The Flames of Shadam Khoreh (The Lays of Anuskaya) (51 page)

Across from him, Sukharam woke. He grimaced as he sat up, his chains clinking. It struck Nasim just how much Sukharam had grown over these past few years. When Nasim had found him in Trevitze, he’d been a callow youth, unaware of the world around him. It was understandable given the orphanage and the lack of influence from his Aramahn parents, but since then he’d grown in leaps and bounds. It had to do with the way he saw the world, the way he could peel back layers to find the soul within, not just with people, and not just with hezhan, but with the worlds themselves. He more than any other gave Nasim hope that they could still return to Ghayavand and complete what they had begun.

And yet Sukharam was staring at Nasim with eyes that barely concealed his disdain. He didn’t trust Nasim—that much Nasim already knew—but what was worse: he didn’t believe Nasim worthy of touching the Atalayina, didn’t think him worthy of returning to Ghayavand to close the rifts. Sukharam had taken up the quest that Nasim himself had given him, and now he considered himself the only true judge of what was right.

Not so different from Muqallad, Nasim thought, though at least Muqallad had known his limits. Sukharam had yet to find them.

“I dreamed of Ghayavand again”—Nasim leaned over and strapped on his beaten sandals, the very same that had borne him across the wide expanse of the Gaji—“and this time I dreamt of the ritual.”

At this, Sukharam sat up straighter. He knew Nasim rarely dreamt of the sundering itself. It had been something that he’d pressed Nasim about in the weeks before they’d reached Ghayavand.

“The three of them went to the top of Sihyaan,” Nasim continued, “just below the peak, and there they used the Atalayina to begin the ritual. I felt the aether—” He stopped. Sometimes he recalled things so clearly that he had trouble distinguishing Khamal’s memories from his own. “
Khamal
felt the aether parting. He felt the worlds touch. Felt the fates themselves watching.”

“Would they not be drawn to such a thing?”

“You say it as if it’s obvious. You say it as if you feel the fates each time you reach for the world beyond.”

“Not every time.” Sukharam stood and moved to the window, which had a thick wooden door over it. He unlatched it and pulled the door back, allowing frigid air to enter the room. “But there have been times when I’ve thought”—he turned back to Nasim—“where I’ve
hoped
that they were watching. It’s something I’ve spent much time on, for it seems to me that the fates must help us close the rifts. It cannot be us alone. It cannot be a mere matter of manipulating the Atalayina, no matter how powerful it may be.”

Nasim considered this. “After seeing those early moments of the ritual, I cannot help but agree, but I didn’t see the end. Only the opening moments.”

Sukharam frowned. “Get to the point.”

Nasim finished tying his sandals and stood. “You cannot do this alone, Sukharam, and unless I’m wrong, we’ll need one more. It must be three.”

“I don’t deny that, Nasim. I only question
your
presence.” Before Nasim could protest, he continued. “You were an integral part of the sundering, so much so that I’m convinced that you should have no part in its redress. You are emotional and petulant. You are
incomplete
. How could I trust you to join me there?”

“Join
you
?”

“It is my fate. I’ve been sure of it since the day you plucked me from the great room in that orphanage. I will find the Atalayina, and I will go to Ghayavand. You may accompany me, Nasim, but you will not ascend to Sihyaan.”

Nasim found his anger rising. “Do you know, then, how to touch the Atalayina? Do you know how to draw the worlds close? Are you so wise that you can reach up to the heavens and speak to the fates themselves?”

Sukharam’s jaw grit. “I have done so already.”

Nasim’s words died on his lips as he tried to determine whether or not Sukharam was lying.

“In the valley of Kohor,” Sukharam went on, “Ashan brought me to the Vale of Stars, and there the world opened up for me. I saw the place from which the fates look down.” As he spoke, his eyes went wide, his expression beatific. “It was wide. Wider than I could ever have imagined.”

“Think well on this, Sukharam. Even at the height of their powers, even with the Atalayina, even in the place they’d chosen, the center of the world itself, the Al-Aqim had difficulty. The fates were reticent. They do not wish to touch the world they set in motion, at least not directly. And it will be no different for you.”

“I will manage.”

