Angels and Djinn, Book 3: Zariel's Doom

by Lewis, Joseph Robert

  The body of the smallest one could easily house a family of six, and the hollow legs lay in piles like fallen timbers, half as large as full-grown cedars. Most of the shells were white chased with flakes of silver like mother of pearl, and many of the horns and spines along the edges were a dark, bloody red, but scattered across all the remains were dusty black streaks peppered with gray powder. The lone serrated blade that had so startled Zerai was revealed to be the shattered remains of a single enormous claw, partially broken and left to lean up against the rock wall, raised in a defiant and perhaps profane gesture against the heavens.

  “A graveyard,” Lamia whispered.

  “Or a waste heap,” Zerai muttered. “If something was eating these things, it might toss the remains here to rot.”

  “Eating? These?” Lamia gestured to the giants. “What could possibly be feeding on these?”

  He shrugged. “There’s always something bigger.”

  “Have you ever seen anything like this before?” Samira asked as she laid her hand on the smooth, cool surface of a giant, broken leg.

  “I’ve heard of elephant bone yards,” Zerai said. “But I have no idea what these are.”

  “They’re sandwalkers,” Lamia said. “They used to be a common sight, marching across the dunes between the sea and the mountains, back in my grandmother’s day, but they’re rare now. I guess we know why.”

  Zerai nodded as he gazed up at the crooked piles of white and red chitin. A part of him was fascinated, and a boyish voice inside him urged and taunted him to explore the strange box canyon and its giant corpses, to see how strong they were, how light, how old. To look for strange new things, to hunt for buried treasure.

  “Sand.” Nadira blinked up at him and pointed at the ground. “Sand.”

  He smiled. “Yeah, sweetie. Sand.”

  “Sand.” She patted his cheek and pointed at the ground again.

  Zerai glanced down and saw the loose white grains shuddering and sliding past his feet. “Oh shit.”

  Nadira clapped tiny her hands and smiled. “Shit!”

  The falconer grabbed Lamia’s wrist and started running back up the rocky path, up from the desert floor, up to the red stone heights where they had slept. “Run, run!”

  “Is it an earthquake?” she asked.

  He didn’t answer.

  When they reached the top, Samira was already there and peering down calmly at the white sands swirling and rippling across the mouth of the canyon. A few hollow crab legs and carapaces shifted and fell, crunching as they crashed to the ground. The djinn pointed. “There.”

  Zerai looked and saw a shadow sweep around a sudden bulge in the sand, and as the desert bubbled upward, the sand poured down until it revealed the angry red horns and bright white legs of a living sandwalker. The massive crab shuffled sideways, its hideous mandibles working furiously as it cleaned the sand away from its toothless maw, and it snapped its long, curving claws in the air over its head.

  “Can it get up here?” Zerai asked.

  “I doubt it.” Lamia shook her head. “Too steep. I think.”

  For a time they stood and watched the giant crab, but the creature seemed content to merely stand at the foot of the cliff and occasionally snap its massive claws at them.

  “We should keep moving,” Samira said. “It’s going to be very hot soon.”

  So they moved on, following the spine of the red bluffs north with the odd blast of hot sand from the east and the odd blast of snow and frost from the sea to the west.

  Lamia walked along the eastern edge of the bluffs, keeping watch over the desert. They hadn’t gone far from the canyon of the sandwalkers when she called out to them, “You’re not going to like this.”

  “What?” Samira asked.

  “It’s following us.”

  Zerai looked down and saw the lone crab skittering along the white dunes below, dashing from one perch to the next, its mandibles still working furiously, its claws still raised in a warlike salute. “Well, that’s unsettling.”

  They carried on north through the rest of the morning, with their eight-legged shadow following along below. Around noon Samira raised a stone shelter from the ground and they rested in the shade for a few hours, and when they emerged to carry on in the late afternoon, the sandwalker carried on with them.

  “I have to say, I’m not thrilled with the idea of sleeping up here while that thing is down there,” Zerai said. “For all we know, there’s a low slope up ahead where it can climb up here and eat us.”

