Metal Emissary (14 page)

“You say you have been here a while,” Jamie rolled his head to one side, seeking the man in the gloom. “When did you learn to speak English?”

“Learn to speak English?” the man chuckled. “All Villeneuve’s men must learn the language of their enemy.”

“Villeneuve’s men?” Jamie leaned forward. “Why are you here? What do you know of Trafalgar? Why does the Shah condemn you to this pit?”

“It is not the Shah that condemns me,” the man spun slowly upon the floor, his eyes burning a malevolent blue in the darkness.

Jamie recoiled, dust puffing between his fingers as he moved backward upon the floor. “What manner of man are you?”

“I shan’t tell you who I am,” the man laughed. “It is who I have become that you should concern yourself with, Englishman.” Stretching his hands up toward the light, the man stood, the light from his eyes singeing motes of dust trapped within his gaze. “Let me tell you of the
Qarin
, mine and yours, for are you not also a prisoner of the pit? Jamie Hanover.”

“How do you know my name?” The wall behind Jamie brought his retreat to a sudden stop. He pushed his fingers into the dirt in an effort to push himself to his feet,
I might have to fight.
Jamie blinked at the blue light growing harsh in their close proximity to one another.

“I know many things,” the man’s body dissolved in the light, blue motes of dust, thousands of them, whirled within the walls of the pit. Jamie grew dizzy, disoriented; he flicked his hands out to the walls, his fingers inches away and yet miles from contact. Enveloped within the frantic swirl of blue dust Jamie gasped for air. “I know things about you, Jamie Hanover. Things you would rather have hidden, buried, forgotten.”

“You don’t know me,” Jamie reeled within the dust.

“All men are appointed a Qarin, a
djinni
,” a pair of blue hands formed within the dust. “They whisper to us. Oh, how they whisper,” the fingers of each blue hand flexed and fanned before the lieutenant.

“I know of no Qarin. No djinni,” Jamie stumbled within the pit blindly seeking a corner, a sharp edge, anything to hold onto.

“Let me whisper to you, Jamie Hanover. Let me accompany you on your journey.”

“Stay away from me,” Jamie pushed at the blue hands seeking his throat.

“Poor boy. Once your mother’s favourite,” the voice of the man, Jamie’s Qarin, vibrated around the walls. “I know you, thief.”

“Beast, what does that matter?”

“Beast? You call me beast?” wicked waves of laughter reverberated through the lieutenant as he groped about in the blue hell. “What bestial acts have you turned, Hanover? Did you not steal from the pauper on the streets of your hometown of Gamlingay? Steal from the poor mother and her child so that you might get a drink?”

“I had to. I couldn’t help it.”

“Oh, but you could have. You just didn’t want to.”

“No.”

“There were others,” the man’s voice cut into Jamie. “Another family of beggars, easy prey. Their little girl, not two years old, she died, you know?”

“That was,” Jamie coughed, hooked a finger in his mouth to claw out the blue motes sticking to the roof of his mouth, clogging his tongue. “That was another time, another place. Another me.”

“Another you? Perhaps?” the voice cackled. The swirl of dust intensified. The floor dissolved.

“No,” Jamie reached for the walls, he descended. Wrapped within the dust he dropped. All the while, for every fathom he plummeted, the voice reiterated the sins of the lieutenant.

“The neighbour’s purse. The husband’s savings.”

“A gift,” Jamie fell.

“A gift? Hard-earned, smartly wasted. No gift, lieutenant.”

Jamie drew short, ragged breaths, his lungs squeezed, he clawed at the shirt hanging open across his chest.

“You stole from your own mother. Her locket,” Jamie’s Qarin cackled. “From her bedside table. While she slept.”

“I was hungry,” Jamie felt for the locket.

“Hungry? Thirsty more like,” the blue hands grasped Jamie’s shoulders. “It’s not there, Jamie. It has been replaced with something much better.”

Jamie pressed his fingers around his neck. Sliding them down his chest he gasped.

“Yes,” the voice soothed. “Find it, feel it, trace your fingers once, twice around it.”

Within the choking dust an orange fire burned with flames three, four inches high, flickering along the lines of the djinn mark pasted upon Jamie’s chest.

