The Battle

by Karuna Riazi

  “I . . . wasn’t expecting that,” Ahmad managed as the last palace darted upward like a balloon with a cut string. “What are we supposed to do with that?”

  “Maybe . . . nothing,” Winnie said, staring upward in amazement, as the palaces glided in place. “Maybe that was a show of force.”

  They continued forward, stopping within the grand main lobby. It resembled that of a museum, complete with walls lined with artwork and elegant glass cases filled with beautiful and bizarre antiques. But Ahmad and Winnie only had eyes for one.

  “Doesn’t that frame resemble the puzzle pieces?” Winnie asked. She kneeled down on the ground and started pulling the pieces out of the satchel, counting them carefully, and satisfied that they were all there.

  Ahmad rushed off and lifted it off the wall. They squatted on the ground, trying to study the frame and how the pieces could click together.

  “I think this is one of those puzzles that creates a box. The fame is probably the bottom,” Winnie said finally. “The other pieces should click into place. Look, see how the joints are fashioned?” She traced her finger over one of the elegant blocks. Ahmad could see a raised line that looked like it might join with one of the others.

  He nodded in agreement. “Okay, let’s go.”

  He moved back, giving Winnie room to maneuver the pieces as she saw fit. “The more I think about, the more I feel this is the type of world my aunt Zohra would thrive in,” he remarked. “She used to have these things she messed around with on her hand all the time. They are called Turkish puzzle rings. There’s this really morbid story behind them—”

  But at the mention of the puzzle rings, the ground beneath them gave a sudden, violent tremor. “Um, what was that?” Winnie gasped.

  “I’m not sure, but maybe the game is trying to tell us to hurry,” Ahmad said.

  Another piece slid neatly into place. “Almost there,” Winnie said, her expression thoughtful, her tongue peeking out from between her lips. “Gosh, this Architect guy doesn’t believe in easy wins, does he?”

  “As flattering as the compliment is,” a familiar voice broke in, sounding petulant and impatient, “that unfortunately isn’t one of my projects. I suggest you put it down right now.”

  Ahmad and Winnie whirled around. There were the Architect and the MasterMind, both looking peevishly hot and a little more rumpled than usual.

  “You again?” Winnie exclaimed. “Look, fair’s fair. We’ve followed your rules and done your weird challenges. We win!”

  “You don’t understand,” the MasterMind burst out. “That box—”

  “Holds the last challenge, we’ve got it.” Winnie crossed her arms. “So you need to step aside and learn how to be a good sport.”

  Ahmad leaned in to slide the next piece in place. Faster than he would have expected, and surprising both him and Winnie, the Architect darted in and smacked it to the ground, nearly shattering all the work they’d accomplished.

  “Hey! Lord Amari, that’s going too far!”

  “If you would both just listen, I wouldn’t have to go that far.” The Architect glared at Winnie when the girl reached for the piece. “Yes, you’ve completed the challenges—hooray for you, sorry but I didn’t arrange for confetti in time. But now it’s time to stop. Right now. You’ve done what I needed from you.”

  “Not until that box is finished, we haven’t,” Ahmad countered. “Look, isn’t this what you wanted from us? This seems underhanded.”

  The MasterMind stepped forward. “Look, I’ll handle this. That challenge you finished? That was the last challenge. You won. We’re not happy about that, but we’re willing to admit when we’re beat.”

  Ahmad’s brow furrowed. “But the Minaret—Madame Nasirah said she had a meeting with you and the challenge would be the last one.”

  It was the MasterMind’s turn to look confused. “That annoying piece of errant code is still around? No. This—”

  At a harsh look from Lord Amari, she clamped her lips shut. After a moment, she burst out again, “Look, we can’t tell you why, but you—oh, you’ve finished it.”

  With a triumphant grin, Winnie held up the completed box high in her palm. Though the puzzle pieces and frame had been big and unwieldy, at Winnie’s completion of the puzzle, the whole thing had shrunk down to a miniature version of itself.

  “All in the wrist,” she said deliberately, and winked at Ahmad. “How’s that for using the art of distraction?”

