A Master of Djinn: 1 (Dead Djinn Universe)

by P. Djèlí Clark

  “Enough,” Leader ordered firmly, brilliant eyes fixed on Maker. “We shall have a talk about your penchant for speaking more than you should at the wrong moments and among inappropriate company.” The younger angel shrank back, her wings going limp. Leader returned to Fatma. “What is important is that someone other than the vexatious bookseller has a will strong enough to evade our concealment. And now they wield the ring as well.”

  “The imposter who claims to be al-Jahiz,” Hadia said, seeming herself again.

  Discord hissed. “A miscreant. Who has taken the ring from our safekeeping!”

  Fatma gaped. “You’ve had the Seal of Sulayman? All this time?”

  “Part of our agreement was to secure the ring,” Leader explained. “Each day this imposter holds on to it, we are in breach of contract.”

  “Why did you even keep the thing?” Fatma asked. “Why didn’t you destroy it?”

  Gasps went up about the room. Even Defender’s rumble seemed offended.

  “To destroy such a holy relic would be desecration!” Harmony melodically lectured.

  “How did anyone even steal it from you?” Hadia asked. “Who’s bold enough?”

  “The same ones seeking after items associated with al-Jahiz,” Leader answered.

  “Lord Worthington’s Brotherhood,” Fatma reasoned.

  “The late Lord Alistair Worthington and his quaint obsession,” Leader affirmed.

  “The seal,” Fatma said. “It’s part of the Brotherhood’s insignia.”

  “Another unfortunate evasion of our magic,” Harmony sighed. “Though only a partial one. Lord Worthington’s mind conjured up the seal’s likeness, but he never truly understood what it was. We long ago assessed the matter as harmless.”

  “More vexatious were his dealings,” Leader said. “His Brotherhood had in their hire a certain djinn who once worked here as an archivist, until we terminated him for unethical practices.”

  “That would be an Illusion djinn named Siwa,” Fatma said, putting the pieces together.

  “Before he left, he pilfered a listing of the holdings in our vaults,” Discord said. “He employs thieves of rare skill to make their way inside and take what he instructs. These items are then delivered to Lord Worthington for a price.”

  Hadia turned to Fatma. “Portendorf’s journal! It mentioned a list!”

  Fatma nodded, remembering. “Was al-Jahiz’s sword on that list?”

  “The blade,” Leader confirmed. “Pilfered on the same day the seal was taken.”

  “Why not just do away with Lord Worthington and his Brotherhood outright?” Hadia asked. “I’m guessing that’s in your power. Why play this game?”

  The gathered angels all exchanged glances before answering.

  “It was not our intent to make a fuss,” Harmony said delicately.

  “You don’t want the attention,” Fatma deduced. “Let it be known that Lord Worthington was breaking into their vaults, and soon every thief in Cairo would be trying to do the same—just to see if they could.”

  “You see, then, our predicament,” Leader said. “When the ring first went missing, we suspected Lord Worthington, thinking perhaps he had finally puzzled out the meaning of the seal on his insignia. Then he and his Brotherhood all met an untimely end. It left us puzzled. So we began to look into matters.” He placed a large steel thumb upon the folder on the table—nudging it toward them. Fatma opened it, shuffling through the contents. Financial accounts by the looks of it. She passed several to Hadia.

  “Lord Worthington’s company’s holdings,” Leader informed. “Over the past year there have been some interesting investments and acquisitions.”

  “Armament holdings,” Hadia read. “Weapons industries. Airship bombers. Maxim gun and gas canister manufacturers.”

  “Strange assets for a man touting peace,” Discord quipped.

  It was more than that, Fatma assessed, flipping through the pages. The shares and sums here were astronomical. As if Alistair Worthington was trying to convert over his entire company to profit from war. No, not him, she realized.

  “You don’t think Alistair Worthington was making these decisions, do you?” she asked.

  “An irksome mortal, certainly,” Leader complained. “But this seems unlike him. Someone else in Lord Worthington’s house was making these changes.”

