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Unquenchable Fire

Part of the Queenmaker series.

[[Al-Quareshi?]]

Long Count 998.8

“You’ve become quite a national heroine. There is an adulation, you’ve become,” he opened his hands in a poetic gesture of emphasis, “ a kind of national holy mother. It is fabulous to see how you have been accepted, after the tumult involved in your election.”

The word “national” sounded strange, the Caliphate was always described as a “state”, or sometimes a “confederation” if one counted the protectorate lands which were not, formally, part of the Caliphate itself. And the words were spoken to someone who was just getting used to her new name, or rather, her old one, because Shahzadeh Parand had, until recently, been known by her married name, until she divorced her husband.

That had been after her election to the Hajj, when long building and long simmering tensions finally erupted, and she decided that her life, and her seat in the Hajj would be her own.

She was speaking to Siamak Adarpadyavand, the party leader of the “Whites” of the province of Al-Quareshi, whose raven black hear, thin nose, strong jaw and piercing gaze gave him an unsettling kind of power. There were those who admired him, and those who loathed him – and she was not sure which she was yet.

But she did agree about the level of adulation she had received, it was surprising. Of the 500 members of the Hajj elected, some 25 were women, but most of these were transperantly creatures of their husband or father, meant to fill a seat without violanting that laws against Nepotism. In deed 12 of the 25 were from the party which backed the old Vizier, which had adopted a green banner with a sword – signifying God and the Army, the two pillars of their support, followers of the old way, and the rank and file of the professional military. However of them, she, by having withstood a challenge, and having marched triumphantly into the citadel where the counting was taking place, created a great stir across the land.

She remembered learning of all of the details much later, how the judge had not only upheld her votes, but had reduced the votes of one of the traditional candidates for bribing caucus goers. The result was that of the 13 votes from the province – it was one of the smaller of the 21 provinces which made up the Caliphate proper – 8 went to the Whites, 4 to the Greens, and one to the radical “Black” party, which advocated an end to the Caliph altogether, a removal of all of the old business laws, and an greater freedoms, including opening the state telegraph network. Of the six seats from the city of Quareshi, 2 went to the Greens, though even one of these would be lost if the Whites had balanced their supporters carefully. Siamak had done this in the country side, but could not organize it in the city, because of the boisterous clamor from many candidates.

The campaign, for that is what it was being called now “the campaign for election”, in a military metaphor that she disliked, had been a jumble of meetings, talks, and speeches. But in the end she had stood third out of all of the White candidates.

“I suppose, I suppose that there has been a certain response, and yes, it is very, enthusing. But it is the will of God that new winds should come, and so they came.”

“You know what they are calling you, don’t you?”

She knew, coming here to this meeting, riding on a white horse, she had heard the cries from the streets, and young men and women with outstretched hands had called at her:

“Malakeh! Malakeh!”

It had been heady, but she had brought her self down from it by reminding herself of all that needed to be done. And how close a matter it had been.

She managed to nod quietly, as if it was no matter.

“I tell you then, that this is what we need. You are a figure of great legitimacy, I have an idea.”

She smiled and raised her eyebrows just a tad, as if to say, “Go on. Tempt me.”

He looked at her round face, which was more youthful than one would have expected from her, with its prominent cheekbones, broad forhead was framed by her richly brown hair that was tinted red as the fashion of that time. She had the kind of glowing eyes that seemed to reach out beyond all of her other features, and lips that, if not as full as a young womans, still had a certain ripeness to entice the unwary male. Yes he could see why she had so many male admirers willing to do whatever was needed to “throw petals in her path” as the saying went.

“It seems to me that the Vizier needs a hand in the Hajj, it is therefore reasonable to press for you to become part of the government.”

She took the flower that was tucked on her ear, and began to spin it by its stem in front of her face. She then gave a short laugh, and smiled across her face.

“Surely you jest, I have little experience in government, and none in the world of men and their politics.”

“That is not what the stories say.”

She smiled again. “From time to time I have exerted some influence and advice, but only when there were urgently needed deeds that needed doing, and it seemed that it only required someone willing to suggest them to have them happen.”

He gave a short chuckle and sat down on an old style chair, one that had several curved slates of wood joined together in an “X”, he reclined in it and looked up at her. His arm rested on the arm of the chair, and his head rested on his hand. She did not think it rude for him to do this as she stood there, robed and with a shawl that she had tied around her waste, for it was the custom for the one giving the audience to sit, and despite her new found fame, Siamak, friend of the Vizier, one of the architects of the demonstrations, riots and marches that had begun this wave of “Restoration” as he and the other members of the inner circle called it, was giving, not receiving, the audience.

“You are a treacherous one,” he then opened his palm face down, “I think you know the post I have in mind for you would be a purely ceremonial one.” and then he gestured with both hands up. “However, it is never wise to underestimate the power of ceremony. I managed to mollify your former husband with it.”

“You must tell me how you accomplished that.”

“I made promises.”

“You seem to give many of them.”

“I’m good at it.”

“But are you as good at keeping them as giving them?”

“We will see.”

She shifted stance, in such a way that accentuated the curve of her hip, she had learned it when quite young, gazing at a famous painting of a woman carrying water from a well, standing just that way, with a man, presumably her lover, for it was clear she was unmarried, looking on from a window above. She had always found it comforting, it was one of those first victories of a girl attempting to master womanhood. It was not done to convey particular effect, but instead to put her self at ease.

“And this position, what would it be?”

He stroked his beard and tried to take the measure of this woman. In truth, she had been forced upon him, he did not want her, but her husband’s money was important. He thought her volatile and troublesome at first. However, many had pressed him, and he finally waved it away. One of the real reasons he had not fixed the election in the city, was he wanted to see what would happen.

On the day afterward, when her soliciter had won the arguments over the votes, and the Imam who managed her political machine had secured the votes, and she had entered the citiadel at the head of what seemed to be a river of people – he was a believer. He believed in what worked, and he was only beginning to understand how. There was that faint light dawning in the front of his mind that she was going to be very useful, perhaps more useful than he was.

He began slowly: “The Hajj is supposed to have a presiding member, we have selected one of our most revered Imams. But he has said that he cannot serve, and has given his seat in the Hajj, which he did not campaign for, to another. He has, however, accepted the post of spiritual advisor to the Hajj.”

She twirled the flower idly, even though her arm had dropped to the side.

“And”. Making the word have two syllables.

“I was thinking of you for the crier, the individual who will open each session, count the quorum, and close each session.”

