“Fight him!” she said.
Hadia didn’t miss a beat, moving into a fighting stance and rushing him. Alexander yelped as he brought up his sword to block. It was clumsy, and he almost dropped the weapon when their blades met. She quickly sent him shuffling back, trying to defend as the flat of her sword penetrated his guard repeatedly—catching him on the arm, hip, and leg.
“That’s enough,” Fatma called. Hadia fell out of her stance, stepping back.
“What the devil are you about?” Alexander roared, apoplectic.
“My apologies,” Fatma said. “You’re not very good with a sword.”
Alexander turned a shade redder. “We don’t use Oriental blades in His Majesty’s army!”
“Of course,” Fatma said. Hadia walked back, handing over the kaskara. “It’s just that the imposter is a very good swordsman. He also favors his right. You fight with your left. That’s odd.” She hefted the sword, then threw it hilt-first.
Abigail hadn’t been expecting the weapon to be hurled in her direction, but she caught it smoothly—snatching it out of the air with one hand.
Fatma didn’t waste another moment. Drawing her sword from her cane, she rushed the woman—who flowed surprisingly fast into a defensive stance, bringing her blade up to meet the attack. Fatma pressed with quick, even strokes. Each was deflected by well-executed parrying strikes. She pulled back, nodding. Abigail stood, body poised and balanced beneath her evening gown, an all-too familiar fire in her blue-green eyes.
“Oh my!” she exclaimed, the intensity flashing away. She handed the sword back, giggling nervously. “I suppose those fencing lessons have paid off.”
“That was a bit more than some lessons,” Fatma remarked, returning the blade to the wall. She glanced to Hadia, whose knowing gaze said she had caught on. “You’re good. And you favor your right. But that’s not all you’re good at, is it, Abbie?”
Abigail looked puzzled. “I don’t think I know what you mean?”
“You were the first one to tell us about the imposter—the man in the gold mask. Your brother seemed to have all the motive for killing your father. But what about you? The daughter who he brought to Egypt, spending months, then years at a time. Who he confided in about his obsession, who helped him look through books and manuscripts—while your brother’s off playing at being soldier.”
“See here!” Alexander began. Fatma held up a hand for quiet.
“What else did you help your father with? Maybe the secret hand growing the Worthington fortune while he chased after esoteric antiques? Then in the end, you don’t get anything. Your father doesn’t let you join his Brotherhood, though he invites some ‘native’ woman. Your brother gets to join even though he doesn’t want to. Not only that, but he’s the heir. You were there when your father needed someone, and you’re just left to be the idle daughter. If anyone had a motive to kill Alistair Worthington, wouldn’t it be you, Abbie?”
“Preposterous!” Alexander blurted out. “First you accuse me of being this Soudanese madman. Now you imagine it’s my sister? Who next? The servants?” He looked to Aasim. “Inspector! How long will you allow this farce?” This time Aasim held up a hand for silence.
“Is that how you came across a passage about the ring?” Fatma continued. “Not in one of those silly books you’d read in front of us. In one of your father’s manuscripts. You saw it, didn’t you? Someone with strong will. Maybe even driven by anger. You knew all about the Brotherhood’s dealings with Siwa. You went to him, asking. He couldn’t tell you, but you’d seen it on his list, perhaps when your father and no one else could. And you wanted it so badly. With it, you’d have the power to take vengeance on your father and his Brotherhood. Power to do whatever you wanted.”
She held up the lock of pale gold hair again. “Ifrit magic, that’s how you created your illusion. How you became al-Jahiz. I’m told it’s a special kind of deception. It makes us see what we want to see. I thought I’d solved it. But I just traded one illusion for another—like when you think you’ve woken from a dream, but you’re still dreaming. AW was never Alexander Worthington. It was Abigail Worthington. That’s how I know this hair I’m holding isn’t really gold.”
Fatma looked to the lock in her hand, and finally, emptied her thoughts—free of expectations and wants, letting it simply be. The gold coloring of the strands vanished, leaving behind a familiar dark red. The room went absolutely still.
