The Gathering Storm

A song rose from the stern, and he glanced back, surprised to hear a strong alto of such beauty where death came rushing to meet them. Sister Meriam stood at the railing cupping something in her hands that she blew softly against while her granddaughter, beside her, sang with such piercing clarity that it hurt to hear her.



“It won’t be enough,” he whispered, not meaning to be heard.



“Do not underestimate our power,” said Marcus. “You are not a man of faith, Zacharias. You doubt too much.”



The still waters, all that separated them from the oncoming galley, roiled and churned. The drum faltered once, but the steady beat resumed faster than before as the oars dipped and lifted in unison. The waters boiled up in clouds of steam. An angel rose from the sea as glorious as the dawn and towering as tall as their mast. Her hair streamed like sunlight around her uncovered head; her expression was grim and implacable. With each slow beat, her wings of flame shed sparks which spat and snapped as they plummeted into the salt water. She held a bow composed of shimmering blue fire, an arrow nocked and ready to fly.



The drum stuttered and stopped. From across the water, in counterpoint to Elene’s song, shrieks and shouts of fear cut through the air as oars skipped across the waves. The galley slowed.



A snake slid roughly across Zacharias’ hand. He shrieked in his turn, fell backward from knees to rump, but it was only rope uncoiling like a basket of snakes unleashed. A touch of wind brushed his cheek, a coy kiss, and the murmur of its passing whispered in his ear.



Wind filled the sail.



They left the Jinna pirates behind as the wings of the vast angel disintegrated into a shower of hot sparks that fell onto the deck of the coasting galley. Zacharias pulled himself up and crossed to the rail, watching as the Jinna oarsmen shifted their stroke and struggled to row backward out of that burning rain. A white scrap, like a butterfly, fluttered out of Meriam’s hands and zigzagged across the water, growing so small that he should not have been able to see it as the gap between them opened—yet a hard shine kept it visible as it wove its erratic course.



The galley fell farther behind. The steamy mist risen with the angel spread to conceal it, but Zacharias saw a last wink as Meriam’s butterfly vanished into a fog. Elene laughed out loud to end her song, and for an instant Zacharias thought she meant to leap into the sea to swim after that bright vision, now lost.



Marcus still knelt by the rope, a look of intense concentration on his face as wind boomed in the canvas. Wolfhere paced restlessly forward as the sailors adjusted ropes and sail, and laughed and joked, relieved at their escape but not relaxed. The sea lay calm behind them while an unnatural wind sped them forward.



“Well done, Brother Marcus,” said Meriam. “The arts of the tempestari are difficult to master.”



“We must control the weather if we hope to succeed in the weaving.”



“Wolfhere, I pray you,” whispered Zacharias.



The old Eagle came to stand beside him. Spray off the water misted their faces and caught in his gray beard. “It looked like Liath,” the old man muttered, his tone and expression distraught as his fingers opened and closed on the wood railing.



“Was it a real angel, or an illusion?” Zacharias asked, but Wolfhere would not answer.



The wind brought them across the wide waters of the Middle Sea and for five days they sailed along the southern coast with desert to larboard and the pale green waters to their right. Marcus slept most of that time, made weary by his labors, and Sister Meriam also kept to her bed, tended by her servants and her granddaughter. The only time Zacharias saw either of them awake they consulted with each other under the shade offered by the awning rigged up in the stern. What caused them such anxiety Zacharias could not know, but he watched from a distance as Marcus scrawled marks and signs on well-worn parchment, often scraping his notations off with a knife and marking again until the skin became translucent. If Zacharias tried to approach, Meriam’s burly manservant chased him away.



“I have no time for lessons.” That was Marcus’ only comment, delivered with a curtness that stung.



Nor would Wolfhere keep him company. His life was as barren as the land they sailed alongside. The desert shore rose and fell in curves, sand and pale hills with no sign of life, not even grass or scrub. Not even a man. During the day the sun’s light made the sand and rock glint so brightly it was painful to look. Only the sea breeze made the heat tolerable. There was nothing to do but wait. Zacharias had grown accustomed to biding his time.



The wind at their back held until they came to the port of Qahirah. They sailed past a promontory where ruined columns rose along the backs of low hills and came into a bay ringed with flowering trees and gardens. The city of domed temples and whitewashed buildings shone under the autumn sun. “It’s a paradise,” he said.