by Mark Albany
I nodded. “Thank you, Felicia,” I said with a forced smile. She didn’t return it, simply backing out of the room again.
I was finished with my meal, and honestly, whatever Vis had in mind for me had to be better than whatever hoops I was going to be jumping through for the rest of the day, so I took a few minutes to rub some feeling into my sore muscles before picking my tray up and heading back out.
The cellar was the same one Vis had dragged me to the night before. It was under the building where he’d taken up residence, which meant that the cellars were in better condition than even the best rooms in the servants’ quarters. There were lit torches on the walls, and Vis himself was seated at a table that had lit candles on it as he looked over a couple of scrolls.
“Grantham,” he said, looking up and indicating for me to join him at the table, in a chair across from him. “Please, sit. I’m delighted that you could join me.”
Vis was well-practiced in honeying his words to make it seem like my presence here had been something I’d chosen to do, and not just something he had ordered me to do. There would have been punishments involved if I had refused, or even showed up late, but sure, he was absolutely delighted that I could be here.
There was a lot to learn from that. I wasn’t a noble and wasn’t likely to get anywhere in life because someone was handing it to me. I would need to work for it, and sometimes, use honeyed words from a silver tongue if I wanted something without paying too much for it.
I took my seat across from him, keeping my back straight and my eyes down as he continued looking over his papers for a moment. Vis wasn’t a particularly large man, although he wasn’t too thin, either. There was nothing about his brown hair and eyes, hooked nose and pleasant smile that suggested the cunning mind to be found beneath.
“How are you feeling today?” Vis asked, surprising me enough that I looked up from my lap.
“Just a bit sore from yesterday, Master Vis,” I said softly, careful to understate my injuries just a bit. If he wanted a truer tale, all he had to do was look at the bruises and cuts on my face and arms.
Vis smiled. “Yes well, I heard that you weren’t quite yourself in the hand-to-hand training and thought it about time we had a little chat.”
I looked down again, really hoping he wouldn’t grill me on what had happened the day before. I just didn’t have it in me to lie about it again. While I wouldn’t willingly tell him about the ring in my pocket or about Aliana, if he suspected I was keeping anything from him, all he had to do was apply his magical skills to the task and all would be revealed.
“Grantham,” Vis said, making a pyramid with his hands on the table. “I believe it is time for you to learn how to harness the magic that I know to be inside you.”
I raised my eyebrows. Of all the topics of conversation, this was certainly not one that I was expecting.
“Pardon me for saying so, master,” I said, keeping my tone soft and meek. “But what magic? I’ve failed every task and lesson that has been placed before me for the past decade.”
Vis started at me through narrowed eyes, like he was trying to determine whether I believed what I was saying before responding. The smile that came to his face had the same kind of honeyed quality that his voice had carried before.
“Don’t be stupid,” Vis said in a condescending manner. “I knew when you were a child that there was magic within you. I have been somewhat… reluctant to make use of it until now, but I am beginning to understand that you might be more useful to me while taking full possession of what you are capable of. Think on what I’ve said. Take the rest of the afternoon off, get some rest, which you will need, and we shall address the issue in the morning. You may go.”
Vis seemed distracted as he was talking, looking down at the papers in front of him with more and more interest until it seemed like he’d almost forgotten that I was there. I shook my head. There was no use in looking the proverbial gift horse in the mouth. If I was getting the rest of the afternoon off from classes, I might as well make the most of it. I took to my feet and quickly exited the cellar before Vis changed his mind and called me back.
In short order, I was back in my room, lying on my bed. I wanted to take a nice long nap. Vis was right. I needed some rest, no matter what the man had in mind to try and unlock whatever latent magical talent was residing inside me.
And yet, like the night before, I wasn’t able to fall asleep. I wasn’t sure what Vis had meant when he said there was magic within me, but the fact that he hadn’t tried to get it out of me before told me he was probably lying. The reason why wasn’t clear, but it had to be something he wanted me to do. Something else he wanted stolen. I really didn’t want to think about it, so my mind turned to something else.
I tugged the ring out of my pocket, looking at it closely as I sat up in my bed, throwing my legs over the side. She was beautiful, there was no denying that, and I certainly did want to see her again. But what did that mean? Did I want to see her because of her beauty, or because of her magic?
I was overthinking this. I rubbed gently at the ring’s surface, which was how I thought she was supposed to be summoned. She had to hate being stuck in the ring for too long, anyway.
Again, as I looked up, there she was, like she’d just come out of thin air. There was still something about her that just sucked the breath out of me, and not just the oddities like her silver-green hair, or the horns curling up from her head, or even the wings stretching out of her back, though there was some blame laid on the fact that she was wearing practically nothing. Maybe a combination of all those things?
I lost my train of thought suddenly as she moved forward without a word, dropping to her knees, close enough that my attention was immediately brought to where her breasts were almost pressed against my thighs, and her mouth only inches away from where I could feel my blood rushing to. There was no visible reaction yet, but there would be. She seemed like she would make a scene of it, either seriously or in jest, but either way, we had more important things to focus on than my libido.
