Bradley Beaulieu - The Straits of Galahesh

Near high noon, the wind began to play with the ship, causing it to buck. Soon after, Nasim felt a strain on the bond to his hezhan. It became more tenuous, more difficult to maintain. Even so, he managed it until the island came into view, and then it became like fighting a gale.

“It’s begun,” Nasim said.

Rabiah studied the horizon while holding her gut against the magic Nasim was working with the hezhan. She looked brave. She looked prepared for what lay ahead. Sukharam, on the other hand, was studying the sea ahead while the muscles along his jaw worked feverishly.

“All will be well,” Nasim told him.

Sukharam glanced up to Nasim, and then turned his gaze away.

“Look at me, Sukharam.”

Sukharam did, though it clearly took him effort to hold Nasim’s gaze.

“All will be well,” Nasim repeated.

He nodded, putting on a smile that was clearly only for Nasim’s benefit, and then he returned to watching Ghayavand, an emerald in a field of sapphires.

Nasim let him be and focused on the path ahead. He was not entirely sure he trusted Ushai and her motives, but he believed in her warning. He told the others to release their hezhan and to refrain from communing with another until they reached the island itself.

He did not release his own, however. It was not yet time. He began to feel his vanahezhan spirit more clearly. It felt closer, as if but one small tug would pull it through the veil between worlds. He suppressed the spirit, however, held it at bay while calling it to position the skiff so that the prevailing winds-once he released the havahezhan-would carry them over the island.

It was difficult, though. The winds were unpredictable here. But he could only do the best he could. He released it when he felt the hezhan was too close.

As soon as he did, the ship was tossed about. The skiff dropped suddenly. They held tightly to the ropes that were tied around the interior of the skiff.

A sudden upsurge twisted the skiff, tipped it dangerously. Sukharam was tossed over the edge of the gunwales, but he held on, and Nasim and Rabiah pulled him back to safety.

And then the skiff began to fall once more, spinning about so quickly that Nasim lost his bearings. He was nearly ready to ignore Ushai’s advice and call upon a hezhan to help them, but the winds softened and then died altogether.

This was when he began to feel it-a subtle discomfort in his chest that began to grow the closer they came to the island. He began to cough, and soon he was forced to drop to the floor of the skiff and hold onto the thwart as his breath slowly left him in one long exhalation.

“Nasim!” Rabiah cried.

She helped turn him over.

She called to him, but Nasim couldn’t hear her. He could only stare up at the blue of the sky.

When Ashan had brought him here years ago, he had felt the island. He’d felt the mountain peaks, the forests, the grassy plains. He’d felt the shattered city, Alayazhar. He felt all these things now, but he also knew that he was tied to it like he hadn’t been before. He was part of this island, as the Al-Aqim were. He was trapped. There would be no chance of leaving.

He wondered, as stars played in his vision and Rabiah continued to shout his name, why he hadn’t felt the same thing the last time. Surely this was Muqallad’s doing, or Sariya’s, he thought. Surely he hadn’t felt it before because the two of them had yet to reawaken from the trap Khamal had lain for them.

But he felt a certain familiarity to this. It was as if he had done it himself…

And then it struck him. The wards that had been in place, keeping Khamal and Sariya and Muqallad here. That was what he was feeling. Not a trap laid by the others. Why, then, hadn’t it happened the last time he’d come? The answer was obvious, though. He hadn’t been himself when he’d been here last. He’d been only half a boy. The other half had been lost in Adhiya. The wards had not sensed him, but he was healed now, and surely whatever had been done to keep Khamal here was now working against him.

He was trapped, well and good. He knew this, but it also brought a sense of peace. He’d come here not planning to leave, but believing it was possible. He knew now that it wasn’t. He knew that he would never leave, not unless he healed the rift or he died. It was a notion that was more freeing than he ever would have guessed.

So much so that as the pressure in his chest eased, he started to laugh, and once it started, he couldn’t stop.

Rabiah knelt over him, a look of shock on her face, like she wanted to slap him. He wouldn’t blame her if she did. He almost wanted her to.

“What’s happened?” she asked.

“The wards,” he said, pulling himself up to lean against the skiff’s hull.

“What about them?” Her eyes narrowed, and she looked at him closely, as if she wasn’t sure he was completely himself.

“I’m trapped, Rabiah, as Khamal was. As Sariya and Muqallad are. We are together again, as we were for centuries.”

“As Khamal was, not you.”

“I’m not so sure.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I.” Nasim reached up and scratched his scalp vigorously. It did little to shake the feelings of confusion from his mind, but it brought him back to himself. He realized they were drifting beyond the island. “Summon the winds. Bring us in.”

She glanced at the sail, clearly nervous.

“You won’t have trouble now. Just be careful not to allow it too close to you.”

She nodded. Rabiah. Beautiful Rabiah.

She took up the reins and summoned the wind to guide the ship. They landed on a grassy plain to the north of Alayazhar. Part of him wanted to view the city, but another, the part that was terrified of this place, was simply not ready for it.

As he swung over the gunwale of the skiff and onto solid land, Rabiah rubbed her hand along his back. “We’ll find a way.”

Rabiah always seemed to know his mind. He looked into her eyes and in them saw compassion and hope, both of which, Nasim thought, were wholly misplaced.

N asim debated on building a shelter, but he was afraid to do so, at least until he knew more. The aether was too thin here-so thin that he dared not risk communing with a hezhan again until he and the others had become accustomed to it.

Sukharam left to find firewood, and when he returned with a thick bundle of branches, he told them of the keening he’d heard to the south. “It was haunting,” Sukharam said, “like a lone wolf baying for its pack.”

Nasim gathered a pile of brown needles from the wood and ran a steel across the flint he’d brought from Trevitze. Sparks flew. On the third strike, it took, and he began building the fire quickly. “It’s most likely a dhoshahezhan crossed over from Adhiya.”

“Will it be drawn here?” Sukharam asked.

Nasim shook his head as the fire built. “From what I remember, the hezhan are confused here. They’ll give chase if you come too close, but they don’t search for life as they do from beyond the veil. Here, they have it already, so in a way, they are content.”

“In a way?” Rabiah asked as she squatted down on the far side of the fire.

Nasim shrugged, struggling to find words. “They’re also conflicted. They want to return to Adhiya, even though they yearned to touch Erahm while there. I think they know this place is not natural. They know this is not the way of things. And they yearn for the freedoms they had while drifting in the currents of the world beyond.”

They brought out the blankets from the oiled canvas sacks and laid them out around the fire.

“Where will we go?” Sukharam asked. He was sitting on his blanket, his arms around his knees. Although he had a look of cold discomfort about him, he was staring straight into Nasim’s eyes. It was good to see. Perhaps when they’d reached the island, Sukharam had crossed some sort of threshold as well.