This chapter is submitted with abject apologies for the long delay, and hopes that you patient readers haven't given up on me yet!
Chapter 8
There was a brief, unexpected silence in the cellar-prison. Martin got the odd impression that his captor was unsure of what to say next. The awkward moment did pass, though, and the old man said, in what he probably thought was a friendlier tone, "I must apologize for not being fair to you, Agent Fitzgerald. If that foul-tempered sow had not distracted me with her idolatrous scribbling, I would have made my proposal when you first awakened."
"What kind of proposal?" He thought a moment of adding, We can't marry in this state, but quickly realized that it wasn't the kind of joke that would be appreciated.
With a slightly forced smile, the Arab replied, "As it is written in the Holy Qu'ran, 'O unbelievers! if you prayed for victory and judgment, now has the judgment come to you: if you desist, it will be best for you: if you return, so shall we. Not the least good will your forces be to you even if they were multiplied: for verily Allah is with those who believe!' Do you understand?"
"I understand that you have me where you want me."
He sighed and rolled his deep-set eyes. "I see that you misunderstand after all. I do not necessarily want you helpless and chained at my feet. I would prefer to have you standing nobly at my side. 'Truly Allah loves those who fight in his cause in battle array, as if they were a solid cemented structure.'"
As he realized what was being offered, Martin could not suppress all his indignation. "I am not a solid cemented structure or a traitor to my country. You might as well cut my head off now and send the tape to Al-Jazeera."
Anger flashed across the bearded face, but only for a moment. He forced the smile again, a bit wider now. "Let us try to be civilized with each other. I should introduce myself: my name is Jibril Khalid al-Ghul. You might have heard of me – especially if you have scrutinized your FBI watch lists." He pushed out a chuckle, which his prisoner did not echo. "There is much about me, though, that your FBI does not even suspect. Thanks to this book," he raised it, "and this sword," he tapped its hilt, "I have the means to strike the final blow of jihad against the Great Satan. Surely you do not want to be brought down with it."
"So you expect me to betray everything that matters to me in order to save my own skin. You really do have a low opinion of Americans, don't you?"
The sunken eyes narrowed. "In fact, I do. Your people are fat, lazy, greedy cowards, atheists and cross-worshippers and vile scheming Jews, obsessed with sex and pleasure and the noise and pornography you call entertainment. You are nothing but swine on your hind legs. Even so, I am merciful enough to offer you a chance, not to save your skin as you put it, but to ally yourself with the faithful servants of the truth."
"Thanks for thinking of me. Still not interested."
"You will be…once I share my secret." He stepped in close, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "Have you ever heard of the jinn?" Without waiting for a reply, he rushed on. "No, of course not; you infidels think your shallow science explains everything. But we believers have always known that the jinn are there above us. Watching over the believers are the good jinn who believe and obey Allah and his Prophet, peace be upon him; the infidels are watched by the wicked infidel jinn whom they will one day join in Hell. Only the wisest and greatest of believers have ever been able to control them. As it is written in the Holy Qu'ran, 'And before Suleyman were marshaled his hosts of jinn and men and birds, and they were all kept in order and ranks.' And I, only I of all the believers in all the centuries since, now have the means to command them!" His voice was rising, growing louder and higher to a shriek of excitement. "By the knowledge in this book and the power of this royal sword, they shall come in their legions and obey…and the infidels shall be mowed down like grass!"
In spite of his dire circumstances, Martin was almost amused by the bizarre enthusiasm of his captor. "The jinn. Right. They're going to come and grant you three wishes when you rub the magic lamp," he declared snidely.
The answer came wrapped in mocking laughter. "Such arrogance! How very American. You have no idea how you yourself have already been in their hands."
There was a small, queasy feeling in the prisoner's gut, and he no longer felt quite so certain. "What are you talking about, in their hands?"
There was already a note of triumph in al-Ghul's voice. "Tell me, Agent Fitzgerald: How did you get here?"
"I – I was abducted by people working for you," he said, in a tone a little more wobbly than he'd planned. "Derek Shaftoe had to be one of them."
"Not exactly people," al-Ghul sneered. "Do you remember anything about your passage to here?"
"No," Martin confessed. "How could I? I was unconscious at the time!"
"I know. Think back, boy: What was the last thing you heard before you grew weak and fainted?"
Martin knew the words were chosen to goad him, and ignored that. "I heard… voices. One was…dry, the other moist. They only lasted a few seconds before I passed out." He had a feeling that it wouldn't be wise to go into more detail.
And al-Ghul seemed pleased. This time his smile showed teeth; he fingered the hilt of the sword and said teasingly, "Would you like to meet them? See the magnificent faces that go with those voices?"
A creeping apprehension rose in Martin, but he was not about to pass up the chance for information that would surely be crucial. "Yes. I'd like to see them."
