The Straits of Galahesh: Book Two of The Lays of Anuskaya (15 page)

Fahroz, lit by soft siraj lanterns held by the other Aramahn, stepped forward. She wore no stone, but instead a golden chain with a delicate medallion. It glinted in the pale light of the stones, and Nikandr wondered, as he had before, how she had come by it and who had crafted it.

“Welcome, son of Iaros,” Fahroz said, bowing her head.

“And you, daughter of Lilliah, though I wonder how heartfelt your words of welcome are.”

She motioned Nikandr to follow her, and they fell into step beside one another, their footsteps sounding dully against the living wood of the perch. None of the Aramahn who had stood with Fahroz accompanied them, and soon they were alone, like two old friends catching up on one another’s lives.

“I will admit to a certain amount of alarm.”

“Only a few of us know of the village. Trust in me that it will be kept secret.”

“Trust in you...”

“Is there another option?”

She motioned him down a winding set of stairs. They descended into the village, and soon they were among so many boughs and branches that he felt as if he were walking on solid ground, not floating in the dark northern skies.

They came to a structure that looked more like the trunk of a massive cypress than it did something man-made. Inside was a cozy home, a bed with a wash basin to one side of the rounded interior, a bureau and mirror made from deeply grained wood on another. Three low chairs surrounded a stone-rimmed pit filled with several of the glowing siraj stones.

Fahroz motioned Nikandr to sit in one of the chairs. When he had seated himself she moved to a stout mantle cluttered with books and bric-a-brac and a few bottles of liquor. She took down a small shisha with two breathing tubes. After filling the bowl with a healthy pinch of tabbaq, she lit it and set it between her chair and Nikandr’s. As Nikandr took a healthy pull from the mouthpiece, Fahroz sat and did the same. For a moment, the only sound was the soft bubbling of the water in the clear glass base of the shisha.

“Please,” she said, blowing the smoke up toward the ceiling. “You must have been preparing your words for some time.”

He smiled. “In truth, I still don’t know where to begin.”

“You’ve come for Nasim.”

He nodded, taking one more breath from the sweet-tasting tabbaq before releasing it slowly. “In part, but there’s much more for us to discuss.”

She looked at him seriously then, as if the first of her guards had been lowered, however tentatively.

“I knew after the incident on Duzol that I would leave Khalakovo,” Nikandr continued. “Two years after I last saw you, I took to the winds with my mother and brother’s blessing.”

Her eyes smoldered under the ruddy light of the stones. “The Duke of Khalakovo did not object?”

Nikandr was surprised to see how much the words stung. Borund still sat on the throne in Radiskoye, exactly as Mother had predicted. Vostroma had delayed, they had made excuses, had made demands, anything to keep Khalakovo beneath their heel, but the strangest part of it had been the knowledge that Father had accepted it. He had gone to Vostroma, in effect a thrall of Zhabyn, the Grand Duke. But Zhabyn, despite his initial reluctance to trust Father, had eventually come to value his advice, especially as the blight had continued to put pressure on Vostroma and the other southern duchies. And father had taken to his role, in effect supplanting Leonid Dhalingrad as Zhabyn’s most trusted advisor. And every time Ranos or Nikandr had brought up the need to pressure Zhabyn to return the throne to the Khalakovos, Father had demurred, saying only that the time was not right.

“I go where I will,” Nikandr said. “The son of Vostroma has no sway over me.”

“And where have the winds taken you?”

“It isn’t where I’ve gone, but what I’ve found while there. The rifts have continued to surface, though none with such strength as the one on Uyadensk and Duzol. I’ve studied them. I can
feel
them. I know when they wax and when they wane. I can even find the places where they might be closed, if only I had the means.”

He left the words there, hanging between them.

“Nasim has been lost to you. To all of you. You have no right to him anymore.”

“He is part of me, Fahroz, and I am part of him. There is no separating us.”

She swallowed. Nikandr hoped it was a sign that her resolve was flagging, but her eyes were as hard as they had been in the courtyard of Oshtoyets when she’d taken Nasim away. “It is a bond I wish I could break, but believe me when I say it is one you will no longer be able to leverage. We have burned you from him as well as we can, and fates willing, you will never see him again.”

Nikandr allowed some of his annoyance to show. “We don’t work at cross-purposes, you and I.”

“It isn’t your purpose I question, but the means you’ll use to achieve it.”

“I only wish to heal.”

“And in your blindness you’ll burn in order to do it.”

Nikandr sat forward in his chair, setting shisha tube into its holder. “It is not I who am blind. Nasim must be taught.”

Fahroz stared into the siraj stones, pausing, as if she were asking herself why she was doing this, and then she set her tube aside as if it had offended her. “Nasim
has
been taught, and now that he has, his teachings will guide him.” There was pride both in her words and in her eyes. “He will be great, an arqesh among arqesh.”

“The arqesh are not infallible.”

Fahroz stood, quickly but calmly, her hands clasped together. It was an insult, what he’d just said, a reference to the three arqesh—the Al-Aqim—that had ripped the world asunder on the island of Ghayavand: Muqallad, Sariya, and Khamal, the man that passed his memories on to Nasim. “I am sorry you have come so far to receive so little, but there is nothing I can do.”

Nikandr remained seated. “In truth, I knew there was little chance you would speak to me of Nasim’s whereabouts.”

