Aetherium (Omnibus Edition)

by Joseph Robert Lewis

  “I thought I would feel better when we got back on the water again,” she said. “I thought I’d feel safer. But now all I can think is that there might be a walking corpse hiding down in the hold, and as soon as we go to sleep, it will tear out our throats.”

  Omar snorted. “That old teacher of yours told you too many ghost stories. Trust me. No stumbling dead people slipped on board when the sailors weren’t looking. We’re perfectly safe here.”

  “I guess so,” Wren said. “Why do you think every town we saw was empty, except for Varna?”

  “I talked to the captain about that.” Omar nodded at the little Espani standing by the wheel on the quarter deck. “Unlike the inland towns, all of the ports around the Black Sea are in the habit of burning their dead instead of burying them. There’s a lot of worry about plague rats and fleas and tainted food, especially on the boats coming up from Turkiya and Babylonia. Apparently, the Eranians sometimes send sick men and animals across the sea on purpose.”

  “Oh.” Wren tore her eyes away from the little Vlachian town and looked across the dark waves that seemed to stretch on forever to the south. “Are we close to your homeland yet?”

  “Very!” Omar smiled. “Crossing the white sea and the length of Europa was the lion’s share of the journey. We’ll be in Alexandria in just a few more days.”

  A sailor passing behind them with a heavy coil of rope over his shoulder paused and tapped Omar on the arm. “Did the captain say that?”

  “Well, no,” Omar said. “But I’ve been crossing the Black Sea and the Middle Sea since before you were born. I know it well enough. It only takes a few days.”

  “Heh, yeah, well, maybe in peace time.” The sailor hopped his coil of rope higher on his shoulder to keep it from slipping. “But with all the checkpoints and inspections in the Bosporus and the Dardanelles, you’ll be lucky to see Hellas before spring.”

  Omar’s smile faded. “You’re joking. You’re exaggerating, yes?”

  “Only a little.” The sailor grinned and went on about his work.

  Omar gave Wren a very unhappy look and then strode off toward the quarter deck. Wren watched him talk to the captain, watched his dramatic hand gestures and head rolling and pacing about the deck, and listened to his voice muffled by the constant shushing off the hull against the waves. A sudden gust of wind threatened to push back her scarf, and she grabbed it to keep her ears hidden. After a few minutes, Omar returned, planted his hands on the railing, and glared at the sea. “He wasn’t joking.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “War. War is going on, little one.” Omar sighed. “To reach the southern seas, we need to pass through the Bosporus Strait. On the northern shore is the Hellan city of Constantia, and on the southern shore is the Eranian city of Stamballa. Both are large, wealthy, and cultured places, places that I wanted you to see.”

  “But they’re at war?”

  Omar nodded. “Again.”

  “What happened the last time they were at war?”

  “People died.” Omar turned his back to the sea.

  “Would it be faster if we leave the ship and travel by land?”

  “No. If there’s a war on, then there’ll be checkpoints and inspections in every town, at every crossroads, and at every bridge for hundreds of leagues. At least at sea, they can only stop you when you try to go ashore.” He shook his head. “We’ll stay aboard, and just wait it out. Maybe it’s a blessing in disguise, an excuse to explore Stamballa while we wait for the ship to clear customs.”

  “Just Stamballa? What about Constantia?”

  “Whatever else I may be, I am still a southerner. The empire is my home, and her enemies are, after a fashion, my enemies. I don’t think I’d be very welcome in Constantia right now.”

  “Oh.” Wren chewed her lip. “What about me? I don’t look very southern, do I?”

  “No.” Omar smiled wryly. “But as long as you’re with me, you’ll be fine. No one will bother you as long as I am there. Although, just to be on the safe side, I think you ought to wear these.” He held out his brass-rimmed glasses with the blue lenses.

  She took them with a pout. “They look silly.”

  “Maybe, but they’ll attract less attention than those bright gold eyes of yours. Did you know that you squint a lot during the day?”

