The Straits of Galahesh loa-2

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  Nikandr allowed himself to be taken by the hezhan. It was not so different from the way in which the hezhan feed from the living. He was simply turning the relationship around, using them to see into the world beyond.

  And soon…

  Nikandr feels as the hezhan feels. Its senses are not the same as those in the physical world. Instead of sight and taste and sound, there are impressions, emotions, senses that live beneath the surface, senses long forgotten by the minds of men.

  He feels discomfort from the boy, or more accurately the creature that feeds upon him. He has come this far before, but this is different. He practically feels the emotion running through them-boy and hezhan, both. A seething. An anger. A yearning. It feels worse than any disease, for it both nourishes and feeds upon Wahad. He has become a conduit. A tool to be used and one day-if the boy is lucky-tossed aside.

  And then he senses something beyond. In the world of Adhiya, it is difficult to determine distance and direction, but he knows it is near. It is something he has felt before, an ancient presence, and not simply a hezhan. It is something else, a man that walks between worlds, as Nasim once did. But how can that be? Nasim was unique, alone in the world with his abilities.

  Suddenly he remembers. He saw this man on an island far away in a sea hundreds of leagues away. But he was trapped. How could he have escaped? How could he have come here? And why?

  The understanding shakes him, and he is thrown from the dream.

  A wind blew through the cavern, unbidden, but very much of his doing.

  Nikandr stood, confused and angry and sick.

  “Where are you going?” the old woman asked.

  With the shades of Adhiya still upon him, he ignored her and staggered to where his old friend kneeled. He shook his shoulder. “Jahalan.” He shook him again, harder.

  Jahalan woke, squinted up at him.

  “We must go. Quickly.”

  “Why?”

  “Muqallad is here. He has come to Rafsuhan.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  A tiana is still in the aether when her senses return to her.

  When a Matra becomes overwhelmed, there are usually only two outcomes: she wakes exhausted and confused or, more rarely, she becomes lost, never waking from her time in the aether. Atiana wonders if she has become lost. Fear builds within her, but she can feel her body back in the drowning chamber beneath the cemetery. She nearly follows those fears to the point of wakefulness, if only to reassure herself that she is not lost.

  So to be aware of herself as she floats through the straits comes as a strange surprise. The great standing cliffs to either side of her scintillate in the black. The Spar, a structure that has taken nearly five years and thousands of craftsmen to build, is nearly complete. It looms before her. She still feels some of the same raw and immense power she felt earlier, but there is a distinct feeling that it has ebbed, as if the pressure built to the bursting point, released, and finally receded. What caused the buildup and the eventual release she doesn’t know, but she is sure that her surge of feelings were caused by the peak of energy.

  Surprisingly, she no longer feels the fear she once did. She feels as if she’s treading water; the depths below her are dangerous, and the waves may yet pull her under, but for the time being they have come to a mutual understanding.

  She becomes aware of the spire to the south, the one that allows for the ease of travel between Galahesh and Vostroma. She knew of this. What piques her interest is the fact that she feels something similar to the north. This makes no sense, however. The northern side of the island has never needed a spire. Galahesh didn’t have the Matri to maintain one, but more importantly, the ley lines flowed naturally from the massive continent, through Oramka, and to the northern end of Galahesh. It was only at the straits that the aether clashed against the currents coming from Anuskaya to form an unpredictable maelstrom.

  She widens her mind, casts herself outward, and attunes herself to the spires. The aether flows between them, just as it does along the islands of the Grand Duchy. The flow is little more than a trickle because of the straits, but she can sense it running from the north, down along the Spar until it bridges the gap at the center, and then continuing to the south. She wonders if she can guide the aether as she does in Galostina. She tries, coaxing the aether, and it responds. It flows faster. And when she releases it, the effect continues. It makes sense-this was what the spires were built to do-but it doesn’t answer the question of why the northern spire was built in the first place.

