Beyond the Pale: A fantasy anthology (2 page)

“Ah. Forgive my abruptness, O learned
Professor. I am Abdel Jameela. Thank you. Thank you a thousand times for
coming.” I am right about his stink, and I thank God he does not try to embrace
me. With no further ceremony, I am led into the hovel.

There are a few stained and tattered
carpets layered on the packed-dirt floor. A straw mat, an old cushion and a
battered tea tray are the only furnishings. Except for the screen. Directly
opposite the door is a tall, incongruously fine cedar-and-pearl latticed
folding screen, behind which I can make out only a vague shape. It is a more
expensive piece of furniture than any of the villagers could afford, I’m sure.
And behind it, no doubt, sits Abdel Jameela’s wife.

The old man makes tea hurriedly,
clattering the cups but saying nothing the whole while. The scent of the
seeping mint leaves drifts up, covering his sour smell. Abdel Jameela sets my
tea before me, places a cup beside the screen, and sits down. A hand reaches
out from behind the screen to take the tea. It is brown and graceful. 
Beautiful
,
if I am to speak truly. I realize I am staring and tear my gaze away.

The old man doesn’t seem to notice. “I
don’t spend my time among men, Professor. I can’t talk like a courtier. All I
can say is that we need your help.”

“Yousef the porter has told me that your
wife is ill, O Uncle. Something to do with her legs, yes? I will do whatever I
can to cure her, Almighty God willing.”

For some reason, Abdel Jameela grimaces at
this. Then he rubs his hands together and gives me an even more pained
expression. “O Professor, I must show you a sight that will shock you. My wife…
Well, words are not the way.”

With a grunt the old man stands and walks
halfway behind the screen. He gestures for me to follow then bids me stop a few
feet away. I hear rustling behind the screen, and I can see a woman’s form
moving, but still Abdel Jameela’s wife is silent.

“Prepare yourself, Professor. Please show
him, O beautiful wife of mine.” The shape behind the screen shifts. There is a
scraping noise. And a woman’s leg ending in a cloven hoof stretches out from
behind the screen.

I take a deep breath. “God is Great,” I
say aloud. This, then, is the source of Shaykh Hajjar’s fanciful grumbling. But
such grotesqueries are not unheard of to an educated man. Only last year
another physicker at court showed me a child—born to a healthy, pious man
and his modest wife—all covered in fur. This same physicker told me of
another child he’d seen born with scaly skin. I take another deep breath. If a
hoofed woman can be born and live, is it so strange that she might find a mad
old man to care for her?

“O my sweetheart!” Abdel Jameela’s whisper
is indecent as he holds his wife’s hoof.

And for a moment I see what mad Abdel
Jameela sees. The hoof’s glossy black beauty, as smoldering as a woman’s eye.
It is entrancing…

“O, my wife,” the old man goes on, and
runs his crooked old finger over the hoof-cleft slowly and lovingly. “O, my beautiful
wife…” The leg flexes, but still no sound comes from behind the screen.

This is wrong. I take a step back from the
screen without meaning to. “In the name of God! Have you no shame, old man?”

Abdel Jameela turns from the screen and
faces me with an apologetic smile. “I am sorry to say that I have little shame
left,” he says.

I’ve never heard words spoken with such
weariness. I remind myself that charity and mercy are our duty to God, and I
soften my tone. “Is this why you sent for me, Uncle? What would you have me do?
Give her feet she was not born with? My heart bleeds for you, truly. But such a
thing only God can do.”

Another wrinkled grimace. “O Professor, I
am afraid that I must beg your forgiveness. For I have lied to you. And for
that I am sorry. For it is not my wife that needs your help, but I.”

“But her—pardon me, Uncle—her
hoof.”

“Yes! Its curve! Like a jet-black
half-moon!” The old hermit’s voice quivers and he struggles to keep his gaze on
me. Away from his wife’s hoof. “Her hoof is breathtaking, Professor. No, it
is 
I
 that need your help, for I am not the creature I need to
be.”

“I don’t understand, Uncle.” Exasperation
burns away my sympathy. I’ve walked for hours and climbed a hill, small though
it was. I am in no mood for a hermit’s games. Abdel Jameela winces at the anger
in my eyes and says, “My… my wife will explain.”

