On Thufan’s less damaged right side, the cheek had been stitched closed and almost perfectly healed. The skin there was the pink of a newborn babe. For all Corajidin knew, after what he had seen Wolfram do to heal himself, the witch may well have actually used an infant to repair what he could of Thufan. Corajidin tried very hard to ignore the nausea that threatened to overcome him.
Corajidin tried to smile, suspected it came out more as a grimace. “I am glad to see you up and about, old friend. We did all that we could to keep you…to show our thanks…” His voice faded away, unsure what it was supposed to do next.
“Armal?” The hook rose, the darkened iron as sharp and ugly as the lies they had told each other over the years. Corajidin was not certain what the gravel-in-a-barrel voice was trying to inflect. “My son?”
“I do not know how they knew how to find you in the Rōmarq.” Corajidin could not look Thufan in the face. He rested his gaze on the scratched skin of his hands. Already the lesions had come back, swollen and tight with pus. “I am so sorry this happened. When you have recovered, I promise we will do all we can to find a way to, to fix what has happened to you. But now you must rest, Thufan.”
“My son. Tell me.” The hook swept down to take a chip from Corajidin’s desk. Thufan turned his head. The faceted orb of his eye gleamed in the light streaming through the window. Exposed bone shone against bruised skin.
“He is taking care of some business for me.” The falsehood came easily to Corajidin’s lips. For now, Thufan was entitled to gentler truth than Farouk’s betrayal. “You were right, Thufan, and I was wrong. Armal is not suited to lives such as ours. I asked Farouk to find him a posting far from Shrīan. Somewhere safe. Once you are well, I will send you home to new estates in Qalhad. You always told me how much you enjoyed winters overlooking the Southron Sea.”
Thufan coughed, though it came out as part bark and part wheeze. It took Corajidin a moment to realize it was supposed to be laughter. Both the kherife’s eyes gleamed coldly. Corajidin cringed in his chair even as Thufan turned, then slow-stepped out of the room.
Corajidin made slow time down the corridor to Mari’s chambers. On his way he saw a tall white porcelain vase painted with gray herons standing on a small hallway table, clustered with an arrangement of yellow-and-purple lotus flowers and a white spray of baby’s breath. Corajidin paused, tears in his eyes. Yashamin had loved the vase. Every day she had ensured fresh lotus blossoms were placed there. They reminded her of her home of Qom Rijadh on the shores of the Sûn Isles. He paused for a moment. The Anlūki who guarded him fanned out, hands on the hilts of their weapons as if in anticipation of some threat. Yet nothing came. Corajidin simply stood there for a long moment, gently caressing the lush petals, soft and full as his wife’s lips…
He continued to the end of the corridor. The guards outside Mari’s chambers snapped to attention at his approach.
In their red cuirasses and black-scaled hauberks, they looked more like golems than creatures of flesh and blood. Their ranking officer, a young woman with the fair complexion of Erebus Prefecture, bowed low to him.
“Pah-Mariamejeh is not currently in, my rahn,” she reported.
“Oh? Where has she gone?” Corajidin felt the disappointment of Mari’s absence. He took a deep breath to steady himself.
“She didn’t see fit to inform me of her destination.”
“No, I suppose she would not,” he murmured. The thought of going back to his office, of being surrounded by those who expected him to lead them, was too much. “I will wait within. The rest of you will remain outside until I call for you.”
The Anlūki officer opened the door to allow Corajidin entry, then closed the door behind him.
It took a few moments for Corajidin to realize something was amiss. The room was tidy. Meticulously so, which was unlike Mariam. There were usually clothes on the floor. Sheets of paper with half-finished drawings scattered on the tables. Even the small camp table she used for cleaning her weapons was gone.
He hobbled from room to room, the pain in his limbs growing ever more furious and the blood roaring in his ears. Jaw clenched against a growing fury, he finally saw the sealed letter propped on the table. It was addressed to Corajidin, sealed with Mari’s personal seal of the seahorse.
Corajidin sat on the edge of the couch, then cracked the wax seal. The paper was warm in his hand, its texture rough against his fingertips. He recognized Mari’s handwriting, her familiar unadorned broad strokes.