  “Someone who held him and his Brotherhood in clear disdain,” Discord said.

  “Someone who had access to Siwa and the list,” Harmony added.

  Fatma parsed those words carefully. “Who are you talking about?”

  The angels all shared another of those infuriating glances, before Leader shook his masked head. “We are not investigators. That matter is left for you. Whoever this imposter is, they now hold the Seal of Sulayman—an instrument of immense power.”

  “Immeasurable power!” Harmony wailed. “Too much for a mortal to wield so willfully. So often. Even Sulayman knew better. It will take its toll on them, body and spirit!”

  “It is why we have consented to bring you here,” Discord spoke. “Why we have shared what you should not be privy to.”

  “You must retrieve the ring, agent,” Leader said, his tone insistent. “You must take it from this imposter before more damage is done and return it to us. So we may fulfill our contract.”

  Fatma didn’t respond right away. These angels didn’t know who the imposter was. But they had clear suspicions. Someone in the Worthington household. She and Hadia had been on the right track all along. There was vindication at least in that.

  “We’ll find the ring,” she said finally. “But only on the condition that you answer two more questions and grant two demands.”

  Leader didn’t appear to like this bargain, but he dipped his head in agreement. “Speak your words. We will answer or meet them, within reason.”

  Fatma spoke carefully. “What does the imposter want with the Clock of Worlds?”

  Another awkward shifting of wings.

  “That machine should have been destroyed,” Leader said flatly.

  Fatma had said as much to the Ministry, to no avail. “Yes, but that wasn’t my question.”

  “No one knows,” Maker put in. “My predecessor had nefarious designs for its intent. I fear little else from this imposter. Leader is correct, the machine should be … unmade.” The last word sounded almost foreign to her.

  “Second,” Fatma began. “What do you know of the Nine Lords?”

  “Djinn superstition,” Leader dismissed idly. “Their kind are prone to such delusions.”

  “But the imposter would have the power to control them, with the ring?”

  “That is a third question,” Leader replied. “Our bargain only allowed for two.”

  Fatma moved on to her demands. “My first demand: stop abducting the bookseller. Either work better magic or undo it altogether. You don’t understand humans as well as you think. You can’t hold knowledge from us. We’ll find out somehow, someway. It’s who we are. Let the bookseller be.”

  There was a bout of silence, before a rumbling voice said, “Done.”

  Fatma looked to Defender in surprise. The others all seemed to take his word as final, however, stating their assent.

  “Second request. Release Hadia and me from this confoundment magic of yours. We’ll work faster without it about our necks.”

  “Oh, that we cannot do,” Leader said, shaking his head.

  “Why not?” Hadia asked. “It’s your doing.”

  “Not just ours,” Maker explained. She glanced to Leader, who gestured to continue. “The means to creating the concealment of the Seal of Sulayman involved angelic powers, and that of others, beyond this realm, as silent partners. To willfully release you from the confoundment would place us in violation of our contract with them.” Her voice lowered to a whisper. “One does not break obligations to them. Ever.”

  Fatma had no idea who these “others” were. But the ominous finality in the angel’s tone made her
uncertain how to argue the point.

  “There is a way that will not cause imbalance,” Harmony offered. “The sleeping djinn.”

  “The sleeping djinn,” Leader repeated wistfully. “That would not violate the contract.”

  “It might disrupt the spirit of our agreement,” Discord warned.

  “Our partners are not so slavish as to start a blood feud across the realms over wording,” Harmony countered. “At least, I hope not.” She turned to Fatma. “Our contract with the djinn at once bound each of their kind to its tenets, forcing their consent by mere existence. The only exceptions were any djinn who may have at the time been unable to grant consent on account of their incorporeal inert state. As they exist outside of the contract at its making, they are unbound and as such can, at their choosing, renegotiate how the contract is applied and to whom it is applied—as long as it meets our approval.”

