Aetherium (Omnibus Edition)

by Joseph Robert Lewis

  “Good evening,” she called.

  He stopped and looked up at her, squinting in the dark. The starlight fell on his angry face. “You again. What do you want?”

  “I came to find you, of course. Well, your friend the major, anyway,” she said. “Have you seen him lately?”

  He glanced up the beach. “Not in a few hours. I was just going to find him now.”

  “I think I can help you with that.” She turned and started walking back the way she had come. “I saw him and that horse-faced Italian woman less than hour ago.”

  “Where?”

  “Being led into a jail.”

  He shook his head and started walking again parallel to her along the water’s edge. “Don’t be stupid. It would take a dozen soldiers to take down the major.”

  “Only half a dozen from what I saw.”

  He stopped short. “You’re serious?”

  “Always.”

  “Show me.”

  It only took a few minutes to lead the young man back past the tavern, through the graveyard, and around to the back of the jail. He strode as all angry young men do, hunching forward, fists clenched, brow furrowed. “Do you have a name?” he asked.

  “Shifrah. And you?”

  “Kenan.” He studied the heavy stones of the jail walls, grimed with filthy ice and pitted by countless years of salt winds. “You’re sure they’re in there?”

  “I saw them go in. I assume they’ve not gone out for supper.”

  “Right.” Kenan’s gaze wandered up the wall to the roof and the stars beyond. “Well, then I guess it’s up to me to get them out of there.”

  Shifrah smirked. “And how exactly do you plan to do that?”

  “The old-fashioned way. Wait here.” He strode off into the night with his arms crossed over his chest and his frown as deep as ever.

  She waited in the shadows, huddled under her furs, staring at the stone wall and wondering if it was time to disappear again, to wander off into the darkness and find some young sailor willing to share his bunk until they reached some distant, warmer shore. Numidia, perhaps. Or even Aegyptus. It might be time to visit my broker again and check my accounts.

  Kenan’s loud footsteps preceded him up the alleyway from the graveyard, as did the flickering light of the torch in his hand. She recognized the iron basket holding the coals as one of the torches from the tavern near the beach.

  “If you’re planning to burn the jail down, you may be disappointed. I don’t know if stone walls burn in Marrakesh, but here in España I can almost assure you they won’t.” She smiled.

  He only cast her a tired look stained with contempt as he passed by. He walked right up to the jail and held the torch high over his head against the first ironwood rafter of the roof. Patiently he stood there, waiting for the frozen wood to burn.

  “This is stupid. There are other ways to get him out of there,” she said. “Lies. Bribes. Distractions.”

  “I don’t recall asking for your help. You can leave now.”

  “Oh no, I want to watch you burn down a stone jail covered in ice.”

  Just then a soft crackle sounded overhead and she saw the tongues of fire licking greedily at the rafter. Kenan took two steps to his left and began heating the next one. And so one by one he slowly proceeded along the back of the jail setting dark orange flames wriggling and writhing around the rafters.

  It took nearly half an hour, but eventually the roof was well and truly burning. Kenan nodded. “All right, let’s go.” He strode toward the corner of the jail and Shifrah followed him, right into the arms of a startled old man peering up at the roof.

  “Fire?” The old man squinted.

  Kenan held his torch up between the man’s face and the roof above. “No. Just my torch. Sorry about that. Here, let me help you, sir.”

  “Ah, yes. Thank you.”

  Kenan and Shifrah each took the old man by the elbow and escorted him back out into the street in front of the jail where they left him and strolled calmly away. Kenan tossed the still-burning torch into an alley as they passed, and at the top of the street they turned to look down on their handiwork. The entire back of the jail’s roof was burning steadily and smoking mightily, but the fire burned quietly under the whistling sea wind.

  Minutes passed. Then they heard the first shout, and then some more. Men yelling. Church bells ringing. Buckets clanging. Water sloshing.

  The constables jogged out to consult with the bucket-bearers, and then the lawmen dashed back inside only to emerge again a minute later with the major and the Italian in chains.

