I cling to him with all my strength, sighing a little as the last of the magic drains away.
Everything stops. The smoke falls away and dissipates. I let him hold me a moment longer before I pull away and draw a deep breath.
Here I stand once more, right where everything began, on the stony, chilly peak of Mount Tissia. Around us, the summit stretches wide before dropping away, the ground a series of stony plateaus. No plants or animals are to be found here, where the wind is sharp as knives, gusting around us with an eerie howl. Swirling clouds gather above and below the peak, obscuring the lands in every direction, until it seems we stand utterly apart from the world.
The alomb rises ahead, a massive structure built in the days when the gods walked the earth. Four corner pillars support a vaulting roof of black stone coursed with glowing blue veins, an ancient magic far more powerful than I could ever wield. It was quarried from the rock that once supported the great isle of Phaex, where the gods feasted every summer solstice, and which sank into the sea many ages ago. Once a doorway to either the godlands or Ambadya, now only the jinn use it, for the path to the gods has long been lost.
In the center of the alomb stands the doorway itself, a perfectly round, seamless ring of stone. There are twelve such doorways in the world, each named for a different god. This one is known as the Eye of Jaal. Two massive buttresses carved in the likenesses of kneeling men frame either side, the sides of the ring supported on their backs.
Usually the doorway sits empty and silent, but now a tunnel of fire swirls and flashes inside, creating a path to the world of the jinn. Blue and red and green the fires burn, hotter than any mortal flame, enough to turn a man from flesh to ashes in a heartbeat. From the Eye wafts the scent of sulfur and smoke.
And then there are the jinn. They crouch all around us, hover in the air, some seen, some unseen. Ghuls and maarids, ifreet and sila. They are silent as death, watching with golden eyes. Many bare their teeth, silently hissing, making their hatred for me quite clear. To them, I am the ultimate traitor.
Aladdin puts an arm around me, as if to guard me against the horde of jinn.
“You know we don’t stand a chance,” I whisper.
Aladdin looks down at me, his hand squeezing my arm. “We’re still alive, aren’t we? Come on, Smoky. Where’s your sense of adventure?”
But his attempt to lighten the mood falls short, and he tightens his grip on the lamp.
When a figure appears in the tunnel of fire, my breath stops. A rustle passes through the jinn, and they shift and whisper as the figure steps through, planting a foot on the stone.
It is Zhian, half man, half beast. He wears black robes, his head horned and his arms scaled armor, as if in anticipation of battle. His gaze rakes over us, lingering a bit on Aladdin, all fury and fire.
“You’re just in time,” he says, deceptively calm.
He turns slowly to face the Eye, giving us a view of his muscled back and his long black braid. He lifts his arms and clenches his fists, the veins in his arms standing rigid.
Around us, the jinn begin slowly pounding the stone, a slow, measured beat that echoes through the alomb. It sends a chill up my spine. Their whispers come next, a voice with a thousand and one tongues.
He is coming!
He is coming!
Aladdin gathers me into his arms, and I shrink into him, sick with dread. The pounding of the jinn begins to grow faster and louder, and the wind generated by the sila whips around us, tugging and pushing.
He is coming!
He is coming!
Zhian drops to his knees, stretching his hands out in front of him. All eyes are fixed on the doorway, on that hypnotizing tunnel of flame that seems to stretch into infinity. The heat intensifies. I can feel Aladdin’s pulse racing through our clasped hands, but he doesn’t waver.
Soon the jinn’s pounding becomes deafening, and then—all at once—everything stops. The noise. The wind.
Then we are thrown flat by a massive ripple of air that pulses outward from the doorway, rolling like thunder. A hot, sulfuric wind with the strength of a tidal wave pours from the Eye, pressing us down.
In the flames a shadow appears, tall as three men, horn and darkness, fire and smoke. Two eyes like coals flicker and form, centered on pupils of utter black. I sit up slowly and fight the wind, working my way to my feet and drawing Aladdin up with me.
The figure steps through the fire, plants one massive foot on the floor of the alomb. Then he lets out a soft, rumbling laugh, a sound that is all breath and wind, yet somehow manages to be deafening. That laugh sends a cold chill crackling down my spine.
Nardukha has come.
Three: The Jinni