The Winds of Khalakovo

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

Fahroz and Rehada led the way to the shoreline. They waited as Atiana disrobed, at which point they worked together to rub the rendered goat’s fat over her body.

  She lay back in the freezing water and with the other two women’s arms holding her, floated free. She fought against the urge to shiver, to stiffen, and found that this time it was much easier than any of the others had been. She wondered if, in time, she would begin to yearn for the aether as Saphia did.

  She relaxed and fell deeper into the embrace of the water as the constricting tube through which she breathed became less and less of a hindrance. And soon... Soon...

  Her mind expands to fill the lake and the cavern that holds it. It is an easy thing to do, and for the first time there is pleasure—a release that occurs at the moment of crossing—and she thinks immediately to Saphia and her constant desire to wander the aether. Is this the first sign that the same will happen to her?

  The transition occurs faster than in times past, but it is no less easy. The winds seems more turbulent, and she wonders if that is due to her lack of mastery or the state of the island.

  She moves beyond the lake, hoping to find a frame of reference from which she can view the rift. She failed to find it the last time, but she is not so inexperienced as she was then. She thinks about her past failures, but she is convinced that things will be different now.

  As she searches, she feels the presence of another. It is not like the feeling of communing with one of the Matri. Instead, it is the feeling of a soulstone, one she has touched in recent weeks, and she realizes with a start that it is Nikandr’s. As the winds of the aether rage around her, beckoning her to give of herself more fully, she allows herself to be drawn toward the stone. It is dangerous, what she does. She is not so experienced yet that she can take this shift lightly. She knows that if she does not maintain awareness of herself in Iramanshah, she might be lost forever, but she is well grounded in the lake, and Nikandr’s light is bright. It will make, she hopes, the return journey easier; her body in the lake and his stone will act like spires for a windship, anchoring the ley lines so that she might traverse them home.

  She finds herself hovering above an island, not unlike any of the dozens of others sprinkled around the Great Sea, but she soon realizes that this is vastly different. Worlds different.

  She can feel with the lightest touch the hezhan that inhabit the island. They are spread thinly in most places except for one location—a city nestled between two arms of a mountain that travel down to the sea. The city is large, but it is also bereft of life. Gone from its houses are roofs and walls. Stone fences lay shattered. The taller buildings closer to the center are broken and torn; some are mere husks.

  The hezhan move about the city, perhaps searching—for what she does not know. As she approaches, she realizes she was wrong. These are not hezhan. They are of Adhiya, but they are also of Erahm. Their colors—blue mixed with tendrils of red—remind her of the babe she saw, the one that had been ... assumed by the vanahezhan. She has not thought of it before, but the act of assuming a bird like the rooks is eerily similar to what she sees here, only it is a hezhan assuming a human instead of a human assuming an animal, and it forces her to rethink the very nature of the hezhan.

  One of the creatures moves faster, and she is drawn toward it because nearby there are four men, and one is Nikandr. They hide in a building as the creature stalks toward the open doorway. It sniffs the air and appears ready to step inside. She knows that if this happens it could mean the life of all four of them, but she does not know how to prevent it. She moves around one side and tries to call its attention toward her. If it notices her efforts, it does not show it.

  A moment later it opens its darkened mouth and calls soundlessly to the sky, and when it does, there is a subtle shift in the aether. She feels, in that one small moment, a lattice of connections that span the entire city. It starts near the water—at a tall tower that is strangely intact—and spreads outward like the shattering impact of a stone upon a pane of leaded glass.

  She was ready to search for the rift on Khalakovo, but here is something so much larger, so much more dangerous. She wonders, staring at it, whether this could happen to Khalakovo. Could something spread so far? Or would it take intervention of some sort?

