The Straits of Galahesh loa-2

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  “At times you will feel confused and lost, but cast these doubts aside.”

  The stone touches his forehead.

  “You are bringing the world to its proper end.”

  The world rips.

  And Wahad screams.

  A searing brand touches his soul and fills him. Unbidden, his hands bunch into fists. His arms tighten until they shake. His body spasms in the throes of pain that wash over him and through him.

  It is a thing more beautiful than he has ever beheld, has ever experienced.

  He realizes that this is what it must be like. This is what vashaqiram feels like for those who achieve it. So few have done so, and yet Muqallad, fates bless him, is bringing this to them all.

  He is a man to be honored.

  A man to be cherished.

  He is the one who will bring the world to its final resting place, as the fates have decreed.

  Soon the pain begins to fade, begins to ebb, begins to shed from his soul like water. All too soon it is gone, and he begins to cry.

  He wishes for more. Already he aches for it.

  Muqallad touches his shoulder, and only then does he realize he is hunched over, hands on his knees, supporting himself as his lungs heave and tears shed from his eyes.

  “Stand, Wahad.”

  For long moments he cannot. The beauty. Gone. Gone…

  “ Stand.”

  He does, and he stares into Muqallad’s strong face and knowing eyes.

  “Do not fear,” he says. “The end is near. Return to the village now. Go about your life. You will feel drawn here, but do not come again. Not until it is time.”

  Wahad nods and turns to leave. He makes it to the edge of the clearing.

  “Wahad?” Muqallad calls.

  He turns.

  “Speak of this to no one.”

  He leaves, knowing that this final command will be the most difficult to obey-not withholding the knowledge from those who do not know, but not speaking of it to those who do.

  He would share this. He would ask them of their experience and share with them his own. He would ask them if they, too, hunger for more.

  In the end, as he walks away from the clearing, he resolves himself to his fate, and as the gnawing feeling in the pit of his stomach grows, he relishes it, for it is a reminder of what he has seen.

  And what is yet to come.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  N ikandr woke, though it was long moments before the notion of who he was and where he was had any meaning. These dreams were very much like the ones he’d had of Khamal through Nasim, but they felt much more real, much more present, perhaps because they were Wahad’s own memories.

  He knew already that he had failed to heal Wahad. Wahad, unlike so many of those with the wasting, did not want to be saved, and without that help there was nothing he could do.

  At Wahad’s feet, Jahalan stirred. The others did as well, but Nikandr waited until Jahalan met his eyes. “Did you see?”

  Jahalan nodded. He looked to the others, who did not answer, but they had shocked looks on their faces. Perhaps they had worked out Wahad’s past already, and Muqallad’s involvement in it, but to see it for themselves was something else entirely.

  At the entrance to the cavern, there was a commotion. A group of a dozen men, led by Rahid, strode in amongst the Maharraht children and those tending them. Bersuq was not with them, which was reason enough to give Nikandr pause, but then he realized who the man walking next to Rahid would be. This was Thabash Kaspar al Meliyah. Nikandr knew him by reputation only, but had never seen him until Wahad’s dream, and now he had returned to Rafsuhan. He was at least ten years Nikandr’s senior, but he was built like a bull. Despite his physical appearance, it was his eyes that stood out the most. They were nearly as dark as his clothes, which along with his reddish beard gave him the appearance of an animal of the night with wide, searching eyes that could dig into one’s soul if he wasn’t careful.

  Nikandr found his fingers itching to hold a sword, or better yet a pistol.

  As Rahid and the others came near, he stood, as did the four other qiram with him. Jahalan raised his hands, but it was Zanhalah, the old woman who had shared with him the name of her son, that stepped in Rahid’s path.

  “He has come to heal.”

  Rahid stopped only for a moment. In a blink he raised his hand and struck Zanhalah across the cheek so hard that she spun and collapsed to the ground. Jahalan moved to help her, but Rahid grabbed him and shoved him away. Jahalan stumbled on the sandy shore and fell as Rahid rounded on Zanhalah.

