The Flames of Shadam Khoreh

by Bradley Beaulieu

  The soldier from Avolina watched from the back of his horse, staring at the barges, too startled to move, but then he reined his tall horse over and kicked it into action.

  The towering Haelish men sprinted after him, and Styophan could only stare in wonder. They sped toward the hill faster than a horse could gallop, and in moments they were over and beyond it. Shortly after a distant shout came. It was too soft to make out the soldier’s words, but it sounded like a cry for help. It was cut off a moment later. Then came a deadly silence. Every man on the barge knew what had happened.

  In short order the warriors returned, one of them leading the horse by its reins, and though the horse tried to tug itself free, it was eventually led into the river. Another warrior carried the limp soldier over his shoulder. It was easy to forget how large the Haelish were, but not when they carried a fully grown man and made him look like a boy. When they reached the bank and stepped into the shallows, one of the warriors drew his sword. The other, the one holding the horse’s reins, ran his hand along its forehead. Styophan would never have guessed it, but the horse calmed, mere moments before the sword came down, severing its neck.

  Styophan cringed at the sight of the head being dragged down into the water as two of the others dragged the body deeper into the water. He knew as well as everyone else, though, that there could be no evidence left behind, not if they were to reach Alekeşir and have any hope of completing what they’d sworn to do. The last of the Haelish carried the janissary down into the depths. They were gone for long moments, but a swath of muddy, bloody water rose up from the depths as they buried the bodies of man and horse alike in the riverbed. There might come a day when the bodies would surface, but in the meantime, a single janissary gone missing in Avolina would raise little concern in the capital of Yrstanla.

  When the four warriors resurfaced and began swimming toward the barges, Styophan turned toward Datha. “Best you get into the hold.” Styophan couldn’t tell if Datha nodded or not, for he couldn’t draw his gaze from the blood in the water.

  Can a single man and a single horse bleed so much?

  Datha left his side, calling softly for his men to join him in the barge’s hold. Ahead, on the other barge, the Haelish warriors were doing the same, readying themselves for the two weeks of travel it would take for them to reach Alekeşir.

  As Styophan ordered his men to stop rowing against the current and start heading downriver, the bloody water finally reached Styophan’s barge, passing its wooden sides, caressing it like a dead lover. He felt like he should feel vindicated in some way, for Edik’s sake.

  He didn’t, though. He felt foul.

  As foul as the water flowing past him.

  “Styopha.”

  Styophan woke and sat up immediately. It was Rodion, and his voice sounded urgent.

  He pulled his eyepatch on and left the cramped confines of the hold, where fifty Haelish warriors and ten of his streltsi were sleeping. When he climbed the short ladder up to the deck, the yellow morning sun greeted him. To the south, however, was a sight that stopped him short.

  He stepped up beside Rodion, gape-mouthed.

  Alekeşir.

  The land along the banks of the Vünkal was farmland dotted with plantation houses. Then came suddenly a press of fortifications and walls and towers and stone domiciles that spanned an area wider than Styophan had ever seen a city occupy. It seemed to go on and on. It was a league wide. By the ancients, it might even be two. How many people must live here? The sheer amount of resources it must take to sustain them…

  To the right of the river’s meandering path toward the city was a rise in the land. Not a hill, exactly, but a shallow plateau. On that rise stood a wall taller than the lower one that ran around much of the city. Towers were spaced along its length, and beyond Styophan could see minarets and massive domes. It was larger than anything he’d seen on the islands. Larger than Radiskoye by far. Larger even than Galostina.

  This was Kasir Irabahce, the house of the Kamarisis, a place that had never been touched in battle.

  And here they were, a handful of men hoping to find their way within her walls to kill the Kamarisi, to give the islands the time they needed to recover.

  “What have we done?” Rodion said.

  “Something foolish,” Styophan replied without taking his eye from the vision before him. “Something foolish, indeed.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Khamal walks through fresh green grass. Around him fields of it sway gently in the wind. Well beyond the fields is the deep blue sea of the ocean. He can smell the sea here. It feels right, as the sea is an inseparable part of this day.

