He handed the Atalayina to Sukharam and began his preparations for their journey to Shirvozeh, the Aramahn village in the hills to the east of Alayazhar. As he and Rabiah were leaving, Sukharam stepped out from their home and called to him.
“I wish to go, kuadim,” Sukharam said.
“We spoke of this,” Nasim replied. “Stay. Take breath.”
“I should be with you.”
“I cannot allow it, Sukharam. This is too dangerous.”
“I knew it was dangerous when I agreed to come.”
“That may be true, but you do not yet know how to protect yourself, or us. Not against Muqallad.”
“And you do?”
Sukharam’s entire frame had tightened. He was embarrassed by this, but Nasim would not relent. He calmed himself and took two steps toward Sukharam until they were face-to-face. “Are you my disciple or are you not?”
“I’m not useless,” Sukharam said.
“I know you’re not.”
“I’m no wilting flower.”
“I know this as well. We go only to search for clues. If we find them, we will return. I promise you this.” After a deep breath, Nasim took Sukharam’s hand that held the Atalayina. “You are the only one of us who has a connection to it. Do as we agreed. Take breath with the stone. Learn from it.”
As the wind tugged at his dark hair, Sukharam’s eyes widened. He tightened his grip on the stone, and then he regarded Nasim with a look of calm purpose. “I will,” he said, bowing his head. “I will try…”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The village of Shirvozeh lay east of Alayazhar. The road leading up to it was paved in stone, crafted by dozens of vanaqiram masons centuries ago. It was cracked and decayed, but much of it was still intact, including the designs, which were made to look like the flow of water over a riverbed. Well before reaching the bridge near the village’s entrance, Nasim guided Rabiah off the path and headed through the swaying grass and copses of short, twisted acacias, steadily making their way toward a cliff. Soon they could no longer see Alayazhar; they could no longer see the road they’d taken, either, making Nasim feel as if they were alone on an island untouched by the hand of man.
As their footsteps shushed over the wiry grass, Rabiah stared at the hills ahead with a nervous expression. “We should have brought Sukharam.”
Nasim motioned to their left, to the ridge that stood between them and Alayazhar. The celestia was barely visible in the distance. “You saw how he was at the celestia. He’s too unsure of himself, Rabiah. Too tentative.”
“He was only trying to prove himself to you.”
“That may be, but where we go is dangerous. Too dangerous for him.”
“We need his help,” Rabiah said.
“We need him safe. This isn’t why he was brought here.”
“Things have changed, Nasim. We must change with them.”
For a time, they walked in silence.
When Nasim had finally found it in himself to leave Mirashadal and the care of Fahroz, he’d been terribly lonely. He’d nearly gone to Khalakovo to find news of Nikandr, but he knew that such a thing would be foolish. No matter what Nikandr might think, the Landed had not changed their ways. This resolve, the resolve to choose his own path, had taught him something. Trust. Trust in himself—for that, in the end, was all he could do. He could not trust Nikandr. He could not trust Sukharam. He could not even place his full faith in Rabiah, whom he trusted most aside from Ashan.
Trust was a luxury he couldn’t afford. It was simply too dangerous. He needed to be sure that their path was the right one, and the only way to do that was to choose it himself.
“Perhaps we do need to change,” Nasim said to her. “But not now. Sukharam must learn more.”
Rabiah stopped walking. “Nasim...”
He refused to slow. She was just being stubborn.
“Nasim!”
Her voice was so full of emotion that he stopped and turned. She stepped forward tentatively while staring into his eyes, perhaps trying to see into his soul. “You’re so protective of him,” she said. “Why not me?”
He couldn’t speak for a moment. He looked around, at the dry, mountainous landscape, at the overcast sky and the blue gap in the clouds far to the north. “Because I need you.”
She blinked. He saw her swallow, as if she were suddenly nervous, and when she spoke again, her voice was quiet. “You say it as if it’s obvious.”
“Isn’t it?”
