The Jinn by pandemonium_213

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The Jinn

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He cuffed the boy hard, knocking him backward onto his bony arse.

“Do not lie to me!”

The child, a bastard of one of the camel drivers, rubbed his cheek, his brown eyes wide and honest, not shifty like the little thief’s usually were.

“I do not lie, Sharif. I saw it fall! I saw it change!”

The man aimed a kick at the boy who ducked and scuttled away between the legs of the camels. He considered what the little bastard had told him.

An injured falcon had plummeted from the clear blue sky. Such birds were prized in Sharif’s tribe, so the boy thought to rescue it. When he clambered over the rocks, he found not the bird, but a woman, battered and barely alive, lying on the sand among the rocks. Coincidence, thought Sharif, although the cold spear of fright jabbed his spine during the heat of the day. He sent a prayer to mighty Baal, the god of winds and thunder, asking for protection from what this uncanny event might portend.

Sharif spat. They had wasted enough time. He squinted toward the western horizon, anxious that they might be followed. He climbed over the rocks to where his wives and concubines huddled around the unconscious woman, her thin body now covered with a rumpled black robe. His first and second wives propped her between them and lifted her, her feet dragging on the ground. The woman’s dark hair, coated with dust, fell over her face. He strode over to them. He grabbed the strange woman’s hair in his fist and yanked back her lolling head.

Beneath layers of dirt were smooth pallid skin and impossibly even features with a patrician nose and parted lips now bloodied but still sensual. His cock twitched beneath his robes. Perhaps he could add another concubine to his harem. His first wife’s knowing hazel eyes narrowed above her veil.

With his grip tight on the northern woman’s hair, he stroked her cheek with his other hand and let his fingers trail down her slender neck, working through the cloth in search of her breasts.

The woman’s eyes flew open. He almost shrieked, but caught the scream before it erupted. He stumbled back as if he had been struck.

Star-fire burned in her grey eyes.

“A jinn! She is a demon!” He pulled out his knife. A leathery hand stayed him. He twisted around to see the wizened face of the priestess of Asherah.

“If you kill her,” the ancient one hissed, “You will bring terrible misfortune to our people, and when we can ill afford it. Not all jinn are evil. Many bring good luck. Perhaps she is one of those.”

He re-sheathed his knife, and the jinn closed her terrifying but vacant eyes. Her head sagged again. They placed her on the camel with his first wife who wrapped her arms around the jinn to keep her from falling.

Sharif pushed his tribe eastwards at a punishing pace. Behind him, the armies of the sorcerer-king were on the move, conscripting everyone and anyone, taking whatever they wanted whether horses, camels, gold or women, demanding allegiance to their mighty lord. Sharif was a fiercely proud man. He would not bow to the Zigûr as those fops in Umbar called the dark lord who threatened to consume them all. Neither would he submit to the fearsome Sea-lords from over the western ocean who came to these shores as conquerors, vying with the Zigûr for domination. The East frightened him less than the West so he led his tribe in that direction and into the deep desert.

They had traveled for three days when the jinn awoke from her stupor. His wives and concubines had scraped the filth from her skin using fragrant oils and combed the dust from her hair, which now gleamed black like polished ebony. They had dressed her in the gossamer blouse and voluminous pantaloons favored within the women's tent, but when she stepped outside, she wrapped black robes around her lean body, understanding their purpose against the heat of the desert.

Her body had healed before her mind. She did not speak with them for days, but remained withdrawn. Sharif wondered if she was in her right mind. She stared into nothing when she rode the camel in the daytime and sat with her arms wrapped around her knees before the campfire at night, rocking back and forth, murmuring to herself.

The old priestess shared Sharif's concern. She held that treating the jinn well might bring them good fortune. She reminded Sharif that he and his warriors were not jackals like those villains of Khand who abused their women. Sharif’s wives and concubines persisted in their kindness to the jinn: brushing her hair, offering a tidbit of food or sip of wine, or just sitting close to her, stroking her arm or back and crooning to her.

His tribeswomen’s efforts bore fruit. After a week, life came back to the jinn's disconcerting eyes. She listened intently, pointing at objects and people, and repeated the words spoken to her. In a matter of a few days, she could speak their language, her words halting and accented at first, but clearly understandable. That was nearly as peculiar as the rapid healing of her body, but nothing was strange as her eyes. Her face and body were that of a woman in her prime, but those star-fired eyes – they were ancient.

