by J F Mehentee
The Anzu’s Egg — Part 1
A Relic Hunter’s Story
J F Mehentee
Contents
A note from the author
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Another note from the author
Fancy keeping in touch?
A note from the author
The Zadrinesian Archipelago is set in an alternate world filled with much of our world’s Twentieth Century technology. There are, however, two exceptions: the archipelago lacks fossil fuels and semiconductor technology.
You’ll soon notice the Relic Hunters Series is written in British English and is dotted with British expressions. George Bernard Shaw said, The United States and Great Britain are two countries separated by a common language. It’s my hope that, by the end of this novella and the others in this series, American readers won’t feel compelled to agree with him!
1
Just before I could close for lunch, three men barged into the practice. The one on my right pulled out a lightening pistol and pointed its barrel at my face. The whiff of ozone leaking from it told me the safety was off.
A young woman, a homespun shawl partially covering her dark hair and framing a round face, opened the practice door behind them.
‘Come back later,’ I said, then quickly nodded to show my preference was for the young lady to leave and not the gun-toting intruder. Her dark eyes widened. She didn’t move. ‘Go on,’ I insisted. ‘Everything’s fine.’
‘Stop waving your gun, Juddha. You’re frightening her.’
The man who’d spoken stood with his arms resting on the shoulders of the men supporting him. His jaundiced skin and the sclera of his eyes were the reason they were here.
‘I am Rahmat, I’m with the Resistance,’ the man continued, sounding weary. ‘I would appreciate it, madam, if you kept this meeting a secret.’
The young woman’s eyes flitted between me and the resistance fighter.
Don’t do anything stupid, I prayed.
‘Go.’ I motioned at the door. ‘Do as he says.’ Juddha’s pistol hadn’t budged. ‘I’ll be all right.’
Her eyes narrowed and held mine for a drawn second. She spun round and left, the practice door closing behind her with a loud clunk. If Biyu hadn’t heard my thoughts, she would have heard that. The vault beneath me was impenetrable to magic but not sound.
‘I apologise if I just lost you a patient,’ Rahmat said. His head drooped forward to reveal a shiny pate.
‘There are plenty of healers in District One,’ I said. ‘She won’t have far to go to find another.’
I knew the name, and I’d seen his photograph in the newspaper. This Rahmat wasn’t just a resistance fighter, he led the archipelago’s Resistance.
Rahmat tried to straighten. His comrades were all that stopped him from collapsing. I lifted the hinged counter, stepped past it and pointed at the examination room and its open door.
‘Take him in there.’
Juddha glared at me.
‘A demon poisoned him,’ he said. ‘Can you cure him?’
Biyu must have heard the door’s slam, because she appeared an instant after Juddha’s question. Qi surged from my core and into my arms, brightening the tattooed wards along my forearms. Golden light penetrated the sleeves of my white healer’s coat.
My right hand whipped up and twisted the lightening pistol from out of Juddha’s grip.
The resistance fighter’s mouth hinged open. I had seen such an expression on many a newcomer to the practice. Qi-enhanced speed hadn’t surprised him as much as Biyu’s appearance. I flipped the pistol’s safety back on.
‘Like Rahmat said, put the gun away.’ I slid the weapon back into Juddha’s holster. I clicked my fingers in front of his face, causing the air to spark. ‘And it’s rude to stare.’
Rahmat’s chuckle became a cough.
‘So, it’s true,’ the other resistance fighter said to Juddha. They carried their leader into the examination room. ‘The healer’s wife really is a dragon.’
I caught Juddha scowl at his comrade before I pecked Biyu on the cheek.
The size of a human, Biyu had lips, although her mouth stopped an inch below the holes that had replaced her ears. Her eyes changed colour depending on her mood, and above her temples a pair of coiled horns sprouted from her shoulder-length blue-black hair. To put our patients at ease, she wore a white coat like mine, and her scales mimicked the pale brown of my skin.
A dragon for five years, I saw past Biyu’s reptilian features and saw the woman I’d fallen in love with eleven years ago.
‘Close the practice,’ I told her. ‘I’ll make lunch once we’re done here.’ Today being Third Day, it was my turn to cook.
Biyu’s scowl outmatched the one Juddha had shot his comrade.
The sick one says he’s Rahmat, I explained. He’s that Rahmat, the leader of the Resistance. Supposedly, a demon poisoned him.
Biyu tilted her head to look past me. Transparent third eyelids slid across her eyes and back again. She nodded.
If he is who he says he is, he knowns Father, she said. Her words entered my head and not my ears. They fought together during the Archipelago War.
That would explain why Rahmat had come here and not another healer on the island.
‘Healer,’ Juddha called, ‘what’s taking you so long?’
I stroked Biyu’s upper arm.
I don’t think they mean us any harm.
Biyu folded her arms.
Frit! I’m not worried about them. If a Leyakian spy spotted those three entering the practice, we might be the next building they bomb.
The Leyakians targeting us hadn’t occurred to me. A quarter of the Zadrinesian archipelago was under Leyakian occupation. While our island, the archipelago’s capital—Bagh-e-Khuda—remained unoccupied, the place could be crawling with spies.
