Aetherium (Omnibus Edition)

by Joseph Robert Lewis

  Shifrah smiled sadly. It was getting harder to remember Omar’s face and voice. There were only a few snatches of memories that stood out clearly to her now, but they too were fading and she knew one day they would be lost along with the rest of him.

  “So Aker has returned to our fair city, has he? Well, if he’s not with Zahra at that establishment of hers, then you can check the nearby dens, and if he’s not hiding in the smoke, then try the old arena in the Songhai Quarter,” Rashaken said. “Some of Khai’s young dogs like to fight there at night, gathering warrior souls into their damned swords. Aker would sometimes walk the halls here in the morning, bragging about his kills.”

  “We’ll try there. Thank you, Master Rashaken.”

  The old man quickly described how they could find their way from the small room down to a cellar and back onto the streets outside without encountering any more Osirians. Kenan stepped out into the hall and Shifrah was about to follow when Rashaken said, “My dear, I hope you do find young Aker and dispose of him. I would consider it a kindness to me and to the Temple, especially as it would gall Khai very much. And if you were to remove Aker from my city, I might be persuaded to overlook the fact that you’ve been whispering secrets to a certain Italian gentleman.”

  Shifrah froze, an icy blade of shock slicing down her spine. It had never occurred to her that Salvator would ever piece together the tiny shreds of information she let drop over the years, and she never dreamed he might find his way to Alexandria, much less into a room with Master Rashaken. The dire consequences of her accidental betrayal made her hand shake. The Sons of Osiris were all too quick to dispose of anyone who dared to pull back their cloaks to reveal the truth of the Temple to the outside world. Even those within the Empire who knew of the Temple knew only what the Temple allowed them to know.

  “I never told him anything,” she said.

  “You told him enough. But take care of our mutual problem, Aker, and all will be forgiven. For now.”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you.”

  Well, that makes things simple. Either I kill Aker for Master Rashaken, or I capture Aker for Kenan. Once again, all roads lead to Aker.

  She glanced across the room at the door to the narrow passage and the forge beyond where she had left Salvator. It didn’t matter whether he was alive or not, but somehow it did matter whether the Italian had been sealed away in Master Jiro’s blade. But even asking the question might sound like sympathy for the outsider and she did not dare test Master Rashaken’s largesse.

  She slipped out and closed the door.

  Shifrah and Kenan hurried down the hall and through a small cellar that housed nothing but spider webs and a dead rat, and after fumbling about in the dark for a few minutes they emerged into a small house two streets away from the Temple, and then they stepped out into the chilly boulevards of Alexandria beneath a vast sea of stars. Glancing up, she guessed the hour to be shortly after midnight.

  “So what now?” Kenan asked. He walked beside her but kept closer to the shadows at the side of the road, and he threw a sharp stare over his shoulder every few steps.

  “Relax. We’re going to get Aker, and this time you can take him wherever you want. Rashaken said we should try a place in the Songhai Quarter.” She gave him a wry smile. “You’ll fit right in. After all, you only patrolled that border, how long? A year? You didn’t kill too many Songhai soldiers, did you?”

  “I didn’t kill any. I was the medic for my unit. I spent most of my time staring at empty fields and mountainsides, and a few terrified minutes running toward my friends to wrap them in bandages and watch them bleed to death.” The detective spat on the ground. “Good times.”

  “You know, Zidane probably saved your life when he took you with him into the marshals.”

  “I really don’t want to talk about the major, if you don’t mind. I can still picture you on top of him in that inn where we first met.”

  Shifrah raised an eyebrow. “I thought you slept through that.”

  “Only mostly, but not quite enough. Where are we going exactly?”

  “An old arena. Apparently young fighters like to go there to kill each other.”

  “More good times.”

  They walked on in silence, traveling down one long straight road after another. There were still a few people out, and not all of them were hurrying home to get off the streets. Shifrah kept her hand near her knife and hoped the cut on her back really was as shallow as Rashaken had said. Her left arm throbbed but the bleeding had stopped.

  “You know, I could have used a little more help back there with Sal,” she said. “You could have shot him. Just a little, at least.”

