T he air around Nasim was chill and damp, but it had a mineral sharpness that did much to keep him alert. The tunnels seemed only big enough for the sound of their climbing, plus the occasional drip of water. Neither he nor Rabiah had spoken since heading out from the collapse at the entrance. They hadn’t felt the need, and to speak felt as though they would give away their position-to whom, Nasim didn’t know; it simply seemed wise to talk as little as possible.
The tunnel was complete darkness, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t move through it. Nasim taught Rabiah how to draw upon her vanahezhan to feel her way along the tunnels. Nasim thought of drawing upon the vanahezhan as well, but Rabiah was weak, and only one of them needed sight, so he followed her closely and obeyed her instructions when she gave them. If he was blinded in the meantime, he didn’t mind. He had taken too many liberties with Rabiah already, no matter that it had been to protect them; allowing her to have sight and lead them both somehow felt proper.
Her earth sight was fouled when they came across water, even a trace amount of it. The first time it happened they heard only a trickle. The second time they heard nothing. The walls of the tunnel were damp-that was all. Nasim assumed there was a hidden stream within the earth, yet still it was enough to rob her of her newfound sight. They scrabbled, low to the ground, warding their hands in front of them to make their way beyond the deadening effects of the water.
They might have drawn upon a jalahezhan, but they were loath to do so. There were plenty around, but they might be drawn through the veil with even the smallest of contacts. The vanahezhan, however, seemed to be drawn to the collapse of the cavern, which now laid far behind them, leaving Nasim and Rabiah to choose from the lesser of them, the ones less likely to cross in this strange place where the worlds practically touched.
Nasim was somehow uncomfortable with the growing realization that he remembered this place. He could not recall Khamal walking these tunnels and warrens, and yet he knew with uncanny accuracy the path they needed to follow in order to reach the upper levels of the village, where the girl and the akhoz had surely been headed.
“Who do you think she was?” Nasim asked, growing tired of the silence. His voice echoed off into the distance.
“Someone Ashan brought to the island? A disciple?”
“Perhaps, but she was with the akhoz, going willingly.”
Rabiah was silent for a time. “Do you think we’ll find him?”
She meant Ashan. Nasim, shrouded in darkness, could only shrug. “Who can say? I had to try.”
In the distance they heard a small splash. They stopped for a moment, but the sound wasn’t repeated, so they continued on.
“There’s something I don’t understand,” Rabiah said. “You said you thought Ashan knew you’d come here. That he had come in order to protect you.”
“What of it?”
“Well, why would he do so alone? You said yourself that we needed to work together. That only in realizing our potential as arqesh could we close the rift here on Ghayavand. Neither of us believes the girl we saw has anything to do with Ashan. So what did he hope to accomplish?”
“I don’t know. He may have come simply to prepare the way. Perhaps he hoped to discover more before coming to find me. Perhaps he planned to find a piece of the Atalayina, or even all three. Who can say?”
“ You can. You knew him well, did you not?”
Nasim wanted to laugh, but somehow that didn’t feel right in this place. “In truth I hardly knew him at all. I will love him always, but to know someone is to speak with them, to live with them, to cry and laugh with them. I did none of those things with Ashan. I was lost. He was a beacon-that much is true-but it’s also true that from where I stood he was little more than a light in the distance. I know perhaps his heart, but little more than that.”
“Then what is in his heart?”
“Care for the world that has come before. Care for the world that is yet to be. Care for that which has been lost and what might yet be gained.” Nasim searched his mind for more, but as hard as he tried, he could only think of one more trait that had any bearing. “And kindness,” he said. “These are the things that drive Ashan. These and little else. He is a selfless man, caring for others before himself.”
“Then why did you not enlist his help?”
There was bitterness in her words. He didn’t mind, though. He had asked this same question of himself many times, feeling that same bitterness sitting deep in his heart like a hardening cyst. But there was really only one answer to this question. “He has already done enough. This is my path to follow.”
“Not just yours… Ours.”
She meant herself and Sukharam. “ Yeh, Rabiah. Yours as well.”
They entered a cavern where the slow drip of water could be heard, and here the darkness was no longer absolute. Pale pink light suffused the cavern from veins of softly glowing stone in the ceilings and walls and floors. It was not so bright that they could see the natural features clearly, but it was bright enough to allow them to see a set of natural stairs that let up to another, higher tunnel.
In this place, lost among the hidden warrens of the earth, Nasim could not help but think about his time with Ashan. He’d been little more than a prisoner within the shell of his own body. He could remember the feeling he’d had around Ashan, even down to the individual stones he wore in his circlet and on his wrists and ankles, but as they took to the stairs, he realized that these were not memories. He could feel them now, and they were growing stronger.
“He’s here,” Nasim said, surprised at the realization. “I can feel him.” It would be good-despite all his words of confidence of the need to come alone-to have Ashan at his side once more.
Rabiah said nothing, but he felt her prepare herself, felt her touch the walls of Adhiya.
“Be careful,” he said. “Draw upon them only at great need. We’ll not be so lucky as we were at the entrance to the tunnels.”
They continued up, the light in the tunnels sometimes granting them some small amount of light by which to navigate, sometimes leaving them in complete darkness once more. The tunnels changed from the natural caverns to ones that were clearly formed by the hand of man. These had been hewn-or at the very least widened-by dozens of vanaqiram over the course of years and decades. Such was the care they had taken, for the detail-the intricacy of the traceries built into the walls-was immaculate.
And then they came to a space that was immense. He could feel it more than he could see, for it was pitch black except for the single siraj stone that was glowing far away on the opposite side of the cavern. It looked like it went on for a league, or more, though Nasim was sure this was a trick of the darkness and the odd dimensions of this place. Staring at it more critically, he guessed the stone was several hundred paces away, and as they walked toward it, he realized that the stone was sitting on a table of some sort.