  “So…” Hadia began, slowly turning things over in her head. Angels could be taxing with their legalese. “We can be released from this spell without causing any … inter-realm conflicts. But who’s this sleeping djinn?”

  At the question, the angels all turned to Fatma. She sighed, already knowing the answer.

  “A very unpleasant Marid. Who I promised never to bother again.”

  Angels. They were going to end up being the death of her.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  For the second time in two days, Fatma walked the cells beneath the Ministry. Zagros was still here, but she hadn’t come to see him. What she intended was more dangerous than questioning the librarian—even if he’d tried to murder her. She understood now he had been under the control of the imposter. The djinn she would encounter today was far less predictable.

  “You’re quiet,” she remarked, eyeing Hadia who walked beside her.

  The other woman nodded. “Visiting with those … supposed angels. Just has me thinking.”

  “It can be a lot—even knowing they’re not really angels.”

  Hadia shook her head. “It’s not that. Well, not that alone.” She stopped to look at Fatma, who stopped in turn. “They changed our minds around. Got into our heads. And we had no idea. What else might they have changed or hidden from us? Our writings? Our histories? Our holy books? What else might we no longer know? How can we be certain of anything?” Her eyes closed and she released a lengthy sigh before opening them. “How do you deal with the crushing weight of it? Knowing that we’re just people and there are these vast powers pulling strings we may not even know about? I’m supposed to be helping plan my cousin’s wedding next month. But that just all seems so meaningless in the face of this.” She frowned. “I wonder if this is what it must have been like back when al-Jahiz opened the Kaf? To suddenly learn the world you knew wasn’t quite so real. I’m picking an odd time to be philosophical, I know. Maybe I’m having a mental breakdown.…”

  Fatma shook her head slowly. “You’re not having a mental breakdown. Every agent has this moment. More than once. This is what it means to work for the Ministry. To understand more than the average person just how strange the world around us has become. It’s what we signed up for. And why it’s not for everyone. But yeah, I sit down and think about it hard sometimes—then I go out and buy a new suit. Because those little things, like planning your cousin’s wedding, that’s what keeps us grounded.” She winked. “Maybe you could expand your hijab collection.”

  Hadia laughed slightly and they started up their walk again.

  “Remind me what this Marid said again?” she asked.

  This was her fifth time asking, but Fatma answered anyway. “That he slept in the hopes of outliving humanity. Also, he granted the last person who woke him the chance to choose their death.”

  “And you gave him your name and word?”

  “Both.” She’d felt the pact settle into her skin.

  “Doesn’t that make it unbreakable?”

  “Anything’s breakable. Just means there’ll be a cost.”

  Hadia recited a quick dua for her protection, the worry on her face plain. Her gaze wandered to the object Fatma clutched in one hand—a tarnished, pear-shaped bronze bottle, inlaid with gold floral patterns. “They just let you walk out of the Ministry vault with that thing?”

  “I was the one who brought it in. Told them I needed to correct the paperwork. No reason to think I’d do something absolutely foolish—like open it.”

  “Of course not,” Hadia muttered. “Not unless you had some sort of death wish.”

  They stopped at a cell, the furthest down the hall.

  “You don’t have to come in,” Fatma said. “If something goes wrong, the wards of the cell should hold him.”

  Hadia reached up and took both black truncheons off the wall this time, hefting one in each hand. That was answer enough.

  Fatma opened the door to the cell, and they stepped inside, shutting it again behind them. Moving to the center of the room, she knelt and stood the bronze bottle up on the floor.

  “We’re really going through with this?” Hadia asked.

  “We have to.”

  Hadia looked perplexed. “Why do we have to again?”

  Fatma handed over a copy of the bookseller’s note, and the woman winced as her memory returned. “Precisely why we need this magic on us broken. We can’t keep this up forever.” She pulled free her janbiya. “Ready?”

  Hadia clutched the black truncheons tight and nodded. Fatma pressed the knife to the dragon-marked seal about the stopper and held her breath—before drawing the blade across the wax covering, breaking the reestablished wards.

