CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE.

"Let them know fear, they who have wronged me. Let them wail. Let them gnash their teeth and pull upon their hair and beg and kneel in the mud of their tears. I have no mercy for those who have, with malice, destroyed that which I love."-Act 3, Scene 1, of The Phoenix, the Horse, and the Bee, by Calajine, Shranese playwright, 471st Year of the Shranese Federation Day 324 of the 495th Year of the Shranese Federation Indris's mood was dark as he and his remaining friends vaulted the low, ruined wall of an abandoned scholar's villa. With the ahmsah he could see the bunched knots and coils of disentropy that had been woven into every stone, tile, and beam. It was a shining web of mother-of-pearl light, pulsing like the heartbeat of a. Whoever had built this place had intended it to last. Despite the millennia, the old villa remained almost intact. It was hidden like many of the ruins in this part of the Rmarq by stands of magnolia and cypress, honeysuckle vines run rampant, thousands of the tiny white flowers bobbing in the gentle midday breeze.

Shooting Thufan had been necessary, he told himself. Indris had been sorely tempted to put a bolt between Belamandris's eyes, though he knew Mari would never forgive him for it. Belamandris would need to stop now to tend to his fellow scoundrel, since the Fenlings would otherwise eat the man where he lay, alive or dead. His disentropy trap had been a necessary risk, for neither he nor his friends could run much longer. They needed rest. It had taken the better part of the morning to make their way through the bands of Fenling hunters and warriors who searched for them.

On their way to where he thought they would be safe, Indris had taken the time to scout Fiandahariat as best he could. He had led his friends through a narrow canyon of weathered black towers, their once-gla.s.sy surfaces cracked like windows struck by stones. Gardens had long gone to seed. The fountains were silent. Bridges had collapsed, along with stairs, lofty walls, and forbidding spires. Ca.n.a.ls had overflowed to turn streets paved with polished white-and-gray stones into bleached streams of brackish water.

They had been forced to avoid some parts of the ruins simply because there were too many people. Mercenary swashbucklers and freebooters, stripped to vests or bare chested in the heat, stood guard. Fenlings labored under the watchful eye of overseers. Yet it was a different type of soldier who guarded the entrances to a plaza deep in the city that held the Star Clock. These guardians had the appearance of hard-eyed veterans. Though they wore no livery, Indris had no doubt they served the Erebus.

They had left the ruins with a better idea of where Ariskander was held. It was only then Indris had led them to the one place he hoped his use of the ahmsah would not be noticed. A refuge held together because of it.

Indris and Shar had used this place when they were in the Rmarq, gathering intelligence for Far-ad-din. Given the horrific surges of disentropy in and around Fiandahariat, Indris had felt comfortable in setting up a Discretion Charm to further hide the old building from notice. Whoever looked at the sprawling house simply paid it no more notice than they would the trees that surrounded it. He had tapped the charm into a vein of disentropy, and it would last for centuries.

Inside the scholar's villa, Indris and the others rested for a while. They silently shared food, sipped from their water bottles, sat hunched in their own thoughts while they shot sidelong glances at Indris.

"This silence is awkward, so one of you may as well say it." Indris stood by a vine-wreathed window, his eyes narrowed against the brightness outside.

"Amonindris, what do you expect us to say?" Ekko asked guiltily. Hayden sat alone in the corner, head against the wall, eyes closed. "That we are sorry for going after the casque? That we wonder whether we can accomplish what we came for? Let us face the fact we are here to rescue Rahn-Ariskander, with too few-"

"And why do you think we're fewer in numbers?" Shar's fine features were made sharper by the quality of the light, all flat planes and acute angles. She rubbed at the end of one elongated ear, scratched and b.l.o.o.d.y. "Because you two faruqen uryati wouldn't leave well enough alone-"

"Beggin' your pardon there, but-"

"But nothing, Hayden!" Shar's skin and eyes were luminescent with anger. "You were told not to go after Thufan and you did. You and Ekko brought this down on us when you brought the Spirit Casque back! Omen would be with us now if it wasn't for you."

"For the love of the Ancestors, peace!" Indris turned from the window in frustration. "No, we're not many, but we never were. Yes, we'll miss Omen's sword when it comes time to get our hands b.l.o.o.d.y. I did what needed to be done. We're all of us together in this moment, so there's no point in wondering what if. Let's focus on what we do now."

"There're surely a lot of them out there, Indris," Hayden said quietly.

"It's not the many we fight," Shar pointed out. "Rather the few we can't avoid."