“And yet you still came.”

“Because there is more,” Nikandr continued. “I mentioned the rifts, how they have until now been of no great strength, but there is another forming. On Rafsuhan.”

Nikandr watched her closely. She masked her response well, but it was there: surprise, followed immediately by the realization of his true goal here. But she held her tongue. She didn’t want Nikandr to know that Soroush was here within this very village, only a short distance below in one of the lowest rooms of the ballast tower.

Nikandr fought to hide secrets of his own, however. The
Chaika
was lashed to the village and would be receiving all the attention of Mirashadal, but by now the
Strovya
would have reached the tower, and Anahid, his best dhoshaqiram, would have begun warping the living wood that kept Soroush imprisoned. Atiana was to signal him when they were done, but so far he’d heard nothing. He needed to give them more time.

“I know he’s here, Fahroz. Give him to me. If I am to study the rift, I will need him.”

Fahroz looked at him as if he’d gone daft. “He will kill you the moment he lays eyes on you.”

“It isn’t just his land that’s at stake now. It’s his people.”

“They care nothing for the land. They will take to the winds, as they always have.”

“I don’t think so. They’re rooted to Rafsuhan and Muhraban like never before, and Soroush knows it. He will not wish to see his people die. You do not wish it, either. You can make a difference for them, Fahroz. Don’t let Erahm swallow them whole.”

“The fates will do as they will!” She practically shouted the words, but in the ensuing silence she stared into Nikandr’s eyes, chest heaving with breath, perhaps considering his words.

And then a bell began to ring, over and over. It was not from the
Chaika
.

Someone had discovered them.

Fahroz ran to the door. “Stay where you are,” she said to Nikandr as he stood. She put herself in the doorway as he approached.

“I must leave, Fahroz.”

Her eyes were filled with a rage that had been pent up for years, but there was something else: the realization that she had been betrayed. He had always liked Fahroz, even respected her despite her rigidness—or perhaps because of it—and it pained him that it had come to this, but he knew she would never have given up Nasim or Soroush.

“You would
steal
from this village? I thought you different from your fathers, Nikandr, or I never would have allowed you to step foot onto Mirashadal.”

“Soroush is not yours to keep. He is Erahm’s.” Nikandr took a step closer. “Now let me pass.”

“I will not.”

He tried to push past her. She resisted, but she was not a strong woman. Nikandr was soon past her and onto the walkway, but it made him feel small, smaller than he had felt in years.

There was nothing to do about it now. He rushed through the village and up toward the perch where the
Chaika
waited for him. More bells rang throughout the village.

He moved as quickly as he could, especially when the wind began to gust. Despite the cold, the air was becoming oppressively humid.

He flew up the winding stairs to the
Chaika’s
perch. The winds at the top of the stairs blew so fiercely that he was nearly swept off his feet.

The perch he’d left a short time ago stood before him. Frost rimed the end of it, where two qiram stood, both of them facing out toward the sea. Two other Aramahn men stood to the side of the perch where the ship had been moored, each holding a curved knife.

And the
Chaika
...

The
Chaika
was nowhere to be seen.

N
ikandr’s heart pounded as he searched the skies for his ship.

The two Aramahn with the knives approached him, but as they did they slid the knives into sheaths at their belts. They would not harm Nikandr—the beliefs they held most dear prevented it—but they could easily prevent him from leaving, and they would hold him if they thought it important to do so.

They had cut the mooring lines so the havaqiram could summon the winds to push the
Chaika
away from the village, far enough that Nikandr couldn’t reach it. The jalaqiram standing next to him had probably drenched the ship in water, particularly the cannons and muskets—the lanterns, as well, Nikandr realized, so that he stood no chance of seeing the ship—and with the wind roaring through the village, and the bells ringing, there was no way he could
hear
the ship, either.

Through his chalcedony stone, Nikandr could feel the wind master’s bond to his hezhan. He could feel his own as well. It called to him, begged him to draw upon it so that it could experience Erahm through Nikandr. He did so now, combating the winds that were summoned by the Aramahn.

As the wind died down, one of the Aramahn turned and addressed him. “Your ship is gone, son of Iaros. It is best you come with us.”

Nikandr didn’t know what to do. He searched the skies behind them again, but the dark beyond the siraj stones lining the perch was complete.

Where had the other ship gone? Had it been taken already?

What about Atiana? He hadn’t heard her, nor could he feel her through his stone.

The Aramahn came closer. His robes of green and gray whipped about his knees and calves. His face was both serious and sad. “Please. You’ve done enough this day.”

“What I did was necessary.”

“You wear cloth over your eyes, and yet you claim to see the stars.”

Nikandr looked to the other perches. Few of them had siraj stones, but those that did were achingly empty. He should have come with more ships. He should have come bearing weapons.

Nyet
, he told himself. He couldn’t have done such a thing, not to people that bore him no ill will, who would refuse to harm him even if he killed one of their own.

He stepped forward, ready to give himself to them, to wait, perhaps, for a ransom. They would not keep him forever...

But then a flapping of wings came. At the edge of the light, far beyond the end of the perch, was a flurry of wings darker than the surrounding sea.

A harsh caw came from Vikra. “Below, Nischka! Below!”

The havaqiram turned and raised his arms. The winds responded with the howl of a gale, blowing the rook end over end and out to sea.