“I am Samira Nerash,” announced one of the djinn women. “I am a Tevadim of Odashena, sent to answer the summons of Holy Raziel.”
Zerai raised a curious eyebrow.
A Tevadim? Why would they send a magi sculptor to deal with this Daraji woman? Why not send another Sophirim to handle it? Or two? Or ten?
“Welcome, Samira Nerash,” the angel said. “Thank you for coming so quickly. Who are your companions?”
“My sister, Petra.” The djinn cleric gestured toward the second woman beside her. “And the alchemist, Master Bashir. They volunteered to assist me in fulfilling your task, Holy One.”
The djinn man nodded slightly.
Raziel smiled. “Again, welcome, and thank you. Please sit.” He gestured to the soft grass where the students had sat the day before, but the three solemn djinn remained standing.
“Your message was brief,” Samira said. “I understand that there is a human cleric of Sophir that you wish me to subdue.”
“Possibly,” the angel said. “The Navean kingdoms stand on the brink of war, and this one cleric, this one woman, may be the cause of untold suffering in the years to come if she cannot be stopped. She may believe she is protecting the weak, she may even believe she is protecting the peace, but she is at this moment provoking a cruel warlord to lay waste to an entire country. If it is in your power to stop this, then I ask you to stop it.”
The djinn cleric stood silently for a moment, but no movement of her mouth or eyes betrayed her thoughts. Finally she said, “I was given to believe you called us here on an errand of divine necessity. Human affairs are not the concern of Odashena. They have their world, and we have ours. Our laws forbid us from interfering.”
“Oh really? Why?” Zerai asked. He stared into the woman’s dark, unblinking eyes in search of the threat that he felt in every step the djinn had taken into his home. “You don’t need to be afraid of us. We’re not contagious.”
Samira Nerash turned slightly to face him. “We do not fear your bodies. We fear your intentions. The last time Odashena revealed itself to the human kingdoms, it caused a war that nearly destroyed my country. Your people tried to take our city, our knowledge, and our lives. We will not make that mistake again.”
“Nor should you.” Iyasu paced quietly into the square. The young Arrahim wore his travel-stained white and yellow robes and carried a plain wooden staff in his hand. “Welcome. I am Iyasu Sadik, of the Arrahim.” He offered his hand to Samira, who merely glanced at it. Iyasu retracted the hand as he said, “We’re not asking Odashena to take sides in a war, and we don’t want to reveal the existence of the djinn to the world. Your privacy and your neutrality are safe here.”
The djinn cleric gave no sign that she was at all reassured by his words. “But?”
“But there is a warrior cleric in Elladi, and now King Darius wants her head on a spear,” Iyasu said. “Who is she? Why is she fighting? We don’t know, but she’s putting us all in danger. A war between the eastern and western kingdoms could rage all the way to the holy mount and the angels who dwell there.”
“Ah.” For the first time, a hint of concern passed over Samira’s face. “I agree, the rogue cleric could be a danger to the holy orders, and to the angels themselves. Very well, I shall complete the task and bring this cleric to your divine justice, Holy One.”
Raziel raised his six crystalline wings to catch the morning light and cast a dazzling array of rainbow lights across the square. “Divine justice is for the divine. For this cleric, an end to the violence will suffice. I would prefer if you simply bring her here. She may be in need of our healing gifts.”
“Actually, before you do that, before you bring the extremely violent cleric here to my home, could I just ask one question?” Zerai called out. “There’s just one small thing I don’t understand. How is a Tevadim going to stop a Sophirim? Don’t get me wrong, the gifts of Tevad are very beautiful and very useful, but I don’t see how a stone or wooden sculpture is going to stop a woman who can shatter trees and boulders with her bare hands.”
Samira looked at him coldly. “Are you a cleric?”
“No, I’m just a lump of talking clay,” the falconer said. “But I’ve known Tevadim and I’ve fought beside Sophirim, and if even half the stories about her are true, then I can’t see how you could possibly stop this Daraji woman.”
