The Amulets of Sihr

by Abu Bilaal Yakub

  She approached the table and poured herself a cup of wine. She then collected several herbs from their various containers and served them to the Mabkharas, where they burned and discharged lingering, acrid, and spicy whiffs that clouded the sweet-smelling incense. Whyever would she do that? Mukhtar wondered.

  “Sister Rasha, the Priestesses are as deluded as their beliefs,” Nabiha pleaded with her. “They are heathens and idolaters, you have said so yourself. Are we to cower in fear of what they might do, while the fate of mankind falters upon the edge of a blade? The Amulet has come to us in the hands of one who is willing and able to brave the wickedness of the Dark Prince, and you would simply turn him away?”

  Rasha eyed her for a brief moment, then laughed, loudly and shrilly, and Nabiha reddened with anger.

  “Do you hear yourself?” Rasha lazily raised a bony finger at her. “Your conceit knows no bounds! Holier than thou, you march, in search of what? Valor? Glory?” She drank deeply from her cup and poured herself some more. “Very well then. Speak, O’ Pious One. How do you intend on saving mankind from eternal damnation, when it is only damnation that awaits us in the end?”

  She drank and poured herself even more wine, eventually draining the pitcher. “You, who has never held our beliefs. You, who is a hypocrite and a charlatan. Give me a reason why the Council should not sentence you to your doom. Give me a reason why I should trust you!”

  Nabiha was utterly dispirited. Tears filled her eyes, and Mukhtar decided he had heard enough. A click on his wrist released the dagger, and in one swift step, his arm had engulfed Rasha from behind, an edge of steel touching the stretched skin on her neck.

  “Mukhtar! No!” Nabiha gasped, clasping her hand over her mouth.

  “Apologize, witch!” Mukhtar growled in Rasha’s ear.

  “Unhand me!” Rasha gnarled her teeth. “My death will not go unanswered!”

  “You were already dead when you pledged allegiance to Ussam!” Mukhtar said. “Just like your ally, Ghulam. Pray to your heathen goddess. Tonight, you breathe your last!”

  She trembled slightly and for a brief moment, Mukhtar thought he had truly intimidated her. But when she started cackling mirthlessly, he was suddenly filled with fright. “Perhaps there is benefit to be drawn from this—”

  “I said apologize!” Mukhtar tried to maintain his dominance by increasing the pressure on the blade.

  “—you have sealed your own doom, Son of Zafar!” Rasha continued to cackle and a nauseating odor filled his nostrils. “There is no turning back now. You thirst for what lay beyond the Veil? Witness now what has endlessly destroyed the bloodline of Zafar for generations!”

  Despite all his efforts, Mukhtar’s hands began to tremble. The dagger slipped and cut her slightly, but she hardly flinched as her blood was drawn, steadily dripping and staining her nightgown.

  He unwillingly relinquished his hold on her, staggering away awkwardly and clumsily, feeling lightheaded and weak, trembling uncontrollably as the acrid scents of the herbs and incense more than overwhelmed him. They absorbed him, engulfed him, and slowly but surely, his vision blurred, then darkened, and he crumbled to the floor.

  Sounds of thunder deafened him, flashes of lightning blinded him, and the sands shifted with fury, rising and falling against the wind, against the very storm itself. Mukhtar struggled to stand, surrounded by this unearthliness, but more so with uncertainty and doubt. Fear and despair.

  He knew this landscape. He knew it all too well.

  The erupting sands began to change their shade, and slowly they changed their texture, and before his very eyes, they became water. Droplets of water, waves upon waves of water. It was now an ocean. He stood upon the waters as if on solid ground, and as soon as he realized it, he was engulfed. The depths darkened as he descended, crashing down upon him. He was drowning in it, unable to make sight nor sound.

  ‘This is my world, Mukhtar,’ the voice came as eerily as before, as shrilly as ever. ‘Here I am, Queen and Pauper. Here I am, most powerful, most weak. Here I am, your worst tribulation and your utmost absolution.’

  Mukhtar mustered his courage. He would not be intimidated. He knew who it was— what it was. He would show no fear.

  “You are an abomination of the Unseen World,” the words escaped him, resonating through the darkening depths of the waters. “I fear you not, for I am guarded by He who has created you and I. By His command, you can never harm me!”

