Angels and Djinn, Book 3: Zariel's Doom (26 page)

“It doesn’t matter if it scares them,” Zerai said, though he wasn’t sure he believed it. “You need to do it. You need to go to Shivala. If that means telling half the people to stay inside and cover their eyes, then so be it. It’s the clerics we’re trying to bring together, not the civilians.”

“He’s right,” Sophir said. “Let us gather the others and travel to the city together.”

“Very well,” Juran agreed. “And we can bring my children to the healers there.”

Zerai heaved a sigh as he heaved Nadira over onto his other arm. “Good.”

He felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to see Lamia frowning out across the broken landscape of melting ice towers and smoldering, skeletal trees. She said, “I don’t see Samira anywhere.”

The falconer scanned the slopes around them. “I don’t either. I don’t remember seeing her here at all, actually. I can’t imagine she was hurt. She’s too fast for that.”

“I don’t think she came over with us,” Lamia said.

“She’s back on Sophir’s mountain?”

“Either that, or she’s gone.”

“Gone?” Zerai wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Gone where?”

“Where else? To find Ramashad.”

The falconer closed his eyes. “Shit. You’re probably right.”

“I thought you didn’t care about her?”

“I care. A little. I don’t want her to die, if that’s what you mean.” Zerai looked at Nadira and thought of the last two years that she and her mother had spent underground, two years living in the djinn city of Odashena, two years of being feared and hated for being human, for being different, and all the while being protected only by Samira Nerash. “Shit.”

“Do we go after her?”

Hell no, I’m not going after her. I’m still trying to get away from this insanity.

Zerai looked around at the weary clerics and the two giant angels herding their people together. “We can’t. We’d never find her.”

“Then I guess we go back to the city.”

“Back?” He looked at her. “I’m not going back.”

“Well, you can’t stay here alone, not for long, anyway. And we’re five days’ hard march across the desert from the city,” she said. “You have to come back with us, and then you can leave again. Maybe on a ship this time.”

“Yeah, right.” He shook his head. “Maybe.”

“Come on.” She guided him toward the gathering of angels and clerics in the center of the arena, and he let her move him into position, even though he wasn’t ready. He wanted time to think, to plan, to find another way out of this mess. But there was no time. And there was no way, not that he could see.

Sophir folded his moss-covered arms across his stone chest, and everything began to rise into the air once again. Dust and pebbles, clothing and hair, people and immortals, conscious and otherwise. Zerai winced as the mass was drained from his flesh and he began to float on the breeze, tethered by some unknowable force to the huge creature of rock and white flame. Once in the air, the great swirling mass of bodies and debris began to glide across the mountain side for a second time, again heading south toward the next peak and the next crater in the living rock where another angel and her students awaited them.

Nadira looked up suddenly and began to babble loudly in the falconer’s ear, and he did his best to shush her and gently jostle her in his arms, but to no avail. The little girl talked nonsense and giggled all the way, but Zerai, despite the exhausted grimace on his face and the painfully loud noise in his ear, didn’t really mind.

Chapter 21

For two days, Iyasu strode along at Rahm’s heels, occasionally glancing with mild envy at Hadara riding on Raska, eagerly climbing the narrow paths of the ancient red mountains and trudging through the cold, crisp snow on their way north until they reached the banks of the River Denda. Here they turned west and followed the coursing water until they spied the white foam and small drifts of ice on the far side, declaring to them that they had reached the place where the River Sestun came crashing down from the northern heights.

“Now where?” Rahm asked. “This is nowhere. No roads, no towns, no game.”

“The river’s full of fish,” Iyasu said as he continued down the bank. “We’ll be fine.”

“Full of fish, eh?” Rahm shook his head. “Did you read that in a book, too?”

“Yes. I did. But I know it’s true because I can see the fish. Can’t you?”

Rahm peered out over the small white waves on the swift river and after a long moment he grunted. “I suppose so.”

Iyasu smiled. He was used to people only barely trusting his insights. It hardly worried him, especially since he knew he was right. He’d been seeing fins and tails splashing in the bubbling waters all day.

That night Hadara caught several spiny eels and Rahm roasted them for their supper.

“How much farther to Fel Yaresh?” Rahm asked. “I keep thinking of King Kavad.”

