Aetherium (Omnibus Edition)

by Joseph Robert Lewis

  When they reached the platform and climbed up onto the wooden walkway, the smirking Italian sauntered away and sank down onto a bench between two snoring men in dark robes and blue turbans. Qhora turned the other way and paced out to the end of the platform, to the very edge where the walkway ended and the railroad tracks drew a straight path through the outskirts of the city far into the distance. She slipped a dagger from her sleeve and squeezed it tightly in both hands.

  A brief eternity passed in which she could only stare west, waiting, scarcely breathing.

  Now it comes. Now is the moment. Now I will find him, and open his flesh, and spill his blood in the dust, and shatter his heart, and destroy everything he is, or was, or ever will be. He took away my Enzo, and now I will take away everything that is his.

  Now.

  She gripped the knife tighter, and tighter still, imagining the blade in her hand piercing the man’s chest, tearing him apart into red and white ruin.

  Now.

  Every hidden corner of her own flesh grew warmer, pulsing with the rhythm of her heart, flush with readiness, with desire. She could see it, how it would happen, how it would feel.

  Now.

  The train appeared, a small dark shape on the horizon. It grew slowly at first, but then much faster, resolving into a large jagged metal beast with round, cycling legs and a fat trunk spewing steam and smoke into the sky over its back. Clacking, huffing, and whistling. It took forever to cross from the wilderness into the city and it only rolled slower as it came closer, and by the time it rolled into the station itself it was barely moving at all, but then it kept rolling and rolling, car after car, until the entire train had entered the station.

  Qhora stared up at the dark windows where the dark shapes of bodies were shuffling about in the dark seats and aisles.

  Where should I be? Where should I go? Where should I look?

  For a moment, she considered joining Mirari at the main gate to watch everyone flood past. But instead, she stepped up onto the end of the last bench so she could look out over the heads of the men and women streaming down off the train.

  A young Aegyptian. Small mouth. Large nose. Dark green robe, light green shirt. Close cropped hair with a sharp widow’s peak. Where are you?

  She stood and watched and waited. But the man with the burning sword did not step off the train. As the cars began to empty out and the crowd on the platform drained out through the gates, Qhora crossed the platform and entered the rear passenger car. She jogged down the length of each car, ducking into the private compartments to look for stragglers, scanning the benches for a hidden figure, but there were none. The train was empty.

  She stepped down onto the empty platform and saw Salvator standing nearby, frowning at the gates. He glanced at her and shook his head. Qhora hurried to the gates and stood beside Mirari, staring at the backs of the weary travelers shuffling out into the bright city streets. “I don’t understand. Did we lose them? Did they get off the train somewhere?”

  “No, my lady. This train only stops for water and coal at supply depots,” the Espani girl said firmly. “There was no reasonable place for anyone to leave the train between here and Tingis. And I know what I saw. The Mazigh called Kenan and the Eranian called Shifrah were on this train.”

  Qhora felt a strange emptiness in her breast. All the rage, all the heat, all the focus was draining away and leaving her with only a single cold, hollow question.

  Where is he?

  She was about to turn and ask Salvator something, perhaps to ask if he had seen anything, perhaps even to ask his advice as to what she should do next. But a voice drew her attention to the train, and there, on the far side of the tracks, with the cars obscuring all but their boots, were three people. She heard their voices.

  She heard his voice.

  “There they are!” The rage returned into a single titanic wave of fire and blood in her mind as she ran off the edge of the platform, leaping between two cars to land on the far side just behind the three figures.

  All three turned to look at her and the Mazigh gunman’s eyes widened. He raised one open hand as he said, “Dona Qhora! My name is Kenan Agyeman. We met once at—”

  She shrieked as she lunged at him, at his filthy mouth making noises and excuses and lies, standing between her and her prey. The young man stumbled back, his hand clawing at the holster on his leg. She saw the fear in his eyes. And dimly she felt the one-eyed woman coming toward her.

  But then Mirari was there, suddenly, as if from nowhere, as Mirari always appeared, running and leaping from the shadows. The mountain girl flew out from between two passenger cars and tackled the Eranian woman to the ground and the two rolled across the dirt and gravel in a storm of blades and dusty clothes.

