The Straits of Galahesh

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  He has an urge to back away, to protect himself, but it is distant and small. Much larger is the desire to plunge the khanjar deep into her chest, doing the same to her as she did to Fahroz.

  And then he realizes. The khanjar… He’s seen it before.

  By the fates above, it’s the same knife that Muqallad and Sariya used to murder Khamal.

  “Will you kill me?” she asks. She turns slowly, ever so slowly, toward him.

  Nasim stares into her eyes. “Why would you follow him?”

  “I follow him because he is right.”

  “He brings us to ruin.”

  “He brings us to our better lives.”

  “You’re a fool if you believe that.”

  Kaleh’s eyes soften. She looks upon him with pity—with pity, as if he is the one who will never understand.

  “I had hoped you could join me, but when I saw what happened to Khamal—saw your reaction to it—I knew that you were not ready.” She stares down at the khanjar. “Kill me if you would.”

  Nasim grips the handle, feels the braided metal dig into his skin. He feels the weight of it, and a part of him—a part he is only distantly aware of—feels the keenness of the blade.

  Were he to use the blade, he would kill her. She would die and would never deliver the knowledge she’d gained to Muqallad.

  He considers this. He actually considers killing another. Is he so like Khamal that he could be brought to such a thing? Killing in cold blood? It triggers a memory of Khamal when he hid the piece of the Atalayina in Sariya’s tower, when the two of them had made love.

  And Kaleh… Nasim looks at her anew.

  She has none of Muqallad’s features.

  She isn’t Muqallad’s daughter at all. She’s Khamal’s.

  A shiver runs through him as the implications work themselves through his mind. He is not Khamal. He is Nasim. He is his own, linked to Khamal only by the whims of the fates and the threads of souls. He knows this, and yet Khamal feels like his sire. Kaleh feels like his kin. A sister, a cousin, blood of his own blood, though he knows this isn’t true.

  As he breathes, he stares into her pitying eyes and finds that he cannot do this. He isn’t made for such things, and yet it feels, however disturbing the notion, like failure.

  What have things come to that the lack of will to kill another feels like failure?

  He finds—perhaps through his confusion, perhaps because of the simple awareness of it—his control over the curtain around them slipping.

  As the world returns to normal, Kaleh turns and walks into the opening, and as the sounds of footsteps upon the stairs resume, the opening closes around Kaleh.

  Nasim stood near the village’s central tower. The qiram still stood at the edge of the circle facing outward, protecting the village against another attack though everyone knew Muqallad had already done what he’d come to do. His retreat after Kaleh’s arrival had all been a ruse so that she could remain in the village and become close to Nasim once he arrived.

  How easily he’d been fooled, Nasim thought. How quickly he’d believed her story. He’d been so desperate to speak to someone similar to him—someone who understood at least in part what it was like to be of the Al-Aqim—that he’d overlooked all else. That Fahroz and Ashan and the wisest of the village’s mahtar had also been fooled was no consolation. He should have known better.

  On the platform, Majeed, the mahtar that would take Fahroz’s place as Mirashadal’s leader, held a burning torch. It guttered in the wind but remained lit as he touched it to the skiff that held Fahroz’s body, which was wrapped carefully in a white shroud.

  The wood within the skiff lit. Another mahtar touched the wood. The skiff lifted and floated eastward.

  Nasim could see Fahroz lying within, the white cloth catching fire.

  “Fare well,” he said softly, his words taken by the wind.

  Ashan, standing next to him, put his arm around Nasim’s shoulder. He allowed it to remain for a moment, but such closeness still discomfited him, and he shrugged it off.

  He remained while many left. He watched the skiff drift away as the smoke trailed black against the incessant gray of the high clouds. He remained until he could no longer see the skiff against the sky.

  “There was so much I wished to say,” he whispered, “and now you’re gone.”

  Dozens of memories played within his mind, each of them begging for a voice. But anything he thought to say sounded weak and miserable, unworthy of being spoken in Fahroz’s honor.

  He caught, near the horizon, one last wisp of smoke. A tear slipped down his cheek as he watched it disperse, Fahroz’s final farewell.

