The Garden of Stones - By Mark T. Barnes Page 0,80
and bring them back. The members of the Teshri will rally around Ariskander once they see an alternative to your father. To do that I need to know for certain where Ariskander is being held.” He lifted her chin to look into her eyes. They were an amazing blue-green, made brighter by the darkness around them. His gaze flicked down to her full lips. They were the pink of coral. “I need you to find out where your father is keeping him.”
“You want me to spy on my father?”
“With respect, didn’t you spy on Vashne for your father? You can help save good men’s lives.”
Mari pursed her lips, her gaze distant. Indris turned away, though he watched her from the corner of his eye for the long moments she was in thought. Her confession had proven her willingness to rein in her father’s ambitions, though he doubted she would permit any harm to come to him. He found himself surprisingly relieved when her expression lightened, a decision made. She looked at him with a wry smile. He waited a handful of heartbeats before he turned back to face her.
“Can we depend on you?” he asked.
“I’ll do what I can.” Her face drifted closer to his. He could smell the mint on her breath. Her hair, blown by the wind, tickled his cheeks. He leaned back. Memories of another woman’s face drifted over Mari’s. Recollections of a different scent, a different touch, a different way in which…
The kiss was on the verge of tenderness, with the promise of abandon to come. They parted, to look into each other’s eyes, mouths open in mirrored smiles. She must have sensed his hovering indecision. She rested her fingertips against his lips. “We don’t have to—”
“I want to,” he told himself as much as her. He closed his eyes. When he opened them again, there was only Mari. “I want to. I’m glad you’ll help us.”
“But not right now.” She leaned close again, glanced down at his lips.
“No. Not right now…”
“Where did you get your tattoos?” Mari lay beside him on the grass. Her fingers traced the intricate designs and patterns of raised flesh on his arms and shoulders. She kissed one brand of five bands of five wavy lines radiating from a central pentagon. “What’s this one?”
“That’s the mark of an adept of the Dragon scholars.”
She pulled back to stare him in the eye. An incredulous smile painted her lips. “You’re teasing me!”
“Not at the moment—”
She kissed him before he could finish. “And this one?”
The tattoo of the nomadic horse tribes of Darmatia. Another was the ritual scarification of the warrior-tribes of Jiom. Another from the Burdha, the tribes of the jungle-covered mountains in Tanis.
“That one is from the Feyhe,” Indris said as she pointed to the eight-limbed spiral on the inside of his left wrist.
“It looks kind of like a feathered octopus…or a whirlpool. Are they really shape-shifters?”
“The Sea Masters? Yes, they are.” They lay in silence in each other’s arms, the sounds of Samyala a gentle lullaby. There were four great civilizations of the Elemental Masters, known to the various orders of the scholars as the Eridoi. The Seethe—the Wind Masters—was the only Elder Race that still involved itself actively in the modern world. For the most part they remained in their drifting Sky Realms, but their family troupes wandered the world as soldiers, artists, teachers, and entertainers. Most of the Dragons, called the Fire Masters, slumbered in their Great Dreaming. Though the majority of them slept, Indris knew, though he did not remember how, that the ones who remained awake were more than enough to rouse their kindred if the Spines were attacked. The Earth Masters, the Herū, had disappeared into the deep forests and high mountains, though they would talk with travelers if necessary or the whim was on them. The most enigmatic of all were the Sea Masters. The Feyhe could take any shape they could imagine, which made them difficult to identify unless they revealed themselves for what they were. Their cities were places of liquid light over coral and rough stone. The lullabies of whales rolled in the waters there, as did the banter of dolphins and the symphonies of the sirens who called to sailors to bring news of the world above. There had been a Sea Master at Amarqa, a powerful Sēq Master named Karoyi. It was an assumed name, since no non-Feyhe could pronounce words in their complex, musical language. Indris had always planned