The Bones of the Old Ones (Dabir and Asim) (13 page)

When Dabir finished at last, Jibril reached up and stroked his beard. There were two white lines in that field of black, and it was these through which he dragged his fingers.

“You do not look as surprised as I expected,” Dabir told him.

“Oh, I am surprised,” Jibril said. “I assure you. How could I not be?”

“I’d have thought you’d be as startled I’d met actual Sebitti as you would if I’d talked with an angel.”

“Not as much,” Jibril said cryptically.

“Can you help her?” I interrupted.

“I suppose I will have to try,” Jibril said soberly. “But her farr troubles, me. I am not sure I have the strength to aid her. And I am a little out of practice.”

“I would be very grateful,” Najya emphasized.

Jibril favored her with a tight smile and bowed his head.

“What do you mean by ‘farr’?” I asked.

“All living creatures have farr,” Jibril said brusquely, but went on. “It is a kind of energy that extends around them. Only a few have the ability to see it. Most are holy men.” He flashed a lopsided smile. “Others, like me, are simply cursed with the sight from birth.”

“Do not say that,” Dabir told him quietly.

Najya addressed him in a tense whisper. “What did you see? About me? In my farr?”

“I am no great seer.” Jabril waved away the question.

“None of us see farr at all,” Dabir reminded him soberly. “What is it you saw?”

Jibril shifted uncomfortably. “The way a farr looks varies, depending upon the emotions, physical health, even the sensitivity to the spirit world.”

“And what of mine?” Najya asked, so forcefully it sounded more command than request.

“Yours is strong. Very strong.” Jibril cleared his throat. “But with something dark fluttering at its edge. And there is something else. I am not sure how to explain the matter.” He paused to gather his thoughts. “It is like a rip in the world that follows in your wake.”

“A rip?” Najya repeated, incredulous.

“Yes,” Jibril said quickly, “a tear, I think, between our world and that of some other realm. I’ve seen something like it, once, but it was fixed at the site of an old battlefield. Yours moves. It’s a wonder to me none of you can sense it.”

“I have sensed it,” Najya confirmed bitterly. “But I did not know what to think. For a long while I have felt as though something else has been trying to seize hold of me, or that it watches from inside me. I was afraid I was going mad, on top of everything else.”

“Perhaps we should have discussed the spirit’s presence sooner,” Dabir offered, sensing her consternation, “but I did not want to worry you unnecessarily and I could not be certain until Jibril’s reaction confirmed my fears.”

She nodded once, shortly. “That was … kind of you. However.” Her eyes flicked briefly to touch my own, and they were steely. “I wish you to conceal nothing further. I wish to know everything, no matter how bad.”

Dabir bowed his head to her.

“This may get much worse,” Jibril warned.

Najya laughed shortly, without humor. “I have seen my husband’s heart torn from his body, been taken by wizards, and played unwilling host to a vengeful spirit. I do not think it can get much worse.”

“It could get worse,” Jibril said, his look steady and ominous. He did not explain further, and no one asked for details, not even Najya.

She did have another question, though. “Why did they pick me?”

“Because your farr is very strong,” Jibril answered. “You already have a close connection to the spirit world. It is even greater than my own,” he admitted.

“But I cannot see farr.”

“Nevertheless. I suppose that your strength and openness to certain energies make you suitable for the magics they performed. Now. Let me draw up a circle and I will see about severing the spirit’s connection with you.”

“What of the spear?” Dabir asked.

Jibril glanced over to where the weapon stood, still wrapped in its leathers, in a corner.

“First we will see to the woman. Now get up. I want you to move the cushions and roll up the carpets. This room will work as well as any. I shall be back shortly.”

So saying, he departed, and Dabir and Najya and I set to work. The other two seemed uninclined to speech, and I was not sure what to say. For all the tension in the air, speaking of it felt like a trip cord to set off what would surely be a painful trap.

Thankfully, it was not long before the older scholar returned, bearing a wicker basket, from which he pulled forth a heavily weathered, leatherbound book. In a clipped, precise manner he commanded Dabir to draw out a circle four paces across, with an inner circle a foot from its edge. My friend stepped immediately over to the basket, withdrew some chalk, and set to work. Jibril joined Dabir, scribbling strange symbols and signs in the space between the circles, all the time consulting the old book.