I’ll get rid of them as fast as I can.
Inside the examination room, I found the two men had already laid their leader on the couch. I moved to the trolley with its swabs, spatulas, scissors and sample pots arranged on its shelves.
‘Open your mouth, please.’
Brown and yellow pustules coated Rahmat’s tongue. I sniffed camphor on his breath.
Next, I checked the glands around his neck and then his armpits. I made a note of his fever.
‘What have you learned so far, Healer Chopra?’ Rahmat said.
I reached for a pair of scissors.
Juddha grabbed my wrist.
‘What are those for?’
I faced Rahmat. ‘Nail and hair clippings.’
Rahmat’s sigh became a cough. Juddha let go of my wrist and we moved together to help the patient sit up.
‘You must excuse Juddha,’ Rahmat said. ‘He blames himself for what’s happened.’
I glanced across at the resistance fighter. He studied his feet.
‘So, what’s the diagnosis?’ Rahmat said.
Still holding the scissors, I retrieved a pot from the trolley and snipped hair from Rahmat’s temples.
‘It’s too early to say,’ I lied. His camphoric breath suggested he could have been poisoned. ‘Juddha said a demon was involved. How so?’
Rahmat regarded the fighter and frowned.
‘Because he can’t accept the Resistance has a traitor inside it.’
Juddha looked up.
‘I can vouch for every man in camp,’ he said. ‘Last night, you and I ate the same me
al. We’re all committed to the cause.’ The fighter regarded me. ‘You’re not just Master Healer Lee’s former apprentice. We came looking for you because you’re a relic hunter. You know magic, and you’ll know if magic was involved in Rahmat’s poisoning.’
The resistance leader winced. His brow glistened. We were wasting time. I took three deep breaths, braced myself and placed a hand above Rahmat’s head chakra.
A burning sharpness lanced my palm. Something other than human energy tainted the leader’s qi. It would take hours to search the books Biyu and I had amassed over the past five years and identify a supernatural poison. I ran my hand over the rest of Rahmat’s body and his other chakras for confirmation.
‘You’re right,’ I said to Juddha, ‘the cause of the illness is supernatural.’ It looked as if very muscle in the resistance fighter’s body uncoiled. I didn’t add that humans were just as capable of concocting magical poisons as demons and gods. ‘I need more samples,’ I said. ‘It’ll take a while to identify the cause and prepare a cure.’
‘A while?’ Juddha said. ‘How long is that?’ He pointed at his leader, who’d closed his eyes and looked asleep. ‘How long does he have?’
I stifled a groan. Biyu’s qi tablets.
‘I can give him something to keep the poison at bay for twenty-four hours. That should be enough time to find a cure.’
Juddha consulted the other resistance fighter. His comrade nodded.
‘All right then,’ he said.
I left the room and rounded the corner into the pharmacy.
The box containing the five tablets was inside the cabinet and beside the other prescriptions due for collection later in the afternoon. I had made those tablets first thing after rising when my qi was at its most potent. And now, instead of my wife, I’d have to give four of them to Rahmat.
No relic hunting tonight, Biyu.
I opened the cabinet, withdrew the box and slipped one pill into the pocket of my coat.
Back in the examination room, I poured the patient a cup of water.
‘Sit him up, please.’
Rahmat’s skin was pasty and the whites of his eyes were the colour of custard. His worsening condition made me wonder if four tablets would be enough.
‘Here.’ I handed the cup to Rahmat. I held out my palm to reveal the four oat-coloured tablets. ‘Take one every six hours. They contain qi to fight the poison while I find you a cure.’
I watched Rahmat swallow a tablet.
‘Healer Chopra,’ Juddha said, then gestured at the door. ‘A word.’
I exited the room and waited for him to join me in the pharmacy.
Juddha studied the space crammed with shelves, cabinets and a central worktop. Did he think someone was hiding in here and listening in on us?
‘It’s imperative he’s cured,’ he finally said. ‘Rahmat is all that stands between us and the Leyakians overrunning the archipelago. They lack their own magic. They want these islands for our relics and the magic they still contain.’ He rubbed his face. ‘Whatever magic Rahmat’s been poisoned with, I don’t believe a Leyakian could have done it. Do you understand what I’m saying?’ His voice had become a whisper.
I wasn’t sure I did.
‘You said you don’t suspect your men. What are you saying—a demon did it?’
Until now, I hadn’t noticed Juddha’s bloodshot eyes. He shook his head.
‘I’m saying a Zadrinesian, a collaborator, helped the Leyakians. I need to find whoever poisoned Rahmat before they do further damage to the Resistance.’
If a magic practitioner could poison the Resistance’s leader and do it unnoticed, what other mayhem could they cause? Now I understood.
‘So, you’re thinking that if I can identify the poison, it might help you find who did this. Right?’
Juddha raised one corner of his mouth.
It wouldn’t be easy. I doubted I’d find anything in the clippings. The poison hadn’t been in Rahmat’s body long enough to have found its way into his hair. If the poisoner had left behind any clues, I’d find them in Rahmat’s sputum or urine.
‘I’ll take more samples,’ I said. I didn’t hide my pessimism.
