The Winds of Khalakovo

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  “Farce or not, Mother would find out soon enough what I’d done.”

  “And you’ll simply tell her the truth, that I asked to go.”

  “For what purpose?”

  “Unfinished affairs.”

  “Nikandr?”

  “I’ll reveal everything when I return to Vostroma.”

  The rook flapped over to the open window and clucked. “I’m afraid, sister, that this is something I cannot do. I may like to pull at loose strings, but this is too much.”

  “Shkyna, please! It will work.”

  “I know it will work. I’m worried about my hide once it has.”

  “Mother won’t do a thing.”

  “Nyet, but Father will. He has changed as much as Borund. It’s too much to ask. When you reach the island, we’ll play trump—you and I and Mileva, like we always have. You’ll be a world away from your troubles, and in no time you’ll forget Nikandr and his stubborn family.”

  “Ishkyna!”

  The rook had already flapped out of the window. Atiana watched it wing through the rigging and climb higher into the overcast sky until it was lost in the white canvas of the landward sails.

  CHAPTER 54

  Rehada entered the mouth of the cave at dusk. The height of it was so low that she had to bend over to reach the interior. She could smell wood burning, and when she turned a corner she found the source. In the center of the natural cavern burned a meager fire. The smoke trailed upward and was lost through a long crack in the stone ceiling. Soroush kneeled on the far side, pointedly ignoring her approach as he stirred the fire with a partially burnt switch. When his brother, Bersuq, saw her, he stood and motioned for the two others sitting next to him to follow. They were forced to hunch over, making them look like a line of the walking wounded.

  Rehada kneeled on the opposite side of the fire and watched as the orange light played across Soroush’s dark skin. His turban lay on top of his folded outer robe. His long black hair was pulled over one shoulder.

  “Where is Muwas?” Soroush asked without looking up.

  “Taken. Burned.”

  The silence between them lengthened, deepened. Soroush had been burned himself five years ago. Rehada could only imagine what it must feel like, to be cut off from touching Adhiya, to never again feel the bond with a hezhan. It would be an empty life. At least for a while. Perhaps forever.

  Rehada reached into the pouch at her waist and retrieved the azurite gemstone. It was smooth, no larger than a thrush’s egg, and even though she wasn’t aligned with water, she could feel the power emanating from within it.

  “At least he was able to find this for us.” She set it down near the fire, close enough for Soroush to reach.

  He picked it up, turned it in his fingers as the firelight played against the silken surface. “You witnessed it, the burning?”

  “I did.”

  “You did nothing to protect him?”

  “I—there was nothing I could have done.”

  “Nothing?”

  “You were not there, Soroush. He was caught with blood upon his hands.”

  After setting the stone down next to the fire, Soroush regarded Rehada. “The woman I knew—the woman I sent to this island seven years ago— would have fought for his freedom.”

  “You would prefer that I had? That I were dead like Ahya?”

  Anger flared in his gray-green eyes. “I’ve never told you, Rehada, but the men who murdered Ahya... Nearly all of them are dead, most by my hand. It took years, and by the time you left for Khalakovo, I had begun to feel thin, worn down, as I do now. Like a hawk no longer hungry for prey, my thirst for revenge faded.”

  She glanced toward the cave’s entrance, making sure the other men had truly left. She had never heard Soroush speak this way. His anger was fading before her very eyes.

  “And if my own thirst is thus,” he continued, “I wonder what it must be like for you.”

  “You think I don’t have the stomach for it any longer?”

  “Our minds are not made for such things.”

  “My mind is as filled with hate as it has ever been.”

  Soroush shook his head. “I doubt that, daughter of Shineshka.”

  “You doubt that I would wipe them from the islands if I could?”

  “If it were so easy as that, neh, I think you would. But it is not easy. It is harder than I ever thought it would be. And I have seen the same struggle within you—don’t think I haven’t. The Aramahn are a clean people, are we not? But it is impossible to lie in the mud and not have it cling to you when at last you rise.”

