“But you’re still angry,” he said slowly.
“No.” She shook her head. “No, I’m not angry.”
“But you still don’t want me.”
“No.” She turned to look at him. “I don’t want anyone. I don’t want anything. Why would I? Everything ends.”
“You don’t. I don’t. We’re forever, you and me.”
“But love isn’t forever. Happiness isn’t forever. And I don’t like losing things. I’m tired of watching things break and fall apart.”
He frowned and looked away. “So no more things? No more me? No more love?”
She snorted. “Shut up, Gideon.” Nadira stood up, slapping the dust from her trousers. She rested her hand on the pommel of her saber and turned to look up the long road to the north.
He stood up and rested his hand on her shoulder. “There must be something for you. Something more than haunting Damascus and wading across battlefields. It’s a big world out there.”
Nadira shrugged his hand off. “I did like the dragon. It scared me. I’d never seen anything like it before. And for a minute, I really thought it might kill me. It was terrifying. And I felt…”
“Alive,” Gideon said.
“Alive.” Nadira nodded. “Do you think there are more dragons out there?”
“Probably. And other things stranger than dragons. Who knows?”
“You’ve never been?”
He shrugged. “I’ve been as far east as Ming. But there’s a lot more out there. Hundreds of islands to the south and the east.”
“Where you’ve never been?”
“Never.”
Nadira smiled. She unhooked her sword from her belt and rested it on her shoulder. “Then maybe when this business in Constantia is over, I’ll take a little walk to the east and see if I can find some more dragons to slay.” She started walking away, and over her shoulder she said, “What about you?”
“I thought I might head back to Alexandria. It’s probably time for me to clean out that nest of vipers again anyway,” he said.
She paused. “You like her? Asha?” She looked back at him.
He grinned. “Take care of yourself, Nadira.”
She dragged her sleeve across her nose and sniffed. “You too, old man.” And she walked away, smiling.
Book Two
Chapter 1
Asha stood in the loud, dusty street and looked up at the strange temple of ancient stone and polished wood, and she wondered how long it would take her to destroy it. The sun hung low in the western sky above Alexandria and the spring breeze grew colder through her long, unfettered hair.
“You’re certain this is what you wish to do?” asked Priya.
Asha exhaled slowly and looked at her friend. “Yes.”
The little nun smiled and adjusted the red cloth tied across her eyes, and leaned on her tall staff with its jangling brass rings set into the top. “I admit that this will undoubtedly make the world a better place. These Osirian people are dangerous. Their weapons are unholy. Their acts, unforgivable.”
“I’m glad we still agree. Sometimes I think your compassion goes too far.” Asha looked back toward the doors of the temple, which were guarded by half a dozen men in green robes, each wearing two or three belts laden with knives and other, stranger weapons. As she studied them, she noticed a middle-aged gentleman and a very young woman crossing the street to approach the temple steps.
There was nothing remarkable about the man, but the girl had skin the color of snow and hair the color of blood. She wore a rustling dress of black silk with a black scarf tied over the top of her head, and her eyes were hidden by a pair of glasses with blue lenses.
“I’m not concerned for these Sons of Osiris,” Priya was saying. “And I don’t care about their godless temple. What I do care about is you. You’ve never done anything like this before. This is different from fighting a lone man or stopping a crime. This is violence on a much larger scale. You could lose control. You could lose yourself. I could lose you.”
Asha looked back at the nun. “I won’t let that happen. I promise.”
“I’m going to hold you to that promise,” Priya said. “Jagdish and I will be terribly sad and lonely if you become a monster.” The sleepy mongoose poked his whiskers out from behind the curtain of Priya’s flowing black hair as he clung to her shoulder. He squeaked, and then huddled back down against the nun’s neck. “And it doesn’t need to be now. We’ve only just arrived. We can wait and see what there is to be seen of this place and what goes on here. Learn more. Think more. Perhaps even find another way, if another way exists.”
“No. No waiting. We crossed an empire to find this place, to stop these men. I don’t want to know more about them. I don’t want to understand them,” Asha said, her gaze shifting back to the pale girl in the black dress on the temple steps. “They murder the innocent, and they enslave the souls of the dead. I don’t want to wait and let them hurt one more person while I stand by, doing nothing.”
The nun touched her shoulder. “It’s all right. I understand.”
“You shouldn’t be here when I do it. It won’t be safe,” Asha said. “I’ll take you back to the hotel.”
“No, I want to be here,” Priya said. “In case you need me.”
“I won’t.”
“Still.” The nun smiled and headed across the street, her staff jingling softly with each step, her long unbound hair festooned with white lotus blossoms fluttering in the cool Aegyptian breeze.
Asha watched her companion move gracefully through the foot traffic and the beasts of burden and the mechanical wagons spewing steam, and the nun reached the shadows of a sheltered alleyway without incident. The evening surge of merchants and porters, mercenaries and priests, mothers and children flowed around her, full of zebras and camels and huge spotted deer called sivatheras.
But the traffic slowly thinned as the sun went down, and the noise faded bit by bit. Asha turned back to the Temple of Osiris and she tried to look at it dispassionately, wondering how heavy and thick the stone walls of the lower fortress might be, and how strong the wooden beams of the upper pagoda might be.
How much power will it take to destroy something like this?
How much strength?
How much of the dragon?
There was no way to know, and no way to guess. But it had to be done.
All of it then.
She glanced one last time at the doors of the temple where the Aegyptian man and the strange girl in black were speaking to the guards.
I wonder. Could she be one of them? No, she doesn’t look anything like them. Then, could she be a prisoner? A slave? Are they taking her in there, never to let her leave? Well, she won’t be among them for much longer. She’ll be free soon.
Asha closed her eyes and exhaled slowly, preparing for the dragon, and searching for a memory to call it forth. She had so many memories to choose from. The doctor who tortured the people of India and Rajasthan, the foolish parents who neglected their children, the spouses who beat each other, the landowners who reduced their workers to starving slaves, the murderers, the thieves, and on and on. She kept a vast gallery of human monsters and atrocities in the back of her mind, each one bright and hideous, and each one able to inspire some degree of rage in her heart.
But now, she reached all the way back to the first evil, the very first vision of hateful cruelty in her mind. It was the image of a beautiful youth lying on a table, his chest carefully opened and his blood dripping slowly onto the floor. The surgical knives were arrayed nearby with the lenses, powders, and razors. The doctors were coming toward her, leaving the room, leaving the youth alone on the table, his face still contorted in his final moments of agony.
She had asked them, Why didn’t you save him?
And they had answered, Because we didn’t want to.