  Wren nodded. “The sun does hurt my eyes more than it used to.” She slipped on the glasses and took a moment to settle them on her nose and in the braids of her hair on the sides of her head where her ears should have been. The glare of the sunlight on the water and the clouds and the distant snowfields dimmed, and everything took on a soft blue tint. “Hm. I guess that is a little better.”

  An entire land of southerners, of people with brown skin and black hair and funny accents. No more snow. No more cold. At least in the north I could hide my ears and blend in, even better than him. But now…

  The little Espani caravel rocked and dashed across the dark waters of the Black Sea, and they sighted many other ships out on the horizon. Wren described their masts and sails and flags to Omar, and he told her which were Europan and which were Ifrican, calling them brigantines and xebecs and carracks. Most were merchantmen, but a few were fishers or trawlers with huge booms and nets dragging behind them.

  After a while, Omar went below to take a nap, leaving Wren alone to stare at the thin black line of the western shore.

  How many other towns are out there? How many are empty? And how many are clinging to life at the edge of the sea? Maybe when summer comes, the buried dead will thaw a bit, enough for the aether to leave their bodies and let the dead rest in peace.

  Maybe.

  Eventually Wren went below as well and found Omar snoring violently in a hammock swinging over a row of barrels that smelled faintly of salted pork. She climbed up into another hammock beside him and stared with her fox eyes into the deep shadows of the hold, wondering if Omar was right, if it really was safe on the ship, if they really were alone. She was still wondering when she fell asleep.

  The rest of the day and the night and the following morning passed quietly and sleepily. Wren took long naps, ate sparingly, and spent only a few minutes here and there on deck to gaze at the waves and stars before going back to her swinging hemp bed above the salted pork.

  On the second afternoon, she stood at the railing again with Omar beside her, this time looking west where the black line of the horizon had grown into a rippling body of hills and towers and walls on either shore of the Bosporus.

  “So that’s Stamballa?” she asked.

  “No, those are just lighthouses and fishing towns. The cities are on the other end of the Strait.”

  She sighed and leaned her head down on her arms, and closed her eyes.

  Traveling is so boring. Woden, what sort of sacrifice would entice you to whisk us away to Alexandria today? I have an old sling, a pouch of stones, and some dirty clothes. They’re yours for the asking.

  The cloudy sky did not answer her.

  She lifted her head. “So are there any other immortals like you in this part of the world?”

  Omar smiled a little. “Not right here, no. But there are two to the north, in Rus, and three others to the south, in Syria. Those five are the youngest, and the last I ever made.”

  “Why the last?”

  He shrugged. “It never really seems to work out. Immortality, I mean. I kept thinking that if people only had enough time, they could solve all the mysteries in the world. Science, philosophy, even God. In India, I met a wonderful young man, a prince, and I made him immortal, thinking that if a good man ruled long enough, his goodness would reshape his entire people, his entire culture. And it worked, for a while. But he grew lonely and bored, just like me, and he wandered off. I have no idea whatever happened to him.”

  “What about the ones in Rus and Seera?”

  “Syria,” he corrected her. “The Syrians were supposed to be my great philosophers. I chose each of them because they were intellig
ent, disciplined, and dedicated. I taught them everything I knew at the time, and asked them to continue my work studying sun-steel, and aether, and soul-breaking. And they did, for a while, but it didn’t last. Nothing lasts.”

  Wren watched his face for a moment, seeing the same faraway sorrow and weariness that always came over him when he talked about his past. She waited, hoping he would keep talking, and when he didn’t she had to nudge him. “And in Rus?”

  “Just two. The very last, about five hundred years ago.”

  “Lovers?” she asked, her face brightening.

  “A mother and her son.”

  “Oh.” She let her chin sink back down the rail. It was an uncomfortable position, but she was in the mood to be uncomfortable. Living below decks in the warm rocking belly of the ship had been the quietest, most peaceful two days of her entire journey across Europa. And she hated it.

  “Actually, the mother could probably tell us something about those walking corpses back there.” Omar nodded in the direction of Vlachia. “She fancied herself quite the aether-wright, too. She liked talking to the dead. It was something we had in common.”

  “You liked her?” Wren elbowed him gently in the ribs.

