A Master of Djinn: 1 (Dead Djinn Universe)

by P. Djèlí Clark

  Fatma surveyed the shop and caught sight of a small man perched on a ladder and stuffing books onto an upper shelf. Seeing them, he ambled down and walked over, baggy trousers swishing.

  “Welcome to Rami’s Books and Assorted Ephemera,” he greeted warmly, the white curling hair on his face moving in time with his speech. “Is there a text you are looking for that I can help find?”

  “The One Thousand and One Nights,” Fatma answered, her eyes roaming. There was one other person in the shop—an old woman, Abyssinian by the look of her, not to mention the white woven dress and colorful sash about her waist. She sat bent over a large tome, turning pages gingerly before inspecting them with a magnifying glass.

  “I have many of those!” the bookseller beamed “Most are in Arabic and include the over one thousand stories. I have others in the original Persian or Sanskrit, though the stories are fewer.”

  “How about the ones that might interest a Persian djinn who goes by the name Zagros?” Fatma displayed her Ministry badge. Hadia followed.

  The bookseller’s smile slid away, and his aging face furrowed. He licked his lips for a moment, reaching up to scratch his head and pulling back at remembering he wore a tarboosh. “Zagros sent you?”

  “Big djinn. Purple skin. Ivory tusks. Something of a snob.”

  The small man chuckled. “That’s certainly Zagros. Is there a particular reason he asked you to come to me? To find that book?”

  “He said you could show us what we can’t see,” Hadia answered.

  The bookseller straightened, his face turning eager—as if he’d been waiting for just this moment. “Well, then. We’d better have a talk.” He turned, calling out to the Abyssinian woman. “Tsega! Brew some tea while I close up the shop. We’re having company!”

  Sometime later, Fatma sat with Hadia at a small table. Above hung a brass lamp that poured down light that glinted off a banner with a gold Star of David. The old woman was setting down small cups of tea in front of them, while the bookseller inspected the spine of a bound volume. Both spoke as they worked.

  “I was alone in the shop after my first wife, Magda, died,” Rami related. His short fingers ran along the book’s covering as if they could suss out its contents. “Then about ten years ago Tsega wandered in and promptly started an argument over how I’d arranged some Sassanid texts. I knew right away I had to marry her.”

  Tsega sniffed, pushing back her braided hair. “I worked at the royal library at Addis Ababa,” she said proudly, sitting down and taking up her tea. “His arrangement was all nonsense. It took me this long to get it right. Only reason I stayed and agreed to marry him.”

  The bookseller offered a sly wink. “As you see, I’m a very fortunate man. A practicing Egyptian Karaite marrying a Haymanot from Abyssinia. And both unabashed bibliophiles. Where else but Cairo could such love take root and bloom?”

  “How do you know Zagros?” Hadia asked, smiling, seeming to have already taken a liking to the couple.

  “I was always able to get old manuscripts for him when no one else could,” Rami answered. “That djinn might have a rough tongue, but his heart’s soft for books.” His tone became worried. “Is he alright? I know the Ministry was attacked. I can’t imagine he would send you to me unless something had gone wrong.”

  “And why would he send us to you?” Fatma asked. She wasn’t trying to be rude, but she really needed this to move along. Besides, the public didn’t need to know about Zagros. The bookseller seemed to sense her mood.

  “Right, then. Let’s get to it.” He set down the book. “The One Thousand and One Nights. A common enough book. Really a work completed over time, by many authors. The first tales came from Persia and India and weren’t translated to Arabic until the eighth century. Sometime later, probably in Baghdad, a new set of stories joined the first along with some older folklore.”

  His eyes took on a storyteller’s twinkle, and Fatma sighed. This was going to take a while.

  “It wasn’t until the thirteenth century that stories from Syria and Egypt helped swell the number to a thousand,” he continued. “Some stories were only added recently—like the one about Ali Baba and the thieves. The conjuration of an imaginative Frenchman likely. Though these Forty Leopards I read about in the papers appear inspired by the tale, which itself drew inspiration from older stories. Since the arrival of the djinn, newer tales are being spun within coffeehouses and in backstreets. Probably some right here in Azbakeya. I suppose when it comes to The One Thousand and One Nights, we are ever swelling its pages.”

