The giant rat-woman squeaked a command to her warriors, who bolted toward the windmill. Shouts came from inside. The sound of blows. Soon, the Fenlings exited carrying the bound bodies of the four other men Thufan had brought with him. Others carried the supplies, as well as the box that Indris presumed contained the Angothic Spirit Casque.

Thufan lit a lantern, then he and Belamandris joined the Fenlings as they walked back into the night. Indris and the others waited for several more minutes. They listened intently for anything, even the slightest sound that would indicate the Fenlings were on their way back. Finally, satisfied they had gone, Indris turned to his friends.

"Don't we need to be following Thufan?" Hayden asked. "We can't be saving your missing king if we don't know for certain where he is." The drover rose, Ekko at his side. The enormous lion-man glared into the night.

"You've something to say, Ekko?" Indris asked pointedly.

"Merely relishing the chance to encounter the Fenlings again, Amonindris," Ekko rumbled. His claws extended from his large hands, then slid back. "Many of my brothers died at their hands. Eaten, no doubt. Their bones lost, spirits unable to return to the earth. A b.l.o.o.d.y price needs to be paid in the names of those who cannot act for themselves."

"We don't need to follow, my friend." Indris knew where Thufan was going. The black star stones. A city of polished black. Millennia ago it would have boasted tall, elegant spires. Megaliths of stone smoother than anything made since. Domes of spun black steel, fine as lace and filled with panes of tinted diamond that cast intricate patterns on the floor as the sun and moon pa.s.sed overhead. There were few such places in the world.

"Amonindris?" Ekko asked.

"'Ticktock the clock might stop,'" Omen quoted, "'the Masters mastered, the gears gone awry. Yet far and away, 'pon seas of night, furnaces burn so fierce and bright. Alone, they sit and stare and curse, forever asking how and why.' For they knew, those ancient ones, we are all made of stars. What they did not know was why we burned out so quickly."

"What in the-" Hayden shook his head in disbelief.

"Indris knows where we are going," Omen concluded. "Is that not so, my learned friend?"

"Only one place I know of, according to legend, had what was called the Star Clock." Indris breathed out through clenched teeth. His suspicions as to what the Erebus had found were sadly confirmed. "That's where they're keeping Ariskander."

"Where is that, Amonindris?" Ekko said as he rose to his feet.

"We're going to Fiandahariat. The last known city of the Time Masters."

"So we let Thufan go, along with the Spirit Casque?" Shar looked Indris in the eye. "You're sure?"

"I am sorry, Amonindris." Ekko's voice seethed with barely restrained carnage. "But I have serious misgivings about this."

"I'm curious as to why we'd not destroy anything made by an Angothic Witch," Hayden demanded.

"What exactly is this Spirit Casque?" Ekko asked.

"A prison for souls," Omen answered Ekko with his usual flatness. "It is a helmet, or mask, which contains a wraith matrix-"

"Excuse me?"

"A web of witchfire, sometimes smelted with gold if there's not enough witchfire ore," Indris finished. "It's similar to the Wraithjar Omen inhabits, though unlike Wraithjars, Spirit Casques cause terrible pain to the soul and the soul can't leave of its own volition."

"Who'd invent such a thing?" Hayden asked with horror.

"The Angothics...hence the name," Omen said matter-of-factly. "Though they were inspired by the Avn. During the middle period of the Awakened Empire, Sepulchre Mirrors were used to imprison criminals thought too dangerous to allow to die."

"But if they died..." Hayden trailed off, confused.

"They could be brought back." Indris's voice was calm, quiet, as if resigned to an awful fact. "Or, in the case of the most powerful Ilhennim, they could find their own way back to life, or exist as Nomads. Sepulchre Mirrors were a painless punishment reserved for the worst criminals. They would be stopped from pa.s.sing into the Well of Souls, from ever being reborn, or from ever walking a again."

"That ain't right," Hayden growled.

"What Corajidin is preparing to do to Ariskander is worse!" Indris urged. "They'll kill Ariskander...then imprison his soul for so long as the Spirit Casque lasts. Ariskander will be in agony forever. His heirs would never Awaken. The acc.u.mulated knowledge of his Ancestors would be lost, his link in that chain broken. And there are ways of torturing a soul so Ariskander will tell them anything his captors want to know."

"It sounds like a very personal type of punishment, Amonindris," Ekko rumbled. "What would drive a person to such malice?"

"In generations past, my Ancestor Anmoqan caught and imprisoned Erebus fa Zaliir in a Sepulchre Mirror for his crimes against the empire. The Great House of Erebus was relegated to the status of a family, from which it took centuries to recover. It's one in a long line of wrongs, or rights, our Great Houses have done to each other. The animosity just goes on, generation after generation."

