Aetherium (Omnibus Edition)

by Joseph Robert Lewis

  Asha did not smile. She pushed his jacket back off his shoulders roughly and examined his chest and belly with a series of sharp jabs and found him unharmed. She passed her right ear quickly over his chest, listening for a warble in the humming of his soul that might tell of some mortal injury that could not be seen. But instead of one hum, she heard two.

  Frowning, she picked up the golden pendant on his chest between two fingers and found it quite warm against her skin, and one of the two hums rose half a note in her poisoned ear. “An egg?”

  He smiled and gently took the golden bauble from her. “A heart, actually.”

  Asha stepped back from him and sat down beside her patient. “And on your arm?”

  Gideon glanced at the device on his right arm. “Just a little something I picked up in Marrakesh. Which is where this airship came from, originally. An old friend of mine in Damascus bought it for some ridiculous amount of money. Usually the Mazighs don’t sell such things to foreigners, but they made an exception because this one is so old. Which is probably why it fell out of the sky today.”

  “Damascus?” Priya sat up a bit straighter. “Is that a city? Is it close?”

  “It is a city, and it is very far away,” he said apologetically. “I spent a month begging my friend for the chance to fly in his airship, and when he finally agreed…” Gideon threw up his hands. “Here we are.”

  Asha frowned. “It’s going to be cold tonight. Would you mind building a fire?”

  The young man smiled. “My pleasure.” He strode out of the little cave into the last fading gleam of the evening light and his boots crunched on the gravel as he made his way down to the forest. A moment later he began whistling a jaunty little tune.

  “He seems very pleasant,” Priya said.

  Asha stroked the dark curls away from her patient’s face. “He does seem very pleasant,” she said softly. “Friendly. Helpful. Well-traveled. He also has two souls.”

  “What?” Priya turned her covered eyes toward her friend. “Two souls? Do you mean he’s possessed by a ghost?”

  “No.” Asha leaned back against a cold stone. “There’s one soul in his body, and there’s another soul in that little golden heart hanging around his neck. And both of the souls are most definitely his.”

  An hour later, they shared a meager supper and they all went to sleep around a low fire that filled the cave with enough warmth that they could sleep comfortably. But Asha lay awake, watching the man across the fire. She watched him lie there for an hour, and then a second hour, and all the while she listened to his two souls murmur.

  Gideon sat up quietly, his features lost in shadow. He reached across the smoldering coals, lifted Asha’s shoulder bag from the stone floor right in front of her lidded eyes, and silently set it down in his own lap. Asha slipped one hand along under her blanket to grab a sharp stone from the ground, and she held it close to her chest, watching and waiting.

  The man picked through her bag, quietly nudging aside the clay jars and glass vials and leather pouches and paper envelopes. There was a soft clink of metal. His hand rose from the bag clutching several tools. The steel scalpels went back into the bag. The steel needles went back. The steel tweezers went back. The steel mirror went back. Only one object remained in his hand.

  A small needle that gleamed faintly of gold.

  Gideon ran his thumb up and down the needle for a moment and squinted at it.

  Asha clutched her sharp stone a little tighter and placed her empty hand on the ground, ready to push herself up, ready to lunge at him, to catch him unaware.

  But then Gideon set the needle back in her bag, and reached across the fire pit to deposit the bag where he found it. And then he lay back down, and soon he began to snore.

  Asha set her stone on the ground and exhaled.

  * * *

  Dawn crept into the mountain cleft slowly, illuminating first the enormous silvery airship and then later the stone cradle in which it lay. Asha woke to find Gideon and Priya missing.

  She leapt from her blanket and dashed out of the cave into the pale morning light where she saw the stranger guiding the blind nun into the airship’s glassy cabin. Asha strode over to them. “Good morning,” she said tersely.

  “Good morning!” Gideon beamed at her. “I’m so glad you’re up. I was just about to show your friend how the airship works now that the smoke is all cleared and it’s safe again.”

