The Fractal Prince

21 TAWADDUD AND THE AXOLOTL

Sumanguru finishes. He looks at Kafur quietly. His eyes burn in the eyeslits of his mask.

‘Well?’ Tawaddud says. ‘Had you heard it before?’

‘I accept the payment,’ Kafur says. ‘Although I would very much like to hear the ending. Perhaps Lord Scarface has saved it for later?’

‘True stories do not always end,’ Sumanguru says.

‘Truly spoken.’ Kafur stands up. ‘Tawaddud, dear child, what you ask is not easy. Zaybak the Axolotl has gone to the desert, and is far from athar’s reach. To entwine you need athar, to carry thoughts, to bind minds together. But old Kafur is crafty, Kafur is wise, he knows how to ride the wildcode wind.’ He laughs softly.

‘What do you mean?’ Tawaddud asks.

‘There are many things I did not teach little Tawaddud. If you want your voice to carry to the desert, you have to let the desert come to you.’

Images of Alile flash in Tawaddud’s eyes. ‘Is that what you have done?’

‘Kafur has drunk the potent wine of stories too deep, it’s true. But it is the desert where stories come from, and that is where you will have to go to find an end to yours.’

‘What is he talking about?’ Sumanguru whispers.

‘If I want to reach the Axolotl, I need to expose myself to wildcode,’ Tawaddud says.

The Sobornost gogol touches her shoulder. ‘He’s mad. Let’s get out of here. We will find another way.’

‘I have bottled desert jinni who eat wildcode,’ Tawaddud says slowly, touching her doctor’s bag. ‘I have used them to treat Banu Sasan. It could work if we do it quickly. And the Seals in my body are strong, my father made them. It could work.’

Sumanguru’s eyes widen. ‘But—’

‘It’s my decision.’ She steps forward. ‘I’ll do it,’ she tells Kafur.

The Master of the Palace of Stories bows to her. ‘Old Kafur is glad,’ he says, ‘that somewhere, under the mask of the daughter of the Gomelez, you are still his Tawaddud.’

Deep down in the guts of the Palace, there is a room full of coffins. They are Sealed, emblazoned with the golden spirals and twists that shine brightly against the dark stone.

Laboriously, Kafur opens the lid of one of them. An athar interface flashes into being above it. Inside is a tank shaped like a human body, filled with water, and a breathing apparatus with a black tube like an umbilical.

‘You need silence to listen,’ he says.

She puts down her bag and takes out three bottles. ‘First this one, then this, then this,’ she tells Sumanguru. She makes him repeat the Names he must speak.

‘This is crazy,’ he says. ‘You don’t have to do this. It’s black magic. Five minutes, and I’ll get you out. I can take you to the Station, we can clean you up—’

Tawaddud holds up the Sobornost mind-trap. ‘You have your magic, Lord Sumanguru, and I have mine.’ She removes her robe and her mutalibun bodystocking and lets them fall to the ground. The chill radiating from the coffins makes her bare skin crawl, and she shivers.

Kafur takes out a clear glass bottle, filled with sand.

‘Do it,’ Tawaddud says.

Kafur opens the bottle and pours the contents over Tawaddud. The sand runs over her skin like a caress. As it touches her, it starts to glow. It feels like the fog-hands in her garden, long ago.

She lies down in the coffin and presses the breathing mask against her face. In an instant, the water becomes the same temperature as her body. Then the lid slams shut, and Tawaddud is alone with the desert.

At first, she feels heavy and weightless at the same time, floating in silence. After a while, the voices start: a thousand whispers, in languages she does not understand, dry and soft like rustling leaves. Is this what Abu talked about? The voices of the desert.

Then the lights come. It is like looking at the other Sirr Abu showed her, except she sees the whole world. She is floating in the heart of a galaxy, a vast spiderweb of light, bright pinpoints joined with threads that loop and spiral and intertwine.

Zaybak, she whispers. Come to me.

Her voice joins the muttering chorus around her, and her words are repeated, an echo of an echo of an echo in the bright net.

Something responds, and her heart jumps. Tendrils of light snake out and curl around her. She looks up and there is a glowing being floating above her, as if in an ocean, a kraken of light, regarding her with curious childlike eyes. One of its tentacles brushes her, briefly, and she feels an echo of terrible longing. Then it is gone, speeding into the gaps of the network like a wisp of smoke.

Zaybak, where are you? she calls again.

Something else answers, this time. A shoal of elongated things, snake-like, moving like whips, without eyes but with sharp, sharp teeth. They twine around her limbs, cold and slippery and tight. Wild jinni who smell a body. She shouts a Secret Name, but it has no power here; they scatter from her but keep circling, waiting.

