A wooden ladder in the center of the room led up into the little watch tower, and near the base of this ladder was a door in the floor. She flipped the door up and found a wooden staircase leading down into the cellar. From the bottom of her medical brace, Taziri pulled out a small flashlight, turned it on, and set it between her teeth as she started down the steps with both hands on the rails to guide her.
In the cellar she found a single dirt room, also just as neat and tidy as the room above, with two long crates stacked against the wall. She opened the top crate and found a half dozen rods of golden aetherium nestled in a bed of straw. After taking a moment to fold up and lock away the revolver into her brace, she picked up two of the rods and went back upstairs.
Never hurts to have a spare.
Outside she saw Jiro standing over the grim-faced Osirians clutching their bleeding knees. The smith held both of the sheathed seireikens in his hands.
“We’re all set,” she said. “Let’s go.”
“And them?” Jiro pointed at the men on the ground.
“Leave them.” Taziri shrugged.
“Master Omar wanted the temple destroyed,” Jiro said. “We should honor his wishes and kill these men as well.”
“I don’t know who Master Omar is, and I don’t care. We’re not executing two wounded, helpless men. They’re in the middle of nowhere, unarmed, in possession of a metal that no one except you knows how to forge properly,” Taziri said, continuing over to the Halcyon. “So leave them, and let’s get going. We have a machine to build and people to save. And the faster, the better. I have a family, two businesses, and hundreds of students to get back to, and I don’t like wasting time.”
Jiro hesitated, and then followed her on board the Halcyon.
With no switches or turntable on the tracks, Taziri was forced to drive the locomotive backward along the line, minding the rails ahead through the mirrors on either side of her cockpit. Confident of where she was going, but not quite as confident that the Aegyptian rail authority might have another train on the line, she left the branch line in the woods and rejoined the main track heading north back to Alexandria, and all the way home she kept a close eye on the rails ahead, dreading the thought of seeing some ramshackle excuse for an Eranian engine huffing toward her. She didn’t try to talk to Jiro this time.
I think he really was motion-sick. Best to leave him alone for now.
Only once on the long ride home did she see another train on the line, and she saw it with ten minutes to spare, giving her plenty of time to stop and back up onto a siding to let the Eranian freight train pass before she set out again, and they reached the rail yard without incident shortly after sunset. Taziri pulled the Halcyon into a shed and hopped out to close the doors and hide her machine from prying eyes. When she came back, Jiro was stepping out of the hatch with their sun-steel magnet in his arm.
“You finished it?” she asked with a smile.
“I bolted it back together, like we had it before,” he said. “But you’ll have to finish these wires.”
“She took the device from him and set it down on a bench near the door of the shed. “Nice work. I thought you didn’t feel well in there. I didn’t think you were working on this.”
“Working kept my mind occupied,” he said.
“Oh. Good.” She reached into her jacket for her tools. “Let’s go ahead and finish this up right now, before another building falls on us.”
He nodded and sat beside her on the bench, holding the device up to the light so she could see the loose wires and switches.
“So, who is this Omar person you were talking about?” she asked as she set to winding wires around screws and tightening connections.
“Omar Bakhoum is one of the high masters of the Sons of Osiris.”
“You don’t say. And he wants to wipe them all out now? Why the change of heart?”
“It’s not my place to say,” Jiro said. “He is a complex man. Although it occurs to me that you may also know him as Bastet’s grandfather.”
Taziri paused. “Her grandfather is an Osirian? I thought he was an ancient immortal, like her.”
“He is both.”
“And how do you know this? Are you immortal too?”
“No,” Jiro said. “Long ago, a man named Thoth came to my homeland and established the Temple of Amaterasu, where the first seireikens were forged and the study of aether and sun-steel truly began. It was centuries later when this man Thoth created the Temple of Osiris here in Alexandria to serve the same purpose. Here, he is known by many names, the most recent of which is Omar Bakhoum. But in Nippon, we know his true identity, as well as the secret to forging sun-steel into weapons.”
