by Mark Albany
A djinn. I wasn’t even sure if I believed it. I thought about it while pulling the ring out from under the mattress and staring at it closely in the moonlight shining in through the shutters. It was made of bronze, with a small green gem embedded in the side. It looked cheap and poorly made.
“She’s right,” I murmured, gently rubbing at the bronze to get it to shine a bit. “It really is an ugly little ring.”
“That is what I said,” I heard her say, again close enough that I could feel her breath.
I resisted the urge to jump away like I had before, but my heart was hammering and I almost fell off the bed.
“You have to stop doing that,” I insisted.
She grinned in response. “And how would you expect me to appear? Through a door, maybe through the window?”
“Well, that wouldn’t be the worst thing,” I replied. Now that she said so, it did seem a bit silly to expect someone that came into view because of a ring to take a door because it would make me more comfortable.
She moved away from the bed, looking around the room as I tried to keep from gawking. She hadn’t improved her dress from nearly naked. Her wings were clearly visible, I realized, and looked like they had been torn at by wild beasts, drawing my attention away from the silky smoothness of her nearly-bare skin.
“I didn’t know djinn had wings,” I said softly.
She turned toward me, tilting her head as a playful smile teased at her lips. “And just how did you expect djinn to appear, Grant?”
“I’m not really sure,” I said, remaining in bed, forcing myself to look away. “There hasn’t been anyone who could reliably claim that they had met with one before now, so all visual depictions range from massively unknowable and powerful, to… well, the sort of small, round, inoffensive thing that would appear in the realm of children’s stories. Certainly, never something quite as…” I struggled to find the right word.
“Horrifying?” Aliana said helpfully, flicking a strand of hair from her face as she looked at me. “Awe-inspiring? The kind of thing to make any man’s blood run cold?”
“Distracting,” I corrected her, as I tried not to stare. It was hard not to let my eyes lock onto her barely-contained breasts.
I could see her give that playful smirk I’d begun to associate with her as she turned away, flicking her wings gently as she walked over to the single window of my room. She quickly undid the bolt on the shutters and pulled them open, taking a small breath. Of all the things I had to be thankful for in this tiny room, the biggest was the view it afforded. It was only the second story of the servants living quarters, and yet the ground fell away sharply, giving an amazing view of the small lake that lay just beyond Vis’ property and the forest that spread out beyond.
She leaned forward, resting her hands on the windowsill. I smiled, still not having the energy to get out of bed. Besides, it was probably best if I wasn’t on my feet or anywhere near her at the moment.
“I wonder what the world is like now,” she said softly, looking out at the view.
I shrugged. “How long were you trapped inside the ring? I assume you were trapped, anyway.”
She chuckled, and it sounded like music. “I have no idea. It seems like a long time ago, but I think time passes differently while trapped inside that fucking thing. It could have been a hundred years or a thousand, for all I could tell.”
“The woman I took the ring from didn’t seem to have died that long ago,” I said softly, seeing the sadness in her eyes.
“That is to be expected from a magical artifact as powerful as that,” she said with a cheerless laugh. “They preserve everything they touch, even if they aren’t alive. Even so, it must have been decades at least. My connection to my sisters has faded, and unless they died, it takes years before there is that kind of erosion. Besides, I think that if they were alive, they would have tried to find me by now.”
I was about to ask what she was talking about when I remembered how she’d introduced herself. Aliana of the Sisters Three indicated that there were two more sisters.
“Do you miss them? Your sisters, I mean?” I asked, feeling foolish once the words passed my lips.
She smiled, closing the shutters and walking back over to me. “We weren’t sisters. Not of blood, anyway. Even so, we were closer than that, somehow. Family of blood cannot be picked, but the family chosen instead of given, gives a much stronger bond, if that makes sense. When I was cursed, I lost that bond. I intend to reclaim it.”
I tilted my head. “So, you’re telling me that… you haven’t always looked this way? You haven’t always been a djinn? In all honesty, you do fit the description of a demon more aptly, but then again there aren’t many who can claim to have seen any of those either.”
She smirked, raising an eyebrow as she joined me on the bed, leaning closer so that there wasn’t anything I could do but look at her, and by extension…
“No, I haven’t always looked this way,” she whispered.
The way her eyes locked with mine, it seemed like she was trying to attract my attention. Not that she needed to put too much effort into it, I realized, clearing my throat and pulling the light blanket up over my midsection.
“I see,” I said, my voice having gone a few tones deeper since the last time I’d spoken. “That’s not to say that you don’t look… absolutely stunning as you are now. Just very attention-grabbing, is what I mean. I should probably keep my voice down. Others in this building might hear and discover you.”
“Unfortunate,” she said, pouting adorably. “I do so love making a man scream.”
My eyes widened and I could feel heat starting to spread across my cheeks. This was certainly a new experience for me, that was certain, but I wasn’t sure what she meant by that. Or rather, I didn’t want to make any assumptions about what she meant by it. The reason why magic was such a taboo subject was because it was said that those who wielded it had a tendency toward sadism, and so far, my personal experience had lent itself to that line of thinking. As such, I couldn’t tell if she meant screaming in pain or… the other way.
