Lest Our Passage Be Forgotten& Other Stories

Bradley P. Beaulieu

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Copyright © 2013 by Bradley P. Beaulieu

Cover art by Sang Han © 2011Cover design by Bradley P. Beaulieu

Interior art by Evgeni Maloshenkov © 2013Author photo courtesy of Al Bogdan

All rights reserved.

All characters and events in this book are !ctitious. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly coincidental. "e scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without the permission of

the publisher is illegal, and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is

appreciated.

First Edition

ISBN: 978-1-93964-909-6 (pbk.)ISBN: 978-1-93964-910-2 (epub)

ISBN: 978-1-93964-911-9 (Kindle)

Please visit me on the web at http://www.quillings.com

Bradley P. Beaulieu

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“In the Eyes of the Empress’s Cat” (as by Brad Beaulieu) © 2006 by Bradley P. Beaulieu. First

published in Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show, March 2006.

“Lest Our Passage Be Forgotten” © 2008 by Bradley P. Beaulieu. First published in Realms of

Fantasy Magazine, June 2008.

“Prima” © 2013 by Bradley P. Beaulieu. Previously unpublished.

“Sweet as Honey” © 2009 by Bradley P. Beaulieu. First published in Orson Scott Card’s

Intergalactic Medicine Show, November 2009.

“Shadows in the Mirrors” © 2008 by Bradley P. Beaulieu. First published in Dimensions Next

Door, edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Kerrie Hughes, DAW Books, 2008.

“Parting the Clouds” © 2012 by Bradley P. Beaulieu. First published in Time-Traveled Tales,

edited by Jean Rabe, CreateSpace, 2012.

“An Instrument of War” © 2013 by Bradley P. Beaulieu. Previously unpublished.

“Unearthed” © 2013 by Bradley P. Beaulieu. Previously unpublished.

“Flotsam” © 2004 by Bradley P. Beaulieu. First published in L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers

of the Future Volume XX, edited by Algis Budrys, Galaxy Press, 2004.

“Prey to the Gods” © 2013 by Bradley P. Beaulieu. Previously unpublished.

“A Trade of Shades” © 2004 by Bradley P. Beaulieu. First published in AlienSkin Magazine,

February 2004.

“Good Morning Heartache” © 2009 by Bradley P. Beaulieu. First published in Spells in the

City, edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Jean Rabe, DAW Books, 2009.

“Cirque Du Lumière” (as by Brad Beaulieu) © 2008 by Bradley P. Beaulieu. First published

in Fellowship Fantastic, edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Kerrie Hughes, DAW Books, 2008.

“How Peacefully the Desert Sleeps” (as by Brad Beaulieu) © 2007 by Bradley P. Beaulieu.

First published in Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show, October 2007.

“Foretold” © 2010 by Bradley P. Beaulieu. First published in Steampunk’d, edited by Martin

H. Greenberg and Jean Rabe, DAW Books, 2010.

“To the Towers of Tulandan” © 2013 by Bradley P. Beaulieu. Previously unpublished.

“From the Spices of Sanandira” © 2011 by Bradley P. Beaulieu. First published in Beneath

Ceaseless Skies, issues #70 and #71, 2011.

!ese stories were "rst published in slightly di#erent form and appear here in the author's

preferred texts.

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Also by Bradley P. Beaulieu

!e Lays of Anuskaya!e Winds of Khalakovo!e Straits of Galahesh

!e Flames of Shadam Khoreh

Short Story CollectionsLest Our Passage Be Forgotten & Other Stories

Forthcoming in 2014 from DAW Books

!e Song of the Shattered SandsTwelve Kings in Sharakhai

!e Inverted !orn!e !irteenth Tribe

Bradley P. Beaulieu

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Praise for !e Winds of Khalakovo

“Well worth exploring… Beaulieu [depicts] a strange culture [with] a remarkable fantasy/magical reality feel.”

—Glen Cook, bestselling author of !e Black Company

“Overlaid with the rich feel of Cyrillic culture, Beaulieu’s debut introduces a fascinating world of archipelagic realms and shamanic magic worked primarily by women. Verdict: Strong characters and a plot "lled with tension and di$cult choices make this a good option for fantasy fans.”

—Library Journal

“Sailing ships of the sky! Bradley P. Beaulieu’s !e Winds of Khalakovo is an energetic, swashbuckling novel with a distinctive %avor, a lush setting, and a plot "lled with adventure, interesting characters, and intrigue. Exactly the kind of fantasy I like to read.”

—Kevin J. Anderson, New York Times bestselling author of !e Saga of Seven Suns

“Elegantly crafted, refreshingly creative, !e Winds of Khalakovo o#ers a compelling tale of men and women "ghting to protect their world. Politics, faith, betrayal, sacri"ce, and of course supernatural mystery—it’s all there, seamlessly combined in a tale driven by intelligent and passionate characters whose relationships and goals a reader can really care about. A great read!”

—C. S. Friedman, bestselling author of the Cold"re and Magister trilogies

“A page-turner with twists, turns and palpable danger...”

—Paul Genesse, author of !e Golden Cord

“In !e Winds of Khalakovo Beaulieu navigates through a web of complex characters... dukes, duchesses, lovers, and more, while building a rich and intricate world thick with intrigue. He plots the course of Nikandr Iaroslov Khalakovo, a prince laden with disease and courtly responsibilities, and deftly brings the tale to a satisfying end that leaves the reader hungry for the next installment. Beaulieu is a writer that bears watching. I look forward to his next novel.”

—Jean Rabe, USA Today bestselling fantasy author

“Bradley P. Beaulieu is a welcome addition to the roster of new fantasy novelists. !e Winds of Khalakovo is a sharp and original fantasy full of action, intrigue, romance, politics, mystery and magick, tons of magick. !e boldly imagined new world and sharply drawn characters will pull you into !e Winds of Khalakovo and won’t let you go until the last page.”

—Michael A. Stackpole, bestselling author of I, Jedi and At the Queen’s Command

Praise for !e Straits of Galahesh

“Dark, ambitious, complex, populated with a great cast of characters that leap o# the pages, !e Straits of Galahesh is just what the doctor ordered if you are looking for a quality read that’s di#erent from everything else on the market today. !e Winds of Khalakovo turned out to be one

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of the very best SFF works of 2011. Somehow, Bradley P. Beaulieu has raised the bar even higher for this sequel, making !e Straits of Galahesh a ‘must read’ speculative "ction title for 2012.”

—Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist

“If you’re the kind of reader who enjoys Steven Erikson’s approach of throwing readers into a setting without too much guidance and letting the story do the job of explaining the details as it progresses, you should have a great time getting to know this fantasy universe. While that happens, you’ll be treated to healthy doses of feudal and international politics, strong characters, unique magic, romance, spectacular battles on land and in the air, and a story that continues to broaden in scope. !e Lays of Anuskaya is shaping up to be a "ne fantasy trilogy.”

—Tor.com

“Beaulieu presents a [...] vividly realized tale of heroes torn between duty and love.”

—Publishers Weekly

“In the title to this review, I called !e Straits of Galahesh a Russian Bear of a novel. Like !e Winds of Khalakovo, this is a thick, dense secondary world fantasy that requires a full engagement from the reader to really get the best enjoyment out of. And yes, given the stakes, and the scope of the novel, this is de"nitely epic fantasy.”

—!e Functional Nerds

“If you read !e Winds of Khalakovo, then you will want to read !e Straits of Galahesh. If you haven’t, then buy and read them both. !is one is full of excitement, suspense, and betrayal. Lots of betrayal, some intentional, some not. I’ve read a great deal of fantasy in the last year, and almost all of it was good to great. !e Straits of Galahesh was one of the best.”

—Adventures Fantastic

“Reading Bradley P. Beaulieu’s !e Lays of Anuskaya series is like traveling through grand undiscovered country, being in a place that is familiar enough to understand and di#erent enough to amaze. [...] !e Straits of Galahesh continues the breakneck pace of a "ght for an entire world, touched by passion, love, and loyalty. As a reader, almost every chapter added to my sense of wonder and realization. I can’t recommend this fabulous fantasy series highly enough. Read it.”

—Brenda Cooper, author of !e Creative Fire and Mayan December

“With !e Straits of Galahesh, Beaulieu returns to the vibrant fantasy he introduced in !e Winds of Khalakovo. A gritty book packed with big ideas and Byzantine politics, and inhabited by compellingly %awed heroes, Straits is the sort of fully realized epic one can sink into for days. It sings with action, magic, and heart—the perfect second act in a brilliant series.”

—Rob Ziegler, author of Seed

Bradley P. Beaulieu

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For Mom, who nurtured me in all the ways that mattered.And Dad, who showed me the man I might become.

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To the Towers of Tulandan

As Khadija crawled along the dank sewer pipe, she allowed the freezing chill to !ll her.

Her breath billowed into the enclosed space ahead as her arms and belly and legs

crunched over the !lthy, ice-rimed water lining the trough. Wind scoured the streets of

Kirishci somewhere above, and it felt no less brisk in this dark place as she forced her

numb limbs to drag herself slowly along. It felt as though she would never reach the grate

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in time for the hanging, so slow was the going, but she forced herself to pull, one arm in

front of the next—the fates would see to the rest.

When she reached the grate at last, she pushed it up and out, then brought the grate

into the sewer pipe with her. She pushed it forward and away from the clear opening, for

it was made of iron and would foul her abilities were it too near. Bersuq had loosened the

grate three nights prior, but he’d been spotted by the city’s oprichni while leaving, so

they’d all agreed, including Khadija herself, that it was best if she entered the sewers

through another route.

She backed up into the darkness and waited, forcing herself to relax rather than shiver

like one of the soft Landed nobles.

When the sun rose at last, she saw a woman limp across the square. More of the

Landed soon followed—peasants leading carts laden with bales of harvest hay over the

snow-covered cobbles; children running and slipping along the snow and ice, laughing;

the occasional soldier, one of Kirishci’s oprichni, wearing the long, dark cherkesskas and

fur-lined kolpaks of Rhavanki—and !nally, as the sun rose over the old stone buildings,

people began to gather, crowding the gallows as a young boy in courtly clothes stepped

onto the platform and rang a brass bell three times. Soon after, three men and two

women were led onto the platform. Ten oprichni followed, six of them bearing #intlock

muskets and berdische axes with their broad blades and long hafts.

