The Impossible Contract

by K A Doore

  “Djet’s research placed him firmly among these en-marab. When the First Priest became aware of his impressive discoveries, King To was forced to charge Djet with high treason for crimes against G-d. Djet was convicted, beheaded, and his body divided into many pieces, each of which was burnt, the ashes buried throughout the kingdom.”

  “Did his research warrant such a reaction?” asked the Empress, eyes bright.

  “Considering he worked to discover a way to rebind the jaani after the death of its body without risking insanity, thereby achieving a kind of immortality—I think not. His purpose was noble. King To was under a great deal of pressure from the First Priest, whose power at that time nearly rivaled his own. But then again, Djet might have been imprisoned like other designated en-marab of his time instead of so thoroughly executed if it weren’t for the number of peasants that perished during his research. While Djet understood the theory of binding jaan, he had difficulties translating it into practice.”

  “What, exactly, was he doing?”

  “The accounts vary, of course, and some of them are clearly sensationalized—”

  The Empress waved her hand. “We don’t need a discussion on historical accuracy right now. We trust your conclusions are sufficient.”

  Heru rolled up the scroll, shoved it back into Thana’s pile, and grabbed another. He held it up for the Empress. “According to the historian Shedou, who was only a few decades removed from the occurrences, and therefore most likely to have written an accurate representation of what happened, Djet first tried to bind the jaan of peasants. When that failed, he realized that he couldn’t bind a man’s own jaani to his body—doing so would upset the fine balance between the two. He bound a wild jaani instead, which proved more successful. Unfortunately, since he first had to separate the peasants’ jaan, their bodies failed, leaving him with an animated husk.

  “Through much trial and error, he discovered that the bound jaan responded to written, physical commands. This led him to develop his particular script, the one we found on the backs of his men. Unfortunately, the creatures that resulted from these written bindings, the bound, were still devoid of independent thought, of real life, and their bodies, if left alone, withered away to dust.”

  “How did Djet solve that problem?” asked the Empress.

  Heru snapped open a new scroll and pointed at a section entirely composed of symbols and numbers. “Jaan are dumb, wild things with little lingering energy for the purpose of sustaining life—that energy comes from the body. Djet needed to find a way to fill the role that the body served before it was severed from its jaani. But as far as he could calculate, there was no way to reanimate the body itself. He’d stumbled upon a seemingly unsolvable paradox: to achieve immortality, he had to bind his jaani. But to bind his own jaani, he had to first sever it, and doing so would kill him. An outside, self-sustaining source of energy was required to avert disaster.” He looked up, locking gazes with the Empress. “Djet concluded that only a sajaami has anywhere near the kind of energy needed.”

  The Empress was leaning forward now, her hands curled around the arms of her throne, her knuckles gone pale. “But the sajaam are a myth,” she said and her words were smooth, as if she’d said them a hundred times before.

  “Djet didn’t think so,” said Heru. “He was absorbed with finding them at the time of his unfortunate demise. His work was left unfinished, but there were rumors that he hid his notes somewhere in the palace.”

  “Perhaps he was not so unsuccessful,” said the Empress. “He appears to have returned to haunt us.”

  Heru nodded. “It’s possible that he discovered the whereabouts of the sajaam before his execution, yes. But he wouldn’t still be seeking to refine his methods if that were the case. I hypothesize that he found another way to cling to life and now he is searching for the sajaam to assure his immortality. Our only way of stopping him is to find the sajaam first.”

  The Empress propped her chin on a fist. “What does he want with you, though?”

  “Obviously he is afraid of my superior intellect.”

  Thana snorted, but the Empress only shook her head. “That doesn’t explain why he made you aware of his presence by attacking you first.”

  “He wants Heru dead because marab can unbind jaan, mai,” said Mo. Heru and the Empress both stared at Mo. The healer shrugged uncomfortably. “If binding a jaani to himself is a necessary step toward immortality, then it follows that unbinding the jaani would be one way to stop him.” She puffed out her cheeks, then added in a mutter, “It seemed obvious to me.”

