Jory Strong: Ghostland

He faltered with the thought, slowed, stopped. He was in a court-yard he rarely delayed in. To his left was an archway he’d seldom found a need to pass through.

For long moments he contemplated what it might cost him. But in the end he turned and took the path leading to the House of the Spider.

A young male Djinn, wearing the simple white trousers of a student, opened the door. He stepped back to usher Zurael in with a sweeping bow. “Welcome, Prince Zurael en Caym of the House of the Serpent. You honor us with your presence. Do you wish to call upon the one who leads our house? Or will another serve you?”

“I will see Malahel en Raum,” Zurael said. The payment required of him would be steep, but he didn’t want to share the details of his shame, his summoning, with anyone other than the strongest in the House of the Spider.

“As you wish, Prince Zurael.” The student bowed again. “If you will follow me, I will take you to the room she favors.”

Like the walls of the Hall of History, the walls in the House of the Spider were covered in pictures. The images were captured in the silken weave of tapestries rather than painted in blood. Some of the scenes were reminiscent of the ones his father had created. But where The Prince’s history was filled with war, with small victories and larger defeats, with the theft of the Djinn land, the history found on the walls in the House of the Spider was interwoven with carnal depictions of intertwined humans, angels and Djinn.

Zurael’s lips moved in a silent curse as the image of the female who’d summoned him filled his thoughts and his cock hardened in response. He turned his attention away from the twisted silken threads covering the walls and forced himself to think instead of the terror he’d felt in that instant when his name had been whispered on the spirit winds and his body had dematerialized against his will.

Rage returned to fill the place carved out by terror. He thought of the humans and their black mass, their foolish desire to call for those trapped in the hell of the ghostlands. In a blink their deaths passed through his mind, and before he could stop himself he was once again standing in front of the female.

Zurael’s penis throbbed. His lips pulled back, a silent snarl in defiance to the heat that rose upward, spiraling through his chest and neck and face. There was no hiding the erection pressed against the front of his trousers.

He nodded stiffly when the student stopped at a doorway and bowed him into a small room. “I will tell the one you seek that you wait here.”

The room was bare of influences. The walls were painted the gray of the ghostlands. Three large gray pillows served as seating around a wooden table only inches above the floor. Three teacups waited in a cluster at the table’s edge. Nearby, a ceramic teapot sat on a brazier, the glow of hot charcoal a symbol of the Djinn, whose prison kingdom was surrounded by the cold spiritlands.

In four strides Zurael was next to one of the cushions. The smell of jasmine tea teased his nostrils. He contemplated the teacups and felt the stirrings of uneasiness in his chest. He had never been one to frequent this house.

He turned at the sound of the door opening. Malahel en Raum stood in the doorway. She wore the concealing robes of a desert dweller, though like the room, they were gray. In deference to her position Zurael bowed slightly and said, “I thank you for attending me.”

“Another would attend you as well,” Malahel said, entering the room.

Zurael’s pulse spiked at the sight of the Djinn who stepped into the doorway. Like Malahel, Iyar en Batrael of the House of the Raven was dressed in the concealing robes of a desert traveler. His skin was as black as the material covering all of his body and much of his face. Only the gold of his eyes was easily seen.

“Enter,” Zurael said, acknowledging Iyar with a bow of equal depth to the one he’d given Malahel.

The three of them seated themselves on the cushions.

“You wish to pour?” Malahel asked, indicating the waiting teacups with a small flick of her fingers and giving Zurael the choice as to whether to lead the conversation or not.

Zurael picked up the teapot and filled the ceramic cups. “I was summoned.”

Both Malahel and Iyar freed the lower half of their faces from the concealing material. Iyar’s dark fingers stroked the handle of a teacup. “The Prince has given you permission to pass through the gates in order to kill the one who summoned you?”

“Yes.”

Iyar nodded and took the teacup to his lips.

Malahel set her teacup down. Her irises were as black as Iyar’s skin.

“Tell us about the summoning,” she said.

Zurael repeated what he’d told his father, hesitating for an instant but finally including the oddity of the summoner’s ability to call him in her astral state with little more than his name. Where his father hadn’t shown interest in the humans who’d been killed, Malahel and Iyar leaned forward as he described the black mass and the woman whose sacrifice he’d prevented.

“Where were the sigils written?” Iyar said.

Zurael conjured up the scene, focusing on an aspect that had been insignificant at the time. He’d barely glanced at the woman on the altar, and yet with Iyar’s prompting he was able to answer, “Her eyes, mouth, the palms of both hands.”

“The soles of her feet?”

“I don’t know.”

Iyar shrugged. “What you saw was enough.”

“Enough for what?” Zurael asked, uneasiness returning with the look that passed between Malahel and Iyar.

Malahel placed her teacup on the low table and settled her hands on her knees. “What is it you wish from the House of the Spider?”

What did he want? What impulse had made him take the path that led here?

Zurael sipped his tea as his thoughts danced from one scene to another, always returning to the female who’d summoned him and the fear that he would be bound in service before he could ensure his freedom by killing her. Divination was one of a Spider’s gifts. “I would know what power the human holds over me that she was able to summon me the way she did.”

Malahel’s head tilted slightly. Zurael’s chest tightened as he imagined himself caught in her web. Dark eyes bored into his, unblinking, the thoughts behind them completely hidden.

There was always a price to pay for coming to the House of the Spider. At the moment, his debt was canceled by the information he’d provided about the summoning.

Zurael forced himself to lift the teacup to his lips with a steady hand and drain it of its contents. When he set it on the table, Malahel said, “I will read the stones on your behalf if you will accept a task.”

“What task?”

Malahel’s eyes flicked to Iyar. Iyar said, “The dark priest you killed was trying to summon an entity from the ghostlands and bind it to a human form. The sigils on the eyes, mouth, the palms and the soles of the feet are meant to give the priest complete control of the being. This is not the first time such a thing has happened in the recent past. There are Djinn lost to us, cursed to wander the human spiritlands because their souls are tainted by the ones they killed, making them ifrit. Their names are unspoken, crossed out in the Book of the Djinn. The House of the Raven would not have them summoned again, bound and used again by the humans.”

“Nor would I,” Zurael said.

“We believe the black mass you interrupted is proof a human is in possession of an ancient stone tablet we thought lost,” Malahel said. “Find whoever is in possession of this knowledge and kill them, then bring the tablet to us without delay.”

Zurael’s eyebrows drew together in consternation and confusion. To accept the task was to remain at risk of being summoned and bound by the human female. “The House of the Scorpion is full of assassins capable of doing what you ask.”