She let her eyebrows come in just a tad, and then shook her head.

“I don’t think I would be the right person for that.”

He stroked his beard again. “Well you should think on it.”

“And you.” The words fluttered from her lips, and she turned on her heel and left, taking no pains to move slowly, nor yet hurrying unduly. The fall in energy of disappointment was palpable. He knew he had misjudged her. He just barely silently promised, that he would not let that happen again.

- - -

At the same time, in Kentaurus, that might center of trade and government, another important, and to most histories, unimportant, event was taking place. To understand the city, understand that it is a few miles of basalt which separate two seas, the Mer Centralis, and the Ocean Haram, which in ancient times had been called the “Sea of Kentaurus”. The city of Kentaurus was the major portage point to unload goods from one side of the city, trundling them the back breaking way over the rock hills, and down the other side. Originally there had been, running from east to west, a port on the Mer Centralis side: Taurus, and another on the the other.

There were then three cities, the Hellenic port, the inner city, and a sprawling “Morerla”, which was the name which had stuck, since first it sprang up when the port was still Hellenic. The Hellenic port was least changed from its older days, but the inner city had been transfigured, when Kentaurus was first taken, it was filled with Hellenic architecture, much of which had been knocked down, on the old ampitheatres – the Tragedy, the Comedy and the History, were not destroyed, more out of their having been carved out of rock than any solicitude for theatre. Now it was filled with the buildings of the Kentauri Caliphate, and before that, the great empire of the Shahenshah which once had made the Ocean Haram an Islamic lake. The density of buildings is difficult to describe, other than one main north south road that ran along the valley, and the two “trade roads” running north to south, there is barely an alley width anywhere else that is not covered with either a building, or a public square where business is done. Human porters carried everything, and the alley ways themselves were often at the minimum required by the old “Great Law” of the Shahenshah, which required that no public way be less than 5 feet from side to side.

This law had an interesting effect, since many houses were along a maze of alley ways, nothing could be made, neither furniture, nor beds, nor anything else, that could not be carried through an alley way. The wealthy could afford to pay to clear an alley way, and thus could have objects that, at the narrowest carry, were the full width, and the common people would have to make do with half of this width. Thus there were said to be three kinds of households. The richest were the “full width” houses, the poorest the “half width” houses, and the middle were “night width”, that is people who had to carry their goods in at night, through the darkness, and hope that they were not stranded. The first would often move every year in the constant competition to be near the court favors and fahionable sections, the second would move every year to find the cheapest rents, but the middle would often be forced either to not move, or sell their larger belongings to the new renter at a very low price, or be forced to pay higher rents, since the landlord would know that it was that, or pay the costs of clearing the alleys, or take a chance with the thieves and beggars at night.

It was in one of these “night width houses” occupied for many years by one Jalal al-Kadar, a sufi mystic, and political writer, who had inherited the lease from his father, along with furniture, statues and many other objects that were “full width”, but with little money. He had, for many years, earned a precarious living as a translator, prayer leader in minor mosques, and then, political writer. He was not one of the well known writers, nor one of the famous names, but he was read by many, and took the time to organize the poor of the capital, and began staging a series of marches and riots. He also had a gift for symbolism, urging everyone to call what they were doing “The Restoration” and to wear the white thin robes of a pilgrim as often as possible. Amidst the increasingly florid hues of the old Vizierate, the new, austere style stood out.

He was writing to Siamak in Al-Quareshi:

bi-ism Allah al-raman al-rahim:

Now that all of the seats are deterimined, we have another problem, there is not 1 party of the new Vizier, there are 21. And though we have boldly named ourselves the White Party, and prescribed that our members go always in public dressed as Jihadeen, there is little else that unifies us, the situation is dangerous here, and I know that you are taking infinite pains there, however, you must send your members to Kentaurus as quickly as possible, so that we can organize. It is poor to give orders in our fraternity this way, but there are events here which refuse to find words. Hurry, and that there might be the God’s speed across your sails.

To this I set my hand, to you. Insha-Allah that all promises made and all covenants kept.”

It might sound strange that neither person is mentioned by name, but that was done with seals, the sending seal of the person writing the letter and the receiving seal – of the person giving it. The two seals fit together like a puzzle, and when two people became regular correspondents, they would have them cut out of stone, and stamp their correspondence accordingly. It was custom that dated back to around 900 of the Long Count, started, it was said, by the Shahenshah and one of his advisors, so that they would know that the letter had been written with access to the two seals. People kept their seals in small boxes, and locked them.

He did so now, handed the scroll to his messenger, the only servant he kept, and said “go by the roof tops, and be swift, may the God be with you.” And then hearing the short ring of the visitors bell, and went down stairs. He did not see the boy skip up to the roof, gleeful that he had excuse to jump from garden to garden, spraying pardons as he went.

And who was this man? Bespectacled, bearded, and slightly hunched over, he was the god father of the White Party in the Hajj, before anyone else, he had known that parties would be needed in the new parliament, because, as he endlessly repeated in his letters and his writing, the way to work a Restoration was to have a sweeping “book” of the new way. He constantly compared what would be done to the work done by the Prophet, Peace Be Upon Him, in creating a book that would order all of life by being inter-related in all of its parts. So too would government have to form a policy which would have to be inter-related in all of its parts. He was thus accused of wanting to “totalize” the state, but this was absurd to him, only The God had that power.

He walked down the wrought metal stair case from the upper level to the lower level, and greeted the visitor himself. He, like many others, had taken out his wooden door when the old Vizier had placed a door tax. And then installed a gate, when the secret police of the old Vizier had taken advantage of their being no doors to simply enter houses. The old law had said that the agents of the Shahenshah or Caliph could “pass no door uninvited”, but it defined door rather strictly. Hence gates and curtains became the norm among much of the city populace, and a sign, in time, of resistence. It was, in fact, an act banning gates which had precipitated the crisis: and this little man had lead the march to remove the great gate at the government building, saying “what is law is law for all, as the word is word for all, and the God is the God for all.” This had allowed him to gather a much larger march than any more complex issue could have gained, because even ordinary citizens had gates in front of their doors, or on their roof tops between the garden and the opper level of their houses.

He opened the gate, not even checking who it was, and before he could see anything – being late in the day it was now darker at street level, and his eyes were poor anyway – he was pushed to the ground. The man who did so, masked in the old garb of a caravan leader or guard, with a head scarf wrapped around his face – was followed by three others. Within moments man became corpse, and then bloody pulp, as his teeth were knocked out, his bones smashed. They then pulled off his garments, castrated the corpse, and left him there, a growing puddle of blood in his doorway.

