The Flames of Shadam Khoreh

by Bradley Beaulieu

  Except in Kohor.

  Where Khamal spent much of his youth. Where Sariya came from. Where Muqallad traveled and eventually found the Atalayina.

  That a sheaf was placed on each of the tombs is an indicator of where this valley stood. It is near Kohor, of that much he is sure. And if he is correct, these tombs were built around the time of the sundering.

  He can’t help but think of Inan, the mother of Yadhan, the first of the akhoz. She was a loyal follower of Khamal, but over time she became disillusioned. She rallied others to rise against Khamal and the other Al-Aqim for what they perceived as unforgivable acts. It wasn’t so much the failure of the Al-Aqim during the sundering as it was the steps they’d taken afterward to halt the spread of the rifts. Changing the children into the akhoz had worked, but in doing so—in the eyes of Inan, at least—the Al-Aqim had taken too much from the world, including the soul of her own daughter, and she refused to allow more to be taken in the same way. And so her fellow qiram created a barrier that prevented the Al-Aqim from leaving. It also suppressed the power of the broken Atalayina, which kept the Al-Aqim from using it to escape or to cause further damage to the world.

  To Nasim’s right is the valley they’ve been circling for weeks. As he stares at the remote peaks, he remembers its name. Shadam Khoreh. A hidden place, not merely for its remoteness but for the secrets that it holds. To Nasim’s knowledge, no one knows what became of the followers of Inan. No one knows how they had erected their barrier, but he is sure that these men and women of this valley, these many qiram hidden away in tombs, were related.

  A chill runs down his frame as the answer comes to him.

  These men and women… They are the qiram from Ghayavand, the very ones who witnessed the sundering. They’re still alive, in a manner of speaking.

  But why?

  The answer, of course, is obvious. They must maintain the barrier around Ghayavand by giving of themselves, allowing the magics of it to draw from them to sustain those walls. Why, then, would Kaleh burn them like tinder?

  Because she needs those walls to fall. To crumble. To vanish so that she can return to the island and complete her plans.

  He must stop her, he realizes.

  And he must do so today, while she is weak and he still remembers.

  They climb throughout the day, and it becomes clear that they’ll reach the peak before nightfall. It may be coincidence, but they’d entered each tomb around the same time. They reach a plateau. The dark peak looms above them, but it’s small now. They could reach the summit if they wanted to, but as Kaleh leads them across the flat, grass-covered ground, he sees an arch hidden by the wide shoulders of the peak.

  “We should rest,” Nasim says.

  Kaleh glances back as if he’s little more than a shadow. She continues to walk, and the urge to rest vanishes. She’s exerting her will upon him, but he’s become more and more aware of when she does such things. It isn’t constant. That would be like trying to hold a stone at arm’s length indefinitely. Eventually the muscles would grow tired, and the stone would fall. And so Kaleh suggests. She pushes Nasim in a certain direction, and months ago, his mind would simply accept it and continue like a windborne skiff pushed from an eyrie’s perch on a windless day.

  But now Nasim’s will is like a headwind. It is becoming harder and harder for her to nudge his mind in the ways she wants. Soon, unless she rests, he will be free. And Kaleh knows it. She is not so simple that she can’t predict the outcome, as he has, which is a disconcerting thing. It means she doesn’t care, at least for now, and that in turn is another indicator that she’s close to finishing what she came here for.

  “We should rest,” Nasim says again.

  Perhaps it is a foolish thing to say, to invite her to work harder against him, but he considers it a calculated risk. He knows she’s tired, and if that is so, she more than likely can’t press on into the tomb tonight. She might even wait another full day.

  Kaleh glances back at him again, but this time she looks longer. She stares into his eyes—he still has trouble looking upon her and recognizing her as Kaleh. She was once years younger than him and now she appears older by several years.

  The fates work in strange ways.

  Without speaking, she turns toward a patch of ground with bushes along one side that cut the wind slightly. She slips her pack off her shoulders and sets it down and fairly drops to the ground.

