Aetherium (Omnibus Edition)

by Joseph Robert Lewis

  At noon she stopped at a small pond, hoping that the ice would prove easy to break and that there would be no angry spirit to contend with, but the ice proved too hard even for Wayra’s iron beak and so they were forced to eat snow, though Lorenzo had often cautioned her not to. They ate sparingly from the rations that the monks had provided and rested on a dry, rocky spot above the pond.

  She was just about ready to coax Wayra back up to her feet when a familiar growl caught Qhora’s ear. Searching the northern trail they had been following, she saw a dark shape coming down the hill side. One part of her heart took wing with joy at the sight, while another part shriveled and quaked.

  What are you doing here?

  A few minutes later a very large saber-toothed cat was butting his head against her hands.

  “I’m happy to see you too, my big brave boy,” she said into his thick bristling fur. “But you shouldn’t be here. You should have followed Enzo north. You should be protecting him, not me.”

  Atoq merely purred his godlike purr, his entire skull vibrating with the sound.

  “It’s all right,” she said. “But we have a long way still to go, and I have no meat for you. You’ll have to hunt for yourself and try to keep up as best you can.”

  She stared into his huge golden eyes and tried to force him to understand her words by sheer willpower alone. He blinked and looked away, licking his fangs.

  “All right then.” She climbed up into Wayra’s little shoulder saddle and turned to the southeast. “Let’s go.”

  Chapter 20

  The long walk from Ciudad Real to Cordoba shrank by quite a few hours when a passing wine seller took pity on the two Mazighs and let them ride in the back of his cart. But it was an Espani cart, just a few wooden planks on a wooden axle with iron-rimmed wooden wheels, and the ancient contraption rattled and banged along the pitted road, rocking violently over every dip and bump. It rolled slowly and loudly, and it was completely exposed to the winter wind. And despite his best efforts, Syfax couldn’t sleep on it.

  But Kenan could. The young lieutenant slept through the day and night and when he finally woke up his cold was gone and there was almost a hint of the old grinning kid in him again, despite the biting cold and the miserable cart. His nose hadn’t been broken after all, just bloodied and bruised. The major wondered if the kid had ever been seriously hurt in his life.

  All the way to Cordoba, Syfax watched the horizon for soldiers on foot, soldiers on horseback, and military pigeons carrying death warrants across the gray skies, but he didn’t see any. It had taken most of an hour to lose the soldiers in Ciudad Real and then slip outside the city past the guards at the gate, but now it was almost as though the entire chase had never happened. No one out here seemed to know. No one seemed to care.

  Syfax sat on the rear lip of the cart, feet dangling just above the icy road, staring out across the bleak white hills and thinking of his one-eyed lover.

  What the hell sort of woman screws you, then calls the cops, and then helps you get away?

  They had nearly reached Cordoba when a rider appeared on a distant hilltop behind them. Syfax watched the rider grow and grow until the figure became a tall Italian woman riding along next to the cart.

  “Well, I’ll say this,” Nicola began. “At least this time I didn’t have any difficulty leaving the city to follow you. The soldiers were so busy looking for Mazighs that they didn’t care about me at all.”

  “Yeah, sorry about running off like that,” Syfax drawled. “We ran into a little trouble first thing in the morning and had to get moving, and I sort of forgot about you. No hard feelings?”

  “Of course not,” she said, her face blank and unreadable. “The first rule of anything is survival. I understand that as well anyone.”

  When they reached Cordoba, Syfax almost thought they’d turned around in the night and returned to Ciudad Real. The cities looked so similar. Snow and ice on stone and brick, with too many bodies crammed into too narrow streets. Too many church spires loomed above the city like shepherds or sentinels, and too many soldiers loitered near the gates and intersections. After thanking the wine seller for the ride, Syfax led a very quiet Kenan through the main gates, passing within an arm’s length of three soldiers in blue. Nicola rode along in stately silence behind them. None of the men gave the towering Mazigh a second look.

