The Straits of Galahesh

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  “It worries me greatly,” Jahalan said. “I only hope we can discover more.”

  He meant, discover more without interference from the Maharraht, of course. “I’ll be back,” Nikandr said.

  With a vicious chill overtaking him, Nikandr took the stone rungs of the ladder that led up to the roof. He slid open the wooden door and stepped out to open air. After pulling his soulstone out and kissing it, he spread his arms wide and opened himself to the elements. He could feel the havahezhan immediately. It rarely took long to summon, but here it was especially close—as near as it had ever been.

  “Do you feel it too?” he asked the wind as it whipped his hair and his heavy woolen cherkesska.

  He had never felt the aether, never experienced it directly, but at the moment he felt as though he knew the boundaries of it: as a blind man senses a tree, not by the sound of the wind running through its branches but by the feel of the wind as it coursed over the bark. He felt, in fact, as though he could reach out his hand and touch the world of Adhiya, as if he could part the veil and draw the hezhan forth—something only the most gifted of arqesh should be able to do.

  Despite the harrowing ramifications, it was exhilarating.

  Would someone like Ashan feel the same? Or would he be horrified?

  He nearly asked Jahalan to come up to speak to him of it, but just then he saw Styophan leading Soroush and the streltsi toward the tower. He took the ladder down again, and soon Soroush was coming up the stairs. Styophan followed behind, bearing his pistol.

  “Leave us,” Nikandr said.

  Styophan paused, glancing at Soroush. He opened his mouth to protest, but Nikandr talked over him.

  “Leave us.”

  Styophan nodded and complied, his eyes hard as they bored into Soroush.

  When he’d gone, Nikandr beckoned Soroush closer. Soroush did so, staring down at the body of the akhoz, not with horror, but with morbid fascination. He was transfixed. His jaw worked. His nostrils flared. “How long—” He composed himself before trying once more. “How long has the rift been here?”

  “Over a year.”

  He looked out to the window, which happened to be facing southeast, toward Siafyan. Then his attention was caught by Nikandr’s soulstone, which glowed softly in the relative darkness. He set his jaw, and a tear slipped slowly down one cheek.

  “What would you have me do?”

  Nikandr had thought he would feel relief if Soroush ever decided to help him, and yet he felt as though he’d lost something today—he and Soroush both—and he couldn’t manage to feel anything more than a profound sadness at the things that had come to pass, both here and elsewhere.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” he said, motioning with one hand toward the dead.

  Soroush did not reply, but the look in his tear-filled eyes hardened, as if Nikandr was somehow to blame.

  “Come,” Nikandr said, motioning toward the stairs. “We’ll talk along the way.”

  The sky was still overcast, and daylight was beginning to wane when they came across a defile that would lead them to the valley that housed Siafyan. There was still no sign of resistance. The wind poured through the defile with no mercy, pulling all the warmth from their bones. Even Nikandr was forced to pull his cherkesska tighter.

  When they came to a bend, Nikandr heard sounds from above, from the top of the defile. He thought surely the Maharraht were there, ready to fire down upon them, but as they waited, pistols drawn, staring up at the cloudy sky while the walls of the defile seemed to close in on them, they heard nothing more.

  At last, when the mouth of the defile was clear before them, they saw movement above. A boy, small and thin of frame, stared down at them, but as soon as the boy saw them look up, he retreated.

  “Wait!” Soroush called in Mahndi.

  But the boy did not return.

  They moved faster after that, hoping to catch him if he was headed toward the village. Ahead, the defile was coming to an end. Nikandr could see the gray skies beyond and the heavily shadowed valley.

  And then he saw smoke.

  Soroush did too. As he walked, a look of concern came over him. He picked up his pace. Then, before Nikandr could stop him, he slipped past Styophan and began to run.

  “Halt!” Styophan called, drawing his pistol.

  But Soroush didn’t listen.

  Styophan fired his pistol, rock spraying to the right of Soroush as he took a bend in the defile.