  “Nice job, Winnie!” Ahmad cried out in relief.

  “No, no nice job!” the Architect snarled, stamping his feet. He looked wild, his usually neat and slicked-back hair standing on end. His kurta was wrinkled beyond recognition. For a moment, Ahmad felt a twinge of unease. “Ahmad Mirza, listen here. You mustn’t open that box. Do you hear me? I am the Architect and I am demanding that you don’t open that box.”

  “Come on, Ahmad,” Winnie said, inching backward with the box neatly balanced in her hand. “Let’s go home.”

  Ahmad glanced between the two for a moment. Why was Lord Amari so desperate?

  But Winnie beckoned. On the sweet, aromatic air, he could almost get a whiff of home: Ma’s perfume, the warmth of it billowing about him as she pinched his cheeks and stuffed his mouth full of his favorite foods, and the spicy welcome of the kitchen, with his favorite masala chicken simmering on the stove.

  “Let’s go home,” Ahmad said, stepping forward to join Winnie. Behind them, he could hear the MasterMind fall to her knees, hear the Architect roar, “Mirza, listen, please!”

  But he focused on Winnie’s bright smile and the promise of the world he wanted to return to.

  And he lifted the lid.

  Nothing happened.

  “Wait,” Winnie said, her brow furrowing. “What is—”

  The Architect and the MasterMind were focused elsewhere, their gazes going right over Ahmad’s and Winnie’s heads.

  “What is she doing here?” the MasterMind muttered. “The code should have uprooted her by now.”

  Ahmad and Winnie whirled around. There was Madame Nasirah, and for the first time, she had lifted her veil. She was smiling, her cheeks full and round, her lips pink and plump. But her teeth were sharp as knives. Not quite what Ahmad had expected.

  “Well done, Ahmad and Winnie. You completed the challenge.”

  “What do you mean?” Ahmad demanded. “Nothing happened.”

  Winnie took a step back. “This doesn’t feel good,” she whispered. “But why?”

  “And why are you speaking so casually of treason, Gamekeeper?” The Architect stepped forward, his voice a snarl. “Have you been dealing your own challenges to players in my name? Answer me!”

  From within the very depths of the woman’s form came an unholy chuckle. “You are one to talk of treason, aren’t you, Amari?”

  The Architect’s face paled. “No. It can’t be.”

  The box between Winnie’s hands clattered to the ground and she gasped, backing away. The lid swung open and folds of utter blackness began to unfurl, like rich dark cloth, over the ground.

  “Ironic, isn’t it?” the voice that wasn’t Madame Nasirah’s continued. She began to grow large, towering over them. “One player toppled my world, and now another has restored it to me.”

  The MasterMind shrank away in terror, looking very much her age for once. Ahmad stared at the Architect.

  “I warned you!” the other boy shrieked over the rising wind. “I warned you! Now you have him to reckon with!”

  “Him?” Winnie echoed, her face growing pale, but Ahmad—watching as the ribbons of black began to curl over what was left of Madame Nasirah, the woman they thought was their friend—already knew who it was.

  How could they have been so foolish?

  How could they have let the fleeting promise of home allow them to willingly forget one of the key figures in Paheli? The one who created it to begin with?

  “The monkeys were right. We forgot to keep an eye on every player,” A
hmad croaked. “And now we have to reckon with him.”

  “I don’t understand. Who is him?” Winnie demanded. “Why do you look so pale, Ahmad? What is going on?”

  “The him he is speaking about,” the voice came again, and this time it boomed all around them, as if the voice of space and time itself, “is me!”

  There before them, floating in the air with a horrendous, leering grin, was the jinn, all clouds of black smoke billowing out of the shell of Madame Nasirah’s skin. It had shed that skin like a butterfly flying out of its cocoon.

  “Surprised?” the jinn crooned. It was bizarre and downright horrifying to hear that voice coming from behind Madame Nasirah’s remaining shreds of cloth.

  “I’m not,” Winnie said firmly. “Something was wrong. I could feel it.”

