Hazel checked herself. Why was she wasting time trying to find traitors among friends? Great and Mighty could have murdered Cl’rnce while they were away in Elm Court, but instead she had tried her best to save him. She felt a little ashamed for doubting the little wizard.
Great and Mighty nodded. “I’ll stay.” She strode to the cauldron Jeschen had stirred. “She said this would revive him.”
“What if she poisoned him?” Silkkie asked.
The little Jinn had a point. Hazel didn’t know enough about this Jeschen to believe her the way Great and Mighty did. “Why don’t you think Jeschen is the poisoner?” She asked the little wizard.
Great and Mighty laughed, pointing at Silkkie. “Jinn don’t poison.”
“No, I’m asking about Jeschen,” Hazel snapped, truly tired of confusing conversations. “Right.” Great and Mighty went back to stirring the cauldron, dipping a finger into a thick purply sludge.
Cl’rnce was ill, and they were arguing. Hazel had a sharp feeling almost like a call to get back to the tower. Whatever was making Cl’rnce ill, she just knew nothing would help except getting the Fang. “Hold on,” Hazel said. “Why don’t you wait to mess with anything in that cauldron? I’ll be back with the Fang in no time.” She waited and Great and Mighty wiped her finger on her robe and nodded.
For a second Hazel considered leaving the irritating cat-Jinn behind to help, but she needed a conduit to check on both Gaelyn and Great and Mighty, and Silkkie was all she had.
Hazel trotted out of the kitchen and down the hall. After several turns and up twelve floors, she was in front of her own door. From her pouch came a muffled, “I should have known. Of course, you keep one of the most important artifacts ever in your bedroom.”
Ignoring Silkkie, Hazel tapped the corridor wall next to her door. The wall glided to one side, and she squeezed inside, pushing it closed again when her tail cleared the opening. She could have walked directly to the tower and into the secret room, but what if Jeschen was hiding and spying again? No one could track Hazel once she was inside the walls.
She faced the wall behind the wall. Pressing her arms close to her considerable body and standing on tip-toe to be her thinnest, she turned in the tight space and started edging through a narrow opening and then down a long masonry-sided tunnel. This was the secret tunnel Gaelyn and she had found in their first term at Wiz-Tech. As far as they knew, it was their secret alone. She’d never used it until Cl’rnce was declared the Primus. With all the demands of the Primacy, Hazel had escaped to the other tower every so often just to have time alone. On one of her visits, she’d found the secret chamber.
To protect her private time in the tower, Hazel had convinced Professor Gralph to have the tower declared unsafe. Signs were posted warning students to keep away. Of course, that hadn’t kept Cl’rnce and Great and Mighty from snooping. In fact, it might have drawn Cl’rnce to explore.
Hazel thought about her hatred of dungeons. If the Dr’gon’s Fang had been secreted in a tight, dark dungeon, she would have never made the discoveries of its history and powers. She wouldn’t be headed to get hold of an artifact that could save Cl’rnce.
The secret passages were faster than walking down, over, and then back up to the twin tower. As she got nearer she wondered who’d stored the Fang and the scroll in the secret chamber.
As Hazel got to the end of the passage, Silkkie moved in her ball. “Are we there yet?” she said, and then chuckled.
“I don’t know how you can laugh,” Hazel snapped.
“I’d have to, or I’d cry. You have no idea how bad it is going to get for Gaelyn if we don’t hurry up and save your brother and get back to her.”
Hazel quickly tapped the stones in the wall before her, and the wall opened. She stepped through, looking back quickly just because it wouldn’t surprise her if she’d been followed, even through the hidden passage. This day had been what Cl’rnce would say was “full of stinking-weed rotten surprises I can do without.”
Hazel strode to the table and stared down at the Fang. She pushed it aside and frowned down at the tapestry covering the surface. She’d only paid scant attention to it when Gaelyn had jerked away from it. A unicorn was woven into the pattern. Its horn was whiter than she’d seen in a weaving before. Hazel tapped it with one claw to see if it was really made of threads. An explosion of light in all the colors of the rainbow burst forth and then paled.
“Another stinking-weed surprise.” Hazel shook her head. “No time for this.”