  “I don’t know who my parents were,” he said softly, “but surely, if Ashan is my father, you are my mother.” He took a deep breath, and while he released it, his chest shook with the emotion he was keeping inside. “Thank you,” he whispered.

  He cried then. Cried for a long time, but in the end, he knew this was no time for lamentation, or for grief.

  He left without another word, retreating to his room. He began gathering his few belongings into a bag, but before too long, a knock came at his door.

  He sighed, closing his eyes, wishing he could leave without seeing another soul. But he knew he would have to speak to Ashan. It might as well be now.

  When he opened the door, he was surprised to find not Ashan, but Sukharam.

  “If you’ve come to lecture me, you can leave now.”

  “I wish to speak.”

  “I don’t.”

  Nasim tried to close the door, but Sukharam held his hand out, preventing Nasim from doing so. After a glance behind him, he forced his way into the room and closed the door behind him. “I know what you’re doing.”

  Nasim went back to his bag, putting the last of his clothes into it. “I suppose you’d like a ribbon.”

  “I want to go with you.”

  Nasim cinched the bag, refusing to turn. He didn’t want help, and he certainly didn’t want it from Sukharam, who would only be a constant reminder of his failures.

  “You can’t control a skiff,” Sukharam continued. “Not in these winds. Not alone.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “You won’t. Whatever you did in the tower with Kaleh, we both know it was only in passing. If you leave alone you’ll die before you reach Galahesh.”

  Nasim turned to face Sukharam. “How did you know I’m going to the straits?”

  “Because that is where Muqallad must go.”

  “The question was how you knew.”

  Sukharam was pensive for a moment. He looked around the small room, looked toward the dying light through the window over Nasim’s shoulder. “I never thought your goals were foolish, you know.”

  “You merely thought me incapable of achieving them.”

  Sukharam laughed sadly. “I was upset because you refused to include us. You refused to let us in, including Rabiah. You refused to ask for help.”

  Nasim grit his jaw. He wanted to walk past Sukharam, wanted to leave this room and take the skiff as he’d planned, and trust to the fates that he would be able to reach Galahesh on his own.

  But he couldn’t. Sukharam was right. And there was a part of him that knew it would be a grave disservice to Fahroz and Rabiah if he were to refuse Sukharam’s help.

  Especially Rabiah.

  In the end, there was nothing for him to do but step forward and embrace Sukharam for all he was willing to do. After all Sukharam had been through, after all he’d risked already, he deserved the chance to see this through. He kissed Sukharam’s cheek and pulled him away. “I’m glad to have another.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  Nikandr, blinking sleep from his eyes, stood on the deck of the old six-masted yacht he’d taken from Elykstava. He was standing in Jahalan’s position near the base of the starward mainmast. It felt wrong—like a dishonor to Jahalan—but in his heart he knew Jahalan would be proud. It was something they’d rarely talked about
—his ability to commune with spirits of the wind—and now that Jahalan was gone, Nikandr was sorry for it. Jahalan could have taught him much, and now he’d squandered the opportunity.

  Would that you were here, Nikandr thought.

  The ship bucked, sliding this way or that under the fierce winds that howled through the rigging, stole warmth from the skin, threatened at all times to upend the ship. Only through Styophan’s skills as a pilot, and Nikandr and Anahid working together, had they been able to come this far. This storm was the strongest he’d ever seen in his time on the winds. He knew it was due to the spires falling. The seas and the winds seemed to be in a rage, seemed to be vengeful, as if the spires had controlled them too long and they were now taking their revenge.

  Nikandr pinched his eyes, shook his head vigorously. This did little to shake the feelings of sleep that stole over him every time he began to relax. They’d been sailing for nearly two days, plotting a course wide of Alotsk and Balizersk, the next two islands in the Vostroman archipelago.

  He’d felt craven in doing so, but the information he’d received from Fuad, the Yrstanlan kapitan, had been too valuable to do otherwise. He could not risk meeting the enemy and being killed or captured—not with information like this—and so they’d gone wide with only Anahid and Nikandr to act as dhoshaqiram and havaqiram. He wasn’t comfortable with more people learning of his abilities, but enough rumors had spread from what had happened to him in Oshtoyets that it would surprise few, and would merely confirm their fears of him as a Landless sympathizer.

