Corajidin was the key. The man’s reckless ambition was one of the greatest threats Shrīan had ever seen. Yet for all his faults, Corajidin the statesman had rallied a disjoined nation behind his cause, false as it may have been. His falsehood about the Mantéans’ attack on Avānweh during the New Year’s Festivals, of their purported summoning of elemental daemons, and the presence of Human witches recently escaped from the Mahsojhin, had been a masterful stroke. The Teshri had almost begged Corajidin to take action, using Kasraman, Belamandris, the Exiles, and their witch allies to put down the threat they had themselves started. Indris knew from experience that the easiest war to end was the one you started. He had toppled thrones and put crowns on brows the same way, treating nations, their rulers, and their people like pieces on a tanj board until his disillusionment with the Sēq and their agendas.
Those were the days when he had thought in terms of the thousands, or the tens of thousands. Anj helped teach me that … Indris chewed his lip, taking in each of his friends in turn: Brave, noble, and honorable, they were the reason to keep fighting, for they were the ones who cared about the individuals who comprised the tens of thousands, the nations. Now he knew the parts were greater than the sum of the whole.
One of those who had suffered more than her share was the Rahn-Selassin, a brave young woman who, unlike the rahns, had not been ready for any of what happened to her.
“Mari? Would you take me to see Vahineh? Let’s see whether I was successful in Severing her or not.”
And whether what I’ve done for her could be used to save Rosha’s, Siamak’s, and Nazarafine’s lives.
Vahineh had been moved to comfortable quarters near Mari, and was under the constant eye of the Immortal Companions.
Indris stepped lightly in Vahineh’s mind, following the char where her Awakening had burned her at her core. Deep soul wounds cascaded down the ternary stack, taking parts of the mind and the body with them. Indris saw not only with the ahmsah, but with his continually growing psé talents also. Looking in both spectra gave Indris a wider, more complete view: He could see the ebb and flow of her soul, hear her thoughts, scrutinize the cindered paths to see what was lost. He compared them to his own mind where the serpentine coils of his Awakening remained, though he had thought them withered after he had denied Ariskander.
There were parts of Vahineh’s mind that were irrevocably gone. Even the Sēq Differential Baths could not repair such wounds. Some of her memories, passions, likes and dislikes had been destroyed. But her soul and mind had found paths around the damage, influencing the way energy and vital fluids made their way through Vahineh’s brain. She would never be as she was, but the young woman would live, and be different, and perhaps be better off as she grew stronger and found new roads to follow. Even her physical wounds had mostly healed, leaving the rahn with nothing but a faint gray mottling on the cheek and jaw on her right side.
“She’s going to be fine,” Indris said. Mari and Qesha-rē, the old Nilvedic surgeon, beamed with relief. “The Severance worked, and she’s free from any further damage. I think, given time and treatment, she will also lose the scarring on her face.”
“You can Sever the other rahns?” Qesha-rē asked.
“I think so, yes. But I need to find the secrets of Awakening before I go back. It’s a Shrīanese custom and not one I’m prepared to interfere with. Our Awakened rahns are key to our strength, and given the looming threat of the Iron League—”
“Thanks to my father,” Mari growled.
“Made immediate by Corajidin’s plans, yes, the rahns will take any advantage they can get to defend the nation. The Sēq have Severed other rahns before; it’s whether we can re-Awaken them that’s the question. At least I know where to look, to see whether we can tailor Awakening around the damage that Severance brings. That’s the tricky part, to see whether it can be done again to the same person.”
Vahineh grabbed Indris’s hand. “Thank you, for everything. There are things I don’t remember, and some memories are like mist. But you’ve given me the chance to take my vengeance on Corajidin for what he did to my family. Perhaps I can let go, and rest.”
Mari patted Vahineh’s shoulder gingerly, sadness on her face, and gestured that she and Indris should leave Vahineh in Qesha-rē’s care.