“Nimir,” she said, splaying her hand against her breast. So that is what they called her.

She made herself useful on their eastward journey: she helped the women with their cooking; she milked the goats; and she pitched the tents. When they camped at oases, she collected firewood and drew water from the deep wells. She sang their songs under the vault of the night sky, her voice resonant with the stones of the earth and the wind over sand.

One day, she watched his men polish and sharpen their curved swords. She stepped forward and asked for one. One of his men laughed.

"What does a woman know about a sword's upkeep?"

"Women are fit for this sword," said another man, grabbing his crotch.

All of the men guffawed, some of them looking at the jinn with hunger but with a little apprehension, too.  She remained still, her hands held out in offering.  Sharif, wary, touched the hilt of his own scimitar, nodded to his tribesman and watched him give her the sword.  She sat down on a rock and set to work, humming while she slid stone over steel with precise movements. She returned the sword to its owner.  

"Let's see how sharp your blade is now," she said and reached under her robes to tear away a piece of silk from her clothing. She held it aloft in the evening wind and released it. Sharif’s man sliced the fabric to fluttering shards.

“You have given my blade the magic of the jinn!” said the warrior, his eyes wide and amazement in his voice.

She bowed her head with modesty. “You might call it such, but I only know it as my craft.”

The other men no longer laughed or made rude gestures; all asked her to sharpen their weapons.

They continued to push toward the East under a sapphire sky and across scorching rocks and sand, its reflected light burning like the unforgiving sun overhead. At every opportunity, Sharif sent scouts ahead and scouts behind to discover what was before them and to assure himself they were not being followed. When they stopped to camp at the oases, she asked questions of him, her use of their tongue now fluent and her attitude no longer of subservience, but that of an equal.

“Where do you travel?” she asked.

“Away from the Zigûr. Anywhere away from the Zigûr and the Sea-lords. A great war comes. Many ships gather off the coasts,” he had told her.

She nodded, her strange eyes haunted. “Yes, I flee from the Zigûr, too. Anywhere away from the Zigûr.”

She worked and worked hard as they traveled in strange lands. They met other refugees, a few of whom could speak their tongue. These refugees were going east, too, fleeing the Zigûr and the Sea-lords. Some wandered aimlessly, but others had a destination in mind: they sought a mysterious country called Bharat. In this land, they said, powerful gods dwelt, gods who might protect them. But others warned that these gods had sealed their kingdom and that death surrounded it, but they had to try to seek sanctuary lest they be devoured by the Zigûr or made subjects to the rapacious Sea-lords.

When the tribe mingled with these strangers, Nimir veiled her face. Something changed in her when the other refugees were around: she curtained the star-fire in her eyes and blended in with the other women. But she listened to the tales from the other refugees and translated strange words into the tribe’s tongue.

She came to Sharif one night in his tent. She sat back on her heels in his presence but did not touch her forehead to the wool rug covering the ground. She never showed such deference to him, but she was respectful.

“We must go to Bharat,” she said.

“We cannot. The hidden kingdom is closed to us. We will be killed. We must take the trade routes to the Lands of Dawn. Maybe we will be safe there.”

“No, we must go to Bharat,” she repeated. “I will gain admittance to this land for you and your tribe. That will be my payment to you for saving my life.”

“That and gold,” he replied. The jinn were said to always know where gold was to be found.

“Perhaps,” she said. “They say there is great wealth in the hidden kingdom, but a man must work for it. There may be many opportunities for a man such as yourself.”

Sharif, a pragmatic and shrewd trader, nodded. Of late, they had seen the injured and maimed among the refugees and knew that soldiers loyal to the Zigûr must be near. Protection and wealth seemed like favorable options. He dismissed the rumors of death guarding the kingdom as a folk tale.

"Then we will seek the hidden kingdom." 

They traveled on, and then Nimir proved her worth in another way. Sharif had led the tribe through a wadi where brigands of Khand ambushed them. Taken by surprise, Sharif and his warriors shouted to one another, maneuvering to protect the flanks of the caravan and deal death to the intruders. The women closed ranks in small groups and retreated into the protected clefts of the wadi. They drew their knives, not only to defend themselves but also ready to cut their children’s and their own throats to avoid captivity. Nimir scrambled up the rocks, a small knife clasped in her hand.

