All he loved. Corajidin placed his brow on Belamandris’s resting place. Part of him knew he should have let his son go to be with their Ancestors. Yet Belamandris reminded him of himself when he was young, though so much better.
“I can bring him back to you,” the Emissary said, divorcing herself from the enshrouding darkness. The Soul Witch’s vest, breeches and split-toed boots were rotten and frayed, tied together with straps of soiled leather. Her face had once been austerely beautiful, but was now the visage of a drowned woman, her brow marred by a balefully glowing green stone, like an infected wound. Blackened veins radiated from it, dark against pallid flesh, across her temples and down her cheeks. A long sword was thrust through mottled steel rings on her belt. The weapon was sheathed in red-flecked, jade-hued serill. Its hilt wrapped in old skin. The pommel looked like a carved octopus in blackened green onyx. For a moment Corajidin thought he saw shadows writhe around the Emissary’s legs, as if betentacled things writhed in the thunderhead murk of her over-robe. “Though your people find it… unwholesome… I can restore to you the ones you’ve lost. The son. The—”
“At what price?” he said, cutting her off. He feared the words: The wife.
But feared her response more.
“Something smaller than the combined glories of the future my masters will grant you.”
“Why do I have trouble believing you?”
“My predecessors have had a long and mutually beneficial relationship with your house, Corajidin.” The Emissary stood still, waiting for Corajidin to master his surprise. “Such as your mother, the Dowager-Asrahn.”
“Khurshad is a malignant harridan.” Even her name left a bad taste in Corajidin’s mouth. Winters spent under her eye in the freezing halls of Tamerlan, the cheerless isle buffeted by winds from the Southron Sea. “I prefer to think of her as my father’s wife, rather than my mother.”
“As you like.” A rustling shrug. “But it does not change the fact that we know you of old. And have done well by you. Myself, and my associates, are here to help you and those others like you. And so it is my Masters want a token of recognition for their interest in you.”
“What do they want?”
“For now, your cooperation in helping us put you where you want to be. The Obsidian Heart in the Eliom-dei hasn’t been occupied since your empire fell. Don’t you long to sit the Canon Stone, giving your people the guidance they need, in lieu of an indifferent and ephemeral Empress-in-Shadows?”
“How?” he asked, though his soul screamed, Yes!
“Do you want your son saved?” she persisted, her questions now seemingly relentless. “Or, perhaps, have her restored—a much more difficult thing but not beyond my ability to deliver. But your son I can give you now, if you agree to do as I ask.”
“And again, what will this cost me?” Corajidin allowed hues of anger, fear, and frustration to colour his voice. “Do not talk to me of for now. I am not a fish to be lured to your hook!”
“Are you not?” She smiled a black-toothed smile. “You tell me what you want, and I will tell you what it will cost.”
“For my son?” To start. But, to bring her back? Corajidin felt elated at the thought, at the same time as felt bile rise in his throat. There were many things he would do, but to traffic with Nomads, even one whom he loved to obsession, was not so easily done. His people would never understand the breaking of one of their most sacred mores, yet, to have her back, taken as she was before her time—
“I see the working of your mind, Corajidin.” The Emissary tapped a finger against her temple. “I can hear the creaking of the checks and balances in your head. Listen to me now. Your beautiful son will not linger forever, so a decision must be made. The price for a man of war, are women and men of knowledge. Help us break the Sēq monopoly on esoteric power. Restore the witch covens, old institutions like the College of Artificers, and the Alchemist’s Society—”
“I’m not Asrahn yet and why would I invest in the dusty old arcane cults of yesterday? Does anybody even remember them, swaddled in the decay of centuries as they are?”
“Then support them when you’re Asrahn. When you break the Sēq, there will be a void you’ll want to control. In their day, the witches, artificers, and alchemists had a strong alliance. And a brisk trade in potions and devices the people want, but the Sēq proscribed.”
“But the expense!”
“Have Banker’s House extend their credit—soon you’ll be rich enough to cover their risks—so your new allies can grow tall, rather than staying as the weeds they are. They’ll repay your investment, fear not. You’ll control all aspects of power, Corajidin, as opposed to the way things are today. Agree to this, and Belamandris will walk by your side again.”
