‘Come,’ she said, the first word she had spoken that I understood.
I hesitated.
‘The weak are afraid,’ she said, ‘and the selfish, and the ignorant. Are you any of these?’
I summoned my courage and went to her. Her hands were awash with viridian light, and at that moment I realised the bottle itself was not green, but filled with a brilliant emerald liquid. She held the vessel out to me. ‘This is black gold.’
I wanted to ask why, in that case, it was green, but shrank from doing so. I nodded.
‘Do you know what it is?’
I shook my head. ‘No, madam.’
She laughed. ‘Oh, but I thought this was what you had come for.’
‘Perhaps it is,’ I answered.
She teased me with the bottle; holding it out to me, then withdrawing it. ‘Do you have the right currency to trade with us?’
It occurred to me then that I had brought nothing with me but myself, and I grew cold to think that my body and soul might be currency enough. ‘Name your price,’ I said, but my teeth had begun to chatter.
The woman narrowed her eyes at me. Still holding my watering gaze, she withdrew the stopper from the bottle and held its lip to her mouth. I watched as her long, brown throat worked, swallowing. My own mouth had become dry. When she withdrew the vessel, her lips glowed vivid green, until she wiped the stuff away with the back of her hand. Her black stare held me, but as I blinked at her, helpless, her eyes filled up with green fire. It was the gaze of a serpent goddess. Her nostrils flared and she took in a great lungful of breath, held it within her, then gasped it out, shuddering. I could sense power pouring from her in invisible flames. She held out the fatal bottle to me, and said, ‘Drink, then.’
I took it from her, and the glass was cold against my palms. Serpent light sickened my flesh. A strange aroma curled from the lip of the vessel; acrid and sweet. Sorcery lived within the bottle, a witchery that could be drunk. What would it give me? Knowledge, power? Then I thought of the many costumes of Lady Death, the many masks she wore. One of her gowns was a livid green, and she shook its skirts in the faces of those who craved life.
I shook my head and handed the bottle back to the Yazata woman. ‘Thank you, but no.’
She grinned, took the bottle and re-stoppered it. ‘You are wise,’ she said. ‘Come.’ She placed a dry hand upon my shoulder and turned me towards the entrance and the brilliant light of the afternoon sun, which scorched the cinder paths of the settlement below. We stood there, upon the lip of rock, looking down upon the towered dwellings.
‘You see,’ she said, gesturing with the hand that held the bottle, ‘that is my home there.’
I followed her gesture with my eyes, but could not discern which bulbous tower she indicated. ‘Yes, madam, I see.’
‘How many layers can you count?’
I guessed. ‘Six?’
She grinned. ‘Seven. You cannot count very well. My great great grandmother went to live in that dwelling when it was but a single layer. When her son came of age, he took a wife, and built another layer to live in. My dwelling is on the fifth layer, and my great grandson is already building the eighth.’
‘Does no-one live at the bottom now, then?’ I asked.
‘I told you,’ she answered. ‘My great great grandmother lives there.’
‘She must be very old,’ I said.
The woman nodded. ‘True. She is very old.’ She held up the glass bottle. ‘This is our elixir, what people come here for. The elixir of life or the potion of death. It depends upon your heart, and your reasons for using it.’
‘Longevity,’ I said. ‘It gives you that.’
‘Among other things.’ She smiled. ‘You are not here looking for a long life.’
I shook my head. ‘No.’
She squeezed my shoulder. ‘Come then, come back into this sacred place, and tell me of your desires.’
I was reluctant to do so, having hoped our business could have been concluded there and then, but she had still not named a price.
We went to sit beside the bubbling pool, which the Yazata stirred with a long, brown finger. There were flashes of silver beneath the water’s surface, which might have been fish or thoughts. The Yazata drew her curving brows together. ‘Your heart beats with black blood.’
I squirmed upon the rocky floor. ‘There is a man.’
‘Of course.’
