The Golem and the Jinni (65 page)

Help!

He turned, startled. A voice, from far away, drifted through the glass wall. . . .

Jinni, help! We are at battle with a band of
ifrits
, and are injured—we need shelter!

Up he flew to the highest tower, and looked out over the valley. Sure enough, three jinn were approaching from the west, riding the wind. At this distance he couldn’t recognize them, but they were unmistakably his own kind. There was no sight of their pursuers, but that was unsurprising; many
ifrits
liked to travel beneath the desert’s surface, outdistancing their enemies and then bursting forth in front of them. One of the jinn, he saw, seemed to be carrying another, who indeed looked less than whole.

You are welcome here
, he called to them.
Enter quickly, and take your shelter
. He felt a pang that they would see him in this weakened state—but then, they themselves were no better. Perhaps they could all keep each other’s secrets.

The gateway to the palace was shielded by a door of thick glass that hung on silver hinges. To open or close it, the Jinni had to be in human form; it had been a conceit of his to pretend he was a human ruler of old, coming home to his seat of power. As he removed the bar that locked the door and swung it open, he reflected that perhaps it was time to modify the gateway. What had once seemed an amusing fancy now felt, in the presence of his own kind, faintly embarrassing.

A hot wind caressed him at the gateway; and the three jinn flew past him and into the palace, one of them—a female, he saw now, a jinniyeh of some beauty—supported by another of her fellows. He smiled to himself. The evening had just grown slightly more promising. He closed the door, and then hefted the bar back into place.

A clawlike human hand clamped a metal cuff over his wrist.

Shocked, he tried to pull away—but his arm had turned to frozen fire. The pain was blinding. Desperately he tried to change shape, to get away from the freezing iron, but to no effect. He could feel the cuff holding his body in place, blocking every attempt to transform.

The pain moved past his shoulder to envelop his entire being. He collapsed to his knees, looked up with his dimmed human eyes at the jinni that had done this to him. But all three jinn had vanished. Standing before him was a Bedouin tribesman carrying a young girl in his arms. The girl was Fadwa, bound and blindfolded. Next to them stood something that he first took for an animated corpse—but then he saw it was a grotesque old man in a filthy, tattered cloak.

The old man was grinning hideously, showing dark and broken teeth. “It is accomplished!” he said. “Captured, and in human form! The first since the days of Sulayman!”

“Then he’s bound to you?” asked the Bedouin.

“No, not quite yet. For that, I’ll need your assistance.”

The tribesman hesitated for a moment, and then lowered his cloak-covered burden to the floor. The Jinni, unable to move or even to speak against the freezing agony, watched as Fadwa twitched and whispered. The Bedouin noticed his gaze. “Yes, look!” he shouted. “Look at what you’ve done to my daughter! This is your payment, creature. However terrible your suffering, know that you yourself have caused it, and it is
nothing
compared to hers!”

“Yes, well put,” said the ancient man dryly. “Now come and help me, before the pain unhinges him. I want him fully aware of what’s happening.”

Cautiously the Bedouin approached. “Hold him steady,” the old man said. Fadwa’s father grabbed the Jinni roughly. The Jinni tried to cry out, but nothing came. “Hold still,” the Bedouin hissed, gripping the back of the Jinni’s neck.

The old man had closed his eyes; he was muttering under his breath, as though rehearsing or preparing himself, making ready. Then he knelt down and put one rough and dusty palm on the Jinni’s forehead.

The rasping syllables the old man chanted made no sense—but even through the iron’s torment he could sense the net of glowing lines that spun out from the man’s hand and around his own pain-racked body. He strained against the cuff, panicking, trying desperately to change form as the lines twisted to form a cage. Foolish, careless! Baited and captured like the basest of
ghuls
! Everything,
everything
had been stolen from him!

“I am Wahab ibn Malik,” the man growled, “and I bind you to my service!”

And the cage of glowing lines sank inside him, flame joining to flame.

The old man staggered; for a moment it seemed he might faint. Then he righted himself, and smiled in triumph.

“Then it’s done?” asked the Bedouin. “You can heal her now?”

“One last thing. The binding must be sealed.” The wizard smiled sadly. “My deepest apologies, Abu Yusuf, but here our agreement ends.”

