The Five Fakirs of Faizabad

by P. B. Kerr

  “I see,” said Nimrod, and very quietly murmured his focus word.

  “I wish I did,” said Philippa.

  Nimrod looked closely at Zagreus. “I’ve never actually seen a Jinx before,” he admitted. Politely, he added, “How do you do?” so as not to make the Jinx feel like some sort of freak.

  “Very well, thank you,” said Zagreus. “Considering who and what I am.”

  “Unfortunately, he has this unlucky effect on things,” said John. “He sort of makes things happen that you kind of wish hadn’t happened.”

  “Like a jinx, you mean,” said Nimrod. “All right.”

  “Exactly,” said John. “That’s what happened in Bumby. I mean, it could very well be that the Jinx is why all that stuff happened and why, for a while, I guess, it was the unluckiest town in the world.”

  “And you brought him here?” Philippa sounded exasperated. Then she looked at Moo. “Moo? This is my twin brother, John.”

  “I’m very glad I didn’t meet your brother and his friend earlier on today,” Moo told Philippa. She set her gold cup down on a table. “So far this has been the luckiest day of my life. So far.”

  “I say twin,” said Philippa. “But you’ll have noticed that he doesn’t actually look like me. And hopefully, he doesn’t think like me. Which is to say that he doesn’t think at all. Sometimes, like right now, the twin thing is a bit of an embarrassment.”

  “I used to have a brother,” said Moo. “He was killed in the war.”

  “Am I to assume that Groanin’s holiday didn’t go entirely to plan?” said Nimrod. “And talking of Groanin, where is he? I am quite desperate for a cup of tea.”

  “He’s here,” said John. “And then again, he’s not. We had a bit of an accident. Or rather he did. Only it wasn’t entirely my fault. If Groanin hadn’t been so very greedy, things might be different.”

  “What kind of an accident?” asked Nimrod.

  “A sort of djinn kind of accident,” confessed John. “Involving sausages.”

  “Where is he?” asked Nimrod.

  John pointed at the desk on the far side of the drawing room. “There,” he said miserably.

  Groanin was standing stiffly to attention on top of Nimrod’s desk. He looked exactly as he had looked the last time Nimrod had seen him, except for the fact that he was only two feet tall and utterly rigid, like a doll.

  “Fascinating,” said Moo. “Most, most fascinating.”

  John explained what had happened. “The diminuendo was meant for Zagreus,” he said. “So that I could transport him safely back here from Bumby. But it went wrong. As you can see.”

  “Doubtless our strange friend, Zagreus, had some effect on the outcome,” said Nimrod. “He is a Jinx after all.”

  “Groanin ate the binding before I could stop him,” added John. “It was inside a pork sausage.”

  “Yes,” said Nimrod. “That sounds about right. Groanin is very fond of pork sausages.” He produced a tiny flashlight on a key chain and shone a small beam of light into Groanin’s eyes. “Since you would certainly have restored Groanin to his old self before returning here, had you been able, I must assume that you’ve forgotten how to lift the binding.”

  John said nothing.

  “Or worse,” added the djinn boy’s uncle. “That you have forgotten the actual diminuendo you used to put him into this diminished state in the first place.”

  “I couldn’t help it,” said John. “I just did. I have. Forgotten the binding. I’ve tried to remember it. Honest. But so far, no luck.” He shrugged. “After that, I didn’t dare try another diminuendo on Zagreus here. For fear that I wouldn’t be able to lift that one, either. You can’t imagine all the problems we had leaving Bumby and traveling here.”

  “Oh, but I think I can.” Nimrod shook his head. “It’s not everyone who’s brave enough to travel with a Jinx for company. No offense, Zagreus.”

  “None taken. I’m only sorry for the inconvenience I seem to have caused.”

  “What are we going to do about poor Groanin?” asked John. “We can’t just leave him like that.”

  “I agree,” said Nimrod. “So, let us hope you can remember the diminuendo, or I shall be looking for a new butler.”

  “You can’t mean —”

  “You remember Galibi,” said Nimrod. “The boy we found in French Guiana.”

