by Mark Albany
“Don’t be so dramatic,” Norel said with a small smile, looking around the room. “We intend to break you out ourselves.”
“Again,” Oronin said, taking a step forward, “we are in the depths of one of the most unescapable dungeons in the world, with the cell doors locked from the outside. Do you intend to turn us into spirits so that we can ghost through solid fucking rock?”
Norel shook her head. “Don’t be silly. These walls are warded against passage like that, which is why it’s said that the spirits of the men and women that die down here remain trapped within these walls, their punishment eternal.”
“Then how do you expect us to get free?” Oronin asked, looking baffled.
“Through a portal, of course,” Norel replied with a grin. “Portals are rare enough that the people who built this place never thought to ward it against them, making it all too easy.”
Oronin opened his mouth to protest but Aliana had already taken my hand, with Norel placing her hand on her sister’s shoulder. Aliana’s remaining hand was placed on Oronin’s arm as she closed her eyes. I could feel the tension sweeping through the air, then the vertigo and nausea as we were all twisted into the portal she’d created.
It was a rougher ride than usual. I thought it might have something to do with the fact that Aliana was transporting four people. I still wasn’t sure just how she did it. It was a rare form, as I already knew. There had to be all kinds of dangers and limits involved but every time I tried to ask her for details she rebuffed me, saying there were yet more basics to learn before we got into anything that advanced.
It was true, but that didn’t do much to sate my curiosity.
We landed hard, arriving in what looked like the forest just outside the city. The rest of them were safe, but I found myself crashing into one of the trees, sending me to the ground.
“I hate portals,” I groaned, rubbing my ribs with a scowl. My body was still sore from training the day before. Even my hand, which Norel had promised would be as good as new by now.
As we came free, Oronin looked around, his eyes blinking rapidly as he tried to get them to adjust from the darkness of the cell he’d been in for what I assumed was years, to the comparative brilliance being outside.
“We… we’ve escaped!” he said, looking around, tears filling his eyes as they started to see the trees, the grass and the rest of the forest around him. “What kind of cruel trick is this? A way to play with my hopes only to dash them?”
“There is no trick,” Aliana said softly. “You are a free man now, Oronin. We ask that you use your freedom to help us track and trap an evil djinn. I would try to entreat you with patriotic talk of how the fate of the Empire lies in the balance, but as I believe you have no love for it or the Emperor, all we can really do is ask for your help.”
The man turned to us, watching as I pushed myself up from the ground, still rubbing some feeling into my side. “I may look the barbarian, but I assure you that I believe in repaying debts. In releasing me from that hole, I now owe you a great deal. If your price is finding this djinn of yours, I will gladly help you.”
Norel nodded with a small smile, turning to start heading out deeper into the forest, but I didn’t move, looking the man in the eye. There was one thing that I wanted clear and agreed upon before Oronin joined our number.
“You should know,” I said, placing a hand on his shoulder. “You may not have been aware of it, but—”
“One of your number is a djinn herself?” Oronin finished for me. “A simple perception field is not enough to mask her true colors from me. I have little love for them, but if she is bound to your will, I will not harm her. She could actually prove rather useful in what we intend to do.”
“She’s not bound to anyone’s will but her own,” I growled. “And she’s a part of this of her own free will.”
The man paused but nodded at me. “Well, that doesn’t change much. So long as she doesn’t try to hurt me or mine, I’ll pay her the same courtesy.”
“Know that if you try to hurt her, I’ll kill you,” I said as we started walking to join Norel and Aliana, who had gone ahead a little way.
Oronin chuckled softly, turning to face me. “I believe that you would try, yes,” he said, smiling. “I like you. What is your name?”
“Grant,” I replied, chafing under the collar at his lack of faith in my abilities. He would learn, though. I would learn too, I guessed. I had no idea what he was capable of either.
“You may call me Oro, Grant,” he replied, placing a hand on my shoulder.
I nodded, with a small smile. It seemed we would have some time to find out what the other could do.
15
We made our way to the ruins inside the forest, where Aliana had brought most of our supplies the night before. Norel suggested that we pause and get a feeling for what we were going to do next instead of running off like wild creatures without any kind of direction. Oro welcomed the pause. The man had an appearance of power and skill, but he also looked like he’d been in prison for years, lacking in sunlight and proper nourishment for the duration of his time there. I shared some food with him which he devoured ravenously, as well as drinking from the clean water of a nearby stream. The man didn’t say as much, but I doubted they gave him much in the way of clean water while he was in there either.
“How long, do you think, before they realize he’s gone?” I asked, as the silence between us was starting to stretch into an uncomfortable area.
“That depends,” Norel replied, not looking up from a scroll she was intently reading. “The guard watching over that level of the dungeon was led to believe we would be interrogating him. With the cell door locked and the wards sealing in any sounds from within, it would depend on how long his interrogations usually lasted.”
“Days,” Oro growled from the other side of a chunk of dried meat he was digging into. “They shouldn’t realize we’ve escaped for at least a few days.”