"It is a great gift," al-Ghul assured him, all sincerity. "A gift normally given only to the most pious of believers. You will be the first infidel to look upon the glory of the kings of the jinn: Chaarmarouch and Taranoushi, mightiest of all. These are among the holy jinn who are the first of the company of believers, as it is written in Sura 46: 'Behold, We turned toward you a company of jinn listening to the Qur'an: when they stood in the presence thereof, they said, Listen in silence!' I do this only out of mercy, so that you may see with your own eyes, and believe, and be saved in this world and the next. Are you ready?"
"I'm ready." As ready as I'll ever be, he thought, cold crawling up his back as he remembered the sounds he'd heard – the chittering giggles, that awful sucking, those inhuman noises… He clenched his fists hard as he steeled himself.
The book was now open in al-Ghul's hands. He consulted it carefully, turning several pages before settling on one, stepped back, and began to read in a loud, confident tone. The sibilant, elegant Arabic sounded exactly like the summons it had to be. Martin waited, tense and anticipating, as the air slowly began shifting around him.
Things seemed to be going out of focus – not as if outlines were fogging or blurring, but more as if their angles were changing, as if the light around him were refracting, images bending and going off kilter, displaced as if viewed through water. Martin closed his eyes against the distortion, and felt his heart begin to speed up as those briefly heard but all-too-familiar voices besieged him again.
They started very softly and steadily rose: first the dry, chitinous giggles, followed by the damp snorting and sucking…The skin-crawling sounds were rotating around his head as before, and now were resolving into words, or something like words.
Scratching, dessicated: HE WANTS TO SEE. HE WOULD LOOK UPON US.
Slurping, muddy: He would see, and believe, and be saved.
The captive agent was squeezing his hands around his chains, white-knuckled, blood pounding with fear of the unknown – and desperate desire that it remain that way. But no chance of that; he had to see, to know what had taken him, what al-Ghul had killed for and what now menaced his country. Martin opened his eyes.
They loomed above and before him, each far too big to fit in the low basement room, but both somehow there, immense, moving, beyond hideous. To the left he saw a throbbing mass, covered with waving fur or some kind of cilia the color of swamp mud, its wet sounds and snorts coming from the dozens of dripping orifices – drooling mouths and running nostrils – gaping at random and running fluid in gooey streams over its bulk. Behold the great Taranoushi!
At the right quivered a gigantic spiky bundle of insect parts: many-jointed hairy thin legs, segmented antennae, eyestalks sprouting faceted lumps of eye, stingers and clicking mandibles. Martin realized sickly that its voice resolved from the sounds of many of the skinny leg-like parts rubbing across each other. BEHOLD THE MIGHTY CHAARMAROUCH!
Martin could not make a sound, not even the scream that was called for. For a moment he was paralyzed; the unearthly entities were still as well. Then inch by inch, they slowly advanced on him. Now the scream ripped out as he scrabbled his feet against the floor, as if he could push himself to safety through the concrete wall at his back, and again he locked his eyes against the horror. Now no words were forming from the scraping and bubbling noises, just a tone of horrid amusement. The things were laughing, toying with him; he knew it, but could do nothing to resist it.
Finally, after the longest minute of his life, the alien laughters died away, and the terrible presences were gone. Martin sighed as if taking his first or last breath, letting every muscle go limp and reluctantly opening his eyes once more. Again, it was only him and al-Ghul in the room. The sorcerer was standing above him, and to the captive's astonishment, he was fairly trembling with excitement. "So you have seen them at last! Tell me, are they not magnificent? Have you ever seen such grandeur? Surely you now would be proud to ally yourself with such awe-inspiring beings!"
"Are you nuts? If there's anything more hideous, more terrible…" Martin regretted the words as soon as he'd spoken them.
But al-Ghul seemed only bewildered and disappointed. "Did you not see how beautiful they are? The bodies of giant athletes at the peak of perfection, the peaceful faces of saints, the voices of angels reciting the precious words of the Holy Qu'ran? You did not see or hear them?" Knowing not to go into detail, Martin only shook his head; his captor sighed in response. "It was an utter waste. Obviously an unbeliever like you cannot see with the eyes of faith. You deserve our pity, but not our mercy." With that he swept out the door; Martin could hear him calling up the stairs for Ghani to return.
The Pakistani was back in the cellar presently, resuming his guard post. He settled himself back on the stool without a word, but something was different this time. Martin noticed uncomfortably that Ghani was gazing at him with something like admiration, indeed very close to wonder. Eventually the guard summoned up the nerve to speak. "You have seen the jinn."
"Yes."
Martin's tone had been notably unenthusiastic, and Ghani could not help but pick up on the shudder that ran through the captive. But he pressed on. "I have not been permitted to see them. Abdelaziz in particular teases me about it; he says that someday if I work and pray hard enough, I might wake up one morning and not be Baluchi anymore." Bitterness suddenly flashed across his face. "But the malik showed them to you, and you are not even a Muslim!"
