Alaskan Fury (8 page)

His obvious discomfort giving her
the strength she needed to continue, she ventured, “The girls I’ve spoken to
that you’ve taken to room with you…  The wolves, and before them, the harlots
and the whores…  Everywhere we go, they say you cannot bed them, when the time
comes for the act.  Is this true?”

He reddened, his body becoming
rigid under her appraisal.  He cleared his throat, glancing at his feet.  “It’s
true.”

A djinni cannot lie,
she
thought, stunned.  While he could twist words to suit him, they always had to
be true, by Fourthlander Law, or he would forfeit his power as a djinni. 
“Why?” she demanded.

The djinni moved gravel with his
toes, digging them under the sand.  It took him a moment to say, “Let it
suffice to say I made a wish for myself, as a young fool.”

“What kind of wish?” she asked,
warily.

He lifted his violet eyes to
glare at her.  “The stupid kind.”

“So you can’t bed women?” she
asked, biting her lip against hope.

“I can’t bed women,” he growled
in agreement.  “Not that it’s any of your business, mon Dhi’b.”

A djinni could not lie.  And
Kaashifah could not see how he could twist
those
particular words. 
Immediately, she wondered what kind of curse a djinni could put on himself to
leave him with such a fate.

“Then…” she frowned.  “You bed
men?” 

“I can bed men,” ‘Aqrab agreed
reluctantly.  The words sounded as if they’d been dragged from his throat by a
hyena.

“But not women,” Kaashifah
insisted, just to make sure.

“I can’t bed women,” the djinni
snapped.  “How many times must I say it?”  He almost sounded irritated that the
words were coming from his throat, almost as if he hadn’t expected them to be
true.

He couldn’t spear her.  He
couldn’t break her maidenhead.  The knowledge was so utterly
relieving
to her that Kaashifah slumped back against the fallen spruce behind her,
suddenly needing to sit down.  “All this time, you let me believe…” she began,
as her eyes darted unwillingly towards the silk covering his groin before she
dragged them away again.  “You were just being
cruel
.”

“The fact remains,” the djinni
growled.  “I can’t bed women.  And, with your last wish still binding us, you
have nothing to fear of me.  Thus, free me of your damned shadows, mon Dhi’b. 
I’m not going to hurt you.”

“I’m more afraid of you
touching
me,” Kaashifah growled.

Irritation flashed in the
djinni’s violet eyes.  “I told you I reached the point in my life where I could
avoid touching you, if necessary.”

“Yet you haven’t told me you
won’t
touch me,” Kaashifah retorted.

“Of course I won’t tell you
that,” ‘Aqrab snapped back.  “Then what will I do if I need to save you again? 
You would have me take the time to swaddle you in cloth to avoid contacting you
with my skin?”  He gave a derisive snort and reached down to grab a pebble and
toss it into the silty gray Yentna River.

“That
would
be
preferable,” Kaashifah muttered, remembering the way her skin had broiled. 
Still, in comparison to hanging from an Inquisitor’s rack, her blood draining
into a basin at her feet, she supposed it had been a small price to pay.

“Forgive me if I didn’t take the
time to swaddle you before I
rescued
you,” ‘Aqrab growled, glancing at
her.  “You’ve heard my offer, mon Dhi’b.  Your sword for your shadows.  I’m not
going to make it again.”

Still, Kaashifah hesitated, her
eyes once more falling, unbidden, to the filth at his groin.  She had the
sudden need to delve further into the djinni’s latest revelation, to find the
core of the matter.  “This wish of yours…  It was to never bed another woman?”

‘Aqrab paused in plucking another
pebble from the beach and hesitated, staring down at the sand for several
breaths before he stood up to face her.  Kaashifah had learned that the djinni
always made such pauses when he was about to weave words, and even as he opened
his mouth to lie to her, she lifted a hand.  “Never mind, djinni.  I will not
hear your twisted truths.  What you did to curse yourself is your own
business.  Lift your deathbed curse from my shoulders, give me the ability to
defend myself once more, and I will relinquish my hold on the shadows.”

Mouth still open, mid-lie, the
djinni gave her a narrow look.  “Very well.  Let us make it official.  Wrap it
in Law.”  Even then, his eyes began to glow a stark violet against the dying light.

“
No
!” Kaashifah snarled.

