by Lucy Tempest
“Excuse me,” Cyrus said, bringing me out of my daze. “But was Esfandiar a common name in Gypsum?”
The question struck me as nonsensical, until the man turned gleeful eyes on him. “It was actually a name invented by my mother, as I documented in one of my stories.”
I had read this story. So it was a test to see if it was really him? And it was really him?
The man twiddled his thumbs, rocked on his heels, seeming about to bounce for joy. “How is Gypsum anyway?”
“Uh…long gone?”
“Ah.” He seemed crestfallen for a second before raising literally brightening eyes to Cyrus. “What land did you say you were from? Cardamom?”
“Cahraman…” Cyrus corrected automatically before he shook his head, incredulity growing in his eyes. “If you’re really who you say you are, then you predate my kingdom.” He pointed at the bottle. “And you’ve been in there since before the fall of Avesta?”
“Avesta fell?” exclaimed Esfandiar, still rocking on his heels like an overactive child. “But then it was heading for a downfall. And yes, I’ve been in there all the time. I am immortal, after all. It seems like a good thing to wish for, doesn’t it?”
Cyrus pointed at the bottle in horror. “You wished for that?”
“Not that.” Esfandiar sighed, starting to draw circles in the dirt with the curly toe of his shoe. “But there’s always a catch with wishes. Those genies will always find a loophole to squeeze you in, and get the last laugh.”
“It was a genie that turned you into a jann?” My mother’s voice was higher a shaky octave, no doubt remembering what a genie had done to her and her friends, and now to us.
“It did…” He stopped, tapped his cheek pensively. “Well, not exactly. Jann come from djinn, and since I was human, I can’t really be one. It’s why I couldn’t be fully bound in any of the usual prisons we capture genies and jann in.”
Still voiceless, I poked him with the bottle.
Esfandiar’s peculiar yellow eyes, brightened to candle flames, flitted to me interestedly. “Ah, mistress. Is there anything you wish of me?”
Mistress. Now that was a title I never thought I’d be addressed by.
And I wasn’t falling for it, wouldn’t wish anything of it.
I took off my ring, holding it out to him, rasping, “You said you were the ‘genie’ in my ring, but didn’t explain how.”
“That’s the long story I mentioned,” he said. “Are you sure you want to hear it now?”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “We have all the time in the Cave.”
He inclined his head in cheerful acquiescence. “Some background information first, for context.” He spread his arms as he posed, as if about to perform a soliloquy in a play. “Genies are really rare. But if you are smart enough to catch one, one can only be caught in hallowed containers, bottles of anointment oil or amphora of altar wine being the usual cages. But people always look for those, and I needed to catch one in something no one would think of. So I managed to lure one into a golden lamp.”
My mother’s jaw dropped and Cyrus tightened his grip on my shoulder.
My voice fully returned, in a shrill yell that hurt my own ears. “You’re the one who lured Jumana’s genie into the golden lamp!”
“I don’t know who Jumana is, but as far as I know, I’m the only one who managed it. Solid gold lamps were unheard of, since they can’t be used, but this one was commissioned for the altar of a foreign goddess in Gypsum. Can’t remember her name for the life of me. Was it ‘Astoreth? ‘Astolat? Ah! ‘Adalat—her name was ‘Adalat.”
I hiccupped in shock as my mother stiffened beside me.
‘Adalat. The goddess she’d named me after.
“So, it really was meant for a goddess,” Cyrus murmured.
Esfandiar nodded enthusiastically. “Oh, yes, it was. I figured she wouldn’t really use it so I took it with me on one of my quests for Queen Zafira where I ended up in a part of the desert called Field of Fire; a place so hot only djinn-born could thrive in it. It was full of ifrits and rotting babies—”
Cyrus and I simultaneously shouted, “Rotting babies?”
Esfandiar nodded, seemingly annoyed at the interruption of his performance. “It was where they abandoned defective newborns. You know, underbred runts, deformed whelps and red-eyed spawn of ifrits. The latter are the healthiest though, and simurghs have a soft spot for them since they’re as white as their hatchlings.”