"Retrieving this Spirit Casque should be no complex matter." Ekko checked his weapons. "Amonindris, Rahn-Ariskander is my liege. Please allow me the honor of leading this exercise to prevent this vile artifact from ever being used."

"You want a partner for this dance?" Hayden drawled. "'Tween the two-"

"No heroics, no chances, no mistakes." Indris stopped him short. "You're both fine warriors, but against twenty Fenlings? You've no chance. Worse, I've seen Belamandris fight."

"You defeated him," Ekko reminded Indris.

"Because he saw what he wanted to see, not what I really was. Belamandris was proud, but he won't make the same mistake again. He's one of the best swordsmen I've ever seen, Ekko. Make no mistake, there'd be but one outcome if you faced him. I'll not lose you to vengeance."

The others reluctantly nodded their a.s.sent.

"North?" Shar asked. Indris nodded, and the sharp-featured Seethe slipped into the darkness on silent feet. Indris followed her, with Omen walking stork-like in his wake.

They had been moving at a quick trot for more than half an hour when Indris turned over his shoulder to check on the others. Omen was still behind him, yet Ekko and Hayden seemed to have fallen farther back. He called out to Shar and Omen to stop until the others could catch up.

Minutes pa.s.sed, with no sign of either. The moon had set a little over a half hour before. The brilliant light of the Ancestor's Shroud bathed everything in a faint sepia glow.

"What do you think has happened to them?" Shar asked. She perched on the edge of a broken tree stump, her pointed chin at rest on her knees, her long arms wrapped around her shins. The dark-blue scutes around her hairline and fingernails were mottled shadows against the faint luminescence of her skin. The shadows of her elongated ears reminded Indris of horns.

"I've not a clue," Indris muttered. Frogs and crickets sang to one another. Bats screeched. The reeds and gra.s.ses hummed, harmonica-like in the night breeze.

"Perhaps the ancient rifleman was in need of rest?" Omen said. The Wraith Knight had simply stopped, one foot in front of the other, arms akimbo in a frozen parody of movement. It happened more frequently than it used to.

"Let's hope so. If they don't get here soon, we'll need to go back along the trail till we find them."

"It has been a good plan thus far, Indris," Omen offered. "n.o.body we care about has died. A most auspicious sign, would you not agree?"

"It makes a nice change, Omen, thank you," Indris said sourly. Shar laughed. "We've certainly done worse in our time."

"Always liked your plans," Omen continued blithely. "Plans within wheels within spirals within circles making our enemies dizzy. Dizzy. Busy. Bees. The droning of the bees like the murmurs of the Ancestors, where everybody floats and-"

"They come," Shar said flatly. Her hand drifted to her sword hilt. She drew the weapon. The gla.s.s rippled faintly with blue-white radiance, the surface of a pond in a sun shower. "Quickly and not alone."

Indris scowled, hand on the b.u.t.t of his storm-pistol. Changeling vibrated softly in her sheath. A few moments later, Indris saw two figures pelting along the trail.

"Amonindris," Ekko said. Indris saw the Tau-se's quiver was almost empty of its gold-fletched arrows. The bolt loops on Hayden's belt were likewise missing more ammunition than Indris remembered. Ekko dropped a head-size wooden box on the ground.

Indris felt slightly nauseous. Tainted disentropy flared from the box in waves, oily and...wrong.

"Sherde!" Indris rubbed his forehead at the sudden, sharp pain that blossomed there. "What did you two do?"

"My father once told me if you can't do something smart, do something right," Hayden grinned. He nudged the box with his toe. "This little box won't be harming n.o.body ever again."

"Company," Shar snapped. She glared at Ekko and Hayden, her skin and eyes radiant with anger. "Weren't you told to leave it be? What possessed you to such heights of idiocy?" She leaped from her perch, eyes intent on the path behind them.

"You need to destroy the Spirit Casque, Amonindris," Ekko said defiantly. "We brought it here for you to destroy it."

"Do you have any idea the power it would take? I can't destroy it here!" Indris hissed. He could feel tendrils of malicious intent from the box lapping across him. "You found it, you carry it, Ekko! Now run, you fools!"

Indris could see the fatigue on Hayden's weathered features. He hoped the old man would have it in him to move as they needed to.

Hayden and Ekko's little escapade might have doomed them.

"I think we're safe," Shar gasped. She came to a halt, shuddered, then collapsed to her knees. Hayden, face crimson, veins protruding like ropes on his neck and forehead, dryretched in the gra.s.s. Indris was on his hands and knees, each breath a struggle. His mouth was dry, and his tongue felt swollen. His blood roared in his ears, and his hearts pounded so hard he thought his body rocked in time. Had it not been for the mystic traps he had set, or the false signs laid by Ekko and Omen, the Fenlings would have had them hours ago. As it was, the Fenlings would find their spoor before long, then be on Indris and his friends' trail once more.

