The Sanctuary (54 page)

She scoured her mind for clarity, and a cloud of confused images slowly drifted into focus. She remembered being part of a slow convoy, riding into the night, leaving behind the mangled corpses. She remembered the furtive glances of the men and women accompanying her, as well as the mokhtar, riding directly ahead of her, keeping a supportive eye on her as they snaked their way down the mountainside until they’d reached a village she didn’t recognize. She remembered being led into one of its houses, sitting at a rickety kitchen table by a blazing fireplace, being offered a hot, herbal infusion of a flavor she wasn’t familiar with, and being watched with warm curiosity by the mokhtar and an elderly couple as she drank it gratefully.

She felt as if she had a mild hangover and guessed they must have given her some kind of sedative, which she thought was undoubtedly the right call. The heavy-headedness soon started to lift. A cotton undergarment and
a beige
, long-sleeved dress, delicately embroidered around its sleeves and collar, had been left for her on a chair by the small window. Some sheepskin moccasins were on the floor next to it. She slipped them all on, opened the window and swung the wooden shutter away, and felt the soothing warmth of the sun on her tired skin.

She looked out. The cluster of low-built houses squatted at the bottom of a valley. They were part mudbrick, part stone, and had the same thatched roofs as those in the Yazidi village. Beyond the small settlement, she could see fields and tended meadows of early-winter earth spreading out to the foothills of the jagged peaks that ringed the valley.

She left her room and wandered through the house but didn’t see anyone. She went through the kitchen and out the door. The air was surprisingly warm, markedly different from the chill of night at the top of the mountain, and she could hear nothing apart from a faint breeze that rustled the branches of the pistachio trees, and the burbles and trills of small birds. The utter tranquillity was a shocking contrast to the mayhem of the day—and night—before.

She wrapped her arms around her and wandered down a narrow path, past a couple of small houses and a barn. The place had a Walden-esque, calming feel to it that, right now, was most welcome. It reminded her of a small Amish community in its tidy, unapologetic simplicity and its splendid isolation. She encountered a family—parents and two boys in their early teens—unloading some wood from a horse-drawn cart. They smiled politely at her and kept working. Farther along the dirt pathway, she came across two women who led a mule that was loaded with a basket of bread. They acknowledged her with warm eyes and a half-nod, without stopping.

She kept going, drinking in the serenity and the fresh mountain air, feeling herself coming back to life. She heard faint voices to her right and glimpsed some figures standing at the bottom of a small ridge, deep in conversation. She saw the mokhtar, along with an elderly couple whom she recognized vaguely as the ones who had given her the drink the night before, and—to her wild relief—standing next to them were Evelyn and Webster.

“Mom?” she called out. “Webster?” She couldn’t quite bring herself to think of him as
Dad
yet, but she knew it would come.

They turned and saw her and waved her over, beaming. She rushed down the meadow and joined them. They were standing by a small pond. She embraced her mom and, hesitantly, gave Webster a soft hug, wary of his wound.

“When did you get here?” she asked, overjoyed.

“We rode up this morning,” Evelyn informed her. “
Kaak
Sulayman”—she pointed out the mokhtar—“very kindly sent someone back to his village to bring us over.”

Mia remembered his riding away with his injured son. “How’s your son?” she asked him softly, hoping for the best.

“He will live,” the mokhtar said, a gleam of relief breaking through his dark eyes. “He will live,” he repeated, as if his mantra would help seal the deal.

Mia nodded. The harsh memories of the night before strafed her heart. As if sensing it, her father turned her attention to the elderly couple with them.

“These are Muneer and Arîya,” he said.
“Your hosts.”
His movements were slow and tentative, and he winced as he brought down his arm. Evelyn took his hand and held it in hers, supportively.

The elderly couple smiled affably at Mia.

