Midnight

by Joshua Rutherford

  “I see...” Ashallah began. “A city of nomads. A familiar sight of an unfamiliar place.”

  “Yes, I would imagine you’ve never seen this city before. In fact, I know it.”

  Ashallah felt a strong urge in her gut. More of a connection. To Darya. “When you touch me, and I can see your thoughts or those of your forefathers, you can see mine, can’t you? All of them?”

  “I can.”

  “You know my curiosities and questions, even before I do?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then tell me what I want to know now.”

  Darya sighed. “We are on the northern fringes of the empire, where Greater Dyli stretches into the Barrens. This town before you is Yago, a seasonal one that rises after the rains have watered these parts and the wild grasses and grains have grown. The fertile period of this area is near its end. In a few weeks’ time, the nomads will move on until next year, leaving only a handful of permanent citizens who stay amongst the dust and sand, waiting for the days to pass.

  “As to why we’re here, well, that will also explain why Rahim... why we are so stricken.” Darya paused a moment to compose herself, fighting back tears. “You know we are turquoise, sons and daughters of jinn. We are strong, with our own powers. However, in times of distress, we still find need of the jinn. Whether they be fathers, uncles, or other family. We rely on the few of them still in the good graces of Jaha.

  “I speak of the thirty-three who were not bound by the first commands of Jalal. Those that escaped that cavern of lamps, who fled to the four corners of the earth. Despite their flight, Jalal – with the power of forty-four jinn to do his will – pursued them relentlessly. Many of the thirty-three were apprehended within a few years of their escape. More were subdued in the decades and centuries that followed. In our time, only a handful remained free. You met one of them on the battlefield, a jinni who the Tirkhan thought they had tamed. In truth, they had only enough knowledge of his script to keep him as their own for a little while. The rest of their directives, poorly translated, drove him back to the largest collection of his kind: what we know as the Royal Palace of Rilah. Now he, like nearly all the others, is a slave to the will of the Grand Sultan.”

  Darya paused, as though forgetting her place. Ashallah studied her. Her eyes reflected a focus, a sense of intelligence she had never witnessed before. She had seen similar looks in the faces of the imams of Yasem, or while calligraphers wrote on their scrolls in the bazaars. However, Darya’s was something more. It was concentration. It was deep reflection. At its finest. By a woman.

  Darya breathed deeply. “My brother,” she continued. “After he struck down those scouts in the desert – your fellow midnight warriors – others followed, despite our best attempts to evade them. They alerted more soldiers. The Court even sent some of their janissaries to lead the chase. Janissaries who had at their disposal turquoise. These were not just any turquoise, such as those in dungeons or at wayward fortresses. Those who could travel far. Those who could fight. Perhaps even some better skilled than my brother.

  “With our capture imminent - and with you in a weakened state, in no position to fight nor run - my brother and I had no choice. We had to summon a jinni.”

  Darya reached beneath her abaya dress. She withdrew a small horn that had been tucked in her waistband. It was stunning for its craftsmanship and beauty, despite being so small. Ashallah reached out to touch it, her fingers caressing the carved calligraphy. She knew not the language, but she imagined its elegance when spoken.

  “It is antique cedar,” Darya said. “Passed down the generations to my brother from our father, to be used only when we are in danger. At one point in our history, blowing this horn would summon a dozen jinn to our aid.

  “In our peril that night, we blew this horn and no one answered. The call gave away our position. My brother carried you over his shoulder as we hurried from our enemies. We retreated to a gathering of boulders, where Rahim set you down and blew the horn again. No answer.

  “By then the sun had risen, and the armed men of Greater Dyli were upon us. Professional soldiers from your city of Yasem and others had tracked us. Several dozen of Greater Dyli’s fastest drew their weapons to engage. Rahim fought them off. However, more came. In his struggle, I finally took the horn and blew.

