Corajidin went to his daughter. She jerked her head away as he tried to brush her hair back from her brow. "Mariam, I will not risk you in the company of your former comrades given what transpired tonight. It would be best if you remained in the villa for the next couple of days, so I know you are safe. It is not a request."

"As it ever is with you." Mariam bowed to her father, her glare hard enough to chip stone. He suspected his daughter's defiance was neither defeated nor diminished, but she kept any further words to herself. A sign of turmoil to come, as he knew from bitter experience. She lingered for a moment to kiss Belamandris on his sweat-sodden brow, then stiffened and left the room.

No sooner had the door closed behind Mariam than Thufan turned to Corajidin. "Can't have witnesses."

"I could not agree more. Indris, that Seethe woman, and the Tau-se must meet with a premature end. I will also need you to have Armal round up any dissenters or other possible rogue elements in the city. Set some examples."

"Heavy hands?"

"Do what needs to be done."

Thufan snapped a quick nod, then stalked away in a cloud of pipe smoke.

"Indris is one man, Jidi," Yashamin said as she stretched on the couch. "And wounded, as you say."

"He is a fully trained Knight-General of the Sq Order of Scholars." Corajidin took Yashamin's hand in his own. He turned her hand palm upward, kissed the inside of her wrist. "Indris is by far the most capable child of the Nasarat. Like all people of accomplishment, he is either running to something or from something. Probably both. He must be dealt with, quietly and immediately."

Corajidin walked to the window. The moon had set, leaving the night swaddled in a comforting mantle of darkness. The horizon was hazy with the trailing edge of the nebula. Fatigue was setting in as the effects of Wolfram's potion faded, yet there was much still to do. There were people out there who would wake to the news their Asrahn was dead. Word would spread quickly.

Tonight Mariam's reputation had been blemished beyond any ready ability to repair, her name forever linked with the Asrahn's death and Ariskander's disappearance. Corajidin needed to control the flow of information to the people, to influence their perceptions of the event with something plausible. He must also manage Femensetri's interest. She would want her questions answered.

Mariam would suffer a little now to avoid greater pain later. He was sure she would eventually forgive him the lessons she would learn tonight.

For now though, he would seek out the warmth and comfort of his bed and the woman he loved. Once the sun rose, the world could begin anew.

CHAPTER TEN.

"Few things in life are stronger than necessity. It is the wave against which even our strongest desires, our most dearly held beliefs, will break."-Gloriano, the Knight of Roses, 6th Year of the reign of High Palatine Navaar of Oragon (494th Year of the Shranese Federation) Day 317 of the 495th Year of the Shranese Federation Indris woke with a start. Light flared, too bright, too harsh, a spike into his brain. He closed his eyes and decided to keep them closed. The scent of sandalwood was faint. There was the taste of old milk on his tongue, blended with honey and a slight hint of wax: regeneration milk from a Differential Bath. Silk sheets were cool beneath his fingertips. The metallic tw.a.n.g of a sonesette washed over him. He settled deeper into the comfort of the soft bed. Let the sunlight warm his face. Indris felt the beginning of a smile- "I know you're awake, boy." The voice reminded him of the caw of some ma.s.sive crow. "'Bout time, too. You've gotten lazier over the years."

"Is it me, or did some b.a.s.t.a.r.d shoot me?" Indris cracked open an eyelid. Then another. He blinked as his surroundings came into focus. "How long?"

"You've been unconscious for two days." Shar laid her sonesette on the floor, then gestured to Femensetri. "She refused to leave."

The Stormbringer leveled an opal-eyed stare at Indris. Her patrician features were still. The mindstone, quiescent for the moment, shone dully against the pallor of her unlined brow. She sat back in her threadbare ca.s.sock, her sickle-topped crook resting in the fold of her arms, booted feet propped on Indris's bed. Crescents and flakes of mud stained the sheets.

