The Garden of Stones

chapter THIRTY-THREE





“How can I lead a nation of conscience, if I am not guided by my own?”—High Palatine Navaar of Oragon, 495th Year of the Shrīanese Federation


Day 325 of the 495th Year of the Shrīanese Federation


“What do you mean they are not there?” Corajidin felt his pulse throb in his temple. The air in his office was stifling. A drop of perspiration trickled down his brow. Though Wolfram had healed the wound in his shin, Corajidin still felt the deep ache.

“Guita, matriarch of Family Parje-Sin, invited those of the upper castes in Amnon to a revel outside the city.” Wolfram leaned on his charred stave. He took a folded piece of parchment from within the folds of his robe. “The revel promised a few days of delights hosted at Guita’s country villa. Her guests were taken by pleasure-ship from Amnon late yesterday evening.”

“I know that duplicitous cow,” Corajidin snarled. “She was one of Far-ad-din’s half-blooded creatures, as well as an old friend of Vashne.”

“There are no communication devices there. I sent messengers by wind-skiff to recall your allies, though the Parje-Sin estate is hours away even by skiff.”

“Then send somebody else!” Corajidin thundered. He regretted his outburst immediately as pain shot through his head. He opened the top button of his tunic to cool himself. “I expect my allies to honor their obligations even after they have spent my gold.”

“There’s no point in sending anybody else, and we don’t have another wind-skiff to spare.” Wolfram crumpled the invitation in one large-knuckled hand. “The one we used to escape the Rōmarq barely flies, thanks to Indris, and Kasraman has the other. I warned you bought loyalty would last only so long as the shine on the coins. Your allies are opportunists all.”

Corajidin felt his stomach heave. He leaned over his desk and vomited. It was with some horror he saw blood mixed with the bile. The sour combination of tinny blood and stomach acid in his mouth was disgusting. He made the mistake of inhaling, and the scent of his own juices on the floor made him heave again. Wolfram creaked around the table to help Corajidin to a couch. The old witch’s gaze was troubled as he felt Corajidin’s brow, looked into his eyes, measured his pulse.

“You’re worse than before, my rahn,” Wolfram murmured. “Your hearts beat far too quickly, and you’re burning up. Loath as I am to say this, perhaps we need to retreat and fight another day?”

“No!” Corajidin grunted through the pain. “There is no tomorrow for me!”

Corajidin doubled over in his chair. His hands spasmed, the fingers curling against his palms. Wolfram took Corajidin’s hands and massaged the muscles until the fingers could straighten.

Belamandris strode through the door, than dashed to where his father lay curled on the couch. “Father! What is—”

“Why are you here?” Corajidin asked. “You are supposed to be holding the Tyr-Jahavān.”

“Our enemies have been industrious in our absence,” Belamandris replied. “The Tyr-Jahavān is occupied. I noted the colors of the Great Houses of Näsarat and Sûn, as well as those of the Family Bey. The chambers are well guarded and will be difficult to take.”

“You’re the Widowmaker!” Wolfram said incredulously. “Surely you’re not going to be—”

“The Feyassin are also there,” Belamandris said flatly. “And the Stormbringer. Father, I advise you to make alternate arrangements.”

“I order you to take and hold the Tyr-Jahavān!” Corajidin snarled. His vision blurred, Belamandris’s face becoming a smear of sun-bright gold. He reached out to rest his hands on Belamandris’s shoulders. His face felt numb, his words slurred, when he spoke. “Do this for me, my beautiful son. You are the only one I can trust now.”

Belamandris stood, bowed to his father. “If that’s what you desire, then far be it from me to deny you. I suggest you see to your safety until this is resolved.”

“Wait!” Wolfram held up his hand. “Can your forces take the Tyr-Jahavān? Speak from honesty, rather than pride, if you would.”

“Can I do it? Yes. Is it worth the risk or the cost in lives? I doubt it. I’d prefer to have my Anlūki take my father to safety.” Belamandris look was forthright. “Were we to take the Tyr-Jahavān, what use would it be to Father in his current state? Even with the weight of the Iphyri and the nahdi in our employ, taking the place will be bloody work, and not done quickly. Our opponents aren’t to be taken lightly.”

