Angels and Djinn, Book 3: Zariel's Doom (17 page)

“Thanks, love.” He opened his eyes and saw not his dark angel but instead the grinning princess watching him.

“You’re welcome. Love.” She laughed and walked on.

Iyasu blushed at Azrael, who smiled and said, “You’re lucky I’m not the jealous type.”

He shook his head. “Actually, I was just thinking that I’m glad Rahm isn’t the jealous type. But really, I’m glad no one here is jealous, because I don’t think I would last long if any of you were.”

Half an hour after his slip, Iyasu saw more and more of the huge brown trunks hovering like shadows out in the mist, rising in parallel to their own pathway, and all seeming to converge on some great unseen peak ahead of them. He looked down quite a few times, and confirmed that the golden beetles were still streaming up and down the cracks in the bark beneath their feet.

And then they reached their destination.

A shadow appeared before them, a vast storm cloud shimmering high and broad in the distance, and then suddenly the mist parted all at once to reveal the enormous heart of the Vourukasha sea.

If it was a tree, it was like no tree Iyasu had ever seen before. The single living organism towering over him rose like a forest of slender green shoots, thousands upon thousands of green columns and tendrils reaching up from an enormous round white mass, and below that mass extended the equally vast forest of roots, the rough, twisting, knotted brown tendrils that reached down into the earth, each one swarming with golden beetles streaming up and down with their motes of water and life. But the green shoots… Iyasu gazed up at them, too thick to see through to the far side and too tall to see whether they ever blossomed into leaves or flowers.

“What is this place?” Azrael asked softly.

“This is the Gaokerena,” Hadara said. “The tree of life.”

“The tree of life?” The angel looked at the woman strangely. “It’s changed.”

“Of course. Life tends to do that.” The princess smiled.

“It moved, too.” Azrael looked around at the vast walls of mist obscuring the rest of the world. “It used to stand in a garden between two rivers, far to the north of these mountains.”

“Yes, she told us that,” Hadara said. “The angel, I mean. Simurgh.”

“Is she in there?” Azrael asked, nodding at the forest of green shoots. Iyasu heard the strain in her voice and looked at her, studying her face, wondering what she was feeling at that moment, but he couldn’t be certain what it was.

“Oh, yes.” Rahm waved them onward. “Won’t be long now.”

Iyasu gave up trying to fathom the warrior’s sense of time and tried to ignore the ever-present danger of slipping off the massive haoma root and plunging into some dark ravine far below the mist.

The divine sight and insight of the angel Arrah presented the seer with more than one challenge in his daily life, from the endlessly detailed memories that threatened to blur the lines between past and present, to the constant state of distraction as his senses teased out every little nuance of what he saw and heard. But by far, the worst part of the angel’s gift was the intense experience of physical pain, because what was pain but one more of the senses to be honed and focused upon? And right now, his feet were in quite a bit of pain.

There’s a reason seers like libraries. Quiet. Dim. Cushioned seats.

They trekked higher, and now their root began to slope upward more sharply, slowing their progress and forcing them to hike and climb with their hands. This seemed to prove no obstacle at all to the warrior and the princess leading the way, but Iyasu found himself falling farther and farther behind, and constantly aware of Azrael standing just behind him, waiting patiently for him to move on.

As he huffed to catch his breath, Iyasu beckoned her to come closer and said, “All right, my ego says I’ve gone far enough on my own.”

“For someone who’s done nothing but walk for the past two years, you’re disappointingly fragile,” Azrael said with a subtle smile.

“I come from a long line of fragile men,” he said. “Short. Thin. Bony.”

“You’re lucky I love you for your soul.” She scooped him up in her arms with a wink.

“Oh, I know.”

The Angel of Death spread her long black wings and leapt lightly off the rough brown root and glided swiftly through the cool air and caught up to the two easterners just as they stepped off the root and into the dense forest of green stalks and columns. Rahm gave the angel a hesitant look as her dark wings faded away into the pale midday light, but then he turned and led the way into the dense green wood.

“This is all one plant, one tree?” Iyasu asked.

“It is,” Rahm replied. “Try not to break anything. It makes her angry.”