“I know. We should reach the fortress sometime tomorrow,” Iyasu said. “So, what do you know about this demon of yours? The demon at Messenad?”

“Not much,” Rahm admitted. “They say he’s huge and ugly, with white skin and red hair. And he can burn a man to death with his claws. I doubt any of that’s true, but that’s what they say.”

“And this demon killed King Kavad’s entire army?”

“Yes.” Rahm slurped down a chunk of soft white meat.

“But you think you can kill him by yourself?”

“I don’t see why not.” The warrior finished his fish and tossed the bones back into the river. “I’ve killed all sorts of strange things before. You know. You saw me kill that brush dragon in the ravine. Wasn’t so hard.”

Iyasu frowned into the fire. The memory of the strange wooden beast had lingered in the corners of his mind as he tried to imagine where the creature had come from. Were there more like it? Was it the last of its kind? Or worse, had it been a lone mother with a nest somewhere nearby, and its eggs or hatchlings were now doomed to perish alone in the dusty highlands of Gengahar, forgotten by all but him?

“I still wish you hadn’t done that,” the seer said softly.

“Well, I did.” Rahm shrugged as he leaned back against a log to gaze up at the stars.

Hadara tossed the remains of her eel into the river and lay back beside her husband, saying, “Would you have talked to the beast? Asked it to leave us in peace?”

“No.” Iyasu went on gazing into the fire until his skin felt prickly and tight from the heat. “I would have run, and kept running, until I was safe.”

“That’s no way to survive,” Rahm said.

“It’s a very good way to survive,” Azrael said. The angel stood at the water’s edge, gazing out over the dark ripples and waves where submerged rocks churned the river into noisy white foam. “I wish more people had the sense and the strength to run.”

“What about defending your loved ones?” the princess asked.

“They can run too,” Azrael said. “Or be carried by those who can.”

“What about defending your home?” Rahm asked. “That can’t run.”

“What’s a home?” The angel shrugged. “Some wood and mud? It’s just a place. The world is full of places, and it’s not full of people. Look around. We haven’t seen any people since we left Dalyamuun. And we haven’t seen any violence either, except that which we brought with us.”

“You would have the world ruled by the cruel and the unjust,” Hadara said with more than a hint of anger in her voice. “In your world, the killers could go anywhere, take anything, and force the innocent to flee to the desolate corners of the earth to survive. Violence is uncivilized, and hideous, and cruel, but it is necessary.”

“Only if you think things are more important than people,” Azrael answered.

Iyasu nodded to himself. He toyed with the idea of suggesting that Rahm and Hadara head back south on their own to pursue their demon or whatever they wished to do, and leave him and Azrael to follow the river on angel wings, but the laughing eyes of the angel Simurgh cast a shadow of doubt over that notion.

They may need us, or we may need them. Whatever else Simurgh may be, or may want, she is still an angel and wishes for goodness and order in the world. I suppose it can’t hurt to wait a little longer and see whether we’re more help or more harm to each other.

The next morning they set out early, now with Iyasu in the lead, picking out their path with his keen eyes. Everywhere he looked he saw signs of life now. The glistening trails of snails and slugs, the tiny pattering prints of skinks and salamanders, the shining black eyes of frogs, the white spots of bird droppings. Together with the waving green and yellow plants all around him, these traces all came together in his mind as a tapestry of life, interwoven threads of predator and prey, hunting grounds and nests, new births and old decaying matter. It felt familiar. It felt right.

“Fel Yaresh was a bandit fort, once,” he said to no one in particular. “There used to be herds of goats and sheep all over these mountains, and villages full of shepherds up and down the rivers. The bandits would raid all throughout the mountains here. Centuries ago, I think.”

“What happened to them?” Rahm asked.

“Some hero or other came along and killed their leader.” Iyasu grinned at the warrior. “The rest ran away and the fort stood empty for a while. Then it was rebuilt as a Burzhian outpost when the empire used to reach all the way out here. But when the wars pushed Burzhia back, the fortress was abandoned. So if Simurgh left Galina Bolad in Fel Yaresh, she must have done it in the last hundred years or so.”

“Hundred years?” Hadara stopped short. “Then Bolad must be dead by now.”

