The Straits of Galahesh

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  Sariya waited expectantly. Her hold on him had failed. She was too weakened from her wound, and something had happened to her tower, barring her from the kind of power that had once come so easily.

  She shook her hand, waiting for him to take it.

  Muqallad merely stared down from the top of the rock, his dark eyes and strong face commanding.

  Nasim could walk away. He could refuse them what they sought.

  But why should he? He had only ever failed in his life. His touch was death. He was nothing, and he would have this life done with.

  He took her hand and together the two of them climbed up to the top of the rock.

  “Lie down,” Muqallad said.

  Nasim complied. He stared up to the sky, where yellow clouds caught the last rays of the sun beneath an indigo sky. The first stars shone along the eastern horizon. His mind was afire with the things he’d done in his life, and he wondered if Alif had thought the same things. He wondered if he had given up, or perhaps, behind the veil of the nightmare in which he lived, he had come to believe in what Khamal was hoping to do.

  Did Nasim himself now believe in what Sariya and Muqallad hoped to do?

  He still felt the tug of the enchantment upon him. It held him down. It prevented him from raising a hand against Muqallad.

  He wondered whether it had been Khamal’s lack of interest in studying the ways of the mind. Khamal, after all, had always been focused on the rifts and the barrier around Ghayavand that prevented him from leaving. Perhaps if he hadn’t been so singularly focused, Nasim might have been more aware of such things. Or perhaps if he hadn’t been hobbled for so many years, he could have broken Sariya’s hold on him.

  But he couldn’t. All he could do was watch as Muqallad kneeled to one side of him, Sariya to the other. He listened to the waves and smelled the sea and felt the warmth of the black rock through the skin along his back.

  Muqallad took from his robes the irregular shape of the Atalayina. Two pieces had been fused, but one piece was still missing, making it look like a knife had cut away a third of it. They placed it on his chest. The weight of it… It was difficult to comprehend. It felt as heavy as the world.

  Muqallad pulled a khanjar from its sheath at his belt. With deliberate care he cut the palm of one hand. Sariya did the same, and then, holding them above Nasim’s mouth, they allowed the blood to drip down. Nasim did not wish to partake of their blood, but neither was he willing to prevent it. The salty taste entered his mouth, made him feel heady with power. Through blood, they hoped to lift the curse Inan and her followers had lain upon them, just as Khamal had with Alif.

  How apropos, Nasim thought.

  Alif had been lost, a soul that had perished forever when Khamal plunged the knife into his chest. Was Nasim any different? He was also a boy who had never truly lived, who would be lost to the worlds when his heart no longer beat within his chest. Khamal had taken Alif’s life, and now justice would be meted, for this, it seemed to Nasim, this ritual, was little more than a weighing of the scales in which his life stood forfeit in recompense for Alif’s.

  The time was growing near. Sariya and Muqallad took the knife in their hands, not unlike the way they’d done with Khamal, though this time, instead of surprise on their faces, they had looks of sorrow and grim determination.

  They raised the knife together. For a moment the edge caught the light of the setting sun, making it gleam, golden and bright.

  It did not look angry, or vengeful, as Nasim thought it might.

  It looked merciful.

  He was ready to be done with this life, so when the blade was brought down, when it pierced his chest with white-hot pain, it felt like little more than bittersweet release.

  The pain rose. Climbed high. Climbed well beyond the stars, beyond even the resting place of the fates.

  It grew distant as he felt the warm flow of blood seep along his robes and along his rib cage. It pooled in his navel before tickling down his sides.

  And all the while he breathed shallowly, watching the hands of the Al-Aqim as they closed their eyes and felt—as Nasim felt—the restrictions lift from them. These were bonds that had been with them for three hundred years, and now they were being lifted entirely.

  They released the knife and stood.

  Muqallad stared at his hands, then down to Nasim’s chest, then out to sea, where the sun was slipping beneath the horizon.