“Simurgh?” Iyasu tried to study his surroundings, bending all his powers of observation to learn about this strange and ancient place. But the green stalks were all the same, none of them marred by signs of harsh weather or clumsy beasts or hungry insects. No tracks marred the dusty ground beneath their feet. He saw no nests or webs, not even a fallen blade of grass. “How did you meet her, exactly? I assume you didn’t just stumble into this place?”

“I was born here,” Rahm said. “My mother was dying trying to give birth to me, so my father called for Simurgh, and she brought them here and taught him how to save her, and I was born at the angel’s feet.”

“Your father summoned an angel?” Azrael asked. “How?”

“They were old friends. My father was born… well, a bit different.”

“He was an albino,” Hadara said. “White as snow.”

“Hadara!”

“Well, he was. There’s no shame in it. It’s nothing to do with him, or you. It’s just skin.” The princess glanced back at Iyasu. “Little white Zal was left to die on a mountain, but Simurgh found him and raised him herself. And then when Zal went out into the world and got his poor wife pregnant with a big-headed baby of his own, he called for the angel to help him.”

“I was very big,” Rahm admitted cheerily.

“Did you live here? As a child?” Iyasu asked, staring around at the green forest with new eyes, as though tiny foot prints and toys might appear now.

“No, not at all.” Rahm laughed. “After I was born, we went to Zathruda, where I spent many long days riding beautiful horses and kissing beautiful girls.”

“Too many girls,” Hadara muttered.

“But then you came back here?” Iyasu prompted them to continue.

“Yes, of course. When I decided to search for King Kavad, naturally I came here first to ask Simurgh for her wisdom. Her
vaunted
wisdom.” Rahm exhaled through his flared nostrils. “But instead of telling us how to find the demons, she sent us south to Dalyamuun. So now I’m going to have a few choice words for her holiness.”

Before Iyasu could think of a diplomatic way to convince the warrior not to begin their meeting with the angel with any course insults or accusations, the four of them emerged from the dense green woods into a clearing. The thick growth at their feet resembled grass, but it was white and stringy, barely able to stand upright, and mostly lay in thick tangles, piled upon itself until it lay knee-high. But as they waded up onto the strange white grass, the seer’s focus was not on his feet, but on the figure reclining before them.

Simurgh lay sprawled across the full width of the clearing, using the soft undergrowth as her bedding, stretched as long as the width of a small house from end to end. The young seer had not known what to expect, but whatever images or ideas had formed in his mind had utterly failed to prepare him for this. He had seen angels before. Studied with them, laughed with them, even made love to one in particular, and he had some notion that an angel was a creature that resembled a man or woman, with some bizarre elements wrapped around them, making them the beautiful and terrifying creatures of dreams and nightmares. But this was different.

The angel Simurgh lay snoring, her four golden paws splayed in front of her belly, her great amber wings stretched out at crooked angles against the green walls behind her so that her feathers were bent and ruffled in every direction. Her tail curved around the edge of her huge white nest, and the furry tip of it thumped and twitched from time to time. And her head… her head lay on a pillow of white grass, her muzzle parted to reveal gleaming white fangs and a glistening red tongue as she panted softly in her sleep.

“She’s a…” Iyasu hesitated, not wanting to say the wrong word.

“She’s a dog,” Hadara seemed unconcerned with the word. “A big, golden, winged dog.”

“She is a beautiful dog,” Rahm said. “But definitely a dog. I asked once, and she said so.”

“Oh.” Iyasu looked at Azrael for some sort of confirmation or explanation for why this particular servant of heaven might have such simple animal features and no human form at all, but the Angel of Death did not look back at him, let alone answer. Her gaze was fixed on her sleeping sister. “So, do we just wait here, or do we…?”

Rahm strode up to the sleeping angel and patted her roughly on her huge furry neck. “Hey, sleepy head, wake up! You have visitors, and some of them are angry.”

Iyasu stared at this display, speechless.

The giant creature snorted and twitched, and then opened one enormous golden eye, and then she rolled onto her belly and yawned, once again displaying her long jaws full of fangs. Pushing herself up to her feet, the angel arched her back and stretched her huge golden wings until every ruffled feather snapped back into its proper place and shone like beaten copper in the shadowy half-light within the Gaokerena. And then she eased back down and lay on her belly and flashed a lazy wolfish smile at her guests.

