Ilona Andrews - Magic Rises

Atsany said something. Astamur shrugged. “Castles are for rulers. Kings come and go. Someone has to be the shepherd.”

“Do you miss being with other people down in town? Must get lonely up here.” I wouldn’t miss them. I would totally hitch up a house in the mountain and live all by myself. No shapeshifters. No brokenhearted mothers. No, “Yes, Consort,” “Please, Consort,” “Help us, Consort.” Right now that sounded like pure happiness.

Astamur smiled. “Down in the cities people fight. I fought too for a while until I got tired of it.” Astamur pulled up his pant leg. An ugly scar punctured his calf. Looked like a knife or a sword thrust. “Russians.”

He wagged his eyebrows at me and pulled his shirt off his shoulder, exposing an old bullet wound in his chest. “Georgians.” He laughed.

Atsany rolled his eyes.

“Does he understand what you say?” I asked.

“He does. It’s his own kind of magic,” Astamur answered. “If it weren’t for supplies, I’d never go back down to town. But a man has to do what a man has to do. Hard to live like a king without toilet paper.”

We finished eating. Atsany pulled out a pipe and said something with a solemn expression.

“He says he owes you a debt. He wants to know what you want.”

“Tell him no debt. He doesn’t owe me anything.”

Atsany’s bushy eyebrows came together. He took out his pipe and lectured me in a serious voice, punctuating his words by pointing the pipe at me. I was clearly on the receiving end of a very serious talking-to. Unfortunately for him, he was barely a foot and a half tall. I bit my bottom lip trying not to laugh.

“Do you want a short version or a long one?” Astamur said.

“Short one.”

“You saved his life, he owes you, and you should let him pay it back. That last part is advice from me. It will make him very unhappy to know that he owes someone. So what do you want? Do you want him to show you where there are riches? Do you want a man to fall in love with you?”

If only love were that easy. I sighed. “No, I don’t want riches and I have a man, thank you. He isn’t exactly a man. And I don’t exactly have him anymore, but that’s neither here nor there.”

Astamur translated. “Then what do you want?”

“Nothing.”

“There has to be something.”

Fine. “Ask him if he would share the magic word with me.”

Astamur translated.

Atsany froze and said something, the words coming fast like rocks falling down the mountain.

“He says it might kill you.”

“Tell him I already have some magic words, so I probably won’t die.”

“Probably?” Astamur raised his eyebrows.

“A very small chance.”

Atsany sighed.

“He says he will, but I can’t look. I’ll check on the sheep.” Astamur got up and went toward the pasture. “Try not to die.”

“I’ll do my best.”

Atsany leaned forward, picked up a skewer, and wrote something in the dirt. I looked.

An avalanche of agony drowned me, exploding into a twisting maelstrom of glowing lines. I rolled inside, each turn hurting more and more, as if my mind were being picked apart, shaved off with some phantom razor blade one tiny, excruciating layer at a time. I turned inside the cascade of pain, faster and faster, trying desperately to hold on to my mind.

A word surfaced from the glow. I had to make it mine, or it would kill me.

“Aarh.” Stop.

The pain vanished. Slowly, the world returned bit by bit: the green grass, the smell of smoke, the distant noises of sheep, and Atsany wiping the dirt with his foot. I’d made it. Once again, I’d made it.

“You didn’t die,” Astamur said, coming closer. “We are both very glad.”

Atsany smiled and said something.

“He wants me to tell you that you are kind. He is glad that you have the word. It will help you in the castle with all those lamassu. He doesn’t know why you have them up there anyway. Don’t you know they eat people?”

My brain screeched to a halt.

“He thinks we have lamassu at the castle?”

“He says you do. He says he saw one of them carry off a body and then eat it.”

“Something is killing people at the castle,” I said. “But I’ve seen pictures of the lamassu statues. They have fur and human faces.”

Atsany waved his pipe around.

“He says it’s a, what’s the word . . . allegory. There are no animals with human heads, that’s ridiculous.”

Look who’s talking. An eighteen-inch-tall magic man in riding boots, werejackals, and sea dragons are all fine, but animals with human faces are ridiculous. Okay, then. Glad we cleared that up.

Atsany stood up, walked a few feet out into the grass, and started walking, putting one foot in front of the other, as if he were walking a tightrope. He turned sharply, walked five steps, turned again, drawing a complex pattern with his steps.

“The atsany have long memories. Watch,” Astamur said. “This is a rare gift. Not many people will ever see it in their lifetime.”

The small man kept going. A shiver ran through the grass as if it were fanned by invisible wings. The grass blades stood straight up in Atsany’s wake. A faint image formed above the grass, semitranslucent, shifting like a mirage. A vast city stood, encircled by tall textured walls. Two enormous lamassu statues stretched along the city wall, facing an arched gate, and two others, smaller, guarded its sides. Just inside the gates a tall narrow tower rose, so high I had to raise my head to see the top. It was early morning. The sun hadn’t risen yet, but the heat had already begun its advance. I smelled a hint of turmeric, smoke, and moisture in the air—there must’ve been a river nearby. Somewhere a dog barked. It was like a window through time had been opened just a crack.

This was my father’s world.

A column of smoke rose from one of the towers. A man in a long orange robe walked out of the gates, followed by two others. All three had long textured beards and conical hats, and each carried a gold ewer with a wide spout.

A distant howl rolled through the morning. The image turned and I saw a pack of wolves running hard across the plain. Light gray, with long legs and large ears, they were too large to be natural.

The pack closed in on the gates and stopped. The wolves shook, their bodies twisted, and men rose in their place. The leader, an older bald man, stepped forward. The bearded man said something and handed him the ewer. The werewolf drank straight from the spout and passed it on. The ewers made the rounds until every shapeshifter had drunk, and the pack returned the ewers to the bearded men.

The robed men stepped aside and two soldiers emerged from the gate, wearing lamellar armor shirts over kilts. They dragged a man bound by his hands and ankles, dropped him on the ground, and stepped back.

The man curled into a ball, babbling in sheer terror.

The shapeshifters went furry. Lupine lips bared fangs and the pack ripped into the man. He screamed, howling, and they tore him to pieces, snarling and flinging blood into the dirt. Acid rose in my stomach. I looked away. I could kill a man or a woman in a fight. This made me sick.

Finally he stopped screaming. I looked up and saw Astamur watching me. He nodded at the mirage. “You’ll miss it.”

I looked. The bloody shredded ruin of the man’s body lay by the gates. The wolves sat, as if waiting for something.

A minute passed. Another.

The alpha’s body split open. He grew, the flesh and bone spiraling up. Wings thrust from his shoulders. Scarlet scales sheathed his body. The bones of his skull shifted, supporting massive leonine jaws. The alpha roared.