The Flames of Shadam Khoreh (The Lays of Anuskaya) (15 page)

The woman paused. She started to speak several times, but she couldn’t seem to find the right words. “I brought them because it was needed.”

“
Needed
? Why?”

“The wodjana see many paths in our blood. You know this?”

The Haelish believed in the fates, as the Aramahn did, but they also believed their wodjana could use rituals to see their own fate. They even believed they could
affect
their own fates, and the fates of others, if they chose the right paths.

“I know of it.”

“The world is in danger, and you hope to fix it.”

“We do.”

“And so do we.”

She said it as if it were explanation enough for what she was doing. But it wasn’t. It didn’t begin to explain.

“Are you here to help us?”

“I come to put you on the right path.”

“Which path?”

“Our path. Your path. The path of the world. You go to Kohor, you and others, but you will not leave as you came.”

Atiana felt her blood go cold. The wodjan—her voice, the way she spoke—made Atiana feel as though she’d been caught in something much larger than the two of them. It felt larger than the mere struggle to find Nasim and Kaleh and the Atalayina. It felt as if the decisions she made now, here in this valley in the middle of the desert night, would affect everything, even the fate of the worlds.

But then she shook herself from it. This was preposterous. She couldn’t trust this woman. She couldn’t. And yet, there seemed to be something in her voice, a confidence that came from a deep-seated truth that was leading her to do this. Either that, Atiana thought, or this woman was a gifted actress, indeed.

Atiana turned and looked back toward the hill. “I should call to my comrades. I should not let you leave.”

“Do not.” Something glinted in the night—a knife the wodjan was holding above her head. When she spoke again, her voice was low and dangerous. “I saw you next to me, you know.” When Atiana paused confusedly, the wodjan continued. “In Andakhara. I felt your desire to enter the dreaming world.”

The aether. She meant the aether. “I hoped to find my sister.”

“You hoped to enter for yourself. You miss the land of dreams.”

Atiana saw no reason to deny it. “I miss it very much.”

The knife twisted in the dark, catching the light of the stars. “You can enter again. I can teach.”

Atiana took two steps backward without meaning to. The wodjan meant for her to cut herself. To burn her own blood. “I would never.”

A wicked chuckle came from the wodjan. “Do not be so quick to refuse. It is in you. I can feel it now, burning. I felt it even before I left Hael.”

“You didn’t know who I was.”

Again the chuckle came. “How little you know of the Haelish.” She began backing away. “I will return two days from now. Think on this, daughter of dreams. Think on it well.”

“Wait. What is your name?”

The woman paused. “My name is Aelwen.” And then she was swallowed by the darkness, and Atiana was alone once more.

Atiana walked back up to their camp, infinitely colder than she’d been on the way down. Ushai was up, leaning against a rock with her bedroll behind her. She looked bedraggled, her eyes sunken and dark, still recovering from her treatment at the hands of the janissaries. “Who were you speaking to?”

“No one,” Atiana replied. “I was calling for my sister.”

For some reason this seemed to amuse Ushai, for she smiled a patronizing smile and said, “Did she answer?”

“
Neh
,” Atiana replied. “She did not.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

For eight days did Styophan travel tied to the Haelish litter. He was untied when he needed to relieve himself, but on these occasions Datha and another Haelish warrior would walk with him. They tied a rope around his neck, which they held tightly and removed only when his ankles and wrists had been secured once more. Datha continued to give him water, but for food, at dawn and dusk they allowed him dried meat and berries and nuts with nothing in between.

He hadn’t seen Anahid or Mikhalai or Rodion or the others since the attack inside Kürad’s yurt, and though he’d asked of them each day, Datha’s only answer was that he would see them when Kürad allowed it.

“And when will that be?”

“Who can say?” Datha would reply.

Styophan came to understand that watching over Styophan was not only a punishment for Datha; it was a self-imposed one as well. He was deeply embarrassed by what had happened to Styophan and his men. His King had betrayed his word to Ranos Khalakovo, but what was worse: Kürad had betrayed his people as well. It wasn’t simply a matter of turning on the men of Anuskaya—men they didn’t know—nor was it a matter of simply betraying their word to the Duke of Khalakovo. They were deeply shamed because they’d betrayed them for their sworn enemy, Yrstanla.

