The Seal

by J F Mehentee

  ‘The spy’s report confirms what we’ve suspected: the djinn have our itinerary, and they’re evacuating daevas a day or two before we reach a city. We should bypass Derbicca and head north instead of south.’

  The general looked up and shook his head. Sassan knew the general wasn’t afraid to challenge him.

  ‘Remember, High Magus, Derbicca is a supply stop,’ the general said. ‘If we head north today, it means the men marching for two days on half rations.’

  The general was right and had been throughout the expedition. As Sassan was not used to having his decisions questioned back in Persepae’s high temple, it had taken several weeks before he recognised a pattern: the general challenged him only for the sake of his men and never in front of the other officers.

  ‘Very good,’ Sassan said. And to remind the general who was in charge, he added, ‘From now on, all expedition dispatches must be marked For Destruction. I don’t want the djinn paying regular visits to Persepae’s archives and learning of what we’re up to.’

  The general took this as his cue to rise. The conversation was over.

  ‘I’ll send the order the moment we arrive in Derbicca, High Magus. Think, speak and act well.’

  ‘Think, speak and act well, General,’ Sassan said, then stood and exited the tent.

  Outside and on his way to his own tent, Sassan asked himself if he’d done the right thing. He’d agreed a tactical decision of a military nature. So what if the men were a little hungry for two days? God continually tested all men. How else could they prove their worthiness to cross the Bridge of Judgement into Heaven and avoid being pitched back to this world to live another life?

  God sent the djinn and daevas to test you, he said to himself. But it will be the emperor, not God, who will judge you first if this mission is a failure.

  Three men waited outside his tent and stood to attention at his approach. Sassan ignored them—they were only waiting for him to exit it one last time before they could pack away his belongings and dismantle the tent.

  Inside, a heap of ash lay in the fire altar’s copper bowl. Sassan unwound the sash from around his waist, then shrugged off his magus’s robe—its white cotton smeared with ash and dust. He glanced at the table and the wooden plaque and its grid, each square a satrapy listing the names of the cities it governed. Sassan turned from it and pulled on his riding tunic. Then he knelt before the altar.

  Sassan prayed for the souls of those executed this morning. He knew his prayers had gotten shorter with each daeva he’d pronounced guilty. And it was getting harder to pray for those who threatened his mission. He squeezed his eyes shut and asked God for forgiveness.

  Blue, green and red light shimmered behind his eyelids. Sassan opened his eyes and reached for the stone altar to steady himself.

  Not now.

  As if struck by a giant hammer, the seizure jolted him out of himself. Sassan didn’t feel himself fall backwards or convulse before he hit the floor. He stood before the fire altar, his head bowed and his eyes fixed on the bowl of ash, which swirled at its centre. Four lines grew from the edges of the gyre to form a square. A column sprung from the centre of the whirling ash, tapering as it went until Sassan recognised a three-tiered ziggurat. The square surrounding the ziggurat had thickened to form a crenellated wall with ramparts. Watchtowers jutted from the two corners, two doors at the wall’s centre. Clustered around the ziggurat and its square stood one- and two-storeyed buildings, some with internal courtyards and all with flat roofs. More ash than could have filled the copper bowl flew up either side of the walled city. Steep mountain slopes protected the city’s upper and lower flanks. The sunlight illuminating the city doors sank. The wall opposite the doors faced a flat surface of rippling ash. Two boats with square-rigged sails cut through waves. More boats appeared, their hulls pointed in different directions. The boats furled their sails and became wedges, wedges Sassan recognised as writing.

  ‘Baka,’ he read, and then blacked out.

  Sassan tasted blood on his lips. He opened his eyes. Above him, a cloud of blue-grey smoke dissipated. He pulled himself onto his elbows and gazed up. The smoke had gone. Unaware of how long he’d lain on his tent’s rug, he sat up and checked to see if he’d hurt himself. He’d bitten his lip, and he experienced pressure against the inside of his skull. Unlike the other magi, he refused diluted poppy juice to manage the pain after weaving magic—he needed his wits about him, constantly. The pain inside his head, however, made thinking difficult.

