A Master of Djinn: 1 (Dead Djinn Universe)

by P. Djèlí Clark

  The older woman paused, inspecting them with hard eyes. “Odd, that, don’t you think?” She turned back to her work. “When Usta Khalid told me you wanted to ask questions about my contract for Siwa, I agreed. Because something has been troubling me these past few weeks. The last time he hired us, it was to steal two items. Said it was very important that I go myself. I did.” Seeing their surprised looks, she frowned. “Don’t let these old bones fool you. I’m quite agile. I retrieved the items with the information he provided—telling me precisely where to find it in the angels’ vault. But a strange thing. I recall stealing a sword—a blade dark as midnight that sings. The other item, however.” She frowned deeper. “When I try to remember what else I stole—”

  “—you can’t,” Fatma finished.

  Confusion creased the Leopardess’s sharp eyes. “I can’t remember anything from that night other than retrieving the sword. Like a hole in my memory. I don’t know what else I came out with from that vault. But then this man in the gold mask appears on Cairo’s streets. Wielding that very black blade. Claiming to be al-Jahiz. Riding on the back of an Ifrit!” She shook her head at the implausibility. “We were paid handsomely. But I cannot help but feel I played a hand in the wrongness that has gripped the city. And every night since coming out of that vault, I dream ill omens. Something terrible is coming.” She paused. “I’m telling you this because I believe you are trying to stop that.”

  “We are,” Fatma assured. “You’ve been a great help. Now we have to visit—”

  “All well and good,” the older woman cut in. “Once you finish here.” She gestured pointedly to an empty bowl. A small girl with a bit of dirt on her nose sat behind it, looking up expectantly. “Now keep spooning out food. These children are hungry.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Fatma and Hadia arrived at the Street of the Tentmakers in early afternoon, heading directly to the Gamal Brothers shop. With business slow, the three proprietors sat about drinking tea. Two played a board game while a third watched, the gramophone sounding a scratchy recording of horns and darbukas. She and Hadia flashed badges, and the men absently directed them toward the narrow stairs. Reaching the top, they rapped on the door. Siwa opened with a warm smile—which evaporated upon seeing them. The Illusion djinn moved to shut the door but Fatma rammed her cane between.

  “We know you’re involved with this imposter. So you can talk now. Or we can have the Ministry bring you in with every agent I can round up. What’s it going to be?”

  The djinn glared with those swirling yellow-green eyes, looking the part of a menacing Marid. Then, realizing she wouldn’t back down, the fight seemed to go out of him. He slumped and let them inside.

  “You can also stop with the illusions,” Fatma said, gesturing at the opulent space.

  The djinn made a face, waving a hand in the air as if cleaning it. Instantly, the illusion vanished. They stood in a small room with faded walls lined by worn and chipped shelves stacked haphazardly with books. The once neat mounds of texts were disorderly piles. Murals of camels still remained—cheaper paintings depicting races and their riders. Strewn across the floor were discarded betting slips in the hundreds.

  The change in the towering djinn was no less startling—now a squat figure dressed in rumpled robes. Still bigger than a human, but nowhere the size of a Marid. His orange-striped overly large head resembled a cat’s, with a broad down-turned mouth that made him look petulant. With an undignified huff, he waddled over and promptly fell into a rickety worn wooden chair, resting his chin in his hands and whimpering.

  Fatma and Hadia exchanged a look and moved to where he sat, trying not to stumble over the mess.

  “Siwa,” Fatma said. “We just want to talk.”

  The djinn whimpered harder, burying his face in his hands and shaking his head. Beside him, a rounded woven basket rattled—as if something were alive inside. She and Hadia stepped back, uncertain they wanted to find out what that might be.

  “We know about the Seal of Sulayman,” Fatma said. “We know what it does.” That only made Siwa release a long terrible moan. “We also know that you had it stolen by the Forty Leopards.”

  Siwa’s wailing cut off, and he looked up with eyes no longer hypnotizing but filled with fear. “The sweetest way of life we have experienced is one spent in indulgence and wine drinking!” he blurted. “For we are the lads, the only lads who really matter, on land and sea!”

