Not really looking like she was listening, Gaelyn nodded. She picked up Silkkie’s ball. The cat-Jinn’s eyes flashed over to her, but immediately raced back to the Dr’gon’s Fang. It no longer sparkled.
Hazel began, “There’s something about this unicorn tapestry …”
As she said “unicorn,” Silkkie growled. Hazel lifted her eyebrows at Gaelyn to say “see.”
Gaelyn nodded to Hazel, crooked a finger for Hazel to follow, and walked away from the bench. “It’s not so weird that Silkkie is growling at the tapestry. She hates unicorns. Uncle Firth rescued her from a cruel one.” She stopped, her brow wrinkling as if she was thinking of something. She looked down at Silkkie. “Remind me about the bargain Uncle Firth struck with you.”
Hazel sighed. “Do we have time for this?”
“I think it may answer why my Elm Court is being attacked. And …”
Silkkie interrupted. “I was being tortured; your uncle rescued me; we made a bargain that I would serve you until you took over as Queen of Elm. Then you would grant me full freedom.”
“And you were to keep both of our identities secret. Right?” Gaelyn asked.
The spinning orb of Jinn began to descend close to Silkkie. Gaelyn’s eyes went large. “Do they know?”
Hazel snapped. “Does who know what? What good is this? I need help with this Fang. I need to save my brother!”
Gaelyn held up a hand. “I’m sorry. I know. Silkkie can help both of us, if I’m right. She can stop the attacks. She can help you reverse the poisoning.”
“Then do that!” Hazel grabbed for Silkkie’s ball, but Gaelyn swept it out of her reach.
“Do they know you’re here?” Gaelyn asked Silkkie.
“No. I’m disguised. They can’t sense me,” Silkkie said watching the orb descend lower. “I think.” Her head snapped to Gaelyn. “Do you think … they attacked you because of me?”
“Yes. They blame us for your disappearance.” Gaelyn glanced over to the revolving ball that slowly trailed over to them. “That Jinn who was trying to kill me called me a kidnapper. And he spit out something about me taking someone’s power. You’re the only Jinn around me. Do you have some powers that these Jinn are desperate for?”
“Kidnapped?” Silkkie said. “I was, but not by Fae. By that unicorn.” She spit the last words, a growl finishing the word “unicorn.”
“Seriously? Jinn formed an army and started killing Fae, because they think you kidnapped Silkkie?” Hazel said.
“Jinn are intensely loyal and family oriented. To attack one Jinn is to make an enemy of all,” Gaelyn said. “And Silkkie knows something about a Power the Jinn mentioned.”
“But then they’re not that smart. They think the wrong person kidnapped Silkkie,” Hazel said.
“It’s not like them to be fooled,” Gaelyn said slowly. She held her crystal ball in one hand, and said, “Come out, little Silkkie.”
“Yeah, come out and answer questions, Silkkie,” Hazel echoed.
In a puff of pink smoke, Silkkie reappeared on Gaelyn’s shoulder. “How could they be fooled?” Gaelyn asked.
Silkkie closed her eyes. “I could let my disguise drop in front of them and ask.”
“Wait a minute!” Hazel said. “If Jinn are so dedicated to each other, why did Silkkie just come with me while you were fighting and maybe killing her kin?”
Silkkie said, “I was bonded to Gaelyn by the bargain I made with her uncle and her. I could not speak to them before. And when she sent me here, at least I did not have to be part of what was happening …” She let her voice drop off.
Hazel shook her head. “Doesn’t sound right to me.”
Before Gaelyn could say anything, Silkkie chirped up. “Hazel is my Master now. She said so. Since you released me to her and sent me here, that’s legal. So, I can definitely drop my disguise and talk to the Jinn now.”
“You what?” Gaelyn stared at Hazel. “You didn’t!”
“What?” Hazel asked, a bad feeling planting heavy feet on her chest. She feared that not only had her timing on bringing Gaelyn back cost Gaelyn answers but being Silkkie’s Master was going to turn out to be even worse.
Gaelyn paced from the bench to Hazel and back. “Silkkie wouldn’t lie about this. You wouldn’t promise her freedom, I’m sure. So, it’s not like she’s better off with you as her Master. We have to,” she looked down at her hands, “fix this.”
