The Straits of Galahesh: Book Two of The Lays of Anuskaya (80 page)

As Atiana’s story came to a close, and she spoke of Sariya’s departure, Hakan seemed to understand at last. He was handsome, and the gleam of brightness had always rested within his eyes, but now there was something more—perhaps calculation over what all this would mean for Yrstanla as he weighed the choices before him.

“What of Arvaneh?” Vaasak asked. “Has she not been found?”

“There’s no need for pretense,” Hakan replied. “She is Sariya of the Al-Aqim. And she has not been found.”

“One might wonder, were they in my place, where that leaves us.”

“In a difficult position.”

Vaasak stared at Hakan, his hard eyes evaluating the man who still had the power to ruin the islands. The question wasn’t whether he wanted the islands. The question was whether he would risk it.

“I don’t wish to admit it,” Hakan said at last, “but I was not of my own mind. Even
you
will admit that you would be hard-pressed to stand against one of the Al-Aqim.”

“The Grand Duchy already has.”

He was speaking of Nasim, a subject that had come up early in the conversation.

“Then you know their power,” Hakan continued. “Sariya may be gone, but Muqallad is coming. As Atiana has told us, she is Maharraht, and there are certainly more about the city and the countryside.” He paused, bowing his head in Atiana’s direction. “Would that I had Matri of my own to look for them.”

He refused to meet Vaasak’s eyes as he spoke these words. He would be asking for many things over the course of this conversation, but begging the man he had effectively imprisoned—whether he had been sound of mind or not—was not something he could do.

Vaasak considered this, his head lifting, but his face clearly relieved. “If the Grand Duchy can be set aright, Kamarisi, there may be some aid that could be lent.”

It was the first hint Vaasak had given that he would be willing to bargain with Hakan for the safe return of the peoples of Anuskaya.

Hakan considered this for a time, glancing not at Bahett, but
Siha
ş
, for confirmation. This was a strange shift in power, indeed, but it shed some light on just how much Hakan valued each of these two men.

Siha
ş
bowed his head ever so slightly, at which point the Kamarisi turned his head to Vaasak and smiled.

“What ships we have will be set to scouring the land and sea around Galahesh for the Maharraht, but certainly a few can be spared to return you and your countrymen back to Vostroma.”

“And certainly, assuming the storms have died down enough for me to speak with the Matri, the ships of Yrstanla will be granted safe passage in their return to Galahesh.”

The problem standing before Hakan was a difficult one to solve. He had ships amassed that could attack Vostroma. They could defeat the remains of the staaya now housed in the eyrie of Kiravashya, but he had no way to reach them, no way to issue them orders. He had no way to order them home or to continue on to the other islands. They were, for the moment, isolated from his command, at least until such time as Sariya returned—
if
she returned. Add to this the fact that Hakan clearly didn’t believe in Sariya’s cause—he had, after all, been cast under her spell unwillingly—and it all added up to a powerful man who simply wished to retreat, to return to the things that had occupied him before the building of the Spar had begun.

Hakan, of course, knew this. Everyone in the room knew it. As strange as it seemed,
Vaasak
was now the one who stood in control of this conflict.

“A grant that would be most appreciated,” Hakan said, not deigning to tip his head in thanks, but with a subtle expression of contrition that did much the same.

“We’re missing the point,” Atiana said. “We must look beyond the return of ships.”

Hakan turned to her. “You speak of Muqallad, of course.”

“He’s here, or soon will be, and he will then have all three pieces of the Atalayina.”

Hakan sniffed. “It is not clear that he will come to Galahesh.”

“There can be no doubt.”

“Who can know the will of Muqallad? Who can know where he will go?”

Atiana wanted to grab his silver kaftan and shake him. “I tell you, he comes
here
.”

“If he does, we will find him. We will root him out, he and his Maharraht.”

“As you rooted me out?”

Hakan nodded, a gesture so patronizing Atiana wanted to scream. “If you hadn’t noticed, good princess, you have been in the care of the Kasir for days now.”

“You are a fool if you ignore the threat Muqallad poses.”

The words echoed into the far reaches of the room. Hakan’s face reddened.

Atiana knew she had crossed a line when she spoke those words, but she didn’t care.

Vaasak stood stiffly beside her.

Hakan’s eyes narrowed as he stared intently at Atiana. Suddenly it felt like the two of them were alone to fill the immensity of this room—she representing the Grand Duchy, he the Empire.

“A shadow was laid over my mind for years—such is the power of the Al-Aqim—but the shadow lingers no longer, Atiana Radieva.
I
am the heart of Yrstanla.
I
am her thought. Her blood. And now that I can see, I tell you that Muqallad will be found.”

Atiana did not speak. There was nothing to say. The Kamarisi would try to find Muqallad or he would not, but she bore no illusions that Muqallad would allow himself to be found. He was too careful, and they knew too little of his plans.

She did know one thing, however.

She couldn’t leave. She couldn’t return to Vostroma while this was still undecided. Vaasak would leave on the morrow, and though she wasn’t sure how she would manage it, she knew, as surely as the winter winds blew cold, that she wouldn’t be going with him.