  As she studies the faint but powerful lines of the web covering the city, she realizes that there are telltale signs she might look for on Khalakovo. The aether lies between worlds; it is neither of Erahm nor Adhiya, and yet of both, for it stands between them, separating them, binding them. When she rides the aether, she remains at its center—the safest place. But these tendrils that spread from one world to the other are in fact easier to discern near the edges. If she can expand her awareness, as dangerous as that is for a novice, she might be able to find it more easily.

  She returns her attention to Nikandr and the men, she sees that the creature has left. It pains her to leave, but she knows that she must.

  Ancients keep you, my love, she whispers, and allows herself to be drawn back toward Iramanshah.

  As she nears the island the presence of others become known to her. It is the other Matri, but like a blind woman grasping ineffectually for an intruder she is unable to find them.

  Mother, she wills. Saphia.

  They do not answer, but the sense that she is being watched grows. She wonders whether having gone to Ghayavand has anything to do with it. It feels no different than the times she had been in Radiskoye or Galostina, but that doesn’t mean that there is not some primal shift in perspective that occurs when drifting through the aether from within the confines of Iramanshah.

  She tries to relax her mind further while keeping tight rein on the aether. Again the winds buffet her, and she uses this to attempt to locate the source of the disturbance. She tries for long moments, refusing to think about the time she has already spent. She must act quickly, but not recklessly, and she cannot allow her thoughts of the material world to affect her or she will be thrown from the aether in moments.

  As she had in Ghayavand, she allows her vision to expand as she navigates the currents. At the edge of her vision, she sees it, and though it is impossible to look upon it directly she can perceive a white line as thin and bright as a distant lightning strike running the length of the island. By and large it runs beneath the ground, trailing, perhaps, the hidden inner workings of stone. There are several places, however, where it rises to the surface, and even one where it swirls above ground like a dust demon.

  She approaches, and as she does, faint thoughts come to her. She is sure that it is the Matri communing with one another, but she is again unable to discern their thoughts to any coherent degree, so she focuses on the swirling energy before her.

  It is here that the suurahezhan crossed over. She knows because of Nikandr’s description of the place and also because of the tinge of red that remains on the ground beneath the swirling storm of energy. This is the rift that spans the aether and binds Adhiya to Erahm. It is why the spirits have been crossing, and surely the presence of such a thing would cause other effects—the imbalance of the two worlds touching might cause poor crops, might it not, as well as the erratic behavior on fishing grounds?

  She places herself in the locus of the crossing, hoping to sense more than she can while spread so thinly. It is a difficult thing, for the aether is wide and lends itself naturally to a widening of one’s self, to a thinning of the senses, and as she focuses, she feels the pull of the aether upon her. She becomes disoriented. She can feel not just this island—Duzol and Grakhosk and Yfa are the strongest—but others as well: Kravozhny and Yrlanda and even little Ishal far to the east. Beyond these she can feel the pull of the other archipelagos. Mirkotsk and Rhavanki and her motherland, Vostroma.

  She takes hold of the aether before she is pulled too far, before her mind snaps over the immensity of it all. Experiencing so much is beyond her. It is beyond even the Matri, she is sure.

  She realizes, as she moves away from the location and
considers it from a safe distance, that it was the rift that had pulled her so. She had known that it had spread among the islands, but she had no idea how interconnected it was. The sense that she has found something truly important is breathtaking, but it is also unnerving. She has found it, yet it is completely foreign. It is an act of nature. How can she hope to combat this? How can any of them?

  As she considers moving closer to the swirl of light, she hears the voices once more. She is surprised, however, to feel the mind of her mother.

  Daughter, is that you?

  Her first instinct is to hide, but she does not know how to do such a thing, and after thinking about it for a moment it seems cowardly.

  It is I, she says.

