The Obsidian Heart

by Mark T. Barnes

  Beside it was a small, ornate wooden chair, lacquered black. It was so old it was seamed as an old man’s skin. Its high back was surmounted by two fist-sized orbs of flickering witchfire.

  And on that chair sat a man in a black cassock, so dark it seemed to drink the light from around it. The man was short and stocky. Ruddy, with eyes the hue of fresh cut grass set in deep orbits lined with kohl, his mindstone an oval without facet or imperfection. His long hair and beard were the colour of clay, shot through with terracotta. A ploughman’s hand, nails rough, was wrapped around the iron stave of his Scholar’s Crook, its scythe-like top a narrow razor of witchfire. Power crackled in traceries of lightning about his head and hands. His eyes shone as if they burned from within. He stood.

  “I am Sēq Master Zahiz.” The words were quiet, though the pride in his voice almost filled the room to the exclusion of all other sound. Fractals of energy began to spiral within the curve of his crook, sending patterns of bright colour across his brow. “Why do you come to the seat of the Mahj?”

  Corajidin fought the impulse to bow. Flicking his eyes right and left he saw the loathing on both Elonie’s and Ikedion’s faces. The abject fear in Kasraman. The animal in Wolfram’s yellow-toothed snarl. Nima had dropped to his knees.

  “I am Asrahn Erebus fa Basyrandin fa Corajidin,” he managed to grind out. The urge to bow and scrape grew stronger. He felt his knees trembling. “I come here to discuss the terms of the Sēq’s surrender to my authority, or their exile from my country. Where is Femensetri, the Scholar-Marshall? It is she I would speak with.”

  To either side of him the witches glared at Zahiz. Corajidin wondered whether the Sēq Master had been one of those who had sealed them inside Mahsojhin? Zahiz looked back at them with equanimity, though his skin began to flicker like a paper lantern. The whites of his eyes shone bright.

  “Femensetri no longer speaks on behalf of the Sēq,” Zahiz said. “Another has not been appointed to replace her.”

  Corajidin was stunned. The Stormbringer had been the Scholar-Marshall for centuries, advising generations of Asrahn. Before then she was part of the Mahj’s inner circle. What had happened? Was this the result of the schism the Emissary had mentioned, or something else?

  “Days ago I informed the Scholar-Marshall there would be changes in Shrīan. Namely, the status of the Sēq and my requirement for them to rest their brows at my feet in homage.”

  “And why would we do this thing?” came the condescending response. “We bow to none save the Mahj. It has always been so.”

  “It was always so when the Mahj was a scholar, the Awakened Empire existed and you were in Pashrea.” Corajidin stood tall. “Shrīan is not Pashrea. We have no Mahj here. From this point forward you and yours will bow… or you will leave.”

  Zahiz’s eyes went slightly out of focus for a moment, as if he were seeing sights and hearing conversations in a different room. It lasted a few seconds only, before his eyes sharpened on Corajidin with needle sharpness.

  “I can not agree to what you ask,” Zahiz said.

  “Then find somebody with the authority to talk about the future,” Corajidin gestured to the witches, “or you may die before you see it.”

  “FRIENDS AND ALLIES ARE VERY DIFFERENT THINGS. A FRIEND WILL DELIVER ALL AND EXPECT NOTHING. AN ALLY MAY DELIVER NOTHING, UNTIL YOU’VE GIVEN ALL.”

  —High Palatine Navaar of Oragon (495th Year of the Shrīanese Federation)

  DAY ? OF THE 495TH YEAR OF THE SHRĪANESE FEDERATION

  “Finally!” Taqrit’s voice pierced the swaddling around Indris’s mind. “I thought I’d lost you! And that, old friend, simply wouldn’t do.”

  He lay on something cold and hard. Metallic. The sour reek of his own body had been replaced by the scent of crushed mint and tea tree oil. The fine woollen cassock with its high collar felt cool against his skin. His wrists and ankles were cuffed in what felt like a combination of metal and leather. Despite these material comforts, the muscles of this shoulders, back, and chest were afire with agony. He cracked an eye open, blinking against the glare.