  “I’ve never forgotten it,” said Philippa. “He consumed a diminuendo invoked by Iblis that turned him into a living doll.”

  “Just so,” said Nimrod. “Your mother had hoped that her power, or that of Faustina, might be strong enough to overcome that of Iblis the Ifrit. But so far, the precise form of that binding has eluded them both. The poor boy remains exactly how we found him. And stuck inside a drawer in Baghdad until Faustina can figure out a way to return him from a state of suspended animation to real life.”

  “Do you hear that, John?” Philippa clouted her brother on the shoulder. “You’ve got to remember, you great fathead. Or Groanin will be stuck like this forever.”

  “Don’t you think I’ve tried?” John punched the side of his own head with exasperation. “But you can’t remember what you have forgotten. Otherwise you wouldn’t have forgotten it.”

  “That’s very true,” observed Nimrod. “In which case, you, Philippa, will have to remember for him.”

  “Me?” said Philippa.

  “Yes,” said Nimrod. “You’ll have to go inside his head and have a good rummage around. And before you are too hard on your brother, you must bear in mind that it’s not easy doing anything when there’s a Jinx around.”

  “What?” John was outraged. “No way am I having her rake around inside my head.”

  “As I recall,” said Nimrod, “you and Faustina shared Finlay’s body with him once.”

  “That was different,” said John. “That was Finlay’s body. And that was bad enough. You’ve got no secrets when you share a body with someone. Dad says he isn’t ever going to get over having Mom inside his head. And that was just for fifteen minutes. Who knows how long it’ll take Philippa to find out what I’ve forgotten?”

  “Do you really want Groanin to stay like this forever?” demanded Philippa. “Because unless you can remember —”

  “No, of course not,” said John.

  “Well then,” said Nimrod, “let’s hear no more argument about it. The sooner Philippa slips inside your fat head and finds that binding, the sooner I can have my loyal butler back. He might moan and groan like a soldier with ill-fitting boots, but I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed the blighter. Besides, I do so hate going to Morocco without my butler.”

  “Morocco?” said John. “Who said anything about going to Morocco?”

  “I did,” said Nimrod.

  “You found something in Mr. Rakshasas’s library?” said Philippa. “Something that means we have to go to Morocco?”

  “Yes. To see someone I’d completely forgotten about.”

  CHAPTER 9

  FEZ

  Nimrod chartered a private plane to fly from London to Saiss Airport in Morocco. He was accompanied by John, Philippa, Moo, Zagreus, and Groanin, who was now fully restored to his old self after his ordeal at John’s hands. This made him very happy. In fact, he was so happy he didn’t even complain about the prospect of visiting a foreign country, which was something that he always hated. And he sat at the back of the plane singing, like a man in the bath.

  “‘We’re off on the road to Morocco,’” he sang, even as the plane was taking off.

  “What’s that song you’re singing?” Philippa asked the butler.

  “‘The Road to Morocco,’” said Groanin. “As sung by the great Bing Crosby in the film of the same name. Probably the greatest film ever made. Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Dorothy Lamour.” Groanin grinned as he recalled some scenes from the movie in his mind’s eye. “Marvelous stuff.”

  Philippa, who had never heard of any of the names Groanin mentioned, smiled thinly and nodded. “If
you say so.”

  “I do say so.” He started to sing again.

  Nimrod, who was so disturbed by Groanin’s sunny disposition that he had already moved seats twice to be as far away from his butler as possible, winced. “Why is he so cheerful?” he asked his nephew.

  “For one thing, he’s no longer the size of a garden gnome,” said John. “That might have something to do with it. And maybe he’s looking forward to a few days of sunshine, after Bumby. The weather in Bumby was awful.”

  “But Morocco is a foreign country,” said Nimrod. “They do things differently there. Very differently. Groanin hates everything foreign. Especially when it’s as foreign as Fez. That’s one of the reasons I like taking him with me when I travel abroad. Because he detests it so much. Having Groanin along always reminds me of everything I hate about England.”

  John smiled even more thinly than his twin sister. There were times when his uncle seemed really strange, even for a djinn.