He was found not long afterward, and the men who had done it were caught as they tried to weave their way back out of the maze of alley ways. His supporters were not gentle with them.

- - -

Comet’s may announce the death of kings, but in this time and place of the Caliphate, the death of important people was cause for crackling of telegraph wires. By this measure, his death was not noticed. There was a funeral march in the town, the news noted that someone had been killed and the killers killed. It was only in party circles that the news spread quickly, it was several days before the last letter from his hand arrived in Siamak’s hand, and he he wept as he read it. But he was not a man to let grief get in the way of opportunity, he had long envied the power with the poor that Jalal had had, and sent dispatches to his followers in the capital to try and grab as many of them as was possible.

He also sent word to Malakeh, as even he was calling her by now, to come and talk to her, he wanted to break the news. He also realized that the advice was sound – members had to be in the capital as quickly as possible. He sent out letters to each, and, now that the sun was halfway down the sky sent out a messanger to pick up the papers that were now coming out, and prepared to meet with visitors as they came.

He was quite taken aback when the first of these was the lady herself – he had expected her to take her time, dressing and fussing as preparing, as his own two wives did – and was not prepared for her to simply arrive. More over, he had expected her in finery, and found her garbed only in the two layers of white linen which Jihadeen wore, though a refined eye would note that these were very pure white – indicating that they were very new, or very well cleaned, rather than stained yellow with use.

But he only allowed this to pass his face for an instant, and he was all firmly smiling control.

“I am surprised to see you hear so quickly. I just sent…”

With a wordless gesture, she showed him the scroll she had received, not from him but from Jalal. Or rather, she showed him the seal, not wishing to reveal that it had really been sent by Jalal’s aid de camp, telling her to see Siamak, but not to trust him, and recounting certain unguarded words that Siamak had used.

She effortlessly lowered this into a white leather satchel she had had made, and waited.

“Please, pray continue.”

“Well it is The God’s will. I must tell you that Jalal, peace be upon him, is dead. He was murdered in his own house.”

She nodded, not saying anything. He started to look for a seat, to take the normal position of superior to subordinate, but it felt uncomfortable, instead, he motioned to go up the stairs – spiral, as was the fashion when the house was built – and they were soon seated on the balcony, drinking tea, flavoured with milk and honey.

He as usual, reclined and sprawled across his chair – this a great wicker one with a circular back that went well over his head – and looked at her.

“I must admit, I have been, “ he searched for the right words, “less than trusting of you.”

She began calculating, clearly he was after something. Perhaps to consolidate Jalal’s following into his own?

She barely shrugged and sipped the tea. “Jalal’s death, peace be upon him, is a signal of the dangers we face. I will tell you,” and with this his entire posture changed, from reclining to leaning over towards her. She responded by leaning towards him, and holding her ear very close.

“I believe he was murdered by one of our own, not by the other side.”

She looked at him, it was an admission, but perhaps one to cover his own complicity? She didn’t know.

“You don’t say.”

“I do say. And what is more.” He looked straight at her. “There was a time when I would have rejoiced in it.”

She was tempted to recline backwards, and put distance between them, but she felt that this desire to bring her in was lit like a fire in him, and that he would soon reveal more. Men, they talk either too little, or too much.

“I think that you can consolidate our hold among his followers, if you would go to the city and make one of your grand entrances.”

“And you would…”

“And I would supply the manpower and backing for it.”

She stopped and thought. No, she did not want to be this man’s puppet.

She reclined back. She thought of leaving, but she felt that it was best to let him think that he merely had not offered enough.

“I can offer you a better place in the Hajj.”

This she put on her slightly peevish face and looked at him. “My dear, we do not even know if the Hajj will be anything more than a vent in the government out of which will pour hot and useless air, befouled with odors.”

“But it could be made into more.”

She stood up. “Very interesting, but I must be going. This is too speculative, too distant for me. I need more, concrete and specific things.”

He realized that, for a second straight time, he had let her slip through his fingers. Clearly he was doing something wrong. The desire to control her was planted in his mind, it was becoming as strong as a lust in his body, an urge to set his territory farther out than it was. Somehow, it would be done.

She walked to the door. “Peace be upon you, I must take my leave.” Having gained the admission as an equal, she was leaving with a powerful victory, she walked out, with a slow graceful sidle, her sandaled feet pushing her forwarded with seeming great force. His eyes could not help fall upon her hips, which were round as a wine vessel, and which seemed pressed like globes against the fabric. Mere intellectual desire was kindled also to physical desire. But the he put the fire out as quickly as he could, this woman had already played him too well. She had gone from being an annoyance, to a valuable vassal, to an equal, it would be too humiliating for him to fall down one more step of the ladder and become yet another of her male admirers, enspelled and ensared by her round liquid eyes, honey voice and particular movements. She left, with the maid servant showing her way out. Siamak would bed with his second wife that night, but in his mind, all he could see was the round hips of Malakeh.

The next morning, when he bathed, he reclined in the tub along time, and stared down at his naked body, stirred, still, by something. He sighed and realized that she had, indeed, gotten the better of him, and he would simply have to make the best of it.

Men are not haunted by women that the do possess, only ones that they cannot possess, either because the woman is in the past, or the woman is in the future, or as with her, forever out of the grasp, beckoning like the ripe figs and pears heavy on the tree. And the time when a man can have a woman, enter her, is like a country unto itself in a man's mind, a land a region, hanging misty with magic. For Siamak, she was that mythical country over the next mountains, where could be visible the moon, that body which is said to shine in paradise for the most faithful of the faithful.

Hung ripe the heavy she is, The moon of the holy book, Low above the horizon's turn, shinging bliss upon the devoted In their splendor unclothed before The God, there, in the land of paradise, it is nigh, should you enter it.

He remembered the verse from years before, he did not know the source of it.

Paradise is a dangerous desire, he went back to bed, and took his first wife, and still, the hunger did not leave him, for it was not to enter the gates, but to breath the air itself that he longed for.

- - -

Malakeh left Siamak with distaste in her mouth, she felt it was he who was too small for her, and she disliked the perpetual sense that he thought she was a pawn. She felt he was too small for her, because he was, distinctly, a minor player, one who was good at manipulating and pushing, but who was out of his depth in his grasping for higher power. She realized that it he might be useful, but was not yet, entirely, sure how. He was, however, weakening, she could feel that.

