The Seal

by J F Mehentee

  She hadn’t raised the portal, and it wasn’t the normal sky blue of her magic.

  ‘Down there,’ cried the washerwoman, sounding hysterical. ‘Hurry!’

  The portal’s orange and the light she’d fallen through, were they the same?

  To her right, she heard the crunch of footfalls enter the alleyway.

  Roshan stepped through the portal and arrived in Emad’s room, the portal’s collapse brushing the back of her neck with a warm breeze.

  Her sudden appearance startled Aeshma. He nudged the growing tower with the red block he was about to place on top. The tower leaned. Roshan bent forward and stopped it from toppling.

  Aeshma smiled, his eyes conveying gratitude, his crooked mouth feral.

  ‘Where have you been?’ the prince said, sounding furious. ‘You can’t just disappear off into Derbicca like that. You’ll draw attention to yourself—and then me and Aeshma.’

  Roshan explained why she’d chased the cloud Aeshma had called an eagle man. She’d mistaken it for a magus cloaked by magic. That was, until it had passed through the door and she’d touched it.

  Yesfir stopped massaging Aeshma’s temples. Aeshma’s head slumped backwards.

  ‘Don’t stop,’ he said.

  ‘A sabaoth,’ Yesfir said, an eyebrow raised. ‘Are you sure?’

  She described the vision in which the sabaoth had touched her and then how Armaiti, having possessed a washerwoman, had complained of being punished for doing so.

  ‘When I offered to help, she pushed me off the roof,’ Roshan said. ‘I think a portal broke my fall.’

  The numbness in her shoulder and arm had disappeared. She bent her arm, rotated it and experienced no pain.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ she continued. ‘Why would Armaiti push me off a roof and then save me by making me fall through a portal?’

  ‘The sabaoth taught humans and djinn magic,’ Yesfir said. She pushed Aeshma’s head forward and messaged his head.

  ‘Unlike djinn and humans, a sabaoth uses thought to draw power from outside this world,’ the prince said, tightening the bag’s drawstring. He raised his eyebrows with what Roshan took for scepticism. ‘Incantations aren’t necessary.’

  Was he suggesting she’d automatically summoned the portal that broke her fall? No wonder he looked at her like that.

  Someone pounded on the door.

  Aeshma’s tower of blocks fell. He wailed.

  ‘Open up, daeva. I heard voices. I saw you with the djinni in the bazaar. I know she’s in there with you.’

  Roshan’s mouth dried. The voice behind the door belonged to Administrator Arman.

  ‘Go,’ Emad whispered. ‘He’ll know a djinni’s been here if he finds the place empty.’ The prince glared at Roshan and then Yesfir. ‘One moment, sir,’ Emad said, raising his voice above his cousin’s wailing. ‘I just need to calm Aeshma down.’

  Roshan paused. She’d led the administrator right to Emad. She couldn’t just leave and let him face the consequences.

  Yesfir drew Roshan’s attention with a nudge. She signed a circle in the air.

  Unsure what else to do, Roshan raised a portal back to the audience chamber in Iram. Yesfir stepped through. The prince hunched over Aeshma and made soothing sounds while rubbing his cousin’s back. He looked up and glared at her a second time.

  Roshan retreated into the portal and collapsed it behind her. In front of her, Yesfir approached Behrouz, who sat on the floor. Roshan ignored them and summoned a destination window. The view was of the prince’s room from the side, the front wall and the door on her right and Aeshma closest to her.

  While Roshan gazed through the window, she heard Yesfir tell her husband to find the king.

  Roshan held a hand to her mouth as the prince opened the door and Administrator Arman barged past him. The administrator levelled a short sword at the prince. Two soldiers followed. One pointed the tip of his spear at Aeshma, who looked to have stopped crying. His attention fixed on the sword pointing at his cousin, Aeshma ignored the second soldier, who manacled his wrists first and then his ankles. Aeshma slumped onto his stool, the iron disrupting the auras of djinn and daevas alike.

  The administrator lowered his sword after the soldier had manacled the prince and he’d collapsed onto his knees.

  Roshan bit a finger. This was all her fault.

