Ch 4: A Delicate Conversation
"Would you like to tell me why you think Ed's going to kill you?" Susan asked her sister.
Lucy grimaced, guilt written clearly across her features. Her gaze slid from Susan to Saris and back again, and then Susan realized the Jinn was Edmund's problem. Puffing up like an offended hen and not caring, Susan said, "You may tell Edmund to mind his own business. If you'll excuse me, I have something I'd like to discuss with Jinn Saris."
The Jinn looked as surprised as Lucy, but when Lucy left, her cheeks still cherry red, the Jinn bowed again. "I am at your service, Your Majesty."
Now that they were alone in the hall, Susan had no idea where to begin. She stared at the floor, his words echoing in her ears. At your service. He'd been forced to serve others for most of his existence. She stared at the gilded bracelets on his wrists and the broad, flat golden necklace that lay over his collarbones. She felt an uncomfortable kinship with him--he, bound by whomever called him to their will, and she, by the constraints of her office as queen. "Are you--Are you here under--"
"Duress?" The Jinn smiled. "My lady, I have seldom done something which was not on someone else's orders." He must have seen the upset on her face at his words, because he drifted along down the hall until she was obliged to walk with him. "Do not concern yourself about it, Your Majesty. This ... handler ... has, thus far, not been the worst of them."
She remembered the terrible episode with Sir Elian: a Telmarine mad with power, one who had enslaved not only Saris, but Corisande, and who had nearly seized Narnia with his deceit and violence. Had Saris endured worse masters? What terrible things had he been forced to do during his lifetime?
She steeled herself, trying to ask her next question as delicately as possible. "How do you come to be always under someone else's service? Can the cycle not be broken?"
A funny look passed across his face, and he paused. "There are too many curious people willing to poke their noses into old magic, my lady. There are fewer of the Jinn than there once were, and so I am pressed into service more often. Were I to find those old texts, do you not think I would destroy them until not a whisper remained?"
She shivered, as much at the vehemence in his eyes as what she knew she must say next. Susan took a deep breath, forcing the air to fill her lungs until it hurt, then let it out again. "I have never ... Saris, I never really asked you for anything in return for helping to free you that night ... when Elian was killed."
The Jinn's brow arched. "Your help was indirect at best. It was Peter who killed Elian." His sulfur eyes lost some of their sardonic gleam. "But I take your meaning."
She closed her eyes, hating herself. A lump formed in her throat and she struggled to speak past it. "I must ask you for a wish."
Silence.
When she dared to open her eyes, she found his gaze steady and impassive. For several moments, he did nothing but look at her. Susan couldn't decide which was worse: her discomfort under that yellow stare, or the way she wanted to take back the request but couldn't.
At last, he folded his arms and tilted his head. "Am I to guess what it is, or will you tell me?"
She couldn't take it any more. "Saris, I am so sorry to ask this of you. I tried to free you before, only to see you back in servitude, this time to--to-- Whom?"
His eyes hardened. "It is of no consequence whom I serve. That I serve another is more than enough."
Breath clutched in her throat. What a horrible woman she was. She shook her head. "Never mind. I have no right to ask anything of you--"
"Speak, my lady."
She gulped, filled with pain and regret and the sting of unshed tears. "Send me home."
He frowned, clearly confused. "You are home," he said.
Darting forward, she laid her hands on his folded arms, startled that she had dared to do so, more startled at the sun-warm heat of his dark-blue skin. "England," she whispered, afraid to speak it any louder lest anyone but him overhear her.
Again he stared at her. Long moments without words, during which she could only guess at what went on in his head. He did not move, not so much as a twitch, until she felt a tear slide down her cheek. He drifted backward, just enough that her hands fell to her sides again. "You have never been happy here," he said.
When he looked at her this time, she knew she couldn't hide the truth from him.
Tears ran down her cheeks. She wiped clumsily at them. "Sometimes I am," she confessed. "When Aslan is here, you can't help but be happy. But the rest of the time ... Nothing ... Nothing makes sense. It's all so out of our hands, so out of control--"
"Maybe you should let it be so."
Desperate for him to understand, she spread her hands in a pleading gesture. "My parents, Saris. I worry so. And I dream. Horrible things."
"I know. Queen Lucy told me."
Susan's tears poured freely now. Blinded by them, she stared downward at the blurry image of her dress slippers. "I don't even know if they're alive. If I had only stayed home, they might be, but now ..."
She felt warmth, and looked up. Saris had drawn close again, with that odd look back in his eyes. "Is this the same woman who faced death at the Stone Table last year?"
Her temper flared, and she gave him her fiercest glare. "Do not mock me!" Scrubbing at her tears, she pulled herself together. "Edmund's experience leads me to believe you must have a token, something from a loved one to open the gate between our worlds. I don't have one from my parents. My only alternative was to ask you. If you will not do it, say so and cease your torture of me."
The Jinn's brows rose. "You mean to do this, no matter what the cost may be."
"I do." She raised her chin. "I have to know."
He sighed and closed his eyes. An expression very like pain crossed his face, and when he opened his eyes once more, she found him frowning as if he'd lost something precious. A muscle clenched in his jaw, and he looked her in the eye at last, unreadable as ever. "There is a way, my lady. But you may not like what comes of it."
Squaring her shoulders, she said, "Let it come."
