The Garden of Stones

by Mark T. Barnes

  Belamandris the Widowmaker stepped in. He slapped Armal’s hand away from his dagger. Drove his elbow into the big man’s abdomen. Armal danced back. The Widowmaker followed. Rammed his shoulder into Armal, who fell from his feet. The tattooed man drew his blade. Belamandris waggled his finger at the spymaster’s son. Armal wisely froze in place. The Widowmaker leveled a warning look at Farouk as the man scuttled forward, knife extended. Farouk paused. Sheathed his blade with a mouthed curse.

  Yashamin poured another bowl of wine and pressed it into Corajidin’s hands. Held it there, guided it to his lips. Corajidin watched, his head pounding, fit to explode, as Yashamin stroked the back of his hand with her thumb. The way it plied the ropy veins and cords of muscle with a tiny, circular, promising caress. Corajidin took a deep draft of wine. Then another. He finished the bowl, then gave it back to his wife. He shook his head in disbelief.

  “What did he say?” Yashamin guided Corajidin to the comfort of the couch. She curled herself at his feet. One arm snaked into his lap. The other rested on his thigh. She had been trained to be the ultimate royal-caste companion: part lover, part confidante, part friend, part conscience, part entertainer.

  “The Magistratum…” Corajidin began. He took a deep, shuddering breath. “Vashne,” he almost spat the word. “The Magistratum is convinced a change in leadership now would be unwise. They intend on continuing Vashne’s rule as Asrahn. An emergency vote of the Teshri is being called tonight at the Tyr-Jahavān.”

  “Another five-year term?” Yashamin snarled, her immaculate features twisted to ugliness for a count of heartbeats. “How can they—”

  “Maybe indefinitely!” he spat.

  “If that’s so, the Asrahn will definitely break up the armies and send the rahns and sayfs back to their lands,” Armal mused. “Ariskander will remain in Amnon, unopposed.”

  “This venture may come close to breaking us financially.” Belamandris paced the room.

  Thufan tapped the bowl of his pipe against his hook. “Do we have enough influence with the Teshri to—”

  “The Magistratum controls the Ministries, which strongly influence the Teshri.” Mariam soaked a cloth in water, wrung it out, then brought it to Corajidin. He took it gratefully, glad for the coolness as he wiped his face while Mariam spoke. Corajidin thought he detected relief in her voice. “They’d make life very difficult for Father if he went against the Asrahn’s and the Speaker’s orders. It’d be best to make a tactical retreat, given what’s happened.”

  “You!” Yashamin leveled a baleful glare at Wolfram. “Wrapped in your rags and the reek of monsters, it was your voice set us on this course! Your whispers in the darkness. The money we’ve spent on bribes. The things we’ve done…Your witchery may have ended us.”

  “Hold your venom, woman,” Wolfram said dismissively. Yashamin reared at Corajidin’s feet, eyes narrowed to slits. “Save it for somebody who fears you, or cares about your rancor. I didn’t make you do anything. Even so, destiny won’t be denied. The wyrd I have spoken is true. This is but a stone on the road.”

  “Are you saying I will still be the father of empire?” Corajidin asked. He almost winced at the quaver in his voice.

  “A brave man, a powerful man, may change his destiny.” Yashamin’s expression was calculating. “Isn’t that true, witch?”

  “Destiny is like the half-filled page. It can be written on. The story changed.” Corajidin sensed evasion in Wolfram’s words.

  “How then…?” Armal wondered. “Surely it’s too late?”

  “How can it be too late,” Farouk asked, his voice ironclad with reason, “if something hasn’t happened?”

  “All the bribes, threats, and promises will come to nothing,” Mariam said reasonably. “Is that such a bad thing? The last thing we—”

  “Maybe Mari is right.” Belamandris came forward to stand near his father. Corajidin looked up at his son, tried to hide the difficulty he had in breathing. “This gives us more—”

  Yashamin surged to her feet and slapped Belamandris in the face. The room fell into an uncomfortable silence. Corajidin saw the imprint of Yashamin’s hand on Belamandris’s cheek, angry and red. Belamandris’s left foot slid backward. His hand dropped reflexively to the hilt of his sword.