  They don’t know yet. We must be ahead of the pigeons still, so we have a few hours. Maybe a day or so. When they were well inside the city in the press of bodies and away from the guards, he said, “We should find someone who knows the coast and can give us directions. Maybe there’s a book store with a map.”

  “I’m the map,” Kenan said, squinting into the bright light glinting off the icicles that hung from every eave and sign and withered tree. “Captain Ohana had me memorize them. All of Marrakesh and all the coasts of España, Numidia, and Italia. It seemed like a waste of time back then since I figured we would always have a map on the plane. I never figured on having to navigate without the plane.”

  “Yeah, you learn something new every day,” Syfax said. “So we’re in Cordoba. Where should we go next, mister map? Sevilla? Tartessos?”

  “No, no, you’re way off. That’s all west of here. We want the shortest way south to the coast, right? So we go south to Malaga, get a boat, sail along the coast to Gibraltar or so, and then cross the Strait to Tingis. Very easy. We’re halfway there already.”

  “You’re sure about all that?” Syfax glanced at the kid. After all, you got us into this mess in the first place by going off course to Valencia.

  “Yes, I’m sure.” Kenan peered into a shop window and looked back to see Syfax still staring at him. “What?”

  “Nothing. Just, you know. Valencia.”

  “I told you, and I told the captain, that wasn’t my fault. There was a crosswind. I did everything right to keep us on course, but without a coast line or other landmark, it’s impossible to verify a position using just a compass, a fuel gauge, and a watch.” He glared as he ran a gloved hand over his bare head.

  “If you say so, kid. Let’s get some lunch.”

  They ate as they walked through an open air market, and as they were leaving Syfax realized that the weather had improved enough in the last few days for there to be open air markets. Bins full of chilled fruits and berries sat in rows, and huge cuts of beef and pork and whole chickens hung in the stalls along the streets. Yet there was almost no smell of anything in the streets except for the occasional whiff of fresh horse droppings.

  As they left the city shortly after noon, Syfax struck up a friendly conversation with yet another wine merchant, this one driving a much larger cart that squeaked and bounced lightly over the holes in the road, and in no time at all the major and the lieutenant were invited to join the merchant on his spring-mounted seat to enjoy a luxurious ride to Malaga. Nicola followed a short distance behind, her horse plodding along with the considerable flow of pedestrians, carts, and wagons heading south to the coast.

  That afternoon they rumbled into Malaga, into the smell of brine and fish, of oil and pitch, of smoke and offal. The day’s sun had regained some of the strength that Syfax remembered it once having, and for the first time he seriously considered taking off his second coat. He didn’t take it off, but he considered it.

  They bid farewell to the wine merchant, a talkative man named Angelo who kept offering them a taste of his reds if they would only come with him to the shop and help him unload the casks. Only Nicola was tempted by the offer, though not much, so the threesome entered the town on foot. Here the mud and filth in the streets was only half frozen and fairly slippery, and the icicles dripped steadily from the roofs. The occasional stray dog or cat trotted across their path, sniffing out vermin to hunt. The occasional church bell rang in the distance, calling to absent school children and idle housewives and anyone else not working their fingers raw in the sharp ocean wind to put the boats out, or bring the boats in, or to clean the fish while ar
guing over weights and measures.

  Syfax led Kenan and Nicola led her horse down to the docks. The late afternoon sun gleamed red on the choppy waters of the Strait of Tarifa. Syfax watched a few fishermen sailing into the harbor. “All right. Looks like we’re still ahead of the pigeons. I say we wait until dark and then swipe a dory to row down the coast.”

  The pouting Italian lady nodded. “Certainly. But there seems to be a steady breeze from the east. Why not find something a bit larger and sail the whole way? It will be much easier.”

  Kenan glanced from one to the other. “Wait, why are we stealing anything? I’m not robbing some poor fisherman of his entire livelihood when we’ve got Miss Money-bags here. I’ve been listening to those reales jangle in her purse all the way from Cordoba. Why don’t we just pay someone? Then he can sail us down to Marrakesh and we don’t have to steal anything or do any work.”

