The Pillars of Sand

by Mark T. Barnes

  The gates had been opened, and the Rōmarq flowed with energy. Changeling and his Scholar’s Lantern thrummed with it, as they poured ahm into the vessel Indris had become. The lantern burned brighter, blazing with revelations. Changeling’s croon became a clear note of ecstasy.

  He was the eye of the maelstrom. The Emissary invoked her wards, strangely tuned things in hues of coral and the wine-dark sea. Layer upon layer she built, only for Indris’s rapidfire canto to demolish. Wolfram added his power, the great goat-headed shadow of the Black King of the Woods manifested around him. Cantos and hexes blistered the air, weakening the villa around them. Part of the ceiling collapsed, ground to dust by the Emissary’s war formula. The wall exploded outward when waves of power met, and found the path of least resistance when irresistible forces met, and would not relent.

  Corajidin, eyes rolling with madness, gripped the Havoc Chair. Indris lanced the man with a canto. Corajidin’s body spasmed once, and his head lolled. The temptation to kill him, and be done, was strong. A deadly canto vibrated in his throat, silenced at the thought of what Mari would think of him.

  Consequence damped his ire. He collared the dragon, and though it lashed its coils, Indris held on.

  With calmer eyes, Indris saw the truth of the Emissary: the darkness and depth to her, and the umbilical of the soul that joined her with her dread, and watchful, Masters. They saw through her eyes, and heard through her ears, and would remember what they saw. Corajidin, too, was laid out before him: broken and poorly remade, a wreck collapsing under his own rot and the weight of the hatreds he hoarded—yet too insatiable to stop. In Mēdēya he saw Yashamin, peering from behind the body of a stolen woman, clinging jealously to life, and a world of selfish ambition, sensation, and power. And Wolfram, who wore the Aspect of the Black King of the Woods, a true believer in the old powers who had nonetheless had his faith shaken, yet knew no other way. Yet perhaps the only one who missed cleaner days.

  Indris turned his attention to the chill specters that lurked in the corners. The Soul Traders were what they appeared to be, foul reapers of the dead, thieves of souls. Indris would have none of them: They did not belong here. A canto shattered their annuli, and freed the souls that had been snared in them. The freed souls sang for joy, the sound turning dark as they rounded on their captors. Indris voiced a basso chant, and sent the Soul Traders shrieking, broken and displaced, to the Well of Souls. Their former captives hounded them like cattle dogs.

  Indris and Kasraman shared a long look. The Erebus heir disguised his true nature behind powerful hexes, and colossal self-control. He stood at the edge of the light of truth, the few radiant bars that touched him hinting at his strength, and at the Aspect beneath. Kasraman was, perhaps, in some ways, Indris’s tarnished reflection. Indris saw visions of what Kasraman was capable of: broken earth, cities in flame, islands sunk beneath the waves and new ones risen, armies so vast they boggled the mind, the cries of those who had forgotten the taste of freedom as they bent their knee to a dark and terrible Mahj who would rule them for eternity—

  “No!” Indris whispered. “That’s not what I’ll become!”

  Indris drew his power in. Awakening tested his resolve, and defied his will. It had taken root, and the dragon had caught glimpses of Indris’s mind, and soul. Unity called, the myriad voices of the world called to him, the strength of wild animals, the patience of ancient trees, the slow and deliberate mind of—

  “Kill him!” Kasraman’s voice cracked with panic. “In Erebus’s name, kill him now!”

  “He sees the truth too late,” Indris murmured.

  The Emissary raised her sword and struck, dark tears staining her face.

  Indris raised Changeling by reflex. Her purr became a contralto hum. Indris’s soul channeled through her, and manifested as a slender blade of starlight, trapped in wavering haze. He parried the Emissary’s blow, her sword booming like the surf. She stared at him, and at the soul blade that Changeling had become. Her face betrayed her fear as she leaped back.

  From the corner of his eye, Indris saw the withered and broken forms of Ekko and Shar where they lay. His wards were dull around them, almost spent. Indris held back a cry of relief when Shar cracked open a bloodied eye, grimaced, and shook her head. No.

  Wind gusted as a Näsarat wind-destroyer descended, its port bank of storm-cannons leveled at the governor’s villa. Beyond it could be seen the shapes of other wind-ships under the command of Ojin-mar and He-Who-Watches. The presence of scholars, the Wraith Knights, the Nomads, Morne’s soldiers—all assembled around the villa. Watching. Waiting.