“Rahm!” She spoke with a sleepy, sensual woman’s voice, tinged by a slight edge that Iyasu would have associated with an older woman. The angel lowered her head and butted it gently against the warrior, and he embraced her warmly. She said, “You’re back sooner than I expected.”

“It’s been over a month,” he said, stepped back. “No thanks to you. We were captured by a bunch of madmen riding on metal beasts.”

“Ah yes, Dalyamuun. What a delightful place. Did you like it?”

“I liked the food.” Rahm gestured to Iyasu and Azrael. “But if not for these two, we’d still be there now. That’s Iyasu and Azrael. I assume you know her.”

Simurgh looked at the newcomers, her eyes narrowing sharply as she studied her fellow angel. “She is not welcome here.”

Chapter 14

Iyasu felt a small jolt of surprise and fear as he stared at the huge canine angel. “What? Why isn’t she welcome here?”

“No, it’s fine,” Azrael said. “I’ll wait outside.” She turned to go.

“No, wait, no, Holy Simurgh, why isn’t she welcome here?” the seer asked.

“Death is no friend of mine, little cleric.”

“She’s an angel, not a killer.”

“I know what she is,” the huge winged creature said softly. “And while I do not hate her for being created, I do not have to love her either. Her domain is a horror to me.”

Azrael paused, her dark eyes gazing up into her sister’s golden irises. “This is your home. I don’t need to be here if you don’t want me to be here.”

“No. No!” Iyasu stepped closer to the huge angel. “Azrael is the only reason your friends are even here. She’s the one who saved us all from Dalyamuun. Without her, Rahm and Hadara would still be in prison, waiting for your great warrior to come save them. Well, here she is. She’s your warrior. And she deserves your respect, and your kindness.”

Simurgh grinned and let her tongue loll from her long jaws. “A warrior, little sister? Is that what you are now? How unexpected… I like that. Tell me all about Dalyamuun.”

“I’d rather not,” Rahm said. “I asked for your help to save King Kavad and you sent me to be captured and thrown in jail. If you wanted me to find this warrior angel, I imagine there were other ways. Better ways. Non-prison ways.”

“Rahm, please.” Hadara sighed. “It doesn’t matter now. We’re alive and we’re together, and we found our warrior. Let’s please move on.”

Simurgh laughed. “I never said you would find a great warrior on your journey. I said you would find a great
soul
. You should learn to listen more carefully. Both of you.”

“Not a warrior?” Rahm cast Iyasu a doubtful look. “So this seer is the great soul?”

“His soul is very nice, but he is not the one I meant. I admit, I am disappointed that you did not find the boy.”

“The boy?” Iyasu looked up nervously. “What boy?”

“A brilliant boy. Lost. Alone. A shining jewel of a mind.”

“Kamil?” Iyasu felt a cold cascade of doubt and regret pour down his spine. “You wanted us to bring him here?”

“So you did find him!” Simurgh’s eyes flashed with an inner fire. “Wonderful. Tell me everything.”

“We found him on an island,” Azrael said, still standing far back at the edge of the clearing. “Lost and alone. But brilliant, and clever. We brought him across the sea in a boat he built himself, but when we reached Dalyamuun, he refused to leave with us. He chose to stay there, to study with them.”

“Did he really now? How strange! I thought he might…” Simurgh glanced up at the sky, a pale smudge of blue and white framed by the tall green stalks all around them.

“Do we need to go back and get him?” Iyasu asked.

“Of course not!” Simurgh laughed. “What would we do with him here?”

“But I thought…” Iyasu frowned. “I’m confused.”

“Don’t be, little cleric, it’s very simple,” the huge canine said sensually. “I knew the boy was on the island, and I knew he would escape sooner or later, and the wind would carry him straight to Dalyamuun. I sent Rahm to Dalyamuun so he could meet the boy, in prison. I hoped that by the time they figured out how to escape, they would have learned much from each other. Rahm understands virtue, and the boy sees the world with eyes unclouded, with pure reason. What legends they might become together!”

“But how did you know all that? How could you?” Iyasu asked. “Who is Kamil really?”

“He’s no one. Not yet, anyway.” Simurgh rolled onto her back and stretched her legs in the air. “I noticed him years ago. Such a keen mind, but surrounded by fools. So when his father’s ship sank, I put him on that island where he would be safe and free of any foolish meddling until he was old enough to leave. And now he is, apparently.”