The Straits of Galahesh loa-2
Page 21
“Has Muqallad not told you?”
“I would hear it from your lips, not his.”
Khamal takes a step toward her. She slips off of the bed on the near side, watching him closely. Never has her expression or her stance been so defensive, as if she fears he would attack her. He, an Al-Aqim, attacking another. The very notion is mad, but then again, never had he stolen something from her.
“He tells me that you’ve convinced him to abandon his plans.”
Her eyes search him. She is trying to sense whether the Atalayina is with him, but the Atalayina is curious this way. It cannot be sensed easily-even a stone one has held for centuries-as if the stone itself refuses to offer its allegiance to anyone. It remains neutral, always.
“Why did you steal it?”
Khamal takes another step forward. “I thought it best. For now.”
She steps back, maintaining the distance between them. “I didn’t need to convince him to abandon his plans. He’d already convinced himself.”
“He told me as much.”
“He no longer covets the stones. Neither do I. It’s time we returned to working with one another.”
“We did, for decades, and it only served to drive us apart.”
Sariya licks her lips. “I didn’t wish for that to happen.”
“I know,” he says.
This time when he steps forward, she does not retreat. Three gliding steps would bring them together. He found himself wanting to take another step. Neh. It was more than this. It was a desire. A need.
This is Sariya. Her tower. He has not come unprepared, and still she nearly managed to beguile him in moments. Indeed, she has learned. Even without the Atalayina she is fearsome.
He was prepared for this, but it saddens him that she has taken this step. She would never have done so if she and Muqallad weren’t working against him. She would have felt resentment at what he’d done, but she would never have thought to enter his mind, to force his hand.
He shuffles forward, allowing a subtle confusion to show on his face. She steps forward as well. They could touch if they so chose, but they do not, but he can feel the heat from her, and he imagines she can feel his. He swallows, fighting the urge to take her into his arms.
But she is not so easy to resist.
When she opens her mouth to speak, he sweeps forward and takes her into his arms. He leans down and kisses her. Her lips are warm, though he knows it is only because she wills it so. Her heart beats slowly now, as does his own. They were all changed forever the moment the rift was torn between the worlds, but it did not take away their desires or their emotions.
He kisses her more deeply. He does this at first because he needs her mind elsewhere. He can feel her breath quickening, feel her tongue as it licks his parted lips, feel her hips and thighs as they press against him, and soon he is leading her toward the bed not for the reason he came, but because it has been so long since they were with one another.
He wonders if she understands his mind. Probably she does. Probably she knows that he will never give her the stone willingly. And she doesn’t care. She wants this as much as he does. This is a bittersweet parting. A farewell.
They fall against the blankets as she bites his neck. He pulls from his robe the stone. He presses her down against the bed. Sariya, taken by the moment, grabs his hips and grinds against him. A rush of pleasure courses through him as he drops the stone from the edge of the bed. He summons a puff of air, enough to set the stone down on the floor soundlessly. He lifts himself onto his knees, staring down at Sariya as he pulls off his robes. As Sariya does the same, he spares one glance toward the floor and sees the stone being drawn into it.
He, too, has learned. Sariya will not be able to discern the disguise-she is not gifted in this way. Muqallad may sense the Atalayina, but he will not be able to remove it, not before Khamal’s plans are triggered. And then the two of them will sleep until he returns.
He lowers himself down until they are skin against skin. He pulls her legs over his arms and slides downward. Sariya’s breath comes in ragged gasps. She is like a summer storm now, hot and wild and wet. As he slips inside her and rocks, she grabs his hair and kisses him so deeply that he wonders if she will ever let him go.
He cares not what the answer is.
He feels her tightening around him. Her eyes are clenched, her head thrown back, leaving him to kiss her chin and neck and breasts. A long moan escapes her-an echo of his own-and as they reach their heights together, Sariya scratches his back and pulls him deep inside her.
They collapse, sweating and panting. Exhausted. Sated.
She turns to him, kisses his neck tenderly. Never has she looked so beautiful.
“Will you stay?”
Her words are like honey, tempting and sweet. He wishes he could. He wishes none of this had ever happened, that they had continued toward their own enlightenment and allowed the world to proceed as it would. He wishes he had traveled the world with Sariya. He wishes he had made children with her. He wishes he could have passed his knowledge down to them before he’d stepped beyond the veil in preparation for his next life.
But all of this had happened. And here they were, two people who had been of one purpose now violently opposed to one another.
And so he gives her the only answer he can give.
“I cannot.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
N asim shook his head, clearing the vision away. He was still below the surface of the freezing water. Precious seconds passed as he struggled to remember where he was and who lay before him.
At last the memories returned. He snatched a handful of cloth and kicked off the bed of the lake, and then he swam, holding Ashan with one arm, scissoring his legs. The surface was near. He knew this. And yet the seconds dragged on.
His breath was failing him. He began to exhale. He tried to stop it, but he couldn’t.
Finally he broke the surface, spluttering and coughing. He heard nothing from Ashan, nor did he feel movement, but he could see him now, his hair plastered against his forehead and cheeks.