  “Besides,” John said, “we’ll probably be staying in a five-star luxury hotel, so when you think about it, maybe it won’t seem all that foreign, so Groanin might actually enjoy it a bit. I’m kind of looking forward to it myself. Room service, enormous beds, huge bathrooms, plenty of first-class food, a swimming pool, a minibar.”

  “I can see I’ve been spoiling you all,” said Nimrod thoughtfully. “And, as a result, neglecting your education.” And very quietly he muttered his focus word.

  “How do you mean?”

  “Nothing.” Nimrod shook his head and made a mental note to teach the twins something about economic and social reality as soon as they got to Fez. “Do me a favor, would you please, John? Tell Zagreus to come up here. I want to speak to him.”

  “Sure.”

  Nimrod had attached a binding to Zagreus to temporarily disable him from jinxing people and machines around him, but he had not yet decided if and how he could help the Jinx and, until he did so, he thought it best that Zagreus accompany them to Morocco. For his part, Zagreus was pleased to have been asked along and to have a chance to speak to Nimrod. He just wanted to help.

  “My nephew, John, tells me that you were captured by some bad men and taken to Bumby.”

  “That’s right,” said Zagreus.

  “Can you tell me anything about these men? Who they were? Not to mention how and why they did it? After all, when John first saw you, Zagreus, you were invisible. At least to human beings.”

  “I don’t know for sure,” said Zagreus. “But I believe it was them who interrupted my progress to my next incarnation. There was some kind of séance. One minute I was traveling through the spirit world, and the next there was someone calling me. At least I think it was me. Then I was in a room and there were these men standing inside a circle. In fact, there were two circles, one inside the other, with a lot of writing in between.”

  “A magic circle, perhaps,” said Nimrod.

  “Whatever that is. Either way, I seemed to have no will of my own. It felt like my spirit had been arrested. I can’t explain it any better than that. The rest is all a bit of a blur. The next time I was aware of anything I was in that horrible little town.”

  “Bumby.”

  Zagreus shrugged. “I’m afraid there’s not much more I can tell you, sir.”

  Nimrod nodded thoughtfully.

  “Except the name of one of the men who arrested my spirit. It was Mr. Churches.” “Churches?”

  “I think so. I can’t be sure.”

  “What did he look like, this Mr. Churches?”

  “A bit like you, sir. Very well dressed, very well-mannered. English, in an old-fashioned sort of way.”

  “Hmm.” Nimrod glanced out the window of the plane. “We’re coming in to land. Perhaps we can talk of this again. Right now you’d better make yourself invisible so that we can get through Moroccan customs without having to answer any awkward questions about importing live animals. No offense intended.”

  “None taken, sir.”

  A stretch Mercedes met them off the plane and drove them into Fez. The fourth largest city in Morocco, Fez was once the largest city in the world. Founded in A.D. 789, the city is situated just below the most prominently northwest point in Africa — a sort of continental thumb that pokes up at the soft underbelly of Spanish Europe. It was full of narrow, winding streets, minarets, and strange smells, not all of them good. Men in long striped-cloth hoodies stood around on street corners, shouting at one another and gesticulating wildly, while the women seemed all but invisible. Everywhere — spilling out of bars and shops, blasting out of open car windows — there was the infectious sound of Arabic music.

  Nimrod told the driver, a handsome Moroccan named Saadi, to drive them into the new part of the city and, arriving at a graceful avenue of trees, he announced that they were looking at the Morisco Palace Hotel.

  “This is the best hotel in Morocco,” he explained. “It might even be the best hotel in the whole of North Africa. As you might expect, given the enormous price of a room.”

  “Excellent,” said Groanin, who winked at John and reached for the door handle. “Room service, here I come.”

  “Which is why we’re not staying here,” added Nimrod.

  “You what?” said Groanin.

  Nimrod told Saadi to drive on.

  “You mean we’re not staying here?” said Philippa.

  “I realized that I’ve been giving you and John an incorrect impression of what the world is really like,” Nimrod told her. “Which is hardly fair of me. I’ve been thinking of my own comfort and convenience when I should have been thinking of your education.”

