Chapter 6
Marjana’s oath was nigh but impossible to uphold.
Any stowaway would have been exciting; that it was the nakhudha’s own daughter added a whole new level of tension.
For days afterward, most of the crew resembled skittish cats, uncertain how to behave.
They might have also been trying to avoid my wrath—for it was impossible not to fret with Marjana about.
Though I had spent much of my life at sea, there was no denying it was a hazardous existence, my survival due to God’s blessing as much as my own skill.
With Marjana aboard, we stayed closer to shore, and I was more alert than usual for storms and rough waters, for sharks circling a bit too near and for rusty tools left carelessly upon the deck.
Though my stress was for naught: The weather remained as exceptionally lovely as it had been when we left Salalah with my daughter hidden aboard.
Our fishing nets stayed full, the winds ideal, and the heat a bare caress.
For this the men were pleased, growing more comfortable with her presence—even grateful, with several calling her a blessing.
“A streak of luck,” the cook’s assistant declared with a kindly smile.
It was impossible not to recall who else had once brought us similarly uncanny good fortune.
However, even if it took a few days to reorient myself, balancing duties to crew and child, I confess that part of me was delighted by Marjana’s unexpected act of defiance.
There was a spark in her, a new confidence.
She found tasks to keep herself busy and helpful, listening with rapt attention to Hamid as he showed her how to cook rice with saltwater, fetching Majed his maps, and perhaps casting a few too curious glances at Firoz, the gangly ship’s boy who was closest to her age.
The wonder that blossomed in her eyes when she first spotted a surfacing whale blow a burst of spray, her familiar warmth as she curled into my side at night, her satisfied smile when I let her adjust the rudders .
. . And that it should be the ocean, my Marawati that enthralled her so?
Oh, but it warmed the heart. My life had always been divided: the safe if dull harbor of home versus the chaos of a career that began in smuggling and ended in the supernatural.
And though I wanted Marjana nowhere near my piratical footstep, to witness her blossom at sea, to light up at the prospect of exploring new lands and meeting new people, was a wonder I couldn’t deny.
Her curiosity only grew stronger when our travels took us ashore.
She marveled at the endless date orchards of Basrah and the soaring reed houses of Iraq’s marshlands, spending her mornings playing with the children of fisherfolk whose Arabic was so different as to be incomprehensible, and her afternoons climbing the crumbling bricks of palaces ruined before the birth of the Prophet, peace be upon him.
Each day, Marjana seemed more newly mature, a seedling thriving after the rain.
It brought me a sort of wistful pride. How swiftly our children grow up, youthful aspects melting away before we blink.
But nothing delighted her as much as Baghdad.
Granted, Baghdad was no longer as splendorous as it had been during the heyday of legendary rulers such as Harun al-Rashid, his exploits still recounted in the dazzling tales of storytellers.
Decades of corruption, civil war, and political incompetence—the plagues that eventually infect and drag down even the grandest of dynasties—had left the Abbasids little more than jeweled puppets, their strings controlled by an ever-changing group of steppe warlords and Mamluk generals.
A good section of the eastern half of the city was in ruins from an earthquake, both grand mansions and ancient markets mere ghostly shadows of themselves as those with means left for more prosperous cities.
A great number of its famed bridges were collapsed, some of its previously sparkling waterways now clogged with silt.
But what was left was still mighty enough to impress, the city’s unique heartbeat alive in the brightly painted houseboats that plied the rivers, the countless shrines of departed holy men, the famous domes of the imperial city, and the knots of chattering scholars.
Its legendary hospital was still open to patients, a line curving around the remarkable building, and there was a mix of charming nostalgia and history that lay heavily upon the entire city, evoking an odd pang in the heart akin to homesickness for a long-vanished world.
It beguiled even me, an avowed seafarer who avoids venturing too far inland though I had been to Baghdad before, early in my career.
Jamal’s great-great-uncle multiple times removed lived close to the Baghdad’s bookselling district, a proximity I had no doubt regularly drained the young scribe’s purse.
I’d originally been reluctant to send him there, fearing it was the first place Sayyida Salima would search for her wayward grandchild, but Jamal was not as concerned, claiming the fallout between the branches of the al-Hilli family with opposing views toward magic had been generations ago—and adding more cynically that by the time Salima did track him down, he doubted that the elderly noblewoman so concerned about their family’s reputation would dare imply a connection to the young man he now resembled.
