By the time Fatma made it outside, she was bent over, trying to expel dust and smoke from her lungs. Somebody took her arm, leading her away. Hadia. Someone else had her other arm. Hamed. She stumbled between them, thinking she must be in some state for him to actually hold her up as he did. The man was usually very proper about such things.
The two led her a safe distance. Here people milled about, their faces distraught. A few held hands over their mouths. Others openly wept. She turned to what they were looking at. The Ministry still stood, but it had been struck a severe blow. The glass dome was gone—blown clean away—and black smoke poured from a smoldering fire.
I will make you hurt. I will make you understand. And drag your secrets into the light.
The imposter’s words echoed with the ringing in her ears, given new awful meaning. She turned to Hadia and Hamed, trying to get her mouth to work. They sought to calm her. Hadia was saying she was in shock. Amid their chatter came the distant clang of sirens. No! They needed to listen. She’d seen what the imposter took from the vault. She’d recognized it.
“Plans and pieces,” she stammered. “He took plans and pieces.”
Both only stared in confusion. She gritted her teeth, pushing away the ringing and the world, willing the words to come.
“Listen! I saw what he took! Plans and pieces! They were from the Clock of Worlds. He took plans and pieces from the Clock of Worlds!”
Hadia still looked confused. But seeing the blood drain from Hamed’s face told her she’d gotten her point across. Closing her eyes, she let the ringing and the world flood back in, trying not to let the terror she felt consume her.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The night air was cool on Fatma’s skin, stirring her from a fitful sleep.
She’d been dreaming. Of the man in the gold mask. Ghuls and roaring djinn. Ifrit that flew on wings of flame. She pulled free of Siti, and rose from the bed. Slipping on a gallabiyah she walked to where Ramses lay on her high-backed Moroccan chair—a ball of silver fur atop cream-colored cushions. She thought to sit, but remembered her mother’s claim that the Prophet—peace be upon him—had once cut his own cloak rather than move a sleeping cat. Instead, she stepped past fluttering curtains to her balcony, and looked out at the city below.
When she was younger, her family spent summer nights on the house roof to avoid the heat. They’d sit sharing coffee and what news of the day. She slept peaceful there, preferring the expanse of open sky to closed walls. A part of her toyed with going to the roof of her apartment. But it wasn’t the same. Besides, getting lost in memories of home was usually her way of trying to escape the now. Too much at stake to lose herself in that kind of reverie. It had been three nights and two days since the attack on the Ministry.
And Cairo was in shambles.
The city’s administrators and Ministry brass had come by the day after to assess the damage and present a strong front to the public. But people could see the wreckage. Photographs of the Ministry building pouring black smoke were splashed across all the dailies. And everyone knew who was responsible. If the streets had been abuzz about al-Jahiz before, now they were on fire.
Ask the average person what it was the Ministry did, and you got all sorts of answers—much of them fanciful. But people understood what the Ministry stood for: to make some sense of this new world; to help create balance between the mystical and the mundane; to allow them to go on living their lives, knowing someone was there to watch over forces they barely understood. To see that institution laid low was like taking a hammer to the collective psyche of the city.
Riots erupted that first night and continued into the second. Some of the unrest came from Moustafa’s sympathizers, who took the attack as a sign to demand the release of the alleged Bearer of Witness. It got ugly. Almost a repeat of the Battle of el-Arafa. Scores arrested. More police injured.
And that was only the beginning.
Protestors calling themselves Al-Jahiz’s Faithful demonstrated outside state offices—even showing up in front of the bombed Ministry. They called on the government to stop hiding the truth, accused authorities of outlandish conspiracies to strip Egypt of its sovereignty, and demanded acknowledgment of al-Jahiz’s return. More violent elements attacked anyone denying their claims. There’d been beatings and at least one firebombing at an aether-works shop. This wasn’t some extremist religious sect. Al-Jahiz’s followers included Sunni and Shia, Sufi and Copts, fervent nationalists, even atheistic anarchists and nihilists—all united in their dedication. To an imposter.
I will make you hurt. I will make you understand.
Fatma realized her hands had balled into fists. Her eyes ran back to the bed, and some measure of her tension eased. Even sleeping, Siti had that effect. It was hard to believe the woman had suffered a grievous injury just days past. Even the scar was gone. Whatever magics she and the Temple of Hathor dabbled in, it was potent. Her gaze left the bed, falling on a bit of gold that sat on a nearby table. Her pocket watch.
She picked up the timepiece, turning it over. The back was fashioned like the tympan of an old asturlab—with the coordinates of the celestial sphere engraved in a stereographic projection, overlaid with an ornate rete. Depressing a latch, she flipped the watch open to reveal a glass casing covering bronze wheel gears, plates, pinions, and springs. A silver crescent moved along an inner circle ticking down the seconds, with a sun and star keeping the hour and minutes.
Her father was a watchmaker, a skill that yet proved resourceful in this age. In the industrial world everyone needed a watch, if only to keep up with airship and
