The Old Races Read online

  "No, and I suppose neither can I. Not now. Damn Biru, anyway." Janx glanced to the sky, to the phalanx of dragons winging their way toward the horizon. "This will end badly, all of it. Not just today but every day until this nonsense has stopped. Where do they think dragonslayers come from," he demanded again, uselessly, then put the thought aside. "There'll be knights and warriors on the road, following Biru's flight. I'll fetch one, and we'll try to save the girl."

  "How? We can hardly fight to the death, and she's so fragile."

  "Let me worry about that. Stay here. I'll send Sabra back to you, and you'll see me no more."

  Janx himself would not have obeyed the command, but Toka did, diminishing in the distance as Janx strode away from palatial grounds to the nearest road. People streamed along it in both directions, the wiser ones heading away from the dragon flight, the less wise, toward it. Romans and Syrians alike, north and south alike, spreading color everywhere: rich shades of wealth and drab tones of poverty, but the poor were of no use to Janx. That was true enough to be written down, he thought, then snapped his fingers irritably at a northern-bound rider who wore a soldier's garb and carried a helm that looked like it had seen war. "You. Do you have a name?"

  The man drew up, expression stern with slight offense. "That is no way to speak to a Tribunus. I could have you crucified. Who are you?"

  Janx waved threat and question alike aside with a ffft of disinterest. "Do you have a name? Have you any fighting experience to go along with that sword and helm?"

  Tension spilled over the man's face, but pride was stronger than insult. Posture improving--and it had been excellent to begin with--he said, "I am Geōrgios, and I have been a guard at Nicomedia, sir. I am no stranger to war."

  "Geōrgios. Good. You're handsome enough, Geōrgios. Strong nose, a lot of hair, good skin. You're Syrian yourself, aren't you? Your coloring says so. Let me see your teeth."

  Geōrgios bared his teeth before he thought, then flushed with angry color and pressed his elbow against his short sword's hilt. Janx clicked his tongue, ignoring the new threat as easily as the last, then nodded. "You'll do. Come with me, Geōrgios. I'm going to make you immortal."

  They were impossibly large, dragons. Thirty paces in length, this cobalt-sheened beast, and its body blocked the river with coils to spare. Thin wings, long with slim, delicate-looking fingers holding membranes apart, looked too fragile to bear the animal into the air, though he'd seen it fly himself. Whiskers thick as river reeds quivered around its face, testing the air. Short and powerful legs, glittering claws washed in the river water. A watchful creature, ready for his enemies. Ready, too, to sup on the small woman who had so bravely come to bargain. She had lost the bargain already: a chain held her ankle, and the dragon held the chain's other end.

  There was no purpose in words, only in action. He knew where to strike, which the dragon never expected. Knew to be fearless and rush it headlong, even through the roar of fire that heated his armor. Knew to ignore the metal sticking to his skin, and to race up the beast's nose: it was so large he could do that, a quick step between flared nostrils and then a sword held high, a sword falling, a sword plunged into the black-as-night eye that stared up at him in astonishment.

  One blow, one hot splash of blood. Screams unlike anything men could make. A vast body, splashing in the river, thrashing, dying. Poison blood spilling forth, but it would dilute, and no harm would come to Sabra's people. She was yanked side to side as the dragon died, even fell deep into the water, but she found her way free again and never, ever screamed. Few women would be able to remain silent. Few men, for that matter; the death of a dragon was not an easy thing to see. This was one to watch now; there would be others. A flight of dragons in the sky promised that. They would have war, until the last of those willing to fight had died.

  As this one was now dead. The dragonslayer threw off his helm and wiped sweat from short, matted red hair. Stared at the blood and the offal and the elongated body that seemed so much smaller in death, and not for the first time, whispered, "Damn you, Biru. Damn you."

