The Seven Keys of Balabad

by Paul Haven

  “Understood,” said Zee. He gave Oliver a sharp glance.

  “Very well,” said Halabala. He leaned in close and pressed the tips of his fingers together.

  “What you must know,” Halabala said slowly, “is that Mr. Haji is no ordinary carpet salesman. He has skills that few men possess, and knowledge that most people could never dream existed.”

  “Are you talking about the same Mr. Haji?” said Oliver skeptically. “The nervous little guy with the gray turban and the wild stories?”

  “Indeed I am,” said Halabala.

  “His full name is Haji Majeed ul- Ghoti Shah, though you'll never hear him speak it. He is, in fact, a descendant of one of Balabad's greatest carpet- selling clans. But he prefers to present himself as an ordinary salesman.”

  Oliver was having a hard time matching the high- strung old man he knew with the image Halabala was drawing. He looked over at Zee, but his friend did not appear to be having the same problem. He was nodding and murmuring in agreement, his eyes fixed sharply on Halabala's. In Balabad, people were often not what they first appeared. The roly-poly Hassan had turned out to be a scoundrel; Zee's laid-back father was a member of a secret brotherhood.

  Perhaps this all made it easier for Zee to imagine Mr. Haji's double life, Oliver thought. He had learned not to be surprised by surprises.

  “Those yarns Mr. Haji loves to spin about his great-grandmother who invented paprika or his uncle who climbed the tallest mountain in Bankh Province are just tales meant to liven up a lazy afternoon,” Halabala continued. “But there are other stories about Mr. Haji's family. Real stories that only his closest friends have heard, and even we know only bits and pieces.”

  “Bits and pieces of what?” said Zee.

  At that moment, Alamai returned with the tray of tea and took a seat between her father and Zee. Halabala poured out four cups, then took a long sip himself.

  “Mr. Haji comes from an ancient and important family,” he said. “And they have an ancient and important secret.”

  “A secret!” exclaimed Oliver. “What is it?”

  “Even those of us who have Mr. Haji's absolute trust do not know exactly what the secret is,” explained Halabala. He tipped the dregs of his tea into a small bowl before refilling his cup.

  “But whatever the secret is, it is something important enough to have been passed down from generation to generation for hundreds of years. It is known among Mr. Haji's clan as the ‘great burden,’ though nobody in any one generation knows who among them carries it.

  “You must understand that whatever kind of trouble Mr. Haji is in, it goes way beyond the powers of two young boys to solve it,” said Halabala. “There is a reason he has never shared his secret with you. He would not want you to get involved.”

  “I'm afraid it is too late for that,” said Zee. He reached into his shirt and pulled out the gold chain with the skeleton key. “We are involved.”

  Halabala looked down at the key in Zee's hand, his mouth open in wonder. Alamai leaned over to get a closer look.

  “Where did you get this?” he said, taking the long iron shank between his fingers and turning it over carefully.

  “It's a bit of a long story,” said Zee slowly. “It belongs to my father, but I took it from him before somebody else could.”

  “What do you mean?” said Halabala.

  “Remember Mr. Haji told you that I overheard my father talking about some burglaries? Well, last night, we became the latest victims, only the thieves didn't get what they were looking for.”

  “Somebody tried to steal this key from your home?” said Halabala. “Why would they do that?”

  “I don't know,” said Zee. “I don't know what the key is for, but I am sure it has something to do with the Brotherhood of Arachosia.”

  Halabala stared at the key for a very long time. Then he pulled on his beard and let out a long sigh.

  “Well, well, well,” he said. “It seems we have quite a mystery on our hands. So what do you plan to do now?”

  “We haven't figured that out yet,” said Oliver.

  Halabala turned to Zee.

  “You must take this key back to your father at once,” he said. “And you must leave the rest to me. These are dangerous times, my friends. Times when carpets and ministers and keys can all disappear without a trace. Why should two boys not be next?”

  Oliver gulped. It was a good point.

