by Samira Ahmed
We scream, and Razia and the Supahi surround us immediately, daggers drawn.
The monster opens his jaw so wide I think he could swallow us whole. He laughs and says, “Our master, Ifrit, was correct. The prophecy is engaged. So be it. We stand at the ready.” Razia hurls a dagger toward him, but he disappears into a mist and the dagger falls to the ground.
“We have to go back,” I whip around and yell at Abdul Rahman. “Take us home, now. This is stupid. That was… he… it was—”
“A ghul. One of Ifrit’s spies, I’m afraid,” Abdul Rahman speaks in a voice that for him must feel like a whisper. For once, I wish I hadn’t been right. “The emperor dispatched us to return with you undetected. In this endeavor, we have failed. For this, I am sorry, but we cannot return. The way is closed. The way is sealed. Until we save Qaf, no being may enter. Or leave. This is for the safety of both of our worlds.”
Hamza gulps so loud I can hear him. “But are we safe?” His voice sounds so little, like when you watch old videos of yourself when you were in kindergarten and can’t believe how tiny your voice sounds. That’s what he sounds like. That’s what I feel like.
Maqbool puts a hand on his shoulder. We both know what that means. The only way back home is through this place. Through Ifrit.
“The fruit was a trap, alerting all of Qaf to the entry of a mortal into our realm.” Maqbool shakes his head. “The element of surprise has been taken from us. But we will persist.” I watch as Hamza looks down. I feel like I should yell at him because he always, always touches everything, but it’s not like he could’ve known that the fruit was a five-alarm human alert for Ifrit.
Abdul Rahman walks through the garden. The rest of us follow. What other choice is there? Stay here and be eaten by wolf-faced ghuls with sharp teeth or… continue on our journey to meet a possibly even scarier monster who could also probably eat us? Ugh. Sometimes I wish my brain wouldn’t ask so many terrifying rhetorical questions. One of my friends told me that sometimes her brain is quiet, like she doesn’t constantly think about stuff, and I had no idea that was even possible, because mine pretty much has a running monologue all the time.
We walk only a few minutes and pass through a curtain of fragrant purple and blue hanging flowers when a series of drumbeats greets us, starting slow but then getting faster and faster. To the right, I see small, rose-colored jinn pounding out beats on what look like dhols—oval-shaped Indian drums—strapped across their chests. They look young. Are there jinn kids? Do they go to school? Do they switch to virtual school during a pandemic? How do their immune systems even work if they’re beings of smokeless fire? So many questions are banging around my head, but I have a feeling I might not get all the answers I want.
As we step toward a vast stone courtyard, there are pillars circled with white jasmine garlands (I was right about the jasmine smell!) and orange-gold gauzy fabric is draped from pillar to pillar, creating a tented roof. In the center is a large throne mosaicked with jewels, and next to it, a smaller silver throne. Almost like a whisper of wind, creatures step out from the trees. They’re jinn of every size and every color from even the biggest box of Crayola crayons. Through the bushes emerge beautiful winged creatures. The shades of brown of their skin glow like they’re lit from the inside; they all have shiny black hair coiled on their heads. Vibrant silks are draped around their bodies like saris. And from their backs unfurl scalloped, emerald-colored wings. They are the most gorgeous things I’ve ever seen.
“The woodland peris,” Maqbool whispers in my ear about the fairylike creatures. But they’re not like any fairies I’ve ever seen in books or movies. I mean, they’re brown, like me!
The jinn and peris gather in front of the throne, murmuring, staring at us. One of them, about my height and wearing a sparkly diamond tiara, steps to the smaller throne as she folds her beautiful, dandelion-colored wings. She looks directly at me and tilts her chin, literally turning her nose up. She does not seem impressed. I gulp. I look down at my jeans, red Chucks, and white T-shirt with the Bill Nye quote, We are the stuff of exploded stars. I glance at Hamza, wearing his That’s No Moon Death Star tee. They seemed funny to wear to an eclipse-viewing party. But it all feels kind of babyish and not very warrior-like now. I feel the weight of hundreds of eyes staring at us. I don’t think Hamza and I are the heroes they expected.
