War of the Magi: Azrael's Wrath (Book 2) (7 page)

She spat the fingers out. “Iyasu!”

“Veneka!” Iyasu shouted into the woman’s face and suddenly her eyes focused on him.

“Iyasu?”

Samira crashed forward as the dead body went limp, and as they fell against the stones the corpse disintegrated in a cloud of gray dust. The cleric grimaced and coughed, and twisted around to sit on the grass and squint at the others. “It’s gone. We’re safe, for the moment.”

“Iyasu? Where are we? The city?” Veneka turned to look behind her.

“There’s no time for that.” The young seer pulled her across the gravesite toward Samira. “I need you to heal her, now.”

“Of course. What’s wrong with her?” Veneka knelt down beside her.

“Nothing.” Samira frowned. “I—”

“She’s been poisoned, or drugged,” Iyasu interrupted. “Quickly!”

The healer laid her hands on the djinn woman and Samira felt the world grow dim and vague and warm…

She blinked. The droning of locusts and bullfrogs filled her ears, and the soft churning of the river played just behind her. Samira sat up among the tall reeds, squinting through the darkness at the shapes of her companions lying on the bank of the river.

I’m awake. He did it. He figured it out. But that means…

The leaves above her rustled loudly as the branches shuddered against each other. Samira grabbed the nearest root in one hand and thrust her other hand skyward, and the forest answered her. Three hundred wooden spears flew up from the earth so quickly that they blew the scarves from the cleric’s head and sent her long black hair dancing through the warm air. The spears raced up into the canopy, some of them splitting and crooking to pierce the leaves at wild angles.

A moment later, a small black body thumped down on the tall grass nearby. Samira stood up and saw the misshapen bat lying very still with the broken tip of one of her spears through its chest.

It’s done.

With a sigh, she carefully smoothed back her hair and tucked it down into her robes where it belonged, and restored the layers of silken wraps over her head. She had just finished when she heard her companions begin to move and mutter behind her.

“You got it?” Iyasu asked softly.

“Yes. It’s here, whatever it is.” She pointed to the bat.

The seer limped over, rubbed his eyes, and glanced at the dead thing. “A blood drinker, but changed by the ancient clerics to paralyze its victims in dreams.”

“My people have a name for dream-walkers,” Samira said. “Vandellas.”

Iyasu nodded wearily and went back to help Veneka and Zerai wake up, and to explain in as few words as possible what had happened.

“So when I showed Veneka that she didn’t let me die, it shattered the illusion. Then she healed the toxin in Samira’s blood that made her fall unconscious, and Samira killed the… vandella.” Iyasu leaned against a tree and closed his eyes.

Zerai stared up at the dense forest of spears all around them reaching high up into the leaves. “I can see that.”

“Yes.” Veneka touched his cheek and gave him a stern look. “And there isn’t a scratch on us. Not on any of us.”

The falconer tightened his mouth, but nodded.

“So you saw our fears?” Petra pulled her sister aside. “My fears?”

“I did. But don’t worry,” Samira said. “No one cares.”

“And them? What are their fears?”

Samira shrugged. “The falconer was holding a doll. Something about a child, I suppose. Bashir was holding a skull.”

“No surprises there.” Petra glanced at the alchemist standing alone at the water’s edge. “How many of them did he kill, anyway? Eight? Nine?”

“More than that, I think.”

“Hm.” Petra’s glare softened. “And Zerai was looking at a doll? Do you suppose he’s afraid of dying childless?”

“Or of losing a child, perhaps.”

“What about the other one, Iyasu? What’s his fear?”

“He didn’t say.” Samira stepped back onto the boat and took her position in the stern with the pole on her hand. She looked over at the travelers, still sitting and rubbing their eyes and wiping away the cold sweat of the ordeal. The djinn woman cleared her throat and said, “Is everyone ready to go on now?”

Chapter 5
Iyasu

The next day found the young seer sitting on the river bank in a patch of warm sunlight and staring at the rippling surface of the water as visions of death rippled through his mind.

