Djinn City, page 4
“You are pathetically small for your age,” Juny said. “I had no idea things were so bad over here. It is shameful. I am glad I do not have any more children.”
“Sorry. Aunty Juny?”
“Yes.”
“Can I ask you some questions?”
“Must you?”
“Please?”
“All right.”
“Is my father going to die?”
“No.”
“Did you know my mother?”
“No.”
“Do you think she might still be alive?”
“She died when you were born.”
“Were you there?”
“I heard from the hospital. And, of course, we visited as soon as we could.”
“So there’s no chance she got away?”
“No.”
“Like totally sure?”
“I’m sure.” She looked at him. “I’m sorry, Indelbed.”
She did not sound that sorry, but it made him cry a little bit anyway. “No one ever talks about her. Will you tell me some things?”
“All right.” She sighed. “Ask.”
“What did she look like?”
Aunty Juny frowned. “You have never seen a picture of her?”
“No. There aren’t any in the house. Butloo said my father burned all of them when I was born.”
“She was very beautiful,” Juny said.
“Like you?”
“I only met her three times,” Juny said, her eyes far away. “The first time in London, when Kaikobad brought her out, then again at their wedding, and one final time when she was pregnant with you.”
“Were you friends?”
“No, I don’t think she had any friends. She did not need any.”
“Was Father always like this?”
“No, Indelbed, this happened mostly after she died.”
“She wasn’t mad then? Rais said she was mad.”
“She was not mad,” Juny said. “She loved to paint. I remember seeing some of her work before—it was fantastic. She gave me a small sketch once, about twelve years ago.”
“I’ve never seen any art by her.”
“I will find the sketch and give it to you. You should have one thing of hers at least.”
“Is it very valuable?” Indelbed asked, knowing never to expect anything for free.
“It is to me,” Juny said.
“I can’t give you anything for it.” He wanted to be clear beforehand.
“I will loan it to you then,” Juny said. “And you may repay me when you are grown up.”
“What if it breaks?”
“You will be very careful with it,” Juny said.
“Thank you.”
“What else… She made superb biriyani. I remember she told me she loved it more than anything else.”
“So she must have been fat then, like Aunty Sikkim.” Indelbed loved biriyani, especially the kind served at weddings, which was cooked in a giant sealed pot, the flavors of the rice, lamb, and potatoes infused together over a wood fire.
Aunty Juny smiled. “No, she wasn’t fat at all. She was as tall as your dad, thin, and had black hair. She liked to read. I think she married your father for his books. There was a huge library in this house, before Kaikobad sold it off. Your grandfather had thousands of books collected over three generations, and before Kaikobad became ill, he also added to it every year. When she got married to him, your mother brought hundreds of books of her own with her. I remember they had to put in extra shelves and convert one of the sitting rooms into a second library.”
Indelbed couldn’t imagine such scenes of grandeur.
“I wish Father hadn’t sold everything,” he said.
“One day, I hope you will buy it all back,” Juny said.
“Aunty Juny, was she… was she normal?”
“She was, in all the ways that count,” Juny said. “Now enough questions. You look barely human. Come with me.”
She dragged him to the top of the stairs and shouted, “Vulu!”
“Yes, dear,” the Ambassador said.
“For god’s sake, go and get the boy some clothes that fit,” she said. “Take him to Gulshan. And take Rais too. And ask Rais about his girlfriend.”
“What are you going to do? Uncle Sikkim will be coming soon.”
“Let him come. I’m going to clean this disgusting dump,” Aunty Juny said, leading them down into the formal living room. It was, indeed, a disgusting dump. “I don’t know how you expect to be taken seriously in this house…”
“Dear, what about Kaikobad?”
“What about him?” Aunty Juny bullied them to the front door. “If he recovers, at least he’ll wake up to a clean house.”
