36. Chapter Thirty-Six
Rahmi cut down the first man he came across quickly, the surprised yelp swallowed by a surge of power that left his hair on end. Reshef was hot on his heels, silencing the pitiful cries of the sailor. But that wasn”t all Reshef did, and Rahmi watched in horror as the sailor turned an unnatural shade of puce. His eyes bulged, his veins darkened, and a web of black cascaded from his throat before he keeled over.
”Was that necessary?” Rahmi asked, wiping the blood from his cutlass on the back of the man”s tunic. ”I had him just fine.”
Reshef cracked his knuckles, stretching his neck back and forth as though he were readying for a back-alley fight. ”I”ve hidden myself for a thousand years, captain. My magic is begging to be released.”
Rahmi made a noise of frustration at the back of his throat, mostly centered on the realization that Reshef”s power could have come in handy a time or two before this point. ”How many of you are there, then? Liddros said—”
”Liddros knows three of my kind are remaining in his realm,” Reshef growled. He moved through the corridor with inhuman elegance, and Rahmi briefly wondered how he hadn”t seen it before. ”And he”s been hunting us for centuries. What he doesn”t know is that I”m the fourth. While his powers are muted, they are still existent. We must hurry if we want to beat the king to the Luminaria before Liddros finds me.”
Rahmi raced after Reshef, taking the stairs two at a time to keep up. He sliced through a second man, then a third, but the djinn was already a step ahead. Waves of power crested over them, terrible winds that left a taste of wild ether on his tongue. Rahmi landed at the top of the staircase, his stomach lurching at the sight before him.
Bodies dropped where they had been standing, fion glugging from an open cask and the steins rolling across the lower deck with every gentle rock of the ship. Able men in their prime, nearly a dozen of them…
”Are they dead?” Rahmi asked, glancing back at Reshef, who had begun to take the second set of stairs that led to the quarterdeck. He could already smell the brine cutting through the sour scent of the lower berths.
Reshef paused, one hand on the railing and one foot on the above step. ”Is that a problem?”
It was decidedly not a problem, but Rahmi wanted a chance to exact his revenge, too. These men had dragged him aboard this ship, had sunk The Mark of Malice, and had taken Kalia to where only the gods knew. He dared not voice it at the risk of sounding absurd, but Reshef”s lips carved upward in a way that made Rahmi regret the thought.
”Are you jealous, captain?” A childlike insincerity to his voice made Rahmi want to throttle him, djinn or not. ”Should I have saved some for you?”
”No,” Rahmi replied adamantly, gesturing vaguely toward the stairs. ”Have your fun, I suppose.”
Reshef barked a laugh. ”I will allow you the thrill of rescuing our dear friend, Kalia. That way, you can be the pirate in stained breeches for her. Do we have a deal?”
Rahmi clenched his teeth. ”How thoughtful of you.”
Reshef said nothing else as he barreled up the staircase, not bothering to be quiet. A harrowing twist clamped down in Rahmi”s gut when he remembered that he had once put a knife to this man”s throat and had threatened to bleed him like a stuck pig. He glanced back at the dozen men Reshef had ended with a mere thought. How far would he have let Rahmi go before turning him into a pile of bone dust?
Shouts echoed from the deck, snapping Rahmi out of his thoughts. His boots pounded against the wooden steps as he ascended the quarterdeck, and he entered the melee with his cutlass tightly clutched. Not that he needed it, as Reshef certainly had it handled on his own.
Pistol shots rang out, lead bullets whizzing through the air toward the djinn. But with an unneeded flourish of his hands, the bullets transformed into rose petals, each lazily wafting toward the deck. The sailor who had fired the pistol glanced over to Rahmi, blinking, from where he stood near the gunnel. In the next moment, and another crest of power, all that remained was a pile of hard-worn clothes, a tiger cub nestled on top.
On and on it went. Cutlasses into brass cymbals that turned on their holder. A dagger into a sandglass, shattering as soon as it hit the ground. Coils of rope into a line of sausage links that comically throttled a sailor on the run. Another man into a parrot, indignant squawks blaring from his beak as he marched around the deck. A third man into a flying carpet, where it zoomed around the sails, shaking its corner tassels as though they were tiny fists.
Rahmi settled onto a crate to watch the chaos, laying the cutlass across his lap. Reshef inched closer and closer to the ship”s bow, a smile plastered on his boyishly handsome face. There was nothing for Rahmi to do but wait. And, while Rahmi preferred to be in the battle, Reshef had an unmistakable flare for ridiculousness…and a thousand years” worth of ideas to prove it.
When the smoke settled and the crew of The Midnight Mariner had been turned into a host of animals and objects, Reshef came to stand in front of Rahmi. An apple appeared in his palm, and he took a calm bite. He leaned an elbow on the gunnel and stared out at the sea.