His thoughts dove deeper, trying to focus on the water, on the layers of cold and warmth, on the fish and the crabs, on the eels and snails, on the stones and roots barely exposed on the river bottom. He could see them all just from the thin lines and rolling peaks on the water’s surface, but there wasn’t enough life or mystery in the depths of the Dusk Leyen to fill up his thoughts.

Darius.

He split Malkat’s head just left of center, the blade passing through his eye before shattering his jaw. Three of his teeth landed beside my foot.

And Darius just walked away. Told someone to clean up the mess.

The mess.

My mess.

He could hear the others talking. Samira was searching for a teak tree to make their next boat, one that would be larger and faster, with sails.

To hurry us back into that cesspool, into that blood storm.

Iyasu drove his fingernails back over his scalp, hoping the pain would clear his mind.

It didn’t.

The group wandered apart. Veneka went with Samira into the forest. Bashir sat on the river bank farther downstream by himself. Iyasu turned his head ever so slightly to squint at the alchemist’s bag.

It’s three times larger than Samira’s bag. Lumpy, crooked, and heavy. The fabric has been rubbed in places, leaving them faded and frayed. And I can see the shapes of jars and bottles, but there are other hard objects inside it too. Lots of them. Tools, maybe. Or weapons.

Petra and Zerai paced along the grassy embankment behind him.

Iyasu sighed.

Maybe after we capture the rogue Sophirim, I can convince Samira to come to Tagal and deal with Darius as well. Her people may not want to get involved in human affairs, but she’s proud. Very proud.

Would she go to Tagal to fight an entire army? To prove her skill, her superiority? To conquer a human king?

Maybe.

Probably not.

“She said you were holding a doll,” Petra was saying. “I was wondering what that meant. Something to do with children, maybe. Did you lose a child?”

“No, no, nothing like that.” Zerai’s voice had a bit of laughter in it, but his good humor lay under a shadow. “It’s just… I want to have children. But at the moment, I’m not sure that I can. I think I can. I can certainly try well enough.”

They both laughed softly.

Iyasu rolled his eyes.

“But I, well, I am a little worried about the thought of never having children. I guess.” Zerai sighed.

“Well, there are so many reasons why couples have trouble,” Petra said gently. “The man, the woman, the heat, food, and just the timing of it.”

Zerai laughed again. “I’m pretty sure we’ve tried at just about every time there is.”

“I’m sure you have.” The djinn woman laughed with him right on cue. “But of course, if you’ve tried everything, then perhaps you need to try something else. Something new. Or maybe… someone new.”

Iyasu frowned.

So that’s what she wants. It didn’t take her long to tip her hand. Too bad for her. Zerai would never. He’s too loyal.

He squinted back at the couple walking up the bank.

“No, I don’t… I don’t think so,” the falconer said.

Iyasu frowned deeper.

That was a long pause.

The seer stood up and walked up behind them and spoke in his softest, youngest voice, “Zerai? Are Veneka and Samira all right in the woods here? I mean, have you seen any of the old demons around here before?”

“A few.” Zerai paused to study the forest above them. “I suppose I should keep an eye on them. If they’re busy looking at the trees, there’s always a chance something might creep up on them.”

The falconer slipped into the woods, his boots barely making any sound at all as he melted into the shadows.

Petra looked at Iyasu. “Spoil sport. I like talking to him. He’s different. He’s passionate.”

“He’s taken.” Iyasu gave her a tired look and returned to his spot by the river’s edge.

She followed him and sat beside him.

He massaged his forehead with one hand.

“I don’t suppose you ever think about having children,” she said. There were no forced smiles or false laughter now. “Not yet. Not with all your studies and your work.”

“No.”

Go away.

“Maybe someday?”

“Maybe.” He stared at the water. A small striped fish snatched a fly from the surface. “I could be wrong, but isn’t it impossible for a human and a djinn to conceive a child?”

“Actually no.” Petra shook her head slowly as she too stared at the water. “There have been many cases of conception, with both human and djinn mothers. But none of the pregnancies ever came to term.”

“I see.” Iyasu paused, waiting to see some change in the djinn woman’s face or body to betray her true thoughts and feelings, but she sat as still as a stone, unreadable. “And your interest is purely academic.”

No, it isn’t.

