Femensetri casually swept most of the wooden tanj pieces into a box. “You don’t mind? I assume you remember where all the pieces were.” She looked up, a rahn piece in one hand, Sēq Knight and warrior-poet pieces in the other. Years of use had flaked some of the paint from the wooden statues.
Indris waved his hand for her to continue what she was doing. Femensetri set the board for two players, each with an ally to make it more interesting. Fifty-four pieces each with meaning, strengths and weaknesses. Tanj had its own vocabulary. Every set of moves, countermoves, and feints a sentence. Femensetri started by moving her Sēq Master from amongst the ranks in a long straight line to the edge of her territory. Indris responded by moving his Poet Master so it could support the warrior-poets and nearby rahn.
He glanced across the board, then at his former sahai. Though it had been years since she had been his teacher, sitting together at a tanj board brought back many memories, some of which were pleasant.
“You look different,” he ventured, gesturing at her hair and clothes.
“Can’t just wander here to see you dressed like a Sēq Master now, can I, boy?” She scooped up some of Indris’s yanush with two long fingers. He noticed with some distaste the crescents of dirt under her fingernails. After an uninvited sip of his sharbat, she ordered one of her own and a platter of warm bread and grilled meats. He slid the glass across the table, insisting she finish the one he had not had the chance to touch.
The two scholars spoke of nothings. The real message lay in the rapid placement of tiny wooden statues, complex moves and countermoves. Sacrifices and bold heroics, leading to victory or downfall. Move by move, Femensetri’s story unfolded for Tanj had been used by Sēq spies to share secret messages and intelligence for centuries, the fate of nations hidden amongst the subtle manoeuvring of figurines. Femensetri was replaying the historical invasion by the Avānese of Eidelbon, an ancient city in the Golden Kingdom of Manté. It was a city wealthy in culture, history and money, invaded during the celebrations of its new monarch being crowned. It took Indris a few moves before he realized what Femensetri was doing, then he fell into the rhythms of trying to change history; without about as much luck.
“There are easier and less obscure ways to talk,” Indris said between small bites of his bread.
“And every way can be overheard.” Her tone was conversational. After moving a piece she noticed she had left a smear of yanush on it. She licked it off and set the piece down again. “Don’t be so naïve as to think otherwise, especially here in Avānweh.”
“Are your brothers and sisters under the mountain listening now?” Amer-Mahjin, the Sēq Chapterhouse, was deep inside Īajen-mar, one of the three peaks into which Avānweh was built. A sprawling warren of natural and artificial chambers, it had been home to the Sēq in Avānweh since the rise of the Awakened Empire. Larger than the fortress of Irabiyat, Amer-Mahjin was still just a rural outpost when compared to Amarqa-in-the-Snows, the Sēq’s great fortress in the Mar Silin.
“Always and especially those. We’ve more to fear from family than anybody else.”
Your family, he thought, not mine.
Tanj moves unfolded thoughts and strategies, one after the other, though soon enough Femensetri was telling a different story from history. The way she replaced the Mahj piece with her Sēq Master. The way the Mahj was then contested by its ally. The use of nahdi reinforcements claimed from additional pieces in neutral territory. These nahdi pieces faced outward from the other pieces indicating they were honorless, criminals or in some other way could not be trusted. The figures had the heads of dogs, showing they were held in low esteem. In truth it was an accurate depiction: in High Avān the word nahdi meant ‘iron dog.’ The bases of these figures were painted with a gold dot, saying they had once been people of influence. These nahdi replaced the more traditional pieces supporting and protecting the rahn. A radical shift in power. Alliances made with traitors.
The division of her Sēq pieces—some with the rahn, some moving towards the unoccupied centre where the Mahj or Asrahn piece would reside and some remaining aloof—was enough to give him pause. He looked down at the placement of the pieces on the board, reading the message.
“Can you prove any of this?” He sipped at his cool sharbat, wishing it was something stronger. The drink did not stop the sweat that prickled his spine and lower back.
“It’s happening now.” Femensetri picked at her teeth with a chipped nail.
“What are you doing about it?” He hated the tension in his voice.