For twenty-seven hundred years and more, Femensetri had served the interests of the Avn, though she was older still. She was of the very first generation of the Avn to be created by the Seethe, a woman of substance during the Petal Empire when the Sq Order of Scholars had been formed to bring together the greatest mystics, historians, healers, and inventors in the known world. They had been witches before then, wild, untamed, and unchecked. They had been an unrestrained, sometimes insane, often destructive force in the world before they had found the discipline to form the various orders of scholars. Unfortunately, not all the great minds had agreed that restraint was a virtue so the witch covens remained, their reckless power in stark contrast with the logic and reason of the scholastic order. Though Femensetri might not have been a witch any longer, there was about her a certain casual defiance of authority and social convention that grated. Indris would not be the one to bring her to task over it.

"Lucky for you she found me." Femensetri sniffed. "Would've been dead otherwise, wouldn't you, boy? At least the girl has sense. Salt-forged steel"-her voice was hard with disapproval-"is serious business."

Indris tried to sit up. Shar helped him, expression concerned. Indris looked around the room. The simple furnishing and finishes were of a very high quality. The walls were painted such a white as to seem opalescent in the light. The windows were shuttered with arabesque screens. Orchids sat in plain porcelain vases.

"Where are we?" Indris asked.

"Samyala, the qadir owned by the House of Pearl." Shar smiled. Indris c.o.c.ked an eyebrow at her. The House of Pearl was a holdover from the Petal Empire of the Seethe, a place where performers came to study the arts, often from a very early age. To the Seethe there was art in everything, including the layered, intricate games of courtship, romance, seduction, and pleasure. When the Petal Empire fell and the Awakened Empire arose, the houreh, female and male entertainer companions, remained. They were respected, even adored, among the Avn, as well as by some Human cultures. Some of the houreh earned substantial amounts, contracted to the Hundred Families or the Great Houses as advisers and teachers, bodyguards, intelligencers and musicians, and, of course, as experts in the sharing of pleasure. The House of Pearl operated some of the most prestigious schools, did charitable works, supported the diplomatic corps, and brokered advantageous marriages, and their friendship was likened to the coin of the realm. A person openly supported by the Pearl courtesans would find many doors open to them. Success was virtually a.s.sured, with the right whispers across the right pillows.

Like many young people of means who stood to inherit little, Shar had been trained by the House of Pearl. When Indris had been wounded, she had gone to the people she thought would help and be discreet about it. Shar went on to say how, after Indris had been shot, she had half carried, half dragged him to the shelter of the trees. They had been followed. Shar had defended Indris as best she could, but it was only with Ekko's help, and that of the House of Pearl, that they had managed to survive.

"You should've died, boy." Femensetri's voice was quiet. "Lucky this friend of yours has a brain in her head and brought you here. Ziaire knew where to find me. There was no way you should've survived what you did. You're still full of surprises."

"Vashne is dead, isn't he?" Indris asked.

"And Ariskander taken. According to Ekko, it was Corajidin who killed Vashne." Femensetri uncrossed, then recrossed, her legs at the ankle. More mud flaked off her boots. Some landed on the bed. The rest fell to the floor. "It's been years since the old fox has wielded the long-knife himself. He usually gets Thufan, Farouk, or Belamandris to do the bloodletting these days."

"What of the others?"

Femensetri shook her head. "Afareen, Hamejin, and Vahineh are dead. Daniush was also taken." Femensetri explained what had happened with the Teshri in colorful and uncomplimentary terms. "Corajidin's malignant s.l.u.t of a wife has been spending money like water over the past few months. Now we know who they bought."

"Nehrun one of them?"

"More than likely." Femensetri nodded. "You don't look surprised."

"I wish I was." Indris closed his eyes for a moment. "But Nehrun's ambitions are more about power than money."

"Corajidin talks about maintaining the peace in Amnon." Shar sat on the edge of the bed, her warm hand curled in Indris's. "He's publicly demanded a cessation of the violence between the sayfs loyal to the Great Houses. But Thufan runs the kherife here now. Those accused of threatening the peace are taken. More than just rebels are being arrested. Many of the sayfs who remain loyal to Far-ad-din have suffered. No doubt they're being questioned as to where Far-ad-din is. Or where we are."

"Hayden and Omen?" he asked. "Are they-"

"They're outside," Shar a.s.sured him. "We've all been guarding you since you were brought here."

Femensetri rose from her chair. Her scholar's over-robe hung like folds of night. The ancient Scholar Marshal stretched, ligaments popping. She groaned with pleasure.

