The Garden Of Stones Part 3

"Answer my question, if you'd be so kind."

"Why not? I told your father his children would never sit the throne. I told him, though he would hear none of it, that it would be the Thrice Awakened who would rule the Avn. He forgets that your people still have a Mahj! Shran may have turned its back on the Empress-in-Shadows, but I understand she still considers herself the monarch of the Avn people-even though she's not stirred from Mediin for the past six centuries."

Mari felt her hearts lurch in her chest. "The Thrice Awakened? What in the Ancestors' name is that? A rahn is only ever Awakened once, when their predecessor dies. What's my father thinking?"

Wolfram turned the shadows of his face toward her. She could smell cloves and rum on his breath. "It's in his head he'll rule your people, girl. He sees the Rmarq as a place of ancient weapons, lost wisdom, and the redemption of Sedefke's scribbling. Your father believes this time and place is the key to his success. And his survival. One's own death is a powerful motivator. Often there's room for naught else."

"And will he succeed?"

Mari could sense the smile behind the length of his beard as Wolfram limped away on infirm legs.

CHAPTER THREE.

"Hatred is an appet.i.te never satisfied."-from the Nilvedic Maxims Day 312 of the 495th Year of the Shranese Federation Not as fanciful as the stylized, bird-shaped Seethe skyjammers, the Avn-built wind-skiff resembled more an oceangoing vessel, sans masts or sails. The hull was a flattened crescent moon of varnished wood with stained-gla.s.s windows along the cabins at prow and stern. Poking like a clockwork mushroom from a hole at the center of the keel was a spinning Disentropy Spool, the bottom of which was an ornate flywheel of bronze, bra.s.s, and gold, studded about the rim with silver spheres the size of a man's fist. Milky light swirled about the spokes, where raw disentropy was shaped into a miniature cyclone, lit from within. Fore and aft, the hull was blistered by the coruscating silver cogs of Tempest Wheels. Corajidin likened them to an upside-down stack of dishes: a large round cog atop a series of other rotating cogs, each one smaller than the one above it. Lightning arced from flashing metal. The Tempest Wheels thrummed and snarled as they spun. He felt the rush of power from the wheels as he approached them, powerful enough to lift and propel the wind-skiff at great speed through the air.

Corajidin boarded and found Belamandris seated in the weather-beaten pilot's chair, the polished bra.s.s and wooden controls rising around him like a giant spider on its back. His son's pique at being asked to forgo his hunting had soon vanished in the obvious enjoyment of piloting the flying ship. Wolfram limped aboard, legs creaking, staff thumping on the deck. The guards gave the ancient witch a wide berth. Shortly after, the vessel rose from the ground with a snarling hum. The air crackled. Corajidin felt the faint p.r.i.c.kling along his skin as the fine hairs on his arms stood on end. With ever-mounting speed, the wind-skiff powered away from Amnon, across the swirling width of the silted Anqorat River, and into the Rmarq.

As the wind-skiff scudded low over the wetlands, where water seeped and pooled between bruise-shadowed flora and stone, Corajidin squinted at the life that teemed in the muck. From the gla.s.s-walled cabin he watched cormorants take flight as the skiff pa.s.sed close by. Nut-brown fishermen and hunters poled flat-bottomed boats, eyes intent on the mirrored waters. Angh-hounds, near skeletal scavengers with ax-blade heads, tore into the sun-baked carca.s.s of a water buffalo, which had no doubt been brought down by something larger: a clouded reed lion, or perhaps Fenlings who had been chased away from their kill. He watched a ma.s.sive crocodilian surge out of the water to snap at a brown-and-gray-furred marsh devil. The bearlike devil opened its red maw as the crocodilian charged forward, but the struggle slipped from Corajidin's view as the wind-skiff changed course.

After three hours of flight, he saw stone formations begin to emerge from the marsh. The line of a black stone wall. A roof sagging under the weight of cracked, faded terra-cotta tiles. h.o.a.ry cypress trees bowed their aged heads, their thick roots lifting flagstones and toppled walls alike. Corajidin joined his son as the shadows of smooth black towers soared above the foliage, rising straight-backed beside the sandstone and wooden ruins cl.u.s.tered about them.

Belamandris bent to the controls. There came a hollow clunk from beneath his feet as crablike legs emerged from the hull. The wind-skiff bounced a little as the legs took its weight. Light frayed away as the Tempest Wheels slowed their spin to eventually stop. The Disentropy Spool continued to whir for a few moments before it, too, was still. Corajidin desperately wished for a bowl of wine to remove the metallic taste from his tongue.