“Very well.” Corajidin’s voice sounded tinny in his ears. “Let the Iphyri and our nahdi assault the Tyr-Jahavān as planned. Perhaps they will be victorious. Send word for Knight-Colonel Nadir to take the best of our leadership and what soldiery he can, and fly the Art of Vengeance to the Parje-Sin estate. We will meet them there. Belamandris, you and your Anlūki will remain to protect me.”

Wolfram shifted in his seat. “What of the treasures we have in the cellars? We can’t lose them after so much effort.”

“Take what you can, Wolfram. Our future may rest in what we have found.”

“Mari?” Belamandris asked.

“She has made other choices,” Corajidin replied sourly.

“And this place?” Belamandris turned toward the door, his expression troubled.

“Burn it,” Corajidin ordered. “Let nothing remain which reveals our purpose.”





“Can you sense where Omen is?” Shar asked. They peered over the villa roof at where armored Anlūki stood guard around the burned wind-skiff. Indris smiled at the charred heap. Parts of it had fallen away, burned or broken. The Tempest Wheels in the prow did not spin regularly, the disentropy stream vague where it wove on spinning bronze platters. Frayed ropes of silken light lashed the hull, scouring it. He doubted the wind-skiff Corajidin had escaped the Rōmarq in would get far. Even now entropy slowly tore the damaged sky ship apart.

“Not sure,” he replied thoughtfully. “I can sense the presence of the witch, as well as a lot of other peaks and troughs of entropy and disentropy. Ancestors only know what’s gone on here.”

“Probably blood magic,” Hayden muttered with revulsion. He gripped his bolt-rifle tightly. “Angothic animal!”

“There’s no such thing as magic,” Indris murmured as if by reflex. He smiled an apology at his friends. “Well, it’s true. There isn’t. It’s all reason of one kind or another.”

“How do you plan on getting in?” Shar’s eyes were bright yellow in the afternoon light, her pupils no larger than pinheads.

“Quiet in and quiet out, same as always.” Indris grinned.

“‘Always’ usually ends up being noisy.” She smiled back.

“And usually ends up with one of us getting carried out.” Hayden chuckled. Shar patted Hayden on the hand before she rose fluidly to her feet. She prowled to where a grimed skylight was set in the roof. She slowly opened the skylight, then dropped down. After a few moments of silence, Indris and Hayden followed her.

They had entered the villa via a dusty old room of the north block that was much in need of repair. The walls and ceiling were water damaged, scented with must and rot. Wooden floorboards were bleached in a track from the passage of too many seasons of sun. The windows were filthy, matted with cobwebs.

Shar listened at the door, then opened it as she beckoned the others to follow. In truth Indris had no idea where they would be keeping Omen. All he could do was focus on the swirls and eddies of disentropy caused by the Wraithjar. There were some unusually strong tidal forces of disentropy, which was all he had to go on.

The north block was mostly abandoned. There were few soldiers here; the people they avoided seemed to be bound-caste servants. They crept down a narrow stair. They saw nobody else as they came to an old wooden door so covered in dust and spiderwebs it was obvious it had not been used in years. Shar brushed the webs away with her gauntleted hand and gently opened the door.

Despite her efforts the door scraped against the rough stone floor. Tarnished oil lanterns hung by rusted chains from the ceiling of a narrow storeroom, the exposed wooden beams blackened by years of smoke. The air was thick with the ingrained odor of rotten meat. Hayden covered his nose with his hand, eyes narrowed in disgust. The door at the other end of the storeroom hung from its hinges. Through the gap they could see a dimly lit cellar, which stretched away into a blackness broken only by the wavering sequins of lantern flames.

Indris led them out. The place reeked of feces and urine, with an aftertaste of blood that lingered in the back of his throat. Several open chambers had instruments of torture and tall dark cupboards whose doors were probably best left closed.

At what Indris figured was the center of the cellar there was a wide chamber. He opened himself to the ahmsah. Raw disentropic energy swirled around the chamber, ethereal water circling an invisible drain. The flow was interrupted by small burlap bags hung by new ropes from the exposed ceiling beams, one at each point of the compass. Indris felt a chill trickle down his spine. He had seen such things before, in the supposedly abandoned Stone Witch coven of Felvyrden, in Angoth.

Shar must have seen the expression on his face. “What is it?” she murmured.

“Can you cut one of those down?” he whispered. A serill knife appeared in Shar’s hand. A supple movement of her wrist, then a bag was in her palm.