“These clerics that you have known, they were human?”
“Yes.”
“Then that is why you do not understand.”
Zerai gripped his sword. “Can you help me understand, or are you just going to keep trying to piss me off with your condescending, cryptic crap? Because unless I do understand it, I’m not going to let you put my friend’s life in danger, or risk killing thousands of innocent people in Elladi.”
“I see. You’re not going to let me.” It was softly spoken, not a question, not sharpened with anger or cruelty. The sentence was an icicle in the woman’s mouth. “Then I will teach you, for the sake of your friend, the seer.” Samira nodded at Iyasu, who nodded back with more than a little nervousness in his eyes. “Prepare to defend yourself, if you can.”
Zerai exhaled slowly as he drew his sword and approached the djinn cleric as her two companions moved swiftly aside to stand near Iyasu.
She’ll try to move into the shadows to hide, and to slip around me. I have to keep her in the light.
And she’ll need to touch the stones on the ground, or in the fountain wall, to use her gift. So watch the hands.
But if she does touch the stones, the change will be slow. I’ll have to time to see it, to figure out what she’s doing.
Now!
Zerai dashed forward, leapt to his left, and kicked off the top of the fountain wall, leaping toward the djinn cleric with his sword raised to strike.
He never reached her.
Something cold clamped down on his foot and yanked his whole body straight down toward the ground. He fell face-first onto the ancient cobblestones and only barely managed to get one hand under his head before he struck the street. The crushing pain ripped through his arm and the side of his face as the wind was knocked from his lungs and his trapped leg twisted sharply.
He cried out a wordless, senseless noise as his sword clattered across the stones. Gasping for air, he tried to raise his head to see what had happened when a short spear of stone erupted from the ground and flew at his exposed throat. The cold tip of the spear stopped just short of his hot skin and he froze in place, not daring to move even as he struggled to catch his breath through the pain in his face, chest, and leg.
So fast, she’s so fast, Adina was never that fast… And she never even moved.
“I trust you are satisfied with this demonstration?” Samira asked.
Zerai grunted and nodded his head a little. The stone spear slid back into the ground, leaving no trace of its existence, and the stone clamp on his foot melted away, freeing him to sit up and bleed in a more comfortable position.
“A human cleric only has a few decades in which to study and hone her skills,” Samira said. “Thus, you are accustomed to seeing only those skills that can be achieved in such a short period of time.”
“Yeah, I get it,” Zerai wheezed as he staggered to his feet. “Djinn live longer, so you have time to learn more.”
“Much more.”
Zerai focused on limping to the fountain wall so he could sit and massage the pain in his chest. He was still probing the bloody gash on his face when he felt one of the angel’s wings brush his shoulder, and instantly all the pain vanished and he knew he was healed completely. Physically, at least. A small burning pain still lingered in his mind. He grimaced at the djinn cleric, at her impassive eyes and small mouth, at her reserved stance and the long robes hanging perfectly still around her.
Did she enjoy that? Is she smiling on the inside? Or is she really that cold, that empty? Does it really mean nothing to her, to be able to thrash a person without lifting her finger?
“That was… impressive,” he said softly, not quite looking her in the eye. “I had no idea a Tevadim could do that. Still, I wouldn’t want to bet against a Sophirim. One of them could put her fist through any stone barrier you throw at her. And what if there is no stone or wood nearby? What if we find this Daraji woman in the desert, or a field? And if we find her in a city, will you tear down the walls around her to catch her? What happens to the people in those buildings if you do?”
Samira turned to the angel. “If I can capture this cleric, I will. If I can do so without drawing attention to us, I will.”
“That’s all I can ask,” Raziel said gently. “We are, among other things, trying to save lives.”
The djinn cleric nodded. “Very well. We will go immediately. Will you be guiding us to this Sophirim?” she asked of Iyasu.
