Betting that Jasper’s strength would be unable to even pierce his skin with the sword, Abdilu stepped closer to Jasper, allowing the sword to sweep across his skin.
His claws stretched out for Jasper’s throat, razor-sharp instruments of death that would rend his adversary from throat to sternum, but his hands never got there.
A roar of agony ripped free from his vocal cords as the white flame blossomed across his skin. The Seraph hadn’t felt the kiss of flames in decades and he had forgotten its agony. Screaming and thrashing he beat at his fur. Large chunks of skin sloughed off like melted plastic, as he rolled across the floor, his transformation slowly reverting.
Jasper stared, in shock and horror, at the damage his spell had caused, as the raging fire of his spell expanded through the tent. For a moment, he had wanted to kill the man but this was different. This was torture.
Summoning his will, he fought to cut off the spell. The fire resisted him, the spell not wanting to end before its time was complete, but he persevered, demanding the essence listen to him. As suddenly as they had begun, the flames ceased and a sliver of essence returned to him, leaving a tent charred and burned, and a tiger scorched almost beyond recognition.
A woman, sobbing hysterically, ran toward Abdīlū, but the elder stepped in front of her, and snatching up her arms, forced her to a stop. “Let me through,” the woman howled, beating against the elders. “Let me through. We have to heal him.”
The elder shook her head. “The outcome of the duel was victor’s choice. Your husband chose to invoke the old ways on one that does not even belong to our tribe. Shall we ignore the rules for him now?”
The woman only struggled hard, weeping and wailing, but the elder wouldn’t let her pass. She did, however, turn her head toward Jasper. She asked nothing of him, but the entreating look in her eyes did the talking for her.
He hesitated for just a moment, while the man continued to thrash across the ground. His first impulse was simply to put the Djinn out of his misery. In general, Jasper wasn’t fond of letting his enemies live. The many books he’d read over the years where the hero showed his rival mercy, only for his enemy to come back and attack him, again and again, had positively driven him up the wall.
But this Seraph was his brother’s brother. He didn’t want that blood on his hand. Finding his voice, Jasper nodded his head. “Let her pass,” he said hoarsely.
The elder stepped aside, and the woman rushed over to the man, and several other Seraphs ran to join her. They pinned his limbs down as she emptied two potions directly onto his skin. The man’s screams only increased as the liquid washed over his ruined flesh, but she ignored him, sprinkling a third potion of powder over him and herself. The others quickly drew a circle around the injured Djinn while she sketched two large runes in chalk onto the charred rug. She didn’t even bother to check it before she began to channel her injury through it, but it quickly became clear that she hadn’t needed to.
The man’s thrashing slowly calmed as his skin began to regrow. But the woman was clearly struggling. Coughing and hacking, the glowing rune finally crumpled as she bent over, vomiting blood. The others moved to help her, but she waved them off, as she wrapped her arms around her husband.
With the show over, Jasper slipped off of Dapplegrim and cautiously approached the elder, not entirely sure how they were going to react.
The woman frowned as he approached, pursing her lips judgmentally. “You should have told me you were a Firebird. I would have forbidden Abdīlū’s foolish request or, at the very least, insisted on holding the duel outside.”
Jasper glanced around the ruined tent. The formerly white walls were charred from soot and smoke, with large holes letting in the dark of night where the flames had burned all the way through. The red reed rug had been mostly consumed by the fire, and what was left was black as night. The tent was indeed a mess, but Jasper was annoyed at being blamed.
“I’m not a Firebird and as for the tent,” he gestured at the devastation, “I did ask. You assured me it was fireproof.”
The woman’s frown intensified. “Do you think me stupid? That was a classic firebird spell,” she snapped.
Jasper shrugged. “I’m telling you I don't have the Firebird class, and I don’t know what a 'classic Firebird' spell is. You said it yourself, I’m ‘Jasper of Earth.’ You’re the one who chose to allow him to challenge a guest to a duel.”
The elder searched his eyes for a long moment, her skepticism plain to see, but eventually, with a sigh, she conceded his point. “Perhaps you truly did not know. The reason Firebirds are so respected is precisely because their class provides them with a spell that ignores fire immunity. I have never heard of any other class having such capabilities, but you are a Summoned, so I suppose stranger things have happened." She frowned. "And as for the duel, it was most certainly not my desire to let it happen, but I was outvoted. In any case,” her eyes drifted back to the injured man, “thank you for not killing him.”
