Angels and Djinn, Book 3: Zariel's Doom

by Lewis, Joseph Robert

  “Yes, horrible thing. White hair, shaking like a leaf, shrieking and babbling nonsense, always hurting herself.” Marana glared and pressed her face down into the folds of his old robe for a moment. When she lifted her head, she said, “One night I tried to speak to her, to help her, but she attacked me. Threw stones at me. She moved very fast.”

  “I’m sure she did,” he muttered.

  “What’s this?” The old woman pointed at a fold in the robe just in front of her face.

  “What’s what?” He leaned forward to look.

  She drew her hand out of the robe and displayed on the tip of her finger a tiny golden beetle with a glowing white orb in its tiny pincers. “What is this?”

  Chapter 22

  “It’s a beetle from the Gaokerena,” Iyasu said softly. “I didn’t realize I had any on my clothes.”

  “What’s it holding?” she asked.

  “I’m not sure, really.” He squinted at the white speck clutched in the beetle’s horns. “Food for the tree, maybe. Or a seed. I really can’t say.”

  “Mm.” The ancient snake-woman nodded as she studied the golden bug on her knuckle, and then she plunged her finger into her mouth and drew it out again, and began to chew.

  Iyasu cringed. “Why?”

  “Hunger,” she muttered between the soft crunches in her mouth. The morsel vanished a moment later and she flicked at her dark, stained teeth with the tip of her tongue. “Disappointing.”

  “Sorry.”

  She shrugged and pulled the robe on over her rotting shawl.

  “Listen, I would truly like to help you, I would, but I won’t force you to go back to Naj Kuvari,” he said. “That’s your choice.”

  She sighed and curled up into a ball on the sandy floor, and shivered.

  “Maybe someday soon I can come back here with one of the healers and they can help you right here,” he continued. “If you want, I can do that.”

  Marana shuddered and pulled the robe tighter around her shoulders.

  When she said nothing, he said, “So I guess I’ll be going. We’ll all go, and you’ll be safe again in a few minutes. But it would help if you could tell us where we can find your old house. I’d like to see the peris, and maybe see if that woman is still there. She might need some help too.”

  The elderly woman opened her eyes and stared at him, and for a moment he thought she might have died as her glassy eyes reflected the pale light of the sun on the floor. But then she coughed and shook, and lifted her head closer to the light and the warm rays of the sun fell on her cheek.

  Her smooth brown cheek.

  Iyasu squinted.

  What is…? That’s not possible.

  But it was happening. Marana’s face grew softer and fuller by the second, smoothing away the lines around her eyes and filling her lips with life and color, even as the gray vanished from her hair, leaving it a lustrous cascade of pure black in the darkness.

  She cleared her throat and the weak rattle and cough were gone, replaced by the sound of a younger, stronger voice preparing to speak. “What is this?” she said in a honeyed tenor. “I feel strange. I feel… better.”

  “You look… younger,” he said slowly. In truth, she looked as young as he did, as entire decades and centuries of unnatural decay vanished within a few brief heartbeats.

  She stared at her hands as the flesh grew fuller, the skin smoother and darker, the movements fluid and powerful. “It’s a miracle.”

  He nodded. “It looks that way, doesn’t it?”

  “Iyasu!” Azrael called from the mouth of the cave. “Is everything all right?”

  “I’ll let you know in a minute!” he called back.

  Marana sat up for the first time, balancing strangely upon the coiled mass of her tail, and letting the dusty wrinkles of the cleric’s robe lay flat upon her breasts, revealing the young skin of her belly and arms. “What have you done?” she asked wonderingly.

  He shook his head. “I really have no idea.”

  “It’s wonderful,” she whispered. “The pain is gone. All the pains, the little ones, the aches, the creaks, the shaking in my chest, all gone.”

  “Mm hm. Anything else changing?” Iyasu rose to his knees and glanced back toward the exit. When he looked at her again, he saw how sharply the tip of her tail was flicking and lashing across the floor, tossing small mushrooms of dust into the air.

  “I don’t know, I…” she paused, gazing up at the jagged roof of the cave. “I…” She gasped.