"e remaining four held other implements at the ready, no less a weapon than the

axes or muskets. "ey were dousing rods, circles of iron with long handles that allowed

the oprichni to snu$ any attempt by Maharraht qiram like Khadija to draw upon the

powers of #ame or wind or water. No matter to them that none of the condemned wore

circlets or bracelets or anklets with stones set into them; the oprichni eyed them warily

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just the same, preparing against a summoned gust of wind or the release of a bolt of

bright white lightning that might course through all of them at once.

It’s good they’re scared. !ey deserve to be.

"e oprichni studied the crowd as well, expecting retribution, a thing the Maharraht

had given them at many of the recent hangings around the islands of Rhavanki. "ey

expected an attack, and that was exactly what was coming, though not for the reasons the

oprichni might expect. "e !ve gathered Maharraht, those condemned to die, had chosen

to come here, to give themselves up that Khadija and the others could create a diversion

for their leader, Soroush. "eir bravery and sacri!ce was a source of pride for them all, for

a prize was being brought to Rhavanki this day. A boy. A very special boy. Why Soroush

had chosen Rhavanki she didn’t know, but she knew enough to understand that the day

when the Landed would be overthrown was nearing.

Khadija wore an anklet with a stone of azurite set into it. As the leader of the

oprichni, their desyatnik, read the transgressions of the condemned—transgressions no

doubt fabricated by the High Magistrate of Kirishci—Khadija opened herself to the

stone, allowed the chill of the water to su$use her more fully. She felt the way it seeped

through her clothes and stole her warmth, how it ran the length of the channel below her

and met larger runnels of water as they trailed out from the city toward the nearby river

and down toward the sea more than two leagues away. What she was doing would attract

the notice of the Matri—the Duchess Katerina or one of her four daughters. After all,

with a hanging taking place, they would have taken precautions, the Matri submerging

themselves in their drowning basins and watching for signs of the Maharraht, which was

precisely why Khadija had waited to forge her bond until now.

Focus, Khadija.

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Spending undue thoughts on the Matri would foil her attempts to bond with a spirit,

so she let her mind relax as nooses were slipped around the necks of the Maharraht. Her

brothers and sisters stood stoically, con!dent in the sacri!ces they’d made, preparing

themselves for their next lives.

Khadija reached out, calling upon nearby spirits. One approached quickly, young

from the feel of it but powerful enough for her purposes. She o$ered herself to the

jalahezhan, giving of her form that it might taste of the material world. She thought it

might refuse her—they were mercurial, after all—but soon, the bond had coalesced.

"e nooses had now been tightened. "e desyatnik, wearing a grey cherkesska and

black boots and a golden medallion in his kolpak hat that gleamed in the otherwise grey

morning, read the last of the writ as Khadija bid a tendril of water to snake up and out

from the sewer pipe. It slithered forward, the snow melting where it touched, drawing

still more water to its form, causing it to widen as it approached the edge of the gallows.

As the desyatnik stepped back, rolling up the writ, many in the crowd looked up at a

black rook as it #apped through the square, cawing wildly. “Maharraht!” it called.

“Beware! Maharraht!”

It was the Matra, speaking through the voice of the rook. "e warning had come

sooner than Khadija had hoped, but she was not unprepared, and neither would the

others be.

"e tendril of water snaked up the nearest of the platform’s stout wooden posts. "e

wind picked up, blowing strongly across the square. "e peasants began to scatter as the

desyatnik bellowed orders and his oprichni brought their dousing rods to bear, pointing

them into a growing wind that was now howling through the streets, pressing the crowd

and the oprichni and the gathered Maharraht.

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"e rook cawed violently as it was tossed by the gusting wind, and Khadija smiled

bitterly. "e wind, though it was now starting to die from the e$orts of the oprichni and

the e$ects of the black iron dousing rods, was only a diversion. Hers was the true assault.

Drawing further upon her bonded hezhan, Khadija forced the stream of !lthy water

to divide. It split and split again until there were ten in all, enough for each of the ten

gathered oprichni. Each stream held enough to !ll a man’s lungs. As they gamboled along

the planks like tiny brooks, a woman standing in the square shouted and pointed wildly

at them, but the oprichni were occupied. Khadija did not revel in the death she was about

to deal, but neither would she weep for the souls of these Landed men when they were

gone.

As the !rst of the cords of water began to snake up the leg of the nearest soldier,

however, someone stepped into the square, a man set apart by the robes he wore—inner

robes of ivory, outer robes the orange of the setting sun. "ough nearly obscured by his

mop of curly brown hair, she could see a golden circlet upon his brow, and within the

circlet was a tourmaline gemstone that—like Khadija’s own stone of azurite would be

doing now—was glowing under the morning sun. "ere was something familiar about

him, even his gait, but he was too far away, the crowd too frenetic, for the half-formed

memories to coalesce.

On the platform, the soldier’s eyes widened as the water streamed up his leg to his

chest, then his neck, and into his mouth and nostrils. He turned, gripping his musket,

staring skyward as if the cawing rook could somehow help him. He was an older soldier,

approaching !fty or more. He looked to be a petty man, his eyes like a rat’s, his small

mouth loath to utter a kind word. As it dawned upon him what was happening, his eyes

locked on one of the Maharraht still bound by her noose. Perhaps the soldier thought the

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Maharraht had done this, or perhaps he’d just grown angry, but as the water continued to

pour down his throat and lungs, he pulled the trigger of his #intlock musket and !red

pointblank into the chest of the staring woman.

"e woman blinked, blood #owing from the wound between her breasts. She

slumped as some of the nearby oprichni turned. "ey saw the choking soldier fall to his

knees, gripping his throat, they saw the water creeping across the planks toward their own

black boots, and they turned to meet this new threat.

But just then the Aramahn man spread his arms wide and the rest of the water

Khadija had summoned #ashed to steam, !lling the air around the platform with a nearly

impenetrable mist.

At that moment, someone on the platform pulled the lever that would activate the

trap doors beneath the Maharraht. As the mist spread, their forms dropped, jerking

sharply as the ropes caught their weight. "en the snow around the platform began to

steam as well, obscuring more of the surrounding square. Flashes of orange light came

from within the mist like the cannon-!re Khadija had once seen in the mists of an early

summer dawn. Moments later she heard bodies dropping. Fire had cut the ropes of the

hanging Maharraht.

"is man was gifted, then. Gifted indeed, to wield both !re and water.

Soon the entire scene was cast in a downy white fog so thick Khadija could see

nothing. She felt the cool dampness enter the sewer as she climbed out and stood once

again on solid ground. She was reluctant to release her jalahezhan, but the Matri could

!nd her too easily if she didn’t, so she allowed the spirit to slip back across the veil to the

world beyond.

And suddenly she felt the cold much more deeply than she had only moments ago.

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"e Matri had discovered them. "ere was nothing to do now but retreat and

regroup. So she ran, though she’d not made it twenty paces before coming upon someone

standing in the mist ahead. She cursed herself for releasing her jalahezhan so soon, but

she was not unarmed. She pulled the curved khanjar from her belt and held it before her.

“Fates be, Khadija,” a golden voice called, “would you take a knife to your kuadim?”

Khadija held her ground as the mists began to part. "ere, standing before her…

Could it be? By the fates who shine above, it was Ashan, the one who had taught her the

ways of the Aramahn when she was young.

“I thought my message might never reach you,” she said.

“You said it was important.”

“It is, son of Ahrumea.” She took Ashan by the hand and led him quickly down the

road. “It is.”

Ashan squatted near a !re, patting dough between his hands, forming it into a rough

circle. After sprinkling it with salt and rosemary from a small wooden container by his

side, he tossed it lightly onto a cooking stone. "e bread sizzled for a moment, mixing

with the sounds of the surf, and the smell !lled the small seaside cave to which they’d

retreated after the attack in Kirishci. It was the place she’d been assigned, the place

Soroush would come to !nd her when all was well. A good enough place to introduce

him to Ashan, she thought.

For a time she and Ashan had been followed by the oprichni, but Ashan had

summoned more steam before !nally releasing his spirits as well. Khadija worried that the

Matri were watching them even now from their drowning basins in Palotza Iyakar, but as

time wore on and she and Ashan ate their simple meal of #atbread and black bean paste

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in silence, she began to worry less, not because the danger was not high, but because she’d

promised herself long ago to never fear the Landed again. If the fates willed her to be

taken and hung, she would accept it and welcome her next life and begin her long

journey of penance from the violence she’d dealt in this one.

“Where did my message !nd you?” Khadija asked him.

Ashan smiled widely, showing his gapped and angled teeth. “Is that where you wish to

begin?”

“It’s a good enough place to start,” she replied.

“I’ve come from Khazabyirsk, and before that Bolgravya, and before that the Towers

of Tulandan, which was where”—he looked up from tending the cooking #atbread with a

goggle-eyed expression—“your message found me.”

Khadija closed her eyes. "e Towers… How she wished she could go to that ancient

place of learning and read their texts, perhaps share her stories with others and listen to

theirs. But she’d chosen another life. Like an eclipse of the sun, the life she’d chosen had

long ago sti#ed her will to learn, had in fact smothered it until the thirst for knowledge

she’d once felt so keenly now felt instead like something that had never been hers; but

when she came in contact with someone like Ashan, her desires were rekindled, at least

until her next act of violence.

“What made up your mind to come?” Khadija asked.

While #ipping the #atbread with practiced movements, he laughed, a joyous sound

she’d nearly forgotten. “One would think you wished I hadn’t come.”

“I don’t remember you being so circumspect.”

His smile faded. “I don’t remember you being so violent.”

Khadija ignored the jab. Behind the smiles, Ashan was shrewd, and he was trying to

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push her into revealing more than she wished. “Have you come to save me, then? To turn

me back to the path of vashaqiram, to enlightenment?”

Ashan had already lost his humor, but now he became gravely serious. When he

spoke, he spoke in low tones. “It is a path you can always return to, daughter of Fassed.

