It nearly brought him to his knees. Little wonder that Khamal had chosen this for his demesne. The wonder was that Sariya hadn’t, choosing her tower in its place, or that Muqallad had chosen the Aramahn village built into the mountains east of Alayazhar. How they could lock themselves away from the beauty of the sky was beyond him.
Sukharam, the hem of his robes blowing in the wind, climbed the stairs and examined the dome. The fear he’d shown earlier had spiked as they reached the center of the city, and although they skirted the area that held Sariya’s tower, he had watched it with terror-filled eyes. Only when they’d gained the top of the hill and he’d seen the celestia in all its grandeur did his head lift and his shoulders unbunch. And now, he was staring wide-eyed as he walked forward.
Nasim realized just how far into the celestia Sukharam was moving. “The border, Sukharam!”
Sukharam stared down at the floor, where black inlaid stone described a vast circle several paces from the perimeter. “How could it still be active? Khamal died sixteen years ago.”
“We shouldn’t take chances.”
“I feel nothing.”
“And what would you look for?” Nasim asked. “Do you think it would be so obvious?”
Sukharam looked to Nasim, then the floor again. He shrugged, a simple, dismissive motion. As he paced around the edge of the floor, Nasim wondered if Sukharam was embarrassed and this was some attempt at regaining face. He hoped not. He needed them to be honest with one another. He couldn’t afford to have any of them hiding things for vanity’s sake. He promised himself he’d talk to Sukharam later, when the two of them were alone.
Nasim stepped to the edge of the black border and squatted, resting on the balls of his feet. He remembered standing here when he-when Khamal — had placed the protections over this place, allowing only himself to enter and leave, but he couldn’t recall the details. Khamal’s memories-the few that held any clarity at all-were no better than half-remembered dreams. He knew that a ward existed and that it was both complex and powerfully dangerous, but little more than that.
He walked the circle the opposite direction of Sukharam, until the two of them stood at opposite extremes.
“Stop,” he said.
Sukharam obeyed. He and Rabiah waited and watched as Nasim searched his memories.
“What is it?” Rabiah asked.
“I’ve seen this before,” Nasim replied.
“Seen what?” Sukharam asked, stepping closer to the black stones.
“Stop!”
Sukharam did, but he seemed petulant now, almost angry. “Tell us what you remember.”
“Someone was standing there, as you are now, facing Khamal, but it’s confusing. It doesn’t feel real.”
“What, the dream?” Rabiah asked.
“They’re not dreams, Rabiah. They’re memories.”
“The memory, then.”
Nasim shook his head. “The image. The person standing across from Khamal. The other person is standing on the other side, in Adhiya.”
“That can’t be,” Sukharam said.
Nasim crouched, squinting at the pattern of stones laid about the celestia’s interior. There was no immediate rhyme or reason, just darker patterns of pewter against the sandstone dominating the floor.
“Constellations?” Rabiah asked, walking along the edge and considering several of the patterns.
“ Neh,” Nasim said.
They all studied them as a breeze blew among the tall, vine-choked columns.
“They’re meaningless,” Sukharam said.
“ Neh,” Nasim replied, standing, understanding coming like a flash of lightning. “They’re ley lines.” The moment he said the words, he knew it was true.
Rabiah came closer as Nasim studied the lines. He could see the pattern now, not the islands themselves, but the confluence of energy that formed around them. The islands of Khalakovo stood out first. Uyadensk and Duzol and Yrlanda. Then the islands of Mirkotsk and Vostroma. To the west, the mass of Yrstanla loomed, pressing the ley lines, guiding them along the edge of the Sea of Tabriz.
The lines ran through the sea, guided by the seabeds that drew close to, but did not quite reach, the surface. The Aramahn had known since the time of the first wanderers that ley lines guided the aether, and that through these lines one could control many things. It was this knowledge that had led them to create ships with keels so that they could use them to guide windships as the rounded keel of a waterborne ship does.
