The Garden Of Stones Part 14

She shook her head with a rueful chuckle.

Ziaire had told Indris what Mari had gone through at the hands of the Feya.s.sin. Indris had been moved by her attempt at contrition, though it would never undo her betrayal. It was always such with the Great Houses, treachery and centuries of bloodshed and none of it forgotten, since an Awakened rahn dwelled with the memories of those who had come before. Vashne, like any politician or member of the upper castes, lived a life of compromise, of easily explained pragmatism. Vashne had understood the risks he took when he a.s.sumed high office. He had to have known his decisions, his opinions, even the deeds of his Ancestors, might come home to roost one day. Even so, Vashne had been more principled, more of a visionary, than most of his peers. Everybody had flaws. Despite his, Vashne had been a well-loved and respected Asrahn. Ariskander had been his probable successor. Ariskander, too, was a good man, as such things went. Indris felt his uncle's loss keenly, though part of him had become inured to death in all his years of service. It was almost as if he expected everybody he knew to die before their time.

"You knew Vashne well?" Mari asked.

"As well as he could be known." Indris shrugged. "Which is to say I knew of him what he wanted to share. Maybe a little more."

"I could have stopped it, you know." Her voice cracked. "He was a good Asrahn and deserved better than what I gave. I should've died with the other Feya.s.sin, as was my sworn duty."

"Why didn't you?" he asked, voice gentle to take the sting of the question away. "And why the change of heart?"

"I've lived with secrets and lies and plots for most of my life," Mari confessed. "I know the price of betrayal. When Ziaire and the others offered me their hand...I wondered whether I could talk to them about what I knew. Betrayal on top of betrayal, wondering whether there was an end to it. But I owed Vashne and his family the truth. More, if I'm able. I allowed him to be killed! I could have, should have-"

"Would have? To what end, once his downfall was already written? The same can be said of Ariskander. Your role isn't over yet. Mari, your death would've achieved little. By staying alive you've helped those who want to see justice served." Indris took both her hands in his. They were warm. The skin was calloused over ridges of hard muscle. The hands of a killer. Yet her eyes under her messy blonde hair were troubled as the sea during a storm. He smiled at her rea.s.suringly. "Obligation and guilt are something I'm well acquainted with. Probably more so than is healthy. An Asrahn should put the interests of their people before all. Would Corajidin do that? No offense, but I doubt it."

"How can I help?" Mari averted her eyes. She rubbed Indris's palm with strong fingers. He did not want her to stop.

"I need to find Ariskander and Far-ad-din and bring them back. The members of the Teshri will rally around Ariskander once they see an alternative to your father. To do that I need to know for certain where Ariskander is being held." He lifted her chin to look into her eyes. They were an amazing blue-green, made brighter by the darkness around them. His gaze flicked down to her full lips. They were the pink of coral. "I need you to find out where your father is keeping him."

"You want me to spy on my father?"

"With respect, didn't you spy on Vashne for your father? You can help save good men's lives."

Mari pursed her lips, her gaze distant. Indris turned away, though he watched her from the corner of his eye for the long moments she was in thought. Her confession had proven her willingness to rein in her father's ambitions, though he doubted she would permit any harm to come to him. He found himself surprisingly relieved when her expression lightened, a decision made. She looked at him with a wry smile. He waited a handful of heartbeats before he turned back to face her.

"Can we depend on you?" he asked.

"I'll do what I can." Her face drifted closer to his. He could smell the mint on her breath. Her hair, blown by the wind, tickled his cheeks. He leaned back. Memories of another woman's face drifted over Mari's. Recollections of a different scent, a different touch, a different way in which...

The kiss was on the verge of tenderness, with the promise of abandon to come. They parted, to look into each other's eyes, mouths open in mirrored smiles. She must have sensed his hovering indecision. She rested her fingertips against his lips. "We don't have to-"

"I want to," he told himself as much as her. He closed his eyes. When he opened them again, there was only Mari. "I want to. I'm glad you'll help us."

"But not right now." She leaned close again, glanced down at his lips.

"No. Not right now..."

"Where did you get your tattoos?" Mari lay beside him on the gra.s.s. Her fingers traced the intricate designs and patterns of raised flesh on his arms and shoulders. She kissed one brand of five bands of five wavy lines radiating from a central pentagon. "What's this one?"

