The Winds of Khalakovo - Bradley P. Beaulieu [161]
She remembered him, the one Rehada had been speaking to before they’d entered the village. Muwas. He was controlling the spirit. She could feel, even now, the connection that snaked between them, a cord of aether that allowed him to force his will upon it.
She could feel as well a concentration of aether below her—something that lay on the lake bed—though what it was she couldn’t guess.
Then Rehada was at her side, pulling her up by her arm. “In the lake!” Rehada shouted.
A blast of water struck Atiana in the chest, sending her beneath the surface. Something slick grabbed her ankle and pulled her, dragged her down against the rough surface of the lake bed. Her legs and back were scraped by sharp stone. She screamed, losing what little air she had in her lungs.
A hand gripped hers.
She slipped free as the rush of the water pulled her deeper.
She kicked and thrashed and fought. She gained the surface and drew breath, managing only a whisper of air before she was pulled under. Water invaded her throat, her lungs.
She coughed reflexively, which did nothing but draw in more water.
She kicked, but the hezhan had her.
She was pressed down against stone. The pressure built. What little air she had in her lungs escaped, bubbling upward, barely visible against the orange glint of the siraj lamps along the shore.
She could still feel the hezhan. Could still feel Muwas. Could still feel the stone on the lake bed and the walls of the aether closing in. They were drawn in tight, much as they were with the babe and Nasim.
Desperate, she pushed against them, as hard as she could manage.
The aether widened. Adhiya and Erahm were distanced. And she felt in her mind the cord between Muwas and the hezhan snap.
Immediately the pressure against her chest eased. The water stilled.
She was disoriented, but she followed the light. Stars blossomed in her vision, and the world began to fade.
A warm hand gripped her wrist, pulled her up and out of the water. She was thrown over someone’s shoulder, which pressed into her stomach with each ungainly step forward. Water expelled from her lungs and splashed into the surface of the lake below her. As they reached the shallows, she began spluttering, spitting the last of the water from her lungs, and then a coughing fit overcame her. It seemed to last forever, her body wracking painfully from the force of it.
But then at last it faded. Above her, a stout Aramahn man stood. Next to him was Rehada and Fahroz.
“Muwas,” Atiana said, her voice hoarse. “He lies deeper in the lake. There. It was he that summoned the hezhan.”
The burly quram moved to the edge of the water. He closed his eyes and opened his palms to the water. As his head tilted back, a wind began to blow. It was cold, but not so cold as Atiana had been in the water, and to her it felt good in the darkness of this place.
After a moment, the prow of a boat could be seen approaching. It turned lazily as it was pushed by the wind to the shore. When it finally arrived, the Aramahn man stepped to its side and hoisted from its confines the unconscious form of Muwas.
Atiana stood upon a grassy hill high on the mountain that held the village of Iramanshah. Ahead, the ground sloped upward until it reached a ridge where a dozen obsidian stones stood sentinel. Only paces away, a crowd of Aramahn stood in a circle around Muwas. He kneeled in the center of this tribunal of the village elders, staring at them defiantly as the light of the glowing stones lit his face in ghastly relief.
Rehada stood nearby, the wind tugging at her robes—this day as much an outsider as Atiana.
Atiana had watched far below in the darkness near the lake as the village elders had gathered and discussed what had happened in hushed voices. They had granted Muwas a chance to defend himself, but he had refused to do so. He had merely stared at them, claiming it was for them that he was doing this. “You should