Heart of Flame

by Janine Ashbless

Lelia cooled her vehemence momentarily to consider this. “Well. I’ve seen her in the bathhouse and she’s no beauty, that’s for sure.”

  “See? And don’t you think this is a good thing he’s doing, rescuing this poor girl from the Djinn?”

  The fire came back into Lelia’s tone. “That’s why you’re risking your honor, is it? Out of the compassion of your heart?”

  “I’m not risking my honor. I told you, Zahir will accompany Rafiq the Traveller. What possible law can be broken?”

  “Oh, because Zahir doesn’t think like Taqla, does he? Listen, girl, I’m not stupid. I’ve seen the look in your eyes when you say his name. Men may do their thinking with what hangs between their legs, but women are just as bad, believe me. Haven’t I been married three times? I know. And that Rafiq with his fine face and his nice manners and his fancy stories is just the sort for a clever-clever girl like you to lose her head over.”

  Taqla drew herself up, feeling injured. “I have not lost my head!”

  “You think you’re any smarter than the rest of us when it comes to men? You’re a little girl! You know nothing yet. You haven’t even had your heart broken.”

  “Then maybe it’s time I did,” she snapped. “Since there’s no chance of me marrying and I have no family name to uphold, what does it matter?”

  Lelia seemed to shrivel. “Don’t say that.”

  “Why not? It’s true. You know it.”

  “You will marry. We will arrange it somehow, God willing.”

  “And leave this house to enter the harem of another family? No.” She smiled savagely. “I would rather remain a sorceress and hidden from the world, forever.”

  “Don’t say that!” Lelia made the sign to warn off the Evil Eye, then came forward and laid a hand on her arm. “I don’t want him to hurt you,” she said in a much more subdued voice, and Taqla relented slowly, stroking the older woman’s calloused fingers.

  “He won’t hurt me. I know what it is he wants. He means to marry Ahleme, the Jewel of Dimashq. And so I’m going to help him do that. All of us will profit and he will never know who I really am, I promise.”

  Rafiq approached the house of Umar the Scholar on foot with the horse saddle and bags slung over his shoulders. He’d have preferred to have his servants do the carrying, but he understood Umar’s need for discretion. For the same reason, despite his poor relations with the House al-Hava, he brought no guards, wearing instead his most nondescript travelling clothes and covering his face and head.

  Having been let in by the housekeeper—and the woman honored him with the most disapproving mutters, which he failed to see he’d done anything to justify—he was shown into the courtyard where he found Zahir abd-Umar squatting on his haunches, picking his teeth indolently with a splinter.

  “Zahir! Peace be upon you! God has preserved you, I see. You left me before I had a chance to thank you.”

  Zahir squinted up at him, half-grinning. “I thought you would follow through the window.”

  “I did, just not so quickly as you. Don’t tell me you didn’t see the girl in the room?”

  “A girl?”

  “With not a stitch of clothing on her.”

  Zahir shook his head. “Alas my blind eyes! Was she pretty?”

  “Not bad at all.” Rafiq smiled at the memory, though what he chiefly pictured in his mind was her furious glare, her eyes wilder than those of a hawk in a snare and, memorable in a predominantly dark-eyed city, green as pond water. He wouldn’t forget eyes like that quickly.

  “Ah.” Zahir pulled an odd face. “Well, my luck was not in that day.”

  “I think mine was, meeting you. May you bite the noses off all my enemies!”

  Zahir waved his hand vaguely then stood to his feet. “My master Umar regrets that he cannot be here to meet you, but has left you a message,” he said, producing a piece of paper. “Would you like me to read it to you?”

  “No, I can read.” Rafiq took the note. The script was well-formed, he thought, in a scholarly hand. He read down past the formal salutations to the meat of the message.

  I regret that I am unable to rise from my bed this day due to a complaint of the stomach from which I suffer, but I have instructed my slave Zahir that he is to accompany you to Baghdad and give you what assistance he may in your quest. He is most trustworthy and carries with him a letter of introduction to Hunayn ibn-Ishaq at the House of Wisdom. My good wishes and prayers go with you both. May God who sees all things and is most merciful preserve you.