  “You’re quite the prize.” The leonine voice came from a blurred silhouette hovering over Indris. Wisps of white-blond hair were an aureole around the planes of the man’s face. Zadjinn, the centuries-old Erebus Master who had led the attack on he and Femensetri.

  “Lucky me.” Indris’s tongue felt thick in his parched mouth. “Where are Femensetri and Vahineh?”

  “Femensetri is undergoing Censure. The Stormbringer has tested the patience of the Order one time too many. She is no longer the Scholar-Marshall and another will be appointed in due time. Vahineh, that useless woman-child, is no concern of yours anymore.” His face slowly came into focus, handsome and lion-proud. His cassock was impeccable, black damask with diamond-studded buttons and heavy turned-back cuffs in the modern style. His crook was tall, the curve at its top extended to almost make a circle of it. “Rumour is you were the one who performed her Severance, making her useless to Crown and State. Yet another thing you shouldn’t be able to do—unless somebody has made you a Master and not told anybody.”

  “I dare say there’s plenty about me you’ve no idea about.”

  Taqrit flailed Indris across his upper thighs with his daul. It felt like his legs had been struck with a branding iron. Though he knew it to be fiction, part of his mind could smell the burning flesh. Could imagine the welts turning to blisters that would become infected and septic over time. He contained the thought before it took hold, enforcing his will over the subtle psychic barbs of the daul.

  Indris felt the fire burning behind his eye, infusing his brain. It ran down his spine using nerves as kindling. The Inquisitor frantically wheeled his chair back. Nervous sweat beaded his brow. A drop trickled down to tremble on the tip of his nose.

  “You’re a dead man,” Indris nodded, gaze boring into Taqrit’s milky eyes. “I’ll be free of this and there’s no place on Īa where I won’t find you and end you.”

  “I think some salt-forged steel shackles will keep you pliant enough.” Zadjinn said. Indris wanted to beat the smug expression from his face. “I hear you’re already acquainted with salt-forged steel, so I don’t need to tell you what you’ll experience. Until then the Marionette Tether will have to suffice.”

  Indris thrashed in his bonds, memories of his years in the slave pits of Sorochel not distant enough. Hard stone floors, the dust of undisturbed ages in his throat. Muscles aching from day after day after wretched day of swinging pick and hammer. Runny gruel to eat and dirty water to drink. The reek of both the living and the dead in claustrophobic tunnels, like too many rats. And the constant nausea/burn/ache/vertigo/fatigue of the salt-forged steel cuffs worn by he and the other mystics imprisoned there, digging up the treasures of a civilization gone and better left forgotten. Tears of frustration came unbidden. He inhaled deeply to master himself.

  Zadjinn picked up an ornate cylinder, crystal rods and metallic coils poking from it like a crown. It had several small wheels, which he began to turn. Indris sat up straight. Try as he might, Indris was unable to stop the strange, exaggerated motions of his body as Zadjinn pulled his strings. More moving of the wheels. He swung his legs over the edge of the table.

  Standing, Indris had a better view of the room. This was not the gloomy cell dominated by its torture device. This room was airy, slit windows showing a cloud-scudded grey sky. It was neither large, nor ornate, made by hand unlike most of the Amer-Mahjin whose warren riddled Īajen-mar. On a table lay Indris’s satchel, his weapons belt with storm-pistol and dragon-tooth knife, and a long recurved shape wrapped in black damask, studded with silver. Changeling.

  “Where are you taking me?” Indris asked.

  Taqrit went to strike Indris with his daul. Zadjinn waved him off. The Sēq Inquisitor shot Indris a sullen look from his wheeled chair. Rather than sheath his daul, he kept it in his lap, one clawed hand curled possessively around its hilt.

  “Firstly we will gathe
r the Selassin woman as a gift for our esteemed Asrahn. Word is he has placed quite some value on apprehending her. Then my peers in the Dhar Gsenni are excited about speaking with you.”