Brede emerged from an avenue between dark stone columns. She had taken the other wind-skiff shortly after dawn, to help Kasraman prepare for Corajidin's arrival. She had a courtesan's body beneath her layered clothing; her features were less beautiful than they might have been for their hollowness. An Angothic kindjal, a straight-backed sword with a curved edge, was sheathed at her hip.

Brede dropped to one knee as Wolfram approached. The Angothic Witch rested his hand on her head possessively, the touch part benediction and part caress. The apprentice looked up at her master with adoration. "Please follow me, my master."

"What progress?" Corajidin asked. There was something forbidding about the ruins he did not like. The damp air was difficult to breathe. "Do you actually know what this place was?"

"No, great rahn. These ruins have been occupied over many periods of history," she said. "Some of what we've found dates back-"

"What of Sedefke's library?" Corajidin could not help the eagerness in his voice. "Or a Destiny Engine? Surely there is something here worth the trouble?"

"There's no guarantee Sedefke's library was in this city. The Time Masters had many cities in the Rmarq prior to its flooding. And we're not the first people to rummage through these ruins. The Time Masters vanished and left little behind we can comprehend. The Avn settlers were more considerate with their castoffs. But there are no signs of Sedefke here. Yet."

She led them through a complicated maze of stone walls and cobblestone paths overrun with vegetation. Farouk walked ahead, directly behind the apprentice, his hand curled around the hilt of his sword. The other members of Belamandris's company of Anlki trod in light-footed formation about Corajidin and Wolfram, startling at every hoot, cry, howl, and scrabble around them. Only Belamandris seemed truly at ease.

"Be wary," Brede warned as they entered a very long, dimly lit lane between several black stone buildings. The light at the far end was a solid bar of glaring white. "Sometimes our...allies...can be unpredictable."

"What else lurks here?" Belamandris looked about with interest.

"We've an arrangement with the Fenling." Brede smiled. Corajidin was struck by how attractive the woman could be in motion. "Though they're unruly and hard to communicate with. Their leaders, the shamans among their people, are quite corrupt. We've been feeding them captives from the Battle of Amber Lake. The Fenling, it seems, have quite the taste for flesh."

"Which reminds me." Corajidin rubbed his temples in an attempt to master a shooting pain in his head. "Nehrun warned me Ariskander has already given the order for the Tau-se to scour the Rmarq in search of Far-ad-din. I have the route they will take. It would be advantageous if the Fenlings were to kill them, so no word of Far-ad-din, or what we're doing here, ever gets back to Ariskander."

"Easily arranged." Wolfram's grin was feral. "Brede?"

"I'm yours to command in all things, my master," she replied with reverence. "I'll send the Fenling war-bands out as soon as possible."

As they moved deeper into the ruins, one of the guards choked down a curse. Corajidin followed the man's gaze to where several humanoid shapes, sharp-featured women with long, matted tresses, hung upside down from wooden beams by pale, clawed feet. Their arms, attached to leathery wings, were wrapped around them. One of them hung low so low Corajidin could see the bloodred of her irises as her large, dark-lidded eyes slowly opened. She stared as the group walked past, her expression still.

"Reedwives," Brede offered without being asked. "They're usually quiescent during the day, but dangerous when roused. I'll send them out tonight, in case the Fenlings fail in their task."

They walked the rest of the way in silence. Corajidin uttered a small sigh of relief when they emerged on the other side. The Angothic apprentice led them through wide, white-paved streets, across gray stone bridges, through gardens and parks long left to seed. At the far end of a long narrow strip of garden, near a pond choked by purple-flowered lilies, she took a flight of cracked stairs. The sound of picks, hammers, and voices echoed along the moldering streets. The air was thick with the drone of mosquitoes. The scent of sun-baked mud, damp gra.s.s, and wet fur filled Corajidin's nose.

From the top of the stairs, they could see the extent of the work being done. Bound-caste prisoners-stripped down to mere lengths of cloth covering the torso and upper thighs, tied about the waist with rope-hammered and dug in the fetid water. Leeches clung to their skin like glistening black scars. Women, men, and children. The elderly. Human and Avn. Whoever could be procured, or whoever would not be missed, was being worked to the bone under the watchful eyes of hard-bitten Erebus officers in civilian clothing.

"Where are the Fenling?" Belamandris asked. "Weren't they supposed to be working for us?"

"They work indoors during the day, Pah-Belamandris," Brede replied with a nervous smile. "We found early on they're not at their best in the bright light. So we work them in the underground chambers, the tunnels, or at night. Their warriors are more robust, so we use them whenever we need them."

"The relics?" Corajidin prompted her. "When can you show me what you have?"

