The old woman covered with bees, the shadow woman, had said so.
25
Dawit loathed his feeling of helplessness. But, above all, he loathed his fear.
The large mirrored wall in his chamber was usually hidden behind a curtain, a mirror he reserved for observing his sword stances and the fluidity of his dancelike combat movements. His motions were a breathtaking lethal poetry when he perfected them, even to his own eyes. He had prepared for countless matches with the guidance of his mirrored motion, his blades glinting in the reflection.
Yet, now he stood before his own mummified image as if he were facing a stranger. His posture was tentative, his eyes were red for lack of sleep, and he could almost see his fear in every sinew of his body despite the healing cloths. What had become of him?
It was bad enough he could do nothing for Jessica, at least nothing she craved. He could explain nothing about the origin of their child’s strange powers; he had heard of no child like her, and he suspected there had never been one. Fana was a bright, lovely girl—sweet in the way many children were at her tender, trusting age—but she baffled him. And even though he could not name what she was, he knew full well that the fault for her condition lay with him. He had damaged this child in the womb, and now he might not be able to control her.
She had created rain? She’d nearly sent a child to his death with her mere thoughts? Even Khaldun, to his knowledge, had never performed such miraculous feats. If Khaldun had such power, he mused, Kaleb would never have escaped from the colony after his heinous acts. Khaldun would already have made an example of him; instead, Khaldun had dispatched the Searchers to root him from his hiding place in the world above. But how could Khaldun expect the Searchers to maintain their loyalty now? Kaleb was one of their own.
What might Fana have done in retribution, given a chance? Jessica, despite her courage in coming to the colony, still seemed unwilling to examine the most obvious element of Fana’s existence: This girl could do whatever she liked. Therefore, as loving as she seemed, she was a threat to anyone who encountered her. Even to him.
“What are you afraid of?” he said aloud to his reflection. “A child?” The derision in his voice forced him to laugh.
But the answer, regardless, was yes. And pretend as he might in her presence, the child was sure to know his fear. He did not have the power to mask his thoughts like Khaldun and his Higher Brothers, who hid themselves behind impenetrable veils. He might mask a few thoughts, but not all of them. His only real weapon, ironically, was to love her. Could he do that, despite his fear? He must try, at least. That was what Jessica wanted from him, and that was what he owed both mother and child. And that was only the beginning of his penance.
Dawit searched his dark eyes in the reflection, looking for traces of himself. His bandaged frame heaved with a long sigh. The pain had subsided. The time had come. He could never hope to overcome his larger fears if he could not conquer this smaller, vain one.
He did not ever want to see that monster in the mirror again, but he might. Perhaps after this attack, for reasons he did not understand, the damage had been so severe that he would never heal properly. Khaldun had often told them that their immortality was not absolute, that there was a Ritual of Death. Perhaps Kaleb’s flames had brought him too close to ash, too close to death’s edge. And he would have to accept his new face, to live with his disfigurement.
So be it, then. This, too, was penance.
With an unsteady hand, Dawit reached toward the back of his head, where the healing cloths adhered to each other, and he began to pull away at his covering. Layer after layer of the strips dropped away, and he unwound the cloths that concealed his face. Without realizing it, he closed his eyes as he worked, bracing for another horror.
Finally, his entire face was exposed to the warm air in his chamber, his skin twitching slightly in its new freedom. He dared not touch his face for fear of finding the shriveled flesh that had been there before. His heartbeat quickened in his chest, a steady, frightened thumping.
How will you face what is to come if you cannot even bear your own sight?
After taking a deep breath, Dawit opened his eyes to see whom he had become.
• • •
Jessica had lost track of time in a way she never had before. Had two days passed? Three? More? She didn’t know, and even Teferi and David hadn’t been able to tell her for certain how long she had been at the Life Colony, or how long she had been recovering.
