The Flames of Shadam Khoreh

by Bradley Beaulieu

  Before Rehada had died.

  He had flown above his homeland, the island of Uyadensk. Soroush and his Maharraht had come to gather elemental stones for a ritual. One of them had stood at the edge of a cliff, as he stood now. He had spread his arms, looked up to the sky. And he’d leapt. He’d leapt from the cliffs, and the winds had saved him. They’d borne him upward until setting him gently down like a thrush alighting on a lonely branch.

  Nikandr had thought much on that day. That spirit, the one the man had called forth, was the one that had attached itself to him, an elder, a spirit of the wind so old, the Aramahn said, that it had been eons since it had crossed over from Erahm, preferring, for whatever reason, the world of the spirits to the world of the living. Centuries ago, the Aramahn and Maharraht had no need of stones for summoning spirits. They’d done it on their own, as Nasim and Muqallad did. But before them, when the earliest of wandering desert tribesmen were first learning how to tame the spirits, they did what that lone man on that cliff had done. They gave of themselves. They offered themselves to the spirits. They did so in small ways at first. Submerging themselves in water, covering themselves in dirt, running their hands over flames. But as their thirst for knowledge and power grew, they tried things that seemed more and more desperate. Those aligned with water would drown themselves. Those aligned with fire would burn themselves. Those aligned with earth would bury themselves.

  And those aligned with wind would offer themselves to it. They would find mountains, cliffs, gorges. They would find the highest points they could, and they would leap. They did so not hoping for a bond, but to understand the wind in a way they never had before, and it was this state of mind that the hezhan were attracted to. Many carried fear in their hearts—they were not able to wholly commit themselves—and they died. Those that leapt with complete freedom, however, were rewarded with power beyond anything the world had yet seen.

  Nikandr had not known it at the time—how could he have?—but this is what the Maharraht on that cliff had done. He had believed in what he was doing so completely that when he had leapt, an elder havahezhan had come.

  There had been times over the past many months that Nikandr had stood at the edge of a precipice like this, and he’d felt, almost, that he could touch Adhiya. It felt near enough that he could step forward and he would become part of it. It felt like it would embrace him, envelop him and protect him as it once had.

  He felt this way now. The space before him was so large, so deep and so wide, that it beckoned him.

  His feet shifted. He heard the skitter of stones as they fell over the edge and slipped down along the face of the cliff, but he didn’t care. Stones might fall, but he would not.

  The scuff of leather against stone came to him. The crunch of footsteps on gravel.

  Nikandr opened his eyes.

  Looked down.

  Saw the height from which he now stood, and wondered what it would be like to crash against the stones below.

  The footsteps came closer.

  He licked his lips. They were dry. So dry. How long had he been up here?

  He looked to the western horizon. The sun was lowering. Already it was approaching the distant line of dark mountains.

  He’d been here for hours, he realized. Hours. How could time have passed so quickly?

  “Nikandr?”

  He stepped back. One step, then two. And then he turned around.

  Ashan stood some ten paces away, alternating glances between Nikandr and the edge of the cliff a long stride behind him. “You’ve been gone a long time.”

  “So has Soroush.”

  “So he has.” Ashan studied Nikandr’s face. He sidestepped along the rocky ground toward the edge, always keeping himself square to Nikandr. Only when he’d reached the edge did he look down at the outpost, Andakhara.

  Ashan looked old. He looked old and weary. Much had been taken from him on the island of Ghayavand. He still managed to smile—he hadn’t lost that—but it seemed to tax him, whereas before it had always been effortless, a spring of good will flowing up from inside him.

  “Come,” Ashan said, putting his arm around Nikandr’s shoulders. “Soroush and Ushai will return in the morning.”

  Nikandr allowed himself to be led away from the edge and toward the trail. He hoped Ashan was right. The Gaji was a dangerous place. And not only because those who failed to give her respect died.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Atiana left her tent when she heard footsteps approaching. She wore a shayla, a dress cut in the style of the desert tribes, patterned red and white with tiny silver bells at the hem that jingled as she walked. She wore a veil across her face with a delicate chain hanging down from the ivory outer cloak she wore to keep the sun away. It protected her from the ever-present sand and dust, but more importantly, it did much to hide her origins here in the desert.