She opened her mouth to speak, but then seemed to think better of it. She smiled and squeezed his shoulders. “You do need me, Nasim. But you need Sukharam as well. We all need each other.”
He wanted to tell her that there was more. He wanted to tell her that he didn’t just need her—there was so much more trying to bubble up from deep inside him—but the words, like so many times before, refused to come. It wasn’t the right time.
It was never the right time.
“Come,” he finally said. “We’re already here. If Ashan was taken, then Muqallad would have brought him to Shirvozeh. I need to know if it’s so.”
He could tell that she didn’t want to drop the topic, but she nodded anyway, and they continued.
They hiked down slope until they came to the edge of a sheer cliff. From this vantage they could see to their left a bridge that spanned the chasm below. The bridge’s sand-colored columns rose up from the base of the valley hundreds of feet, arching gracefully to meet the supports to either side. In a handful of places the stones along the bridge’s roadway had given way—from this distance it looked as if it had been chewed away by rats. By and large, though, the bridge was sound.
Suddenly, Rabiah clutched his arm, pointing southward.
Nasim scanned the far side of the chasm. And then he caught movement. It was a good distance away—an eighth-league or more—but he could see the form of a vanahezhan plodding through the scrub pine. Every few steps, some of its leg would ablate. It would then pause, glance down, and the leg would reform, but then a few steps later it would happen again.
As it grabbed for an old, misshapen acacia, pulling itself upslope, it fell and shattered against the ground. Rocks slid downward, clacking and clattering, spraying the hillside in the pattern of a candle’s flame.
“Did it return to Adhiya?” Rabiah asked.
“It must have. When I came here with Ashan, there were hezhan all over the island. They had seemed a part of this place. Permanent, somehow.” Nasim waved to the site of the vanahezhan’s crossing, where dust still rose. “It might have been weak, one more likely to be drawn back to Adhiya, but somehow I doubt it. Things have changed.”
Rabiah touched her chest, over her heart. “It feels unstable. The hezhan can cross easily, but it feels like we could step into Adhiya as well.”
Nasim felt a mixture of pride and melancholy swirling inside him. It was a sign of her ability that she could sense this. “You’re becoming attuned to the island.”
She looked to him, her eyes bright and hopeful. “Is that good or bad?”
“A bit of both, I’m afraid.” He pointed to their right. “Come, the trail head isn’t far.”
They soon found it, a thin trail hidden among the growth. They began taking it downward, watching the bridge constantly, but when they approached the halfway mark and still saw nothing, their nerves began to calm.
Far below, the rush of water could be heard, and they soon came to an overlook—the top of a massive fist of rock lodged into the otherwise loose soil. They rested there, looking down at the frothing rush of water.
“Where is it?” Rabiah asked.
In truth Nasim didn’t know. He studied the landscape, hoping he would recognize landmarks now that he was here.
And then he spotted it. Near a shallow inlet of crystal-clear water in a patina-colored bed was a curving wall of red rock with flowering vegetation clinging to its sheer face.
“Beneath the vines,” he said, pointing to it.
“Wh
ere?”
“Hiding beneath the overhang.”
Rabiah studied the wall closely, but Nasim’s attention was drawn by movement on the bridge far above. Rabiah began to speak, but he grabbed her arm and squeezed, willing her to silence. Rabiah looked up immediately and drew in a sharp breath.
There, in a staggered line, were a dozen akhoz heading toward the village. Nasim remained frozen, hoping they were too far from the akhoz for them to smell their scent on the wind, but then he realized that they weren’t all akhoz.
A woman followed at the rear of the line. With the distance he might not have recognized her as such had she not been walking upright, her hair flowing in the wind. The longer he watched, though, the more he realized she might not be a woman after all. She seemed young—perhaps twelve or thirteen, certainly no older than he and Rabiah—and her gait was not one of confidence, but of self-consciousness. She was out of place here, and she felt it.
Then, as one, he and Rabiah were drawn by more movement much closer to them.
