The Flames of Shadam Khoreh

by Bradley Beaulieu

  He cannot allow it, and yet he is powerless to stop it.

  He feels a hand against his. Sariya. Or Muqallad. He can’t tell which. And then another joins in. At last they understand what is happening, enough to help him stop it.

  Yet even as they do, they feel the faint and final notes of the fates. They slip to their final resting place, wherever that may be, and are lost to the world.

  This is when the blinding white stone between them shatters.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  Atiana was sitting on the deck of the ship of stone with her back to the gunwales when one of the red-robed Kohori on deck stood and began pointing over the bow. “Land!” he called.

  Atiana pulled herself up, shading her eyes against the bright sunlight as she looked to where the man was pointing. The day was bright, the sky cloudless, and in the distance was the top of an emerald island.

  Ghayavand.

  It was hard to believe. They’d been on the sea for nearly three weeks, one long day melding into the next, the monotony of the sea making the days seem achingly long. But here they were at last.

  It’s beautiful, Atiana thought, this place that had been the source of such pain.

  Without warning, the white arms of the goedrun released the ship and slipped down into the deep blue sea. The sudden absence of the surging motion felt strange after having felt it every waking moment for the past ten days. The goedrun released the other ships as well, and soon they were all floating and drifting with the waves.

  The qiram near the prow, the one who had released the goedrun from their ship, remained where she was with her arms spread wide. Habram, who was standing amidships, went to her. He waited patiently for her to drop her arms, to turn and speak with him. When they were done, he spoke orders in Kalhani. Atiana could only pick out a few words. Many and qiram and a word that sounded like the Mahndi word for rift.

  The men and women on the ship began making preparations, many going belowdecks, others packing away food and utensils and other things that had been used during their sea journey. They were taken the rest of the way by a strong wind summoned by the Kohori. As they approached the rocky shore of Ghayavand and passed beyond a lush green promontory, Atiana saw far to the east a line of objects floating in the sky. They were clearly anchored—she could see the lines that moored them in place—but they were nothing like typical windships. They were bulbous, with the heavier end oriented toward the sea and the tapered end pointing up toward the blue sky. They reminded her of conch shells, except she could tell that they were made of some fibrous material like wood or vines. There were at least two dozen, and perhaps more beyond the curve of the island.

  “What are those?” Atiana asked Habram, pointing toward the ships, if they could be called such.

  Habram turned to her with a serious look, but he did not reply. Atiana looked at them again, floating on the wind at the end of their tethers. A shiver ran down her frame. She liked the look of those ships not at all.

  As they approached the island, Atiana felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise and stand on end. Her skin prickled along her arms. Even without the benefit of the aether, she could feel the hezhan here. They crouched at the edge of her perception, hungering for a taste of Erahm.

  They beached a short while later. Many Kohori worked to unlade the ships, but others traveled inland, including Habram and Ushai and Kaleh, who was borne on a stretcher by two Kohori men in red robes.

  Atiana was allowed to remain beneath the trees. No guards were set to watch her, but she knew that there would be some deeper in the forest watching her closely. Any attempt to flee and they would soon have her back. Atiana looked for Aelwen among those who were unlading the ships of stone but didn’t find her.

  An hour later, Habram returned and asked that Atiana accompany him. They traveled inland for nearly a league. The Atalayina was in a pouch at Habram’s belt. Atiana could not see it, but she could feel it, especially in this place. The Atalayina had arrived at the very site where the world had nearly been destroyed three hundred years ago, and now it felt wild, a creature alive, not some dormant remnant from the forging of the world.

  They came to a clearing where many tents already stood. These were military tents, set in three long rows with one larger tent set apart from the others. From the tall central pole of the large tent flew the pennant of Yrstanla, an ivory drakhen rearing on a crimson field.

