“Is this true?” Padashin asked. “Is Martūm unsuitable?”
Nazarafine gritted her teeth. “We are deliberating—”
“And yet,” Corajidin pressed, “I was informed you tried last night to have Vahineh Severed from her Awakening by the Scholar-Marshall and Pahmahjin-Näsarat fa Amonindris—”
The room burst into an uproar. Corajidin covered his smile by lowering his head, though not before Roshana, Nazarafine, and Siamak had seen it. Let them rage!
It was only the sharp crack of Padashin’s dionesqa on the marble floor that brought order to the chamber. The one-time war hero looked as if he were ready to draw and use his weapon if such were necessary for silence. After a few moments the noise reduced to eddies, then swirled to a gentle murmur, before it became still as glass.
“This is a dangerous accusation to make, Rahn-Corajidin,” Padashin growled. “Do you have proof?”
“It came to my attention from a reliable source, though the witness is not here.”
“Convenient,” Roshana sneered. “You bring this to us with no proof? Why waste our time?”
“It is my understanding the truth of the matter was revealed in a conversation with the Arbiter of the Change, at which the rahns Roshana, Nazarafine, and Siamak were in attendance.”
“Ajo?” Padashin said quietly.
Corajidin knew that for the Sky Lord to obscure the facts, or deny them, would undermine everything the post of Arbiter of the Change stood for. If it were proven he had misled the Teshri, there would be dire consequences, not the least of which was the review of his role as a sayf and his governorship of Avānweh. And yet, Corajidin hoped the Sky Lord took the risk, so Avānweh could be governed by somebody more tractable.
All eyes were on Ajomandyan as he stood, bowing his head to the Secretary-Marshall. He looked at Roshana and the other Federationists with equanimity, for Corajidin knew for him to look apologetic would be a mistake.
“It is true,” he said as the room erupted into chaos once more.
Corajidin nodded as he sat, revelling in the outrage of his peers, while privately disappointed the Sky Lord’s honesty had robbed him of a chance to consolidate his power.
“LEFT TO ITS OWN DEVICES THE IMAGINATION CAN BECOME YOUR WORST ENEMY. PAIN HURTS LESS THAN THE DEAR OF PAIN. THE UNKNOWN OFTEN MORE TERRIFYING THAN THE KNOWN.”
—Zamhon, Father on the Mountain for the Ishahayan Gnostic Assassins, and Master of Assassins to the Great House of Näsarat (259th Year of the Shrīanese Federation)
DAY ? OF THE 495TH YEAR OF THE SHRĪANESE FEDERATION
Indris felt the ache in his shoulders and hips from where he was suspended, spread-eagled and naked in midair. The metal cuffs around his wrists and ankles were hot: not quite painful, yet far from comfortable. There was the faint snap and growl of energy tethers that connected the cuffs to the frame around him. Sweat trickled down his arms, torso, and back. His thighs, calves, and shins. A cold breeze whistled in from somewhere behind him, chilling the sweat as it formed so he burned and was chilled at once.
There was barely enough light to see the rough, irregular facets of the obsidian walls. He was held motionless in the centre of a large metallic wheel, inlaid with formulae in gold wire, set at regular intervals with metallic disks wound with copper wire and heavy-looking magnets. When he craned his neck he could make out a circle of lightless ilhen crystals above, another below.
Sēq Inquisitors called the contraption he was in the Circumscription Well. Others called it the Potentiality Sink—a device that held its occupant tighter, the more energy they used to try and escape. While Indris remained quiet and did nothing, it let him be. The moment he exerted either physical or mental force, it was drained into the Well and stored for who knows how long. Knowing it would be futile—though needing to exclude it as a possibility—Indris tentatively used the ahmsah to see what could not otherwise be seen. He swore. Beyond the curve of the Well, the room was a cat’s cradle of disentropy, shot through with hints of hot color: the hues of militant energy.
Can this thing be overloaded? He had never heard of it being done, but there was a first time for everything.