  “Are you sure it’s safe?” Asha followed them into the cabin, a small metal room with one chair bolted to the floor in front of a metal desk covered in levers and a small bench bolted to the floor behind it. At the opposite end of the cabin hunched a mound of pots and pipes and wires and struts that reminded her of the engine of the steam train they rode to Herat.

  Gideon shrugged. “Pretty sure.”

  “It’s all right,” Priya said. “I asked him to show me. How is the pilot?”

  Asha grimaced. “I’ll check on her.” She strode back out into the cool morning air and when she entered the cave she found the woman Kahina sitting up and staring at the gray coals of their fire.

  “Hello.”

  Kahina looked up, her thick curling hair bouncing with every movement of her head. “Hello? Who are you?”

  “My name is Asha. My friend and I saw you crash yesterday and came to help. I’m an herbalist. You’re going to be just fine. You’re not hurt.” She lingered near the mouth of the cave where she could glance back out at the airship. She could just see the red of Priya’s robe through the cabin’s windows.

  Kahina looked up sharply, then scrambled to her feet. “Gideon? Where’s Gideon?”

  “He’s fine. Not a scratch on him. He’s showing the airship to my friend now.”

  Kahina joined her at the mouth of the cave. “Oh. Good.”

  “Tell me something,” Asha said. “Do you know this man Gideon well?”

  “Not personally. But my employer in Damascus speaks highly of him.” Kahina’s spoke Eranian with an even stronger accent than the man, and she hesitated at times as though trying to remember the right word from time to time. “He’s well known in Syria. Some sort of mercenary, I think. Or maybe a bounty hunter. He’s been a perfect gentleman to me, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  Asha shook her head. “Maybe it’s nothing.” They both stepped out into the light, walking slowly toward the airship. “So what happened yesterday? Why did you crash?”

  “Oh, it’s this old bird.” Kahina sighed. “It should have been decommissioned a decade ago, or at least overhauled. We had a little oil fire, nothing serious. But at the same moment, one of the cables on the fins snapped and I lost control. Couldn’t pull up. I only barely managed to get us into this gap in the mountain. We could have sliced open the envelope on those rocks, and then, well, you know, instant retirement.” She flashed a brief and humorless grin at Asha.

  The herbalist only raised an eyebrow but didn’t ask for any explanations. “So, can you fix it?”

  “Probably. The fire was nothing. Just a little leak. I can seal that with putty for now. It’ll take a little longer to get the cable back in place, but it should only take an hour. Then we just need a little water for the boiler and we’ll be all set to fly.”

  “I saw a stream on the east face of this mountain,” Asha said absently.

  “Great.”

  They entered the cabin and Gideon gave the pilot a quick but warm embrace as he greeted her. But as she set to work on the strange engine, the man seemed to forget all about her as he returned to Priya’s side. The nun sat in the single chair in front of the controls, running her hands lightly over the levers and glassy faces of the gauges and dials.

  Asha watched them all for a moment. “I’ll go get some water,” she said to no one in particular.

  “Oh, thanks.” Kahina handed her a bucket. “Just dump it in there.” She pointed to the small boiler beside her.

  Asha glanced inside, guessed it would take twenty or thirty buckets to fill the void,
and strode outside again. There was no clear path down the eastern face, but the slope was forgiving and the ground was firm and safe. Soon she was back down in the shaded corridors of the cedar forest, swaddled in the sounds of tree-souls and hungry squirrels and timid birds.

  The stream emerged from a narrow gap in the mountain rock less than a quarter hour from the airship and Asha frowned as she realized it would take most of the day to bring up enough water to fill the boiler using a single bucket. She had just filled the bucket from the cold stream and straightened up to leave when a deep thrumming sound caught her attention. She swept her long black hair away from her right ear to better hear the aetheric echo, but it faded quickly into silence.

  “Are you all right?”

  Asha glanced up to see Gideon standing on the slope above her. He had a stick across his shoulder with three more buckets dangling off it, and he was staring at her. At her ear.

  “I’m fine.” She dropped her hair over her ear and began trudging up the slope. “The water’s right around that stone there.” She pointed at the stream carelessly as she passed him.

  “But, your ear? Is it all right?”

