The Seal Read online

  The Seal

  Book 1 of the Baka Djinn Chronicles

  J F Mehentee

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  A note from the author

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  1

  Roshan stepped through the portal. The sour look on Behrouz’s face confirmed her first impression. She collapsed the portal, the azure light it cast replaced by the muted red of Behrouz’s firestone.

  ‘Something’s wrong,’ Navid said.

  Roshan reached into her satchel and pulled out her brother, Navid. The rat scooted up her arm and settled on her shoulder. His whiskers twitched and tickled her neck as she explored the box-shaped room. Shelves hid three of the walls. A door occupied the centre of the fourth.

  Her brother’s calm voice filled her head.

  ‘Papyri,’ he said. ‘We’re in the wrong room for military dispatches.’

  Behrouz had already taken a clay tablet from his bag. He knelt so Roshan could look. The daeva’s broad shoulders meant she had to lean forward and over his thick forearm to see the building’s plan.

  A central atrium divided the city of Persepae’s long rectangular chancery into an east wing and a west wing, the east wing home to the record office’s archive.

  ‘We’re here,’ Behrouz whispered, his finger hovering over the archive’s farthest room.

  Roshan studied the tablet. A corridor bisected the building lengthwise. Opposite the room they occupied and across the corridor was another of similar size.

  Navid asked a question. Roshan repeated it for Behrouz.

  ‘Is the drawing or your information wrong?’

  The daeva rubbed the back of his neck.

  ‘One of them’s wrong and I don’t know which. I plied the archivist with wine—lots of wine—to loosen his tongue, and I’ll admit I’m no artist.’

  Roshan felt Navid’s claws dig into her skin as he bent forward.

  ‘If the guard was inebriated,’ he said, ‘maybe his thinking was back to front and the tablets are in the room opposite this one.’

  She shared her brother’s suggestion with Behrouz. The daeva closed the box and rose.

  ‘Let’s take a look,’ he said, shoving the tablet back into his bag.

  Roshan closed her eyes and gauged the distance between this room and the one opposite. She whispered the incantation to summon power from the earth and then wove a destination window. Her skin tingled with Core power, a power that burned the skin and then deeper tissue the longer she channelled it.

  Behrouz stepped closer to the window. Icy moonlight illuminated the room beyond theirs. A smile tightened her cheeks. Shelves stacked with boxes the width of those used to store tablets stood against three of the room’s walls.

  Behrouz tutted. Roshan saw him point with his chin at the back of a curled figure on the floor. The man wore fish-scale mail. His felt cap and spear lay to the side of him.

  ‘How many guards are patrolling the chancery?’ Roshan said.

  ‘Two outside and three inside,’ Behrouz said. ‘The two inside are probably playing a game of Ur, and that one’—he pointed at the sleeping guard—‘doesn’t gamble. Weave a boarding window. I’ll make sure he doesn’t wake up.’

  She pressed a hand to his forearm.

  ‘You’re not going to kill him?’

  The daeva looked offended by the question.

  She and Navid had first met Behrouz two years earlier. He’d held a sword’s point to Navid’s throat and forced the two them to step through the portal his wife, Yesfir, had raised. That was the first and last time she’d seen him do anything so threatening.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘But what if he wakes up before you can…knock him out. He could make a noise and alert the others.’

  Behrouz gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulder. He cupped one hand over a flat palm.

  ‘Trap him inside a dome of protection.’

  Still perched on her shoulder, Navid said, ‘It’s a good idea. If you seal the dome to the floor and he does wake up, no one will hear him.’

  ‘It’s a small room—the dome will have to be smaller,’ she said to Navid. ‘He might suffocate.’

  ‘And it’s all right for Behrouz to bash in his skull. When it comes to djinn magic, you’re as good as Yesfir. You’re eighteen and she’s over three hundred years old. You’ll make sure he has enough air.’

  Although they were twins, she lacked Navid’s confidence and sense of adventure. Sometimes, she wondered if he enjoyed being a rat more than being human. Nowadays, it seemed, he bore no grudge towards either Behrouz or Yesfir for his capture or towards Yesfir for changing him. Both husband and wife had always been kind, and Yesfir had spent the past two years teaching her djinn magic. Once Yesfir gave her the incantation, Roshan would turn her brother back into a human. However, unlike Navid, she couldn’t just forget how they’d ruined her life.

  The Core power no longer tingled. Her palms felt as though she were holding her hands too close to a fire.

  Roshan muttered an incantation and wove a boarding window. With the boarding window facing the destination window, she fused them to create a portal into the room across from theirs. She lifted Navid from her shoulder, placed him on the floor, then poked her head, shoulders and arms through the portal and into the room opposite. Her palms greasy, Roshan begged the Divine Light to guide her before she raised a shallow dome to blanket the sleeping guard.

  Roshan backed out of the portal and sighed.

  ‘Well done,’ Behrouz said, before stepping into the other room.

  She picked up Navid.