  “Why? He hasn’t done anything to me, and he doesn’t seem to have any mixed feelings about finding Aker El Deeb,” Kenan said. “Maybe I should be working with him.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. If I don’t catch Aker, I can’t go home. And that notion does not amuse me.”

  “Well, I don’t have any mixed feelings about Aker anymore. Besides giving us all that trouble with Zahra, apparently he’s not too popular with Master Rashaken either. He’s asked me to get Aker out of Alexandria as a sort of personal favor.”

  Kenan grinned. “Oh, so now we’re on the same side again?”

  “We were always on the same side,” she said. “But now we have the same goal. See how life has a funny way of working out? So I help you take Aker back to Tingis and everything goes back to the way it was before, all right?”

  “What do you mean, everything? You mean you and me? You said we were done.”

  “Yeah, I did. Because you pissed me off.”

  He shook his head. “I’m not going to get caught in some game of choosing sides and picking arguments depending on your mood. You want to keep playing mercenary, fine. But not under my roof. And if someone ever hires me to hunt you down…”

  Shifrah sighed. “Look, Omar’s dead. So I’m done with this place and these people. I owed Omar, but not them. They’re all crazy anyway. And maybe I was too for a while. But this isn’t my life anymore. It’s not the life Omar raised me for either. So maybe…” She paused.

  If I say this, am I committed? No. I can still walk away whenever I want. But maybe it’s time for a change. It can’t hurt to try. At least, it can’t hurt much, can it?

  “…maybe it’s time for a little career change. Maybe I could partner up with you, like you said. You and me, hunting down bad guys. Shifrah Dumah, bounty hunter. No assassinations. What would you say to that?”

  He was very quiet for a moment. “Maybe.”

  Shifrah smiled. That’s a yes.

  It took another half hour to walk into the Songhai Quarter, a long thin finger of land along the southern edge of Alexandria where the pilgrims and soldiers from the southwest congregated before moving on to the holy Mazdan sites deeper inside the Empire of Eran. The streets were just as quiet and dark here as elsewhere in the city, but Shifrah’s hand never strayed from her knife. And soon their destination loomed up in the darkness above the street.

  The old arena had been built centuries ago by Roman slaves in the Roman style, and the cylindrical structure looked quiet alien next to the square blocks of the buildings to either side. The walls of the arena rose three levels above the street, each wall ringed with open archways and Hellan columns, and beside each column was a statue of an ancient Aegyptian god. Each had the head of a different creature. Jackal, Ibis, Falcon, Lion, Crocodile. But in the dark, the gods were all just creatures of dead stone.

  The main gate to the arena stood open, rusting quietly into oblivion against the stone walls. No one loitered there or in the dark corridor beyond, but low voices and scuffling sounds did echo in the vast stone chamber of the arena itself. Shifrah nodded and they went inside.

  The inner corridor offered many open doorways and branching halls to the market stalls where street vendors had once sold food and wine to the wealthy patrons of the games, but it was
all dark and empty now. Past those spaces, Shifrah emerged again into the night air on the bottom level of the seats and stood beside a small stone wall looking down at the weedy field of the arena floor.

  Three men armed with glowing seireiken blades circled each other slowly, shouting taunts and challenges at each other. The fiery swords drew blazing orange lines in the darkness. A dozen other men lounged on the benches at the edge of the field, but the pale starlight didn’t reveal any details of their dress or arms.

  Mercenaries or soldiers, she guessed. Songhai, Bantu, and Kanemi, most likely.

  Looking up into the stands above her, Shifrah saw a thin scattering of other people in the crumbling stone seats. Some of them were lying down, possibly homeless, with equal chances of being asleep or dead. Other people were also lying down, but were most emphatically not dead, judging by their grunting and gasping. But these were mere whispers in the darkness, shadow figures few and far between in the vast emptiness of the ancient arena.

  “That’s him.” Kenan pointed down at the three swordsmen pacing about in the center of the field. One of the glowing swords whirled through the gloom, crashing and scraping across the other two blades, which retreated before it. “The one attacking.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “I have good eyes, remember?” Kenan started down the steps to the arena floor. “And besides, I recognize the fencing style. It’s Espani.”

