The Flames of Shadam Khoreh

by Bradley Beaulieu

  As the sun slides behind the westward ridge of the towering peak, the air immediately becomes more chill. They come to a forest of impossibly tall trees. Their bark is greenish-grey, and their branches still hold leaves, as if they refuse to bend to the coming winter. The air is filled with sage, but there is also the scent of antiquity, like the smell of ancient scrolls. Kaleh continues to lead them along the face of the cliff. Sometimes they’re forced away by the landscape, but this never seems to bother her. She simply leads them beyond it and resumes her search as they trek westward. The sky darkens, making their path through the trees more difficult to see. She continues until she’s practically searching with her hands along the rock.

  Finally the sun sets fully. The stars shine brightly and insects chitter among the trees. And Kaleh suddenly steps back.

  Ahead there is a looming blackness. Kaleh retrieves the Atalayina from its pouch and holds it high in her hand. The stone begins to glow, first a deep blue like the sun against a shallow sea, and then it intensifies into a cold white brightness that reveals a yawning opening in the face of the cliff. She stares at it for some time, moving the stone this way and that, as if she doesn’t quite believe what she’s found.

  She shrugs off her pack and motions for him to do the same.

  He complies—there is no choice but to obey—and he follows her into the opening. It is not deep. They come quickly to the end of it. Creeping vines grow here, and it is clear they’re covering something. Kaleh pulls at them. Unbidden, he does the same, and slowly a figure is revealed, a figure carved into the stone itself: a woman, her eyes closed, her arms crossed over her chest as if she’s been laid to rest. His first thought is that this is a grave, a marker of someone’s passing, but somehow that doesn’t seem right.

  Kaleh, holding the Atalayina in her left hand, touches the statue with her right. No more do her fingertips brush the statue than the stone begins to crumble. It seems improper to tear down what someone took so long to create, but in mere moments it is done and the rocks look like nothing more than some forgotten remnant of man.

  Revealed is a passageway into the mountain.

  Kaleh stares into that deep darkness. Her grip on the Atalayina is not merely tight; her hand shakes from it. For the first time he can remember, she seems fearful—truly fearful. For some reason this place has shaken her to her very core. She notices him watching and tries to calm herself, but the strength of her emotions cannot be buried so easily. He can hear it through the quaver in her voice as she utters a single word. “Come.” And with that, she heads into the passageway, holding the glowing Atalayina above her head as if it would protect her from whatever dark things lie ahead.

  He follows, and the cool night becomes infinitely more chill. It saps his strength, makes him shiver uncontrollably. Something about this place tells him not to call upon a suurahezhan, a spirit of fire. He knows not what would happen—perhaps nothing—but at the moment he’s unwilling to tempt the fates.

  The passageway slopes upward, then downward, and then it begins to curve until he’s sure that they’ve completed several full circuits. All the while, Kaleh seems more nervous.

  “We can return to the forest,” he suggests, “and try again in the morning.”

  She stares at him, the light from the stone shining up and across her face like shadows in a vale. “Do not speak again,” she says, turning away and continuing.

  At last the passage stops at a dead end. The face of the stone is embossed. It shows the image of the same person who stood at the entrance, except instead of her arms being crossed, they are spread wide, as qiram do when they commune with hezhan. Her eyes are open, and they stare at Kaleh with a look of stony judgment. Kaleh inspects the slab, which is nearly double her height. She presses her hand against it as she did outside, but this time, the stone does not change. Nothing happens at all.

  She tries again, her face growing concerned as she does so. Her jaw sets. The tendons on her hand stand out even more than the veins on her forehead. The light in the Atalayina fades and goes black.

  For long moments he hears only the sound of her labored breathing. It smells of winter here. Of a cold so deep it might be left from the forming of the world.

  The wall begins to glow, a dull orange light centered on Kaleh’s hand. It spreads, and the light brightens until there’s a yellow burning around the outline of her hand that fades to orange and red and black as it radiates outward. Kaleh is pressing harder than he’s ever seen her. Her head quivers. Her shoulders shake. A long groan comes from somewhere deep inside her and it grows as the wall turns white at its center, and then she screams, a sound of pain and rage and frustration, and still she tries harder.

