Angels and Djinn, Book 3: Zariel's Doom (15 page)

She tried to walk past him, but Zerai grabbed her arm and pulled her back to the desk. “Speak to who? Why? Tell me what you see.”

“I, I can’t, not yet, I need a moment, I need to speak to someone about this matter.” Again she tried to leave the room, and again Zerai stopped her, forcing her back against the desk.

This time he kept his grip on her arm and held her still. He turned his body to move Nadira just a little farther away from the woman and he leaned down to force her to look him in the eye. “Listen to me very carefully. Listen! This is not a
matter
. This is a
child
. And whatever this child is, she is a
child
, first and last. Her parents are dead. Do you hear me? Look at me! This is an orphan with no family in all the world, no one to love her, no one to even feed her, let alone change her soiled clothes. She is not a spectacle. She is not a
thing
to be studied. Are you listening to me?”

The seer nodded slowly.

“Her name is Nadira, and she is going to live a long happy life. A normal life. She is going to play in the sun, and jump in puddles, and eat her vegetables, and laugh, and sing, or so help me, I will burn down half the world to make it so, starting with this library. Do you understand me?” His angry words echoed down the hall outside the open door.

Again she nodded. “Yes, I do.”

“Good.” He let go of her arm, and she quickly began to massage it, and he suddenly realized how tightly he had been crushing it in his hand. He could also feel the heat in his face and the pounding of the blood in his ears, but it faded. Slowly. “All right then. Now. Tell me what you see.”

“This child.” The seer took a long pause to breathe and peer at Nadira. “This child is not made of flesh like ours. She isn’t mortal clay.”

He nodded. “I didn’t think she was. So what is she?”

“I think… I think she may be a…”

“A what?” he pressed her.

“A crystal. A living crystal. Born of both djinn fire and human clay.”

“Fire and clay?” Zerai looked down at the little girl quietly sucking her thumb and plucking absently at the little hairs on the back of his hand. “Like pottery?”

“In a sense, yes.” The seer shrugged. “I can see how she breathes, how her heart beats, how her eyes glide across the room, how her muscles contract with such deliberation, such unrealized power. She will be very strong.”

“She’s already strong,” he said. “She survived an ice storm. She fell into the frozen sea and came out again without so much as crying.”

The seer nodded as her fingers fidgeted together at her corded belt. “A crystal can be very strong, and very sharp. But it is also brittle. It may survive all manners of abuse that would destroy softer things, but it can also be shattered by a very small injury, if that injury happens in just the right way.”

The falconer saw the fear and unease in the seer’s eyes, and he tucked Nadira back into her sling across his chest. “Can you see what that way might be?”

“No.” She shook her head. “I can’t.”

Zerai stepped back from her and looked down at Nadira as the little girl closed her eyes and nestled against his chest, and resumed sucking her thumb very noisily.

“We should have the other Arrahim see her.”

“No, we’re done here.” Zerai turned to go.

“I’m afraid not. I think this is more important than you realize.” The seer reached back and plucked a slender wire at the corner of her desk and instantly the halls of the library were filled with a high-pitched ringing noise.

Zerai glared at her, and ran out the door with Nadira clutched to his chest.

Chapter 12

Zerai barreled through the library past the surprised faces of the young seers and burst out into the bright lights of the main road, and then he ran even faster. Years of living in the demon-ruled wastes of Tigara had primed him for sudden sprints across the open grasslands, as well as up the rugged hills and rocky bluffs, and now in the open roads of Shivala his legs erupted with a speed he hadn’t known since the last time a slavering ghul had tried to tear his throat out.

Faces and clothing flew past in a blur of muted colors, and he ignored them all, focusing only on the way ahead, scanning for openings in the crowd, finding the clearest path through the afternoon’s throng of laborers slowly filtering by him.

He kept both arms wrapped securely around little Nadira, keeping her firmly against his chest, careful not to jostle her any more than necessary, and casting quick glances down at her face from time to time to make certain she was all right. But she was always all right, staring serenely up at him with her huge brown eyes.