She untied the bag, then held it open for Indris to see. He blinked against sudden vertigo, his fingers and toes going slightly numb. Inside there were filings of dark, blue-black steel amid thick grains of blackened sand.

“What is it?” Hayden asked.

“An Entropic Sump,” Indris replied bleakly, stepping back. “It’s made from filings of salt-forged steel and the sand from burned-out mandalas. They absorb and nullify disentropy. There are Awakened Empire relics known as ahoujai—or sinks—that do the same thing. People wearing them are immune to the effects of the ahmsah. For somebody like me, an ahoujai is like shackles of salt-forged steel. At a distance it’s tolerable. When it touches the skin…”

“I’m figuring that ain’t good at all,” Hayden murmured.

“Not by a very long way, no. Somebody hid something very powerful here.”

Shar kicked the chamber wall with one split-toed boot. “Only one way to find out what.”

Indris walked to the solid wooden door. Unsurprisingly it was locked. The proximity of the Entropic Sumps pulled at his mind, made it harder to concentrate. He turned to Hayden, who produced lockpicks from inside his deerskin shirt. The skirmisher manipulated the lock with nimble fingers. After a few seconds it gave a satisfying click.





Mari danced away from the broad stroke of a nahdi sworn to her father’s service. The Tyr-Jahavān steps were bloody and littered with the dead. Most were those who had tried to take the Tyr-Jahavān by force, but a few white-robed Feyassin lay facedown among them.

Mari spun low. Sliced through armor and thigh. Her enemy screamed. Collapsed. She spiraled high. Her sword flew. Hunted. Dropped between neck and clavicle. She was already moving before her enemy hit the floor. With a quick gesture, she plucked a crossbow bolt from the air. Hurled it back. Took a nahdi in the eye.

Clear of enemies for the moment, she took stock. Her father had sent most of the nahdi in his employ to assault the Tyr-Jahavān. They had killed many, but there were more to come. Of course her father could deny they acted under his orders. The Iphyri, however, were a different matter. One full company of them stood, tall and magnificent, hooves stamping, in the Tyr-Jahavān courtyard.

Mari spared a glance for Knight-Colonel Qamran. The man dodged between his enemies, sword a blur. His shield belled with the impact of swords, axes, and arrows. Mari doubted her father had ever suspected appointing the Feyassin as the Teshri Guard would come back to bite him so soon. Mari caught movement from the corner of her eye. She took a step backward as a severed head bounced down the stairs, then into empty air, where it tumbled before it struck the flagstones with a wet-meat thud.

“Arrows!” one of her comrades hollered. The Feyassin grouped together into a shell formation, shields raised high to form a dome of scratched metal. Mari ducked behind a crystal pillar as arrows scythed the air where she had stood. She could hear the iron-hail clatter of the arrows where they struck metal. Her own shield had been lost, cloven in two by a nahdi’s battle-ax.

She surveyed the melee. A number of good people had died. More would die before the day was out, including her, most likely. In truth she had been living on borrowed time since Vashne had been killed. The universe had come to collect on the debt she owed. Mari planned on the world remembering how expensive she had made it before she fell.

Mari caught the eyes of four other Feyassin as she picked up a replacement shield. They looked at her with resentment. Whether they liked it or not, she was here now and they needed each other if they were to survive. The warrior-poets shared a moment of quiet before one of them nodded, and together they hurled themselves down the stairs in formation. As one, they leaped high over the nahdi, who cringed to see them come. They landed sure-footed amid the wreckage of armor and weapons, flesh and blood. Backs to each other, the five points of a star, they unleashed havoc. With a tempo born of practice, they struck, then shifted to the left. Struck, shifted, struck. The formation rotated upon its center. Mari’s blade seemed to sing with the impact, while her shield boomed in protest. She gave the order and they climbed four steps in quick succession. Enemies overbalanced. Heads, hands, arms, legs were removed.

“Qamran!” Mari yelled as her position rotated away from combat. The Knight-Colonel looked at her, expression battered. Like her he knew there was no escape. All they could do was sell their lives as dearly as they could. “Leave ten of the Feyassin here! Take the rest and be ready with Ekko to defend the members of the Teshri!”

“But—”

“But nothing!” She would rotate back into combat soon. To her right one of the Feyassin fell, armor plates on his chest sluiced with blood. Another stepped in to take his place. “We can hold the stairs.”

She did not have the chance to hear his response as she stepped back into the fray, her blade flashing.