The Conjurer (The Vine Witch)

by Luanne G. Smith

  “—peck your eyes out.” Yvette finished her sentence, wobbling on her feet momentarily until she realized she’d already been transported. “Oh, we’re there.” She steadied herself against the semicircle majlis sofa, blinking as she took in the new surroundings. “Where are we exactly?”

  Sidra wiped a finger through the dust on the mosaic tray where the brass dallah and glass finjan were displayed. “It is my home,” she said. “Or at least it was for a time.”

  Yvette let out a breath of surprise. “You live here? In an apartment?” She gestured broadly at the lush silk and wool fabrics lining the walls, the sofa set low on the floor, and the round hassocks trimmed in leather. “But this is fabulous.”

  A bowl of figs and oranges appeared on the small octagon table beside the sofa. She offered them to the girl as a matter of hospitality, though it was only a shadow gesture done out of obligation to the custom. Was the apartment still her home? Could it be such a place with only one occupant? She stepped deeper into the room until the spicy scent embedded in the textiles reached her nose.

  “We can stay here for the night. Perhaps longer, should the need arise.” She produced a steaming dallah full of aromatic coffee. “Help yourself to the food. It won’t poison you. I promise.”

  Yvette picked up an orange and peeled back the skin. She didn’t sit as she ate, which made the jinni nervous. Instead the girl wandered around the room, taking in the personal details of the apartment—the hanging brass lamps with colored glass panels, the woven tapestries on the walls in hues of red and blue and gold, the incense burner carved out of a stone still filled with bakhoor, and the man’s robes hanging on a peg on the wall above a pair of worn black leather balgha.

  The girl spun around, the thrill of discovery bright on her pale pixie face. “And who do these belong to?” she asked, eyeing the slippers.

  Sidra looked up, heavy with grief. “The man I killed,” she said and sank onto the sofa with the weight of a log collapsing in a fire.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Elena knelt in the courtyard beside Jean-Paul’s limp body, adrenaline looping through her circulatory system. “He’s burning up.” She glared at the jinni, hoping to sear him with her anger. “What did you do to him?”

  “His mind is wandering in the desert of my people.” Jamra gave a flick of his hand, as if it were of little difference. “It is up to you if he finds his way out or not.”

  With her heart galloping, Elena reached in her pocket for a sprig of rosemary and chamomile. She ground them between her shaking fingers and sprinkled the crushed leaves on Jean-Paul’s forehead.

  When he didn’t rouse from her magic, she dabbed at the beads of sweat rising on his skin with the corner of her apron as Brother Anselm felt for a pulse, his fingers pressed against Jean-Paul’s neck.

  “Your witch’s words will do no good against my magic.”

  Brother Anselm stood and crossed himself. “I’ll fetch a pail of cool water and a cloth.”

  “Neither will your mortal gestures of faith,” Jamra said over his shoulder as the monk ran to the pump beside the cellar.

  Elena rose to her feet. She had renounced her mother’s magic, but she wasn’t immune to temptation, not when anger flared and the desire for revenge raged. She called a thread of dark energy into her palms, harnessing the sting of the nettle, the scratch of the bramble, the prick of the rose. “Bite and scratch, strike the match. Stab the skin of this wicked jinn.” The magic tore her fingers as she hurled her rage at Jamra’s face. But the jinni merely opened his mouth and sucked the energy inside him. He chewed and swallowed, then grinned at her, greedy and vindictive, revealing a row of teeth engraved with copper scrollwork gone verdigris. The green tinge only enhanced the foulness of his smile against his sallow skin.

  “I can’t help you,” she yelled. “I know nothing of Sidra’s whereabouts. Release this man from your spell. He’s a mortal. He has nothing to do with you or your grievance against her.”

  “Grievance?” The jinni pressed his palms together and touched his fingers to his forehead, as if fighting for blessed calm. “Do you have any idea what that jinniyah is capable of? What she has done to my family?”

  “Whatever she did, it happened before I was acquainted with her.” Elena returned to Jean-Paul’s side, lifting his head to let him rest in her lap.

  “But you knew her soon after. In prison. You befriended her, even knowing she was a murderer.”