Jasper returned her frown, uncertainty rearing its ugly head. “I hope I made the right decision. Do you think he will come after me again?”
She shook her head. “Abdīlū has long nursed a grudge against your uncle, a desire for vengeance that thanks to your uncle’s high position he could never pursue, but is he also an honorable man. He will respect the results of the duel. But come,” she turned away, gesturing for him to follow. “We promised you a discussion, but we can hardly do it here, now that you’ve destroyed the place.”
He rolled his eyes but followed after her. Dapplegrim followed close behind, stubbornly refusing to be separated from his side - not that he could blame her. His level of trust in these Seraphs was at rock bottom.
Instead of taking them to a nearby tent, the elders led him away from the small village. It didn’t long to leave the tents behind as they scaled the crest of a minor hill overlooking the river. It was mounted by a tree much larger than most of the shrubby vegetation in the area, whose heavy-laden boughs sheltered the entire top. A few scattered benches were set up in a circle beside the tree, surrounding a small fire pit.
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“Have a seat,” the elder directed as the seven grabbed seats on the far side of the dormant pit while Jasper, with Ihra and Dapplegrim, took the other.
“What is your interest in the brotherhood of Yas̆gah?” the elder began.
Jasper frowned. “Didn’t Abnu tell you?”
The woman shook her head. “Of course, he passed on everything that you said, but there wasn’t much to tell. You claimed to work for the goddess, Nahrēmah, and to have a desire in destroying the Brotherhood, and that was about it.”
After casting his mind back to his brief, frenzied conversation with the Seraph in the aftermath of the Keeper’s death, Jasper realized she was right. He really hadn’t told them much about himself.
He leaned forward on the rough wooden bench and, with an idle flick of his fingers, lit the bonfire. The flames crackled to life as he pondered his response.
“Nahrēmah - Kas̆dael as I know her - is very concerned about this brotherhood. She believes that a dark goddess, masquerading as her, has led her followers astray, and has given me a quest to deal with it.”
“Can you show me the quest?” The woman asked, cautiously.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Can I?”
It took her a minute to show him how to do it, but soon the elders were able to read the brief description Kas̆dael had given him and as they read it, the tension in the group eased.
When the chief elder finally tore her eyes aware from the quest, her relief was clear to see. “By Shamsha’s light, this is good news.”
Jasper moved back to the other side of the fire, his brow raised inquisitively. “From your reaction, I feel like there’s something I’m missing.”
The Seraphs exchanged glances before the elder responded. “In truth, as our investigation progressed, we discovered that the majority of the leaders of the cult of Nahrēmah were also members of the Brotherhood of Yas̆gah. Not all, of course, but so many that we began to fear that perhaps the Brotherhood really was a legitimate offshoot of the cult.”
He frowned, not entirely understanding what she was implying. “In what way?”
The elder shifted uncomfortably. “It occurred to us that perhaps the goddess herself had fallen into darkness, and was endorsing the perverted rituals of the brotherhood. How else could she be so blind to what even her most powerful followers were doing?”
He wrinkled his brow. “Fallen? Is that really something that happens?”
“Lesser gods have been known to do so. Not so much the great gods, but it’s Nahrēmah, after all. If any of the great gods were to fall, surely she would be the first - she’s always walked the closest to the darkness.”
Jasper understood then. The goddess’ tendency to attract doomsday cultists made it easier to suspect she might be involved in something nefarious. But he believed people had sorely misjudged her. Kas̆dael was a bit more whimsical than he would have preferred, but he had never sensed any malice from her. “I don’t think she’s behind it,” he assured them.
“Indeed, after seeing the quest she gave you, it seems our fears were baseless," the elder agreed, "but surely, if you have the goddess’ support, don’t you have access to more information than what we can give you?”
“You’d think, wouldn’t you?” Jasper sighed, shaking his head. “Unfortunately, Yas̆gah seems to be quite good at covering her tracks. It took far too long for Kas̆dael to even realize there was a problem. And my own investigation - well, it hasn't gone well,” he admitted with a sigh.
