Prologue
I began with the rushing hydrocarbon wind that ascends through the
rock from the shale beds far below, blasting through the sand and erupting in a
vast conflagration of fire. I do not remember the act of creation that
engendered me and my brothers and sisters of flame, but I have seen it many
times since and believe it was the same for me. The ground trembles and a
distant thunder draws ever closer; the rocks dancing and the sand thrown upward
with the approach of the underground wind. Then the surface of the land lifts
into the air, and the rocks and sand grains strike together so violently great
currents of electricity form in the dry air. Lightning rips through the swirling
mass. The explosion that envelops the desert sands is red, orange
and yellow, concentrating into white brilliance in the centre with small
pockets of the deepest blue here and there. When the flames that consume the uprushing gas die away, when the intense heat fades and the
fused sand glimmers like glass; these cold smokeless blue flames remain and
sentience stirs within them.
I have gone by many names over the countless years of my existence,
but in the desert lands of my creation, I and my brothers and sisters of the
smokeless fire are called djinn and are generally feared by members of that
other creation - mankind. In those early days, of course, I had no knowledge of
man or of anything else in the world about me, being little more than a blue flame
tinged with green that burned in the lonely places. I was aware of self and a
vast outer not self, but being new, I was concerned solely with self and for
long ages gave little thought to what lay around me. What need had I of what
was not me? After a long time, time measured not in days or even years but
rather in the slow oscillation of the bright points of light that wheeled
slowly in the sky above me. I turned my attention outward. Curiosity drove me,
and I wondered that anything could truly exist that was not me.
I saw much and understood little, but gradually I was able to piece
together facts, assimilate them into groups and start to make sense of the
world. I wandered the land, mountain and valley, desert and plain, venturing
into forests and caves and even the rushing streams and restless seas,
observing and growing in knowledge. Not mean feats for a smokeless blue flame
that can see without eyes, hear without ears and
understand without a brain. How was I able to do these things? As well you might
ask a man how he stands upright on two legs and walks around. He cannot
describe it - he just does it. So it was with me. I could not say how I did
such things; I just accepted them as natural and did them. Now, after thousands
of years, I have grown in knowledge and understanding. I have my theories of
magnetic fields and patterned plasma, but I will not bore you with them. If you
are of the djinn, you will know; if you are not, you probably cannot know.
In the early days, I saw the creation of my own kind and saw how I
must have come about. I often approached these little dancing flames in the
scorched aftermath of the act of genesis, but they never responded to my
inquiries. I could feel their introspective sentience, dim
and flickering, but nothing more. I have seen this act of creation many times,
though less in recent years. I do not know if this is because the creative
force has lessened with time, or if it is because the vast pockets of gas that
form above the oil-rich shale beds deep underground are now all but exhausted.
No doubt many djinn exist, but I seldom see another
one now. I think we are solitary beings, having little in common with each
other beyond the hot fire of our creation and the cold fire of our being, and
even less with the coarse material creation that preceded us.
For a long time, I wandered the earth, crossing continents and seas,
watching the pulse of glaciers and the rise and fall of the oceans, but I
always found myself drawn back to the place I was created. Each time I returned,
I found things had changed - the land grew dryer, animals moved away or died
out, the scattered tribes of men fought and died or managed to live in harmony
with their neighbours but still died. Man is short-lived, gone almost in the
blink of his eye, and I remain for I am something greater than man. How much
greater? I did not find out for some time. Some things I found out quickly by
observing my surroundings and the creatures that inhabit it. For instance, I
live but I do not grow. I sprung fully formed from the
earth fires, whereas man grows from an infant to a child to an adult. I do not
eat or drink but feed instead from energy. Not just the raw energies of the
white light that flashes from the storm-clad heavens to the earth, but also
from the energy that binds the life force of man and animal. I can feed on the
electrical currents that keep men alive and drain them of life and soul,
strengthening my own.