  “They are not sick. They are chosen.”

  “They are tainted,” Zanhalah said, “touched by a man who failed to destroy one island, and so has come to try again.”

  Rahid pulled the khanjar from his belt and made to move toward Zanhalah, but it was Thabash that grabbed his hand and held him.

  “Now is not the time for judgment,” Thabash said. “Nor is it the time for punishment.”

  “I have suffered this”-he waved his hand about the cavern as if to implicate the whole of Ashdi en Ghat-“long enough.”

  “Their time will come, but not here, and not now. The children are nearly ready.”

  Rahid stared at Thabash’s hand and ripped his arm away. Then he sheathed his knife and stalked back toward the stairs. Three of the Maharraht that had accompanied him followed.

  Thabash stepped forward and faced Nikandr. He was shorter than Nikandr, but more heavily built.

  “You are the son of Duke Khalakovo?” Thabash asked.

  “I am.”

  “And you have come to heal these children.”

  “In a way.”

  “What way?”

  “I came to learn more of the rifts. These children were here, suffering, and I thought it my duty to help them if I could.”

  “Your duty…”

  Nikandr said nothing, which only seemed to anger Thabash.

  “Your father sent you, then?”

  “He did not.”

  “Of course,” he said, pacing in front of Nikandr. “Your father is still an honored guest in Galostina. Surely, then, your mother sent you.”

  “She did not.”

  “Is that so? Is she still hidden away in the bowels of Iramanshah?”

  Again Nikandr did not speak. He did not like how very much Thabash knew, but he wasn’t surprised. The Maharraht had spies everywhere, and many of those in Iramanshah knew of his mother’s presence.

  “It’s interesting how often we hear that we lost that day on Duzol, that you stopped Soroush from completing his goal, but what you fail to understand is that there is never a single goal in what we do, and that the fates watch over us, no matter how low the Landed might bring us.”

  “To say that we bring you low are the words of a fool,” Nikandr replied. “You bring yourselves low.”

  Thabash stopped his pacing. “Do you think yourself above us because you’ve come, as you say, to heal?”

  “I merely wish to save those that can be saved.”

  “And if they don’t wish to be saved? Were you to heal any one of these children, they would spit upon you for the curse you’ve laid at their feet. They would tell you that they went willingly, and that to bring them back would be an indelible stain upon their soul.”

  Nikandr could only think of Wahad, how proud he was of Muqallad’s faith in him. “They were lied to.”

  Nikandr could tell that these words made Thabash bristle, but he could not simply attack. There was a battle being waged here in Ashdi en Ghat for the minds of everyone involved. Few knew the truth, but many suspected Thabash and even Muqallad were leading them astray.

  “They were not lied to. They were freed. Freed to make their own choice. Freed to bring this world to a higher place and a higher plane.”

  “They were given no choice. What could they choose but to please Muqallad? He is no savior, Thabash. He spells our doom, not just the Landed, but all of us.”

  Tha
bash waited for those words to settle over those nearby, waited for the echoes to die. “Not our doom, son of Iaros. Our salvation.” He motioned to the men behind him, at which point they strode forward and took Nikandr and Jahalan by the arms. “And you will have a chance to see it firsthand. At the equinox, these children will allow Muqallad to take another step forward, and Muqallad has asked that you be there to see it so that when you die, you will know the fate of this earth. You will know the fate of the world beyond.”

  “He doesn’t care for the Landed.”

  “ Neh, he does not, but of you he cares. You, the chosen of Khamal.”

  “Khamal did not choose me.”

  Thabash’s eyes opened wide. “You’re blinded if you believe it was luck.”

  “Blind or not, Khamal is nothing to me.”

  “Nothing?” Thabash asked. “The two of you are bound so tightly in this life that there can be little doubt you were bound in another.” He waved his hand, and the men hauled Nikandr by the arms.