“All of you must be out of your minds,” Alexander spoke into the quiet. He laughed openly. “My sister? A sorcerer right under my nose? A master swordsman? Look at her! She sheds tears if you speak too harshly, or faints at the sight of blood. I hardly think the poor creature could even dream up so many fanciful notions and schemes!”
Fatma held up her hand again to quiet the man. But someone else beat her to it.
“Do shut up, Alexander,” Abigail said. She twisted her slender neck to fix her brother with a stare that could have burned through a wall—and he swallowed his laughter. Her eyes returned to Fatma. “I suppose that’s that, then,” she commended in fluent Arabic. Her brother gaped as if he’d been slapped a second time, which just about matched Aasim’s face. Even Hadia, who by now had seen it coming, let out a low breath.
“No more playing the part of the wide-eyed Englishwoman?” Fatma asked.
Abigail chuckled. Her puzzled expression was gone as if she’d torn off a mask. “Play the part people expect, and they’ll accept it every time.” She switched to English, gesturing to her brother. “He believed it. Not all illusions require magic.”
“But magic helps,” Hadia put in. “It was you who went to Madame Nabila on the night of your father’s murder, wrapped in the illusion of your brother. Begging her to keep things quiet in the newspapers.”
“Amazing what a well-placed word here or there can do to sow confusion,” Abigail said. “The trick is knowing what people want to hear. Maybe it’s an appeal to their fears, their prejudices, their hunger, the natural distrust between empires. Or it can be as simple as a haughty Egyptian woman who delights in seeing a young Englishman grovel at her feet.”
“Or leading two agents to chase after your brother,” Fatma said. “Throwing us off your scent so that you can go about your deeds, unmolested. You sent the letter luring him to Cairo. Then planted clues for us—even handing us Portendorf’s journal. The spell on the Illusion djinn. The one that makes him cut out his tongue at the merest mention of your brother’s name. Very incriminating.”
Abigail performed a slight curtsy. “That one was my special touch. Reciting from all his books. Does he still keep those tongues in a basket? Absolutely wretched!” She narrowed her eyes. “But how did you reason it out?”
“How does it suit you to be tested by the lion of the forest?” Fatma recited. “Ever read Sirat al-amira Dhāt al-Himma? It’s about a queen who goes into battle dressed as a man—hiding herself like a lion in the forest. The quote is her boastful taunt, admiring her own wit and deception.”
Abigail nodded appreciatively. “Oh, I like her!”
“One trick I haven’t figured out,” Fatma said. “I’m guessing you were behind your brother’s car troubles to keep him from the summit. Make him look guilty in our eyes. But I saw you faint when al-Jahiz appeared. How?”
Abigail broke into a wolfish smile. “Al-Jahiz. Prophet. Savior. Madman. So many things to so many people. Whoever he truly was, all we have now is … illusion.” She waved her bandaged hand, and the imposter was there—garbed in black and with the dark-skinned face of al-Jahiz. About the room, gasps went up. One of the policemen, Fatma noted with satisfaction, gasped loudest of all.
“Al-Jahiz is no one person,” Abigail said, shrouded in illusion. “He is here.”
“And here,” a voice came as another al-Jahiz walked from a corridor.
“And here,” twin al-Jahiz echoed, emerging from a second.
“He is everywhere,” yet another al-Jahiz spoke, entering from a third.
&n
bsp; Four replicas of al-Jahiz moved to stand beside Abigail. She waved her hand, and their illusions faded. One al-Jahiz became Victor Fitzroy, with a sneer on his square jaw. The Edginton sisters, Bethany and Darlene, stood where the twin al-Jahiz had been. The ever-smirking Percival Montgomery accounted for the fourth.
“So which one of you gave that speech at the summit?”
Percival sketched Fatma a bow to which Abigail clapped delightedly.
“Abigail,” Alexander said hoarsely. “Are you saying you truly did all these terrible things? That you murdered our father?”
For a heartbeat the hard mask the woman wore slipped. But it reappeared just as quick. “It was time for Father to step aside,” she said stoically. “You saw what he was doing to our family name, to our wealth. Who do you think was running things while you were gallivanting about India being a poor soldier? Those doddering old men he encircled himself with? I was the one making sure the Worthington name survived in good standing another generation.”
