by Tia Reed
Vinsant stared as Arun walked away. When he turned back into the cell, the rotting straw was dampening again.
Hours later, after a frugal meal of stale flatbread and dry cheese, it became obvious he really was to spend the entire night in the musty dungeon. After sitting and standing alternately for hours, depending on how tired or wet he was, Vinsant craved a blanket. And he was bored. Ballads of heroes languishing in dungeons did not do justice to his suffering. He tried to rattle the bars of the door but they held fast. Since the guards were not about to bring him any comforts, he needed to come up with a plan. In a locked dungeon, with soldiers who would not be cajoled for fear of what their Shah might do to their heads, magic seemed the only option. He was a mahktashaan apprentice, after all. Was it that far a stretch to assume he had some talent for it?
Vinsant closed his eyes, concentrated really hard and tried to repeat Arun’s gesture. Ten minutes later, he rubbed his forehead. The truth was he had no idea what performing magic was supposed to feel like. The mahktashaan he had seen at work had appeared unperturbed, but Arun had told him the power came from the djinn, the last creatures he was likely to relax around. No, not the djinn, the same source as the djinn, and that was tied to Mahktos. Well, if his power came direct from Mahktos, perhaps he had to recreate the radiance he had felt in the god’s presence. It made a twisted kind of sense. After all, porrin also allowed magic and he had seen how well a small dose annihilated stress.
There was just one problem. In the midst of mouldy straw, between the plink of water, splat of slime and worrying about Kordahla, Vinsant wondered if he could relax. He smoothed his features, closed his eyes, took a deep breath and immersed himself in the memory of the awesome glade. He said a quick prayer before repeating Arun’s gesture and spell. It was sumbek, wasn’t it? Inside him, a thrumming akin to the one Arun had created arose. A piece of wood clattered to the floor. Vinsant looked at the leg of a stool and scratched his head. It was a start, he supposed. He tried again. And again. A second and third leg clanked into the cell, bringing with them a smoky stink. He took a closer look and kicked a smouldering leg into the wettest corner. With nothing better to do, he tried again. Four, five unattached legs. Another prayer, an adjustment of his posture, which heightened the thrum in his veins, and a stool appeared before him. Upside down, uneven in the legs and scorched, but a stool nonetheless. Vinsant danced right around it. Then he conjured a score more. He was arranging the stools into a bench when an idea sprang into his mind. Hands on the bars, he closed his eyes and pictured what he wanted.
“Lachos,” he said, the energy buzzing through his body. “Lachtos. Latchtos.”
There was a click. Hands around the bars, Vinsant pushed the door ajar. From down the corridor came the rattles of a dicing game. He listened a moment, tempted to try and sneak past. Quite apart from a night in his own bed, he wanted someone to know what he could do. But nobody seemed to condone his actions. Not even Arun who liked his sister. He pulled the door shut again. Father, Levi and Arun, adults though they were, just might be right.
“Latchtos,” he said, but the incantation did not seem to work in reverse. He hoped whoever collected him from this stinking scumpit would not assume he had escaped for the night only to return before dawn. He curled up on the stools, snuggled into his robe and tried to stop thinking of what might happen to Kordahla.
Chapter Thirty-three
Flat on her back, Kordahla spluttered, trying to dislodge foul scum from her nose and mouth. She rolled over and wiped her face but found a hand covered in muck, and had to be content with mopping what filth she could onto the grass. Her wretchedness was no excuse to delay. She stood up, staggering sideways under an assault of disorientation and fatigue. Where foetid vapour had blanketed a sodden expanse, forested hills now cradled a narrow valley. Wildflowers bobbed in the breeze and wisps of cloud rippled across sweet sky. She collapsed to her knees, closed her eyes tight and rocked back and forth. What had she done? A djinn-cursed existence was no trade for life under Ahkdul’s thumb.
A small, filthy hand touched her shoulder. She steadied herself with a deep breath and opened her eyes. A spark had appeared in Timak’s eyes, and the hint of a smile played about his lips. She wondered, sadly, cruelly, how long it would last.
“We’re a long way from Myklaan,” she said.