  Fatma sighed. This again. “We asked before about the money wired to you from this AW in Portendorf’s ledger. That’s who has the ring, isn’t it? The imposter calling himself al-Jahiz.”

  Siwa shook his head harder now, his words choking. “He was all black, even as I tell ye! His head! His body! And his hands were all black! Saving only his teeth! His shield and his armor were even those of a Moor! And black as a Raven!”

  “Who is this AW?” Fatma pressed, getting annoyed. “Who was it that asked you to steal the ring? Was it Alexander Worthington?”

  Siwa emitted a strangled cry, pulling a knife from his rumpled kaftan. Before Fatma could stop him, he extended a long dark blue tongue and in one quick swipe—cut it off. Beside her, Hadia made a heaving sound.

  The djinn slumped back into his chair, his ruined tongue bleeding messily onto his clothing. Then, as they watched, the blood stopped. The wound amazingly healed, and before their eyes, the tongue began to grow back. It took perhaps a minute, but at the end it had grown back fully. The djinn still held the severed organ in one hand, which jerked about—still alive. He moved to the woven basket and lifted the lid. Inside sat a mass of blue fleshy things that jumped around like fish. Only Fatma knew that’s not what they were. They were tongues. A mass of severed tongues.

  “Ya Rabb!” Hadia croaked weakly. “Now I’m definitely going to be sick.”

  The djinn closed the basket and looked at them with sad resignation. Fatma met his gaze. The magic that prevented djinn from talking about the Seal of Sulayman was one thing. But he’d cut out his tongue again at the mention of Alexander Worthington, not the ring. The angels’ magic was exacting, but this was different—cruel and sadistic.

  “It’s another spell,” she realized. “On top of the one that already binds you not to talk about the seal. Any mention of al—” Her words cut off as Siwa tensed, gripping the knife with pleading eyes. “Any naming of the imposter,” she amended, “or talk of the theft, forces you to spout gibberish.”

  “Not gibberish,” Hadia corrected, eyeing the thumping basket. “You said before it was literature, from his books. I recognized that first bit. It’s from one of the Maqāmah.”

  Fatma hadn’t heard that term since university. “Aren’t they collections of stories from the ninth or tenth century?”

  “That’s right. We had to read them to pick up the rhythm of the prose, which is also used in some Basri incantations. ‘The sweetest way of life we have experienced is one spent in indulgence … For we are the lads, the only lads who really matter.’ It’s a boast of one of the leaders of a group of thieves. I think he was responding to you about the Forty Leopards. He’s actually trying to talk.”

  The thought that the djinn might be communicating with them hadn’t even occurred to Fatma. “‘He was all black…’” she quoted, recalling his frantic words. “‘His shield and his armor were even those of a Moor … black as a Raven.’ I don’t know where that’s from. But he must be speaking about al-Jahiz. Or the imposter’s illusion.”

  Siwa relaxed the grip on his knife, exhaling lengthily. He reached again into his robes, this time pulling out a set of folded papers and offering them with a shaking hand. Fatma took the sheets, smoothing back their wrinkled surfaces. The first was filled with almost unreadable scrawling. Djinn script. Just two words.

  “I told,” Fatma translated. The rest was erratic scribbling amid a red smear.

  “I think that’s blood.” Hadia grimaced.

  Fatma went to the next page. “Seal.” That was all, before the mark
ings became obscure.

  She shuffled through the rest, as Hadia read. “Spoke of … Gave … Wrong … Tricked … Messengers … Slavery … Damned. Damned. Damned.” That only word on the last few sheets grew more indecipherable between splatters of blood.

  “An attempt at a confession,” Fatma worked out. She looked to Siwa, who covered his eyes with one hand, then to the basket of quivering tongues. “You tried to write what you’d done. But even the smallest bit cost you. This whole business of cutting out your tongue, the imposter did that to you.” She was struck with pity. How many times had he painfully maimed himself? Grabbing a nearby stool made for a djinn—which meant it was large as a bench—she pulled it close and sat down. Hadia joined her. Perhaps there was another way.

  “You like the races,” Fatma said, gesturing to a mural.

  Siwa lowered his hand and looked to the painting. “They are beautiful when they run,” he replied. So he could still talk normally. As long as it wasn’t about the imposter.