  Sariya stared at the knife, at the blood. She swallowed, her blue eyes wavering. A tear slipped along one cheek, and when Muqallad turned and began climbing down from the top of the rock, she did not follow.

  “Come,” Muqallad said when he was halfway down.

  Sariya met his eyes. Tears continued to stream down her face. She seemed remorseful, but also curious, as if she were wondering how things could have come to this.

  “Fare well, Khamal,” she said, and then she turned and followed Muqallad.

  Over the sounds of the sea he heard the soft scrape of their boots on the rock, and then the crunch of their footsteps against the beach as they walked away. Softer and softer they became until at last he was alone.

  As his lifeblood spilled, he felt the barriers around the island. They had been placed by the dozens of qiram, the followers of the Al-Aqim. What power they had held to keep them for centuries. But Khamal’s departure had weakened them, and soon—perhaps weeks from now, perhaps months—they would fade entirely. And then the fears of all who had stood upon Ghayavand when the rift had been formed three centuries before would at last be realized.

  The rifts would spread. They would consume the islands. They would consume the sea. They would consume, in the end, even the motherland, Yrstanla, and the desert wastes to the south, even the plains of the Haelish and the wide, barren steppes that ran up to the Great Northern Sea.

  The pain in his chest began to fade.

  His fingers felt cold.

  A high-pitched ringing filled his ears.

  He stared up to the skies, wondering if the fates would embrace him or spurn him. Perhaps Khamal’s plans had been so complete that he was beyond even their power.

  The light was fading as a soft crunching came from the beach. It grew louder and louder, but he could not find it in himself to turn his head.

  Sounds of soft scraping came, as of someone climbing the rock, and soon he saw a form standing above him.

  It was not Muqallad, nor Sariya.

  He could not at first understand who it was.

  But then he realized.

  And he nearly cried.

  By the fates who shine above, it was Rabiah.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE

  Nasim looked up into the beautiful face of Rabiah. She’d come to take him. Of this he was sure.

  She kneeled, and the moment she did, the numbness that had been spreading through him stopped. Then it receded, and the pain began to return.

  She touched the knife, and pain seared through him—white hot at the center of his being, like embers hidden deep beneath the ash.

  “I can’t! Let me go!”

  He couldn’t go back. He was ready to leave this world, one way or another.

  She leaned close to his ear. “You cannot go,” she whispered. “Not yet.”

  He could do little more than draw breath, though each one fluttered in his throat and caused so much pain he felt as though he were merely holding his breath. He had been prepared to leave, but staring into her eyes, the eyes of a girl he had come to cherish, he realized he couldn’t do it. What a poor man he would be if he gave up now—on himself and Rabiah and the world itself—simply because of pain.

  He swallowed, staring into Rabiah’s beautiful eyes. He swallowed again, not sure if he could go on.

  She nodded to him with a smile on her lips, a smile as wide and deep as the sky.

  With that one simple gesture, his nerves began to calm. He could not go, he told himself. He could not.

  There was still much to do.

  Rabiah w
aited for him to nod in return, and then in one sharp motion pulled the knife free.

  His body rigored. His muscles tightened like catgut. His head convulsed, heedless of stone beneath him.

  And he screamed for the first time. He screamed to the sky above, to the seas below, to the mountains beyond and the fires beneath. He screamed, unable to understand who he was, what he was, until he felt cool hands touch his forehead, urging him to stillness.

  He thought it impossible, but the more her palms pressed downward, the more he was able to control the pain. It did not fade, but he found that with that one simple touch of skin against skin he was able to master it, and himself.

  “How did you find me?” Nasim asked.

  Rabiah did not respond. She merely helped him to sit up.

  When he did, he realized the pain was not so great as it had been only moments ago. He looked down and saw that the flow of blood was merely a trickle. The wound was beginning to close as if drawn by purse strings.

  She helped him to stand. Her hands were warm. They were wonderful. It was so glorious to have her near.