  Omar hesitated, the pale ghost of a smile tugging at his lip. “Maybe once, or twice.”

  “That’s not what I meant.” Wren rolled her eyes. “Is there anyone you haven’t slept with?”

  As the sun sank and the wind rose, the caravel cruised into the mouth of the Strait, passing a slender white lighthouse on the north shore, and soon after they passed a broader gray lighthouse on the south shore. Traffic on the water quickly increased as more and more fishermen came in from the Black Sea to their homes for the night. Other merchantmen cruised along with them, most of similar size to La Rosa, but there was at least one ship far ahead of them, hidden by the glare of the setting sun, that Wren believed to be something much larger.

  They entered a wider section of the Strait and she saw a pair of huge sailing ships riding at anchor. The current had swung them both to the west so their long, sharp bowsprits were pointed at La Rosa as it approached from the east. Many men in blue and gray and white shirts and coats stood on the decks of the ships with swords on their belts and knives in their hands. They leaned on the rails and looked down at the small caravel as it passed between them. The hulls of the ships wore iron plates along the water line, and the open doors below the railings revealed the dark mouths of the guns, dozens of huge guns arranged in two tiers. Wren recalled Omar’s description of these weapons, and she swallowed loudly as she thought of the black iron shells flying out and smashing their poor little boat into splinters with a roar of fire and smoke.

  “Eranian galleons. But don’t worry,” Omar said. “They’re just here to keep the Hellans out of the Black Sea. They won’t bother us.”

  “What about the check points?” Wren asked.

  At that moment, a smaller gunboat that rode at the same height as La Rosa emerged from behind one of the warships and came alongside the caravel as it passed the hulking ironclads.

  “Here come the imperial bureaucrats now. Turks, by the look of them.” Omar pointed at the gunboat. It sported a pair of small cannons near the bow and another pair near the stern, but there were no sailors near any of the weapons. Instead there were four grim men by the railing with ropes, and four of the Espani sailors went to stand opposite them. The ropes were thrown across and the two ships were pulled together as other men above deck set about reefing the sails and slowing both ships as they continued west.

  Captain Ortiz went to the railing with a leather satchel in his hand, and he tossed it across the rails to his counterpart on the Turkish ship. The other captain opened the bag and flipped through the papers for several minutes, nodded, and threw the satchel back. Then six of his men climbed up on the rails and jumped across to La Rosa.

  Wren instantly reached for the small bone knife on her belt, but Omar shook his head, and she forced herself to stand still as the six Turkish sailors moved quickly across the deck, glanced at the men, and then trooped below to inspect the cargo. For several long minutes, Wren stood at the rail in the gathering dark as her fox eyes came into focus and she watched the men on both ships go about their duties just as before, tying lines and taking soundings and muttering quietly. Then the Turkish sailors came back on deck and headed for the rail where their own ship awaited. One of them moved away from the others so he could lean in close to Omar and say, “And who are you?”

  “Omar Bakhoum,” he said calmly. “I’m a doctor. I was sent to Vlachia to investigate a plague.”

  “What plague?”

  Wren raised an eyebrow.

  They don’t know about it. Is that because it’s too warm here for the walking dead, or just because it hasn’t reached this place yet?

  She inhaled the night air, and saw a light flurry of snow just beginning to fall overhead.

  It may be cold enough, after all.

  “Nothing,” Omar said. “It wasn’t a plague at all. Just some superstitious farmers jumping at shadows and mist.”

  The sailor nodded. “And where are you bound now?”

  “Back to Alexandria.”

  The sailor’s eyes shifted to Wren.

  “With my new apprentice,” Omar continued. “She’s from Rus.”

  The sailor gave Omar a wink and a shrug and started to leave, but as he moved on he reached out to flick the scarf from Wren’s head. She gasped and scrambled to pull it back over her hair and ears, but it had fallen all the way back to her shoulders and she needed a moment to grab it and flip it back into place. In that moment, the sailor stared at her head.

  “What the devil…?”