  The other streltsi swung their muskets around.

  “Hold fire!” Nikandr shouted as he ran forward.

  Soroush, already well ahead, reached the mouth of the defile and darted to his right. Nikandr reached the mouth soon after. It was here that the valley opened up. It was dominated by a thick covering of larch that could easily hide those who wished to remain hidden. The trail out of the defile was little more than a switchbacked path that led down to the valley floor, and Soroush was already two turns of the trail lower.

  “Soroush, stop!” Nikandr shouted.

  Soroush continued, refusing to look up.

  Nikandr ran after him, taking care lest he slip over the edge of the narrow path. He could see the edge of the village now. The buildings, most of them wood, not stone, were less than a half-league ahead, but the fire was not coming from there. It was coming from a clearing in the forest not far from the base of the path.

  By the time Nikandr reached level ground, Soroush was already lost in the woods. Nikandr pulled his pistol and watched as he ran, his breath huffing, his thighs burning. He pushed harder, hoping to reach the fire before Soroush.

  As he approached, a scent came to him from the woods. It was the smell of burning flesh, and it was accompanied by the heartbroken sound of a grown man moaning and weeping.

  When he reached the clearing, he stopped and was again forced to cover his nose and mouth. In the center of the clearing was a charred pile of bodies, all of them shriveled and blackened nearly beyond recognition. Soroush was on his knees before the horrific scene, his hands lifted to the sky, shaking, quivering. He though Soroush was simply crying from the pain of facing such tragedy, but he realized it was much more. This was a dirge for his people, an appeal for the dead. A lamentation.

  Nikandr stood there, helpless, as this hardened man, this murderer of Landed men and women, cried for his people. Nikandr found himself filled with sympathy, but also with satisfaction. Satisfaction that Soroush now felt what he had felt, what so many of the Landed had felt for those who had fallen to attacks from the Maharraht.

  He cursed himself a moment later for being so heartless. Whatever Soroush might have done, whatever the Maharraht had done to the Landed, women and children did not deserve to burn.

  It seemed at first as if the entire village lay within this pile of charred remains, but then Nikandr forced himself to estimate their numbers and realized that there were only thirty, perhaps forty bodies. This village was one that could house three or four hundred. So where had they gone?

  His men reached the clearing behind him. They had clearly been running, but they slowed as they came near, staring wide-eyed at the horror before them.

  Nikandr went to Soroush. “Come,” he said.

  When he did not, Nikandr laid a hand on his shoulder.

  Soroush stood, slapping Nikandr’s hand away. He stood face-to-face with Nikandr, anger in his eyes—hatred and revulsion—and for a moment Nikandr thought Soroush might reach for his throat, but then he cleared the tears from his cheeks, took several deep breaths.

  And trudged toward Siafyan without saying a word.

  They reached the edge of the village near nightfall. The structures Nikandr had seen from the defile towered over him. They were not so much built as grown from the forest around them. The larch had been coaxed, bent and shaped by gifted dhoshaqiram into towers that interlaced with one another. Walkways crossed high above them, leading to empty archways that yawned in the coming darkness. The smell of the larch was strong here, but also flo
ral, and pleasant, as if this too had been coaxed from the trees by the hand of the Maharraht. The wind was the only thing to be heard. No people, no children. No sounds of cooking or laughter or quarrels. Nothing save an exhalation as Siafyan and the forest around it prepared for the coming night.

  They came to what Nikandr took as the central square. A fountain stood there—as was common in nearly all Landless villages—though no water emerged from it.

  Perhaps he was respectful, or perhaps fear was preventing him, but Soroush seemed hesitant to approach—much less enter—the towers. Nikandr, however, thought it foolish to wait. There was no telling what might befall them during the night; better to investigate now than allow something to come upon them while they slept.

  “May I enter?” he asked Soroush.