I do not produce others of my kind; djinn arise only from the
smokeless fires and have no need of sex. I think, though not with a fleshy
brain, and because I have no distractions of the flesh, my intellect is greater
than a man's, my purpose stronger and my will indomitable. Men are governed by
their appetites, and I often use their lusts to achieve my own ends. Humans are
so easy to control; a word here, a promise there, and they fall over themselves
to do my will. There are some, I admit, with greater control of their own
intellect. They can govern their own minds, being fixated on higher goals:
love, family, the service of a god or goddess; yet even these can be governed
and directed, if I just take the time to appear not as I am but rather how they
wish to see me.
I have mentioned gods and goddesses, and for a long time in the days
after I came to be, I wondered about these beings. No doubt you want to know if
they exist. Before I can answer that I suppose I must ask what is a god? I have
asked this question of many people down the ages, for you must not suppose that
I always exist as a still, blue flame. Sometimes I put on the guise of a man or
woman and walk the earth. When I am in the guise of a man, I think and feel
more as a man does. I experience lust, anger and pain,
but also curiosity and a hunger for knowledge. I seek out the learned men, the priests and scribes, and draw out the contents of their
minds, before I shatter the bonds that hold their brains together, feasting on
the rich, dark energy of their being as their life force gutters and dies.
I have learned men see god as many things: all-powerful,
all-knowing, capricious, loving, merciful, cruel, able to be placated or bribed
but also quick to seek vengeance, jealous, proud and beautiful, having the
attributes of creator, preserver and destroyer. They have all the worst faults
of men but also the best attributes. I know; how can a god be all these things?
In short, he cannot. Have I ever met a god? Yes, and he or she was some of
these things but never all. I have seen the still blue flames riding the
thunderclouds, dancing in the molten rock that spews from the belly of the
earth or lifted aloft in the whirlwind. I have conversed with the flames that
often sit atop hills, wrapped up in their own existence, thinking their own
hill shrine is the centre of creation. These little Baals, as they are called,
have a tribe of men to worship them and make the blood offering, burning the
flesh of beasts that the god may feed. It is not the burnt meat of an animal's
thigh, the fat that drips and sputters in the consuming flames or the blood pumping
from a slit throat that is important to these little gods, but the life force
they desire. I should know, for I am a flame myself. That is all a god is,
believe me. Every god I have come across, every being happy to take what men
offer so freely of their neighbour's livestock or of their own, is a flame -
one of the djinn.
Many flames take names, for men do not like to worship a nameless
god. Djinn may take the name of a hill, an attribute or one of the forces of
nature. There are thunder gods, rain gods, sea gods, sky gods, and gods of war,
of love, of soldiers, of shepherds, of the sun, moon
and planets - a deity for any and every purpose. And as long
as men need them, you can be sure there will be a flame ready to exploit
these gullible creatures. Not all gods are strong, many being limited to a
single hill or spring or grove of trees. Others wander the earth and walk about
in it, taking life where they will. I have done both in my long existence. For
a while, I wandered, and then for an age, I sat in a high place and was
content. Then a man came and named me in fear and wonder, and I thought, Why not? I too will become a god.
Yes, a man first named me. Or rather, he thought of my name, and I
plucked it from his mind, for the minds of men are open to the djinn. You look
uncomfortable. Do you fear that I can see the thoughts in your mind? Why would
I bother? Most men think of little beyond their immediate needs and desires. Of
course, should I desire to, you probably will not even know I am doing it. You
would feel nothing beyond a mild ringing in the ears or a feeling you are being
watched. Have you ever felt eyes watching you and turned only to find no one
was there? That was me, or one like me, delving into the soft matter of your
brain, chasing your thoughts and tapping into your
life force. You might have felt tired later, but if the djinn did not drink too
deeply you recovered. Despite what the legends say, we are not necessarily
ravening monsters, killing indiscriminately. It is much better to taste and
move on, returning to sip again from an ever-renewing resource.
Do I taste all life? Do I sip from the wellsprings of animal and
human alike? I have done so, but I prefer the taste of men. Their thoughts and
emotions are raw and savage, as they exercise choice;
whereas animals are largely governed by instinct. I can leave an animal
untouched, but sooner or later I will feast on any human I get close to. It is
in my nature, perhaps. I am a djinni, after all ... unless I aspire to be more.