“Thanks for coming to get me last night,” Mia told them. They shrugged humbly. She noticed something slightly strained and uncomfortable in their demeanor and saw it reflected fleetingly in Webster and in her mom. She suddenly remembered what had brought them here in the first place and, feeling a surge of excitement, turned to Webster.

“Well?” she asked him. “Do they have it? Have you asked them?”

The whole valley seemed to resonate with promise as Webster glanced conspiringly at the couple,
then
looked knowingly at her before swinging his eyes over to the pond.

She followed his lead and a puzzled look crossed her face before it clicked. “Is that it?” she asked, pointing at the pond.

Webster smiled and nodded. “That’s it.”

The pond was unremarkable, a shallow freshwater pool of murky water. Low-lying clusters of thin, small-leafed plants grew all over it.

She bent down to get a closer look. “What is it?”

“It’s called
Bacopa
,” Webster said.
“
Bacopa monniera.
It’s also known as the herb of grace, which kind of makes you wonder…” He left it at that.

“We call it
jalneem
,” Muneer added in surprisingly well-spoken English as he reached down, plucked a stem of it and gave it to Mia.

Mia fingered its thick, glistening leaves and studied its small, white flower. Her heart contracted as a wild exhilaration galloped through her. “What about…” She hesitated, looking at them, the key question catching in her throat. She turned to Webster. “Was Sebastian right? Does it work on…everyone?”

Webster met her gaze, and with a sparkle of infinite gratification in his eyes, he calmly nodded.

THEY SAT AROUND the small kitchen table and dug heartily into a meal of cornmeal porridge, cheese, bread, and olives that Arîya quickly prepared. Mia worked hard to rip her concentration away from the swirling questions in her mind and will herself to eat, knowing her body needed it.

It wasn’t easy.

She was sitting at the threshold of a new world.

The mokhtar had told Muneer what Webster had said to the hakeem, at Sebastian’s grave. He’d related the way Webster and his partners had protected the secret. He’d told him that Webster was Sebastian’s grandson. Which put Muneer at
ease,
at least enough to explore Webster’s story himself.

“The cabal that had the underground meeting rooms in Al-Hillah,” Evelyn asked, “what do you know of them?”

“They were our ancestors,” Muneer replied. “That’s where it all started, in southern
Iraq
, towards the middle of the eleventh century.

“A little-known scientist-philosopher by the name of Abu Fares Al-Masboudi, who had studied under Ibn Sina—Avicenna—before moving to Kufa, was the one who first made the discovery. The marshes of southern
Iraq
were rich in
Bacopa
, and travelers from
India
had spoken of how the people there had been using it for centuries, but not in that preparation.
Which inspired his curiosity.
”

Webster saw the question in Mia’s eyes. “It’s like the aspirin we talked about,” he told her. “If you chew on a piece of willow bark, it’s not going to have the same effect. It’s an elaborate chemical process, but it all starts with that plant.”

Muneer nodded. “Al-Masboudi started taking it himself and, thinking that it was merely a health tonic, gave it to his wife as well as to two colleagues of his and their wives. After years of taking the elixir, they all started noticing its effects. They realized its ramifications and formed the secret cabal you refer to in order to discuss what to do with it, whether or not to announce it. You have to remember, the world was a very different place back then. Everyone claimed to be after wondrous discoveries, but there was a thin line between experimenting on something and being labeled a sorcerer and hounded out, or worse.”

“We studied their writings,” Evelyn said, glancing at Webster. “Were they connected to the Brethren of Purity?”

“One of Al-Masboudi’s colleagues was with the brotherhood,” Muneer confirmed with an impressed nod. “They debated whether or not to let the Brethren in on their discovery, but ultimately decided to keep it to themselves, until they felt certain that it wouldn’t be abused by the rulers.
Iraq
, at the time, under the Caliph Al-Qa’im, was in almost as much turmoil as it is today. The Seljuks were posing a great challenge to the ruling Abbasid dynasties. My ancestors were worried that, if they gave the caliph the secret, they would be killed off, leaving him to bestow a long life on whomever he chose and turning him into a living god. And so they kept it quiet and waited, meeting in secret, modeling themselves on the Brethren, discussing and debating how a new world—one with longer-lived humans—could be made to work.

