The Mammoth Book of Nebula Awards SF Read online

  The latest denial comes from Hajjar al-Assad himself, the middle-aged head of the clan and the sort of half-literate lout that passes for a Shaykh in these parts. Desperate for the approval of the young courtier whom he no doubt privately condemns as an overschooled sodomite, bristlebearded Shaykh Hajjar has cornered me in the village’s only café – if the sitting room of a qat-chewing old woman can be called a café by anyone other than bumpkins.

  I should not be so hard on Beit Zujaaj and its bumpkins. But when I look at the gray rock-heap houses, the withered gray vegetable-yards, and the stuporous gray lives that fill this village, I want to weep for the lost color of Baghdad.

  Instead I sit and listen to the Shaykh.

  “Abdel Jameela is not of Assad blood, O learned Professor. My grandfather took mercy, as God tells us we must, on the old man’s mother. Seventy-and-some years ago she showed up in Beit Zujaaj, half-dead from traveling and big with child, telling tales – God alone knows if they were true – of her Assad-clan husband, supposedly slain by highwaymen. Abdel Jameela was birthed and raised here, but he has never been of this village.” Shaykh Hajjar scowls. “For decades now – since I was a boy – he has lived up on the hilltop rather than among us. More of a hermit than a villager. And not of Assad blood,” he says again.

  I stand up. I can take no more of the man’s unctuous voice and, praise God, I don’t have to.

  “Of course, O Shaykh, of course. I understand. Now, if you will excuse me?”

  Shaykh Hajjar blinks. He wishes to say more but doesn’t dare. For I have come from the Caliph’s court.

  “Yes, Professor. Peace be upon you.” His voice is like a snuffed candle.

  “And upon you, peace.” I head for the door as I speak.

  The villagers would be less deferential if they knew of my current position at court – or rather, lack of one. The Caliph has sent me to Beit Zujaaj as an insult. I am here as a reminder that the well-read young physicker with the clever wit and impressive skill, whose company the Commander of the Faithful’s own bookish son enjoys, is worth less than the droppings of the Caliph’s favorite falcon. At least when gold and a Persian noble’s beautiful daughter are involved.

  For God’s viceroy the Caliph has seen fit to promise my Shireen to another, despite her love for me. Her husband-to-be is older than her father – too ill, the last I heard, to even sign the marriage contract. But as soon as his palsied, liver-spotted hand is hale enough to raise a pen . . .

  Things would have gone differently were I a wealthy man. Shireen’s father would have heard my proposal happily enough if I’d been able to provide the grand dowry he sought. The Caliph’s son, fond of his brilliant physicker, even asked that Shireen be wedded to me. But the boy’s fondness could only get me so far. The Commander of the Faithful saw no reason to impose a raggedy scholar of a son-in-law on the Persian when a rich old vulture would please the man more. I am, in the Caliph’s eyes, an amusing companion to his son, but one whom the boy will lose like a doll once he grows to love killing and gold-getting more than learning. Certainly I am nothing worth upsetting Shireen’s coin-crazed courtier father over.

  For a man is not merely who he is, but what he has. Had I land or caravans I would be a different man – the sort who could compete for Shireen’s hand. But I have only books and instruments and a tiny inheritance, and thus that is all that I am. A man made of books and pittances would be a fool to protest when the Commander of the Faithful told him that his love would soon wed another.

  I am a fool.

  My outburst in court did not quite cost me my head, but I was sent to Beit Zujaaj “for a time, only, to minister to the villagers as a representative of Our beneficent concern for Our subjects.” And my fiery, tree-climbing Shireen was locked away to await her half-dead suitor’s recovery.

  “O Professor! Looks like you might get a chance to see Abdel Jameela for yourself!” Just outside the café, the gravelly voice of Umm Hikma the café-keeper pierces the cool morning air and pulls me out of my reverie. I like old Umm Hikma, with her qat-chewer’s irascibility and her blacksmithish arms. Beside her is a broad-shouldered man I don’t know. He scuffs the dusty ground with his sandal and speaks to me in a worried stutter.

