Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Also by Bradley P. Beaulieu
Praise for Bradley P. Beaulieu
Dedication
To the Towers of Tulandan
About the Author
The Winds of Khalakovo
The Straits of Galahesh
The Flames of Shadam Khoreh
Strata
Copyright © 2015 by Bradley P. Beaulieu
Cover art by Adam Paquette © 2011
Cover design by Bradley P. Beaulieu
Interior art by Evgeni Maloshenkov © 2013
Author photo courtesy of Al Bogdan
All rights reserved.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly coincidental. The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal, and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
First Edition
ISBN: 978-1-93964-914-0 (epub)
ISBN: 978-1-93964-915-7 (Kindle)
Please visit me on the web at
http://www.quillings.com
Also by Bradley P. Beaulieu
The Lays of Anuskaya
The Winds of Khalakovo
The Straits of Galahesh
The Flames of Shadam Khoreh
Short Story Collections
Lest Our Passage Be Forgotten & Other Stories
Forthcoming in 2015 from DAW Books
The Song of the Shattered Sands
Twelve Kings in Sharakhai
The Inverted Thorn
The Thirteenth Tribe
Praise for The Winds of Khalakovo
“Well worth exploring… Beaulieu [depicts] a strange culture [with] a remarkable fantasy/magical reality feel.”
—Glen Cook, bestselling author of The Black Company
“Overlaid with the rich feel of Cyrillic culture, Beaulieu’s debut introduces a fascinating world of archipelagic realms and shamanic magic worked primarily by women. Verdict: Strong characters and a plot filled with tension and difficult choices make this a good option for fantasy fans.”
—Library Journal
“Sailing ships of the sky! Bradley P. Beaulieu’s The Winds of Khalakovo is an energetic, swashbuckling novel with a distinctive flavor, a lush setting, and a plot filled with adventure, interesting characters, and intrigue. Exactly the kind of fantasy I like to read.”
—Kevin J. Anderson, New York Times bestselling author of The Saga of Seven Suns
“Elegantly crafted, refreshingly creative, The Winds of Khalakovo offers a compelling tale of men and women fighting to protect their world. Politics, faith, betrayal, sacrifice, and of course supernatural mystery—it’s all there, seamlessly combined in a tale driven by intelligent and passionate characters whose relationships and goals a reader can really care about. A great read!”
—C. S. Friedman, bestselling author of the Coldfire and Magister trilogies
“A page-turner with twists, turns and palpable danger...”
—Paul Genesse, author of The Golden Cord
“In The Winds of Khalakovo Beaulieu navigates through a web of complex characters... dukes, duchesses, lovers, and more, while building a rich and intricate world thick with intrigue. He plots the course of Nikandr Iaroslov Khalakovo, a prince laden with disease and courtly responsibilities, and deftly brings the tale to a satisfying end that leaves the reader hungry for the next installment. Beaulieu is a writer that bears watching. I look forward to his next novel.”
—Jean Rabe, USA Today bestselling fantasy author
“Bradley P. Beaulieu is a welcome addition to the roster of new fantasy novelists. The Winds of Khalakovo is a sharp and original fantasy full of action, intrigue, romance, politics, mystery and magick, tons of magick. The boldly imagined new world and sharply drawn characters will pull you into The Winds of Khalakovo and won’t let you go until the last page.”
—Michael A. Stackpole, bestselling author of I, Jedi and At the Queen’s Command
Praise for The Straits of Galahesh
“Dark, ambitious, complex, populated with a great cast of characters that leap off the pages, The Straits of Galahesh is just what the doctor ordered if you are looking for a quality read that’s different from everything else on the market today. The Winds of Khalakovo turned out to be one of the very best SFF works of 2011. Somehow, Bradley P. Beaulieu has raised the bar even higher for this sequel, making The Straits of Galahesh a ‘must read’ speculative fiction title for 2012.”
—Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist
“If you’re the kind of reader who enjoys Steven Erikson’s approach of throwing readers into a setting without too much guidance and letting the story do the job of explaining the details as it progresses, you should have a great time getting to know this fantasy universe. While that happens, you’ll be treated to healthy doses of feudal and international politics, strong characters, unique magic, romance, spectacular battles on land and in the air, and a story that continues to broaden in scope. The Lays of Anuskaya is shaping up to be a fine fantasy trilogy.”
—Tor.com
“Beaulieu presents a [...] vividly realized tale of heroes torn between duty and love.”
—Publishers Weekly
“In the title to this review, I called The Straits of Galahesh a Russian Bear of a novel. Like The Winds of Khalakovo, this is a thick, dense secondary world fantasy that requires a full engagement from the reader to really get the best enjoyment out of. And yes, given the stakes, and the scope of the novel, this is definitely epic fantasy.”
—The Functional Nerds
“If you read The Winds of Khalakovo, then you will want to read The Straits of Galahesh. If you haven’t, then buy and read them both. This one is full of excitement, suspense, and betrayal. Lots of betrayal, some intentional, some not. I’ve read a great deal of fantasy in the last year, and almost all of it was good to great. The Straits of Galahesh was one of the best.”
