“IT IS NOT over yet,” said the Sultan, a while later. He, Husam, and Dewi were conferring in low voices, while Adi sat quietly beside the body of his friend Sadik. “The Shayk still holds my son.”
“I do not think the Shayk holds anyone anymore,” said Husam. “Not after what happened in this place.”
“His men will be running for their lives now. And I know where your son is likely to have been held, Sire,” said Dewi. “A pit, near Old Mountain.”
“Old Mountain! That is the other side of the country, around Gunungbatu,” said the Sultan, brightening. “Of course, that is where the Shayk had his wretched community. Once Yanto is safe, I will destroy the whole place!”
“No,” said Adi, coming up to them at that moment. “I mean, please, no, Your Majesty. Good people live there, as well as bad ones. They should be given a chance to do good work. There is much need in our country, Sire.”
The Sultan raised an eyebrow. “Well, we’ll see. We’ll clean the place out anyway, get rid of the fanatics. And we’ll hunt down all those hantumu and put them on trial. Now then, I need to get back to the palace at once, send a rescue team to Old Mountain.” He started off up the stairs, then stopped and turned back to face them. “Thank you very dearly, my friends. You have saved us all. I will never forget what you have done. Never. You will be given every honor and every reward you might want to ask for. The Sultan of Jayangan always keeps his word.”
“Sire,” said Dewi, “there is one thing that must be done: When the rescue team is sent to Old Mountain, please make sure enough food and drink and transport is sent for many men and women, not just one.”
“Ah, your father, Dewi, and your master, Adi, are there too, are they not? Of course it shall be done. Of course. And when all are well and recovered, we will hold great ceremonies on Old Mountain and in this very atrium, to heal the land, and thank God for our deliverance, and repair all our links to the world of the spirits. And the ones who will conduct those ceremonies will be all those great and wise men and women whom the Shayk sought to destroy. The fool! Perhaps it was because he was a foreigner that he thought my country would fall at his wicked feet.”
Husam replied, “It is not his foreign blood but his nature, Sire, which matters in the case of Rasheed al-Jabal. Evil calls to evil, wherever in the world it is found, and he found enough free men here happy enough to carry out his tasks, as well as the enslaved afreet. Shayk Rasheed al-Jabal always thought himself so clever, Sire. And he was a master deceiver and a clever trickster indeed. He may well have spun his last deception and played his last trick, but still, he’s not the only one of his kind.”
Dewi looked quickly at him. There had been an uncertainty in his voice that chilled her momentarily. Surely no one could escape from Iblis? Surely Jehannem was not a place that had an exit? Of course, there were others—others who had heard him, who had become emmeshed in his seductive lies, and who were now at large. Nothing compared to the Shayk, but their power could grow, if they were not found and stopped.
“Did you know him before?” the Sultan said.
Husam nodded. “Not long after your father the Sultan employed me, there was talk of this man, who had recently arrived in Jayangan. In my home country of Al Aksara, he had stirred up a great deal of trouble; he was known as a dangerous manipulator and deceiver, though he had always managed to avoid justice. I advised your father of his true nature and that he should get rid of him. Indeed, I thought it best to imprison or execute him, but your father was as kind as yourself and thought it wrong not to give a man a chance. After all, he said, no witnesses had dared to implicate Rasheed al-Jabal, and his crimes had been committed in a far-off country long ago. I said the tiger never changes his stripes, but of course I accepted your father’s ruling, Sire. Besides, al-Jabal was banished, and we were well rid of him for a time. I had not heard he had come back.”
“Oh,” said the Sultan, looking rather embarassed. “My father never said why the man was banished, and so when my son petitioned me to—”
“Yes,” said Husam. “Your father, Sire, had wanted to give the man a chance. Fair enough. Most people deserve a chance. But some—well, they don’t. You can’t believe a word they say.”
The Sultan sighed. “I wish I had known this, Husam. Well! Now it is done. And it is time we should go.” Briskly, he started up the stairs.
“We cannot leave Sadik here,” said Adi. “We will need to carry him out into the sunlight.”
“Of course,” said Husam and Dewi, and together, the three of them carried Sadik’s body gently between them, making their way up the stone staircase, their steps heavy and respectful.
When they got to the top of the stairs, they stepped into a transfigured garden. New flowers and leaves had sprouted on every tree and bush, and from them came the murmur of many voices. Dewi, looking down the path toward the garden wall, saw, in the blink of an eye, forms made of twilight and shadow and patches of sun, faces she recognized: a tall green woman; a lovely old Radenteng lady with an agelessly beautiful face; a silver-haired woman with stormy dark eyes; a yellow-eyed tiger-man with a white turban; and many, many more. But no flame-haired Jinn, no Kareen Amar. The faces were all smiling. She looked at them, then at Adi and Husam, and a mixture of tears and joy came welling up into her throat. She could not know yet if the price so many had paid would not be in vain, if evil had been dealt a decisive blow, and if the forces of dharma, of good, had now fully regained the upper hand. All she knew for sure was that her world had changed, both for good and for ill, and nothing would turn the clock back. She had passed from childhood into knowledge—knowledge of things she had never even imagined before, not in her sweetest dream or worst nightmare. She would have to pass on that knowledge, not just to her family, or even her country, but in all places in the world where it might be needed.
She looked across at Adi. The young Nashranee’s eyes were heavy lidded with grief. Adi, too, was no longer the same; his whole life had been turned off its course. What it would turn into, what her own life would turn into, she had no real idea, but she knew that fear and hope, sorrow and happiness, lay ahead. And friendship, deep and strong, with Adi and Husam. Only of that could she be sure.
They were nearly at the gate when into the solemn, golden stillness came a long blast on a car horn, then the thump thump thump of a car radio. And in the gateway appeared a big, beautiful dark-red car, which trundled sedately into the garden and right up to the mourners, while all the plants bent back to let it pass.
A familiar face was peering anxiously through the driver’s windshield—a red-and-white, blotchy face with red hair a little the worse for wear, scorched and scraped bald in places, but still bright as flame. When Kareen Amar saw them, she beamed, waved, and wound the side window all the way down. The haunting strains of “Beloved” wafted softly through into the evening garden, surrounding Sadik’s body, his friends, and the green beauty around them with the joy and sadness, the passing and the immortality, of love itself.