The Pillars of Sand

by Mark T. Barnes

  The harbor was raucous. If Mari could find Morne Hawkwood there, she may have a chance of escaping the frigid rock to which she had been abandoned.

  She strode toward the shale beach, set farther south than the piers, where ships huddled in the bay. As newcomers to Tamerlan, Morne and his crew would not have the influence to secure a place at a pier. The boats moored in the harbor were of different sizes and shapes but all had the scarred look of reavers.

  “Help you, miss?” a wind-burned merchant asked, keeping one eye on a barrel of a man in a stained apron. The two of them reeked of smoked and salted fish.

  “Pardon?” she asked. Hearing her voice, the merchant stood straighter and tried to bow his head at the same time. It would have been comical were it not for the crowd around them. She cursed herself for her manners and her accent. “I’m looking for a company of nahdi who’ve made camp in Tamerlan.”

  “Plenty of them about, miss!” The man smiled, showing gaps where his teeth were not the color of burned ivory. He scratched at his salt-cured cheek with a dirty nail. “Have a name, do you? Or a ship?”

  Mari pretended to give it some thought, chewing her lip for a second or two. “I’d heard that the company under Captain Hawkwood was hiring.” She looked down, scuffing her feet on the ground. “And I’d rather have a contract while they’re to be had, ahead of the winter, and out of here in the spring.”

  “I hear you. Reckon you’d be after The Seeker, at the far end of the bay.” He pointed a thick finger toward a two-masted corsair with neither figurehead, nor colors of any allegiance. “Last in, last served. They’ll have a rough time of it when winter falls and the weather gets rowdy. All the inns is double and triple booked and the Dowager-Asrahn ain’t known for letting mongrels she don’t know in her kennel.”

  “Better any safe harbor than no harbor at all,” the apron-wearing merchant said, his companion nodding in sage agreement. “But Hawkwood’s crew mind their manners and pay for what they want, which is a nice change of pace from most of the stray dogs that descend on Tamerlan. There’s music playing late at night, and singing.”

  “And lights. Always keeping the lights on aboard The Seeker.”

  “Lights?” Mari smiled, her hearts racing a little faster.

  “All the day and all the long night,” the weathered merchant said.

  “Must have a lot of shadows to banish, that one,” the man in the apron added. “Fellow like him, hard as an anvil but nice spoken for all that.”

  “Can you get me out there?” Mari asked.

  “We’ve deliveries to make. If you’re all right with perching among the cargo, we can take you.”

  Once the merchants had loaded their cargo, Mari walked up the bowing plank and boarded the felucca, making herself as comfortable as she could among the cargo. The merchants took up a deep-voiced dirge of the sea, of sunken ships, faraway lands, and lost loves, their voices accompanied by the hum of the wind through the ropes and the snap of the sails. From ship to ship they went until eventually they drew closer to The Seeker. The closer they got the more excited Mari became.

  Mari heard the metallic twang of a sonesette, and tears came unbidden to her eyes. Shar! And where there was Shar, there was Indris. She clasped her hands together, face flushed, feeling like a teenage girl and laughing at herself for the butterflies in her stomach.

  As the felucca came alongside The Seeker, Mari came to stand by the gunwale. It felt like an eternity for the rope ladder to be lowered from The Seeker. Mari leaped from the felucca and scrambled up the ladder and over the rail, to be met by the cold and wary eyes of The Seekers’ armored crew. It was then that Mari heard the words to Shar’s song and noted the deep, angry sound of it. Many of the crew stamped their feet on the deck like scores of leather-soled drums.

  Falling like a frozen stone

  Sundered flesh and broken bone

  Lives are lost, we’re all alone

  Now the laughs and light are gone

  So

  When passion burns and mercy’s stilled

  With vengeance high and sinners killed

  By bitter hate our hearts be filled

  We rend and end by iron will

  When strength and love are not enough

  Draw your steel and make the cut

  Take your cup and hold it up

  Taste their tears and never stop

  Heads held high

  We will never stop

  The angry strumming of the sonesette continued as one of the men Mari recognized from the Hearthall of Tamerlan approached. Close up he was shorter than she imagined, stockier, with fine hair swept back from a high brow. His eyes were a vivid hazel against his tanned skin, his face scored here and there with old scars and wrinkles.

