Halcyon The Complete Trilogy (105 page)

Salvator pouted thoughtfully. “Fascinating. But aether reveals the souls of the dead, and the aetherium can absorb souls with the aether. So if the aether and the steel fell from the sun, then what is the connection between the sun and our souls?”

Rashaken shrugged. “Who can say? Perhaps we all came from the sun at the beginning of time? Or perhaps the sun is the house of the gods, from which our souls come and to which our souls will return at the ending of the world? It’s a strange universe, and we learned men are but insects trying to comprehend the vastness of the stars.” He threw up his hands in a playful gesture of helplessness. “And here ends our lesson. You now know one of the greatest stories and mysteries of our entire world, which profits you nothing, and you know nothing of the Temple, which might have profited you a great deal. At any rate, my part of the bargain is fulfilled. So now, the name of our loose-tongue contractor, if you please.”

Salvator nodded. “That was a most interesting lesson, sir. Thank you for it. It was certainly worth the life of your operative. At least to me. I first met—”

The door opened and the Italian leapt to his feet as he drew his rapier. He edged toward the door, noting the complete lack of expression on the smith Jiro’s face as the man saw whoever it was coming through the doorway.

Two people stepped into the room. Salvator froze. “Shifrah?”

The one-eyed Samaritan stared back at him. “Sal?”

Behind her, he saw the familiar features of the young man in the black jacket who had boarded the steamship in Carthage.
Her Mazigh gunslinger
.

Shifrah smirked. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“Yes.” Salvator shifted the point of his sword toward the young man behind her. “Well, we’ll see just how much we still fancy one another in a few moments.”

“Master Rashaken.” Shifrah nodded at the older man. “And Master Jiro. It’s been a long time. You’re both looking well.”

“Little Dumah.” Jiro smiled. “Is it harder to throw a knife straight with only one eye?”

The woman shrugged. “Only at first.”

“Excuse me.” Salvator smiled. “Terribly sorry to interrupt, but you all seem to have some catching up to do, so if you don’t mind, I think I’ll take my leave.” He flicked his rapier to wave Shifrah and her companion away from the door. They moved aside, never taking their eyes from him but never betraying any hint of tension or desire to strike. Salvator stepped into the open doorway.

“Be quick, Italian, and you might live to see the dawn. But don’t make any plans for supper tomorrow,” Rashaken said. “You have no idea how easy it will be for my boys to find a tall, pale Italian with a striking mustache such as yours. Visit a barber tonight and you might dine tomorrow after all. But I wouldn’t count on it.”

Salvator hesitated.
It’s just the sort of bluff I would make in his position. It’s just the sort of threat I would make in any position. But this temple. This temple is enormous. This man commands hundreds of trained killers. Not better than me, naturally, but against an army of hundreds? He’s right. They will find me. They might even kill me.

“Master Rashaken.” The Italian kept one eye on Shifrah as he spoke. “I find that men of a certain age should only travel about in the company of friends. It’s far more comfortable, entertaining, and civilized. And I do abhor a dull silence.” He shifted his rapier toward the old man across the room. “If you would do me the honor of your company.”

“You’re not taking him,” Shifrah said. A pair of stilettos slid down into her hands, their blades glinting gold and crimson in the light of the forge. “I’ve come a very long way to find him.”

“Oh? Is this your mysterious broker?” Salvator asked.

“No. He’s a friend. And I need to speak to him.” She raised her knives. “Leave now.”

Salvator pointed his sword at her. “And if I refuse?”

She threw both her knives at him.

Chapter 20. Qhora

The journey across the city from The Cat’s Eye was a blur of shadows, the rumble of iron wheels, and a drone of muffled voices. Qhora sat very still on the hard wooden seat of the carriage with a large armed man beside her and another across from her. The small windows were curtained, leaving the interior of the carriage almost pitch black, but whenever a flicker of light from outside pierced some gap around the edge of the curtains she saw the unblinking eyes of her captors staring back at her and their hands on their pistols.

When the carriage stopped, she was led out into a dimly lit carriage house, through a door and down a narrow corridor, and then up a short stair, around a corner, and a hall and a door and on and on. It became an exhausting parade of old stone walls, chipped stone steps, scuffed wooden steps and creaking iron stairs, stone archways obscured by curtains, and stone doorways sealed with dark wooden doors with crude iron handles. Candle light played on the walls ahead and behind them, and sometimes she caught a glimpse of the young lady from the restaurant leading the way.