She pulled away, stretching her arms above her head and yawning. Her skin had a soft, silvery glow in the dim light, looking smooth like a peach that I wanted to take, to kiss… My mind filled with images of her on top of me, my hands caressing her curves, removing what little clothing she had, my tongue taking a nipple and twirling around it. Could she possibly know what she was doing to me?
Her eyes moved to me and she pulled her hair back, very aware of my gaze. My reaction was to fake a yawn as well. Even though it wasn’t real at first, it become a full-on yawn and I realized how tired I was. Besides, I doubted that Vis would allow me to skip my training just because I had risked my life for something he wanted.
“I should probably get some sleep,” I said, burrowing gently into my bed although my eyes were still glued to her. More than anything, I wanted her to tell me it wasn’t time for that, that it was time for something far more exciting.
But her playful eyes moved away, and she nodded. “Agreed. If you need me, you know how to call me.”
Did I? I opened my mouth to ask her to just confirm my suspicions, but, like she had before, she just seemed to slip out of existence in the blink of an eye, leaving me alone in my dimly-lit room.
I ground my teeth, shuddering gently as I pulled my blanket up over my body and turned over onto my side. Sleep quickly engulfed me in a warm and dreamless rest.
5
My right eye peeked open as I felt a stream of light starting to touch it. The shutters in my window didn’t latch properly, always opening after a while. A cool morning air and sunlight streamed in.
Memories of the night before came back as I groaned in pain, feeling sore and bruised muscles moving underneath scratched and cut skin, making for a myriad of sensations that made sure I wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep, even if I felt like I could lie around for days.
Besides, I knew my presence would be expe
cted at my lessons, despite the fact that Vis had told me to lay low for the moment. More questions would be raised if I wasn’t at my lessons as usual, so with a soft curse, I pulled myself up from the bed. I looked down and realized I’d fallen asleep with the ring clutched in my fingers. I turned it around in my fingers, memories of the woman who had come along with it flooding my mind. The woman who wasn’t a woman, I thought with a chuckle. I thought about how she had mentioned that she hadn’t always been a djinn, and how a curse had turned her and her two other sisters into what she was now.
The world was a strange place, I thought to myself as I stood, needing a few seconds to acquire my balance. I walked over to where my dirty, blood-stained clothes were lying in a heap. I needed to turn them in to the seamstress for fixing, and she wouldn’t be happy about it. I might as well just toss them in a fire, but then I would only have one set of clothes. There was no telling if Vis would send me out on another trip, after which I might have no clothes.
Grumbling softly, I picked them up and limped out of the room and tucking the ugly ring into my pocket.
I honestly had no idea why Vis insisted on having the tutors teach me magic. They had been trying since I had arrived at this manor, and at no point in over a decade had I ever shown any kind of aptitude for the magic. Familiars needed to have some kind of connection to the magical arts to be of any use to mages, and I had none. Even so, that had never stopped Vis from having me fail these men in stuffy robes and pompous attitudes over and over again.
It had been a while since I’d thought about it, I realized as I lined up with the other familiars going into one of the lessons. I hadn’t missed any in the morning, but my waking up late had meant that I didn’t get to have any breakfast, as well as having my ears yelled off by the seamstress.
It wasn’t like I could blame her. If someone came to me with that mess of destruction and filth, I would have been angry too, especially if there hadn’t been a reason given as to why it had happened. Even more so if I was the one who had to clean it. I should have been the one to clean them and fix them. That way, I wouldn’t have been yelled at—or yelled at less, anyway—and I wouldn’t have to go through these annoying motions.
“Take your seats!” our instructor shouted, as we were all dawdling. I was mostly left alone and allowed to move to the back of the classroom, where an apple had been placed on my desk. We’d been given this trick to do ever since we were children. The tutor had told us that it was the starting step for performing greater feats, but since we weren’t supposed to be performing greater feats, as that would be left up to those with noble families to make it acceptable, we were forced to perform the same simple trick we’d been performing since we were children. Or in my case, the trick I had failed to perform since I was a child.
It didn’t matter. I’d come up with a handful of tricks to help me move the pieces of fruit without actually needing magic. Sure, the tricks had never fooled the tutor before, but it didn’t keep me from trying anyway. The better I got at it, the more practice I got at the skills that Vis actually used me for.
Today though, I lacked the energy required to come up with something new and exciting to try.
“Master Porter, sir,” I said, raising my hand. “If we can’t move the apples, can we eat them?”
A couple of the other youths in the class chuckled. Porter for his part, did not look amused.
“If you failed to reach the dining hall before they closed it for breakfast, that is hardly my concern,” he said without looking up from the scroll on his desk. “These apples are meant for training, and training alone. You may not eat them.”
I tilted my head. “Are they… magical apples?”
Porter didn’t answer, tossing me a glare that made me look down at my table. He shook his head. “Now, as we’ve discussed. Reach out with your mind, feel the pieces in front of you, and try to move them,” Porter said in a voice that showed that he was as bored with this practice as we all were. Even so, I narrowed my eyes, waving my hands over the apple with a flourish. I was tempted to try and eat the apple anyways, since the man would be yelling at me before the class was over whether I did so or not.