“So you came from the temple in Nippon to work at the temple here?”
“Yes. The Tigers of Amaterasu do not share the secret of forging sun-steel with the Sons of Osiris.” Jiro smiled. “It is a very old rivalry.”
“I see.” Taziri turned her attention to attaching her battery to the magnet. “So who else knows all this about the immortals and sun-steel and Omar?”
“Here? No one. Only the immortals themselves, and the Tigers from the east, know this secret. And now you, of course.”
Taziri shrugged. “It’s a funny world.”
Jiro frowned. “You seem unimpressed.”
Taziri smiled as she worked. “A girl who can walk through walls asked me here to build a machine that can pull aetherium needles out of immortal monster-people. And she asked me because I’ve done this sort of thing before. Sort of. Just another day at the office for me, I guess. But if it will make you feel better, I can try to act more surprised the next time something like this comes up.”
Jiro sighed.
Chapter 23
Asha sat on the wooden crate beside Wren all afternoon, watching the shadows slide across the floor of the warehouse and listening to the soft tinkling and jangling of the chains that held Isis suspended above the floor.
For a time, Asha had stared up at Isis purely as a healer, trying to understand what was happening to this person’s body, what she was feeling, what she was thinking. The physical changes were like nothing she had ever seen on another living creature. Hairy steer flesh, toes fused into hoofs, horns erupting from the skull.
And the eyes.
The white-in-white eyes that looked almost milky and blind up close, but from a distance, looked stark raving insane.
From time to time, Isis would shiver or shudder, or just twitch, and the chains would make some small sound, but otherwise she hung there perfectly still, almost as though she were sleeping except for those hideous eyes staring down at her captors.
“It’s been hours now,” Asha said. The windows above them were all dark and the sounds of the city had long since faded into the muted murmurs of people looking for suppers and beds. “No word from Bastet. No word from Gideon. I’m worried about them.”
Wren nodded. She had pushed back the black scarf from her thick red hair and was gently stroking and plucking the fine red hairs on her strange fox ears atop her head.
“You must be worried about Omar,” Asha said. “Just remember what I said. I won’t leave you alone. Whatever happens, you won’t be alone.”
Wren looked up and smiled a little. “I’m not worried about Omar. Concerned, a little, maybe. He’s complicated, you know. Sometimes he gets so wrapped up in an idea or a project that he doesn’t bother to eat for a month, and sometimes he gets so upset about his past that I worry he might actually touch that sword of his and end it all. Four and a half millennia of doing strange things can make a man strange, I suppose. Hm. But he’s not mine to worry about. I like him, and I’ve learned a lot from him, but if it’s his time to die, then it’s his time to die.”
“Oh.” Asha narrowed her eyes as she stared at a faint stain on the dirt floor. “I thought the two of you were closer than that.”
Wren shrugged. “He’s my teacher and my friend. I’ve known him for almost two years now. He’
s saved my life plenty of times, and I’ve saved his, so to speak. It’s hard to say with an immortal. I don’t want him to die, or suffer, but it’s out of my hands at the moment, and worrying won’t change anything, so why worry?”
Asha nodded slowly. “I suppose that’s true.”
“What about you? How are you doing?”
Asha blinked.
Priya is dead because I led her into danger.
Set is dead because I ran off on my own.
Nethys is dead because I lost control.
Priya is dead…
And for all I know, everyone else in this city could die soon because of something I’ll do, or won’t do, or maybe something that I’ve already done.
“I’m fine,” she said. “Just a little tired.”
Wren laughed. “Does everyone in your country lie as badly as you?” Her expression softened and she touched Asha’s arm. “I can see the pain in your eyes, in the way you stare at the wall. More like you’re trying not to think, not to feel. Trying to be numb, trying to get away from the demons inside.”
“You can see that, can you?”