Even were you to be caught and hung tomorrow. Even”—he gave her that look again

—“were you to kill everyone on this island.”

At this, Khadija’s breath caught, and to her great shame Ashan saw. Not shame for the

acts she and the others hoped to commit against the Duchy of Rhavanki, but for the life

she’d left behind, the vows—to herself if no one else—she’d turned her back on.

“Khadija, what happened to Mirilah does not have to happen to you.”

“Do not speak to me of my sister!”

Suddenly the message she’d sent so long ago seemed foolish indeed. What had she

hoped in summoning Ashan here? He would never agree to help, or if he did, then

Soroush would refuse him.

“What made you come?” she !nally snapped.

Ashan pursed his lips. He looked strange, as if choosing his words with great care, but

then there came a sound from the entrance to the cave, and Ashan turned toward it. A

bear of a man with a long grey beard stooped low to enter the cave. Khadija grit her teeth

and did her best to hide her disappointment. She’d hoped Soroush himself would come.

He at least she could reason with. Bersuq, Soroush’s brother, was like a stone, rigid in his

thinking and resolute that others should be the same.

Bersuq could not come to full height when he reached the open space near the !re, so

he crouched and sat on his heels, eyeing Ashan warily. Bersuq wore the clothes of the

Maharraht, robes of rough woolen cloth, almond-shaped turban with a ragged tail that

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hung down his chest.

Khadija motioned to Ashan. “"is is Ashan Kida al Ahrumea.”

“Ashan is known to me.” Bersuq’s greying beard waggled as he spoke.

“Forgive me,” Ashan said as he ripped some hot bread free and popped it into his

mouth, “but I do not know you.”

“And why would you?” Bersuq asked.

“Ashan,” she waved to the man across from him, “may the fates smile as you meet

Bersuq Wahad al Gatha.”

“Peace be upon you,” Ashan said around his food, o$ering Bersuq his smile.

Bersuq refused to return it, turning his head to Khadija instead. He said nothing, but

his gaze demanded answers.

“I summoned him here, Bersuq, for I’m running out of answers. In truth, I was

running out long before we came here.”

Bersuq’s face soured. He was not a forgiving man, nor a patient one, and he was

beginning to show his anger, which meant surely that considerably more was bottled up

inside him. “You imagine that an arqesh will help us?”

“In this he might.”

“Why?”

“Allow me to ask him and you’ll see.”

"e muscles along Bersuq’s jaw worked. His reddened eyes looked her up and down,

then they studied Ashan. “Are you Maharraht?”

“I am not,” Ashan said matter-of-factly.

Bersuq stood, hunching over, and stared down at Khadija. “"en he cannot come.”

And with that he left the cave, leaving a dread feeling in the pit of Khadija’s heart.

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"e sound of rushing water !lled the valley walls. Khadija walked along a trail layered

with fresh fallen snow. Two sets of footprints were nearly lost, but she could see them,

dimples mirroring one another along the trail that hugged the steep right side of the

valley. After a bend in the path the sound of rushing water rose dramatically. On the

valley’s opposite face frothed a wide, white waterfall that issued from a gap in the black

cli$ face and fell to a churning pool below. Standing even with her on an outcropping of

rock halfway down the course of the roaring water were a tall man and a young boy, both

dressed in the ragged clothes of the Maharraht.

"e man was Soroush Wahad al Gatha, the very man she had been following, her

guiding light, these past seven years.

And the boy…

His name was Nasim, and he was gifted. Gifted in ways not seen in centuries.

Speaking to him, however, communicating with him, that was another matter entirely.

Soroush crouched next to him, his long black beard blowing in the wind as he

whispered in Nasim’s ear. He whispered not because of the falls but because Khadija

herself had learned that to whisper so close seemed to reach him more often than other

methods. Nasim was not watching the water. He was hugging himself around his waist, as

he did so often. Only rarely did he act otherwise, and even more rarely did he speak,

though she knew he was not a boy without words. He could speak, but only when the

fates and some queer working of Nasim’s mind saw !t.

Khadija continued on the trail and eventually stepped from soft earth onto black

stone wet from the spray of the waterfall. "e moment she did, Nasim’s head snapped

toward her. Soroush turned as well, alarmed, not from her presence, but from Nasim’s

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unexpected reaction to it. Nasim rarely noticed the details of the world around him.

Khadija had worked with him for nearly three years now, but he’d only spoken with her

twice: once while ferrying him across the White Sea north of Bolgravya, and another

while cutting across the Great Northern Sea as they’d approached Rafsuhan, one of the

few Maharraht refuges. Both times Khadija had felt a yawning inside of her, something

Nasim himself had surely caused.

She felt it again here, a hollow in her gut that felt as though the world were opening

up beneath her and that any moment it would swallow her whole. Her instinct was to

reach for her gut, to protect herself with the very gesture she’d seen so often from Nasim,

but the truth was she was too trans!xed by what was happening to do so.

She stepped carefully toward him. “Nasim?”

But she realized then he wasn’t looking at her. He was looking over her shoulder. She

turned and found Ashan walking along the trail behind her. She glanced quickly to

Soroush, hoping to read his mood. She’d asked Ashan to remain in their cave, and he’d

smiled and nodded, but she realized now he hadn’t actually agreed to her demand.

Soroush was angry—she could see it in his eyes—but he said nothing as Ashan

stepped lightly onto the black stone beside Khadija and approached. Like a man hoping

to settle the nerves of a skittish yearling, Ashan glided toward Nasim, ever closer, hands at

his sides. "e stone set into the golden circlet upon his brow glowed dully in the daylight.

He was bonded, then, and Khadija could tell he was bonded not merely to one hezhan,

but many. Ashan was arqesh, a man gifted among the Aramahn people. To be arqesh

meant many things, but here was one facet of it: the ability to commune with !ve hezhan

at once. Five. All of the elements. Vana, hava, suura, jala, and dhosha—earth, air, !re,

water, and life.

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As had always been true, Khadija stood in awe of his gifts, and it made the blood rise

to her cheeks as she thought of the things she’d done since leaving Ashan’s side.

When he judged he’d come near enough, Ashan crouched so that he was looking up

at Nasim, not the other way around. “Can you hear me?” he asked as the water roared.

And now Nasim appeared to be looking over Ashan’s shoulder. He looked around

him, to the sky above, to the moist stone below. “"ey are old,” he said.

Ashan seemed to know what he meant immediately, for he smiled and replied, “"ey

are indeed. Have you seen them before?”

Nasim looked again, his brown hair damp from the water drifting on the breeze

around them. “"em, neh. But their brothers. "eir sisters.”

Ashan nodded. “I can feel them as well.”

And now that Ashan said it, Khadija could too. "ey were speaking of hezhan—

spirits, separated from the world of material things by the aether. "ey stood always on

the other side of the veil, in Adhiya, yearning to return to the lives they once led. It was

why qiram like Ashan and Khadija could commune with them. Hezhan wished to touch

life in Erahm, to experience it through the bond they shared with a qiram. And the

qiram… "ey wished to touch the stu$ of Adhiya, a thing the hezhan might grant—that

and to learn more about the world beyond. It was an exchange into which both qiram

and hezhan willingly entered.

Sometimes there were few spirits near and communing was di%cult, but not here, not

on Rhavanki, which was precisely why Soroush had brought them to this island. Khadija

could feel gathered in this place hordes of hezhan, many of whom not only yearned to

cross, but seemed desperate for it. "ere were some special few among these that felt old

and ancient indeed. Elders, they were called, hezhan with whom only the most powerful

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could commune safely. Yet Nasim was doing so with apparent ease. And he did so

without a stone. He needed no stone of alabaster to commune with a spirit of air, no

azurite for a spirit of water. He simply did, like the qiram of ancient days.

"roughout this exchange Soroush watched, the golden earrings in his ruined left ear

glinting as his gaze swiveled back and forth between them. His brother had denied

Khadija’s request for Ashan’s presence, and Soroush most likely would have again when

Khadija pleaded for him to reconsider. But this was di$erent. "is was proof before his

very eyes that Ashan could speak with this boy—at least more so than anyone else in the

Maharraht had been able to do.

Ashan, smiling softly, inched closer to Nasim. “Where have you come from, Nasim?”

Nasim frowned at this. He shook his head. “I don’t remember.”

Ashan seemed una$ected by his answer. “Who was your mother?”

And now Nasim’s frown deepened. His eyes rolled up in their sockets until only the

whites could be seen. He shivered and doubled up, holding his gut and screaming. He

was a boy of nine, perhaps ten, but just then he looked three years old as he curled inward

over his knees, muscles taut, his whole body shivering with pain.

“Nasim!” Ashan reached out to touch him.

And when he did, the wind rose. In mere moments it was howling around them,

tugging at their clothes and whipping their hair. It pressed on them, thrust them around

on the stone, and for a moment Khadija thought they might all be thrown from it into

the waiting water below, or worse, dashed to the unforgiving stone around it.

She realized the wind was swirling around Nasim himself. It twisted his clothes, spun

the droplets of water around him and tossed them skyward in a swirling maelstrom that

went up and up and up. "e water from the waterfall was drawn in as well, more and

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more of it frothing around him until Nasim was completely obscured. Soroush and

Khadija both stepped away, but Ashan drew upon his hezhan, he countered the e$ects

Nasim was creating through his own bonded spirits.

Ashan was shouting something as he stood there, but Khadija couldn’t hear it among

the roar of wind and water. His words must have made their way to Nasim, though, for a

moment later the water around Nasim and in the column above him burst. It spread

outward, spraying the area all around, misting the sky above this hidden vale. Rainbows

formed as the water drifted downward, turning a place that had seemed ready to deal

death only moments ago into something strangely idyllic.

"e roar became a hush, and Khadija could hear Ashan calling to Nasim. “All is well,”

he said, holding Nasim closely. “All is well.”

Soroush was nervous. Khadija could tell from the way he was watching Nasim, but he

didn’t wish to interrupt the tentative peace Ashan had somehow brokered.

At last, Nasim stood, holding his gut with both arms, with Ashan at his side.

