Chapter 30 #2
I rip the knife from my shoulder and press it against her throat. ‘What are you? You are possessed!’
Her nose lifts and her eyes flicker black as she rasps, ‘I smell it in your blood.’ But her intonation has changed – younger with curiosity. ‘How do our poisons run through your soul?’ Her gaze darts to the copper vessel.
And the familiarity clicks. The blade falters. ‘Jinn-poisons . . . this vessel has a jinn-poison. And you are a jinn speaking to me.’
Farzaneh’s chest thrums with a contained laugh, her gaze running up and down my body. This must be a young one possessing Farzaneh’s body. No-Name glances at me. ‘The jinn is perhaps only a century old. A child. Curious and eager. We can pull information from her.’
I face Farzaneh again. ‘Only the Zahr clan used jinn-poisons.’
She starts to struggle again, huge-eyed, jinn and human competing for control inside her. ‘N-not anymore. For so long we have been servants, kissing the continent’s feet. Mitra will change the paradigm through its magick. Can you blame us for making something powerful in a world that spits at us?’
The word Mitra tickles my mind . . . where have I heard this before?
She steadies, the jinn seemingly in control. ‘How strange . . . you have his scent,’ she murmurs. ‘Akashun’s scent.’
My head spins. ‘You said magick. Black magick is forbidden.’
Quick as thunder, her face contorts as she growls, ‘You Eajīz are narrow-minded, stranded by your arrogance. You believe in Heavenly powers when the jinn-folk’s magick is untapped potential waiting to be exploited. Sajamistan will no longer have the forces of the Unseen. We have formed Mitra.’
‘I don’t understand—’
‘To permanently transit jinn souls from the Unseen to the mortal world requires a bond of magick. That is Mitra.’
Disgust beats against me. The Jazatāh tribes, who once conquered this continent, harvested black magick and committed infanticide for ancient jinn masters.
‘Black magick cannot be done without steep costs – sacrifices.’
She laughs. ‘Of course, but that’s power. To gain the knowledge of Mitra from an ancient jinn master, the wielder must sacrifice the heart of a soul.’
‘Soul?’
‘A nameless soul. They must sacrifice the heart of the soul of their heir. Then the wielder will gain the knowledge to form Mitra bonds. After that, it requires more sacrifices of other human souls to many jinn-folk. Making Mitra bonds requires years of contracts with the Unseen: the blood of humans is resistant to jinn-poisons; and it requires possession of human hosts to allow the jinn and soul to begin merging.’ Even buried in the depths of her fanaticism, she acknowledges the high price.
My head pounds. ‘The Zahr clan ruled for centuries with the support of the monks. How could they possibly accept and wield Mitra? It’s against the creed of our empire!’
Her broken hand twitches and spasms, as she cackles, spittle forming at the corners of her mouth.
‘Foolish girl. The Zahr emperor began developing Mitra with his clansmen. In exchange, the jinn master demanded the blood of the original sacrificed soul. But the emperor fell before the exchange could be completed. Akashun ingested the blood of the original soul, to form a bond with it. Then he completed the exchange, to become the true wielder of Mitra, before the fallen emperor had the chance to. A small circle of the emperor’s monks colluded with Akashun, to wield its magick—’
My knees buckle as my mind returns to the past.
No-Name watches on, curious. ‘Do you remember now, how your Older Brother was a spy? He was used and manipulated to inform Akashun about your father’s jinn-poisons, about your building blood resistance to it – even collecting your blood for Akashun, creating the weapon.
And what of the possessed woman fleeing the monastery?
Your father used many powerful souls like hers to develop blood resistant to the jinn-poisons, and then fed it to the jinn master of Mitra. ’
‘—the Jazatāh tribes sacrificed many such nameless infants. When their souls were sold to the Unseen, the bodies became soulless,’ Farzaneh finishes.
‘Which soul did the Zahr emperor originally sacrifice?’ I demand of both of them.
No-Name settles against the wall, her feet resting on the corpses. I catch the sick gleam in her eyes. ‘Oh, you know the answer.’
‘And why must the soul of the sacrifice be resistant to jinn-poisons . . .’ My frail voice trails.
No-Name’s leer is a blade’s edge. ‘Think about your childhood. Jinn-poisons make up the elements of different jinn-folk. You trained to become resistant to many creatures in the Unseen – serpents, gh?ls, bulls, winged jinn – nearly all of them. Through this exchange, your resistant blood was given to the jinn master, who used it to send jinn-folk across the Veil into the human world. Akashun, being the sole Mitra wielder, is then able to bond and control the jinn to more human hosts.’
She does not describe a power in the hierarchy of seventy-seven affinities, but instead pure magick – lawless, unbound.
We are taught that if an Eajīz draws colossal power while breaking their Heavenly Contract, they will face the repercussions.
And when mere mortals use black magick, even their appearances wilt.
Akashun should have gone mad for using black magick. But he is alive, for the souls that were sacrificed are facing its repercussions -not him.
I gesture at the inscriptions around the cavern, seething. ‘Why are you using the peoples of the borderlands?’
Still, Farzaneh’s mask of calm is impenetrable. I want to dig my nails into her flesh, force her to lash back if only to prove that she is still partly human, capable of human responses.
Farzaneh chuckles, a mix of the jinn speaking. ‘You mortals are so simple-minded. These sacrifices are being used for a noble purpose. Our Great Father Akashun is the first since the Jazatāh to have such a bond with the Unseen.’
She leans into my knife, mocking. ‘It’s a new era.
The jinn of the oldest pre-Adam civilisations moved at the speed of cosmic light.
