Alif the Unseen (33 page)

The mirage was so complete that for a moment he believed he could hear the sound of water lapping at the sand, and caught the scent of evaporating mist. He laughed at himself and at his own
helplessness, leaning back against the declining sand.

“You’ve failed her,” he said aloud. “If anything’s happened to her, it’s your fault. She trusted you.”

“I beg your pardon?”

Alif scrambled upright. A man was standing in the midst of the mirage, bare-chested, his dark skin beading up with water. It was as though he had been swimming. Alif made a strangled noise and
scurried backward up the embankment like a crab.

“Please don’t. I was only wondering whether you were addressing me. I’m afraid I don’t know who this woman you’ve accused me of neglecting is, however. Perhaps you
have me confused with someone else?”

Opening his mouth to respond, Alif made a shrill, inarticulate sound, and blushed. The man climbed out of the water—for it was water, or something very like it—and stood at the
bottom of the sandy incline to look up at Alif. He wore a wrapper of black cloth around his waist, like a fisherman.

“Damn it all,” he said, frowning. “I took you for one of us. I shouldn’t have spoken. How is it that you can see me?”

“I don’t know,” stammered Alif. “I came down to look at the mirage, and I thought I heard water . . .”

The man stared hard at Alif. There was something distorted about his face, as though Alif was looking at him through an old, warped window. When Alif concentrated too hard on one feature, it
would shiver and run, resembling a shadow or a spot in his eye caused by the sun.

“How interesting,” said the man, half to himself. “It’s got a strange whiff of the unseen about it.” He shook his head and seemed to recover himself.
“You’d better go back to wherever you came from, third-born. It isn’t quite safe for you on the borderlands, if you can see us.”

“I can’t go back,” Alif blurted as the man turned away. “We’ve wrecked our car—we’ll die out here if we can’t get to water and shelter.”

The man seemed to weigh this statement for a moment.

“Sorry, can’t help you,” he said finally, and splashed back into the mirage.

“I was a friend of Vikram’s,” called Alif. “He died trying to rescue two women I know. He would have brought them into the Empty Quarter with him.”

The man turned, surprised.

“The one your legends called the Vampire? I’d heard about his death. Nothing about two humans, though. But the Empty Quarter is a big place.”

“It’s dangerous, isn’t it? That’s what Vikram said. Dangerous for humans. Do you think—do you suppose two healthy women could get through all right?”

The man shrugged. “It’s difficult to say. The tribe of Adam is fragile, this is true. It would depend on the disposition of the particular people involved. You used to walk among us
quite frequently, and we among you. Now things are different.”

“Why?” Alif wanted to keep the man talking. Perhaps he could convince him to help.

“Belief,” said the man. “It doesn’t mean the same thing it used to, not for you. You have unlearned the hidden half of the world.”

“But the world is crawling with religious fanatics. Surely belief is thriving.”

“Superstition is thriving. Pedantry is thriving. Sectarianism is thriving. Belief is dying out. To most of your people the djinn are paranoid fantasies who run around causing epilepsy and
mental illness. Find me someone to whom the hidden folk are simply real, as described in the Books. You’ll be searching a long time. Wonder and awe have gone out of your religions. You are
prepared to accept the irrational, but not the transcendent. And that, cousin, is why I can’t help you.”

“I know someone who believes exactly what you have described,” said Alif. “She may still be in the Empty Quarter. Help me find her.”

The man stood hip-deep in the mirage and studied Alif for a long moment.

“If there really are two humans stuck in the Empty Quarter, there could certainly be trouble,” he said at last. “And that won’t do. If you promise to leave as soon as
you’ve found them, I suppose I could help you get in.”

“I promise,” said Alif in a hurry. “I swear it on my life, or what’s left of it. But there are two others I have to bring with me, other wise they’ll die out
here—an elderly sheikh and a younger man who saved both our skins. Please let me get them.”

The man sighed and looked over one shoulder, as though fearful of being watched.

“Hurry then,” he said. “The longer we stand here talking, the more attention we’ll attract.”

Alif bolted off through the sand toward the BMW. NewQuarter and Sheikh Bilal were lying in the tiny stripe of shade that remained, fanning themselves with the hems of their robes.

“We’ve got to go,” said Alif. “I’ve found someone who can help us.”

