Rahm peered out over the small white waves on the swift river and after a long moment he grunted. “I suppose so.”
Iyasu smiled. He was used to people only barely trusting his insights. It hardly worried him, especially since he knew he was right. He’d been seeing fins and tails splashing in the bubbling waters all day.
That night Hadara caught several spiny eels and Rahm roasted them for their supper.
“How much farther to Fel Yaresh?” Rahm asked. “I keep thinking of King Kavad.”
“I know. We should reach the fortress sometime tomorrow,” Iyasu said. “So, what do you know about this demon of yours? The demon at Messenad?”
“Not much,” Rahm admitted. “They say he’s huge and ugly, with white skin and red hair. And he can burn a man to death with his claws. I doubt any of that’s true, but that’s what they say.”
“And this demon killed King Kavad’s entire army?”
“Yes.” Rahm slurped down a chunk of soft white meat.
“But you think you can kill him by yourself?”
“I don’t see why not.” The warrior finished his fish and tossed the bones back into the river. “I’ve killed all sorts of strange things before. You know. You saw me kill that brush dragon in the ravine. Wasn’t so hard.”
Iyasu frowned into the fire. The memory of the strange wooden beast had lingered in the corners of his mind as he tried to imagine where the creature had come from. Were there more like it? Was it the last of its kind? Or worse, had it been a lone mother with a nest somewhere nearby, and its eggs or hatchlings were now doomed to perish alone in the dusty highlands of Gengahar, forgotten by all but him?
“I still wish you hadn’t done that,” the seer said softly.
“Well, I did.” Rahm shrugged as he leaned back against a log to gaze up at the stars.
Hadara tossed the remains of her eel into the river and lay back beside her husband, saying, “Would you have talked to the beast? Asked it to leave us in peace?”
“No.” Iyasu went on gazing into the fire until his skin felt prickly and tight from the heat. “I would have run, and kept running, until I was safe.”
“That’s no way to survive,” Rahm said.
“It’s a very good way to survive,” Azrael said. The angel stood at the water’s edge, gazing out over the dark ripples and waves where submerged rocks churned the river into noisy white foam. “I wish more people had the sense and the strength to run.”
“What about defending your loved ones?” the princess asked.
“They can run too,” Azrael said. “Or be carried by those who can.”
“What about defending your home?” Rahm asked. “That can’t run.”
“What’s a home?” The angel shrugged. “Some wood and mud? It’s just a place. The world is full of places, and it’s not full of people. Look around. We haven’t seen any people since we left Dalyamuun. And we haven’t seen any violence either, except that which we brought with us.”
“You would have the world ruled by the cruel and the unjust,” Hadara said with more than a hint of anger in her voice. “In your world, the killers could go anywhere, take anything, and force the innocent to flee to the desolate corners of the earth to survive. Violence is uncivilized, and hideous, and cruel, but it is necessary.”
“Only if you think things are more important than people,” Azrael answered.
Iyasu nodded to himself. He toyed with the idea of suggesting that Rahm and Hadara head back south on their own to pursue their demon or whatever they wished to do, and leave him and Azrael to follow the river on angel wings, but the laughing eyes of the angel Simurgh cast a shadow of doubt over that notion.
They may need us, or we may need them. Whatever else Simurgh may be, or may want, she is still an angel and wishes for goodness and order in the world. I suppose it can’t hurt to wait a little longer and see whether we’re more help or more harm to each other.
The next morning they set out early, now with Iyasu in the lead, picking out their path with his keen eyes. Everywhere he looked he saw signs of life now. The glistening trails of snails and slugs, the tiny pattering prints of skinks and salamanders, the shining black eyes of frogs, the white spots of bird droppings. Together with the waving green and yellow plants all around him, these traces all came together in his mind as a tapestry of life, interwoven threads of predator and prey, hunting grounds and nests, new births and old decaying matter. It felt familiar. It felt right.
“Fel Yaresh was a bandit fort, once,” he said to no one in particular. “There used to be herds of goats and sheep all over these mountains, and villages full of shepherds up and down the rivers. The bandits would raid all throughout the mountains here. Centuries ago, I think.”