  “Build a fire,” she says.

  He does, piling kindling and stacking thicker branches on top. When he sits, he closes his eyes and opens his mind to Adhiya.

  This valley is strange, however. It’s difficult to call upon the hezhan, to bond with them in even the simplest of ways, but he’s learned—or perhaps Kaleh has taught him—how to reach them. It wasn’t that they weren’t near, it was that this place made it difficult for the spirits to hear him. He thought at first he would need to shout, as if he were calling to them from within a gale, but that rarely worked. Instead, he called to them more like a bell being struck. A single note, it turned out, was easier for the hezhan to hear.

  A suurahezhan approaches, and he gives of himself so that it will do the same. He feels its heat infuse him, and then lends some of that to the gathered wood. In moments, the fire is ablaze, and he releases the hezhan. He feels it floating around the burgeoning fire like a moth, but then it loses interest and slips away from whence it came.

  “There are few left,” Nasim says, holding his hands out to the fire as night steals over the mountains.

  He thinks Kaleh might deny it, but she merely stares into the fire, chin upon her knees, and nods. “There are three.”

  “And then what?”

  “Then we return to Ghayavand.”

  “They are the followers of Inan, are they not?”

  “They are,” Kaleh says. Her voice is weary, not from the physical exertion of the day, but from some hidden weight that seems to be bearing down on her more fully than ever before. And there is something in her eyes, a sadness that he hadn’t expected. He doesn’t recall her ever allowing her emotions to show like this. Why here? Why now?

  There is something else as well. Kaleh is young and beautiful, but there is a timeless quality in her gaze. She looks as if she’s staring beyond the fire, to ages past, and it is that more than anything that makes her seem not merely old, but ancient.

  “But you knew that already.” She looks up and locks eyes with him. “Did you not?”

  Nasim nods carefully. “They protect Ghayavand. They’ve been protecting it for generations. And now, with so few akhoz remaining, the walls that keep the rifts at bay will crumble.”

  “It is the only way.”

  “Do you care so little for this world?”

  “I care. But this place”—she sweeps her gaze across the mountains, and it is clear she means not just Shadam Khoreh, but the entire world—“is broken.”

  “It is as the fates have chosen.”

  She reaches into her pack by her side and pulls out the Atalayina. “Can you be so sure?” Her face, tickled by the light of the fire, looks not merely forlorn, but guilty, as if she is somehow to blame for what her mother did. But then she lifts her head and stares into Nasim’s eyes. There is a desperation he hasn’t seen before, a look that speaks of the need for a friend, an ally in the road she now travels. “Have you ever wondered if the fates left us that day? If they abandoned us when the sundering occurred?”

  Nasim shivers, and not from the chill of the night. “Of course not.”

  “And how would you know?”

  “I don’t,” he replies. “I have faith.”

  She seems disappointed in his answer, but unsurprised. “Sleep, Nasim. Sleep, for this time, I go to the mountain alone.”

  A surge of fear courses through him, and along with it comes a weariness so complete he cannot hope to stand against it. He tries. He fights to stay awake, but soon the world around him closes in and he falls deep, deep into the valley.

 
; CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Khamal stands on a parapet at the edge of one of the tallest buildings in Alayazhar. In his hand he holds the Atalayina, the stone of legend that Muqallad brought back from the desert wastes of the Gaji three days ago. He wears robes of light linen, for the day is warm. His sandals, however, are on the roof behind him. For the moment, they are unneeded.

  As he holds the stone, he reaches out to Adhiya. With but a thought, one mental gesture, a suurahezhan approaches. He bonds with it as if it were as simple as a handshake. It has never been so, but with the stone, it is an act as easy as breathing.

  Ahead of him, in midair, a ball of flame sparks into being. The flame widens into a disc. He steps off of the parapet and onto the burning disc. Just as the hezhan created the flame from the stuff of Adhiya, it protects his skin.