  At last, just as dawn was breaking, the mountains of Kiravashya appeared on the horizon.

  “Where are the ships?” Anahid shouted above the wind.

  Nikandr looked down at her. She hadn’t spoken in over a day, so lost in her duty was she. She was a slight young woman, and quiet, but she was diligent and gifted in the ways of a dhoshaqiram.

  Nikandr returned his gaze to the massive island ahead. “I don’t know.”

  He thought surely he would have seen windships scouring the island, destroying what was left of the resistance from the Grand Duchy, or at the very least he thought he would see ships patrolling—either Yrstanlan or Anuskayan—but to his surprise there were none. None at all.

  As they came near, and they saw Beshiklova, the mountain that housed Palotza Galostina, Nikandr started to get the impression that this was all planned—the attacks on the outer islands. Word was that they had attacked Ildova and Tolvodyen first. He had seen the spire on Elykstava destroyed with his own eyes and now he wondered if they hadn’t already destroyed the ones on Alotsk and Balizersk, leaving only Kiravashya—the largest of Vostroma’s islands with the largest of the spires. If that were so, he wouldn’t be surprised to see the winds as wild as they’d been these past few days. It would probably continue for days, even weeks.

  Strangely, Yrstanla’s gambit attacking the outer islands might have given the Grand Duchy time in which to recover.

  Best we use it wisely, he thought.

  When they neared land, the bulk of Galostina and its towering black spire came into view. Three ships launched to meet them far from the palotza’s grounds. Nikandr ordered the men to hoist the white pennant so that it flew below the Vostroman flag.

  As the ships neared, Nikandr could see battle scars—holes in their hulls, rips in their sails, missing rigging—and they were clearly recent. How many enemy ships had been felled, he wondered. How many lives had it cost? How many ships of Anuskaya had been lost?

  The kapitan of the lead ship seemed relieved to find them an ally, but his face turned sour when he realized it was Nikandr who commanded the ship.

  “Follow me to the palotza,” he shouted across the gap as they were readying to leave, “and do not straggle.”

  Their approach to the rocky coast of Kiravashya brought with it more evidence of recent battle. A trail of flotsam could be seen among the waves, and when they came within a half-league of the coast, he saw the aft of a ship pointing up from the waters, the bow wedged in the rocks below the water’s surface. Within a shallow vale on the rising snow-swept landscape the remains of two ships lay. It was clear that they’d collided, their masts caught in the rigging of the other. How many had died when they’d fallen? Forty? Fifty?

  As the sun rose fully, they approached Galostina’s eyrie, which looked down upon a wide green valley. It would be idyllic, Nikandr thought, if it weren’t for the wind threatening to uproot the trees. The island’s primary eyrie was higher up the mountain. The eyrie on its cliff face seemed to crouch, ready to leap and strike should the enemies of Vostroma approach, but the ships lashed to the perches spoke of the grievous wounds Yrstanla had inflicted. Even from this distance Nikandr could hear the sounds of industry—the hollow sound of wood being pounded as the ships were repaired, gang leaders calling out orders to their men, the whoo-haa call of men working a massive mast saw.

  And then came Galostina. She had a larger eyrie than Radiskoye—ten perches in all. And seven of them were filled. As the escort ships flew toward the mountain, Nikandr guided them toward the berth where a man waved two black flags. A woman stood near the perch, waiting. It took him time to realize it was Mileva Vostroma, Atiana’s sister. She wore a fine white woolen coat and an ermine cap. The hem of her coat blew fiercely, making her look like a qiram summoning the winds that howled among the crevices of the massive palotza.

  When Nikandr leapt down to the perch, Mileva met him and took him into an embrace. “The ships told us of your decision to head for Elykstava. We thought you’d been lost.”

  It felt strange to have Atiana’s sister hug him, and perhaps it was the same for her, for she hugged him stiffly, awkwardly.

  “I feared it was Galostina that had been lost.” Nikandr looked up to the signs of cannon fire that marked several of the palotza’s towers. The spire, both wider and taller than the spire over Radiskoye, was strangely intact. No cannon fire marred its surface, which was strange, considering the state of Galostina.

