The man was Soroush Wahad al Gatha, the very man she had been following, her guiding light, these past seven years.
And the boy…
His name was Nasim, and he was gifted. Gifted in ways not seen in centuries. Speaking to him, however, communicating with him, that was another matter entirely.
Soroush crouched next to him, his long black beard blowing in the wind as he whispered in Nasim’s ear. He whispered not because of the falls but because Khadija herself had learned that to whisper so close seemed to reach him more often than other methods. Nasim was not watching the water. He was hugging himself around his waist, as he did so often. Only rarely did he act otherwise, and even more rarely did he speak, though she knew he was not a boy without words. He could speak, but only when the fates and some queer working of Nasim’s mind saw fit.
Khadija continued on the trail and eventually stepped from soft earth onto black stone wet from the spray of the waterfall. The moment she did, Nasim’s head snapped toward her. Soroush turned as well, alarmed, not from her presence, but from Nasim’s unexpected reaction to it. Nasim rarely noticed the details of the world around him. Khadija had worked with him for nearly three years now, but he’d only spoken with her twice: once while ferrying him across the White Sea north of Bolgravya, and another while cutting across the Great Northern Sea as they’d approached Rafsuhan, one of the few Maharraht refuges. Both times Khadija had felt a yawning inside of her, something Nasim himself had surely caused.
She felt it again here, a hollow in her gut that felt as though the world were opening up beneath her and that any moment it would swallow her whole. Her instinct was to reach for her gut, to protect herself with the very gesture she’d seen so often from Nasim, but the truth was she was too transfixed by what was happening to do so.
She stepped carefully toward him. “Nasim?”
But she realized then he wasn’t looking at her. He was looking over her shoulder. She turned and found Ashan walking along the trail behind her. She glanced quickly to Soroush, hoping to read his mood. She’d asked Ashan to remain in their cave, and he’d smiled and nodded, but she realized now he hadn’t actually agreed to her demand.
Soroush was angry—she could see it in his eyes—but he said nothing as Ashan stepped lightly onto the black stone beside Khadija and approached. Like a man hoping to settle the nerves of a skittish yearling, Ashan glided toward Nasim, ever closer, hands at his sides. The stone set into the golden circlet upon his brow glowed dully in the daylight. He was bonded, then, and Khadija could tell he was bonded not merely to one hezhan, but many. Ashan was arqesh, a man gifted among the Aramahn people. To be arqesh meant many things, but here was one facet of it: the ability to commune with five hezhan at once. Five. All of the elements. Vana, hava, suura, jala, and dhosha—earth, air, fire, water, and life.
As had always been true, Khadija stood in awe of his gifts, and it made the blood rise to her cheeks as she thought of the things she’d done since leaving Ashan’s side.
When he judged he’d come near enough, Ashan crouched so that he was looking up at Nasim, not the other way around. “Can you hear me?” he asked as the water roared.
And now Nasim appeared to be looking over Ashan’s shoulder. He looked around him, to the sky above, to the moist stone below. “They are old,” he said.
Ashan seemed to know what he meant immediately, for he smiled and replied, “They are indeed. Have you seen them before?”
Nasim looked again, his brown hair damp from the water drifting on the breeze around them. “Them, neh. But their brothers. Their sisters.”
Ashan nodded. “I can feel them as well.”
And now that Ashan said it, Khadija could too. They were speaking of hezhan—spirits, separated from the world of material things by the aether. They stood always on the other side of the veil, in Adhiya, yearning to return to the lives they once led. It was why qiram like Ashan and Khadija could commune with them. Hezhan wished to touch life in Erahm, to experience it through the bond they shared with a qiram. And the qiram… They wished to touch the stuff of Adhiya, a thing the hezhan might grant—that and to learn more about the world beyond. It was an exchange into which both qiram and hezhan willingly entered.