Najya watched all, pensively, and I studied her, trying to decide if the guilt I felt was truly earned. I had held off from confirming her suspicions that night I’d dueled her both because Dabir seemed unwilling to discuss it, and because I had not wished to have her alarm the men. Surely it had been the proper course. Yet now I think she felt more alone than ever. I found myself sidling closer, and before I knew what I meant to say, I spoke to her. “I am sorry.”

In a flash those brown eyes were upon my own, searching critically. I felt uncharacteristically small. Yet she did not speak, and once more I found myself floundering. “You were already upset that night, when you told me you were afraid something else was trying to control you. I did not want”—I cleared my throat—“I did not want you to feel worse.”

“I understand,” she said, and returned to watching Dabir and Jibril work with the chalk. Something in her posture loosened a little. “Do you think he can do it?” she asked quietly.

It took me a moment to follow the trail of her thought. “Jibril seems very wise,” I told her. “And I have never known Dabir to fail where it really counts. He will not relent until he finds a solution.”

She nodded but did not speak.

I knew not what else to say. I wondered about the soldiers outside, but reasoned that they needed no further instruction. Thus I remained with her.

Once Dabir was done drawing, he offered to hold the book Jibril kept peering at, but the older man told him everything within was coded. “Better that no one else knows its contents,” he added. “I have peered a little further than a man should, and God and the angels may find me wanting.”

Dabir withdrew to watch with folded arms as his mentor worked his way around the circle. It was another few minutes before he was complete, and then another longer while as Jibril meticulously inspected every inch. “It must be exact,” he said, almost to himself. “Exact.” He bent down and thickened a line beside a letter that resembled a snake swallowing a tree branch. Finally, after what was probably another quarter hour, he stepped back. “I think we are ready. Najya, I will need you to sit in this circle.”

She inclined her head and moved to comply. I handed her a cushion to sit on as she stepped into the circle’s midst. She set it down, then lowered herself with serene poise.

“Do not be frightened,” Jibril instructed. “You may see magics, but you will not be harmed so long as you remain seated. Whatever you do, you must not cross the circle, or touch its edge.”

“I understand.” From her bold answer you might have thought that she had sat a hundred times in such circles, and was daily witness to the work of sorcerers.

Once more the door opened; this time it was Jibril’s elder son, Muhsin, bearing a small, steaming bucket. The coppery tang of blood thickened the air. The young man’s lips turned down disapprovingly as he placed the bucket beside his father.

“And you used the proper blade?” Jibril asked.

“Just as you said,” Muhsin whispered.

“Good. Now leave the room. Do not enter until I emerge, regardless of what you hear.”

The man bestowed a dark look upon us. “May Allah and all the angels shine down upon you,” he said, then left. It was a blessing I had not heard before and I thought it peculiar.

“Let us be on with this,” Jibril said. “The blood cannot cool.”

“What manner of blood is it?” I asked, uneasy lest I receive the wrong answer.

“Goat’s blood. Slain only moments ago with a special knife.” Jibril paused only briefly to reach once more into the wicker basket. From it he produced an amulet on a silver chain, then hung it from his neck. Mostly it was black, as wide as a girl’s fist and inscribed with a silver hexagon set with a small crystal in each of its five corners.

“You two,” he said to us as he reached down for the bucket, “must stand back. If the spirit gets loose, it will likely come for the closest of us. And you don’t have amulets.”

I would have asked him what the amulet was for, but he was already cradling the bucket and carefully tilting its mouth forward with one hand as he bent toward the lines upon the stone. Blood spattered down upon the symbols etched between the circles as Jabril moved to each of them in turn.

Najya watched the grisly rain of liquid without seeming concern. When Jibril finished his circuit both circles and every symbol between them flared with ruby light, stretching upward half the length of a sword. Najya started but kept her seat and her fixed composure.

Jibril lowered his knees to the stone floor, his face upturned with closed eyes, and uttered strange syllables.

Dabir moved over to me. “Do not disrupt him,” he said quietly, “in the midst of spell work. Even if there are more surprises.”