  She kept walking.

  “It’s just… I’ve only ever seen something like that once before and I was a little surprised and I just wanted to make certain you were all right.” He took a few steps up the path after her. “I mean, if it is the same condition, then maybe I can help, or maybe I know someone who can.”

  Asha whirled about and stared down at him. “You’ve never seen anything like it before.”

  “I haven’t?” He frowned, his eyes searching her face.

  “No.” She turned and resumed climbing the slope. “You haven’t.”

  * * *

  By noon the boiler was full and Kahina had completed her repairs. The engine hissed and rumbled, the propellers droned, and the entire airship was shaking as though eager to be back home again in the Persian sky.

  “Please let us help you on your way. It’s the least we can do,” Gideon asked. “Just to the nearest town.”

  “It’s safe.” Kahina grinned. “More or less.”

  Priya stood just outside the cabin with Jagdish curled up in her arms, his fur bristling at the growling machine. She nodded. “Asha? Shall we?”

  Asha pressed her lips into a thin line. “How does it work?”

  “The envelope is filled with a light gas. It floats in the air just like an air bubble floats in water,” Kahina said. “Don’t worry. Even in a disaster, even when damaged, it still sinks gently back to the ground again, just like it did yesterday. It’s safer than horses or trains, or so they say.”

  “Horses don’t fall out of the sky.” The herbalist picked at her lip. “All right then. But only to the nearest town, and only because there isn’t much to eat in this forest.”

  The two women stepped aboard and sat on the small bench in the center of the cabin behind Kahina. Gideon stood beside them, his right hand with its strange brass gauntlet gripping an overhead bar for balance. The engine at the rear of the cabin roared a little louder and the propellers droned at a higher pitch, and the entire cabin shivered at the airship rose gently into the cool mountain air. Asha stared out the window as the rock face slid down and down until the peak slipped out of sight, revealing the endless vista of the cedar forest stretching out to a distant ridge on the western horizon.

  The ship turned slowly, the entire world below rotating in a flat circle, and then they accelerated west, the mountain peak gliding smoothly away behind them. Looking down, Asha saw the forest below as a wrinkled green cloth, dappled and shadowed, painted by sun and shade, and streaked here and there with brown or a flash of silver-blue. But the world of leaves and bark and insects and earth did not exist from her seat in the sky.

  After a few minutes, she tried to describe what she was seeing to Priya, but she gave up a moment later. Gideon smiled and shrugged down at her. Asha kept her eyes on the horizon.

  The sun had barely begun to shift down the westward sky when Asha noticed that they too were sinking toward the ground. The forest below thinned, giving way to a rippling sea of green grass and the patchwork plots of farms and orchards. And after only a quarter hour of cruising over these signs of civilization, Kahina announced that they were about to land. The airship slowed and Asha watched the earth sweep up to meet them, resolving quite suddenly into the ordinary world she had left behind on the mountainside.

  The cabin banged slightly as they touched down and the engines sputtered into silence. Kahina stood up and gave Gideon a serious look. “Coal. Water. Food. Blankets. Anything we should have had on that mountain, we need now. All right?”

  Gideon nodded. “Sure.”

  Asha watched the pair open the metal door and step out onto the grass, and then she helped Priya to follow them. They stood on a flat grassy field just a stone’s throw from a wide dirt road. To their left the road plunged through an orchard and disappeared toward the cedar forest, but to their right the road wound around a narrow creek and up to a small cluster of farm houses near a tall wooden windmill.

  As they walked up the road, Asha paused to stare back at the forest behind them.

  “Something the matter?” Gideon asked.

  “When we were in the forest, I thought I heard something following us. Something large.” Asha watched the tree line, seeing nothing but cedars.

  “Oh, I doubt it. There’s nothing bigger than a hare in there.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Well.” He glanced away. “I’ve been here before. I know the area pretty well. I had to walk on the ground back then, of course. There is an old story about a giant man and a monster bull, but they only tell that story down south, and it’s a very old story. You probably just heard a falling tree in there.”

  “Probably.” Asha narrowed her eyes and continued past him toward the village. “Then again, there are strange souls wandering the world these days.”

