The long street was lined with shops and studios, where magic was sold and performed. It was alive with all manner of creatures, bustling about without pause.
Imran entered a small shop sandwiched between a magical medicines shop and a magical resource center, a magical library. The shop itself was no more than two meters wide but was rather deep. It smelled somewhat of curry, but that could have been because its occupant just had lunch. Many small wooden figurines lined the shelves in jumbled piles. Toward the back of the shop was an old door that looked like it had been salvaged from a ship wreck, as it still had dried barnacles in situ. In front of the door was a glass cabinet, in which precious magical items lay. Above the cabinet was a dried wooden stick, about which an emerald-green python was entwined.
“Well?” Imran asked. “Is Leucosia here or not?”
The snake blinked purposefully at Imran, so he took a seat on a wobbling stool beside the cabinet. From behind the barnacle-encrusted door, a melodious voice rang out.
“Could that be? Abdul Imran?” The voice was soft and feminine.
“Yes, Leucosia, I have been searching for you.”
“As I have heard,” came the reply and Imran could hear her steps coming closer.
Slowly the door opened and a tall, dark shadow appeared.
“You must have traveled far, Imran.”
“Yes. I need your help.”
Leucosia stepped out from the shadows, into the flickering glow of the lone lightbulb.
Imran inhaled slightly, taken aback as always by Leucosia’s appearance.
“Time has…” he began, “been, um…” Imran couldn’t take his eyes from her.
Leucosia laughed beautifully, and threw back her head of glittering black hair. Imran felt the hairs on his forearms prickle.
“Do not lie. Time has never been kind to me, or my kind.”
Betraying Leucosia’s beautiful melodious voice was a haggard, wretched face. She was skeletally thin. Her skin hung like tanned flaps of leather from her face and arms, ending in talon-like hands. Her eyes were opalescent pearls in her head, with a pupil no bigger than a pinprick. She was assuredly the ugliest creature to walk upon the Earth except, Imran supposed, for her sisters, all of whom looked remarkably similar. Leucosia was a Siren. Her hair was glossy and black, completely at odds with her other desiccated features. The voices of the Sirens had once driven men to crash their boats into reefs in search of the beautiful songs they sung. It was fortunate, really, that most died in the subsequent shipwrecks, for they certainly would have died in horror had they ever clapped eyes on the singers themselves. The Sirens would then salvage what they could from wrecks to sell at markets and somewhat gruesomely eat the surviving sailors. Of course, such activities were now considered highly illegal in every country, but in the Free Zones, Sirens still existed and traded antiquities and other such items they could get. As for their Homo sapiens diet, Imran wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
“How long has it been, Imran?” she asked, staring at him with unfathomable pearl eyes.
“One hundred years,” he said quietly.
“Ah, just before I left the sea…” she sung wistfully.
Sirens lived extraordinarily long lives in and around the sea, but when living on land, they became more desiccated and wretched. Leucosia wore a long black dress that covered her lower limbs completely. Imran had always been curious to know, though he never dared to ask, if she had human legs or the bird-like ones in mythology. Although Sirens could never have been called beautiful, their mournful melodious voices took the listener’s breath away. The wistful tone suddenly disappeared, and she continued in a much more business-like fashion.
“How can I possibly help you, Genie Imran?” Leucosia asked as she sunk down onto another stool behind the glass cabinet. Imran thought he could hear the scrape of a taloned foot on the stone floor but wasn’t sure.
“I need to find Omar,” he said, looking searchingly into her eyes.
Leucosia snorted, and the leathery folds of skin below her jaw wobbled unflatteringly.
“Omar! I have not seen him for at least seventy years.” Her strange pearly gaze caught Imran’s and without breaking contact, she reached down beneath the glass cabinet and opened a book. “This was his parting gift.”
Imran glanced at the book that now rested on the cabinet between them. It was a standard spell book dating back to the 1930s.
“He gave you that? It’s useless, human-made no less!” Imran said incredulously. “Why would he give it to you anyway? You’re a Siren, not a magician.”