Everyone hushes and falls to one knee. Hamza and I look at each other and shrug. We are about to join in, but Maqbool shakes his head at us and whispers, “Human beings bow to no other creations.” We stay standing but have to shield our eyes when a blaze of light enters the courtyard.
“Your flame, Abba. Dim it. Weak human eyes cannot handle your brilliance,” the stuck-up fairy sitting next to the throne says and throws a squinty fake smile our way. Whatever.
“Welcome, visitors. I am Shahpal bin Shahrukh, King of Kings, Emperor of Qaf. And I humbly offer my gratitude for your presence.” He slightly bows his head to us. To us. In unison, the jinn and peris pivot toward us and do the same. They are really formal about their intros.
As the emperor weakens his flame and sits down, he takes shape for us. He’s tall, with a face that seems a bit longer than it should be, like he’s out of proportion. His skin is the color of sandalwood, and I swear, I almost get a whiff of it as he sits down. (The sandalwood soap we get from India is my favorite.) He’s wearing a long, two-toned golden-green kurta and skinny pants underneath, but what catches my eye is his burgundy robe, embroidered with silver and gold threads. It looks like it’s trimmed with real stars because of the way they glow like the velvet lining of Suleiman’s iron trunk.
“Rise, all! Come forth, heroes.”
“That’s us,” Hamza says, dragging me toward the throne, Abdul Rahman and Maqbool close on our heels.
“My king, it is my deep honor to introduce you to Amira and Hamza, of the clan of Majid, from the realm of Chicago along the shores of the greatest of lakes.” Abdul Rahman waves a big blue hand over each of our heads as he says our names.
“Two? Heroes?” The king extends each word.
“They bear the marks. They have passed the challenges of the iron chest and… uh… passed through the Obsidian Wall, which I also knew was a challenge!”
Hamza whips out his dagger to show the court and nudges me, so I pull out one of the emerald-tipped arrows from the quiver on my back. Then he plucks a glob of oobleck from my hair and raises it into the air. A wave of ahhhs and ohhhs moves through the court, so I don’t tattle that Abdul Rahman didn’t seem to know that getting through the Wall was one of the challenges.
“Two heroes for the price of one!” quips Maqbool. Abdul Rahman does not look amused.
The emperor rubs his chin, then claps his hands. “Excellent. Two human champions of Qaf! We are twice blessed. You may be very small, but I have seen small humans accomplish many things.”
“Yes, like learning to walk and use the toilet by themselves,” says the fairy with a crooked smile. “Incredible feats! They probably receive trophies for such victories.”
I try not to look too irritated, but I’m not always good at hiding my feelings. I narrow my eyes at the peri. A silence falls over the court. The king smiles, then laughs, then throws his head back like he’s having a raucous old time… at our expense.
“Forgive my daughter,” the king says. “Aasman Peri has quite a wicked sense of humor and has kept me in stitches these many years.”
“Charmed to meet you,” she says in a sticky, sweet voice. “I am the First Peri of Qaf. Our greatest scholar on human habits and culture. Passing the first two challenges is one thing, but you must pass all three to prove your worth.”
“Wait. What? You’re Cough’s greatest scholar?” Hamza says. “You’re like my age. Ten. Eleven, tops.”
“That’s eleven in fairy years. We’re much more mature and learn at a faster pace. And it’s Qaf, not cough, silly human. I’m completely fluent in your language, but you can’t even get one name right. Or perha
ps that is what you consider humor?” Aasman Peri scoffs.
“Umm, can we get back to the more important point? What is the next challenge?” I ask, shaking my head. Hamza almost busted open his head trying to get to the iron chest, and we barely made it through the oobleck before an avalanche nearly crushed us. I’m not sure how long our luck will hold out.
“The Insurmountable Challenges should hardly be of consequence to the Chosen One… Ones. As if swatting a fly.” The emperor grins.
“Insurmountable Challenges?” Hamza blurts out, and then turns to Abdul Rahman, who conveniently forgot to mention their name. “That’s what they’re actually called? And can we go back to how unfair it is that we have to, like, earn the privilege of fighting for our lives? That’s—”
“False advertising and… and bait and switch,” I sputter.
“And seriously uncool,” Hamza adds.