A knife appeared in the wizard’s other hand. In a swift and powerful motion, he plunged it into Abu Yusuf’s ribs. There was a horrible gasping noise; and then, as the wizard withdrew the knife, a hot spray of blood, and the choking smell of iron. Abu Yusuf collapsed, his hand slipping from the Jinni’s neck.

The wizard took a deep breath. Again he seemed exhausted. His skeletal frame sagged with fatigue, but his eyes were full of a quiet triumph.

“Now,” he said. “Let us talk. Ah, but first . . .” He grabbed the Jinni’s wrist again, and muttered something over the iron cuff. In an instant, the pain vanished. Freed from his paralysis, the Jinni fell, sprawling across the bloodstained glass.

“I’ll give you a moment,” said the old man. He turned his back to check on the girl, who lay bundled on the floor, oblivious to her father’s murder.

The Jinni gathered himself, rose shaking to his feet, and launched himself at the wizard.

“Stop,” ibn Malik said.

And just like that, the Jinni jerked to a halt, a tamed animal at the end of its leash. There was no way to fight it; he might as well stop the sunrise. The wizard whispered a few words, and the iron’s freezing torture roared back to life.

The wizard said, “Do you know that no one, not even the wisest of the seers, has discovered why the touch of iron is so terrible to the jinn?” He paused, as though awaiting a response, but the Jinni was near insensible, curled around his arm. The wizard went on. “Nothing else produces such an effect. But here lies a conundrum, for if I can control you with iron, then so can another. It’s no use to send one’s most powerful slave to kill an enemy, only to see him driven away by an ordinary sword. I pondered this problem long and hard, and this is my solution.”

He muttered the words again; once more the cuff’s torment ceased.

“I will be a stern master,” the wizard said as the Jinni lay boneless on the floor, “but not a cruel one. You will only feel the iron if you deserve its touch. If, however, your attitude merits reward, I’ll allow you to resume your true form from time to time. But don’t think you can escape—your actions are mine to control. You are bound to me, fire to flesh, soul to soul, and sealed in blood for as long as you shall live.” He smiled down at the Jinni. “Oh, my proud slave. We’ll outdo all the stories of old, you and I. Our names shall be sung for generations.”

“I’ll destroy myself,” said the Jinni in a hoarse voice.

The wizard raised an eyebrow. “I see the truth of your position has yet to set in,” he said. “Very well. I’ll make it clear to you.”

The Jinni braced weakly against the expected pain of the iron, but it didn’t come. Instead ibn Malik went to Fadwa and crouched over her. The girl had thrashed free of her cloak. A dribble of saliva ran down one side of her face, and her hands jerked and clawed against their bonds.

“You left a piece of yourself inside this girl,” the wizard said. “I promised her father I would remove it.”

He placed his hands on the girl’s face, slipping his fingers beneath the blindfold. Closing his eyes, the man began to mutter. After a moment, Fadwa went still—and then she screamed, a sound that went on and on, as though her soul was being drawn from her body. The Jinni shuddered, tried to cover his ears, but found he couldn’t move.

At last the screaming ceased and the girl lay motionless. Ibn Malik smiled, though he looked even more tired than before. He slipped off the blindfold, untied the rag that bound her wrists, and backed away.

“Go to her,” ibn Malik told the Jinni. “Wake her.”

He had no strength left, but nevertheless his legs carried him of their own accord to Fadwa’s side. The binding moved his limbs, made him kneel down and gently shake her shoulder. “Fadwa,” he said, struggling against it.
Don’t wake,
he thought.
Don’t see.

The girl stirred, brought one hand up to rub at her eyes, then winced at the ache in her wrists. The last of the twilight was shining through the palace walls, casting a blue aura about her wan and drawn features, turning her hair a deep blue-black. Her eyes opened; she saw the Jinni. “It’s you,” she murmured. “I’m dreaming . . . no, I
was
dreaming. . . .”

She frowned, confused. Slowly she sat up, and looked around.

“Father!”
the girl shrieked.

And then the binding was moving him again, making him crouch above her as ibn Malik had. His hands went around her throat. He felt the delicate bones as they bent and cracked under his fingers, felt her hands as they scratched and slapped at his face. He could not look away from her eyes as they stared back at him, protesting in disbelief before they bulged with panic, and then, finally, dimmed.

At last the Jinni sat back. His hands still moved with the binding’s command, convulsing against air. He watched them until they stopped.