“Even without all that, I can feel the sorrow in you,” the northern girl said. “I can feel it in the aether curling off you like smoke. Full of darkness and emptiness. Death and suffering hover around you like a shadow. I can help you with that, if you want.”
Asha managed a wry smile. “I don’t think I need any help. No more lessons, or sermons, or sutras, or whatever you call them in your country. I’ve heard more than my share, believe me. Priya never stopped… Priya did more than any person could ever hope to do to enlighten me about death and life. It never really took. I’ve never learned how to let go of the things I’ve seen. The things I’ve done. The people I’ve lost.”
Wren moved a little closer and rested her head on Asha’s shoulder. Her tall vulpine ears flicked and gently batted against Asha’s black locks. The girl said, “In my country, we don’t solve problems by talking about them. Valas don’t give sermons. We heal. And when called to, we fight, too.” She held out her arm to display four of her silver bracelets, each one with a slender golden wire wrapping around it. “These are all rinegold. Sun-steel. Or whatever you call it in your land. They hold the souls of dead valas and witches, shamans and healers, bonesaws and alchemists, from all over the north. Mostly, they teach me things about plants and aether. I can also use the bracelets to stir the aether, the way I did to capture our poor Isis here.”
She pulled off her right glove to reveal a slender sun-steel ring on her finger. “And I can also use my ring to dream-dive. To visit your soul, to see what you’re feeling and to help you confront it, or master it, or dispel it. Whatever you need. I can do this for you. Right now, if you want.”
Asha paused, wondering what exactly the girl meant. She understood that a person could speak to the souls trapped in sun-steel, and she had seen the girl bending the aether to her will, but dream-diving?
I’ve never even heard of anything like that before.
Maybe I should. Maybe it will help.
Or maybe I’ll hurt her, or the dragon will hurt her, if there’s still any difference between it and me anymore.
“Maybe another time,” Asha said softly. “But thank you.”
Wren shrugged, and leaned away again. She peered off to the side and whispered in a sing-songy voice, “Jagdish? Oh, Jagdish? Where are you, little one?”
The mongoose scampered out of the deep shadows and leapt up into the girl’s lap where he promptly curled up in her pleated black skirts and closed his eyes.
“He likes you,” Asha said. “More than he ever liked me, at least. Would you like to keep him? A mongoose can be a very useful thing to have around, you know.”
Wren smiled up at her, a bright and cheerful smile that almost glowed in the evening darkness. “I’d love to, thank you.”
Asha sighed. “Are you hungry? Maybe I should go find us some supper. I have a little money. And I can stop by Jiro’s place to see whether Taziri is back yet with the sun-steel.”
“Sure, I can eat.”
Asha stood up and set her medicine bag on her shoulder and glanced up at their prisoner. “Will you be all right here by yourself? With her?”
Wren smiled. “It’s night time. The air is cool, and the sunlight is gone. The aether is only going to grow thicker for the next few hours. I don’t mean to brag, but right now, I’m probably stronger than you are.”
Asha smiled in spite of herself. “You think so?”
Wren nodded. “Mm hm.”
Asha turned to leave. “Well, maybe when this is all over, you and I will have a little contest to…” She stopped and shook her head.
I can’t believe I would even think such a thing, let alone suggest it.
“I’ll get us something to eat,” she said quickly. “I’ll be back soon.”
Wren waved and leaned back on the crate, petting the balled up mongoose in her lap. Asha headed down the shadowed alleys between the stacked boxes, wondering what was in them, and who owned them, and why they were just locked away inside a huge house for boxes in the first place.
These people are all mad.
She stepped out into the street and fell the cool evening breeze in her hair and smelled the nearby harbor full of fish, oil, smoke, and salt. She turned left, pointing back toward the lighthouse and Jiro’s home, and started walking. As she reached the corner of the warehouse, she heard a sudden crash of wood breaking, and an avian monster screamed inside the building.