“All those business deals you couldn’t understand,” Fatma said to Alexander. “The ones with weapons contractors and buying up munitions factories? That was your sister. It’s why she tried to ruin the peace summit. She wants a war. All to make profit.”
Alexander glared at his sister, aghast.
“Profit?” Abigail scoffed. “You think this is about money? Or to get back at my father for not inviting me into his little club? Retribution against my brother as heir?” She gave Fatma a disappointed look. “If I were a man. If it was my brother as you suspected. What would you think my motive?”
Aasim leaned in close to Fatma. “I feel a villain rant coming on.”
“Power,” Hadia answered. “It’s what men usually want.”
“What else is there?” Abigail asked. “Egypt has that now. Thanks to al-Jahiz. You once held the scepter thousands of years past. Now you’ve become a new power. While you build fantastic wonders of mechanics and magic, the old powers are in retreat, or squabbling among themselves. England is barely an empire at all. The Union Jack routed by mystic Hindoos in the Punjab and Ashanti queens with talking drums in the Gold Coast.” She huffed. “My father was right about one thing—failing to embrace this new age has left Britain faltering, while the darker races rise. But why create when we can simply take? The heart of Egypt’s power is its djinn. And I will take them from you.”
Abigail lifted her bandaged hand, and the wrappings vanished—another illusion. Beneath, the skin was pale and withered almost to the bone. On the fourth finger sat a plain gold band, adorned with fiery script. Fatma knew it at once—the Seal of Sulayman.
“I will make Britannia rule again,” Abigail pronounced. “Egypt will be the first to fall, its djinn under my control. Then I will set about taking back everything we’ve lost, making the empire whole again. Making us great once more. Perhaps I will be honored like Lord Nelson. Maybe they’ll make me queen.” She stopped to admire the ring. “Or I’ll make myself queen!”
Fatma eyed the woman’s sickly looking hand and the rapture on her face, remembering the angels’ warning of such power: Too much for a mortal to wield so willfully. So often. She turned to Aasim. “You got all that?” The inspector nodded. Her gaze shifted to one policeman in particular. “And you, heard enough?”
The policeman nodded as well, his face a mix of shock and disdain. “You are false!” he shouted. Abigail regarded him, plainly confused—until recognition struck.
“Moustafa. My witness.”
“No longer!” the man shot back. “You are false! I will denounce you with my last breath!”
It had been Fatma’s plan to bring the man along, dressed like one of Aasim’s policemen. Having the witness of al-Jahiz see the imposter unmasked would go a long way in easing the tensions on Cairo’s streets.
“News travels fast in this city,” she said. “Everyone will soon know you aren’t al-Jahiz. There are police all over this estate, ready to enter at a word. Even if you manage to stop us, we’ll be back, with more. You can’t win. It’s over.”
A curious smile stole across Abigail’s face. Her friends snickered. That wasn’t the reaction Fatma was hoping for.
“Over?” Abigail asked. “It’s not even begun. Why, Agent Fatma, you haven’t even asked me what I plan to do with that fantastic clock. I’m going to take it with me, back to where this all started. My timetable was a day or two longer. But now will just have to do.” She broke into a singsong. “The Nine Lords are coming.”
Fatma tensed as the ring on Abigail’s hand began to glow with fiery script. She was set to tell Aasim to blow his whistle and make the arrest when a familiar sound came to her ears. She remembered it from her previous visits to the Worthington estate. Then it had been faint, so slight she often wondered if she heard it at all. Now it was clearer. A dull ringing, like hammers on steel. She looked to Hadia.
“I hear it too!”
Fatma’s stomach went hollow. The clanging. She’d never accounted for the clanging.
“Abigail!” she tried. “You’re being used! The angels, they wanted you to—”
Abigail stifled a yawn. “That djinn Siwa prattled on as much. That the ring came to me through their engineering.” She shrugged her bare shoulders. “I’ll tell you what I told him—I don’t care. The ring is mine now. It came to me. And I’m no one’s puppet.”
The clanging got louder.
“Where’s it coming from?” Hadia shouted. It wasn’t one clanging but many, pounding out an irregular rhythm. Fatma stared down to her caramel wing tips. Was the ground trembling? Around them the walls vibrated and silver Mamluke lamps swayed from the ceiling by their chains.
