Fire: Demons, Dragons & Djinns

by Rhonda Parrish

  FIRE: Demons, Dragons,

  & Djinns

  Edited by

  Rhonda Parrish

  Fire: Demons, Dragons, & Djinns

  Edited by Rhonda Parrish

  Copyright © 2018

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage & retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright holder, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third party websites or their content.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations and events portrayed in this story are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Any resemblance to persons living or dead would be really cool, but is purely coincidental.

  Published by Tyche Books Ltd.

  Calgary, Alberta, Canada

  www.TycheBooks.com

  Cover Art by Ashley Walters

  Cover Layout by Lucia Starkey

  Interior Layout by Ryah Deines

  Editorial by Rhonda Parrish

  First Tyche Books Ltd Edition 2018

  Print ISBN: 978-1-928025-91-7

  Ebook ISBN: 978-1-928025-92-4

  This book was funded in part by a grant from the Alberta Media Fund.

  Dedicated to Jo.

  Always to Jo.

  Introduction

  By Rhonda Parrish

  THE ABILITY FOR people to control fire was a major step forward in human evolution, but when fire eludes or escapes our control it is also one of the most destructive forces on earth. Associated with passion, power, transformation, and purification, fire is a ferocious element with an unquenchable appetite. Fire is dramatic. It is bold. Powerful. Beautiful. Terrifying. It can consume everything in its path or push back the darkness so you can see the terrors which loom all around you. It can purify or purge. Brand or bless. I wanted this anthology to explore the many facets of this beautifully furious element and the creatures associated with it.

  When it comes to fiery beasties, we’ve got phoenixes, superheroes, aitvaras, demigods, hellhounds, sentient fire, ifrits and, of course, demons, dragons, and djinns. And when it comes to tone, style, and theme, these stories run the gamut as well. Even the settings are manifold—the Arctic circle, fantasy lands, Alberta highways, Hollywood, crematoriums, London during the Blitz . . .

  There are some really interesting intersections too, perhaps as a result of the wishlist I posted on my blog during the submissions window. In it, I asked for some very specific kinds of stories that I’d like to see . . . but here’s the thing. I do a wishlist for pretty much every anthology I edit, and usually I see a handful of stories in the submissions that clearly reflect what I asked for in it. This time was different. I don’t know why, but for some reason instead of three or four submissions that included settings, characters, or topics I asked for in the wishlist, there was like thirty or forty of them. It was beautiful. Magical. And also a nightmare. Because then I was tasked with having to cut amazing stories that were exactly what I’d asked for. That was extremely difficult, but I was aiming for as much diversity as possible in this anthology so, for example, I could only include one story about fiery shapeshifters who live on Mars and work as haberdashers even if I got three that were amazing. I didn’t get any stories of that specific description, but you know what I’m saying . . .

  Even with that idea front of mind as I was crafting the Table of Contents, I still ended up with some similarities. For example, two of the stories potentially take place on the exact same night in the exact same city. Two others involve superheroes. Another pair of stories are both set in the tundra. Belonging was a recurring theme, as was acceptance, purification, and the problems of genie wishes.

  Still, overall, I think I achieved my goal of including as many different fiery creatures and characteristics of fire as I could possibly pack into an anthology. And best of all? Not only do they work together as a collection, but each story is also pretty special all by itself. Of course, that might be my bias showing . . . but I don’t think so.

  Rhonda Parrish

  Edmonton

  2/7/2018

  She Alone

  Blake Jessop

  1.

  IN THE VAST, vaulted halls of the sunken city, great walkways form concentric paths through a sea of magma. The Empress’ palace is far beneath the waves, but the grand dome rises so high that it could be a dark summer sky. The empire the heroes have leapt hither and thither through time to destroy is a monument to hubris, to the infinite reach for power, forever exceeding the grasp of the souls who seek it.

  “Crack the seals,” Jinn says, “I’ll keep them away from you.”

  “Alone?” the Soldier cries.

  For an answer the little creature smiles and rockets skyward. Rising, there is nothing to her but the abstract beauty of a violent sunset. It’s her descents that are meteoric. The Guardians crane their necks, then yelp and scatter.

  Jinn is an Ifrit, a fire spirit from the misty past, born of pure magic. The talons and cogs that make the Guardians so fearsome represent the extinction of her race. The Guardians are weapons made to build an empire, banish doubt, bring order. To do a lot of things she doesn’t believe in. The rivalry is personal; they would have used Jinn’s soul to power one of these monsters if she’d let them, so she turns the air they breathe into a spiralling inferno. Chaos and anger swirl in her heart. She shares them freely.

  While she does, the Soldier swings the Titan Arm into the mechanism. Like the Frog, the knight who refused to be kissed, he is not the same man he was when the tale began. How he came to wear the arm of an ancient golem is a part of the story that varies more than most. They all agree he opened the door, though, so he sinks the infinite weight of the Titan’s fingers into the lock.