Easier said than done. Now the price had been spoken, the taste of his question seemed somehow rotten, and as elusive as catching tomorrow. Break the Sēq? As much as he would relish the outcome, he had more chance of hiding the moon in his pocket.
“And my”—wife—“throne?”
The Emissary laughed, seemingly delighted, though it was a blood curdling sound of rust popping from an old gate and the dry creak of hinges. “A throne for a throne. Or thrones, in this case. Were you to become Asrahn—and I can help make this happen—then you can do what you please with the Rōmarq and its mud-caked treasures. There you’ll find the weapons you need to unify your people: to take the Jade Throne in Mediin, and to bring the Ivory Court of Tanis under your heel.”
Her gaze bored into him from the shadow of her hood. “And yes, the price is a life for a life—or is it, a wife? My people believe that death is a jealous thing, and doesn’t let go its hold easily. It needs to be tricked. To be distracted with greater prizes, so it doesn’t miss a little thing like a single soul. But one thing at a time, my erstwhile ruler of the world. Let me show you I’m good to my word by reviving the glorious Widowmaker. Then we can discuss how deep your pockets, both physical and spiritual, truly are.”
My son! The throne! My wife!… Yes, in hallowed Erebus’s name I want it all. Corajidin almost choked on his reply, “Yes.”
A single word so filled with hope he felt lighter by giving it breath. He fell to his knees in front of the sarcophagus, fighting back a sob of relief.
She said nothing, only stepped back into the sheltering dark.
There was too much silence now. Too many empty places where people should have been. So many gone. Yashamin, Belamandris, Thufan. Even Mariam, though she did little but test the limits of his patience. The opportunities the Exiles represented should have been a cause for celebration with his loved ones, yet he was alone.
Corajidin held up Yashamin’s funerary mask from where he had it in the folds of his over-robe. He ran his fingers tenderly across the amber curves of his late wife’s face, a perfect rendering of her near perfect features. Corajidin raised the mask before his own face. Pressed the cool amber against his skin. Stared out through the vacant eye slots.
Did he imagine the flicker of a slender shape in the depths between bright windows? Diaphanous silks, revealing as much as concealing the allure within? He could hear Yashamin’s voice, a whisper in his head. He had felt her presence since the day she died. Tears gathered at the corners of his eyes.
Why haven’t you found the one who cut my throat? Don’t you care who took your queen away from you, my love? You must do whatever it takes to make this right. To see our dream become reality!
Startled, Corajidin took the mask from his face. Surroundings resolved themselves into an exorcised silence. It felt like his hearts smashed against his ribs. He turned the mask around. Fancied, for a moment, the shadowed pits of the eyes were simply night-dark irises. The amber was the soft skin of a face kissed by the glow of candles. Even the dark red-black of his jacket looked like strands of her hair.
“Yashamin,” he choked out through a throat clenched with grief. He raised the mask back to his face and remembered the gentleness of her skin against his. Then his eye
s turned to the sarcophagus and the son who lay within it. His throat constricted. The heat of tears burned in his eyes, yet they refused to come.
He kissed the mask, then carefully secured it within the folds of his over-robe. The Emissary had wrung his need from him for the return of his golden son, yet Yashamin’s death remained unanswered. Even so, vengeance was a far cry from her resurrection, and the condemnation of her people that would be the result. Surely she would not want to return, knowing what she would face?
“Would you have it, my heart of hearts?” Corajidin asked the empty air, afraid of a response. “Can we afford to pay for what I would do, until the end of our days, then have history continue our damnation long after we are gone?”
Nothing.
Which was what sende demanded should be, painful and lonely as it was. Do not treat with the undying, for the spirits of the departed must return to the Well of Souls, there to await rebirth on the Great Wheel of the World. The laws of his people, and their society, were clear.
Yashamin’s return may be forbidden by everything he had been taught, but he would ensure there was a reckoning, a price in spilled blood and ruined lives, for the loss of love.