  Mariam leaped forward to interpose herself between the two.

  “I’ll not…we’ll not wait!” Yashamin cried. Corajidin stood to take his young wife in his arms. He gently kissed the mass of her jet curls. “We’ll make our own destiny, as the witch said we can!”

  “And what do you propose?” Wolfram goaded.

  Yashamin rose up on the tips of her toes to kiss her husband. At first it was proper, yet it soon grew into something heated. Something deep, fierce, almost profane. Yashamin’s pupils were wide, almost eclipsing her dark-honey irises. She looked over her shoulder at the others. An expression she had used before to achieve her aims.

  “As I said earlier, Far-ad-din isn’t the only monarch who can fall by the wayside. Jahirojin is a time-honored tradition the upper castes know and understand.” Yashamin took Corajidin’s hands in her own. Raised them to her lips. When she spoke, her voice was filled with the madness few things other than love could inspire. “Murder has its place, especially when it’s us or them.”

  Corajidin stared out to where the sun balanced on the edge of the Marble Sea, turning the ghost towns in the ocean to ragged silhouettes against a sheltering sky. He held Vashne’s gift in his hand: a krysesqa from the Petal Empire. Its hilt and sheath were arabesqued in red-gold against blackened horn and steel.

  “What are we to do, Mariam?” Corajidin asked tiredly as his daughter came to stand beside him. He turned the knife over and over in his hands. “It is one thing to become Asrahn, quite another to murder one. Even the joy at the prospect of killing Ariskander tastes a little like ashes. What will history say of me?”

  “With respect, Father, it was your and Yasha’s ambition which led us here in the first place.” Mariam leaned against a column of pitted bronze, part of a round rooftop gazebo. “The way I see it, you can either murder Ariskander—and the Asrahn, which I’m honor-bound to prevent. Or you can walk away. I’d hesitate before plunging us into a civil war, and that will undoubtedly happen in the vacuum of power. Better to be patient.”

  “Did you know about what Ekko told Ariskander?” Corajidin realized he was holding his breath, waiting for her answer.

  “I’d be more concerned with what Indris told Vashne.”

  “Your mother says—”

  “My mother is dead,” Mariam said flatly. “This is your wife’s agenda.”

  “How did this all become so complicated? It all seemed so simple in the beginning. Everything was in place, and all I needed to do was wait. You know I will not survive unless I find an answer to what is killing me.”

  “What will you do?”

  For almost an hour they had argued the murder of Ariskander and the Asrahn. Corajidin had been genuinely horrified by the idea of killing Vashne. The man was a friend, as much as any political rival could be a friend. Belamandris, Armal, and certainly Mariam had shared his reservations. Thufan and Farouk had remained quiet, though Thufan had been the first to nod as Yashamin had spoken further of the need for Ariskander and Vashne to die. In response to Corajidin’s hesitation, Yashamin had become scathing.

  “Where’s the legendary fire of the Erebus men?” she had sneered. “Men whose Ancestors dared the murder of emperors to get what they wanted? Have your balls shriveled now you’re faced with actually getting your hands bloody?”

  “You think this is so simple?” Corajidin had felt as if his head were going to split from the pressure, despite Wolfram’s potion.

  “There are few things simpler than taking a life, my husband.” Yashamin had stood before him, her hands clenched into white-knuckled fists. Her entire body had seemed to thrum with passion. She’d taken him by the chin. “If I thought they’d be tempted, I’d whore myself to both Ariskander and V
ashne, then cut their hearts out!”

  “Yash—”

  “I’d do this for you, Jidi!” she had promised. “I’d do this for the man I love!”

  Enraged, Mariam had taken the knife Vashne had given Corajidin and hurled it toward Yashamin. Its metallic sheath had rung against the mosaic floor. Silence had crashed down as they’d looked at where the knife had come to rest beside Yashamin’s bare feet. The late-afternoon sun had shone from the gold rings on her toes and the strands of pearls around her slender ankles. They had been oddly bright, gleaming, compared to the sullen shadow of the dagger.

  “Then do it.” Mariam had pointed at Yashamin, her voice calm. “You talk a good game, Yasha. Let’s see how well you can really play it.”