Sometimes there were few spirits near and communing was difficult, but not here, not on Rhavanki, which was precisely why Soroush had brought them to this island. Khadija could feel gathered in this place hordes of hezhan, many of whom not only yearned to cross, but seemed desperate for it. There were some special few among these that felt old and ancient indeed. Elders, they were called, hezhan with whom only the most powerful could commune safely. Yet Nasim was doing so with apparent ease. And he did so without a stone. He needed no stone of alabaster to commune with a spirit of air, no azurite for a spirit of water. He simply did, like the qiram of ancient days.
Throughout this exchange Soroush watched, the golden earrings in his ruined left ear glinting as his gaze swiveled back and forth between them. His brother had denied Khadija’s request for Ashan’s presence, and Soroush most likely would have again when Khadija pleaded for him to reconsider. But this was different. This was proof before his very eyes that Ashan could speak with this boy—at least more so than anyone else in the Maharraht had been able to do.
Ashan, smiling softly, inched closer to Nasim. “Where have you come from, Nasim?”
Nasim frowned at this. He shook his head. “I don’t remember.”
Ashan seemed unaffected by his answer. “Who was your mother?”
And now Nasim’s frown deepened. His eyes rolled up in their sockets until only the whites could be seen. He shivered and doubled up, holding his gut and screaming. He was a boy of nine, perhaps ten, but just then he looked three years old as he curled inward over his knees, muscles taut, his whole body shivering with pain.
“Nasim!” Ashan reached out to touch him.
And when he did, the wind rose. In mere moments it was howling around them, tugging at their clothes and whipping their hair. It pressed on them, thrust them around on the stone, and for a moment Khadija thought they might all be thrown from it into the waiting water below, or worse, dashed to the unforgiving stone around it.
She realized the wind was swirling around Nasim himself. It twisted his clothes, spun the droplets of water around him and tossed them skyward in a swirling maelstrom that went up and up and up. The water from the waterfall was drawn in as well, more and more of it frothing around him until Nasim was completely obscured. Soroush and Khadija both stepped away, but Ashan drew upon his hezhan, he countered the effects Nasim was creating through his own bonded spirits.
Ashan was shouting something as he stood there, but Khadija couldn’t hear it among the roar of wind and water. His words must have made their way to Nasim, though, for a moment later the water around Nasim and in the column above him burst. It spread outward, spraying the area all around, misting the sky above this hidden vale. Rainbows formed as the water drifted downward, turning a place that had seemed ready to deal death only moments ago into something strangely idyllic.
The roar became a hush, and Khadija could hear Ashan calling to Nasim. “All is well,” he said, holding Nasim closely. “All is well.”
Soroush was nervous. Khadija could tell from the way he was watching Nasim, but he didn’t wish to interrupt the tentative peace Ashan had somehow brokered.
At last, Nasim stood, holding his gut with both arms, with Ashan at his side.
Soroush glanced southward toward a white mountain peak. Beyond that mountain—three leagues from where they stood—lay Kirishci and Palotza Iyakar, and unless no one lay in the cold drowning basins deep beneath the palotza, the Matri’s attention would be drawn here. Their only chance was to move below ground, where it was said the confluences of aether gave the Matri difficulty seeing. “Come, quickly,” he said, and the four of them walked down a hidden path to a tunnel near the base of the falls.
Khadija followed as they walked down the tunnel, going dee
per and deeper into the mountain. Soroush, at the lead, held a siraj, a stone the size of a pear that shed a bright pink light. Khadija had not been to this place before, and she didn’t know whether it was one of the forgotten Aramahn villages that dotted the many, many islands of the Great Sea. She decided it wasn’t, that this place had been freshly built, for the tunnel they followed, and the others that met and crossed it, all looked to be freshly made, carved by the hand of dozens of vanaqiram over the course of months, even years. She had known that Soroush had been planning their journey to Rhavanki for some time, but she’d had no idea just how long.
They came eventually to a room, more of a cavern, with many siraj stones set into pedestals throughout. The room itself was circular with a high vaulted ceiling that held the curving traceries of her people. They may have abandoned the tenets of the Aramahn, but not the love of place, of creating; this would never leave them, and it made Khadija yearn for her earlier days she’d spent flying on skiffs and windships among the islands, traveling the world.
