The Lessons Never Learned, page 21
"Where am I?"
"I just told you. You are in my world. It's not as large as the one you're used to. What you see is pretty much it."
It was a maddeningly vague answer. "Am I inside the crown?"
The flames shifted, drawing a little closer to me. I could feel the heat of them, and I realised then that I felt warm. Not just on my broken, blistered skin, but all the way through. I felt warm like I hadn't since Ssserakis had first possessed me.
"Yes and no. No and yes. You wouldn't understand. You creatures have such primitive intelligence, even after they changed you."
I bristled, as I ever have when someone questions my intelligence. "Try me."
"Very well. You are in what I like to call a pocket realm. It exists both inside, and outside of the world you know. It is mine in its entirety. Every bit of it was designed and brought into creation by my will. It exists within my crown, but also entirely outside of everything you know as the world."
The flames were right. I didn't understand. I assumed the crown was some sort of portal, but that was far from the truth. And it didn't answer the question of where I really was. "And you're Vainfold?"
"Yes." The flames dipped into what I assumed was a bow, it was oddly mocking.
I took the opportunity to check over my body. It was not like visiting the Other World; my body was there. I could move and touch myself; I could feel the pain of pinching my cheek. My burns still hurt, but the pain seemed a distant thing; unimportant. I was neither ethereal, nor dreaming. I looked inside for Ssserakis and found nothing but a void where the horror should have been. It didn't answer when I called it, and I felt nothing of its presence. I was alone, empty, terrified. I was so used to the horror's presence, it's company. It tormented me, yes, it was a curse, but it was always there. I relied upon it. I hate being alone. I have always hated being alone. Ssserakis saved me from ever feeling that. It was my secret passenger. My company when all others left me. Gone. I felt abandoned.
"What are you?" I asked, trying to focus my thoughts away from the emptiness.
The flames shifted angrily. "How quickly you creatures forget your masters. I am Djinn."
I shook my head at that, so certain of myself. "The Djinn are all dead."
"Are we?"
I shrugged. "It's a widely accepted fact."
The flames laughed at me. "And there you prove your ignorance, creature. It cannot be a fact for it is not true. A fact must be a truth, backed up with reason, logic, and proof. What you claim to be an accepted fact is actually a widely accepted rumour, conjecture. A falsehood. The Djinn cannot all be dead, for I am not dead." Again, the flames drew closer, the heat of them scorching my already blackened skin. "And I'm not the only one. In fact, there are more of us left than there are Rand. I believe that means we won."
I didn't believe the flames. Everything we had been taught back at the academy about history told us the Djinn were all dead, and the only survivor of their war with the Rand, a war between gods, was Silva's mother. "You're a little small to be a Djinn."
Again, the laugh. "Would you prefer a towering inferno?" The flames grew, swirling around and around until a massive vortex of fire blasted the land beneath our feet. It was so hot I couldn't help but back away, shielding my face with blackened hands. Two fiery arms reached out of that maddening whirlwind of flames. In one hand, lava bubbled up and dripped away to reveal a giant sword, red as blood and dripping something foul and black. In the other hand, a hammer shimmered to life from the flames, and at the centre of the hammer blazed a light so bright I couldn't look at it. "Do I impress you now, little terran?" The voice no longer sounded like a crackling hearth, but more like a forest fire, wild and out of control, mesmerising in its danger. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't impressed. I was also fairly convinced that the creature was in fact a Djinn.
The Djinn raised both sword and hammer high, and then brought them crashing down around me. The hammer sent chunks of rock leaping from the earth, and molten magma started forming beneath it. The sword drove point first into the ground and sat there smoking. I backed away another step, awe and fear warring within me. Over the years I have found it important, when dealing with Djinn or Rand, not to make them angry. Even weakened they are terrible creatures with power beyond reckoning. Unfortunately, I have a habit of not taking my own advice and I've never met a Rand or Djinn I didn't eventually make my enemy. I'm really quite good at pissing people off.
