Midnight Read online

  Joshua Rutherford

  MIDNIGHT

  MIDNIGHT | Joshua Rutherford

  Copyright ©2018 by Joshua Rutherford

  Published 2018

  ISBN-13: 978-1530796120

  ISBN-10: 1530796121

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author at:

  [email protected]

  Table of Contents

  Acknowledgements

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  For my North Star, Elisa

  For my Falcon, David

  For my Compass, Nathaniel

  Acknowledgements

  This novel was a struggle, one in which I learned much about myself as a writer. Along that journey, I had the diehard support of many family and friends I am blessed to have in my life. Rather than name the bulk of them here, know that each will receive from me my heartfelt thanks in person, for sometimes the written word fails to convey what must be said from the living and breathing. However, I will make special mention of the three individuals that form the foundation of my life: my wife and two sons. They are my North Star, my Falcon, and my Compass. Each day, they inspire me to become a better person. I push myself to improve and grow all because of them. To my family I extend my eternal gratitude.

  Prologue

  I hate the sun. And the flock of birds that fly across it.

  I loathe the sea, the fish, and the trident.

  I despise the cedar and the axe.

  Damn them all.

  “Jalal.”

  Jalal glanced over his shoulder. His father, Kiyan, stood a stone’s throw away, beside their personal guard. His beard has so much gray, Jalal considered. Much more than when all this started. How long has it been? Six, maybe seven months since he first gave the army their marching orders? Jalal studied the gray again, which made up more than half the hairs, outnumbering the black. Just as our dead and wounded outnumber our able and ready. Jalal turned away.

  Fingers, as though of iron, dug into the meaty flesh of his arm. “Don’t you turn away!” Kiyan demanded. “The guards have been calling you for five minutes. Now you ignore me?”

  “No,” Jalal replied, solemnly. “I’m simply giving my full focus to them.”

  Jalal nodded to the dry floodplain that stretched beneath the plateau where they stood. On its banks stood three camps. The first, to the south, was the furthest. Jalal knew its tribe, for even as their battle standard shook and flapped in the wind the burnt orange of its sun was striking. Against the backdrop of the brilliant sphere was sewn five ebony eagles, one for each of the siblings that founded the El Fayir tribe.

  Their eagles might as well be vultures, Jalal told himself. The El Fayir men and women - known as the Sands and Winds, respectively – had carved out their meager empire by stalking the Canyonlands for caravans and travelers who were unfortunate enough to cross their paths. They prided themselves on attacking their victims in the heat of the day when they had stopped for rest and water. Descending from nooks and canyon outcroppings, with the sun at their backs, the Sands and Winds would use the blinding afternoon light to their advantage. Their victims would fall, knowing their attackers only by the silhouettes against the burning glow of day.

  Beside the El Fayir were the Shoahan. Far from the sea, the Shoahan had somehow managed to muster a force that put the El Fayir to shame. Their tents outnumbered those of the El Fayir two to one. Furthermore, the Shoahan shelters were larger, nearly pavilions when compared to the two-sided khaki tops that housed the Sands and Winds. Ever proud of their maritime history, the Shoahan tents were of wool dyed shades of blue, so that from Jalal’s view the camp appeared to be ponds - elevated and suspended above the ground – with the wind rippling their raised surfaces. Despite the uniformity in shape and color, each tent told a story of voyages past, as every owner had painted on them emblems from the islands and nations they had visited.

  At the four points of the Shoahan camp, on poles that also carried weathervanes, flapped their standard. Jalal narrowed his eyes as he looked upon it with Kiyan. Navy blue it was, with nine silver fish representing the Shoahan home islands, surrounding an upright golden trident.

  The northernmost camp was also the smallest of the three. The least impressive, whether viewed from the plateau or up close. Nonetheless, it was the one that hurt his father most. Jalal searched his father’s face for but a moment. That was all he needed. Jalal saw the skin around his eyes crease as he focused on the battle standard of a lone cedar against white, with two axes crossed before it.

  That camp belonged to the Syniad, the foresters of the Lowland Zajire, led by Inci, a woman of high birth, a gifted general, a wise sultana – and Kiyan’s half-sister.

  To the family guards, Kiyan’s actions were nothing more than their leader sizing up the enemy. Jalal knew better. His father focused on each camp a little too long, the smallest and last being no exception. Such pause signaled the pain of loss, apparent only to Jalal, no matter how well Kiyan tried to hide it. His fists unfurled ever so slightly. His shoulders lowered a hair’s length. The creases around his eyes were more apparent. The change was subtle. Nevertheless, it was there.

  Then, as though sensing his own weakness, Kiyan swung around to face his son and guards. The creases had disappeared and the stone-faced man everyone in their land had come to respect returned, even if only as a façade.

  “Ready my war council,” Kiyan roared. “I expect all generals to be briefed by their scouts within the hour. Until then, I’ll be in my pavilion.” He strode a few steps before stopping before his son. “A word,” he said low, but not so low that his guards could not hear. Kiyan continued past his security detail, who stood at attention and saluted him as he passed. Jalal followed, albeit reluctantly. Each guard he went by kept their salute up, remaining stoic. However, he felt their gaze upon him with a mixture of fear and pity.