Soroush glanced southward toward a white mountain peak. Beyond that mountain—

three leagues from where they stood—lay Kirishci and Palotza Iyakar, and unless no one

lay in the cold drowning basins deep beneath the palotza, the Matri’s attention would be

drawn here. "eir only chance was to move below ground, where it was said the

con#uences of aether gave the Matri di%culty seeing. “Come, quickly,” he said, and the

four of them walked down a hidden path to a tunnel near the base of the falls.

Khadija followed as they walked down the tunnel, going deeper and deeper into the

mountain. Soroush, at the lead, held a siraj, a stone the size of a pear that shed a bright

pink light. Khadija had not been to this place before, and she didn’t know whether it was

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one of the forgotten Aramahn villages that dotted the many, many islands of the Great

Sea. She decided it wasn’t, that this place had been freshly built, for the tunnel they

followed, and the others that met and crossed it, all looked to be freshly made, carved by

the hand of dozens of vanaqiram over the course of months, even years. She had known

that Soroush had been planning their journey to Rhavanki for some time, but she’d had

no idea just how long.

"ey came eventually to a room, more of a cavern, with many siraj stones set into

pedestals throughout. "e room itself was circular with a high vaulted ceiling that held

the curving traceries of her people. "ey may have abandoned the tenets of the Aramahn,

but not the love of place, of creating; this would never leave them, and it made Khadija

yearn for her earlier days she’d spent #ying on ski$s and windships among the islands,

traveling the world.

Learning, not killing.

She shook these thoughts away as she and the others walked toward the center of the

room. Groups of Maharraht rested about the place—some standing and talking, others

sitting cross-legged, taking breath—but when Soroush clapped his hands, they all left,

leaving Khadija and Soroush alone with Nasim and Ashan.

Soroush set his siraj into an empty pedestal at the exact center of the room and

regarded Khadija with dark eyes. “You knew why I asked you to meet me this morning.”

“I did.”

“And yet you brought this Aramahn with you.”

“She did not,” Ashan broke in. “I followed of my own accord.”

“Why?” Soroush asked, turning to face him.

Soroush was an imposing man, and a rage was clearly building within him, but Ashan

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appeared not to notice. “Because the message that Khadija sent me made it clear how

special Nasim was, and that you were having di%culty with him.”

“"ere have been di%culties, that is true, but whether Nasim is special or not remains

to be seen.”

Ashan’s look of shock was comical, cast as it was by the reddish light from the siraj.

“Did you not stand upon the same slab of basalt as I?”

Soroush sti$ened. “"ere is no doubt Nasim has the potential to be special—very

special, as we saw—but that is a far cry from being special.” He regarded Nasim with a

sour expression, as if Nasim were his own son. “Like this he is little more than a burden.”

“A burden…” Ashan echoed. “And you would rather he be … what?”

“Why have you come here?” Soroush countered.

“To help.”

“So you implied. But why? What do you hope to gain here?”

Ashan laughed, and Soroush’s mood grew the darker for it. “Does one need to gain

from everything they do in life? Might a man not grow simply by helping?”

“He may,” Soroush allowed, and with that he turned to Khadija. “What did your

message say?”

Khadija’s heart jumped. Soroush demanded extreme loyalty from all his followers. She

had known it might come to this when she’d sent for Ashan, but the Maharraht had so

few with his sort of knowledge. So much had been lost—particularly among those who

followed the violent ways of the Maharraht—but she would tell him the truth; she would

not sully her soul by lying. “I told him of Nasim’s abilities. "ough Nasim reveals them

little enough, I told him they were wondrous, that they were akin to the qiram of old,

that he can reach across the aether with but a thought, a wave of his hand. I told Ashan of

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our inability to reach Nasim, to talk, to tell him what we wish.”

“And what is it you wish?” Ashan broke in.

Soroush stroked Nasim’s hair. It was a tender gesture, but it made Khadija’s insides

squirm. She’d never been wholly comfortable with using a boy in such a way, but she

recognized the need. "ese were desperate days, and if the fates saw !t to deliver one such

as Nasim into their laps, who was she to argue?

“You knew Khadija was Maharraht?” Soroush asked Ashan, ignoring his question.

“I did.”

“And still you came, knowing Nasim was ours.”

Ashan smiled again, but the mirth had left his eyes. “"at boy is yours no more than

this cavern is, son of Gatha, or the island that cradles it.”

Soroush kept one hand on Nasim’s head; the other moved to the steel butt of his

khanjar. “He is mine as this knife is mine. As my musket is mine.” He nodded his head

toward Khadija, the deadened stone of jasper glinting in his red turban as he did so. “As

the men and women who have pledged their lives to our cause are mine.”

“Except Nasim has made no such pledge.”

“And yet he has fallen into our care. "e fates shined on us that day, and I won’t allow

you to change his course, or ours.”

“"at isn’t why I’ve come. "e fates will guide as they see !t.”

“"en get to it, Ashan, for I tire of this. Why have you come?”

“To reach this boy. To teach him. To learn from him if I can. What else is there in

life?”

“"ere is much,” Soroush said, his voice rising. “Are you Maharraht?” "e words

echoed harshly in the large chamber.

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If Ashan felt insulted by the question, he didn’t show it. “I am not,” he said simply.

“"en why would you think I would allow you to stay?”

As much as Soroush’s voice was rising, Ashan’s was becoming calmer. “I wish to learn

more about Nasim. So do you. And if that is so, then what harm is there in allowing me

to stay?”

Soroush’s hand was still resting on his knife, but now he was looking at Ashan as if he

was ready to draw it, to run it across Ashan’s throat and be done with this charade. He

viewed Ashan as a threat, and not only that—Ashan was a reminder to Soroush or any

other Maharraht who looked upon him of the life they’d left behind, the life of peace.

"ey had all come to terms with that in their own ways, but to be reminded of it each day

seemed as though it would prove too much for Soroush to bear. But then he relaxed. He

stared down at Nasim, and his eyes softened, as if he’d seen—even if it was only for one

brief moment—how great Nasim might become.

“I’ll not change my mind,” he said softly.

In reply, Ashan merely smiled his gap-toothed smile.

“I’ll have your stones.”

At this, Ashan paused. “"at will make things di%cult.” His gemstones allowed him

to reach beyond the veil and into Adhiya to bond with hezhan.

Soroush didn’t seem to care. He turned and began walking toward one of the many

tunnels leading out from this room. “And you’ll be bound with bands of iron.”

"e days #owed quickly for Khadija. Days soon turned to weeks, and weeks to months.

She was assigned as Nasim’s escort. She was to study him as closely as Ashan did, to learn

what he was doing and to carry on if ever Ashan’s actions were deemed suspicious. But

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she never felt that was the case. Ashan spoke to Nasim endlessly, told him stories of the

creation of the world, how the fates had cradled the world in the palms of their hands,

how they’d wept and created the stars, how they’d smiled and created the sun, how they’d

breathed and granted life to the world. Ashan told him the stories parents told children,

but also deep and ancient tales Khadija had never heard. Tales of the travels of ancient

men and women through the islands or the mainland of Yrstanla far to the west.

One story—a tale of an ancient man who wandered the Gaji desert searching for the

stone of creation—was so vivid that Khadija had to wonder… “"at story you told

Nasim,” she said one night over a small !re in a vale of stunted trees, “was it from another

life?”

Ashan was staring into the !re, bracelets of heavy iron around his wrists and ankles,

chin resting on his knees, looking for all the world as young as Nasim, who was sitting

cross-legged nearby. “I dreamed it when I was young”—he motioned to Nasim with a tilt

of his head—“when I was no older than him. As vivid as this !re before me. As vivid as

the stars above.”

“It was, wasn’t it? Your prior self…”

But Ashan merely shrugged. “Who can tell?”

“It must be.”

“"ere are days when I think that’s true, and others where I think I’m merely fooling

myself, wishing it were so. I hold on to it, hoping it comes clearer in the next life, or the

one after that.”

“I dream…”

Both Khadija and Ashan looked to Nasim. Neither one spoke; they didn’t wish to

break the spell, for Nasim had spoken not at all since the waterfall.

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Nasim picked up a brand from the !re. He held it near his lips and blew softly upon

it, embers lifting into the night sky to mingle among the stars. “I dream of an island far

from here.”

“What island?” Ashan asked softly.

“"ere were many there once. Men and women like you.” He looked to Ashan. “And

you.” He turned to Khadija. “"ey were learned, but they took much for granted.”

“What, Nasim? What did they take for granted?”

He turned the brand over, staring into the deep orange glow between the plates of

bitter coal. “Life, both ours and the next. "ey broke much. "ey sacri#ced much.”

“Who? Your parents?”

Nasim set the brand back into the !re and ran his hands over the #ames. He reached

within it and touched something there.

And suddenly Khadija could feel it.

A suurahezhan, a !re spirit, ready to cross over if Nasim willed it.

A hand formed in the #ames, and Khadija scrabbled to her feet, ready to pull Nasim

away if needed, but the moment she moved, the diaphanous hand lifted with the #ames,

twisting and turning until it was gone.

He could have done it, she realized. He could have pulled the hezhan across the veil

and into the material world. With no stones. Just a brush of his hand.

Ashan watched Nasim carefully for some time, but Nasim merely returned to his

silent scrutiny over the !re and wouldn’t respond to their questions.

“Can you look upon him and not see what we might become?” Ashan was staring

directly into Khadija’s eyes now, the !re casting shadows across his face and beard and

curly hair. In all his time on the island so far, Ashan had not once touched on the subject

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of her betrayal, her abandonment of the Aramahn for the Maharraht.

“Why would you ask a question you already know the answer to?”

“Because I cannot understand why you would take up this life. How can you hope to

reach your better self with blood upon your hands? All you see is red, Khadija, daughter

of Gheddesh and Fassed. Red, when you might see the golden light of dawn. Darkness,

when you might see the silver moon.”

“How can you protect the Landed? "ey hold our travels hostage, refusing us gems,

refusing us access to the land that is not theirs, but everyone’s. You speak of blood. What

of the blood on their hands?”

“Do you claim no responsibility for your actions then? Are you nothing more than a

puppet?”