  “I was thinking the same thing,” Lamia said. “If it’s still with us when we make camp for the night, then I’ll take care of it. One quick boulder to the head should do it.”

  When the sun set and they made their camp, the sandwalker squatted down on its sharp white legs to rest below them, and Lamia paced to the edge of the bluff to watch the monster. “It’s sad,” she said. “So many of them dead. And this one, what was it doing at that canyon? Guarding the dead? Do you think they do that? Care about the dead? Mourn their dead?”

  “Maybe. I’ve seen stranger things,” Samira said. “Why? Would you rather not kill it?”

  “If I don’t have to, no.”

  “Then we’ll keep watch,” the djinn cleric said. “It’s no danger to us. You or I could kill it easily, if we needed to. So we can wait. For now.”

  Zerai frowned but said nothing, focusing instead on Nadira’s clothes and supper. They all ate and then settled down to sleep, with Samira taking the first watch.

  Hours later, Zerai awoke to a strange sound, a distant woofing and growling, but it didn’t sound like any animal he knew. Seeing that Lamia and Nadira were soundly asleep, he crept out of the shelter and joined Samira on the edge of the overlook, gazing out across the dark silvery ripples of the desert beneath the stars.

  “I heard something,” he said quietly.

  She pointed north. “Watch there.”

  A moment later he saw a flicker of red light in the distance, followed by the soft sound of a fire’s brief growl. The horizon went dark, but the flame returned again, and then twice in quick succession, and then again shortly. The spurts were irregular, but always quick.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Whatever it is, our friend seems interested.” She nodded down at the desert floor where the sandwalker had risen up on its eight legs and begun slowly marching sideways toward the flames.

  Zerai nodded. “Good. I could do with some baked crab for breakfast.”

  “Should we follow?”

  “Probably. I don’t want any surprises in the morning.” Zerai glanced back at the shelter. “I’ll wake Lamia, and then we’ll go.”

  They shadowed the sandwalker along the top of the bluff, easily keeping pace despite the creature’s size because where it had to scramble up and down the shifting dunes, they could stroll along the high stone path. And all the while, the red flame sputtered and growled in the distance.

  Soon they were almost on top of the strange fire and could see the jets of flame erupting from a narrow ravine in the bluffs below them. As the sandwalker approached the dark mouth of the crack in the stone wall, warily snapping its massive claws, the falconer and the djinn cleric crept closer to the top of the ravine and peered down into the darkness.

  The flame spat once, twice, each time revealing the rough walls of the rocky defile in angry reds and oranges, as well as a dark lump sitting on the sandy stone floor. A figure. A person.

  Zerai exchanged a silent, questioning look with Samira, which told him nothing except that she too had no idea what they were looking at.

  The sandwalker hesitated on the crest of the nearest dune, wavering, dancing on its serrated legs, and then it darted forward, turning to ram itself sideways into the ravine and contorting one of its arms to aim its vicious claw into the gap, aiming for the figure sitting in the dark.

  A column of red flame roared out from the mouth of ravine, engulfing the giant crab utterly, and the beast staggere
d its last few steps before collapsing on the sand where its charred carapace slid down a ramp of shining glass and collided with the rock wall with a dry crunching noise. Zerai watched the display in silence, the skin of his face pulling tight as the heat scorched the air, but when the flame vanished and only starlight illuminated the desert, he saw something else. Something new. He saw his breath, curling in the air under his nose like white smoke.

  “Careful,” Samira whispered. She pushed him back from the lip of the rock, and as he took his hands off the cold stone he saw the shining crystals of ice slowly rising from the cracks in the earth, each frozen blade groaning and crackling as it grew, and each one exhaling a pale white vapor into the sultry desert air.

  Ice? Here?

  Zerai frowned.

  Fire and ice. It must be a Juranim. And whoever it is down there, they’re drawing the heat from the earth to create those fires.

  He frowned deeper, and looked off to his left where the light flurries of snow still whirled and sliced through air on the sea breeze, full of salt and fish and oil scents.

  Heat from the earth… or from the sea!

  He reached for his sword.

  This is the storm-bringer.

  This is Talia’s killer.