“Dear Father, I’m sorry we’ve come to be where we are, but after our talk last night, I’ve come to realize you’ll never set aside your plans, though they’ll no doubt kill you and make you cursed by history. It seems our moral compasses point in very different directions.
“Virtue. Endurance. Wisdom. These are the traits every warrior-poet is trained to honor. We live our lives according to a Measure, our duty toward our people and our country. To stand fearless before the storm, yet have the generosity of spirit to shield those in need. Most importantly, we’re taught to master ourselves, rather than seek the mastery of others. Those three small words dictate what I must be and what you should be as one who seeks to lead others.
“Above all, the warrior-poet gives themselves to a sacred calling. We sacrifice of ourselves, on behalf of the many. Yet you, who should be protecting your people, would return us to the days of madness, of the times when dark powers were whispered on the lips of black-hearted witches and monsters roared in the night. Those days ended for a reason. I choose to fight on behalf of those who should never have to live through such times.
“Know I love you. The last thing I want is to see either you or Belam hurt. So I say to you, run! Leave Amnon, leave Shrīan, and live a life free from what’s driven you to madness. At the moment, you’re the last thing Shrīan needs. Go. Heal yourself and come back to us the man I know you can be. There’s nothing more I can do to save you than this.”
It was with a cold rage Corajidin took the scroll in his hands and shredded it. First in long ripping motions, then with short, spittle-flecked bursts of invective as the paper was reduced to smaller and smaller pieces, which he then ground beneath his boot.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
“By refusing the various calls we hear throughout our lives, we often condemn ourselves to later years of regret. We see them, those elders, bent under the weight of doubt: living their twilight years thinking might have, could have, or should have. Let me answer the calls which come to me, so perhaps I will look back at my life and say, I did.”—Janchriquoi, inventor of the Wind Loom, 756th Year of the Awakened Empire
Day 325 of the 495th Year of the Shrīanese Federation
“We going to make it?” Hayden asked, knuckles white on the rail. There was a hiss, a groan, a crack as another part of the galley broke away to tumble into the wetlands that scudded below.
“Not in one piece,” Indris replied through clenched teeth. His hair was damp with sweat, rivulets trickling down his brow and temples. It felt like his hearts were about to burst. There was a pain shot through his forehead like a crossbow bolt. The galley he carried was not laced with filaments of witchfire, or silver, or gold. It had not been designed to have disentropy sear through its bulk. Indris felt the increased temperature of the vessel through the soles of his boots. Entropy had accelerated. The galley had started to fall apart around them. “At least the cursed thing is lighter now.”
“We’ve not far to go,” Shar observed. Indris could see the smear of trees that rose to Sycamore Hill, the sparkle of sunlight from the crystal formations of the Hai-Ardin. The walls of Amnon formed a low line of gray, bright here and there with flashes from quartz fragments.
Ekko and Mauntro padded up on certain feet. As pieces fell away from the galley, it became more erratic in its flight. The two Tau-se veterans eyed Indris with curiosity. They shared a long look between them, though it was Ekko who spoke. “Amonindris, you realize this conveyance of ours is breaking?”
“No? Really?” Indris said caustically.
“Yes, really,” Mauntro replied. “We just lost most of the rear castle. It was a wake-up for some of my warriors, that much I can say. So…are we going to make it?”
Indris gave the Tau-se an insincere smile, then turned his attention to where he was going. With the amount of mass the galley had lost, it was easier to keep airborne, but its irregular shape was harder to steer. As he turned the vessel northward, to skim across the canopies of the sycamores, the railing in front of him hissed. It shimmered brightly for a moment, dazzlingly bright, then broke away into streamers of ash and motes of light.
He spared a glance at Changeling. The blade was striated, as if it were a raw flexed muscle, lines of shadow rippling between ligaments of bright opalescence. Steam rose about her, and the deck nearby was scorched from her heat. Indris felt the strain of so much disentropy to the point of bursting, yet it was Changeling who bore the worst of it by far. Without her to strengthen him, he was sure he would have died long before they reached Amnon.
The galley dropped. Indris felt as if his stomach had risen into his mouth. The wobbly boat rose again quickly, much lighter.
“What did we—” he began to ask.