“What I can, which is three-quarters of sod-all,” she said bitterly. “Our brothers and sisters are divided. The Suret has decreed none of us are to involve ourselves in external matters until a unified direction is agreed. Some want to become more involved in politics. Others want to maintain a distance. There are those who want to assume absolute power, hungering for a return to the old times. Few seem to remember why we were formed in the first place.”
“Are we talking about another Scholar War?” he asked tensely.
“More like an esoteric rebellion. We’ve amongst our number some who want to see how comfortable a throne and crown are. And if the hat fits…”
“Sweet Näsarat,” he whispered. The other pieces on the board came clearly into focus. “All this during the Assembly? It’s not as if there’s not enough to worry about, with the elections for Asrahn so soon.”
“Which won’t be as simple a victory as Nazarafine is expecting, if Corajidin manages to rally enough support.”
“So I see.” He nodded towards the nahdi pieces on the board. Seeing them so close to the rahn, who in turn was on his journey to the centre of power, was alarming. “Do we have names for these unexpected guests?”
Femensetri withdrew a scroll from her over-robe. She rolled it across the table, scattering pieces left and right. Indris wondered how much of the gesture was metaphor versus how much was frustration. He cracked the seal, then read the names.
“How many different kinds of trouble will this be?” Indris asked.
“How many commanders do you count on the list?”
“Fifteen or so.”
“Which is about fifteen or so different kinds of trouble we don’t need.” Femensetri sipped at her sharbat then spat it on the floor. She grimaced at the taste of the drink now that it had warmed. “And not all the trouble we’re going to get.”
There had been almost thirty sayfs of the Hundred Families Indris knew of who had been Exiled under Vashne’s rule. Some had died in foreign wars. Others had settled for more peaceful lives, never to be heard from again. Then there were those who had made names for themselves, relishing in blood and war and the wealth it brought them. Imperialists, they too were exiled by Vashne for various reasons over the earlier years of his reign.
“All Corajidin’s Imperialist friends,” Femensetri said with mock excitement, “with armies hardened in foreign service and coffers lined with gold and jewels. Like you said: trouble.”
Indris looked out across the Caleph-Avānweh. There were hundreds of people meandering in the early afternoon sun. Summer was almost over. Avān, Humans and the Seethe in their pastel colors and serill, the drake-fired glass shining bright. He even saw three of the slender Y’arrow-te-yi, no larger than adolescents, sapling slender and wood hued with leaves and tiny flowers growing in the fronds they had for hair. A pride of Tau-se lion folk strolled amongst them. Shorter maned females in felt vests and breeches decorated with fortune coins walked with a small number of males with one larger, black-maned male as their alpha. They tried, laughing-purring, to herd their excitable and energetic cubs. The young Tau-se sped around the market square. Pounced on each other. Tumbled like clawed balls of fur and muscle, until their mothers scolded them. The cubs would be still for a while, dusting off their felt tunics, before gradually and inexorably returning to their frenetic rampage. A lone figure, nose improbably long and pointed between wide eyes and cheeks so sharp Indris could slice bread with th
em, stalked through the crowd. It may have looked like a person in a Festival costume, but Indris knew better. The soft-looking leather mask with its swirls of colour and deep tribal lines were its skin. The feathered cloak its folded wings. The Iku was dressed in shades of weather-stained grey like a travelling daikajé—the various orders of warrior-ascetics—a wide sash with hundreds of coloured knots around its waist. A folding fan made of feathers with steel veins was thrust through its sash, and the Iku carried a sturdy walking stick, a weapon dented and bleached from use. Indris doubted anybody knew the lone creature for what it was. The Iku were mystics, thinkers and teachers, and the enigmatic watchers of the world. And often harbingers of strife. Indris rested his hand on Changeling, remembering years of tutelage at Amarqa-in-the-Snows, under the black bead eyes of an Iku weapon master who had made not only what was in Indris’s hands deadly, but made weapons of his body and mind also. And here one was, alone, so far from home. Are you here to watch, to teach, or to destroy? Perhaps a measure of all three?
