Aetherium (Omnibus Edition)

by Joseph Robert Lewis

  Nah, I’m not that drunk.

  He leaned forward and smashed his fist through the closer man’s jaw, sending him to a quiet oblivion. The second man stared down at his unconscious opponent in confusion, and then looked up at the major just in time to get a knee in the chest. Syfax slipped out of his chair, shocked at how fluidly the entire building seemed to be sliding to his left, but when he focused on the gasping man in front of him, the tilting room disappeared. Syfax grabbed the man’s shirt and smashed his forehead through the other man’s nose. Done properly, there should have been very little pain. He did it sloppily, yet came away as clear as bell. The other man collapsed, dead to the world.

  Syfax lurched up on his rubbery legs and noticed Nicola tugging insistently on his sleeve. He wrenched his arm away. “What? What? What? Get off me, lady. It’s over.”

  Nicola pointed across the room. “I’m not sure that it is, major.”

  Syfax followed her pointing finger. Oh, right. The third guy.

  The third man wasn’t as obviously drunk as the first two, which was probably why he had the good sense to the let the other two beat each other bloody so he could claim the evening’s prize. The prize in question was standing on a chair with one boot planted on a table, her scarred arms crossed under her breasts, a cruel smile on her wide black lips. Seeing her there, proudly watching her suitors fight like mad dogs just to lick her boots, Syfax found that she wasn’t nearly as ugly as she had been a short while. He didn’t even mind that she only had one eye or the scars around the patch.

  He was still admiring her leg mounted on the table top when the third man plowed into his belly and slammed him against the wall. The room whirled and crashed onto its side and Syfax felt something cool and wet sloshing in the back of his throat, but when his skull bounced off the wood panel of the wall, everything snapped back into focus. He swallowed the remains of his liquid supper and brought both fists down on the man still trying to crush him against the wall.

  It took two hammer blows to the man’s back to get him to let go, and then Syfax shoved forward, driving the man off balance over the broken remains of the table and the two men lying on the floor. With a wide-eyed look of surprise, the third man slipped and fell back over the other two and his head landed on the shattered vodka bottle. He clutched his bleeding scalp and rolled away toward the bar. After a moment of hissing through clenched teeth, he staggered up to his feet, cast a few dirty looks at Syfax, and shoved his way out the door.

  “Major, that was fantastic.” Nicola was suddenly standing very close to him.

  Standing side by side, he realized that they were exactly the same height. He also realized that he had never looked directly into a woman’s eyes without looking down before. The novelty of the moment made him queasy. The lady’s square jaw and small eyes didn’t help.

  “What’s your name, big man?” The one-eyed woman jumped down and sauntered across the room toward him. “I noticed you and those big arms of yours the minute I came in, but you didn’t even come over to say hello.” She wrapped her wiry arms around his waist.

  He looked down at her, relieved to be looking at a woman at the correct angle, and the firm pressure of her breasts against his ribs more than made up for the eye patch and scarring on the side of her face. He smiled as he slipped his arm around her. “What say you and me find something to lie on?”

  She grinned wickedly.

  As they stomped down the back hall, slightly off balance, Syfax had a brief moment of distracted thought in which he wondered where the Italian woman had vanished to when his new companion had appeared. And as relieved as he was by his change of admirers, he couldn’t help but wonder whether he might have gotten both of them to come back with him together.

  They entered a room, kicked the door shut, and crashed onto the bed in the dark, her lips already pressed hard to his, her tongue furiously exploring his mouth as her hands whipped her shirts off and went to loosen her belt. He raced to keep up, hurling away clothes and kicking off boots, which clattered against the walls wherever they broke free. His belt hit the floor like a rock, the sheathed hunting knife landing edge up. Syfax kicked it under the bed and heard the steely clangor of more knives hitting the floorboards as the woman climbed out of her pants and tackled him onto the rough wool blankets.

