by Sara King
The djinni merely watched her with that classic djinni holier-than-thou look, high amusement plastered all over his smug face. “You were saying?”
Oh, but she wanted to drag him out onto a creek and shove him through the ice. Somehow reining herself in, she smiled pleasantly at him and said, “The winds have died. They’re going to be launching the helicopters again soon.”
“And it’s getting cold again,” he noted, gesturing to the snow that was falling, where it had been rain before. Instead of discussing that, however, he launched back into his lecherous obscenities, making the treetops ring with the force of his lungs.
Groaning in disgust, Kaashifah stomped past him. The djinni was taking much too great a pleasure in her vow of silence. “When you’re done with your singing,” she snapped over her shoulder, “perhaps you would help me find a place for us to spend the night.” She did need to get the bullets out of her body, but she was going to do it alone, when the djinni had slipped to the Fourth Realm for the night. As an afterthought, she added, “And some food!”
“You were the one who was in such a rush she did not take the time to pack us a few meals to take with us on the trip,” the djinni reminded her, infuriatingly. Then he cocked his head at her. “You could always wish for supplies, I suppose.”
“No wish,” she snapped, for the hundredth time that day.
“A bargain, then?” the djinni offered, sounding almost hopeful.
She turned to glare at him. “I’d rather run my tongue along the bottoms of your filthy feet.”
“You have reset your seven days,” the djinni boomed, in the magic of the Fourth Lands. Then, deflating, ‘Aqrab cocked his head and said, “How long has it been since you ate, mon Dhi’b? We djinni could eat or not…doesn’t matter much to me…but the Third Lander you carry with you is, shall we say, delicate?”
Kaashifah glared at him. “Like I said, I would rather lick the bottoms of your—”
“Let me touch your hand until I am satisfied and I will give you a sack of food and supplies,” the djinni interrupted. “Do you agree to that bargain?” He had that narrow, tense look he got whenever he was paying too close attention to the exact words she spoke.
“There will be no more bargains, djinni,” she snarled. “You mentioned nothing about the size of the sack, nor its respective contents, and ‘until you are satisfied’ is completely open-ended. You could mean months or years, for all I know.”
‘Aqrab laughed. “To hold your hand for the next decade? I’m sorry, mon Dhi’b, but I am not that fond of you. I will get bored rather quickly, I assure you. It is a djinni’s curse.”
That stung. Glaring at him, Kaashifah considered how she was going to acquire enough food to make it all the way to the Brooks Range without starving to bones and sinew along the way. Just like Africa. Obviously, the same thing was running through the djinni’s mind, because he had crossed his arms and was giving her that flat djinni stare of which he was a master.
“It’s a simple bargain, mon Dhi’b,” he said. “I touch your hand for a few minutes, possibly as much as a few hours. You, in turn, have your first meal in a week.”
“Neek hallak, ‘Aqrab,” she snapped.
He cocked his head at her, drawing one of his big hands to his face to stroke his chin. “Thirty pounds of steak, perhaps? A few legs of chevon? Pistachios? Pomegranates? Roast mutton? You must be starving after losing so much blood.”
“Enough!” Kaashifah screamed, but her stomach was already wakening, beginning its attack against her spine.
The despicable djinni smiled. “Perhaps you are in the mood for roast fowl, instead. Swan, mon Dhi’b? A dozen ducks, stuffed with lemon and rice, basted in their own juices?”
Kaashifah almost doubled over in the Third Lander’s yearning that followed. While a Fury, like a djinni, did not need to eat, a Third Lander, born of a cold world of darkness, where every beast was in a constant fight for its life, ate enough for ten. Kaashifah had over time learned countless ways to ignore the hunger pangs, but doing so was impossible when the djinni painted such a vivid description of what she was going without.
It was with the wrenching pains of the Third Lander’s need raking at her innards that Kaashifah managed, “Just…my hand?” After him touching her entire body for hours, it seemed a small price to pay.
“Just your hand,” the djinni agreed, his face taking on that utterly sharp look of a serval stalking a bird through the grass.
“Give me the food first,” Kaashifah growled. “Then I give you my hand.”
