Because of me.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered to the cedar skull. “I’m so sorry.”
Then he stood up and walked back down to where the others were standing together, waiting for him. He walked up to the huge man with the huge sword and looked up into his dark, grinning eyes, and he said, “You’re going to take us to Simurgh. Now. You’re going to take us because lives depend on it. Thousands of innocent lives. Whole cities could burn and be swallowed by the earth, until the roaring flames drown out the cries of the dying and the white sands cover the places where children once laughed and played. You’re going to take us to Simurgh because we saved you from the beasts of Dalyamuun. And you’re going to take us because you just murdered an innocent creature right in front of my eyes, and I did nothing to stop you, and if that death is in vain then I am going to kill myself with your sword.”
Rahm peered down at him, his keen eyes wrinkling deep in thought. “For the sake of argument, why would I care whether you live or die?”
“You wouldn’t.” Iyasu gazed up at him. “But the Angel of Death would.”
Rahm looked sharply at Azrael. “She won’t kill me. She can’t kill anything. You said so yourself.”
“That’s right,” Iyasu whispered. “Whatever she does to you, you can be sure that you won’t die. You’ll never die, no matter what she does to you.”
Rahm grimaced. “We can reach Simurgh in three days if we leave now.”
Iyasu nodded. “After you.”
Chapter 9
Zerai stood on the beach, gazing out across the dark expanse of the Sapphire Sea. The water looked strangely gray beneath the colorless sky, and not a single bird glided above them or floated on the waves. But there was something out there, far out in the center of the channel, he could see white shapes sailing south, but they didn’t look like any ship he had ever seen before.
Something’s wrong here.
Days of walking had brought the clerics from Odashena through the forests and hills of Tigara to the very edge of the western kingdoms and now…
“Now we need a boat.” Zerai glanced over at Adina and Samira. “But I think we’re a little short on trees.”
They hadn’t seen a single acacia since the previous evening, and standing on the high bluffs above the sea there was no sign of anything larger than a blade of grass to the north or south.
“We don’t need wood,” Samira said calmly. “I can fashion us a sturdy ship from the grass and reeds. With a little help from Adina, I can have us safely at sea within the hour.”
The two Tevadim walked away from the group, quietly discussing what Zerai assumed to be the finer points of using their divine gifts to create something from nearly nothing. There had been a time when it would have fascinated him to watch a holy magi use her powers to make miracles right before his eyes, but now, at that moment, he just wanted the journey to be over.
There’s nothing waiting for us in Shivala but more killing, and probably our own deaths. Maybe that’s why heaven, or fate, or whatever it is, didn’t let us have a child. Because we’re going to die.
Veneka whispered in his ear, “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” he said.
“Really? Because you have not stopped scowling for the last two days.”
“Sorry.” He tried to relax his face and offer her a genuine smile, but there was no joy in him, even as he looked into her beautiful dark eyes. “I’m just worried.”
“So am I.”
For a moment he was taken back, years and years, to a far brighter day when he had stood beside her, holding her hand, gazing out at a beautiful sunrise and marveling at the wondrous future that lay before him.
So much for the dream after the nightmare.
“Let us just focus on getting to the city for the moment,” she said. “We will deal with the rest as it comes. Worrying will not help us much right now.”
He nodded and was about to turn away when something far out over the water caught his eye. He stared at it, a small black smudge in the clouds, and he watched as it slowly resolved into a much larger blot in the sky, a swirling mass of clouds with a shining curtain of rain falling on the white-tipped waves. “Storm’s coming.”
“When is it not?” the healer sighed.
They watched the wind whip the sea into a pale froth, and the sheets of rain fell faster and thicker, painting the air in shades of silver.
“I’ve never seen a storm like that before,” Zerai said.
“So violent?”
