Aetherium (Omnibus Edition)

by Joseph Robert Lewis

  “Taziri?” Asha frowned. “Who?”

  “She’s an inventor from Marrakesh,” Bastet said. “She’s building the magnet to take the needles out of Isis and the others. In just a little while, it’ll all be over.”

  “Maybe for Isis,” Gideon said. “But I don’t suppose you managed to capture Nethys last night.”

  “No. She got away,” Bastet said. “And I don’t know where Anubis is, or Horus, for that matter.”

  “Maybe Anubis caught him.”

  “Maybe.” Bastet hesitated. “So Nethys and Horus are still missing. Maybe I should go back to Jiro’s place. Just in case.”

  “I’ll come too.” Asha stood up.

  “I’ll go,” Gideon said, rising to his feet.

  “No, you’re too slow, and besides, that sword of your is only good for killing, and we don’t want to kill anyone if we don’t have to,” Asha said. “You stay here with Wren and help her keep an eye on Isis. All right?”

  Gideon hesitated, then nodded. “All right.”

  Bastet followed Asha through the meandering paths of the warehouse out to the front doors where they could see the late morning sunlight glancing off the Middle Sea. “Do you remember the way back to Jiro’s place?” Bastet asked.

  “I do. Go on ahead. I’ll be right behind you,” Asha said. “Dragons are very fast when they wish to be.”

  Chapter 20

  Asha ran through the arrow-straight streets of Alexandria, her long black hair streaming out behind her as her golden scaled legs flashed beneath her, her sharp ruby claws scratching the pavement with every step. The city dissolved into soft brown blurs of walls, faces, animals, and machines all dimmed at the edges as she streaked down the street, leaving a sea of confused and frightened expressions in her wake.

  She stumbled to a stop outside Jiro’s home and knocked at the door, and when there was no answer she let herself in. Following the sounds of voices and the clangor of metal on metal, she went through the back of the smith’s home and found the door to the adjoining workshop where the tall Nipponese smith was working alongside a shorter woman with thick brown hair tied back with a blue scarf. The two of them were wearing leather aprons and armored goggles, and were bent over a wooden table with a small tangle of wires and metal strips between them.

  Bastet sat on a stool in the corner, swinging her legs. She waved.

  “Hello?” Asha said cautiously.

  The woman looked up. “Hello. You must be Asha. Bastet told me all about you. Well, she mentioned your name, at least. I’m Taziri Ohana, it’s a pleasure to meet you.” She spoke Eranian in a slow and fumbling manner that sounded awkward yet was easy for Asha to understand.

  They shook hands.

  “You’re building a machine to help the victims? To remove the needles?” Asha asked.

  “Yes, and we’re making excellent progress.” Taziri nodded at Jiro and pointed to the golden rod on the table. “It’s fairly straightforward. We just need to bolt a highly charged wire coil around this rod of aetherium, and rig some sort of switch connecting it to the battery I brought, and we’ll be in business. Should be done in the next hour, I think.”

  Asha nodded and went to sit by Bastet in the corner. “So, it’s truly that simple? In an hour, we’ll have a tool that can restore all of Lilith’s victims with the press of a switch?”

  “Probably.” Bastet bobbed her head. “You should have seen the thing that Taziri built the last time she was here. A flame so hot it melted clean through a seireiken in half a heart beat!”

  “Impressive.” Asha leaned back against the wall and looked blankly at the floor, chewing her lip.

  The sooner this business is finished, the better. Then I can leave and go someplace far away from everyone. Someplace where the dragon can’t hurt anyone else.

  Where I can’t hurt anyone else.

  Over the next half hour, she sat and watched the device take form. It looked like a thin golden arm wearing a loose copper sleeve, and at the back end there was an untidy mess of wires and a small black bucket with its lid welded shut. Taziri and Jiro worked quietly, occasionally making some small commotion when the soldering iron went astray or a tool rolled off the table.

  “We’re almost done,” Taziri said over her shoulder.

  Asha nodded absently.

  Maybe we can finish this business today. Maybe I can leave this city tonight.