  As they approached that tent, several guardsmen moved forward to meet them. They wore fitted leather armor. These were the Kiliç Şaik. Which could only mean that the Kamarisi was here. No sooner had the thought blossomed than Bahett ül Kirdhash stepped out of the tent. He was dressed in a fine silk kaftan with high boots of soft leather and a turban of gold with a large ruby brooch pinned to the center. He seemed exactly like the Bahett she remembered until she realized his right arm ended in a stump. It was bandaged heavily in silk the color of sand, as if Bahett couldn’t bear his wounds to be wrapped in poorer cloth.

  “Here you are at last,” Bahett said in Yrstanlan as he came to a stop.

  “What are you doing here?” was all Atiana could think to ask.

  Bahett smiled, showing his perfect teeth. “Please,” he said, bowing and motioning with his good left hand. “Let us speak in peace.”

  Habram was led away, while Bahett himself brought Atiana inside his tent. Rich carpets lay over the ground, and pillows were strewn over much of the center.

  “Sit,” Bahett said sharply.

  Atiana would normally have refused to obey such a presumptive command, but there was something about Bahett, a desperation in his gaze she couldn’t remember him ever having before. He had always been one to hide his true intent. If he had become so strained that he would allow his composure to break, she would not test him, not until she knew more. She sat in the pillows as Bahett went to an ornate chest near a simple table and chair. He retrieved from the chest a small wooden box, no larger than a closed fist, and then he came and sat a respectful distance away from her.

  He set the box between them on a pillow of golden thread, but otherwise drew no further attention to it. He didn’t have to, though. Atiana could feel something inside. The aether here was terribly close—close enough to touch—but what could affect the aether in such a way that she could feel it without taking the dark? She might have said the Atalayina, but this felt different. It felt more immediate, more dangerous, like the exhilaration of seeing an old enemy.

  “You’ve come a long way,” Bahett said simply.

  “As have you.” Atiana couldn’t help but glance down at the stump where his right wrist used to be.

  It did not go unnoticed. He glanced down as well and the space between his eyebrows pinched, as if he were reliving the event. She nearly asked him what had happened, but she thought better of it, and a moment later the look was gone and he was once again staring into her eyes with a composed, almost gentle, look.

  “The trip through the Gaji was risky,” he said. “I might have called it foolish, but here you are, and Sariya has returned to me as well.”

  “You sent those men to find us.”

  “I did.”

  “And yet you are allied with the Kohori.”

  “Now, evet, but not then. They have come to see, as I did long ago, that Sariya will bring us peace.”

  Atiana couldn’t help but laugh. She thought she would regret it, but Bahett merely shook his head and nodded to the box.

  “Open it,” he said.

  She took it and slid the top off of it. A golden light was revealed within. It glimmered brightly, scintillated as she turned the box this way and that. It was like the siraj stones of the Aramahn, but it was of a color and quality she’d never seen. It was small, no larger than a chickpea. And, she realized, it did not touch the blood-red cloth that lined the box; it floated at the center.

  Bahett reached in and took it. He gave it a spin between them, and there it remained, floating in the very place Bahett had released it i
nto the air.

  Atiana couldn’t help but be reminded of her time in Sariya’s tower in Baressa. She’d done much the same with the piece of the Atalayina that Atiana had brought to her. The feelings of peril she’d experienced before opening the box intensified. It felt not unlike those moments in the aether when she sensed another presence. She knew someone was near without yet knowing who.

  “This is Sariya’s,” Atiana said with certainty.

  Bahett waggled his head, the ruby brooch glittering beneath the golden light. “Much more than that, Atiana. For all intents and purposes, this is Sariya.”

  Atiana could hardly tear her eyes away from the spinning stone. “She nearly died on Galahesh, did you know? You and the other Matri had nearly smothered her. That, plus the unhealed wound from Ushai’s blade, which had nearly killed her once already. But she was resourceful. She still had her tower, the spire she’d had Hakan build for her in the forest, and she had placed some of herself in this stone. Sariya called to me when the bridge was destroyed. She guided me to her stone, even as she took Kaleh’s form and brought Nasim to the Gaji. This,” Bahett said, motioning toward the stone, “is her grounding here in this place. Her anchor to the material world. Without it, she would surely slip to the other side and be lost to us.”