Cyrus seemed as shaken as I was to finally learn why the simurgh had saved Ayman.
But I was piecing far more facts together, at least clearly for the first time. That everything I’d experienced and everyone I’d met since I’d come to Cahraman had all been connected.
Esfandiar continued. “Then I found Alabasta, and I was confronted by its guardian simurgh. During our many confrontations as I used the bestowed feathers, I discovered it was a habitual salvager, saving the white infants and giving them to nesting mothers before returning to her post. She liked to claim that she was the true mother of the White Shadow, but as far as Zāl was concerned any simurgh was his mother.”
Our simurgh was a she? One who made a habit of saving discarded children? Who could have possibly saved Ayman himself? That sort of made up for her attempts to bite my hand and head off. Very disturbing, being unable to keep anyone firmly in the must-hate square.
“You served Queen Zafira,” Cyrus said in a spastic monotone. “Captured a genie in a golden lamp made for a goddess and were on first-name terms with the White Shadow.”
“That is what I said.” He looked at me, wiggling his fingers beside his head, as if to indicate he thought Cyrus slow. “Are you sure you’ve chosen ‘Your Prince’ wisely, Mistress?”
But I knew why Cyrus was that stunned. The simurgh and the trip through the realms, finding about out everyone’s pasts, and finding my mother had been mindboggling. But it was almost impossible to wrap our heads around what this man was.
He was the one who’d weaved the web we’d all gotten caught in half a millennium later.
Seemingly oblivious to Esfandiar’s denigrating opinion, Cyrus continued his dazed summation, “You really are the Esfandiar of Gypsum, the most prominent author in The Anthology of the Dunes.”
“You’ve read my accounts?” Esfandiar seemed to change his opinion of Cyrus within a heartbeat, looking at him in utmost delight, pride and gratitude as he jumped giddily, clapping. “I knew the stories were still being distributed twenty years after I had finished compiling them, but I didn’t know they would stand the test time of time beyond that.”
“They did, and they’re very influential still.” Cyrus stepped closer, looking down at him as if he’d read the man’s history in his face. “You said the White Shadow’s name was Zāl?”
“You think simurghs name their adopted human babies?” he taunted, shaking his head at me and my poor choice again. “Of course he had no name. That was just what everyone called him, a word that means ugly and cursed in one. He only learned to answer to it. It was a nasty thing, like naming a loyal guard dog Fleabag. It’s true, but you shouldn’t say it to their face, right?”
“Right.” I tapped my blackened, broken nail on the red stone of my ring. “And you still didn’t explain being in my ring, and in the bottle at the same time.”
He bowed in apology. “As I told you, I made a wish of the genie—my last wish mind you, it only gave me three. Genies have no choice but to serve you if you capture or release them, but they can still fulfill your wish in ways you haven’t anticipated.”
“Loopholes.” I shook my hand, hurrying him on.
“Yes, if you’re not very careful in your choice of words, the genie can exploit any vagueness and turn your wish into a nightmare.” His hyper animation dimmed, energy shrinking with his smile. “The thing was, when I made my wish, I thought I was being clever.”
“How so?” Cyrus looked he was about to strangle him if he didn’t quit prevaricating.
“I wished to be immortal, so I could forever travel the world, withstand the perils of exploration and document my findings unto eternity.” He threw his arms up in an arc, as if to encompass the world. “But I had heard of people wishing for eternal life but not eternal youth or bodies to withstand immortality or heal injuries and living crippled and decaying forever. So, I wished to be transformed from mere flesh and bone to what all eternal creatures are made of. And he asked, ‘Like a genie?’” He let his arms fall to his side with a loud flap. “Fool that I was, I said ‘Yes.’
“But since I was human, it made me like a genie, gave me a lot of their traits, fashioned me as a being lesser to them, something between man and djinn…” He stopped suddenly, jumped on tiptoes to peer into Cyrus’s face. “You look a lot like Zafira’s son, Shamash.”
“Stands to reason, since she was an old Cahramani queen,” I said.
