The Garden of Stones

chapter TWENTY-EIGHT





“Blow, wind, if it please you. Autumn is upon me, the tall flowers are gone, and I wait for winter.”—from The Long Walk of the Spirit’s Path, by Näsarat fa Amonindris, 492nd Year of the Shrīanese Federation


Day 325 of the 495th Year of the Shrīanese Federation


Indris watched the wind-skiff careen away. Smoke trailed from its burning hull, though he had little doubt those on board would manage to douse the flames. Changeling murmured faint deprecations in his hand, frustrations and opinions more impressions than words.

“Sorry I couldn’t shoot Brede earlier. I didn’t want to hit you, and you was moving a mite quick over there,” Hayden murmured sadly. The old drover had scrambled down from his vantage point, storm-rifle clutched in bloodied hands. Shar joined them. A squad of Tau-se gathered, their weapons notched. Blood was spattered across their armor, clotted in their manes. “That was quite a fall you took.”

Indris looked down at the scorch marks on his skin, courtesy of Brede’s formulae. It was not something the Sēq taught. His muscles still twitched, though the burns and abrasions of his most recent encounter had already started to vanish. He whispered to Changeling. She twisted in his hand as she shortened her shape back to a long-hilted sword. He was thankful to the blade for the trickle of disentropy she fed him, which offset the worst of the mindstorm and entropic fever he knew would otherwise have come from his heavy use of the ahmsah.

“Let’s find the others.” Indris rested his hand on the rifleman’s shoulder.

Around them the battle dwindled. With their finely tuned senses, it had not taken the Tau-se long to locate the Fenling nests where they wound, labyrinthine and fetid, beneath the Time Master ruins. The Tau-se had gone still when they had seen Fenlings wearing armor scavenged from Lion Guard bodies. Some of the rat-folk had worn Tau-see manes as headdresses or necklaces of fangs and claws. Lion-man skins had been strung on frames as a hunter would tan hides.

Their rage had been a silent, smoldering thing that made Indris very nervous. Yet they had acted like the elite soldiers they were. Ekko and Mauntro had led their forces in a devastating attack on those appointed to guard the ruins. Indris tried not to think about the fates of those who boasted a trophy from a fallen Tau-se. He had no doubt it would have proven to be a short-lived error in judgment.

Those Fenlings who fought had been cut down. The entrances to their nests were collapsed. Avān and Human prisoners had been taken, marched without further harm to holding areas. All the while Tau-se anger had simmered, seen in the widening of their eyes and the angling of their ears.

In the calm that followed, Indris led the way to where Brede’s broken body lay among shattered debris. A quick check confirmed the woman was dead. A familiar sense of disentropic chop assailed his senses. His gorge rose along with a wave of revulsion.

“Hayden?” Indris asked as he stepped away from Brede’s corpse.

“I know you don’t approve of it, Indris, but salt-forged steel does have its uses.”

“What’s done is done. Leave the bolt where it is, though. We want to make sure she stays dead. I’ve no idea what new tricks she learned at the knees of the Angothic Witches and am not inclined to take any chances.” He gestured to two of the Tau-se. “Would you please bring her?”

The group waded through the dirty water of a flooded street. They climbed a small set of moss-covered stairs, then trekked through an untended park of wildflowers and jacarandas. After several minutes they came to the round building that held the plaza of the Star Clock.

Ekko and almost twenty Tau-se congregated there. Indris could tell by the way they knelt on the hard stone, the way they rubbed the fortune coins in their manes, something was wrong. He dashed forward to where Ekko knelt in the wide round doorway of a tall building. Indris could hear the sonorous tick, creak, and groan of gears and wheels from inside. The giant Tau-se bowed his head to Indris, his expression mournful.

Two bodies lay on the ground, covered by the blue-and-gold over-robes of Lion Guardsmen. Four of the Lion Guard stood over the bodies, weapons and shields worn with much use.

