CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“With every act of vengeance we murder part of ourselves.”—from the Nilvedic Maxims
Day 324 of the 495th Year of the Shrīanese Federation
“In the name of all the hallowed dead…” Corajidin sighed his exhaustion. Yashamin drew his arms closer around her shoulders. The ceremony to start the Festival of the Ancestors was over, yet people still hounded him. At first they had been congratulatory, then the well-wishers had filtered away to be replaced by those with agendas of their own. A favor, for past services barely remembered. A boon, in the hope they could reap his good graces in the future. Opinions, impressions, suggestions, comparisons, all became blurred in a fug of lotus milk to numb the pain.
Worry gnawed at him. Wolfram and Brede had completed their preparations for the Spirit Casque. It was only three hours till dawn, and Corajidin planned to be en route by the time the sun came up. The ruins were a couple of hours away by wind-skiff. Corajidin would have preferred somewhere more convenient, but they could ill afford for either Ariskander or Daniush to escape or be discovered.
If Wolfram was right, if Farenhara had been found, then Fenlings were no longer necessary. An army of Erebus veterans, bolstered by the Kadarin’s heavy infantry and companies of nahdi, were camped on the borders of the Rōmarq. Their blood was still high from their recent victory over the Seethe. If the Time Master city contained the weapons and knowledge Wolfram expected, Corajidin would wipe out the Fenlings to their last disgusting pup to ensure the bounty was his. Corajidin doubted there was a monarch on Īa who would care if the feral rat-folk were exterminated. As far as he was concerned, he was doing his fellow leaders a favor. Of course, the Iron League would protest Shrīan having such weapons. By then, it would be too late for them to do anything about it.
“Rahn-Corajidin.” Roshana gave the barest of nods. She looked impeccable in her blue-and-gold coat, a phoenix embroidered on each sleeve. She smiled thinly at Yashamin. “Rahn-Yashamin. You look as beautiful as ever this evening. Thank you both for being such gracious hosts. No doubt people will talk about your speech tonight for some time to come.”
Corajidin shot Roshana a withering look. “What do you want, Roshana? I have suffered weaklings and fools enough this evening.”
“Ahh.” Roshana lifted her chin defiantly. “Then I’ve news to make you happy, Rahn-Corajidin—”
“Asrahn-Elect,” Corajidin corrected her. “I am your Asrahn-Elect.”
The Näsarat heir’s lips quirked in a contemptuous smile. Arrogant sow!
“As you like. I’ve been in discussions with my peers, as well as those whose opinion I value. Though you’ve endeavored to maintain a semblance of peace in Amnon, it seems the faction fighting has doubled in its intensity. Civilians are being persecuted—”
“I am aware it is difficult to maintain the law in a place such as this,” Corajidin replied, his weariness and the numbness of his limbs a shroud over diplomacy. What did he care what any Näsarat had to say? “I am expecting you have a point, somewhere in your ramblings?”
“Perhaps if your bravos didn’t use such…” Roshana took a deep breath to calm herself. Corajidin smiled inwardly. “I gave orders earlier this evening for those sayfs of the Hundred Families loyal to the Great House of Näsarat to prepare to leave Amnon—”
“You did what?” Yashamin asked in surprise.
“Along with the companies of the Näsarat’s Phoenix Army,” she finished. “I believe that by removing the temptation of old feuds to fire the violence, Amnon will settle much more rapidly. Besides, there’s no need for our soldiers to be marshaled here any longer. After all, the Great House of Erebus has taken on the responsibility of government here. My personal guard will remain, as will the Lion Guard, to ensure we can continue a more thorough search for my father.”
“I think not,” Corajidin growled. “You can go, if you wish. Leave your Knight-General Maselane here to command the armies in your place. He is an outstanding general. The Näsarat forces stay where they are.”
“No, they don’t.” Roshana stood firm. “You’ve no legal, or moral, authority over me. You’re nothing but a caretaker, walking in a better man’s boots. Even were you Asrahn, which is something I’ll vehemently oppose, you could only ask me to fight rather than order me to. We Näsarats have honored our agreement with the Teshri. Now we’re leaving. We’ll have no part in whatever it is you’re doing now.”
