“How can she do this?” Rabiah asked.
Nasim, sweat dripping from his brow as he glanced over his shoulder, shook his head. He cursed himself for a fool. “It’s the mule that wins the race up the mountain,” he muttered to himself, “not the dancing pony.
Sukharam looked at him, confused, but Rabiah answered with a look on her face like a scolded child. “We’ve pushed too hard. Ushai is calling upon her hezhan steadily, while we burn through ours in too little time. It’s easier on the hezhan, easier on her, and in the meantime we exhaust ourselves trying to break away.”
They adjusted their approach after that, moving only enough to stay ahead of Ushai, but it was clear it wasn’t going to work. They were already exhausted, and the simple act of staying ahead taxed them heavily.
On the morning of their sixth day on the winds, it became too much. The morning was bright, the sky clear. The winds were mild, a welcome thing after the way the skies had tossed them about the last few days. Nasim, exhausted, released his hezhan, allowing Ushai’s skiff to approach.
Rabiah’s eyes went wide. “Don’t give up.” She stood and held out her hands. “Let me take over. She’ll fail soon. She must.” She was young and headstrong and brave, but also unaware of her own limitations.
“Neh,” Nasim said, more weary than he’d been in years. “I would speak with her.”
As the skiff approached, Nasim watched it carefully. He thought there might be others, spelling Ushai from time to time, but there was no one else. When her skiff came even with theirs, Ushai dropped the reins, allowing the sail to billow and flap and the skiff to float freely on the wind. She was a handsome woman with arresting eyes and strong cheeks. The wind blew the sleeves of her dusty yellow robes, and Nasim saw the bracelets there—one with a stone of opal, the other of tourmaline.
For a moment, Ushai and Nasim could only stare at one another. Rabiah watched, her hands flexing. Sukharam looked on, his eyes darting between Nasim, Ushai, and Rabiah.
“You look well,” Ushai said, breaking the silence at last.
There was an awkward pause that followed in which they would normally have traded full names, but Nasim did not know his parents. He had no proper name.
“You may call me Nasim an Ashan, daughter of Shahda.” It was not something Nasim granted lightly; he had effectively named Ashan his father, but he reasoned that if anyone deserved such a title, it was Ashan.
Ushai nodded, bowing slightly, her face remaining serious. The wind played with her hair and her yellow, travel-worn robes. Her gaze moved over their large skiff. “Where are you going, son of Ashan?”
“I go where I will.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“That’s the only answer you’ll receive. I’ll not return to Mirashadal.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Is that why you think I’ve come?”
Nasim paused. “Isn’t it?”
She shook her head. “You are old enough now. You may go where the fates take you. Fahroz will not prevent it, but she hopes you will one day return.”
“She never said that to me.”
“You were young when you were in her care, Nasim. And there were days when you were violent. It was in your best interest to keep you confined to the village until you’d learned more. Had you stayed, she would have told you eventually.”
“Had she told me, I might have stayed.”
She smiled, though there was a note of melancholy that seemed reluctant to fade. “That is the way of things, isn’t it? We learn too late.”
“Have you come to invite me back then? All this way for one small missive?”
“Neh, son of Ashan. I have come to give you warning. The place you are headed is dangerous.”
“And where am I headed?”
“To Ghayavand.”
To have it stated so baldly embarrassed him. It made him feel like a child to have someone so sure of his plans. “I go where I will,” he said again.
“So you’ve said, but beware. Ashan has gone before you.”
She let the statement hang in the winds between them.
“Ashan?”
She nodded over his shoulder, to the northeast, toward Ghayavand. “We believe he is there still, and if he has not returned by now, there is something amiss.”
“How would you know where he went?”
“After he left Duzol, he spoke with few Aramahn ever again. He was only seen five times that we know of, and each time in the most ancient of libraries in Alekeşir and the Towers of Tulandan. We believe he wanted to find the way to Ghayavand, to unlock her secrets or perhaps to prepare the way.”
