Forged

by Jacquelyn Frank

“Over my dead body,” she hissed at him.

  “Well then, I’ll be going.” He went outside of the cell, taking the paper with him. Then he chuckled as the door closed. “You know what? The master is going to kill you for that bauble you’re wearing. After that, I will look at your tits well enough.” He leaned in with a leering grin. “And I’ll touch ’em, too.”

  He laughed loud and raucously, dropping the paper on the worktable well out of her reach.

  Honestly, it was the last worry on her mind. She scrambled over to the cot and wrapped herself up in the thin, smelly blanket. It was vile, but she was freezing. It took twenty minutes before she brought her shivering down to a small tremor. Then she fixated on the roll of paper on the table. Checking the door carefully, she slowly picked up the Amulet, wrapping her hand tightly around it.

  “Build a bridge. Build a bridge,” she whispered to herself fiercely. She was still cold so it wasn’t very easy to focus, but she was very motivated. Not to get the paper, but to see if she could harness this power and do something with it. Anything. Maybe somehow she would be able to get herself out of this mess.

  “Build a bridge …”

  Suddenly something bright and hot and white seemed to light up her mind. It was nothing like the first time she had tried it. This was ten times more powerful. She looked down at the Amulet, stunned to think so much power was stored inside of something so relatively small. Then she looked up, looking for the roll of paper. Maybe if she could levitate it … maybe even bring it to herself … maybe then she could try and focus the power into doing other things. But instead of fixating on the paper, she realized something on the workbench was glowing a bright, fluorescent pink. It brightened and dulled in throbs, almost like a pulse but much slower. She narrowed her gaze, trying to make out what it was … and that was when it began to lift up off the table.

  “Holy shit!” she whispered softly, carefully to herself. She didn’t want to disrupt herself. Didn’t want to ruin a good thing. Once it was in the air she tried to concentrate on bringing it to her, but hard as she tried she couldn’t make it move in any direction except up and down. She narrowed her eyes on it, trying to see what it was. After a moment it began to tumble over slowly. Once it did she could see it was a bangle bracelet.

  Well, shit. Another piece of jewelry? What would happen if she put that on her wrist?

  No sooner did she have the thought than the bracelet whipped through the air and thrust itself onto her hand. The minute it was around her wrist it settled down and the glow disappeared.

  “Ah crap,” she said softly, a sigh escaping her. She knew even without trying that this one wasn’t coming off her, either. On the plus side … way pretty. And it had diamonds on it. What girl didn’t like diamonds? She hadn’t owned a single diamond in her whole life because diamonds were purported to look best in sunlight and the idea had just been too depressing. But now, she was thinking anything that looked this good under fluorescent lighting was worth having no matter what. But now she was stuck with two pieces of jewelry and had no idea what to do with either of them. But there had been a very different feel to the energy she had just used and she suspected it was the bracelet and not the Amulet that had supplied it. She wondered if this Panahasi even knew what he had in the bracelet. Did he even realize it was powerful?

  And it was powerful. Her arm was literally humming with it.

  “A nik,” she whispered softly, turning it around on her wrist slowly, looking at all the perfect rows of gems. It seemed like a fairly new design, unlike Adoma’s Amulet, which had a more beaten look to the metal and a rougher polish to the onyx stones. Is it possible for new objects to be imbued with power? Well, of course they could, she thought, rolling her eyes at her own flaky brain. New or old it was the power of the maker that imbued them and if there were powerful Bodywalkers in this time then it was possible.

  But who had made this one?

  “What’s your name, pretty little thing?” she murmured. Then a sound outside the door made her start. She hastily yanked the manacle down over the bracelet and then her shirt cuff after that. She moved back to the cot and wrapped herself in her blanket, doing everything but whistling innocently.

  “Well, I see you are comfortable,” Panahasi said, moving to his worktable. Her heart lurched up into her throat at the idea of his discovering she had pilfered the bracelet, but as he settled in to work at his books, he kept his back to where the missing piece of jewelry had come from. He began to flip through pages from a very old-looking book that had to be the biggest and thickest book she had ever seen.

