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Kahlaran’s asylum was the least inviting building in the otherwise neat palace district. It looked tiny, like a boring, white crevice shoved between two white stone slabs, but it had corridors and halls reaching far into the mountain below.
Kherim had heard rumors that most esquires had relatives enjoying the comfort of the place, many still in the good graces of their powerful associates. Uncles who grew both old and mad with time, or heirs with broken minds still possessing the duty to keep the family growing, that sort.
A mantra of prayers seeped through the cracks, broken by an occasional cry of pain, which didn’t help the overwhelmingly damp mood. As Kherim entered the building, a thin, bald priest stepped in front of him. He was humble in both attire and approach, and if not for the angular golden amulet hanging in his neck, he looked almost like an initiate.
“Qrahr Kherim, on his way to the bowels of the earth. What wave brought you here, the home of tempestuous minds?”
“A wave that came alive, High Priest,” Kherim said finally. “How well do you know those under your care?”
“Just as Idar knows every stone,” the priest said. He waved for Kherim to enter, then shuffled down the hall. “Is there someone you seek?”
“There is. Sadly, I don’t know her name,” Kherim said, following the man while his gaze wandered to the ever-thickening mass of stone and rock towering above him. The idari order believed that their god of peace, bravery, and stones could only understand mortal men inside caves, and all their buildings displayed this belief.
“A woman came from Nirah a while ago. She has an affection for the sea.”
The priest nodded without delay, which was a little suspicious, but Kherim forced himself not to show it.
“There’s a woman from Nirah. Vanitha. Poor creature, she only feels alive when she can watch the ships return from the sea.”
“Can I talk to her, High Priest?” Kherim said.
“I doubt she could say anything of use to you, but... maybe, if you join her above, on the cliff. What do you hope to learn from her, Qrahr Kherim?”
“Nothing that concerns your order,” Kherim said. “Where’s the cliff?”
“Turn left and follow the long staircase leading up. It’ll take you there. We prepare Vanitha to appear before the merciful qrahr.”
Kherim’s brows twitched from the addressing, but even he wasn’t sure why. He thought it teasing, overplayed humility, as if the priest was trying to point out something in his title. Idar was a god of peace and decency, and his followers could only see evil in a general leading an army.
Kherim shook his head to get rid of his resentment and set off in the direction the high priest had indicated. It wasn’t hard to follow, the sound of the rapids, and the characteristic smell of salty mist led him all the way until he emerged atop a flat cliff edge.
The wind rushed at him, but he put his hands in his pockets and ventured closer to the edge. He could make out the harbor, the crescent-shaped wooden docks and piers surrounding the restless sea like a hungry jaw, letting tiny ships in and out. Perhaps Kahlaran bore his fate in its name. According to the popular legend, this land was naught but a gulf guarded by a mighty water demon who wore the same name as the city. When Kanda, Seiran’s last true prince, fled the devastation of the Old Garden, he battled the demon and founded a city bearing its name as a mockery. A sign of human dominance over the spirits. The water djinn warned Kanda that this place was not for man, that the water would one day rise, shatter their ships, absorb their treasures, and strangle them. It seemed some sins took ages to bite back.
It was nonsense. It had to be nonsense. No matter how he looked at the shore, no matter how the ships slashed into the waves, the sea continued to swell and endure without a hint of rising.
It felt like half an hour at least until Kherim heard a shuffling idari arriving, leading a pale, bone-thin woman behind him. Her white robe almost shimmered between the blackness of the rocks, and her whole being radiated some strange power. She had black hair, like all seirs, but her eyes glistened with an intense green hue. She had symmetrical features and full lips, so apart from her sunken face and the dark circles under her eyes, she was quite a spectacle.
“This is the qrahr, Vanitha. Be polite to him,” the priest whispered.
Kherim cleared his throat. “Do you recognize me, Vanitha?”
Vanitha glanced at the priest and back again.
“They said your name was Kherim.”
So she wasn’t at all aware of his title or rank, which was actually more comfortable. People had prejudices about him, often coloring out the ugly truth – the insane had no such restrains.
“I’m protecting the city,” he said, turning his sight to the skyline of Kahlaran. “I need your help to do that.”
“Protecting...” Vanitha shook her head and smiled. “Kahlaran doesn’t need your protection, nor anyone else’s. The sea’s protecting it.”
“Who protects it from the sea?”
She didn’t answer, just laughing and walking to the edge of the cliff.
“That’s what she usually does,” the idari said. “She just stares at the sea as much as we allow her, then returns to her room and keeps quiet.”
Kherim followed Vanitha, trying to distance himself from the priest. He would have preferred to talk in private, but that wasn’t an option here.
“Why do you love it so much?” he asked.
“Is there anything not to love about it?” Vanitha replied, not looking away from the sights below. “Just look at the sunlight gleaming on top of the waves. The white foam. The rocks carved into shape by the water. It can give and take away.”
“It only takes. Takes life, peace, and prosperity, all the while not showing himself. There’s a wave approaching Kahlaran, Vanitha. A wave that calls itself the Marid.”
Vanitha’s eyes widened, wildly grabbing Kherim’s arm. “He is coming? Did he send you? Did he say anything?”
