by L-J Baker
The guard looked in two minds. Adijan demonstrated by wrapping her fingers around the chain and trying to lift it over her head. She showed her empty hands to the guard. He blinked in surprise.
“If you could open the gate,” Adijan said, “I would be most grateful.”
“I’ve seen conjurors performing at weddings do such things. They move faster than the eye. There is no magic in that. My master would certainly have me flogged for letting some trickster in.”
“You may attempt the feat yourself.” Adijan lifted the locket, so he could easily take the chain.
The guard glanced behind before he stepped close to the bars. He stank of onions and sweat. His meaty hands gripped the chain and lifted.
“Eye!” he said, staring at his empty hands.
“You see, sir, I did not deceive – ughn.”
Adijan’s face banged against the bars. The guard pulled as if trying to snap the chain. It cut into the back of her neck.
“Sir! Please! The chain won’t break.”
The guard released her. “I’ll send a message to the secretary.”
Adijan thanked him and massaged her neck.
She lowered herself to the ground with her back against a big stone gatepost. The food she had taken from the friendly house kitchen had run out this morning. The first thing she’d do when she had her money for the necklace would be to buy herself a proper meal. With spicy goat meat. And a jar of wine. And fruit. When she was stuffed, she’d visit the bazaar to buy a better pair of sandals than her old borrowed ones. Perhaps, if she could get a good deal, she might even purchase some boots. In fact, if she received the one hundred obiks she expected, she would be better off buying a donkey. She could ride back to Qahtan faster than she could hobble the distance. Although, she didn’t know the city dealers, so she’d have to be careful to avoid being cheated.
A dog sniffed her feet. She shooed it away. It lifted its leg against the other gatepost.
She couldn’t believe Shalimar really wanted a divorce. Not Shali. Whatever means he’d used to get Shalimar to sign the divorce petition, it hadn’t affected Shali’s wish to be with her. Unfortunately, she couldn’t shake the idea that Hadim might be able to use a big bag of silver to persuade a palace official that he knew Shalimar’s best interests better than Shali did. The thought of Shalimar marrying someone else…
A large, shiny black beetle made several trips around Adijan’s sandals before crawling under the gate, to be crunched beneath the returning guard’s foot. She tried not to read anything in the omen.
“Yes, sir?” she said.
“Come with me.”
The guard clanged the bolt free and swung the gate open. He took her along the same path she had trod on her previous visit. She tried to moderate her rising excitement. But it was difficult since she stood so close to more money than she had ever seen. Her fingers restlessly fiddled with the fraying cuffs of her shirt.
A squat man with a huge black beard appeared in the doorway and glared at her. Adijan dropped to her knees and touched her forehead to the ground. He wasn’t the enchanter’s secretary, but he bristled with authority and his robe hung stiff with encrusted jewels.
“Oh glorious and magnificent sir,” she said. “I offer a thousand apologies –”
“What is this tale you’ve spun about a magical necklace?”
Adijan explained about the necklace and how she had originally acquired it from this house.
“Let me see it,” he said.
The man turned the locket in his fingers and let it fall. “It has an hetaira, does it not?”
“Forgive my ignorance, magnificent sir, but I don’t know the meaning of –”
“The woman.”
“Woman?” Adijan frowned. “Glorious sir, I don’t know –”
“Why are you wasting my time rather than enjoying yourself with her, boy? Your master must’ve thought you were one of his bastards to have given you this.”
“Sir, I want to sell it back to the enchanter. I’ll accept a fraction of the original purchase price. Two-thirds, say. In coins.”
“Sell it? Didn’t you read the poem? It’s yours for life, boy. Now, don’t steal anything on your way out.”
The man turned away.
“Sir! Wait.” Adijan lunged for a hold on the hem of his robe. “Please, sir, I’ll sell it for one hundred and fifty obiks.”
The man held out his hand. “Give it to me, then.”
“I can’t. It won’t come off. The enchanter needs to break the spell on it.”