  “The third call was our salvation. From the horizon, a jinni sped towards us. To mere men and women, his appearance would be as that of a dust storm, a commonality in the desert, nothing more. The children of jinn, however... We know better. True dust storms are harsh and brutal. However, jinn travel through the air over expanses and mountains, a whole unit of beauty consisting of smaller parts, like flocks of migrating birds or clouds of mists at sunrise. The desert sands were their birthplace. So it is as the sands that they uniformly travel.

  “As he neared, I yelled out to him to take us to safety. The jinni, like all his brothers and sisters as well as myself, had the power of dreamscape. With my finger outstretched towards his, he touched the core of my mind, all my thoughts and fears. In an instant, he knew why I had blown the horn, the reason for my call of distress. In an act of mercy, he swooped in to take us three in his arms. We flew away, like three chicks being rescued by an eagle.

  “Our savior intended to take as far as possible, to safety, beyond the reach of the Grand Sultan and the grasp of those in his service. Our flight was short, though. As we neared this place, the jinni’s power began to fade. I felt his strength vanish. He set us down just in time, because only seconds later... he disappeared in a flash of smoke and flame.

  “The horn I blew, the tool of our salvation, was the jinni’s demise. The Grand Sultan has trained a select few of his turquoise stationed at his palace to hear the sounds of such ancient relics. Day and night, their only task is to listen for sounds near and far. They heard my horn blow on that fateful night. I know they did. I also know they alerted the Grand Sultan. Through the power of his subdued jinn – by their sorcery and magic - the Grand Sultan recalled our savior and our friend to punish his sedition. As we speak, the jinni that helped us is probably suffering, enduring torture beyond our imagination.”

  On quivering lips, Darya’s pained words came to a stop. Having never been a sensitive soul, Ashallah still took note of her distress. And yet, though Ashallah knew the moment to be too fresh in Darya’s mind, her curiosity prompted her to lean in, to ask the question that was burning in her thoughts. “Darya,” Ashallah ventured. “That jinni... was he your father?”

  “Sadly, no. Though like my father, he is no doubt suffering the same fate. You see, after years of doing the Grand Sultan’s bidding, some of the jinn began to resist his commands. They saw how he used their powers, not for the good of Jaha’s will, but for the benefit of his gain, sometimes through acts both selfish and evil. A few jinn were even bold enough to provide opposing counsel to the Sultan, in an effort to curb his greed and wants. When their efforts failed, they turned to their children – turquoise like my brother and I – to let us free so that we would not have to do the Sultan’s bidding as they did.

  “When the Grand Sultan discovered the loss of his turquoise, he became furious. He bound those jinn who helped him and locked them in his vast dungeons, robbing them of their families until their loyalty to him was restored. In his zeal, the Grand Sultan also commissioned more turquoise to be bred. Jinn were paired with more and more concubines to give birth to a plethora of sons and daughters. Such efforts did not result in the transference of power that the Sultan had hoped. Unlike men and women, with each offspring, jinn pass along less and less of their power, thereby diluting their bloodline. Each generation of turquoise grows the Sultan’s army, but also pushes the boundaries of survival, a result of overbreeding. You saw the consequences of such in the catacombs. Less than desirable turquoise – those that do not show promise of being loyal or great assets to the Sultan’s cause – are given over to soldiers and the armies of men. Such discarded are mistreated, raised as dogs, for the pu
rposes of men, not of Jaha. Then there are the Unmarked. Those who have some of the gifts of the turquoise, like superior strength or dreamscape, yet none of our limitations or those of our ancestors. They walk the earth, most not knowing their gifts, not bound to anyone, even the Sultan. They could walk right up to him and stab him in the back; such is their lack of restraint.”

  Ashallah’s head began to throb. All these facts, and the dire consequences of them, were nearly too much for her. “Why tell me all this?” Ashallah asked.

  Darya stared deeply into her eyes. “Because I believe you need to know all this. I believe you are ready.”

  “Ready? For what?”

  “To know why you are here,” Rahim said. Ashallah turned to find him on a small game trail that wrapped around the rise behind them. “To learn why we chose you. You have already learned about the origins of the Grand Sultan, as well as the story of my sister and me. Now you must discover your own hidden past. Who you are. Why we chose you.”