  She looked toward the trail leading down from the steep ridge above their campsite and saw Ashan and Nikandr walking together. She busied herself at the fire, forming the dough she’d made hours earlier into a circle and setting it onto the stone that had been sitting above the coals to gather heat. She sprinkled the dough with cumin and cardamom and flax, the scent of it filling the dry, desert air as the flatbread cooked. Next to the bread she placed lengths of eggplant. She waited while they cooked, keeping her gaze from Nikandr but seeing him approach from the corner of her eye.

  Ashan squatted next to the fire. He rested on his heels and rocked slowly back and forth. It was a position Atiana had never gotten the hang of, but for him seemed every bit as comfortable as lying down.

  Without looking at her, without giving any word as to why he’d been gone for so long, Nikandr retreated to the tent he shared with Atiana.

  Ashan rested his chin on his knees and stared at the flatbread. “He’s only worried about Soroush.”

  What a strange thing to hear. Years ago, Nikandr might have hung Soroush before speaking to him. Now there was still a certain distance that separated them, but one would be a fool not to think of them as friends. It was telling as well that Ashan had referred only to Soroush and not Ushai. Nikandr would not have wished her to come with them to the desert. Neither would Atiana. Ushai had been Maharraht. Atiana supposed she was still, but like Soroush, she had set aside her hatred of the Grand Duchy while they searched for Kaleh and Nasim in this vast desert. Despite their misgivings, Soroush had fought bitterly for her place in their party. It went beyond the fact that the two of them were lovers. Ushai had roots in the Gaji. Her father was from Kohor. She’d taken to the winds with her mother, who was Aramahn, when she was only eight, but she still remembered it in bits and glimpses. In the end, they’d agreed that her blood ties to that place could prove useful.

  Atiana could hear Nikandr rooting around the tent, no doubt for a mouthful of vodka. Whatever truth there was in Ashan’s words—she had no doubt he was worried about Soroush—there was more bothering him. One could not be near him and not know of it. It was his link to Adhiya. A year and a half had passed since the events at the Spar on Galahesh, and a day didn’t go by when Nikandr didn’t seem maudlin or reticent. She tried to find ways to reach him, to pull him from his doldrums—and indeed, there were times when he seemed to brighten, giving her hope—but then a day would pass, perhaps two, and he would return to his yearning.

  “How long do we wait for them?” Atiana asked, referring to Soroush and Ushai.

  “If they’re not back by morning, we’ll continue as planned, and hopefully find them at the caravanserai.”

  Footsteps crunched over the ground toward them. It was Sukharam, the boy Nasim had found and brought to Ghayavand with him. He was gifted—as gifted as Nasim, if Ashan was to be believed—but that wasn’t why Ashan had insisted he be brought. His fate is entwined with Nasim’s, Ashan had said before the journey had begun. We can no more forget about him than we can Kaleh, or the Atalayina.

  Sukharam was a grown young man of sixteen now. He pulled up the hem of his
flax-colored robes and knelt between her and Ashan. He reached for the flatbreads, perhaps to test them, perhaps to steal a bite, but Atiana slapped his hand away. He scowled, but Atiana paid him no mind. She quickly flipped the flatbreads over, each landing on the cookstone with a sizzle.

  “I don’t like the feel of this,” Sukharam said. “Any of it.”

  Ashan watched Sukharam intently. “There’s no reason to think that anything’s gone amiss.”

  Sukharam looked to his right, toward the caravan route that would take them to the plains below. “Those that live here in the desert… They’re secretive.”

  “As much as the people of the desert might isolate themselves, the caravanserais are run by the Empire. They are the Kamarisi’s people. We should worry about him, not the locals.”

  Atiana flipped the eggplant and sprinkled it with coarse grains of salt and pepper.

