Amjad, the gatekeeper, filled me with an anger I could not describe. I stood by the entrance to the town, watching the morning caravans and visitors bustle through, trying to remember their faces and study their habits, but I could barely focus.

Amjad would arrive late, long after a crowd had gathered on the outside and the caravanners were banging on the doors. He let them in without as much as a search or question to their business. He leaned on his spear, waiting for the rush to disperse, than closed the gate in the afternoon so that he could go play dice with the militia boys.

And the boys, only a few years older than Yaseen, had been given cracked spears and staffs to mind the market road. They ran up and down the street until Abu Kaseem threatened waving a club over his head. You should take control. Deliver some bruises and some harsh words. Get everything in order.

I couldn’t do anything about it, though, not without inciting unrest. The Ra’is, along with the Emir, had not returned from Hims. And until they gave me the spear at Khwaja’s behest, my word meant little. Amjad finally noticed me as he came back from the latrine, chewing yet another bite of hashish. “You,” he said, pausing to spit a red glob in the corner. “The Atabeg wants me to ask you about the Tuqtuq.”

“He can find me and ask me himself,” I replied.

“You also killed a Numayri?”

“If I answer that, will you answer a question of mine?”

Amjad chewed nervously before answering, “what?”

“Who lights the torches at night?”

“I do,” he said, pointing to himself.

“Just you?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” he repeated, then quickly added, “Oh, and Umar.”

“The farrier?”

“He’s on the western gate.”

Someone poked me hard in the side and I whipped around to find Yaseen standing there with training sword. “I called you so many times, Munqidh. You don’t answer!”

“Don’t do that again,” I snapped. The name had been ringing in my mind, but it’d just been another noise of the crowd, and I’d drowned it out. No matter how many times I’d heard Munqidh in the past few days, it never caught my attention. I wondered if Balak would catch my attention or just be another voice in the wind.

“Peaches!” Yaseen cried, running over to Amjad as he hoisted out a crate from the guardhouse. It was filled with fresh fruit.

“Look at these,” Amjad said to Yaseen, “I saved this one for you.” The footman tossed the boy an unusually large peach.

“This is perfect, so ripe!” Yaseen replied. He dropped his toy sword and bit into the fruit hungrily.

“You said to look for orange ones, right? The bright orange ones,” Amjad said, and beamed at his collection. “Take some more, they gave me so much.”

“I can’t eat all of that,” Yaseen replied.

“Take some for the bimaristan—”

“Where did you get these?” I interrupted, and the fool of a man finally quit his smiling and showing his blackened teeth.

“From someone… last night… before they left,” Amjad replied, shuffling in front of his crate protectively.

“Was it a bribe?”

“No,” he shot back.

“Leave him alone,” Yaseen said and I was forced to let the matter go. There was nothing I could really force him to do right now. Not yet.

But the days went by slower than I’d expected them to. With the danger of accidentally touching someone in the morning crowd, I hung around the corners and away from people. If forced to shake hands, I grasped the elbow instead, so no skin would touch and my blighted abilities wouldn’t surface. Even with Yaseen and Samir Ali, who offered comforting emotions, I felt repelled from any closeness. I refused to accept this magic inside of me. This blight. I watched quietly as the days seem to draw longer. The coffee-house offered some distraction with Musa’s poetry, and there was always work to be done at the bimaristan, but the danger of touching someone was always in the back of my mind. On many evenings, I found myself outside the walls to watch the sun set over Castle Chmemis; an old fort crowing an ancient Tell in the distance. It stood proudly over the northern plains and shone the brightest as the sun turned red.

I didn’t venture too far out, though, and had no intention of running into patrolling cavaliers or the bedouins still harassing the roads. There were some dwellings built by the gate, used mostly by traveling fakirs and other folk who preferred not to enter the town. I picked a bedroll with the least amount of stains and hash spittle, and laid awake deep into the night, too afraid to sleep and remember the man and his golden face. In my dreams, I stared at the mask. And my nightmares, they forced me to look through it.