  “All right,” Shifrah said. “You got them out. But what now? We’ll have half the city down here in the few minutes to put out that fire before it starts spreading from roof to roof. Don’t you think it will be a little difficult to get to him with four hundred people watching?”

  Kenan shook his head as he picked at his lip. “No. It’ll be easier. Much easier. And besides. There’ll only be two hundred at most.”

  “I’ll bet you one of my shiny Espani reales it will be more.”

  Kenan didn’t smile. He didn’t even look at her. He only watched the fire and crowd growing in the street. “Two reales.”

  Ten minutes later the fire had spread across the entire roof and leapt to the adjoining building, but the buckets were flying from hand to hand and freezing sea water was flying through the air, splashing and hissing on the roofs. With a creak and a groan, the entire roof of the jail buckled and broke and collapsed within the walls.

  “Now.” Kenan started walking down the street, straight into the crowd. It was no tangle of panicking bodies. The men stood in loose lines, passing buckets and sloshing water. Several shovels and axes lay in the street where they’d been deposited by the rallying townsmen, just in case there would be wreckage to clear away later. Kenan stepped over the tools without looking down at them.

  The two constables had positioned their prisoners just across the street from the burning jail, pressing the tall man and woman against the cold stones of a house that had already poured out its share of men to fight the fire. Shifrah followed Kenan along the edge of the street, wondering what this angry young man would do. Or at least, what he would try to do.

  She remembered some of the angry young men she had known in Eran, the gallant soldiers of Nablus near her home on Mount Gerizim. Quick to drink, quick to laugh, quick to argue, quick to fight, and all too quick to die. She had no particular love for angry young men, and yet they fascinated her. Their passion. Their violence. She had no idea what this one would do next, but she wanted to see.

  Kenan swept past the prisoners and the constables and barked out, “Constables, with me. We need to put your prisoners somewhere safe.”

  Shifrah marched along at his side as he turned sharply into the next alley to cut over to the next street. To her mild surprise, the constables followed with their prisoners. The older lawman said, “Sir? Sir? I’m sorry, who are you? Where are we going?”

  “Somewhere secure,” Kenan said over his shoulder.

  “Did General Vega send you?”

  “Of course.” They stepped out of the shadows onto the next street, a quiet lane where the moonlight on the snow and ice gleamed a pale blue. Kenan turned. “Do you have the keys to their shackles with you?”

  “Yes, of course,” the older constable said, his hand going to his jacket pocket.

  “Good.” Kenan grabbed the man’s collar and punched him in the nose.

  Shifrah yanked the older man forward and punched him in the throat, leaving him gasping and staring. She pulled a long thin knife from the sheathe on her thigh but Kenan grabbed her wrist. “No killing.”

  She smiled. “That’s very sweet, and very stupid.” But when she tried to slice the constable’s throat, the young man’s grip on her tightened. He’s strong for a stringy one. “Fine. No killing.” She reversed the knife in her hand and struck the constable in the temple, and then a second time, dropping him to the ground.r />
  A few feet away, the huge major had his arms around the younger lawman’s neck, gently choking him into oblivion.

  Kenan knelt down and found the keys in the constable’s pocket. He removed the major’s restraints and then the Italian woman’s as well. Then they shackled the two constables and stowed the unconscious men on a pile of firewood in a narrow alley. Kenan paused to study his towering companion with a look of tired irritation. “How did they find you?”

  The major shrugged. “We were the only people stealing a boat at the time, so it probably wasn’t too hard for them.”

  Kenan glared. “I told you not to steal from anyone!”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t take orders from children, so clearly we weren’t communicating very well. Don’t worry about it. You got me out of jail, so we’re square. Just don’t do it again.”

  “Square?” Kenan shook his head as he walked away down the street.

  “And you,” the major turned to Shifrah. “What’s your story? You helping us out or not?”

  Shifrah looked from the hulking Mazigh to his younger companion striding away toward the beach. “No. I think I’m helping him now. He had the good sense to not get arrested, and the brains to get you out again.” And she set out after Kenan.