I was not so certain, recalling Salima’s genuine grief, but the rupture between them was fresh and not mine to judge.
Even so, I was looking forward to visiting, the parent in me eager to confirm with my own eyes that Jamal was well and in a stable position.
That is—if we ever made it to Jamal’s neighborhood.
Thoroughly enchanted by the old city and everything around her, Marjana lagged behind, stopping at various stalls and viewing points, grabbing my hand to point out this and that.
Dusk beginning to fall, I urged her along, finally arriving at Jamal’s doorstep, marked by his family name and a simple pictogram of what looked like a cairn, only to glance back and see that she and Majed had stopped to examine a small shop selling embroidered book covers.
“Oh, let them be,” Tinbu cut in as I opened my mouth to call them along. “Majed misses his children. And you can let her out of your sight for a moment.”
I grunted in annoyance—and then jumped at a tug upon my pant leg. Glancing down, I met the stupefied golden gaze of a smoldering stone creature barely higher than my knee. Smoke curled around his clawed hands as he pulled again at my trousers, and then—ever so carefully—took a bite of the fabric.
“I don’t have time for this,” I hissed, kicking the creature away. “Go back to the Unseen Realm.”
“Stop assaulting the doorstop,” Tinbu warned. “You were a menacing sight before you armed yourself with enough weapons to supply a garrison. Anything else and Jamal’s uncle might die of fright.”
“It isn’t a doorstop, it’s a—” But the creature had already shifted, taking the form of a limestone slab covered in a scrawl of geometric shapes. Just another magical being I could see and my companions could not. I wondered if they would ever stop startling me. “Never mind.”
Tinbu shook his head and knocked on the open door.
“Come in!” a cheerful, Baghdadi accent shouted.
Ducking beneath the doorway, Tinbu and I entered a cool, shadowed entrance with corridors stretching in opposing directions.
The scent of roses emanated from an open archway decorated with faded red and white bricks, and when we stepped through, what greeted us was a pleasant courtyard with a grizzled olive tree at its heart and stately date palms in the corners.
Medicinal herbs flourished in old stone pots and water glimmered from a tiled fountain.
A sprightly old man in a ratty yet extremely bright yellow thobe sat upon a shaded cushion.
“Peace be upon you!” He grinned, looking up from the ceramic dish he was painting. “Are you here for an incantation bowl?”
“A what?” I asked.
The old man gestured to the dozen or so ceramic dishes stacked beside him and tilted the one in his lap. Inscribed in swirling lines of tight, enigmatic characters at the center of the rust-red bowl was a crude sketch of a creature with a trident in each clawed hand and snakes for feet.
“It will protect you against Pazuzu,” he said confidently.
“Sure it will,” I said, having no idea who Pazuzu was and hoping if he did exist, the snake feet kept him slow. “We are looking for Jamal al-Hilli.”
“Ah, but you must be Jamal’s friends! I am Abu Gharib, his uncle.
” He stood up, a bit too enthusiastically considering his age and the wheeze that followed.
His gaze went from my sandals to my turban and his eyes went wide.
“Oh, my. He warned you might appear formidable, but that is not the word I would have chosen.”
Tinbu interrupted before we could learn what word Abu Gharib would have chosen. “Is Jamal here?”
“He was.” The old man returned to painting inscriptions. “Do not mind me. It is dangerous to leave the spell unfinished for more than a few heartbeats. Jamal!” he boomed, so loud that Tinbu jumped. “JAMAL!”
“I am coming!” Moments later, a very disheveled Jamal al-Hilli raced into the courtyard, breathing fast and clutching a scroll. He quickly unfurled it, his panicked gaze locked on the text. “Do not fear! I have the entrapment charm right—”
I coughed. “Peace be upon you, little scholar.”
Jamal glanced up in shock and nearly dropped the scroll.
“Nakhudha! Tinbu!” True delight cracked across his face.
“Oh my goodness . . . peace and blessings upon you both as well!” He let out a relieved sigh, exchanging a knowing glance with his uncle.
“Whew, certainly a better sight than Pazuzu, no?”
Abu Gharib tilted his head, examining me and my weapons again. “I’m not sure.”