CHAPTER NINE—THE BLADE DANCERS

The woman called Samira who passed herself off a the Blade Dancer, strode away, then turned to face Jessamine, who, still standing and leaning on her leg with a hand on her hip, seemed to have not a care.

“Jessamine,” said Shiro, “is this really necessary?”

“I am hundreds of years old,” she told him. “Do you think I will allow this woman to wander about using my estimable title? And to call herself ‘princess’ even. Please—must she take that from me as well?”

“Wait,” Shiro said, his eyes widening. “You are a princess?”

Jessamine looked at him and raised an eyebrow. Her shrug was indifferent and yet haughty all at once.

“Whoa!” Raz cried. “I did not know that. Ali, did you know that?!”

The high vizier shook his head as if he were mute, though the look in his eyes revealed his completely surprise.

“I have to say,” said Debaku, “that I am not surprised.”

“Well,” Jessamine said, “at least one of you regards me with the respect I deserve. Never underestimate one of the jinni.”

Debaku nodded his agreement.

“I have an excuse, I think,” Shiro said. “Before I came here to these lands, I had never heard of a ‘jinni’!”

“You are right, my love,” she said, touching his cheek with her slender hand. “Now I’m going to teach this little girl a lesson.”

Shiro sighed. “I would prefer that you did not. We may be able to use her. We need allies and she is clearly trying to help us.”

“Either that, or she’s a wonderful storyteller, Shiro.”

He sighed again and stepped back. “Very well. Do what you must. But please, do not kill her.”

“Kill her?” asked Jessamine with surprise. “Shiro—where would the fun be in that?”

“This is not a game.”

“Are you sure?” asked Raz, and he laughed. “Because it seems like a game to me.”

“Shut up, you idiot,” Ali said. “Your brain is still addled from those stupid turtlenuts.”

Shrugging amicably, Razul put up his hands and took a step back. “Even so—I am very curious to see what will happen here.”

Debaku said nothing.

Jessamine flattened her palms, and putting them together, a bright golden light appeared between them. Then she dragged one hand down, curving her fingers as the hilt of her scimitar became visible, her other palm sliding perfectly across the blade as if she had pulled the weapon free from a scabbard dripping magical dew.

“You do not have two swords?” asked Samira.

“Well of course I do,” said Jessamine, her tone almost bored and yet playful. “But I gave it to Shiro?’ She gestured with her hand toward him.

Shiro straightened slightly.

Samira spread her legs and lifted the hilts of her two scimitars. It was interesting that the shape of her own blades, long, slender, and with less of a curve of heavy metal than the average scimitar—they still carried a similarity to that of Jessamine’s swords.

Jessamine’s own stance was once of complete nonchalance as her blade hand hung gracefully at her side with the tip of her sword mere inches from the ground. Her other hand rested on her hip.

Samira smiled.

She was not one to invoke the ire of a jinni, but Samira didn’t much like this one. She was arrogant and haughty, and did not respect Samira’s own title. She had gotten it from the secret hashashin arts, trained by the men and women of Dar Shaq.

She was the Blade Dancer—even if her arts were inspired by that of the Princess of Adarneses.

Jessamine could feel his eyes on her, his concern radiating out from him like a hot fire—his love and his concern for her wellbeing making want of her to smile. But she did not.

And neither did Jessamine underestimate this woman. The hashashins of Dar Shaq were not to be trifled with, especially if one attained that of the master arts. Even so, Jessamine was unconcerned, her posture easy and flippant, though not unready to strike or defend.

Perhaps had she acknowledged me and suborned her fighting prowess to my own, I would not have to teach her a lesson.

She did not convey these thoughts to Shiro.

That he had just learned she was a princess had given away far too much. Jessamine had her secrets, not for nefarious reasons, or for reasons that she had to keep them hidden from her lover, but a jinni had to have her secrets.

“What are you smiling about?”

“Your sword pose—that of the Scorpion,” said Jessamine. “I used it to great effect. In the past.”

“Prove it.”

“You should believe me, girl.”

“I do,” said Samira back to her, “but even in my empire, the jinni suborn themselves to our rule. And I do not much like your attitude.”

Jessamine’s eyes widened. Not possible. There were hardly any jinni left. Were there enough members of her people enslaved to the humans of Ashahnai as to make her say such a thing? A flash of anger assailed her, though she did not let it show—her skin was pale enough, like tanned ivory, to reveal her sudden feelings, surely.

“Then strike!”

He could feel her present anger.

