The Fire Wish (5 page)

“I’m certain the caliph will appreciate this year’s tax tribute more than usual, Sergewaz,” the vizier said, grinning. His teeth were surprisingly bright, and if he hadn’t been so old and creepy, he would have been handsome. “Zayele, you’re going to be this young prince’s first wife. It’s more than any other tribal woman can hope for.”

It was like being hit in the stomach. The vizier and my father had made their trade. I was going to marry the prince, and my tribe’s warriors would have the honor of taking part in the war. My father waved his hand, shooing me out of the tent. “Go let your mother know you will be leaving with the vizier tomorrow. Your cousin Rahela will go with you, so you will not travel alone. We have other issues to discuss now.”

I could feel my face burning in anger, and I almost opened
my mouth to say what was on my mind, but then Father picked up his cup of tea. He was done with me. I turned on my heels and fled the tent. Outside, I picked my dress up to my shins and ran, splashing mud every which way. I went past my own tent, around the herd and to the cliffs.

I climbed them, not caring how they ripped at my hands or how slippery they had gotten in the rain. The dress snagged on the rocks, and the embroidered flowers were soon frayed and crushed like the crocuses we’d passed earlier. And all I could think of was that I was glad the dress was ruined. I was glad I couldn’t wear it in front of the prince.

I climbed higher, wanting to escape, to turn into someone else. I wanted to feel the rain and wind blow through my clothes. At last, I made it to where I expected to find Yashar. He had started a small fire beneath an outcropping and sat crouched behind it. Smoke billowed around the edge and disappeared in the rain while the wood popped and steamed.

“Zayele?” he asked. He lifted his head and turned his ear to me. I ducked under the outcropping and sank down beside him.

“It’s me,” I said, and patted his hand. For a long time, we sat while the steam escaped from the fire, twirling in the air. The wood turned black and chunks of it fell down into the searing coals, where they died. Then Yashar rested his head on my shoulder.

“Are you going to leave with the vizier?” he asked. I grunted. “I won’t know what to do when you’re gone,” he croaked.

“I don’t want to go.”

His head lifted off my shoulder. “What do you mean? Isn’t it what girls want? To marry a prince?” He looked at me, furrowing his brows, and I shuddered. His irises were milky white with scars. They were like pearls, and unnatural. He could see light and darkness, nothing more than that, while I could see his blinded eyes every time I looked at him.

“I don’t know. It’s just that I belong here, not in Baghdad. Not in a city. Not to some prince.” My heart twisted in my chest. Without me, how would Yashar make it? What if he fell down in the gorge and couldn’t find his way out? What if Father cut him off? Ever since he’d gone blind, our father had thought he was deadweight. But I
knew
he wasn’t. “Maybe I can find a way out of it and stay here.”

“No,” he said. He poked at the fire with a blackened stick. “You have to go. If you stayed, they’d make you marry someone from the al-Himza tribe. Maybe Destawan.”

“Eww.”

He chuckled, and I pretended he was really laughing and not breaking apart like I was. “You’d have to milk his stringy camels.”

I shoved him and he smiled, a real one this time. “Baghdad is a long ways away,” I said. “But anything could happen on the journey. Maybe I’ll figure out how to come back home.”

“Then you’d just be stuck here with us,” he said. A spark popped and hit the stone between the fire and our knees, leaving a scorch mark.

“While I’m gone, don’t let anyone hurt you.”

“Don’t worry. I may be blind, but I’m not missing a brain.”

The water was pooling on the ledge and reaching toward my toes. Would it rain like this in Baghdad? After a while, the wind shifted and the outcropping couldn’t hold back the rain anymore. We leaned against the stone while the fire sizzled and steamed until nothing was left but mud and char.

BEHIND THE DOORS stood an obsidian desk, and behind the desk sat a woman. I expected that we’d walk past her, but Faisal paused. She seemed to recognize him, but when she saw me, her smile thinned.