Nasim studied the map closely, moving around the celestia floor as he did so, but he stopped when he noticed to the southwest the confluence of ley lines that focused on the island of Galahesh. He didn’t understand it, but the lines of power coming from the Sea of Tabriz ran not around Galahesh, but through it to the deeper well of the Sea of Khurkhan. It was the straits, Nasim realized. The straits had always been impossible for the Landed to cross with their windships, and it was because of this-the surge of power running along the straits disrupted the natural lines that ran along the land mass of Galahesh.
In the center of the map was the only representation of a land mass. Ghayavand. Where he now stood.
It made sense that the builders would have worked the sea and earth into the stone flooring. What he didn’t understand was why they would have chosen to show the ley lines. Why not the islands themselves? Why not both?
But then he realized just how much time Khamal had had on this island-more than three hundred years. As much as the tower was Sariya’s demesne, this had been Khamal’s. He could easily have reconstructed the entire celestia in that time, so recreating the flooring would have been simple. He could not have known when and in what form he would return, so he might have recreated this as a clue of sorts, something for his new incarnation to find and to open like a lockbox. But he couldn’t make it too easy-lockboxes, after all, did have locks. It would be needed to prevent others from finding its secrets.
“There’s something in the middle,” Rabiah said.
Nasim looked closer. At the center of the celestia’s floor was a circular brass plate. The plate was old, the metal discolored, which had hidden the fact that there was a bracelet resting there, a qiram’s bracelet of beaten gold that held an opal in its setting. It wasn’t the stone that mattered. It was the fact that he recognized it. He’d seen it a thousand times before.
It was Ashan’s.
Ashan was arqesh; he knew all the disciplines and had one of every stone. The one that was left here, however, was the one for the dhoshahezhan, the spirit of life and growth.
It was a message, and it wasn’t difficult to figure out who had sent it.
“Muqallad has taken Ashan,” Nasim said softly.
Rabiah looked between him and the brass plate, confused, but understanding came to her moments later. “It’s a clue, isn’t it?”
Nasim nodded and stepped forward over the black line. Rabiah was right, and the fact that Muqallad had been here and left the bracelet was a sign that some of the wards of this place had been removed.
As he crossed over the line, Nasim sensed a shift, a subtle change-in this world, or the next, or the one that lay between. He couldn’t quite place it. He’d never felt the like before, not since that day on Oshtoyets when Nikandr had saved him, when he’d been drawn from Adhiya to lie wholly in the world of Erahm. This was similar, though to a much smaller degree.
“Nasim…”
It was Rabiah’s voice, and it was full of wonder. And worry.
He felt the stones shift beneath his feet. The ley lines… They were moving like waves upon the water. He stepped toward the edge of the floor, feeling more calm than he’d felt in years. Sukharam and Rabiah practically ran, their eyes nervous and darting.
As the lines continued to alter, Nasim wondered if the previous view had been what the lines were like when Khamal had last been here, or perhaps how they’d been at the time of the sundering. Either way, his alarm began to grow the longer he watched.
The l
ines gathered tightly around Ghayavand. This was to be expected. The rifts had formed here. They had been contained by the Al-Aqim and the other qiram who had survived, but they had eventually begun to expand. When the ley lines were laid out like this, however, the rifts appeared as a confluence-a whorl or an aberration in the otherwise-orderly lines.
What was worrying was the fact that there were similar patterns being formed around the islands of Galahesh and Rafsuhan. Galahesh could perhaps be reasoned away. It was well known that the island-and the straits that divided it-acted as a channel that funneled aether from the Sea of Tabriz to the deep well in the Sea of Khurkhan. It acted as a crosswind to the aether that ran beneath the surface of the water-the shallows that ran from the Motherland, through Oramka and Galahesh and on to the islands of the Grand Duchy. But the whorls around Rafsuhan made no sense whatsoever.
It must be another rift. And a large one at that. So much was changing, he thought, and none of it for the better.