W
hile Sukharam slept, Nasim manned the sails. The coastline of Galahesh lay ahead. They had flown in toward the northern half and so Nasim could not
see
the straits, but he could feel it. In fact, he’d been able to feel it for days, but it had since grown tenfold, starting as a tickle in his chest and growing to a constant burning feeling. He could feel the closeness of Adhiya as well, and further inland, where he supposed the massive bridge stood, there was a yawning hole that felt large enough to swallow the island whole.

These things were similar to what he’d felt on Ghayavand, which was surprising. The island was still protected by the wards, and Galahesh was not so protected, which made Nasim wonder just how close to the edge this place was. How little might Muqallad have to do to open the rifts once and for all? Then again, Nasim knew that Muqallad considered it insufficient to simply call down destruction upon the world. He wished to bring about indaraqiram. Whether or not he could do this wasn’t the point. Muqallad believed it was possible, so he would try to bring Erahm and Adhiya together. He would try to merge them. Anything else would be abject failure. And so he would be careful. He would ensure that conditions were perfect. This, more than anything, convinced Nasim that there was still time to thwart his plans, even though he now had one of the secrets he’d been searching for ever since Khamal had died at the top of Sariya’s tower.

Drawing upon Sukharam’s abilities, Nasim raised the skiff. He could see over the top of wooded land the southern cliffs. He wondered if Kaleh was there with Muqallad. She had betrayed him, and yet she felt more like a sister to him than anyone ever had. He hoped, though he knew it was foolish, that if he could talk to her, he might be able to lead her from the path Muqallad had set her on.

Nasim shifted the ropes tied to the lowest corners of the billowing, triangular sail. He called upon the winds to shift and the skiff began to turn as it headed for land.

When he did, Sukharam woke and pulled himself up and sat on a nearby thwart. He crossed his arms over his stomach and leaned over his knees.

“Should I stop?” Nasim asked.

Sukharam shook his head. “I can feel him,” he said after a time, his voice scratchy.

“Muqallad?” Nasim asked.

Sukharam nodded, pointing toward the straits. “He’s there… Somewhere.”

“And the Atalayina?”

His brow creased in thought. “Of the stones I feel nothing.”

“They may no longer be separate. By now Muqallad might have recovered the third piece and fused it to the other two.”

Sukharam shook his head. “We would have felt it.”

“Perhaps, and perhaps not. The Atalayina has always been difficult to sense, even for those who know how.”

“Have you considered—” Sukharam coughed and shifted to ease his discomfort. “Have you considered whether you’d like it to be or not?”

Nasim stared westward. They were close enough now that the gulls were visible as they flew near the mouth of the straits. They’d discussed the Atalayina for days now, and what it might mean if it were whole. If they were able to retrieve it—and there was no guarantee they could—they might be able to use it to free Nasim. And then, if the fates were kind, they might be able to stop Muqallad once and for all.

As tempting as the thought was, he also knew the Atalayina was the key to Muqallad’s plans. So what would he wish? That the Atalayina was whole so that he might be able to ensure
his own
victory, or that it remained broken in the hopes that it was the only way in which Muqallad might achieve
his
?

“I think,” Nasim said at last, “it is a decision I will leave to the fates.”

The winds blew more fiercely for a moment, drawing Sukharam’s brown hair across his face. He stared intently to the forest far north of the straits.

Nasim felt it as well, a presence, though he couldn’t define it any better than that. It was already fading, however, and soon it was little more than a scent upon the wind. It faded so completely that Nasim wasn’t sure whether it had been real or not.

“What was it?” Sukharam asked.

“It’s strange,” Nasim said, more to himself than Sukharam. “It felt like Khamal did upon the shore, just before he drove the knife into Alif’s chest.” Nasim was so taken by the memory of Alif’s cries that he had to shake his head to clear them. “It feels as Khamal did, when he had one foot in Adhiya and one in Erahm.”

“Is it not what you felt when you were young?” Sukharam asked.

“
Neh
. The world was new to me yet. On the beach, it felt…” Nasim stopped and started over. “
Khamal
felt as though he had lived all the years of the world. It felt as though he would live to see the end. It was timeless and ancient. Nothing about it was new.”

“What, then, could it mean?” Sukharam asked as he stood and took the sail from Nasim. Nasim released the havahezhan and Sukharam bonded with another. He called upon the winds to halt their progress, the skiff floating in place as he waited for Nasim’s answer.

“I don’t know, but we shall go there.”

“We should find the Atalayina,” Sukharam said.

“The path to the Atalayina may very well lie through those woods.” Sukharam studied the gap of the straits, then the woods. He seemed unconvinced, but in the end he nodded and called upon the winds to blow them northward.

They landed in the forest an hour later. The sun was a bright brass coin behind a cheerless layer of clouds. They left the skiff and set a path through the woods toward the feeling that Nasim could once again feel in his gut. It grew worse the further they went, until Nasim was dizzy from it.

The tall spruce trees gave way to a downward slope of larch and alder. A stream could be heard running to their right, hidden behind the tall grasses and cattails that hugged the streambed.

“I don’t feel right about this,” Sukharam said.

Nasim looked over and realized he was holding his stomach. His face was white, his eyes wary of the way ahead.

He cannot come
.

Nasim started. He looked around the forest, wondering where this voice had come from, but then he realized that it had been called from within him. What chilled him to the bone was the knowledge that he’d heard this voice before. Many times. He’d heard it in his dreams.

“Remain here,” Nasim said.