  He struck Sabra's chains away, set her free, then turned to the more important duty of transforming. Becoming the enormous red winged lizard that was his true form, and taking the nameless dragon's body away. Far away, to the heat of volcanoes, where it would return to the fire it had been born from. He had done this ugly duty before, and would do it again, for he is Geōrgios the Saint, he was Quirinus, Perseus, Marduk, Tahrun and Thor; and he had slain foolish dragons for a thousand years, and would slay them for a thousand more.

  the end

  SALT WATER STAINS THE SAND

  My name is Tahira Firaz Galia al-Shareef di Nazmi al-Massri, and today I have killed my brother.

  He does not know it yet, but I see it as he limps away over desert sands. He is an exile, lost to his people, and because of that, he is dead. Because of me, he is dead.

  It is not how I hoped this story would end.

  "He is wealthy and powerful. Respected among the clans. You could do no better."

  "He is old." A silly argument: I am old. There are very few young among us anymore, not since the Bedouins came to ride their horses through our sands and take the few resources we once called our own. The humans; my father and brother would not be pleased that I know their tribes by name, or that I care. They are all young, the humans, every one of them, even their most venerable sages. The most extraordinary see a hundred changes of the season, and I have long since lost count of how many soft desert springs I have witnessed. So: I am old.

  But not as old as Amar, who is so old the desert sun has bleached the blackness from his hair. So old that the sandstorms have driven lines into his skin, so old that his scowl reminds me of young mountains, harsh and sharp with their newly-risen ridges. He is old, and has thirteen wives, and I will not be the next.

  "Tahira," Malik says with a winsome note. "Tahira, you must listen to reason. Amar is powerful. He could destroy us if you refuse him."

  "How?" Oh yes, I am young by comparison. Arrogant with my youth. Arrogant with my beauty, which I have been assured since childhood is incomparable. The appeal is in my eyes, green as the northern sea, when most of the djinn have eyes of desert gold and river silt brown. Malik's eyes are like that: brown, so brown that even in sunlight they are nearly black. Now they are bright with hope, though; bright with the conviction that he alone can convince his willful sister of her foolishness. And if anyone could, it would be he. I have seen that Malik treats other women with disdain, but that is the way of my people. Whether we learned it from the humans or they from us, it seems a mark of the desert tribes. Within our families, within the sanctuaries of our homes, we are priceless jewels, but without, we are for barter, like the horses the Bedouin sell.

  I do not believe Amar would consider me a jewel, except as another one to parade through our short-lived desert cities, and I have come to think there is more to a life than being admired from a distance. I steal bits of knowledge from the world beyond the deserts, murmurs of gossip and of stories, and I hear of women--human women--who travel the world in search of adventures and equality. These are the things I dream of, though they are utterly forbidden.

  "He is wealthy," Malik says. "Wealthy beyond the djinn, Tahira, you know that. You know that he--"

  Silence. Complete silence, because though yes, of course, I do know, as does everyone, no one, not one of us, will admit aloud how Amar has broken the bonds of our people. We are djinn. We are an ancient and proud race, dancers with the wind, and one of the few, so few, remaining Old Races. Our ancient enemies, the water-born selkie, have disappeared, and dragons have not been seen in the skies for hundreds of years. Some no doubt still exist, eking out a worm-like existence beneath the sands, but their pride is gone. No gargoyle has come to record the histories of my people in a generation, and for the Old Races, a generation is long indeed. Nor do vampires haunt mortal nights, though they were never many to begin with. And we were all the most popul
ous of our peoples, the ones who survived the longest.

  And Amar has, in truth, betrayed us to the humans.

  Not so boldly as that, no. He has not spoken our secrets to them; of that we can be sure. No djinn would, because although we follow our own laws within the clans, we respect the very few strictures that bind all the Old Races. One is to never tell humans who and what we are, for fear of being hunted out of existence. So, no: Amar has not gone that far.

  But it is an well-known secret that his desert travels bring him not to the distant oases and rare growing fields but to the ancient buried tombs of the pharaohs and mortal princes. He guides humans to them for a fee, for a portion of the gold, which we have no especial use for. He has done this for centuries, aeons, but only in the past few years have the tomb raiders begun to ask for him. Only recently has he become known outside our tribes, and in becoming so known, become powerful. Humans are drawn to him, and now, ever more, the djinn look to him for leadership.