Removing his hand, he sobered. “You made a pact with a djinn.”
“I don’t think you can talk,” she answered, standing and moving off because the reminder stung. Besides, there were more immediate concerns. The sun was almost behind the highest of the hills, there was nothing remotely edible in sight, and she stank. She had, she realised with a pang of dread, no idea what to do.
Timak moved up behind her, careful not to come too close.
“Is your genie about?” she asked, staring at the beech and ash.
He looked around, then shook his head, standing lopsided because he had only one shoe.
“Call her, and tell her to get us out of here.”
He shook his head again.
With an exasperated release of breath, Kordahla began to scramble up the hill. Timak was certain to mimic the swinging monkeys and follow. The steep slope was slippery. Wet grass yielded the land to fern, rock and decaying leaves. The exertion cut through her fatigue with an almost meditative effect. Her feet slipped, her kameez tore and mud seeped through her clothes, though it was hardly an inconvenience when scum sealed every pore in her flesh. By the time she reached the summit, her frustration had dissipated. In its place, exhausted despair stretched as far as the northward horizon, where Lake Sheraz glistened. The scums marred the land between, whiffs of noxious vapour tainting their breaths on isolated gusts. Myklaan was a long way away, somewhere to the southwest, beyond leagues and leagues of giant hills. Were the boy not with her, she might have burst into tears. Instead, she placed a hand over her rumbling stomach, seeking comfort in the feel of her own body.
“We need to find water,” she said.
They trudged for hours, down, then some way up the next hill. Their footsteps disturbed crickets into giant leaps and lizards into waggly darts. She gave no thought to their safety until a beast growled its presence deep in the thickening forest. Until monkeys feasting on fallen apricots screeched their warning and leapt from a careless weave of knotted roots into vine-tangled branches. Until birds of bright plumage shrieked in exotic tones before taking flight from the laced canopy. She stopped, and Timak bumped into her back. The tree trunks were becoming indistinct, and the patches of visible sky had turned grey. They needed refuge for the night. She slowed, searching for a crevice, a bush, anything that might protect them from whatever lurked in these foreign parts.
The mosquitoes started buzzing and tickling with their bites. Timak limped behind her, his bare foot slowing his progress. She batted at a fly crawling across her face. A feather-light touch brushed the back of her hand. She flicked it away as she whirled. Timak flinched, his eyes betraying his hurt. Then he pointed at a hollow trunk. Whether haven or trap she did not know, but there was nowhere else to hide. Lifting a fallen branch, she approached, wrinkling her nose in distaste and on the verge of tears. This nightmare was not what a princess deserved. She thrust the branch into the entrance, keeping it at arm’s length, and then jumped back. No bear or fox sprang out. She stepped up again, more confident as she prodded deeper, raking the stick through the dried-out leaves. Satisfied the hollow was unoccupied, she looked at Timak. He trotted over and crawled inside. With a shudder at the thought of the bugs that would creep through their nest, she followed, careful to maintain a hold on the branch that was their only weapon.
Now she was sitting down, her back against rough bark, her parched throat began to burn, the hunger in her stomach gnaw. She looked at the boy. Chin on knees he was looking at her as though she would provide. He had to be as dry and ravenous as she, but he would not dream of uttering a peep of complaint. She sighed. Vinsant would have proclaimed his discomfort for every wild beast to
hear, then come up with a foolhardy plan to procure dinner using no more than the stick she held and his bare hands. She missed him already.
A yowl startled her. Low and plaintive, it sounded hungry to her ears. She moved the branch to the dip between her knees.
“The djinn won’t abandon us after saving us from the bazwaeel,” Kordahla whispered, for both their sakes. She was surprised when Timak answered.
“He would. He can make another pact if we’re in danger. That’s what they want us to do, make lots of pacts.”
The deepening gloom shadowed his face but his voice was a comfort. She shifted the stick to a stronger position through cracking leaves, and strove to keep him talking. “What was your pact, with the genie?”
“We don’t have a pact.” His voice rasped from thirst.
“Then why does she always hover about you?”
“We’re friends,” he said simply.
“She isn’t bound to you?”
