers around Tragedy’s sheath. “It should be Mari and I who fix it.”

  “No,” Indris said. “You need to be there, seen to be there, but everybody needs to fix it.”

  There was no debate, rather a spiraling chain of agreements that saw plans seeded, grown, and harvested. Mari’s plan took form. The allies from among the Teshri assessed their strengths and weaknesses, commitments and loyalties. Together they looked at the defense of Avānweh, how they would neuter the ban-kherife, and quietly oppose those forces allied with the Asrahn. How they would deal with the infiltration of the Teshri by the malegangers. Ziaire coordinated the flow of information, questioning and countering. The counselors fell into informal groups, one centered around Rosha and Ajo for the defense of Avānweh, another around Siamak for the efforts to remove Corajidin from where he was burrowed in the Rōmarq. Osman wandered listlessly between the groups, wringing his hands more often than he spoke.

  Confident the counselors were headed in the right direction, Indris distanced himself from the whirlwind, and found calm at the edges of conversation. The sun had risen high over the mountains, and the old clocks chimed the eleven bells of the Hour of Wasp, the totem spirit of the Great House of Bey. It seemed somehow fitting, given how the events of the Rōmarq had helped bring the counselors together in common cause. Indris poured himself a bowl of tea. Food had been laid out, strips of grilled fish, rice, and steamed vegetables. He prepared himself a small meal and sat in the sun, his head resting against the wall. His hand dropped to Changeling’s hilt. She purred gently, a pleasant vibration against his palm. Indris delved into his own mind, his mental shields assailed from without by the thoughts of those in the room, as well as the sweet, powerful song of Īa, and from within by the power of his Awakening, that heard the world call to it.

  Indris’s body, mind, and soul pleaded for Unity, the ultimate fusion of a person and the world around them. The energy in him coiled, and flexed, impatient to grow.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  “Self-doubt can be a poison not only to yourself, but others.”

  —from Principles of Thought, fourth volume of the Zienni Doctrines

  Day 83 of the 496th Year of the Shrīanese Federation

  The clocks chimed the twelve bells of the Hour of the Spider, the morning over. Mari stood shoulder to shoulder with Roshana, Ajo, and Ziaire. The three of them had worked with the counselors to agree on how they would proceed, each counselor taking an equal burden of the responsibility. At the other end of the table, Siamak held sway. Those who planned the action in the Rōmarq spoke quietly, their gestures decisive, expressions serious. Mari was impressed despite herself, and saw in the Teshri something that she wished was the rule rather than the exception.

  She glanced about the room, to find Indris on a thickly cushioned chair, an empty tea bowl held precariously in the palm of his hand. His Scholar’s Lantern pulsed in a steady tattoo, limning his messy head. His brow was furrowed, lips a pallid line on his face. Mari excused herself and went to him, gesturing for Shar and Ekko to join her.

  “What can I do to help?” she asked without preamble.

  “Nothing, but thanks.” Indris’s voice was flat. “Overtired, I think. Have the counselors agreed on a course of action?”

  “So it would appear,” Ekko rumbled. “It seems the mission to extract Corajidin from his base of operations is going to be … eventful.”

  “So of course we volunteered,” Shar said cheerfully. She smoothed Indris’s hair. “You can never have too much eventful, can you?”

  “Most assuredly not,” Ekko replied.

  “I couldn’t agree more.” Shar nodded briskly. “And the best part is, Indris gets to play with us, too!”

  “How wonderful,” Indris replied. “I didn’t see that coming.”

  Mari frowned at Indris’s listless tone. Saw the way his hand was curled tight around Changeling’s hilt, in an almost panicked grip. Ekko took the bowl from Indris’s hand and poured more tea. Indris took it with a grateful smile.

  “So, who’s doing what?” Indris asked.

  “For your part I’m not completely certain,” Mari said. “Something frightfully clever, improbably dangerous, and a little on the insane side? For me, couldn’t be safer. Belam, Sanojé, Ajo, and other warriors from the allies are going to expose the marsh-puppeteers, try and kill them without killing the friendly sayfs, then stop the occupation of the city before it starts.”