  The feeling of her mother intensifies, and as it does, so do four other presences. She has not spoken with any of them in some time, but she knows them to be the other Matri, the ones currently aligned against Khalakovo: Dhalingrad, Khazabyirsk, Nodhvyansk, and Bolgravya. She wonders why their presences feel so near when Saphia and the other Matri might be able to sense them. But then she feels a disturbance in the aether, an echo of life crossing over. It feels distant, but only because her mind is so focused on the rift. As she expands to encompass more of the island, she feels them. Deaths. Many of them. It is centered on Volgorod’s eyrie, but there is more coming from Radiskoye.

  It can mean only one thing: her father has lost his patience and the blockade has progressed to all-out war.

  Child, where are you? A moment later, she feels her mother’s surprise—she knows that Atiana lies within the lake in Iramanshah. What are you doing there?

  She debates whether to reveal her true purpose, but in the end she realizes it would do more harm than good. Whether she likes it or not, Mother is too loyal to Father, and the chance that she would betray her confidence is too great.

  She portrays a sense of indignance that she hopes is enough to fool her mother. I have been trying to find a way to reach you since I left Radiskoye.

  She feels a probing as her mother attempts to read the truth in her thoughts, but Atiana is not so young as she once was. She is able to harden the walls around her, enough to make her mother back away.

  Remain where you are, was her mother’s terse reply.

  Her presence recedes. The others remain, little more than watchdogs ready to bark.

  She no longer cares. She attempts to flee, to return to her form, but the Matri stand in her way. They hold her in place, preventing her from moving.

  Release me, she shouts, but they do not listen.

  The time is long past, Bolgravya says, for you to be chained.

  This can mean only one thing: someone will be sent to Iramanshah to fetch her. She tries to widen her awareness, but the Matri push back. They tighten their grip. They press.

  Nyet, Atiana realizes. It is not the Matri. It is something in Iramanshah...

  Her shell. Her body, floating in the lake...

  Something is wrong.

  She attempts to return, but there is a presence that surrounds her. It is cold, fluid. As she tries to pin it down, to understand it, it slips free, always pressing, always bearing down.

  She cannot breathe.

  The air releases from her lungs, and she finds herself unable to draw even the smallest of breaths through the simple wooden tube that touches her lips.

  She can feel her body though she still rides the currents, and she marvels at the feeling of being in both worlds at once. It is in this moment that she realizes that the veil to Adhiya has been pulled aside.

  It is a glimpse of pure beauty.

  Pure pain.

  Pure madness.

  She knows that a hezhan has found her. It preys upon her as the vanahezhan preyed upon the babe.

  She rails against it. Thrashing in her terror.

  And she wakes.

  Seeing, towering above her, the liquid form of a jalahezhan.

  CHAPTER 49

  Atiana fell back into the water.

  Her skin was numb, her muscles slow to respond, but her fear helped her to put distance between her and the beast.

  As she did, she could still feel the presences around her—not only the hezhan, but Rehada in the water behind her, Fahroz on the stony beach, and a man, further in the recesses of the lake.

  She remembered him, the one Rehada had been speaking to before they’d entered the village. Muwas. He was controlling the spirit. She could feel, even now, the connection that snaked between them, a cord of aether that allowed him to force his will upon it.

  She could feel as well a concentration of aether below her—something that lay on the lake bed—though what it was she couldn’t guess.

  Then Rehada was at her side, pulling her up by her arm. “In the lake!” Rehada shouted.

  A blast of water struck Atiana in the chest, sending her beneath the surface. Something slick grabbed her ankle and pulled her, dragged her down against the rough surface of the lake bed. Her legs and back were scraped by sharp stone. She screamed, losing what little air she had in her lungs.

  A hand gripped hers.

  She slipped free as the rush of the water pulled her deeper.

  She kicked and thrashed and fought. She gained the surface and drew breath, managing only a whisper of air before she was pulled under. Water invaded her throat, her lungs.

  She coughed reflexively, which did nothing but draw in more water.

  She kicked, but the hezhan had her.

  She was pressed down against stone. The pressure built. What little air she had in her lungs escaped, bubbling upward, barely visible against the orange glint of the siraj lamps along the shore.

