“I’ll not have you tell me what I can find out for myself,” Indris said. “I spent too many years with your voice in my ears, and all it got me was trouble. Ariskander needs to be released from this thing anyway.”
She began to speak, but Indris ignored her. He allowed his eyes to unfocus on the shattered-window surface of the mosaic floor. Radiance danced in each cut piece; it pooled around the casque, then trickled along the grooves between each tile. He opened himself to the weft and warp of the ahm, woven into the stones and mortar of the Lotus House. It came in fits and starts at first. Then the cracks between the tiles began to fill with viscous gray-blue light, so sluggish it seemed to take on mass the way no light should. He looked more deeply. Valleys and plateaus of quartz dipped in sharp canyons. It rose in flattened plains. Colors at different heights took on shape, became geometries, pathways, a map of thought, cause and effect for him to follow. The lotus flower floor folded upward in his mind. Became a faceted shield around his mind. His breath chimed against the walls. Sent ripples into the spirit world beyond.
The High Communion began.
Indris knelt there, his breath deep, even, eyes intent on the lick of shadow and light around him. Petal shapes, pale as ivory, seemed to float just beneath the surface. Motes of color swarmed in the floor, like the amber-and-onyx bees long believed to serve as the speakers for the dead. Theirs was the keeping of sacred trusts. Indris could feel their buzzing in his skull, though he could not understand what they tried to tell him. Their droning vibrated along his skeleton, pins and needles inside his body. His face felt flushed. Had he the choice, he would have waited until he was better rested, but Ariskander and Rosha deserved better.
The diamond in the casque chimed. Facets exploded outward as an amorphous, dappled shadow flickered back and forth. Indris stared down, watching as the shadow rose from the depths. As it drew closer, it flickered with a nimbus of sapphire light, the heat of which curled about Indris’s face. Perspiration beaded his forehead. It trickled down his nose. A single drop formed, perfect and round, before falling to the floor and striking the mosaic with the sound of a hundred bells in his ears. There was a disconnect, a stutter in his mind, then—
The escape from emptiness. Fear rose up in a sea to swamp him. Pain. Searing pain. A diamond nail through his brow that gathered…him. All of him. The casque brought darkness to the world. Corajidin’s rabid features. His snarl. The madness of obsession. The scent of mint over sour breath. His threats. Oh, dear Ancestors, I will be trapped forever in—knives sliced his skin. The witch’s questions questions questions. The qua—the Font of all life—so calm so cool so clear. Awakening! They want to know about the source of Awakening!—
Sunlight kissed his face. He could feel it in his hair. The wind on his skin. It carried with it the susurrus of the leaves where they told of all they knew, heard, saw. The pounding of the elk’s great heart as it bounded through ivy-wreathed ruins. The cool mountain air was beneath his wings as he looked down with his eagle’s eyes. The release from the embrace of the river, to arc in blinding light, gills open though he could not breathe until he felt water immerse him once more. Watching his flock, a huge hound at his feet, the warmth of grass where it grew between his toes. Beneath, in the slow, deliberate, peaceful darkness of the soil the seeds as they—
Power surged through him, a maelstrom that infused his limbs and ignited his mind. Names, places, facts, thoughts memories desires fears lessons plans places faces—
“No!” Indris configured his mind into a maze of faceted walls, crystalline mirrors that turned Ariskander’s thoughts into reflected fragments. “Ariskander! No! I’m not your heir! I’m not Nehrun!”
“You are my heir, Indris!” Ariskander’s disjointed face appeared in hundreds of facets. Eyes here. Lips there. His voice rippled through Indris’s mind. “Finally, a Scholar King to—”
“Ariskander, no!” Indris bolstered his defenses. “You’ve no idea what this will do.”
“We all agreed, Indris.” Ariskander’s was the voice of the wind through pine needles. “Vashne, Femensetri, Nazarafine…Far-ad-din. Years ago we decided you were the one. Since you were born, this was meant to be.”
“Without asking me! Don’t do this, I beg of you.”
“It is what your mother sent you to us for.”
“Sent me?” Indris looked at the whorling cloud of Ariskander’s spirit that coiled about his spiritual refuge. “What do you mean?”