“Probably not.” Iyasu continued walking. “Djinn live for eight or nine centuries, usually.” He frowned at a depression in the sand just up ahead that glistened with small puddles.

“How is that possible?” the princess asked.

“Sh. Stop.” Iyasu held up his hand, and then crept forward on his own, moving quietly over the wet stones and tufts of grass. The river roared on. The seer glanced up and around at the rocks and higher banks to his left, to the jagged lips carved out by springs floods long since passed, and a few dark recesses caught his eye. He also gazed out across the water, but there was nothing unusual on the river or its far bank.

“What is it?” Rahm asked softly. The warrior trudged forward and peered down at the smooth trench in the sand that ran from the water’s edge up into the rocky terrain above. “Looks like a crocodile trail. Dragging its belly. Must be huge.”

“No. Crocodiles have feet. This thing doesn’t.” Iyasu pointed at the sides of the track where a reptile’s claw marks should have been.

“A snake? A huge river serpent?” Rahm rested his hand on his sword and peered up at the rocks above them. “We should find it quickly, now, before it gets dark. If it attacks us in the night, someone could die.”

“Stop. Just stop.” Iyasu stood up and put his small hand against the man’s chest. “We’re not here to kill anything. We’re just passing through.”

“Open your eyes and look at that track,” Rahm growled, still keeping his voice low. “Whatever this thing is, it’s a monster. It could kill people. And it’s my responsibility to make sure it never does.”

“No, wait!” Iyasu hissed.

But Rahm strode past him, drew out his heavy sword, and started hiking up the bank, following the smooth track to higher ground.

“Should I stop him?” Azrael asked.

“Don’t you dare,” Hadara said. “You said you would run in the face of danger. Well, here it is. So run. You be who you are, and we will be who we are.” She followed her husband up the slope.

“Really? Really?” Iyasu groaned and ran his thin fingers through his unruly hair. “You said it yourself, we’re in the middle of nowhere. Anything that chooses to live here is trying to avoid people, not hurt them!”

But the princess and her husband continued up the path without looking back, leaving Raska to snort and flick his tail at them as he loitered by the water’s edge.

“I can stop them,” Azrael said. “But they could be right. The creature could be dangerous. One day it might run out of fish and move downriver, and decide to feed on some small children in the next village. Not all animals are rare or deserving of protection, or mercy. Animals serve their instincts, the same as everything else that lives. They may not be evil, but they will kill all the same.”

Iyasu looked at her, and then at the path, and then darted after the princess, saying, “Let’s at least see what they’re doing.”

They caught up to Rahm and Hadara at the mouth of a low-roofed cave where the warrior was trying to fashion a torch using a small stick and a fistful of dry grass. But the grass kept falling away, and then the stick snapped. He tossed both aside with a scowl.

“I can take a look, if you want,” Iyasu offered.

“Can you see in the dark?” Rahm frowned.

“Nearly.” He pointed to the other man’s sword. “If you could just hold that up to reflect the sunlight inside, I should be fine.”

Rahm angled the flat of his blade to cast a thin rectangle of light into the black maw of the cave. “Really?”

“That’s perfect. Thanks.” Iyasu gathered up the loose folds of his dusty white robe in one hand, ducked his head, and shuffled into the dark hole. The walls were crooked and rough, but dry, and the sand underfoot crunched softly with each step. By the unsteady light reflecting off Rahm’s sword, his sharp eyes easily saw the low rocks jutting down from above before hitting his head, and he found his way back to a turn in the tunnel where the light failed him. But the smooth, moist track at his feet carried on, so he pressed on as well.

After a few more steps he heard the gentle, dry whisper of something breathing in the darkness. But the slivers of light on the rocks gave him enough confidence to go a little farther, and the breathing grew louder, and the tunnel angled down deeper into the earth.

When he reached the end of the cave, Iyasu found a long crack in the ceiling letting a thin blade of white light fall on the ground, but the light did not bleed outward to illuminate the walls, nor did it reveal the shadow coiled at the rear of the last chamber. He knelt down, squinting and listening, waiting for his senses to adjust even more to the darkness and the quiet, waiting for an understanding of the creature to form in his mind. And soon it did.