The lines finally stopped moving. The rift running through Rafsuhan was deep, but not so bad that it wouldn’t eventually close. The tightness around Galahesh, however, could not be sustained. Sooner or later, something was going to give, and he couldn’t escape the feeling that it was being done consciously, nor could he escape the fact that Sariya and Muqallad had recently found a way to break the chains that had kept them bound for so long.
“Come,” Nasim said to the others. “There’s nothing to fear any longer.”
Nasim led them to the center of the floor, and there Nasim squatted down and picked up the bracelet. The gold was heavy. The opal reflected the brightness of the day. He put it on, feeling something akin to familiarity. He remembered thinking once what it would be like to wear Ashan’s bracelets. He knew that he didn’t need such things, but it still felt good. It felt like he was one step closer to finding him.
He kneeled down and felt the plate. He tried to lift it, to twist it, to no avail. He tried for long minutes to feel for it, to see if there was some sign Khamal had left him to give some clue as to how to open it. But if he had, Nasim couldn’t sense it.
“Should we try to destroy it?” Rabiah asked.
Nasim shook his head, his eyes locked on the plate.
What? he asked himself. What might Khamal have meant him to do?
Sukharam cleared his throat, and when he spoke it sounded meek, as if he’d been afraid to break the silence. “He would have taken breath here, wouldn’t he? Perhaps kneel to it.”
When the words were spoken, Nasim knew it was so. It was so simple. This place, of all places, was special to Khamal. He would have taken breath here countless days. And when Nasim had returned to this place, it would be a gesture he might stumble upon if he didn’t guess it outright.
“He wants me to open it,” Nasim said.
“Who? Muqallad?”
Nasim nodded. “Can there be any doubt?”
“Why?”
“Because he can’t do it himself. He wants the piece of the Atalayina hidden within, and he’s offering Ashan in payment.”
Rabiah stared down thoughtfully. Sukharam looked between the two of them, then down to the plate. “We should take it.”
“ Neh,” Rabiah said. “If he wants it, we should leave it.”
Nasim stared at the bracelet, felt its weight on his wrist. “Sukharam’s right. We must have it.”
Rabiah shook her head. “We can always come back for it. Let’s leave. Consider this more carefully.”
“Consider what?” Nasim asked. “This is what we came for. It is one of the three stones we need, and it’s powerful, Rabiah. It can help us against Muqallad.”
“You may be giving him exactly what he wants.”
“It’s a risk we need to take.” Still kneeling, Nasim placed his hands on the plate so that his hands and thumbs created a triangle, and then he kneeled down, touching his forehead in the center of the triangle.
He heard no sound, but he felt the plate vibrate momentarily beneath his fingers.
He sat up and pulled at the plate. It came up freely, and below it was a circular compartment set deep into the floor. He reached down-nearly to his shoulder-and felt something. His fingers tingled as he wrapped his fingers around it and pulled it up.
It was a blue stone the size and shape of a generous apple wedge. There was no mistaking what this was. It was a piece of the Atalayina, the very stone Khamal, Sariya, and Muqallad used centuries ago in their attempt to bring the world to indaraqiram, the state of complete understanding and bliss and oneness. The stone was very heavy for its size, and it felt ancient-as ancient as the world and the firmament above.
He stood and brought it over to one of the shafts of light shining down from above. He held it under the sunlight and examined it. He found it difficult to take his eyes from it. The blue of the stone was rich and deep. Copper striations ran through it like the ley lines of the celestia’s floor. Emanating from within was a feeling of immense power, as if the world itself depended on this stone, and it the world.
And yet…
That very same power felt distanced, as if it were too far for the likes of him to reach.
Sukharam stared at it with wonder in his eyes. “Do the other two feel the same as this?”
Nasim frowned.
“What is it?” Rabiah asked.