In the confusion, three brigands broke away from the fray and urged their horses through the wadi, charging toward the narrow ravine where a clutch of women and children huddled, including the Sharif’s favorite concubine and her two little children. Supple as a panther, Nimir sprang down from the rocks onto the back of the leader’s horse and in one swift motion, slit the man’s throat. She pushed him off the horse but not before yanking his scimitar free of its scabbard. The horse obeyed her fluid commands in a foreign tongue. She slew the other riders before they could flee the ravine, slicing the scimitar through the spine of one and across the face and into the skull of the other.

Covered with gore, she remained with the women and children to guard them. There Sharif found her, the scimitar's steel now red and the blood of the dead men watering the desert. The remaining five brigands fled through the wadi, but the tribesmen on their swift horses pursued them with determined ferocity.  There must no mercy, for the location of Sharif’s tribe must not be revealed. None of the brigands left the wadi.

Strong Khandri horses were added to the tribe’s herd, and the camp was gay around the fires that night, the women ululating their song of praise to a thousand stars. Sharif looked upon Nimir with great respect. Her slender arms possessed more strength than he could have imagined. He had seen with his own eyes the results of her prowess with the blade and realized that when she had cared for his tribesmen’s weapons, she could have killed them at any time. But she had not.

“You are a warrior,” he said.

She shook her head. “I am no warrior. I am a craftsman. The women of my people are trained in the use of weapons so that we might wield them in dire need. Today was dire need.”

He gazed at her face lit by the firelight and framed by the black robes of his people. Bowing his proud hawk’s visage, he lowered his midnight eyes and touched his forehead with his right hand. He asked if she would become his third wife for she was strong, sharpened weapons well, cooked delicious goat stew, and his other wives liked her. She smiled and told him no, it was not fitting for her, one of the immortal jinn, to marry him, but that she would continue to serve him and his tribe during their journey.

“Think of me as your sister of the tribe,” she said, and so he did.

They left the desert behind them and traveled through a land of hills and streams. At last, they came to a port town tucked among hills that tumbled to the turquoise sea where many fishing boats and two ships were anchored. They made camp in the hills, and then Sharif and the jinn rode to the town where they found the captain of one of the ships: a black-haired man with a thin mustache so long that its ends trailed past his chin.

Nimir again listened carefully to the captain and used her knack of understanding foreign tongues to negotiate a fair price for transport of the tribe to the shores of Bharat. She bartered their passage in trade for the fine rugs woven by the tribeswomen, and for the camels, goats, and most of the horses except for the stallion and three mares, beautiful beasts as precious to Sharif as his children. They would travel to Bharat, too. The voyage over rough waters took days, and they were sick as dogs except for Nimir, who stood at the prow of the ship, day and night, not sleeping.

On the seventh day, the line of the shore could be seen. To the distant north, mountains marched, higher and higher. The ship pulled up against a stone quay where the tribe disembarked. The dockworkers were fearful when asked of the hidden kingdom and refused to give directions. This nearly resulted in an altercation among the dockhands and Sharif’s men. However, Nimir soothed flared tempers and persuaded them to be patient. She hiked her black robes up around her thighs and climbed like a monkey into a tall tree. After a while, she came back down.

“We should travel south,” she said.

Sharif wondered what she had seen, but Nimir was a jinn, and it was said that the jinn had many strange ways.

"Is this where the Hidden Kingdom lies?"

"I am sure of it.  I trust you to lead us there." And she bowed her head to him.

The tribe purchased oxen and wagons, loaded these with their goods, and trudged to the south for many days. They stopped in little villages along the way, but followed the road deeper and deeper into a great forest which was increasingly dense and where no villages were to be found. The trees became taller and the tangled darkness beneath them forbidding. Peculiar birdsong and calls of animals could be heard in the depths of the forest, including the roar of a large predator, but the tribe pressed on.

Then the road disappeared behind a wall of mist. Sharif led them toward the wall but was brought up short when apparitions of grimacing faces with bulging eyes and long teeth appeared in the fog; their sharp claws groped toward Sharif who had stepped to the very edge of the glamours. Cold voices hissed with menace when Sharif, his sword drawn in his right hand, reached forward with his left to touch the mist. The hissing became louder. But Nimir restrained him before his fingers reached the shifting wall.

“No! Do not touch it, Sharif. Wait. Wait and do no be afraid.”

