Dark Djinn (The Darkness of Djinn Book 1)

by Tia Reed

  “Get out! Get out!” Ali called, his arms waving wild. He was taking great strides towards her.

  “Quick. Left. Two steps left then right,” the rose genie said, sinking to their level but staying just out of reach.

  Timak hesitated, torn between her and the genie.

  “How dare you!” a voice Kordahla would never forget boomed. She froze as the indigo djinn popped into being. He sent the genie reeling head over heels with a vicious kick. The girl shrieked, and disappeared in a puff of rose smoke.

  Scum streaming down her face, Kordahla paddled through the pool. The thick water tired her arms and legs. She angled for the side and grabbed a submerged crag. Ali was almost upon her, the mahktashaan not far behind. Given she had travelled a mere five feet, swimming was proving a poor choice. She wriggled her chest free of the pool to find her face level with a vermillion slipper. Her eyes travelled from the curled toe, up the leg, body and shimmering neck to the furious snarl of the indigo djinn.

  “Djinn do not aid mortals without recompense,” he said.

  “We didn’t ask for help,” she said, unable to pull herself out with him in the way.

  “But you got it,” he said. His toe nudged her shoulder, pushing her back into the pool.

  “Not by request.”

  “The genie will pay the price of her generosity.”

  “No,” Timak said.

  “Be gone, cockroach,” the indigo djinn said. He blew Timak onto his bottom with a single puff. “And you, traitorous scum, this is no concern of yours.” He flicked thumb against forefinger in Ali’s direction. The scum dipper flung back as though he were a piece of dirt scraped from a nail.

  Kordahla edged along the submerged ridge. She tried to pull herself up but the djinn blocked her way. Under the water, a slimy creature slithered against her leg. She jerked her knee up, scraping it against the jagged reef. “Let me up,” she said, scrambling onto his foot. He kicked her in. She flailed her arms. Her chin dipped into the water. She tilted her head to keep her mouth free of the disgusting brew. Blunt teeth nibbled her calf through the fabric of her shalvar and she cried out.

  “Do you wish for help, little gnat?” the djinn asked.

  “No,” she said, stretching to grip a crag.

  The djinn stepped on her fingers. “The mahktashaan approaches.” He pressed down with his foot. Sharp rock cut through her fingers.

  She pulled her hand free, opening wounds. “He will not imperil my soul,” she said, and struck out across the pool. A band twined around her ankle. She yanked her foot away, calming herself by watching slender brown weeds wave in a clear patch of scum. The next stroke brought her up against something hard. She grappled for purchase but her fingers slid against indigo muscle.

  “I can take you out of here. I will not ask for your soul,” the djinn said. He stood in the water, his arms crossed. She kicked back.

  “What then?” She meant her question as a distraction, so she could concentrate on what Cream Crystal was doing. The mahktashaan’s stone was aglow, but her attention snapped to the water as a slimy tentacle wrapped around her wrist. She cried out and jerked her arm into the air. The action drew up a puffer, eyes bulging in astonishment. It retracted its tentacles into its swollen, whiskered face and dropped back into the water on its tadpole-like tail. Kordahla sobbed in relief. The amphibian was harmless to everything except the bloated insects it ate. Not so the mahktashaan. He had stepped to the edge of the pool. From his utter stillness, she guessed he was thought-linking. It would not take the djinn to keep her in this stinking cesspool until the Shah sent his army.

  “You are running out of time. I wish only to claim an unwanted gift,” the djinn persisted.

  “You may take whatever possession of mine I have left at the palace,” she said, trying to swim around him to no avail. His body appeared in whichever direction she struck. If there was an item of whose value she was ignorant, he was welcome to it.

  “This is nothing you have yet,” he said floating out of the water.

  She kicked forward. Her foot contacted an object soft and spongy. She felt it slide between her legs. Something sharp cut her thigh. Her scream startled Timak into a sympathetic yelp. She struggled away, losing coordination in her panic. She must have turned around because the mahktashaan was in front of her.

  “Think about it,” the djinn said, turning upside down in the infuriating way of his kind.