I’m here. I’m inside their fortress or temple or whatever it is. Aker El Deeb might be here, somewhere. If I could only get away, if I only knew where to look. I could find someone and force them to tell me, to lead me to him. I could find him. I could find the sword. I could hold Enzo’s soul in my arms. Tonight.

They walked on. Finally they arrived at the end of a hall several floors higher than where they entered. The lady knocked at the door and was admitted alone. A moment later the door opened again and the lady beckoned Qhora to follow.

It was an office or a study. It reminded her of Enzo’s little library at home, a small room dominated by a large wooden desk that belonged in a larger room, and a few shelves of books, and a few papers scattered about the desk and floor. A warm breeze was blowing through the small window, which revealed a small square patch of the night sky. The loose papers shuddered in the wind. She sat in the chair in the center of the room and the lady left, closing the door behind her.

The man behind the desk sighed. He appeared to be in his fifties, his wiry black beard lined with a few bright white heralds of age. Deep crow’s feet drew his eyes and mouth down in a look of perpetual disappointment and fatigue. He sighed again and sat up. “Zahra thinks you know something that I might find valuable. Maybe many things.”

Qhora glanced back at the door. “Miss Zahra said you would torture me and eventually kill me to learn about my homeland.”

The man shrugged. “We could. I can order my people to do so, if you wish. I may order them to do so, if I think it would be worthwhile. Would it be worthwhile, miss…?”

“Dona Qhora Yupanqui Quesada,” she said. “And you are?”

“Khai. Just Khai.” He didn’t smile or glare. He looked to be on the verge of falling asleep. “So tell me, Dona Qhora, should my associates and I take an interest in the New World? We haven’t in the past. After all, it’s very far away. And the moment we arrive, most of us will fall dead to the ground with plague, and those few who survive will be devoured by enormous flesh-eating birds and cats. Have you come to offer me a cure for this plague? Or some way to avoid the roving flocks of hatun-ankas and prides of kirumichis?”

She smiled a little. Just looking into his drooping eyes and listening to his weary, rasping voices made her feel tired. “No, sir. There is no secret to surviving these things. My people are the descendants of the few men and women who survived the plague long, long ago. We have no secret cure. And the great eagles and cats can only be tamed from birth. The wild ones are as deadly to us as to you.”

“Ah.” Khai nodded. “Then it hardly matters how fabulously wealthy your distant empire is, does it? Nature herself stands in our way. And who are we to defy Nature?”

Qhora shook her head. “I wouldn’t dream of it myself.”

Khai sniffed. “Zahra means well. She wants to prove herself. She wants to prove to us that she deserves her position. Oh, to be young again.” He sighed, drumming his fingers on the desk, revealing a bandaged hand with a bloody stain where his small finger should have been. Then he stood up and she saw the short sword on his belt. “Let’s take a little walk, you and I.”

She stood up and stepped back toward the door.

If I had a knife, just one knife, I could have that sword off him and force him to take me to Aker. He’s old. He’s tired. Maybe…maybe I can do it without a knife.

As the old man shuffled around the desk toward the door, she started forward to catch him as he was trapped in the narrow gap beside the desk. Instantly an iron hand wrapped around her wrist and she gasped as she felt her tiny bones grinding together in his grip. She looked up and saw there was no change in his face. Still haggard, still tired, still disappointed.

There is something horribly empty and hollow about his gaze. No anger, no fear, no passion. Nothing at all. He feels nothing at all.

She dropped her gaze, hoping he might simply release her if she didn’t seem too dangerous. Instead he kept her held tightly with his right hand as his left hand drew out his seireiken. He only exposed a few inches of the blade and instantly the entire room was ablaze with pure white light that blasted all color from the walls and books and clothing, reducing everything to pale silvery grays. Qhora shielded her eyes with her free hand, and through her squinting lashes she saw tiny electric arcs snapping and sizzling on the brilliant steel. The air hissed and she smelled a faint char on the warm breeze.

The air. The air is burning. The blade is so hot that it can scald the empty air into ash.