“Do you know their minds then? Do you know their thoughts? When I felt them, through Khamal’s dreams, they did not look upon the sundering unkindly.” At this, all signs of Sukharam’s self-assurance vanished, but Nasim pressed on. “They looked upon the ritual with smiles upon their faces, as if they’d been awaiting that moment from the very first days of the world.”

Sukharam worked this through in his mind. “It cannot be. Khamal must have been mistaken. Or your memories… They’re seen through the veil of the dead, Nasim.”

“And yet they’ve never been wrong. Not once, Sukharam.”

Sukharam stared at him, his eyes searching, as if he were trying to reconcile an understanding that moments ago he’d been entirely certain of.

And then the skin of his cheeks flushed red. His fingers began to quiver. He looked around the room as if he’d just woken to find himself here in this place. He turned sharply to stare out through the iron bars of the open window, his chains clinking as he did so. He looked up toward the heavens while swallowing heavily, as if something altogether unpleasant had suddenly become caught in his throat.

From outside their cell door, there came the sounds of chains clanking and the gritty slide of boots upon the winding staircase.

“Sukharam,” Nasim said in a harsh whisper. “What’s wrong?”

Sukharam turned to him as if he’d forgotten Nasim was there. His face was distant, his eyes wide.

“Sukharam,
quickly
.”

But Sukharam only shook his head. A few moments later, the jingle of keys came, and a click, and then the door was swung wide. Tohrab shuffled through the doorway. His cheeks were sunken, his skin ashen, and he had a faraway look that Nasim hadn’t expected. He didn’t appear to be physically harmed, but he was staring at the wall blankly, not as though he were lost in thought, but as though he had no thoughts at all.

A man followed Tohrab into the room. Nasim expected a janissary from the kasir, but it was not. It was a man dressed in the red robes of Kohor. He had rings of gold along his ears and in his nose. His beard was long and brown. He was stout, his arms thick and hands gnarled. He looked more like an old oak than a man. Nasim realized he recognized this man. He’d seen him in Kohor when Sariya had first brought him there. Yet here he was in the heart of the Empire with the last remaining Tashavir in tow. “Come,” he said to Sukharam.

Sukharam looked between the Kohori and Nasim, unsure of himself. It was a look Nasim was surprised to find no longer suited him. Sukharam had been so confident these past few weeks that seeing a bit of the boy he’d found in Trevitze was unnerving.

“What do you want with him?” Nasim asked.

The Kohori gazed upon Nasim with a jeweler’s stare. “Mind your tongue, Nasim an Ashan.”

With that he left with Sukharam, closing the door behind him with a boom.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

Nasim tried to speak with Tohrab—he called his name, asked where he’d been and what he’d seen, asked how he felt—but to none of these questions did the ancient qiram respond. He merely stood where he’d come to a rest and stared at the wall.

Eastward, Nasim realized. He was staring eastward, toward Ghayavand. He thought about trying to move him to the nearby cot, to allow him to lay down and rest, but for some reason it seemed important that Tohrab be left alone, at least for now, so Nasim gave him peace.

He waited for Sukharam’s return, but the day wore on without his return. The sounds of the kasir rose up around the tower—the sound of a smithy’s hammer pounding, the clop of hooves and the coming and going of the wives in their tower nearby, even the sound of barter somewhere in the distance—and still Sukharam did not return. Nasim grew worried. He wondered if the Kamarisi’s men had found Sariya. She’d been lost in the storm, shot, if what Nikandr said was true. She might be dead, but that seemed far too convenient. Sariya was alive. Kaleh was alive. The only question was which of them had gained dominance over the other.

If Sariya hadn’t been killed, and she’d resurfaced, she might very well have come here to the capital, or perhaps other men would find her and bring her here. But if
Kaleh
had won, where might she have gone? Perhaps she would return to Ghayavand—she seemed to lament it, after all—but what would that island be like now that the wards were tumbling down? Would he even recognize it if he made his way there once more? Even now, Ghayavand would be slipping closer and closer to Adhiya.

Nasim bunched his fists, stifling a primal scream. There was so little time left to them, and everything was going wrong. He had neither the Atalayina nor a way to reach the island, and even if he
did
reach it, he had no allies he could use to help close the rift. There was Sukharam, of course, but he had no desire to help Nasim. If it were up to him, Nasim would never touch the Atalayina again.