  The guards in his father’s pavilion were no different when Jalal entered. Although an effendi of the army and a son of the sultan, Jalal nonetheless knelt on one knee and bowed his head before his father, who sat in the gilded throne chair in the pavilion’s center. Kiyan raised the palm of his hand. “Leave us.”

  The guards complied, the scales on their armor clanging as they exited while Jalal kept his head tilted. His gaze found the ruby red and indigo threads of the rich rug before him, the work of the finest tailors in Salek, which dazzled in the morning light as it streamed in behind him. Then the clanging of scales was gone, and a moment later, the morning light as the pavilion flaps closed. With only the subtle light of the coals in the braziers, the rug had lost its luster, its brilliance suddenly faded.

  “Stand, my son. There is no further need to put on airs and graces.”

  Jalal raised his head. He found his father off his throne and at a side table, pouring two small glasses of jade tea. Kiyan beckoned Jalal forward and handed him one. “Spic
ed,” Kiyan began. “With cinnamon and licorice, just the way you like it.”

  “My favorite drink as a child,” Jalal replied. “That was quite some time ago.”

  “In your eyes, yes. In mine, not so much.” Kiyan raised his glass to his son, who returned the gesture. The two sipped, allowing a pause between them. Kiyan looked down into his glass. He looked less confident than usual. Almost melancholy. This is not the sultan I know, Jalal thought to himself. And only himself.

  “Our position in these lands was so much better when you were a child,” Kiyan continued. “Our country was more than it is now. Like an empire rather than a single nation under one standard. Foreigners trembled at the mention of our name. Young men joined our ranks assured of victory and riches. Enemies at our borders quaked at the thought of meeting us at battle. I only wish I could say the same of us now.”

  “Then what happened?” Jalal asked even though he knew where this conversation would end. His father had told him half a hundred times before, especially upon learning of dire news. He went ahead and inquired, for he knew the sultan before him needed validation at this moment, if only in the form of feigned interest and curiosity.

  “I’ll tell you,” Kiyan took a sip of his jade tea, his son’s pity unbeknownst to him. “I gave in to others. I received the counsel of fools. From generals who were weary of war. From viziers at home and ministers abroad who preached peace and humanity above glory and conquest. From imams and mystics who foretold doom if I did not lay down my kilij and my dagger. I put aside my pride, my ambition, for the greater good. Now, look where my forced inaction has led.” Kiyan set his glass on the table, his fingers suspended over its mosaic tiles.

  Jalal, with the heat of a thousand fires pulsating through his veins, threw his glass onto the ground. Shattered pieces flew in all directions as he stepped up to his father. “We can fight our way through their lines! Our horses are well fed and watered; our kilijs are sharpened, our cries louder than all. They will hear us roar and will scatter like jackals before lions. Their lines will break. Their tents will burn. We will route their cowardly hides into the desert to perish under the afternoon sun.”

  Kiyan raised his eyes to his son, his look a blend of pride and sorrow. “Good,” he said. “Good. You have the blaze of youth. You will need it to find the jinni.”

  Jalal, not one to show a pause, shuffled back. “The jinni? Me?”

  “Is that not why we came here?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “Isn’t that why we crossed two nations into this no man’s land?”

  “Yes. Again, yes.” Jalal confirmed.

  He turned away from his father, to face one of the tapestries that hung from the horizontal supports of the pavilion’s crown. Stitched and woven into the center of the maroon and gold cloth was the creature he had seen referenced in book and song, in plays and poems: a jinni. The image on the tapestry - an ancient cloth passed down for dozens of generations - had long been his favorite for it was the one that came the closest to his imagination of the mystical soldiers of Jaha. A being, not unlike a man, levitated over the scene of a pastoral village. The scale of the jinni to the village was enormous, as the length of his body stretched vertically from end to end of the cloth, covering the span of the buildings and farmhouses beneath him. The entire village stood in immaculate detail, as each stitch managed to capture some aspect of commoner life: a shepherd amongst grazing sheep, a blacksmith at his anvil, a washerwoman at the communal fountain. For all the beauty of the lower half, the upper part – where the jinni levitated – proved most striking, attracted Jalal’s attention first. Fabric of the most radiant turquoise tone he had ever seen composed the exposed torso and extremities of the jinni. His trousers were a rich burgundy, while the hair of his head and beard were jet black. Above all, though, were the eyes. Two sapphires, each carved in a whirl cut, stood in place of eyes. As a boy, Jalal remembered tales in which the precious gemstones found in mines were once the eyes of past jinn and their children. Jalal had brushed off the notion more often than naught but had always wondered if the legend were true.

  “You know, father…”

  Jalal froze. The creases around his father’s eyes deepened. His posture had lessened as his shoulders drooped. Moreover, he had his hand over his heart, a rare gesture of weakness for the Desert Lion of Dyli.

  Then his right knee buckled. He leaned forward as Jalal stretched out his arms to catch him.

  “Father!”