Learning, not killing.
She shook these thoughts away as she and the others walked toward the center of the room. Groups of Maharraht rested about the place—some standing and talking, others sitting cross-legged, taking breath—but when Soroush clapped his hands, they all left, leaving Khadija and Soroush alone with Nasim and Ashan.
Soroush set his siraj into an empty pedestal at the exact center of the room and regarded Khadija with dark eyes. “You knew why I asked you to meet me this morning.”
“I did.”
“And yet you brought this Aramahn with you.”
“She did not,” Ashan broke in. “I followed of my own accord.”
“Why?” Soroush asked, turning to face him.
Soroush was an imposing man, and a rage was clearly building within him, but Ashan appeared not to notice. “Because the message that Khadija sent me made it clear how special Nasim was, and that you were having difficulty with him.”
“There have been difficulties, that is true, but whether Nasim is special or not remains to be seen.”
Ashan’s look of shock was comical, cast as it was by the reddish light from the siraj. “Did you not stand upon the same slab of basalt as I?”
Soroush stiffened. “There is no doubt Nasim has the potential to be special—very special, as we saw—but that is a far cry from being special.” He regarded Nasim with a sour expression, as if Nasim were his own son. “Like this he is little more than a burden.”
“A burden…” Ashan echoed. “And you would rather he be … what?”
“Why have you come here?” Soroush countered.
“To help.”
“So you implied. But why? What do you hope to gain here?”
Ashan laughed, and Soroush’s mood grew the darker for it. “Does one need to gain from everything they do in life? Might a man not grow simply by helping?”
“He may,” Soroush allowed, and with that he turned to Khadija. “What did your message say?”
Khadija’s heart jumped. Soroush demanded extreme loyalty from all his followers. She had known it might come to this when she’d sent for Ashan, but the Maharraht had so few with his sort of knowledge. So much had been lost—particularly among those who followed the violent ways of the Maharraht—but she would tell him the truth; she would not sully her soul by lying. “I told him of Nasim’s abilities. Though Nasim reveals them little enough, I told him they were wondrous, that they were akin to the qiram of old, that he can reach across the aether with but a thought, a wave of his hand. I told Ashan of our inability to reach Nasim, to talk, to tell him what we wish.”
“And what is it you wish?” Ashan broke in.
Soroush stroked Nasim’s hair. It was a tender gesture, but it made Khadija’s insides squirm. She’d never been wholly comfortable with using a boy in such a way, but she recognized the need. These were desperate days, and if the fates saw fit to deliver one such as Nasim into their laps, who was she to argue?
“You knew Khadija was Maharraht?” Soroush asked Ashan, ignoring his question.
“I did.”
“And still you came, knowing Nasim was ours.”
Ashan smiled again, but the mirth had left his eyes. “That boy is yours no more than this cavern is, son of Gatha, or the island that cradles it.”
Soroush kept one hand on Nasim’s head; the other moved to the steel butt of his khanjar. “He is mine as this knife is mine. As my musket is mine.” He nodded his head toward Khadija, the deadened stone of jasper glinting in his red turban as he did so. “As the men and women who have pledged their lives to our cause are mine.”
“Except Nasim has made no such pledge.”
“And yet he has fallen into our care. The fates shined on us that day, and I won’t allow you to change his course, or ours.”
“That isn’t why I’ve come. The fates will guide as they see fit.”
“Then get to it, Ashan, for I tire of this. Why have you come?”
“To reach this boy. To teach him. To learn from him if I can. What else is there in life?”
“There is much,” Soroush said, his voice rising. “Are you Maharraht?” The words echoed harshly in the large chamber.
If Ashan felt insulted by the question, he didn’t show it. “I am not,” he said simply.
“Then why would you think I would allow you to stay?”
As much as Soroush’s voice was rising, Ashan’s was becoming calmer. “I wish to learn more about Nasim. So do you. And if that is so, then what harm is there in allowing me to stay?”
