Angels and Djinn, Book 3: Zariel's Doom (37 page)

“Is it Ramashad?” Hadara whispered back.

“We’ll know soon.”

They carried on in silence, with only the soft watery sounds of the crocodile’s tail swishing through the oil behind them. From time to time, the beast raised the roof of its mouth to hiss and growl, but then it closed its jaws and swam on, chasing the angel light.

The distant lights grew larger and brighter, and Azrael stopped in midair. “If we go any closer, they may see us. See me,” she said.

“Yes, but if you stop leading this ugly beast with that light of yours, it’ll probably dive down, drown us, and eat us,” Rahm grumbled. “So I say we take the risk and keep going.”

Iyasu frowned. “He has a point. And the smell in here is starting to make me more than a little queasy, so let’s try to find a place to disembark.”

So on they went until the seer spied a narrow ledge of rock that ran above the sea of oil, all the way to the cavern where the lights shone, and he told Azrael so she could turn and bring them to it. They were nearly there when a djinn appeared on the narrow path, a woman with bright flaming hair, dressed in a familiar sleeveless white robe, and peering straight at the dark angel and her strange entourage.

“Well, that’s less than ideal, isn’t it?” Iyasu squinted at her, discovering nothing of note except that she appeared content to wait for the intruders to come to her.

“Do you think we can surprise her?” Rahm touched his sword.

“Well, she’s looking straight at us, so, not really, no.”

“Well, we only have a minute before we get there. What do we do?”

Iyasu glanced up at Azrael. “Play our best card. Again.”

They were nearly to the shore when the djinn woman called out, “Stop where you are. We were told to expect you, holy sister. Please come with me.”

Azrael shone in the darkness. “Let my friends come ashore.”

The djinn shook her head. “No. We have no use for them.” She flicked her fingers through the air and thin trails of cinders and flame shot across the void and struck the oil-soaked snout of the crocodile. The huge beast roared and thrashed, rolling over to plunge its burning flesh under the surface of the oil. Iyasu scrambled to keep his footing as the huge creature rolled beneath his feet, stumbling over the animal’s ribs to stand on its stomach as Rahm swept up Hadara in his arms and ran down the length of the burning beast to leap from its huge jaw, sail through the darkness, and crash to an unsteady landing on the narrow path beside the djinn.

And that was the last thing Iyasu saw before the giant crocodilian dove into the oil lake, and he plunged beneath its black waters.

With only a thin lungful of air in his chest, the seer kicked and paddled and clawed at the slick oil, his eye clenched shut as he tried to stay calm. But no matter how hard he struggled against the oil, it seemed to flow up past him, light and fluid, rising ever upward like steam.

I’m sinking, I’m sinking! Why am I sinking?

He tried to focus, to stay calm, to think through his situation, but his lungs were already burning and the strange sensation of the oil against his skin felt as though he was being embalmed, and there was nothing to grab, nothing to help him, and the growing fear of being torn to pieces by the white crocodile was almost as terrifying as drowning in the oil.

The hand that grabbed his wrist was hot and bony, and it yanked him up from the lake in one sharp, harsh movement that nearly separated his arm from his shoulder. He gasped for air, his eye still clamped shut, ears and nostrils still gummed with oil, and he felt himself smack down again on the surface of the lake, before being dragged through the rolling waves and hauled up onto a rough, rocky surface.

Then there was choking, coughing, wiping, and gasping until his face was clean enough for him to see and hear. Hadara and Azrael knelt beside him, peppering him with questions, trying to get him to say he was all right. Rahm stood behind them, his sword pressed to the throat of the djinn woman, who seemed utterly unconcerned with the warrior and completely distracted with the task of burning away the last traces of oil from her left hand.

The djinn pulled me out?

Iyasu spat the last of the oil from his mouth. “I’m all right, I’m all right. It’s okay.” He sat up straighter and tried to swipe the oil off his arms and from his air, but only succeeded in smoothing the black liquid into straight streaks over his body.

He gave Azrael’s hand a long hard squeeze as the last of the pain faded from his chest. He wanted to hold her, to kiss her, but covered in a heavy layer of oil he didn’t want to really touch anything. The angel felt differently. She wrapped her arms around him and held him close, and then leaned back just enough to kiss him, a long and lingering kiss, the sort that would have led to far more than kissing at any other time, in any other place.