  “You care that she will be lost to us?”

  “I do, Atiana Radieva. I do. There is a problem here among the islands. The rifts will not stop, and Sariya is the last one alive who can tame them.”

  “She will not tame them.”

  Bahett breathed in deeply as if he were trying to keep his composure. “She will, and I’ve brought you here to convince you of it.”

  “I won’t be, Bahett. She hasn’t changed her mind. She still seeks indaraqiram.”

  “She does not, and perhaps I’ve misspoke. It is not I who will convince you, but Sariya herself.”

  “She is trapped.”

  “Just so, but you can reach her in the aether. You can find her as you have before. Go. Speak to her, and you will know whether she is telling the truth.”

  Atiana paused, debating on whether or not to say more, but this was not the time to mince words. “And there is you.”

  “You think you cannot trust me. But know this. Sariya and I have come to an understanding. I have agreed to help her, and she has agreed to leave my mind my own.”

  “She would not keep such a promise. Not for long, in any case.”

  “True.” He reached forward and caught the spinning stone. “But through this, I can feel her intent. Were she to break our compact, I would crush it, and Sariya would be drawn to the other side as quickly as a fallen star.” Bahett’s expression turned to one of pleading. It was an act, but she could see the fear in his eyes as well. “Take the dark, Atiana. Look into Sariya’s soul, and you will find that I speak the truth.”

  “She took me before, Bahett. You know this. I thought I knew her mind—I was sure of it—but I did not. She fooled me, well and truly.”

  “But then you didn’t know she was spying upon you, learning the ways of your mind and the Matri. You know her well now, and you won’t be easily tricked.”

  That was true enough, and still, part of her was screaming for her to deny Bahett. This was something Sariya desperately wanted. Or at the very least that Bahett wanted. And yet what could she do otherwise? She did not wish to leave Sariya to her own devices. She wanted to weigh the truth in her words. But how could she trust her own judgment in the presence of Sariya?

  “I will contact Ishkyna and Mileva,” Atiana said at last. “They will not be fooled even if I am.”

  Bahett nodded and placed the glowing stone back into the wooden case. It was an awkward thing, as Bahett had only one hand, but she made no move to help him. As he slid the lid closed, he smiled and said, “Very well.”

  Bahett called for Habram. A short while later he came with Ushai and led her back into the nearby forest. They walked through the sparse rake pine before coming to a clearing, in the center of which was a conical hillock with an obelisk standing at the peak. The obelisk looked to be made of obsidian, though it was mottled grey, not the deep black of the spires.

  Near the base of the hillock, lying on a bed of brown pine needles, was Kaleh. After motioning to her, Habram and Ushai continued up to the top to inspect the obelisk. Atiana knelt near Kaleh. She brushed the hair from her eyes and stared at the young woman’s face, realizing that she looked older than she had mere days ago. By the ancients, the things this girl had seen. The things she was going through even now. Atiana knew the battle she was waging within her mind. The girl was strong indeed to hold Sariya off for so long. Then again, Sariya had been dominant for nearly two years. It would wear on her to fight for so long, while Kaleh could wait, bide her time. She had probably found weaknesses in Sariya during that time, weaknesses she was exploiting even now.

  It was telling that Kaleh had not gained dominance, though. The two of them were at a stalemate, and now it would be up to Atiana to decide their fate.

  After a time, Habram and Ushai returned. Ushai had a look of grave concern on her face as she looked on Bahett, and when she stared into Atiana’s eyes, her look grew even more dire. But then she pulled herself taller, as if she’d come to some serious decision about her own fate, and walked into the woods while Habram came close and squatted near Kaleh’s side.

  “What is this place?” Atiana asked, jutting her chin toward the hillock.

