Alif the Unseen (18 page)

“Is it possible?” Alif interrupted. “Do you get superpowers if you figure out what the trick is? I mean, if there
is
a trick?”

Sakina chuckled. “There is no trick—it is simply that your kind and mine see the world differently, and that is that. The transcendent aspect of
The Thousand Days
is
apparent only to the hidden folk. Although—” She paused, glancing up at a microprocessor on a shelf above her.

“Although what?”

“I have often wondered whether you are getting close,” she said slowly. “Most of my people disagree with me, but I believe that with the advent of what you call the digital age
you have breached a kind of barrier between symbol and symbolized. It doesn’t mean the
Alf Yeom
will make any more sense to you, but it may mean you have grasped something vital
about the nature of information. You are the chosen race, after all—our ancestors were commanded to bow to your progenitor in the Foretime. And it was one of your kind who brought forth the
Criterion,
not one of ours.”

“What
Criterion
is that?” Alif leaned forward, intent on her serious face.

Sakina looked bemused.

“Surely you must know, given your real name.”

“But I thought—how do you know my real name? I didn’t hear Vikram mention it.”

“I didn’t need to,” said Vikram, playing with the hem of the convert’s skirt. She appeared not to notice. “Since I know what it is, it is implied by your chosen
name every time I say it. That’s why it’s dangerous to tell a djinn your real name if you’d rather he didn’t know.”

“That’s Dina’s fault,” muttered Alif. “She refuses to call me anything else.”

“It’s a blessed name,” said Sakina. “I don’t see why you should be ashamed of it.”

“It’s common. It’s everybody’s name. I wanted to be different.”

“Even so.”

Alif ran a hand restlessly through his unkempt hair.

“Whatever. That’s not the point. What’s this
Criterion
?”

Sakina pointed to a shelf behind his shoulder. “
Al-Furqan,
of course.
The
book.”

Alif turned and looked: in a cradle, bound in green leather, was a copy of the Quran.

“Oh,” he said.

There was a pause in which Alif felt sheepish and small. Sakina and Vikram looked at one another in catlike communion, saying nothing, smiling in one simultaneous instant.

“I’m sorry,” said Sakina, breaking the spell. “We got lost in thought. Where was I?”

“The Battini,” said Alif. “And Moqlas.”

“Yes. Two of the four copies were destroyed in Isfahan when Shah Abbas shut down the Battini school there in the early seventeenth century. Another was lost in a fire fifty years later at
the Battini outpost in Cairo. By the end of the seventeenth century only a single copy remained, and it was this copy that Moqlas inherited. It’s said that he dictated the stories to a
Frenchman, who translated them into his own language, though I am told the translation is not taken very seriously.”

“De la Croix,” Alif said. “Everybody thought he’d made it all up.”

“Made it all up,” echoed the convert.

“All translations are made up,” opined Vikram, “Languages are different for a reason. You can’t move ideas between them without losing something. The Arabs are the only
ones who’ve figured this out. They have the sense to call non-Arabic versions of the
Criterion
interpretations, not translations.”

“So the French translation,” said Alif, “that doesn’t qualify as a real version of the
Alf Yeom
?”

Vikram gave him a disgusted look. “Is
anything
real in French?” he asked.

“When Moqlas died, the remaining manuscript of the
Alf Yeom
went missing,” Sakina continued. “The Battini school died out, ending their days as hashish-addled
wanderers bemoaning their bad luck. No word was heard of the manuscript again—that is, until several months ago.”

Alif’s left leg had gone to sleep. He shifted, feeling pins and needles break out in his calf and foot.

“What happened then?” He felt like a child listening to a bedtime story.

“There was a rumor that a young noblewoman from one of the emirates had identified the manuscript through a rare bookseller in Damascus and paid a small fortune for it. No one was able to
confirm this. But there was a man—one of your tribe, a
beni adam
they call
falling star
—who was convinced enough to recruit some very dangerous company to look for it,
and her.”

“Intisar.” Alif felt his face grow hot. She was menaced by so many things beyond his control. He had not done enough to protect her. The name
falling star
meant something to
him, but he could not remember what. He was impotent, here as in the outside world, his utility confined to punching commands into computers. Beyond the bedroom where he sat day after day like an
idle spider in the midst of a digital web he was boneless, protected only by a black carapace of T-shirts and jeans, unprepared for physical danger. His mind struggled against the limits of his
body.