  The small cluster of houses encircled a single covered well, and there were two old women sitting on a rough hewn bench beside it. They both looked up to watch the strangers approach, and Asha saw the sleepy apathy in their eyes transform into excitement and wonder. The two women rose up on unsteady legs, their hands clasped and their thin lips rising in crooked little smiles.

  “Hello,” said Kahina. But the women looked right past the pilot.

  “Hello,” said Gideon. “Lovely day, isn’t it?”

  The old ladies gasped and came forward. “Gideon? It is you, isn’t it? Gideon?”

  The young man blushed. “Uh. Well, yes. Yes, it is me. I’m Gideon.”

  “I knew it!” one of the women said. “I could never forget that face. Oh, it is so wonderful to see you again.” She glanced over at Priya and Asha. “I’m sorry to make a scene, but it has been so long.”

  Asha shrugged. “It’s all right.” She looked up at him. “When were you last here?”

  “Oh, a while ago,” he said.

  “More than a while.” The old ladies chuckled. “We were barely more than children when he was last here.”

  Asha frowned. “Really? This man?”

  “Oh yes!” They nodded merrily. “But where is that magic sword of yours? The one you used to slay the Bull of Heaven?”

  Gideon winced. He looked sideways at Asha. “It wasn’t the Bull of Heaven, I swear. It was just a big bull. A regular bull. Just very dangerous.”

  “Ah. And you had a magic sword?” Asha glanced at his belt, but no weapons hung there.

  His face wrinkled with awkward embarrassment. “Sort of. It’s not magic though, I can promise you that.”

  “So what happened to it?”

  “Well, I had it modified when I was in Marrakesh a few years ago.” He held up his right arm with the strange brass gauntlet. Then he yanked back a small lever on the side, there came a sharp click and hiss, and a shining white blade shot forward out of the flat box on the side of his arm. The blade extended two hand-length
s beyond his fist, protected by the thick leather glove.

  The short sword had a triangular blade, rather wide at its base and narrowing quickly to its point, and the steel itself blazed with a pure white light.

  Asha grabbed Priya and pulled her away from the man. “Get that thing away from us.”

  Gideon’s eyes widened. “No, please, it’s fine, I’m sorry.” He pulled the little lever again and the blade shot back into the device on his arm. “I didn’t mean to startle you.” He held up his empty hands.

  “It’s not fine,” Asha said, drawing a steel scalpel from her bag to point at him. “I’ve seen swords like that before. They don’t just kill, they steal souls!”

  Gideon nodded, his sad eyes fixed on Asha as his hands sank slowly to his sides. “Yes, I know. But it’s all right. I’ve never used mine on a person. I swear.”

  “Liar. It’s the souls that make the blade glow, and yours is glowing brighter than the sun.”

  “Yes, but not from killing people. It’s from destroying other swords like it.”

  Asha hesitated. “It is?”

  Kahina nodded. “I’ve seen him do it once.”

  The two old ladies nodded. “We saw him do it, too, when we were girls.”

  “Gideon?” Priya spoke softly. “How old are you?”

  “Ah.” He touched the little golden pendant hanging from his neck. “Well, that’s a bit of a long story.”

  “Then tell it,” Asha said. “And if I don’t like what I hear, I won’t let you walk out of here to use that sword again.”

  “All right, I’m happy to tell you.” He grinned again. “Although, I sort of doubt that you could stop me from leaving.”

  Asha lifted her other hand out of her bag to display the scalpels and needles arrayed between her fingers like claws.

  Gideon blinked. “Oh my. All right, let’s sit down.”

  * * *

  Gideon raised his eyebrows and inhaled slowly. He said, “I was born about two thousand years ago in the city of Damascus, although the city was already old at that time. I had a pretty unremarkable life. My father made bricks. My mother died when I was young. I played in the streets until I could work, and then I made bricks for a few years. When war broke out between Damascus and Tyre, I was summoned to fight. There were a few battles and I fought pretty well, so when we returned I was made a full-time guard in the king’s palace.”