Windfall

Interlude

As the storm destroys the island that men called Atlantis, as it strips it bare and devours every fragment of life before sinking the bare rocks under the waves—something strange happens. The explosion of death-energy from the destruction is so huge that, to balance the scales, five hundred Djinn snap into existence, each holding some small measure of the life of that lost, beautiful land. Lost and alone, newborn.

Powerful, and afraid.

The storm doesn’t see them as fuel for its fires, and turns north, toward a rich, green land full of energy, full of life, full of fragile things that it can grind apart in its fury.

And this is when it becomes my story, and my mistake. I can’t stop it. The Djinn can’t stop it, even with the addition of the Five Hundred; the storm is a natural thing, and we can’t fight manifestations of the Mother nearly so well as we fight each other, or things in the world of man.

The end of the world is on us. We argue, the Djinn. Some of us try to turn the storm aside, but it’s too much for us.

I realize there is no way for Djinn to help mankind, and no way for mankind to save itself, without making an irrevocable choice.

So I pull from the Mother and give power to humans to make them Wardens. And I give them the means to enslave the Djinn. By binding the Djinn, the Wardens can direct us, and we can tap the power pooled inside of humanity and amplify it, creating a web of intent and potential large enough to contain and weaken the storm.

The moment when we join together, humans and Djinn, and defeat the storm at the end of the world… it is, for a moment, the unity of all things. A perfect peace. But perfect peace can’t last, and when it comes time for the Wardens to give up the power I’ve granted them over the Djinn, they refuse.

Should have seen that coming.

Ashan and the others are breaking the deal I made, all those millennia ago.

They’re doing what I never had the courage to do: They’re taking back their freedom.

And I don’t blame them. I blame myself.

It’s time for things to be clean again. Scrubbed raw, like the rocks of Atlantis. Maybe what comes out of this will be better. I’ve wanted freedom for the Djinn for a long time, but I’ve never actually been faced with seeing it happen before. Choosing it.

But it’s the right choice.

If David were here, he’d tell me I’m crazy.

But he’s not here. For the first time in my life, human or Djinn, he’s not here to help me. I’m at the end of the road, and it’s all dark out there, and I don’t know that there’s any right answer to anything, in the end.

Only choices.

So I think I’ll sit here on the beach, with the waves spraying the sky, watching as that long-ago storm swirls itself back into life again, finishing what it started. The Wardens have been fighting this same storm for thousands of years, whether they know it or not. I always feel something about it, something familiar, when it manages to put on its cloak of clouds and come back for another round.

I can’t stop it alone. Neither can the Wardens. And the Djinn… the Djinn have had enough of sacrifice.

I watch as the storm’s heart turns black and furious, and I wish it didn’t have to end this way.

But I don’t know of any other way for it to happen.