“I offered you a bargain, mon Dhi’b, not an act of faith.”
“With djinni, the ‘bargain’ always has the strange habit of the djinni getting what he wants first,” Kaashifah snapped.
“Because we are bound by Law,” ‘Aqrab agreed. “If the conditions are fulfilled, we must reciprocate.”
Kaashifah frowned up at him, considering. “You want to touch my hand.”
“To my satisfaction,” the djinni said.
“And if you fail to find satisfaction, then what?”
The djinni shrugged. “You don’t get your supplies.”
She peered up at his impassive face, trying desperately to determine whether or not this was another monkey-paw. She couldn’t think of any reason why she wouldn’t make the bargain, aside from her own uncleanliness afterwards, but that could be fixed with prayer and ablutions, and she was already thoroughly soiled from the djinni’s earlier attentions.
“Very well,” she gritted. “Let me hear the entire bargain. Then I will decide.”
‘Aqrab stiffened, his body suddenly radiating violet waves of Fourth Lander magic to Kaashifah’s second sight. His eyes, normally the light purple of amethyst, became a deep and vibrant neon glow. “I, Yad al-‘Aqrab, sand-singer of the Scorpion clan, firstborn son of Bakr al-Shihab, eleventh djinni Lord of the Fourth Lands, hereby offer a bargain to you, Kaashifah the Fury, Handmaiden to Ares, Warrior-Priestess of Horus, Angel of Vengeance, and Justice of the Battlefields: Allow me to touch your hand to my satisfaction and I will deliver to you thirty pounds of whatever foodstuffs you desire. Do you accept?”
Kaashifah made a face. “Thirty pounds will last me for one day.”
The djinni’s face immediately melted into a grin. “Then I suppose we shall have to make another bargain tomorrow, won’t we?”
She considered, carefully looking for some way he could be tricking her. “These ‘foodstuffs’ will be the choicest raw meat of a healthy—no less than a year old, yet no more than three—bovine cow, of the cuts I prefer, in sizeable portions comparable to those I cut for myself, when I’ve had a carcass with which to do so. If they are rancid, maggot-ridden, or in any way inedible, it will be the last bargain you ever receive of me.”
The djinni gave her a nod. “I wrap your conditions in Law,” he boomed. “Do you accept?” Then he waited.
Kaashifah sniffed, then glanced down at her hand. The idea of letting the djinni fondle it for however long he deemed appropriate made her wince, but she did not relish the idea of using the Third Lander to hunt game like an animal. She, like the djinni, found the act of eating rather barbaric, and the means of acquiring said meals even more so.
Besides. This was a perfect opportunity to discover whether or not ‘Aqrab’s professed ‘compromising mood’ was really just that, or yet another djinni trick. Lifting her head to meet his eyes, she said, “I accept.”
The djinni’s eyes widened in what looked like surprise before the power of the Fourth Lands claimed his body again. She felt him tie yet another cord to her soul as the violet power washed in swirls around him and he boomed, “As agreed, so decreed, the bargain has been made.”
Then he collapsed, giggling, to the ground in front of her.
…giggling?
Kaashifah took a wary step backwards. “What have you done, ‘Aqrab?”
Without raising his head from where he stared at the ground between his hands and knees, ‘Aqrab waved a d
istracted hand at her and breathlessly said, “Oh don’t worry, you old prude. I didn’t monkeypaw you.” Biting his lip in a grin, he looked up at her, and she saw joy on his face.
She squinted at him. “You…enjoy…a bargain, don’t you?”
He beamed up at her. “It is one of the finer pleasures in life.”
Kaashifah grunted. “All this time, you’ve told me there was no finer pleasure than twining your legs with a djinni woman.”
‘Aqrab shrugged. “Depends on your mood at the time, I suppose.”
Grimacing, Kaashifah realized he was serious. A bargain gave him pleasure. The idea of giving ‘Aqrab pleasure had the same taste in her mind as the idea of swallowing the feces of pigs.
“Oh stop wrinkling your nose, you old prude,” ‘Aqrab retorted distractedly, shaking his head and lowering his face back to the ground between his knees. “You wouldn’t understand, anyway.” The djinni, she noted, was still breathing hard.
