“Yes, ma’am.”
“Oh please,” Kenan muttered.
Taziri shot him a look.
“And considering the outcome,” the general continued, “it will be the recommendation of this panel that Major Zidane receive a posthumous commendation for his heroic actions.”
“Are you kidding me?” Kenan slapped his hand on the desk.
“Lieutenant!” Major Geroubi leaned around Taziri and peered at Kenan with her one good eye. “You’re dismissed. Get out.”
The young lieutenant stood up slowly, a sneer slowly curling his lip. “Go to hell, all of you. I’m through with this.” He shrugged off his dress uniform jacket and threw it over the table, and he left.
The room was silent except for the general’s fingers drumming on her desk.
“I’m sorry, general,” Isoke said. “Please continue.”
“Well, we’re nearly finished.” The proceedings continued for another half hour of questions and answers that had already been exchanged several times over the previous few weeks. Eventually the senior officers filed out and the junior officers in the gallery raced out and Taziri wandered out last of all with Isoke.
Outside, the streets of Tingis were still humming with the electric hiss of the wires strung overhead, crisscrossing from building to building. A trolley clacked down the center of the road, its antenna scraping down the hanging power lines. Countless windmills spun and rattled on the rooftops and far off to their left Taziri heard the distinctive bellow of a huge megathera as it lumbered through the warehouse district, no doubt hauling some massive piece of machinery into place.
“You did good,” Isoke said. “All things considered. It was a mess from one end to the other, no doubt about that, but it came out all right in the end. Zidane was a good man, but not a good officer.”
“I’m starting to think Kenan might be the opposite.” Taziri squinted at the sun hanging low in the western sky. “I suppose he’s no great loss.”
“No, he’s not.” Isoke reached up to adjust her eye patch. “My plane, however, is another matter.”
Taziri smiled. “Sorry about that. But at least this time I brought back two thirds of it.”
“You do know the name Halcyon means quiet and peaceful, right?”
“Are you sure?” Taziri feigned confusion. “I thought it meant flaming ball of death.”
Isoke steered Taziri down the street. “You’re going to help me rebuild it. Again.”
“Sounds like fun. I guess I’ll need to be in town for a long while then?”
Isoke nodded. “You really don’t like flying, do you?”
Taziri shrugged. “I liked it in the beginning. But it’s just too hard now. Menna’s growing up. Yuba’s career has been on hold for years. And to be honest, I’m not that great at it. I don’t have the feel for it. Not anymore. I’m an engineer, Isoke. Always have been.”
“Well, maybe it’s time to take you off the flight roster.”
Taziri smiled. “Promise?”
“Sure. But it’ll be hell finding a replacement for you in the field. The kids today are all piss and wind, reckless punks, stunt jockeys. Heaven help me.”
Taziri laughed and gave her friend a shove. “Well, it’s like you always say. Life is full of small challenges.”
“Nothing small about it. They all want to be like you, you lunatic.”
“Speaking of lunacy, after we finish with your plane I have a design of my own I’ve been meaning to show you.”
Isoke arched her eyebrow. “Something wild? You know I like wild.”
“Yeah, it’s a little wild. For starters, we’re going to need a locomotive…”
Book Three: The Bound Soul
Day One
Chapter 1. Qhora
A warm breeze played through the curtains by the window overlooking the wide street where hundreds of people, zebras, ox-drawn carts, and sivathera-drawn carriages bustled back and forth around the rattling trolleys. A warm golden light burned through the evening haze of dust and smoke, a light not from the first handful of stars above but from the streetlamps below, all flickering and buzzing and hissing with electricity.
Outside there was the quiet chaos of the end of the day, of making the last delivery, of getting the evening groceries, of rounding up the children, and of going home for supper. Outside it was a sultry summer evening in the seaside city of Tingis, in northernmost Marrakesh.
Inside, Qhora could feel the gathering darkness and the lingering heat, the haze of sea air and sweat making her skin glisten and shine, making the room just a little darker and fainter. She closed her eyes and listened to Lorenzo’s soft grunts and eager heaving breaths beneath her. Pushing down on his chest, she sat up and arched her back. His strong hands clutched her thighs, holding her down, rocking her with him.
She opened her eyes just a little to gaze at the cheap painting on the wall above the bed, and the floral patterns of the wallpaper, and the strange little electric lamps on the tables beside the bed. The painting was in the new Mazigh style, some sort of colorful abstraction that bored her. For a moment she missed the snowy Espani landscapes hanging in their own bedroom at home.
Qhora smiled and closed her eyes again. Lorenzo quickened the pace and began kneading her hips more roughly. The warm surging tides running up and down her spine quickened with him, and she felt herself slipping deeper into the haze of pleasure, beyond thought and control, closer and closer… she leaned back farther, squeezing him tighter between her legs, digging her small brown fingers into his pale, hard stomach muscles.
She bit her lip.
Faster.
Harder.
Deeper.
Enzo groaned and grabbed her tighter, his body so still except for the tiny shudders. A moment later, she joined him in that place, in that world of trembling heat and joy. She crushed him between her legs trying to fill herself up with him, wishing she could wrap her entire body around his and devour him and hold him there forever, hot and pulsing and shivering.
But then the fullness of the moment retreated, slipping away to wherever it lurked when she wasn’t riding him or he wasn’t riding her, to wait for the next time.
As the heat began to fade, she rolled off him to sprawl on the cool hotel sheets. Qhora lay still as the last hot tide of her sex subsided and she listened to the noise outside.
So different from home. So busy. So loud. So hot.
Enzo sighed. “Do you think they heard us?”
Qhora glanced at the door that led to the neighboring suite where Alonso and Mirari were babysitting little Javier. She smiled. She couldn’t remember if she had made any noise at all. “I don’t think so. It’s so noisy out there. I can’t imagine how anyone can hear anything in this city.”
They lay side by side, not quite touching. The heat of the moment was gone, replaced by the heat of the city, the clamminess of the sheets, and the humidity of the air.
Lorenzo sat up. “I’m hungry. Are you hungry?”
“Starving.” She sat up on the opposite side of the bed and picked up her blue Mazigh blouse. It was lighter and looser than her Espani dresses, and the one thing about this country that she genuinely liked. With the blouse and matching skirt on, the only thing about her that was even mildly Espani was the small golden triquetra medallion hanging between her breasts.
As she glanced over her things scattered across the side table, the open suitcase, and the floor, she tried to remember where any of her old Incan things might be. Her feathered cloak lay in a trunk in the attic back home in Madrid. The rest were simply gone. Her old clothes had been useless in the freezing Espani winters and even in the cool summers, and whenever they had begun to run out of money she had been quick to sell her jewelry.
They were only things. Pretty things. Things from home. But still only things.
Lorenzo stood across the room, tugging his black trousers up his slender legs, buttoning a white cotton shirt over his lean chest, and kicking his feet into his low black boots.