CHAPTER 5
Bahadur Siyer Dargo Dargoman
The Afghan knocked on their door at the stroke of five, just when Butloo was fumigating. He thus walked into the house wreathed in smoke, his black shoes striking the floor, and for a moment Indelbed thought it was the devil—but at least they were receiving him in good form, thanks to Aunty Juny. She had thrown back the clock on the long abandoned living room. She had marshaled Butloo and the guard, as well as the cook and her daughter. Somehow, she had injected a fresh fervor into their nonexistent work ethic. The threadbare, rotten carpet had been removed. The floors had been scrubbed with powdered soap, revealing a tolerable geometric mosaic. The walls and ceilings had been swept, several tons of webs and an indigent clan of spiders removed. The walls had then been scrubbed with a dry brush, knocking loose all the peeling paint and dirt. The few pieces of furniture had been polished and arranged strategically. The room now looked stark, austere, elegant, in a ruin-porn sort of way. By this time, GU Sikkim had also arrived, sulkily ensconced in the best armchair, muttering about the undesirability of inviting strangers into family affairs, and it was the five of them who received the Afghan.
“Hello, family of Kaikobad.” Siyer bowed at the waist. “I am Bahadur Siyer Dargo Dargoman.”
Siyer was quite simply the best-dressed man Indelbed had ever seen. Even to his untutored eye, the cut of the man’s charcoal-gray suit was exceedingly fine, making him appear tall and slim. The fabric was a mixture of wool and silk so sleek that it seemed to eat the light. Siyer was a handsome man of middle age, with the striking, craggy features of his race, short hair graying nicely, and light eyes. His shoes were soft black loafers with waxed laces most perfectly aligned. All his other accoutrements spoke of wealth: his wafer-thin gold watch, the dull emerald on his finger, the wink of diamonds on his bone-white cuffs. On his arm was a cane with a leather grip, which Indelbed took to be some kind of weapon, since he had no evidence of a limp. He took them all in and then smiled at Aunty Juny in a particularly smarmy way.
“You are welcome, sir,” the Ambassador said, coming forward and making introductions. If he was surprised by the quality of their visitor, his diplomatic training was sufficient to cover it. “We are most concerned with Kaikobad.”
“Let us see him immediately,” said Dargoman. “I must examine his body.”
They trooped over to the bedroom, where the Afghan made a careful examination of his client. He took out a horn-handled magnifying glass and looked deep into Kaikobad’s eyeballs. He studied his fingernails, his chest, and then turned him over to look at his back. Indelbed was shocked to see a faded snake tattoo on his father’s shoulder blade, a small mark like a sideways 8, an etching of thin lines depicting the world serpent devouring its own tail. In shape it was similar to the hideous mark between his own shoulders, except Kaikobad’s was finely wrought and his was a mangled cattle brand.
Dargoman left Kaikobad alone and went on to minutely examine the salt circles in the study, sometimes sniffing the air like a dog.
“Yes, he’s in an occultocephalus coma,” Siyer said finally. “I have seen this before. It is decidedly an attack.”
“He was attacked?” The Ambassador looked around, alarmed. “By who?”
“You mean you don’t know?” The Afghan looked genuinely baffled.
“Pooh-pooh, what attack?” GU Sikkim said. “He is just in a drunken stupor. Much ado about nothing…”
“You are mistaken, sir,” Siyer said. “See the salt circles, drawn for protection? He must have put warding spells everywhere too. An experienced man like Kaikobad would not be taken without a struggle. Yet you see nothing was wrecked. This was no physical attack. We must perforce jump then to the obvious conclusion. He is a victim of the occult!”
Spells? Occult? “Er, he was drunk,” Indelbed said, but his heart was beginning to beat faster. Hadn’t his father mentioned something about Indelbed himself being in danger too? Was he going to end up in a coma as well?
“What nonsense,” GU Sikkim said harshly. “You are mad, sir!”
“Well, who attacked him? Do you have any idea?” Aunty Juny asked. “Surely he must have discussed it with you.”
“It is undoubtedly a djinn, a most powerful Ifrit!” Siyer declared, and the room itself seemed to gasp. Everyone stared at him, flabbergasted.
“What is an Ifrit?” Juny asked finally.
“They are a most numerous and powerful type of djinn—”
“I forbid you to say that word!” GU Sikkim shrieked. “You liar! Take it back!”
