"But the world is full of zanies and fools,

Who don’t believe in sensible rules,

And won’t believe what sensible people say,

And because these daft and dewey-eyed dopes keep building up impossible hopes,

Impossible things are happening every day."

Jax stood at the edge of a large mound of pillows, eyeing the woman reclining on them sensually. His arms akimbo, he arched one tawny eyebrow in her direction. Warm sparks of Jax’s magic – his tar’ot -- floated towards the woman, enveloping her, settling on various pleasure points of her body, causing her to moan softly.

Caroline reclined more fully on the pillows, inhaling at the sensations Jax was bringing her by the power of his tar’ot alone. "Ahhh, Guardian, won’t you join me?" she purred, extending her hand to him. The voluptuous flaxen-haired djinni shifted her satin-clad legs on the pillows in anticipation of Jax’s favors.

Jasperi al Jakstaraya was commonly called "Jax" on the djinn home world of Astarra. The full names of the djinn were rarely spoken. He was the most powerful of the djinn, often known and addressed by lesser djinn simply as "the Guardian."

As Jax moved towards Caroline, his robe flapped open, revealing that he was more than ready to enjoy a pleasurable afternoon. Caroline’s mouth grew dry as an Astarran desert at the sight of him. Jax not only wielded the most powerful magic of all of the djinn, he was a master of the sensual arts. It was well-known that Jax had sworn no woman would capture his heart. As Guardian, his number one priority was protecting the tar’ot, and supervising the training of new djinn. There was no time left over for a taja – a wife.

But that certainly didn’t preclude Jax from enjoying the pleasures of the flesh with many of the female djinn who hoped to change his mind. As Jax stood, poised above Caroline on the pillows, he sent her a gentle spark of tar’ot so that her eyes met his. "Caroline, I want you beyond telling."

"And I want you, Guardian," she replied breathlessly as he sent her a heated sexual thought telepathically.

"But you know that I cannot promise you more than this afternoon on my pillows," Jax replied seriously, forcing her to meet his gaze. "I make no commitments to a future relationship. My dedication to the tar’ot will not allow it."

"It matters not, Guardian," Caroline replied. "Won’t you please join with me and relieve this ache that you have created?"

Jax smiled wickedly. She had been warned. He had learned through experience that spurned female djinn were not pleasant to be around. "Very well, then. And for this afternoon, you may address me as Jax."

He sank to the pillows next to her, and with a blink of his eyes his robe and her pantaloons dissolved into nothingness. As his arms went around her like bands of strongest steel, he searched her thoughts and found that her unadorned arms brought her unhappiness. As Jax bent his head to nuzzle the side of her neck and she wound her arms around him, he murmured the words to make a bands of gold appear on her arms.

Caroline suddenly pulled away from him with a cry of pain. "Jax! My arms!" As Jax pulled back from her embrace, he saw that the bracelets had indeed appeared on her arms, but they were so tight that they were cutting off the circulation of her blood to her fingers. Jax quickly re-cast the spell, and to Caroline’s delight, the bands of gold loosened and slid down to her wrist, making a jingling sound.

"Oh, Jax," she crooned, stroking his magnificent chest with her fingers, they are *so* exquisite. Don’t you think that they make my arms look beautiful?"

Jax turned her face to his, looking deeply into her eyes. "How can simple jewelry improve on what is already perfection?" As she sighed at his mastery of words, Jax leaned down to take her lips in a powerful kiss. As Caroline wrapped her arms around Jax’s neck, he pushed unpleasant thoughts of why his magic had gone awry from his brain. Caroline tried to prepare herself for the wild experience she prayed she had ahead of her as Jax continued to push her back into the softness of the pillows.

His right hand swept down her body as he continued to kiss her into nirvana. As she hungrily responded to his kiss, Jax heard a jingling sound. {Merlin’s teeth, are those bracelets clanking against my arm bands? If I had known that the bracelets would make that much noise, I never would have gifted her with them.}

But when Jax pulled back momentarily from the kiss to trace her neck with his tongue, he heard the jingling again, and this time it was louder. Caroline opened her eyes to see what had caused Jax to pause in his attentions to her, and she grew alarmed at his concerned look. "What is it?"