But her thoughts turned to other things, not least of which was how to make use of his suggestion of making a grand entrance into the city of Kentaurus. She had a vision of landing in the port of Haram, walking through the Morerla, gathering more and more people to her, and then taking this throng over the hills and into the “inner city”, that rill between the slab hills that housed the government and the watchworks of the human cogs that made it up.

She could see it in her minds eye, and as she went back to her small home – once her second “city” house, now merely, “hers”, she allowed it to embellish itself in her mind as a visualization. Wouldn’t that be grand. Now the question was how to pull it off. An idea struck her. She reached her home and dashed off a quick note, and handed it to a messenger.

By late in the day she was doing the customary reading of news, and assembled around her were her close circle of advisors: Imam Bashir ibn Fakih, a broad man, who had clearly lost weight from exertions, whose wide bespectacled face radiated openness and kindness, the young poet Ali Ibn Masuk, who had come to write more and more of her words, or rather, as he called it “crafted” her ideas into words, a phrase she liked, also there was Samir al-Saqr, who immediately set himself off as a man of action next to two men of words. Where as Bashir was mature, filled out and soft, and Ali was thin and just more than a boy, Samir al-Saqr’s features seemed carved from stone, and impassive. He was her expert in what he called “security”, and organized a growing body of young men who had taken up marching behind her, some armed with clubs. It had been necessary, when the mayor had tried to threaten many into silence with the police. Finally there was Navid Shaheen, his distant cousin, who looked neither like a man of words, nor a hardened man of combat, but instead between them. He was “the money”, the man who had stepped into the void that her husband had left among her backers, by providing advice and counsel, as well as a sharp mind. The two cousins, on whose practical advice she had come to rely. Many years before she had thought of Navid as merely, “the man who recommended my lawyer to me”, but found out over time that he was well acquainted, and often knew the right person for the job.

These four men shared differing degrees and kinds of devotion for her. For Imam Bashir, it was a long civic association, helping the poor, providing religious instruction, and being, in general, among that group of people who are the ties that bind a community together. For Samir, it was clear that he saw this as the channel through which flowed a way to a more reasonable future, not rational, for his business did not thrive on rationality – but instead that the way of the present simply did not work. He was a smooth man, who shaved his face smooth, and he liked a world that moved that same way. He regarded the present with contempt, in that way that men who know their business do about men who do not. For Navid it was as an intellectual equal, as an opening of new horizons. He had known everyone, but she excited him by making the wheels turn. Often he knew all the people who were needed for some action, but had never thought to coordinate them. It also amazed him how much was done in her name without her asking, merely by her suggesting a direction, others followed along it. And to some extent, it was the last of the four who was responsible – for Ali Ibn Masuk’s devotion was even simpler, it was passion, physical, spiritual and intellectual passion. She had not intended to let this passion become an affair, and in her mind it had not – they had coupled once near a garden shrine, and she had one other time drawn his body into her, this time in her own bedroom, and without any disguise of night or clothing, she had expected him to react differently, but it was clear his attraction for her was undiminished by seeing her, past the prime of her beauty, in the early morning light of dawn. Dawn which had flooded her curves as it floods the valleys, highlighting them in shapes which exist, only for a moment.

She looked at these four, with there differing expressions, having just read the letter which had told her of Jalal’s death, and recounted her conversation with Siamak.

It was Samir who spoke first, he often spoke first. “It would seem that Siamak has forgotten the important idea, this is to restore the land to glory, not to glorify individuals. I would advise having nothing to do with his plan to make you a priest-queen. We are already running tremendous risks to protect you as it is.” He then set his thin mouth very hard.

At which point his cousin embraced him, as his muscles rippling, not in tense worry, but with optimism. “Cousin, cousin! Of course she can be anything the people need, and they need new heroes, I am as good a friend of Siamak as any here, perhaps I can talk to him, bring him back in.”

The Imam Bashir commented dryly, “That is the problem, it is he who wants to bring her in, not aware that the role he wanted, of great spokesman, is not available to him. He had hoped, I think to mold the Hajj to his will.”

Ali almost said something, but stopped himself, cleared his throat with that nervous tremble he often had, as far and away the youngest. “I say we sweep him aside, yes, aside, it will be a poem of movement, to hold a vast rally here, and show him what winds are blowing now.” Samir was shaking his head, but it was Navid who replied. “We have the city, Siamak will come along with us, we have the provinces, the walks out into the country side that Malakeh has been doing, the speeches that you have been writing have already done that work. We need something larger, marches and Jihadeen grow tired quickly. I would suggest that, as fascinating as putting this town under our complete control might be, that Malakeh has larger work to do, and Bashir and I should stay here to manage the affairs of the town. It is urgent she be to Kentaurus, Jalal was more influential than people imagine.”

Malakeh had relaxed and watched the men battle for her attention and judgment, while, emotionally, the idea that Ali had was appealing, the execution of it might be difficult, even dangerous. And getting to the capital was where the power was.

The conversation went on for sometime, with no resolution, but an agreement that getting to Kentaurus was of primary importance. She dismissed all of them and went upstairs getting to bed just in the darkness. She looked to the doorway to the balcony, and waited. It had been arranged for Ali to return, she could feel her pulse in her finger tips.

Then, not long afterward, she heard two sets of footsteps leading up the stairs, the first was light, and she knew it to be her maid servant’s the second had that delicate heaviness of a young man who is more at home behind a desk than walking up stairs in the middle of the darkness. She pondered, for a moment, what to do. On one hand, she trembled in expectation, this part of her wanted to remain still, have him come to the bed, and peel off her cloths. Another part of her wanted to prevent anything from happening, break off whatever, clearly, had been started – an admission she only just made to herself – and a third part wanted him to come, and find her in the nude, willing and drawing him into her, with her hands on him, guiding him. So, two votes to one, she did not peel off her clothes, but she stayed there, waiting. She had intended to draw her self up, and be seated against the pillows that would establish distance, but she found she could not move as she heard the footsteps against the floor, softly, with sandelled feet touching the marble, and then there was a distinct pause, and the next foot fall was not with sandels, but bare. Then there was another, and another, far less awkward.

She could see out of the corner of her eye a few stars to the south, through the doorway to the balcony, there were shooting stars, they came one at a time, in a kind of rhythmic wave. She turned to watch them, and saw his thin frame fill the light with a darkness, a darkness that implied both menace and heat, for she could feel, even from this distance the heat from his skin – or was it her own?