Ekko remained on his feet. He drew in long, deep breaths. Shar helped the Tau-se remove the javelin that pierced his arm, then threw it on the ground. It was a primitive thing, painted red and decorated with dirty claws and chisel teeth. The Tau-se looked down at the wound on his arm, expression neutral.

"Do the Fenlings use poison?" he asked.

"Disease, mostly," Indris replied miserably. "Do you feel unwell?"

"No more or less than for having had a javelin through my arm, no. I did think the question warranted asking, though." The big lion-man turned his arm to different angles, as if such disease was something he could see through armor, fur, and muscle. Of them all, only Ekko and Omen showed no sign of their hours-long run.

Indris flopped onto his back. The myriad cuts and bruises on his body were reflected on those of his friends. Ekko, by far the largest target, had broken javelins protruding from his armor that quivered as he moved. He proceeded to pluck them out.

"Where are we?" Hayden wheezed. He looked around, squint eyed, red faced with fatigue.

"I'm guessing about two kilometers southwest of Fiandahariat," Shar replied. "Give or take. Using the streams to help mask our trail took us out of our way."

They were anything but safe. Indris looked at the multicolored box resting at Ekko's feet, a bruise on his vision. They needed to get the Angothic Spirit Casque away as quickly as they could. There was no way they could approach the ruins of Fiandahariat with it in their possession, and Indris needed time to mask its presence. Thufan, Belamandris, and the Fenlings would be on them soon enough. Indris hoped they would be as tired as he and his friends were.

He urged the others to eat and drink a little while they could, as plans formed in his mind. To stay and fight was madness. He and his friends might win, but at what cost? An ambush? Too difficult given the number of trails that crossed the Rmarq. A decoy, then?

Indris pushed himself to his feet. He swayed, light-headed for a moment. Shar, recovered already, crouched in the gra.s.s to guard the path they had come by.

"Having fun yet?" he asked her, voice light. She smiled at him, sharp features brightening, then turned her gaze back to the trail.

"There's nowhere I'd rather be," she murmured. "It doesn't matter what we do, it's always an adventure."

"I might have gotten you killed this time," he said seriously. "Shar, I see no clear way out of this. We've been lucky so far, but it'll run out sooner rather than later."

"You told me once that luck will keep a person alive, so long as their wits don't desert them too soon. I trust what happens in your head." She sat back to lean against him. There was no scent of perspiration on her, only of the gra.s.ses and trees she had run through. "I might not always understand it, but I trust it."

"You should've taken the Wanderer when you had the chance," he murmured. Here, in the wide and hostile Rmarq, the thought of losing friends, of losing this friend, was more than he wanted to think about. "You could've been on a pleasure barge in Masripur even now."

"And miss this?" She craned her neck to look back at him, eyes firefly bright.

Shar reached up to take Indris's hand. She was about to speak further when something caught her attention. She leaned forward, eyes narrowed. Indris followed her gaze. Shapes, indistinct at first, were pounding up the path they had followed. There were flashes of brightly colored hair. Of a ruby-red coat. Fenlings. Belamandris. Shar turned to kiss Indris's cheek. "I could kill Ekko and Hayden right now."

"Somebody might do it for you." Indris smiled humorlessly.

Indris was tired. He did not want to run anymore, yet he wanted to fail even less. With a set jaw, he walked to where Hayden sat, his head hung between his knees in misery. Indris s.n.a.t.c.hed up Hayden's rifle. The rifleman said nothing, though he pushed himself to his feet, where he swayed uncertainly.

"Omen?" Indris said. "I need you to take the casque and run as quickly as you can to Amnon. Give it to Femensetri. Don't stop for anything or anybody. You understand what'll happen if you're caught?"

"They will break my wooden bones and chop off my wooden head. Who then to put me together again?" Omen lurched from where he stood to collect the box. His wooden hands clicked on its surface as he moved it to rest beneath his arm. Ekko tied it fast with strips of cloth from his ruined robe. "My Wraithjar will fall like a jade star through the mire to shine in the mud, a bright lamp for the fishes."

"Then don't get caught," Indris said by way of farewell. Omen bowed to his comrades in arms, then turned, sprinting northeast toward Amnon. With each step he gathered pace until he moved faster than even Ekko could manage.

Their pursuers had seen Omen's dash. The Fenlings changed direction to pursue. Belamandris and Thufan followed the rat-folk, their once-bright armor stained and dull from mud and filth.

Once the pack was in the open, Indris rapidly channeled disentropy into his hands. He scrunched the energy into irregular, translucent orbs. These he scattered on the path behind. With the ahmsah he could see the nacreous little kernels of energy where they pulsed in the long gra.s.s and brackish water. Filaments of disentropy, like the roots of a young bush, spread across the ground, anch.o.r.ed to and fed by local currents of energy. The disentropy orbs were basic, not intended to last long. All he needed to do was draw his enemies close enough to give Omen a fighting chance of making it back to Amnon.