Whether Jessamine wanted him to or not, Shiro didn’t know, but now his concern just blossomed like a plume of destructive magic that formed a ball of bile in his stomach. I knew this was a bad idea…

“Raz,” he said, glancing at the powerful top-tier adventurer.

“What is it?”

He then glanced to Debaku. “We may have to intervene.”

“What—why?” asked Ali. “I thought we all wanted to see this.”

“No,” said Shiro. “This could get dangerous.”

“I agree,” said Debaku, “though it pains me to say, I will help you Shiro if it becomes necessary. I hope we do not have to do anything to restrain Jessamine.”

“I am not sure we could even if we wanted to,” Shiro added.

Ali shook his head. “Oh gods—what a long day.”

“Stop your whining, man. This is wonderful,” said Raz. “Such excellent adventuring, and that turtlenut milk was the nectar of gods. You have no idea—“

“I had some!”

“Oh…” he laughed. “Right! I forgot.”

Shiro growled at their stupidity. “Pay attention to what is happening before our eyes.” Ali sobered immediately, and by extension so did Raz.

Thunder rumbled overhead as a cold wind began to blow in from the black clouds. They had coalesced to fill the sky almost completely. Below the mammoth shell, the trees swayed as cold drops of rain began to fall. One hit Shiro directly in the forehead, though he did not move or react to it. You do not have to take this personally, he conveyed to Jessamine.

A subtle annoyance came back, though it was also accompanied by amusement. Was she annoyed with him, or was that the extent of her anger for Samira? Do not worry, my love, she conveyed. I will only teach her a lesson.

Suddenly Samira moved and Shiro’s attention was brought to her. She twirled her two scimitars and then did a pirouette on her heel. A whirlwind of air formed around her and debris scattered about as the brownish grass lifted and fluttered.

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Glancing to Jessamine, Shiro breathed in deeply, but he saw that she had not moved. She still stood, her hand on her hip, her weight resting on that leg with her shoulder slightly turned in the direction of Samira.

And her sword hand was still hanging at her side with the blade facing downward in a lazy posture.

Still, her infuriating smirk—at least, had he been on the other side of her where Samira stood, Shiro would have thought her smile one that infuriated—still remained there, her demeanor undisturbed.

“Well…” Raz mused, “I suppose this will continue to aggravate our little friend here.” He stamped down with one food, indicating the shell.

Ali groaned.

Then the rocks and scree scraped underneath Samira’s booths and she shot across the ground toward Jessamine.

She was fast.

Shiro blinked, not realizing what had happened.

There was a blue flash of luminescent smoke as Samira passed… through Jessamine?

“Did I…” Raz said, but he trailed off.

“Hmph,” Debaku noised, and Shiro looked at him, finding a satisfied smile on his features.

“What happened?” he asked.

“The venerable jinni,” said Debaku, “is fast.”

Samira turned around and uncrossed her blades. Then she blinked, shot forth in a fury of wind and flying scree once again, and like before, it appeared as if she had passed though Jessamine as a flurry of blue mist swirled about, and yet, Jessamine no longer stood in the same direction as before.

Once again, she was facing Samira’s back.

The woman turned around and growled. “Jinni’s tricks!”

Jessamine shrugged with a nothing more than a move of her elbow and a tilt of her neck. “Perhaps.”

“Then dodge this!”

She shot forth, landing directly in Jessamine’s way as she lashed out with both of her swords, and like before, the jinni moved in a swirl of luminescence, but this time she appeared a pace above the ground.

Slowly she alighted onto the ground. “You are going to have to do better, Samira Al Hamiroon.”

The woman snarled, whipped toward Jessamine and lunged forward with her swords bristling outward.

This time Jessamine held her ground, her sword arm flashing as she took two steps back, her bare leg exposed every time she stepped forward or back as the cut in her dress parted. It was a beautiful gown, and yet it gave her the ability to move with agility and grace.

What’s more, it sent Shiro’s heart to racing.

Their swords flashed and Jessamine lost ground, or was she giving it?

“I cannot believe Samira is doing so well,” Ali said. “Should Jessamine not have the upper hand, Shiro?”

“I do not know,” he said.

“She is toying with her!” Raz said, and threw up his hand. He sounded disappointed.

Samira growled, lifted both swords in the air and came back down in an overhead strike. Jessamine blocked the attack, but the sheer force of it send her into the air, where she pulled up her legs, and then put them back out.

She hit, slid across the bumpy ground as she held her sword aloft defensively, her mouth twisted into a grimace of effort.

Shiro’s heart lurched.

“Wow,” Raz said. “Not bad.”