  “You know what it is I’m hoping to obtain in the City of Peace, Zahir?” he asked, folding the note away.

  “My master told me what you are after.”

  “And what do you think of it?”

  “Me?” Zahir looked surprised. “What should I think?” But he answered his own question quickly. “I hope you’re as brave as you think you are, because it’s a terrible thing to go up against a djinni. Even for the sake of the most beautiful woman in Dimashq.”

  “Ah—but you haven’t seen her.”

  “No,” agreed Zahir, and spat out his toothpick.

  “Are we ready to go then?”

  At that moment, the call of the muezzin echoed out across the rooftops of Dimashq, summoning the people to prayer. Zahir tilted his head. “We are now.” From the folds of his clothes he brought out a tightly wound ball of silver wire of the kind often used to bind sword grips. “Horse Most Swift,” he said, dropping the ball upon the floor before him.

  The hair rose on Rafiq’s neck as the ball shot into the air to the height of a horse’s withers, trailing a silver wire behind it. Then it dropped a few feet, leaving a loop hanging in midair. Back and forth it shot, up and down, making overlaid circles great and small as if it were weaving on an invisible frame. There was far more wire in that little ball than Rafiq could have guessed, and as the ball rushed about, faster and faster, a form began to appear from the crisscrossing silver—a horse with a fine, arched neck.

  Rafiq’s fingers twitched as he stopped himself making the sign to avert the Evil Eye. It would not be polite in the circumstances, he thought, though this thing taking shape in front of him was deeply uncanny.

  “This is the Horse Most Swift,” said Zahir. “It will run faster than any beast alive, faster even than the caliph’s hunting cheetahs. It can carry two men and not grow tired or need to eat. It can gallop across any surface however steep, and even across the surface of the sea, though at sunset it stands still and won’t return to use before dawn. It will take us to Baghdad. You brought a saddle, I hope?”

  “Yes. Of course.”

  “Good. It’s murder on the rear end without one.”

  Rafiq blinked. “And where did your master come across such a thing—or did he make it himself?”

  Zahir shook his head slightly. “It was made in ancient Persia. It’s said to have belonged to the Emperor Darius the Great at one time, and he rode it into battle. Things like this are beyond the skill of any modern sorcerer, unless he’s a djinni.”

  The ball slowed, unravelling down to the last few inches of wire, which carefully tucked themselves behind the Horse’s ear. The two men were left staring at a beast of silver filigree, still obviously hollow but with the animal’s features crafted in fine detail from its plaited tail to its flared nostrils. It was motionless.

  “How does it work?” Rafiq came forward and laid a hand on its neck. The mesh was, to his surprise, inflexible. Crowning the Horse’s withers were a pair of looped silver handles that looked like they were designed for holding on to, rather than, say, steering.

  “Magic, of course.”

  “I mean, are there words you speak to animate it?”

  “Yes, there are words. That’s one of the reasons I am to go with you.”

  Rafiq took the rebuke with a nod. They saddled the horse between them and he lashed on his travelling bags.

  “We should hurry. You mount up behind me, and hold my belt,” Zahir instructed.

  “Hav
en’t you brought any baggage of your own?”

  With a smile, Zahir indicated the empty pouch that hung from his belt. “Everything I need is in here.” And Rafiq could only raise his eyebrows and accept this. The slave of the house of Umar mounted first then gave Rafiq a hand up behind him. The silver Horse stood like stone. Rafiq slipped a hand into the back of Zahir’s belt and felt the man in front shift slightly, giving him more room on the saddle. Then, “Be ready,” Zahir warned, and leaned forward to whisper in the Horse’s silver ear.

  The Horse Most Swift shuddered, stamped its feet on the flagstones and sidled nervously across the courtyard. Rafiq tried to pretend this was a perfectly ordinary steed he sat astride.

  “Lelia—open the gate!” called Zahir. “Rafiq, my friend, duck your head!”

