The Obsidian Heart

by Mark T. Barnes

  “You could have a place with the Dhar Gsenni,” he said. Indris cast a glance down at the daul clutched in the crippled hand of the broken man’s lap. He suppressed a shudder at the thought of how many people had been given a similar offer, under similar duress. “All you need do is tell Zadjinn and the others what they need to know.”

  “And then they’ll use what I tell them for the good of all,” Indris mused, “or for the good of the few? Such has always been the way of secrets, Taqrit.”

  “Says the man with the secrets. Zadjinn and the others are great scholars. They could make a difference for our people.”

  “The man with the secrets thinks Zadjinn may be a great scholar, which does not make him a great man.” Indris gazed down the corridor to where the man in question had disappeared with the other Sēq. “I think in his case it makes him a great liar.”

  “You’ll learn your place!” Taqrit’s voice was savage. He spun the wheels on the control box, forcing Indris to his knees and freezing him in place.

  Taqrit struck Indris’s shoulders with his daul, the Marionette Tether making it impossible for Indris to move. Again and again he struck. The torturer growled imprecations from between spittle-flecked lips.

  Indris bore the punishment silently, afraid what would happen to Vahineh should he sound any kind of alarm. Time and time again came the crack of the daul, in time with Taqrit’s grunting and the hissing of his sour breath.

  Vahineh began to whimper and wring her hands. A tear leaked from her wide, dark eye. Something lurked in there. Something caged and wanting to be free, if only it knew the way.

  “Will one of you shut her up? Taqrit snarled at those around him. One of the others stepped close and raised a fist over Vahineh. The girl cried out, her voice echoing down the corridor.

  Out of control, Taqrit whipped his daul across Vahineh’s abdomen. The woman buckled, shrieking. Indris smelled urine. Saw the widening pool of moisture on her robe, then the small puddle on the floor. Eyes bulging, Taqrit backhanded Vahineh in the face, the daul in his clenched fist. There was a small detonation as the woman was knocked back against the wall, lips split. Blood sprayed across her cheek, mixing with drool as it trickled down her chin. She slumped to the floor, eyes rolled upward, breathing ragged.

  Around them the walls began to blossom with frost, tendrils like vines spreading across the polished obsidian. Indris felt a familiar chill across his skin.

  “Chaiya,” Indris thought. The warm tingling along his spine told him better than words who had heeded his desperate call.

  “Corajidin can do without you, girl,” the crippled torturer spat, arm raised for a final blow. His expression grew perplexed, though, as he noted the frost. The temperature dropped suddenly, his breath a white plume. The daul cracked against Vahineh’s shoulder, rather than her brow.

  “Mistake,” Indris grated through clenched teeth.

  “What have you done?” Taqrit gasped.

  The lights went out.

  Chaiya stood there, a glorious sculpture of jade light and deep shadow, her outline flickering. Taqrit shrieked, his wheeled chair colliding with one of his co-conspirators as he tried to back away.

  “I need you!” Indris thought desperately. “Please, help me! I can’t do this alone.”

  The lights flared. Chaiya disappeared. There was a silence that felt like an eternity. The other Sēq looked about nervously, hands on their weapons. Taqrit began to murmur under his breath, causing ripples in the ahm.

  Indris worked to marshal his strength, aware his efforts may be fruitless yet unwilling to let Vahineh suffer any more.

  Then Chaiya was with him. Or rather, more than with him.

  She was him.

  There was no sense of the individual. Her memories and ambitions. Her patience and constant wonder at a world she will see spin for centuries to come, until she forgets why she lingered. They shared everything they had ever been. Every memory. Experience. Love, loss, triumph, failure, and joy. One plus one plus one equals one. Plus another and the whole became much greater than the sum of the parts.

  Two souls in concert, willing and equal in the name of a greater good. Chaiya understood what Indris wanted to do as if she had thought of the idea herself. To her, she had. Indris understood Chaiya’s connection with all the other kaj, orbs of light floating, talking, communing in an endless ocean of the energy that fuelled all life. A great net of information. Every voice that had lived. Everything that had ever been known, drifting free on currents of pure disentropy.

