Djinn City, page 19
“Really, I don’t understand why you guys even bother writing anything down,” Rais said finally with disgust. “I mean, does anyone actually ever read this shit?”
“Not me,” Barabas said happily, having abdicated all scholarly pursuit to his trainee. “Not if I can help it. Dead bores, all of them. And Risal was more boring than most—legendary for it. She’s written books that have not sold a single copy. Fact. No wonder she lived up here all alone. Probably pissed off all her neighbors.”
“Bahamut told us to look at history,” Rais said. He pointed dispiritedly at a huge pile of books and scrolls he had gathered by the bed. “This is everything.”
“You get cracking,” Barabas said. “I’m going to search for secret compartments.”
“What?”
“Djinns love secret compartments. She’s bound to have a few.”
She did not, in fact, have any secret compartments. At the end of their allotted time, they were forced to admit defeat. Rais had found an index and gathered together as much of the library as he could find, an intimidating quantity of material, djinn glasses giving him a headache now, no doubt the early onset of the ocular disease promised by Barabas. Barabas himself had largely wasted his time, pilfering trinkets, drinking expired soda, and expounding outlandish theories.
“This book seems to be missing,” Rais said finally, marking the catalog. “Register of Kings: Gangaridai. It was part of her rare manuscript collection. See? I’ve found all the other ones. They were secured in this humidor beside her bed. What are the chances that the rare book on Gangaridai is the one that specifically went missing?”
“What’s your point?”
“It must be what Bahamut was asking us to investigate,” Rais said. “Something happened back then that Matteras doesn’t want people poking into. It must have references to the Great War in it. Did anyone else study this?”
“Not that I know of. It was long ago, boy,” Barabas said. “Djinns don’t go around dwelling on useless things that happened way back when. We prefer to focus on the present.”
“Do you know anything at all about this Great War?”
Barabas shrugged. “A bunch of Nephilim and djinn fought with another bunch of Nephilim and djinn. Some people say that Gangaridai was destroyed in the war, and some people say that happened after, during the great flood. This was before the Ice Age. Personally, I think some nutcase like Kuriken probably caused the great flood by accident and destroyed the city.”
“Nephilim?”
“That’s how the nursery rhymes go,” Barabas said. “I can’t remember exactly. I think it’s an old word for humans.”
“It’s from the Bible,” Rais said. “Interesting. Kaikobad had a bunch of Bibles; he marked out passages on the Nephilim. I wonder what it means. What’s Matteras’s connection to all of this?”
“There are rumors that he’s from a bastard line,” Barabas said. “Royal pissing blood, apparently. He keeps that part quiet. Djinn don’t like kings. We’re all mostly republican, you see.”
“There must be something more,” Rais said. “We needed Kaikobad or Risal alive.”
“We’re stuck again,” Barabas said. “And this stupid Risal had absolutely no good loot. Not even a treasure map. What’s the use of studying history for hundreds of years if you can’t muster up any good loot?”
“I’m taking all of these books,” Rais said. He rubbed his face. Suddenly he felt a hundred years old. “I might as well read whatever I can. We might learn something useful.”
CHAPTER 23
Broken Things
“So the Marid Risal is missing, and you found nothing useful,” Golgoras said.
“No loot, that’s for sure,” Barabas said bitterly. “Bunch of useless books.”
“This is a waste of time,” Golgoras said. “I’m not using up any more fuel. I’m going to drop you at the Hub. You can find your own way back.”
“Just a minute, that’s not the deal. You agreed to help us find Risal, boyo,” Barabas said.
“We. Found. Her. Tube,” Golgoras said.
“She ain’t in it, is she?”
“Is that my problem?”
“Other than the massive loss of dignatas in failing a simple commission…”
“You bunch of gobbets don’t even know what happened to her!” Golgoras shouted. “Where do we go next, hmm?”
“Neighbors!” Barabas held up a thick hairy finger, as if this one word was self-explanatory. “She must have had neighbors. We track them down, have a chat, easy peasy.”