“My sister was a vessel, one who willingly accepted her great burden. Your mother risked all when she sent you forward. Sedefke saw that one day the Scholar Kings would be needed—”
“It’s not in me to rule, Ariskander.” Indris wrapped his arms around his abdomen. A vision blossomed in his mind as Ariskander swamped Indris with his Awakened mind—a pregnant woman in a small house by the shores of the Faladin River. A cat sprawled on the small veranda, tail thumping the weathered wooden planks. Indris felt the baby kick inside him/her. Could feel his/her husband’s strong potter’s hands on his/her belly. Could hear the clear tenor of his voice as he sang to his wife and child. Encompassing awareness and the power of an Awakened rahn surged through him, a terrifying heat in his soul that trickled outward through his limbs. “Why would you risk everything to raise a mahjirahn to the throne?”
“Because Shrīan needs to be guided by compassion, wisdom, and strength. We need you if we are to survive. Once was a time when all rahns were scholars. A better, saner, more refined time. Corajidin was right, after his fashion. He was a student of Sedefke’s teachings, but he read them differently. We must return to our origins.”
“And become the target of the Iron League?”
“That will happen regardless. How long did you think Shrīan would stand, while others coveted her strength? Scholars must rule so the witches may not!”
Strength flowed into Indris as Ariskander poured his Awakening in. Profound, deep-rooted, eternal strength. Indris marveled at its purity, glimpsing in those moments the transformation every Awakened rahn underwent in this moment of unity. A sense of stillness pooled in his mind, the cool calm of the mountains where they watched yet another sunset. Indris gasped with the sensation. It was not pleasure; it transcended pleasure. Was it rapture, this thing coursing though him? Was this what true bliss felt like? Such power! He felt the breadth of Ariskander’s Awakening: the ability to influence the weather, to make crops plentiful, to see and hear and feel with the senses of any creature in his prefecture. To be infused with the solid strength of the earth or the solemn endurance of the mighty cypress trees overlooking the Marble Sea. To look back across the collected wisdom of all his Ancestors and dwell with them in living memory, events of a millennium ago as fresh as if they had happened today. To be at one with the dreaming consciousness of Īa.
When merged with what he could so as a scholar, he could end wars, feed the hungry, cure sickness! He could raise armies so vast no person would ever think to oppose him. He could make the pillars of Īa shake, and all would be terrified to break the peace he had wrought. He could know the secrets of the ages, buried deep in antiquity. He could raise the dead if need be, to fight for any cause he named. Nothing would be beyond him, all because he willed it so. The strength of the world could be his: a Scholar King, a mahjirahn with a power unseen for centuries.
And if an enemy threatened what he loved, then he could—
Indris smoothed his mind. The diamond facets of his shell flowed. Vertices disappeared. Color and shape blurred. All around him the structure of his mind groaned as edges disappeared. He sheltered his soul in a perfect sphere of pearlescent light upon which nothing could gain purchase.
“Indris!” Ariskander’s voice was softer now, a snowfall on glass. “Please, we need you to do this.”
“No,” Indris said with difficulty. “No. It’s too much. You need me out there, to do what I do, so no Scholar King ever needs to wield such power again.”
“Indris, you must!”
&
nbsp; “I’ve done everything you ever asked of me, but not this. Never this.”
Tears streamed down his face as the tendrils of Awakening withdrew from his soul. His newfound strength faded. The profundity of peace tumbled down the mountain of his psyche. The borrowed insight into his forebears slipped away, the roots of a newly planted tree dead before its time.
“Find your heir, Ariskander,” Indris murmured, exhausted. “Give your power to somebody with less talent for destruction than me.”
There was a sorrowful cry of farewell. The swirl of blue and gold around his pearl fortress, the powerful surge of phoenix wings, then all was quiet.
Exhausted, Indris allowed his barriers to drop. His sight returned to the world around him. Femensetri knelt before him, her hands on his shoulders to prop him up. Her magnificent opal eyes were bright in her timeless face.
