The Straits of Galahesh

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

W hen Nasim released the rusted handle of the iron gate, he looked up to the tower and saw a fresh gap in the stone. It ran the full length of the tower-from the base, where it was wider than his hand, to the top, where it disappeared into an indiscernible crack.

Around him, he saw only the emptiness of Alayazhar. Yadhan and the boy were missing. Their souls had been freed, but their bodies were gone as well. Perhaps, he thought, they’d been taken by the other akhoz to a place they thought sacred.

A fallen form drew his attention toward the lone, dead tree in center of the tower’s yard.

“Rabiah!” He ran to her and dropped to his knees. “Rabiah, please wake up!”

He recoiled the moment he touched her skin. She was cold. Her eyes stared up toward the cloudless sky and the bright, noontime sun. Her face was slack. And she looked nothing like the girl he’d known. Nothing.

He took her hand up in his and stroked it gently. He kissed the back of her hand as tears fell to the dry ground. “I’ve failed you in so many ways,” he said to her softly. “I couldn’t even get the Atalayina. It was right there in front of me.”

He wanted to be strong for her, even though she was gone, but he couldn’t stop himself from falling across her chest and crying until his tears ran dry.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered to her. “I’m so sorry.”

When he pulled his head up at last, he wasn’t sure how much time had passed. His sadness had left in its wake a cold, hard anger that he hadn’t felt in years, not since the days when his emotions were as out of control as the autumn winds. It was time, he thought, time to find Muqallad. He had to save Ashan and Sukharam, but he wouldn’t leave Rabiah. Not here.

He looked up to the celestia on its hill above the city.

Yeh, he thought. He would bring her there, and he would build a pyre and set her to the winds.

He picked her up in his arms-by the fates, she was light-and walked up the long sloping hill toward the celestia. On his right, the ground fell away, leaving only a steep slope and a short, rocky beach before the waves of the sea stretched out toward the horizon. He remembered that beach. He had dreamed of it many times. He would go there, he decided. After he’d laid Rabiah to rest, he would go there, and the beach would whispers secrets to him.

By the time he reached the top of the hill sweat rolled down his forehead and his arms burned. He brought Rabiah to the center of the celestia’s floor, where he could still see the outline of Ghayavand. As he laid her gently down, he caught movement from the corner of his eye. Standing at the edge of the stairs leading up to the celestia floor was a man wearing the ragged robes of a Maharraht. He was tall with dark hair and piercing, gray-green eyes.

It was difficult to remember the people and events from before Oshtoyets, but this man he recognized. This was Soroush, the man who had sought to use him to tear open the rift that ran through Khalakovo. In his black turban was a stone of jasper. His beard was long and black, and the earrings along his ruined left ear glinted beneath the cold winter sun. It was as it had always been, and somehow this enraged Nasim.

Before he knew what he was doing, he had stood and charged forward. He beat Soroush with his fists. Soroush gave ground, but did not otherwise defend himself. This only enraged Nasim further. He swung, over and over, pummeling Soroush’s shoulders, his arms, his torso, his head, and Soroush took it all, his face calm and accepting, as if he knew this was just punishment.

In the end, Nasim couldn’t keep it up. The anger in him ran deep, but it was not in him to harm others, not when they refused to raise a hand to defend themselves. He realized then, even though he’d not been with Ashan all that long, how much he’d been affected by the kindly old arqesh, and how little he’d been affected by Soroush.

Thank the fates for small favors.

Nasim’s breath came in ragged gasps. “What are you doing here?” It was all he could think to say, though his emotions were still so close to boiling that his hands shook.

Soroush stared into Nasim’s eyes. Nasim was not as tall as Soroush, and it made him feel insignificant. It made him feel as if he was eleven all over again. It made him feel as though the days of dreaming between the worlds had returned. It felt-staring at Soroush with sudden clarity-as if he were experiencing one of those rare moments of lucidity in his younger years, and that at any moment he would revert to being confused, to walking Adhiya and Erahm simultaneously, his mind and senses in a constant state of war.

“I asked what you were doing here,” Nasim said, more forcefully.

Soroush motioned to Rabiah. “I don’t know who she was-”

“Speak not of her.” Nasim’s fists were bunched so tightly it hurt.

“I speak not of her, but of your loss. I am sorry for it.”

