Aetherium (Omnibus Edition)

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Aetherium (Omnibus Edition) Page 96

by Joseph Robert Lewis


  Bastet poked her head out the hatch. “What happened?”

  “Get back inside!” Taziri pointed her brace-gun at the men. “And you two. You can go. Forget about your boss here and forget everything you just saw, too.”

  The men didn’t move.

  Bastet called out in Eranian to them.

  Oh right. Wrong language. Taziri grimaced as the weight of her brace-gun began to ache in her shoulder.

  Still the men didn’t move. One of them started to reload his pistol.

  “No! I warned you!” Taziri yanked the trigger of her revolver. No bang. Not even a click. The trigger had jammed. Taziri stared at the useless lump of steel on her arm, and then she started banging her free hand on it as she pulled on the frozen trigger. “No, no, no! Dammit!”

  The bounty hunter snapped his pistol shut and looked at her. Taziri blinked.

  They’re both standing awfully close to the Halcyon. Maybe close enough.

  “Bastet!” Taziri kept her eyes locked on the pistol rising to point at her heart. “Pull the big lever!”

  “But you said—”

  “Pull it now!”

  A sharp clang echoed inside the locomotive and the outer wall of the Halcyon clicked and hissed and slammed outward on its hinges, right down onto the two bounty hunters. The unfolding wing smashed both of them in the heads and shoulders, sending them sprawling to the ground. They moaned and rolled over, crawled out from under the wing, and scrambled away across the rail yard.

  Taziri blew out the breath she was holding. “Thank you! All clear. You can push the lever back into place now.”

  As the Halcyon’s wings slowly retracted to restore its train-like camouflage, Kenan jumped down from the hatch and walked over to her. He nudged the gray puddle on the ground with the toe of his boot, and the entire puddle shifted as a solid mass. “Already cold,” he said. “What does that mean?”

  “It means the souls are all free,” Taziri said. She looked up, half expecting to see faces or heavenly lights all around them, but there was nothing but the freight cars and the clear blue sky. “Don Lorenzo is free.”

  “If you say so.” Kenan paced over to the man in green and kicked him in the leg. “Hey you. Get up. You’re under arrest for the murder of Lorenzo Quesada.”

  A deep thud shuddered through the earth and Taziri turned to see a tall slender man with jet black skin standing by the Halcyon’s nose. He wore a simple white tunic belted with gold, shining gold arm-bands, gold rings, gold hair-beads, and a small golden heart on a cord around his neck. His face was hidden behind a black mask sculpted like the face of a dog or jackal. The straight black staff in his hand rested on the ground. “I see you have all arrived safely,” he said. “My task is complete.”

  “Anubis!” Bastet leapt from the hatch. “You idiot! You brought the wrong ones!”

  But the young man thumped his staff on the earth and his entire body burst apart into a cloud of aether that vanished on the hot wind.

  “Oh no you don’t!” Bastet glanced over her shoulder as she pulled her cat mask down over her face. “Good bye, captain! It was nice to meet you!” And she rippled apart into a sparkling white mist.

  Taziri waved to the girl who was no longer there, but a cry of pain drew her attention back to the yard. She jogged to the end of the freight cars and looked out at the station. The Bantu and the Songhai were still trading punches, but had left a trail of bodies across the platform. Behind and around the station office she could still see the crowd of gawkers watching the morning’s entertainment.

  Then a shout went up among the onlookers. They all turned to the east end of the street, some pointing, but most shuffling in the opposite direction. Then more and more of them began backing away from the east end of the street, moving faster and faster out of sight.

  Taziri squinted where they were pointing and called over her shoulder. “Hey Kenan! You might want to reload your gun.” She pulled a screwdriver from her pocket and started fiddling with her brace-gun to unjam the trigger mechanism.

  “Why?”

  “It looks like your prisoner has some more friends.”

  Chapter 28

  They hurried along the edge of the street, trailing Khai and his column of green-robed swordsmen. The Aegyptians broke into a sprint shortly after leaving the library, and now they all raced across the city, crashing through the early morning press of people and animals.

  “My lady,” Mirari said, “should I run ahead to warn the captain? She may be in danger.”