For the briefest of seconds, I was tempted to make an honest effort at actually tugging at the apple with my mind. I closed my eyes, trying to reach out into the air around me in the way that almost a dozen previous instructors had tried to get me to do. They had no tips on how to actually achieve the kind of mental balance required. They had all told me that I either had it or I didn’t, and this was the kind of skill that could not be taught.
Annoyingly, it seemed they were right. I tried reaching out, but it was like trying to reach up to a ceiling in a dark room while lying down. It was there, it was possible, just not for me.
I sighed, shaking my head. At the back of the class, I could see several of my classmates already taking control of the pieces of fruit in front of them. None were powerful enough to do much with it other than drag it across the table a couple of times, and from the looks of things, it was an exhausting effort.
I made a face that showed how serious I was supposed to be about this and waved my hands over the apple again with a bit of flourish. On one of the waves, I dropped a small piece of thread, tied in a loop over the apple and tugged it back, keeping it hidden under my forearm.
I closed my eyes, leaving one hand over the apple, as if I was trying to reach out with my mind and using a physical gesture to help with the mental process, as my left hand dropped to the table, tugging at the string. It was gentle at first, and I opened my eyes, grinning, watching as the apple moved, just shuddering in place at first, and then starting to move across the table toward me.
I could hear a couple of confused whispers from some of my classmates. I assumed it was the newcomers, who were a few years younger than I was, since the rest had already seen me trying to pull this particular piece of wool over our tutors’ eyes.
The apple was almost at the edge of the table when I felt a hand with a massive ring strike me upside my head, making me duck and clutch where I’d been hit.
I looked up to see Porter standing over me with a furious expression on his face. “Fuck.”
“Such simple tricks and sleight of hand are not acceptable in this class, Grantham,” Porter snapped, adjusting his ring from where it had hit my skull. “Nor will that type of language. Now, apply yourself to your task or leave my classroom immediately.”
I nodded. He was clearly a lot more reasonable today than he usually was. I stood to leave as he had instructed, but quickly found his hands settling on my shoulders and pushing me back down.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” Porter asked, growing angrier with me by the second.
“You just said—” I started but was silenced by another ring-aided slap to the side of my head.
“You will remain seated and perform your task to the best of your ability in silence!” he said, almost shouting, before moving away to inspect the work of my classmates. I kept my head down, my hand coming back up to rub some feeling into where the man’s hand had left a sting. This was all just so damned pointless. What the hell was I doing here, anyways? Everyone knew that the only reason I was here was because Vis needed a patsy should his grubby actions of the past come to light, and I didn’t need to attend fucking classes for that.
I managed to sneak in a couple of short naps, hiding them behind closing my eyes for concentration and keeping my hand up to pretend that I was still trying. It made the time spent in the room pass by a lot quicker, though I had to be careful to stay awake when Porter came by my table. If it at least looked like I was trying to stay on the task at hand without distracting my fellow students, he mostly left me alone, leaving behind only a couple of frustrated huffs each time he saw that I wasn’t making any progress.
I had no idea why he was surprised at this point, but who was I question the great and magical mages?
I left the class feeling more annoyed than I
had in a while. I had more than enough cuts and bruises from my adventures the day before, and thanks to Porter, I had a couple more on my head to bring with me to the next class, which was one I normally looked forward to. Hand-to-hand combat techniques were something I could actually use in my horde of tricks. It was something that I actually had some skill at and didn’t require any magical ability.
Even so, I was having a hard time moving at all. I really wished I could just retreat to my room and sleep for the rest of the day. Unfortunately, that wasn’t going to happen.
A few hours later, I stumbled up the stairs to my room, a handful more bruises on my arms and ribs to show for my efforts. I’d handed out a couple as well, but the fact remained that I was only halfway through the day and already in worse shape than I had been when I started it.
I saw that a tray of food had already been set out for me. I never ate with the rest of the familiars, or even the servants. It was well known that I was something of a pet project for Vis. There had been a couple of whispers that there were other reasons why Vis kept me around, but only a few days had been needed to dispel those rumors. Vis had depraved tastes, but satisfying them was a task left exclusively to women.
And then Vis started to use me as his personal thief, which was better than his lover, but only slightly.
I sighed, putting the tray on my table and eating slowly. Not because I wasn’t hungry, but because one of the larger students had tagged me in the jaw with a bit more strength than necessary during our evasion class. He hadn’t landed any other blows, despite spending the entirety of our sparring session attacking.
One hit was all that was needed, though, I thought, rubbing my jaw gingerly.
The day was only halfway done, I realized with a pained chuckle. More classes. More pretending that I was here for something other than just being a low-level thief.
I heard a soft knock on the open door and looked up, seeing one of the house servants peeking in.
“Master Vis would like a word,” she said softly, keeping her eyes down. “He says to meet him in the cellar. He says that you know precisely which one.”