“Don’t pretend they’re blameless,” Khadija spat. “"ey’re cruel. Cruel even to

themselves. "ey don’t deserve a place on the islands.”

“We were speaking of you and why you’ve turned your back on your own future.”

“"is is where you’ve always been blind, Ashan. You speak of my future? My future is

nothing if the Landed take and take and take! "ere will be nothing left for me! Or you!

Or any of us! You cannot separate one from the other.”

“You cannot take responsibility for anyone but yourself.”

“Forgive me, kuadim, for you are gifted in so many ways, but in this you are a fool. I

must take responsibility for everyone but myself, for you will never do it.”

“"e fates see farther than the horizon. "ey will guide us.”

She waved to Nasim emphatically. “"ey already have! "ey guided me to Soroush’s

side. "ey guided Nasim to me. And they will guide my hand as I slip a knife into the

heart of the Landed.”

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If Ashan was shocked by her words, he didn’t have time to show it, for just then

several things happened at once.

Soroush stepped into the !relight, but there he stopped, staring, mouth agape.

Near the !re, Nasim was now standing, touching his !ngers to the #ames. Khadija

made to grab for him—thinking he was merely curious—but before she could, Nasim

used his !ngers to coax the #ame, as one might pull a tuft from a ball of wool, and it

seemed to Khadija in that moment that Nasim was holding his hand out to a dear friend,

o$ering it that they might step safely across a treacherous threshold.

"e #ame grew and grew, and Khadija felt something blossom within her. "e world

broke and gaped wider. It felt as if she’d been drawn to the other side, swallowed by the

very stu$ of creation. Khadija doubled over, holding her waist, and while she did a form

burgeoned from the #ames. An arm, a head, the vague shape of a body, roughly as tall as

Nasim himself.

A suurahezhan. A spirit of !re standing before her. Ashan looked on with shock, but

Soroush had recovered. He was staring at Nasim with wonder, but also with an expression

she could only describe as deep satisfaction. "ere was a yearning that made Khadija go

cold. Soroush had expected this. It was why he’d brought Nasim here. To this place in

particular. And she’d felt it. "e yawning sensation was still present, and it was all she

could do not to fall to her knees in awe.

Acrid smoke !lled the air. Nasim’s clothes…

"ey were burning.

“Stop it, Nasim!” For a moment Khadija didn’t know if it had been Soroush or Ashan

who had said it, but then she saw Ashan move quickly and surely to wrap his hands

around Nasim.

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"e form a#ame stepped back.

Wavered and was gone.

Ashan cried out, releasing Nasim, falling back to press his arms against the cold earth.

Khadija rushed to his side, checking his skin as he shivered with pain. He’d been burned

badly. Nasim had been hot as glowing coals, but Ashan had smothered the #ames anyway

in order to send the suurahezhan back to its proper place, across the aether to Adhiya.

She realized to her shame what he’d done. He’d saved them all, for if the spirit had

crossed, it would surely have killed each and every one of them.

Khadija walked through a dark tunnel holding a siraj to light her way. She came to a

room where several simple beds lay, only one of which was occupied, by Ashan. A

Maharraht woman in a plain blue dress sat on a stool next to him spreading a salve over

his stomach and chest. His arms were bound in white bandages. When she was done

applying the salve, she wrapped more bandages around Ashan’s torso. He grimaced, and

yet, even with pain clearly on his face, there was also mirth. Here was a man always

prepared to smile, whereas Khadija felt her mouth was set in a perpetual frown.

How Khadija wished she could be like him, but her anger was so tightly wound she’d

never managed to unravel it. Not that I’ve ever tried. And she doubted she ever would.

Her anger was a source of power, a source of drive. It was what kept her by Soroush’s side,

working for the good of the Maharraht.

If she were ever to look too closely in her heart…

When the woman nodded to Ashan and left, Khadija sat down on the stool. “You

asked me to come?”

Ashan chuckled. “Direct and to the point.”

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“Just get on with it, Ashan.”

“Fair enough. Why did Soroush bring you here? Why have you come to Rhavanki?”

“I told you. He felt this place would open paths we could use to speak with Nasim.”

“And so it has.” He paused, looking more deeply into her eyes. “But there were more

reasons for Soroush to bring Nasim here, weren’t there?” Although Khadija sti$ened at

these words, she forced herself to relax lest Ashan notice. But he’d always been an

insu$erably observant man. "ere was a cold satisfaction in his eyes when he spoke again.

“You felt the hezhan. I’m sure you felt the others as well. "ere were dozens of them,

Khadija, perhaps more. Why would that be? And why here?”

“I merely do as I’m bid.”

“As your sister did?”

Khadija’s head jerked back. “I told you not to speak of my sister.”

“You do not owe her this, Khadija. "e Maharraht may !ght, but you don’t need to

follow them. Mirilah’s voice will still be silenced, and you’ll be the poorer for it. "e world

will be the poorer.”

“Mirilah may have been the reason I came to the Maharraht, but she’s not the reason I

stay. I am my own woman, Ashan.”

“And yet you merely—how did you put it?—do as you are bid…”

“Soroush is wise. He sees many paths ahead that I cannot.”

“You’ve chosen not to. You’re not speaking to some fool you’ve never met, Khadija. I

was your kuadim. Do you expect me to believe you’ve stopped questioning the world

around you? Perhaps you’ve managed to shackle your own mind so, but believe me,

Soroush has not. You saw his face as well as I did. What happened with Nasim was

something he’d been waiting for since the moment Nasim arrived. He’s using the boy. I’ve

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known that since I came to this island. What I can’t fathom is the reason behind it.”

"e truth was she hadn’t asked. She hadn’t cared what Soroush would be doing, only

that she would be given a chance to deal pain to the Landed while here. She had thought

that Soroush had chosen her for her connection to Nasim. Later she’d decided that, while

it may have something to do with the fact that she’d found Nasim and brought him to

Soroush, it was because she’d been faithful to him these past seven years. In that time

she’d never once questioned his orders. And that, she realized now, was precisely why he’d

chosen her to watch over Nasim. Because she bore a burning hatred for the Landed and

because she knew that Soroush did as well.

But this was something di$erent. Ashan was right. "e islands of Rhavanki were

home to this strange phenomenon. And Soroush had somehow deduced that. She felt

foolish for not asking more questions of him. Her thirst for revenge had blinded her. But

for some reason she couldn’t admit this to Ashan. How small she had become. How petty

and self-serving. And yet she couldn’t muster the courage to do anything more than

withdraw from Ashan’s bedside and make for the exit.

Before she turned to leave, Ashan reached up and grabbed her wrist, which from the

grimace on his face caused him no small amount of pain. “Tell me, Khadija.”

She snatched her wrist away, a spike of shame running through her at the further pain

it caused him. “You are wise. Find your own answers.”

Ashan’s words trailed after her as she strode away. “If you would abandon that boy like

this, then you are truly Maharraht.”

“I owe him nothing,” she said as she entered the tunnel, “nor you.”

Ashan did not respond, which for some reason was far worse than any biting reply he

might have o$ered.

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She followed the tunnel through a myriad of twists and turns before eventually

hearing the call of the sea. "e waves had always calmed her. She wanted nothing more

than to be alone with her thoughts, but when at last she reached the shore and the white

foamy waves she found someone standing on the rocks.

Nasim. He was crouched down, staring from the edge of one of the black rocks into

frothing surf. How much the child he looked. How innocent and pure.

He reached down to the water and touched his fore!nger to it. As he drew it back, a

tendril of water followed. Like a serpent it snaked upward, following where his !nger

trailed, and soon there was a spiral of water around him, glinting in the afternoon sun. As

easy for him as plucking a stalk of grass. He wore no stone, and yet the hezhan #ocked to

him at his bidding.

“Did you speak with your kuadim?”

Khadija started. She turned and found Soroush squatting on a stone ledge above the

mouth of the tunnel. He held his musket across the back of his shoulders, his arms resting

lazily along the length of the weapon as his long black beard swung idly in the wind.

“I did,” she said, realizing in that moment what Ashan had done. He’d asked for his

message to be passed to Khadija, knowing full well the request would be passed to

Soroush as well. For whatever reason, Ashan wanted Soroush to be suspicious of Khadija.

“I did,” she replied. “He asked me to stand with him, and against you.”

“Did he?” Soroush stood and leapt down from his perch. “And what was your

answer?” He set the butt of the musket onto the dark stone they stood upon and held it

near the muzzle with both hands. He did so absently, in a way that made it clear how

intimate he was with the weapon.

“It wasn’t a serious appeal,” she said. “He did it only in hopes of catching me o$-

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guard, in hopes of !nding answers.”

“Answers to what?”

“Your purpose here.”

“Does he not know my purpose?”

“I’m sure he now suspects.”

Soroush looked to Nasim, eyes piercing, his jaw set grimly. “Because of what Nasim

did?”

“Of course.”

Soroush went silent. On the rock in the surf, Nasim was using his !ngers to spread

the water into wide sheets that re#ected the sun brightly.

When Soroush spoke again, it was to ask the question Khadija had been dreading for

months. “Do we have need of Ashan still?”

With that question, her skin went cold.

"e Aramahn—those still dedicated to the path of learning, in any case—were treated

with reverence by the Maharraht. Much of what the Maharraht did—the violence against

the Landed, the protracted war to push them from the islands—was done so that the

Aramahn didn’t have to. All Maharraht knew this. "ey kept it at the forefront of their

minds in everything they did, even Khadija, who had many reasons to hate the Aramahn.

But in this Soroush would not turn a blind eye. He would not allow Ashan to leave now

that he knew as much as he did.

Soroush, like all Maharraht, had come to grips with the lives they led. "ey would kill

when the need arose, and if counted among the dead were Aramahn, the loss was grieved

but considered necessary in their plans to retake the islands. But to consider killing one of

the Aramahn in cold blood—murder, plain and simple—was something di$erent. It was

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something she would never have considered, and before Soroush had asked his question,

she would never have thought he would consider it either.

"e Aramahn were revered by the Maharraht, and here was Soroush ready to press the

life from one of them.

For Nasim. For Nasim and the plans Soroush had for him.

"is changed everything. For Soroush to be willing to take such a step meant that the

secrets within Nasim were much more signi!cant than Khadija had suspected.

