Free Hand of the King's Evil - Outremer 04 by Chaz Brenchley

there. Halfway between the needle and the sea, between the construct and the inherent, the glamorous height and the unreachable depth. And actually where Jemel did stand, where they were — Marron could look north and say it was a peak, look south and say it was a plateau. He could say it was natural living rock that warmed their feet, because it was; he could say it was a thing utterly unnatural, because it was that also. He could say it was a nothing, a removal, an absence of form; he could say it was a mirror made to reflect the sky back to itself, dark rock that wasted its heart-heat in a sheen that showed nothing to nothing, to speak of the vast emptiness of this uninhabited world ...
    Except that the world was not uninhabited, and he should not think it so. Even as the thought did flit across his mind, dragging its own question after, he heard a susurration at his ear, the grate of wind on still air.
    'Djinni,' he said, a warning to Jemel as much as a greeting to the spirit. That little was all the greeting that it would have of him; whichever djinni it were, Khaldor or Esren or some happenstance stranger, it was equally unwelcome. He could almost laugh at his own arrogance - as though any djinni could be anything other than strange to him, whether he knew its name or not; as though any djinni would care for the welcome he gave it, in its own land or elsewhere -but he could not smile at the interruption, however conveniently it came.
    'Half-human.'
    That turned him, as it must have known it would. It was a shimmer, a twist, an intangible string in the air but not of the air. In his own land it would perhaps have glittered as it spun, perhaps have gathered up some dust to make itself a visible body; here it did neither, and Jemel was probably not seeing it at all. Marron's enhanced eyes could find it, but barely.
    'I have carried a few titles,' brother, squire, heretic, abomination, 'but half-human is new to me.'
    'You have that within you that is not human. I do not know the proportions, whether you master that which you carry or whether it masters you; either is possible. I could dismember you, but that would teach me only that it survives what you cannot, and that I know already'
    'Djinni Tachur.' Easy to name it now. 'If Elisande sent you to me, then I am sure there will have been a reason.'
    'There was. She required me to tell you that the daughter of the King's Shadow has been taken from Rhabat, by the Sand Dancer Morakh. I have not found them. Neither will you, but she would like to see you fail.'
    No echo of Elisande s voice surviving in the djinni's, but something of the girl's desperation came through none the less. Tell him that Julianne's gone, and how; tell him you can't help; tell him that I need him, urgently ...
    'It will take us two days to come back to her, on foot.' Longer, perhaps. Time was hard to judge here, and they had not hurried. They could hurry now, but not defeat the miles. He was a doorkeeper, no more than that; he could not overleap time or distance, in his passage between worlds.
    'I will take you, if you will permit it. She ordered me to fetch you whether you would or no; some orders I am prepared to disobey, though, and that is one.'
    Too proud to be a slave, it would make a captious servant. That was for Elisande to confront; he'd watch when he could, and enjoy. In the meantime she had asked for him, sent for him, whichever. Marron said, 'I will permit it, djinni,' smiling a little at his own condescension even as he reached for Jemel's hand.
    A whipping wind lifted his feet from the plateau, and he felt the sudden drag of Jemel's weight against his fingers. He tightened his grasp and hauled with easy, inhuman strength, yanking the other boy up to stand beside him on seemingly solid air, binding Jemel's body against his own with an arm wrapped arou nd the narrow waist. Wide, startl ed eyes stared into his from an inch's distance; Marron smiled again for reassurance, did you think I