Indris took careful aim with Hayden's storm-rifle. He squeezed the trigger. A Fenling fell sideways into a pond. The others turned in their direction. Confused, they paused while Kapik chattered orders. Indris fired again, and Kapik fell back, blood a gory fountain from her chest. Behind him he heard the dull sound of Ekko's bowstring. Another Fenling was thrown backward into the waving reeds.

Without their leader the Fenlings were in disarray. Indris sighted down the barrel. Belamandris had drawn his sword and ran light-footed toward them. Ekko fired an arrow, which Belamandris cut from the air. Thufan was beside his prince, though the Fenlings soon outpaced them, mouths open in war screams.

"What're you doing?" Hayden asked.

"Giving them pause."

He squeezed the trigger, then gave the order to run.

Indris looked over his shoulder as he raced away. As soon as the first Fenling stepped near the disentropy orbs, they exploded. The night was shredded with terrific, silent detonations. Indris saw the Fenlings, limned in ivory lightning, shriek as their bodies jerked and spasmed in its grip. Of Belamandris and Thufan there was no sign.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE.

"It is through art, music, and literature we truly understand a culture. Violence and war are nothing more than the voices of childish envy."-Emmamon-ro, painter and sculptor to the Sussain, 42nd Year of the Shadow Empire (67th Year of the Shranese Federation) Day 323 of the 495th Year of the Shranese Federation It was the first evening of the Festival of the Ancestors. The great names of Amnon had come to the Garden of Stones where it overlooked the cloudy Marble Sea. The gra.s.s, almost impossibly green, was dotted with low granite columns, each one featuring a carved-crystal lotus flower, petals open to the sky. As the sky had darkened, candles had been lit within each stone flower. The hill became a riot of flickering gold, yellow, ivory, pink, red, and blue light against the ever-changing pattern of gra.s.ses ruffled by the breeze.

Within the domed edifice of the Lotus House with its Memorial Stones, Mari surveyed those who had come to hear her father speak. She looked down at herself in her formal robes, sheer layers of burgundy on black on white silk. She was wearing slippers, for the love of the Ancestors! She snuck an envious glance at the Anlki in their polished armor and pragmatic clothes.

"Almost five hundred years have pa.s.sed since those Avn who defied an insane and heretic empress formed our beloved Federation. Sadly we were unable to save all of our brothers and sisters, for there were those who, on that unhappy day, were misled by the promises of those who would steal from them their honor and the freedom to die. Since that day of treachery, the Ancestors have looked upon those who escaped with love. Have listened to us with compa.s.sion and protected our people from our own worst instincts."

Mari scowled over the lip of her wine bowl. Her father was in his element. Standing atop a small marble pedestal overlooking the crowd, he looked every part the statesman, mesmerizing in layers of black-and-red silk st.i.tched with fire rubies and onyx beads. She cast her glance around the room. The greater majority stared with rapt attention. However, the expressions of those from the Iron League nations and Ygran seemed to be cast from steel. The Lotus House was quiet as Corajidin continued.

"Yet we face a terrible legacy. The task before us is the most difficult to fall to an Asrahn in the five centuries of Federation. We are beset by those who would dictate our path for us. Those who would resort to force of arms to prevent our unity. These enemies watch us but do not see us. They listen to us but do not hear. They mimic us, without truly understanding the foundations of our culture and heritage. The time has come for a brave new age where the Avn can stand proudly before the world, without fear of recrimination or harm.

"The separation of state and government has sowed the seeds of prosperity, yet now we face newer challenges. Harder challenges. Challenges which cannot fall equally on the shoulders of the many. The time has come to heal the conflict in our leadership and settle the burden of accountability on one person's shoulders, for it is only though national unity we will know triumph.

"We cannot cure all our ills at once. Reform takes as much time as it does the patience to see it through. We can address issues of security. Of peace of mind. Of the knowledge our people will be safe. To that end, if I am elected as your next Asrahn, I promise to secure the safety of our lands and our people. I propose the formation of the first Army of the Federation, beholden to the nation, rather to than the individual rahns who govern the prefectures. This army will be tasked with the protection of Avn interests both at home and abroad. It will stand firm against all threats, against either Shran or its allies.

"I consider it my mandate, my highest calling, to secure the right to live and the preservation of freedoms for our nation. People of Shran, give me five years of your trust, and I will give you the brightness of an unending count of years.

"May our Ancestors look upon us with kindness and charity, strengthen our purpose, and grant us the wisdom and the trust of our people, for we are fighting for all the Avn which have gone, are, and will be."