  The courtyard door creaked open, the Horse sprang forward and the two men crouched low as they surged under the lintel and out into the city beyond. The streets were all but deserted for Friday prayers, which was a good thing, because they tore down the narrow alleyways, twisting through corners and leaping goods laid out for sale. Rafiq forgot all pretensions to dignity and grabbed hold of Zahir, whose fingers were knotted white about the handles, both of them clinging on for dear life as they turned down Straight Street and headed for the city wall. The arches of the Bab Sharqi shot past in a blur and suddenly they were out on the open road and the Horse put on even more speed, its hooves thundering on the beaten rubble, tents and huts and trees flashing past as they headed, straight as an arrow, eastward—and Rafiq couldn’t stop himself whooping with exhilaration.

  The djinni Yazid was taller than his sister and not a delicate eggshell blue like her but white as marble, his skin shadowed with silver gray. The arms folded across his bare chest were ridged with muscle and hairless, yet the eyebrows angled across his bald forehead were black, like ink. His features were bluntly handsome, Ahleme supposed, but it was too harsh and proud a face to inspire anything but terror in a captive. She shrank back against Zubaida.

  “Brother—are you trying to scare the girl out of her wits? Could you not have picked an appearance less imposing?”

  “This?” He spread his arms and looked down at himself. His baggy shalwar were blue silk, his feet bare, his torso like his arms as hairless as a eunuch’s but hard with muscle, narrowing from broad shoulders to a taut waist. “This is my most humble guise. I come to my bridal chamber girded for love, not war.”

  Ahleme whimpered under her breath and Zubaida shook her head. “Brother, this is wrong. You know it.”

  “Hush.” He held up his hand. “I’ll not hear more of this.”

  “You know that last time our kind bred with the Children of Earth, a flood was sent to wipe out all trace of the offspring.”

  “I said hush.” His eyes flashed. “If you have no sweet words for me, then it’s time for you to leave.”

  “Please don’t!” Ahleme begged, grabbing her arm.

  “Yazid…”

  “Go!”

  Under Ahleme’s hand, the other woman’s flesh turned to nothing, and from where her solid form had stood an explosion of white moths rose up, fluttering and swooped around her, wings brushing her skin like kisses before the whole swarm flew apart and vanished among the glimmering planes of glass. Ahleme was left alone with her captor.

  She put one hand over her mouth, the movement instinctive.

  Yazid smiled. “Too late for that. I have admired your beauty for a long time, my beloved. You have nothing you need hide from me.”

  “I am not your beloved,” Ahleme managed to get out, though all the power had gone momentarily from her voice and it was more like a whisper. “I am Ahleme bint-Jamil and you have no authority to take me from his house.”

  Yazid’s heavy lids drooped in a cool blink. “Come here and sit with me, beloved. You must be hungry and thirsty by now. We’ll eat together.” A tilt of his hand revealed a low table laden with food that had not been there by the bed when she had risen from it. She could see plates of roast meats, fruit and flatbreads and quenching iced sherbets to drink. Ahleme was hungry—she guessed by the gnawing in her stomach that it was at least a day since she had last dined—but her hunger was not so strong as her wariness.

  “No. You must let me go.”

  “Are you telling me what to do?”

  She took a deep breath. “I remind you of your honor.”

  “Oh.” He chuckled. Then to her confusion he answered, “If slaves had honor, then you might have that right.”

  “Are you a slave? Who is your master then?”

  The humor died out of his eyes, leaving them cold. “Come here to me.”

  “No.”

  Without warning he vanished—only to appear instantaneously behind her and drop his hands on her bare shoulders. Ahleme squealed and tried to wriggle from his grasp. He caught her by the jaw and held her. His hands were warm and dry on her skin. Somehow she had expected someone that pallid to be clammy to the touch.

  “You’re very beautiful.” He loomed over her, his face hovering over hers so close that she could feel his breath. He smelled of burning cedarwood. “There’s no need to be afraid, I’m not going to harm you. You will bear me a son. A perfect Child of Earth and Fire, with his mother’s blood, his father’s power.”

  “No!” Ahleme twisted her face against the painful grip of his fingers.

  “No?” Lifting her almost off her toes, he marched her backward, step by stumbling step, and pushed her onto the bed where she sprawled with mouth and eyes wide. He knelt over her, his eyes blazing. “Am I not good enough for you, Daughter of Earth? Is my line not noble enough?”

  “You’re not even human!” she gasped.

