The Flames of Shadam Khoreh (The Lays of Anuskaya) (10 page)

“
Neh
,” Nikandr replied. “It is
I
who owe
him
much.”

“Ah.” Dahud’s face became more serious. “I’ve some of those debts myself.” Dahud rose in one smooth motion and bowed deeply to them, doffing his embroidered cap as he did so. “Let me find what I can while you take your rest and prepare for the days ahead.”

Ashan stood and hugged him. “We would be grateful.”

“One of my boys will take you to your room.” And with that he left.

Nikandr looked back to the corner where the large, scarred man had been sitting, but he was no longer there. A boy of twelve or thirteen came to them a short while later and led them outside and to the back of the long building. With the din of the smoke room now filtering softly into the night air, he opened a creaking door to a large room with several pallets. In one corner was a pedestal and a washbasin and above that a beaten mirror hanging from a bent nail. The boy grabbed a fluted, patina-green ewer sitting next to the pedestal and headed for the door. “I’ll bring water.”

They closed the door and settled themselves. Everyone but Nikandr.

“We can’t stay here.”

“I suspect we won’t be staying long,” Ashan said.

“Why?”

But before Ashan could answer, a knock came at the door.

Nikandr thought the boy had forgotten something, but he found instead the hulking man from the smokehouse. Nikandr reached for his shashka, but the man darted forward and grabbed Nikandr’s wrist. He did not attack, however. He merely put one finger to his lips and shook his head.

“Who are you?” Nikandr asked.

“I am Goeh,” he replied, releasing Nikandr’s wrist and stepping inside, “and I’m the closest thing you have to a friend in this place.”

“What’s happening?”

“Dahud has gone to fetch the Kamarisi’s men. They’ve been stationed at the southern edge of Andakhara, awaiting a summons.”

“You’re Dahud’s man, are you not?”

Goeh turned to spit on the dusty wooden floorboards. “There are men who have no love for the Kamarisi, even less for the lackeys he sends to the desert, or those that serve them.”

Nikandr looked to the door, which was still cracked open. “Dahud would have this place watched, would he not?”

“The room is being watched, but not by Dahud’s men.” Goeh smiled grimly. “Not any longer.”

From outside their room a low whistle came, a trilling call like a desert finch.

Goeh’s eyes hardened. “There’s no time. If you want to find the two who came before you, you must come now.”

Nikandr looked to Ashan, who nodded back to him. “The desert, as much as they like to think differently, is still under the Kamarisi’s rule, and if that’s so, then Dahud, who is essentially the lord of this place, cannot be trusted.”

Nikandr turned to Atiana, ready to ask her the same question, but she was staring at the opposite wall, her eyes vacant and half-lidded.

“Atiana?”

She didn’t respond.

Again the call of the desert finch came, louder this time.

“Atiana?” Nikandr called again, shaking her shoulder lightly. “Atiana, hear me.”

And still she didn’t move.

He felt the pulse at her neck. It was slow, like it was when the Matri removed themselves from their drowning chambers.

“We must hurry,” Goeh said.

But Nikandr couldn’t. His whole body was suddenly tense, and he was frozen in place, for it was clear there was something deeply, deeply wrong with Atiana.

CHAPTER SIX

Nikandr shook Atiana harder, and was about to do so again, to slap her or shout at her or something—anything to wake her—when she said in a voice as cold as winter, “Men are coming.”

She said this without moving, without looking at any of them.

“Who’s coming?” Nikandr asked.

“Men,” she repeated. “Armed men. Along the main road. And more are moving in from the desert.”

At last she did turn, but she looked
through
Nikandr as if he wasn’t there. She looked through Goeh as well, and then walked past him, out and into the night.

Goeh stared at her, clearly confused, but then he motioned for them to follow. As they left and began taking a slope upward through a grove of lemon trees, men resolved from the darkness.

“These are mine,” Goeh said.

There were six of them in all, spread out in a line ahead.

Nikandr took Atiana’s arm, but she fended him away. “Do not touch me again, Nischka, and move slowly.”

She followed him, with Ashan and Sukharam bringing up the rear, with a slow pace, like a woman sleepwalking. He dearly wished to speak to her of it, but it was clear she couldn’t. Not now. For the time being, they simply had to get out of this place before the Kamarisi’s men swooped in.