Indris spared her a wry smile. He opened his mouth to speak, yet—
Indris opened his eyes. Femensetri sat some distance away, holding a supine Rosha in her arms. Somebody had laid him upon blankets in the sun, with a rolled-up over-robe for a pillow. He sat up with a groan, as much mental as physical. Changeling had been laid by his side. She had started to repair the damage she had suffered on their trip across the Rōmarq. Though she was mottled in places, she shone with a healthy light. She purred as Indris rested his hand on her hilt to sheathe her.
Ekko helped Indris to his feet. The other Tau-se silently knelt in rows nearby, their faces expressionless in the Tau-se way.
“How long was I…” Indris asked apprehensively.
“Minutes only.” Ekko’s eyes narrowed with pleasure. The giant golden-furred warrior fell into step beside him as Indris rose, walked to where Rosha lay. Indris had become accustomed to Ekko’s solid, laconic presence.
The Stormbringer raised her head as Indris approached. There was a combination of awe, fury, and pity in her gaze. Though there was no way Indris was a match for the Stormbringer in power, he was also past the days when he would let her cow him. Too much blood had flowed under the bridge, his blood, for them ever to go back to where they had once been, as master and pupil.
Femensetri gently lay Roshana down in the long, windswept grass. His cousin looked as if she slept. Her eyelids twitched with visions only she could see. A slight frown creased her brow.
“You’re a damned fool, Näsarat fa Amonindris.” Femensetri shook her head ruefully. “You could’ve solved so many problems, had you done what was asked of you.”
“How many other secrets do you keep from me, I wonder?” Indris’s shoulders slumped in fatigue. “You know as well as I do that I can be of more use in the wider world than perched on some throne.”
“Perhaps,” she admitted. She grinned suddenly, her face rendered beautiful. “Perhaps. Though I thought you’d forgone the days of public service?”
“Ariskander spoke of my mother,” he said abruptly.
“Oh?” she replied with a wary smile.
Indris chewed his lip as he scrutinized his former teacher. Femensetri’s expression remained fixed as she stared at her former pupil. The two of them remained frozen in tableau until Indris knelt by Rosha’s side to take her hand in his. Her skin was surprisingly hot, a dry fever. Memories of Awakening thrilled his fingertips, gone as rapidly as they had come. “I don’t need to serve the Teshri, or the Sēq Council of Masters, to serve either Shrīan or my people. Ariskander Awakened Rosha?”
“It appears so. She wasn’t prepared, yet she’s a keen mind and strength of spirit. Rosha’s the daughter of Scholar Kings and Scholar Queens. Īa is in her soul, as it is in the soul of all Näsarats. I’ve no doubt she’ll survive.”
“How long till she’s—”
“Stop talking about me,” Rosha complained. “I’m awake. But there’s so much to…understand.” Indris helped Rosha to sit. When she opened her eyes, they were dark, almost black, flecked with her usual light brown. There was a sense of age to them, a weight, an ancient and profound depth. “How did you ever say no?”
Indris coughed, then looked away from her penetrating gaze. He could have done so much good with the power Rosha now had. Only an ahmsah adept could fully understand the true potential of the energy provided by the qua, or harness the awesome power of being Awakened. Even so, the world was safer with scholars away from thrones. Every time a scholar monarch had used the extent of their power, it had ended in disaster. Mahj-Näsarat fa Amaranjin, the first Awakened Emperor, had sunk the center of Seethe civilization beneath the Marble Sea. Many Avān and Humans, as well as Seethe and members of the other Elemental Masters, had died for his greater good. Mahj-Näsarat fe Malde-ran, the last Awakened empress, had cursed a great number of her people to either an undead, or undying, existence, for which she had been reviled ever since as the Empress-in-Shadows. The scholars of the Great House of Näsarat had a checkered past when it came to wielding power.
“Will you be able to lead your people, Rahn-Roshana?” Indris asked with a smile.
Rosha’s eyebrows rose as she heard the honorific. She swatted Indris’s hands away as he tried to help her to her feet. Rosha swayed for a moment, her hands held out at her sides for balance. After a few moments, she appeared to gain possession of herself once more.
“Knight-Colonel Ekko?” she asked. “Are the Lion Guard ready to pledge their service to me?”
