The Straits of Galahesh

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  He stopped near the small cabin Ashan had been lying in since their flight from Rafsuhan. He held his hand above the handle, willing himself to open it and look upon the kindly old arqesh. His hand remained. He gripped it, once, twice, still unable to summon the courage to look upon Ashan.

  In the end, he walked on by and continued up to the forecastle deck. There, while stepping out into the driving snow, he saw Sukharam standing amidships, looking out into the storm. He turned and locked gazes with Nasim for long moments. Then he turned and began climbing the shrouds of the starward mainmast, up and up until at last he’d reached the rook’s nest, where despite the driving snow he settled himself and began to take breath. He’d done this each day they’d been on the winds since leaving Rafsuhan—nine days running.

  “He does it so that he doesn’t take revenge on you.”

  Nasim looked to his left along the gunwale and found Soroush standing there, watching him. White, fluffy snow fell against his beard and turban, both the color of burnt autumn leaves. He’d chosen not to wear his stone of jasper. Nasim didn’t know why, nor did he care to ask, but it was telling that he’d had it when they’d fled Ghayavand together.

  “Revenge is not in him,” Nasim said softly.

  “Man can be driven to many things, Nasim. Things we never thought possible.” Soroush stepped closer, but seemed to sense Nasim’s discomfort and stopped some paces away. This was the first time Soroush had spoken to him since they’d left Rafsuhan. Nasim would never have guessed it, but he seemed shamed, somehow, of their shared history, though in truth Nasim remembered little of it. “He was angry with you for leaving him in your home outside of Alayazhar, but furious when he found out what happened to the girl, Rabiah.”

  “I would have come had I been able.”

  “I know,” Soroush said, “and I think he knows as well, but for now, perhaps it’s best to let his anger burn itself out.”

  He joined Nasim at the landward gunwale and together they looked ahead of the ship, westward, toward the Chaika. The falling snow obscured it, but they could see its silhouette, gray in a haze of white.

  Nasim had thought of nothing but Rabiah since they’d left Ghayavand. He should have been more careful. He should have been more prepared. Only, it felt as though there was no time. Every day on Mirashadal had felt like one more day closer to the end. For him. For the islands. For the world. By the time he’d left he felt as though he was years behind. He had to hurry. He still had to hurry. There was no time for preparation. He simply had to do.

  “Nikandr has asked to see you.”

  Nasim saw no reason to answer, so he remained silent, watching the snow fall between their ship and Nikandr’s.

  “Shall I send you to him?”

  “Where was I found?” Nasim asked. He meant where Soroush had found him—either as a child or as a babe.

  If Soroush was bothered by the change of subject, he didn’t show it. “What does that matter now?” he asked.

  “I’d like to know. I think I deserve that, at least.”

  “Will that somehow help you to see your way ahead?”

  “Where did you find me? Was I stolen away from my mother? Was I born of the Maharraht?”

  “Those things don’t matter, Nasim.”

  “They matter to me!”

  Soroush stared at him, his face sad but stern. The look was so paternal it made Nasim want to shout, to rage against this man that had stolen him away from some unknown shore and put him to use as a tool, as a weapon, to cause destruction to the Landed.

  “You are a small man, Soroush Wahad al Gatha.”

  He turned at movement among the rigging. Sukharam was making his way back down to the deck.

  Soroush turned back to Nasim, his eyes still sad, but now also full of regret. “This I know,” he said, bowing his head to Nasim. “This I know.”

  He stepped away as Sukharam approached.

  Sukharam looked confusedly between the two of them, but when Soroush retreated below decks, he approached Nasim and seemed to steel himself.

  “Where do you go?” he asked.

  It was clear that he was asking out of some sense of duty. He wanted nothing to do with Nasim, but he still believed in the cause Nasim had described to him on that hillside overlooking Trevitze.

  “You should return home,” Nasim replied.

  “Where is home but here?” he said.

  It was a phrase common among the Aramahn, but Nasim knew that his heart didn’t stand behind those words. “Return home,” Nasim said again, “or take to the winds.”