I pushed back my hair. This was not easy for me. ‘He has abused my friend. She loves him and has given him her life, her body, yet he has committed an act of betrayal with another woman, a stranger. Maqite, my friend, is dying because of it. She is a good woman. It is not right that she should suffer. I have come here looking for justice.’
‘Ah, death,’ said the woman, and turned her bottle of black gold in her hands.
I shivered as I looked at it. ‘Yes!’ The word came like a flame from my lips. I wanted him dead so badly. I hated him. It was strange that I did not think of Kamaara, who might have been easier to dispose of. ‘He cares nothing for the feelings of others. He is as cold as the night-wind, and as cutting. I swear his glance can strip flesh from bone. But he has a cold, cold beauty, and people love him because of it. He has a strong spirit.’
‘Born of fire,’ interrupted the woman.
I shook my head. ‘No, no. Nothingness, that is all.’
She sighed tolerantly. ‘We can smell the smoke of his kind, even here, so far from your home. In his veins runs a liquid flame and his thoughts are smoke. If you did not love him so much...’
‘I do not!’ I interrupted.
She ignored me and continued, ‘Or if you did not hurt so much, you would see that he is born of fire.’ She lifted the vessel of black gold before her face and looked into it. ‘Caught in a bottle, he is, like a captive djinn.’
I looked up into her eyes. The green glow had faded from them a little now; they were a mysterious mossy-black. ‘Does it matter that he’s born of fire?’
She nodded. ‘Of course. It is the most important thing. Perhaps the real reason you are here.’
I closed my eyes, as if being unable to see would prevent me from considering her words. It did not occur to me that she might have some interest of her own in this man, or even wish to influence the outcome of my visit. ‘I am here to find a means to dispose of him. I will buy the black gold to kill him, if you would tell me how to use it.’
She put her head on one side. ‘You must have heard, of course, that to attempt to use our elixir for the wrong reasons could kill you.’
‘I will not drink it,’ I said.
‘I did not say you would.’
I felt my face grow hot. ‘My reasons are right and just. He has abused too many people, and perhaps you are right in saying that I love him, but if I do, I am the victim of his enchantment, and love against my own will. It must end.’
‘As you like,’ she said, grinning, and stood up. ‘First, the price.’
I remained seated, looking up at her. There were no words to say that I could think of.
‘You must give a little life for death,’ she said. ‘That is the price.’
‘Life is precious to me.’
‘As it should be. We shall take only a sweet drop of it.’
When we came out of the cave, the sky had turned the black of panther hide, lacquered with stars. Now the firepits of the Yazata settlement were alive with brilliant flame, and around each one, a group of people sat. I felt disorientated. Had time passed so quickly? When we had entered the cave, it had been around mid-day.
We paused beside one of the fires. The people scared me. Like my guide, they were dressed in dusty black, and their faces were grey with ashes. Lustrous black eyes shone out at me. All the figures were seated, but for one, a mature male. Everyone’s attention was centred upon him and he muttered an incomprehensible incantation at the flames. His hair hung down his back and his face was gaunt. I could see his skinny body through the gaps in his loosely hanging robe
.
My guide leaned down and put her mouth close to my ear. ‘He is our priest, the favoured one of our family. What he forges in flame is neither life nor death, but elemental force. He has kindled armies of the dead for great kings. He has summoned sand-storms to choke a man’s enemy. He has birthed djinn and deva from the cauldron of fire, and corked them into a bottle. You could buy one to release upon your enemy.’
‘No,’ I whispered back. ‘It must not be that.’
‘As you like.’ We stood silently as the priest finished his incantation. Women scattered powdered substances into the flames, their long brown arms flashing out like serpents from their dark robes. Sweet, stinging fumes rose like spirits from the flames.
Now my guide stepped forward, pushing me before her. Her long hands curled upon my shoulders like the claws of a vulture. ‘Here is one who would buy,’ she said. ‘She will trade a drop of life’s liquor for black gold.’
