The Flames of Shadam Khoreh (The Lays of Anuskaya) (14 page)

Strangely, when he spoke these words he did not look to Atiana. Nor did he look to Nikandr or Soroush.

Instead, he looked to Sukharam.

CHAPTER TEN

Atiana didn’t have long to decipher Goeh’s obsession with Sukharam, for as quickly as the look had come, it was gone.

“If you wish to live,” Goeh told them, “you’ll follow me.” He told them what lay ahead. The ancient trail they’d been following, the one dotted by caravanserais, remained in the desert pan until finally meeting the foothills five days further, but Goeh said he knew of another path, one long forgotten by the men of Andakhara, that followed the rocky hills to the southwest. It would take longer—much longer—than following the other trail, but there was no choice at this point. Continue as they had and the Kamarisi’s men would have them. Had they enough water, they might still have made a go of it, but they
didn’t
have enough water, and Goeh said there were hidden wells he could lead them to.

It took them little time to agree. Soon they were mounted again and riding as their shadows leaned out over the land ahead of them. They’d been riding only a short while when Ushai called out from the rear of the train. They all turned in their saddles and saw, at the edge of the horizon, a dust cloud rising. They hurried after that, pushing their mounts faster than was wise. Their ab-sair seemed up to the task, however. These were not the mounts they had purchased at the northern edge of the Gaji. These were Dahud’s mounts, taken from his stables. They would be some of the finest the desert had to offer. And so they were. The beasts took to the snap of the reins like newly trained colts, surging forward and maintaining a slow gallop for an hour at a time before they were forced to slow and give them a rest. By the time Atiana and the others gone deep into the hills late that day, they could see no signs of the janissaries on their trail.

“I don’t trust it,” Atiana told Nikandr as they sat at the top of a hill, watching the eastern horizon for the telltale clouds that would signal the chase.

“Neither do I,” Nikandr said. “Another reason to keep on the move.”

He meant beyond finding Nasim, of course, but what he wasn’t saying was that when they found Nasim at last—
if
they found him—Nikandr still harbored hope that Nasim could somehow heal him, that he could restore Nikandr’s ability to touch Adhiya and commune with his havahezhan.

She didn’t have the heart to tell him outright it would never be so. She’d told him obliquely a hundred times already, but there was a part of her that wanted him to keep that hope. Were he to realize the path to the world beyond would never be open to him again he might heal once and for all, but he might also be pushed deeper into despair. She had only to think of the many times she’d seen him staring vacantly from heights—windships, palotzas, eyrie perches and cliffs—to know what might happen. That wasn’t something she could face. Not here in this place so far from their island home.

Since the moon was bright, they continued well beyond sunset, stopping only when the moon finally set. They went on like this for days, riding at first light until the hottest time of day—at which point they and their ab-sair would rest—and picking up again as the sun began to lower, continuing until the night stars were fully upon them. True to his word, Goeh found them water. There was a small spring in one of the valleys they passed through, which they used to fill all their skins and drink their fill. Food, however, was scarce. Goeh used a bow to kill the occasional desert hare, and once he even managed to take down an emaciated jackal, but these were rare luxuries. Most of their sustenance came from tiny red berries and fibrous leaves that Goeh said would help keep up their strength.

Nikandr, however, became more and more bleak. He was out of vodka. She knew, because she’d checked all of his skins. He was irritable and his eyes looked more and more haunted. She would catch him staring up at the tops of the hills, but she knew just by looking at them that they weren’t tall enough. He needed true height. A sheer drop-off. She thanked the ancients none were available here.

On their third week into the hills, they made camp near a massive acacia, its branches reaching far out, occluding half of the delicate, twinkling sky. Atiana lay next to Nikandr on their blanket. They had no tent. None of them did, their exit from Andakhara being what it was. This was fine with Atiana. She liked lying beneath the stars. It made her feel as if she were near her home of Vostroma, a stone’s throw from Galostina, not thousands of leagues away in this infernal place. And, as she felt the warmth of Nikandr lying next to her, it somehow made the distance between her and Nikandr feel less. The grandness of the firmament humbled her, made her petty human problems seem small, and it often made her think of the rifts and the wasting and how bad they’d become.