  Sassan pushed himself up and, for no reason he could think of, peered into the fire altar’s bowl.

  An image of a walled city with a single ziggurat filled Sassan’s mind and eased the pressure threatening to tear his head apart.

  ‘Baka,’ he said, his lips stretching into a smile.

  God had sent him a vision: Baka, the city of daevas. So, it existed, but where?

  Giddy with excitement, Sassan issued a silent prayer of thanks and shuffled to the table and the rectangular plaque on top of it. His eyes darted over the five-by-four grid. None of the squares listed a city named Baka.

  Where? Where is it?

  He closed his eyes and reran the vision, his hands squeezing the table’s edge. Sassan’s eyes opened and widened as he grinned.

  The light on the city doors—it had sunk, as if the sun were setting.

  Sassan sidled to his right. The Casperan Sea skirted the eastern edge of the empire. Arranged according to the four cardinal directions, the grid’s only two eastern satrapies, the middle two squares, faced the sea.

  Sassan leaned over the squares and, thinking he’d missed it the first time, ran a finger down the list of cities.

  ‘It’s not there,’ he said. Frustrated, he pursed his lips and squeezed his hand into a fist.

  A drop of blood fell onto the third square down, the spatter landing on the outer, eastern edge of the Caspas satrapy.

  Sassan touched his lip. Blood covered the tip of his finger.

  Not only had he received a vision, God had sent him a sign. Baka was in Caspas.

  14

  Two hours had passed since Roshan and Yesfir had stepped through a portal and entered Derbicca. Navid shifted his weight from one buttock to the other. Human for only six hours and unaccustomed to sitting cross-legged, his knees, hips and the base of his spine ached.

  With the king called away and just Behrouz, Zana and himself waiting for Roshan’s and Yesfir’s return, he didn’t think it necessary to ask permission to stand.

  ‘There’s no need for all three of us to wait,’ Behrouz said. He appraised Navid, then nodded at the audience chamber’s exit. ‘You’re not used to standing on two feet. Go for a walk; reacquaint yourself with being human again. As soon they return, I’ll send word.’ He gave the dozing manticore a shake, waking him. ‘And take Zana with you. He could do with some exercise.’

  The audience chamber was large enough for Navid to walk around and loosen his joints. Behrouz stared at the spot where Roshan had raised her portal. Anxiety lined his brow. Navid decided the daeva was in no mood for conversation and happier if left alone.

  ‘Come on, Zana,’ Navid said. ‘Let’s go explore the city.’

  Outside the palace, sunlight penetrated the vaulted ceiling of sand and filled the cavern with a haze of straw-coloured light. To Navid’s right, pergolas arched between facing terraces. Bougainvillaea, peppered with golden flowers, trailed across them. Navid led Zana towards the paved street, the waterfall thundering behind them, humidifying and cooling the air.

  Until they reached a crossroads, the houses on both sides were shuttered and their doors closed. Farther up, Navid heard children playing. Zana’s pace faltered. The manticore recovered and then sped towards the sound. Navid switched pace to keep up with him

  Two girls played, their wooden swords clacking against the other. A third child, a boy and like the girls no more than nine years old, leaned against the wall next to an open doorway, a stylus in his right hand. Intent o
n the tablet resting in his lap, he didn’t see Zana’s approach. The girls lowered their swords and stared at the manticore. They shared the same slim-bridged nose and bow-shaped mouth. Their tunics and leggings were clean but worn in places. The shorter of the two yanked up the arms of her tunic. Her leggings crumpled around her ankles.

  The boy glanced up from his tablet. His eyes, rimmed with orange flames, became circles.

  ‘A manticore,’ he said. The wonder in his voice turned it breathy. The boy recited an invocation over his tablet.

  Navid had heard Roshan use the same invocation for the wet clay to memorise her jottings and then clear its surface.

  Instead of pressing the end of his stylus into the clay, the boy moved it across the tablet’s surface as if it were a brush on papyrus. While he worked, he droned an incantation.

  ‘You’re not a very big manticore,’ the taller of the two girls said.

  Zana dropped onto his haunches.

  ‘Have you seen others like me?’ he said, excitement raising the pitch of his voice.