  “What is it? What’s happening?” He searched her face and hands for some sign, some expression or gesture that would reveal whether her heart was weakening, or her lungs collapsing, or her mind unraveling. But instead he only saw confusion, and the glimmers of pain.

  Marana gasped again and grabbed her left wrist, only to yelp and yank her hand away again, her fingers bloody. Iyasu shuffled closer and saw that tiny bone-white spurs were thrusting up through her skin, and the longer they grew, the greener they appeared.

  “What are they?” she asked, her arm shaking.

  “They look like… thorns.”

  She cried out again, this time reaching for her neck, but instead of sharp thorns, she found small round bulbs forcing their way out through her pores, dozens of them, and all growing larger and rounder with each passing moment, until they all unfurled in a single radiant splash of green leaves and red petals.

  “Roses,” Iyasu whispered, his brows furrowed in a deep frown. “They’re roses. The seed you ate, the one the beetle carried, it was a rose seed, but not a seed, not like we know them. It was something deeper, something more elemental than just a seed. More like… the essence of the rose. Whatever it is, it’s taken root inside you.”

  “Get it out! Help me!” She grabbed at the profusion of beautiful blossoms around her neck and chest, only to yell in pain when she tried to pull them out.

  More thorns erupted on both of her arms, piercing the white folds of the robe’s sleeves and lancing forward from her hands, until her fingers were all but hidden within the deadly clusters of long, sharp points.

  Iyasu stumbled back from her as she began to thrash about in her agony, grasping at the blossoms that she couldn’t stand to tear free, and stabbing herself over and over with the cruel tips of the thorns on her hands. More roses erupted around her face and in her hair, as well as on her naked belly, bursting into life in haphazard clusters all across her warm skin, small and large alike. And in the shadows where the woman’s serpentine tail coiled and writhed, more and more thorns sliced upward through her scaled flesh, transforming her lower limb into a vicious morning star flailing out of control.

  He shouted at her to be still, to close her eyes, to try to stay calm, but she continued to thrash as the roses and thorns continued to grow, and the more she tried to touch her strange growths, the more she hurt herself, and the more she cried out, and the more she thrashed. Iyasu crept backward, glanced one more time around the cave for some tool or inspiration that might help a half-woman, half-serpent who had swallowed a holy seed from the tree of life, and finding none, he fled.

  Iyasu stumbled out of the cave into Azrael’s arms, shouting, “Woman snake, growing thorns, get back, get back!”

  No one moved, choosing instead to stare at him, so he grabbed Azrael’s hand and bolted away from the cave. “Run!”

  They all dashed back down to the water’s edge and spun around just in time to see Marana emerge into the bright light of the afternoon sun. The strange woman reared up on her scaled and thorny tail far taller than Rahm as she wailed and gyrated, still trying to rip the beautiful red flowers from her chest and alternately trying to smash the thorns from her arms by hurling her hands against the rocks around her.

  “What is that?” Rahm drew his sword.

  “A woman called Marana.” Iyasu shrugged and waved at the rampaging figure. “Cursed by the ancient Razielim into being half serpent, and cursed by my bad luck to bring her a beetle from the Gaokerena. Which she ate
, along with some sort of holy rose… seed. Bulb. Thing.”

  “Really? That poor creature. I’ll make it quick.” Rahm trudged warily back up the path with his sword raised.

  “No, no!” Iyasu grabbed his arm and turned back to Azrael. “Rael, how long would it take you to carry her to Naj Kuvari?”

  The angel blinked. “Flying without stopping? Two days at least. As many as four if she’s too heavy. And depending on the storms when we reach the sea.”

  Iyasu grimaced and looked back up at the woman gasping and shrieking as her body continued to blossom with red roses and green-white thorns.

  Four days? She won’t last that long.

  “No, what can we, there must be, where… aha!” He grinned and shook Rahm’s arm. “Simurgh! She can fix this, right? She helped your mother in childbirth, she can fix this!”

  The warrior frowned. “I don’t know.”

  “Well, can you summon her?”