"is all implied something else, however—not only that Soroush had planned to kill

Ashan, but that Ashan had known it from the start. And still he’d come.

Why? Why would he have put his faith in her like this?

"e sound of the surf suddenly diminished until all she could hear was her own

heartbeat.

He’d done it to save her, she realized. To save her.

A fool’s quest. She would not be saved by some simple ploy from Ashan.

But neither would she allow Ashan to be murdered like a mongrel dog.

“He has use still,” Khadija said !nally.

Soroush’s eyes were piercing. Weighing. “Does he?”

Khadija stared at him #atly. “Try to work with Nasim on your own if you doubt me.”

Soroush considered this. She’d been blu%ng, hoping he would see how little progress

he’d made with Nasim on his own, but instead he said to her, “You’re right. It’s time we

learn to live with Nasim and his peculiarities.”

“What?” she asked lamely.

Soroush turned and walked back into the tunnels, but when he was nearly out of

hearing he called back to her, “It’s time that boy gave us our islands back, Khadija, as the

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fates have decreed.”

She watched him recede into the darkness as a chill washed down her frame.

Bersuq came for her before dawn the next day. He snatched her blanket away, grunting at

her, “Up!”, before moving to stand at the doorway of her room in the tunnels. After she’d

slipped out of her night dress and pulled on her robes, Bersuq led her out from the

tunnels and up into open air.

"ere, standing with two other Maharraht just outside the mouth of the tunnel, was

Ashan. She walked side-by-side with him as Bersuq led the way along a path to higher

land. Ashan moved sti&y, as she might well expect, but the bandages around his hands

had already been removed. "e skin there was red and #aky in spots, but otherwise

seemed much better than she would have guessed.

Eventually they came to a copse of windwood trees that ran along the southern ridge

of the waterfall vale. "e morning humidity had settled in Khadija’s chest, and she

coughed from time to time trying to clear it. Ashan looked at her sidelong. “Are you

well?”

She ignored him, looking up through the branches bowing to the wind as the sky

brightened in the east. In the center of the trees, Soroush stood with Nasim. Dozens of

Maharraht had gathered here. It must be nearly everyone who had come to this island—

all save a few that Soroush had stationed in Kirishci to stage the diversion for this very

ritual. It wouldn’t do, after all, to go through this trouble and have the Landed drawn

here before it was done.

"is was an important step in Soroush’s plans. He wouldn’t have called so many if he

didn’t think it would be so. It might even be the ful!llment of Soroush’s desires here on

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this island.

But things hadn’t gone according to plan. Soroush was angry. She could tell by his sti$

stance and the way he was stroking his beard while staring at the ground. Nasim was

kneeling on the dewy grass, blood pouring from a cut along his cheek, the skin around it

reddened and pu$y. He seemed not to notice, however. He was hugging his waist and

rocking back and forth, eyes staring lifelessly at the ground. Or perhaps through it,

Khadija thought, to the world beyond.

In one hand Soroush held a circlet with an opaline gem in the lone setting. He

motioned Khadija to a clear space between three of the trees. “Kneel,” he said to her.

She complied, knowing that to press him now would be a foolish choice indeed.

Clearly he had tried to work with Nasim and had failed miserably. His plans hinged on a

boy he could not control, and it pleased him not at all.

Soroush handed her the circlet, which she set upon her head without question. He

wanted her to bond with a dhoshahezhan using the opal. Many of her people could not

commune with spirits at all, some could commune weakly with one or two, but Khadija

was gifted—due in no small part to Ashan’s mentoring—in that she could commune

strongly with three. Dhoshahezhan, the spirit of life, was among them, and it was to these

spirits that she opened her mind now. It was why Soroush had chosen this place. It was

often easier to attract such rare spirits among woodlands or groves of trees, especially elder

windwood like these.

“What do you wish me to do?” Khadija asked.

“Give of yourself,” Soroush replied, “more deeply than you ever have before. Summon

the spirit close so that Nasim has no choice but to draw it forth.”

Khadija was stunned. Spirits crossed of their own will at times, but the days of qiram

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summoning spirits forth from Adhiya had long since passed. “And what shall we do when

it crosses?”

“I suspect Nasim will handle the rest.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

“"en perhaps it is our time to die.”

With that he moved to stand next to Bersuq and the other men and women of the

Maharraht. Ashan was kneeling next to Nasim, whispering into his ear, and it was having

its intended e$ect. Nasim was calm now, and it made Khadija wonder, not for the !rst

time, what Ashan was doing here. He was, in e$ect, helping Soroush. Even now, this was

allowing Soroush to achieve his goals. "e teacher she had known once would have died

before doing such a thing.

But she couldn’t worry about that now. If Ashan was willing to help, then so be it.

She opened herself to the world around her. She could feel the veil of the aether that

stood between Erahm and Adhiya. She touched this and moved beyond, reaching out to

the spirits that lay near. And there were many, as there were when Nasim had touched the

suurahezhan—so many, in fact, that it soon felt overwhelming. Somehow they had been

drawn to this place. Part of it, she knew, was the state of things here on Rhavanki, but

another factor was Nasim himself. "is child was not merely gifted; it felt as if the fates

themselves had kissed him and sent him here.

It would be easy to bond with any of the hezhan that surrounded her, but Soroush

had said to bond more deeply than she ever had before, so she coaxed one near the edges

of her perceptions. It approached, pressing beyond the others, and Khadija realized this

was no simple hezhan. It was an elder. It shook her, made her skin tingle at the thought of

bonding with a spirit of such age. What might it have seen in its time? "e birth of the

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Grand Duchy? "e coming of the Landed to the shores of the islands once touched only

by the Aramahn? "e arrival of the !rst ski$ on these shores? "e thought of it awed her.

She did as Soroush had asked. She opened her mind. Gave of herself that the hezhan

might taste of this world. And in doing so she was consumed.

She felt the hezhan as it stood in Adhiya. She felt something else as well. Never had

she been able to feel the land around her as she supposed the Landed Matri did in their

drowning basins, but standing there among the windwood she thought she might have.

She felt the weight of the islands themselves for a moment, their immensity. She felt the

ways they were connected with one another. "e ley lines that guided the windships of

the Grand Duchy also connected the islands in vital ways. And there was a tear in this

fabric. A tear in the veil between worlds. Such creases happened from time to time—it

was how hezhan could cross spontaneously—but they were never so wide. Surely it was

no #eeting thing. It had been this way for some time. Weeks. Months. Perhaps even

years. "is is what had brought Soroush to these islands. He wished to use the rifts

against the Landed. And Nasim was the key to doing so.

"e dhoshahezhan was so close now she might touch it. She felt the hair on her head

and the back of her neck lift. Above her, lightning arced between the boughs of the trees.

A pinpoint of light formed directly above Khadija, and something tore through her. Body

and soul. Something bright and white and !lled with a thousand years of love and

knowledge.

Khadija had birthed no daughters. But she felt as though that wondrous event might

be similar to what she experienced now. "e elder spirit was crossing over to Erahm, and

it was using Khadija to do so. Her entire body went sti$, but she didn’t !ght it—this was

what Soroush had wanted, after all.

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In those endless moments she felt as if she were the hezhan, and she felt another soul

in those moments as well: a boy who stood nearby, drawing the elder forth. Khadija had

summoned this ancient soul, she knew this, but so had Nasim—the only di$erence was

that it had taken every ounce of will Khadija had while Nasim did this with apparent

ease. She doubted he was even fully aware of it.

At last the spirit crossed. It was a #are of white light. A ball of lightning, brightening,

darkening—a coruscating star that made the clearing come alive.

As Khadija’s connection to it faded and vanished altogether, the spirit became brighter

and brighter.

No longer was Nasim hugging himself. No longer was he rocking back and forth. He

was watching this creature with widened eyes, his arms at his side in supplication.

“Nasim!” Ashan called.

But Nasim wasn’t listening. He raised his arms higher, and the dhoshahezhan

responded, brightening further.

“Nasim, don’t!” Ashan barreled into him, wrapping his arms around the boy, pressing

the iron bracelets around his wrists purposefully against Nasim’s skin as he brought him

to the ground.

At that very moment, the hezhan released a bolt of pure white lightning. It crashed

into the dirt near Khadija’s feet. Another shot out, striking the bole of the tallest

windwood tree.

"ere was an expectant pause—a moment when every man and woman in that

clearing stared wide-eyed at the hezhan, wondering whether to run or to stand still—and

then dozens more #ew forth, striking those gathered around, spreading through them.

Khadija watched them go rigid as the energy coursed through their bodies.

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And then a bolt coursed toward Khadija herself. It struck, and her muscles all

tightened at once. She felt herself collapse to the ground, shaking violently. She heard

herself release a groan as the pain rose to impossible heights.

And then the world went dim.

When she woke, she had no idea how much time had passed. She pulled herself up with

quivering limbs and saw that most everyone was still unconscious.

Most, except for Ashan and Nasim.

Of them there was no sign.

Soroush woke soon after, then Bersuq and many of the others. "ree remained still,

killed by the power that had surged through them.

Khadija was about to go to Soroush when she saw something glinting in the soil at

her feet. She reached down and picked it up. A gemstone, she realized. It was opaline and

roughly the size of a robin’s egg.

“What is it?” she asked Soroush when he came near.

He took it from her, examined it, as if he had hoped for this but never truly believed

it would happen. He handed the stone to Bersuq, who seemed to be seething at all that

had happened, but as he began turning the stone over in his hands, the lines of anger and

worry on his forehead relaxed, and the grim line that was his mouth turned to something

like wonder—at least, as much as a man like Bersuq would allow.

Soroush ignored Bersuq for the moment and turned to Khadija. “Tell me what you

felt. Every detail.”

She did. And she held nothing back, for though Soroush was forcing himself to

remain calm, she could tell he was every bit as angry as Bersuq that Ashan had managed

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to escape with Nasim. She told him of the hezhan and its crossing to this world. She told

him how thin the aether felt here. She told him how deeply she’d bonded with the

hezhan, how intimate it had been, how ancient a creature.