Turning away from him, she examined the nearby woods through the falling snow. With the last leaves on the trees whipped away by the Chinook, it would be difficult to hide from the helicopter, if it came again. Still, though, she had to wonder how they had managed to locate them in the dark. She recalled the words whispered on the winds, both a whisper of magic in her mind and a whisper of sound to her Thirdlander senses. The Inquisitors, it seemed, were using magic to power their radios. Not the wisest thing to do, when fighting a magus, but she was not about to inform them of the fact.
To ‘Aqrab, she said, “What is infrared, djinni?”
‘Aqrab lifted his head up to peer at her, looking confused. “In for red?”
“Infrared,” Kaashifah repeated. “When the helicopter was overhead, they said you lit up like a flashlight on infrared.”
‘Aqrab cocked his head at her. “You heard them, mon Dhi’b?”
She shrugged. “I was accessing the wolf and they infused their radios with magic, so I was hearing it in both my ears and my mind.”
“Then they were doubly dicked,” the djinni chuckled.
Kaashifah winced. “Must you be so vulgar?”
Slowly pushing himself to his feet, ‘Aqrab said, “What is a dick, mon Dhi’b, aside from another piece of flesh?”
“It’s disgus—” Then she swallowed, realizing that the over-sensitive Fourthlander Law might construe that as another insult, considering that the djinni possessed one. Coughing, she gestured at the forest. “Would you like for me to shape us a dwelling for the night?”
The djinni’s amusement was unmistakable. He gave a slight nod of his head. “That would be appreciated, mon Dhi’b.”
Grunting, she worked her way forward through the snow-dusted brush until she came into contact with a likely ley line and followed it through the forest until she came to a nexus, sixty feet below the fallen leaves and frozen mosses. “She glanced over her shoulder. “Will this work?” she asked, gesturing at the place beneath her feet.
The djinni glanced at the repetitive Northlander forest and brought his hand to his chin in consideration. “No, I want it three fingers to the left.” He gestured.
She raised a brow at that. “You are in a good mood, djinni.”
‘Aqrab grinned, his teeth almost blinding in his face. “A good bargain has that effect on me, mon Dhi’b.” Then he crossed his arms over his bare chest and waited, towering in the forest behind her like an obsidian statue in blue silk.
Closing her eyes, Kaashifah returned to her task. Without the heat of battle to quicken her thoughts, it took several moments to reach the crystalline core of her center. Once she was there, she slipped into her power-well, a tornado of searing white energy trapped within, most of which was hidden from her by an opaque black screen of the Pact of the Realms. Taking a wisp of the outer edges with her, she sank her consciousness downward, sinking a tendril of awareness through the earth, into the nexus at her feet. Instantly, her body began to hum with the extra energy, powering her for the task she attempted next.
Visualizing the forest around her, Kaashifah envisioned a bubble rising from the earth, pushing upward, a hill-shaped cavern of dirt. Once she had a firm picture in her mind, she sent her energy into it. Almost immediately, the ground beneath her began to rumble and move. In a distant corner of her mind, she felt the djinni back up.
Several spruce and birch trees groaned and leaned to the side as the bubble took their roots with them, tugging them upward as it expanded. She kept going well after she would have stopped in the past, expending the extra effort and making it larger than usual, to give the djinni plenty of room to avoid her inside, now that she could no longer keep him in the Fourth Lands with the threat of shadow.
Then, once Kaashifah was satisfied with the size of the hill, she released the image, and the bubble stopped growing. Taking a moment to catch her breath, she turned and picked her way down the hill’s northern slope to stop in front of the djinni, who was eying her as if she’d grown the twisted horns of an addax. “Did you need to make it so big, mon Dhi’b?”
She grunted. “It all looks the same from the sky.”
“It looks like a meteor hit,” he muttered, indicating the leaning trees.
“They are looking for a djinni, not a meteor,” Kaashifah said, stepping to the base of the bubble and harnessing the Third Lander just long enough to dig out an entrance through which she could crawl through, intentionally leaving it small, in the off-chance the djinni would take the hint.
