Akil stopped what he was doing. Just stopped and closed his eyes and became thankful.
He thanked the sun for warming his shoulders, which did not need to be warmed. Yet the sun was generous enough to do it anyway. He thanked the aqueduct system, repaired now, that once again fed clean water to the fountains of Perpignan. He thanked the lemon tree for drinking the water he poured onto it, and for the enthusiasm it showed in producing blossoms.
The lemon tree was the one under which he’d tried to comfort Vara so long ago, when she had been a human railing against the brutality of kings and Gods. He understood her doomed love for the valiant Eneko. From everything he’d learned, the man had been admirable, brave and loyal. He was gone, to wherever humans went when they died. So much death. The most regrettable, from Akil’s point of view, being that of Josef Svobodá.
Akil sprinkled his bucket’s remaining drops of water onto the ground, for the Gods. May you cherish and keep Josef Svobodá and Eneko Saratxaga, for they are as brilliant stars in the heavens.
The Gods did not deserve such souls within their ranks.
He felt Vara approaching. She liked to check on the lemon tree too. It was a symbol, perhaps, of her family’s resurgence. She wore her tall, stately, Moorish woman shape. He’d decided that it was much like what Vara might have been, had she lived to grow older than—what? Seventeen years? The same height, the same flashing dark eyes and soft, tight curls. This woman was more muscular, narrower of hip, and much more confident in her ways. Her silken robes were crimson, not the ochres and browns the living, human Vara had preferred.
But much of Vara remained in this woman. As it did in Boy. Not so much in Bird, which might be because Vara had become reluctant to take its shape.
Was it because it brought back memories of the huge, toothed Nightingale she’d become, which had vanquished an army?
No matter how much he coaxed her to join him in the air, she had done it only rarely, and afterward retreated into her own thoughts. He hadn’t asked her for over a month.
Akil had feared at the time that the huge Nightingale would never let them go. That he and Ragna Svobodová would be forever locked within the immense bird’s iridescent breast, riding with her like worms in a dog’s belly. They had stayed melded, cruising the air above the battle, for what seemed like hours.
Vara came to stand beside him. He smelled the cinnamon warmth of her, and let his hand touch hers, but only lightly. He wanted more, but knew she cherished being her singular self. After a few moments she said, “Akil, Jameel al-Kindi asks that you join him. Without his usual staff, he can’t keep up with the accounts and records. Even with Miss Marsh and her orphan girls busy at adding columns of numbers.” She smiled. “He really does enjoy your company, Akil, and your cleverness.”
Akil found that he was perhaps too pleased at these words of praise. Or kindness. Jameel al-Kindi was pressed for time these days, and Akil was eager for work to occupy his mind.
Jameel had been forced into leadership, since almost every other person capable of command and governance had either been killed or had fled the country. Despite his mutilation, he displayed none of the heartache and regrets that his wife suffered, and had found the mental strength to take up the reins of government even while his physical strength lagged.
Ragna, however, spent much of her time as Lioness, sleeping in the sunny courtyard of their home. Jameel had to coax and cajole her to work with him, and she would snarl as he tried to revive her spirits.
Akil thought he understood how Gods were made: resura that grew so strong that they simply engulfed any weaker souls they encountered, fattened upon them and used their incorporeal mass as fodder. As Vara had done. Had Vara sucked the spirit out of her own mother?
Was Ragna a weaker soul? What did weakness mean, when the youngest and most innocent among them could attain godhood? And yet Vara had spat out their souls, relinquished their bodies. Set them free.
He plucked a fragrant blossom from the lemon tree and held it to his nose. Then he passed it to Vara. “I am happy to serve Jameel al-Kindi however he desires.”
Freewoman’s full lips formed a smile that was not reflected in her eyes. “He is lucky to have such a friend as you, Akil. As am I.”
He had to be satisfied with that. Akil left Vara and the lemon tree and went to Jameel.
*
After the battle, before they left the pit mine, the immense Nightingale had performed one last task.
She instructed Miss Marsh, Hubert, and a couple of other survivors to secure Jameel’s weak and crippled body to her back, using strips of cloth torn from robes and turbans. Akil and Ragna, their essences still trapped within the huge bird’s body, could only watch through her eyes.
She launched herself off the edge of the pit, spread her wings and flew, barely clearing the southwest rim of stone. All of them prayed to whatever Gods they still believed in that Jameel would survive the trip.
They had arrived in Perpignan in an astonishingly short time, Nightingale’s wings cleaving the air in a track straight as an arrow’s. She landed with a great billowing of dust and shrieking of people in the square where once Vara and her friend Sigrun had marvelled at a lesser god.