“Watch your tone, woman! I should have expected such a lack of vision from a Näsarat.” Corajidin’s face heated. This was all Nehrun’s fault! Like a craven he had fled at the first sign of danger, to hide behind the musty robes of the Sēq at the Shrine of the Vanities. Who had hammered a conscience into the weakling? “You will do as you are ordered, do you understand me? If not, I will—”
“Do nothing, you pompous old dog,” Roshana snarled. Corajidin felt as if he had been slapped in the face. The Näsarat princess stepped in, her face so close to Corajidin’s he could smell the faint scent of lime and peppermint on her hair. “I’m not Nehrun. I didn’t cast my lot with you. You’ve made your last threat, your last demand, of my House. The price for your future is too high. You’d bring war to our doorstep, you vain little man.”
“It will happen, whether you would be part of it or not. I will not shed a single tear when the Great House of Näsarat is broken. You will be lucky to remain as one of the Hundred, if I have my way.”
“You may find all that harder than you imagine. My younger brother, Tajaddin, is stronger and wiser than me. He would rain down bloody mayhem on you if the need arose. Besides, you forget who my cousin is and just what he can do,” Roshana said by way of farewell. Corajidin watched in outrage as Roshana turned on her heel and walked away into the crowd, pausing briefly to share words with Femensetri. The two women looked askance at Corajidin, expressions stern.
He was about to order the Anlūki to arrest the woman, when he caught sight of Belamandris, grimed and troubled looking, as he walked through the door.
It took Corajidin a moment to recognize Thufan where he lay on blood-soiled sheets in the villa they had commandeered. Were it not for the hook hand, he may well have assumed the pitiful wreck on the bed was somebody else entirely. Wolfram had done what he could to treat the man’s wounds, though it seemed precious little.
Never a handsome man, now Thufan was missing his right eye, cheek, and part of his jaw. The skin remained, a stitched sack devoid of form, sunken over the great hollows where bone had once been. His left cheek boasted a large hole, the skin likewise stitched together. Breath burbled wetly in his throat, terrible to hear.
As he looked down at his friend’s body, Corajidin wanted to put his head in his hands and weep. His anger at Thufan’s betrayal ebbed away, replaced by sorrow.
“How?” he asked stiffly.
Belamandris described how they had been attacked in the Rōmarq while in the company of the Fenlings. A Tau-se and another man had shot at them from cover. Many of their Fenling escort had been killed. The two assailants had snatched the Spirit Casque and fled. The remaining Fenlings had gone mad with rage. Belamandris and Thufan had had no choice other than to go with them while they chased their attackers.
“We saw somebody sprinting through the marshes,” Belamandris said tiredly. He sat heavy limbed in his chair, without any of his customary grace. His face was stricken. Bruises replaced the kohl he usually wore; the skin was marred with shallow cuts. “He had the Spirit Casque with him. We left the cover of the trees to run him down and were ambushed by storm-rifle fire and arrows. Once their leader was killed, the other Fenlings lost what little control they had left. We were charging when Thufan was shot in the head. We still gave chase, but the Fenlings ran into some kind of trap. It was an explosion of lightning and thunder. Their bodies…the way their limbs…I—”
“Who?” Corajidin snapped. “Who would dare this?”
“It could’ve just as easily been me.” Belamandris chewed his lip, t
hen looked to the mess that was Thufan. “I saw the rifle pointed at me, then it—”
“Who did this?” Corajidin shouted at his son.
“Dragon-Eyed Indris.”
Something snapped inside. Corajidin bellowed, his fists clenched against his temples. His body trembled. He grabbed an antique vase and hurled it with all his might against the wall. Hand-painted porcelain flew everywhere. Unsatisfied, he picked up the small table the vase had once stood on, then hurled it through the tall windows. Glass exploded outward, along with the table. Corajidin heard it crash, then break into pieces, on the paved courtyard below.
The Näsarats! For millennia the Great House of Näsarat had spat on his Ancestors! Had taken from them. Betrayed them. Mocked them with their self-indulgent nobility! When had they ever truly suffered for their country or their people? Never! When it came time to sacrifice, it was an Erebus who was there to pay the price in blood.
Indris. Indris the exile. Indris who should have been killed alongside his treacherous, Nomad-sympathizing mother decades ago! Corajidin rued the night he had not murdered Indris along with his mother. The mistakes of the past had come home to roost.