She looked up, and Hazel could tell Gaelyn was trying to appear brave. Her lower lip wouldn’t quite stay still. Hazel had seen this before when she and Gaelyn had faced a Killer Dr’gon with a Dr’gon Partner as powerful as Gaelyn. Death had stared at them. They had prevailed, but they had worked together to win. This time Hazel had rejected Gaelyn.
Gaelyn said, “It’s not that you aren’t a plenty powerful Dr’gon and as good at magicks as anyone.”
“But I’m not a wizard,” Hazel said. “I don’t want to be responsible for Silkkie. What can we do? I thought you’d become her Master again as soon as you came back.” Hazel needed help. She hadn’t meant to, but she’d changed Gaelyn and Silkkie’s bond. Even Hazel knew a Jinn was dangerous in the hands of someone untrained. And Hazel really was untrained.
Gaelyn shook her head, no. “Silkkie called you Master. You’ve made a new contract with her while I was out of the picture. Jinn like locking their Masters into verbal traps. Maybe if I knew the exact words used?” She stared at Hazel.
Hazel shook her head. “I don’t remember exactly.”
Gaelyn nodded and took a breath, then looked up. “Wait! I know. It’s possible you made a temporary contract, not the same binding one Uncle Firth enacted. I mean Uncle Firth’s contract with Silkkie was actually written on ten scrolls and witnessed by two knights of Elm Court. You didn’t do that. Right?”
Hazel nodded firmly. “We did not.”
“Then this kind of contract should be easier to get out of. Once you command her to three challenges, you can change her contract and give her back to me. I hope.”
Hazel felt relieved. Things were not out of control. “So, bringing you back here was one command, right? I thought Jinn didn’t really do that three wishes thing.”
“It’s not the same. Well, sort of. In truth you could keep her indefinitely.” Gaelyn paced from bench then around the room, then back. “It’s just kind of normal for a contract to require threes: three wishes, commands, years …”
Shrugging, Hazel watched her partner.
Gaelyn continued, “Silkkie should let her Jinn family know she’s safe.”
“But if I do, won’t that reveal where you are and where you’ve been?” Silkkie asked.
Hazel and Gaelyn faced each other. “We’ll just have to deal with that,” Hazel said.
Gaelyn smiled. “Let’s work on Cl’rnce. Is that okay, Silkkie? I’ll take you back to Elm, and we’ll find the rest of your Jinn after Cl’rnce is cured.”
Silkkie nodded but added, “How did my Jinn come to focus on Elm? I did not contact them. Your uncle, you, and I were the only ones who knew anything about me being in Elm. I believe someone filled the Jinn with lies.”
“Another enemy behind the attack?” Hazel asked. “We’ll definitely check that out,” she said watching Gaelyn. “I’d like to check on my brother.”
Silkkie jumped onto her crystal ball, and a scene of Cl’rnce still on his back appeared inside. Great and Mighty was bent over the Dr’gon. Neither moved. A dark mist formed in the side of the ball, at the same time Jeschen approached the pair.
“Her! Jeschen’s back. They are defenseless. We have to get to them.” Hazel lost all the calm she had allowed herself to feel.
Gaelyn nodded. “Except the black mist. Do you see it?”
“Yes. Of course. Jeschen stepped out of it.” Hazel leaned in closer. “It’s still hanging at the edge. The mist.”
But Gaelyn shook her head. “The mist is something else. I agree we need to get there.” She reached a hand toward Hazel. “Do you want to
order Silkkie to send us?”
Hazel sighed. “I am not the right Master for her.”
Gaelyn cleared her throat. “You can do it. But be careful with the wording. Jinn can bend words to fit what they want. I believe she wants to help, but she also wants to get to her family.”
“Well, that’s annoying. You’ll have to help me word this. What?” Hazel frowned at the way Gaelyn shook her head vigorously.
“As I said, this is complicated. Verbal tricks. If she bests you three times, the contract is negated, but that leaves the smallest of gaps before she goes back to her commitment to me. In the time between one Master and another, anyone could capture her.”
“Perfect! You help me! We must get to Cl’rnce. Fast.” Hazel looked at Silkkie and then at Gaelyn. “We could run to Cl’rnce and not use Silkkie.”
“Agreed. What room are they in?” Gaelyn bent over the ball as the picture faded.
Hazel bit her lips to keep from screaming anything. “I think it was the kitchen,” she said. “That was where they were before. Oh, let’s go!”