“Hey,” Ali said. “Who do you want to win here, eh?”

Raz shrugged. “I am only making an observation, man.”

“Perhaps you should both stop talking so much,” offered Dabaku, “and spend more time ‘observing.’”

Shiro did just that, and he watched, trying to maintain complete focus upon the two Sword Dancers.

I am the Sword Dancer, Shiro,

He blinked. You should be paying attention to your duel! not what is in my own head, Jinni!

Jessamine glanced toward him, but conveyed nothing more as she lowered her blade. Then the Samira she said, “You are stronger than I thought.”

“Hmph!” Samira sniffed, and she thrust her chin up. “I am much more powerful than you think, Jinni.”

“My name…” Jessamine said, and there was a mild edge to her tone as she bent with one knee forward and her leg outstretched behind her as she held her sword back, “is not…”

A plume of blue mist swirled around her and she shot forth, except she did not dematerialize. Samira blinked for a moment, raised her weapons, and blocked Jessamine’s strike as a terrible shriek of sword steel filled the air.

“…jinni!’

Samira’s hands went down from the power of Jessamine’s attack and one of her swords clattered to the ground as she slid back, her knee hitting the mammoth shell terrain.

He was certain she nearly lost balance, but managed to right herself. Shiro watched, forgetting to breath as Jessamine followed up with a flurry of sword strikes so intense that each time their blades met a flash of golden light exploded between them.

Samira lost ground quickly, backing away as fast as she could.

“Yes!” Ali cheered.

Shiro smiled.

“Fight harder!” Raz bellowed.

“What?” Debaku asked with incredulity. “Whose side are you on, Abassir?”

Without looking at him the adventurer with the greatest hair among them, well, maybe besides Jessamine herself, said, “We have to give the new girl a chance, yes?”

“The new girl?” Shiro asked. “What are you talking about?”

“This is is a fool’s talk,” said Ali. “That turtlenut milk is still in your head.”

“Ha!” Raz scoffed. “Surely not. I feel as normal as ever.”

“I don’t,” Ali said. “I can still feel the magic in my body.”

“That is because you are weak, brother. Remember, I am a top-tier—“

“Yes, yes! Be silent, man.”

“No, you be silent and watch this fight! FIGHT, SAMIRA!”

Blocking and parrying as fast as she could, Samira almost turned and ran from the ferocious onslaught of this jinni’s attack as she kicked her legs back, giving ground as fast as she could.

The jinni took territory almost faster than Samira could give it, and then that foppish fool with the beautiful hair called out to her to fight. Is he truly rooting for me? Are these fools playing games?

She grunted loudly as every sword strike that came at her was meant to either kill her or to force her to tire herself, or to occupy her fighting capacity for the next flurry of blow.

Samira screamed, attempting to move faster, to turn this onslaught around, but she could not, and with every strike from the jinni Samira realized the gracefulness of her swordsmanship, her Dancer’s like poses and perfectly practices arcs, her footwork an art in and of itself.

The woman…

She is the Blade Dancer—a jinni not to be trifled with.

She had to get away!

Samira jumped back, breaking the contact as a whirl of wind gusted forward. Jessamine put out her hand, moved her wrist and fingers as she guided the airflow away from her, whereupon it turned and skirled harmlessly to the side.

Breathing heavily and her heart drumming in her chest and ears, Samira had broken a sweat. She wanted to growl and gnash her teeth at this damned jinni, but it was clear she was the better among them, and the true owner of the Sword Dancer title.

Still, that did not mean Samira was not “a sword dancer.”

“Have you had enough?” the jinni asked.

It was just that superior attitude that made Samira want to fight this insolent woman in the first place. Gods her smirk is annoying!

But there was no point in going on any longer. Samira had tired, and this jinni had not even broken a sweat—at least that they could see, but she was not unaware of a certain reality of the jinni. Reading of them in the Sword and Sorcery Entertainments of Ashahnai, she had come to learn that they could wisp to their immaterial plane, spend minutes or even hours, and then wisp right back, where in the physical realm only a split moment had passed.

That was how they maintained their cool, their bravado and superior demeanor. It was all tricks—a farce.

Samira would never be able to beat this jinni at her own game. She stood up straight, slackened her muscles.

“No!” Raz cried, realizing before she said anything that she was done. “Do not stop.”

“I am done,” she said. “You win…” she was going to call her “jinni” but it seemed that had rankled her, so instead she addressed the woman by name. “You win, Jessamine. I submit that you are the true Sword Dancer.”

