Lamia dashed forward and grabbed the stone sword in her bare hands and whisked the massive weapon off the ground as though it were no heavier than a child’s toy. The cleric lunged at the sparkling djinn Danya, smashing the huge sword down into the ground. Danya slipped aside faster than the eye could follow and the sword crashed into the earth, cracking the rock slab and hurling dust and slivers of stone into the air.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Lamia swung again, sweeping the huge sword from left to right to cleave her enemy in half, but Danya merely dashed away in a blur of shadow and moonlight.
And straight into Samira’s hands. The Tevadim wrapped one arm around the renegade’s throat and the pair of them vanished in a burst of dust and wind, sweeping the ground clear.
Zerai stared at the empty spot, and then he spun around and around, scanning the darkness for some sign of the two djinn women, but all he saw were shadowy rocks and dark clouds gliding across the starry heavens. “Where?”
“Quiet.” Lamia looked left and right, searching, listening.
The earth exploded and Zerai fell backward, rolling and tumbling as he struggled to keep his arms and body wrapped around Nadira to shield her from the fall and from the flying shards of stone. He crashed his shoulders and hips into sharp rocks and slammed his head against the ground more than once, but he clung to the little girl clawing at his arms, and for the first time in years, he actually prayed a silent, brief entreaty to heaven that this cold, dark moment not be his last.
And it wasn’t. His body ached and his senses spun as Nadira babbled angrily and clutched at his shirt with her tiny fingers. When the debris settled, the falconer sat up and peered into the dust cloud. Lamia lay far off to his left, lying on her belly and protecting her eyes with one hand as she looked back toward the epicenter of the eruption, and he scanned right until he saw them.
Samira and Danya both lay face down in the dust, their arms and legs splayed at strange angles. Neither one moved.
Lamia dashed to her feet and snatched up her stone sword. The huge blade had broken, leaving a smaller, more jagged weapon in her hand, but Zerai knew that size was meaningless to a Sophirim who could make a boulder as light as a leaf or a leaf as heavy as an avalanche. He scrambled back behind a small stone lip to better protect himself and Nadira just as Lamia reached the djinn and brought her sword down on Danya’s head.
The stone sword exploded and collapsed under its unnaturally massive weight, burying Danya’s head and chest in a mound of red rubble. Lamia stepped back, her chest heaving, and she leaned forward with her hands on her knees to catch her breath, but she never took her eyes from her motionless enemy.
Samira moaned and moved her head. Zerai hesitated, not wanted to move any closer to Danya, but then he got up and jogged over to Samira, slid his free arm around her chest, and dragged her away from the body under the pile of stone. The djinn cleric weighed almost as little as Nadira, so he managed to carry them both back behind his little shelter before sitting down again.
Samira opened her eyes and peered at him. “Is she dead?”
“Maybe.” He peeked out to see that Danya had not moved. “What did you do? Where did you go?”
“I hurled us up into the air,” Samira muttered. “With no ground under her feet, she had no speed, and with no contact to the earth, she had no power.”
“But neither did you.”
“Obviously.” Samira sat up slowly, clutching her chest and head, her breaths coming in dry wheezes.
“Well… thanks.”
“I didn’t do it for you.”
“Thanks anyway.” Zerai peeked out again. He called out, “Anything?”
“Nothing,” Lamia called back. She straightened up and started nudging the rocks aside with the tips of her boots.
“Idiot.” Samira sighed. “Humans never stop to think. That woman could have explained everything. She could have led us to Ramashad.”
“Or she could have destroyed Shivala.” Zerai frowned at her. “I’d say Lamia made the right choice.”
“What choice? Don’t make it sound rational. That was just blood-thirsty revenge,” Samira muttered. “Nothing more.”
“Whatever keeps me alive.” Zerai stood up and moved a little closer to the body. “Lamia?”
“Hm?”
“You okay?”
“Yeah.” The cleric brushed away the last of the rocks and dust, and then rolled Danya over onto her back. “What the hell happened to her face?”
