The Flames of Shadam Khoreh

by Bradley Beaulieu

  Sariya’s eyes stared deeply into his. There was a part of him that didn’t want to believe her. And yet, despite everything he’d told himself up until now, he did. She was right.

  How could he not have seen it before?

  Slowly, he reached up for her hand.

  His fingers were mere inches from hers when a swath of red blossomed at a point just above and to the right of her heart.

  A moment later the sharp report of a musket reached him.

  Nikandr and the others pushed their ab-sair hard after seeing the flames from high on the mountain. They’d seen someone or something fly down from those heights and crash into the trees above them. They rode up, pushing their mounts harder than they had before, and soon they came to the place where the form had flown down.

  “Go,” Nikandr said to Ashan and Sukharam. “Do what you can. We’ll continue up.”

  Ashan nodded as he and Sukharam rode their mounts deeper into the trees.

  Nikandr and Soroush took their ab-sair as far as they could, but soon the way became too steep, the pathway too narrow, so they slid off their saddles and continued on foot, running up the steps that had been cut into the stone. The wind came stronger now, and it bit, the red dust and sand from the valley below rising and driving against them, making it difficult to see. Soroush wrapped the long tail of his turban across his face. Nikandr did the same with his ghoutra. Still, it was difficult to see far ahead.

  They took a switchback, and Nikandr could see through the haze two forms standing at the ledge they’d seen from far below. One was Nasim. His back was to Nikandr, but it didn’t matter; Nikandr could live to a hundred and never fail to recognize the younger man.

  He cringed as Nasim fell and struck his head on a large rock.

  While the other…

  Nikandr shook his head.

  “Can it be?” Soroush said beside him. “Sariya?”

  Nikandr looked more closely. “It’s Kaleh.”

  “She’s too old,” Soroush replied.

  Indeed, she appeared years older than Nasim. She had been five years younger than Nasim when they’d left Galahesh.

  “I don’t understand it either,” Nikandr replied.

  Kaleh held the Atalayina in one hand, the stone a deep blue that stood out against the blowing red sand. Kaleh’s other hand was stretched out toward Nasim. This was no simple offer of help, Nikandr realized. It was an offer of allegiance. It reminded him—as did Kaleh’s physical appearance—of Sariya, of how she could with a simple twist of the mind make you believe that she was your ally, that she was in the right. Perhaps Nasim had somehow broken from her, and this one simple motion would bind him to her once more.

  It was something he couldn’t allow.

  Nikandr looked along the path. It continued westward before curving back and heading up to the ledge where Nasim and Kaleh stood. He would never reach them in time.

  “Nasim!” he called, but the blowing wind was too fierce for his voice to reach them.

  Nikandr pulled his musket to his shoulder and sighted along its length.

  The wind howled. The sand bit.

  Nikandr breathed out.

  And fired.

  The musket bucked. A swath of red along Kaleh’s shoulder.

  She fell, lost from view.

  Nikandr sprinted up the steps, Soroush close on his heels. The wind picked up. It pressed against them, threatened to toss them from the carved trail if they weren’t careful.

  They were halfway up the final stretch when the wind stopped. And the air became dead.

  Sand began to fall, and with it came a sound like an early autumn drizzle over a field of blooming heather.

  When they approached Nasim’s fallen form, Kaleh levered herself up and stared at Nikandr and Soroush. The Atalayina was held tightly in her left hand. Her eyes went wide and she turned toward the center of the valley.

  In the moments that followed, there came a low rumbling. Nikandr felt it deep in his chest, and in the pit of his stomach. He felt it on his skin, a tingling that seemed to cover every square inch of him.

  Out over the valley he could see little more than a red-haze sky and the dark hint of trees below.

  And then the wind rose and the world fell apart.

  Nikandr was pressed against the hillside like a ship against rocks. A sound like the groaning of the earth itself stormed over the valley. It grew in intensity, drowning all other sounds.

  The air was sucked from his lungs. The bones of his arms and legs and chest ached. His skull felt as though it were being pressed in a carpenter’s vise. He couldn’t move. Not an inch. He dare not open his eyes for fear they would be cut by stone and sand and the needles from the nearby pine.

