“Well, that was horrible,” Rais said. They were now in the second-floor lobby of the Westin, returned to the real world, and djinn in various levels of disguise were milling about before making their exit, under the gaze of some very puzzled hotel staff.
“Not that bad,” Golgoras said.
“No one else opposed him,” Rais said. He was actually shocked. In the back of his mind, he had been expecting a few allies at least. “None of the emissaries. It’s like everyone is perfectly fine with him drowning millions of people.”
“At least they did not reach a consensus,” Golgoras said. “Now they’re worrying more about the Maker than anything else.”
“How much time does it buy us?”
Golgoras shrugged. “Depends how much dignatas Matteras is willing to risk. The room was bad. If Kuriken goes all in with him, it might still be enough.”
“Tell me about Beltrex,” Rais said.
“Old guard,” Golgoras said. “Saner than most. Known to be a legal expert.”
“How old is he?”
“Really old,” said Golgoras. “Thousands of years. Not polite to ask.”
“Is he antediluvian?”
“He might be.” Golgoras shrugged. “Djinns don’t advertise age. He’s pro-Seclusion.”
“He likes Humes. Fact,” Barabas said. “Owns vineyards over in America. Majorly into wine making. Won some Hume award once. Wouldn’t shut up about it. Why?”
“He was in Risal’s journal.”
“No shit!” Barabas said.
“Yeah. Risal was asking him stuff about the war. She had a partial bibliography for her paper drafted in her journal. She listed him as a primary source,” Rais said.
“That’s interesting.”
“It doesn’t say what exactly he answered. Can you help me corner him?” Rais asked.
“We’ll invite him to lunch,” Golgoras said.
“Is he going to agree to meet us?” Rais asked.
“Oh yes, he’s a miser. Never passes up a free meal,” said Golgoras.
Beltrex, in fact, was hanging around the elevator muttering darkly, and he very quickly agreed to Golgoras’s proposal of lunch at Prego, courtesy of the Royal Aeronautics Society. The Italian restaurant was near the top floor of the Westin, cheerfully lit and almost empty at this time of the day. A life-size poster advertised a Filipino band in fishnet stockings and halfprice drinks during happy hour. An absence of waiters dispersed quickly as they entered, the staff members studiously pretending to work in various remote corners of the restaurant.
“Pretty poor show, for Matteras,” Beltrex huffed as they sat down. He proceeded to order two of everything and several exorbitantly priced cocktails. “In my day we used to open Assemblies with a cocktail party and close with a ten-course banquet.”
“Well, don’t worry, the society has an account with the Westin. Let’s see if we can put together a feast for you, eh?” Golgoras said. Rais had never seen the pilot this amiable.
“Humph, well. And you know that Matteras got us here flying commercial? China Southern. Cheapest airline you can find. I had a six-hour layover…”
“Well, don’t worry, Beltrex, I’m flying out that way. I’m sure I can drop you off,” Golgoras said. “No charge.”
“My thanks to the society.”
“Well, you know, we believe our interests coincide somewhat. You’re known as a peaceable djinn, and we at the society think this thing Matteras is doing is a little bit much.”
“Well, I sure as hell ain’t for it,” Beltrex said. He turned rheumy eyes toward Barabas. “This is your new protégé, huh?”
“Ahem, that’s the djinn Barabas,” Golgoras said.
“Right, right, sorry, where’s that new emissary?”
“Well, emissary-in-training, really,” Barabas said with a huff. “Kaikobad’s nephew.”
“In my day it was pretty careless, losing your emissary like that,” Beltrex said. “You’d have lost an ass-load of dignatas.”
“I did, I did,” Barabas said angrily. “You can’t imagine what I’m going through. I can’t even hail a taxicab these days. It was so careless of Kaikobad!”
“You’re the new whelp,” Beltrex said to Rais, “the one creating the ruckus in the courts?”
“Well, my mother’s handling that part of it,” Rais said.
“Scary woman,” Barabas said. “You’d better stay away from her, Beltrex, if you were smart.”
“Why don’t you boys take a smoke break?” Beltrex said. “I want to talk to our emissary for a bit.”
The old djinn’s field flexed for a second, and the other two almost flinched back. For a brief moment, his power was so luminous that even Rais could feel it. Golgoras nodded shortly.
“I knew your uncle,” Beltrex said, when they had left. “Good man.”