Jax looked over his shoulder and groaned. "We must stop for this afternoon. The Guardian’s help is needed."

Caroline looked over Jax’s shoulder to see a small, revolving yellow sphere floating in the window. Shafts of light shot from it as it continued to jingle and revolve. Caroline looked back at Jax and smiled as she pulled his face back to hers. "It is only yellow, Jax. Can we not finish what we have started before you answer its call?"

Caroline felt the coldness even though Jax hadn’t cast a spell. Before she could blink her eyes, her clothing had been restored to her body and Jax stood on the other side of the room, his robe once more in place. "I told you not five minutes ago, Caroline, that the tar’ot must always be my priority. Had you not been such a pleasurable diversion, words like the ones you just spoke would be deserving of severe punishment."

Caroline rose from the pillows, trying to control her anger at Jax’s rebuff. "I am most sorry, Guardian. I realize that you belong to all the djinn, not just to this humble, disappointed djinni." As she approached Jax and batted her eyes, she rubbed her breasts against his bare chest.

Jax experienced a moment of regret at his dedication to duty, but then he thought of a way to appease Caroline. He pulled her close for one more blistering kiss, and then pushed her back, taking her hands in his. "Perhaps this will help ease the ache until we can continue what we have started."

As he turned her hands to rest, palms up, in his, he closed his eyes and concentrated. An Angel’s Bell would no doubt soothe her injured ego. Angels’ Bells were an exotic, rare breed of cattelya orchid. They were a blinding shade of white, with deep golden throats and a strong, sweet scent. The spell to conjure an Angel’s Bell was a complicated one, and only male djinn were capable of casting it. Some male djinn were just barely able to make the flower appear, and it would fade into nothingness within minutes. It was rumored among the female djinn that the longer a djinni’s Angel’s Bells lasted, the more talented he was in other areas.

As Jax recalled the spell and continued to conjure, he smiled to himself. His Angel’s Bell orchids lasted for weeks.

He finished the incantation and opened his eyes, expecting to see a huge white bloom resting in Caroline’s open hands. But when Jax looked down, he saw at least thirty flowers cascading out of Caroline’s hands and onto the floor.

"Oh, Jax!" she squealed in delight. "They are so extraordinary!" She gathered them into her arms and looked at him with undisguised lust. "I am overwhelmed by your powers!"

{You’re not the only one! By the heavens, what is happening to me?} Jax managed a smile. "Hopefully this interruption will be a brief one and we can continue our pleasures tomorrow afternoon."

Jax ushered a still-jubilant Caroline out of his quarters and then turned around and gave into the frustration that had been building for some time. {It *can’t* be the prophesy coming true already! My tar’ot is too strong for this!} When he heard the jingling of the message ball once more, he strode over to it vigorously and waved his hand at it.

"Guardian," a female voice intoned, "your assistance is required at the Academy. Lukas was learning to cast a simple color-changing spell and has changed all of the water in the reservoir to a brilliant shade of blue."

Jax muttered some assorted djinn swear words, happy that Lukas wasn’t around to hear them. But then, a smile lit his handsome face and he chuckled in exasperation. Lukas reminded Jax in so many ways of himself at the same age of nearly 13 years.

Jax gazed back at the message sphere and sighed. This was indeed not an urgent problem. He closed his eyes, and began to cast the spell to revert the waters to their pure color. Suddenly, his eyes flew open as he felt the tar’ot building inside him. It rose up his chest, almost choking him, and he whirled toward the open window.

Jax extended his hand towards the hanging plants at the last moment and sparks of lightning shot from his fingers. The clay planters holding the plants didn’t have a chance. They shattered into thousands of tiny shards, the plants falling to the balcony and scattering dirt and blossoms everywhere. Jax walked slowly to where the mess lay, and he swore aloud again when his bare foot encountered a shard of broken pottery.

