The Garden of Stones - By Mark T. Barnes Page 0,17

future. You wouldn’t be the first to drown in them.”

“Nor will I be the first to navigate them.” Corajidin took Yasha by the hand, raised her to her feet, whispered something to her. His hand grazed her breast. Slid to her hip. Settled on the swell of her buttocks. He looked to the others in the pavilion. “Though now there are other affairs I need to wrestle with.”

Mari held up her hands in mock surrender. As she left the pavilion, Wolfram was only a stiff-legged step behind her, Brede following him with her head down. The others wandered away down the long avenues between tents. Only Farouk remained outside the tent, glaring at Armal’s back as the giant and his father headed off to their beds.

“Wolfram?” Mari said, turning to face him. The taller man lurched to a halt. Brede stopped and stared at Mari with wide blue eyes, her beauty apparent for a moment. Mari talked softly so she would not be overheard. “You said you saw some of what my father spoke of.”

“It’s like seeing the shape of the breakers in the mist. One isn’t sure where the foam ends and the mist begins. Soon enough, it all looks like churn.”

“What did you tell him?” Mari did not want to get within arm’s reach of the man.

Wolfram’s laugh was smooth as silk on skin. “Oracles don’t think in mortal frames of reference. Sometimes their visions can be difficult to interpret or ambiguous—”

“Answer my question, if you’d be so kind.”

“Why not? I told your father his children would never sit the throne. I told him, though he would hear none of it, that it would be the Thrice Awakened who would rule the Avān. He forgets that your people still have a Mahj! Shrīan may have turned its back on the Empress-in-Shadows, but I understand she still considers herself the monarch of the Avān people—even though she’s not stirred from Mediin for the past six centuries.”

Mari felt her hearts lurch in her chest. “The Thrice Awakened? What in the Ancestors’ name is that? A rahn is only ever Awakened once, when their predecessor dies. What’s my father thinking?”

Wolfram turned the shadows of his face toward her. She could smell cloves and rum on his breath. “It’s in his head he’ll rule your people, girl. He sees the Rōmarq as a place of ancient weapons, lost wisdom, and the redemption of Sedefke’s scribbling. Your father believes this time and place is the key to his success. And his survival. One’s own death is a powerful motivator. Often there’s room for naught else.”

“And will he succeed?”

Mari could sense the smile behind the length of his beard as Wolfram limped away on infirm legs.

CHAPTER THREE

“Hatred is an appetite never satisfied.”—from the Nilvedic Maxims

Day 312 of the 495th Year of the Shrīanese Federation

Not as fanciful as the stylized, bird-shaped Seethe skyjammers, the Avān-built wind-skiff resembled more an oceangoing vessel, sans masts or sails. The hull was a flattened crescent moon of varnished wood with stained-glass windows along the cabins at prow and stern. Poking like a clockwork mushroom from a hole at the center of the keel was a spinning Disentropy Spool, the bottom of which was an ornate flywheel of bronze, brass, and gold, studded about the rim with silver spheres the size of a man’s fist. Milky light swirled about the spokes, where raw disentropy was shaped into a miniature cyclone, lit from within. Fore and aft, the hull was blistered by the coruscating silver cogs of Tempest Wheels. Corajidin likened them to an upside-down stack of dishes: a large round cog atop a series of other rotating cogs, each one smaller than the one above it. Lightning arced from flashing metal. The Tempest Wheels thrummed and snarled as they spun. He felt the rush of power from the wheels as he approached them, powerful enough to lift and propel the wind-skiff at great speed through the air.

Corajidin boarded and found Belamandris seated in the weather-beaten pilot’s chair, the polished brass and wooden controls rising around him like a giant spider on its back. His son’s pique at being asked to forgo his hunting had soon vanished in the obvious enjoyment of piloting the flying ship. Wolfram limped aboard, legs creaking, staff thumping on the deck. The guards gave the ancient witch a wide berth. Shortly after, the vessel rose from the ground with a snarling hum. The air crackled. Corajidin felt the faint prickling along his skin as the fine