by J F Mehentee
Purple illuminated the sand. Ahead of them stood Yesfir’s portal, its destination window pointed at Baka.
A guardsman and a daeva lay on top of Behrouz. Dazed, the guardsman rolled off with a tug. Roshan hesitated. The daeva was unconscious.
‘Help me,’ Navid said. ‘I can’t lift him off on my own.’
She gripped the daeva by the ankles and waited for Navid to lift him by the shoulders. Roshan felt happy at the daevas’ unconsciousness. Why would Yesfir rendering a daeva unconscious make her happy?
Behrouz groaned but didn’t get up.
‘Yesfir’s here,’ Navid said.
At the mention of her name, Behrouz tried to sit up. Navid and Roshan took a shoulder each and pushed.
‘What’s she doing here?’ he said. ‘It’s not safe.’
‘She’s rescuing us, stupid,’ Navid said.
Roshan glared at her brother.
‘It’s the iron,’ she whispered. ‘It’s affecting him.’
They had to steer Behrouz until he recognised the portal. With each step, he seemed more certain, more clear-headed.
At the portal, he said, ‘You two go first. I’ll wait for Yesfir.’
Seeing her brother so emaciated and in need of water, she said, ‘You go. Don’t wait around. Get yourself some water—lots.’
Navid smiled. An instant before it collapsed, he stepped into the portal.
Roshan cried out and swung round.
Yesfir had her back to them. The high magus stood to one side of her, his hand outstretched. The seal on his middle finger glinted in the torchlight.
Roshan raised an open hand, ready to squeeze Sassan’s throat, and then hesitated. What if she ended up strangling Yesfir, too?
‘Yesfir!’ Behrouz yelled. He passed Roshan, obscuring her view of the high magus as he dashed towards his wife.
Roshan caught movement from the corner of her eye. More guardsmen had arrived, and three of the conscious daevas crawled through the sand towards the high magus.
Sassan looked away from Yesfir and shifted his attention onto her and Behrouz. Behrouz’s back stiffened and he dug his heels into the sand as he fought the seal’s influence.
Roshan experienced an emptiness creep into her. It turned her insides into stone and banished her will to where it retreated during sleep.
‘No,’ she said, resisting the compulsion.
The emptiness shrank away. She drew in a deep breath.
Behrouz took a step towards the high magus.
I don’t want us to be here.
She closed her eyes to the blinding orange light, then opened them.
She and Behrouz, but not Yesfir, stood in front of Iram’s palace. To her left, and in front of her, buildings collapsed. Above the din, Roshan heard Behrouz cry out his wife’s name.
27
Emad raised his first portal in eighteen years. He glanced to his side. The orange flames around Fiqitush’s irises blazed the instant his brother summoned Core power and began his incantation. Emad imagined how his brother must look to the soldiers approaching the palace: a powerful and unpredictable djinni.
Be careful, he thought.
He’d only been back in Iram for three days, and Emad wasn’t sure how he’d cope if anything happened to his brother.
Fiqitush glanced across at him.
‘What are you waiting for? Go.’
I’m getting soft, Emad thought, and stepped into the portal.
Moonlight was all that lit the opposite end of the city. Emad had arrived on a street leading to a bridge over the canal. A shattered pot lay in front of him, the soil and the plant it contained dry and flaky. Water lapped against the canal bank, and behind him the windows of the surrounding homes were shuttered or curtained by darkness. To his left, and farther behind the houses, loomed the ziggurat. He knew the handful of remaining djinn watched from behind domes of invisibility and silence.
Once he’d raised a dome, Emad headed for and crossed the bridge onto the main road. A distant rumble came from the palace. A loud crash echoed off the cavern’s walls.
Before him, the unoccupied half of the city stretched into the distance. Emad felt foolish. With so many empty buildings, it would take him forever to find the magi—assuming they hadn’t hidden themselves under a dome. His stomach twisted. If he didn’t find the magi soon, there’d be no point finding them at all.
