War of the Magi: Azrael's Wrath (Book 2) (27 page)

“You see, there is another way, a better way.” Iyasu headed toward the burnt house.

Samira followed. “Yes, I suppose if one has the power of an angel, then one can stop a war without any loss of life. If only the heavenly father had seen fit to make us all angels.”

“I know, I know.” Iyasu waved her comment away. “I just meant, a good person with immense power can do immense good. That’s all.”

“The Angel of Death is hardly a person.”

“Of course she is.” He frowned at her. “Should I question whether you’re a person? You’re made of fire and can run like the wind, and live for centuries.”

“Wonderful qualities, I agree. But irrelevant to the question of my soul, my free will. Angels have neither.”

“You’re wrong on both counts.” Iyasu grinned. “Azrael can’t choose to be evil, but she can choose to
do
good. Which she just did, by the way.”

“And her soul?”

“It looks a lot like yours, actually.”

“Looks?”

“Didn’t you know? Seers can see souls. Human, djinn, and angel.”

They strode up to where Azrael still stood, watching the injured soldiers lie unconscious or crawl slowly away from her. She pointed at the empty doorway of the house. “I can hear them, in the cellar I think, but the building is collapsing.”

Iyasu peered inside and saw that the entire roof had fallen in and now lay piled upon the upper floors at his feet with many smashed articles of furniture trapped between them. A continuous patter of cracks and snaps filled the air as the damaged beams and planks crushed each other, swiftly running toward their mutual destruction. The seer saw it all in an instant and he reached back behind him to grab Samira. “Get them out, quickly!”

The cleric raised her hands just as the last beam crackled and the entire heap of shattered roofing and flooring plunged into the cellar.

“No!” he cried.

For the second time a blast of dust struck him in the face and he stumbled back as a handful of large wooden shards flew up at his legs and chest. “Veneka! Zerai!”

The silence was horrifying.

He stared down at the wreckage of the house, now all lying in a heap below the level of the street. Nothing moved. And then he heard a man’s laughter.

“Iyasu? Is that you?” The answer was muffled and distant, but it was clearly the falconer.

“Zerai! We’ll get you out!” Iyasu peered around Samira’s raised arms. “Help them, please!”

“I am,” the djinn Tevadim muttered.

“Zerai, are you all right?” he yelled.

“We’re fine,” Zerai called out. “We’re all fine. Just a little dust in my mouth. Tastes like moldy bread.”

Iyasu frowned only for a moment, and then beamed at Samira. “You’re amazing!”

Samira said nothing as she slowly raised her arms and the entire mass of crushed and shattered wood rose up and slid off to their right to reveal an arching wall of stone protecting the left side of the cellar. As the wall curled back and pushed the refuse away, the starlight fell on a small sea of faces.

Iyasu slumped against the doorframe. “Thank God.”

Samira cleared her throat.

“And thank you, too,” he added.

It only took a few moments for Samira to secure the unstable remains of the house with her new wall, and then she raised a flight of stone stairs from the cellar floor to help everyone back up to the street, and soon they were standing together in the cool night breeze. There was a brief flurry of happy, relieved embraces, but they were cut short when the last of their number emerged from the cellar.

Bashir stepped out onto the street with a naked woman lying limp across his arms. He looked from one person to the next, and in a small voice he asked, “What do I do?”

Again it only took Iyasu a moment to realize what had happened and he stared at Veneka, wondering what words or actions had prompted her to do this.

It doesn’t matter now. A body without a soul. I suppose it will starve to death in a few days, and then he’ll have to bury and mourn her all over again.

Bashir staggered forward, searching the faces around him, but everyone looked away, saying nothing. He paused by Veneka, who shook her head and said, “There is nothing else I can do. I can only heal the body, and hers is alive and healthy.”

The alchemist turned and when he saw Azrael standing away from the group, he lurched toward her. “Holy Azrael! Please, you’re the only one who can save her. Talia’s body is whole again, but her soul is still lost to me. Please bring her back to me now. We don’t have much time, and I can’t lose her again, I can’t watch her die again. Please, bring her back. Please.”

He held the body up a bit higher, and the angel retreated, saying, “I cannot.”

