The Pillars of Sand

by Mark T. Barnes

  Both Nomads smiled. They are here, Shar. Indris kept quiet; to say the words might cause her pain.

  Two squads of warriors joined them: warrior-poets of the Rōmarqim with their shamshirs, reed sandals, and long ponytails; Lamenti in their phoenix-embroidered over-robes and armor; Anlūki in their blacks and reds; the gold-armored warriors of the Sûn; and the lion and lotus of the Selassin.

  “Ready?” Indris asked.

  “Always,” Ekko replied. Shar nodded, her skin and eyes flickering with radiance as she prepared herself for what was to come. The other warriors shifted nervously, but nodded all the same. His crew formed a circle that faced outward, weapons drawn, Indris at its hub.

  Indris made eye contact with the leaders of the other crews, and sent a thought to the Sēq scholars.

  Now.

  Indris folded space. A rainbow bridge ignited in a riot of color. It spanned a place of monochromatic streaks: dimensionless, dizzying, silent, numb, airless, freezing.

  They stepped forward and were swept from there to—

  The roof of the governor’s villa in Fandra. Dust swirled away in tiny spirals. The air smelled scorched. Translocation had not been as strenuous as Indris had feared, and both Changeling and the Scholar’s Lantern trickled energy back into his system. It flowed into the widening channels of his existence, where what had been streams became rivers.

  Indris was barraged by the layered hexes, and the unruly Disentropic Stains of the witches who cast them. Indris probed lightly and detected not only witches, but also the presence of arcane siege weapons, and artificers’ and alchemists’ creations. There were presences that stood out above all others, powerful individuals like stones in a strong current, as well as a device that stank of militant purpose. Those people and the device blazed with the untamed, tainted energy of the Rōmarq. Indris’s gentle use of disentropy had given him a sense of euphoria, and he wondered what those others felt, having been swamped by it for longer. Changeling purred. I’ll need to be careful to not let myself go.

  Indris gathered his crew close. “Corajidin is our target. Anything else is a bonus. Am I clear?”

  The crew nodded their understanding. Voices sounded in Indris’s head as the other Sēq reported successful translocations, and were proceeding with their assaults. Ojin-mar and He-Who-Watches had arrived, and floated unseen above the city, within striking distance of Corajidin’s sky fleet. So far, so good.

  From the roof of the villa, Indris had a commanding view of Fandra. The city was comprised of forums, interconnected by winding roads and narrow lanes, and wide canals where the shadows of small boats rocked against the banks. The city was not well lit, though lantern light made a haze of the parts of the city occupied by the Erebus forces. Wind-ships had been grounded in parks and forums—whatever spaces had been large enough to hold them. The larger military vessels, frigates, a couple of destroyers, and an enormous dreadnought hung heavy, the light of their Disentropy Spools and Tempest Wheels bright on the rooftops. One decrepit vulture of a ship made him cringe, held aloft on spools of blood and shadow. It was toward this ship that Ariskander and Chaiya led the Nomads. The Nomads streamed through the city streets like a jade mist. They passed unsuspecting guards who marched on patrol, their lanterns swaying, red-robed witches of the Mahsojhin scattered among their number.

  Indris looked to the walls of Fandra. There were two major gates, a number of smaller ones, and a large river gate of thick bars. Soldiers patrolled the walls, though more were huddled around braziers, spears and bows leaning against the battlements. What need was there for caution? Their enemy was days away.

  Movement caught his attention. A small group of black-clad warriors crept up on a guard position and the ornate cylinder of the storm-cannon they crewed. There was a brief flurry of activity; then only the warriors in black—the Immortal Companions—were left standing. Indris watched as this happened twice more, the cynic in him aware that it was only a matter of time before somebody discovered what was happening.

  Indris flicked a thought to the Sēq Wraith Knights in the city. Are the captives safe?

  Almost. We’re leaving Fandra now, General, with none the wiser. Do you need our assistance?

  Not at the moment, thanks. Once the captives are out of the city, return to the gates with the rest of the Wraith Knights. There are witches and arcane engines that need to be dealt with, and I may need some help before we’re done.