NewQuarter scrambled to his feet.

“Praise God. You’ve got some luck,
akhi
—who is it, a Bedouin running hash? One of those awful dune-bashing tour groups?”

“Never mind who,” said Alif. “Just come quickly. He’s in a bit of a rush.”

NewQuarter helped the sheikh to his feet and took his cooler of food from the trunk of the car.

“Poor car,” he lamented. “That’s the second one I’ve totaled this year. Father will not be pleased.”

Sheikh Bilal made a derisive noise but said nothing. Clinging to NewQuarter’s arm, he shuffled as fast as he could, tailing Alif as he made his way back toward the mirage. Alif
half-expected the man and the illusory pool to have disappeared by the time they returned. When he saw blue over the lip of sand where his tracks led, he let out a long breath. The man stood where
Alif had left him, both arms crossed over his chest.

“That one is going to be trouble,” he said, pointing to NewQuarter. “I can tell already.”

“What’s that?” called NewQuarter. “Look, man, where’s your car? I was expecting something a little more impressive.” He glanced at Alif. “For
God’s sake, what were you thinking? This guy isn’t even wearing any
pants
.”

“Neither are you,” the man retorted. NewQuarter raised his chin.

“Yes, but I’m
dressed,
” he said. “I’m wearing a proper robe with underwear and everything.”

Sheikh Bilal touched Alif’s arm.

“My boy,” he rumbled in a low voice. “I am starting to be concerned about the number of—of dubious people you seem to attract.”

“It’s a recent thing,” said Alif. “Sort of an accident. But they seem to be awfully handy in a crisis.”

“All right, let’s go,” said the man, beckoning. “One by one.”

“Into the mirage?” Feeling dubious, Alif looked down into the shimmering blue bowl.

“Yes, if that’s what you’d prefer to call it. Send the old man first.”

Alif helped Sheikh Bilal down the short slope of the depression, handing him off to the man at the bottom. The glare of the illusion increased, like sun reflecting on glass, and the two vanished
into it. After a pause, the man reappeared, without the sheikh.

“What the hell?” NewQuarter peered down at him, opening and closing his eyes rapidly, as though attempting to focus.

“You next,” the man said to him. “Since you’re the trickiest.”

“Tricky my left one,” said NewQuarter, voice high with alarm. “You’re the one who just disappeared an entire sheikh.”

“Fah. He’s standing right over there, waving at you.
Yallah
.” He reached out his hand. After a moment’s hesitation, NewQuarter took it and half-slid down the
sand, evaporating when he reached the bottom. Alif paced at the top of the incline as he waited for the man to return. The daylight he had so missed seared his exposed face and he was grateful for
NewQuarter’s head cloth, which kept the sun off the back of his neck. To be free and still not yet safe: there was something maddeningly incomplete about it. He kicked at the sand, which
belled upward and blew against him in a scudding breeze, smelling of hot glass.

“Where are you?” he muttered at the mirage. A moment later the man reappeared, looking exasperated.

“That was unnecessarily difficult,” he said. “Your friend may need to be talked down a little. He’s having a bit of a fit.”

“I’m sorry,” said Alif. “He’s had a long couple of days.”

“Not my problem. Here, down you come.”

Alif took the man’s outstretched hand and skittered down into the blue. He was assaulted by the scent of ozone, and a static charge rippled over his skin, causing the hair on his arms to
stand on end. When he opened his mouth to breathe he became convinced there was no oxygen, and began tearing at his throat with his free hand. The ozone smell seeped into his nostrils, his mouth,
the pores of his skin, until he felt he would dissolve in it, becoming a cloud of stratospheric particles. He went limp. There was a tug on his arm and when he blinked again he was standing on a
shoal of stardust.

“What?” Alif looked around, panting to catch his breath. A few yards away, NewQuarter was kneeling in a hillock of luminous powder, babbling, while Sheikh Bilal stood over him and
spoke in a low, soothing voice. The man who had ferried them across brushed more of the strange dust from Alif’s shoulders, looking him over with brusque concern.

“All right?” His form was even more indistinct here; his ears stretched into pointed tips, then became tufted with fur, then shrank again into a shape more human; his hair seemed to
float around his face like ink in water.