Indris’s attention was diverted by a beaten old wind-galley that hummed over the square, misaligned Tempest Wheels clattering. The Disentropy Spools wobbled, grinding against their mountings. Faint veins, like spinning heat-haze, distorted the air as it passed by towards the lakes, looking for a place to land. Above it all a flight of gryphons powered across the sky, riders’ armor and spear points glittering as the enormous beasts turned in formation. Indris wished he were up there with them, aboard the Wanderer with Mari and his other friends. There was a sense of freedom in being able to soar above the problems of the world. To let the prow turn in whatever direction the wind was heading and simply drift along. Seeing everything gave the world perspective, putting into context the importance of the ones he loved.
Femensetri snapped her fingers to get his attention. She had an expectant look on her face. Indris knew he had the option of walking away. Or sitting there and ignoring her. He also knew she would eventually get her way because she knew he cared.
“I suppose you want me to do something about this, since you can’t?”
“You and yours are the only ones I trust,” Femenestri said. Her gaze softened as she stood. “Tread lightly, Indris. You drew attention to yourself at Amnon. The Sēq released you from public service, but not from the Order. Some of our brothers and sisters see a chance for a scholar to sit the throne again. And here you are, the scholar son of one of the most ancient and respected bloodlines in the country.”
“When are you and the Sēq going to leave me be? There are other people who can assist with these little dramas, you know.”
“You’re the one who agrees to help when asked.” Femensetri shrugged. “I can’t see you losing your conscience, ethics or morality any time soon.”
“How inconvenient for me,” Indris said. He did not try to match Femensetri’s toothy smile with one of his own, it being too disheartening to even fake enthusiasm.
“We’re not going to have those quiet few weeks you promised, are we?” Shar said, poking Indris in the chest with a stiffened finger. The lotus wine had stained her blue lips a deep indigo. Her light inebriation caused the warchanter’s skin to shine softly, like it was backlit by candles. “Whose brilliant idea was it to come here?”
“We had to get Omen his new body and you, Shar, said you wanted to see Avānweh,” Indris reminder her. “And yes, we’ll get our quiet time. I doubt it’ll be here, though… or now.”
“I’d rather work almost anywhere than relax in the same place as them Exiles.” Hayden ran a finger and thumb along his drooping brassy moustache, eyes narrowed in his weathered face. “I figure nothin’ good’ll come of them being here.”
“We need to tell Rosha,” Indris muttered.
Mari’s brows curved in a frown. The breeze snagged at her blonde locks, the sun making sapphires of her eyes. “Surely her own spies will tell her what she needs to know?”
“Can’t take the chance.” Shar shook her head. “Look what happened last time we didn’t own up to what we knew. I’d rather not experience another Amnon, or the likes of our little wander through that faruq-ta Rōmarq.”
“Point taken,” Hayden winced, his expression betraying his memories. Then his weathered face brightened, his colour improving a little. “What’s one more jaunt before I head home? I suppose the meadows of Ondea can wait a few days more for me.”
Indris’s lips almost managed a smile at the thought of losing Hayden. They had fought together in the Brave Companions, then again after Indris had escaped from Sorochel while on his quest to find his missing wife, Anj. But Hayden’s days of adventuring had run their course, and the old drover accepted it with good grace. Indris envied Hayden his coming peace.
“Amonindris?” Ekko’s voice was pitched low, in the rumble-purr of what passed for a Tau-se whisper. “May we talk privately, you and I?”
“Of course.” Indris excused himself as his friends listened to Hayden’s plans of how he intended to rebuild his homestead, raise horses, and drink home-brewed beer on his verandah as he watched the sun come down. With Ekko a looming presence at his side, Indris wandered to one side of the balcony where he could see scores of people in brightly coloured and fantastical costumes in the market square below. A handful of children were running around the central fountain and its obelisk, kites in the shapes of eagles, dragons and shields wheeling on the ends of knotted strings clutched in their hands.
Ekko leaned on the balcony rail, his eyes narrowed with pleasure, nostrils flaring as he inhaled the stories the world told him. Indris almost did not want to intrude.
“What’s bothering you, Ekko?”