"That's the mark of an adept of the Dragon scholars."

She pulled back to stare him in the eye. An incredulous smile painted her lips. "You're teasing me!"

"Not at the moment-"

She kissed him before he could finish. "And this one?"

The tattoo of the nomadic horse tribes of Darmatia. Another was the ritual scarification of the warrior-tribes of Jiom. Another from the Burdha, the tribes of the jungle-covered mountains in Tanis.

"That one is from the Feyhe," Indris said as she pointed to the eight-limbed spiral on the inside of his left wrist.

"It looks kind of like a feathered octopus...or a whirlpool. Are they really shape-shifters?"

"The Sea Masters? Yes, they are." They lay in silence in each other's arms, the sounds of Samyala a gentle lullaby. There were four great civilizations of the Elemental Masters, known to the various orders of the scholars as the Eridoi. The Seethe-the Wind Masters-was the only Elder Race that still involved itself actively in the modern world. For the most part they remained in their drifting Sky Realms, but their family troupes wandered the world as soldiers, artists, teachers, and entertainers. Most of the Dragons, called the Fire Masters, slumbered in their Great Dreaming. Though the majority of them slept, Indris knew, though he did not remember how, that the ones who remained awake were more than enough to rouse their kindred if the Spines were attacked. The Earth Masters, the Her, had disappeared into the deep forests and high mountains, though they would talk with travelers if necessary or the whim was on them. The most enigmatic of all were the Sea Masters. The Feyhe could take any shape they could imagine, which made them difficult to identify unless they revealed themselves for what they were. Their cities were places of liquid light over coral and rough stone. The lullabies of whales rolled in the waters there, as did the banter of dolphins and the symphonies of the sirens who called to sailors to bring news of the world above. There had been a Sea Master at Amarqa, a powerful Sq Master named Karoyi. It was an a.s.sumed name, since no non-Feyhe could p.r.o.nounce words in their complex, musical language. Indris had always planned on taking Karoyi up on his offer to visit the Sea Masters and continue his education, but he never had.

Indris looked out over the speckled lantern light of Amnon. The city looked deceptively peaceful. Quiet. Thousands of pinpoints of light came together to form a gentle haze under the bright nebula of the Ancestor's Shroud above. It was if the world in which he sat lay suspended between clouds of colored light, which looked soft as woolen blankets and seemed almost close enough to touch.

"Come back." Mari nuzzled his neck.

"Hmm?" Indris kissed her hair, held her close.

"You left me there for a while. I was getting lonely."

"Sorry." He leaned into her. "Mari, you don't have to help us if you don't want to."

"I do," she said firmly. "It'll be hard to get what you need from my father, but it has to be done. I believe Armal, Thufan's son, may be willing to help me."

Indris snorted. "I watched him oversee the raids on the houses of Far-ad-din's supporters. He seems pretty much your father's creature. Why do you think he'd work with us?"

"He does what he's ordered to do, though I've my doubts it sits well on his conscience. Will your cousin Roshana accept my help?"

The enmity of the Nasarats and the Erebus had been millennia in the making. While Indris cared little for petty, half-remembered squabbles that should have been let lie, Roshana was of another mind. He was not certain how grateful his cousin would be to know Mari was going to help them not only hinder her father's schemes, but find Ariskander. She would also have to be told of Nehrun's complicity, something Indris did not relish.

Mari had admitted there was little that would tempt her father more than her contrition. Corajidin, it seemed, had always wanted a doting daughter. Should she return to his good graces, her tail between her legs, she suspected his love would overcome his suspicion.

Indris dressed, then walked with Mari back to the main building of Samyala. He kissed Mari farewell, then watched her until she disappeared into her room. He smiled to himself when she did not look back. It was a matter of a few minutes before he was back in his own room. He shook his head at his own enthusiasm when he realized he had been humming to himself.

Shar and Ekko were inside. The Seethe war-chanter looked up, then smiled. She pointed wordlessly at Indris's hair and robe. He checked himself in the mirror to find he had donned his robe inside out. Gra.s.s and the crushed petal of an apple blossom were caught in the snarl of his hair. He grinned. Mari had no doubt known, yet decided not to tell him.