Just as the velvet night of the jungle fell upon them, golden light glowed behind the veil of mist. Out of the fog rode six men, strong, brown-skinned, and fair of face, three of whom were mortal but three others whose star-flecked eyes revealed them to be jinn like Nimir. Their horses were well-shaped, bedecked with jeweled bridles and saddles of rich tooled leather, but Sharif thought his bowels would loosen from fright when he saw the seventh man — their leader — ride forward on a horse silver-white like the moon. The leader’s eyes blazed with fire in a beautiful mahogany-dark face. This was no jinn. This was a god. Sharif threw himself to the ground, as did all his tribe in supplication for their lives. All except Nimir who stood straight and tall when the god dismounted his horse and approached her.

Sharif lifted his eyes from the ground and watched them. At first, their speech was tentative as they tried to find words they could understand. Then they found a common tongue, one with rapid-fire words woven from long strings of syllables that glittered like swords and soared with the winds.

After the god and Nimir spoke for a time, she came over to where Sharif groveled like a dog on the ground. She bent down, took his hands and helped him rise and led him to the god. 

“Sharif, this is Prince Lakshman, brother of Lord Rama.” The Prince turned those piercing eyes on him, but seeing Sharif’s terror, he quenched their fire. Although his regal beauty remained, the god's eyes no longer incited fear.

“I have pleaded our case,” said Nimir. “The Lord and his Lady will allow us to enter the hidden kingdom. But there is a price.”

“Name it,” Sharif said, his pride returning.

The god looked down on him, his sculpted face arrogant and uncompromising. He spoke to Sharif with Nimir acting as translator.

“Once your people enter this realm, you will have Rama and Sita’s protection from the Zigûr and the Sea-lords, but you can never leave. You must remain in the kingdom.”

Sharif turned to look at his people and saw assent. He turned to the god and kept his voice firm and steady: “We accept the price.”

Prince Lakshman smiled then, and the haughtiness of gods fell away from his noble face.  He spoke, his voice now warm and mellifluous, and swept back his arm:

“Then welcome to Bharat.”

With that, the curtain of mist parted and the demons within retreated. The tribe marched into the deep forest, past the men on their horses. But the tribe’s eyes were fixed on Prince Lakshman, who led his horse, and Nimir who walked beside him. The mists closed behind them, and the tribe never looked back.

Sharif and his people adapted swiftly to life in the hidden kingdom. He found his skills as a trader and husbandman valued, and he profited in its marketplaces. His lean belly became round, and the craggy lines of his hawk’s face softened. His wives laughed and wrapped their now voluptuous bodies in long swathes of silk which the women of Bharat called saris. They bore him beautiful daughters and strong sons. It was different than their old life, richer in many ways, sad in others, but always strange where mortals lived side-by-side with the jinn and the gods.

He did not see Nimir as often for she lived in Lord Rama’s palace, but on the feast days she sat by Prince Lakshman’s side, and watched lithe maidens and youths dance to the music of drums and wooden flutes or listened to the poetry of sitars played by accomplished court musicians. Sharif saw her at the dedications to Saraswati, a goddess worshiped by the people of Bharat, when Nimir, alongside Lady Sita and the other women of the court, placed white lotuses on the holy river.

Prince Lakshman became fond of Nimir and they often rode together with the other lords and ladies of Rama's court, and explored the wonders of the vast kingdom. However, Nimir had a keen mind that was not satisfied with the idle life of palaces and temples so she asked for a place in the royal forge. There she learned from the smiths of Bharat how to craft the mystical steel that yielded blades with swirling patterns and took an edge so keen that it could cut a single hair lengthwise. She also made jewelry of gold and silver, rubies and sapphires, emeralds and topaz. The Prince named her "Priyamani" in recognition of her skill. Nimir was happy, it seemed to Sharif, but it was said that she often looked to the West from the tower of the palace where she dwelled.

When Sharif saw Nimir with Lakshman and the others of the court, many of whom were mortal but with the blood of the yakshas – as the jinn were named here – mingled within, he thought she appeared as one of the gods themselves. Yet on the occasions when she visited Sharif, his wives, his concubines and his many daughters, her aspect changed, and she became an ordinary woman. She would laugh and drink tea with the women and girls of his household, chewing betel to stain her lips red and squatting back on her heels to gossip while they stirred curries in pots over dung fires. Then she would return to Rama's court and become a goddess again.