"Leave us, girl," she said to Shar.

"Anything you say to me, you can say to Shar," Indris stated.

Femensetri eyed Shar, who ducked her head. Shar gave Indris an apologetic look as she left. "I like her," Femensetri admitted.

"Shar's a good friend."

Femensetri c.o.c.ked an eyebrow at him. "Right. What in the name of the glorious dead happened? Corajidin is clearly trying to cover something up. Vashne dead. Ariskander and Daniush taken...though few of us know the truth. Ekko wouldn't survive thirty seconds into his testimony."

"'It is not the answers we seek, so much as the questions which drive us.'" Indris shrugged as he rubbed his fingers along the inside of his left wrist, where some of the milk from the Differential Bath had crusted on his skin. "Shar, Hayden, Omen, and I had been working for Far-ad-din for a few months. Shar and I spent most of it investigating what the tomb robbers were doing in the Rmarq."

"And?"

"Far-ad-din was concerned at the increase in relic traffic through Amnon. Nahdi companies, a few daimahjin, even some rogue witches, were buying proscribed weapons and artifacts. His people had discovered items they'd never seen before. Far-ad-din suspected they were only seeing a part of what was really being stolen from the Rmarq and shipped elsewhere. He asked me to inspect the pieces he had acquired. As far as I could tell, they were relics from the Haiyt and Awakened Empires. We thought somebody had found a new site in the Rmarq. Far-ad-din asked us to investigate. I'm not certain which Time Master city it was, though I have my suspicions. We managed to sneak in a few times, though there were areas we couldn't get to. We didn't have enough time for a thorough investigation. Far-ad-din called us back when the armies came for him."

Femensetri strode over to where Indris's satchel sat on a small table and upended it. Indris suppressed a groan. With one long finger, she rummaged through his belongings. Finally she opened his old leather folio, filled with sheets of parchment crammed with writing and ill.u.s.trations. "What are these?"

"Rubbings from the ruins. Some drawings of what I could see in the tomb robbers' camp. I've seen Wolfram there, along with what I took to be his apprentice. There were others, nahdi mostly, though some I suspect are House soldiers. n.o.body wears a uniform. It'd be hard to prove anybody was in service to the Great House of Erebus. It appears they've also struck up an understanding with the Fenling."

"The Fenling?" Femensetri scratched the tip of her nose as she quickly read Indris's notes. "If Wolfram and Brede are there, this is Erebus mischief. What's Corajidin looking for?"

"I've done what I came to do," Indris said. He scratched at the stubble on his chin. "Shran can deal with its problems without me."

"You'd make it easier." Femensetri spat into the one of the vases. The Stormbringer turned on her former pupil.

"Haven't we had this conversation before?"

"Looks like we're having it again."

"You left me to rot in a hole when you had no more use for me. Anj-el-din died because of you."

"Don't lay your wife's fate at my feet! She was well aware of the risks she faced going after you. And raining pity on you for her disappearance would've done you no good. Besides, you escaped from Sorochel."

"Oh, yes, it was all just sunsets over the ocean after that."

"It was our training gave you the skills to escape. It's why we trained you so hard, you and those few like you!" she snapped. "You were supposed to protect and serve the interests of your people. When the time was right for you to retire from the field, we would've recalled you. You could've mated with any woman of our choosing. But no, you and Anj-el-din knew better. You had to marry. You betrayed the Order and-"

"We were stronger together, and you know it. Besides, you gave me my writ of release, so-"

"You were never meant to accept it!" she yelled. "You were warned what would happen if trouble came calling!"

"And Anj? Was she so easy to forget?"

"You and Anj weren't meant to be together. You both had greater responsibilities."

"Are you truly so disappointed your best pupil thought being in love was enough?"

"Imbecile! The Suret wanted you dead. You left us to become a daimahjin. An unaffiliated weapon, with all our secrets...Do you know the kind of dancing I had to do to stop the other masters on the council from ordering your execution? And don't fool yourself. You were never my best pupil. The most powerful, perhaps. Certainly the most gifted. Yet you never had to try at anything. It all came far too easily for you. I-"

"There were others you could've relied on."