He said nothing, she opened her mouth to start a conversation, but it was dry, there wasn’t even a croak. She could feel hands moving up and down her thighs and then sliding up to remove her gown – she found herself merely lifting her arms upward and allowing it to continue, as those hands slid up her sides, along those same arms, and over her hands.

She was breathing far more heavily than she had first expected or noticed. Finally, he spoke.

“And then he came to undiscovered lands, and felt a warm wind that was from a new sea, Touching it to his lips he named it holy, Rememberance was made that moment. That every lingered onward”

It was from an epic poem of the conquests in the early years of the Faithful on Ishtar, but he did not have metallic combat, nor dry journey on his lips, but spoke with pauses as a pilgrim might, having finished the devotion, and begun to put to his mouth what he beseeches the God for.

She waited there in the darkness, hearing only her own sharp exhales and long in hales, his own breath almost held as he waited, waited, for some sign, she could feel his gaze on him, though it was quite dark. And then his hands moved under her back and down to her hips, and with a strength she had not realized they possessed she found herself being rolled over, onto her chest, her breasts pressed against the smooth bedding, her head raised by the pillows – staring out into the meager light that came from the western window.

Before she had felt almost maternal in their lovemaking, as if she was embracing him, and enfolding him into the softness that was her body, which had felt the passing of almost 6 trisdekads, well into what might be called “middle age”. But this time was different, she had been more ready than could be resisted, and this time, she felt him move through her, as if his life was passing through her, she felt, for the first time, taken. Penetrated. Her vision began to dance and blur, until all was merely the feel of his thrust over her hips, which rolled with it, and that sensation which cannot be described in words on this side of paradise. At first she arched her neck away from the bed, but then turned it to the side, her cheek resting on the pillow, her hair fallen about her face, her breath captured by the pillow and reflected back so that she could feel it as starkly as anything else, the sensations from her body each, in turn tingling with the flow of blood.

This went on, her body rocking like the waves that reach the beach in a gentle wind, each one coming after the next. She fell asleep after he had subsided, and sobbed. Sobbed because she had been taken, sobbed because she knew it must end, that she could not have this, sobbed because she had not felt this way in so long.

When she awoke later, it was already that greying time that says that dawn is to arrive, when slowly the dimmer stars leave, and there is a colour to the sky that is not merely blue, but has gained the almost impossibly frail taint of red. She hated awakening alone, and this precipitated in her the desire to end the affair, because she did not want to awake alone. But she sat up, hugged her favorite pillow to her, and cried dry tears.

This, however, did not last long, her feet were on her slippers on the floor, and she drew some warmish water down from the roof, where she had, of course, a water heater powered by the sun. She bathed, a thorough, but not luxurious bath, she did not want to luxuriate in this feeling, but instead, wanted to wash it off of her, like a place one has visited, only to have been there, and then gone home. The light was filling her bedroom, the tub being in it, and with each moment she regained her composure and resolve.

Malakeh was not, by nature, manipulative, but few women, and only a few more men, can resist the temptation to match make. After all, the easiest way to put down a candy is to hand it to a child, the easiest way to put him out of reach, was to find a suitable match for him. She could then see the results, without the difficulties intervening, which, while not as satisfying were enough. She would, she assumed find another outlet for her energies. “And after all,” she reminded herself stiffly, “it is not as if I am going to have endless time to feed my desires.”

She dressed with her maid servant, she noted that one one advantage of this mania for white was that it simplified one step of the process. She placed a white band to hold up her hair, which left the crown of it flowing free and down to her shoulders, had her maid servant lace up a pair of sandals in the Latin style that went all the way up her to the top of her calf, and then was ready to face the day.

By the time she had gotten downstairs, she already had her first visitor, it was Siamak’s daughter, Parvenah. Who was, like her name, delicate. She instantaneously knew that this was personal, and not political.

The girl was on the verge of tears, and out of deference, Malakeh dismissed her hand maid. She was still of sylphan youth, and garbed in a long white dress sashed at the waste. In it was a small knife, as many of the whites, particularly the young ones had started to do, because it had “been that way in the old days”. Malakeh noted this only briefly, but instead swept up to her and embraced her.

“Now tell your aunt, what is the matter.”

With only a short sharp drawing of breath in as preamble. “Oh you must not repeat this, but it is my father, he stormed about last night, and I heard the most desperate sounds coming from upstairs this morning. It was terrible. He has always been,” - Malakeh unconsciously added “prone to fits” for that is what she had heard – “taken by moods, but now it is much worse than ever before. I have never seen him like this.”

Malakeh’s thoughts condensed on a clear road. It was obvious that Siamak needed a rest, that she needed to go to Kentaurus, but after having had a large send off in grand style, and that Ali needed to meet Parvenah. All could be solved, by just keeping her wits about her.

“Dear, dear. Let met tell you that all will be resolved. Your wise uncle Navid is going to help work things out.” She pulled the girl back from her, “But I shouldn’t call him that, because you are no longer the young girl I met when I first encountered your father.”

She sniffed only a little and looked. Malakeh cleared her teardrops, and began. “Would you stay with me for a snack?” And before Parvaneh could answer, she had reached out, rung the bell, and was guiding her over to the small corner table, made of woven reeds with a richly died table cloth. As they were seated, there was a ringing of the bell from the outside, and Malakeh went to answer it, on the way by directing her handmaid to get fruit and draw off some rice milk for Parvaneh.

She reached the door, and there, armed with bundles of paper wrapped haphazardly in leather folios, was her “breakfast cabinet”, including this time, her solicitor, and two of the other members of the Al-Quareshi Hajj deligation. She had two more tables rolled out, and soon a boisterous meeting was going on. She made a point of sitting Ali next to Parvaneh, and began.

“I have made some decisions since last night.” Ali blanched guiltily, but no one else was looking at him “And my first is that I am going to take your advice.”

Navid interjected: “About going to Kentaurus?”

“Yes, that and Ali’s advice to have something visible. I shall make my leave taking on foot, and make it an event, with speeches and a vigil. We must leave the city with a sense of destiny. Ali, I need to craft some words for me, and could you find someone to help you with providing that ‘touch of lightness’ as you call it? I shall be busy.” Ali nodded, and Parvaneh leaned over and whispered something to him, but her attention had turned elsewhere.

“I shall let all of you make the arrangements, and I will follow them to the letter. Let me speak to Navid.”

The group began discussing how to do this, and it was swelled by two of Imam Bashir’s people arriving with messages, and one stayed to help organize the march.

When she had gotten Navid alone, she looked at him. “I have heard from the daughter that Siamak is having fits. We should go over and see him.”