Corajidin breathed deeply to regain a modicum of control. “The Spirit Casque? You say they escaped with it?”
“No, Father.” Belamandris looked his father in the eye with weary pride. “We caught up with he who had it. He’d gotten caught in the traps set by the Fenlings to protect our interests. It was some scarecrow of a Wraith Knight. I took the Spirit Casque, then took Thufan to our camp in the marshes. They had a small wind-skiff that fell apart about me as I brought Thufan here. Father, I did what I could to…”
“I know.” Perhaps all was not lost. Ariskander’s doom was still only hours away. A thought occurred to him. “What did you do with the Wraith Knight?”
Belamandris reached into a bag at his feet. He produced an amber-and-jade jar, the size of a large apple. It shone as if the sun burned inside, beams of blue-green and golden light cascading from it. “This I brought for you. The body I burned to the ground.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“Let them know fear, they who have wronged me. Let them wail. Let them gnash their teeth and pull upon their hair and beg and kneel in the mud of their tears. I have no mercy for those who have, with malice, destroyed that which I love.”—Act 3, Scene 1, of The Phoenix, the Horse, and the Bee, by Calajine, Shrīanese playwright, 471st Year of the Shrīanese Federation
Day 324 of the 495th Year of the Shrīanese Federation
Indris’s mood was dark as he and his remaining friends vaulted the low, ruined wall of an abandoned scholar’s villa. With the ahmsah he could see the bunched knots and coils of disentropy that had been woven into every stone, tile, and beam. It was a shining web of mother-of-pearl light, pulsing like the heartbeat of Īa. Whoever had built this place had intended it to last. Despite the millennia, the old villa remained almost intact. It was hidden like many of the ruins in this part of the Rōmarq by stands of magnolia and cypress, honeysuckle vines run rampant, thousands of the tiny white flowers bobbing in the gentle midday breeze.
Shooting Thufan had been necessary, he told himself. Indris had been sorely tempted to put a bolt between Belamandris’s eyes, though he knew Mari would never forgive him for it. Belamandris would need to stop now to tend to his fellow scoundrel, since the Fenlings would otherwise eat the man where he lay, alive or dead. His disentropy trap had been a necessary risk, for neither he nor his friends could run much longer. They needed rest. It had taken the better part of the morning to make their way through the bands of Fenling hunters and warriors who searched for them.
On their way to where he thought they would be safe, Indris had taken the time to scout Fiandahariat as best he could. He had led his friends through a narrow canyon of weathered black towers, their once-glassy surfaces cracked like windows struck by stones. Gardens had long gone to seed. The fountains were silent. Bridges had collapsed, along with stairs, lofty walls, and forbidding spires. Canals had overflowed to turn streets paved with polished white-and-gray stones into bleached streams of brackish water.
They had been forced to avoid some parts of the ruins simply because there were too many people. Mercenary swashbucklers and freebooters, stripped to vests or bare chested in the heat, stood guard. Fenlings labored under the watchful eye of overseers. Yet it was a different type of soldier who guarded the entrances to a plaza deep in the city that held the Star Clock. These guardians had the appearance of hard-eyed veterans. Though they wore no livery, Indris had no doubt they served the Erebus.
They had left the ruins with a better idea of where Ariskander was held. It was only then Indris had led them to the one place he hoped his use of the ahmsah would not be noticed. A refuge held together because of it.
Indris and Shar had used this place when they were in the Rōmarq, gathering intelligence for Far-ad-din. Given the horrific surges of disentropy in and around Fiandahariat, Indris had felt comfortable in setting up a Discretion Charm to further hide the old building from notice. Whoever looked at the sprawling house simply paid it no more notice than they would the trees that surrounded it. He had tapped the charm into a vein of disentropy, and it would last for centuries.
Inside the scholar’s villa, Indris and the others rested for a while. They silently shared food, sipped from their water bottles, sat hunched in their own thoughts while they shot sidelong glances at Indris.
“This silence is awkward, so one of you may as well say it.” Indris stood by a vine-wreathed window, his eyes narrowed against the brightness outside.
