Joseph Lewis - Wren the Fox Witch

“Two thousand,” Nadira said.

“Does it change?” Yaga repeated. “The way you see time, the way you move in the world, the way you feel life and death moving around you. Does it change? Ever?”

“No.” Nadira swept a few short stray hairs behind her ear, and then started picking in her ear. “Nothing changes, ever. Things come and go. Why?”

Yaga shook her head.

“So what did he want you to do for him?” Nadira asked. “I was supposed to study aether for him. I did for a while, but I lost interest. I got tired of watching people die. I still I am, but at least I’m free to waste my time how I like now.”

“Aether.” Yaga nodded. “He asked me about aether, too. And ghosts. And death. But he never came back.”

Nadira bobbed her head and stopped digging in her ear.

“I’m tired,” Yaga said. “Tired of it all. Aren’t you?”

“I thought I was.” Nadira shrugged. “But now, I’m starting to think that I’m more bored than tired.”

“Well, I’m tired,” Yaga said. “I was too old for this when he made me immortal, and now I’m five hundred years too old for this. People aren’t supposed to live this long, to think for this long, to fill themselves up with memories and feelings and nightmares for this long.”

“But there’s no way out,” Nadira said. “The only thing that can break the pendants is another piece of sun-steel, and then you’ll lose it all, your whole soul, trapped forever.”

“Trapped?” Yaga cackled, her tiny green eyes twinkling with glee. “A soul inside the sun-steel cannot escape, but it is no different from being trapped upon this earth, or in this flesh.” She reached over and pinched Nadira on the arm. “It isn’t a prison cell where you suffer and serve for all eternity. For the most part, you sleep in darkness and silence, as peaceful as the grave. From time to time, some living person touches the sun-steel and asks for your service, so you wake up, and you answer their question, and you go back to sleep again. Didn’t you know that?”

Nadira shook her head. “Sounds boring.”

“It sounds wonderful.” Yaga sighed. “Perhaps… no, but Koschei. He needs me.”

“Koschei the Deathless needs you?” Nadira laughed. “You old fool, he’s an immortal butcher. He is death and war incarnate. He doesn’t need anyone.”

“You don’t know him like I do.”

“I know him well enough. I was there when the Turks shot him and chained him. I saw it. I heard it,” Nadira said, staring into the crone’s eyes. “He swore to do unspeakable things to those men. Hateful, evil things. To them, and to their mothers, and to their daughters. I’ve known many men in my time, and I can tell you exactly what sort a man is by what he says about women, and I can tell you, Yaga, that your son doesn’t need you.”

“That was just war-talk. Men spout all sorts of nonsense when they fight.” Yaga frowned, her wrinkled lips folding in upon themselves. “You’re wrong about him.”

“No, I’m not.” Nadira snorted and spat across the room. The wad of phlegm smacked against the wall in the shadows. “So if it wasn’t for Koschei, you would let Bashir kill you and take your soul into his sword?”

“I would.” Yaga hesitated. “Him, or someone like him.”

“Huh.” Nadira sighed loudly. “He wants to take me back to Alexandria with him. He said he was going to teach me some new way to live. I don’t know about that. I’m good at fighting.”

“Then why stop?”

“I don’t know. It’s not the same anymore. Or it is the same. Exactly the same. Bashir said I should see the world and see how other people live,” Nadira said.

“Or maybe, you could see the world to see how other people fight,” Yaga said. “It’s foolish to deny your nature. But it’s just as foolish to be a slave to your nature.”

Nadira pouted. “Maybe. I’ll have to think about it, I guess.”

“Think all you like,” Yaga said. “You have all the time in the world.”

Nadira nodded, and after a moment she stood up. “I think I’ll get going. It’s a big world out there. I’ve got a lot of walking to do.”

“There are faster ways to go than walking.”

“Faster, but not better.” Nadira paused at the bottom of the steps and looked back at the white-haired crone. “We probably won’t meet again. Take care of yourself.”

“And you.”

Nadira turned and started back up the steps. In her mind she tried to picture the world beyond the borders of the empire, beyond the peoples and the cities that she had known for two thousand years. She conjured up new cities, but they looked just like Damascus, and the people all looked like Persians, and they all fought with sabers.

She smiled.

Well, I’ll just have to see it when I get there. I wonder what Nippon is like.

She climbed to the top of the stairs and left the tower. Out in the courtyard, she paused to glance about, wondering which way led out of the palace grounds, when the droning of the airship engines suddenly grew louder and sharper. She looked up and saw the vast round nose of the first balloon come over the south wall of the palace, heading straight toward her.

The other two airships were a bit farther behind and looked to be farther out over the water, but this one was already over the wide green park and coming closer to the little white tower and the broad gravel courtyard with every passing moment.

Nadira sighed, turned toward the largest gate in sight, and started walking with her empty hands resting in the hidden pockets of her borrowed green dress. She was still walking when the bombs began to fall behind her, shaking the earth and hurling grass and gravel at her back. And she was still walking, with her hands in her pockets, when she heard the first building crumble and fall to the ground behind her.

But she didn’t look back.

Omar jogged through the streets of Stamballa with one hand clutching his sheathed seireiken. Koschei pounded along behind him, his bare feet slapping on the cold cobblestones. Up ahead they could hear men yelling and rifles firing and swords clashing, and all of the sounds echoing and rolling over on themselves in the narrow corridors of the city streets.

Damn those idiots!

Omar turned the last corner and saw the battle raging all the way down the street to the edge of the water. Above them the roofs of nearly every house were burning brightly, the flames roared loudly, the smoke vomited upward in filthiest black, and the dying timbers cracked and collapsed left and right. Entire roofs gave way all at once and crashed into the homes, and some houses were beginning to lean downhill toward the sea.

“Stand down!” Omar yelled.

No one heard him.

Koschei barreled past with a mad bellow and leapt onto the backs of two Turks in blue. The Rus warrior sank his elbow through one man’s skull as he wrapped his other arm around a man’s neck and choked him into oblivion. Then Koschei picked up an Eranian saber in one hand and a brick in the other, and screamed.

Half the men on the street, even in the middle of swinging a blade or aiming a gun, looked up and saw the half-naked Rus barbarian roaring at them, his arm painted in blood from the elbow down.

A rifle fired and the bullet tore through Koschei’s shoulder, spraying a fine red mist into the air, but the warrior only screamed louder as he rushed down the street with his weapons raised. The saber hacked artlessly at necks and stabbed brutally at bellies while the brick smashed left and right through jawbones and eye sockets. Koschei chopped off hands and arms and ears and legs, and he crushed skulls and shattered ribs. And all the while he screamed with joy as the hot blood splashed across his face and the bodies fell to the earth in pieces all around him.