On this they agreed, and went out, leaving Bashir in nominal charge of affairs.

- - -

When the arrived at Siamak’s house, the found some shattered jars in the street and there was a terrible racket going on, Navid flagged down a messenger and sent him after Samir, meanwhile they knocked on the door, a tearful older wife looked out at them and closed the portal again, but would not open the door itself. They waited, there was more calling. They knew at some point the watch would be summoned, and then there would be trouble, the badly mauled old guard of the town was looking for such an indiscretion, Navid waited for the sounds to start up again, knocked, this time holding up a gold coin to the portal. This time the servant answered and opened the door. Before the old wife could do anything, they had slipped inside.

There they saw the lower level room in a frightful mess, with shattered ceramic and porcelain everywhere. The older wife was screaming at the younger wife, and both were cleaning the floor, while the two handmaids were busy washing blood out of bedsheets. Nothing large was broken. Navid made a semicircular gesture with his hands as a way of asking “where is he?” and the handmaid – who he knew to have been trained in the “silent speech” pointed upstairs.

They mounted the spiral stairs, and when the reached the bed room the sight that greeted them as Siamak, viciously slashing his papers, his normally well groomed hair in a terrible tangle. There was the distinct reek of coupling in the air, and he, himself, was naked and stank of sweat. His lean muscles were stretched tight, at first he did not notice them.

“Stay away!” It was a voice that, if it were not rabidly close to a shriek might have been commanding, once. “You’ve come to ruin me! I can tell! With your foul spells and evil designs. Get out.”

Navid deflected away a weakly thrown ball of paper. “We come in peace, please be calm brother Siamak.”

“You are,” and at this point he ripped apart a book with a madman’s strength “taking everything away from me! When I began here there was nothing! Nothing!” He stomped on some papers and was looking around the room, though for what they did not know.

“They tortured me, they branded me.” Malakeh’s eyes searched his skin and saw a pentacle brand on his left buttock.

“And now you want to take everything away from me!” He stopped stomping, and turned to face them, his eyes blazing. It was at this moment that he clutched at his heart, and stiffened, in an instant, he crumpled to the ground, and was gasping for air. Navid did not know medicine, they called down, it was a few more minutes before Samir arrives, who immediately pulled out some foul smelling liquid, and this seemed to resucitate Siamak for a moment. But only just, soon he was struggling again, and Samir and Navid managed to get him to the bed. He convulsed again, and then lay still, breathing only with the shallowest of breaths. It was all they could do to call a doctor, and then wait.

Siamak would hover near death for three days.

- - -

Late in the afternoon of the second day after Siamak was stricken, a rich lusterous afternoon, where light was deflected off of the late day haze, that no sea breeze had cleared away, a lazy, indeed hot afternoon, Navid was arrested, and taken to the gaol. The place for those accused of religious crimes, where such ancient rites and customs as had under the secular government were not recognized. It was a sign that the authorities were going to try and crack down.

It was nearing sunset that Malakeh received this news, she was on her west balcony, the shadow of the next building having reached the top of her table. She was discussing what to be done next with Ali and Bashir, when the messenger came, dropped off the note and departed. She read it quickly and handed it, by two fingers to Bashir, whose face reached a more somber tone. Ali then read it and looked at it in puzzlement.

“It says the charge is adultery, but it does not say who, merely a ‘protected person’”.

Bashir: “That means a member of the government.”

“With whom he is frequently seen.”

Malakeh, “It means me. I must go to see his wife immediately. I can’t let her be alone and have her wondering.”

With this she she dismissed them, and got her self ready to go out. She stopped by Siamak's house, and stroked his cheek and damped a cloth and wiped clean the forehead, and then left to Navid's house.

It was after dusk when she was on the balcony of Navid’s wife, she had just gotten there when the evening meteor shower began. The rain of them grew stronger and stronger, it was, in fact, the peak down of this shower, marked on the calendar as “al-Adara”, for its pure white streaks. There were, by this point a dozen each minute, she sat at the table across from Haifa, Navid’s wife, the two were engaging in that sort of close conversation that two women who have known each other for a long time. It turned out that Haifa had not the slightest doubts about Navid’s faithfulness, and as well she should not, slender and lovely, with bright eyes, a man would have to be a fool not to remain loyal to her. And Navid was not a fool. She was not worried, but instead glowed with faith that her husband would find some way through. She was to visit him tomorrow, and had already bribed the guards to treat him well. Navid’s personal forturne, thought Malakeh, gave her a certain freedom of action that was to be envied, and which Malakeh had only recently begun to feel herself.

They stayed and watched as the shower died down, trailing off into the night. Having mostly slept the night before, Malakeh had intended to stay away all of this night, and sleep only enough to be ready for the next day’s gathering at the mosque which Bashir was in charge of, it was a prepatory meeting for the send off, where she would walk out of town to the port on the southern side of the peninsula, Al-Quareshi’s sister city as it were, on the Ocean Haram. She would walk that old road, with, what was hoped, would be a growing band. Mosques were told to send people, and the idea of Ali was to have them throw flower petals, since there would be a festival of roses two days before, and therefore there would be rose petals in abundance. It was an image that pleased her.

She talked about this with Haifa, and was pleased at the warm response, it was at this point there was heavy pounding on the door below. The leaned over the balcony – one slender almost willowy woman, and one shorter, but fuller one, and tried to see what was going on, all that they saw was a group of men, probably armed, all wearing some dark coloured clothing. It was hard to tell what in this light. But it was clear that their intentions were not friendly. Haifa almost instantly began calling out “Thief! Thief! Thief!” And there were heads popping from the windows up and down the street.

A rough voice cried back: “We are here to arrest you Haifa Shaheen! You conspired with your husbad to prostitute young girls and boys! We have witnesses who will swear to it.”

Haifa was never one to let an accusation go uncontested. And in a surprisingly loud voice for such a slender woman, she let forth a high pitched and equally rough rejoinder.

“Lies, lies, lies. You were sent by the prince of lies.”

The voice below came back. “You will regret that, to which we now add blasphemy against the Talibeen.” This was the once unspoken word for the religious police, now openly spoken in the last few days only.

There was more bashing against the door. Haifa motioned quietly to Malakeh and lead her by the hand to the main upstairs room, and then not, as Malakeh had expected, up to the roof tops to try and make an escape, but to a panel on the wall, which turned after she unlocked it, and down a very narrow set of stone steps. Haifa went down first, and Malakeh followed, closing the door and hearing the click of the latch. It was at this point that Malakeh realized she had not seen any servants, nor either of their two sons in her visit. Clearly, this turn of events, if not expected, was at least prepared for.