“Who’s this, then?” she asked Faisal. She wore her hair twisted up in a gold-and-topaz clip, leaving a few strands hanging down. These she had dipped in bronze and filed at the points. She held one in her hand, twining her fingers around it while she looked me over.

“This is Najwa. She is expected,” Faisal said.

“That’s fine, but I need to check her in.”

I glanced at Faisal, hoping he’d say something to get us past her quickly, but he nudged me toward her. “Najwa,” he said with an annoyed sigh, “she needs a finger.”

“Why?”

She said, “Just give me your hand, and you’ll see what he means.” She sounded like she enjoyed what she was going to do to me.

If this was what the members of the Eyes of Iblis Corps did the first time they came here, then so be it. I held out my hand and she took it in one of hers. Then she took one of her pointed strands of hair and pierced the tip of my finger. I bit my lip and watched her collect the drop of blood onto a small circle of copper and then cover it with a sliver of clear glass. Then she let go of my hand.

I brought my finger to my lips while she punched a hole in the copper circle, made a mark on the back, and hung it on a board behind her. I had noticed the board when we came in, shimmery with dozens of copper circles, but I’d thought it was just decoration. Now I looked closer and saw that each of the circles had a dark stain on the surface, pressed beneath a thin circle of glass.

“What is that for?” I asked.

“It’s to keep track of everyone who can enter the Command of Iblis,” the woman said.

“But why the blood?”

Faisal wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “Just in case.”

That was the end of it. I could tell they would say no more, and I rubbed the sore spot on my finger, hoping that soon I would find an answer.

We left the entrance and entered the main hall. It was a circular room with walls of red and gold divided equally by four arched doorways, and in the center stood a lamp on a pedestal. It was the twin to one in the palace. Together, they had been the passage between the worlds, allowing jinn to transport without wishes and letting humans serve as ambassadors in the Cavern. The Lamp was made of pure gold and shone
as though someone polished it every day. It stood, all alone, beneath a domed indigo ceiling. A sparkling, purposeful pattern spread across the ceiling.

“That’s our chart of the stars,” Faisal said. I had almost forgotten he was with me.

“Those are stars?” I whispered.

“No,” he said, chuckling, “those are diamonds. We had them set in the same pattern as the stars in the sky.”

“That’s what the night sky looks like?” I said.

“Yes. And someday, you’ll see it for yourself.” Then he pulled me away to the doorway straight ahead, and we went around the Lamp and into a corridor. We passed two closed doors, both dark, and then stopped at one that was painted in the same red and gold as the main hall.

Faisal turned to face me, placing his hands on my shoulders, as if he was preparing to steady me. “Najwa, this is the Room of Iblis,” he said, and I felt my jaw go slack.

I swallowed, and then said, “Why are we here?”

“I told you that you’re the only one who can get into the palace. That proves you have special abilities, so we are going to bring you into the Corps.”

Heat spread across my cheeks. “Today?”

He smiled, let go of my shoulders, and put his hand on the door. “Prepare yourself,” he said, but he didn’t give me any time. Suddenly, the door was open and I could see at least ten other jinn inside, all looking straight at me.

They were officers in the Corps. A woman stood by a map laid out on a table, and I recognized her as the one who always reported to Faisal. I had seen her in the hallways of the
school, but she had never acknowledged me. The other jinn in the room were younger than Faisal, but more experienced than me. They had been to the surface countless times, some in the middle of a battle. They’d never taken notice of me, but I’d always known who they were. Whether it was something in their eyes or just the way they observed the world, I could always tell when someone was in the Corps.

Behind them all was the Eye of Iblis. It wasn’t an actual eye, of course, but one whole wall of tiled quartz. Faisal had told me it was the way the jinn could see what was going on in the world. But without actually seeing the Eye of Iblis, I hadn’t understood him. Some of the tiles flashed with images from other places, and some were bare and white, waiting patiently to show the room something. The Eye of Iblis was ten feet tall, twenty feet wide, and so bright that it silhouetted the jinn before it.