The table was long, though even as long as it was it felt incongruous in such an immense space. Why was it here? Why had the siraj been placed on it?
And why were Ashan’s stones sitting next to it?
“Can you feel them?” Rabiah whispered, clearly sensing the same thing.
“I can.”
“I like this not at all,” she said.
“Neither do I.”
As they came closer, Nasim saw them. Sitting near the siraj stone was a circlet with a stone of alabaster set into it. The stone was dark, lifeless. Inside the circlet were a bracelet and two anklets, their stones similarly dark.
And in the darkness beyond-
Nasim shivered. How could he not have noticed?
— there was a shape. A man, sitting in a chair.
Muqallad.
Nasim had not sensed him on their approach. Neither had he seen or heard him, and he was unable to sense him in the aether.
Muqallad, his face lit in ghastly relief by the siraj, was possessed of a strong and imposing form. He had long black hair and ruddy skin. Rings of gold ornamented the braids of his long black beard. Like a wolf in the night, everything about him was striking, but it was his eyes, more than anything, that somehow pierced. They stared right through Nasim, ignoring Rabiah as if she didn’t exist.
“Welcome, Khamal.”
Muqallad’s words were still echoing about the chill room when Rabiah shouted and fell to the floor in a flurry of hair and limbs. The sound of her head striking the stone made Nasim cry out. He dropped to his knees and felt for her pulse, for her breathing. Other than a welt and a cut on her forehead that trickled blood, she seemed well enough.
He stood and faced Muqallad, willing his fear not to show. “I am not Khamal.”
Muqallad, nearly swallowed by the darkness of the room, smiled. “You may not feel so, but believe me, you are here because you planned it, even down to your forgotten memories.”
Nasim could only stare. Khamal had planned this? All of it?
Neh, Nasim thought. Muqallad was lying. And yet the words had the ring of truth to them.
At the edge of his awareness, Nasim realized he could feel akhoz-many of them-approaching.
Muqallad motioned to Ashan’s effects. “Do you know who these belong to?”
“They belong to my kuadim.”
“Your kuadim…” Muqallad reared back and laughed, the sounds echoing off into the immensity of the room. The laugh was healthy and long, and it burned Nasim’s ears to hear it. “You have the relationship backward, Khamal. It was you who taught him. And yet I will admit that he is learned. He could not have gained the island if he was not. He could not have dismantled the defenses around this village if he was not. He could not have learned that one of the stones had been hidden in the white tower if he was not.”
Nasim tried to hide his reaction, but clearly he’d been unsuccessful, for Muqallad smiled. “You knew this already. Did you send him here?” He paused. “ Neh, I see that you did not. He came then-what? — to find the stones for you? To prevent you from ever finding them? Tell me your thoughts.”
“I haven’t seen Ashan for five years.”
“But you knew him well, and certainly he knows you well. What did he hope to accomplish with a third of the Atalayina?”
“I would imagine he merely wished to keep it from you.”
Muqallad’s eyes narrowed, and he smiled. “You may be right.” He pushed back his chair and stood. The akhoz steadily approached.
“You came for Ashan, and you found me, and it makes me wonder whether the fates placed us here together. We all thought that we had failed those many years ago, that the fates had frowned upon our efforts. But I wonder now. I wonder if they truly thought this. I wonder if, rather than being disappointed in our goals, if they were instead disappointed in our failure. The fate of Ghayavand since the sundering has consumed me, Khamal. We came close-you and I and Sariya. We came very close, and I wonder why, after centuries, the rift has not been closed. If the fates did not shine upon us that day, why then have they not seen fit to close the rift once more?”
“To see if we have learned.”
“Then you think it a lesson, a test of sorts, to see what we will do with our goals still within arm’s reach.”
“We cannot know their minds.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Khamal. It’s where you’ve always been wrong. The fates are mighty, that is true, but they are not so different from you and me. And if that is so, then we can know their minds. It has been not only your failing, but all of ours, for generations beyond count: our inability to come to grips with the fact that the fates are neither all knowing nor all powerful. The knowledge is liberating. It allows me to ponder things I would never have considered before, such as completing our work despite the apparent displeasure of the fates.”
Nasim could not yet see the akhoz, but they were close. He could hear their feet slapping against the stone floor at the edge of the room.
“I have a simple trade for you to consider.” He glanced to one side of the room, then the other. “Speak to Ashan. Ask him where the stone in the white tower has been hidden. If you can find it, you may have both the girl and Ashan back.”
The akhoz crept in. They seemed strangely fearful of the light coming from the siraj. They covered their lidless faces and crouched forward, crawling like crabs over the floor. One reached for Rabiah, but Nasim stepped forward and batted away its hand. Another came, ducking away from his strike and snatching Rabiah’s robes.
“Leave her!” Nasim shouted. He kicked at the akhoz who had a hold of her, and the creature hissed like a mountain cat.
More crept in, a dozen or more.
“Leave her!” Nasim tried to call upon a vanahezhan through Rabiah, but found that he could not. He no longer sensed it at all. In fact, he could no longer sense Adhiya. It was simply gone.
One of the akhoz tilted its head back and bleated. Another joined in, and another, until all of them were sounding the same call, which made Nasim’s stomach twist and churn. His mouth watered and he became dizzy, so much so that he fell to the floor.
The bleating stopped, but the effect did not, and he found himself unable to raise his head without a swooning effect storming in and forcing him to lie back again.
Footsteps approached. “Find the stone, Khamal.”
Rabiah was lifted from the floor. The footsteps resumed and began to fade away.
“Find it, and we can finish what we started.”