  “I can’t give you what I don’t have,” she said, casting about. Her heart leapt into her mouth as a thorny black head emerged between her and the mahktashaan. It rolled, revealing a shiny black eye that looked right at her. Then it submerged. Kordahla gulped and back-paddled.

  “Bazwaeel!” Ali called in warning. “Get out. Get out of the water.”

  “Pledge me what you will get,” the djinn persisted.

  “I must know what it is.”

  “And spoil the surprise? I will tell you only this: you will not want it.”

  She really could not evade him. He was everywhere she turned. “I have only your word for that.”

  “And why is that not enough, you piddly, conceited gnat?”

  “You are djinn.” Duplicity and deception. Treachery and treason. The uncomplimentary list went on.

  He said something more. She could not fathom what because a row of knobbly dorsal fins was undulating around her, rippling all sense from her brain. The creature spiralled inward. It lifted its horny head from the water, opening fanged jaws to reveal a pocked, fungal-encrusted maw.

  It surged towards her. Kordahla screamed. Cream light streamed around her. The bazwaeel roared and breeched. Its splash created waves that rocked her back towards the mahktashaan. She struggled towards him, the enemy now her salvation.

  “I will brook no interference,” the djinn said, pushing his palm forward. The mahktashaan’s crystal died as he flew back and landed in another pool with a splash to match the bazwaeel’s.

  “Let me out,” Kordahla screamed at the djinn.

  “You are free to go,” he said, floating up. “But can you make it to the shore?”

  She cast about. A cankerous fin broke the surface. She swam in the opposite direction only to see another rise in front of her. Again she changed direction, to be faced with a glimpse of the bazwaeel’s head.

  “What do you want? Tell me exactly what you want,” she said.

  The djinn drifted towards her, his body horizontal. “It shall bear the name Xander, despised and despiser.”

  She was floundering, her panic draining her strength. “It has a name? A pet?”

  “Enough. Your life for a gift you will not want. Make your decision.” He whirled into the sky, an indigo tornado. The water churned. The bazwaeel’s gruesome head rose up in front of her. Behind it, the mahktashaan dragged himself out of the water while Ali scampered toward solid ground.

  Her horse had a name, and her dolls from childhood. Vinsant’s dead fish had a name. Vae, even Father’s sword had a name.

  “Take us. I agree if you take us,” she shouted, tilting her head up to him. He was no more than a blur in the sky.

  “You. I will take you,” his voice boomed down.

  The bazwaeel opened its putrid mouth. Fangs flashed. “No. You must help the boy.”

  “The cockroach is not part of our agreement.”

  Snarling, the monster bent towards her. She closed her eyes tight. “It’s part of mine.” She kicked back, knowing she could not avoid the snap of its jaws. She prayed the end would be quick and painless, and that the boy would not know more suffering.

  “Ahk ta domas te,” the mahktashaan intoned, his voice weary and weak. She opened her eyes, but no magical light flashed. “Ahk ta domas te.” He sagged to the ground. “Ahk ta domas te.” A cream glow hit the monster. Roaring, it thrashed it tail, raising a splash which drenched the mahktashaan. Still the monster’s jaws bore down. The mahktashaan hunched over. “Ahk ta domas te.” The whisper sent a spark flying at the bazwaeel. The bazwaeel b
arely flinched. What chance he would work his magic before those fangs pierced her spine? The monster’s head fell. Its decaying breath burned her face.

  “Bring Timak and I deal!”

  Indigo light obliterated all as the djinn’s callous laugh echoed through the land. Kordahla whirled into utter, frigid nothing.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Vinsant sped around the corner, ducked under the mahktashaan guards’ ceremonial spears and thrust open the doors to Father’s reception chamber before they had time to respond. He skidded to a halt beside Ahkdul, realised his mistake and bounded away to stand near the semicircle of padded chairs, next to Levi. It was not a position he felt entirely comfortable with, but since the alternatives were either to stand next to Father or be excluded, he opted to stay put. Obviously, running here had been a mistake. The silence was stony, even after Mariano came in and stood at Father’s right, where the afternoon sun streaming through the stucco lattice across the arched windows gilded him, the show-off. Vinsant wished he had not dashed ahead of Arun, who had been about to comment on the subject of his eyes when the page interrupted and demanded the Minoria’s immediate presence in regard to Princess Kordahla’s escape.

