Death's Angel

by Colin Lindsay

  “How?” she asked.

  He just pointed at the nearest pillar and Kala noted that he’d placed two signal stones against it.

  “Of course,” she concluded. “How stupid of me not to have thought of that.”

  He placed a hand on her shoulder kindly and turned to confer with his colleagues. He stopped and turned back to her. “There’s somewhere I must take you, but we’ve got to drop these people off first.”

  “I suppose if I asked you where you wanted to take me, you’d just say, ‘All things in time.’”

  “I told you that you’re smarter than you look,” he smiled and walked away.

  A large airship drifted into view, and everyone stood and watched it float closer. It landed, and Kala stepped forward to open the door. Jarom’s kin seemed uncomfortable boarding it, so he did his best to reassure them as he shepherded them inside.

  Kala dialed in Bayre and Grey closed the door.

  26

  Dhara

  Kaia looked nervously out the window of the airship. “We’re really high,” she informed her sister, and gripped the window frame a little tighter, despite the coldness of the metal. Her hands smarted, but she felt compelled to brace herself.

  “You’ve been in an airship before,” Dhara reminded her.

  “Remember how well that turned out for me last time? Besides, there were no windows in that one.”

  “It wasn’t the height that caused you grief last time,” Dhara said, “It was the woman trying to drive a dagger into your heart.”

  “Only because the airship didn’t get me first,” Kaia countered.

  Dhara rolled her eyes, annoyed that her sister was arguing with her attempts to reassure her. She looked around at her surroundings instead. The main compartment was more spacious than she thought it would be from the outside, but it still felt confining. The height didn’t bother her, given that she reveled in being off the ground – the higher the better – but the tight space unnerved her. She had to admit that perhaps they were both on edge, and that’s why they were arguing.

  She looked down at Calix, who lay with his head across her lap. Her sister had raised an eyebrow at this, but she’d told her, “I can’t very well lay his head on the cold floor.” She grazed the stubble of his chin as she felt for his pulse, which she’d done a hundred times. It felt fainter every time. Hang in there, she thought. I never asked for this, she reminded herself, but a debt is a debt.

  Every time she closed her eyes, she saw his expression as he stepped between her and the swordsman that ran him through. She found herself absentmindedly stroking his hair, and it irked her that her subconscious had a gentle side. She looked up to see her sister watching her from the window.

  “You like him,” Kaia stated plainly.

  “I do not… well, I don’t dislike him… I just don’t like him the way you think I like him,” Dhara replied.

  “Whatever you say,” Kaia said and turned back to look out the window.

  Dhara thought about the night they’d spent together before Soren’s attack. She’d assumed she just needed the release he’d provided her, but now, staring down at his face, she wondered. Hang in there, she wished again, this time a little more ardently.

  She fiddled with the amulet around her neck. She didn’t believe in magic, so she had a hard time believing that the talisman was guiding them home. Dhara blinked at the brightness of the sun as it lanced through the window over Kaia’s shoulder as the airship spun toward it. “This thing had better not plop us down in broad daylight. I don’t imagine mother would be happy to see us. Plus, what are we going to do with him,” she added, gesturing to Calix, “if we have to fight our way free of mother’s guards?”

  “I was thinking about that,” Kaia replied. “That necklace of yours is bringing us there, right?”

  “That’s what Kala said.”

  “So if we’re not ready to land, maybe you could tell it to go somewhere else for a little while until it gets dark.”

  “I guess so,” Dhara replied skeptically, not wanting to play with the magical device.

  “I’m keeping an eye out for any sign that we’re nearing home or descending, so I’ll let you know if it’s too soon.”

  “And I thought you just liked the view,” Dhara teased, noticing Kaia’s death-grip on the window frame.

  “Funny,” Kaia replied and kept up her vigil.

  The airship drifted for a long time before Kaia reported, “We’re running parallel to a river, and I swear the ship is a little closer to the ground. It’s getting darker out, so it’s hard to tell.”