“Ashan!”
Nasim slipped his arm around Ashan’s neck and swam for the isle. When he reached it he dragged Ashan higher, bit by bit, until he was halfway out of the water. Nasim was too exhausted to do any more than this.
“Ashan, please wake.”
Ashan’s cheeks were deathly cold-somehow colder than the water itself.
“Ashan, please!”
He slapped Ashan. Then again, harder. He rubbed his face and arms and chest and legs, hoping to warm him, to let him know that help had come, such as it was.
After placing his hand against Ashan’s chest, he forced himself to stop, to feel, to simply be aware. He could feel the most telltale sign of his heart beating. It was impossibly slow, but it was there. How Muqallad could have done such a thing he had no idea.
Ashan suddenly spluttered, water spraying into the air and glinting under the dim light. Long wracking coughs escaped him, and for a good while that was all he could do. Then he turned toward the light, his face confused, and finally he looked upon Nasim.
“Are you well?” Nasim asked. A foolish question, but he could feel nothing but joy that Ashan was alive and awake.
Ashan looked at him, coughed, and then sat up and pulled Nasim into an embrace-a long, tender gesture that brought tears to Nasim’s eyes. But after too long, Nasim pulled away, suddenly and inexplicably uncomfortable with it.
If Ashan was hurt by this he hid it well. He stared into Nasim’s eyes with a look that spoke of relief and gratitude and confusion. “In truth, I had hoped you would not come, but I will admit now that I’m glad you did.” He pulled himself backward, away from the water. “I’m not yet ready to see the next life.”
Nasim didn’t wish to burden him, but there was nothing gained in avoiding the truth. “Muqallad sent me here.”
Ashan started, but then he crooked his neck and stretched his jaw. “Did he?”
Ashan smiled, an expression so familiar Nasim nearly cried.
“He said the same thing to me, demanding I tell him where it was hidden. It’s true that I went to the tower, and that I eventually found a way inside, but there was nothing there. For me, it was merely a gutted shell. Still, I can only assume it would not be so for Sariya. Or you.”
Nasim didn’t know. He didn’t understand the tower completely, but he knew that it was the seat of Sariya’s power. It was a place she had forged over the course of centuries, and if she had meant for those simpler than herself to see a gutted shell, then it would be so.
Ashan tried to get to his feet but fell backward instead. When Nasim moved to help him, he warded him away. “I’ll be all right in a moment.” He tried again, and though he did manage to stand, he seemed frail, like a foal newly born. “What I don’t understand is why Sariya wouldn’t deliver to him that stone.”
“She cannot find it,” Nasim said. “In the lake before I came to you I had a vision of Khamal going to Sariya’s tower. He spoke with Sariya, but only as a way to enter the tower and to hide a piece of the Atalayina.”
“Could it be that they still haven’t found it?”
“Khamal seemed doubtful that they would be able to sense it, but he was sure they wouldn’t be able to retrieve it.”
“Why?” Ashan asked. “What did he do?”
Ashan was so eager to learn more, which seemed odd having just come from the depths. “The darkness and the cold weigh on me,” Nasim replied. “Let’s find ourselves away from this place.”
“I don’t know if I’m ready for another swim,” Ashan said.
“Neither do I.” Nasim dearly wished there were another way. A small amount of warmth was returning to him, but he was also shivering so badly it felt as though it would never stop.
Together they waded into the water and swam for the shore. Things were not so urgent as before, so it took longer, but it was no less tiring. By the time they dragged themselves onto the beach of stone and sand, Nasim could barely stand. Ashan was worse. After he’d crawled out he remained on hands and knees, his breath rasping. He spit from time to time, and the sound of it was thick, as if he was spitting up blood.
“The things Muqallad has done”-Ashan came slowly to his feet, and again he wobbled-“have not been kind. But all will be well. I need only time.”
Those last words felt as if they were not meant for Nasim, but someone else.
“Come.” Nasim pulled Ashan’s arm around his shoulders and helped him walk. “Let’s go up to the light.”
They took to the stairs, though it was terribly slow going. Ashan could hardly take more than two or three stairs before he had to pause. Soon the light hovering above the center of the lake was hidden from them, and they were cloaked in darkness, but the memories of this place were as vivid as they had been before. Wherever Ashan wished to go, Nasim could take him.
“I’m worried over what’s become of the city,” Nasim said, if only to hear something in this cold, empty place. “Things feel more tentative since you and I were here last. Adhiya is so close I can practically touch it. Even the akhoz have changed. I saw one of them kill another in the city only days ago, near Sariya’s tower.”
Ashan stopped for a moment, catching his breath. “Things are worse than I thought.”
“What do you mean?”
“In the months following the sundering, the arqesh who remained realized that the children might be bonded with hezhan, not just as you and I do, but permanently. They did so first to a girl named Yadhan. The ritual made way for the hezhan to inhabit her body completely, and with this, after one dark night, the first of the akhoz was made. As you can guess, more followed, and soon the island, especially the area around Alayazhar, was protected by their influence.”
Nasim was already shaking his head. “They provide protection for the city?”