  “Are those spells?” she asked, trying not to sound too interested. She rolled her eyes inwardly at herself. Just how does one ask a question without sounding interested?

  “Yes, and if you don’t mind they are very old and very complex so I would appreciate you not interrupting my concentration.”

  “Sorry.” She paused a moment or two. “Can anyone learn how to do a spell?”

  He sighed. “Humans such as yourself can try, but it very often corrupts those of weaker spirit. It poisons you. You are better off not trying it.”

  “But it doesn’t corrupt you?”

  “I suppose it could if it was the right spell done for the wrong reasons. But most of the magics I use are …”

  “Wimpy?” she suggested.

  “No! Just more benign.”

  “Oh, are you not powerful enough for the big guns?”

  “No! Will you shut up?”

  “Sorry.”

  “If you know what’s good for you—” he warned.

  “Yeah, yeah, otherwise you will have to kill me … like you’re not planning it already. What’s wrong? Can’t figure out what to do with the body? I hear lye is a good way to go.”

  “Enough!” He slammed down his pen and pad of paper and rushed up against the bars. “I can get rid of you in a second, missy, and wouldn’t care about the body. Or didn’t you see the remains of the last person who crossed me hanging from the rafters?”

  That made her heart miss a beat. But when it came down to it, she’d been afraid of something a lot worse than dying for the whole of her life. The sun. A burning ball of pain and death that filled the sky hour after hour, trapping her within the walls of her home. To her, this man was nothing. He was small. And with that thought all of her remaining fear simply vanished. She was not small. She was powerful. She had two objects of power right there on her body, untapped resources that, if she could just learn to control them might possibly get her out of this situation. But, she realized, she would be wise to stop poking the bear.

  She affected the fear he was looking for. The fear that would make this small man feel big. She cowered down under her blanket and spent the next hour very quietly watching him toil over his notes and books. Over time she got the picture that a lot of what he was reading was escaping his understanding. He kept running his hands through his hair then brushing away the bits as they fell onto his work. It explained why his hair was thinning in places. After all, what Bodywalker would choose a balding man when a handsome head of hair was just as easy to come by? But he was so thoroughly aggravated by his hardship of understanding that it was affecting him physically. This was supported by the red patches around the fingertips clutching his pen. He had chewed his nails down to the nubs, leaving only the cuticles to work on. Apparently he did it so frequently even his Bodywalker body didn’t have time to heal from the abuse. She watched him gnaw and spit more times then she cared to count over the next hour.

  “So you must be pretty powerful, to have all these books,” she fished gently, affecting genuine interest as she leaned forward on her cot. “And this workroom. And you clearly keep prisoners from time to time. Does your boss depend on you a lot?”

  “She does,” he said, his shoulders lifting back as he slid a cautious look in her direction. “She is very powerful and only trusts a select few with her care and tasks. Especially now, with her condition.”

  �
�Her … condition?”

  “Yes. She is expecting a child.”

  The Bodywalkers had not mentioned to her that the god Apep was expecting a child. Did they even know? she wondered. Known or not, the ramifications of such a thing had to be tremendous. A god giving birth to offspring? That could not be a good thing. What if it was as powerful as its parent? Then they would be facing the threat of two gods, not only one.

  Now she knew she had to get out of there. She had to somehow get this information to them as quickly as possible. They had to know! They had to know or they all would be in danger. And Ahnvil was their protector so he would be the first to meet that danger. That couldn’t be allowed to happen. He would be killed for certain and if he died …

  Oh god. Oh god, oh god, oh god. This couldn’t be happening, she thought frantically. She had to do something!

  “Are you the father?” she asked.

  “Oh no,” he demurred. “I don’t know who it was. But I do know she considered me as mating material.”

  “Oh? How do you know that?”

  “Because she … well, she has flirted with me on many occasions. Quite seriously. You know … touching and such,” he responded.

  Oh gross.

  “Well then. What an honor.”