  He heard a groan. It was Soroush, and yet it took this to realize he was doing the same.

  Another sound came, like mountains crashing, like worlds crumbling.

  And then the pressure began to ease.

  Slowly, it receded and the sound began to die away.

  A whine came from the valley below and rushed upward.

  “Quickly,” Nikandr said, pushing himself to his feet. “We must make it to the top of the ledge.”

  Soroush nodded. His turban was gone. His long hair whipped in a wind that was rising to new heights. They’d only gone ten strides when a blast of sand and branches and ancients knew what else descended upon them. Nikandr could barely breathe. He held his sleeve to his mouth and felt for the next stair. The wind shrieked. Branches and stones tore at his exposed skin.

  At last, he found the rock where Nasim had fallen. Nasim wasn’t there, however, nor was Kaleh.

  He continued, crawling forward lest the wind pick him up and throw him from the ledge.

  “Nasim!” he yelled as he felt his way forward. “Nasim!”

  He found more rocks along the grass-covered ledge, but nothing else. Nothing else.

  He tried to open his eyes to see, but was blinded by the biting wind.

  He scrabbled along, searching more frantically than before.

  “Nasim!”

  “Here,” he heard faintly, somewhere to his left.

  He moved, patting his hands before him.

  He found a larger stone, and on its leeward side, he found Nasim huddling with his back against the mountain.

  Nikandr grabbed a fistful of robes and pulled him away from his hiding place. Nasim stayed in a ball. Soroush was just behind, and together, the two of them dragged Nasim into the tunnel they’d seen earlier. They pulled themselves deeper and deeper into it as the wind continued to howl and scour and blind. All the while, Nasim coughed so heavily that Nikandr feared he was going to pass out. Long, wracking coughs overtook him, his entire body convulsing from it.

  Ten paces they dragged Nasim. Then twenty. And finally they came to a place where the wind was no longer as fierce. They stayed there in the darkness—for little light entered the tunnel now—and waited, panting as the wind’s anger slowly eased. Nasim’s coughing eased as well, but it sounded wet now, perhaps from blood.

  Nikandr took off his water skin and pressed it into Nasim’s hands.

  He heard him unstopper it and cough between sips.

  The sun was beginning to shine through the haze of dust, and at last Nikandr could see Nasim. He was completely covered with fine red dust, as the rest of them had been not so long ago. Strangely, it felt good, as if the ancients had seen fit to tie them even in such a small way as this.

  “Are you well?” Nikandr asked.

  Nasim took another drink. He stared at Nikandr, then Soroush. Something passed across his eyes—pain mixed with confusion and gratitude—and then he nodded. “Well enough,” he said in a croak.

  He passed the skin to Nikandr, who took a long pull from it and handed it to Soroush.

  “That was Sariya, wasn’t it?” Nikandr asked. He’d heard the words from Safwah, but it was still hard to believe.

  Nasim smiled. “I suppose in a way it was.”

  “Sariya and Ka
leh,” Soroush said, wiping the dust from his face with the palm of his hand. With the sun coming stronger now, he looked primal, like some ancient tribesman, half his face smeared by the deep red stains of blood, the other half covered by light red dust. Nikandr was sure he looked little better.

  “Yeh,” Nasim said, his gaze suddenly distant. “Sariya and Kaleh both.”

  “Did you see where she went?” Soroush asked.

  Nasim shook his head.

  “She may be dead,” Nikandr said, “fallen from the mountain.”

  His words were more hopeful than he knew them to be.

  “She’s gone,” Soroush said. “Gone with the Atalayina.”

  They were silent for a time. Then Nasim coughed and said, “We’ll find it.”

  Soroush laughed at this, long and hard, like an old man amused by the callow thoughts of a child.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Nikandr helped Nasim to limp out from the tunnel and into a world completely different than the one that had been there before the storm. Trees were felled. Branches and boughs lay everywhere. The entire landscape was covered in a fine red dust. It made this place look completely alien, as if Nikandr had walked up the mountain and crossed a doorway to another world. The aether had been explained to him many times—by his mother, by his sister, by Atiana—but he’d never truly appreciated what had been meant by a world filled with but a handful of colors until he’d seen this.