  “I came,” Sukharam shot back, “because the world is torn. Is it not so?”

  Nasim was taken aback by his fierceness. “It is so, but it is bigger than you or I.”

  “Neh, you were right, Nasim. You are bound to Muqallad and Sariya. You are bound to the tear that runs through Galahesh. And you must be the one to overcome it.”

  Nasim wanted to dismiss him, but at that moment, he seemed wiser than his years. He reminded him more than a little bit of Rabiah, and it shamed him that another was pushing him to do what must be done.

  He could feel Sukharam’s connection to Adhiya. He could feel those of the vanaqiram and dhoshaqiram who guided the ship as well. He could even feel, as weak as it was, Soroush’s, who had had his abilities burned from him by the Aramahn years ago. And yet he could not feel his own. He could not find his way to Adhiya. It had, through the misfortune of his return to this earth, been lost to him. Surely it had to do with the spells Muqallad and Sariya had cast upon Khamal in their haste to prevent him from escaping Ghayavand. Or perhaps it was his own lack of confidence, which had begun on Mirashadal but had since only grown. Or it might have been Khamal’s plan all along, his condition somehow vital to his connection to the rift or the Atalayina.

  There was one more possibility that Nasim didn’t really want to consider, but consider it he did—refusing to do so would not only be cowardly, it would be a grave disservice to the world. His limitations might very well have something to do with the ritual that had saved him on Oshtoyets. He could feel Nikandr standing somewhere on the deck of the Chaika. Perhaps a piece of the puzzle lay with him. Why, after all, had he connected to him so strongly on Uyadensk? Nikandr’s broken soulstone was coincidence, but there was something there that seemed to be planned.

  If only he could unravel how…

  He thought of speaking with Ashan, of speaking with Fahroz, or even Nikandr, but the truth was he was sick to death of talking. It only seemed to confuse things further.

  The wind gusted, twisting the ship until the pilot corrected their course.

  His thoughts pushed him deeper and darker. “You should not follow me, Sukharam.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I know not where I go.”

  After a pause—a pause that felt as long as the day—Sukharam turned and walked away.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  Within the kapitan’s quarters of the Chaika, Nasim sat behind a large desk in the swiveling kapitan’s chair. The sun had set over an hour before. A brass whale oil lantern hung by a chain from the beams running along the ceiling, lighting the cabin in a golden glow.

  The ship twisted slightly in the wind. The calls of windsmen could be heard outside the cabin door. Men walked about the ship, footsteps thumping against the deck.

  Nasim could feel Nikandr striding across the deck, his soulstone a bright flame. He had brought Nasim to the cabin himself, but just as he was readying to close the door the boatswain had come to tell him of a shape they’d spotted along the horizon. Fearing the Hratha, Nikandr had gone to investigate.

  Nasim had wondered why Nikandr hadn’t summoned him sooner, but the conversation with Soroush had made things clear. Nikandr had asked for Nasim, and Soroush had declined. Why Soroush had declined to allow Nikandr access to Nasim, and why he had eventually relented, Nasim didn’t know. Nasim wasn’t even sure he wanted to speak with Nikandr, but Sukharam, with his disappointed,
sidelong glances, had made his mind up for him.

  Nasim leaned forward, the chair creaking beneath him. A number of maps lay across the surface of the desk. Thanks to Fahroz he could read Mahndi, but Anuskayan was still beyond him. The letters were strange and the endless combinations and rules surrounding them made no sense to him. Still, he had seen many maps in Mirashadal, and he knew the islands of the Grand Duchy well. He could point out all of them on the largest of the maps before him. In the upper right corner was Rafsuhan, and though he also had trouble with leagues, he could judge distance well enough from the shape of the islands and the relative distances from others he knew, like Samodansk in the archipelago of Rhavanki, and Uyadensk in Khalakovo. And Ghayavand.

