War of the Magi: Azrael's Wrath (Book 2) (17 page)

“Right.”

I guess humans really are that much stronger than them.

Zerai sniffed and glanced around the dusty room. “So, now what?”

“I don’t know.” He shook his head. “I really don’t.”

“Well, for what it’s worth, if I thought there was a chance I could bring back someone I loved, I’d probably do anything to save them. I’ve lost people, too.”

“A wife?”

“No.”

“Is Veneka your wife?”

“We’re not married, but we’ve been together for six years now.”

Bashir smiled, just a brief flicker of lips and cheeks. “Close enough, I suppose.”

“Tell me about your wife. What was her name?”

“Talia.” His fingers gently caressed the bag of bones and ash. “We met some forty-five years ago. She lived in Lashad and I would go there to study animals and plants, and humans. I was still an apprentice alchemist then. She was a dyer, making cloth. She knew everything about how to create beautiful colors from plants and seeds. I learned so much from her. We would talk for hours, every time I visited.”

“So the people of Lashad knew about djinn back then?”

“No. Talia knew what I was, but she kept it a secret from everyone else. And I kept her a secret as well. We were married by a priestess that she knew, and for a few months everything was fine. Everything was perfect, or as perfect as it can be when your love lives in another city.”

Zerai cleared his throat. “And then?”

Bashir shuffled his feet a little. “And then I overheard my masters discussing their plans to unleash a plague they had created, to test it. They were going to poison the wells in Lashad.”

“And that’s how Talia died?”

“No.” Bashir rolled his head back and forth against the wall. “When I heard what the master alchemists were planning to do, I was so angry… and I killed them. I fed them the most hideous poisons I knew, and I left their bloated, burnt, and deformed corpses lying in the streets of Odashena.”

Zerai nodded.

So that’s where this reputation of his came from.

“I was young, I was angry.” Bashir sighed. “But I don’t regret it. They were evil men, and if it hadn’t been the plague in Lashad, it would have been something else that drove me to kill them.”

“You think so?”

“I do.” The alchemist paused. “So I became the new master alchemist, and everyone was terrified of me, and Lashad and Talia were saved.”

“But?”

“But then she died the following winter.” His voice fell to a whisper. “It happened between my visits, it happened so quickly. When I left she was fine, and when I returned a few days later they were preparing to cremate her body.”

“Is that when you had the idea to resurrect her?”

“No, that came later. If I had thought of it at the time, I would have taken her body and preserved it intact. But instead I found myself carrying away her bones and ashes, looking for a place to bury them. But I never did. I just kept carrying her with me, until one day it occurred to me that I might use them to bring her back. And I’ve been searching for that way ever since.”

“So, Raziel.”

Bashir nodded. “When I learned that the angel had returned, I was stunned. But the laws in Odashena had grown stricter over the years and it was forbidden to freely leave the city, so I had to wait for an opportunity. Samira and her mission was that opportunity.”

Zerai twisted his neck to peer out through the open window to make certain there was no one nearby. There wasn’t. “But Raziel said no.”

“He did. But he didn’t say it was impossible to revive a body. He merely declined to do so.” Bashir looked up into the falconer’s eyes. “I saw Veneka restore Iyasu’s hand from nothing, and she offered to restore Edris’s whole arm from nothing as well. I believe she could bring my Talia back too, if she tried.”

“But without a soul.”

Bashir nodded and looked down again. “I don’t know if Azrael could bring back her soul, but maybe… maybe she could, or maybe she knows an angel that can. All I know now is that there are other angels out there, and with their power I may one day hold my Talia, my living, breathing Talia, in my arms again.”

Zerai shrugged. “Maybe. And if it’ll help, I’ll talk to Veneka for you. She’s not very fond of you, but I might be able to get her in a more helpful mood for you.”

“Really? You would do that for me?”

“Maybe not for you, but definitely for Talia. After all, she’s the one who’s dead.” Zerai stood up. “But at the moment, we have a war to stop. Other lives to save. Do you think you can let Talia wait a few more days and help us, or should I leave you here? Because I have to get back. My own Talia is still out there, alive and well, and I intend to keep her that way.”