  On the mountain path ahead is Sariya. Her golden hair is pulled back, tied by a length of leather cord. Her dress—made from rough linen the color of sandstone—has intricate white thread-work at the hems of the sleeves and skirt and neck. Her fine sandals, like the robes, are new. They were presented to her by a craftsman before they’d left Alayazhar. Muqallad and Khamal had been presented similar style robes so that the three of them looked like brothers and sister walking their way toward the shoulder of the largest mountain on Ghayavand.

  Ahead of Sariya is Muqallad. His curly black hair falls over his shoulders and down his back, and in his hands, cupped gently, is the Atalayina.

  The three of them walk in lockstep, neither hurrying nor tarrying on their way to the site of the world’s transcendence. Indaraqiram. It is upon them at last. He thought he might be excited when the day finally arrived, but he isn’t. He is at peace, more so than he’s ever been in his life.

  Above them stands majestic Sihyaan. Today the mountain seems to be staring down with something akin to approval, and yet there is a massive flock of starlings weaving and churning through the sky above. Ill omen coupled with good. He might have hoped for clearer signs that the day will go well, but in truth he cannot ask for more than he’s already been given. This is the way of life, after all—bad married with good, from one’s first waking moment to that final, halting breath. It wasn’t what happened in life, after all; it was how one reacted that mattered, so he would look to Sihyaan and in her imposing stare glimpse what might become of this world were he and the others to succeed.

  At last Muqallad stops and turns. He holds out the Atalayina for Khamal to take. Khamal accepts it and stares into the deep blue depths of the stone before taking up the hike once more. It was decided that Muqallad would carry the stone from Alayazhar; Khamal would relieve him of it when they reached the foothills; and when they reached the most difficult portion of the trail, Sariya would carry it the rest of the way, to the peak.

  The stone, as it has for these past many months, feels weighty in his hand, but there is more to it this day. He can feel something through it, a depth that has never been present before.

  It knows, he suddenly realizes.

  It knows what will happen this day.

  But as they take the first of the hills that lead up toward the sharp peak of Sihyaan, he senses something else, or perhaps someone else. It feels as though another person holds it as well, as though he and they walk hand in hand, the stone clasped between them.

  Like the starlings, which are now wheeling toward the sea, this feels like another omen. He opens himself to it. He accepts it, and as he does so, he feels a third. What it might mean, he doesn’t know. Perhaps it’s the simple fact that he and Muqallad and Sariya have become so intimate with this stone that he can feel their presence, especially with the two of them walking so close on the trail behind him. Or perhaps it’s the fates watching from above, touching the stone and wishing him well.

  He becomes so lost in his thoughts he loses track of time, so much so that when Sariya taps him on his shoulder, he realizes that hours have passed. The three of them now stand halfway up the mountain. The foot of the trail that leads to Sihyaan’s steeper sections lies just ahead. How can this be? He told himself he would mark each step of this journey, and yet here he is, the last half-league l
ittle more than a dream.

  “Are you well?” Sariya asks. Her smile is stunning, and Khamal feels a pride borne of working together with her for so long. She isn’t phased by what’s happening, and why should she be?

  “I’m well,” he answers, and yet it is only when she stares down at the Atalayina with a bemused expression upon her face that he realizes he still holds it in his hand.

  He smiles sheepishly and hands it to her.

  This is the perfect day, he says to himself.

  And yet… He feels a sense of longing when she takes it and walks ahead of him on the trail. Nothing he does seems to banish this one niggling thought as they take to the pathways along Sihyaan’s broad shoulders.

  It is the perfect day, he repeats.

  Except now it feels like a hope, not a certainty.

  Nasim woke with feelings of yearning still strong within him. Opposite a now-dead fire lay Tohrab, the Tashavir he’d saved from Sariya. Tohrab was sleeping, which was for the best. Even with Nasim’s help he’d barely made it to the base of the mountain—the last, Nasim feared, that he would visit in this lost valley.

