The two women froze. One was shorter and older wearing expensive shoes. The other was wearing a police captain’s uniform. Syfax relieved her of her sidearm. “Good evening, Captain Aknin. Have a seat.” He pointed at a large, jagged rock just behind her.
Captain Aknin sighed and raised her hands in a half-hearted gesture of surrender. “I think I’ll stand, sir.”
“I wasn’t asking.” He shoved her down onto the rock as he checked her revolver. “Kenan, search our other friend.”
“Yes, sir.” Kenan lowered his weapon and approached the older woman in the green dress and gold jacket. “Ambassador Chaou, yes? Where’s your gun, ma’am?” He quickly patted down her jacket pockets and slid his hand around her belt. “The gun you used to shoot the Crake ’s pilot, where is it?” The woman stood quite still, staring across at the major while Kenan searched her.
Syfax saw the twitch in her hand. “Kid, get back!”
The ambassador lurched back to put the seated police captain between her and Syfax. He saw her hand flash through her inner jacket and he heard the click of a revolver’s hammer. The gun emerged in a shaking hand, pointed loosely at the major.
“Officers! Please!” Her voice trembled. “No need for violence, surely. I am Barika Chaou, senior ambassador from Her Royal Highness Din Nasin to the Prince of Espana, His Royal Highness Argenti Valero. My associate here is Captain Aknin of the Port Chellah police.”
“I know all that.” Syfax rested his knife on the captain’s shoulder, his fingers gripping the woman’s collar with the blade close to her throat. He thumbed the hammer on his new revolver and leveled it at Chaou. “I also know you shot a pilot in the back and your bodyguard blew up a couple dozen civilians. And your buddy Aknin here killed one of her own officers tonight,” Syfax said. “It sort of makes me think you two aren’t really cut out for civil service. Drop the gun and show me your hands. Now.”
“No. I’m sorry, marshal. Major, is it?” The gun shook in her hand at her waist, the barrel pointed vaguely at Syfax’s belly and Aknin’s back.
“Major Zidane.” Syfax dropped his own gun as he lunged forward to grab the barrel of the ambassador’s revolver with his right hand while his left hand remained firmly planted on the knife and the captain’s collar.
The ambassador stumbled back but the major held the gun fixed in midair, and as the old woman fell backwards she pulled the trigger. Syfax tried to twist aside as he heard the cylinder turn and the bullwhip crack of the gunshot filled his ears. A hot sting sliced across his belly and Aknin’s head snapped forward. He shuffled back, releasing the revolver to grab at his stomach. Blinking and clutching his bloody shirt, he felt his breath still coming soft and easy. It just grazed me. I’m fine. He looked up and saw Chaou shoving Kenan back into the wall, her gun pressed to his stomach. The corporal’s gun lay on the floor. When did he drop that?
Then the ambassador was gone and Kenan was staring back at him with wide white eyes. He pointed at Aknin. “Her f-face!”
The major pulled back the captain’s head to see the gaping bloody hole where the woman’s nose and eye used to be. “Yeah, that’s not pretty.” Syfax snatched up his own gun as he lunged toward the open doorway. “Wake up, kid! Move it!”
Outside he heard the waves crash on the beach and hiss softly as they slipped back out into the ocean. A horse whickered.
Syfax ran around the side of the tomb in time to see Chaou galloping up the sandy path back to Port Chellah. He bolted through the tall grass up the path and found his own horse where Kenan had tied her up in a thicket. He yanked the cords free, climbed into the saddle, and whipped the mare’s flank. “Hya!”
Syfax glanced over his shoulder at the dark figure standing beside the mausoleum. Sorry kid, looks like you’re walking.
Chapter 7. Taziri
“You’re very quiet, doctor.” Taziri wiped at her eyes with her left hand while her right hand rested on the gun in her lap. She blinked hard and glanced over at the Hellan, who sat with arms crossed and brows furrowed, staring at a blank spot on the floor. Ghanima snored softly on the bench across from him. Hamuy snored loudly on the floor.
Evander yawned. “What am I supposed to say? Clearly this whole country has gone mad and I’m to be treated as a common prisoner along with these murderers and arsonists. It’s your own fault, of course. These machines of yours. You have the power to travel the sky, to kill with a flick of your finger. You’re walking the paths of Icarus and Prometheus. And we all know what happened to them.”
“Not really, no. What happened to them?”
Evander glared at the floor a little harder. “Bad things. Very bad things.”
“Oh.” Taziri blinked hard again and suppressed a yawn. “So how many gods do you people have?”
“You people?”
“Sorry,” Taziri said. “Europans, I mean.”
“In Hellas, we honor the one true God and His three aspects, and all of His attendant saints and angels. How you Mazighs survive without a proper faith is beyond me.”
“Well, we get by.” Taziri offered what she thought was a polite smile. Passengers. So full of opinions, always trying to sound clever, always trying to come across as just another working-class friend with a sincere interest in airships. Except this one, apparently. Taziri wondered if any working-class people had ever even set foot in an airship. And here was a man trying to tell her about God, of all things. Taziri resolved to play nice. “But I suppose I can sort of see the appeal of having all those different characters, with different names and symbols and things. I mean, it doesn’t seem to really reflect the divine unity of the universe, but I’m just an electrician.” She let her mouth run as she looked back over her dark gauges in the cockpit. “Although, it’s probably much easier to explain to your children. I know I’m not looking forward to trying to talk about the holy mysteries with my little girl.” Menna’s chubby little face danced through her mind and her smile warmed.
“Characters?” The doctor screwed up his face into a wrinkly grimace. “Children?”
Taziri winced as she replayed her words in her mind. “Oh! No, I just meant, well, it’s very different, obviously, and I’m sure it works very well for your people in Europa.”
Evander looked up, wide-eyed. “Europa isn’t a country, you know. It’s a vast continent, filled with many different nations and peoples, languages, and religions!”
“Really?” Taziri ran her tongue around her teeth, thinking. “There’s a special airship we built just for exploring Europa, the Frost Finch, specially equipped for the cold weather. I’ve read about their expeditions in the journals. They only found a few villages scattered along the northern coasts, I think. I got the impression there were only a few tribes in Europa north of Hellas and Italia. Big pale brutes like giant albinos, wearing furs and eating bones up on the glaciers.” She paused. “We lost the Finch a few winters ago. They were supposed to survey an island somewhere, but they never came back.”
“Well, I don’t know about any of that. But the cities of Hellas, Italia, and Espana are no mean little villages. And they’re much prettier than this place, I assure you.”
Taziri nodded. “You’re from a city called Dens, right?”
“Athens!”
The engineer continued bobbing her head. “Ah, that’s right. Sorry, my captain is the one who’s good with names. I’m better with wrenches.”
“I’ll take your word for it.” Evander squinted at her. “I’ve a question for you, since we’ve nothing better to do. If you’re not a soldier, why do you wear all that armor?”
Taziri glanced down at her orange flight jacket. The small steel plates were stitched into the lining of the chest, back, and sleeves. Rolling her shoulders, she felt the weight of the thing dragging her down, making her back ache, and always keeping her just a bit too warm. But for all its faults, she couldn’t imagine being on an airship without it. “It’s just for protection.”