Magic is dangerous. Easy magic is evil.
An idea came to him, like a warm shaft of sunlight breaking through the clouds and caressing the flowers on a storm-tossed meadow.
Except when I use it against itself.
He retrieved the piece of paper and spread it on the floor before him.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
The Birir Valley
Islamic Republic of Pakistan
“Fuckers are slaughtering the tribespeople,” John said.
Liberty had ordered the laptop computer set up on the porch of Tareef’s home. A portable radio uplink connected the computer to the satellite that was in communication with the drones. It had taken fifteen minutes to get the gear in operation so they could see what the camera on the drone at the bottom of the mountain was seeing.
The PFC running the computer was using what looked like a video game controller plugged into a USB port to direct the lens.
“Who’s actually flying these things?” John asked.
“They’re flown from a remote command center via satellite,” Liberty said. “Probably a trailer at Bagram in Afghanistan but could be Fort Bragg in North Carolina.”
“Wait a minute!”Stony said. She’d been staring at the camera feed, transfixed. “Can you zoom in on that guy?” She pointed to a man standing next to one of the ISI SUV’s.
The PFC keyed in a command, and the lone figure of a man dressed in black filled the laptop screen.”
“Look up, you bastard, look up,” Stony said.
As if he’d heard her request, the man ran his hands through his hair and stared up into the sky.
“That’s General Pasha! The bastard who set Kyle and me up in Iran. The prick who got Kyle killed.”
“You sure?” John asked.
“Fucking yeah, I’m sure.”
John looked at the colonel. “Do we have the firepower to take out the ISI camp and the SUVs on the mountain?” John asked.
Liberty nodded. “Yeah. These are latest generation Predators, the MQ-3, armed with boosted Hellfire missiles. But—”
“What?”
“How is blowing these guys to hell get us closer to the codex?”
“It buys us time to find Tareef.” John tapped the screen. “And this bastard is a key figure in whatever the ISI knows. Taking him out will be a step in the right direction. What kind of authorization do you need? “
“The rules changed years ago when our relationship with Pakistan went to shit. I’ve got to have signature strike approval from the president. We set up a rapid authorization chain before we left Bagram.”
John watched another cluster of huts go up in flames. He could see bodies scattered on the ground. “Get us what we need.”
Liberty nodded. “Give me fifteen min—” He pointed to his headset. “Shit. The AWACS flying patrol inside Afghanistan is telling me there’s an assault helicopter headed this way from Pakistan’s Karma Airbase near Islamabad. They must know we’re here.”
“Could be they’re after the ISI, not us.”
“You want to wait and find out?”
“How long before the chopper gets here?” John asked.
“Half hour, maybe. And their bird can fly faster than ours.”
“Any way for us to bring it down?”
“Nope. This is a low profile mission, remember? We didn’t plan for an air battle.”
John looked at his watch. “Get us permission to kill these ISI assholes, and tell our chopper pilot to move his flying escape route down here next to the bridge. Then get us some air cover from Afghanistan. We leave in twenty minutes.”
“Jesus. Gonna be close,” Stony said.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
The Birir Valley
Islamic Republic of Pakistan
Tareef stared at the page on the cave floor, but all he could see were images of his long sessions in the desert with Professor Rahman. Tears leaked from his eyes and fell onto the wrinkled paper. He shook his head, focused on the words, and began reading aloud.
“I invoke my birthright to the Power granted by Transition. I beseech this Power to grant my request. I honor the requirements of Transition and affirm…”
The cave was suffused with an iridescent lavender glow. The sweat on Tareef’s forehead dried, and he shivered in a wash of cold air.
“That I make my request with respect and humility…
“That my heart is pure…”
The aura deepened, swirling like an unnatural fog. Tareef’s voice quaked. He didn’t know if was from the cold or from the fear that had seized his heart.
“That my request is worthy…
“That I willingly surrender my life if I am found unworthy or my request is found wanting…”
The next part was underlined on the wrinkled page:
“I invoke the ancient words Lak-Nor-Ah. My magic is my own true wish, free and unrestrained by the magic of others.”
He pronounced each of the strange words with care. Each was accompanied by a small puff of white fog in the lavender pool of light.
“Hear me: I ask that the Power that rules Transition speak with me and guide my actions.”
The floor and walls of the cave fell away. Tareef screamed but heard no sound. His heart skipped in his chest. He felt like he was falling from a great height and that his eyes had been covered by a cold lavender shroud. He could neither see nor feel, couldn’t tell if air moved in his chest.
Am I dead?
The sense of motion, of falling, ceased. His arms and legs were outstretched but touched nothing.
A shapeless bright light exploded in front of him, then dimmed to a burning ball that danced before his face. The color of the ball pulsed in time with his heart, from blue of the noon sky to the indigo of twilight, and back, and on.
“Tareef Khan, you have spoken the words Lak-Nor-Ah, words that have gone unsaid for more than two millennia. What do you seek?”
Tareef burst into tears. The voice was soft and comforting. It was his father’s.
“Are you the Power that rules Transition?”
