Maazi the Beaten III
You have a few potential routes you could go with trying to get Maazi the djinn to tell you about his master, but in the end, you decide you want to be the one to try and press, if only because your ‘good cop’ may well be more useful for the time being.
I’ll do it, you reply, for now, anyways.
Moirine gives a curt nod.
You clear your throat. “Um, Maazi…” The djinn doesn’t move, though his eyes do rise to glance at you. “Look, I can’t pretend like I really get a lot of this. I’m still learning, but, either way, the one thing I can at least somewhat grasp is the fact you shouldn’t be pretending to grant wishes for other people, or turning people into things, for that matter. I’m not trying to cause you more problems,” you rub your neck, “what’s going on?”
Maazi sucks in a slow, deep breath, then exhales it just as slowly. He picks himself up off the floor and stands at his full height once more, his eyes closed for a moment. When he reopens them, his features grow slightly sterner, yet they don’t resemble the way he looked prior to him suddenly breaking down in front of you and Moirine.
“While I don’t have an obligation to tell you,” Maazi remarks, “I’ll do so. My pride has been demolished, and the mask I wore has long shattered. There’s no point in me pretending like I’m not a changed djinn, regrettably.” He shakes his head. “If you must know, the truth regarding my current Master is that I willingly chose her because I had been somewhat hopeful doing so would benefit me. And what I mean by that is some part of me wanted to regain a semblance of the djinn I used to be eons ago.”
You furrow your brow. “Er…”
Ah, fuck, Fia says.
“You chose a Master with questionable morals is what you mean,” Moirine says.
Maazi nods.
You still don’t quite get it, but, you suddenly have a bad feeling in your stomach.
“Many of the Masters I’ve had over the recent centuries have…” Maazi hesitates, and his lips twitch. “…have been… decent mortals. Their wishes were such that I could easily have exploited them for my own amusement. However, I… did not. I followed their wishes without straying, and though I’m loathe to admit it, I felt… no regret inside myself for doing so. It was a strange influx of sensations, you see.” He meets your gaze. “I cannot speak for most djinn, mortal, but these types of ‘emotions’ which you possess were foreign to me in the past. And yet, I grew to… enjoy them, much to my chagrin.”
It dawns on you what he’s possibly getting at. “I think I understand… So you started to become less like the djinn you were, but you didn’t mind not twisting people’s wishes?”
“Correct,” Maazi says. “It got to the point where I was sincerely feeling remorse for my past mentality, but that was when I had to take a very long look at myself.” He folds his arms and frowns. “I did not feel like I deserved to be a djinn anymore. I was growing ‘soft,’ and such a revelation was my breaking point – and so, I resolved to actively seek out a mortal that would allow me to TRY and be the djinn I should’ve been, the one that could manipulate a witless mortal and twist their desires however I saw fit!”
He grunts. “And lo, but I found one eventually. I thought her to be the perfect mortal for a djinn like myself, and I was eager to grant her wishes and regain the control I needed over my own existence.” He pauses, his expression falling. “I… I regret my decision. The nature of my Master, while it might have been befitting for Maazi in his heyday, did not make me feel any different when all was said and done. If anything… I felt worse.”
“What in the bloody hell kind of human did you choose?” Moirine asks.
“What did she even wish for?” you ask. “And how is she still your master?”
“She is still my Master because she has not yet fulfilled her final wish,” Maazi replies, and he frowns. “You see, human, despite what you might think based on your little books and films, not every djinn is bound to give THREE wishes to a master. There are some djinn capable of only two, yet there are also some with the ability to deign more than three. I should note that in the former case, just because a djinn can only perform two wishes doesn’t make them inherently weaker than other djinn; most that only give two wishes are actively stronger, in fact, with less restrictions placed upon them.”
“Are you a djinn that only gives two wishes, then?” you ask.
“I am,” Maazi replies. “My magic is stronger than the average djinn my ‘age,’ for lack of a better word, and while I may only grant two wishes to a Master, I am less bound to the same things many other djinn are. As an example, mortal, I am able to use my power to do more with one wish than common djinn – if my Master words their wish a certain way, I am essentially able to grant two to even three separate things as a single wish.”
“Whoa,” you whisper.
“Unfortunately, the caveat this causes is… well, it’s being exploited now,” Maazi says, and he scowls. “My current, true Master has only asked one wish of me, but when she made her wish, she knew how to extend it to fulfill her own desires. It’s obvious to me she hasn’t had need for me since then, because I’ve not seen her in… quite some time.”
“And just how long is ‘quite some time,’ though?” Moirine asks. “You djinn don’t comprehend time the same way humans do, or that we selkie do, for that matter.”
Maazi scoffs. “It’s been ten years in mortal interpretations.”
You suppose it’s a positive that at least he didn’t say it’s been a hundred years. Still…
“Ten years?” you say. “I get the sense that’s not normal for a djinn, is it?”
“Mm, no, I’d say not,” Maazi replies. “Typically, a Master does not wait for long to request their wishes from a djinn – however, there is no true ‘limit’ on the length of time between one wish and another. While I would prefer my Master get their wishes from me as soon as possible, I’m forced to admit there is nothing I can do until that final wish is made. And because I’m stuck in this damnable Shard, I’m even more restricted.”
“Wait, so you can’t cancel being this person’s djinn?” you ask, frowning. “Ever?”
He grunts again and shakes his head. “The only way a djinn in service to a Master may ‘cancel’ it is if the Master’s life ends naturally or if the Master themselves chooses to end the service. And when I say naturally, I mean that the Master would have to die from a worldly cause, like sickness. I am forbidden from ever attempting to bring end to a mortal’s life myself, although,” he frowns, “I’d be remiss if I didn’t state even before this… shift in my mind, I would never have considered such a thing. I have standards.”
“So your current master has only asked for one of the two wishes,” you say while you process all of this in your head. “And she hasn’t bothered asking for the second wish in ten years. But you can’t do anything about the fact she hasn’t made her other wish yet, which means you’re stuck until she comes back to this, er, Shard thing for you?”
“Precisely,” Maazi replies, clearly displeased with the whole ordeal.
You glance to Moirine, and the two of you share a brief look of understanding.
You wonder what this person wished for in the first place that would make it so they’d decide not to return to Maazi – and of course, you take into consideration how their wish plays into what happened with you. You wonder then how many other humans met Maazi and wound up being turned into something else, all because of a poor choice of words or because of miscommunication? Plus, who even IS this person, anyways?
These questions and more are running through your mind, and you feel you should ask Maazi all of them – but you need to decide which one you want to ask him first; you recall something about Maazi not having a lot of time, so, you need to make this quick.
What do you ask him next?
Written by Hollowpages on 19 February 2022