  “No. These men might follow you, or they might hear you once you arrive.” Qhora grimaced at the thought of Taziri alone in the rail yard, unprotected and unsuspecting. “If the captain sits still and remains quiet locked inside the Halcyon, she probably has a better chance of remaining hidden.”

  I hope.

  “And what exactly are we going to do when we arrive at the yard and find a company of Osirians, and the Bantu, and the Songhai, and God knows who else between us and the train?” Salvator asked. “There are only four of us.”

  A high-pitched cry drew Qhora’s gaze up to the pale blue sky and she squinted at the tiny black shape wheeling high overhead. “Five.”

  “We need a plan,” the Italian insisted.

  “You’re welcome to make one,” Qhora said. “But we’re going to save the captain, one way or another. She and I are both going home to our children.”

  They ran on, and Qhora found herself dashing through markets and past fountains that she had no memory of. On the night they arrived in the city, Salvator had led them to the docks to hire his thugs and to await the steamer from Carthage, and she had been in no mood for sight-seeing. But now she had no idea how far they were from their destination, nor what landmarks would announce their arrival.

  In the distance a noise was growing. It was the noise of countless voices raised in wordless emotion. Fear. Anger. Hate. Excitement. Men and women shouted, stone clinked, steel clanged, and boots crackled as they slid across the dusty ground. Qhora gripped her lone stiletto as Salvator and Mirari drew their longer blades. The Osirians slowed their pace as they turned the last corner, and then they drew their swords. A dozen seireikens, some burning dark orange and others burning bright gold, hissed and sizzled in the dusty air.

  Across the street a lone woman screamed, and then others screamed, and then the mass of pedestrians began to run, scrambling and clawing and running away from the fiery swords. Some men fell and were trampled by their panicking neighbors, but the streets were wide enough and the crowds were thin enough that most of the people escaped quickly, and the stragglers were able to rise and limp away as well.

  Beyond the men in green Qhora could see an angry line of dirty, bloody brawlers. Some looked to be the darker men of the Bantu kingdoms and she recognized the others as the brown-clad soldiers of Songhai. Some of them still had their hands around each others’ throats and their knives dripping with each others’ blood. But when the Sons of Osiris drew their bright swords, the battle slowed and came to a full stop as every eye turned to look at the green men.

  With equal slowness and care, the Bantu and Songhai men pulled apart, releasing each other from their death grips to stand in a ragged line, all bruised and bloodied, staring at the newcomers. Qhora put out her arms, motioning her comrades to stay back with her in the shadows behind the Sons of Osiris to wait and watch.

  Khai stood in the center of his men with his searing white sword in his hand. He flicked the tip of his seireiken at the battered fighters across the street in front of the train station. “Kill them all. And bring me Aker.”

  The Sons of Osiris dashed forward with grace and power, driving in straight lunges and whirling in fiery arcs to cut down their enemies. A few of the Bantu raised their pistols only to be hacked to pieces. The Songhai raised their rifles, but the seireiken blades sliced through the barrels and stocks as though the iron and wood were soft cheese and bread, leaving blacked stumps and smoldering embers in their wake. Common gray b
lades shattered like kindling before the aetherium swords.

  After a mere ten seconds of brave yelling and charging, the Bantu and Songhai turned in a white-eyed frenzy and fled the street, leaving more than twenty of their brothers-in-arms lying dead in the dust. Cauterized limbs and stumps dotted the ground, but not a single drop of blood fell to the earth. The wounds smoked and the men’s clothing flickered with tiny tongues of fire.

  Dear gods of heaven and earth. Qhora stared. How can I get past such warriors? How can I save the captain? How can I save myself?

  “Aker!” Khai roared. He strode to the edge of the train platform to survey the rail yard below him. “Aker! If you wish to continue in my service, you will show yourself now!”

  There was no answer.

  Mirari leaned close to Qhora’s ear. “Now?”

  “Not yet,” she whispered back.

  “You and you.” Khai indicated two of his men. “Search the yard.”