Emad stepped onto the towpath. The debris of the city’s former occupants filled the dry waterway next to it. He jogged towards the palace, scanning the streets on his right, hoping to find some clue to the magi’s whereabouts.
Two hundred steps later, Emad cursed himself for his lack of fitness. Before he’d settled in Derbicca with Aeshma, he could climb up and down Apkallu’s mainmast without breaking a sweat. Emad stopped, rested his hands on his knees and fought for breath.
You’re as much use as a cross-eyed lookout, he told himself.
Emad straightened. A three-storey building in the street opposite gave him an idea. He collapsed the dome hiding him, raised a portal and stepped onto the building’s roof. A quick search of the street below and those two up from where he stood revealed nothing.
It seemed a good idea.
His next portal deposited him on the roof of a building, a courtyard at its centre. Again, from this vantage point, he saw nothing in the street below and the one opposite. He trod around the fallen bricks and dried mortar to reach the facing wall.
A loud clang came from behind him.
The palace, he thought. I’m too late.
He summoned Core power but didn’t recite the incantation for a destination window to the palace. Down below, in the street opposite, a green light that matched the symbol on the golem’s chest pulsed from a window.
Emad’s portal deposited him two doors down from the glow. With a dome of invisibility and silence enveloping him, he strode to the terraced shop. He pressed his back against the wall next to the window and peeked in.
Two magi stood over a rock and recited incantations. The rock, cut from the cavern’s wall, had a symbol carved onto its surface. If he could end the magi’s incantation, destroy the symbol or both, he’d stop the golem.
Multiple clangs echoed around the cavern.
From the metallic ring, Emad guessed the golem had clashed with something other than Fiqitush’s protective dome. He still had time to act.
Emad collapsed his dome and then, using his aura, reached into the room the magi occupied. Instead of the magi’s auras, he experienced an unyielding resistance. He retreated from the room. They’d erected a dome of protection around themselves.
No surprise there.
He stepped back from the building and away from the window. He chewed his lower lip. Even if he brought down the roof, the dome of protection would protect the magi.
Emad bumped the heel of his hand against his forehead.
Idiot.
It didn’t matter if the magi survived. A building collapsing around them would have to, at least, distract them and interrupt the incantations. Emad summoned a portal onto the roof of the building opposite the magi.
Below, the intensity of the green light rose and fell as if in time with a heartbeat.
Emad’s incantation shook the building so hard, the roof fell in first, followed by two walls. He waited for the rock and masonry to settle and then squinted to see if any light escaped from among gaps in the debris. From behind him came the sound of metal striking rock. In front of him, a creak followed by a loud screech dampened the background hammering.
The flat roof, having splintered into three pieces, sank deeper into the ruined building. The shattered sections then rose, one of which slid onto the street. A wall, its top third torn away when the roof had collapsed, tottered and then fell backwards and onto the neighbouring shop.
Emad groaned and rubbed his face. The magi’s dome of protection expanded in all directions, clearing away the fallen masonry and releasing more green light into the unconfined space
.
You would have done more damage if you’d sneezed on them.
The magi within the dome continued their recitations, although their heads turned left, right, up and down to locate the source of the earthquake.
Emad crouched. His jaw ached from gritting his teeth. What was he going to do now? He glanced over at the ziggurat in Iram’s occupied half.
Go over there and get some help. We could squash that dome and the buggers inside.
Emad stood, not caring if the magi saw him. A flash of orange came from behind him. Emad turned to see a portal in front of the palace, its rim bright orange. He tried to recall whose portal produced such a vibrant colour.
The clangs became frenzied. In the time it took to decide between heading over to the palace instead of the ziggurat, both the hammering and the incantations stopped. The light from the portal winked out. Emad squinted so hard, his forehead burned. He turned. In the shop across from him, the symbol in the rock had gone out. Emad dropped into a squat.
Below, the magi stumbled over the building’s wreckage. Together, they ran down the street and then turned left.
