The Straits of Galahesh

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  Atiana didn’t answer; she merely watched. It seemed as close to innocence as Ishkyna had come for as long as Atiana could remember. It felt nice to sit with her sister of old, the one who used to speak with her of her plans for her future, the days before she had been promised to Iyagor.

  Ishkyna let the curtain drop. “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  She glanced back at the curtain and then sat back, feigning indifference. “I suppose you’ll grow tired of it before long.”

  Some of the merchants began approaching the wagons, offering dates and fried sweetbread on brass platters until the driver and coachmen yelled at them in Yrstanlan to keep moving. That, however, only seemed to draw them like flies to sitting fruit.

  The crack of a whip cut through the air, and for a moment the din of the market subsided. From the rear of the coach that was directly ahead of Atiana’s, one of the janissaries hopped down and yelled at an old merchant who lay on the ground writhing, his sweetmeats spilled over the street. The guard pulled his whip back and lashed the man once more. The whip cut a line through his shirt, and blood welled beneath the bright yellow cloth. Only after the man had crawled away and the crowd backed up did the coaches resume their slow trek.

  At last, after what felt like endless hours through the city, they reached Kasir Yalidoz, a massive and expansive palace that dwarfed Galostina, at least in terms of the land it covered. Atiana was led by a dozen servants to her apartments, a set of three rooms that looked eastward toward Vostroma. The servants offered her hot mint tea and candied lemons. They asked if she wished to be bathed, offered to help her dress, gave her a list of small plates she might enjoy before the masquerade that evening. She knew it was an insult, but Atiana declined all of their offers, preferring the help of her handmaid, Yalessa, over this cadre of servants. Finally they left, and Yalessa helped her to change into her dress.

  “Will you see Bahett tonight?” Yalessa asked.

  “I imagine so, though this is more to put the Kamarisi at ease than anything else.”

  After brushing Atiana’s blonde hair and pulling it up into a bun, Yalessa opened a case and began to powder her hair. In the mirror, Atiana could see her staring into the corner, her mind clearly wandering. “Bahett is beautiful, is he not?”

  “I suppose he is.”

  Yalessa snapped her head toward the mirror, meeting Atiana’s gaze. “I’m sorry, My Lady Princess.”

  “Whatever for?”

  “Nikandr...”

  She didn’t like speaking of Nikandr, and Yalessa knew it. Why she would bring him up now—particularly when Atiana was away from home and unsure when she’d get to speak with Nikandr again—Atiana didn’t know, but it grated. “Don’t fear that I’ll be watching who enters your chambers,” Atiana said.

  “It isn’t that.”

  “Then what?”

  “It isn’t my place to say.”

  Atiana stared into the mirror, meeting Yalessa’s innocent face with a serious stare.

  Yalessa broke her gaze, brushing the powder carefully from Atiana’s neck and shoulders. “It’s just that, the prince… You’ve waited for so long to be with Nikandr. Why throw that away?”

  “I’m throwing nothing away. Bahett is a powerful man. He can do much for Vostroma. For the entire Grand Duchy. Why should I throw that away for a marriage that might never happen?”

  Yalessa nodded. “Of course, My Lady. As you say, the Kaymakam is a fine man.”

  Atiana stood, unwilling to let Yalessa bother her any longer, but as she did a soft knock came at the door.

  “Send them away,” Atiana said. “There’s nothing else I need.”

  In the mirror Atiana watched as Yalessa moved to the next room and opened the door.

  From the hall outside came a soft voice, polite but firm. “The Lady of Alekeşir, Arvaneh üm Shalahihd, wishes to speak with the Princess of Vostroma.”

  Atiana felt her face flush. She found herself looking about, for what, she didn’t know. But then she composed herself. She had known this time would come; she just hadn’t expected it so soon.

  Yalessa bowed and stepped back, sparing a quick glance in Atiana’s direction.

  Through the doorway strode a woman wearing an elaborate headdress of citrine stones that complemented her long, golden hair. Her richly embroidered takchita was a dress that had long since fallen out of favor in the Empire, but Arvaneh wore it not just with confidence but with a bearing that made it seem as though she were the first woman ever to wear one.

  “Leave us,” Arvaneh said, never taking her eyes from Atiana.

  Atiana gave Yalessa a small nod, and she left.

  Before the door was even closed, Atiana’s heart began to pound. However prepared she might have been, she hadn’t been ready to stand before such a beauty, a woman with clear power in her every move, her every motion.

  Arvaneh faced Atiana, regarding her with beautiful blue eyes. Her ruddy skin made her look like one of the Aramahn, but she dressed more like one of the southern tribeswomen. “Your time on the wind was not uncomfortable, I hope.”

  “It was as pleasant as it could be.”

  Arvaneh smiled, an act that seemed to tax her. “That is the way of things on the islands, is it not? You cling to rocks and complain when the wind takes you away.”

  “I wouldn’t describe it so,” Atiana said.