Zaybak!

There are more jinni, things that look like chains and tori and strange loops that swallow themselves, thick around her, hungry for embodiment, coming closer with each circuit. She tries to feel her body, tries to find the lid of the coffin so she can call to Kafur and Sumanguru and get out. But she has no voice, no flesh.

A wind comes, scattering the desert things, blowing through her and into her and around her, a touch and a kiss and a voice at the same time, and suddenly she remembers steam rising from the tombs in the City of the Dead, after the rain.

The Axolotl.

Tawaddud.

I missed you.

I missed being you.

A pause.

Why are you here?

Alile. Show me why.

Regret. Shame.

Show me.

A journey through the desert, searching for purpose. Story gardens where the Aun live. Bliss and emptiness.

Return to the city. Masrurs, they are called, jinn insurgents: they speak of protecting the desert. Their words ring true. They say they are swords of the Aun, whose task is to rid the desert of Sobornost machines. They promise redemption. Battles. Courage. Meaning.

A muhtasib comes. He claims things are changing. Sirr will give names to Sobornost machines, so the Aun do not destroy them. There will be no more desert. No more stories. He says we can stop it. He will give the betrayers of Sirr to us, if we give him our stories.

So that’s why Alile died.

She did not die! If you know the secret, the desert does not kill. Whisper them the secret of the flower prince, and you take them with you to the desert. They become a story, like us, like the Aun, live for ever inside the wildcode. She is here, Tawaddud. Sirr itself could be here. Without the Sobornost. You could be here. Come with me. Let me tell you the secret again. It is beautiful and bright. We can be together forever.

Forever. There was a story, told by a dark man. Two women on Venus: one did not want for ever.

We don’t have to be that story. We are Zaybak and Tawaddud.

A pause.

I am Tawaddud. I am a different story now. Isn’t that what you told me? You are too old and strong. You were right. I want to be Tawaddud.

I am sorry. It is so easy to be what we were.

I know. It’s all right. But tell me: what did the muhtasib ask for in return?

A Name. A Secret Name Alile knew.

Did you give it to him?

No. Shame. Betrayal. It was a trick. Alile told me. The muhtasib worked for the Sobornost. She knew him. I fled to the desert with her, to keep the secret safe.

Why would the Sobornost want to hurt Alile? She was going to give them what they wanted.

She knew the secret of the Jannah of the Cannon. They want it more than souls.

Who was it? Who was the muhtasib who betrayed you?

A serpent of fire.

Abu Nuwas.

The name bites deep. It almost pulls her out of the entwinement, but the vast soft thing around her that is the Axolotl draws her back in.

We have to tell them.

You are stronger now. You should come with me. What do you care of secrets and the Sobornost and Sirr? What have they ever given you?

Let me go.

Come with me!

I can’t. Don’t make me.

Come!

No, Tawaddud says, opens her eyes and closes the Sobornost mind-trap around the Axolotl.

The coffin lid opens. She comes out of the water like a newborn baby, coughing. Her eyes hurt. Her skin crawls and feels dry and hot. She touches her face: there are hard ridges under her skin. She lets out a small sob.

Warm hands touch her shoulders. A voice whispers Secret Names. The wildcode vision is still with her, and suddenly her skin shimmers with tiny jinni, hungry triangles eating wildcode. Their touch is like cool water, poured all over her. Then they cover her head, and the chill makes her gasp. But it only lasts for a moment. She turns to look at her doctor—

—and sees a fiery serpent.

Abu Nuwas smiles sadly. He stands in the coffin room, holding a barakah gun, flanked by hulking jinn thought-forms, clouds of spiky black smoke. Sumanguru struggles in their grip. Next to him is Rumzan the Repentant, spindly hands crossed in front of a faceless face.

‘Thank you,’ he says, picking up the Sobornost device floating in the coffin. ‘A mind-trap? I didn’t think you would go so far, Tawaddud. But your efforts are very much appreciated. I have been looking for this fellow for a long time.’

‘You bastard,’ Tawaddud hisses. ‘Where is Kafur?’ She stands up, gritting her teeth against the chill. ‘This is his Palace. He is not going to let you get away with this.’

A wet cough. Kafur drapes a robe around Tawaddud’s shoulders. She recoils from his touch.

‘I’m very sorry, little Tawaddud. Old Kafur was offered a better price. And Lord Nuwas has always been a very good customer.’

‘Come along now,’ Abu says. ‘The night is young. And I did promise you a dinner at my palace, did I not?’