"She's right." Indris nodded. "I didn't come here to go on a killing spree. Rest up while you can. We leave before dawn tomorrow. Shar?" He gestured for his friend to follow him as he left the sitting room. She fell into step as they crossed the leaf-and-weed-strewn courtyard. Green-and-black lotus flowers grew tall from the mud, surrounded by bees droning in the thick, lazy summer air. Shar plucked a green lotus blossom, then popped a petal into her mouth.

The doors to the laboratory were closed but gave to some insistent shoving. Residual charms inside the room recognized the presence of an ahmsah adept. Small ilhen lamps, like formations of candle flames in bronze urns, glowed a clean yellow-white. The interior walls reminded Indris of a beehive: hundreds of hexagonal cells, all covered with dust, most of which at one time would have held a casket, bottle, box, book, or scroll case. Everything that could be carried out had been taken, presumably by the previous owner. Only one thing of value remained, which Indris was sure would have been painful to part with.

In the center of the laboratory, a jagged mirror of polished quartz was set in a large, rough-edged pillar. Indris looked at it with trepidation. The surface of the mirror was irregular, transparent in some places, striated with cracks and streaks of dappled gray-white. No sooner had Indris thought he was looking at a reflection, than it blurred away like a fish under the brightly reflecting surface of a pond.

"Do you remember how to use a Seer's Mirror?" Shar asked nervously.

"I've not used one in a while."

"You told me once there were dangers..."

"I've no intention of becoming Lost in the Drear." The name sent an unwelcome chill down his spine. The thought of encountering one of the Lost-ancient and heretical scholars and others who had succ.u.mbed to the false promises of the Drear in return for profound power-unsettled him. What if he were faced with one of his old friends? Femensetri had mentioned some of his cla.s.smates had been Lost, the most powerful and promising Sq Knights of their generation. "Most of the time we don't like what we see when we look in the mirror."

Indris dragged a chair before the mirror. He leaned back, relaxed as much as he could. Each inhalation brought happiness, power, control, and strength. Each exhalation discharged anger, sorrow, and doubt. For ten breaths he cleansed his mind until, hypersensitive, he could feel his Disentropic Stain tingle along his nerves. It heated his skin. His mind blossomed like a flower.

He opened his eyes and focused on the mirror. Clouds of scratched white scudded across the gla.s.s. Behind them, the light tried to shine through, like the sun on an overcast day. He saw himself, a prideful man with too much blood on his hands and not enough love in his hearts, seated, weak and frail, on a rickety throne made of straw. He had the hands of a murderer and the eyes of a madman, one burning with fire, the other fish-belly white. His skin was scaled, and Dragon's wings rose from his shoulders. Blood was ingrained beneath his fingertips, and the pits of his eyes flickered crimson. The room around him was wan. The ilhen lamps little more than pathetic sparks shedding nimbus light, the color of rancid honey. Flies buzzed and c.o.c.kroaches scuttled and spiders made their webs on him as he sat, utterly alone and friendless. Such was the Drear.

"h.e.l.lo, Amonindris," the mirror said with leaden melancholy.

"h.e.l.lo, mirror," Indris replied whimsically.

"Is it pleasant, seeing the man you are?" the mirror asked.

"You're an omen, a little hint with feet of clay, of what may be, not what is."

"I'm exactly what is, Amonindris. I'm the truth, without embellishment or deception. I'm he who hides his face from the world, gnawing on the old bones of ambition and fear in the dark hours of the night, where I hope those I love will neither see, nor hear."

"Indeed. You're a truth I hold dear. If I forget you, I forget what sits there in the muck and mire of my soul."

The image in the mirror smiled his snaggle-toothed smile, gums gray with disease. "There's no escape, Amonindris, from what you carry inside you."

"Maybe. Only time will tell."

"You've no desire to contest with me? To struggle and perhaps be victorious, to shed what you hate most about yourself? You know it is a fight you will need to win one day."

Or to lose? To become the dark thing he despised? Such had been the fate of greater, wiser people than himself. "There'll come another time when you and I will meet, of that I've no doubt. But it's not today."

Through force of will Indris pushed his mind forward, into the soul-destroying rot of the Drear. The mirror showed a sky of sorts, with ground after a fashion, fused by a horizon of roiling murk, like a dust storm. The geometries were wrong, with everything curved or twisted into what his mind told him were impossible shapes. The light was diffuse, shining from facets in the firmament. He forged through the clinging black weeds. Around him the trees were little more than silhouettes, paper cutouts set against a harsh monochrome sky. Beneath him the world was a shallow marsh, the waters littered with the sleeping faces of those who had lost themselves in the Drear to hopelessness and fear.