I reached down, gently taking hold of her arm and pulling her up to sit on the bed next to me.
“What?” she asked, sounding annoyed at being manhandled like that.
“I…” I started, clearing my throat to give me a moment to think about what I could say at this point. “Nothing. I’m just not overly fond of people on their knees in front of me, is all.”
She narrowed her eyes, looking at me and seeming to see through the admittedly transparent lie. Even so, she seemed less annoyed and more curious now as she studied me closely.
“I have to say, Grant,” she said, her voice soft and soothing. “You are unlike most of the humans I recall.”
I opened my mouth, shut it again and nodded. It seemed like a sweeping statement that had a lot of personal observation behind it, yet I wasn’t sure where to begin questioning it. I was my own man, of course, but I never thought I was all that different from the rest of my race. Not enough to merit a comment like that, anyway. Sure, there were a lot of people out there who liked having folk on their knees before them, but were there so many that I was the odd person out?
Eventually, I settled on a question I had been meaning to ask since the night before. A bit removed from the current topic of discussion, but that wasn’t a bad thing in my mind.
“If you don’t mind telling me, how long had you been stuck in that ring before I came along?” I asked, keeping my voice low.
She tilted her head, that smarmy smile touching her bright red lips. “A surprising question, and not entirely relevant, but I think you know the answer is that I am not entirely sure. Time passes differently when I’m stuck inside the ring.”
“Well, we can always figure it out for ourselves,” I said, twisting in my seat to face her. “For example, the date is the seventh of Cado, four hundred and seventy-eighth year of the Fourteenth Age.”
She looked up at the ceiling as she leaned back on the bed, using her arms
to prop herself up. “That would mean that… well, my memory is a bit foggy at the moment, but it would be roughly fifty-three years since I last walked free.”
“Fifty years,” I said in a soft breath. “That’s a hell of a long time to spend all on your own.”
She smiled. “Considering the average lifespan of my kind, fifty years, while not an insubstantial amount, is not overly long. I had already lived a few times that number before I was cursed.”
“So, when you say your kind, you don’t mean djinn, correct?” I asked, watching her thoughtfully. “You mean whatever it was that you were before.”
She nodded. “Indeed. Although my people were rather scarce even before I was cursed. Fear of our magical abilities, and magical abilities in general, grew widespread. There were a few attempts at genocide over the centuries, and one finally took. Our numbers were too few to repopulate, and in the end, we dwindled away into nothingness. Only shadows of what we were, like myself and my three sisters, remain to haunt the living.”
I looked down. There were more than a few genocides recorded in history. Some were regarded as heroic efforts against great evils, others as atrocities. They were all the same. Humans detested anything that was different from themselves, and needed little excuse to carry that hatred over to violence.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, lowering my head. “That can’t have been easy.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see her pull herself up straight, leaning over to gently run her fingers over my cheek. The touch sent chills down my spine, a pleasant sensation, but I tried not to focus on it.
“It isn’t your fault,” she said with a small smile. “Although, I do appreciate the sentiment behind it.”
I shook my head, trying to change the subject away from such dark thoughts.
“So… you said your sisters were of your kind,” I said, lifting my head. “But yesterday, you said that the Sisters Three weren’t sisters by blood. Heh…”
“What?” Aliana asked as my voice trailed off.
“It’s odd to treat the Sisters Three as fact instead of fiction, is all,” I said, almost embarrassed. “Anyway, moving on. You said the three of you weren’t sisters by blood. What other kind of sisters could you be?”
She nodded, turning to face me, her wings fluttering gently as she sat cross-legged on the bed. “Well, it’s a little difficult to explain. The closest, I think, to something you would understand would be something like a… well, a sisterhood by oath, I suppose? But a lot more complex than that. My kind had a way to meld our minds to others that we cared about through… varying means, but it allowed us to be closer to someone we chose instead of the family we were born into. Sisters just seemed easier than having to explain all that every time.”
I nodded. It did make sense. I recalled some of the mages talking about something similar. Like most nobles, they talked like people in servants’ garb didn’t exist until needed for some task or another, and the two men had carried the whole conversation without even noticing that I was in the room with them. I hadn’t even tried to hide.
They had been talking about a mind-meld. It was difficult to create but wasn’t difficult to maintain. It required a lot of artifacts to meld the minds, but maintaining it required a simple physical relationship between the two people involved. I wondered if it was the same with this meld between Aliana and her two sisters… no, it didn’t seem likely. Someone as powerful as her wouldn’t need something like that, right?
She was watching my reaction closely, I realized, as I’d gone silent for a long time.
“Sorry,” I said quickly. “I remembered hearing some mages talking about a mind-meld like that. Apparently, it’s quite difficult to create.”
“For a human,” she said with a chuckle.
“Fair enough,” I replied with a nod.
We kept on talking as the afternoon waned and night came. She was curious about me and wanted to know what had led me to where the ring had been buried with its previous owner. It wasn’t too often I had people around who wanted to hear me talk. Most of the time I was talked down to in one way or another. I had learned to take it, usually letting my mind wander, nodding and grunting at appropriate intervals to let those doing the talking know that I was at least trying to pay attention.