  Soroush stared at the fountain. He pulled his attention from it—regretfully, it seemed—and met Nikandr’s gaze. After a moment of thought, he gave a motion of his hand, as if Nikandr were a child who had asked for a sweet.

  Nikandr sent one of the streltsi and Jahalan to searching the lower levels of the village, and then he took to the towers himself, moving from room to room, which all seemed molded from the stuff of the trees themselves. The beautiful grain of the larch was revealed everywhere. Sculptures of stone and wood sat on shelves and mantles. Beds, chairs, blankets. All of it pristine.

  All except the bark of the trees.

  Nikandr almost didn’t notice, but as he was taking a winding pathway down from a tower to head back for the fountain, he steadied himself against the bark. It powdered beneath his touch. He stopped and stared, brushed more of the bark away. There was solid wood beneath, but it was clear that the trees themselves were beginning to desiccate.

  He thought back to his time on Ghayavand. His ship, the Gorovna, had withered beneath his touch. It was a similar effect to this, though there were differences. This wood was still living, where the windwood of the ship was dead wood. Still, Nikandr was sure it had more to do with the nature of Ghayavand—the rifts it contained and the hezhan it housed—than anything else.

  Nikandr caught movement from the corner of his eye.

  Turning casually, he saw a form hidden behind one of the towers some distance away. He wasn’t sure, but he suspected it was the boy they’d caught watching them from the top of the defile.

  He pretended as if he hadn’t noticed as he strode toward another of the massive towers.

  But the boy sensed his intent. He ducked behind the tree and ran, his footsteps crunching softly against the cold ground.

  “Stop! I won’t hurt you!” Nikandr ran after him, darting around the tree, losing him for a moment. But then he found him again, heading toward one of the tallest towers in the village. If he were to gain any height he could lose himself in the village for days.

  Nikandr quickened his pace, but soon found that it wasn’t necessary. The boy was already losing speed. He was weak, perhaps from lack of food, perhaps from sickness. He paused as he gained the walkway circling up and around the tower, and then he collapsed.

  By the time Nikandr came near, the boy had turned onto his back and was scrabbling away, fear plain on his face.

  “Please,” Nikandr said, holding up his hands for the child to see. “I only wish to know what happened. Why are you—”

  With night coming on, light was scarce, but Nikandr could see that he’d been mistaken. This was no boy at all; it was a girl. She wore a boy’s clothes, and her hair was wrapped up into a dark turban, but the set of her eyes, her lips, the line of her jaw. It was unmistakable now.

  “Why are you here?” Nikandr asked.

  She spoke in Mahndi. Nikandr knew the language well, but she was speaking so quickly, and her accent was thick enough that he couldn’t understand her.

  He held up his hands to stop her. “Slower,” he said in Mahndi.

  “I left when they began burning...” She waved toward the scene in the woods, the pile of smoking bodies. “They’d taken memma.”

  “Why?” Nikandr asked. “Why were so many burned?”

  “They’d been marked.”

  “Marked by what?”

  “By the taint. They said those who had been touched would die.”

  “So they forced everyone there so they could burn them?”

  She was already shaking her head. “Neh. They went—”

  She’d spoken so quickly he couldn’t understand her last word. “They what?”

  “They went willingly.”

  Nikandr stared, confused, but then her words settled over him like a thick blanket of snow.

  Willingly, she’d said. They’d gone willingly.

  By the ancients, what was happening on this island?

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Bahett, dressed in a fine white kaftan and a red silk turban with a massive pearl set into it, stood near Atiana’s door. “Someone will come within the hour,” he said.

  Ishkyna stood next to him, waiting impatiently and holding a mask with iridescent black feathers affixed to it.

  “Bahett, I love my sister. But masks or not, you’re making a mistake if you think that anyone will confuse the two of us.”

  “It isn’t so hard,” Ishkyna said. “All I need do is pout and bite my tongue no matter what is said.”

  Atiana fixed her eyes on Bahett, if only to avoid gazing upon Ishkyna’s smug face. “You see?”