I aspired to be more. I took a name and godhead. A name should be
more than just an empty sound though; it should mean something. The name I took
was a fitting name, for it reflected my nature, my position in creation and the
place that was then my favoured abode. It meant high, lofty, sublime, in the
tongue of the human inhabitants of the place of my being. Though I was created
in the sandy wasteland and am at home in that hot, dry desolation, it is the
mountains that call to me, where the air is clear and the rock clean and
unspoiled. The wind sweeps between the peaks, and the only sound is the harsh
cry of the raptor circling high above in the pale blue dome of the sky. There I
sit, the flame of my being motionless in the gale that blows about me, and I
contemplate the empty land stretched out before me. I was named Aali of the
High Places. I may have stayed Aali of the High Places and been no more than a
spirit alone on a mountain, but something changed within me when that first man
made an act of worship and I became a god in his eyes. Once I was a god, of
course, a simple name like Aali was not enough. I decided to leave my lofty
domain and venture into the world again. I found the world much changed with
men burgeoning upon the land, but I had ambition. I was no longer content to be
a small baal, a nameless djinni. I would become a
god, maybe even the God. Yes, I am laughing as I say that, but why not? Who is
to stop me? Men cannot and only very powerful djinn
could do so, but I do not know of any strong enough.
And so, on a day like countless thousands that had gone before, a
man came to me. He was not looking for me, but his coming changed everything.
Chapter One
Ab'rim sat on a rock in the low foothills in the southern part of the
mountain chain that ran along the western side of the Arabian Peninsula and
regarded his charges gloomily. This was unusual for him as he was known among
his neighbours as a cheerful person, but he thought he had good reason. The
past two seasons had been hard ones; the monsoon rains that swept in from the
southwest lighter than usual and the grazing had suffered. He looked up at the
clear blue sky and muttered a prayer to his many gods for rain, especially
Hubal, god of shepherds. Ab'rim waited hopefully, but
no sign appeared to show his pleas had been answered. He shrugged and turned
back to his contemplation of his small herd of goats.
The animals were healthy but starting to show
the effects of poor nutrition. Months of grazing on the sparse vegetation had
all but denuded the rocky slopes, and now the beasts spread out over the
hillside, scraping at the stony ground in the hopes of uncovering a morsel of
edibility. Most ignored their herder, intent on finding food, but one old ewe,
the leader of the flock, lifted her head from her foraging from time to time to
make sure the man was still there. Eventually she bleated, alerting the man to
the straying of the flock.
Ab'rim picked up a handful of stones and worked his way across the
hillside, judicious placement of the missiles herding the animals together
again. He squatted and caressed the old female goat, calling her his Bahiyya,
his beautiful one, and she responded by butting her head gently against him. He
rose and started slowly up the slope, picking his way between the boulders. She
followed, and the other goats fell into line behind her, dutifully climbing the
faint track worn into the loose rock and soil. They crossed the hill and dipped
down into a small valley on the other side where a tiny bit of moisture had
collected, stimulating coarse grasses which had now run to seed and were
turning brown. The goats hurried forward, bleating with excitement, and soon
consumed every scrap of plant material down to its roots.
At noon or as near as Ab'rim
could judge the hour by the position of the sun, he found what shelter he could
under a towering rock and consumed a small meal of bread and two dried dates.
He washed it down with tepid water from a skin flask and sat back, picking at
tiny fragments of food caught in his chipped but otherwise healthy teeth with a
broken fingernail. The goats sought scraps of shade beside the larger boulders
and lay down. For an hour or more, the only movement in the valley was the
occasional flicking of ears or waving of hands to dislodge the persistent
flies.
By midafternoon, the
goats were on the move again and Ab'rim and Bahiyya
led the flock over the valley rim and angled across the next slope, working up
toward the mountains. Ab'rim knew water flowed
downward and vegetation was usually found on the lower slopes and the plains
beneath the hills, but the years of drought had stripped the land of life. He
reasoned the water had to come from somewhere and the gullies that dissected
the steep-sided mountains may yet harbour moisture and fodder. The alternative
was to go over ground already covered. His goats would find no food below, so
he must chance everything on the high places.
