The Straits of Galahesh

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

A sudden flapping of wings frightened her. She felt more than saw a large bird land on the crenelations near the top of the stairs. When she swung the lantern toward it, she found what she thought was a massive rook, the largest she’d ever seen, but then she noticed the bright white cowl that ran down its breast. When it flapped its wings, more white feathers were revealed.

  It cawed once, the sound low and foreign to her ears. It stared at her, one eye blinking under the light of the lantern.

  “Dim the light,” Irkadiy whispered harshly.

  “One moment,” Atiana said.

  She stepped forward. The feelings within her intensified, making it clear that this bird—or the one who controlled it—was the reason she’d been drawn into the aether.

  “Who are you?” Atiana asked.

  She took another step forward. The rook bobbed its head up and down. It twisted its neck, its beak opening and clacking shut several times. Atiana could tell it was trying to speak, but nothing came out.

  Suddenly an alarm bell came from the inner keep. It rang insistently, over and over again, and the call was picked up by others.

  The bird flapped its wings, and then it leaned out beyond the battlements and dove out of sight. The beating of its wings was the last thing she heard before several men came running along the wall. The first of them called out to Irkadiy, telling him to halt in Yrstanlan.

  “It’s only me, Irkadiy.” He motioned to Atiana. “I’ve brought the help I promised.”

  The Galaheshi soldier used a dim lantern to look Atiana up and down. He was about to say something when more men entered the courtyard below. “Wait here,” he said, motioning five of his men to remain. He nodded to the sixth, and together they went down to the courtyard.

  Atiana couldn’t see the newcomers well enough, even by the lanterns they held, but when the first of them spoke, she knew immediately who it was.

  It was Bahett.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE

  “The Princess Atiana is missing,” Bahett shouted into the muddy, pattering courtyard below.

  Atiana’s heart pounded in her ears. She was painfully aware of the soldiers standing just next to her. The nearest of them watched the scene play out in the courtyard below, but he was close enough to reach out and touch her.

  “She’s most likely gone to the cemetery,” Bahett continued. “Ten have been sent already. Gather twenty more and join them. The rest will watch the walls.”

  The soldier Bahett was speaking to bowed his head. “Evet, Kaymakam.”

  Bahett turned and strode away, his tall boots slurping in the slush and the mud. The men that had accompanied him followed, leaving only the two who had come down from the wall. The heavyset one spoke low to the other. He’d guessed her identity. Atiana was sure of it.

  As they finished speaking and trudged toward the stairs, Atiana shifted her stance so that she was incrementally closer to Irkadiy. “I won’t return,” she said loudly enough for Irkadiy to hear. She didn’t care if the guardsmen heard. The only reason they didn’t already know was that their commander thought they could be caught with little or no bloodshed.

  Irkadiy looked into her eyes. He was asking—for her sake—to reconsider.

  She shook her head.

  After one more pause, and a brief nod of his head, Irkadiy grabbed the lantern from her hand, swung it high over his head in a blur of movement. It came crashing down on the rampart. Fire blossomed across the stones, spreading quickly and engulfing the walkway.

  Seeing Irkadiy’s intent, Atiana turned and ran, Irkadiy close on her heels.

  “Stop them!” the commander called.

  Upon passing a turret in the wall, Irkadiy called to her. “This is far enough.”

  Atiana stopped and turned as Irkadiy unbuttoned his heavy canvas coat. He undid his cherkesska next, and finally he began unwinding the length of rope he had hidden there.

  Far behind them, the flames were already beginning to subside. One of the guardsmen removed his coat and threw it down against the oil, creating a bridge for them to pass over. Three of them did, with ease. The fourth caught fire.

  Irkadiy had finished unwinding the rope and was looping it around a battlement. He moved with quick hands. Sure hands. He was so calm, where her heart was beating so madly she thought it would burst.

  “Quickly,” he said, taking her hands and forcing her to grab the rope.

  The soldiers were nearing. “Halt!” they called.

  Atiana would be able to make it down, but Irkadiy wouldn’t. There wasn’t enough time.