"Of the eight I trained like you, only you, Saroyyin, and Taqrit still live. Majadis, Devandai, Lilay, and Ravashem are Lost, likely fallen to the Drear. They'll be hunted down and dealt with. Anj-el-din's fate you already know."

"Do I?" Indris could not help the bitterness in his voice. To hear four of his oldest friends were Lost, fallen to the seductions of older, darker powers of an ancient world most had forgotten. Death was preferable.

"She's gone, Indris. Why dig up a past you need to leave alone?"

"Peace!" Indris covered his eyes with his hands. If only not seeing her would make her go away.

"Tell me why you didn't come back to us," she asked. "After Anj was gone, even then, why did you stay away?"

Indris chewed his lip. There were scores of reasons, though only a few that truly mattered.

After he and Shar had escaped captivity, they'd made their way back to Amnon. They had come to the house he had shared with Anj-el-din to find her gone. They had searched, tracked down rumors, tales, whispers of what had happened. Nothing. Some said she had gone to rescue him. Others said she had died. Yet others reported she had simply left to be alone with her grief. Far-ad-din, her father, had not blamed Indris for what had happened. Neither blame nor vengeance were the Seethe way, though Anj-el-din's loss had dimmed some of Far-ad-din's light.

Indris and Shar had traveled to Mediin, the capital of Pashrea, to pursue a rumor that might lead them to Anj.

There were many fallacies about the Empress-in-Shadows. Some scholars theorized she had been driven mad with grief in the final years of the Awakened Empire. The western nations had been lost to the Humans, whose armies were already camped on eastern Imperial soil. Many of her supporters had died in the wars. The scholars of Mediin swore Nasarat fe Malde-ran had not been insane then, nor was she now. She had used her powers to the best of her ability to save the empire she loved, with clear goals in her mind. As the mahjirahn of Pashrea and Mahj of the Awakened Empire, her powers were vast. In her need, she had called upon the powers of a itself to preserve her people. The world answered her wish to the letter, if not the intent. The recently dead heard her call and returned from the edge of the Well of Souls. The living for kilometers around were changed, their bodies blasted to phantasms of light and shadow that they might live forever, such was the wish of the empress for them to survive the ravages of the Humans. So it was Malde-ran and her followers became Nomads, wandering spirits. They broke one of the Avn's most ancient beliefs in order to save those beliefs for future generations of the Avn.

Since that time, those mortal Avn who lived under the empress's reign no longer adhered to the prohibitions about extending their life spans. After all, master scholars had been doing it for millennia. Bargains were struck between the Nomads, some of whom sought mortal sh.e.l.ls so they could experience once more what it was to be alive, and willing mortals who could experience eternity. There were the eshim, the insane ones who took possession of others against their will; the ephim, who lived symbiotically with a host; and the ebrim, like Sa.s.somon-Omen, who took artificial simulacra in which to interact with the world. Then there were the ephael, who took no hosts at all. The ephael were the purest of the Nomads. Only able to interact with the physical world through great effort and control, they formed the Sussain, the empress's Parliament of Immortals. Along with the undying empress herself, they still governed the tattered remnants of the empire.

Indris had been awed by Mediin, the capital of the old empire. Made of carved quartz and white marble, Ishuajan-the empress's palace-cascaded down the side of a dark mountain like the frozen, backlit waters of a cataract. The small hills and valleys of the city and its surrounds were dotted with white stone buildings, where verdigris domes hunched like parts of the moon fallen from the sky. Broad streets of polished blue stone stretched in gentle curves around ornate statues. There were gardens and parks, lush with dark-leaved trees and beds of blue, red, white, and silver lotus flowers. Silver and gla.s.s fountains gurgled. During the day the streets were quiet, though not still. It was when the first evening shadows stretched from the Mar Siliin that the mist-and-starlight forms of the Nomads took shape. They were always there but could not be seen in sunlight.