With a trembling hand, Indris pulled back the robe covering the nearest corpse. He swallowed a curse when he saw the body had been beheaded. But he knew the lotus crest tattooed below the collarbone. Indris saw Daniush had been beaten before he died. He pulled the robe up to cover the body once more, then turned to the other. The breath stuttered out of him.

“I am sorry we could not arrive in time to save him, Amonindris,” Ekko rumbled. Indris craned his neck to look at the Tau-se champion, whose eyes were wide. “I failed him, my friend.”

It was then Indris noticed the Sepulchre Mirror. Indris had seen a few of the eternity prisons over the years, though never outside the Forbidden City of Qahavel. This one had likely been found by tomb raiders in a ruin somewhere. Indris touched it. It was cold. The mirror was inactive.

“Ariskander is dead,” Indris murmured. “Far-ad-din will not return to Amnon. I fear all our plans will come to nothing.”

There was a commotion at the doorway. The battered Tau-se who carried Brede’s corpse lowered it to the ground. The cloth of her doublet and breeches was poor, the scorched and bloody fabric scented with incense, sweat, and musk. Brede would have been beautiful once, but her pale face was now gaunt, the dead skin sallow beneath a snarl of dirty blonde hair.

“There’s naught much better than a dead Angoth.” Hayden’s tone was satisfied. He nudged her body with his boot.

One of the Tau-se came forward with a leather pack. “I found this near her body.”

Indris opened the pack to reveal the Spirit Casque. The diamond glittered in the gloom, a pool of radiance lighting the faces of those around. Traceries of honeyed light flickered across the amber, echoes of Ariskander’s features in the moment of his death. Indris closed his eyes against the sight of his uncle’s screaming face, the frozen eyes and mouth wide with terror.

“Something must’ve happened to Omen for this thing to be here.” Indris clenched his fists in frustration.

“But what?” Hayden asked. “Omen wouldn’t have gone down easily.”

“I aim to find out as soon as I can, Hayden.”

With great care Indris placed the Angothic Spirit Casque back in its pack. It had become more precious now that it contained Ariskander’s soul.

Indris rubbed his eyes. His uncle’s soul must be released. His spirit given a few moments to tell its story before it Awakened the new Rahn-Näsarat, then traveled to the Well of Souls. There was no doubt Ariskander would have things to say, last wishes to be enacted. Indris doubted, given Vashne’s revelation of a change of heir, whether Nehrun was the most appropriate person to give the Spirit Casque to. Without a better understanding of what Ariskander would have wanted after his death, Indris was faced with the task of asking the spirit itself. Only an ahmsah adept would be able to release Ariskander from his prison. Not here though. Some places were better than others for such an undertaking, and almost all were better than the disentropy-whorled ruins of a Rōm city, infested by Fenlings who would no doubt seek vengeance for the deaths of their own.

He looked up as more of the Tau-se gathered. Most were spattered with blood, both their own and that of their enemies. Shar was perched, hawklike, on the edge of a clogged fountain. Her gale-sculpted features were sharp, and her skin shone with the vestiges of battle rage. Her pupils were little more than black pinheads on yellow gems. Her fair quills, fine as hair and streaked with the colors of the dawn, were damp from where she had rinsed away blood and brains. A net of fine twine, chips of polished ceramic, and feathers took shape in her hands as she chanted in her breathy voice.

“You well?” He crouched before her.

“As can be expected.” She held up her Sorrow Net, into which she would sing the anguish of battle. Indris had seen her do it more times than he cared to recount. Each strand represented the death of a comrade, their losses woven together as one connected whole as they had been in life. She pointed with her chin to where a handful of Tau-se stood guard around kneeling prisoners. “Brought you a present.”

Indris caught sight of Mauntro. The lion-man sat on a black stone bench as two of his squad helped cut the thick shafts of crossbow bolts from his armored chest.

“You are supposed to cut them out of the air, Mauntro, not catch them with your body,” Ekko observed.