  Chaiya embraced his mind. Sheltered those parts that still knew fear, doubt, or pain. She was the cool balm around his nerves, allowing him to act while she buried the backlash of agony under layers of soothing thought.

  Indris felt the fury burn. He felt his power rise, entwined with hers. It pooled in all the deep places in him. Ran tingling across his soul. The Dragon Eye opened, tinting his vision with furious hues. The Marionette Tether puffed away into ash as Indris stood.

  He reached out with his mind. Cloth-wrapped Changeling flew into his hands. The black fabric around her burned away at his touch. Changeling snarled, low and menacing. The inexperienced Sēq around him froze in panic. Some fumbled for weapons. Others stepped back. Only Taqrit acted, his skin brightening like a lamp being turned up as he sang his first canto.

  But too slowly, the Inquisitor stammering with fear.

  Indris’s eyes blazed as the power of his jhi was unleashed. Taqrit was swept down the corridor on a tongue of fire, a mess of raggedy limbs in his kindling chair. Indris’s Disentropic Stain expanded, whirled like a dervish as it scattered his captors like so much chaff.

  Training and experience took over. He did not think of six enemies, for there was only ever one at a time. He did not think at all. He kept the murmuring Changeling sheathed as he twirled it like a baton, spinning from foot to foot in the steps of the sword-dances he had learned from a dozen Masters across South-Eastern Īa and beyond. Perfected on what had felt like an endless number of battlefields. Every step was designed to cause harm, else what was the point? Leaf on the Wind led to Dragon Sweeps Down. The Wyrm’s Tongue became the Headsman’s Caress. Changeling hummed as it tore the air, the black kirion sheath a blur as it struck and struck and struck. And where it struck, a person who should have been a protected brother or sister of the Order was laid low.

  Perhaps they will have learned a lesson, when they wake, for some reputations were made, while others were earned.

  Chaiya slowly unfolded from his soul, her presence the lingering memory of a kiss. She gave him time to order his thoughts and lock the pain away in scores of tiny boxes, to be dealt with later. He felt her soul caress his in the kind of understanding lifelong lovers sometimes feel. She appeared next to him, a juddering image in the uncertain light.

  Indris stood over a panting Taqrit, who was curled in a foetal position. His fingers were bent, the hands now useless clubs of charred flesh. The remainder of his hair had been burned away, eyes seared from his head leaving scorched sockets. With a word, Indris quenched the smouldering of the man’s cassock, though it would do Taqrit no good. The odour of cooked meat and burned hair was overwhelming.

  “Kill… me…” Taqrit wheezed.

  “I already have.” Indris looked down on the man, trying to summon some emotion, such as hatred or satisfaction. Even remorse or regret. But he couldn’t find it in him. There was a place in him, not a void, merely a place like all people had such places, waiting to be filled by better things, for better people. He had no room for Taqrit.

  “They’ll… never… stop… looking…”

  “I don’t imagine they will.” Indris knelt by the man. There but for the sake of the Ancestors lay I. Was this the fate he had missed, by leaving the Order before they could wring him dry, leaving little more than a bitter husk who fed on secrets and suffering? He thought of Femensetri. Her brusque manner and idiosyncrasies developed over a count of years Indris could not begin to imagine. Was this her
fate, too?

  “You… could have helped… us.”

  “No, I couldn’t. I wouldn’t, even if I knew what the Dhar Gsenni wanted. I made a choice a long time ago to care about people. Not power, nor politics or riches. Your struggles are none of my concern.”

  “You don’t…” Wheeze. Pant. Gasp. “Believe that. Amnon. You came back…”

  Indris looked down at the man and was surprised to feel a faint stirring of loss for what the man had once been. “Of eight there are now two. How our teachers must weep at the thought of how far we fell short of their dreams.”

  Taqrit’s breath was dry as it whined through his scorched throat. His daul was burned into his hand, the fingers sticks of burned meat and blackened bone. The other flexed spasmodically.

  “Kill…”

  “You’ll die the death you deserve,” Indris murmured. He looked away to where Vahineh lay, unconscious and bleeding on the ground. Heavy hearted, he turned back to the dying man at his feet. “We were taught many things. Many terrible, Ancestors awful things. Things I wish I could forget. One of the things we were taught was to make decisions, many of which would return to haunt us.