Indris's hearts had almost broken as he pa.s.sed the armored bodies of Wraith Knights, their spirits encased in Wraithjars of jade, gold, and steel, sworn to defend their people beyond death. Beyond pain, or sleep, or happiness. Beyond even the remembrance of why they had become what they had become. He and Shar had sat for hours in the shade of a Wraith Knight who had simply stopped. Rust streaked its towering form, armor that was perhaps centuries old or more. It was stained with the tracks of rain. Gra.s.ses had entwined its legs. The metal surface, once polished to mirror brightness, was dented, scratched, scored with the marks of old battles won. Driven by an extravagance of pa.s.sion, of patriotism, even of love, the Wraith Knights had sworn themselves to an unending count of years. As those years pa.s.sed, the notion of what mortality meant slipped away. In some ways the Sq were not dissimilar.

"Seeing the Wraith Knights and the other Nomads brought to mind the idea of eternal commitment," Indris whispered. "I know the Sq Masters have the knowledge to prolong their lives. But to serve countless people, for countless years, is too abstract. I don't want to think in terms of thousands. In the tens or hundreds of thousands. After Sorochel, after Anj-el-din, I had to think in terms of the people I could see and love. I was happy when I was in love. Without love, what does any of it mean anyway?"

"We Sq love in the abstract, Indris. The temptation to give in to anger and vengeance is far too dangerous. You learned that yourself. It's why-"

"Most of us don't have friends? Why we, all of us, die alone?"

"Everybody dies alone." Femensetri's expression was neutral. Indris had no idea whether his words had reached her at all. "It's what you do before you die that matters."

Femensetri had argued with him for almost another hour, though neither of their hearts were in it. When she left, he listened to the solid thump of her crook against the floor as she walked down the corridor.

Indris rose from the bed. Femensetri had healed him of the worst of the damage, but the residual aches, pains, and fatigue would take a little longer to disappear. His Disentropic Stain swirled around the vortices of his wounds, leaving him with a slight sense of vertigo. He rummaged through the cupboards in the room. His own well-loved clothes had been cleaned, repaired, then folded. Somebody, he presumed Shar, had also placed his kit bag there. Among his possessions was his armor, his round shield with its sharpened edge, and the serpentine shape of Changeling, wrapped in folds of black silk and tied with thick cord.

Changeling seemed to sense his scrutiny. A gentle croon came from within the bag. Shar knew how he felt about Changeling, the power his mind blade gave him. She was his guilty affair, the lover he at once loved and loathed.

Lips pursed, he took the cloth-wrapped weapon from the cupboard. The psedari-the mind blade-purred in his hand, a familiar, contented vibration. It took a few minutes to undo the knots, which had been pulled tight. Indris unfolded the silk to reveal what he had made in his time with the Dragons...though he remembered nothing of it. He drew a hand span of the blade. Witchfire burned in her depths with a jade radiance, alloyed with the nacreous kirion. All the psedari were made this way, to help the Sq to channel disentropy. Other metals decayed too rapidly, yet psedari of witchfire and kirion-the steel mined from fallen stars-alloyed together, could last for millennia. The Great House of Sun used the same techniques to forge their rare and precious Sunblades, given as gifts to heroes of the Avn people.

"We're not done yet, you and I," he murmured to Changeling. The weapon vibrated with pleasure as he slung her across his back. Within moments he felt the familiar, intoxicating swell of disentropy wash through him. The entropic scars left by the salt-forged steel were lessened. His senses heightened. Colors became more vibrant, sounds more p.r.o.nounced, scents richer, light brighter, and shadows sharper.

Indris quietly left his room by the balcony door. It felt good to move his limbs. No doubt his friends would worry if they discovered he had gone, but there were things he needed to see for himself. Besides, his companions were an odd enough group to draw unwanted attention. He drew up his hood against the glare of the day, made his way through the silent gardens, then through Samyala's open gates. The tree-lined length of Silk Lane stretched toward the center of Amnon, though Indris hailed a carriage rather than walk. He asked the driver to take him to the Ghyle, the serpentine labyrinth of the Amnon's market precinct.

Indris sensed the tension as he exited the cab. The Ghyle usually teemed with traffic from before dawn till long after both the sun and moon had set. People still walked the plazas and water still flowed through the fountains. There was laughter, smiles, arguments, yet the once joyous sounds seemed flat. There were mysterious gaps between the burlap canopies where street vendors had plied their trade. Some stores had their frontages painted yellow with the crooked-hand glyph for "traitor." A small, dark-eyed child stared at Indris as he walked past, one tiny hand clenched around a slice of masticated nougat. She chewed silently, her eyes too hollow for a face so young.

