Chapter 32
I stared at Falco in disbelieving horror as moonlight shone out of his eyes and insects flew around his shoulders like great
schools of fish. It seemed impossible that after everything, everything —my life-altering deal with the peris, the battle on the beach, climbing up a fucking marid twice , the celestial hall of monsters—this man had still beat me.
He has not won yet , I tried to tell myself. Not truly. With raw power swirling around him like an eager wave and the legendary Moon of Saba lying in the dust near his feet, Falco
certainly looked triumphant. But Raksh and Dunya had both made clear that a human possessing the power of al-Dabaran was still
just that: human. Mortal . But as I drew the meteor blade, suddenly its glimmer didn’t seem so ethereal.
Dunya grabbed my sleeve. “Don’t go near him. Not yet.” She was watching Falco as he threw his head back and laughed in merry
delight, his hair and garments fluttering madly in an invisible wind—but not with shock. Rather with anticipation. She coughed
out a bit of dust. “There’s something I should tell you—”
Every torch in the cave abruptly flickered, the insects all shrilled as one, and Falco began to shriek.
“No, stop !” he screamed, clawing at his eyes. They had filled completely with a silver glow, resembling miniature moons. “You cannot!
YOU ARE MINE! ” He cried out again, this time in what must have been his native language, and frantically jerked about, like he was fighting for control of his body.
Then he went entirely, utterly still. His eyes were no longer full glowing lunar spheres. A pale gray haze had slipped over
part of them. Just like...
“Is that... is that the eclipse?” I stammered in a hush.
“Yes,” Dunya whispered. “It worked.”
It worked? What did that mean? I stared again at Falco. His pompous bravado was gone, and his posture ramrod straight, straight in a
way that did not look comfortable to any creature with a spine. He gazed about the cave, an eerie, unnatural assessment in
his face as though he were surveying an army about to be crushed, snakes, lizards, and insects all still rushing to his feet.
Tilting his head in an expression that was not quite human, his unearthly gaze fell upon the Moon of Saba.
His lips drew back in a snarl.
“Dunya...” I breathed. “What did you do?”
She gave me a frightened look. “I had to stop him, nakhudha, and I knew no other way. Falco was determined to get his hands
on the Moon of Saba.”
“ What did you do? ”
“Well, I suspected the eclipse might offer a rare opportunity. With the exchange of lunar and solar houses of power and the
ascendance of the Aries—”
“Dunya, stop talking like a court astrologer on hashish and tell me plainly what you did!”
“I reversed the incantation!” she spluttered. “I think. I... hope. God willing.”
“ Meaning? ”
“Meaning when Falco saw his reflection, it was not he who gained control of al-Dabaran, rather—”
“It was al-Dabaran who gained control of Falco. Oh,” I choked, “how creative.” And it was. Part of me was proud of Dunya and inordinately pleased Falco had been done in by his own arrogance in assuming our scholars were not as clever as he. “And when the eclipse ends?”
“I did not work that part out yet,” she confessed. “I thought we might speak to al-Dabaran and ask him how to break the enchantment.”
“Break the enchantment?” I repeated, a bit of, well, not hope—I wasn’t that deluded—but a feeling that was not dread briefly
blossoming in my heart. That was what the peris wanted, after all, what I wanted: the Transgression that might endanger my child destroyed. “Can we do that?”
“Yes and no.” Dunya wrung her hands. “There should be ways to free al-Dabaran, but apparently in order to return to the moon,
he must see the moon.”
“And we’re underground. Wonderful.” I racked my brain, but I didn’t know how to bring moonlight to an underground cave. I
also wasn’t sure we had the time or knowledge to return to the surface if we could even convince al-Dabaran to accompany us.
“Why don’t we try talking to him?” Dunya suggested as al-Dabaran picked up the silver basin, lifting it in the air as though
it were a fragile offering. “He’s a powerful spirit. He must know some magic.”
Falco—al-Dabaran—abruptly smashed the silver basin upon the stone floor, and we both jumped. The Moon of Saba didn’t so much
as crack, instead bouncing on the ground in a way that might have been comical if a clearly irate al-Dabaran hadn’t thrown
back his head, screeched a sound like shattering glass, and sent a gush of crickets pouring from his mouth.
Dunya and I ducked but the crickets simply flew overhead; disgusting as the display was, al-Dabaran was clearly more focused
on attempting to destroy his silver prison than harass two humans. The rest of the insects flocked to al-Dabaran’s side, forming
a fluttering cloak of locusts, cicadas, and moths.