  Looking back, Nikandr saw Thabash standing over Wahad. Wahad could not see him anymore-most likely he would never open his eyes again-but somehow he knew Thabash was there, for he was shaking his head back and forth. When he began to pound his hands against the stone, Nikandr could watch no more, and soon he had lost sight of the cavern altogether.

  Before he was placed in a cell, Nikandr’s soulstone was taken from him. When the soldiers left, they took the light and locked the heavy wooden door behind them. The light from their siraj bobbed as they left, growing dimmer and dimmer, until all was darkness.

  He lay on the pallet he’d been given, wondering where they’d taken Jahalan. It was likely they’d brought him to another cell somewhere else in the village, but it was just as likely that they’d simply asked him to leave, or allowed him to stay as long as he agreed to interfere no longer.

  It was a symptom of their grief that they dealt with the Landed ruthlessly, and yet treated the Aramahn with respect, even reverence. The Maharraht claimed they were doing this for their brothers and sisters who could not find it in themselves to take the same path they did. They didn’t hold it against the Aramahn for not taking up arms-the Aramahn, after all, were the ones they were trying to protect. It was not in the Maharraht to harm them as long as they didn’t stand in their way.

  Whether Jahalan remained or not, it didn’t change the fact that something momentous was about to happen. It was clear that Muqallad had been working for months, perhaps years, toward this very thing. The girl, Kaleh. The beating hearts in the wilderness. The fire in the clearing. And now the children who were slowly but surely being consumed.

  He couldn’t help but think that if he could have healed one of the akhoz-just one-he could have swayed opinions, enough to overpower the men from the south, who, though smaller in number, seemed to be exerting undue influence over their brethren from the north.

  And yet Wahad had been so adamant in his beliefs. He had believed everything Kaleh and Muqallad had fed him, and this was a thing that would build upon itself. When a select few children believed that Muqallad was their savior, more would believe, and that in turn would make more follow, until all that remained were silent skeptics.

  If only he could show Wahad what he had seen.

  But he could not. He was too late to save them, and now he was powerless to stop Muqallad.

  When morning came, the men who came for Nikandr-seven of them-all wore the black robes of the Hratha. They put manacles around his wrists and hobbled his legs with rope. They did not allow him his cherkesska, but instead forced him to wear only his pants and shirt and boots. They pushed him from the village and walked him southward. There were others far ahead on the road that did not wear the dark robes of the south. Surely this was something momentous. The plans Muqallad had been making were coming to fruition.

  Nikandr watched for someone, anyone, he might be able to speak to. He watched the road behind, hoping a parent of one of the children would catch up with them-until the Hratha nearest him thought ill of it and struck him on the back of the head with the hilt of his dagger.

  Nikandr cringed, expecting another blow, but the man only held the gleaming blade close to Nikandr’s face and said, “Look again, and I use the other end.”

  Nikandr was careful to make sure the man was busy with something else before stealing a glance behind, but he never saw anyone. He assumed they would be the last to reach Siafyan.

  They came to a rest only once. With his stone taken, he was unable to ignore the cold so easily. He shivered as three of the men broke away and began speaking in low tones. They had been in Ashdi en Ghat since Nikandr had arrived. Surely they were either loyal to Rahid, or at the very least not favored by Thabash. That they were speaking alone gave him no comfort at all.

  They did not rest long, and soon they were into the defile and heading through the woods toward the tall trees of Siafyan. When they neared the village, Nikandr could feel a distinct demarcation. It was a subtle thing-no more than a slight pressing within his chest, a souring of the tongue-but he knew immediately what it was. It was the ring of hearts around the clearing. They felt stronger and fouler than before.

  As they continued, the feeling grew, until Nikandr became nauseous from it. He stole glances at the men around him. They did not seem to show it on their faces, and he wondered whether it was only he that could feel it.