Indris sensed Mari’s discomfort, unrelated to Vahineh’s cool words of revenge, and something that had come through their fevered, desperate passion this morning. He had thought it simply the symptom of time, and stress, yet Mari almost thrummed with anxiety. The two of them continued in a companionable silence until they came to the stairs heading into the Hearthall, where the din of the fortress would drown out a softly spoken conversation. Indris took Mari by the hand, and led her to the cool shadows between sea-toned columns.
“What’s wrong?” Indris asked.
“Hmmm?”
“You’ve been nervous all morning.”
“Vahineh is going to—”
“No. Something was bothering you before that. Talk.”
Mari raked her fingers through her hair, tugging lightly on the ends, as she looked Indris in the eye. He waited for her to speak. When she did, the words came out in a rush. “What’s a Feigning?”
“Where did you hear that term?” Indris kept his voice calm despite the surge of rage and dismay.
“The Emissary mentioned.” Mari was not fooled by his attempt at composure. “What is it, Indris? What was she going to do to me?”
Indris led Mari through the Hearthall, where he took a jar of wine and two deep bowls. They walked to one of the smaller dining rooms that looked out over the town below. The mist had lifted somewhat, though snow fell listlessly, adding to growing drifts of trampled slush in the narrow streets. Plumes of black rose into the air only to be shredded by the wind. Boats rocked on the rough water, and the seabirds had taken shelter from the weather. Indris poured Mari a bowl of wine, then filled the second one for when he told her what needed to be said.
“Mari, the Feigning is an old term that hasn’t been used in centuries. Certainly not since the Golden Age of the Awakened Empire, when the Mahj and the Sēq were far more influential, and we enjoyed what many perceive as the high watermark of Avān culture.
“The term came about because the scholars, and the members of the upper-castes, saw themselves as the inheritors of Īa. They sought to mimic the natural order, and improve on it using Torque Spindles. Some of the rahns even tried making their own children and heirs through Feigning, seeking to make the most powerful descendants they could. In short, a race of superbeings, but raised and trained by people as flawed as everybody else. Your Ancestors made the Iphyri during these times … as well as some other creations that weren’t so successful.
“History tells us those were amoral times, when the Avān sought to surpass all those who’d come before. Thankfully it was internal conflict that saw the decline of the Golden Age, and a restoration of more practical arcane science.”
Mari lifted the wine to her lips, finishing the bowl in a single draft. She reached for the second bowl, and took a swallow as Indris refilled the first. Mari put the bowl down and laid her hands flat on the table. She kept pressing with more and more pressure until the tremors stopped. Without looking at Indris she asked, “And what happened to the people who were put in the Torque Spindles?”
“It depends,” Indris replied cautiously. But Mari now, as ever, deserved the truth. “We thought those days behind us, the scholars involved punished most seriously. Progenitors in a Feigning mostly die, totally consumed by the process of making something else. Others lived for a short while, particularly if they were dismantled over time to make many new beings. Others, where their Feigning was used to create a small number of offspring, lived quite normally.”
“But that wouldn’t have been me?”
“Probably not.”
“I would’ve died to make an army of what … an army of me?”
“Think about it.” Indris rested his
hands on hers, but she dragged them away to clutch the wine bowl again. “Could you imagine facing an army of soldiers that were even half as good as you? Imagine your skills and perceptions, your reflexes and training and intuition, merged with a predatory beast? Or another soldier who excelled in different areas? It would be a force to be reckoned with, and once that came instantly into existence rather than taking a lifetime to raise and train.”
“But I would’ve died,” she whispered.
“Yes. And the world, particularly my world, made desolate for it.”
Mari downed a second bowl of wine, then threw the bowl at the window. Glass smashed and cold air dusted with snow gusted in. For some time Mari cursed her family, their history, their present, their future, and all their ambitions.
