by Emery Blake
I pushed myself off the floor and stood to face the djinn. “I want nothing to do with your lord. I have seen what he is capable of. I don’t want to learn anything from him.” I glanced over at the floor to my left. The spear Zhas had given me lay near the wall. It was worth a shot.
Before the djinn could answer, I dove toward the spear. My fingers wrapped around the haft and I rolled up onto my feet. Fire blazed in the djinn’s eyes and he leapt toward me. I cocked my right arm with my hand beside my ear and stepped into the throw, twisting my hips to add power.
The spear flew out of my hands and straight at the center of his chest. And right through. It passed through his body like it was made of smoke. The spear clattered against the floor, echoing with the djinn’s laughter.
“You see? This is why he wants you. You have spirit, courage. You may be ignorant beyond all reckoning, but that can be remedied.”
He struck out like a snake. His hands grasped my shoulders before I could react. The heat from his body was intense, like standing next to an open oven. I could feel my skin burning under his touch. I tried to kick at his legs, but my feet swept through air. I brought my arms up to break his grip, but his hands dissolved momentarily to allow my blow to pass and then solidified again. He laughed at my powerlessness and then flung me across the room.
“You are not going to win, Skylar. You are coming with me to meet him. It will be much more pleasant if you just give up and come willingly.”
I tasted blood in my mouth. I spat it out onto the gray stone floor.
“I am never coming with you. I have seen what he did to this world. I am not helping him do the same to mine, or to any other.”
“What happened here was unfortunate, but not necessary. My lord does not wish for destruction. You can help him. Humans have an important part to play in his plan. You can help bring it about peacefully.”
“And what, exactly, is his plan?”
“Come with me and find out. Resistance will only lead to destruction. Don’t you want to be on the winning side? You can protect others by helping them choose the right path.”
I was out of ideas. I couldn’t run away, he was too fast. Still, the open arch beckoned me. He was not coming any closer. I needed time. I tried to look like I was thinking, mulling his offer. Maybe I could replicate whatever had gotten me here in the first place.
I tried to think of what I was doing as I fell from my window. I imagined myself somewhere else. I visualized a deep forest, saw myself walking on a carpet of pine needles and fallen trees. Nothing happened. I felt no chill. If anything, it grew hotter.
“Didn’t work, did it?”
The djinn was kneeling next to me, a mocking smile across his face. I couldn’t stand it. Fear, embarrassment, and exhaustion tightened together and hung like a lead weight in my chest. I wanted to cry, but nothing would come. I sat on the hard stone, heaving dry sobs.
The heat faded from my skin. I looked up and the djinn had walked across the room. He was studying the reliefs on one of the arches. He must have thought I had given up. I felt anger welling up inside me. Anger at my own self-pity. Anger at the djinn’s contempt. The lead weight lifted, and I felt life return to my legs.
From my crouch on the floor, I flung myself into a sprint towards the opening in the chamber. Whether he hadn’t seen me in time or he simply let me go, I didn’t care, but the djinn did nothing to block my path. I knew he would catch me eventually if I kept along the straight road, so I started weaving through side streets, losing myself in the empty alleys.
I ducked into what looked like had once been a home. Pots and pans still hung above a hearth. A set of knives in various sizes hung up on the wall. They were showing signs of rust, but still appeared intact. Rust. They must have been iron. Why did that stick out in my mind. I tried to focus.
Of course! Iron bands were used to control djinn in Indian and Middle Eastern folklore. Faeries and other spirits were also supposed to be vulnerable to iron. Maybe there was some truth to those stories. I had to try, at least. It was only a matter of time before he found me again.
As if on cue, a mass of smoke curled its way through the doorway. The now familiar form of the djinn solidified out of the smoke. I hid the knife behind my arm and backed away toward the far wall. The djinn’s face was grim.
“I am growing weary of this game. We are leaving now.”
He crossed the room in a few swift strides and reached both hands toward me. Tendrils of smoke rose from his fingers. I needed him to be close. I felt my back hit the wall and braced myself against it. He was on me in a moment, his hands burning the skin of my shoulders again.