“Do we take her?” Aasim asked, whistle poised at his lips.
Fatma met the grin spreading across Abigail’s face and shook her head. “Get out! Everyone get out of here now!”
They bolted for the doors. Fatma grabbed hold of Alexander, whose eyes darted about. She spared a last glance at Abigail and her friends, standing amid the shaking room, unconcerned. She pushed through the door and down the stairs, the deafening clanging chasing them outside. Fatma caught sight of Hamed, running to them with several agents and policemen in tow.
Then the house collapsed.
She felt the earth shift under her feet, sending her stumbling. Aasim was yelling for the police to pull back. Men still in wagons jumped out and ran as the Worthington estate crumbled. Towers, minarets, and colonnades broke apart, collapsing whole buildings. The ground followed, opening up and swallowing sections of the mansion. In moments there was only rubble, enveloped in a billowing cloud of choking dust. Fatma coughed, trying to get further away, when she heard a new sound—like creaking. Turning, she saw the wreckage of the ruined house moving, pushing upward.
She hadn’t properly made sense of it before debris was thrown about, sending everyone seeking cover. Something was rising now from the house. Something she now understood had been beneath it all this time. First, a flaming horned head of metal, followed by shoulders, then a massive body in the shape of a man. No, not a man. A djinn! A towering machine djinn, of iron, brass, and steel. Ifrit clung to its frame—fiery beings of bloodred flame that burned bright against the darkening dusk. They hammered and welded and clanged away in a furious cacophony.
She’d thought there was only one. There must have been dozens! Their work was incomplete, so that in some places the structure was missing sheets of metal. Its chest was open, and she could see where a mechanical heart spun. There, on a platform, stood five figures—Abigail Worthington and her friends. Just behind them sat a curious machinery of overlapping gear wheels where several Ifrit labored. An overwhelming fear gripped at her. The Clock of Worlds!
The great mechanical djinn pulled free from the destroyed Worthington estate, like a beast shedding its skin. Its horned head wreathed in djinn fire turned northward and set out, two long legs taking sweeping strides. The thing was fast for its size, and soon began to pull away into the distance.
Fatma stumbled, pushing a dazed Alexander along. She found Hadia and Aasim massed with equally stunned police and agents coated in dust.
“I don’t think we brought enough people after all!” Aasim commented, scrubbing his moustache clean.
“I think we also know what happened to that missing Worthington steel,” Hadia added, staring after the iron giant. “Where is that thing heading?”
“She said they were going back to where this all started,” Fatma answered.
Aasim frowned. “The case? That started here.”
Fatma looked to the retreating giant. It wasn’t heading north but northeast. “Cairo. Where this all started. The Clock of Worlds was made to re-create al-Jahiz’s grand formulas. To open doorways to other worlds. She’s taking it to where he first bored into the Kaf.”
Hadia inhaled sharply. “Abdeen Palace!”
“The dignitaries for the king’s summit are there!” Aasim said.
Fatma’s heart fell. “We have to get back!”
“That’s going to be difficult.” Aasim gestured to the sunken Worthington estate. The few police wagons still visible were buried under wreckage. “Best we can hope is that Giza phones a warning when it catches sight of that thing—maybe someone has sense enough to send a car to check on us.”
Not good enough, Fatma fretted. No one else knew what they were even dealing with. She gazed around. There had to be some way out of here!
No sooner than she thought the words than she caught sight of a lone vehicle speeding up the road toward them. Not a car. Some kind of motorized velocipede. But it was bulky in the center, with a bronze-and-silver surface. Its two wheels—one in the front and back—had thicker tires than a velocipede, while the seat sat low. It also made a greater deal of noise, with an engine that growled like it belonged on an airship.
The occupant sat leaning over the vehicle’s front, hands gripping bronze handles where a single lamp shone in the growing dusk, their face obscured by goggles and a round brown leather helmet. The driver stopped the odd bike just before them, flicking a kickstand down with a boot that matched the helmet. Lifting up the goggles, they undid the straps on the headpiece, pulling it off and surveying the demolished house.
A Master of Djinn Page 34