Her magick was about exhausted. Gaelyn looked around at the plethora of green plants that made up Elm Court. The “Power of Green” she had teased her uncle when he had talked of bigger magicks. He had smiled and said, of all the Fae Courts, Elm’s green was indeed its power. Dr’gon Magick might have been why her uncle sent her to Wiz-Tech, but here in the Elm Court she was sure it was the Elm Magick she needed. It was taught in Elm that Elm’s Magick was born before the first Fae. Somewhere in the forest stood the Ancient Elm, the oldest tree, the earth mother of Elm Magick. This ancient magick Gaelyn had used so long ago to stop a unicorn was the weapon she needed against this attacker.
Gaelyn plunged her hands into the soft soil in front of her, digging down into the layer of moss. She clenched her hands in the wet green. “Force and power, from the living to the living.” Repeating it three times, she pulled up her hands and walked the circle pressing a dirt and moss-dot on the forehead of each Elm soldier. As she did, they stood straighter, and she saw their eyes brighten.
Ian followed her. “Strange magick you’ve learned at the fancy school. It looks a lot like the Elm Earth Magick we learned as young ones.”
Laughing, Gaelyn said, “It is. But here’s the good part: the organic power of living earth will only aid our army.”
“I don’t understand.” Ian stood still while she finished the circle and pressed a dot on his forehead and then on her own.
“The Jinn. The only attacker we’ve seen was a Jinn. They are not true living creatures. So no matter why they are attacking us, or how successful they’ve been so far, they cannot steal this power.”
“Not living?” Ian shook his head. “They’re not dead. So they must be living. I think you’re more tired than you know.”
“Let me explain again. Jinn are made wholly of magick. That’s why they can exist in crystal balls, and all sorts of objects, without food or air. Since they are composed of magick, they are attracted to most but not all kinds. I don’t want to give them a chance to steal ours. So, I used an organic magick they can’t use. Just a precaution.”
Ian snapped his fingers and growled. “Is that why they’re here? They are planning something big, and they’re trying to steal our magicks? Because we are a peaceful Fae kingdom, they assumed we’d be easier to steal from. They wouldn’t dare do this in the Summer or Winter Courts!”
Gaelyn felt a tickle of alarm at Ian’s anger. She wanted him to be that peaceful Fae Uncle Firth believed in. She also suspected that Ian was wrong. “Wanting more magick could be the motive, except there’s no history of them thinking other creatures’ powers are better than theirs. There are no stories of them trying to steal Fae magicks before. I don’t think that’s why they’re here.”
She thought for a minute. It didn’t make sense. None of it. Silkkie seemed alarmed to see the Jinn, almost fearful. But even weirder was that the Jinn didn’t sense Silkkie. It was said that all Jinn were like a huge extended family and so deeply connected to one another that no other creature could match them. Why hadn’t they known Silkkie was there? Why hadn’t she told Gaelyn about them?
“Whatever their reasons, we need a plan to defeat them and imprison them. We can’t let them continue to attack us. They killed so many of us, didn’t they?” She stopped when she heard a soft sound from beyond the circle. Gaelyn’s heart drummed. “Did you hear that?”
Ian clutched his dagger and whistled to the guards. If they had seemed to stand straight and alert before, they now sn
apped up like they were made of hard crystals.
Gaelyn stilled herself the same way she would to cast a spell. For a second Gaelyn saw and heard nothing more. So focused was she on listening, she wasn’t even aware of her own breath or heartbeat. She found the lightest of disturbances surrounding them. It felt as if the wind carried butterfly wings and brushed them against her senses.
As a precaution, since Ian believed the Jinn tracked them through sound, Gaelyn tapped Ian’s arm instead of talking and pointed all around the circle. Then she held up a hand to keep him from ordering an attack. The Dr’gon Fire Hazel had laid down should keep the attackers at bay, but for how long? She hoped she’d have enough time. In theory Dr’gon Fire could last from minutes to days, according to the strength of the Dr’gon. Hazel was one of the strongest Gaelyn had ever met, but they were in Elm not the Dr’gon Realms. She was not sure how long the barrier would last here. So much was different in a Fae Court. Time stretched out here as it flew by on the Dr’gon plane. Eating here could bind you to the Court so that you could never leave. But Magicks practiced by non-Fae? Dr’gon Magick worked, but it might not last as long as it would in Albion.