“Ha!”
The man tugged himself free and strode away into the cool corridor. Adijan scrambled to her feet to follow. The gate guard grabbed her.
“Sir! Wait!” Adijan called. “One hundred obiks! Please!”
“You heard him.” The guard shoved Adijan back outside. “Away with you.”
“Sir! Seventy obiks!” Adijan shouted. “Please! The All-Seeing Eye will bless you if –”
“Out you go.”
He remained obdurate all the way back to the gate and shoved her out into the street. The iron gate clanged shut behind her.
Adijan stood numb. All-Seeing, All-Knowing Eye, what was she going to do now?
In the cooling darkness, Adijan lowered herself onto a doorstep. It was comfortably broad and warm from the heat of the day. She had slept in worse places. The scraps she’d scavenged from the food stall rubbish pile weren’t sitting very well.
Adijan let her head fall into her hands. She squeezed her eyelids tightly shut, but the wetness seeped from between them. Hadim was right: she was good for nothing. Everything she touched turned to dung. She was unfit to look after herself, let alone Shali. Perhaps Shali would be better off married to someone else. The pain started deep inside and ripped up her throat to erupt as a sob.
Adijan woke to the sound of a scuffed sandal. Amongst the shadows where starlight blended into night, a man-sized smudge of darkness oozed around a comer and out of sight. He’d have to have been desperate to think she had anything worth stealing.
She wriggled to get comfortable in vain. No matter how she tried, she couldn’t fall asleep again. Even counting the stars didn’t help. She kept losing her position and having to start back at the Eye again.
Adijan twisted around to lean her back against the door. She rested her elbows on her thighs and let her head fall into her hands. She was sleepless and without a curl to her name in Ul-Feyakeh. Ugh. Of all the fantastical palaces she daydreamed of owning and places she might visit, there was nowhere in the world she would rather be than back in bed, in the alcove of their cramped rented room, with Shalimar sleeping beside her. She would turn over to slip an arm around Shali and wriggle close until she and Shali fit together like they’d been made that way.
“Oh, Eye,” she muttered. “I wish…”
“Yes, master?”
Adijan jerked upright and banged the back of her head against the door. A woman knelt not three paces beyond her feet. “Turd.”
“As I must, I have answered your summons.” The woman bowed low in the dirt of the street.
Adijan gulped. “Where – I didn’t see you walking – camel crap. You – you surprised me.”
“I humbly beg your forgiveness, master.”
The narrow street lay cloaked in sleep and night. It seemed unlikely this woman had sauntered along it without Adijan noticing her.
“Um. Look, if – if this is your house, I – I didn’t mean any harm. I was just sleeping.”
The woman straightened but made no attempt to stand or offer a reply. Even in the starlight, the perfection of her features and curved figure were obvious. Improbably, she was dressed in filmy, semi-transparent pantaloons and blousy top. Her delicate sandals would withstand traversing no surface rougher than a pile of pillows. Her luxuriant hair hung down around her hips. She looked like the most highly priced attraction in a friendly house – and one much more exclusive than Adijan expected in this neighborhood.
&nb
sp; “Are – are you lost?” Adijan asked.
“Not irretrievably, I hope.”
The woman’s tone, accent, and diction struck a dissonant note. She sounded far better bred than any wealthy merchant’s wife Adijan had met.
The woman openly returned Adijan’s regard. Her beautiful face betrayed no hint of what was going on behind it, except the impression of cool unfriendliness.
“Um.” Adijan glanced around to see that they were quite alone. “Did – did you want –? Was there something I can do for you?”
“It is I who serve you, master.”
“Me? Master? No, I think there’s some mistake. I’m just – well, I’m no one, really. According to some, I don’t even deserve a wife.”
“You own the necklace, do you not?”
“Necklace?” Adijan frowned and flicked her eyes from the woman’s face to her own chest. She fished the brass locket out from under shirt and tunic. “The only one I’ve got is this useless thing.”