“It is not easy peasy!” Golgoras roared. “There is no life here for a hundred knots in any direction.”
“She disappeared maybe twenty years ago,” Rais said, looking up from his reading. “And we know the tube has been adrift since then. Where was it originally moored?”
“The Aethrometer,” Barabas said. “I know you’ve got one, Golgo old boy. Just trot it out, turn it on, and we’ll follow the dots.”
“We could try that,” Golgoras said grudgingly after a few minutes.
“See? Easy peasy.”
The Aethrometer was a device with numerous coils, valves, and meters, driven by a small steam engine belching coal smoke. There were intricate parts that twisted into eye-wrenching dimensions and a hint of incompleteness about the machine in the outlay of gears that moved but did not touch: metal hinges turning into themselves, bearings that burned through each other. The Aethrometer could track things. The distortion field left a trail in the ether, a faint rearrangement of quantum states, a misprobability that the device sniffed out like a faithful hound.
“It’s been a long time,” Golgoras groused as he fired up the engine. “But the tube distorts probability quite a bit and this place is remote, so it might work.”
The compass and the altimeter began to twitch weakly, sniffing like dogs on the edge of winter, and slowly they eased into the hunt, even Golgoras finally taking an interest. There was daredevilry in following a scent nearly twenty years old and much dignatas to accrue in finding the lost historian Risal. In all things, finally, the djinn instinct always rose to the top, the old yearning for something risky, some oddity or wager to break the tedium of endless days.
“I found this book inside one of the other ones,” Rais said. “It’s very strange.”
It was a thickish volume banded in old brown vellum, the edges rough cut, with illustrations in ink, of which there were many, of odd things that the glasses did nothing to illuminate. There was an altogether artisanal quality about the thing, as if the author had deliberately eschewed all printing technology to laboriously finish everything by hand.
“Title?” Golgoras asked.
“Compendium of Beasts,” Rais said. “No author either. You know, the style of it looks so familiar. It was hidden inside Risal’s ten-volume collection on Balinese snails. Had a different cover and everything. Only reason I found it was ’cause I dropped the whole case and it split open.”
Golgoras looked at it, and his brass eye suddenly telescoped with some kind of involuntary emotion, an almost comical display of anger and disgust.
“The Compendium? Impossible! It doesn’t exist anymore.”
“It is handwritten. Even the illustrations are hand drawn.” Rais flipped it open.
“Do not look at them!”
“What? What the hell is it?” Rais asked.
“The Maker wrote that,” said Barabas, backing away. He seemed on the verge of crying. “How long have you had that? Why didn’t you say anything earlier?”
“I told you, it was hidden. I have no clue what the damn thing is. Why are you guys overreacting?”
Golgoras stared at the pages and grew visibly paler.
“It’s the Compendium of Beasts,” Barabas said. He had one hairy hand clamped over his eyes.
“That book was destroyed,” Golgoras said. “No copies should exist. This must be one the Maker made by hand.” His disquiet was palpable, and it began to affect Rais, even though he knew nothing of this author or his dread book.
“Who the fuck is the Maker?” he asked, holding the thing at arm’s length.
“You haven’t heard of the Maker?” Barabas looked puzzled.
“I’ve only been an emissary for a few weeks…”
“Acting emissary,” Barabas said absently. “He is the Maker of Broken Things. That’s what they called him. Givaras—”
“Givar Abomination, Givaras the Madness,” Golgoras snarled. “The Maker of Plagues, the Eye of Horus, Horus the Fallen, the Insane.”
“Matteras fought him eighty years ago, they say,” Barabas said.
“The only good thing he ever did,” said Golgoras with a shudder.
The Aethrometer sputtered on, leading them in a gently meandering path in the sky, through white and gray clouds, a sea of water vapor and wind currents. The djinn sat huddled in the cockpit, debating in hushed voices. Their interest in Risal was waning. The Maker’s handwritten book settled a cloak of dread over everything, a subtle cancer that seemed to dampen even the grunting sign language of the Ghuls.