  “So, not much then?” Shar’s grin was bright.

  “What could go wrong?” Mari asked lightly. “When?”

  “Ajo is calling a session of the Teshri to vote on the no-confidence motion against my father. That’ll bring all of those dedicated to Father’s cause, so we can have them all in the same place at the same time. It will be the Hour of the Horse.”

  “Seems fitting.”

  “Indris’s job is much easier,” Shar said blandly. “The Sēq will translocate small squads of elite fighters to targets in the Rōmarq, pop pop, pop pop pop.” She flicked her fingers with each sound for emphasis. “It’ll drive Corajidin insane, wondering how we moved so quickly and undetected. The squads will hit key targets, and damage as much as they can, before taking refuge in the wetlands. Meanwhile, Indris, Morne, and some others will command crews to take Fandra, and capture Corajidin. It’ll be fun!”

  “I’ll be teaching some of the Sēq the translocation formula I learned at the Pillars of Sand, so they can move around without using the Drear,” Indris said. “I expect that my target will be Corajidin’s command post?” Shar nodded. Indris seemed resigned as he said, “I’ll get Sanojé to teach me her seeker hex this afternoon, so I can find where he is. I’ll speak with Siamak, and see what else he needs me to do.”

  Indris was worn, and unfocused. Mari took his chin in her hand and stared into his eyes. They were almost fever bright, his Dragon Eye flooded an orange-brown with yellow flecks. His other eye had also lightened, as if a fire burned behind it. He was feverish, skin clammy.

  “You’re far from well, Indris.” Mari kept her voice low. “I ask you again. What can I do to help?”

  “Mari, there is nothing you can do to help, except not worry.” Indris did not bother to smile to take the flatness out of his tone. “This is the price I’m paying for everything that’s happened of late. Amnon, my abortive Awakening, the battle at new year, my time in Amarqa-in-the-Snows, the Pillars of Sand…”

  “I know you well enough to hear when you’re telling me parts of the truth.”

  “I’m telling you the—

  “No, you’re not.” She crouched next to him. “Indris, lives are at risk. Our friends included.”

  “What do you want to hear, Mari?”

  “The truth. All of it.”

  Indris clenched his fists in his hair, his expression stricken. The radiance behind his eyes smoldered, extending in flashes across his skin. Shar and Ekko loomed, though what they thought they could do was anybody’s guess.

  “Very well,” Indris said. “To study Awakening, once must be open to it. I used what had happene
d to me as a map, to understand how Awakening fused the elements of physical existence with the mind and soul. For something as vast as Īa it’s a natural thing. For a mortal, even one who is scholar trained, it’s difficult. Īa doesn’t recognize boundaries, or limits: It’s as uncompromising as nature. Long ago the Sēq planted the foundations of Awakening in my mind—a common thing that makes us aware of the ahm, and trains us how to think in different ways in order to use it. Later, years of study—and of use—strengthened what was there. When Ariskander tried to Awaken me fully, he allowed what had been given me, and nourished over the years, to see sunlight, and know what it could’ve been. But I stopped it, or so I thought.

  “In the Pillars of Sand, I woke what slumbered.” He looked at his friends with horrified wonder. “I think I’m being fully Awakened, like the first generation of rahns, whether I want it or not. It’s happening as my nature intends, and it scares me half to death.”

  “Ahni sayhe fae enka!” Shar breathed, her hand resting on his. “Can you stop it again?”

  “I’ve been trying. And slowly losing. Being so close to Īajen-mar and the source of the Water of Life isn’t helping.”

  “It’ll be worse in the Rōmarq, won’t it?” Shar asked. The Seethe woman explained to Mari how the Rōmarq was rich in natural springs of disentropy, itself what made the Water of Life so potent.