“For what?”
Ushai nodded and steadied herself as the wind bucked her skiff. “For you. He knew you would one day return.”
Nasim felt a great urge to look into Rabiah’s eyes, but he forced himself to keep his gaze upon Ushai. He had brought Rabiah and Sukharam out of necessity—he couldn’t do it on his own, so he had found those most like him: those gifted with the ability to touch Adhiya without stones—but he had hoped to spare Ashan from the same fate. He could not help, and so there was no need to place him in danger.
“Thank you for telling me,” Nasim said.
“There is one more gift I will grant you.” Ushai pointed northward over Nasim’s shoulder. “You’ll not find it easy to make your way to Ghayavand. Do not think of crossing by summoning the wind. Take your time, determine the wind, and then, when you’re sure you’ve judged it properly, allow the wind to take you. And if you miss the island, wait until you’re well beyond it to try again.”
“And if I don’t?”
“The wards will rend you apart and throw you to the sea.”
“How do you know?” Nasim asked.
“There are clues left from those who survived the tearing of the rift, things gleaned in the years since Oshtoyets.”
“Did Fahroz ask you to tell me this?” This seemed like the last kind of information Fahroz would want Nasim to have.
“I am my own woman. I left Mirashadal to follow my own path.” Ushai seemed to gather herself before speaking again. “And I would come, son of Ashan, if you would allow it.”
“I cannot.”
Ushai continued as if nothing had happened. She took in Rabiah and Sukharam again, her expression not condescending, but certainly judgmental. You cannot make it on your own, her expression said, certainly not with the likes of these. “You are gifted,” she finally said. “You are ambitious. Hopefully you have a plan. But you have not lived the life that I have. I can offer you much, Nasim, if only you’ll let me.”
Rabiah stared at Nasim with something akin to loyalty, letting him know she would support whatever decision he made, but Sukharam looked to Nasim as if he dearly hoped Nasim would take Ushai up on her offer.
Nasim found himself considering it. This had been a difficult journey since leaving Mirashadal, and he’d not yet reached the island. How much more difficult would it become once they touched down on her shores?
But he knew, as he had known since he’d been healed, that he could not allow himself to be clouded by the goals of another. If he had refused Ashan, he would refuse Ushai. And, he told himself, there was something about her—an eagerness he could not quite put his finger on—that he didn’t like.
“I cannot,” he said simply. “The way is clear before us, and it is a path we will follow alone.”
Ushai paused. She was clearly disappointed in his words, so much so that she began to flex her hands. She noticed it shortly after Nasim did, and she composed herself.
“Tell me where you’ll be,” Nasim said. “I will find you when I’m done. If I’m able.”
Ushai’s lips drew into a grim line. “I know not where I go. Perhaps I’ll find you.” She smiled, an insincere expression at best. “I’ve become quite good at it.”
Nasim bowed his head. “As you say.”
“Go well, Nasim an Ashan.”
“Go well, Ushai Kissath al Shahda
.”
The sky was a cloudless blue, the sea below the bright shade of sapphires in the sun.
Nasim could not yet see Ghayavand, but he could feel it. His time here with Ashan and Nikandr had been one of the more lucid times of his childhood. He remembered much of it, and he remembered the feeling it gave him as well: a feeling of profound discomfort but also of familiarity. This is what he felt now as he manned the reins of the sail and guided their skiff steadily northeastward.
Near high noon, the wind began to play with the ship, causing it to buck. Soon after, Nasim felt a strain on the bond to his hezhan. It became more tenuous, more difficult to maintain. Even so, he managed it until the island came into view, and then it became like fighting a gale.
“It’s begun,” Nasim said.
Rabiah studied the horizon while holding her gut against the magic Nasim was working with the hezhan. She looked brave. She looked prepared for what lay ahead. Sukharam, on the other hand, was studying the sea ahead while the muscles along his jaw worked feverishly.