  “Go!” he cried.

  Atiana stepped up between the battlements—realizing only then she’d forgotten to wear gloves—and swung over the side. As she began to slide down, the sense of vertigo she’d experienced earlier returned. It was all she could do to hold on. She knew if she loosened her grip on the rope, she would fall to her death. She could do nothing but hold tight.

  Above her, Irkadiy turned and drew his shashka.

  Just as he was about to engage, a low, ragged caw cut through the night. By the light of the dying flames Atiana saw black wings streak between the two soldiers.

  Both paused.

  The feeling of dizziness intensified. The air filled with the sound of wings. Dark figures cut above the curtain wall. A dozen. A hundred. A thousand black, fluttering forms.

  They chattered, their myriad voices collecting in a cacophony that forced Atiana to duck her head and hide her face against her shoulder.

  She thought it would end quickly, a freak passage of birds over the kasir, but it did not. She felt them against her face, against her hands. They flew about her legs, some of them thudding against her coat before flying off again.

  “Come, Irkadiy!” she managed to yell, though whether he heard her she wasn’t sure. “Irkadiy, follow me!”

  She allowed herself to slip downward. She moved slowly at first, but then, blessedly, she felt the rope above her shift. Irkadiy was coming.

  Hand over hand she moved as the wings beat around her and the birds continued to screech.

  At last, bless the ancients, she found herself below the cloud of wings, and soon after that, her feet touched ground.

  Her nausea began to ebb. Finally the effect brought on by the gallows crow was starting to pass.

  As soon as Irkadiy slid down beside her, they moved away from the wall and slid down the steep slope. Standing in their way were an army of thickets and scrub trees and tall stands of wiry grass, making the going arduously slow. They hadn’t gone twenty paces when the sound of the birds faded into the distance.

  “There’s a path ahead,” Irkadiy whispered.

  They came to it as the sound of pursuit heightened. Again the bells were ringing among the kasir, but this time at a different pace and rhythm—clang, clang, CLANG… clang, clang, CLANG—no doubt calling help to this section of the curtain wall.

  The path for a time seemed no less dangerous. They struck as many clawing branches as they had during the slide down from the wall, but they were more sure on their feet. They were adding distance between themselves and the guardsmen, but the location of this path was no secret. Their only hope was to reach the bottom of the hill and lose themselves in the city before Bahett’s men could find them.

  Lights shone against the wall as the slope leveled off at last. They took one last look up as they reached a dirt road that continued downhill, but as they did they heard the first sound of approaching hooves.

  She and Irkadiy ran, but they could already tell that dozens of ponies had been dispatched from the kasir. Bahett’s men knew where this path emptied into the streets of Baressa, and they would start their search there.

  The sounds of hoofbeats echoed through the streets. The air was so cold it numbed Atiana’s fingers. It sapped her warmth through the dampness of her coat.

  In an alley running between two rows of tall stone buildings, they huddled in a deep, arched doorway. The clop of ponies approached, and soon three men wearing Galaheshi uni
forms—red coats with white turbans—came abreast of the mouth of the alley. They rode tall brown stallions, and each carried a lantern.

  While Atiana and Irkadiy pressed themselves against the door and made themselves as small as possible, the guardsmen swung their lanterns along the alley.

  The light had just fallen upon their archway when a cawing sound came. It was distant, and it echoed in the cramped spaces of the city, so Atiana could not tell the direction from which it had come.

  “There!” one of the guardsmen called. A moment later, the ponies clopped further up the street.

  As the sounds died away, punctuated by the cough of a pistol being fired, fluttering wings fell through the night and landed in the street. A low caw, loud enough for only them to hear, beckoned them. They approached, and the old gallows crow took flight, heading southwest over the nearest buildings.

  They followed the course the crow had set for them. The sound of hooves approached, but each time they did a caw would come again, drawing the soldiers away from their trail. As they made their way toward the poorer sections of the city, the caws came again and again, steadily further away from their current location.

  They heard it once more as they came to a large circle where six streets met.