  “I’m Pah-Erebus—”

  “We know who you are, Pah-Mariam,” the man said as he peered toward shore. He grabbed her elbow and escorted her through the wall of the crew. “We’re here for you, and I take it you’ve not much time before your absence is discovered, so let’s be quick about it.” He gave quiet orders to those around him to recall the crew who were ashore, and to make ready to leave Tamerlan. “I’m hoping you weren’t followed. We risk much by leaving unannounced, so close to the south becoming closed with the season.”

  “I heard Morne’s invitation.” Mari shrugged his hand off and stood her ground. “But I can’t leave now.”

  “Then why risk us all by coming here?” the warrior snapped.

  “That’s enough, Kyril,” Morne Hawkwood said as he approached. Unlike Kyril, Morne was even taller than Mari remembered, almost as tall as Ekko, carrying the weight of his leather hauberk easily. His basket-hilted knife hung within his easy reach. He wrapped an arm around Kyril’s shoulders and kissed him. “I said the words, love, and Mariam answered. What did you expect?”

  “We need to get gone, while the getting is good. If we’re caught with her here, this could be the end of us.”

  “How?” Morne looked perplexed. He ran his fingers through Kyril’s hair playfully, bringing a smile to the man’s face. “You’d never let me die. Besides, we’ve faced more, and worse, than the yapping mongrels who’ve slunk here for the winter. We’ll slip out on the evening tide, Mari hidden away and us long gone before anybody’s the wiser.”

  “You don’t understand. It’s not just me going with you,” Mari said. “The Rahn-Selassin fe Vahineh is also being held captive and I’ve sworn to help her escape, as well as her surgeon. I’m trying to plan how I can get us all out of the fortress, but wanted to speak with you myself first. I don’t have much time, and I don’t want to put anybody at further risk, but I have exhausted all my other options. I fear that if I don’t get away from here soon, I’ll not get away from here at all. My grandmother’s taken something of a colossal dislike to me, and there are plans made for me that I dearly want to avoid.”

  “Can’t imagine how you’d annoy anybody,” came a breathy voice. Mari spun, and found herself in the circle of Shar’s arms. The Seethe woman’s orange eyes were bright with unshed tears, and the feathers braided into her fine quills fluttered in the wind. Behind her, Ekko loomed, a furred mountain, his eyes narrowed with joy. Shar hugged Mari close. “I never thought I’d see you again!”

  “Nor I you!” She kissed Shar, hugged Ekko, then looked for the man she wanted above all others. Moments turned long and remained empty, until Mari faced Shar and Ekko, bewildered. “Where’s Indris? I thought he’d be here.”

  Shar’s face fell and tears made her eyes shine a brighter orange. Mari felt her own face tingle as the blood rushed there. Her breath caught. Shar tried to speak. The words were trapped in her throat. When they came, it was amid a strangled sob.

  “Oh, Mari! You didn’t know? I’m so sorry, but … Indris is—”

  Don’t say the word don’t say the word don’t say the word don’t say the word. The roaring in her ears grew so loud that she did not hear what Shar said.

  She saw her friend’s lips form th
e word anyway.

  Dead.

  Mari trudged up the mountain stair, back the way she had come, numb to the wind and the cold. Shar and Ekko were alive and a ship waited in the bay, ready to whisk her away to somewhere safe. Soon, Mari could start the rest of her life, but there was business to be concluded here first.

  “So many died, Mari,” Shar had said of the events at Avānweh. The pain of the reopened wound made her voice brittle. “Indris was taken by Femensetri to the battle and he never … he never came back. Then all the Sēq left and there was nobody to get any answers from, or to even make sure Indris was planted, like a mourner’s rose in a field of ashes.”