  “What does that mean?” asked Groanin.

  “It means we’re staying somewhere else,” said Nimrod.

  “So where are we staying?” asked Moo as the car neared the edge of the Sahara desert.

  The car stopped outside what looked like a cross between a giant pyramid and a skyscraper.

  “Here,” said Nimrod. “One hundred and five stories high, three thousand rooms: Welcome to the internationally famous El Moania hotel.”

  “It looks like a rocket launchpad,” observed Moo. “Simply awful.”

  “Why is it internationally famous?” asked an invisible voice that belonged to Zagreus.

  “For the simple reason that this is without doubt the worst hotel in the world.” Nimrod smiled at Moo. “Rest assured, dear lady; as I recall, you still have one wish left from yesterday.”

  “Do I?”

  “Very much so,” said Nimrod. “We always grant them in threes, for the sake of a harmony that includes and synthesizes two possible opposites.”

  “I always wondered why that was,” said Moo happily.

  “The worst hotel in the world?” John sounded outraged. “How is this going to help with our education?”

  “It is my experience,” said Nimrod, “that you can only really appreciate the finer things in life when you have had to endure some of life’s hardships. And believe me, there’s no greater hardship in the whole of North Africa than the El Moania hotel.”

  “I can see that,” admitted Philippa. “But don’t you think it might be better for us all if we just said ‘thank you kindly’ when we left?”

  “No,” said Nimrod.

  “Well, I shan’t put up with it,” insisted Groanin. “I shall check in somewhere else. I said, I shall check in somewhere else. Like that hotel we were just at a few minutes ago.”

  “And pay with what?” asked Nimrod. “The Morisco Palace is a thousand dollars a night. Or whatever that is in the local currency, which is the dirham. I’m just guessing, but I’m assuming you don’t have any of what passes for money in this neck of the woods.”

  “Then I shall make some, using djinn power,” said John.

  “You tell him, John,” said Groanin. “That’s the spirit.”

  Nimrod smiled. “You do that, nephew of mine,” he said, opening the car door.

  John winked at Groanin. “Don’t worry,” he to
ld the butler. “You can rely on me. I’ll sort things out. Just see if I don’t. In just a few minutes we’ll be checking into the Morisco Palace.” But when John opened his mouth to utter his focus word, he found that he could not. “Ab-ab-ab-ab-”

  It wasn’t that he had forgotten it, merely that he couldn’t pronounce the word.

  “Your word is ABECEDARIAN,” said Groanin. “I said, it’s ABECEDARIAN.”

  “Ab-ab-ab-ab-” John shook his head. “What’s happened? I can’t pronounce my focus word.” He looked helplessly at Philippa, who discovered to her equal horror that no more could she utter hers.

  “Fab-fab-fab-fab-”

  Nimrod laughed. “Now you see the importance of keeping your focus words secret,” he said. “I’ve attached a sesquipedalian binding to each of you for the duration of our stay here in Morocco. I’m afraid it specifically prevents each of you from pronouncing your own focus word.”

  The driver unloaded the luggage on the pavement outside the hotel entrance.

  “I think this is so unfair,” said John.

  “So now you’re stuck here whether you like it or not,” said Nimrod. “You can either stay here, at the El Moania …” Nimrod pointed at the undulating sand dunes that marked the beginning of the Sahara desert. “Or you can stay there, I suppose.” Shaking his head, he added, “But I really wouldn’t recommend it.”

  Moo then made her final wish, which was to stay at the Morisco Palace, and Nimrod ordered the driver to take her back there.

  “It’s lucky I brought my usual supply of sterilized baby food from England,” said Groanin. “At least we won’t starve.”

  CHAPTER 10

  THE WORST HOTEL IN THE WORLD

  For about five minutes the hotel didn’t seem quite as bad as the twins and Groanin had feared it would be. The receptionist greeted them warmly and promised them each a room with an en suite bathroom and a panoramic view of the desert. Nimrod signed the register. Room keys were handed over. Groanin even admired the beauty of the entrance hall.