Part 27 (1/2)

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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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-Nasarat, 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 Rm 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 Anlki, 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 s.h.i.+ed 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 Anlki.” 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 Sa.s.somon-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 pa.s.sed laws against the trade of relics from the Rmarq.” 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 Avn 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 pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.sed 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 Sq 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 n.o.body 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 Rm had been fascinated with the concept of trawling through advantageous futures, then manipulating events to ensure the optimal result came to pa.s.s. 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 s.h.i.+p to ruins in the Marble Sea, there to be loaded aboard Erebus-owned wind-galleys or merchant s.h.i.+ps. 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 Avn 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. a.s.sign 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 fis.h.i.+ng 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.”