  “That was my father,” Rahm said. “I cannot summon angels.”

  Iyasu spun around again. “Rael?”

  “Yes.” The Angel of Death spread her black wings and vanished into the sky in a soft jolt of thunder that hurled dust and smoke into the air.

  Hadara turned to Iyasu. “How long will she be gone?”

  “No idea.”

  “I should do something.” Rahm watched Marana shriek and smash her thorny hands against the rock wall. He took a hesitant step forward. “Something.”

  “Maybe the water will help,” Iyasu said. “Maybe it will dull the pain. Marana! Marana!”

  The woman covered in roses fell quiet for a moment, gasping for breath as she held her shaking hands away from her body. She stared down at the seer with blood-red rose petals framing her dark brown eyes.

  “Marana!” Iyasu waved to her. “It might feel better if you rest in the river. Let the water carry you, and cool you. Please try it. Help is on the way, if you can just try to stay calm for a few more minutes.”

  Casting grim looks at the three people by the riverbank, Marana began to slither and slide down the path toward the water. She breathed in short, shallow hisses through clenched teeth, and let her viciously sharp arms dangle in front of her. Raska, who had been watching the creature thrash in wide-eyed apprehension, now danced away, turned, and galloped along the water’s edge back the way they had come and disappeared around the next bend.

  Rahm and Hadara quickly stepped away from the path, giving the stranger a wide berth. Iyasu moved more slowly, and the princess grabbed his arm and yanked him to safety as the serpent-woman slid past him and eased down into the cold waters of the river. Iyasu saw the fierce anguish and rage in her eyes melt away as the cool waves rippled over her skin, and she slipped all the way into the water, floating on her back with her arms and tail outstretched and only the beautiful red blossoms on her face and chest above the surface, like a drifting island of flowers.

  The seer gently pulled away from Hadara and went to squat at the water’s edge. He smiled at the serene expression on Marana’s face, saying, “There. You see? We can get through this. My friend will be back with a cure in just a few minutes, and then everything will be all right. I promise you. You’re going to be all right.”

  Marana moaned softly as yet another red rose pushed its way up through her skin and blossomed forth on her cheek. Her thorny hand rose up out of the water and began to reach for the new flower.

  “No, don’t touch it,” Iyasu said quickly. “Just put your hand back down in the water. You can do this. Just don’t…”

  The woman in the river spasmed and gasped, her face twisted and lined as she clenched her teeth, and then her hand whipped up to clutch at the red bloom on her face, plunging dozens of long sharp thorns into her cheek and nose and lip. She screamed.

  Iyasu saw her body contort into a bent and coiled tangle of limbs and splashing water. He saw her tail flash out of the river, flying like a bullwhip, straight at his face. And then he didn’t see anything at all.

  He opened his eye. His mind instantly gathered new information. He could hear yelling and splashing in the distance, and his hands were cold. He was lying on his back on the rocks with the water lapping at his feet. Only his left eye was open, and the right side of his head was on fire. He reached up to his face, only to have a strong hand grab his wrist and hold him down. He turned his head and saw Hadara leaning over him, her face grim, her eyes nervous.

  “Iyasu? Iyasu? Can you hear me?” she was saying.

  “Mmm, yeah,” he mumbled. “What?”

  “Hold still.” She tore a strip of cloth from her sleeve, plunged it into the river, and then proceeded to wrap the cold, dripping bandage around his head. The cool water was soothing, but the pressure of the cloth on his skin set his face on fire anew, and his hands flew up to stop her. But she was kneeling on his right hand, and she fended off his left hand, and with a few grunts and mutters, she got the bandage securely looped around his face, covering his right eye and cheek and jaw. “I think you’re okay.”

  “What happened?”

  “She hit you. With her tail.” Hadara looked out at the river. “We need to move. Can you walk?”

  “Mm.” He sat up, only to have the world inside his head turn cold and hollow and start to spin violently to the side. “Nnn.”

  “I’ve got you.” The princess levered his arm over her shoulders and heaved him to his feet, and then helped him to stagger up the path, away from the river. They didn’t go far before she set him down again, propped up against a rock so he could see the water, where two figures were shouting and moving in bright, watery blurs. But then Hadara knelt down in front him, blocking his view. “How’s the pain?”