“But… you have to.”

“Her soul was freed the moment her body died.”

“But her body isn’t dead anymore, look!”

Iyasu plunged between them. “No, stop, there’s nothing she can do. It’s not in her power to call back a soul from wherever it has gone after death. I’m sorry, but there’s nothing anyone can do.”

“No.” His eyes shone with tears and his lip twisted down. “No, there can’t… There has to be… She’s here, she’s breathing, she’s warm. It’s her, just look at her, this is Talia, my Talia, back from the dead!”

“It’s a miracle that you were able to do this,” Iyasu said gently.

“He wanted to see her face again,” Veneka said, gesturing to the collapsed house behind them. “One last time, before he died.”

Iyasu nodded at her and looked back at him. “I understand. I do. But nothing else can happen here. You need to be grateful for this moment, this chance to see her and hold her one last time. And then you need to let her go.”

Bashir shook his head and the tears fell from his eyes.

Iyasu sighed and turned, and noticed the way the pale moon light fell across the huge curve of Petra’s belly. “Oh my.”

“Everyone, I hate to ruin this awkward moment with more bad news, but, well, there’s more bad news,” Zerai said. He was standing out in the middle of the road, looking north toward the palace. “More soldiers.”

“Can’t the angel get rid of them?” Edris asked. “Just, you know, send them flying into a nice cozy wall somewhere?”

“I can’t kill them,” Azrael said. “They’ll recover and return.”

“Well, we can kill them,” Edris said.

“No, no one’s killing anyone,” Iyasu said loudly.

“Then we can tie them up.” The singer pointed to a soldier wheezing on the ground nearby. “You knock them down, we tie them up. After a few days, it’s all over and no dies. Right?”

Iyasu frowned as he turned to the angel. “Could we really do that? Could you subdue tens of thousands of men for us to imprison, one by one?”

“I could.” She looked down at him, pressing her lips together as a few faint lines creased her forehead. “But do you have the power to control so many prisoners?”

Iyasu looked back at Faris and counted the five nervous servants hovering around him, all covered in dust and cobwebs. “We’d need help. And there’d be some danger. At any moment, a dazed soldier could attack the person trying to bind his hands. I don’t know, I don’t like it.”

They stood in the street and offered suggestions for how a dozen people could capture an entire army until the sounds of horses galloping down the road silenced them. They turned to look, and several hands strayed toward weapons.

“Jengo!” Faris smiled and waved at the lead rider.

A score of men on striped stallions clattered to a halt in the midst of the unconscious soldiers, and the southern warrior surveyed the scene in confusion. “What happened here?”

“We’ll tell you later,” Iyasu said. “Where’s Darius?”

“On his throne, while three of his legions pour into the city,” Jengo said. “They’re marching down every road, kicking down every door, and dragging everyone they can find out into the street. He wants you dead.”

“Me?” Faris laid his hand on his chest.

“All of us.”

“Then every minute we waste here is another minute for his soldiers to hurt innocent people,” Iyasu said. “We can’t fight them, not here. Thousands could die. Hostages. Bystanders.”

“But we have the Angel of Death!” Edris pointed at the woman in the Daraji dress.

Azrael looked pointedly at Iyasu, and a fresh argument erupted about whether or not they could batter three legions into submission by taking them prisoner, unconscious, one by one.

“We don’t have time for this.” Iyasu glanced up the road at the dark outline of the palace against the stars. “We have to get out of the city.”

“You think we can escape without them seeing us?” Edris asked, casting a stern look at the large prince.

“Just the opposite,” Iyasu said. “To keep the people of Tagal safe, we need to make sure the soldiers see us go.”

Everyone turned to look at him.

“To be perfectly honest, I don’t love that plan,” Edris said.

“Neither do I,” Zerai added.

“I know it’s dangerous,” Iyasu said, “But…”

“Wait, wait!” Faris waved his hand in the air. “Iyasu, we tried it your way. We took back the city, we put Darius in prison, we crowned a new king. And how long did it last? An hour? Look around you, seer. This city belongs to the killers and thieves now. Our only hope is to get as far away as we can, and pray that Darius never finds us.”

