K hamal stands beneath the celestia’s dome, facing southward. He spreads his arms wide, breathing deeply while staring up at the dome’s interior. The constellations patterned into the mosaics twinkle in the light of the dying sun.
Dawn tomorrow brings the summer solstice. It is a time of strength, of heightened expectations. It is an important time for Ghayavand, at least as far as the Al-Aqim are concerned. The akhoz become emboldened at such times, and it is more important than ever that Khamal take care so as not to be caught unawares.
But the solstice is made of more than ill tidings. It benefits him and his fellow arqesh, should they choose to avail themselves of it. He will use the dawn to his advantage, unleashing the first of the steps that will one day-hopefully one day soon-free him from this island prison once and for all.
Footsteps approach from the north, scratching over the gritty marble steps that circle the celestia. He doesn’t turn, but instead waits for Muqallad to approach.
“The cardinal points do not listen,” Muqallad says. “You should know this better than I.”
“They watch over the island, Muqallad.”
“Perhaps,” Muqallad says, stopping nearby, “but if they do they are little more than witnesses. Amused witnesses.”
Khamal takes one last breath, and then turns to face him. Muqallad wears a simple robe the color of the setting sun. His black, curly beard hangs almost as far as the wide leather belt that wraps his waist.
They rarely see one another, each of them preferring to meditate alone on their imprisonment and on the rifts and on the island itself, all in hopes of breaking the curse that’s trapped them all. They’ve seen each other even less since Muqallad returned from his exile. Khamal and Sariya had banished him for a time for his words and thoughts. He had wanted the Atalayina even then. He had wanted it so that he could finish what they’d begun. The sundering to him had merely been a mistake-in his eyes, the world could still be brought to indaraqiram.
For this, he had been punished, but on his return he had seemed contrite. He had seemed penitent. Khamal knew now that it had merely been to bide his time so that he could turn one of them to his side.
“I would speak with you,” Muqallad says, motioning away from the celestia.
Khamal looks up to Sihyaan, the island’s highest peak, where Sariya takes breath. Muqallad chose this time so that there was no chance they would be interrupted.
“Walk with me,” Muqallad says.
Together, they stride between two massive pillars of the celestia and take a bricked walkway that leads down from the hill toward the oldest part of Alayazhar. From this vantage they can see the blue swath of the sea on their left, and ahead, the northern reaches of the city, nearly all of it in ruins. The dark, snowless peak of Sihyaan looks down over the city, brooding and angry.
“We’ve been here too long, I think,” Muqallad says.
“And why do you say that?”
“We strive, all of us, for a way to heal the damage we’ve caused, but we do it in our own way. We’ve been searching for so long that I wonder if we’ve started to see one another as obstacles.”
“Is that how you see it?” Khamal asks.
“I?” Muqallad shakes his head. “ Neh. Not I.”
“Me, then.”
Muqallad does not answer.
The wind blows upward from the base of the hill, bringing with it the smell of sea and sage as their footsteps crunch along the path.
“Sariya knows you have her stone.”
“It isn’t her stone,” Khamal replies. “Nor is it mine.”
“Of course. But there has been a shift in power because of it. It grants you something you shouldn’t possess.”
Khamal stops, forcing Muqallad to do the same. “I cannot give her the stone back.”
Muqallad squares himself to Khamal. His chin rises. His jaw juts ever so slightly. “None of us can be allowed to keep two pieces.”
“You spoke to me of taking all three, Muqallad.”
“I spoke not of taking them, but of working together.”
“To widen the rift. To bring about indaraqiram.”
Muqallad raises his hands, as if to forestall the argument. “I told you. I’ve thought better of such things.”
“Forgive me if I doubt your words.”
“I speak the truth, but I wouldn’t ask you to trust me.” He motions to Sihyaan with a look over his shoulder and a wave of his hand. “I ask you to trust Sariya.”
“She’s become too close to you.”
“She hasn’t,” Muqallad said.
“She visits you often, and you visit her.”
“She’s been trying to dissuade me, Khamal. And she’s succeeded. We will meditate, as we have. We will learn. We will heal what has been torn. It’s time we began to work together again. It’s time we trusted one another. And that begins with her stone.”
Muqallad steps in and hugs Khamal. The gesture is surprising, but also tender. They haven’t done so in years. Decades.
“Don’t believe me,” Muqallad says as he pulls away and grasps Khamal by his shoulders. “Believe her. Go to her when she returns and speak to her of it. It’s time we voiced our fears and brought them into the light of day. Only then can we move forward.”
Khamal doesn’t know what to say, but he can’t deny that he wishes to speak to Sariya as they used to. He also wants to believe that Muqallad speaks the truth, but he knows that these are lies spilling from his mouth. It’s why Khamal stole Sariya’s stone in the first place. She and Muqallad had already begun making plans against him. But they need that stone, and they don’t know where it is. They cannot risk forcing the issue, not while there’s a chance he’ll give it up willingly.
Khamal had hoped that he would be able to find a way to get Muqallad’s stone as well. But it’s too late for that. He needs to find a place to hide the stone so that they won’t find it, at least until his own plans bear fruit.
“I’ll speak with her,” Khamal says at last.
“Good,” Muqallad says. “That is good.”
Nasim woke, sweating.
The room was dark, and he could sense more than see Rabiah kneeling over him.
“It’s all right,” Rabiah said, stroking his hair.