Indeed, a faint scattering of pale gray motes was falling steadily on the floor under the sword like snow on a quiet winter’s evening.

Then he slid the sword back into its clay-lined scabbard. “You understand our swords?”

She nodded. “They burn with the souls of all the people that they’ve killed.”

“This is a very old sword. It has claimed many lives, and many of those were at my hand. The blade would only have to touch you for a moment to burn away your flesh and draw the aether from your blood and swallow your soul for all time.”

“I understand.”

He nodded and released her wrist. Qhora stepped back and let him open the door and lead her out into the hall. Zahra and her guards had left and Qhora followed the old man down many long and deserted corridors with only the echoes of their footsteps for company.

“I lost my husband to one of your swords,” she said. Her words echoed alone down the hall.

After a moment, Khai said, “Is that why you’ve come? Revenge?”

“Yes.” She whispered the word. And then louder, “No. Not now. I don’t care about the person who killed my Enzo. I just want the sword that has his soul. I just want to take him home to our son.”

The older man grunted. “I see that life among the Espani had softened your sensibilities. From proud barbarian princess to sentimental housewife. Not that it matters. You’ll never take a seireiken from us, with or without killing its owner. You may never even leave this building, young miss.”

Qhora curled her fingers into a small bony fist. “I thought you’d already decided there was no reason to keep me here. You don’t care about the New World.”

“No, we don’t care about the New World. But we do care about outsiders infiltrating our ranks, stealing our secrets, and exposing our operations to the scrutiny of foreign governments.” Khai coughed. “I’m taking you to a room now. You’ll stay there while I discuss your future with my brothers. You may be retained here to work, or we may simply kill you. I understand that you chose to surrender to our people rather than try to fight them. That speaks well for you. Civilized people can be useful. Barbarian princesses cannot.”

A whirlwind of impulses and desires and red mists ran riot through her mind. Her hands wanted to kill this man, to tear down his temple brick by brick, to rip the head clean off Enzo’s killer, and to carry home the burning steel cage with her beloved’s soul inside it. But the sick gnawing in the pit of her stomach only wanted to run far, far away. And the cold splinter in the back of her mind was telling her that she was only one woman, alone, unarmed, unwanted, unloved, and soon to be unmissed by the world.

“I have a son.” Qhora wanted to say more, but she couldn’t imagine what maternal feeling or natural obligation this man might care about. Still she said, “He’s waiting for me. He’s only three months old. I can’t stay here.”

“If you truly valued him above all else, you wouldn’t have left him to come here. So don’t try my patience with your false sense of loyalty.”

“I was wrong.” The word left an aching knot in her throat.
Wrong
.

“Oh?”

“Wrong to come here. I came because that’s what I know. When attacked, I attack in kind. Blood cries out for blood. Let no trespass go unpunished. Absolute war. Death without mercy. That’s what kept me alive through…everything. Being stronger, faster, crueler. But it wasn’t enough. It was never enough. It was only a way to survive. To keep my blood on the inside.”

“There’s nothing shameful about survival,” Khai said. “Few scholars study the philosophies, passions, and beliefs of failed nations. After all, they’re dead. What can they possibly offer the living? To simply survive in this world at all is to understand a great deal about the human body, mind, and society.”

Qhora frowned. She was certain there was something wrong in what he had just said, but she didn’t care to dwell on it. “I just meant that if I could go back to that night when my husband died, I wouldn’t have left my son to find the killer. I would have stayed at home and taken care of my boy, and let others find justice for us. I can’t save Enzo’s life. I can’t even save his soul, can I?”

“No. You can’t free a soul from a seireiken,” Khai said. “But you can see them and hear them, for whatever that is worth. Would you want to see your dead husband again?”

“Of course!”

“And a year from now? Ten years? Twenty?” The older man glanced back over his shoulder at her. “You’re a young woman with a child to raise. Surely your fortunes would be better served if you were to find a new husband to provide for you. And besides that, surely you yourself would want to find a new companion for the many long years of your life still ahead of you. Would you truly want your dead husband’s ghost trapped in your home with you, watching you live your life with another man? Or would you forego a lifetime of love and security to keep a dead man’s soul in the palm of your hand? Would you deny your son a new father, a living father, just so you can hear that same voice from beyond the grave telling you that you are beautiful and that he loves you?”