Once long ago there was a child, alone in the desert and
very far from home.
With nowhere left to turn, the child walked until he found an oblong pillar of sandstone, beneath whose narrow shadow he collapsed. There he wept, thirsted, hungered, and slept.
For seven long sweltering days and seven frosty nights he lay without bread or water, licking the dew from the stone in the tender dawn. At times he thought to rise and march on, but his feet refused him. His thoughts dwelt only on what lay behind him, and on how much worse might yet lie ahead. So he slept.
It was a black sleep, fitful and burdened with dreadful
dreams. Twisted lamplit streets.
Horse-hooves trampling. Anthills overflowing with black
lacquer and naked sabres.
Always the dreams would end the same; clutching himself behind the great tapestry map of the world while his teacher is cut down beyond it, blood spreading across his slippers until the continents themselves seem to tremble.
Each time the child awoke in an agonal sweat. Yet on the seventh night he opened his eyes not to darkness, but to a pale, forsaken flickering: smokeless, heatless, scentless fire dancing among the branches of a white wormwood bush.
The figure reclining before the flame possessed features only by their absence. Nothing but length and angles, a whisper of sharpened edges given mass. The eye sought form and found only fear. It spoke:
"As-salāmu ʿalaykum,"
Its voice could have ground diamonds into dust. It was sweet as marzipan and fathomless as the sea.
The child swallowed.
"Wa ʿalaykum as-salām," he whispered, scarcely louder than the wind.
"May I ask what brings the boy to this garden?"
No mouth moved. No eye glittered within the wavering smoke.
"This... is a garden?"
"Indeed."
The child looked around the barren waste. "What could grow here?"
"Oh, many things." The shadow’s voice seemed almost pleased. "So many fruits ripe for plucking. The seeds of vows and curses. Gnashing lamentations. Oaths clawed into sun-baked earth, here, since the days of creation. Blood-raptures. Harvest festivals. I have watched them bloom."
The child gazed into the abyss and answered nothing.
He prayed for iron to enter his face, as he had seen it enter his father's when fear came knocking. Then he remembered his teacher, whose voice had remained calm even as the world fell apart.
Gathering what little courage remained to him, he forced himself to his feet, every joint stiff with hunger.
"What are you?" he asked.
“No less or more than a servant of the All-Merciful like
you. Fashioned from the subtlest
fire.”
“Djinn.” The child breathed the word.
“Just so.” If the night could sit up straight, it sat there, starless and sharp.
“What do you want?” asked the child.
“What is left of thy hope will suffice,” said the djinn. “Given freely.”
Without thinking the boy clutched his purses. All that remained of his life; a leather bag slung under the armpit, stuffed with codices and silk handkerchiefs. A little pouch of signet rings. A calendar and box of reed pens, crammed against indigo-dyed calfskin diaries. A worn toy cataphract carved in sandalwood.
“Food and water would have served thee better,” said the djinn. “But you burden yourself with the meaningless effects of a life that has abandoned you.” A wicked limb yawned forth from the void, terribly distinct, unfurling into the offering needled claws of an open hand. “Do you not thirst?”
The boy ate his terror in a dry swallow, trying hard to sound like father. “I do not bargain with nameless people.”
The djinn’s laughter shimmered like clattering gemstones. “Then you must know that this one is called the Tiller.” The darkness bowed. “And I beg thy forgiveness, Prince Jalāl. For this simple servant is foreign to the ways of your court and knows neither proper form nor etiquette."
The boy stiffened at hearing his name. “How is it you know me?”
“Thou art Prince Jalāl al-Dīn Yūsuf, son of the Great Ja’far are you not? Your illustrious father has been rolled up into a carpet and flattened by the forty thousand hooves of the Tatar King’s horsemen. Your city of peace has been put to the sword. Your house of wisdom is a charnel pit. The Tigris runs black with the ink of centuries’ wisdom and all that was held dear to you is ash. Or have I mistaken thee for another?”
That same terror bubbled back up from the boy’s stomach, threatening to regurgitate. The nightmare images came rushing on. Cucurbits and alembics spilling down stone stairs. Maps of the constellations slashed asunder.
