Angels and Djinn, Book 3: Zariel's Doom (42 page)
Read Angels and Djinn, Book 3: Zariel's Doom Online
Authors: Joseph Robert Lewis
There were people there, standing on the steps of the palace, slowly spilling out to investigate the stillness and silence. Azrael walked toward them, and their stares shifted between her and the huge mechanical creature beside her.
“He’s gone,” she said in a broken voice.
One of the clerics, a woman in Sophirim gray, came forward and took the body, took Iyasu, from her. “We’ll take of him. We’ll lay him to rest.”
“Don’t burn him,” the angel whispered hoarsely. “Please don’t burn him.”
“We won’t,” the woman said. “What was his name?”
“Iyasu… Iyasu Sadik.”
“Iyasu?” A tall woman with a tall nimbus of black hair pushed to the front of the crowd. “Did you say Iyasu? Is he all right?”
Azrael watched the horror and sorrow spill across Veneka’s face as she saw the body, and the angel began to cry all over again as she watched Veneka weep over the dead youth.
“Zerai.” Azrael cleared her throat, trying to steady her voice.
“He isn’t here,” Veneka said softly. “He left before the attack.”
“No… I saw Zerai. In here.” Azrael touched her temple. “I’m sorry.”
Veneka nodded slowly, her tears still falling, though whether any of them were for the falconer, Azrael could not say.
They were still standing together over Iyasu when a soft azure glow behind them blazed and faded to reveal Raziel standing on the scorched grounds where orange trees had once stood. More and more people shuffled out of the palace doors to see what had become of their city, and to stare at the woman with the black wings, and the golden horned monster, and the blue man made of clear shining crystal.
Among them came a tall man and a woman whose arms were covered in scars, and the crowd parted for them, and bowed their heads for their lord and lady, but Negus Salloran and Nigiste Makeda hurried to bow to the angels.
“Holy Ones,” the queen said, “What happened here? Is the war over?”
The Angel of Life lowered all of his six wings into a great train of crystal and glass on the ground by his feet, and said, “It’s over. All over. Arrah and Juran will deal with Zariel, and Tevad and Sophir will help your clerics rebuild the city. I have healed everyone who was still alive, but the dead are… numerous.”
There were more questions, and Raziel patiently answered each of them in his calm, droning voice, but Azrael wasn’t listening, and didn’t care. She nearly spread her wings and vanished into the sky, to find some mountain peak or desert cave where she could lie down and close her eyes and pretend to sleep, alone. But instead she began to walk through the streets with Kamil riding slowly behind her. She didn’t know what to say to the boy, so she said nothing, dragging her black wings across the ruins of countless homes, over ancient works of art and new clothes crushed by stones, over freshly baked bread and uprooted trees covered in bright flowers now coated in gray dust and black soot.
She saw none of it. Felt none of it.
All of that madness, all of that pain, and for what? For Yasu…
She paused. There were people walking toward her, people coming in through the western gate, people returning from the direction of the sea.
She didn’t want to be near people.
If I had only known what was happening, or where, or…
If I had just waited here in the city all this time and left Yasu back in…
If I had just shown Zariel true Death when he first touched me, then maybe none of this…
She shivered and sighed. There were no more tears left, but still her body ached and shuddered. The returning refugees began to pass her, staring at her with wide eyes and she realized they were staring at her wings, so she breathed deep and let her wings fade into the late day’s light as she stepped out of the dusty path and stood on a heap of rocks that had once been a library, judging from the parchments and leather book jackets scattered about. Kamil nudged his karkadann to step aside as well, but still he said nothing, content to merely be near her and follow her.
A passing woman stopped and stared at Kamil, and then shifted her gaze to Azrael. The woman held a small girl in her left arm and carried a bloody sword in her right hand. “You’re her,” she said.
Azrael looked down at her. “Who?”
“I remember you. Azrael. You don’t recognize me, I suppose. I asked you once to bring my wife back from the dead. But you didn’t.”
“I couldn’t.” Azrael frowned at the woman. “You’re him? The djinn husband’s soul in his human wife’s body?”
“I’m called Talia Bashir now,” she said. “This is my little Nadira.”
Azrael nodded.
Zerai’s Nadira too, I imagine. Precious little thing. I can see why he died for her.
“Did the others from Naj Kuvari make it?” Talia asked. “Are they alive?”
“Some. They’re at the palace. Others didn’t. Iyasu… didn’t.” She didn’t choke on the words. They came out quite clearly, though slowly. The words felt strange and disconnected from her, as though he had died ages ago in a far away land.
“Oh. I’m sorry.” Talia paused. “Zerai… he died saving us.”
Azrael nodded. “I know.”
They both stood quietly as the crowd continued by.
“What will you do now?” Talia asked.
“I don’t know. You?”
“I don’t know either. Home, maybe, if the djinn will take me back. Although…”
“What?”
“I miss the sky.” She smiled sadly. “I miss this. The djinn live underground, and it makes me wish I had somewhere else to go.”
Azrael looked at the little girl, smiling and drooling slightly. Then she focused on Talia again. “When you lost your wife all those years ago, what did you do?”
Talia paused. “I went looking for a way to bring her back. I traveled the world.”
“Did it help?”
“For a long time, no. Then I died and was reborn in her resurrected body,” she said. “So, it’s hard to say. But I did get this little one, and… my life is better now than it was before.”
“Stranger, too.” Azrael stepped down from the rubble as the last of the refugees went by. “Would you want to travel the world a little more? With me?” She turned to look up at Kamil. “Would you?”
They both nodded yes.
“For a moment I thought I wanted to be alone,” the angel said. “But I don’t. I don’t know what I want now, but I don’t want to be alone again.”
Talia took a moment to breathe and look around at the devastation of the city. “I think I know how you feel.”
The two women turned and walked back out the western gate with the boy and his golden mount following close behind them. They paused on the beach and watched the sun begin to set as a lone eagle wheeled across the bloody sky, crying out against the quiet of the gathering night.
About the Author
Joseph Robert Lewis enjoys creating worlds in which history, mythology, and fantasy collide in new and exciting ways. He also likes writing about heroines that his daughters can respect and admire.
Joe was born in Annapolis and went to the University of Maryland to study ancient novels, morality plays, and Viking poetry. Outside of the world of fiction, he works with a lot of smart people to write and publish books about technology, software, politics, economics, and history.
Other titles by the author:
Ultraviolet
The Kaiser Affair (The Drifting Isle Chronicles)
The Halcyon series of steampunk thrillers
The Europa series of dark fantasy adventures
The Chimera series of mythic fantasy adventures
Daphne and the Silver Ash
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