The Straits of Galahesh

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  She smiles, the expression calming, so much so that Nasim grows afraid. “We can return to our greatness,” she says. She isn’t merely implying that they could return, but that they will. “But if you feel the path lies through Ghayavand”—she bows her head and motions to the monolith—“then so be it.”

  With that she turns and walks through the woods. As she passes between two larch, their branches part and the snow upon them falls soft and forgiving to the blanket of white beneath. And then she is gone, leaving Nasim alone with the wind and the tall white stone.

  He waits a long time, thinking surely she watches from afar, but try as he might he cannot sense her.

  With his feet still floating upon the snow, he steps forward and touches the stone’s white surface. It is not cold, but warm, like a slab of obsidian at sunset.

  He thought that when he found this piece of the Atalayina that it would reveal itself to him, that it would be granted when he came near. Did not Khamal plan for this, after all? He hid the stone mere days before his plans came to fruition, when Sariya and Muqallad together drove the khanjar into his chest, so why would he not have made it such that the stone would be revealed upon his return?

  But of course it couldn’t be as simple as that. The easier it was for him, the easier it would be for Sariya and Muqallad to retrieve it.

  In the end he decides that more likely than not Khamal never meant for him to inherit any sort of key to pry the Atalayina away from its hiding place. Passing this knowledge on is difficult, but more than this, whatever he did might have been altered by the other two arqesh. For good or ill, Khamal expected that Nasim would be able to rely on the abilities he would inherit. What he hadn’t anticipated was Muqallad’s final spell, the one that crippled Nasim upon his birth.

  The notion of being on his own—unable to rely on anything from Khamal—is freeing in a way that Nasim hadn’t expected. Through his dreams and the history of the time of the sundering, he had felt responsible for Khamal, responsible for his legacy. To now be left to his own devices made it feel as though the future, at least some small part of it, now lay wholly in his hands. Not Khamal’s. Not Ashan’s or Nikandr’s. Not even Soroush’s. His own.

  He touches the stone gently. The warmth after so long in the cold makes his fingers tingle. For a long time he merely listens, waits for it to tell him something—anything—of its nature, but when this proves unfruitful he tries to sense the structure of the monolith: whether the Atalayina is high or low, whether it is truly within the stone or whether this is all some ruse on Sariya’s part to draw information from him. The presence of the Atalayina is strong and distinct. It is exactly as he remembered. The feeling sits deep within him, like an animal eager to leave its den. It is worry and satisfaction and hope. It is substantial, as if something weighty forms within him. It is the feeling one gets when standing on the edge of a precipice—the wonder and fear and exhilaration. These things are the Atalayina, and there is no mistaking it.

  Why, then? Why is it so difficult to isolate?

  It is important to realize that this place is not of the material world. It is largely a place of Sariya’s making, though there are still pieces that are real, like Nasim himself and the Atalayina. Not knowing its true nature, Sariya has folded the stone into her world to keep it safe from everyone, even Muqallad, for despite her words, she desperately wants the stone to be hers.

  He will use this to his advantage. He must, or he will never be done.

  And then an idea comes to him. Instead of drawing upon a vanahezhan to try to draw it forth—which is something Sariya would have tried over and over—he summons instead a dhoshahezhan, a spirit made from the stuff of life. Of all the hezhan they are the least understood. Qiram use them to grant lift to their skiffs or to the ships of the Landed, but there is so much more that has been forgotten: the way things grow, the way they die, the way souls interacts—all of this is due to the flow of life that runs through and between them.

  He uses this now and focuses not on himself, not on the stone, but on the world Sariya has created. The aether normally acts as a medium through which the hezhan can experience life in Erahm, but they are now in the aether, and this place is tied to Sariya herself. It isn’t so difficult, then, to act as a conduit himself so that the hezhan can feed upon Sariya—at least this one small part of her.

  He gives himself to the hezhan. It feels like sunlight running through him, or the sound of the sea, or the darkness that swallows the stars. He revels in it, for it has been so long since he has touched the hezhan without the need for another.