Behind him, the ringing alarm in the library faded swiftly, but it was replaced moments later by men and women shouting in the streets, and then the chase truly began as heavy boots began pounding and echoing down the stone corridors of the city, close on his heels.

But his soft shoes made no sound at all, and he wore no armor, and he carried only his old Qumari sword, which was small and light compared to the blades found in the east.

Can I outrun them? Is that even possible?

A silver flash whistled over his head and he jerked to the side a moment too late to realize that an arrow had narrowly missed his ear.

What the hell…?

Behind him he spotted the two Juranim archers in red and black, two stern women with quivers full of steel arrows, including two nocked and ready to loose.

“Stop!” Zerai screamed, stumbling as he tried to run sideways, and clutching Nadira’s head to his shoulder. “The baby! You’ll hit the baby!”

They fired.

The falconer dove to his side and crashed to the ground with Nadira on top of him as the two arrows shrieked past and impaled the stone wall across the road. Both of the steel missiles glowed an angry red and wisps of smoke rose from them as they stood cooling in the wall.

Zerai leapt to his feet and drew his sword just as the next arrow was loosed, and he slashed it out of the air, sending it whirling end over end to clatter against a window. The next arrow he dodged as he jogged backward, not daring to take his eyes off the Juranim archers for a moment.

The next arrow came flying at his chest, and the blades of the steel head glistened with frost that steamed in the warm air as a pale white haze. Zerai whipped his blade up and knocked the arrow away, but it scraped across his sword and the frozen tip sliced across the back of his hand.

He cried out and nearly dropped the old khopesh, but he clamped his teeth shut and dove behind the next corner, out of the range of fire, and ran on. With his sword sheathed, he looked at the frost-bitten wound on his hand, a straight line of red blood and flesh edged in sickly black and white skin. His fingers shook, and he clamped his hand on Nadira’s back, and tried not to think about the pain.

Two more streets, two more corners. He ran with all his heart, barely remembering to breathe, his eyes wide and darting all around both for places of safety and signs of danger.

His hand throbbed, and shuddered.

He glanced back as he turned the next corner and he glimpsed a man and a woman in gray tunics running swiftly after him.

Sophirim!

His mind raced with images faster than he could put words to them. The Sophirim could shift the weight of an object, making boulders as light as a feather or making a man’s glove as heavy as an anvil. Anything could be a deadly weapon in their hands.

Especially their empty hands.

“Stop where you are!” a man bellowed.

Zerai plunged into a crowd full of carts and camels, where he ducked his head as he continued racing as fast as he could. But now his leg muscles were very warm and a dull ache was forming in the small of his back.

I haven’t run like this in years.

An elderly man stepped forward suddenly, leading his mule-drawn cart directly into Zerai’s path. The falconer gasped and planted one hand on the edge of the cart as he leapt as high as he could, clutching Nadira with his one free hand, and vaulted cleanly to safety. His right foot slipped as he landed, sending a small pain up the side of his leg. But still he ran on.

“I’ve got you!” a woman shouted.

Zerai looked back in time to see a young woman clad in gray leap into the air and sail high over the crowd, clearing the mule-drawn cart by the full height of a tall man, and crash down just a few paces behind him.

Damn it, of course they can make themselves lighter too!

Zerai grit his teeth and veered around a corner to squeeze down a narrow, dusty lane between two cracked walls that were leaning slightly toward each other.

“You can’t escape us!” the Sophirim woman yelled.

Zerai didn’t answer. He had no breath to spare. His skin was blazing with heat, his muscles were throbbing, and his right ankle screamed quietly every time he stepped on it. With every minute that the chase went on, he knew he was coming closer and closer to hurting himself, or having his leg collapse under him.

He ran on.

Bursting free from the narrow lane, he found one of the Sophirim standing in the middle of the road, arms folded across his chest. The warrior wore a faint smirk, as though the very idea of a mere mortal fleeing from the mighty clerics was laughable.