  “P-peace be upon you, O learned Professor. We haven’t yet met. I’m Yousef, the porter.”

  “And upon you, peace, O Yousef. A pleasure to meet you.”

  “The pleasure’s mine, O Professor. But I am here on behalf of another. To bring you a message. From Abdel Jameela.”

  For the first time since arriving in Beit Zujaaj, I am surprised. “A message? For me?”

  “Yes, Professor. I am just returned from the old hermit’s hovel, a half-day’s walk from here, on the hilltop. Five, six times a year I bring things to Abdel Jameela, you see. In exchange he gives a few coins, praise God.”

  “And where does he get these coins, up there on the hill?” Shaykh Hajjar’s voice spits out the words from the café doorway behind me. I glare and he falls silent.

  I turn back to the porter. “What message do you bear, O Yousef? And how does this graybeard know of me?”

  Broad-shouldered Yousef looks terrified. The power of the court. “Forgive me, O learned Professor! Abdel Jameela asked what news from the village and I . . . I told him that a court physicker was in Beit Zujaaj. He grew excited and told me beg upon his behalf for your aid. He said his wife was horribly ill. He fears she will lose her legs, and perhaps her life.”

  “His wife?” I’ve never heard of a married hermit.

  Umm Hikma raises her charcoaled eyebrows, chews her qat, and says nothing.

  Shaykh Hajjar is more vocal. “No one save God knows where she came from, or how many years she’s been up there. The people have had glimpses only. She doesn’t wear the head scarf that our women wear. She is wrapped all in black cloth from head to toe and mesh-masked like a foreigner. She has spoken to no one. Do you know, O Professor, what the old rascal said to me years ago when I asked why his wife never comes down to the village? He said, ‘She is very religious’! The old dog! Where is it written that a woman can’t speak to other women? Other women who are good Muslims? The old son of a whore! What should his wife fear here? The truth of the matter is—”

  “The truth, O Shaykh, is that in this village only your poor wife need live in fear!” Umm Hikma lets out a rockslide chuckle and gives me a conspiratorial wink. Before the Shaykh can sputter out his offended reply, I turn to Yousef again.

  “On this visit, did you see Abdel Jameela’s wife?” If he can describe the sick woman, I may be able to make some guesses about her condition. But the porter frowns.

  “He does not ask me into his home, O Professor. No one has been asked into his home for thirty years.”

  Except for the gifted young physicker from the Caliph’s court. Well, it may prove more interesting than what I’ve seen of Beit Zujaaj thus far. I do have a fondness for hermits. Or, rather, for the idea of hermits. I can’t say that I have ever met one. But as a student I always fantasized that I would one day be a hermit, alone with God and my many books in the barren hills.

  That was before I met Shireen.

  “There is one thing more,” Yousef says, his broad face looking even more nervous. “He asked that you come alone.”

  My heartbeat quickens, though there is no good reason for fear. Surely this is just an old hater-of-men’s surly whim. A physicker deals with such temperamental oddities as often as maladies of the liver or lungs. Still . . . “Why does he ask this?”

  “He says that his wife is very modest and that in her state the frightening presence of men might worsen her illness.”

  Shaykh Hajjar erupts at this. “Bah! Illness! More likely they’ve done something shameful they don’t want the village to know of. Almighty God forbid, maybe they—”

  Whatever malicious thing the Shaykh is going to say, I silence it with another glare borrowed from the Commander of the Faithful. “If the woman is ill, it is my duty as a Muslim a
nd a physicker to help her, whatever her husband’s oddities.”

  Shaykh Hajjar’s scowl is soul-deep “Forgive me, O Professor, but this is not a matter of oddities. You could be in danger. We know why Abdel Jameela’s wife hides away, though some here fear to speak of such things.”

  Umm Hikma spits her qat into the road, folds her powerful arms, and frowns. “In the name of God! Don’t you believe, Professor, that Abdel Jameela, who couldn’t kill an ant, means you any harm.” She jerks her chin at Shaykh Hajjar. “And you, O Shaykh, by God, please don’t start telling your old lady stories again!”

