The Straits of Galahesh

CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

W hile Sukharam slept, Nasim manned the sails. The coastline of Galahesh lay ahead. They had flown in toward the northern half and so Nasim could not see the straits, but he could feel it. In fact, he’d been able to feel it for days, but it had since grown tenfold, starting as a tickle in his chest and growing to a constant burning feeling. He could feel the closeness of Adhiya as well, and further inland, where he supposed the massive bridge stood, there was a yawning hole that felt large enough to swallow the island whole.

These things were similar to what he’d felt on Ghayavand, which was surprising. The island was still protected by the wards, and Galahesh was not so protected, which made Nasim wonder just how close to the edge this place was. How little might Muqallad have to do to open the rifts once and for all? Then again, Nasim knew that Muqallad considered it insufficient to simply call down destruction upon the world. He wished to bring about indaraqiram. Whether or not he could do this wasn’t the point. Muqallad believed it was possible, so he would try to bring Erahm and Adhiya together. He would try to merge them. Anything else would be abject failure. And so he would be careful. He would ensure that conditions were perfect. This, more than anything, convinced Nasim that there was still time to thwart his plans, even though he now had one of the secrets he’d been searching for ever since Khamal had died at the top of Sariya’s tower.

Drawing upon Sukharam’s abilities, Nasim raised the skiff. He could see over the top of wooded land the southern cliffs. He wondered if Kaleh was there with Muqallad. She had betrayed him, and yet she felt more like a sister to him than anyone ever had. He hoped, though he knew it was foolish, that if he could talk to her, he might be able to lead her from the path Muqallad had set her on.

Nasim shifted the ropes tied to the lowest corners of the billowing, triangular sail. He called upon the winds to shift and the skiff began to turn as it headed for land.

When he did, Sukharam woke and pulled himself up and sat on a nearby thwart. He crossed his arms over his stomach and leaned over his knees.

“Should I stop?” Nasim asked.

Sukharam shook his head. “I can feel him,” he said after a time, his voice scratchy.

“Muqallad?” Nasim asked.

Sukharam nodded, pointing toward the straits. “He’s there… Somewhere.”

“And the Atalayina?”

His brow creased in thought. “Of the stones I feel nothing.”

“They may no longer be separate. By now Muqallad might have recovered the third piece and fused it to the other two.”

Sukharam shook his head. “We would have felt it.”

“Perhaps, and perhaps not. The Atalayina has always been difficult to sense, even for those who know how.”

“Have you considered-” Sukharam coughed and shifted to ease his discomfort. “Have you considered whether you’d like it to be or not?”

Nasim stared westward. They were close enough now that the gulls were visible as they flew near the mouth of the straits. They’d discussed the Atalayina for days now, and what it might mean if it were whole. If they were able to retrieve it-and there was no guarantee they could-they might be able to use it to free Nasim. And then, if the fates were kind, they might be able to stop Muqallad once and for all.

As tempting as the thought was, he also knew the Atalayina was the key to Muqallad’s plans. So what would he wish? That the Atalayina was whole so that he might be able to ensure his own victory, or that it remained broken in the hopes that it was the only way in which Muqallad might achieve his?

“I think,” Nasim said at last, “it is a decision I will leave to the fates.”

The winds blew more fiercely for a moment, drawing Sukharam’s brown hair across his face. He stared intently to the forest far north of the straits.

Nasim felt it as well, a presence, though he couldn’t define it any better than that. It was already fading, however, and soon it was little more than a scent upon the wind. It faded so completely that Nasim wasn’t sure whether it had been real or not.

“What was it?” Sukharam asked.

“It’s strange,” Nasim said, more to himself than Sukharam. “It felt like Khamal did upon the shore, just before he drove the knife into Alif’s chest.” Nasim was so taken by the memory of Alif’s cries that he had to shake his head to clear them. “It feels as Khamal did, when he had one foot in Adhiya and one in Erahm.”

“Is it not what you felt when you were young?” Sukharam asked.

“ Neh. The world was new to me yet. On the beach, it felt…” Nasim stopped and started over. “ Khamal felt as though he had lived all the years of the world. It felt as though he would live to see the end. It was timeless and ancient. Nothing about it was new.”

“What, then, could it mean?” Sukharam asked as he stood and took the sail from Nasim. Nasim released the havahezhan and Sukharam bonded with another. He called upon the winds to halt their progress, the skiff floating in place as he waited for Nasim’s answer.