  “She has promised her best behavior.”

  “I’m not yet ready,” Atiana said.

  “You must be ready. Arvaneh and the Kamarisi will both be occupied, as will nearly everyone else who’s come to Baressa. They won’t expect you to do something so quickly.”

  “That’s because it would be foolish to do so. The aether is a storm here. I need time to assess it properly. This is no time to dive into the water like a child driven mad with boredom. We must take our time, or all of this will be for naught.”

  Bahett came to her and took up her hands. His skin was soft—the hands of a man well used to the life of a Kaymakam. “All I ask is that you try. If you cannot but step into the aether, then so be it. Can you do this for me?”

  She squeezed his hands and released them. “I will do it for the Grand Duchy.”

  “Of course,” Bahett said, bowing his head.

  “Go,” Atiana said.

  “Come, Bahett.” Ishkyna raised her mask to her face and widened her eyes at Atiana. “It’s time I become as dull as I can possibly be.”

  After one apologetic smile, Bahett rushed out. Atiana stepped outside her room onto a small balcony. The hour was late, but far away on the southern horizon ships could still be seen heading toward the eyrie. Most would be bringing in provisions, and perhaps a few final members of royalty. Most of the dignitaries from the islands had already arrived and would be preparing for the reception.

  It felt strange to be separated from them, and even stranger to be spying upon her hosts. She was not averse to it—the Kamarisi and his consort needed watching—but ties with Galahesh had always been strong, primarily between the Vostromas and the line of Kirdhash. In many ways, they had always seemed like the tenth Duchy—perhaps not to anyone who’d grown up on a more distant archipelago, but certainly to anyone who’d been raised on the shores of Vostroma.

  A knock came at her door, and Yalessa stepped in. “He’s come.”

  Atiana merely nodded. She followed Yalessa outside, and there, waiting for them, was a bald man, no older than Atiana. He stood meekly, clasping his hands together. He was a mute, and most likely castrated as well.

  Atiana had always felt uncomfortable around the slaves of Yrstanla, but there was little choice in the matter now. Galahesh allowed few slaves, but with so many visiting from the capital, the kasir was thick with them.

  They traveled down through little-used hallways and stairwells until they reached the ground floor. Throughout the walk, Atiana did not see a single other soul—clearly Bahett’s doing.

  They left the kasir through the door reserved f
or the servants and continued until they reached a high wall built from ragged, sharp stones. Atiana knew that inside lay the graveyard. She dearly hoped that this was not where the servant was taking them, but she knew in the same breath that it was.

  They followed a stone-lined path. Near the top of the wall, spaced every few paces, were round holes, like windows meant to allow the dead to look out upon the living, upon the lives they once led. One section of the wall was marred by hundreds of pockmarks and several larger holes—signs of battle, Atiana knew, and somewhat recent, as the revealed stone was still bright, where the rest was dull and gray.

  Even the walls have tales to tell, she thought.

  They eventually came to a tall iron gate. The servant opened it soundlessly, and together they walked through the elaborate stone mausoleums. The early stars were out, the day having been reduced to a haze in the west. She had been to the cemetery only twice before. Both times had been for funerals, and she had found the experience unnerving, seeing so many houses for the dead crowding the landscape like crows before the feast. She had never been here at dusk, however, and it made the experience all the more chilling.

  “How much further?” she asked.

  The slave turned and motioned ahead with his hands, bobbing his head apologetically.

  They turned down a row bordered by stone tombs with peaked roofs and crouching lions that stared hungrily down at them.

  “Do you have a light?” Atiana asked.

  The slave shook his head, this time not bothering to turn around.

  Atiana stopped.

  “What is it?” Yalessa asked.

  Atiana stared down the row, feeling something crawl along her spine as she watched.

  Something wasn’t right.

  The servant turned. She could no longer see his face in the darkness, only a patch of white where his face once was. He raised his arm and beckoned her.