  “Enough!” Corajidin had taken the knife up from where it lay. The look Yashamin had given Mariam had been venomous.

  Corajidin had looked at the knife in his hands with morbid fascination.

  “You know it’s the only way, Jidi!” Yashamin had urged.

  Mariam’s look of despair had caused Corajidin’s breath to stick in his chest. Belamandris’s expression had been troubled as he’d tapped his sword hilt nervously.

  Yashamin had suggested they work quickly but quietly. There was no time to hire bravos to do this. No time to orchestrate a demise by an assassin’s blade. This thing, this murder, would need to be done by Erebus hands tonight. Before the emergency session of the Teshri. Before their conspiracy became common knowledge. She’d urged them think like leaders. To manage the flow of information.

  Corajidin had seen the horrified look on Mariam’s face when she was asked, no, told, by Yashamin to fail in her duty to protect the Asrahn. Mariam had left the chamber then, fists clenched, head low. Corajidin had watched her go, torn to see his daughter so confounded. Regicide was not something he had planned.

  So he had come to the roof, into fresher air, to think, which was where Mariam had found him.

  “Vashne gave me this today,” Corajidin said. He was transfixed by the knife in his hands. “This was the blade Erebus, the first of our line, used to defend Vane-ro-men, the last emperor of the Petal Empire. We Avān were loyal to our monarchs then. Before we betrayed them to form an empire of our own.”

  “Why give it to you? What does he know?”

  Corajidin drew the knife. It hissed from the sheath. The recurved blade was forged from kirion, arabesqued in silver. The edge of the blade was black, a gentle wave pattern from hilt to point. “I have no idea what he knows. Vashne is a wise man and a gentler soul than I, though no less ambitious. We understand each other quite well. It will be ironic for him to be killed by his own gift.”

  “I can’t be part of this, Father. I should be on my way to warn the Asrahn even now.”

  “Yet you are not.”

  “No, I’m here with you. Don’t do this. To yourself, to the family, to me. Please…”

  “By dawn, the Great House of Erebus will rule Shrīan, will be cast out as rebels, or will be dead. I need you, Mariam. Though I would have this otherwise, though I would wish for options, it is not otherwise and there are no options.”

  “Find another way.” She rested her head on his shoulder. “I know you can.”

  “I am destiny’s agent in this,” he whispered.

  “The old ways are harsh ways.” Mariam turned him by the shoulders gently until he was forced to face her. “The vendettas and blood curses of the royal caste are powerful. If you start this thing, it won’t end with Ariskander and Vashne.”

  “I know.” Evening shadows pooled in the creases and gaps between his fingers, dark as blood. “But I do not have years to wait, Mariam. We gambled heavily on this race and cannot afford to lose.”

  “Neither can Shrīan afford for you to win. Far-ad-din’s already gone. Please don’t add Ariskander and Vashne to the toll. They’re good men. Wise men.”

  “And I am not?” He smiled at his daughter though she scowled at him.

  “I didn’t say that. There are worlds of difference between the Erebus and the other Great Houses. The legacies of debt and honor, vengeance and loss that weigh on your soul are heavier than most. I’ve never envied you the burdens you carry, Father, but they don’t excuse you.”

  “Then you must choose whom you will be, Mariam. You can side with Ariskander and an Asrahn who is about to fall, or you can remain loyal to your father, your House, and the future.” He rested his hands on her shoulders. They felt heavy, as if the weight of crimes both real and imagined rested in them. He kissed her on the brow. “For both our sakes, please choose wisely.”

  “You can do this for me?” Corajidin stared at Nehrun, the man little more than a blurred silhouette against the glare of the windows.

  “If possible, I’ll kill Ekko before he has the chance to reveal what he knows at the emergency session of the Teshri,” Nehrun murmured without turning. The prince lifted his hand to the glass, as if touching the sun. “If not, I’ve just told you when and where they’ll be tonight. It’s always handy to have a backup plan.”

  “And you’ll support me in my bid to govern Amnon, even after I’ve murdered your father?”

  “You give me what I want and you’ll find my loyalties become somewhat less problematic,” Nehrun replied. “As the Rahn-Näsarat, my aim will be to help guide the country in the direction I believe it should go. All you need do is kill my father to gain my support.”