“I will remember that for next time,” Mauntro replied blithely, the only sign of his pain the hiss of breath from between clenched teeth. “I see you managed to escape without a scratch once again. One day you will actually need to get involved in a fight, you know.” The Tau-se narrowed their eyes in good humor.

“Where did you find the prisoners?” Ekko asked. Shar unfolded herself from her perch to join them.

“Here and there.” She hung the Sorrow Net in the sun, where it began to spin and sway in the wind. “Some were wounded Anlūki, others are soldiers employed by the Erebus, and more are nahdi freebooters. There were quite a few trying to load their plunder onto a privateer at the dock.”

Indris gestured for the others to follow to where the prisoners knelt. The men and women had been stripped to their tunics, hands bound. All of them had been wounded in battle, though the Tau-se had given them rudimentary care.

“Who’s the senior officer among you?” Indris said flatly. His left eye felt as if it burned in its socket. The prisoners averted their gazes. Those closest to him shied away as best they could. “Cooperate and none of you will be harmed.”

One of the soldiers, a woman of middle years with a narrow, pinched face and wide brown eyes under a high brow, knelt as upright as she could. “I am Knight-Lieutenant Parvin of the Anlūki.” She had the gravelly voice of a woman who had been smoking and drinking since her early years.

“I want to know what you’ve already taken from this place. I also want to know the fate of Sassomon-Omen, the Wraith Knight who was in possession of the Spirit Casque.”

Parvin sat back on her knees. Indris could see she wrestled with some inner conflict. He hoped she chose wisdom over pride. “We’ve done nothing illegal—”

“Far-ad-din passed laws against the trade of relics from the Rōmarq.” Ekko folded his arms across his broad chest. “You are all criminals.”

“We don’t recognize the authority of any Seethe,” she sneered. “Nor does an Avān bow to a Tau-se.”

“Doesn’t sende demand you bow before one of the scholar caste?” Indris loomed over her. He could feel the heat in his left eye. His field of vision was tinted with sepia. “Under sende I could kill you now and no arbiter would find me guilty. Or I could peel your mind open like a fruit and pick through the pieces. I’ve not the time to play with you, so answer swiftly and honestly.”

Parvin’s smile was scornful. “I’ll tell you what you want to know once my comrades have been set free, their armor and weapons returned, and we’re given safe passage to our boats. I also demand all the relics we’ve found—”

“You don’t sound as if you’re cooperating.” Shar grabbed the woman’s chin, held her head up so she could stare into her eyes. “For your sake, tell my friend what he wants to know. Otherwise, he’ll have to…” She left the sentence hanging as she turned Parvin’s stare to meet Indris’s burning eye.

“Give me what I ask for,” Parvin said with foolish bravado. “Until then I’ve nothing to say.”

“Mistake.” Indris chanted the words of the True Confession. They were deceptively quiet, though the words seemed to fall from his lips with the weight of sins remembered. Of secrets to be revealed. They rolled around the square, gaining echoes as they passed until his coercion seemed to come from everywhere.

Parvin’s eyes widened. For a moment the muscles of her jaw clenched, like bands of iron buckling beneath her skin. Then her lips parted. One word, two words, ten words…

Against her will, she told Indris everything she knew.





Indris caught the sidelong glances of those around him, but he was too preoccupied to give them much thought. Parvin had given him much to consider, though his choice was clear.

In her long recital, Parvin had revealed why she and the others had been in Fiandahariat. Corajidin apparently believed Sedefke’s lost library was here. The Sēq had been searching for this lost treasure since the fall of the empire, without success. They knew the rumor it had been located in Fiandahariat, but nobody knew where Fiandahariat was. Many scholars had given up on the theory Sedefke had left his works there, searching instead for the semimythical Eternal Library of Kamujandi. Parvin confessed she had been ordered to look for anything resembling a library, as well as anything she or her soldiers thought could be a weapon. Indris had hung his mind on the Possibility Tree, calculated possibilities until they were either impossible or probable. Often there was more than one right answer, or course of action, that would lead to a desired outcome. When there were many right answers, sometimes there was one that was more right than others. In this case, there would have been few treasures as coveted by Corajidin as Sedefke’s treatise on Awakening.