From the bottom of the vortex, where the fire touched the earth, stepped the smaller figure of flames. The vortex slowed and faded away as though on a strong wind, and the smaller flames walked towards me. The hammer and sword remained, embedded in the ground. "You little creatures are so easy to impress." The voice was back to a warmly crackling hearth, full of good humour.
"So, if you're still alive, why not show yourself like the Rand? Why let everyone think you're dead?"
"Because I'm trapped. I suppose I might as well educate you as long as you're here. Tell me, little terran. What do you know of the war between Rand and Djinn?" There was an intensity to the question. The Djinn was just waiting for me to prove my ignorance once again. I didn't disappoint.
"You were once like gods, living in harmony…"
The flames laughed at me; the interruption obvious. I was starting to realise this Djinn loved the sound of its own voice. More than that, I think it loved having a rapt audience. "You little creatures have an odd concept of harmony. Does the sea live in harmony with the land? Does fire live in harmony with water? Does light live in harmony with dark? We tolerated the Rand and they embarrassed us, deceived us. They tried to destroy what we created. They sought to seed our world with parasites. And eventually, even after we tried to make peace, they made a mockery of us. Harmony? Hatred! Opposition! War!" With each word the flames grew brighter and hotter until I had to back away and shield my face.
"But you created the world together?"
The laughter that burst forth was like a volcano erupting. Great plumes of fire shot into the air around us. "The world you know was there long before the Djinn and Rand, and we are as bound by its laws as you are. Different laws, but they exist all the same. It is those laws that doomed both our people."
"What does that mean?" I had to shout to be heard over the roaring fire of the creature.
The flames shrunk down again, the anger there simmering to a festering hatred. "Continue your story, little terran."
I thought back to all the history books I had read, all the bard tales of crafty warriors tricking Djinn, and princes begging boons from Rand. They all seemed so inadequate now I was confronted with a creature they all claimed long dead. But then, there are always rumours. Back at the academy, I had heard the Iron Legion had found a Djinn and bested it in some manner. I couldn't help but wonder if that Djinn was Vainfold? Had Prince Loran donned the crown before me? Had he stood where I did at that moment, matching wills with a god? If so, how had he beaten it?
"You started the war." I paused, expecting the Djinn to argue and grow enraged once more, but the creature stayed silent save the flames of its form dancing away. "No one knows why. I've heard it said it was for vengeance over a lost life. Some people say it was to seize control of the world for yourselves. Others say it was a war for the lives of the rest of us; terran, pahht, garn. The only thing all the stories agree on is that the Djinn started the war and lost it."
The Djinn was silent for a while and I got the feeling its attention was elsewhere. I wondered where else it might be, trapped inside the crown with me. "We struck the first blow," the flames said eventually. "But the Rand started the war. We asked them for a favour, and they twisted it into an insult. It was our way of pursuing peace, an attempt to create something together. Something to rival the birth of your world. Something new. Something different. Something of both of us, Djinn and Rand. They made mockery of our venture and gave birth to a slight. We knew then, there would be no peace between us. There could be no harmony. There would be war. We struck first, killing one of them. Her name was Yuestethan, the Light, and until her death we didn't even know if we could die."
I felt an itch deep within my chest, as though something was scratching away behind my ribs, but I ignored it, determined to learn the truth of the Djinn's war with the Rand. It was curiosity, but also something else. I wanted to know the secret. I wanted to know what no one in the world knew. A truth that was mine and mine alone, unless I chose to share it.
"For every one of them we killed, one of our own fell. They struck back, killing us even as we killed them. For your kind with your meaningless lives, generations passed. Terrans huddled behind their walls of stone while the land shook with our war."
"I've seen the scars your war left on the world," I said.
The flames laughed, a bitter crackling of dying embers. "No, you haven't. Our war left no scars. It reshaped Ovaeris. Eventually some of us started to tire of the war. We saw how it must end, in mutual destruction. The Rand saw it too, of course, and they made their own plans. For us, some of us, we tried to escape the cycle. And so, my crown came into being. I created this place, a realm outside of the world, to escape the laws your world imposed upon us. I fled here, escaping the fighting and devious machinations of the Rand. I wasn't the only one. Keratoll, the Learned, made his home within a book. Geneus, the Guiding Light, fled into a lamp. Aerolis, the Changing, was the boldest of us and made his home deep in the heart of Do'shan, binding the city to his whim."