She heard a soft scraping that could have been the shake of his head against his shalvar. “If you discover her name, we could get some help.” He didn’t reply. She tried again, more to keep the loneliness at bay than because she expected an answer. “How did you meet her?”
This time she heard a gulp. When the silence oppressed, she knew she had lost him. She sighed. At least she now understood why he had not asked the genie to interfere. Quiet persistence might win him over to the idea of discovering her name. Without assistance, they would not get far, and indebting herself further to the manipulative indigo djinn was unconscionable. The thought of owing that creature brought tears to her eyes. She felt Timak sag against her shoulder, heard him yawn and kept still to avoid disturbing him. Before long, his head had fallen into her lap. She shifted into a more comfortable position and wrapped an arm around him, grateful for the warmth of his body beside her. In sleep, he did not seem to mind her touch.
With night came the eerie scratching, clicking and rustling of the forest. The drone lulled her into a drowse. As she nodded off, prickles of warning erupted all over her skin. She snapped awake, listening. Something was sniffing outside. Something large was grunting as it rooted around the bole. A shadow passed across the entrance, and a sour, musty smell rolled in. Kordahla tightened her grip on the branch and shook Timak awake. For once, his silence was a blessing. The scums might have masked their smells but their shuffles and ragged breathing were discordant in the night’s symphony.
The beast yowled. A hairy arm thrust inside their hole, brushing against her before clamping on Timak’s leg. He latched onto her, choking on a cry. Kordahla swung the branch and beat the arm, but the branch was too long to manoeuvre well. The beast growled and tugged Timak the harder. As the boy slid off her lap, she grabbed his arms. Luck saw one leg catch against the bole.
“Need help, little gnat?” a hated voice drawled. The bark above the hole deformed as the shimmering face of the indigo djinn extruded from it.
“Fight, Timak,” she said, ignoring him. She gasped. The muted indigo shimmer of the djinn’s skin lit a shaggy, brown, muscular arm. Save for its length and sinew, it might have been human.
“An ogre,” the djinn proclaimed with feigned interest. “Never known a plump city dweller to survive an encounter with one.”
“Help him,” Kordahla said, her heart pounding. With his leg braced against the trunk, Timak was sobbing and screaming like he was being torn apart.
“I think it is winning,” the djinn said with a yawn.
Kordahla threw herself over Timak so she could grab his legs. The ogre must have felt her movement, because his other arm latched onto hers. She screamed as he dragged her out of the hole. Unable to do anything else, she let go of Timak and fumbled for the branch. It batted against the sides of the trunk, stuck in a crevice, and jerked free as the ogre pulled them both out and dragged them over roots and rocks.
The hated djinn flew from the tree and floated in front of them. “An easy victory.”
The ogre let them go and raked an arm towards him. The djinn winked out and reappeared just out of reach. The ogre leapt after him, but he vanished in a puff of smoke.
Kordahla struggled to her feet, pulling Timak after her. “Run,” she said, not sure how far they could get with only shafts of moonlight to light their way. Snapping twigs and swishing fronds hindered their passage and revealed their path. Her foot twisted on a root. She yelped as a sharp stab of pain lanced through her ankle. Beside her, Timak puffed as he stumbled over stones. They had to slow to feel their way past trees. Not so, the ogre. In a few bounds, it was close enough to seize them. There was no opposing its brute strength as it pulled them into a pool of moonlight and sniffed them up and down. Spittle drooled from his open mouth as his barbed tongue lolled over his fat, black lips.
“Agree to a pact and I’ll see you both safe and sound,” the indigo djinn said, appearing at her side. Indigo light poured from the crystals in his joints.
The dumb ogre let go to hurl a backhanded slap at the djinn. Tumbling upside down, the djinn avoided it. He presented both arms toward her as she backed away.
“Be my guest,” the djinn said to the ogre. “These uncooperative mortals are not to my liking.”
The ogre’s expression turned eager. Kordahla sprang into ferns. Her foot landed on a rotting log. It cracked, and split. Her foot twisted as it went down, and she fell. The ogre grabbed Timak around the waist and threw him down next to her. The boy groaned as he thumped to the ground, and curled into a ball. Legs straddling them, the ogre beat its shaggy chest. The djinn held one edge of his vermillion vest as he reclined above, out of its scrawny reach, out of its puny mind.