  “But any marabi can unbind jaan,” pointed out the Empress.

  “Not every marabi is as well acquainted with Djet’s particular research as I am,” said Heru. “I am a unique threat and the only one who can stop Djet from achieving his goal. Nevertheless, I sent requests out to my colleagues as soon as I arrived in the city, asking those who might be qualified to lend their assistance. I’ve yet to hear back from any of them.”

  The Empress’s eyes narrowed. “You sent word to your colleagues before you deigned to answer us?”

  “It was important.” Heru waved away the question like a persistent fly. “And it leads me to ask: where is Tamit? He wasn’t amongst your court and he didn’t answer my query.”

  “The first advisory marabi is away on business.”

  Heru’s lips pressed into a thin, pale line. “Well. It does not matter.” He gestured at Mo. “The girl is correct. Unbinding Djet’s jaani will disrupt his plan for immortality. But I cannot be certain this tactic would work after he’s bound a sajaami. Therefore it is of the utmost importance we find the sajaam before he does.”

  “We are confident that you will find them, Sametket,” said the Empress. “But let us make certain we understand all of this. The creatures of a man who died centuries ago are menacing you. This man, once a skilled marabi like yourself, sought immortality during his lifetime—and apparently, beyond. He’s discovered a way to bind his own jaani to his body, but without another ritual or source of power, his body will degrade and fail him. It’s this source of power he seeks now, which you believe to be the sajaam of old stories. And you have found those sajaam.”

  “Correct,” said Heru. “Except I’ve yet to find the sajaam. I have my suspicions, but it’ll take further research before I can confirm anything actionable. Moreover, there’s a separate danger inherent in not only discovering the location of the sajaam, but in their subsequent release. If the histories are accurate, then the sajaam were sealed for a very good reason—they are monstrous and destructive. At the time of their sealing, they were intent on wiping humans from the face of the world. Djet may believe he’s all powerful, but it took many marab to restrain the sajaam once. We can’t risk him releasing them again.”

  “But if you find the sajaam first, you can stop him,” said the Empress. “Do that and you don’t need to worry about sealing them again. We’d rather you focus your efforts on searching for and securing these sajaam.”

  “For that, I’ll require full library privileges and absolutely no interruptions, your Imperial Highness.”

  “Of course. What a boon we have in you, Sametket. It was quite fortuitous that you didn’t meet with a bad end on your journey. That would have been a shame.” Her lips quirked in the briefest of smiles, there and gone in a heartbeat. “For the safety and security of the Empire, you must find the sajaam as soon as possible. Anything else you can discover about Djet’s research, any further rituals he must perform before he can achieve his goals, even the location of his notes—find these things and report back.”

  “If I may ask permission to bring in all of my assistants to work on this—”

  The Empress flicked one of her bracelets, interrupting Heru with a metallic ping. “You underestimate your strengths, Sametket. You are an incredibly powerful and resourceful marabi, otherwise you wouldn’t have risen to such standing in our court. You were prudent to ask for a private conversation with us regar
ding this delicate matter. For now, we’d prefer to keep word of these unfortunate events out of the public discourse to avoid unduly worrying the common people. The less who know, the better. We trust you can handle the rest of the research on your own.”

  “Of course.” Heru stood a little taller, talking over Mo’s noise of protest. “I am more than capable. Do not fear, your Imperial Highness. This task is in the most competent hands.”

  “Be sure that it is,” said the Empress. “And please, for the love of ourself and G-d, do not return with another, more pressing problem after this. We don’t have infinite patience. You are dismissed.”

  19

  Mo waited until they’d left the throne room, passed the mob of marab and guards and sycophants outside, walked the long corridor, stepped into the thick night air, been intercepted by Senousert, been escorted to their own private suite in the library, and firmly closed the door before breaking her tight-lipped silence.

  “What,” said Mo, rounding on Thana, “in G-d’s name, was that?”

