The Winds of Khalakovo - Bradley P. Beaulieu [84]
Her body lost its tension, lending her a confidence that had been lacking, but she knew this was the time she had to be most careful, for before she knew it—
Her eyes, clenched tightly, lose the telltale signs of light. Her stomach sinks. She hears nothing save the low susurrus of the aether and the currents of the dark. She sees one bright light among the endless sea of midnight blue surrounding her. It is Saphia, the Matra, still strong, still caressing the dark as if she could submerge herself at any time she chose. There is a weariness in her, a fatigue that cannot come from mere sleeplessness. It is a wonder she can function at all, much less enter the dark and guide the flow of its currents.
Atiana leaves the Matra, not wishing to tax her unnecessarily—indeed, not wishing to touch the physical world so soon after leaving it. Such a thing can be dangerous, especially for one such as her.
She expands her sphere of awareness and senses the servant woman, though only vaguely, as one knows that someone is near upon waking. She sees the rook on its perch clearly, and if she so chose she could assume its form, but she has not done so in years and there are risks with even a small thing such as this. She senses the roots of the spire, which run deep beneath the obelisk, and then the spire itself, towering above Radiskoye like a stern and overprotective parent. The aether licks at the spire as if it were curious over its existence, but like a ship too bold for its own good, it is caught in the maelstrom and pulled down into the depths of the mountain.
She sees the people spread throughout the palotza, all of them small, meaningless, like flies buzzing over fruit. She senses the dogs in their kennels, the ponies in their stalls, the rats running through the walls of the palotza, even the bitterly cold trees and grasses that blanket the island. The city of Volgorod and the Landless village of Iramanshah enter her consciousness like dim candles in a misty bog filled with countless, twinkling wisps. The island itself, now that her mind has expanded, has an ebb and flow. It has life, little different from the body floating in the drowning basin deep beneath the spire.
When her awareness expands to the sea, she recalls the warnings of her mother. A realization grows. She is granting too much to the aether, but the will to heed those warnings begins to wane, while the desire to lose herself in the vibrant currents grows.
The ocean teems with life. Fish and coral and mollusks and the great white goedrun that make long sea voyages so difficult. And the air. Though the sun has yet to rise, and the winds are high, there are thousands of gulls swooping along the southern cliffs, diving for fish. Grouse are sleeping in their nests. Owls continue to hunt.
She knows that she is becoming lost, that she is coming ever closer to the point where she will no longer be able to return to her body, but she has lost the will to care. The life and death surrounding her is too beautiful for her to willingly turn her eyes away.
And then a note—the pluck of a single harp string—calls to her. She senses, among the chaos, the minds of the other Matri. She feels them supporting her, willing her return. They are too distant to offer much beyond this, but the realization that they are there is enough. She draws herself inward, focusing more closely on the spire.
Returning to the lessons drummed into her so many years ago, she attunes herself with the spire. Her soul reverberates against its power. It drives her. She feels the whorls and eddies around the island. They are strong, but it is not so difficult to amplify them, to focus it southwest toward the spire on Duzol, and the two beyond that on Grakhosk and Yfa, and eastward to the other islands in Khalakovo. Soon, like a spider on her web, she is in tune with all seven spires, strengthening them, guiding the currents of aether among them. It is something that Saphia does without thinking,