When night came, Styophan was untied and led toward a clearing where he was forced to help stand up one of the clan’s many yurts. The first few nights he had refused, but Datha had calmly told him that Anahid would pay the price if he refused. With Datha waiting patiently, his anger settled. He had no doubt that Datha would follow through on his threat, so he’d agreed. In setting the poles and helping to lay the skin walls and roof of the yurt that he would sleep in, Styophan came face to face with a dozen other men and women. Each night they’d been different, as if whoever happened to be nearby when camp began would help. He even saw Kürad helping to stand his own yurt some distance away. Their eyes had met in that one instant. Styophan found his fury returning, along with a burning desire to kill, but Kürad only stared back impassively and eventually returned to his work as if Styophan and his anger meant nothing to him.

Styophan couldn’t help but feel the sense of community among these people. Everyone helped, and everyone seemed skilled at so many things—cooking, weaving, horse handling. Even in hunting the women and older children helped. More than once he’d seen a woman return from a forest with a bow in one hand and a gutted doe balanced across her shoulders.

The yurts were stood quickly and efficiently, with space for a thousand or more of the Haelish. Styophan was always taken into the one he’d helped pitch. There he would lay for the night, untied. He would often lay awake, thinking of ways to avenge the death of his men, but any thoughts of vengeance were tempered by the fact that twenty Haelish warriors slept with him. Some would remain awake, smoking or talking in low voices while most fell asleep, but Styophan woke many times over the days to find all of them asleep. He might have tried to escape, but he had no idea where Anahid and his men were, and he would not leave them. And so he lay there, fuming, wondering why the ancients had so abandoned him and his cause. He couldn’t help but think of what Datha had said, that the King had allowed him to approach with weapons even knowing he was about to betray Styophan. He had done so because of their strange sense of justness, perhaps reasoning that allowing Styophan freedom to retaliate somehow evened the scales for what they’d done. Styophan wanted to spit, thinking of it, but he kept his face calm. There would come a time when he learned more, and then perhaps he could leave and find the others and somehow forge a path back to Anuskaya.

He laughed, thinking of how far-fetched that seemed just then.

Datha, sitting near the entrance smoking a pipe, turned and asked, “What do you find so amusing?”

“I only wondered if I’ll ever see the shores of Anuskaya again.”

“One never knows,” he replied, returning his gaze back to stare outside the yurt through the crack made by the entryway’s thick leather flaps. “Sleep. For tomorrow we push early and hard to reach the Place of Kings.”

Styophan laid his head down, not at all comforted by those words.

Styophan woke with a shudder.

He stared wildly about the dark interior of the yurt, not understanding what had woken him. He shivered again when he realized someone was standing over him—a woman, judging from her outline. She beckoned him with her hand and tread carefully between the sleeping men until she reached the door. There, she pulled the flap to one side and beckoned again before stepping out into the cold.

Styophan stood—adjusting the patch over his right eye, which had slid out of place while he was sleeping—and stepped carefully over the men and into the cold night air. Without speaking a word, the woman walked toward the nearby woods, her feet crunching softly on well-trodden snow. He followed, their footsteps becoming more hollow-sounding as they reached deeper, untouched snow. It was dark as they wound their way through the forest, but with the blanket of snow, it was easy to pick out the trees and the lithe form of the tall woman before him.

When they were out of earshot of the camp, he called to her in Yrstanlan, “Who
are
you?”

She did not respond, but merely kept walking.

He stopped, refusing to be led like this.

She continued on for a time, but then, when she realized he wouldn’t follow without an answer, she stopped and turned. “I am Elean, queen of this clan. Now come. The night grows short.”

He remained where he was, but she ignored him, heading deeper into the forest. He thought of returning to the yurt, but that would be a thing done in spite only, and he couldn’t do that, not if there was more to be learned.