  Shouts rang from the city. Horns blared and whistles pierced the night. Crews boarded the grounded wind-ships as pilots prepared their craft for takeoff. Raised voices reported that the excavation sites were being attacked. Within a few minutes, two of the wind-frigates—Selassin, by the lion figureheads—and a number of smaller wind-boats flew north at speed.

  Indris felt the ahm currents stir as the witches in Fandra wove hexes. The color and shape of the ahm warping spoke to communications hexes, as well as those of protection, and scrying. There was so much disentropy that Indris had difficulty maintaining his control: The urge to let his powers free, to see exactly how powerful his Awakening body, mind, and soul had become, was close to overwhelming. His Scholar’s Lantern pulsed with the beating of his heart, and Changeling growled with the need to be unleashed. Indris rested his palm on Changeling’s hilt, and found she burned with an unfamiliar warmth.

  With Morne’s crews at work, Indris ordered his own team across the rooftop. Shar and Ekko went first, along with one of the Anlūki, and a Rōmarqim who had lived in Fandra. The four of them kept to the shadows, and emerged only to neutralize the guards. Wan cries stuttered in the darkness, each one causing Indris to clench his teeth, dreading the sound of alarms. It came closer than he would have liked when one of the guards proved to be a witch. Indris felt the witch draw energy to weave a hex. He leaped forward and stretched his Disentropic Stain, the power of his aura confounding that of the guard, silencing the hex long enough for Indris to put the witch in a stranglehold. He lowered the unconscious man to the ground with a sigh of relief.

  The crew moved to the door that led down into the building. Indris rested his hand on the latch, when the raucous sound of alarms split the night. A hue and cry came not long after. Indris spared a glance for the walls, and saw Morne’s Immortals in a melee with the Erebus soldiers. Morne’s crew were holding their own, their scholar invoking layers of battle wards to provide additional protection. Indris felt the tug of the ahm from the scholar’s formulae, as the witches of Fandra would.

  Are you close? Indris thought to the Sēq Wraith Knights. Morne and the Immortals need help.

  We’re on the way, General.

  Moments later Indris saw the shapes of hawks and crows rise from beyond Fandra’s walls. They flew faster than their kirion and witchfire wings beat, moon-tinted light shining from between their feathers. The small gate to the north of the city boomed. Boomed again. Erebus soldiers ran toward it. It buckled. One more strike, and the door exploded inward as a massive metallic stallion, eyes shining like lamps and fire tracing its hooves, thundered into the city. The armored knight on its back struck with a massive hammer, leveling anything it hit. Other shapes bounded in—foxes, wolves, and mountain cats. Massive armored knights with helms shaped like jackal heads, birds of prey, and daemons of legend. The crow-faced Iku and the vulpine Katsé ran with them, weapons drawn. The Iku cawed and the Katsé gave their high-pitched yapping barks as they spread through the city, and Sēq Wraith Knights chanted their canto in unearthly dirges.

  “So much for being sneaky,” Shar observed.

  “Stealth is overrated,” Ekko replied. “Besides, we were going to be discovered sometime.”

  “And time is something we’re short on. Follow me.” Indris opened the door and raced downstairs, his crew with him.

  They met soldiers on their way through the governor’s wing. Where possible, Indris’s crew subdued them. Where it was not, deadly force was used. Blood flowed on both sides. As they moved from room to room, the press of bodies agains
t them grew. Swords belled. Shields crashed. Armor broke. Skin opened. The fallen screamed. Still Indris pressed forward, his crew working as one.

  Indris’s thirteen became ten. Ten became seven. Those warriors too wounded to continue remained to guard the rear. Those who died were left, in the hopes their bodies would be reclaimed after the red work was done. Shar and Ekko stood at Indris’s shoulders, their weapons a glittering net of serill and steel. Ekko roared, and Shar sang terror into her enemies, while buoying the spirits of her comrades. Both warriors were scored with cuts, the shoulder piece of Shar’s serill armor chipped, with long shatter marks down its length. Ekko’s mane was slick with blood, the fortune-coins in his mane dull with it.