  “You may not see it,” Sukharam said, “but they have a distrust of us. I saw it at the edge of the desert. I’ve seen it in each of the caravanserais we’ve visited. They may pledge their loyalty to the Kamarisi in the light of day, but in the dark of the night they serve the desert, and the desert does not want us.”

  “I’ve been here many times before,” Ashan replied. “They watch travelers they do not know, true, but they watch everyone, even people from other caravanserais, other villages.”

  Sukharam was staring at the cookstone—he was a young man, and young men were always hungry—but then he glanced up at Atiana with a sullenness she’d seen on him often.

  Atiana pulled up one of the flatbreads, quickly snatching two of the eggplant strips and folding the bread over it. She handed it to Ashan, whose face brightened as he accepted it. Atiana did the same for the next, handing this one to Sukharam. Only when she’d made the third, and set more dough and eggplant onto the stone for Nikandr, did she turn to Sukharam. “You can say it.”

  He took a bite of his bread and spoke as he chewed. “You shouldn’t have come. You should have left this to us.”

  By us he meant himself and Ashan and even Soroush and Ushai. In his eyes, the four of them had more of a right than Atiana and Nikandr to be here in the desert chasing after the Atalayina.

  “Nasim needs us.”

  “Nasim needs his own people,” Sukharam shot back.

  Ashan took a large bite of the flatbread, which steamed where he’d bitten into it. He stared at Atiana and then at Sukharam, his eyebrows pinching in concern. “It’s that kind of attitude that put you in those mines, Sukharam.”

  Sukharam’s eyes glowed fiercely. “And perhaps if I’d fought back they’d think twice over doing so again.”

  “The way to vashaqiram is through peace. Only through peace.”

  “And maybe one day we’ll be free enough to find it. But until then—”

  “Don’t allow Ushai’s ways to cloud your mind, Sukharam.”

  Indeed, Atiana thought. The two of them had been talking often over the course of the past many months. Soroush may have set aside his violent ways—at least for now—but Ushai had not, and she’d been plying Sukharam with them for some time. At first she’d seen no change in Sukharam, but more and more he’d brought up notions like this. Fighting. Resisting. But at what cost?

  Sukharam stared at his flatbread as if it suddenly disgusted him. “Haven’t you ever thought you might be wrong, Ashan? How would you know the way to vashaqiram? You won’t reach it in this lifetime. You won’t reach it in the next. We’re all of us eons away from oneness with our world. Perhaps the way to vashaqiram is to cleanse the world of that which is wrong.”

  Ashan had been chewing, but he now stopped. He stared at Sukharam as if he just now realized how dangerously close he was to turning away from the path of peace. He swallowed his mouthful heavily. “You don’t believe that.”

  Sukharam stared at Ashan, then to Atiana. His face was angry, but there was also a look of shame, as if he knew Ashan was right, as if he’d voiced half-formed thoughts without thinking. Without saying another word he stood and threw his flatbread into the dry scrub brush beyond their camp site. His footsteps crunched as he headed beyond the horses and behind the small hill where he’d spent most of the day taking breath.

  “So much anger in him…” Atiana said.

  Ashan took another bite of his flatbread. “We all have anger, daughter of Radia, Sukharam more than most. It’s what we do with it that counts.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of. What Sukharam will do with his.” She paused, letting those words sink in. “I wonder if we shouldn’t send him back.”

  “A desire he leveled against you only moments ago.” Ashan shook his head. “Make no mistake. As surely as the sun needs the moon, we need one another. We are bound together, all of us, by Nasim and the events that lay behind us. By the ones that lay before us as well. Now, we have but to carry one another to the end.”

  “You speak as if we’re trapped by the fates,” Atiana said, “but that’s where you’re wrong. We aren’t bodies slipping through the firmament with no choice left to us. We are our own. We choose our destiny.”

  Ashan put the last of his flatbread into his mouth, smacking his lips noisily. When he spoke again, it was with a seriousness that surprised her. “Believe what you wish, daughter of Radia. We may try to escape the paths the fates have set for us, but they will have us in the end.”

  Atiana entered the tent, holding a cup of water and the still-warm flatbread for Nikandr. He was sitting cross-legged on their shared blanket, his eyes distant. She shook the flatbread at him, and he looked up, accepting it reluctantly.