She sought out Sharif during these visits like a dutiful daughter returning to her childhood home, but she spoke to him as if she were his son. In this way, he learned much about the doings of Lord Rama’s kingdom that he used to his advantage, fattening his coffers, enhancing his status, and taking care of his family and people.

As a result of their conversations, he learned that Nimir had come from the northwest of the world. She had been born in a great city of the jinn, but she had been taken captive in a war between her people and the Zigûr. The sorcerer-king had then imprisoned her in his tower from which there was no escape. There she had been tormented by the dark king’s servants but faced the worst terror in the form of one of the Zigur’s captains who sought to violate her, to break her at the last through a vile act. But she had escaped from the inescapable and had been found by Sharif and his wives. She was forever grateful to them.

“You sacrificed your freedom for me,” she said.

“What do you mean, Nimir? I am a free man,” Sharif said, sitting in his rattan chair on his bungalow’s veranda that overlooked the green hills, sipping the black tea that his tenants had harvested there.

“You will never walk the desert again. Nor will your tribe and their descendants. No one can know I am here in Bharat.”

Sharif considered her words. “I miss the sand’s song and the desert nights, yes, but I do not miss the burning sun and days of scant water. I am happy and prosperous, Nimir. I lead a good life here. I have you to thank for that.” He sipped his tea again, and then met Nimir’s pale grey eyes, their black fringe of long lashes accentuated by the kohl that ringed their edges.

“Do you fear the Zigûr so much?” he asked.

Her pleasant expression clouded, reminding him of the days after they had rescued her from the desert.

“Yes, Sharif. I fear him that much.”

The years passed. Even in this land guarded by immortals, his joints grew stiff, and weariness that once was fleeting became constant. He dreamed of the curtains of mist again and again, but they were not haunted by demons, but by beautiful faces and voices that beckoned him.

One day, Nimir visited him. She bent over, the white diamond that pierced the side of her nose glinting in the sunlight, and served him his supper placed on a banana leaf. She sat down by him on the mat while he ate. He scooped up a bit of rice and sambar with a piece of dosa, chewing the soft food thoughtfully. He swallowed and looked at Nimir, still as young in appearance as she had been sixty years ago when they had found her, naked on the desert sand.

“Nimir,” he said. “I wish to tell you something that has troubled me for many years."

"Please, Sri Manya. Tell me." She added another mound of rice and a dollop of spicy chutney to the banana leaf.

“On the day we found you, Yazûru said he saw an injured falcon tumble from the sky. Before it hit the ground, it lifted its wings to break its fall, and then the bird turned into a woman.” He swallowed, his throat dry. “You.”

She looked at him for a long time, and that terrible silver fire blazed in her eyes until she saw his fear. She smiled and became an ordinary woman again, soft and beautiful, just like one of his granddaughters. She gave him a cup of cool pomegranate juice.

“Such a silly tale, Sharif. You found me as I am.”

Then she stood, pressed her palms together and bowed to him in farewell. She tucked the rose silk of her sari around her slim waist, and with the long black braid of her hair swinging in counterpoint to her hips, the jinn walked back into the forest.

 

 

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Chapter End Notes

 

Asherah and Baal are a goddess and god, respectively, of the ancient Middle-east.

The “Zigûr” (Adûnaic for “wizard”) is one of Sauron’s titles used by Men.

“Nimir” is Adûnaic for “elf.”

Bharat - in our primary world, Bharata is the Sanskrit name for the Indian subcontinent; here, I use Bharat as the name of the mythical equivalent to ancient India.

"Sri Manya" - Sri is an honorific; Manya is Sanskrit for "chieftain, respectable man."

“Priyamani” is melded from the Sanskrit "priya" meaning “beloved” or “treasured” and “mani” meaning jewel – a direct translation of “Mélamírë.”

Many cultures have traditions of beings who are human but something more, often immortal and with abilities and talents that exceed those of mortal men.  In other words, these beings represent "certain aspects of Men and their talents and desires." (cf. JRRT, Letter 153, Letters of JRRT, ed. H. Carpenter). These have manifested in Northern European myths as the elves of Scandanavian mythology, and the Sidhe and the Tuatha de Danaan of the British Isles. The jinn or djinn of pre-Islamic tradition were similar beings and could be perilous or benign. The yakshas of Hindu, Jain and Buddhist tradition were nature-spirits. In the Pandë!verse, the Firstborn not only marched west from Cuivienen, but others migrated south and east, giving rise to the legends of the djinn/jinn and the yakshas.