  As they moved through the village, Nikandr felt watched. He looked up to the walkways, to the windows worked into the trees, but he found nothing and no one. Still, his skin crawled, until finally they moved beyond and into the trees once more.

  When they came to the clearing, however, his heart stopped.

  Sitting within the ashes and bones of the fire were dozens of tall wooden posts spaced in three concentric rings. Chained to these were the children. Many towns of the Grand Duchy did such thing to murderers and rapists. The convicted men were strung high for all to see, to spit upon as they froze to death, but what had these children done to deserve such punishment? Nothing more than being of a certain age and having the misfortune of being born Maharraht.

  Strangely, the children were all facing inward, toward the center. Their faces had transformed in the past day. Their eyes were now completely closed over. Many of them still had their hair, but from the patches of skin Nikandr could see along their scalps it was clearly falling out in tufts.

  They were no longer moaning, either. They hung, their arms at painfully awkward angles, without uttering a sound. The silence was eerie. It made his skin crawl. Worse than the silence, though, was the distinct impression that the children knew the end was near.

  And that they welcomed it with open arms.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  A tiana waits in the dark, willing Ishkyna to hurry. Her awareness is drawn outward until it encompass the Shattering, where her body-along with Ishkyna and Ushai-lies in an ancient and abandoned stone pool. Other than the streltsi who guard the building, there are very few Baressans brave enough to live in the Shattering, but even they stay along the edges, afraid to step too far into the cursed lands.

  Atiana’s awareness expands even further, until she’s pulled toward the straits. It is difficult to remain near the Shattering, but it is important that she do so to guide Ishkyna and prevent her from losing herself, and so it is with a growing sense of unease over the strength of the swirling aether around the straits that she strengthens her footing until she can remain close. About Ushai she is not as worried; while she is young in her craft, she has managed the dark here in Baressa before.

  At last Ishkyna’s presence comes to her, tentative and scared. It is so unlike her sister that Atiana nearly loses control. That one moment of weakness is all it takes. The weight of the city presses in, and it is all she can do to control it. As she restores her tentative balance, her senses become more attuned, and she realizes there is one place in particular that presses her the most.

  The tower.

  Sariya’s
tower.

  The fear within her grows, and her balance is once again thrown off. Like a hulled ship taking on water, she begins to list, leaving her vulnerable to the growing strength of the waves.

  Soon the tower is the one thing she can focus on. The only thing. She is being drawn toward it. This is Sariya’s doing-a trap set for the unwise, the unskilled in the dark-and yet knowing this does her no good. She is powerless to prevent it.

  But then she feels Ishkyna’s touch, feels her guiding hand. She feels Ushai’s as well. Even though she cannot pull her attention away from the pure white of the tower against the blackened landscape of the aether, her awareness begins to expand.

  Like a drowning woman, she clings to the lessons of her mother. She strengthens her bonds with the other two. Together-especially as close as they are to one another in the physical world-they are able to do so quickly. She can already tell that Ushai is unskilled in this, but not so unskilled as Atiana might have guessed. She has come far.

  This is… difficult, she hears Ishkyna say.

  Atiana expected a biting response from her, an admonishment over her lack of control, but instead here is Ishkyna, humbled.

  You become used to it, but the influence of the straits is stronger today, so take care.

  I can feel the tower even now, Ishkyna says.

  Da. She is there, waiting for us.

  The fear within Ishkyna and Ushai grows. Atiana can feel it like a glowing brand moving closer to her skin.

  Do not worry, Atiana says. We are prepared.

  Before they begin, Atiana reaches out to the south, toward Vostroma. She feels the other Matri there, waiting. She does little more than this. It is understood that they will approach Galahesh en masse at this signal.

  Atiana waits, holding tight to Ishkyna and Ushai for the time being, until she feels the attention of the tower shift. The pressure on her fades, and she knows that Sariya has taken the bait.