  Khamal marvels. Bonding with hezhan has never been difficult for him, but it has always taken patience and understanding. It has always been important to maintain balance, lest you give too much to, or take too much from, the spirit. This balance is still important, but the stone simplifies it to the point that it worries him. The Atalayina acts as a locus, a place of power between all three worlds, such that instead of trying to keep their mutual bond stable from afar, it made the hezhan feel as close as the air around him, the flame beneath him.

  When Muqallad returned from his voyage, Khamal hadn’t truly believed his claims that this was the stone of legend. But today that all changed. Muqallad gave him the stone to study, and it was more than Khamal could have ever imagined.

  Another patch of flame forms ahead. He steps onto it, and like the last, it carries his weight like a pad of stone. He makes another and another, stepping over the air on circles of flame as if they were stairs ready to take him up to the heavens. Far beyond, over the bright roofs of Alayazhar, stands Sihyaan. He has taken breath there many times, and part of him wishes to continue on, to walk to that very place on these steps of fire. Below him there are those that watch, those who have come to study and learn and teach. But today they have come to see what is already being spoken of in whispers.

  Transcendence.

  By now everyone in Alayazhar knows why Muqallad left and what he returned with. Muqallad is reticent to share knowledge of the Atalayina, but Sariya seems eager to do so. And Khamal, while not necessarily eager, sees no point in hiding it. All will know soon enough. Why not allow them some small part of it? Why not allow them to share in this as they would the events of the day when the three of them—he, Sariya, and Muqallad—will meet on Sihyaan to bring about the next age of man?

  Below, walking along the street, he recognizes Inan. She was at one time his disciple, but she has long since outstripped the need for guidance, and in fact has taught him much over recent years.

  He delves deeper into the Atalayina, partly to learn but partly, he admits, to impress his one-time student. The stone is difficult in this way, however. It does not allow its depths to be plumbed so easily. To a certain point, the stone is effortless to work with, but beyond that it becomes unbalanced, and then it’s like standing on a log in a lake—it rolls and bobs, twisting the other way when one tries to steady it.

  Before Khamal knows it, the discs of fire have disappeared and he is falling toward the ground. He strikes it hard, twisting his ankle and cutting his knee. As Inan and Yadhan rush toward him, the Atalayina clatters to the stones and skitters along the cobbles toward an open doorway.

  “Are you well?” Inan says as she kneels by his side.

  His ankle feels as though it’s been kicked by a pony, while the gash along his knee burns more brightly by the second. Still, it’s the embarrassment that pains him. He can hardly look Inan in the eye as he says, “I’ll be fine.”

  Yadhan comes forward holding the Atalayina. The stone’s blue surface glints beneath the sun, brighter than it seems it should.

  It gloats over its victory, Khamal thinks wryly.

  Still, despite the pain, he is glad this happened now. They must discover all they can before taking steps with one another on Sihyaan, where there can be no mistakes.

  Yadhan holds the stone, offers it to him. She is shy, but also brave to hand this precious stone to a man she’s clearly afraid of.

  “Thank you, child,” Khamal says, and accepts the stone from her.

  Nasim wakes at a soft touch against the skin of his cheek, yet when he sits up and looks around he sees nothing. The fire has gone out. He reaches over and feels the warmth of the coals, judging he’d been asleep for no more than two hours.

  The dreams of Khamal are still fresh in his mind. He hasn’t had such dreams since before Galahesh. That in itself is a clue, but what is infinitely more important is the fact that it had been about the days before the sundering. And not merely that: the dream had been about Yadhan, the first of the akhoz, and her mother, Inan. It is important, but his mind is too muddy to make any sort of connection.

  He remembers Khamal’s thoughts and emotions as he worked the Atalayina, how wide and powerful and deep it was. He tries to hold on to the dream, but dreams care not for one’s wishes, and soon the memories of Alayazhar are replaced with the dry mountain in the depths of the Gaji.