  Vibrating with power, Indris drew himself up. He dulled the light of his lantern, and with a great effort of will extinguished Changeling’s blade. His recent efforts had left him shaking, his skin flushed, head pounding, and light sparking behind his eyes. He felt the onset of a mindstorm—or worse, an ahm-stroke—but stood as best he was able. Indris leveled his gaze on Corajidin, who had regained his faculties, and snarled back, unrepentant.

  “Rahn-Erebus fa Corajidin, by the power granted me by the Arbiter of the Change, by the Teshri am Shrīan, and by the unified will of the Great Houses and the Hundred Families, I place you under arrest for treason, regicide, and murder.”

  “The Teshri have no authority over me, boy!” Corajidin said. He gripped the arms of the Havoc Chair once more.

  “It’s over, Corajidin. Don’t make me kill you.”

  “But you won’t!” he gloated. “Not if you don’t want to lose my daughter, with her misguided love.”

  The Emissary whispered to Kasraman. The two of them, and Wolfram, stepped clear of Corajidin. The old Angothic Witch stared at his Asrahn forlornly, hands wringing his oft-mended staff. Indris saw the way he glanced about, searching for escape.

  “I’d not, were I you,” Indris warned.

  “But we’re not you, are we?” the Emissary said. “Nobody can be.”

  “The Teshri will give you a fair trial.”

  “Can you promise that, Indris?” Kasraman asked. “Or will I be tarred with the brush of my father’s failed ambitions?”

  “That’s for the Arbiter’s Tribunal to decide,” Indris said. “You’re surrounded. Submit, before there’s more bloodshed.”

  “I rather think not.” Kasraman smiled urbanely. “Until I know whether it’s silk sheets, or salt-forged shackles, that await me.”

  Something not quite a hex, and not quite a canto, crested from the ahm. Indris grabbed for it, tried to disrupt it. The grip of his power slipped, like trying to hold a greased fish. The Emissary, Kasraman, and Wolfram lost depth, then faded from existence, the air snapping with a small thunderclap into the places they had stood. Indris flung a seeker hex after them, but it, too, had nothing to latch on to.

  Corajidin looked shocked, then furious. He bent his head in concentration, a frown cracking his brow. His left hand flexed on the arm of the Havoc Chair in a death grip.

  And nothing happened.

  Corajidin tried again, his eyes wide with panic. Then frustration. Then realization. He railed against his failure, his prosthetic hammering against the chair, his head shaking left and right in impotent rage. Tears welled in his one good eye. Reduced to sobs, he held open his arms for Mēdēya, who came to him with a look of pity, and love, as she settled into his arms.

  The former Asrahn, and would-be Mahj, stopped his sobs. He gathered what remained of his dignity and sat upright in his chair, a lord of nothing.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  “We rarely get the happy endings in our lives that we think we deserve. It’s why we have them in our stories, for real life is not as forgiving as fiction.”

  —Nasri of the Elay-At, Shrīanese dramatist (495th Year of the Shrīanese Federation)

  Day 85 of the 496th Year of the Shrīanese Federation

  Mari huddled in her over-robe, holding her balance on the cold bronze sphere that passed for the seats of the powerful in the Tyr-Jahavān. She let the voices of the Teshri wa
sh over her. She had nothing to say, in turns numbed by ambivalence and grief, or wracked with nervous tension. Most of the Teshri seats were empty, many of the sayfs killed in this same room not two days earlier. Others, who had taken the field with her father, had been captured and were awaiting judgment. Some remained absent, fearful for their lives.

  As you rise, so can you fall: the lesson learned, forgotten, and relearned by her House over the generations.

  The clocks chimed the hour, though Mari did not bother to count the chimes. Each hour tolled was one less between her father and the declaration of his fate. With the death of Arbiter-Marshall Kiraj, the Arbiter’s Tribunal had sat in emergency session to elect his replacement. After an hour’s deliberations, it had been the conservative Arbiter-General Yauri, daughter of the Sayf-Emshara, who was elected. Her father had been blended with a marsh-puppeteer and killed in the purge. Now the young woman had to face the funerary rites for her father, her ascension to the role of sayf, and the added burden of becoming Arbiter-Marshall.

