The Flames of Shadam Khoreh

by Bradley Beaulieu

  From outside their cell door, there came the sounds of chains clanking and the gritty slide of boots upon the winding staircase.

  “Sukharam,” Nasim said in a harsh whisper. “What’s wrong?”

  Sukharam turned to him as if he’d forgotten Nasim was there. His face was distant, his eyes wide.

  “Sukharam, quickly.”

  But Sukharam only shook his head. A few moments later, the jingle of keys came, and a click, and then the door was swung wide. Tohrab shuffled through the doorway. His cheeks were sunken, his skin ashen, and he had a faraway look that Nasim hadn’t expected. He didn’t appear to be physically harmed, but he was staring at the wall blankly, not as though he were lost in thought, but as though he had no thoughts at all.

  A man followed Tohrab into the room. Nasim expected a janissary from the kasir, but it was not. It was a man dressed in the red robes of Kohor. He had rings of gold along his ears and in his nose. His beard was long and brown. He was stout, his arms thick and hands gnarled. He looked more like an old oak than a man. Nasim realized he recognized this man. He’d seen him in Kohor when Sariya had first brought him there. Yet here he was in the heart of the Empire with the last remaining Tashavir in tow. “Come,” he said to Sukharam.

  Sukharam looked between the Kohori and Nasim, unsure of himself. It was a look Nasim was surprised to find no longer suited him. Sukharam had been so confident these past few weeks that seeing a bit of the boy he’d found in Trevitze was unnerving.

  “What do you want with him?” Nasim asked.

  The Kohori gazed upon Nasim with a jeweler’s stare. “Mind your tongue, Nasim an Ashan.”

  With that he left with Sukharam, closing the door behind him with a boom.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  Nasim tried to speak with Tohrab—he called his name, asked where he’d been and what he’d seen, asked how he felt—but to none of these questions did the ancient qiram respond. He merely stood where he’d come to a rest and stared at the wall.

  Eastward, Nasim realized. He was staring eastward, toward Ghayavand. He thought about trying to move him to the nearby cot, to allow him to lay down and rest, but for some reason it seemed important that Tohrab be left alone, at least for now, so Nasim gave him peace.

  He waited for Sukharam’s return, but the day wore on without his return. The sounds of the kasir rose up around the tower—the sound of a smithy’s hammer pounding, the clop of hooves and the coming and going of the wives in their tower nearby, even the sound of barter somewhere in the distance—and still Sukharam did not return. Nasim grew worried. He wondered if the Kamarisi’s men had found Sariya. She’d been lost in the storm, shot, if what Nikandr said was true. She might be dead, but that seemed far too convenient. Sariya was alive. Kaleh was alive. The only question was which of them had gained dominance over the other.

  If Sariya hadn’t been killed, and she’d resurfaced, she might very well have come here to the capital, or perhaps other men would find her and bring her here. But if Kaleh had won, where might she have gone? Perhaps she would return to Ghayavand—she seemed to lament it, after all—but what would that island be like now that the wards were tumbling down? Would he even recognize it if he made his way there once more? Even now, Ghayavand would be slipping closer and closer to Adhiya.

  Nasim bunched his fists, stifling a primal scream. There was so little time left to them, and everything was going wrong. He had neither the Atalayina nor a way to reach the island, and even if he did reach it, he had no allies he could use to help close the rift. There was Sukharam, of course, but he had no desire to help Nasim. If it were up to him, Nasim would never touch the Atalayina again.

  This only made him think more of Sukharam’s reaction just before he’d left. What in the name of the fates could have unmanned him so? They’d been speaking of Nasim’s revelations from his dream, of the ritual that had brought about the sundering. Nasim had told him how the fates had looked upon the ritual with smiles upon their faces.

  He could still recall—it felt strange to have any direct knowledge of the fates even if it was through a dream—the feeling of expectancy from them, as if they were pleased indeed at all the Al-Aqim had done and what they were now doing.

  It cannot be, Sukharam had said. Khamal must have been mistaken.

  He was not. I felt it myself, Nasim had replied.