"If you would follow me? Pah-Kasraman waits for us."

Corajidin gave orders for his guard to remain behind. Belamandris and Wolfram joined him as he followed Brede along a black marble portico dotted with pale orchids. The remains of ancient towers reached into the air, climbing between the dark, claustrophobic canopies of nearby trees. Sound became m.u.f.fled. It grew difficult to breathe. He felt as if he were trying to walk through mola.s.ses as the air closed in about him. Corajidin looked around to see the others equally as discomfited.

Brede led them into a chamber whose lofty ceiling vanished into what appeared to be a dark, roiling murk above. Faint lights blossomed there from moment to moment, like flares of lightning deep within a storm cloud. There was the hint of movement in the high shadows, of old engines still at work being long gone. Hundreds of columns stretched high, each of a dusty white stone that resembled marble, though they glimmered with a gray-white haze. Everything seemed slightly blurred, as if the building itself was somehow ephemeral. On the floor at the center of the room a series of concentric steel rings turned, their surfaces marked with a series of arcs, lines, and circles, forming new patterns on the floor every few minutes.

Pieces of metal, wood, crystal, and stone littered the floor and the various trestle tables around the chamber. Erebus soldiers carefully brushed at dirt that clung to some of the pieces. Some items Corajidin recognized: antique air-powered storm-rifles and pistols; melee weapons of various generations, mostly Avn though there were others, more exotic; armor; crystal sheets crammed with engraved letters; scrolls; books; statues; and other ornaments. Yet there was more he could not place. Giant wheels of blackened metal. Skeletal frames, like bones fused into improbable shapes. Spheres of glowing gla.s.s set on ornate metal stands. Polished skulls. A glittering wire frame that held coils of mist in suspension, images almost forming before they broke apart.

Kasraman bowed his head to his father, smiled at Belamandris and the others. "Welcome to...whatever this place was called."

"This is a great deal to take in," Corajidin admitted as he craned his neck to look upward. "This is not something our Ancestors made, is it?"

"I doubt it." Kasraman smiled. "Neither our Ancestors nor the Seethe. We've started to identify some of what we've found, though nothing we can use yet."

"Anything you can identify as being Sedefke's work?" Corajidin asked impatiently.

"Some of what we've found is written in High Avn, the court language of the Awakened Empire. It's what the Sq arcanum-the Fayaadahat-is written in. Some of it is Seethe, which will take more time to translate. There are other writings here that will take even more time. Languages I don't even recognize..."

"We think this"-Wolfram pointed to a set of intertwined crystal spirals, dull rainbow colors trapped within the frosted quartz-"may be a Torque Spindle, though there appear to be pieces missing."

"And I suspect something we're retrieving at the moment may be a Destiny Engine," Kasraman said, with something very near to awe in his voice. "Whether it'll work or not, we've no idea yet."

"So...nothing useful, then?" Corajidin did not bother to mask the sourness of his tone.

"Rahn-Corajidin, there are whole sections of the city hidden behind esoteric wards we suspect may be millennia old," Brede replied. "They're very sophisticated and unlike anything we've ever seen."

"Break them down!" Corajidin growled. "You do not hide anything like that unless it is valuable."

"We lost almost fifty of the Fenlings already, when they accidentally tripped one of the wards. Then another ten or so of the bound-caste menials."

"What happened to them?"

"They...aged," Kasraman said hesitantly, as if he was not sure he was using the correct word. "From the sounds they made as they died, it seemed agonizing. We've not wasted any more lives on such a certain outcome."

"Do you have any good news?" Corajidin struggled to keep his tone even. Kasraman and Brede looked away, embarra.s.sed.

With a snarl, Corajidin turned from them and made his way out. The others followed him, halting abruptly as he stopped short. Corajidin raked Kasraman, Wolfram, and Brede with his gaze.

"Keep searching," he growled through clenched teeth. "I do not care what you need to do, or how many lives it takes, but find me something to make this worthwhile."

"Father-" Kasraman began, only to be cut short.

"I'm dying!" Corajidin shouted. "I need answers, not excuses!"

"If Sedefke's works aren't here, we'll need to look for other options." Kasraman prodded at the long gra.s.s with his toe.

Corajidin looked at his son. "Such as?"

"If we can't find Sedefke's original work." Wolfram rested his hand on the hilt of his knife. Made of old horn, it was blackened with dried blood that had seeped in each groove and crevice. Corajidin did not care to wonder whose. The witch's voice was sepulchral. "Then we rip the knowledge from the soul of another Awakened rahn. One who has the unbroken memories of all his Ancestors, all the way back to the first Awakening."