“Now, no more running. You are finished.”
“I am just getting started.”
I swung my arm out from behind my back and plunged the knife into the center of his chest. This time, he didn’t evade the blow. The knife stuck. Little sparks of flame shot out from the wound. He staggered backward. His limbs started to dissolve into smoke, but instantly solidified again. The djinn fell to his knees and uttered an unearthly wail. Fire spilled out from the center of his chest, wrapping around his whole body.
The wail continued even as he was covered entirely in roiling flames. Finally, he fell backward, flames licking up to the ceiling, leaving trails of soot on the gray stone. The wail ceased. Eventually, the fires subsided. On the floor was the charred form of a man. An iron knife, gleaming as if it had just been polished, rose from his chest. I slid down the wall, my legs drained of all strength.
The walk back to the portal chamber took a long time. I got turned around more than once. I felt numb. The events of the past couple of days felt unreal, like a dream. And yet, I had felt more alive than I could ever remember. I had never sought out dangerous activities. But I felt like I would be exhilarated, if I wasn’t tired enough to fall asleep on my feet. What was going on with me? I had just killed a man, well, kind of a man, and I was almost proud of myself.
I reached the portal chamber in the dark. Luckily, this world had a large moon which cast a silver light through the circular aperture in the ceiling. I walked straight to the archway that I assumed marked the portal. Of course, I still had no idea how to open it. There were no obvious buttons or symbols to press. I looked over every inch, but there were no clues. I placed my hands on the wall under the arch and leaned into it. I dropped my head between my shoulders and closed my eyes. I pictured Finian, Kaia, and the bridge by the lake. I tried to imagine myself standing there, watching the moonlight ripple on the little wavelets.
The wall was gone. I lost my balance and tumbled forward. The now familiar chill flashed across my skin and I landed hard on my shoulder. I could feel long, soft blades of grass against my cheek. I breathed in the smell of green life. Smiling, I rolled over onto my back and saw the two moons set amongst the stars. Then I heard a sound like the heavy breath of a horse. I looked around me. I saw a set of four hooved legs. I followed the legs upward as they transitioned into a muscular human torso. Large, hairy arms crossed a massive chest below a bearded, frowning face. The ground trembled as a dozen more centaurs cantered up to where I lay. I was surrounded.
The first centaur growled something at me. His voice was rough and deep. I pulled the book from my pocket.
“How did you come here?”
“I…I, uh, came through the portal.”
“That portal has been closed for decades. No one comes through there.”
“I don’t know how I did it. I don’t know how I got there in the first place. It was an accident.”
The centaurs murmured among themselves. The book was unable to distinguish any one voice and so it remained blank. But the tone of their discussion was plain enough. I began to feel uneasy.
A flash of light whizzed past my eyes. I scooted back a few feet, almost into the legs of one of the centaurs behind me. The light spun about the circle of horsemen and then stopped in the middle. Iridessa. She started yelling at them, flying up into the face of their lea
der. I was too amazed by the spectacle to even worry about trying to read what she was telling them. But whatever it was, the effect was immediate. The centaurs trotted off down a grassy hill. Iridessa flitted in front of my face, pleased with herself. I thanked her profusely and she gave a little curtsey in mid-air.
I picked myself up and tried to dust the dirt and grass off my clothes. A futile effort. Across the field, I saw a tall, lean, dark-haired figure loping towards me. It was Finian. When he got close, a wide grin split his stoic face and he swept me up in a tight embrace.
“Skylar, I am so pleased to see you alive. When the djinn attacked you in your apartment, I thought you were gone for good.”
“I nearly was.”
“How did you get through this portal?”
“I have no idea,” I shrugged. “I just kind of pictured where I wanted to be and then suddenly the wall disappeared.”
Finian’s face was hard to read, but it seemed like he was weighing whether or not to believe me.
“Nobody comes through that portal for a reason, Skylar. It had been sealed off after the invasion. You shouldn’t have been able to pass through.”