Reasoning may have led to Ab'rim's
decision, but the logic did not ease his mind. Other herders told stories of
the wild places far from human habitation, and he had heard tales of strange
beasts and even stranger things that walked the night. He did not look forward
to the coming night, but he knew he must brave it or let his little flock
starve. The look of reproach on his wife's face would be more than he could
bear if he returned with a hungry herd just because he feared the darkness.
The night came swiftly as the sun vanished
behind the mountains and the long cold shadows swept down from the heights. Ab'rim gathered his goats into a small area of the gully
and rolled a few rocks across the most obvious gaps. Rocks alone would not pen
his beasts as goats delight in climbing, but the presence of apparent
boundaries often sufficed to keep them close. As darkness closed in, they
huddled close, deriving security from the presence of the man.
Ab'rim made a small fire from a pinch of sawdust, a wisp of dried grass
and dehydrated dung, twirling his firestick with a short length of cord from
his pouch. The point rested in a hollow in a flat piece of wood, and as the
stick spun and whirred, tiny wisps of smoke curled upward. In the silence of
the evening, even this faint sound was loud in his ears, and it worried him as
there was no telling what might be drawn to the steady noise. At last the sawdust
caught fire, and he nursed the wisp of grass with the dry undigested plant
fibres from the dung and a few brittle twigs. The resultant fire was small and
produced almost no heat, but it threw back the darkness for a time and gave him
a measure of comfort. Later the moon rose over the low plain, flooding the
mountainside with a pale light and throwing inky shadows across the rock-strewn
landscape. Things moved in the shadows, small things admittedly, but Ab'rim was nervous of the rustlings, squeaking and hissing
and gabbled many prayers to his gods for their protection. Hubal he petitioned
- god of shepherds, dominant in this season of the
waxing moon; Manaf the sun god, who, though absent from the sky, had the power
to banish all shadows; and of course, Al-Lat, the mother goddess. Ab'rim felt uncomfortable praying for help to a female god,
but his wife, Hajar, had assured him of the Mother's
power. He prayed too that the gods could hear his whispers as he feared raising
his voice and attracting attention from other things. After a while, a near
silence descended over the hillside, and he fell asleep warmed by the bodies of
the nearest goats.
The dawn came, the sun rising over the plains
and spreading a golden blanket over the high mountains, while the valleys yet
remained in shadow. Ab'rim gave thanks to his gods
again, especially Manaf now, and roused the animals, opening
up the pen and ushering them further up the rocky gully. He had nothing
with which to break his fast, so he took out his leather sling and hunted
around for smooth water-worn pebbles. The goats moved slowly, and he was able
to keep an eye on their wanderings and still scan the rocks and sky for prey.
Despite the apparent lack of vegetation, there was considerable life on the
mountain. By the time he stopped at noon, he had two songbirds, a mouse and several locusts in his pouch. He consumed the
locusts raw but skinned and gutted the birds and mouse for his evening meal,
putting the feathers and skin as well as the tiny corpses back in his pouch
together with a few scraps of wood and dried dung.
His second night on the mountain was more
comfortable than the first, and because no threat had eventuated the first
night, Ab'rim felt considerably more relaxed. The
goats found grazing in a small shallow basin where a pool of water still
existed, dampening the soil sufficiently to stimulate grasses. He made his camp
with his back to an overhanging rock wall and cooked his meat on a tiny fire.
Bahiyya stood and stared disapprovingly with her yellow eyes, while the man
devoured the half-cooked morsels, crunching the bones between his teeth and
licking his fingers to absorb every hint of delicious juice. Ab'rim settled back, ready for sleep, his belly nearly full
and wrapped himself in his robe against the chill night air. After watching the
stars for a time, he drifted into sleep.
A scream ripped the night apart, a long wailing
cry that guttered into despairing sobs before dying away. Ab'rim
jerked awake and sat bolt upright, his back to the rock wall. Visible only as
vague shapes, the goats were on their feet, staring off up the invisible gully,
motionless and silent. The moon hid behind clouds, and the darkness pressed
around, hiding whatever it was screaming on the mountain top. The night was very quiet now, as if waiting and watching for the thing to
scream again.