“I’m so glad you noticed,” Leucosia replied dryly, and smiled. Imran’s eyes were drawn down to her mouth. Beyond the thin parched lips lay rows of sharp pointed teeth. Imran glanced away quickly, repulsed and ashamed of his own weak response to another magical creature.
“You have been with humans too long, Genie. You’re disturbed by my appearance. You need to stay here a while and get used to being around your kind again.” Leucosia’s voice wove the idea of staying into his mind and for a moment, Imran really wanted to. He gazed at her, the magic in her voice making him blind to her physical appearance. She reached out with her sharp-clawed hand and stroked his cheek. Imran closed his eyes, and quite involuntarily an image of Primrose looking embarrassed and confused burst into his mind.
“I can’t. My mistress is waiting,” he said, physically shaking his head to rid it of Leucosia’s touch.
The gnarled hand retreated to the folds of the dark dress once more.
“A mistress? Why would your mistress send you to the Free Zone? In fact, why would your mistress send you away at all?” Leucosia asked with a suggestive timbre in her voice.
Imran stared at Leucosia, absorbing her ugliness anew. “She doesn’t want me or my wishes,” he admitted. “I have come in search of Omar to break our bond so I may be able to find a master who does.”
Leucosia erupted into a symphony of laughter. “After more than three hundred years of a being a Genie, finally you are rejected! I wish I could meet this mistress! She has not fallen for your charms? You have not tricked her into wishing?”
“No,” Imran answered. “It isn’t a becoming trait to laugh at another’s misfortune,” he added.
“As you can well see, Genie, there is little becoming about me to begin with!” Again, sweet, fluid laughter poured from her dried mouth.
“Do you know where Omar may be?” Imran asked. “I cannot stay long.”
“No, I do not know where he is, or if indeed he is even alive,” she said, raising a threadbare eyebrow. “Besides, even if he were alive, Imran, I doubt very much he would wish to see you who caused his enslavement to the lamp all those years ago.”
Imran sighed heavily and rocked backward on the rickety stool. “No, I don’t suppose he would…Still, if you do see him, or hear of him, I will leave my address, so you may contact me.”
Leucosia slowly looked up from the cabinet where a gold-edged calling card appeared in a small cloud of smoke. Her pearl-globe eyes met his steadily, and Imran knew a question dwelled in their pale depths.
“Why do you want to break this bond with your mistress?” she sang. “Do you want to be passed from master to master like a whore? If your mistress doesn’t require you, you are relatively free…With her permission, of course, you could live your own life as you chose, at least for the duration of hers. Isn’t that what you’ve been wanting?” Leucosia’s gaze didn’t waver.
Imran hated hearing what she said, so he looked away uncomfortably again. “I don’t know what I want, Leucosia. I thought I had made a good choice when I chose her.”
“You chose her?” Leucosia asked, surprised. “I didn’t know you had the ability…”
Imran ignored her. “My old master was beginning to forget my existence. He’d only remember I was ar
ound intermittently. I didn’t want to be stuck in that limbo state. Then I saw Primrose walking outside the antiques store.” He sighed, remembering. “She looked so calm and in control. A perfect mistress, just perfect...”
Leucosia raised a frayed eyebrow. “I gather she isn’t perfect?”
“She is gentle, sweet, and totally dominated by a boorish man.”
“The problem is that man isn’t you, right?” Leucosia laughed.
Imran stopped, irritated by her interruptions. “She doesn’t need me in her life. I must break the bond, as she will not take the wishes.”
“Why not? Most humans would jump at the chance.”
“Magical Gains are excessively taxed by the governments, as you well know. To make matters more complex, she also works for the government! It makes her accepting the wishes virtually impossible to hide with all those magical ion tests.”
Leucosia hissed. Most of the occupants of the Free Zone were rigidly antigovernment, having been forced to work there simply to maintain an existence.
“I wish I could help you, Imran,” Leucosia said, “but there is little I can do. Take Omar’s book. Perhaps it will help you.” She paused and looked down at the book. “Take it, as a token of my friendship.”