  “If it is home, then at least we’ll land at night,” Dhara replied, relieved not to have to experiment with the amulet.

  A little time went by, and Kaia concluded, “We’re definitely landing and the bends in the river look a lot like the ones downstream from our village.” She stepped away from the window and rubbed her hands together to warm them up.

  Dhara lowered Calix’s head gently to the floor, rose, and stretched her stiff muscles. She looked out the window, but it was pretty dark outside. “How could you see anything out there?”

  “It got dark so gradually, I didn’t notice,” Kaia replied, shrugging. Do you figure there’s still just one guard at the landing pad?” she asked.

  “I don’t see why that would have changed.”

  “Good,” Kaia decided as the ship landed with a faint thump that they could feel through the floor. “It’ll surprise her when a ship lands at night.”

  “I’m counting on it,” Dhara whispered, listening at the door.

  They heard the sound of someone outside.

  Dhara waited until the door began to open, then shoved it with all her strength. It flew open, smashing into the person opening it. Dhara jumped out at the ready, only to see the guard lying on her back, out cold, her nose broken and leaking blood.

  Kaia peeked out. “Isn’t that Sari?” she asked.

  “Looks like it,” Dhara replied, rolling her out of the way of the door. “I never liked her,” she added.

  “I can see that,” Kaia replied sarcastically, returning to the airship to get Calix. Dhara joined her, and together they carried him out of the ship. “He weighs so little,” Kaia declared worriedly.

  “Lucky for us,” Dhara replied, masking her concern.

  Kaia paused, midway off the platform.

  “What is it?” Dhara asked, annoyed and shifting Calix’s weight.

  “What do we do about the ship?” Kaia asked, gesturing at it with her eyes.

  “Good point. It’ll draw attention in the morning. Hmm.” She lowered Calix to the ground and pulled out the amulet. She spun the outer dial left and the inner dial right incrementally, but nothing happened. She pressed the center button, and the airship detached and began to drift upward. “Problem solved,” she declared and bent to pick Calix back up by his shoulders.

  They carried him off the dais and onto the surrounding wooden planking. The girls breathed in the muggy jungle air and could taste the scent of tropical flowers. Dhara looked longingly at the stairs leading up to the platforms set high in the trees and sighed. “We should stick to the ground,” she concluded.

  Kaia followed Dhara’s lead as they carried Calix toward the far side of their village. They could hear voices and footsteps above them and moved slowly to be as quiet as they could. They froze when they heard their mother’s voice. She was speaking to a companion about someone that Dhara didn’t know, but neither she nor her sister desired to stay and learn more – they hugged the tree trunks and moved off until their mother’s voice faded into the sounds of the jungle.

  “How much farther?” Kaia whispered, her sore muscles crying out.

  “Not much,” Dhara replied, and tried her best to recall the path to the healer’s cottage. She wasn’t very familiar with the ground below the village, but she remembered her father’s taking her there when she was young and had broken her arm in a fall. Dhara had resisted any care, but he over
ruled her objections and took her to the healer anyway. The way seemed to elude her, but she followed her intuition whenever the path forked.

  They were rewarded with the sight of candlelight flickering in a cottage window, and something about it sparked a memory in Dhara. “I think that’s it,” she declared.

  They hefted Calix up for what they hoped would be the final stretch. They carried him to the cottage door, and Dhara shifted her weight to knock. The door swung open, and Dhara found herself looking into the eyes of the slave that she’d shoved out of her way so many moons ago. His eyes went wide when he realized who was standing before him.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked him rudely, expecting the healer and no one else.

  “I live here,” he replied indignantly. “What are you doing here? Aren’t you banished?”

  She ignored his impertinent questions. “Get out of the way,” she grumbled, pushing past him. “I have business with the healer.”

  They carried Calix through the doorway and into a room dimly lit by candles and filled with the smells of drying herbs. The small voice of an old woman called from across the room, “Put her down here.”