Corajidin smiled at his witch. "Ariskander it is, then."

CHAPTER FOUR.

"Love dies by steps. The footfalls of fear, resentment, anger, and spite kill love, little by little. It withers. It tarnishes. It pa.s.ses away, poisoned, ill, and wounded beyond all power to heal."-Nashari fe Dar-ya, houreh and poet of the Sussain of Mediin, 7th Year of the Shadow Empire Day 312 of the 495th Year of the Shranese Federation It was late afternoon. The streets of the Barouq, a seaside district of Amnon where many scholars, freethinkers, and veterans had chosen to live, were vibrant with color and movement. The smell of roast kid, hot honeyed bread, grilled barramundi, peppers, lemon, and garlic drifted on the slight breeze. Long-haired, tall-eared cats lazed in the sun, indolent in the forums and the fruited courtyards. Alabaster fountains burbled. c.o.c.katoos screeched. Accents from a handful of nations beyond Shran's borders echoed in the winding streets. There were dusky-eyed, brown-skinned Tanisians in their vividly colored jackets and long kilts, their singsong voices rich and quick. Ygranians laughing easily despite the heat, perspiring in their high-collared doublets and turned-down boots. Olive-skinned, short-haired Imreans pontificating in educated tones in austere tunics edged with geometric designs. Even a few morose-looking Angoths, long hair braided, the men's faces obscured by dropping mustaches and full beards, were scattered among the crowd. They stood, belligerent, militant, suspicious in their iron-studded leather and shirts of polished mail.

Small factions from the Hundred Families eyed each other across sun-drenched streets. Those loyal to the Great House of Nasarat boasted the blue-and-gold phoenix of their masters as they loitered in dappled shade. Erebus loyalists with their red-and-black rampant stallion drank quickly, laughed loudly, and fondled the hilts of their swords and knives.

Indris turned from the fretwork screens of his sheltered balcony. The residence had been a gift from Far-ad-din many years ago, though Indris had lived in it infrequently over the years. It was a meandering labyrinth of rooms, corridors, and stairs overlooking a quiet garden courtyard few people even knew existed. He loved the old building with its high domed ceilings, its floors of polished wood and glazed mosaic tiles. Indris used only half the residence for himself. The rest of the rambling building had been made available as a score of well-appointed suites and a salon for the Torchlight Society of explorers, inventors, and adventurers.

It was good to be among friends. Seated at a long table that had been stripped from a half-sunken Atrean war-galley, Hayden Goode finished cleaning his long-barreled storm-rifle, a rare and precious relic of the Awakened Empire. They were sought after by nahdi and professional adventurers, though disdained by the warrior and upper castes of the Avn for their difficulty to repair. The Human drover-turned-adventurer sat, compact in his deerskins. Age had made his face gaunt, and his cheeks were sunken aside his long nose. His weathered skin had the look of craquelure on tanned leather against his salt-streaked mustache. He took Indris's storm-pistol from its holster and began to work on it. He was careful, aware of how difficult the weapon would be to replace.

Sa.s.somon-Omen stood motionless on the balcony overlooking the secluded garden. Three large cats rubbed themselves against his legs; the purring creatures were drawn to strong currents of disentropy. The Wraith Knight's mannequin body was made of fitted pieces of lacquered wood. The master crafters of Mediin had fashioned the replica body in intricate detail, down to each knuckle on its carved hands and the slivers of tinted gla.s.s approximating fingernails. Sunlight picked out the bright gold and bronze of pins and screws, gears, b.a.l.l.s, and sockets. Green-blue radiance flickered through the fine cracks in Omen's narrow chest and bronze ribs, the telltale glow of his jade Wraithjar. Only his face remained unworked, a head-shaped block sans hair, with shallow depressions where his eyes would have been.

Though he was happy his friends were there, Indris only half listened to what was being said. His mind was on his encounter with the compelling woman from last night, their mutual seduction and abandonment, his mixed feelings of guilt and relief. It had been more than a year since he had sought the comfort of another. The memories, the sensations, of last night were bittersweet.

A shape overhead occluded the sun. Indris looked through the screen to see the bronze-chased hull of another Seethe skyjammer flying out to sea. Rendered in the shape of a bird like most Seethe vessels, the skyjammer's hull and broad wings were built of lovingly polished blue-gray wood. In the wings and wedge-shaped tail sat silver and crystal Tempest Wheels. Light flickered and sparked from the rotating platters. There was a faint humming growl as the skyjammer pa.s.sed by. Disentropy Spools rotated beneath each wing where the silver dumbbells released threads of light like fine silk, which unraveled into the air behind the skyjammer in a pallid cloud.