“No, it’s…” Zerai squinted into the rising wind. He had lived on that coast for years, hiding in sea caves along the bluffs and stealing food from the fishing villages to survive with his fellow orphans, and together they had huddled in the dark and watched countless storms rage across the Sapphire Sea. But never one like this. “That’s snow. And ice. Those aren’t ships out there, they’re icebergs.”
“Icebergs?” Veneka looked over at Kiya. “You mentioned storms, but icebergs?”
The archer shrugged. “They were much smaller when we came across the last time.”
Zerai backed away from the water’s edge. “We need to find a cave. Now.”
“Or make one.”
Zerai pulled out his falconer’s lure from the heavy glove he wore on his belt, and he whirled the lure over his head, hoping to call Nyasha to him, but he hadn’t seen the eagle in over an hour and she could be miles away, and all he could do was hope that she would find some shelter on her own.
Veneka called out to Samira and pointed to the storm that was now racing toward them. The djinn cleric understood instantly and she calmly swept her hands through the chill air to make the earth at her feet tremble and rise.
A smooth sheet of dark rock slid up out of the ground and continued to spear upward and inland at a low angle until it formed a large shield just high enough and broad enough for their entire company to stand comfortably underneath it. They hurried inside and stood well back from the opening, and Zerai folded his arms under his green tunic, looking out across the western grasslands of Tigara, waiting for the storm to make landfall behind them.
The sky turned black as night as the wind shrieked, blasting the delicate grasses flat upon the earth. Frozen rain and fist-sized hail stones began to patter and shatter on their large stone shelter, and farther out on the savannah as well. Zerai watched his breath puff and drift around his face as the air grew bitterly cold.
Adina stepped forward and with a simple gesture caused new stone walls to rise all around them to meet their stone roof, forming an almost pleasant cave with uncommonly straight walls, and only a narrow rectangular doorway to let in the dim light and cold air. Then Kiya reached up and placed her hand on the stone roof, and after a long moment the rock began to glow with a dull red light as the air grew sultry and a steady heat began to radiate down on the shivering travelers.
Zerai kept his eyes on the opening of their shelter where the air quickly turned white with flying ice. “This… this is impossible,” the falconer muttered. “It’s nearly summer. But even in the winter, it never snowed here. Maybe up in Qumar, but not here.”
“Could the djinn be doing this too?” Veneka asked.
“I don’t know.” Zerai looked back at Samira. “You once said that djinn clerics had more power than humans because they live longer. I’ve seen what you can do, but what about a djinn Juranim? Could they make a snow storm?”
“No.” Kiya looked at him sternly, but then her certainty wavered and she looked at Samira. “Could they?”
“Maybe.” Samira paused as an elegant stone chair rose from the earth behind her and she reclined in it thoughtfully. “I once saw a djinn Juranim turn a rain storm into a blizzard, but it only lasted a few minutes. But this storm… we saw this storm coming from across the sea. This is massive, and could rage for days, for all we know.”
“Wonderful,” Zerai said dryly. “First we have a djinn who can change his face, then a djinn who can destroy half of
Shivala, and now there’s one who can command storms from another continent.”
“We do not know for certain yet,” Veneka said. “But I agree. This is looking worse all the time.”
“So how long do we wait here?” Kiya asked. “You really think it could be days?”
“Or longer?” Samira shrugged. “Impossible to say.”
Zerai sighed. His instincts all said to sit down and wait. The world was a dangerous place, and if you can see that danger then it’s already too close, and he could see the storm very well. Risks were for the young and the stupid, and the falconer wanted to live.
But then he looked over at Talia and her baby girl, and a small war erupted in his heart over trying to protect the child there in the cave and trying to get the child across the sea. Both were terrible choices. He could see the snow already piling up on the plains, and even if Kiya could keep them warm and carve a path out through the blizzard later, where would they go? They only had enough food for another two or three days. Where would they find more?
His old instincts still said to sit and wait, but he’d cultivated new fears, new instincts over the last few years, and whenever the clerics and djinn were in control, he found himself wanting to get away, and so he said, “I think we should go.”