  “And then Asrahn-Corajidin was crowned and the trouble started in earnest,” Morne had added. “We heard about the strife in Amnon while we were defending the Conflicted Cities. The Catechism of Manté see Corajidin’s Assession as a sign they should redouble their efforts to destroy the Avān. So I decided to pick up and bring the Immortal Companions to Narsis, hoping to take service with Rahn-Roshana in opposition to your father. That didn’t work out very well. So when Shar and Ekko arrived, traveling with them was the logical choice. I left most of our strength in Narsis, and brought with us what we’d need.”

  “And with Indris gone,” Shar had said, “we decided to do the one thing we know he would’ve wanted us to do. To find you.”

  What Indris would have wanted. Indris would tear this dung pile apart, stone by stone. It seemed like as good an idea as any. Mari looked up at the ancient fortress, its black stone clawing jaggedly at the sky. It’s past time I left.

  But only once she had made an end of those who ruled it.

  Shoulders square, lips set in a mockery of a smile, Mari headed willingly to the darkness of Tamerlan.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “A character strong enough to rule is not forged in peace, quiet, or an easy life. It is only though the rigors of experience, of suffering, of making decisions, and of accepting the consequences of action, and inaction, that one who would wear a crown is tempered.”

  —from The Intransigent Winter of Monarchy, by King Voethe of Angoth, thirteenth year of his reign (493rd Year of the Shrīanese Federation)

  Day 59 of the 496th Year of the Shrīanese Federation

  “How can we trust something we cannot understand?” Corajidin pointed to where Kimiya sat, strapped to a wheeled chair at neck, torso, and limbs, morning sun limning her as it streamed through the conservatory windows. When they had moved her from Kasraman’s laboratory earlier that morning, Kimiya had broken free and killed four of the Anlūki before Wolfram, Elonie, and Ikedion had managed to subdue her with witchcraft. All the while, the thing that Kimiya had become, spattered with gore, had laughed. Corajidin shook his head. “Kimiya is gone. All that remains is the marsh-puppeteer!”

  “You need to do something, Corajidin.” The Emissary lurked at the other side of the room. “Time marches you know, and the malegangers offer you a unique solution. Kimiya, and those we make like her, can be the instruments for your will.”

  “Instruments for your objectives?”

  “Our objectives. And what of it? A debt paid is a debt paid.”

  “Isn’t she a pretty, mad, little murdering thing?” Nix said, eye twitching as he crouched on his chair, a slender knife spinning between his fingers. “Can you imagine the carnage she’d cause? A Soul Trader could have given us malign souls to use, but the ones I’ve met are cracked as old cups, and I’d not trust them. But this little beauty? Oh, yes…”

  “You’ve really no idea,” the Emissary replied.

  “With malegangers we’d still have an Ajamensût.” Kasraman ran his fingers across Kimiya’s matted hair. She looked up at him, expression wild and not far from insane. “It would be a War of the Long-Knife without the need to buy assassins, or nahdi, or risk the lives of our own people.”

  “It’s not right,” Belamandris said. Corajidin glanced at his golden son. Belam had returned to Erebesq last night with Sanojé, but without an explanation of where he had been. Belamandris’s disgust was apparent on his face. “It’s worse than the abductions.”

  Nix bounced in his chair enthusiastically. “Imagine one of these let loose in every Federationist Great House or suspect Family. Ancestors’ names, we could unleash a maleganger against any enemy! They’re perfect for our needs and they’d justify the arrests my ban-kherife have been making. We could actually make traitors out of the traitors we’ve made.”

  “Not to mention what damage we could do if we unleashed the puppeteers against the ambassadors,” Mēdēya added. “Provided the puppeteers take instruction, they could well pave the road we’ve been trying to make all year.”

  “Puppeteers? The pullers of string. Such a little name for something so old,” Kimiya rasped. Rivulets of drool shone on her cracked lips. “For we who have seen empires rise and fall and remember the mad symphonies of our sleeping makers. You’re vain things, lusting after hats and chairs of gold. Your belief that we could be used for anything other than our own purposes is the height of arrogance.”