  “It is one of the places where the Al-Aqim and the Tashavir tried to stem the tide of the growing rifts after the sundering. There are dozens like them across the island, near the shore.”

  “They failed.”

  “True, but that was merely one attempt of many, before they stumbled on the children, the akhoz.”

  “I thought they’d all died.”

  “The akhoz?” Habram shrugged. “Who knows. In Alayazhar there may be one or two who still wander the forgotten streets.”

  Ushai returned with a censer and wood. Habram took these from her and set them near Atiana. He began to draw from a suurahezhan to light the wood aflame, but Atiana waved him away.

  “Neh,” she said. He looked at her, confused and cross, but she continued, “This place… It… I will not use my blood. Not yet.”

  He stood and stared down at her, then looked around the clearing and regarded Atiana anew, as if he’d just now realized that he’d woefully underestimated her.

  “Very well,” he said carefully.

  “The Atalayina,” Atiana said.

  A Kohori man had just come to the clearing carrying a hinged wooden box. Atiana had to keep herself from staring at him.

  It was the man Aelwen had killed. Or, rather, it was Aelwen herself in the Kohori’s form.

  It was strange seeing her—him—in this place, as if what had happened in the desert had merely been a dream. In fact, she was not even sure it had happened until Aelwen looked over at her with grim purpose. She said nothing, but her face had an expression of desperation on it, as if she were no longer sure of the path she was following.

  Habram waved him over and motioned to the ground near Atiana. Aelwen set the box down and opened the lid, revealing the blue stone, the Atalayina with its striations of gold and copper and silver. The way it twisted the sunlight was hypnotic. It felt eager for Atiana to begin.

  Soon enough, Atiana thought.

  She set the box between her and Kaleh. She was careful not to touch the stone itself, but the smooth edges of the wooden box.

  When she closed her eyes, the frame of mind she sought came easily. She’d done so a thousand times before in the drowning chamber, and more recently with the rising smoke from her own burning blood. She’d done it on Oshtoyets as well when she’d caught a musket shot in the chest, and again on Galahesh when Sariya had caught her in her grasp. Yet those times outside the drowning chamber had always seemed like flukes, things she could never have repeated. Now she knew they were all facets of the same jewel. All of them—
the drowning basin, the smoke, hovering near death—they had all borne her toward the aether until she’d been close enough to touch it. Here, the aether was so close no such ritual was needed. She need merely strip the world away until she could sense the veil that separated Erahm from the dark of the aether.

  The Atalayina, strangely enough, was no settling force. It still felt eager—too eager—and that was a disturbing notion, indeed, in this place of all places.

  But she was able to set these thoughts aside.

  And soon… Soon…

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  Atiana floats before Kaleh. She sees her in the dark, a diaphanous white against the depthless blue of the aether. She sees Habram and Ushai and Aelwen who ate the heart of a Kohori man. She feels the strange intent of the Atalayina. But more than anything, she feels the chaos of the rifts. They are so near they lash at her. And yet she does not fear. Her time on Galahesh taught her well. The wild currents of the aether running through the straits two years before were every bit as strong as the aether that swirls over Ghayavand now.

  She draws away from Kaleh, allows herself to feel more of the island, and through this she is able to sense its center. There is another place like this one, a hillock with an obelisk. It stands on the shoulders of Sihyaan, the tall mountain peak near the center of the island. It was there that the sundering occurred three centuries before, when the world was nearly undone.

  It may still be undone, Atiana thinks.

  Slowly, she expands her awareness, widens her mind until it encompasses the island itself. She can feel the rifts deeply now, and they make it difficult, even painful, for Atiana to cast her mind beyond.

  Mileva, she calls. Ishkyna.

  She hears nothing, so she presses harder, casts her mind farther. She moves beyond the Sea of Tabriz toward Vostroma, toward Yrstanla as well, until she is spread as wide and as thin as she has ever been. She feels the dark depths of the sea, the wide plains of the Motherland, the very currents of wind, and she wonders: is this how Ishkyna feels every moment?