The Straits of Galahesh: Book Two of The Lays of Anuskaya (82 page)

Nasim reached the center of the room. He stood upon the constellation and looked up, blinking, his thoughts suddenly confused and wild and directionless.

He turned and looked to Sariya, who favored her left side but otherwise seemed unaffected by her wound. He looked to Sukharam, who was staring at him with a look of confusion, as if he too were questioning those things he had been certain of only moments ago.

Nasim thought back quickly, wondering how Sariya could have done this. He realized in a moment what he should have known immediately. The spire in the forest vale. The interior was hollow. The entire structure was a tower—another manifestation of her tower in Alayazhar. It was Sariya’s haven, her source of power and strength.

Sariya met his eye. She still had a look of pain—the wound, at least, had been real—but there was a look of triumph as well, and a clear note of sadness, as if she’d hoped things wouldn’t have come this far, or that she and Muqallad might have found another way.

Neh
, Nasim said to himself. She wasn’t sad over what had come before, but that which had yet to come.

Nasim heard footsteps approaching from one of the other tunnels. He turned and saw the shapes of forms in the darkness. As their images brightened from the shaft of light, Nasim’s breath caught in his throat. The sound was sharp, guttural, and it echoed about the cavern like the sound of chittering laughter.

Muqallad strode forward and into the wide space. Near his side, only a step behind, was Kaleh, and behind her were the akhoz, three or four or more—Nasim couldn’t tell; his eyes were drawn to Muqallad’s, and the two of them stared at one another for a good long while. Nasim remembered staring into those eyes many times before. These were Khamal’s memories, but at that moment they felt so much like his that he started to wonder
who
he was, and
where
. This place might be on Ghayavand. It might be on Galahesh. It might be in the desert wastes of the Gaji, where he and Sariya and Muqallad had traveled together to first find the Atalayina and then unlock its secrets.

He didn’t know who he was anymore, nor when he’d come to this place or why.

“Have you found the final piece?” Sariya asked.

He knew this was the third piece of the Atalayina, but he couldn’t remember when it had been lost, or who had taken it.

“We will have it soon.” As Muqallad spoke these words, he held his hand out and looked to Nasim.

It was a beckon, a summons, and Nasim knew that if he stepped forward and accepted his hand, he will have given up all he had striven for, all he had fought for since regaining himself in the keep of Oshtoyets.

“Nasim, stop!” This came from Sukharam, a boy he hardly knew.

He paused, his breath coming rapidly, his pulse beating heavily along his neck. He swallowed once. Twice.

“Nasim!” Sukharam called again. “Listen to me! You cannot do this!”

And then he stepped forward.

And took Muqallad’s hand.

N
ikandr woke as a hand shook his shoulder.

He blinked as the sounds of the wind and the feel of his weight upon the deck returned to him.

He stood before the
Yarost’s
starward mainmast, his arms hanging at his sides. Every part of him felt as if it were weighted with lead.

Anahid stood beside him, and after long moments he realized she had been the one who had touched his shoulder.

“Where are we?” he asked.

“Off course,” she replied. Her face was dour, as if he had disappointed her in some way, perhaps because he was not Jahalan. “If you can find the strength, another day will see us to land, and then we can begin skirting it eastward.”

“I don’t know if I can stand another day.”

“You will, son of Iaros, or we’ll never reach Yrstanla.”

Nikandr took a deep breath. He stretched his jaw. He shook his head until his neck hurt. But none of it managed to drive away the sleep.

Anahid evaluated him with a long, searching look.

“I’ll make it.”

She looked doubtful. She appeared tired as well, exhausted even, but there was grim determination in her eyes. How the Aramahn managed to stay awake for such long periods, he would never know. “The winds will be stronger today as we reach the edge of the storms.”

“How do you know?”

“The tightness in my chest is finally leaving. I first felt it on our way across the neck, and it has been with me ever since.”

“I’ll be ready,” Nikandr replied.

“See that you are,” she said, nodding over his shoulder.

He turned sluggishly and found Styophan approaching with a steaming mug in his hand. Nikandr accepted it gratefully. It was filled with
pyen
, a tea that contained the fermented bark of a tree that grew in the lowland swamps of many of the Grand Duchy’s islands. They’d found it in the physic’s chest in the galley.

He took one large swallow. The scalding liquid burned its way down his throat, but he didn’t care. The pain served to wake him up, and the sooner he got the liquid into his gut, the better.

He was nearly ready to begin calling on his havahezhan when something caught his eye far out to sea. He moved to the windward gunwales and steadied himself while drinking his
pyen
. His eyes refused to remain steady, however, and no matter how forcefully he tried to remain awake, his eyes began to close.

And then it came again.

“Do you see it?” he asked Styophan when he stepped up to the gunwales at his side.

“What?”

“The darkness against the sea. Three leagues out”—he held his arm straight out—“there.”

Styophan stared. “
Nyet
.”

After downing the last of his drink, Nikandr used his spyglass to watch for minutes more, but it never recurred. He didn’t like it, though. It was dangerous to fly so close to the sea. Any loss in lift or an unforeseen gust might drive you down on top of the waves, so Landed windships rarely did so, but the Maharraht would often fly this way because it made them more difficult to spot against the dark sea. Many of their ships’ sails were dyed gray to add to the effect.