In a few days they were floating in another patch of air, serene, lifeless, a desert in the sky. The Aethrometer twirled, twitched, and settled fast. They circled around fruitlessly, failing to stir it back to life; they had arrived.
“There’s nothing here,” Barabas said dumbly.
“Waste of time.” Golgoras glowered, his brass eye telescoping as he swept his head from side to side. “Nothing here.”
“What the hell was she doing here?” Rais asked.
“Marids like solitude,” Barabas said.
“No neighbors then?” Rais asked with a smirk.
Barabas glared at him. “It would appear not.”
The Ghuls found moorings with their preternatural eyesight, faint spells fading in the air, gear-like constructs that had once hooked the cylinder to the fabric of some other plane. The constructs had been sheered, deliberately severed like cut rope, edges frayed as the magic bled into the atmosphere at an imperceptible rate.
“Definitely no accident then,” Barabas said, as they studied the moorings closely using a host of other arcane instrumentation.
“Any spell signatures?” Rais asked. “Something we can nail on Matteras?”
“Too long ago to tell,” Golgoras said. “Whatever force cut the gears faded long ago.”
“Damn.”
“No sign of life for hundreds of knots,” Golgoras said. “No witnesses. The perfect crime. The quest is over.”
“There is the book to consider,” Barabas said, morose.
“We should burn the fucking thing,” Golgoras said. “Burn it, toss the Hume over the railing, and call it a day.”
“He’s a damn emissary,” Barabas said after an alarmingly long pause.
“Er, guys, that’s really not necessary,” Rais said.
Golgoras ignored him. “Emissary, my ass. He’s a damn trainee. There’s no mention of him on the diplomatic rolls.”
“He’s Kaikobad’s nephew,” Barabas said. “Plus he’s met Bahamut.”
“You were a fool for taking him there.”
“I’ve always been sentimental,” Barabas said. “That’s my tragic flaw.”
“Er, guys? What’s with this book? Shall I read it?”
“Do not read it,” Golgoras snapped.
“And stop waving it around like that,” Barabas said. “It’s supposed to cause brain infection. We’ll all get quarantined if anyone finds out you’ve got it.”
“What difference does it make? We’re all going to die soon anyway.”
“What?” Golgoras asked.
“You haven’t heard?”
“The Iso-Creationists have taken over the conservative faction. Matteras is threatening to flood the bay,” Barabas said. “We’re pretty sure he did Aceh back then as practice.”
“That’s only a little holocaust,” Golgoras said. “Many Humes will survive, especially given the rate at which they breed.”
“Oho, you’re a Numerist?”
“Not as such, but you must admit there are a lot of them around,” Golgoras said.
“What’s a Numerist?” Rais said.
“Kind of club where they sit around moaning about how many Humes there are on this planet,” Barabas said. “Lot of armchair generals. Never really get beyond vigorous fist shaking.”
“Well, it seems like a straight-up political fight,” Golgoras said.
“It gets worse. Bahamut has a device from Gangaridai,” Barabas said. “Genuine article. He’ll fracture time before he lets Matteras win. It’s a Mexican standoff. What happens then is anyone’s guess, but I’m not optimistic.”
“Have you ever considered that Bahamut is stark raving crazy?”
“Frequently.”
“Who exactly is supposed to stop this tea party? Tell me you’ve got some heavy guns lined up.”
“You’re looking at the A team.”
“What about the Secret Archaeological Conservation Society?”
“Busy with some brouhaha in Kemet.”
“Er, Kemet?” Rais asked.
“That’s the black kingdom. Aigyptos, as you Humes call it,” Barabas said.
“The Royal Anglers’ Club?” Golgoras asked.
“They voiced their concerns, but they’re a bit busy with their big Pacific whale-bashing contest. I think they promised to send Matteras a stern letter,” Barabas said.