With progress that felt painful, they hiked up the same rise Nikandr had climbed only minutes before, and then continued beyond it, along a gentle slope to a dry stream bed, a wadi, that ran through the easternmost section of the caravanserai. In the height of spring this trough in the land would be alive with rushing water, but now it was as dry and rocky as the surrounding terrain. More importantly, it was lower than the mostly flat ground, and a good way to reach the southern end of Andakhara with fewer eyes watching their passage.

They heard little, only the sound of their own feet crunching over the dry soil, offset by the occasional bell of a goat and the rattle of the beetles flying among the scrub trees lining the wadi.

“They’ve reached the inn,” Atiana said.

She was using the aether, Nikandr knew. He just couldn’t understand how. She’d shown this ability only once before—on Galahesh while Sariya had held her spellbound—but those had been very special circumstances. What it was about this place that was allowing her to take the dark, he didn’t know. Perhaps Ishkyna was communicating with her in some way. Ishkyna, after all, had grown in her abilities since Galahesh. She’d dealt with the loss of her body and moved beyond it—or so Atiana had said—and this had allowed her to spread herself even further and do things never before seen in the history of the Matri.

He scanned the skies for the gallows crow, the bird Ishkyna most often inhabited, but saw nothing, and he felt for her through his soulstone, but here too he felt nothing save Atiana’s presence, a warmth that suffused the center of his chest.

They came to a halt at a copse of scraggly trees at the center of the wadi. Along the bank above them sat a large home with a high stone fence around it. It could be scaled, but surely there were men guarding it.

“There are twelve men on the far side,” Atiana said, perhaps sensing his worry. She pointed with deliberate care to the corner of the fence twenty paces away. “Three stand just there. The others are spaced about the interior.”

“Are Soroush and Ushai there?” Nikandr asked.

“They’re being held within the home.” She pointed to the roof, which from their angle could barely be seen beyond the wall. “Two more men are inside. They’re janissaries, Nischka, and they’re well armed. All of them.”

Nikandr felt his fingers go cold. Janissaries. There might be some stationed this far from the lands of the Empire proper, but it seemed out of the ordinary. It could only mean that the janissaries had somehow gotten wind of where they were headed. They had chosen their number carefully—as few as possible—in hopes of avoiding the notice of the Kamarisi and Yrstanla’s new regent, Bahett ül Kirdhash.

“Perhaps word of our travels has reached Alekeşir,” Nikandr said.

Ashan, whose circlet glowed faintly in the darkness, shook his head. “In time to send men here? Doubtful.”

“He can’t have guessed our destination.”

“There is one more,” Atiana said softly, “within the home. A woman. She’s kneeling over a dish, rocking back and forth.” Atiana’s voice went distant and ephemeral. “It’s filled with blood. Her own blood.”

“The Haelish.” This came from Sukharam. “She’s one of their wodjana. They use blood to scry. She’s trying to find us.”

“Then she knows we’re here.”

“Maybe not,” Ashan said. “The wodjana of Hael are not like the Matri. Their scrying is inexact. They find paths to the future—many paths—and choosing the right one is difficult.”

“She was skilled enough to find us here.” Nikandr took out his pistol, felt the familiar weight of it and the smooth grip. “We can’t allow her to live.”

Ashan gripped Nikandr’s arm. “
Neh
, son of Iaros. We’ll not kill her, not unless she threatens our lives.”

“She
does
threaten our lives.”

“That isn’t what I mean.”

“I know what you mean, but we can’t allow her or Bahett’s men to find us again.”

Ashan shook his head. “This is the price we agreed upon when Sukharam and I joined you. You stay here. Sukharam and I will return with Soroush and Ushai.”

“I can’t allow the two of you—”

“We’ll be well.” Ashan stood, beckoning Sukharam to come closer.

As they strode toward the wall, Goeh crept closer, barely making a sound over the loose stones. “There are stables beyond the house. We should make our way there before Dahud—”

Before Goeh could finish his words, a bell began to ring from the center of the caravanserai. It was coming from the direction of the inn, or perhaps the well house.

“Quickly,” Goeh said. “Go to the stables.” He beckoned to his men and began heading toward higher ground. “They’ll be moving along the road. We’ll slow them as much as we’re able.”

