Iyasu squinted down and saw their battered boat lurch and lean as the waves beat it from the north and east, until at last its broken hull sank into the darkness, pulling the mast and sail with it a moment later.
The brief moment of terror and excitement had given him enough of a jolt to feel somewhat alert and focused, but he didn’t trust himself and so he closed his eyes and focused only on holding tightly to the angel and trusting that as long he did not let go, she would deliver him safely to land.
Somewhere.
Eventually.
He blinked his eyes open once to confirm that they were indeed gliding only a short span above the dark, churning waves, flying so low that Azrael had to sweep and swerve through the ice-riddled winds to avoid the great white bergs sailing through the darkness.
Strong arms, weak wings.
Maybe I should lose some weight. Cut my hair. Get rid of this old robe…
He squeezed his eyes shut, whispering, “I’m sorry.”
A warm hand closed on his arms near her throat. “It’s all right.”
Time passed, but now he could not sleep. With his body precariously balanced on top of hers, and with the freezing gusts threatening to cast him into the void, his every nerve and muscle had drawn taught, aching and shivering with cold as much as with fear.
The wind rose, blasting them harder and harder, and he felt his frozen hair lashing him in the face. Azrael’s body shook beneath him, nearly rolling off to one side.
He tightened his grip.
She tightened hers.
“Can you see anything?” she asked.
He cracked his sore eyes and peered into the dark nothingness. There were shadows in the dark, forms that moved slowly across the sky above and the world below, and he tried to relax his mind enough to see those shadows for what they really were.
Clouds.
Waves.
Ice.
Rocks.
“Rocks!” he cried. “Go left! Go up!”
He felt her twist and thrust beneath him, but her wings had no strength to lift her burden of clay, and the wind hurled them together into a wall of cold stone weeping with sea water, and Iyasu fell into oblivion.
Chapter 4
Iyasu squinted into the weak morning sunlight as his eyes slowly came into focus. He noted the cave’s dry dirt floor and low, jagged ceiling, and then saw Azrael sitting beside him, her hand on his hand, her eyes fixed on the mouth of the cave. He took a moment to silently examine his own body and found, in addition to the throbbing pain in his skull and the dull growl in his belly, that his ribs were bruised and his right hand couldn’t move without sending sharp blasts of agony up his arm.
Not exactly ideal.
He cleared his throat and opened his eyes fully, turning his head toward Azrael. She looked down at him sharply, smiled, and leaned down to kiss him.
The kiss lingered, and lingered a bit more.
“Are you all right?” she finally asked.
“Not entirely.” He sat up gingerly to accommodate his pained breathing and injured hand. “But I’ll live. Are you all right?”
“Of course.”
He leaned back against the cold rock wall and took a moment to catch his breath and clear his head. It was very quiet outside. “The storm?”
“The same,” she said. “But we’re well back from the beach here, and sheltered from the worst of it.”
He nodded. “I’m sorry. You were right. We should have waited for morning. I was… stupid.”
“Reckless, maybe. But I understand. You wanted to save lives.”
“No, I wanted to show you that I wasn’t useless.” He offered a sad smile. “The last few villages we’ve been to, I know I didn’t exactly save the day with my sharp eyes or quick tongue.”
“You can’t talk your way out of everything,” she said. “No matter how keen your eyes are, or how wise you are, or how charming… sometimes people just aren’t going to listen. And sometimes the only thing that will end a fight is a blow, not a word.”
“I’ve noticed that.”
“It doesn’t mean anything, not between us.” Azrael moved over to sit beside him against the wall. “We’re two very different creatures, and that’s a very good thing. Because all I can do is stop a fight, and even then, only by fighting. If I went around the world doing that, it would never change anything. But you… yes, there are days when no one will listen, but when they do listen, it makes all the difference in the world. You change lives. You make peace. Real peace. That fisherman we met last night, he’s going to become a farmer, he’s going to save his family, maybe his whole village, using those seeds you gave him. You gave him hope, and happiness, not to mention life. Don’t ever think that’s less important than what I can do.”