  Both girls shook their heads.

  ‘Mother’s seen them in Baka,’ the boy said. He continued to work and didn’t look up from his tablet. ‘She’s over there now, helping to clear parts of the city buried under sand. Sometimes, the manticores come down from the mountain to help.’

  ‘She’s seen them?’ Navid said, sharing Zana’s excitement.

  The boy nodded. Again, he muttered the same incantation, then pressed a line of symbols into the smooth surface. The clay pulsed from the centre, the waves forming shapes as they spread outwards. He held up the tablet.

  ‘They look like humans when they leave the mountain,’ he said, pointing at the sketch of a man and a woman dressed in robes. The boy aimed his stylus at Zana. ’Mother said they looked like him when they first offered to help. They were taller than any of the daevas and djinn, and their paws were as wide as a man’s face.’

  Zana rose to inspect the boy’s drawing.

  ‘They shape-shifted?’ he said.

  The boy nodded. He summoned his drawing of Zana and held it up.

  ‘You look just the way Mother says they do.’

  ‘Do you have lots of teeth?’ the shorter girl said.

  Navid nudged Zana. The boy’s drawing had mesmerised the manticore.

  ‘Huh?’ Zana said.

  ‘They want to know if you have lots of teeth.’

  Zana turned and opened his mouth.

  Both girls squealed their delight.

  ‘Three rows,’ the boy remarked. He glanced up at Navid, his brow furrowed. ‘You’re not a djinn and you’re not a human. Are you a manticore?’

  The way the boy had looked at him unnerved Navid more than his question had. What had this boy seen the others, including Roshan, hadn’t noticed?

  Until yesterday, I was a rat, he wanted to say, but thought better of it—he’d only further pique the boy’s curiosity.

  ‘You’re very good at drawing,’ he said, then headed down the street. ’Come on, Zana. Time we were going.’

  ‘Show us your teeth again,’ the shorter girl said. ‘Please.’

  Navid grinned when he heard the girls squeal.

  As soon as Zana reached him, Navid asked if either Behrouz or Yesfir had said anything about there being manticores living in the mountains around Baka?

  ‘When I asked them, they said they’d heard rumours. Now they’ve been confirmed, Father’s promised to take me to Baka. I don’t think Mother’s happy about it, but Father said I’m getting older and I’m no longer a cub.’

  The doors and shutters of the houses either side of them were closed. Above, Navid noticed how the leaves and stems of the bougainvillaea had shrivelled and turned brown.

  The manticore had always seemed happy with Behrouz and Yesfir as his foster parents. While a rat, Navid had never gotten around to getting Roshan to ask Zana why he was so desperate to find the manticores.

  ‘When you reach Baka and you find them, what will you do?’ Navid said.

  ‘I want them to teach me how to shape-shift. Then, I’ll be able to look like Mother and Father and look after them when they’re older.’

  Navid heard a bleat. One storey above him, a goat stood on the edge of a parapet.

  ‘Ow!’ he exclaimed when he stubbed his big toe against something rough and solid. His sandalled foot had struck a piece of rock shaped into an oval brick. Several other bricks lay around it, and looked as if they belonged to the gap in the parapet. He stepped back when he heard dried mortar spill onto the paving slab in front of him.

  ‘This whole place is falling apart,’ he said.

  ‘Navid, what’s that on the end of your toe?’

  In place of a nail, a translucent white claw curved up from Navid’s big toe. Similar sickle-shaped claws had sprung from his toes’ nailbeds.

  Roshan’s magic is wearing off. I’m becoming a rat again.

  The claws straightened as they retracted into his toes. A nail slid over each of the nail beds.

  Navid held out his arm and leaned against the wall. He withdrew it when he remembered the fallen chunk of parapet.

  ‘Did you… Did you see that?’

  Zana sniffed Navid’s toes before answering.

  ‘I did. How did you do it?’

  Navid took several deep breaths and waited for the trembling to stop.

  ‘I don’t know. I jammed my toe against a brick, and suddenly I had claws.’

  ‘And you changed them back.’

  He’d thought he was changing back into a rat, something he didn’t want to happen.