“Thank you,” Nikandr said.

Goeh spat at Nikandr’s feet. “I don’t do this for you.”

And with that he was gone, he and his men moving into the night as silently as they’d come.

Nikandr took Atiana’s arm, and though she tried to shake his hand away, he gripped her tightly and led her forward. “Atiana,” he whispered as the wind began to rise. “
Atiana
.”

She wouldn’t respond, but Nikandr had to move.

Ahead, Ashan and Sukharam were only paces away from the wall. Ashan had stopped and was spreading his arms wide. He was communing with a jalahezhan, a water spirit. Nikandr could feel it on the night air, an oppressive humidity that was wholly new to his time in the desert. It made the air difficult to breathe, and it would likely foul any muskets or pistols being fired.

Sukharam continued on to the wall and set his hand against it. Nikandr thought it might crumble, but it did not. It disintegrated as if it were made of sand. In moments, an opening formed, an archway as wide as a cart. The three janissaries standing there shouted. They pulled their muskets up to their shoulders. Nikandr heard them click—the hammer falling against the frizzen—just before Sukharam summoned a wind so fierce that it blew them backward and out of sight.

The wind blew around Nikandr. It tugged at his kaftan and tousled his hair. It lifted the smell of sage from the land around them. But he felt none of this within himself, as he had so often before the events at the Spar.

There was a part of him, a part buried deep inside, that would sacrifice almost anything to feel it again.

But he knew he couldn’t. Those days were gone.

Even knowing this, he released Atiana’s arm. He closed his eyes and tipped his head back and spread his arms wide.

By the ancients, to feel the wind. To command it…

Nyet
. He had never
commanded
it. He had
asked
. He had given of himself, and the wind had returned the gesture in kind. When he had communed with the spirit Nasim had somehow bound to him he had often wondered what it would be like to trade places. What if he were to slip into Adhiya and the havahezhan were to slip into Erahm?

Could they do such a thing? Would he die if he somehow managed it? Or would he live in Adhiya for a time as the hezhan did here when they passed through the veil?

Were he given the chance now, he would take it willingly. Gladly. He would know what the world beyond was like.

“Nikandr!”

Nikandr blinked, tears falling from his eyes.

He hadn’t even known he was crying.

He looked up the slope to where Ashan stood in the gap in the wall.

“Go!” Ashan shouted. “Go now!”

Nikandr shook his head fiercely and pulled Atiana with him, along the wadi and toward the far end of the wall where the stables lay.

Before he’d gone twenty paces, musket fire broke out from the far side of the estate—Goeh and his men.

“Atiana, can you hear me?”

She was still unwilling—or unable—to respond.

As the shouting from inside the wall intensified, as the wind continued to blow, they reached the corner of the wall. Just beyond it, built against the wall itself, was the stables. He watched for signs that it was being watched, but he saw no one. Surely they’d been drawn into the estate by the shouts of the men. He led Atiana to a large, misshapen tree in the center of the yard before the stable doors.

He eased Atiana into the crook between two massive boughs. He didn’t want to leave her, but he couldn’t take the chance that there was anyone waiting in the stables. “Wait here,” he said to her.

She didn’t respond, but she remained, her eyes heavy and sluggish.

Nikandr ran into the stables and found a dozen stalls. Seven were filled with stout ab-sair. Another three were still saddled, their reins hanging loosely from a post. He grabbed three blankets and looked for the most energetic of the beasts, selecting them quickly and leading them out from their stalls. He threw the blankets over them and began saddling them, but he’d only finished one when the sound of galloping hooves came to him.

Surely it was Dahud’s men returning, or the janissaries that had been sent to find them at the inn.

They were already so near.

Nikandr abandoned the two unsaddled mounts and led the four readied ab-sair from the stables. No sooner had he sprinted toward Atiana than three janissaries riding black ab-sair came galloping around the corner and up to the yard. The janissaries wore rounded turbans in the style of the Empire. They wore vests and wide cloth belts and short, baggy pants over tall leather boots.

“Halt,” the lead man called to Nikandr in Yrstanlan. He was a tall fellow with a thick black mustache, and the only soldier with a tall horsehair broach in his turban. He held his reins with one hand and a flintlock pistol in the other.