The Winds of Khalakovo - Bradley P. Beaulieu [158]
She relaxed and fell deeper into the embrace of the water as the constricting tube through which she breathed became less and less of a hindrance. And soon... Soon...
Her mind expands to fill the lake and the cavern that holds it. It is an easy thing to do, and for the first time there is pleasure—a release that occurs at the moment of crossing—and she thinks immediately to Saphia and her constant desire to wander the aether. Is this the first sign that the same will happen to her?
The transition occurs faster than in times past, but it is no less easy. The winds seems more turbulent, and she wonders if that is due to her lack of mastery or the state of the island.
She moves beyond the lake, hoping to find a frame of reference from which she can view the rift. She failed to find it the last time, but she is not so inexperienced as she was then. She thinks about her past failures, but she is convinced that things will be different now.
As she searches, she feels the presence of another. It is not like the feeling of communing with one of the Matri. Instead, it is the feeling of a soulstone, one she has touched in recent weeks, and she realizes with a start that it is Nikandr’s. As the winds of the aether rage around her, beckoning her to give of herself more fully, she allows herself to be drawn toward the stone. It is dangerous, what she does. She is not so experienced yet that she can take this shift lightly. She knows that if she does not maintain awareness of herself in Iramanshah, she might be lost forever, but she is well grounded in the lake, and Nikandr’s light is bright. It will make, she hopes, the return journey easier; her body in the lake and his stone will act like spires for a windship, anchoring the ley lines so that she might traverse them home.
She finds herself hovering above an island, not unlike any of the dozens of others sprinkled around the Great Sea, but she soon realizes that this is vastly different. Worlds different.
She can feel with the lightest touch the hezhan that inhabit the island. They are spread thinly in most places except for one location—a city nestled between two arms of a mountain that travel down to the sea. The city is large, but it is also bereft of life. Gone from its houses are roofs and walls. Stone fences lay shattered. The taller buildings closer to the center are broken and torn; some are mere husks.
The hezhan move about the city, perhaps searching—for what she does not know. As she approaches, she realizes she was wrong. These are not hezhan. They are of Adhiya, but they are also of Erahm. Their colors—blue mixed with tendrils of red—remind her of the babe she saw, the one that had been ... assumed by the vanahezhan. She has not thought of it before, but the act of assuming a bird like the rooks is eerily similar to what she sees here, only it is a hezhan assuming a human instead of a human assuming an animal, and it forces her to rethink the very nature of the hezhan.
One of the creatures moves faster, and she is drawn toward it because nearby there are four men, and one is Nikandr. They hide in a building as the creature stalks toward the open doorway. It sniffs the air and appears ready to step inside. She knows that if this happens it could mean the life of all four of them, but she does not know how to prevent it. She moves around one side and tries to call its attention toward her. If it notices her efforts, it does not show it.
A moment later it opens its darkened mouth and calls soundlessly to the sky, and when it does, there is a subtle shift in the aether. She feels, in that one small moment, a lattice of connections that span the entire city. It starts near the water—at a tall tower that is strangely intact—and spreads outward like the shattering impact of a stone upon a pane of leaded glass.
She was ready to search for the rift on Khalakovo, but here is something