by M. M. Perry
“I should hope so. That’s awful and I’m more than happy I only have to travel by djinn magic one more time,” Cass said frowning. She noticed Manfred wasn’t wearing his glittering attire anymore. Instead a drab pair of linen pants and a stained tunic adorned his little blue body.
“Dressing down, are we?”
“Oh,” Manfred said looking down at his clothes, “I forgot, you don’t… the fancy clothes are for the surface. We don’t really get a choice in the matter.”
“What do you mean?”
Manfred didn’t reply. Instead he looked around the cavern, concern on his face.
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know. But it’s very quiet.”
Manfred motioned for Cass to follow him. She kept close behind the small man, his short strides making that easy. It was more difficult to avoid tripping over him while trying to get a good look around the cavern. Viola had briefly described it to her, but none of them had spent too much time there. Cass didn’t plan to spend any time sightseeing on this trip, though. She was with Manfred mainly to get a feel for whether or not the djinn could be counted on to help. They left the shelf they had arrived on, using the single bridge that spanned from it across the apparently bottomless chasm to a wider, open area that had a variety of balconies overlooking it. Viola told Cass that on her trip here, she noticed the djinn surreptitiously staring down at them from these balconies, but Cass saw no such curiosity. She saw no djinn at all.
“I know there aren’t many of you, but this place seems kind of empty. Is it normally this deserted?” she asked looking into all the empty doorways.
“No, not unless a conclave has been called. Then we’d all gather in the Grand Auditorium. But there isn’t… When we meet there, we are all called. It’s not a requirement that we attend those meetings, but you’ll miss out on all the gossip if you do.”
Cass could tell Manfred was trying his best to lighten his mood. He was clearly spooked by something. They walked into a large room with a jeweled ceiling sparkling down on a table that would have seated at least a dozen djinn, but this room was as empty as the last.
“Wait here a moment,” Manfred said, disappearing out another door.
Cass didn’t feel like letting Manfred wander off without her. She wasn’t sure she trusted the little man to tell her what was going on, and she wanted a chance to confront some other djinn to get a sense of what they were up to before Manfred had a chance to get their stories in line. Just as she had convinced herself to follow him, Manfred popped back in. He looked more shaken than before.
“Empty. Normally someone is in there. Always. There are… artifacts in there. The last of anything from our old life. It’s… it’s just a shoe and a glove. I know this might sound stupid, but we guard it. Always. It’s the only thing we have left, so we guard it. But there’s no one there now.”
“Even when a conclave is called?”
“Even then, at least one djinn is. One is always there. Now no one is.”
“Maybe we should check this auditorium?”
Manfred nodded slowly at the suggestion, still looking back at the room with the artifacts from their old life.
“Cass, I know I’ve given you cause not to trust me, but you need to know that I am with you now. Before we see them, I need you to know that. Whatever they may say, whatever they may do, I am with you. I swear it on my sister’s life. May I never see her again if I am misleading you.”
Cass stared down at Manfred, anxiety mounting within her.
“Manny, what’s going on? What haven’t you told me?”
“I wish I could, but… Just try to trust me again. I know, with Suman... I know you think everything I do is for me and mine. And yes, a great deal of what I have done is for that. But you have to understand that what my people believe, what they are likely to say, I don’t believe it. I never have. When I came back, after we met Timta on the plains, my people wanted to know why the scroll’s prophecy hadn’t come to pass. They’ll probably talk about that. About what they thought was supposed to happen. But Cass, you’ve got to believe I didn’t think that would happen, or I never would have… I could have shown you… I could show you everything I told you that day in the pub those years ago. But… it wouldn’t be right. So I haven’t done it. Because I know that would betray…”
Manfred’s voice faltered. Cass stared hard at him.
“Manny, what are you saying?” Cass flushed with anger. After her ordeal with Oshia, she had hoped she’d never have to confront such an intimate violation as having her mind manipulated again. “Are you still blocking some of my memories?”
Manfred shook his head. He turned away from Cass, hiding his face from her.