“Tell me how you came to be here, son of Gatha, or begone.”

Soroush’s jaw went rigid as he considered Nasim, perhaps wondering whether he should push Nasim or not. “I’ve come from Rafsuhan. It is where Muqallad has gone. Did you know this?”

“What of it?”

“He’s preparing to perform a ritual to fuse two pieces of the Atalayina.”

Nasim had known this, but his fingers still tingled to hear that it would happen so soon.

Soroush continued, “He’s taken many children, including my son, and created more of the akhoz.” Soroush’s voice… It was strange. His voice was filled not with regret, but wonder, and pride. Pride, as if the loss of his son was somehow something he would cherish for the rest of his life.

“Do you not love your son?” Nasim asked.

Soroush’s head jerked backward. “Of course I do.”

“In one so vengeful as you I would have thought to find anger.”

“Do not mistake my actions for vengeance, Nasim. I am an agent of change. Just as the Landed were centuries ago. It is our time now.”

“Then why not let Muqallad have his way with the world?”

“Because he would undo all we see around us. He would have me believe that the world is ready for indaraqiram when it is not. To force it upon the world would be to send us back to the beginning. We would lose whatever progress we have made-however slight it might be, however grand, he would ruin it.”

“As you would ruin your own life.”

“I darken my soul that others’ might brighten.”

“You speak of the Aramahn, but what of the Maharraht? What of their lives? Their future selves? They are people as surely as those who live today, are they not?”

“I don’t expect you to understand my sacrifice, Nasim. It’s merely something I must do.”

Light glinted from Soroush’s stone of jasper. Nasim took note, not of the stone, but of his own growing awareness of Soroush’s connection to Adhiya. He had been so lost in his grief of Rabiah, and then his surprise at Soroush’s presence, but over the years he had become adept at telling who might be able to commune with hezhan. Soroush, he knew, had been burned. He’d had his abilities taken from him by the Aramahn for his conversion to the Maharraht’s cause. His burning was a great source of shame for Soroush, and yet here he was with a stone of jasper and a clear ability to commune with the spirits of the earth.

Not only this, Nasim realized; other spirits as well, and the deeper he looked into Soroush’s soul, the more he realized how wrong all of this was.

This wasn’t Soroush at all, he realized.

This was Muqallad, and just like in the village by the lake, he had come to trick Nasim. He had come to fool him into believing he was something he was not.

“Can you not face me as yourself?” Nasim asked. “Did Khamal strike such fear into your heart that you would hide from me, a mere echo?”

Soroush’s eyes narrowed. He paused, and then his face began to change. It broadened. And his ear was healed. His beard became longer and darker and squared at the end. And soon, Muqallad stood before him once more.

“Have you come for the stone?” Nasim asked. “For if you have, it is too late. It is gone from this isle, slipped from the reach of Ghayavand, slipped even from the reach of Sariya.”

“Regrettable,” Muqallad said, “but it will come, and there is more to discuss.”

“There is nothing for us to discuss save the freeing of those you’ve taken.”

Muqallad smiled. He seemed somehow larger than he’d been only moments ago. He seemed darker, as if his eyes could peel Nasim’s skin. Muqallad took a step forward, into the circle of the celestia. This was as clear a challenge as Nasim was likely to get.

“Do you remember when you came here with Ashan and the men from the islands? I was still in the throes of the spell you’d cast upon me and Sariya.” He took another step forward. “You managed to slow the world around us. You managed to banish me from this plane, send me back to the place you’d prepared for us until your return. I hardly think you even knew what you were doing then, but I wonder if you do now.”

Nasim knew exactly what Muqallad was talking about-he’d thought on it often-and the truth was there had been little he’d done consciously while on this island. He’d felt as though he were walking in someone else’s dream. Surely Khamal had hoped that a man in control of himself and his mind would make his way back to Ghayavand. He couldn’t have been prepared for a boy who barely understood the world around him.

Muqallad approached, and Nasim could do nothing but step back. Muqallad raised his hand and Nasim froze in place. His muscles would no longer respond. Muqallad stopped when he was face-to-face with Nasim.

“You’ve grown in many ways, Khamal, but you are still as a babe in the ones that matter most.”

Muqallad reached out and grasped Nasim’s head. As soon as Muqallad’s warm skin touched Nasim’s ears and cheeks, pain coursed through him like a red-hot iron.