“What news from Galostina?” Nikandr asked as he accepted a healthy serving of vodka from Dyanko.
Though his round cheeks and that nose were already flushed from drink, Dyanko took a drink himself and poured another before sitting down and facing Nikandr. “The bird has not spoken since it arrived two days ago.” Dyanko squeezed his eyes shut tight and then reopened them, blinking several times before focusing on Nikandr once more. He looked as though he could slump forward onto his desk at any moment, snoring before his head hit the wide leather blotter.
“When did you sleep last, Dyanko?”
“I’ll do well enough, Khalakovo.” He took the last of his vodka in one fierce swallow and focused on Nikandr carefully. “Now would you please tell me what happened to the spire?”
Nikandr sat deeper into his chair. “I don’t like your tone, Vostroma. I was sent by your Lord to assist in what ways I could.”
“And a fine job you’ve done of it.”
“I came upon a keep that had already been taken. Where were your men?”
“Sent to the fighting, as you should have been. Why were you, the vaunted Hawk of Khalakovo, so far behind them?”
“My business is my own.”
“Would that your business had led you away from Elykstava.”
“I destroyed three ships that lay off your coast.” Nikandr stood, slapping the glass of vodka onto Dyanko’s desk untouched. The liquor splashed over his desk, wetting the disheveled pile of papers that lay there. “I found your keep taken and risked the lives of my crew to stop the Kamarisi’s men from destroying your spire. Three of my ships are lost, dozens are dead, and you wish that my business had led me away?”
When Dyanko answered, his eyes were heavy and bloodshot. It was only with difficulty that he looked up to Nikandr. “Trouble follows you, Nikandr Iaroslov. Even you must admit that.”
“You’re drunk,” Nikandr said, turning away. “Sleep it off if you would, but you will first authorize a ship for me to take to Kiravashya. I intend to leave at dawn.”
Nikandr headed for the door but stopped when the rook suddenly cawed in the corner. Both he and Dyanko turned to the bird. For long moments the rook craned its neck backward until its beak was digging into its dorsal feathers. It shivered and its eyes fluttered. A clucking sound emanated from its throat as if a hunk of rotted meat were stuck in it.
Then, without warning, it fell from the perch and landed on the floor with a hollow thump. It tried to flap its wings, tried to regain its footing, but the bird was either too weak or too disoriented to do so.
Nikandr moved toward it until Dyanko scooped the bird up and fell back into his chair. He stroked the bird’s head and back tenderly and made soft clucking sounds into its ear, and strangely the bird calmed itself.
The bird stopped rubbing its head against Dyanko’s fingers. “I come for Nik…” It was quiet for a time, but then it seemed to regain itself. “I come for Nikandr Iaroslov Khalakovo.”
Nikandr knew immediately it was Mother. He could hear it in the way even those few words had been spoken, and he could feel it in his chest, though it was terribly faint.
“I’m here, Mother.”
The rook did not respond. It returned to its bestial self, blinking slowly, making a creaking sound like the hinges of some ancient and forgotten chest. But then it began flapping its wings furiously. It bit Dyanko’s fingers. He howled and dropped the rook, and the moment he did, it flapped into the air, cawing loudly over and over again.
It landed on Nikandr’s shoulder and from this position stared at Dyanko. “He has men in the donjon, Nischka. Two of them. Men from Yrstanla.”
Dyanko looked up at the rook, and then met Nikandr’s eyes. There was a look of uncertainty there, as if he was no longer sure how far he could press his authority, even if it was with an unfavored prince and a fallen Matra.
“Is this true?” Nikandr asked.
Dyanko swallowed, eyes shifting, but then he nodded slowly and spoke carefully. “Nearly a dozen found their way to Skayil shortly after the spire fell. They stole a skiff, but we captured two of them.”
“Why wasn’t I told?”
“They are on Vostroman ground, My Lord Prince.” He glanced sidelong at the rook. “They will be given to the Grand Duke to do with as he would.”
