“What should we tell them?” he asked.
“Truth, or kindness?”
He hesitated and looked up at the stars again. “I think kindness for now. Veneka is a little protective of me. The truth can wait.”
“All right.” She kissed him, and they went inside.
“There you are!” Veneka looked up and smiled. “You missed supper. I saved you a bowl. Both of you. I was not sure…”
Azrael took the bowl. “I don’t need to, but I do like to. Thank you.”
“Thank you.” Iyasu took his and began to eat with an appetite he hadn’t noticed until that moment. The lamb was cold but still wonderfully tender, and the spices more than made up for the lack of heat in the dish.
He was just finishing up when the noise outside drew his attention. He glanced over his shoulder at the tent’s entrance, which was closed. “Some men are coming. With a woman. Something’s wrong.”
“They found Petra.” Zerai stood up and pushed out through the tent flap.
Iyasu frowned at Azrael. “It doesn’t sound like Petra.”
They joined the falconer outside and watched the armed men approach with the woman between them. She was awkwardly dressed in a robe that hung all askew about her shoulders, and she clutched the loose fabric to her belly to hold it taut against her frame. A lumpy bag hung over her shoulder, and thick curling brown hair obscured half her face.
“It’s not Petra,” Zerai muttered. “But she does look familiar, doesn’t she?”
Iyasu caught a flash of the woman’s face between the moonlight and a flickering torch, and he froze. “Oh Arrah.”
Veneka look at him. “What? Who is it?”
“It’s her. It’s Talia.”
Everyone looked again and saw the stranger more clearly as she came near their tents.
“Talia?” Veneka called out. “Is that you?”
The woman yanked her elbow away from one of the armed men, and she nearly fell to all fours, but she stumbled upright and called out, “I’m not Talia, I am Bashir! My name is Hamza Bashir!”
Chapter 22
Veneka
For the first moment, Veneka did nothing. She stared at the woman who had been nothing more than bones and ash two days ago, and was now standing right in front of her, speaking in an unfamiliar woman’s voice, staring in confusion as she clutched her clothes, Bashir’s clothes, around her small body.
The moment passed.
Veneka strode forward and put her arms around Talia’s shoulders and guided the unsteady woman into the nearest tent, the tent where Edris and Petra should have been but now stood empty. She sat Talia down on the bed of spare blankets and quickly glanced over her exposed arms and feet and face for any signs of harm, and found none.
“Talia?”
“I’m Hamza,” she said.
“Hamza? I see. You never told us your given name before.” Veneka swallowed and glanced up at Zerai and Iyasu standing in the entrance, and then back at the woman. “Hamza? Are you all right? Are you in pain?”
“Yes.” She seemed to wince at the sound of her own voice. “My back and legs ache, and I can’t quite balance when I walk.”
Veneka touched the woman’s hand and let Raziel’s strength soothe the woman’s pains. “All right, everything is all right now. You are safe here. This place is Jerinoba. Tell me, do you recognize me?”
“Of course I do,” she snapped. “I’m not stupid, I’m not crazy.” She rubbed her forehead.
“All right, all right.” Veneka sat down a bit more comfortably and waved the men inside to sit behind her. “Can you just start at the beginning and tell us what happened?”
“I’m thirsty,” she rasped. “Is there water?”
“Zerai, can you find us some water and food, please?”
The falconer was on his feet and outside in an instant. He returned a minute later with a small jug of water and a bowl of cold meat, fruit, and chickpeas. Talia drank the jug dry and then began eating from the bowl in small, delicate bites.
“Whenever you are ready,” Veneka said gently.
The woman frowned as she said, “When I left you at the wall, I meant to die. I wanted to find a place, a quiet place, in the dark, away from all this madness, where I could just put my arms around my love and let starvation take us both together. It’s a painless death, starving. So I found a narrow ravine not far from the wall, and there I found a cave, not more than a crack in the ground but large enough for us to lie together, out of the sun.”
Veneka waited for her to continue.