  After adding dried sticks to the fire and stoking a meager flame back to life, Nasim pulled apart one of the pine cones he’d left near the fire to dry to liberate the nuts within. He chewed them absently while staring over the tops of the black pine trees to the mountain peak above. He couldn’t help but think of Khamal’s memories of Sihyaan. It was clear Khamal had been hiking to the peak to complete the ritual that would eventually cause the sundering. Nasim was desperate to know more, but he’d long ago learned that such memories were a gift. He could not question when he received them, or how much they revealed. He was simply glad they’d come, for each of them prepared him that much more for what lay ahead.

  The peak above them—Malidhan, Tohrab had named it—was nothing like Sihyaan. Malidhan’s was shaped more like a spearhead, and though Sihyaan was dark, she didn’t have the feeling of ill intent Malidhan had. Sihyaan had always felt like a place where peace could be found no matter what the circumstances. Even the last time Nasim was there, even after the sundering, even after the pain and anguish Sihyaan had been witness to, she felt at peace with the world around her. Whereas Malidhan felt protective, isolated—not merely watchful or vigilant, but chary of being used.

  Malidhan was unique among the mountains of Shadam Khoreh. It was the tallest and the only one which had snow gracing its peak. It wasn’t much, just the very top, but it looked like the jewel of dawn in the setting of night’s dark crown.

  “Tohrab?” Nasim called.

  Tohrab was sleeping next to the fire. It had been two days since the encounter at the last tomb. He’d wanted to take Tohrab to the peak immediately, but Tohrab was too weak. Nasim might have gone alone, but he couldn’t afford to leave Tohrab here. So Nasim had brought him into the forest near the base of the tall peak and hidden them away in a copse of black pine.

  “Tohrab,” he called, louder.

  The Tashavir had been difficult to speak to. He never seemed to understand what Nasim was saying, and when he did, his answers seemed steeped in the past. It was clear he thought little time had passed since he’d been interred, and no amount of explanation seemed to clear that up. It didn’t help that Nasim knew too little of Kalhani. Tohrab knew some Mahndi, but whether his understanding was obscured by his addled state of mind or if it came from a true lack of knowledge of the language, Nasim couldn’t tell.

  Nasim had grown increasingly anxious over the last two days, fearing Sariya would rush toward this place, but it was likely she thought him dead. She’d buried him in stone, after all, and it may be she hadn’t sensed their passage through the portal Kaleh had created at the last moment.

  He feared that Sariya might know how to transport herself by using such a trick, but as far as he knew this was something unique to Kaleh. Sariya had not traveled so in the times Nasim could remember, and even Muqallad had seemed to rely on Kaleh’s abilities, so it seemed safe to assume Sariya wouldn’t be able to do so now. Besides, she had been taxed greatly by her assault on the tomb. She would have to recover, and hopefully that would give Nasim the time he needed.

  Nasim reached down and shook Tohrab’s shoulder. “Tohrab, we must—”

  Nasim stopped, for Tohrab was shivering horribly. It wasn’t the sort of shiver one gets when cold, that wracks the body as it tries to regain lost warmth; this was a shiver that ran through to the center of his soul, a shiver spurred by fear of the gravest kind.

  Nasim knelt next to Tohrab and rolled him onto his back. He shook him harder now that he saw the amount of pain and anguish that was playing over the craggy landscape of his face. His skin was ashen. His eyes, sunken deep within their sockets, rolled beneath their lids, as from a dream. His cheeks stood out harshly, as did his brow bones and his jaw. Nasim shook him harder still, and finally Tohrab’s eyes snapped open. They were haunted and troubled and filled with pain. Tears leaked from them from the moment they began taking in the dark clouds above and the pine forest that surrounded them.

  “The rifts,” he whispered in Mahndi, “they’ve grown so wide.”

  “They have, grandfather.”

  “They grow wider every day.” His diction was markedly improved.

  Nasim helped him to sit up. “They do.”