“What sort of surprises?”

My curiosity was sated before he could answer, for Najya gasped and threw back her head, her back arching. Her face twitched and shook as though she were in pain.

I knew better than to cross the circle, but my desire to do so must have been communicated by my stance, for Dabir tightly grasped my arm. “Do nothing,” he cautioned. “Entering the circle is liable to kill you and put all of us at risk.”

“What is happening?” I asked.

“I believe the spirit is fighting to retain its hold.”

Najya moaned, then let out a longer, higher sound that rose suddenly into a keening cry.

Jibril still chanted.

“It’s working, isn’t it?” I hoped aloud.

Najya’s voice stilled and she raised her head, eyes glowing blue as the flame’s center. Her teeth were gritted as she climbed shakily to her feet and put one foot toward the circle’s edge. It was a small space—it took but one more step before she was beside it.

“Do not cross it!” I called out.

“That’s not Najya,” Dabir told me, which I had guessed.

Jibril’s chanting intensified.

She raised one hand, then the other, and thrust them before her. The sorcerous circuit’s light rose to meet her palms, a glowing, transparent wall. She pushed forward. The energy crackled about her fingers.

I turned to Dabir. “Is this supposed to happen? What should we do?”

Dabir’s frown deepened and he cast a troubled look to his old mentor, rocking back and forth, still chanting. “We must trust Jibril.”

As Najya—or, rather, the spirit within her—braced with more strength against the wall, the circle’s lights brightened, until the whole room seemed aflame, from cubbyholes to furnishings to slatted windows. Her brow wrinkled with effort, and the cold light within her eyes blazed fiercely.

The barrier flared dazzlingly, flickered, and suddenly Najya staggered through, wrapped in red sorcerous energy, like lightning caught on the horns of cattle.

Jibril scrambled out of the way. Najya screamed, then sank to the floor with all the grace of an empty vegetable sack. The sorcerous energy around her vanished as suddenly as it had begun. She sat limply, head drooping, utterly spent.

I grew conscious then that Dabir had been gripping my arm for a long while—and that Jibril was covered in sweat.

“God and his angels!” Jibril breathed. His eyes were wide.

“Is she all right?” I asked.

Jibril did not answer.

So I hurried to Najya, who looked up at me with sad, tired eyes. Tentatively I smiled. “Najya? Did it work?”

“Work?” Jibril repeated from behind. “No, it didn’t work! The spirit broke the barrier! A working barrier! It’s beyond belief!”

“Then what is to be done?” I demanded.

“First we must get her someplace to rest,” Dabir suggested. When I asked her if she wished aid to stand, Najya shook her head no, then tripped into me as she tried to rise. She was wobbly as a newborn colt, and I swept her into my arms with little complaint. Allah, but she was cold. I wanted then to brush her hair and reassure her that all would be well, which was a mad thing, and improper.

Dabir and I followed Jibril, who led us into the back rooms of his house, and Najya settled with her head against my chest. It was then that I felt a yearning ache within my breast, long absent, like unto hunger. Something changed then in the way that she looked up at me. I could not see through her veil in that dark hall, but her eyes gentled, and I knew that she returned my smile.

More than four years had passed since my first wife’s death, may peace be hers, and a little more than three since I had divorced my second, the she devil. I was not unacquainted with the ways of women. Yet I was a stranger to the strength of passion that crept up to me on that moment, and it left me shaken. All unconsidered, Najya had lit embers in the darkened chambers of my heart, and of a sudden they blazed to a brilliance that blinded me.

7

With reluctance I set Najya down in a back room, attended by a sweet young woman with a prominent forehead mole. This was apparently one of Jibril’s daughters-in-law, and she promised she would see to Najya’s comforts.

I did not truly wish to depart, and I think by Najya’s look that she did not desire to be left, yet I followed Dabir and Jibril, my head still spinning. It was as though a spell had been laid, for I could not stop thinking of her eyes and her long dark hair. I scarcely noticed even the scent of roasting lamb rising from somewhere nearby, despite that I had not eaten since morning.

“Jibril,” Dabir said as we wound our way back toward the front of the house, “where is Afya?”