I had memories of what those interrogations were like, although mine had lasted for less than an hour. I gulped, not wanting to picture what the man had been subjected to. For himself, Oro didn’t seem interested in discussing it as he wolfed the meat down and attacked a fresh loaf of bread.
“We might need to collect some more supplies before we set off,” Norel noted with a small smile. Aliana, for her part, didn’t look too pleased with the man. I wondered if it had anything to do with the fact that he openly admitted to killing djinn. She never spoke to anyone about what it was like to be a djinn, but I couldn’t imagine that needing the help of someone who hunted djinn for a living was an easy thing for her. I reached out and gently squeezed her shoulder. She smiled at me in response.
“All right,” Oro finally said. “I’ll tell you everything I know about the situation.”
“About fucking time,” Aliana growled.
“I had to see if your intentions were as you said they were,” Oro said with a small grin. “I had to reach out into the void and see what I could find. You haven’t lied to me or tried to cover anything up. I see no reason not to help you. If you would tell me what you need my help with, I will oblige as I can.”
“There is someone we need to find in the underworld,” Norel said. “We don’t know if she is being held there against her will or staying by personal choice. All we know is that she is there. We also know there is a connection between the dark djinn and the underworld which can be exploited to our advantage, but we’re not sure how.”
“Dark djinn are notoriously powerful and difficult to control,” Oro said, following Norel’s reasoning. “As you see it, you cannot control her for long enough to figure the connection out on your own. You need someone with my particular talents to help you understand what the connection is and use it with a shorter window.”
Norel nodded, leaning back into one of the ruined walls, letting the man speak his piece.
“You,” he said, pointing at me, “have an item that bound this one to you before
, yes? I can feel it.”
I nodded, fidgeting with the ring hanging from my neck.
He smiled. “With that, I believe I can get us to the underworld. I would need to be with you in person, of course. No offense—you three are rather strong, especially the two ladies—but they do not possess what you need to break through the barrier on their own. Their third sister does, however.”
Aliana tensed, and Norel scowled at the man. He grinned.
“Yes, I know who you two are,” he chuckled. “Well, suspected, and now confirmed. I thank you. But yes, there are tales of a woman who protects the underworld, one who trapped a dark elf there and in doing so, trapped herself as well. I believe her to be the third of the Sisters Three of legend.”
“Braire…” Norel breathed, a pained expression crossing her face, shared by Aliana as well.
“Yes, Braire,” Oro said with a nod. “I didn’t know the name, of course, but now that I do I think it more fitting than just calling her the third sister, but I digress. Braire has bound herself to the seal that keeps all the evil creatures trapped in that cursed realm from getting through. A spell of some sort, though more powerful and deadly than any I have attempted. Either way, the conjecture from what little evidence has been found is that there is something guarding the passage between this world and that. Unfortunately, over the past few years, a few shadows have been slipping through her net. They’re almost powerless for the most part, and it was in hunting them that I found the evidence needed for a divination. One that I was foolish enough to share with the Emperor, thinking that he would listen to the warning and change his ways, but no, he locked me up instead, sending his favorite torturers to my cell to try and make out who shared my apparent dream to remove him from his throne.”
“I imagine they didn’t believe that your thoughts of evil beasts coming up from the underworld weren’t just a fictitious ploy to protect your confederates,” I said, my voice soft.
“Truer words than you know,” Oro growled, a dark expression crossing his face but disappearing almost as quickly as it arrived. “From the evidence, I also was able to tell that there was something in our world helping the dark elf, trying to free him again.”
“So, what do we do?” Aliana asked, leaning forward. “Where do we go from here?”
Oro looked up at Aliana, apparently finished with eating for now as he stared her almost hostile gaze down before turning his head to look at me. Or, more accurately, the ring hanging from my neck.
“That,” he said. “That artifact will get us in. I have to be there myself to oversee what should be done, and we need the dark djinn. What we will attempt to do is bind her to the ring, and with the power that the connection generates, open the portal. It means that this one will no longer have any attachment to it, however.”
He directed that last statement at me like it was supposed to mean something.
“What do you mean?” I asked, confused. “I freed her from her bond to it.”
“In part, yes,” Oro said with a nod. “But there is still a tug between her and it. I can feel it—the slenderest of threads, but quite unbreakable. The same is true of any djinn that was once bound to an artifact. Until the item is destroyed or bound to another, there will always be a link between the djinn and it.”
“Interesting,” I said, turning to Aliana. “That sounds like something you should have told me before.”
“I didn’t know about it,” Aliana said softly. “There’s still quite a bit I don’t understand about being a djinn.”
“Rather young, aren’t you?” Oro observed. “Still sporting the wings and horns. You were a whole other species first, weren’t you?”
“That’s none of your business,” Aliana growled and turned to Norel. “Sister, a word?”
Norel nodded. The two moved out of earshot, although not out of sight. Aliana looked annoyed, almost angry, while Norel was trying to calm her down.