  Qhora smashed her fist into Kenan’s jaw, her knife just grazing his neck. His foot caught a rock and he fell back hard. Just as he yanked his gun free, she stomped on his wrist and shot her knife toward his throat. His eyes went wide and he screamed, “Oh-God-please-no!”

  And she stopped. This isn’t him. Isn’t the one. Isn’t right.

  Qhora dashed away from the fallen Mazigh after the figure in green sprinting away down the side of the train.

  That’s the one. The one who did it. That’s the one I need. I need to catch him, to wrap my fingers around his throat, to hear him beg for his life, and then to take it from him.

  Just as the man in green reached the end of the train, Salvator Fabris stepped out from beyond the nose of the locomotive with his rapier drawn and raised.

  “No! He’s mine!” Qhora screamed.

  A blaze of orange light slashed through the shadows, and Qhora saw the man in green wielding his strange burning sword, hacking viciously at the Italian. But there was no clash of steel, no ringing blades. Salvator darted back and back again, twisting and turning, stabbing and needling at his opponent, but never letting the fiery short sword touch his shining rapier.

  Qhora felt her legs burning and her lungs burning and her heart pounding as she raced down the last few yards toward the two men. But before she could reach them, the Aegyptian dodged around the front of the train and disappeared, and Salvator did not follow. He merely slipped his rapier away, tugged a small handkerchief from his sleeve, and dabbed at the perspiration on his forehead.

  Qhora slid around the front of the train. The platform was empty. “Where is he? Where did he go?”

  Salvator shrugged and she heard him breathing heavily. “Through the gate, I suppose. Into the city.”

  “Why did you let him go?”

  The Italian blinked and arched one eyebrow. “You told me not to kill him, and I told you I wasn’t interested in him to begin with. Besides, he was quite good with that little sword of his. Unique design. Nipponese, if I’m not mistaken. I think it’s called a seireiken. Hot, too. Too hot to cross blades with. And even if I had been willing to let it touch my steel, it would have been a close match. I can see why he was able to best Don Lorenzo.”

  Qhora paused to catch her breath. “What? He’s an oaf! An idiot! He did more damage to the hotel than to Enzo. He only killed him because that damn sword of his melted through…Enzo’s espada…” She felt clawing hands of grief at her throat, choking off her words. She covered her eyes, trying to forget the image of the burning sword piercing Enzo’s chest.

  “Really? Then he’s improved over night. Literally. But my business lies there.” Salvator pointed behind her.

  Qhora glanced back to see Mirari still locked arm in arm with the one-eyed woman on the ground, while the Mazigh man stood over them with his gun pointed at the sky, yelling at them. “We have to help her!” And she was off running again.

  Mirari!

  Mirari existed in a strange place in Qhora’s life, somewhere between sister and friend and servant. Enzo had found her in the mountains, deformed and half-mad, but Alonso had brought her back, her mind quite at peace behind the beauty of her new Italian mask, and she had simply become part of their household in
Madrid. Sometimes Enzo’s student, sometimes her confidante, and sometimes a household servant working to earn her keep. And of course, always Alonso’s lover. But whatever else she was or wasn’t, Mirari was family now.

  The Mazigh gunman saw Qhora running toward them, and for a moment he moved as though to point his gun at her, but he shouted at his one-eyed friend again, and the woman managed to disentangle herself from the masked girl. The Mazigh and the Eranian clambered between the passenger cars and out of sight and Qhora heard them running across the platform, and then they were gone.

  She reached Mirari just as the girl was standing up. She was moving stiffly, but there was no stain of blood on her or the ground, and for a moment Qhora felt something other than rage and confusion. Relief. “Are you all right?”

  Mirari nodded. “I’m sorry, my lady. She was surprisingly skilled with her hands, and I had to keep her between me and the Mazigh. I couldn’t reach my knife.”

  Excuses. She’s making excuses. The cool relief vanished beneath another wave of hate. “You let them go!”

  “I’m sorry, my lady.”

  “We’ll have to start over again!”