“As the years passed, people inevitably started talking. And my ancestors found they had to move on to new pastures and start new lives. They migrated north. Eventually, they settled in Yazidi territory”—acknowledging the mokhtar with a slight bob of his head—“and, ultimately, here, in this remote valley.”

“And the longer they waited, the more difficult it became to find a way to announce it,” Webster noted, more than asked.

Muneer nodded. “Up until recently, it was considered next to impossible to tell others about it. Our thinking has always been that either everyone should have access to it, or it should remain hidden. But for centuries, the whole planet was ruled by self-serving aristocracies and ruthless dictators. There was no fraternity among men, no true democracy. There was slavery. There were wars waged for vanity or greed. It was the few controlling the many. Not that the many were any better. It seemed as if man thrived on causing pain to others, on doing everything possible to rise above others at their expense and regardless of the pain and suffering he left behind. And we knew that something like this would only skew that equation and empower man’s darkest instincts. And so the question became, does man deserve to live longer, or would that only allow him to inflict more pain on his fellow man?”

“I don’t think you can paint everybody with the same brush,” Webster countered. “There are plenty of good people out there.”

“Possibly,” Muneer conceded. “You know it far better than we do. But you can understand our reticence. Greed and selfishness do seem to be central motivators of mankind.”

“How did you know all this about the outside world,” Mia asked, “from this isolated valley?”

“This isn’t a utopia. We’ve always lived in hiding. And there weren’t many of us. We knew that if we were to survive, we had to mix with the people on the outside. So we, the—the small circle of custodians, if you like—would take turns to leave the valley and travel. We always have. We never took the elixir with us. It stayed here. We roamed the lands, watched how the world evolved. We brought back books and treatises to teach the others. And we waited. Occasionally, we would encounter someone
exceptional,
someone we believed would be a strong ally, who could perhaps help us figure out how to overcome the obstacles facing us in wanting to share this with the rest of the planet. There was a knight, during the Crusades, who impressed my ancestors in that way.” Muneer turned to Webster. “Your grandfather was another.”

Webster seemed to be studying Muneer, running a mental calculation.

“No”—Muneer smiled, as if reading his thoughts—“I didn’t know him. I wasn’t born then. But my father knew him. He’s fondly remembered up here.”

“How did he find you?” Webster asked.

“We found him,” Muneer said, his eyes smiling. “He was in
Damascus
. He’d been asking about the Ouroboros, looking for books bearing the symbol. My father heard of him and sought him out. He brought him here. He was going to help us spread the word—he was full of optimism and energy, he wasn’t afraid of the forces that would oppose this—but that winter, he fell ill with typhoid. He didn’t want to die here, he insisted on trying to get back to his wife…even though she was continents away.”

Mia looked at him in amazement. “And in all these years, you’ve managed to keep it secret? No one ever left and gave it away?”

“This is a small place,” Muneer noted. “People—young people, in particular—need to go out and explore the world. So we don’t tell everyone about it. Some leave here and never return. Others come back and bring loved ones with them. So we wait. And we watch. A life of moderation doesn’t necessarily suit everyone, but when we feel that person has reached a stage of their life where they’re contented with what this valley has to offer, where they’re satisfied by working the land and enjoying our simple ways, where they won’t feel frustrated by the constraints of this isolated life, then—and only then—we invite them into the circle of custodians, to share in the secret, to enjoy its benefits, and to protect it.”

Mia sat back, her mind swirling with the possibilities. She glanced at Webster, and at Evelyn. They were both reading the thoughts written on her face. Her father gave her a small nod. She turned to Evelyn, who was also telegraphing her agreement.