Shiro blinked. “That is all? Fighting… like that, over the use of a title…”

“You must understand,” said Debaku, “that many jinni are known by their reputations and titles, because they live longer than mortals. To sully or to take the title of a jinni is to dishonor them, and to slight at their power.”

He grunted deep in his throat and nodded. “Mm.”

“Good,” Jessamine said softly. “I am glad that we have come to terms, Samira.”

The woman glanced down for a moment, unable to meet the eyes of Jessamine.

“Now tell me,” said Jessamine, “is it true that the jinni are not so rare in”—she smiled indulgently—“’greater Ashahnai’?”

Samira strode toward her lost sword as she sheathed the one weapon she had managed to keep. As she picked up the sword, she said, “Yes—it is true. There are many jinni there.”

“I would like to know how that is,” Jessamine said, “for I have been gone for a great deal of time, only to find that most of the jinni here in the Abassir Empire have gone, and I know not where, or if they were killed.”

“Many were killed,” said Samira. “Many fled. They are scattered mostly, but in Ashahnai they are more common. Some revere them, some hold them to account for the wars they took part in.”

“Wars…” Jessamine mused. “I know not of these conflicts.”

“The Battle of the Three Princess,” Ali said, and he strode forth. “A time of unrest—a time of war within the Abassir Empire. Some say those wars formed the empire when we broke away from Ashahnai.”

“Greater Ashahnai,” Samira corrected. “The so called ‘Abassir Empire’ is nothing more than a satrapy of the Great Empire of Cyrusar Al Hamiroon!”

Ali made a sardonic face. “Yes, yes. As you wish, Princess.” He flourished his hand and proffered a mocking bow.

Samira made a face.

“Hey, didn’t they have a big battle with jinnis during those times?” Raz asked.

“Something like that,” Ali said, his tone annoyed as he gave his brother a sidelong glance.

“This was when Mar’a Thul was first taken and my people enslaved,” said Debaku. “We held out for decades, but finally the whole of our country was lost to you, and you.”

He indicated Ali and Samira, two members of respective empires of the continent, though the way Samira put it, the Abassir Empire was nothing more than a traitorous breakaway that was unrecognized by the greater Empire of Ashahnai.

And here Shiro thought the Abassir Empire was the greater in the land—the way Ali and other Abassir men put it.

“Don’t blame us,” Samira said, “blame the Zambouli for not coming to your aid. They hid behind their jungles and fought us for centuries.”

“I will not argue with you on this, Dar Shaq hashashin,” Debaku said, and it was clear that he did not say the words because he agreed, he said them because he would not debate her on the topic. He was a loner, not a man of ideals or of rebellions.

Debaku was a great adventurer and at times—even an assassin.

“It seems I have history books to read.”

“Then read the Epic.”

“What Epic?”

Samira made a groaning sound in her throat. “The Epic Sword and Sorcery Entertainments of Ashahnai.”

Jessamine smiled. “Of your ‘greater empire’?”

“They contain stories and histories of the whole empire, the Abassir Satrapy and its treacheries as well.”

“Hmm,” Jessamine hummed musically. “Perhaps I will.”

Ali sniffed with annoyance.

“Remember what happened here, Samira Al Hamiroon.”

The other woman nearly flinched, that much Shiro could tell. Is Jessamine acknowledging her claim to the royal family of… what was that empire called?

Samira nodded. “I will… Jesamine.”

Then she proffered a respectful bow.

“Wow,” Raz said. “And just like that we know who is the mistress in this cat house.”

Jessamine looked at Raz skeptically as she raised an eyebrow. Then she turned to Shiro and took his hand in hers, backed away and turned, striding into a whirl of blue mist.

She was gone—at least for now.

“Well,” Ali said. “Now that we have that over with—can we find a way off this ambling rock?”

Samira glanced about. “I can tell the mammoth shell is slowing.”

“Even after your battle?” Shiro asked.

“We did not make that much of a ruckus,” she said. “Your jinni went easy on me, I must confess.”

Shiro smiled.

“Humble,” Debaku said. “I am surprised.

“You mistake me, Black,” said Samira. “I am simply laying out the truth.”

“If you like titles,” Raz said, “you can call him the Black Cobra—for that is what he is called.”

“Is that so?” asked Samira. “I believe I’ve heard of the Black Cobra of Mar’a Thul. Truly, you are him?”

Debaku smiled the most insolent smile Shiro had ever seen. Then he said, “Truly, are you Samira Al Hamiroon?”

The rain, heavy and cold, began to come down in a torrent.

Ali sighed. “That is… just great.”