  Why did I bring this broken girl at all? Alonso wouldn’t have lost them. He’s taller, stronger. Or Atoq, my beautiful Atoq, he would have torn their throats out and right now I could be staring down at their lifeless bodies instead of my own empty hands.

  “Come on,” Qhora snapped. “We have to find them!”

  With Salvator trailing a few paces behind, they jogged out the gates of the station and into the streets of Carthage. The early morning sun shone down on a few dozen people striding this way and that way, talking in low stern voices, gesturing sharply, and striding on to somewhere else. A few craftsmen sat behind tables of their wares beneath striped awnings as they wove their baskets, or painted their glassware, or assembled their toys. The real markets were elsewhere, Qhora realized, and these were only the poorest people trying to catch a bit of business from the train’s travelers.

  They came to the first intersection and stared down the long dusty roads in each direction. Qhora felt her entire body tightening up, her hand squeezing her knife, her teeth grinding together.

  Salvator glided around her and spoke without looking at her in the eye. “You may want to put the knife away. You look ready to use it on the first thing that moves, which may not be your enemy. It wouldn’t do to run afoul of the local constabulary. They aren’t as reasonable here as they are in Marrakesh.”

  With a trembling hand, she slipped the knife back into the narrow sheathe up her sleeve. “Where do we go now?”

  “Well, we can’t possibly search all of these houses or shops. We need information, we need eyes. So let’s find someplace crowded.” Fabris took the lead, striding smoothly through the thickening crowds of caravan merchants, Kanemi workers, Hellan traders, Songhai pilgrims, and other peoples from farther east that Qhora had never seen before. They reached a bustling square ringed with small cafés and shrines, and around the dry fountain in the center of the space were hundreds of kiosks, a maze of rickety tables shaded by tattered awnings on crooked poles all lashed together in a patchwork shantytown in the middle of the square. The murmuring voices rose like the babble of white water pouring over a fall, and dust filled the air with a brown haze that stung Qhora’s nose and eyes.

  Ahead of her, she saw Salvator ducking his head into the market stalls and kiosks, speaking softly to the merchants, sometimes gesturing toward his eye or miming the appearance of a gun or a sword. The merchants nodded or shrugged or shook their heads, but no matter their response the Italian always moved on. Finally she saw the tall fencer drop to his knee to speak to a young boy. A coin flashed between them, and the boy ran off.

  “Now we’ll see some results,” Salvator said. “We’ll wait over there.” He pointed them to a shaded corner beside a shrine where a grotesquely fat stone figure sat grinning stupidly at all who passed.

  “Who was that boy?” Mirari asked.

  “Just someone hungry enough to do the dirty work for us.” Fabris smiled. “Spies come in all shapes and sizes these days.”

  For half an hour they sat in the shade. Twice Qhora started to say something, to demand that they do more than just sit and wait, but each time her exhaustion cried out louder. She hadn’t slept on the flight from Tingis at all, and had barely eaten at Taziri’s house, and her breasts were aching because little Javier wasn’t there to relieve her of her milk. The thought of Javier, of his huge black eyes and fat cheeks, shattered her thoughts of anything but home and she leaned back against Mirari, her eyes closed, and tried to sleep, tried to fall into some oblivion where none of this was real, where the last day had never happened, where everything was perfect again and the future wasn’t so terrifying.

  But she couldn’t sleep. She opened her eyes and watched other people walk around and talk and wave and lift and pull and ride by. Gradually, the volume of noise increased, a gentle crescendo that eventually left her squinting and rubbing her forehead to ward off the inevitable headache. Then the noise of the crowd rushed up, crashing into the square with the press of several hundred more bodies all dressed in dark browns and reds, many waving sticks and rods and hammers over their heads.

  “What’s happening?” Qhora stood up, her hand pressed to the dirk in her sleeve.

  “A riot.” Salvator grimaced. “Kanemi migrants. They come up from the south looking for work, and when they can’t find it they often protest by breaking things.”

  The mass of angry men drifted slowly across the square chanting nonsense phrases and slogans and calls to take action in Kanemi. Qhora didn’t need a translation. “We need to leave!” she shouted over the din.