  "And you would have me marry him?" I ask sharply. The wind outside our tent is as harsh, wiping away my words. This is not a safe conversation, even with much of it going unspoken. No one keeps a secret from the djinn. We ride on the air, listening in eager silence until we have learned what we wish to know. Only then do we dance away again to manifest in bodily form to eat and sleep and love. This is why my own desire to break the rituals of my people has gone unsaid: I can trust no one with such madness, not even my beloved brother.

  "He could destroy us," Malik says again, more softly, and for the second time I say "How? We trade with the other tribes as we all do. Father's eastern travels bring back silks and spices no one else can match. As long as there is a desire for those things, Amar cannot be our ruin."

  "Unless he pays another to make the journey instead."

  I am dumbstruck, so startled I let myself whirl into insubstantiality. Now I can feel the rising wind as part of me, can feel the grains of sand it carries as warning of an oncoming storm. I can taste the desert's grit and resolution, the promise that nothing can stand in its way. It substantiates me, brings me back to the speaking world, and gives me voice that is rougher than how I spoke before. "Only Father knows the trade winds over the mountains. They are our family's security. He would never share them with anyone, and the only other choice is by sea."

  It is Malik's turn to shudder, though he keeps his grip on solidity better than I. Salt water is anathema to our people, the one thing that can bind us to bodies and force us to do another's bidding. No djinn travels by sea, even if the winds there are most favorable. They might die, too, and leave a djinni stranded over calm waters, waiting to see which lasted longer: his ability to remain incorporeal, or the quiet of the air. No: the sea is not an option, and there is no other way to China's riches.

  "But what if he could be made to tell?" Malik's voice is low. He is kneeling, unusually supplicant for my brother. "What if salt water was used to bind him, and the routes commanded from him then?"

  I stare. "Amar wouldn't."

  Malik lifts his gaze, fear plain to see in his brown eyes. It comes to me that he was lying before. Lying with the brightness in his face, the humor and winsomeness in his an act for a doting little sister. He was masking fear, hoping I would bend to charm before his terror broke through. I rise, silk robes hissing against each other, and there is shrill demand in my voice: "Where is Father now?"

  Malik looks away, and a shriek rips from my throat. We are mist, we are fog, we are dancers on the wind, but it is with concussive force that I dissipate. The energy expended rings in my ears, outrage and fear, and I use it to direct myself against the rising storm. Crosswise to the winds, chasing distance as though it is not there, and when I materialize it is within the very heart of Amar's tents: within the harem, where the women gather to wait out the storm.

  I am a dervish, whirling through them. I hold a curved blade in one hand, seized from a table, and as I dance I cut and cut and cut. Screams stutter in my hearing, my ears catching the sound only as I take form long enough to slice and slice and slice again, and when I am done I fling the blade tip-down into the carpets. It quivers where it lands, but I do not share its hesitancy as I snarl, "It is me Amar wants. Tell him to release my father and come for me if he dares."

  Then I am gone, and with me comes a thousand strands of floating hair, the prize and jewel of the women of the harem shorn away.

  "I will not face a woman." Amar's contempt is staggering. He is furious, lined face flushed with rage, but he holds the tatters of his honor in place, as if it was not a woman who has humiliated him and his harem.

  I spit, shocking waste of water in a desert land. There are few signs of greater derision among my people, and there is a collective indrawn breath from those who have gathered to judge our cases. "A woman should not dare," comes a voice from the crowd, and I spit a second time.

