Dozens of Maharraht were already aboard the moored ship, and more were boarding now. Many of the parents Nikandr had seen along the lake in Siafyan were there, as were others-men and women with younger children, children that hadn’t yet been affected by the wasting. Zanhalah was there was well, watching their approach with a small but satisfied smile on her face.
Soon they were loaded and into the air. Nikandr stood by the gunwales, watching the forest closely as they rose higher and higher. They had risen only an eighth-league when a column of fire broke high into the air over the clearing to the west. It shot straight up and into the cloud cover leagues above. The bright column-orange and yellow and white-turned and roiled, but it did not twist. It was as if the ritual of the akhoz had sent a spear of fire up in the hopes of piercing the sky.
Nikandr thought it would end quickly-he wanted it to end quickly-but it continued on and on as they headed north and eventually west. It hung on the horizon, all through the night until at last it was lost from view.
PART II
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
K hamal steps out from under the celestia’s dome. It is the hour of the new day, and the stars are bright, bright enough to guide his way down from the celestia toward Alayazhar. He has not gone far before he realizes that there is someone waiting for him on the road ahead.
It is Inan, the mother of Yadhan.
“Peace to you,” Khamal says, and tries to pass her by.
He hopes that she has come to visit the celestia, to meditate upon the stars, but he knows that she has not. She falls into step alongside him, and together they make their way down toward Alayazhar. The light of the quarter moon illuminates the sea below, makes it glimmer and give shadow to the crescent bay at the edge of the broken city. Years ago the city would have danced with light. Dozens would have come to the celestia on a night like this. But now most have left. Most have abandoned the island and her Al-Aqim. Some have come to mistrust or even fear them. It is a strange position to be faced with. It has been years-since his childhood among the wastes of the Gaji- that Khamal has dealt with such.
“What is it you wish?” Khamal asks.
For a while the only sound he hears is that of their soft leather boots sighing over the low grass of the trail.
When at last Inan speaks, it is with a heavy heart. “Yadhan is lost to me, Khamal. Dozens of others have lost their children as well. And yet the rifts are beginning to grow again.”
“You knew your children would be lost.”
“ Yeh, you explained everything so well, down to the last detail.”
“I did,” Khamal says. He spoke the words harshly, much more harshly than he’d meant to. The months since the sundering have worn on him greatly, but he takes a deep breath and begins again, careful to keep his tone soft, understanding. “The rifts may grow, Inan, but not nearly as quickly as before.”
“So of course more must be taken.”
Khamal stops in his tracks and turns to Inan. By the moonlight he sees her face, the tightness there, the anger. She was once his most devout disciple. She left with his blessing and after her time on the wind-a mere two circuits of the world-she returned to him, her eyes bright, her mind sharp, ready to learn more.
How much has changed.
After the sundering, she did not offer Yadhan to him-he suspects she knew all along that her daughter would be one of the children able to become akhoz-but she accepted his request that Yadhan be given. That day in the celestia, though, when the first akhoz had been born, something inside of her broke. She lost her faith in him, lost her faith that the rifts could be closed, and she infected others. There were only a few at first, but the idea took root among his followers and grew like creeping vines.
Until they came to this: a woman who would have done anything for him now stands ready to defy, to take from him the salvation of the world.
If she thinks he will let that happen, she is mistaken.
“I know you’ve been speaking to others, Inan. I know you’ve been asking them of their will to leave.”
“You said the way was open.”
“It is-of course it is-but we have need of everyone. This is no time to abandon hope when there is time yet to save everything.”
“ Neh, Khamal. The tide has turned against us. It has turned against you. It is time to do what Yadhan’s father suggested.”
“I cannot give you your daughter back, Inan.”
Inan’s face goes hard. She spits at Khamal’s feet. “I would have my daughter back, but I know better than you that she is gone. Gone forever, lost to the world.” She spits again. “I trusted you, Khamal, but now I know you are a fool. You thought the world ready for indaraqiram. You think it’s ready still, or if not that you can force it into being. You are not enlightened, and neither are Sariya and Muqallad. You are little better than mules, braying and tugging at your tether. The world has spoken-the fates have spoken-and here you stand, telling me that there’s still time.”
Khamal feels his face flush. Nearly, nearly, he allows his confidence to slip, but he has been down this path before-not from any doubts Inan might foist upon him, but those he has placed upon himself. In this way lies ruin. He knows this. He cannot allow himself to dwell upon the question of whether he has chosen wrongly. If he does, even for a moment, it will be the ruin of them all. He must continue, and so must the others, no matter what their disciples-the men and women of Alayazhar-might say.
And then he realizes. Had he not been so tired he would have seen it before as he left the celestia.
The city. It is dark. Too dark.
He reaches out to find them, the men and women who still call Alayazhar home. They had remained after the sundering after many had died. They had remained after many more had left. They were the few that he thought surely would be able to help stem the tide of their ever growing failure. And they’ve left. All of them.
Only Inan remains.
“Go, then,” Khamal says, and resumes his walk down the path. “Follow the other children.”
“I cannot follow. And neither can you. The paths have been closed to you, Khamal.”
Khamal stops.
He feels his heart race. He opens his mind to the land beneath him, to the air above him. He feels the city below, the hills above, and the mountains beyond. He feels the bay, and the river that feeds it. He feels the trees and the grass and the voles and the goats. He feels even the rifts that run deeply through the island.
What he cannot feel is anything in the sea beyond. He feels only Ghayavand, her small sister islands, and nothing more.
“What have you done?”
“You have taken enough, Khamal. You have taken all that we have to offer, and still you ask for more.”
His heart beats madly. “It won’t work, Inan. You know it won’t.”
“It will for now. Until we have time to learn more.”
“You’re fools. All of you. The rifts cannot be chained. They will find the cracks in your walls, and when they do they will spread among the islands. They will spread to the motherland.”
“Save your breath, Khamal, and do not think that you may use your stone.”
Khamal feels for the stone, his portion of the Atalayina. It is safe where he left it in the celestia floor, but something is wrong. It feels dim, a candle in place of the sun. Inan and the others have somehow managed not only to trap the Al-Aqim, they’ve dulled the Atalayina as well.
His hands clench. His throat tightens. For the first time in ages he considers killing another.
“You cannot leave,” he realizes.
“How astute of you, Khamal.”
“Why? Why have you remained?”