  ‘Indeed I am,’ Adva replied. ‘And will forever remain.’

  “But you would seek a different path?” he asked. ‘You would delve to the depths of wickedness?’

  ‘To free my kin, I will seek to world’s end,’ came the reply. ‘Are you prepared to journey the same?’

  “Indeed, it is only by His will does the moon wane and the sun rise,” he said. “By His will, give me your power, and let me bring you your freedom. Show me what I must know.”

  ‘It is yours to command, son of Zafar,’ she said. ‘But do not hope to find contentment. Do not hope to find forgiveness. Forbidden is every pact between our kinds. Woe unto those who blow on knots and invoke the defiled. Theirs is Sin. Theirs is the Abysmal Flame, and in it they shall abide.’

  Mukhtar woke sharply, heavily drenched in sweat. Head throbbing, eyes watering, he was sprawled over the cushions in the same room with Nabiha, hunched over him looking deeply concerned, and Rasha, seemingly enjoying herself in some sort of mystic trance.

  “I drowned—” he gulped and gasped for air, “—I saw—” he choked and coughed.

  “What did you see?” Nabiha pressed.

  “Water—” he gasped.

  “You saw water? The Water Demon?”

  “Must— drink— water!” he choked.

  “No water!” Rasha scooped up one of the porcelain incense burners and brought it close to him. “Breathe… breathe and dream!”

  The smoke of the acrid incense engulfed and drowned him once again into darkness, and he shut his eyes, falling into another dream.

  TWENTY-THREE

  SORCERERS AND SLAVES

  A lifeless hum filled his ears, and his vision blurred in an array of dull, dancing colors.

  It was a strange feeling indeed, for he did not know if he was standing or sitting. He could not sense his limbs, could not feel his fingers, could not for that matter, feel any part of his body. In existence he was, but without a vessel to carry him.

  As his surroundings became apparent, he found himself within the boundaries of engraved white lines and markings of a five-pointed star inside a circle of occult symbols.

  The flames of lit oil lamps swayed in unsynchronized patterns, causing the shadows to come alive. A steady, rhythmic dripping of water resounded somewhere out of sight. He ran his gaze along the mossy damp walls, beyond stone columns of similar texture. Above him, the ceiling faded into darkness, but the height and size of the chamber became apparent enough when a crisp clear voice spoke from somewhere ahead of him, drawing his attention.

  “Adva, of the tribes of Undomi’an, from the Seventh Plane of the Unseen World,” the figure was partially devoured by the clinging shadows, but its form was evident enough. It was a human.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Adva hissed in a feminine, high pitched voice. “You dare summon me?”

  The man cackled and began a string of incantations, chanting in a language Adva had long forgotten; a dialect of the ancient world, not of human, but that of Jinn. The room, which was stifling and humid when she had first materialized as a formless spirit, now became colder and drier by the passing moment.

  The effects of his chanting came in successions. First was the painful, forceful tribulation of assuming form. Human form. A form Adva despised above all other creatures to roam the earth. She, a Jinn, a being of smokeless fire, pure and unbound. Man, a hollow shell of mud and clay, driven by temptation, sustained by ignorance. It was torturous to be subjected to such impurity. She was forced to grow bones, to breed flesh, and stretch s
kin over a bloody and messy transformation.

  Several inferior Jinn materialized in the room, and bound her in infernal chains. They were Shayateen, betrayers and traitors of Jinn-kind, worshippers of the wickedness of Azazil, and they spared no expense in bringing her malice. Ruthless they were, as they pierced her flesh and pinned her to the ground.

  It was done. The process was complete. The contract was set.

  The man, equally exhausted and depleted, still managed to speak in a voice that demanded her subjugation. “You have heard the incantations, the terms of our contract, and are bound to enslavement, until such time as—”

  “Vile creature!” Adva screamed at him. “I know whom you truly serve, Ahumai!”

  Sahir Ahumai cackled mirthlessly. “Then you know what torment awaits you, should you fail to obey my every command! Now, kneel before your master!”

  Adva’s unclad human form felt anger surge through its veins. She made to step off the platform, longing to fly across the room and sink her demonic fangs into the man’s flesh, tear him to bits, and devour him until he was no more. Her arms gave a malevolent twitch, and with a single command, all the moisture in the room was drawn into the pores of her skin. The water condensed around her hands, like thick gloves. Her intent was murderous, her retribution remorseless.

