The Pillars of Sand

by Mark T. Barnes

  Ariskander’s words echoed in his head. It is what your mother sent you to us for.

  “Sent?” Indris muttered. “But sent from where?”

  “You are asking only part of the question.”

  Indris spun at the sound of the many-layered voice, his hand reaching for a weapon that was not there. Standing close by was the Herald in his cloak like folded wings. His head was tilted to one side, the mirror mask shining with warped reflections.

  “Who are you?” Indris asked as he backed away.

  “They call me the Herald.”

  “That wasn’t what I asked.”

  “But it is my answer, nonetheless. I mean you no harm, Amonindris.”

  Indris spoke carefully. “How do you know me?”

  “Because I’ve been waiting for you.”

  “How long have you been there?”

  The Herald paused for a long moment. “I have always been here.”

  Indris frowned, uncertain of whether he was being made sport of. He stepped away from the balcony toward the vault with his name on it. Extending his hand, he almost touched the serill door, but caught the quick movement of the Herald’s masked head.

  Why am I not on the Genealogy Tree? “Who am I?” Indris murmured.

  “That, too, is only part of the question.”

  Indris clenched his fists in frustration and his teeth around what was going to be his flippant response. The Herald does not say much, but when it talks, the Suret listens. Not a person to be on the wrong side of in a place where Indris already doubted how many friends he had. “Will you answer my questions, or won’t you?”

  The Herald turned both his palms up in a version of a shrug, or to show they were empty and there was nothing to be had from him. “All things happen in their time, Indris, and not before. What value is there in knowledge given, when wisdom comes from the knowledge learned? But you have learned things. Learned things earlier than you should have. Sooner than you, or others, was safe to know. With knowledge comes expectation, and with expectation comes action, and action must only come when it can provide—”

  “The most appropriate and beneficial reaction.” Indris nodded. “That’s from the sixth volume of The Prescripts.”

  The Herald clapped his thigh with a large hand. “There are few questions you can ask to which you do not already know the answers. As the number of possibilities diminishes, so, too, do the actions and reactions left to us. Sadly some things have been writ in stone, when it would be better they were writ in sand.”

  “Like who I am?”

  “In and of itself part of a question, the inertia of which remains to be seen. Yet such a derivative question, dependent as it is on when it is asked and under what circumstances. Rarely are we but one thing. There are also the more fascinating questions of what, when, or where you are. Or how and why.” The Herald’s voices echoed around the vaulted archive, becoming scores of voices laid one atop the other. “So few questions asked when there are really so many to ask. And in that many we find there are in fact few questions that have any material difference, dependent as they are on the limits of what a person can see in a single moment among millions.”

  “You’re a frustrating man, you know that?”

  “Both subjective terms, but ones I have heard on no few occasions.”

  Indris snorted as he looked around the trove of knowledge. “Femensetri told me none of the Sēq would help me. I don’t even know where to start.”

  “Of course you do,” the Herald replied. He was silent for a moment, as if considering his next words. “And I am not of the Sēq.”

  “Then you’ll help me?”

  “I will provide insight into some questions, yes.”

  Indris’s mouth gaped for a moment, ready to argue, before he understood that he had the answer he was after. He looked into the mirrored surface of the mask, his reflection altered from true as if seen from under running water. Because how I am depends on when I am, and where I am, and what I am doing, and when I am doing it … Questions going back to the one question he had never thought to ask because he had been given answers to it his entire life.

  “Though I’m here to learn what the Sēq know about me, I’ve also agreed to help find a cure for the rahns.”

  “Irrelevant.”

  “Not if the country is to be saved.”

  “Saved from what, for what, and for whom?” the Herald intoned darkly. “Have you not considered that the plight of the rahns—and their downfall—is part of a greater design?”

  “You’ll not help me understand Awakening?”

  “You have already been Awakened twice, which is twice more than I. What help could I be, where I have no experience?”

  “But you’ll help me learn more about myself?”

  “I am forbidden from talking on some subjects lest it begin a sequence of events for which the world is ill prepared. But I will not interfere when you discover facts for yourself.”