  He thought the touch on his cheek was a part of a dream, but he soon comes to a cold realization. That touch had been all too real.

  He stands, peering beyond the bare light of the glowing coals of the fire to the stone where the entrance to the tomb would be found. There is nothing in particular that draws Nasim’s mind—no snap of twig, no clearing of throat, no overt movement—but it is then that he notices a form sitting on the far side of the fire. A dark silhouette sits cross-legged, but she is too far from the coals for Nasim to see much.

  She is young. This much is clear. Her frame is small and slight—either that or she’s drawn herself inward like children do when they don’t want to be seen. And there is a scent redolent of sailing over open sea.

  He’s terrified that the simple act of showing that he’s noticed her will send her running away, for he knows that this girl is the key to much. But he can already tell that something is different. Whether it’s due to the absence of Kaleh or some other thing, he doesn’t know, but it’s clear that she has come here to tell him secrets. So instead of looking at her askance as he’s so used to doing, he stares at her directly. She leans forward as if eager to speak but unsure how to begin.

  It is in this moment, as her face leans closer to the fire, that he recognizes her.

  The scent of the open sea…

  Why it took him so long to realize he has no idea, but the scent was the final clue. He remembers that scent from Galahesh. Remembers it when he stood upon the Spar and stabbed Nikandr in the chest. Remembers the crashing of the great ship into what remained of the blackened center of that great edifice.

  He was thrown from the bridge, as Nikandr was, as the ruined body of Muqallad was. He drew upon a havahezhan to cradle the Atalayina, to guide it into his hand. He gripped it and used the wind to slow Nikandr’s fall. With stone in hand he pulled the knife free. He healed the man that had improbably drawn him up from the depths of his confusion.

  And then he was struck from behind. He lost hold of the Atalayina. His soul cried for its loss even as he plummeted into the sea. Only then, beneath the cold waves, did he realize who had caught him.

  Kaleh.

  Kaleh had found him, but she wasn’t alone. There was another within the recesses of her mind.

  “Sariya took you,” he says to the dark form on the opposite side of the deadened fire. “On Galahesh, she took you and made you follow me.”

  The girl remains silent, but Nasim already knows its true.

  All of it is true.

  The one before him, this shade, is Kaleh, the girl Nasim met on Ghayavand, the girl who transported him a thousand leagues to Rafsuhan, the girl who came to Mirashadal, burned and bruised after the staged attack by Muqallad.

  The girl who killed Fahroz, the woman who’d most closely rese
mbled a mother for Nasim.

  He wonders whether Kaleh had been herself when they’d fought in the streets of Baressa. Perhaps and perhaps not. What is clear, though, is that she was taken by Sariya before she flew down through the air and stole the Atalayina from Nasim before both of them plummeted into the sea. Nasim had forgotten most of those details, but he remembers them clearly now. He remembers the sound of the water crashing around him. They drove deep, and the swirling currents of the straits drew them deeper. Kaleh had not seemed to mind. She allowed it, and when Nasim tried to swim away, she caught his ankle and pulled him down.

  He was losing air. The twinkling light above dwindled until it was a blue so deep it was almost black.

  And then the world shifted.

  He’d felt it before, when Kaleh had forced the walls of stone around him in the village of Shirvozeh. She’d transported him in that instant to Rafsuhan. This time, though, the water merely pressed harder, and it twisted about him like the white serpents of the coral seas.

  The water felt suddenly warmer. The sun shone brighter as well. Kaleh was holding his wrist instead of his ankle, pulling him upward while kicking her legs and stroking with her free arm.

  They broke the water’s surface. Nasim tried to cough, but his lungs had filled too far with water. With but a flick of a finger to his lips, she pulled a thin tendril of water from his mouth. It flowed like honey, bright and clear, more and more of it sliding from his lungs and throat until all of it was gone and he was able to cough and sputter and fill his lungs with air once more.