  The man Sidra had killed. The reason she was to be executed before she escaped through fire. Was that what this was about? “The man she killed. Who was he to you?”

  The jinni picked a thorn out of his teeth. “My brother.”

  Ah. The crux of the matter.

  “It was she who led Hariq astray and then abandoned him to the ever after, cursing my family by weakening our clan and our fight against the infidels. And for that you will lead me to her so I can strike her from this earth forever.”

  “How can I? Sidra is gone. If she’s no longer in the city, then she’s in the ether. You’d have a better chance finding her than I would.”

  “Except she could not have left the city without the help of sorcery. If you released her from the bonds I placed there, then she owes you a debt. This she must answer. You must call her.”

  “What bonds?”

  The jinni’s lip curled slightly under his thin mustache. “Are you toying with me, witch?” He stared at her with glittering eyes that telegraphed the pain he was willing to inflict.

  “On my husband’s life, I don’t know what you’re on about. She confessed she was confined to the city, but I have no idea how she freed herself.”

  He inhaled, calculating the truth or lie as Brother Anselm returned with the water. The jinni withdrew three paces, his hand tugging at the thin trail of beard on his chin. The monk knelt beside Jean-Paul, who appeared to be breathing normally despite the slight shiver he’d developed. The jinni watched the monk administer a cool cloth, though he didn’t smirk at the effort as she expected.

  “I knew Sidra would return to the city,” he said as he circled behind the trio hunkered on the flagstones, “like a cat slinking into an alley at dark looking for scraps. I still bear the mark of her fire on my skin from our previous encounter, crossing my back as if I’d been whipped. A fire like that does not simply fade and go away.” He revealed a nasty burn on his neck. Elena felt no pang of sympathy at the sight.

  “She did this after murdering my brother. Do not doubt she is a danger that must be stopped.” He wandered toward the cellar entrance and spread his hand against the oak door as if feeling for hidden energy. “I, too, know sorcerers. It is how I bound Sidra to the city. A spell cast over the fire using her true jinn name.” He took his hand away and smiled, seemingly at his own shrewdness. “The spell was designed to let her slip into the city, but once she crossed the boundary, the trap was set. The snare triggered. I was this close to flushing her out when she disappeared.”

  For all his arrogance, he must have missed something in his planning. “A flaw in your spell?” she suggested.

  He nearly lashed out. “No! I do not miss. The only flaw in the magic was being too broad. It is very difficult to catch smoke in one’s fingers.” He brushed his hands free of whatever he’d detected at the door.

  “Yet you believe I could have somehow freed her?”

  “She could not have escaped the spell around the city, either by magic or force, without outside help.” He nudged his chin at her, offering the mildest hint of deference. “I saw a vision of you and she together in the flames of a prophecy. Sidra could not have freed herself on her own power. She is too green, too impulsive. But perhaps someone experienced with witchcraft found a way to disrupt the spell long enough for her to escape.” He turned his eyes on Elena. “There is a rumor you broke a curse you had been afflicted with. That you worked this magic while transformed. One who can break their own curse might be cunning enough to slip an alley cat like her through a trap.” />
  And yet she hadn’t. She knew Sidra had been bound to the city when they’d shared a coffee inside the illusion of a tent atop the butte in the city. Elena hadn’t even offered to help. Hadn’t been asked to. She regretted that now, knowing this vile man was the one who’d entrapped her friend. Elena thought back to the last time she’d seen Sidra. The night at the museum when Yvette had been reunited with her family in the Fée lands. Yes, curious circumstances there. She hadn’t seen or heard from Sidra since. Her brow twitched in thought.

  He’d noticed.

  “What is it? What have you seen?” The tenor of his voice dropped to a threatening whisper.

  Elena considered her choices and relented. “I didn’t assist her, but it’s possible I may know where to find Sidra after all.”

  “Tell me at once!”

  Brother Anselm removed the cloth from Jean-Paul’s forehead and dipped it back in the water. As he wrung it damp, Elena slid out from beneath her unconscious husband, resting his head gently on the hard stones. She kissed Jean-Paul’s forehead and cheek, feeling the heat of his skin against her lips, then sent a silent plea with her eyes to her old friend to watch over him. He returned a nod, understanding her meaning.