—Adventures Fantastic
“Reading Bradley P. Beaulieu’s The Lays of Anuskaya series is like traveling through grand undiscovered country, being in a place that is familiar enough to understand and different enough to amaze. [...] The Straits of Galahesh continues the breakneck pace of a fight for an entire world, touched by passion, love, and loyalty. As a reader, almost every chapter added to my sense of wonder and realization. I can’t recommend this fabulous fantasy series highly enough. Read it.”
—Brenda Cooper, author of The Creative Fire and Mayan December
“With The Straits of Galahesh, Beaulieu returns to the vibrant fantasy he introduced in The Winds of Khalakovo. A gritty book packed with big ideas and Byzantine politics, and inhabited by compellingly flawed heroes, Straits is the sort of fully realized epic one can sink into for days. It sings with action, magic, and heart—the perfect second act in a brilliant series.”
—Rob Ziegler, author of Seed
For the teachers, all those who helped foster my love of learning, and eventually, my love of writing.
To the Towers of Tulandan
As Khadija crawled along the dank sewer pipe, she allowed the freezing chill to fill her. Her breath billowed into the enclosed space ahead as her arms and belly and legs crunched over the filthy, ice-rimed water lining the trough. Wind scoured the streets of Kirishci somewhere above, and it felt no less brisk in this dark place as she forced her numb limbs to drag herself slowly along. It felt as though she would never reach the grat
e in time for the hanging, so slow was the going, but she forced herself to pull, one arm in front of the next—the fates would see to the rest.
When she reached the grate at last, she pushed it up and out, then brought the grate into the sewer pipe with her. She pushed it forward and away from the clear opening, for it was made of iron and would foul her abilities were it too near. Bersuq had loosened the grate three nights prior, but he’d been spotted by the city’s oprichni while leaving, so they’d all agreed, including Khadija herself, that it was best if she entered the sewers through another route.
She backed up into the darkness and waited, forcing herself to relax rather than shiver like one of the soft Landed nobles.
When the sun rose at last, she saw a woman limp across the square. More of the Landed soon followed—peasants leading carts laden with bales of harvest hay over the snow-covered cobbles; children running and slipping along the snow and ice, laughing; the occasional soldier, one of Kirishci’s oprichni, wearing the long, dark cherkesskas and fur-lined kolpaks of Rhavanki—and finally, as the sun rose over the old stone buildings, people began to gather, crowding the gallows as a young boy in courtly clothes stepped onto the platform and rang a brass bell three times. Soon after, three men and two women were led onto the platform. Ten oprichni followed, six of them bearing flintlock muskets and berdische axes with their broad blades and long hafts.
The remaining four held other implements at the ready, no less a weapon than the axes or muskets. They were dousing rods, circles of iron with long handles that allowed the oprichni to snuff any attempt by Maharraht qiram like Khadija to draw upon the powers of flame or wind or water. No matter to them that none of the condemned wore circlets or bracelets or anklets with stones set into them; the oprichni eyed them warily just the same, preparing against a summoned gust of wind or the release of a bolt of bright white lightning that might course through all of them at once.
It’s good they’re scared. They deserve to be.
The oprichni studied the crowd as well, expecting retribution, a thing the Maharraht had given them at many of the recent hangings around the islands of Rhavanki. They expected an attack, and that was exactly what was coming, though not for the reasons the oprichni might expect. The five gathered Maharraht, those condemned to die, had chosen to come here, to give themselves up that Khadija and the others could create a diversion for their leader, Soroush. Their bravery and sacrifice was a source of pride for them all, for a prize was being brought to Rhavanki this day. A boy. A very special boy. Why Soroush had chosen Rhavanki she didn’t know, but she knew enough to understand that the day when the Landed would be overthrown was nearing.
Khadija wore an anklet with a stone of azurite set into it. As the leader of the oprichni, their desyatnik, read the transgressions of the condemned—transgressions no doubt fabricated by the High Magistrate of Kirishci—Khadija opened herself to the stone, allowed the chill of the water to suffuse her more fully. She felt the way it seeped through her clothes and stole her warmth, how it ran the length of the channel below her and met larger runnels of water as they trailed out from the city toward the nearby river and down toward the sea more than two leagues away. What she was doing would attract the notice of the Matri—the Duchess Katerina or one of her four daughters. After all, with a hanging taking place, they would have taken precautions, the Matri submerging themselves in their drowning basins and watching for signs of the Maharraht, which was precisely why Khadija had waited to forge her bond until now.
Focus, Khadija.
Spending undue thoughts on the Matri would foil her attempts to bond with a spirit, so she let her mind relax as nooses were slipped around the necks of the Maharraht. Her brothers and sisters stood stoically, confident in the sacrifices they’d made, preparing themselves for their next lives.
Khadija reached out, calling upon nearby spirits. One approached quickly, young from the feel of it but powerful enough for her purposes. She offered herself to the jalahezhan, giving of her form that it might taste of the material world. She thought it might refuse her—they were mercurial, after all—but soon, the bond had coalesced.