  “Not so loud,” Kiyan managed. He pursed his lips, to summon his strength. He glanced off to the side, and then back to his son, who knew what to do.

  Jalal gently released his father before turning to the chest to his left. In a few quick steps, he was before it on one knee, its lid wide open as he searched the contents. An array of glass jars, most coated from the inside by a black film, laid stacked within. Jalal shook one after another, tossing the empty jars aside.

  “Son. Hurry.”

  Strained, the words skimmed upon Jalal’s ears. They lacked power. If the others heard him now, Jalal considered, they would lose their respect for him. The generals. Their soldiers. All his viziers. Even his personal guards. A legacy created over decades snuffed out by one display of weakness.

  Finally, Jalal chanced upon an alabaster jar that offered the hint of weight in his hand. He opened the lid to find it half-full of red and black powder. He turned back to his father, who already had his hand outstretched in anticipation.

  The three steps Jalal took to reach his father seemed an eternity in time, a mountain of effort to move one foot, then another. In the span of such difficulty, Jalal’s stare focused on his father’s eyes. They had widened, displaying the anxiety and cowardice of their owner. His mouth was ajar, much like how a soldier contorts his face upon seeing the deathblow that will take his life.

  No. This cannot be the man I worshipped. Do not let me remember this as his last breath.

  At last, Jalal kneeled by his side. He tipped the contents of the jar into his hand. Even in the low light of the pavilion, the powder gleamed. Kiyan threw his head back as he emptied his hand into his mouth, choking down the red and black flecks.

  His chest heaved. His nostrils flared. His eyes – which only moments before held the fear of ten thousand dastards – focused. The look of a leader, of a sultan, returned to his face.

  Kiyan brushed his son’s hands away as he rose unassisted. He paced the room, his gaze shifting from the ground he walked on to the treasures of his tent, seemingly never satisfied with what he saw. Then he turned his attention to the jar still in his hand.

  “When they die – when a jinni passes from this world to the next – their power remains. It is a rare thing for the Survivors of Heaven to depart. Yet it has happened, usually when the jinni’s master wills it, or the jinni is defeated in battle by another supernatural. The result of such a death is this.” Kiyan held out the jar. “The jinni dissolves into granules, a handful of which can stave off death, extend life. The same has been said of the children of the jinn, the product of a jinni and a woman. Their dust can prolong the days of one, even he who should have fallen a long time ago.”

  Kiyan paced again, albeit slowly. Jalal knew of the sickness his father referred to, but never admitted openly. A year prior, the sultan’s strength showed signs of waning. It was a difference not apparent to all except Jalal and a few of his brothers. Yet it was enough to shake their faith. Both in their father and in Jaha himself.

  Kiyan paused. He looked at his son. Suddenly, rage overtook him. He threw the jar in his hand to the ground with a force that shattered the alabaster into a thousand pieces.

  “That must be the last time,” Kiyan proclaimed. “The last time I fall. That I show weakness. That my blood should doubt our bloodline. Nay, that must be the last time our blood displays anything that is not strength.”

  Kiyan looked down to his son, who remained knelt on the ground. He extended his hand. “Give me the jar.”

 
Jalal held it out. Kiyan took it, then his son’s hand as he pulled him to his feet.

  “Promise me. Never a moment of weakness. No matter what. Never.”

  “Never,” Jalal replied.

  Kiyan patted him on the shoulders. “Good.” Kiyan looked to the tapestry with the jinni, as did Jalal. “You remember that. For one day, it will be you who command them.”

  “But only a sultana or sultan can control the jinn...”

  Jalal paused. Kiyan nodded his head slightly, and but once, as if in answer to the unspoken question Jalal did not pose.

  Jalal knew the weight of his father’s decision. As the ninth-born of twenty-two sons, Jalal knew that he was not the next in line to inherit his father’s title. While Inci had made quick work of two of his older brothers, six more remained in line ahead of him to claim the seat of Dyli. Two were even slightly better in combat. Nevertheless, nearly all his siblings, both older and younger, had failed Kiyan in some way, knowing that their position amongst other lands and kingdoms had faded in recent years. Most of the sons of Kiyan either defected to Syniad or their allies or withdrew to their pleasure palaces or pavilions to squander the family fortune. Through all the betrayal, Jalal had stayed faithful. He had become his father’s right hand, his confidant, the jinni to his wishes. Where his brothers had failed, his loyalty had endured.

  Still, the mention caught Jalal off guard. The bestowing of the title of sultan was not to be considered lightly. With the glory came the price, which included more tutelage by viziers, more time spent at court and most importantly, more guards present at all times. The last condition was enough to give any man, no matter how delusional or brave, a moment of pause. For few newly appointed sultans survived their first year on the seat, and almost none lived long enough to wither in old age.

  Kiyan sensed the weight that his words had on his son. “Speak your mind, Jalal. There is no court in attendance to judge you.”

  “The generals and viziers will not be pleased,” Jalal said pointedly. Hardly news to his father, but the only thought he could put together in response. “Even the most presumptuous heir knows that weeks of conversation and debate must go by once it is announced that the sultan is thinking of naming his successor.”