Checking her inner resources, Gaelyn decided she had recovered enough to try an enhancing spell that would reinforce the Dr’gon Fire. The trick would be to cast it around the circle, not in just one spot. But the whole circle could take more energy than she had. She might run out of force and leave a gap. She would have to defend any gap.
When she felt the ripple in the air again, this time stronger, she went to work. “Intensify, focus out, guard.” She repeated it three times picturing the Dr’gon Fire growing stronger and standing like a wall. As she did so, she turned, passing her out-stretched hand around the circle. She had started to the right of Ian and was almost around the ring back to him when the air outside tore and something bigger than any creature other than the tallest Dr’gon, charged through the circle running into two of the Fae. They disappeared as the creature passed through them.
“To the breach,” Ian yelled.
“No!” Gaelyn screamed. She held out her hands and dug out the last of her energy sending a blast of what she hoped was a good copy of Dr’gon Fire.
For a second no one moved. Not Ian and his army, not Gaelyn, and not the wavering air where the Jinn hid in the circle. And then Gaelyn’s fire arced to the edges of the Fae circle and exploded like a wall of fireworks. The Fae were all blown back off their feet. They scrambled to get upright.
Gaelyn had no illusions the fire would kill, or even harm, a Jinn, but it did what she’d hoped. It made them all visible. Twelve Jinn were spaced around the ring of Elm Fae. Five of the attackers were afire, staggering and swatting at the flames burning their long fur. The other seven human-looking Jinn, including the one who’d appeared before, didn’t move to help their burning compatriots. Instead they glared into the ring, not moving. Finally, one of them whistled, and the other six raised their hands, their fingers tracing complicated invisible figures in the air.
Gaelyn cast a Decipher spell so that she could see the written lines the Jinn’s finger motions left. The writing hung in the air long enough for Gaelyn to read and recognize the spells they were casting. She countered the fire-extinguishing spell with a flame wall she remembered from when her uncle had showed her a metal that boiled and flamed at room temperature. He’d ordered her to stop the burning and molten metal from spilling over the small bowl onto the middle of the feast table. She’d done it. Now all she needed was to reverse that extinguishing spell and think of the brilliant metal fire. While the power to burn a Jinn was not in the flame she reignited, she hoped the Jinn would not know this.
Whether or not they knew it was harmless, the eye-burning flames made the Jinn step back, throwing their arms over their faces. They halted their own spells. This was exactly what Gaelyn needed. She grabbed Ian and whispered in his ear, “Attack the unburned while they are blinded. As you get near a Jinn you must say these words: ‘Into the vessel, never to leave.’ Say it three times as fast as you can.”
“What vessel?” Ian asked.
She pointed to his waist. “We all carry a pouch with herbs and flowers; the pouch will do. As soon as the enemy are all captured, I will form impenetrable walls for each pouch. One more thing. Do not look at the flaming metal. The fire will blind you as well as the Jinn.”
Ian nodded and ran from Fae to Fae, pointing to the seven Jinn and then the Faes’ pouches. The Fae guard shaded their eyes, while Gaelyn sent another wall of magnesium brilliant flame in the faces of the enemy.
When she sensed the Jinn were most vulnerable, Gaelyn jerked her chin once, and Ian shouted, “Now!” He faced the biggest of the Jinn, one a head taller than himself. He held his pouch in one hand and waved his dagger with the other. The Jinn’s eyes dragged to the knife instead of the pouch. Ian was smart. The dagger had magick the Jinn seemed to want.
Ian began the cast, and the others repeated it, saying the words so fast, Gaelyn was sure all of the Jinn would be captured. But to Ian’s right, a Fae stumbled over her chant, and Ian stopped speaking his. Ian’s gaze darted from his Jinn to the Fae. The Fae guard traded looks with him, smiled as if Ian had said something encouraging, and finally managed to get out her words and capture the Jinn. Ian smiled back at her.
But Ian had looked away from his foe, broken his concentration.
A scream pulled both Ian and Gaelyn’s attention back to the tallest Jinn, the one Ian had been in the midst of imprisoning. The Jinn had grabbed the Fae guard standing on the other side of Ian. He dragged the Fae to the Dr’gon Fire and what was left of Gaelyn’s flames. With a final shove, the Jinn pushed the guard into the fires. The guard screamed in pain.