Zerai drew his khopesh in a flash of bronze and steel, and swung straight at the side of the man’s head with all his strength. The cleric had only the barest instant to register the attack, time enough to stop smirking but not to move out of the way. He ducked only a fraction before the sword connected with his temple.

The dull back edge of the khopesh rang out with a terrific crack as it sent the cleric sprawling to the ground, dazed and bleeding. The falconer darted around him and ran straight into a thick crowd that would not part for him. Everywhere he looked he saw men and women packed tightly together, patiently waiting, staring dully in the direction of the large temple to his right.

For the first time since the alarm sounded, Zerai truly panicked. There was nowhere to go, no way through, and no way back. Looking over his shoulder, he saw the Sophirim woman dashing through the narrow lane toward him.

No, no. It can’t end like this.

He tightened his grip on his sword and looked at Nadira.

It won’t end. Not ever.

“Let me through, please, let me through!” But no one moved, or even looked at him. So he shook his head, he raised his blade high over the crowd, and shouted, “I’ll kill you all!”

Instantly the crowd screamed and parted, as though all they needed was enough fear to find enough room to let him pass. And he ran straight through.

A moment later he heard a strange sound, the sound of a hundred people all gasping in unison, all silenced in a single moment by some strange sight behind him, and Zerai knew that the Sophirim woman had caught up to him.

His legs began to tighten, the burning fading away to a dull numbing pain that foretold of a sprain or a spasm if he kept running much longer. He staggered to a halt and spun around to see the woman in gray flying straight at him, her armored fist raised and ready to smash him in squarely in the face.

Zerai dropped to the ground and let the warrior fly past, but she landed just a few steps beyond him, and instantly leapt back again. Zerai lurched up to his feet, his eyes darting madly for a way out, a way to escape. The idea of smashing the woman in the head with his sword came and went, as he couldn’t quite bring himself to do that, not to a woman.

Not yet, anyway.

Beside him was a house, and that house had a door.

Just as the woman lunged at his throat, Zerai yanked the door open and plunged into the shadowy interior. He didn’t see the chairs or tables, or the lamps or the cushions, or even the startled old ladies sitting in the corner. He ran through the room on wooden legs, his eyes half-blinded by the contrast of the dark walls and the bright white sunlight spilling in narrow shafts through the windows.

Bursting through the back door he sprinted through a small herb garden, crashed through a fragile wooden gate, and found himself once again running through a wide dusty road.

Please. There has to be something, someplace, someone…

But there was no sign of anything that might help him. No friendly face, no fleet-footed horse with an empty saddle, not even a loose crowd he might hide in for a moment to catch his breath.

“Stop right there!”

Zerai stumbled a few more steps and stopped, and turned. His chest was shaking visibly with the pounding of his heart and his lungs were burning. He couldn’t feel his legs at all.

The Sophirim woman stood just a few paces away. Her face dripped with sweat, but she was barely winded. The armored gloves on her hands hung at her sides, dusty and scarred from countless skirmishes, sparring sessions, and battles.

Maybe she was one of the few who went out to face the djinn and survived…

“Surrender now. There’s no escape,” she said.

“No.” Zerai gasped for breath and kept looking around for some way out. “No one’s taking her, or me.”

“I am. Right now.”

“Do you even know why?” he shouted.

She frowned. “My orders were to bring you and the child back to the Arrahim, and that’s what I’m going to do.”

“I didn’t do anything. We didn’t do anything.” He shook his head and took a step back. “I went to them for help, to make sure this…
my
little girl was all right. That’s all. And now they want her. They want to take her from me.”

“I don’t know anything about that, and I don’t care.” She held out one empty hand. “This is your last chance. Surrender now, or I take you back by force.”

Zerai leveled his sword at her. “Listen to me! I haven’t done anything. I haven’t hurt anyone. I just want to protect Nadira and get away from here. That’s all. I swear.”

“We’re going, now.” She started toward him.

“Listen to me, please!”

She continued forward.

He stumbled back. “Saifu Ebana!”