The Straits of Galahesh: Book Two of The Lays of Anuskaya (26 page)

He thought back to his time on Ghayavand. His ship, the
Gorovna
, had withered beneath his touch. It was a similar effect to this, though there were differences. This wood was still living, where the windwood of the ship was dead wood. Still, Nikandr was sure it had more to do with the nature of Ghayavand—the rifts it contained and the hezhan it housed—than anything else.

Nikandr caught movement from the corner of his eye.

Turning casually, he saw a form hidden behind one of the towers some distance away. He wasn’t sure, but he suspected it was the boy they’d caught watching them from the top of the defile.

He pretended as if he hadn’t noticed as he strode toward another of the massive towers.

But the boy sensed his intent. He ducked behind the tree and ran, his footsteps crunching softly against the cold ground.

“Stop! I won’t hurt you!” Nikandr ran after him, darting around the tree, losing him for a moment. But then he found him again, heading toward one of the tallest towers in the village. If he were to gain any height he could lose himself in the village for days.

Nikandr quickened his pace, but soon found that it wasn’t necessary. The boy was already losing speed. He was weak, perhaps from lack of food, perhaps from sickness. He paused as he gained the walkway circling up and around the tower, and then he collapsed.

By the time Nikandr came near, the boy had turned onto his back and was scrabbling away, fear plain on his face.

“Please,” Nikandr said, holding up his hands for the child to see. “I only wish to know what happened. Why are you—”

With night coming on, light was scarce, but Nikandr could see that he’d been mistaken. This was no boy at all; it was a girl. She wore a boy’s clothes, and her hair was wrapped up into a dark turban, but the set of her eyes, her lips, the line of her jaw. It was unmistakable now.

“Why are you here?” Nikandr asked.

She spoke in Mahndi. Nikandr knew the language well, but she was speaking so quickly, and her accent was thick enough that he couldn’t understand her.

He held up his hands to stop her. “Slower,” he said in Mahndi.

“I left when they began burning...” She waved toward the scene in the woods, the pile of smoking bodies. “They’d taken memma.”

“Why?” Nikandr asked. “Why were so many burned?”

“They’d been marked.”

“Marked by what?”

“By the taint. They said those who had been touched would die.”

“So they forced everyone there so they could burn them?”

She was already shaking her head. “
Neh
. They went—”

She’d spoken so quickly he couldn’t understand her last word. “They what?”

“They went willingly.”

Nikandr stared, confused, but then her words settled over him like a thick blanket of snow.

Willingly
, she’d said. They’d gone
willingly
.

By the ancients, what was happening on this island?

B
ahett, dressed in a fine white kaftan and a red silk turban with a massive pearl set into it, stood near Atiana’s door. “Someone will come within the hour,” he said.

Ishkyna stood next to him, waiting impatiently and holding a mask with iridescent black feathers affixed to it.

“Bahett, I love my sister. But masks or not, you’re making a mistake if you think that anyone will confuse the two of us.”

“It isn’t so hard,” Ishkyna said. “All I need do is pout and bite my tongue no matter what is said.”

Atiana fixed her eyes on Bahett, if only to avoid gazing upon Ishkyna’s smug face. “You see?”

“She has promised her best behavior.”

“I’m not yet ready,” Atiana said.

“You must
be
ready. Arvaneh and the Kamarisi will both be occupied, as will nearly everyone else who’s come to Baressa. They won’t expect you to do something so quickly.”

“That’s because it would be foolish to do so. The aether is a storm here. I need time to assess it properly. This is no time to dive into the water like a child driven mad with boredom. We must take our time, or all of this will be for naught.”

Bahett came to her and took up her hands. His skin was soft—the hands of a man well used to the life of a Kaymakam. “All I ask is that you try. If you cannot but step into the aether, then so be it. Can you do this for me?”

She squeezed his hands and released them. “I will do it for the Grand Duchy.”

“Of course,” Bahett said, bowing his head.

“Go,” Atiana said.

“Come, Bahett.” Ishkyna raised her mask to her face and widened her eyes at Atiana. “It’s time I become as dull as I can possibly be.”

After one apologetic smile, Bahett rushed out. Atiana stepped outside her room onto a small balcony. The hour was late, but far away on the southern horizon ships could still be seen heading toward the eyrie. Most would be bringing in provisions, and perhaps a few final members of royalty. Most of the dignitaries from the islands had already arrived and would be preparing for the reception.

It felt strange to be separated from them, and even stranger to be spying upon her hosts. She was not averse to it—the Kamarisi and his consort needed watching—but ties with Galahesh had always been strong, primarily between the Vostromas and the line of Kirdhash. In many ways, they had always seemed like the tenth Duchy—perhaps not to anyone who’d grown up on a more distant archipelago, but certainly to anyone who’d been raised on the shores of Vostroma.

A knock came at her door, and Yalessa stepped in. “He’s come.”

Atiana merely nodded. She followed Yalessa outside, and there, waiting for them, was a bald man, no older than Atiana. He stood meekly, clasping his hands together. He was a mute, and most likely castrated as well.