“He’s here, has been for a while now,” Kherim said, trying not to shove Vanitha away like his instincts dictated. “Long enough for the people to fear his name. But he didn’t send me. And he won’t, no matter how long you wait, because the Marid no longer cares for you.”
Vanitha stepped back, shaking her head in rejection. “I don’t... No. He’s coming for me. Promised. But it can’t be right now. It’s too dangerous.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s...” Vanitha hesitated. “He’s different from the others. Prisoners hate their wardens, and some prisoners are too strong. It’s too dangerous.”
Kherim swallowed the bitter bile in his throat. She couldn’t mean literally. This woman was delusional, manipulated, the victim of a very clever villain who might have been a demon at heart, but nothing more. Nevertheless, her analogies had to mean something, so he tried to engrave every element in his memory.
“Warden? The Marid guards over someone?”
Vanitha nodded.
“So why does he scourge my city? These prisoners, are they here?” Kherim asked.
“In this town? No.” She shook her head again. “But there’s a dangerous prisoner at sea. An efrit, and the people who serve him. He needs to restrain him, but carefully, because if the efrit learns about it, he will destroy him and me and everyone, and he promised to protect me. That’s why I’m waiting... and I wait every day.”
“You’re waiting for him? From the sea?”
“Yes, I am.”
The answer swirled with so many emotions, it weighed on Kherim. This woman, this abandoned, unfortunate woman asked to come here every day, to wait for someone who would never arrive. Someone who played his cruel games under her feet, without thinking of her.
“You’re expecting him from the wrong place,” the qrahr said. “He’s already been in town for days, months, years maybe. Ask yourself, Vanitha, if he cares so much for you, why do you hear about him from me?”
“He has to be careful. The other one is powerful, nearly unbeatable with raw force. But one day he’ll return to me, and I’ll wait.”
“How can you be so sure?”
Vanitha slowly turned to Kherim and looked at him with eyes colder than the bottom of the ocean. “I know. Because he loves me. Because I love him.”
For a while they both kept silent, listening to the howling wind and the waves’ rumble.
“A marid...” Kherim said slowly, as if that word burned his tongue. “A demon can’t love. You love the ocean, too, but if you were to throw yourself into it, wouldn’t it crush you on the rocks?”
“You haven’t met a djinn, Kherim, else you’d know it’s not true. They can love. Deeper, harder and more seriously than any man. Maybe I’d crush myself on the rocks, or drown at the hands of a marid, but couldn’t a man stab me just as easily if he drew a sword?”
“A man is not born with a sword in his hand,” Kherim said. “A djinn carries destruction in his soul. That makes him terrifying, and different from us. Would a man abandon someone he loved? How can you be safer here than with him?”
That seemed to finally hit something, because Vanitha shunned her eyes from him. “People leave who they love too, if they think they can protect them.”
“The Marid’s only protecting himself,” Kherim said, taking a step closer to her. “He is machinating not because he fears another demon, but because he plans our destruction. He’s making way for a foreign army ready to march towards us at any moment. That means deaths, Vanitha. Dozens, if not thousands.”
“What difference does it make?” Vanitha said. “People die. You and I. Or the armies you’re talking about. But he never dies.”
“And that makes you worthless? It makes Kahlaran worthless?”
She remained silent for a long time, watching the waves with her lips pressed against each other, as if she didn’t really know the answer herself.
“No. But sometimes awful things herald the glorious,” she whispered.
Kherim had lost this battle. Vanitha thought the Marid was a god. A being only to be worshipped, and every man or woman was insignificant in comparison. Every death was just a candle blowing out in the storm.
“What do you really want from me, Kherim?” she asked after a while.
“Tell me about him. Why is he doing these things? What’s driving him?”
“What makes you think you can see through his plans? How could you view things from his perspective?”
Kherim grew more and more agitated as he realized it was all for naught. Vanitha was a troubled, exploited and broken woman who insisted on a dream, even if it hurt. She accepted what the Marid whispered in her ears.
A spirit. A djinn, an immortal marid. It was impossible. It had to be.
“I’m only human, like the souls living in this province,” he said after a brief moment of silence. “We live in the present, Vanitha, and face a dark path. I can’t let the Marid do as he pleases.”
She laughed again, rough and provocative. “How could you control the sea?”
“I will. My ancestors tamed the waves with planks and stakes. This Marid isn’t the sea, just a troublemaker.”
She shook her head, as if speaking to a stubborn child. “You haven’t seen enough. But luckily, it’s not for you to decide whether your city belongs to the sea or fire.”
“Oh, yes. It is,” Kherim said before turning his back on the lost woman.
He walked back to the idari. He didn’t doubt the priest had listened to all their words, but his shaved face didn’t reveal any emotion.
“Tell me, has she had any visitors?”
The priest shook his head. “No. Vanitha is all alone. Maybe that’s why she’s so attached to her dreams.”
“I see. Thank you,” he replied and headed out, but before he reached the stairs, Kherim took a last glance back. “One last thing, priest. What does your order teach? How can you recognize a djinn?”
The short man pondered, rubbing his smooth chin.
“Idar does not teach us about djinns and spirits, but our izmaani brothers say that eyes cannot lie. If a soul is inhuman, so are the eyes.”
The qrahr bowed and descended the stone steps.
“A djinn... A real, living djinn in Kahlaran,” he muttered to himself, then shook his head. “Nonsense. There’s no way.”