  Forbidden? “Very well.” Indris’s mind whirled. The Herald clearly served some force of which Indris was unaware, a force the Sēq either respected or feared. Which was in and of itself something to give him pause. “Why am I?”

  “You are to be both the cause and the effect of questions, promises, and actions from a time few still remember. You are, because we were promised a light to guide the way.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Which is the perfect place to start,” the Herald said. He then pointed to the serill-doored vault that had Indris’s name on it. “But I might suggest that this is better.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “Sende provides the social codes that structure our lives, but it is from our families that we learn context. When successive generations set the wrong example, we experience the turmoil of social disorder. This is often the beginning of the end for a bloodline as it turns its back on community and falls to the disarray of misguided ambition and misinformed self-interest.”

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

  Day 59 of the 496th Year of the Shrīanese Federation

  Mari stood tall in the freezing wind as her cousins made the Second Obeisance to the Dowager-Asrahn, their eyes fixed on the lichen growing between the wet marble tiles of the Sea Shrine. Mari and the old shark glared at each other across hillocks of bowed heads lightly dusted with snow. She dropped her gaze in guilt and shame. Her fists were clenched and cold, clipped nails digging into her palms, and the muscles in her hands and arms ached from the strain. Tears pooled at the corners of her eyes, easily explained by the biting wind, rather than as the wages of her obstinate pride.

  It was my task to keep Dhoury safe. But it’s my actions that have damned him. Mari flicked her glance left and right, and took in the deployment of the Savadai. It was possible she could move quickly enough to take one of their weapons, rescue Dhoury, and fight her way clear.

  And then what, Mari? You’d still be trapped on an island in the middle of the freezing sea, and they would find you eventually, and Dhoury’s life would still be forfeit. Learn from this. Absorb it. Make it part of you. A man will lose his life today because of you, and there’s no amount of training, bravery, or defiance that can change it for the better.

  Cold flurries stung Mari’s brow and cheeks. The open-air Sea Shrine vibrated with every outraged boom of the surf against the rocks. She breathed in deeply, nose crinkling at the odors of low tide and the teeming sea beyond the distant rock wall. Once the tide rose, the entire shrine, its pitted stairs, and the surrounding rock shelves would sink beneath the waves.

  Mari’s cousins were arrayed in order of the Dowager-Asrahn’s favor. Those who had succumbed to the Shark of Tamerlan’s will were seated toward the front, closer to the coral and barnacle–sheathed arches that rose like entwined octopus tentacles from the rippled surface of the tidal pool. A waxy-skinned Eladdin grasped at splendor in his polished scale armor, his face swollen and mottled wi
th bruising. Beside him, Nadir shivered, pale beneath his tan. He favored his recently wounded shoulder. The surgeon had done her job well, yet they were far from at their best. The cousins fanned out from their mistress’s back, with Mari at the edge of recognition. She listened as the crone prattled on about the cold embrace of the ocean, and the beneficent horrors it contained. Beside her stood the Emissary, her face hidden in the shadows of her hood, and Jhem, whose disfigurement could only be guessed at behind the scaled half-mask he now wore.

  Mari refused to give voice to the chanting rubbish the others gave themselves over to. When it came time to bow, Mari stood even taller. Her attitude caught the attention of the Emissary, who spent far too much time facing Mari for her comfort. Whatever your Feigning is, which nobody knows a damned thing about, rest assured you’ll do it without me.

  The tide splashed over the rock wall. From behind Mari there came the creak of leather and the wet slap of boots, as a squad of the Savadai dragged Dhoury, the fleshy man stripped naked, his body covered in welts and bruises.

  Mari moved to intercept the Savadai, when her grandmother’s voice cracked. “You’ll not interfere with this, girl!”

  “That’s Pah-Mariam to—”

  “I have had enough of your posturing,” the Dowager-Asrahn growled. “If you try to interfere in our sacred practices, I will have you whipped—”

  “No, you won’t,” Mari warned, rocking to the balls of her feet.

