“Fine. Are we done here?”
Chapter 6
Iyasu sat in the back of the rough little boat next to the strange boy named Kamil, and stared out over the sea. All across the western sky he saw dark clouds churning like boiling mountains above the white towers of ice drifting slowly south. He could still feel the cold wind blowing from the storm, but here the sun was shining, the sky was clear, and the wine-dark waves gently nuzzled the small boat in the vast expanse of the empty ocean.
The crude planks of the hull were secured with hand-carved pegs and hand-made tar, but not a single drop of water seeped in. And while they lacked a keel or daggerboard to hold them on a steady course, Iyasu couldn’t help being impressed by how much uncanny ingenuity the boy had used to create the simple craft with nothing more than a few rotten planks to inspire him.
Is he really just a castaway? A small child, the lone survivor of a shipwreck, washed ashore alone on an island where he miraculously learned to survive all by himself?
Or is he something else? Something more?
Something dangerous?
The seer glanced at Kamil at every discreet opportunity, but no gesture or sound or flick of the boy’s eyes betrayed anything unusual.
“I think I see something ahead,” Azrael said. “Can you see it?”
The angel sat in the middle of the boat facing the rear, with her massive black wings spread wide to catch the wind and carry the boat north and east, cruising swiftly as she angled and adjusted her feathered sails.
Iyasu leaned to one side to peer under her wings, but all he saw were waves upon waves. “No. It may have been a shadow or a trick of the light.” He sat back down.
“Are you sure?” Azrael arched an eyebrow and her eyes darted to the side. Toward Kamil. “You don’t see anything at all?”
Iyasu raised an eyebrow in answer and cleared his throat. “No, I took a good look, and I really don’t see anything. At least not yet.”
“All right then.” The angel let her gaze wander out to the horizon as she turned her attention back to the business of riding the wind and pulling the boat with her.
“What does it mean, the embodiment of death?” Kamil asked abruptly. “That’s what you said, isn’t it? You’re the embodiment of death?”
Azrael nodded. “In the beginning, there was nothingness. But one by one, God fashioned the pieces of the universe. Warmth, substance, and life in all its unnumbered forms. And to bring forth each of these things, an angel was created. The angel is the thing, and the thing is the angel. There are angels for trees and for ants, and for the wind and the lightning, and for nightmares and laughter. And there is one for death. Me.”
Kamil narrowed his eyes, and Iyasu tried to fathom what exactly could be going through the boy’s shrewd mind as he tried to make sense of these cosmic truths, all at once. By small degrees, the boy relaxed his face and sat up a bit straighter. “All right.”
“You understand all that?” Iyasu asked.
“I think so.”
He found that hard to believe, but there was little to be gained by testing the boy. So they rode on in silence, letting the motion of the boat lull them into a drowsy state as the warm sun and cool breeze conspired to keep them comfortable in the shade of the two black wings. They ate sparingly of the sack full of pomegranates that Kamil had gathered for the journey, saving the dried fish for later. Their water bottle was small, because the boy had never needed a large one, and Iyasu chose to pretend the bottle did not exist, so it would not tempt him.
He closed his eyes, and tried to doze. But a moment later he sat up and turned to Kamil, saying, “You didn’t ask who God is.”
“No. Why? Do you know who God is?”
“Well, of course I know.”
“How?” Kamil squinted at him. “How do you know these things?”
“School. I had teachers, and mentors, and tutors, for years and years. And I read books, hundreds of books.”
The boy nodded thoughtfully and looked away.
Iyasu stared at him. “You’re really not going to ask about God?”
The boy shrugged. “All right. Who is God?”
“No, I mean, you said you understood everything she said a moment ago, but then you didn’t ask about God. I’m just surprised that you weren’t interested in that name, when in that lovely summary of the creation of the universe it was the only name mentioned.”
Again Kamil shrugged. “Well, it wasn’t a very interesting story.”
Iyasu blinked. “Not interesting? The creation of the universe isn’t interesting?”
“I guess not.” The boy yawned. “Look, this God person made the universe, right?”
“Yes…”
“Does she ever change the universe?”
Iyasu glanced at Azrael, who shrugged and shook her head. “No, not generally, not as far as we know. Usually when something happens, even something strange, we can sort out a non-God explanation for it, on a day-to-day basis, I mean.”
…except for Talia Bashir, of course.
“All right, then, fine. God created the universe.” Kamil shrugged. “But since I don’t live at the creation of the universe, it doesn’t seem to concern me much.”
“It… I…” Iyasu frowned. “Well, no, it doesn’t really concern you. I mean, it’s more or less done, the creation of the universe, I mean. So… no, I suppose it’s not something you need to really worry about…” He looked up at Azrael and saw a quiet laughter in her eyes. “Oh, none of that! I just lost my train of thought, is all.”
The Angel of Death smiled and shook her head as the strange boy sighed and stared out at the gently undulating surface of the ocean. The hours passed slowly, day fading into night, and night turning into day, with nothing to mark the passage of time except the progress of the sun and stars.
“Is school like an island?” Kamil asked.