“Just so.” Ashan nodded for Nasim to help him once more, and they continued their climb. “Even now they are preventing the rift from widening. So to hear you say that some are attacking the others makes me wonder just how long things can hold here. Though perhaps this should come as no surprise. In the early years after the sundering, the akhoz were of a single mind, united. Over time, as the last of the survivors left, the akhoz fractured and became aligned with the Al-Aqim. What you saw might be caused by Muqallad or it might be because without the presence of Sariya and Khamal, they are lost and left to their own devices.”
“Why wouldn’t Muqallad simply kill them and be done with it?”
“Why would he do that?”
“So that the rifts would tear wide, once and for all.”
“Look further, Nasim. It isn’t the destruction of the world he seeks. He believes the path to indaraqiram lies through the Atalayina. He believes, in fact, that the process was begun those three hundred years ago, and that what happened then and since is merely a test of our collective will, one that he will not allow us to fail. If I’m right he is close to achieving his goals. He has at least one piece of the Atalayina, more likely two, and though the third is lost to him, I suspect he now holds the knowledge for how to merge them together once more.”
“He told you this?”
“ Neh, but we’ve spoken at length. I told him much of my travels, if only to prevent him from resuming his torture, but he spoke as well. It was difficult for a man as prideful as he is not to share. He spoke of his travels before he came to Ghayavand. He’d spent nearly his entire life up to that point studying the Atalayina. He spoke of Kohor, an ancient village in the Gaji Desert. Tablets held in the archives there spoke of the Atalayina not having been found, but instead having been made — forged in some manner. He let slip that some of the guesses the writer of the tablet had put down were true, and he could only know this if he had had some success with the pieces of the Atalayina he already has.”
Nasim nearly tripped as they reached the top of the stairs. They were in the circular room that housed entrance to the lake’s stairwell. Here several passages broke off, one in particular leading to the upper passages and the way out.
The room, at least, was comparatively warm. Nasim’s heart had already lifted, as if the last few hours had all been a bad dream. But of course the truth was sobering. “He wants the final pieces of the stone, and he’s taken Rabiah to ensure that I’ll deliver them to him. We must find her, Ashan, and we must find the others as well.”
“You said he only wanted one piece of the stone.”
“He did, but there is another.”
“Which?”
“Khamal’s.”
“You know where it is?”
Nasim paused, feeling protective over this information. But a moment later, he felt foolish for it. “I found it in the celestia, where a secret compartment opened up for me. Khamal’s doing, no doubt.”
“And where is it now?”
“It’s safe.”
“Hidden?”
“ Yeh,” Nasim replied. He would divulge much to Ashan, but this didn’t feel like a place to share this information, especially since Sukharam was still alone with the stone.
Perhaps Ashan sensed this, for he fell silent for long moments. “Nasim, how many others did you bring?”
“Two.”
“Why?”
“The Al-Aqim were three, and so should we be.”
“Is that the only reason?”
“What other reason should there be?” Nasim didn’t like skirting the truth, but he didn’t like this line of questioning either. Ashan’s tone had become more aggressive, something he never remembered him doing.
“There could be many reasons,” Ashan answered. “It’s up to you to tell me the right one.”
Something was wrong. Nasim could feel it. Ashan had changed. He had never spoken to Nasim in this manner. There was a hunger behind his words, an anger barely suppressed.
A pinpoint of light appeared in the air before Ashan, lighting his face and the tall, peaked room. The light continued to grow, revealing a large obsidian cross to which the form of a wretched, broken man had been lashed. The man’s head hung low, his curly hair hanging over his face, preventing Nasim from seeing him clearly, but Nasim didn’t need to see his face to know who he was.
Before him, the man he had thought to be Ashan transformed. His hair grew in length, became darker. The glint of gold appeared in his lightly curled beard. And soon, the handsome face of Muqallad was staring back at him.
As this transformation unfolded, the gathered akhoz shuffled into the room. They stood at the edge of the room, forming a circle around Muqallad and Nasim.
“Do you remember now what Ashan meant to you?”
Nasim felt a lump forming in his throat. He swallowed in a vain attempt at clearing it, but it was too late. Muqallad had already seen his weakness.
“Find the stone in the tower, Khamal, and bring it to me.”
Behind Muqallad, Ashan lifted his head. His hair was matted and coppery brown and plastered against his forehead. His face was a mass of blood and bruises and cuts. He shivered from pain or cold or weakness, but unmistakable was the fact that he was pleading with Nasim to deny Muqallad his demand.
Nasim couldn’t look. He couldn’t look at Ashan and speak the words he was about to speak.
“I need Rabiah.”
Muqallad stared. He was a tall man, but Nasim was nearly of a height with him now. Muqallad weighed Nasim, weighed his words and his intent.
In the end, he motioned with one hand, turned, and walked away, his footsteps echoing away into the immensity of the room. “You may have the one,” he said as he passed beyond the akhoz.
Rabiah was dragged from beyond the circle of akhoz and thrown to Nasim’s feet. She stirred, small moans escaping her as she rolled over and tried to lift herself with her arms.