He extended his senses. Slowly at first, gradually gathering more of the world’s latent energy until he felt pins and needles begin in his spine. Awareness became discomfort. Discomfort became pain. Pins and needles turned to vicious shocks that caused—
When he opened his eyes the room was exactly the same, save for the smell of singed skin and hair.
And the squat form of the man in the wheeled chair before him.
“Do you know who I am?” came the rasping whisper, as if either the man or woman struggled for breath.
“Do you know who I am?” Indris asked.
Pain lanced through his body, causing him to thrash. His teeth snapped together while his muscles convulsed and his back arched like a bow. There was fire burning his—
“Do you know who I am?” came the question again, a rasping whisper from the darkness.
“A strangely off-putting person in a wheeled chair?”
There was more pain this time. Unfortunately the darkness took longer to claim him.
“Do you know who I am?” came the rasping whisper from the darkness once more.
“Faruq yaha, yaha mehel felyati!”
“That was not polite.”
As Indris’s body spasmed in agony and his eyes rolled back into his head, he felt his bladder and bowels empty. He went beyond pain. His last sense was of the reek of sweat and his own filth.
“Do you know who I am?” came the rasping whisper from the darkness.
Indris’s protracted silence brought more pain.
Then welcome darkness.
He cracked rheumy eyes open to see the blurred outlines of people. They began to beat him about the chest, back, stomach, and thighs with truncheons. Each blow hammered his already sensitised body. Every lash of their dauls was like being branded. As much as he did not want to admit the screams that echoed in the small cell were his, he knew better.
Consciousness remained as Indris was pummelled. Furious—and careless for the harm it would cause him—he tapped into the ahm. Numbers raced across his narrowing mindscape as his senses were overloaded. His Disentropic Stain flared. His left eye burned and the room was filled with a conflagration. In a brief moment he saw their faces, frightened and shocked, before they puffed away into dust.
Only the man in the wheelchair remained, expression surprised as the flames writhed about the spinning fractals of the man’s protective wards. Indris knew him.
A face from childhood. Taqrit. One of the Eight… and, before Indris was given his Writ of Release from service, one of his best friends.
When darkness stole Indris, he had the time to imagine it was Mari’s arms into which he fell.
“You killed four Sēq Scholars in that little demonstration of yours,” Taqrit wheezed from his wheeled chair. The man was much changed and looked older than his thirty-five years. His face was deep etched with the roads he had travelled beneath patchy white hair. His eyes were strangely colourless, the pupils twinned dots floating in milk. His hands were little better than emaciated claws. A daul hung from his belt: a whip of plaited leather and witchfire studs, with a curved handle bound in gold and silver wire. A heavy strand of jade meditation beads hung about his neck, set with the shepherd’s crook and eye sigil of the Inquisitors. “I’m curious as to how you managed that little trick.”
“Four? I was hoping for five.” Indris tried for a conversational tone, yet his voice was hoarse, his mouth dry. He coughed and tasted blood. The circle of ilhen crystals above and below him shone with a clean white light, reflecting from the harsh angles of the irregularly faceted black walls.
He struggled against his bindings in vain. The room smelled of urine, faeces, sweat, and burned flesh. It made him gag.
“I know you’re thinking about how you’ll escape,” Taqrit said. “Let me assure you it’s highly improbable
you’ll do so. Usually I use the word impossible, but it’s you we’re talking about so we’ve taken some additional precautions.”
“Why are you—?”
“Nobody outside these walls knows you’re here,” Taqrit continued as if Indris had not spoken. “Nobody is coming.”
Indris stared down at Taqrit. “What happened to you?”
The Inquisitor smiled a very small smile. “You happened to me, Indris. After you left they were much harder on the rest of us. Didn’t want more of their special generation slipping through their fingers. Ironic, given most of us Fell to the Drear anyway. They were demanding and dangerous years after you left. Ones I shan’t forget. But in the here and now I have the questions and you’ll give me answers.”
“And you needed to drag me in here to ask them?”