"We will search for Ariskander now?" Ekko's tone was urgent. "I fear for-"

"We need to know where he is first," Indris said as he searched through his satchel for the materials he would need.

"Then how do you plan on doing that?"

"Mari's going to help us."

"Mari?" Shar asked with raised eyebrows. Indris copied her expression, which brought a troubled smile to Shar's face.

"I need to send a message to Roshana. We need to talk, and soon."

Indris sat on the bed and used the ahmsah to focus on the ebb and flow of his Disentropic Stain. The telltale corona of black light flickered around him, threaded through with rainbow hues. It flowed like a hazy stream across his skin. Every now and then, as it reached one of his energy foci, it would flare into a dark nova. The Disentropic Stain in most beings was like a gentle heat haze, seen wavering on the gra.s.ses in high summer. Almost invisible, it caused only the faintest of ripples across the world around it. For a scholar, however, the Disentropic Stain was more like a brush fire or the corona around an eclipse of the sun. It flared, flickered, even rumbled if an adept attuned to the use of disentropy knew to listen.

He inspected the patterns of his Stain, confident it was almost back to normal. The flow was hampered somewhat by the spinning vortices where the salt-forged steel had left Entropic Scars, but they would heal soon enough.

He drew out a sheet of blue paper from his satchel and carefully folded the paper along well-remembered lines until it had become a small paper bird. Indris calculated the formulae for the Second Simulacrum Charm. Numbers ordered themselves in his head. Cause and effect, energy and time, distance and entropy. He held the bird to his lips, to whisper Roshana's name and the time and the place he wanted to meet her. For a few moments, the paper remained still, then it took on a firefly glow. The wings flapped hesitantly, like a newly hatched b.u.t.terfly's. Within heartbeats the wings flapped more rapidly. Before his eyes it transformed into a tiny blue phoenix, which flapped once around the room before it departed by the open balcony door.

All Indris need do was be in the right place at the right time to see whether Roshana answered the call.

It was the Hour of the Crow, four hours into the new morning, when Indris, Shar, and Ekko disembarked from a modest carriage outside a tavern in the Barouq. There was still considerable traffic. A sense of anonymity among the throng. Nahdi roamed the streets, sometimes singularly, sometimes in groups. Avn, Seethe, Human, and Tau-se moved in small dangerous flocks from teahouse to wine house to guesthouse. Where Indris and the others saw green-coated kherife, or the red and black of the Erebus soldiery, they took a calm, circuitous route around them. He had learned in his early years as an agent for the Sq never to panic. People remembered what was out of the ordinary. Often, even a vigilant person could miss what was right in front of them.

A Silver None the Wiser was a well-known tavern for veteran nahdi. There was little noise coming from the place. As they entered Indris saw a score or more patrons sitting around tables, their faces planes of black and yellow in the lantern light. Indris pulled back the hood of his over-robe. The patrons raised curious eyes in his direction. There was a slight lull in conversation as a few of the battle-hardened champions recognized Indris for who he was. Mugs and gla.s.ses were raised in his direction. A few bowed their heads. Indris returned their gestures politely.

Ekko rested one large hand on the hilt of his khopesh. He had adopted the dress of a Tau-se jombe, a warrior who had left his pride to adventure alone. A long scarf, embroidered with his deeds of heroism, was wound about his head and lower face. His Lion Guard armor had been swapped for a more utilitarian jerkin, kilt, and sandals. A short, powerful bone bow was in a case across his back, along with a quiver of thumb-thick arrows.

Shar grinned as she placed a warning hand on Ekko's arm. Her teeth flashed white against her blue lips. "Best keep your blade sheathed, my large friend."

"Are they so dangerous, these nahdi?"

"And then some!" Indris said brightly.

