Chapter 9: The Choice
"We've arrived. Excellent." Nimrod announced as they touched down in the garden of his house in Cairo. "Tomorrow night, you two will perform the traditional fast in the desert."
"A fast?" Holly asked curiously. "Why?"
"To explain that, I first have to tell you a story from djinn history, and I'd much rather talk about it inside, where I can be sure that no one will be eavesdropping." Nimrod led them all into his house through a side door, and all of them except Mr. Groanin sat down at one end of a long, cherry wood table. As Groanin left through a door at the far end of the room, a tall, slightly intimidating Egyptian man wearing a red fez came in. He would have looked the most frightening man in the world (at least in Holly's opinion) if not for the fact that he had an enormous grin illuminating his dark, suntanned features, his teeth as white as pearls.
"Ah, Creemy, there you are!" Nimrod said. "Holly, Castiel, Mark, this is Creemy, my manservant here in Cairo."
"So what exactly is this story?" Cas asked Nimrod after they had all said their hellos to Creemy, and Creemy had sat down at the table next to John.
"The story? Ah, yes. It begins a few thousand years ago, with one of the Marid tribe's ancestors, a king, named Nimrod, like myself, and he was most famous for building the Tower of Babel. I'm sure you're quite familiar with that story, are you?" Nimrod began, puffing on his cigar, Cas nodded, though Holly and Mark shook their heads.
"Not really." Mark admitted.
"That king had all the people in the world try and build a tower all the way up to heaven. God didn't like that the people He had created were trying to become equal to Him, so God made it so that all the workers couldn't understand each other, because they were speaking all different languages." Cas explained.
"I've been to the tower of Babel. Believe me, suddenly speaking some strange language isn't as fun as it sounds." John nodded, leaning back in his seat. "And then there was that time in Peru when I suddenly started speaking Quechua. That was even weirder."
"There will be time for stories of your adventures later, John." Nimrod silenced his nephew and puffed on his cigar for a few seconds thoughtfully. "Now where was I? Ah, yes. This King Nimrod lived to a ripe old age and subsequently died, leaving his queen, Semiramis, to mourn. Before she had time to mourn him, though, she gave birth to a son whom she named Tammuz. After she recovered enough, Semiramis went out into the desert and fasted."
"How long did she fast for?" The practically-minded Mark asked.
"Forty days and forty nights. No food, no water, out alone in the desert. It was there that Semiramis realized that her son, Tammuz, was actually Nimrod reborn." Nimrod explained.
"So, what exactly does this story have to do with our being djinn?" Cas asked curiously.
Nimrod smiled. "You, too, must go out into the desert and fast, Castiel. We call this the Rite of Tammuz, and no djinn can be a djinn without completing it. One night of fasting in the desert, in the company of a flame. Only then can you truly understand what it means to be made of fire, as djinn are."
"When are we going to go out and fast?" Holly asked nervously. She didn't much like the idea of herself and Cas alone, out in the desert, where there were scorpions and snakes all over.
"I'd like to have you both initiated as soon as possible, so I think that tomorrow night will be best. But until then, I think it's best that we try to lie low. At least for tomorrow. Cairo is much more dangerous now that Azazel is on the loose again." Nimrod cautioned, and then yawned loudly. "Oh, dear. I'm feeling rather tired after steering the carpet all the way down here from London. I'd better go to bed, and I suggest that you all do the same. Tomorrow we'll see how well you play Astaragali, if we have nothing better to do. I don't think I want to risk taking you both into the city before you've learned to defend yourselves a bit." Nimrod yawned again and stood up to leave the room. "I beg your forgiveness at my rudeness, but John and Philippa can show you to your rooms today." Nimrod left, followed by Creemy, who said that he had to go and watch the tuchemeter some more.
The next day, Nimrod showed Holly, Cas, and Mark his tuchemeter, which Nimrod claimed was an exact replica of a much larger one in Berlin. Its single hand pointed quite definitely to one of the three words engraved on the face: BAD. Feeling rather unsettled, they spent the rest of the day learning how to play Astaragali, which turned out to be a game that both Holly was good at, and that Mark and Mark excelled at, and they spent many hours playing it. Even John, who rather disliked playing Astaragali, conceded to play with Holly, Cas, Mark, Philippa, and Nimrod, if only to have something to do for the day.
Evening came eventually, and, just before dinnertime, Nimrod called them all into the front hall.
"Now, then. It's time to set out for your Tammuz. Mark, I'm afraid you can't join your sister this time, so don't be tempted to stay with them. I've already put all of the equipment they'll need in the Cadillac, and Creemy can drive you down to a nice, deserted bit of desert I know right near here. I'm afraid I won't be joining you, but John and Philippa can escort you. Can't you?" Nimrod looked at his niece and nephew meaningfully.
John and Philippa exchanged a glance and then nodded.
"Excellent. Oh, I nearly forgot. Philippa, I need you to help me look for that lamp, will you?"
"Yes, Uncle." Philippa said, and she and Nimrod set off down the hallway, leaving John with Holly, Cas, and Mark.
"What do they need a lamp for?" Mark asked John. "Why not flashlights?"
"Well, the whole idea of the fast is to spend a night in the desert with a flame for company. You see, djinn are made of fire, and that's what makes us able to work our will. It's also how charcoal pills work- they make us feel less claustrophobic because they warm us up. And flashlights don't really warm anything up at all. It's just some batteries and a light bulb stuck together with plastic." John explained.
"Oh. Will Holly and Cas be safe out there, all alone?" Mark returned, tapping his foot and crossing and recrossing his arms nervously.