I will try, my husband.

The voice is like song, and there is the
strong scent of sweet flowers. Then she steps from behind the screen and I lose
all my words. I scream. I call on God, and I scream.

Abdel Jameela’s wife is no creature of
God. Her head is a goat’s and her mouth a wolf’s muzzle. Fish-scales and
jackal-hair cover her. A scorpion’s tail curls behind her. I look into a woman’s
eyes set in a demon’s face and I stagger backward, calling on God and my dead
mother.

Please, learned one, be calm.

“What… what…” I can’t form the words. I
look to the floor. I try to bury my sight in the dirty carpets and hard-packed
earth. Her voice is more beautiful than any woman’s. And there is the powerful
smell of jasmine and clove. A nightingale sings perfumed words at me while my
mind’s eye burns with horrors that would make the Almighty turn away.

If fear did not hold your tongue, you
would ask what I am. Men have called my people by many names—ghoul,
demon. Does a word matter so very much? What I am, learned one, is Abdel
Jameela’s wife.

For long moments I don’t speak. If I don’t
speak, this nightmare will end. I will wake in Baghdad, or Beit Zujaaj. But I
don’t wake.

She speaks again, and I cover my ears,
though the sound is beauty itself.

The words you hear come not from my
mouth, and you do not hear them with your ears. I ask you to listen with your
mind and your heart. We will die, my husband and I, if you will not lend us
your skill. Have you, learned one, never needed to be something other that what
you are?

Cinnamon scent and the sound of an oasis
wind come to me. I cannot speak to this demon. My heart will stop if I do, I am
certain. I want to run, but fear has fixed my feet. I turn to Abdel Jameela,
who stands there wringing his hands.

“Why am I here, Uncle? God damn you, why
did you call me here? There is no sick woman here! God protect me, I know
nothing of… of ghouls, or—” A horrible thought comes to me. “You… you are
not hoping to make her into a woman? Only God can…”

The old hermit casts his eyes downward.
“Please… you must listen to my wife. I beg you.” He falls silent and his wife,
behind the screen again, goes on.

My husband and I have been on this
hilltop too long, learned one. My body cannot stand so much time away from my
people. 
I smell yellow roses and hear bumblebees droning beneath her
voice. 
If we stay in this place one more season, I will die.

And without me to care for him and keep
age’s scourge from him, my sweet Abdel Jameela will die too. But across the
desert there is a life for us. My father was a prince among our people. Long
ago I left. For many reasons. But I never forsook my birthright. My father is
dying now, I have word. He has left no sons and so his lands are mine. Mine,
and my handsome husband’s.

In her voice is a chorus of wind-chimes.
Despite myself, I lift my eyes. She steps from behind the screen, clad now in a
black abaya and a mask. Behind the mask’s mesh is the glint of wolf-teeth. I
look again to the floor, focusing on a faded blue spiral in the carpet and the
kindness in that voice.

But my people do not love men. I cannot
claim my lands unless things change. Unless my husband shows my people that he
can change.

Somehow I force myself to speak. “What…
what do you mean, change?”

There is a cymbal-shimmer in her voice and
sandalwood incense fills my nostrils. 
O learned one, you will help me
to make these my Abdel Jameela’s.

She extends her slender brown hands,
ablaze with henna. In each she holds a length of golden
sculpture—goat-like legs ending in shining, cloven hooves. A thick braid
of gold thread dances at the end of each statue-leg, alive.

Madness, and I must say so though this
creature may kill me for it. “I have not the skill to do this! No man alive
does!”

You will not do this through your skill
alone. Just as I cannot do it through my sorcery alone. My art will guide yours
as your hands work.
 She takes a step toward me and my shoulders clench
at the sound of her hooves hitting the earth.

“No! No… I cannot do this thing.”

“Please!” I jump at Abdel Jameela’s voice,
nearly having forgotten him. There are tears in the old man’s eyes as he pulls
at my galabeya, and his stink gets in my nostrils. “Please listen! We need your
help. And we know what has brought you to Beit Zujaaj.” The old man falls to
his knees before me. “Please! Would not your Shireen aid us?”

With those words he knocks the wind from
my lungs. How can he know that name? The shaykh hadn’t lied—there 
is
 witchcraft
at work here, and I should run from it.

