Magic Rises kd-6 Page 30

  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.

  Holy shit. Doolittle was right.

  One by one the werewolves turned. The leader dashed through the gates and into the tower. The rest followed single file. A moment and the alpha leaped from the top of the tower, spreading his massive wings. He swooped down and soared and his pack glided behind him.

  Atsany stopped. The mirage faded.

  The small man began to speak, pausing for Astamur’s translation. “Long ago there was a kingdom of Assur past the mountains to the south. The kingdom had many wizards and their armies were often gone to conquer, so the wizards made lamassu. They used tribes of gyzmals and changed them with magic. That’s why there are many different kinds of lamassu: some ha
ve bull bodies, some have lion, some have wolf. They chose bulls and lions for their statues, because they were the largest.

  “When not needed, the lamassu were just like normal gyzmals, but when a city was in danger, the wizards would feed lamassu human meat, and then they would grow strong and vicious. They would gain wings and terrible teeth, and then they would fall on the enemy from above and devour them.”

  I’d never heard or read anything remotely like this, but just because I’d never heard of it didn’t make it impossible.

  “The statues are a warning. They mean ‘This is a city protected by lamassu.’ The human heads to show that they are both human and beast, and the five legs to show that they are not always what they appear. We have known of lamassu for a long time and we stay clear of them. Not all lamassu are evil, but those who choose to eat human flesh are.”

  If he was right, then any of the packs in the castle could be lamassu. “So how can you tell if a shapeshifter is a lamassu?”

  Atsany shrugged. “Feed it human meat,” the shepherd translated.

  Duh. Ask a dumb question . . . “Is there any other way?”

  “No.”

  “Do they have any kind of weakness? Anything special?”

  Astamur sighed. “He says they don’t like silver.”

  I must’ve looked desperate, because Atsany came over and petted my hand. It will be alright.

  I sighed. “Can I have more wine?”

  * * *

  The sky turned dark. I lay on the blanket watching the stars sparkling like diamonds. The moon shone bright, spilling veils of ethereal light onto the mountains. Maybe it was my imagination, but the night seemed brighter here. Perhaps the mountains brought us closer to the moon.

  A soothing calm came over me. The castle and the strain of being there had worn me down, and right now I couldn’t care less about Curran, Hugh, or Roland. The pressurized walls that had ground on me while I was there fell away. I just wanted to stay here, lie on my blanket, and be free.

  Maybe if I was extra lucky, Hugh and Curran would elope together and take Lorelei with them while I was gone.

  I would probably go back in the morning. But right now I just didn’t want to, and the thought of running away tasted so sweet, I was afraid to turn it over in my mind. I could disappear into these mountains and live a simple life: hunt, fish, grow fruit trees, and not have to worry about anything.

  Atsany told us great stories of his people, of fighting giants and dragons, of great heroes—narty—and winged horses. Astamur translated quietly, sitting propped against a pillow.

  “. . . the great Giant-adau saw the strange herd of horses in his pasture. He crossed his huge arms and bellowed. ‘Whose horses are these? They look like the narty’s horses, but the narty wouldn’t dare—’”

  Astamur fell silent. Atsany blinked and poked the shepherd’s boot with his pipe. I leaned over. Astamur was staring at the mountain, his jaw slack.

  I turned.

  A massive beast dashed along the mountain apex. Huge, at least six hundred pounds, the creature covered the distance in great leaps. The moonlight traced his gray mane and slid off the thick cords of his muscles. He was neither beast nor man, but a strange four-legged meld of the two, built to run despite his bulk.

  How the hell did he even find me?

  Atsany jumped up and down, waving his pipe. Without taking his gaze from the beast, Astamur reached for his rifle. “A demon?”

  “No, not a demon.” I might have preferred one. “That’s my boyfriend.”

  Atsany and the shepherd turned to look at me.

  “Boyfriend?” Astamur said.

  Curran saw us. He paused on a stone crag and roared. The raw declaration of strength cracked through the mountains, rolling down the cliffs like a rockslide.

  “Yep. Don’t worry. He’s harmless.”

  Curran charged down the mountain. Most nonlamassu shapeshifters had two forms, human and animal. The more skilled of them could hold a third one, a warrior form, an upright, monstrous hybrid of the two designed for inflicting maximum damage. Curran had a fourth, a hybrid closer to the lion than to a human. I’d seen it only once before, when Saiman pissed him off out of his mind and Curran chased him and me through the city. It was the night we made love for the first time.

  If he thought this would win him any favors, he would be seriously disappointed.

  The giant leonine beast galloped down the mountain and across the grass, heading straight for us. The moonlight spilling from the sky set his back aglow, highlighting the dark stripes crossing the gray fur.

  Twenty yards. Fifteen. Ten.

