Antiquity by Patrick Kapera

I am age. I am antiquity.

And soon, I will teach you all the truth of history.

Sometimes, memories aren't everything people claim they are. They can haunt you, lingering in the dark recesses of your mind until something happens again to bring them back. They can mock you, revealing all your worst flaws and most bitter mistakes. And they can hurt you, welling up within you until even dreams, wine, or the distracting touch of others cannot save you. You cannot run from memories, you cannot hide. They cling to you with the strength of your own black heart... My first memory as a child was of my father, and how he would hold me near and laugh at the way I would reach for his nose and eyes. I was always amazed by him. He seemed like a giant knight to me, gently sweeping away my tiny arms with immense hands while defending my freedom and future. He loved me dearly, I know. But I wonder what he would think of me now... What would he think of me if he knew what I have become? I'd like to think that he would understand the sacrifice I am about to make, not to protect my own freedom or future, but those of the entire world.

Listen, and I'll explain...

Twelve hours ago, I was Hakim Yamen, of the House of Yamen, a Merchant Guild of some repute in Medinaat al-Salaam. I had always been a fair man, and had acquired a reputation for trading equitably with all outsiders, regardless of politics or personal bias. But I had come to a conclusion of late ? that the gluttonous Senpet Empire had grown too entrenched in the city, buying as much as they could until even we, its founders, became nothing more than their property.

I remember thinking long and hard on the proper course of action, knowing what must be done but fearing the consequences. Should I organize an embargo, the result would likely be war. Reports indicated that the Senpet were desperate, easily enough so to resort to violence. Would the Khadi and city guard be enough to prevent the loss of everything? Would I be liberating our commerce only to enslave our people?

With these worries upon my mind, I prepared for bed, resigning myself to another restless night spent conjuring up noctural solutions that would never work. But before my mind drifted off into slumber, a mighty din drew me to the thin balcony adjoining my sleeping chambers. Outside, a man lay wounded and bleeding upon the stone lip, painfully reaching for the door handle. Through the portal's glass panes, I could make out that his skin was a dark cerulean blue, with bright tendrils of smoke trapped beneath the skin across his arms and face.

An Ashalan? Here, in my home? I wondered. Unlatching the door, I made to grasp his arm to steady him, but he recoiled at seeing me, his face a mask of shocked terror. "Don't touch me!" he screamed, and was already crawling over the bannister in a feeble attempt to escape.

"No, don't!" I called after him, sure that the fall would kill him. He hesitated, bringing himself to his full height of six-foot-four, and backed away from the railing, and for a moment I thought that my shallow rescue attempt had moved him. But a moment later, a cloud of translucent fire rose up above before us, taking on the unmistakable features of a man, though one twisted and scarred by countless years of warfare and bloodshed. It was a Jinn, though unlike any I had ever seen before. And as it took the full shape, its echoing voice rang out, filling the space between us with tangible ire. "Too late, Midnight! It seems another shall fall to your prideful folley!"

Quickly shoving me back into the room, the Ashalan slammed it shut and began chanting in a tongue I first took to be foreign, and later realized was arcane. "Jaqmar kandala set-dahl..." he intoned, and the doorframe began to shimmer a glittering blue. Moments later, two proportional circles appeared over the entrance, with a triangular gridwork containing many eldritch symbols flaring between. Then the Ashalan slumped backward, spent. Calling for my servants, I babbled incoherently to the intruder, wondering at this odd state of affairs. It was not uncommon for magical beings (especially Jinn) to wander the streets of out fair city, but the night-walking Ashalan were presumably only a myth, a fairy tale told to children during sandstorms. "No," he gasped. "Bring no others."

The momentary silence caused by my confusion must have been enough to prompt an explanation of his request, as he continued, "Any who touch me are in grave danger." Instinctively, I galnced outside, but the Jinn was gone, only the pale moonlight illuminating the bazaar across the street. The Ashalan struggled to his feet, and I caught his arm when he swooned.

"That... monster... was of the House of Kaleel, and I am his prey."

"Kaleel? I've never heard of such a person," I replied. "It is no person! And its house is not of your world! Kaleel is the very face of evil..." And, pulling me along behind him, he headed toward the lower floor. "I shall explain on the way."

"You shall explain now!" I demanded, his affrontery commanding my anger. His frustration was obvious, and I wondered wether it matched my own. "What do they call you?" he sighed.