  And then it becomes too much.

  Kaleh collapses, and the Atalayina slips from her grasp, the stone rolling away with the bright sound of rattling crystal.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Immediately, the glowing wall begins to dull, but before it dies completely, he kneels by her side and checks her pulse.

  “Wake, Kaleh. Please.”

  The wall is too hot to touch, but the warmth of it is welcome after the frigid confines of this place.

  “Kaleh!” He shakes her, then slaps her cheek as the glow continues to fade. The vision of her face before him fades, orange then red then ruddy crimson. And then all is black save the center of the door, which glows like a distant volcano.

  Kaleh still breathes, but she does not heed his call nor respond to his light slaps. She doesn’t seem to be in danger of dying, and he’s unwilling to do anything more harsh to her, so he reaches for the Atalayina. In the near darkness, his hand brushes it. It chimes as it rolls away.

  He picks the stone up and stands before the door. What could lie behind it? And why has Kaleh brought them so far across the Gaji in order to find it?

  And suddenly he remembers bits and pieces of their time in the desert. Perhaps it’s because he now holds the stone. Whatever the reason, he goes rigid, waiting for more of his precious memories to return. He recalls a village, and the wary people who lived there. Kaleh was wise, though. She took her time, waiting until she knew them well enough, and then she began taking them one by one, sifting through their minds until she had the knowledge she wanted.

  Of the days that followed he remembers little, only that Kaleh grew more intent. She allowed him to attend her less and less often. He wondered whether it was because she didn’t want him to know her true purpose. He was her puppet, doing as she wished, but still, perhaps she knew enough to keep her true thoughts from him, for surely she still hoped to complete what her mother had begun.

  And then it comes to him. His name. His name is Nasim.

  He has been drowning in his attempts to remember more, even a thing as simple as this. He has felt so powerless. He is largely powerless still, but the simple knowledge of his own name gives him hope.

  The door is completely dark now. As he stands before it, he feels the weight of the Atalayina in his hand. It is as large as an apple and as smooth. He cannot feel the seams where the stone was once split into three, and he wonders for a moment if it is less powerful than it once was. He doubts that it is so, for when he touches it with his mind, the way to Adhiya opens up to him. It practically swallows him. How could anything have been more powerful than this?

  As Kaleh did, he calls upon a dhoshahezhan, a spirit of life, to light the Atalayina from within. As a soft blue-white glow lights the tunnel, he reaches out and feels the surface of the door, which is still warm to the touch. No more does he press his hand against it than a crack forms. It widens, runs up to the ceiling and down to the floor. More cracks run from side to side like a spider web being spun before his very eyes. Flakes of stone begin to fall away, then larger chunks, and soon the entire massive thing is breaking and crumbling to the floor like a landslide. He pulls Kaleh away as stone falls around her feet. Still she does not wake, so he holds the Atalayina high and steps over the uneven rubble to inspect the passage that ha
s been revealed. Twenty paces in there is a square room. A stone chest the size of a coffin sits at the center. On either side of it are two statues, one man and one woman. They wear the robes of the Aramahn. Their hands are to their sides, and their faces upturned in rapture, as if they’ve found vashaqiram at last.

  Nasim approaches the sarcophagus. Upon it lays a sheaf of wheat, which crumbles in his hand as he tries to pick it up. Who lies within it? Why would a place like this have been built to house them? Most importantly, though, why would Kaleh care? Why would she come all this way and risk her life to find it? And why, by the will of the fates, would this place have allowed him in but kept Kaleh out? He struggles to remember anything of this place or of Kaleh’s purpose, but too many of his memories have been secreted away, and he has no idea how to find them.