“Don’t get your human underwear in a bundle,” Aasman Peri says. “They’re only insurmountable for impostors.”
I gulp.
Hamza leans over and whispers, “Do they think underwear is made of actual humans?” I nudge him to stop his giggles.
Abdul Rahman puts his head down in shame. “Forgive me, my king, but we had little time as a second piece of the moon broke away before we could pass through the Wall.”
Gasps and cries go up from around the crowd.
“Only sixteen left!”
“We’re doomed!”
“How can a couple of kids save us?”
“Ifrit will make us exsanguinate all of Earth’s humans!”
Suck the blood out of people? No wonder some of them have such sharp teeth! My mouth drops open. This is so much worse than even my worst imagining. And I’m a total catastrophizer!
The emperor raises an illuminated hand, and the crowd quiets down. “Dastangoi!” he bellows.
A small, wizened old peri who looks a little like baby Yoda with smaller ears and wings slowly makes her way to the throne.
“We don’t have all day, Lalla Fouzia,” some jinn shouts.
“Shut it, Asim,” another jinn yells back. “Show some respect to the storyteller. She’s older than everyone here and will probably outlive you.”
“Or put a curse on you!” another voice from the back adds.
The ancient dastangoi takes her place in front of us. Unlike everyone else, she’s wearing simple white clothes and an unadorned deep red robe. She takes a seat on a small wooden chair that two jinn guards bring out for her. She clears her throat and raises her gnarled hands. Black smoke whirls in front of her, and she begins to write in it with her bent fingers.
On Suleiman the Wise and the Mortal Prophecy
You know of Suleiman the Wise and the defeat of the rebel dev. Banished forever into the Realm of Nothingness. In the very center of what you humans know only as the moon.
As the dastangoi speaks, figures appear in the smoke, first a man with a sword in one hand, raising a fist with a giant ring on it in the direction of a dev who swirls into a minitornado and gets trapped in a brass oil lamp. Then the lamp being buried deep into the moon’s core. Our moon. Our beautiful moon, a whiff of white smoke in the gray clouds surrounding it. She continues:
Suleiman the Wise warned us that the son of the rebel dev would seek to avenge his father. That the Peerless Dagger would pass from father to son, that Ifrit might rip the moon apart and tear Qaf asunder, for each realm is inextricably linked to a piece of the moon. We searched for him high and low through all the realms, but his mother created a tilism from his infant tears and her sorcery. A slice of a magical world, hidden between realms. A pocket universe. And there she concealed him, fearing for his life, beyond the reach and sight of the great king. She, too, knew the prophecy of her son. Of Ifrit’s rise to greatness, of his strength unparalleled. And of his sudden, swift fall at the anointed hands of a son of Adam and Eve.
Here the dastangoi stops, her smoke figures disappearing into the air. She scrunches her face at us.
Err, the children of Adam and Eve, I mean. For only by the will and deeds of the chosen can a creature of Qaf be defeated and sent to the Realm of Nothingness until the end of time. So it is written. So this tale ends.
With that, the mysterious dastangoi stands and steps through the branches of trees that make way for her and then bend down to cover her path.
Aasman Peri rises from her small throne with a thick leather roll in hand. To her left is a stone table, and she unfurls the roll, placing four swords on the surface.
She turns to us. “These are the swords of Suleiman: Sam Sam, Qam Qam, the Scorpion, and the Spine-Cleaver. You must choose one. And you must choose wisely.”
“How come we get only one?” Hamza asks. “Are we supposed to share? Or?”
The peri shrugs. “It was a very ancient prophecy, and they weren’t exactly good on the details back in the day. All I know is you get to choose one. You decide which is right. It is said that only one can cut down the evil of Ifrit.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Maqbool nudge Abdul Rahman, who turns his shoulder to him.
“I’ll do it!” Hamza says, his right hand shooting up in the air like he’s the teacher’s pet.
“Hang on a second. You already have a knife thingy.”
“You have a bow and arrow!”
“Which I don’t know how to use. I’ll get the sword. That way we’ll both have, uhh, sharp, pointy objects with which to defend ourselves.” I try to sound confident, like I know what I’m doing, but really, I don’t think I’m fooling anyone, especially myself.