When she was done at last, Soroush looked to Bersuq. Bersuq, now !nished with his

inspection of the glittering opal, nodded to his younger brother, as if to say the stone was

acceptable. It made it seem as though the stone was the very thing they’d come to this

island to obtain. But that couldn’t be true, could it?

"e rest of the Maharraht soon left, taking their dead with them. "is left Khadija

alone with Soroush and Bersuq, a fact she was suddenly and inexplicably uncomfortable

with.

“When the hezhan crossed,” Soroush said, treading away from her to the spot where

Ashan had tackled Nasim to the ground, “were you bonded to it still?”

She thought back. "e time was a jumble of memories and disquiet and pain. “It’s

di%cult to remember.”

Soroush stopped and spun on his heels. “Try.”

And she did, though she could also feel their stares as she did so. “I suppose I was,

though I couldn’t think well enough to make use of it.”

“Could you not?” Soroush asked.

She understood what he was hinting at. He thought that at the last moment she had

done something to save Nasim and—more importantly—Ashan. She hadn’t, but that

wasn’t what Soroush believed.

Khadija stepped forward until she was practically chest-to-chest with him. He was a

tall man, a full head taller than she, but she squared herself and stared into his eyes. “Do

you doubt my commitment?”

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“"ey escaped, Khadija, something I doubt Ashan could have done on his own.”

“Were you not listening to me? Ashan wasn’t alone. Nasim had drawn the hezhan

forth. He was communing with it in a way I never have before, with any hezhan. Nor

have you, I’ll wager. It was Nasim that protected Ashan, not the other way around.”

“You summoned your kuadim here from the ends of the world. You’ve bonded with

him these past months. You’ve grown closer to Ashan and Nasim, enough that I doubt

you can do what needs to be done in the days and months ahead.”

“I will do what needs to be done.”

“I hear your words, Khadija Gheddesh al Fassed, but I do not believe them. Not any

longer.”

“My desire to kill the Landed is unswayed, Soroush. How can you doubt this?”

“I doubt you because your goal was never to harm the Grand Duchy.”

“"ey killed my sister!”

“Your sister #ung herself from a cli$.”

Khadija spit upon the ground. “After she’d been tortured by them!”

Soroush’s eyes softened, as if he were saddened, as if she were someone to take pity

upon. She swung her hand to slap him, but he grabbed her wrist.

“Do you want to know why I chose you to watch Nasim?”

“Because I found him.”

“Neh. I chose you because I thought it would bring you some peace, to work with a

child. I thought it might bring you closer to your brothers and sisters.”

Khadija shook her head. “"e Maharraht are my brothers and sisters.”

“I mean the Aramahn…” Soroush nodded to Bersuq, who stared at Khadija with

contempt for a moment before nodding to Soroush and following the others. Soon

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enough, Khadija and Soroush were alone. “I’ve known you long years now, Khadija, and

I’ve learned more than a little about what drives you. You came to me with !re in your

eyes and a hand upon your knife. You told me that you came to cripple the Landed. But

I’ve come to know the love you hold for your sister.”

“Five days they kept us, Soroush. Five days, and Mirilah took the worst of it. She lost

her eye to their gaoler. Her leg was ruined!”

“And yet you did not join the Maharraht along with her.”

Khadija’s jaw tightened. She’d told no one this.

“She came to us months before you—”

“Stop,” Khadija said.

“—and when she returned home at last to visit her sister, she was taken by the

Aramahn.”

“Stop!”

“"ey burned her, didn’t they? "ey burned her and she lost her will to live because of

it.”

“Stop it!” Khadija put her hands over her ears and crouched down over her knees,

trying to make Soroush’s words go away. “Stop it!”

“Hide your head if you wish, but you need look no further than your kuadim for the

truth.”

She cried for a long time, crouched there, hugging her knees to her chest. She didn’t

know how much time passed, but when at last the tears had faded, she looked up to !nd

Soroush crouched by her side, stroking her hair and rubbing her back.

“"e Maharraht is no place for you. I should have realized this long ago.” He kissed

her head and stood. “Forgive me for not doing so.” And with that he left her there in the

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clearing.

She remained, listening to the wind through the trees, wondering where the

Maharraht would go now that Nasim was gone, wondering when the oprichni of

Rhavanki would come to !nd her here. Part of her hoped they would. Part of her hoped

they would take her back to Kirishci and string a rope around her neck like they had the

others the day Ashan had come. Or shoot her in the chest like the drowning soldier had

the woman who’d been waiting to die.

But Soroush’s words haunted her. You need look no further than your kuadim. She

didn’t at !rst understand what he’d meant, but then she realized she was hiding behind

her thoughts. She’d drawn Ashan here. She’d told herself for a long time that he would

never come, but a secret part of her hoped that he would. A secret part of her hoped that

he would come to harm. He’d had nothing to do with Mirilah’s death, but that wasn’t

what had mattered. What mattered was that for Khadija, he embodied the Aramahn

people. What mattered was that the Aramahn had destroyed Mirilah, not the Landed.

Not really. It had been the people she’d been born to, the people she’d loved and cared for,

even while turning to the Maharraht. "e people to whom Khadija had clung while

Mirilah had waged her own personal war. And then they’d stolen Mirilah’s last true love.

Her ability to touch Adhiya. "ey’d stripped her of it, and in turn it had stripped her of

her will to live.

And ever since Mirilah’s death, ever since Khadija’s !rst steps across the threshold of

the Maharraht, Khadija had been harboring, deep within her a desire to return that pain a

thousandfold. On the Landed, certainly, but even more so on the Aramahn themselves.

She stood and stared at her opened hands.

By the fates above, what had she become?

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She sullied her sister’s name. She sullied everything she’d ever believed in. But she

would do so no longer.

Soroush would !nd Ashan. He would take Nasim back, for his plans hinged on that

boy. What Soroush would do with him she didn’t yet understand, but she knew she

couldn’t allow it.

She would never be able to repair the damage she’d caused, but she could protect

Nasim. "at, at least, she could do.

So she stood and made her way toward Kirishci.

As the wind gusted across the blue of open sea, Khadija bid the dhoshahezhan, the spirit

of life to which she was bonded, to lift the ski$ higher in the sky. Hours before dawn she

had stolen the ski$ from the island’s large eyrie built into the tall cli$s to the east of

Kirishci. It was not a simple matter, but there were many to choose from among the

dozen ships that had been berthed there. It had simply been a matter of watching and

judging them carefully, choosing the one tied to the ship least guarded.

With the morning sun now high in the east, she was well out to sea. Rhavanki’s

northernmost islands lay southeast of her, little more than a series of dark smudges on the

horizon. She was headed west. Ashan might have taken a ski$ as she had, but more than

likely he had stowed aboard one of the Landed ships for another duchy. With Nasim as

unpredictable as he was, Ashan would want some protection, and that meant he would

hide in the relative anonymity that could be found in the holds of the Grand Duchy’s

ships. Khadija had learned that the only ship departing today was headed west toward the

Duchy of Khalakovo, and so she had followed, sure that Soroush would as well.

Sure enough, near midday she saw a ponderous ship #ying high, catching the best

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winds as the havaqiram aboard it guided the ship on the kapitan’s chosen course, just as

Khadija was doing now with the sail of her single-masted ski$. "e ship was large, a

twelve-masted barque from the look of it. "ree masts ran up from the deck, three more

to the landward and windward sides, and three more down toward the sea. It was large

enough that it would be !tted with two, perhaps even three cannons—any more than

that and the heavy iron would throw o$ the delicate balance needed to guide the ship

along the ley lines.

Khadija drew further upon her bonded havahezhan, gathering the winds to bring her

closer, and while she did she scanned the horizon carefully, looking for Maharraht ships.

She knew Soroush would be coming for Nasim. It was just a matter of the time and place

they would choose for their attack.

When she’d come within a league of the ship, she thought perhaps Soroush would

wait until after sunset, but then she saw them, three ships #ying low near the horizon.

"eir sails dyed a dark grey, making them more di%cult to spot as low as they were #ying.

"ey were distant yet, but they were ahead of the barque and on a bearing that would

allow them to intercept. "ree ships Soroush had brought, and they would be !lled with

!ne windsmen, battle-hardened. "e soft merchant vessel ahead wouldn’t stand a chance

against them. Not without help.

No sooner had she drawn upon her havahezhan to summon more wind than the very

air around her changed. Her skin felt clammy. "e sky became overcast, then a mist

formed, and soon she was in a fog so thick that she lost sight of the barque ahead.

She used the ship’s last bearing as a guide, and in the still air she could hear orders

being called, the ship changing course as they sensed the trap the Maharraht had laid, but

she soon realized that she had misjudged the Landed crew. After a few moments she

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could hear nothing. With attack imminent they would have turned to hand signals to

pass orders about the ship. Soon she had lost track of the ship entirely.

Khadija was trying to judge how close the Maharraht ships would be—and wondering

whether she’d passed the Landed ship—when she heard a resonant boom roll across the

seas. It came from above her ski$, and slightly behind. She gripped the ski$’s mast and

used her dhoshahezhan to grant lift to the windwood hull, bringing her higher as more

cannon-!re shook the air around her.

"e wind was playing games, throwing her ski$ about. She knew it was because the

Maharraht qiram were foiling those aboard the Landed ship, preventing them from using

the wind to maneuver. Soon the barque would be a plum ripe for the picking, and the

three Maharraht ships would surround it and slowly pick it apart until it surrendered.

But again the Landed crew surprised her. "ey were sharp and quick to battle. As two

ships resolved in the fog ahead, one of them, a small ten-masted schooner, was dropping

down toward the sea, its hull caved open in several places.

Khadija summoned wind to help drive the ship downward faster, but only until it was

clear that the ship would strike the waves below. "en she reversed the direction of the

wind, buoying the ship so that those onboard would not be killed outright and would

stand a chance at survival. For many years she had been a woman used to dealing death,

but she would do so no longer, not if it could be helped.

Cannons shook the heavy air, ripping into the hull of the Landed ship. A chained shot

streaked in from the clipper and struck the starward foremast a third of the way down its

length. "e mast snapped, sending the sails and rigging crashing down and fowling many

of the windward sails. "e ship would be nearly impossible to maneuver; as well as the

Landed crew had fought, the outcome was no longer in doubt.

