The Father of Locks

by Andrew Killeen

  I turned and ran. Behind me I could hear the thud of twenty bare feet. There was no time to leap for the hole and try to squirm back out onto the street. I headed for the stairs.

  At the top of the stairs was a door, bolted on my side. I flung back the bolts, and tried to wrench the door open. But it was locked. I tugged at it helplessly, then hands seized me from behind and threw a red cloth over my head.

  I was carried by my wrists and ankles, back down the stairs and along the corridor. I could hear the black man’s thin voice directing them.

  “Here, over here. Get rid of that animal, and tie him to the block, while I decide what we do with him. I mean – Yes, I know, I’m thinking! Shut up a minute.”

  The stone of the block was cold against my back, and I could feel the goat’s blood soaking my shirt. Absurdly, I found myself thinking that Abu Nuwas would be cross, that I had ruined the expensive clothes he had given me. The cloth was pulled from my head, and I looked up into the frightened face of Babak ibn Bundar.

  “God’s death! He is a spy from the Barid.”

  The block had a metal ring screwed into each corner with a length of rope tied to it, and it was with these that I was secured. The shaven headed acolytes had gathered around, peering down at me. Some had the symbol of the crooked cross embroidered onto their garments.

  “Why did you come here, boy?”

  I sensed that ibn Bundar was not really interested in the answer to this question. I shouted something useless, about how they would all be caught and executed, and it would be better for them if they let me go. Ibn Bundar shoved the red cloth into my mouth to shut me up. I managed to bite one of his fingers, crunching down to the bone, before one of the acolytes tied a rope around my head to secure the gag.

  The black man nursed his injured digit, and the fear in his voice was outweighed by cruelty.

  “He interrupted the ritual. Maybe Mahakala sent him to replace the sacrifice.”

  An awkward shuffling suggested that some of the acolytes were nearly as unhappy with this suggestion as I was.

  “But, master, if we kill him –”

  “Fool! If he survives to tell the tale, we are all dead. Take your places. The demon will come to us, and with his power we can take on anybody who wishes to do us harm.”

  The acolytes shuffled away. I jerked at my bonds, but they held. The chanting began again, uncertainly at first, then with increasing conviction.

  “On Ma Tri Mu Ye Sa Le Du

  On Ma Tri Mu Ye Sa Le Du …”

  Ibn Bundar, eyes closed, shifted his grip on the knife. I sensed he was trying to steel himself for the deed. The incantation, however, was driving him inexorably to the climax of the ritual. I tried to shout; the rough cloth of the gag scratched the back of my throat and made me want to retch. In the distance I thought I heard a crash, but the mounting clamour in the chamber made it impossible to tell. The black man opened his eyes, and the real orb was as cold and empty as the false one. He raised the knife to strike.

  Then the chanting was disrupted by the clatter of boots and gruff shouts. A woman screamed. Ibn Bundar dropped his weapon as two burly figures in blue slammed him against the wall, knocking the painted monster to the floor. The next person to stand over me was a scowling al-Takht, followed by Abu Nuwas, clutching his sayf and grinning like a maniac.

  “No, don’t untie him! I’ll cut his throat myself for what he did to that coat.”

  With a sigh al-Takht signalled to one of the guards to release me. I sat up, rubbing my wrists and ankles. Everywhere the acolytes were being bound and marched away by men of the Shurta.

  “How did you find me?”

  Al-Takht looked like he had just drunk sour milk.

  “It seemed scarcely possible, but perhaps you are as foolish as your master after all. What, did you really imagine your progress through Sharqiya was inconspicuous? Ducking and dodging down the streets … One-Eye here might not have noticed you, but everybody else in the area did.

  “Fortunately, one of my halfwit constables managed to recognise you from the Watch House, otherwise they’d probably have given you a good kicking in a back alley somewhere, just for looking suspicious. Instead, he sent a boy to tell me that a member of the Barid was acting funny on my turf, and watched you while you broke into this house.