“What about the Dr’gon’s Fang?” Silkkie said, her words serious. “No matter what happens, you don’t want to leave that just lying around.” She pointed to the rotating hovering orb. “I can’t swear to the allegiance of your prisoners.”
Hazel gripped the Fang harder. “Right. Gaelyn, will you carry Silkkie?”
Silkkie purred as Gaelyn held her close. “Glad to. Silkkie will you go into your ball?” She waved her pointer finger around the ball. “I’ll gladly cast a protective spell around it. To keep you from harm.” She lowered her face to an inch from Silkkie.
The little cat nodded.
Hazel tucked the Dr’gon’s Fang in her pouch. “What about the spinning ball? Do we want it with us?”
Gaelyn squinted at it. “It contains part of the Jinn army that attacked my citizens. Dangerous if they are controlled by someone else although I don’t think these are. But perhaps better to have them with us. I can put them in a more manageable form. But what?” She stared at the ceiling of the lofty chamber. “Of course.”
Gaelyn thought of what she knew about these Jinn. They wore no tokens of a Master. She was certain they were working on their own even if someone was manipulating them into attacking Elm. And it made perfect sense that they were trying to rescue Silkkie. It was a convincing motivation for Jinn to join in an army and possibly give up their lives. But someone had fed them lies, persuaded them to band together, and turned them on Elm Court. Who would do that?
Somehow Gaelyn had to make the Jinn believe that Silkkie was safe and that they’d been lied to. Just showing Silkkie should be good enough. She’d ask the little cat-Jinn to do it, even though they both knew that when Silkkie revealed herself, there was an excellent chance it would also reveal Gaelyn to the enemy that had sent these Jinn to attack Elm Court.
But first, they needed to get to the kitchen to help Cl’rnce. Silkkie would help him, Gaelyn was sure. With a whisper and a silent chant of her own transportation spell, she moved the group to the kitchen. Aside from Jeschen, the kitchen was empty. How could that be? Silkkie had showed them Cl’rnce here only seconds ago.
As Jeschen spotted the group, her eyes went huge with terror. Her eyes flashed from the group to the spinning ball that Gaelyn controlled in the air above her head.
“Where is Cl’rnce? And what do you know about those Jinn?” Gaelyn asked, pointing at the ball and interrupting Hazel’s growls. If Jeschen was the enemy who controlled the Jinn, this was the time to force the truth out of her when she looked so scared of the snarling Dr’gon before her.
Instead of answering, Jeschen fell over backwards, her eyes rolling up in her head. At the same time Great and Mighty popped into the kitchen. She hurried over to Jeschen, knelt and put a hand to her neck. Sitting back on her heels, Great and Mighty took a deep breath and smiled. “She’s okay.”
Together, Gaelyn and Hazel snapped, “Why are you concerned for the poisoner? Where is Cl’rnce?”
Holding up her hand, Great and Mighty spoke quickly as Hazel marched forward, her flame slipping out of her muzzle. “Jeschen’s working on a cure.”
“Likely story,” Silkkie growled.
Great and Mighty, Hazel, and Gaelyn all said together, “Shut it!”
The cat muttered, “You should know better than to trust someone you don’t know.”
Gaelyn tucked Silkkie’s crystal into her pouch.
Gaelyn realized it hadn’t been Hazel Jeschen had her eyes on when she passed out in terror. It was the ball of Jinn. “She reacted to the Jinn.” Gaelyn said. “It’s possible she’s not working with or for them. I think she’s afraid of them. Fae don’t usually fear Jinn. What does she know about them?”
“Well, since I didn’t know about any Jinn, I never asked,” Great and Mighty said. She held up a purple stone with green spots, not too dissimilar from Cl’rnce’s scales. “I tested just now before I gave him the first potion. He’s definitely not worse. He’s even snoring better now.”
“Better?” Hazel asked, snorting.
“Yes! He’d stopped breathing. I was afraid he was going to strangle. His throat was expanding, I mean getting tight-closed.” The little wizard’s hand flailed in the air around her own neck.
“And Jeschen gave you a potion that stopped the expansion?” Gaelyn studied Jeschen, whose eyes were closed, but not in sleep. She was pretty sure Jeschen was playing possum, waiting for whatever was going to happen next.
“Why are you afraid of the Jinn?” Gaelyn bent over Jeschen.