“It burns,” Jamie’s fingers trembled.

“Yes,” the dust evaporated from Jamie’s body, funnelling around him creating a vacuum within which he fell. “Trace your fingers through the fire, it will heal, it will stop, it will cool.”

“I can’t,” Jamie forced his chin downward to stare at his chest.”

“You must,” the voice soothed. “You will.”

Jamie stretched his right hand toward the fire spiralling about his chest. The middle finger extended, he pressed it into the fire, pushing it flat at the beginning of the spiral. He felt the gritty azure paint smear beneath his fingertip. Where his finger pressed the fire extinguished in a brilliant white wisp of smoke.

“Yes,” the voice crooned. “Feel the relief, the coolness. Complete the spiral.”

“What will happen?” Eyes smarting from the needle-sharp dust, lungs panting from his wild descent, Jamie flicked his head up. “What is happening to me?”

“Complete the spiral, Jamie. Become one with your Qarin. Complete your one true self. Become djinn.”

“Djinn? The djinn? But I have the mark.”

“Yes,” the voice slipped away in the dust. “You have
the
mark.”

“Wait,” Jamie reached out with his left hand. “Come back.”

“Complete the spiral, Jamie. Become djinn.”

Jamie’s finger tingled upon his chest, the flames licked at his nail, singed the tiny hairs on his knuckles, crisped the skin.

“Become djinn, Jamie.”

The funnel shrank, the fire on his chest raged and Jamie, lost in the shrinking, needling cloud of dust, traced his finger along the spiral flaming upon his chest.

The fires cooled. The funnel swelled and his descent to the bottom of the pit slowed. As the fire on his chest extinguished, Jamie inhaled the white smoke, sucking long tendrils into his lungs. They expanded, he expanded. Jamie’s ribs, every bone in his body flexed and stretched. Three times his normal size, Jamie lifted his head, pressed his palms downward and ascended. Faster and faster, escaping the dust, barrelling upward like a musket ball blasting along a smooth-bore barrel. Jamie Hanover – once a young man, now djinn.

҉

“A djinn pit?” Ignoring Bryullov’s entrance, Hari sank to his knees. “You threw him in a djinn pit?”

“He was marked,” the Shah rested his hands upon the pommel of a jewelled cane, the elder wives supporting him as he rose and shuffled to where Hari knelt. “Your friend, the lieutenant, will save the day, Hari Singh.” The Shah pointed a wizened finger at Bryullov. “That is worth remembering when you speak to your Tsar.”

Bryullov bowed. Turning his head, he kept a careful watch of Hari before returning his attention to the Shah. “It is not the Tsar threatening your city, Shah.”

The Shah waved his hand. “No, of course not,” he plucked at a pastry from the metal plate in the hands of his fourth wife. “The Tsar would not be so foolish. Not now you know I possess the power of the djinn.”

Hari leaned forward, tucking his elbows into his side, his forearms resting on his knees.
A djinn pit,
he shook his head.
Oh, British. What have I done?
Hari slid the fingers of his left hand inside his robes, they fingered the hilt of the kukri. Shifting his weight upon his knees, Hari gripped the handle of the curved blade. The wailing of the emissary filtered through the wooden lattice covering the windows. Hari lifted his head up sharply and caught the Russian’s eye. Flicking his eyes to the left and right, Hari noted the relaxed stance of the Shah’s bodyguards.

“The Tsar will be interested in the result of the battle, eminence,” Bryullov bowed once more. “Especially as he wishes me to extend his cordial interests together with the gift of ten mountain guns.”

“Bah,” the Shah waved his hand at Bryullov. “We have British mountain guns, what will we do with...” he paused at the flap of robes and blur of motion in front of him. Screams from the Shah’s wives distracted him as Hari leaped onto his feet, and kicked the legs out from under first one and then the other of the men guarding him. Bryullov tugged the tails of his shirt free of his trousers and reached for the small flintlock pistol he kept in a band of silk wrapped around his waist. Hari kicked Bryullov in the chest before the Russian had a chance to withdraw the pistol.

“You’ll never make it out of the city,” Bryullov gasped, staring at Hari beyond the foot the mystic pressed into his chest.

