Come, Fana.
With tears of joy in her eyes, Fana began to run.
26
Fana was crying. That was the first thing Jessica noticed after Teka told her that she and David were now permitted to enter the immense chamber. In that instant, she forgot her timidity, her fright, and her awe. She pulled ahead of David, her feet pitching into a run across the strange, grooved markings on the floor. “What are you doing to her?” she demanded of the bearded black man stroking her daughter’s face.
Teka had been right about one thing; a spoken voice was shrill. As her voice bounced throughout the room, the walls themselves seemed to take notice. The walls’ sheer coverings, which had been billowing gently as if they were bedsheets in a breeze, fell still. And the man, who was wearing a white robe, slowly raised his head to look at her, a deliberate gesture that seemed to take an eternity. Somehow, she believed she could see his dark eyes even from the thirty yards that separated them; the eyes simply seemed to appear in front of her path, earnest and calming, and they stopped Jessica cold. She was breathing heavily.
David took her elbow sharply. “Stop, Jess,” David said, his voice clipped.
“Wh-why is she crying?” Jessica said.
I am showing her who she is. This time, the voice didn’t seem to originate from inside her head, but everywhere around her, enveloping her. All children should be permitted to see the entirety of themselves. But since she is too young to understand the words, I have guided her highest self to the vision. These tears are not from sadness. They are tears of enlightenment.
Sure enough, Fana turned to Jessica with a familiar childish smile that looked eerily incongruous against the tears across her face. To Jessica, Fana looked as if she was in a waking trance, like the one she had experienced when she had drowned.
“Please stop,” Jessica said as respectfully as she could. “I don’t like to see her like that.”
Again moving slowly, Khaldun graciously bowed his head. Then, she heard Fana’s earsplitting peals of laughter, and Fana wrapped her arms around Khaldun’s neck with a hug. Smiling himself, Khaldun hugged her back tightly, closing his eyes. He looked almost like a desperate lover, she thought without wanting to, unable to censor it. Her heart jogged.
Khaldun’s didn’t open his eyes, but his voice came again: Forget your fears, Jessica.
And then, just like that, her fear was gone: Her heart’s racing, her adrenaline, her anxiety, all of it, as if Khaldun had simply turned a knob in her head. Although she didn’t understand what was going on in front of her, a deeper part of her accepted the confusion tranquilly, without panic. She breathed the cool, scented air in the room as if her lungs had been sealed until now.
“You just played with my head,” she said to Khaldun, a sudden realization. “Didn’t you?”
Finally, Khaldun opened his eyes, those odd black gemstones. This time, his lips parted.
“Playing is reserved for games,” Khaldun said, speaking aloud. His speaking voice was identical to the one in her mind, all-encompassing. “I released you from your fear because I wanted to clear your vision. What you are witnessing is only my joy at seeing a child again. It has been too long since I had a child in my arms. Since . . .”
“Berhanu, Father,” David prompted gently.
“Yes,” Khaldun said dreamily. “He was a boy of twelve, frightened because he’d been overcome by a fit of choking after I instructed him to eat poisoned bread. One life was ending, and another had begun. I held him as he died, and he stayed in my embrace until he opened his eyes again. Your calendar would tell you this took place four hundred and sixty-one years ago. It seemed to me that it was a mere heartbeat’s time before Berhanu became a man, and it has been that long since I last held a child. It was a blessing then, and it is a blessing now.” At that, a sound rumbled deeply in his throat, first chuckles, then full-fledged, unrestrained laughter.
Jessica glanced at David, and she saw that he was staring at Khaldun with obvious wonderment. Could it be that, in all this time, he had never seen Khaldun laugh?
“Are you God?” Fana’s voice piped up from inside the sound of his laughter.
Slowly, Khaldun’s laughter subsided. He continued to stroke her hair. “I have a question for you instead, you wondrous child: If I do many godlike things, does that make me God? Or if I do many devilish things, does that make me the devil? And can I be both at once?”
That response from Khaldun pricked Jessica’s curiosity in a way that did not feel entirely pleasant. Her fresh hand throbbed. Again, she slipped her hand into David’s, and the throbbing seemed to ease.