One of Jeschen’s eyes slowly opened. “She did this. They are so powerful. Look at the force in that ….” Her hand pointed at the spinning ball.
“She who?” Hazel asked. “One of the Jinn? Summer Queen? Winter?”
Jeschen shook her head, her eyes still focused on the rotating orb.
Glancing up, Gaelyn caught a brief flash like lightning erupting from the ball. Not good. She had to get the ball of Jinn into a secure vessel and, even better, out of their separate pouches to set them on each other. Jinn didn’t normally fight amongst themselves, but encased in an iron cauldron, they’d be affected by the metal. It would make them quarrel and keep them busy trying to escape. And she needed time to figure out how to cure Cl’rnce. She pointed to a pot sitting empty by the fire. “I need this iron pot. Is there a heavy lid for it?”
When Jeschen didn’t answer, Gaelyn added, “I’m going to imprison the Jinn in it. It’s only a matter of time before their powers meld together and they break the orb.”
Jeschen sat up, her eyes moving from the spinning sphere to Gaelyn. “That will work?” She got to her feet and trotted over to a shelf next to the fireplace. Reaching up, but keeping her eyes on Gaelyn, she tugged on something with two hands. A large lid, clearly heavy from the grunt Jeschen spit out, fell into her hands. She carried it to Gaelyn.
Gaelyn nodded. “Thank you. Yes, I can control the Jinn. Now, this will take timing. I need your help, Great and Mighty. I will set up a wall to contain the Jinn just in case. But I will be inside it with them. You will have to make sure the Jinn do not escape if I fail. They still think we are their enemies.” She didn’t wait for the objection she hoped her old friend Hazel was forming about the danger Gaelyn was taking on. “I am going to let them loose in this iron pot and seal the lid on it. Then, we can safely concentrate on helping Cl’rnce without worrying about them.”
Jeschen’s eyes switched from the ball to Gaelyn. She shuffled to a table and put the lid down. Almost half of it hung over the edge. Then she went to the pot and carried it to the table. She set it on the floor so that the pot was under the part of the lid that hung off the table. Giving Gaelyn a nod, she backed away.
“Excellent,” Gaelyn said. “This will be much easier. I only have to balance the lid for a short time before setting it on the pot. Everybody back away from me and the pot. At least ten feet away.”
Jeschen scrambled back to stand with Great and
Mighty, but Hazel shook her head. “I will hold the lid over the pot and drop it as soon as you say. That will be much faster and easier. Do not argue with me.”
Part of Gaelyn wanted to believe this was her old partner wanting to work with her, but she half feared it was Hazel not trusting Gaelyn. In either case it was dangerous for Hazel, but Gaelyn snapped her mouth shut over any objection. No matter which it was, Hazel had the I will do it my way look.
“Fine.” Everyone else had to stay outside the invisible walls she was about to make. She couldn’t take the chance that anything would weaken her magick. Gaelyn placed her palms together and then pulled them apart. Palms up she pointed her fingers toward Great and Mighty and Jeschen and said the words, “Wall around these. Protect the rest from the Jinn.” The air pulsed, and she watched light purple waves vibrate around her and Hazel.
Gaelyn moved onto the next problem. She pointed at the spinning ball and pointed down slowly to the pot. “In,” was all she needed to say. The ball fell to the bottom of the pot. “This is the tricky part. I’m going to open the ball, and they will flood out and try to escape. I can’t cast through iron, so the lid can’t be put on right now. But it needs to be seated in less than a second.”
Hazel picked up the lid and held it low almost touching the pot. “I’ll drop it as you let them go.”
Breathing in deeply while her hands worked furiously in the air, Gaelyn began to disassemble the orb. She released the outer layer. The ball pulsed and lightning shot out through the slim opening and ended just short of Gaelyn. Still it knocked her back a step. She felt a sharp pain in her side but kept going. “Ready, Hazel?”
Hazel nodded.
“Drop it now!” Holding the ball against the small opening, Gaelyn sang out the Release chant as the lid fell. She caught a glance of Jinn shooting out of their pouches. Some circled inside the pot, and two propelled toward the top. But the lid clanged in place just in time. The pot rocked for a moment, then rocked harder. Afraid the lid would come off, Gaelyn quickly chanted a Sealing spell making a bubble that glinted like metal around the pot. “Meld, meld, meld.” The armor around the pot flowed, bubbled, but looked finally like a sealed vessel. She hoped.
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