  “Well, congratulations to you for having your wits about you. Now—” The jinn stretched out Madame Nasirah’s disintegrating arms. “Time for you to see all that I really am.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  AHMAD’S HEART LODGED SOMEWHERE beneath his throat—just beyond his esophagus, just enough that his tongue felt smothered and the words he tried to get out were suffocated. There were prayers you could make, he knew, prayers of protection and deliverance. But he was frozen.

  He hadn’t expected this.

  He knew about jinns. Since he was little, he had been spoon-fed a lot of cautionary tales that happened to some hypothetical brother, nephew, or cousin. And always boiled down to it being their fault: “because he didn’t pray,” “because he didn’t listen to his mother,” or “because he talked too much about jinns where they could hear.”

  From the downright impossible to the terrifyingly easy to swallow, there was a whole range of reasons to avoid the unseen world and what dwelled within it.

  If you happened to see a jinn, you did not make deals with it.

  You did not supplicate to it.

  You did not trust it.

  Ahmad could understand the distrust, staring at the jinn as it was now. It was muscled and carved in a way that suggested human physique, at least under the clanging sheets of armor and the helmet that drooped forbiddingly and shadowed its eyes, but the skin was reddish.

  Once, Ahmad’s father had told him about an early Muslim scholar who prayed to God so he could see the Devil. It was, as far as wishes went, a foolhardy one: the one you would hear a professor make in the opening moments of a horror movie. It was not a wish Ahmad would have made by any stretch of the imagination. But the scholar’s request was heard. It was granted.

  And he saw the Devil, in the hobbling, stooped visage of an old man, rushing eagerly up to him.

  “But something about it made him shudder,” Ahmad’s baba had said in a hushed tone, as Ahmad clung to his sheets. “There was a way about the man’s face, in his voice, the way he readily knew the scholar’s name. There was an air about him. Tainted and malevolent. Evil. He did not want to get close to him. He kept his distance. The better for him.”

  “I just don’t understand why God granted his wish to begin with,” Ahmad had whispered.

  “Sometimes you need to look evil in the eye to know why you avoid it.”

  Ahmad knew now. He shuddered, restless in his own skin, at the thought of the beings conjured from smokeless fire. But in the flesh, it was worse. Especially with Madame Nasirah’s form curled up tight and lifeless as a cicada’s shell next to its feet.

  It leered at him. In spite of the shadow across its face, he could make out every one of its bright white teeth. Knife teeth.

  And every one of them were curved and clenched.

  “So,” it rumbled. “Little Mirza. You’ve come this far. Even my dear”—it paused for a moment, and, the gruesome smile became ghastlier and more ripped about its edges—“nephew hasn’t been able to stop your progress. No matter. You’ve done the job. And now, my Paheli returns to me!”

  A great wind burst forth and the jinn swept out his—its—hand. Winnie and Ahmad grasped each other, and they could hear the confused cries of their former enemies.

  “Uncle!” Lord Amari cried. “Uncle, ease up! I cannot stand!”

  “You mewl and whimper like a kicked kitten when I have already been exposed to your plotting!” The jinn whirled on the Architect. Ahmad had been sure, up until now, that there was nothing that would make him feel sorry for spoiled, pampered, utterly heartless Amari.

  Now he knew differently.

  “You would have died in the cradle if it wasn’t for my mercy,” the jinn seethed. “Your father groveled on his knees and gave his very life so that you might be able to breathe. I taught you how to wield the game’s finest tricks. I helped you lay pitfalls, stir up ancient bones, and enslave souls. What thanks did I get from you both? I was cast into a box and released only to see you trying to steal my world!”

  The jinn’s voice rose with every word until it was a roar.

  The cowering Lord Amari scrambled backward on his hands, bumping into the MasterMind’s knees. She made no effort to help him up.

  “And here you lie, with more demands for my forgiveness—so like your mother, when she tried to escape my punishment. I took care of her. Now it is your turn. It is time for you to realize that you were at the mercy of my pleasure, rather than the other way around.”

  The MasterMind let out a slight whimper. The jinn turned to peer down at her.

  “Ah yes, I nearly forgot the other conspirator. What did you intend to gain, my dear—riches greater than you could imagine or hold in your hands, or perhaps the satisfaction of a world laid out at your feet?”