  “You will free my husband from this illness you inflicted upon him first,” she said, standing to face the jinni.

  Jamra grinned as if amused. “No.” He shrugged and shook his head, enjoying his power over her. “But I will agree not to kill him outright if you can prove you are not lying to me.”

  “Agree to return him to his proper health”—she held up a hand to silence the jinni’s objection—“or, if Sidra is in the place I believe her to be, you will never find her again. She’s out of your reach.”

  It was a gamble, but she could see no other way to save her husband’s life other than to bargain with the one thing she had that Jamra wanted: information. She folded her arms and waited for his answer.

  “Cooperate and your man will get no worse. Find the jinniyah for me and I will take away the fever.” Jamra waved his hand as if to seal their agreement, then pointed his finger in Elena’s face, his breath hot like the steam from a winter cauldron. “But I will burn his brains from the inside out with the flame of a thousand fires if I discover you are lying to me.”

  Elena nodded, relieved to have learned that it was possible for the fever to be reversed. She made the deal with the jinni while Brother Anselm crossed himself.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Sidra never fidgeted, never bit her nails, never fretted over the things she couldn’t control. She believed one’s destiny marched forward on the single road it was meant to follow. Yet being back among her possessions, among his possessions, made the fire in her blood recede until she actually felt a chill on the back of her neck. Exposed. Vulnerable. As if still waiting for the sharpened edge of la demi-lune to fall.

  Curse that Oberon! She didn’t wish to feel anything ever again, and yet here she was in a pit of emotions slithering over her skin like cool-bellied snakes.

  “Are you going to tell me why Grand-Père sent us here of all places?” Yvette dropped on the sofa beside Sidra. “Bit of a coincidence, don’t you think? I mean, how did he even know?”

  Sidra rubbed the back of her neck. The girl wasn’t as stupid as she usually took her to be. She’d known that before, seeing the way Yvette had survived the city streets in the throes of her wish without resorting to her thieving ways, but for once life would be easier if her assumptions were true. She wished, too, that the girl had a destiny disconnected from her own instead of being here tangled in the web of life at her side.

  Sidra stared at the abandoned shoes by the door. “Your grandfather was right to return us here. This is where the path we must walk lies, no matter how painful the next steps we take.”

  “Right. The two of you love your prophecies.” Yvette chewed her last orange slice. “So, who was he, the man you . . . you know?” She nudged her chin toward the shoes as she drew her finger across her neck.

  Sidra turned away to stare at a cobweb dangling in the window, then closed her eyes. “My husband.”

  There, she said it. And it didn’t kill her.

  “You’re married? Or, well, were married, I suppose.” Yvette sat back, flabbergasted, as her eyes scanned the room a second time with the new information. “Merde.”

  Sidra sprang up from the sofa. She wanted to dissipate. Disappear. Burn the apartment to the ground. Instead she gathered her scarf over her head and wrapped the ends tight around her arms.

  “How long were you married?”

  The faintest of smiles still found its way to her lips at the thought. “Three hundred years.”

  “Oh là là. How’s that even possible?” Yvette poured herself a cup of coffee, admiring the gold inlay on the cup as she brought it to her lips.

  “Three centuries is not long for my kind. We were still newlyweds.”

  The scent of orange blossoms infiltrated the cracks in the window frame and under the door, filling the room with shadow memories. Sidra did not know before that a heart could shrivel to the size of a raisin and die and yet leave the rest of the body and spirit to live for centuries.

  Yvette whistled low. “What happened?”

  “We weren’t meant to fall in love, but we did. We tried to outrun the All Seeing’s plan for us, and we got snapped up in its teeth in the end.”

  Yvette prodded her for more, but there was no reason to tell the details of her story. Spilling her heart like a common mortal who couldn’t control her emotions or mouth. And to a girl who knew nothing about love. Only the coarse, hard transaction of physical pleasure for money.

  “I have to go out,” she said, suddenly unable to bear the antsy jitters in her blood. “Stay. Drink your coffee. Do not leave. You’ll be safe within these walls until I return. They’re safeguarded. But venture out and I cannot protect you.”