  A witch in the Aspect of a bull-skulled giant, with flayed skin and torrents of pus for blood, smashed through a doorway. Anlūki and other Erebus warriors were at its side. They were joined by a flaming squid of improbable proportions that lashed out with tentacles as hard as steel. Indris snapped out a canto and invoked layers of the defensive wards he had learned at Isenandar. Spectral panels of glass spun, fractals of light whirring between them to absorb the energies the witches hurled. Indris formed tiny points of light that grew, shone like gold, and turned into wasps the length of his finger. The wasps swarmed around the witches and the Anlūki, as his own wounded crew joined the battle. Indris drew the larger of his two pistols and fired bolt after bolt. When it was spent, he drew the smaller one and fired until it, too, was out of ammunition. He leaped forward with his Scholar’s Lantern, the serill head as bright as a star. Side by side with his crew, Indris traded blows until the Anlūki and the witches were beaten. On death, one witch reverted to a woman who may well have been a schoolteacher. The other witch reverted to a grossly obese man with skin stretched to the point where it looked ready to split.

  The double doors ahead of them slammed to a close. Erebus soldiers turned to face the new threat, their faces etched with dread. Ekko and Shar descended on them. Blades whirled and danced in a furious exchange. Shar used her voice as a weapon, a series of shouts stunning her opponent until he fell to his knees, and she struck him unconscious. Ekko snarled as he held his enemy over his head, then dropped the man flat; he lay on the ground, dazed.

  Ekko faced the doors, fangs bared. Indris felt the upswell of energy as a powerful hex was thrown up around the doors.

  “Ekko!” Indris thundered. “Don’t—”

  The lion-man kicked the doors with all his strength.

  And roared in agony.

  Lightning flared, holding the thrashing Tau-se in the air. A vortex appeared about him, gaining speed as it swirled. Ekko shrank on himself as he withered. Indris felt the tug of the malignant hex, and cast layer upon layer of wards about Ekko. About himself, and what remained of his crew. Plants curled and dried. Carpets aged and rotted. Paint peeled from walls and the air turned stale and musty. The outer layers of Indris’s wards flared through the spectrum and puffed out of existence. The middle layers were slower to succumb, but succumb they did. The inner layers held, tinted with blue and purple from the damage they had taken. When the vortex played itself out, the room looked as if nobody had lived in it for more than a century, save what Indris’s wards had shielded.

  Ekko fell to the ground with a dry, brittle sound.

  Shar streaked forward, crying out denials. Indris came more slowly, his senses peaked. Changeling had made its way into Indris’s hand, the weapon oddly quiet. Ekko lay twisted, emaciated. His fur had turned white, where it had not fallen out in tufts when Shar stroked it. The leather straps of his armor had rotted away, the steel rusted. Indris reach down to Shar, who slapped his hand away. He could not meet her eyes for the pain in them.

  The sound of armored feet reached him. Indris saw dozens of Erebus soldiers: Anlūki, enormous Iphyri horse-men, the raggedy mountain Jiharim, and as many witches entered the room behind his crew. The doors where Ekko had been killed rattled. Sawdust and paint flakes fell from them. The hinges creaked as the doors slowly opened.

  “It’s over, husband,” the Emissary said.

  Indris’s mind reeled. He felt a hollowness in this chest, and his stomach sank. He clenched his Scholar’s Lantern tighter in his fist for balance.

  Behind the Emissary, Corajidin was much changed, his right eye a polished ball of kirion set amid angry scars, his right hand a horse-headed prosthetic club. Indris saw the artifact Corajidin sat on, and knew the grip of despair. A Havoc Chair! If he knows how to use it, he could kill everybody in an around Fandra in moments. Beside the chair stood Wolfram, Kasraman, and a beautiful young woman that Indris took to be Mēdēya.

  Lurking in the shadows were a half dozen emaciated phantoms in ragged gray finery that had seen its day centuries past. Some wore coronets in memory of their station in life. All had dulled jewels and baubles around their necks, their fingers, or at their ear—and each of them carried an annulus with a swirling web of light at its center. Soul Traders, I presume?

  The Emissary drew closer. “Do you not have an apology for me, Indris?”

  He stood straighter. “I apologize for not killing you, if that’s what you mean. It’s a mistake I’ll not make twice.”

  Her face contorted with anger. “As my husband—”

  “We’re not husband and wife,” Indris said. “The woman I loved is dead.”

  “I’m here, Indris!” Under the light of the Scholar’s Lantern, she could not take on Anj’s face. “This is me!”

  “What you are is dead to me.”