Bashir smiled. “You love Veneka very much.”

“I do.” Zerai peered out the window and saw a pair of armed men turn the corner and start walking toward the house they were in. “Shit.”

“Trouble?” Bashir stood up and shouldered his bag.

“Just a little.” Zerai quietly drew his sword. The curved edge of the khopesh caught the sun and threw a blazing arc of light on the floor.

“Then let’s see to it.” The alchemist held up a pair of slender needles.

When Zerai kicked open the door of the house, the two soldiers had just walked past. The falconer dashed out as they tried to turn to see what was happening, and he tackled them to the ground in a heap of limbs and metal. As he jumped up, he heard the needles whisk by his ear, and the two soldiers slumped over and lay still.

“Dead?” Zerai asked.

“Asleep.”

“Good. Now let’s go see if Prince Faris is ready to wear a crown.”

Chapter 12
Veneka

As she leaned against the doorway, staring across the green lawns and watching for some sign of Zerai beyond the fence, Veneka heard soft footsteps on the marble tiles behind her. She turned and saw the Vaari singer sauntering in her direction, though he was taking his time to admire the many small sculptures displayed on the shelves. Wooden antelope headdresses, terracotta figures of serene men and women, and enormous ceremonial masks lined the entrance hall to Prince Faris’s private estate.

“I am surprised to see you here.” Veneka turned back to watch for Zerai.

“Iyasu and the prince are still arguing,” Edris said. “And I got tired of Jengo glaring at me. I’ve had all manners of people stare at my scars and it’s never bothered me, but him… he bothers me.”

“You would let a little thing like that get in your way?” she asked. “I thought you wanted Faris to be your new patron. I thought you and he had so much in common.”

“Yes, well, it only took one glance at him to see that he and I have rather different… appetites.”

Veneka sighed.

After a brief fight with Samira in the courtyard, Jengo had relented, or at least stopped trying to kill them long enough to let the young seer talk to the prince. The warrior had led them through the house past countless empty rooms to the prince’s private chamber, where they were introduced to the largest, roundest man Veneka had ever seen. The crown prince stood sweating by his balcony as he watched the river flow past, and when he came to greet them, he had limped and wheezed with every step, his thin silk robe shuddering and rippling with each heavy footfall.

I could heal him, I suppose. To some extent. But how long would it help him? Within an hour, he would be struggling to breathe again.

“Still, he’s clearly a man of wealth, and perhaps if I were to liven his home, we might attract a suitable band of young men and women to fill these halls.” The singer leaned against the opposite side of the wide doorway. He smiled for a moment, but it faded quickly and he too stared out across the yard toward the empty houses and the city walls beyond. “This is a dangerous place.”

“I know.” Veneka looked at him. “So why are you here? Not for Petra, surely.”

Edris snorted. “No, though I do like Petra. I’ve never been with a djinn before. It’s quite special, very unique, very exciting.”

“So what then? Are you following Azrael too?”

“The angel? Hardly. What would I do with the Angel of Death? She’s already got half of me. I can’t say I’m in any hurry to let her have the other half.”

“Is that it then? The other half?”

“Well, yes, yes it is,” he said softly. “I need to be sure. It’s not every day that a holy magi offers to give me back my body, my face. I know that I said no, but… I need to be sure. And until I’m sure, it seems only reasonable that I keep you in sight. After all, I don’t know how long it might be before I meet another Razelan.”

“Razielim.”

“Yes, that, exactly what I said.” He grinned.

“Well, the offer still stands.” Veneka peered down the lane at a small dust cloud, wondering if it might be a person coming toward them. “I could do it now. It would only take a moment, and it would only hurt for that moment.”

“Thank you, but I still haven’t decided.”

“Why not? What doubts do you have?”

“Petra.”

Veneka rolled her eyes.

“No, hear me out,” Edris said. “Petra can see me as well as anyone else, but still she chooses to give me her attention. Her body. And if I’m enough for a djinn, well, why meddle with a good thing?”