Asha turned and bolted back to the doors and down the narrow paths through the warehouse to the open space in the back where she found a bright pool of starlight falling through a large, ragged hole in the roof. Wren was on her feet, hands raised, bracelets gleaming. The pale light fell across Isis’s face and the immortal squinted up at the night sky. And in the shadows behind the prisoner, a large shadow moved.
“Wren, get back!” Asha curled her hands into fists, searching through the confusion and panic of the moment for one of her memories, one of her triggers, something to give her the dragon. But she couldn’t focus because there was nothing to focus on. Only a shadow, and a girl she was worried about.
“I have him,” Wren said softly. She lifted her hands and a thin white wall of vapor rose up from the dirt floor. Then she shoved her hands forward and the wall swept across the room, smacking Isis in the side and crashing through the shadow behind her. Something large and heavy fell against a pile of crates, which clattered but did not fall.
“Is it Horus?” Asha asked. “Is it one of Lilith’s creatures?”
“If it isn’t, then I feel sorry for the woman who gave birth to him.” Wren swept her empty hands through the air, bracelets ringing as they slipped up to her elbows and back down to her wrists. The aether raced across the floor again, and a voice cried out in the darkness, screeching as fists and feet beat upon the crates. Then Wren drew her hands back toward her chest and the aether rushed back toward her like a tide and pulled the creature into the moonlight.
Horus lay on his back, legs kicking and clawing at the dirt floor, his talon-hands grappling with the intangible aether wrapped around his soul and dragging it along with his body. His sleek feathered head rolled back and forth as his falcon’s beak snapped at the air and his huge falcon eyes blinked white-in-white in the dim evening light.
“I have him,” Wren said. Her face was lined with concentration and she never took her eyes off the man on the floor.
“All right, just hold him there while I get those chains back there.” Asha pointed as she dashed across the warehouse floor to the far wall where the rest of the chains hung, along with coils of rope, balls of twine, and various pry bars and hammers and other tools for opening and closing crates.
She pulled loose a length of chain and ran back to the open space where the girl in black held Horus prisoner on the ground with nothing more than a thin white cloud that writhed and swam across the man’s body like a living thing
.
Asha held up the chain, trying to figure out how she might lash the man’s hands with the chains and hoist him up onto the rafters like his mother.
Do I throw them over the top first? Or bind him first and then lift him up?
How did Gideon do it with Isis? I can’t remember. Maybe I’ll have to strike him unconscious before we can…
Oh, no, I remember now…
Asha dropped the chain and reached into her bag for the needle, and she held it up to the light to make certain the sedative was still thick on the steel point. Then she hurled it down through the aether into their prisoner’s shoulder, and a moment later he wheezed and lay back flat on the floor, breathing noisily through the narrow slits in his beak.
I didn’t think, I didn’t remember… all I could think about was beating him down with my armored fists and burning claws.
I never used to think about such things. I always reached for my bag first, for my tools and herbs and seeds. And now I reach for weapons.
I was an herbalist. A healer. Can I still say that?
What am I now?
Wren lowered her hands and came over to help her with the chains. Together they bound Horus’s wrists and hauled the chains over the rafters, lifting him up to hang a few paces away from his mother, which Wren made easier with an updraft of aether.
When their second prisoner was secure, the two women went back over to their crate and slumped down to rub their sore hands and shoulders.
“He’s heavier than she is,” Wren said. “A lot heavier.”
Asha nodded. “You did very well, just now. You handled it very… I’m impressed. And thank you. If you hadn’t…”
She couldn’t bring her thoughts together to say what she meant, or even to know what she meant.
“You’re welcome,” Wren said brightly. “Always happy to help. Not that you really need it. I’m sure you could have handled him. Anyone strong enough to tear down a temple with her bare hands can probably capture one person with a feathery head.”
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?”
“So that’s it then, right?” Wren asked. “Horus and Isis. And the others are… accounted for. So wherever Bastet and Gideon are, they’re okay. And Anubis too.”
Aetherium (Omnibus Edition) Page 194