“Right now?” Veneka asked.
“Right now.” He went to the shelter entrance and squinted out at the flying ice. His fingers and toes quickly started to ache from the cold, and he wished he had some sort of coat or cloak to cover his soft green clothes, but there was nothing at hand and so no use in wishing for it. “Kiya, you once froze a lake so we could walk across it. Can you do that again?”
The archer stared at him. “Freeze the entire sea?”
“No, just enough for us to stand on. Since there’s no wood for Samira to make us a ship, and the grass is all buried now, maybe you can make one of ice.”
“That’s insane,” Kiya said. “Stand on a sheet of ice, exposed to this storm on the open water? If we don’t capsize, we’ll freeze. It takes most of a day to sail across the Sapphire Sea, and that’s with fair weather and a real ship.”
“You heard Samira. We may never get any fair weather.”
“Or this storm might end in a few minutes,” Kiya said. “We should wait. An hour. A day. As long as it takes. Rushing out there is only going to get us killed.”
“It’s not ideal, no.” He grimaced. “But if these new djinn can tear down half a city with their bare hands, do you really want to sit here and risk being buried and frozen to death? This could be our only chance, now, before it gets even worse out there.” His eyes flicked over to little Nadira and then back to the archer.
Kiya shook her head. “Maybe. But a ship made of ice?”
“The ship can be enclosed, and we have nearly a dozen healers with us.” Zerai continued to stare out at the storm. “I think we can manage. And like you said, crossing only takes a day. We can survive for a day. Samira, can you work with Kiya to make a ship out of ice? Can you sculpt the water as she freezes it?”
“I’ve never tried anything like that before,” the djinn cleric said. “But maybe. Yes, I think so.”
“Then let’s try.” He gestured to the frozen grassland outside. “Unless you want to wait here. It’s up to you. You’re the clerics.”
It was a gamble, hoping that Samira would support his plan, but he had no other cards to play. Without a real ship, only the power of the clerics would carry them across the sea and he had no real way to influence them, let alone command them.
But he knew Samira. He knew what pride she had in her holy gifts.
“I agree, we should try it,” Samira said. “If these eastern djinn have the strength to destroy Shivala, then we have to assume they have the strength to make this storm last for weeks, if they wish it. The longer we wait here, the weaker we’ll become as we run out of food and succumb to the cold. But first we should wait just a little longer and see what happens. This storm may be just a squall after all.”
So they sat and they waited. With the heat radiating down from above, the cave was comfortable enough, and Zerai stared out through the open doorway and watched the storm rage on. But a quarter hour passed with no sign of a change, except for the layers of snow slowly building higher and higher, erasing all signs of grass and stone on the plains.
And then Samira stood up from her stone chair and said, “Well, that’s enough of that. Sister Kiya, will you please assist me?”
All eyes turned to the archer, who only took a brief moment to consider the position she was in before she nodded. “All right then. Let’s try it.”
Hand in hand, the company left the safety and warmth of the shelter and trudged out into the blinding cold. The flying ice and falling snow stung their skin and eyes, but Zerai kept them moving at a steady march back over the bluffs and down to the water’s edge. In those few minutes, everyone began to shiver uncontrollably and they huddled together on the frozen sand. Only the child Nadira, tightly cradled to her mother’s breast, seemed untroubled by the cold.
Samira strode forward and extended her hand over the frothing, icy waves. Instantly the waves began to dance before her, swaying left and right as they swept up into the vague shape of a boat’s hull. Kiya stepped into the water and knelt down, touching the angry sea itself. Bright white crystal veins raced across the face of the water, crackling and crunching as the brine began to freeze. The ice boat rose up out of the water in rocking sweeps like the flowing of waves, first rising at one end and then the other, until the entire hull was formed of white, shining ice.
“Quickly now, everyone inside!” Samira yelled over the shrieking wind.