Where are you two off to?
He continued to watch as the pair made their way onto the main road and ran towards the path up and out of Iram.
An incantation later, Emad held a scimitar. He’d head them off and then stop them.
‘Wait,’ he muttered to himself. He shook the scimitar, and it evaporated. ‘They might be more use alive. See what they do first.’ He touched his bracelet and whispered, ‘Fiqitush.’
Emad sighed. His brother was well.
He raised a portal and arrived beneath an arch overlooking Iram. In the distance and on his right, Fiqitush had reduced the buildings in a small section of the unoccupied half of Iram to rubble. His brother had also collapsed the dome of protection encasing the palace.
Good, he thought.
Emad raised a dome of invisibility and silence and then waited for the two magi to reach the tunnel and the city’s exit.
28
Roshan flinched at Behrouz’s black look.
‘Why did you do that? Yesfir needed our help.’
The ground shook and dust filled the air as a building to her left collapsed. Behrouz seemed oblivious to the destruction and to how the seal had controlled him.
The seal.
Its power had driven out her wants and needs so it could influence the rest of her.
‘The seal,’ she said to Behrouz. ‘It had Yesfir, and it almost took you.’
Her words made her sick. Yesfir had rescued them, and they’d left her behind in Arshak. She’d left Yesfir in Arshak.
Behrouz pulled off his bracelet and let it drop to the floor.
In front of her, the king emerged from a dust cloud.
‘I have to conserve my auric energy to save Yesfir,’ Behrouz said. ‘I’m less of a djinn without my bracelet, and I’ll be able to resist the seal. Send me back to Arshak.’
Roshan picked up the bracelet. The muscles surrounding her lower back twinged with pain and soreness. She remembered how Yesfir had hurled everyone to the ground with an incantation. Given the circumstances, she’d had little choice. Rather than do nothing, Yesfir had risked the safety of others to protect those dear to her.
Right now, she had to risk Yesfir’s safety to protect Behrouz.
‘Yesfir saved us, Behrouz,’ she said. ‘If you go back, there’s no guarantee you’ll be able to resist the seal. I also felt it working on me. That’s why we’re here. You returning to Arshak on your own isn’t the way to get her back.’ She held up the bracelet.
‘Behrouz, Roshan, what are you doing here? You need to leave.’
The king strode towards them. The dust behind him had settled, revealing heaps of rock, brick and rubble.
‘Emad wasn’t able to stop the magi,’ he said. ‘You have to leave—now.’
Roshan looked past the king and saw his cause for concern.
She had only heard about them and had never seen one. The shattered rock and brick that composed its thickset limbs made its movements ponderous. The golem, however, moved with slow, deliberate, unstoppable malice.
She looked at her hand and found she no longer had the bracelet. Behrouz held it for a moment, his eyes glazed. His head dropped forward, and his face crumpled as if something inside of him had broken. He slipped the bracelet back onto his wrist, raised his head and strode past the king. A hammer materialised in his hand. The diameter of its brass head was as wide as a man’s chest.
King Fiqitush joined her. Together, they watched Behrouz lope towards the golem.
‘I don’t think he’ll be able to stop it on his own,’ the king said.
It was twice Behrouz’s height and made of rock; Roshan agreed.
Behrouz swung the hammer as if he always held one. It struck the centre of the glowing symbol. Stone shards erupted from the golem’s chest, and the force of the blow sent it skidding back a step. The golem raised a cumbersome hand, ready to strike. Behrouz ignored it and swung at the symbol again. More splinters of rock erupted from the golem’s chest.
‘Look,’ the king said, then pointed.
The shards of fallen rock around the golem’s feet rolled towards it. When they touched a foot, they disappeared, as if sucked back into the golem, reabsorbed.
Behrouz ducked the golem’s backhand swipe, leaned back and swung again at the symbol. The blow rooted the golem to the spot—momentarily. It pressed forward, forcing Behrouz backwards.