  The two engineers slid the sun-steel rod out of the device and set it aside as they flipped the copper coil over to fiddle with its base. And then the ceiling collapsed.

  There was no groan, no crackle of breaking stone or keening of bending beams. The ceiling simply collapsed in one massive avalanche of bricks and dust that began in the center of the room and quickly expanded out toward the walls.

  Asha woke the dragon and shielded her head with armored arms while Bastet vanished in a swirl of white aether and the two engineers dove under their work table, Taziri cradling her wire coil to her chest. In a moment the cascade of stone and mortar was over and Asha stood up, knocked the chips from her hair and arms, and pulled her feet free of the blocks around her legs. She scrambled over the debris to the far side of the room, sank her ruby claws into the fallen bricks, and hauled them away from the work table, where she found Taziri and Jiro huddled in a dusty, dark hole under the table, unharmed. Asha reached down to help them out when she heard a strange cry from overhead and she looked up at the midday sky.

  A wall of white feathers crashed down into the ruined house, flapping and beating on the cracked stones and raising a storm of gray dust. Asha covered her mouth and nose with one arm while clawing her way to the side of the room with the other. The huge wings smacked her in the back and arms several times, but never hard enough to knock her off her feet, and she huddled against the wall, squinting through the swirling clouds of dust. But the wings kept beating the broken room with powerful strokes, and the dust didn’t settle and the feathers kept their owner hidden from view.

  “Nethys!” Asha shouted over the swooping, swooshing noises of the wings and the flying dust. “Nethys, stop!”

  But she didn’t stop. Nethys screamed a single word that sounded like “No!” and she raised her winged arms above her head in a great v-shaped salute. For a moment, the dust drifted apart, revealing the body of the immortal woman draped in a filthy, stained dress. Her face was thin with a small nose and thin lips and narrow eyes, making everything about her expression seem angry and cruel.

  Asha pushed off the wall and straightened up, curling her ruby claws into a fist. “Nethys! Go back! Leave now! I don’t wish to hurt you!”

  The Aegyptian woman looked at her for a moment, and then swept her feathered arms down in one great stroke, hurling herself into the air and across the room toward the work table beside Asha. Nethys landed with a crash, sweeping her massive wings once for balance and showering Asha with dust and tiny pebbles that clattered against her armored skin and the wall behind her like a hail storm.

  Asha raised both arms to shield her face and through the narrow crack between her golden hands she saw Nethys hook her bare feet around the bar of sun-steel on the table, and leap into the air.

  “No!” Asha dashed across the table and leapt after her. With the power of the golden dragon in her legs, she shot upwards and grabbed Nethys by the ankles as the immortal winged her way above the roofs. Asha grabbed the bar of sun-steel in one clawed hand and strained against the winged woman’s legs, but she couldn’t break Nethys’s hold on the bar.

  The immortal Aegyptian beat the air with powerful strokes, and Asha had to cling with both hands to keep from being blown free as they both rose higher and higher above the houses, above the harbor, and soon above the bright sparkling waves of the Middle Sea. Each time Asha reached out for the bar of sun-steel, Nethys would twist and flap and shake, threatening to drop the golden woman into the water far below.

  Asha glanced down once at the distant waves and felt a faint vertigo. She had been in many high p
laces in her life. Fortress towers, royal pagodas, and even tiny shrines high in the mountains. But always with her feet flat on the ground. Now she hung in empty space, staring down past her useless, swinging legs, and felt the yawning void between herself and the world below. The emptiness of that space, the alien sensation of having nothing at all below her, sent a cold shudder down her spine.

  In that moment, all traces of her self-righteous or vengeful anger evaporated and her dragon skin vanished, leaving her soft and brown and weak. Her calloused fingers slipped off Nethys’s ankles and Asha fell. At first, there was nothing, no sense of movement, and she almost thought she was floating on the breeze. Then the wind began to tear at her thin yellow sari and her long black hair, whipping upward and beating her face as she tumbled end over end toward the sea.

