“Come,” she says.
He sees no gem upon her brow, though such things feel meaningless here. Gems are for the Aramahn. They are used to create a bond between human and hezhan, a link from Erahm to Adhiya. Who would say what such a thing would look like here? He was not even convinced he was still in Erahm.
Seeing no reason to deny her command, he joins her at the window. Through the clear but imperfect glass he can see the sprawling city as it climbs the long slope toward the valley walls. Wide thoroughfares as straight as arrows run from the tower outward, and they are lined by buildings that vary in style and color but add to the aesthetic appeal of the layout. Beyond the tower itself and the nearest of the buildings, the city is as broken as he knew it to be.
When she speaks again, she sounds as old as the island itself. “You have come from Hathshava,” she says.
It was the ancient name for Khalakovo-the island of Uyadensk in particular-and it was discarded once the Aramahn ceded the archipelago to the Landed. Suddenly, he feels conscious of his family’s role in displacing so many-he does not feel ashamed, only aware of the history as never before.
“I have,” he replies.
“And before that?” She looks upon him with a familiarity that cannot be explained until he realizes who she thinks he is. She believes she is looking upon the face of Khamal-or at least who Khamal had become when he was reborn.
“Before that… Alastra.”
“And before that?”
He shrugs. “I cannot remember.”
She turns to him, face pinched in annoyance. “You cannot?”
Outside, more of the buildings have become whole. It is as if she is waking and as she does more and more of the city is granted its previous glory. He wonders whether her memories, her perceptions, include the people who once lived here. Perhaps they will emerge from their homes, on their way to the shore or the hills to meditate upon their lives. Then again, perhaps when the city is complete she will remember what happened. Perhaps he will be lost here with her, caught within the trap Khamal had laid for her upon his death.
“Why have you come?” she asks.
“I’ve come for Nasim.”
She looks down, and though he can see nothing in the pristine courtyard below he wonders whether she is seeing something completely different, whether in her eyes Nasim and Ashan and Pietr were in that decrepit courtyard, searching for him.
When she speaks again, there is curiosity in her voice, and longing. “He is strange, this one.”
“He is.”
She turns suddenly, and stares fiercely at his stone.
Nikandr holds it in one hand, more conscious of it than he’s been since it cracked on the deck of his ship. “Nasim dimmed it on Hathshava.”
She smiles. For the life of him he cannot remember seeing a more beautiful face. “It was not dimmed at all.”
“It was.”
She looks up at him. Her eyes are the blue of the ocean deeps.“It became brighter than you could know. He did not spurn you that day. He did not harm you. He chose you.”
“Chose me for what?”
She reaches out, her fingers stopping just short of touching the smooth surface of the stone. “Perhaps he senses what is to come. Perhaps he feels you kindred. Perhaps he wishes to ground himself deeper in Erahm, so lost is he on the other side.”
“I am no more kindred to him than I am to you.”
This seems to startle her. She looks up, a frown complicating her features. “Then perhaps you did not come for him. Perhaps you came for me.”
“I did not know you existed before today.”
She smiles. “The fates care little about what you know. What matters is thatyou are here now, and that I have awoken. You wish for something. You hope to find a way to this boy. And I? I wish for something as well.”
“Tell me.”
“I wish to live… If you can answer me five questions, you can have the solution to your problem.”
“What sort of questions?”
“The sort you can answer, to be sure, but it will take insight, Hathshava. It will take insight.”
“And if I can’t answer them?”
She smiles. Her beauty, despite the peril, stirs fires deep within. “Then you will stay.”
“And if I refuse?”
She shrugs. “You know the way out.”
Doubt runs thick within him. He does not know what sort of questions she might ask, and he worries that she will trick him. But what is there to do? If he leaves, they might never get a chance to learn the true nature of Nasim. They might never learn how to heal the blight that is destroying the islands. The gains, he decides, outweigh the risks many times over.
“I will need a way off this island as well.”
She shakes her head. “The fates saw fit to bring you here; they can see your way home.”
He tightens his jaw, takes a deep breath, and nods. “Ask.”
She steps back from the window and motions to it. “What draws near?”
Outside, the city has completed itself. Down one of the main thoroughfares comes a man wearing an ornate robe of bright blue cloth with a ragged hem. He has a limp, and it grows worse as he approaches the tower.
Eventually he stops and looks down at his feet, or perhaps at his ankles, and then behind, as if confused at how this could have come to pass.
The Aramahn enjoy games of words, and it is clear that this will follow those ancient traditions. The question was not what can be seen by the naked eye, but what the scene represents. They stood at the northern window, the same window at which the woman was standing when he arrived, and so he thinks these must all be related to the nature of the directions. The Aramahn equate north with water, but also with winter. And the man, though still hale, appears to have his best days behind him.
“Winter,” he answers. “Winter draws near.”
She smiles a smile that says how much she is enjoying their game. He notices for the first time wrinkles at the corners of her eyes; they lend her a sagacious quality but also a sense of mortality he hadn’t expected. Perhaps she notices, for her smile fades and she slips to the eastern window.
“What will she reap?”
The scene in the window is not of the city at all. It is of an open field with a girl running across it. A boy chases after, and together they drop among the tall stalks of grass and begin pulling the clothes from their bodies, kissing one another fiercely. Soon they are naked and making love, the boy on top thrusting as she holds him close.
Surely they are sowing the seeds of a child. That must be the answer, and it hangs on his lips for long seconds, but east is the direction of autumn, and autumn is a time of dying, of preparation for the long winter ahead. The answer cannot be so simple.
When they are done, the boy pulls on his clothes and leaves. The girl, after he is gone, puts her head between her knees and begins to cry. Making love had been a ploy-an attempt, perhaps, to make him love her when she knows that he will not.
What else can such a thing reap? Whether she has a child or not, she will never be happy until she lets him go.
“Misery,” he says, which he realizes belatedly is another meaning of east for the Aramahn.
The woman smiles again, but this time it seems forced, as if she has underestimated him and has now vowed to correct her mistake. She moves to the southern window and motions to it.
“When will he find what he seeks?”