“She must have sent the book to me because she got scared,” he said, mortified when his voice shook. “Whoever this
falling star
guy is, he clearly threatened her. So
she sent the book away to protect herself.” He gave a brittle laugh. “Though why she would think I could keep it safe is beyond me. I’ve fucked it up already, getting hacked by
the Hand and going on the run. I have plenty of my own problems. I’ve been careless and stupid.”

Sakina touched his foot with a sympathetic hand. Alif felt an immediate calm descend on his body, soporific and cool. He wondered if the effect was born of his own suggestible mind, or the
result of some arcane ability the woman possessed. Either seemed possible.

“Who is this man who wants it?” Alif asked her. “The book I mean. Where does he come from? Who are these people you say he’s recruited?”

Sakina’s eyes flickered.

“I have never seen him,” she said, “Though it’s said he came to the Alley on his own. No guide, no map. He has some kind of authority among humankind—an enforcer, a
law-giver, a dealer of punishment. How he reached this place no one knows. But he was able to convince certain elements among our people to help him.”

Alif looked at Vikram. The man seemed intent, even uneasy.

“What does she mean?” he asked.

“There are many kinds of djinn,” Vikram said in a quiet voice. “As there are many kinds of
banu adam
. Some good, like Sakina, some less good, like me. Most are
scuttling moral cowards, like you. But there are a few who are very, very bad indeed.”

“As bad as—as what?”

“Well, the outcast Shaytan is a djinn. From there you may elaborate.”

Alif balled his fists against his face.

“I can’t handle demons,” he muttered.

“No, you can’t,” said Sakina. “But no one has asked you to. Leave the book here with us. It’s safer in the Alley than it is in the seeing world. Your kind was never
meant to possess it in the first place—you are too careless with your tools, too hungry for progress to consider its cost.”

Alif looked with relief at the manuscript sitting between them. If he got rid of it, Intisar would be no less unsafe, but he would be a great deal safer indeed. It was an honorable thing,
returning a lost artifact to its rightful owners. He would be able to look her in the eye and tell her he had done something, anything, to prove himself worthy of what she had withdrawn from
him.

“The man who came looking for the book,” said Alif. “He doesn’t know I’ve got it, does he? I mean, how could he? If I left it here, that would be the end of my part
in this whole thing. I’m anonymous.”

Sakina’s mouth quirked into a doubtful frown.

“I’m not sure that’s true,” she said. “The man in question may be mud-made like the rest of your kind but, as I said, he is not without resources. His allies may
already have informed him that you are here. And if he was able to reach the Alley on his own, he must have considerable access to information in the seeing world as well. If I were you, I would
assume nothing.”

The familiarity of the man’s name, kicking around in the back of his mind since Sakina had spoken it, came into chilly clarity.

“My God,” said Alif. “It’s a meteor. A falling star is a meteor. Al Shehab. Al Shehab means
falling star
.”

“So?” Vikram yawned, revealing too many pointed teeth.

“It’s the Hand.” Alif felt like laughing. “His real name is Abbas Al Shehab. The Hand is coming for the
Alf Yeom
.”

Though Sakina urged him to stay, Alif bundled the manuscript back into his pack and slung it over one shoulder.

“I’ve got to meet Intisar and warn her,” he said. “I should have left ages ago. I’ll be late.”

“Allah, Allah!” Vikram exclaimed. “Yes, be manful! Take up your destiny!”

“Don’t encourage him,” said Sakina. “He could be in terrible trouble.”

“He’s already in terrible trouble. A little more won’t hurt,” said Vikram.

“It’s true.” Alif gave them a wan smile. “It makes a lot more sense now. The Hand must already have known that Intisar was planning to smuggle the book to me when he
broke into my computer. The attack was too surgical—I knew there was no way it could have been random. He was looking for something that would tell him whether I had received the book, or
where I had stashed it. He doesn’t care about Intisar or about Tin Sari—he wants the
Alf Yeom
.”

“Made it all up,” said the convert. Alif looked at her doubtfully.

“I still think you should leave the book here with us,” said Sakina. “It would be wise.”

“I don’t know if it’s wise or not, but if the Hand is mixed up with this book, I need to find out why. I’m responsible for a lot of people he could hurt.” With a
pang of guilt, Alif thought of all the clients who had been exposed when he pulled the plug on Hollywood.