He frowned at her. “Is that what you think you are? Just a warrior? Just a weapon?”
“Well, no, I…” She exhaled slowly. “I can’t begin to explain who or what I am in human terms, any more than you can tell me who you are in the words of an angel. But here, with you, the one thing I clearly am is strong, and fast.”
He leapt up and touched her face. “No, no, that’s just your body, that’s not you. You’re a woman who can’t stand injustice, who wants to save lives and end suffering, who likes to watch the sun go down, who likes to hold hands… and who loves an idiot in a dirty white robe.”
She smiled. “I know. I know all of that. But that’s only a part of my life. The new part. Before I met you, I walked the earth and sat in caves for thousands of years, never speaking to anyone, never touching anyone. I lived within the moment of death, all of the deaths that I saw, that I made possible. It was a different sort of life.”
Iyasu nodded. He’d tried to imagine that life many times, and each time it had felt like stepping into an abyss of agony and loneliness.
“And that life is still a part of who I am,” she continued. “At least once a week I see a young man die who looks just like you, and I have to look at you, or touch you, or check that you’re breathing if you’re asleep, just to know that it wasn’t you in my vision. It’s difficult. But it’s better, so much better than walking alone in the cold, sitting alone in the dark, trying not to feel anything at all. And I hope that one day I can be even more, feel even more. But right now, this is enough. You are enough. And using my strength to protect people, to save them from suffering, is enough, too. Does that make sense?”
He nodded and kissed her, blinking away the tears hovering in his eyes. “I love you, you know.”
“I know.”
“Good. That’s good.”
She hesitated, and then said with a subtle smile, “I love you, too.”
“Thanks for that.” He winked as he took her hand in his and sighed, and looked around at the cave again. “So where are we, anyway?”
“An island.”
“A big one?”
“No.”
“Inhabited?”
“Probably not.”
“Mm.” He nodded thoughtfully. “I don’t suppose you’d consider trying our luck back out in the storm again, would you?”
“I don’t entertain foolish suggestions from handsome young men.”
“Certainly not, no.” He smiled. “So what then? We build a new boat?”
“We’ll have to.”
“All right. Well, do your angelic gifts include carpentry or basic woodworking?”
“No. Only the ability to fly at the speed of light, to wield great strength, and to endure an endless torrent of anguish as I…” She blinked, and then whispered, “I’m sorry. I was trying to be funny. I don’t know why I said that.”
He shook his head. “Forget it. Come on. Let’s see if we can build a boat.”
They emerged from the cave onto a broad rock ledge where the heat of the sun and the cold of the sea wind warred to control the weather. To his left Iyasu saw the dark line of the sea and the great white icebergs slowly sailing over the waves as a soft scattering of snow fell on his fee
t. He cast about the rocky heights and quickly focused on the dark green woods to his right. “Dragon trees.”
The trees in question had pale trunks that rose in elegant columns to twice the height of a man before gently separating into a perfect ring of branches that supported a smoothly curving dome of dark green leaves. Standing together they formed a lovely canopy as the edges of their leafy roofs only barely touched, leaving the trees themselves carefully spaced across the hillsides. As the two walked down into the wood, the air grew steadily warmer and the wind died away to only a faint whisper in the leaves.
Iyasu touched one of the smooth trunks. “It’s a pity to have to tear any of them down, but I suppose it can’t be helped.”
They walked a bit farther into the forest, looking for any fallen trees or other sorts of lumber they might collect, but all they found were more of the lovely dragon trees, many of them supporting the teardrop-shaped nests of small black and white birds that chirped brightly as they flitted from twig to twig, their sharp little beaks glowing a soft blue hue in the shadows.
Large brown butterflies flitted through the shade, safe from the stiff wintry breeze blowing in off the sea, but when they alighted on a perch and displayed their plain wings, an electric display of green and yellow lights dashed across the delicate membranes to trace circles and swirls in the shade.
