The Straits of Galahesh

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  Nikandr looked up to his chains. He jumped and tried to fling the chains up and over the spike. But he was weak, and the motion caused the sockets of his shoulders to scream in pain after remaining stretched and immobile for so long. As the Chaika slipped over the clearing and began heading over the far side and beyond the trees, he tried one last time, and this time the chain came rattling down.

  He lost his balance and collapsed. When he finally managed to come to his feet, he found four men standing before him—Rahid and the three Hratha that had brought him from Siafyan.

  Rahid’s men bore muskets, while Rahid, his sword held loosely in his right hand, used his free hand to grab Nikandr’s chains and pull him into the forest. Nikandr resisted, pulling on the chain in a vain attempt to remain in the clearing, until two of Rahid’s men struck him with the butt of their muskets, forcing him onward.

  A sudden rise in pitch from the clearing made all of them turn back. The akhoz burned white, their voices adding to one another, driving those closest to put their hands over their ears. A moment later, Nikandr did the same, as did Rahid and the Hratha. Bersuq fell to the flames at last. The Atalayina slipped from his grasp and was lost.

  Only then did the sound of the akhoz begin to wane. The moment that it did, Rahid ordered his men to continue. They moved beyond a rise, and into a stand of trees. They could still hear the flames and the akhoz and the occasional snap of musket fire, but they were effectively hidden.

  Rahid’s men fanned out behind him. Rahid stepped forward, facing Nikandr, the tip of his sword swinging back and forth, as if he were itching to swing it.

  But then Nikandr saw hanging around Rahid’s neck a chain. His chain. The one that held his soulstone.

  Rahid noticed Nikandr’s lingering gaze. He pulled the stone out and held it up for Nikandr to see, and then he let it fall against his black robes. The chalcedony stone glimmered dully in the waning light. “They say you can feel those who’ve worn your stones. Is it so?”

  Strangely, these words served only to calm Nikandr’s coursing blood. What Rahid said was true. Grigory had done this to him years ago, and for the short time he’d worn the stone afterward—before placing it in Nasim’s mouth to draw him away from Adhiya—he’d felt the taint, felt Grigory’s hatred of him. There was no doubt that the same would be true now, but he had come to accept that the ancients worked in strange ways. If this was something they had chosen for him—to have his stone worn by a Maharraht—then he would accept it.

  “A pity you won’t be afforded the chance.” He spat at Nikandr’s feet. “It is long past time I put an end to your presence on these shores.”

  “Tell yourself what you wish,” Nikandr said, “but you were the trespassers here, not me. You came and you raped your sister tribe. You’re worse than anything the Landed ever did, for you did this to your brothers and your sisters. You did this to their children.”

  Rahid stalked forward and raised his sword high with both hands. He brought it down and Nikandr, who’d been hoping for such an attack, dodged backward. He was still hobbled by the rope, but he knew its length well and was able to compensate with short, quick steps. Rahid swung again, and again. He came closer, for he was pressing the advantage of his longer strides, but Nikandr was still able to outpace him.

  And then Rahid became too bold. He came in fast, his sword swung in at an angle. Nikandr spread his manacled hands wide and allowed the sword to strike the chain, allowed it to yank his arms sideways.

  This simple action halted the blade. Nikandr twisted his arms, twisted the chain around the blade, and while he did he lunged forward and grabbed Rahid’s wrists and slammed his forehead against Rahid’s face.

  Rahid turned and tried to pull away, but Nikandr had hooked his foot behind Rahid’s, and Rahid went sprawling.

  A quick jerk of his arms and the blade was free. Before Rahid’s men could react, Nikandr twisted it around and brought it down in one fierce motion. The tip drove down through Rahid’s chest and into the cold earth beneath him.

  Rahid’s eyes went wide. He shivered and grabbed for the sword. The blade cut his fingers deeply, but he didn’t seem to notice. He stared into Nikandr’s eyes, coughed once, twice, and then his head fell back as he stared at the sky, unmoving.

  Nikandr yanked the blade free.