  Dhar Gsenni. A bastardisation of the High Avān phrase, for the good of all, it was a name out of history. A sect of the Ilhennim who had existed before the scholastic orders were formed, then navigated the halls of power for centuries after. The myth had them as being powerful mystics who defied the mandates of the Covens, then of the Orders, pursuing their own agendas in search of knowledge. To them, so the myths went, knowledge could not of itself be evil: there was only ever evil done in the application of knowledge. Or the power that came with it. Legend had it was they who had sponsored the open syllabus taught at Khenempûr, the ancient city in Tanis with its curved walls, doors, and streets, which passed from dying culture to dying culture over the millennia.

  Indris knew there were many secret societies within the Sēq, each fighting their quiet wars with each other, as well as with orthodoxy. But of them all, the Dhar Gsenni were the most insidious, with tales of them tugging at the reins of the Sēq for millennia. Clearly, Zadjinn and his fellow cultists were desperate enough to abduct Indris and try to hide him in the Amer-Mahjin. But there’s more to this tale that needs telling.

  “Why?” Indris often found the simplest questions were generally the best.

  “Will you walk,” Zadjinn said, ignoring the question and holding up the box with its crystals and coils and wheels, “or will you be tiresome? I have studied you a great deal, Indris. It would be beneath you to be marched in like some witless golem.”

  “If you’ve studied me, you know I’ll escape and probably kill a good number of you on my way out.”

  Zadjinn shrugged, manipulating the wheels to make Indris march towards the door. Taqrit rang a small bell, at which the door opened and another four Sēq entered the room. They wore over-coat with the hoods drawn up. Plain cassocks of black wool. Unadorned. No insignia of rank like Zadjinn, with his Master’s insignia embroidered in silver thread on the hems of his turned-back sleeves. Or Taqrit with his crook-and-eye sigil stitched in white. These others were not Sēq of rank. Novices, most likely. Librarians, perhaps, or even inexperienced Scholars. Students swayed by whatever promise of grandeur Zadjinn and his ilk had spun from opiates, seductions, and dreams. They carried long-knives thrust through their sashes, the leather-bound hilts not yet stained with use. The new arrivals took up Indris’s possessions, following as Zadjinn led the small group through the door. Taqrit trundled after, wheeled chair squeaking.

  It had been more than seven years since Indris had stepped inside Amer-Mahjin, yet his recollection was still strong. Long irregular corridors lined with volcanic glass. Polished marble columns in black, white, and grey. Stained glass windows, taller than trees in some cases, sending coloured beams across mirror-bright floors, carved wooden desks and long rows of shelves and cabinets, and doors leading to one wonder after another.

  On occasion they would see other black-cassocked Sēq: Novices, Librarians, Scholars, Knights, and the rare Master. Each time Zadjinn would lead them in a different direction to avoid contact. Clearly the factions were ill at ease with each other if he went to such lengths to avoid contact.

  Indris barely controlled his surprise when Zadjinn spoke again, the man’s tone wistful, as if they were old friends sharing confidences on park benches, with little more to their days than playing tanj, drinking tea, or feeding pigeons.

  “The Sēq are so few now,” Zadjinn said. “Since the Scholar Wars, the perception of our value has diminished. We remain aloof, for the most part, from the affairs of the people. It is a tragedy, given we know so much that could benefit the world.”

  “Before we became part of the political apparatus,” Indris mused, “the Sēq used to discover things. Build things. Advise and suggest, using everything we knew for the common good. Now the Order hides in long shadows, nesting in the detritus of yesterday while ignoring the present, let alone the future.”

  “Dhar Gsenni,” Zadjinn agreed. “The good of all. There are those of us who have walked Īa, recovering the most exquisite, beautiful treasures from around the world. Knowledge thought long forgotten. Wandered moonlit paths lost even to myth and legend. Been witness to sights that beggar the imagination. It is enough to make one weep. Yet nothing is as heart-breaking as those who could make a difference, but do not.”

  “What do you and yours propose, then? Has the Mahj given you leave to interfere in Shrīanese politics?” Indris looked over his shoulder at his captor. “Shrīan is not Pashrea. Though you cling to the fantasy of your elitism, there’s nothing stopping an informed Asrahn from cutting the Sēq off at the knees.”

  “And Corajidin will do this, unless we can offer him a reason not to.” Zadjinn turned Indris. “Giving him Vahineh should be a good start in building a relationship with the man who would change a nation.”

