The Obsidian Heart

by Mark T. Barnes

  Changeling lay lengthwise by the implements of torture. Beside her was Indris’s dragon-tooth knife and holstered storm-pistol. His clothing lay neatly folded beneath his satchel. His journals, ink, and brushes nearby.

  Taqrit noticed Indris’s glance. He gestured towards Changeling. “This is another question that needs answering. Where did you come by this weapon?”

  “I made it.”

  “Where did you make it and how?” Taqrit leaned forward, pupils little more than pinheads of coal set in snow. “One would think it quite beyond you, talented though you may be, to make a psédari. You did not have this when you left, and no Sēq Master would have taught you the skills since you returned. So how, then?

  Indris opened his mouth to speak, the answer on the tip of his tongue, though the words would not come. He knew he had made Changeling. Had felt the blast of volcanic fire against his face and the cold metal haft of the hammer in his hand. Yet he could not say where, when or how. He closed his mouth again.

  “And there we have it. If you didn’t make it, you must’ve stolen it.”

  “You know that’s impossible!” A mind blade could only be wielded by the one who made it, the weapon crumbling to nothing within hours of its maker’s death.

  “Is it?”

  “Try unsheathing her and find out.” Indris bared his teeth in a wild smile. Changeling seemed to chuckle where she lay, causing the glass vials and metal objects to rattle together in imitation. Taqrit looked at the table with alarm, wheeling himself back. “You know what happens to somebody who tries to use another’s mind blade, don’t you?”

  Taqrit nodded reluctantly.

  “Then how could I wield her and live?”

  The placid Inquisitor went back to preparing his instruments. Indris subtly tested his bonds. As expected they were still firm. He flexed his Disentropic Stain the barest fraction, little more than a lick of the ahmsah, to find the pins and needles of feedback still there. With Changeling so close it was almost worth unleashing the fullness of his power, though Indris doubted he would remain conscious long enough to take advantage.

  He was reasonably certain he was somewhere in Amer-Mahjin, hidden amongst the currents of disentropy. He imagined the scholars all around him. Studying in the Amber Library. Transcribing older manuscripts from handwritten pages to print on huge presses. Drafting new inventions, experimenting with formulae, examining artefacts brought back from across the length and breadth if Īa. Meditating. Undergoing the rigorous physical training required of all the Sēq: for of all those who studied the Esoteric Doctrines, it was the Sēq who sought the unity of body, mind, and spirit. It was one of the first things one learned: one plus one plus one equals one.

  Awareness of his body dwindled to the distant sound of his own breathing, deep and even as the surf. He allowed his consciousness to climb away from the flesh, inhabiting the ephemeral bastions of the psé: the place of the pure mind that cohabited with the kaj, or soul. Indris drifted through the lapis sea of his mind. It was a place of analogies and metaphors. Thoughts became clouds of crystal filaments, coloured slivers that rotated as they grew, merged, or repulsed each other to form new shapes. New ideas, carrying postulates, assumptions, and calculations. Axioms, ambiguities, and paradoxes. All forming, changing, colliding, branching out in something larger and more profound than any Possibility Tree.

  The psé was immortal. The Nomads were proof of this, their bodies dead yet retaining memories and able to learn new things throughout the stretched span of their years.

  As a psé-adept, Indris had been taught his psyche was like the interior of an almost limitless bubble of possibilities. Nothing was ever forgotten, though a person could misplace memories, hide them, or have them hidden. Indris opened himself further, stretching the cord that bound nayu and psé together.

  Freed from his body for the moment, he changed his perspective. Rather than look inward at the downwardly curved vault of his mind, he pierced the mental walls to see himself standing on the outside of the globe of his soul. His kaj was only one drop in a boundless ocean filled with an infinity of bubbles drifting along currents as old as the beginning of the universe.

  Indris had experienced firsthand the realm the Nilvedic Scholar Vedartha referred to as the ahmtesh: the fluid infinity of disentropic energy surrounding the qua. It was here the ternary nature of existence shed the need for the physical, or the temporary. This was the place of the psyche and the soul. The former carried the will, intellect, and memories; the latter the context of a person’s existence, their emotions, and drives for enlightenment in a complex and overwhelming universe.