“No. Quite the opposite,” Iyasu said, staring up at the stars. “So many people, mostly young people, all together, learning together. And a school is just one place among the hundreds of places in a city.”
“And a city is like a hut?”
“Like a thousand, thousand huts, all together.” Iyasu nodded. “My city is called Shivala.”
“You like it there?”
The seer nodded thoughtfully.
“Why did you leave? Why are you here?”
“Originally? I was sent away to help some people, a long time ago.” Iyasu winced. “But right now? It’s complicated.”
The boy stared at him, waiting.
“All right, well… Shivala was attacked, and many people died. Good people, innocent people. Walls fell. Homes fell. Everything fell, it sounds like.” Iyasu spoke softly and slowly, trying to explain in simple terms while not letting the images become too vivid in his own mind. “The person who attacked the city was very strong. She was a djinn, but far stronger than any normal djinn. Never mind what a djinn is, it’s not important. But now we’re afraid she might attack again, and more people will die. So while the people in the city are trying to rebuild and prepare, Rael and I are out here trying to find the djinn before she hurts anyone again.”
“Why did the djinn attack the city?”
“No one knows.”
“Oh.” Kamil looked out across the dark waves. “Does that happen often?”
“No. Never.”
“Hm.” The boy paused again. “And it’s a good city?”
Iyasu smiled sadly. “It’s a beautiful city, like none other in the world. It was built by the holy clerics, the magi. Soaring towers, endless gardens, libraries, theaters, temples, sculptures… and the music, and the food, the smells alone were…” He shook his head. “I think you would like it there.”
Kamil nodded. “Where is it?”
“On the western edge of the White Desert, by the sea. A few days’ journey north and west of here.”
“Oh.” The boy looked at him. “I’m sorry the djinn killed your people.”
“S
o am I.”
They sailed on, alternately dozing and gazing at the water, until they finally sighted a low black line on the northern horizon. The dark shape grew slowly larger, resolving into grassy dunes and gray stones, and then Iyasu saw something else.
“Smoke.” He pointed to the east. “A city. Could we sail on a bit farther?”
Azrael nodded. “I’m not tired.”
She never tired, and it gave Iyasu some comfort to know that his requests or his needs never caused her pain, but still it bothered him, always asking her for a little more, to do a little more, lift a little more, work a little more.
An hour after they saw the city it had grown into a strange collection of bright towers shining in the warm morning sunlight. They beached the little boat, preferring to walk slowly into the strange city rather than sail into its harbor and be confronted by its newness all at once.
“This is a city?” Kamil asked.
“Yes, it is,” Azrael said.
“Is it like Shivala, or different?”
“Different. Very different,” Iyasu said slowly. “Most cities are not so tall, and the walls are usually made of stone, not bronze. And those windmills… I’ve only seen those out on the plains in lonely places where the wind blows the grasses flat, never in a city, and never so many, and never so high.”
Iyasu watched the huge white sails spin relentlessly in the centers and tops of the huge shining towers that dotted the city here and there, some tall and slender, some short and broad, and all armored in the dark golden shades of bronze. The sunlight glinted off thousands of glass windows, many in straight angular rows, but plenty more in circular settings and positioned at different angles. Long dark ropes hung from roof to roof and tower to tower, forming a great web across the strange shining city.
With each approaching step, they discovered more about the bronze metropolis. They heard rhythmic clanking and pattering, and heard hissing and whistling, and saw magnificent plumes of steam blasting into the air along the water’s edge. Smells of oil and coal snaked through the air on the warm wind, punctuated by sharp spices and other more sickly odors.
“What do people do in cities?” Kamil asked. “There doesn’t seem to be much room for growing food.”
“No, there isn’t. Food is brought in from the farms out there.” Iyasu waved vague inland. “Or from the sea. The people who live in cities are craftsmen. They make things. Clothing, tools, pottery, glasswares… but this place… This place is definitely different.”
“Because of all the loud metal things?”
“Yes. The machines.”
“Machines.” The boy peered at him. “They scare you?”
Iyasu blinked as he considered his state of mind. “I suppose they do, a little.”
“Don’t worry, darling, I won’t let the machines hurt you.” Azrael smiled at him. It was a weary smile, a fleeting one, but most of hers were exactly that, and Iyasu knew the true depth of the joy and love and amusement that lived behind them.
At least, I think I do.
They walked along dusty lanes between small stone houses, and then upon roads paved with cracked bricks, and then roads built from heavy slabs. The houses grew taller, interspersed with shops, many with glass windows that revealed glimpses of the strange clothing and artworks and homewares for sale within.
The people they passed in the street were not particularly strange, though. They had the same light brown complexion as the people of Shivala, and they wore similar layers of robes and coats, though the patterns and colors were far more elaborate and the stitching more cunning. Iyasu also noted the many small brass chains that the people wore about their waists, and from their necks, all snaking in and out of cuffs and hems and pockets as though to secure many small valuables.
“Excuse me.” Azrael turned to a middle-aged woman wearing many shades of blue pacing thoughtfully along beside them. “What is the name of this city?”
“Dalyamuun,” she replied. “You are newcomers?”
“Yes, we just arrived.” The angel gestured to the towers and windmills. “We’ve never seen a place like this before.”