“I don’t know, but we shall go there.”

“We should find the Atalayina,” Sukharam said.

“The path to the Atalayina may very well lie through those woods.” Sukharam studied the gap of the straits, then the woods. He seemed unconvinced, but in the end he nodded and called upon the winds to blow them northward.

They landed in the forest an hour later. The sun was a bright brass coin behind a cheerless layer of clouds. They left the skiff and set a path through the woods toward the feeling that Nasim could once again feel in his gut. It grew worse the further they went, until Nasim was dizzy from it.

The tall spruce trees gave way to a downward slope of larch and alder. A stream could be heard running to their right, hidden behind the tall grasses and cattails that hugged the streambed.

“I don’t feel right about this,” Sukharam said.

Nasim looked over and realized he was holding his stomach. His face was white, his eyes wary of the way ahead.

He cannot come.

Nasim started. He looked around the forest, wondering where this voice had come from, but then he realized that it had been called from within him. What chilled him to the bone was the knowledge that he’d heard this voice before. Many times. He’d heard it in his dreams.

“Remain here,” Nasim said.

“ Neh!” Sukharam said. “I won’t be left behind again.”

He cannot come.

The voice was insistent, desperate.

He felt upon him the same feelings that he’d had in the ballast tower of Mirashadal. He felt as though he could slow the world, to deal with it as he would. He could leave Sukharam behind, and so keep him safe. But as he looked at his friend, this youth he’d plucked from his previous course in life, he knew he couldn’t abandon him again. Rabiah had died, and he would give anything to have her back, but he couldn’t leave Sukharam behind. He would give Sukharam to the fates.

“Come,” he said. “She’s not far.”

If he wondered who Nasim meant, he didn’t ask. Perhaps he already knew. He was bright, after all, brighter than Nasim gave him credit for.

Near the bottom of the slope, the trees fell away, leading to a tall black spire. It was not so high as the ones on the islands, probably so that it could remain hidden-insomuch as a tower like this could be hidden.

“What’s this?” Sukharam asked.

Nearby, tracing a trail along the dark gray stones, were drops of blood, long since dried. They were little more than black stains now that led to the entrance to the spire.

Nasim couldn’t recall an entrance to the spires of the Grand Duchy, but his mind was so muddied then he couldn’t be sure if there were any or not. Still, he thought not, and he wondered why this one would have been built with one.

He may not enter!

“He will,” Nasim spoke aloud.

Sukharam looked worried and confused, but he remained silent.

Nasim walked up to the short corridor leading into the stone. He could feel wards against them, but Sukharam raised his hand and spelled them away.

Sariya was weak, Nasim realized. Much weaker than he ever would have guessed.

They came to a set of winding stairs, and they climbed, up and up, much further, it seemed, than the tower was tall. All was darkness for a long time, but at last they saw a golden light coming from above. The stone here was not dark gray and opaque as it had been outside. It was like blackened crystal, or burnt honey, and the edges were as sharp as knives.

At a landing, they halted. A room lay ahead. From it came the source of the light, a beautiful golden siraj that spun at the center of the room.

Nasim stepped inside, not slowly as he might have in years past, but confidently. He knew who he was, and it gave him a strength of purpose he’d never had before. Sukharam followed closely. He seemed to take heart in Nasim’s stature, for he stood taller, and strode with confidence.

In the corner they found a layer of black and gray animal hides-wolves, Nasim thought-with a woman lying upon them.

“Sariya,” Nasim said.

It seemed to take a supreme effort for her to turn her head and gaze upon him with her bright blue eyes. She was covered by a wolf pelt, and there was a dark stain at the center of it. By the fates, she’d bled so much it had leaked through the hide.

She didn’t speak. Nasim wondered if she could. Her eyes considered Sukharam. She seemed to weigh him, seemed to weigh Nasim’s decision to bring him, and then she came to peace with it, for she looked upon Nasim once more and smiled. It was a smile filled with pain. It was a smile that said she knew what lay in store for her. It was a smile that said she would take what might be offered to her, but also that she would do what she could before she passed beyond these shores.

“How?” Nasim asked as he kneeled by her side.

“I was betrayed,” she said.

Nasim pulled away the pelt.

She was naked beneath. Her chest and stomach were smeared with blood, and there, between her breasts, was a wound shaped like a mouth, parted like lips in the release of a gentle sigh. And the flesh inside… Nasim had difficulty looking at it, for it was a deep, deep red. And it was bottomless.