  “Her?” Dhara asked, confused. “Our wounded colleague is a man.”

  “I wasn’t expecting that,” the voice said. “My vision said it was your sister that was wounded.”

  “She’s dead,” Dhara replied bitterly. “As will be this man if we spend all night chatting about the dead.”

  “The dead deserve respect,” the woman brushed off Dhara, but continued, “Put him down over here.”

  They carried Calix to the small bed that the crone gestured to from her seated position beside it and laid him down on it.

  “Bad,” she concluded after the most cursory glance. “Very bad.” Dhara was about to put the woman in her place, but the old woman shushed her. “Quiet,” she commanded and began unwrapping Calix’s bandages. “Daryn, put some water on to boil.”

  “Yes, grandmum,” the man who had opened the door replied, and turned to rummage in the kitchen.

  “Do you remember the look of blind wort?” the old woman asked Dhara.

  “Of course,” Dhara replied.

  “Then fetch some,” she said and looked back down at Calix. “Your sister can join you or wait outside.”

  Dhara grumbled but did as she was told. “Stay near him,” she said to her sister and headed out into the jungle to look for the plant.

  Kaia sat down just outside the door while Dhara turned her attention to the search for the pungent smell of blind wort. It smelled of rotting flesh, but that was surprisingly hard to distinguish from the cloying scents of the jungle. She had to hunt quite far afield before she found some. She carried it back to the cottage and through the door.

  “Here it is,” she announced to the old woman, who was blowing the smoke of some burning herb into Calix’s nostrils as he took shallow breaths.

  “Put it on the counter,” the healer ordered without looking up.

  “Don’t you need it?” Dhara asked, turning toward the counter to lay it down.

  “No. But if I had let you stay, you wouldn’t have given me a moment’s peace,” she replied.

  Dhara slammed the plant down and contemplated punching the woman, but she was busy with Calix, so she reined herself in and stormed outside to join her sister. She sat down beside her while Kaia suppressed a laugh.

  “Don’t,” Dhara warned her.

  Daryn walked out the door after her and sat down with his back to a tree across from Dhara.

  This slave has balls, she thought, staring into arrestingly familiar eyes.

  “You don’t recognize me, do you?” he declared haughtily.

  “Of course I recognize you,” Dhara replied, remembering shoving him out of her way outside her mother’s quarters before she was banished.

  “No, you don’t,” he concluded, smiling, then added, “Sis.”

  Kaia froze, and Dhara narrowed her eyes, fixing them on his. It occurred to her that his eyes were so familiar because she saw them every time she looked into a mirror. If this slave is ribbing me about my part-slave past, he’ll be smiling through a throat slit from ear to ear, Dhara decided, reaching for a dagger, but a flash of memory of the healer’s cottage from her childhood stopped her. “You were here,” she said in confusion.

  “I live here,” he reminded her.

  “When…” she started.

  “You broke your arm,” he finished for her.

  She couldn’t speak. She simply breathed in and out as the information washed over her.

  Kaia stood up abruptly and walked over to him.

  He rose to his feet defiantly as she stopped in his face.

  She stared into his eyes, then slowly raised her arms and embraced him, which he bore awkwardly. “Brother,” she said.

  “How do we know?” Dhara began.

  “Dhara – you know it’s true,” Kaia declared, releasing their brother and returning to sit beside her sister.

  Daryn and Dhara stared at each other wordlessly, until he told her, “I watched you grow up around your mother’s chair. Do you know how hard it was, knowing that you were the reason your mother executed our father?”

  Dhara had never wondered if the slave that her mother had had an affair with had children. She felt guilty for never wondering about him at all, just ruing that her father was a slave.

  “I’m sorry,” Kaia inserted.

  “Your little sister always was the conscience that my little sister never had,” he concluded ruefully, but looked at Kaia and thanked her sincerely.

  “The healer?” Dhara asked.

  “Your grandmother,” he answered.

  “She doesn’t like me much,” Dhara concluded.