“The cultists seem to know everything about me. The first time they sent assassins against me I had yet to even set foot in one of Kas̆dael’s temples, and since then, they have tried several more times. I don’t know where the Brotherhood got their information about me, but with my identity thoroughly blown, I’m not sure how I’m supposed to investigate them. That’s why I need you.” He paused, and flashed the elder a grin, “Unless, of course, you have some polyjuice potion to offer me?”
“Polyjuice potion?” The elder wrinkled her brow. “That seems…familiar.”
Jasper froze, caught by surprise. Don’t tell me it’s real.
A second later, her face cleared. “Ah, I remember now - it’s a potion from your world.”
This time, it was his turn to furrow his brow. “Not a real potion,” he clarified, “but, yes. But how did you know that? First, Abnu shook my hand, now you recognize a Harry Potter reference? Just how much do you know about my world?”
The elder smiled. “The question you should be asking is how we know. That, I suspect is the root of your problem with the cultists.”
"Oh?" Jasper leaned forward eagerly as the elder paused, taking a moment to collect her thoughts.
“Now, it seems you already know your mother was originally from this world, correct?”
Jasper grimaced. “As hard as it is for me to believe, that is what I’ve come to understand.”
“And do you know how she fled to your world?”
He nodded, remembering the diary he had found. “There was some sort of portal; she was kind of sparse on the details about it though.”
The Seraph hummed in agreement. “Yes, that makes sense. She probably used the portal of Eṭēru. According to some stories, it’s the portal that Nūradīn led our people through when we fled the destruction of Zaginnu.”
“Are you saying Zaginnu was Earth?”
The woman shook her head. “Definitely not. Afraid that the destruction of Zaginnu might cause a reaction even through the portal, Nūradīn himself severed the connection to Zaginnu was severed and smashed the portal into pieces.”
“It lay there, forgotten, for thousands of years until one of the mountain tribes, the lords of Dūr-Qarnānu, stumbled upon it purely by accident. Since then, they’ve done their best to restore the artifact, but the portal was damaged too severely to repair it entirely.”
“It functions now, but it requires far more essence to power it than it's supposed to, and the destination can't be controlled, only partially predicted. Earth is one of the places it sometimes goes to, but there are other worlds as well. The portal is simply too expensive in its current state to be used often.”
“But you’ve used it?”
A bittersweet smile crossed the woman’s lips. “No, I’ve never had the chance. Understand that when I say it's expensive, I mean that even for most nobles it's an unthinkable expense. Still, a handful of our people over the years have managed to scrounge up enough money to bribe the mountain Djinn into activating it, including one you know.”
Jasper frowned, thinking over the list of Seraphs he knew. It was a pretty short list. “Abnu?” He ventured.
“No, but he certainly grew up hearing the tales from his uncle, Abdīlū, tales which I’ve listened to myself plenty of times. I remember the stories he used to tell of a troubled child at a school for magic with a shapeshifting potion. That is what you were referencing, wasn’t it?”
He could only nod, stunned by her revelation. “So Abdīlū has been to Earth? Why?”
“When Abdiel died, his son was distraught with grief. Our kind is quick to anger in the best of circumstances, but his wrath burned brighter than most. Like many who suffer an unexpected loss, he needed someone to blame, and he very quickly fixated on your mother - the royal vixen who lured his father to his doom.”
Jasper didn’t bother to hide his scowl. “That hardly seems a fair characterization.”
The Seraph elder shrugged. “I simply telling you how he felt; personally, I never met your mother. Anyways, he eventually managed to gather enough money to pay to use the portal. He was even fortunate enough to be sent to your world on his first try and spent quite a few years living there.”
“What about his vengeance?” Jasper asked. He knew he had some missing memories, but he certainly could recall an angry Djinn showing up to try to kill his mother.
“If he ever found your mother, he never spoke of it. And given the fact that you exist, I’d say it’s pretty clear he didn’t kill her. But even if he didn’t get his vengeance, Abdīlū made his peace with his father’s passing. When he finally returned, more than a decade later, the anger that had consumed him was gone and he was full of exciting stories to tell. I thought it was all in the past, until you showed up.” Pity crossed her eyes. “I’m afraid your presence stirred up old wounds.”