  After brushing away the remains of the wheat, he places his hands on the stone lid. Using the Atalayina, he calls upon a vanahezhan. As deeply buried as this tomb is within the mountain, there are many near, but instead of choosing one himself, he allows one to choose him. Strangely, the hezhan do not squabble, as they often do. They seem to bow to one, and though it is strong, it is neither the strongest nor the eldest.

  The hezhan approaches, and a metallic taste fills Nasim’s mouth. The mineral scents of copper and iron fill his nostrils. He bids the hezhan to warp the stone, to part it that he might see inside. The hezhan, this spirit of earth, has no power over it. The lid does not bend to its will. And yet, he senses something within, not a hezhan, but a soul. A living soul. And it is awakening.

  Merciful heavens, what could be alive in a place that has surely remained untouched for centuries?

  Nasim suddenly becomes fearful.

  The lid shakes. It scrapes several inches toward Nasim. He backs away as a sickly sweet smell fills the room.

  The lid moves again, and then a hand rises from within. Nasim lifts the Atalayina, makes it brighten so that he can see more detail. The hand is desiccated, little more than bone covered by a white layer of the palest skin Nasim has ever seen. It isn’t just white, it is nearly translucent, revealing veins both large and small.

  Another hand rises up, and the lid is thrown aside, forcing Nasim to back away or have it crush his legs. The massive tablet dashes against the floor, breaking into three large pieces.

  Dust billows around the sarcophagus, occluding it momentarily as Nasim watches on, eyes wide, heart pumping madly. He can see the outline of a head within. He can see shoulders. There are robes around the form in the same style as those on the statues, but they, just like the sheaf of wheat, crumble as the form pulls itself up and stands within the confines of its coffin.

  The thing inside seems to be a woman, though he is not at all sure of this. She is so emaciated that her stomach is drawn toward her spine as if no viscera remain. Her limbs are as thin as the boughs of a yearling tree. Her cheeks are mere hollows, her eyes so sunken they are difficult to see in the depths of their sockets. A golden circlet rests upon her brow, not one of the delicate ones the qiram of Nasim’s generation use, but one of the wide circlets of old, more crown than ornament. Five settings adorn it, one for each of the aspects of hezhan, but he is sure that this woman, whoever she might have been, has no need of stones. The qiram of ancient days had not needed to commune in such ways; the use of stones was a recent contrivance, brought on by the inability of later generations to touch Adhiya as easily as their grandmothers and grandfathers had.

  The woman turns her head, as if she senses Nasim but cannot yet see him.

  He steps forward, holding no fear. She was a woman of knowledge when she was buried. “Here,” he calls, waving his hand while holding the Atalayina high.

  She turns her head, seeing not him but the Atalayina. She stares directly at it, her sunken eyes squinting against the brightness.

  He eases the intensity of the light, and she seems to calm.

  Her mouth works. Her lips are drawn back in a permanent grimace, revealing stained teeth and gums that are so severely receded it is a wonder any teeth remain. Her shriveled tongue moves. A sound like a sigh escapes her, and she reaches out with her hand. She takes one halting step forward within the confines of the sarcophagus, and Nasim wonders if she will fall.

  “Th—”

  The sound is breathy, almost a whisper.

  “The aht—”

  She is unmistakably trying to speak. She swallows, a thing that seems eminently painful for her.

  “All will be well, grandmother. I hear you.”

  “The atahl—” She works her mouth and tries again. “The Atalayina.”

  Nasim can only stare. The Atalayina. She knows of the Atalayina. But how? The stone has been missing from the world for three centuries.

  “How do you know of this stone?”

  She pulls herself taller and stares, somehow regal despite her frail state. “I know…” Her words are hoary with age and disuse. “I know of the Atalayina.”

  “How?”

  “I was there.”

  “You were on Ghayavand.”

  “Yeh.”

  “But…” Nasim didn’t know where to begin. “Grandmother, how came you here?”

  She considers for a moment, as if reliving those ancient days, but before she can respond, a blast of fire streaks in and plows into the woman. It knocks her aside, flips her over the edge and sends her crashing to the ground. Above the roar of the fire, Nasim hears brittle bones break. The woman cries out, a low moan at first but rising quickly to a fever pitch.