  “We should not go through here,” Irkadiy said.

  Atiana, taking the circle in again, agreed—there were too many windows, too many eyes—but just as they were preparing to head back, the sound of ponies came again, this time from the west, the direction of the kasir.

  The rain had finally stopped and the moon shone down through thin clouds. The wings of the gallows crow flapped from the west. It cawed twice and then landed on the edge of the fountain at the center of the circle.

  Atiana and Irkadiy hid among the shadows and watched as five men rode into the circle. They bore lanterns, and they shone them on the crow, making it seem as though they’d been following it for some time. The crow took wing, flying not away from Atiana, but toward her. It flew straight to their position and landed not five paces away.

  The ponies approached.

  The light from the lanterns darted toward them like hawks.

  The crow hopped closer. It stood just before them now.

  The desire to stand and run was overpowering, as was the desire to take a knife to the gallows crow.

  “There!” one of the men called.

  They pulled swords, and three kicked their ponies into action. All were well trained. The ponies had them surrounded in moments.

  “My Lady Princess,” one of the men called in Anuskayan. “Please come with us.”

  “Sihaş?” Atiana asked, holding her hand up and squinting against the light of the lanterns.

  “Da, My Lady.”

  Before Atiana could wonder why he would have been sent to find her, the gallows crow flapped its wings and hopped and cawed.

  All eyes turned toward the spectacle. The bird swung its head back and forth in rhythmic patterns that seemed both painful and uncontrollable.

  After one more caw, a single word escaped the bird’s throat.

  “Hakan.”

  No one moved. A chill ran down Atiana’s already-numb skin.

  “Leave us,” Sihaş said in Yrstanlan.

  “My Lord,” one of his men replied.

  “Go to the far side of the circle,” Sihaş said, more insistently. “I’ll call you when needed.”

  They complied, but Atiana could see by the grisly light shining against their faces that they were not pleased.

  Sihaş swung a leg over his saddle and dropped down to the cobbled street. “What is this about?” he said to Atiana while motioning to the bird.

  It was the crow that responded, however. “Hakan is not yet freed.”

  “What do you mean?” Atiana asked.

  It seemed so distraught, so in pain, that Atiana crouched down in order to touch the crow. It deftly avoided her touch, however, and hopped away. “He is still under Sariya’s spell.”

  Atiana stood.

  She looked to Sihaş, whose face was every bit as shocked as hers. But his look was calculating as well. He had placed much on the notion that Hakan—once Sariya had been wounded and subsequently disappeared—was once again whole. His loyalty to Yrstanla, and even Hakan, had driven him to act against the wishes of the Kamarisi. No doubt he had been relieved when Sariya had fled. But now, if what the crow was saying was correct, he might still have to act against his lord in order to protect his empire.

  “There’s more,” the crow said. It cawed once, sadly, and its eye never seemed to leave Atiana.

  “What?” Atiana asked.

  “You…” The crow cawed several times and twisted its head and flapped its wings. It hopped away, and Atiana thought it was going to take wing and leave them. But it didn’t. It recovered and approached once more, eyeing Atiana carefully.

  Atiana stared at the bird, fearful of what it would say when it spoke once more. She swallowed. Something large and raw was caught in her throat, and nothing she did seemed to clear it.

  “What about me?” she finally managed to ask.

  “You’re caught as well.” The crow pecked the cobblestone near Atiana’s foot. “You have been from the moment you entered her tower.”

  Atiana began to shiver. First her arms and shoulders, then her entire body.

  “Who are you?” Her words were swallowed by the night.

  The crow opened its beak and its tongue lolled out. It shook its head and shivered violently. One long, mournful sound escaped its throat, and though Atiana knew it was trying to speak, it sounded more like the sad, soulful cry of a little lost girl.

  It tried once more, and then with a noisy flutter of wings lofted itself into the sky. In mere moments, the dark shades of its wings had faded into the night.

  Irkadiy and Sihaş stared at Atiana with confused looks. They didn’t know who had assumed the bird’s form. But Atiana did. The crow hadn’t needed to say.