“Fine,” said Alif faintly. He moved his legs, testing them, and was glad when they obeyed him. Straining against the limits of his vision, he studied the landscape. Though the sand
had been replaced by the finer, paler material in which they stood, it was still a desert of sorts: dunes washed away into the distance, shedding clouds of crystal vapor in the light wind. The sky
above was many-hued, like an early twilight. Sun and moon were both visible, along with a few stars, giving the impression of a day that had never begun or a night that had never ended. The sight
awoke something primitive in Alif’s brain: a sense that he had strayed into a place where he did not belong and had become prey among predators.

“What is this?” howled NewQuarter. “What is this?”

The man shrugged as if the question was banal.

“The edge of the Empty Quarter, near the road to Irem,” he said. “Exactly where you were a minute ago, only different.”

“Irem, as in the City of Pillars?” asked Sheikh Bilal, looking, to Alif, absurdly unshaken. “The city built by djinn in the old legends?”

“The very same,” said the man. “Though it’s fallen out of fashion in recent times, I’m afraid. Many of us prefer to live in places abandoned by humans. Less work
for us. Detroit is very popular.”

Alif knelt in the dust next to NewQuarter and put one hand on his shoulder.

“Snap out of it,
bhai,
” he said. “You’re all right. Think of it as a computer game. You used to play World of Battlecraft, didn’t you?”

“This,” said NewQuarter with a squeak, “is way too real to be Battlecraft. This is realer than high definition. This is realer than real life.”

“We should get going,” said their guide. “There will be others moving through here, and not all of them will be as understanding as I am. Vikram had plenty of
enemies.”

“Will you tell us your own name?” asked Alif, getting NewQuarter to his feet.

The man made a musical series of sounds that slid off Alif’s hearing like oil.

“I’ll never be able to pronounce that,” he said. “Do you use another name? Vikram said he does. Did. I mean, Vikram wasn’t his real name.”

The man snorted. “I don’t deal with your tribe often enough to warrant a second name,” he said. “I see no point. You couldn’t possibly use my name against me if you
can’t even pronounce it.” He set off in the direction of the moon, kicking up a haze of dust as he went. Alif followed, tugging NewQuarter after him. The sheikh trailed behind, moving
more slowly across the yielding ground. The man led them over a series of small dunes that shifted in the wind, reshaping themselves like the surface of the sea. As Alif struggled to keep up, it
seemed to him as though the man was walking on water and the dust that sprang up in his footsteps was the salt spray of a dry ocean. The idea had a soporific effect on his mind. He found himself
lulled into a kind of trance as they walked and his eyes began to flutter, heavy-lidded.

“Careful back there,” called their guide. “If you fall asleep I may lose you. Keeping your bodies intact here is a lot of work.”

Alif shook himself, opening his eyes wide. He heard Sheikh Bilal take several deep breaths behind him.

“The air here doesn’t help,” the sheikh said. “It has a very strange effect on one. It’s like that gas they give you at the dentist’s.”

Alif gave an experimental sniff. The ozone scent that had almost overwhelmed him at the mirage was still detectable, though fainter; or perhaps he was becoming accustomed to it.

“What’s so bad about sleeping?” he heard NewQuarter ask. “Sleep is God’s mercy. I could use a nap.”

“Borderlands are treacherous,” said the man. “You’re drowsy because your mind wants to return to the world you know. But it would never get there. The sleeping mind
wanders between seen and unseen without settling in either. If you slept here you might never wake again, at least not in any fashion you could understand. You can sleep once we get to Irem.
It’s so deep in our territory that you can’t wander far, even in dreams.”

Alif remembered Vikram’s concern when he had nodded off in the Immovable Alley and felt a pang of regret for the way he had reacted. Lost in thought, he followed the trail of footsteps the
man left behind in the soft powder. He led them over dune after dune, pausing with impatience at the crest of each one as they toiled through the glittering, overyielding earth, each step a
struggle. The man seemed not to sink into the dust as they did, treading lightly over it as though it were as springy as grass. Finally, at the rim of a dune that curled like a wave, he pointed:
below, in a rough valley between the hills of dust, was a road.

“There,” he said. “This will take us to the city. Once we reach Irem, I suggest you make yourselves someone else’s responsibility—I can’t be held accountable
for what may happen to you there.”