  The air roared in her ears as her clothes and hair buffeted her skin. She caught one brief glimpse of Nethys high above her, already so high that she almost looked like a bird gliding among the clouds, and then she was gone, lost in the glare of the sun.

  Asha saw the earth and the water tumbling upward to meet her, flashing blue and green and blue, over and over again. The sunlight shone on the waves, and the city appeared as a white blur of stone walls and dusty roads. Only the massive lighthouse had any real shape to her, and even it was distorted by the wind and her dizzying fall.

  I’m going to die. The moment I hit the water, I will die. Like a turtle dropped by an eagle, I will crack open and be no more. In just a moment now.

  She clawed at the air, trying to stop the spinning and tumbling, trying to focus on either the earth or the sky, but they went on flying round and round her.

  The tiny specks became tiny boats, and they became larger still, crewed by ants, and then by men. The wrinkled sheet of the ocean resolved into waves and foam.

  Here it is.

  Now.

  Asha closed her eyes.

  Death.

  The dragon in her breast roared.

  Asha arched her back in midair as a horrible burning sensation lashed across her skin from head to toe and she caught a brief glimpse of her skin shining with gold before her body struck the water. She crashed into the sea as immovable and as unfeeling as a stone, smashing through the surface with arms and legs outstretched, feeling almost nothing of the transition from air to water. Instantly the world was dark and cold, but muted and muffled as though she were locked inside a prison with thick stone walls, far from the light and heat of the sun, trapped in frigid shadows.

  Above her, the tiny white sun shuddered and wavered beyond the surface of the sea, and huge columns of white bubbles swaddled her as they fluttered up toward the air. But the sky was not blue. It was red. Everything was red, except for the hot white sun and white fish, and the white men on the boats above her. She bent her arms and legs, feeling the heat in her armored skin, feeling the angry swishing of her tail behind her, feeling the weight of her horns on her head.

  What passed through her mind was not as complex as thought, and barely as coherent as emotion. It was instinct. Rage at the flying creature that had escaped, rage at the cold sea that dragged down her limbs, hunger for the countless flashing fishes around her, and a wild joy at being free.

  The dragon is free.

  Asha swam with powerful strokes, her golden arms and ruby claws biting into the sea and sending her slicing through the cold water. She crashed into a school of silvery fish and torn them to pieces with her blazing claws, and then she darted up toward the sun. She burst through the surface and flashed through the empty air to crash back down on the pebbled beach at the edge of the harbor in the shadow of the great lighthouse. She looked up at the strange mountain of flat stone and saw the bright flashing jewel at its summit, and she longed to destroy it.

  “Asha!”

  The sound was familiar. Asha turned and saw a small white figure running toward her. A girl.

  A morsel.

  “Asha!”

  Asha roared and turned toward the girl. The golden woman hunched forward, tightening the dense muscles of her arms and legs, twisting inward and bearing down with all of her power, feeling herself wound for the spring, for the strike, for the kill. She crooked her scaled fingers and felt the scorching heat in her claws, longing to sink them deep into hot flesh, to feel the blood flowing, to see the steam rising, to taste the burnt meat.

  “Asha!”

  That sound again.

  Sound.

  Word.

  Name.

  Tiny nascent thoughts began to form in Asha’s mind.

  Things have names. I have a name. The girl has a name.

  She straightened up and relaxed her hands, letting them fall to her sides.

  The girl is not food. The girl is Bastet.

  Bastet ran across the street and onto the narrow stone path that led down the side of the huge jetty on which stood the lighthouse. She waved and shouted, “Asha! Are you all right?”

  Asha inhaled and exhaled, and tasted the hot stench of her own breath.

  The dragon is everywhere. I must bottle it again. I must take refuge in the mountains and the sea. I take refuge in the forests and the rivers.

  I take refuge—

  “Asha, behind you!”

  Asha spun, only partly guided by her understanding of the girl’s words and still fueled by the dragon’s hunger, and she saw the huge bird-woman race down toward her from around the side of the lighthouse.

  Enemy. Kill.