  What was clear to him by looking at these maps was that he had traveled thousands of leagues with Kaleh. Thousands. She’d somehow opened up a tunnel between the village in Ghayavand and the outskirts of Ashdi en Ghat. But how? It was something he’d been asking himself over and over since they’d left Rafsuhan.

  There were some clues. She was gifted in many of the same ways he was. She needed no stones to commune with Adhiya. She could control any of the hezhan, as he could. It may be as simple as finding the right child. After all, if Nasim had found gifted children, why couldn’t they? It seemed improbable, but not impossible.

  In the end, it didn’t much matter how they’d found Kaleh. What mattered was that they had her, an ally to … do what?

  Nasim stared at the map, tracing the line between Rafsuhan and Ghayavand.

  Why did Muqallad need Kaleh? And what did it mean that she’d helped Nasim escape? Was there now some hope that she would turn away from Muqallad’s path of violence? Or had it simply been a moment of weakness?

  A tapping behind Nasim made him start. He turned in the chair, but could see nothing beyond the rectangular window but the blackness of the night.

  He moved to the window and levered it open. With the bitterly cold wind blowing, a rook hopped inside. It flapped over to a wrought-iron perch in the corner of the room behind the desk, where it walked along and beat its wings and pecked at the crossbar. Nasim stared at the golden band about its ankle, wondering which of the Matri had come.

  “Are you still dumb, child?”

  Nasim shook his head, confused. “Nikandr isn’t here.”

  “And that’s well. We have things to talk about, you and I.”

  There was no doubt now that this was Saphia Khalakovo. Not only could he hear it in the way she spoke, he could feel her distantly in the aether. He was curious to know what she wished to speak about, but more than anything he was worried that she would try to assume him if he didn’t cooperate. It hadn’t worked out well for her the last time, but neither had it worked out well for him. He’d been struck by vivid, debilitating dreams in the days that followed, and he had often wondered whether something different might have happened on Ghayavand had he not been so incapacitated on his arrival.

  The rook cawed. “You’re sure you’re well…”

  “I am,” he answered simply, waiting for her to get to the point.

  “Then tell me how you came to Rafsuhan.”

  “Why?”

  The rook arched its neck and flapped its wings. “Don’t be impertinent, boy. You’re better than that, unless I’ve missed the mark…”

  Nasim took a deep breath and released it noisily. He didn’t wish to speak to this woman, but he saw no reason to withhold the information, so he told her what he could of his arrival on Ghayavand, his battles with Sariya and Muqallad, and his eventual flight. He glossed over Rabiah’s tale—those memories were his and his alone—but he told her of Alayazhar and Sariya’s tower and the akhoz. He told her of his flight through the village of Shirvozeh. He told her of Kaleh as well, a girl he wasn’t sure just how to measure. Was she friend or foe? And did it even matter now that he’d left Ghayavand?

  “And what of the stones, the Atalayina?”

  “What of them?”

  The rook cawed again and flapped over to the desk. It turned its dark eye on him. It was not an easy thing to look at, that staring, unblinking eye. “You may be angry with me, Nasim, for what I did to you those years ago, but I don’t care. I did what I thought was right for my family, for my Duchy, and for Anuskaya.” Finally the rook blinked. “This is important. Vostroma is set upon by the forces of the empire. Galostina may not last the week. The woman, Sariya, was close to having a piece of that stone, but thanks to you it has fallen into the hands of Vostroma’s daughter. We have much to thank you for, it seems, but we have need of more—most likely much more by the time all is said and done—so grant me this one favor: answer my questions. It may very well help to protect the islands you seem so intent on saving.”

  “I don’t care what you consider important, Matra. It isn’t your counsel I seek.”

  The rook flapped its wings—hopping along the desk and shuffling the maps—and the caw it released sounded strangely like laughter. “And whose do you seek, pray tell?”

  “My own.”

  “Poor counsel, indeed. You may think you know what’s happening, but you don’t. I know this because I don’t know, and if I don’t, I’m sure that you’ve fared little better. We need one another, boy. You, the Landed, the Aramahn—even, it seems, the Maharraht. Muqallad will have his way with the world if given his way. Don’t let your wounded pride stand in the way of the greater good.”