The reached down into the dark, and there was an increasingly dank odor of water. What was not present was the almost universal garlic smell of Ishtar. Finally the reached a slipperly landing, where there was both a coolness and a dampness that suggested they were in one of the under canals of Al-Quareshi.

“What now.”

“We get in the small boat and let the current take us out.” At this point something happened which shocked Malakeh: Haifa lit something, and then a moment later had lit a latern, whose cool yellow and blue light made visibility possible. Open fire is Herron, forbidden, without special rites.

“It is safe down here. But we will have to put it out before we go far.”

Malakeh spent a few moments to look, She was in a hemispherical tunnel, whose ancient stones fit together with great precision. She then noticed, under the algae, that there were pictures and designs, made of small tiles of ceramic, in a style which was clearly not from the faithful. Indeed, it was not of the Vedic kingdom, nor even of the Latin or Hellenic people, since these tiles were hexagons, and not squares, and they were not of the realism of the Hellenes, instead the shapes were fantastical, with winged griffons, women with animal heads copulating with men that were grotesques of man and beast. There were suggestions of waves, as long serpent like creatures, she had heard them called “wharls” with human heads wrapped their long bodies around women who were swimming, and whose tails suggestively poked between the loins of their victims. It was, in all, a shocking display. It was also clear that these designs were very, very, very old, from long before, when people worshiped older gods that represented the old angry forces of the world.

She shuddered from the cold as well as the images. Up above it must be near midnight, with half the city still awake, even in the darkness. Below, hear, she felt something stirring, but it must be imagination. Haifa extinguished the light, and Malakeh was grateful to be relieved of the images, though now they were in her imagination, and she thought she saw curling shapes in the darkness. Haifa used a pole to keep them in the middle, and indeed the current was soon pushing them along. The time below stretched out, as she almost felt sands of time slipping one by one away. Until finally there was a gloom of light ahead. It grew larger, and larger and larger. Malakeh finally breathed in great relief, when above was sky and star again, and the dome of heavan, whose blue illumination seemed almost unbearable bright after the darkness of the tunnel.

Haifa turned to her, the words seeming ghostly from a presence with barely visible features: “You must flee the city come dawn.”.

Malakeh, “But should I not stay, after all, I am one of the few protected people.”

 “No, you must make the Hajj, so that they cannot stop you from taking your seat.”

“But I did long ago.”

“They will interpret the rules to mean the Hajj, since your election. Navid received word that they were moving troops to the shrine, he thinks to occupy it.”

Malakeh thought carefully, she did not want to go, her position as a member of the Hajj was invaluable, but she also realized that if the religious court had been corrupted, then they would argue that she since she had not taken the pilgrimage since elected, she was not yet truly a member.

“Very well, but we must also get the other members.”

“Why not go separately.”

“They will capture us alone, where as, I think, being bullies, they will not attack the group of us.”

It was at this point that wolf’s tail – the graying – began in the east. Clearly it was far later than she had imagined, the entire night had passed. Surely their conversation had not lasted so long, or perhaps it had, they had talked about a great deal, children, Malakeh's two lost sons, who had died in the wars in the south, and a third son, who was now fighting there. Yes, it had been a long conversation. It could be dawn.

But then she realized it was not. It was light from fire. The were leaving the canal and reaching the edge of the bay, and now she could see that the harbor was on fire, that what she had taken to be graying in the East, was glowing from fire. It now emitted more and more smoke, and was growing in both intensity and malevolence.

She took her eyes off of it, and she saw behind them a wider boat, with oars, sturdier than their canal skiff. She pointed to it, and Haifa took several moments to turn and look at it, she had been transfixed by the growing fire. Aboard this boat were two men, one rowing, the other half standing. The first was Navid, somehow one could tell even from the back in the reflected light, pulling at the oars, she realized why, he always wore silk, and the reflection of the light shined off of it in a peculiar way that was almost a gloss. The second was cloaked in a dark hooded robe that obscured any features. The boat approached, and Hiafa pushed the poll down into the canal bottom to stop their skiff.

When the two boats glided together, the hooded figure and Navid both secured the two. The first moment after standing he was greeted with a warm embrace by Haifa, and oblivious to all else they hung in that pose for a moment, and then he stepped into the skiff, it wobbled ever so slightly. Navid turned to Malakeh and with that smoothest of voices. “You should go in the boat, we are going back to deal with the chaos in the city. It is no place for queens at this particular moment.”

She did so, settled on the front end of the boat, and looked back at the figure, who settled himself between the oars. The two boats separated, drifted apart, she touched her forehead and bade the peace of God on Navid and Haifa, who were pulling away as he began to poll back to the canal. She could see that bubble forming around them, as they looked only at each other and began to converse.

The robbed figure pulled back his hood, and there she saw the particular features of Siamak Adarpadyavand. But there was a calmness on them that she had not often see.

“The Peace of the God be upon you.”

She reflexively answered, “And his blessings with you.” A pause. “But I thought you were dead.”

“I have passed through death. But you must listen. We were betrayed, by who I do not know. I have sent out warnings in your name to all, and rescued Navid.”

“I know who it was who betrayed us. It was Samir. The adultery charge was what gave it away. Bashir, if he were of a mind to betray us, would not have also played such a card, but would have simply and directly charged us with treason. He believes in the old laws. It was Samir, I am sure of it.”

“You are probably correct, I have much, yet, to relearn. Though Siamak left behind much. Your former husband is also arrested, but he is broken when we found him, and is of them now, certainly beyond my poor power to add or detract from his suffering or his turn of mind.”

“Relearn? Left behind?” The addressing in third person was also disturbing.

“He was poisoned, and drank what is called the water of forgetfulness. It drove him made, boiling up the anger and jealousy within him. He collapsed and was as near death.”

“But the poison did not work. He lived, you live.”

“It did work, it drove his soul from his body, and for three days his body lay there, waiting.”

"How did they give it to him?"

"He bought it as a love potion, the first half he was to take, the second he was to give to you. His was to open his mind to possession, yours would have merely killed you, according to the man who knows such things. It was a foul plot, concocted by someone who could see what was occuring in his mind."

"And you remember this."

"I am as if another person had lived his life, as if, I were a different player to pick up a hand of cards from the person who had been dealt them, and played half of the hand."

"And what happened? What was it like?"