  By now the men in their black robes and turbans had pulled their muskets up. Nikandr dodged as one fired. The shot went wide and Nikandr brought the sword down sharply across the rope tying his ankles together.

  He dodged another, but the shot bit into his thigh. He tried to roll to his feet, but he put too much weight on his wounded leg and fell back down.

  He scrabbled away on the soft floor of the forest until the third man pressed him down with the barrel of his musket. He was young, this one, the youngest of the three. He stood there, staring at Nikandr, glancing back at the other men, before turning back to Nikandr, his eyes hard.

  The man’s head jerked back sharply as a musket shot took him in the face. A burst of skin and red flew from the back of his head, showering his comrades. They both blinked and stepped back, their eyes shocked as they watched him fall to the ground. Then they looked beyond Nikandr, the direction from which the shot had come.

  Nikandr turned and found Soroush charging forward with seven others—six Maharraht, and Jahalan.

  Jahalan had a stone in his circlet. He stopped—allowing the others to continue—and spread his arms wide.

  The Hratha pulled their shamshirs and advanced. Had Nikandr’s allies not been barreling forward, they might have been more sure with their weapons, but as it was, they were rushed and clumsy. Nikandr fended off their first hasty swings. A musket shot zipped in and narrowly missed the one closest to Nikandr. A moment later, the wind whipped up through the boughs of the trees above them. Pine needles swirled through the air, stinging the skin. Nikandr was not the center of the wind’s attention, however. It focused on the Hratha, forced them to hide their faces or lose their eyes to needles and pinecones and fallen bark.

  They had just begun backing away when Soroush and his Maharraht arrived and drove swords through them.

  Nikandr pulled himself over to Rahid and slipped his soulstone necklace from around his neck. When he slipped it over his head, he could immediately feel his hezhan. He ached to draw upon it, to summon it, but he did not. It felt too close, and for the moment things seemed to be in hand. Better to commune with his hezhan when he had the time to be patient.

  Soroush and another of his men helped Nikandr to his feet, and then put Nikandr’s arms around their shoulders and helped him to shamble eastward. They moved as quickly as they could, but Nikandr was slowing them down. Eventually the forest thinned and left them on the edge of a meadow. Hidden behind a rocky hill ahead of them was a ship, one of the Maharraht’s. Beyond it, floating low on the wind and well out to sea, was the Chaika.

  Dozens of Maharraht were already aboard the moored ship, and more were boarding now. Many of the parents Nikandr had seen along the lake in Siafyan were there, as were others—men and women with younger children, children that hadn’t yet been affected by the wasting. Zanhalah was there was well, watching their approach with a small but satisfied smile on her face.

  Soon they were loaded and into the air. Nikandr stood by the gunwales, watching the forest closely as they rose higher and higher. They had risen only an eighth-league when a column of fire broke high into the air over the clearing to the west. It shot straight up and into the cloud cover leagues above. The bright column—orange and yellow and white—turned and roiled, but it did not twist. It was as if the ritual of the akhoz had sent a spear of fire up in the hopes of piercing the sky.

  Nikandr thought it would end quickly—he wanted it to end quickly—but it continued on and on as they headed north and eventually west. It hung on the horizon, all through the night until at last it was lost from view.

  PART II

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  Khamal steps out from un
der the celestia’s dome. It is the hour of the new day, and the stars are bright, bright enough to guide his way down from the celestia toward Alayazhar. He has not gone far before he realizes that there is someone waiting for him on the road ahead.

  It is Inan, the mother of Yadhan.

  “Peace to you,” Khamal says, and tries to pass her by.

  He hopes that she has come to visit the celestia, to meditate upon the stars, but he knows that she has not. She falls into step alongside him, and together they make their way down toward Alayazhar. The light of the quarter moon illuminates the sea below, makes it glimmer and give shadow to the crescent bay at the edge of the broken city. Years ago the city would have danced with light. Dozens would have come to the celestia on a night like this. But now most have left. Most have abandoned the island and her Al-Aqim. Some have come to mistrust or even fear them. It is a strange position to be faced with. It has been years—since his childhood among the wastes of the Gaji—that Khamal has dealt with such.