Atiana had always felt uncomfortable around the slaves of Yrstanla, but there was little choice in the matter now. Galahesh allowed few slaves, but with so many visiting from the capital, the kasir was thick with them.

They traveled down through little-used hallways and stairwells until they reached the ground floor. Throughout the walk, Atiana did not see a single other soul—clearly Bahett’s doing.

They left the kasir through the door reserved for the servants and continued until they reached a high wall built from ragged, sharp stones. Atiana knew that inside lay the graveyard. She dearly hoped that this was not where the servant was taking them, but she knew in the same breath that it was.

They followed a stone-lined path. Near the top of the wall, spaced every few paces, were round holes, like windows meant to allow the dead to look out upon the living, upon the lives they once led. One section of the wall was marred by hundreds of pockmarks and several larger holes—signs of battle, Atiana knew, and somewhat recent, as the revealed stone was still bright, where the rest was dull and gray.

Even the walls have tales to tell, she thought.

They eventually came to a tall iron gate. The servant opened it soundlessly, and together they walked through the elaborate stone mausoleums. The early stars were out, the day having been reduced to a haze in the west. She had been to the cemetery only twice before. Both times had been for funerals, and she had found the experience unnerving, seeing so many houses for the dead crowding the landscape like crows before the feast. She had never been here at dusk, however, and it made the experience all the more chilling.

“How much further?” she asked.

The slave turned and motioned ahead with his hands, bobbing his head apologetically.

They turned down a row bordered by stone tombs with peaked roofs and crouching lions that stared hungrily down at them.

“Do you have a light?” Atiana asked.

The slave shook his head, this time not bothering to turn around.

Atiana stopped.

“What is it?” Yalessa asked.

Atiana stared down the row, feeling something crawl along her spine as she watched.

Something wasn’t right.

The servant turned. She could no longer see his face in the darkness, only a patch of white where his face once was. He raised his arm and beckoned her.

She looked to the roofs, to places hidden by the corners of the mausoleums.

The servant gestured toward the end of the row.

She couldn’t go. Something terrible awaited her there. She just knew it.

The servant stepped forward, holding one hand out to her.

The simple gesture drove fear through her like a knife. She grabbed Yalessa’s wrist and ran, not the way they’d come, but deeper into the graveyard. She sidled between two of the tombs, and then ran toward the southeast corner.

Yalessa knew enough to keep quiet, but when they came to a rest behind a massive family tomb, she whispered to Atiana. “What is it?”

“I don’t know,” Atiana said.

Atiana’s lungs and throat were burning, but she forced herself to slow her breathing. And she listened. There were no signs of pursuit. There were no sounds at all, except for the servant, far in the distance now, grunting something that sounded like
please
in Yrstanlan.

Atiana was beginning to feel foolish. It had only been a feeling, a premonition, but she had come to rely on such things in the years since she’d embraced the aether.

Yalessa began to speak, but Atiana placed a hand over her mouth. In the distance, at the peak of one of the tombs, there was a silhouette—a shoulder or a head outlined by the dim light coming from the west.

Atiana watched, and it did not move, and she thought surely it was merely another statue.

“Should we return?” Yalessa asked.

Atiana turned back to the tomb, a shiver running through her.

The silhouette was gone.

“Quickly now,” she whispered.

“My Lady, we’re going the wrong way.”

She gripped Yalessa’s hand fiercely as they ran, willing her to silence.

Atiana led her around the large tomb. They followed a haphazard trail, dashing through several more rows, cutting between tombs, then running and slipping down a narrow path between two massive stone statues, all in a desperate attempt to throw their pursuers off the scent.

At last they came to an area where there were no tombs. A circle of standing stones, no higher than Atiana’s waist, stood around a small field of grass, and in the center of the field was a willow, tall and swaying in the breeze. Standing beneath the vine-like branches was a man, tall by the look of him. She could see no other details. It was too dark.

She slid sideways along the paving stones set into the mossy earth. Yalessa gripped her hand so hard it hurt.

Atiana heard a faint click, then again. It was soft, but the sound carried like a knife in the dark.

Moments later two more forms—one on either side of Atiana—slid out from between the tombs.

Atiana had only a short knife at her belt, useless here, but she drew it just the same and stepped toward the form beneath the willow.

“Who are you?”

“Be quiet,” he said, “and come. Leave the girl with my men.”

He spoke Anuskayan, though his accent was thick with Yrstanlan.

Atiana thought quickly. She did not want to leave Yalessa, as scared as the girl was—and Atiana herself felt hardly any braver—but these men could have already killed them had they wished to. “Go,” she whispered to Yalessa, who continued to hold onto her hand for dear life. “Go,” she said louder. “All will be well.”

Yalessa left, shivering, as the men closed in beside her. Atiana stepped toward the willow. The man parted the vines and she stepped inside. The darkness became pronounced; the only thing she could see was the faint imprint of willow leaves swaying. The rustle of the leaves was just loud enough to cover their conversation.

“Who are you?” Atiana asked again.

The man was silent, making it clear this was not a question he would answer, at least not yet. “Let us speak instead of why you’re here.”