He gestured for the others to follow as he made his way to a table. Indris caught the barman's eye and ordered cinnamon tea with honey and lemon, along with some nougat and caramels for himself and his friends. Conversations drifted around them. A group of Seethe mercenaries-tall and elegant with their quills brightly hued, and gemlike eyes bright with reflected light-discussed the rumor the kherife were impounding ships, horses, and wagons. A smaller group of rough-looking Human soldiers from Atrea, in their polished cuira.s.ses with their round shields propped against their chairs and spears canted against the tables, muttered darkly at their misfortune to be stranded in an Avn nation. They sat tall in their voluminous black war-cloaks, advertising rather than hiding who and what they were. In the far corner at a long table, a squad of paladins from Ygran sat in their high-collared doublets, stiff with embroidery and braiding. They sipped dark wine from st.u.r.dy tumblers, ignoring the bowl of water any civilized Shranese would use to water the alcohol down. They talked little, seemingly at peace with their lot.

The door of the tavern opened to admit a handful of burly warriors, each with the rolling gait of cavalry. They wore no insignia, though the way they moved could not hide their familiarity with each other. The soldiers did not pause; rather, they went directly to the bar. One of their number, slighter than the others, turned to approach the table where Indris and his friends sat.

"Couldn't this wait till morning?" Rosha grumbled as she took her seat. "Do you know what it's like to be awakened by a paper bird flapping around your face?" She mimed the bird b.u.mping into her forehead, perching in her hair.

"It is morning," Indris replied with equanimity. "We're going to find your father."

"Going to what, you say?" Rosha thanked one of her guards as he brought her a cup of coffee. "Nehrun, myself, my Whitehorse, the Lion Guard...we've all been looking for days."

"Rosha, I've good reason to believe I can find out where Ariskander is being held. Finding Far-ad-din won't be a problem, but bringing him back may be tricky. Once I know for a certainty where Ariskander is, my friends and I'll go and bring both of them back. Nothing simpler."

"Nothing simpler?" Shar queried drily.

Indris smiled and shrugged.

"How?" Rosha asked, her tone more the princess of a Great House than the daughter of a missing father.

"A friend who has good reasons to help." Indris avoided the question. He paused for a moment, fingers tracing the constellation of crescent-moon moisture stains and boreholes on the table's surface. How to tell Rosha what he knew about Nehrun? Harder still to tell her how he had come by the information that might well ruin her oldest brother.

"Indris, if Nehrun and I couldn't find our father with all the warriors at our disposal, how will this friend of yours help?"

"I trust Indris in this, Pah-Roshana." Ekko's voice resonated. "I will be accompanying the search to find Rahn-Ariskander."

"Believe me when I say this friend of mine is also a friend of yours." Indris leaned forward in his chair. "You also need to know Nehrun's motivations are somewhat less than pure."

"You're making me nervous, Indris." Rosha laughed hesitantly. "You're not asking me to trust an Erebus, are you?"

Indris looked down at the table as he sipped his drink.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

"Perception is often stronger than reality. It is easier for us to see what we believe than it is for us to believe what we see."-Rath-en-Teyn, Petal Emperor of the Eleventh Teyn Dynasty, 3,992nd Year of the Petal Empire Day 319 of the 495th Year of the Shranese Federation Belam seemed fully recovered from the wounds he had received at Iron Street Park, yet there was now a cool reserve to him Mari had never seen before. The lighthearted man whom she knew her brother to be was nowhere to be found as they walked together through Samyala's dappled gardens. Pearl courtesans bestowed kind smiles upon them both, though their scrutiny was reserved for Belam, fine in his hauberk of ruby scales. Belam paid them no mind, his expression serious and focused too intently on Mari for her comfort.

The two of them were similar, even down to their facial expressions and mannerisms. Even their lives had taken parallel paths. Belam had studied with the Poet Masters at the Grieve, the warrior-poet school founded by the Erebus in the latter years of the Awakened Empire. It was a fine school, though, if one were to be objective, not the best. Mari had been more ambitious than her brother. As the third child, she had more to lose in being sold off in a marriage of alliance. Such was the way of all younger children of the Great Houses and the Hundred Families. As her father would say, "One for the crown, one for the blade, and the rest for the marriage bed." Nothing, and n.o.body, was ever wasted. Rather than live by her father's credo, Mari had driven herself almost beyond endurance to be selected from thousands of potential applicants to study her warrior-poetry at the Lament, the most famous and prestigious of all warrior-poet schools, in Narsis, the capital of Nasarat Prefecture. When she had accepted the offer, Corajidin had been livid. He had barely spoken to his daughter for the seven years she had trained in Narsis, or for almost a month after she returned to her family in Erebesq.