  The two men jumped down from the platform to the dusty ground but stopped short. Qhora saw a man step out from behind the row of old freight cars at the rear of the yard. She recognized Aker, but his features were obscured by a half-mask of red and black ruin down the side of his face. And extending from behind the safety of the freight cars there was a hand holding a matte black revolver.

  “We have Aker!” a man shouted. “He’s wanted for murder and he’s going to stand trial in Marrakesh. Leave this place now.”

  Khai grunted. He nodded at the Osirians assembled beside him and said, “Go get him, and kill whoever else is back there.”

  “Now?” Mirari whispered. “It must be now!”

  Qhora leapt up and ran across the street. “Stop! Stop! All of you!”

  The Sons of Osiris, scattered across the yard, turned to peer up at her. Khai frowned over his shoulder at her. “You.”

  Qhora dashed to the edge of the platform some fifteen yards down from the elderly man in green and stared back at him. “You can have Aker. There’s no need for more killing. No one will try to stop you.” She shouted across the yard, “Captain? It’s Qhora! Let Aker go! Do it now, please!”

  The black revolver pulled back behind the freight car and Aker staggered forward, an angry glare twisting his bloody face.

  “Very good,” Khai said. He glanced at her. “You see? Civilized people are so much more useful than barbarous ones.” He called out to his men, “Kill the foreigners and bring me their possessions.”

  “No!” Qhora shrieked as she drew her stiletto and ran toward Khai.

  The older man merely shifted his weight and raised the tip of his searing white blade. Two of his men down in the yard paused to watch their master while the others proceeded toward the freight cars. “Hm.” Khai peered at her through tired eyes. “Will your soul teach me to speak your barbarian language? Or to ride on birds?” The corner of his mouth twisted up for a brief moment.

  A single gunshot cracked across the train station, echoing off the pale blue sky. Khai’s head snapped to the side as the man twisted forward and tumbled off the platform into the rail yard.

  Tycho strode out of the shadows, the smoking white revolver in his hand. He came to the edge of the platform and fired a second shot into the body below. “That’s for Constantia.” He picked up the blazing white seireiken. “And this is for Philo.”

  Salvator and Mirari stepped out from the station office to stand beside the dwarf. The green men in the yard had stopped short when the first shot was fired and now they stood all over the space between their dead master and Aker exchanging confused and angry looks.

  Qhora looked at the Hellan and then she looked out at the Sons of Osiris. “All of you, listen to me! Go now and we’ll let you live. Go home!”

  The swordsmen formed ranks, six facing the platform and five facing Aker and the locomotive behind him.

  Qhora eyed the nearest orange seireiken as she called out, “Captain! Look out! They’re coming for you!”

  Taziri Ohana stepped out from behind the freight cars. She had her left arm raised with a silvery revolver mounted on her silvery brace. Beside her was the Mazigh detective with the black revolver. They leveled their guns at the green men.

  “This is your last chance to leave!” Qhora shouted. “Go now!”

  The six warriors facing the platform charged forward. Salvator whipped his rapier about in flashing circles and fell back as two of the fiery blades came at him. Mirari whirled away with her long knife and hatchet in hand as a third man came at her.

  Qhora raised her stiletto to hurl at the fourth man in front of her, but then a gunshot rang out and the man dropped to the ground. Tycho fired again and again, killing the two closest to him, and then he turned and shot the man chasing Mirari across the street.

  “You’re a very good shot,” Qhora said.

  “I have good eyes,” the Hellan said with a weary little smile. He pointed his revolver at the last two men near Salvator.

  Click. Click.

  Tycho’s eyes went wide. The two swordsmen stopped, turned, and charged back toward the dwarf. The one on the left held his seireiken high in both hands as though ready to chop the Hellan in half from brain to bowels. The one on the right held his blade low and to the side, preparing to slice his target across the waist.

  In that moment, Qhora saw the useless gun shake in Tycho’s hand, and she saw the gun fall to the ground. It thudded on the planks of the platform with a hollow wooden thump.

  Qhora leapt forward, reaching out toward Tycho, reaching toward his shoulder to dig both hands into his shirt and haul him bodily away from the two men, but she missed.