  Soroush ranged ahead, looking for Ashan and Sukharam, calling for them from time to time. Nikandr helped Nasim slowly down the steps. It felt good to be with Nasim again, to help him in some small way. Nasim was like a nephew to him now, family by deed if not by blood. As they neared the first switchback, a bird with russet wings and a bright yellow breast fluttered down and landed on the exposed roots of a fallen tree. It seemed to be watching Nikandr and Nasim approach, and it remained even when they came within a few paces of it.

  Both of them stopped and stared, too intrigued to move past. The bird chirruped a song, a delicate thing that made Nikandr think of tall trees and hidden songbirds.

  “It’s beautiful,” Nikandr said.

  “It’s a golden thrush.” Nasim stretched his hand toward the bird with his forefinger crooked. “They used to come to Mirashadal on their migrations among the eastern islands.”

  The bird studied Nasim’s finger. It twitched its head this way and that, shook its wings and then lay still.

  “There aren’t many on the motherland, but those who find them are said to have good fortune.”

  “Good,” Nikandr replied. “We need a bit of that right now.”

  Nasim waited patiently, unmoving. Nikandr actually believed the thrush was about to leap onto his outstretched finger—it would stare at Nasim’s finger, then flap, then stare again—but then it launched into the air and flapped southward and soon was lost among the sparse trees that still clung to the mountainside.

  At last they came to the place Nikandr judged that he’d left Ashan and Sukharam to continue on up the mountain. It felt like days since he’d done so, and he wasn’t entirely sure this was the same place at all, for the landscape looked completely different. Soroush was searching to the right of the path, so Nikandr left Nasim on the trail and searched along the left-hand side. He found one of their ab-sair a while later. It was dead, crushed by a fallen spruce. He continued and found another ab-sair standing among the devastation, unharmed except for some gashes across its withers and its broad, muscled chest. He found two more of their mounts a short while later, and then, when he was just ready to call for them again, he saw Sukharam, waving atop a pile of broken boughs and branches and other detritus.

  “Where’s Ashan?” Nikandr asked when he’d come close.

  “He’s below. Come.” And with that Sukharam climbed down into the trees that—now that Nikandr was closer—looked like they’d been carefully placed to form a shelter.

  Nikandr climbed up and then down through the hole where Sukharam had disappeared. There he found Ashan leaning over what Nikandr could only describe as the most ancient man he’d ever seen. His eyes were sunken, but they seemed alert. Tears leaked from them. If he was concerned by Nikandr’s presence, he didn’t show it. He merely moaned and repeated one word over and over.

  “What’s he saying?” Nikandr said, unable to make it out.

  “Abar,” Sukharam replied. “It means gone in Kalhani.”

  “Gone,” Nikandr repeated, trying the word for himself. “What’s gone?”

  Ashan looked up. His eyes were wide, searching beyond the broken land around him. He was more shaken than Nikandr had ever seen him. “The walls,” he said. “With the Tashavir dead—all of them except for Tohrab—the walls around Shadam Khoreh have finally fallen. All that remain now are the wards on Ghayavand. And when those fail, which they surely will, our final days will have come.”

  Nikandr didn’t know what to say to that. He was right, of course, but he couldn’t think clearly in the confines of this place.

  “Come,” Nikandr said, “there’s someone you should meet.”

  Carefully, they hoisted Tohrab out of the shelter and moved down to level ground. By this time Soroush and Nasim were standing there waiting for them. Sukharam merely stared awkwardly, as if he couldn’t quite believe that Nasim was alive. But Ashan’s face changed. The horror of moments ago faded and was replaced with a smile like the break of dawn.

  He strode forward and took Nasim into a deep embrace, swaying him back and forth as he began to laugh. As the laughter continued, Nasim looked shocked, and perhaps confused at such an emotional display. Who knew the last time Nasim had felt such a thing? Probably not since the two of them were together last. When Ashan’s laughter finally faded, he pulled Nasim away and stared into his eyes. “It’s good to see you,” Ashan said at last.

  “You as well,” Nasim said softly.

