After rounding a rocky promontory where a massive tree created an archway of sorts, he came to it. The rain beat down against the blackened circle, striking the burned remains of the dozens who had given themselves that their brothers and sisters-their sons and daughters-might yet live.
Nikandr walked to the edge of it, stopping when he came within several paces. He could not find it in himself to come closer. It felt like sacrilege, as though treading upon this hallowed ground would cause irreparable harm- though whom it would harm, and in what ways, he did not know.
And then he saw it. A glint of metal among the ashes, buried beneath the bones, nearly hidden.
He swung back and forth, trying to determine what it was, but he couldn’t-not from this distance.
Swallowing heavily, he dropped the musket and took one step forward. Then another. Soon he stood at the edge of the ashes.
“Forgive me,” he said softly, and stepped onto the remains. He moved as carefully as he could, but he could feel the brittle crunch of bone, the slurp of the wet ashes as he went.
At last he came to the source of the glinting. He reached down and picked it up.
It was Soroush’s dagger. The khanjar, the one he’d drawn against Nikandr when they’d fought over Rehada. There were patterns in the ashes that spread from the place the knife had rested. Four large furrows radiated outward, and he though immediately to the hillock that had opened for Kaleh. He wondered if Soroush were dead, buried beneath this very place where he now stood.
But that made no sense. They wouldn’t have dragged him this far simply to kill him. Soroush was alive. Of this he was sure. He just had no idea where they might have taken him, nor why his knife had been left behind. Perhaps it was a sign from Soroush himself. Or perhaps it had been left as a warning for Nikandr to stay away.
Staring at the blade, feeling its heft, Nikandr recalled the source of the half-hidden memory he’d had at the edge of the village. He’d felt the same way five years ago on Ghayavand while walking the streets of Alayazhar. It had been the strongest as he’d stepped toward the tower. Sariya’s tower. It had happened when he’d realized the depth of the illusions that ran through the entire city.
The same thing was happening here-not an illusion, but the influence of one of the Al-Aqim. Muqallad’s power was spreading. Why, and why here, he didn’t know. He only knew that Soroush was now an integral part of it.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
W ith a guard on either side of him, Nikandr walked along a wide hallway in the upper reaches of Ashdi en Ghat. They led him to an empty room-more of a cavern. It had taken him hours to return to the village. Light filtered in through several natural breaks in the roof high above them, where Nikandr could hear the rain still falling. Along the floor were deep etchings in the stone. The gaps above carefully guided the water to the floor and into the etched channels. The water made hardly any sound at all. Barely a trickle.
The water rippled as it moved through the channels, creating a hypnotic effect. It felt as if the floor was moving, or that he was moving over the floor. The movements seemed purposeful but unfathomable until Nikandr realized that the course of movement mimicked the shimmering northern lights. Even here among the Maharraht there was beauty and art. As Nikandr watched, the floor shimmered like a veil, with certain spots glinting like stars in the northern sky. How long had it taken the vanaqiram to craft such a thing? How long must she have studied the sky in order to recreate it with such accuracy?
On the far side of the room, from some passage hidden behind a curve in the cavern’s wall, came Bersuq. He wore a brown turban. The cloth was crisp and richly colored, but Bersuq looked old and used and near to breaking. He bore with him a ledger. He was poring over it closely, flipping back and forth between two pages, but then he seemed to remember the business at hand, and he closed it with a snap. After setting it down on a shelf built into the stone, he walked across the room, taking care not to step in the channels of water.
The soldier on Nikandr’s right bowed his head and held out Soroush’s musket and his khanjar. Bersuq accepted them with stoicism, and yet, as Nikandr watched, he could see emotions playing subtly in his eyes and the set of his jaw.
“Leave us,” Bersuq said.
The soldiers did, their footsteps fading as Bersuq returned to the shelf and set the musket upon it.
“Where is he?” Bersuq asked without turning around.
“Taken. Taken by Muqallad, who has come to your island.”
Nikandr expected surprise at these words, but Bersuq merely stood where he was, his back to Nikandr as he cleaned Soroush’s knife with a kerchief he’d retrieved from his robes. “Soroush knew what he was doing when he left this village.”
“He knew Muqallad was here?
“ Yeh.”
“Are you saying he wanted to be taken?”
Bersuq turned and regarded Nikandr with weary eyes, his voice hoarse, his posture hunched, as if the mantle of leadership weighed too heavily upon his shoulders. “He only suspected, but I think he wanted it to be so.”
Nikandr stepped further into the room, careful not to step upon the cracks where the rainwater flowed. “For the love of those who came before us, why?”
“Because he wished to see him. He wished to know Muqallad for himself before he decided.”
“Decided what?”
“Whether the children would be given to him. Whether those who still follow and believe in Soroush would be given as well.”
Nikandr stood there and stared, trying to piece together all that Bersuq was saying, all that he was implying. Clearly there was friction among the Maharraht. He had thought that the men from the south had been the cause-a power struggle for the mind and soul of their movement-but now he realized it was much deeper than this. Muqallad had come, and he was making demands, and few, it seemed, could agree on the right course of action. Bersuq and Soroush had already fought over it. The majority of the men from Behnda al Tib had left their island, most likely for the same reason. Even the men and women at the shore of the lake deep below where Nikandr now stood, the ones who hoped to heal the children, clearly could not quite bring themselves to side with the decision to hand these children over to Muqallad.
“His son lies below,” Nikandr said.
“What is one boy, even a son, against all that we have lost?”
“And yet you’ve given me leave to heal them.”
Bersuq stared down at the khanjar he held in his hands. He scraped his thumb against the tip absently. “I say ‘what is one boy,’ but he is bright. A shining star. Perhaps he will be the one to lead us to greatness. Perhaps he will be the one to lead us back to the path of learning. It’s a difficult thing to give up-not just Wahad, but all of the children.”
Nikandr lowered his voice. “But the men from Behnda al Tib.”
Bersuq’s eyes shot up. The fierceness Nikandr remembered had returned. “Do not speak of it outside of this room, son of Iaros, or I will have no choice but to give Rahid his wish.”
“They’ve aligned themselves with Muqallad.”
Bersuq shook his head. “The men who are here, yeh. Those that Thabash left behind in Behnda al Tib, who can know?”
“Why don’t you fight them?”
“Because there are too many who would join them. Muqallad is persuasive. He has told us that the time of enlightenment is near. How can we ignore those words from a man such as him, especially when it’s exactly what so many of us want to hear?”
“And yet you harbor doubts.”
The blade in Bersuq’s hands glinted from the incoming light. He stared at it, twisting it slowly back and forth. “I don’t know what to believe. He came those many months ago, just as some were taking sick.” He looked up, then, meeting Nikandr’s gaze with piercing eyes. “You’ve met him?”
“I have,” Nikandr said.
“Then you know the weight that surrounds him. The gravitas. He need but speak, and the world around him
