Book Excerpt
It was stifling and Salomé gasped for air. Keeping as close to the dwellings as possible, she edged her way toward the tumult of shouting. When she rounded the corner she found a growing crowd of angry Damaskans, yelling abuse at the police. Their hovels were being searched for “agitators,” women and children dragged outside, their meager possessions rifled and thrown on to the street. Several vassals were being taken prisoner and violence erupted as protesters attempted to free their comrades. It was total chaos. Salomé tried to help an old woman who was being viciously beaten by three policemen, but one of them threw her aside. She went sprawling into the dust and landed on her injured arm with a hiss of pain. Dragging herself to her feet, she stumbled her way to the edge of the crowd, only to have a huge gloved hand grab her by the scruff of her neck. Salomé twisted around with a dancer’s skill, kneeing her attacker as hard as she could in the groin. His grip slackened and she tore herself loose and managed to scramble away through the turmoil.
Disappearing into the nearest dark side street she stood, bent over and panting, struggling to get her breath and her bearings. Her arm ached abominably. This was insane! She berated herself for having come out here without any plan or forethought, but realized she was wasting time with self-reproach. Fearful for her friends, and outraged at what she was witnessing, Salomé left her cover and made her way as inconspicuously as she could to Sa’ud and Miryam’s dwelling. Another scene of devastation awaited her.
The hovel was burning and the distraught family was outside, watching helplessly as their existence went up in flames. Jasim was trying to shield the others with his huge bulk. Sa’ud held his mother-in-law’s fire-disfigured corpse in his arms and Miryam knelt cradling her dead son Asad, keening pitifully while little Chaya clung to her mother’s skirts in terror. The heat and glow from the flames gave their agonized, sweat-dripping faces a ghastly, surreal quality.
Salomé knew she had to act quickly, before the marauding militia could do any more damage. She grabbed Sa’ud, restraining herself from turning her face away at the sight of Rivka’s poor body. “Let’s get the family away from here!” Still in shock, he didn’t even recognize her. “Sa’ud, it’s me! Salomé!” She shook him and he finally turned to her, horrified.
“Highness! You’ll be killed!”
“Come, Sa’ud! I’ll hide you all!” she urged as more shots fell and an explosion shook the ground under them.
Sa’ud nodded and they took the grandmother’s body as far out of harm’s way as they could, then he went to Miryam. She wouldn’t budge from Asad’s body. He turned frantically to Salomé and she knelt by the grieving mother.
“Miryam,” she coaxed, taking the woman’s face in her hands, “he’s gone. We have to go!”
If it hadn’t been for Jasim, she might not have moved. The big man came and tenderly removed Asad from her arms. Sa’ud wept disconsolately as he took his son’s body and laid it to rest next to Rivka, then helped Miryam to her feet.
“Quickly! Down here!” Salomé urged the family past the house and into a narrow alleyway that led to a neighboring street. Her first thought was to get them away from the center of the chaos. With a jolt, she realized she hadn’t really thought much further than that, and she might very well be leading them to their deaths. But if they stayed where they were, they would die anyway. To give them a fighting chance, she had to get them to the districts. Surely people there would help. She prayed fervently that she was right. If all else failed, she would take them to the cellar in the abandoned bakery concealing the passageway to the palace. It held storerooms and bunkers along its path that hadn’t been used in decades; it was risky, but if there was no other alternative she would hide the family there until the unrest died down. For now, she simply had to keep going.
Just as she and Jasim had ushered them into the passage, a shadow fell and a tall figure raised his weapon and fired twice. Salomé cried out and clamped her hand to her shoulder, feeling the sting of a projectile graze her already injured arm. Chaya crumpled to the ground beside her mother. Miryam let out a blood-curdling scream and fell across her fragile little body. Salomé whipped around to see a militiaman standing silhouetted by the fire’s glow, his gun raised and ready to fire again. Grasping her bleeding shoulder, she stalked toward him, her rage a pulsing field of energy radiating from her as she approached him. All he saw was a column of blinding light coming at him and he froze, terrified, his weapon crumbling to dust in his nerveless hands. With a yell, he turned and ran back the way he had come.
“It is coming from the vassals’ quarters now!” Magnate Hadaki exclaimed.
The Magnates gathered at one portion of the walls, trying to pinpoint what Hadaki was seeing. Images blurred in and out of focus, seeming not to want to settle on any one location. The past few hours had been spent jumping at phantoms as the Plexus flashed and the walls fluctuated and blurred. At first it seemed to be emanating from Bath Noor, then it was nowhere near the palace. They could find no explanation for the erratic movement from one location to another. Tempers were wearing thin.
“We cannot even distinguish whether the disturbance is coming from one source or many!” Devos growled.
Only Doreh seemed relatively unperturbed. “Let us presume its main source is in the vassals’ quarters. If we blanket the area, we may be able to isolate it.”
They returned to the table around the Plexus and placed their hands on their insignia.
Salomé returned to the family. They were staring at her in awe. She knelt by Chaya and the hysterical mother. The child was bleeding profusely from a wound in her side. It looked serious but she was still alive.