Iyasu also spied two large lizards moving with stately grace through the branches, their large eyes darting madly in every direction as they slowly marched in search of insects. And when they found their prey, they struck with terrible speed using long sticky tongues that blazed with an eerie pink light.
“Well, we can make our raft right here where we’ll be protected from the wind until we’re ready to go, and then we can carry it down to the water,” he suggested.
“We?”
“Hey, I can help. Some.” He winked at her.
She smiled, and tore a large tree out of the earth with her bare hands. As the roots ripped free of the dark soil, some of the pale tendrils tore into thin stringy shreds and a thick white liquid began to drip and ooze from them. Iyasu considered the strange sap for a moment and was about to look away when he saw the newly formed pit in the earth was quickly welling up with the same white substance to form a small pond in the forest floor. From the surface of the white pond, small bubbles began to expand and pop and expand again, and then several of the bubbles went on expanding upwards to form thin, curling tendrils that dripped and glistened with the white liquid as they rose into the air.
“It smells like… rot.” Iyasu took a step back from the pool as the tendrils continued growing taller and thicker as they waved and thrashed aimlessly.
“Get back!” Azrael dropped the tree in her hands and leapt to pull him even farther from the pool as the tendrils whipped outward, lashing at the ground near his feet.
A small swarm of black birds with glowing blue beaks dropped from their perches in a chorus of angry chirps and flooded through the air. One of the white tendrils struck upward and smacked into a bird, instantly sticking fast to its small feathered body, and pulled it down into the pool. Iyasu listened to the little creature cry shrilly all the way down until it vanished into the white ooze.
They stepped back, and then stepped back again as the tendrils continued to flail and slash across the ground. Azrael took hold of the seer and began walking away.
“If they’re all like that, then it’s too dangerous for you to be here,” she said.
“No, it’s fine. I’ll be fine,” he assured her as he tucked his throbbing hand back into his robe. “I want to help.”
“I can do this without you. It won’t take long.”
“But what if something else happens, something worse?” He looked back toward the pool, which was now hidden by the trees. “What if you’re pulled into one of those things?”
“I’ll be fine.”
“You’ll be dead,” said a voice from above them.
Iyasu scanned the trees and quickly found the dark shape of a boy nearly hidden in the branches of a distant tree. He pointed out the shadow to Azrael, who motioned for him to move behind her, but he shook his head and called out, “Thank you for the warning. We don’t like being dead. My name is Iyasu. What’s yours?”
There was a pause, and then the answer, “Kamil.”
“Hello, Kamil.” Iyasu glanced at Azrael. “Would you like to come down and talk to us for a minute?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“If she’s strong enough to pull up a tree, she’ll have no trouble killing me.”
Iyasu smiled and shrugged. “I suppose that’s true, but we’re not in the business of killing people.”
“Sorry if I don’t believe you.”
“Oh. Well, is there some way we can convince you?”
“I don’t see how.”
“Kamil!” Azrael called out in a thundering whisper. “Behold, the Angel of Death!”
She unfurled her magnificent black wings, letting them flood upward into the dense branches of the dragon trees until they burst through the canopy to flutter above the forest. Her long hair began to rise and float in the air, and all the fallen leaves and sticks at her feet also rose up off the ground, drifting and tumbling slowly around her as the gravity of the earth itself weakened in her presence. “I swear by the throne of heaven, no harm will come to you.”
The boy dropped to the ground and squatted for a moment, and then he straightened up and slowly came forward, his eyes wide and his face shining with sweat behind his long black locks. He looked to be no more than ten years old, short and wiry, and dressed in an odd assortment of tattered cloth and leaves pinned together with splinters. “Angel?” he asked.
“I am.” Azrael let her wings fade into nothingness, and her hair settled on her shoulders, and the leaves floated back down to the dry ground. She smiled at the boy. “Don’t be afraid. I am the embodiment of Death, but I am not a harbinger or bringer of death.”
