The Lost Puzzler

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.”