  “What’s going on?” he asked during the interminable wait. He rolled his eyes at Mariano, who was ignoring him just like everybody else, and set about trying to arrange his oversized robe. Ahkdul was the only other person who moved, filling a silver goblet from a silver jug set on a cabinet to the right of the door. He checked out the carvings of mythical creatures on the wood. Kordahla might have caught a glimpse of a secretive schkaan if she was lucky, or a bazwaeel. If there was a way to get Ahkdul to the scums, the stonemasons might end up carving the monster devouring the swine. Now that was a relief he would love to view but, since the swine had the good sense not to take one of the padded chairs around the hearth, Vinsant doubted Father would order him to travel unaccompanied and unprotected through the scums. Father was the only one seated. He was rigid in a carved chair he had turned from the dining table, the exaggerated rise and fall of his chest the only evidence he was flesh and blood. A gold jug of wine and a goblet sat on the table behind him. Red liquid pooled on the tray beneath them. Father had drunk more than one glass. It was a wonder the songbirds in the garden hadn’t sensed his ire and gone mute. When Arun finally entered, hooded but with face visible, Vinsant tucked his shoulders into an exaggerated droop, trying to break the sombre mood. Nobody paid him the least heed. Arun adopted the same stiff stance as the Majoria. He bet they were in thoughtlink, and wouldn’t he like to know what they were saying because he was jumping-out-of-his-skin desperate to discover what they knew about Kordahla. So he said the one thing guaranteed to get a reaction.

  “Has Kordahla escaped?”

  Sure enough, Father rounded on him. “You sound pleased about it.”

  ’Course he was, and he could not keep the smile off his face. Did not even try. The hood had some use, after all. It didn’t fool Father, who in two steps came close enough to deliver a forceful slap across the face. The layer of fabric between their flesh did not stop it stinging, inside and out. For all his escapades, it had been a long time since he had suffered beneath Father’s hand. He stared his stunned hurt at Father, who looked like he was exerting every last drop of his self-control not to thrash Vinsant to pieces.

  “How?” Mariano asked.

  “Yes, how, Majoria?” Father repeated in an icy voice. He was standing yet.

  Levi turned to the Shah, the first sign he was out of the trance. “Mahktashaan Zermane reports she was kept from his reach by an indigo djinn which later removed her from the clutches of a bazwaeel.”

  Father’s fists clenched so tight they flexed at the wrist. Vinsant bit his lip. The only time Father was that silent was when he did not trust himself. When the shah finally spoke, his voice cut through the rays of sun. “She bargained for her escape with a djinn.”

  “So it appears.”

  “And my page? Was he with her?” Ahkdul asked. His face looked like stone, and his hand was way too tight around the goblet.

  “He was, and included in the pact. He, too, has disappeared,” Levi replied, the traitor.

  “I demand compensation,” Ahkdul said. “The boy cost a great deal, and your daughter makes a fool of Verdaan and of me.”

  Father said, “You will be reimbursed double what you paid for the boy.”

  Ahkdul nodded once. The two men locked eyes.

  “We had a formal contract,” Ahkdul said.

  “Do you wish it annulled?” the Shah asked.

  “Father, this is hardly the time,” Mariano said.

  “Silence,” the Shah snapped, and Ahkdul’s raised brow relaxed. “This is exactly the time. Kordahla has brought dishonour to this family, to Terlaan and to Verdaan. Lord Ahkdul is entitled not only to release from the contract but also to a say in his betrothed’s fate.”

  Vinsant’s jaw dropped. He tried to catch Arun’s eye, but the Minoria was studying Ahkdul. The pig looked vindicated. Nobody seemed to understand he would punish Kordahla for the rest of her life. “But he can’t. He’s the reason she’s gone in the first place,” he blurted.

  “One more word out of you, and I’ll have you thrown in the dungeon.” Father said, not even looking his way.