  “What is it you wish?” Khamal asks.

  For a while the only sound he hears is that of their soft leather boots sighing over the low grass of the trail.

  When at last Inan speaks, it is with a heavy heart. “Yadhan is lost to me, Khamal. Dozens of others have lost their children as well. And yet the rifts are beginning to grow again.”

  “You knew your children would be lost.”

  “Yeh, you explained everything so well, down to the last detail.”

  “I did,” Khamal says. He spoke the words harshly, much more harshly than he’d meant to. The months since the sundering have worn on him greatly, but he takes a deep breath and begins again, careful to keep his tone soft, understanding. “The rifts may grow, Inan, but not nearly as quickly as before.”

  “So of course more must be taken.”

  Khamal stops in his tracks and turns to Inan. By the moonlight he sees her face, the tightness there, the anger. She was once his most devout disciple. She left with his blessing and after her time on the wind—a mere two circuits of the world—she returned to him, her eyes bright, her mind sharp, ready to learn more.

  How much has changed.

  After the sundering, she did not offer Yadhan to him—he suspects she knew all along that her daughter would be one of the children able to become akhoz—but she accepted his request that Yadhan be given. That day in the celestia, though, when the first akhoz had been born, something inside of her broke. She lost her faith in him, lost her faith that the rifts could be closed, and she infected others. There were only a few at first, but the idea took root among his followers and grew like creeping vines.

  Until they came to this: a woman who would have done anything for him now stands ready to defy, to take from him the salvation of the world.

  If she thinks he will let that happen, she is mistaken.

  “I know you’ve been speaking to others, Inan. I know you’ve been asking them of their will to leave.”

  “You said the way was open.”

  “It is—of course it is—but we have need of everyone. This is no time to abandon hope when there is time yet to save everything.”

  “Neh, Khamal. The tide has turned against us. It has turned against you. It is time to do what Yadhan’s father suggested.”

  “I cannot give you your daughter back, Inan.”

  Inan’s face goes hard. She spits at Khamal’s feet. “I would have my daughter back, but I know better than you that she is gone. Gone forever, lost to the world.” She spits again. “I trusted you, Khamal, but now I know you are a fool. You thought the world ready for indaraqiram. You think it’s ready still, or if not that you can force it into being. You are not enlightened, and neither are Sariya and Muqallad. You are little better than mules, braying and tugging at your tether. The world has spoken—the fates have spoken—and here you stand, telling me that there’s still time.”

  Khamal feels his face flush. Nearly, nearly, he allows his confidence to slip, but he has been down this path before—not from any doubts Inan might foist upon him, but those he has placed upon himself. In this way lies ruin. He knows this. He cannot allow himself to dwell upon the question of whether he has chosen wrongly. If he does, even for a moment, it will be the ruin of them all. He must continue, and so must the others, no matter what their disciples—the men and women of Alayazhar—might say.

  And then he realizes. Had he not been so tired he would have seen it before as he left the celestia.

  The city. It is dark. Too dark.

  He reaches out to find them, the men and women who still call Alayazhar home. They had remained after the sundering after many had died. They had remained after many more had left. They were the few that he thought surely would be able to help stem the tide of their ever growing failure. And they’ve left. All of them.

  Only Inan remains.

  “Go, then,” Khamal says, and resumes his walk down the path. “Follow the other children.”

  “I cannot follow. And neither can you. The paths have been closed to you, Khamal.”

  Khamal stops.

  He feels his heart race. He opens his mind to the land beneath him, to the air above him. He feels the city below, the hills above, and the mountains beyond. He feels the bay, and the river that feeds it. He feels the trees and the grass and the voles and the goats. He feels even the rifts that run deeply through the island.

  What he cannot feel is anything in the sea beyond. He feels only Ghayavand, her small sister islands, and nothing more.

  “What have you done?”

