A Book of Dust and Breath

Crete, 1810

Three others waited on the beach, all female. Max trudged through the thick white sand. The second he was in earshot they asked if he knew what was happening, when, how many?

He held out his hands. "Sisters, I know what you know. Harriet scoffed at the amount of paperwork involved. Told me I'd figure it out."

Helen twisted a lock of hair around one slender finger. "Never, outside of war, have I attended an event that required so many of our kind."

Marie pulled her shawl more tightly around her shoulders. "There was the cyclone in India."

"The volcano in Peru," Agatha murmured.

Max said nothing but watched the placid waves roll in, one after another under the wide round eye of the silver moon. The girls were young. They would learn soon enough that the death of an entire civilization was as natural and common as the turning of the tide.

Lucas and Mia arrived together. Julian rode a horse over the hill a moment later.

By the time Max's pocket watch read 11:10 pm, more than thirty of his brothers and sisters had gathered in ominous silence.

"Will all of Crete die this night?" Helen asked.

Max recalled the boiling black smoke of shadow crawlers rolling through the valley of Sodom and thought Crete might die, but it could be worse. "We should go," he told her. "It's almost time."

The siblings walked in a silent parade of death, approaching the edge of the city just as the earth began to shake. Cries of alarm rose up and quickly turned to shrieks of horror as the ground trembled ever more forcefully.

The reapers moved faster toward the crumbling buildings. The soul of a woman with a cascade of black curls stumbled into the street. Marie wrapped her in a gentle embrace and they disappeared.

Max saw the columns supporting the temple roof tilting. How many slept there? Priests, servants, travelers--dozens, surely. The steps split and cracked under his feet as he ascended, staggering against the endless motion. How long could the earth shake? How long had it already been? A minute? Ten? Voices called for help from within the darkness and Max raced toward them, but the door was blocked by a rubble of stone. He turned to find another way to the blocked chamber and the roof fell. Throwing himself beneath a heavy table, he was choked by dust and pelted with stinging debris.

At last, the world stilled and the maddening noise of destruction changed to the far worse sound of silence. Never, in the physical plane, had he known such absolute darkness. He coughed and the sound died with unnatural speed.

His left arm pressed tight against his ribs. His legs curled near his chest. The top of his head bumped some immovable barrier.

No matter how forcefully he pushed at the walls of his tiny prison, nothing moved.

No sound from the outside world touched his ears.

He took a deep breath to calm himself and ended up in a fit of coughing, his throat and lungs full of dust.

Sweat beaded across his face and dripped into his eyes. Painfully, he managed to maneuver his right arm enough to wipe the moisture away with his dirty sleeve.

Certain no one would hear him if he called for help and, even if they did, surely thousands of others cried out in chorus with him, he let matter fall away and entered the void.

"You're supposed to help the dead, not join them," Harriet remarked, peering at him over her half-moon spectacles.

"I'm not dead."

"Not yet," she conceded.

"You could send some help, you know."

"Do you have any idea how many people on earth are praying for help at this very moment?

"Harriet, I'm not even injured. I'm just stuck. Tell Daniel. He'll come dig me out."

She snorted. "Daniel is in London."

"So?"

"He's busy."

Max threw up his hands. "I'm dying!"

"I'm sorry for your loss," she drawled, turning her attention to the thick scroll on her desk.

"Harriet!"

"Go back to your body, reaper. Better luck next life."

The prickle of matter was followed by the close heat of the tiny, airless space. Time and space faded away. He slept. He woke. Thirst burned his throat. Finally, reason left him and he screamed for help but no help came. When his fingers split and bled from scraping at the broken rocks he barely even noticed and, when, at last, there was no more oxygen left to draw into his lungs he fell at his father's feet on the other side, trembling and weeping.

Azrael lifted him and held him by the shoulders until he quieted. "Why do you cry in death? You of all beings?"

Max struggled to still the trembling, but his form, even free of matter, refused to obey. He couldn't bring himself to meet his father's eyes. "I don't cry in death," he admitted. "It is the living that is hard. Life toys with me, makes me love it and then casts me back to you in ways more painful than you can imagine and..." he wept, unashamed at his tears in that place.

"Tell me." Azrael's quiet, demanding voice allowed no argument.

"And I keep going back, again and again, loving that place and being torn from it with pain and suffering only to be sent back again." He hung his head. "I'm so tired."

Death maintained his powerful grip on Max's shoulders. "Do not allow yourself to grow weary, my son. You were first and you are most powerful. There is much that rests on your shoulders. You must find the strength to bear the burden of your duty. You must, do you understand?"

Max sniffed and nodded. He meant to say aloud that he understood, but he didn't understand, not really, and he couldn't lie to his father.

"You have done well so far, my son. Exceeded my wildest expectations, but the world needs you now more than ever. It is time to be born again."

Max returned to earth, an infant as yet unaware of anything except his hungry belly.

When the old priest lifted the crying baby from the steps of the church he had no idea that very same boy would carry him across the divide in two decades time. He was only curious as to what local girl, frightened and desperate, would have abandoned such a beautiful little dark-eyed child.