  He feels it begin to feed on Sariya. She is here. She is everywhere. This place is her, and the dhoshahezhan draws upon her mightily.

  He also feels—for the first time in this place—something familiar, a presence, a woman, and one he’s felt before. She was on the skiff that bore him and Ashan to Ghayavand as Nikandr chased them. The Duchess of Khalakovo, their Matra, had attempted to assume him like some crow she hoped to command, and Nasim was deeper into his dreams than he’d been in a long time. There on that skiff, a woman came to save the Matra. Her name is Atiana Radieva Vostroma, and she is here now.

  He wonders if Sariya can sense her. Perhaps she can. Perhaps Atiana’s presence is somehow for Sariya’s benefit.

  Nasim, Atiana calls. Nasim, you cannot do this.

  He wonders where she is, how she came to be here, watching him, and he knows that it cannot be without Sariya’s blessing. It cannot. How else can a Landed woman, even a Matra, end up here?

  He allows the dhoshahezhan to continue to feed as he focuses upon the stone. The Atalayina becomes more real. It solidifies within the stone before him.

  She knows what you’re doing. She’s allowing it.

  This gives him pause, but really, it’s too late. The discomfort Sariya was feeling has risen to pain, and the Atalayina is now close enough to touch.

  He reaches out with trembling fingers, but as he does, the stone loosens. It powders away as if it is made not of stone, but so much dust.

  The wind heightens. The trees sway and sigh and creak. The top of the stone high above him begins to ablate. It flies like a swirl of snow at the crest of a drift. The gust becomes a gale. It swirls around the stone, sending biting sand downward into the trees, into the snow at Nasim’s feet, into his face and scalp and skin.

  He cowers as the wind reaches new heights.

  Nasim, run!

  This time, he listens. He turns and bolts through the trees, but as he does he can feel clearly for the first time the Atalayina. It is at the center of swirling sand behind him. It nearly makes him pause, but the sand has begun not only to bite, but burn. It sears his skin where it touches.

  Sariya knows what’s happening. She’s known all along, but was waiting for Nasim to release the stone that she might have it.

  But Nasim is not so young as she might think, nor as callow.

  He still touches the dhoshahezhan, he still allows it to feed upon Sariya, but instead of trying to intensify this connection, he shifts it to the stone, the piece of the Atalayina that now lies behind him.

  As the sand falls among the trees and the needles burst into flame, he shifts this world around the Atalayina. Sariya hopes to take it, to have it land in her very lap, but Nasim alters its course. He instead guides it toward another.

  He guides it to Atiana.

  If all goes well, she will be the one who ends up with the stone, not Sariya. He only hopes that he was wrong to have mistrusted her earlier. He hopes she is not in league with Sariya, for if she is, Sariya and Muqallad will have what they’ve wanted all along—all three pieces of the stone—and then they will have it remade.

  The burning sand and fire have spread. Smoke chokes the forest, and the burning branches bar his way. He cannot breathe. He coughs, using his hands to fend off the heat, to fend off the branches, but it’s too much.

  He falls to his knees, and though he tries to crawl, he is too weak. He collapses, his lu
ngs gasping for breath.

  It is then that he hears footsteps crunching through the snow. Hands lift him and pull him onward. He can hardly breathe, his chest wracking with painful coughs, and he can see nothing, so blinded by tears and smoke are his eyes, but the hands that guide him are strong and sure, and soon he has broken through to the plain beyond the borders of the forest.

  Yadhan has found him. She drags him farther and farther away, until at last he can go no more and he collapses into the snow.

  He coughs until his chest hurts. His hands grow numb as they sink into the snow, but after the heat from the forest, it is a gift granted by the kindness of the fates.

  Hearing the roar of the flames behind him, he rolls over, and what he sees takes his breath away.

  The entire forest is ablaze. From horizon to horizon, it burns. It boils. Flames of gold and amber and rust twist and meld and part. Black smoke roils high into the sky like a wall both amorphous and impenetrable.