The woman smiled. “I’m not surprised. I doubt there is another city in all the world like Dalyamuun. We are building the future, some would say. Which is to say, we are seeking deeper truths. The causes and the means and the fashions of all things. With understanding comes prosperity, and more importantly, peace.”
“I see.” Azrael paused. “So this is a city of scholars?”
“Scholars, priests, engineers, explorers, doctors… all sorts. The finest in the world. All working tirelessly on so many wonders.”
“I’ve never heard of this place,” Iyasu said. “But it can’t be many days’ travel from Shivala over land, across the desert. Who do you trade with?”
Again the woman smiled. “With no one. We stand apart. Alone. Isolated by the sea and the sand. Our ships sail only to catch fish and to explore remote places, and our roads lead only to our own farms, and no farther. One day, when we have all the answers to all the questions, when we can cure all ills and heal all hates, and make the world a paradise, we will reveal ourselves. But not before.”
“But if you have so much knowledge, you could help so many people right now,” Azrael said. “There are so many people suffering all across the world, from so many things. If you can even cure one disease…?”
“Yes, we know. The world is full of pain.” The woman’s smiled faded. “But that is why—”
“That’s why you have to hide,” Kamil interjected. “If everyone knew about your machines and cures, and the other things you have, they would come and take them, and fight over them.”
The woman peered at the boy. “Clever one, isn’t he?”
Iyasu felt a darkness hovering over the woman and he said, “But what about visitors, like us? Surely some people must come here from time to time.”
“Yes, they do, from time to time. And when they do, someone comes to greet them, and explain our ways, and help them find a home here.”
Kamil looked at her quizzically. “And what if we don’t want to live here?”
“You wouldn’t be the first, or the last, but you will stay all the same.” The woman in blue paused and nodded past them.
Iyasu turned and saw a trio of strange shapes following them. The riders upon the creatures were simply men in robes of green and gold and black, armored lightly in small steel plates cleverly arranged and secured by small steel chains, but their mounts were bizarre in the extreme. One moment they looked like horses, the next like rhinoceroses, as they swayed and nodded their long heads. But their flesh was all of burnished bronze.
When the three riders finally stopped in a loose ring around the three visitors, Iyasu saw how magnificently the metal beasts were constructed, with dozens of overlapping sheets and plates of metal to allow the animals to move like creatures of flesh and blood, and thousands of tiny white rivets lined the seams in their metal hides, workmanship like nothing the seer had seen before.
“Unicorns.” Kamil half raised his hand toward the long curving horn on the head of the bronze beast nearest to him. The horn began with a sword-like blade at the front, rose to a needling spearhead, and ended with a vicious serrated edge on its rear side.
“Unicorns are a myth,” the woman in blue said. “These, however, are very real. These are the karkadann. And they will ensure that you do not reveal our existence to the outside world.”
“How, exactly?” Iyasu asked.
“They’re machines. They do not grow tired or hungry, and you cannot injure them,” their captor explained. “And they can run three times the speed of the fastest man. A small army of them stand guard around Dalyamuun, and they have never failed to stop someone trying to flee our borders.”
At that moment, a soft buzzing sound filled the air and a crackle of white lightning danced up the length of the nearest beast’s horn, sizzling and snapping as white sparks rained on the ground. And then the buzzi
ng died away, and the lightning vanished.
“No one ever leaves?” Iyasu nodded slowly as he continued to study the life-like machines with his keen eyes. “I believe you.”
He did believe her. Every word. The karkadann were without question the perfect weapons to patrol a reclusive people’s lands and protect their secrets. Fast, strong, tireless, and merciless.
Not that it matters to us.
The seer glanced at Azrael.
As long as these things can’t fly, they can’t touch us.
“You made these?” Kamil leaned closer to the creatures. “With your hands?”
“With our hands, and our tools,” one of the riders said.
“Can you show me?” the boy asked.
The rider smiled. “Perhaps. One day.”
“Do you have books here?” Kamil turned from the riders back to the woman in blue. “Iyasu said he used to learn from something called books, and teachers. Do you have those here?”
The woman smiled so broadly that most of her face was lost to her wrinkles. “We do indeed. Would you like to meet some of our scholars, or perhaps some of our engineers?”
“Yes, I would.” Kamil turned back to the nearest karkadann, his hand still hovering near its monstrous horn.
“Um.” Iyasu put his hand lightly on the boy’s shoulder. “That’s certainly something we can talk about later.”
“Yes, later.” The smiling woman clasped her hands. “We should get you settled in your new home. Come along.”
She strode away down the street, leaving the karkadann riders to herd the three travelers behind her. And as they walked down the avenue, Iyasu noticed that the mechanical beasts were not merely elaborate war-wagons being controlled by their riders through some hidden means, but they did in fact move and behave like living animals. They shuffled and walked at different paces, swinging their heads from side to side, angling their eyes to peer at their prey as well as at the glassy windows beside them.
I doubt that attacking the rider would leave these machines defenseless. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if attacking the rider would leave these things free to rampage out of control…
Angels and Djinn, Book 3: Zariel's Doom Page 6