A demon. An Ifrit or djinni ... O Al-Lat, Holy
Mother, preserve me. Ab'rim
gabbled prayers under his breath to every god he could think of, then he pulled
his sling out with shaking hands and fitted a pebble into it. What good is
that going to do? He remembered tales told around campfires when he was a
boy and fumbled in his pouch. He drew out a handful of small feathers and
pushed them one by one into the smouldering embers of his tiny fire. The stink
of charring feathers curled up and around him in the still air making him
cough. Burning feathers repel demons ... I hope. The scream was not
repeated, and after a while, the goats settled down again. My prayers or the
feathers worked. Ab'rim prayed again, offering up
thanks for his deliverance, and many hours later toward dawn, he even slept.
The next morning, Ab'rim
debated whether to stay high in the mountains or to descend to the plains once
more. The scream of the demon had scared him, but the burning feathers and
prayers had evidently seen it off. If it even was a demon ... The bright
sunshine made him feel much braver, and he scanned the slopes confidently. He
knew there was little chance of finding forage on the plains, but there was
still vegetation to be found in the isolated gullies of the mountain. Fear
warred against pride and the needs of his herd. The morning sun tipped the
scale, the warmth and brightness of the day strengthening his resolve,
banishing his fears. His small herd looked to him for guidance, alternately
cropping the last of the grasses in the basin or looking silently at him as he
made his decision.
"We go up," he told Bahiyya.
The old she-goat bleated mournfully but followed
him willingly enough as he set off up the gully, the rest of the herd trailing
after them. The bed of the dried stream steepened almost immediately, and Ab'rim found himself having to use both hands to scramble
upward. The goats had little trouble negotiating the rocky incline, leaping
nimbly from rock to boulder, step to ledge and calling encouragingly to each
other. By early afternoon, he was higher up the mountain than he had ever been.
He found a level space where a few stunted and wind-gnarled shrubs clung to the
thin soil. The animals spread out, nipping at buds and
even stripping the bark from the woody plants. Ab'rim
looked out at the plain that lay far below him, trying to make out his route up
the mountain or where his tents lay nestled by the foothills. The distance and
the haze foiled his efforts, but he stood at the brink of the little plateau
for a long time, drinking in the frightening expanse.
"I didn't know there was so much land," he
murmured. Ab'rim turned away eventually, shaking his
head. He became aware the day had slipped away from him and he was very hungry.
While the goats stripped the plateau of vegetation, he took out his sling and
started hunting among the rocks. An hour later, he gave up. The plateau was
devoid of any form of animal life save for himself and his goats. "We'd better
go back down," he muttered. "At least there were birds and mice in the gully."
It was then Ab'rim discovered he had a problem. One
of the young goats was missing.
He carefully counted his flock, ticking off
their names against the joints and tips of his fingers - Fidda, Inas, Rabi'a,
Bahiyya, 'Abla - fifteen. He counted again - fifteen. Little Nadra was missing,
and her mother, Rabi'a, was now running back and forth bleating wildly. Ab'rim caught the mother goat and secured her to the
chewed-down remains of a shrub and started searching the rocks along the rim of
the plateau where the land rose up again toward the
peak.
He found evidence at once that a goat had been
there - small droppings still moist when squeezed gently between forefinger and
thumb. Which goat was another matter. Any of the herd
could have climbed this far. He kept searching, calling out at intervals. His
goats would not answer to their names - except Bahiyya, the beautiful - but
they knew the sound of his voice. There was a good chance if the kid heard him,
she would cry out. The mountain was silent except for the sighing of the wind,
the muted bleating of the herd on the plateau below and the cry of a hawk
stretched out on the air high above. Ab'rim continued
climbing, calling as he went.
The shadow of the plain swept over him, and Ab'rim saw with some alarm nightfall had overtaken him.
Already he faced a difficult climb down to the plateau in failing light. If he
delayed, it would become impossible. He scanned the rocks, desperately hoping
the lost goat would suddenly appear, but nothing moved. Dejectedly, he turned
to start back down, knowing the goat would be unlikely to survive the night
alone.
Come.