Images, of places and people, blurred. Indris clung to a calm acceptance that, yes, while he was not a perfect man, he was more than the extreme truth the mirror would have him be. Voices called out to him, beckoning, pleading, or promising. He remained steadfast, mantled in the love he knew from family and friends, the joy of his fondest memories and the quiet of a resolute soul. He looked neither left nor right, neither up nor down. He saw only the task ahead of him.

It took less than a minute before the mists in the mirror peeled away. Indris saw a makeshift camp amid older construction. A score of feathered-fabric tents, surrounded by earthworks and quickly reinforced stone walls.

At the center of the camp was a command tent of muted yellow-brown, laced together with black leather. Banners embroidered with Far-ad-din's crest of multicolored wings thrust into the ground, snapping in a fierce breeze Indris could not feel.

Standing outside the tent was a tall, slender, seemingly ageless man. His ascetic's face was porcelain smooth and fair under waist-length plumage of pale yellow streaked with crimson. His eyes were amethyst, as pale as the last hint of color on the horizon on a summer's eve. He wore a flowing robe of gold-and-white silk under a serill cuira.s.s and hauberk. The sockets of his eyes were dappled with scutes the same dark blue as his lips. His ears were pale, hardened to lengths of horn that swept back from his head. Another Seethe, a teenager, sat on a folding chair, polishing a large, round shield.

"h.e.l.lo, Far-ad-din," Indris said clearly.

"Indris?" The Seethe's face showed his surprise.

"Where are you?"

"The ruins of Mnemon. I have heard from my sources all is not well in my city. Where are you?"

"Outside the ruins of Fiandahariat." Indris explained what he knew of Corajidin's actions. Far-ad-din drew in a shuddering breath. Indris could see the muscles of Far-ad-din's jaw where they clenched and unclenched.

"We need you in Amnon," Indris said quietly. "We must provide an alternative to Corajidin's plans for Shran. I fear what the country may become without strong people to oppose him. He needs to be stopped."

"Stopped?" Far-ad-din turned to look elsewhere, though at what Indris could not tell. "What was once See-an-way is now sunk beneath the waters because the Avn wanted my people stopped. You may not know, but there was a city there all of gla.s.s. n.o.body carried weapons there. We called it Arem-yr-Juel, the Valley of the Lilies. Lotus flowers of every color grew there, and people would come to simply sit in the breeze and smell the perfume."

"I-"

"Yet my people do not resent yours, our errant children made in columns of spinning quartz and light. Perhaps, had we known how much anger there would be in your hearts, we might have done otherwise. But we did not, and that is the way of things."

Far-ad-din's skin and eyes dulled, as if a cloud had pa.s.sed over the sun. They remained so for a few moments before he burned once more with the inner radiance Indris knew so well.

"What do you intend for Corajidin?" Far-ad-din murmured. He looked down at the white hawk on his shield where it gleamed in the light. The old gla.s.s shield was scratched in places.

"That's not for me to decide. Let loftier heads than mine debate his fate."

"If we lose, there will be nothing left here of my Great House," Far-ad-din mused, a smile tugging at his dark lips. "Not what my forefathers envisioned. Nor yours, I would expect."

"Yet a risk we must take."

"Is it?" Far-ad-din closed his eyes for a moment, his expression peaceful. He seemed to be enjoying the sun on his face and the wind in his hair. "I have lost much already. My son, my daughter-"

"You know I-"

"I do not lay the blame for Anj-el-din's plight at your feet, even though you do. I felt nothing but joy when the two of you chose each other. You are a better man than you know, Amonindris. But why should I risk what little remains, for a nation which will never understand me or mine? I think the time has come for my people to seek our futures elsewhere. Shran was never the place we hoped it to be, nor will it be while men such as Corajidin hold sway. No, I will not return to Amnon so the Teshri can try again to have me stopped."

"Please-"

"It has been centuries since I visited the Sky Realm of the Din-ma. Among the floating islands carried on the Soulwinds of the equator is a home I have a longing to see. My mate waits for me there, as do my other daughters and sons. It is well past time I showed them the honor they deserve. Your obligation to me is done, my friend. Trust yourself to seek your own path. We may meet again one day, under happier skies."

"I'm sorry about Anj-el-din. If I could change-"

"We are both sorry for what became of my daughter. Yet what is, is. Best you forget her, Amonindris, for there is no returning from what she...Forgive yourself, Amonindris, as I have never had the need to. You have done nothing wrong to me or mine. Be well."

"And you."

With that Far-ad-din rose from his chair and went inside his tent.

Indris closed his eyes and blanked his mind to sever the connection with Far-ad-din. He snapped back into his consciousness with a sickening lurch.