“If you don’t help us, I won’t be around to deliver on my first promise,” Kordahla said. She grasped at a section of the log and pulled a sharp segment free.
“An interesting prospect, since if you aren’t, your soul shall be mine. Pacts bind until the end of time, flea.”
“No,” she murmured, letting her head drop back.
“Yes!” the djinn sneered, his disembodied vermillion eyes appearing before her.
She gagged on the fishy smell clouding her, whimpered as the ogre dropped to his knees and ran rough hands over her thigh, searching for the juiciest morsels.
“What? What do you want?” she screamed. Her muscles were bruising, her bones bending.
An indigo hand joined the eyes, its index finger poking into the hollow of her neck. “Oh, nothing much. Just your second born child.”
She closed her eyes and shook her head, sobbing.
“Agree,” the djinn said.
“No. Not to that.”
“It’s your second born.”
The djinn popped. She opened her eyes and turned her head to look at him, floating above the ogre, arms and ankles crossed. If she died, he would have it on his conscience. If the djinn had such a thing. “So I keep my first born? And that makes it all right?” She would never have thought the stench of decay pouring from the ogre’s mouth could overpower the fish smell. She thought she might retch.
The djinn’s smile was a malicious, cruel twist of his mouth. “Who knows what the future will bring?” He yawned, and flicked a piece of dirt from beneath his fingernail. “But will you have one?”
The ogre lifted a rock and pulled a straight arm back as he prepared to strike the killing blow. She sobbed. What choice was this, to die or relinquish a child? She reached over to take Timak’s hand. She couldn’t help a desolate cry when he rolled away from her. She sobbed again, this time in relief when he kicked the ogre between the legs. The ogre froze, his arm raised, his wide nose, thick lips and hairy face contorted in pain. Kordahla wriggled back. Before the ogre could recover, Timak kicked him twice more. He scooted to Kordahla, and they ran for the bole. Behind them, the ogre yowled in fury. His big feet thumped on the chase.
“Make the pact,” the djinn said. The note of desperation in his voice gave her hope.
She kept running. Timak overtook her and scram
bled up a tree. She followed, hoping the ogre could not climb. Two branches up, Timak stood on tiptoe and wriggled his fingers shy of the next branch. She lifted him until he could wrap his arms around it and swing his legs up. She needed to jump to hang from it. Pulling herself up cost her dear effort. She hung over it, panting, trying to balance so she might bring her legs up. The ogre leapt onto the first branch and swiped, just missing her foot. She crawled to the trunk and worked her way higher, the climb getting easier as the limbs grew in closer proximity but more precarious as the thinner branches bent beneath her. Below them, the ogre groped his clumsy way up. A branch snapped under his bulk and he toppled, landing on his back across the lowest limb.
Kordahla held her breath. The indestructible ogre righted himself and climbed. To her relief, Timak managed to wedge himself in a fork higher up. She made it to the next bough, and scratched for purchase on the trunk as it creaked a warning.
“Ogres never give up,” the indigo djinn said.
“You could have taken us to Myklaan.”
“I honoured our pact, which was to remove you and the boy from the jaws of the bazwaeel.”
“You know I travel to Myklaan.”
“Then in future, take more care with the terms of your contract. Just remember that next time you might not be so lucky on your own.” The djinn disappeared with a whoomp of air.
Another branch cracked, sending the ogre toppling. Twice more they heard him climb and fall. Letting out a hoot, he shook the trunk. The branches wobbled. The bough she stood on peeled away from the trunk. She sat, gripped it tight, and eased onto a lower branch. Her feet kept slipping off the smooth bark. The bough she held jerked lower. She dropped, straddling the branch and holding it tight as it bounced. When the shaking stopped, the utter silence of the forest sent prickles of fear down her spine. The ogre’s clogged snores brought her little relief. She did not dare nap lest she fall at his feet. Her head nodded, her mind drifted, drifted, and latched onto a fragment of some tale about ogres and the day.