There was more, equally troubling. A Torque Spindle! The Erebus with the ability to make armies in weeks, not years. The very thought of a Destiny Engine existing in the city caused his mind to reel. Sedefke’s great library and a Destiny Engine: no wonder Corajidin had plunged a nation into war! Given enough time and the right knowledge, Corajidin could have manipulated the future into virtually anything he desired. In Indris’s studies of Sedefke’s work, the ancient scholar had spoken of how the Rōm had been fascinated with the concept of trawling through advantageous futures, then manipulating events to ensure the optimal result came to pass. Indris suppressed a shudder at the thought.

Parvin had mentioned other things, also dangerous though of less consequence. Storm-rifles and storm-pistols, ancient tomes and scrolls, chests they had been unable to open. Some of the booty had been taken by ship to ruins in the Marble Sea, there to be loaded aboard Erebus-owned wind-galleys or merchant ships. Some had been sent straight to Erebesq. The most precious samples had been taken to Amnon, where Wolfram and Brede could study them. All she knew of Omen’s fate was that Belamandris had taken the Wraithjar to Amnon, as a gift for his father.

Indris looked up, a hand across his eyes to shade himself from the midday sun. He could feel the higher disentropic tides lap around him. Changeling purred, sending a vibration up his spine from where she was sheathed across his back.

“Ekko?” Indris said, “Do your Tau-se know where the Erebus kept their boats?”

“There is a small dock on the eastern side of the ruins. There are a number of felucca, as well as a galley.”

“How many of the Lion Guard survived?”

“There are twenty in good enough condition to fight,” he said proudly. “And another seven who will recover from their wounds in time. Nineteen of us fell, though they will be remembered as heroes to their prides.”

Nineteen Tau-se dead out of less than fifty, yet they had stood against more than two hundred Erebus soldiers and Fenlings, as well as the likes of Brede, Wolfram, and Belamandris. Indris hoped future monarchs of the Avān kept good relations with the Tau-se. He would not want to go to war against them.

“Get the Lion Guard together, including the wounded and dead. Take them to the docks. Assign some to crating and carrying the Sepulchre Mirror, too. I don’t want to leave that lying around for idle hands to find.”

“What about the prisoners?” Both Ekko and Hayden gazed speculatively at Indris.

“Today was the Lion Guard’s victory, Ekko. I leave the fate of the prisoners in your hands.”





It had not taken long for the Tau-se to make their preparations. Even the wounded had loped with customary Tau-se speed when the order was given. The plaza of the Star Clock resumed its quiet, broken only by the drone of cicadas and the distant cry of fishing eagles.

Parvin had screamed at Indris to release them as he had promised.

“I told you no harm would come to you,” Indris said. Parvin nodded in agreement, her gaze furious. “But that was contingent on your cooperation.”

Her expression collapsed. “I’ll ensure Asrahn-Corajidin has you punished for this. You’ll be lucky to keep your flesh on your bones!”

“You can discuss that with the Fenlings, when they emerge from their nests,” Ekko said tonelessly. “We do not have the numbers to leave any behind to guard you, nor can we let you go. We Tau-se believe in nemembe. That we get back from the world threefold what we give it, both in kindness as well as suffering. No doubt you will find yourself treated with the same courtesy you extended to the Fenlings. If you are fortunate, they will deal with you better than you and they dealt with my people.”





To Indris’s relief the galley was a merchantman, smaller and lighter than a warship, with a single bank of oars. Any harbor on the Marble Sea might see a score of such vessels in any day. It was the perfect smuggler’s vessel.