“It’s not…” he started, his voice quavering. He didn’t say anything for a while. Then, suddenly, he started away from Cass with a purposeful stride. “We’ll go in a side way,” he said, his voice now firm and cool. Cass felt like she had been slapped. Now she knew for certain Manfred was keeping something from her and she knew he would not tell her. It was clear whatever it was, he might never tell her. She began to fear for all her friends. So much of what they had done, and planned to do, hinged on what they had learned from Manfred. Cass caught up with Manfred trying to keep her cool. She could tell that the seamless walls and floor around weren’t constructed, but had been carved right from the rock around them. The hallway curved enough that Cass couldn’t see the end of it, but she could see bright light peeking around from ahead of them. She figured it must be the meeting place. She pushed Manfred’s subterfuge from her mind and concentrated on the din coming from ahead. Angry shouting echoed down the hall to where she and Manfred were standing. The little man sighed, relief that he had at last found the djinn. Then he felt anxious again, because he had found the djinn.
“Let’s get this over with.”
The curving hallway ended at an archway that opened on to a large room. They were standing at the top of an aisle between two stair-stepped rows of stone benches, filled with djinn, all wearing the drab little clothes like Manfred. The room was like a theater, and there was a djinn on the stage below them futilely shouting for order over the raucous crowd. He grew suddenly quiet when he saw Manfred and Cass, but the rest of the occupants continued to chatter angrily. Manfred walked forward, towards the stage, Cass close behind him. As they came into view of more and more of the djinn, a wave of silence emanated out behind them. The room was completely hushed by the time Manfred reached the stage.
“If I had known all I needed to get order in here was the presence of a mortal, I would have conjured one,” the djinn on the stage said while sneering at Manfred.
“Good day to you as well, Samuel. I won’t be long; I’ve come for the scrolls.”
Samuel laughed.
“For the scrolls? Why would you think you, of all djinn, would ever be allowed to even see them again, Manfred? You who claimed you were going to take us to our destiny. You who convinced so many others that you finally, finally had a way in to see the dragons. You, whose abject failures have cost us everything,” Samuel had worked himself up to a wrathful shouting. He took a moment to regain his composure, then continued more coolly, “You are lucky we don’t destroy you and this human right here on the spot.”
“The scrolls are no good to you anymore, Samuel. You all have said it yourselves. The prophecy said the dragons would come, then they would destroy the world as they have before, and we would be free. The dragons came. At this point, it’s on them to complete the prophecy, not me.”
“Why do you need them, Manfred?”
“My human friends, they think there might be something useful in them. Something they could use against the gods. The gods being no friends of ours, I thought you might not mind.”
A soft murmur started in the seating behind them. Cass looked up at all the djinn around her. Their faces were not friendly. She turned back toward Samuel when she heard him chuckle softly.
“Oh Manfred. Yo
u’ve been gone too long. Things have changed,” Samuel said.
“I’ve been gone five days, Sammy. What could possibly have changed that much in five days?”
Samuel pulled out a plain looking leather satchel from his jacket. The leather looked worn down from years of handling.
“Take the scrolls,” Samuel said, “you’re right, they are of no use to us anymore. They will be burned, with the rest of the refuse.”
He shoved the scrolls angrily at Manfred. Manfred clutched them reverentially to his chest, unable to comprehend why Samuel would just give them to him. Manfred had expected, at best, a long, tedious argument, with hours or even days of deliberations. Even then, he expected he’d be, at best, sent away without them, and at worst, be banished from Xenor. Luckily for him, Cass, being so far out of her element, was on high alert. Just as she noticed a wicked smile play across Samuel’s face, she felt a familiar power fill the room. She knew the touch of that power all too well. In that split second of recognition, Cass grabbed Manfred and started to shout. The sudden desperate grasp was enough to rouse Manfred from his ruminations, and he recognized the fear in her eyes even before she could put a name to it. He tapped into his own power and rushed them from Xenor back to Faylendar. Despite his speed and will, he could feel tendrils of the god’s power grasping at him as they moved through the ether. In the moment it took to transport them, Manfred came to realize two things: Cass saved both their lives remaining alert; and he knew he would never be able to return to Xenor.