  “What of you?” Rehada shot back. “How can you go on if your will has left?”

  Soroush was silent for a time. The fire had begun to die, but he stoked it back to life. “There was an attack years ago on Nodhvyansk. Lohram and Bersuq and I had just landed on the island, and we heard of a group of our people being chased by a Landed warship. We didn’t find the windship in time, but we found the six who had fallen to their deaths when their skiff was blown to bits by the ship’s cannons.

  “One of them, a woman who had seen eighty years, had nearly saved herself. We found her lying in the tall grasses, the gem within her circlet dim, her body broken. She took my hand as I kneeled next to her and looked into my eyes. She could barely take breath, but she forced these words out before she died: ‘Forgive them... Please, child, forgive them. Do not take revenge on my account.’ I asked her how she could say such things when those men had caused the deaths of so many she had loved, and she said: ‘Because I love them as much as I love you.’” Soroush took in a deep, halting breath. “She loved them as much as she loved me. I stayed by her side until she died, but I will not lie and say that I comforted her. I hated her. I hated the words she had spoken, not because she could find it within herself to love those that deserve none of it, but because the Landed have forced us to this, squabbling amongst ourselves while they take everything.

  “It is easy for me to sustain myself now. I admit that I do not think of Ahya as often as I should, but I think of that woman every day. I think of her and reflect on what has become of us. I long for the day we can move freely among the winds, as we once did, but I no longer believe it will happen in this lifetime.”

  Rehada watched Soroush with a mixture of sadness and regret and anger. She wished the same determination ran through her veins, but she had to admit—to herself if no one else—that it no longer did. Something had been burned out of her by the lake when she had asked Atiana for forgiveness. She saw—for the first time in a very long time—some of the promise that her mother had spoken of when she was young. She had believed that the Landed would eventually reconcile with the Aramahn. It may take lifetimes, she’d told Rehada, but it would happen.

  Without saying another word, Rehada stood and held her hand out to Soroush. He stared, the fire and the shadows warring against his face, and then he dropped the blackened switch into the fire and followed her to the blankets that lay on the far side of the cave.

  With slow deliberation they pulled the clothes from their bodies until it was just the two of them, skin-on-skin, embracing and kissing, then exploring and finally groping. Rehada lay down, pulling Soroush with her. When he entered her she arched her back both in pleasure and in pain. Soroush had always been a gentle lover, but he thrust into her powerfully now. It felt as though he was filled with anger—or perhaps regret—that they might never see each other again.

  The same emotions took hold of her. She pulled him tight against her chest and ran her nails down his back. He thrust harder. She pulled his hair and bit his neck. Each thrust felt like an accusation. She cried out, knowing in her heart it was true. She had strayed from the path they had started on together, and after this night, they would walk on paths that would never converge, only cross.

  As he spent himself inside her, releasing an urgent groan through clenched teeth, she held him tight and gripped his waist with her legs and pulled him deep inside her and
surrendered a muffled cry of her own into his long black hair.

  Slowly, they fell from the heights to which they had risen, and soon they had fallen asleep in each other’s arms.

  When Rehada woke in the early morning hours, Soroush was snoring softly next to her. There was no light coming into the cavern, and the fire had gone cold, so she lit the darkness with the gem held within her circlet. Soroush’s face was filled with worry; she could tell from his eyes that he was dreaming.

  As softly as she could, she pulled on her clothes and left the cave. The wind outside was cold. The ephemeral summer of the islands was coming to a close once more, and soon the winds of autumn would descend upon them, a harbinger of the bitter winds yet to come. The eastern horizon was awash in indigo, and it would soon be light. She had to be far away from here by the time he woke.

  She had just started down the trail leading toward the lowland forest below her when she caught movement from the corner of her eye.

  Soroush stood naked at the mouth of the cave.