“Amonindris,” Ekko said reasonably, “there is no way even the Tau-se can row a galley faster than a wind-skiff can fly. How do you expect to catch them?”

Indris had briefly considered spending more time searching Fiandahariat for a Weavegate. The Seethe had once used them, as had others of the Elemental Masters, to travel vast distances via the Drear in the blink of an eye. But as the Drear had darkened, use of the Weavegates had become more dangerous. Only a very strong mind could dare a Weavegate and hope to maintain their sanity when they emerged on the other side. Had he been alone he would have attempted it, but to shield the minds of so many from the horrors they would encounter was not something he dared try.

“There are a few options.” Indris inspected the galley. “Though only one suits our purpose. We’ll fly, too.”

“We’ll fly?” Hayden chuckled.

“I’m not kidding.” Indris laughed along, then the smile fell from his face. “Now get on the boat, will you?”

Hayden stopped laughing, though did as he was asked. Indris followed quickly. No sooner was his boot on the deck than the Tau-se hauled the gangplank aboard.

Indris looked out across the reed-and-lily-choked port, where stone pylons were smeared with the gray-green of old moss and high tide. Ancient trees nodded over placid waters. Their roots had raised hummocks in the emerald grasses in which grew tiny star-shaped purple flowers. Behind them towered the buildings of the Time Masters, their colored glass eyes staring in silent contemplation of a world that had mostly forgotten them.

He walked to the prow, where he drew Changeling. She vibrated in his hand, though her croon was soft, as if even she were fatigued by all he had asked of her.

“I’ve more to do,” he murmured to Changeling. “And I need your help. I’ve never tried anything like this before and need you to keep me strong. This may kill me otherwise.”

It seemed as if Changeling thrust her own chisel point into the deck, rather than Indris’s hand doing so. She flared with a corona of pearl-tinted light. The wood around where she had planted herself glowed like the embers in a bright hearth. Indris gasped as disentropy flooded through his body. Fatigue was sluiced away.

“Thank you.”

He opened himself to the ahmsah. Eddies of disentropy swirled about his feet, as if he kicked up ancient and invisible sediment. He fancied it pulled at him, wanted him to remain immobile, forever part of the world in a single moment of communion. Indris held his hands out at his hips, fingers spread, palms downward as his Disentropic Stain flared. Colors became brighter. Images sharpened so much he could make out the individual splinters in the wood grain at his feet. He watched the currents of disentropy flow from plank to nail to plank of the deck at his feet. Down, down, down to the green-mantled darkness of the water, filled as it was with myriad lives, which in their turn fueled the world with disentropy of their own.

Numbers cascaded though Indris’s mind. The formulae of cause and effect slotted into the words used to express them. A vista of questions and answers spread in three dimensions across his mind. Where the numbers made no sense, or he could not find the words to express them, the cool calm of Changeling’s presence helped slot missing pieces into place. Together they strung together form from chaos. Reoriented strings of numbers and thoughts so their pieces fit together in the picture puzzle he created.

He chanted the Greater Kinesis.

The galley shuddered. He paid scant attention to the yowls of protest from the Tau-se. Part of him registered Hayden’s pallor as the boat gave out a deep groan of protest. Indris felt as if his head would implode as the massive ship settled back into the water. Changeling burned. The deck at his feet was hot through the soles of his boots.

Again, Changeling urged him without words.

The galley lurched as it rose from the embrace of the water.

Indris felt the weight of the galley and its passengers compress his Disentropic Stain. For a moment he felt as if he would be crushed. His mind, body, and soul, aided by Changeling’s barely audible corrections to disentropic ebb and flow, withstood those first moments of pain. More smoothly now, the galley rose from the water, higher, then higher again, until it crested the surrounding walls and white-tiled roofs.

“Hold on to something,” he urged his passengers.

Indris flexed disentropy as easily as he would the muscles of his own body. Slowly at first, then with gathering speed, the galley sped away from Fiandahariat, northeastward toward Amnon.