  Kaleh stands in the broken doorway, breathing heavily, staring at Nasim as if he’s betrayed her.

  She stalks forward, keeping an eye on Nasim while moving toward the burning figure that writhes upon the floor.

  “Don’t!” Nasim cries. He lifts the Atalayina. He calls upon a dhoshahezhan to stop her.

  But before he can, Kaleh says one word. “Insa.” The Kalhani word for forget.

  And he remembers not who he is.

  Knows not why he’s here.

  Knows not why there is a slight and ancient woman ablaze before him.

  The young woman to his left pours more fire upon her until the crying stops. Until her movement ceases. Until she is little more than a blackened husk.

  Tears burn down his cheeks, but the emotions that drive them are buried and unreachable.

  He’s confused by everything around him, but he knows this young woman. Her name is Kaleh. She is a powerful woman. Fearsome.

  He believes in her. He believes that her cause is just. But this is not an absolute belief. For there is now doubt, planted there by the murdered woman who lies at his feet.

  And suddenly he realizes that he has been here before. He has witnessed this scene play out in other mountains and other tombs. Other men and woman dying by Kaleh’s hand.

  He also knows that he was tricked. She could not enter this place. Not on her own. She needed him. Why, he doesn’t know, but he realizes now that it was he that allowed her to enter this sacred place so that she could murder the holy woman that lay within this ancient sarcophagus. It was he that allowed her to do this to the others—four or five or a dozen; who knows how many in all? His blind faith in her was yet another of her commands, and yet, even knowing this, there is a part of him that wants to believe in her, that wants to obey. But there is another part as well, however small, that sees her for what she is.

  Kaleh turns toward him, indifferent to the horror that had just played out before her. There is something ancient within her eyes, so much like Sariya that he shivers.

  She steps forward and with her left hand touches his forehead. “Insa.”

  He stands, merely watching, merely waiting. The young woman before him takes the blue stone from his hand. He lets her. He isn’t sure why he was holding it in the first place.

  He stares at the blackened mound of ash nearby. It stains the floor. The ashes drift about the room as the woman walks briskly away.

  At the doorway marked by broken sto
nes, she beckons him.

  He follows, and together they walk down the cold, curving hallway.

  He doesn’t think to speak to her. They have no need for such things. They know where they go. They know where they’ve come from. To speak would be to waste one’s breath.

  But within him, there is a spark. A spark of a memory. He doesn’t know where it comes from, and it is a minor thing, but he treasures it just the same.

  It is only a name, but it is his name.

  He is Nasim. Nasim an Ashan.

  Such a small thing, one’s name, but it is a start.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Atiana’s body feels distant, like a memory, or a long-forgotten wish. She hardly feels the powerful strides of the ab-sair as it gallops through the night. She is vaguely aware—and grateful—that Nikandr is seated behind her in the saddle, for if she were alone, she would surely fall off.

  She can still feel the woman in the compound over a league behind, but as they ride away beyond the caravanserai and into the desert, the feeling of the wodjan, the Haelish witch, begins to recede. Even so, Atiana can still see her, a diaphanous white against the midnight blue of the aether. The wodjan recovers her censer that had been spilled when Sukharam entered the home. She sets it on the glowing red coals. A blackened remnant of the blood she burned still rests within the censer. She hunches over the fire pit, drawing the rising smoke from her own burning blood toward her as if it is her sole link to life.

  Atiana is disgusted, but she knows that this ritual, the burning of the wodjan’s own blood, is the thing that both drew her into the aether and allowed her to remain there. She felt it in the room shortly before Goeh arrived, a sudden and undeniable pull toward the aether. She thought it was Ishkyna, her sister, returned from the warfront—for who else could it be?—but it hadn’t felt like Ishkyna, nor Mileva, nor any of the Matri. It had felt foreign and raw, not so different than her first time in the drowning chamber those many years ago.