Indris handed her a filled bowl. “Mari, I don’t want there to be secrets between us.” She nodded, expression guarded. He took her hands in his and she frowned, clearly apprehensive. “When Femensetri took me to help the Sēq, they’d pretty much emptied the Amer-Mahjin of every scholar who could hold their own in a fight … and a few who couldn’t. We were marshalled around the Mahsojhin, the first wave of Masters and knights already engaged. There were fewer of us than there should’ve been, but it wouldn’t have mattered how many of us there were; she would’ve found me.”
“Femensetri?”
“No.” Indris took a deep breath. “Anj.”
Mari slowly took her hands away. She looked at him from under lowered brows, her face and voice dangerously bland.
“Tell me everything.”
Mari neither interrupted nor complained. She listened to all that Indris had to say, then leaned forward to kiss him when he was done.
“We’ve been through a lot this year, you and I,” she said. “Parts of us have been born, and parts of us have died. I trust us, Indris. More importantly, I trust me, with you. If Anj is something else we need to deal with, then we’ll deal with her together.”
Mari walked to the door, where she paused. She did not turn around when she spoke. “But if you decide to go back to her, don’t make me wait. I can’t take what you mean to me lightly, and I won’t share you.
“I love you, Indris. I’ve loved you for longer than I wanted to admit, and the words can’t be unsaid now. But the world won’t wait on my say-so. I’ve started something here that needs finishing. I’ve left my work to others while you recovered, but now it’s time for me to find my grandmother and put an end to her. Jhem, Nadir, and the Emissary, too, if I happen across them. If you want to come with me, armor up. It’s likely to be dangerous, and I’d hate for that pretty skin of yours to get damaged.”
Mari left him at the table, the door open behind her in invitation to follow.
I love you, too.
Before Avānweh it had been seven years since he had seen Anj, the last two of which he had thought she was dead. There was no going back, no breathing life into the cold coals of his marriage, not when his heart burned for another. But Indris knew Anj, and knew that Anj—or whatever Anj had become—would never see it that way.
Indris rose and made his way to Mari’s room, where his armor and other kit were stored. After all this time apart it would not do to keep the woman he loved waiting any longer.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“If not now, then when?”
—High Palatine Navaar of Oragon in his address to the Ygranian Parliament on racial harmony (494th Year of the Shrīanese Federation)
Day 61 of the 496th Year of the Shrīanese Federation
I love you. Mari had said the words now.
Indris’s revelation about Anj made things more complicated. Did she feel entirely comfortable knowing that Anj was alive? No. The Seethe woman had been a significant part of Indris’s life since they were children. They had been raised together by the Sēq, trained to wield powers Mari could barely comprehend. But their life journeys had taken them to different places, and on those journeys they had become very different people. The past is done. It is my turn now.
Mari laughed, then covered her mouth with her hand. I love you. It was not the first time she had fallen for someone. But it was the first time she had found a partner she thought she could grow with, to learn from, to teach, to share a life as equals. She made good time to her room, resisting the temptation to turn, to see if Indris followed. Their weapons still lay together on the table, the serpentine, recurved shapes of an empire centuries in the grave, yet still the symbol of the greatest warriors the Avān had ever known. There were few other than warrior-poets and the Sēq who carried an amenesqa in the modern age, and most of those weapons—such as the Awakened Empire relics used by the Feyassin—were centuries old, yet strong and sharp as if they had been forged yesterday.
Taking up her weapons, Mari made a quick stop at the armory. Given precedence over the other soldiers by Leonetto, Morne’s lance-lean captain of infantry, Mari made a quick circuit of the armory and pieced together a leather gambeson, a scale hauberk that had seen better years, plated gauntlets, and a gladiator’s sleeve made of bronze-shod steel. She was unsurprised to find a relic from the Avān blood theatre in Tamerlan, where the old ways held true. Leonetto helped Mari on with her armor, checking her movement as he fastened the straps and laces. When she told him where she was headed, Leonetto ordered one of his harangued lieutenants to take charge of the armory.