Nasim hesitated, embarrassed though he wasn’t sure that he should be. “I feel nothing. Or very little,” he amended, “which is more than passing strange since this had surely been Khamal’s piece of the Atalayina.”
Sukharam held out his hand. “May I hold it?”
Nasim did not feel possessive of it, but he also felt it too powerful for Sukharam to hold. And yet, here they were on this island where they hoped to unlock the secrets of these stones. He had chosen Rabiah and Sukharam for a reason.
He handed it to Sukharam. When their hands touched, Nasim felt for a split second a deepening of the world, but then it was gone as Sukharam took it and stared into its depths.
“Strange that so much has happened because of it,” Rabiah said, her eyes every bit full of wonder as Sukharam’s.
Not so strange at all, Nasim thought.
“Come,” he said, standing up. “There is much to do, and much to think upon.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
K hamal stands beneath the celestia’s dome, facing southward. He spreads his arms wide, breathing deeply while staring up at the dome’s interior. The constellations patterned into the mosaics twinkle in the light of the dying sun.
Dawn tomorrow brings the summer solstice. It is a time of strength, of heightened expectations. It is an important time for Ghayavand, at least as far as the Al-Aqim are concerned. The akhoz become emboldened at such times, and it is more important than ever that Khamal take care so as not to be caught unawares.
But the solstice is made of more than ill tidings. It benefits him and his fellow arqesh, should they choose to avail themselves of it. He will use the dawn to his advantage, unleashing the first of the steps that will one day-hopefully one day soon-free him from this island prison once and for all.
Footsteps approach from the north, scratching over the gritty marble steps that circle the celestia. He doesn’t turn, but instead waits for Muqallad to approach.
“The cardinal points do not listen,” Muqallad says. “You should know this better than I.”
“They watch over the island, Muqallad.”
“Perhaps,” Muqallad says, stopping nearby, “but if they do they are little more than witnesses. Amused witnesses.”
Khamal takes one last breath, and then turns to face him. Muqallad wears a simple robe the color of the setting sun. His black, curly beard hangs almost as far as the wide leather belt that wraps his waist.
They rarely see one another, each of them preferring to meditate alone on their imprisonment and on the rifts and on the island itself, all in hopes of breaking the curse that’s trapped them all. They’ve seen each other even less since Muqallad
returned from his exile. Khamal and Sariya had banished him for a time for his words and thoughts. He had wanted the Atalayina even then. He had wanted it so that he could finish what they’d begun. The sundering to him had merely been a mistake-in his eyes, the world could still be brought to indaraqiram.
For this, he had been punished, but on his return he had seemed contrite. He had seemed penitent. Khamal knew now that it had merely been to bide his time so that he could turn one of them to his side.
“I would speak with you,” Muqallad says, motioning away from the celestia.
Khamal looks up to Sihyaan, the island’s highest peak, where Sariya takes breath. Muqallad chose this time so that there was no chance they would be interrupted.
“Walk with me,” Muqallad says.
Together, they stride between two massive pillars of the celestia and take a bricked walkway that leads down from the hill toward the oldest part of Alayazhar. From this vantage they can see the blue swath of the sea on their left, and ahead, the northern reaches of the city, nearly all of it in ruins. The dark, snowless peak of Sihyaan looks down over the city, brooding and angry.
“We’ve been here too long, I think,” Muqallad says.
“And why do you say that?”
“We strive, all of us, for a way to heal the damage we’ve caused, but we do it in our own way. We’ve been searching for so long that I wonder if we’ve started to see one another as obstacles.”
“Is that how you see it?” Khamal asks.
“I?” Muqallad shakes his head. “ Neh. Not I.”
“Me, then.”
Muqallad does not answer.
The wind blows upward from the base of the hill, bringing with it the smell of sea and sage as their footsteps crunch along the path.
“Sariya knows you have her stone.”
“It isn’t her stone,” Khamal replies. “Nor is it mine.”
“Of course. But there has been a shift in power because of it. It grants you something you shouldn’t possess.”
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