Chapter 27
We woke early the next day and set out after dawn. I prayed fajr with more intention than usual, though I was not sure which
dua to choose for “successful petition of judgmental supernatural creatures.” I felt strange and slightly ridiculous garbed
in the stolen magical raiment, my own ruined clothes reduced to foot wrappings, and my only weapons my khanjar and a rough
spear I had carved. But I was no longer throwing up blood and limping all over the sand, so at least I had that going for
me.
It was a humid day, but the air was cool in the forest, growing dryer as we ventured deeper into the island’s heart. The trees
were so thick here that their canopy blotted out the sky, the only light an occasional dusty shaft that pierced the gloom.
The ground was soft and loamy underfoot, smelling richly of life. More than once I thought I caught a glimpse of the ivory-blossomed
water tree nestled amongst the platter-sized poppies and fanged ferns, but every time I turned to look, it was gone.
Unlike my first flight through the jungle, it was astonishingly quiet. A great cacophony of birdsong had originally greeted
us but quickly petered out to silence; a troupe of flying foxes with multiple tails that had been trilling about and grooming
their little ones dashed away. I felt the weight of eyes, caught their occasional gleam from the dark undergrowth and gnarled
branches, and yet nothing approached, the air heavy with fraught tension, like the drawn-out moments before an execution.
“Where is everything?” I asked as I clambered over a moss-encrusted boulder. The ground had started to slope upward.
“Probably hiding. We do not belong here, and anything that does knows well what happens when the court senses strangers.”
Raksh slashed through a thick vine with his claws. “Do not fret. I’m certain it will not be long before...”
He trailed off as his breath clouded the air. A cold wind rushed over my shoulder, setting my skin to gooseflesh. Lines of
frost were spiraling across the emerald ferns surrounding us, glazing them as their swaying in the breeze abruptly froze.
“Is it them?” I whispered, pulling up my quilled hood to cover my hair. The diamond spines rustled in the wind, and a thin
layer of ice raced to drape over the mossy rocks, silvering the damp black tree trunks as though everything were covered in
a fine piece of sheer muslin.
“Yes.” Raksh gulped. “Honored ones!” he called, sounding more polite than I thought him capable. “Solitude and harmony upon
you. We seek—”
But Raksh did not get to say what we sought. Because he had no sooner attempted to explain than the very air seized us.
It whipped from the trees, from the ground, from the suddenly silver-gray sky, howling and swirling into a vortex that yanked
me off my feet and spun me around as if it were a potter’s wheel. Blinded by the swirling ice, dirt, and debris from the forest
floor, I could barely see Raksh, though his wail of outrage seemed to indicate that he’d been trapped as well. There was movement—the
vortex seeming to race through the jungle. I caught glimpses of distant trees and a stony plain. Blue fragments of sea and
a ground that was way, way too far below my feet.
And then it was over. The funnel cloud vanished in an explosion of dead leaves and twigs, dumping me onto a cold stone floor.
I heard angry squawking and could have sworn I glimpsed a blurry lime-green creature getting chased away, but because I am cursed, I had landed on my bad knee and the jolt of pain was distracting.
I swore profusely, rolling into the fetal position only to crash into Raksh, who had landed facedown in a pool of mist.
“Ow!” He pushed me away with a groan. “Do you mind ?”
Still dizzy, I moved to sit, trying hard not to throw up. The floor beneath me, rock hard when I landed, abruptly softened
and shifted, making me feel as though I sat upon a suspended net. I looked around, trying to get my bearings straight with
little luck. The jungle was gone, replaced by icy mists that drifted about us, delicate white flakes falling lightly upon
my skin.
Snow , I realized, staring at the melting slivers in my palms. I had seen snow only once in my life, on a childhood trip through
the mountains of Jabal Shams. And yet this snow didn’t seem right. It melted without leaving any water behind, and the air
was too dry, too... animated to be natural. The wind blew from multiple shifting directions as though it were dancing,
sending jewel-hued leaves and snowflakes cartwheeling. Though the misty chamber was vast, enormous branches towered overhead,
gleaming ebony and mahogany, as though we had fallen into the heart of some tree out of a creation tale.
I glanced up, snow tickling my eyelashes, to see movement. Shadowy lithe bodies climbing through the tangled branches and
soaring through the air. It was like gazing at the night sky, more stars appearing the longer you looked. The creatures did
not appear much larger than me, occasionally flashing by with a glimmer of scaled skin and dazzling wings.
“Raksh,” I whispered. “Are those—”
A chittering from high above interrupted my question, a hair-raising noise that sounded like a cross between a swarm of buzzing
locusts and a flock of squawking birds. The creatures were landing, perching and hopping along the branches as though settling
in for a better view. There were easily hundreds flittering about, staring down at us with glittering pale eyes. Between the
weight of their gazes and a clearer view of just how high the canopy extended, I felt like an insect about to be devoured.
“This is the court you mentioned?” I asked under my breath as Raksh and I slowly rose to our feet.
The creatures all appeared capable of flight but were otherwise diverse.
Some had the wings and glittering proboscises of enormous dragonflies, while others were mostly parrot save bright blue-and-yellow humanoid faces.
“It is.” Raksh made a small choking noise. “May I recommend not looking at the floor?”
I immediately peeked down to discover that there was no floor, not truly. There was nothing but diaphanous fog and the extremely distant ground, and I no sooner realized this
than the illusion weakened. Whatever was beneath my feet grew spongy and I sank to my ankles with an alarmed cry.