  He glances back just in time to see a Guardian charge down the walkway toward him. There is nothing he can do with the arm buried in metal. The beast is going to plough into him at a terrifying sprint and use its great teeth on the parts of him that aren’t invincible magical artefacts.

  Jinn saves him, again. She streaks into the monster sideways, a comet tail dragging behind her. The impact would kill anything merely human. It barely slows her down. The Empress was right to fear her kind. The Guardian ploughs up a rising wave of magma then disappears beneath it, drowning in fire.

  Jinn arcs back as the Soldier finally frees his arm. They hear the grinding of titanic gears as the way forward opens.

  “Too close,” he says.

  Jinn dimples and bares her entire array of fangs, joyously panting smoke, when an arm erupts from the lava and grabs her by one tapered ankle. The Guardian is a skeleton now, everything living burned away. It drags her under the surface in a final vicious plunge.

  Her mouth opens wide, as if to say something before she vanishes; their passage marked by nothing but ripples. The Soldier pushes fingers through his steaming hair. This habitual gesture would once have required his left hand, but he only made that mistake once.

  He calls her name. Heat shimmers and little bubbles pop. He raises the ancient hand to reach in for her, wondering if it can stand the heat but stops when he hears a slap.

  Jinn clambers out of the fiery lake, first one palm, then the other. She drags herself back onto the walkway as magma pours off her, a maiden emerging from the pool. She tries to rise back into the air and finds herself too heavy. Laughing, she shakes herself and wrings molten stone from the burning mane of her hair. The Soldier realizes the If
rit didn’t have anything to confess in that final moment; she just needed to hold her breath.

  Far away, the Prince, his one true love, and the Frog fling the great doors open and fight their way into legend. The Robot, the only one of the band of heroes culled from the future, slams the gates closed. The Soldier and the Ifrit still need to join the Prince; the story isn’t finished yet.

  There are many ways down to the Mammon Machine. Many paths to the end. They find a funicular and descend toward the heart of the palace. The lift is redundant for her, but it’s a chance to rest.

  “There’s something we haven’t said,” Jinn sighs, “the Titan’s arm, your eye, your heart─they’re all powered the same way the guardians are. I was born magical. If we win—if we destroy the machine—we won’t just change history; we’ll erase magic from this world entirely. Neither of us will live.”

  “I’ll follow you,” the Soldier says, “either way.” They descend in silence.

  “Do you still wish I’d been born human?” the Ifrit says after a while. They would both be dead already if she had been.

  The Soldier replies. No one knows what he said. Jinn laughs, the doors open, and they head into battle to die.

  2.

  I LOVE THE legends. I love the tale of the Prince and his bride and the Robot and all their friends. This is not a fashionable position; my parents are very traditional and it drives them nuts. What did they expect? If our holy books had a Frog cleaving titans to pieces with his legendary Sadamune blade, I’d have paid more attention.

  In their defence, they’ve always made a point of disapproving quietly. It’s the same for my work; when I first took an apprenticeship as a steam engineer my parents forbade it. How could their daughter labour in the heat, and immodestly clad at that? I broke a lot of delicate things and stormed out, never to return. It worked out well. We’re all closer now, though it still surprises me that I could be their child. They’re so mild; grateful just to be free of the endless wars of the Southern Continent and safe in the North. I’m short and round like my mother, however, and I inherited some of the green in my father’s eyes, so at least my parentage isn’t in doubt.

  It’s a hard walk up to the famous bluff—the sheer cliffs give a wonderful view, and the tree is the oldest on the entire coast—and takes a while if you’re only five feet tall, counting your hair. I make do.

  Grit goes with being an engineer; climbing to fit brass pipes makes every part of you strong, and knowing the city will get very cold if you stop makes you tough, if the occasional scalding hasn’t already. I have to give myself both time and a fine ploughman’s lunch to make the ascent before sunset, but make it I do. Every autumn, on the same day. I have the timing down to an art.

  I’ll never get used to how fast the northern summer fades away. You sweat during the climb and shiver when you stop. I hate being cold, but cresting the ridge and catching sight of the bare tree with sunlight glinting through its skeletal branches is pure delight. This is the place where the time-travelling Prince and his friends made a pact to save the world from the Empress who tried to steal all of history for her own.

  It’s a good story and parts of it are probably true. Not the Frog who refused to be kissed, obviously. There isn’t really any magic in the world, but there have always been people trying to control it. Anyway, wouldn’t the first woman to detonate gunpowder have been a sorceress? If I could take a peasant from the year 600 and show him what I do for a living four hundred years later, he’d think I was some sort of fire goddess.

  So I ignore the chill and forget my blisters. Coming here is as close as I get to faith. Have you ever grieved without having lost anything, or at least nothing you knew you had? Explain that and you’ll explain this. I have no homeland, and being here gives me a sense of place.

  Unfortunately, I won’t be alone. Someone is standing in my usual spot, precarious, right up on the point.