“It is Sassomon-Omen,” Ekko replied. “I am not a long time friend of the Wraith Knight—indeed, his kind I find… disturbing, in much the same way as do you Avān. But I’ve noticed his, lapses. He seems to lose awareness of what transpires around him, and I have my misgivings about travelling with a companion in whom I do not have complete trust.”
Indris turned to look back at Omen, who was lurking amongst long streaks of shadow, as motionless as a roof gargoyle and silent, despite the chatter around him. Hayden going home. Omen fading away. Anj. Losing friends was always painful, and tolerable only in the company of the ones who remained.
“I understand, Ekko.” Indris patted the giant lion-man on the shoulder. “And thanks for your honesty. Keep your eyes open. If we don’t take care of each other, who’ll do it for us?”
The Qadir Näsarat was cut into a crevice on the Caleph-Rahn on Mar-Silamari, called by its less poetic name of Star Crown Mountain in modern times. Tall phoenix-capped columns of blue marble and gold leaf marked the entrance. Balconied galleries and tall windows with stained glass dotted the red stone face of the mountain. Apple blossoms grew amidst natural ponds, ferns and native violets growing between moss-covered rocks exposed to the jagged circle of sky high above. There were several heavy-looking doors of iron-banded wood. Small covered balconies with fretwork screens looked inward amidst long tear tracks of water on the ruddy stone.
Mari had declined to come, feeling uncomfortable being caught in the palace of her ancestral enemy. Indris did not blame her. Though she and Roshana had seen eye to eye at Amnon, it was far from being a friendship. More a cessation of hostilities.
They were escorted inside, then up a seemingly endless flight of stairs to a solarium. From there the Mar Jihara was a saw-backed mountain wall almost close enough to touch. Clouds swirled like lazy sea foam around the mountaintops, darkened and swollen with rain. High above the qadir, the peaks of the Īajen-mar reared like a fistful of bloodied sword blades, capped in snow. Beyond World Blood stood the last of the three sisters, towering Mar-Asrafah, the Skyspear.
They waited for an hour. Hayden stood with his back to a carved metal column, sunlight making a brassy halo of his bobbed hair. His face was in shadow, save for pale scores of light across his nose, temple, cheek and jaw. The elderly man cradled his long-barrelled storm-rifle to his chest, eyes dis
tant. His complexion seemed ashen under the tan; eyes washed out and skin slack. Ekko loomed large beside him, tail twitching. Indris understood Ekko’s nervousness: Roshana had been displeased when her Knight-Colonel of the Lion Guard had resigned his commission to travel with Indris. Omen had paused by the railing, staring southward over the diamond-strewn blanket of the Lakes of the Sky. The glaze on his new ceramic body was either blue or green, depending on the angle it was viewed from. His joints were polished brass. His nails whorled onyx. The Seethe crafters who had made the body had given him the face of Tyen-to-wo, the Laughing Wind spirit of the Seethe: sharp featured with a long pointed nose and chin, and faceted emerald crystals for eyes. It was a departure from his previous face, which had been devoid of all features. Indris had not decided whether he preferred Omen’s new visage or not. It was at once more and less than the face of a man in touch with the world around him.
“Our trip to Avānweh not quite turning out the way you’d expected?” Shar said. She was perched on the balcony rail at Indris’s side, a bowl of bitter-smelling green lotus tea in her hands.
“Not so much, no.” He winced at a lancing pain behind his eyes.
“You’ve been having headaches ever since Amnon,” Shar whispered. “You never had them before.”
“I think all the disentropy I used, plus my Awakening, has—”
The sound of the glass doors opening caught Indris’s attention. He looked over his shoulder as a bound-caste servant in a short sleeveless tunic approached him. The young woman would not meet his eyes, though with quiet words and a small gesture indicated he should join Rahn-Roshana in the Phoenix Room. As the others made their moves to join him, the servant politely interceded. Indris was to come alone.
The stone walls of the Phoenix Room had been carved with the images of hundreds of phoenixes in different shapes and sizes, flocking within a churning maelstrom of flame. Blue and gold ceramic tiles covered the floor. The outer screens that sheltered the Phoenix Room from the elements were flung wide, turning the round room into something of an eyrie.
The Obsidian Heart Page 2
