Sword of the Gods: Agents of Ki (Sword of the Gods Saga) (47 page)

Did this Angelic really care?

No! He was in allegiance with the Evil One! She must not trust him!

Ninsianna watched Lerajie's wings as he launched into a one-sided conversation with the brown-haired woman. Ninsianna felt a sad sense of deja-vu. As with Mikhail, Lerajie's wings twitched and betrayed what he was feeling as he spoke. He tried to touch the brown-haired woman's arm, but she skittered back in terror.

"I'm sorry." Lerajie stepped back. "I didn't mean to frighten you."

He retrieved a piece of bread and lay it on the brown-haired woman's bed, then backed up slowly so as not to terrify her any further.

"I'm just worried about you, that's all," Lerajie soothed. "You're losing too much weight. You have to remember you're eating for two."

The brown-haired woman hissed at him like a terrified cat. Lerajie's wings drooped into the same dejected formation Ninsianna had witnessed Mikhail do whenever she was angry at him. Did this Angelic possess feelings for the brown-haired woman? Or was he simply curious?

Lerajie next cleaned the bathroom, whistling as he worked, and then returned to the trays of fruit, dried meats, and bread to carefully pick out the exact same foods the ebony-skinned woman always selected for the lizard demon. He strode over to where Apausha lay huddled beneath his blanket. Ninsianna leaned forward to hear as Lerajie spoke to the lizard demon in a hissing language which she could not understand at all.

Apausha's head peeked above his blanket. Ninsianna cringed at the terrifying sight of his scaly green skin, pale dorsal ridge, and sharp-clawed hands. After months of nightmares about the lizard demons, even though Apausha went out of his way to hide his offensive visage, terror still tore at her each time the monster moved. The lizard demon's long, forked tongue flit into the air and hissed an answer to Lerajie's question.

Lerajie's stance was no longer sympathetic, but hostile as he spoke to the lizard demon. Nonetheless, he laid a sizeable portion of food into a clean bowl as well as a container of water and slid them over to the wounded creature that, truth be told, looked even
worse
today than the first day she had met it. Even without her gift of
seeing,
Ninsianna could tell the lizard demon was dying. The other two buffoons joked the creature wasn't dead yet, but Lerajie seemed compassionate even though it was obvious he didn't like the creature.

Should she take a chance and engage Lerajie in a conversation? She would almost cut off her own finger right now just to find out whether her husband was still alive…

No! They were
all
her enemies! Her safest course of action was to pretend to be insane. At some point a chance would present itself to liberate the Evil One's minions of a firestick; and then she could fight her way out of here just like Pareesa would do.

A gentle tapping inside her belly reminded her she was in no condition to fight. If, as she feared, Mikhail had been killed by the Evil One's trap, this child might be the only thing she had left of him. That sadness she'd been keeping at bay choked in her throat and threatened to make her sob, but she fought it back.
When
she cried, it would be at night when there was no one awake to witness her grief.

Lerajie paused one last time in front of Ninsianna's bunk.

"Procel
swore
you spoke to him," Lerajie's bluish-green eyes were earnest. "I guess he's just pulling everyone's tailfeathers, huh?"

Ninsianna pressed her back against the wall. Compassionate, or not, she would not trust the Evil One's minion.

Lerajie tucked his reddish-pink speckled wings against his back.

"I can't say I blame you," Lerajie said. "If I was you,
-I-
wouldn't trust me. But if you
do
want to speak to me, just knock. I'll be on shift for the next twelve hours."

Without another word he turned, grabbed the cart he'd used to roll in the food, and rolled it out of there. The moment the door locked behind him, the other women rushed at the table and began clawing and fighting for their share of the food.

The lizard demon forced itself into a sitting position and bit carefully into the fruit, not the decadent one Lerajie had given his favorite, but a simple fruit which was tasteless but filling. The creature did not look well. The last vestiges of green had drained from its skin and its dewlap had faded to a sad bluish-purple. It held the fruit awkwardly, its fingers bent in bizarre directions from being dislocated by their Angelic captors.

Perhaps she should attend to the creature? It had, after all, stood up and defended her when that pervert Procel had tried to grab her breast?

No! The creature was her husband's enemy!

Apausha put down the fruit, only half-eaten, and lay its head back against the wall, closing its gold-green eyes with a pained sigh. For the past few days the creature had not eaten all the fruit the ebony-skinned woman brought for it, and this morning, it had barely eaten at all.

Should
she just let the creature die? She, who even without the gift of She-who-is, had been trained by her mother to be a healer?

Ninsianna replayed all the conversations she'd eavesdropped on between her father and the Chief. There had been endless discussion about dancing with one's enemies and the proper use of spies. It was talk unsuitable for a woman, and yet, with no way to plead with She-who-is for intervention, perhaps it was time to consider the unthinkable?

'The enemy of my enemy is my friend,'
Chief Kiyan liked to say. Well, it was time to consider cavorting with her husband's greatest enemy.

She took the mango Lerajie had left for her and took first one step, and then another, until she stood in front of the lizard demon. It took a moment for the creature to open its eyes and recognize she stood before it, her hand trembling as she held out the piece of fruit. It immediately cast its eyes downwards.

"Hello," the creature hissed in weak Kemet, the language of trade.

Ninsianna forced her feet to remain firmly planted instead of indulging the urge to run away.

"I thought you might enjoy some fruit," Ninsianna carefully articulated the words in Kemet.

"Is it easier if I speak to you in Kemet?" Apausha hissed. He then switched languages. "Or can you understand me better if I speak in Galactic Standard."

Ninsianna spoke either language equally well, but the language spoken by her husband was far more pleasing to her ear.