Zerai came close enough to see that the djinn woman no longer looked like the hungry young predator of a few minutes ago. Now her face was lined and ashen, her fiery hair dull and gray. “Samira? Can you take a look at this?”
The djinn cleric limped out to join them. She took one look at the body and shrugged. “So?”
“So, what’s happening to her?” Zerai looked again and could have sworn that the lines on Danya’s face were settling into deeper wrinkles with each passing second.
“She’s dying.” Samira shuffled away to sit down on a nearby rock. “That’s how we die. Aging and falling to pieces, all in a matter of moments. Quick to life, and quick to death.”
“Dying? As in, not dead yet?” Lamia reached for a rock.
“No, wait!” Zerai knelt down over the dying djinn’s face, searching for some trace of life in her eyes. “Here, give me your hand.”
“What?” Lamia frowned. “Why?”
“Just do it!”
Lamia knelt beside him and held out her hand, and he quickly took her wrist and held it against Danya’s chest, saying, “Now make her chest lighter. Just a little. Just enough to help her breathe.”
“Why?”
“Please! There’s no time!” Zerai juggled Nadira onto his hip as he knelt down closer to the djinn’s face. He heard a whisper of air passing through the dying woman’s parted lips, and a moment later that breath seemed to grow a bit deeper and clearer. “Danya? You’re about to die. There’s nothing we can do to save you. But you can save your people from open war if you tell us how to find Ramashad. Where is it? Where is your city? Where are your people?”
For a moment he heard nothing. And then a soft sound escaped Danya’s lips. “In hell.”
Zerai glared at her, fighting back the urge to strike her. “Where is it?”
“…in the darkness…” Danya’s watery, yellow eyes searched aimlessly across the starry sky above her. “…in the fury…of Zariel…”
She said no more, and her whisper of breath fell silent as well. Zerai leaned away from the dry, cracked lips, the dull blind eyes, and the pale spotted skin to look up at Lamia as she took her hand away from the corpse’s chest.
“Did she just say my name?” The falconer looked up at Samira.
“No. I think she said Zariel.”
“In the fury of Zariel?” The falconer frowned. “What does that mean? Who is Zariel?”
“I don’t know,” the djinn said.
“I do.” Lamia stood up, frowning. “Zariel was one of the teachers sent from heaven. Similar to the angels of the holy mount, like Sophir. But Zariel was sent to a city of evil to lift the people there out of the darkness.”
“Ramashad? Was that the city of evil?” Zerai asked. “Is that where he went?”
“I don’t know. Zariel is just one of a hundred angels I learned about as a child.” Lamia shook her head. “That’s all I remember. A city of evil. And I may not even be remembering that part right.”
“So who would know?” Samira asked. “The elders in Shivala? The seers?”
Zerai grimaced at the thought of ever seeing the white-robed Arrahim again. “If you’re going back to Shivala, I won’t go with you.”
“Shivala?” Lamia shook her head. “No, not any time soon. Maybe once they get their heads out of their asses and learn to play nice together. Maybe.”
“Well, the only other seer I know is wandering the east somewhere with the Angel of Death, so I don’t think we can ask him to help us right now
,” Zerai said dryly. He stood up and paced away from the corpse, which looked more and more like a crude sculpture of stone and ash with each passing second. “It doesn’t matter. Not to me. I can’t fight these people, and even if I could, I don’t want to. I’m taking Nadira north, as far from this nightmare as we can go. You’re welcome to come, if you want.”
He paused, looking for some reaction from Lamia, hoping to see her nod and start walking. Instead the cleric sat down. “I don’t know. An hour ago we didn’t know a thing about the attack on the city, but now, well, here we are. The djinn is dead and we have an angel’s name. Zariel. I’m sorry, Zerai, but if an angel is involved somehow, this could be so much more than just a war. I shouldn’t be leaving. I have to try to save Shivala.”
“You just did. Danya’s dead.”
“But there could be more of them out there,” Lamia said. “A whole city of them, maybe.”
“All the more reason to leave,” he said. “And besides, all of the young and the old are safely away in Naj Kuvari. The only people left in Shivala want to be there. They can fend for themselves. They’re not your responsibility.”