“All will be well,” Nasim told him.
Sukharam glanced up to Nasim, and then turned his gaze away.
“Look at me, Sukharam.”
Sukharam did, though it clearly took him effort to hold Nasim’s gaze.
“All will be well,” Nasim repeated.
He nodded, putting on a smile that was clearly only for Nasim’s benefit, and then he returned to watching Ghayavand, an emerald in a field of sapphires.
Nasim let him be and focused on the path ahead. He was not entirely sure he trusted Ushai and her motives, but he believed in her warning. He told the others to release their hezhan and to refrain from communing with another until they reached the island itself.
He did not release his own, however. It was not yet time. He began to feel his vanahezhan spirit more clearly. It felt closer, as if but one small tug would pull it through the veil between worlds. He suppressed the spirit, however, held it at bay while calling it to position the skiff so that the prevailing winds—once he released the havahezhan—would carry them over the island.
It was difficult, though. The winds were unpredictable here. But he could only do the best he could. He released it when he felt the hezhan was too close.
As soon as he did, the ship was tossed about. The skiff dropped suddenly. They held tightly to the ropes that were tied around the interior of the skiff.
A sudden upsurge twisted the skiff, tipped it dangerously. Sukharam was tossed over the edge of the gunwales, but he held on, and Nasim and Rabiah pulled him back to safety.
And then the skiff began to fall once more, spinning about so quickly that Nasim lost his bearings. He was nearly ready to ignore Ushai’s advice and call upon a hezhan to help them, but the winds softened and then died altogether.
This was when he began to feel it—a subtle discomfort in his chest that began to grow the closer they came to the island. He began to cough, and soon he was forced to drop to the floor of the skiff and hold onto the thwart as his breath slowly left him in one long exhalation.
“Nasim!” Rabiah cried.
She helped turn him over.
She called to him, but Nasim couldn’t hear her. He could only stare up at the blue of the sky.
When Ashan had brought him here years ago, he had felt the island. He’d felt the mountain peaks, the forests, the grassy plains. He’d felt the shattered city, Alayazhar. He felt all these things now, but he also knew that he was tied to it like he hadn’t been before. He was part of this island, as the Al-Aqim were. He was trapped. There would be no chance of leaving.
He wondered, as stars played in his vision and Rabiah continued to shout his name, why he hadn’t felt the same thing the last time. Surely this was Muqallad’s doing, or Sariya’s, he thought. Surely he hadn’t felt it before because the two of them had yet to reawaken from the trap Khamal had lain for them.
But he felt a certain familiarity to this. It was as if he had done it himself…
And then it struck him. The wards that had been in place, keeping Khamal and Sariya and Muqallad here. That was what he was feeling. Not a trap laid by the others. Why, then, hadn’t it happened the last time he’d come? The answer was obvious, though. He hadn’t been himself when he’d been here last. He’d been only half a boy. The other half had been lost in Adhiya. The wards had not sensed him, but he was healed now, and surely whatever had been done to keep Khamal here was now working against him.
He was trapped, well and good. He knew this, but it also brought a sense of peace. He’d come here not planning to leave, but believing it was possible. He knew now that it wasn’t. He knew that he would never leave, not unless he healed the rift or he died. It was a notion that was more freeing than he ever would have guessed.
So much so that as the pressure in his chest eased, he started to laugh, and once it started, he couldn’t stop.
Rabiah knelt over him, a look of shock on her face, like she wanted to slap him. He wouldn’t blame her if she did. He almost wanted her to.
“What’s happened?” she asked.
“The wards,” he said, pulling himself up to lean against the skiff’s hull.
“What about them?” Her eyes narrowed, and she looked at him closely, as if she wasn’t sure he was completely himself.
“I’m trapped, Rabiah, as Khamal was. As Sariya and Muqallad are. We are together again, as we were for centuries.”