“They are, indeed, my rahn,” he said with fierce pride.
“Then let’s gather what numbers we have, shall we?” Indris heard overtones of Ariskander in the way she spoke. “We’ve a great deal of business to settle with the Great House of Erebus before the sun sets.”
“Indeed we have,” Indris said, his thoughts on his missing friend, Omen.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
“When I let go of those things which held me down, my pride, arrogance, vanity, sadness…only after falling so far was it I learned I could fly.”—Embarenten, swordmaster of High Arden, 369th Year of the Shrīanese Federation
Day 325 of the 495th Year of the Shrīanese Federation
Mari sprinted past tall pillars of marble and crystal on her way up the wide steps that wound around and through the great rock outcrop upon which the Tyr-Jahavān stood. She reached the top, made her way to the inner sanctum, where it appeared Nazarafine addressed the Teshri.
Those Feyassin assigned to protect the Teshri members, as well as a combination of Ekko’s Lion Guard and Kembe’s Tau-se warriors, stood alert on the perimeter. A score or so of Rosha’s Whitehorse were marshaled around the amphitheater. The rest had been used to secure the smaller stair Femensetri had revealed, which ran through the center of the Tyr-Jahavān and out under the city.
The Quorum Stones flared with frosted radiance where the faces of the sayfs of the Hundred Families hung in monochrome. Their images stuttered in the striated quartz. Femensetri’s Sēq had worked fast to get the message out to sympathetic ears. Even so, there were many faces Mari recognized as among her father’s allies.
Nazarafine stood in the center of the amphitheater, beside Femensetri. Rosha was perched on the edge of a bench beside a wide-eyed Vahineh, who chewed upon already bloodied fingertips. From what Mari could tell, Vahineh still struggled with her Awakening. It seemed, from the rapid changes in her expression and posture, as if all her Ancestors vied for a moment in her mind. Many rahns, particularly those who had been Awakened without the proper training, died from the experience. Or went insane. No wonder the enormity of it had caused her to act so rashly in murdering Yashamin. Mari doubted Vahineh had even known what she was doing at the time, possessed by the rage of her father’s spirit.
Narseh sat spear-straight in her gray-green armor of crablike plates, her austere face devoid of expression. Ziaire stood near her, as did a number of those sayfs of the Hundred Families who had come to Amnon to depose Far-ad-din. Even without those who had been invited to the Parje-Sin revel, many of those who attended this small session of the Teshri had either been bought by her father or were voters o
f opportunity.
“We’ve answered your summons, Speaker,” the brittle echo of Hadi said in its crystal lens, one of the sayfs of Erebus Prefecture. “What’s so urgent you needed to speak with us on such short notice?”
“Thank you for your indulgence.” The Speaker bowed to her peers. “I’ve called this emergency session of the Teshri to vote on two separate writs of deposition, both against Asrahn-Elect Erebus fa Corajidin—”
“Preposterous!” Hadi snapped. “What nonsense is this?”
“Let her speak, Hadi,” came the glassy echo of Iraj from Selassin Prefecture, a supporter of the late Vashne. “Nazarafine is the Speaker for the People, as well as a rahn. Show some respect.”
“Why do you suggest we depose the Asrahn-Elect, Speaker?” Bijan of Näsarat Prefecture asked over the cracking-ice din of the other members of parliament. “This is a serious action you propose. I hope you can satisfy the burden of proof.”
Ziaire stepped forward, hands open. “We have eyewitness accounts from Vashne’s heir—”
“Such testimony is inadmissible in any Arbiter’s Tribunal,” Hadi gloated. “The passage of memory from rahn to rahn through Awakening is not always perfect, especially when the event has been traumatic.”
“There’s also the eyewitness testimony of Knight-Colonel Ekko of the Näsarat Lion Guard,” Rosha snapped. “Now, Hadi, if you and anybody else who’s been bought by Corajidin would be silent, the Speaker can finish what she has to say.”
Mari grimaced as Hadi and quite a few others protested. Their images juddered in crystal pillars. Rosha would not win any friends with her attitude. Like Vahineh, she must be struggling with the turmoil of her own Awakening.
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