  She feels something, a feeling similar to when another Matra is near. She casts outward, but feels nothing, and yet the sense that another is near continues. The memories of Ushai return. She pulls herself inward, focusing instead on Baressa and the Shattering. As she does, the feeling fades, and then is lost altogether. It must have been Ushai, and yet Atiana wonders if Arvaneh has woken.

  She studies the tower again, but it is empty, as it was before.

  The urge to continue the search for Ushai is strong, but exhaustion has long since set in, and she finds herself making small mistakes, slips of the mind. She must return and heal before attempting to do more.

  Atiana woke coughing and spluttering even though the breathing tube was still in her mouth.

  Ishkyna, reading a journal by the light of a small lantern on a nearby table, stared down at her, her mouth turned down in disapproval. “Control yourself.”

  Atiana sat up, having more trouble orienting herself than she had in some time. She should be in Galostina, not in this cramped space beneath a cemetery in Baressa. Shouldn’t she?

  “How long?”

  Ishkyna stood and held out a towel for Atiana to step into. “Eighteen hours, Tiana. You’ve been gone for nearly a day. You were to take only two or three hours.”

  Atiana’s feet slipped on the slick stone tiles as she stepped out of the copper tub, but Ishkyna caught her with practiced hands.

  Atiana looked at Ishkyna, and then she was overwhelmed by a surge of emotion. She took Ishkyna into a sudden, tight embrace.

  Ishkyna yelped and tried to shove Atiana away. “You’re freezing!”

  Atiana held her close for a moment more before stepping back and shaking her head, spraying Ishkyna with the chill water from the tub.

  “Stop it!” Ishkyna cried. She took up Atiana’s robe from a shelf nearby and threw it at her. “This is serious business.”

  The robe struck Atiana in the face. “Listen to yourself,” Atiana said as she shook out the robe and slipped into it. “Serious business…” She knew Ishkyna was right, but for some reason the real world felt far away. It felt good, like it was just the two of them when they were young, waking from a session in Galostina’s drowning chamber.

  “It is. Now tell me what you found.”

  Atiana took up the towel and began drying her hair. “Little enough.”

  “Eighteen hours had better result in something better than that.”

  She told Ishkyna about Arvaneh and Ushai and her time at the Spar.

  Ishkyna sniffed. “Little enough, indeed.”

  “Long journeys start with small steps, Shkyna.”

  “And slow journeys may end in disaster.” Ishkyna pulled on her coat for the cold walk above. “Best you quicken your step.”

  Dawn had yet to break when Atiana rode through the streets of Baressa with the strelet, Irkadiy. He was a logical choice for her escort; he had already been trusted once with her protection and the knowledge of her mission in the cemetery. He was a crack shot with a musket, and the best huntsman and tracker in Galostina. Best of all, he knew the area. He’d spent many summers here as a youth, visiting his family on his mother’s side. He still took dinner with many of them when he could, and raised glasses with old friends besides. It gave Atiana a sense of comfort that she had someone that knew not just the lay of the land, but the people as well.

  Irkadiy rode a healthy black gelding and wore the garb of a Galaheshi merchantman-a round turban an
d billowing coat and brown woolen pants with black boots that stopped halfway up his shins. His musket was slung in a holster affixed to the saddle. It was behind his left leg, mostly hidden, especially from someone viewing them from the front.

  Atiana rode a pretty roan mare. Her garb was that of a merchantman’s wife-an ornamented headdress with a yellow veil that hid her face. The dress she wore was intricately embroidered velvet with ermine accents. It was rich clothing, to be sure, but not so rich that it would mark her as a noblewoman.

  The streets near the Mount were nearly empty, giving the city much the same feel as the cemetery, but as they approached the famed Baressan market, more and more people populated the streets, most of them with small carts or wagons clattering along to set up their stalls for the coming day. Some eyed Atiana and Irkadiy, but most bowed their heads in greeting, and those that didn’t took little notice.