  With Yadhan’s help he manages to stand. It cannot have happened so quickly, but he reminds himself that this place is not real. What’s more shocking is that Sariya tried to kill him. It was something he thought her incapable of without Muqallad at her side. Then again, if she’s convinced the world is about to end one way or another, toward what extremes might she be pushed?

  This, Nasim says to himself as he stares at the forest.

  But at what cost? She may have thought the risk worth it, but he knows that this has cost her dearly.

  Cost her dearly, indeed.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  When Nasim released the rusted handle of the iron gate, he looked up to the tower and saw a fresh gap in the stone. It ran the full length of the tower—from the base, where it was wider than his hand, to the top, where it disappeared into an indiscernible crack.

  Around him, he saw only the emptiness of Alayazhar. Yadhan and the boy were missing. Their souls had been freed, but their bodies were gone as well. Perhaps, he thought, they’d been taken by the other akhoz to a place they thought sacred.

  A fallen form drew his attention toward the lone, dead tree in center of the tower’s yard.

  “Rabiah!” He ran to her and dropped to his knees. “Rabiah, please wake up!”

  He recoiled the moment he touched her skin. She was cold. Her eyes stared up toward the cloudless sky and the bright, noontime sun. Her face was slack. And she looked nothing like the girl he’d known. Nothing.

  He took her hand up in his and stroked it gently. He kissed the back of her hand as tears fell to the dry ground. “I’ve failed you in so many ways,” he said to her softly. “I couldn’t even get the Atalayina. It was right there in front of me.”

  He wanted to be strong for her, even though she was gone, but he couldn’t stop himself from falling across her chest and crying until his tears ran dry.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered to her. “I’m so sorry.”

  When he pulled his head up at last, he wasn’t sure how much time had passed. His sadness had left in its wake a cold, hard anger that he hadn’t felt in years, not since the days when his emotions were as out of control as the autumn winds. It was time, he thought, time to find Muqallad. He had to save Ashan and Sukharam, but he wouldn’t leave Rabiah. Not here.

  He looked up to the celestia on its hill above the city.

  Yeh, he thought. He would bring her there, and he would build a pyre and set her to the winds.

  He picked her up in his arms—by the fates, she was light—and walked up the long sloping hill toward the celestia. On his right, the ground fell away, leaving only a steep slope and a short, rocky beach before the waves of the sea stretched out toward the horizon. He remembered that beach. He had dreamed of it many times. He would go there, he decided. After he’d laid Rabiah to rest, he would go there, and the beach would whispers secrets to him.

  By the time he reached the top of the hill sweat rolled down his forehead and his arms burned. He brought Rabiah to the center of the celestia’s floor, where he could still see the outline of Ghayavand. As he laid her gently down, he caught movement from the corner of his eye. Standing at the edge of the stairs leading up to the celestia floor was a man wearing the ragged robes of a Maharraht. He was tall with dark hair and piercing, gray-green eyes.

  It was difficult to remember the people and events from before Oshtoyets, but this man he recognized. This was Soroush, the man who had sought to use him to tear open the rift that ran through Khalakovo. In his black turban was a stone of jasper. His beard was long and black, and the earrings along his ruined left ear glinted beneath the cold winter sun. It was as it had always been, and somehow this enraged Nasim.

  Before he knew what he was doing, he had stood and charged forward. He beat Soroush with his fists. Soroush gave ground, but did not otherwise defend himself. This only enraged Nasim further. He swung, over and over, pummeling Soroush’s shoulders, his arms, his torso, his head, and Soroush took it all, his face calm and accepting, as if he knew this was just punishment.

  In the end, Nasim couldn’t keep it up. The anger in him ran deep, but it was not in him to harm others, not when they refused to raise a hand to defend themselves. He realized then, even though he’d not been with Ashan all that long, how much he’d been affected by the kindly old arqesh, and how little he’d been affected by Soroush.

  Thank the fates for small favors.

  Nasim’s breath came in ragged gasps. “What are you doing here?” It was all he could think to say, though his emotions were still so close to boiling that his hands shook.

