he go alone? And why?”
Rashaken sighed. “I’m sorry, dear girl, but you remember how he was. He would run into the room with that gleam in his eye. Aha, he says, I’ve found more sun-steel! And away he would go, and a few weeks later he would come back with stories and souvenirs but no steel. This was just one more trip. Aha, he said to me, there is an island covered in ice where the greatest treasure of sun-steel in the world awaits us! And away he went. But this time he did not return.” The old man leaned on Shifrah. “I know it is hard for you. He raised you, yes? He was good to you. Taught you to fight, taught you to think. He taught so many over the years. But it seemed like the years never caught up to him. He was never too tired, but me, I am always too tired now. I sit with Jiro in the forge because the heat helps my back.” His smile gleamed in the dark again.
Shifrah looked down at her hands. One of her little fingers was twitching. She massaged it to stop it. “So that’s it then? Omar really is lost and gone?”
“I’m afraid so. Death catches up to us all, sooner or later. Even to Master Omar.”
A comfortable silence fell across the small room, a respectful quiet for the lost Omar Bakhoum. Until Kenan cleared his throat and said, “Does he know anything?”
“No,” Shifrah said in Mazigh. “Omar is gone.”
“Not about Omar. About Aker.” Kenan leaned forward, peering at the old man. “Where can we find Aker El Deeb?”
“Aker?” Rashaken straightened up with a scowl and looked at Shifrah. “What does he want with that stupid boy?”
“Aker murdered a man in Tingis,” Shifrah said. “And my friend and I are now accused of the crime. My friend here, Kenan, wants to take Aker back to Tingis to clear the record.”
“Ha!” Rashaken frowned. “Good. Take him. Good riddance to him. He’s a damned dog, like all of Khai’s little soldiers. Worshipping their swords. Bah! Swords? Of all the great things that might be done with sun-steel, why are they making swords? Because they lack faith. They lack inspiration. They lack imagination. All they can see in this wonderful gift is one more way to kill people and seize power they do not deserve.”
“Omar carried a seireiken,” Shifrah said.
“Yes, but Omar had a purpose. He killed with purpose. He only killed to better shape our city, to cut away the cancers that ate away at our people. It wasn’t for him. Never for him. Always for the cause. For the plan. For the future.” Rashaken nodded. “He learned that in the east. Did you know that? He studied the philosophy of the Buddha. Some think the Buddhists are all timid pacifists, but that is not true. They fight and they kill, but never in anger or hate, never for themselves. Always for the greater good. Always in the name of peace and life. It was easy to respect Omar. I didn’t always understand him, but I always respected him.”
Shifrah smiled sadly. It was getting harder to remember Omar’s face and voice. There were only a few snatches of memories that stood out clearly to her now, but they too were fading and she knew one day they would be lost along with the rest of him.
“So Aker has returned to our fair city, has he? Well, if he’s not with Zahra at that establishment of hers, then you can check the nearby dens, and if he’s not hiding in the smoke, then try the old arena in the Songhai Quarter,” Rashaken said. “Some of Khai’s young dogs like to fight there at night, gathering warrior souls into their damned swords. Aker would sometimes walk the halls here in the morning, bragging about his kills.”
“We’ll try there. Thank you, Master Rashaken.”
The old man quickly described how they could find their way from the small room down to a cellar and back onto the streets outside without encountering any more Osirians. Kenan stepped out into the hall and Shifrah was about to follow when Rashaken said, “My dear, I hope you do find young Aker and dispose of him. I would consider it a kindness to me and to the Temple, especially as it would gall Khai very much. And if you were to remove Aker from my city, I might be persuaded to overlook the fact that you’ve been whispering secrets to a certain Italian gentleman.”
Shifrah froze, an icy blade of shock slicing down her spine. It had never occurred to her that Salvator would ever piece together the tiny shreds of information she let drop over the years, and she never dreamed he might find his way to Alexandria, much less into a room with Master Rashaken. The dire consequences of her accidental betrayal made her hand shake. The Sons of Osiris were all too quick to dispose of anyone who dared to pull back their cloaks to reveal the truth of the Temple to the outside world. Even those within the Empire who knew of the Temple knew only what the Temple allowed them to know.
“I never told him anything,” she said.
“You told him enough. But take care of our mutual problem, Aker, and all will be forgiven. For now.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you.”
Well, that makes things simple. Either I kill Aker for Master Rashaken, or I capture Aker for Kenan. Once again, all roads lead to Aker.
She glanced across the room at the door to the narrow passage and the forge beyond where she had left Salvator. It didn’t matter whether he was alive or not, but somehow it did matter whether the Italian had been sealed away in Master Jiro’s blade. But even asking the question might sound like sympathy for the outsider and she did not dare test Master Rashaken’s largesse.
She slipped out and closed the door.
Shifrah and Kenan hurried down the hall and through a small cellar that housed nothing but spider webs and a dead rat, and after fumbling about in the dark for a few minutes they emerged into a small house two streets away from the Temple, and then they stepped out into the chilly boulevards of Alexandria beneath a vast sea of stars. Glancing up, she guessed the hour to be shortly after midnight.
“So what now?” Kenan asked. He walked beside her but kept closer to the shadows at the side of the road, and he threw a sharp stare over his shoulder every few steps.
“Relax. We’re going to get Aker, and this time you can take him wherever you want. Rashaken said we should try a place in the Songhai Quarter.” She gave him a wry smile. “You’ll fit right in. After all, you only patrolled that border, how long? A year? You didn’t kill too many Songhai soldiers, did you?”
“I didn’t kill any. I was the medic for my unit. I spent most of my time staring at empty fields and mountainsides, and a few terrified minutes running toward my friends to wrap them in bandages and watch them bleed to death.” The detective spat on the ground. “Good times.”
“You know, Zidane probably saved your life when he took you with him into the marshals.”
“I really don’t want to talk about the major, if you don’t mind. I can still picture you on top of him in that inn where we first met.”
Shifrah raised an eyebrow. “I thought you slept through that.”
“Only mostly, but not quite enough. Where are we going exactly?”
“An old arena. Apparently young fighters like to go there to kill each other.”
“More good times.”
They walked on in silence, traveling down one long straight road after another. There were still a few people out, and not all of them were hurrying home to get off the streets. Shifrah kept her hand near her knife and hoped the cut on her back really was as shallow as Rashaken had said. Her left arm throbbed but the bleeding had stopped.
“You know, I could have used a little more help back there with Sal,” she said. “You could have shot him. Just a little, at least.”
“Why? He hasn’t done anything to me, and he doesn’t seem to have any mixed feelings about finding Aker El Deeb,” Kenan said. “Maybe I should be working with him.”
“Are you serious?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. If I don’t catch Aker, I can’t go home. And that notion does not amuse me.”
“Well, I don’t have any mixed feelings about Aker anymore. Besides giving us all that trouble with Zahra, apparently he’s not too popular with Master Rashaken either. He’s asked me to get Aker out of Alexandria as a sort of personal favor.”
Kenan grinned. “Oh, so now we’re on the same side again?”
“We were always on the same side,” she said. “But now we have the same goal. See how life has a funny way of working out? So I help you take Aker back to Tingis and everything goes back to the way it was before, all right?”
“What do you mean, everything? You mean you and me? You said we were done.”