“Oshia!” Cass cried panicking. She and Manfred were in her room in the castle, alone.
“We are away,” Manfred said, wiping sweat from his brow.
“I felt him,” Cass said rubbing her arm where a fresh, hand-shaped bruise was beginning to darken. “He had me!”
“He did not keep you,” Manfred said, trying to console Cass.
She looked at the small djinn, anger filling her eyes as the fear left them.
“You knew the dragons would destroy the world! You were trying to bring an end to everything, and you made me a part of it!”
“No!” Manfred said, trying not to shout at Cass. “That is what many of my people believed, have believed for too long to think otherwise. But that is not what these say,” he brandished the scrolls before him, as if they might fend off Cass’ anger. Anguish and hurt ripped through him. He had not expected Cass to react so violently when she heard the truth.
“That’s what you told me,” Cass said, pointing a finger at him. “In the pub. That’s what you didn’t want me to remember. That’s what you kept hidden, so I would go with you to the dragons.”
“That is not it at all. You don’t know what you’re talking about, Cassandra.”
“Then tell me. Or better yet, release the spell completely. Give me my memories back!”
“I. Can’t.”
“You can’t or you won’t? Which is it, djinn?” She hurled the last word as an insult.
Cass’ words struck Manfred like a blow to the face. He turned from her and clenched his fists. When he cast the spell all those years ago, he never knew it would be this hard. He thought the hard part had already been done. The act itself, and all the years in between that he suffered, that was the hard part, he had been sure of it. But now he wondered if that had been the simple bit.
“Both. I won’t and I can’t because it would be far worse than not telling you.”
“I don’t believe you. I don’t know why I ever believed you. Is anything you’ve ever told me been true? Or is at all just one plot layered on top of another, all designed so you can get your way, and damn everyone else?”
“Believe it. Or don’t. It won’t change anything.” Manfred shoved the scrolls at Cass. “Take the scrolls. Find your own meaning in them. I shall play my part. I’ll be the cold, uncaring djinn for you to hate, if you must. But I’m helping you whether you like it or not.”
Manfred stormed from the room, slamming the door shut behind him. Cass stared at it, dumbfounded. She was angry at Manfred, and knew she had every right to be. What she could not understand was why he was angry at her. It made no sense. She looked down at the case he had left her with. It was time to see Viola.
Cass’s incessant pacing had already furrowed a distinguishable path in the lush carpet of the small room Viola said they all should meet in. Cass still had not been able to figure out what it was exactly that Manfred was withholding. She kept going over everything he said while she waited for Viola to decipher the scrolls. Manfred claimed he was supporting them, not the djinn. Try as she might, she hadn’t yet had a chance to pry his motivations from him. He had been avoiding her ever since their close escape the day before.
Viola had been busy during that time. She called in the castle mages to enchant a room against magical eavesdropping for them, knowing they could not wait for Manfred’s promised safe room since no one had seen him around since he and Cass had returned from Xenor. The room was warded in all the ways the young mage could think of to keep out prying eyes, be they gods’, djinn or otherwise. Viola had even turned up a handful of spells in a crumbling tome from the castle library that claimed to protect against the gods, though it was unclear exactly what it would keep the gods from doing. She’d had the castle mages invoke it as well, despite none of them being able to translate half the words in it. They talked tentatively in this room, uncertain of their security, despite all their efforts.
“Thanks for securing the room, Viola. I can only hope it holds, but we can’t just sit here in the dark without talking to each other. We’re as good as dead if we do that,” Cass said nervously, looking around as if someone might be lurking just out of her sight.
“I think it will,” Viola said. “I just wish I could have cast them myself. Callan’s mages are competent enough with the more mundane magics, but they’re not particularly well versed in the arcane. The tomes I found these in—I don’t think anyone has touched them for decades—indicated these spells were regularly used by the nobility during the interregnum, especially by the nobles that were secretly keeping faith with the old gods while their struggle with the new gods was still relatively covert. Even then, they were concerned there was a chance the old gods wouldn’t win, so they put considerable effort into ensuring their true allegiances couldn’t be discerned.”