  “I saw you at the bar in Ciudad Real, didn’t I?” asked the Italian lady. “Who are you? Who is she, major?”

  “I dunno, just some crazy broad looking for someone to mooch off.”

  “That was good enough for you at the time, wasn’t it, major?” Shifrah said.

  “We both got what we wanted.”

  Shifrah sighed. “If you say so. Do you two have names?”

  “I’m Syfax. She’s Nicola. You?”

  “Shifrah.”

  “Nice to meet you,” the major said. “Now what the hell do you want?”

  “From you? Nothing.” Shifrah quickened her step to come alongside Kenan. She could see the rage in his face, just barely contained below the skin.

  He was cool back there. His plan wasn’t very clever, but it worked perfectly. He was in control. Even his voice was calm and even. But now he’s on the verge of a bloodthirsty tantrum. I wonder how dangerous he could really be.

  She glanced back at the major following a few yards behind.

  And all because of him. Kenan hates him. I wonder what else he hates.

  At the beach Kenan turned to follow the waterline farther and farther from the dim glow of the burning jail and the huge plumes of smoke and steam rising above Malaga.

  “Hey kid, slow down,” Syfax called out. “We need to start looking for another boat.”

  “No, we don’t.” Kenan kept walking.

  “Oh, I see. So you’ve found religion and you plan on walking across the Strait now?”

  “No, I found a fisherman willing to sail us to Tingis and I plan on sleeping across the Strait about an hour from now when the tide turns.” Kenan lowered his voice. “Idiot.”

  Shifrah smiled. “What exactly did you tell this fisherman?”

  He looked at her and some of the darkness clouding his young face faded away. “I told him the truth. I told him that we were foreigners, that we hadn’t done anything wrong, and that we wanted to leave before we were wrongly arrested. I told him we just wanted to get home to our families.”

  “You have a family? You’re married?”

  “No. I guess I was thinking of the captain and her family, mostly. She’s a good officer, a good person. Smart. Tough. You’d probably like her if you met her.”

  Shifrah scratched the edge of her eye patch where it rubbed her cheek. “So where is this captain of yours?”

  “I don’t know exactly. Somewhere up north, I guess. She’s guarding the rest of our passengers until she can get them out of the country.”

  “Up north? In the Espani winter?” Shifrah laughed. “She’s got stones, I’ll give her that. No, give me a warm beach and a clear sky any day.”

  He grinned and suddenly looked five years younger. “Yeah, me too.”

  Kenan led the way to a small house at the top of the beach. Looking back, Shifrah saw they were more than two miles from the city center and there was no sign of the fire anymore except for a dirty haze in the air.

  The fisherman was waiting for them with a curvaceous little pipe clenched in his teeth. He gave them all a brief glance and led the way down to the water. “Good timing. Tide’s just turning now. Weather looks as fine as I could ask, considering. Not expecting any rain for another few days, says the almanac, if you believe in that sort of thing. Come along.”

  At first Shifrah thought he was leading them toward a rotting, collapsing dinghy on the beach, but the fisherman turned to the right and led them onto a floating dock made of old planks lashed over old barrels that bobbed and shook when she stepped on them. The floating dock reached out some thirty yards into the harbor, and while the first few boats moored there all seemed to be more hopeless dinghies, out at the end she saw a half dozen little yachts, their naked masts pointing at the stars.

  The fisherman waved them onto a narrow sailboat no more than twenty feet long. Shifrah moved cautiously in the dark, clutching at ghostly ropes and rails to keep her feet under her, and sat down on a hard, cold wooden seat just behind the mast. Kenan sat beside her and Syfax sat beside Nicola across from them. For the next few minutes they sat in silence as the fisherman went about loosing the moorings and freeing the sails, winding his winches and lashing his lines to the cleats. The old canvas sheet snapped back and forth as the night wind raced across the harbor, and the boom swung violently back and forth just above their heads.

