Teyo struggled to maintain his focus on maintaining his geometry against the pounding of the smoke within. “Once more,” he told Rat urgently.
Liliana, who couldn’t see or hear Rat and wasn’t at all sure what was going on—save for the fact that she knew she was missing something—said, “Who are you talking to? What am I missing here?”
Teyo just barely heard the false Liliana whisper, “You fools, you’re going to get us all killed.”
Teyo repeated, “Once more.”
And Rat slammed the amulet against the table again, shattering the sapphire into fragments.
Immediately the faux zombies disappeared, and “Liliana” transformed into an old woman. But the most significant result by far was the tremendous quantity of smoke that poured forth from the shattered jewel.
It was only then that Teyo realized the full extent of his miscalculation. He thought he had been holding the djinn in his sphere. But he now knew he was only holding a fragment of the entity’s essence. He now knew that this djinn wasn’t simply larger than any he’d ever encountered (or even heard of in stories) on Gobakhan—it was flat-out huge and hugely powerful.
The only saving grace was that the djinn couldn’t fully re-form yet because Teyo was holding a fraction of itself within his geometry.
But that was not a saving grace destined to last for very long.
The big smoke cloud began forming lightning inside the house.
Teyo’s eyes went wide, and he struggled to raise a four-point shield while simultaneously maintaining the sphere.
But just then, an older woman—a collared servant—entered the room from the back of the house and screamed in response to the tableau before her.
That scream distracted Teyo just enough. A bolt of lightning struck his weak four-pointer. It shattered like the sapphire, and Teyo was sent flying.
He heard Rat call out his name—Or was it Kaya or Liliana?—as he struggled to clear his head.
“I’m okay, I’m okay.”
“Not you,” Liliana called out. “Your sphere!”
Teyo looked up, realizing he’d lost the geometry on his sphere. The smoke within was merging with the smoke without, and the great djinn was re-forming: blue skin, glowing blue eyes, pointed ears, tattoos, black hair, black eyebrows and a long, thin black mustache—or sometimes his hair was hair and sometimes it was just dark smoke, swirling and dancing alongside the blue smoke that comprised his spirit.
The djinn stared down at Teyo as his voice boomed out, “ZAHID WILL HAVE VENGEANCE! VENGEANCE ON YOU ALL!”
Through the smoky haze and his hazy grasp on consciousness, Teyo spotted Rat tossing what appeared to be…Bolas’ Spirit-Gem to the real Liliana. For reasons he couldn’t begin to explain, this gave him hope…