  He drifted in a place of no time and no space. His dhyna, the inner eye, flicking across the vista before him in this place where all things were connected. He caught the glimpse of distant formations obscured by brilliant, undulating streamers of pale blue. There were schools of formless light, swooping and wheeling. Coming together and parting. He wondered how many of his friends were there, long dead and living in eternal peace? Did his Ancestors remain here, or had they drifted to the surface to be reborn and experience the world anew?

  The thought of his Ancestors reminded him of Ariskander’s cryptic words. My sister was a vessel, one who willingly accepted her great burden. Your mother risked all when she sent you forward. Sedefke saw that one day the Scholar Kings would be needed.

  Indris felt his metaphoric footing slip. His psé reverberated. No doubt Taqrit was going back to work, trying to rouse him. Fluid space grew more turbulent, the warm lapis sea becoming cloudy.

  But this venture had not been without profit. Here in the Amer-Mahjin he was surrounded by both psé- and kaj-adepts. So while he could not physically use disentropy, there was nothing stopping him using its essence to send a cry for help. It was much the same way a man who could not swim could still throw stones in the river. In Indris’s case, he intended on throwing some very large stones.

  Kneeling, he used the metaphors of his fists to beat on the surface of his soul. He had no time to be choosey of whom he alerted. Things could hardly get worse than what was planned for him already. Ripples spread. A repetitive boom in the great currents of the ahm. He only hoped somebody would hear and find him, before it was too late.

  “WE ENJOY THE TRIUMPHS AND TOLERATE THE FAILURES OF FAMILY BECAUSE BLOOD IS BLOOD. WHEN ALL IS SAID AND DONE, IT IS THE BONDS OF FAMILY THAT DRIVE US TO THE EXTREMES OF ACTION AND EMOTION.”

  —From Immortality of the Bloodlines, by Tamari fa Saroush, philosopher of the Awakened Empire

  DAY 357 OF THE 495TH YEAR OF THE SHRĪANESE FEDERATION

  For three days and nights Mari searched Avānweh for any sign of Indris. She only slept when exhaustion took her. It was more sleep than Shar or Omen enjoyed. The Seethe war player ran on the ragged edge of exhaustion, while the tireless Wraith Knight spent the shallow watches of the night, to the blue-grey haze of predawn, hunting down the sources of even the slightest rumour.

  Mari sat in bed, her back resting against the cool mosaic wall in her room at the Eyrie, an elite hotel on the cliffs of the Caleph-Mahn. What little sleep she had was not restful. The dream was so vivid, of Indris laying beside her, speaking, though no sound came save the metronome beating of his hearts as if from underwater. If she closed her eyes she could still hear the faint, metronymic beating. Every day he was missing made her heart ache all the more at the thought he would never return.

  But now there was a lead that might bear fruit.

  The sun had not yet risen. With the balcony doors closed the gentle hum of the wind was barely audible, the sky beyond a flat, featureless grey expanse. Mari unfolded the parchment in her hand, its crackling preternaturally loud. She did not need the decrepit light of the guttering lanterns to read it. The contents were well known to her.

  It had taken Corajidin two days to respond to Mari’s request for an audience. His timing sent her a mixed message that was no doubt deliberate. When the Seethe had made the Avān in their Torque Spindles,
they had taken Humans and blended with them the traits of big cats, wolves, and other animals, as well as the Seethe themselves. The result had been something that, while looking almost Human, felt and thought profoundly differently.

  In their early generations the Avān had been wild and uncontrolled. After a few generations of war, the first rules of sende had been penned. They provided to the aggressive, territorial Avān a structure of etiquette and social interactions that prevented them from exterminating themselves. Over generations it had become more intricate: a subtle and profound way for a passionate people to express themselves and declare the intent of their behaviour. Like the beasts of the wild, the Avān remembered what it was to protect their territorial interests, to mate so the fittest bloodlines endured and to defend the weak. Hence the caste system, which defined strict rules of conduct. The board game of tanj, complex and convoluted as it was, was the embodiment of sende, often used to teach children how to behave.