She’d resorted to trying to count her meals, but that wasn’t much help. When she and Fana ate, the unfamiliar foods felt more like snacks than meals. The Life Brothers ate pastes of all textures, fist-sized, grainy globules that were munched like apples and reminded Jessica of bird feed, and bowls of meal-like foods in strange colors such as pine green and rust red. Tasty, but weird. And monotonous. Most Life Brothers didn’t crave variety in their foods because eating was almost always a solitary, functional act, only rarely considered a pleasure or part of any shared ceremony, David had explained to her. He said the pastes were designed to stimulate the taste buds the same way a variety of foods would; some were sweet, some tart, some so hot she couldn’t even swallow them. Still, he’d said, some Life Brothers were perfectly content to live on nothing but nutritive vapors and bland wafers.
Well, none of it was enough for Jessica. After she complained, Teferi brought her a huge roasted chicken to share with David—and patties for Fana that tasted exactly like ultralean ground beef but contained no meat, Fana’s first “hamburgers”—but for all Jessica knew they’d been eating that meal at six in the morning. Time, even mealtime, had become meaningless.
So, Jessica had no idea how long she had been waiting when lithe, little Teka finally brought the breathless news that Khaldun was ready to see her. His face was radiant, expectant.
“Get David,” Jessica said, sitting up in her bed, her first thought.
“He has already been summoned to your chamber. He will be here soon.”
David had spent many hours with Jessica and Fana since his first appearance, but he still slept in his own chamber, apart from them. The first time he’d given Jessica a wondering glance, as if he was unsure if he should stay or leave, she’d said, I’ll see you in the morning, David, a farewell that was nonsensical in a place where light always shone, but was the answer to his unspoken question. As much as Fana seemed to enjoy David’s company, Jessica didn’t want to crowd their daughter too quickly; it was best for her to see David in stages, to feel more comfortable in his presence and learn to anticipate his visits. His creepy bandages didn’t exactly make him approachable to a kid, she thought. And Jessica needed time away from him, too. There were instants she felt surges of rage so strong toward him that she could barely speak a civil sentence, and she didn’t want to prejudice Fana with her anger. Maybe both of them just needed to go slow with David. So far, so good.
Teferi still felt more like her true host, and Fana trusted him. Thanks to Teferi, Jessica finally did have appropriate clothing for her meeting with Khaldun; Teferi had brought her a lovely floor-length, bright yellow African dress he said had belonged to one of his past brides, and Jessica had saved it for the occasion. He had also brought her a headwrap that reminded her of a Middle Eastern style, and she quickly dressed in that, too, her face framed by the long flaps of soft, decorative cloth that reached her shoulders. Those flaps could also serve as a veil, she knew, but she would not cover herself. She wanted Khaldun to see her.
And for Fana, Teferi had a surprise.
“I’m not much of a tailor,” he said sheepishly, “but I did my best.”
Fana shrieked with delight. The costume Teferi brought was sewn of purple silk, a pint-size gown that Fana might well have worn to a school prom if she had been fourteen years older. She wriggled into it easily, and it fit her well, though it dragged slightly on the floor behind her. “This is Khaldun’s favorite color,” Teferi told her, patting down her sleeves.
; “Me, too!” Fana said, strutting proudly in her new gown.
Then David walked into the chamber.
Jessica had first met David when he was her Spanish professor at the University of Miami twelve years before, but when he entered the room, she was swept away by the sensation that she was seeing him for the first time yet again. His clothing was different, to be sure—he was now dressed in white linen pants and a white tunic identical to the one Teferi had been wearing at the Roha Hotel, with the same white skullcap atop his closely cropped hair, apparently the Life Brothers’ most formal attire. But his face! It was the same face, unchanged, that had intrigued her so much when she was twenty, and that she had woken up to for so many years since. The raw beauty in his clay-brown face stung her, nearly bringing tears to her eyes.
The bandages were gone. He was only David, yet again.
And from David’s expression, he had been similarly struck by the sight of her in the ancient, lovely dress. His mouth was open to speak, but he made no sound.
Fana, as usual, broke the silence. “No more fire!” she said, delighted at her father’s face.
“That’s right, sweetheart,” David said. “The fire is all gone.”