Nikandr stood, his chair scraping loudly backward. As he did, the rook flapped to its perch. Nikandr could already tell that Mother had left. He was surprised she’d been able to do this much so shortly after the spire had fallen. No doubt Elykstava’s proximity to Khalakovo helped, but Mother had always been strong in the aether, particularly with assuming rooks and the like.
“Take me to them,” Nikandr said.
“I take no orders from a Khalakovo, certainly not this one.”
Nikandr rounded the desk, pulling his khanjar from his belt as he did so. Dyanko tried to stand, but Nikandr was too quick. He grabbed Dyanko by the collar of his coat and shoved him back into the chair, scraping it across the floor until he was pressed against the shelves filled with ledgers in the corner.
“I don’t know the sort of problems you might have in giving information to me, but I was sent by the Grand Duke’s son, Borund. I am a son of the Duke of Khalakovo. I am a prince of the realm, and we are at war.” He pulled Dyanko back and slammed his head hard against the shelves. “Put aside your superstitions, Dyanko, son of Kantin, or I swear by the ancients that preserve us I’ll run you through and deal with the rest later.”
Dyanko’s skin went porcelain. His breath came like a rabbit’s. He stared, eyes bulging, first at Nikandr, then at the khanjar leveled against his throat, and finally at the door, as if he wished to flee or call for help. Nikandr wondered if he might faint.
“You wouldn’t dare draw the blood of Vostroma.”
“I know the Grand Duke, Dyanko, better than you. My wrists might be slapped, but do you think he will do anything beyond this over a man he’s relegated to Elykstava?” He let these words sink in. “Or will he be glad to find your seat vacant and offer it to another who’s owed favors?”
Dyanko blinked. He seemed, for the first time, to consider what might come after his death. His breathing began to settle. He closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, the anger had left, as had the fear.
Slowly, he nodded. “I will take you to them.”
After talking with the soldiers who’d captured the two Yrstanlan windsmen, Nikandr spent an hour questioning the first. His name was Sayad, and he eventually admitted—after several whippings from Styophan—that his rank on the ship had been that of boatswain. Only after threatening worse to the second prisoner had Sayad admitted that his shipmate was named Fuad and that he’d been the ship’s carpenter.
They left Sayad and traveled to another part of the donjon, one separated by distance and two heavy doors. When the gaoler opened the cell door, Styophan went in first, holding a short whip still wet with Sayad’s blood. Nikandr waited for a minute as silence settled inside the cell. Only then did Nikandr step inside.
The space was cramped and wet and cold. Fuad had seen perhaps fifty winters. His dark hair was long and wet and hung in matted locks down his cheeks and neck. His turban had been removed from him, making him look more like a wet rat than a windsman.
Nikandr sat on a bench, while Styophan stood above Fuad, gripping and re-gripping his whip.
“Why the spires, Fuad?” Nikandr asked in Yrstanlan.
“I would not know.”
“You must have heard something.”
“The Kamarisi ordered it.”
“For what reason? It would seem if he wanted the islands he would want the spires as well.”
“Perhaps he wishes simply for you to be gone.”
“I didn’t ask what you thought, Fuad. I asked what you’d heard.”
“I am a carpenter on a ship of the Empire. What would I have heard?”
“The men who took you,” Nikandr said. “Two of them spoke Yrstanlan.” Nikandr let
the words sit between them. “When you fell from the skiff and your comrades returned for you, you were heard ordering them to leave.”
“You would do the same in my place.”
Nikandr smiled. “I very well might, and as the kapitan, I would expect them to heed it. I would expect them to do it smartly as well, as your men did.”
Nikandr watched as Fuad swallowed once, then again. “They are not my men.”
“Are they not?”
“I am a carpenter.”
“Perhaps you once were, yes.” Nikandr had noted his hands. They were large, and supple, and bore more than a few scars that looked similar to the cuts and scrapes a carpenter might receive from his tools. “Why the spires, Fuad?”
“I don’t know.”
Nikandr nodded to Styophan, who whipped Fuad across the shoulders twice. Fuad pulled himself back up from the whipping, staring fiercely into Nikandr’s eyes.