  Corajidin’s response told Mari many things. The timing said he still thought of her as a member of the family, though not as closely as once he had. The quality of the parchment was expensive, meaning he still valued her, yet the ink was not laced with precious metal, so she was not elevated in his regard. It had been written in his own hand, rather than by his adjutant, which showed he had taken time to compose his message. The black and silk ribbons, with their bars of black and red gold, as well as the wax seal with its polished rubies and black lodestones, told her she was still precious to the Great House of Erebus and should find her way home. The written words were precise and spoke of neither commitment to a resolution, nor her jeopardy. The fact he had invited her to a public dining house said he had nothing to hide and she would leave the meeting alive. Under the rules of sende. Nobody murdered a guest where food and drink had been shared. Even the choice of messenger—Nima, a respected cousin and Knight-Lieutenant of the Anlūki—told her Corajidin took her seriously and recognised her military prowess. It all said, I see you, Mariam, for what you are and know you are to be respected, possibly feared. Yet blood is blood.

  He had sent a gift that placed a further obligation on Mari to respect the codes of conduct: it was her old amenesqa, thought lost at Amnon. Mari had been dumbfounded to see it, restored to pristine condition. It was sharp, reminding Mari of the nature of truth. Reminding her where she had come from. She laid it beside her Sûnblade, one weapon the dark reflection of its sister.

  Roshana had been pleased with Corajidin’s response. She insisted Mari take a retinue. Originally, Roshana had wanted to send Bensaharēn and a squad of the Tau-se, yet one did not send Shrīan’s foremost warrior-poet and the lion folk anywhere, without it sending a message. Besides, her father had never been comfortable with any non-Avān, which also meant taking Shar, Hayden or Ekko was out of the question, let alone Omen. Siamak had offered some of his marshland warriors. In the end Mari had agreed to take two soldiers each from Roshana, Nazarafine, and Siamak. The message implicit in such a gathering could not be lost on her father.

  Mari bathed hastily and dressed. Her tunic, tall supple boots and trousers were of black suede, her light hauberk of red quilted silk with mirror-bright silver scales. These were colours of both the Erebus and her mother’s Family, the Dahrain. She wore her antique amenesqa across her back, while the Sûnblade was attached to her weapons belt opposite a recurved long-knife. Over this she wore the white hooded over-robe of the ashinahdi, declaring she acted outside the purview of her Great House. The consequences were hers and hers alone.

  The sun was a bright fingernail pairing over the eastern range by the time Mari arrived at the Näsaré villa. As Arbiter of the Change, Ajo had agreed to attend as a neutral party. Neva and Yago were his witnesses, the latter carrying an Audio-scroll Apparatus in a carved mahogany box. Shar, Hayden, Ekko, and Omen waited there also. As the other six attendees arrived, Ajo reminded Indris’s friends they were not to interfere. Ajo extended to them the hospitality of his home until the meeting was done. Neither Shar nor Hayden appeared happy, Ekko was as opaque as expected of a Tau-se, and Omen simply stood there like a giant porcelain doll.

  Ajo led them to the nearest gondola station where they boarded one of the ornate spheres. As the gondola descended, rocking slightly in the wind, Mari was thankful people seemed calm. She appraised those the rahns had sent in their names. She trusted the rahns to have exercised good judgement, given the lives of many hung in the balance of today’s discussions.

  The marsh-warriors were nut brown, their hair tied up in high ponytails, feet clad in frayed reed sandals. A man and a woman, they were lean and lithe, worn clothing hanging from their spare frames. Their hands were wedge shaped, narrow with ropey muscle. The hilts of their weapons looked well used. Nazarafine had sent two of her nephews, sun-kissed youths who looked as if they had known little save the salt tang of the ocean and the summer on their skin. Yet their movements were quick and sure, their twinned swords and dual knives slung according to the style of the Saidani-sûk, the Four Blades School of the Sûn Isles. Roshana had sent a woman and a man, both of whom were so innocuous as to raise Mari’s hackles. Their expressions were bland to the point of being non-existent, clothing and weapons of little note. Neither man nor woman met her gaze.