  “Where is she?”

  “Azrael will be back soon.”

  “No… Marana…”

  “Oh.” She looked back over her shoulder. “Rahm is dealing with her.”

  “Oh.” His mind ticked over for a moment. “No. No! Don’t hurt her!”

  “She almost killed you, Iyasu.”

  “Not her fault! Not… Don’t hurr… stop…” The burning pain in his face was rapidly changing into a horrible web of aches and throbs that ran from his chin to his temple. “…stop him.”

  Hadara sighed and turned back to the river. “Rahm! Try not to kill her!”

  “What?” the man yelled back.

  “Don’t kill her!” she bellowed.

  “Why?” he yelled.

  “Just don’t!” she ordered.

  He didn’t answer, but she seemed content to turn her back on him and focus on the seer. “I hope you’re right about this.”

  “Mm. How’s my face?” he mumbled. His jaw wouldn’t quite move right, and when it rubbed against the bandages, the pain made him shudder.

  “Still attached, just a little less pretty.” She offered a strained smile.

  “Mm.”

  A soft whistling in the air prompted him to look up, not that he could move his head much or see much, but a moment later he heard the feather-light impact of an angel’s feet on the ground nearby. “Rael?”

  “She’s here,” Hadara assured him.

  “What happened?” Azrael asked.

  A sudden shadow over his face told him that the angel was leaning over him, her black hair veiling the sunlight from his face.

  “I’m fine,” he mumbled. “Help her. Help her.” He waved lazily toward the river as he closed his one eye. The throbbing in his skull was getting louder, and the darkness helped.

  Sleep would help.

  “Iyasu! Iyasu!” Azrael shook him.

  “Nnn! Help her!” He spoke as clearly as he could manage, but he didn’t open his eye.

  He then heard the women talking as he felt his consciousness melting down into the warm darkness of exhaustion. But soon he felt hands on his neck and head, moving the bandages, jostling him around, and he forced his mind up through the clouds of sleep and dream to the clear light of wakefulness to peer into Azrael’s dark brown eyes, eyes lac
ed in golden fire.

  “Is she all right?” he whispered.

  “I need to help you first,” she said.

  He swatted her hands aside with a weak hand. “Her. First.”

  He saw the hesitation in her face as her hands hovered over him. But then she nodded and dashed away, taking her cool shadow with her and leaving him in the glare of the sun. He heard more shouting and splashing as he squinted up at the thin white clouds above, and then she was back again, dark and gold, her Daraji chains and coins jangling quietly around her hips and wrists as she moved.

  “I gave her the dew of the Gaokerena,” Azrael said. “She’ll be fine. Now lie still.”

  He lay back, no longer having the strength to argue, or even to lift his head. The pulsating waves of scratching, burning pain marched through his head like an army of fire ants and it took all of his will power to keep his eye open as she stripped off the bandages and grimaced sadly at the sight of his face.

  “I wish Veneka was here,” she whispered.

  “That bad?” He tried to smile, but his face refused. “Well, we’ll see her again, sooner or later. A few weeks with a few scars isn’t going to kill me.”

  Although a few hours with a nasty infection might do it.

  She said nothing as she applied a cold cloth drenched in strange scents that he could not quite place. He smelled a bit of jasmine and garlic and honey and smoke all swirling together, but whatever it was, it took away his pain, so that this time when he closed his eye he slept, and truly slept, and did not dream except in flashes of color and vague sensations of being happy and confused and young.

  When he woke up, the stars were glittering overhead and Azrael was sitting beside him. Marana slept peacefully on the sand, the thorns no longer corrupting her hands and tail, though many of the soft rose blossoms still bejeweled her neck and face.

  But Rahm and Hadara were gone.

  Chapter 23

  “They said they couldn’t wait any longer,” Azrael said. “I tried to wake you, but you were so exhausted, and then they were gone. That was hours ago. We could catch them, maybe, if we flew, and if they’re traveling in the open.”