The Garden of Stones

chapter TWENTY-ONE





“Is it a greater tragedy to achieve all one’s desires or to lose them all?”—Zienni proverb


Day 322 of the 495th Year of the Shrīanese Federation


Corajidin followed Brede into Wolfram’s chambers, his eyes narrowed in a combination of pain and wrath.

Once again the Anlūki were bid, politely, to remain outside the Angothic Witch’s chambers. This time, they listened. Inside the chamber Brede bent her knee, head bowed, to her master. The Asrahn-Elect glanced at Brede, wishing not for the first time Wolfram showed him the same level of deference the apprentice showed her master.

“What can you tell me about this Thrice-Awakened King?” Corajidin said through his hands as he rubbed his face.

“We’ve found no references to it anywhere,” Wolfram replied. “There is no such thing. A rahn is Awakened once and once only. Who would refuse such a calling, or such power—not once, but twice—to be offered it again? Nobody!”

Corajidin parted the fingers of his hands to stare at his witch. His knuckles ached, as if the fingers wanted to curl back into claws by themselves. He tried to blink away the blurriness of his vision. Why were those he depended on failing him? Or was it worse? Could their failures be part of something grander? He dropped his hands to his sides, fingers splayed against his embroidered silk jacket.

“Is Kasraman is ready to report?” Corajidin snapped. He hoped his son had good news.

“Yes,” Wolfram replied cautiously. “I contacted him as you asked.”

“Let us not wait, then.”

Wolfram gestured for Brede to rise and join them at a round table nearby that resembled an upturned shield, its bronze dish surface scored with bright scratches. It was filled halfway with chromatic metal filings. Entanglement Bowls had been common in the early years of the Awakened Empire, but many had been lost as the result of the internecine wars of the Avān families and Great Houses. While scholars and witches had the ability to communicate by casting their minds across thousands of kilometers, it was not so simple for others. For men like Corajidin, there were alternative methods of communicating across vast distances, all of them rare and precious. Before the Drear had become what it had and mystics were Lost to the lure of the powers in the shadows, a Seer’s Mirror had been the optimal choice. These days an Entanglement Bowl was the best choice. The Great House of Erebus had been without an Entanglement Bowl for centuries, until Wolfram and Brede had liberated this specimen from the ruins of the Rōmarq.

Brede rested her fingertips on the edge of the Bowl. A wave pulsed across the gathered metal filings, and there was a slither-hiss as the thousands of metal splinters rubbed against each other. Corajidin watched as the Bowl took on a mother-of-pearl sheen; the fine hairs of his arms raised as disentropy washed across him. Brede uttered a few short words and the filings rippled again, swirled with a bright jangle as they rose ever higher in hills and valleys. At first it seemed as if a replica mountain were rising from an ocean of chrome. Part of the summit tumbled away, the low foothills crept back, deep vertical crevices, two ledges…until eventually the shape of a head came into focus, atop a robed torso with its arms folded.

“Good evening, Father.” Kasraman’s voice was the chime of metal on metal, his face and body rendered perfectly in a miniature chrome simulacrum.

“My son,” Corajidin replied. “You have made progress?”

“Yes and no.” Kasraman’s metal effigy bowed. “The Torque Spindle either has pieces missing or is damaged beyond my ability to repair with what I have here in the Rōmarq. Given we don’t have another Spindle to hand, I need to figure out why this one isn’t working properly.”

Corajidin growled as he clenched his fists in anger. “Was I mistaken to trust you with this? Will you fail me, betray me, too?”

His son paused for a moment before he answered, “No, Father. Why would you even ask? I do have good—”

“The Seethe made armies, populated towns, in weeks!” Corajidin shouted. His eyes felt so hot! Pain took root at the base of his skull. Started to spread its branches. “How am I supposed to have the armies I need to make our nation strong? Is it because you want me to die?”

Kasraman’s image shook its head with a metallic hiss. “We don’t have the Torque Mills of the Petal Empire. We knew there were no guarantees—”

“You know I do not have the time to wait!” Corajidin jabbed his finger into his son’s effigy, causing the metal filings to clatter away before they were reabsorbed. “Do you want my crown so badly, Kasraman, you would see me fail?”

“My rahn, if I may?” Wolfram kept his head bowed. “We’ll need to—”

Corajidin scrunched his eyes closed against the pain, the pressure, the voices in his head that threatened to burst his skull. Is this what his Ancestors were trying to tell him? Of the traitors in his midst?