“Eyes up here ,” a new, very weary voice announced in Arabic crisper than a Mecca-trained cleric’s. “Name?”
I glanced wildly up. One of the bird people had dropped to perch on a cinnamon-hued branch just above my head. Though she
had some human features, she reminded me instantly of a palm dove; her round head was rosy white and a spotted plumage of
feathers circled her neck. Large, rather unsympathetic, pupilless eyes sat on the sides of her face, framing a beak-like nose.
“Wh-what?” I stammered.
She let out a sigh, if bird people could sigh. I suppose why not... they already spoke Arabic. “ Your name . What is it?” She shook out a pair of blue-gray winged arms and picked up a scroll and writing stylus. “We need it for our
records.”
They had records? “I... Amina,” I managed.
“Birthplace and elemental composition?”
What? “I was born in Sur, but—”
“She is human,” Raksh cut in. “ Obviously .”
“Your testimony has been deemed unnecessary,” the bird woman said curtly. “No peri has time for a creature such as yourself.”
A peri? Is that what they were? I took in their avian forms again, the sight before me clashing with fables I’d heard of gentle winged maidens of uncommon beauty. “He speaks truly,” I said quickly. “I am human.”
The peri tilted her head in doubt. “Are you certain? I did not think humans came in your height. Are there by any chance giants
in your heritage? Nephilim maybe?”
By God, even here my size was being judged? And what the fuck was a Nephilim? “I’m certain,” I said acidly.
She made a notation. “Excellent. Had you a trace of either, your case might have been complicated. As you are entirely human,
it is much more straightforward: Humans are not permitted here. Nor are they allowed to leave alive. Your method of removal
will be—”
“Wait!” I pleaded. “Before you... remove me, I beg that you listen. My companion spoke of you as a noble, honorable race
tasked with keeping balance between the magical world and mine. Should that be your true intent, trust you will want to hear
what I say.”
“She is allowed to bring a petition, is she not?” Raksh challenged, clearly not caring he’d been told to shut up. “I know
enough of your arcane rules that you cannot simply remove yourselves of a lesser being without hearing her case.”
The peri exhaled noisily as though we were keeping her from more pressing matters. “Go on, then.”
I wasted no time. “I came to your island neither of my own free will nor with ill intent toward your people. My companion
and I were kidnapped and forced into the service of another human, a vicious criminal who hopes to gain access to magic and
bring destruction to my people. To all people. He speaks of challenging God the Almighty!”
The peri did not look impressed. “A great number of humans have had similar delusions. He will fail as the rest have.”
“But not many of those humans succeeded in subduing a marid,” Raksh pressed. “This man bound one with blood magic.”
“The Creator cannot be challenged by a mortal,” the peri replied bluntly. “And whatever this human does in the earthly realm does not concern us. We do not interfere.”
“And if he uses unearthly means?” I asked. “He is in the process of obtaining the Moon of Saba. Surely the possession of a powerful lunar aspect is
closer to your realm of worries.”
The peri frowned in confusion. “The Moon of Saba?” She glanced at her fellows arrayed above. “Why does that sound familiar?”
A parrot-red peri with glittering wasp eyes dropped to the branch beside her. “Because the Moon of Saba is one of our listed
Transgressions. It can be used to bestow kingship.”
“No,” a third peri squawked from the shadows. “You speak of the Golden Fleece. The Moon of Saba is the Transgression that
takes form as a pearl. Humans lick it to heal maladies.”
“Do not be a fool,” a fourth peri corrected. “Mortals are savages. They do not eat pearls, they wear them. You are describing the Apple of Samarkand.”
“You are all wrong,” Raksh said, exasperated. “The Moon of Saba is the basin in which Bilqis trapped the lunar spirit al-Dabaran. When
the moon is in his manzil or during other lunar deviations—like, say, the eclipse due to occur next week —anyone who gazes upon their reflection in the basin’s water can gain control of all the aspects of discord. Sound familiar?”
The two peris on the branch above my head were flipping through a stack of pearlescent scrolls that had appeared out of nowhere,
shimmered like rainbows, and vanished as soon as they were set aside.
“Ah, yes, here it is,” the dove peri said. “The Moon of Saba. It is a newer Transgression, one classified as low to insignificant
risk.”
“ Low to insignificant risk? ” I repeated in disbelief.
“Indeed.” The peri scanned the scroll, her thin lips pursed. “The Moon of Saba does have the capacity to provoke a great amount of turmoil among mortals, but it says here the bloodshed typically falls into the standard parameters of human violence.”
“ Oh .” The other peri chittered in excitement. “If this human they fear is truly so volatile, does it not stand to reason his
chaos might be enough to finally break the bond between al-Dabaran and the vessel trapping him? That would be ideal.”
“We can only hope,” the other peri said gravely. “It would restore things to their natural order.”
I gasped. “And if scores of innocents are killed ‘restoring things to their natural order’?”
“As I said, we believe the violence would be within the standard parameters.” The peri finally glanced up from her scrolls
to peer down at me. “Your request for our interference is denied.”
My mouth fell open in shock. “So that’s it?”
“No, of course not,” she said with officious dispassion. “There is still the question of your removal. Yours ”—she cut her eyes at Raksh—“is more complicated, but the human’s remains a straightforward case. As I said, mortals are neither
permitted to know about, dwell upon, or leave this island alive. Therefore...” She lifted a taloned hand.
The floor beneath me vanished.