"Yamen," I answered, somewhat suprised at the sudden cilivity. "Hakim... Yamen." "Hakim," he began, "that jinn is an assassin, sent after me to prevent the message I carry from ever reaching my home. And to ensure that it cannot be passed to another en route, he is also instructed to murder any and all who come in contact with me."

One of my attendants appeared from the staircase, and the intruder backed away, as if afraid of her. "That is why none can touch me. They, too, will become his targets."

I sent the servant away, and turned to him sharply. "So you have drawn me into your little drama, is that it?" I was snide, moreso than necessary to convey my disbelief.

"No. You have done that yourself, the moment you tried to help me." His eyes were low then, perhaps apologetic. "That is the great irony of the thing that tracks me, Hakim. It does not care that you are innocent, only that you may pose a threat to its master."

"Kaleel."

"Precisely," he confirmed. "Now I must be on my way. There is a great deal at stake here, and time is, to put it mildly, running out."

"Can the beast's scent be put off?" I asked, realization finally sinking in. "In a manner of speaking," he said. My silence again urged his answer. "If I can reach home, we may just be able to kill it."

I blinked my rational criticism away. Kill a Jinn? Another impossibility. How much fancy could one evening present? I mused.

"We must leave now," he entreated. "No one is safe while we remain." We, I thought. Suddenly, I was a liability to all those around me. Had I but known then just how much my life was going to change, I might have told them all to run away while they still could, and never look back.

Had I but known...

The caverns beneath the city's sewers were beyond description, viscous fluids collected together in puddles upon the floor and dripping in thick globules from the ceiling. It was as if the walls themselves were excreting the vile liquid. The stench ate away at your vision, until nothing could be seen except endless, irregular, glistening surfaces, the arteries of hell itself. Neither of us had spoken much since we entered the tunnels. Midnight, as the Jinn had referred to him, was consumed in his quest to reach "home". My questions about our destination had fallen on deaf ears, but I guessed that it was the fabled City of the Seventh Star, the subterranean dwelling reported to house the mysterious Ashalan.

"Is it very much farther?" I peered forward in the darkness, at his tall, shuffling figure. There was no response. Unsure wether he heard me, I asked again, more loudly. Immediately, his arm bolted up beside him, fingers spread out, ordering silence. He also stopped walking, his body tense, listening, waiting.

Half a moment later, he leapt backward, twirling in mid-air and wrestling me into the wall. A gust of peppery air crossed my face, and I was forced to shut my eyes at the accompanying flame. The Jinn assassin had caught up with us! I must have turned to flee, because Midnight dragged me down to the murky floor, and spat words into my face, trying to keep me calm. "Running will only get you killed," he said. "Do you hear me?"

I nodded weakly, and he ducked into me again as another volley of unearthly fire was lobbed into the tunnel floor beside us. Mire splashed over our forms as he rose and vanished into the chaos. For several long moments, I did not move, my legs sprawled out numbly before me. In the distance, I could make out the sounds of combat, the Ashalan locked in a mortal duel with his assailant. Then I noticed something arriving from the direction of the fighting, and looked up into a monstrous face wracked with pain and drawn in failure. Midnight slumped down upon me, noiselessly and weightlessly - like a silent dream of endless falling. I knew then that I was dead; not in the literal sense as yet, but in the figurative. For if the Jinn could best Midnight that easily, I would take little time to finish.

The next thing I remember, the Ashalan had clasped one of my hands in his own, and was reaching for the other. I looked down to him, still reeling in shock, and saw that he was mouthing words I could not make out. Shaking my head, I tried to focus on him, but found myself transfixed in the oddly vibrant tendrils of smoke within his skin instead.

A glimmering fog began to overtake our bodies, and I knew that the Jinn was approaching. Within moments, we would both be gone, our charred bodies left to be a feast for the ghuls. Midnight was struggling, wrenching his hand across my lap to touch my own, but the image seemed far away, detached from me. I could not usher the will to meet his attempt, yet somehow he managed on his own.

The instant his second palm was pressed to mine, a flash of insight cleared my vision. Focus returned, and a charge of energy swelled within me like a solar flare. My conscience soared outside my limp body, touching on all the myriad points outside me. I was made unwhole, then recollected all at once, and when it was done, there was another within me.

