The Winds of Khalakovo Read online

  “Do I know you?”

  “We have not met, but I know you, certainly.”

  “Well, Ashan, son of Kida and Ahrumea, we owe you much. Never let it be said that the Khalakovos leave debts unpaid.”

  Ashan picked up his pace. They were just short of the busy quays, where it would be more difficult to speak, so Nikandr took Ashan by the elbow and slowed him until he stopped.

  “How may I repay you?”

  “There is no need to repay me for saving lives”—Ashan smiled, showing a healthy grin full of crooked and yellowed teeth—“not the least of which was mine.”

  The boy was still using his rail-thin arms to hold himself about the waist. He looked so miserable that Nikandr found himself wishing there was something he could do for him.

  Nikandr bent down and looked him in the eye. His stomach chose that moment to become queasy. Before he could manage it, a cough escaped him, but then he breathed deeper and forced the feelings down. “Are you well, boy?”

  Nikandr expected him to shrink and shy away, but he didn’t. If anything, he gained a certain sense of gravitas: the look of pain faded, and he began to stare into Nikandr’s eyes with a singular focus that was wholly discomforting.

  “As I explained to your official,” Ashan said sharply, breaking the spell, “Nasim has been dumb since he was a young boy. He rarely speaks, even to me, and when he does it is with words that have no meaning.”

  Nikandr stood, ignoring those staring eyes. “No meaning to you or to him?”

  “Indeed”—Ashan’s smile brightened—“that is the question. I believe they have profound meaning to him, but he cannot communicate his thoughts. They come out sometimes over the course of days. I thought I was a patient man before coming to know him, but now, after learning to piece together one small thought over the course of weeks... The word has taken on new meaning.”

  “He looks like he’s in pain.”

  Ashan smoothed the boy’s hair. “He is in pain, but he doesn’t complain, do you, Nasim?”

  Nasim was staring at Nikandr’s neck, and Nikandr realized that his expression was no longer one of wonder.

  It was one of rapture.

  Nikandr felt a tickling sensation in the center of his chest, just below the surface of the skin, and it took a presence of mind not to raise a hand and begin scratching it. Only as the boy began walking forward did Nikandr realize that it was his soulstone, hidden beneath coat and shirt, that had so caught Nasim’s attention. With a completely innocent look on his face, Nasim reached for it.

  A vision comes. A vision of a grand city. It spreads wide and low near a crescent bay, tall towers and massive domes bright beneath a golden sun. It seems whole, but the streets lay empty and barren—lifeless—as if it has long been abandoned.

  An unreasonable anger came bubbling up from somewhere deep inside Nikandr; before he knew it, he had slapped the boy’s hand away and shoved him backward. Immediately Ashan took Nasim by the shoulders and guided him to the nearby railing, whispering into his ear.

  “My apologies,” Ashan said over his shoulder. “He can be a curious boy.”

  “It is nothing,” Nikandr said, shaking his head to clear away the sudden vision and the confusion it had left in its wake. “Please,” he said, “there must be something I could offer. Gold...”

  “What need have the Aramahn of gold?”

  “Food, then, for Iramanshah if not for you.”

  Ashan shook his head. “There is little enough to go around. Nasim and I will do fine, as will Iramanshah.”

  “Access to our library. Gemstones. A discussion with our scholars. You have only to name the price.”

  Ashan smiled once more and herded the boy away from the railing and up the perch. “There is most certainly nothing”—Ashan nodded, reverently it seemed to Nikandr—“but I wish prosperous times upon you and your family.” And then he turned and walked away.

  Nikandr could have stopped him for the insult, but he didn’t. They had been through enough, these two, and it was unseemly for him to badger them now.

  And the boy... He was strangely compelling, and not simply because of their shared and inexplicable exchange. When one sees someone around whom the world revolves, one knows it, and the boy, even more than Ashan, was just such a person.