  “I have a cousin who bets on camel races,” Hadia said. “Too much. Like you. It’s not your fault. It’s a sickness.”

  Siwa’s face crumpled. “I should have just been an archivist. It was my passion. Until the races. Then that became my passion. I lost my employment to it and turned to any means of getting money—so I could keep going to the races.” He motioned to the betting slips across the floor. “I do not know how to stop!”

  Fatma could only imagine. Djinn were like people in a way, in picking up vices or habits. But it was worse for them. Their passions truly became just that—insatiable and unquenching. Almost as bad as golems.

  “You took the list from the angels to fund your gambling,” Fatma said. “Finding Alistair Worthington’s Brotherhood must have been a gold mine.”

  “It was only supposed to be a few items,” Siwa said sorrowfully. “But it became more.”

  “When did you realize the angels were using you?” she asked. “In your confession. You wrote the words ‘Tricked.’ And ‘Messengers.’ They’re the ones that let you take the list. You must have figured it out. Known it couldn’t be so easy to steal from them. But you kept doing it. For the money.” If the djinn’s orange face could blush, it would. He hung his head. “We’re not here to judge. But we need to know about the one thing you didn’t steal for Alistair Worthington. That you stole for someone else.”

  Siwa’s face immediately seized up, the magic taking hold.

  “We won’t say anyone’s name directly,” Fatma added hastily. “Maybe we can talk without making you hurt yourself.”

  The djinn looked her over before acquiescing. “I will try. To help undo what I have helped unleash.” It seemed that like the head of the Forty Leopards, he too needed some absolution.

  “Can you nod or shake your head at questions?”

  “Not if they are about…” His lips drew tight, unable to finish.

  Of course it wouldn’t be that easy. Magic never was.

  “The imposter asked you to steal the Seal of Sulayman,” she began.

  Siwa visibly struggled before speaking. “Indeed, each one says: ‘My faith is right, and those who believe in another faith believe in falsehood, and are the enemies of God. As my own faith appears true to me, so does another one find his own faith true; but truth is one!’”

  “I think that’s a long way of saying yes,” Hadia reasoned.

  One down, Fatma thought.

  “Was it you that told the imposter about the ring?”

  “Soul receives from soul that knowledge,” the djinn answered curtly. “Therefore not by book, nor from tongue. If knowledge of mysteries come after emptiness of mind, that is illumination of heart!”

  “I think he’s saying the imposter learned it on their own,” Hadia translated. “The angels told us as much. That some people were just strong-willed enough to see through their magic. And that Marid, he said the ring had its own mind. That it would only reveal itself to someone it believed could wield it.”

  “Aywa,” Fatma commended. She was good at this. “The imposter saw the ring on your list and came asking after it. You probably refused at first. But you needed the money.”

  The djinn scowled in self-recrimination, his down-turned mouth spreading wider. “The learned man whom you accuse of disobeying divine law knows that he disobeys, as you do when you drink wine or exact usury or allow yourself in evil-speaking, lying, and slander. You know your sin and yield to it, not through ignorance but because you are mastered by concupiscence.”

  Hadia frowned in concentration, deciphering. “He’s admitting his weakness?”

  “Last one,” Fatma said. “The money wired for the ring. It came from the imposter?”

  Siwa’s face strained as he fought to speak, guilt plain on his face.

  “You have an illness,” Hadia said gently. “The person who knew this took advantage. Those … angels … knew this and took advantage as well. That is the true wickedness.” She looked to Fatma. “I think that’s confirmation enough.”

  Fatma agreed. No need to agitate the djinn further. “Now we know for certain. The imposter is one and the same as the AW from Portendorf’s ledger. We know who that is. He had the ring stolen. And used it to make himself the Master of Djinn. All the things we’ve seen this imposter do, his mysterious powers, come through that ring—willing djinn to use their sorcery as his own.”

  “God protect us,” Hadia whispered, hand to her heart. “How do we stop evil like that?”

  “We get the ring back,” Fatma insisted. “If we have to take his hand to do it.”

  She stood up, her mind already on what they had to do next, when Siwa unexpectedly grabbed her arm. The djinn’s face was a mass of frustration.

