The Garden of Stones - By Mark T. Barnes Page 0,15
being so transparent. “With your poor health it may not be the best time.”
“We’ve committed a lot of money and effort to our project in the Rōmarq.” Corajidin took his seat slowly, limbs trembling. “As well as on influencing the next vote at the Assembly of Peers.”
“Father.” Mari leaned forward to rest a hand on her father’s knee. “You’re a sick man. You need to rest.”
Wolfram listed forward on creaking legs, his staff thumping against the rug. “Your father’s soul is poisoning him, and we’ve only the vaguest suspicion as to why. We’ve found no cure in any of the arcane tracts we have access to. They don’t deal with the Awakening of a rahn—”
“Are you sure it’s related to his Awakening?” Mari scowled. “‘The rahn is one with the soul of the land, as the soul of the land is one with the rahn.’ My father’s Awakening is supposed to give him power, as well as access to the memories of his Ancestors, not kill him!”
“It’s frustrating, I know,” Wolfram murmured. “We’re working as hard as we can to find a cure. For decades your father has wielded the power of his Awakening with no ill effect. We aren’t sure of the cause of his illness.”
“There is precedent,” Brede offered. Her heavy Angothic accent was littered with long vowels and trilled r’s. “Your father is not the first to have been poisoned by his powers.”
“So we go back to the source,” Wolfram continued, his speech without accent at all. “We try to find Sedefke’s works, given he was the one who formulated the entire process and structure of Awakening. He lived in the Rōmarq before its cities were flooded, then in various cities in Shrīan and Pashrea during the millennia afterward. If we can find his older works, such as The Awakened Soul, Unity of Thought and Spirit, or Creative Intent, we may find the answers we need.”
“And all the arcane weapons supposedly abandoned in the wetlands don’t factor into your decisions at all?” Mari regretted her words as soon as they left her mouth. Her father’s eyes narrowed with displeasure, and he wrung his hands in obvious pain. Started to mutter under his breath, though she could not catch the words. Mari could feel the Angothic Witch’s gaze on her. She resisted the urge to turn away.
“It is my destiny to rule Shrīan,” Corajidin declared, eyes bright as much with fever as passion. “Wolfram’s oracles promised me I would deliver the Great House of Erebus to power. That I would be the savior of our people. To do that I need to demonstrate a position of strength. I cannot be allowed to die.”
“Or be diverted.” Thufan blew a cloud of foul smoke around the stem of his pipe. Mari waved it away from her face with a glare at the hook-handed old kherife. “Need to find Far-ad-din. Kill him and his allies.”
“Including that cursed Indris!” Wolfram growled. “I suspect he was the one who found out what we were doing in the Rōmarq and told Far-ad-din. The weapons and treasures from the Time Master and Seethe ruins are proscribed for a reason. Even the treasures with nonmilitary applications are considered too dangerous to be tampered with. It’s our end if we’re caught with them, until His Majesty is in a position to bend the laws. We must silence Indris, before he can tell anybody else what he knows. Ariskander, too.”
“I’ll kill Ariskander for you, my rahn,” Farouk promised. The scars on his face writhed as he clenched his jaw. “To kill the Rahn-Näsarat would make my name.”
“In time, Farouk.” Corajidin smiled grimly. “These things need to be planned. If we start negotiating with the Murad-dar and nahdi for a War of the Long-Knife, we need to be in a position to take it where it needs to go.”
Mari scowled. Wars of the Long-Knife—or Ajamensût—were the small-scale, sanctioned wars preferred by the upper castes of the Avān. They were sometimes known as Wars of Assassins; the aggressors could claim plausible deniability for their involvement, given blood never touched their hands. The favored weapons of choice were assassins, such as the Murad-dar, who nested in the Mar Jihara to the north, or seasoned mercenaries. Disposable armies, without affiliation to anything save the money used to hire them. Her question regarding whether her father also wanted weapons from the ruins in the wetlands had answered itself.
She was about to draw her father out further when a bright laugh distracted her. The