The Dragon and the Lotus (Chimera #1) (20 page)

Asha grimaced. “I’ll check on her.” She strode back out into the cool morning air and when she entered the cave she found the woman Kahina sitting up and staring at the gray coals of their fire.

“Hello.”

Kahina looked up, her thick curling hair bouncing with every movement of her head. “Hello? Who are you?”

“My name is Asha. My friend and I saw you crash yesterday and came to help. I’m an herbalist. You’re going to be just fine. You’re not hurt.” She lingered near the mouth of the cave where she could glance back out at the airship. She could just see the red of Priya’s robe through the cabin’s windows.

Kahina looked up sharply, then scrambled to her feet. “Gideon? Where’s Gideon?”

“He’s fine. Not a scratch on him. He’s showing the airship to my friend now.”

Kahina joined her at the mouth of the cave. “Oh. Good.”

“Tell me something,” Asha said. “Do you know this man Gideon well?”

“Not personally. But my employer in Damascus speaks highly of him.” Kahina’s spoke Eranian with an even stronger accent than the man, and she hesitated at times as though trying to remember the right word from time to time. “He’s well known in Syria. Some sort of mercenary, I think. Or maybe a bounty hunter. He’s been a perfect gentleman to me, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Asha shook her head. “Maybe it’s nothing.” They both stepped out into the light, walking slowly toward the airship. “So what happened yesterday? Why did you crash?”

“Oh, it’s this old bird.” Kahina sighed. “It should have been decommissioned a decade ago, or at least overhauled. We had a little oil fire, nothing serious. But at the same moment, one of the cables on the fins snapped and I lost control. Couldn’t pull up. I only barely managed to get us into this gap in the mountain. We could have sliced open the envelope on those rocks, and then, well, you know, instant retirement.” She flashed a brief and humorless grin at Asha.

The herbalist only raised an eyebrow but didn’t ask for any explanations. “So, can you fix it?”

“Probably. The fire was nothing. Just a little leak. I can seal that with putty for now. It’ll take a little longer to get the cable back in place, but it should only take an hour. Then we just need a little water for the boiler and we’ll be all set to fly.”

“I saw a stream on the east face of this mountain,” Asha said absently.

“Great.”

They entered the cabin and Gideon gave the pilot a quick but warm embrace as he greeted her. But as she set to work on the strange engine, the man seemed to forget all about her as he returned to Priya’s side. The nun sat in the single chair in front of the controls, running her hands lightly over the levers and glassy faces of the gauges and dials.

Asha watched them all for a moment. “I’ll go get some water,” she said to no one in particular.

“Oh, thanks.” Kahina handed her a bucket. “Just dump it in there.” She pointed to the small boiler beside her.

Asha glanced inside, guessed it would take twenty or thirty buckets to fill the void, and strode outside again. There was no clear path down the eastern face, but the slope was forgiving and the ground was firm and safe. Soon she was back down in the shaded corridors of the cedar forest, swaddled in the sounds of tree-souls and hungry squirrels and timid birds.

The stream emerged from a narrow gap in the mountain rock less than a quarter hour from the airship and Asha frowned as she realized it would take most of the day to bring up enough water to fill the boiler using a single bucket. She had just filled the bucket from the cold stream and straightened up to leave when a deep thrumming sound caught her attention. She swept her long black hair away from her right ear to better hear the aetheric echo, but it faded quickly into silence.

“Are you all right?”

Asha glanced up to see Gideon standing on the slope above her. He had a stick across his shoulder with three more buckets dangling off it, and he was staring at her. At her ear.

“I’m fine.” She dropped her hair over her ear and began trudging up the slope. “The water’s right around that stone there.” She pointed at the stream carelessly as she passed him.

“But, your ear? Is it all right?”

She kept walking.

“It’s just… I’ve only ever seen something like that once before and I was a little surprised and I just wanted to make certain you were all right.” He took a few steps up the path after her. “I mean, if it is the same condition, then maybe I can help, or maybe I know someone who can.”

Asha whirled about and stared down at him. “You’ve never seen anything like it before.”

“I haven’t?” He frowned, his eyes searching her face.

“No.” She turned and resumed climbing the slope. “You haven’t.”