“What happened to them?” Rahm asked.
“Some hero or other came along and killed their leader.” Iyasu grinned at the warrior. “The rest ran away and the fort stood empty for a while. Then it was rebuilt as a Burzhian outpost when the empire used to reach all the way out here. But when the wars pushed Burzhia back, the fortress was abandoned. So if Simurgh left Galina Bolad in Fel Yaresh, she must have done it in the last hundred years or so.”
“Hundred years?” Hadara stopped short. “Then Bolad must be dead by now.”
“Probably not.” Iyasu continued walking. “Djinn live for eight or nine centuries, usually.” He frowned at a depression in the sand just up ahead that glistened with small puddles.
“How is that possible?” the princess asked.
“Sh. Stop.” Iyasu held up his hand, and then crept forward on his own, moving quietly over the wet stones and tufts of grass. The river roared on. The seer glanced up and around at the rocks and higher banks to his left, to the jagged lips carved out by springs floods long since passed, and a few dark recesses caught his eye. He also gazed out across the water, but there was nothing unusual on the river or its far bank.
“What is it?” Rahm asked softly. The warrior trudged forward and peered down at the smooth trench in the sand that ran from the water’s edge up into the rocky terrain above. “Looks like a crocodile trail. Dragging its belly. Must be huge.”
“No. Crocodiles have feet. This thing doesn’t.” Iyasu pointed at the sides of the track where a reptile’s claw marks should have been.
“A snake? A huge river serpent?” Rahm rested his hand on his sword and peered up at the rocks above them. “We should find it quickly, now, before it gets dark. If it attacks us in the night, someone could die.”
“Stop. Just stop.” Iyasu stood up and put his small hand against the man’s chest. “We’re not here to kill anything. We’re just passing through.”
“Open your eyes and look at that track,” Rahm growled, still keeping his voice low. “Whatever this thing is, it’s a monster. It could kill people. And it’s my responsibility to make sure it never does.”
“No, wait!” Iyasu hissed.
But Rahm strode past him, drew out his heavy sword, and started hiking up the bank, following the smooth track to higher ground.
“Should I stop him?” Azrael asked.
“Don’t you dare,” Hadara said. “You said you would run in the face of danger. Well, here it is. So run. You be who you are, and we will be who we are.” She followed her husband up the slope.
“Really? Really?” Iyasu groaned and ran his thin fingers through his unruly hair. “You said it yourself, we’re in the middle of nowhere. Anything that chooses to live here is trying to avoid people, not hurt them!”
But the princess and her husband continued up the path without looking back, leaving Raska to snort and flick his tail at them as he loitered by the water’s edge.
“I can stop them,” Azrael said. “But they could be right. The creature could be dangerous. One day it might run out of fish and move downriver, and decide to feed on some small children in the next village. Not all animals are rare or deserving of protection, or mercy. Animals serve their instincts, the same as everything else that lives. T
hey may not be evil, but they will kill all the same.”
Iyasu looked at her, and then at the path, and then darted after the princess, saying, “Let’s at least see what they’re doing.”
They caught up to Rahm and Hadara at the mouth of a low-roofed cave where the warrior was trying to fashion a torch using a small stick and a fistful of dry grass. But the grass kept falling away, and then the stick snapped. He tossed both aside with a scowl.
“I can take a look, if you want,” Iyasu offered.
“Can you see in the dark?” Rahm frowned.
“Nearly.” He pointed to the other man’s sword. “If you could just hold that up to reflect the sunlight inside, I should be fine.”
Rahm angled the flat of his blade to cast a thin rectangle of light into the black maw of the cave. “Really?”
“That’s perfect. Thanks.” Iyasu gathered up the loose folds of his dusty white robe in one hand, ducked his head, and shuffled into the dark hole. The walls were crooked and rough, but dry, and the sand underfoot crunched softly with each step. By the unsteady light reflecting off Rahm’s sword, his sharp eyes easily saw the low rocks jutting down from above before hitting his head, and he found his way back to a turn in the tunnel where the light failed him. But the smooth, moist track at his feet carried on, so he pressed on as well.