“But after an hour I realized that Talia would die long before I did. She hadn’t eaten at all, whereas I am a djinn and require much less food. And I couldn’t stand the thought of lying there and hearing her final breath, and then having to go on lying there, hour after hour, day after day, holding her cold body, waiting for my own end. So I went into my bag and found something to help me sleep. I wanted to fall asleep with her in my arms, like we used to do. And I wanted to stay asleep.”
“And then?”
“Something went wrong.”
“How, exactly?” Iyasu asked.
Veneka silenced him with a look.
“I ate the herbs and lay down to sleep,” the woman said. “I wrapped my arms around Talia, and kissed her, and closed my eyes. After that, I don’t know how long I slept. I didn’t dream. But then I awoke. I was very cold, and it was very dark, but after a few moments my eyes adjusted and I saw a face. Not Talia’s face. My own face. My own arms were bound around me like dead snakes, and I pushed them away, and crawled out of the cave. I was gasping for breath. It was so hard to move, my arms felt like stone, and my mouth felt like sand. And then I stood in the ravine and saw the sky darkening overhead. I had slept all day and night was falling, but there was light enough to see. I saw myself, my body… Talia’s body…”
Veneka nodded slowly. “And then?”
“I was cold, so I took my clothes, my old clothes, and tried to wear them, but they were too big, and my hands were so clumsy.” She looked down at herself in faint confusion, but no great concern. “And then I started walking. When I climbed out of the ravine I saw the wall again, so I turned away from it and walked the other way, west, the way you had gone, I suppose. And then they found me. Those men. I told them your names, and they brought me to you.”
Veneka nodded again, even slower than before. “All right. Iyasu, can you bring Azrael in here please?”
As the seer left, the stranger recoiled into her loose clothing. “Why? What do we need with her?”
“We need… help. I need help to understand this, because this… this should not be possible.”
“My soul is in Talia’s body,” the woman said. “What else is there to understand?”
“I know what happened,” Veneka said calmly. “But we need to know how, and why, and what this means.”
Iyasu and Azrael came inside and the angel gazed at the newcomer. “Hello.”
Veneka quickly explained what had happened, but the angel’s only response was to nod thoughtfully in silence.
“Do you know how this happened?” Iyasu asked.
“No.” Azrael continued to stare at Talia. “I do remember the moment that Hamza Bashir died earlier this afternoon. But that was my only part in this. Mine is to cut, not to bind.”
“And you do not know how this could have happened?” Veneka asked.
“No.”
“Has anything like this ever happened before?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
Veneka sighed and turned back to the woman. “How do you feel now?”
“The same,” she said. “Aching. Heavy. Almost dizzy.”
“Well, you have a human body now. It is heavier and slower than your old body. And it is a woman’s body, so it is built a little differently.”
The woman sat very still, staring down at her hands. “Why did this happen? Why aren’t I dead?”
“I do not know.” Instinctively, Veneka rea
ched out and held her hand. “But I do not think something like this can happen on its own, by accident. If it could, I imagine it would have happened before and we would all know about it. So I think it is safe to say this happened for a purpose.”
“What purpose?”
“To preserve some part of your life? To preserve some part of Talia’s life? Perhaps in time, you will discover that purpose for yourself.”
“So I have to live like this.”
“No one can make you do anything,” Veneka said. “You could kill yourself again, but I hope you will not do that.”
The woman pressed her hands to her chest, and neck, and cheek. “I can’t kill Talia,” she whispered.
“Good.” Veneka smiled.
“But where will I go? I can’t go back to Odashena. Humans are forbidden, and I’m… I’m human now.”
“What about Lashad? You said Talia was from Lashad.”
“She died forty years ago. Her family is dead, and I don’t know anyone there. What would I even do with myself?”
“You still remember everything? Your own life, your own work?”
She nodded.
“Then you could work as an herbalist. You may not want to call yourself an alchemist anymore,” Veneka said with a kind smile. “Some people are a little uncomfortable with that word.”