“Yes. And you summoned me, did you not?”
“I summoned –?” Adijan scowled and jerked her fingers apart to release the pendant. “Magic?”
The woman sat back on her heels. When she moved, little bells sewn into the cloth over her nipples tinkled. Adijan drew back until she pressed hard against the door. The woman didn’t look threatening, nor did she bear much resemblance to how the tales described evil genies, with pointed teeth, blood-red eyes, and cruel laughs. And yet… and yet she might very well have just appeared out of the necklace around her neck.
Adijan felt acutely aware of being alone with a magical creature. Given the woman’s footwear, Adijan could probably out-run her. Although, there was no telling what magic the woman could do.
Adijan chewed her lip and tried desperately to think. The solidity of the door at her back prevented her believing this was a bizarre nightmare.
“Wh– who are you?” Adijan asked.
“I am obliged to answer to the name of Honey Petal.”
“Honey Petal?”
Adijan frowned. That was a strange name for a genie.
Honey Petal wasn’t very friendly, but neither did she emanate the menace or malice Adijan expected. If anything, her glance of curiosity at their surroundings lent her a faintly human air.
“What is your desire, master?” Honey Petal asked.
“Desire?”
One of Honey Petal’s eyebrows lifted. “Desire. Will. Pleasure. Command. Wish.”
Adijan drew in a sharp breath. Was she dreaming, or had a magical being who called her “master” just asked what she wished?
The scant details Adijan remembered from stories about genies – even the happy ones Shalimar told – included the warning that deals with them held peril for humans. Wishes carried unforeseen dangers. But she was desperate.
“Um. Did – did you say you do what I wish?”
“I am compelled to execute, to the best of my abilities, an attempt to gratify the desires of the necklace’s owner.”
Adijan mentally boiled the big words down to “yes.” “Then – urn – then I’d like my pockets full of gold coins. Qahtan issue. Not clipped.”
“The acquisition or accretion of material possessions is beyond the province of the enchantment.”
Adijan frowned. She didn’t know what all the words meant, but her pockets were certainly no heavier. “Are you saying you can’t create money for me?”
“Such services are beyond my obligation.”
“Oh.”
Honey Petal studied Adijan. Her kohl-outlined eyes narrowed. Adijan shifted uneasily.
“What about flying me back to my home?” Adijan asked. “Can you do that?”
“Such mode of locomotion is not within my power to perform.”
“Oh. I don’t suppose you could conjure me up a few jars of wine?”
“As you see, master, my resources do not encompass any quantity of alcoholic beverage.” Honey Petal spread her hands and looked both ways down the street. Her lip curled. “Nor does this seem a likely place to acquire any.”
“No,” Adijan agreed. “I had a feeling it wasn’t going to be that easy. Um. So, what can you do, genie? You – you are a genie? You know. Like the ones you hear about coming out of bottles and lamps?”
“No.”
“Oh. You – you certainly don’t look like one. But –“Adijan broke off to frown. What had that man at the enchanter’s house said about the necklace? That there was a woman in it. He hadn’t said genie. She struggled to remember the unfamiliar word he’d used. “Are you the het– um – het–”
“Hetaira,” Honey Petal said. “Yes, that is an apposite descriptor.”
“What does it mean?”
“A female whose purpose is the fulfillment of the desires of –”
A twitch in the corner of Adijan’s eye materialized into a man lunging with a knife. He grabbed Honey Petal’s hair. Adijan leaped to her feet, but stopped. The man held the knife at Honey Petal’s throat.
“I’ll cut her,” he said.
Adijan lifted her hands, palms outward. “No weapons. I’m not moving.”
“She’s coming with me,” he said. “Get up.”
Honey Petal clamped her hands around his wrist and jerked to her feet. Her captor was bone thin and shaking as if he’d smoked far too many pipes of mistweed instead of eating proper meals.
“What a pretty slut you are,” he said. “You deserve better than this boy. I’ve got just the place where –”
“Look,” Adijan said, “no one gets hurt if you let her go.”
