He closed his eyes and thought of Kaleb and Yusuf, and all the other boys he had lived with in the hills of Tigara, running from the soldiers, running from the demons. He thought of the nights when he had seen each of them die.
It was always just one more night. One more run. Just like any other. Except that night, someone wouldn’t make it back.
He looked at Veneka, at the stern focus in her eyes as she watched the djinn, at the lively way her hair dancing in the night wind.
Why did I let you come?
“What will you do?” Veneka asked the alchemist.
Zerai looked up and saw Bashir holding two needles between his fingers. “Sedate her?”
The alchemist nodded, and then dashed away into the darkness faster than the falconer could follow in the deep shadows. Samira blurred away after him like a gust of wind, and Zerai bolted after them both, running with all his heart and still feeling as heavy and slow as a brick as he watched the djinn flash into the distance.
He heard footsteps pounding behind him, and he nearly yelled for them to stay back and wait, but he didn’t.
If Tanzir gets her hands on me again, I’ll probably need Veneka. Again.
At each intersection or turn, Zerai paused to look in every direction because he had long since lost sight of the djinn and the Daraji woman. He studied the ground for tracks, but the city streets were mostly free of sand and dirt, and the shadows lay thick all around him. But each time Iyasu would yell from behind him, “Left!” or “Straight!” and he would run on, wishing he had the seer’s eyes.
And then he made a sharp right turn and found them.
Ayen Tanzir stood at the foot of an ancient stone bridge with her arm raised to shield herself. Embedded in the skin and leather wrappings on her arm gleamed no less than eight long needles, but there was no sign of sickness or exhaustion in her golden eyes. A trail of cracked and malformed paving stones led from her feet back down the road, and a thin cloud of dust was just beginning to settle around her.
Samira Nerash stood a few paces away at the side of the road, looking no more tired from the chase and the fight than Tanzir. The wind played through her dark crimson robes.
And Bashir stood farther back with a half dozen needles clutched in each hand. The tall, gaunt djinn hunched at the edges of the shadows, his dark eyes fixed on his prey.
“All right, everyone just stop!” Zerai shouted, his voice echoing down the empty city streets. “Just stop for a minute, and listen. We’re not enemies, and we don’t have to be enemies. Ayen Tanzir, we were sent here to find you because your attacks on the Maqari soldiers are going to cause a war, and we don’t want that. Do you?”
“No.” She stood tall and defiant, but she spoke with a grim sort of apathy, as though she didn’t expect anyone to hear her, or to care what she said.
“Good. That’s good.” Zerai smiled nervously. He wanted to get closer to her, to look into her eyes, to make some sort of connection that would keep things civil, but he didn’t dare take another step toward her. Behind him, he heard Iyasu and Veneka arrive in the street. “So maybe my friends here can put down their stones and their needles, and we can all just talk about this. The soldiers, the fighting, all of it. Maybe we can figure out a way to work together so everyone wins.”
“That is not our mandate.” Samira looked at him sharply. “The Holy One wants—”
“Raziel wants to save lives, and so do I, so I’m trying to save lives here,” Zerai barked at her, and then he looked up at the Daraji woman again. “Can we just sit and talk, please?”
The hooded woman slowly put her hand to her head and grimaced, her eyes squeezed tightly shut for a long moment. “The killing doesn’t stop. It can’t stop. All the pointless suffering and dying, the innocent, the children, the frail, the sick, the old…”
“Well, that’s why we’re here,” Zerai said gently. “To stop it.”
“It can’t stop. It never stops.” She put her hand down and turned her back to him. “Stop following me.” And she strode swiftly into the darkness.
Samira frowned at Zerai. “If you are quite finished, Bashir and I will proceed.”
“No!” Iyasu held out his hand to stay her. “No, let her go.”
“Absolutely not.” Samira shook her head.
Iyasu took a slow breath. “All right then. Bashir, you follow her. But only follow her, and watch her. Don’t try to hurt her. Leave us a trail, and we’ll follow you, and we’ll try something different in the morning.”
Bashir looked at Samira. She nodded, and he dashed away into the shadows.
Zerai nodded and clapped Iyasu on the shoulder. “Good thinking. Maybe with a good night’s sleep, we can figure out how to beat this cleric.”
“Oh, she’s definitely not a cleric,” the seer said softly.
Zerai stared at him. “Then what is she?”
Iyasu swallowed and nodded slowly to himself. “I think she’s an angel.”
Chapter 9
Veneka
“An angel?” Veneka stared at him. “Are you sure?”
“I’m not sure, but I’m fairly certain.” Iyasu lightly scratched the back of his right hand. “It’s nothing specific. It’s just a sense that I get from her, from the way she spoke just now. It reminded me of the way Arrah and Raziel speak, focused very much on the moment, and yet somehow outside of time. Powerful and powerless at the same time.”
“But she looks like a woman.” Veneka frowned, realizing a moment too late how pointless her observation was. “I realize that angels look different from one another, but there was nothing about her that did not appear human, not to me, anyway.”
“No, I didn’t see anything either,” the seer said. “Zerai’s right though. Let’s sleep on it and see what happens in the morning. Maybe Bashir will see some sign that will help us sort this out.”