“How on earth did one such as you end up with the two of them?” Oro asked as we both watched the sisters argue.
“That is a very long story,” I said with a small smile. “What do you mean, one such as me?”
“A human, of course,” Oro said with a chuckle. “This long story of yours sounds like it is something that should be shared if it is agreed by your friends that I am to travel with you.”
I smirked and nodded. “I don’t think Aliana likes you that much.”
“I don’t need for her to like me,” Oro said, looking up at me. “Truth be told, her presence does not sit well with me. But if we are to stop what is coming, we must all set old grudges aside and work together for the survival of not just this puny Empire, but that of the rest of humanity and life as we know it.”
I looked down at him. “What kind of grudges do you hold against the djinn? What would drive a man like you to hunt them, as you said you did?”
He looked away from me and toward the still-arguing women. “That too is a long story, Grant. One I might just share with you on another day.”
I nodded. “Fair enough.”
Aliana and Norel finished their lively discussion and started walking back toward us. Aliana still didn’t look happy about Oro, but she seemed to at least have come to something of a compromise with herself about it. Norel took a final step forward.
“We’ve decided to trust you for the moment, Oronin,” she said, sounding like a judge passing a sentence. “Our need for your currently outweighs any quarrel or grudge from the past. But know that if that trust is broken—”
“I know, I know, you’ll kill me,” Oro said with a grin, pushing himself to his feet. “Grant here already made that promise. Although between us, I should say that it comes across as a bit more threatening from you.”
“Fuck you,” I growled, shaking my head and picking up my pack. “Let’s get out of here. Aliana, can you open a portal for us back to Norel’s estate for some supplies before we start our travels in earnest?”
Aliana shook her head. “A portal for four people is exhausting enough when done once. I don’t think I can do it again today. Maybe not even tomorrow. I don’t think I even have the energy to put up a perception field.”
I nodded. “Looks like we’re walking, then.”
“You’ll hear no complaint from me,” Oro said as we left the ruins and headed toward the edge of the forest. “After having been bound and gagged in a dungeon cell for years, you have no idea how much pleasure the simple acts of being able to walk and talk bring me.”
“I would suggest that you avoid abusing the latter,” Aliana said, still not looking too kindly on the man. “Or I’m sure we can find a gag for you to use.”
I opened my mouth to tell the two of them to get hold of themselves, although I knew that keeping emotions like these hidden would only let them fester. They needed to settle their grudges quickly so we could work without them wasting everyone’s time by taking shots at each other.
I paused, feeling something on my left tugging at me. I didn’t know what was happening but my body reacted quicker than my mind as I raised my hand, feeling the branded runes burning as a portal appeared a few paces away from me. What was starting to become a very familiar face stepped through it. The djinn was small. For some reason, I just couldn’t wrap my mind around the fact that she was even shorter than Norel. Maybe it was because she radiated so much power, making it a shock every time.
And this time, she was radiating more than power. There was fury reflected in her gaze, which was focused solely on me. I could see flickers of dark energy jumping from her fingers as she whispered a spell I didn’t recognize.
I didn’t need to recognize it to know two things: one, there was a good deal of pain about to be unleashed and two, it was all coming my way.
Her right hand pushed forward as I quickly took a few steps back to put some distance between us, watching the darkness jump from her hands and careen toward me with deadly purpose. My hand was already up with a shield ready, watching as the wave of p
ower swung at me.
The impact was explosive, but thanks to the shield, most of the power was redirected away from me as it struck with a shower of sparks. It crashed into a nearby tree instead, unleashing an explosion that knocked the tree down along with a couple of others.
There was no time for me to worry about what could have happened if I’d taken that hit since even the act of deflecting it was enough to knock me to the ground. I landed on my back but quickly rolled and pushed to my feet again. It was interesting that her form was very similar to Aliana’s, making me a bit more prepared to deal with anything she had to throw at me.
The downside, of course, was that Aliana had never thrown this much raw energy at me before. I wondered if she even could.
“Shit!” I heard Aliana yell. “Protect Grant!”
Protect Grant? I didn’t want to lose my focus in the battle to come, but at the same time, I wasn’t too happy about being the one the team had to protect like some precious but fragile artifact. I gritted my teeth, wrapping my fists with shields as the djinn started closing on me again, gripping a dagger in her hand. I assumed it had taken her some time to gather that kind of power, so now she was going to resort to something a bit more mundane.
She got in a single swing that was quickly blocked by the shields I’d put up before the rest of my team descended on her. I could hear Oro shouting, trying to get Aliana and Norel to gather their senses and use this opportunity to take control of the djinn, but coordination was a difficult thing to come by in the heat of a fight like this. Aliana raised a shield in front of her fists. Unlike mine, hers glowed red as she hammered her fist into the djinn’s jaw, sending her staggering back. The dark djinn seemed affected by the strike, like for some reason she’d thought I would be alone, but it was less than Aliana expected.