  “You have taken enough, Khamal. You have taken all that we have to offer, and still you ask for more.”

  His heart beats madly. “It won’t work, Inan. You know it won’t.”

  “It will for now. Until we have time to learn more.”

  “You’re fools. All of you. The rifts cannot be chained. They will find the cracks in your walls, and when they do they will spread among the islands. They will spread to the motherland.”

  “Save your breath, Khamal, and do not think that you may use your stone.”

  Khamal feels for the stone, his portion of the Atalayina. It is safe where he left it in the celestia floor, but something is wrong. It feels dim, a candle in place of the sun. Inan and the others have somehow managed not only to trap the Al-Aqim, they’ve dulled the Atalayina as well.

  His hands clench. His throat tightens. For the first time in ages he considers killing another.

  “You cannot leave,” he realizes.

  “How astute of you, Khamal.”

  “Why? Why have you remained?”

  “One had to remain, Khamal. One had to ensure the walls were closed. I accepted the honor. Gladly.”

  “Neh,” he says, opening himself to the world beyond and drawing upon the spirits of fire that hover close, always close. As his hands shake with rage, he feels the fire build within him. “You stayed so you could be the one who told me.”

  She smiles sadly. “I will pay for it in the next life, but you’re right. It shames me, but I’m not afraid to tell you that this is the most gratifying moment of my life.”

  She speaks those words with such pride, such smugness. It burns Khamal’s ears to hear them. He finds his hands bunching into fists. Finds the muscles of his arms and chest tightening so fiercely that he shivers from it.

  “Look at you.” Inan smiles, showing her perfect white teeth. “The great Khamal, humbled at last.”

  Before he knows what he’s doing, he releases the power built within him, feels the suurahezhan revel in the gout of flame that flows from his fingertips. It cuts through the cold air, brightening the hillside, brightening the underside of the celestia, making it sparkle against the nighttime sky.

  How long he allows it to continue he isn’t sure. He only knows that when he stops, all that remains of Inan is a blackened pile of soot on the ground above Alayazhar.

  Nasim woke sweating as the hammock he slept in swayed. The room was dark, but he could see li
ght coming through the shutters of the nearby porthole. He reached out and flicked them open. Through the small window he saw only driving white snow swirling and collecting at the window’s edges.

  He rocked himself out of the hammock and onto the cold deck as Khamal’s memories faded.

  He began to shiver. But of course it was not simply the cold of the ship or the dampness in his clothes. He had known that Khamal was rigid in his views. Even ruthless. What he hadn’t known was that he could be brought to murder.

  As he changed into dry robes, Nasim wondered: could he be driven to such violence? He knew little of Khamal’s life before the sundering, but he knew from his time on Mirashadal and his travels around Erahm that he was revered, and it was not merely because of some perceived sacrifice on the part of the Al-Aqim. He had apparently been a man pure of heart and mind before meeting Sariya and Muqallad. His writings could still be found in the libraries of Alekeşir and in the secret holds of the Aramahn. So what had happened? What could have driven him to this, to murder a woman who sought only to protect the world?

  If there were answers, they refused to come.

  He slammed the lid of his chest closed, cursing himself immediately after for his lack of control.

  He needed fresh air. He always thought better when he stood among the elements.

  As he left the confines of the hold and headed toward the stairs leading up to the forecastle, he realized that his dream answered at least one burning question. The Atalayina, while not powerless, had certainly been muted by the spell that kept the Al-Aqim on Ghayavand. This was surely why Muqallad was trying to leave the island. With the Atalayina muzzled as it was, he had no choice but to try the ritual elsewhere. And the only logical place to do it was Galahesh; the patterns on the floor of the celestia had shown him this much. With so much aether channeling through one place, it would allow him to complete his ritual and let the worlds do the rest. It also explained why the piece of the Atalayina he’d found in the celestia had felt so lifeless. He’d thought it a combination of its inscrutable nature and his ignorance of the stone’s nature, but now he knew the cause, and he wondered what it would feel like away from Ghayavand. What would it feel like if all three were combined?