There was a long pause. Corajidin caught the way Wolfram and Brede looked at each other. Even Kasraman’s chromatic figure seemed to scrutinize his father for longer than was comfortable.

“I am not being paranoid!” Corajidin held his hands up. He winced when he saw the shimmer-sweat on them. At the way they palsied. “Nor has my illness robbed me of my reason. There are forces within Shrīan which plot against me, and you have failed me at every turn! How am I to govern if I am unable to survive? How am I to lead if don’t have the strength to discourage opposition? Am I to become a Nomad? A Rahn-in-Shadows? A mockery to all I believe in so I may do what my people, what my country, needs of me?”

Wolfram reached out a hand to Corajidin. “You need to—”

“No!” Corajidin recoiled from Wolfram’s touch. “At first I thought my agents had executed my will to secure Amnon with too heavy a hand. Now I see what they have done in my name was not enough. We must redouble our efforts! Do you hear me, Kasraman? If you ever want to ascend to be the Rahn-Erebus, you will not fail me! I have other choices for my heir!”

“As you command, Father.” Kasraman bowed with a tinny hiss. “If I may continue? I did say there was some good news. I’ve finished excavating some of the deeper chambers. They led to a warren of smaller vaults, which we’ve only now managed to unlock. Not without significant cost in life—”

“The cost is immaterial, if it brings me closer to my goals.” Corajidin heard the flatness in his tone. Was this what he was becoming?

Kasraman paused for a moment, a light-kissed doll of chrome filaments. “As you say, Father. In short, I believe I’ve found a Destiny Engine. It’s in pieces, but—”

“Have it shipped here immediately,” Corajidin snapped. The hunger turned his voice into something part growl, part purr. The illness made it rough. “I want to see it. I want to touch it…”

“As you command, Father.” Kasraman’s effigy bowed, metal filings ringing with the motion. “I do have one other thing you will be interested in. I searched through the old records I brought with me. There were journals of the Sēq who had served as our rajirs in…different times.”

“And?” Corajidin did not like the rebuke in his son’s tone. It had been generations since the Great House of Erebus had employed a rajir from the Sēq. Too many of them had died in service, under suspicious circumstances, and the Order had forbidden any Sēq from taking service with the Erebus ever again.

“And one of them made mention of a…condition…similar to yours.”

“This is the first I’ve heard of it.” Wolfram studied Kasraman’s simulacrum though narrowed eyes. He did not sound pleased. Was it because Kasraman had possibly succeeded where Wolfram had so spectacularly failed to help Corajidin with his problem?

“What does this mean?” Corajidin asked.

“I think I can help you regain your mastery of Awakening without Sedefke, Ariskander, or the Destiny Engine.”





“What do you think, Wolfram?” Corajidin asked the witch when they were alone. Wolfram stood in the darkness by the window in Corajidin’s office, the moonlight edging him in muted blue-green. “Can my son succeed in helping me?”

The witch was silent for a moment, little more than a grim shade given Human form. “I’ve trained Pah-Kasraman well. He’s already a fine witch and will make a great rahn. Even so, I doubt—”

“He will be a rahn when I am ready for him to be rahn and not a moment earlier!” Corajidin felt a small panic burst in him. “Are you saying the answer is no? Is Kasraman lying to me?”

“I’m saying whatever he’s found isn’t something I’d pin my hopes on.” Wolfram stirred, features obscured by the gloom. “Stay the course. Ariskander has answers for us both.”

“His knowledge of how to unlock the Hall of Reflection? After your years of study, you still believe there is an answer to fixing your damaged body in some mythological Sēq treasure trove?”

“I know it!” the ancient witch snapped. “Don’t mock me, you who are currently less than half a rahn. The Dion am Moud exists, and it will benefit us both if we find it. For me, a new body rather than this travesty! For you, all the great treasures collected by the dynasties of three empires. Riches beyond imagining, all of it for the taking. Imagine how strong your Second Awakened Empire will be.”

There was a limit to how often Corajidin could chase the promises of tomorrow. How many times had Wolfram failed to make real the imaginings of his pipe dreams? Ariskander was a prize Corajidin had in his hands. He would not give it up until he had wrung everything he could from it. He might not need to kill Ariskander…it did not change the fact he wanted to.

“You mentioned to me earlier that the witches had grown strong over the years of their exile?” Corajidin murmured. If he could not have an army, perhaps he needed to seek alternative options.

“I did.”

“You suggested once they could help with my…dilemma.”

“They can.”

“Then bring them to me.”

“As you wish.”