  There was an impatient click of the tongue from Tsega, and Rami shook himself from his reverie.

  “At any rate, you’re likely familiar with the more traditional tales. You probably even have favorites.”

  Of course, Fatma thought. She’d known them since she was a girl. “The Merchant and the Djinn.” “Abdullah the Fisherman.” “The Ebony Horse.” When she got older she read the more frightening ones—like “Gherib and His Brother Agib,” filled with ravenous ghuls—or downright bawdy ones, like “Ali with the Large Member.” There were stories about mansions on the moon and mermen or talking trees, each more fantastic than the next.

  “I always liked ‘The Three Apples,’” Hadia related. “And ‘The Tale of the Murdered Girl.’ Things like that. About mysteries that had to be solved.”

  “Seems fitting.” Rami nodded. He tilted his head to the side. “What about ‘The City of Brass’? What do you remember about it?”

  “The one with King Sulayman, yes?” Hadia asked. “About some people on a quest?”

  “Looking for a lost city,” Fatma added. The story had been a favorite as a child. “There were brass horses, people who had been petrified, a mummified queen…”

  “Oh! I remember the mummified queen!” Hadia added briskly.

  “Do you remember what it was the quest was searching for?” Rami asked.

  Hadia opened her mouth, then frowned. Fatma did the same. She recounted the story in her head—so vivid with its living marionettes and humanlike machines, which many scholars now thought were early djinn-created precursors to boilerplate eunuchs. But she couldn’t recall what the quest was about. And that was odd—as it was the whole point of the story.

  “I don’t remember,” she admitted.

  “Perhaps this will help.” Rami opened the book to a page, tapping it with his finger. “Go ahead. Read. What the quest was about is right there.”

  Fatma’s eyes scanned the text. It read easily enough, written in that old style and rhythm typical to these stories. It started with a king and a discussion over the prophet Sulayman. A sailor landing in a strange kingdom with black-skinned people who were naked and walked around like wild beasts, without speech. She frowned. Had that part always been so uncomfortably racist? There was something about a djinn she couldn’t quite grasp. Her mind seemed to slip around the words. Putting it out of her head, she continued searching. The quest was begun by a character named Talib. Only she couldn’t see exactly why. She tried again, reading slower, ignoring the places where the words appeared to just skate out of her vision. Shaking her head, she slid the book toward Hadia who was craning to get a view.

  “I didn’t find anything,” she said. “What was I supposed to see?”

  The bookseller smiled, exchanging a knowing look with his wife. “Stop playing with them, Rami, and just explain,” she chided. Then to Fatma, “With his dramatics, sometimes I think he should have gone into the theater. Back home, he might have made a good Sulayman in the staging of the Kebra Negast. Or maybe one of the debating Coptic orthodox fathers in the overture.”

  Rami snorted at the remark but answered. “What you aren’t quite seeing is where the purpose of the quest is mentioned. The seekers were attempting to find a set of brass vessels that once belonged to King Sulayman. It was said he trapped djinn within, using his seal, before throwing them into the sea.” He tapped the book again. “Do you see it now?”

  Fatma took anoth
er look—and saw what he was talking about immediately. The words were right there, plain as day. Talib had learned of vessels of brass used to house djinn, who had been trapped there by King Sulayman using his signet ring. He had gone on the quest, searching for them. There was even a symbol drawn to the side of the text—a hexagram made of two interlocking pyramids embedded in a circle. Where had she seen that before? Something was written beneath the symbol, in djinn script.

  “The Seal of Sulayman,” Hadia translated, eyes fixed on the hexagram. She frowned, looking to the bookseller. “What’s that? And why didn’t we see any of this a moment ago?”