  “That was an audience before her Imperial Highness,” said Heru. His back was to them as he shuffled and organized the scrolls on a long table.

  “I wasn’t asking you—wait, no, yes I am.” Mo pointed at Heru, then Thana. “You were carted off by guards and accused of treason. And you”—she turned her finger back to Heru—“accused her. Now she’s here, dressed as a slave of all things and the person you accused her of wanting to kill just laughed it off! I just—I don’t—what’s going on?”

  Mo’s face was flushed, her breathing uneven. A braid had come loose from that red ribbon, one of the few with a salas. Thana shoved down the urge to reach out and carefully tuck the braid back into place.

  “Obviously, I didn’t try to kill the Empress,” said Thana.

  “You were found out.”

  “Only because I wanted to be.”

  “She wasn’t there to kill the Empress,” said Heru, his back still turned.

  “Then why did you say she was!”

  Heru finally glanced back, annoyance creasing his brow. “I have my reasons. I don’t have to explain everything to you. The girl needed an opportunity to explore Na Tay Khet on her own, free of my … influence. So I gave her one. And now she owes me.” He loudly rustled the scrolls to indicate he was done with their conversation.

  Mo let out a long, constricted groan. “I just don’t understand what’s going on between you two.”

  Thana smothered a smile. “I don’t think I do, either,” she said. “But I can assure you, I didn’t come to Na Tay Khet to kill anyone.” That much was true—she’d joined the caravan to kill Heru, but he was supposed to have been dead long before she reached the city. Now? She needed time to think. Heru’s little history lesson for the Empress had shattered the remainder of her plans—that, and having her cover exposed.

  Heru grunted, but didn’t contribute. For some unfathomable reason, he’d decided to keep her secret. She’d expected Heru to rat her out a hundred times over as they’d left the Empress and returned to the library. He’d had every chance. And yet—he hadn’t. Was this research, this problem more important to Heru than revenge? It didn’t add up.

  Then she remembered the way Heru had looked at Mo back in the Empress’s chamber. He’d been perfectly fine having Thana dragged away by guards, but he must have decided that letting the Empress behead her in front of the healer would cost him any of her misplaced loyalty. It wasn’t the research at all. He wanted something from Mo.

  “So—what have you two been doing?” she asked, not wanting to think about the implications of Heru’s change of heart just yet. “Just hanging out with all these scrolls?”

  Mo’s expression softened. She turned to the table. “Heru brought us straight here. He hasn’t slept, but I pestered Aohti until she found a bed for me.” She yawned at the thought, one hand fluttering in front of her mouth as if she could contain her exhaustion. She set her makeshift staff on the table and waved her other hand at Thana. “And could you please cover yourself up already. You can stop pretending you’re a slave.”

  “Ah. Right.”

  Thana reached down before remembering she’d traded her old wrap for a real slave skirt. There was no way the small scrap of fabric would cover her whole body. She looked at her feet, unable to meet Mo’s gaze, her own cheeks warming with embarrassment.

  “I—uh—don’t have anything else to wear.”

  “By all that’s holy and not,” fumed Heru. “Would you two shut up and help me with this research? In case you don’t remember, Djet’s somewhere out there right now and every second we waste is another second he gains. I cannot—I will not—let him find the sajaam first.”

  Thana didn’t look up, but she heard the rustle of fabric as Mo took a seat. Mo’s words had left her feeling exposed and foolish. The dyed tattoo on her forehead, the shaved head, the ridiculous bangles, and the kohl-painted eyes no longer felt like a second skin, but a costume she itched to tear off.

  “What are we looking for?” she asked, trying to ignore her self-conscious unease. “What are sajaam?”

  Heru gave her a look thickened with disdain, but Mo pursed her lips. “You don’t know?”

  Thana waved a hand. “I know a little, but I don’t understand why Djet wants them. They’re just powerful jaan, aren’t they?”