  “As you say, all I need do is a kill a man.” Corajidin looked down at the long-knife in his lap. “It seems to be the season for it.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “Throughout our lives we are constantly changing. We make mistakes. We fall. We pick ourselves up again. Friends enter our lives and leave. The only constant, from birth to death and beyond, is family.”—from Immortality of the Bloodlines, by Tamari fa Saroush, philosopher of the Awakened Empire

  Day 314 of the 495th Year of the Shrīanese Federation

  Ekko was asleep, as he had been throughout most of the afternoon. Around him, blue-robed Seethe tended to the many sick and wounded. Visitors came to see their friends and loved ones, stayed to talk, sometimes to sit in silence or to mouth words of resigned farewell.

  Indris had counted almost one hundred patients in the Healer’s Garden. Of those, he doubted thirty would leave. He knew there were other such places within Amnon, as well as in the army camps. As was the case with all battles, Amber Lake had not been without cost in life and limb. Almost as bad had been the ensuing faction fights after the battle. There was no love lost between the followers of the Näsarat and Erebus. The violence of opportunity had been inevitable.

  For the Avān there was grief, but no bitterness, toward death. No rancor, or venom, or outrage, except perhaps in vengeance, where blame could be laid for an untimely or dishonorable end. When an Avān died, their spirit was set free to be with their Ancestors in the Well of Souls. As the mantle was raised from the illusions of the flesh, when the spirit saw the truth of the world untainted by ambition, anger, or fear, it would be welcomed by those who had gone before. Death was a beginning, in the way all endings were beginnings. Farewell, rather than good-bye. In death, an Avān floated in a sea of memories, knowledge, and unconditional love. Each Avān was raised knowing death was not evil, though the manner of a person’s death might be.

  His train of thought was broken by the arrival of Hayden. The Human leaned on his long-barreled storm-rifle, expression troubled. The old drover was one of the best military rangers Indris had ever known. Age might have robbed the man of some of his strength and slowed his reflexes, but Hayden Goode was still a tracker, infiltrator, and scout without peer. It was why Indris had asked him to follow Nehrun. The tale he had told Indris only confirmed the warrior-poet’s doubts, rather than allaying them.

  “He went to see Corajidin?” Indris asked.

  “Quite the shady fellow, your cousin,” Hayden drawled. “He was out for a couple of hours this morning with Ariskander, so I paid his rooms a visit. Nehru
n’s got copies of a whole bunch of letters from Far-ad-din to Ariskander. There’s nothing from Corajidin. Not surprised there.”

  “Anything else?”

  “I followed him about Amnon for the rest of the day. He was about to pay a visit to Corajidin when Vashne and his guards showed up.” Hayden grinned, his mustache bristling. “Never seen somebody try to be so inconspicuous in my life. Nehrun’s too proud to disguise himself too well, but seems Vashne didn’t see him. Nehrun went in after Vashne left. From what I could see, Nehrun left Corajidin a happier man. I reckon Nehrun’s fixing on doing some terrible things. What are you going to do?”

  Indris drew in a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “I could compel the truth from him. Or invoke a Cognizance Trawl and fish through his memories. But it would be better to leave the entire thing in Ariskander’s hands. I’m sending my uncle all my notes on what we found in the Rōmarq. I’ll add what we know of Nehrun and give it to him.”

  “Make it all your uncle’s problem, then?” Hayden said disapprovingly.

  “Yes, Hayden,” Indris replied, irritated by Hayden’s tone. “Make it all my uncle’s problem.”

  Hayden muttered something under his breath as he walked away. Indris was hoping for some time to think, but Shar replaced the old drover not long after, sonesette in hand.

  She hugged him in silence, then perched herself on a broad couch, its padded arms curved outward like gull wings. She had tied back her long, dawn-colored quills with a cord and the tiny metal bells on the ends chimed as she moved her head, which made her smile with delight. They talked of trivial things to overcome his sense of restlessness. He shared with her what Hayden had told him of Nehrun’s activities. At this Shar simply cocked her head at him as she tuned her sonesette and gazed at him calmly. All things would happen in their time, her expression said. Indris smiled, then continued with his writing while she played the music she loved.