“They’re people,” she said. “People are my responsibility.”
“So? You’re people. I’m people. Whoever is living in the next village are people. You can protect and serve anywhere in the world. There are plenty of people who need you. It doesn’t have to be Shivala, which has more than its fair share of protectors,” he said. “There’s no law that says you have to keep fighting. Or suffering. It’s not a crime to walk away. You’re a person too. You get to live too. If you want to.”
“Is that what this is? Is that why you’re leaving? To live?”
“Yes. I want to live. I don’t want to fight and kill anymore. I don’t want to watch people die. And I don’t want to know that anyone died for me. Because of me. No more fighting, no more dying. If war comes, then I go. Simple as that.”
“Simple as that.” Lamia sighed and stared out over the soft curves of the desert dunes. “I watched my friends die in the last attack. More will die if there’s another.”
“There may not be another,” Samira said. “This woman acted alone. She attacked the city alone. Perhaps she was the only one who wanted war. And now she’s dead. Maybe her war died with her.”
“Maybe.” Lamia frowned.
“The clerics have been looking for Ramashad for weeks now, right?” Zerai knelt beside Lamia. “And they haven’t found anything. There’s no reason to think you would either. And even if you did, you probably wouldn’t survive. If it hadn’t been for Samira, you and I would be dead right now.”
“That’s true,” Lamia admitted.
“Not entirely.” Samira cleared her throat. “If I hadn’t been with you, if I hadn’t helped you escape from the city, then Danya probably would have ignored you. She came for me. And if there are others out there, they might come for me as well. Djinn can feel each other’s presence.”
Lamia looked up at her. “That’s it. That’s the advantage we need. To detect them. To find them. If we can do that, then maybe we actually have a chance against them. Would you come with me? Across the desert? Would you help me lure them out, and fight them with me?”
Zerai grimaced as he stood up and paced away again, shifting Nadira to the crook of his other arm.
Samira nodded. “It is my duty, in Tevad’s name.”
The falconer clenched his teeth and said nothing.
They’re going to get themselves killed. Against one djinn, yes, they won. But if there had been two, or more? Not a chance. Not against djinn like this, djinn with power, unholy power.
Zariel’s power.
Zariel…
Who the hell is Zariel?
He studied the stars and guessed how many hours he had until the sun rose and the rocky path north would start to swelter with the rising desert heat. He looked back at Lamia, and he could see the conflict behind her eyes, the questions, the drive to do her duty warring against her personal feelings, her doubts, her grief… He still wasn’t entirely sure he could trust her, but she was his only friend right now, and that made all the difference.
He had been alone before. And he hated it. He hated it as much as he feared it.
“I need to get moving,” he said. “I need to get as far as I can before the sun comes up, and then find a safe place to rest.”
“Right.” Lamia stood up, but did not move to follow him. “Tell me one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“What would you be doing right now if you hadn’t found that little girl?”
Zerai looked down at Nadira. Over the past few days, the weight on his arm and the sight of the fat cheeks and the clawing of the tiny fingers had become his new normal, the way the world was supposed to look and feel. He imagined her vanishing, leaving him alone. “I’d be in Shivala, doing whatever Ven needed. Helping with the victims, I guess. And being quietly pissed off and miserable, for various reasons.”
“So the only reason you’re here right now is the baby?”
“No, she…” He frowned. “She’s not the only reason. But she’s the best reason.”
“Well, I don’t have a little girl, and if it weren’t for you, I’d be back in the city, following orders and being quietly pissed off for reasons of my own,” Lamia said. “This angel business is important, Zerai. So I’m going to look for the djinn city with Samira.”
“All right. Good luck with that. Try not to die.” He turned and started walking north. Then he stopped and turned back. “Maybe…”
“What?” Lamia peered at him through lined, tired eyes.
“Maybe you should go to the mountains. Talk to Sophir. Maybe the angels can tell you about Zariel. Maybe they can point you in the right direction,” he said. “Save you some time. Or talk you out of getting yourself killed.”