  Mileva turned and looked at the damage as well, perhaps remembering the battle from the halls. “She nearly was.” She guided Nikandr toward the palotza. “Come,” she said as they entered through a set of brassbound doors. “There’s ill news, and someone you must see.”

  “What’s happened?” he asked as they walked down a long central hallway. There were dozens of military men walking to and fro. Their conversation filled the space, making the tense atmosphere somehow more tense. Some noticed Nikandr and Mileva and bowed their heads, but most were too busy to take note. Mileva led Nikandr to a winding set of stairs that ran along the edge of a massive domed intersection of the two largest halls of Galostina. The dome towered six stories high, its gilt mosaics shining down on the marble balusters and golden lantern holders.

  “Mileva, what’s happened?”

  Still she waited until they’d reached the next floor before speaking. “It’s your father. He was wounded during the last attack two days ago. A colonnade collapsed, killing three of my father’s advisors and wounding seven others, including your father. He is sound of body, but he suffered a head wound. He’s woken only sporadically, and he’s become weaker over the last several days.”

  The news was better than he’d feared, but his gut still churned, and it only became worse as Mileva led him up to the fourth floor and down another long hallway. There were more streltsi stationed here—nearly a dozen of them—all of them Khalakovan. They all bowed their heads low, reverently, as Nikandr approached.

  Mileva stopped in front of an ornately carved door.

  “I’m glad you’ve come.” Mileva stepped in and kissed his cheek. “We have need of stout men at times like these.”

  Her words were spoken with a sincere admiration that shocked Nikandr. What had been happening in the halls of Galostina?

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “I’ll wait, and do not tarry. You’ll need to speak with Andreya when you’re done.”

  Nikandr nodded and s
queezed her hand, glad to have an ally in this place. He entered the room and found his father in a large bed. The bandages around his head were stained with blood. Most of it was dark, but the center was red, making him wonder how well the wound was healing. He sat in a chair by the bedside. The light coming from the windows behind him lit the landscape of his father’s face in bas relief, making it clear just how much pain he was in, even in slumber. Nikandr sat there for some time, knowing he should leave and speak with Andreya, but he could not. Not just yet.

  Father never woke. His breathing was shallow, so shallow that the added time did nothing to make Nikandr’s feelings of unease settle. In fact, it made them worse.

  At a soft knock at the door, he stood and kissed his father tenderly on the cheek.

  Mileva was standing in the hall when he left the room, looking small and apologetic. How much she’d changed, Nikandr thought. The Mileva of old would never have acted like this.

  “All will be well,” she said, though she knew no such thing.

  “I know,” Nikandr replied, realizing in that one moment what might make her act this way. “Where is your father, the Grand Duke?”

  “Taken,” she said, “by Hakan the Betrayer.” Her tone was bitter, and little wonder. With one barbarous act, Hakan had changed from provisional ally to sworn enemy.

  “Can you sense him?” Nikandr asked, motioning to the soulstone that glinted in the dim light of the hall.

  She pinched her lips before replying. “I cannot.”

  “It’s the storms,” Nikandr said. “You’ll find him when they die down.”

  “I know.” She smiled, an unconvincing gesture, and then motioned back the way they’d come. “Please.”

  She took Nikandr down to the ground floor to a location in Galostina that was one of the earliest structures built. The original keep—which had over the centuries been absorbed by the larger palotza—was being used as the headquarters for the war. The room was windowless—the original windows having long since been bricked up. At the center of the room, surrounded by a dozen massive brass lanterns on tall stands, was a table with several men standing at it, all of them looking down at the maps arrayed there. Nikandr recognized Andreya Antonov, the polkovnik of Vostroma’s stremya, and Betyom Nikolov Vostroma, Zhabyn’s cousin and the admiral of the staaya. Duke Leonid of Dhalingrad was there as well, and when he realized Nikandr was approaching, he motioned to Andreya, who nodded toward his men. Most of the gathered men left the table, though not before they’d stared at Nikandr as if he were a deserter, and soon Nikandr was alone with Andreya, Betyom, and Leonid.