Selassin fa Martūm was waiting for him in his small dining room. The man’s plain face was faintly pink with sunburn and his clothing was expensive, layered silks in the most recent fashion. As Corajidin took a seat, he noticed several pale bands of skin on the man’s fingers, where he had worn rings that were now missing.
“What brings you, unannounced, to my qadir, Pah-Martūm?” A servant poured Corajidin some tea, stirring a spoonful of honey into the glass. Martūm looked on, licking his lips, expression hardening when the servant stepped back from the table, taking the teapot and honey with them.
“Your hospitality has waned of late, Rahn-Corajidin,” Martūm observed.
“I’ve not offered you refreshment, am not sharing a meal, so sende does not extend any protections to you. You owe me—and others—vast sums of money, Martūm. With your Uncle Vashne dead and your cousin Vahineh not much better, it seems you may have some serious depredations in your immediate future. Not a good time to be an indebted wastrel with expensive tastes.”
“But if you kill me, how then will you recover what I owe?”
“I?” Corajidin shook his head. “I’ll have nothing to do with your grievous wounding or death. Nevertheless, they may serve as an example to others, which I’ll not rue.”
“Which is why I’m here, my rahn.” Martūm smiled ingratiatingly. “Examples and debts and all kinds of new beginnings. I appreciate our arrangement is, perhaps, strained and may continue to be so until my circumstances are resolved. It may please you to know, however, that I spent the day with Ziaire—”
“How, by all the names of the hallowed dead, could you afford that?”
“Rahn-Näsarat fe Roshana arranged it. It seems they’ve come to the conclusion that my simpering cousin needs replacing.” Martūm inspected an immaculately polished fingernail. “And it looks like I’m the one they will try to Awaken.”
Corajidin hid his smile behind his cup. “So.”
“And while their talk of Federation and unity and opening our borders was all very interesting, it wasn’t… financially advantageous.”
“So?”
“So.” Martūm leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs. “How interested, and how much would it be worth, for you to have a new Imperialist rahn at your disposal? I don’t really care what you do with my vote, or what you want me to vote for. All I want is to be kept in the lifestyle to which I’ve grown exceedingly fond.”
Setting his cup very carefully on the table, Corajidin ordered the servant to bring a light meal and more tea. Martūm smiled, an oily stretch of his lips against pink skin.
“Pah-Martūm, I would be very interested, and it would be worth quite a considerable sum. Let’s talk, you and I, about how we are best suited to help each other.”
“THE EVENTS OF OUR LIVES OFTEN OPEN OUR EYES TO THE UNKNOWN. TO BE ALIVE IS TO AWAKEN TO A NEW WORLD EACH DAY.”
—From The Manifold Life, by Teren-karem, Sēq Magnate (991st Year of the Awakened Empire)
DAY 349 OF THE 495TH YEAR OF THE SHRĪANESE FEDERATION
The late morning glare scored Indris’s eyes when he woke. He groaned then rolled over, covering his head with a pillow. Teetering on the edge of sleep, he found himself abruptly awake as the pillow was removed from over his head.
“It’s past time you were up,” Shar’s voice came from the vaguely head-shaped blur Indris squinted at. It felt as if there was a bubble about to burst behind his eyes. “Mari’s been and gone, by the way. Didn’t want to wake you, so she’ll come back later.”
“Give me my pillow,” he growled. His feeble attempts to grab the pillow were foiled by Shar’s nimbleness. She laughed at his misfortune before hiding behind an expression of insincere contrition. The orange-yellow gems of her eyes narrowed in concern though as Indris rolled on to his back, head in his hands.
“The headaches?”
Indris grimaced at her then rose from the bed. Shar remained, eyes intent as he stripped to wash himself. He cast a glance at his old friend, eyebrows raised. She ignored his silent request for privacy so Indris turned his back as he dressed. Shar snorted.
“You’ve not told the others about this have you?” she asked.
“How can I when I don’t even know what there is to tell?” Indris pulled on a pair of loose trousers and shrugged into a tunic and knee-length hooded coat. His old worn boots, with their frayed stitching, were so comfortable it was if he were barefoot. Shar stood close as Indris buckled on his weapon belt. “I’m finding I can do things I was never trained to do. I don’t know what it means or how I can do them. I certainly have precious little control of them.”