  As she sat astride him, writhing and battering at his hips, he had a brief moment to congratulate himself on his good fortune. In the dark, he could bare see her face at all, but her bare breasts hung smooth and firm in his hands, and that was all that really mattered. She rode him hard, grunting sharply with every thrust, sometimes sitting up straight and sometimes falling forward with her hands planted on his shoulders, her nails digging into his skin, her teeth biting into her wide bottom lip.

  Syfax arched his back, straining to keep up with her, straining to stay in control, but she had taken control from the moment they fell into bed and he was only there to be ridden until he couldn’t be ridden anymore.

  His climax lasted a long moment, and he pulled her hips tight against his to make it last as long as he could, but then it was over and his attention quickly shifted to a sharp pain in his back. But she wasn’t done. She grunted louder and there was something angry about the little half-words she was spitting out with each crash of her sex onto his. Syfax cupped her breasts and tried to relax and wait for her to finish, but the pain in his back was growing sharper and the noises she was making were more disturbing than arousing.

  She snapped upright, grabbing his arms and pressing her sharp, broken nails deep into his wrists as she shuddered and gasped. “Nnnn!” Then she let go his arms and rolled off beside him.

  Syfax rubbed his wrists to make sure he wasn’t bleeding and then rolled onto his side to massage the twisted muscle in his lower back. As he lay there, face to face with the one-eyed demon, he started to wonder where she had come from and who she had been thinking about just a moment ago. Whoever she was, she was no prostitute or farmer’s wife. She was something very different. Hard. Angry. Dangerous.

  She shoved her head up onto his shoulder, eye closed, and said, “Still with me, big man?”

  “Mm hm.”

  “Mind if I stay a few hours?”

  “Nope.”

  “Good answer.”

  He pulled a lock of black hair away from her face and stared at the deep shadows around her long nose and wide mouth. The eye patch and the scars were turned away from him, hidden.

  She’s not so bad. And she’s not Espani. Too bad we’re in the middle of all this crap or I’d ask her name. She’s definitely one of a kind.

  Syfax passed out.

  He awoke with a blinding ray of sunlight in his eyes and a foul scummy feeling on his teeth. The sheets felt cold and clammy, and slowly he realized it was because the wool blanket was gone. A sharp metal clank snapped his eyes open and he saw the blanket trailing from the foot of the bed to the woman standing by the door, pulling on her clothes and stamping on her boots. A long knife had fallen to the floor and she was sliding it back into its sheathe. She straightened up and grinned at him. “Morning, big man.”

  He sat up slowly, his head pounding. “Morning.” He looked up at the light streaming through the window, then dropped his gaze and saw the other little bed against the opposite wall. Holy shit, this is my room.

  Kenan was still snoring and one of his arms had slipped out of his blankets to hang near the floor. A puddle of drool darkened the pillow beside his open mouth.

  “Cute friend,” the woman said.

  “Nephew.”

  “Really? I don’t see it. You’ve both got that southern coloring though.”

  Syfax snorted. “Yeah, we’re not exactly locals.” He froze as he realized what he had just said. Slowly, he relaxed his grip on the edge of the thin mattress and tried to remember what he’d done with his knife.

  The woman was watching him as she slipped into her coat. A tiny smile flickered across her wide, black lips. “Mazigh?”

&nbs
p; The major frowned and shrugged. “Who isn’t? Probably somewhere on my mother’s side.”

  “If you say so.” She backed into the door, her eyes gliding back and forth between the two men on the beds. “Be seeing you, big man.” And she slipped out.

  Damn.

  “Kenan, get up. Now!” Syfax clawed up his clothes from the floor and yanked them on in no particular order. “Kenan! Time to get moving, kid.”

  The lieutenant grunted and opened his eyes. “What time is it?”

  “Time to get the hell out of town. I think we’ve got about a quarter hour before this place is crawling with soldiers.”

  “What?” Kenan sat bolt upright, blinking hard and rubbing his eyes, and then he grabbed up his boots. He’d slept in the rest of his clothes. “Why? What happened?”