  Yesfir took Roshan’s hand from her mouth and held it. Together they watched the administrator circle the prince, his sword back in its scabbard and his hands behind his back. As soon as the administrator’s lips stopped moving, the prince shook his bowed head. After the prince shook his head a third time, the administrator gave the soldier closest to Aeshma a nod. The soldier drew his short sword. He licked his lower lip, then jabbed its tip into Aeshma’s upper arm.

  Aeshma threw back his head, his crooked mouth agape and eyes straining.

  Yesfir squeezed Roshan’s hand.

  ‘Perhaps you shouldn’t watch,’ she said.

  Roshan shook her head.

  ‘This is all my fault,’ she said. Poor, poor, Aeshma. She tried to pull away from Yesfir. ‘I have to do something. I can’t just let him torture Aeshma.’

  Yesfir frowned. She looked at Roshan. Her expression caught between disbelief and anger.

  ‘Roshan,’ she said, her voice a strangled whisper, ‘do you think this is the first time the djinn and daevas have been persecuted? It all started with Solomon, and it hasn’t stopped since.’ She raised her forearm, the one she wore her bracelet on. ‘This isn’t just a symbol of who we are. We use it to share each other’s pain, bear the burden for those, like Aeshma, who aren’t able to. If you want to help, think of them.’ She gave Roshan’s hand another squeeze. ‘Come, we’ll do it together. You take Uncle Emad, and I’ll take Aeshma.’

  Yesfir was right. She only had to think of the prince, and her body filled with a fiery rage that wavered as the iron manacles sucked at his strength.

  The prince straightened, his head raised in defiance. Roshan felt a smile tighten her cheeks. It was working.

  Yesfir caught her just after the administrator slapped the prince.

  Tears from the slap and Roshan’s seething blurred the scene. Roshan blinked them away. The administrator raised his hand again. The prince turned his head slightly, offering Arman a better target.

  They didn’t deserve to be treated this way—they had done nothing wrong. Roshan wouldn’t let herself look away. She had to make this stop.

  Administrator Arman froze, his hand still raised. His chest heaved as if he were out of breath. His hand shook and blood drained from his face. The shaking continued along his arm.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Yesfir said. ‘What’s happening to them?’

  The soldier poking Aeshma dropped his short sword and grabbed his right shoulder. His lips curled back from his teeth. Red seeped from between his fingers.

  The soldier standing by the door took in the scene. He unlatched the door and fled into the street. Still clutching his shoulder, the second soldier soon followed.

  Yesfir let go of Roshan’s hand.

  ‘Are you doing this?’

  Yesfir’s question made little sense until Roshan remembered something the prince had said.

  A sabaoth uses thought to draw power from outside this world. Incantations aren’t necessary.

  A rivulet of blood ran from the administrator’s nose and onto his chin.

  She’d wanted the administrator and the soldiers to stop. She hadn’t meant to make a soldier bleed and turn the administrator into a statue.

  ‘Lower your hand and go,’ Roshan said to Arman. ‘Leave them alone.’

  The administrator’s hand dropped at his side. He swayed and staggered backwards, head jerking in all directions.

  ‘Ha!’ Yesfir said. ‘I think he heard you.’ She patted Roshan on the back. ‘That’s impressive.’

  Roshan experienced none of Yesfir’s awe. She’d just wanted them to stop. It hadn’t occurred to her how sh
e’d stop them. A separate part of her had decided—a hostile side of herself, one she hadn’t known of until now.

  After a hateful glance at the prince, Administrator Arman rushed out of the room.

  Roshan didn’t need Yesfir to tell her. She wove a boarding window, fused it to the destination window and then followed Yesfir back into Derbicca.

  The portal collapsed behind her. Core power, the burning she’d been unaware of until now, passed through her hips, into her legs and back into the earth. Searing pain coursed through her, made her woozy, but only for a moment. The pain, pain that should have left scars and dogged her for days, had lasted only a heartbeat.

  Roshan knelt before a sobbing Aeshma, pulled the pins from his manacles and slung them into the street. Unable to touch the iron, Yesfir stood beside her uncle and waited for Roshan to do the same for him.

  Freed, the prince darted over to Aeshma and pulled his weeping cousin into a hug. He stroked the back of Aeshma’s head. Yesfir knelt beside the prince and examined his swollen cheek.

  ‘You should go,’ he said, brushing her hand away. ‘It won’t be long before the bastard returns with more soldiers.’