‘Try, Healer Chopra. Please. Zadrinesia will either prevail or fall on what you find.’
I waved the resistance fighter back into the examination room and thought, No pressure then.
2
Rahmat and his fellow resistance fighters filed out of the practice. Though relieved the resistance leader could walk without help, the effects of the qi tablets would only last until noon tomorrow. I had twenty-four hours to identify the poison and produce an antidote.
After locking the door behind me, I passed through reception, lowered the counter and entered the passageway between the examination room and the pharmacy. I bent down and ran my finger along the edge of the third step on the staircase. My fingertip brushed the ward carved on the underside, and I whispered the word of energy.
The trapdoor behind me opened with a click, its edges and hinges no longer hidden by magic. I heaved the door open and descended the steps into the vault. A fraction of the glow from the ceiling lights reflected off the six-foot-square steel door ahead of me. Wards carved into the metal absorbed most of the light and burned orange to signify the room-sized safe remained locked. Behind the door were relics we had yet to return to the Ministry of Holy and Demonic Magic. The door to the glass-fronted laboratory next to the safe was also closed. Biyu wasn’t inside there.
Shelves stuffed with books lined the walls of the vault. Some books lay on their sides and most hadn’t been put back in the order we’d agreed upon when we started to stock our library. Thankfully, the library was Biyu’s domain and the pharmacy and the stockroom above were mine.
My wife sat at the table in the centre of the room.
‘What’s that you’re looking at?’ I asked. For once, it wasn’t a book she pored over.
I drew closer and recognised the horizontal crescent-shaped cluster of islands. Why was she studying a map of the archipelago?
Biyu slid a finger behind the collar of her white healer’s coat. Her scales sometimes caught on material and she would have preferred to move around the practice naked. The coat and baggy trousers were for modesty and also prevented our superstitious patients from touching her skin.
She circled the eastern-most islands with a taloned finger.
‘The Leyakians have occupied most of these,’ she said. ‘With a thousand miles between them and us, how did they find Rahmat and poison him?’
She’d heard my unshielded thoughts. A mile might separate us, and Biyu would hear them.
‘One of the resistance fighters, Juddha, thinks a Zadrinesian is involved—one who knows magic.’
The thousand miles separating our island from the occupied territory might as well have been ten.
Biyu rolled up the map.
‘Are you sure someone poisoned him?’
I had tests to do. Nevertheless, I nodded.
‘I felt his qi. Whatever they used on Rahmat, it’s of supernatural origin and, from the sharpness of the sensation, most likely demonic.’ I told her about the qi tablets I’d used to buy me and Rahmat some time. ‘I kept one for you, just in case.’ Biyu glanced at my empty hands. ‘What?’ I said.
Her dragon’s mouth gave her a permanent smile. Whenever she held her mouth open, wide enough to see the ivory needles that were now her teeth, I knew she was smiling.
‘Did you bring a sample?’
I avoided rolling my eyes. Being a healer also made me a scientist. To find the poison, I had to run tests.
‘I don’t have to read your mind to know what you’re thinking, Sanjay. It’s splattered across your face.’ She aimed a finger at me. ‘You said it yourself. The poison is demonic. Your tests will only get you so far.’ She turned, slipped past me and headed for the safe. ‘Did you collect a urine sample?’
With her back to me, and except for the spiralling horns, she could have bee
n mistaken for human. A head shorter than me, her trousers and coat hid her short tail. Her walk, though, was Biyu’s.
‘Sanjay?’
‘Yes, I collected a sample.’
She reached the safe, ran a hand over the wards and then looked over at me.
‘Then get the pot.’
I hurried to the examination room, retrieved the sample pot, returned to the vault and found it empty.
‘I’m in here.’
Biyu stood in the laboratory, her hands resting on her hips. A line of books lay on the floor. She stepped over them and stood by the bench. On it she’d laid a pipette, a square of cloth and two brass hemispheres, cuneiform covering their surfaces both on the inside and the outside.
‘A divining ball?’
‘None other.’ She held out her hand for the sample. ‘Still warm. Perfect.’
I stepped over the row of books and joined her. Biyu placed the cloth in a hemisphere, unscrewed the pot, squeezed the bulbous teat on the pipette and inserted the tapered end into the urine. She counted three drops onto the cloth, squirted the remaining urine back into the pot and laid the pipette beside it. I replaced the sample pot’s cap, while Biyu screwed the two halves of the divining ball together.
She pointed at the books facing us.
‘This is everything we have on demonic spells and poisons,’ she said. ‘If there’s a description of the poison or a cure inside one of them, the ball will find it.’
I counted eleven books, although one was a foot thick and could have counted for at least two. Biyu’s solution was a long shot.
‘You could look more encouraging,’ Biyu said. She bent down, then waited for me. ‘Some qi, please.’
Biyu wasn’t cold blooded. But, like a reptile, she needed to bask in sunlight to function. Unlike reptiles, it wasn’t warmth she needed but sunlight itself. Able to shrink to the size of a newly hatched gecko and expand to a one-hundred-and-fifty-foot flying, fire-breathing dragon, the qi she contained would shatter the brass ball if she tried to fuel it.