  As the last of hints of its wings were lost over the buildings beyond the circle, Atiana whispered her name.

  “Ishkyna…”

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

  Nasim walked down an empty street toward the center of Alayazhar. He was near the top of a long sloping hill. The empty shells of the buildings cast long shadows beneath the golden light of the lowering sun, and in the distance he could see Sariya’s tower.

  How had he come to be here? It must be a dream, he thought. It must be.

  Yet when he turned to his right, he realized he was holding hands with Muqallad. As he had when he stood within the cavern near the towering white cliffs of Galahesh.

  He had realized something in that cavern just before Muqallad had entered.

  “He’s waking.”

  This had come from the voice of a woman.

  He looked to his left and found her. Sariya. She walked with a hitch, blood still leaking through her robes, but she was also strong. Her will was driving her to finish what she’d started.

  At this, a spark of memory came.

  In the cavern within the cliffs of Galahesh, with the light shining down on his face, he had looked into Sariya’s eyes.

  And he’d remembered the tower. Her tower. The spire in the forest, linked to the tower here on Ghayavand. He had entered, and from that moment on had been under her spell.

  “It need only hold until the sun sets.”

  “He’s strong, Muqallad.” Her voice was strained, desperate.

  “You will overcome,” was all Muqallad said in return.

  They continued down through the city, walking along the empty thoroughfare. Strangely, they turned off the street well before Sariya’s tower. Nasim didn’t understand why, but he did understand that they were avoiding the tall, white tower itself.

  Nasim tried to work it through, but his mind wouldn’t allow it. All he could focus on were the broken stones of the street and the utter silence that greeted them throughout their long walk down to the sea.

  The
y passed beyond the city proper and took a set of stairs carved into the dark gray slabs of stone that lined the sandy beach. The sound of the surf rose. Ahead, he saw a massive black rock. The incoming waves splashed against it high into the air, catching the light against the distant clouds of the dying day. This was the stone he’d seen in so many of his dreams. Khamal had come to this stone. He’d brought Yadhan and Alif—unsure, perhaps, which he would use to free his soul from this place.

  In the end he had chosen Alif. Khamal had cut his own hand and spilled his lifeblood into the opened mouth of that forgotten boy, linking the two of them, and then he had driven a knife deep into his chest, severing his ties to Ghayavand once and for all.

  And all it had cost him was his future lives.

  Save one, Nasim thought. He was the last. And now Muqallad had come to do the same.

  He looked down to Muqallad’s belt and saw a khanjar. Khamal’s knife. The one Muqallad and Sariya had used to slay Khamal at the top of Sariya’s tower.

  The one they would use to slay Nasim.

  Muqallad glanced down, and then returned his attention to the road ahead, as if acknowledging the weapon would acknowledge not only the atrocities he’d committed, but the one he was about to commit. To Muqallad this sacrifice was necessary. Khamal had trapped them. He had murdered Alif and then forced the Al-Aqim to slay him, but in those last moments Muqallad had realized what Khamal was about to do, and he had foiled, at least partially, Khamal’s plans. Nasim had been linked to them from that point on, and it felt as if every step he’d taken had been leading toward this: this dark stone and this sighing sea and this bright blade.

  They came to the stone at last. The frothy water rushed up to their feet with every exhalation of the sea. Muqallad climbed, but Sariya, sensing Nasim’s hesitance, turned and held out her hand. “Come, Nasim.”

  Nasim stared at the stone, then back to Sariya’s hand.

  Dread filled him. He didn’t want to die.

  And yet he knew he deserved it.

  The things Khamal had done… The hubris he and the other Al-Aqim had shown was reprehensible but perhaps forgivable. What was not forgivable was the sacrifice of the first akhoz, Yadhan, and the others that had followed. What was not forgivable was the sacrifice of Alif to allow himself to pass beyond the protections that had kept the rifts in place for so many years. Or manipulating Sariya and Muqallad so that they might take his life. Or knowingly allowing the rifts to spread beyond Ghayavand so that he might have a chance to repair the damage he’d caused.