“Yeah, so says everyone,” Rais said. “We knew him as a crazy drunk, but apparently he was pretty solid out here.”
“You won’t be stopping this clusterfuck, boy,” Beltrex said. “They’ve thrown you to the wolves.”
“It does look that way,” Rais admitted.
“Matteras is a different kind of djinn,” Beltrex said. “New breed of ’em. Aggressive. Younger ones, the ones who’ve forgotten the war, they follow him. Think he’s some kind of royalty.”
“Beltrex, might I ask a question?”
“Sure, son.”
“How old are you?”
“That’s a personal thing for us djinn. An emissary worth his weight would have known that.”
“Is there anyone alive from back then?”
“I’d be careful, boy, asking about the war. Djinn don’t like that kind of talk.”
“I’ve noticed. I can’t figure out why.”
“A lot of powerful folk went crazy,” Beltrex said. “It was the time of high magic, the golden age of djinn, and the war put an end to that and almost to everything else—men, djinn, this world, perhaps more. It was a holocaust, an extinction event. It ended the First Empire of Djinn. Ain’t no surprise no one wants to think about it. The young guns like Matteras, they don’t know what it was like, can’t really understand why we are the way we are.”
“Bahamut told me to look at the war.”
“Bahamut is old and strange.”
“Was he active during the war?”
“Almost twenty thousand years ago?” Beltrex shrugged. “Hell, he might have been. I don’t know, he might have been around back then—no one brings that shit up. Look, boy, I knew your uncle, I owed him a favor or two, so I’m gonna warn you: some waves you can’t surf. Matteras will end you, your family, your entire damn race if he wants to, there’s not a damn thing you can do to stop it. Now you be smart and get outta here with your folk. You all need help, hell, bring ’em to Napa, I’ll get you green cards.”
“That’s generous of you, sir,” Rais said. He thought for a moment of living with his parents in a nice vineyard, making wine for tourists, far away from all of this, and it was seriously tempting, to see his parents close together again, like olden times. Then he thought of Moffat, Maria, their parents, all his own friends and relatives, and the hundreds of acquaintances—his whole world of people, really—blotted out for no reason. He thought of lonely Indelbed, maybe still alive somewhere, stuck in a murder pit, and the urge to surrender went away. He had to do something, anything.
“And don’t go digging into the war thing. Sick shit happened back then is all I remember. A lot of Marid died, a lot of ’em went to sleep after.”
“Sleep?”
“Sure, a lot of djinn hibernate. Sometimes we skip centuries when it gets boring. All I’m saying is any folk still around from back then, we probably don’t wanna be running into ’em. Djinn were a different kind of breed back then. Nasty, arrogant. Uncivilized. Didn’t have the laws, didn’t have our Lore. I’ll say no more on this, except I don’t much like the way we’re heading. Mind you, that was a clever trick with that fake book.”
“It wasn’t a fake.”
“You must be mistaken, boy.”
“It’s real. Hand drawn by him too. Found it at Risal’s.”
“Bad news to have that thing floating around,” Beltrex said with a grunt. “Even worse if that bastard is still alive.”
“I still don’t get why Givaras is such a big deal. I mean, what exactly did he do?”
“Givar Broken killed more men and more djinn than the plague,” Beltrex said. “And he’s old. He’s one of the founder djinn. They called him Horus in ancient Kemet. The things he’s done over the years are strange even for the ancients. He has theories that are a little hard to take. He’s known as the father of the evolutionary school for a reason. Plenty of nasty things crawling around that we owe him for. Some of the djinn follow him because he’s, well, the closest thing we have to a champion of science. The Creationists hate his work, always have. Me, I don’t care much either way.”
“And this terrible book? The Compendium of Beasts?”
“They call him Maker because he makes things. Living things.” Beltrex leaned forward. “Matteras destroyed all the books. I never read it. But, of course, I’ve heard bits and pieces.”
“From Risal, by any chance?”
“What?”
“She’s missing. Has been for twenty years.”
“The historian? I don’t know her.”
“Are you sure? We found the Compendium at her place. It was cleverly hidden. Her home was ransacked twenty years ago, all of her original work taken. I have the rest of her library.”
Beltrex stared at him. There was very little of the absentminded djinn about him now. “So you have stolen her library. Theft is punishable by death, according to our laws.”