But, Almighty God help me, Abdel Jameela
is right. Fierce as she is, Shireen still has her dreamy Persian notions
— that love is more important than money or duty or religion. If I turn
this old man away…

My throat is dry and cracked. “How do you
know of Shireen?” Each word burns.

His eyes dart away. “She has… ways, my
wife.”

“All protection comes from God.” I feel
foul even as I steel myself with the old words. Is this forbidden? Am I walking
the path of those who displease the Almighty? God forgive me, it is hard to
know or to care when my beloved is gone. “If I were a good Muslim, I would run
down to the village now and… and…”

And what, learned one? Spread word of
what you have seen? Bring men with spears and arrows? Why would you do this?
 Vanilla
beans and the sound of rain give way to something else. Clanging steel and
clean-burning fire. 
I will not let you harm my husband. What we ask is
not disallowed to you. Can you tell me, learned one, that it is in your book of
what is blessed and what is forbidden not to give a man golden legs?

It is not. Not in so many words. But this
thing can’t be acceptable in God’s eyes. Can it? “Has this ever been done
before?”

There are old stories. But it has been
centuries.
 Each of her words spreads perfume and music and she
asks, 
Please, learned one, will you help us?
 And then one
scent rises above the others.

Almighty God protect me, it is the sweat-and-ambergris
smell of my beloved. Shireen of the ribbing remark, who in quiet moments
confessed her love of my learning. She 
would
help them.

Have I any choice after that? This, then,
the fruit of my study. And this, my reward for wishing to be more than what I
am. A twisted, unnatural path.

“Very well.” I reach for my small saw and
try not to hear Abdel Jameela’s weird whimpers as I sharpen it.

I give him poppy and hemlock, but as I
work Abdel Jameela still screams, nearly loud enough to make my heart cease
beating. His old body is going through things it should not be surviving. And I
am the one putting him through these things, with knives and fire and
bone-breaking clamps. I wad cotton and stuff it in my ears to block out the
hermit’s screams.

But I feel half-asleep as I do so, hardly
aware of my own hands. Somehow the demon’s magic is keeping Abdel Jameela alive
and guiding me through this grisly task. It is painful, like having two minds
crammed inside my skull and shadow-puppet poles lashed to my arms. I am burning
up, and I can barely trace my thoughts. Slowly I become aware of the she-ghoul’s
voice in my head and the scent of apricots.

Cut there. Now the mercury powder. The
cautering iron is hot. Put a rag in his mouth so he does not bite his tongue.
 I
flay and cauterize and lose track of time. A fever cooks my mind away. I work
through the evening prayer, then the night prayer. I feel withered inside.

In each step, Abdel Jameela’s wife guides
me. With her magic she rifles my mind for the knowledge she needs and steers my
skilled fingers. For a long while there is only her voice in my head and the
feeling of bloody instruments in my hands, which move with a life of their own.

Then I am holding a man’s loose tendons in
my right hand and thick golden threads in my left. There are shameful smells in
the air and Abdel Jameela shouts and begs me to stop even though he is
half-asleep with the great pot of drugs I have forced down his throat.

Something is wrong!
 The
she-ghoul screams in my skull and Abdel Jameela passes out. My hands no longer
dance magically. The shining threads shrivel in my fist. We have failed, though
I know not exactly how.

No! No! Our skill! Our sorcery! But his
body refuses! 
There are funeral wails in the air and the smell of
houses burning. 
My husband! Do something, physicker!

The golden legs turn to dust in my hands.
With my ears I hear Abdel Jameela’s wife growl a wordless death-threat.

I deserve death! Almighty God, what have I
done? An old man lies dying on my blanket. I have sawed off his legs at a
she-ghoul’s bidding. There is no strength save in God! I bow my head.

Then I see them. Just above where I’ve
amputated Abdel Jameela’s legs are the swollen bulges that I’d thought came
from gout. But it is not gout that has made these. There is something buried
beneath the skin of each leg. I take hold of my scalpel and flay each thin
thigh. The old man moans with what little life he has left.

What are you doing?
 Abdel
Jameela’s wife asks the walls of my skull. I ignore her, pulling at a flap of
the old man’s thigh-flesh, revealing a corrupted sort of miracle.