  “Please, go home to your families,” Halabala said. “I promise that I will not rest until Mr. Haji is safely with us once again.”

  liver and Zee trudged out of Hamid Halabala's darkened building and into the early-afternoon light. Neither of them said a word to each other. There was nothing much to say.

  Only a day earlier, Oliver had felt like he and Zee had been swept up in an exciting adventure, like detectives solving an age- old mystery. But after the theft of the key, the disappearance of Mr. Haji, and Mr. Halabala's warning, he realized that they were in over their heads. He no longer felt like a clever detective. He felt like a kid.

  The boys cut through a dirt path around the side of the building and made their way toward the empty buzkashi field, where Sher Aga was waiting for them.

  The streets of Maiwar were filled with Baladis going about their daily lives: a group of boys playing with a kite, some women returning from the market carrying bundles of groceries on their heads, a clutch of men staring under the hood of a rusty old car, their shalwar kameez black with grease.

  “So what do we do now?” Oliver said.

  Zee kicked a pebble away in frustration and shook his head dejectedly.

  “I don't know. Perhaps I should tell my father what happened. I thought we'd be able to catch whoever did this, but maybe Halabala is right that we can't solve this on our own,” said Zee.

  “Yeah,” said Oliver. “You want me to come with you when you tell your father?”

  “No,” said Zee. “This will have to be something between my father and myself. I can only hope he is relieved enough about getting the key back that he'll overlook the fact that I've broken his trust.

  “In any case,” Zee said, smiling, “maybe military academy will be good for me.”

  The two boys spotted Sher Aga. He had parked the car on the edge of the field and was sitting under a tree, sleeping. They were about to walk over and wake him when a voice stopped them in their tracks.

  “Wait!”

  It was Alamai, and she was running after them as quickly as she could, a scarf thrown over her head and a pair of sunglasses clutched in her hands.

  “These are yours,” she said, handing the glasses to Zee.

  “Oh, thank you,” said Zee. He slipped the glasses onto his head.

  There was a long silence as Alamai looked from Oliver to Zee and back. Oliver's mind raced with things he might say to her, but his mouth had gone on strike and wasn't moving. She turned her green eyes to the ground and bit her lip.

  Finally, it was Zee who broke the silence.

  “Well, thanks again,” he said, flipping his glasses over his eyes. “And thank your father for his advice.”

  “I guess we'll see you around,” said Oliver, and immediately wished he'd come up with something better.

  “Yes,” said Alamai, tightening her scarf around her head.

  The two boys turned and began to walk toward the car.

  “I imagine there is no way you are going to take it,” Alamai called out behind them. The boys spun around to face her.

  “Take what?” said Zee.

  “My father's advice,” she said. “There's no way you are going to go home, give your father back the key, and forget about Mr. Haji.”

  “Oh, no,” said Oliver. Actually, that was exactly what they were planning to do.

  “Absolutely not,” said Zee. “The thought hadn't entered our minds.”

  “Well, then,” said Alamai. “I guess you'll be needing some help.”

  “What kind of help?” said Oliver.

&nbs
p; “A foreigner and a Baladi who barely knows his own country. The two of you couldn't find sand if you were standing in the desert,” said Alamai. “You need somebody with connections.”

  “Like who?” said Oliver.

  “Like me,” she said.

  “You?” said Zee. “I'll have you know I come from a very important family. We have plenty of connections.”

  Alamai laughed.

  “Politicians and diplomats? Those are not the type of connections that you need,” she said.

  “What's your point?” said Zee.

  “I want you to meet someone,” said Alamai. “Someone who may know something about what has been going on recently He has a shop that sells all sorts of things: gold, jewels, coins, muskets, you name it. But the shop is just a front for what he really does.”

  “What does he really do?” said Oliver.

  “He steals things,” said Alamai. Her eyes darted warily around the field. Though they were alone, she dropped her voice to a whisper.