“We dragged you in here because the opportunity presented itself. Though the Order may not be united in its approach, there are those of us who’ll put the interests of the Order before the life of any individual.” He rested his hand on the handle of his daul. “It’s always been thus.”
“I don’t have any secrets the Order would be interested in, Taqrit,” Indris said, eyeing the daul apprehensively. Every member of the Sēq Order was familiar with the signature pain-giver of the Inquisitors. When combined with some of their other tools, such as the Memory Trawl, the Spiritrack, or a Mind Lens, the pain of the daul usually delivered quick results. Even for those trained to compartmentalise their minds it was usually only a matter of time before it was too much to bear. The most basic level of proficiency required for a person to be a Sēq operative was to be a nayu-adept—one who had mastered their body and could isolate pain and the fear of pain. Yet as the Ishahayan—the sect of Gnostic Assassins—said, Everybody breaks and everybody talks because everybody, everywhere, has a point beyond which they can not endure.
“Allow me to be the judge of what the Order is, or is not, interested in.” Taqrit lips stretched in a wan excuse for a smile. “What can you tell me of the Soul Traders?”
“The what?” Indris was not certain whether he had heard correctly. Taqrit gestured with his hand and a surge of heat scalded Indris’s nerves. He glared at the man in his wheeled chair, choking back a curse. “What? The Soul Traders are a myth.”
“You’ve met them. Tell me about them.”
“What do you mean I met them?” Indris frowned. “I’m pretty sure I’d remember something like that.”
“You think you’d remember your three years on the Spines,” Taqrit wheezed. “But apparently not. Now, tell me what you know of the Soul Traders.”
The Soul Traders had been one of the nightmares of Avān legend for millennia. Reputed to steal the souls of the hallowed dead, and then sell them to collectors or those who would use them for their own ends, the Soul Traders were an abomination. “I heard rumours, years ago, that the Soul Traders were Nomads fishing the Well of Souls. But I’ve not dealt with them. I help Nomads with their transition or, if it’s their choice, help them keep a foothold in a world they’re not ready to leave. I don’t trade their souls.”
“How wonderful for you. A soft-hearted heretic, and traitor to his Order. You do us proud.”
“The soul is eternal, you cretin,” Indris said scathingly. “The Well of Souls can wait until a soul is ready to be at peace. If a Nomad harms none, why should we harm it?”
“Tell me about your dealings with the Soul Traders.”
“I’ve never dealt with them.” At least I don’t remember dealing with them.
“So you say. What is their connection with the Dream Key?”
“The what? Taqrit, I’ve no idea what—” Indris’s screams felt like they were going to tear his throat apart. When the pain stopped he was left panting, limbs twitching, glaring at the crippled Inquisitor. “When I escape from here, I’ll kill you.”
“No doubt you’ll try and no doubt you could succeed,” Taqrit said, unperturbed. “It’s why at the end of this we’ll fix you with a Docilator Crown and put you out to stud. What days you have left will be spent as a pacified imbecile, fathering children for the Order so we can at least realise some use from you.”
“I’ve done nothing wrong!” Indris shouted. He thrashed in his bonds. May as well have tried to move the mountain.
“You were ever our better,” Taqrit mocked. “You took everything you had for granted while we struggled under every trial and lesson Femensetri, Ahwe and Madiset tasked us with. You were so oblivious in your superiority.”
“You’re torturing me out of spite?” Indris asked, aghast.
“No.” Taqrit shook his head, a small smile of genuine pleasure on his face. “Well, not entirely. Now—what is the connection between the Soul Traders and the Dream Key, why did Sedefke name you to find it, and what was the date and year you should start your search?”
Indris lost track of time.
The frequent bouts of pain. The wax and wane of awareness. The same senseless questions. Who are the Soul Traders? Are they Nomads? What is their relationship with the Dream Key? What do you know of Sedefke? Is Sedefke still alive? Why did Sedefke name you as the one to be sent to the Spines? Is the Dream Key on The Spines? Who are the Soul Traders? Are they Nomads? What involvement for the Soul Traders have with the witches? Why is the Drear now more active? Is there a link between the witches, the Soul Traders and the Drear?