  The dragon sprang into the air and sank her burning claws into the bird-thing’s flesh. As she clung to the screeching body, a tiny fleck of gold flew free of the creature’s neck and pinged against one of the dragon’s ruby claws and vanished in a hiss of smoke. Instantly, her prey began screaming, not squawking as a bird in fear but crying out in naked pain. The dragon and the bird fell to earth and slammed down onto the pebbled beach, and the dragon pulled its claws free and stalked away from the bird, circling it, staring at it. The bird writhed and gasped, shaking its huge wings and kicking feebly at the stones under its feet.

  Then it lay still and gasping.

  Then it died.

  The dragon stared at the body.

  And somewhere, a girl screamed.

  Asha blinked. The world of red and white was gone and the world of blue and brown had returned. The cold spray of the ocean make her skin prickle and she shivered, wrapping her arms around her belly as her hair blew across her face. She stared down at the strange body at her feet. Nethys lay very still, except for the dark red blood glistening on her chest and neck, and the white feathers fluttering on her arms and around her face.

  Bastet staggered forward and fell to her knees beside the body, her mouth open, her eyes wide. For a moment she didn’t breathe, didn’t sob, didn’t make a sound. But then it all came crashing out, and Bastet laid her head on her aunt’s belly and cried.

  Asha tasted the salt spray on her lips.

  I killed this woman. I murdered her, just like Set murdered Priya. I was out of control, and someone’s mother died. Anubis’s mother. This is my fault, and no one else’s. I’m no different from any of these other beasts now.

  No, I am different.

  I’m worse.

  Set was being controlled by Lilith. He had no choice. But I had a choice. I chose to believe I could control this thing inside me. I chose to use it. I chose to unleash it.

  And now this woman is dead. She died a slave. She died in agony. Because of me.

  Just like him. Just like my beautiful love. My first. My fault.

  Again.

  Asha turned away as the tears spilled over her cheeks. She covered her mouth and felt her shoulder shaking. She squeezed her eyes shut and bowed her head. But the pain washed through her quickly this time, and she wiped her face and turned around, feeling even colder and more hollow than before.

  Bastet was looking up at her, watching her.

  “I’m sorry,” Asha said. “I’m so sorry.”

  Bastet swallowed an
d nodded. She whispered, “We should send her on her way now. We need… we need wood. For the fire.”

  Asha nodded back. “Yes.”

  Together, they moved Nethys up away from the water’s edge and laid her on the sand in the shadow of the great lighthouse. Then they wandered apart to gather up bits of sun-bleached driftwood, which they spread under and over the body. When the pyre was ready, Asha looked at her hand, despairing at the thought up summoning up even one of the dragon’s claws, but Bastet stepped forward and brought out a little flint and striker from her pocket, and lit the fire.

  They watched the flames rise and consume the winged woman, and when it was done the sea wind carried the ashes away. Then, hand in hand, they walked back along the strand around the base of the lighthouse and along the narrow streets to Jiro’s house and the ruins of his workshop. They found Taziri and Jiro sitting in the smith’s living room with a handful of tools and bits of machines scattered over the carpet between them. They looked up as the others entered.

  “She’s dead,” Asha said softly.

  Bastet sat down on a cushion beside Taziri and leaned against the Mazigh woman, who put her arms around the girl.

  Jiro appeared unmoved by the announcement. “And the sun-steel?”

  It took Asha a moment to understand his question, and then she remembered the reason for the entire tragic encounter, and she shrugged. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what happened to it.”

  “It fell,” Bastet whispered. “Into the sea.”

  The tall smith sighed and frowned. He gestured to the machine parts in front of him. “Then this is useless. I don’t have any more of the steel. I only kept that one rod.”

  Bastet sniffed and said, “I know where you can find more.”

  Asha sighed and shivered. “Set and Nethys. Both of Anubis’s parents, gone.”

  “It’s not your fault,” Taziri said. “You didn’t cause this. You were just doing the best you could in a bad situation.”

  “Isis is safe,” Bastet whispered. “We can still save her. And Horus, if we can find him.”