  She had been sure last night that he had decided to let her go, but as he stood there, his eyes judgmental and his stance rigid, she wondered whether he had changed his mind. She wondered whether, once she had given him what he wanted, he would kill her as he had done to so many traitors to the cause.

  She realized that she didn’t care. If he would kill her, then it would be so. And yet, another part of her hoped that he would succeed. It was why, despite her better judgment, she had given him the azurite stone.

  She turned and began walking away.

  “I know where he is,” Soroush said. “I can feel him. We will have him before the day is out.”

  She stopped in her tracks. She did not turn around, however. She couldn’t find it in herself to look at him—whether it was from fear of what he would do or a doubt that she lacked conviction to leave him she didn’t know. She realized in those small moments of silence just how lonely Soroush must be if he would call to her, even now, hoping that she might return.

  “You need only one stone, then,” she said.

  “Neh.”

  A chill ran down her spine. She turned, slowly, to find Soroush holding a rounded opal, beautiful to behold even in the thin morning light.

  “How long have you had it?”

  “Months,” he said simply. “I liberated it on Rhavanki when the first of the hezhan was summoned.”

  The pieces began forming quickly within Rehada’s mind. “When will it happen?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  One day, then. One day was all that stood between Soroush and the culmination of his plans.

  She turned away from him, knowing she must leave now. As she continued down the rocky trail, she could feel him watching her. She could feel the bond they once shared fading, slipping through her fingers like sand, and she was not at all sure that this was what she wanted.

  But she had chosen, and so had he.

  She headed south among the leafy trees as the sun touched the horizon. She had thoughts of returning to Iramanshah, but the truth was that she had no idea how she might be received. There was no telling what Muwas might have told them. It was ironic—though not surprising—that the people from whom she had worked so hard to distance herself, her own people, were not the ones she could turn to in this time of desperate need.

  Her thoughts turned to Ashan and Nasim and Nikandr. Everything now rested with them, and she had learned practically nothing of them since they’d left Volgorod. It was with this dire need for information that her destination was resolved.

  Radiskoye.

  It was the last place she’d ever thought to find herself turning for help. It was a place she once, given the chance, would have burned to the ground. But times had changed. She had changed. And everything now rode on her ability to reach them.

  CHAPTER 55

  As Nikandr sat within one of the holds aboard the Kavda, the ship dipped and rose, dipped and rose. His stomach heaved. A pewter pot of water hung from a hook on the ceiling, but he didn’t have the heart to drink any more of it. It would only fuel his nausea.

  They had been caught in a windstorm for over a day, but it felt like weeks. He had long since emptied his stomach onto the floorboards. He had thought himself a stout windsman, but he had always taken to the deck when things got bad. Never had he remained belowdecks—unable to gauge the winds—for more than a few hours at a time, and now that he had it had gotten to him.

  Someone coughed. Nikandr looked up at Ervan and two of his men who were bracing themselves in the corner of the hold. They looked as sick as Nikandr felt. Other than Jahalan, Ashan, and Nasim—who were being kept in another hold somewhere on the ship—they were all that remained of the crew that he had brought with him on the Gorovna. He looked away, unable to hold Ervan’s gaze.

  So many had died, but it was Pietr that occupied his mind the most. The others had died trying to save themselves, but Pietr—if Ashan was to be believed—had given himself willingly that Nikandr might live.

  “Where do you think they’re taking us?” Ervan asked, his voice a croak.

  It took Nikandr some time before he could reply, for his stomach always grew queasy with words. “I doubt—I doubt they would bring us to Vostroma. Grigory will—want to flaunt his prize”—he coughed—“in front of the dukes. And Vostroma, no doubt, will want to use me as a bargaining chip.”

  Through the floorboards Nikandr could feel and hear wooden gears turning. Finally there came a heavy thud. Immediately the ship began to turn, to right itself so that it was once again aligned with the ley lines running from Vostroma to Khalakovo. They had reached the currents where the ship’s keel could once again be used to maneuver the ship—as it was meant to be—and even though this meant they were close to being handed over to the traitor dukes, Nikandr didn’t care. He would give almost anything for a break from the incessant movement.