On and on it went, a never-ending circle of questions Indris had no answers to.
Sometimes moments of clarity came where he pinned the questions to the Possibility Tree, following root to trunk to branch to twig to leaf. Yet there was no common source from which to extrapolate effect from cause. His mind raced with variables, too many possibilities and too few probabilities—like fruits that grew, withered, and died on the vine more often than not. There were too many pieces missing.
His body felt distant when he woke, smothered in a rough and uncomfortable blanket. His breathing was laboured as if he breathed through a leather bag. Hot air swirled around his face. His head felt heavy. There were voices, though whether inside or outside his head he could not tell.
“Have you found what we are looking for?” came an older male voice, lion-proud and booming. Zadjinn? “Did he find the Dream Key?”
“No,” came the wheezer. Taqrit? “I’ve searched the outer layers of his mind to no avail. Our questions, intended to provoke his memories, have caused him to extrapolate causality.”
“And?” the lion asked.
“It’s the symptom of somebody trying to discover answers, not of a person who has them. Or knows he has them.”
“What do you mean?”
“There is a block in his mind,” the wheezer said. “An Anamnesis Maze set up around part of his memory. It’s complex beyond my ability to navigate. If I dig too far, I may never find my way out.”
“So, he does have something to hide,” came a sultry contralto.
“I can dig deeper,” the wheezer said. “There’re no assurances as to what state he’ll be in when I finish. The Mind Lens can be more invasive than we predict.”
“Time is against us,” came the booming lion. “Our brethren know something is amiss. We can not hide him here forever.”
“Do what needs be done.” This masculine voice was gentler than the others, though cold. “I can keep the Suret diverted adequately enough. Our spies tell us the witches are on the move, and we are unprepared for what is to come.”
“If this is the harbinger of the return of the Inoqua,” the sultry contralto said, “we must act soon. Neither the Sēq nor the rahns are as powerful as once they were.”
“The Empress-in-Shadows has abandoned us to our own devices,” the cold voice muttered. “And Shrīan is not Pashrea. Break Indris if you must, but find out everything he knows. He is the only one to have gone to the Spines and returned.”
“There’s another,” Taqrit said hesitantly.
“No!” the lion snapped. “The Order believes she is gone, and that is t
he way it must stay. At least for now. Besides, she has revealed what she knows, and willingly. I am certain of it.”
“Will you gamble all our futures on your infatuation with another man’s wife?” the contralto taunted. “If Indris were to—”
“Enough!” the cold voice snapped. “Our answers may be in Indris’s mind, and we need to find them first if we are to control the direction of the Order! Dig deep, Inquisitor. But dig quickly.”
“As you command,” the wheezer said.
Hours passed. Perhaps days. Indris could not tell.
Time was marked by the passage of indignities. The scourging of his skin. The flaying of his mind. They force fed him and poured water down his throat through a funnel, all to keep him alive so they could question him a little longer. They injected him with serums to make him more pliant, all the while breaking down his physical and mental control.
Everybody has a point beyond which they can not endure.
Indris hung his head and stared at Taqrit from under sodden hair gone lank. Breathing through his nose almost choked him, the filth of his unwashed and abused body too ripe in the enclosed space. Breathing through his mouth was little better, though, as he could taste the smell, a foul residue that caught at the back of his throat.
The Inquisitor sat in his wheeled chair beside a long table. Devices lay upon it in neat rows, some of which Indris recognised. The bronze and leather helmet of the Mind Lens, with its many external lenses, nodes, spines, and vanes. The carved and polished wooden circlet, fitted with hundreds of crystals around its inner circumference, was a Memory Trawl used to fish memories from a mind, whether they were consciously known or not. Beside them were crystal lances, long jewel-topped needles and vials of fluid in dozens of different colours. There was a strange, mesmerising beauty to their form. An artistry set loose by a mind fixed on a singular purpose, hiding said purpose within intricate carvings, faceted gems, polished metal, and tooled leather. An elegance where style met function, regardless of how grotesque the function was.
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