“Ha! How can you stop me, boy? She comes with me. And I don’t cut her if you stay right there and don’t do nothing stupid.”
He yanked hard enough on Honey Petal’s hair to pull her head back and stretch her neck. The point pierced the skin of Honey Petal’s neck. Honey Petal flinched. Adijan waited only until he looked in the direction he wanted Honey Petal to go. She lunged for his knife hand and closed her fingers around his skinny arm.
“Kick him!” Adijan shouted.
His cord-like sinews flexed in Adijan’s grip as he struggled against her while trying to keep hold of Honey Petal. In the scuffle, someone landed a strong kick on the side of Adijan’s ankle and dropped her to her knees. She sank her teeth into his forearm and bit hard. He screamed. The knife slipped from his fingers and down past Adijan’s neck. It thudded on the ground. Honey Petal staggered away as if pushed. His foot struck Adijan squarely in the stomach and doubled her over. His running footsteps pattered away. She groped behind to find his dropped knife. She clutched it while she rode the wave of agony.
Honey Petal’s flimsy slippers stood just beyond arm’s reach.
“Has he gone?” Adijan asked between grunts.
“I cannot see him.”
“Scabby turd of a pocked camel. Are you all right?”
“Yes, master.”
Adijan crawled to the front wall of the house and eased herself around until she sat with her back against it. Honey Petal looked impassively down at her, with her hair tousled but appearing otherwise unscathed.
“Does this sort of thing happen often to you?” Adijan asked.
“No. But then I have not previously had occasion to find myself in such insalubrious circumstances.”
Adijan hugged her aching stomach. “What does that mean?”
“This is the first time I’ve visited a slum.”
Adijan spat out a mouthful of saliva. She prayed she wasn’t going to vomit. The last thing she needed was to hunt through more garbage for food. What beggars hadn’t taken, dogs and rats would’ve eaten by now.
“My previous masters have been men of wealth,” Honey Petal said.
“Given the choice, I’d be as rich as the sultan.”
“But you must have paid for the necklace?”
“Nope. Well, in a sense, I suppose I did.”
Adijan shoved herself to her feet. It would be a really bad idea to remain here. That man might come back
with some friends. Keeping one hand against the wall, she started in the opposite direction to his hasty departure. After a few paces, she turned to see Honey Petal standing where she’d left her.
“You’d better come with me,” Adijan said.
Honey Petal’s nipple bells softly tinkled as she walked beside Adijan.
Adijan halted. “I don’t mean to be rude, but we’d probably be better off if you weren’t so… obvious.”
“Obvious?”
“We look like a highly-paid walker and her beard.”
Honey Petal frowned. “I don’t understand your meaning, master.”
“A whore and her customer.”
“A crude but not inaccurate approximation of our roles. My compulsion is to service your pleasure.”
“Oh. Well, look, my greatest pleasure right now is to get away from here so I don’t get my throat slit and you don’t get raped.”
Honey Petal’s eyes widened.
“He might be back. And if not him, there are plenty of other vermin like him around here. You’re far too tempting a target for –” Adijan frowned at Honey Petal’s neck where a dark spot marked the place where the robber’s knife had pricked her. “He hurt you. I’ve just realized. But you didn’t rip his arms off and eat his head.”
“You expected me to consume him?”
“I expected… well, I’m not sure what I expected. But you’re magical. Couldn’t you have defended yourself?”
Honey Petal’s flawless features assumed a neutral expression and her voice came out as a monotone. “The threads of the compulsion which bind me closely circumscribe, and in many cases preclude, the means by which my physical wellbeing may be preserved by my own actions, especially in relation to my master.”
Adijan frowned deeply for a few moments before she abandoned grappling with that knot of words. Her belly ached, and she felt out of her depth.
“Maybe you ought to disappear back –” Adijan again broke off with realization. “Why didn’t you just vanish when he grabbed you? You could have done that, couldn’t you?”