“Very wise,” said the convert.

“Can you take care of her?” Alif asked Vikram.

Vikram pressed one hand over his heart. “Like my own eyes,” he said. “But where shall we meet you after your little tryst?”

“I don’t know.” Alif flipped open his smartphone. No messages. He snapped it shut again. “Call me. The convert has my number, if you can get her to remember how to work a
phone.”

Vikram waved him off. “She’ll be fine once we get her back to the City proper,” he said. “The effect of this place wears off quickly. She’ll think we spent a
charming afternoon in some corner of the Old Quarter she’s never seen before.”

It occurred to Alif that he had no idea how to escape.

“Where’s the, uh—exit?”

Sakina shrugged. “Back the way you came, I imagine,” she said. “Vikram will guide you if you can’t make out the way yourself. I can look after your friend until he
returns. But remember that whatever entrance you used will probably spit you out in a different spot than where you entered.”

“How different? Middle of Tibet different?”

“Difficult to say.”

Alif looked dubiously at Vikram.

“That’s it? Difficult to say? You don’t have some kind of cryptic advice?”

“None,” said Vikram, in a voice with more forced cheer than was natural. “If Sakina is right about the kind of folk the Hand has recruited, you’ve got much more to worry
about than a little detour. Gather your things.”

Alif elected not to think too hard about Vikram’s warning. He saluted Sakina, who pressed a hand to her heart, and turned on his heel, trotting briskly to keep up with Vikram as he ducked
into the street. Men and women and things in between stared at him as he followed in the wake of Vikram’s swaying dark hair. The colors of buildings and clothing seemed overbright. Alif
’s feet began to drag. He felt sluggish as he skirted a messenger boy with an enormous jar of butterflies riding on his head.

“You’re losing the narrative of things,” came Vikram’s voice. “Here—take hold of me.”

Dutifully, Alif reached for his arm. His fingers brushed something warm and soft, like the pelt of an animal. For a moment, sleep descended over him, and he couldn’t see.

“Cousin. Last-born. This won’t do.”

Alif felt himself lifted like a baby and cradled against a furred, feral-smelling shoulder. He resisted a long-buried urge to suck his thumb, roused by the memory of a time when the darkness at
the edge of sleep was peopled with beasts.

“Wake.” Vikram’s voice was low and urgent. “You aren’t safe.”

Alif forced his eyes open. Half-shadowed figures stared at him with eyes like lamps. An elephant lumbered past, her painted face scarcely clearing the saffron-colored shades of the shop fronts.
He came fully awake and struggled out of Vikram’s grip, feeling overwhelmed.

“You don’t have to do this,” he said, tugging at his rumpled shirt. “You don’t have to hang around if it’s really going to get as bad as Sakina says.
God
. All I did was let a cat wait out a sandstorm in my room. A normal person would kill me for sleeping with his sister.”

“Normal people must not love their sisters as much as I do.” Vikram’s face had regained its usual expression of contempt. “What an ungrateful little creature it
is.” He spun on his foot and continued down the Alley, so fast that Alif nearly lost sight of him.

“Wait—I didn’t mean it.” He ran to catch up. The sight of a girl with silver chains looped through piercings scattered across her face arrested him and he stared; she
looked back and smiled, revealing a row of pointed teeth. Horrified, Alif ran on. The near-invisible staircase came into view, detectable only as a sudden collapse of the near horizon. Vikram paced
in front of it like a restless lion.

“Normal people,” he muttered to himself. “Idiot. After I’ve done everything but swaddle it in linens when it shits.”

“I’m sorry,” said Alif guiltily. “It’s just that I don’t know what to do. This place is so funny and bright—it hurts my eyes. I can’t think.
I’m freaking out.”

“Your eyes, your eyes. Better leave before something else offends them. There are the stairs.” Vikram’s head seemed to sink below his shoulders as he stalked back toward the
main thoroughfare of the Alley until he resembled something ghoulish and obscene. Growling noises of complaint issued from his retreating form. Dazed, Alif watched him for several moments before
steeling himself for action. He sprinted back and caught Vikram by the shoulder. The man turned with a snarl. Awkwardly, Alif kissed him on both cheeks, as he would a brother.