“Amonindris, what do you expect us to say?” Ekko asked guiltily. Hayden sat alone in the corner, head against the wall, eyes closed. “That we are sorry for going after the casque? That we wonder whether we can accomplish what we came for? Let us face the fact we are here to rescue Rahn-Ariskander, with too few—”
“And why do you think we’re fewer in numbers?” Shar’s fine features were made sharper by the quality of the light, all flat planes and acute angles. She rubbed at the end of one elongated ear, scratched and bloody. “Because you two faruqen uryati wouldn’t leave well enough alone—”
“Beggin’ your pardon there, but—”
“But nothing, Hayden!” Shar’s skin and eyes were luminescent with anger. “You were told not to go after Thufan and you did. You and Ekko brought this down on us when you brought the Spirit Casque back! Omen would be with us now if it wasn’t for you.”
“For the love of the Ancestors, peace!” Indris turned from the window in frustration. “No, we’re not many, but we never were. Yes, we’ll miss Omen’s sword when it comes time to get our hands bloody. I did what needed to be done. We’re all of us together in this moment, so there’s no point in wondering what if. Let’s focus on what we do now.”
“There’re surely a lot of them out there, Indris,” Hayden said quietly.
“It’s not the many we fight,” Shar pointed out. “Rather the few we can’t avoid.”
“She’s right.” Indris nodded. “I didn’t come here to go on a killing spree. Rest up while you can. We leave before dawn tomorrow. Shar?” He gestured for his friend to follow him as he left the sitting room. She fell into step as they crossed the leaf-and-weed-strewn courtyard. Green-and-black lotus flowers grew tall from the mud, surrounded by bees droning in the thick, lazy summer air. Shar plucked a green lotus blossom, then popped a petal into her mouth.
The doors to the laboratory were closed but gave to some insistent shoving. Residual charms inside the room recognized the presence of an ahmsah adept. Small ilhen lamps, like formations of candle flames in bronze urns, glowed a clean yellow-white. The interior walls reminded Indris of a beehive: hundreds of hexagonal cells, all covered with dust, most of which at one time would have held a casket, bottle, box, book, or scroll case. Everything that could be carried out had been taken, presumably by the previous owner. Only one thing of value remained, which Indris was sure would have b
een painful to part with.
In the center of the laboratory, a jagged mirror of polished quartz was set in a large, rough-edged pillar. Indris looked at it with trepidation. The surface of the mirror was irregular, transparent in some places, striated with cracks and streaks of dappled gray-white. No sooner had Indris thought he was looking at a reflection, than it blurred away like a fish under the brightly reflecting surface of a pond.
“Do you remember how to use a Seer’s Mirror?” Shar asked nervously.
“I’ve not used one in a while.”
“You told me once there were dangers…”
“I’ve no intention of becoming Lost in the Drear.” The name sent an unwelcome chill down his spine. The thought of encountering one of the Lost—ancient and heretical scholars and others who had succumbed to the false promises of the Drear in return for profound power—unsettled him. What if he were faced with one of his old friends? Femensetri had mentioned some of his classmates had been Lost, the most powerful and promising Sēq Knights of their generation. “Most of the time we don’t like what we see when we look in the mirror.”
Indris dragged a chair before the mirror. He leaned back, relaxed as much as he could. Each inhalation brought happiness, power, control, and strength. Each exhalation discharged anger, sorrow, and doubt. For ten breaths he cleansed his mind until, hypersensitive, he could feel his Disentropic Stain tingle along his nerves. It heated his skin. His mind blossomed like a flower.
He opened his eyes and focused on the mirror. Clouds of scratched white scudded across the glass. Behind them, the light tried to shine through, like the sun on an overcast day. He saw himself, a prideful man with too much blood on his hands and not enough love in his hearts, seated, weak and frail, on a rickety throne made of straw. He had the hands of a murderer and the eyes of a madman, one burning with fire, the other fish-belly white. His skin was scaled, and Dragon’s wings rose from his shoulders. Blood was ingrained beneath his fingertips, and the pits of his eyes flickered crimson. The room around him was wan. The ilhen lamps little more than pathetic sparks shedding nimbus light, the color of rancid honey. Flies buzzed and cockroaches scuttled and spiders made their webs on him as he sat, utterly alone and friendless. Such was the Drear.
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