• • •
Jessica could not see the drummers in the torch-lit passageway as Teka led them toward Khaldun’s chamber, but she could hear their frenetic, impassioned beating, the many-toned drums blending almost like chanting voices. They must exhaust themselves to play that way, she thought. Those men, whoever they were, had to be true and devoted believers. Underneath the drumming, she thought she heard a droning instrument of some sort, with a continuous tone. The music grew louder as they walked. Khaldun, apparently, lived somewhere near the music.
Fana had been much more open toward David now that his bandages were gone, raising her arms up to him so he could lift her, and now David was balancing Fana on one arm as they walked. Jessica hadn’t planned to hold David’s hand, but the gesture seemed natural as they walked together. David’s smooth palm felt good against Jessica’s new hand; it had grown back, just as David had said, while she drifted in and out of consciousness. He had warned her to expect pain even after the regrowth, and sometimes the tingling sensation had been painful enough to make her moan, but she didn’t notice any discomfort with David’s hand wrapped around hers. And his palm was slightly damp, she noticed; she wasn’t the only one who was nervous.
Jessica’s feelings toward Khaldun were so conflicted she could barely cling to a single emotion; he was stupefying, she knew she needed him, and yet from this great distance he had been the one who had ultimately decreed the end to her family life in Miami, sending Mahmoud after them. Perhaps more than even David or Mahmoud, she realized, Khaldun was to blame for Kira’s death. Who was he?
“Have you met with him before?” Jessica asked David softly.
“Privately? Yes, ten times,” David said, leaning over to whisper to her with his sweet, familiar breath. “Nine times, I have come to his chamber. And right before you came, he sent his visage to me. But that is common. He often sends his visage instead of holding an audience in the flesh. Like at the dinner for you.”
His visage. Jessica had convinced herself that Khaldun had to be using some kind of elaborate machinery to send his image from a distance, but David and Teferi had insisted it was a mental feat instead, something he accomplished through pure concentration. It was something all men could do with enough training, Khaldun taught his colony, but so far he was the only one who had mastered the art.
“Do all of you have meetings with him?” she asked, curious.
At that, David looked uncertain. “His students here in the House of Meditation . . . I mean, I assume . . .”
“No,” Teka spoke up suddenly from in front of him, his voice soft as he led them through the shadowed passageway. “He teaches students in groups, not individually, and he entertains visitors to his chamber only in the rarest of circumstances.”
The music still sounded distant, but it was much more distinct, and the narrow, winding passageway’s light seemed to have taken on a gentle lilac hue. The walls in this area were rough and crumbly, much less finished than the other parts of the colony. For the first time in a long time, Jessica was reminded that she was under the ground. Teka went on, “Khaldun promises us we can mingle with him only when we have completed our Rising, mastering our meditations. I’ve heard it said that he has seen no one in flesh more than you, Dawit. Except his attendants.”
David raised his eyebrows, clearly surprised. “Then I am honored.”
“You are also envied,” Teka said, then hesitated slightly. “Many on the Council believe no one should see Khaldun. I’ve heard speculation that your visits might be the root of your disobedience, that perhaps you consider Khaldun to be an ordinary man.”
“That’s nonsense,” David said, his face hardening. “Khaldun has been my salvation.”
But Jessica was wondering how people could live secluded for hundreds of years because of the wishes of a man they barely knew. Teka, who had obviously heard her thoughts, cast Jessica a knowing, slightly disapproving, glance. “When you know someone in the flesh, you know that person only in part,” he told her. “A man’s teachings are more important than his flesh form. Flesh is an illusion. This is what you learn as you undertake your Rising.”
David squeezed Jessica’s hand, cautioning her not to speak. He probably wanted her to know this would not be a good time to argue with one of Khaldun’s most faithful. So, while doubts still flew in Jessica’s mind, she kept her mouth shut.