  “I found your master, and rounded up some men. When we’d all arrived and you hadn’t come out, we decided to come in after you. Good thing too, by the looks of it.”

  He surveyed the room’s peculiar trappings.

  “At least we’ve got our man. So it was human sacrifice after all? I never thought I’d see the day that Umm Dabbah was right about anything, even by accident.”

  “Babak ibn Bundar – he was a witch, then?”

  The Police Captain picked up the picture of the three-eyed monster.

  “Certainly looks like it.”

  “Bon.”

  We both looked puzzled at this apparently meaningless interruption from Abu Nuwas. It sounded as though he was mimicking the cymbal chime.

  “I never thought to see it in Baghdad, but this is Bon. It is the religion of the Tibetan mountains. They believe that if the gods were all benevolent, we wouldn’t need to placate them with prayers and sacrifices. Many of the deities of Bon are fierce demons who hate humanity. It is a world view that fits the evidence rather better than most others, in my opinion.”

  Al-Takht tutted at this blasphemy, but my master took the picture from al-Takht and contemplated it thoughtfully.

  “Bon is not really a religion as we understand it. Rather it is a system of secret magical rites to protect against demons, and at the deeper levels to bind them to the service of master practitioners. This handsome blue gentleman is Mahakala, The Great Demon Time, Devourer of All Things.”

  The Police Captain was eyeing him suspiciously.

  “How do you know so much about it?”

  Abu Nuwas shrugged.

  “I have travelled to the East. As has Babak ibn Bundar. Did he not mention being at Talas? That was a battle against the armies of the Chinese, fought in the land of the Uyghurs.”

  Al-Takht watched ibn Bundar being led from the room.

  “Well, we shall see what this apostate has to say for himself. For his own sake, he had better have kept those children alive somewhere. My men all know Ghassan the Porter, and they are not renowned for their gentle natures.”

  ***

  On the way back to the Watch House, I voiced the doubts that had been nagging at me since my rescue.

  “Master, I don’t think the Bonists –”

  “Bonpo. Followers of Bon are called Bonpo.”

  “I don’t think the Bonpo killed the children.”

  Abu Nuwas stopped walking and stared at me.

  “Well, you have changed your opinion. Why is that?”

  “When ibn Bundar suggested sacrificing me, the others seemed shocked and uncertain. If they’d already murdered three children, I don’t think they’d have any qualms about doing it to me.”

  “Then it may be that the children are still alive somewhere. In any case, al-Takht now has grounds to hold ibn Bundar.”

  “Is the practice of Bon prohibited, master?”

  “No, the good people of Baghdad are free to damn themselves for eternity in whichever way they see fit, provided they are born into their errors. But abandoning the true faith is another matter. Ibn Bundar was a Muslim. The penalty for apostasy is death.”

  This explained why he was prepared to kill me for intruding on their rites. When we next saw him, however, in the cell of the Watch House, the murderous fit had passed from him. He slumped against the wall, shattered and defeated. It seemed he had had an accident, or a series of accidents, along the way: his one good eye was bruised, he was covered in cuts and he held his right hand in a way that suggested some fingers were broken.

  “Tell us where the children are, and I will make your end as swift and painless as I can.”

  Al-Takht b
egan the interrogation, his arms folded and his face impassive. Ibn Bundar looked up helplessly.

  “Children? I don’t know what –”

  The police thug standing over him had kicked him in the stomach. Ibn Bundar gasped for breath, desperately trying to speak.

  “Why would I lie to you? I mean, I am going to die anyway. I told you, that grandson of Abd al-Aziz, anything could have happened to him. And I don’t know about any other children.”

  The policeman went to kick him again, but Abu Nuwas stopped him.

  “Moron! If you kill him, we have no chance of finding the children. Bring him water.”

  The thug looked outraged at this suggestion, but al-Takht nodded, and he complied sullenly. When the prisoner had drunk, Abu Nuwas crouched close to him.

  “Tell me everything.”

  So he did.