He grasped at something strict or staunch or clever to say and managed only, “I am he.”
“Indeed my prince, so you are. And wherever you go, no matter how deep or how far into oblivion, you shall be you until you are not.” The long and terrible fingers of the djinn’s hand beckoned and gestured to the flames. “Make an offering, if you please.” For a long time the child stood statuesque against the desert darkness, a flickering brushstroke of consternation in the wormwood light. At last, he picked up a reed pen and tossed it in the burning bush where it landed with a crackling hiss.
“What does my offering buy me?”
The djinn sighed with delight. “Hell to rain on the House of Hulagu. Legions and horse lords loyal to thy banner. Coffers of overflowing gold, which refill each night and can never deplete. All that awaits is for words to be spoken and your wish is my whim. What do you desire?”
The lonely light of the wormwood bush flickered like a candle in the bitter wind.
“Water.” Said the boy.
He was holding a waterskin, with tired arms as if he had carried it for days. Nearly dropped it, then united the spout with his mouth and tore the stopper with his teeth, gulping down cold water until it sickened him to vomit. He drank some more.
“Vengeance could be yours, prince. Death to the Tatar King, his sons, his wives. A pox on his armies and a famine upon his land. The yoke of slavery upon his people. A few words and a humble offering are all I demand, and your heart will be content. What do you desire?”
Wiping vomit from his mouth with the back of his sleeve, the boy steadied himself and glared at the djinn, his four remaining reed pens in hand. He tossed them in the fire.
“I am hungry. I want sheep’s cheese.”
The prince held a wrap of linen around a hard block of cheese. Salty, firm and real.
“Restore thy throne and thy honour. I could give you loyal retainers and advisors, armies to carve out a new kingdom beyond the mountains. Engines to fling missiles at thy foes and skilled engineers to maintain them. Speak your wish and make it so.” The voice was growing terse.
Sifting through his purse, the prince decided between two handkerchiefs which he liked less and tossed that one into the flame.
“I want new clothes, fine for riding.” The prince’s voice was steel as he stood in soft black boots. His new robes were practical, comfortable, embroidered with kufic script and fastened in a cordovan leather belt. His hair was combed and his face as clean as if from the bath.
The Tiller stood now, looming in the night. Annoyance rang in its voice.
“Have you not a single serious desire, prince? Do you lack the courage to avenge your family?”
Prince Jalāl’s hand sifted through his purse of belongings, caressing the diaries, the rings, the little wooden horse.
“I have nothing left to spare you, djinn.”
Thunder cracked in the terrible voice. “You cannot carry Baghdad, child. Your library has burned. Even your beloved constellations are fated to die. The hope you cling to is empty. Offer it to the fire.”
Above, the stars were twinkling.
“That,” the prince pointed north, “is Al-Judayy. The Little Goat.” He pointed to another, brighter star. “That is al-Shiʿrā. And that one there is Altair. Each of them is known to me by name. They were taught to me by Ibrāhīm ibn Isḥāq, the most noble and knowledgeable scholar in Baghdad, who was employed by his friend and my father, the great Jaʿfar ibn Aḥmad.
I am Jalāl al-Dīn Yūsuf ibn Jaʿfar,
brother to Hasan and Ismail, to Zaynab and Maryam and little Khadijah, grandson
of Ahmad and nephew of ʿAbd
Allāh. Now their names are
known to you as well. I would sooner give you those stars than give you them.”
Between them the fire crackled and the djinn did not speak.
“Now, I wish you would leave me and not return,” said the prince. “I offer you nothing but goodbye.”
The stars dissolved in the blue.
And in the morning, the boy woke to a finely saddled dapple
grey horse, standing in a meadow of wild lavender.
About the author
Mark is a writer and artist, lover of myth and fable, born in Miramichi and living in Fredericton. A mere mild mannered library clerk by day, Mark churns out a body of written and illustrated work by night, some of which is even fit for polite discussion. Right now he's working on his passion project while raising two cats and a dog with his partner.