”You left me to do all of the heavy lifting,” Reshef said with the air of someone who had worked particularly hard. A second bite from the apple, the crunch loud against the quiet of the night. ”Could have used your help out there.”
Rahmi rolled his eyes, leaning back against the wall. ”I didn”t want to get turned into some aquatic creature by mistake. Was that one a lizard?”
Reshef furrowed his brow. ”Which one?”
”Mid-deck. Portly. Holes in the toes of his boots.”
”Ah, no. That”s an olm, a cave-dwelling salamander. I saw them in another realm before I got stuck here. It”s a common misconception.”
”I”ll take your word for it.”
Reshef took another bite of his apple as Rahmi tipped his head back to look up at the sky. A star shot across, bright despite the light from the crescent moon. The waters were calm and peaceful, allowing him to collect his thoughts and secure a plan to find Kalia. He was interrupted by a sudden squawk from the parrot, his talons clicking against the deck as he marched over, red feathers ruffling.
”Well, if you”re done resting, we should go release the others from the lower deck,” Reshef sighed, tossing his apple into the sea.
Rahmi shot up from the crate, catching the cutlass by the leather-wrapped hilt. ”They”ve been down there the entire time? Who was rescued? I thought they all died.”
”Please,” Reshef said, pushing himself away from the gunnel and sauntering toward the bow. He stepped over the squawking parrot, who did a quick about-face and marched after him. ”You”re upsetting the bird.”
Rahmi breezed past it as he followed Reshef. ”How did they survive?”
”Most of them were captured when the ship began to sink,” Reshef said as he grabbed a lantern from the mast and bounced down the stairs. I wouldn”t know who is here and who isn”t, but I felt them aboard this ship when I removed my necklace. I thought keeping them out of the fray would be better.”
Rahmi grumbled a curse under his breath, suddenly feeling less beholden to the djinn. ”You could have said something.” With every step, the air began to stale and sour again.
”You”re right, I could have,” Reshef answered simply. He took a right, then a left, then walked down a long passage lined with rooms that, at one time, had been meant as cabins for the rich to rent on their voyages. Now, they were filled with expensive clothes, old sails, crates of food, and casks that seemed to be for fion. ”Hello, my love.”
Alaric, as were Elodie and Shirin, were there, their soot-covered faces peering through the darkness at them. Thomas, Elric, Bart, William, Searles, Cora, and many more bolted to the wall with sets of rusted shackles. They weren”t obsidian, but the iron was rusted enough that Rahmi knew it would be a job to free them all.
That was until Reshef blinked, and the shackles fell away, disintegrating into piles of metal shavings. Alaric gaped as he turned over his hands, staring at his wrists. His eye patch had been removed, the socket in plain view. Elodie squealed in surprise while she rubbed her forearms, reddened by how tightly the shackles had been locked around her. Even stoic Shirin made a noise out of the back of her throat.
Elodie was the first to stand, the first to make her way over to Reshef, sliding her arms around his waist to give him a big squeeze. ”I knew you were different. I could feel it!” She pulled away before he could return the hug and shouldered past him to stand in front of Rahmi. ”The captain took Kalia.” It wasn”t a question.
”Yes,” Rahmi replied, swallowing thickly when he realized how much time had passed.
”And we”re going after her,” Elodie stated. It was not up for debate.
”Yes.” Rahmi looked down at her. ”And it”s going to be dangerous,” he added, silently hoping it would deter her.
It didn”t.
”I know, but she deserves to be rescued.”
Rahmi couldn”t help but smile at her wording. Reshef gave him a conspiratorial wink over his shoulder. ”Then we should probably get going, shouldn”t we?”
”The path through the archipelagos is going to be too narrow to sail this ship,” Alaric said from the helm, his one eye pressed against the looking glass. ”It”s deceivingly wide at the front, though it”s probably meant to be. We”ll run aground if we try.”
Rahmi”s crew had quickly gotten over the flying carpet, the squawking parrot, the painted turtle, the olm, and the horde of other animals and objects the sailors had been turned into. By the healthy distance they kept away, he could tell who was most comfortable with Reshef, Elodie and Shirin for example, and who wasn”t. The djinn didn”t seem to mind one way or the other as long as Alaric stayed by his side.
And from how Alaric had grabbed the back of Reshef”s head and pulled him in for a devouring kiss, it sure didn”t seem like it would be an issue.
”Rowing is going to take too long,” Rahmi said in agreement, running a frustrated hand through his hair. ”They”ve been gone for hours now, I assume.” The primal need to hit something flared to life inside him again, but he tempered it as Elodie climbed the steps, cooing at the tiger cub she had snatched off the deck.