  Rami pointed a finger upward, wagging it tellingly. “Two questions of the same kind. Like either side of a coin. The Seal of Sulayman is many things. Sometimes it is a six-pointed star, or a five-pointed star, or eight, even twelve. At other times it’s the symbol on the page, often enclosed in a circle. The image became popular in Renaissance Europe and with later believers in the occult, who likely adopted it from far earlier esoteric Judaic, Byzantine, and Islamic traditions.” At those words, Fatma remembered where she’d seen the symbol—on the banner of the Brotherhood of Al-Jahiz! Only the circle was a fiery serpent devouring its tail.

  “No one is exactly certain what the seal looked like,” Rami went on. “But there is a very interesting account in ‘The City of Brass’ about the djinn said to be trapped by Sulayman. It tells of a ring. Some say the ring is engraved with the seal, placed there by God. Others, that the ring itself is the seal. The one claim they all agree upon is that the ring granted Sulayman power over spirits. In Islamic tradition, that meant control over the djinn!”

  Fatma glared at the bookseller. A ring that could control djinn! A ring that would make one the Master of Djinn!

  “Why haven’t we heard of this before?” Hadia asked. Fatma wanted to know that as well. It seemed impossible the Ministry could have overlooked something so important.

  “The other side of the coin,” Rami pronounced. He looked intently at Hadia. “That is a beautiful hijab. So very modern. Forgive an old man for being so forward, but it goes well with your eyes.” He next turned to Fatma. “I could say as much for your tie. That color is red?”

  “Magenta,” Fatma replied, looking as uncertain as Hadia. What was he getting at?

  The bookseller leaned forward. “What were we just talking about?”

  Fatma opened her mouth to answer. Then stopped. Her mind had gone inexplicably blank. She quickly recounted the past few minutes. They’d sat down to talk about The One Thousand and One Nights, he mentioned “The City of Brass,” asked them to read a page and … and … She looked to Hadia for help, but the woman seemed equally perplexed. Fatma’s eyes went down to the book, scanning the page. Just the story. And those words her mind slipped around that she ignored.

  “We were talking about the Seal of Sulayman,” Rami said helpfully. “A talisman with the power of control over the djinn.”

  Memories flooded back in an instant. As Fatma watched, the blurring words on the page turned firm. And the symbol reappeared. She almost jumped from her chair.

  “What just happened?” Hadia whispered, looking like she might also bolt to her feet.

  “Drink your tea,” Tsega told them, waving her slender fingers encouragingly. “The leaves it’s brewed from bring calm. You’ll need a bit of that for what comes next.”

  Fatma had only taken slight sips, because the tea was actually rather bitter—with a nutty taste. She found herself now, however, downing a whole gulp. After she’d swallowed, she eyed the bookseller firmly. “Explain.”

  The small man sat back, choosing his words before speaking. “You know, they call al-Jahiz the Master of Djinn. But it’s a misnomer. He never used such a title. It was given to him after he disappeared—part of the myths and legends that swirl about him.” He moved a hand as if clearing the stories away. “In truth, al-Jahiz was known to abhor slavery. He himself may have once been a slave and preached against it at every turn. So I cannot believe he would ever own a ring that would rob from djinn their free will. That would make them little more than slaves.”

  “But you said the ring was given to Sulayman by God,” Hadia countered.

  Rami held his palms open before him. “So the stories say. Sometimes gifted to him for his wisdom. In other accounts to bind and punish disobedient djinn. But it later became a talisman to be wielded over all djinn. That hardly seems fair, or just. I’m sure djinn might tell their own version of events. Who can even know if it was first held by Sulayman. Or if it is a thing far older, perhaps not even of this world. Whatever the truth, if I were the djinn of today, returned, would I want anyone to know of a ring that could grant power over me? That could once again make me a slave?”

  Fatma stared, incredulous. “You’re saying that someone created a type of magic, a spell, to make everyone forget about this Seal of Sulayman?”

  “Not just forget,” Tsega corrected. “To hide it from our eyes in books. To banish it from our histories.” She tapped her temple. “To make it slip from our very minds.”

  “All our books,” her husband added. “All our writings. Anywhere the Seal of Sulayman is mentioned, it becomes hard to read. We are left with gaps we aren’t even aware are there. Do you understand what I’m saying? This magic doesn’t just conceal the truth, it makes us accept the absence! The silence! It forces our minds to work to make those gaps make sense!”