  Your memories are seen through the veil of the dead, Nasim.

  And yet they have never been wrong.

  Those were the words that had given Sukharam pause. They have never been wrong. Why would they have caused him to go rigid with fear? And why would Sukharam have hidden it? He’d been fearful of the conclusion, but what was worse, he’d been afraid to share it with Nasim.

  Late in the day, sounds came from the stairwell, but it was only food: a simple meal of round flatbread, herbed farmer’s cheese and watered wine. As Nasim tore off a piece of the bread and chewed it absently, he wondered where the Atalayina was now. How odd, he thought, that all the pain and suffering the children of Rafsuhan had gone through to make the Atalayina whole. Could the stone have been fused another way? He didn’t know. He doubted it. Strange are the ways of the fates.

  As Nasim was drinking the last of the sour wine, he heard a moaning. He didn’t realize at first that it was coming from Tohrab.

  He set aside his food and moved to stand beside Tohrab. He was staring eastward, as he had been for hours, but his eyes looked sad, as if he were viewing not the stone, nor this tower, nor the horizon beyond, but the end of days.

  “Tohrab,” Nasim called.

  The moaning quieted for a moment, and then died away, but only reluctantly, as if Tohrab were losing hope.

  “Tohrab, are you well?”

  Finally Tohrab tore his eyes away from the wall. They fixed on Nasim, reddened and moist with gathering tears. “I am torn in two, Nasim an Ashan.”

  “What? What is it?”

  “The wards,” was all he managed to say.

  Nasim shook his head and put his hand on Tohrab’s shoulder. He was forced to reach up with both hands, as the chain between his wrists was short. “They’re gone, Tohrab. Aren’t they?”

  The way Tohrab was staring at him—as if he dearly wished Nasim could save him, knowing he could not—made Nasim realize just how much this was costing him. How much every minute was costing him, and had been since the devastation in Shadam Khoreh. Slowly, Tohrab shook his head.

  “But the storm…”

  Tohrab’s jaw clenched. His lower lip quivered. “The outer wards failed. That was what you saw. But that was only half of our design. There was a larger purpose to setting those wards in the first place.”

  Nasim thought of Inan, the woman Khamal had murdered near the celestia of Alayazhar after she’d told him that he’d been trapped, that the Tashavir had set the wards against him and the other Al-Aqim. This man had been Inan’s husband. He’d been Yadhan’s father, the very first of the akhoz. And now here he was, hundreds of years later, speaking to the very one in whom Khamal had been reborn.

  “You protected against the rifts as well.”

  “The outer wards did some of this, but there were more placed on Sihyaan, where the sundering began. Those still hold, Nasim. Through me, they hold, but it is no easy thing. And with these”—he lifted the chains around his wrists—“they do not affect me the same way they do you. Always we have fed the wards. Our souls, our minds. But the chains are dulling. That final ward is weakening even faster. And soon it will be gone.”

  “We’ll find a way out, Tohrab. We’ll speak to the Kamarisi and make him see reason.”

  Tohrab coughed. It was long and deep, the cough of those afflicted with the wasting. “Another day in iron and it will be too late.”

  “We will find a way to free ourselves.”

  “Even free of these chains, we have little time.”

  “I cannot—”

  “Listen, Nasim. Listen to me.”

  Nasim heard the gravity
in his voice and nodded.

  “There are places of power in the world. You know this. It is from these that the ley lines flow. The islands are rife with such things, Ghayavand especially. It was why that island in particular was chosen by the Al-Aqim for the ritual. But there are other places here on the continent that hold power. Deep and ancient power. These places are connected in ways that are difficult to understand for some, but there are others who can feel them, who can manipulate them. Alekeşir sits on just such a place. Here, where two plains meet, where the mighty Vünkal crosses, is a nexus. And if we can find our way to it—”

  “We can make our way to Ghayavand.” Nasim knew it was so even as he said it. He’d seen it done before. He’d felt it. Kaleh had taken him by this method before, from Ghayavand to Rafsuhan. She’d done so again—or Sariya had done so—as they’d traveled to the Gaji in search of the secrets of Shadam Khoreh. And now Tohrab would do the same for them, if only they could escape the Kamarisi’s tower.