  Rosha spoke for the Crown: a predictable choice, being the polar opposite of everything Corajidin had stood for. The counselors of the Teshri orbited Rosha and her closest advisers in Siamak, Ajo, and Ziaire, the four of them sharing the burden of power in the interim government. Osman said little, Nazarafine’s rahn-elect looking like he was going to expire from anxiety each time he was asked his opinion. There were grave doubts that Nazarafine would survive, and Mari had heard the grim whispers about the lack of confidence in Osman. Corajidin’s recent deposition, and the end of the Great House of Selassin, had set dangerous precedents.

  The remaining sayfs talked, demonstrated, or donated their worth in the hopes of being noticed and elevated to the rank of Great House. The Selassins were gone. The fate of the Erebus unclear. There had not been such opportunity since the fall of the Awakened Empire. Similarly, the most influential of the middle-castes made their cases, seeking elevation to the ranks of the elite-caste, and the Hundred Families.

  From the confident way Rosha managed the Teshri, Mari doubted there would be an election for Asrahn: She fully expected that Rosha would walk into the role, the uncontested monarch of Shrīan, just as Corajidin had always hoped he would be. Awakening was a topic that buzzed around the Tyr-Jahavān. There were no Awakened rahns in Shrīan, and those who had been Severed had a long road to recovery before they could be re-Awakened. That Indris could re-Awaken the rahns was a tightly gripped hope, and had done wonders for the perceived usefulness of the Sēq. Their grip on the throats of the Teshri was all but reestablished: Like black-lotus addicts, those who sought power in Shrīan craved Awakening. It was such an ingrained attitude, linked with ancient power and prestige, that even those who had been cured of their addiction hungered for the taste of more.

  Femensetri stood behind the seated Rosha, her attempt at humility like a poorly fitted robe. The Stormbringer had been invited to attend the Teshri in an informal capacity, though the ancient scholar ensured her voice was heard at every turn. Though the Sēq were the wardens of the Awakening that the Teshri desired, the counselors had not forgotten the recent, and bitter, lesson in honesty the Sēq had taught them. To Femensetri’s obvious anger, Rosha had dangled the trappings of political office before the leaders of the Zienni and the Nilvedic, as well as Sanojé on behalf of the witches. The latter name came with some stigma attached: Sanojé’s reputation as an Exiled, and her association with Corajidin, offset by her recent efforts. Baquio of the College of Artificers and Prahna of the Alchemist’s Society had also been offered seats on the Teshri. Femensetri scowled as Baquio waved his contracts with the Crown and State in the air like a folded paper fan, citing promises of ongoing support, and freedom of trade despite Femensetri’s call for fierce restrictions. Teymoud made matters worse for the Stormbringer by citing the commercial advantages to be gained in making what the alchemists and artificers had available on the market. Even with Corajidin in custody, the lure of gold remained.

  The more change that people endured, the more tightly they held on to the comfort of that which was familiar. Mari clenched her teeth and left the Teshri to its devices. She raced down the stairs, out the Crown Gate, and along the windy Royal Way to the gondola station. Mari wore a plain charcoal over-robe, atop the red and silver clothing of her mother’s Family, the Dahrain. With her hood raised, and the over-robe masking the recurved length of her Sûnblade and her amenesqa, Mari passed without recognition as she sat quietly in the swaying gondola, flakes of snow clustered around the portholes. The gondola trembled and groaned as it reached her station. She strolled the quiet streets, the air redolent of eucalyptus and a hint of snow from the mountains. Nanjidasé stood with its doors open; candidates for roles in the reformed Feyassin huddled around braziers where there was no room for them inside the fortress. Mari smiled to herself. She had waited, as these others waited, for the chance to do something meaningful with her life. A chance to be something other than a Pah-Erebus or a bargaining chip in the great game of the bloodlines. A few of the hopefuls looked up as Mari passed, but she walked on by. It was not her place anymore. Nanjidasé and the Feyassin, bolstered by the surviving Anlūki, would be safe in Belam’s hands.