  The Tale of the Game of Four Divisions

  I was born in Merv, capital of the province of Khorasan. Merv is a city of warriors, standing proud in the fierce cold deserts on the other side of the Oxus. The walls are so high it seems that sunlight never reaches the streets. My father was a warrior, and my mother was a woman of the Luo, a slave taken as loot from one of his many battles.

  I was too young to take part in the Abbasid revolution, but as soon as I could shave I marched off to the land of the Uyghurs to fight for the Khalifate. In truth I had no idea where I was going, who the enemy was or what the war was about. I just wanted to fight alongside Abu Muslim.

  Abu Muslim, like me, grew up in the darkest alleys of Merv, and he was the greatest warrior of his generation. Nobody ever talked about his parentage, at least not openly. The name by which he became famous – Father of a Muslim – revealed nothing of his family or tribe. The rumour whispered around Khorasan was that his mother was a soldiers’ whore, and that he was born in a baggage train. Yet he rose to become head of an army that conquered an empire.

  It was Abu Muslim who raised the Black Flag of revolution; he who led the unstoppable westward drive that blew away the Umayyads; he who found the surviving Abbasids, as they cowered in their safe house in Kufah, and first pledged allegiance to the new Khalifah. He was brilliant, ruthless, a man with a face and heart of granite, who cared for nobody but his troops. But the passion with which he loved them was so deep that dying for him was the least they could do. You say God chose the Abbasid dynasty to lead his people? I say it was Abu Muslim who anointed them.

  We headed north and east, to where the city of Samarqand straddled the Silk Road. I knew nothing, then, of trade and politics and strategy. I was a wide eyed child in a new world, a boy desperate to be accepted by the men around me, men who swore and spat and boasted about how many men they had killed.

  However one such man befriended me. He was a chubby, genial fellow from Sind. I noticed him because he did not loll around the fire with the others in the evening, but sat slightly apart, hunched over something invisible in the darkness. Reluctant as I was to leave the inner circle, in the end curiosity got the better of me, and I wandered over to see what was interesting him.

  On the ground in front of him was a square piece of wood. It was criss-crossed with lines, which divided it into smaller squares. Dotted around this surface were a number of lumps of stone, which he was studying intently. I could guess at only one reason for this strange behaviour.

  “Are you telling fortunes?”

  He looked up at me and laughed.

  “In a sense, maybe I am. I’ve seen you around. You want to be a real soldier?”

  I was about to protest that I was already a real soldier, but instead I nodded and listened.

  “Then you must learn that there is more to it than hitting people and bragging. Your education starts with this.”

  He handed me one of the stone lumps. It was carved into the shape of a tiny spearsman.

  “You are playing with toys?”

  He laughed again.

  “This, my friend, is al-Shatranj, the Game of Four Divisions, and you will learn more about the art of war from these toys than from a thousand evenings of sitting with those grunts. Sit down, and I’ll show you.”

  And so he did. He showed me how the stones represented the four divisions of the army, the infantry, cavalry, chariots and elephants, each moving differently across the grid. He taught me how they combined in both attack and defence, for they had to protect their leaders, the King and the Wazir. If the King fell, the battle, and the game, was lost.

  I pointed out that nobody had used chariots for hundreds of years, but he insisted the detail did not matter, the principles of strategy remained the same. Before I realised what was happening, we were engaged in battle. Knowing only one way of fighting, I ordered my brave warriors to charge headlong at his centre. With almost regretful ease, the Sindi contained my assault, then crushed it with attacks from both flanks. I stared at the decimated remnants of my tiny stone army.

  “Let’s do it again.”

  Each evening when we made camp, the Sindi and I would sit playing al-Shatranj. Gradually his victories became less easy, the battles more bloody and complex. And each day, as we marched, he would school me in the more subtle arts of war. I learned that politics, money and intelligence were as significant as swords and arrows.