4

By noon the boiler was full and Kahina had completed her repairs. The engine hissed and rumbled, the propellers droned, and the entire airship was shaking as though eager to be back home again in the Persian sky.

“Please let us help you on your way. It’s the least we can do,” Gideon asked. “Just to the nearest town.”

“It’s safe.” Kahina grinned. “More or less.”

Priya stood just outside the cabin with Jagdish curled up in her arms, his fur bristling at the growling machine. She nodded. “Asha? Shall we?”

Asha pressed her lips into a thin line. “How does it work?”

“The envelope is filled with a light gas. It floats in the air just like an air bubble floats in water,” Kahina said. “Don’t worry. Even in a disaster, even when damaged, it still sinks gently back to the ground again, just like it did yesterday. It’s safer than horses or trains, or so they say.”

“Horses don’t fall out of the sky.” The herbalist picked at her lip. “All right then. But only to the nearest town, and only because there isn’t much to eat in this forest.”

The two women stepped aboard and sat on the small bench in the center of the cabin behind Kahina. Gideon stood beside them, his right hand with its strange brass gauntlet gripping an overhead bar for balance. The engine at the rear of the cabin roared a little louder and the propellers droned at a higher pitch, and the entire cabin shivered at the airship rose gently into the cool mountain air. Asha stared out the window as the rock face slid down and down until the peak slipped out of sight, revealing the endless vista of the cedar forest stretching out to a distant ridge on the western horizon.

The ship turned slowly, the entire world below rotating in a flat circle, and then they accelerated west, the mountain peak gliding smoothly away behind them. Looking down, Asha saw the forest below as a wrinkled green cloth, dappled and shadowed, painted by sun and shade, and streaked here and there with brown or a flash of silver-blue. But the world of leaves and bark and insects and earth did not exist from her seat in the sky.

After a few minutes, she tried to describe what she was seeing to Priya, but she gave up a moment later. Gideon smiled and shrugged down at her. Asha kept her eyes on the horizon.

The sun had barely begun to shift down the westward sky when Asha noticed that they too were sinking toward the ground. The forest below thinned, giving way to a rippling sea of green grass and the patchwork plots of farms and orchards. And after only a quarter hour of cruising over these signs of civilization, Kahina announced that they were about to land. The airship slowed and Asha watched the earth sweep up to meet them, resolving quite suddenly into the ordinary world she had left behind on the mountainside.

The cabin banged slightly as they touched down and the engines sputtered into silence. Kahina stood up and gave Gideon a serious look. “Coal. Water. Food. Blankets. Anything we should have had on that mountain, we need now. All right?”

Gideon nodded. “Sure.”

Asha watched the pair open the metal door and step out onto the grass, and then she helped Priya to follow them. They stood on a flat grassy field just a stone’s throw from a wide dirt road. To their left the road plunged through an orchard and disappeared toward the cedar forest, but to their right the road wound around a narrow creek and up to a small cluster of farm houses near a tall wooden windmill.

As they walked up the road, Asha paused to stare back at the forest behind them.

“Something the matter?” Gideon asked.

“When we were in the forest, I thought I heard something following us. Something large.” Asha watched the tree line, seeing nothing but cedars.

“Oh, I doubt it. There’s nothing bigger than a hare in there.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Well.” He glanced away. “I’ve been here before. I know the area pretty well. I had to walk on the ground back then, of course. There is an old story about a giant man and a monster bull, but they only tell that story down south, and it’s a very old story. You probably just heard a falling tree in there.”

“Probably.” Asha narrowed her eyes and continued past him toward the village. “Then again, there are strange souls wandering the world these days.”

The small cluster of houses encircled a single covered well, and there were two old women sitting on a rough hewn bench beside it. They both looked up to watch the strangers approach, and Asha saw the sleepy apathy in their eyes transform into excitement and wonder. The two women rose up on unsteady legs, their hands clasped and their thin lips rising in crooked little smiles.

“Hello,” said Kahina. But the women looked right past the pilot.

“Hello,” said Gideon. “Lovely day, isn’t it?”

The old ladies gasped and came forward. “Gideon? It is you, isn’t it? Gideon?”

The young man blushed. “Uh. Well, yes. Yes, it is me. I’m Gideon.”