She and Nikandr made love that night. Atiana took his hand and led him away from the group, moving out and into the darkness until they’d found a bare rock jutting up from the landscape. She laid a blanket down behind it and brought Nikandr down with her. It felt like the days of old, when they would meet several times a year on Khalakovo or Vostroma or another of the duchies—any excuse to see one another and simply touch and kiss and caress. They breathed each other’s skin. Nikandr was gentle, but that only made her want him more, and they ended holding one another tightly, sweating and panting as the throes of their love overtook them.

She knew he would return to his distant ways tomorrow, but for now she didn’t care. For now, she had the Nikandr of old. She could only hope he would one day return to her fully.

When they returned to the camp, she tried to sleep, but couldn’t. She lay awake long into the night and eventually left Nikandr sleeping on his bedroll. Goeh was awake as well. She could see his silhouette as he leaned against the twisted trunk of the ancient tree, and she moved to sit by him. Together, they sat side by side, staring up at the stars.

“Why did they send you, Goeh?”

“I
chose
to come here.”

“You were the only one?”

“
Neh
. There are others, waiting in the caravanserai and the villages around the edge of the Gaji.”

“Why? Why do they wish to speak to us?”

“It isn’t my place to say. The elders will reveal that to you when they’re ready.”

“So you’ve said, but there must be something you can tell us. Is it to do with Nasim?”

“I’ve told you, I’ve not seen the boy you speak of.”

“But the elders might have. Or the others from your village.”

“Perhaps, and you’ll know that once we arrive.”

“Then tell me of Kohor.”

Here Goeh paused. The chill night air rustled the leaves of the acacia above them. “It is a beautiful place. It lies in a wide valley of red sands and black mountains. The sun is bright and hot, but the night brings with it a cold that the skin welcomes. Kohor is ancient. More ancient than Tulandan. More ancient than Alekeşir. It is why the Kamarisi Haman ül Veşe became jealous and razed her to the ground. He couldn’t stand to have a city older than his own.”

“Kohor has been a part of the Empire for more than four centuries.”

“Six centuries, daughter of Radia. Six centuries. And she is much, much older than that. Two thousand years ago the first settlement was built. It is a place of learning. A place of sharing.” He motioned to Ushai’s sleeping form on the opposite side of the softly glowing fire. “Ushai’s mother came to Kohor, as do many others, for that is our birthplace—all of us—or near enough to it that it no longer makes a difference.”

“Ushai has spoken highly of it, but she also said that it’s small.”

“There are more measures of a settlement’s size than number of people she holds, or the land she occupies. Centuries ago Kohor was a place of high learning.”

“It is no longer?”

Goeh remained silent.

“You’re very secretive, Goeh.”

When he spoke again, his voice was filled with melancholy. “Had your most precious secrets been ripped from your breast, again and again, you would be secretive too.”

“But you were sent to us for a reason.”

“You speak truth, Atiana Radieva, but I’ll not be the one to share our purpose with you. The elders of Kohor will speak with you when we arrive.”

Atiana paused, choosing her next words carefully. “Surely news of the wasting has reached Kohor.”

Goeh turned his head toward her, but did not look at her. “We know of it.”

“Then you also know that time grows short. Disease comes even to the desert if the amount of game we’ve seen is any indication. That jackal we killed the other day was sickly, and I’d be willing to bet the same is true all over the Gaji. Is it not so?”

“It is.”

“Then I would think you’d understand how dangerous it is to withhold information from me, from us. We’re here to help. We’re here to find our comrades, and with their help, return to Ghayavand and mend what was torn.”

She saw Goeh turn to face her, and she suddenly wondered if he could see more than her silhouette in the darkness. “Given what you know about Nasim, about Kaleh, do you think it likely that the elders of Kohor would cast so wide a net and
not
wish to talk to you about them?”

“They have seen Nasim.” She knew it was true, and yet she wanted Goeh to tell her of it, to tell her more of the elders’ purpose.

But Goeh wouldn’t. Not this night, in any case. He merely returned his scrutiny back to the eastern horizon.