  “His name is Rahimullah Sadeq,” she said, “and if something sinister is happening in Balabad, he either had a hand in the plot or knows the people who did. I will take you to him tomorrow morning.”

  “Take us to him?” said Oliver. “But isn't he a little, uh—”

  “Dangerous?” said Alamai. “Oh yes, he is extremely dangerous.”

  “Right,” said Oliver. “I just wanted to get that straight.”

  “Do not be afraid,” said Alamai. “This man was once a great warrior who fought alongside my father. They have taken very different paths since the war, but I assure you he will not harm us. We will be perfectly safe.”

  “Do you think he will know who has taken Mr. Haji?” said Zee.

  “I don't know,” said Alamai. “But we can ask.”

  “Won't your father be angry if he finds out you are helping us?” Oliver asked.

  “He won't find out,” said Alamai. “My father used to know no fear, but since my mother died, he has become far too protective.”

  Zee's mouth opened into a smile, and Alamai smiled back.

  “So, where do we meet?” he said.

  “At the kebab stand on Mansur Street.”

  “Mansur Street?” Zee said. “Isn't that on the edge of the Thieves Market?”

  “What better place to go if you need to talk to a thief?” said Alamai.

  She looked at Oliver, who was nervously adjusting the bill of his baseball cap.

  “Do you own a shalwar kameez?” she asked. “You certainly can't go to the Thieves Market looking like that.”

  Oliver shook his head.

  “I'll loan you one,” said Zee. “I have a dozen of them.”

  Alamai and Zee turned to Oliver, whose face had gone an ugly shade of green.

  “So, are you in?” Zee asked.

  Silas Finch had made it clear from Day One that the Thieves Market was absolutely off- limits, and that Oliver was not to go there under any circumstances. They didn't call it the Thieves Market for nothing. There were thieves there. Villains and scoundrels of all stripes whose eyes would probably widen to the size of pizzas at the sight of three kids dumb enough to enter their lair.

  “Are you in?” said Alamai.

  She put her hand lightly on Oliver's arm, a gesture that Oliver could safely place in the top three moments of his life, right after the Yankees winning the World Series and ahead of the A-plus he'd received for a fifth- grade essay on snails.

  Oliver looked from Zee to Alamai and slowly nodded his head.

  “I'll be there,” he said.

  ay and night, the women of Ghot- e- Bhari worked, the old and the young together. The most decrepit of them spun yarn on rickety wheels. The youngest were sent to fetch and mix the dye: olive leaves for green, saffron and weld for yellow, pomegranate skin for black, and the withered roots of the madder plant for rust red.

  Only the most talented worked on the weaving looms themselves, a dozen great wooden machines that clanked with each pass of the rod.

  There could be no mistakes. Not a single stitch out of place. For the women of Ghot- e- Bhari knew that this must be a carpet fit for a king, albeit a dead one.

  The carpet they were making was far too big to be made on one loom, so each of the weavers concentrated on a small part of it. When they finished, the sections were sewn together so seamlessly that one could not tell where one piece stopped and the other started.

  Gradually, the carpet grew, and after five years, it was time to tell their secret patron to come and take a look. Word was sent to a small cottage on the mountainside overlooking the town, where Bahauddin Shah was quietly living out his final days.

  It had been twenty years since King Agamon had been overthrown.

  Twenty terrible years.

  Bahauddin had rightly predicted that the invaders would not last, but what he did not predict was that their departure would bring only more destruction.

  After the foreigners left, there was nobody to rule the country. King Agamon was dead, and his sons had scattered to the four corners of the earth. Years earlier, Bahauddin had received a single message from the youngest of the king's sons, saying that the brothers were safe, but that they would not return until peace was restored.

  In the princes’ absence, feuding tribes from north, south, east, and west laid claim to the capital, causing more misery than even the hated invaders had done.

  As the civil war dragged on and Bahauddin grew older, he came to realize that he would not live long enough to witness the princes’ return. The king's treasure would have to be kept safe for children of another time, for if the feuding factions had the faintest notion of the riches buried beneath their feet, they would fight all the more fiercely to claim them.