  Surrounded by shelves filled with tablets, Roshan collapsed the portal and released some Core power back into the earth. The burning sensation eased enough for her to focus her attention on the prone guard. They had to be quick—the shimmering convex dome only contained so much air for the man to breathe. She carried Navid over to the shelves next to those Behrouz searched. Her brother jumped from her hand and landed next to a stack of boxes. Once she’d retrieved a firestone from her tunic’s pocket, she rubbed it with her thumb to activate it. Roshan placed the glowing pebble on the shelf for Navid. With a second firestone activated, she searched the shelves above and below her brother’s.

  Roshan strained to read the wedge-shaped characters punched into one side of the boxes. She stopped when she saw a box labelled Transmutation Incantations.

  From the corner of her eye, she saw the prone guard wriggle. The muscles between her shoulders tightened.

  It’s started, she told herself. The air inside the dome is running out.

  If there’d been time, she would have opened the box and scanned the tablet for a way to change Navid back into a human. Roshan pried herself from the box and continued to search the shelves.

  With a hint of triumph, Navid said, ‘Found it.’

  Behrouz must have seen her making her way back to her brother. The daeva ran his hand down the stack Navid crouched beside. His finger stopped a third of the way down and then along the tablet’s label.
>
  ‘Good job, Navid,’ he said. He slid the box from beneath the others, opened it and studied the tablet inside. Behrouz nodded his satisfaction, tucked the tablet into his bag and said, ‘Time to go.’

  Roshan raised a portal back to camp. She retrieved both her firestone and Navid from the shelf and lowered him into her satchel. Roshan stepped over the guard, who’d woken. He beat the dome with the heels of his hands and gasped for air as a landed fish might. Roshan couldn’t be sure if the portal’s azure edge had painted his lips blue. The guard gave the portal a limp kick before his eyeballs rolled into the back of his head and he stopped moving. Roshan collapsed the dome and dashed over to him.

  Behrouz stood next to the portal, its destination window opening onto a moonlit dune and their camp below. A frown lined the daeva’s forehead.

  ‘Try and revive him. I’ll go get Yesfir,’ he said, then ducked into the portal.

  Roshan rolled the guard onto his back, placed her ear against his mail shirt and detected a weak heartbeat. She glanced over at the portal. Behrouz had reached the bottom of the dune and now sprinted into camp.

  Roshan closed her eyes and ran through the myriad of incantations she’d learned, hoping to find a resuscitation spell Yesfir might have taught her.

  She opened her eyes. Nothing—she couldn’t remember ever being taught the spell or if one existed.

  ‘What about an animation spell?’ Navid said, emerging from Roshan’s satchel.

  ‘Those spells are for inanimate objects. They won’t work on him.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Navid stood on his hind legs, his forelegs resting on the guard’s arm. ‘If you don’t do something now, he’ll be an inanimate object before Yesfir gets here.’

  Roshan closed her eyes again. She saw herself standing upstream of a river while filling her waterskin, the inrush of water making the skin expand. She knew a spell for creating gusts on a windless day. Maybe she could direct small amounts of wind into the guard’s lungs, expand them and then repeat the spell until he could breathe for himself.

  The amount of Core power required was minuscule. Too much and she risked bursting the guard’s lungs. She’d have to hold most of the power inside her while she repeated the spell. Roshan glanced over at the portal and collapsed it. Its azure light winked out, leaving the room illuminated by her lone firestone.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Navid said. ‘Without that portal, Yesfir won’t be able to find us.’

  The searing pain along her hands and forearms diminished. She opened her mind completely to her brother so that he felt her relief.

  ‘Oh. Sorry.’

  Roshan took a deep breath, summoned a small amount of Core power into her and began an incantation.

  ‘Don’t forget to open his mouth,’ Navid said.

  Roshan pushed down the guard’s lower jaw. The air hissed inside his mouth. She stressed one word of the incantation. The pressure increased, forcing air down his throat and some out his nose until she pinched it shut. His chest rose. Roshan stopped the incantation while keeping a firm grip on the guard’s lower jaw. His chest fell as air blew out of him. She made a mental adjustment to her incantation. The second time, the guard’s chest rose slowly but higher.

  Roshan lost count of how many times she’d repeated the incantation when the guard’s body juddered. She stopped the incantation, and instead of releasing Core power into the earth, she summoned more and then raised a portal back to camp.

  Confident he could breathe for himself, Roshan stood.

  A hand gripped her ankle.

  Her firestone turned the whites of the guard’s eyes a milky red. His attention flicked from her to the portal and back again. He flung his free hand at the spear behind him.

  ‘Filthy djinni,’ he said, his nose wrinkling. He grabbed the spear’s haft. ‘Divine Light, protect me from this abomination.’

  The words might as well have been a hand squeezing her throat. Roshan froze when she spotted the spearhead’s arc. In the same instant, Navid launched himself at the man’s nose.

  The guard howled and dropped his spear.