  Omar stepped smoothly in between them and rested his hand on his sword. “You have keen eyes, friend. Now prove that you have keen ears,” he whispered to the sailor. “I didn’t come here for some plague. I came to collect this girl, and now I’m taking her back to my masters to study her. But you saw nothing here except a doctor and his apprentice.”

  The sailor narrowed his eyes and reached for the dirk on his belt.

  Omar drew his seireiken, but only a hair, only far enough to expose a tiny sliver of the bright sun-steel blade. The light flashed on the sailor’s face, and then the light was gone. Omar said, “You saw nothing.”

  The sailor stared down at the sheathed seireiken in wide-eyed astonishment. “You’re one of…”

  “Yes.” Omar nodded. “And you. Saw. Nothing.”

  “Nothing,” the man whispered, and he darted back to his own ship. The lines were loosed and the gunboat turned away to head back up the channel to the ironclads, and La Rosa continued west into the deepening gloom of the night.

  Omar gripped the railing as he glared at the dark skyline of the southern shore. “That sailor recognized my seireiken.”

  “I noticed that,” Wren said. “What does that mean?”

  “It means that there are other members of my little brotherhood here, in Stamballa, most likely advising the Eranian army.”

  “You mean the Sons of Osiris? But isn’t that a good thing? Can’t we just go meet with them? Won’t they help us get through the check points and get to Alexandria faster?”

  Omar glanced at her. “Maybe. Maybe not. Ours is not a very brotherly brotherhood. It would all depend on who exactly the commander is. He might help us, or he might torture us, interrogate us, kill us, and take our sun-steel.”

  “Oh.” Wren nodded. “Well, then, I suppose it won’t hurt us to just stay on board and wait a bit longer.”

  As they stood side by side, listening to the creak of the ropes and the rustle of the canvas, a sudden roar of thunder burst from the southern shore as a hailstorm of fire leapt into the sky and soared across the narrow waist of the Strait. Wren jerked back from the railing, but the flaming arrows and shells flew high over La Rosa and fell like a hundred thunderbolts on the face of the water. A sparkling silver spray shimmered in the air as the missiles were quench
ed and hissed, steaming in the night. But some of the arrows and shells fell on a group of small boats near the north shore.

  The Hellan sailors dove into the Strait, yelling orders and screaming in terror as the fire clung to their shirts. Their flapping sails roared with yellow flames in the cold wind, and were soon consumed, leaving the hulls crackling and dancing with red lights.

  “I take it back,” Wren whispered. “It may hurt us after all.”

  Chapter 5

  Major Tycho Xenakis strode into the war room as quickly as his short legs could carry him. His Spartan dagger clung silently to his left leg, but his white Mazigh revolver clinked in its holster on his right hip with every step, announcing his entrance. As he crossed the room, the Hellan officers and Vlachian warlords glanced up from their maps and reports to cast dark looks at him. Tycho felt their unease, contempt, and fear, but he didn’t waste his own gaze on any of them.

  He arrived at the central table, which he could just barely see over, and he rapped his knuckles on the nearest leg. “Gentlemen, we have a problem.”

  They looked down at the Spartan officer. On the left stood the Vlachian prince, Vlad the Fourth, the dragon of the Black Sea, grandson of the most feared butcher in the north, the Impaler. On the right he nodded to Lady Nerissa, the Duchess of Constantia, and to the aging Italian knight Salvator Fabris, who was standing just a bit too close to the lady for Tycho’s taste.

  “Which problem might that be?” Salvator asked as he smoothed his oiled gray mustache. “The Eranian army across the Strait, the Eranian fleet in the Strait, or the Eranian artillery flying over the Strait?”

  Tycho ignored the Italian and looked to his lady. “It’s the witch.”

  Prince Vlad hissed as he straightened up and tugged at his black and red jacket. “Lady Yaga is the sainted mother of Rus. Show some respect, you malformed runt.”

  “She’s only one man’s mother, and that’s the problem,” Tycho said. “Ever since Koschei was captured by the Turks, Lady Yaga has been haunting the walls, terrifying our men with her threats, or just depressing them her ideas of what awful things the Turks do to their prisoners. She’s ruining morale on the walls.”