She comes in, and I immeditely know she’s different from the string of begums I’ve seen who are looking for revenge on cheating husbands. The Light is blinding in her, I could probably have seen it without the nine kajal rings that circle my eyes.
My Siqats scream in terror and hide under every available surface to escape from her aura. The Afrit* trapped in the Numaish-e-Sitara on the ceiling spreads its wings and strains past the blank painted walls of the pentagram that contain it.
She doesn’t even realize the chaos she’s created in the fifth dimension. Ripples of it echo into our world, creating goosebumps on her arms. The Ceflox on her shoulders flaps its wings frantically, keeping the hissing demons at bay. She sits serenely, unpreturbed at the table, waiting for her palm reading, ignorant.
I decide to part the curtain and enter, before my Afrit breaks the strands that bind it to the world. It took me seven years to get it there, and this skinny reed of an untrained girl manages to come in and almost undo all my work. I’ve never seen anyone with such a powerful aura before, and I’m a little apprehensive. I wear the amulet with the six runes of N’atiahs for protection from the Ceflox just in case. I must find out why the Powers have made our paths cross. I will make her regret upsetting my little pets.
“You’ll regret it beta” I tell the girl, but I intend it for the Ceflox. The girl is startled, the words register and echo through to the Ceflox. It quivers and contains itself. It knows who’s in power here.
I light my candle quickly, so the smell can sooth the Afrit and my other little pets. I trace the patterns of N’amahs in the air, and the walls between the dimensions blur. To my surprise, the girl reacts to the Changing. She starts as if she sees the fifth dimention. She peers confusedly at the walls, and the Siqats freeze in terror as her gaze passes over them. Who is this girl? She bears no marks, no runes, nothing that explains her powers. I must do something immediately.
I sit next to her, and the Afrit speaks up suddenly. “She is ignorant! Bind her!”, it screams. The Siqats come running. I hold her palm, and in the other dimension, the Ceflox screams in pain. But it is helpless, bound by the stupid rules of the Light, confined to the dimensions and too brainless to know it should break them. One of my Siqats plucks a hair from her head, another fills the Bowl of Whispers with rat blood. She sits ignorantly staring at me, and I almost laugh in relief. To think I was worried! I hold her palm, and offer it to my favorite pet. Delighted, it takes a bite, its first snack in ninety years.
The girl screams, and the Ceflox rises off her shoulders, something I haven’t seen in even the greatest of wizards in the last ninty nine years. The Siqats all squeal and run, but the Ceflox manages to catch the one with the bloody teeth. It touches it with one silver wing, and my little pet evaporates in a flash of smoke. The ritual is still incomplete!
The Ceflox stands guard at the door and faces the Afrit, each only a hairsbreath apart. I have to act quickly. I drink her blood, sealing her compliance and feel the amulet start to hum. The Ceflox collapses to the floor. The threads binding the Afrit are secure, at least for now. I take the rat blood, hold it to her lips. She screams, and calls the Guardian to save her. But rules are rules, and she is bound by the oath of her blood. She must do as I say. “Drink it”. Her mouth opens, and the red splashes into the mouth of the Ceflox. It screams again.
As always after the advent of rat blood, her soul opens, Ceflox and girl unite, and the walls of the seventh dimension open. I drink from the power, and laugh at what fools mortals be. I taste eternity, see beyond the veil of time. I see N’ataihs himself. I see the girl and her future, I see her downfall. I see her path of white turn to black, and I see how I can point her to it. “You’ll find him soon” I say. N’ataihs laughs. The walls close, the candle gutters. I recline back to my world, sated.
The Afrit laughs, triumphant. The Ceflox, its eyes bleeding, its aura dulled to a pasty transluscent shimmer, crawls on broken wings to the door. The girls gets up, slowly walks out.
I see her friends surround her. Stupid insignificant children, playing with worlds they have no knowedge of. I can still hear N’atiahs laughing across the dimensions.
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*"Afrit" is a term borrowed heavily from "Amulet of Samarkand"
2 comments:
Wow! Ever considered writing fantasy novels Professionally? That was spell binding.
aW you're not too bad yourself.
to think i thought it was mediocre and not very orignal :). i like how i first wrote this story as me (post: somewhere in feb on some saturday), and then wrote it from the perspective of the palm reader woman.
the pictures in my head are freaky like that sometimes.
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