The Garden of Stones

by Mark T. Barnes

  The metallic tones of her sonesette, the gentle rhythms, and the breathy tones of her voice calmed him. He stopped writing to listen. Indris loved the sound of Seethe voices. Like the gentle hum of wind through the grass. The intonation, the cadence, the faintly surreal way their voices sounded as if they were talking backward. A Seethe war-chanter could, with the sound of her voice alone, banish the fear and anxieties of her fellow troupers. Could summon and hold a soldier’s calm, or cause her enemies’ hearts to quail with terror at the sight of the Seethe as they leaped, improbably high and graceful, into the melee. Or she could use her voice to bring peace and joy.

  I left her there for dreams of fame

  I sold my blade, for silver rings

  I wandered far, no place my own

  I hear her calling on the wind

  The roads are long, the sky is wide

  I see her face in the fire’s light

  I hear her in the river’s rush

  Her love is my life’s sole delight

  She is my rose, my sunset flower

  On road, or field, it’s her I miss

  My only love, she waits for me

  Awake, asleep, I miss her kiss

  I dreamed of death, my lonely road

  I lift my eyes to skies above

  I don’t belong, I need to go

  To walk for home, to hold my love

  Shar finished the song with a gentle flourish, then started a delicate instrumental piece. Indris felt himself begin to relax. Done with writing, he turned his attention to the pages of Morality, Beauty, and Perfection. It was an ancient manuscript, a relic, of which few copies had been made and fewer still survived the centuries. The author, Trenado ele Corido, had been one of Ygran’s finest scholars. An Avān who had sought to bridge the gap between Humans and the Avān prior to the fall of the Awakened Empire. His collected works had been all but destroyed, though Indris had found this single, water-damaged copy of Morality, Beauty, and Perfection in the ruins of Nankhor, one of the Conflicted Cities on the Tanis-Manté border. The tome, a treatise on idealism and the value of imagination and individuality over the slavish mimicry of baser feelings, was something he treasured. It helped him remember himself, where he otherwise might have forgotten. Though he had been tempted to abandon Ekko to whatever destiny awaited him, Trenado’s kindness had kept Indris there. It was clear Shrīan approached a crossroads, if it had not arrived there already. The Federationist and Imperialist factions were spending more time peddling influence to run the country than they did ensuring the country was worth running. It had not always been thus. During the Awakened Empire there had been the Mahj and the Mahj had always been scholar taught. During the years of empire, the Sēq Order had been the keepers of the law, its librarians, spiritual advisers, and thinkers. Scholars had been the wandering keepers of peace and the shepherds of the people, long before the offices of the kherife and arbiter or the warrior-poet schools had been established. Yet as with all power, there had come the accusations of corruption. Scholars were not immune to the baser needs of their own natures.

  It had become a moot point. The Scholar Wars—now three hundred years in the past—had been a decades-long distraction between scholars and witches, though many thousands of others had died in the chaos. As the dust had settled over the near-apocalyptic destruction, the people had turned away from their shepherds. They had taken back their trust, made their own laws, and taken control of their lives.

  The scholars had continued to serve the people who misunderstood them, their numbers and majesty greatly diminished. They were trained, conditioned from an early age, to place the needs of the many above their own. Such were difficult habits to break.

  Restless, Indris strolled to the edge of the garden terrace. Amnon was dusted with lantern light. Peaceful, thanks in great part to Ariskander and his respect for what Far-ad-din had made. The softness of the night gave the city gentleness at odds with the tension he knew was out there. Overhead the marble of Eln shone against the thousands of stars strewn across the black velvet sky. To the south, the firmament was brilliant with the rippled cloud of the Ancestor’s Shroud, tacked to the night by scores of stars like pins of diamond, sapphire, garnet, and emerald. It colored the sky like a cloak of spectral orange, yellow, and white light. One end was hooked like a cowl, dark save the massive blue star known as the Ancestor’s Eye. Westward, some kilometers away on the banks of the Anqorat River delta, silver-blue lights lifted into the air as another Seethe skyjammer rose. Earlier, he had watched as streams of Seethe took the coast road to the northeast. No doubt they sought to flee through the distant Narsis Gate into Ygran. Though Ariskander had maintained the peace, they had come to Amnon for Far-ad-din. Perhaps they would find more gentle treatment in High Palatine Navaar of Oragon’s hands. The onetime mercenary’s nation of conscience professed to look beyond species, to the value of the heart and mind within. Others would cross the sea, to Tanis or Darmatia. Some would return to the Sky Realms, their time living among the cities of others over. Indris hoped they found happiness, wherever they went.