  Then it’s true. Shifrah followed him down. When Aker took the fencer’s soul, he somehow took his knowledge and skill as well. Or he can command the fencer’s spirit inside the blade.

  She shivered at the thought of being trapped in a cell and forced to serve Aker’s whims. She hadn’t particularly enjoyed Aker’s whims even as a willing participant, back in the old days.

  Down on the arena floor, the sound of the seireiken clashes seemed to shift between electric snapping and rumbling thunder. And she could see now that the man attacking the two others was indeed Aker El Deeb.

  “Should we wait until they finish?” Kenan asked.

  “No. With our luck, he’ll trip and fall on his own sword and we won’t have anything left to take back to Tingis. Best to collect him now.”

  “Right.” Kenan drew his black revolver and strode out onto the field. The men lounging on the benches muttered to each other at this intrusion, but they didn’t get up.

  Shifrah drew her knife and followed. All right, Kenan, show me how you do things.

  The revolver barked once and a puff of dry earth flew up between Aker and the other men. The swordsmen paused, their burning blades seeming to hover unaided in the darkness.

  “Aker El Deeb,” Kenan bellowed in a deep, booming drawl. “You are under arrest for the murder of Don Lorenzo Quesada. Drop your weapon. Get down on your knees and cross your ankles, and put your hands on the top of your head.”

  Aker did not move, but the other two men backed quickly away, sheathing their bright blades and plunging their side of the field into darkness. Aker swung his sword toward Kenan and Shifrah could hear a soft hissing from the blade. The Aegyptian slurred, “You’re an idiot. First I’m gonna kill you, and then I’m gonna take your stupid gun. You hear me?”

  He’s drunk!

  “I hear you,” Kenan said softly. The hammer of the revolver clicked sharply in the dark.

  Then a low woof-woof-woof sound drew their attention to the left as a bright seireiken blade came whirling out of the shadows, tumbling end over end. Kenan took a half step back and let the sword fly past harmlessly, and then he fired into the darkness. A man cried out. A second blade slipped free of its scabbard, illuminating the other swordsman, and Kenan fired again. The man toppled over as his leg collapsed beneath him. The bright sword spun from his fingers and fell on his arm. He screamed, but only for an instant.

  Kenan cocked his gun again. “Aker El Deeb! Drop your weapon and get down on your knees!”

  “You first!” Aker slammed his bright sword into its scabbard, dousing the blade and plunging the center of the field into utter blackness. The thrown seireiken continued to glow on the ground to their far right, and the dropped seireiken gleamed dully beneath the dead Osirian on their far left.

  Shifrah squinted and blinked, trying to force her eye to readjust to the loss of light, but the blue after-image of the seireiken remained plastered across her vision and she couldn’t throw her knife. But before she could begin to wonder where Aker might be or what he might be doing, she heard the heavy footsteps thumping away across the weedy field and then echoing in the stone corridors of the arena halls.

  Kenan was already running after him, his shadow-black figure fading swiftly into the distance. Shifrah cast one look over at the bright seireiken that had lodged in the ground to her right, and then at the twin blade lying under the dead man on her left.

  I think I’ll leave those right where they are. Not worth the risk.

  Not even slightly.

  She ran after Kenan across the field and through the arena, and half a block down the next street she managed to come up alongside him. They ran with their entire bodies, arms pumping sharply, heads bobbing in unison, boots pounding the hard-packed earth of the dusty road. The cool night air blasted back through their jackets and hair.

  Up ahead she could see Aker by the light of the stars. He was almost a block away, but his small black figure was definitely growing larger and she could see the uneven motion of his legs, and soon she could hear the heavy gasping of his wet and ragged grunting.

  Between her own labored breaths, she glanced at Kenan and said, “So. That’s what you do. Yell at them. Drop your weapon? Down on your knees?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does it ever work?”

  “Not as often as I’d like.” He grinned at her.

  They ran harder, arms and legs flying like pistons, breath blasting through their lips and clenched teeth. Aker was only three buildings ahead now and he’d been reduced to a stumbling jog. And he was shouting in Eranian. “Gold! Twenty gold darics for the woman’s head! Silver! Ten silver shekels for the man’s gun!”