”Captain, what”s the word for prince in your native language?” she asked, adjusting her arms around the cub. It looked disgruntled, and Rahmi wondered how much of the sailor was still in there.
”Nameer,” Rahmi answered at once, though he narrowed his eyes on the woman a heartbeat later. ”Why?”
”My little Nameer,” Elodie cooed again, scratching between the cub”s ears.
”Elodie, you can”t name the tiger,” Rahmi said exasperatedly as Alaric dutifully looked away. ”Twenty minutes ago, it was a human.”
”And now it”s a tiger,” Elodie said happily, as though she didn”t see the ethical dilemma. ”My tiger.”
”And what will you do with the tiger when we figure out how to get to the cave?”
Elodie looked at him as though he were something particularly disgusting on the underside of her boot. ”It”s a tiger, captain. It”ll be fine on its own.”
He didn”t have the patience for this. He began to turn to glare at Alaric, who was struggling to contain his amusement, but Shirin and Reshef climbed up the steps at that moment.
”The Luminaria is a conduit of power that the djinn are bound to,” Reshef explained to Shirin, who was listening with rapt attention. ”With it, someone without magic can control the djinn still on the continent.”
”So why can”t you take control of it?” Shirin asked as she paused near the top step. ”Keep it with you so others can”t get to it?”
Reshef shook his head. ”It doesn”t work that way. The four of us used our magic to bind the stone to the chamber. It would take all four of us to remove it. Only those that our magic deems worthy can.”
”So there”s a chance that Kalia can”t get it out,” Shirin said, a hopeful glint filling her eye. ”There”s a chance that the Luminaria is safe.”
”Yes, but if she can,” Reshef pressed on, ”then who has direct access to it if she can get it through the other traps we set? Captain Nasir? The king? We have almost limitless power. We”ve been hunted for centuries. What do you think the king would do with my magic if he got ahold of it?”
Shirin went a bit pale as she nodded, though she perked up considerably when she noticed the tiger cub cradled in Elodie”s arms.
”His name is Nameer,” Elodie said, the tone of a proud mother, as Shirin bounded up the rest of the steps to play with the cub”s tail.
”You cannot keep the tiger,” Rahmi ground out, tilting his head back to gaze in profound irritation at the stars. ”It has to go.”
”What are you going to do? Drown it?” Elodie asked with enough sass that Rahmi”s head snapped back into place. ”It was a human less than twenty minutes ago.”
This time, Alaric snickered. Rahmi felt a vein pulse in his forehead and even imagined throwing both the tiger cub and Elodie overboard. ”None of this is helpful,” Rahmi barked. He was at his limit. ”Kalia is out there. This ship is too large to get through. We don”t have time to row. We will lose access to the archipelago in a matter of hours. Are there any other suggestions?” That didn”t even come close to the issue that The Mark of Malice had been sunk, and his life was soon to be forfeit. He just needed to see Kalia safe first.
The group quieted, and for a long minute, the only sounds were his crew on the quarterdeck and the squawking of that stupid fucking parrot. Rahmi unsheathed his dagger, stalking toward the steps to remove its head from its body, but Reshef stepped in front of him.
”If we can”t sail there, captain,” Reshef said, ”then we”ll fly there.”
Before Rahmi could challenge him on the notion of that absolutely ridiculous idea, Reshef lifted his fingers to his mouth and whistled so loudly that Rahmi heard ringing in his ears. It took only a short time for his unasked question to be answered.
The flying carpet zoomed around the main sail, coming to a halt in front of Reshef as though it were a dog called by its master. Reshef patted the worn-looking purple fabric and turned to send Rahmi a smug smile.
”This—this is—” Rahmi spluttered. ”You can”t be serious.”
”As serious as you were a moment ago when you went to behead the parrot,” Reshef retorted. The carpet waved a single golden tassel at Rahmi. ”This is going to be the quickest way. I can promise you that.”
”This one carpet can”t hold all of us. Three at the most? We don”t have the room,” Rahmi countered.
Reshef made a noise of agreement at the back of his throat before he turned to face the quarterdeck. ”You, you, you, you, you, you, and…hmm…you.” He pointed at different animals around the deck, including the olm, and each changed form, popping into different patterned flying carpets. The fleet of carpets zoomed around before coming to a halt near the stern. Each bobbed in the air, waiting for a command.
”Come on, captain,” Reshef said, squaring his shoulders to face Rahmi. He hopped onto the purple carpet, turning to offer a hand to Rahmi. The mischievous gleam in his eye made Rahmi uneasy.
Rahmi huffed an irritated sigh, and something tightened in his chest at the thought of flying. But Kalia”s life was in balance, as was the Luminaria”s, and what choice did he have? At that moment, he had never understood her better. His brave ruehi. ”Fine, but I”m getting my own fucking carpet. No way I”m riding with you.”