  Yesfir stood.

  ‘Then it’s not safe for you to stay, Uncle. You should come back with us.’

  The prince continued to comfort his cousin.

  ‘And Roshan will paralyse Aeshma, just like she did the administrator, so he doesn’t harm anyone?’ He shifted his attention from Yesfir and scowled at Roshan. ‘That’s what you did—used the energy the sabaoth gave you to weave magic all the way from Iram. You think you saved us? All you’ve done is make Arman angrier and more determined to persecute the daevas.’

  The prince’s words felt like blows. Disgusted by the idea of paralysing Aeshma, Roshan opened her mouth to protest, but the prince cut her off by addressing Yesfir.

  ‘We were doing fine until Fiqitush insisted I return to Iram. Look at the state Aeshma’s in. He won’t enter a portal now, and I won’t leave him here on his own.’

  ‘What will you do, then?’ Yesfir said.

  The prince whispered an incantation and waved a hand over the cuts down Aeshma’s shoulder. The wounds sealed and turned into scabs.

  ‘I’ve plenty of auric energy to weave magic,’ he said. ‘I’ll figure something out.’ He raised his wrist, the cuff of his tunic falling back to expose his bracelet. ‘If we need help, I’ll let my brother know. Right now, I need you two to leave.’

  16

  Fiqitush listened to Roshan’s teary account of what happened in Derbicca. His throat dry, he poured water into a bowl. The jug’s spout was chipped, and a hairline crack ran along its length, close to the handle.

  Everything was falling apart.

  A sabaoth, the very one who’d made the seal for Solomon, had been spying on them and had tried to kill Roshan.

  Navid, who sat next to his sister, held her hand as she described Emad’s anger at what she’d done and the danger she’d put him and Aeshma in.

  Fiqitush picked up the bowl and drank. Navid’s tapered eyelids and his dimpled cheeks reminded him of his brother. From the sound of things, Roshan hadn’t spotted the similarities. Had he told her, included a message for her to give to Emad—one confirming that this young woman and his daughter were one and the same—would his brother have returned to Iram?

  ‘It’s not your fault,’ Behrouz said.

  Fiqitush almost spat the water back into the bowl.

  ‘How were you supposed to know you were chasing a sabaoth and the administrator had you watched?’ Behrouz continued while he rubbed Yesfir’s shoulder. ‘Neither of you should blame yourselves.’

  Things aren’t supposed to happen like this, Fiqitush thought.

  He took another gulp of water. Besides the cracked jug, he saw loose threads in the rug they all sat on. His plan had frayed and come apart. Emad should have returned to Iram, where Fiqitush could have explained things to his brother and then to the twins.

  ‘I want to go back to Derbicca,’ Roshan said. She rubbed her red eyes. ‘Emad and Aeshma aren’t safe if they stay there.’

  Navid shook his head.

  ‘You were almost killed. If the administrator doesn’t get you, Armaiti will.’

  His niece had been through a lot, and she wasn’t in a fit state to return to Derbicca. Although the possibility of Roshan having sabaoth powers provided Fiqitush with a glimmer of hope, what she needed to do was rest. Nevertheless, Roshan was right. So long as they remained in Derbicca, Emad and Aeshma were in danger.

  Fiqitush had waited until Shephatiah had returned from his covert tour of Derbicca before calling this meeting. The djinni’s report confirmed his concerns.

  ‘Emad has taken Aeshma and is hiding somewhere in the city,’ Fiqitush said. ‘And the high magus will reach Derbicca before nightfall. Following what Roshan and Yesfir told us—like me—you’re thinking a sabaoth might be in this chamber, listening to our conversation. I won’t let that stop us from trying to rescue them. According to what I learned from touching the seal, a sabaoth can’t be in two places at once. On the off chance Armaiti isn’t here, we have to try something. We only have two hours before nightfall. Is there anything we can do?’

  Zana sat up, cleared his throat and answered.

  ‘Send djinn to Derbicca and bring Uncle Emad back, whether or not he wants to.’

  The suggestion was a valid one.

  ‘I need my brother’s help,’ he said to Zana. ‘If I force him to return, if he doesn’t come of his own free will, I doubt he’ll agree to what I’ll ask of him. If my aura wasn’t so inextricably bound to the magic maintaining Iram, I’d have asked him myself months ago.’