At the top of the trail, shuffling along the ground on all fours, was a single akhoz. It sniffed the ground, moved a few paces, then sniffed again. It stopped, its mouth open as if it were tasting the wind. It remained there motionless for so long that Nasim thought it might not have sensed them, that soon it would return to the others, but then it arched its neck, bared its blackened gums and teeth to the sky, and shuffled toward them.
“By the fates, it’s found us,” Nasim said, pulling her by her arm.
They sprinted down the trail.
As steep as the hill was it was difficult to control their pace. Rabiah nearly slid off a curve in the trail and down the steep slope toward the water below, but Nasim caught her wrist, and they skidded along the dry, rocky soil to slow themselves.
Above, the akhoz was gaining ground. They could hear its breathing, snuffing and huffing, which sounded more like a wounded boar than a child. It hunkered down near a tree that hugged the side of the trail and sniffed, then it reared its head back and released a howl that made Nasim’s stomach churn.
It continued, on and on it went until Nasim was forced to stop, to lean over and take deep breaths to keep himself from vomiting. A line of drool slipped from his mouth and fell upon the dry red soil
Rabiah was no better. Her face was white, and her lip quivered as she stared into Nasim’s eyes. The veins along her forehead stood out, her pulse galloping.
“Draw upon a dhoshahezhan,” he said. “Use it to shield us.”
After coughing and pulling herself upright, she did. The walls of Adhiya were thin here. He could feel the hunger of the hezhan—dozens of them—to enter this world. Rabiah was forced to slow the amount of energy she was drawing in order to prevent its crossing.
But already her face was turning red. Spittle leaked from her mouth to fall upon the front of her red robes, and she tightened her fists so hard that the whites of her knuckles and the tendons of her hands stood out. He reached out to calm her, but she slapped his hand away. She pushed as hard as she dared.
The hair on his head and the back of his neck stood on end. A crackle sizzled through the air above them, signaling the crossing of a dhoshahezhan.
But then the long call of the akhoz abruptly ended.
Instead of using the trail, it charged down the slope, heedless of the scrapes along its legs and torso it received from the dry growth.
Nasim could feel the hezhan’s hunger. It was angry, yearning more than ever to enter the material world. Rabiah eased her hold on it, but didn’t release it completely. She kept it near in case they needed it once more.
Nasim took her by the arm and dragged her along the trail. They were nearly at the bottom, but the akhoz was gaining. With Rabiah as weakened as she was, Nasim thought of drawing on another hezhan. Whatever might happen to Rabiah, he could use one to protect them from the akhoz, but in the end he decided it was simply too dangerous. The veil was impossibly thin here; any serious bonding with the hezhan would draw them across, and that was something they could not afford.
Nasim realized the akhoz would be on them if they remained on the path.
“Hold on!” Nasim said.
He took Rabiah by the arm and forced her down the slope as well. They slid, scraping against the uneven ground, the coarse vegetation and dry grasses cutting at their shins and knees and arms as they did their best to control their descent.
They came to the bottom at last, both of them stumbling, flailing their arms in a vain attempt to keep their feet. To no avail. They fell heavily to the ground, but they were back up a moment later, sprinting toward the water as the akhoz reached the valley floor behind them.
They crashed through the water. It was only shin-deep, but it slowed them, and the akhoz quickly caught up. In the short time Nasim spared to glance back he saw it rearing back, its dark skin pulling tight over gaunt ribs as it drew breath.
“Get down!” Nasim cried, pulling her beneath the water.
The cold water swept over them as a wash of flames lit the surface of the river. They swam downstream as far as they could, keeping to the swift, deep center.
When they surfaced, they saw the akhoz trailing them. It could cross, but the water would drain it of strength—perhaps too dearly.
It crouched, staring downriver, where a cluster of rocks stood, forming a navigable bridge, and then, like a hound on the hunt, it bounded toward the stones.
Nasim pulled Rabiah from the water. His muscles ached. Their drenched clothes were heavy.
The red face of the cliff lay achingly close. Water trickled down from it in places, and here there were flowering plants clinging to the rock, making it look like a massive, hanging garden.