  Chapter 25

  Zerai stood up, sword in hand, and looked for a way to climb down to the bottom of the ravine.

  Samira stepped in front of him, hissing, “What do you think you are doing?”

  “Killing a killer.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t you see? He’s one of them, one of the renegade djinn. He’s freezing the sea. He’s the reason we lost Talia!” Zerai growled as quietly as he could. He gripped and regripped his sword as the deadly nature of the proposed duel weighed on his mind, giving him terrifying thoughts of being burned alive as he charged the djinn cleric.

  “You don’t know that,” Samira said. “We don’t know anything. Let me talk to him first.”

  Just then the man in the ravine called out, “Danya! Is that you? I can hear you. Come down. I miss you. Please, come down!”

  The man’s voice shook as he pleaded with the night sky, and Zerai’s resolve grew both sharper and yet more brittle. Here was proof that the man was a djinn in league with the woman who attacked Shivala, and yet he didn’t sound like a diabolical monster. He sounded sad, and lonely.

  “Danya!” he cried.

  Zerai grimaced. The smell of burnt crab meat slowly filled his nostrils, threatening to choke him. He blasted the air from his nose. “Are you sure you can handle him alone? These aren’t normal djinn, or normal clerics.”

  “Thank you for the reminder. I’ll be fine.” She turned and dashed away in a blur of shadows and dust, sending a wave of shimmering frost into the air behind her.

  Zerai hesitated a moment, then put away his sword and began gathering rocks, the heaviest he could lift, and placed them in a row along the edge of the top of the ravine, all ready to be pushed over the brink at a moment’s notice. But then he heard voices echoing up from below, and he flattened himself on the ground to listen.

  “…name is Samira Nerash,” she was saying. “Who are you?”

  “Kadir,” he said warily. “I don’t know you.”

  “Of course not. I’ve only just arrived,” she said cryptically.

  His head jerked sharply to the side. “Where did you come from? Did Danya send you? Is she okay? Is she coming?”

  “She was delayed. Near Shivala.”

  “Ugh!” The djinn called Kadir threw up his hands and grabbed his short black hair, which was spiked with flashes of coppery red and gold. “Shivala! She never listens! We’re done with Shivala. What about that is so hard for her to understand?”

  The following silence seemed to be less rhetorical, as though he actually wanted Samira to tell him the answer, so after a moment she said, “I think she’s just passionate about her… work.”

  “Obviously!” He folded his arms and sat down on a rock, and began violently bouncing his knee.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  “Just tired. And hot. And tired.” He shivered and a small jet of flame burst upward from his body, the incandescent cloud rolling in upon itself as it rose into the air and faded into smoke.

  Zerai jerked back from the ravine as the smoke passed, carrying a scent of burnt flint and salt with it.

  “How long have you been here?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. Days. Weeks. Forever.” A second fireball erupted from him and spun upwards as it faded to cinders and smoke. The force of the blast shoved the man forward for a moment.

  Zerai frowned.

  It’s coming from his back. And I don’t think he’s doing it on purpose.

  “Are you all right?” Samira asked calmly. “You seem to be having a little… trouble.”

  “I’m fine,” he snapped as he recrossed his arms over his belly and began rocking slightly.

  “I see that.” She stood in the center of the ravine, several long paces away from the man, her hands folded behind her back. “Why are you so tired?”

  “Why do you think? Keeping the Sapphire Sea frozen, day and night, no sleep for weeks, who wouldn’t be tired? It was worse when I had to actually stand in the water. Moving in here helped a little. But still, it’s been weeks now…” He rubbed his eyes as yet another burning cloud burst from his back.

  “Of course. Forgive me.”

  “Did he send you to help?” Kadir looked up at her. “To help me? To… relieve me?”

  “Yes, he did,” she said, nodding. “He said you’ve done excellent work.”

  Zerai raised an eyebrow.

  She’s very good at lying. Very smooth. And who is this “he” they’re talking about? Some djinn commander? Maybe even Jevad?

  “Oh, finally!” Kadir stopped jittering his knee and swaying on his seat as he wiped both hands across his face and leaned against the rock wall beside him. “When? Now?”