  “I try hard to be a moral, ethical man. It’s why I love the Tau-se so much. They live their lives with quiet integrity and honour. They believe in nemembe—that they get back from the world threefold what they give it, both in kindness as well as suffering. May your Ancestors forgive you, Taqrit.

  “But I can’t. I won’t.”

  So saying he turned away from the dying, mewling Taqrit to take Vahineh in his arms.

  Zadjinn would return soon. As, no doubt, would others. He needed to get Vahineh to safety while he still could, before the Sēq bartered the woman’s life away to a vengeful Corajidin.

  “I can’t fight for you,” Chaiya’s sad voice was like satin draped across his soul. “Helping you as I did went against everything I believe in… but with the life of a friend in the balance it seemed a fair price. I will not blend my soul with yours again, Indris… but I can show you the secrets ways out of Amer-Mahjin.”

  “Thank you, Chaiya. I could not have escaped alone, and I’m terrified of what they want to know, that I can’t remember.”

  “Well, I hope you don’t forget this,” she replied, and Indris could feel the timbre of her smile without seeing it. “The hallowed dead have answered your question, my friend. There is one living who can tell you of the Mah-Psésahen.”

  “And I owe you my thanks a second time.”

  “Perhaps… not.” Chaiya’s imagined smile faded. “When you’ve the chance, look for a man named Danger-Is-Calling—he wanders with the Nomadic orjini who travel the Dead Flat. He is old, Indris. Frighteningly old. But he has the answers you are looking for.”

  “Why wouldn’t I thank you for this? You’ve been a great help.”

  “Because Danger-Is-Calling is but one of his names, and though the dead know him by many, it’s his place of origin you’ll find most troubling. I’m sorry, Indris, but I wish it were otherwise.”

  Indris closed his eyes, feeling the lightness of hope turn dark and swollen as a rain cloud in his chest. There were places Indris was wary of, but few of which he was frightened.

  “Isenandar.” The Pillars of Sand.

  “THE EASIER PATH TAKEN HAS THE SINGLE REWARD IN THAT IT IS EASY.”

  —Zienni proverb

  DAY 356 OF THE 495TH YEAR OF THE SHRĪANESE FEDERATION

  “You reckless, selfish, careless woman!” Mari did not care how harsh her words sounded. Roshana deserved them all and more besides. The sunroom at the Eyrie echoed with Mari’s indignation. She flung the list of preferred new rahns at Roshana, who opened it as if Mari were not standing in front of her.

  Mari had raced along narrow mountain streets until she caught up with what remained of her envoy after the bloodletting in the Ascendant’s Court. Neva and Yago escorted Ajo to the Eyrie, while she sprinted to the Qadir Bey with the two marshlanders in tow. There, Mari had asked Siamak to send messengers to Roshana and Nazarafine, asking them to meet in secret at the Eyrie. Neva had gone to get Shar, Ekko, and the others herself. The Eyrie was the only place Mari could think of that was in a remote location, was neutral territory, and was nowhere her father or brother would think to look. It was also close enough to the Royal Skydock, High Skydock and the commercial Skydock known as The Southface for an escape, if it came to such.

  It had taken almost two hours before Roshana had arrived with a nondescript man in warrior-caste clothing whom Mari took to be another assassin, a pensive Bensaharēn at her side. Nazarafine had been accompanied by her nephew, Navid. The man had prowled into the hotel, soft-footed, head low, shoulders inclined. Ready to fight the world at the slightest provocation. From what she had seen of the warrior-poets of the Saidani-sûk today, unfounded arrogance was one of the four blades they were taught to use. The arrival of Ajo and Yago, as well as Kembe of the Tau-se and his lithe bodyguard, Ibamu, had been a welcome relief. Neva had arrived sometime later, windswept from her gryphon-back reconnoitre of Avānweh’s skies.

  Mari had told those assembled what had transpired in as unemotional language as she could. It was Roshana’s casual indifference that had given rise to Mari’s temper. Now everybody sat in the uncomfortable aftermath of truth.

  “Are you quite done?” Roshana asked, sounding bored, eyes flicking over the list of names Corajidin had penned. The soldier-turned-rahn waved the parchment in the air. “And you agreed to bring me this? Fah! I’ll not have the appointment of a new rahn held to ransom.