  Roshan sat up. She slid her hand out from Navid’s.

  ‘But Administrator Arman will tell the high magus what happened,’ she said. ‘Even if your brother converts, the high magus will punish him and Aeshma for what happened this afternoon. That administrator won’t forgive them for what I did to him and his men.’

  She was right. The future of the djinn and daevas, however, depended on Emad accepting the mantle of his own free will.

  Once their dying father had named Fiqitush his successor, Emad had remained only for as long as it took his older brother to settle himself into the role he’d been groomed for. All Emad ever wanted to do was to sail the world and live among humans and the djinn.

  What Fiqitush had in mind meant Emad being tied to a city filled only with djinn and daevas. For that to happen, his brother couldn’t be forced or cajoled into such an endeavour.

  When it came to his brother, Fiqitush’s instincts were more right than wrong. His brother was just as capable as he at serving and caring for others. How he’d stuck by Aeshma was proof of that. Anyway, Emad would have seen through Fiqitush using his children to persuade him to return.

  Then again, he’d been wrong about so many other things. If he’d refused Solomon’s command, resisted the seal’s power and refused to summon the djinn, perhaps none of this would have happened.

  Fiqitush shook his head at Roshan. He’d made mistakes, but that was no reason to distrust his instincts and his brother.

  Roshan’s brow furrowed, and she looked away.

  ‘I love my brother dearly, Roshan, and I still miss him after three centuries,’ he said. ‘As Emad’s brother, I can command the djinn to leave for Derbicca immediately, find him and Aeshma and bring them back. I wouldn’t care if I upset him, because they’d both be safe. As king, however, I cannot do such a thing. Emad is crucial to the djinn’s and daevas’ futures, and I must put aside my brotherly concerns for his safety. When Emad is ready, he will return to Iram, and then he will agree to my request.’

  Fiqitush stood to signal the meeting was over.

  17

  Emad sat up when he saw light flicker along the edges of the cellar door.

  Time to leave.

  The oil in the cellar’s lone lamp had run out. The light coming from above did nothing to penetrate
the dense blackness surrounding him and Aeshma. Emad pulled his firestone from his pocket and rubbed it once so its dull red glow wouldn’t startle Aeshma.

  His cousin still slept, a side effect of the elixir Emad had slipped into last night’s melon juice to calm his anxiety.

  ‘Wake up,’ he whispered.

  Above them, the rooms in the Tanner’s Inn were empty. The innkeeper, Serro, and his family slept in the room behind the kitchen.

  Emad gave Aeshma’s shoulder a gentle shake. Like every morning, his cousin opened his eyes and, for only a few breaths, Emad glimpsed a momentary awareness, a consciousness centuries old and free of the daeva madness. Aeshma was, fleetingly, the cousin he remembered. And as with every morning, though Emad always hoped otherwise, Aeshma’s eyes stilled and remained fixed on a random spot.

  This morning was slightly different: his cousin’s eyes only half-opened. Yesterday, Aeshma’s twitchiness had caused him to lash out, which meant anything or anyone he wasn’t familiar with frightened him. Left with little choice, Emad had used double the dose of the elixir. He hated using the stuff on Aeshma. It suppressed his anxiousness but left his cousin confused and drowsy.

  ‘Come on, Aeshma. Let’s see if Serro has made us breakfast.’

  The thought of food made Emad bilious.

  Aeshma’s eyes opened a little more.

  ‘Hungry,’ he said, the word a faint hiss.

  Emad heaved his cousin forward by the shoulders until he sat up. Aeshma’s head wobbled as he turned it left, then right. Emad braced himself for the scream—this wasn’t a room his cousin recognised. Aeshma’s head flopped forward, his chin touching his chest.

  ‘Come on, Aeshma,’ Emad said, sounding cheerful. ‘Breakfast, remember.’

  Aeshma looked up, his head bobbing as if he were tired or drunk or both. Emad took his snarl for a smile.

  ‘Food.’

  It took what felt like an hour to get Aeshma to pee into a pail and then pull on his leggings and boots. Aeshma negotiating the cellar stairs took so long, Emad started to think the two of them not returning to Iram with Yesfir and Roshan was a mistake. At this rate, Administrator Arman could have twice searched the city before they’d made it to the inn’s front door.