Hari waved the tip of the kukri in front of Bryullov’s nose. “You need to apply more shoe polish, my friend. Your disguise is wearing thin.” Hari nicked a cut in Bryullov’s cheek an inch long before pivoting upon the man’s stomach and racing to the door.

“Najma,” Bryullov sat up and pressed his hand to his cheek. “Stop him.”

Najma ran to the wall of the receiving room. Gripping the barrel of her jezail leaning against the wall, she fished a musket ball from the leather pouch belted above her hips and chased after Hari.

Squinting in the sun, Hari slowed to get his bearings. The wailing of the emissary quailed under the crack and thump of muskets and artillery pieces; Khaled had begun his defence of the city. Looking beyond the kneeling form of the emissary, Hari searched for the raised entrance to the pit. He saw it, just beyond the entrance to the royal courtyard. Sheathing the kukri, Hari ran toward the pit stopping only when a ball of lightning seared his right shoulder and sent him tumbling to the dirt. The buzz of the shot from Najma’s jezail reverberating about the buildings as Hari rolled on the ground and pushed himself to his feet. He glanced at Najma, catching her eye as she rammed a new musket ball into the barrel. She charged the jezail with seven rapid cranks of the priming handle. Whipping the stock into her shoulder, she sighted along the barrel. The dust at Hari’s feet spun into clouds as he turned and ran toward the pit.

Najma’s second shot burned a hole in his robes as the ball of charged copper and lead tore into his side just above his left hip. Hari stuttered to the floor just in front of the djinn pit and pressed his hands upon the wound while his body shook. With jerky movements he lifted his robes. Looking down, Hari saw blood, but no exit wound. The lightning ball cauterized the wound, sealing itself inside his body. Looking over his left shoulder, he watched as Najma walked toward him. Casting aside the jezail, she drew a long knife from the curved scabbard belted beneath her belly button. Hari drew the kukri and struggled to his feet.

“You don’t have to do this, Najma,” blood from Hari’s hip dripped through the fingers of his right hand, splashing on the blade of the kukri twitching in his left hand. “Bryullov is not worth it. Neither is the Tsar.” Hari raised the kukri and pointed to the east. “Do you not remember Gushtia?”

Tight-lipped, Najma closed the distance between them with careful steps.

“Do you hear that,” Hari pointed in the direction of the emissary. “It is here to talk; there is no need for violence.”

“And the soldiers outside the gates?” sidestepping to Hari’s right, Najma gripped the knife in her left hand.

“Insurance. The Germans want to make good on their promises,” Hari shuffled upon his feet, bending his knees slightly in anticipation of her attack.

“They have a funny way of showing it.”

“Are the Russians any better? What has Bryullov promised your father? Gold? Trinkets?”

“It is no concern of yours,” Najma shifted her stance.

“Think about it, Najma. What would your father do if he were Shah? Listen to the emissary? Treat with the men outside the gates, or kill the only man able to stop them?” Hari pressed his thumb against his chest.

“You?” Najma laughed. “My father talked about a wandering mystic, one that never practices his religion, just mumbles in the dark. What could such a man do to stop
them
?” she nodded in the direction of the gates. The rumble of artillery and the pounding of large metal feet increased.

“Why so bitter, Najma? Is your life so bad?”

“You know nothing of my life.”

“Truly,” Hari nodded. “But neither does Bryullov. Ah,” Hari smiled at the colouring of Najma’s cheeks. “He has promised to take you away from all this. Hasn’t he? Perhaps even as far as Russia.”

“He has talked...” Najma paused at the shriek of wind boring up from the earth.

Hari flicked his eyes to the pit as the ground trembled, the lid gyrating on top of the pit like the spinning of some giant stone coin. Najma screamed as the lid cracked, splintering shards of stone in the desert air. Splinters of rock shredded Hari’s robes, puncturing his skin as he dropped to the floor, taking cover beneath the raised entrance to the pit. One large chunk of the broken lid whirled into Najma’s chest. She slammed into the ground, the stone flattening the air from her lungs, a cloud of dust immersing her body. Hari looked up as a body of blue smoke sucked stones, pebbles and small rocks from the ground, forming a tail of rock and dust beneath the human form suspended twenty feet above the city.