  “Yes, I thought so,” he said, preening ridiculously.

  “Well, you also seem pretty fair. I mean, I’ll give you the necklace if I can. Can you help me find a way to get it off that doesn’t involve chopping my head off?” And that gives me time to learn how to get the hell out of Dodge! she thought.

  “I don’t know …” he hedged.

  “Oh, come on. As smart and powerful as you are … you can’t figure this out?”

  “Of course I can!”

  “Of course you can,” she agreed with him.

  “I’ve already been researching Adoma’s Amulet and haven’t come across anything about it being hexed, never mind how to get it off or negate the hex.”

  “Well, there must be something. Just … give it another day or two. You can just as easily kill me then as now. Right?”

  “Right. Perhaps I will,” he said thoughtfully. “I must admit, it is a puzzle and it does intrigue me.”

  “See? Everyone loves a puzzle.”

  He frowned and glared at her. “Don’t think I don’t see what you are trying to do here. I’m not an idiot!”

  “I never said you were,” she said. You’re a total fucking idiot, she thought but, obviously, did not say aloud. “And I’m not one, either. Of course, I’m going to try and get you to approach this from a different angle. But since it doesn’t hurt either of us to try it another day or two maybe we can just wait that long. Honestly, I’ll be pretty damn impressed if you can figure it out in that short amount of time. I am really not holding out any hope.”

  “Well, you should. If anyone can figure this out it will be me,” he said, trying to come off as smooth and confident but looking small and desperate. He was no more convinced of his abilities than she was. Which really kind of pissed her off. To be captured was one thing. To be captured by a total moron was just downright embarrassing.

  She was going to get out of this somehow. And it had to be soon. If she was right, she was in the same stronghold that held Apep and that was a being of true power and cutthroat insanity she did not want to come up against. If she could just fly under the radar. That fact that she hadn’t been dragged in front of Apep already told her that she wasn’t the only one wanting to fly under the radar. She was pretty sure this whole kidnapping thing was a little side project for Panahasi. Just as his theft of the Amulet from Kamen’s belongings had been done on the side. Panahasi’s greed and deception were two things working in her favor. The third and fourth things were sparkling and pretty and resting on various parts of her body.

  Maybe there were keys to the manacles left on the table somewhere. She wished he would leave so she could practice some more with levitation.

  “I’ll be leaving you now. I have some things to do,” Panahasi said.

  Whoa. Awesome! I wish I had a peanut butter sandwich, she thought with an inner snicker.

  “I’ll have them bring you some lunch,” he said then.

  Oh. My. God.

  “What’s on the menu?” she ventured to ask.

  “Nothing special,” he snapped at her. “You are a prisoner, remember? You’ll be fortunate if I send a peanut butter sandwich.”

  Okay … what the hell is going on here? She said aloud, “Oh, that’s fine. I understand.” I wish you’d let me out of here, she thought a bit frantically. And for just a minute he toyed with the keys at his belt but then rubbed at the back of his neck and marched out of the room, muttering under his breath.

  “What the hell was that?” she asked aloud, pulling back the cuff of her manacles and looking at the bangle. What was it Ahnvil had said? Never ask for a wish from a Djynn. But she was a Djynn. Did that mean she could grant wishes? For others and for herself? Oh, why hadn’t she had more time to practice her new abilities? She needed to know what to do! Could she convince a Bodywalker like Panahasi to simply unlock the door to her cage and let her go free? It was clear that the one thing working in her favor was that he had no idea she was a Nightwalker. A Djynn. If he had thought her anything more than a simple mortal female he would be on his guard against her. He might even kill her right away to protect himself.

  So she wondered if it was more practice that made the difference or just more powerful niks.

  “Damn, if only I knew what to do!” she said fiercely to herself. She waited until he was gone for a good fifteen minutes before she went back to the bars and started looking around for things on the workbench that might be able to help her. Maybe more niks or even a set of spare keys. She would get far more use out of a set of spare keys. But there was nothing. Outside of all those jars full of weird things it was nearly impossible to figure out what was on the slovenly bench.