“Well,” Hayden drawled, “looking down through the cargo hold, I can see the tops of the trees where part of the hull used to be. Reckon that ain’t good.”
They rose higher as they circled the southern, then eastern faces of Zephyr Hill. Wind whipped Indris’s face as they swept by the pale incline, almost cliff sheer. In a few moments the galley was careening past hillocks of sparse grass, on course for the splintered teeth of boulders that dotted the hillside where it stretched toward the Marble Sea. To the east and south, Zephyr Hill descended in a series of sharp terraces dotted with trees and huddled stones rounded smooth by wind and rain. Sea eagles nested there, plumage ruffled, their voices shrill in the wind of the galley’s passing.
“Tell Ekko they’ll have to jump as soon as we stop moving,” Indris choked out to Shar. “This thing won’t last much longer.”
The Seethe war-chanter dashed away, sure-footed despite the deck bucking beneath her. Indris spared his shipmates a glance. A few of the Tau-se shrugged as they sauntered to the edge of the deck or to the few rails that remained. Others jokingly threatened to push their comrades off. Some even had to be kicked awake where they had slumbered in the sun.
As the fragmented hull touched the ground, part of it sloughed away. Timbers flew into the air, snapped as if rotten. Brass and iron fittings pinged into each other, then ricocheted into nearby boulders. Great clods of earth were hurled up as the sharp prow sliced into the earth. Then it, too, gave way.
The galley shuddered to a halt in a long furrow of soil and stone. No sooner had the vessel stopped moving than the Tau-se bounded for the ground. Shar leaped gracefully, so light she seemed to glide to the ground. Two Tau-se grabbed Hayden, then hurled him into the waiting arms of two of their companions who had already made landfall. Indris pulled Changeling from the deck. Wood puffed away as ash as he dashed for the side and jumped over.
As he hit the ground, Indris urged the Tau-se further away from the wreckage. From behind them came ticking creaks, the dry snap of wood, and the bellowed protests of metal bent out of shape as what remained of the galley collapsed. The galley slumped as parts of it were consumed in smokeless tongues of nacreous light. When it settled, finally, there was little left except for the top deck and jagged beams of the forecastle.
“We really did make it,” Ekko observed. “Though I doubt the galley is going anywhere soon.”
Indris laughed weakly, then lay back on the sun-warmed grass. He folded a forearm over his eyes. Lightning flashed behind his closed eyelids and his hearts tolled. The taste of bile built up in the back of his throat, and he sat up. He could feel the acid burn in his chest. He imagined a lightning rod might feel like this after a violent storm, if the same lightning rod was thrown from the roof and run over by a herd of stampeding horses.
Changeling was in his hand, the weapon silent as even she struggled with the reaction from channeling so much disentropy. Despite his fatigue, to hold her was intoxicating. The way her energy had flowed across his soul like honey over a lover’s skin. He could almost taste it.
Ekko assembled his people. The Tau-se split into five-person formations. Three formations ranged up the shallower incline here near the top of Zephyr Hill. The others took position around Indris, eyes focused outward. One of the squads near the crest of the hill loped back to speak with Ekko.
“We are only about one hundred meters away from the Garden of Stones,” the woman reported in a purring voice. “There are soldiers wearing the colors of the Great House of Näsarat guarding the Lotus House. They wear the insignia of Roshana’s Whitehorse. There are others with them.”
“Heavy cavalry.” Ekko’s opinion was quite clear from his tone. The Tau-se rarely rode animals for any reason.
“Ekko, please tell me you still have the Angothic Spirit Casque?”
“I still have the casque, Amonindris.”
“Then gather the Lion Guard, if you would. There’s a daughter who’s lost a father whom I may need to help become a rahn.”
“You’re late,” Femensetri observed as Indris entered the Lotus House. Roshana and Siamak looked up from where they sat. There was no sign of Mari, which he found more disappointing than he would have expected.
“I’m here,” he pointed out. “Where’s Mari? I thought she’d be with you.”
“She’s with Nazarafine.” Rosha crossed the room to stand beside Indris. She scanned the ranks of the Tau-se, Shar, and Hayden. Indris knew she looked for a sign of the father who was not there. He ignored the question in her eyes as he turned to Femensetri.