Besides, Teka had a point. She had seen Khaldun’s visage, and she had seen his magnificent artwork, including his rendering of Christ. And the colony itself was awe-inspiring; how had he built it, carving it from the rock under the earth? It must have taken hundreds of men, just like the magnificent churches above them. David had told her the colony had existed from the start, and Khaldun had only invited the Life Brothers to share it with him as pupils. Its origin, like that of the churches above it, was a mystery. No ordinary man could do those things. Maybe if she had been chosen as one of the immortals pupils so long ago, she would have been so amazed by Khaldun and his work that she could have been satisfied to live as they did, too.
“Teka, how did—” she began.
We must remain silent now, Teka’s voice intruded into Jessica’s head, though his lips remained closed. Fana had used that particular trick on her before, but Jessica still felt feather tips whispering across the back of her neck and the hairs of her arms as her head was invaded. It was a strange sensation. The carefully modulated words went on, parting through her own thoughts: Khaldun’s chamber is before us, and our voices will disturb him. Spoken voices are crude and shrill, and they are rarely heard here.
Jessica only nodded obediently. Her heart rattled.
Then, another voice floated into her head, an urgent call. Mom-my.
Jessica snapped to look at Fana in David’s arms. Her daughter was smiling expectantly at her, such a vision in her beautiful purple dress. Fana’s eyes shone.
The Man is here! He’s really really here!
Jessica felt jarred sharing such casual mental communication with her daughter, and she suddenly reached over to hold Fana’s tiny hand, wishing she knew how to answer back without speaking. This man, Khaldun, had some kind of influence on her daughter she could probably not comprehend, and certainly never duplicate. She couldn’t help feeling the claws of envy. It was as though Fana naturally belonged here among these people, that she had been lost from their tribe and was now being returned to them. Jessica didn’t know whether Fana heard her thoughts that time, but her daughter’s excited grin didn’t waver in the slightest.
Suddenly, Teka’s eyes plowed intently into Jessica’s. They had reached a fork in the passage, and the lilac-hued light was shining more brightly from the left side, as if from a doorway. Khaldun has chosen to see the child first, Teka’s voice said. It was not a request.
&n
bsp; Fana, thrilled, was already squirming to be released from her father’s arms.
• • •
He had been talking to her head the whole time they were walking, and just to her. No one else could hear him, he said; not Mommy, not her Fire Daddy whose face had come back, and not even the skinny man called Teka. Nobody but her.
There is no language to express how long I have awaited this time, Fana.
His words were like a waterfall over her, full of magic and love and promise.
You are as the very breath of an angel.
Fana had been excited before, so much that she had wet her pants last Christmas when she’d realized there was a tricycle under the tree just for her, and although she would be sure not to do something so silly and babyish now—especially not in the dress from Teferi!—she could not remember a time she had ever felt more excitement than this. She could not remember feeling her heart banging inside her so hard that her skin was hot from the rushing blood.
Come to me, Fana. Come to me.
Teka led her to a curtain that was almost the same color as her dress, except darker, and she saw the pretty light spilling from underneath the door. The light reminded her of the flowers that bloomed near her house, the ones Aunt Alex liked to cut to put on the dinner table. If she could taste that light, she thought, it would taste exactly like candy.
Gently, Teka nudged Fana from behind. Go on, child, Teka said, lifting the edge of the curtain for her.
That was all Fana needed. She bounded into the room, her happy eyes wide.
Inside the large room, Fana wondered if maybe she had seen it before, in the not-real place, because it was a room that could only be in a dream. The floors were carved with designs that nearly made her dizzy to look at, and the walls were covered in thin, pretty white cloths that fluttered slightly, as if they were breathing. It was such a big room that she nearly had to squint to see the man sitting in the very back, on top of fat pillows. The whole room was empty except for The Man and his pillows. The Man was wearing white, too. He was sitting with his legs crossed in a white robe like the one he’d been wearing when he was floating in the air the first day she and Mommy had come. She could see The Man’s wide grin, just like in her tran-ces. He raised his arms, and his robe’s wide sleeves fell underneath them like a bird’s unfolding wings.
The Living Blood Page 34