The priest looked at me then. What I saw within his eyes had no name, but it instilled within me the greatest fear I have ever known. I could not look away from him. He was fierce, with his long, wild hair and his ashen face, and his eyes glowed like polished beryl with the elixir of life. I had no idea how old he was; he could have been eighteen or eight hundred. My mouth and throat had become utterly parched. I wished I could faint, for I was sure I was about to endure something unspeakably terrible.
The priest made an abrupt gesture and another tall, sinuous male figure rose from beside the fire. Reluctantly, with the most gripping terror, I looked at him. He was completely robed; just a suggestion of an ashen face visible beneath his draped hood. Then two exquisite hands snaked out from the folds of cloth and tweaked back the cowl. I realised what stood before me was the most beautiful man I had ever beheld, more beautiful, even, than my hated beloved. It is amazing what the sight of such loveliness can do. I am ashamed to admit it, but my fear abated somewhat. His enormous eyes were lined crudely with charcoal, which also accentuated the hollows of his ashen cheeks. His hair was like the wing-feathers of the black griffin, softly falling over his shoulders. In his lovely gaze resided the knowledge of all the aeons. He held out his strong, slender hands to me and I took them in my own.
At that point, everything around me faded into oblivion. His finely-drawn lips were expressionless, but his eyes smiled at me; flecked with hints of scorn and pity, yet otherwise quite gentle. He pulled me down to sit opposite him beside the fire.
‘What must I do?’ I asked him, but he merely blinked slowly and shook his head.
He squeezed my hands, and then widened his eyes. A shock coursed through me as if a bolt of lightning had pierced my mind. He held me in his stare like a snake holds the eyes of its prey, and I remembered how dangerous these people were, how unpredictable and how unknown. My body began to shake, and his grip upon my hands grew stronger. My crossed knees hammered against the dusty ground. My throat corded. I could not breathe. I wanted to scream, but could summon no sound from my arid throat. Then, I felt a wrenching inside my head, my heart, my belly. Something tore within me. Through the power of his eyes alone, he sucked part of myself away from me, drew it out through my own startled stare, took it into himself. Then, he thrust away my hands and threw back his head, gasping, his mouth wide in a smile of pleasure and satisfaction.
I exhaled with a groan and slumped forward, my vision spinning. I felt as if I was extremely drunk, to the point of sickness, but my body could not vomit. My flesh was held in the vice of the most excruciating numbness and cramp. I curled up and writhed upon the cindery dirt, tears squeezing between my tightly-clenched eyelids. Was I dying?
Then, I felt hands upon me. Someone dragged my limbs out straight and forced something cold and hard between my teeth. Icy liquid, which burned like fire, ran down my throat. As it hit my stomach, the pain that gripped me melted away. I found myself blinking up at the bright stars.
I knew then: demons were not worshipped in this place. They were created here.
My guide, the ancient woman, took me out to the edge of the settlement. ‘What will you use my essence for?’ I asked her.
‘Don’t worry,’ she answered. ‘When the time comes for us to use it, you will not know about it, in any way. It has gone from you. No longer yours.’
I shuddered.
We had reached the shadow of the rock, where my path would lead back to my pony and the world I knew. Strangely, I was reluctant to leave. I looked back at the tall dwellings, black against the stars, and the crimson fires, greedy in their pits. I realised I had seen no children among the Yazatas, but perhaps they could risk breeding only rarely, if their lives were so long. I knew I would never come here again.
The woman withdrew something wrapped in a scrap of hide from her robe, which she pressed into my hands. I felt the hardness of glass between my fingers. ‘Use it wisely,’ she said. ‘It is the intention which counts. Some things are destined to die, others to thrive. Only your heart knows which.’
‘Thank you, madam,’ I said, and obeying an instinctive impulse, reached out to embrace her. She returned this importunate gesture rather stiffly, then pushed me away to arm’s length.
‘Make haste,’ she said. ‘Those born of fire are alert for lone travellers beneath the stars’ white flames. Smoke-men and djinn alike.’
I knew she watched me until the path turned a corner and the rocks hid me from view, because I looked back at the last minute, and saw her tall shape standing there, dark against the sand.