  “We need to stay!” the Italian shouted back. “The boy will come. Trust me.”

  So they pressed back as far as they could behind the shrine of the smiling fat man and gripped their weapons, and waited.

  The mob surged left and right, sending little bands of men to shout at the merchants and overturn their tables, and knock down their awnings, and since the awnings were all lashed together soon the entire market was in chaos as every stall tumbled sideways and fell on the people beneath them.

  Glass shattered, pottery shattered, and stonewares shattered.

  Shouting and more shouting, and screams, and faintly some sobbing.

  Qhora made herself as small as she could behind the stone pillar of the shrine and wrapped her fingers tightly around Enzo’s triquetra hanging around her neck and asked his three-faced God to let her survive the next few minutes.

  Father, Mother, and Son.

  Slowly, and with several false starts in different directions, the mob moved on. They continued in the same direction as before, across the square and down the next street, and a quarter of an hour after it all began it was all over.

  Qhora stood up and surveyed the tattered remains of the market with a vague hatred of all the barbarian peoples of the east, of their mad selfishness, of their apparent inability to feed and clothe themselves without someone else giving them work to do.

  Stupid people.

  One by one, the merchants picked themselves up and shoved their awnings up and pulled their tables up, and soon the market was restored, albeit with a bit more jagged trash scattered under the kiosks.

  And then the boy came back.

  He chatted with Salvator for less than a minute before scampering off with a fistful of shining coins, leaving Qhora with a vague sense of unease. Her Espani was immaculate and her Mazigh was good, but her Italian and Hellan were terrible and she knew nothing of the many languages of the Eranian Empire. And even here in Numidia, the Mazigh accent was so different that she couldn’t tell what anyone was saying. She didn’t have to ask whether Mirari understood what the boy had said. The masked girl had spent most of her life alone in an abandoned Espani silver mine.

  “Well?” She squinted at Salvator.

  “Well, I was right. A one-eyed woman and a Mazigh g
unslinger are easy marks, particularly to a young boy. Or more precisely, to several dozen young boys.” The Italian gestured to the street. “Our friends are in a café a few blocks from here, and apparently they are talking about finding transportation to Alexandria. But the riots have shut down the eastbound trains, so we may be in a bit of luck.”

  “Then we have to catch them, now!” Qhora put one hand on Salvator’s back, partly to make sure she didn’t lose him in the crowd and partly to propel him faster toward their destination. They wove around carts and oxen and zebras and even a pair of ostriches that momentarily reminded Qhora of her giant Wayra. But only a little. They wound through the crowds, choking on dust and spices, and stumbling around piles of dung and puddles of blood and sweat, until Salvator pulled them aside and pointed down the street. “There.”

  The café looked like any other building. Pale clay walls, a narrow door, and a single small window of tinted glass. Qhora gripped her knife. “Let’s go. And this time we don’t let anyone…”

  The door of the café opened and the one-eyed woman stepped out, slipping on her white jacket and flipping her long black hair out over its collar. The Mazigh gunman followed, squinting at the bright sky. The swordsman in green came out last and led the others away down the street.

  “Quickly!” Qhora jogged after them, narrowly avoiding the countless people and wagons and animals thronging the street. She closed the distance slowly, trying to form a plan of attack. The Aegyptian was farthest away with the other two obscuring him. She had to get around them. She had to get close to him. Qhora scanned the street ahead for some obstruction, some funnel, some distraction that might rearrange her field of battle.

  The Aegyptian turned a corner and his companions followed. As Qhora approached the corner, a piercing white light blinded her and she shaded her eyes with her hand.

  It’s the sun on the sea. The Middle Sea. We’re at the harbor. Boats. No!

  She dashed around the corner only to see that her prey had already crossed the road a block ahead and were striding down a long pier toward a small steamer. Qhora tore across the road with her knife drawn. She had no idea whether Mirari and Salvator were still behind her and she didn’t care. She ran as fast as she could, but the Aegyptian was too far away, already at the gangway, already boarding the steamer. She reached the foot of the pier drenched in sweat and turned to run toward the boat, but a pair of men with long rifles shoved her back and barked, “Private property.”