“Yes. And a short time ago near Damascus, I encountered that same dragon again, fully grown and strong enough to slaughter an army in just a few moments. Nadira and I killed the dragon, but its soul entered my body,” Asha said quietly. She glanced around the cafe, but no one was watching them. No one else was listening. No one else cared. “It can be difficult to control sometimes, but for the most part I command the dragon’s soul. I can unleash it when I want, to use its power, its strength. I’ve been using this soul to hunt down the Sons of Osiris and to destroy their seireikens.”
Omar nodded thoughtfully. “And to destroy their ancient temples.”
“It is a very powerful dragon, a very powerful soul,” Asha said. “Priya taught me to control it. If she hadn’t been there with me at Damascus, I would have been utterly lost. The dragon would have consumed me if not for her.”
Again the blind nun found her hand, and squeezed it. “It wasn’t so difficult.”
“Remarkable,” Omar said. “My congratulations to you both. You may be the first person to ever control such a soul by yourself.”
Asha looked down into her tea. “We’ve seen the Sons of Osiris throughout the Empire of Eran. They are slavers and murderers. So when I learned to control the dragon, I came here to do what no one else could do. Destroy their temple. Destroy their weapons. Destroy them.”
Omar nodded. “You tore down that huge building with your bare hands in just a few minutes. I’ve never heard of anything like it, and I’ve been around for a very long time.” He smiled.
“If you don’t mind my asking, how old are you?” Priya asked. “Nadira and Gideon said they were two thousand years old.”
“They are. I’m closer to forty-five hundred, myself.”
Asha froze, then blinked. “Over four thousand years old?”
“Yes.” Omar emptied his cup and refilled it from the steaming teapot.
“So that’s when Bashir made you immortal?” Priya asked.
Omar chuckled. “No, my dear. I made myself immortal, right here in Alexandria, as a matter of fact. I didn’t start calling myself Bashir until much later.”
“You’re Bashir!”
“Yes.” He shrugged. “Among others, of course.”
Asha sat very still, contemplating her tea, wondering what to say to a man who was over four thousand years old. Some part of her refused to believe his claim, refused to believe that this very ordinary man with his fancy shirt and coat and belt… Asha frowned at his belt and the scabbard on it. “Is that a… You carry one of their swords? Like Gideon?”
“Yes, I do.” Omar looked up into her eyes. “But my seireiken, for the most part, contains the souls of scholars and artists who gave themselves to me willingly so that their knowledge and skills might be preserved. And I’m no swordsman. I don’t go around killing people, for souls or for anything else. I swear to you.”
“It’s true,” Wren said quickly. “I’ve held his seireiken, I’ve seen the souls in it, and I’ve talked to them. Doctors and singers and, well, good people who wanted to be there. They’re mostly really old, too, from a long time ago.”
Asha smiled at the girl’s earnestness. “I believe you.”
The noise in the cafe had been growing by small measures throughout their conversation, and from time to time Asha heard someone exclaim something about the temple, but every time she glanced around, she only saw excited city people chatting over their drinks. Now, as she looked over her shoulder, she heard a man shouting out in the street. He was shouting in Eranian, but his Aegyptian accent was strong and she had to focus to understand what he was saying.
Temple.
Help.
Monster.
Asha frowned and looked across the table at Omar, and saw him also frowning out at the street. “What’s going on?” she asked.
“I’m not certain,” he said. “Either the local constabulary is looking for the demon responsible for destroying the Temple of Osiris, or there is a rampaging creature with the head of an animal dancing on the rubble at this very moment. It’s hard to tell, really.”
Asha blinked. “Are you serious? Is that really possible?”
Priya’s smile had faded and Wren played nervously with her silver bracelets.
Omar stood up. “Let’s go find out.”
Asha stood up beside him and slipped her medicine bag over her shoulder. As they all turned to leave the cafe, they heard a bestial roar echo across the city.
Chapter 3
Asha led the others out into the street where the milling pedestrians and the seated diners were quickly falling silent and every head was turning to look down the street toward the ruined temple. They listened together to the screams and roars echoing down the stone corridors of the city, broken here and there by the crunching or tumbling of heavy stones. A murmur ran through the crowd and Asha saw the nervous excitement in the faces around her, but she also saw the frightened people slipping out of the cafe and hurrying down the avenue away from the temple.
“Priya, I think you should wait here this time,” Asha said.
“And you, Wren.” Omar nodded. “Whatever is down there, it doesn’t sound pleasant.”
Wren held up her arms and jangled the silver bracelets on her wrists. “But I can help!”
“I know you can help. You can also die, whereas I cannot. So stay with the nun, please.” Omar rested his hand on the grip of his seireiken and stepped out into the street.
Asha strode out in front of him and started back toward the remains of the Temple of Osiris. She gently rolled her fingers into fists, and then let them fall slack again, working the blood into her extremities, trying to nudge the dragon within her just a bit, just enough to warm her muscles and make her strong enough and fast enough to get away if they should find trouble ahead.
No, I know better. Of course there is trouble ahead.
Asha walked up to the corner of the building across the street from the ruins, and peeked out. The street was mostly deserted. Everything with working wheels had been rolled away, and every animal that could walk or limp had been led away. All of the injured had been carried away, and the gawkers who had come were now gone, hurrying down dark alleys and along the shadowed edges of the boulevard, all rushing away from the bestial cries coming from the temple. The only life remaining now was a company of men in red shirts and steel armor, and they were slowly backing away from the rubble.
On the far side of the street the shattered remains of the temple rose from a thin scattering of pebbles and splinters in the middle of the road up to the massive pile of debris sitting on the broken foundations of the ancient fortress. And standing upon that pile were two figures.
The woman caught Asha’s eye first. She was tall and slender, and wore a simple white dress that left her arms bare, but over that she wore a queen’s ransom in golden necklaces hanging from her neck and thin chains around her waist. Her skin and hair were nearly identical to Asha’s in every way, and all of these details hovered in the back of Asha’s mind as she stared at the most incredible aspect of the Aegyptian woman.
She had wings.
They were magnificent white wings that hung from the woman’s arms like a cape of bright feathers, but they drooped far beyond the woman’s feathered hands and when she lowered her arms the feathers dragged along the dusty ground. The woman was stomping up and down the slopes of broken sandstone and shattered oak, and every time she swept one of her feathered arms, a blast of dust and splinters tore away into the air, and she would peer down into the gaps between the tumbled blocks and beams.
