enough to slap her hand away, but he did not, and slowly his anger drained. “Forgive me, My Lady Princess. The days…”
“Have been long. And difficult, I know. Speak no more of it.” She turned to Siha s. “Where would you have us go?”
“To the village.”
This came not from Siha s, but Ushai, who still sat cross-legged on the floor. There was a village of the Aramahn deep beneath Baressa, near the straits. In fact, the northernmost ends of the tunnels-dozens of them- ended abruptly at the sheer cliffs. They looked down on the churning water, and gave an impressive view of the opposite cliff face. Ushai said they’d been little used in the last century, but there were still some that came there to study and to rest for a time before the winds took them elsewhere.
Atiana sat in another chair. Dust rose from it, irritating her nose. She pulled from her coat the stone that had been given to her by Nasim. A piece of the Atalayina, a stone-Ushai had told her-that had been used by the Al-Aqim to open the rifts on Ghayavand.
She looked up to Siha s, who still watched by the window. They had discussed the possibility of going to the village in the days following the battle. It had seemed like a foolish place to go. The wiser course of action had seemed to be to hide among the throngs of the people of Baressa so as to make it more difficult for Sariya to find them, but now-she held the heavy blue stone in her hands-it was becoming clear that they had to act. And soon. With no resistance, Sariya would have free reign to do as she would, and that was something that couldn’t be allowed.
As she twirled the stone, it caught what little light there was and brightened it, made it glint.
“We will go to the village,” she said.
Within an artfully carved room of stone deep beneath the city of Baressa, Atiana sat with three Aramahn, the mahtar of this village, such as it was. There were less than thirty here now. Most Aramahn had stopped coming to Baressa, preferring to move on to the villages of the Grand Duchy and then westward on their journeys around the world. Those that did come spoke of discomfort in this place. When asked, they couldn’t say why-only that it felt as though the land here was not proper, as if it were a place that had somehow gone overlooked by the fates for too long. Some came here for that very reason. They chose to study not those things that brought peace, but those that brought pain or anguish. Such was the case with the two men and one woman that sat at the table, looking at the wondrous stone Atiana had given them.
They had discussed its history, from its legendary history with the Al-Aqim and backward to its origin. In many things they disagreed heartily, one saying it had come from the wastes of the Gaji, another saying it had fallen from the heavens, the third saying it had been left behind when the first of the Aramahn-the first truly gifted in the ways of communion-passed from this world to the next.
In the end, Atiana left them to discuss it unobstructed. She spoke Mahndi fairly well, but their rapid speech, using old terms she had trouble keeping up with, was beginning to give her a headache. And also, she felt that they were holding back because of who she was, and she would rather they discuss the stone without fearing what she might think.
As she left to walk the halls of the village, she had a passing thought that the mahtar might work against her to keep the stone, to make sure it made it into the proper hands, but she rejected this out of hand. When she had brought the stone to them, and when they’d finally come to grips that it may indeed be one piece of the stone that had brought about the sundering, it was clear that they thought the fates had given it to her for a reason. Theirs was now to play their part in the stone’s history: to help Atiana along the path the fates had set for her. And so she left it with them to do so.
She walked for a long while, and grew lost, but she didn’t care. It felt good to be in a place she’d never been before. It made her feel as though what was going on above in Baressa wasn’t really going on at all, and for a little while at least, that was a very comforting thing.
She came to the sun-brightened end of a tunnel. It stopped at a short ledge-a natural ledge-that overlooked the straits. To the east towered the bulk of the Spar, stretching its way across the great expanse between the two tall cliffs that faced one another like enemies waging some long-forgotten war. At the center of the bridge were the wooden cranes that were used to drop the keystones to the centermost arch. It was the place where Father had met the Kamarisi, where he’d been betrayed.
Where he’d been killed.
She still didn’t know what had happened to the rest. Some said everyone from Anuskaya had been slaughtered on the Spar. Others said they had fled, but had been found shortly after and shot by the janissaries in the streets. Others reported hangings in the high gardens of the Mount. The most likely story, however, was the one that had been repeated most often-that Father’s retinue had been taken to the Mount after a short but bloody skirmish. Surely many of the streltsi in attendance had been killed by the Kamarisi’s guard, but beyond this it would be foolish to kill men that would be invaluable as bargaining chips.
With Father now gone, who would the Grand Duchy rely on? Borund might be able to fill the void, but the other dukes would speak through the Matri to find a stand-in among those who held scepters, not a regent like Borund. So who? Certainly not Iaros Khalakovo. Despite working himself to a place of honor at her father’s side, too many in the south distrusted him, especially Leonid Dhalingrad. Most likely it would go to Leonid, if only for his age, though she hoped it wouldn’t be so. Among all the dukes, he was the most bellicose by far. He would have the Grand Duchy throw its resources against the might of Yrstanla, odds be damned.
Atiana was pulled from her thoughts by the tunnels at the far side of the straits. There were more like the one in which she was standing. They were easy to see; the late morning sun was striking them brightly. In one of the dark tunnels she saw a figure robed in white. She wondered how many were on the far side. Probably no more than those on this side, but it still felt strange, a stark contrast, as if the far side were still visited by the Aramahn- alive, not dead like this side of the straits.
A line of wagons making their way across the Spar drew her attention away from the cliffs, and by the time she turned her gaze back to those distant tunnels, the figure was gone.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
W hen Atiana returned to the room with the mahtar, only Ushai remained. She sat at the long table in the cavernous room, studying Atiana as she entered. Atiana sat on the opposite side of the table so that the piece of the Atalayina lay between them.
“What have you learned?” Atiana asked in Mahndi.
“Much.” Ushai stared into the depths of the stone. “And little.” She smiled sadly, as if she didn’t really want to speak on the subject. “We discussed the origin of the stone at some length. As you may have already guessed, there is much that lies in the past that may now never be recovered.”
“Is there no one who knows?”
Ushai shrugged. “There may be some in the Gaji who know more, but the tribes there are secretive. In the Towers of Tulandan, or the libraries of Aleke s ir or Thend or Kahosh, you might find more, but even then all you will find are pieces of recorded conversation buried among hundreds and thousands of texts. The people who would know the most, though, are the Al-Aqim.”
Atiana smiled. “Perhaps they can spare a moment of their time.”
Ushai, instead of showing amusement, stared into Atiana’s eyes with a look of fierceness that she’d rarely seen on the face of an Aramahn. “I doubt you would like their demands for doing so.”
“You’re too serious, Ushai.”
“You’re not serious enough.”
“Then tell me”-Atiana picked up the stone, felt its weight in her hand-“what shall we do? Sariya wants this for a reason.”
“ Yeh, to hand it to Muqallad.”
Atiana shook her head. “I’ve wondered over that. Why is Muqallad to the east, with the Maharraht, while Sariya is here?”
“It only makes sense. They divide their efforts, and we’re forced to divide ours as well…”