Dunya loudly cleared her throat. “Right. Well. I shall try to talk to him. But this is not your responsibility, nakhudha.
In case things go wrong, you should escape while—”
“Oh, shut up.” Al-Dabaran had picked up Falco’s sword, and the weapon doubled in size, gleaming like a bone-white moon.
Its razor-sharp edges were now serrated, pocked like craters, and yet the entire thing wiggled and hissed —transformed into a horrifying combination of a sword, a snake, and a staff.
Magical sword snake staffs were not a Dunya-level
problem. “You’re bleeding like a sieve, and this isn’t the first supernatural entity I’ve had to bargain with this week.”
I pointed to a protected niche below a rocky outcropping. “Can you make it over there?”
She gave me an alarmed look. “Why?”
I watched in wary apprehension as al-Dabaran returned to the Moon of Saba and began bashing it with the weaponized snake staff,
trying to break the ensorcelled basin to no avail. “In case he doesn’t like chatting. Go ,” I insisted, shooing her off.
Foreboding curdling in my belly, I waited until Dunya was gone before cautiously approaching the angry lunar spirit.
“Dear manzil al-Dabaran!” I greeted, raising my hands in what I hoped was a motion of peace. “Blessings upon you!”
Al-Dabaran stopped attacking the basin and spun to regard me. His eerie eyes were expressionless, the snake staff wriggling
in his hand. He did the creepy head tilt again, seeming to size me up. For a moment, I briefly entertained hopes of this plan
working.
Then he howled , sending a far angrier flock of insects—locusts this time!—from his mouth my way, and I realized centuries of captivity might
not have done his mind well.
I ducked behind a stalagmite, slapping insects away. “We might need another plan!”
Dunya peeked out from her position. “Can you get me the bowl? If there are incantations on it, I might be able to reverse
the spell!”
“I’ll try!” And because I tend toward violence when nothing else works, I picked up a rock, charged al-Dabaran, and hurled
it at his head.
Perhaps the manzil had some aggressions to work out or maybe he just didn’t like interfering humans throwing rocks at him because he was only too happy to turn his attentions from the basin and rage after me.
I dashed past the Moon of Saba, pausing only to kick it in Dunya’s direction like a child’s ball.
Then I ducked as al-Dabaran’s serpentine staff went whooshing over my head, close enough to feel the chill of his bewitched blade.
I recovered quickly, whirling around to strike out with my own sword.
The serpentine staff hardened like steel when it met my weapon. For a moment, we stayed locked together, neither of us gaining
ground until the tip of his sword staff turned into a snake’s head and reached back to snap at my hands.
And people ask me why I don’t like magic.
I jumped away before the snake sword could bite me and ran. Al-Dabaran gave chase as I sprinted to the other side of the cave,
leaping back and forth across a twisting stream that emptied into a steaming pool of milky-blue water. Over the manzil’s insect-cloaked
shoulder, I could see Dunya turning the Moon of Saba over in her hands, her panic-stricken expression deeply uninspiring.
The momentary distraction nearly got me stabbed in the stomach. I jerked back, springing along a path of boulders nosing out
of the no-doubt-poisonous pool, leading al-Dabaran farther from Dunya.
“And here I thought you liked your women fierce,” I challenged, dodging a stream of hissing roaches. “Or is that only when
you can spy on them in the bath, you petty, perverted excuse for a planet?”
It was honestly among my weakest of insults—you try insulting a demi-god while they’re attempting to kill you!—but al-Dabaran
didn’t take it well. Not well at all. So badly in fact that he briefly drew back from attempting to decapitate me with his
snake staff and brought his palms together with a terrific cracking sound. The water in the pond instantly drained, great
clouds of steam scalding the air and leaving a pit large enough to swallow a fishing boat. The ground shook with great force
and I scrambled away, eager to avoid tumbling into that forbidding maw.
But al-Dabaran now had me cornered. I stepped back, only to collide with the cave’s clammy wall and become instantly drenched.
Saltwater springs were running freely down the lichen-covered rock.
I inhaled, the familiar scent of the ocean filling my lungs as the trickling rivulets of water curled around my fingers.
The marid’s ghostly presence reached out to touch me.
Not physically . Rather I felt it stir again in the back corner of my mind. And not just stir; our tether—the bond I’d accidently forged
when I freed the creature—flashed into sight, its sunny scales shining bright before vanishing again.
Is it close? Is this some sort of message? But I had little time to ponder the doings of an oversized monster because al-Dabaran had apparently summoned his own when
he shattered the ground.