“Actually, Zafira was a pre-Cahramani ruler,” my mother said. “She was Queen of Anbur, the last of her father Iacoöt’s line. As expected, she was bombarded by threats of invasion, and with foreign leaders demanding to marry her to absorb her land into theirs.”
I grabbed her arm, curiosity flaming out of control. “What did she do?”
Esfandiar almost pushed my mother out of the way so he’d be the one to continue the tale. “She made an alliance with the witches of Zhadugar, gave them their sacred land back, where they freely practiced their magic under her protection, and in return, they helped keep her land sovereign, protecting them all. Then she gathered her suitors, decreed that if they wanted her land, they needn’t do it with violence, but through winning her hand. Oligarchs, warlords, princes of city-states and a few kings’ heirs came to compete. But her tasks proved so convoluted that they seemed unwinnable. I believe it was her way of making sure none won her hand, yet leaving her land alone to abide by the terms of the competition.”
That was an addition that seemed like news to my mother. I didn’t know what Cyrus made of it. He remained staring down at Esfandiar, expressionless, making me begin to worry.
“So no one won?” I asked.
“No, the most unlikely contender did. Shamshun, the commander of a formidable army and the illegitimate son of a princess from a neighboring land who claimed he was sired by their sun god, Shamash. He didn’t seek to eclipse her rule, only wanted to be the consort of a great queen, give his children what he was deprived of, legitimacy, and being in line to a throne. When he passed all her impossible tasks, Zafira took him as her husband.”
So basically, Shamshun was me. The unlikely contender who’d won the heart of a royal.
“At that time she’d sent me to acquire her something to aid in deflecting the attacks she predicted would come from all directions, and I returned with the genie in the lamp. After their wedding, she and Shamshun led a coup against his uncle. After they succeeded, they had their first son, Shamash then four more children and made Shamshun’s old land into their new capital, Sunstone.” Esfandiar gave a theatric sigh of regret. “It wasn’t much later that I was bound, so I don’t know what happened after that.”
My mother pushed between us, regaining the place he’d usurped, giving him a smug look as she said, “I do. Shamash grew up into a king warrior who combined his mother’s wisdom and foresight and his father’s nobility and ferocity, and he marched on all those who’d once threatened his mother, absorbing their lands under his rule, expanding his dominion and founding Cahraman.”
Cyrus jerked, as if he was waking up from an unpleasant dream. “All my life I thought Zafira was the first winner of the Bride Search, and that she married the King of Anbur and was the regent of his heir.”
“Absolutely not!” Esfandiar gasped, aghast. “Zafira was the first to hold a spousal competition. Shamshun, son of Shamash, was the winner. If Cahraman is the land Zafira’s son founded, and you’re its prince, how do you not know this?”
“Just another of the many truths my family withheld from me.” Cyrus’s frown deepened as he twisted Jumana’s pearl ring around his finger. “Though I can’t even fathom why they’d change historical records to hide those facts.” As we all mulled this, with me entertaining a dozen conspiracies as answers, he added, “Did they use the genie to achieve their goals?”
“Yes, one wish to assure their continued health and safety from betrayals, another to build them a palace no one could invade, and the last one to ensure the survival of their new line of Bani Shamash.”
“Which I am a direct descendant of,” Cyrus said more to himself than to us.
Esfandiar’s eyes bugged. Next second he skipped around Cyrus before bowing before him, gripping his hand and kissing his ring. Cyrus stared down at him as if he’d grown another head.
Esfandiar raised ecstatic eyes to him. “To think I’ve met the first of your great line and now get to see it continue in your estimable person.”
I jabbed him in the shoulder with the bottle. “You still haven’t explained how you ended up split between the ring and the bottle.”
He straightened, relinquishing Cyrus’s hand. “Ah, yes. This also needs a preface.” He struck another pose. “After my queen made her wishes of the genie, she gave me back the lamp. And I made the first two wishes, to give me the ability to never sleep so I could explore continuously, and the second to never forget anything so I could document everything I saw to the last detail. But then I realized I needed more, to serve my passion and vocation, and made the immortality wish, and was turned into a jann-like being. And it was only then that it told me that I now shared its weakness, that I could and would be trapped like it by greedy humans and forced into an eternity of imprisonment and servitude.