***

Yaseen’s father never returned with the Himsi caravan. The Emir and the Ra’is did, however, and were greeted by the tight-jawed Atabeg and a handful of other cavaliers.

The farmboy rushed up to the horses as the gate opened, not backing down from the beasts and the Ra’is snapped angrily at him for blocking the path. The Emir ignored him and squeezed past, quickly re-grouping with his waiting retinue.

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The Ra’is managed to dodge the boy’s question, until I stepped in his way.

“Move!” the flustered man shouted. “Can’t a man get a drink—”

“There’s been an attack, sayyid. This boy’s farm was attack the other day.”

“I heard, I heard—”

“Where’s my father, he was with you when you left!” Yaseen shouted as he joined me in blocking the man’s path again.

The official was joined by his companion, a young woman in a white clerical robe. She asked him a question, glanced back at us, then fanned her face dramatically, “It’s hot, aba, I’ll make you a coconut drink as soon as we get home.” Her horse almost trampled Yaseen as she trotted past us and I had to pull the boy out of her way.

The next few moments happened quickly. There was a poison inside me, that seeped into my limbs and made them lash out. No matter what my intentions were, my mind thought of stranger things. The Ra’is was ripped out of his saddle by my hands and brought to the dirt floor. His eyes bulged up at me as he floundered and the fear on his face made my heart beat faster and for a brief, intense moment, I wanted to tear the skin from his face.

“Oi!” one of the cavaliers broke away from the Emir’s retinue and trotted over, “What’s the hassle here?”

“Aba!” the woman shouted.

“The silly old man fell off his horse!” Yaseen interrupted, “we’re just helping him up.” He laughed, a surprisingly calm and natural chuckle as he stepped up and took one of the Ra’is’ arm over his shoulder. I was still frozen with my hands around the man’s collar.

Yaseen nudged me and I followed his lead, and brushed the dust off the official’s cloak. “Hope you’re not too hurt, aba,” I said and placed a hand on his shoulder. The official looked between me and the boy smiling up at him. His daughter had missed my attack and was completely confused. A light-haired Armenian cavalier rolled his eyes, “try not to be a fat man-child all the time, Al Muhtiz.”

“Mind your tongue, Badu,” the daughter snapped.

Ra’is opened his mouth as the cavalier retreated but I squeezed his shoulder hard, “you should go home and rest, sayyid. We can discuss remediation later in the afternoon.”

The man stood frozen, mouth agape, glancing between mine and Yaseen’s smiling face. He licked his lips and backed away slowly, hand searching for his mare’s reins. “Aba, let’s go,” his daughter pleaded.

“What is wrong with you?” Yaseen said, turning to me after the others were out earshot.

“You were waiting for your father all night? Weren’t you supposed to stay with Musa and Mina?”

Yaseen shrugged tiredly. One of his sandals had broken off and he kicked away to side. “Mina can help you sow that back up. Go and get some rest,” I told him. The energy boy had shown a moment ago had drained away from him. He wavered on the spot, unsure of what to do.

“I said go,” I said, “don’t worry about your father. He’ll return with the next caravan.”

“That’s not until the next Peach day.”

“Peach day?”

The boy huffed and shook his head angrily, “forget it, come get me for the remediation.”

“I’ll see,” I replied. “You need sleep right now.”

“It’s not a joke, Munqidh. It’s my farm and the fat man owes me money.”

I didn’t bother arguing further. “Just go back to Musa’s and eat some breakfast.”

“Fine,” the boy replied. He rubbed his tired eyes and I followed him until we reached the laundry road, the same alley leading to the bimaristan and the cotton quarters. Musa and Mina lived beyond that by the south wall. Yaseen disappeared into the crowd of seamstresses on the other end.

The morning crowd at the bazaar almost completely consisted of women and maidservants rushing to bargain with the sleepy vendors before the afternoon crowd of male caravaners and traders bustled in. Musa’s shop was still empty.