Imran knew he was being dismissed. He looked at the useless book, out of date, and completely inappropriate for a Genie whose magic went far beyond any human comprehension.
“Thank you, Leucosia,” he replied awkwardly and turned to leave, the book tightly gripped underneath his arm.
“This problem will sort itself out, Genie. Things such as these usually do…” she sang as he walked out into the hot tropical sun.
The day was dwindling as Imran walked slowly down Main Bazaar. The area was packed to capacity with magical beings. He saw several posters urging magical beings to petition heads of state to extend the Free Zones around the world, and he could understand why. He looked at the amassed assortment of creatures, amazed they all came to seek refuge in these tiny reservoirs of magic.
As he passed a large tree, Imran noticed a gathering of magical birds. They sat in the shade, their heads lowered, possibly communicating mentally for all he knew. He recognized a phoenix, an enormous roc bird, and—he paused and took another glance. A strange creature with the head and forelegs of a dog, covered in colorful scales with a long peacock-feathered tail, sat with the others watching him silently. Its eyes were the same dark as Imran’s. It was a Simurgh. Deeply ancient, and thought extinct, this benevolent Persian animal sat still in the bustle of Main Bazaar.
Involuntarily, Imran bowed low in honor at the creature, when he heard a serpentine voice behind him.
“He’s alive, you know.”
Imran spun around and found a man-sized, twisted humanoid creature behind him. Imran took another glance at the Simurgh, but it was gone. He only hoped its appearance bode well for him.
“Who?” Imran finally replied, turning back to the creature.
“Omar. He just doesn’t want to be found…but I know. I know.” The creature danced excitedly on the spot.
Imran eyed it with revulsion. It had pale white skin, thick fat lips, and freckles over the bridge of its small nose. It was dressed in modern clothing, well-fitting jeans and a cream linen shirt. Its clawed feet were neatly wrapped in soft leather sandals. The shape and form of the feet clearly indicated this being was several times removed from standard human origins.
“Well, I am sure he wouldn’t appreciate you declaring your knowledge all about the Free Zone,” Imran said curtly, though still interested.
The creature wilted under the criticism, but its watery blue eyes lit up again after a moment. “Do you want to see Omar, eh, Genie? I heard you talkin’ with that old Harpy.” The accent was decidedly Irish and the creature grinned and hopped a moment, obviously overcome with excitement.
Imran did indeed want to see Omar, but he knew taking assistance from this addle-brained creature was likely to cause much more damage than good. If Omar were alive and in hiding, it meant he didn’t want to be hunted down by anyone, and Imran wasn’t going to attempt it with this creature hopping and bouncing with ineptitude.
“Leucosia is a Siren, not a Harpy, and I do not—”
Before Imran could finish, a tall man strode through the crowd, pushing everyone aside in his haste. Imran’s eyes widened momentarily with surprise as the tall man roared when he saw the creature beside him. “Stupid Fomorian!” the man bellowed, his blond hair ablaze in the hot sun. “Silence your tongue!”
The creature next to Imran cowered momentarily, and then turned to run. Without warning, the tall man drew an enormous bronze sword and swept down, killing it instantly.
“Ah, a Fomorian,” Imran murmured to himself as the creature fell to the ground lifeless.
The tall man was Irish and obviously a Tuatha De Danaan warrior. He snarled at Imran. “Leave this place, Genie.”
“Yes, I suppose I should,” Imran agreed as the Fomorian’s blood, red as any human’s, began flowing down the street to the drain.
“Ask no more questions, Genie.”
“No more questions,” Imran said, looking up at the towering ancient Irishman. Through his golden skin, Imran could see blue blood racing through the veins. He wondered why Fomorians and the Tuatha were in the Free Zone. Perhaps the Irish government, like all the other Western governments, was imposing stricter regulations on their magical beings. It was odd, but Imran wisely chose to say nothing.