  The Shaykh wags a finger at her. “Yes, I will tell him, woman! And may Almighty God forgive you for mocking your Shaykh!” Shaykh Hajjar turns to me with a grim look. “O learned Professor, I will say it plainly: Abdel Jameela’s wife is a witch.”

  “A witch?” The last drops of my patience with Beit Zujaaj have dripped through the water clock. It is time to be away from these people. “Why would you say such a thing, O Shaykh?”

  The Shaykh shrugs. “Only God knows for certain,” he says. His tone belies his words.

  “May God protect us all from slanderous ill-wishers,” I say.

  He scowls. But I have come from the Caliph’s court, so his tone is venomously polite. “It is no slander, O Professor. Abdel Jameela’s wife consorts with ghouls. Travelers have heard strange noises coming from the hilltop. And hoofprints have been seen on the hill-path. Cloven hoofprints, O Professor, where there are neither sheep nor goats.”

  “No! Not cloven hoofprints!” I say.

  But the Shaykh pretends not to notice my sarcasm. He just nods. “There is no strength and no safety but with God.”

  “God is great,” I say in vague, obligatory acknowledgment. I have heard enough rumor and nonsense. And a sick woman needs my help. “I will leave as soon as I gather my things. This Abdel Jameela lives up the road, yes? On a hill? If I walk, how long will it take me?”

  “If you do not stop to rest, you will see the hill in the distance by noontime prayer,” says Umm Hikma, who has a new bit of qat going in her cheek.

  “I will bring you some food for your trip, Professor, and the stream runs alongside the road much of the way, so you’ll have no need of water.” Yousef seems relieved that I’m not angry with him, though I don’t quite know why I would be. I thank him then speak to the group.

  “Peace be upon you all.”

  “And upon you, peace,” they say in near-unison.

  In my room, I gather scalpel, saw, and drugs into my pack – the kid-leather pack that my beloved gifted to me. I say more farewells to the villagers, firmly discourage their company, and set off alone on the road. As I walk, rumors of witches and wife-beaters are crowded out of my thoughts by the sweet remembered sweat-and-ambergris scent of my Shireen.

  After an hour on the rock-strewn road, the late-morning air warms. The sound of the stream beside the road almost calms me.

  Time passes and the sun climbs high in the sky. I take off my turban and caftan, make ablution by the stream, and say my noon prayers. Not long after I begin walking again, I can make out what must be Beit Zujaaj Hill off in the distance. In another hour or so I am at its foot.

  It is not much of a hill, actually. There are buildings in Baghdad that are taller. A relief, as I am not much of a hill-climber. The rocky path is not too steep, and green sprays of grass and thyme dot it – a pleasant enough walk, really. The sun sinks a bit in the sky and I break halfway up the hill for afternoon prayers and a bit of bread and green apple. I try to keep my soul from sinking as I recall Shireen, her skirts tied up scandalously, knocking apples down to me from the high branches of the Caliph’s orchard trees.

  The rest of the path proves steeper and I am sweating through my galabeya when I finally reach the hilltop. As I stand there huffing and puffing my eyes land on a small structure thirty yards away.

  If Beit Zujaaj Hill is not much of a hill, at least the hermit’s hovel can be called nothing but a hovel. Stones piled on stones until they have taken the vague shape of a dwelling. Two sickly chickens scratching in the dirt. As soon as I have caught my breath a man comes walking out to meet me. Abdel Jameela.

  He is shriveled with a long gray beard and a ragged kaffiyeh, and I can tell he will smell unpleasant even before he reaches me. How does he already know I’m here? I don’t have much time to wonder, as the old man moves quickly despite clearly gouty legs.

  “You are the physicker, yes? From the Caliph’s court?”

  No “peace be upon you,” no “how is your health,” no “pleased to meet you.” Life on a hilltop apparently wears away one’s manners. As if reading my thoughts, the old man bows his head in supplication.

  “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 hooved 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 hoofs 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 wolfs 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.