Aliisza knew then what would happen. The hands were healed. The woman regained her thumbs, as new and as whole as before. When the ritual was complete, when she had what she had lost, she knelt down and began to pray alongside the priest. The man who had brought her to the temple dug a pouch of coins from his tunic and placed it in the offering bowl.
The girl turned to him and smiled but shook her head. She would not let the man pay her debt for her. And Aliisza could feel it. She saw how it ended. She could sense the girl's holy aura grow, surround her. She became a priestess of the faith, and those hands, those soothing hands, became healing hands. She devoted herself to aiding others, gave herself to the service of Ilmater.
The thought that Aliisza had driven the girl to take on a new life of good works rankled her. She forced the image out of her mind. It faded, and she was in the garden again. The nighttime breezes, ever present, made the wind chimes dance.
The alu sighed. Even though she still loathed the woman, there was something… compelling… in her tale. She didn't know what it was, but watching her overcome Aliisza's retribution made the half-fiend feel weak, ineffectual. It was not a feeling she was accustomed to, nor did she much care for it. She grimaced and turned away from the garden.
'They married, you know,' came Tauran's voice from somewhere behind her.
Somehow, Aliisza knew the angel would be there that night, though she hadn't seen him in several days. She turned and looked at him. He was sitting in the shadows, upon one of the benches. She held her breath, waiting to hear what else he had to share with her. She sensed that he had come for something more than a mere chat.
'The man you coveted married her. He loved her before what you did, but when he saw her selfless act afterward, watched as she turned to a life of healing, he fell in love with her even more deeply.'
'Silly, the both of them,' Aliisza said, dismissing the vision with a wave of her hand. 'And I thought my penance was supposed to be all about how my crimes harmed the poor and innocent. That hardly seems to fit the bill,' she scoffed.
'It was given as an example of how compassion and honest caring overcome acts of selfishness and pettiness. You think you invariably wreak havoc in the things you do, but when all is said and done, the goodness of the world endures. The people recover, share, support one another. It is the way of living things to aid each other.'
'Again, quite silly,' Aliisza said crossly. She wished he would get to the point. She feared he was going to leave her again.
'On the contrary,' the angel said, 'quite satisfying. People treat each other with respect because they feel better about themselves. In its own way, it's equally selfish-why do anything unless you benefit from it? — but the payback is tenfold, because all enjoy it equally.'
'I think not,' Aliisza said. 'I think people do it because they are afraid. They fear that if they do not pay homage to others, someone will come along and dominate them, take control of them. And by cowering from that fear, they become beholden to it, as surely as if someone did come and master them. People act like weak, mewling things because they are afraid of true power. They are afraid that someone else will take it from them and use it in their stead. And they can't bear the thought of losing that, so they pretend they don't want it.'
Tauran sighed. 'Do you really believe that?' he asked, his voice faint, perhaps defeated. 'Truly?'
Aliisza smiled. He finally understands, she thought. He cannot change me. 'I believe it as surely as I believe you keep me here not because you want me to know love and compassion, but because you are afraid of what I will take from you when I am free.'
'Then I guess there's no real reason to tell you that you have a son,' the deva said.
Aliisza felt a shiver pass through her. A son? I have a son!
'Can I see him?' she asked, eager. 'Would you show him to me?' She pointed at the fountain.
Tauran stared at her for a long time before speaking. 'No,' he said at last. 'Not yet.'
Aliisza felt anger flush her cheeks. 'Why not?' she demanded. She crossed the open space to where he sat, intent on confronting him, though she knew she could not physically affect him in any way. Neither of them were truly there, in that garden of illusion. 'Why won't you show me my son?' she asked, her voice much softer, more pleading than she had intended.
'Because,' the angel replied, 'he is nothing more than a weak, mewling thing, something for you to use as a stepping stone to true power.'
Aliisza opened her mouth to retort, but she had no words. What he said was true. She couldn't both love her son and see him as a means to an end. The two could not be reconciled.
Tauran stood. 'I think you finally understand,' he said. 'You're right-I cannot change you. I never meant to try. You, and only you, can change yourself.'
'I don't want to change!' she whispered fiercely. 'What you show me is nothing but pain and sorrow and loneliness! How can people want that? They never deal from a position of strength! They never have the ability to take what they want! How can that be better than being strong, independent, powerful? How can succumbing to silly romantic notions be preferable to steeling yourself against all those who would take from you?'
'I will come to you again,' the angel replied, 'when I sense that you know the answer to that question yourself.'
'Don't go,' she said. It was the first time she had asked him to stay. 'Don't leave me here.'
He smiled softly then and reached out to stroke her hair, her cheek. It wasn't an amorous touch, not filled with the heat of passion and arousal. It was gentle and kind, a touch of compassion and love. 'Exactly,' he said.
Watching the angel vanish was the hardest thing Aliisza had ever done.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
'There,' Lakataki said. The azer who had originally accosted Vhok and Zasian pointed down into the valley far below them. The cambion peered where the fire-dwarf indicated and spied the efreet's mine. A great wall of shiny brass, pierced by a gate and protected by towers at regular intervals, surrounded a pit dug into the slope of a mountain. The molten glow of magma shone from within that pit. The only feature that jutted up from the interior that the half-fiend could see was a spindly, peculiarly shaped tower. Everything else was hidden. The whole scene shimmered and wavered, distorted by the heat that permeated the plane.
'What do they mine?' Zasian asked, staring alongside Vhok. The priest seemed impressed with the sight.
'Liquid glass,' Lakataki replied. 'It spills out of the ground there, just bubbles up to the surface. They gather it and pour it into molds right there within the fortress, before it cools. It's the purest, clearest glass anywhere,' he said, but his tone was more bitter than proud.
'And the efreet make their slaves work the mine,' Vhok said. 'Members of your clan are down there.'
'Yes,' the azer said. 'But more importantly, it used to be ours. The efreet came and stole it from us, captured or killed many and drove off the rest. We want it back.'
'Where does the glass go after it is molded?' Zasian asked. He still stared raptly at the mine.
'Caravans take it to the City of Brass, where it is sold,' Lakataki answered. 'Merchants from every part of the multi-verse bid for glass that pure.'.
'How many efreet are there?' Vhok asked. 'How many should we expect to deal with?'
The azer sergeant shrugged. 'Perhaps a dozen,' he said. 'Maybe twice that many live within the fortress, but half of them are usually away, raiding for more slaves to work the mine. Most of them are just cruel and greedy. There is one, though, the overseer. He is very clever. Hafiz al-Milhab. You must be wary of him. He is a giant even among his own kind.'
'And how many slaves?'
'Perhaps a hundred, maybe more,' Lakataki said. 'Not all are azer. The efreet bring slaves of all types who are suitable to work the mine. Not all of them will thank you for their freedom, outlander,' the fire-dwarf warned.