“Fine. But I don’t think the older-sibling rule should always apply. It’s not my fault I was born second.” Hamza concedes and steps back, gesturing me toward the table.
My hands shake. I clench them into fists at my side to try to calm myself down and to not seem like I’m scared, even though fear ripples through me. I stand before the table, staring at the shining swords. They all seem… I don’t know. Dangerous? Extremely sharp? Do you need a license to carry a sword? I can’t imagine walking around Michigan Avenue with a giant sword in your hand. Especially if you’re Muslim. It would definitely not fly at TSA. Can’t imagine trying to explain that. Oh, hello, airport security person, it’s little ole me and my trusty sword I’ve nicknamed Spine-Cleaver. Nothing to see here. Have I mentioned that I’m really good at procrastinating?
“Choose, already,” the peri hisses in my ear. “It’s not like the fate of the entire universe depends on it or anything.”
“Chill. You’re not making it any easier,” I snarl back. “I need to make the right choice.”
“The Chosen One is supposed to know which sword belongs to them.”
I let my hand hover above each sword, praying for a sign. I don’t know, a tingle, an eerie whisper coming from the hilt of one of the swords. Hoping maybe the right blade will choose me. I close my eyes. Try to breathe in the essence of each sword. And…
Nada. Zippo. Zilch.
I don’t feel a thing. Not a shock of electricity. Not a surge of knowingness. Not even goose bumps.
I open my eyes. Everyone is staring at me, waiting. A hesitant smile crosses my lips. Choose, Amira. Make a decision. I look down. One of the sword handles is wrapped in leather that seems slightly worn. Comfier than the others, if a hilt can be described as comfy. It’s as good a reason as any, I guess? I’ve got a one-in-four chance of being right. Eeek. I wrap my fingers around it and lift it into the air above my head.
“For the honor of Grayskull!” Hamza’s lone voice resounds in the courtyard.
Nothing happens. Not a single thing. The sword doesn’t light up. I don’t suddenly grow taller or get muscles. Or have a costume change. Sigh.
But as I step away, turning to the court, I hear a loud, slow clap behind me. I swivel my head around. It’s the emperor.
“You have chosen the Scorpion. The most favored of all of Suleiman’s swords. This is the one with which he battled and conquered the rebel de
v Ahriman. In you… uhh… both of you, we place our faith.” Thunderous applause fills the courtyard, and the emperor rises to join a standing ovation.
Hamza bounces up to high-five me. I have to admit it feels good to have done something right for once, on the first try. This challenge wasn’t exactly insurmountable, though. They really should reconsider how they name stuff around here. Mostly this was my picking comfort over flashy style, which is my default anyway. “We got this, sis,” Hamza whispers to me. I wish I had his confidence. For now, I’ll have to pretend, and maybe one day it will be real.
“They have met and bested the challenges! Let the heroes be trained in the use of their new weapons. Let the royal gifts be given. Let us feast. Our heroes set out at dawn,” the emperor commands. Everyone scurries away, and tables of food and drink are brought out. Torches are lit as evening descends on the garden.
Two of the Supahi take Hamza to a small clearing by some trees, where they show him how to throw his dagger and practice sword fighting. I can tell by the smile on his face that he’s having a great time. Of course he is. Since he was, like, five years old, he and his friends have been having backyard sword fights with random sticks and branches, and now he gets to practice with the real thing. I can hear my mom’s voice: It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye. Like, literally.
I watch everyone get to work. Maqbool finds me up by the table, staring at the other swords, wondering what would have happened if I’d chosen the wrong one. “Shouldn’t we be hurrying to find Ifrit?” I ask. “This feast is awesome, but it also seems like a waste of time.”
Maqbool nods. “Battles wage in the other realms. Even now, the emperor’s guards are ferrying messages back and forth, conveying his stratagems and plans. But the Garden of Iram is protected—by enchantment and design. For now. It will be the last place to fall should Ifrit succeed in defeating the emperor’s forces in the other realms and convert all to his cause. But time moves differently for us here in Qaf than it does for you. As we are not bound by the binary form, neither are we bound by linear progression. You likely have only a few days in Qaf to defeat Ifrit before he manages to break through the final defenses and enchantments of the Garden. And when you do—”