A left turn down Mariner's Road took Indris through the tall, cl.u.s.tered apartments of the midcastes-the artisans, merchants, soldiers, clerks, tailors, and those others who fueled the mechanisms of industry. Tall keyhole windows looked out blindly on the street from beneath the glowering brows of overhanging balconies.

Indris found a small coffeehouse on the corner of a fig-shaded square. The coffee, laced with cinnamon, was thick and pungent.

All about him people spoke in voices quieter than expected. Under Far-ad-din's rule, people had openly shared their opinions about the city and how the prefecture was run. Little had changed, though voices might have been somewhat softer than usual when soldiers pa.s.sed by. There were those who lauded Corajidin's firm, though seemingly fair, hand. Yet for every positive conversation there were three or four that told a different tale. There was talk of friends who had been taken in the night. Of the vicious melees between the soldiers of the Hundred Families who supported one Great House or another. Of the purge of the Seethe and Humans from Amnon.

Across the road a door opened. An elderly man with a bush of wild gray hair poked his head out. He scanned the street, then ushered out four adolescents and as many figures again: tall, cloaked, too graceful to be anything other than Seethe. The entourage clambered into a covered wagon drawn by four tired-looking deer whose better years were behind them. People in the streets, as well as in the coffeehouse, turned their faces away as the wagon trundled down the road toward the docks, where masts swung back and forth like a forest in the breeze.

What people could not see, they could not tell.

Less than an hour later, as Indris walked the narrow shade of Gla.s.sblower's Lane, he happened across a crowd of people who stood watching while Erebus soldiers, wearing the green sash of the kherife's office, stood by the smashed door and windows of a sandstone-terraced house. Armal led them, a large iron mace across his shoulder. He wore the black-and-white knot of a kherife investigator on his sash beside his captain's insignia.

The soldiers dragged a mixture of Seethe and Avn from the building, toward a half-dozen ironclad prison wagons, some of which were already occupied. The Avn prisoners being escorted out of the house were sun-browned, their clothing almost a century out of date, though clean and lovingly repaired. What few had footwear wore frayed sandals made of reeds and braided gra.s.s. Their umber-and-orange clothing p.r.o.nounced them to be retainers of the Family Bey. The captured Seethe wore the gold, red, and royal blue of those who had served Far-ad-din.

Indris's eyebrows raised involuntarily when he saw one of the Seethe captives was an elder. Most of his fine quills had grown into bright feathers. His straight nose seemed to have hardened to something other than skin, shot through with rainbow hues. The scutes around his eyes, hairline, and jaw were darker, looked harder, than those of his younger counterparts. His cloak got snagged beneath a soldier's foot. As it fell to the ground, the Seethe's galleon sail wings opened with a snap, to be hastily pinned down by the soldiers around him. Another, a war-composer from what Indris saw of the bird-bone bracelets around his wrists and the pale feathers of late adulthood among his blood-streaked quills, was carried, unconscious, from the building.

As he sidled through the crowd, Indris saw this was not the only house being ransacked. Five more had yawning holes where windows and doors had once been. Another three had soot marks from the fires that had no doubt gutted them. Gla.s.sblower's Lane was one of a dozen or so streets in the area where Far-ad-din's favored retainers and allies had lived, along with their families.

The taint of salt-forged steel greased his Disentropic Stain. Half a dozen soldiers stood near the wagons, their crossbows armed with the black salt-forged bolts. Changeling muttered darkly from across his back. Those nearby shot Indris startled looks, though he moved rapidly away before they could ask questions.

There came the sound of breaking gla.s.s. An armed man in orange and brown leaped from a first-floor window, to the shouts of those inside, and landed on the roof of one of the prison wagons. With a rapid motion, he struck the locks. The doors flew open, and the captives burst out. The man leaped to another wagon, where he kicked the driver soundly in the head. He disengaged the brake and drove the Spool-driven wagon forward. The driver was dumped from the carriage as it sped away.