“Surely the Cabal for Zoological Variety will take a stand?”
“Well, sure, they’re all for zoological variety, but Matteras has pointed out that his actions will only affect one particular species and might, in fact, promote zoological variety by freeing up space,” Barabas said. “Solid argument, really, considering the extinction rate the Humes have racked up. Turns out that Zoological Variety is actually supporting him. Tacitly, of course. So it’s up to us, really.”
“We’re doomed.”
“Cheer up, think of the dignatas we’ll accrue when we pull it off.”
Rais, who had nothing to do, secretly attempted to read the book, despite the repeated admonition of the two djinns. They refused to touch it, and the Ghuls refused to even come into the same room.
He got through the first few chapters. It followed a loose format, part mathematical tract, part philosophical essay, and part bestiary of organisms that seemed pure fantasy. The drawings reminded him a bit of the Voynich manuscript, the famously mysterious fifteenth-century book in a gibberish language, which he had studied for a semester in university. It was only on the second pass that Rais understood some of the finer points, which progressively disturbed him until he actually put the book aside and went to the cockpit.
“This book,” he said. “This guy. He’s like… He’s just… I mean, what the fuck?”
“I know,” Barabas said. “Words are not enough.”
“Goddamn right,” said Golgoras. “What have you landed us in, Barabas?”
“Look, there’s no reason to panic,” Barabas said. “As I rationally explained earlier, there’s no reason to think that Risal and the Maker are actually connected. I mean, she could just have his book—she was a rabid booklover for god’s sake.”
“Yeah, right. She just happens to have a book fucking banned by every fucking club and society in existence. The most fucking notorious and horrible thing ever written.” Golgoras shook his great tusked head. “And it’s a fucking handwritten copy. Givaras fucking gave that thing to her, I bet.”
“You said Matteras fought this psycho djinn, right?” Rais asked, trying to think through a slew of strange mental imagery that seemed to have taken over large parts of his frontal cortex. It was as if the pictures from the book had crept up through his optical neurons and subtly infected random bits and pieces in his brain, recalling the time he had inadvertently taken three tabs of acid at the same time and spent a week hallucinating.
“Yeah,” Barabas said.
“And then what?”
“He made him disappear,” Golgoras said.
“They say that Matteras finally did him when they found some of the things he’d made were still living.”
“So what did he do, anyway?” Rais asked.
“He made life. Tinkered with it, anyway. He was a bigwig at the Cabal for Zoological Variety, until djinns realized what kinds of things he was bringing to life,” Golgoras said.
“He made the Ebola virus, they say,” Barabas said. “Well, the virus is a by-product of creating the Ebola, which is a semi-invisible creature of rather horrific nature who actually feeds on the brain fluid released by the vic—”
“Okay, I get it,” Rais said. “My point is first Matteras disappeared Givaras, then he disappeared Risal, and then my cousin.”
“Hang on, we don’t know about your cousin,” Barabas said.
“Well, he disappeared, didn’t he? And here we have a fucking expert at making things disappear, so I’d say that’s a good lead, wouldn’t you?”
“Calm down, I’m just saying you got to stick with facts and stuff—”
“Whatever,” Rais said. “The point is, how come no one noticed all this disappearing?”
“Hmm, good point,” Golgoras said. “The disappearances were spaced out over eighty-odd years. Hard to connect the dots.”
“Frankly, we were all thrilled when Givaras got done, even Bahamut,” Barabas said.
“Bahamut said all of this has something to do with the war,” Rais said. “Risal had the Register of Kings, which is gone. And she had the Maker’s book hidden. This is all connected to Kaikobad and my cousin. How?”
“The war was a long time ago,” Golgoras said.
“It’s a dead end everywhere,” Barabas said, dejected.
“The funny thing is, where are they? Where are the bodies?”
“What?” Golgoras looked dumbfounded.
“I mean djinns don’t kill each other, right? You guys are all la-di-da civilized…”