  Tycho wasn’t there anymore. He was running toward the two men, and he was clutching the white-hot seireiken in both hands. The first attacker sliced straight down and the Hellan hurled himself aside to let the orange blade crunch into the platform boards. At the same moment, the second man sliced across and clanged his sword against the one lodged in the platform floor. Tycho swung the white sword in a level arc and it smashed through both of the fiery blades and blazed through both men’s knees. The men fell to the ground, silent and still and pale. Their broken swords lay in pieces on the platform, gray and cold.

  Before she could speak, a chorus of gunfire drew Qhora’s gaze out to the rail yard. The other five green men all lay on the ground, all of them groaning and writhing as they clutched their shattered knees and bloody legs. Their swords lay bright in the dust, illuminating the haze with their hellish glow.

  “There! Do you see that?” the detective shouted at the men on the ground. “That’s what happens when you bring magic swords to a gun fight!”

  And the captain muttered back something that sounded like, “You do know it’s not really magic, right?”

  Qhora looked around the platform and the street and the yard. Everyone was gone, or dead, or whimpering. No one was running. No one was shooting. A soft, warm breeze gently brushed the dust away to better reveal the stillness of the train station. Taziri put her fingers to her forehead in a little salute.

  Qhora waved back. Then she hopped down from the platform and walked slowly and quietly across the gravel yard, stepping carefully over the train tracks and bodies, and looked up at the last man in green still standing.

  “Aker El Deeb.” She said it calmly and softly. “You killed my husband. You stole his soul. Where is your sword?”

  The man glanced back over his shoulder.

  “It’s here.” Taziri pointed to the ground. “I destroyed it. Melted it down. All the souls are free. Lorenzo is free, Qhora. It’s over.”

  He’s free. He’s at peace. It’s over.

  Qhora cleared her throat and looked at the bloody, haggard face of Aker El Deeb. “Were you under orders? Were you hired to kill my husband?”

  He spat in the dirt. “No.”

  “That night, did you come to rob us?”

  “No.”

  “Did you come to rape me?”

  He grinned. “No.”

  “Wo
uld you have killed the rest of us that night, if you could have? Me, Mirari, Alonso? My baby? If you could have, would you?”

  He shrugged. “Probably.”

  She let her gaze drift across the yard, no longer seeing the bodies or the buildings or the trains. They were all just meaningless blurs of color and light. “So, that night, you came to kill him because you wanted to kill him. You wanted another soul for your sword. You wanted his skills. You wanted to steal his strength to make yourself a better killer.”

  Aker snorted and tried to straighten up a bit taller, but he winced and put his hand to the burned side of his neck. “Yeah, something like that. It was worth it, too. I could fight like him.”

  “No, you couldn’t,” Qhora said. For a moment, the sun-bleached gravel almost looked like the glaring snowfields of España, and then like the pale beaches at Cartagena, and then like the bright streets of Cusco.

  So many places I’d rather be, so far away, so far from where I am.

  And what I am.

  And who I am.

  She swallowed. “During the war, Enzo fought for his survival, and for his king, and for his fellow soldiers. After the war, Enzo fought to protect the people he cared for, and even to protect people he didn’t know. And as a teacher, Enzo fought for peace and justice. He wanted to end war. All war. He hasn’t…he hadn’t killed anyone for many years. I remember once,” she smiled, “we were attacked in the street and Enzo pretended to kill those men because he didn’t think I’d understand why he left them alive.”

  “Oh?” Aker winced. “And you understand now? Now that you’re all civilized and holy?”

  “No.” Qhora stared at him blankly. “I’ve tried for years to understand why such a gifted warrior as my Enzo would leave his enemies alive, why he would show mercy to people who wanted him dead, and why he was so humble. He deserved to be proud. He was strong and brave. A soldier, a hero, a teacher. Everyone loved him and respected him. But he clung to his faith, to his three-faced god.” She touched the triquetra medallion on her chest. “Uphold the Father’s justice, defend the Mother’s life, and temper all things with the Son’s mercy and compassion. It is the Espani way. It was Enzo’s way.” She paused to look down at the little golden disk in her hand. “But it isn’t my way.”

 

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