"I remember coming, and seeing this body beneath me, I had spoken with an eternal angel, who pointed me at a silver stair that descended downward. But I had to wrestle with a firy spirit, whose face is long and drawn, redened like hot metal or the ripening berries of the hills. And I placed my hand against his, and he stood like a rock, and I pressed my hand against him, and he failed to move. And then again, and he failed to move, and then again. For those two days I wrestled with him, hour upon hour, and each time he failed to move. I felt myself all but broken. I was broken. But then I realized that that effort had been in vain, I was not here to defeat the devil, but deliver this one life from him, and so, as I wrestled, I reached and plucked but one hair from his head, and as he winced, I passed by him down the stairs, and awoke on the bed, as Siamak, remembering nothing else from before. I lay there for almost a day, until I could move the limbs and establish control over the eyes and breath and all the corners of the mind."

"And you sent Siamak free."

"He was bound in torment, what little of him was left. Yes. The first thing I heard though, was your voice, as you visited the house."

She looked carefully at the features. She had heard stories of possession, she did not know if it was that, or merely Siamak’s way of presenting a conversion, brought on by his experience, to others. She looked hard for some core of belief to hold onto, to know. But there was none.

They continued to slowly and steadily row out, they passed closer and closer to the harbor, and she could see two ships afire, and the warehouses as well. In addition, she saw other small fires had broken out in the town, and the roofs had caught fire and started to burn that black soot.

“They must be setting on fire the homes of those that opposed the mayor.”

Siamack did not even glance back. “Fire is their only friend now. They have spiraled down into its embrace.”

“So you awoke after three days.”

“I came to this body after three days, and mended it. They had meant to open it to one of their own, and instead I came.”

“An angel?”

“No, I was once another, I do not know who. But I am Siamak Adarpadyavand now, and will be until my soul is separated from this body, and goes beyond to where ever the God has in mind for it.”

She looked at him. “I feel I have done so little, Navid was captured and escaped, you are back from the dead, others have organized, written, thought and spoken. I have done little, or nothing.”

“Nothing? Who went to Navid’s wife to reassure her?”

“But that is what had to be done, it was nothing.”

He shook his head between strokes. And then stopped rowing, the boot continued to move none the less, she assumed it to be a current.

“But only you did it, and a thousand times, when there needed to be a hand to touch, it was yours. I will tell you plainly, if it had not been for your staying with this body, it surely would have been lost. It was your touch which held enough of his soul to fight off the flurry that surrounds us all, that blackens the air beyond the candle flame.”

“It is nothing.”

“It is the tie that binds, this anointing with touch.”

She listened, she thought, she felt the movement of the boat accelerate, and then looked over her shoulder, there was a large square rigged vessel, of an unusual design, anchored outside of the light of the burning town, she could see it because only in outline and by a dim reflection of the fire. No, that wasn’t true, now it was coming dawn, dawn behind it made the silhoutte stronger with each passing moment.

“And so that is what I am, to wander through the world, protected by others, having others do, and not do, in my name?”

“You are one of the healers of a sick world. Siamak knew it and resented it.”

His words were stiff, his eyes burned, not in the piercing way of old, but lit by some inner fire. It did not try to overwhelm or beat down.

“And what now? What of Ali and the rest.”

“Ali and Parvaneh escaped before you did, she knew that something was very wrong, and sensed it was time to take flight. He went with her, his affections now focused on her life above his own. He gave me this, to give to you.” He passed over a small scroll. She took it gingerly, half expecting him to judge her as she took it.

She looked back at the city, with the morning light now making the clouds seem even blacker, because they were more clearly defined in contrast to white buildings and green hills. They poured upward as dye flows downward into water. Or squid’s ink fills an aquarium.

“And what now?”

“I will do what Siamak should have done before – take defense of the town. You, and the others, must go on the pilgrimage, and then to the Hajj. For what has happened here is happening elsewhere.”

She nodded, it was her duty. And with that her spiritual legs gathered under her, as quickly as a cats do during a fall. She straightened, assumed a different mien. She was being born to a vessel, she had others who worked for her protection, because it was she who bound the parts together. Now it was time to earn this name that had been made for her.

“And you?”

“I am the Queenmaker, and having helped set you on this throne, I will help in the utmost to keep you there. Because it is what only you can do.”

The boat slowed, without obvious effort on his part, as they approached the ship, and it began to tower over them. The came to a complete stop on a boarding raft, and joined a cluster of other small boats there. She sat, and then stood up, and stepped her way on to the planks that bobbed slightly in the growing waves. Siamak gestured for peace to be upon her, and then turned the boat with his oars, and began pulling away, though far faster than should have been for the speed which he was rowing.

She looked about, and seeing no one here, turned towards the robe stairs that went up at a steep angle along the ship. She boarded up the stairs from the ocean level raft, there, too, were the other Hajj members, she imagined that they were as in shock as they. It was a stranged bedraggled grouping, and she felt pulled out of her cocoon, she had not bathed in some time, nor changed clothes. But then, the feel of sweat stiffened clothes, sandals that had been worn into, wasn’t that what made a pilgrim.

What shocked her is that each of the others did homage to her, and thanked her for notes that she had not had sent, and for a warning given by another in her name. She blinked, and realized that she had been given a gift, one that she would now have to keep up. She took each one in turn and embraced them, and then went with them to the stern of the ship, which rocked as the vessel now weighed anchor.

At first it seemed to gain speed slowly, and then she could see the few small boats left behind, their occupants now rowing south and east, away from the harbor, and to one of the small fishing villages up the coast, gradually losing distinction as people and becoming merely figures. She was transfixed, and she felt bathed by the warm breeze and the salt air seemed to scour her cheeks and run its fingers through her hair. It grew in strength.

The wind from south, from the Ocean Haram, now blew fiercely, as the town disappeared into the West, the fires from the harbor and the normal haze now blow north and out to see. She had never seen the air so clear, nor felt it so clean. She saw the buildings of the city, from minarets to villas on the hills, from the few ships still spired, now out at anchor in the bay, it was all etched with fine and acid clarity, while the background was hidden in the mixture of haze, smoke and soot that billowed black and then was forced away. It seemed a curtain drenched in dirt. The smell of sulfur was gone, and there was a brutal unimpeachable clarity, in this, her last memory for many months, she imagined, of her home and its environs.

But behind this vision, or perhaps overlayed upon it, was the feeling she felt looking into Siamak’s eyes – or who ever it now was, or claimed to be. Feeling as if she was falling into them, and yet they pouring into her, with that unseen unquenchable fire.