Part 12 (1/2)

Dorland fell in with us after the man packed his snake into a basket and slung it on his back.

”We think this is a good idea?” he asked.

Lanningham nodded. ”This has happened to us before.”

”In Africa,” I said. ”You weren't with us when we met Zenka the first time, but Lanningham was, and Zenka knew me right off. It happens.”

”Weird,” Blakeney said. The static was worse than before. ”Was he waiting for you?”

”No idea,” I said. Maybe it said something about how strange my life had become because I wasn't bothered by a man saying he learned English in case I showed up.

”Sir? Do you know about the snakes hunting people in the city?” I asked him as we walked.

”I know snakes, and those things are not snakes,” he said, casting a dark look over his shoulder. ”They are unnatural and should not exist. But to your unasked question, I know where they are.”

”Where?”

He sighed. ”My father wishes to see you first. He's waited a long time, and I don't want you to risk your life before he has that chance.”

Let's hear it for confidence in your local wielder. ”We can't stay long. We're supposed to be hunting.”

”The things are dormant during the day,” he told me. ”You have time.”

The man led us from the square to an older part of the city, where less garish stores lined the streets, and small stone houses were tucked into alleyways. It was into one of these houses we were invited.

”I'll stand watch,” Lanningham said, taking up post by the single door. ”Stay on com.”

I acknowledged him with a nod, then followed my host inside. The house was a single room. On one end, there was a cook stove, a dining table and built-in shelves holding dried fruit and bread.

On the other, a series of a mats lined the floor. There, a really old man reclined, and when I looked at him, his face lit up and he smiled through a thick white beard.

He murmured something and I turned to Dorland, who shook his head. ”Not French.”

The man's son leaned down to listen to what he was saying. ”He asks if he may touch your hands.”

Dorland tensed.

”What?” I asked.

”That's what the little boy out there asked,” he said. ”Not for you to touch him, but to touch your hands.”

Now our friend from the square chuckled. ”Must've been my grandson. We put him there to watch for you.”

”Why does your father want to touch my hands?” I asked.

”He wants the chance to read them,” the man said. ”It's not every day he is able to touch a legend.”

Static crackled in my ear. Blakeney, laughing. ”Don't let it go to your head, Archer!”

”Can't get uppity if it's true, sergeant,” Lanningham growled from outside.

Thinking this was getting too weird for everyone involved, I sat on the mat across from the old man. The wrinkles on his face were carved deep, and now that I was close, I noticed he didn't have any teeth. He had to be at least ninety.

I held out my hands tentatively, not sure if I'd need to guide him or what, but he reached for them right away. Holding my right hand-my knife hand-in both of his, he flipped it over and drew his fingers over my palm. It tickled and was more than a little awkward.

This went on for a couple of minutes before the old man started telling his son a long-winded story. The son nodded gravely the entire time before turning to me.

”He says he was right. You are the one he's been seeking. Our family is old, and a tale has been handed down to us, from the time of the Jinn.”

I must've looked confused, because Dorland rolled his eyes. ”He means genies.”

Now it was the man's turn to roll his eyes. ”I meant the Jinn. These are not the friendly, wish-granting cartoons you Westerners think of, but powerful spirits. Some are good, some are neutral, some are evil. In the case of my family, a Jinn appeared to an ancestor, telling him of a boy who would walk unafraid in the dark, aided by light eternal. The Jinn told my ancestor to remember a verse for the boy, should he come, and to carry it from father to son until the time was right.” He leaned forward and pointed at my hands. ”You, Wielder Archer, are that boy. And you wear light at your hip.”

My right hand drifted to my knife's handle, sheathed in my thigh pocket. I felt both hot and cold and I knew Dorland's eyes were trained on the back of my head. The silence on the radio let me know both Lanningham and Blakeney were very interested in how this played out, too.

”What message would you give me?” I asked, not the man from the square, but his father.

The old man recited something that sounded like a poem, and his son murmured it along with him, then translated it into English: In darkness walks light; in light, darkness The warrior, the blades Broken, joined, remade Light, once bound, will rise To reclaim the heavens And, redeemed, the rift between them mends Forever A strange recognition of these words, from deep within my bones, rose. I'd never heard them, but I knew them. Like I'd been born knowing them.

And I wasn't sure I liked what they were telling me.

Trying to control my growing concern, I asked, ”Was the Jinn evil or good?”

The old man reached out to pat my leg. ”He just was.”

I let out a half-hysterical chuckle. ”So you speak English, too?”

”A little.” The old man sounded delighted by the joke. ”You'll find what you seek in the waste tunnels under the city. The creatures come out at night and people are afraid. Show the fearful what light can do to things that are dark.”

Sewers, exactly like Mamie said. I wondered if she'd known this was where I'd end up, in the home of a man whose family had been touched by magic generations before. If this was the something she wanted me to find here in Morocco.

I stood and laid a hand on the old man's head. ”I will. Consider your message delivered and your mission from the Jinn fulfilled.”

He let a long sigh. From the sound of it, it was a sigh he'd held for most of his life. ”You honor our house.”

”You honor mine,” I said, then turned to leave before he could see how my knees were shaking.

Lanningham and Dorland didn't say anything as we walked back to the square. Blakeney didn't call in, either. I wondered if they were digesting the same thing I was.

What, exactly, had to be broken then remade? The blades?

Or the warrior?.