  “Something stupid.” Syfax grabbed his belt and knife from under the bed. “Something really damn stupid.”

  Chapter 15

  It’s not my fault. Sal never told me what they looked like.

  Then again, Sal didn’t know what they looked like. Still, he was the only person she had ever known who called himself a professional spy, and all that time on the road from Valencia he had called the Mazighs spies, and somewhere along the way she had come to assume they would be just like him. Slender, debonair, condescending, and vicious. They would be experts in language and fashion, able to slip into a local crowd and vanish as one of them. They would be masters with knives and poisons, perhaps even with rapiers and explosives. And they would be staying in the most conspicuous places possible, sleeping in the most expensive hotels and dining with mayors and wealthy friends in every city from Madrid to Tartessos.

  Nope. Shifrah shivered in the early morning breeze as she crossed the street toward the barracks by the north gate of the city. No, they were just a couple of drunks in a tavern. The big ugly Italian led me straight to them and I didn’t even realize it. A big meat head and his pathetic little sidekick who couldn’t hold his liquor.

  How was I to know? Although, I suppose he was the only man in this freezing hellhole with a shaved head. But he looked as light or dark as anyone else in there. In the dark.

  She stopped cold in the street.

  I should be back there right now, slitting their throats. That was the whole point. That was the job. So why am I out here? It’s not because I rode him. Wouldn’t be the first time. No. But if it’s not him, then it’s Sal. And damn you for that, Sal. I’m not hacking off a pair of heads and dragging them all the way back to Valencia for your precious mission or your ego.

  Still she stood in the street shivering as the chill morning air seeped into her sweaty hair.

  But I may still need Sal one day. No need to burn that bridge just yet. If I give them to the locals and then make up a story for Sal, that should be good enough. And then I can go south. I can go someplace warm.

  Shifrah strode into the guardhouse by the city gate and pounded on the inner door. “Wake up, boys, you’ve got a few minutes of work to do.” Her Espani wasn’t perfect, and she knew she wasn’t pale enough to pass for local, but the stolen triquetra medallion displayed on her chest had proven a reliable passport before. Only in España would they care more about the trappings of faith than the genuine article.

  The door opened and two pale children of seventeen or so stepped out in dark blue uniforms. Mottled little beards clung to their cheeks, which only made them look younger. “Yes?”

  She sighed. “Do you have anything bigger in there? Because honestly, this Mazigh is going to eat you boys alive.”

  “What Mazigh?”

  “The big Mazigh staying at the Red Swallow. Two of them, actually, but I’m not too worried about the little one.”

  The young soldiers looked confused. “Did they do something?”

  “Haven’t you heard? There’s a manhunt going on across half the country for foreign spies, particularly ones from Marrakesh. And I just found two of them at the Swallow. Now get the real soldier boys out here before they leave.” She crossed her arms, nudging her breasts up higher, and she stared at the boys in blue. They both blinked at her chest.

  “Let me go talk to the captain.” One ducked back inside, leaving his friend to stand in the doorway looking cold and nervous.

  Shifrah smirked at him. “So, you ever kill a man, soldier boy?”

  “What? No, no ma’am. No, I haven’t.”

  She sniffed. “What about a woman?”

  His eyes widened in horror and she laughed.

  The door opened again and half a dozen soldiers spilled out into the street, their shining black boots clacking on the icy cobblestones. At least three of them were over thirty, and the one with the air of authority had a rather impressive mustache. He said, “Ma’am, I understand you’ve found some foreigners in the city?”

  She nodded as she waved them after her. They followed in a loose knot with their rifles in their hands, and at the door of the tavern the captain set two of them to stand guard outside. Shifrah told them which room to check and then paced across the street to wait. It was still early and precious few Espani were hustling through the streets to wherever it was that Espani went to work. Churches, she guessed.

  A sneeze caught her attention and she looked to her left. At the end of the street a lean figure was straightening up and wiping his face. A much larger figure grabbed him by the collar and hauled him around the corner and out of sight.