  Ashallah’s skin tingled. Her breathing quickened. Her throat dried. Her heart raced in a way it had never done in battle. For perhaps the first time in her life, she felt a sense of anticipation and nervousness she had never experienced before.

  Darya, sensing Ashallah’s change, put her hand on Ashallah’s shoulder.

  “Are you prepared for more truth?” Darya asked.

  Ashallah swallowed her breath. “Yes,” she replied, not certain if she meant it or not.

  Darya’s hand moved down to Ashallah’s. “I know you are. Because you are brave. And strong. You are midnight.”

  Chapter 15

  Ashallah sat all alone.

  Her legs dangled over the cliff edge. She looked down and saw darkness, where the caverns descended into some pit that had no end. The prospect of falling or losing balance would have terrified another. Not Ashallah. However, her absence of fear had nothing to do with her warrior training or her upbringing. It was not due to her courage, her indifference to pain or her discipline.

  She was stunned.

  Her mind was a fog that had no immediate prospect of clearing, a haze that knew no limits of time. When her deprivation of sense and consciousness began, she could not say, although she suspected that it occurred sometime during her last dreamscape.

  ***

  The morning after Ashallah had awoken in Yago, Darya and Rahim made preparations for Ashallah’s next dreamscape session. Rahim disappeared during the day to fulfill his part. “He must make sure that the way is safe,” Ashallah remembered Darya telling her. Safe from what or from whom she did not elaborate. However, Ashallah felt she could trust her completely, an unusual emotion that had yet to give her comfort.

  For their part, Darya and Ashallah were to go to the daytime bazaar. Darya insisted that they needed provisions, and that it was best to pay for them, lest they attract attention from the magistrates for petty theft. Payment for goods did not bother Ashallah. She did, however, protest the idea of wearing a niqab veil in a foreign city.

  “What is the matter with wearing a veil here?” Darya had asked.

  “It’s not right,” Ashallah had replied. She had made her peace with her life in Yasem, with all the rules and codes of conduct she had had to follow. But in her dealings abroad, Ashallah had always been a midnight warrior. Although the daylight code of veils was in full force throughout Greater Dyli, Ashallah had done most of her dealings at night, thus allowing her the freedom to roam nearly all other cities without the restrictive curtain she constantly seemed to wear in Yasem.

  Her current protest went beyond the serenity that the cloak of night provided her. Ashallah’s brush with death in Yasem’s arena proved to be a catalyst. Before – although she was never enthused by the idea – Ashallah would bite her tongue and follow the commands of men. She would wear her veil during the day. She would bow when magistrates or men of higher standing in the city would pass. She would take her place in the back of public areas along with other women, while men enjoyed the spoils of life first. All because she had been trained as a soldier to follow orders, to do as she was told because she was told.

  In Yago, Ashallah no longer felt compelled to follow the commands of men in any respect, even when she reminded herself that night would allow her to be her own woman or that she was wanted for crimes against the Grand Sultan. She told herself that a veil would afford her the anonymity she needed to evade capture. Only now, she did not care. The very thought of concealing her face, her identity, any part of what made her Ashallah, made her nauseous.

  Let them take me, she told herself. Chain me. Slay me. So long as I can be all of myself. A woman of midnight. Ashallah.

  Ashallah did her best to explain her wants and needs for unconditional exposure to Darya. However, words and wisdom were never her strong points, so that for every argument Ashallah started, Darya ended it.

  “Our journey is not yet complete. You will see soon. There will be many times when we will be in the presence of men, possibly during the day,” Darya explained.

  “I still do not know what you want of me,” Ashallah retorted. “Until that time comes, I refuse to be another woman parading around like a pawn of men.”

  Darya opened her mouth to reply. With a sudden change of heart, she shut it in frustration. She paced around the room they had rented for the next few days, the same one Ashallah had awoken in the day before. “So what are you going to do?” Darya finally said as she threw her arms in the air. “Stay here?”