“I could do that.” The woman looked up slowly. “I can’t call myself Hamza though, can I?”
“You can call yourself anything you like. But this is a new life for you. A new name might help. You could call yourself Talia Bashir.”
She nodded. “Maybe.”
The woman fell silent, contemplating her fingers, hunched down and ignoring everyone around her.
“Well, we will let you rest.” Veneka stood up slowly. “But we are right next door if you need us. All right?”
The woman nodded.
Veneka saw the lantern by the doorway and she moved it farther into the tent so no one would knock it over by accident. Iyasu grabbed her arm and she looked at him. “What?”
“The light. Move it again.” The seer took a few steps away, his gaze fixed on Talia.
Veneka moved the lantern back again, and saw the young man’s eyes go wide. “Are you all right?”
Iyasu nodded and strode out of the tent past them. Veneka set the lantern down by Talia and stepped outside with Zerai where they followed Iyasu and Azrael back into their own tent.
“Well, that’s a miracle, right? An actual miracle?” Zerai asked as they went inside. “Souls jumping bodies. There’s no explaining that, is there? That right there is the actual hand of God messing about with the world, right there, right in front of us, isn’t it?”
“Perhaps we should not call it messing about,” Veneka said as she turned to Iyasu. “Now, what was that about the light just now?”
Iyasu covered his mouth and looked away, and looked back at her again. “I saw it. I’m sure I saw it. It’s just… it’s too much. I don’t know…”
“Iyasu, spit it out,” Zerai said. “What did you see?”
“A soul.”
“Right, Hamza’s soul inside Talia’s body. Djinn inside human. What’s wrong, does it look strange?”
“No, no, not that.” The youth shoved his hands up into his hair and flashed a nervous grin. “It’s the other one. The other soul.”
“You mean Talia’s soul? She’s in there too?”
“No, no, not Talia.” He shook his head emphatically. “The other soul’s not around her head. It’s around her…” He motioned at his belly.
Veneka stared at him. “Are you serious? Are you sure?”
“Very.”
Veneka stared at him, and then at Zerai. “So, Hamza is now a human woman pregnant with his own djinn child that he conceived with her over forty years ago… and he does not know it yet?”
Zerai smiled and shook his head. “Sure. Why not?”
“This is not funny.”
“It’s a little funny. Listen, if you don’t laugh at these things sometimes, they’ll drive you crazy.” He sat down on his blanket, still grinning and shaking his head.
“We have to tell him,” she said to Iyasu. “Soon. Or he will figure it out on his own, eventually.”
The young seer nodded. “You’re right. Just not now. He’s in shock. I mean, she. Is he a she now? I don’t know what the right words are. Whatever the words are, we need to help her just deal with being alive like this right now, and we’ll get to the pregnancy when she seems ready for it.”
Veneka rubbed her eyes. “It is another hybrid child. Half human, half djinn. Does that mean she will lose the baby, just as Petra did?”
“Maybe.” Iyasu’s face darkened and he intertwined his fingers with Azrael’s. “But maybe not. A human mother with a djinn soul, resurrected by a holy cleric of Raziel. We already have one miracle sitting in that tent. Why not two?”
“But… what if you’re right and she has the baby, and everything’s fine?” Zerai asked. “I mean, what are the odds of this miracle happening on the same day that Petra loses her child?”
Iyasu’s eyes widened. “You’re not seriously thinking…?”
Zerai looked up. “Thinking what? That almighty God, creator of the entire universe, is currently engaged in a private rivalry with Petra Nerash over who can make the first djinn-human child?”
Veneka blinked. “Well, I would not say it in that way, but…”
They all looked at Azrael, and the angel shook her head. “I have no idea how or why the Almighty does anything. I never served in heaven, only on earth.”
Zerai shrugged. “Well, we can always ask Raziel when we get home. He seems to know these sorts of things. He won’t give us a straight answer, but he’ll say something.”
Veneka glanced over and saw that Iyasu was holding Azrael’s fingers. She tried not to let her thoughts wrinkle her forehead too much.