Gaelyn did the only thing she could think of. The guard was doomed. Dr’gon Fire could kill a Fae when combined with her fire. It was a chance she’d taken, hoping that the Fae would not get near the flames. Pointing at the guard who had been grabbed, she screamed, “No! Not my brother!” The big Jinn turned to her. “No!” she yelled over and over.
Ian made an inquisitive sound, then ran at the Jinn as if ready to go over or through the flames. “Not our King! No!”
Obviously sensing victory, the Jinn kicked the collapsing Fae into the center of the flames. A second more passed, and the Fae was gone. Only that Jinn remained. The rest of the Fae had completed their casts and imprisoned their assigned Jinn.
The giant Jinn scanned the circle. All that was left of his fellow Jinn were himself and the five helpless burned Jinn, writhing in pain. The rest were in Fae pouches. Ian lunged at him, but the Jinn moved so fast, Ian stumbled, missing him. The Jinn didn’t say a word, but he pointed away toward the woods, turned back to Gaelyn and the Fae, saluted, and was gone.
Gaelyn cursed that she hadn’t caught all of them. She scanned hoping the enemy was near enough to hunt down. The air didn’t vibrate with hidden foes. The Dr’gon flames died down. Ian paced the circle. “We lost one. But we have six of them unharmed. Does that do us any good?” He looked defeated.
“Perhaps we can get them to tell us why they attacked.” Gaelyn tried to scan again for the escaped Jinn, but she was so tired. The Jinn seemed able to travel without much more than a ripple in the air. Their energy and power just didn’t seem to have limits.
Ian nodded to each of the Fae holding a pouch with a Jinn. They gathered around Gaelyn. She decided to seal all but one Jinn into the pouches. “Stay within.” She repeated it twice more. It wasn’t the strongest spell, but it should work for now. Next, she held out her hand to the female Fae who had stumbled over her words earlier.
The female, her eyes darting to Ian, went down on one knee and handed her pouch over. Fae did not apologize, so there was no way this one would say she was sorry her mistake had cost a life. Instead, she would expect to be punished. If Gaelyn had been the Summer or Winter Queen, she would have employed the dreaded Queen’s Justice and slain the Fae immediately. But compassion was one of the things she had l
earned at Wiz-Tech. She had also learned there was much wisdom to be gotten from mistakes. Great and Mighty was an example of someone who bumbled a lot and then acted like a hero.
Gaelyn would not punish this Fae who might one day … who knew?
Gaelyn jerked her head to Ian and gave him her best smile. “Your army performed well today. Who would like to question the Jinn?”
The Fae who had blundered jumped to her feet and stepped forward. “Whatever Your Majesty requires!”
“Do not kill it.” Gaelyn commanded.
The Fae looked bewildered for a second, then she nodded. “Instructions?”
Gaelyn said, “Do not damage it, but I need to know why the Jinn attacked Elm Court.”
The Fae’s eyes dimmed in disappointment. She was a bloodthirsty one. Gaelyn and her uncle had struggled mightily to not be bloodthirsty. She shot a glance over to Ian, hoping he agreed with her. His face was stoic. She couldn’t tell.
While the Elm Queen’s commands were normally law, there was something about this bloodthirsty Fae that felt different. However, just because the Fae scowled and looked rebellious didn’t have to mean she would disobey. Gaelyn had been away so long she wasn’t sure if she was judging correctly. Still, Gaelyn did not have time to find out if the Fae would obey as commanded. She put a hand on the Fae’s arm. “Wait. I will question the Jinn. Place the pouch on that stone.”
Gaelyn searched her memories for a spell that would loosen a Jinn’s tongue. She looked around the circle trying to think. Just a foot away was just what she needed. “Take it out of the pouch when I say.” She held her hands over the pouch. “Within my sight, in my power.” She jerked her chin down. “Let it out. Empty your pouch over the stone.”
The stone was a good one. From the red veins in it, there was definitely a high amount of iron. Excellent for weakening a Jinn’s magick, and an unusual stone to be found in Elm Court. As the Jinn tumbled out of the pouch onto its knees, its eyes whirled looking at the crowd around it. Gaelyn noticed that the Jinn’s eyes hesitated on every bejeweled dagger.
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