  Soroush cleared his throat and motioned to the ab-sair. “We should go.”

  It brought a measurement of sobriety to the group, and soon they were mounted up and riding back toward the Valley of Kohor.

  Nikandr rode near the head of the group. Nasim sat behind him on the saddle, holding Nikandr’s waist as the ab-sair plodded onward. It had been a day since the devastation at Shadam Khoreh, and still the ab-sair huffed noisily, clearing their nostrils of the red dust. Ashan and Tohrab came next on another ab-sair, and at the rear were Soroush and Sukharam.

  They rode in silence down a path that would deliver them to Kohor by a more easterly route than the one they’d taken here. They didn’t wish to risk coming across the Kohori unprepared, but they needed to go back for Atiana and Ushai.

  They came to a curve in the trough they were following, a dry wash that looked like it hadn’t seen water in months. When they took the curve, a landscape of scrub brush and brittle grasses met them. The land was peppered with boulders, especially along the left slope, where a wide swath of rock and stone had crumbled and fallen across their path. It was not insurmountable, but it would take time to cross, and they’d need to tread carefully, for the stones were uneven and sharp. Far ahead, beyond the slide, Nikandr saw the shoulders of the mountains fall away, revealing blue skies beyond. That was where Kohor lay, where Atiana was held prisoner. He only hoped when the Kohori learned of what had happened that they would listen to reason, that they would hear the truth in their words and not hinder them on their quest to close the rifts on Ghayavand. His stomach gave a twinge every time he thought about Atiana, the pain she’d surely endured.

  They were approaching the rock slide, and Nikandr was just about to dismount when he saw movement from his left. No sooner had he turned his head than a figure rose from behind the fallen stones. Then another rose, and another. A dozen, each of them bearing a musket, which they trained on the six of them carefully. Nikandr’s heart pounded in his chest. These were the janissaries, the very ones the Kohori had chased off of their eastern border. He thought they might have given up, or returned to Andakhar
a to resupply, or perhaps rally more men.

  But they hadn’t. They’d remained and bided their time.

  And a moment later, Nikandr understood why. Beyond the men, standing and watching, was a tall woman. She wore the roughspun dress of the wodjana. She had known that they would come to this place, and she had led the Kamarisi’s men here. By the ancients, he recognized this woman. She was the very one who’d come to Khalakovo and beseeched Ranos to treat with the Haelish Kings. She was the reason Ranos had asked Atiana’s sister, Ishkyna, to fly west and speak with them. She was the reason Styophan had been sent afterward with gemstones and muskets and cannons, so that the Haelish could continue their long struggle with the Empire. How in the name of the eldest men could she have found her way here? And what might it mean for Styophan, for their cause in the west?

  The wind began to pick up a moment later. Dust swirled at the base of the stones. It grew no more than this, for the leader of the janissaries, a man with a golden broach pinned to his white turban, fired his musket.

  The ab-sair behind Nikandr released a long moan and collapsed to the ground. Ashan and Tohrab fell. Ashan managed to roll away, but Tohrab was still too weak, and he fell heavily to the ground.

  “Do not summon hezhan,” the commander of the janissaries said in Yrstanlan. “Do not summon hezhan,” he said again in Mahndi as he pulled a flintlock pistol from his belt and climbed the mound of rocks. As he stepped carefully down the other side, he pointed the pistol at Nikandr. “Come down from those mounts.”

  Nikandr looked beyond him, to the blue skies of Kohor.

  “Come down!” the commander shouted.

  Nikandr complied. Nasim followed, as did Soroush and Sukharam.

  In short order, all six of them had been locked in cuffs of heavy iron—around their wrists, ankles, and necks. The ones around their wrists were chained, but the ones around their ankles were left free so that they could ride. But the iron would serve to bind the arqesh. Ashan and Sukharam and Nasim and Tohrab—they were all of them gifted, but even they would not be able to touch Adhiya with so much iron around them. Nikandr harbored some hope that Tohrab, born of a different age, might be able to rise above these restraints, but one look at him told Nikandr otherwise. Tohrab was sunken, hunched over in his saddle as if he could barely remain upright, much less draw from the world beyond.