“Is that Meroitic?” she asked, eyeing the script. “Second-century?”
Zagros turned, pursing a set of violet lips before drawling: “Third. But Meroitic, yes.”
Fatma leaned in, appearing to take an interest. When he was in a mood, it helped to impress his innate bibliophilia. Getting the century wrong was a special touch. Because his type lived to correct people. “I thought Meroitic was indecipherable. The lost Nubian language.”
“It has remained stubbornly unknowable,” Zagros admitted. He pointed to the bits of parchment between the infused glass, which glowed a slight jade. Where his claws touched, the script shifted and reformed into Arabic. “This we know means ‘door.’ This one ‘bird.’ But what does that mean when put together?”
Fatma almost suggested “door-bird,” but the librarian wasn’t known for his sense of humor.
“Deciphering words hasn’t helped us understand the language,” he bemoaned. “Two different matters, you see. I’m working on a theory that the syntax may be magically locked, purposefully obscuring itself. Quite crafty.”
Fatma glanced to Hadia, nudging in the djinn’s direction. She caught on quick. “Where is this book … from?” she asked.
“The mortuary tomb of Amanishakheto!” Zagros answered, his golden eyes excited. “One of the famed Kandake! This could be a funeral dirge: a lament to their gods or philosophy on the afterlife. We have it on loan from Soudan. It’s been sitting in their collections, while those Sufis spend all their time searching for radical numerology in sacred geometry. You let some people read Marx…” Catching himself, he looked to them as if seeing wholly new people. “It is refreshing to hear an appreciation of alphasyllabic script. How may I help you today, agents?”
“We’re looking for works on al-Jahiz,” Fatma said.
The djinn arched an eyebrow. “More than a few of those.”
“The better biographies and contemporary accounts.”
Zagros tapped contemplatively on a pair of ivory tusks that curved up from his mouth. The tips were capped in silver and stringed with tiny bells that tinkled at his touch. “The more popular historical biographies are by Ghitani. Then there are the literary accounts by Mahfouz and Hussein. Religious interpretations by Soudanese fakirs…” He turned, muttering and walking out into the library.
Fatma and Hadia followed close. The djinn was faster than his size suggested, and they kept up by catching glimpses of his fluttering robes around corners—and the chiming of tiny bells.
“That was a quick turnaround,” Hadia whispered. She yelped, just managing to catch a thick tome tossed by Zagros.
“Djinn are a lot like the rest of us,” Fatma said. She plucked a book out of the air that came flying, without stopping her stride. “They just want to know the odd things they’re interested in are appreciated.”
“Like my cousin who collects automata birds,” Hadia noted. “But why are we doing this again?” She caught a second book atop the first and smiled in satisfaction.
“You said it earlier,” Fatma answered, casually catching two more. “Someone is running around the city claiming to be al-Jahiz. Someone who was at the scene of a murder of a brotherhood dedicated to his memory. Al-Jahiz is the one thread that ties the two.”
“You’re thinking whoever is masquerading as al-Jahiz probably created his persona based from books like these. And Lord Worthington’s brotherhood did the same. We’re not building a profile of al-Jahiz; we’re building one on how people remember him.”
The woman was good, Fatma had to admit. There was a yelp as another large tome soared at them, causing Hadia to drop her stack. But she was going to have to get better at catching books.
Some hours later they sat amid stacks arranged along the length of a table—the only sound the constant whoosh of the swinging pendulum. The librarian had provided them with more material than they could get through. They’d tackled the popular ones first before moving to the obscure titles. Hadia took notes with pen and paper as they went, unable to convince Zagros to let her bring down a typewriter—what he called a vexatious and cacophonous machine. Still, she’d written up several pages. Reaching the end of a sheet, she stopped to flex her hand.
“I think it’s cramped.” She winced.
Fatma rested her own book, and her exhausted eyes. “Read back what we have.”
Hadia rummaged through her sheets, before lifting one out.
“Al-Jahiz. Well, the first thing is, no one really knows his name.”
That was something all the books and accounts agreed upon. Al-Jahiz wasn’t actually a name, more like a sobriquet. The most famous man in modern memory couldn’t even be assigned something as simple as a name.
“It’s uncertain whether he adopted the title or if it was given,” Hadia continued. “Either way, most writers agree it’s the source of the arguments over his origin and the schools of thought that have popped up. The Temporalist school claims he’s a time traveler, and one and the same with the ninth-century al-Jahiz of Basra.”
“Abū ʿUthman ʿAmr Baḥr al-Kinānī al-Baṣrī,” Fatma recited.
“Nicknamed al-Jahiz.” Hadia nodded. “The boggle-eyed. Not very flattering. Most today think he suffered from a malformation of the cornea. Not much is known of his early life, but he’s credited with writing over two hundred books—if the stories are to be believed—on everything from zoology to philosophy. The Temporalists claim the two al-Jahizes are one. However, there’s nothing about the medieval al-Jahiz that says he was an inventor. They’ve probably mixed him up with the thirteenth-century al-Jazari. The mistake’s been pointed out, but they’re pretty insistent, some even claiming al-Jahiz came back first as al-Jazari. They don’t even have his background right! The first al-Jahiz was likely Abyssinian. Everyone agrees the modern al-Jahiz is from Soudan. And no one mentions him being boggle-eyed. So the reason for the title remains a mystery.”
“People find all sorts of ways to make their logic work,” Fatma replied. Temporalism had become popular among mechanics and the more science-minded. Every few months,