  Under his gaze, the MasterMind shrank.

  “Hey!” Winnie stepped up, putting her hands on her hips. If she was nervous, she hardly showed it. Ahmad felt ashamed that his own knocking knees wouldn’t let him join her. “Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?”

  “Ah,” the jinn said. He threw his head back and laughed. “Ironic that a human should tell me that. Your kind have gone up against mine throughout history, in spite of your size, in spite of your humble clay origins. Admirable, but foolish.”

  He turned to face the distant, glittering city, shaking his head in disgust. “My poor, darling Paheli—strung through with that horrid electricity and other cannibalistic enterprises. It is way past time for you to be purified.”

  He raised a hand, and in response, the Minaret let out a painful keen. Winnie winced. “Poor thing.”

  “You pity the ones that played with you?” The jinn raised an eyebrow in surprise. “Interesting, you humans. I thought you would thank me. I did give you that extra task to test your mettle. You pulled through better than I thought you would.”

  “Last task?” Winnie’s eyes widened. “You were the one behind our goose chase? The fake challenge?”

  “You’re welcome,” the jinn purred. “It was a chance for me to remind my city who truly owns it, after all. At least some of my servants didn’t forget. Without that Titus Salt, I couldn’t have engineered a level in time.”

  Winnie spluttered in shock.

  Ahmad took advantage of the jinn’s distraction to check on Lord Amari. “You okay, Amari?”

  “Lord Amari to you.” Amari gifted him with a look of distaste. “I’ve been better,” he sniffed, but Ahmad could see the paleness of his cheeks, the tremors in his hands.

  The MasterMind was keeping a safe distance, trembling from head to toe. Winnie gave her a look of disgust.

  “So much for your partnership through thick and thin, huh?” Winnie spat. “Then again, I don’t think villains are the type that stick up for each other.”

  The MasterMind bristled, pulling herself back up to her full height. “What do you know? It’s been thick and thin since I came here!”

  Suddenly she looked very, very young.

  “I went from my parents being too busy to care, to being trapped in an entire world that wouldn’t acknowledge me, but also expected to be saved. I saved it, when he couldn’t. I made the code. I solv
ed the problems. I kept us both alive!”

  She roughly rubbed her nose against her sleeve and turned her back to them.

  Winnie shook her head. “Okay, then, drama queen,” she said, but her voice didn’t have any bite to it.

  She looked at Ahmad, her brow creased with worry while he examined the Architect for damages, keeping a wary eye on the jinn. The horrific creature was currently leering at Paheli, snapping his fingers and collapsing buildings, watching them crumble with a cackle.

  “The best-laid of plans of mice and men,” he snarled, “crumble in front of gods. Witness the return of your rightful master, my Paheli!”

  The boy was battered and bruised, but with Ahmad’s shadow falling on him, Amari roused up enough energy to contort his lips into a sneer.

  “Goody Two-shoes,” he seethed. “Such a Mirza!”

  “What do you mean by that?” Ahmad asked.

  “From my experience, people like you don’t know when to give up and stop the encouraging speeches,” the Architect replied. “You’re living up to your name.”

  A minute ago, Ahmad would have stepped back and crossed his arms. Maybe he would let his sharp tongue get the best of him and blurt out something snarky. But now, he met the Architect’s gaze steadily, extending his hand toward the other boy.

  “Yes. I am a Mirza. Mirzas don’t quit. I thought you didn’t either.”

  The Architect looked at his hand for a long moment. Ahmad didn’t move.

  After a few minutes of the charged silence, the other boy grasped his hand and stood. Ahmad didn’t turn his head, but he could feel Winnie smiling proudly at him and he pulled himself taller.

  “Any ideas on what we should do?” Ahmad asked.

  “I mean, it feels like our objective hasn’t really changed,” Winnie responded, eyeing the jinn’s turned back tentatively. “We’ve just reached the Big Boss for the final battle. We finish the game, avenge Madame Nasirah, save our families and our world, and get out while the getting’s good. The only problem is that I’m not sure how we beat a jinn without getting burned.”