  If she noticed his rush of emotions she didn’t mention it. She held his hand as they stepped down from the rock—as Muqallad and Sariya had done only a short while ago—and together they trekked along the sand back toward Alayazhar. They went beyond the beach, and by the time they’d climbed the path up to the city proper, his wound had closed entirely. It felt strange, though. Tender. But more than this, it felt as though it would never heal. Not completely.

  Rabiah led him toward the tower until Nasim stopped and pulled his hand away.

  “We can’t,” he said.

  She turned and regarded him. “There’s no other way.”

  Nasim shook his head. “We cannot place ourselves in her power again.”

  “We will not,” Rabiah said.

  As she said these words, he felt souls about the city, the souls of the akhoz that still remained. He knew that these were those that had remained to keep the rifts stable. They were also those that Khamal himself had sacrificed. Though Nasim himself had had nothing to do with them, he also knew that they were attuned to him—yet another effect, intended or not, of the circumstances surrounding Khamal’s death.

  Through the broken streets and alleys of Alayazhar, the akhoz approached. Their presence made him aware of the aether and of Adhiya beyond. By the fates, they felt closer than any time since the ritual on Oshtoyets, a time when he’d barely been aware of himself or the worlds around him. His mind had been only a shadow of what he would become, and yet he had lost so much since then. Had it been because of Khamal, or had it simply been because he’d tried too hard? Had it all been self-imposed?

  He longed to reach beyond, to commune with the hezhan. He longed for their touch. He wanted to give of himself so they could learn from him. But he knew that such a thing would be foolish here. Now was not the time.

  The akhoz were near. They approached the tower, not with rage or hunger, but with reverence. They shambled, their arms to their sides, their faces slightly uplifted, as if they were basking in some unseen glow.

  “Come, my children,” he said to the crisp air. “Come, and we will go where we are needed.”

  They moved more quickly now, but with no lesser sense of awe and deference. There were dozens, all of them ready to do what Nasim asked of them. He was saddened—their lives had been cut short so long ago, and they’d been forced into an existence infinitely worse than beasts of burden—but at least their lives might have some meaning in the end.

  Rabiah tugged Nasim’s hand. She nodded toward the tower. “Time grows short.”

  He did not want to enter the tower, but he would trust her. He would trust her, he thought, as he had not trusted her in life.

  As they walked toward the iron fence, the smell of the air changed. The wind calmed. The clouds in the sky paused.

  “What’s happened?” Nasim asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “The sky,” he said. “The wind.”

  “Nothing is different…”

  Nasim looked to her, wondering how she couldn’t have known, but her gaze was fixed on the tower ahead, as if that and that alone was what mattered.

  Nasim felt it, though, and it was growing worse, this feeling of pregnant intent. It felt like the time before a great storm, but this one, thought Nasim, was going to be worse than any other.

  They walked through the open gate, the akhoz following. Rabiah stopped at the door to the tower. Nasim didn’t understand at first, but it soon became clear she was waiting for him to open it. Why she refused to touch it he didn’t know, but it seemed important that he not ask of it, so he took the handle and opened it himself.

  Inside it was dark and foreboding, but beyond this he could not sense Sariya’s presence. He stepped within, and immediately the akhoz swept into the room behind him. They moved like a pack of animals. Nasim didn’t know what had changed, but they seemed hungry—hungry for blood. Some climbed the stairs as if their hunger drove them to hunt, to move, even knowing there was nothing to find in the upper levels of the tower, but most of them remained in the room, crouching, their eyeless faces trained on him and the door.

  It felt strangely comforting to have these forgotten souls join him, but the one he most dearly wished would join him—Rabiah—remained just outside.

  “Will you not come?” Nasim asked her.

  She did not respond.

  He nodded, not wanting to close the door, for he knew that when he did, she would be gone forever.