  Navid raised his hand. Could he do the same, only in reverse?

  Why would you want to do that?

  The goat bleated. It hadn’t moved.

  Yesterday, he could scale vertical walls with little fuss. Not only climb, he could run fast. Navid sniffed the air. The buck’s musk made his nostrils flare. And, back then, his nose detected smells Roshan’s couldn’t.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  Zana’s question interrupted this trail of thought. Navid still held his hand in front of him.

  ‘I’m thinking about doing it again but without mashing my toe.’

  Zana pouted.

  He wants to shape-shift, Navid thought, and here I am, thinking about turning myself back into a rat.

  ‘I’m thinking—no, I’m hoping Roshan’s magic changed me back into a human and more,’ he said. ‘If it works for me, maybe her magic will work for you.’

  The corners of Zana’s mouth reached his cheeks. He took a step closer to Navid and said, ‘Try it. Go on.’

  Navid stared at his hand, unsure what to do or say.

  When nothing happened, he said to himself, I want to be a rat. Still nothing. Claws. Change. I am a rat.

  The sight of his fingernails made him ball his hand into a fist. He felt the pointed ends of claws press against his palm before he saw them.

  Opaque claws, each one curved and half the length of the finger they protruded from, made it impossible for him to close his fists. Navid studied his toes. He squeezed them as if trying to shorten them. He experienced a tugging, not unpleasant, as his toenails slid behind their cuticles. Immediately, a claw emerged from the nailbed, straight at first and then arching as it grew.

  Zana sat down and sniffed Navid’s feet, his mane obscuring Navid’s view.

  Zana gave him a sideways look.

  ‘You haven’t grown any fur.’

  Careful not to scratch himself, Navid pulled back his tunic’s sleeves. Hair covered the top of each forearm, but not so much it could be mistaken for fur.

  This must have something to do with Roshan’s magic.

  His sister was in Derbicca. She should be back by now. Navid turned to face the palace, the paved street ahead of him. The goat’s hooves crunching against the parapet’s crumbling masonry gave him an idea.

  ‘I’ll race you back to the palace,’ Navid said. ‘You take the road and I’ll take the roofs.
I want to see what else has changed.’ Zana frowned. ‘The sooner we get back, the sooner we can ask Roshan if she’ll help you shape-shift.’

  Zana rose, extended his front legs and raised his hips in a stretch.

  ‘See you at the palace,’ Zana said, then darted off down the street.

  Navid regarded the goat. If he couldn’t get onto the roof, he’d ask his sister to cast a more thorough spell.

  ‘You might want to move,’ he said to the goat.

  The buck bleated its surprise and sprang back. Navid vaulted over both it and the parapet with a single, effortless jump.

  15

  The power behind washerwoman-Armaiti’s shove sent Roshan spinning over the rooftop’s edge. Roshan’s senses heightened. The air against her hands and face cooled. The sky and approaching ground alternated between a blue sheen and a grainy drab.

  Orange light exploded around her, and Roshan no longer spun. For a heartbeat, she hung a handspan above the dirt, and then Roshan hit the ground shoulder-first. The rest of her body followed, crushing it. Roshan flopped onto her back. Her vision blurred to a murky blue-grey.

  Above her came a shrill cry.

  ‘Djinni! Djinni! Djinni!’

  Roshan blinked. The murkiness cleared and her vision returned.

  A woman stood on a rooftop, pointing with one hand, a pair of leggings in the other. She caught sight of Roshan staring at her and stopped her yelling. Then, still pointing, she resumed her cries with desperate vigour.

  The washerwoman, Roshan remembered. There was nothing calm or assured in the woman’s voice. Armaiti no longer possessed her.

  Roshan rolled onto her left side, her right shoulder and arm numb, both refusing to move. She picked herself up.

  Confused by how she survived the fall and eager to avoid getting caught by the likes of Administrator Arman, Roshan turned. The washerwoman thought she was a djinni. She might as well behave as if she were one.

  A portal appeared before her, its rim orange. Beyond the destination window she saw Yesfir massaging Aeshma, who crouched over a column of wooden blocks. Emad, meanwhile, paced back and forth, a drawstring bag in one hand.