  Nicola sighed. “How many fishermen do you suppose you might have to talk to before one of them agrees? And then how many fishermen are going to know about the Mazighs looking for passage across the Strait? And how many of them might tell the constables or the soldiers about us? No, no. One day, lieutenant, you will understand the harsh realities of the wider world and the hard choices that must be made if you want to survive, let alone succeed in life.”

  Syfax grinned. She’s only half right, but right enough. No risks. No chances. And certainly no trust in strangers when your own life is on the line.

  Kenan spat in the street. “The hell with that. You want to know about hard choices? How about choosing whether to get a doctor for one child or food for the other three? How about choosing to go back into the mines, day after day, even though your lungs are rotting in your chest and you’re coughing up bloody chunks of them when you think your children aren’t looking?”

  Syfax laid a heavy hand on the kid’s shoulder. “Hey, look, we all have our sob stories, kid. But today is today. We need to get home to tell the generals about that warship, and we can’t afford any screw-ups. We’re not talking about murdering anyone, just stealing a boat.”

  “Go to hell. I’m no thief.” And he turned and stomped away.

  Syfax lunged to grab his arm but Nicola caught the major’s sleeve and said, “No, let him go. An officer who can’t follow orders is a liability. Let him go and talk to whoever will listen to him. He’ll be arrested by sundown if the search for us has reached this town. And if it has, the soldiers will be so pleased with themselves that they’ll drink and celebrate, and possibly spend the evening beating the boy. No one will be watching the harbor. No one will see us rowing away.”

  Damn it, kid, I thought you were supposed to be smart. The major exhaled and nodded. “All right. We’ll find someplace warm to sit and wait for dark.”

  Nicola made a short detour to a stable where she sold her horse for half of what it was worth. Then they wandered into the center of town and though Syfax was looking for a tavern where he could rest his feet, he didn’t object when Nicola steered him into a large, empty church with an altar blazing with hundreds of candles. A scant handful of worshippers sat in the pews, most with their heads resting on the pews in front of them with their eyes closed. The rare cough or shuffle of feet echoed over and over through the high rafters. Syfax sat in a back corner where he could see the doors, and Nicola sat beside him, her hip just touching his. He grimaced.

  Two hours later, the waning light through the windows faded altogether and Syfax decided it was time to move. He nudged the Italian lady awake, lifting her head roughly from his shoulder. Outside he found a sky painted deepest black and drenched with shining stars from one horizon to the other. There were no streetlights here, no haze of smoke and ash looming over the city, nothing at all conspiring to hide the stars from view. Syfax breathed the cold salty air, wondering if Port Chellah had ever been so clean and clear.

  They went down to the water and walked along the gravel strands and wooden docks, scanning the small boats for simple rigging, loose lines, and especially shadowed moorings. But there was always a shaft of light from a cottage or a passing man or a tricky looking knot, and so they walked on and on.

  “Here. This one.” Syfax jerked his chin at a fifteen-foot dinghy. He recognized the knot. He recognized the oars. And there was no one about to see or hear him shove it down the gravel slope to the water.

  “Surely something larger. A yacht. A single mast.” Nicola pointed out across the harbor. “Maybe one of those.”

  “Hey lady, we didn’t exactly cover sailing in soldier school. I know how to row and that’s it. All I know about sails is they need a hundred ropes and knots, and then the long arm swings around and hits you in the back of the head. No thanks. This here will do.” He knelt and whipped the single anchor line free of the ancient chunk of masonry in the sand serving as a mooring. Then he grabbed the raw and splintered wood of the dinghy’s bow and he pushed.

  The tiny boat scraped and groaned down the gravel slope. Syfax winced at the noise and glanced about the deserted beach. Then he shoved again. The hull growled and rattled, and a few pebbles tumbled free to clatter down the short slope and splash into the softly rolling waves. He shoved a third time and the dinghy screeched into the water, and the first incoming wave shoved the boat right back into the beach where it banged and crunched on the stones and sand.

  “Hey!”

  Syfax whirled to see a stocky, older man just a few yards away, silhouetted in the open doorway of a cottage just above the high water line.