“And what about the people we leave behind?” Iyasu asked. “Thousands of people in this city, in your army, in Ovati and Elladi, all suffering, all dying. Year after year after year. We can’t let that happen.”

“We can’t stop it from happening,” Faris snapped. “We just tried, and we failed. We failed horribly. I watched my cousin take an arrow to his eye and fall down dead right in front of me. How many good people died tonight? How many more should die for your notions of peace?”

Iyasu winced. “None should die.”

“But they will!”

“Gentlemen,” Veneka said loudly. “We have no time to argue. We need to leave the city. Once we are safely away, we will find a way to convince Darius that we are out of the city so he spares the people here, a way that does not put all of our lives in jeopardy. Agreed?”

Iyasu sighed and nodded at her.

Thank you, Ven.

With a bit of harried shuffling, all of the people standing in the street were paired up with one of Jengo’s mounted soldiers. Faris was given a horse of his own, and Samira took none at all, preferring to continue on foot. The alchemist managed to take his seat with Talia still in his arms, and Petra sat sweating and gasping in front of a frightened young man who seemed incredibly uncomfortable with the prospect of a child being born in his lap as he rode.

With every human, djinn, and angel settled, they raced off into the night.

Iyasu clung to the waist of the soldier in front of him, and gazed steadily over at the woman riding to his right. Azrael’s dark hair streamed out behind her, and her Daraji jewelry jangled softly under the thunder of the hooves.

Can I really help an angel? I’ve seen the anguish of one nation, but she’s seen the anguish of all humanity since the dawn of time.

I’m an idiot.

I’m so desperate to stop failing, to stop causing all this pain, that I’ll promise anything to anyone in the hopes of redeeming myself.

I’m such an idiot.

He closed his eyes and exhaled.

But Darius, and everyone like Darius, they’re still out there, still being monsters for no good reason. Because they can.

So I have to keep going, keep trying. I have to, or what am I for?

And Azrael…

He looked at her again.

She’s lost all hope. Whatever faith she had is dangling by a thread, the thread of her divine nature as an angel. But if she didn’t have that, what would be left of her soul after seeing and feeling the deaths of billions of suffering people?

What would be left of mine?

They galloped through the dark, empty streets. Here and there they saw the signs of panic and chaos, doors standing open and unattended, bags of clothing spilled out on the cobblestones, baskets of food dropped by the road side, all remnants of the hundreds of people still loyal to the crown prince fleeing their homes in terror.

In the distance he saw the western wall of the city looming over the roofs, and then he discerned the iron-bound gates barring their escape to the western road.

I suppose Azrael can open that for us.

But just as they began their approach and saw the armed men guarding the gates, Iyasu heard the iron hinges and bars squealing and groaning as they tore away from the wooden planks, and then the wooden planks themselves seemed to melt and flow back toward the sides of the gate house, creating a large circular opening that revealed the star-kissed hills beyond the walls.

Jengo charged for the opening, and his warriors followed at full speed. The horses snorted and grunted, and with a handful of sword-clashes they dashed by the guards and through the gates, and out into the cold night wind.

Iyasu glanced back and saw a dark blur behind them. The wood and iron of the doors screamed and groaned as they reached back out from either side and wove themselves into an impenetrable barrier, sealing the wall shut.

Then the blur vanished into the night, and Iyasu waved meekly.

Thank you, Samira. Now Darius will know we are gone, but won’t be able to follow for hours.

The people are safe.

And we’re safe.

For now.

Chapter 19
Zerai

After half an hour of galloping and trotting, the horses were exhausted and they fell into a far less vigorous walking pace, but there was no talk of stopping. Zerai could no longer see the walls or lights of Tagal behind them, but every shadow seemed to swim in his tired eyes.

What’s that? Are those riders back there? A dust plume from their hooves? Or just more black spots telling me to get some sleep?

His mind continued to race even as his body slumped in the saddle with the passing hours. Everything ached and cried out to stretch and lie down and just sleep, but he kept kicking his bones to stay up, to stay ready. Twice he had to nudge his horse’s rider to make sure the young soldier was still alert, and after the second time they switched places and Zerai took the reins.