  CHAPTER 8

  The Bluff lay in darkness, but there was enough light coming from the windows of the three-story homes lining the street that Nikandr could make his way. When he arrived at his destination—a home nearly indistinguishable from the others—he glanced along the lengths of the empty, curving street before removing the silver flask from inside his coat and taking a healthy swallow of the bitter tonic. His stomach felt strangely healthy, but he wasn’t about to take chances—not tonight. He took the steps up and knocked upon the door five times, a bitter wind pressing against his back.

  He turned, holding the fur-lined collar of his coat tight against the gusting wind. Over the tops of the nearby homes the lights of Palotza Radiskoye could barely be seen on the mountain overlooking the city.

  He knocked again, softer this time, wondering if he’d made a mistake, but just as he was about to walk away, the flickering light of a lantern shone through the thick, wavy glass of the door’s high window. The door opened, and there stood Rehada Ulan al Shineshka, wearing a thick nightgown and a circlet that held a softly glowing gem of tourmaline. When he saw her face—how beautiful she looked in the golden light of the lantern—he nearly made his apologies and headed back toward Radiskoye. And yet, there was—as there always seemed to be—a beckoning luster in Rehada’s dark eyes, even as tired as she must be, even dressed as she was.

  Without a word being spoken, she stepped aside, allowing Nikandr to enter her home. They moved into a lush sitting room. A host of large pillows arcing around the hearth, and the air, beneath the faint smell of jasmine incense, was redolent of garlic and ginger.

  From his coat Nikandr took a small leather bag filled with virgin gems and placed it on the mantel. Then he threw two logs from the cradle onto the remains of the evening’s fire and began stoking the flames. Rehada did not acknowledge her payment as she moved to a silver cart topped with an ornate shisha. Normally they would have smoked tabbaq, the most common of the smoking leaves, but she chose instead a cedar box from the cabinet built into the base of the cart and retrieved several healthy pinches of dokha, a mixture of tabbaq, herbs, and fermented bark that came from Yrstanla’s western coast. It was extremely rare among the islands, and for a moment Nikandr nearly refused her, but he knew enough to know that this was a privilege that Rehada bestowed upon precious few patrons.

  Tonight was going to cost him, so he was willing to accept such a gift. He lay down on the pillows as Rehada stepped between him and the fire and placed the tray carrying the shisha on the carpeted floor. The slosh of liquid came from the base until it had settled, and then all was silence save for the faint whuffle of the burgeoning fire.

  After lighting the dokha in the bowl at the top of the shisha, Rehada offered him one of the silk-covered smoking tubes. He accepted it and for a time simply breathed in the heady smell of honey and vanilla and hay, wondering how long it had taken and by what route it had traveled along the thousands of leagues from its point of origin to Volgorod. How many wagons had brought it from the curing house to the edges of the Yrstanlan Empire? How many hands had carried it on its way to Khalakovo? How many ships had borne it? How many lungs had tasted of the same harvest?

  “You look thin,” Rehada said, perhaps growing tired of the silence. She held two snifters of infused vodka, one of which she handed to Nikandr as she settled herself gracefully upon the nearby pillows.

  “The work on the Gorovna...” Thankfully the wasting had given him a small reprieve—tonight he felt none of its effects.

  “Ah, your other mistress.”

  Nikandr, ignoring her gibe, drew upon the tube and held his breath before slowly releasing the smoke up toward the ceiling. “That was yo
u at the hanging, was it not?”

  The silence lengthened as Rehada took the second tube in one hand. Anyone else would have sucked from the mouthpiece, but not Rehada. She placed the ivory mouthpiece gently against her lips and drew breath like one of the rare, languorous breezes of summer. Her hair, like many of the Landless women, was cut square across the brow, not propped up in some complicated nest like the women of royalty. She held her breath—a good deal longer than Nikandr had—before exhaling the smoke through full, pursed lips. “There are those I would say farewell to before they depart these shores.”

  Visions of the boy swinging in the wind next to the two peasants played within his mind. “Who was he?”

  The space between Rehada’s thin, arching eyebrows pinched, but she did not otherwise show her annoyance. “What does it matter who he was? I

  have witnessed the deaths of those who I’ve never met.”

  “If you had never met him, you wouldn’t have acted like you did.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “The look you gave me.”