  “Tonight’s the night,” he said over his shoulder.

  “We’re really leaving then, despite what we know?” Shar came to stand beside him. The wind tugged at the fine strands of her dawn-hued quills. He smiled at her near-infinite patience with him. Shar-fer-rayn, the last of her troupe. A princess without a people.

  “Maybe because of it. Is the Wanderer ready to fly?”

  “You’re the scholar—you tell me.” She shrugged. It was clear she disapproved of his decision. “Weren’t you having trouble with one of the Tempest Wheels?”

  “Fixed it. I think.”

  “Then we’re ready, except for supplies.” Shar turned to face him. “You’re better than this, Indris. You said yourself Shrīan needs to be gentler. What happens when Ariskander goes home?”

  “I can’t alter that, Shar.”

  “Why don’t you govern?” There was nothing humorous in her tone. “You’ve been a governor of places we’ve defended in the Conflicted Cities.”

  Indris silently thanked Ekko for the interruption as he roused from sleep to stretch. The Tau-se yawned and blinked lazily. Poked at the bandages wrapped about his torso and head. Indris and Shar smiled as he tentatively sniffed his clawed fingers. Ekko’s nose wrinkled in disapproval at the medicinal smell, then he curled up and closed his eyes.

  “Word will have spread he’s here.” Indris rubbed his eyes with fatigue. “If I were Corajidin, I’d not want Ekko getting to the emergency session of the Teshri to tell more people what he saw. Evidence from a witness such as Ekko will be quite compelling.”

  “You suspect an attempt on Ekko’s life.”

  “It’s what I’d do, if I wanted to keep something like this from spreading further.”

  Indris and Shar returned to Ekko’s side, then settled into a companionable silence. She leaned back in her chair, long legs crossed at the ankle. Her skin shone with inner radiance, though dim as a flickering candle. Lost in reverie she tapped a dark nail against the hilt of a blue-tinted serill blade. Despite her blank expression, he knew she was aware of every sound and movement around her. Her long, upswept ears twitched from time to time. Her eyes would open to bright-yellow crescents, then close again as whatever had alarmed her passed.

  Almost an hour passed before Shar’s head cocked to the side. Indris did not need to ask. The war-chanter listened intently for a few moments before she nodded to Indris. The two of them rose from their chairs to take positions in the wind-rippled shadows of Ekko’s bower. Neither made a sound as Shar held up her fingers to indicate six people. He shrugged. It was a small matter.

  Indris looked across at Ekko. The Tau-se lay still, his eyes opened to barely more than slits. Ekko extended the powerful claws of one hand, then let them slide into the velvet softness of his fur.

  Moments passed with little sound save the gentle sigh of the wind across the latticed arbor. Ilhen jangled in the trees like wind c
himes, diadems of starlight captured in crystal.

  Movement in the shadows. The scuff of boots on the sandy path.

  Two shadows turned into the arbor.

  Shar shot forward. She struck one shape a vicious blow across the temple with the flat of her sword. She spun. Dipped. Surged upward. Hammered the other shape with the heel of one hand. Its head snapped back. Her elbow followed to the exposed throat. It went down, gasping.

  Indris was a blink behind. He dashed out, light-footed. Stood within the curve of a hastily drawn sword. He reached out. Placed his palm against the man’s face. Whispered the First Ban of Slumber. The warrior’s knees gave out as sleep took him, felled by a word.

  Indris leaped. Formulae flickered across his mind. He saw the Disentropic Stain halo his hands. A dark corona. His hands an eclipse. The Low Shout formed in his mouth—

  “Wait!” a familiar voice shouted in panic. Too late to stop, Indris loosed his Low Shout.

  His voice boomed. Shorter, sharper than thunder. He turned it downward. The sand at his feet exploded outward. He felt the wave of force roll across his shins. His target whimpered in abject terror. The ammonia smell of urine grew strong. Indris stepped back fastidiously from the spreading pool.