“It was not theft,” Rais said. “I have the documentation from the RAS. Salvage rights. Her home was unmoored, spinning freely, and the door was unsecured. I filed a claim for discovery of an abandoned vessel.”
“Very careless of Risal, to leave her house up for salvage.”
“The funny thing is she mentions you in her journal.”
“She kept a journal?”
“Yes.”
“You’ve read it?”
“It was mostly full of bowel movements and what she ate. All nine volumes.”
Beltrex smiled. “That seems like Risal. Perhaps I did know her a little.”
“Was she asking you questions about the war?”
“She might have been.”
“You spoke to her then?”
“I might have.”
“But not about the Compendium?”
“Oh no, not that. Never knew she had it.”
“I’ve read it, you know. Thrice. It’s strange, some of the drawings in the book are in Kaikobad’s notes, I swear.”
Beltrex sighed. “I don’t know about Kaikobad’s notes. Givar was before his time. Maybe he found a few pages, who knows? That book was banned, and some people can’t help rooting around forbidden fruit. You really should have kept the book hidden, boy,” Beltrex said. “Owning an artifact of Givar’s marks you for death nowadays.”
“I’ve got a damn good memory,” Rais said. “Near eidetic. I can recall whole passages even now. It seemed like he was giving very detailed instructions on how to make djinns.”
“Hush now,” Beltrex said. “That kinda talk might get you killed around here. God made djinns. God. We are the chosen people.”
“Right,” Rais said. “The Creationist creed.”
“You might think Creationists are some lunatic fringe, but a lot of djinn believe it, inside,” Beltrex said. “Anything that says otherwise is anathema. You never know who’s going to turn on you if you start spouting that Evolutionist stuff.”
“Yeah,” Rais said. “I think Risal knew that. The Compendium was hidden, as I said, and it wasn’t in the catalog.”
“Catalog?”
“Risal was very organized. I found her catalog, and I matched it to every single book in her library. There was only one book missing: the Register of Kings, from Gangaridai. It was part of her rare book collection.”
“And?”
“I want Risal’s missing book.”
“Why?”
“Because Bahamut told me to look into it.” And because I’m not going to fold like everyone expects. Maybe I’m my mother’s son after all.
“Typical Bahamut,” Beltrex said. “Reading books while the world is burning. Now I hate to tell you, boy, but I don’t have her book, whatever it’s called, and I don’t know what happened to her either.”
“It’s called the Register of Kings, by the djinn Mohandas. Did she say anything about it?”
“I can’t remember any specifics. Risal used to talk a lot of gibberish.”
“Are there any notable libraries where I might find a copy?”
“Gangaridai had a big one.”
“Destroyed and underwater, of course,” Rais said.
“Mohenjo Daro had one. The old city, I mean, the djinn one.”
“Again, destroyed.”
“The Bayt al-Hikma had one.”
“The House of Wisdom? Burned by the Mongols in 1258 when they sacked Baghdad. The Tigris ran black with ink from all the books they dumped into the river.”
“I’m sorry, boy, not too many djinns interested in old books these days. Kuriken’s got a library in his castle up in Siberia. Probably the last one left in Russia that wasn’t sacked by the Bolsheviks. I once sold him all my first editions for a cartload of Cossack bones.”
“I’ve got to ask… Cossack bones?”
“Medicinal value,” Beltrex answered, and winked. “Gets the juices flowing, ahem. When you’re as old as I am, m’boy…”
“Right, right.” Rais shuddered. “So Kuriken might have a copy?”
“I wouldn’t go asking him,” Beltrex said. “Hates humans. Barely tolerates his own emissary and that woman is a bloody Romanov princess.”
“So again I hit a dead end.”
“I’m sorry, boy.”
“Did my uncle Kaikobad know Risal well?”
“Hmm, you know, I think I remember seeing them together once or twice. He knew a lot of djinns.”
“Beltrex, what do you know about Nephilim? Kaikobad was obsessed with them. He had a collection of different Bibles.”
“Nephilim are a myth,” Beltrex said shortly. “You’re wasting your time.”
“Thanks, Beltrex. One last question. Do you know anything about haplogroup R?”
“What is it, some kind of STD?”
“No, never mind. Thanks for talking to me, Beltrex, I appreciate it.”
“Sure thing, son. I owed Kaikobad a favor or two. If he wakes up, tell him I tried to help.”