  There was barely time to jump back as bright green smoke burst from the bottle like a geyser. The swirling gas fast took shape, knitting into a broad form somewhat like a man—only far bigger. The cloud coalesced, becoming firmer until it was made flesh. In moments, a full-grown djinn towered before them.

  The Marid was as terrifying now as he had been that night—a giant covered in emerald scales, his bared chest heaving, with smooth ivory horns grazing the ceiling. For a moment he stood, silent, coming out of his slumber. When his three eyes opened—a pyramid of burning stars—they took in the cell with one imperious glance, before settling and narrowing on Fatma.

  “Enchantress.” The word rumbled in the small space.

  Fatma forced herself to meet that scouring gaze. “Great One, I say again, I’m no enchantress.”

  The djinn’s green lips twisted. “Yet twice I have been summoned into your presence. Who but an enchantress would dare such a thing? Not that it matters. You have broken your word. Sworn to me by your name. You are already dead.”

  He spoke that last sentence as if relating the weather. Fatma steeled herself. “Great One, I would not have awakened you, if not for dire cause.”

  The Marid actually yawned. “You mortals always have reasons for breaking your oaths. Excuses for your filthy ways. For your very existence. Just listening to your inane chatter is vexing to my ears.” He raised a clawed hand twice as large as her head, palm open and fingers spread. “Should I remove your bones so that your frail body collapses into pulp? Perhaps replace your blood with scorching sand? Or make you cut out your own entrails and choke yourself with them?”

  “I see you’ve given this some thought,” Fatma said. Her voice came firm, but her insides quivered.

  The djinn grinned sharply. “When I sleep, all I dream of is how to slaughter mortals. I could slay every last one of you, like so many sheep.”

  “That’s enough!” Hadia said. She activated both truncheons until they crackled hot with blue bolts. “No one’s slaughtering anyone today. If you’d just listen—”

  The Marid casually waved in her direction. Stone arms suddenly erupted from the wall behind Hadia, each with hands bearing seven fingers. They grabbed hold of the woman, pulling her into the wall. Her shocked cries cut off as her body became stone—a statue trapped halfway in and halfway out. The black truncheons she dropped had not hit the floor before it was over
. Fatma stared, janbiya in her hand. She rounded on the djinn.

  “Let her go! This is between you and me!”

  The Marid snorted. “It is between whomever I wish it to be. Let apprentice and mistress suffer.”

  “She was just trying to get you to listen! So that I could tell you…”

  Fatma’s words trailed off. Tell him what? Whatever had seemed so important had vanished. She looked up to see the Marid with his arm still extended. Those fiery eyes flared into hot white flames. In the palm of his hand a jade glow emanated. Inexplicably, a ringing bell went off. The djinn frowned, looking to her jacket. It went off again.

  “Are you going to get that?” he asked. “It’s irritating.”

  Fatma drew out her pocket watch. Why had she set an alarm? Flipping the timepiece open, she found a bit of folded paper inside and unwrapped it. As she read, her mouth worked in a rush.

  “The Seal of Sulayman!”

  The Marid cocked a horned head. His fiery eyes dimmed to a simmer, and his arm lowered slowly to his side. “What,” he asked coldly, “do you know of that?”

  Fatma released a breath. “I know that it’s a ring created to control djinn. One that robs you of your free will. A mortal holds that ring now. He bound an Ifrit. He’d think nothing of tearing you out of that bottle and making you a slave. I just thought you might want to know.”

  The djinn said nothing for a while, only stroking his curling white beard. Finally, he flicked a wrist—and Hadia fell out of the wall, her body made flesh again. Her interrupted cries finished in a wail as she landed on hands and knees. Fatma bent down to help her up.

  “An abomination,” the Marid murmured, distracted. “We were fools to think its forging a wise thing.” Fatma’s eyebrows rose at that. He turned back to look at her, dismissing Hadia, who swayed unsteadily. “What do you want of me, not-enchantress?”