“I… Yes.” The young seer looked across the faces of the djinn and his friends. “Immediately? It’s just that I only arrived yesterday. I wasn’t expecting to…”
“If you require rest, I will proceed without you,” Samira said. “Tell me where to find the Daraji woman, and we will be on our way.”
“No, no, it’s all right, I can go.” Iyasu stood up with a small sigh.
Zerai looked at the seer’s face.
He’s exhausted. Not to mention drowning in guilt and shame and self-loathing. And that business with the catoblepas yesterday… it didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel like him.
“I’ll go too,” the falconer said grimly. “Sounds like fun.”
Samira glanced at him for the briefest instant, a gesture of near total dismissal, before looking up at the angel again. “Holy One, we accept your task and will return in all haste when it is complete.”
“Thank you.” Raziel bowed his head to her.
The three djinn adjusted their bags and robes and looked pointedly at Iyasu. The seer blinked. “Right, well, I should get my things. It’s just over here.”
He led the djinn from the square toward the room he had slept in the night before. Zerai watched them go, and then turned to look at the angel. The winged being was beautiful by any measure, strange and wonderful, terrifying and comforting all at once. But in all the years he had lived with this messenger from heaven, Zerai still felt none of the awe or majesty or inspiration that he knew the young Razielim and other pilgrims felt in his presence. To the falconer, the angel was merely a curiosity, a mysterious friend in crystal-blue flesh. And the knowledge that he felt no great stirring in his soul in the angel’s presence made him frown quite often when he was alone to think about it.
“That looks like your thinking frown, or is it your worrying frown?” Raziel said with a gentle smile. “I told you, you have nothing to fear from the djinn. You can trust them, more or less.”
“More or less?” Zerai raised an eyebrow. “You’re a world of comfort sometimes, you know that?”
He paced back to his own home, knowing he should be hurrying a bit more so he could meet back with the others, but he wasn’t eager to tell Veneka what had happened, and what was about to happen.
She took the news about as well as he expected.
“I will join you,” she said matter-of-factly as she quickly gathered a handful of articles in a bag. “I will not allow Iyasu to hunt a crazed magi with a group of djinn by himself.”
“I’ll be there with him,” Zerai reminded her.
“Yes, but if these clerics get out of hand, hurling boulders and trees as they tend to do, then he, and you, will need a healer,” she reminded him.
It only took the briefest flashes of memory, images of the two Sophirim brothers Eon and Saifu toppling massive stone pillars and hurling a ship’s mast, to convince him that a healer would be worth her weight in gold and ivory.
“You’re right,” he said with a little shrug and smile.
“Of course I am.” She patted his cheek and kissed his lips, and then walked out.
He followed close behind, but when he saw the fountain again, the scene was quite different. Before the angel stood a single dark figure, the male djinn called Bashir, a tall and slender bit of shadow and silk with a rather large and bulky bag over his shoulder. Zerai and Veneka continued into the square, and the djinn abruptly turned to leave in the direction of Iyasu’s room.
“What was that all about?” Zerai asked as he watched the stranger leave.
“A private matter,” the angel said. “A personal request, one that I had to refuse.”
The falconer looked up at the unusual solemnity in the angel’s voice. “Why? What did he want?”
“As I said, it was a personal matter,” Raziel said, his face still quite devoid of his customary bemusement. “But you should be careful of him on your journey. He doesn’t care much for helping Iyasu. In fact, he has very different things on his mind.”
“You mean he’s against us?” Veneka asked.
“No, not at all. But he is not your friend. I’m afraid that poor soul is no one’s friend.” The angel folded his wings, wrapping himself in six waves of shining feathers. “Good luck to you all. I hope you will not need it.”
Zerai peered up at the worried brow of the angel, and he felt a worm of fear begin to writhe in his belly. And high above them all, a white falcon screamed at the bright blue sky.
