~ Several things happened at once, and even the sturdy Mamluk was thrown off guard. Amina appeared having
captured someone: where in Zakhara did she learn such skills of disappearance and reappearance, bearing gifts, no less! And this man had been following them since the Auction House? Had they truly made a powerful enemy by procuring that strange book that none of them had yet to try and read?
And then there was a Djinni! Appearing out of thin air, the creature was gone as quickly as Salahuddin had summoned it forth from the ether! Kaniel had never had dealings with such creatures, but often knew that sometimes, just sometimes, they could be allies out along the desert. They were often friendly to al-Badia such as himself.
This realization made Najiyah's reaction even
more uncharacteristic for the cheerful Vizier. The Half-Orc was taken aback by her exclamation of deduction, as if she had noticed something peculiar about Salahuddin since they all had met ... and who was to say she did not? Sheikh Ali al-Hadd
did say that Vizier Amahhum was his expert on matters concerning the mystic arts and genies, after all. But Kaniel also remember the woman that had saved him in The High Desert as someone divinely compassionate and genial, not ... not
this.
When Najiyah tumbled backwards, Kaniel swiftly moved behind her and laid his hands upon her shoulders, keeping her upright and balanced. He peered over at her from the side to make sure that her own two feet could sustain her before slowly, gingerly removing his grip.
" What in the name of The Loregiver was that?" he asked pointedly of her and Salahuddin both, not accusatory but definitely seeking answers.
" We've ... We've been in the company of a Djinni this entire time? And why does this bother you, Nujaym?"
Starlet, he called her, for in his mad visions in the desert as a teen, he recalled that her skin had glowed with flickering suns, as if the haze of heat had given him some arcane insight to what she was beneath this mortal shell. It had been his own, personal name for this saving grace of his for years before he had ever come to know her as Najiyah Amahhum, Sorceress Supreme, and so it slipped from his tongue now.
" While we've clearly other matters to attend to, I would like an explanation on this. From both of you. Does the 'Venerable Fatima ibn Zaida' instruct you to keep this genie hidden in our midst on behalf of the Djinn? And Najiyah, as astonishing as this may be, why the loss of composure ..? Are you feeling alright?"
Though he was sincere in this, Kaniel's tone made it quite clear that he did, in fact, want this addressed sooner rather than later. They had all just begun to work together, and it did not behoove them, the Sheikh, or The Grand Caliph to have misunderstandings on their natures and goals. ~
Najiyah lingered behind the others as they departed down the pathway away from Suelasta's menagerie, silently perturbed by feelings too alien for her to identify. Distracted by a trail along the bricks leading deeper into the merchant's private residence, Najiyah noted that said trail mysteriously stopped right where they had all been standing.
Suelasta's eyes go wide at the revelation of the unconscious man, but his surprise quickly turns to grumbling as he fiddles with the large set of keys at his belt. "An empty cage? An empty cage? Why, with these dastardly raiders I have a surfeit of empty cages and not enough revenue! Now, I'll trust the good vizier not to go fabricating charges of me holding sentient beings in my cells anymore, hmm? That issue with the cobra was quite enough for one time, thank you!" He complains just loudly enough for Vizier Akilah to hear, but begrudgingly leads Amina to a habitat.