Midnight's last words flowed into my mind like a subtle wave. "Tell them... the Awakening... Kaleel comes..." With the words came images, a hundred thousand moments strung together in line, the focal point a castle in the sky, a floating citadel of hatred and resentment. And within, a monster waiting to destroy the world... Ever closer, the Jinn came forward. I could see his face now, a grey cloud of smoldering flame billowing out from below. I wondered at the loss of Midnight's knowledge, now within me, and what it would cost the Ashalan, and the world at large. The impact of one man's death, with two men's souls, was suddenly a greater matter to me. In that moment, I knew the bitter irony of our demise, and why I had to fight, regardless the expected outcome. Looking to the thing that would see me dead, I prepared to defend myself, pushing my way up the wall behind me. The Jinn paused, I thought out of surprise at my renewed vigor. Yet when I braced myself against the wall, it still did not move; nor when I launched my heavy frame in its direction. This confused me less, however, than the odd sensation I felt connecting with it. It was like wrestling with a waterfall or a gust of wind, but also like drowning in air or breathing the deep sea. A flurry of contrary emotions and physical reactions battled for control within me. I fought them, trying to make sense of them, trying to bring order into my changing form, until I realized what was happening.

I was feeling both my own desperate desire and the Jinn's growing fear, both my raging anger and its dwindling courage. The people of the smokeless fire do indeed feel, of this I can now attest. And just then, that Jinn was terrified, and alone.

I embraced the broad spectrum with an eager zeal, now sure of my intentions and the means to their end. I would have this villain destroyed, and take his power as my own. I would defy Kaleel's will. I would be his demise.

And with its last thrashing scream, another cat's life ended...

Now, as I look back on that moment, I can see the dangers of what I did. I know that the Jinn remains inside me, along with Midnight and all his secrets. And I know that Kaleel is still connected to it somehow - connected to me... "Kaleel comes..." I repeat aloud while watching the funeral play out alongside the dark river below me.

"Midnight's words, Hakim, or yours?" The voice comes from behind me within the high chamber of an Ashalan tower. It is melodic, quite soothing. Althira, one of the ruling body of the Ashalan.

"Both, I think," I say, more because I am unsure than to appear enigmatic. I can feel her smile as she alights before the wide window next to me. "You have the gift of balance, now. I think that is what we should call you." "Balance?"

"They will need to call you something, and Hakim will hardly suffice," she continues.

"I am Midnight, if not Hakim," I state.

"Yes, but we cannot have the others discovering that fact." She looks down upon the wooden pier where Anbari, the leader of the Council of Four, and Katani, Daughter of Midnight, are casting the body out into the river's current. "Midnight is dead."

The funeral procession falls into a moment of silent prayer, as the litter floats out into darkness. I take this moment to question Althira on my status within the city, now that I have received Midnight's soul. Her answer is less cryptic than I would expect, and all the more startling for it. "You are one of us, now. Something more than human. You belong upon the Council."

"But no one will accept me as I am. I am no longer fully Ashalan, nor have I been born into or trained among the Ebonites. I am..." I search for the proper word. "outside."

"It will be easy enough to have you judged by the Stone. I have already discussed the matter with Anbari, and she agrees. There is little chance you will be striken."

Images flow into my mind of the Test and its implications, memories from Midnight's life experience. All of those moments thought lost by the Ashalan, and especially his dear daughter Katani, now reside within me. I am both, and all, and something more. I can harm the Jinn, something no mortal man can claim, and they will both fear and revere me for it.

"Midnight soars," I hear from two hundred feet down. The words are Katani's, her only token effort at catharsis, and they are shortly followed by Anbari's resignation. "And now we are Three."

My heart sinks a little at that. Althira is correct in her caution, but I harbor remorse that I shall never know the love of my own daughter again. "Katani," I whisper, knowing she will never hear, "I will love you always.

Please forgive me for not passing on into you."

I tremble and nearly feint as I see my body splinter into a thousand tiny stars, dancing up toward their final resting place atop one of the Ashalan city spires. "Farewell..."

Outside the tower, a haze shimmers against the rising stars. Within, something stirs, and elsewhere, hidden by the ages, sentience waits.

You may relish your perceived safety for now, cursed Ebonite, but I have ninety-eight more eyes, some of which may be closer than you realize. Take heed, for you have stolen one of my children, and I will have it back or repay you in kind....

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