Tales of the Djinn: The Guardian (37 page)

“Why are there so many—” She cut off her own
question. She wasn’t looking at statues. The poses and the lack of
bases weren’t right for that.

The white objects were people who had been
turned to stone.

“Oh,” she said, jerking with the realization.
“Who did that to all of them?”

“The sorceress cursed us,” Arcadius said.

She lowered the binoculars to gape at him.
“The sorceress from Joseph’s story?”

“Yes.” His mouth tightened, his lips pressed
into a thin line. “Luna’s thirst for vengeance wasn’t satisfied by
murdering Najat. She was still obsessed with Iksander. She told him
she’d destroy his city if he didn’t marry her and make her
queen.”

“She was that powerful?”

“It was a terrible magic. She gave up her own
life to perform it.”

“Wow.” Elyse leaned sideways on the wall,
unable to look away from his troubled face. “If I’m going to help,
you’d better tell me everything.”

“Elyse, I’m not explaining this to get your
help.”

“Maybe you should. I’ve been handy more than
once before.”

“This isn’t your responsibility.”

“But you’re acting like it’s all yours!”

Her anger took him aback. Elyse poked his
hard breastbone. “I don’t care
what
happened. No way is this
all your fault.”

“I was the guardian. I
am
the
guardian. Saving the city is my job.”

“So do your job. Use all the resources at
your disposal. I am a resource. Just like Joseph. I’m not a
magician but maybe I’ll see something you two haven’t.”

Arcadius looked doubtful.

“I helped us escaped the sheikh,” she pointed
out. “And found the door that brought us to your world in the first
place. Like it or not, I’m part of the team.”

The corners of his mouth turned down. “I want
you to be safe.”

“I want
you
to be safe,” she retorted.
“And Joseph. And that amazing city full of people. If I have
something to offer, let me try. Tell me what happened.
Please
, Arcadius.”

The “please” got to him. When he sighed, the
sound was a mix of weariness and relief.

“All right,” he surrendered. “I’ll do my best
to tell you what’s important.”

~

Arcadius knew he ought to sit down for this.
He led Elyse back to the overlook’s curving steps. She lowered
herself next to him, her warm side leaning into his. Helpless not
to, he put his arm around her shoulders.

* * *

The nuns weren’t long in discovering Najat’s
death. Naturally, they sent word of it to Iksander. I’m not sure I
can describe what her loss did to him. He went a little crazy with
guilt and grief, but after that he grew very calm. He called Philip
back to the palace—pardoning him, I suppose, though he didn’t
formally say so. I doubt Philip wanted an apology. He had his own
reasons to feel guilty.

In any case, the three of us—myself, Joseph,
and Philip—were summoned to meet Iksander in his private office the
same night Philip returned. We weren’t certain what we’d discuss. A
memorial for Najat? An inquiry into her murder? Only I was an
official advisor to the throne. The rest were simply Iksander’s
friends. When we arrived, Philip’s father the Vizier was present.
Of all Iksander’s cabinet, the sultan probably trusted Murat most.
Murat had also served Iksander’s father and was experienced. He
stood slightly behind Iksander, who sat at his fine large desk.
Both looked extremely serious.

We saw immediately that the sultan was once
again his true self.

In that moment, his true self was angry.
Because he was too overwrought to speak, Murat explained that
Empress Luna had conveyed certain demands to him. Not only did she
want Iksander to forsake all other women and marry her, she wished
to rule the Glorious City instead of him. She’d allow him to keep
his title, but she’d make all the decisions. If he refused, she’d
wreak such destruction on his people that Iksander’s name would be
remembered for nothing else. His city’s terrible defeat would
become his legacy.

“That’s ridiculous,” Philip said in his
passionate way. “Her army might be as large as ours but I doubt
it’s half as good.”

My spies told me this was true. The upper
ranks of Luna’s military were corrupt, more interested in the
perquisites of their posts than in training or caring for their
troops.

“Unfortunately,” Murat said, “she doesn’t
plan to defeat us by force of arms.”

“Then how?” I asked, unaware she had other
means.

“Show him,” Iksander said tightly.

