“I have her,” Wren said. She moved her hand away from Asha to point it at Isis as well. Her silver bracelets were shivering and singing on her wrists, and the white aether mist was flowing up from the floor over her body and then racing down her arms like a rushing waterfall, blasting Isis against the base of the pillar.
Asha moved back to the center of the room to stand near Wren and watch her bend the endless aether currents to her will.
This is girl is like no other in all the world. There’s no end to what she might do with this power. And she’s still so young. In time, who know what she’ll learn to do?
“What now, Wren?” Asha asked quietly.
Isis kicked and roared, struggling to kick and claw her way out of the aether tide, but the mist held her firmly in place.
“I don’t know,” Wren said. “I can’t tell where the sun-steel needles are inside her, and I can’t do anything about Lilith’s hold over her. All I can do is hold her still.”
“For how long?”
“A while.” Wren smiled a little. “I can do this sort of thing for a long time, if there’s enough aether. And it’s only going to get colder for the next few hours, so the aether will grow thicker and rise from the earth more easily. What should I do with her?”
Asha frowned and looked at Gideon.
The soldier paced slowly toward them, his gauntlet swinging forgotten at his side, and he shrugged as he said, “We’ll need to lock her up until we can find a way to undo this, and restore her. But, well, just look at the floor.”
Asha looked down and in the meager light of the remaining candles, she looked over the broken and shattered remains of the furniture, and under them, she saw the shallow but wide craters where Isis had stomped her hoofs on the ancient tile and stone floor.
“I have no idea what sort of prison we’ll need to hold someone as strong as her,” Gideon said.
“A normal one will do,” Asha replied. “Just as soon as I sedate her.”
She walked back toward the door of the temple and felt her scales melting away, leaving her feeling a bit colder and thinner and smaller. To the side of the door she found her medicine bag in the shadows and brought it back to the others. Then she swept a space clean on the floor and sat down.
“What are you doing?” Wren asked, her arms still held out straight in front of her, her bracelets still humming and singing quietly to each other.
“Making a sedative.” Asha glanced over at the struggling creature trapped in the aether flood. “A very strong sedative. Gideon, I could use some light.”
The soldier came and sat beside her, unlocked his seireiken, and slid a fraction of the blade out of the gauntlet, letting its piercing white light illuminate Asha’s supplies.
Then she began taking out her paper envelopes, copper tubes, and clay jars filled with seeds, leaves, bark, and dried animal glands and she arranged them neatly in front of her. She took out her mortar and pestle, and a clean bowl, and a clean needle, and she set to work.
“What is all that?” Wren asked, glancing down out of the corner of her eye.
“This is…” Asha smiled sadly. “This is me. Asha, without the dragon. A little bag of old seeds and leaves.” She began measuring out her ingredients and tapping them lightly into the mortar, and then set to grinding them down together into a powder.
“I used to study herbs, too,” Wren said. “Gudrun taught me when I was younger. And my friend Katja too. But since I left home, I’ve just been studying aether-craft. I really don’t know much about southern plants.”
“If you want to learn, I could teach you.” Asha frowned down at her working hands.
Why did I say that?
“I would, some day. Thank you,” Wren said. “Who was your teacher?”
Asha pressed her lips together tightly for a moment. “Just some people in Ming. Have you been to Ming?”
“I’ve never even heard of Ming,” Wren said. “Is it a nice place?”
“It’s a place.” Asha tapped a few clinging motes of powder from her pestle and set it aside. She uncorked one of her copper tubes and poured out its contents into the mortar.
“Water?” Wren asked.
“Oil,” Asha said. “Eel oil. It’s good for carrying powders into the bloodstream.” She dipped her steel needle in the mixture and held it up. A thick bead of dark reddish amber gleamed on the needle. “See?”
“But you can’t get close to use it,” Wren said, nodding at Isis. “If I stop the aether, she’ll get up, but if I don’t stop, you can’t go over there. Sorry.”
“No, that’s all right,” Asha said, as she studied the sedative curing on her needle. “I don’t need to get close. In fact, I’ve had to do this before.”
“Do what?” Gideon asked.
Asha snapped her wrist and the needle flew across the room, striking Isis squarely in the chest. The immortal moaned softly, but her feet continued to kick feebly at the floor. Asha reached for a second needle and dipped it in her mortar.
“How did you do that?” Gideon stared at Isis. “I mean, that wind should have thrown the needle aside, unless you have some secret… dragon aiming… skill thing.”
“Aether can’t affect solid objects,” Asha and Wren said in unison, and they gave each other a sudden glance.
“Aether can only affect a soul,” Wren said slowly, a curious smile tickling her cheek. “So I can move living creatures, or even ghosts, but not regular objects. I can’t even move sun-steel, even though it drinks aether like a berserker drinks mead.”
“Oh.” Gideon gave her a curious look, and shrugged.
“Now then. Time to sleep.” Asha checked her second needle, and then flung it across the room where it struck Isis in the belly. The immortal woman kicked wearily one last time and slumped to the floor.
Wren lowered her arms and the aether tide vanished as a few last wisps of vapor faded back into the ground. She rubbed her shoulders and blew out a long, loud sigh. “Well, that wasn’t so bad, was it? What’s next?”
Asha began packing up her supplies and looked at Gideon. “We’ll need someplace safe to keep Isis. Then we’ll get some sleep, and in the morning, we’ll go looking for the others.”
Chapter 15
Anubis walked slowly down the dark and deserted streets of Alexandria, listening to the familiar sounds of the ancient city cleaning up after supper, laughing over coffee, and preparing for bed. Here and there he found men smoking in the street and chatting quietly, or he passed some lone fellow still trudging home after a very long day, but mostly, he was alone.
This quarter of the city is quiet. Either the immortals aren’t here, or they’re still hiding, and waiting. Perhaps they’re even sleeping. I wonder if they dream.
The youth walked on, his slender staff marking every other stride on the dusty pavement, the rings at the top of his staff clinking softly as the pole struck the ground. As the hour grew later, he met fewer faces in the street, and the lights in the houses grew dimmer and farther apart, until he was left in pale, naked moonlight under a small date palm in a small park surrounded by homes full of families. The park was one of his familiar haunts where he and Bastet would watch the children play, and occasionally pull them out of the path of a huge sivathera or a rushing steam carriage when the little ones wandered into the road.
Maybe they already found a way back into the undercity. Maybe they doubled back to the fountain. Maybe we should have left someone there to…
He turned sharply and listened. Something was shrieking. Someone was shouting. And the two sounds were coming from the same voice.
Horus.
The falcon-cries of the transformed immortal echoed across the sleeping city, and a moment later Anubis heard other sounds. The crackling of falling stone and masonry. The sharp booms of rifles firing. And the screams of people. Lots of people.