The old man clutched his chest as power flooded through his body. He screamed as it arced back on itself and intensified. Somehow, he recognised this power. As it washed over him, memories returned, along with strength. Flesh fell away from him, as well as bones and blood and mortality. He floated off the ground, looking around at the city that hung over him.

Several ghostly beings encircled him, their eyes observing with displeasure. As he floated there, he realised their names, and their purposes.

‘Ferro,’ a large ghostly man growled. He folded arms of chorded muscle across his chest. Scars adorned his face, and inky black hair was pulled back from his eyes into a tight ponytail.

‘You have been sentenced to five hundred years of penance, for the murder of your charge. Your sentence is now at an end. How do you plead?’

Ferro looked up at the men and women who surrounded him. Something sparked in his mind at their words.

‘Murder of my… charge?’ A smile crept across his face, and he rubbed at his beard. ‘Djinn council… At last you free me from my hell. You return my memory to me, and now, I know why there was a burden of sorrow through these last five hundred years… I plead guilty. I ask your forgiveness.’

The man with the ponytail nodded. ‘Forgiveness, we grant to you.’

Ferro smiled. ‘Then, why have you not returned me to my complete power? Forgiveness dictates that sin is forgotten. Where is my magic? I feel it, but part of it is gone. Missing from my reach!’

‘There has been… an incident…’ a woman said, cautiously.

‘Incident?’ Ferro snarled.

‘This day… Do you not remember what you did?’ a powerful man with a large turban asked.

‘What did I do? I…’ The memory flashed in Ferro’s mind. ‘My lamp!’

‘Because of greed that still infects your heart, you sold your lamp for gold, Ferro. With it went half of your magic.’

‘But I was swindled! I didn’t remember the import of the lamp!’

‘Yet you sold it, nonetheless!’

‘Hebak, please! There must be something you can do!’

The muscular Djinn sighed, looking down at Ferro. ‘Your magic now belongs to the man who owns the lamp. He has split your power. Because of this, you, are no longer Djinn. You are less. A half breed. Magi. This is what you have become.’

‘A Wishcharmer!’ Ferro barked. ‘ Do you realise what you have done? You’ve let me fall from grace, from Djinn to Magi… But worse, you’ve allowed a Wishcharmer to be created!’

‘You have allowed it to happen yourself, Ferro!’ Hebak growled. ‘Perhaps now, you may see the import of these humans. Perhaps now, you will truly know why we punished you.’

‘This is sacrilege! You have no right to allow this to happen! We must stop him! Kill the wretch. I can absorb his power, regain what I’ve lost…’

‘We hold no blame in this, nor any part in its consequence… It is what you sold that makes you what you are. What you gave away that allowed the Wishcharmer to form. Greed, like before, is still your undoing.’

‘You will return what is mine, Hebak! You will, or I will reign terror on these people. A Wishcharmer will be the least of your worries! I swear it!’

‘You are no longer our concern. The sorcerers have been made aware of you. Do not think blood will change what has transpired.’

‘I will kill this man! The one who took my lamp! His blood will be on your hands!’

‘Do you not remember who we are, Ferro?’ Hebak asked. ‘We are Djinn! We know of things beyond time!’ His voice thundered around Ferro, shaking the city all around him.

‘I want what is mine!’ he snapped.

‘What once was yours, has allowed for something else. The Djinn see him. We are aware of him. And we may yet have use for him… Do not cross us by seeking his death, Ferro. Such an act would bring about a war that you, in your eternities, have not seen the likes of. Not since the founding of the universe has there been such a war. But this man is tied to such a fate. This, we have foreseen. Do not test the will of the Djinn. Even we must answer to higher powers…’

‘Curse you all! I will have my power back! I swear to you! If it takes every eternity I have left, I will have it back! And I will make you, and that human-child suffer for this affront! I swear it!’

Hebak nodded. ‘Then we shall soon see, what the universe can bear. If war is what you create, Ferro… We shall see what heroes the great power of the universe raises to oppose you…’

There was a sudden brilliant green flash, and then, Ferro was alone. Comforted in the dark, only by his mission. Warmed in the cold, only by his hatred.