Soroush’s hand was still resting on his knife, but now he was looking at Ashan as if he was ready to draw it, to run it across Ashan’s throat and be done with this charade. He viewed Ashan as a threat, and not only that—Ashan was a reminder to Soroush or any other Maharraht who looked upon him of the life they’d left behind, the life of peace. They had all come to terms with that in their own ways, but to be reminded of it each day seemed as though it would prove too much for Soroush to bear. But then he relaxed. He stared down at Nasim, and his eyes softened, as if he’d seen—even if it was only for one brief moment—how great Nasim might become.
“I’ll not change my mind,” he said softly.
In reply, Ashan merely smiled his gap-toothed smile.
“I’ll have your stones.”
At this, Ashan paused. “That will make things difficult.” His gemstones allowed him to reach beyond the veil and into Adhiya to bond with hezhan.
Soroush didn’t seem to care. He turned and began walking toward one of the many tunnels leading out from this room. “And you’ll be bound with bands of iron.”
The days flowed quickly for Khadija. Days soon turned to weeks, and weeks to months. She was assigned as Nasim’s escort. She was to study him as closely as Ashan did, to learn what he was doing and to carry on if ever Ashan’s actions were deemed suspicious. But she never felt that was the case. Ashan spoke to Nasim endlessly, told him stories of the creation of the world, how the fates had cradled the world in the palms of their hands, how they’d wept and created the stars, how they’d smiled and created the sun, how they’d breathed and granted life to the world. Ashan told him the stories parents told children, but also deep and ancient tales Khadija had never heard. Tales of the travels of ancient men and women through the islands or the mainland of Yrstanla far to the west.
One story—a tale of an ancient man who wandered the Gaji desert searching for the stone of creation—was so vivid that Khadija had to wonder… “That story you told Nasim,” she said one night over a small fire in a vale of stunted trees, “was it from another life?”
Ashan was staring into the fire, bracelets of heavy iron around his wrists and ankles, chin resting on his knees, looking for all the world as young as Nasim, who was sitting cross-legged nearby. “I dreamed it when I was young”—he motioned to Nasim with a tilt of his head—“when I was no older than him. As vivid as this fire before me. As vivid as the stars a
bove.”
“It was, wasn’t it? Your prior self…”
But Ashan merely shrugged. “Who can tell?”
“It must be.”
“There are days when I think that’s true, and others where I think I’m merely fooling myself, wishing it were so. I hold on to it, hoping it comes clearer in the next life, or the one after that.”
“I dream…”
Both Khadija and Ashan looked to Nasim. Neither one spoke; they didn’t wish to break the spell, for Nasim had spoken not at all since the waterfall.
Nasim picked up a brand from the fire. He held it near his lips and blew softly upon it, embers lifting into the night sky to mingle among the stars. “I dream of an island far from here.”
“What island?” Ashan asked softly.
“There were many there once. Men and women like you.” He looked to Ashan. “And you.” He turned to Khadija. “They were learned, but they took much for granted.”
“What, Nasim? What did they take for granted?”
He turned the brand over, staring into the deep orange glow between the plates of bitter coal. “Life, both ours and the next. They broke much. They sacrificed much.”
“Who? Your parents?”
Nasim set the brand back into the fire and ran his hands over the flames. He reached within it and touched something there.
And suddenly Khadija could feel it.
A suurahezhan, a fire spirit, ready to cross over if Nasim willed it.
A hand formed in the flames, and Khadija scrabbled to her feet, ready to pull Nasim away if needed, but the moment she moved, the diaphanous hand lifted with the flames, twisting and turning until it was gone.
He could have done it, she realized. He could have pulled the hezhan across the veil and into the material world. With no stones. Just a brush of his hand.
Ashan watched Nasim carefully for some time, but Nasim merely returned to his silent scrutiny over the fire and wouldn’t respond to their questions.
“Can you look upon him and not see what we might become?” Ashan was staring directly into Khadija’s eyes now, the fire casting shadows across his face and beard and curly hair. In all his time on the island so far, Ashan had not once touched on the subject of her betrayal, her abandonment of the Aramahn for the Maharraht.
Lest Our Passage Be Forgotten & Other Stories Page 37