  Yvette set her cup down. “Protect me against what?”

  Sidra curled her lip and drew her finger across her neck. “Certain, torturous death.”

  The breeze rustled the highest treetops, signifying an omen of change. Sidra sailed on the currents, a wisp of invisible smoke in a cloudless sky. The concealment spell she’d placed around the apartment was still as strong as the day she’d cast it, made of good, solid magic. The girl would be fine as long as she did as she was told and stayed inside. But with that one you never knew which impulse she would follow next. Was that why they’d been chained at the wrist on this journey? There was always a place for the unpredictable in life, but she didn’t like it. Not one bit.

  She passed over a crop of budding roses, inhaling the fragrance of the flowers as she flew. Her mood improved from the floral perfume until she was more resolute than desperate. Had this been her life before, she would have stayed among those heavenly scents as long as her heart desired, but today she must relent and fly. She turned to the west and headed for the hills.

  The opening to the cave, once so perfectly hidden in the rocky ground, was now marked by an atrocity of a stone monument and a wooden gate. Mortals disturbed everything they came across. Tours, they called it. And yet the old one refused to leave the place. He merely burrowed in deeper beyond the reach of idle curiosity.

  The gate had been secured for the day. Such locks were made for clay-footed mortals, but if the light could get through, so could she. Sidra drifted through the cracks at the entrance where the wooden gate and stone wall didn’t quite meet. Inside, the cavern yawned before her. The great room echoed with cool, expansive emptiness. She reanimated on a stone ledge on the lip of darkness. Removing an oil lamp from the wall, she lit the wick and blew her fire magic inside the glass so it shone with the light of ten lanterns. In the illuminated space at her feet, a row of stalagmites with a pinkish hue stood waist-high like teeth inside a mythical beast that had swallowed the world. A great tongue of solid ground, newly carved with steps for goggle-eyed tourists, descended deeper into the cavern. To find her answers, s
he would need to go very deep into the abyss to find the old one, beyond the reach of mortals and their rudimentary tools.

  Sidra crossed her legs and sat on a cushion of air. Steadily, she floated through the dark with her lantern held out before her, winding her way down through openings in the rock, large and small, brushing against the limestone walls with their mud-slick slime and coiled fossils embedded in time. She didn’t care for the damp. And though the lure of hiding in dark places was fitting for her kind, she had never personally been drawn to them. Not until she’d felt the tugging loss of her husband’s death pull her down. “Live long enough,” she’d been told by those older than she, “and one day you, too, will seek out a hollow place at the bottom of the world to bury your sorrows in.”

  She was getting closer. The spicy scents of turmeric and cumin began to overtake the wet beach smell of the limestone. She sank deeper, past the garbage left behind by the tourists, past the dripping water from the aquifer, until she came to a cave within the cave, a sideways tunnel gleaming with the reddish color of iron oxide, the color a talisman for luck and courage.

  The air stirred. A noise like small stones tumbling over a ledge reached her ears from deeper inside. Ah, good. He is already awake. Touching her feet down again to walk, she dimmed her lantern to a tolerable level. Even jinn needed time to adjust their eyes after so much time in shadow. Especially one as old as Rajul Hakim.

  Sidra approached the door, a curtain of darkness sewn from threads of cosmic magic. “As-salaam-alaykum,” she said and passed through the veil.

  Inside, the air grew dry and comfortably warm. A small whirlwind of sediment and tiny pebbles kicked up from the stony ground. She could remember the first time she’d come to the cave and the fierce storm he’d produced in her presence. But time robbed even seasoned warriors of their hot breath eventually.

  Rajul Hakim, called the wise one for his many centuries of gathering knowledge in the folds of his caftan, reanimated in front of her. He’d shrunk again. Though he once had been a giant among his kind, age had knocked a few more inches off his spine so that he stood not much taller than she. His golden-yellow robe puddled on the ground, and his graying hair needed trimming, particularly his brows, which had grown into splayed pigeon wings above his eyes. Despite his disheveled physical appearance, she knew his mental power had merely concentrated after being forced to live in a smaller body. He was still a formidable jinni to be cautious of.