Siyer squared off against GU Sikkim, his nostrils quivering. “And by what means do you intend to compel me, sir?”
“Let’s all relax,” Rais said, stepping between them. “Are you seriously saying Uncle Kaikobad was attacked by a djinn?”
Siyer looked astonished. “But of course. Surely you are aware that your uncle is a magician.”
“A what?” Indelbed blurted out.
“A purveyor of magic and a well-known adept of the occult,” Siyer said.
“No, we were not aware of this,” Aunty Juny said, looking hard at her husband.
The Ambassador exchanged a sheepish look with GU Sikkim.
“Is that why you were asking me all those weird questions the other day?” Indelbed ventured.
“Out with it, Vulu,” Juny ordered.
The Ambassador sighed. “Indelbed, there are some things you need to know.”
It never boded well when you needed to know something. In Indelbed’s limited experience, these words always presaged some fresh disaster.
“Indelbed, son, it’s a bit of a shameful secret,” the Ambassador said. “Only a few of us know. We begged him not to go down this path, of course. But Kaiko never listened to anyone. He went into magic; he’s a magician.”
“And you guys all believe in magic? Like Harry Potter–type magic?” Rais, with his usual insouciance, was pursuing his own line of inquiry.
“Look at the university boy, knowing everything about the world,” the Ambassador snapped. “Yes, yes, we know all about the magic. Any fool villager will tell you it’s real.”
“I see,” Aunty Juny said. Her displeasure was extremely clear, and even Siyer recoiled from it. “And what of his attacker. This djinn, you said?”
“There are no djinns! There are no djinns! Go away all of you!” GU Sikkim was fairly frothing at the mouth.
“My dear lady, it is perfectly natural for the djinn to attack him,” Siyer said. He had apparently come to the conclusion that Aunty Juny was the person to deal with here.
“It might be natural to you, but we are as yet in the dark,” Aunty Juny said. “At least I am.” She glanced coolly at GU Sikkim before addressing Dargoman again: “I understand you spoke to him before he was attacked?”
“Well, yes, Kaikobad felt he could take care of himself. He called me to assist in a separate matter,” Siyer said. He pointed one theatrical finger at Indelbed. “It’s the boy. He’s the one really in danger.”
“Really?” Aunty Juny just about kept her skepticism under wraps. “And pray, what has he done to earn their wrath?”
“As you know, dear lady,” Siyer said, “it’s his mother. When she married his father, it was something of a scandal. When she had a child, there was a furor! The conservative party of the djinn did not like it at all. The boy has been targeted ever since.”
“Don’t bring her up, damn you!” GU Sikkim waved his stick at Siyer. “Bloody lawyer. I forbid anyone to mention her name!”
“What about my mother?” Indelbed’s heart was pounding in his chest.
“Why, has no one told you?” Siyer asked. “She’s a djinn, of course. You’re a half-breed, the first live one I’ve ever seen.”
“My mother, a djinn?” Indelbed’s eyes went big.
The Ambassador sighed. “I suppose it is time we told him. I had hoped Kaikobad would do it…”
“What more can you expect from that scoundrel!” GU Sikkim said bitterly.
“Grand-Uncle, please tell me!” Indelbed said.
“It’s in the family,” GU half whispered. “We have the blood. My grandfather had it. We had to lock him up in the village in the end. Clearly mad. And his own uncle, my great-great-grandfather—they say he was arrested by the British for witchcraft. They executed him. Burned our house down in Kolkata, even the family mausoleum. Necromancy, they said.”
It occurred to Indelbed that perhaps GU, Siyer, and the Ambassador all might be drunk. They didn’t smell like it, but you could never underestimate the cunning of a dedicated drunk.
“Are you saying our family is possessed or something?” Indelbed, always one for clarity, wanted it on the record that this alleged problem was not a phenomenon isolated to himself.