  “Will you need much time?”

  “I?” Tohrab shook his head. “Not I, Nasim. We would not make it, as weak as I am. It must be you.”

  Nasim had often felt sensitive about what Khamal had done. In many ways he didn’t want to know Khamal’s thoughts, because in the years and decades after the sundering they had turned foul indeed, and yet this knowledge—which Khamal had surely known—felt like a thing that had been consciously hidden from him. It felt foolish to think so, but he felt insulted. Still, he was ready for this challenge, and he nodded to Tohrab. “But we cannot go without the others.”

  “Neh. You cannot risk so many. You can bring one other, but that is all.”

  “Only one?”

  “One other. Three will carry enough risk as it is.”

  Nasim felt himself go cold. Who, then? Who would he bring? Sukharam was the obvious choice. He was necessary for the ritual they would perform together on the very same spot that Khamal and Muqallad and Sariya had three hundred years before.

  He didn’t want to leave Nikandr. There was still much to say to him that he’d never had the chance to. Nor, strangely enough, did he wish to leave Soroush behind. But leave them behind he would.

  Ashan, however, was a different story. Ashan was wise. He brought calm to any situation, and those qualities would be treasured, especially as Nasim tried to convince Sukharam to join him on the path to Sihyaan.

  “Two others,” Nasim said at last. “We will take Sukharam and Ashan.”

  “That is unwise.”

  “Unwise or not, we will do it. I will not leave them behind.”

  “You will risk—”

  “I will not leave them behind! Now tell me. Where can we do this? Where is the center of power?”

  Tohrab swallowed. “There, Nasim, lies another problem.”

  “Why?”

  “We may travel to Ghayavand, but we will leave in our wake a rift.”

  “A rift.”

  “One will form as we cross.”

  Nasim shook his head. “This makes no sense. Kaleh traveled like this many times with Muqallad.”

  Tohrab’s ancient skin pulled back into a grim smile. The mere sight of it made Nasim shiver. “And where did Kaleh take him?” Tohrab asked.

  “To…” Nasim stopped. The chill running through him deepened until he was shaking from it. “They went to Rafsuhan.” He stood straighter. “There was no rift over Rafsuhan before they went there, was there?”

  “There was not.”

  “But that took weeks. Months. This will all be over soon—we both know this. What will a few weeks matter if we can close the rifts on Ghayavand once and for all?”

  Tohrab nodded. “You may be right. It may all be done soon. But the world stands at the brink. The rifts no longer form slowly. They no longer close as easily. Adhiya nearly touches Erahm where the rifts form, and when this one does, it will be like none other, save perhaps Ghayavand itself. Hezhan will cross. Men and women and children will die of the wasting in mere moments.”

  “Then we must find another way.”

  Tohrab’s eyes became sad. His frown deepened, though whether this was in disapproval of Nasim or the choices left to them, Nasim wasn’t sure. “Perhaps there is another. Perhaps. But Sariya, in Kaleh’s form, approaches Ghayavand even now. She has the Atalayina, Nasim an Ashan. She has what she’s been searching for over these past many months. She has what she’s murdered for. And now she’s ready to return to the place where the Al-Aqim nearly ruined the world. Would you risk that? Would you risk the fate of Erahm and Adhiya for those who live in this one place?”

  Nasim suddenly felt more than this simple room bearing down on him. He felt more than the tower, or the kasir. He felt the weight of thousands, tens of thousands, who would be affected. The babes in the arms of mothers, the infirm in their beds, the hale in their fields of wheat, those who killed for coin. Vintners and chandlers. Whores and nurses. Beggars and money men. All of them would be affected. All of them would suffer. Even if he managed to do what he hoped atop Sihyaan, what would be left of Alekeşir?

  “Why did you even tell me this?” Nasim asked.

  “Because you should know.”

  Nasim moved to the window and opened it, letting the chill air in. He welcomed it, for his face was flush. Looking out through the iron bars, he could see the rolling landscape of Alekeşir beyond the walls of the kasir. “The fates are cruel.”

