He does not look up.
I clear my throat harder.
‘What?’ he snaps at last. Then his eyes drop to my bandaged arm and he hesitates.
I prey on his remorse and speak fast. ‘Scholar Mufasa challenged me to memorise the five annals on the Jazatah Era. Only then will he permit me back into class. Yabghu advised me to come to you for your... genius. I need—’
Help. The request lodges in my throat, unwilling to be admitted. Cemil waits. ‘I need your help,’ I choke out.
He leans back in a casual stance. ‘Such respect. Where were these proverbs of my genius when I spoke to you in the school tohelpyou?’
He will not let me live this down. ‘Please,’ I say in disgust. ‘You won’t refuse my grovelling. You enjoy it.’
Cemil is silent for a long moment. Then he gestures with his chin. ‘Your arm? Has it healed?’
‘It has hardly been one day. What do you think?’ His eyes linger on my slitted sleeves. The hint of skin displays logos – like his own, except his are ravens – a hallmark of the Camel Road lands, divided by empires. I yank my sleeve down.
Then he smiles sharply and I recoil. ‘I do enjoy your grovelling. I will help you on one condition.’
‘Was the way you knifed me not enough?’
He ignores it. ‘On the last Saturday of this moon cycle, the captain is taking his favoured soldiers from Squadron One to visit the Sixteen-Gated Grand Bazaar. It’s the Festival of Lights, to celebrate the first harvest. You might join us. We go before he drafts his squadron for the Marka.’
‘During the evenings, I study.’
His nose wrinkles at the thin excuse. ‘It’s my condition.’
Around us, torchlights of smokeless fire along the grand staircase cast shadows against the bedrock, playing against Cemil’s face like an omen. A cool wind clatters through the waning evening. He waits, but my instincts prickle in warning.
‘I do not know your intentions. I cannot agree.’
Unsurprised, he stands. ‘For anyone, it would be an easy choice, but not for you. You may live in Sajamistan but the Azadnian in you is clear as day. No wonder the scholars despise you. Your paranoia, your isolation... you are forever the lone wolf prone to the devil in the empty valley.’ He bends to my ear. ‘I’d watch my back if I were you,’ he says, before shouldering past me.
I stagger at the force, left to watch him walk up the stairway.
‘Wait.’
He continues walking. I rush forward and block his path. He steps around me but I catch the front of his tunic. He pushes my hand away, lightly, avoiding my injured arm. But I yank him until we are nose to nose.
‘I changed my mind. I will go.’ I swallow my nausea.
He stares at my hand until I release him.
‘You need the oldest Jazatah annals,’ he finally says. ‘The Keeper of the Great Library guards these ancient scrolls. For him, we need something first.’
Cemil disappears across the road, into the monastic apothecary, reappearing with a foul-smelling pouch in his left hand. I follow him inside. The Great Library lives in tales scrawled across the continent; its ancient archives are the confluence of jinn-folk and human knowledge, a portal between the material and immaterial realm through sages and script.
Golden light hovers in a halo around the emerald domes above the imposing library, a grand stairway climbing to shimmering gold balconies and entryways disappearing into the dark mountain, as if it is a slumbering beast and we are ants crawling into its bowels, scared to awaken it.
Tamed phoenixes crouch atop the filigree-laced wood flanking a bone-stone entrance. Ababil birds streak circles across the dark sky as if compelled by some unknown force to guard the round roofs. The wings of parî form feathered shields across the ivory walls carved in vibrant epics.
Seeing us, the parî bow and smile. Their cheeks have a rosy pink tint, pointy ears twitching, skin shimmering as if the Divine ensconced their forms in starlight.
‘It’s easy for initiates to wander lost and never appear again.’ Cemil yanks on my hemp waist cord, guiding us through a maze of corridors; hexagonal walls painted in miniatures about the Stone Empires dating to Adam’s first descendants. Long palm shelves hold scrolls secreted from the Unseen world into the greed of human hands. The tiled walls carved from merciless bedrock depict various stelae of warriors slaying azhdahak by feeding the winged serpents poisoned cow.
Not even hate can rival fascination. I admire the architecture, the old creatures, the mounds of mineral-inked parchment, even the friezes of bone-stone, strange as they are. Above us, on patterned tiles, it reads:
SPECIAL THIRD BUREAU OF MARID, JINN AND UNSEEN SCROLLS.