“Miryam, let me,” the princess ripped off another strip from her garment and wrapped it around the unconscious little girl, hoping it might at least stop the bleeding. Then she scooped her up, disregarding her own injuries, and shoved her way past frantic vassals coming from the opposite direction, out the other end of the passageway with Jasim, Sa’ud and a distracted Miryam in tow.
Suddenly, she looked up. Tendrils of blackness having nothing to do with fire or smoke were descending, covering all the sky she could see and seeping down into the alleyway. She could feel the foreign energy pulsing there. The Magnates! It was the second time this night and her spirit quailed before the evil bearing down upon her from above. Knowing she couldn’t possibly hope to stave them off all on her own, her mind reached out for the one being in the world who could help her. Elijah!
Out in the desert between monoliths of stone Elijah stood alert. The glow from the burning vassals’ quarters was visible in the distance, fading the stars closest to the horizon. He knew Salomé was out there, but her image was unclear. Her energy had flared first in one place, then in another. He had no way of knowing where she would appear next and could only guess she would want to help her vassal friends. But when her call echoed in the silence he instantly felt the threat and the darkness directed toward the wounded city and the young woman making her way through the turmoil of battle. He braced himself between two standing stones and prayed he would be able to locate Jack.
Disguised in ragged vassal garments with small backpacks concealed underneath, Jack and Skip had submerged themselves in the melee of the vassals’ quarters. Tay and two younger cameramen were reporting officially for GNN, covering the demonstrations taking place at the gates between the vassals’ quarters and the districts, but Jack and Skip had opted to be in the thick of things, laying low and getting as much footage as they could for their next pirate broadcast: burning hovels and wounded, desperate vassals searching for their loved ones, removing charred bodies from the ruins of their homes, being brutalized by police and militia. The noise was deafening and the pungent smell of bodies stifling. Skip had just managed to find a spot where Jack could film the insanity, unseen by the rampaging military when, from out of nowhere, a vassal with torn and singed clothing thrust his enraged visage in front of the mini-cam. He wore a bloodied bandana with a crudely drawn moon-sun symbol on his brow and seemed completely deranged. Fist upraised and obviously not caring who saw or heard him, he yelled, “Death to the Governing Body!” and disappeared as abruptly as he had come.
Gunshots erupted nearby, followed by screams as the panicked crowd tried to move away from their source. Frightened vassals shoved themselves between him and Jack, and Skip was afraid they would be separated. An elbow jabbed him viciously in the back. He would have been thrown onto his face if Jack hadn’t grabbed his arm.
“This is useless!” Jack shouted to make himself heard over the multitude.
“We’ll be crushed here, or shot!” Mini-cam hooked over his shoulder so it would film as they went along, he pulled Skip steadily to the borders of the street, just as militia converged from all sides and fired into the wall of human bodies. Howls of pain and fear tore the air. Many fell. Those who were still able to run scattered. Jack finally broke clear of the surging masses, dragging Skip behind him.
“In here!” Jack backed into the doorway of a gutted hovel.
The door was hanging from one hinge and had obviously been smashed in, the walls were barely standing, but they were safe for the moment. At least Skip thought so until the air began to vibrate and bits of stone fell around them. He cowered against a wall, petrified, but Jack whipped around with a look of relief on his face as a dim figure materialized in the shadows behind him.
“Elijah!”
The Prophet lurched and clutched at the cameraman. “Salomé is here!”
“What?” Jack was horrified, but he knew: “Jasim’s family! Let’s go!”
“No!” Elijah rasped. “The Magnates are on alert! They’ve caught her
scent. We mustn’t draw them to her!”
“Shit!”
As Elijah conferred in urgent tones with Jack, Skip stood gaping dumbly at the porcelain-skinned, raven-haired youth in classical elegance standing feet away from him. It’s HIM, flashed like neon letters in his mind. He had imagined the Avatar as ancient, with withered skin and long grey hair flowing into a grizzled beard. The guise was so perfect as to be totally disarming, but the piercing blue eyes spoke a different language. It was like gazing into fathomless wells of memory. Skip saw both the power he exuded and the fragility of the chiseled features, stunned that this man— whom the Governing Body feared and hated—could appear vulnerable. He was unable to stop staring. The biggest story of his life was barely feet away, and he was paralyzed.
“Mr. Twain.”
Skip’s started, realizing that he had just been spoken to.
“I am aware of the risk I am asking you to take,” Elijah’s voice was
subdued, barely a whisper. “But right now, everything depends on whether you and Jack can create a diversion.”
“Diversion?” Skip looked confused.
“Later. We’re moving out.” Jack peered warily around the empty doorway. “Clear!” It seemed the militia was satisfied they had done all the damage they could in this area and had moved on.
“Don’t use the amulet until you reach the border to the districts!” Elijah warned.
Before Skip could ask any more questions, Jack was out the door. Skip only turned briefly to nod at the Avatar, then he followed his partner. It seemed ludicrous under the circumstances, but the thought crossed his mind that they hadn’t even been properly introduced.
When they had gone, Elijah searched the debris in the hovel and found some scorched but still wearable vassal garments. Pulling them over his own, he darted out the door and headed in the opposite direction, toward the sounds of battle.