  In two loping strides, Roshan reached the portal. She turned to see Navid scampering across the floor. Sparks flew from the portal’s edge. Beyond her brother, the guard clutched his bleeding nose.

  How she wanted to tell the man he was wrong, that before the king of the djinn had sent Yesfir and Behrouz to kidnap her, she’d been a novice just weeks from taking her vows and becoming a magus—a magus who served the Divine Light.

  The guard grabbed his spear and flung it.

  Roshan dipped into the portal.

  Up on the dune, Roshan stared at the foot of the portal. Navid tumbled through. Two words later, the portal collapsed with a snap.

  ‘That was close,’ Navid said. He rested on his haunches and gazed up at his sister.

  More angry than scared, Roshan wondered why her legging was warm and damp. She heard Navid’s squeak.

  ‘You’re bleeding,’ he said.

  2

  Armaiti sat on the snow-covered mountain peak. Ahead of her, dawn gilded the jagged slopes of a three-peaked mountain range so vast, it swamped the horizon. To her left, the fizzing violet circle of her destination window revealed a crumpled Roshan being tended by the djinni Yesfir and her daeva husband, Behrouz.

  A sabaoth, the first of the Unmade Creator’s creations, she had no need for incantations and spells. Armaiti closed the window with a thought.

  ‘So, it’s begun,’ she said. If she were human or djinn, her voice would have echoed off the mountains and started an avalanche.

  Alone and ethereal, no one had heard her. Except Manah, perhaps.

  She had sat there for eighteen years, coming to terms with the Unmade Creator’s sentence, hoping she’d only have to serve a human lifespan. Once her punishment ended, she’d be free to return to her sabaoth duties of overseeing this world and the thousands of others scattered across her domain’s galaxies.

  ‘Roshan’s injury looks bad,’ came a male voice. ‘You’re right to believe it’s begun. Now, millennia might very well pass before the girl dies.’

  A lamassu stood in place of her collapsed window, his wings folded against a bull’s body. His bearded human face exuded smugness.

  She wanted to ask if, after eighteen years, he really was there, come to witness what the Unmade Creator had expected would happen.

  ‘I thought by saving the newborn, I was helping,’ she said, more to herself than the lamassu. She waved her hand at the golden vista. ‘Isn’t that what all this is about, this world, the worlds within this domain and the other domains? It’s all a giant experiment of the Unmade Creator’s making—a means of discovering Its origins.’ She shook her head. ‘Like her brother, Roshan’s a djinni-human hybrid. I saw the potential her twin lacked, the ability to weave human and djinn magic, and I thought the Unmade Creator would appreciate my keeping her alive. How was I supposed to know that by saving her, I’d change her?’

  The same self-satisfied expression on Manah’s face meant he wasn’t really on the mountaintop. She merely debated with herself and not her nemesis. He’d had the same look on his face when he’d visited her from his domain only to discover she’d broken a sabaoth law and saved a life without permission. And she’d recognised it again when the Unmade Creator had passed Its sentence and stripped away most of her powers, including the ability to leave this world.

  ‘Be patient and do nothing,’ imaginary Manah—the cautious part of her—said. ‘Let what happens play out. You’ve interfered enough.’

  But the Unmade Creator isn’t omnipotent, she wanted to reply. That’s why It created us, Its overseers. If the real Manah hadn’t tried to curry favour with It and reported me, It wouldn’t have known what I did.

  Armaiti shook her head. Countless times she’d asked herself why, if she’d done something so wrong, was the child allowed to live and, later, allowed to practise both human and djinn magic?

  She snorted. Her puni
shment was the djinn’s fault. They’d abused their powers and had to be made an example of. The Unmade Creator had thought it necessary to do the same with her and set her as an example to the sabaoth for breaking one of Its laws.

  She’d only meant to help.

  ‘Really?’ Manah said. ‘You accuse me of ingratiating myself only because you recognise the same behaviour in yourself.’

  Was it wrong to want the Unmade Creator to notice her? Like the rest of the sabaoth, she had existed for aeons, watched over Its nascent creations with the same love a mother had for her children. Wasn’t she, a sabaoth, one of the first of the Unmade Creator’s children? Wasn’t she being punished like a parent punished their child? If so, wasn’t the Unmade Creator capable of forgiveness?

  If the answer was no, if the Unmade Creator expected her to serve without a thought for herself and without reward or acknowledgement, what kind of existence was that?

  ‘It made you,’ Manah said. He hadn’t moved from the spot he’d appeared on. ‘Isn’t that enough of a gift? Shouldn’t you be grateful to It instead of the other way around?’

  ‘Enough!’ Armaiti said, angry and fed up with replaying this argument over and over with herself. She gazed up at the sky. ‘Now I’m no longer able to serve you,’ she said, ‘I’m free of Your laws. If so, am I free to do as I please, to put a stop to the events I set in motion?’

  The morning sun cleared the mountain range, sending sunbeams in all directions. There was no need for Armaiti to shield herself from the glorious light. She turned to face the lamassu and grinned.

  ‘Let’s take that as a yes.’