Really? With an angel? Is that… allowed? I guess they would know. But still…
“Well, putting the baby aside for a moment, are we going to talk about our other problem, or can it wait until morning?” Zerai looked around.
“Darius.” Veneka rubbed her eyes. “All I know is that tomorrow I will sit in the market and heal everyone in this city who needs me. I cannot think about Darius right now.”
“Fair enough. It can probably wait until morning,” Iyasu said. “Samira’s wall should hold at least that long.”
“Samira.” Veneka blinked. “I nearly forgot.”
“What?” Zerai frowned.
“Samira said something today, before she went looking for Petra. She told me to heal Faris.”
“What? Why?” Iyasu asked. “He’s not sick, is he?”
“No, but she told me about his…” Veneka paused. If Iyasu didn’t know already, then maybe Faris didn’t want him to know. And if Iyasu hadn’t noticed on his own, then it might pain him to know that he had overlooked the prince’s suffering. “She told me it might help him. I just needed to remind myself to do it tomorrow. That is all.”
There was a quiet awkwardness as Veneka and Zerai settled down on their side of the tent and then watched Iyasu and Azrael settle down together opposite them.
Zerai whispered in her ear, “They seem… close.”
“I know.”
“Should I ask him about it tomorrow?”
“No. It is not our business.”
“I know it’s not, but I’m a little worried about him.”
“And I am very worried about him. But if they need each other, and if they are not hurting each other, then I will not say anything.”
“All right.”
He kissed her neck and she rolled over to kiss his lips. He wrapped his arms around her belly and she felt him nestling down to sleep. She pressed close to him, but did not close her eyes. She tried to imagine what Bashir had experienced that day, what he had felt, and what he was feeling now.
She. Bashir is a she now.
She wondered if he would fi
nd a way to live his new life, to accept his new body, and even to learn to be a mother.
Her life, her body. Words matter. They can help. Or hurt. I have to remember the right words. I suppose it will not be too hard, since he looks and sounds nothing like himself anymore.
She looks…
She sighed.
Probably no one in all the world, in all of history has any idea what she is about to go through.
Veneka closed her eyes, and was about to wonder what it would feel like to wake up in Zerai’s body when she slipped away.
The nightmare didn’t waste time establishing a familiar place or the faces of her loved ones. There was no moment reliving some pleasant memory. It began with the screaming, the deafening and uncontrollable screaming pouring out of her whole body as she vomited out the raging spirit of the dead Raziel from her aching, burning mouth.
Dimly, she knew she was standing on an open plain where the grasses leaned over broad puddles of freshly fallen rain. An iron sky glared down with thunderous rumblings, and herds of panicked impalas, zebras, and wildebeests stampeded over the hills in the distance. And all around her, hundreds of slavering ghuls charged toward her.
She saw Iyasu, Zerai, and the other clerics standing all around her. She saw the fear on their faces as the demons raged closer and closer, bile dripping from their filthy fangs and blood weeping from their golden eyes. But she couldn’t move. She stood ankle deep in a cold pool of rainwater, screaming and aching, as the soul of Raziel clawed its way up and out of her body to hover in the air above her, curling and writhing like a serpent made of pure light.
But the serpent did not strike.
The ghuls poured over the last little rise and swept across the plain, pouncing on the clerics one by one, smashing the defenseless men and women to the ground. The demons sank their fangs and claws into their victims, and tore them apart, and began to feed even as their food continue to wail and scream and crawl through the blood-soaked grass.
Still transfixed with the white spirit standing in her open, screaming mouth, she watched through the corner of her eye as Zerai’s chest was torn open, and he fell.
Suddenly it was dark. The plain was gone, and the hungry demons vanished along with the dying clerics. The screams stopped, hers and everyone else’s. The dark water lapped at the stones at her feet, and the moon and stars floated silently on the little waves of the lake.
War of the Magi: Azrael's Wrath (Book 2) Page 25