I put my palms up and raised my eyebrows. Finian brought his hand up and lightly grasped his chin with long, elegant fingers.
“You will have to tell us everything. Kaia was frantic. She has been searching from realm to realm without stop since you disappeared.”
“I promise, I will give you the whole story, but only after a bath and a long nap. And then, I want to start my training.”
Finian smiled and then nodded to Iridessa.
“Take her to her room.” He turned to me, “I hope you don’t mind, I’ve taken the liberty of preparing for your arrival. I assumed that you would be back eventually. Although, I admit, I did not expect you to arrive quite like this.”
I managed a weak smile and followed Iridessa’s flitting, glowing form across the field.
Chapter Twelve
A gust of wind pelted my cheeks with fine grains of sand and ragged little pieces of gritty rock. The breeze brought no relief from the heat radiating off the amphitheater of orange stone surrounding me on three sides. Instead, it was like opening the door to an oven. What little moisture remained in my mouth evaporated before I could finish inhaling my next breath.
I blinked away the particles of dust from my eyes, trying to will some lubrication from my clogged and dried up tear ducts. I wanted to rub them, but I knew it would just make things worse. Of all the realms I had been to as part of my Veilwalker training, this was definitely the most unpleasant.
The first few weeks as a TRIP trainee were magical, but my life had settled into a slog. A steady rhythm of lectures, combat training, and veilwalking. Of course, the fact that I wasn’t any good at any of it made each day that much more difficult. Finian had told me that most veilwalkers were identified young, but that fact hadn’t hit home until I got into my first training class.
I felt like it was my first day of college again, but instead of Intro to Biology, I had walked into a graduate course on differential equations. For the most part I tried to keep my head down and listen, but when it came time for practical lessons, there was nowhere to hide.
So, there I was, not hiding, standing in front of the whole group of trainees, trying to keep my eyes open against the furnace wind. A buda paced back and forth across my narrowed field of vision, about twenty meters in front of me. Its dense, spotted fur rippled in the gusts. At least seven feet tall if it stood up straight, it walked with a hunch, its heavily muscled arms hung to just above the ground, thick, curved claws drawing little trails in the coarse dirt. Red eyes stared right at me, never shifting, even as the creature stalked back and forth.
Buda, or werehyenas, had always sounded terrifying in the folktales of Ethiopia, but seeing one in the flesh was another thing. Why had I volunteered for this? In the classroom, I had answered every question correctly. I knew everything about these creatures. When Baev asked me if I wanted to put my knowledge to practice, I should have declined, but I felt too embarrassed to say no.
According to what I had read, buda were often associated with blacksmiths. They were supposed to be men who used magic to turn themselves into beasts and feed on the living or, in some stories, to dig up corpses and eat the dead. The tale was also linked to anti-Semitism, as many Jews in the Horn of Africa were blacksmiths and the target of accusations of grisly conduct.
The creature treading the sand in front of me was not a Jew, Christian, or anything else. In reality, buda were not men changed into beasts or beasts changed into men. They were their own creatures. The tales of transformation were primarily slander.
The buda snorted, a deep guttural sound reverberating above the hiss of wind-driven grains of sand. I shook my head to clear my thoughts. For some reason, my first response to fear was to retreat into intellectualizations. I guess it was a way to get out of the moment, to wall off the overwhelming emotion of the present.
I steadied myself, setting my feet on a bit of solid rock. I would have to be able to move quickly in any direction. Buda were fast and agile. They were also extremely resilient and immune to most forms of magic. Not that the latter was an issue.
Despite the assurances of my instructors, I had yet to exhibit any hint of magical ability. Apart from veilwalking, I was just an average human. Which, in most realms, made me slow, weak, and fragile. Not the best qualities when going face to face with the terrifying mass of teeth, claws, and muscle in front of me.