“Not at all.” She turned to face him. “Are you surprised to hear me admit that?”

“Only a little.”

“I’m not stupid. I’m not going to lie to an Arrahim. A seer can see more truth in a lie than in the truth itself, right?”

He smiled in spite of himself. “I haven’t heard anyone say that in a long while. My old master Gersem said it from time to time.”

“There, you see? I know a thing or two.”

He looked into her eyes, seeing the playfulness that he expected, but looking deeper, looking for more.

This is a djinn woman. A woman made of smokeless fire. What does life look like to her? What does it feel like? Do they feel regret? Shame?

“How old are you?” he asked.

“How old do you think I am?”

“I have no idea. Twenty? A thousand? I really don’t know anything about djinn.”

She laughed. “Obviously. I’m ninety-seven.”

He looked back at the water. “Only eighty more than me.”

“Does that shock you?”

“No.”

“But it does. It bothers you, I can see it.” She touched his arm and he looked down at her hand on his dirty white robe as though he had never seen a woman’s hand before. It was warm, and her fingers wrapped around his arm, hugging it in a strangely possessive way. He liked it. She said, “You’re disappointed.”

“Not exactly. I…” He lost his train of thought completely. “I guess I thought we were more alike. Young, I mean. Younger, at least.”

“I am young, by our reckoning, anyway.”

“Oh. So you age more slowly than we do?”

“Not exactly.” She took his hand in hers, holding them together to show the lines of their palms side by side. “We’re people of fire. We grow very quickly from conception to birth to adulthood, just like a flame. And then we stay the same for most of our lives, like a candle in the night. The candle may shrink, but the flame remains constant. But just like a candle, when we reach our end, we sputter and flicker, and then fade very quickly into death.”

Iyasu nodded. She had moved closer to him as she held his hand and he could feel the warmth of her whole body against his skin.

Her lips are so…

“Why try to seduce me?” he whispered. “That is what you’re doing, isn’t it?”

“Maybe. Just a little.” She smiled again, but this time there was a genuine light in her eyes as she did it. “Kiss me.”

Oh God yes…

“Why?” He gazed into her eyes. “To make love, to make a child?”

She shrugged. “That would be something, wouldn’t it? But I also just like sex, and I’m bored, and you’re handsome. And I like how hard you’re trying to convince yourself to say no to me. I can see it in your eyes.”

“I doubt that.” He tore his gaze from her face and stared back at the river, but all he could see was her eyes, her lips, her cheeks. “Is this why you came with your sister? To seduce men?”

“I could seduce men anywhere. You’re smarter than that. You know I’m not interested in men.”

“You’re interested in having a human child.”

“Half human. Half djinn.”

“Why?”

She brushed his ear with her lips. “Everyone needs a hobby.”

“We’re walking into a war, a bloodbath,” Iyasu said, his throat suddenly constricting and aching around his breath. “People are dying.”

“Yes. And unless my sister completes her task, they’ll go on dying, horribly, needlessly. Yes, I understand that.”

“It’s not some piece of theater,” he croaked. “It’s not a show to walk by. It’s death, it’s pools and streams of blood on the floor, in the mud. It’s faces staring up at you. One minute they’re alive and talking to you and thinking about tomorrow and feeling a hundred different things, and the next they’re all gone. Just… dead.”

She moved to sit up beside him, hip to hip, her hand resting lightly on his leg. “I heard the others talking before about you. Zerai and Veneka. They were saying that you were here in Rumaya years ago, during the demon plague.”

He nodded.

“Then you already know all about death. Pointless, horrible death.”

“I was a child then. I was scared. And the demons were just rabid dogs. Senseless, hungry. They were monsters, but they weren’t evil. They were a force of nature, following their nature. They didn’t choose to kill. They couldn’t choose not to kill.”

“But now?”

“Darius, he…” Iyasu swallowed and shook his head. “He’s from a wealthy family. He was a commander before I made him king. Everyone loved him. He has everything a person could want in this world. Wealth and power. Respect. Love, I suppose. I just… I just don’t understand why…”

“Why someone who has so much would want even more?”

He nodded.

“I don’t know either. It’s never interested me.”