  Soroush stared into Nasim’s eyes. Nasim was not as tall as Soroush, and it made him feel insignificant. It made him feel as if he was eleven all over again. It made him feel as though the days of dreaming between the worlds had returned. It felt—staring at Soroush with sudden clarity—as if he were experiencing one of those rare moments of lucidity in his younger years, and that at any moment he would revert to being confused, to walking Adhiya and Erahm simultaneously, his mind and senses in a constant state of war.

  “I asked what you were doing here,” Nasim said, more forcefully.

  Soroush motioned to Rabiah. “I don’t know who she was—”

  “Speak not of her.” Nasim’s fists were bunched so tightly it hurt.

  “I speak not of her, but of your loss. I am sorry for it.”

  “Tell me how you came to be here, son of Gatha, or begone.”

  Soroush’s jaw went rigid as he considered Nasim, perhaps wondering whether he should push Nasim or not. “I’ve come from Rafsuhan. It is where Muqallad has gone. Did you know this?”

  “What of it?”

  “He’s preparing to perform a ritual to fuse two pieces of the Atalayina.”

  Nasim had known this, but his fingers still tingled to hear that it would happen so soon.

  Soroush continued, “He’s taken many children, including my son, and created more of the akhoz.” Soroush’s voice… It was strange. His voice was filled not with regret, but wonder, and pride. Pride, as if the loss of his son was somehow something he would cherish for the rest of his life.

  “Do you not love your son?” Nasim asked.

  Soroush’s head jerked backward. “Of course I do.”

  “In one so vengeful as you I would have thought to find anger.”

  “Do not mistake my actions for vengeance, Nasim. I am an agent of change. Just as the Landed were centuries ago. It is our time now.”

  “Then why not let Muqallad have his way with the world?”

  “Because he would undo all we see around us. He would have me believe that the world is ready for indaraqiram when it is not. To force it upon the world would be to send us back to the beginning. We would lose whatever progress we have made—however slight it might be, however grand, he would ruin it.”

  “As you would ruin your own life.”

  “I darken my soul that others’ might brighten.”

  “You speak of the Aramahn, but what of the Maharraht? Wha
t of their lives? Their future selves? They are people as surely as those who live today, are they not?”

  “I don’t expect you to understand my sacrifice, Nasim. It’s merely something I must do.”

  Light glinted from Soroush’s stone of jasper. Nasim took note, not of the stone, but of his own growing awareness of Soroush’s connection to Adhiya. He had been so lost in his grief of Rabiah, and then his surprise at Soroush’s presence, but over the years he had become adept at telling who might be able to commune with hezhan. Soroush, he knew, had been burned. He’d had his abilities taken from him by the Aramahn for his conversion to the Maharraht’s cause. His burning was a great source of shame for Soroush, and yet here he was with a stone of jasper and a clear ability to commune with the spirits of the earth.

  Not only this, Nasim realized; other spirits as well, and the deeper he looked into Soroush’s soul, the more he realized how wrong all of this was.

  This wasn’t Soroush at all, he realized.

  This was Muqallad, and just like in the village by the lake, he had come to trick Nasim. He had come to fool him into believing he was something he was not.

  “Can you not face me as yourself?” Nasim asked. “Did Khamal strike such fear into your heart that you would hide from me, a mere echo?”

  Soroush’s eyes narrowed. He paused, and then his face began to change. It broadened. And his ear was healed. His beard became longer and darker and squared at the end. And soon, Muqallad stood before him once more.

  “Have you come for the stone?” Nasim asked. “For if you have, it is too late. It is gone from this isle, slipped from the reach of Ghayavand, slipped even from the reach of Sariya.”

  “Regrettable,” Muqallad said, “but it will come, and there is more to discuss.”

  “There is nothing for us to discuss save the freeing of those you’ve taken.”

  Muqallad smiled. He seemed somehow larger than he’d been only moments ago. He seemed darker, as if his eyes could peel Nasim’s skin. Muqallad took a step forward, into the circle of the celestia. This was as clear a challenge as Nasim was likely to get.