The nooses had now been tightened. The desyatnik, wearing a grey cherkesska and black boots and a golden medallion in his kolpak hat that gleamed in the otherwise grey morning, read the last of the writ as Khadija bid a tendril of water to snake up and out from the sewer pipe. It slithered forward, the snow melting where it touched, drawing still more water to its form, causing it to widen as it approached the edge of the gallows.
As the desyatnik stepped back, rolling up the writ, many in the crowd looked up at a black rook as it flapped through the square, cawing wildly. “Maharraht!” it called. “Beware! Maharraht!”
It was the Matra, speaking through the voice of the rook. The warning had come sooner than Khadija had hoped, but she was not unprepared, and neither would the others be.
The tendril of water snaked up the nearest of the platform’s stout wooden posts. The wind picked up, blowing strongly across the square. The peasants began to scatter as the desyatnik bellowed orders and his oprichni brought their dousing rods to bear, pointing them into a growing wind that was now howling through the streets, pressing the crowd and the oprichni and the gathered Maharraht.
The rook cawed violently as it was tossed by the gusting wind, and Khadija smiled bitterly. The wind, though it was now starting to die from the efforts of the oprichni and the effects of the black iron dousing rods, was only a diversion. Hers was the true assault.
Drawing further upon her bonded hezhan, Khadija forced the stream of filthy water to divide. It split and split again until there were ten in all, enough for each of the ten gathered oprichni. Each stream held enough to fill a man’s lungs. As they gamboled along the planks like tiny brooks, a woman standing in the square shouted and pointed wildly at them, but the oprichni were occupied. Khadija did not revel in the death she was about to deal, but neither would she weep for the souls of these Landed men when they were gone.
As the first of the cords of water began to snake up the leg of the nearest soldier, however, someone stepped into the square, a man set apart by the robes he wore—inner robes of ivory, outer robes the orange of the setting sun. Though nearly obscured by his mop of curly brown hair, she could see a golden circlet upon his brow, and within the circlet was a tourmaline gemstone that—like Khadija’s own stone of azurite would be doing now—was glowing under the morning sun. There was something familiar about him, even his gait, but he was too far away, the crowd too frenetic, for the half-formed memories to coalesce.
On the platform, the soldier’s eyes widened as the water streamed up his leg to his chest, then his neck, and into his mouth and nostrils. He turned, gripping his musket, staring skyward as if the cawing rook could somehow help him. He was an older soldier, approaching fifty or more. He looked to be a petty man, his eyes like a rat’s, his small mouth loath to utter a kind word. As it dawned upon him what was happening, his eyes locked on one of the Maharraht still bound by her noose. Perhaps the soldier thought the Maharraht had done this, or perhaps he’d just grown angry, but as the water continued to pour down his throat and lungs, he pulled the trigger of his flintlock musket and fired pointblank into the chest of the staring woman.
The woman blinked, blood flowing from the wound between her breasts. She slumped as some of the nearby oprichni turned. They saw the choking soldier fall to his knees, gripping his throat, they saw the water creeping across the planks toward their own black boots, and they turned to meet this new threat.
But just then the Aramahn man spread his arms wide and the rest of the water Khadija had summoned flashed to steam, filling the air around the platform with a nearly impenetrable mist.
At that moment, someone on the platform pulled the lever that would activate the trap doors beneath the Maharraht. As the mist spread, their forms dropped, jerking sharply as the ropes caught their weight. Then the snow around the platform began to steam as well, ob
scuring more of the surrounding square. Flashes of orange light came from within the mist like the cannon-fire Khadija had once seen in the mists of an early summer dawn. Moments later she heard bodies dropping. Fire had cut the ropes of the hanging Maharraht.
This man was gifted, then. Gifted indeed, to wield both fire and water.
Soon the entire scene was cast in a downy white fog so thick Khadija could see nothing. She felt the cool dampness enter the sewer as she climbed out and stood once again on solid ground. She was reluctant to release her jalahezhan, but the Matri could find her too easily if she didn’t, so she allowed the spirit to slip back across the veil to the world beyond.
And suddenly she felt the cold much more deeply than she had only moments ago.
The Matri had discovered them. There was nothing to do now but retreat and regroup. So she ran, though she’d not made it twenty paces before coming upon someone standing in the mist ahead. She cursed herself for releasing her jalahezhan so soon, but she was not unarmed. She pulled the curved khanjar from her belt and held it before her.
“Fates be, Khadija,” a golden voice called, “would you take a knife to your kuadim?”
Khadija held her ground as the mists began to part. There, standing before her… Could it be? By the fates who shine above, it was Ashan, the one who had taught her the ways of the Aramahn when she was young.
“I thought my message might never reach you,” she said.
“You said it was important.”
“It is, son of Ahrumea.” She took Ashan by the hand and led him quickly down the road. “It is.”
Ashan squatted near a fire, patting dough between his hands, forming it into a rough circle. After sprinkling it with salt and rosemary from a small wooden container by his side, he tossed it lightly onto a cooking stone. The bread sizzled for a moment, mixing with the sounds of the surf, and the smell filled the small seaside cave to which they’d retreated after the attack in Kirishci. It was the place she’d been assigned, the place Soroush would come to find her when all was well. A good enough place to introduce him to Ashan, she thought.
To the Towers of Tulandan Page 1