"What is *happening* to me!" Jax cried aloud. He spun from the window and marched angrily to the door of his quarters, slamming it behind him as the yellow message sphere disappeared into thin air.

There was only a hint of daylight left when Jax broke the surface of the crystal clear lagoon. He took a large gulp of brisk night air and then, after pushing his wet locks back off his forehead, he cleanly cut the water with his hand as he swam towards the shore.

When he pulled himself up onto the shore, his completely nude body glistened in the moonlight with the exertion of his swim. Jax slicked his hair back again with both hands, and then walked a ways from the edge of the lagoon to sit in the soft earth. He faced the quiet waters and folded his legs, sitting in a calming lotus position. Perhaps this would be sufficient. Some time away from the pressures of the Guardianship. This would surely restore the balance to his tar’ot.

Jax shivered slightly in the cool air of night. He opened his eyes and with a slight inclination of his head, he willed a fire to appear to warm him and dry the moisture from his body. But in the next instant, a cloud of flame nearly enveloped him and he had to scramble to avoid having his toes singed.

{This can’t be happening. Not this soon. I am not yet ready to fulfill the prophesy.}

As the flames became less intense and formed a column of smoke and orange light, Jax stared into it intently. He saw his mentor -- Thomas. Thomas was the original Guardian. It was Thomas who had groomed Jax to be the next Guardian, much the same as he was doing with Lukas. It was also Thomas who had told Jax of the prophesy made long before his birth.

According to the ancients, there would come a time during Jax’s guardianship when the elements of fire, air, earth and water would not come together in harmony. This lack of harmony would disturb all the things that descended from it, particularly the tar’ot. The Guardian would find his magical powers beginning to deteriorate, and according to the prophesy, there would be only one way to restore balance to the system.

Jax had pushed Thomas for further details, but Thomas told him that fragments of the prophesy had been lost as it was handed down over the centuries. When he had become Guardian, Jax set many scholars to studying the writings of the Ancients, and finally one day, they found the answer he sought. Or at least -- part of it.

A fragment of a decaying parchment told of the solution. Jax would have to be united with a woman, but not just any woman. The woman that was destined to be his taja would be descended from the bloodline of Wildingeza. And the most galling of all -- that bloodline was only found in women of Earth.

A human! Jax would need to take a human to wife! And more than that, according to the prophesy, she needed to come to him willingly. Jax had ordered the scholars to pursue it further and find this bloodline of Wildingeza. One day about two years ago, one of the learned had brought Jax the news that such a descendant did exist on Earth. She lived in the city of......what did they call it?.......New Orleans.

Jax closed his eyes and concentrated, then he opened them and stared into the column of fire. Her face appeared to him -- a delicate woman of dark coloring, with a distinctive mark of beauty near her mouth. Her hair was the color of raven’s wings, her lips full and sensual. Jax had rewarded the scholars handsomely when they managed to determine the woman’s name.

Jax’s pre-destined bride, the woman who would bring order back to his chaotic tar’ot -- was called Brenda Barrett.

As the darkness was just about ready to give way to the dawn, Jax sat back in his courtyard of his home, staring into space morosely. After what his brother, Jerald, had endured at the hands of humans, how could he ever bring himself to take one as his taja?

Jerald had angered a powerful sorcerer many years earlier and the sorcerer had cast a curse on him that was considered worse than death by most of the djinn. Jerald had been doomed to be a spellbound djinni – he would need to serve the whims of 100 masters before he would regain his freedom. His azure amulet had been stripped from him and hidden until he completed his servitude. During his enslavement, Jerald was forbidden to live or communicate with any of his fellow djinn.

Through a twist of fate, Jerald’s 95^th summoner turned out to be a beautiful woman of Earth named Lois. She had fallen in love with him, and eventually wished for his freedom. He had similarly given his heart to Lois, but before they had reached this happy resolution, Jerald had nearly died. After they realized their love, Jerald chose to live on Earth with her and a daughter from her first marriage and he took Lois as his taja.