  Nehrun stood there, pale-faced. His hand rested on the hilt of his sheathed sword. Rosha was beside him, sword drawn. Indris’s cousins looked with horror at the state of their personal guards. Three of them were unconscious; the fourth stood on unsteady legs.

  “What are you doing?” Fear made Nehrun bold, shame made him angry. “I should have you executed!”

  “Leave it be, Nehrun,” Rosha muttered.

  Indris snorted. He turned his back on his cousins and returned to his seat in Ekko’s arbor. Shar leaned against the arbor wall, arms folded across her chest.

  “Indris!” Nehrun choked out. “Don’t turn your back on me—”

  “Quiet yourself,” Indris murmured. He placed his book and journal in his satchel, then slung it across his back. “There are people trying to sleep, you know.”

  “How dare—” Indris silenced Nehrun with a glance. Nehrun shook with impotent rage.

  Indris’s mind still spun, formulae clattering in the cage of his brain, desperate to fly free if he would let them. Thankfully he had done nothing too taxing. Used none of the Great Words or the major canto. He remembered with little fondness the mindstorms that could follow the use of such power: nausea, headaches, vertigo, tremors, and an aversion to light and sound. Catatonia, sometimes. Even death, in the most extreme cases.

  “Stop your posturing. I’m happy to give Ekko into Rosha’s custody. I know she’ll keep him safe.” Indris looked to Shar. “Ready to go?” Her response was to pack her sonesette in its polished wooden case.

  “What do you mean, give custody to Rosha?” Nehrun said, too quickly. He licked his lips as he looked around. “I mean, as rahn-elect, Ekko is my responsibility.”

  “Are these your men?” Indris asked Rosha, gesturing to the guards. “If not, we’ll come with you until you can get guards you know and trust.”

  “What are you doing?” Nehrun grabbed Indris by the arm as he tried to leave. Indris rested his gaze on Nehrun’s hand. His cousin promptly let him go, rubbing his palms together nervously.

  “You can’t go anywhere, Indris.” Rosha gave her brother a long look before she turned to Indris. “There’s an emergency session of the Teshri at high moon at the Tyr-Jahavān. Father and Asrahn-Vashne need Ekko to tell the others what he saw in the Rōmarq. They’ve asked whether you’d escort him there.”

  Indris scanned the arbor to make sure there was nothing left behind. Ekko watched silently while Indris and Shar prepared to leave, his expression inscrutable.

  “There’s no reason to delay Indris or his friend any longer,” Nehrun said. He looked to where his guards were getting to their feet. “And no need for Rosha to get more—”

  “What have you done, Nehrun?” Indris whispered as he leaned in close to scrutinize his cousin. He did not want Rosha to overhear. “It’s obvious you’ve dealings with Corajidin. I’ve known for a long time of your ambition and impatience with Ariskander’s Federationist beliefs. Are you so hungry for power you’d see your own father die?”

  Nehrun held Indris’s gaze, though his skin paled. Rosha frowned at them both. Nehrun swallowed, wiping the sweat from his lip.

  “If Rosha wasn’t here, there’s no way I’d leave Ekko in your hands, Nehrun.”

  Rosha came forward to check on Ekko. She raised her eyes to Indris, her expression closed. “You’re going to leave just when Ariskander, the man who loved you as the heir he wished he had, needs you. What happened? You used to care about every cause you heard about. You were a different man back then. Before your wife—”

  “There’s always a then, Rosha,” Indris replied in a chill voice. “We’re defined by moments of then. I’m not that man anymore. Don’t look for him.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because one day there’s nothing left. A time comes when you realize you’ve done enough and that no matter what you do you can’t…” His voice trailed off to nothing. How to explain to his cousins something he barely understood himself?

  Shar came forward on silent feet. She leaned close, her hand gentle on Indris’s arm. “We can at least walk with them to the Tyr-Jahavān, neh? It’s not far out of our way. What harm could come of it?” Her voice was little more than the hum of the wind through pine needles.