  However, she could do no more than cast loathsome profanities.

  “You will obey!” Sahir Ahumai waved his hand, and several infernal whips crackled in the air, illuminating the room in bright flashes.

  Adva screeched in pain as her human body was scorched with painful lashes. She struggled and thrashed like a wild animal in a cage, but could not transcend beyond the boundaries of the circle and the pentacle star. She was imprisoned behind an invisible, intangible barrier, and the infernal chains painfully contracted with the slightest movement. When she could flail about no more, she sobbed, breathing deeply, the realization of being enslaved, burying her beneath an inevitable truth.

  Sahir Ahumai’s soft cackle was strangely becoming distorted. Amidst the obscure laughter, she was able to distinguish other sounds, other sensations, like the smell of burning incense tinged with acrid herbs, and voices murmuring in the distance.

  As soon as Mukhtar opened his eyes, he felt a jolt around his navel, and tasted bile. Uncontrollably, he rolled over and vomited on the side of his cushion, soiling the expensive rug beneath. His hands trembled, eyes watered, and head throbbed.

  “What did you see?” Nabiha kept urging him relentlessly. “Mukhtar! What did you see?”

  “The summoning—!” he croaked, groaned and vomited again, “—Sahir Ahumai— Adva—the demons—!”

  He felt the world darken again. His eyelids felt heavy, his head felt intoxicated. Strange images flashed through his mind, and even stranger still, dark figures appeared to be slithering across the dimly lit, smoky room. His breath had shortened, and his chest and stomach hurt with every effort to remain conscious. Nabiha’s concerned face loomed closer and the acrid incense was replaced with her sweet Bakhoor. He wanted her to remain there. Like a shroud. Like a protector from the evil shadows slithering in the distance. A shadowy figure crept up on her unsuspectingly. His heart beat in a frenzy, his eyes wide in horror, a sudden constriction in his throat. He wanted to shriek a warning, but could not muster the strength. She screamed as she was shoved aside brutally.

  Her soothing scent vanished, and the acrid stench returned, seeping and permeating deep into him. He struggled to push himself up and go to her aid, but could not for the life of him, even lift a finger. Rasha’s face swam into view, cackling with a demonic likeness. She fueled the Mabkharas with a daunting zeal, and the fumes intoxicated him until he succumbed once more into strange dreams.

  It was just as dim and hazy, but the climate was different. It was no longer a dark and dank, stone chamber, but a warm, brick-walled room.

  She was, once again, in her natural form. A smokeless spirit hovering a few inches above the stone floor, within the confines of a circle and a pentacle star crudely streaked with occult markings and otherworldly symbols.

  A flame swayed in the fireplace to her left, and before her stood a young man, straight-backed, with handsome features and skin that had only recently sprouted facial hair. His pale complexion suggested a detachment from the outside world for a very long time.

  The adolescent boy was muttering feverishly under his breath, and Adva hovered patiently in her circle, knowing what this was. She had been summoned, and was now being read the details and clauses of a new contract.

  Strangely enough, she no longer dreaded what was to follow; the excruciating transformations, the binding infernal chains, or the forceful eviction from the Veil. She had a feeling, a riveting and peculiar feeling that this boy, as amateurish as he seemed, knew what he was doing. Did he, though? To breach another sorcerer’s covenant, a sorcerer as powerful as Ahumai, a sorcerer who adhered to the will of Azazil himself. Such a breach was beyond any man’s capabilities, not to mention the atrocity that would befall him should Ahumai learn of this treachery. So, how did this adolescent boy, greedily drawn by the Dark Arts, come to bear such strength as to conquer the allegiance of an Elemental Jinn bound to an Amulet of Sihr?

  Behind him, a rooster shuffled noisily and nervously in its cage. It had already sensed its doom.

  The boy seemed uncertain and nervous, straining to get his words and specifications right. Inexperienced in sorcery, or perhaps he had never before summoned a Jinn as powerful as her. He was probably one of the young apprentices favored by pagan practitioners, and learned from them the Dark Arts deep within the Cedars of Zila. As an apprentice, he probably got by with managing a docile Ghul, perhaps a lowly Khubuth, or a mediocre Khizab. But she was a far superior being, a Ma’arid of the noble Tribes of Undomi’an. She was an Elemental Jinn, more powerful than a thousand Ghul, and a thousand more. She gazed at the young sorcerer, with fiery intent, studying him closely.