  “And beaten—”

  “No, you won’t,” the Emissary croaked in her rusted voice. “No whipping. No beating.” She faced Mari. “But that said, you’ll not interfere. We’ll have you removed if necessary, and confined until the Feigning. Is this what you want, Mariam, or would you retain the illusion of your freedom?”

  Mari steadied her breathing, ready to take action. She met Dhoury’s terrified gaze. He reached out for her, sobbing. Mari took a step forward and one of her cousins laid hands on her. Mari shrugged them off. Another rose and grabbed her shoulders and Mari hammered him into the cold ground with her fists. She relented only when the Savadai in the Dowager-Asrahn’s entourage leveled their tridents. Dhoury shrieked, a high-pitched keen filled with terror. The color drained from his face.

  The Savadai dragged the struggling Dhoury to the edge of the Sea Shrine. One of the soldiers peered into the water, thrusting down with the butt of his trident before walking down several stairs and a few meters out onto a submerged shelf. He crouched down, eyes fixed on the surface of the water, until he found what he was looking for. The soldier heaved on a set of manacles affixed to thick chains and covered in seaweed and tiny shards of coral. He dragged the manacles back toward his comrades, who hauled Dhoury out onto the shelf. With speed born of practice, mixed with what Mari suspected was a healthy dose of fear, the Savadai shackled their prisoner’s hands and feet, then dashed from the water.

  Rising to her feet, the Dowager-Asrahn tottered down the stairs and out onto the shelf toward Dhoury, water lapping around her skinny shins. Her ceremonial over-robe fanned about her, its ragged blue-gray skirts blending with the sea. She drew a short club from the folds of her over-robe, an ugly thing of driftwood set with scores of shark’s teeth. The flanged club rose and fell, scourging Dhoury’s skin until ribbons of flesh hung from his crouched body. Blood flowed, swirling in the brine as he mewled.

  “From the far east, across the Deep we came!” the Shark of Tamerlan shrieked into the easterly wind. “From the Deep we are nurtured and made strong. And to She Who Writhes in the Deep do we send this child of the Blood Royal, that she, too, may be nurtured, may remain strong, and may know our devotion to her.”

  Dhoury struggled to his feet, tugging on the chains as he screamed. The Dowager-Asrahn clubbed the man to his knees, her face lit with rapture. “For once show the strength of your bloodline! This is an honor for which you are not worthy, man-boy. But I give you grace nonetheless.”

  Dhoury tried to wrap his hands around the Dowager-Asrahn’s throat. The crone stepped back, club swinging. Dhoury fell, stunned and silent, while the Dowager-Asrahn walked back to her family with head held high. The woman caught Mari’s hateful stare and smiled as she returned to her place at the head of the gathering.

  “Observe and testify!” the Dowager-Asrahn cried. She glared at Mari, teeth bared in a vicious smile. She stared down those about her. “Think on this in case any of you seek Pah-Mariam’s company! The sea is always hungry.”

  They waited there as the waters rose, and the snow fell. Dhoury looked at Mari, eyes wide. She watched him tremble until he was blocked from sight where her cousins rose around the Dowager-Asrahn. They followed her as she made her way along the slick rock toward the stairs and safely from the quickly rising tide.

  At the top of the stairs, Mari turned when she heard Dhoury scream. The water had reached his throat.

  Mari swore, rooted to the spot. Thick, rubbery tentacles coiled out of the water. They undulated, causing small waves of their own. The wind carried the stench of the mottled appendages and Mari almost gagged. Dhoury’s head whipped from side to side as the tentacles flexed against his skin. Those on the shore maintained their silence while Dhoury howled around mouthfuls of frigid brine. He was dragged beneath the water but rose, gasping. The manacles snapped and the man was dragged farther out to sea. When he submerged the third time he did not surface again.

  Through it all Mari watched, blinking away her tears of frustration and rage. Is this why my father is what he is, raised by such a woman? Is this what generations of the Erebus are doomed to be?

  Never again.

  The morning dragged on, and those in the fortress made no mention of Dhoury, or the sacrifice at the Sea Shrine. It was a common enough event that people kept their heads down and their voices low, none wishing to be singled out for the honor the next time.