“Yes. And besides.” Veneka glanced around. “We left Petra back at the camp.”
The group turned and headed back through the city streets toward the Vaari pavilion at the northern edge of Sabah. The healer looked back at Samira, who remained very still in the middle of the damaged road. She called to her fellow cleric, “Let her go. We will find her again in the morning.”
“I don’t need to sleep,” the djinn woman said. “I should go with Bashir. If not to capture her, then at least to study her myself.”
“There is at least one reason why you should not, besides your sister,” Veneka said. “I doubt you wish the people of Sabah to see their buildings and roads torn apart, or a forest of stone hands rising up from the ground. Such things would invite questions, too many questions, I think.”
Samira sighed and nodded. All around her, the cracked stones and eruptions and rubble gently melted back down into the original pattern of interlocking bricks and flagstones. Satisfied that all traces of the confrontation had been erased, Veneka walked beside the cleric and oversaw the other repairs along the way until they reached the Vaari camp.
In the carpeted pavilion, they found the shocked and grief-stricken artisans and pilgrims slowly filtering out into the night in search of places to sleep. Petra sat near the fires with the one-armed Vaari singer, and Veneka couldn’t help but inhale sharply when he leaned closer to the light and revealed the terrible scars on the side of his face that had claimed his eye, ear, and scalp.
She waved Zerai on to go sit without her, and he glanced once at the singer before nodding at her and walking away with Iyasu. Veneka sat down by the singer on the opposite side from Petra, which earned her a silent glare from the djinn woman, which the healer ignored.
“Good evening.” Veneka gazed into the fire and focused on the waves of heat rolling across her face and hands. “Your singing tonight was very beautiful, although I did not understand the words.”
“The words don’t matter much.” The singer grinned at the fire. “I was just telling your lovely friend here that it’s a song about a girl I used to know.”
“Is it? What happene
d to her?”
“I don’t know, really. Apparently, she prefers men with more eyes and hands than I could offer her.”
Veneka frowned. “I am sorry.”
“I’m not.” He shrugged. “The truth stings for a moment, but a lie can burn for years.”
“I suppose.” She paused. She had broached this subject dozens of times with people who had all manners of injuries and illnesses, but always after a lengthy explanation of who she was, where she came from, and what she could do.
I wonder if I could avoid all that, and just tell him.
“If God offered you your arm and eye back, would you take it?” she asked softly, still gazing into the fire.
The singer laughed. “I don’t know. I suppose I should say yes.”
“You suppose?”
“Well, if it doesn’t work out, I can always find another leopard to tear them off again.”
Veneka winced, but it was only to keep herself from smiling.
I wish more of the people who needed me were as happy as him.
“But, sadly, God hasn’t made me any offers lately.” He paused, and then turned slightly toward her, again to the annoyance of Petra. “You’re not God, are you?”
Veneka smiled. “No.”
“Good.” He returned his gaze to the fire. “I’d hate to think that I was being so glib to someone who made a whole universe. That deserves a bit more respect, a bit more decorum, don’t you think?”
“Perhaps.”
“But it’s all right, since you’re not God.”
“No, I am not God.” She paused. “But I am one of his clerics.”
“Really? Which one?” He laughed quietly to himself. “A fire-starter? A stone-bender?”
“A Razielim. A healer.”
The singer’s smiled faded. “Really?”
“Really.”
“So… what can you heal?”
“Anything. As long as a person is alive, I can heal anything. Any sickness. Any injury.”
“Like a missing eye?”
“Or a missing arm.” She pointed out Iyasu to him. “Just today my friend lost his hand. I gave it back to him a few moments later.”
“Did you really?” The singer hunched down a bit more, tugging his pale blue cloak a little tighter around his left shoulder.
“I can do the same for you, if you wish it.”
“And what will this generous offer cost me?”
“Nothing, nothing at all.” She looked up sharply, wide-eyed and embarrassed. “I am sorry, I should have explained. Usually I do explain. There is a speech I give, and I… Never mind that. All you would need to do is let me touch you for a few moments. It would be painful, but only until the wounds are gone. And then it would be over, and I would leave. There is nothing more to it, I promise you.”
He looked at her for a long moment, his face stern and lined and tense, but then he smiled again and looked back over at Petra. “Thank you for the kind offer, but I think I will decline. After all if I had two hands my friends would expect me to do more work around here, and if I had no scars then the ladies wouldn’t be so moved to take pity on me.”
Petra smiled at him, and then leaned over to flash a triumphant look at the healer.
“Are you certain? Are you truly certain?” Veneka asked. “It really would only take a few moments, and then you would be whole again, for the rest of your life.”
“Are you saying I’m not whole now?” He turned back to her. “My corpse may not turn out as pretty as yours, but my life is rather wonderful by most standards, I think. I certainly haven’t met anyone lately that I would rather trade places with, and I’ve met quite a few people.”
“I am sorry, I did not…”
He laughed. “No, I should be sorry. I like making people feel uncomfortable. Or should I say, more uncomfortable.”
“Oh.” She looked away to hide her frown.
“But… you really could give me a new arm and a new eye, just like that?”