He came closer, standing straight and walking calmly, his face no longer awash with fear as a thoughtful look came into his eyes. “What’s an angel?”
“Really?” Iyasu blinked and exchanged a baffled look with Azrael. “Well, she’s… you know, she’s an angel. Immortal. Made of light. Wings. Heaven. That sort of thing. You really don’t know about angels?”
He shook his head, and shrugged. “So why are you here? Did you come to find me?”
“Find you? No, we were shipwrecked in the storm last night.” Iyasu paused. “Kamil, are you alone here?”
“You mean, no people? Yes. But I knew there had to be others like me, somewhere. There are all these birds, and chameleons, and trees. So there must be more of me. After all, where else could I have come from? And who else could have taught me to speak?”
Iyasu narrowed his eyes at the strange boy, but there was nothing to see. No hints of insanity or hysteria, no signs that he was lying. “You don’t know how you came to be here? You don’t remember your parents?”
“No. Do you?”
“Vividly.”
“Were they nice?”
“They still are.”
“Oh.” Kamil paused. “How long do people live?”
“Fifty years, a hundred years. It all depends really on what you eat and whether you like to play with sharp pointy things for a living.” Iyasu blinked. “Listen, Kamil, I’m sure you have so many questions and I want to answer them all, but we are in a bit of a hurry. We have to build a boat and continue our journey. Do you have any tools we can use?”
The boy frowned. “What’s a boat?”
Iyasu gestured to give him a sense of the shape. “A hollow vessel, like half of a nut shell, that floats on the water, with a sail to catch the wind.”
Kamil looked at him sharply and pointed at his hands. “Floats on the water? It’s called a boat?”
“You’ve seen one?”
“No. But I made one.”
“You haven’t… but you…�
�� Iyasu exchanged another baffled look with Azrael before looking back at him and saying, “Can we see it?”
The boy narrowed his eyes. “Promise not to steal it?”
Iyasu grinned. “We promise.”
“Okay then.”
Kamil turned and led them up through the forest, and they emerged onto a large grassy hillside where once again the heat of the midday sun fought against the cold storm winds blowing in off the ocean. They crested the hill and spied a small cove below them where a simple hut stood on stilts among the rocks above the surf. The hut was surrounded by strange devices, small wooden cages and traps, some containing live birds and others holding the inanimate husks of strange sea creatures, and high on the beach above them laid a long wooden shape.
Iyasu peered at the shape as they drew closer, and it appeared for all the world to be a crudely but solidly made boat. The hull was formed of rough planks, all jagged and splintery, and inside there was nothing at all, no mast or sail or oars, or even seats.
“Will it float? Will it carry our weight?” he asked.
“Sure,” Kamil said. “At least, it can carry me just fine.”
Azrael smiled slightly. “And I don’t weigh much.”
They walked up to the boat to inspect it more closely. There were wooden pegs holding it together, and something like tar plastered over the joints and seams.
“Kamil, this is brilliant,” Iyasu said. “You did this all by yourself? Without ever seeing a boat for yourself?”
“Well, I found a strange thing on the beach last year. At first I thought it was a skeleton of a giant fish, but then I realized the bones were made of wood. I didn’t think it could have grown that way, the way it was shaped, in separate parts. I was curious about it, so I tried to copy it, and then I filled in the missing parts as best I could.”
“Kamil,” Azrael said softly. “If you knew it was for floating on the ocean, didn’t you want to use it to leave the island and find other people?”
Kamil nodded and looked away to the sea. “I did. I even gathered some food for the journey. But then I realized that the ocean is so big, and this island is so small. And I’ve never seen another island out there, or another floater. Boat, I mean. So if there are other islands with other people on them, they must be very far away, and I didn’t think I would be able to find another island before I ran out of food. So I didn’t go. But I did want to. I still do.”
Angels and Djinn, Book 3: Zariel's Doom Page 4