  Heru held up a finger. “Not ‘just.’ Wild jaan are the untethered souls of those people who haven’t yet crossed over, mere fragments of the potential they possessed while alive. Sajaam were the jaan of people with a great deal more potential—often powerful marab, but occasionally healers and lesser. Much like the guul, these jaan grew stronger in the wilds of the desert instead of wearing away to nothing. They developed their own sentience, of a sort, and some historians will claim they even named themselves the Sajaam. All agree that they became their own race, separate from both humans and jaan. They could reason, they could think, they could even plan.

  “The Sajaam built their own society. They believed they were superior to those still bound to flesh. Some sajaam even believed they were more powerful than G-d. When the sajaam tried to rid the world of men and usurp G-d, the people of that time united to banish the sajaam to the third hell, where they have remained. Djet will be looking for a way to call them back from that hell, or a gate to go there himself.”

  Mo shook her head. “The sajaam weren’t banished, though. At least, not all of them.”

  Heru fixed Mo with a thin-lipped stare. “Oh? You think you know more about the sajaam than one who has spent their life researching and understanding jaan?”

  “There’s another story.” Mo crossed her arms but didn’t meet Heru’s gaze. “The healers know it, because it’s about the first of us.”

  Heru took a seat at the table opposite Mo and extracted a roll of parchment from the pile of scrolls. He removed a pen from his wrap with a small flourish, dipped the tip in an inkwell, and then looked expectantly at Mo. After a moment, he tapped the end of his pen against the table and said, “Well?”

  Mo started and lifted her gaze to his. She took in his pen and parchment and then wet her lips. “This is the way Enass told the story to me and this is the way her mother told the story to her.” She took a breath and when she spoke again, it was with the rhythm of recitation.

  “A long time ago, deep within the Wastes, the Sajaam kings called a meeting of their kind. Young and old came, powerful and weak. All agreed that the size of their kingdom, limited as it was to the Wastes, was no longer enough. They were powerful beings who built sandstorms and reshaped dunes, who lived forever and ruled the sands and the skies.

  “They deserved to rule more than the Wastes. They had watched as G-d-fearing man expanded his territory to the east and to the north and to the south. They had observed his wars and cruelty and crimes. Collectively, they judged him corrupt. The sajaam decided they would no longer share their world with man. They decided to rid it of him entirely. They decided they would rather be G-d.r />
  “First, the sajaam stirred up a massive sandstorm and dried the land from the Wastes to the sea. Wells filled with sand and oases vanished, and what was once verdant land filled with dust and death. Villages and towns perished. Then the sajaam sent swarms of locusts to eat up any remaining crops, and to pester and poison livestock. Last, the sajaam granted some of their brethren jaan will but not wisdom and hunger but not satiation. These jaan became guul, which decimated the Azal, whose life adrift had thus far shielded them from the worst of the drought and plague.”

  Mo paused for breath and touched the charm at her throat, as if for reassurance. “One of the Azal, a woman by the name Essif, recognized that these threats came from the sajaam and not G-d. She warned her tribe, then rode to the other tribes to give them warning. At each stop she convinced her people of the danger and took what marab they could spare. Essif crossed dunes and sand, mountains and gravel, to find every Azal marabi and bring them all together.

  “Essif led the marab deep into the Wastes to find the source of the plagues. Upon their journey they fasted—for there was famine and their tribes could spare them no food—and they prayed. The further they went into the Wastes, the worse the winds’ scouring became. So they wrapped themselves in camel hides to protect their bodies and they covered their faces with leather to protect their mouths and eyes. But they left one eye uncovered, so that they could see the way and watch for a sign from G-d.

  “The first sign from G-d was a running wash. But instead of water, it was filled with blood. The marab discussed this sign but could not decide what G-d wanted of them. But Essif knew. She cut her arm and let her life’s water flow onto the sand. The marab saw what she’d done and cut their skin, too, joining their water to hers. Their blood formed a circle which contained the sajaam within and kept the deadly guul out.