  The Nilvedic surgery and hospice was a small place, nestled in a crack in the mountain, and sheltered by a stand of ropy fig trees. The statues of a woman and a man in flowing robes, hands open with bowls of water on their palms in a sign of peace and hospitality, flanked the doors that never closed. Two Nilvedic scholars knelt at the door, clay bowls at their sides. Each had a long kahi flute across their knees, pronouncing them as see’jen, the Whistling Order: Nilvedic warrior-scholars and traveling healers. Both were bald, save for long braids at the back of their heads. Their brows painted with the High Avān glyphs shion and vah, the hearts of healing. Mari emptied her purse into the bowls. The see’jen bowed as she passed.

  People walked and talked softly in the hospice, voices no louder than the whisper of robes along the floors. Mari made her way to the small room, well lit and clean, where Shar lay. Vases overflowing with colored lotus flowers brightened the room, their aroma heady. The exposed skin of Shar’s face, shoulder, and right arm were mottled with bruising and recently healed abrasions. Symbols had been painted on her skin, and there was a long string of beads, seedpods, and flower buds wound around her wrist, another loosely about her throat. Indris looked up from the book in his lap, smiled, and gestured for Mari to come in.

  “How is she?” Mari murmured.

  “I’m not deaf, woman,” Shar croaked. She tried to smile, a ghastly flexing of blue and black skin and swollen lips. “I’d be better if people stopped hovering over me.”

  “She’s cranky,” Indris said. “And recovering. Broken collarbone, broken shoulder, broken ribs—”

  “I get it, Indris. I’m broken.” Shar looked at Mari through bruised, swollen eyes. “Well hello there, you beautiful thing. Can I convince you to help me escape from here?”

  “But she’ll recover.” The relief in Indris’s voice was palpable. He pulled a seat next to his so that Mari could sit. He kissed her gently, his hand sliding from her back, to her waist, to her hip, to rest on her thigh as she settled. It felt good. “The surgeons think Shar will be here for another week or so. Even with all their skill, it was a close thing.”

  “I hear you came to visit me, Mari,” Shar said. “You must have been very dull, since I don’t remember.”

  “Yes. You were completely fascinating, lying there like a log. Between Indris and myself, Morne and Kyril, and Belam and Sano, you’ve had barely a minute alone.” But no Ekko. Of all the faces in the world, that was the one Shar would have wanted to see most. Hayden. Omen. Ekko. The price the few had paid in blood for the many was high indeed.

  Shar drew in a shuddering breath and swore with the pain. Indris held Shar up so that she could take her medicine, and smoothed the sheets around her when she lay back down again. The three sat and talked for the morning, until Qesha-rē ushered t
hem out. It was time for her patient to rest, and to forget her troubles until she was better able to face them. Mari was glad to see the healer, who was more in her element here than in Tamerlan.

  Mari took Indris by the hand and led him to the street. Columns of late-afternoon light pierced the clouds and moved across the dappled waters of the Lakes of the Sky. The mountains were capped in white that blended with the gently rolling clouds. Mari leaned in and rested her head against Indris’s shoulder. He put his arm around her.

  “It won’t last,” she said.

  “What won’t last?”

  “Any of it,” she said. “Everything is so … temporary. Is this what it’s supposed to feel like, when almost everything you knew is gone? I can’t help but think of what we’ve seen, what we’ve done, and wonder whether everything we fought for is actually what we wanted.”

  Indris rested his lips against her hair. “Sometimes it’s hard to find the good, or the sense in it all. When night comes, and there’s only you and your thoughts—your guilt, your doubts, your memories, hopes, and dreams—then you see most clearly. There’s nothing left to distract you. It’s then that you realize that you don’t need expensive things, or false friends, or feigned love.” He paused for a long indrawn breath. “And new things come to fill the empty spaces.”

  “Like people?”

  “No, love. Never people.” He touched her chest over her hearts. “They’re always here, and there’s always a place for them. We just need to make sure it’s the right place.”

  “Does that include Anj?”

  Indris looked her in the eye. “She and the Emissary are different people. I won’t lie, Mari. Yes, the Anj I married will always have a place in me. Does that bother you?”

  “Yes, it does.” Mari patted away his worried expression. “But I understand it, and in time I’ll learn how to accept it. The fact that she’s out there somewhere with Kasra and Wolfram terrifies me. With you, even with Kasra, such power as you have has never frightened me. I respect it, admire it, but I’m not scared. The notion of the Emissary makes my blood run cold.”