The square cleared out remarkably fast. Not many people were left in the city to run from the sudden arrival of a fearsome, toothed bird, but Akil hoped the Uzmite Sisters still remained and had the resources to tend to Jameel. Seeing through Nightingale’s eyes, he noted the destruction in the once rich and well-managed city. Even though the war was over, it would take many years to restore the city’s and the nation’s prosperity and peace. How much easier it is, he reflected, to destroy than to build.
There was no one to assist Jameel in climbing down from Nightingale’s back. Akil observed with pity and admiration as the man fumbled at his cloth bonds, tearing them with his teeth until they loosened and he slid to the ground. As he lay panting next to the Nightingale’s feathered shoulder, the huge bird shrank, roiling like a smouldering fire as she diminished and separated. The three individual resura emerged as if staggering out of a collapsing building.
Akil found himself sprawled on the plaza’s filthy stones, the aftermath of war. He smelled the blood, the urine and offal that would not be washed away until the rains came. Boy tumbled to the ground, his eyes wide and half-mad. Knife Woman appeared in a swirl of dust, her barrow beside her.
She ran to Jameel, kissed him, and yelled at Akil to help load him into the barrow. “The Sisters are not far. Don’t leave me until he is safe!” She began to dump the barrow’s contents onto the ground, where they would probably, Akil surmised, vanish when she changed form again. He lifted the groaning man into the barrow.
Without a backward look, Ragna picked up the handles and hustled away with her precious cargo.
Akil looked at Boy. The child stood very still, sometimes glancing about as if trying to orient himself. Akil suspected that Vara’s experience had changed her forever. He took Boy’s hand and said, “Forgive me, my dear friend. I must—must—go now to my alanbir. Do you understand? I have no choice.”
Boy said, “I would rather you stayed here with me, Akil. When I was Nightingale, I cherished the feel of you within me as I fought and flew.”
Akil dropped Boy’s hand, took his Eagle form and snapped his beak with impatience. What would Vara do? Was he truly free?
For a moment, Boy’s face shrank into a scowl, but then some instinct toward logic took over. “Go,” said Boy at last. “But come back… when you can.”
*
Back at the mine, Akil and Hubert caught the few uninjured horses they could find and gave them water and grain. The next day, Hubert, Miss Marsh and Jameel’s two remaining men rode down the long winding trail from the mine toward Perpignan. Eagle scouted ahead for the best routes around still-burning villages, bridges that had been blocked or destroyed, and the dangerous packs of humans foraging for what food they could find or steal.
It took five days and four nights, as no one was in very good shape. Half-starved, beaten and dazed, Hubert and the men with them could barely manage the odd half-hearted quip to show their spirits still lived in their exhausted bodies. Miss Marsh exhibited her usual stoicism, minus the wry humour Akil had come to love.
The humans were hungry, and there were only so many rabbits and quail Eagle could procure. Every field they passed had been thoroughly plundered of its turnips and cabbages. The two men left the second night, taking their horses and vanishing into the darkness. Their homes and families called; Akil did not blame them.
The city’s gates were much easier to get through this time. No tale of non-existent aunties was needed, no biscuit-tiles were demanded. One jittery soldier eyed them as they passed through the arched doorway’s shadow, the once-proud white crest atop his helmet cut prudently short. He had hammered Saraf’s S on his breastplate into obscurity. Deeming them harmless, he went back to scraping mould off a quarter-round of cheese.
They went first to the house of the Uzmite Sisters.
Miss Marsh brushed dirt and road-dust from her skirt, and despite exhaustion straightened into an attitude of command as she approached.
The Uzmite Mother stepped forth. “Ah. You.” She eyed the fierce-eyed little woman who had once worked beside her among the ill and elderly. No love had been lost between them. Everyone in the city was hungry and dirty, no one had time to hear tales of hardship.
“Yes, it is me. I’m hard to kill. Tell me—an old woman with an injured man came to you a few days ago. We must see them.”
“They are gone,” the Mother informed them coldly. “That old besom with the cart insisted that once her man was out of danger they’d find a better place. She had a tall Kek woman with her too.” The Mother provided a theatrical shiver and waited for an explanation, but got none. She snorted. “Claimed she knew a noblewoman who’d take them in.”
This meant, Akil surmised, that they’d gone to their villa, or what was left of it. He nodded, thanked the woman and left.
And now here they all were, camping like vagrants in the wreckage of their old home.
*
One day Akil and Vara decided to visit the scene of Ragna’s death. Ragna herself would not go.
“Let Petru’s palace rot. I don’t care who loots and burns it. There is nothing I want from that cursed place.” Lioness lowered her big, square, golden head to her paws and went back to sleep.
