Aetherium (Omnibus Edition)

by Joseph Robert Lewis

  The dragon leapt after her and slammed into the ground just behind her, sending a shockwave through the earth that hurled her off her feet. Asha slipped and tumbled head over heels, rolling and rolling down the steep hillside out of control, her arms wrapped around her head as the world whirled round and round.

  Her feet struck a rock and she curling into a ball, one hand clutching her ankle just as her back struck a mound of earth and her body abruptly stopped moving. Asha lay on the ground, shivering. Her lungs would barely let her inhale and her heart was pounding so hard and fast that she couldn’t tell one beat from the next.

  She opened her eyes and the world spun viciously to the left, and she nearly vomited. But she pushed herself up, blinking to clear her mind and gasping for air. She turned her head toward the hillside and saw a blur of movement, a cascade of green and brown and gray and gold coming toward her.

  With painful slowness and deliberation, she crawled forward over the mound of earth that had caught her and tumbled down a small incline onto some tall dew-soaked grass just as another deep reverberation shook the earth under her and the clatter of falling stones filled the air. Asha rolled over and looked at the small landslide just beyond her feet.

  The dragon’s bloody snout lay just beside her own muddy shoe. The rest of the creature lay somewhere behind the head, over the earthen mound and out of sight. It was staring at her with one huge ruby eye, but its eye did not follow her as she stood up. It did not focus on her as she drew the small golden needle from her bag, which had tangled around her neck and nearly choked her as she fell.

  And the eye did not react when she plunged the needle straight into the bloody wound on the dragon’s nose.

  * * *

  Instantly Asha felt the needle growing hotter in her hand, but still she held on, making certain that the tool stayed in place. A soft hiss filled the air like sound of a distant waterfall and Asha glimpsed a few stray wisps of aether as they poured out of the dragon’s blood and into the golden needle. Within a few moments, the beast’s shining scales grew duller and grayer, its bright red eyes becoming flatter and dimmer. The last hot gasp drifted out of the animal’s mouth and it lay absolutely still.

  Asha shoved the hot needle deep into the dragon’s flesh and took her hand away painted in dark red blood. Her lungs burned, her ankle throbbed, and her head spun as Asha sat down on the muddy earth and leaned back against the beast’s jaw. She pressed her right ear against its armored flesh to listen, and found its heart quite silent and the deep thrum of its soul faint and growing fainter. She closed her eyes and exhaled.

  A moment later she opened her eyes. The deep thrum of the dragon-soul was growing louder again. Asha stood and stumbled away from the body, searching it for signs of life but there were none. Not a breath, not a quiver. Still the dragon-soul rumbled louder and Asha turned and turned, trying to find the source of the sound. Finally she stopped and closed her eyes, trying to focus. And then she realized.

  Opening her eyes, she saw that her right hand was no longer painted in blood. It was covered in golden scales. The transformation crept up her arm slowly, hardening her soft brown skin into bronze plates, filling her veins with fire, filling her chest with needling pain. She could see the crimson claws poking out from her fingers, and she could feel the two slender antlers trying to sprout from her head. The world around her faded into a red mist punctuated by a few white shapes. The white body of the dragon beside her. The white bodies of the two women running down the hillside toward her.

  Asha fell to all fours, gasping and choking on the sultry vapors seething out of her lungs. Her teeth clicked and scraped in her mouth and the base of her spine throbbed as her body screamed out for a tail, a long and glorious tail to whip and slither behind her.

  The two white shapes stumbled to halt in front of her and Asha could hear their voices, muffled and distorted as though she were under water. And her belly was rumbling with a sharp and burning hunger.

  “Go!” she tried to say. “Run!”

  The two white shapes kept shouting and Asha felt hands on her arms and head. Gripped with rage and terror, she lunged left and right, back and forth, throwing the women aside. In her right eye she saw a silvery blade raised against her and in her left eye she saw a figure sitting on the ground clutching a tiny creature to her chest. Then the tiny creature flew up at Asha’s neck and a fountain of sharp pain erupted in her flesh, and the woman on the ground leapt up to place both of her hands on Asha’s face.