  “But…” Vinsant said, then clamped his mouth, bowed his head and backed away. He could not risk it now, but scumhoppers would Father hear exactly what he thought later. Too bad he was standing in a patch of sunlight which, laced with the shadows of the stuccowork, looked like a cell.

  “I am satisfied you understand my stake in this,” Ahkdul said, refilling his goblet and taking a gulp. He walked in front of Levi, set the cup on the low, round table between the chairs and faced the shah with the bearing of an equal, the despicable swine. Father had to see this delay was a power play. Vinsant didn’t understand why Father stood for it. “Both of us had a great deal to gain from this union,” Ahkdul said. “I will not beg Myklaan for her return. Nor can Verdaan wage war against them. But neither will I stand by to let a woman decide the fate of my realm.”

  “You cannot wage war of the military kind, but Verdaan is not without influence, even in Myklaan,” Wilshem replied.

  It had to be porrin. It was all that Vae-forsaken realm had. Vinsant shook his head. All this politicking was beyond him. He would have to seek out Mariano and pester him into explaining after he had dealt with Father.

  “I doubt she is yet in Myklaan.” All eyes set on Levi. His black crystal glowed as Ahkdul reached for his goblet. The swine’s fingers wrapped around air as it slid across the table. The shah’s lip curled in a sneer. The Majoria glided to the table and picked up the goblet. It disappeared from his hand. “The djinn would not have bargained on saving the boy. The Princess would have argued for it. For that concession, he will take her no further than out of harm’s way. It is in their nature to dissemble. He has more opportunity to coerce her into another pact if she must travel far.”

  “You could be wrong about this,” Wilshem said.

  “Majesty.” Levi bowed his hooded head in acknowledgement.

  “Even so,” Mariano said. “Even if she is only on the other side of the scums, we cannot race to intercept her in time. It is an eighteen-day ride to the Termyk pass, and another three days to cross.”

  Arun stepped forward with a glance at Ahkdul. The swine was keeping his back to them as he stared at where his goblet had sat, not even pretending to pay attention. “We do not know where she is. She might wander the hills for eight-days or traverse Kaijoor in a royal carriage in one. Prudence dictates the Myklaani know the gist of the matter.”

  “The matter is still to be decided,” Wilshem said. “If it is blood honour, our interests are not served by informing them.”

  Vinsant gasped as Ahkdul turned. Father could not be serious. Kordahla’s shame was not great enough to warrant putting her to the sword. He opened his mouth, but Arun’s warning tilt of his hand made him bi
te his tongue.

  “Father,” Mariano said. He was silenced with a raised finger.

  A dove landed on the balcony wall, and cooed. That had to be a sign from Vae’oenka. Vinsant willed Father to understand.

  A moment of excruciating quiet was followed by Wilshem’s “Well?”

  Ahkdul and the Shah stared at each other. Ahkdul said, “I will not demand blood honour if she is untouched, though I claim the right to deal with her as I see fit. I will not take a disobedient wife, and she must learn how to obey if I grant her this reprieve. But she is also your daughter, Majesty. The final say on blood honour is yours.”

  “It is only on account of our contract that I do not declare it in every village and town in the land. You are generous, Lord Ahkdul, and, if she is unsullied, you may deal with your future wife as you see fit.”

  The dove flew off. Vinsant bit his lip. Hard. It had to come back. Father had left unsaid what would happen if Kordahla took herself into the arms of a man. He didn’t think she would do that, but he had a sinking feeling that to her death might be preferable to a lesson at Ahkdul’s hands.

  Hands behind his back, eyes narrow, the Shah addressed Levi. “Send as many mahktashaan as you can spare to the hills. They may use any means within their power to locate the princess. Consider anybody who aids her a traitor to this land.” He turned to Mariano. “You will lead a delegation to Myklaan. Take the Minoria with you. If Kordahla is there, convince the Myklaani it is not in their best interests to harbour a Terlaani princess. If she is not, advise them she has become separated from a hunting party and solicit their aid in recovering her. I care not what you say as long as it does not sully our honour.”