  Nasim heard a sad, gravelly chuckle coming from behind him. “Cruel indeed.”

  Nasim turned back to Tohrab. “I won’t do it.”

  Seconds passed in silence as the wind whistled through the trees outside. “Do you think that wise?”

  “I don’t care if it’s wise. I won’t allow so many to die. We’ll find another way.”

  Tohrab nodded. “So be it, but I tell you this”—Tohrab coughed, and it took him long moments to recover—“Sukharam doesn’t agree with you. We spoke while you were being questioned by the men of the tower. He wishes to go.”

  “Even knowing what will happen?”

  “He considers the price worth it.”

  Nasim took a deep breath. “I’ll speak with him.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  Atiana stared up into the darkness, her clothes piled next to her naked form. Her arms lay at her sides, her palms pressed flat against the stone. She’d been like this for hours, ever since finishing the meager meal of water and dried, salted meat the Kohori had lowered to her in a bucket.

  She listened carefully to the sounds around her. At first she’d heard little—the whine of the wind above, the scrape of the guardsmen’s boots, the occasional buzz of a desert scarab. She had not realized it before leaving with Ushai, but she now knew how different the desert felt. In the years leading up to the destruction of the Spar on Galahesh, she’d been able to sense the aether even while awake. At first it had felt like a mere yearning for the dark, but she’d come to realize that those times when she felt it strongest were the times when the aether was near. It was with her in Galostina, when she took to the long stairwell down to the drowning chamber, but she felt it at other times, too, and she’d begun to coax the feelings, hoping to touch the aether as Nikandr’s mother, Saphia, was able to do.

  She’d felt similar things few enough times since leaving Vostroma on their journey to the Gaji, and she’d been numb to it ever since approaching the mountains around the valley of Kohor, but in these last few days, the feelings had woken once more. She knew something had happened out there in the desert, she just didn’t know what, nor the role Nikandr and Ashan and the others might have played in it.

  It was this more than anything—her desire to know what had become of Nikandr—that spurred her to reach out for the aether now. And yet, although the aether was close, she couldn’t quite touch it. It was as if she stood upon a threshold, unable to cross without the aid of drowning basins or the smoke from her own burning blood.

  But then came movement, a shift of amber light. It came from
her left. She turned her head—a strange feeling, as in the aether, she merely willed movement and it was so. Here she was still bound by her body, by her physical form.

  She came to her knees and pressed her hands against the stone wall. Like coaxing herself back into a pleasant dream upon waking, she kept her breathing shallow and her eyes relaxed. She stared into the earth, well beyond the surface where her fingertips touched. She looked to the place where she’d seen the light.

  And it came again. A burst of amber, like the arc of coruscating lightning running through a billowing bank of clouds.

  For long breaths, it did not come again.

  Still she breathed. Still she watched.

  And then it came again, drifting further away now.

  It was a vanahezhan, she knew, moving through the very bed of the desert. She could feel it in her fingertips as it slipped away, further and further, the yellow swath of light fading progressively more.

  And then it was gone altogether.

  This place had changed, she realized. It had changed greatly.

  Nischka, what happened? she asked of the dark stone wall. What have you done?

  She turned at the sound of scraping.

  It had come from above. Something had moved, had shifted on the dry earth. And then she heard a groan followed by the distinctive sound of a body falling to the earth. It was no light sound, as of someone tripping. This was the full, solid thump that came when something of heft fell against the earth in one leaden motion.

  Soon the door above her was pulled back and the ladder was lowered down. After slipping her clothes back on, she took the ladder warily up and into the dark desert night. The night was cold, and the breeze was brisk, but she felt it not at all. She was merely glad to be free of her imprisonment.

  Nearby was the fallen form of one of the Kohori guardsmen in his dark robes. He lay there, unmoving, facedown in the dirt. Several paces away stood the woman. The wodjan, Aelwen. Even in the dim moonlight Atiana could tell her hair was unkempt and matted. She wore the same dress of buckskin tied with bits of bone that clacked when she moved.