  She regarded him levelly, the shisha tube held motionless near her mouth. “I knew that boy, but the look was not for him, nor was it for you.”

  Nikandr paused. “Borund?” He searched his memory for the few times they had discussed her past, but he was unable to remember what connection she might have with the Prince of Vostroma. “I don’t understand...”

  “Then perhaps your wife could explain it to you.” She pulled on the shisha tube and released her breath, much more forcefully than she had the last time.

  And suddenly he understood. Borund, as Rehada well knew, was Atiana’s brother. Could it be she had been jealous? Or perhaps the juxtaposition of death and marriage had made her pause; she, like so many of her people, was always making emotional connections like that and contemplating them for days or weeks at a time.

  “Now that she’s come...” Rehada allowed herself another long pull before setting the mouthpiece aside. “Now that you’re staring face-to-face with the prospect, will you marry her still?”

  “There’s little choice. She’ll be my wife within the week whether I like it or not.” Nikandr smiled. “Though I may have delayed it by a day or two.”

  “And how might you have done that?”

  “I should be up at the palotza now, signing the wedding documents.”

  “You’ve said how prickly the Duke of Vostroma can be.”

  Nikandr nodded, and his smile widened. “Da, he can be that...”

  Rehada regarded him, the firelight and the shadows accentuating the features of her face. “You aren’t bound to her yet. You could go where you will.”

  At this Nikandr’s smile faded. “You’re not so naïve as that.”

  “If anyone is naïve, it is you. You tell me every time you come how much you love the wind. Surely you have enough money to buy a ship. You could take to the winds, travel the world...”

  “I’m not Aramahn.”

  “Meaning what, that you cannot bear to be parted from your precious family?”

  “I may voice displeasure from time to time, but they are my life. They are my love.”

  “If I had one rachma from every man that’s spoken those words...”

  “You’d what, take to the winds?”

  “I’ve done my traveling. I’ve found my place.”

  Nikandr drew breath from the shisha as if it had somehow insulted him. “And I haven’t?” he said while forcing the smoke from his lungs.

  Rehada raised her brow and tilted her mouth in a quirky smile. “You’re the one running from your marriage.”

  “I’m not running,” Nikandr said. Rehada was prodding him, but the effects of the smoke had already taken the edge from his anger and his feelings of being trapped on the Hill. Without willing it to, his mouth twisted into a smile that was a mirror image of hers. “Well, I suppose I am pulling at the tether a bit.”

  “Why do you never speak of her?” Rehada asked. “Tell me what she’s like.”

  As he downed half of his vodka, the lemon-infused liquor searing his mouth, throat, and finally his stomach, he turned to Rehada and admired the graceful curve of her eyebrows, her long eyelashes and full lips. The orange tourmaline held in the circlet glowed ever so softly. He knew good and well the sort of hezhan that gem granted, and he couldn’t wait for the heat of her to fill him, for the touch of her red hot skin, so unlike Atiana Vostroma’s, which was certain to be white as bone and cold as winter’s chill.

  Rehada, perhaps feeling the effects of the smoke as well, smiled mischievously and poked Nikandr in the ribs with a slippered foot. “What is she like?”

  Nikandr shrugged and leaned into the pillows, knowing he’d already smoked too much for his own good. Part of him wanted to answer Rehada’s question—the part that always wanted to please her—but he didn’t really know what Atiana was like. He couldn’t remember a single time he’d spoken to her when she wasn’t with Mileva and Ishkyna. He knew them only as a single, three-headed beast.

  “You’re impossible.” Rehada threw the shisha tube aside and straddled him. Her muscled legs tightened against his waist as her long black hair fell across his chest. She didn’t grind her pelvis like a dock whore would, nor did she lean in and kiss him, though her dark eyes spoke of the desire. Instead she smiled. With the low-burning fire lending her already dark skin a ruddy glow, she was breathtaking. She lowered herself, her breasts pressing against his chest, her cheek brushing his. “Tell me something about her,” she said, her hot breath tickling his ear. She raised herself and regarded him. The gem upon her brow glowed brighter. Nikandr felt his loins and chest heat, and despite himself he began to harden. “Unless you’d rather return home to be alone with your thoughts.”

