*An inquiry into the soul and the unseen beings called jinn* ## Souls All living things possess a soul: men and women, beasts of the field, birds of the air, and trees that stand through the passing of generations. Though each life is its own, souls are not wholly apart. Affection draws them together; so too may grief, loyalty, fear, or hatred. Spiritualists attend to these bonds, while chimerists seek the strength of animals. Of the soul itself, however, even those most practiced in such matters can say less than they might wish. The chief dispute concerns death. Some maintain that the soul perishes when life leaves the body. Others hold that it endures and may become a jinn. The jinn do not resolve the quarrel. They speak readily of lives that have ended, yet answer uncertainly when asked what became of them. Thus each school finds something in their words to support its account, and neither obtains a plain answer. ## Jinn A jinn is an intelligent being without flesh. Ordinarily it is unseen, though it may choose to appear or make its voice heard. Each has its own disposition and a form by which it is known; some can appear in other forms as well. A jinn may be driven from a place, but not destroyed. Whether this proves that jinn have always existed, or only that their end lies beyond mortal power, is not known. Many people address them without any such learning. A household may ask for fair weather, give thanks after a safe journey, or make an offering when misfortune persists. Where a cause cannot be seen, it is natural to wonder which unseen power has acted. Yet gratitude and blame are alike uncertain: not every welcome rain is a gift, nor every blighted field a punishment. Most worthy of care is the jinn that takes an abiding interest in one person. It may give counsel, turn aside a danger, or encourage gifts that would otherwise lie dormant. To the one so favored, these acts may seem proof of friendship. But the jinn are long-lived, and mortals are not. Before judging such devotion, one must ask why a being that cannot die should attend so closely to a life that must. The jinn have their own orders of precedence, their alliances, and their quarrels. Elementals are numbered among the lesser jinn, though the word *lesser* describes their standing among their own kind, not the danger they may present to ours. Arcanists bind themselves to jinn; elementalists address the elementals; entropists concern themselves with the veil that lies between the jinn’s world and this one. Such dealings have made the jinn familiar without making them well understood.