“What else can you do?” she asked surprised and curious in seemingly equal measure. Shar saw the narrowing of his eyes and swore quietly to herself in exasperation. “Indris, my people have been witches longer than your people have existed. Didn’t it occur to you I might be able to help?”
“I don’t doubt your sincerity, Shar,” he said. “But I’ve seen nothing in the Seethe studies of the Esoterics that even comes close to explaining what’s happening to me.”
“If the Ahnah-woh-te doesn’t have your answers, what about the Fayaadahat? Surely there’s something, somewhere in the works the Sēq have amassed on mysticism?”
“Not that I know of.” He frowned, and pointed at her. “And you’re not supposed to talk about the Fayaadahat, remember? It’s supposed to be this great and mystic secret of the Order—”
“That a lot of people outside the Order know about.”
“Fine. Be that way. Almost all of the Fayaadahat is based on the foundations of Seethe discoveries. We all use the ahmsah to perceive and influence the ahm, the tidal flow of disentropy that flows across the ahmtesh. Our Esoteric Doctrine articulates how we perceive and stimulate natural energy to supernatural ends. Over the years the Sēq expanded on those teachings, but everything is still dependent upon the cause and effect of formulae and disentropy. Shar, this is something very different from anything I was taught.”
She jabbed him in the chest with a blue-nailed finger. “Show me.”
Indris calmed his mind. The bubble was still there, a growing pressure with an ebb and flow of discomfort. There was no flexing of his Disentropic Stain. No formulae to calculate energy and effect. He flexed his mind. Visualised what he wanted. He reached out and with a soft pressure in his skull, urged Changeling into his hand.
Changeling trembled slightly where she leaned against the wall. Indris focussed his mind. Imagined the coolness of her kirion scabbard in his hand. Her elegant recurved shape, the feel of the scales carved into the hilt and dragon-headed pommel. Her weight.
The scabbard scraped on the floor. She shuddered.
Then shot across the room into Indris’s hand.
“Faruq ayo!” Shar swore in breat
hy, backward-sounding Seethe. “Zhar be yaha dein hem?”
Changeling purred as Indris slung her across his back. “You’ve quite the mouth on you, you know that? But to answer your question, I’ve no idea how I did it. Well, maybe a vague idea.”
“It’s my language and I can swear in it if I like. More importantly, are you supposed to be able to do that?” Shar asked from where she perched on the back of a chair.
“I doubt it,” he murmured. “I can’t do it all the time. Not yet.”
“What else can you do?” she asked with a shrewd gaze.
“Nothing reliable enough to talk about.” He winced under her sudden scowl. “The occasional prophetic dream, though I’ve had those since I was a child. I think I may be able to hear people’s thoughts, but it’s more like a faint rumble in my head with a few garbled words thrown in. Sometimes I can sense people’s intentions, like they’re telling me what they’re about to do. I have visions of distant places and people. Some other things. I’m flying blind here thinking of what to try.”
Indris gestured for Shar to follow him as he left the cabin, heading for the deck. Summer, its punishing hammer a vivid memory, was almost over. The days were getting cooler, spotted by torrential rains. From the deck of the Wanderer Indris could see the kaleidoscopic pattern of people attending the lakeside markets. A vivid, teeming mosaic of colour that changed from moment to moment. The clamour of wagon wheels, boat horns, bells, swearing longshoreman, and yelling merchants rolled over him, blending with the hypnotic gurgling of water against the hulls of nearby boats. Behind it all were the towering forms of the snow-capped and cloud mantled Three Sisters of Avānweh: jagged Mar-Silamari to the east, brooding Īajen-mar in the middle, and tall, bladed Mar-Asrafah to the west. He could smell coffee brewing nearby.
A dozen or so cats looked up from where they lay in the sun, tails raised in greeting, their purring a gentle rumble.
“Everywhere I go, cats…,” Indris muttered as a few of them came and pressed their faces against his legs. Smiling, he reached down to ruffle their long, silky fur.
The Obsidian Heart Page 7