Iksander’s private office was separated from
his salon by a curtained arch. Murat strode to it and pulled the
drape aside. Behind it a realistic sculpture of a young boy
appeared, perhaps five years of age. Dressed in play clothes, he
rolled a hoop with a stick and laughed. The various pieces
interconnected delicately.

“That’s lovely!” Philip exclaimed, his
artistic mind distracted by the work’s quality.

“It is the grandson of the Minister of
Agriculture,” Murat said grimly.

Still, we didn’t understand.

“It
is
his grandson,” Iksander said,
rage causing his voice to shake. “Not a likeness. Luna used magic
to turn the boy to stone.”

This struck even Joseph speechless.

“If you can undo this,” Iksander said to him,
“I’d be very happy to have you try. The minister has had half a
dozen mages attempt it already.”

“I will do everything in my power,” Joseph
said carefully. “I confess, however, that this may be beyond me.
Now that you’ve drawn my attention to what it is, I can sense the
boy’s spirit within the stone. He’s alive, but his consciousness is
locked to the . . . being force of the marble, for lack of a better
term. I’m not sure I can extricate him without doing more
damage.”

“There must be some way,” Philip said.

I knew Joseph pretty well. He had served me a
long time. I suspected he was doing his utmost to avoid saying
there was no hope at all.

“What if we kill the person who cast the
spell?” Iksander asked. “Would that improve your chances of lifting
it?”

“Considerably,” Joseph said. Thoughtful now,
he crouched down to gently examine the boy’s statue. “The problem
is, a mage strong enough to do this will also be able to protect
himself from attacks.”

“Herself,” Iksander corrected. “Empress Luna
cast the spell. She—” He swallowed. “She informed me she is the
person who killed Najat. She has turned ifrit. This magic was
powered by a blood sacrifice. She assures me she’d be delighted to
spill more.”

“She is ifrit?” I said, startled by this
news. “Why haven’t her people deposed her?”

“Evidently, the City of Endless Night isn’t
as particular about these things as one would expect God-fearing
djinn to be.”

We had dark djinn in our city but they were a
minority. Ifrits weren’t always evil. Some were simply born to
ifrit parents. To
turn
dark, however, was a thing most light
djinn avoided. Hell is a real place to us. We’d rather not burn for
eternity.

“What do you wish of us, sir?” Joseph asked
respectfully.

“Too many things,” Iksander said, “but I must
ask all the same. Joseph, I would like you to oversee the
investigation into how we can get around Luna’s magic. We need to
weaken her defenses so we can kill her, or somehow shield the city
from succumbing to this boy’s fate. I know it’s a tall order.
Please enlist whatever help you need—discreetly, if you can, so as
not to start a panic.”

Next, the sultan turned to me. “Arcadius, I
want you to organize an evacuation plan. I know your men will fight
but if fighting does no good, our people must have the opportunity
to escape.”

“And me?” Philip asked.

Iksander looked at his friend, whom he had
briefly cast aside but now brought into the fold again. The regret
he felt at their recent history was clear in his expression. “From
you, dear friend, I need one last cause for hope if all else
fails.”

“I don’t understand,” Philip said.

“Do you recall how you imbued the ability to
take animal form into Arcadius’s raven tattoo?”

“Of course.” It was Philip’s gift to combine
art and magic, in whatever medium.

“I wish you to accomplish something more
complicated for the people in this room. We need an escape hatch
Luna is ignorant of. Only then can we mount a rescue if worse comes
to worse and our city is petrified.”

“You have a means in mind,” Philip
guessed.

“I’m hoping we can exploit the magic that
mirror spaces run on to create copies of ourselves, into which we
could project our consciousness. Joseph is a better authority than
myself, but if we did this near a portal, it seems to me we could
send our copies into the human realm. There they could gather
strength for a return. Most curses can be undone with time. We’d
have another chance to save our people.”

“That seems . . . possible,” Joseph said.
“And certainly creative. Are you thinking Philip could encapsulate
a trigger in a tattoo?”

“I am,” Iksander said.

“It would require a great deal of power,”
Philip mused. “And I cannot do blood magic. If I attempt this, I
don’t think we’d be able to test the process beforehand.”