“Possessed?” GU shook his head dismissively. “They weren’t possessed, you idiot. It’s in the blood. Magic. We’ve carried that tainted blood for ten generations! Two hundred years ago, Amir Khan Rahman married a djinn. Two hundred years of drooling half-wits and sterile mutants, and it still hasn’t washed out. What is the one thing we learned over two hundred years? Don’t fornicate with djinn! And what did your father do? He did just that, and then he married her. Do you get it now?”
“Uncle, please,” the Ambassador said. “He’s just a boy.”
“We should have strangled him at birth,” GU Sikkim said, sitting down, clutching his chest. “I’m going to have a heart attack because of this, Vulu.”
“Did you know?” Indelbed spun toward his aunt, momentarily forgetting himself. “You knew!”
“I did not know,” Aunty Juny said. “I had heard rumors. I dismissed them as village slander. In this country they accuse every beautiful woman of being possessed.”
“Look, Siyer, how serious is this?” the Ambassador asked. “Let us speak plainly. What are we dealing with here?”
“Half-breeds are rare. Under some circumstances, that places little Indelbed here under the jurisdiction of djinn laws,” Siyer said. “Or so certain djinns are lobbying. I have made some preliminary inquiries. A minor hunt has been declared on him.”
“A minor hunt?”
“Djinns have an ancient tradition of hunting minors,” Siyer said. “Before it was mostly a kind of intrafamily affair. But sometimes a formal hunt would be declared, where anyone could participate, the winner getting a prize, et cetera. There hasn’t been one in quite a while now. This is very bad for us, of course. It means any number of djinns are probably looking for Indelbed. To kill him.”
“Random djinns want to kill my nephew?” Aunty Juny seemed offended by this. “For what reason? Are they all idiots?”
“Not sure about the reason,” Siyer said. “I haven’t formally taken the case, so I can only make limited inquiries. I think it might have something to do with his mother’s inheritance.”
“What inheritance?” Aunty Juny asked. “Kaikobad spent everything. He is penniless.”
“I am not certain. There are rumors that she was from some bastard royal line. It is possible that she might have posthumously inherited something. The thing is, Indelbed is a minor, so they don’t really need much more than an excuse to kill him. It’s archaic, but you see in Djinn Lore, only mature adults are protected by law. There were hunts every few seasons to target the youth—they were a big part of a year’s social calendar. I think it was a practice to weed out misshapen children in the old days. There was always a prejudice against half-breeds, you see… It has fallen out of practice the past few centuries, but djinns love reviving traditions.”
“How charming,” Aunty Juny said. “Now I take it you can stop this hunt from taking place?”
“Such was the gist of my conversation with Kaikobad.”
“And how do you intend to do so?”
Siyer went over to the comatose emissary and jabbed his cane at the tattoo on Kaikobad’s shoulder blade. “That marking—allow me to inform you, madame, that I have a similar one on my person.” He duly proceeded to roll up his sleeve and show them all a very distinguished tattoo on his forearm, the snake twisting over itself, scales and fangs clearly visible.
“Since time immemorial, the djinn have avoided humanity,” Siyer said. “I have been informed by an old colleague that they find us noisy, brutish, and boring. To limit their interaction with our species, they only condescend to recognize a few of us at any one time. These are known as the emissary families. We are, of course, the true nobility of humanity. I trace my ancestors to the fifth century of Christ, to the kings of the Pashtuns. The Medicis were an emissary family for a time. So was the house of Saud. So too the line of Solomon and the great Moghuls. It is said that the great Buddha was an emissary, as was Ashoka. Napoleon was not, which is why he lost the only battle that really counted.”
“And you mean to tell me that Kaikobad is an ambassador?” The Ambassador looked slightly put out.
“Certainly. Your family is known in our circles as old emissary blood. Your ancestor Emir Khan Rahman was a notable emissary who fought in a great magical battle and ennobled himself. And of course Kaikobad himself has spent much time among djinns,” Siyer said.
“And this mark is a badge of honor from the djinns?” Aunty Juny asked.
“Well, yes and no,” Siyer said. “The djinns sometimes have trouble telling humans apart. The mark of Bahamut indicates we are emissaries—that we are authorized to be in djinn space and protected by the djinn Bahamut. It stops them from harming us for no reason.”