  Arvaneh walked along Atiana’s bed, casting an uncaring eye over the dresses that had been laid out—some of Atiana’s finest. “And how would you describe it?”

  “We are proud of our rocks, as you call them. We stand upon them with pride, and if the winds blow, we do not complain. We shoulder it as we do everything else.”

  “You take pride in this? Shouldering the wind?”

  “Like everything on the islands, it is something that must be dealt with.”

  “That is where you’re wrong, you and all of Anuskaya. Were you to embrace the wind, you might never have faced the opposition you do now in the Maharraht.”

  “And if the Maharraht were true to their beliefs, they would not be scrabbling for a piece of our islands.”

  “Your islands…” Atiana had shown no signs of anger during this exchange, yet Arvaneh smiled as if she’d already won this short trade of blows. She strode to the window, stared out over the Mount with a melancholy expression. “You are royalty, so perhaps your conceit should be forgiven, but do you think that once Anuskaya is gone, once the people of Galahesh are forgotten, once Yrstanla is no more, that they will still be yours?”

  Atiana paused, confused at such a statement, especially from someone who had the ear—and the bed—of the most powerful man in all of Erahm. “Doesn’t the line of the Kamarisi believe that all lands are theirs?”

  Arvaneh paused and turned back toward Atiana. She opened her mouth to speak, but just then a knock came at the door and in swept Ishkyna. Arvaneh looked between the two of them, confusion playing across her face. “I wasn’t aware that the other Vostroma sisters would be coming.”

  “Only one other.” Ishkyna pulled the skirt of her dress wide and bowed her head politely. It was not the full bow that was commonplace in Yrstanla, but neither were they in Yrstanla proper. Galahesh was something of a meeting ground between the two powers, not only geographically but culturally as well. “The other,” she continued, “is sufficiently chained to her husband that she couldn’t think of making the journey.”

  Atiana motioned to her sister. “Arvaneh üm Shalahihd, meet Ishkyna Radieva Vostroma, eldest of the sisters Vostroma.”

  “Eldest by a mere seven minutes. Had I not fought so hard in those opening moments of life, I might have been forced to the donjon to take the basin as Atiana does.”

  Atiana felt her face flush. As sensitive as her purpose was, she didn’t want the subject of taking the dark touched on if she could avoid it.

  The look on Arvaneh’s face was one of light amusement, but to Atiana it seemed forced, as if she found it difficult to suffer Is
hkyna’s presence but didn’t want to offend. “You are no Matra then?”

  Ishkyna smiled. “Not if it can be avoided.”

  “And why is this?”

  Ishkyna glanced at Atiana—Atiana could tell she wanted to fire back a scathing reply—but thankfully her thoughts, and her sharp words, lay hidden behind her lips. “It isn’t common knowledge as far west as Alekeşir, but the basin requires water as cold as the northern seas, as cold as the bones of the earth. It’s no joy taking those waters, I can assure you.”

  It seemed that Arvaneh could no longer hold her feelings back. The smile she wore was patronizing, which made it clear just how much contempt she harbored not just for Ishkyna, but for the entire Grand Duchy.

  “Forgive me,” she said. “You have just arrived, and I have taken enough of your time. I hear we will see you at the dinner tonight.”

  Atiana bowed her head.

  As Arvaneh strode toward the door, Ishkyna widened her eyes at Atiana.

  Atiana could only shrug.

  A moment later, Arvaneh was gone, leaving in her wake a cold sense that everything they had tried to hide from her had just been laid bare.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  When Nasim turned the last of the switchbacks on the path leading up to the top of the ridge, and the celestia came into full view at last, he stopped, humbled. Without speaking, Rabiah and Sukharam did the same. It was so large that it seemed to take on different dimensions the closer they came, but the true immensity of it did not strike him until he approached the concentric steps that led up to the marble floor.

  Before he reached the first of the steps, he stopped and merely stared. This was a wonder he would not rush. It was high noon and the sun was bright, casting much of the floor in shadow, but from six arched openings built cunningly into the center of the dome above, crepuscular rays shone down, creating six bright ovals that forced Nasim to squint when he looked upon them. Several of the fluted stone columns were overgrown with vines. They crept up and up, reaching even the exterior of the dome far above.

  The vines did not, however, grow against the underside of the dome. In fact, the beautiful mosaics there looked pristine, untouched since their construction over four hundred years before. Much of it was a beautiful shade of blue, the blue of the deepest, clearest water in the ocean, but against this backdrop were constellations that Nasim could only guess were made of mother of pearl, for the stars shone like the brightest stars on the darkest of nights. He could make out the constellations of the winter solstice easily—Iteh and Almadn and Qyleh and Osht and all the others—but there was so much more than this: the smaller, lesser constellations that rested above them or between them in the firmament; major comets that graced the sky as the fates allowed; glinting lines that tracked the path of the moon at summer and winter solstice. The patterns were not just brilliant, but alive.

  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. G
hayavand. 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.