  The public dining house Corajidin had chosen for their meeting was The Twelveway, a prestigious establishment on the Caleph-Sayf situated in a dodecagonal building of lacquered wood and viridian glazed tiles. It was set on carved stilts over one of the streams that fed into the Ascendent’s Court, a broad, deep defile between Star Crown and World Blood mountains. At the bottom, amongst lichen- and moss-covered stones and natural pools, was the Ascendent’s Memorial: twelve painstakingly crafted bronze statues, each thirty metres tall, of the twelve Ascendents of the Great Houses of the Avān. Green with age, the mists adorned the statues with liquid diamonds that glittered white. The court was webbed at various levels with delicate covered bridges and stairs of polished alabaster and red marble. There was a constant rumble as small cascades spilled into the court, to swirl around ferns and lotus flowers, then to pour away down the mountainside to the terraces below.

  Mari inhaled the lush perfume of the ferns and lotus flowers. The air was cool and damp. There were no other people about. The Hour of the Serpent, seventh hour of the day, had only moments ago sounded from clocks across the city.

  “It seems fitting we talk in the hearing of the Ascendents, neh?” Corajidin’s voice echoed around the court. He made no secret of his entrance, escorted by a squad of Anlūki including Belamandris and her cousin, Nima. Corajidin made a striking figure in his red velvet over-robe, the black damask sleeves embroidered with rearing horses. His red-blond hair and beard were streaked with white, but his complexion had lost the jaundice it had at Amnon. His carriage was erect and proud. The long-knife he had used to assassinate Vashne was thrust through the sash at his waist. Golden Belamandris looked healthy, his bright blue eyes rimmed in kohl like any fashionable Avān of means. His expression when he looked at Mari was wistful, his smile a fledgling thing that died too soon.

  “Thank you for coming, father,” Mari said. She bowed lower than was necessary of a daughter to her father. It was the bow of a subject to her Asrahn.

  “Shall we?” Ajo gestured to the double doors of The Twelveway. Belamandris and Nima went first, then Ajo, Neva, and Yago, followed by Nazarafine’s people. There were no shouts of treachery. Mari was aware of her father’s stare. The way he read in the messages in her clothing and choice of weapons. She saw him smile from the corner of her eye before he lifted his over-robe away from the wet ground and entered The Twelveway himself. Mari followed, the others behind her.

  The food was a simple affair, something to be found in any Avānese home. Porridge, with cinnamon and honey. Slices of mandarin, orange, and apple. Blueberries and raspberries. Unleavened bread hot from the oven, goat butter melting into its pores. Silver urns of tea and coffee with porcelain jugs for the cream. An alabaster vase
was filled with floating yellow lotus flowers and baby’s breath, the scent remarkably like orchids and vanilla.

  Corajidin and Belamandris sat opposite Mari at the twelve-sided table. Ajo and his children took station between. The guards remained alert and on their feet.

  “How have you been, Belam?” Mari asked as the key people arranged food for themselves. “You look well.”

  “Well enough, considering.” Belam’s expression was one of sweet melancholy. He reached out a hand towards her, stared at it for a moment, then drew it back slowly across the table under the sharp scrutiny of their father. Belamandris dropped his gaze to stare at the patterns in his coffee. “I hear you won’t be taking the role with the Feyassin. What are your plans?”

  “Not sure. I may do some travelling. I’ve missed you.”

  “And I… suffice to say life is different without you around.” He cast a quick glance to their father who seemed absorbed in surveying the dining house, though Mari was not fooled. Belamandris opened his mouth to speak again, then closed it with a frown.

  Yago opened the Audio-scroll Apparatus. Within the waxed wooden box were bright metal gears and wires. He unfolded a broad-lipped tube, much like a great flower with delicate silver petals. It was the work of moments to inset a scroll into the recorder. Once ready he indicated they should begin.

  “Thank you for arranging these talks, Mariam,” Corajidin said. He bowed his head politely, touching the fingers of both hands to his chest, over his hearts. “I must say I was surprised when it was you who made the overture of peace.”

  “Something had to be done.” Mari stirred cocoa and cream into her coffee. Inhaled the pleasant aroma and sipped, giving her time to think. Every word could either bless or curse what she was trying to achieve. She set the cup down with an audible click. “Shrīan stands at a precipice. Unfortunately, we passed the crossroads some time ago and now all eyes are fixed on what happens here. Amnon weakened us. We don’t need more fighting between the Great Houses or the Hundred Families.”