  “Damn.” She turned to the two soldiers still outside the tavern. “Hey! They’re down there! End of the street! Left at the corner!”

  Shifrah bolted down the icy street, hoping that any ice she stepped on would crack and shatter rather than slip under her weight. She skidded around the corner and saw a thickening crowd down the next road. The big Mazigh’s bare scalp bobbed among the sea of heads and she took off after it.

  She felt her heart pounding in her chest and her blood thundering through her head. How much whiskey did I drink last night?

  Shifrah crashed into the edge of the crowd and set to worming her way deeper and deeper into the press of bodies. They were in a large, open square bordered on two sides by a small cathedral and lined with clothiers’ shops on the other two sides. She saw the dummies standing behind the tall glass windows, stuffed and headless bodies in sharply tailored suits.

  How Italian of them.

  The tide of the crowd flowed toward the cathedral. A morning mass. The Mazigh’s head showed the big man wasn’t making much better progress cutting across the square and she focused on his stubbled crown and the bright puff of vapor streaming from his unseen face.

  Shifrah grunted and began shoving people out of the way to close the distance to the big man’s head. The Espani around her made countless surprised and angry looks, but she didn’t give them a second glance.

  They won’t do anything. They’re church people, just like the church people back in Rome. The only church people to worry about are in Constantia, and there aren’t any Constantians here.

  The Mazighs broke free of the crowd and darted down a side street, and a moment later Shifrah burst out of the square and raced after them. The two men were only a few yards away now. The sounds of her boots slapping the ice and slush echoed off the stone walls and the Mazighs twisted their heads around to look over their shoulders.

  Still running, she drove her bare first through the young one’s surprised face and felt his nose crack under her knuckles. When she saw him falling backward with the first glimmer of blood in his nostril, she knew he was no longer in this fight and she spun just in time to catch the big man’s open-handed strike to her neck. She grabbed his arm with both hands but still the blow threw her against the alley wall. Her boots slipped but she scrambled away before she fell and threw a fist and another fist and a boot at the hulking Mazigh’s face, but each time the man just raised his own fist and took the blow on his arm.

  He’s a boxer. He’s used to pain. I won’t be able to wear him down.

  Behind her she
heard the younger Mazigh moaning, his voice distorted by his broken nose and no doubt one or both hands clutched to his face.

  “Lady, who the hell are you?” the big man asked.

  She backed away a few paces up the alley, careful not to let him corner her against the wall. She considered drawing her knives but she had seen the man’s fat hunting knife under the bed.

  A boxer and a knife-fighter, and three times my size. This is not turning out to be one of my better days.

  She straightened up and lowered her fists. “I was sent to kill any Mazigh spies I could find. I found you.”

  “What for? You’re no soldier. Hell, you’re not even Espani, are you? I guess that makes you a freelancer, doesn’t it?” He nodded and lowered his meaty fists. “Fine, you want money? Let us get out of here and I’ll get you money. We’re not spies. We’re just trying to get home.”

  The younger one staggered up, gingerly touching his face. “Major, she broke my nose.”

  “Major?” Shifrah smiled. “A Mazigh officer who carries a knife instead of a gun. I like that.”

  “Good for you.” The major spat on the ground. “So, do we have a deal? You cut us loose now and I pay you later. Name’s Zidane. You come find me in Tingis and we’ll settle up there. You’ve got my word. Okay?”

  “It sounds like a very nice deal.” It did sound nice. Marrakesh, far across the Strait of Tarifa, would be warm, so much warmer than España or Italia. The only hiccup was the Mazigh warrant on her head, but that could be dealt with. “And I’d be happy to take that deal and walk away right now except for one little problem, major. I already told the soldiers where you are.”

  Behind her at the mouth of the alley, she heard the Espani soldiers shouting as they slipped out of the cathedral crowd and ran toward the Mazighs. The big man glared over her head and muttered, “Damn.” He grabbed his companion by the collar and hauled him away at a dead run.