  “What’s he saying?” Kenan asked.

  “Nothing good.” Shifrah squinted as the cold air whipped in her eye. A shadow moved on her left. And then another. “Stop-stop-stop!” She grabbed Kenan’s arm and hauled him to a staggering halt. She stared across the street where the shadow had moved.

  Just twenty yards away, Aker continued walking drunkenly down the street, shouting.

  “Which way did we go?” she asked quietly. “From the arena. Which way?”

  Kenan glanced at the stars. “East. Why?”

  Shifrah took a step back as two shadows emerged from a distant alley and started walking toward them. “Feel like running some more?”

  “Why? Who are they?”

  “We’re in the Bantu district.”

  “So? I’ve got plenty of bullets.” Kenan leveled his revolver at the shadow men.

  “So Aker over there has just put out a contract on us. And the Bantu like bounty hunting. They like it a lot.”

  Kenan shrugged. “Are Bantu bounty hunters bullet-proof?”

  “No.” A small thundercrack across the street erupted from a small puff of smoke. Shifrah heard the bullet whip by her head and thump into the stone façade of the old shop behind her. “But neither are we.”

  A second pistol fired, and then a third.

  “Suddenly I feel like running some more,” Kenan said.

  They turned and ran. But Shifrah grabbed Kenan’s arm and yanked him sideways into an alley. As they sprinted down the narrow corridor, she said, “Don’t worry. We’re not going to lose Aker again. We’re just going to have to do things the hard way.”

  “What’s the hard way?”

  Shifrah grimaced. “Bloody.”

  Chapter 23

  Qhora nestled inside her dead husband’s old coat, teasing out the faint smells lingering in the fabric. Wine. Cheese. Beef. Sea salt.

  They had followed
Shifrah and Kenan through the dark corridors of the Temple as far as the cellar, almost certain that they had not been noticed. They had seen Shifrah and Kenan leave through the shop upstairs, but at the cellar Salvator had insisted that they wait for a daylight crowd outside rather than try to escape as two running figures in the deserted streets in the night. With her injured leg aching and her arm throbbing, Qhora had agreed. The Italian had proven a deft field medic in dressing the gunshot wound, which was only a graze, and as she lay in the dark, the pain had faded.

  Qhora sighed for the tenth time.

  “Trouble sleeping?” a woman asked.

  The nun again.

  Qhora swallowed. “Enzo always said you had a bad habit of appearing behind him, back before you were trapped in the medallion. He said you scared him half to death, popping up behind his back in the dark with no warning. I hope you don’t plan on doing the same to me, Sister.” She rolled over and looked at her visitor.

  Sister Ariel stood at arm’s length, her hands folded demurely in front of her, her dress and habit as immaculate in death as it had been in life. “I’ve been afraid for you nearly every minute of the last two days, Dona Qhora. Hm. And I thought Lorenzo was reckless. He gave me more than a few frights over the years, but he was only as reckless as a little boy who refuses to believe he can be hurt. You, on the other hand, are an entirely different sort of lunatic. Charging in blindly, surrendering to your enemies, leaping into the darkness.” The ghost stepped closer. “I’m scared for you, Qhora. And I’m scared for your son.”

  “I know.” Qhora lay flat on her back and stared up at the cobwebbed ceiling of the cellar. She wrapped her fingers around Enzo’s old triquetra medallion on her chest. Its warmth sank softly into her flesh. “So am I.”

  “Did you mean what you said before?” Ariel asked. “That you no longer want to find Lorenzo’s killer? That you’re ready to go home?”

  Qhora nodded. “Yes. I miss my baby. And that old man was right. Javier will need a father. A living father. And one day I may even be ready to take another husband.” She paused. “I can’t imagine that. Even now, when I think about going back to Madrid, I keep thinking that Enzo will be there, as always. And now…I can’t remember the last time we didn’t spend the night together. Not since Cartagena. I think we’ve spent every single night together. Except for this one. And last night. Two nights without him. Tomorrow will be another, I suppose.”