“That’s a riddle!” Fana said, scolding Khaldun exactly as she might have scolded Moses. Then, she laughed and continued to rock in the bearded man’s arms. She was nearly buried beneath the immense folds of the sleeves of Khaldun’s robe.
“Indeed it is. It is the only riddle,” Khaldun said. “Yes, I am God, Fana. And you are God. And your mother and father, as well. And, believe it or not, even the most vile murderer locked away in the world’s most wretched prison—God is in him, too. God is in us all.”
Yes, but sometimes the devil is, too, Jessica thought. At that, Khaldun met her eyes, and she felt something like a rain shower of electricity across her skin.
Suddenly, a jangling bell sounded right outside of Khaldun’s chambers, and Jessica’s shoulders hunched up in a cringe as she gritted her teeth. The sound was awful! She whirled around to see what it was, and she saw Teka push his way past the heavy chamber curtain and walk inside. His face was expectant. “Yes, Father?” Teka said, his eyes solely on Khaldun. Had the horrible noise been some way of calling him?
“I wish to speak to Fana’s parents alone,” Khaldun said. “Please take this beautiful child to my garden so she may pick us a basket of berries.”
“Yes, Father.” Teka strode silently across the room, his hand held out to Fana.
Just as Jessica wondered about Fana’s safety, Khaldun gazed at her. “My garden is just beyond this chamber, where I play my instruments. You heard them as you approached—there are no musicians. I make the music myself, with thought. The garden is private. She will be safe there.”
“But I want to stay!” Fana said, pouting.
“Once you see the garden, you’ll be sorry you weren’t brought there first,” Khaldun said, naturally assuming a parent’s persuasive intonation. “I have sunflowers as big as you. And even mud for mudcakes.” Khaldun had to be mining Fana’s memories, Jessica thought. Her daughter was a fiend for mudcakes; she and Moses had often gotten so dirty in the mud climbing under the Botswana house that Fana’s clothes had been ruined, far beyond the reach of soap and water.
For the first time, Fana turned her head uncertainly to look toward Jessica and David. Jessica’s heart warmed; Fana wanted her permission, too.
“Go on, Fana,” Jessica said, smiling. “You’ll be fine. Don’t worry about Teferi’s dress.”
At last, Fana looked satisfied. She gave Khaldun one last bear hug around his neck, then she took Teka’s hand. “Bye, Mommy!” Fana said, waving, and Jessica blew her daughter a kiss. All traces of Fana’s tears had vanished, except for nearly invisible white streaks beneath her eyes.
“Be watchful,” David murmured to Teka as he walked past them with Fana.
“As if she were my own heart, Dawit,” Teka said earnestly.
At last, Jessica and David were alone with Khaldun. Jessica took a closer look at this mysterious man she had risked so much to visit. Knowing Khaldun’s age, she had expected him to look like a darker version of Father Time, with cottony white hair and a long white beard curling to the floor, but of course he looked nothing like that. Like the other immortals, he looked like a young man, in his thirties. And he did have a wiry beard, but it was dark and only hung to his breast before it was clipped flat like hedges on a fence. His skin was nearly as dark as his eyes and hair, a rich black that made her and David look pale by comparison. Especially in the lilac hue o
f the room, his skin seemed to have a purplish glow.
Khaldun’s smile had slowly faded after Fana had left the chamber, and now his face was somber. He had fallen silent. In fact, Jessica realized, he was sitting so still that he could be carved from stone. There was nothing to do but wait for him to speak or move.
After a full minute or more, the wait ended.
“The garden was a test,” Khaldun said with a sigh, almost mournfully. “I bid her to go with all my mental will, and yet she argued. Any other man, woman, or child would have gone without even a memory of why.” There was no mistaking the mingled awe and worry in Khaldun’s eyes. “How does it feel, Jessica, to be the mother of Divinity?”
“I . . .” Jessica couldn’t think of an answer. “I . . . don’t know yet. I love her, but that’s not the part of her I love. I don’t understand what she is. I would have been happier if . . . she’d been like my other child. If none of this had happened.” A twinge of anger, much smaller than before, reappeared. Then, faintly, Jessica heard Fana’s giggles outside the chamber, and the laughter made her smile despite herself. Teka has his hands full, she thought.