This only made him think more of Sukharam’s reaction just before he’d left. What in the name of the fates could have unmanned him so? They’d been speaking of Nasim’s revelations from his dream, of the ritual that had brought about the sundering. Nasim had told him how the fates had looked upon the ritual with smiles upon their faces.

He could still recall—it felt strange to have any direct knowledge of the fates even if it was through a dream—the feeling of expectancy from them, as if they were pleased indeed at all the Al-Aqim had done and what they were now doing.

It cannot be
, Sukharam had said.
Khamal must have been mistaken.

He was not. I felt it myself,
Nasim had replied.

Your memories are seen through the veil of the dead, Nasim.

And yet they have never been wrong.

Those were the words that had given Sukharam pause.
They have never been wrong.
Why would they have caused him to go rigid with fear? And why would Sukharam have hidden it? He’d been fearful of the conclusion, but what was worse, he’d been afraid to share it with Nasim.

Late in the day, sounds came from the stairwell, but it was only food: a simple meal of round flatbread, herbed farmer’s cheese and watered wine. As Nasim tore off a piece of the bread and chewed it absently, he wondered where the Atalayina was now. How odd, he thought, that all the pain and suffering the children of Rafsuhan had gone through to make the Atalayina whole. Could the stone have been fused another way? He didn’t know. He doubted it. Strange are the ways of the fates.

As Nasim was drinking the last of the sour wine, he heard a moaning. He didn’t realize at first that it was coming from Tohrab.

He set aside his food and moved to stand beside Tohrab. He was staring eastward, as he had been for hours, but his eyes looked sad, as if he were viewing not the stone, nor this tower, nor the horizon beyond, but the end of days.

“Tohrab,” Nasim called.

The moaning quieted for a moment, and then died away, but only reluctantly, as if Tohrab were losing hope.

“Tohrab, are you well?”

Finally Tohrab tore his eyes away from the wall. They fixed on Nasim, reddened and moist with gathering tears. “I am torn in two, Nasim an Ashan.”

“What? What is it?”

“The wards,” was all he managed to say.

Nasim shook his head and put his hand on Tohrab’s shoulder. He was forced to reach up with both hands, as the chain between his wrists was short. “They’re gone, Tohrab. Aren’t they?”

The way Tohrab was staring at him—as if he dearly wished Nasim could save him, knowing he could not—made Nasim realize just how much this was costing him. How much every
minute
was costing him, and
had
been since the devastation in Shadam Khoreh. Slowly, Tohrab shook his head.

“But the storm…”

Tohrab’s jaw clenched. His lower lip quivered. “The outer wards failed. That was what you saw. But that was only half of our design. There was a larger purpose to setting those wards in the first place.”

Nasim thought of Inan, the woman Khamal had murdered near the celestia of Alayazhar after she’d told him that he’d been trapped, that the Tashavir had set the wards against him and the other Al-Aqim. This man had been Inan’s husband. He’d been Yadhan’s father, the very first of the akhoz. And now here he was, hundreds of years later, speaking to the very one in whom Khamal had been reborn.

“You protected against the rifts as well.”

“The outer wards did some of this, but there were more placed on Sihyaan, where the sundering began. Those still hold, Nasim. Through me, they hold, but it is no easy thing. And with these”—he lifted the chains around his wrists—“they do not affect me the same way they do you. Always we have fed the wards. Our souls, our minds. But the chains are dulling. That final ward is weakening even faster. And soon it will be gone.”

“We’ll find a way out, Tohrab. We’ll speak to the Kamarisi and make him see reason.”

Tohrab coughed. It was long and deep, the cough of those afflicted with the wasting. “Another day in iron and it will be too late.”

“We will find a way to free ourselves.”

“Even free of these chains, we have little time.”

“I cannot—”

“Listen, Nasim. Listen to me.”

Nasim heard the gravity in his voice and nodded.

“There are places of power in the world. You know this. It is from these that the ley lines flow. The islands are rife with such things, Ghayavand especially. It was why that island in particular was chosen by the Al-Aqim for the ritual. But there are other places here on the continent that hold power. Deep and ancient power. These places are connected in ways that are difficult to understand for some, but there are others who can feel them, who can manipulate them. Alekeşir sits on just such a place. Here, where two plains meet, where the mighty Vünkal crosses, is a nexus. And if we can find our way to it—”