Jinn can lift a thousand men, leap to the mountains, hear from thousands of paces away.
But our weakness is our intellect; we cannot read nor write, though our elders’ knowledge is vast from travels to the Heavens.
For humans, this is a true blessing, for the jinn-folk would rule the cosmos and enslave man like infants.
There are many: ifrit, d?v, gh?ls – and shai’tain, the cruellest jinn – eager to cross the Veil.
Because unlike humans, jinn have no permanent material body.
With Mitra, the human becomes a shell for jinn to possess, their wills controlled by Akashun.
This is a type of permanent jinn-catching.
And it bestows upon the host the strength of a jinn. ’
‘The strength of a jinn,’ I repeat numbly.
‘Sajamistan may have the power of Za’skar, but against all of the Unseen, it is nothing.’
My ears begin buzzing. ‘And their people?’
Farzaneh shrugs. She is proud. ‘These are not people.’
I blink twice, her statement a strange echo.
Who speaks like this? Like they harbour no identity, each person a mere limb of a greater political body.
But I recognise this Azadniabad, where lives are meaningless as long as they serve the emperor.
Where tribes are insignificant, and only the esteemed ruling clan is Divine.
A hand caresses my hair. ‘You fool.’ No-Name tuts her tongue right into my ear. ‘You poor, hypocritical fool.’
At the same time, Farzaneh says, ‘Other tribal confederations exist across the continent. Borders are being created; trade is flourishing. The Camel Road will always be prized, and others will salivate at the chance to sink their teeth into it.’
‘Mitra is not a solution,’ I hiss.
She covers the horror with cold logic as if that makes the reality better. ‘Why should Azadniabad not line its own pockets using the vast realm within its reach? If we do not, we are doomed. A plunged economy is a womb for revolution.’
I think about Zahr rule: the slow raids from Sajamistan that poisoned our borderlands until our winter capital fell into their hands.
How else did Sajamistan grow after the Jazatāh tribes were overthrown as conquerors?
The ruling clan used the domain of the Heavenly Birds: Za’skar.
They attracted merchants, scholarship, kick-starting a shift from cold, barren feudalism toward civilisation, motivating people to move the wagon wheels of an economy.
As if reading my thoughts, Farzaneh adds, ‘But you see, Mitra does more than produce an army, it’s a trade.
Eventually, we’ll be able to trade and cipher a weaker version of both the knowledge of Mitra and its bonds to the other kingdoms, using the weakest jinn, durable and good enough.
Even Sajamistan will have to forgo their limitations on the Unseen world.
They will adapt; like the jinn, they will realise Eajīz are no longer all-powerful.
With time the corporeal body will adjust where human souls coexist with jinn-folk.
Power works that way – you give rulers a lick, they’re satiated for a bit.
When they start to agitate, crank a little more, until temptation overrides their restraint. ’
I am too horrified to form a response. She is right. Any kingdom would salivate to seize a weapon of mass destruction, would they not?
‘Business is where war begins, and business is where it ends.’ Farzaneh grins. ‘That’s hard work. For Azadniabad to grow, Mitra will secure our stakes in the Camel Road, beginning with coercing the steppe-tribes to concede to Azadniabad, or they risk their youngest becoming Mitra hosts.’
‘But . . .’ My voice drains, pale like my thoughts.
For any source of labour with costs as high as Mitra, the empire must create depravity – must make the conditions of the borderlands so impoverished that the tribes have no choice but to accept Akashun’s rule.
I imagine what it is like for a tribe like Uma’s in the Camel Road – they raid us, they kill us, they burn the steppes and pastures, they destroy our subsistence and demolish our tribes and rape our lands. They create our poverty. And then they swoop in, declaring they will save us.
Mitra would simply magnify this. It vexes me.
If Azadniabad controls the supply of Mitra, Warlord Akashun has a monopoly.
It forces kingdoms to trade, because any two entities in a mutually beneficial relationship are bound to engage in concessions with each other.
Things become symmetrical again, and against the rest of the cold, barren world, Azadniabad has something.
The same way Sajamistan secured control over Eajīz.
But a thought pushes back. Akashun used innocents.
The natural order of creation is this – neither creature can become the other: human cannot be jinn and jinn cannot be human. Warlord Akashun is fracturing that reality. We would become no better than the Jazatāh.
Suddenly, Farzaneh spreads her good hand and takes my fingers gripping the knife, pressing it against her chest. She begins smashing her fist against it. Again and again, the crunch of bones unmistakable.
‘What are you doing?’ I say, yanking the blade out of her reach.
She smiles coldly, the abandoned coils of a woman cemented in her beliefs. Her eyes grow black, the jinn seizing control. ‘What will you do? Put this woman out of her misery? She was going to die by your hands anyway. This mortal body is now unfit for me.’
Her teeth tremble in her gums, and one by one, begin clattering out. Like marble ingots. In her eyes, the pupils disappear. The knobs roll out of her skull.
Thud, thud, thud, wet rolling balls. I reel back, hitting the cavern wall. My gaze catches on a scar bisecting the skin below her collar.
Eyeless with two bloodied sockets, she cackles, ‘Kill her.’ Then her voice raises, straining. ‘Kill me. I want you to kill me.’
I plunge my knife into her, so deep that my fingers slip into the bloodied hole.
The pain strikes me as if I’m stabbing myself – the oath to my clan once my conviction but now like my bird cage: Forged by blood, bound by duty, I offer my soul by the white blade.
‘Such loyalty,’ No-Name murmurs. ‘Such beautiful loyalty.’