  “Then you can’t go,” Mari said. “What happens if you fall apart in the middle of all this? You’ll doom everybody. I’m going to tell Femensetri—”

  “No!” Indris said. “The Sēq would abandon you without a qualm if they knew a scholar was being fully Awakened. They’d let you kill each other off, then install me as … No. I’m not in significant danger. Were Changeling not broken—”

  “Thanks, Anj,” Mari muttered.

  “Had I Changeling, it would be easier to control myself. As it is, the shards and pommel are helping. I can put stronger barriers around my mind, enough to get the job done tonight. But we’ll need to decide what I’m going to do in the long term, and quickly.”

  “We?”

  “I can hardly make a choice like this without you, could I?”

  Mari was going to say more, but Femensetri’s approach silenced her. The Stormbringer rapped her crook on the ground, and spat. She gestured for Indris to follow her: The Sēq had arrived, and there was scholarly business to discuss.

  Mari took him in her arms and kissed him. When they parted, she said, “Do I need to say it?” I love you.

  He grinned at her and held her close once more. “I know. But I don’t tire of hearing it, and the words taste good. I love you, too.”

  “Promise?”

  “Always.”

  Torn, Mari watched Indris walk away. Shar’s arms around her did not help assuage her anxiety that Indris may have met a challenge he could not master. He’s chosen his course, as I’ve chosen mine. And I, like he, have a role to play before this drama is done.

  The Hour of the Horse approached, and the Tyr-Jahavān was filled with counselors and townspeople. The allies took their usual places, some together, others apart, with no sign of their common goal. Now that Mari knew what to look for, it was apparent which counselors maintained an awkward, almost hostile, silence. They spoke when spoken to, yet offered nothing by way of social niceties, as if they had forgotten how to react to people properly.

  Femensetri, dressed in the faded earth tones of a daimahjin, sat at the opposite side of the chamber. Mari recognized some of Bensaharēn’s Lamenti, as well as warriors of the Saidani-sûk and the Anlūki, above and beyond the ceremonial guards who protected the counselors. Knight-Major Qamran of the disbanded Feyassin stood beside Nima of the Anlūki, relaxed and deadly. Mari felt the giddy rush of excitement at what they were about to do, so at odds with how she had felt at Amnon, where she had been prepared to die.

  Rosha, Siamak, and Ajo were the last of the counselors to arrive, a hooded Belam walking in Neva and Yago’s wake. Belam and the siblings made their way around the room, walking unhurriedly between the smaller groups of the allies, until they came to sit by Mari and Sanojé.

  “Quite the little party we’ve got here,” Belam said. “Our forces are in position, both here and staged in the city. The Tau-se and the Sûnguard watch the roads from the mountains. The kherife have the secret police marked and cordoned off. My Anlūki and the Lamenti have taken their places close to those counselors we suspect have been compromised. Most of the Immortal Companions and the Sky Knights have gone with the houreh, to take care of the other potentially hostile forces in the city. They’ll act once we’ve finished here.”

  “If you’re going to have a party, you should always invite the interesting people,” Yago mused. “Otherwise it becomes ever so dull.”

  “Try Tanis,” Sanojé said.

  “Thanks, but no.” Neva shook her head. The gryphon rider stretched her long legs with a creak of leather. “Though there’re times, rare, one admits, when being bored could be a diverting change of pace.”

  Yago shouldered his sister. “You’d go raving mad without something to do. You’re a bloody nightmare when you’re bored. All this excitement almost makes you tolerable.”

  “Oh, look!” Neva pointed to the gap between the pillars of the Tyr-Jahavān, where it ended in a precipice over the bowl of the city below. “Somebody needs you over there.”

  Yago pantomimed a laugh, then stopped abruptly to shoot his sister an obscene gesture.

  Mari smiled. If a person could be measured by the company they kept, Mari counted herself as fortunate. How does my father think to lead when he surrounds himself by the basest people he can find? She craned her neck to take in her brother, a man stepped from their father’s shadow to shine in the sun. Surely Father must see himself reflected in those who serve him, and wonder why he fails to inspire anything but dread?