  Nasim had no wish to speak to the Matra, but what was worse, he didn’t trust her. She said she was concerned over the world and Muqallad’s plans for it, but that wasn’t true at all. She was concerned over the future of the Grand Duchy, nothing more.

  He was saved from answering by Nikandr’s entrance. He closed the door and shook snow from his black cherkesska as he removed it and hung it on a hook. “I told you I wanted to be present if you were to speak with him,” he said to the rook.

  “There are conversations I would have alone, Nischka.”

  An uncomfortable stalemate followed, in which Nasim suddenly became conscious of where he was sitting. He stood, but Nikandr waved him back down.

  “Stay,” he said, sitting across from him in the chair that would usually be reserved for guests in this cabin. “Are you well?”

  “Well enough,” Nasim said.

  “Would you care for tea? Or araq?”

  “Get on with it,” the rook cawed.

  “We’ve had no chance to speak, Mother.”

  “And our time is short, Nischka.”

  Nikandr glared at the rook, and then returned his gaze to Nasim as he sat deeper in his chair. “She speaks of our arrival on Uyadensk. There’s a delicate matter we must speak of.”

  “The Maharraht,” Nasim said.

  Nikandr nodded. “In part. It’s an important thing that’s about to happen. Something that’s never happened before. Nearly everyone on the Bhadyar have decided to offer themselves to the Aramahn in Iramanshah, hoping they’ll be allowed to rejoin their brothers and sisters.”

  Nasim shook his head. “The Aramahn won’t allow it, not unless their qiram are burned. Even the children may be burned for what their parents have done.”

  Nikandr nodded soberly. “They realize this, and yet all have still agreed to come.”

  “Because of Muqallad?” Nasim shook his head. “They’ve lost their home, and they can’t head south to Hratha strongholds. Have you considered that they’re only looking for a place to rest and regroup?”

  The rook released a harsh laugh.

  Nikandr glanced over at the bird, a calculating look in his eye, but then he studied Nasim once more, weighing him. “You’ve grown, Nasim, but I wouldn’t have guessed you’d become so cynical.”

  “I am older than my years, son of Iaros.”

  Nikandr stared at him with a strange expression. Unlike so many over the years who had regarded him as if he were a callow youth in need of protection, Nikandr looked deeper, as if he considered Nasim an equal, as if he too were older than his years.<
br />
  “The path to Iramanshah is not as easy as it first may seem,” Nikandr continued. “Borund Vostroma still sits the throne of Khalakovo, and he will not take lightly or kindly the landing of a Maharraht ship without his permission.”

  “And still you will disobey?” Nasim said.

  The rook pecked the table. “Da, boy, we will disobey. Vostroma has enough to worry about.”

  “What we need to know is where you wish to go,” Nikandr said. “If you wish to join the Aramahn in Iramanshah, you will be allowed to go. But if you wish to remain with us, or go elsewhere, you will be allowed to do it with our blessing.”

  “What my son neglects to tell you is the depth of our need. The Empire has apparently grown tired of leaving the islands in peace, and Muqallad…” The rook cawed. “Who knows what Muqallad is about?”

  “If you would remain with us,” Nikandr said, “we will gladly accept your help, but you have earned the right to choose your own way—at least among the islands of Khalakovo, if nowhere else.”

  Nasim felt off-balance. He felt as though Soroush and Nikandr were going to war over him again. He had been preparing to find his way on his own once more. Leaving Sukharam behind. Leaving all of this behind. And now here was Nikandr and his mother, the Matra, trying to manipulate him, no matter how subtle it might be.

  He could not, he decided, allow them to do so. “I will go my own way,” he finally said. “I require only a skiff.”

  “Think well on this child. Do not choose brashly.”

  Nasim turned calmly to the rook. “I’ve had all the time I need.”

  The rook let out a ragged, disgusted sound.