  “Eat,” she said.

  He took a mouthful and chewed as if he knew he needed the sustenance but could barely stomach the taste of it.

  “Ashan said we would leave in the morning.”

  Nikandr stared at the wall of the tent as if he hoped to peer through it to the caravanserai beyond. “Is your sister near?”

  Though she had tried to find Ishkyna that morning, she cast herself outward again, already knowing Ishkyna was too busy to speak with her. War was brewing to the northeast. Leonid had months ago secured Oramka and the nearby coast of Yrstanla, and he was now pushing westward to take as much of the continent as he could in hopes of blunting the Empire’s response when at last it came. Only in the past few weeks had a sizable force been sent from Alekeşir, the capital of the Empire. More were headed south from the northern reaches. The desert tribes had been called upon as well, but they had long been hoping to throw off the yoke of the Kamarisi, and they’d been slow in responding. Still, the armies of Yrstanla were triple what the islands had so far gathered. Were it not for Ishkyna, Atiana would be worried, but with her and the other Matri, they had a good chance of turning the tide against the counter-assault that was sure to begin soon.

  Ishkyna had helped lead them through the desert, and she had promised to find them each fortnight, but Ishkyna had been trying to find Kaleh ever since the events on Galahesh, with no success. Since those fleeting feelings she’d felt in the days that had followed the destruction of the Spar, there had been nothing.

  “She won’t come,” Atiana said. “Not for several days yet.”

  “We need her to come more often.”

  “You know she cannot. The war—”

  “I know the war’s begun, Atiana, but here we are again, ignoring what needs to be done. It’s the Atalayina that matters, and Ghayavand, not a hurried grab for power while the Empire marches east.”

  “I know. And Borund knows.”

  Nikandr couldn’t even bring himself to scoff. He merely stared at her with cold, incredulous eyes.

  “He does.”

  “He is a lapdog, as he ever was.”

  “Do not speak of my brother so! Dhalingrad is the Grand Duke, and he will brook no insult, no test of his authority. He’s already hung dozens of men from his own duchy, and three from Bolgravya for what he saw as insubordination. Borund must be careful, especially since the spire on Kirava
shya is still only half-built. The spoils from Yrstanla are being funneled to the duchies, but the lion’s share goes to feed the mouths of Dhalingrad. And don’t forget, Borund spared your life.”

  “How very gracious of him after killing seven innocent men and women in cold blood.”

  “You left him no choice! The Maharraht should have been brought somewhere else.”

  “Where could they have gone, Atiana?”

  “Anywhere but under Borund’s wing. Face it, you were thumbing your nose at him.”

  “I was saving those that had—“

  “Nischka! I’ve heard it all a hundred times before! You could have brought them to Mirkotsk. You could have brought them to one of the smaller islands, to be ferried to Iramanshah later. By the ancients, you could have let them find their own way, wherever they wished to go. You didn’t have to bring them to Khalakovo!”

  Nikandr set his flatbread aside as if he were disgusted by it. He picked up a goat skin, realizing only then that it no longer held any vodka. He fumbled around the blankets until he found another, at which point he opened it and took a long pull from the liquor within.

  Atiana stared, wishing she knew what to say. He was lost, and yet he was sitting right before her. They’d found a way to be with one another at last, and yet they were more distant than ever.

  “Nikandr,” she said softly, “this isn’t about the hangings, and it isn’t about Borund.”

  He stared with flat eyes and took another drink.

  “If Nasim were dead, you’d know.” She reached out and gripped his hand. He squeezed back, but it was practically lifeless. “We’ll find him.”

  “I know,” he lied.

  Late that night, long after the sun went down, they lay on their blankets, their backs to one another. She felt him turn over. He was facing her, waiting for her to turn around. It was then, with that one simple gesture, that much of the tightness within her melted away. She turned toward him, hoping to see his smiling face. And he did smile. But she also saw within his eyes that haunted look. He might never be free of it, she realized. He might yearn for the touch of Adhiya for the rest of his life.