Jax shook his head. Lois was indeed a beautiful woman. In fact, the first time that he had met Lois, he had considered bringing her to his own pillows. But she was stubbornly in love with Jerald, and she had refused him.

Jax would never have wanted to hurt his own brother, so he was partly glad for her refusal to bend to his seduction. But it also made Jax wary – were *all* women of Earth that single-minded? Jerald would joke about his Lois, calling her "adorably obstinate." Would this Brenda also want to be the last one to speak in an argument, as Lois did? Would she also be as temperamental and outspoken as Lois? Why couldn’t the prophesy just have bound him to a submissive, obedient djinni like Caroline?

The sudden sound of the grumbling of Jax’s stomach broke his reverie. Jax had fasted as part of the cleansing ritual the night before, and his body was noisily letting him know that it was time to break the fast. With a rise of his eyebrow, a tray of fresh fruit appeared before Jax on the courtyard table.

Jax grinned and rubbed his hands together. Obviously, the cleansing ritual had solved the problem. His tar’ot was once again balanced. He lifted a bunch of large red grapes and plucked several off their stems, popping them into his mouth. He turned happily to go back into the bedroom and summon Caroline, but as he got to the door, he spat the grapes from his mouth and swore.

Jax walked back to the table, his robe swishing about his legs with the vigor of his step. He pulled more grapes from the stem and tasted them, soon spitting them out as he had the others. He grabbed a ripe, red apple from the tray, but as soon as he bit into the flesh, he found it bruised and rotten.

Jax sank down to the tiled floor of the patio, holding his head in his hands. So the prophesy *was* coming true after all. His head came up and he took a deep breath. After wiping his hands on his robe, he rose to his feet and closed his eyes, slowing his breathing and beginning the transporting ritual. If balancing his tar’ot meant joining with Brenda Barrett of Earth, so be it. As his image began to disappear, Jax prayed with all of his heart that he would not find his Brenda to be as sour as the fruit that he had tasted that morning.

Brenda looked around her small living room and put her hands on her hips in disgust. She had pushed all of the furniture back so that she had enough room to recreate the setting required for the spell. As she scurried across the room to straighten out a large piece of purple silk that covered the floor, her pure white Persian cat, Fluffer McKitty, scampered out of the way and hid beneath the couch.

"Now, Fluffer, don’t get all hyper on me," Brenda scolded. "I know things look a little strange right now…" Brenda looked around her. "Well, actually they look a LOT strange right now." She bent down and reached under the sofa to retrieve the ball of fur. "But as soon as I get this whole magic thing out of the way, we’ll put the furniture back to where it was, OK?" Brenda stroked her fur lovingly as Fluffer purred into her chest.

Brenda gave a sigh and glanced at the clock. "OK, Fluffer, it’s almost dawn and I have to do this right now." She put the cat down and set her hands on her hips. "But why do I have the feeling that this isn’t going to work and I’ll have wasted a perfectly good fifty dollars?"

She turned back to the couch and grabbed two sheets of yellowed paper from it. "OK, let’s see – the garb of the summoner must be green." She stared down at her emerald green satin crop top pajamas. "Well, Fluffer, this is about as good as I could do. Green is just *not* my color." She looked back to the sheet. "A floor covering of royal indigo, five stones that have never seen light, and six candles of virgin white wax."

Brenda went to arrange the candles and stones, alternating them in a circle on the purple silk. "Obviously, Madame Miri has never gone digging for stones in marshy New Orleans dirt," Brenda said sarcastically as she went past where Fluffer had curled up on the floor. "And I’m not even going to *begin* to ask these candles if they’re virgins or not." She laughed at her own joke a little, but then grew quiet and rose to her feet. "Well, Fluffer, it’s now or never, I guess."

She picked up one of the sheets again. "Walk around inside the circle made by stones and candles three times, chanting." Brenda sighed and smiled at Fluffer. "OK, Fluffer, you’d better cover your sensitive ears. I never was exactly choir girl material."

