Zaybak, where are you? she calls again.
Something else answers, this time. A shoal of elongated things, snake-like, moving like whips, without eyes but with sharp, sharp teeth. They twine around her limbs, cold and slippery and tight. Wild jinni who smell a body. She shouts a Secret Name, but it has no power here; they scatter from her but keep circling, waiting.
Zaybak!
There are more jinni, things that look like chains and tori and strange loops that swallow themselves, thick around her, hungry for embodiment, coming closer with each circuit. She tries to feel her body, tries to find the lid of the coffin so she can call to Kafur and Sumanguru and get out. But she has no voice, no flesh.
A wind comes, scattering the desert things, blowing through her and into her and around her, a touch and a kiss and a voice at the same time, and suddenly she remembers steam rising from the tombs in the City of the Dead, after the rain.
The Axolotl.
Tawaddud.
I missed you.
I missed being you.
A pause.
Why are you here?
Alile. Show me why.
Regret. Shame.
Show me.
A journey through the desert, searching for purpose. Story gardens where the Aun live. Bliss and emptiness.
Return to the city. Masrurs, they are called, jinn insurgents: they speak of protecting the desert. Their words ring true. They say they are swords of the Aun, whose task is to rid the desert of Sobornost machines. They promise redemption. Battles. Courage. Meaning.
A muhtasib comes. He claims things are changing. Sirr will give names to Sobornost machines, so the Aun do not destroy them. There will be no more desert. No more stories. He says we can stop it. He will give the betrayers of Sirr to us, if we give him our stories.
So that’s why Alile died.
She did not die! If you know the secret, the desert does not kill. Whisper them the secret of the flower prince, and you take them with you to the desert. They become a story, like us, like the Aun, live for ever inside the wildcode. She is here, Tawaddud. Sirr itself could be here. Without the Sobornost. You could be here. Come with me. Let me tell you the secret again. It is beautiful and bright. We can be together forever.
Forever. There was a story, told by a dark man. Two women on Venus: one did not want for ever.
We don’t have to be that story. We are Zaybak and Tawaddud.
A pause.
I am Tawaddud. I am a different story now. Isn’t that what you told me? You are too old and strong. You were right. I want to be Tawaddud.
I am sorry. It is so easy to be what we were.
I know. It’s all right. But tell me: what did the muhtasib ask for in return?
A Name. A Secret Name Alile knew.
Did you give it to him?
No. Shame. Betrayal. It was a trick. Alile told me. The muhtasib worked for the Sobornost. She knew him. I fled to the desert with her, to keep the secret safe.
Why would the Sobornost want to hurt Alile? She was going to give them what they wanted.
She knew the secret of the Jannah of the Cannon. They want it more than souls.
Who was it? Who was the muhtasib who betrayed you?
A serpent of fire.
Abu Nuwas.
The name bites deep. It almost pulls her out of the entwinement, but the vast soft thing around her that is the Axolotl draws her back in.
We have to tell them.
You are stronger now. You should come with me. What do you care of secrets and the Sobornost and Sirr? What have they ever given you?
Let me go.
Come with me!
I can’t. Don’t make me.
Come!
No, Tawaddud says, opens her eyes and closes the Sobornost mind-trap around the Axolotl.
The coffin lid opens. She comes out of the water like a newborn baby, coughing. Her eyes hurt. Her skin crawls and feels dry and hot. She touches her face: there are hard ridges under her skin. She lets out a small sob.
Warm hands touch her shoulders. A voice whispers Secret Names. The wildcode vision is still with her, and suddenly her skin shimmers with tiny jinni, hungry triangles eating wildcode. Their touch is like cool water, poured all over her. Then they cover her head, and the chill makes her gasp. But it only lasts for a moment. She turns to look at her doctor—
—and sees a fiery serpent.
Abu Nuwas smiles sadly. He stands in the coffin room, holding a barakah gun, flanked by hulking jinn thought-forms, clouds of spiky black smoke. Sumanguru struggles in their grip. Next to him is Rumzan the Repentant, spindly hands crossed in front of a faceless face.
‘Thank you,’ he says, picking up the Sobornost device floating in the coffin. ‘A mind-trap? I didn’t think you would go so far, Tawaddud. But your efforts are very much appreciated. I have been looking for this fellow for a long time.’
‘You bastard,’ Tawaddud hisses. ‘Where is Kafur?’ She stands up, gritting her teeth against the chill. ‘This is his Palace. He is not going to let you get away with this.’
A wet cough. Kafur drapes a robe around Tawaddud’s shoulders. She recoils from his touch.
‘I’m very sorry, little Tawaddud. Old Kafur was offered a better price. And Lord Nuwas has always been a very good customer.’
‘Come along now,’ Abu says. ‘The night is young. And I did promise you a dinner at my palace, did I not?’
22
THE STORY OF THE PELLEGRINI AND THE CHEN
She finds the master of the Universe on the beach, throwing rocks into the sea. He is wearing a child’s face. This is an old memory. Did he choose it for her? This is not where they first met. And it is very different from his usual virs, abstract spaces of language and purity.
‘It’s very nice,’ she says. The boy looks up, eyes wide, fearless but without any sign of recognition.
What is Matjek playing at? It took her such a long time to get ready. Going through her Library, finding a memory of who she was when they first met, a hundred-year-old woman in white, but looking no older than forty, with just a hint of fragility in her step, a hat and sunglasses hiding scar tissue, golden rings in tanned fingers.
‘I’m not supposed to talk to strangers,’ the boy says.
She kneels on the sand next to him.
‘I would hope that I’m not a stranger to you, Matjek,’ she says.
The boy looks at her, brow furrowed in concentration. ‘How do you know my name?’ he asks.
‘I am very old,’ she says. ‘I know a lot of names.’ What kind of game is Matjek playing here? The wind tugs at her hat, and the sand is warm under her toes. Plankton lights up in her footsteps, like stars.
‘What are you doing, Matjek?’ she whispers. Suddenly, age returns to his eyes.
‘I’m trying to find something,’ he says. ‘Something I lost a long time ago.’
‘It’s a disease, isn’t it?’ she says. ‘Trying to cling on to lost things.’
He looks at her, with a cruel humour in his eyes. ‘Yes. Yes, it is.’ He pokes at the sand with a stick. ‘I know why you are here. They are killing you, aren’t they?’
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Anton and Hsien never trusted me. But we can talk about that later. It’s such a beautiful vir.’ She thinks it best to pay him a compliment when he is in such a sullen mood.
The boy Matjek gets up and throws a stone into the sea. It skips a few times, then disappears into the waves. ‘It is not enough,’ he says, with fury in his voice, Matjek’s old rage at everything that is wrong with the world.