"What troubles you?" she asked. Belam still sported bruises from the leqra match yesterday. There was the faint smell of rum on his breath, an uncommon drink in Shran. It was a taste he had acquired in his younger years, before their father had burdened him with responsibility. Belam had served with a squadron of privateers on the Ebony Coast, the expanse of sh.o.r.e on the Great Salt that stretched from Mante, Jiom, and farther north into the waters around Kaylish. It was not uncommon for warrior-poets or swordmasters to take commissions with the various branches of the Shranese military machine, though Mari had always found something...unsavory about privateers.

"When are you coming home?" he asked. He rubbed at his thumbnail, an agitated gesture from childhood.

"How's Father?"

Belam drew in a long breath, which he let out in an equally long sigh. "Not well. Thufan and Farouk have taken as much of his burden as they can, but I fear the results of their heavy-handedness. I think our father is resigned to handling repercussions for some time to come."

Mari swung her arms to stretch some of the kinks from her muscles. "Isn't there anything you can do to help guide him? He's on unsteady ground as Asrahn-Elect as it is. The last thing he needs are riots."

"He's not well, Mari! We need you back home. Things will be awkward, though it wouldn't be the first time. I doubt it will be the last. Even though you drive Father to distraction, life is generally more pleasant when you're around."

Mari smiled. "That's sweet, Belam."

Belam shook his head, face flushed. "When I saw your body laid out in front of the villa on the Huq am'a Zharsi, I thought you were dead!"

"Calm down-"

"Don't tell me to calm down!" For a man who flirted with death almost every day, Mari's incident with the Feya.s.sin had unsettled him more than it should have. "You're my best friend, Mari, and we've both paid a heavy price for your defiance."

"I tried to stop you from fighting Indris. I called out to you."

"I heard. But I wonder, was it me you were trying to save, or him? How could you betray your House so? Especially now our father needs us more than ever. He's not the man he was, Mari."

"Don't be ridiculous!" She grabbed him by the chin, turned his head to face her. Mari looked into his eyes, then slapped him lightly on the cheek in affectionate rebuke. "We're both alive, both well, both wasting a beautiful day arguing. Let's not. Between the two of us, we may be able to protect our father from the worst of himself."

As for sleeping with Indris, she did not regret it at all. Mari turned her attention to the skydock. She felt like one of the wind-ships, held in place by lengths of chain when she had the ability, no, was meant, to fly free. Every time she had attempted to take to the air, her family weighed her down with the chains of their expectations.

"I worry about you, Mari," Belam offered by way of explanation. "I don't want to argue, but you're so reckless. Why did you sleep with him?"

"I didn't know who he was at the time. I a.s.sume our father knows?"

"His only consolation, my only consolation, is knowing Indris is dead."

She schooled her expression to stillness and kept walking. They moved in silence for some time, unspoken tension rising, until Belam asked the question she was dreading.

"Why did you give yourself to a Nasarat?" Belam's voice was very soft, as if he feared the answer more than he struggled with the question.

"If it had been anybody else, this wouldn't be an issue. It never has been before. Besides, you said yourself you wanted to marry Roshana," she reminded him gently. "Though the hypocrisy is entirely your own, how much of your indignation is sourced in Father's bigotry?"

"My words are not deeds. I neither married Roshana nor lay with her." He closed his mouth with an audible snap. She could see the whiteness around his knuckles as he clenched his fists in frustration. "Of the two of us, you went the further."

"Yes, I did. I usually do. And you being angry about it won't change anything." Of all the living members of the Great House of Erebus, Belam was the only other one she thought might be turned from the course their father had set them on. Kasra, their half brother and heir to the Great House, was in all ways a creature forged by the malignant stain she remembered as their grandsire, Basyrandin. Kasra was more a witch's student than a warrior, and all the more dangerous because of it. Kasra did not share the closeness of his warrior-poet siblings, and Mari did not seek his good opinion as keenly as she did Belam's. Rarely had there been secrets of any substance between her and Belam. The secrets she now kept from him were ones that would hurt him, and he would never understand why she felt the need to do what she had done.