“It’s a crap job,” Leonetto muttered. “Glad to be out of there before somebody draws blood.”
The two walked together to a small yard where a garden had tried to grow. Withered sticks for trees sprouted from the snow amid broken stone and tilted statues. Shar and Ekko, Morne and Kyril, and two squads of the Immortal Companions waited. Indris trotted from the doors behind her, armed and armored. He had a grin on his face, his attempts to remove it making him look boyish.
One of the mine supervisors joined them moments later, bowing his head so often Mari wondered whether it might fall off. The man had agreed to show them the tunnels beneath Tamerlan that led between the caverns below the fortress, to the mines, as well as those tunnels used as boltholes.
“What do you mine?” Morne asked as they headed out, his nahdi removing the hoods from ilhen torches. The supervisor unlocked a gate, and led them through as it opened on popping hinges. Pale radiance slid across the crudely fashioned, shadow-pocked stone.
“Black rock salt,” the man said in his gravelly voice, rubbing a dirty hand over his bald pate. Indris muttered under his breath. “Some iron. There’s silver in a mine further south. Even a witchfire vein, though that’s almost played out…” His voice trailed off uncertainly and he looked around, expression fearful.
“The Dowager-Asrahn can’t hurt you anymore,” Mari said kindly. “Her commands no longer have meaning here.”
“Begging your pardon—and don’t get me wrong, as we’s all thankful as can be you done what you done—but until I see the Sayf-Savajiin’s head on a stick, I’m gonna fear she’ll be back.”
The supervisor led them deeper beneath Tamlerlan. Though the fortress itself was black as a traitor’s heart on the outside, it was clear where the stone for the interior had been mined. They passed through massive chambers of blue and green stone where the walls were still scored. It was unpolished but doubtless the same material that formed the fused walls of the fortress above. Water thundered in the distance. On their way through damp and twisted corridors, often where Ekko and Morne had to stoop to pass through, the supervisor regaled them with stories of sea monsters that took shelter in the caverns, sometimes preying on mining crews who were never seen again.
There were places on their journey where Indris was visibly strained, the stone streaked with veins of the black rock salt. It was in one such place, a huge cyst beneath the mountain, that the supervisor stopped. There were a number of corridors leading away, the sounds of picks and hammers echoing from them. Faint light flickered from those tunnels, while there was one that was conspicuously dark.
“Let me gues
s…,” Shar murmured. Morne and Leonetto smiled, while Kyril snorted a laugh.
Indris smiled at the supervisor. “Thank you but we can find our way back, and I believe you’re right—this really isn’t a place you want to be.” The supervisor needed no other motivation. He bowed hastily, then headed back the way they had come.
“What’s this?” Shar looked anxious. “Why is this familiar to me?”
“Sorochel,” Indris muttered. “It feels like the slave pits of Sorochel. We’re in parts of the caverns that were bored long before the Avān were brought into existence, or the Humans fell from the stars.”
“And I assume you’re going to suggest we go yonder?” Kyril nodded toward the one dark tunnel. Indris looked over and smiled for his answer.
Mari and Indris led the way, weapons drawn. Indris held his Scholar’s Lantern before him. The long hexagonal head, similar to a spear blade, shone with cool radiance. The cavern was striated like muscle, bands of stone arched overhead as if they walked through the rib cage of a giant serpent. All the while Mari’s Sûnblade grew progressively warmer, so much so that at one point she looked down to see a line of brilliant light burning at its heart.
“Sûnblades were given to heroes for a reason, Mari.” Indris nodded to her weapon. “In the early days of the great Sûnsmiths, they were the only ones other than the Sēq who made weapons that could defeat daemons, Nomads, and other supernatural creatures. Such beings always gained their power in the nighttime hours, or under moonlight. So the Sûnsmiths made weapons that harnessed the power of the sun.”
The Pillars of Sand Page 22