Chapter 3
Veneka
As soon as they left the gates of Naj Kuvari, the mountain city began to melt back into the dense jungle behind them, vanishing into the waves of greenery that blanketed Mount Shokath. Veneka did not look back.
Over the years she had gone on countless journeys to the nearby villages to tend to the people too remote or too poor to seek out the local physicians and herbalists. Each journey filled her with a new sense of purpose, bringing health and new life to those in pain. But those journeys were only ever brief outings, fleeting excursions from the safety and comfort of Naj Kuvari. She never looked back because she always knew that she would be returning soon.
This is no different. There and back again. And with any luck, the only people in need of healing will be those I meet along the way, and not those I bring with me.
Iyasu led the group along the westerly path, slowly descending the mountain slope and bringing them down to the rough road that followed the streambeds where the land was a little flatter. The three djinn followed close on the seer’s heels, as though impatient to be moving far faster but not willing to actually demand that the young cleric hurry any more than he was.
Veneka watched the backs of the djinn, especially that of the man called Bashir. She tried to guess what sorts of compounds and concoctions a djinn alchemist might carry with him, but her knowledge of such things was nearly non-existent. For her, healing a sickness or a wound was as simple as touching the person and silently asking Raziel to let his grace and that of heaven to pass through her to heal the afflicted.
All of her studies had focused on calming her mind, listening to the rhythms of the human body, watching green things growing in the soil, and recognizing the signs of suffering, how to find those in need, and how to help them without causing a panic among the superstitious or the fearful. She had no use for herbs or… anything at all.
Zerai’s boots crunched on the dry dirt behind her and her thoughts turned swiftly to him and their conversation that morning.
Oh, my love.
Why so impatient? Is waiting truly so difficult?
But then, why can I not tell him the truth? He would understand. He would. Unless he would not. After all, he no longer has the nightmares anymore. It was different for him. Maybe too different.
Perhaps the only way to make him stop asking is to stop sleeping with him.
She smiled to herself.
But that will not happen.
All morning they walked through the forest, making steady time along the narrow dirt track that followed the narrow stream at the bottom of the valley. Iyasu stopped to rest just after midday, after nearly five hours of hiking, yet when the three humans sat down on th
e grass, the three djinn remained on their feet and stared down at them, waiting.
“Please, sit,” Veneka said. “We will be here for a few minutes.”
Samira and her sister Petra sat down in the middle of the path. The alchemist Bashir wandered a bit farther away and sat in a pool of shade that nearly consumed him.
The djinn cleric managed to sit in silence for less than a minute. “The Holy One has tasked us with an urgent mission. The safety of the clerics and the angels themselves could be at risk, as well as the lives of your people. We should be moving much faster, not sitting still.”
“Yes, but we cannot move much faster. The road is rough and we tire.” Veneka turned to look at the djinn woman. “If I may ask, how is it that you are so fast? It should have taken you days to travel from Odashena to Naj Kuvari.”
“The djinn were created from fire, so it is in our nature to rise and move swiftly,” Samira explained. “Humans were created from clay, so it is in your nature to cling to the earth, weighed down by your heavier flesh.”
Veneka frowned.
I do not think I have ever been so disturbed by the word flesh before.
“So you live longer than humans, and you move more quickly as well?” the healer asked.
“If it makes you feel any better, humans are stronger than djinn,” Samira added. “To some extent.”
“Thank you. That does make me feel better,” Zerai said as he lay down and closed his eyes. “But there’s nothing we can do about our slow, heavy feet, so you may as well enjoy the breaks.”
Veneka glanced at him. He was right, as he usually was about anything practical, but he was also being less tactful than he could be, which was also typical of him. She turned back to look at the djinn women, this time focusing on the sister. “Your name is Petra, I believe?”
The younger sister nodded, her eyes narrowing ever so slightly.
“Zerai did not mention your profession to me.”
War of the Magi: Azrael's Wrath (Book 2) Page 3