“How many ships has the Kamarisi set upon the wind?”
“I know only of the three that came here.”
Nikandr waited as Styophan whipped him again.
“Your Kamarisi would understand, were you to give us such simple things, Fuad. He would not want you to suffer, no matter what your station.”
Fuad licked his lips, pulled himself higher against the wall. He glanced at Styophan, but did not speak. His eyes were steel, and full of hate.
“I spoke with the boatswain at some length,” Nikandr said. “You may have heard it… Like you he was loath to speak of anything beyond his duties to the ship. But then I remembered something the men told me, the ones who took you. They said that Sayad was already on the skiff. They said that he leapt from within it despite your orders. Why would he do that, Fuad? Why would he have leapt to help you while the rest remained?”
“He is young,” Fuad said.
“Young indeed,” Nikandr replied. “I will admit that I don’t know much of the customs of Yrstanla. I’ve had little enough use for them. But those of the military? Those of ships? Those I have paid attention to.” He stood and began pacing in front of the bench. “It is said that many sailing men—kapitans, especially—will take their sons to war. On their own ships. They give them titles of coxswain or boatswain or quartermaster if they’re able men. It’s a right of passage, evet? If something like this war had come along, I wonder if a kapitan wouldn’t take his son along with him. It would be something difficult to pass up, I would imagine.”
Nikandr stopped and turned to face Fuad. “Had I a son, Fuad, I would have taken him on my ship.”
Fuad stared. No longer was there hatred in his eyes. No longer was there steel.
Now there was worry, though he was clearly trying to hide it.
“Shall I return to the other cell? Shall I speak again to Sayad?”
Fuad did not reply.
Nikandr made his way to the door, raised his hand, ready to knock so he and Styophan could leave. “Though I promise you, once Styophan and I enter his cell, only two men will be leaving it alive.”
Fuad was breathing more heavily. His nostrils flared as he looked between Nikandr and Styophan.
Nikandr knocked on the door.
The jingle of keys could be heard, the sound of a key rattling home.
“Fifty-seven.”
The words had come softly, like words spoken in the middle of the night.
“Pardon?” Nikandr said, still facing the door.
“The Kamarisi sent fifty-seven ships.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
As Atiana floats in the darkness of the aether, the storm rages around her. She doesn’t know how long it’s been. It feels like lifetimes, especially when she’s tossed by the hidden currents. The loss of the spires has made the aether more unpredictable than she’s ever seen, so much so that she can hardly control her thoughts. She feels the currents in the Sea of Khurkhan, feels the wind sighing through the meadows of Kiravashya, feels the roots of the oldest spruce on Galahesh. She feels the fear of a winds-man on the deck of his ship as he and his comrades fly toward battle, feels the hopelessness of a mother as she holds her frail, sickened child, feels the building of a man toward release as he clutches his lover’s hair and thrusts desperately into her.
But then, like the tides that drive the water through the Straits of Galahesh, time slows. The images of the world around her fade, and like honey on the steps of winter, time moves so slowly she wonders whether it will stop altogether.
She knows that this is a time most dangerous. It is a time when she runs the risk of becoming so attuned to the world—the islands, the water, the air itself—that she might soon release her hold on her body and float freely through the paths of the aether. She wonders whether her soul will cross the veil to Adhiya, or perhaps it will remain, forever trapped. Is this what happened to the Matri who became lost? Will she find them when her soul slips free? Will it take only moments to do so, or will it take years or centuries or eons? Perhaps when she returns they’ll be so foreign to her that she’ll never even sense them.
Her mind begins to dull. She feels the weight of the earth and little else. It presses down on her, forces her—slowly but with ever growing strength—to succumb, to leave the world she once knew behind. It tempts her. She recalls vaguely that she has a body, that blood runs through her veins, but she doesn’t care. She would rather feel the stone as it rests in layers, slowly shifting, supporting the weight of the world.