  “So you did not care for full-bosomed companions?” he bellowed. “How does it suit you to be tested by the lion of the forest?”

  Fatma looked to Hadia, who this time seemed equally baffled.

  “I don’t understand,” she told the djinn.

  “How does it suit you to be tested by the lion of the forest!” he repeated. He said it several more times, growing more frustrated. When he started reaching for his knife, Fatma held out her own hand to stop him.

  “Maybe you could show me,” she suggested.

  Siwa’s large eyes widened. He jumped up, almost knocking her over to get to his books. In a frenzy, he tore into them, tossing texts into the air as he searched. Fatma exchanged another look with Hadia, who shook her head. There was a cry of triumph, and the djinn ran back to them, a bound leather tome in his hand. Turning to the first page, he displayed the words: Sirat al-amira Dhāt al-Himma.

  He thrust it at Fatma. “I’ll read it,” she assured, taking the text. A look of relief washed over his face, and he returned to slump into his chair.

  “The Tale of Lady Dhāt al-Himma,” Hadia noted, inspecting the title. “Do you know it?”

  Fatma shook her head. “I’m sure there’s somebody at the Ministry who does. We’re heading back there now. Time to see Dr. Hoda. Think I’m ready for another try at my illusion.”

  * * *

  “Are you concentrating? Don’t think about what you want the illusion to be. Let it reveal itself. Remember, empty your mind. Empty your—”

  “I got it.” Fatma cut off Dr. Hoda. This was trying enough, without her hovering and giving instructions. The chief of forensics shrugged, pushing back her glasses and folding her arms. But she barely moved to give any space.

  Fatma returned her focus to the lock of hair sitting on a large petri dish and soaked through in liquid. Dr. Hoda claimed the alchemical solution had done its work, breaking down the bonds binding the magic about it. Now she had to do the rest.

  Only that was proving difficult. She’d been staring at the lock of hair now for almost a half an hour. Nothing had changed. Not a single strand.

  “Maybe it needs more solution,” Fatma suggested.

  The doctor shook a head of frizzy hair. “Do that, and it might dissolve away
.”

  “Great,” Fatma grumbled. She could go to Amir with everything they had now. But the cryptic words of angels, the head of a notorious thieving gang, and an Illusion djinn with a gambling addiction weren’t the most convincing sources. They needed this last piece to tie things together—something Amir and the higher-ups couldn’t ignore.

  “Just show yourself,” she muttered to the lock.

  “You can do this.” Hadia spoke confidently. “Think about everything we’ve learned in the past two days. Trust in that. It’s gotten us this far.”

  Everything they’d learned, Fatma considered. Parts of the puzzle had been coming together. A ring that could control djinn. Kept by angels and stolen from them. All tying back to the Brotherhood of Al-Jahiz. It was all there. She just needed to make the pieces fit. Focusing, she let her mind empty of everything else and took her lead from all she now knew. The picture it painted was easy enough to see. It had always been there, right in front of her.

  The change wasn’t as quick as the mask—as if the magic fought her. But once it began, it didn’t stop. The dark fibers of knotted hair untangled, becoming straight and less wiry. As she watched, once black strands turned a familiar pale gold. Dr. Hoda clapped while Hadia stared in wonder.

  Fatma picked up the pale gold lock and held it up triumphantly. “Got you!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  By late afternoon, papers had been sent for the arrest of Alexander Worthington.

  Fatma read the list of charges—terrorism, inciting civil unrest, use of illicit magic, disturbing the king’s peace. News of the ring—which they’d had to repeat over and over again—had caused alarm enough to get the warrant. Turned out the Worthington heir wasn’t above the law after all, not when it came to a threat like that.

  They’d even established a motive: an ambitious son who resented his father’s eccentricity; who felt he should be heir sooner rather than later. Masquerading as al-Jahiz seemed right in line with making a mockery of all the Worthington patriarch held dear. The sudden investments into weapons contractors, the interruption of the peace summit: all attempts to undo his father’s legacy. They’d even resolved the discrepancy over his arrival in the city. A man able to control djinn could easily forge travel documents. It all fit.