Nasim ran toward it, the breath in his lungs burning, and for a moment he didn’t realize that Rabiah was no longer running next to him.
He turned and found that she’d stopped. And her arms were spread wide.
“Rabiah, don’t!”
She didn’t listen. She closed her eyes, and ahead, where the akhoz was leaping from stone to stone, the gravel near the edge of the water shifted. It rumbled. Then it lifted wholesale and sprayed against the water and the akhoz.
Though Nasim was not bonded with the vanahezhan, he could feel its closeness.
The akhoz was momentarily lost in the white, frothing water, but then it gained the bank. It shook its head like a rabid dog. After a moment it refocused on them and galloped, low to the ground, mouth wide, black tongue lolling.
Nasim and Rabiah raced along the base of the cliff. It was uneven terrain—rocky and treacherous.
He couldn’t see the mouth of the cave.
But it was here. Somewhere. He was sure of it.
The akhoz reached the inlet.
Nasim and Rabiah came to a cleft in the stone. It was deep and dark, which was a vast relief to Nasim. They’d found the entrance at last. But the akhoz was too close. They couldn’t simply retreat and hope the akhoz would lose their scent.
Before they’d even passed through the entrance, Nasim drew upon Rabiah and the nearest of the vanahezhan. He could sense its deep hunger for Erahm, and this time he was counting on it.
They continued, but when they were fully in the darkness of the cavern at last, Nasim spun and drew on the full strength of the hezhan. He felt the weight of the stone around him, felt it flow up through his legs, through his chest and into his arms. He felt solid and deep and immovable.
The earth rumbled. It shook. Dust sifted down from the roof of the cave. Chunks of it broke away. A stream of stone and dust fell between them and the akhoz. The sound of it was echoing, deafening within the confines of the cavern.
Then something changed. Nasim felt the hezhan drawing upon him. He coughed as his heart skipped a beat and he fell to his knees.
The akhoz was going to gain the entrance to the cave despite the falling stone. It was scrabbling forward along the ground, skirting the wall of the entrance. Stones were striking it, cutting into its pale sk
in and drawing dark blood, but it was avoiding the bulk of falling stone.
The feeling in Nasim’s chest intensified. It felt as though the mountain itself were pressing down on him. He couldn’t breathe. He could only exhale, until at last the edges of his vision began to glint.
He saw, by the bare light filtering in from the outside, Rabiah standing next to him. He felt the touch of her hand on his shoulder.
And in that one moment he felt a grand release.
No longer did he have any sort of connection to the earth. No longer could he feel the vanahezhan.
The akhoz had nearly gained the entrance to the cavern, but it stopped, perhaps sensing something. It stared to one side and crawled backward, staring at the opposite wall of the tunnel. It drew in a deep breath and released a gout of flame as a mound of earth with four arms and two legs the size of tree trunks pulled away from the wall. The flame blasted the emerging hezhan where the head was, baking the earth. It must have felt pain or discomfort, for it ducked and grabbed at the akhoz’s ankle and pulled it away from the wall.
There was no way for the akhoz to survive this battle, not if it remained within the heart of the earth. It clawed furiously at the earthen hand that had grabbed hold of its leg, breaking free, then it darted for the light, heedless of the few remaining stones now falling.
The flow of earth, which had abated somewhat, resumed as the vanahezhan threw one arm forward, spraying the back of the akhoz with a gout of sharp rock and stone.
And then a great rumble shook the cavern.
Nasim and Rabiah backed away. It continued for long moments, the earth around them resounding from the force of it.
Until at last the rumbling died away, leaving only dying echoes in the distance.
And then all was silence.
All was darkness.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Nikandr stood at the gunwales of the Chaika, staring at the horizon. It could barely be seen, but it was there—the island of Rafsuhan. Closer, less than a league from the Chaika’s position, was a small island—little more than an inhospitable piece of rock that refused to yield to the sea’s incessant waves.
The Straits of Galahesh Page 15