It is here, in this torpid state, that she first feels the signs of another. A woman. Her scent is immediately familiar, and she thinks that perhaps another of the women from the islands—she forgets their names—has been taken. But as the presence coalesces, she thinks not. This one is old—not as old as the earth, but certainly older than the children that have spread themselves throughout the islands.
The woman is not aware of her until she reaches out, and then, like a taper set to the wick of a candle, she brightens. It is through this act—the creation of light in another—that she is illuminated as well.
She remembers herself.
Atiana…
Atiana Radieva Vostroma.
She is a child of the islands, a child of the Grand Duchy, and she lies now in the bowels of the earth on the island of Galahesh.
She remembers the other as well.
Sariya, who once called herself Arvaneh.
Sariya Quljan al Vehayeh.
She is one of the Al-Aqim, a child of the desert wastes of the Gaji, and she lies now in her tower in the city of Baressa.
This realization strikes Atiana as strange.
She lies in her tower…
When Atiana last took the dark, she saw Nasim destroy another tower, a tower Sariya had built for herself in her years of exile on Ghayavand. And now, here she is, lost among the aether as Atiana is.
Was it the destruction of the tower that laid her low? Or was it the destruction of the spires?
Does it even matter?
Nyet. What matters is that she is lost.
And yet, in that glimpse she had of her only moments ago, Atiana saw something else. A plan. Sariya wishes to destroy the spires, not in preparation for Muqallad, but in defiance of him.
In defiance.
Why?
It is a question that needs answering.
She calls to Sariya, and receives nothing in return. She reaches out, feels for her. She finds her and draws her closer.
Sariya is weak, but she finally responds, and slowly the two of them buttress one another. The weight of the earth begins to recede. The islands come into focus, as does the sea, the air. And the life within it.
Only then does her sense of purpose return to her. For so long she had been little more than her senses, little more than the life that runs through this world and to the one beyond. She remembers now. She remembers that she was here not to help Sariya, but to murder her. These thoughts return to her, as does the feeling of desperation she had when she entered the cemetery.
Yet in rememberin
g this, Sariya knows as well—they are too closely linked for it to be otherwise—and it sparks in Sariya memories of her own. She remembers the unfolding of her plans, and through their bond, Atiana remembers them too.
As Sariya waits in the dark of the aether, the last stones of the Spar are lowered into place. She assumes the form of a rook. She is new to such things, but she’s watched the Matri of the islands closely, and she’s learned from them how to control the simple beasts. She tells the windships lying in wait to the north—nearly three score in all—that it’s time. They approach the straits, the kapitans fearing what’s to come, but as she told them, they pass beyond the white cliffs with little more trouble than they’d have approaching the cliffs of an eyrie.
And then the telltale sign of something old, something familiar, alerts her. It is in the tower, in the aether. Sariya approaches and finds Nasim, and the Atalayina. This is unexpected. The stone has never been key to her plans, but she can’t pass up the opportunity to gain it, to prevent Muqallad from attaining it.
She pushes, hoping to retrieve it if only Nasim can reveal where it was hidden. Nasim does, but he is stronger than she would have guessed, and he has help from the woman, the Matra from Vostroma. In the end she pushes too hard—she allows her emotions to overcome her—and she is lost in the aether. It is a mistake she won’t make again.
These memories fade, and Atiana realizes just how strong Sariya is becoming. She tries to retreat, but Sariya pins her down, prevents her from returning to her body deep in the bowels of the cemetery. Atiana fights, but Sariya will not be swayed. She drives Atiana so deep that Atiana begins to fear that she’ll never be able to return.
And then she feels the stone. She holds it in her hands. Part of it is smooth, the inner faces rough. It is just as cold as the numbing water that surrounds her, but there is life within it, a well of power that waits to be tapped.
She has gained some of Sariya’s knowledge of the Atalayina, and she draws upon it for the first time. She uses it now to push Sariya away.
Sariya tries to fight, but for the moment she is too weakened from her ordeal. She releases Atiana, and then her presence is simply gone.
The Straits of Galahesh Page 48