I reached the settlement of my people at dawn, my body racked with pain and exhaustion. For a day, I slept, and without dreams. In the evening, the call of the stars woke me and I went to bathe in their icy fire. Had I been changed? I wondered about it. I felt tired yet energetic, melancholic yet hopeful.
The bottle lay where I had cast it beside my cushions that morning. Its verdigris glow filled my canopy with emerald fire. I picked up the bottle and held it to my breast. I closed my eyes and thought about the one I wanted to punish, whom I might never have. Not because of Maqite, or my feelings for her, but because I feared he had no feelings for me. None that I could understand anyway. Born of fire. A desert creature, dry and hard and quick. He had been forged in a fire-pit and contained in a bottle. Someone had released him upon us, this djinn, whose fire was cold and who did not glow with flame, but was smoky, arid and caustic. Kneeling there among my cushions, with the star-fire coming in through the entrance, and the green glow battling with it upon my fevered skin, I accepted certain truths. I was proud and vain and fierce. I would love him until I died, beyond his own death, if necessary.
I walked out into the night. There was music; the chime of bells, the lament of a flute, the shrill warble of a girl’s high voice and the beat of drums. I went to Maqite’s canopy. It was full of weeping women. Kamaara stood among the curtains, her skin white as death’s hand, her eyes dull. I knew she too was expiring, and would vanish by the morning, gone the way she came, a phantom. I did not have to do anything about her. She was irrelevant.
The women kneeling around the bed muttered prayers through their tears. ‘Maqite is dying,’ they told me, and I requested that they leave us together for a while. This, they were happy to do, because I was her dearest friend. I knelt beside her.
‘Pashti, where have you been?’ she asked weakly, smiling to see me. ‘Would you leave me to depart this world alone?’
I put my right hand behind her head and lifted it, held the unstoppered glass vessel to her lips. ‘Drink,’ I said.
Her lips quivered. ‘What is it, Pashti?’
I swallowed. ‘Please, just drink.’
Trusting me, she did so. I saw her eyes fill up with green fire. They blazed out at me, and she laughed. Her upper body reared up from the cushions and she held out her arms to the sky beyond the entrance to her dwelling. It was as if a beloved voice were calling out to her from the stars.
I watched and waited. All of my future hung upon these moments.
Presen
tly, Maqite sank back down to her cushions with a rapturous sigh, and died there, smiling. I had not anticipated the outcome, only trusted my own heart.
I went back out into the night and summoned the women who, obeying custom, began to wail and keen.
I found him out beyond the peaked canopies, alone beside the water of the spring, sitting beneath a leaning tree. He glanced at me, his eyes hard, and I said, ‘She is dead.’
He nodded, his hair hanging over his breast. ‘It was expected.’
‘Don’t die from grief yourself, will you!’ I threw myself down beside him, and he seemed surprised I had done so. Normally, I ran from him, and would not endure his company or the touch of his eyes.
‘You blame me,’ he said.
I nodded. ‘Yes. And no. Certain of your actions are unforgivable.’
He sighed and leaned against the tree. ‘I did not ask to be born,’ he said.
It seemed, to me, an easy statement. I took the bottle from my pocket and tossed it into his lap. He stared at it, the green glow reflected in his eyes. ‘What is it?’
‘Yazata elixir,’ I said. ‘I went yesterday to fetch it for Maqite.’
He touched the glass with his artist’s fingers and glanced at me. ‘You were too late. How... pitiful.’
‘Yes.’ I stood up.
‘You took a great risk.’
‘Yes.’ I looked down at him. ‘Still, why waste it? You drink it instead.’
‘I’m not dying.’
‘It will give you longevity. I’ve seen it.’
He laughed, and I turned away painfully from his terrible loveliness. ‘Drink with me, then,’ he said.
I looked back at him and forced myself to suffer his eyes for a while. ‘I don’t know what will happen.’ I watched him take the stopper from the bottle and drink.