Free Ars Magica by Judith Tarr

For its — her — sins? “You hardly sound oracular.”
    â€œMy tongue is mine, unless I must prophesy. My binding is light, as such bindings go.”
    â€œWhy?”
    Without shoulders, improbably, she could shrug. “Am I a mage, to tell a mage?”
    â€œI take it back. You are an oracle. You talk in circles.”
    â€œArabesques,” the image said. “My nature is my nature.”
    â€œNow I understand,” said Gerbert. “You talked the wrong man into a rage.”
    â€œNot only talked.” That, surely, was a hint of smugness. “And not a man. A man would have given me a body.”
    â€œMaryam enchanted you?”
    â€œYou doubt her power?”
    â€œI doubt her pettiness.”
    â€œIt was hardly petty,” said the Jinniyah. “Nor was it she. I am older than that.”
    â€œHer mother —?”
    â€œHer mother’s mother’s mother. They are a strong dynasty. And passionate. Jealous, that first of them was, and with excellent cause. She knew a fine face in a man. Alas for her, she did not know a fine mind to match it. He was a beautiful idiot. Good faith was beyond his capacity; good sense was as far out of his reach as the moon. He was,” said the Jinniyah, “a most single-minded creature. But what his mind was fixed on — of that, ah, before God, he was a master.”
    â€œWhat became of him?” asked Gerbert, fascinated, though he had begun to blush again.
    â€œHe lived out his life with her. As,” the Jinniyah said,”a singing bird. It was, as she pointed out to us both, the just measure of his intelligence.”
    â€œHe died, surely. And she. Why did she never set you free?”
    The Jinniyah smiled. It was not a comfortable smile: it had too little in it of humanity. “I was useful. Waste is anathema to a good housewife, or to a good mage; and wasted I would have been, had I been freed to fly where I would. She kept me while she lived, and perhaps she meant to free me at her death. That, unfortunately, was abrupt; and she had omitted to set down the spell with which she bound me. Her children were hardly minded to devote years and effort to seeking out the spell’s undoing, when by it they would lose their oracle. They have been kind, in their fashion. Have they not put me here, with these walls to occupy me, and on occasion their company?”
    â€œHow unspeakably dull.”
    â€œBetter dull on earth than chained in hell.”
    â€œThere is that,” said Gerbert.
    There was a silence. Gerbert had time to comprehend the strangeness of it: that he stood here, at his ease, conversing with a bodiless head.
    â€œTake me,” said the Jinniyah.
    He was speechless, staring.
    â€œTake me with you,” she said. “I am an oracle. I am meant for the high places. This is prison, and a waste. They use me almost never. They speak to me only when they must. Take me where I can be what I was meant to be.”
    â€œSteal you?”
    â€œFree me.”
    â€œI don’t have the spell for that.”
    Emotion could not twist that graven face, but the voice rang like iron smitten on iron. “Take me with you!”
    â€œYou are not mine to take.”
    â€œI choose you. I name you master. I will serve you, amuse you, prophesy for you. I prophesy. I have waited here until you should come. I am your servant and your destiny. Through me you shall fulfill your dream.”
    He gasped like a runner in a race. “You are a devil. You tempt me. You lure me to my destruction.”
    â€œI am a Jinniyah and your slave. You go to Rome; the prince of your faith will honor you; he will give you as gift to a king. Princes will learn wisdom at your feet; kings will owe their thrones to you. Your Church itself will bow before you.”
    â€œNo,” said Gerbert, half-strangled. “You lie to win your freedom.”
    â€œI never lie. I tell you what will be. If,” said