  “There was a chance to end your father’s tyranny before it plunged us into war. The Iron League nations will take the time to build their forces, unless we do something to allay their fears. It was a calculated risk and I took it. It failed. Now we need to decide how to proceed.”

  “You’re wrong,” Shar’s breathy voice carried in the stillness. “So terribly wrong. If Corajidin has Indris, you may as well have wielded the blade that killed him yourself.”

  “Are none of you listening?” Roshana sounded incredulous. She pointed out the window to a salt-and-pepper clouded sky. “The Iron League will come. Their Ambassadors have said as much. We already suspect the Humans of attacking us. The murders in the streets, the abductions. This is all in response to Corajidin being confirmed as our new Asrahn. If we don’t do something we’ll be at war within two years, three at most. Shrīan can’t stand against the combined might of Manté, Angoth, Atrea, Imre, and Jiom. The Neutral Nations are unlikely to help or hinder, and Pashrea will doubtless remain silent as it has done for centuries.”

  “What about Kaasgard?” Ajo asked. Neva looked at her father in surprise. “It has been centuries since we have dealt with them, yet they were Avān before their exodus after the Insurrection.”

  “Kaasgard?” Benshaharēn shook his head. “Most of those who fled there were of the orjini. The ice and frigid seas have turned their blood cold. They took giants and other, less wholesome things to their beds to breed a race we would hardly recognise anymore. Better to negotiate with the winter, for both would do as they would regardless of our needs.”

  “Nobody is coming to help us,” Roshana said. “We need to get our own house in order.”

  “So you thought possibly starting a civil war, so close on the heels of Amnon, was the best way of doing it?” Ajo asked, aghast. “You tried to assassinate Corajidin! He was under a peace pact, agreed by all parties. Did you care about the lives in the balance, or the outcomes of what you’ve done?”

  “It was a foolish act, Rahn-Roshana,” Bensaharēn added disapprovingly. “And one that dishonoured you and the Great House of Näsarat.”

  “I question whether your motives are as selfless as you say, Roshana.” Ziaire paced the room, slapping her steel-vaned fan against the palm of her hand. She came to stand with her back to the window, haloed by the afternoon. “Your Jahirojin, signed and sealed by the power in your own blood, sets your feet in motion where common sense m
ight otherwise say be still.”

  “He’s an Erebus,” Roshana said flatly. “I’m a Näsarat.”

  There it was. Six words that had seen tears and bloodshed in frightful measure over the generations. Mari held back a groan of frustration. The Iron League monarchs, without the living memory granted them by Awakening, let feuds rest where they would. What happened two generations ago was history. Two centuries ago was a curiosity. Five generations ago things became legend, and after a thousand years legends turned to myths. The Human hatred of the Avān was less a thing of legend than it was an ongoing friction between two peoples who refused to relent.

  For the rahns it was not so easy. What happened a millennium ago was as fresh as if it had happened yesterday. Festering wounds stayed open, bleeding down the long count of years. An Awakened rahn in control of their power could influence the weather in their lands. Assure a good crop. Set an example of peace, of love, humility, morality, and ethics that trickled through to everybody who dwelled there. On the reverse side, such power could be used to inspire hate, prejudice, paranoia, and aggression when a rahn was weak of character, or bent on destruction.

  Whereas some simply drifted, unwilling to be the agents of much-needed change. The reluctant Nazarafine, so loathe to hold the Shrīan’s tiller, was quiet. The woman wrung her wrinkled, fleshy hands together as if she were cold. A tray of sweets lay untouched beside her. The steam from her tea had stopped coiling. She looked her age; skin loose, hair thin and lustreless.

  “This is my fault, is it not?” Nazarafine asked of nobody in particular. She looked up, a haunted look in her eyes. “We provoked Corajidin and made bad moves in a game he plays better than we. I assumed a victory in the election and have doomed us all with my complacency.”

  “Including Indris,” Shar muttered. The Seethe woman’s eyes burned a bright orange in her sharp face, the silken quills of what passed for her dawn-toned hair hanging loose about her shoulders. She switched her gaze between the rahns. “He is missing because he was trying to help you.”