  Fatma looked to Hadia, who appeared just as stupefied. The type of magic required to accomplish such a thing was mind-boggling. It staggered any concept of sorcery they understood. It made the Ministry and all their studies seem like the tinkering of children in the face of forces that defied comprehension.

  “Then how did you know?” she asked the bookseller. “How did you see it?”

  He put on a smug smile. “I’m a very curious man. It has gotten me in more than a bit of trouble in life. But it has its uses. When I encountered those gaps, they bothered me. It was as if the silence they were trying to create was too loud.”

  “He’s just stubborn,” Tsega interjected tersely. “A head like stone.”

  The bookseller ignored his wife, continuing. “I would go back to read a page again and again, feeling I was missing something. Then one day, I caught a peek. The magic, it turns out, has its own gaps—spaces that can’t account for every mind. Once I was given that glimpse, it was only a matter of time before I could perceive it all.”

  “Why didn’t you come to the Ministry with this?” Hadia asked. “We needed to know!”

  Rami’s eyebrows rose. “Tell the Ministry about a sorcery grand enough to confound the entire world? And what would happen when whoever performed this all-powerful magic found me out? I said I was curious, not suicidal!”

  “But you did tell someone at the Ministry,” Fatma said. “Zagros.”

  “My djinn friend,” Rami confirmed. “And a fellow bibliophile. Surely, if anyone knew of this, I was certain it would be him.” He frowned. “But when I asked, he began to act … strangely. Not as if he wouldn’t answer me but—”

  “—as if he couldn’t,” Fatma finished. It’s why Zagros had sent them here. The bookseller was the one person capable of telling them what they needed to know.

  “The magic works differently on the djinn, I think,” Rami pondered. “They appear to know but cannot speak it. It ties up their tongues.”

  “When we stopped talking about the seal we forgot about it,” Fatma said. “Will that happen again?”

  He nodded. “The magic is potent. But I have devised my methods to take advantage of its gaps.” He gestured at the clocks about the shop, where the hand was just close to the hour. “Give it a moment.”

  They did, waiting as the seconds ticked down and the hour struck. Every clock in the place erupted in chimes and bells, even whistles—alongside automata that beat drums or danced and sang. In the midst of the clamor the bookseller and his wife took out folded sheets and began to read. He handed an e
xtra copy to Fatma. It read simply: Remember the Seal of Sulayman, and the ring to control the djinn.

  When the clocks stopped, he slipped the sheet back into his vest, patting the pocket. “I think of it as a kind of medicine. Take it every hour or when needed. That way, the memory doesn’t fade.”

  Fatma gave him her appreciation, folding away her own note. “Have you ever heard or read anything about Nine Ifrit Lords? A djinn lullaby? Maybe Zagros mentioned it?”

  Rami shook his head. “Zagros never talked about djinn lullabies.”

  Well, it was worth a shot. “Could you give us the names of books with any mention of the Seal of Sulayman and a magic ring capable of controlling djinn?”

  The bookseller nodded eagerly. “That I can do! I’ve put together a list!” He got up, talking to himself as he began rummaging through his holdings. Fatma moved to follow but was stopped by a hand on her arm. Tsega bid her and Hadia to stay a moment, her voice low.

  “Rami will not tell you this. More than once, he has disappeared from the shop. Sometimes for a whole day. He does not remember leaving or where he’s gone. But when he returns, it is as if he has to relearn all he knew about the seal.”

  Fatma read her naked concern. “You think someone is taking him? Making him forget?”

  She answered with a solemn nod. “I fear what toll it will take on his mind.”

  “Do you know who’s doing it?” Hadia asked.

  The woman’s lips drew tight. “I cannot say with certainty. But once I hid, and watched him close, to see when he might be taken again. I never saw the kidnapper. But I heard him!” She spoke the last words with a hiss. “It was the sound of wings! Mechanical wings!”

  Fatma inhaled sharply. “An angel,” she whispered.