It felt good, her tender touch, but it came so close on the heels of the bitter emotions he’d borne witness to that he pushed her hand away.
“It’s all right…”
He could hear the hurt in her voice, but there was nothing he could do about it. Not now.
“I’m here,” he said simply, giving her an indication that he was once more in command of his surroundings.
“Khamal?” she asked.
“Who else?”
“What did you see?”
He shook his head against the floor, feeling powerless. He pulled himself upright and shuffled along the floor until his back was against the wall of the small house the three of them shared. They’d found it on their long walk back from the celestia. It felt strange, sleeping in a home as ancient as this one, but they had needed something besides the skiff, so they’d taken it for their own.
He could make out Sukharam’s outline, and could tell he wasn’t breathing heavily, so he assumed he was awake. A part of him wished Sukharam wasn’t here-he wished he was alone with Rabiah-but he knew that such thoughts were foolish, selfish. He needed help, and what’s more, he needed to spread the knowledge that he gained to those he could trust. There was a strong likelihood that he wouldn’t make it out of this alive, and he couldn’t risk passing beyond the veil again without unlocking the riddles of the rift running through Ghayavand.
“Nasim?”
His gaze shot to Rabiah. He’d nearly forgotten she was there. He’d nearly forgotten where he was. Again. It was such an easy thing to do. Especially when he was afraid.
“Nasim, what did you see?” Rabiah asked, more forcefully this time.
“Khamal,” he said, swallowing to clear his throat. “Muqallad came to him in the celestia and confronted him. He’d stolen Sariya’s stone.”
“The one we found?”
Nasim shrugged. “Perhaps. It might be why I’m not able to feel it and Sukharam is.”
“Is that what has you upset?”
“ Neh.” He paused, simply breathing, trying to put words to his thoughts. “It’s their nature. At one time they were thought to be akin to the fates. But that’s not how they were. They squabbled. They plotted. In the end, they murdered. What could have made them do such things?”
Rabiah took up the hem of her robe and picked at it. “I’m disappointed as well. If it could happen to them…”
“It can happen to anyone. Exactly. And if they could fall to such madness, because of the island, the Atalayina-”
“Then it could happen to us.”
Nasim shrugged. “I guess that’s how I feel. That, and I…”
“What?”
“I feel responsible.”
“For what Khamal did?”
“For what he did… For what he didn’t do…”
“He couldn’t stop them by himself.”
“I don’t know, Rabiah, but maybe he didn’t want to.”
“What do you mean?”
“Ghayavand had become a prison for them. Every hour of every day they were faced with their grandest failure. It ate at Khamal, as I’m sure it did the others. As he was planning to escape, he felt eager.”
“He wanted to return so he could heal the rift.”
“Maybe, but there was also a sense that he would be free. Free of the shackles that bound him here. In his heart of hearts, he wanted to leave it all behind.”
“Wouldn’t you?”
Nasim stared at the floor. “I don’t know.”
“It was three hundred years, Nasim. Anyone would grow weary of this place in that amount of time. But you’re not him. You’re not Khamal. You didn’t make those decisions. He did. Live up to your own promise, and your own promises.”
From a pocket sewn into his inner robe he retrieved the piece of the Atalayina they’d liberated from the celestia two days before. He spun it between his thumb and index finger. He could feel its power, but it was distant, unreachable, as it had been since he’d found it. He’d taken breath while holding it in his hands. He’d stared into its depths. He’d sat with the others with the stone between them, hoping to unlock its secrets, to no avail.
Rabiah reached out and touched his arm. “We don’t have to go to Shirvozeh today, Nasim. We can wait. We can prepare.”
“It’s time for us to go. Ashan is there. Somewhere.”
“We can take breath. We can-”
“We will go!”
Sukharam shifted. For no good reason, it infuriated him, though he had no one to blame but himself.
“Come,” he said, noting that the sky was beginning to lighten. “We’d best get ready.”
“As you say.” Rabiah nodded, holding the gesture in the manner of an Aramahn disciple. This, too, angered him, though he wasn’t sure why.
He handed the Atalayina to Sukharam and began his preparations for their journey to Shirvozeh, the Aramahn village in the hills to the east of Alayazhar. As he and Rabiah were leaving, Sukharam stepped out from their home and called to him.
“I wish to go, kuadim,” Sukharam said.
“We spoke of this,” Nasim replied. “Stay. Take breath.”
“I should be with you.”
“I cannot allow it, Sukharam. This is too dangerous.”
“I knew it was dangerous when I agreed to come.”
“That may be true, but you do not yet know how to protect yourself, or us. Not against Muqallad.”
“And you do?”
Sukharam’s entire frame had tightened. He was embarrassed by this, but Nasim would not relent. He calmed himself and took two steps toward Sukharam until they were face-to-face. “Are you my disciple or are you not?”
“I’m not useless,” Sukharam said.
“I know you’re not.”
“I’m no wilting flower.”
“I know this as well. We go only to search for clues. If we find them, we will return. I promise you this.” After a deep breath, Nasim took Sukharam’s hand that held the Atalayina. “You are the only one of us who has a connection to it. Do as we agreed. Take breath with the stone. Learn from it.”
As the wind tugged at his dark hair, Sukharam’s eyes widened. He tightened his grip on the stone, and then he regarded Nasim with a look of calm purpose. “I will,” he said, bowing his head. “I will try…”