The Garden of Stones by Mark T. Barnes Page B

devil. The bearlike devil opened its red maw as the crocodilian charged forward, but the struggle slipped from Corajidin’s view as the wind-skiff changed course.
    After three hours of flight, he saw stone formations begin to emerge from the marsh. The line of a black stone wall. A roof sagging under the weight of cracked, faded terra-cotta tiles. Hoary cypress trees bowed their aged heads, their thick roots lifting flagstones and toppled walls alike. Corajidin joined his son as the shadows of smooth black towers soared above the foliage, rising straight-backed beside the sandstone and wooden ruins clustered about them.
    Belamandris bent to the controls. There came a hollow clunk from beneath his feet as crablike legs emerged from the hull. The wind-skiff bounced a little as the legs took its weight. Light frayed away as the Tempest Wheels slowed their spin to eventually stop. The Disentropy Spool continued to whir for a few moments before it, too, was still. Corajidin desperately wished for a bowl of wine to remove the metallic taste from his tongue.
    Brede emerged from an avenue between dark stone columns. She had taken the other wind-skiff shortly after dawn, to help Kasraman prepare for Corajidin’s arrival. She had a courtesan’s body beneath her layered clothing; her features were less beautiful than they might have been for their hollowness. An Angothic kindjal, a straight-backed sword with a curved edge, was sheathed at her hip.
    Brede dropped to one knee as Wolfram approached. The Angothic Witch rested his hand on her head possessively, the touch part benediction and part caress. The apprentice looked up at her master with adoration. “Please follow me, my master.”
    “What progress?” Corajidin asked. There was something forbidding about the ruins he did not like. The damp air was difficult to breathe. “Do you actually know what this place was?”
    “No, great rahn. These ruins have been occupied over many periods of history,” she said. “Some of what we’ve found dates back—”
    “What of Sedefke’s library?” Corajidin could not help the eagerness in his voice. “Or a Destiny Engine? Surely there is something here worth the trouble?”
    “There’s no guarantee Sedefke’s library was in this city. The Time Masters had many cities in the Rōmarq prior to its flooding. And we’re not the first people to rummage through these ruins. The Time Masters vanished and left little behind we can comprehend. The Avān settlers were more considerate with their castoffs. But there are no signs of Sedefke here. Yet.”
    She led them through a complicated maze of stone walls and cobblestone paths overrun with vegetation. Farouk walked ahead, directly behind the apprentice, his hand curled around the hilt of his sword. The other members of Belamandris’s company of Anlūki trod in light-footed formation about Corajidin and Wolfram, startling at every hoot, cry, howl, and scrabble around them. Only Belamandris seemed truly at ease.
    “Be wary,” Brede warned as they entered a very long, dimly lit lane between several black stone buildings. The light at the far end was a solid bar of glaring white. “Sometimes our…allies…can be unpredictable.”
    “What else lurks here?” Belamandris looked about with interest.
    “We’ve an arrangement with the Fenling.” Brede smiled. Corajidin was struck by how attractive the woman could be in motion. “Though they’re unruly and hard to communicate with. Their leaders, the shamans among their people, are quite corrupt. We’ve been feeding them captives from the Battleof Amber Lake. The Fenling, it seems, have quite the taste for flesh.”
    “Which reminds me.” Corajidin rubbed his temples in an attempt to master a shooting pain in his head. “Nehrun warned me Ariskander has already given the order for the Tau-se to scour the Rōmarq in search of Far-ad-din. I have the route they will take. It would be advantageous if the Fenlings were to kill them, so no