"And you, Vainfold, chose a crown of fire?"
The flames laughed and grew to a blistering radiance. "Vainfold, the Eternal. And the crown was made of wood before I made it the home of my realm."
"And yet the war is over. Centuries old. Everyone believes the Djinn lost. Everyone thinks you're all dead. So why not leave?" Again, I was shouting over the roaring flames.
"Because I can't. I am trapped here. The power of Djinn is shared and bolstered between us all. As more of us perished, our power waned. I tried to leave once the war was over, but I no longer have the power to tear myself free of this prison I created. I am stuck here for eternity." The flames turned towards me and grew intense. "But thanks to you I again have my measure of freedom. And with your body I will finish what we started so long ago and carve the last of the Rand from the world."
I felt the itching grow stronger and clutched at my chest, wincing through the discomfort and pain. "What do you mean?"
The flames laughed, like a roaring fire fed too much fuel. "Your mind is here, little terran, but your body is still there, my crown sitting upon your head. It belongs to me now. I must remember to feed it. The last body died after just a few days because it weakened so."
I tried to wake up. To flee back to my body, but I couldn't. I didn't know how. Panic started to set in. I think I can be excused that, at least to some degree. Wounded beyond repair and on the verge of death, I may be, but my body was mine. The thought of the Djinn walking around in my skin made me feel ill. What destruction it might cause in my name? What damage might it do to those I loved? Not just my friends; Hardt, Tamura, Imiko. Silva. No, not just them. The Djinn meant to take the war to Ro'shan, to kill the Rand. And Kento was somewhere up in that city. My daughter, lost to me she might be, was still my daughter, and I wasn't about to let the Djinn harm her. I couldn't. I couldn't die knowing that a god would use my body to destroy the thing I loved most. I had to stop it. Somehow I had to take back control.
The itching grew stronger still, turning into a cold lance of pain. I staggered forwards, closing on the flames of the Djinn regardless of the heat. "No!" I shouted at it, clutching at my chest. "I won't let you…" The pain grew so intense I collapsed onto my knees, struggling to breathe. I had failed. I was dying.
My shadow grew beneath me, turning pitch black and pooling like water around my legs. Then the pain eased as that pool of shadow separated from me and coalesced into something ancient and horrific.
Chapter 30
"Nightmare!" The Djinn somehow made that word a damning accusation.
Ssserakis rose from the shadow, a formless black that seemed so out of place in the fiery landscape. The horror didn't so much take a shape as it did convulse, as though it couldn't decide on its appearance. I will admit to both relief and joy at seeing Ssserakis. The horror tormented me relentlessly, poking at my fears to feed itself, reacting to my anger to scare others, but I had missed it. Missed its company, its cold reassurance. It's strength.
The flames of the Djinn grew in intensity until I could feel the heat of them even half a dozen paces away. "Deceitful abomination, you are not welcome here. Leave this place."
Ssserakis seemed to bubble and I could feel its anger as clearly my own. We were connected again, our shadows mingling into one inky substance that seemed far too real to be shadow. This body is mine, Djinn. I have claimed it. You are not welcome here.
The Djinn started to swirl and grow once more into the whirling vortex of fire. "I will purge your existence, as we should have done the instant of your creation." Its voice grew louder as the vortex swelled in size. A blaze. A roaring inferno. A fire long since past any hope of control.
Ssserakis laughed, cold as ice and carrying all the menace of an assassin's blade. You have grown weaker, Djinn, and I have grown stronger than the Rand ever dreamed.