In the end, there was nothing he could do about it. Even if he’d wanted to, there was no way he’d be able to catch up to the ship. He’d be lucky to bring them safely to the shores of Yrstanla.

“Son of Iaros?”

“Coming, Anahid.”

He returned to the mainmast and drew once more upon the wind, using it to guide the ship and her sails. As he had for the past seven days, he drove them onward, fighting the prevailing winds. Their only saving grace was that though the winds were normally unpredictable over the Sea of Khurkhan, they were generally heading northwest—an oddity he could only assume was due to the storms centered on the Vostroman archipelago—so all he need do was correct so that they were headed due north.

Were Jahalan with them, the two of them could have traded time at the mainmast.

But Jahalan wasn’t…

The image of his old friend often played through his mind when he was at his weakest. It did so now, haunting him as he fought to keep the ship headed in the right direction. Tears welled up in his eyes as snow began to fall, but he blinked them away and bent his will to the task ahead.

At least, he thought grimly, the memories of Jahalan were keeping him awake.

Past midday a fog rolled across the sea, dropping visibility to little more than an eighth-league.

“Keep close watch,” Nikandr ordered Jonis, a sharp young officer who’d proven to have excellent eyes.

They moved slower, partially because of the fog but also because Nikandr was nearing exhaustion. He found it progressively more difficult to commune with his spirit. It was not only growing tired, its demands upon him were also growing. Nikandr could feel his heart beat heavily, could feel it skip and his breath grow short if he drew upon the winds too fiercely. And the winds were starting to shift against them. They eddied for several hours past midday and then began to push against the ship head-on, stunting their progress. The best Nikandr could do was to slip northwestward as the wind tried to push them east. If the winds picked up any further, they would be lost, and the ship would be pulled back over the heart of the sea, and if that happened, there would be no returning.

Nikandr drank more
pyen
, but it was having so little effect that he asked Styophan to bring him the last of it. He took the final pinch and packed it between his cheek and gums.

He began to shake after this, and yet he felt no less tired. Then again, maybe he would have simply collapsed if he hadn’t taken it.

An hour later, he leaned his head against the mainmast, his eyes closing of their own accord.

He woke, only vaguely realizing that Styophan was holding him up.

“Not yet,” Styophan said, rolling Nikandr’s shoulders to try to get his blood moving again. “We’re nearly there.”

“I can’t,” he said, but the words were so soft he barely heard them. “I can’t.”

“You can, My Lord.”

When Nikandr didn’t respond, Styophan pressed him up against the mainmast and struck him across the cheek. Nikandr barely felt it.

Styophan struck him again. “We are not yet done, My Prince!”

A third time he struck, and Nikandr vaguely tasted something warm and slick in his mouth.

Blood, he realized.

He shook his head, which did nothing, and fell to his knees.

But then he heard something else. Something new.

The sound of cannon fire coming off the windward bow.

He dragged himself to his feet and looked, able to stave off some small amount of the clutching weariness. The way ahead was still cloaked in fog, but it seemed not so thick as it once was. The sound of a cannon came again, accompanied by a brief flash.

“Ready cannons, men,” Nikandr called as he resumed his position at the mainmast. “And prepare the muskets.”

“The coast is near,” Anahid said. “I can feel it.”

Nikandr could as well, but not in the same way. The air smelled different. It smelled of earth, of the cold loamy scent of a forest in winter. And now that he put his mind to it he could hear gulls far below, off the landward side of the ship.

As they approached, the cannon fire intensified. And then it was mixed with musket fire.

“Follow the cliff line,” Nikandr ordered, speaking only loud enough for the master to hear, “but stay above land.”

Orders were passed about the ship. The keels were reengaged by the pilot. The land mass would provide them ley lines to work against once more. They would not be as strong as those that ran among the islands, but they would be strong enough in this meager wind.

As Anahid lowered the ship, the pilot brought them in line with the cliff so that it was only a few hundred yards off their landward side. The fighting intensified, men shouting orders or crying out in pain.

And then they saw it. A dozen ships, all of them moored to the cliff. Their landward masts had been disengaged, and spread apart until they were positioned like three-legged stools against the cliff face. It was not ideal, but all ships made for fighting were constructed so in case the ship couldn’t reach the safety of an eyrie.

Nikandr could already tell that they were the ships Konstantin had sent. He didn’t at first understand why they would be moored, but the reason came clear when he noticed that the nearest three ships had been gutted. They’d stopped here for repairs, perhaps after a battle with Yrstanlan ships that had been sent to intercept them, or even because of damage sustained during the crossing of the Sea of Khurkhan.

Further west, stationed at a gentle curve of the snow-covered cliff, were a dozen janissaries wearing white uniforms and rounded turbans with tall, colorful plumes, but there were also several dozen ghazi with them, the militia of the Empire’s outlands that heeded the call of the Kamarisi when it came. While the ghazi fired muskets, the janissaries manned three cannons, which had been maneuvered behind a low rock formation that provided them protection against return fire from the Grand Duchy’s ships. But they were completely open to attack from the rear, and so far, thank the ancients, they hadn’t spotted the
Yarost
approaching through the fog.