Chapter 16: The Djinn's Doorway

Lost in a shifting desert, Ada faces a djinn's test. As a storm rages, she discovers her true nature and steps into an unknown world beneath the sands.

Ada missed her friend.

And she walked north, at least she thought it was north.

And that north was indeed the direction she’d wanted to go in the first place. She had no compass, and if the sun was in fact being a real sun then this was roughly north. She had no idea if it was playing its part or not. It should have moved by now.

Fat lot of good it did her, the djinn’s bar was gone.

She couldn’t find it anywhere, and she’d been walking for what felt like hours. The sun nailed to the sky at high noon, the dry windless heat beat down on her and sweat stung her eyes and ran down her back, wetting her shirt. Her mouth was ash and anger, soured on the crushing failure she felt.

“All this time searching and I pissed him off in the first five minutes,” she said out loud kicking at the dust.

He was her only chance to get home, the only one she’d heard of that could help her. Teach her and guide her to where she needed to go, to who she needed to become. To get back to Omni without getting caught by the Hounds.

They’d never let up since that first moment and were always nipping at her heels. Always after her.

She stopped and put her hands on her hips, frustration mounting as she scanned the horizon once more for any sign of the Lost djinn. The wide flat expanse of hard packed sand stretched out before her, offering no clue to his location.

“What would Kelsier do?” she said out loud.

She smiled and then she grinned wide. A cheek hurting idiotic grin, but a full I don’t care about this setback grin. I can handle anything kind of grin.

“Ha,” she laughed, “I’m not sure that’s working Kel. I don’t know how you did it.” She wiped her face clear again, blinked the salt out of her eyes and gazed around her one more time for a heading.

I need high ground.

She picked the dunes to her right, and set out to scale them. Her feet sinking up until her knee as she climbed the loose leeward side of the dune.

The loose sand shifting dune felt out of place with her memory of the scrubby flat semi-desert she crossed earlier in the day.

Was it the same day?

Looking down below her, she saw dead dark wood trees dotting a dried lake bed, twisted arms like fallen knights pulling at the sun-bleached sky. There was a grey smudge on the horizon behind her but nothing else.

She’d never been here. “I’m lost.” she said kicking at the sand in front of her.

She turned around, retracing her steps she slid back down the side of the dune. Standing up at the bottom, Ada found herself amongst the dead trees again.

“What the?” she said, the words loud amid the silent trees and a gentle whistling breeze.

She looked up at the dune she’d slid down a small avalanche of disturbed sand grains shifting and resettling after her.

That was on the wrong side.

She considered climbing it and running the down the other side. But it seemed to grow and tower over her, becoming a mountain of sand silhoutted by the sun. Her legs ached at the thought.

“Stuff that,” she spun on her heel and walked toward the trees, “Let’s see where the wind blows me.”

“Let’s see…” came a whisper on the wind, Ada spun around, she was still alone.

“Now I’m losing my mind,” she said as the breeze built around her the lightest of dust shifted and floated across the hard surface like gold tendrils of smoke. She cocked her head at it.

The sun still hadn’t moved, and on the horizon the sky was darkening, as she watched it became blackened by a mass. A great tumour of angry wind and dust growing unbidden, a chill ran through her body as she realised what it was.

She turned and ran, the wind now coming in gusts tugging at her clothes. The loose fabric starting to flap and whip. She needed to find shelter fast. Anything to hide while the storm passed. But all around were the bare branch trees, little more than sun-blackened trunks.

The wind buffetted her now and pushed her along, shielding her eyes from the flying dust and stinging sand, she scanned one more time.

“There!” she’d spotted a rocky outcrop, a small tumble down group of red rocks, rounded and shaped by continous wind. She ran to it as the storm crashed into the basin and blotted out the sun.

I’m not going to make it.

In the growing darkness she tripped and skidded across the ground. Her short life flashed before her eyes, she saw the storm overcome her, the sand blasting the flesh from her bones and leaving her a pale white reminder of how much she didn’t belong here.

I need to get back to Omni, she needs my help.

Finding fresh energy, Ada climbed back up and sighted the rocks and run again.

She stumbled and nearly feell again but she kept going. The sky darkened fully as she made it to the rocks, and slid into a sheltered crevice and pulling her head inside her shirt so she didn’t choke on dust-filled lungs.

The storm hit.

The wind raged around her, and sound warped and shifted and all she knew now was the swirling howling wind. She felt on the edge of panic, but her cheeks hurt.

She was grinning, in the face of the storm she was grinning like a madman from a book. Ada laughed in spite of her fear, tears caking on her cheeks with fine dust.

“It is fun isn’t it?”

She wasn’t alone, from the floor Ada squinted up at the Lost djinn standing in the midst of the storm. The wind wasn’t so much as rippling his clothing. Looking only at him there was no storm, he was at peace and the world around him was mad.

A thought occurred to her then.

About where she was and what she was.

Her grin faded to a smile, and she stood. Hesitantly at first, but with growing confidence she walked toward the djinn in the storm. It raged and howled, an angry beast of wind and sand, but it affected her less.

It ignored her or she ignored it.

At last she stood next to him now and he nodded, the faintest twinkle coming to his eye, “Now you see.”

He offered his hand and said to her, “Come, let’s go somewhere private and have a chat.”

A bright light burned a straight line, then a hard ninety degree angle and then another. Until a trap door appeared on the ground, the wind blowing away loose sand.

The djinn crouched, yanked the door open and descended the first few steps.

Ada hesitated for a breath, for a moment, she stood before the threshold knowing everything was about to change.

“Come child, you’ve earned your questions.” He said and descended heedless of the storm, the cutting sand and the debris it hurled across the desert.

Ada turned fully around and looked at the raging tempest, mere background to the scene, the winds and sands had forgotten her. And she turned her back on them. She’d had enough of this damn place.

She wanted to know.

She needed to know. Ada started down the stairs into the cool darkness of the trap door and whatever lay beyond.