  Mari haunted the corridors listlessly, her guards in tow. Qesha-rē was not in the surgery, nor what passed for the library with its warped shelves and mold-dappled books. Dhoury’s death. The enmity of her family. The Emissary. The Feigning. Mari’s reasons for escaping grew, but there was also Vahineh to consider. Mari could not in conscience leave the woman here, not when it had been Mari’s fault that Vahineh’s father and brothers had been murdered by the Erebus. Or that Vahineh had been in Mari’s care when they were forced into the Dead Flat, then captured and imprisoned in Tamerlan.

  Flanked by six of the Savadai, Mari allowed herself to be taken back to her room. They all but shoved her inside, then slammed the door closed behind her. Bolts groaned in their rusted mountings. The sound of locks clicking shut was new. The footsteps of most of the guards vanished down the hall outside, but Mari guessed there were two, perhaps three, guards remaining stationed outside her door.

  With quiet haste, Mari crossed her room. Among the meager clothing that been given her was an old over-robe, several sizes too large, stained, and lined with patchy fur. It was musty, with spots of mold staining the leather. Definitely not the kind of thing Mari would be seen wearing in public—but it would prove useful in not being seen. She changed into her oldest and most decrepit clothing, and dragged the over-robe on over the top. To all intents and purposes a local nahdi, down on her luck. Such stories were not uncommon on Tamerlan, and Mari hoped that people would see what they expected to see, rather than who she really was.

  An icy east wind slammed into her face when she opened the mean little window, and it almost took her breath away. She gently slid two of the bars on her window out of place, their looseness the product of more than two score days of labor. Mari clambered onto the window ledge and swallowed at the vertigo that dizzied her. The ocean pounded into the cliffs more than one hundred meters below, jagged rocks like a mouth opening and closing in the swirling water.

  A long, narrow ledge joined Mari’s chambers with a disused balcony, built at once into Tamerlan and the mountainside. Part of the mountain had subsided, smashing walls and windows, and sheering away half the balcony. The ar
ea was overgrown with weeds and saplings, but there were the remains of a narrow stair that led down the mountain and into the village. It was one of several routes Mari had mapped out for her escape.

  On careful feet, hands gripping the deep cracks between the stones, Mari made her way cautiously across the ledge. The wind became her ally, sweeping in from the east and pressing her against the wall like a huge, cold hand. Tamerlan vibrated under her fingers and toes, and her breath came in short, sharp sobs as her mind constantly told her to look down look down look down and anticipate the long, lonely fall that was to come. Mari stopped, and stared fixedly at the dark stone face before her. She controlled her breathing, slowed the hammering of her hearts, and concentrated only on the grip-step-slide of her progress.

  Once both feet touched the wide safety of the ruined balcony, Mari dropped to a crouch and hugged her knees with relief, unsure whether to laugh or cry. So she did both.

  Mari made good time down the snow-slick stair to the town, obscured for the most part by jagged rocks and pines. The township knelt at Tamerlan’s feet, slick granite and slate salted with white. Steam and smoke rose into the air, the tattered banners of domesticity and industry, ripped to nothing by the wind. Mari heard the distant clamor of the black rock salt mines, the foundries, and the forges, in counterpoint to the heartrending cries of gulls that seemed to float in the air. That same air reeked of fish, and tar, and the rotting piers that were home to more ships of war than merchant or fishing ships.

  She turned at the sound of whips cracking. Overseers’ arms rose and fell where they flailed at another boatload of workers unloaded from the galleys. The prisoners were downtrodden and filthy, though a few wore a defiance that told Mari they were captured soldiers. The majority appeared to be of the trade-castes: merchants, farmers, and artisans, the kind of people most often sold into the ranks of the bound-caste until they could pay off their debts. Mari doubted most would survive Tamerlan long enough to procure their freedom. The townsfolk of Tamerlan kept themselves to themselves: They set about their tasks, eyes downcast as prisoners were hurried along toward the mines.