Immediately, the djinni’s eyes
lost their luminescence.  He frowned at her.  “‘No?’”

“No,” she repeated.  “I’ve spent
too long watching you spin your words to allow you to wind me into another of
your spells, djinni.  We will do this as adults.”

He gave her an irritated look. 
“The last time you mentioned dealing with each other as adults, mon Dhi’b, you
were telling me you wanted to cut off my head.”

“
First
,” Kaashifah said,
ignoring him, “you will revoke your curse and return to me my ability to kill. 
Only
then
will I surrender my hold on the shadows.”

The djinni raised his eyebrows
and laughed.  “You want
me
to trust
you
?”

“One of us will have to go
first,” Kaashifah told him, “and, considering the way you wove my last two wishes
into oblivion, I am certainly not going to trust
you
.”

The djinni wrinkled his nose as
if he smelled something foul.  “It is not my fault you left gaping holes in
your request.”

“You intentionally
put
them there,” Kaashifah snapped back.  “You knew exactly what I wanted.”

He glared at her.  “You wanted
the ability to kill me, mon Dhi’b.”

“I wanted the same thing you’re
offering now,” Kaashifah growled.  “What gives me any assurance you are not
once again twisting your words to suit you?”

“Because I
offered
it,”
the djinni snapped back.  “It’s a
gift
, you unlovable sand-mite.”

Kaashifah shrugged.  “Then let it
be a gift.  That is my counter-offer.  You go first. 
You
trust
me
. 
Then I will return the favor.”

He blinked at her, obviously
realizing his own mistake.  For a moment, he only stared at her in silence. 
“And if you don’t?” he demanded.  “If you simply take my gift and don’t
reciprocate, I’ve lost my only real bargaining chip in all of this.”

“I think,” Kaashifah said, “that
you are running out of options, djinni.”  She glanced north, upriver. 
“Somewhere up there, I am going to find a dragon who would
love
to get
his talons on a djinni.  If I am not freed of my curses by then, he might just
get it.”

“Might.”

Kaashifah shrugged.  “With this
many missing, the Inquisitors are taking them somewhere large.  A compound of
some sort.  Close, because it would be difficult to smuggle them out of state. 
I might need a bargaining chip to gain the dragons’ help in an assault, if I
must use my blood-debt to remove the Third Lander possession from my veins.”

For some time, the djinni only
scowled at her.  Finally, though, he muttered, “We might be able to work
something out, mon Dhi’b.”

Immediately, Kaashifah’s
suspicions surged.  Never had the djinni been this willing to cooperate, and it
was setting off her every internal alarm.  “You have
never
been this
complacent before, ‘Aqrab.  What is your game?”

The djinni gave her a fierce
look.  “The events of the past day and a half have forced me to look at things
in a different light.”

“What kind of light?” she asked,
wariness building.

“The
compromising
kind,”
he snapped.  “Do you
swear
to me you will relinquish your shadow if I
lift my curse?  I want an oath on your Lord’s pendant.”

Kaashifah’s hand immediately went
to the winged sword at her neck in horror.  “Absolutely not.”  She was not
about to profane her symbol with an oath of concession to a male.

He narrowed his eyes at her. 
“And yet you expect me to believe you will fulfill your half of the bargain?”

“It’s not a bargain,” Kaashifah
reminded him, all-too-careful not to mince words with a djinni, lest he
‘mistake’ her words for agreement to his ‘bargain.’  “You said so yourself.  We
are
gifting
each other something the other desires.  There is no bargain
involved.”

The djinni made a disgusted sound
and turned on heel, his bare feet crunching against gravel as he strode down
the riverbank, leaving her alone.

Realizing he was headed north,
towards the dragons, Kaashifah unconcernedly began to follow him.  In face of
the djinni’s stubbornness, it would be many weeks before she could help the
phoenix, especially with winter fast approaching.  The snow in the mountains
could sometimes get over ten feet deep, and the hundreds of miles of forest and
riverlands between Skwentna and the Brooks Range would be rough and treacherous
going.  Fallen trees, tangles of brush, thin ice, and swaths of devil’s club
made the woodlands a hazardous, painful trek, even without snow to hide its
obstacles from the surface.  The cold, too, would be difficult to withstand,
even with her shields to shelter her.  Temperatures in Interior Alaska often
dropped to more than negative forty degrees Fahrenheit, during the darkest
parts of winter, and Kaashifah’s coats and winter gear had all been destroyed
by the Inquisitors.