Unfortunately, he did not. He merely slipped realms and appeared on the inside, a flame dancing in his palm, as she was still crawling on her hands and knees through the opening.
“Spacious,” he commented, looking up at the cavernous ceiling. Even standing, it soared a good three feet over his head.
It was a trick that Kaashifah had learned from the fey, and one that had served her well over three thousand years of hiding. “I was giving you plenty of space,” she muttered, throwing some moss over the entrance to cover it. “When shall you begin profaning my hand?”
The djinni stiffened, his eyes gaining luminescence, and in the otherworldly echo of the Fourth Lands, he boomed, “You have reset your seven days.”
Kaashifah felt her face heating. “That wasn’t an insult.”
“The Fourthlander Law is utterly unbiased,” ‘Aqrab said, once the light faded from his eyes. Smirking, he continued, “and it seems to think it was.”
“It was a statement of fact,” she cried. “My body is pure, while yours is not. By touching me, you—”
“You have reset your seven days,” the djinni boomed. Then, relaxing, he leaned back against the wall of their abode and peered at her over the flame in his palm.
“It’s fact!” she cried. “A Fury is pure, by her very nature. The touch of…men…profanes us.”
“You have reset your seven days.” Once the magic passed, the djinni just grinned at her. “If that is so, perhaps we should avoid fulfilling our last bargain. I wouldn’t want to do anything that would ‘profane’ you, little wolf.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “You’ve done it daily, for three thousand years.”
“You have reset your seven days,” the djinni boomed. Then, once he had regained control of himself, he brought his other hand up and peered at the backs of his fingernails in the light of his flame. “Seven days,” he commented, “is going to take centuries, at this pace.”
She glared. “You intentionally make it take fact for insults.”
‘Aqrab laughed as if he considered that ridiculous. “Like I said, mon Dhi’b. I have no control over Fourthlander Law. It is a power unto itself, and it is completely unbiased. If it thinks you are insulting me, than you most assuredly are.”
Kaashifah glared at him in the dim darkness a long moment, then said, “I will make a light. Kneel so I may stand on your back.”
The djinni, still wrapped in his own smug satisfaction, said, “I think, today, I will lift you up. By your own hand, you made it much too high for
my back to suffice. Besides, I’ve always found it slightly…demeaning…to have you tread on me.” He crushed the flame in his palm and took a step towards her.
Eyes widening, Kaashifah stumbled backwards and said, “You will do no such thi—”
The djinni grabbed her and easily hefted her upwards, so that her head was only inches beneath the ceiling. She froze, utterly horrified by the places he was touching her, too distracted to concentrate.
“The longer it takes you to affix our light,” the djinni noted against her hip, “the longer I get to hold you, mon Dhi’b.”
Swallowing hard, Kaashifah somehow found the willpower to press her palm to the ceiling, though returning to her center was a hundred times more difficult with the djinni’s hot body wrapped around her legs and thighs. Once she did, she had to try several times to sink a sphere of energy into the ceiling and set it aglow, losing her control over the orb several times in her distraction.
Eventually, taking much longer than she would have liked, she succeeded in casting the dome-shaped cavern in a searing white light. “Now put me down!” she cried, doing her best not to squirm.
‘Aqrab did as he was told, gently alighting her upon the soft dirt beside him. A bit discomfited, Kaashifah went to the wall furthest from him and sat down to collect herself. She’d rarely been this rattled in her life, and their journey had just begun. When she looked up, she found that the djinni had crossed his arms once more and was surveying her from his mountainous height. “Whenever you’re ready, little wolf.”
She grimaced at the idea of letting him touch her again, but really, what could he do to her hand?
Probably lots of things, the cautious part of her brain warned her. She cursed herself for not putting more limits on the djinni’s ‘to my satisfaction.’ Still, she could always tug her hand away if the defilement became too much, and aside from her pride, there would be nothing lost that a few hours of prayer would not cure.
Prayer which, she had decided, after losing both her pendant and finding herself sprawled naked upon the djinni’s disgusting body in the same night, she would have to delay for later, for without her shadows to guard her, she did not see a sustained period of purity in her near future.