After a few more steps he heard the gentle, dry whisper of something breathing in the darkness. But the slivers of light on the rocks gave him enough confidence to go a little farther, and the breathing grew louder, and the tunnel angled down deeper into the earth.
When he reached the end of the cave, Iyasu found a long crack in the ceiling letting a thin blade of white light fall on the ground, but the light did not bleed outward to illuminate the walls, nor did it reveal the shadow coiled at the rear of the last chamber. He knelt down, squinting and listening, waiting for his senses to adjust even more to the darkness and the quiet, waiting for an understanding of the creature to form in his mind. And soon it did.
The serpent was large, but old. Its scaled skin hung in thin, soft layers on its slender bones and its coils lay on top of each other like old sagging blankets instead of muscled limbs.
“Shhhh.” Iyasu squatted down and sighed as he watched the slender tip of the serpent’s tail drag itself over the ground away from him. “It’s okay. As long as you stay in here a little while longer, no one’s going to hurt you. Just rest. We’ll be gone soon.”
“Soon?”
Iyasu jerked upright and looked back, but no one was behind him and the voice was definitely not Azrael or Hadara. It sounded like an older woman, tired and faint. “Hello?”
“Hello.” The voice came clearly from the back of the cave. From the serpent.
“I’m… I’m Iyasu.” His eyes darted madly as he tried to discern the creature more clearly, but beyond the end of the tail near the small patch of light on the floor, he could only see vague shadows.
“Iyasu?” The shadows moved, rising in waves of black against the black walls, but a form did emerge, a form with shoulders and arms, and a head.
Iyasu edged closer. “Who are you?”
“Ma… Marana,” she said. “I was called Marana.”
“Marana.” The name meant nothing to him. “We saw a trail by the water and followed it here. There are others outside. Some of them… you should avoid. But I won’t hurt you, I promise. You’re safe here.”
She chuckled, but the girlish sound quickly devolved into a rasping fit of coughing. “Thank you, Iyasu, for keeping me safe.”
“Can I see you? Do you mind? Could you come closer to the light?” he asked.
“Will it terrify you, I wonder?” she muttered. “Will it drive you mad to see me?”
“Please,” he said. “Let me see you.”
“Curious fool…”
He heard the sand shuffling and sliding, and then the shadows loomed closer and a figure in pale gray appeared, the figure of an elderly woman crawling on her belly because below her navel where her legs should have been she had the scaled body and tail of a monstrous snake.
She curled up next to the puddle of light on the ground as though it were a fire, and she pulled her tattered shawl tighter around her shoulders to cover her wrinkled skin. Her tangled gray hair had once been bound up on top of her head, but most of it had fallen loose except for a few locks that hung in stubborn arcs around her face. The woman called Marana looked at him wearily and laid her head on her arm on the ground. “You look very young to my eyes.”
“I’m twenty.”
She blinked slowly. “I’m older than that.”
“Maybe by a year or two.” He smiled. “Are you alone here? Are you all right? Do you need anything?”
“No, I’m quite fine here in my little corner of paradise. A blanket would be nice, but I—”
Iyasu stripped off his outer robe and laid it across her arms. “Sorry about the dust.”
She stared at the cloth touching her skin. “Thank you,” she whispered as she clutched the heavy robe to her chest and pushed a fold of the white linen under her head for a pillow. “Thank you.”
“You’re very welcome,” he said. In the dim light he could see her body quite well, the strange blend of bone and flesh, as well as her very human face, and her… soul. The soft inconstant light that hovered around her head wobbled and pulsed. He had seen many souls, human, djinn, and angel, but this one made him squint and pout in thought. “You know, I’ve never seen anyone like you before. Not exactly, anyway. You’re not… are you an angel?”
She closed her eyes and sneered, shaking her head. “No. I’m… Well, I was like you once. But I was changed. That was another life. Another time.”