When she pulled back, the oil seemed to just fall away from her hair and skin, and a moment later she looked as clean and perfect as she had before she touched him.

“What happened?” he asked. “Why did she save me?” He jerked his head in the direction of the djinn.

“Because I couldn’t,” Azrael said. “I tried, but I couldn’t sink into the oil any more than I can sink into water. And I couldn’t hold Hadara’s weight while she reached for you. So that only left the djinn.”

“Because she’s so much lighter.” He nodded. “I assume she didn’t agree to help out of the goodness of her heart, did she?”

“You’re a seer, she said,” the djinn interjected. “Magi are not to be harmed.”

“Oh? You have some use for clerics? Something kind and gentle, no doubt,” Iyasu said dryly as he stood up and let more of the oil drip from his hands and clothing.

“You’ll join our ranks,” the djinn said matter-of-factly. “I would turn you myself, but I am only a novice. One of the masters will see to it.”

“Sounds delightful.” Iyasu wiped his hand over his hair again and wrung out a dripping mass of oil. “Then let’s go see the masters.”

“Are you crazy?” Rahm stared at him. “We’re just going to walk in there, like prisoners?”

Iyasu shrugged. “Why not? Unless you think you can outrun this young lady and somehow hide from a city full of angelic djinn?”

With many uncomfortable and distrustful frowns and glowers, the group stood and followed the djinn woman along the narrow path against the rock wall, slowly climbing higher above the black sea as they approached the lights on the hill. Iyasu could see the outlines of buildings now, mostly domes, great curving buildings of all sizes that resembled colonies of bubbles pressed together so that some appeared to be buried within others.

They came to a narrow bridge of cleric-sculpted stone that stretched from the rough path over the black lake and onto the island where the city stood. Iyasu peered down at the gap as they passed over it. “So the city fell into the earth, into the oil, and then floated west until it came to rest here?”

Their guide’s only answer was a frown and a curt nod to keep moving.

When they set foot on the city streets, the seer noticed the sudden change in the ground.

Not stone. Not earth. Is it… bone?

The streets meandered slightly, curving left and right along the round walls of the dome-like structures, and from the arched doorways many stern and condescending faces emerged. The djinn of Ramashad wore many hues of dark silk, from crimson to violet to midnight blue, but more than half of them wore the same white robes as Jevad and their guide, and these djinn all had flaming hair, standing out like beacons in the half-light of their city.

Men and women in the street paused and fell silent as the strangers passed, but no one spoke to them or approached them, and after a time, a small wake of curious people began to follow them at a discreet distance.

“I don’t like this,” Rahm muttered.

“You should try to,” Iyasu muttered back. “It’s probably only going to get worse from here.”

The seer noted the singular tower in the distance and assumed it was a place of importance and the place where they were going, and with that mystery temporarily resolved, he focused on their surroundings. He saw colonies of moss clustered around sharp little crystals on the walls of the domes, and both the moss and crystals glowed with a cool azure light. In the corners where any two domes came together, he saw gardens of magnificent mushrooms rising in neatly ordered rows, spotted and striped, and glowing faintly.

But he saw no animals, no tools, no food, no fire, and he heard no music, no singing or laughing in the distance. There was only the distant hum of voices, a hum that fell silent when he passed by. He leaned toward Azrael and said, “You’ve been to Odashena, haven’t you? Was it like this?”

“In absolutely no way,” she said. “The buildings, the people, the light, the… everything. It’s all different. Very different. I don’t like it.”

“Noted. So, when we build a house of our own, it won’t be a glowing dome deep beneath the earth beside a lake of oil.” He nodded seriously.

She smiled briefly.

When they arrived at the tower, they had amassed several hundred onlookers, most of them redheads in white. Iyasu studied the tower, found it unremarkably similar to the domes, and fixed his attention on the light streaming from a circular window near the very top.

“My lord!” their guide called out. “They have arrived.”

“Not very specific,” Hadara noted.

“I think we were expected,” Iyasu said. “Jevad must have warned them about us hours ago.”