  Tohrab sat there, staring into his open hands. Every so often he would grip them and stare at fingers that were little more than skin on bone. From his brow he took the golden circlet, his wispy grey hair momentarily tugged by the motion. His eyes stared into the five stones in the circlet’s settings. He rubbed his thumb over them as if to polish them, or perhaps to wipe away the unpleasant reality he now faced.

  “The Tashavir,” Nasim began tentatively. “You came here to protect Ghayavand, did you not?”

  “All but one.”

  Nasim shook his head. “What do you mean?”

  “My wife, Inan. We all considered her one of the Tashavir, but she remained. She felt duty bound to tell Khamal and the others what we’d done.”

  For long moments Nasim could only stare. “Your wife was Inan?”

  “She was.”

  Nasim could still see her, burning at Khamal’s feet after she’d told him what she and the others had done. They’d set the wards and trapped the Al-Aqim. She had once been a disciple of Khamal, and it was that betrayal, plus Inan’s outward smugness, that had caused a rage to bubble up inside Khamal until he’d summoned a suurahezhan and burned her where she stood. Inan had somehow been pleased. Perhaps she’d felt it proper to die after giving her daughter, Yadhan, over to Khamal to become one of the misshapen creatures, the akhoz.

  “You said you’ve had dreams from Khamal’s life,” Tohrab said. “Have you ever dreamed of Inan?”

  “I have.”

  “Were any from the time after the Tashavir left Ghayavand?”

  “Alas,” Nasim said, “I’ve had none such.” Fates curse him for a coward, he didn’t have the heart to tell Tohrab that tale.

  When Tohrab spoke again, his voice was as soft as the wind through the boughs of the nearby trees. “I would like to say it was true”—he levered himself up in slow and awkward increments and stared down at his circlet—“that we came here to protect Ghayavand, but that would be only half the truth, and the lesser of the two at that.”

  Strangely, sleet began to fall on the forest around them. The pellets struck Tohrab’s head and shoulders. They struck his hands, making it look as though he were made of stone and bits of him were chipping away.

  “And the other half?”

  Tohrab looked up, holding Nasim’s gaze. “We came here to hide from our own. We came because we could not trust those among us to hold faith forever.”

  Nasim stood and began gathering his things as the sleet rained down. “I don’t understand.”

  Tohrab took one long, wheezing breath and placed the circlet upon his brow. “No matter. What’s important is that Ghayavand is not yet lost. Wha
t’s important is that there is still one. One more. The strongest among us, which is surely why Sariya did not assail this mountain first.”

  “She may be weakened now.”

  “And now so is Ahar. We came to this place and bound ourselves to it, as we had bound ourselves to Ghayavand. We drew strength from this valley, for such is the power of Shadam Khoreh, the valley in which the Atalayina was discovered. Through us, Ghayavand was protected, but through our shared bonds, the Tashavir protected one another as well.” Tohrab looked up toward Malidhan. “When we buried ourselves within these mountains we didn’t know whether some of us, after decades, after centuries, would die. We didn’t know if our own will and the gifts granted by the fates would be enough. So we tied ourselves to one another. If one flagged, the others would lift him up. And so, were Sariya to have gone to Malidhan first, she, or you, might never have been able to enter Ahar’s tomb, and even if you had entered, the others would have lent him their power.”

  “How then? How could she have taken the first, and the second?”

  When Nasim had kicked dirt over the fire and Tohrab had picked up his walking staff, the two of them left the copse. Tohrab placed his hand on Nasim’s shoulder for support as they walked uphill toward the path they’d picked out the day before. “She found the weakest among us. She found the weakest and she snuffed their flame, killing them in their tomb before moving on to the next, and the next. Each time she killed another, we were less able to help.”

  “And now there is only you and Ahar.” Nasim shook his head. “So how? How can the walls around Ghayavand still stand with only two of the Tashavir left?”

  “We may have created those walls, but they do not need our constant attention. We buttress them, that is all. It is Ghayavand itself, and this valley, Shadam Khoreh, that keep the walls strong. Still, there is no doubt the walls are weak. With so many now gone, they have given way in many places, and soon, Ahar and I will prove paltry indeed.”