Jax materialized in the garden next to Brenda’s living room. He was surprised to see lights since most of the other houses were completely dark. He winked and cast his invisibility spell so that none of her neighbors would question a grown man peeking in her windows at this time of the Earth morning. But when he did manage to get a good look inside, he was astonished at what he saw.

She was simply exquisite. Her hair, dark as midnight, was pulled back into a single bundle at the back of her head, but he imagined that it would cascade below her shoulders if set free. Her hands were small and graceful, her body small and delicate, yet well-proportioned. As she reached above her head, the small bolero she was wearing pulled up, showing just the hint of the bottom swell of her breast. Jax felt himself tightening as he began to have disturbing thoughts of making her garb dissolve into thin air and replacing the purple cloth on her floor with a bed of pillows, several layers thick.

As Jax pushed thoughts of their joining to the back of his consciousness, he was surprised to see Brenda begin to walk around in a circle and chant. {She’s performing some kind of ritual! Although, I suppose it’s not that surprising, since the bloodline of Wildingeza has deep roots in the mystical world. Perhaps she will not be as difficult a human as I thought!}

Brenda tried not to get dizzy as she slowly walked around in circles. "Hear me, sons of Merlin. Aid me, daughters of Morgan Le Fay, Walk with me, Powers of the Universe." Brenda repeated the chant three times, and then stopped cold to read from her paper again. "OK, Fluffer," she said, glancing down at the cat, "now we get to the good stuff."

As Jax continued to watch, his heart caught in his throat. "I name thee, I call to thee, I bind thee to my will." Brenda began to walk the circle pattern again as the wind began to whip into her living room through open windows and icy fingers of fear wrapped around Jax’s soul. {She is spellbinding a djinni! Where could she have gotten the spell to do so?} As Jax’s breathing grew more erratic, he watched her repeat the words clearly. {Ahh, but the next part will see her failure. It would be impossible for her to have the full name of a djinni.} Jax tried to calm his racing heartbeat, waiting to hear what words she spoke next.

Brenda finished the "binding thee to my will" part for the third time and looked down at Fluffer again. His eyelids were drooping and he had curled his tail around him, almost fast asleep. "That’s OK, Fluffer," Brenda smiled. "I know you’re bored. I’m almost finished." She looked on the couch. "Now where’s that other paper with that djinni’s name?"

Jax couldn’t believe his ears. {She actually thinks she has a djinni’s name?} As he watched, she picked up the paper with a triumphant grin.

"Here we go, Fluffer," Brenda said, reading aloud. "I have to say this djinni’s name three times and then we’ll see if I’m another fifty dollars poorer." She took a deep breath. "I summon thee to my will….." She squinted and pulled the paper in closer to her eyes, trying desperately to keep the letters from jumbling. "Jas…per..i… al Jak….star….aya!"

Jax’s knees almost buckled. {MERLIN’S BEARD! SHE IS SPELLBINDING ME!!!} His only hope was that she spoke so slowly and carefully. Jax began to cant the binding-reversal spell, but winds began to whip around him and his tar’ot refused to focus on Brenda.

Brenda repeated the name for the second time. The flames of the candles flickered as the winds whipped around her living room. Fluffer howled in protest as the curtains flapped against the front window.

{She cannot bind me! The Guardian cannot be bound!} As Brenda began to say his name for the third time, Jax frowned mightily and streamed his most powerful tar’ot in through the living room window with a clap of thunder.

"I summon thee to my will….Jas…per…i..al…Jack…." Brenda was knocked from her feet by a surge of magical force and landed on her derriere with a thump. Jax materialized in all of his rage in the middle of her living room, causing Fluffer to yowl in fear and leap into Brenda’s arms.

"STOP!" he yelled, his voice booming almost louder than the peal of thunder that accompanied his appearance.

Brenda sat in a daze on her floor, holding Fluffer’s shivering body to her breast. As she looked at the tall, blonde vision of fury that stood not two feet in front of her, she could only manage to say the one thing that came first to her mind.

"Well…..I sure gotta say one thing…..you don’t look anything like Barbara Eden!!!"

To be continued…..