  “Yes, if you’re ready,” she said. “You can stop now. I’ll take over from here.”

  The djinn man shuddered as he closed his eyes and exhaled, slumping against the wall of the ravine. “Oh, yes. Oh, finally.”

  Zerai glanced to his left, as though he might see some change in the dark storms over the distant water, or feel some change in the air, but the cool sea wind continued to carry its salt scent and flurries of silvery frost.

  Kadir leaned forward and convulsed in a violent fit of coughing and hacking, and when the fit passed he leaned back again with starlight shining on his sweating face as he gasped for air. He groaned like a man about to give birth, and two streams of red fire blazed from his back for a long moment.

  Samira stepped back. “I thought you stopped freezing the sea. Why are you still burning up?”

  “My ascension is close,” Kadir wheezed. “So close now. Danya’s too. We’re nearly ready. Ready to become more like him.”

  Zerai grabbed the nearest of his rocks, ready to push it over the brink.

  Ascend? Oh shit. What does that mean? Are they all turning into angels? Is that what happens when you steal the soul of an angel? And if it is… how many of these angel-djinn could there be?

  Kadir cried out again, convulsing and groaning as Samira took another step back and risked a quick look up at Zerai. But their attention flew back to the anguished djinn as twin columns of red fire poured out of his back, rising and flaring in the narrow confines of the ravine, growling and purring as a thousand burning tongues tasted the night air.

  Shit, it’s happening now!

  Zerai shoved the largest of his stones over the edge of the cliff and watched it plummet straight down onto the djinn’s neck, but it burst into flames, vanishing in a cloud of cinders and ash before it struck the man’s flesh.

  “Kadir!” Samira called out. “Can you hear me?”

  The man went on groaning and wailing as he clutched his head and rocked back and forth, smacking his bare hands against the stone walls where wa
ves of flame and frost raced up the sides of the ravine.

  “Samira! Get back!” Zerai waved her off as he kicked a second stone off the ledge, only to see it incinerated in midair above the djinn’s head. The falconer squinted. He could see Kadir’s head clearly, and the short black hair streaked with bright copper was now waving around his shoulders, and it was far more copper than black now. Zerai kicked more and more stones into the ravine, though each one was smaller than the last, and each one vanished in a burst of flame and smoke before striking Kadir. “Samira!”

  The djinn cleric nodded up at him and raised her hands in a defiant gesture that sent massive stone arms flying out of the stone walls toward the djinn. One by one, her stone lances smashed against Kadir’s raised arms, and while they glowed with an unnatural heat, they did not shatter. Second by second, more and more spears of rock shot out of the walls and crashed down on the wailing djinn, pinning his arms against the walls and burying his legs in the ground.

  “You lied to me,” he muttered.

  Samira relented as Kadir sagged in his new earthen shackles, and she called out, “Where is Ramashad? Why did you attack Shivala and why are you freezing the sea?”

  Kadir slumped a bit lower, and then slowly raised his head.

  Samira stepped back.

  The djinn’s flaming hair hung in long red ribbons around his shoulders, and he spoke with a new voice, a strong young tenor. “Oh my. Look what you’ve done. Poor little magi. Poor little cleric. So small, so weak. But you won’t be weak for long. Come here. Come closer, little djinn girl. Let me taste you, and I will let you taste true power. Nothing so childish as the gifts of Tevad. Come here. Take my hand and share in immortality, in divinity!”

  Samira regarded him with cruel, narrow eyes. But she said nothing, and did nothing.

  Zerai gripped his sword and looked around for a stone large enough to kill a small angel, but there were none at hand. And then he looked back at the distant shadow of the shelter where Lamia and Nadira were waiting for him. He stepped back from the ravine. “Samira! Kill him! Now!”

  The cleric reached out into the empty air and summoned the ground to rise around the djinn’s body, encasing him bit by bit in layers of earth and stone. The ravine itself groaned and keened, rumbling and shaking as more and more of the rough red rock rose up, pressed in, and crushed down, until all that remained of the djinn called Kadir was a man’s head that shone like fire and spoke with the voice of a teasing lover.