Behrouz can only slow it down, she thought. There’s no way he’ll stop it.
Roshan stepped forward and raised a portal behind the golem. The destination window opened onto a mountain range. Starlight turned its three snow-capped peaks silver.
Behrouz sidestepped and swung the hammer at the golem’s right side. He darted behind its back and reappeared in front of it. He hammered at its left side.
The power behind his strikes only damaged the golem’s surface. They lacked sufficient force to drive it backwards and into the portal.
Roshan closed her eyes, touched her bracelet and imagined Domain energy passing from her into Behrouz.
Be stronger, she thought.
She opened her eyes. Behrouz staggered and dropped onto a knee.
What have I done?
The golem raised both hands, its palms open, ready to squash Behrouz between them. Roshan held her breath. She’d decided to turn the golem to dust and blow it through the portal when, still clutching the hammer, Behrouz rolled. Back on his feet, he positioned himself just in front and to the side of the golem’s right. The hammer smashed through the golem’s side.
Roshan saw her chance and rushed forward. She called out an incantation and almost tripped over bricks rolling back to rejoin the golem. With the last word of the incantation uttered, she directed the current of air with a hand and blew the bricks past the golem and into the portal.
Meanwhile, Behrouz had swivelled around to the golem’s left flank and knocked a chunk from it.
‘Its legs,’ the king called.
The king hurried past her and repeated the same incantation. She blew the remnants of the golem’s side into the portal. Behrouz got to work on its leg. He swung the hammer as if wielding an axe. Rock scattered everywhere, and the golem fell forward. Behrouz shattered its hand in the same instant it touched the ground.
Roshan and the king had to keep moving to find positions from which they could blow pieces of the golem, and not Behrouz, into the portal. The sound of rock scraping against itself and splitting hurt her ears.
A new hand and a new calf and then a foot burst from the golem’s stumps. The rocks’ and bricks’ redistribution, however, caused it to contract in size.
Undeterred, Behrouz continued to hammer and swipe at the golem, alternating his attacks from one leg to the other. Roshan and the king moved in arcs, sweeping away the broken pieces of the creature. Each time their paths crossed, she noticed the same expression on Behrouz’s
face.
His brow notched, and his normally gentle eyes conveyed a relentless fury Roshan had never seen in the two years she’d known him. She understood, not because she could empathise but because she’d touched her bracelet and connected with him.
Behrouz was furious with himself for being weak and unable to resist the seal. Their having to leave Yesfir behind had snapped something inside of him. He’d be out of balance and unsure of himself until Yesfir was safe and back at his side.
As the golem shrank, their pace quickened, Behrouz knocking away at it—piece by piece—and Roshan and the king blowing the debris into the portal. It wasn’t long before Behrouz and the golem were the same size. Behrouz dropped the hammer—turning to smoke before it hit the ground—ducked under the golem’s arm and came up behind it. The golem turned too late. Behrouz grabbed it by the shoulder and between the legs and hoisted it above his head. With baleful eyes, he turned and flung the golem, its arms flailing, into the portal.
Roshan blew what remained of the golem into the portal and then collapsed it. Her bracelet pulsed with Fiqitush’s order for the djinn to return.
Portals appeared and djinn approached the king, who issued orders.
Roshan stood beside the kneeling Behrouz and put a hand on his shoulder.
‘You were right,’ he said, looking abashed. ‘I’d have succumbed to the seal.’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘It’s your bracelet—I experienced your thoughts.’
His brow furrowed.
‘Then you know I have to save her.’
Roshan nodded. She looked over at the king who continued directing the djinn.
‘But first we have to tell him. He needs to know. Then we’ll decide how to save her.’
29
Emad sat on a rock. Dawn’s chilly air penetrated his dome of invisibility and silence and made him shiver. He guessed the two magi sitting on the sand ten paces ahead of him, and under their own dome, were cold too. As the light brightened, Emad saw the outline of a crescent-shaped outcrop. It reminded him of a viper sunning itself.