  Tall and fair, he hears me with a start. He’s thin, and his left arm scarcely fills its sleeve. It’s been replaced with struts and cogs, which makes him a veteran. It hasn’t been so long since the North fought its own war to banish those who would rule without mercy or concern for others. I’d rather be by myself, if you can be alone in a place with so many spirits, but this year I’m out of luck. We assess each other awkwardly.

  “Hello,” he says, “what’s your name?”

  Not much of a conversationalist.

  “Kassia Kamina,” I say.

  He looks at me with momentary incomprehension. I have to explain where I was born often, even though a single glance at my amber skin ought to do it for me. While I explain, I realise that this man may not be well. He has a queer look, and he’s struggling to say something. Or not say it.

  “Is that so?” He shakes his head with a kind of desperate negation, “I thought your name might be Jinn.”

  That stops me. I stare at him and the wind quiets. Time fails to pass.

  “Only my friends call me that,” I say.

  It’s the best my mates can do pronouncing Djinn, which is what Southerners call desert spirits. I adore the nickname. I think it’s supposed to be mildly insulting—Djinn are capricious and wild—but giving you a pet name is how Northerners show they like you. I try not to feel either wild or capricious, but the idea that this man knows me is disconcerting.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. He runs a distracted hand through his hair. I was right; this is a man on the edge. He stares at me with such intensity that I start thinking the smart move would be to turn around and take off.

  Instead I stand my ground and stare back into his solitary blue eye. A hard patch covers the left one. He looks too young; most veterans are late in their middle age. He has a chilly gaze, but my eyes are little explosions of brown and green. Besides, I have two.

  I win, and he’s the one who looks away. When I see his profile I try to imagine him with both eyes. I begin to see a resemblance, though I can hardly remember to whom. He looks like someone who’s about to slip and fall. A long time ago, I saw that look on the faces of other refugees. I’ve seen it on my father’s face. Never in the mirror, though.

  “I’m sorry. I came here to meet someone. I was about ready to give it up.”

  This actually makes me feel better about him. I have a soft spot for that kind of story.

  “That’s romantic,” I say, and step past him toward the bluff. Blades of cold light slice through the clouds. The name was just a coincidence.

  I stand in the same spot he did. He could push me off, I guess, but I don’t think he will. He’s just a little lost. That’s something I have seen in the mirror. “I’m sorry she didn’t come.”

  “So am I,” he says, “but I didn’t really think she would. You look like you’ve been here before.”

  “I’ve stood here every fall since I was old enough to ride the trains alone. I love old books, and this is a famous spot. The Prince and his one true love were reunited here, and the heroes made their pact under this tree. I start dreaming about them the instant the leaves turn. When I was young, I thought I’d meet my one true love here, too.”

  “You want to meet a prince?” His tone is half-mocking.

  “Not exactly,” I say. I might be blushing. How did we start with this? “The Prince isn’t my favourite character. I like the Frog, he makes me laugh, but my favourite is the Soldier who wears the Titan’s Arm and opens the door. I’d rather meet him.”

  The veteran looks like a brass pipe hit with a hammer.

  “It can’t be,” he says.

  “What?”

  “I said I came here to meet someone. I think it’s you.”

  “We’ve never met,” I may sound angry. I usually can’t tell.

  “We have. Not in this life, not even in this world, but we have.” His certainty is vast.

  “Make sense,” I say, “or I’ll leave you here to wait for whoever you think I am.”

  “If I do, you’ll think I’m insane,” he says.

 
; “Fine,” I already knew that much, “jump off a cliff.”

  “Wait,” he says, “please, wait. You said you had dreams about this bluff, about who you’d meet. Tell me the best one.”

  I really, really ought to leave him alone with his hungry ghosts, but I’ve never been good at turning away. I sigh.

  “I don’t dream about them, I dream I am one of them. I’m the Ifrit. I can fly. I’m small and fast and I burn. I’m with the Soldier. I know the legend says they all faced the Empress together, but we’re alone. We’re riding an elevator in the sunken city, which is silly because I can fly, and I’ve just saved his life, and I say, ‘do you still wish I’d been born human?’ and he says─”

  “‘Yes,’ which makes you angry,” the veteran interrupts, “so you ask him ‘why?’”

  Wonder starts a war with anger in my heart.

  “And he says─”

  “‘Because as it is I can’t touch you, and I already love you every other way there is.’”

  The broken soldier really does reach out to touch me, then, and I raise a hand to stop him. Normally he’d get slapped for that, but he’s right. It’s not in the legend. No one knows what they said; it’s just what I dream they did. My heart thumps. We both need to pull away from the edge.

  “Come and sit by the tree,” I tell him, because this is simply too strange to let go of, “and tell me how the story ends.”

  3.

  THE DESTRUCTION OF the Mammon Machine is a cataclysm that should have been impossible. The Empress had power and will and all the time in the world. All the heroes had was each other; the Prince’s courage, the icy intelligence of his one true love. The Sadamune and the Robot’s guns. The Soldier’s arm and the Ifrit’s fire. None of them could have taken even the first step on their own but together, they topple an empire.