So the two of them, as Orange Cat and Nightingale, crept and fluttered their way through streets and squares beginning once again to fill with workers, merchants, traders, and war-battered soldiers looking for honest employment. Petru’s palace was guarded only by a scattering of Emperor Ludvik’s men, hastily sent to protect what remained of anything valuable. Since there wasn’t much, they were spending their time gambling.
Cat and Bird slipped past them and climbed to the big white room. It was littered with shards of what was once ancient statuary, drifting with dust and soot in the unfettered breeze. The albino lion skin was gone. The bench and chairs, tables and wine cups, all gone. Vara became her tall, dark self and walked to the balcony. After one quick glance down to the street where her mother had died, she stood for a long time, gripping the rail and staring up at the sky.
Akil wondered if she was cursing the Gods. Or was she seeking admission to their ranks?
If we meld again, I will know her heart.
He was tempted to force it. Two things stopped him: first, that it would be a violation of her person and her soul, already stretched thin among her forms, and easily torn. Second, that he would regret it. Her power verged toward Godhood, and she could very well consume him.
At last she lowered her gaze and turned back to him.
She seemed to listen as he told her something he and Josef Svobodá had discussed, eons ago. “It is said that the gryphons, centaurs, mer-folk and so on are melded resura who were unable to separate and have gone mad. Also that free resura can take in the lost souls of other, weaker resura and gain their knowledge and experiences. Thus, over the decades and possibly centuries, they turn into Gods. Some benevolent and merciful, some cruel and insane. Will the good eventually overthrow the evil? Perhaps we will know, one day.”
“Perhaps.” Distracted again, she began to prowl the room, as if looking for something. “Akil… I smell my mother.”
Akil knew better than to doubt her.
She turned abruptly and walked to a corner where a drift of broken things had ended up, and nudged it with the toe of her sandal, in case of vermin. Then she reached down and pulled at the edge of a bit of cloth that became a shawl as it rose, expanding and revealing its soft colours. “This is my mother’s. She must have worn it, that last time… that last night.”
The night she and Vara died.
Something fell from the shawl’s folds and clattered to the marble floor. Freewoman gasped. She dropped to her knees and picked up a necklace. Three small tokens—eye and owl and tooth—dangled from it and caught the light.
*
She cried for a while. She held the shawl to her face, smelled its perfume, still Ragna’s special scent. Akil took the necklace from her hand and affixed the clasp around her neck. Ragna’s last act had been to retrieve her daughter’s treasure from her tormentor. Her fingers went to it, touching each little token. Was she thinking of Eneko?
“Akil,” she said at last, “when Nightingale killed Petru I tasted his blood, but also his mind. His mind was like a broken pitcher, shattered and leaking. But there were memories, still fresh. One of them…” She sighed, for she hadn’t seen the present in those memories. “We must go and see for ourselves.”
She reached for his hand, but he didn’t take it. Probably not a good idea to touch her.
“Come,” she said. “We must go to the lower levels.”
They changed to smaller forms to creep past a cluster of Imperial scribes arguing over a spilled shelf of scrolls half-crushed by trampling feet. Down again, until the air was thick with darkness and the increasing stench of death. Akil stopped to listen. “There are animals still alive down here!”
“There must be. I can hear and smell them. Petru’s brood mares, some prize bulls perhaps. Animals no one has been brave enough to steal. Or eat.”
“Ah. We can set them free,” he said. “Or call them ours.”
“Yes. Our family has dominion now over Petru’s former holdings. Commanding a magical, giant war-bird works wonders, even if it’s just a rumour.” A rumour corroborated by the many who had seen it fly. That bird might never be seen again, but its threat had power. “I’m hoping to find something better than breeding stock.”
In human form again, they stepped over pools of urine and seepage from the walls, heaps of manure and rotting straw, and made their way past the empty cattle stalls to the horse stables. An air-well let down a thin wash of reflected daylight, illuminating several stalls. All empty. They continued along the row of ornately gated enclosures, peering into each one. At last they reached the end. Vara was ready to admit that Petru’s fractured memory of a certain captive had been false, when a big, amber-maned head thrust over the railing to gaze at them. Its dark eyes glittered in the gloom, and it snorted, then began to kick and whinny.
Akil’s face lit with joy. “Amjad. It’s Amjad!”
To her own surprise, Vara burst into tears.
*
The hubbub of Amjad’s reclamation died down. He was half starved, wild with thirst, but in only a few days was much improved and beginning to be troublesome. Jameel spent much of his time in the stables, close to the steed he loved.