  “Hey, you! Stop!” The man waved.

  “Aw, crap.” Syfax grabbed Nicola and lifted her into the boat, dropping her into the bottom on top of stiff coiled ropes and rotting tarps. Then he grabbed the rough gunwale and shoved the boat back into the sea, back against the rising tide, driving out until he was hip-deep in the freezing water. Syfax leapt up into the dinghy, dragging his soaked legs up into the howling sea breeze. He rolled to his knees and stomped off-balance to the seat in the center of the boat, wrestled the oars into the oarlocks, and began sweeping them about in awkward circles as he tried to propel the little boat out into the harbor.

  “Help! Boat-thief! Help!” The stocky man was no longer in the open doorway and Syfax couldn’t bother to look for him in the dark.

  The oars bit into the inky sea and drove forward inch by inch. The boat rolled as the waves and wind whipped and battered it back toward the beach.

  We’re moving. Just stroke. Gotta be a machine. Gotta work like an engine. Stroke. Again. Again.

  Syfax ground his teeth as he hauled on the oars. His rough palms were already burning where tiny splinters sliced open his skin and his back was already aching from the unfamiliar motion.

  Harder. Harder.

  The beach was still only a dozen yards away when the first rifle shot echoed across the water. A babble of Espani shouts soon followed, and a smattering of rifle shots followed that. Syfax peered up at the beach and saw the dark figures running down toward the water.

  Four, eight, twelve.

  Damn it.

  “Halt, thief!”

  The next shot was a proper volley, six rifles crackling in unison. Two bullets struck the water just to their right, sending up tiny jets of brine. A third bullet struck the stern of the dinghy.

  Nicola lay flat in the bottom of the boat, twisted and contorted at the major’s feet. “Can we escape?”

  Syfax took one last quick glance at the black waves shoving him back to shore where a line of men were leveling their weapons at him. “Nope.” He let go the oars and raised his hands over his head. “Stand down!”

  No more shots were fired and in a very few moments the tide deposited the dinghy back on the beach. Syfax stood up, hands raised, and let the sneering boys in uniform pull him out onto the sand at gunpoint. He looked back at Nicola. “Don’t say anything.”

  “Don’t be stupid, I’m well versed in Espani law. I can have us out of this little predicament in an hour.”

  “I said shut up.
” Syfax looked into the face of the oldest soldier there on the beach. The grim man peered back with an all-too-familiar sleepy-eyed look. There were no nervous eyes, no shaking hands, no shuffling feet here tonight. “Just shut up.”

  Chapter 21

  Shifrah stood in the shadows across the street and watched the soldiers lead the Mazigh major and his homely friend into the constable’s little jail. When the uniforms were all gone, Shifrah stepped out from the alley and walked slowly past the jail. It was a small building but built of massive gray stones, and she knew the country’s construction habits well enough to guess that the cell would be caged with heavy wrought iron bars bolted deep into the stones.

  So much for you, big man. Shifrah paused. But where is your sickly little friend?

  She continued past the jail and down the lane, through a dark little graveyard behind a dark little church, and onto another street that looked to have a few more lights than the others. But she found only three guttering torches outside a tavern. She ducked inside, found only a few old fishermen nodding in their cups, and resumed her walk down toward the water.

  Maybe the kid ran away when the major got arrested.

  But as she strolled along the top of the pebbled beach, she saw no men still at work on their boats, and the boats themselves were little more than rotting relics passed down from fathers and grandfathers who probably knew as little of shipwrighting as she did. There were a thousand places to hide in the dark, but no real shelter, nowhere worth staying for more than a few minutes.

  She stood in the cold wind, smelling the salt and tasting the faint oils of the dead fish. Seeing and hearing nothing, she turned to walk back up into town when she heard the unsteady shuffling of boots on the steep slope of the beach. And there in the darkness was the sickly boy, only he wasn’t so sickly now. He walked tall with an angry stride, as though stomping either toward or away from some argument. She couldn’t quite see his face, but she recognized the line of his small nose and the unhappy lines around his mouth.