  Eventually, the ship began to glide more surely on the wind, and Nikandr took heart, taking it as a good omen despite their circumstances.

  A short while later, a muffled cawing filtered down into the bowels of the ship. The rooks often called this way when landing on a ship, but the sounds kept going and going. It was ragged and raw and desperate, and he wondered whether someone was trying to kill the thing. Yelling could be heard over the bird’s caws, and though it was difficult to tell for certain, it sounded like Grigory. It continued for some time, the voice becoming higher in pitch and urgency.

  Footsteps rushed down the hallway a short time later. Three streltsi opened the door and ordered Nikandr and Ervan up to the deck. They were led to the rear of the ship where standing over Nasim was Grigory holding a cocked pistol.

  An old rook was flapping around the deck like a fish. After a moment, Nikandr recognized the old, miserable thing. It was missing one foot and had been with the Bolgravyas for more than two decades. Brunhald was its name, and it had seemed old when he had first laid eyes on it as a boy, now it seemed positively ancient—its feathers ragged, a bald patch on the back of its head, its beak chipped and misshapen.

  Grigory, who was more used to the wasting than most, stared at Nikandr with a faint look of disgust, as if he didn’t dare step too close lest the wasting take him as well. He pointed the pistol at Nikandr’s chest. “What has he done?”

  Nikandr shook his head, confused.

  “Tell me! What has this Motherless wretch done?”

  Nasim had done something similar to Nikandr’s mother when she’d attempted to assume him, and he wondered whether Alesya had just attempted the same thing. He debated on whether or not to tell Grigory, but before he could say anything, Grigory stepped over to Ervan and pulled him by the arm to the gunwale.

  When he stepped back and pointed the pistol at Ervan’s chest, Nikandr raised his hands in submission and said, “Nyet, Grigory! All right! My mother suffered something similar when I left Radiskoye!”

  “What had the boy done?”

  Nikandr tried to convey his
confusion as best he could, if only to get Grigory to lower the weapon.“She had been studying him”—Nikandr could not, with the Aramahn close by, admit that his mother had tried to assume the boy—“and Nasim found her. He fought her and struck her dumb just before Borund took me away.”

  The rook continued to flap and caw and scratch its stump of a leg against the deck.

  “How?” Grigory’s voice was practically hysterical. “How can he do this? The Landless do not ride the aether.”

  “I don’t know.”

  Grigory’s face hardened. “You do know!” He shook the pistol at Ervan’s chest. “Now tell me!”

  Nikandr tried to find an explanation that would appease him, but the truth was he didn’t know the nature of the bond himself. Had he been able to speak with his mother or Atiana or even Victania he might have been able to understand it more fully, but other than the dream he had had on the Gorovna, he had not given it much thought. He hadn’t had the time.

  In his loss for words he could see the decision in Grigory as he turned his gaze upon Ervan.

  The muscles along his forearm tightened.

  “Nyet!” Nikandr screamed.

  The gun roared.

  Grigory’s wrist recoiled.

  A burst of red appeared at the center of Ervan’s chest and he fell backward over the gunwale, his eyes wide with shock.

  The smell of gunpowder laced the air, and then was gone like so much dust upon the wind.

  The following moments passed with the sounds of cawing and the wind whipping over the ship. Nikandr stared into Grigory’s eyes and found smugness there, as if to say Nikandr had been asking for this ever since Stasa Bolgravya had been murdered.

  But then something caught Nikandr’s attention, and it drew him back from the urge to rush Grigory if only to strike him once before being shot. Above Grigory’s shoulders, slipping from one bright cloud to another, was a ship. It was far off, but it was using the clouds to hide its approach. He refused to look at it directly, not wanting to draw attention, but he dearly hoped it was a ship allied to his father’s cause. And so, in an instant, he made a decision. He had to delay. He had to give the ship time so that he and the rest of the crew might still be saved.