In the center of the map was the only representation of a land mass. Ghayavand. Where he now stood.
It made sense that the builders would have worked the sea and earth into the stone flooring. What he didn’t understand was why they would have chosen to show the ley lines. Why not the islands themselves? Why not both?
But then he realized just how much time Khamal had had on this island-more than three hundred years. As much as the tower was Sariya’s demesne, this had been Khamal’s. He could easily have reconstructed the entire celestia in that time, so recreating the flooring would have been simple. He could not have known when and in what form he would return, so he might have recreated this as a clue of sorts, something for his new incarnation to find and to open like a lockbox. But he couldn’t make it too easy-lockboxes, after all, did have locks. It would be needed to prevent others from finding its secrets.
“There’s something in the middle,” Rabiah said.
Nasim looked closer. At the center of the celestia’s floor was a circular brass plate. The plate was old, the metal discolored, which had hidden the fact that there was a bracelet resting there, a qiram’s bracelet of beaten gold that held an opal in its setting. It wasn’t the stone that mattered. It was the fact that he recognized it. He’d seen it a thousand times before.
It was Ashan’s.
Ashan was arqesh; he knew all the disciplines and had one of every stone. The one that was left here, however, was the one for the dhoshahezhan, the spirit of life and growth.
It was a message, and it wasn’t difficult to figure out who had sent it.
“Muqallad has taken Ashan,” Nasim said softly.
Rabiah looked between him and the brass plate, confused, but understanding came to her moments later. “It’s a clue, isn’t it?”
Nasim nodded and stepped forward over the black line. Rabiah was right, and the fact that Muqallad had been here and left the bracelet was a sign that some of the wards of this place had been removed.
As he crossed over the line, Nasim sensed a shift, a subtle change-in this world, or the next, or the one that lay between. He couldn’t quite place it. He’d never felt the like before, not since that day on Oshtoyets when Nikandr had saved him, when he’d been drawn from Adhiya to lie wholly in the world of Erahm. This was similar, though to a much smaller degree.
“Nasim…”
It was Rabiah’s voice, and it was full of wonder. And worry.
He felt the stones shift beneath his feet. The ley lines… They were moving like waves upon the water. He stepped toward the edge of the floor, feeling more calm than he’d felt in years. Sukharam and Rabiah practically ran, their eyes nervous and darting.
As the lines continued to alter, Nasim wondered if the previous view had been what the lines were like when Khamal had last been here, or perhaps how they’d been at the time of the sundering. Either way, his alarm began to grow the longer he watched.
The lines gathered tightly around Ghayavand. This was to be expected. The rifts had formed here. They had been contained by the Al-Aqim and the other qiram who had survived, but they had eventually begun to expand. When the ley lines were laid out like this, however, the rifts appeared as a confluence-a whorl or an aberration in the otherwise-orderly lines.
What was worrying was the fact that there were similar patterns being formed around the islands of Galahesh and Rafsuhan. Galahesh could perhaps be reasoned away. It was well known that the island-and the straits that divided it-acted as a channel that funneled aether from the Sea of Tabriz to the deep well in the Sea of Khurkhan. It acted as a crosswind to the aether that ran beneath the surface of the water-the shallows that ran from the Motherland, through Oramka and Galahesh and on to the islands of the Grand Duchy. But the whorls around Rafsuhan made no sense whatsoever.
It must be another rift. And a large one at that. So much was changing, he thought, and none of it for the better.
The lines finally stopped moving. The rift running through Rafsuhan was deep, but not so bad that it wouldn’t eventually close. The tightness around Galahesh, however, could not be sustained. Sooner or later, something was going to give, and he couldn’t escape the feeling that it was being done consciously, nor could he escape the fact that Sariya and Muqallad had recently found a way to break the chains that had kept them bound for so long.
“Come,” Nasim said to the others. “There’s nothing to fear any longer.”
Nasim led them to the center of the floor, and there Nasim squatted down and picked up the bracelet. The gold was heavy. The opal reflected the brightness of the day. He put it on, feeling something akin to familiarity. He remembered thinking once what it would be like to wear Ashan’s bracelets. He knew that he didn’t need such things, but it still felt good. It felt like he was one step closer to finding him.
He kneeled down and felt the plate. He tried to lift it, to twist it, to no avail. He tried for long minutes to feel for it, to see if there was some sign Khamal had left him to give some clue as to how to open it. But if he had, Nasim couldn’t sense it.
“Should we try to destroy it?” Rabiah asked.
Nasim shook his head, his eyes locked on the plate.
What? he asked himself. What might Khamal have meant him to do?
Sukharam cleared his throat, and when he spoke it sounded meek, as if he’d been afraid to break the silence. “He would have taken breath here, wouldn’t he? Perhaps kneel to it.”
When the words were spoken, Nasim knew it was so. It was so simple. This place, of all places, was special to Khamal. He would have taken breath here countless days. And when Nasim had returned to this place, it would be a gesture he might stumble upon if he didn’t guess it outright.
“He wants me to open it,” Nasim said.
“Who? Muqallad?”
Nasim nodded. “Can there be any doubt?”
“Why?”
“Because he can’t do it himself. He wants the piece of the Atalayina hidden within, and he’s offering Ashan in payment.”
Rabiah stared down thoughtfully. Sukharam looked between the two of them, then down to the plate. “We should take it.”
“ Neh,” Rabiah said. “If he wants it, we should leave it.”
Nasim stared at the bracelet, felt its weight on his wrist. “Sukharam’s right. We must have it.”
Rabiah shook her head. “We can always come back for it. Let’s leave. Consider this more carefully.”
“Consider what?” Nasim asked. “This is what we came for. It is one of the three stones we need, and it’s powerful, Rabiah. It can help us against Muqallad.”
“You may be giving him exactly what he wants.”
“It’s a risk we need to take.” Still kneeling, Nasim placed his hands on the plate so that his hands and thumbs created a triangle, and then he kneeled down, touching his forehead in the center of the triangle.
He heard no sound, but he felt the plate vibrate momentarily beneath his fingers.
He sat up and pulled at the plate. It came up freely, and below it was a circular compartment set deep into the floor. He reached down-nearly to his shoulder-and felt something. His fingers tingled as he wrapped his fingers around it and pulled it up.
It was a blue stone the size and shape of a generous apple wedge. There was no mistaking what this was. It was a piece of the Atalayina, the very stone Khamal, Sariya, and Muqallad used centuries ago in their attempt to bring the world to indaraqiram, the state of complete understanding and bliss and oneness. The stone was very heavy for its size, and it felt ancient-as ancient as the world and the firmament above.
He stood and brought it over to one of the shafts of light shining down from above. He held it under the sunlight and examined it. He found it difficult to take his eyes from it. The blue of the stone was rich and deep. Copper striations ran through it like the ley lines of the celestia’s floor. Emanating from within was a feeling of immense power, as if the world itself depended on this stone, and it the world.