“And so I did.” Jevad emerged from the archway at the base of the tower. “I’m pleased you decided to join us. It certainly saved us from the difficult task of carrying you here, although I do wish you hadn’t taken quite so long. It was getting a bit boring.”

“Yes, well, these things happen and…” Iyasu trailed off as a change in the light drew his attention upward. And as he gazed up at the round window, a figure emerged bathed in a fiery light that poured outward from his scarlet mane. He stepped off into the empty air and a pair of wings dressed entirely in red fire rushed out from his shoulders to hold him up, and slowly he began to descend toward them.

“That’s him,” Azrael whispered, touching Iyasu’s arm. “That’s Zariel.”

Chapter 30

Iyasu fixed his eyes on the beautiful fiery creature floating down toward them. In the dim light he could almost see the stranger’s soul swirling around his flaming hair, but Iyasu couldn’t be sure what he was seeing. “You’re certain it’s really him? It’s not another djinn?”

“No, that’s no djinn,” Azrael whispered. “That’s an angel. That’s my brother. That’s Zariel.”

The pale angel reached the ground and his burning wings vanished in a soft growl of smoke as he folded his hands behind his back and turned a cold gaze on Azrael. “Well, I’m surprised, obviously. There were so many other faces I expected to see. Michael, naturally. Jibril, probably. Israfil, maybe. But not you. I thought you would be one of the last. One of the ones I would have to pry out of some dank hole in the ground on some lonely mountainside, gibbering nonsense. And yet, here you are, and apparently sane. How are you?”

“Zariel?” She frowned at him. “We thought you were captured… tortured… dead.”

“Don’t be stupid. I’m an angel. And if you’re thinking of what happened to poor Raziel, well, he’s an idiot.” Zariel shrugged. “How else do you explain an angel losing his own body?”

“Strange things happen every day,” Azrael said quietly. “And you did disappear.”

“Yes, I did. I can see how that must have alarmed you and the others,” he said in mock sincerity. “And then you all rushed down here to see what had happened to me, to care for me, to bring me back, didn’t you? Oh no, you didn’t. No one came. No one cared.”

Silence.

He nodded. “That’s what I thought. Well, that’s in the past now. And this is the future.” He reached out, faster than light, and grabbed Azrael’s wrist.

Iyasu stared in frozen horror as he watched a wave of red flame wash out of Zariel’s hand and flood across Azrael’s arm, bleaching her skin white as streaks of bright copper blazed in her raven hair.

“Rael!” He lunged toward the angels, but Hadara grabbed him and held him back.

Now a second fire ignited, a fire of black and gold flames that spun and twisted around Azrael’s arm, swallowing and smothering the red fires until Zariel’s stern visage soured and he let go of her, and stepped back.

She cradled her wrist in her other hand until her skin faded back to its natural hue, though the fiery locks in her hair did not darken as quickly. Iyasu exhaled the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

He tried to change her, just like the djinn. But why would he want to make everyone like himself? To make them slaves? Why does an angel need slaves?

“You’re stronger than I remember,” Zariel said.

“I am Death,” she answered. “And a great many people have died since we last met.”

“Interesting.” He paced away from her.

She shook her injured hand and called out, “Zariel, what happened to you?”

“I am the Angel of Change, the soul of adaptation,” he said in a precise, clipped voice. “What do you think happened to me?”

“You were supposed to help these people.” Azrael glanced around at the djinn, standing rank upon rank in the curving lanes around them.

“Yes, I was. And I tried to teach them, to change them. But what I found, dear sister, was that the djinn had something to teach me about change, about the nature of change, the possibilities of change. They taught me
ambition
.”

“I don’t follow. What does that mean exactly?”

Zariel turned his attention to Rahm, briefly, and then gazed on Hadara a bit longer before finally settling his attention on Iyasu, but he continued to speak to the dark angel. “Think about it. Why was I sent to Ramashad?”

“To guide them,” she said.

“And why would these people need any guidance?”

Iyasu felt the angel’s fiery eyes boring into his skin, and at that moment he also felt a cold dribble of oil slither behind his ear and down his neck. He shuddered and said, “Wait, I think I know that one. Was it… evil?”