“I knew it!” one of the women said. “I could never forget that face. Oh, it is so wonderful to see you again.” She glanced over at Priya and Asha. “I’m sorry to make a scene, but it has been so long.”

Asha shrugged. “It’s all right.” She looked up at him. “When were you last here?”

“Oh, a while ago,” he said.

“More than a while.” The old ladies chuckled. “We were barely more than children when he was last here.”

Asha frowned. “Really? This man?”

“Oh yes!” They nodded merrily. “But where is that magic sword of yours? The one you used to slay the Bull of Heaven?”

Gideon winced. He looked sideways at Asha. “It wasn’t the Bull of Heaven, I swear. It was just a big bull. A regular bull. Just very dangerous.”

“Ah. And you had a magic sword?” Asha glanced at his belt, but no weapons hung there.

His face wrinkled with awkward embarrassment. “Sort of. It’s not magic though, I can promise you that.”

“So what happened to it?”

“Well, I had it modified when I was in Marrakesh a few years ago.” He held up his right arm with the strange brass gauntlet. Then he yanked back a small lever on the side, there came a sharp click and hiss, and a shining white blade shot forward out of the flat box on the side of his arm. The blade extended two hand-lengths beyond his fist, protected by the thick leather glove.

The short sword had a triangular blade, rather wide at its base and narrowing quickly to its point, and the steel itself blazed with a pure white light.

Asha grabbed Priya and pulled her away from the man. “Get that thing away from us.”

Gideon’s eyes widened. “No, please, it’s fine, I’m sorry.” He pulled the little lever again and the blade shot back into the device on his arm. “I didn’t mean to startle you.” He held up his empty hands.

“It’s not fine,” Asha said, drawing a steel scalpel from her bag to point at him. “I’ve seen swords like that before. They don’t just kill, they steal souls!”

Gideon nodded, his sad eyes fixed on Asha as his hands sank slowly to his sides. “Yes, I know. But it’s all right. I’ve never used mine on a person. I swear.”

“Liar. It’s the souls that make the blade glow, and yours is glowing brighter than the sun.”

“Yes, but not from killing people. It’s from destroying other swords like it.”

Asha hesitated. “It is?”

Kahina nodded. “I’ve seen him do it once.”

The two old ladies nodded. “We saw him do it, too, when we were girls.”

“Gideon?” Priya spoke softly. “How old are you?”

“Ah.” He touched the little golden pendant hanging from his neck. “Well, that’s a bit of a long story.”

“Then tell it,” Asha said. “And if I don’t like what I hear, I won’t let you walk out of here to use that sword again.”

“All right, I’m happy to tell you.” He grinned again. “Although, I sort of doubt that you could stop me from leaving.”

Asha lifted her other hand out of her bag to display the scalpels and needles arrayed between her fingers like claws.

Gideon blinked. “Oh my. All right, let’s sit down.”

5

Gideon raised his eyebrows and inhaled slowly. He said, “I was born about two thousand years ago in the city of Damascus, although the city was already old at that time. I had a pretty unremarkable life. My father made bricks. My mother died when I was young. I played in the streets until I could work, and then I made bricks for a few years. When war broke out between Damascus and Tyre, I was summoned to fight. There were a few battles and I fought pretty well, so when we returned I was made a full-time guard in the king’s palace.”

Gideon sat on the ground fiddling with a blade of grass. The two old women sat on their bench, while Asha and Priya sat on the edge of the well. A pair of young boys ran out and sat near the old women, who shushed them.

“A few more years passed. Then a man came to visit the king. He was a scholar of great renown called Master Bashir. He had studied with the wisest men in Aegyptus and India and other places I had never heard of. But for all his wisdom and knowledge, he was still just a man. He counseled the king by day, but played dice and drank wine in the city at night. And one night there was a fight. I happened to be nearby and saved Bashir from a couple of gentleman with unpleasant intentions and very large swords.” Gideon grinned and shrugged. “So Bashir asked that I be assigned to be his personal bodyguard. For a few months, I followed him around and pulled him out of fights. One particular night he was so drunk that I actually had to carry him home. He was laughing, babbling that he didn’t really need me, that he couldn’t be killed, or that he wished someone would kill him. He kept babbling until he passed out.