“When? Where?”
“Far away. Far across the desert, across the sea, high in the mountains, in a green city…”
“Naj Kuvari?”
Her eyes opened and she bared her teeth in a terrible rictus of surprise and anger. “How do you know that name?”
He shivered as the cool air whispered over his bare arms. “I’ve been there.”
“Been there? Liar! The demons would have licked off your skin, drunk your blood, and cracked your bones to suck your marrow.”
He shook his head. “No. The demons are all gone now. And Raziel is alive again, and teaching his new clerics.”
“Raziel?” Her eyes shone and her lips trembled. “Alive?”
“Very alive.” The smile in his eyes faded. “What happened to you?”
“The Razielim, the clerics, they wanted to cheat death.” Her voice shook. “They did this to me. They said it would make me immortal, but they lied. It was just another of their mad experiments. And after they turned me into a monster, they turned me out of the city and left me to die in the jungle. But I didn’t die. I was strong back then. Very strong.” She paused to look at him, to study him. “I survived. I ran, I hid, I fought. I fed.”
He nodded.
“But I… I wasn’t myself anymore. I wasn’t human anymore. And I couldn’t stand to let them see me, the people, or to hear their voices, or any of it. So I left. I crept and crawled, year after year, across the sea, across the desert, until I found an old ruin, a crumbling stone house, where I lived for a few years. But then someone came. A madwoman, raving and thrashing about. I hid from her, but she didn’t leave, so I left and followed the water until I found this place. No more people. No more demons. Just the river and the sun. And I’ve been here ever since.”
“I’m sorry.” He reached out and took her frail hand in his. “I’m so sorry.”
“You’re sorry?” She scowled at him. “Well, that makes it all better then.”
He looked away. “I know there’s nothing that can ever give you back what you lost, all those years…”
“My husband, my home,” she hissed sharply.
“Yes.” He nodded, looking back at her again. “But you don’t have to live like this anymore. We can take you back to Naj Kuvari. Raziel can give you back y
our body, and maybe even your youth. You can live a new life.”
“I trusted a man once,” she said, her eyes drifting toward the darkness. “He found me in my little stone house and thought I was a creature from heaven, a queen of snakes, a prophetess. He gave me gifts and said he loved me.”
Iyasu said nothing, waiting for the inevitable tragedy at the end of the story.
“He betrayed me. Tried to kill me. Tried to eat me,” she whispered. “And would you believe I almost let him? I almost gave myself to him, because he said those things. Because he said he loved me.”
“I won’t betray you,” the seer said. “As a cleric of Arrah and a servant of heaven, I swear it to you.”
“Heaven!” Marana glared at him as she slithered back into the shadows, clutching the robe to her chest. “There is no such thing. Angels are just demons with wings, and clerics are demons in human masks. Get out!”
“No, please!” He held out his empty hands, ready to argue with her, to implore her, to beg her to come outside and meet his beloved Azrael to see that she was wrong and that he could help her. But the words all died in his mouth. He could see the countless years of anguish and loneliness in her eyes, the weight of the stories she had told herself to make sense of her bizarre and terrible life, the cold hatred she had nursed for centuries as she clung to life alone in the wilderness, knowing only betrayal and sorrow. He had no words that could outweigh all those lifetimes of pain.
“I am sorry you lost your stone house,” he said after a moment. It was the most honest and reasonable thing he could think to say. “Even if it was a ruin, it must have been better than this cave.”
Marana peered at him. “It was. I miss the sound of the rain on the roof. And I miss watching the peris playing.”
“Peris?” He looked sharply at her face, searching her eyes. “Peris? At the ruin?”
“Oh yes. Pretty little things. And funny.” She smiled to herself with a faraway look in her eyes. “They could be so curious, and so clumsy. I loved watching them try to lift a piece of driftwood, or roast a nut over my fire. They were always dropping things and squabbling, like children.”
“But then someone came. A madwoman?”
Angels and Djinn, Book 3: Zariel's Doom Page 21