“And so do you,” Khaldun said as soon as her thought appeared. “Both of you have your hands full, my children.” Khaldun’s voice was so full of compassion and understanding that the hardness Jessica had felt girding her heart began to melt. She had to blink away tears. With a sweep of his arm, Khaldun indicated the mound of large, multicolored pillows at his feet, royal purple and crimson and subtle varieties of golden brown. “Please come. Sit beside me.”
Feeling dreamlike in the vast chamber of gentle scents, sounds, colors, and designs, Jessica allowed David to lead her closer to Khaldun, and they both sank into the pillows near him. Now, she could see the details of his face: his full cheeks and sharp cheekbones, the rounded tip of his broad nose. He sighed, and she could smell his unfamiliar breath. The flurry of drumming outside the chamber matched her quickening heartbeat, not from fear this time, but anticipation.
“We have little time,” Khaldun said. “I can answer some of your questions, but not all of them. Some answers you must find for yourselves. I will tell you only what I must to ensure the safety of the child. I will not tell all that I see.”
“Please just tell us what to do,” Jessica said.
“Yes, Father,” David said. “How can she be controlled?”
“Controlled?” At that, Jessica thought she saw a flicker of a smile on Khaldun’s lips. “She will not be, Dawit, not in the way you mean the word. You simply must understand the nature of her gifts. And you must know that gifts in themselves are bereft of purpose. The greater the gifts, the more tenuous the balance between benevolence and malevolence.”
Jessica didn’t like the sound of that. “What do you mean?”
Khaldun’s eyes came to hers, unblinking. “She has already killed.”
Jessica released David’s hand, dropping it to the pillow. Despite whatever calming suggestions Khaldun had planted in her mind, Jessica felt vestiges of panic bubbling inside of her. “You’re wrong,” she said, her voice angry. “She did put a boy to sleep, but—”
Suddenly, in a sensation unlike anything Jessica had ever before experienced, she felt herself yanked out of Khaldun’s chamber while everything spun around her, being pulled away.
Jessica felt nauseated from dizziness, but she recognized where she was: She was back at Da Vinci Airport in Rome, standing at the ticket counter with Fana lying across her shoulder, and the people around her moving with a languid unhurriedness, blurry. The light all around her was white, nearly blinding. Look behind you, Khaldun’s voice urged her. Look at the soldier.
Then she saw him: a thin, uniformed soldier with some kind of gun, gazing toward her with brazen lecherousness, his eyes slitted and cheeks flushed. Almost the instant Jessica saw him, the soldier’s jaw dropped open without a sound, his eyes suddenly bulging white. He clutched at his chest, and for the briefest instant Jessica thought she could feel his surprise and a sharp pain, something crushing his chest—his heart, she realized; something was wrong with his heart—and he lurched back against the change booth before slowly slumping to the floor.
Then, it was gone. Jessica was back in Khaldun’s chamber, her heart whaling against her breast, as she held David’s shoulder tightly to keep from losing her balance. David was gazing at her blankly, touching her face. “Jess? What’s wrong?” he whispered. Hadn’t he seen it, too?
“The soldier at the airport had a sickness. He hurt children,” Khaldun said too calmly. “His sickness was in his thoughts, and Fana could feel it. Its presence offended her, so she tried to protect herself. She made his thoughts stop. It was not entirely a conscious act, nor a deliberate one, but she killed him.”
“No . . . ,” Jessica whispered, dumbstruck. “That’s not tr-true . . .”
“If you ask her, she will tell you. I saw it in her. She knows what she did.”
Jessica felt a wave of grief welling up inside her, but then it retreated suddenly, just as her fear had diminished before. Khaldun’s work, no doubt. Obviously, he figured it would be easier to talk to her if she didn’t freak out on him, she thought, and he was probably right.
Jessica’s aborted sob caught in her throat, then vanished. “Can . . . she do it again?”
There was no mistaking the concern shining from Khaldun’s face. He paused before answering. “Yes, she can certainly do it again. And the stronger her feelings, the more severe her responses will be, especially while her power continues to grow with such sudden, premature spurts. I do not believe her power was meant to mature this quickly. Many people can die at her hands, especially before she is old enough to control her impulses.”