“I laughed at it, said I wasn’t a djinn who couldn’t resist certain objects or entrapment spells, and that I was clever enough know who would want to lure and trap me. I forgot all about his taunts as I traveled the world for two decades using my newfound sturdiness and magic, then returned to Queen Zafira’s Sunstone Palace with a vault full of new finds and treasures.
So everything in the vault, apart from newer things like Jumana’s statue, was of his collection? Yet another major thread in our stories leading back to him.
His eyes filled with what looked like sweet reminiscing. “She was so excited by my offerings, I wanted to please her even more, said I’d be able to serve her nonstop, and her line after her unto eternity.” The flames dimmed in his eyes, turning them black. “Unbeknownst to me, I was overheard by the priest who rivaled me for her favor. He’d always hated that she prized my discoveries, and funded my expeditions rather than his temples, wanted to enrich the people through culture and art and knowledge rather than control them through dogma and threats of the gods’ wrath.”
“And he decided to get rid of your by trapping you like a genie?” I asked. He nodded. “So how did he trap you?”
“It turned out the genie had the last laugh, as I told you. I was powerless to resist the lure of the entrapment spell. The priest intended to use me as the queen had used the genie of the lamp, but when I told him I was nothing like that, and I couldn’t answer any of his wishes, he was still vengeful enough to keep me trapped, anyway.”
“But why split you into two?”
“That wasn’t his doing. Since the spell was made for djinn-born, it worked only on the part of me that was most like a djinn, the immortal side not made of flesh and bone, trapping it in the bottle. That bottle was at once taken from him by the Retrievers and thrown in the Cave of Wonders. The other part of myself, my magic, my soul would have dissipated, if I hadn’t desperately bound it to that ring I made. I hoped it would one day be worn by someone who’s magic would resonate with mine, whom I would lead to the other part of me, to free me and make me whole again.”
And that someone had been me.
So this was what the simurgh had meant. She thought I was here on purpose to unite Esfandiar’s halves and free him. And she clearly took huge exception to the idea.
E
sfandiar threw his arms up and spun around, his grin so wide it made my facial muscles hurt. “And it has worked, Mistress. You found the ring…”
“Actually, it was Cyrus who found it and gave…
He spoke over me as if he didn’t and didn’t want to hear what I was saying. “…and it led you to me!”
“Completely unknowingly, and after a few major disasters,” I huffed. “And it took a few hundred years, but who’s counting, right?”
A faraway look entered his strange eyes. “For a bound immortal, time is a very strange and cruel thing. I was aware of it passing as I felt nothing and knew nothing. I don’t know when I was able will myself to cease—being, so I wouldn’t go mad.”
Being imprisoned had long been one of my worst fears. I couldn’t even imagine what it would be like for a year, a week—a day. But for centuries?
Just the thought made me want to be sick.
And to imagine the convoluted path that ring had taken to end up on my finger. Then the more twisting one it took me to bring it here.
Cora had once told me it “had my name on it” as it wouldn’t obey anyone else. And he’d said only someone whose magic resonated…
Wait—did that mean I had magic?
Chapter Thirty-Two
I didn’t know why I’d never considered that possibility. I was the daughter of a witch, and magic wasn’t all taught, had to be built on innate ability, a talent.
But since it did, and I’d never exhibited any skill beyond nimble fingers, I doubted I had any. The magic had probably skipped a generation in my case.
I considered asking my mother, but that was a discussion for another time. If that time ever came. Now I needed to ask something else, what had been driving me crazy since I’d put that ring on my finger.
I glowered at Esfandiar. “Is that why you don’t follow the three wishes rule? Because you’re not a genie or jann? And I didn’t waste a wish when you poofed me to Carpet? And were you picking and choosing what wishes to obey, to nudge me into finding your other part?”