  But how to pass the secret on? he had wondered.

  Bahauddin knew the iron keys would last for centuries. They could easily be handed down from generation to generation, but his own knowledge of what the keys led to would die with him, unless he did something to preserve it.

  The solution had come to him one afternoon while he was dozing in the garden. By the evening, he had called the women of Ghot- e- Bhari together to tell them he had a job for them, a job that would keep them employed for many years.

  He would commission the greatest carpet the world had ever known, and the women of Ghot- e- Bhari would weave it for him.

  Bahauddin was just drifting off to sleep in his favorite chair out in the garden of his hillside cottage, when a strapping young man came rushing down from the house.

  The youth, who went by the name Temur and was just a few years past his twentieth birthday, was the eldest son of Bahauddin's youngest brother, the tea shop owner Mohammed Gul.

  The poor man had never resurfaced after the invasion of Balabad, and Bahauddin had looked after his widow and children ever since.

  By now, Bahauddin considered Temur as much a son as his own, and in some ways more so. For Temur was strong and wise beyond his years, and he displayed a much keener interest in the carpet trade than any of Bahauddin's own offspring.

  Temur was out of breath and perspiring lightly when he reached Bahauddin in the garden.

  “Uncle! Uncle! It is ready,” he said excitedly. “The carpet is finished.”

  “Finished? Completely finished!” said Bahauddin. “It cannot be.”

  Bahauddin reached for his walking stick and heaved himself to his feet. It took all of his strength to get there.

  “Come quickly, Uncle,” said Temur, tugging at Bahaud din's sleeve. “The women are calling for you.”

  “Patience, my boy,” said Bahauddin softly, but his old mind was racing. “Let's go take a look.”

  Temur took hold of his uncle's hand to help him keep his balance, and the two slowly descended a gravel path that led down the mountainside to the center of the village. Bahauddin's other hand gripped a thick walking stick that was as knotted and twisted as he was, and his legs knocked against each other under his shalwar kameez.

>   As they picked their way down the path, Bahauddin's mind leapt back to the day long ago when as a young man he had scrambled down this same incline to warn Agamon that the army of the greedy King Tol was gathering above.

  When the women of Ghot- e- Bhari saw Bahauddin coming, they bowed their heads low and held their hands together in respect.

  “This way,” they said. “We are honored to have you here with us.”

  They led him to a large mud- brick building and helped him climb the few stairs to the vast weaving room. His back was so stooped that he nearly tripped over his long beard as he hobbled up the steps.

  When he got to the top, Bahauddin gasped.

  The carpet was the most magnificent thing he had ever seen. It was fifty feet across, with seven sides of exactly equal dimensions. Each of the thirty million knots had been individually tied. It was a deep red, and around its edges was a delicate gold border interwoven with seven- headed dragons, roaring lions, and trotting horses decked out for war.

  In the middle of the carpet was a great and ancient tree, its trunk thick and knobbly, its leafy branches covered in a thousand twisting vines. Hanging from the branches were hundreds of pomegranates.

  “It is beautiful,” whispered Bahauddin's nephew.

  But Bahauddin did not say a word. Slowly, he walked out onto the great carpet.

  “Now this is a treasure that the world will protect forever,” Bahauddin thought.

  It would be known as the Sacred Carpet of Agamon, though the king had not lived to see it. Bahauddin would have it placed in a mosque, so as to prevent even the most depraved of the fighting factions from daring to harm it. There it would lie, until the time was right.

  Bahauddin lowered himself slowly onto his hands and knees. With a trembling finger, he traced the path of the vine… …

  Bahauddin shook his head in awe. The weavers had followed his instructions to the last knot. To the untrained eye, the vines seemed like snakes, so tightly entwined that you could not tell where one stopped and the other started.

  But Bahauddin's was far from an untrained eye.