The young jinn laughed in astonishment. Humans rarely traveled alone in this stretch of the desert, and never on foot. What insanity had driven this one so far astray? Then their laughter ran dry, for he’d drawn close enough for them to see that he was no human at all, but one of their own kind. He came closer still—and a sudden, instinctual terror seized them both.
—Iron! He brings iron!
And indeed there it was, a close-fitting cuff of beaten iron, glinting from his wrist. But—how was such a thing possible? Did he feel no fear at its presence, no searing pain at its touch? What was he?
Bewildered, the youngsters fled back to their habitation in the valley, to tell the elders what they’d seen.
The man who wasn’t a man approached the valley.
The youngsters had seen the truth: he was indeed a jinni, a creature of living flame. Once, like them, he’d been free to take the shape of any animal, or fly invisible through the air, or even enter dreaming minds—but he’d lost these abilities long ago. The iron cuff at his wrist was the work of a powerful wizard who’d captured him, bound him to human form, and sealed him inside a copper flask for safekeeping. He’d languished in that flask for over a thousand years—which he’d felt only as a single, timeless moment—until, in a city on the other side of the world, an unsuspecting tinsmith had broken the seal and released him. He could no longer speak the jinn language, for it was a thing of flames and wind, unpronounceable by human tongues. Inside his valise was the copper flask that had been his prison, now home to the very wizard who’d bound him—a victory that had come at great cost. And now he’d returned to the very habitation that once had been his own, to hide the flask away from the human world.
He reached the edge of the valley and paused, waiting. Soon he spied them: a phalanx of jinn, coming to investigate. The jinn youngsters returned as well, but they were not so bold as their elders. They took the form of lizards, and hid in the scrub near the stranger’s feet, small enough to go unnoticed.
—What are you? the elders asked.
And the stranger told them his story.
Word of the stranger spread.
Before long, hundreds of jinn had gathered upon the ridges to peer down into the valley where he knelt, digging a hole in the desert floor with his bare hands. The two youngsters, meanwhile, flew among their fellows, eagerly spreading the tale they’d heard at his feet.
—He is one of us, born from this very habitation, bound by a wizard over a thousand years ago . . .
—The iron is enchanted, it chains him to human form . . .
For hours the stranger worked in the growing heat. At last he opened the valise and removed the flask, its copper belly glowing in the afternoon sun.
—There, you see? That was his prison! And now the wizard himself is caught inside!
The flask disappeared into the hole, along with a tattered sheaf of papers.—The wizard’s spells, the youngsters said; it was a guess, but an accurate one. Then the stranger replaced the dirt and sand, built a cairn of rocks over the spot to mark it, and stood, wiping his hands.
The elders, too, had been watching. They descended and spoke, their voices echoing to the ridge-tops.—But how will you live, they said, bound and chained as you are? What will you do, where will you go?
“I’ll go home,” the iron-bound jinni replied. And without another word he walked out of the valley, and vanished into the desert.
The tale of the iron-bound jinni spread from jinn-child to jinn-child.
All agreed on the main elements: the stranger, the iron, the flask and its burial. But from there, the story fractured and diverged. Some said that he was spotted near the invisible remains of an ancient glass palace, its walls and spires worn to tatters. Others spoke of watching a jinni in human form cross into the Ghouta, the dangerous oasis along the eastern edge of Damascus, where the marsh-creatures liked to snare passing jinn and drag them into the waters, which soon extinguished them.
—But why would he go there? the listeners asked.
—Perhaps to end his unhappy life, some guessed.
But others remembered his words: I’ll go home. And their thoughts turned to the land beyond the Ghouta, the world of men and iron. Was that what he’d meant? Did he dwell among them now? It seemed impossible. To live as a human, constantly trudging upon the ground; to shelter in their buildings from the killing rain, and speak to them in their languages—how long could one bear it? How long before the waters of the Ghouta began to seem like a welcome relief?
Thus they speculated, and argued, and told the tale over and over amongst themselves. And through their workings, the tale soon gained enough weight and shape to break free of the valley and travel, like its own strange protagonist, into places where it wasn’t expected.
* * *
In truth, the iron-bound jinni made it easily through the Ghouta, for the marsh-creatures there were just as frightened of him as their desert cousins had been. He had no inkling at all of the story he’d set into motion, the legend now growing behind him. He only knew that he had a ship to catch.
In Damascus he caught the train over the mountains to the docks at Beirut, where he placed an overseas cable at the telegram office and then joined the line for his packet ship. The line advanced slowly. He tried to remain patient. A year now since he’d been freed from the flask, and patience was still a daily struggle. He suspected it always would be. He
