The Garden of Stones - By Mark T. Barnes Page 0,125
on Mari, then floated forward on elegant feet, head high.
People Mari barely knew approached her to talk about her father. Clearly the stigma associated with Vashne’s assassination had faded with Corajidin’s ascension. Of Ariskander’s disappearance, there was no mention. Where Mari expected to be shunned, she was embraced. A cavalcade of faces, flushed with drink, nerves, or the summer heat, flashed past. She nodded politely. Laughed when others laughed. Offered her opinion when a lull in the conversation demanded she do so, yet to answer Yasha’s question, no, she was not enjoying herself overly much.
“You look different, girl,” Femensetri said quietly from behind her. Mari turned to glance at the ancient scholar. Femensetri had made no effort of any kind for Corajidin’s gala. Her oft-repaired cassock had ceased being elegant centuries ago. Her sickle-topped crook gleamed with the blue-green of witchfire.
“What news?” Mari asked.
“We’ll get her out of Amnon,” Femensetri replied. “Some of the Feyassin stayed against Corajidin’s orders to help us.”
Mari’s hearts skipped their beat. “How many is some?”
“Oh.” Femensetri stuck her finger in her ear. She inspected what came out, then flicked it on the floor. A pampered local gave her a look of disapproval, to which Femensetri raised a challenging eyebrow.
“How many is—”
“I heard you,” the Scholar Master muttered. “How many is some? About, oh, all of them.”
“Oh, dear sweet sugary Ancestors!” Mari cursed, then remembered where she was. To her great relief nobody seemed to have heard her. “My father will notice—”
“Nothing. He’d never think the Feyassin would disobey him.” Femensetri snatched a bowl and a bottle of wine from a bound-caste servant as he passed. She pulled the cork free with her teeth and sloshed a good measure of the expensive vintage into her bowl. “Vahineh appreciated your honesty in telling her about your involvement in her father’s death, by the way.”
Mari took a deep breath. “What does she intend?”
“How should I know?” Femensetri snorted. “The girl has much to consider. Besides, it’s Daniush you should worry about. Vahineh asked me to thank you for her rescue, should I get the chance. Doesn’t mean she won’t try to have you killed, though at least she’s being civil about the whole thing. But you weren’t asking whether there was any word about her, were you? You’re more concerned about him.”
“Indris might well hold all our hopes in his hands.” She felt her face flush. Femensetri eyed her, unconvinced.
“You barely know him, girl!” Femensetri took a deep draft of her wine. “I was his teacher and still only know what he’s shown me. How can you compete with the ideals of his memories?”
“What do you mean?”
Femensetri did not answer; rather, she gestured for Mari to follow her through the crowd toward the Memorial Stones. Femensetri rested her hand against one of the dark obelisks, her expression sour. Beneath her hand was a name, dated a couple of years ago. Anj-el-din.
“Indris was a damned fool to think it would end any differently than it did.”
Mari smiled as Ziaire approached them, along with Kembe of the Tau-se. The courtesan was a vision in layers of cream-and-white damask. She wore her dark hair piled high, with a single pearl drop in each ear to denote her calling. The massive Tau-se looked more primal in his deerskin jerkin and kilt, his mane braided with fortune coins, precious stones, and lengths of white cord.
“Who was Anj-el-din?” the Tau-se asked before Mari had the chance.
Ziaire raised a white-nailed hand and gently traced the name burned into the stone. “Anj-el-din was Indris’s wife and Far-ad-din’s daughter.”
“The ‘Lay of Anj-el-din’ brings tears to the eyes of young virgins everywhere,” Femensetri said drily.
Ziaire sang a verse from the song softly, her voice as beautiful as the rest of her.
Looking to the sunset sky,
she finds herself alone again,
and wonders where her love has gone.
Her lonely voice calls his name,
it calls across the Marble Sea.
Asks who we are and who we seem,
how fickle fortune’s whim can be.
“She’s the reason Indris felt compelled to remain in Amnon and to help Far-ad-din,” Femensetri said to Mari. “And the reason why he can’t stand to stay. He carries around so much guilt. Indris’s mother died here, too. Assassinated. So, whatever you think is happening between you two…”
Mari swallowed convulsively. She knew the story of the song, how Anj-el-din had waited years for her lover to return home. She had eventually gone looking for him, never to return. In the song, her lover spent years searching for her. Supposedly he never gave