  "Should not dare spit on one who is beneath contempt or should not say aloud what we all know? How dare this man claim to be honorable when we know, we all know that he does business with human treasure hunters? When we know he profits fr--"

  "From their greed." Amar has controlled his anger and interrupts in his beautiful, rich voice. "Human treasure hunters who desecrate human graves. Why should I--we--not profit from their lack of respect for their dead? Why should we, who are part of this land's history from before humanity's rise, not be part of its future as well? Why should we not barter and bargain and shape our destiny, rather than hide and wait for our doom as the others have done? It is against the laws," he says, disgust rolling through the words. "Laws which assure our destruction. We do not have to confess all, to show ourselves to them, to become human, in order to control and manipulate them. The laws would have us die away, when we might do so much better."

  My stomach slips. This is not the argument he is here to make. He is meant to face me in a fight for my hand. A fight for my father's safety, not twist the moment to make us look at the choices we have and are making. The worst of it, the worst of it is that impossibly, impossibly, I agree with him. We will die, we are dying, without bold action, and his are the boldest imaginable. But that is not the battle I meant to fight.

  "Tahira al-Massri might do better, too," Amar murmurs. "She might stand at my side, first wife, as I lead our people into that future. I have her father's permission. Now I will have her."

  "No." It is all slipping away from me. My father, my beloved father, stands beside Amar now. There are no marks on him, no dampness that threatens of seawater used as a weapon. His expression is serene, with no sorrow hidden in its depths. He belongs to Amar now, whether through fear or bargaining, and I am the price of that bargain. My hands clench in impotent fear. It does not matter that I agree with Amar's madness. I will not be bargained for: my future is worth more than that. To me, if no one else, and there is only one threat I have left to make. Not a threat; threats lack credence, and I mean what I say with every fiber of my being. "Then I will walk into the sea and be drowned, and the djinn will lose not only me but any children I might bear."

  "That will not be necessary." Malik, Malik, darling brother, foolish brother, comes forward from the gathering, his dark eyes calm. "If you will not face her, Amar, then face me. If I lose, it is my life forfeit to your whim rather than Tahira's. And if I win, it is your fortune and place of power within the clans that is mine. But you cannot refuse my challenge," he says more softly, "unless you are a coward."

  I do not even see the first strike, it is so fast. I do not see Amar dissipate, nor reappear, only that my brother is suddenly on his knees. In the next moment he too is gone, and every one of us gathered on the sands edges backward to give them room.

  It is not like a mortal battle, a battle of djinn. Men stand and face one another, always seeing where his opponent comes from, always observing the coming blow. When djinn fight, it is a flurry of sandstorms, of wind given dire personality of its own. We can do each other no harm when we remain incorporeal, and so the dervish
es whip around one another, throwing sand and spinning air until one, so suddenly, becomes something like a man, and there is a clash of swords.

  Only the briefest clash, though, before they are both air again, neither having gained the advantage. Blade hits blade, no more. A test of strength and of speed, but never a killing blow. There are laws, among the Old Races, about killing those of our own. We respect that, outside the tribes, but within, oh, within.

  Again sand sprays, blades smash together, and wind whips away. In time they will have the other's measure, and then will stand to fight; that is the only way an end can come. That is the manner in which djinn fight. My brother is younger, which may stand him well in the end: stamina will matter. But Amar is old and wily, and that may be Malik's undoing. I have no sense of it, only of my heart beating so hard it underscores the clash of their blades, and of the coldness of my hands despite the desert heat. Again they meet, swords ringing, and dissipate. Again. Again. Again.

  I had not thought it could be done. No one watching thought it could be done: that much is clear from the gasp that arises. It takes such anticipation, such understanding of the opponent, such certainty, that no one save the most ancient of warriors would even try, much less succeed.

  Amar is that most ancient warrior, and success is blood on his blade.

  He is kneeling when he manifests. Kneeling, with his saber thrust backward, captured between his arm and body. It is a wicked curved line, deadly sharp, a low strike. Except he is motionless; there is no strike made.

  Malik manifests around the blade.

  It is his thigh that is pierced as he swings much too high, prepared for, expecting, an ordinary clash of swords. Color drains from his face, shock so great he cannot even scream. Two objects cannot occupy the same space, and Amar's sword was there first.