  Indris turned to look at Ekko. The Tau-se warrior rose to his feet. It was like watching a furry mountain rise from the earth. There was something…permanent…about Ekko. Something solid and terrifyingly powerful. Shar helped Ekko gather his armor and weapons from where they were stacked at the back of the arbor. With a care born of pain, Ekko pulled on his bloodstained hauberk. The gold-washed plates shone warmly. He tied his iron-shod hobnail sandals. Shar helped him with the complex ties of his banded metal cuirass. Greaves. Vambraces. His over-robe. Ekko fixed his long, sickle-bladed khopesh to a ring on his belt. His helm had been lost somewhere in the marshlands.

  “You have heard what I had to say and know its value, Amonindris,” Ekko rumbled. He sat straighter on his cot. “Though we do not know each other well at all, I would be further in your debt should you see me safely to the Teshri. There is much they, too, need to hear from me.”

  Indris was not deaf to the murmurs of the Feyassin when they caught sight of him and Shar. Two senior officers stood apart from the others, their eyes intent on him from behind their war-masks.

  Shar caught the visual exchange and gave a quiet chuckle as the two female warrior-poets prowled toward them on cat-light feet. “You can’t help getting under people’s skin, can you?”

  “What?” he said innocently.

  “Be nice.”

  The two officers stood tall and athletic in their white armor, carrying white hexagonal shields etched with the knot-work six-petaled lotus of the Asrahn’s office. Given their elite status they carried amenesqa, the antique yet deadly recurved swords of the Awakened Empire.

  “I’m Knight-Colonel Chelapa of the Feyassin,” one of the women, the shorter of the two, announced. She removed her war-mask. Indris imagined her working a potter’s wheel, or as a carpenter rather than a warrior. She had earnest features, with hazel eyes. Her skin was sunburned, freckled, and seamed at the corners of her eyes from laughter. A pale scar marked her right cheek. She searched Indris’s face, pausing at his left eye. He sighed quietly. “You’re Dragon…er, Pah-Näsarat fa Amonindris?” she asked abruptly. Shar raised an eyebrow in his direction.

  “You knew the answer to that question before you walked over. I prefer daimahjin-Indris. Or just Indris.”

  “It’s been my experience,” the other lady said, the throaty timbre of her voice somehow familiar, “that he’s reluctant to share his name with strangers. I’m Knight-Major Erebus fe Mariamejeh.” The Feyassin removed her own war-mask.

  Indris smiled. She was as striki
ng as his impassioned recollections, if not more so. There was such life in her, power in her movements. An elegance, a strength, a grace, born of her certainty. So, she was an Erebus. A strange thrill ran through him, as it always did in the presence of danger.

  “Why are you here, Indris?” Chelapa queried. “We’re perfectly capable of escorting Asrahn-Vashne, Rahn-Ariskander, and Knight-Colonel Ekko to the Tyr-Jahavān.”

  “Ekko is sworn to the Great House of Näsarat. I’ve been asked to make sure he’s delivered safe and sound.” He held up his hand to forestall her protest. “It would please Ekko if I traveled with him, and the family has asked this of me. I won’t interfere.”

  “See you don’t,” Chelapa warned before she spun on her heel and walked away. Mariam turned to follow her, though she paused for a moment.

  “Can we help you?” Shar asked.

  The Feyassin gave Shar a surprised look before she addressed Indris. Her cheeks colored, something Indris guessed was unusual for her. “I wanted to say…I enjoyed…I’m glad we’ve had a chance to meet again.”

  “And I, you,” Indris replied.

  “Oh, please.” Shar rolled her eyes.

  “We were supposed to fight,” Mariam said abruptly.

  “Excuse me?” he said, surprised by the strangeness of the comment. “It usually takes more than one tryst with me to make somebody angry enough to hit me.”

  The Feyassin chuckled. “I was supposed to fight you on Amber Lake. Didn’t you know? We were to be matched in the Hamesaad.”

  Indris glanced sidelong at Shar, who looked at them both with raised eyebrows before she walked off. He turned his attention back to Mariam. “I’d heard something about that. It would’ve been a shame. Let’s talk later, you and I?”

  “A shame?” Mariam echoed, but Indris only bowed his head with a smile as he moved away. Ahead of him, Ariskander, Vashne, and the Asrahn’s sons, Daniush and Hamejin, clambered into the eight-wheeled battlewagon. Ekko was waiting at the rear of the wagon for Indris and Shar to join him. As Indris and Shar walked away, Mari called out, “What do you mean, a shame?”