"Probably. And if not, Uncle Nimrod would know about it."
"How?" Mark asked.
"You'll see," was all John would say before Philippa came back in, without Nimrod, and gave a very interesting-looking burnished brass lamp to Cas.
"Here you are. Uncle Nimrod says he's sorry he can't be here to see you off, but he's dealing with a very important djinn matter. Shall we go?" Philippa was already halfway to the door when she finished speaking.
"Okay," Cas said, nodding. "Let's go."
The stretch of desert which they arrived at a few minutes later was indeed quite near to the district of Cairo known as Garden City, where Nimrod's house was. The sky was beginning to darken when John and Philippa helped unload the negligible equipment from the trunk of Nimrod's fantastic white Cadillac Eldorado. Holly raised an eyebrow at it. There was a tarp to spread over the sand, and sleeping bags, which looked comfortable enough, but also, to Holly's considerable surprise, there were two pads of paper and two pens, as well as an English dictionary.
"What's the dictionary for?" Holly asked, as John handed her a book of matches and the pens.
"You can play word games if you get bored. But when the sun goes down, you can see all sorts of stars and things up in the sky here that you can't in New York. It's amazing!" Philippa encouraged.
Holly could almost swear that she heard something that sounded very like a derisive snort come from within the lamp that was now clasped in Cas' right hand.
"And if you get really bored, you could give that lamp a good polish. It looks as though it could use it." John added.
The twins and Mark got back into the Cadillac and Creemy drove away, leaving Holly and Cas alone with the rapidly darkening desert. Or so it seemed. Holly and Cas looked at each other as the last rays of sunlight vanished, and night began.
"Never fails at the rub of the lamp," Holly told her friend meaningfully, quoting one of Robin Williams' lines from Walt Disney's Aladdin, and they both sat down on the tarp.
"Yeah, yeah, I know." Cas replied, grinning back at her, and rubbed his palm vigorously across one side of the brass lamp until it suddenly shot out of his hands. "Whoa!" he shouted, and fell back onto his elbows, which is normally quite a painful way to fall, but the sand beneath the tarp was quite soft.
"What happened?" Holly asked, panicked. She didn't much like the dark, having grown up in New York with all of the light pollution, and it made her very nervous.
"I don't know. The lamp just sort of... jumped out of my hands! I- look at that!" In the dark, Cas pointed through the darkness to the lamp, illuminated by a soft white glow as white smoke billowed out of it endlessly, until the smoke manifested itself into a human figure that they recognized immediately. It was Nimrod, wearing his red suit, beaming at them, and holding another, lit oil lamp that illuminated the desert with a radius of a few yards.
"Oh, hi Nimrod." Holly said, trying to sound nonchalant.
Nimrod checked his watch. "Really?" he said. "It only took you a few seconds to figure that one out? I must say that you two have exquisite observational skills. It took John and Philippa much longer to figure it out, but to you I say bravo for remembering your Arabian Nights with only John's vague hint. Bravo, indeed."
"It wasn't all that vague, to be honest. It was actually pretty obvious, if you think about it for a second." Holly admitted.
"Now, why exactly do we really have this dictionary?" Cas asked, observing his friend go slightly pink from Nimrod's praise.
"I'll get to that in a minute, Castiel. First, though, I must tell you another story of the djinn, and it is especially important in your case to listen carefully."
"Why?" Holly asked before Nimrod could begin. He sighed and sat down, cross-legged on the tarp opposite them.
"It is important for you to listen to this story, Holly, because we don't know what tribe you both are from. Now, I think it's best that you just listen until I've finished, all right?" Nimrod asked them.
Holly and Cas nodded, and Nimrod began.
"When the world was first made, there were only two powers present in it, and only three types of beings that could tell the difference between them. The powers were Good and Evil, and only angels, djinn, and mundanes knew them apart from each other. Now, as the world grew older, a Great Choice was forced upon angels, djinn, and mundanes: and this was to choose between Good and Evil. As you may have gathered, we call this the Great Choice. Most of the angels chose Good, and many of the mundanes living then chose Evil, causing a bit of a dilemma for us djinn. Three of the six tribes of djinn chose Good, and these are the Marid, the Jinn, and the Jann. The other three tribes- the Ifrit, the Shaitan, and the Ghul- favored Evil."
Nimrod let his tale sink in for a moment before adding: "Since it is fairly unlikely that we will ever find out for sure what tribe either of you is from, it is your turn to make the Great Choice. Choose between Good and Evil; and choose wisely. Should you choose Evil, I won't try to prevent it. Choose what you believe is best for you." Holly studied Nimrod's grim countenance, trying to figure out if he was in earnest about forcing this choice on them. How could he expect them to choose between Good and Evil, just like that?
"Well, I've decided." Cas announced immediately. "I'm on the side of Good, through thick and thin. I couldn't ever inflict harm on others, even if they really deserved it."
"Then I welcome you as an honorary member of the Marid tribe, Castiel Malone. Holly? What about you?" Nimrod smiled at Cas and then turned to Holly with an expression of polite curiosity. Holly began to chew her fingernails in indecision, but stopped very quickly.
"Cas is right. I'd rather stick with the good side of things than be responsible for doing evil. But what if it turns out that we're actually from a bad tribe of djinn? Won't that mean that we have to choose Evil?" Holly asked, worried.
Nimrod shook his head. "Of course not, Holly. In point of fact, all djinn start out essentially the same, just like mundanes do. It's really what you do and what company you keep that shape you to be good or evil. But in any case, I welcome you as an honorary member of the Marid tribe, Holly Coomes. Now, I've some things to give to you."