Miss Marsh, tasked by Ragna with imposing order on chaos, had hired two girls from the Uzmite refuge, with the intention of teaching them to read and do sums as well as work as servants. Cataloguing the family’s remaining possessions wouldn’t take long; everything of value had been looted. Her best find so far had been an enamelled silver platter that someone had hidden among musty horse blankets in the stables.
Ragna, as Knife Woman, came to her one day, a scrap of parchment in her hand. “Here! Read this to me if you please.” Professing not to see any value in learning to read, nevertheless she must hold her head high when in the presence of one who could.
Miss Marsh accepted it, cleared her throat and began to read. “It is I, Saskia Lubodová. To the family of the late Josef Svobodá, of the City of Perpignan, northwest quarter. Know this: I and my dear companion Kai are well and safe at the house of the Uzmites not ten leagues from the City of Bordeaux. My sister, whom I hoped to find, has married a Spaniard and gone with him to Cordoba. Kai and I spend our time with the Sisters cultivating vegetables as well as a colony of rabbits for sale, and in prayer and other good works. We shall not return to Perpignan, but will pray for the health and safety of our land and people.”
She handed the letter back, smiling faintly. She and Saskia had got on well. “It is good news.”
Knife Woman bit her lips and blinked very fast. Then she passed it back to Miss Marsh. “You will add this to our inventory of belongings. I will only lose it.”
*
The threads of life began to weave straighter and clearer. People still wept over graves, but life went on. Ragna slowly emerged from her sorrow at the loss of her beautiful human form, and at her husband’s terrible mutilation. Jameel, defying his limitations, was learning to ride again, using a specially made saddle to accommodate his handicaps. When he rode Amjad around the city streets and plazas, men and women bowed before him and called out blessings.
Sometimes, causing much consternation, a lioness padded alongside them, gazing about her at the people who stared back. It was rumoured that Jameel had captured and tamed her, and that she was now his faithful bodyguard. Jameel al-Kindi’s horse Amjad did not shy or buck in the presence of the big cat. It was observed, in fact, that the lioness and the horse touched their muzzles to one another at times, as if they were friends.
*
One afternoon, Vara sat with her mother and father in the courtyard, which had been fitted out with scavenged tables, chairs, and an old bed serving as a lounge big enough for two. Jameel and Lioness reclined upon it. Her great tawny head was in his lap, and with his one good hand he stroked her neck and played with her ears as she stretched. Hubert stood behind them, eating dates and fanning Jameel with a palm frond.
Vara remembered with sad fondness how her mother had taught herself to purr like a cat, something she would do when in a particularly soft or amorous mood. Jameel had loved it; it was an audible token of the love they had for each other. Vara had never really thought about it until now. She had been told that lions did not purr as small house-cats did, but perhaps this was believed simply because no man or woman had ever been near a lion or lioness who was in the mood to do it. Perhaps they had a private life, into which noisy, destructive humans were not admitted.
Vara kept mostly to her Moorish Woman form these days, and had informed the family that they were to refer to her as Vara. It had taken a few days for them all to accept that this was really her; though they had adventured together, everyone seemed to imagine she was a different person now. In fact, not a person at all.
But it was simply her outward appearance. What was inside remained the same. Did it not? And her mother was still her mother, was she not?
Lioness—Ragna—rolled onto her back and allowed Jameel to tickle her belly. She huffed and grumbled a bit, snuffling gently at Jameel’s fingers, but then Vara’s ears pricked up. Had the grumbling softened? Yes. The deep, rough vibration from Lioness’s chest smoothed, became rhythmic… became a purr.
Vara, reluctant to impinge on their pleasure, smiled a little, and bent her head again to lists of farm records. It seemed that conditions were still very bad, but were slowly improving as folk returned to their small holdings and began to plant again, and to search for surviving livestock that had scattered into the hills and forests. Emperor Ludvik, severely frightened and outraged at the recent unrest, had washed his hands of it all and delegated rule to Jameel al-Kindi, and was staying safely in Soissons. Wise of him.
Vara’s eyes were on the lists, but her thoughts were elsewhere. They dwelt on Akil.
Akil had become her closest friend. The memory of his touch, and of their melding during battle, was hot within her. She closed her eyes. I will not weep for what I must not have.
She must never meld with another resura. She was not destined to be a God. She did not want to be one. She knew, now, that madness lay along that path.
But just then Akil, as if summoned by her thoughts, came into the courtyard and settled himself cross-legged at her feet. He didn’t look at her, but his good hand slid across the cool stone of the courtyard’s floor and encircled her ankle. Just for a moment.
Evening was falling. A nightingale began to sing, somewhere in the city close by.
It is said that once a year, under a full moon, an immense bird flies over the city of Perpignan. Her wings create the wind, and her eyes light the stars.
She is seen by few, and is gone by morning.
The End