“Edris… listen. She does not love you. She may not even be attracted to you. There is something that she wants—”

“A half-human child, yes, I know. Iyasu told me.” The singer shrugged. “Again, that’s my point. This baby business is terribly important to her. And she could have had anyone, but she chose me.”

“She chose Iyasu first,” Veneka muttered.

“Did she? Good for him.”

She sighed again.

“You disapprove?”

“She took advantage of him.”

“I don’t hear him complaining.”

“He has a lot on his mind right now. War. Death. Dismemberment.”

Edris frowned. “His hand?”

“The memory of losing it… troubles him.”

The singer said nothing.

Veneka looked back outside and saw Zerai and Bashir stepping through the bent iron fence. “There they are. For a moment I thought they might not be coming back.”

“Was there any doubt?”

Veneka didn’t answer.

There’s always doubt.

The falconer and the alchemist crossed the yard warily, both glancing up at the tower at the south end of the house more than once, but then Zerai saw Veneka and he smiled as he hurried toward the door. They embraced and kissed briefly, though his tongue managed to slip between her lips to caress hers in that small moment.

“Is everything all right?” She looked from him to the djinn, who loomed grimly above them all.

“Yes.” Zerai closed the doors and they began walking back down the hall. “I take it you managed to deal with that archer.”

“Jengo. Samira convinced him that we were not here to hurt the prince.”

“How did she manage that?”

“She has her ways, apparently.”

“And the prince?” Zerai stared up at the huge masks on the wall. “Is he going to help us?”

Veneka frowned. “Iyasu is talking to him now.”

“Well, I can’t say I blame him for being scared,” Zerai said. “Every house outside the city is empty, and there are soldiers all over the walls. I wouldn’t want to ride in there and demand a crown for myself.”

“It is his crown.”

“Not anymore, it isn’t,” Edris said.

At the end of the marble corridor with its many beautiful artworks, the four of them emerged into the sprawling space that the prince called his private chamber. The ceiling soared fifty feet above them to a dome painted in black, red, and gold. The north and south walls displayed massive statues of Tagal’s past kings and queens, all standing in silent red stone in pale golden alcoves. And the eastern wall was open, allowing a dozen people to walk comfortably side by side out onto the portico, down the wide steps to the water’s edge where the only thing keeping the men and beasts of the Leyen River from invading the estate was the tall iron fence rising from the sandy shore.

“It would be prettier without the fence,” Edris said.

“But deadlier.” The muscled figure of Jengo detached from the wall on their right and glided out into the room like a leopard. “It’s only a matter of time before Darius decides it is too dangerous to leave Faris alive.”

Veneka watched the warrior cross the room with a mixture of fear and curiosity. The man was not merely powerful, he was also so unusually tall that he scarcely seemed human as he towered even over Bashir. His hair hung to his shoulders in countless tight braids, and the red and white tunic covering his broad chest was bound tightly to his skin with the many strings of white and black beads lying heavily from his neck.

This man also gave up a throne? What sort of land could produce a king like this, and then so completely repel him?

They continued across the wide room past a scattering of ornate tables and chairs and beds, where fine linen sheets and silver platters of food lay in stained piles on the floor. Prince Faris stood at the eastern edge of the room, gazing out at the river. Iyasu stood beside him, a tiny wisp of youth next to the mountainous prince, and when Jengo joined them, his incredible height made the three of them almost unrecognizable as members of the same race.

Veneka spared a glance at Samira and Petra, who stood in a shadowed corner of the room, watching the proceedings in silence.

“…but innocents are dying,” Iyasu said with a forced calm as he strained not to raise his voice. “Men, women, children. Your people, and the other Navean peoples. They’re dying right now. They’ve been dying for months.”

“Darius has his reasons,” the prince said in a soft, wheezy voice.

“His reasons are… vile.” The seer rubbed his eyes. “He just wants power, more power, more wealth. And he’s killing people for it, for what? For a pile of gold coins and some lines on a map. Really, that’s all it is. A line on a map. Kill enough people and your line grows longer. That’s why your people are dying, for a little extra ink!”

“Conquest is nothing new, Iyasu. Kings and queens have been making war since people started making kings and queens.” Faris smiled at his own wit. “It will pass.”