Faisal motioned toward the room. “Are you going in?” I felt faint, but I went in anyway and stood aside. Faisal went to the woman by the map. She nodded at him and turned back to give me a strained smile.

“Good, she’s here,” she said. Then, to me: “Are you ready?”

Faisal cleared his throat. “I haven’t had time to explain what we want her to do, Delia. Najwa, each of us here has tried to enter the palace using your wish, but the closest we can get is the wall outside.” He paused, waiting for me to say something.

“I—I’m sure someone else can get in,” I said. My voice was quieter than I’d meant it to be.

One of the other jinn snorted. “We tried. Do you know
how exhausting it is to transport yourself over and over? We’re done.” I could see now that he was leaning back against another table, using it to prop himself up. The transport
had
been tiring. I couldn’t imagine doing it repeatedly.

Delia shook her head. “You have to go back, Najwa. We needed someone in there a year ago.
Ten
years ago. We need to bring you into the Corps as a full member.”

The same thing had happened to Atish. He’d finished his tests early, and the Shaitan had taken him. Somehow, getting into the palace had lifted me into the Corps, and they were going to give me a real assignment. I started to shake, nervous and excited at once.

“Najwa?” Faisal said. “Do you understand what Delia told you?”

“I understand,” I said. Delia smiled, and this time it was genuine. The other jinn stepped back as she made her way to the center of the Eye of Iblis and pressed both hands against it. The images blinked and were gone, leaving it just a wall of blank crystal. Then she pulled on the center tile, and it slid out like a drawer. She reached in and pulled out a stick of sapphire the length of my forearm but as narrow as my thumb. One end was sharpened, and when I saw it, I knew what it was for. The mark of the Corps was sapphire blue, and this was what made it. She brought it to Faisal, who asked me to hold out my hand.

While the other jinn surrounded us, he held the sapphire point above the webbing between my thumb and forefinger.

“Najwa, we welcome you into the Eyes of Iblis Corps,” he said. Then he wished,
“Iblishi.”

A blue light came out of the rod. It was a thousand and one heated pricks, all in one tiny spot. I gasped but held my body still, afraid that if I cried out, they would see how much it hurt. I watched as the light moved, drawing the mark, and then it was done.

That was all it took. Years of studying with Faisal, years of learning about humans and how to watch them, and all it took was a few seconds to join the Corps. I held up my hand. The rounded eye of an owl, the size of my smallest fingernail, stared back at me.

“Welcome, Najwa,” Delia said. “In a few moments, the sapphire dust will reach your heart and become part of you.” Then she winked. “You will be able to show us what you see whenever you press on it.”

This was something Faisal had never told me. Everyone got a mark to designate their profession, but that was all it was. The Shaitan’s lion mark was just a bit of gold powder set inside their skin. The physician’s mark that Shirin would receive, an emerald snake wrapped around her wrist, was only that. Wasn’t it? Or were all the marks a secret way for the members of each profession to communicate?

“How do you see what I see?” I asked Faisal.

“It goes to the Eye,” he said.

“Can I practice?”

“Certainly,” he said, nodding at my hand. “But it might be sore there.”

Everyone was silent while I gazed at the mark between my thumb and forefinger. The skin was sensitive, but it was not
broken. There weren’t any punctures. How had the mark gone through my skin without damaging it?

I looked up at the wall, and then at Faisal. Gently, I pressed, and a giant graying beard spread across the Eye of Iblis. I jumped back, letting go of my hand, and everyone laughed. The image of Faisal’s face flickered on the wall.

“Couldn’t you have looked at someone prettier?” one of the jinn joked.

I turned to Faisal. “That is amazing! No wonder you know so much about the humans.”

“Yes,” he said. “I’m sorry we can’t have a proper celebration, but we have to brief you and send you on your way.”