Bradley Beaulieu - The Winds of Khalakovo

The wind gained in intensity, lifting new waves of snow from the ground and pushing men back who were unprepared. It ebbed for one moment, giving everyone a chance to regain their footing, but then, as if the brief pause had been an inhalation, the wind howled with the force of a gale. It sounded like a great, ravenous beast ready to devour them all.

Nikandr fell to the ground as men were swept from their feet. Their kolpak hats flew off their heads as wet snow and dirt pelted them. One man even fired his musket in the direction of the wind, perhaps seeing something he thought was the enemy. The next moment, he toppled backwards and was lost in a rain of white.

The wind cut fiercely against the Vostroman soldiers, pushing them from the lip of the knoll, and Nikandr understood what Ashan was trying to do.

“This way!” he shouted from hands and knees. He dare not stand up lest he be blown about like the men standing only a few paces away. In fact, the intensity increased even more, forcing him to drop to the ground and lay prone.

He didn’t know if his men had heard his order, but when he was able to rise, the sotnik was at his elbow, pulling him up and helping him stumble toward the opposite side of the hill.

Rehada and Ashan caught up with the group just as they reached the place where Grigory’s men had huddled. There was a wide swath of matted snow and a fair amount of blood, but it was otherwise empty.

They quickly chased after using the trail they had left behind. They found a skiff, its sails cut to shreds, and an imprint in the snow of another that had recently left.

“What do we do, My Lord?” the sotnik asked.

“I don’t know,” Nikandr said listlessly. “I have no idea where they would go.”

“I know,” Rehada said. “They go to Duzol.”

Atiana realized she was in the air again. She felt light, not only because she was flying through the stormy weather in the bottom of a skiff but because she felt wholly unencumbered by her mortal frame. She felt, in fact, like a havahezhan must: free and ethereal.

She fell unconscious. When she woke again, it was to a jostling of the skiff. They had landed, and someone was standing over her, asking her where they needed to go. He looked familiar, but for the life of her she couldn’t place him.

“The spire on the fort,” she said weakly.

“You are sure?” he asked.

It was a man she didn’t care for-she knew this much-but she saw no reason to withhold the information.

“I am.” It felt like each word weighed ten stone.

He looked down on her, ungracious.

“We go,” he said, though she understood it was not to her.

“And the Lady Princess?”

A pause.

“Leave her.”

Flakes of snow fell upon her face, soft touches of ice upon deadened skin.

The sound of footsteps through snow were all around her, but then they faded, leaving only the nearby waves and the wind as it whistled through the trees. She could see neither of these things, but she realized with a growing certainty that she could feel them. The snow beneath her fingers, the grass beneath the snow, the earth through which the grass extended its roots, and the bedrock of the island beneath the soft, pliable earth. She felt all of this and more.

And soon… Soon…

She hears the call of a lonely heron, hears its mate over a mile away. She feels the weight of a nearby copse of trees upon the earth, small in comparison to its larger sister to the south. She feels the wind as it brushes against the evergreen branches, the pine cones as they are tugged free to fall against the snow, the rabbits as they huddle in their warrens, waiting for the storm to pass.

Her awareness spreads to the entire island, and there is one thing that is glaringly out of place.

The rift.

It glows against her senses like a brand, though it does not feel warm. Nor does it feel cold. It feels… wrong. It feels like an insult to this place, an injustice that must be righted, for surely it is a wound that will never heal on its own. The festering must be purged. Only then can the land begin to heal.

She moves in toward the strongest presence of the rift on the island. The spire. It is a mere branch in comparison to the massive trunk that towers above Radiskoye. She is certain that it is the weakest link on the archipelago. Tear it down and Radiskoye’s goes with it, and if Radiskoye’s goes, then so will all the others-the entire chain will devolve into little more than a gaping maw that leads directly to Adhiya. And then the spirits will avail themselves of anything they wish.

Like a ship in a gale, she finds it difficult to navigate. Her mind is thrown about by the aether, the currents as unpredictable as a cornered lynx. They pull at her, drawing her attention not to one place, but to everything. Du-zol-and the entire archipelago beyond it-feels more alive and also closer to death than she had thought possible.

It is the taint of the world beyond, she knows, yet still she finds it difficult to focus her attention, until she senses him.

Nasim.

He is chained to the spire. A spike has been driven into it. From this, manacles hang down and entrap his wrists. The spire itself is bright white against the backdrop of satin black. Most would be a dark blue, even against the spire, but Nasim is nearly as white. He does not fight; he does not scream. Every so often a shiver runs the length of his body, and his eyes move spasmodically beneath closed lids.

Men in ragged lengths of robes circle the spire, which stands in the courtyard of the keep. There are no men of the Duchy to be seen. She assumes they have been killed or are being kept in the donjon of Oshtoyets.

She recognizes two of the Maharraht-Bersuq and Soroush-the same two that raised the vanahezhan on the beach near Izhny.

Soroush approaches Nasim. In his hands he holds five stones, one for each of the aspects: jasper for earth, alabaster for air, tourmaline for fire, azurite for water, and opal for the raw stuff of life. All of them glow as brightly as the spire and Nasim.

The Maharraht are chanting, though she can hear no words. Soroush steps close to Nasim and presses the gem of tourmaline into his mouth. Water is forced down Nasim’s throat, and soon it is clear he has swallowed it, for he glows brighter.

Near Bersuq stands a brazier. From it stems a tuft of fire, the fire of Adhiya. In moments it has grown to the size of a man.

This is a crossing, happening as she watches, and in a blink it begins to burn her as if she’s been thrown into a blacksmith’s forge. She screams from the pain, and it intensifies until she no longer knows who she is.

And then, suddenly, it stops.

In the silence it is jarring to hear Nasim’s breathing. It comes softly at first-little more than a telltale sigh like a breeze blowing through the springtime grasses-but it intensifies, and there comes from him a tendril of gossamer light. It flows outward and reaches for Adhiya.

In the aether it is easy to forget that there are not only the dimensions of the physical world; there is another: a length of measure toward Adhiya that is so subliminal that it is often missed by even the most gifted Matra. She learned of such things from her mother, and she had long thought the information useless. But now she finds it invaluable. Essential.

She can sense where the tendril is headed: to a shadow on the other side that is shaped just like the bright imprint of Nasim on the mortal plane. As Soroush places the alabaster stone in Nasim’s mouth, the link grows stronger, and it is clear what they are attempting to do. Anecho of Nasim lives beyond the aether. He is of Erahm and Adhiya, both, and they are attempting to draw the two together. She does not know what will happen should they succeed; she only knows that it must be stopped.