  “I didn’t come to talk about my fiancée.”

  “Then why did you come?”

  “To be with you.”

  She poked him in the center of his chest. “The truth...”

  Despite himself, he laughed. “Is that so hard to believe?”

  “I know your moods, Nikandr, better than she ever will.”

  He paused, wondering if she were right. “A man arrived on a ship today, one we thought lost to the Maharraht. His name is Ashan.”

  Surprisingly, Rehada stiffened. “Ashan?”

  “Ashan Kida al Ahrumea. He arrived with a curious boy on one of my father’s ships, a ship snatched from the jaws of the Maharraht.”

  Rehada stared down at him seriously, saying nothing.

  Nikandr chuckled and threw his arms behind his head. “Now who’s avoiding questions?”

  “I should hold your answers hostage until I get mine.”

  “But you’re not petty, like me.”

  “Few people are...” Before Nikandr could reply, she continued. “I met Ashan once, years ago.”

  “The kapitan of the Kroya said he was very powerful. He summoned the winds for days straight to save the ship.”

  She nodded. “He is arqesh.”

  Nikandr jerked back involuntarily. “He has mastered all five hezhan?”

  Rehada stared down with a look that made it clear he had disappointed her. “He has also come to terms with this life and the one that has come before and the one that will come next. He has traveled the world and seen every one of its mysteries. Among all the islands, there are only six like Ashan.”

  “You’re saying you would expect no less from a man like him?”

  “I’m saying Ashan is closer to vashaqiram than I will ever be, and that I have no right to judge him.”

  Vashaqiram was the state of mind all Aramahn searched for. It was complete calm, understanding, forgiveness, and many more things Nikandr did not yet comprehend. It was why they roamed the world as they did, moving constantly from place to place.

  Rehada had taken on a look of introspection, one he’d rarely seen from her. She often talked of having given up her quest of wandering the world, of having learned enough to be comfortable on Kha
lakovo. But he knew better. She too often became like this when faced with tales of travel to the other archipelagos or to the Motherland, Yrstanla.

  Rehada’s expression darkened. “Why do you come to me late at night to ask me of a wanderer?”

  “I saw him only today, mere hours ago, and I wondered—”

  She rolled off of him and set her glass of vodka aside. “There was a time when you came here for me...”

  Nikandr stared, confused. “I only thought you might—”

  “Your thoughts...” She stood, her face cross. “I see where your thoughts are, son of Iaros. They are not here, nor are they on an arqesh. They are on the Hill, a place you should be now.” She glanced meaningfully at the entrance to her home, waiting for Nikandr to take her meaning.

  “I would stay, Rehada.”

  “Your wife wouldn’t think so well of that.”

  “She’s not my wife.”

  “A point she, I fear, would beg to differ.”

  He nearly protested, but he had come here for solace, not to fight with a woman he paid for her company. He gathered his things and left without another word, but as Rehada shut the door behind him and the wind howled through the city streets, he found himself not just alone, but lonely—lonelier than he had ever been.

  Nikandr treaded through the cavernous hallways of Radiskoye toward his room. The faint and familiar creaks of movement could be heard somewhere in the floors above—Radiskoye in slumber.

  When he reached the second floor he paused, seeing light coming from beneath the door of his father’s drawing room. He went to it and opened the door, finding Father seated in a padded armchair, one leg crossed over the other. He was holding the wooden bowl of an ivory-tipped pipe with a stem as long as his forearm. He puffed on it, staring into the dying embers in the nearby fireplace. He looked weary and old, words rarely leveled against him.

  An oil painting of Nikandr’s great-great-grandfather stared down from the mantel, his serious face cast with heavy shadows. Gold leaf decorated the room, especially along the wainscoting border and the carved wooden columns above the mantel. To say that it felt ostentatious, especially after the lush simplicity of Rehada’s home, was an understatement, and to Nikandr it felt foreign and familiar, both.