  I’ll do my best to make sure Vahineh does not become your bargaining chip. Surely you realise the moment Vahineh is Corajidin’s care, her life is over? The balance of Shrīanese politics possibly altered for decades to come.

  But Indris said, “What do you want with me? I’ve no interest in your agendas.”

  “But you’re exactly the kind of person we need,” Zadjinn nodded briskly, feline features creased in a smile. “You and those few like you. You knew when to disobey! You knew when to stand up and tell the Order they had done wrong! So many of the Sēq these days are sheep, taught by rote all they think they need to know. The gift of intellect is not knowing what questions to ask, rather questioning what you are taught. Every axiom must be challenged in order to grow.

  “Besides, there are far too many secrets locked away in your head for us to let you go on as you have done. Your time on the Spines. Your knowledge of the Soul Traders. The memories of Sorochel and the wonders you must have seen, digging amongst Inoqua ruins. Actually touching relics made before the Time Masters had risen to the height of their power!

  “Then, of course, is the information everybody wants: why Sedefke himself, centuries before your birth, sent you to find the Dream Key.”

  Indris looked on the man with horror. His years in Sorochel had been one nightmare after another. Had he and Shar not escaped, he wondered how much longer he could have survived the punishing conditions. Yet this man saw nothing save the abstract of knowledge, without consideration for the price or consequences such learning demanded. He was like a child playing with fire in another person’s home, seemingly careless of what may burn down around him. Zadjinn was an idealist, without the altruism to temper his moral or ethical compass.

  They came to a set of embossed silver doors. The leonine scholar-master nodded to one of his followers. She went to a nearby door and knocked. Within moments the door opened. Shortly after, a hollow-eyed Vahineh was escorted out to join the small group.

  From all outward appearances she had been treated well. She had been bathed and fed. Some of the hollowness beneath her cheeks had filled out. Her hair was clean and brushed; clumps of it missing yet dressed to hide the worst of it. Her face was still piebald and drool collected at the corners of her lips in tiny bubbles that expanded and contracted as she breathed. Her fingernails were lacquered, jagged edges filed smooth. Somebody had dressed her in a simple hooded robe of fine wool, the laces along the sleeves and bodice drawn tight, the deep hood pooled around her shoulders. Indris smiled at her. She looked at him with the vague comprehension of somebody who hears a song, though is sure neither of what it is nor where she heard it.

  Loud voices came from ahead. When they turned the corner there were a number of the Sēq talking amongst themselves. There were no doors along the corridor. Ilhen crystals hung from the wall in curlicued sconces, coaxing veins of russet, orange, and brown from the faceted obsidian walls. One of the Sēq was a Master, a tall man who looked like he hailed from a land of towering pines, snow-covered mountains and long, star-shot winter nights. His mindsto
ne was a rough thing, all edges against his tanned brow. His crook was tall, the sickle top a bright jade-hued talon. Beside him was an armoured Sēq Knight and what Indris took to be more Librarians, faces fresh and eyes still bright from the horrors they had not yet seen.

  Indris was tempted to shout out, though was unaware what kind of reception he would receive from the strangers. Zadjinn’s and Taqrit’s response was less doubtful: it would be something swift, violent, and unpleasant.

  “Wait here, all of you.” Zadjinn then handed the control box to Taqrit, who took it with an evil glint in his flawed pearl eyes. Zadjinn stared at Indris. “Do I need to warn you to remain silent? Yours is not the only life in the balance here. Remember the woman.”

  “Vahineh is about the only reason you have for me not ending you here in the corridor.” Indris smiled, though his gaze was hard. “Can’t make any promises for the immediate future, though. I do intend on misbehaving, if the warning is any help.”

  “My patience goes only so far, boy,” the leonine man growled under his breath. He stamped away, Scholar’s Crook held primly above the ground as if he did not want to sully it. He met the other Master. Heads were inclined as politely as sende required, though expressions were tense. After a few moments, Zadjinn walked into a distant room with the others. The door closed behind them.

  Once Zadjinn was out of earshot, Taqrit squealed forward on his rickety chair. The man’s face was pensive, the mottled skin and snow-blasted eyes stark against the sombre tones of his cassock and the faceted glass walls.