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I woke up disoriented, stiff, and with a headache to rival the one I had during the siege of Alexandria.1
[1] Bright sun on sand. Also, an arrow to the head.
Djinn don't, as a rule, sleep. We don't spend much time on the material plane, and when we start running out of energy, a wise master would let us return before we build up a grudge. My latest master, however, and cause of my current predicament, was not what you would call a wise man. Skotia was vicious, greedy, over-ambitious and under-educated, but certainly not a wise man.
He was also a rather dead man.
I stretched out my limbs one by one (all measly four of them—gods how I missed my true form), bones creaking with every movement. A candle spluttered weakly on the desk in front of me: Skotia's desk, plastered in correspondence and hastily scribbled notes on everything from magical experimentation to last month's shopping. I had been sifting through the drudgery hoping for something of a little more substance when I'd fallen asleep like some human. Humiliating.
Luckily, there was no one around to witness my badly timed nap, and I stood up, waving a hand at the candle stump to put it out of its misery.2 That was enough reading for the time being. Sunlight was trickling through the half-open curtains, and so I wandered down the hall to check on the sentry imps, peering out the windows as I went.
[2] No magic, just the air from my over-large sleeves.
Normally, when a magician dies, their various foliot and imp underlings are released and immediately return to the Other Place. No one wants to linger in a magician's empty house; magical artifacts attract magicians like a corpse plagued with flies who will happily snatch up any spirits too slow to vacate the premises. Normally, I, too, would be long gone.
"Lovely and warm today," I commented to a sentry stationed on the drawing room ceiling. I lowered my voice, glancing around coyly as if watching for eavesdroppers before whispering behind one hand: "What do you say, shall we open a window or two?" The imp squinted at me through the gloom, its tiny bat body rocking back and forth on the third plane.3 "Well, there's no need to glare at me like that! You imps have no sense of humour."
[3] The highest plane they can even access, poor simple things. The fact that I was even pretending to hold a conversation with one only spoke to how dire my current situation had become.
I strolled through the other rooms, checking to make sure the doors and windows were all still safely locked, shuttered, and positively gleaming with protective wards. About halfway through this process, I caught a brief flurry of movement out of the corner of my eye, though when I turned to look, there was nothing there. I slowed to a stop, resting one hand on the back of one of the ornate wooden chairs scattered around the room. A flicker of movement skittered across the lower half of the standing mirror by the wall.
Ah.
"Impatient, aren't we," I said, watching as a speckled furry head peeked out from behind the couch.
"Mrraow," the cat said, staring4 up at my ragged robes.
[4] On two planes, much good that it would do it. I didn't have enough magic left to bespell a feather, let alone conjure up a disguise.
"Does this look like the kitchen to you?" I asked the cat as it stalked forward to rub itself against my ankle bones. It ignored me, winding around my legs with a deep rumbling purr. "Idiot animal," I muttered, attempting to shift it aside with one foot, but it simply hopped over my leg, following me so closely I almost tripped trying to leave the room. Not the most dignified exit, but then, there was no one to see but the cat.
Which was really the crux of the problem, I reflected, pulling the cat food down from the cupboard to fill a small ceramic bowl. I could rot away indefinitely in this dark, empty mansion, safe in the knowledge that Skotia had relied on no one in life, and would be disturbed by no one in death. He hadn't been powerful enough for rivals of any real significance, and my presence would be enough to deter any weak attempts at thievery. All in all, it would have been a rather tidy end to a bitter old man, if only he hadn't prepared a curse to trap me in his still-warm corpse.5
[5] Yes. I, Zash the cunning, acolyte of powerful magicians such as Marka Ragnos and Naga Sadow, destroyer of sieges, architect of the War of Attrition, was forced to rot in the festering bones of a man who had barely bathed while alive, and hardly smelled much better in death. It was almost a relief when the flesh rotted off, even despite the stray pieces of skin stuck to my teeth for weeks afterward.
I leaned back against the dusty countertop on bony elbows, watching the cat scarf down stale food pellets as I ran through my latest research in my head. If Tulak Hord was to be believed, there was a way of undermining even the most powerful binding spell by tapping a magician's life-force. It never became very popular, as magicians will bleed anything but themselves. For a djinni, however, the only problem was acquiring a magician.
The plan was as follows:
Step one: find a (moderately) powerful magician.
Now, mediocre magicians were a dime a dozen; you couldn't step outside your door without crashing into some hopeless human in an ill-fitting suit. And seeking out a talented magician was all very well, but anyone of any skill would see straight through my 'decrepit robed human' disguise. What I needed was an apprentice—a child who lacked the training to see me for what I was, but with the raw power to release me from Skotia's skeletal body.
Step two: train said child.
It didn't even need to be a thorough training regimen; a little sigil-drawing, some incantations, and proper handling of magical artifacts would cover everything necessary for the counterspell. No need for the tedious history lessons I'd watched young magicians suffer through over the centuries; really, the less they knew about how actual magicians operated, the better.6
[6] I often wish I could forget what I know about magicians, but alas, djinn memories are as impeccable as their lives are long. Consider your ignorance my gift to you, future apprentice.
Step three (and this is the important one): have the child set me free.
Needless to say, I was still working on this one.