  Not far beyond the market, the cobbled street they rode along ended abruptly. Ahead there was little more than a curved edge to the street and a strip of green land before the straits opened up before them. They turned left and headed up the street toward the Spar.

  Atiana had heard stories of, but was still surprised to see, especially at this hour, a long line of merchantmen and landsmen waiting to cross the water. Goods were heading out from Baressa to Ramina, the port city on the northern end of the island. They would typically be bearing goods meant for windships bound for Oramka or the Empire proper. They waited their turn, and eventually came to the front of the line, just before the pulley houses, where the tariff master asked them questions about their destination and their purpose. He saw them as easy pickings, which was what Atiana had been hoping for. The more he felt they were a normal part of his day, the more quickly they’d be forgotten.

  They managed to gain passage while losing only a handful of coins, but the way the master watched Atiana as Irkadiy paid him was unsettling.

  Seven pulley houses stood at the edge of the cliffs. They were built outward into the air over the cliff such that strong ropes could be lowered below them. Outside of each were massive capstans, each with eight or more mules harnessed to them. The pulley masters called “Hiyah!” and whipped the ponies when it was time, and the ponies trudged, causing the ropes that ran above them and into the pulley houses to turn and force the inner workings to raise or lower the wooden cage that contained either cargo or people.

  Atiana and Irkadiy were led to the third pulley house, one of the smaller ones meant for a handful of people.

  The pulley master approached Irkadiy and held out two burlap cloths with ropes tied to them. “Blinders, for the ponies.” He stared at Atiana and smiled, revealing teeth stained brown by tabbaq. “You can wear one, too, if you like.” He laughed at that, but stopped when Irkadiy waved him away.

  “They’re good climbing ponies,” Irkadiy said.

  “Good or not, put them on. If they’re not used to it, they’ll be skittish. They won’t enjoy it, and neither will you if you’re caught in the cage without these.” He waggled the bags again.

  Irkadiy accepted them with a nod and put one over each pony’s head so that their eyes were covered. Only then did the pulley master swing open the large door, and allow them into the cage. The cage swung slightly as they stepped onto it, giving Atiana a strange feeling-as if she were stepping onto a small waterborne ferry.

  Her pony stamped her hooves loudly and threw her head back, perhaps trying to knock the mask from her eyes, but Irkadiy took the reins and ran his hand along her neck and spoke into the pony’s ear softly until she calmed down.

  The doors came closed with a creak and a bang. A bell was rung, the massive ropes and pulleys began to turn, and then they were headed down and out into open air.

  Atiana had ridden in dozens of windships and yachts and skiffs. She’d been a passenger on a waterborne ship a handful of times. She had never been bothered by them, even while she was sleeping in a cabin, unable to see much of the outside world. But riding in this contraption made her stomach churn. It felt as though the rope would snap at any moment. The cage itself was little more than four wooden fences, head-high, built onto a wooden platform. The platform seemed fragile, as though her feet, or their ponies’, might crash through at any moment.

  When it happened-and she was sure it would-they would plummet and buffet against the ivory cliff before plowing into the lower pulley house in the split second before their deaths.

  She closed her eyes and shook her head, moving to the edge of the cage if only to pretend she was standing on the deck of a windship.

  To her right, two more sets of pulleys were drawing their cages up, or perhaps down. She wasn’t sure; she couldn’t see either of the cages yet. To her left four more moved, their cables swaying gently in the wind. As they neared what she judged as the halfway point, she saw a crowd of people packed like fish into a single cage-there must have been thirty of them, rising up along the cliff. Most of them wore the simple clothes of workmen. Nearly all of them took it as easily as taking a stroll, but one young man near the corner watched Atiana with a look of barely concealed terror. The two of them watched one another silently-one rising, the other falling-until he’d passed out of sight.

  She had wanted to study the Spar on their descent, but she found herself unable to. She could focus on nothing but reaching the bottom. Her foot began to tap of its own free will.

  “My Lady, please,” Irkadiy said. “You’re making them nervous.” He was standing at the reins of her pony, rubbing her neck, staring at Atiana’s foot.