Kaashifah just hoped she could
reach the dragons in time…

A few hundred feet up the river,
the djinni twisted back on her suddenly, his eyes aglow.  Before she could pull
away, ‘Aqrab reached out like a viper and grabbed her by the arm.  His voice a
concussive, triple-toned thunder powered by the magic of the Fourth Lands, he
boomed, “Very well, Kaashifah, Maiden of the Sword, Angel of Vengeance, Erinyes
of Grecian lore.  I hereby lift the curse I made upon my knees, at the oasis of
Tafilat.”

Even as Kaashifah was flinching
backwards from the djinni’s touch, she felt the ancient weave that ‘Aqrab had
long ago knotted around her soul unravel and fall away.  Kaashifah gasped as
that part of her mind unlocked once more, opening and stretching like a long-closed
flower, granting her sudden and complete access to a wide range of thoughts
that she had spent three thousand years trying to forget.

‘Aqrab released her brusquely as
his eyes lost their luminescence.  “It is done.  You are able to kill, mon
Dhi’b.”  She saw fear mingling with the scorn in his face as he waited an
arm’s-length away, watching her in silence.

Kaashifah glanced down at her
hands.  They were shaking.  Gingerly, she reached down and pried a stick from
the frosty sands along the beach, then hefted it.  She felt nothing preventing
her from swinging it at the djinni’s head, no threat of fire tingling her
palms.

To test her theory, she swung,
stopping the stick just centimeters from the djinni’s brow.

She received no burns, no tingles
of warning.  Realizing that the djinni had actually done as he offered, without
catches or caveats or snares, Kaashifah stared up at him, stunned beyond words.

Unflinching, ‘Aqrab peered
impassively down at her past the stick.  “And now that the djinni has played
his last card, like a fool, it is the Fury’s move.”  Yet even under his aloof
façade, she could see his fear.  It burned within him like the fires of a
forge, lighting his eyes well after the Fourth Lander magics had faded.  Kaashifah
lowered her stick, her heart beginning to thunder.

Standing like an ebony mountain
above her, ‘Aqrab held her gaze for long minutes, waiting.  He had given her
his gift.  Now he was waiting to see if she would gift him something in return.

He wants me to give him my
shadows. 
The thought brought a whole new wave of terrors to the forefront
of her mind, a whole new wave of suspicions.  Why
does he want me to give up
my shadows? 
What could be so important to him that he gave her
this
?

“Mon Dhi’b,” the djinni urged
softly, a gentle plea.  “I’m so tired of the struggle.  Will you return a
gift?”

She looked into his eyes and saw
sincerity in his face.  He’d played his last card, and he knew it.  When
Kaashifah bit her lip and hesitated, however, she saw the openness to his face
break, saw it twist in pain, saw his hopes crumble.  The djinni made a weary, disgusted
sound and turned away.  With a feral snarl, he ripped a hole in the veil
between realms and Kaashifah had to stumble back against the blast of heat as
he prepared to depart for the firelands, likely for good.

…Which is what she’d wanted,
right?

He trusted you, Fury
, she
thought, guilt hitting her like a blow.  If there was one thing a Fury would
die for, it was her word.  Her honor.

“Wait.”  It was a ragged whisper
in her throat, but it was enough to make the djinni hesitate.  He slowly turned
to face her, anger in his face, his body blocking the heat from the portal
between realms.  “What now, Fury?” he sneered, his words filled with bitterness,
his eyes dark with the hurt of betrayal.  “You would have me remove the Third
Lander, as well?”

Steeling herself, Kaashifah
harnessed the wolf just enough to force canines through her jaw, then bit a
ragged tear into her palm.  Her adrenaline thrumming with the horror of what
she was about to do, she reached out and placed her hand upon the corded
muscles of the djinni’s forearm.  When he flinched, frowning down at the first
time she had willingly touched him in three thousand years, she reached for her
awareness of the shadows.  She started balling them up, wrapping her conscious
perception of them into the blood that now oozed from her palm.  Then,
channeling the Third Lander again, she forced a claw into the djinni’s flesh
and tore a hole in the skin of his arm.