The ball of light flashed so bright it burned Tareef’s eyes, then returned to its pulsing rhythm.
“Did you not beckon me to appear? You have little time. What do you seek?” Now the voice was his mother’s.
Tareef forced his thoughts back to the codex. “The words of the codex. The Lak-Nor-Ah. They’ll cause great destruction and death. Why does such evil exist?”
The whirling ball shrank, then surged back.
“Words are not evil.”
“These words could cause the end of man. Is that not evil?”
The voice changed to the low rumble of an approaching storm. “What do you seek?”
“I seek the destruction of the codex, as if it had never existed, without harming man or man’s world.”
“What’s been done will not be undone. What do you seek?”
The storm was all around Tareef now. Lightning flared and crackled. He felt the hair on his head stand in a wild halo. Thunder hummed in his chest.
Tareef considered what had been said and remembered one of his father’s teachings. “The answer to a problem between two men may lie in what hasn’t been said.” He had one last idea and tried to think of how to say it. How Rahman or his papa might have said it.
“I seek these things. Let the past remain unchanged, but let mine be the last use of the words Lak-Nor-Ah. Let men remember that these words existed, but know in their hearts that they hold no power. Send the men who are attacking my people home, to live as saints in the world from this point forward.”
The shimmering ball of light dissolved into an image of Tareef’s father. He was smiling and tears streaked his cheeks.
“The last use of Lak-Nor-Ah has been granted. The new saints are returning to their families. I mark your eyes, Tareef Khan, with the permanent color of Transition, so all may know you as unique among men. Go in peace.”
The image of his father faded away. Tareef�
��s eyes closed in a long, slow blink. The world around him went black. When his eyelids opened, he was back on the porch of his house, facing the Americans.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
The Birir Valley
Islamic Republic of Pakistan
“Tareef! Christ, where did you come from?” John jerked back, stumbling and almost falling. Liberty’s men squawked and jerked their weapons up into firing position, pointed at Tareef’s chest.
“No!” John yelled. “Put ‘em down. Now!”
Am I losing my mind?
They’d talked to the boy. He’d fled. Now he was back. John glanced at his watch. Twenty minutes had passed since they’d first encountered Tareef. He looked at the computer setup on the porch. The drone cameras were still focused on the ISI assault force.
I’m not imagining this.
Tareef leaned against the wall of his home, staring at John with his lavender eyes.
“You must leave,” Tareef said.
He seemed oddly calm, unlike before he’d bolted, when he’d reminded John of a spooked deer.
He reappeared like magic.
John’s heart pounded in his chest, sweat beaded on his forehead, and he was disoriented, like the time he’d experienced a 6.8 earthquake when visiting a friend in Peta Luma, California.
Magic? Can it be?
“We are, soon,” John said. “But we need to help your people before we go. We need to stop the ISI from—”
John froze, stunned by a sudden realization. He knew—he was certain—that the codex existed, that it had once granted the power of unlimited magic, but that the words in the codex had lost their power. He was equally certain that Transition magic still existed, but constrained by uniqueness.
He could hear the sound of their helicopter thrashing the air as it landed near the bridge, but the sound was distant and indistinct.
We have no reason or right to be here.
“General Pasha and his men are no longer a threat,” Tareef said.
John shivered at the calm certainty in Tareef’s voice. John looked at the laptop display.
The PFC running the computer was shaking his head and muttering to himself. “I don’t get it. The bastards got back into their SUVs. They’re leaving.”
“Stony,” John said. “Tell me what you know about the codex. Does it—”
Liberty interrupted. “The helicopter from Islamabad has turned back. We’re clear. Do you still want to attack?”
“No.” The speed of John’s answer startled him.
How can I lust for revenge one minute, then know in my soul that seeking revenge would be wrong?
“Dish, I don’t understand.” Stony looked as scared as John had ever seen her. “The codex is real, but it’s powerless. I’m sure of it.”
John looked at Tareef. “What did you do?”
The young boy smiled, a sad smile of loss and knowledge. “Me? I did nothing. Thank you for trying to help us.”
John heard the high-pitched shriek of an overhead falcon as Tareef walked over and hugged him, then Stony. “But now you must go. Be well.”
About the Author:
J. E. Hopkins is the author of the fantasy thriller The Scarlet Crane and The Saffron Falcon.
Born on the leading edge of the baby boom, he entered and won an elementary school contest with an article on Wilkie Collin’s The Moonstone. The article was published in the local county newspaper and was his last publication for more than fifty years, until The Scarlet Crane in 2012.
Which is not to say that the intervening years were a complete waste—his career taught him toilet paper design, software development, educational technologies for assessing student learning, and bumblebee energetics.
A life-long voracious reader, his writing influences include Isaac Asimov, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Douglas Preston/Lincoln Child. And John Connolly, Greg Bear, and Rosa Montero. And…
Some might say that he’s easily influenced.
It may have taken a few decades, but he’s finally living his dream of writing full-time. He and his wife live near Cincinnati with two demon cats, Carbon and Boron.
The Saffron Falcon (Transition Magic) Page 27