  “I suppose so,” Ashallah replied. Admittedly, the idea seemed childish. She wanted nothing more than to go out and prove to the world that the ideals of men no longer applied to her, even if such an action invited lashes or a public stoning. Yet such a play would have also brought about punishment for Darya or even Rahim for consorting with her. With no other move, Ashallah found herself stagnant.

  Darya scanned Ashallah’s face. Her hazel eyes were ablaze. Ashallah had never seen them so alive. “I will be back shortly,” was all she said as she stormed out of the room.

  Left alone again, Ashallah stood listening to the background noise of Yago outside. Men voices filtered in from the slits of the shuttered window and through the walls. A small group laughed. Others conversed indiscernibly. A few shouted over the price of goods. Ashallah found interest in none of it. I made the right choice staying inside, she told herself.

  Minutes that seemed like hours passed. Ashallah paced the room. She glanced at the bed, but thought better of sitting on it. Thanks to Darya’s touch and subsequent dreamscapes, Ashallah felt she had slept enough. Besides, the day was young. Moreover, the sun seemed strong in Yago, even with the city being so far to the north. Ashallah glanced through the slits of the shutters to see the daylight shine so brightly. Midday, she concluded. Perhaps a day so bright one cannot even look to the sky.

  Then the idea occurred to Ashallah.

  She opened her shuttered window. Sunlight and noise burst into the room. She chanced and peeked her head out the window.

  Rays so dry and strong warmed the top of her head, as though baking her dark brown hair. Ashallah looked down from her second-story window to find the tops of other heads, with not one of them tilting up to look at her. All of the pedestrians were too consumed with snaking through the narrow corridors and short paths to take the time to stare up at the baking sun.

  Ashallah climbed onto her windowsill. She reached up to find the lip of a ledge. She lifted herself up and onto the flat roof, where clothesline dangled damp garb that fluttered in the light wind. Ashallah ducked behind drying dresses and shirts in search of others, but no one was there. The roof was hers for the moment.

  The rooftop Ashallah stood on was not unlike those of Yasem except that it was not in proximity to others. Yago’s buildings were sparse and far from one another. Wherever there was room, tents, and pavilions crammed in between freestanding structures. The lack of neighboring roofs meant that Ashallah was stranded on her lone, flat island. Such an absence made for a welco
me advantage, for as one of the few permanent structures, Ashallah’s rooftop view allowed her to take in the bulk of the tent city.

  In daylight, the tents of Yago were as a tapestry of a thousand patches, with each telling a different story. The finer pavilions were a dazzling array of colors. Every one of them vied to be the most luxurious, with those of the richest families being awash in gold and violet, reflecting the most expensive dyes in the empire. Along with their almost careless overuse of rich cloth, the richest of Yago flaunted their wealth in their patterns and lacework, which hung over doors, on banners and tent pole flags. The lesser tribes and clans made their own show of richness, for while they could not afford feet or yards of gold and violet cloth, they did display tassels, borders and flaps of those colors on their mid-sized pavilions. Such accents accompanied rich blues, reds, and greens of various tribes and families, who boasted flags that spoke of seafaring trade, warrior traditions and the mining of metals and jewels. Still lesser families and tribes populated the sea of tents, making their own proud display in needlework. Most sewed patches of varying colors into scenes and reliefs that told stories of distant lands, celebrated marriages and trades passed down from generation to generation. Ashallah spotted tents belonging to shepherds, blacksmiths, farmers, carpenters, and tailors to name a few, each with tents that supported their life stories. So many families and tribes, Ashallah thought. A wealth of history. In cloth.

  In looking at the town, Ashallah realized that very few of its inhabitants were warriors or soldiers. Those tents that did display any such heritage in fabric appeared to house retired veterans or small bands of mercenaries, neither of which caused concern to Ashallah. Such a lack of force in a town so large seemed odd to Ashallah until she realized that that was probably the very reason Rahim and Darya chose this location.

  “Jaaaaaahaaaaaa! Hear us!”