  The Emissary struck a blow across Indris’s face that rattled his teeth and caused his knees to bend. She is so strong! His ears rang, and he tasted blood from his split lip. The Emissary came close and hissed, “You’ll come to appreciate the sacrifices I made. Even as the Masters tore me apart and remade me in their image, it was my love for you that let me hold on to what I was. Don’t take that away. I’m the same Anj where it counts: the woman you loved enough to defy the Sēq. Love me again, and I’ll give you the chance to make your defiance mean something, now and forever.”

  Indris probed one of his teeth with his tongue. “That’s one of the most pathetic things I’ve ever heard.”

  The Emissary struck at Indris again, but this time her hand slammed into the Scholar’s Lantern. There was a sizzle and a crack: the mixed smell of burned flesh and rotten seaweed. The Emissary shouted with as much pain as surprise.

  “I’m here for Corajidin,” Indris said. He allowed his left eye to burn bright. The Erebus forces gathered around him murmured nervously. “You know who I am. Have heard what I can do. There’s no need for anybody else to die, if you surrender, and give Corajidin over to me.”

  The man in question laughed bitterly. “They are sworn to me, and my vision. What mercy will the Teshri show them? None! So stop your bluster, drop your weapons, and I may show the leniency the Teshri would never have shown me.”

  “Indris is mine,” the Emissary said. “No matter what you want, Corajidin. I’ll be taking my husband with me. Alive or dead, my Masters will find a use for him.”

  From where she knelt, Shar gave voice to a concussive soundwave that smashed the glass in the windows and caused the walls to vibrate. The Erebus forces clapped their hands over their ears. Corajidin’s head slammed back against the Havoc Chair, but the air before Wolfram, Kasraman, and Mēdēya glittered with passive wards that Indris had not detected. Good to know.

  The Emissary rocked back, infuriated, as she wiped green blood from her nose and ears. Shar uncoiled from the floor, sword a blur as it flashed across the Emissary’s throat. It left a faint scratch that oozed dark blood. The Emissary cocked her head, clearly unamused. Shar struck again, but the Emissary slid to the side and backhanded the Seethe woman. Shar flew like a rag doll across the room and crashed into the wall. Wood splintered. Plaster cracked. She slid to the ground, limbs twisted, blood gushing from her nose and mouth.

  “That for your broken little bitch!” the Emissary grated. “It’s nothing compa
red to what I’ll do to Mari when I get my hands on her.”

  “That was a mistake,” Indris murmured.

  The room went silent.

  Grief and anger, guilt and resentment, threatened to choke him. He translocated the last of his crew out of the villa, to the decks of the allied wind-ships that floated invisible above Fandra. Indris invoked dense layers of wards around Shar’s and Ekko’s bodies, to ensure they would not suffer any indignity from what he was about to do. He fixed their broken bodies in his mind.

  Now there’s only me, and those who oppose me. And nothing left to hold me back.

  The Emissary drew her sword with its abhorrent tentacled guard. The Scholar’s Lantern flared. Changeling sent vibrations up Indris’s arm. Images flashed across his mind, with revelations of numbers in multidimensional formulae that Indris did not think possible. His Dragon Eye burned hotter. The serpent coiled around Indris’s flexed spine, growing into its power. He looked at the still forms of Shar and Ekko. Hatred and vengeance hung like low-hanging fruit, tempting, possibly satisfying. Indris left them where they were. Sorrow, yes. Anguish, yes. Love, yes. Conscience. Honor. Justice. Duty. These were the things that fueled him. The expanded pathways in his body, mind, and soul channeled greater energies than Indris had felt before. His right eye, previously dormant, now smoldered. Air wavered as the heat from Indris grew, and he felt the dragon in him rouse itself from slumber and stretch its wings around him.

  Erebus soldiers fled the room in a panic. Mahsojhin witches manifested in their Aspects, hexes spun as quickly as they could. The Aspect of a bloated shadowy spider shuddered, then vanished. The witch within it did not have time to shriek before she was incinerated. Her ashes swirled in the superheated air, soon joined by another, and another.

  “Leave, or die!” Indris rapped his lantern against the floor. There was a peal of thunder. Glass fragments skittered. The floor rolled beneath his feet. Walls groaned as they exhaled. Needing no further encouragement, the witches fled.