Indris looked out across the Marble Sea to where the remnants of sunken buildings, ruins of marble and translucent crystal, stood their lonely vigil in shallow waters and atop tall hills now turned islands. There was a sense of longing in watching the sea eagles circle the shattered crystal towers of the ancient city of Nashrandi. Or Tan-li-Arhen of the Rainbow Spires. From the deck of a skyjammer, he had seen the bleached lines of roads and the blurred outlines of buildings beneath the water. It was this pallid discoloration that gave the sea its name.

"Swap you a song for your thoughts?" Shar sidled up next to him on the couch, where the Seethe war-chanter tuned her sonesette. The afternoon light accentuated the sheen along her straight nose and the yellow of her whiteless eyes. Seemed to deepen the shadows of scutes around her eyes and forehead.

"What benefit in staying?" Indris mused. "There's nothing here anymore."

Shar looked up from her tuning. She followed his gaze toward the skyjammer. "Do you mean them or us?"

"Either. Both."

"Leaving places with you is something I've become used to."

"'And they left their land drowned in their tears, for those far distant sh.o.r.es bereft of fears,'" Omen intoned, his flutelike voice resonant. "I hear them, you know. The whispers of those who linger on the rim of the Well of Souls. Some are frightened. They want to stay but do not know how..."

"I imagine they'll find their way," Hayden interjected, scrutinizing the revolving ammunition cylinder of Indris's storm-pistol. "You know, talk of ghosts and the undead, Nomads as you Avn are inclined to call them, ain't something all folks is comfortable with."

"Death has surrounded us for years, friend Hayden," Omen replied. "I met mine centuries ago yet decided I had not experienced all there was in the world. My people may call me and others like me heretics, yet they cling to life as dearly as I. One day, such a choice will come to you."

"Oh no!" Hayden laughed. "Burn my body and throw my ashes into a strong wind. I don't figure on anything using my dead flesh as no puppet!"

"When I die," Shar said dreamily, "my spirit will return to the winds, where it will fly above the torments of the world. Perhaps your ashes will fly with me for a time?"

For reasons of their own, Omen and Hayden had chosen lives of adventure away from their homes. Shar was different. The Rayn-ma troupe, her extended family, had been all but wiped out in various mercenary battles. Indris and Shar had tried to find word of Rayn-ma survivors for years without success. While Shar had never complained, Indris wondered not for the first time whether he was being fair to his friend.

"Shar, you're a rich woman now." Shar's eyes narrowed to golden slits. "You could try to find your family's Sky Realm. With your reputation, any of the Sky Realms would-"

"One day perhaps, but not today. If this is about guilt..."

"For such can be the burden of the moral, spiritual man," Omen offered philosophically. "Riddled with guilt and nettled by regret, Indris has never been comfortable with losing his friends. His instinct is to say yes, when he should say no."

"So we're going to leave Amnon, neh?" Shar strummed her sonesette. "Where are we going?"

"I was thinking of Ankha." He knew better than to argue with her. It was as useful as asking a storm to stop. "Or Faroza. Tanjipe, maybe? Anywhere but here. We came too close this time."

"No arguments from me." Hayden put his rifle down and picked up several scrolls that lay curled on the table. "We've got offers of paid work from your ghost friends in the Sussain, from nahdi companies in Ygran and Tanis. There's even an expedition off north, to the Spines."

"The Dragons? Let's not. I was thinking of something more relaxed." Indris wrinkled his nose. "We've more than enough money, so why not enjoy ourselves?"

"The Floating Palaces of Masripur," Shar suggested wickedly. Masripur, a Tanisian city on the northern sh.o.r.es of the Marble Sea, was known for its libertine sensibilities. Almost anything could be bought there if the price was right. It was one of the most popular cities for nahdi. The caste-merchants of Masripur who profited from war were some of the wealthiest people in southeastern a.

"What about Ariskander?" Shar asked.

"What about him?" Indris replied. "He'll be busy enough trying to maintain order in Amnon without me adding to his troubles."

Shar caught her bottom lip between sharp teeth, white against the blue of her lips. "And Far-ad-din?"

"We've done all we can for Far-ad-din. He invited us here to scout the Rmarq and report what we found. He knows as much as we do about the tomb robbers in the wetlands."

"Far-ad-din is more than our employer!" She poked him in the ribs with a calloused finger. Indris yelped with the sharp pain. "Serves you right! If that was all he was, we'd have run rather than fight for him at Amber Lake."

"For the love of..." Indris's eyes widened in surprise as the others looked in his direction. "What? My father-in-law needed our help. We helped. I owed Far-ad-din at least as much."