Indris opened his eyes to see Shar, leaning against the mirror with studied nonchalance. Indris was so exhausted he needed both hands to prize himself from the chair. Shar supported him, his weight seemingly no real challenge to her wiry strength.

"Will he come back?" Shar asked as they walked back to the others.

He shook his head. "I don't blame him. I'd probably do the same."

"No, you wouldn't."

Indris bowed his head with fatigue. His felt like his skull was filled to bursting. Even with his eyes closed, he could still see the image of himself in the mirror.

Shar's eyes narrowed with concern. "Are you well?"

"The Sq teach many things. They taught me how to laugh. They taught me the value of love. Of anger. Of compa.s.sion and pa.s.sion. They taught me terror, how to use it, how to survive it, how to embrace it and make it part of me. Yet there was a maxim I didn't truly understand until now."

"Which is?"

"'Let there be no place a Sq will fear to tread.'" His smile felt brittle. "It's a metaphor I didn't fully comprehend until I looked at the paths of my own soul. While it is a place I don't exactly fear to tread, it is a place I often wish could be other than it is."

They made themselves as comfortable as they could. Throughout the night, parties of Fenlings prowled past the villa where it was hidden behind its Discretion Charm. Once in a while, one of them would look in their direction, sniff the air, before being nudged by one of its brethren to move on.

It was slightly before dawn when Hayden roused Indris and the others. The companions carefully trod the old, half-obscured streets that led to the ancient city. Pale yellow-brown stones soon gave way to evenly set gray and white. The stones about them went from granite blocks to the smooth black octagonal stones typical of the Time Masters. From time to time they would pause to listen or to allow either a Fenling or Avn squad to march past. As the light of morning pooled on the eastern horizon amid a clutter of lazy, yellow-tinted cloud, they found themselves in sight of Fiandahariat.

Ekko sidled forward as the others crouched behind a high stone wall. An Avn patrol seemed to expect to see nothing, so they talked more loudly than prudence would have dictated. For Indris and his friends, it had given them time to find a place to hide until the patrol could meander by. The giant Tau-se's face bore its usual enigmatic expression, though his whiskers twitched in agitation.

"We are being followed, Amonindris," Ekko rumbled softly.

"By?"

"I know not," Ekko said, troubled. "They have masked their scent and move on quiet feet around us."

Shar frowned as she looked in the direction they had come. "Ekko's right. We've company coming. A lot of it. Armored, too. And close by."

They had no friends in the Rmarq. Hayden started to grumble as he spun the cylinder of his storm-rifle. He silently worked the lever, made sure the canister in the stock was filled with air. There were less than a score of bolts left. The others drew their weapons. Changeling sighed with relief.

The four of them found places among the gardenias where they could fight with their backs to the wall. They waited, breaths shallow, as the muscles bunched under their skin.

Clouds parted before the sun, a curtain opening to shine light on the patchwork of dun and brown and green, of blue-and-black stone, that was the Rmarq.

A shadow pa.s.sed. Large, hulking, it prowled on silent feet with but the faintest rattle of armor. More ma.s.sive shapes, barely seen through the flowers and leaves of the gardenias, moved past in near silence. Indris wondered whether they had come this far only to ultimately fail.

Indris counted ten of the shapes.

He leaped. Changeling crooned. He swung a vicious strike, which he pulled. Changeling shaved air, flicking to the left of her intended target.

"Sweet Ancestors!" Indris breathed, as he stared into the eyes of an armored Tau-se warrior. He looked to see his other companions had likewise paused in their attacks before anybody had been harmed.

Ekko slung his khopesh from his belt. The Tau-se followed suit. Another of the lion-men, his fur such a dark brown as to be near black, stepped forward.

"Glad you could make it," he said laconically to Ekko, his voice deep. "We wondered whether you had gotten lost, Ekko."

"Thank you, Mauntro," Ekko replied. "I see you followed orders to stay alive."

Mauntro shrugged, then removed his helm to scratch at his sweat-damp mane. Fortune coins in silver and bronze tumbled free where they were fixed into his long braids. He eyed Indris and his companions with some curiosity. His glance came back to rest on Indris. "Seems you brought an army with you."

"And you lost one. Makes us even."

"Not so, my friend." Mauntro grinned, revealing glistening fangs. He raised his fist, then opened the fingers twice in quick succession. All around them, Tau-se appeared from behind broken walls and pillars, slipped from the cover of trees and bushes. Indris counted almost fifty of the legendary warriors. His breath caught in his throat at the sight of them.

"Not so indeed..." Indris breathed.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX.