скачать книгу бесплатно
Rafik found his voice. “My father said that you could help me—that you could cure me.” He slipped his hand from his pocket again and waved it in the air.
“Is that what you were told?” Khan asked, glancing sideways at Simon and Fahid. “That I could cure you?”
“Well? Can you, or can’t you?” Rafik asked boldly but added in a softer tone, “I really want to go home. Please …”
Khan shook his head, a thin, sad smile touching his lips. He took his time fetching and relighting the pipe and placing it in his mouth again. The room remained quiet. After several puffs of smoke he said, “I can help you, Rafik, son of Sadre, and I know a few people who could help you even more. But I cannot cure you from this … condition of yours. No one can.”
“We just want him to be safe,” Fahid said, “to be—” he hesitated, glancing at his younger brother “—with his own kind.”
“Is that what you want?” Khan got up and paced the room slowly.
The man near the door kept looking at Khan, as if waiting for some kind of a signal.
“How much, then?” asked Khan.
“How much what?” asked Simon.
Fahid jumped to his feet. “My father told me what he did for you,” he said angrily, “and you yourself admitted that you owe a blood debt to my family. Yet you ask us to pay you for doing a decent thing. You are no friend of ours!”
“Fahid,” Simon cautioned, as the man at the door began moving forward with obvious intent and was stopped only by a small hand gesture from Khan.
Khan turned his back to Fahid and walked to a cabinet. He opened the glass doors and came back to the table holding a bottle in one hand and three beautifully crafted small glass cups in the other. Khan carefully poured dark liquid from the bottle into the small cups and brought them to Simon and Fahid.
Fahid refused his glass, shaking his head, but their uncle accepted it, holding it tentatively in his hand. Khan bent down and picked up his own glass.
“You misunderstood me, Fahid,” Khan said. “When I asked ‘how much,’ I meant it as ‘How much do you want for the boy?’”
There was a stunned silence in the room.
Simon broke it with an almost inaudible “What do you mean?”
“I am no expert, but the markings on the boy’s hand indicate that he is a—” he paused, then he shrugged and continued “—rare breed … and a very coveted one. All of the tattooed have powers. Some are stronger, some are quicker, but, if I am right, none of them can do what this boy could.”
He turned to Rafik. “Do you have any other tattoos on your body?”
Rafik shook his head.
“Are you sure? I’ll check later, you know.”
“No, only on my fingers. My father chopped them off with an ax but they grew back and—”
“Shut up, Rafik,” Fahid snapped.
Khan scratched his chin. “Interesting.” He turned back to Fahid, measuring every word. “If what your brother says is true, he is worth hard coin. If it was not for my debt to your family, I would have let you walk out of here empty-handed and drink many toasts to your stupidity.”
“We just want to get him to somewhere safe,” Fahid said again, fidgeting nervously.
“Oh, he will be very safe, your little brother, I can vouch for that, and well provided for, and educated as well, in all manners of fields. Now about his price …”
“We do not want your coin, only your word of promise,” Fahid hissed before Simon could say anything else.
“I’ll tell you what.” Khan picked up a glass cup again and presented it to Fahid. “I will give you my solemn oath that I’ll take care of your brother if you drink with me.”
Fahid looked at the small glass for what seemed to be an eternity. Rafik was sure his devout brother would refuse to sin, but eventually Fahid reached out and accepted the glass.
“In one go,” said Khan, smiling.
“May God and the Prophet Reborn forgive me,” Fahid murmured, and all three drank at once.
Rafik guessed his brother was too nervous and drank the water the wrong way because he became very red and began coughing and wheezing. Simon seemed to be fine, though. Khan and the other man laughed unpleasantly and suddenly there was a pistol in Khan’s hand. Rafik saw his uncle’s face turn white. Fahid tried to react but could only cough and wheeze. Rafik wanted to move, shout something, distract Khan, kick his legs from under him, or beg for mercy, but it was as if his legs were made of stone.
He could only gape in horror as Khan grasped his brother with one hand and pushed the gun to Fahid’s forehead with the other.
“I am not normally accused of such things as honesty,” he said calmly. “One does not stay in business with such a reputation. You, on the other hand, are a fool. A brave fool, perhaps, but a fool nonetheless, and in this town, you’d be a dead fool before the night is out. I should just kill you here and now and save you the trouble of growing up just to be killed by people who outsmart you.” Khan waved the pistol in front of Fahid’s bulging eyes. “But … I owe your father my life, and so instead I’ll give you this.” He lowered the weapon, turned it expertly in his hand and shoved it, butt first, into Fahid’s trembling hands.
“Standard ammo, seven in a clip,” he said as he released the young man and patted his shoulder paternally. “I’ll give you some extra ammunition before you go, say a hundred bullets? Do we have a deal?”
Fahid gulped, and Khan clapped his hands. “What shall I do with you, boy? Driving such a hard bargain, I tell you what, I’ll throw in a bag of black linen, and a barrel of my best mead! Yes, I know you are not allowed to drink, but you could trade it with someone who does. Once someone drinks my mead he never wants to drink anything else, so make sure you mention where it came from. What say you? Do we have a deal?”
Fahid looked at the gun in his hand, still red in the face, and nodded without a word.
“Good.” Khan landed a heavy slap on Fahid’s shoulder and turned to Simon. “We are done here. Tell your brother I honoured my debt, but don’t spread any tales. If people knew I gave you an honest trade my reputation in this town would be ruined.” He laughed again and did not wait for Simon to answer. “Have you met Dominique yet? She’ll take care of you lads. Go downstairs and get some food. The kitchen is still open.” He clapped his hands again and smiled to himself. “It’s always open here.”
They shuffled out of the room and went downstairs, where they ate the greasiest meal Rafik had ever tasted. It was glorious and disgusting at the same time, but he couldn’t eat much because he was fighting waves of rising panic. Again and again he heard Khan’s words in his mind: “I cannot cure you. No one can.”
He was not going home.
17 (#ulink_4da3ba5a-f01c-51ef-bf80-5e4160d64d12)
Rafik watched as the symbols on his fingers stretched and grew in front of his eyes, until he fell into them, enveloped by darkness. For a brief moment, he lay suspended in warm nothingness, but soon he heard soft, distant voices whispering. He could not make out what they were saying, but it didn’t bother him. He was comfortable, warm, and safe. The dots of light, which appeared before him in the darkness, drew his attention.
They grew into symbols, eventually becoming large enough for him to see their shapes clearly. Many reminded Rafik of his own tattoos, featuring crescent moons and dots, while others were completely different. He recognised numbers on a few symbols while others were completely alien. Once the wall of symbols eclipsed his horizon Rafik stopped falling and lay suspended, watching, mesmerized. It reminded him of an army of ants he and Eithan once discovered when digging in the garden of his home. The symbols kept moving next to and over each other, shuffling positions, rising and falling, disappearing as other symbols moved to the fore and reappeared elsewhere.
Rafik couldn’t take his eyes off the symbols. He felt a strong desire to touch them, to move them around, and a growing, inexplicable urge to organize them into a pattern. He somehow knew that this symbol should stand next to that one and the next one should go there.
He heard voices again, up above him, from far away.
“Don’t wake him up.”
“We can’t just leave him here like this.”
“It won’t make it any easier. Look at him, he is now at peace.”
A deeper voice said, “You shouldn’t have given him the spiked goat milk. We should have had the chance to say good-bye.”
“It is for the best—”
A more familiar voice interjected angrily, “If you ever hurt him, I hope I never find out about it, because I will kill you.”
“There aren’t many who have threatened me and are still breathing, but I assure you I have no intentions of hur—”
Rafik drew away from the voices; they were spoken from such a distance they could have been from a different world. Perhaps the voices were a dream, and the symbols before him were the only reality. Besides, he’d just realised something very exciting: there was a pattern hidden among the symbols. You only had to stop that one and move this one and cancel this line here. Rafik watched his hand stretch and extend to an impossible length, towards the wall of moving symbols. He couldn’t see his own fingers, but he was not afraid.
This is what is supposed to happen, this is how it should feel.
His hand plunged into the symbols, and Rafik discovered he could now stop some of them in their tracks. He exposed part of the pattern by holding down specific symbols with his fingers, but whenever he would take hold of one symbol the others began moving again, and since the symbols all had different patterns of movement he kept losing the pattern. Only after what seemed to be an eternity, Rafik discovered the symbols would stay in their places if he concentrated just enough on keeping them where he wanted them. It took him a while longer to figure out how to maintain control over several symbols at once. The more he concentrated, the better his control over a growing number of symbols became. He managed two symbols with relative ease, then three, then five, but soon after he realised it was fruitless. There were thousands of moving symbols in front of him, and he could stop only several at once. Rafik withdrew his hand, feeling disappointed. He could sense the pattern, but he could not control a large enough amount of symbols to reveal it. Feeling suddenly very tired, Rafik floated slowly upwards, away from the wall of symbols and towards the light above him.
The growl of a heavy engine and a horrendous blast from a passing truck’s horn startled Rafik from a very deep sleep. He found himself lying on a mat in a small room, naked under a thin linen sheet. His clothes were neatly folded on a sheepskin cushion, which matched the pillow under his head. At a glance, he saw several mats spread out evenly in the room, but they were unoccupied. Rafik’s heart lurched in his chest as he realised his brother and uncle were not with him. The only other person in the room was the scary-looking man who guarded Khan before and was now sitting on a stool with his back resting up against the wall. Upon seeing Rafik sit up the man became fully alert, got up from the stool, and shoved the pistol he was cleaning into his belt. “Finally,” he said, “I tried to wake you several times but you were out like a burned fuse.”
“Where are my brother and my uncle?” Rafik asked, his heart filled with dread.
“They went out to shop for stuff, they’ll be back soon,” the man said, but something in his eyes told Rafik he was lying.
“I want to see them.” Rafik jumped up and started to put on his clothes. He had to stop himself from bursting into tears. He remembered pleading with his brother to take him home with them, but Fahid kept promising they would come back for him when he was cured. But there was no cure. That was what Khan had said. Rafik didn’t remember who gave him the cup of sweetened goat milk, but his last memory was quenching his thirst with it. Now his uncle and brother were gone.
He had to run after them; they had to take him home. There was no cure, so there was no need for him to stay here with the man who puffed smoke from his mouth and drank cursed water and threatened his brother with a pistol. He would keep his hand in his pocket the whole time, he would never bring it out, he’d promise them. Perhaps his father could chop his fingers off again—maybe they wouldn’t grow back this time.
“You’re supposed to wait here,” the guard said. “Khan will be here soon.”
Rafik bolted towards the door.
“Hey, hey, hey!” The guard moved to intercept him with catlike speed, and he caught Rafik’s arm. But he underestimated Rafik, who was fed by the sheer terror of abandonment. The boy lashed out with all his might at the guard’s groin. The man swore in a surprised, tightly choked voice and folded over, releasing his grip on Rafik as he toppled over onto the stool behind him.
Rafik made it through the door and down a short corridor when Khan appeared in front of him, grabbed him with both hands, and dragged him kicking and screaming back to the room. The guard was still there and was not looking happy, but Khan didn’t pay him any attention. He plonked Rafik firmly on a stool, pulled over a second one using his leg, and sat himself down, letting out a heavy sigh.
“Look at me, boy,” he demanded.
“I want my brother, I want my uncle,” Rafik wailed.
Khan grabbed Rafik’s chin roughly, “I said look at me. Now tell me, how old are you?” Khan’s eyes were almost night-dark and his breath stank.
“I’m twelve.” Rafik’s voice trembled, “Where are—”
Khan leaned forward and dug bony fingers into Rafik’s cheeks. “Shut up and listen,” he said. “When I was your age I killed my old man. Do you believe me? I see in your eyes that you do. Good, now pay attention: I’m a bad guy, I am the bad guy, do you understand what I’m saying? I’m the kind of man your mummy warned you about, and the good news is that I’m on your side. I’m protecting you now, because I owe your father a favour and I promised your idiot brother that I’d take care of you.” Khan released his grip and sat up, still looking at him intently. “Now, as I said, I’m a nasty, bad man, and I won’t think twice about breaking my word, so don’t do anything that will convince me not to be on your side, like trying to run away, do you understand? And stop crying. I have no use for tears.”
“But where are my—”
“They’re gone. They left you here with me and ran back to the backwards village you were unlucky enough to be born in. They left you because—and listen to me well and stop crying, because this is important—they left you because they do not want you anymore. Because if they brought you back home you would be hanged and quartered and burned, and so would they. They abandoned you here with me, and now I need to take care of you. From this day on I am your father, and your mother, and uncle and brother and whatever other extended family you might be stupid enough to miss, Rafik. Those fools are so backwards they do not realise what a blessing you are. You may not believe it now, but one day you will look at this as the happiest moment of your life. You can never go back to your village, ever. I can see you don’t want to believe me, and perhaps you are already thinking about running back to the mud huts and the bearded fanatics there. But I’m going to stop you, not only because you wouldn’t last two strides in this town before a big, fat trucker turned you into his love doll, but because when I find you—and have no doubt that I will find you—I will make you beg for the trucker. Understood?”
Rafik did not know what a love doll was, or what a fat trucker would do to him, but he understood the threatening tone clearly. He nodded, too afraid to speak, but Khan seemed satisfied.
“On the bright side, if we play our cards right, you and I are going to be rich and live a nice, comfortable life. Do as I say, and I’m going to take care of you, understand? Nod if you can’t talk. Good. Now do you want some food? You need some food in you. Martinn here will bring you some food, and you will eat it all and you will not leave this room unless I give you permission to do so, are we clear?”
“I want to go to the bathroom, and I want to wash,” Rafik said suddenly, realising how many days it had been since his skin last felt fresh water.
“The shit shed is outside. Martinn will take you there. Be careful not to fall in. I’ll bring up a basin and some soap. If you’re good I’ll take you to the bathhouse in a couple of days.”
Rafik was taken to the shed outside, which was a hole in the ground boxed in by thin wooden planks. It was there that he discovered what had been left in the inside pocket of his tunic. It was the knife his brother had taken as a trophy from one of the bandits he’d killed. The sharp blade sprang in and out of its sheath with the pressing of a button. Rafik always envied Fahid for owning such a blade. He’d even stolen it once and played with it all afternoon, earning a hiding from his brother when he was discovered. Now he held the weapon in his hand and knew he would never see Fahid again.
But with this realisation, a certain calmness washed over him. This was the will of the Prophet Reborn. He was on an adventure, and in his hand he held a knife. When he came out of the shack the knife was hidden again.
Martinn gave Rafik permission to go and wash his hands and face in the basin rooms. Rafik opened one of the doors only to find the biggest man he ever saw, with a woman half his size crushed between him and the wall, her legs wrapped around the man’s mighty waist. They were doing something Rafik had only ever heard about in whispers. He did not see much because the woman, in a feat of impressive flexibility, leaned over and slammed the door in his face, muttering, “See something you want, boy?”
Rafik completely forgot about washing himself as he ran back to his room, knelt down on his knees on the sticky floor, clasped his hands before him, closed his eyes, and prayed to the Prophet Reborn with all his might.
18 (#ulink_5a0d3fad-1d16-5e35-907b-30e5ac46c1ae)
Rafik was not a stranger to routine. His life in the village was defined by a tight schedule made up of daily chores, prayers, school, housework, and designated playtime. His new life meant a new routine, filled with chores and errands from before sunrise until way after sundown. There was no playtime, nor did he have anyone to play with. The only part of his old life he stuck to with vigilance was his regimen of daily prayers.
After a while he lost count of the days. Khan came and went, sometimes for hours and sometimes for days, promising Rafik he was “looking for a good contact.” He didn’t come through with the promise to take Rafik to the bathhouse but Rafik managed with what he had; a bucket and lukewarm water.
Eventually even Martinn got bored guarding the boy and let him have the freedom of the place. Half a day later Rafik was already serving cursed water to customers, cleaning tables, and even collecting coins for Dominique, the heavyset woman who kept the rowdy truckers in order with a sharp word and occasionally a hearty slap. She was the fattest lady he had ever seen, but she displayed the pink flesh of her middle for all to see without shame. From the first moment they met, Dominique took a shine to Rafik and, despite working him constantly, she made sure he ate, sent him to sleep early, even washed and dried his clothes, and made sure he changed the bandages on his hand every day. After Rafik complained about the bandages, Dominique knitted a colourful glove to cover his tattooed hand, and made sure the boy wore it at all times. Rafik believed she was married to Khan, because she shared his bed at night and they fought constantly.
Truckers were a rough bunch, but mostly they treated Rafik well, calling him a “mutt” and “pup” and sometimes giving him what Dominique called “a lousy tip” in order to impress their women. Very soon he discovered the basement, where rows of wooden barrels were stacked. “This is how we make the drink we sell upstairs,” Dominique answered when he asked what they were.
“It’s an art form, kid, and I’m the artist. Make it the wrong way and people will go blind or die. Make it the right way and they will part with all their metal to get their hands on my products. And I ain’t talking about these.” She hefted at her huge breasts with both hands and laughed when Rafik blushed purple.
Rafik had the sense not to point out that Dominique herself was drinking at least as much as the customers. She was nice to him, for the most part, when she wasn’t shouting or cursing or cuffing him over the head. She was as close to his mother as he could get, so he kept quiet and tried to be as helpful as possible.
Mornings were the hardest. He missed home terribly, and many times he thought of running, yet he dared not, remembering Khan’s words. He would not last long alone in the city, and even if he somehow made it back, in his heart he knew what it would mean: his dad, the ax, the stones … he was cursed, he had been sent away by his own family and shunned by his friends. They did not want him anymore. When he thought about that, tears would fill his eyes, and he would find a dark corner and choke his misery into his stained sleeves.
His dreams on the other hand, were a sharp contrast to his harsh reality. They were filled with images of twinkling, ever-changing symbols. He was now able to hold a dozen of them at once, still a fraction of the control he knew he needed to see the hidden patterns. Even when awake, Rafik was seeing symbols and patterns everywhere he turned; they were in the circles of the wheels on the trucks he saw through the window, in the different types of cups in the area downstairs called the bar, and even in the shapes of buttons sewed onto the clothes the truckers wore. He looked at everything differently, watching shapes, categorizing them, lining them up in his mind, joining them together, manipulating them, and exploring possibilities. He didn’t know why he was doing it, but it soothed him and kept his tears at bay, most of the time.
After what seemed to Rafik like an eternity, but was probably only a month, he was ordered to put on fresh clothes, and taken on a trip around Newport by Khan and Martinn. It was an even more fascinating place the second time around, because now he saw shapes and patterns everywhere he looked. Many parts of the city were in ruins, but some buildings were so high they had more stories than Rafik could count. When they climbed over hills made of broken stones, Martinn hoisted Rafik on his shoulders, the way Rafik’s father used to do when he was back home. It made him happy and sad at the same time, and Rafik was glad when they reached the top of the hill and Martinn let him down. Soon, they passed a large metal tower, which dwarfed the guard tower in his village ten times over. Engraved on one side of the tower was a symbol that was exactly like one that Rafik remembered from his dreams; five circles intertwined, with three dots in the centre. It was the first time he saw such a symbol while he was awake, and the realisation filled him with excitement.
“What is that?” he pointed. “That symbol over there?”
“This?” Khan said, squinting. “I don’t know what it means; it’s a symbol in the Tarakan language.”
“What is Tarakan?” Rafik asked. He kept hearing this word. Even the music in the bar was coming out of a small, yet surprisingly loud, Tarakan device.
“You mean you don’t know about the Tarkanians?” Khan looked genuinely surprised.
“Arse rusts, that’s what they were,” muttered Martinn, but Khan ignored him. “They were an evil race who used to live here but now they’re gone.”
“What happened to them?”
“Dead,” Martinn replied, “and good riddance.” He spat on the ground in the direction of the tower.
“We had a war with them,” said Khan, “and before they lost, they caused the Catastrophe.”
“Why did we fight them?”
“Because the Tarkanians enslaved humans, made us do all their work.”
“Like Dominique makes me do stuff?” asked Rafik, sensing the comment would be funny. It worked—both men laughed, and Khan ruffled Rafik’s growing hair. “The woman asks nicely, my boy. You are just wise enough to obey all her requests. I should learn from you. But no, the rumors were that the Tarkanians used the human slaves’ bodies for their weird experiments and even food.”
Rafik shuddered.