  “How dare you!” He didn’t raise his voice, but black lines of script began to form over his skin, even on his scalp. Those across his cheekbones looked like scars. “Your forebears were made of mud, little human, while mine blazed among the stars of heaven!”

  “Then do not break the laws of God!” she cried, desperate. “Why can’t you return me to my father and ask for my hand, with honor?”

  “Ask? Ask his permission?” He bared teeth that were just a little bit too pointed to be human. “I do not need to stoop to asking any Child of Earth. Including you.” With one hand on her breastbone, he shoved her flat on her back, pinning her. With the other he tore the flimsy silk of her top, baring her breasts.

  For Ahleme there was no question of fighting him off. He was far too strong for that. There didn’t even seem to be a question of screaming. She had hardly any air in her lungs with that heavy hand on her chest. She opened her mouth in a silent cry of protest as his expression filled with pleasure, his gaze feasting on her nakedness.

  “Beautiful,” he growled, almost in awe, his free hand moving to play across the swell of her breasts, hot on her tender skin, squeezing the softly firm flesh. For the first time in her life she felt a man’s fingers close about her nipples, felt the pang as he tugged at her. “Perfect.”

  She shut her eyes, trying to gather her will. Zubaida had promised her aid. Zubaida had said…

  Yazid’s hand left her breast and slid down the length of her body, snapping the strings of coins, pressing hard on her stomach, groping under the low line of her shalwar trousers to cup the silky mound of her sex. He did it slowly, savouring her body. She squealed at the violation and tried to twist out of his reach, but he was kneeling astride her thighs by now and she couldn’t escape.

  “Stop that,” he remonstrated.

  She tried to clamp her legs together, but it was impossible to close them against the hand that was forcing its way into her tender folds. It hurt. Pain boiled up to join her terror and confusion. She sank her nails into his arms because she couldn’t reach his face, and shrieked with panic as she tore at the hard muscle.

  And she felt herself change. Her upper lip split to the nose, peeling back to reveal teeth and gums. Tusks thrust out of her lower jaw. Pustules bubbled up beneath her skin, bursting with a
stink of pus. Her bones twisted out of symmetry and her left eye swelled up, going blind, bulging out of its socket. Her breasts withered to ragged flaps of skin and sprouted bristles while her stomach shrivelled clear down to her spine—and her virgin sex burst open like a gangrenous bladder, in a welter of rotted flesh.

  “What!” Yazid roared, recoiling. “What’s this?”

  Ahleme couldn’t answer, and could hardly think. Her blue, swollen tongue lolled out from between her jaws, drool slicking her crusted face. Her body felt like an alien thing, like a corpse in which she was trapped. She tried to pull herself up the bed, away from him, but though he wasn’t holding her anymore, her sticklike limbs lacked the strength. She looked down at herself, but it was too much to bear. She vomited over her own chin.

  “Daughter of a bitch! Stop this!”

  “No,” she spat. In the fevered depths of her mind she clung to one thought—I revolt him.

  “Do you think I’m afraid of you?” he demanded. The script tattooed on his skin was nearly clear enough to read now, and there were long claws on his hands. “Do you think I cannot become just as monstrous?”

  “Your son,” she lisped thickly past her tusks and the clogging lumps of matter. “How will your perfect son turn out if I conceive him now?”

  Yazid jumped to his feet, flushing a deep, dark blue from head to foot. He didn’t say another word, but bellowing with fury, he smashed his foot down on the low table, turned into a column of blue flame and vanished upward, the glass palace glowing for a moment like a thousand streaks of lightning. Then it went silent and the only movement was the oil lamps rocking on their chains.

  Ahleme laughed and laughed. Then she cried, and there was no distinguishing between the two noises. After that she lay back and shut her eyes and prayed to die.

  When she opened them again, she thought that in her shock she must have dozed off momentarily. There was that same feeling of returning to the waking world. She lifted her hand to her face and stared for a long time at her narrow fingers, her flawless skin. She touched her face and felt the unbroken lips and narrow lines of teeth, and she licked the end of one finger with the delicate tip of her tongue. Only then did she dare to look down at herself. There was no sign of the foul transformation that had racked her body, and only her ripped clothing and the scattered coins showed what Yazid had attempted.