  The white figure whispered something, over and over and over.

  And then the world went dark.

  * * *

  When Asha awoke the first thing she saw was her hand, a familiar brown hand with rough pink nails and little white scars around the knuckles. The air tasted cool and clean, and the world, no longer obscured by a red veil, was bright blue and green. She rose up on her elbow with a groan. She was sitting in the grass on a level patch of earth with Priya and Nadira sitting beside her and a small fire crackling in a circle of stones.

  Jagdish sat on her hip, peering at her with his tiny black eyes.

  “There’s the little traitor,” she said hoarsely to the mongoose. “You bit me.” She touched her neck and found a small bandage there.

  “I’m sorry about that,” Priya said, turning toward her. “But I needed his help to distract you for a moment so I could reach you.”

  Asha smiled wearily. “I’ve always said a mongoose is a useful thing to have around.”

  “How do you feel?” Nadira asked.

  Asha sat all the way up, sending Jagdish scampering back to Priya’s lap. She rubbed her face and took her own pulse and tried to listen to her own breathing, but the sound was masked by a deep bass hum in her chest. She looked at Priya and frowned. “It’s still here. It’s still inside me. The dragon’s soul.”

  “I know.” Priya shifted and laid a hand on Asha’s knee with uncanny ease. “It is a wild and dangerous thing, but it can be controlled. You’re controlling it now.”

  Asha stared at her hands. “How? How did you save me?”

  Priya’s hand traveled up to Asha’s face where she gently massaged the herbalist’s forehead around her eye. Instantly she felt serene and sleepy, her eyes drifting closed as she leaned against her friend’s hand.

  “Well, if you recall, I actually have a great deal of experience in caring for angry spirits,” the nun said with a smile. “I spent more than an hour chanting the tisarana into your ear before your body changed back to normal and you fell completely asleep. And when that seemed to soothe you, I spent the next several hours repeating the chant over and over again to you. The repetition helps to bury the words in your mind. It was a common practice at the monastery where I trained.”

  “Then, am I healed now? Is it under control?”

  “No,” Nadira said. She was staring at the foreigners from across the fire with her sword naked in her lap. “You really don’t understand what’s happened, do you?”

  Asha frowned. “I tried to kill the dragon by draining its soul into my golden needle.”

  “Obviously, the dragon’s soul was too big for your little needle,” the Damascena said. “It was almost too big for you too. And now you’ll have to live with it inside you every day for the rest of your very unnatural life.” She sighed and squinted at the sun. “And you know what will happen if you lose control of it. It’ll consume you. It’ll turn you into a monster.”

  “That won’t happen,” Priya said quickly. “We’ve already learned how to control it. And with time and practice, I know that Asha will be able to master the dragon completely on her own.”

  “I pray that she does. Or maybe you should pray for me.” Nadira scowled at the fire and slowly lifted her gaze to look at the herbalist. “I’d hate to have to kill you.”

  “Fair enough,” Asha said. She took a moment just to breathe and listen and feel. The dragon’s soul was like a ball of fire in her belly, rolling and tumbling gently around and around, so
metimes spinning faster and growling, but mostly rocking softly from side to side. Waiting. Asha closed her eyes and imagined tranquil meadows and quiet streams, clear skies and silent mountains. And the dragon fell quieter still, nestling down deep inside her. Asha opened her eyes. “I can do this.”

  “And I’ll help you.” Priya turned to the warrior. “Will you join us? Will you come with us? This life of yours hasn’t brought you peace or happiness. Even I can see that. Come with us.”

  “No.” Nadira sniffed and spat in the fire. “But thanks for the offer.”

  Priya nodded. “Well, where will you go now? Back to Damascus?”

  “For now. But there’s talk of another war coming, as always. If the army marches, then I’ll follow them, to Constantia or wherever it is. And you?”

  Asha shrugged. “Gideon said there were other immortals in Alexandria. Maybe we’ll go there.”