“I will forego the honor, if that makes it
easier,” Murat said.

“Father!” Philip protested.

Murat lifted his hands. “I am an old man. I’d
rather wait here in the faith that you’d rescue me than go
gallivanting among humans.”

We discussed it further—argued, truth be
told—but in the end, it was settled. We would perform our tasks as
Iksander had assigned them.

Iksander tried to buy us time by requesting a
chance to think on Luna’s gracious offer. She wasn’t interested.
She gave him one more day to make up his mind.

She set a deadline of midnight. The sultan
called me to his office a single hour before his response was due.
To my surprise, he was alone. He stood beside a tall window,
holding back the drape to gaze over his city. The fateful letter
lay on his desk, lacking only his signature. Though he must have
heard me enter, my friend didn’t turn around.

“I have refused her,” he said, “using every
flowery plea for mercy I know. I doubt my pretty manners will help
but I thought I ought to try.”

He seemed to be soliciting my opinion. “You
have to turn her down,” I said.

“Do I?” Iksander twisted his head to me.
“Should I not throw myself on the pyre to save my people, even if
it means pleasuring the woman who killed my wife?”

“No!” I exclaimed, shocked that he’d suggest
it. “Luna is a dark ifrit. You know they love suffering. If you set
her on our city’s throne, she will not stop at tormenting you. I
promise you, there will come a day when your people curse you for
preserving them. It is better to be turned to stone than to live
under a thumb as depraved as hers.”

Iksander let the curtain fall across the
window again. “Maybe.” He turned fully around to me. His face was
strange: not simply melancholy but also guilt ridden. “I have
pleasured her already.”

“What?” I asked, my brow furrowing.

“She was one of the women I visited in my
madness. I didn’t know she was the sorceress who tricked and killed
Najat, but it is likely I am responsible for her obsession.”

Perhaps my reaction was influenced by the
strain we were under. I laughed at him.

“Forgive me,” I said once I’d recovered.
“Though I’ve heard you’re a gifted lover, it’s clear to me Luna
built her own obsession. She lusted after your city before she
lusted after you. It was happenstance that you also attracted her.
I can see it bothers you to have slept with her, but if you hadn’t,
I wager she’d have found some other reason for perpetrating these
horrors. This is no more your doing than it is Najat’s for
inspiring you to love only her.”

I hoped I’d hit on the words to get through
to him.

Iksander rubbed his forehead. “So I should
reject her.”

“It is my firm opinion that you must,” I
replied.

I still had hope when he signed that letter
and magically sent it off. My troops were disciplined and brave,
our people doughty, and I believed Joseph had made headway in
finding weaknesses in Luna’s magic from which to gain advantage.
Philip had given us our tattoos: small overlapped twin suns that we
wore inside our right ankles. Considering the unpredictable
situation, we were as ready as anyone could be.

Alas, we didn’t have the interim we believed.
Upon receiving Iksander’s refusal, the empress used sorcery to
transport herself and her entire army from the City of Endless
Night. The following morning, a great host stood massed outside our
walls.

When I tried to put my evacuation plan in
motion, we discovered Luna’s magic had sealed off our escape
routes. Unable to flee by land or sky, we prepared for her army to
scale the walls. The empress had other plans. Her army, who she’d
dressed in black for effect, began to march around us, thousands
upon thousands of booted feet all thumping in synchrony. You may
imagine the noise spread fear, but it wasn’t the worst of what we
witnessed. Luna’s sorcerers strode in the center of the tramping
sea of soldiers. They carried her on a spell-shielded palanquin,
where she periodically sacrificed living creatures over a cauldron
and chanted. Her sorcerers chanted too, in the old tongue skilled
practitioners master.

During the course of that first day, they
circled our city once. My men attacked them from the ramparts, but
couldn’t kill enough of them to disrupt their march. I suppose it’s
pointless to describe the battles. Suffice to say, many lives were
lost on both sides.

The second day unfolded much the same as the
first. The main difference was that Luna began sacrificing larger
animals. We knew she was tightening a magical noose around us in
preparation to cast her curse. No defense we mounted was
successful, whether involving our own mages or conventional arms.
Our last hope was a stratagem Joseph concocted.