  She could still feel the hezhan. Could still feel Muwas. Could still feel the stone on the lake bed and the walls of the aether closing in. They were drawn in tight, much as they were with the babe and Nasim.

  Desperate, she pushed against them, as hard as she could manage.

  The aether widened. Adhiya and Erahm were distanced. And she felt in her mind the cord between Muwas and the hezhan snap.

  Immediately the pressure against her chest eased. The water stilled.

  She was disoriented, but she followed the light. Stars blossomed in her vision, and the world began to fade.

  A warm hand gripped her wrist, pulled her up and out of the water. She was thrown over someone’s shoulder, which pressed into her stomach with each ungainly step forward. Water expelled from her lungs and splashed into the surface of the lake below her. As they reached the shallows, she began spluttering, spitting the last of the water from her lungs, and then a coughing fit overcame her. It seemed to last forever, her body wracking painfully from the force of it.

  But then at last it faded. Above her, a stout Aramahn man stood. Next to him was Rehada and Fahroz.

  “Muwas,” Atiana said, her voice hoarse. “He lies deeper in the lake. There. It was he that summoned the hezhan.”

  The burly quram moved to the edge of the water. He closed his eyes and opened his palms to the water. As his head tilted back, a wind began to blow. It was cold, but not so cold as Atiana had been in the water, and to her it felt good in the darkness of this place.

  After a moment, the prow of a boat could be seen approaching. It turned lazily as it was pushed by the wind to the shore. When it finally arrived, the Aramahn man stepped to its side and hoisted from its confines the unconscious form of Muwas.

  Atiana stood upon a grassy hill high on the mountain that held the village of Iramanshah. Ahead, the ground sloped upward until it reached a ridge where a dozen obsidian stones stood sentinel. Only paces away, a crowd of Aramahn stood in a circle around Muwas. He kneeled in the center of this tribunal of the village elders, staring at them defiantly as the light of the glowing stones lit his face in ghastly relief.

  Rehada stood nearby, the wind tugging at her robes—this day as much an outsider as Atiana.

  Atiana had watched far below in the darkness near the lake as the village elders had gathered and discuss
ed what had happened in hushed voices. They had granted Muwas a chance to defend himself, but he had refused to do so. He had merely stared at them, claiming it was for them that he was doing this. “You should be on your knees,” he’d said. “You should hail me as a martyr, not seek to dim the brightness of my flame.” The elders had looked upon him with sadness, which had only emboldened him.

  In little time, they had made their decision. Muwas would be burned—his ability to bond with spirits taken from him—and shortly after, they had all trekked up to the mountain to perform the ritual.

  Muwas had come without argument, but when he’d reached the light of the sun, his outlook had changed. He became unsure of himself, and though some of his defiance remained in his eyes, it seemed more an act, whereas before it had been heartfelt.

  The village elders gathered in a circle around him. Muwas stared at two of the Aramahn in particular. One was a young woman, not much older than Atiana. She wore a stone of tourmaline. A suuraqiram. The other, a man whose knees were so bad he was barely able to walk without help, wore a stone of opal. A dhoshaqiram. Together, they represented the opposed elements to water, and together, they would burn Muwas’s abilities from him, even though, in doing so, they would be giving up their own.

  “Why?” Atiana asked in nearly a whisper. “Why sacrifice two, who can do so much good, so that one can no longer do harm?”

  Rehada glanced over, perhaps judging whether or not the question was serious. “He cannot be allowed to commune with spirits—not in this life, in any case. Perhaps in another he will turn to the path of peace.”

  “What do the hezhan care of peace?”

  “You would rather we let him go?”

  Atiana could feel the weight of the lake all over again, the burn as the water slipped hungrily down her throat. “He would have killed me, and he will kill again given the chance.”

  “He may,” Rehada said.

  “And you care so little for that?”

  “I care that he is given a chance to learn.”