In the lands of the West shall be born our salvation.
The Battered Lamp Chapter Thirty-Seven: The Six Shall Be One by mypenname3000
The Kalsomid Prophecy
Saturday, January 29th – Sahabah, The Hidden Realm
Kyle had failed his mother, Christy, and all his wives.
He stared up at the diamond ceiling of his jail cell. The diamonds prevented any teleportation in and out of this room. Beyond the diamond walls were sapphire ones, blocking any telepathy. He couldn’t summon his sword if he wanted to, or even speak to Aaliyah.
Kyle and Christy were going to spend the rest of their lives in this cell. It may be richly appointed, decked out with all the luxuries of home, but that didn’t change the fact it was still a prison.
Christy’s head rested on his chest. He didn’t understand why she wasn’t furious with him. He had led her into this trap. He hadn’t listened to Britney or her arguments against this plan. He had been so certain that he was better than Rashid. That he could pop in, grab his mother, and escape.
But she hadn’t really been his mother. Some spell still dominated Faiza, forcing her to aide Rashid.
Muffled voices came through the diamond door of his cell. They grew louder, shouting. Kyle tensed, sitting up.
“What?” Christy asked, blinking her hazel eyes in surprise. “Have you thought of something?”
Another muffled shout.
Kyle did not like the sound of that. He quickly rose, standing before Christy and falling into an aikido stance. He wasn’t completely defenseless without his sword. He had been trained in hand-to-hand combat by his uncle.
But any foe here is going to have powers that no human possesses.
Christy pressed stood behind him, her breath warm on his neck. “What’s going—”
The door flew open.
Makerah strode in, the Unbound Marid’s eyes wild. His right hand was dripping with blood, a mass of red flesh in his hand. A heart. Whose? Kyle’s mother strode in behind him, naked, her breasts splattered with blood.
“You cut me, mortal!” hissed Makerah. Kyle saw insane death in his eyes.
“Rashid promised us safety!” Kyle shouted, ice pumping through his veins.
Makerah brandished his bloody fist. “He had a change of heart,” he cackled.
The Unbound Marid surged at Kyle like the violent sea. Kyle lashed out his arm, grasping Makerah’s wrist. He pivoted, using the Marid’s momentum to flip him over his hip. Makerah landed hard on the ground.
“Ishtar, defend your servant in her desperate hour of need!” Christy chanted.
“That pathetic whore cannot help you!” Kyle’s mother shouted, striding at Christy. “You never should have betrayed me! I never forget those who break my oaths!”
“Hecate?” Christy gasped. “You’re possessing Faiza?”
Kyle barely had time to process that. Makerah lashed out with water, striking the young man in the chest. He was thrown off his feet, landing on the pillowed floor. He struggled to get up, but the water clung to him, pinning him to the floor.
Makerah rose, flexing his left hand. Kyle’s heart beat faster as he struggled against the heavy water.
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Khoshilat Maqandeli, The Hidden Realm
Fumi adjusted Windfeather, pushing the green glasses up her face. She kept having to stir currents of air through the room to see. The sapphire war room was airtight. No drafts squeezed in to stir the air for her.
Her wives and the concubines were painted in green, their faces animated as they discussed plan after plan to save Kyle. Every attack would first have to breach the defenses of Sahabah, and that would leave the Marid time to go through with their threat to execute Kyle and Christy.
What was the point then?
Fatima was the most passionate, standing up, slamming her fist on the sapphire table and demanding that they go now and fight their way in. “The Djinn are all slow to act! They are planners! They would never expect our attack to come so swiftly. We could burst through their defenses and reach Kyle before they react!”
“Yeah!” Chyna agreed.
“It is too risky!” Aaliyah countered. “Rashid is a planner. He has to anticipate this as a possibility. We need some way to bypass the defenses and land inside the prison itself.”
“I know where they are keeping him,” Zaritha said. “But it is deep within the palace. Sure, we could assume the form of our essence and fly fast through the corridors, but the moment we are in the palace, the homunculi defenders will activate. They will slow us down.”
There has to be a way for us to move through the palace. These Djinn are masters at moving through the spaces between realities. Aaliyah had riddled Kyle’s school with that pocket dimension that could be accessed from… Fumi’s eyes widened. “…anywhere.”
“What was that, Mistress?” Tarah, her Si’lat concubine asked. Tarah’s twin, Naila, reached out and touched Fumi’s arm.
“Aaliyah,” Fumi said, hope beating in her heart. “At Kyle’s school, you made it so [that] any door led to a pocket dimension that could be accessed with a special key.”
She nodded.
“Then let’s do it at Sahabah. I wish that there was a pocket room for Kyle to go and enjoy his harem, accessed through every door in Sahabah!”
Aaliyah shook her head. “I was able to do that at Kyle’s school because it was part of his life. He went there every day. Sahabah is Rashid’s palace.”
“But Sahabah is Kyle’s prison,” Fumi countered. “That is a part of his life.”
“And he’s the rightful Sultan!” Fatima declared. “Sahabah is his seat of power! Rashid has usurped it from him. How is that not Kyle’s?”
A smile crossed Aaliyah’s lips. “Make the wish again.”
“And add that Khoshilat Maqandeli connects to it,” Britney added.
“And the keys to open the doors,” Toni added. “That’s how me and Chyna figured out the school one.”
Fumi made the wish and Aaliyah proclaimed, “Done!”
“Zaritha,” Fatima snapped, “conjure a map of Sahabah and show us exactly where you believe Kyle is held.”
The Ifrit waved her hand, fire flowed from her, forming a three dimensional map of Rashid’s massive palace. The image zoomed into the basement of the palace to a large room built of sapphire surrounding three smaller rooms. Two were antechambers, the first also made of sapphire, the second of diamond which led into a larger diamond room.
“This is where important political prisoners would be held,” Zaritha said. “The emissary claimed Kyle would be kept in comfort. This room is quite comfortable, for a prison. It is furnished like any guest room in the palace. Of course, it is guarded.”
“And designed to hold Djinn,” Britney nodded. “If only one door is opened at a time, there will never be a breach in the sapphire or diamond enclosure.”
“Those two diamond doors will not be accessible from the pocket dimension,” Aaliyah added. “Diamond prevents such work. We could enter through the second sapphire door and then force our way through the two diamond doors.”
“Then what are we waiting for!” Fatima declared, holding Kyle’s sword in one hand, her fiery yari in the other.
Chyna was already racing towards the door, her key in hand. She opened it up onto a new room. “Let’s save Master!”
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Sahabah, The Hidden Realm
Fatima stepped out of the pocket universe into a short, diamond hallway. Chyna, Toni, and Alexina charged ahead of her, reaching the first diamond door. The concubines threw the door open, screaming with desire.