“As Khamal was, not you.”
“I’m not so sure.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I.” Nasim reached up and scratched his scalp vigorously. It did little to shake the feelings of confusion from his mind, but it brought him back to himself. He realized they were drifting beyond the island. “Summon the winds. Bring us in.”
She glanced at the sail, clearly nervous.
“You won’t have trouble now. Just be careful not to allow it too close to you.”
She nodded. Rabiah. Beautiful Rabiah.
She took up the reins and summoned the wind to guide the ship. They landed on a grassy plain to the north of Alayazhar. Part of him wanted to view the city, but another, the part that was terrified of this place, was simply not ready for it.
As he swung over the gunwale of the skiff and onto solid land, Rabiah rubbed her hand along his back. “We’ll find a way.”
Rabiah always seemed to know his mind. He looked into her eyes and in them saw compassion and hope, both of which, Nasim thought, were wholly misplaced.
CHAPTER NINE
Nasim debated on building a shelter, but he was afraid to do so, at least until he knew more. The aether was too thin here—so thin that he dared not risk communing with a hezhan again until he and the others had become accustomed to it.
Sukharam left to find firewood, and when he returned with a thick bundle of branches, he told them of the keening he’d heard to the south. “It was haunting,” Sukharam said, “like a lone wolf baying for its pack.”
Nasim gathered a pile of brown needles from the wood and ran a steel across the flint he’d brought from Trevitze. Sparks flew. On the third strike, it took, and he began building the fire quickly. “It’s most likely a dhoshahezhan crossed over from Adhiya.”
“Will it be drawn here?” Sukharam asked.
Nasim shook his head as the fire built. “From what I remember, the hezhan are confused here. They’ll give chase if you come too close, but they don’t search for life as they do from beyond the veil. Here, they have it already, so in a way, they are content.”
“In a way?” Rabiah asked as she squatted down on the far side of the fire.
Nasim shrugged, struggling to find words. “They’re also conflicted. They want to return to Adhiya, even though they yearned to touch Erahm while there. I think they know this place is not natural. They know this is not the way of things. And they yearn for the freedoms they had while drifting in the currents of the world beyond.”
They brought out the blankets from the oi
led canvas sacks and laid them out around the fire.
“Where will we go?” Sukharam asked. He was sitting on his blanket, his arms around his knees. Although he had a look of cold discomfort about him, he was staring straight into Nasim’s eyes. It was good to see. Perhaps when they’d reached the island, Sukharam had crossed some sort of threshold as well.
Rabiah, lying on her blanket, her head propped up by her hand, stared intently at Nasim as well.
“Tomorrow we go to Alayazhar. There is a celestia on a ridge near the bay. More than anyone’s, the celestia was Khamal’s. It was his demesne, his source of strength and the place he felt most comfortable. If there was any place he would have left me clues, it would be there.”
Sukharam asked more about the island, the last time Nasim had been here, the memories he’d inherited from Khamal; and Nasim did the best he could to appease him, but what Sukharam was looking for wasn’t something Nasim could grant. He wanted to know what they would do and how they would do it. These were perfectly reasonable questions. Nasim just didn’t know how to answer them.
“We’ll know more tomorrow,” Nasim finally said. “Get some rest. It will be a long hike to the city and back.”
Sukharam eventually fell asleep, but Rabiah stayed awake. The fire played against her dark skin, giving her a ruddy glow that only served to make her look more beautiful than she already was. The flicker of the fire lent depth to her eyes. It made her appear old, like one of the fates, and the way she looked at Nasim made him feel like she could stare right into his soul.
“Are they here?” Rabiah asked.
She meant Sariya and Muqallad, of course. “I can’t feel them, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Did you feel them when you were here last?”
“I did, but I wasn’t the same then. This place affected me differently.”
“They may have traps set on the celestia.”
Nasim nodded. “They very well might have.”
The Straits of Galahesh Page 8