“Yes, I could.”
“Hm.”
She looked back at him, but he seemed lost in thought as he gazed into the fire.
“If you want it, you should get it,” Petra said. “But if you don’t, you should stop talking to her about it, and just let it go.”
The singer smiled a little. “You’re right.” He glanced shyly at Veneka and said, “Thank you again for the kind offer, but I won’t be needing your services this evening. She, on the other hand, does appear to be in need of mine.”
And with a wolfish grin, he turned away to caress Petra’s cheek, and kiss her deeply and aggressively with his tongue as his hand traveled down her neck to her breast, where it too began its own aggressive explorations.
Veneka paused, then stood and walked out of the pavilion and quickly found Zerai and the others making their own small camp beside the Vaari. She lay down beside Zerai and he rolled over to wrap his arm around her belly and kiss the back of her neck. A moment later she felt his erection prodding her thigh, but he made no attempt to remove her clothing or press against her, and eventually the intruder went away, leaving them to sleep in the warmth of each others’ arms. She tried not to think about the singer or his scars, or his words.
The morning came too soon and she struggled to wake up and begin the day.
“Everything all right?” Zerai asked as he sat up beside her. “You were talking in your sleep.”
“Oh? What did I say?”
“I don’t know, I didn’t understand any of it. I think you were speaking Dzenbayan again.”
“Oh.”
He shrugged. “You look tired.”
“I am.”
They ate a light breakfast of kissra bread, blackened fish, and cinnamon tea with Samira Nerash hovering over them like a vulture.
“You should eat,” Veneka said.
“I’m not hungry.”
“We are about to cross into a war zone. We might not have the luxury of a simple meal for a few days,” the healer pointed out.
“I’m not hungry.”
Veneka let it go.
I suppose if I am going to learn about the djinn, or about djinn clerics, it will not be on this trip or from these djinn. Such a waste.
“So, should we head out and try to pick up Bashir’s trail?” Zerai asked. “I have no idea what sort of trail he might leave for us. I guess I probably should have worked something out with him last night before we sent him off.”
“There’s no need,” Samira said. “I know where he and the Tanzir woman are.”
“What? How?” Veneka asked.
“Bashir came back twice last night to tell me what she was doing,” Samira said. “The second time was just an hour ago. The woman is resting in a small house along the northern road, near a well beneath a dead baobab tree.”
Iyasu nodded and smiled a little. “Well, that makes things easier.”
“Why are you smiling?” Samira turned to him. “I said the woman is resting. If she were truly an angel, as you said, she would not need to rest at all.”
“Maybe.” Iyasu stood up and shouldered his bag. “Let’s go find out.”
Samira led the way and the humans hurried after her. They skirted the northern edge of the city, seeing only a few dozen people on the road heading out to the day’s work. Veneka found herself staring at a young woman carrying a small child in a sling wrapped over her shoulders and back. The child slept with her fat cheek on her mother’s skin, her drool glistening on her fat lips, her thin tufts of black hair shivering in the cool morning breeze.
He wants it so much. Just like everyone else. Everyone wants one, or more than one. But then, most people had parents, they had childhoods, they know what it is supposed to be like.
What do Zerai and I know? How to kill monsters? How to stay silent when your best friend is being set on fire right in front of you?
A lump rose in her throat and she squeezed her eyes shut for a long moment.
They turned away from the cit
y and headed across the northern fields with the glittering waves of the Leyen following them on their right side.
“This house we are going to.” Veneka squinted into the pale yellow glare of the rising sun. “Did Bashir say anything else about it? Are there other people there? Is it near anything?”
“He didn’t say.” Samira glanced back at her. “Are you worried about other people being hurt?”
“Yes.”
When am I not worried about other people getting hurt?
“Iyasu.” Veneka walked a little closer to the young seer. “I hope you can unravel this quickly, with your sharp eyes and honeyed words.”
“I’ll try,” he said seriously. “I don’t want you to have to put Zerai back together again either.”
She smiled, but then saw him wiggling the fingers of his right hand. “Are you all right? Your hand?”
“It’s fine.”
It clearly wasn’t fine at all, but she didn’t know what to say, and even if she did, she didn’t want to have that conversation in front of everyone.
After an hour of hurried walking, with the sun steadily rising on their right and the boat traffic steadily rising on the river and the smell of elephant dung steadily rising on the road, they saw a lone baobab standing in the distance.
“Sort of strange to see one all alone like that,” Zerai said.
“How do you mean?” Everyone turned to see the one-eyed Vaari singer standing behind them. He winked at Veneka as he sauntered up the road through their midst. “Baobab trees always stand alone.”
“Not in Tigara.” Zerai raised an eyebrow. “There’s a whole forest of them.”
“A baobab forest?” The singer grinned. “I’d like to see that someday.”
“Were you following us?” Veneka asked.
“I was following her.” The singer nodded at Petra as he walked up to her and kissed her. “I woke up all alone and I just couldn’t quite forget about her. So I thought I might stay a little longer, just until I do forget about her, of course.”
Petra smirked. “Of course.”
War of the Magi: Azrael's Wrath (Book 2) Page 10