After taking another glance at the dead Fomorian, Imran was about to dematerialize when the Tuatha spoke again. “Clean it up,” he barked, and Imran noticed the surrounding crowd, who tried ineffectually to avoid looking, gasp. The sharp intake of horror from such a group was too overwhelming to ignore, so Imran turned around to watch. Slowly padding up to the corpse was an enormous Manticore. The body of a tremendous lion with the deformed face of a man parted the crowd, and sniffed the Fomorian.
“The shame of it,” the Manticore growled in a gravelly voice. “If I had my way, I would only feast upon human flesh.” It sniffed the Fomorian corpse again. “Revolting.”
“It is not your way, so clean it up,” the Tuatha said again, nudging the beast with his boot.
The Manticore gave a guttural growl and even the Tuatha took a step back. It flicked its massive tail and struck a small Elven woman standing nearby. She shrieked and pushed her way back into the crowd. The Manticore chuckled and then began to eat.
Imran had seen enough and without further word, he disappeared into smoke.
Chapter Four
With the sound of crushing bone resonating in his ears, Imran appeared at Primrose’s front door. He stood there in the sudden chill of a Perth evening, pondering what he had seen. Omar was alive, he didn’t want anyone to know about him, and he had a Tuatha warrior and a Manticore doing his bidding. Perhaps Omar should be left alone, Imran thought. Perhaps the only way to deal with this is the typical Genie way.
Imran heard Primrose laugh from within the house, and quite involuntarily his heart leaped at the sound. I have to get out of this mess, he decided. I will have to trick her into wishing. Again he heard Primrose’s laugh followed by Ian’s. Annoyance flushed through him, and he hesitated irritably before entering. She probably doesn’t want me to return anyway, he thought somewhat morosely. It was disturbing for Imran to realize just how weary of life he was. He smiled ruefully to himself. It may have taken over three hundred years, but he was finally beginning to feel the Genie curse was actually a punishment, not simply a way of life.
Slowly Imran walked into the house, knowing Primrose would be annoyed if he simply appeared inside. The house smelled like coffee and baked cookies, and instantly he felt hungry. Materializing and dematerializing over long distances took a lot of energy, so Imran felt a little weak. He walked quietly into the living
room. The rest of the house was in darkness except for the flickering of the television. Primrose lay on the couch with her head on Ian’s lap, and both were laughing at something amusing on the television. Again, Imran felt a hot wave of annoyance, bordering on jealousy.
“I’m back,” he said dryly. “Miss me, Primrose?”
Primrose was nearly airborne with the speed at which she launched off Ian’s lap.
“Imran!” she shrieked, her cheeks visibly red in the dim room.
Ian looked thoroughly pissed off. “Where have you been, mate? I thought you’d done a runner,” he muttered.
Imran gave him a dismissive glance and looked at Primrose instead of replying.
“You could have called,” she said a little sharply, her cheeks slowly regaining their normal color.
“You could have too,” Imran countered.
“I had no idea when you’d be back…If you’d be back.” Primrose all but whispered.
There were many things Imran would have liked to have said, but with Ian’s glowering presence, it wasn’t the time or the place.
“You knew I’d be back,” Imran replied. “Is there any coffee left? You know, after all that travel, I am exhausted.”
“Tell me all about it.” She spoke with a hint of command in her voice. “I’ll get you coffee and dinner if you like. It’s only Bolognese, but I did make cookies for sweets.” Primrose grinned, obviously delighted at having Imran back.
“You’re not his bloody wife!” Ian barked as Primrose walked into the kitchen. “He can get it himself!”
Imran glared at him through heavy-lidded eyes. Ian fell quiet.
“She never does that for me!” he reluctantly grumbled.
“Perhaps if you acted more like a gentleman and less like a bull in a rut, she might,” Imran quipped and followed Primrose into the kitchen, leaving Ian with his mouth agape.
In the kitchen, Primrose poured Imran a cup of sweet, hot coffee from the percolator. He sipped it gratefully.
“How did your trip go? Did you find the magician?” she asked.
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