  “How will you save those who’ve been bound to a marsh-puppeteer?” Mari asked Sanojé.

  “If we can save them,” she whispered back nervously. “We’ll try to force them out of their hosts, which will be painful for the host, but hopefully not fatal. I’ve done it a few times with similar parasites when we’ve come through the Drear.”

  “Did they live, the people you helped?” Neva asked.

  “Not as often as we’d hoped,” Belam said grimly.

  “My hexes, and the Stormbringer’s canto, will hopefully cause the malegangers to withdraw, to preserve their own lives,” Sanojé said. “They’re smart, if unpredictable. If we can’t force the malegangers out, then we’ll be left with no choice. They may stay bound, slaves to their violent nature, causing as much damage as they can before they die.”

  “Sounds like fun.” Yago’s tone was dour.

  “Not remotely.”

  The doors to the Tyr-Jahavān closed with the sound of finality. The Neyudin—the ceremonial guards of the counselors—took station at the exits, tall spears and hexagonal shields held at parade rest, their plaited beards bound in silver wire. They were a near-invisible fixture of the Tyr-Jahavān, less skilled than the Feyassin, who had once defended the Asrahn, before her father had them disbanded. Mari did not remember the last time a member of the Neyudin had been required to shed blood. Not in her lifetime. Today they would have the chance for history to remember them as something more than an anachronism.

  Ajo walked to the center of the room, his cane clicking on the floor. Padishin rapped his sheathed dionesqa on the floor for silence. Ajo thanked the Secretary-Marshall, then bowed to Rosha and Siamak as was their due. A perspiring Osman looked nauseated and out of place. Ajo turned to the place where the Asrahn should have been seated, his frown not quite theatrical. He raised his cane and pointed to the empty place, until the silence was uncomfortable.

  “I have petitioned the Teshri before to consider the mistake we made in electing Erebus fa Corajidin to the highest office in Shrīan,” Ajo said. There was no response from the counselors. Everybody knew why the session had been called. “A gr
owing number of us doubt the Asrahn’s fitness to govern in these troubling times. Shrīan stands upon a precipice, and we have an Asrahn who seems intent on pushing us off the edge.” A few shouts of support and applause, some of derision, and uncomfortable shuffling. Or the lack of response from those who should have spoken loudest in Corajidin’s defense.

  “And here we are,” the Sky Lord continued. “Members of our society abducted at Corajidin’s order—an incontrovertible fact—the ban-kherife abusing their power, ambassadors fled the country for fear of their lives. An Asrahn who has exceeded every authority and occupied the prefecture of a fellow rahn, without the permission of the Magistratum, or the sanctions our own codes of sende provide us. An Asrahn who is busy waging his illegal military action, rather than being here to govern the country he is sworn to protect, and to serve.”

  “We know the story, Ajo.” Padishin smiled to take the harshness from his words. “Raise the motion again, and be done.”

  The Sky Lord acknowledged the chuckles from around the room with a good-natured wave. “As you will, Secretary-Marshall. As Sayf-Avānweh, Arbiter of the Change, and member of the Teshri am Shrīan, I call for a vote of no confidence in Erebus fa Corajidin’s leadership.”

  “I so second.” Siamak’s voice rang around the Tyr-Jahavān. There was not a rational person in the chamber who could gainsay him the right.

  “Since we’ve been down this road before,” Padishin said, “I’m invoking an open vote.” There were some murmurs of surprise, but no opposition. It was Padishin’s right to ask for transparency in the voting process. “Those in favor of the motion to remove Corajidin from the office of Asrahn, please make yourselves known.”

  Mari did a quick head count as hands were raised, the colors of their House or Family in evidence. Given the political climate, not every counselor had attended, and there were no absentee votes. Of the seventy counselors present, plus the members of the Magistratum, twenty-seven voted in support of the motion. There were some Mari had expected to be compromised by marsh-puppeteers who voted in favor.