Dreams and Shadows - By C. Robert Cargill Page 0,16
stories, the djinn could stay in the bottle for ten thousand years and be okay as long as someone eventually found and opened the bottle. But the truth is, if everybody forgets about us, we fade away.”
“But everyone knows about genies.”
“Yes, but not each individual genie. If everyone forgets about me, Yashar, or all the people who remember me die, then I die too. My essence fades away into the sunset.”
“So a lot of genies died?”
“Almost all of them. They used to say that there were as many djinn as there were grains of sand. Now they number less than the trees in this field.”
“And it’s all your fault?”
Yashar grimaced at Colby, not that it was an unfair question. “Yes.”
“Well, I won’t forget you. Promise.”
“That’s what I’m counting on, Colby. That’s what I’m counting on. You are very much the kind of child I was looking for.”
“What kind is that?” asked Colby.
“The kind not afraid to dream. The kind not in a hurry to grow up.”
“Why would I want to grow up? Grown-ups are sad and have headaches and some of them smell funny.”
Yashar smiled. “Would you like to play knights of the round table?”
“How do you play that?”
“Well, I give you a sword and then summon a mean and nasty dragon and you kill it for your king.”
Colby brightened. “Would I get to save any pretty girls?”
“Colby, you’re eight.”
“Yeah, but girls are real cute.”
“You woo women with that sort of talk?”
“No. Usually I call them names and they let me chase them around.” Colby thought for a moment. “Yashar, what’s sex like?”
Yashar smiled. “A lot like chasing girls around the schoolyard. Except you have to call them sweet names instead. You ready to do this or would you rather stand around gabbing all day?”
“No, no, no. I wanna play knights.”
“So let it be done.”
CHAPTER SIX
DJINN AROUND THE CORNER
An excerpt by Dr. Thaddeus Ray, Ph.D., from his book A Chronicle of the Dreamfolk
There are few supernatural creatures so misunderstood and underrepresented in modern myth as the djinn. Like many other popular supernatural creatures (namely angels, demons, and fairies) it is not so much a specific type of creature as it is a class of creatures. Not all djinn are the same. In fact, there seem to be as many different types and kinds of djinn in the world as there are types of fairies, but no one has ever taken the time or care to catalog them. Some have postulated that djinn are simply another type of fairy, while others still believe that they are angels cast out of Heaven, many of whom serve the evil Shaitan (pronounced Satan) who turned his back on God by refusing to serve man. What is known for sure is that each djinn varies wildly from the next, each possessing only a certain specific set of traits that they all share.
Djinn (both the singular and the plural of the word, only rarely dialectally pluralized as jnoun) possess free will and are not, like other supernatural creatures, entirely bound by region, diet, or behavior. They are much like us in that respect. There is no single habitat in which you can expect to find them, or one thing you can expect to find them doing. Unburdened individuals, each one finds his own purpose, worship, or enjoyment on his own terms.
However, there is one thing they cannot do: break an oath of any kind. Once a djinn promises, swears, or even infers that he is promising, he is compelled by every fiber of his being to uphold that promise, even at the expense of his own life. Of course, nothing prevents a crafty djinn from finding and exploiting any loopholes in said oath. Most stories involving djinn tend to focus upon this aspect of oath bending, but in practice it appears to be fairly uncommon.
All djinn love the heat and they love to sleep. No one knows why and the djinn never speak of it, but they have been known to sleep in the desert for years on end if undisturbed. Djinn also love to eat, but suffer physical pain and illness at the slightest touch of salt, and serving one salty foods is a surefire way to earn his ire. Steel and iron similarly repulse djinn, but don’t seem to affect them like the fey. Despite these weaknesses, djinn are creatures of energy, bound by their own laws, and they cannot be killed in a conventional manner. The only known way for one to die