I tailed the Emir’s retinue towards the market square, from where drifted the smell of morning coffee and fried jujube pastries, which seemed to be a local favorite. I found Rabia staring from across the square at the approaching crowd. She half hid behind an abandoned caravan where a couple youth were playing dice. She didn’t see me, intensely watching the Emir and the townfolk greeting him as he slid out of his saddle.

The man was well-built but years of peace had given him a belly and his fingers were decorated with rings and jewelry in the eastern fashion. They glinted in the morning light as he raised his palms as a the group of green-cappers and guildsmen surrounded and bombarded him with questions. The cavaliers left the elders to their talk, distracted by some friends who invited them inside the coffee-house. Barks of laughter filled the square, care-free, as if the town was under no threat and all was well.

I decided to join Rabia, there was a better view from where she stood. She blinked and murmured some greeting when she noticed my approach. “You didn’t bring us any beans,” she said with a grin.

I didn’t bother replying, studying the display of public court instead. The Emir was nodding tiredly as farmers and town-folk complained one by one and the Ra’is had his pen and paper out; held against his daughter’s back so he could jot down anything important.

“Where did you sleep last night?” Rabia asked.

“There was a bed along the fakir hut.”

“Those aren’t fakirs—“

“I know.”

There was a rich man with his own retinue, waiting patiently behind the Emir’s crowd. He was a green-capper, an Exchange guilds-man, but his robe was more ornate and decorated than the other money clerks. His bodyguards were even more unusual; tribal Turkmen, with round fur-shields, short-bows and naked sabers hanging loosely from the waist. They looked bored, and when one of them glanced our way absently, Rabia tensed up.

“When I was little, my mother used to sing me a lullaby,” Rabia whispered. “It was about a child who grew up without a mother’s love. I can remember the tune, but I can’t ever seem to remember the words.”

“Do you know him?” I nodded to the richly dressed man. What could she be plotting now?

“That man is Abu Mateen,” Rabia said as she slunk further away behind the wagon until no one could see her but I. “He’s Blighted like us.”

“Why do you push the Blight on everything—“

“And you’re going to kill him,” she finished, leaving me speechless. The nerve of this woman. She scurries about like a hyena, but watches like a lioness. “Did he hurt you in his service?” I asked but Rabia was now lost in thought, playing with the bronze bangles on her wrist.

“Do you know what’s the strangest thing about my mother and how I remember her?” she replied suddenly.

“What?”

“She died giving birth to me.”

“So you’re saying that—“

“I’m saying that I never actually knew her, so who is the woman that haunts my sleep?”

“A maidservant, then,” I replied. “Or a relative before you were sold into slavery.”

Rabia shrugged and peered around the wagon, “look, something’s happening.”

It began as a murmur, some faint curses, and an angry shout as a young, shirtless man appeared out of the market crowd. He stepped over the coffee-patrons seated outside, even apologized to one who almost spilled a drink leaning away from his lanky limbs. His eyes were locked on the Emir.

Move closer, I thought, already taking long strides towards someone who seemed an awful like an Akkari assassin.

But the young man turned away from the Emir and climbed up on the fountain in the middle of the yard. He still carries a knife.

A green-capper was the first to notice him, pointing and yelling, “Assassin!”

“Fahima!” the man yelled at the same time and raised his dagger to a girl on a horse behind the Emir, “I can’t have you and my life is nothing.”

“Ali,” the girl screamed, “No!” She jumped off her horse but the Emir stepped around and grabbed her by the waist. The Atabeg rushed to the man with his sword out but the boy stabbed himself in the chest before the cavalier could descend on him.

“Suicide,” Rabia said, sounding a little disappointed it wasn’t anything more. “I was sure there’d be more.”

The youngster had enough strength to not collapse right away, instead opening his chest further, drawing the blade across into his heart. He hunched over with a wet groan and then fell limp into the shallow fountain.

The Atabeg avoided the bloody splash and frowned at the body. “Take him away,” the Emir yelled at the cavaliers who were stumbling out of the coffee-house looking around for danger. But everyone was frozen and quiet, except for the Emir’s daughter, who wailed uncontrollably in his arms.

***