  “You hear this? To what end would we even want to use such a creature?” Belamandris asked. “It’d be pure carnage, with innocents harmed in the process. What example are we setting if we can’t follow sende ourselves? Did you buy Shrīan just to dismantle it, Father?” He stared at Kimiya, hand lingering on Tragedy’s hilt. “It’s a monster, and we should put it down.”

  “My Asrahn,” Wolfram said as he leaned on his broken staff. The leather and old steel of his calipers protested. “Perhaps Belamandris is correct. We should reconsider such rash action.”

  “You see!” Belamandris gestured at Wolfram. “Rash. Action.”

  “Belam, please!” Kasraman said. Kimiya giggled, thrashing against her bonds, veins protruding from her neck, face red and eyes rolling. “We need to unite the country, one way or the other. This is the fastest way. The Golden Kingdom of Manté, and the rest of the Iron League—”

  “And the Sky Lord suspects we engineered that, too,” Sanojé added.

  Corajidin raised his hands for peace. “Can we please focus on—”

  “We lied to the nation about Manté!” Belamandris snapped. “The Humans and their Iron League were never attacking Avānweh. Are our memories so short, that we believe our own falsehoods now?”

  “My liches are hidden away against reprisals, after all they did to help secure the city,” Sanojé said. “You’ve sharpened hatreds against Humans and Nomads—”

  “All the better to unify and make war on Pashrea, then the Iron League,” Kasraman said.

  “But not the best way.” Belamandris shared a glance with Sanojé, who was chewing her finger in uncertainty. “Not the best by far. What have we become? Your regicide I understood … to a degree. Even buying the crown was something I could accept because I believed, then, that you had a compass that would guide us. But this? And releasing the witches? Raising Yashamin from the dead? Where does it end, Father? Erebus himself must be spitting on us from the Well of Souls.”

  “You dare say these things to me?” Corajidin thundered. He took Mēdēya under his arm. He felt the rage rise in him so mightily that words failed.

  “Brother, the Erebus have been given the chance to rise once more,” Kasraman said as Corajidin choked on his anger. The others all looked to Kasraman where he stood behind Kimiya. He rested both his hands on her shoulders, clearly unafraid. Tall, handsome, a hero of Avānweh and the heir to one of the Great Houses, his pale eyes blazed in the light. Corajidin wanted to spit the sourness from his mouth as the others hung on Kasraman’s words. “We’ve been given this opportunity. History will remind future generations that it was we who forged Shrīan in a new, vital image. That it was we who made the Avān great again!”

  “Enough!” Corajidin felt a painful twinge at his temple. His fingers trembled and he clenched them against the faint tingling there. What was it the Emissary had said? Abdicate and let Kasraman, wise and gifted and powerful Ka
sraman, do what it’s clear you can’t. “You have all said much more than enough. Mine is the voice that will be heard.”

  “And what would you have us hear, Corajidin?” the Emissary asked into the silence.

  A good question that deserves a better answer than the one I do not have.

  Corajidin summoned a smile and walked to the sideboard. He slowly, methodically, poured the water and whisked a bowl of green lotus tea. It was a calming ritual and one that would give him time to reflect, without appearing weak.

  Since the beginning of the year, his plans to abduct and hold for ransom influential members of Avān society had netted few quantifiable results. True, it served as a lever to enforce unity among those who might oppose him, but the longer his prisoners were kept, the more likely those he tried to influence would act of their own accord. His guests were being treated with kindness and compassion, in a closely guarded villa in the mountains above Nix’s ancestral seat of Maladhi. But they could not be held there forever. Mariam’s plight at Tamerlan would be nothing compared to what his guests would face should they be exposed to marsh-puppeteers.

  As Kasraman had explained it, the vile creatures would throttle their victims to near the point of death, affixing themselves to their victim’s backs, merging with them until little more than ridges of scar tissue spoke of their presence. Knowing everything the victim knew yet fueled with the puppeteer’s malevolence, the creature would seek to sow discord wherever it went. Kasraman was correct: They were a brilliant weapon. A killing machine none would expect. Each one made at the cost of a person’s life.