  Nadira nodded. “The Aegyptians may be able to help you. They’re very old, and they know a lot about souls. But keep an eye out for Lilith. She’s out there somewhere too, and she’ll be interested in you. Very.”

  “Lilith? Is she the courtesan from Damascus?” Asha asked.

  “Yeah. And she’s not your friend. She isn’t anyone’s friend.” Nadira stood up and slid her saber into its scabbard, which she rested across her shoulder. “Well, it seems you don’t need me anymore, so, you take care of each other.” She scratched between her legs, rearranged her trousers, and walked away.

  “Wait! Please!” Priya called out. “Please don’t go yet, sister. You don’t have to be alone. You don’t have to walk this path anymore. Come with us to Alexandria, or we can come with you to Damascus. We’re all searching for some sort of peace or truth in life. We can search together. You don’t have to be alone.”

  Nadira paused. “Yeah, I do.”

  Asha and Priya sat and listened to the soft crush of grass as the woman walked away. The wind whipped through her old armor, making it click and clack softly as her short hair fluttered around her head.

  “That poor woman,” Priya whispered. “Such a miserable, empty, dark life.”

  “I know,” Asha said. “But I think she’ll be all right. Someday. Maybe she needs to be in a dark place for a while before she can find the light again. I spent eight years in a coma. You spent two centuries in a cave. But we woke up. And maybe someday she’ll wake up, too. Time is on her side, at least.”

  They sat and listened to the wind playing through the tall grass. Asha glanced over her shoulder once at the distant shape of the dragon’s body lying at the bottom of the hill. “I should go find my needle, I suppose. We should burn the body too, but I doubt any campfire of ours will consume that creature.” Then she looked down at her hand. “I wonder.”

  In her mind’s eye she conjured an image of fire and the sound of angry voices, the clash of swords, and the screaming of eagles. The smooth flesh of her hand rippled into golden scales and scarlet claws. But Asha held the violence in her mind in check, fencing it in to one small corner of her heart, keeping it focused and narrow, directing it only at the memories of a single act of cruelty, a single doctor’s face, a single tragedy from long ago. The transformation of her arm halted at the elbow.

  Then she exhaled, banishing her rage and letting the calm meadows and empty skies fill her mind’s eye again, restoring her arm to its original shape and color.

  Asha smiled. “This might not be so bad after all.” She turned to Priya. “So. What do you think? Should we go to Alexandria, or should we go somewhere else? Constantia, perhaps?”

  Priya smiled and shrugged. “Whichever you prefer.”

  The two women stood up and scattered their fire, shouldered a bag and a mongoose, and set out for the road.

  Chapter 10

  They stood on the stone quay overlooking the water. Asha squinted across the sparkling harbor at the steamship as it chuffed toward the dock with two white cloudy columns rising from its two funnels and more than a hundred passengers congregating on its deck. Priya leaned on her new walking stick, an ash pole with a thick brass ring set into its top holding half a dozen smaller rings and bells that jangled and tinkled when she walked. But now it was silent and the sounds of the city of Tyre pressed down on the women from all sides. Merchants, dock workers, carts and wagons, camels and donkeys, birds, fish, and crabs, and machines of all sizes grunted and whined and shouted and clanked and barked, their voices echoing off the faces of the harbor-side buildings.

  “I’ve never been on a boat before,” Priya said. “I think the idea of it is a little scary. Just a little. A wooden house floating on the water, all alone, far from help.”

  Asha nodded. “I’ve been on lots of boats, and never had any trouble with them. But if you don’t like boats, then be grateful you can’t see the one we’re about to board.”

  “Why? What’s wrong with it?”

  “Nothing’s wrong with it. Except that it’s made out of metal.”

  “Oh.” Priya frowned. “How are you feeling today?”

  “Fine. Calm. I slept well last night.”

  “Good.”

  An urgent shout drew their attention to the right where Asha saw two men high atop a stack of crates. They were struggling to lift the topmost box down, but the crates under their feet had shifted, sliding apart, creaking and crackling as the wooden planks began to splinter. The men balanced precariously as the crate under them rolled up at an angle as it tried to fall between two other crates below it. Both men were shouting at each other in some dialect that Asha didn’t recognize, but she recognized clearly enough that neither man was moving or doing anything at all to get out of harm’s way. The bottom crates slid apart a bit more, edging closer to the stones at the water’s edge.