“We need to talk, you and I,” he gestured outside.
“Indris, we really don’t have the time to—” Rosha began. She stopped talking when Indris raised his hand.
“We need to make time. Ekko?” The Tau-se handed Indris the cloth-wrapped bundle of the Spirit Casque. Indris faced the others. “Where’s Corajidin?”
“He arrived shortly after noon, much earlier than we anticipated.” Siamak hooked his thumbs through the sash at his waist. “He’s been at his villa ever since. He sent several couriers, one to Knight-Marshal Narseh, another to Nadir, second in command of the Erebus armies. Belamandris and his Anlūki seem to be in control of the city, supported by four hundred or so Iphyri and several companies of nahdi.”
“Our forces are outnumbered, Indris.” Rosha’s expression was pensive. “If more of the Erebus soldiery manage to enter the city—”
“We’re not here to fight the Erebus army,” Femensetri interrupted. “Nazarafine should be at the Tyr-Jahavān by now, with the two motions to depose Corajidin as governor of Amnon, as well as Asrahn-Elect. Usually the suspicion of murder would be enough to raise questions, but he has too many supporters who’ll not speak against him.”
“And for Nazarafine to veto the Teshri’s decision would lead to more civil unrest,” Siamak said.
“So it’ll be difficult for us to force Corajidin out of power.” Rosha shrugged with equanimity. “We doubted the sun would set without blood being spilled.”
“True enough.” Indris nodded. “Remember though, we don’t want to kill unless we have to. These are our own people, not monsters. They deserve mercy.”
“Even Corajidin?” Ekko growled.
Indris rested his hand on the big Tau-se’s armored shoulder. “Were I Belamandris,” he said, “I’d seize control of the Tyr-Jahavān. Whoever holds the council chamber will control the flow of information to their allies. The Teshri will only get to make one decision about this.”
Ekko walked away to speak with his fellow Tau-se. Indris meant to follow when Rosha grabbed him by the shoulder. “You stay. We know things didn’t go as planned in the Rōmarq and Daniush is dead. Please, just tell me. Where’s my father?”
“Vahineh ass
assinated Yasha?” Indris could not keep the incredulity from his voice. “And Mari did nothing to stop her?”
“Well, that should calm Corajidin right down,” Ekko said wryly. “We may as well open a keg and sing our victory songs.”
“It’s not funny, Ekko.” Femensetri eyed the Tau-se darkly. “Vahineh’s put us in a right hole. Mari’s right. Corajidin will be even more intractable now.”
“I’ve seen what the man is capable of,” Indris reminded her.
Rosha remained silent as the four of them reached the Vault of the Echoes, nestled among weeping figs on the hill overlooking the Garden of Stones. The Vault of the Echoes stood on a broad diorite pillar some ten meters high, surrounded by a wide stairway secured by steel gates. A hot wind scoured them where it gusted between the double row of carved marble columns that supported the vault’s domed, moss-colored marble ceiling. There were no walls. The alabaster floor of the vault was inset with an intricate, six-petaled lotus mosaic of polished quartz pieces. A faint blush of fire shone in each petal.
“You failed.” Femensetri leaned with her back against one of the pillars, her crook resting between her folded arms. Her expression was bleak as she scowled at Indris. Rosha stood on the edge of the vault, her back to the others. Indris had been so young when his own mother had died. So much time had passed, he had no words of empathy for his cousin’s loss.
Failed. There was nothing that would change the moment they were in now, so what benefit in trying to explain what had happened to bring them here?
He knelt in the middle of the lotus flower pattern in the floor. He hesitantly unwrapped the Spirit Casque, then set it before him. The diamond in the forehead of the casque rippled with light. Indris looked up at his former teacher. “It could be—”
“Worse?” she said sullenly. “It is worse, boy. Far-ad-din’s not coming back either, so you say.” The Stormbringer looked at the Spirit Casque with revulsion. Her mindstone flared to black life, a vortex casting a ghastly pallor over her features. The blues, greens, and blacks of her eyes were lambent. “We’ve only one course of action to offer the Teshri. There’s no need to commune with him, Indris. I know what—”
The Garden of Stones Page 40