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Unless something changed.

Khadija asked herself if she truly wished to do this, to stop Soroush from achieving his

goals. But she already knew the answer. As much as anyone, she was responsible for

Nasim’s safety.

She stood and gathered the wind about her before leaping over the side of her ski$.

She opened her arms wide and used the wind to carry her upward. "e clipper loomed

larger and larger before her and soon she had wrapped her arms around the seaward

mainmast, the one that hung straight down from the ship toward the sea, the one

through which an obsidian core ran, catching the ley lines and helping to orient the ship.

She called upon her dhoshahezhan and worked against the qiram on the deck above her.

She pushed hard, knowing that the other would quickly work against her. "e windwood

lost some of its buoyancy, and soon it was sinking, sinking toward the grey sea below.

"ere were shouts from above. Men and women moving into ski$s. But Khadija paid

them no mind. She concentrated wholly on the bond she had forged with the spirit of

life, working desperately to sap the lift from the windwood. She coughed as she clung to

the mast. Using the spirits to drain lift was like losing oneself, and she was pushing so

hard she felt as if she were being drawn across the aether to the world beyond.

She grew lightheaded. Her skin began to prickle and tingle as the world around her

spun. And still she pushed, for the dhoshaqiram on the deck of the ship was strong

indeed. He was refusing to give up, though his brothers and sisters in arms were preparing

the ship’s two ski$s.

He might be strong, but Khadija refused to bend. She pushed even harder than

before, screaming to stay awake as blackness closed in around her.

She could see now that the ship would crash into the sea. She released her hold on the

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spirit of life. If she didn’t, it would have consumed her, or she would have passed out and

fallen into the sea below to drown.

As the ship continued to drop, she shook her head violently in hopes of clearing her

mind. Only as the ship neared the waves was she able to leap free and summon the wind

one last time. "e wind carried her like a seed in spring toward the ski$ she’d left #oating

in the skies. She was nearly at her limits, and she thought surely she would never make it,

but with one last push, she caught the gunwale and hauled herself over it as the wind

!nally gave out in a sharp gust that sent the ski$ twisting and tumbling.

She raised herself up, staring at the remaining Maharraht ship, a wounded schooner,

that was being pushed forcefully away by someone on the Landed barque. Khadija looked

to that massive ship and thought she could see a boy looking over the side of the ship

down at her.

It was Nasim, she knew, but he made no sign of recognition. He did not wave, nor,

she suspected, did he smile. No doubt she was just some oddity that had caught his

attention for a moment and nothing more.

"e wood of the gunwale exploded next to Khadija.

She jerked back re#exively and scanned to her left.

"ere, not a hundred strides from where she sat, was a ski$ !lled with a dozen

Maharraht, the ragged tails of their dark turbans #uttering in the wind. One of them had

!red a musket at her. Bersuq. And he looked ill pleased that he had missed. He took

another loaded musket from one of the other men and sighted along it. Khadija could

feel it pointed at her chest. He would not miss again.

But then Soroush laid his hand on the barrel.

Bersuq stared unbelieving at his brother. He seemed ready to disobey, but then he

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lifted the musket and rested the butt against his thigh, the barrel pointing at the thinning

white clouds above.

Khadija ignored him, though. She stared into Soroush’s eyes, and Soroush stared back,

not with a look of betrayal, but of consideration, as if he were contemplating, even now,

the lessons that had been laid before him this day.

Above, another cannon shot came from the barque toward the retreating ship, and a

musket shot was sent down toward them, more warning than threat.

Khadija looked along the gunwale of the barque one last time, but Nasim was gone,

and she never did see Ashan. She didn’t care, though. She’d done what she’d set out to do

this day, and she hadn’t done it for Ashan’s approval.

As the barque limped on a westerly heading, she guided her ski$ quickly eastward,

allowing the prevailing winds to help her. "e Maharraht did not give chase. And soon

she was on her own in the skies, the wind and the setting sun her only company.

It was peaceful, she realized—more peaceful, in fact, than at any time since her sister’s

death. "is wouldn’t last. Her violent days in the Maharraht would come back to haunt

her. As would her inability to support Mirilah when she had most needed it. Khadija was

no longer Aramahn, nor was she Maharraht. She was of both, and of neither, and it was

these things she would contemplate on her way around the world.

It might take her years to circle the world, but when she did, as she’d decided early

that morning, she would go to the place she’d always dreamt of. She would go to the

Towers of Tulandan, that place of ancient knowledge. She would learn, and in time, she

might even teach.

And for now, that was enough.

Bradley P. Beaulieu

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!is concludes the short story, “To the Towers of Tulandan,” a prequel story to Bradley P. Beaulieu’s critically acclaimed trilogy, !e Lays of Anuskaya.

Enjoyed this sampler?Find this and sixteen more stories in the full collection.

Lest Our Passage Be Forgotten & Other Storiesby Bradley P. Beaulieu

Available May 29, 2013

ISBN: 978-1-93964-909-6 (pbk.)ISBN: 978-1-93964-910-2 (epub)

ISBN: 978-1-93964-911-9 (Kindle)

Please visit me on the web athttp://www.quillings.com

Lest Our Passage Be Forgotten & Other Stories Sampler

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About the Author

Bradley P. Beaulieu is the author of !e Lays of Anuskaya, a tale that begins in !e Winds of Khalakovo, continues in !e Straits of Galahesh, and concludes with !e Flames of Shadam Khoreh. In addition to being an L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Award winner, Brad’s stories have appeared in various publications, including Realms of Fantasy, Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show, Writers of the Future 20, and several anthologies from DAW Books. For more, please visit www.quillings.com.

Bradley P. Beaulieu

54

!e adventure begins in !e Winds of Khalakovo…

Among inhospitable and unforgiving seas stands Khalakovo, a mountainous archipelago of seven islands, its prominent eyrie stretching a thousand feet into the sky. Serviced by windships bearing goods and dignitaries, Khalakovo’s eyrie stands at the crossroads of world trade. But all is not well in Khalakovo. Con%ict has erupted between the ruling Landed, the indigenous Aramahn, and the fanatical Maharraht, and a wasting disease has grown rampant over the past decade. Now, Khalakovo is to play host to the Nine Dukes, a meeting which will weigh heavily upon Khalakovo’s future.

When an elemental spirit attacks an incoming windship, murdering the Grand Duke and his retinue, Prince Nikandr, heir to the scepter of Khalakovo, is tasked with "nding the child prodigy believed to be behind the spirit summoning. However, Nikandr discovers that the boy is an autistic savant who may hold the key to lifting the blight that has been sweeping the islands. Can the dukes, thirsty for revenge, be held at bay? Can Khalakovo be saved? !e elusive answer drifts upon the Winds of Khalakovo…

Lest Our Passage Be Forgotten & Other Stories Sampler

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!e adventure continues in !e Straits of Galahesh…

West of the Grand Duchy of Anuskaya lies the Empire of Yrstanla, the Motherland. !e Empire has lived at peace with Anuskaya for generations, but with political turmoil brewing and the wasting disease still rampant, opportunists from the mainland have begun to set their sights on the Grand Duchy, seeking to expand their empire.

Five years have passed since Prince Nikandr, heir to the scepter of Khalakovo, was tasked with "nding Nasim, the child prodigy behind a deadly summoning that led to a grand clash between the armies of man and elder elemental spirits. Today, that boy has grown into a young man driven to understand his past—and the darkness from which Nikandr awakened him. Nikandr’s lover, Atiana, has become a Matra, casting her spirit forth to explore, in%uence, and protect the Grand Duchy. But when the Al-Aqim, long thought lost to the past, return to the islands and threaten to bring about indaraqiram—a change that means certain destruction for both the Landed and the Landless—bitter enemies must become allies and stand against the Al-Aqim’s horri"c plans.

Can the Grand Duchy be saved? !e answer lies hidden within the Straits of Galahesh…

Bradley P. Beaulieu

56

!e adventure concludes in !e Flames of Shadam Khoreh…

Nearly two years after the harrowing events of !e Straits of Galahesh, Atiana and Nikandr continue their long search for Nasim. !e clues they "nd lead them to the desert wastes of the Gaji, where the fabled valley of Shadam Khoreh lies.

But all is not well. War has moved from the islands to the mainland, and the Grand Duchy knows its time may be limited if Yrstanla rallies its forces. Worse, the wasting disease and the rifts grow ever wider, threatening places that once thought themselves safe. !e dukes believe their only hope may be to treat with the Haelish warriors to the west of Yrstanla, but Nikandr knows that the key is to "nd Nasim and a lost artifact known as the Atalayina.

Will Nikandr succeed and close the rifts once and for all? !e answer lies deep within the Flames of Shadam Khoreh.

Lest Our Passage Be Forgotten & Other Stories Sampler

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Strata is a stand-alone novella by two Writers of the Future Award winners.

It’s the middle of the twenty-second century. Earth’s oil and gas reserves have been spent, but humankind’s thirst for energy remains unquenched. Vast solar mining platforms circle the upper atmosphere of the sun, drawing power lines up from the stellar interior and tight-beaming the energy back to Earth. For most of the platforms’ teeming masses, life is hard, cramped—and hot. Most dream of a return Earthside, but a two-way ticket wasn’t part of the bene"ts package, and a Sun-Earth trip doesn’t come cheap.

Kawe Ndechi is luckier than most. He’s a gifted rider—a skimmer pilot who races the surface of the sun’s convection zone—and he needs only two more wins before he lands a ticket home. !e only trouble is, Kawe’s spent most of his life on the platforms. He’s seen the misery, and he’s not sure he’s the only one who deserves a chance at returning home.

!at makes Smith Pouslon nervous. Smith once raced the tunnels of "re himself, but now he’s a handler, and his rider, Kawe, is proving anything but easy to handle. Kawe’s slipping deeper and deeper into the Movement, but Smith knows that’s a fool’s game. His own foray into the Movement cost him his racing career—and nearly his life—and he doesn’t want Kawe to throw everything away for a revolt that will never succeed.

One sun. Two men. !e fate of a million souls.