  “You see the track we are following here? This is the old Silk Road. For a thousand years, camel trains have followed this route that links east to west, running from China to Egypt and beyond. Not much actual silk is carried, these days, not since the Romans stole the secret of making it for themselves. They quite literally stole it, in fact; their ambassadors took home silkworm eggs hidden in hollow walking sticks. But everything else that can survive the journey passes this way: textiles, jewellery, spices, knowledge …

  “The Silk Road is not often the cause of conflict. Trade benefits everybody, and nobody wants to frighten off the merchants. But Islam has been expanding since the Angel Jibril first spoke to the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, and it doesn’t know how to stop. So a minor squabble between petty kingdoms now threatens to bring two mighty empires to war.

  “Farghana sought the support of the Chinese in its war with Chach. The Chinese Governor of the area, Gao Xianzhi, besieged the city of Chach, and when its king sued for peace, promised him safe passage if he surrendered. He lied, however. The King of Chach was beheaded in front of the walls of his city.

  “His son, the new King of Chach, escaped, and fled to Merv. Here he begged Abu Muslim to help restore him to his throne. Our wise leader decided that a grateful ruler in a key city on the Silk Road was worth the gamble. And this, my friend, is why you and I are hardening our soles on this long march.”

  I asked him once, why, with all his wisdom, he had not become a general but remained a common soldier.

  “Ah, my friend, look at me. I am a man of Sind, neither Arab nor Persian. Who will take orders from me? Besides, he who sticks his head out of the ditch risks having it cut off. I prefer to watch history unfold from the safety of the ranks.”

  At Samarqand we joined up with the army of Ziyad ibn Salih, nearly doubling our numbers. To my chagrin Abu Muslim himself turned back here, handing command of the joint force to ibn Salih. But learning the ways of the world, and the Game of the Four Divisions, helped to make up for this disappointment.

  Ibn Salih led us north-east to the valley of the Talas River. Here Gao Xianzhi waited with a Chinese army augmented by the Qarluqs who lived in the Talas valley, as well as by his allies from Farghana. The Chinese were ensconced in a bend in the river, where they blocked the only crossing on the road to Chach. We did not have sufficient men to dislodge them, and they seemed disinclined to sally out from their fortifications and drive us away. I learned later that Gao hoped to avoid battle with a dangerous and largely unknown enemy.

  For four days the armies glowered at each other across the valley. The only action was a series of skirmishes, duels and raids. Despite badgering our captain for a chance to fight, I was allocated only dull gu
ard duty. The air felt sick, as it does before a storm. The Sindi, however, was curiously serene.

  “You will see battle, my friend, have no fear. Ibn Salih is busy.”

  Whether he truly knew something or was just guessing, he was right. As I discovered later, ibn Salih had made contact with the Qarluqs, promising them independence if they turned against the Chinese. On the fifth day they attacked their former allies in the rear, throwing Gao’s meticulous defences into disarray. At last my company was given the signal to attack.

  We ran into the battle, yelling and waving our spears. After several minutes of running, however, we had found nobody to fight, and slowed uncertainly to a halt. Then somebody spotted the Chinese fortifications, and we set off again, our enthusiasm only slightly diminished.

  By the time we arrived at the barricades they had been abandoned. We wandered around the ditches, ramparts and caltrops in bemusement, picking up any small objects of value that had been dropped by the retreating foe. Eventually our captain rounded us up and we headed on towards the river.

  When we finally came across the enemy they seemed as surprised as we were. They were not Chinese but Farghana, and for a moment nobody was sure whether we were on the same side. Then they rushed at us. I hurled my long spear uselessly, and pulled out my sword.

  It was all over in seconds. I killed one of them, a boy of around my age. When he came close to me I swung my sword, catching his hand. He dropped his own weapon as blood exploded from the wound, and I stabbed him several times until I was sure he was dead. I don’t know which of us was screaming louder.

  The whole experience had as little to do with my dreams of glory as it did with the Sindi’s grand strategies. He was wrong, too, about the safety of anonymity. A Farghana javelin had impaled him before he could draw his sword. His dead eyes stared up at the empty skies. I took his pack, which held the game of al-Shatranj, and nobody disputed my claim. Again we milled uncertainly, before a voice shook us back to reality.