Free The Garden of Stones by Mark T. Barnes Page B

places. You said yourself no good would come of people playing with what the Time Masters or the Seethe—or even the Avān, at the height of their power—left lying about.”
    Indris walked to where Omen stood in the balcony doorway. The garden below was quiet. An elderly man reclined in the sun, his back to an apple blossom tree. His head lolled forward, open palm upward in his lap, the book he had been reading facedown on the lush grass. Purple-and-gold lotus flowers emerged from the banks of a muddy pond fed by the overflow of a small fountain. They seemed too vivid, their colors brilliant in the striated light that speared through alabaster screens on the wall above. Sacred to the Seethe, it was the petals of the lotus flower for which their great Petal Empire had been named. Cats prowled and played with each other or batted large paws at the distraction of carp in the deep pond. They turned triangular faces in his direction, eyes half-closed in pleasure, tails raised in greeting. Everywhere he went…cats. The sensitive animals sensed Indris’s presence in the ripple of his Disentropic Stain. Cats were more attuned to the creative forces of disentropy than most animals. It was as if they could actually sense the warmth of the creative nimbus that flowed across all living things.
    “Many believe Far-ad-din was a traitor,” Indris said softly as he stared out over the garden.
I’m going to miss this place
, he thought.
Anj and I made some good memories here…
“But Corajidin had him removed for his own purposes. He risked a lot to get his hands on whatever it is he’s searching for in the Rōmarq.”
    “I remember too well our people’s fascination with the Rōmarq,” Omen intoned. “It has long been a lure for thoseseeking out the works of those older, or wiser, than themselves. Yet always it led to suffering. It is not a wholesome place—those brackish waters, its flooded cities, its memories of sunlight and laughter. No, the Rōmarq clings to its secrets, as dearly as people have sought to unearth them.”
    “We’ve done what was asked of us and more,” Indris murmured. “Now it’s time to move on.”
    Despite their resentment of the Seethe, neither the Avān nor the Humans were ignorant to the inventiveness of their former masters or those who had come before them. Avān history spoke of three great empires: the Haiyt Empire of the Time Masters—the Rōm as they were known—who romantics said had ruled Īa for ten thousand years; the Petal Empire of the Seethe, which had lasted for a more believable four thousand years; and the empire of the Avān, ruled by its frighteningly powerful Awakened Emperors, which had lasted a mere millennium before the Humans tore it down. The one thing all three empires had in common was the Rōmarq.
    Yet it was Fiandahariat, one of the reputed homes of the great Avān mystic, Sedefke, that Indris feared had been discovered. In all their years, the Sēq had never found it. Never had the chance to cleanse it of temptation to others. So it remained a potential vault of Haiyt Empire and early Awakened Empire history. Relics. Texts. Weapons. There was no way of knowing what was there, though Indris and Shar had reported to Far-ad-din the hive of activity the ruins had become.
    Indris saw the disappointment on Shar’s sharp features, in the way she seemed to throttle the neck of her sonesette. He hoped it was not his throat she was imagining.
    “Shar, Amnon has been occupied. Even though Ariskander is benign, others aren’t. Believe me when I say any peoplewho can leave will be safer elsewhere.” Indris forced a smile. He pointed a finger to the southwest. “The Rōmarq is only a few kilometers in that direction. Do you really think, with Far-ad-din gone, Corajidin will pass up a chance to dig up what he can, as quickly as he can? There are others better equipped to deal with what’s going on here. We have to trust that Ariskander and Vashne will do the right