  Atsany and Astamur froze, rigid.

  Five.

  The colossal lion jumped and landed a foot away from me, the dark mane streaming. The impact of his leap sent sparks flying from the fire. His eyes burned with molten gold. The powerful feline maw gaped open, showing terrifying fangs as big as my hand. Curran snarled.

  I swatted him on the nose. “Stop it! You’re scaring the people who rescued me.”

  The gray lion snapped into a human form. Curran jerked his hands up as if crushing an invisible boulder. “Aaaaaa!”

  Okay.

  He grabbed the edge of a big rock sticking out of the grass. Muscles flexed on his naked frame. He wrenched the boulder out of the ground. The four-foot-long rock had to weigh several thousand pounds—his feet sank into the grass. Curran snarled and hurled the rock against the mountain. The boulder flew, hit like a cannon ball, and rolled back down. Curran chased it, pulled another smaller rock out of the dirt, and smashed it against the first one.

  Wow. He was really pissed.

  Astamur’s eyes were as big as plates.

  “I can get him to put those back after he’s done,” I told him.

  “No,” Astamur said slowly. “It’s fine.”

  Curran picked up the smaller rock with both hands and threw it onto the larger boulder. The boulder cracked and fell apart. Oops.

  “Sorry we broke your rock.”

  Atsany took the pipe out of his mouth and said something.

  “Mrrrhhhm,” Astamur said.

  “What did he say?”

  “He said that the man must be your husband, because only someone we love very much can make us this crazy.”

  Curran kicked the remains of the boulder, spun, and marched toward me.

  I crossed my arms.

  “I thought you were dead! And you’re here, sitting around the fire, eating and . . .”

  “Listening to fairy tales.” Helpful, that’s me. “We’re about to have s’mores and you’re not invited.”

  Curran opened his mouth. His gaze paused on Atsany. He blinked. “What the fuck?”

  “Don’t stare. You’ll hurt his feelings.”

  Atsany nodded at Curran in a solemn way.

  Curran shook his head and pivoted toward me. “I almost killed B. The only reason she’s alive right now is because she had to show me where you fell.”

  “Oh, so Princess Wilson let you out of the castle? Did she have to sign your permission slip? You got a hall pass, woo-hoo!”

  “So this is what it’s about? This is your mature response—to go off into the mountains rather than talking about it and have s’mores with a gnome and a mountain man.”

  “Yep.”

  “What’s your plan for tomorrow? Brunch with a unicorn?”

  “As long as it doesn’t involve you, it’s fine with me.”

  “So really? That’s it, just like that.” Curran turned around. “Wait a minute. Where is Hugh? Shouldn’t he be flexing for you?”

  “I’m surprised you noticed.”

  He squeezed his hands into fists. I picked up a grapefruit-sized rock and handed it to him. It went flying. Home run, Beast Lord style.

  “I noticed. I just can’t do anything about it.”

  “You know what the difference is? Hugh can stand there and flex all he wants. I can’t control what he does. I can control what I do and I don’
t encourage him. You let her parade in front of you naked. You told me you had no interest in her and then you invited her to sit at the table in my chair. You went on a little rendezvous with her where you explained how you were lonely and cried about all the sacrifices you made by being with me.”

  His eyes sparked with gold. “You. That was you on the balcony.”

  “You spend every waking moment with her, while I get told endlessly that nobody has to answer any of my questions, because I’m clearly on my way out and she’s on her way in and since we’re not married, I’m easy to replace.”

  “You want to get married? I’ll marry you right now. Is the gnome a preacher, because I’ll do it.”

  “That’s a hell of a proposal.”

  “What did he say?” Astamur asked.

  “He wants me to marry him.”

  Astamur relayed it. Atsany waved his pipe and Astamur translated back. Ha!

  “What?” Curran snarled.

  “Atsany says you’re not ready for marriage. You don’t have the right temperament for it.”

  Curran struggled with that for a second.

  “Let me know if your head’s going to explode, so I can duck.”

  “We’re not married because every time I bring up marriage or children, you freak the hell out.”

  “I don’t!”

  “Three weeks ago I asked you if you wanted to have kids. You looked like you were ready to bolt.”

  “I had just come from watching a child go loup for hours while trying to comfort her mother.” I waved my arms. “You know what, you’re right. Let’s have kids. Let’s have a brood of them. And when my asshole father comes through Atlanta burning it to the ground, we’ll both cry together as they die. Or worse, maybe our kids will be human.” I put my hand on my chest. “Heaven forbid.”

  “Really? Human? What am I?” he snarled.

  Ouch. “You’re a special snowflake, that’s what you are.” I mimicked Lorelei. “But they can never join you on a hunt. What torture . . .”

  He stepped forward. “We’ve been together a year. How many times have you seen me hunt?”