I shook out the fine silver net, making sure that it was free of tangles. Silver was not as effective against a buda as it would be against a werewolf, but it would slow it down. I looked behind me at the faces of my fellow trainees. Most were impassive. There were some I was sure wanted to see me fail miserably. Some probably would be happy to watch the buda tear me to pieces. Anti-human sentiment ran strong in some of the realms.
Tevita gave me a smile. Tevita was a Veli. She was small, with thick, woolly hair that she kept in pigtails. Her nut-brown skin glowed when she smiled, which was often. She was my only real friend among the trainees.
Tevita’s grin faded and fear blossomed in her large, almond shaped eyes. I spun around to see the buda charging. Cursing myself for turning away from it for even a moment, I tensed my body. It covered the distance in a few gallops.
Even though it was primarily bipedal, it could run on all fours, the thick claws on its hands tearing deep gouges even in this harsh terrain. In an instant, it was on me. I tossed the silver net at its feet and dove to the side. By the time I rolled back onto my feet and faced the creature again, it had disentangled itself. Tossing the net aside contemptuously, it turned to face me again. I stood there, weaponless and clueless as to what to do next. I was frozen with fear. The buda charged again.
A shadow passed in front of the sun, obscuring its harsh, white light. A giant crow, so black it seemed to drain the light around it, dropped out of the sky and landed between me and the charging creature. In a puff of dark purple smoke, the giant bird disappeared. In its place stood a tall woman, dressed in a form-fitting coat of black feathers arrayed like armor. Her skin was so pale, only her bright blue eyes gave any indication that she was in a world of color at all.
She raised her hand at the charging creature and uttered a blood-curdling scream. Even though I was not the target of the cry, I felt my bowels turn to ice. Baev’s cry is fear. The hulking, clawed, slavering buda was reduced to a quivering mass at her feet, its fierce, clawed hands covering its face.
Baev calmly walked over and retrieved the silver net, gently placing it over the buda’s cowering form. Then she turned to me. The look in her eyes frightened me more than the growling buda huddled under the shining netting.
Baev was a demanding teacher. Her high, pointed cheekbones and long, narrow nose accented her aquiline features, but it was her eyes that were the most unsettling. When they focused on you, it felt like she could peer into everything you though
t hidden or secret.
“What did you do wrong?”
I stared down at my feet, not wanting to meet her eyes.
“I looked away. I lost focus.”
“True, that was foolish. This creature requires full attention. Especially for you. But that was not your biggest mistake.”
Baev looked at me expectantly. I spun the scenario back in my head, trying to uncover any other errors. I was at a loss. She turned to the rest of the trainees.
“Skylar is dead, torn to pieces by a buda. Why?”
A dozen heads looked around at each other, none daring to offer a wrong answer. I looked them over, the faces of creatures who had leapt out of books and into my world. Or had I leapt into theirs? Tevita’s little shoulders gave a shrug and she cocked her head to one side.
“She should have had a better weapon? Something to wound or disable the buda before she tried to net it?”
“She could have, yes. But, why? Are we supposed to harm a creature when it is not necessary?”
“No,” the class murmured.
“No. Injuring or killing a target creature is acceptable only if there is no other option, and she had other options.”
Baev waited patiently for someone to speak. Finally, she sighed.
“She should not have volunteered. As an agent of TRIP, you have to know your limits. Your lives, and the lives of others will depend on knowing your strengths,” she turned her head to me, her bright blue eyes focused down her avian nose, burning a hole right into me, “and your weaknesses.”
I felt like I had been punched in the gut. All of the disappointments of the past few weeks, all of the failures and humiliations, all came rushing up into my throat, choking off my breath. Despite the desiccating wind, I felt tears well up in my eyes. I had never felt more useless.
I wasn’t strong like Orag the ogre, or fast like Chireana the centaur. I had no magical talents like Tevita or Saira the faery. Even Conor, the only other human I had met apart from Doctor Orban, was extraordinarily sensitive to Veil energy and was a skilled hunter and trapper. I couldn’t fight, couldn’t hunt, couldn’t do magic. I could barely even control my veilwalking.