  “No one does,” he replied.

  “That’s not fair,” Kaia objected on her sister’s behalf.

  Daryn just shrugged.

  “I’m sorry,” Dhara said.

  “That no one likes you?” he asked.

  “That I deserve it,” she replied, got up, and stormed off to be alone.

  He watched her walk away.

  “She just needs time,” Kaia assured him.

  The healer poked her head out of the door. “That’s something we don’t have,” she said.

  27

  Kala

  Once airborne, everyone staked out a spot to sit down. In the main compartment, Kala and Skye sat down beside each other. Kala’s injured leg still smarted, and she grimaced. Skye frowned at Brother Grey.

  Jarom’s and his kin claimed the large adjacent compartment. Nara poked her head through the opening between the two rooms and asked Forest to join her. “I’ve got a spot for you,” she told her hopefully.

  Forest felt torn. She knew that Nara grieved her brother and Lily suffered from her separation from Cera. Forest wanted to raise both their spirits.

  “Go on,” Lily shooed her away and sat down alone.

  “May I?” Hawke asked, indicating the spot beside her. Lily smile her assent, and he engaged her in light conversation.

  Brother Grey moved closer to Kala and told her that before they proceeded on to Bayre, they needed to stop at the city where the Priestess resides. “She has a book that’ll guide us to allies, but she keeps it in a bookcase beside her bed, so we’ll have to steal it.”

  Kala wondered how he knew what the Priestess kept beside her bed, but he didn’t volunteer that information, and she didn’t press him to.

  “The problem,” he continued, “is that she’s the most observant person I’ve ever met, and she would notice in a heartbeat if the book were missing.”

  “What if we replaced it with a book that looks like it?”

  “As I said, she’d notice even the most minor difference.”

  “I know someone who can create a facsimile good enough to fool her.”

  Skye overheard. “You’re not thinking…” he began.

  “Oh, yes – we’re going to visit Eden,” she cut him off.<
br />
  Skye cringed inwardly at the prospect of being reunited with the girl he’d duped to get access to her maps, but he was man enough to see its necessity and kept quiet.

  “We’ll land at night, and hopefully, no one will notice that we’re in town,” Grey added.

  “No one would blink at your return,” Kala countered.

  “The Priestess would want to know if I’d succeeded in my mission.”

  “What’s your mission?” Kala asked.

  “To kill your boyfriend,” he replied.

  Skye subconsciously moved a little closer to Kala.

  “Don’t worry,” Grey reassured him. “I don’t share her belief in the utility of killing you.”

  “Lucky me,” Skye replied unconvinced.

  Kala changed the setting on her amulet to their new destination, tucked it back inside her tunic, and snuggled into Skye.

  Everyone rested as the airship completed the journey. As it drifted closer to the city, they timed its landing for near midnight. Brother Grey peeked out the door. “No one around,” he informed them, and their party filed out one-by-one after him. Grey sent his two priestess companions on errands that he didn’t explain to the rest of them, then guided everyone else over the wall to a nondescript building beside the winery. “It’s not the season for this building to be used, so we should go undiscovered here,” he told them. The room smelled pleasantly of mulled wine, so no one complained. A moment later, the door creaked open, and one of Grey’s companions slipped in with an armful of bedrolls.

  “Thank you for your thoughtfulness,” Forest told Grey.

  He nodded to her, and everyone found somewhere to lie down for the night. Skye slept fitfully, wondering if the inscrutable Brother Grey had really decided against killing him.

  Kala awoke in the night to the sound of movement and opened an eye in time to catch Jarom slipping out. Curious as to where he might be going, she rose quietly and followed after him. She shadowed him at a distance as he walked purposefully down the deserted streets. He stepped into one of the tiny buildings marked as a shrine to the Goddess of Death that the citizens of the town frequented. She hadn’t thought him particularly religious, so despite her best judgment, she edged closer and peeked through the open door. She spied him kneeling before a statue of the Goddess, having lit three candles.