“Now you understand,” said ibn Malik.

And it was true. He understood. He stared at the cold glass walls and tried to feel nothing.

The wizard put a hand on his shoulder. “Enough for today, I think,” he said. “Rest and regain your strength. Tomorrow your true work begins.” He paused to look about at the cavernous hall. “You must prepare yourself for one more disappointment, I fear. Your new quarters are not nearly so elegant.”

From his tattered cloak he extracted a long-necked copper flask, etched with intricate loops and whorls. He tipped the flask toward the Jinni, and muttered another series of harsh and meaningless words.

A bright flash seared the Jinni’s eyes, lighting the chamber to translucence. There was a horrible sense of
diminishment
as the wizard’s spell gathered and compressed his being, banking his essence to the merest spark. Slowly the flask drew him in—and time slowed to an elongated instant, full of the taste of metal and a wild, searing anguish.

Here the Jinni’s own memories ended.

But these were not the only memories that he regained in that moment, for the lines of the binding stretched both ways. The Jinni saw himself, remembered what he had done—but he also saw the memories of the wizard ibn Malik, felt his triumph as he enslaved the Jinni with Abu Yusuf’s blood and compelled him to kill Fadwa. Like two patterns overlaid, their recollections ran together and diverged, overlapped and intertwined. He was inside the flask, trapped in that endless moment; and he was standing alone in the glass palace, holding a copper flask that was warm to the touch.

Ibn Malik replaced the flask inside the pocket of his cloak. Then he staggered to the nearest wall and sank to the floor, breathing in shallow gasps.

The day’s exertions had drained him more deeply than expected. He hadn’t meant to put the Jinni in the flask so quickly, but it would have done little for his authority to allow the Jinni to see him panting with fatigue. And still, what a day, what an unparalleled accomplishment! He only regretted the death of the girl. It seemed wasteful to kill one so young and beautiful when she might have served as a menial in his future palace, or a tempting motivation for the Jinni’s good behavior. He should have anticipated that, like any powerful animal, his new acquisition would require a certain amount of breaking.

His breathing began to even and slow. He would, he decided, take a small, well-deserved rest, and then return home. The Bedouins’ mounts were hobbled safely outside the palace, and it was a clear, warm night with no windstorms. The mounts could wait a little longer. Or perhaps he would leave them behind and command the Jinni to carry him across the valley. He smiled at the thought, and sank into a deep and grateful sleep.

Ibn Malik did not usually dream, but within moments his slumbering mind brought him visions of a city on an island, an impossible city that reached far into the sky. Perhaps it was the city that he would build, he and the Jinni? Yes: a monumental undertaking, but was it not within his reach? For now that he had captured one jinni, who was to say that he could not capture another, and another? He would bind the entire race, and make them build him a kingdom to rival Sulayman’s. . . .

The city blurred, coalesced, and became a man, a wrinkled old man with skin pale as milk, carrying a stack of singed parchments. Ibn Malik had never encountered such a man before, and yet he felt he knew him, felt both kinship and a dreadful fear. He wanted to warn the man—but of what? And now the man was reaching out toward ibn Malik, his face full of warning as well—

Pain, sudden and horrible, cut through the dream. The pale man’s face disintegrated as ibn Malik woke with his own knife in his stomach, and Abu Yusuf’s hand on the hilt.

Either Abu Yusuf had been biding his time, or he’d been revived by his daughter’s screams. In either case, he wasn’t nearly as dead as he’d appeared. A wide trail of blood showed his slow progress to ibn Malik’s side; now he lay next to the wizard, twisting the knife with the last of his strength. Ibn Malik roared and backhanded the man, but it was too late, the damage was done: Abu Yusuf had pulled the knife away with him.

Ibn Malik’s vision blurred. Blood filled his mouth. He spat it out and hauled himself to standing. Abu Yusuf lay at his feet, weakly smiling. The wizard pressed a foot to his neck until there could be no question the man was dead.

Beneath the taste of blood ibn Malik could smell the meaty stink of his own intestines. Grimacing, he ripped a length of cloth from his cloak and stuffed it into the hole in his belly. Stomach wounds corrupted quickly—he would need herbs and fire, needle and thread. . . . He thought of the Jinni, and cursed. Weakened and wounded like this, he had no strength to conjure his servant from the flask. The effort alone might kill him.