Atiana stood. “Play games if you wish. Just know that you, as much as I or Soroush or Nikandr, hold the fate of the world in your hands.”

She walked away, but heard him call behind her. “Don’t go far.”

“I won’t,” she replied.

She strolled beyond the hill behind which they were camped and took a wide path down to a vale. She went slowly, picking her path among the wiry trees and scrub brush. As she walked, she took out her soulstone and held it in her hand. “Hear me, Ishkyna.”

Of all the Matri, only Ishkyna could hear her this far away, and it wasn’t merely because she had become more powerful than any of the Matri. It was because she was no longer chained to her mortal shell. Mere days after returning to Vostroma from the battle on Galahesh, Ishkyna’s heart had stopped beating. Everyone including Atiana had thought she had died in that same instant, but shortly after, the gallows crow, the bird Ishkyna had used to return to herself, had started cawing madly. It flapped around the room for the better part of an hour. Slowly, it dawned on her and Mileva and their mother, Radia, that Ishkyna was crying. Except she
couldn’t
cry. Not really. This was her sister’s lament finding its release in the only way possible—in the flapping wings and ceaseless cawing of this one, sad bird.

Atiana began to fear that Ishkyna would die when the gallows crow did. It was irrational, she knew—no one could predict how long Ishkyna would live—but there were times when she found herself wanting to have the crow bound and taken and placed in a cage and cared for. There were others when she reckoned Ishkyna had lived beyond the time given to her, and if that were so—if she’d been granted time by the ancients—Atiana would cherish it and defer to their wisdom.

“Ishkyna, please hear me.”

She’d done this every night since entering the desert. They had agreed that they would not talk often. As gifted as Ishkyna was, it was still taxing for her to travel so far. Plus, she was needed at the war front. So they’d agreed to speak only every few weeks, but it had now been more than two months since they’d last spoken.

She gripped her soulstone tighter, and there was a moment when, beneath the smooth surface of the stone, she thought she could feel a presence. Whether it was Ishkyna’s or not she wasn’t sure, but she wanted it to be, for she was desperately lonely. She thought Nikandr’s presence with her in the Gaji would be enough, but the truth was it wasn’t. Nikandr was slipping away from her, and she didn’t know if she had the strength to support both of them, to find Nasim,
and
to make their way to Ghayavand. Who knew what might happen then? How could they stop the world from tearing itself apart? It all seemed so much bigger than her. Bigger than any of them.

She heard a rustle ahead, perhaps a bird flapping among the branches of a scrub tree. Perhaps the gallows crow.

“Ishkyna?” she called softly.

She gasped when she saw the silhouette of a man wending his way through the trees.

Something deep inside uncoiled and raged at her to run. To flee. To call for the others. But before she could an acrid odor came on the wind. It was the smell of blood. Burnt blood. In an instant she was borne back to the ritual the Haelish woman had used, and she realized she’d misjudged. This was no man at all. It was the Haelish wodjan who was, for whatever unfathomable reason, aiding the Empire.

Running would still be the wise thing to do, and yet Atiana found herself rooted. The wodjan had known Atiana would be here. She was headed straight for her, and she seemed to be alone, which meant she’d come for a reason, and Atiana would know what it was.

“That’s far enough,” Atiana said.

The wodjan stopped. They stood only ten paces apart. Atiana realized just how tall she was—at least a full head taller than Atiana—making her of a height with Nikandr. She was lithe, but Atiana would not call her thin.

Atiana looked around the hills, expecting the janissaries to come marching out of the dark at any moment. “Where are the soldiers of Yrstanla?”

“Near, but they will not find you.” Her accent was thick, and she spoke slowly. Clearly Yrstanlan was still new to her tongue.

“But
you’re
here.”

“Because I wish to be. I’ve led the men of Yrstanla near your path, but not exactly. At least for now.”

“Are you not their servant?” Atiana asked.

“Hael will never be the servant of Yrstanla.”

“Then why have you come?”

“To give you warning. For all of you, but you most of all.”

“You make no sense. You’re
aiding
them.”