In this case, though, it actually seemed that she was interested in what I had to say. She stuck around even as night came and darkness required me to light a candle, asking questions and keeping my words flowing. I found myself talking about how my parents’ deaths had left me in this house, stealing for Vis to earn my keep, and how the latest theft had led me to where the ring was.
Dinner was sent up to my room. Aliana had to hide for a few seconds as I collected it, but she returned quickly and eagerly. I asked if she wanted some food but she declined, telling me that Djinn didn’t need any physical sustenance. It was her turn to talk as I ate.
I felt embarrassed by filling her in on my comparatively uneventful life as she started to tell me about the various conflicts she had been involved in. Apparently, her kind had inhabited places like the forest where I’d found her, in massive cities. Their magical power had been what made the humans hate them, and there had been a couple of unsuccessful attempts on her life. Some involved humans who were on her side. I wondered just how old she was and why she’d been cursed, but by the time her stories wound down, the hour was already growing late and I couldn’t stop a long, jaw-splitting yawn as my last candle burned itself down to the last bit of wick.
“I think I need some sleep,” I said finally, leaning back in the bed. “Do you prefer to stay here for the night?”
“That would be my preference, yes,” she said with a small smile.
“Very well,” I said with a chuckle. “I suppose I could set up on the floor.”
“No need for that,” she said quickly, laying down on the bed beside me. “Unless you feel uncomfortable sharing a bed with me?”
Uncomfortable wasn’t the word, I thought as she patted the bed in front of her. There wasn’t space on the bed behind her, not with her wings, which left her front the only spot available.
I shrugged as the candle sputtered out. I was too tired to dispute sharing my small bed with her, so I simply curled up next to her, pulling the blanket over both of us. Her skin was hot to the touch, I realized. Not just warm. It was on the border between pleasant and unsettling, and if any human was at that temperature, I’d tell them they were sick with a fever.
Not her though, so I decided to just enjoy the heat of her skin pressed against mine. She leaned in, pressing a light kiss to my cheek, moving back as I turned over, almost surprised by her gesture. Pressed in close together as we were, it was all I could do not to reach out and touch her some more. From the look in her eyes, it seemed like she wanted me to do so. Instinctively, I craned my neck up, leaving my lips inches away from hers as I stared into her odd, beautiful eyes that were visible even in the dark.
The moment passed, and I dropped my head back to the bed, closing my eyes. She did the same a few seconds later, her hand running down over my side.
I shook my head. I was being stupid. Why would someone like her want to be with someone like me? I had to be just a child in her eyes, and she was only here because, by sheer chance, I had come into possession of the ring she was curse-bound to.
It was still a pleasant fantasy, I thought. Just not one to ever be entertained in the real world.
With that thought running through my head, I found myself quickly drifting off.
6
Morning came a bit too quickly. Aliana was gone by the time I woke up. I was up with the sun, as I tended to be, leaving the ring hidden under my mattress again as I headed off to get something to eat. One of the younger familiars was already waiting for me by the time I’d reached the hall where food was being served.
“Grant!” the young boy called, waving me over. “Master Vis has instructed me to guide you to him once you have finished your morni
ng meal.”
“And you’re going to wait until I’m finished, are you?” I asked, filling a wooden bowl with oatmeal.
The boy nodded eagerly. I wondered if he’d eaten yet, and why he was being used to guide me. I knew every corner of this damned manor, inside and out. I’d made a point of being extremely curious in my younger years, exploring and finding every nook and cranny that there was to be found in this damned mansion.
That said, Vis could be someplace that would require some guiding, and heavens knew that the man didn’t like to be kept waiting. Either way, I wasn’t going to rush my way through breakfast. I’d missed it the day before, and even though the oatmeal was a bit bland, it was still better than nothing.
As it turned out, having a guide with me hadn’t been a bad call. Once I was finished with my food, the young familiar, who refused to tell me his name after I’d asked three times, guided me out of the quarters were the servants and familiars were housed, and started walking toward the path that led out of the manor, beyond the lands that were owned by Vis.
After about ten minutes of following the path deeper into the city, the boy turned off, heading toward the lake. It was rather secluded, and a very beautiful spot, I realized. I would have enjoyed it a lot more if Master Vis wasn’t there waiting for me, watching me with narrowed eyes and an unreadable expression. He’d been acting strangely since the day before, and damned if I could tell what was bothering him. Was he excited? Worried? His stout, pleasant features didn’t betray a single thing. I was worried that the unasked questions racing through my mind would distract me from whatever it was he wanted me to do out here.
Well, if it was magic he wanted, my being distracted wouldn’t make much difference in how I performed. The man had to know by now that I was a lost cause.
“I hope you rested well and ate a hearty meal before coming to me,” Vis said, gesturing for the young boy who had led me here to head back to the manor. “Your instruction today will be unlike anything you’ve encountered before.”