Part 30 (2/2)
”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 sh.o.r.es 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. Encompa.s.sing 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 Shran needs to be guided by compa.s.sion, 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 fas.h.i.+on. 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 Shran 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 a.
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 a 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 sh.e.l.l 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 gla.s.s. ”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!”
”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 Rmarq. 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 gra.s.s. 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 d.a.m.ned fool, Nasarat 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 Sq Council of Masters, to serve either Shran 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. a is in her soul, as it is in the soul of all Nasarats. 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-Nasarat fa Amaranjin, the first Awakened Emperor, had sunk the center of Seethe civilization beneath the Marble Sea. Many Avn and Humans, as well as Seethe and members of the other Elemental Masters, had died for his greater good. Mahj-Nasarat 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 Nasarat 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 Shranese Federation Day 325 of the 495th Year of the Shranese 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-Jahavn stood. She reached the top, made her way to the inner sanctum, where it appeared Nazarafine addressed the Teshri.
Those Feya.s.sin a.s.signed 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-Jahavn and out under the city.
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