“Maybe.” She nodded. “Take care of her. And yourself.” Lamia walked to the edge of the stone table where Samira stood waiting to climb down to the desert floor.
Zerai watched the two of them slip down out of sight, leaving him alone between the stone and the stars, feeling the cold sea wind worming through his clothes. Nadira shifted and curled up tighter in his arms. He looked down at her and tried to hug her closer to his body for warmth. Then he looked north at the dark lines of the rocks and the dunes stretching on to the bottom of the night sky.
It’s so far. And there’s nothing there. No water, nothing to eat.
Plus the sun.
And the djinn.
Damn it.
I’m not going to make it on my own. Not in this place. Not carrying her.
An image flashed through his mind. He saw himself lying splayed on the sand, face down, not moving. Nadira lay screaming beside him beneath the blistering sun, her lips cracked as she wailed, and gasped…
He squeezed his eyes shut, exhaled, and then hurried to the edge of the rocks and began to climb down after the others.
Lamia stood waiting for him on the next ledge. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, damn it.” He walked past her to the next rocky path downward. “Just go. Please.”
They hiked down to the edge of the dunes together and began walking east, trudging up the slippery sandy inclines and sliding down the far sides. As the sun began to rise, the paling sky limned four sharp black peaks on the horizon. Four islands, alone in the sea of sand.
When the sun rose above the mountain ridge and bathed the desert in the first blush of the day’s true heat, the three walkers stopped in the shadow of a dune to rest. They shared a little water and food. Zerai checked on Nadira, who seemed sleepy and grumpy, but otherwise untroubled by the constant walking.
“How far is it to the mountains?” he asked.
“Five days,” Lamia said.
“Five?” He stared at her. “Can we make it that far? That long?”
“It won’t take five days,” Samira said. With a groan, she stood up and limped to the top of the dune where she sto
od in the full light of the sun, her dark hair and robes dancing on the wind.
“What’s she doing?” Lamia asked.
“I have no idea.”
After a few minutes, Samira turned back and descended the dune, this time moving a bit quicker and with a more fluid step. When she reached the bottom, the djinn cleric said, “We can move faster now. If you’re ready.”
Zerai looked up at the sun-kissed lip of the dune and back at the djinn. “Did the sun just heal you?”
“Yes. Sun light heals djinn.” She raised an eyebrow. “We are the people of smokeless fire. Where exactly did you think smokeless fire came from?”
The falconer shrugged. “Very dry wood?”
Samira held out her hand to Lamia. “Are you ready to go?”
Lamia looked at Zerai. “You may want to close your eyes for this. And bundle her up a bit tighter. It’s going to be a bit windy. And sandy.”
Zerai wrapped his jacket around Nadira to protect her face as Lamia put her arm around him, and he felt his weight melting away, as though all the flesh in his body were turning to air and lifting gently off his bones. It was unnerving, but also stole away the little aches and pains that lived in his back and legs.
Then the cleric lifted him off his feet completely. He winced and closed his eyes.
You’re trusting them now. Completely. With your life. And her life.
You realize that don’t you?
He swallowed. “Let’s go.”
The wind struck him like a solid wall, smashing against his face and arms, threatening to tear Nadira from his grasp as the flying sand needled at his exposed skin. Zerai clamped his teeth together and tried to take tiny snorting breaths through his nose, but still he could feel the sand clawing up his sleeves and into his ears and through his hair, over his scalp.
With his eyes shut, all he could see were shifting shadows of black and red through his eyelids, and he had a vague sensation of rising and falling, but it was all muted by the relentless, screaming, tearing wind.
When they finally stopped, when the wind stopped screaming, when the sand stopped biting, when Lamia set him down on his own two feet and returned him to his natural weight, Zerai opened his mouth and coughed out all the grime on his lips as he dropped to his knees. He wiped his eyes and nose, and then checked on his little girl, to find her awake and kicking as soon as he loosened the jacket around her.
Angels and Djinn, Book 3: Zariel's Doom Page 18