  Atiana had to concentrate to stop it, but that just made her fears resurface.

  Ponies be damned. If she wanted to tap her foot, she was bloody well going to.

  Only after they had finally landed and boarded the large ferry did the terror leave her. She and Irkadiy shared the deck with dozens of others, a handful of ponies, and twenty cords of wood. She stood at the bulwarks, staring up at the bridge as the ferry’s drum beat time and the twelve oars below her cut into the blue-green water.

  “Can they have built the Spar in only four years?” Atiana asked Irkadiy.

  “It doesn’t seem possible,” he said.

  Far above, dozens of Aramahn stonemasons were moving along the bridge and the supports beneath the open section that had yet to be joined. It was stout, and massive, and yet Atiana couldn’t get the notion out of her head that after a surge of tide water below or a squall above, it would all topple into the sea.

  “I saw it in the dark,” she said.

  “And what did you see?”

  “An edifice. A structure every bit as impressive as what we see before us.”

  “It’s nothing more than a bridge, My Lady.”

  “If you could see the world through my eyes you would not say such things. This is a place that has been anathema to the Matri for centuries. To have it spanned so, and in such a short amount of time, smacks of hubris.”

  Irkadiy snorted. “The line of the Kamarisi is nothing if not proud, My Lady.”

  Atiana shook her head. “I speak not of Hakan, but the Lady Arvaneh.”

  They made it to the other side of the straits, passing two ferries as they did so, and they gained the top of the cliffs after another harrowing ride-though Atiana had to admit that it wasn’t so bad as the first.

  It was freeing to move beyond the straits and into Vihrosh, Baressa’s smaller sister that stood on the northern side of the straits. It was much smaller than Baressa. An eighth-league beyond the cliffs and it was little more than a village. They were through it and into the hills beyond well before the sun had reached high noon.

  The land sloped downward beyond Vihrosh. They made good time, passing into the lowlands and into the wide plateau that covered much of the northern half of Galahesh. There was little breeze and the day was unseasonably warm. They both found themselves unbuttoning their clothes to let in a bit of air. Irkadiy seemed overly conscious of her exposed neck and arms-she caught him glancing at her more
than once-but Atiana didn’t care. If she didn’t get some air she was going to pass out.

  Atiana had told Irkadiy that she wasn’t sure what they were searching for. She could tell from his sidelong glances that he dearly wished to ask her of their destination, but he was a good man, and he kept his questions to himself.

  Atiana wished she knew herself. She only knew after the experience she’d had in the aether, the feeling of being drawn westward as if a spire lay in that direction, had forced her hand. There was no choice now but to go to the area and see what she could see. She had considered coming while taking the dark, but the truth of the matter was she didn’t know how far beyond the straits she could travel, and she was still weak. It would take days before she would trust herself in the aether once more. Were Bahett not returning from his hunt tomorrow, she would have waited, but he would soon learn of her transgression. She’d gone to the drowning chamber and spied on Arvaneh without his leave, which made this ride all the more important.

  They came to an area that was lightly wooded with pine and oak, and shortly after that the woods thickened until they were traveling a road that cut through a thick forest.

  “Wait,” Irkadiy said.

  He reined his pony over and trotted back. He sat in his saddle, considering a road that ran off through the forest.

  “What do you suppose this is?”

  Atiana shrugged. “A homestead?”

  “Look at the ruts. Dozens of wagons have passed this way, and recently.”

  The inference was clear. If so many had passed, it may very well be what she was looking for.

  They took to the trail. Irkadiy was on edge. They could not see far on the road ahead, and the undergrowth was thick, making it difficult for them to forge a path through it.

  After they passed a ridge and the land took them downhill, Irkadiy guided their ponies into the forest until the trail was lost from view. After tying their ponies behind a copse of alder, Irkadiy retrieved his musket from its holster behind his pony’s saddle, and they began walking eastward on foot.