The entire company climbed over the side and slid down into the bottom of the ship. Zerai felt the ice leeching the heat from his backside and feet, shaving away the warmth of his body layer by layer. He tightened all of his muscles as he crouched down, trying to force his body to stay warm by sheer will and desire.
And then suddenly the air was still, and that stillness made it feel twice as warm. Zerai looked up and saw that there was now an arching roof of ice covering the boat, shielding the passengers from the cruelty of the storm. No more hail or snow fell on their unprotected skin, and they all quickly brushed the ice from their hair and clothing to dry off. Their breath still steamed in faint clouds, but within a few moments everyone stopped shivering and they looked at each other quite calmly, and waited.
The ship lurched and groaned as its frozen hull ground over the harsh sand, and then they were free, floating and rocking on the angry waves of the Sapphire Sea.
Kiya slid down inside the cabin with them through the small hatch near the rear and Adina rushed to dry her off and warm her shaking arms, but the archer sat down and placed her bare hands against the white ice to keep it frozen solid.
“Is it working?” Veneka asked.
“Yes,” Kiya whispered as she wiped the sweat from her face. “We’re sailing now.”
“And you can keep the ship together?” Zerai asked.
Kiya nodded, again wiping more sweat away from her eyes. Her skin was flushed bright red, and her breathing was shallow. “As long as I can stay awake, yes. I’m more worried about hitting an iceberg than melting in this weather, but yes, I think I can do it.”
Zerai glanced at Veneka and the others.
That’s not a great answer. It could take two days to reach the far shore in a storm like this. If only we had a second Juranim…
“Where is Samira?” Talia asked as she rocked little Nadira in her arms.
“She’s on the deck, sailing the boat.”
“Exposed?”
Kiya nodded. “She said she would be fine.”
Talia frowned. “Djinn are born of smokeless fire, but we… they’re not indestructible. There are limits.”
“Then let’s hope we get to Shivala before Samira reaches her limit.” Zerai breathed a slow, hot breath onto his cold hands.
“We will take turns caring for h
er.” Veneka nodded at the other healers from Naj Kuvari. “Every half hour, one of us will go and restore her. And you as well.” She looked pointedly at Kiya. “You’re taking all the heat from this boat into your own body. The fever could kill you.”
“I know,” the archer whispered. Already her eyes were half-lidded and her body began to slump down. Adina kept wiping the sweat from her lover’s face and arms, whispering words of encouragement as she tried to keep Kiya comfortable.
Zerai kept looking over at little Nadira, and saw how calm and sleepy the girl was. She sucked absently on her left thumb as she reached up to play with her mother’s hair.
At least she’s safe for the moment.
He frowned.
Wait. Did they ever say why Talia was coming with us? Did Bashir know something about the eastern djinn? Did I miss something?
He sat up and was about to ask Veneka, but he couldn’t stomach the notion of starting a conversation with her now, even exchanging a few harmless words felt like lying. Talking about anything over than their future, or lack thereof, seemed wrong now. So he said nothing and chewed on the question of Talia and her little Nadira in silence.
For countless hours, they sat together in the dark, cold cabin of the ice ship and waited. The ship groaned and crackled as it sliced and smashed its way through the storming waves, and the hail drummed louder on the roof over their heads. The healers went up on deck, one by one, to make certain that their captain remained alive and safe, and Veneka stayed close beside Kiya, watching the archer for signs of heat exhaustion.
“How do you suppose Iyasu and Azrael crossed the sea?” one of the young healers asked suddenly.
Zerai looked up. “They flew, I guess.”
“Even through a storm like this?”
The falconer shrugged.
Several times Zerai thought he might strike up a conversation with Adina about life in Shivala, or with Talia about life in Odashena, but each time he couldn’t find the words to begin, and the cold drained away his will to try. So he sat and stared at his feet, and waited.
His eye lids drifted lower, and lower… and lower…
Angels and Djinn, Book 3: Zariel's Doom Page 9