Martin sighed. "Trust me on this one, Mr. Ghani: It wasn't exactly a reward for good behavior."
"Tell me, Agent Fitzgerald: What are they like? The others' descriptions are all a little different from each other. What did you see?"
"You really want to know?"
Ghani was leaning forward on the stool, innocently eager. "At this point I would give my front teeth to see them myself. Yes, I do really want to know!"
The memory made Martin shudder harder. "Oh God, I don't know what to tell you…the foulest, most horrible things…they – they're indescribable. If I were you I'd feel lucky!"
"Foul? Horrible?" Ghani's jaw dangled. "But…what Samir says…that they are more beautiful than any women or boys could be…that he had to close his eyes to keep from crying at the sight…"
"I wanted to cry at the sight of them, too," Martin muttered. "You did say everyone describes them differently."
"But – but everyone else says they are beautiful, glorious, so magnificent that they could be the angels of Allah!"
"Listen to me." Martin's voice was low, but hard and emphatic. "I know that to the lot of you, I'm just an ignorant infidel or worse, and I'm only going to be killed anyway. But if I know anything, I know this more surely than I know my own name: The things I saw were not of God."
Ghani stared at him with bewilderment; Martin thought he also noticed a touch of apprehension. "Not of God…" He drifted into silence, now ignoring the prisoner and rocking back and forth on his stool, deep in thought as he reflected on what he'd heard. Nothing more passed between the two men for a long time.
It was about an hour later that Martin realized that his guard seemed to have dozed off, head flopped onto his chest. He wasn't surprised; Ghani had already impressed him as a man accustomed to long hours and interrupted sleep, much like himself. Maybe he'd be lucky enough to drift off too, and get to spend a couple of hours in a nightmare from which he could eventually awaken. At least it was quiet in the cellar prison. Martin closed his eyes, tried to shift position to relieve the tension on his shackled wrists and elevated arms, and did his best to relax.
It didn't stay that quiet for very long. A dry, rasping rhythm started up. Ghani's snoring; damn, he's loud… it was disturbing, rather more so than a snore should be. But when the crackling, dusty noise began resolving into words, Martin realized to his horror that it wasn't Ghani snoring, or anything human at all.
YOU TREMBLE, observed the voice of the thing called Chaarmarouch. YOU ARE AFRAID. GOOD.
Somehow he was able to respond, his voice as small and thin as it could get and still be audible. "Why 'good'? Do I amuse you?"
OF COURSE. YOU CAN SEE AND HEAR US AS WE ARE.
"The others, al-Ghul – you're beautiful to them, and recite the Qu'ran."
THEY SEE AND HEAR WHAT THEY WANT TO SEE AND HEAR. THEY WILL KNOW BETTER IN TIME – ONCE THE WALL IS BREACHED.
"Please," Martin gasped in a whisper, "what do you want?"
The thin, dry rasp was laughter. WANT? WE DO NOT DESIRE. WE DEMAND. AND WE TAKE.
Martin felt something, something cold as death and sharp as despair, crawling across his face; he squirmed away, hugging the wall, his cry of horror and revulsion coming out as a shriveled, choking gasp. The dusty scrape of amusement sounded again: WE ARE RESTRAINED. WE ARE BORED. WE ARE HUNGRY.
Another voice joined Chaarmarouch, wet and sucking, dripping with malice: And we are coming.
"You come when al-Ghul summons you," Martin observed softly. "You obey him."
Together now the unnatural voices rasped and bubbled in derision. The sorcerer is a fool and a master over fools.
IT IS HE WHO SERVES US. HE KNOWS IT NOT.
But he shall learn soon enough.
"What? But he controls you with the book and sword!" Martin had no idea where he found the resolve to converse with the terrible voices, especially now that he had seen the visible forms of the entities that owned them. Far easier to curl up and whimper until they mercifully went away…but he had to learn more.
True, gurgled the other, Taranoushi. But only a little true.
WITH THE SWORD HE CAN COMMAND. BUT ONLY ONE AT A TIME.
And soon, the fool will breach the wall. We will come in our myriads to conquer. To feed.
LET THE SORCERER FOOL RAISE HIS SWORD AND COMMAND US THEN…ONE AT A TIME.
Toxic pleasure sloshed in Taranoushi's voice. He knows we will feed and sport in this land. But he knows not that we move on to others – to his land.
LET HIM TRY TO STOP US THEN…ONE AT A TIME. LET HIM TRY TO COMMAND WHEN THIS WORLD IS OURS AND OURS ALONE.
Rustling and gargling their pleasure, the sounds faded, withdrawing. They left alone the sleeping, unsuspecting Iftikhar Ghani, fortunate enough to hear and see nothing of them, and Martin Fitzgerald, white and trembling, incapable even of prayer. The trap al-Ghul had set for the hated West would ultimately spring on all mankind…and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
TO BE CONTINUED