“She can kill again,” David began. “Or will?”
“That knowledge will not help you keep the child safe. Your charge is to take precautions. That is all.”
“Keep her safe from what?” Jessica said, frustrated. “You just said nobody can hurt her.”
Khaldun’s gaze turned quizzical. “Were those my words?”
“No, Father,” David said. “You said no one can control her. But even someone much weaker than she is can hurt her, just as a bite from a small dog can hurt a man. That’s what we must prevent. If we don’t allow her to be harmed, she will not strike out. Is this true?”
“In part, yes. But there are some things you cannot prevent, Dawit. No life is lived without pain,” Khaldun said with a small nod. “So, she will have other impulses to strike out.”
“What . . . who . . .” Jessica was fumbling for words. “What is she? I mean . . .”
Khaldun paused again, closing his eyes, and Jessica noticed that the strange fluttering of the wall coverings began again, as if they were tied to his thoughts. Finally he opened his eyes. “Fana is both salvation and destruction. She will either be our most awaited friend or our most fearsome enemy. I believe she is a savior. I have placed all my faith in that belief, or I would not have allowed her to be born. But I have made mistakes before. I am not infallible.”
Allowed her to be born. Those words reawakened Jessica’s belief that Khaldun had come into her life like a chess master, blithely rearranging the pieces, destroying everything she’d had. One daughter killed over here, one born with freakish powers over there, all according to his wishes. What kind of man would do that?
“You cannot judge me, Jessica, until you have walked where I have walked,” Khaldun said. “Emotions make us too hasty to judge. I always think of poor Judas Iscariot, scorned for eternity, and all because he did as he was asked.”
“Asked?” Jessica said. “He betrayed—”
“Judas did as his master bid him. It was his destiny, his price for faith. Stories grow distorted over the ages, Jessica. Stories were distorted about Jesus of Nazareth, too. I can already predict that one day stories will be distorted about me, and all because I sought to preserve the blood.”
There. Khaldun had brought it up now, so it was time t
o hear the truth.
“Whose blood?” Jessica whispered.
Khaldun paused again. “The blood of Man. The ultimate gift to mankind, brought by the Son of Man. It ran first in his veins. He was the first Life Brother. He was the first to awaken after he died. He was the first to Rise.”
Khaldun’s voice had lowered to a hush, yet the words thundered in Jessica’s ears. Her body and heart felt frozen, as if something in her might crack if she even breathed.
Khaldun went on, “I met a man who dreamed of the blood when I was but a mortal shepherd, and he told us of his dream around a warm fire: A heretic called Jesus, he said, would be put to death and then rise from the grave because of the power of his blood. To prove this, when Jesus’ corpse was brought down from the place where he was nailed until he died, my new friend gained a pouch filled with the corpse’s blood. We touched the pouch, and the blood was cold. But after three days passed, when the corpse rose, the pouch suddenly grew warm again.
“The man who’d told us of his dream offered all of us eternal life if we would accept the blood through death, and we all agreed. We drank poison, and as we died, he performed a Ritual of Life he said would bring life back to our hearts. Yet, I was the only one who reawakened. ‘Something has gone wrong,’ the man told me, full of apologies, but I knew he had done something wicked. When he asked me to perform the Ritual of Life for him as he had done for me, I agreed—but I lied. I regretted his theft of the blood, and I believed he would use the blood’s gifts to terrorize mankind. When he took the poison, I simply allowed him to die. I drank the blood so it would never fall into the wrong man’s hands, but believed myself damned.
“It took me many hundreds of years of quiet reflection to discover the higher planes of thought I call the Rising. But instead of surrendering myself to those planes, where I might have found peace, I chose to seek pupils so I could teach all I had learned. I convinced myself I might gain forgiveness for my part in the theft of the blood if I could lead other men as I had led myself. And so I created the Life Colony. I was careful to conduct my teachings in secrecy, so I would never become revered by mankind like Jesus before me. I am not worthy of such worship. I only wanted to bring other men to the Rising. And with others meditating beside me, I have risen to even greater heights, those unknown even to me.
The Living Blood Page 35