"My husband speaks this language," Ninsianna replied in the language of heaven. "Although now that I hear it spoken by my captors, I must confess it has lost some of its allure. Which language is easier for
you
to speak?"

"I have had far more practice conversing in your husband's language," Apausha said. "Even though, to my ears, I find the language offensive. Perhaps we might speak in Galactic Standard in private as I am less likely to be misunderstood, but speak in your human trader's language whenever our captors are in the room?"

Ninsianna stood, not certain what to do next.

"You have brought me an offering of food," Apausha pointed at the bread. "A gesture of your willingness to engage me in a dialogue?"

Ninsianna stepped back from the movement of Apausha's sharp, clawed hands.

"How did you…"

"Our people have assimilated
many
worlds," Apausha said. "Offerings of food are common, no matter where you travel in the heavens."

Ninsianna hesitated, and then carefully placed the mango on the edge of the lizard demon's blanket.

“There’s no need to be afraid of me," Apausha hissed through his hideous fanged maw. "I will not bite you."

Fear gripped at Ninsianna's gut and caused her to tremble despite her best effort to appear nonchalant. All she could think about was how apt the creature's physiology was to do just that, to eat her for dinner the way a lion would consume a goat. She spoke the first idiotic words which spilled into her mind.

"You are injured?"

"They keep waiting for me to die," Apausha sighed. "But thus far, I have denied them that pleasure. The only reason I am still alive, I suspect, is because Zepar has been so busy he forgot he threw me in here to punish me with a dishonorable death.

"Why did you give the Evil One the directions to our world?" Ninsianna said. Anger welled in her gut. "How could you send such evil to a helpless people?"

Apausha made glancing eye contact at her through eyelids which were hooded by a clear protective inner eyelid. His look was skeptical, not the action of a creature which was too fearful to look her in the eye, but then he looked away.

"I resisted as long as I could," Apausha said. "But even a devoted follower of Shay'tan can only suffer so much before his mouth speaks words which his brain begs for him to resist." The creature made a finger-gesture to his forehead, his snout and his heart, hissing what sounded like a prayer in its native language.

Ninsianna twisted the hem of her tunic, not certain she should attempt an allegiance with this creature. She'd always acted flirtatious to get people to do what she wanted, but now? How should she convince a
lizard demon
to help her formulate an escape plan? But she was so starved for intelligent conversation she would stoop to speaking to a monster.

“Why are your people are trying to enslave my people?”

“Enslave?" Apausha said. "That's just propaganda promulgated by your husband.”

“My husband is
dead
because of you,” Ninsianna shouted. She felt like kicking the lizard, but she suppressed the urge. Injured or not, when the creature
needed
to move, it could.

“I have heard of your husband,” Apausha’s tongue flit into the air. The slender, snake-like appendage lingered this time, longer than its usual instinctive taste, savoring the air; savoring, no doubt,
her
scent. The lizard nodded, deep in thought. “Shay’tan put a hefty bounty on his head.”

"A bounty?" Ninsianna practically spat at him. "We know full well about your bounty set of lizard gold!"

Apausha gave her a pained grimace.

"We had no idea your husband was the Angelic who was causing General Hudhafah so much trouble," Apausha said. "The bounty I speak of was set long before the events which brought us together."

Ninsianna trembled with anger.

"This is my
husband
you speak of! How can you speak so blithely of … of … of …
killing
him!"

Apausha tasted the air again. The effort appeared to exhaust him. He leaned his head back against the wall and shut his eyes.

"Do not be offended by my admiration of your husband's bounty," Apausha mumbled. "In my culture, it is considered a great honor to have a bounty set upon your head by Shay'tan, himself. Only the
Destroyer
and Cherubim Master-of-Arms Yoritomo have more generous bounties than the one set upon your husband."

Apausha opened his eyes and gave her a weak, toothy grin. "The old dragon parts with his riches sparingly. The Colonel vexed him greatly to earn such a generous reward."

Ninsianna stood torn between her urge to kick him or succumb to her temptation to question this lizard who knew more about her husband than Mikhail remembered about himself. Her natural curiosity, paired with her aching need to know the fate of her husband, even if the only information she could glean was about Mikhail's past, won over.

“What do you know of Mikhail?”

“Colonel Mannuki’ili,” Apausha sighed. “They call him the personal watchman of the Eternal Emperor Hashem."

"He has mentioned this Emperor," Ninsianna said. "But he speaks little of his time before."

Apausha looked right past her.

"It is said that nobody knows where the Colonel goes," Apausha said, "or what he does while he is there. All we know is that whenever Shay’tan’s best-laid plans are disrupted, there are always whispers of a dark-winged Angelic. Beyond that, the Colonel is a ghost. Nobody ever knows where he will show up, only where he has been.”

Ninsianna edged closer. The lizard knew full well he lured her in with this topic of conversation, but she was starved for knowledge about Mikhail's well-being. Was he still alive? Had he escaped the trap just as he’d escaped so many other ambushes before? The way Apausha spoke of him, as a man who'd escaped death many times, gave her hope.

“My husband,” Ninsianna spoke carefully. “When his sky canoe fell onto our planet, he was close to death. His memories…" She paused, not sure whether she should disclose this information.

“What about his memories?” the lizard asked.

Ninsianna’s mind whirred, trying to remember the discussions about recruiting allies. If Mikhail was dead, it didn’t matter what the lizard knew about his memory loss. If he was still alive, Mikhail would want her to do whatever it took to get out of here alive.

“Mikhail hit his head,” Ninsianna said. “Some things, he remembers. Other things…”

“Your husband suffers from amnesia?" Apausha leaned forward, his gold-green eyes wide with curiosity. As he did, his dorsal ridge rose up, a sharp, spiky fin like you might see on a fish.