  Then she started to wonder about the books themselves. Would there be anything of any use to her in them? She nixed that idea right away as well. Even from a distance she’d been able to tell he’d been trying to translate them from another language. And if he was having trouble in spite of having lived hundreds of centuries, then she wouldn’t have a chance.

  So she decided to just practice with what she already had. She picked one thing on the table, a heavy mortar and pestle, and then tried to build a bridge to the store of energy in the bangle nik. When she finally reached it the influx of power was so strong it hit her like a sucker punch, blowing back her tangled hair, making her chest hurt and her hands go numb and tingly by turns. The sensations filled her with trepidation and she nervously backed away from it. Almost immediately everything returned to normal.

  Come on, come on! Get a grip if you wanna get out of this mess, she told herself in a fierce sort of pep talk. By the time she got the nerve up to try again, someone was coming down the corridor outside and came into the room carrying a tray. It was the crude man with the cockney accent again. And sure enough, there on the tray lay a peanut butter sandwich and a glass of milk.

  Note to self: Do not wish for pink hair.

  Surprisingly he didn’t hassle her. But before he could leave she said, “I really wish you’d give me that roll of toilet paper.”

  Then, without any fanfare, he reached for the paper and handed it to her. Just like that. No arguments, no quid pro quo. She was tempted to wish for him to open the door, but she didn’t have a plan for what to do after that. She needed to practice levitation. If she could bring things to her, then maybe she could learn how to push them away. Maybe she could repel anyone who tried to come after her once she got free.

  She was pretty certain by then that she could get them to open the door for her. They seemed easily suggestible. Especially this one. He was an underling to Panahasi, clearly, so it stood to reason that he was weaker than he was. If she could manipulate Panahasi that easily, then surely she could get this one to set he
r free when the time came.

  The brute left and she hurriedly began to eat her sandwich, only then realizing how hungry she was. She ought to have been afraid they were going to poison her, she supposed, but the fact was Mr. Cockney was too eager to spill her blood. He would encourage his boss to let him resolve things in a far more violent manner. Or at least that was what she hoped.

  And she was right, there was no poison in her food.

  And that was very disquieting.

  She was tired, but didn’t allow herself to doze off for even a minute. Not even when she had expended so much energy tapping into the two ornaments on her body in alternating trips, learning the feel of the different levels and flavors of energy. But she was miserly about it because she began to get the feeling that the energy was finite. That she might expend it all. Whether or not it would recharge over time was anybody’s guess, but she wasn’t going to waste her resources just in case it was a one shot deal. The bangle’s power was still overpowering every time she tried to touch its heart, but she made herself get used to it, exercising her mind until it started to come easier and easier for her to connect with it.

  But she knew that doing it while sitting quietly in a cell was one thing and doing it while in the midst of a dangerous escape was quite another. And even if she made it out of the building, it was brutally cold outside and the snow was as deep as it had been when the storm had ended near her home. She suspected she was very close to her home. That was why Ahnvil had ended up on her doorstep after escaping. It was quite possible this was the very same cell they had been keeping him in. It saddened her to think of him. She knew what his reaction would be once they realized she was missing. He would blame himself for it. And while he was responsible for the anger that had driven her from the house, she was the idiot that had left the protection of the compound. It had been a stupid, thoughtless thing to do. She had been made well aware of the danger that was lying in wait, and she had forgotten to be more cautious. Her. The queen of caution.

  But she knew he would blame himself. He was so incredibly hard on himself and took on so much responsibility. And she had been just as hard on him. He couldn’t help the instincts that had been forced upon him. His territoriality was something he clearly struggled with and she should try to understand that. She should try to be more patient. Especially where Kamen was concerned. She was being wholly insensitive to his feelings to turn to Kamen for help right in front of his face like that. It had to sting very badly for him. But the truth was Kamen was responsible for her being able to do the things she now could do. These things that might now save her life. If she ever got out of this mess, maybe that fact would help to soften his hatred of Kamen a little.