Read Online The Garden of Stones by Mark T. Barnes - Free Book Online

word of Far-ad-din, or what we’re doing here, ever gets back to Ariskander.”
    “Easily arranged.” Wolfram’s grin was feral. “Brede?”
    “I’m yours to command in all things, my master,” she replied with reverence. “I’ll send the Fenling war-bands out as soon as possible.”
    As they moved deeper into the ruins, one of the guards choked down a curse. Corajidin followed the man’s gaze to where several humanoid shapes, sharp-featured women with long, matted tresses, hung upside down from wooden beams by pale, clawed feet. Their arms, attached to leathery wings, were wrapped around them. One of them hung low so low Corajidin could see the bloodred of her irises as her large, dark-lidded eyes slowly opened. She stared as the group walked past, her expression still.
    “Reedwives,” Brede offered without being asked. “They’re usually quiescent during the day, but dangerous when roused. I’ll send them out tonight, in case the Fenlings fail in their task.”
    They walked the rest of the way in silence. Corajidin uttered a small sigh of relief when they emerged on the other side. The Angothic apprentice led them through wide, white-paved streets, across gray stone bridges, through gardens and parks long left to seed. At the far end of a long narrow strip of garden, near a pond choked by purple-flowered lilies, shetook a flight of cracked stairs. The sound of picks, hammers, and voices echoed along the moldering streets. The air was thick with the drone of mosquitoes. The scent of sun-baked mud, damp grass, and wet fur filled Corajidin’s nose.
    From the top of the stairs, they could see the extent of the work being done. Bound-caste prisoners—stripped down to mere lengths of cloth covering the torso and upper thighs, tied about the waist with rope—hammered and dug in the fetid water. Leeches clung to their skin like glistening black scars. Women, men, and children. The elderly. Human and Avān. Whoever could be procured, or whoever would not be missed, was being worked to the bone under the watchful eyes of hard-bitten Erebus officers in civilian clothing.
    “Where are the Fenling?” Belamandris asked. “Weren’t they supposed to be working for us?”
    “They work indoors during the day, Pah-Belamandris,” Brede replied with a nervous smile. “We found early on they’re not at their best in the bright light. So we work them in the underground chambers, the tunnels, or at night. Their warriors are more robust, so we use them whenever we need them.”
    “The relics?” Corajidin prompted her. “When can you show me what you have?”
    “If you would follow me? Pah-Kasraman waits for us.”
    Corajidin gave orders for his guard to remain behind. Belamandris and Wolfram joined him as he followed Brede along a black marble portico dotted with pale orchids. The remains of ancient towers reached into the air, climbing between the dark, claustrophobic canopies of nearby trees. Sound became muffled. It grew difficult to breathe. He felt as if he were trying to walk through molasses as the air closed inabout him. Corajidin looked around to see the others equally as discomfited.
    Brede led them into a chamber whose lofty ceiling vanished into what appeared to be a dark, roiling murk above. Faint lights blossomed there from moment to moment, like flares of lightning deep within a storm cloud. There was the hint of movement in the high shadows, of old engines still at work being long gone. Hundreds of columns stretched high, each of a dusty white stone that resembled marble, though they glimmered with a gray-white haze. Everything seemed slightly blurred, as if the building itself was somehow ephemeral. On the floor at the center of the room a series of concentric steel rings turned, their surfaces marked with a series of arcs, lines, and circles, forming new patterns on the floor every few minutes.
    Pieces of metal, wood, crystal, and stone littered the floor and the various trestle tables around the