  Then Asha saw the two little boys sitting on the stones, their feet dangling over the water, their backs to the shifting pile of crates.

  “Hey!” Asha jogged toward them, leaving Priya behind. “Hey, you! Boys! Hey! Get up! Get up! You! Yes, you! Get up, get away from there! Look out!”

  One of the boys glanced in her direction, then slowly swiveled his head to see the rocking mountain of crates behind him. He cried out and scrambled to his feet and darted away, leaving his friend staring after him with a confused look on his face. Asha yelled at the straggler as she reached the loading area and had to slow down to get through the other men moving barrels and boxes near the stacked crates. None of them gave her or the boy a look.

  The remaining boy twisted around to scowl at the crates, but he did pull his legs up and stand, pausing to wipe his hands on his dirty trousers. Just then one of the bottom crates snapped apart and collapsed, and everything teetering above it collapsed with it. Half a dozen huge wooden containers, a dozen small casks, and two angry men crashed down to the stone dock.

  Asha shouted, her hand outstretched as though she might grab the boy from a dozen paces away to pull him to safety. But as the crates smashed down into the stones, the boy took two light running steps and dove gracefully into the harbor. Asha jogged to a halt at the edge of the wreckage where the broken containers still stood in a high pile, many cracked open to reveal bolts of cloth or earthenware jugs wrapped in straw. A moment later the boy’s head broke the surface of the water and he squinted up through the water streaming down over his face. Asha waved to him. He waved back with a grin.

  The two angry dock workers staggered up on top of the mess, surveyed the destruction, and began shouting at each other anew. One of them took a swing at the other’s head, and the crates shifted again. A wave of splintered wood and broken pottery cascaded over the edge of the dock and plummeted into the harbor straight down onto the boy.

  * * *

  “No!” Asha dashed forward, scrambling over the ruined cargo to look down into the water, but all she could see were wooden panels and planks piled high on the surface of the water. She couldn’t see the boy anywhere.

  Asha dropped her shoulder bag on the dock and jumped feet-first into the water. As
she jumped, she curled her hands into fists and summoned up a burning rage in her breast. In a corner of her mind there was a gallery of evils, each one just a little worse than the one before, and each one known to bring forth a certain degree of her fury. Now she called up the faces of the doctors who had trained her, who had betrayed her, who had killed her first love. She kindled that rage in her heart, fanning the flames of it until her entire body was flush with adrenaline, with the urge to scream, with the urge to lash out at the entire world and crush it in her bare hands.

  The dragon awoke.

  From deep inside her belly, the soul of the golden dragon blazed to life, filling her veins with liquid fire and Asha felt the change come over her, sweeping across her body. Her skin rippled with golden scales, harder than steel and shining in the bright morning light. Her feet crashed down into the floating ruins of the crates, and the wood shattered beneath her, splintering into tiny shards that flew high in the air and far out over the water. The water was freezing cold, but Asha knew this only distantly. She could barely feel the water at all through her dragon skin.

  As she reached out to lift and smash the planks aside, Asha listened carefully above the surface and below it. There were souls everywhere, people-souls thronging the dock above and crab-souls thronging the harbor floor beneath her feet, and all of them humming and ringing and clanging in her ears, but through the noise Asha focused on the water right in front of her and found the faint and fading murmur of one lone little boy.

  She dove beneath the surface, driving her fists and feet through the flotsam surging up and down through the filthy harbor water. A red veil passed over her eyes, casting the world in warm crimson tones, but in that red world a dim white shape appeared. Asha kicked and clawed her way past the remains of two more crates, tearing through layers of cloth and smashing through jars and bottles that hung suspended in the water, neither rising nor falling. She found the boy just a few feet beneath the surface, spread-eagled and face-down with a small dark cloud near his head. He wasn’t moving.