“If you say it will hold, it will. When it comes to spellcasting, I trust you more than anyone,” Cass said, “which is why I need to ask you to do something important. Manfred… when we went back to the djinn, Manfred told me he hadn’t released all my memories of the day we first met on Xenor.”
“I don’t know why, and he won’t tell me more than admitting the spell is still in place,” Cass touched the ear that was marked with the delicate blue tattoo as if hoping to conjure the memories on her own. “I can’t figure out what his angle is anymore. His people thought the world would end, their curse along with it when we found the dragons.”
Viola shook her head, “Manny… too?”
“He says no,” Cass said, “but what do we really know about him? My memories of him were stolen from me. You spent more time with him than I ever did anyway. What do you think? You think he thought we were flying to our doom with those dragons?”
Viola sat heavily into a well upholstered chair.
“He’s secretive and snarky, but he was… he is our friend. I’m sure of that. I mean, I can’t be that bad at reading people, even if he is a djinn. When we travelled with him, I never got the feeling he was plotting against us. Tricking us into ending the world so he could be free of a curse.”
Cass sighed and rubbed the hand shaped bruise on her arm. It was already a sickly green and brown color.
“He begged me to use my mother’s boon to free his people. So maybe he believed there was another end to the prophecy. In any case, he’s not talking to me now. And I’m of no particular mind to speak with him even if he was. He’s keeping my own memories from me. If he’s telling me the truth, and he never though
t the world was at stake, then he would trust me enough to let me remember, wouldn’t he? He claims it will hurt me somehow.”
Viola looked confused.
“Hurt you?”
“I don’t know. I can’t trust him until he unlocks my mind completely. But he likes you, I think, the most of the rest of us. Maybe you can get him to answer some questions, or at the very least get him to give his interpretation of the prophecy, if he actually has one that differs from his people’s. We need him to keep us in the know, as far as he will, and on our side.”
“I can do that, no problem, but what do you think is going on? Why would he be holding back?”
“He is a god. A small, blue, cantankerous god, but a god nonetheless. His motives are fuzzy, but his priority will be himself, surely,” Cass said wearily.
“He left the other djinn though, right? They were all meeting, and he left them you said. And they didn’t seem happy with him.”
“No,” Cass admitted, “they did not. And he did leave them. I get the strong impression he won’t be able to go back, not without dire repercussions. Which means his power that he has now, that’s it. Once it’s gone it’s gone. If he truly isn’t going back, of course. So keep an eye on that too. If he goes back, I want to know. Is there a way to do that?”
“I can have an enchanter keep a location on him. It won’t work perfectly, though. Since he’s powerfully magical himself it will interfere with anything the enchanter does, but we should at least be able to tell if he leaves the castle. It probably won’t tell us where he went, but it’s something.”
“Okay, sounds good. I hope Gunnarr is having better luck on his end. Before today if I’d have given odds on which of us would be more successful, I wouldn’t have said the man who’s looking for a churlish, petty god.”
At the end of the dingy bar sat a short, surly man. He had been sullenly nursing a single ale a little too long for the bartender, Karl, who would have preferred a thirstier customer. The grim man could surely afford more than a single drink, Karl thought, noting again his fine attire and the generous hunk of curiously wrought silver that hung around his neck, yet all he had ordered in the hours he’d been sitting there was that lone drink he very occasionally took a polite sip of. Had it been a slower night, a less busy time of day, Karl might not have cared, but right now Karl’s place was packed to the rafters, which was how Karl liked it best. Karl’s was the only pub for miles on the lonely road that ran along the western coast of Centria. Karl picked this spot after a long search, knowing full well he lacked the charm and devotion to social niceties required to run a successful bar had he faced any competition. But running a pub had been his dream, no matter how contrary it seemed to his rude, rough nature. So he’d chosen this speck of nowhere, along a heavily travelled road, just far enough from any other sign of civilization that a road-weary traveler’s only choice was his place, or roughing it along the roadside. It was a keen financial decision; he made a pretty penny. But his slowly growing wealth hadn’t made Karl any friendlier, and the short, discourteous freeloader at the end of the bar was beginning to rub all the wrong nerves.