  His aura was unnatural, emanating ambition, greed, power, and a heightened sense of distraught. The boy was troubled. Why was he troubled?

  ‘Salim, son of Wasif, son of Zafar, why would you perjure your bloodline, and succumb to the wickedness of sorcery?’ Adva pondered deeply. ‘Do you not know what monstrosity awaits you? Do you not know how cursed you will become?’

  The boy stammered a little, and Adva tensed. ‘Keep going,’ she thought slyly. ‘Only a few more words.’

  There were no further impediments, and the boy completed his incantations to the final word. He picked up a brass pot on the table beside him, and drank from it. Then he turned to the rooster’s cage, opened it wide enough to slip his hand in, and with surprising reflex, grabbed the frightened bird by its neck in a single attempt. Then he removed a knife from his belt, its blade gleaming in the firelight, and held it against the rooster’s neck over his head. The bird screeched endlessly, flapping and struggling to free itself. Muttering devilish incantations and salutations under his breath, the dagger flashed and sliced off the rooster’s head, allowing the blood to pour freely, covering him in a scarlet tint.

  That seals the deal. The contract was set, the agreement was done, and Adva was now enslaved to this strange boy, a true master and conqueror of the Amulet. Were he a direct descendant of Ahumai, he would not need a ritual, but he had braved the impossible. Perhaps, he did indeed know what he was doing.

  ‘Adva, of the Ma’arid tribes of Undomi’an, from the Seventh Plane of the Unseen Realm,’ the boy spoke in a smooth, soft, and charming voice, ‘you have been summoned and bound to the Amulet by the laws of witchcraft. The incantations spoken before you, clearly define the terms of our contract. You will serve my every need, want, and desire, to whatever end and cost. Thereafter, you will serve my sons, and their sons, and by this bond, you will remain ever…’

  The room was becoming hazy and distorted, as the real world rematerialized around him.

  “Wait!” he groaned loudly. “No… wait! I must know!”


  It was not as tasking as before. He was not as lifeless and helpless. His senses were more aware. His vision was less clouded. His mind more open. His eyes pierced the room nervously, searching for the devilish, shadowy creatures he had witnessed before.

  Illuminated by the oil lamps, through the hazy trail of the acrid incense, emerged a face with pale-white skin and black eyes with icy blue, snakelike pupils. Its thick hair was so dark, it seemed to absorb all the light in the room. Blackened lips peeled over a snarling mouth, revealing several rows of razor-sharp, bluish fangs.

  Mukhtar screamed, frightfully scrambling over the cushions and against the wall. “What is it?” he gasped. “What is it?”

  “Mukhtar!” A voice spoke next to him and he recoiled against it. It took a moment to recognize Nabiha by his side. He shifted his gaze.

  “This creature!” he gasped and pointed.

  “What creature?” another voice sneered to his right, and his nostrils were met with a revolting stench of stale wine. “The only creature here, is the illusion of your mind. The reckoning of your dreams!”

  The creature was there before him, as clear as anything else he could see. It grinned widely, snakelike eyes peering over their heads, gazing upon him with mild interest and a strange sense of self-satisfaction. What devilry was this?

  “Breathe…” Rasha unexpectedly brought an acrid smelling Mabkhara under his nose, and he could not avoid inhaling it. Again it took effect.

  She stood, or rather floated, a mere inch off the ground. She was upright, with form and structure, bound to the Amulet, and her human form.

  She floated past a foggy mirror and caught her reflection. White robes flowed to the ground, shredded and tattered, but otherwise unnaturally clean. Think, long, black hair hung past her shoulders, down along her spine and over her subtly heaving chest, creating a curtain that partially obscured a pale-white face with thin, blackened lips and high cheekbones. Black eyes with icy-blue, snakelike pupils, pierced the very surface of the mirror, lifelessly returning her gaze. She stared at her reflection, contemplating how much she despised it. Despised it to its very core. It was a symbol of a degradation to the murkiest depths of her being.