  Rabiah seemed to hear something, for she turned and looked deeper into the city. What had attracted her attention Nasim couldn’t guess. Rabiah glanced back once through the doorway, her eyes searching, confused. She didn’t seem to notice him.

  And then she turned and walked away.

  Nasim held the door open, hoping she would return, knowing she would not.

  Then, knowing he had to leave now if he was ever going to, he closed the door until the latch clicked shut.

  In that moment, he felt a boom. The earth shook and stones of the tower rumbled above him. He heard shouting and screams. Musket fire erupted, rising to a fierce intensity as men shouted and the clash of steel rang out. When Nasim opened the door again, he saw outside a completely different city filled with bloodied men waging war against one another.

  Beyond the tower stood dozens of men wearing dark woolen cherkesskas. They held berdische axes in one hand, muskets in the other, and when they prepared to fire, they dropped the butt of the axe to the ground and placed the barrel of the musket at the crook of the axe head before sighting along the length of the barrel and pulling the trigger.

  It all seemed as it should be, as if these men were merely a force of nature unleashing their vengeance upon another.

  Another boom shook the tower. Grape shot tore through the forward ranks of the streltsi. Dozens of them spun and twisted and arched backward, as if they were men made from cloth and sticks, not blood and bone.

  He thought at first that this was all happening in Alayazhar, but of course it was not. This city looked nothing like Alayazhar. Rabiah had transported him, or rather, the magic of Sariya’s tower had.

  But where had he come? Kiravashya? Had the war stretched so far?

  Neh, he thought as he took in the imposing form of the Mount. He was in Baressa, and the streltsi were warring against the men of the Kaymakam and the Kamarisi.

  There were hundreds of Anuskayan soldiers along this length of road. The akhoz had gathered behind him. They watched, mouths open, tongues lolling, as if they tasted the battle that raged only paces away. They strained at their leash. They hungered for battle. But Nasim would not allow it. Not yet. Not here.

  Among the cries of the wounded and the crack of musket fire and the sound of a charge in the distance, he heard the cawing of a rook. He saw the bird fly over a tall stone building and come winging down straight toward him. It landed and pecked at the ground. A young m
an of Anuskaya lay dying nearby. His fur-lined kolpak had fallen away, revealing dirty blond hair. He blinked several times with a look on his face that made it clear he thought the bird had come to save him. He tried to speak, but words failed him, and then he fell slack.

  The rook beat its wings against the air and cawed over and over again, but then it regained itself and hopped toward the open doorway as the battle continued to rage.

  “I have looked long and hard for you, Nasim,” it said in Anuskayan.

  “Matra Saphia,” Nasim said, bowing his head though he knew not why. “I’ve just returned.”

  “Returned to her tower.”

  It was a question, one he could not in any way answer fully. “They took me,” he said simply, staring down at his robes, which were still bright red with blood.

  The rook clucked three times. “So they did.”

  The tower shook as another shot thundered into it. Stone and sand rained down. He could feel the entire structure begin to shift with several piercing cracks breaking through the sounds of war.

  Behind the rook, riding on ponies from the same direction in which Saphia had come, were four streltsi wearing red kolpak hats.

  “Quickly,” she said. “We must get you to safety.”

  More screams of the dying came. As he stepped out of the tower, musket fire tore through the line to his right. A roar was taken up, and dozens of janissaries wearing tall turbans came rushing forward. Their strangely bent kilij swords were drawn, and they broke into the double line of streltsi. The shouting intensified as men were shifted from other parts of the line, but as soon as those orders were passed, another roar was heard. More men of Yrstanla counterattacking along the right flank.

  All four ponies galloped forward. One was felled a dozen yards from Nasim. Another broke away to meet the charge of three Yrstanla soldiers. The pony rammed one, and the soldier took out another, but the third swung his kilij high over his head and down against the strelet’s thigh. The pony reared and clubbed the soldier, but the strelet was lost, blood poring from his nearly severed thigh before he struck the blood-slick stones of the street.