I have never been very good at standing by while others decide my fate. I stepped forward, placing myself between the two monsters. "This body is mine! And neither of you are welcome in it. I may be on the verge of death, but I will see you both cast out before I let you hurt anyone with my hands." I must admit, I had no idea how to back up my threat. Trapped inside the crown, I didn't have access to the Sources inside my stomach, and I doubted punching a tornado of fire would do much but make the burned wreckage of my hands even worse. Besides, what good would it do beating the Djinn there? We needed to find a way back to my body.
A great arm burst out of the Djinn and a hand gripped hold of the sword still embedded in the ground. Another erupted and took hold of the hammer. Ssserakis turned to me, inky shadow roiling in anticipation.
You have been pushed out, Eskara. The Djinn fills your body with fire and covers the world in flames. I had a sudden vision of my body, wearing the Crown of Vainfold, surrounded by the burning ruins of Picarr. The flames were spreading, growing stronger and hotter every moment as the Djinn pushed more and more of its power into my failing body. But I am the link you need. I have clawed my way past his defences. Neither of us can reclaim your corpse by ourselves, but together…
The horror was right. Even channelling so much of its power through my real body, the Djinn was too strong for us. It was, after all, a god. A diminished god, but still a god. It wrenched its fiery sword from the ground, preparing to swing and end both of us.
Ssserakis knew the moment I agreed even without words. The inky shadow rushed over me, into me, filling me and surrounding me in a blackness that was in no way dark. Tendrils shot out of my right hand even as the Djinn's sword fell, wrapped around the blade and hardened, stopping the sword dead, and in that moment, I saw something in the vortex of fire. I don't know how exactly, but I saw it hesitate. I saw the Djinn doubt itself. A god showing weakness.
The shadow continued to bubble around me, flowing out of my skin, surrounding me and lifting me up. I found myself held in a cocoon of darkness that responded to my will. And more than that, I felt the power of the Sources inside of me once more. The bridge Ssserakis created between my world and this one let my power cross over. Arcmancy and Kinemancy and freezing shadows, all fuelled by the fear I had been feeding Ssserakis for months. I didn't know if it would be enough to beat the Djinn, but I did know that I had no other choice. No other chance. In order to reclaim what was left of my body, in order to protect Ro'shan and the child I had abandoned there, I had to fight a god of fire. I couldn't afford to lose. For Kento's sake, I would cast the god out of me.
The Djinn pulled on its sword, ripping the blade free of our shadowy grasp, at the same time raising the hammer high above. The shadow form was clumsy to move, slow and sluggish, so we raised an arm, forming a shield of kinetic energy just in time to block the hammer blow. As far as we were aware, such a thing had never been done with Kinemancy before, a physical shield formed of energy that we could hold onto. But we had no time to appreciate the discovery. With our other hand we sent jagged black spikes shooting from the writhing shadow pool below us. They pierced into the heart of the fire storm and we drew on the Arcmancy Source to send lightning bolting along them. If the attack did any damage to the Djinn we couldn't tell. The swirling fire ate away at the shadowy spikes until they faded into the light, and the magma dripping from the hammer was eating away at the kinetic shield.
The Djinn thrust with its sword and we lurched to the side away from the blow, the shadow cocoon around us absorbing the force and wrapping around the blade, holding it tight. But that, too, played into the Djinn's hand. The fiery vortex drew closer, burning brighter and hotter than before. Our shadows were pulled apart by the flames, ripped from our form to scatter and fade to nothing. We screamed from the searing pain of the blaze and willed the icy shadows to erupt around us, pushing back the vortex and freezing the magma forming beneath us.
Like hundreds of grasping hands, we willed the shadows to reach out of the black pool, snatching at the Djinn, clinging to its arms and its weapons, freezing whatever they could. We heard the Djinn howl and it drew back for a moment, pulling back its sword and then cutting away all the shadows with a single blazing slash. The hammer followed the sword again, crashing down upon us once more. We raised both hands just in time and enveloped the weapon in a mass of inky darkness, slowing the blow just before it crushed our body at the centre of the shadow. I could feel the heat of the magma dripping from the hammer, eating into our shadows even as we tried to freeze it.