  Finally, the fisherman grabbed a pole, planted it on the neighboring boat, and shoved them away from the floating dock. The little yacht glided back into the free waters, the breeze caught the sail, and suddenly they were away with the wind whipping their exposed skin with a freezing salt spray. The fisherman sat on a high seat in the stern, one hand on the tiller, one foot on a cleat, and his pipe clenched in his teeth.

  “So how long to Tingis?” Syfax asked.

  The fisherman shrugged. “Depends on the wind.”

  Shifrah huddled down against the hard seat, which she suddenly realized to be a small trunk with a hinged lid, no doubt full of unwashed fishing tackle judging from the smell. The wet chill invaded her furs and the thick coil of her hair, and she shivered.

  A weight fell on her shoulders and she opened her eye. It was Kenan’s arm.

  She smiled. Boys.

  Chapter 22

  They rode all day from long before dawn until long after dusk. Zaragoza vanished behind them not long after they stopped to eat breakfast, but the mining town of Yesero did not appear until the night sky appeared in full starry bloom. When they dismounted at the little wayhouse, Lorenzo had to grit his teeth against the raging soreness in his legs and back. After a thousand hours of fencing, my arm grows stronger and surer, but after a thousand hours of riding why do I just want to lie down and die?

  The grizzled old man at the wayhouse barely glanced at them as he collected Lorenzo’s money and pointed them to a modestly sized room with three modestly sized beds standing side by side. Three beds.

  Lorenzo sighed. “Alonso and I will sleep on the floor. You three can have the beds.”

  “No,” Taziri yawned. “Shahera and I will share this one. Dante and Alonso can share the second. You take the third. You need the rest if your arm is going to heal properly.”

  The hidalgo glanced down at his right arm as though he’d completely forgotten that he owned it. “All right. Thank you, captain.”

  “Taziri is fine.” She smiled.

  He kicked off his boots, fell into bed, prayed for Qhora’s safety, and slept.

  “Lorenzo?”

  The hidalgo jerked awake, cracking his head on the headboard. As he rubbed his new welt, he squinted through the darkness at the misty figure standing in the corner beside his bed. Behind him, he heard the others snoring and breathing deeply. “Sister
?”

  “You’re almost there,” the dead nun whispered. “I’m sorry I cannot go with you, that I will not be there to see the stone when you first see it. But it will be reward enough to see it when you return.”

  “Why can’t you go with us?” Lorenzo lay very still. His back and legs were too stiff to manage sitting up. “I don’t think you need to worry about an errant heat wave tomorrow.”

  “It’s the wind.” Sister Ariel gestured to the window and the mountain ridge beyond. “Over the years, I’ve tried countless times to walk these mountain passes, to search for the stone by myself. But the winds are too fierce. They scatter the aether even as the cold gathers it together.”

  Lorenzo nodded. “I’m sorry to hear that. You should be there when we find it.” He frowned. “Speaking of which, how did you find me so quickly? You always seem to be just a step behind me.”

  “It’s difficult to describe what it’s like to be a walking ghost,” she said. “Sometimes my feet carry me where I want to go. And sometimes I simply close my eyes and I’m there already. A church in Ejido, a graveyard in Tartessos, a jeweler’s shop in Toledo. But those are all just places, though they seem a bit random. You are the only person I can find, it seems.”

  “You mean you can find me, and only me, anywhere in the world? Like you did in Zaragoza and in Marrakesh?”

  The nun nodded.

  “Ever since I came back from the New World,” he muttered. “Was my soul so in need of saving that God tied a string around my finger to guide you back to me again and again?”

  “Perhaps. Although I’ve often wondered if it isn’t something simpler. We first met in Tartessos, didn’t we? Just after you returned from Cartagena. Hm. Prince Valero gave you several gifts when you returned from the New World, I believe. What did he give you?”

  Lorenzo sat up slightly. “My sword. He gave me this sword.” He reached down and picked up the antique espada lying wrapped in his coat on the floor.