He followed, and soon, far ahead, he saw golden light coming through the trees. When they came closer, he could see a bearskin in the middle of a small clearing with a brass lamp sitting in its center. Elean strode onto the bearskin. Only then, by the light of the lamp, did he realize she was wearing no shoes. He shook his head at the Haelish. Were his shoes taken from him, he would huddle and shiver, as any proper man would, but Elean did none of these things. She seemed completely at ease with the burgeoning winter.

She motioned for him to step onto the skin. He did so and faced her. He knew she was tall, but it didn’t quite strike him until he stood eye-to-eye with this cruel yet graceful queen. Her eyes, as he’d seen when they’d first met in Kürad’s yurt, were sunken and dark. Her cheeks were drawn. Her appetite would be low by this point. She would keep down perhaps half of every meal she ate.

“You know of the withering,” Elean said. Not a question, but a simple statement.

“There isn’t a man from Anuskaya who would not.”

“You know the signs? You would be able to tell if someone has it with certainty?”

He hesitated, confused. “Of course.”

Elean looked to his ruined eye, then stared into his good one. “Would you look at me? Tell me what you see?”

He nearly laughed. “Can there be any doubt?”

She did not laugh in turn, nor did she smile. Instead, her face was stoic, even sad.

“I will look if you wish.”

With that she nodded and began removing her clothes. She allowed her clothes to pool at her feet, then she stepped to one side and kicked them away. The queen was well formed. Her arms and legs showed the muscle of long days of shared labor. Her breasts were small, like apples, but they matched her waist and hips well.

Styophan hadn’t been around a naked woman other than his own wife in years, and even then it hadn’t been like this, a cold offer for him to look upon a woman’s body. Seeing his discomfort, she motioned to the lamp. He picked it up, held it close to her face. There was a crust at the base of her eyelashes, which was common. The skin around her eyes, as he’d already noted, was discolored, though now that he was close it had a strange yellow hue to it, and the whites of her eyes were a color that was atypical of the wasting—hers were yellow with a tinge of orange.

He looked to her russet-colored hair, which seemed healthy, lustrous even. He lifted his free hand near her long auburn locks. “May I?” When she nodded, he took her hair and let it slip between his fingers. It felt supple, not dry as he would have expected, and when he tugged gently, only a few strands pulled away. Typically the hair—be it man, woman, or child—would fall out easily at this stage.

“If it please you, would you raise your arm?”

She did, and he looked closely at her armpit. There was no lump. He even felt for it, and found nothing. He could do the same where thigh met torso, but he could already see that the same was true there. The lumps didn’t often show early, but they did as the wasting progressed. It was more than passing strange that Elean showed none of them.

He took her hand next, bringing the lamplight close to her fingernails. These, too, showed no darkening, no purpling.

He stared, taking her in anew, utterly at a loss to explain his conclusion. “It isn’t the wasting,” he said.

She met his gaze with something akin to relief. “You’re sure?”

“
Evet
. Too many things are different.” He paused before speaking again, even debated whether or not to go on. But he had to. He had to know more. “You knew this already.”

She reached down and picked up her clothes. “I suspected.”

“Why?”

“Because the other queens have been similarly afflicted. We met eight weeks ago, and we were all healthy”—Elean pulled her long dress around her waist—“but soon after every last one of us had been taken by the withering. The kings thought it a sign of ill fortune, but I was never so sure as they. Think of it. All of the queens struck after meeting to raise one last glass of summer wine—”

Elean stopped, for just then the sound of a breaking branch came from somewhere deep in the forest. Immediately she took the lamp from Styophan. As she lifted the glass and blew out the flame, darkness enveloped them.

“Go,” she said harshly, pointing back the way they’d come. “If anyone stops you, tell them you went to relieve yourself. They won’t raise an alarm.”

“But why?” he asked. “Why did you bring me here?”

She used an arm to shove him easily off of the bearskin. “Go.” She folded the skin and began walking toward another part of the camp. “I’ll find you again when I’m able.”

“But we’ll reach Skolohalla in only a few days!” He said it as loud as he dared.

She did not respond, and soon he was left alone in the darkness, the only sound the barely discernible thump her footsteps were making in the snow.