“Ashan, please!”
He slapped Ashan. Then again, harder. He rubbed his face and arms and chest and legs, hoping to warm him, to let him know that help had come, such as it was.
After placing his hand against Ashan’s chest, he forced himself to stop, to feel, to simply be aware. He could feel the most telltale sign of his heart beating. It was impossibly slow, but it was there. How Muqallad could have done such a thing he had no idea.
Ashan suddenly spluttered, water spraying into the air and glinting under the dim light. Long wracking coughs escaped him, and for a good while that was all he could do. Then he turned toward the light, his face confused, and finally he looked upon Nasim.
“Are you well?” Nasim asked. A foolish question, but he could feel nothing but joy that Ashan was alive and awake.
Ashan looked at him, coughed, and then sat up and pulled Nasim into an embrace-a long, tender gesture that brought tears to Nasim’s eyes. But after too long, Nasim pulled away, suddenly and inexplicably uncomfortable with it.
If Ashan was hurt by this he hid it well. He stared into Nasim’s eyes with a look that spoke of relief and gratitude and confusion. “In truth, I had hoped you would not come, but I will admit now that I’m glad you did.” He pulled himself backward, away from the water. “I’m not yet ready to see the next life.”
Nasim didn’t wish to burden him, but there was nothing gained in avoiding the truth. “Muqallad sent me here.”
Ashan started, but then he crooked his neck and stretched his jaw. “Did he?”
“He claims that you went to Sariya’s tower and that you know where her stone is hidden.”
Ashan smiled, an expression so familiar Nasim nearly cried.
“He said the same thing to me, demanding I tell him where it was hidden. It’s true that I went to the tower, and that I eventually found a way inside, but there was nothing there. For me, it was merely a gutted shell. Still, I can only assume it would not be so for Sariya. Or you.”
Nasim didn’t know. He didn’t understand the tower completely, but he knew that it was the seat of Sariya’s power. It was a place she had forged over the course of centuries, and if she had meant for those simpler than herself to see a gutted shell, then it would be so.
Ashan tried to get to his feet but fell backward instead. When Nasim moved to help him, he warded him away. “I’ll be all right in a moment.” He tried again, and though he did manage to stand, he seemed frail, like a foal newly born. “What I don’t understand is why Sariya wouldn’t deliver to him that stone.”
“She cannot find it,” Nasim said. “In the lake before I came to you I had a vision of Khamal going to Sariya’s tower. He spoke with Sariya, but only as a way to enter the tower and to hide a piece of the Atalayina.”
“Could it be that they still haven’t found it?”
“Khamal seemed doubtful that they would be able to sense it, but he was sure they wouldn’t be able to retrieve it.”
“Why?” Ashan asked. “What did he do?”
Ashan was so eager to learn more, which seemed odd having just come from the depths. “The darkness and the cold weigh on me,” Nasim replied. “Let’s find ourselves away from this place.”
“I don’t know if I’m ready for another swim,” Ashan said.
“Neither do I.” Nasim dearly wished there were another way. A small amount of warmth was returning to him, but he was also shivering so badly it felt as though it would never stop.
Together they waded into the water and swam for the shore. Things were not so urgent as before, so it took longer, but it was no less tiring. By the time they dragged themselves onto the beach of stone and sand, Nasim could barely stand. Ashan was worse. After he’d crawled out he remained on hands and knees, his breath rasping. He spit from time to time, and the sound of it was thick, as if he was spitting up blood.
“The things Muqallad has done”-Ashan came slowly to his feet, and again he wobbled-“have not been kind. But all will be well. I need only time.”
Those last words felt as if they were not meant for Nasim, but someone else.
“Come.” Nasim pulled Ashan’s arm around his shoulders and helped him walk. “Let’s go up to the light.”
They took to the stairs, though it was terribly slow going. Ashan could hardly take more than two or three stairs before he had to pause. Soon the light hovering above the center of the lake was hidden from them, and they were cloaked in darkness, but the memories of this place were as vivid as they had been before. Wherever Ashan wished to go, Nasim could take him.
“I’m worried over what’s become of the city,” Nasim said, if only to hear something in this cold, empty place. “Things feel more tentative since you and I were here last. Adhiya is so close I can practically touch it. Even the akhoz have changed. I saw one of them kill another in the city only days ago, near Sariya’s tower.”
Ashan stopped for a moment, catching his breath. “Things are worse than I thought.”
“What do you mean?”
“In the months following the sundering, the arqesh who remained realized that the children might be bonded with hezhan, not just as you and I do, but permanently. They did so first to a girl named Yadhan. The ritual made way for the hezhan to inhabit her body completely, and with this, after one dark night, the first of the akhoz was made. As you can guess, more followed, and soon the island, especially the area around Alayazhar, was protected by their influence.”
Nasim was already shaking his head. “They provide protection for the city?”
“Just so.” Ashan nodded for Nasim to help him once more, and they continued their climb. “Even now they are preventing the rift from widening. So to hear you say that some are attacking the others makes me wonder just how long things can hold here. Though perhaps this should come as no surprise. In the early years after the sundering, the akhoz were of a single mind, united. Over time, as the last of the survivors left, the akhoz fractured and became aligned with the Al-Aqim. What you saw might be caused by Muqallad or it might be because without the presence of Sariya and Khamal, they are lost and left to their own devices.”
“Why wouldn’t Muqallad simply kill them and be done with it?”
“Why would he do that?”
“So that the rifts would tear wide, once and for all.”
“Look further, Nasim. It isn’t the destruction of the world he seeks. He believes the path to indaraqiram lies through the Atalayina. He believes, in fact, that the process was begun those three hundred years ago, and that what happened then and since is merely a test of our collective will, one that he will not allow us to fail. If I’m right he is close to achieving his goals. He has at least one piece of the Atalayina, more likely two, and though the third is lost to him, I suspect he now holds the knowledge for how to merge them together once more.”
“He told you this?”
“ Neh, but we’ve spoken at length. I told him much of my travels, if only to prevent him from resuming his torture, but he spoke as well. It was difficult for a man as prideful as he is not to share. He spoke of his travels before he came to Ghayavand. He’d spent nearly his entire life up to that point studying the Atalayina. He spoke of Kohor, an ancient village in the Gaji Desert. Tablets held in the archives there spoke of the Atalayina not having been found, but instead having been made — forged in some manner. He let slip that some of the guesses the writer of the tablet had put down were true, and he could only know this if he had had some success with the pieces of the Atalayina he already has.”
Nasim nearly tripped as they reached the top of the stairs. They were in the circular room that housed entrance to the lake’s stairwell. Here several passages broke off, one in particular leading to the upper passages and the way out.
The room, at least, was comparatively warm. Nasim’s heart had already lifted, as if the last few hours had all been a bad dream. But of course the truth was sobering. “He wants the final pieces of the stone, and he’s taken Rabiah to ensure that I’ll deliver them to him. We must find her, Ashan, and we must find the others as well.”
“You said he only wanted one piece of the stone.”
“He did, but there is another.”
“Which?”
“Khamal’s.”
“You know where it is?”
Nasim paused, feeling protective over this information. But a moment later, he felt foolish for it. “I found it in
