Arabesque

Ommad

Rahib Ommad was a sinner. He allowed himself to commit just one transgression each morning. He would choose the plumpest dewberry from the best vine and eat it. It was always only one berry—never two—and always from branches already straining under the weight of ripened fruit. In his mind, since he'd been doing this for several years now, it could hardly be considered a sin. Ommad admitted to himself that, in this, he did have a weakness. Still, he liked to believe he could atone for it somehow later in life. Even the imams had been young once, and he doubted they had been born without a few flaws of their own.

Ommad did his job well. He worked the vineyards and orchards of a collective famous for its grape and fruit wines. Profit from the wines allowed the clerics to expand their services and undertake more charitable projects. Over the years, this collective had focused on taking in young orphans, raising them with loving discipline, turning little street urchins and beggar-thieves into hardworking young men. Now, in an effort to do even more, the clerics were teaching rudimentary viniculture skills to the local farmers. In return, the farmers gave them produce, honey, and extra help during planting and harvest.

But the clerics were also hoping to dissuade others from burning or using Azza, despite the Rassan Majalis' strong endorsement.

From a young age Ommad had been taught that Azza offered protection from the Jnoun. For centuries the Sultans of Qatana had encouraged the burning of Azza as the only defense against the powerful entities that dwelt in the unseen realm. Azza took its name from its nature—it was said to be the very blood and essence of Ala'i, shed when he defeated the Jnoun and removed them from the mortal world. As long as men used Azza, the Jnoun could not cross the barrier. This practice had become commonplace in the islands of Miranes', perpetuated by pressure from the long line of Sultans.

Ommad had learned from the imams however that the legend of the Jnoun had been perverted. But because the lies had been repeated so frequently throughout the years, they had achieved the force of truth—hence it was common knowledge across the kingdoms of Mir'aj that Azza would preserve the barrier and prevent the Jnoun from crossing over.

In the predawn light, Ommad joined the orderly procession through the gates of the sehan sanctuary. He was warm in his heavy wool garments, his hands clasped in the long sleeves as he savored the smell of the distant ocean. The group split in two as it reached the outer fence, half of the order setting off to toil in the vineyards, Ommad and the others to prune the orchards. He smiled to himself, already tasting the sweet tang of his forbidden fruit.

Ommad returned to the spot he'd left yesterday at the evening call to prayer. Working with expert precision, he pinched the cool, thick leaves with fingers permanently stained by berry juice. He lopped off branches with a tool he'd forged in seasons past. He kept it sharp, and it bit through thick branches as if they were slender stalks. The fields were silent save for the dignified shuffle of cloaks swirling through the long grass as other rahibs went about their tasks. Dawn brightened slowly into early morning as the first sun rose.

Then he saw it.

The dewberry was a fine specimen, red, glistening, and bulging with juice, outshining the others clustered around it on the branch. Today's private transgression would be worth any consequence, whatever it might be. Ommad smiled, imagining a whole orchard full of imams as secretly mischievous young rahibs, each stealing and savoring just one fruit. Just like this one.

Even as his eager fingertips brushed against the fruit, a shadow engulfed him. Certain he'd finally been caught at his daily delinquency, he turned with a guilty grin, expecting at least a glint of humor behind the frown.

Ommad's grin gave way to horror when he saw what cast the shadow. Behind him loomed the thick, hairy back of a demon as it scooped up a nearby rahib—was it the soft-voiced Jamid from Sarahin?—and snapped the boy in two with strong jaws before he could even scream.

Without thinking, Ommad dropped to the ground and rolled beneath the briar. Deep instinct told him to make himself as small as he could. Also without thinking, he held the handle of his pruning tool in a soldier's grip. Where had he learned that?

Workers shrieked all around him, their familiar voices unrecognizable with panic. The demons attacked mercilessly, killing one rahib after another with the power and speed of lions and the dark intention of something much worse. Defense was impossible. No one had time to shout warnings; there was nowhere to run. With no belief that this could ever happen, and with no training in how to react, the rahibs stood helpless, stumbledblindly in circles, or crashed into bushes as the demons cut them down, tearing their bodies apart with tusks and claws. Screams reverberated through the valley, rising to unearthly wails or dying in wet gurgles. Everyone was slaughtered—peaceful clerics and hardworking farmers, even the group of orphans housed at the collective. The demons did not distinguish between holy and mundane, young and old, contented and ambitious. All fates ended in a scatter of broken bones and shredded flesh. Blood stained everything.

A few rahibs working farthest from where the demons began their slaughter understood what was happening. They ran for the safety of the fane's walls, robes snapping behind them, mouths wide with terror. But the demons were on them long before they reached the sanctuary, cutting them down as a scythe harvests wheat.

One young rahib tried to clamber up a tree. A sharp claw caught him in the back, cleaving gashes so deep his viscera bulged out between the severed muscles. As he hung head down from the tree, his entrails slithered along the lower branches and trunk, landing on the ground in a warm red pile.

Blood spilled between the cupped hands of another rahib as he knelt, rocking on his heels, trying to hold his mutilated face together, making the soft braying sound of a newborn camel. The demon turned as if irritated by the noise, swiping at him again from behind. The rahib slumped forward, his face striking the hard earth, an arm tearing free.

The demons bit, tore and slaughtered their way across vineyard and orchard, working with savage efficiency until every one of their prey had been mauled, maimed and bloodily killed. The corpses of the fallen lay strewn across the landscape, and the footpath was a crimson river.

The creatures surveyed their work with fiery eyes and twitching noses. Blood spotted their yellowish tusks, and their hides frothed with rank sweat. They paced among the vines, bushes,and trees, searching the carnage for any trace of movement. If a voice moaned or a foot twitched, they crushed and ripped the body, scattering its parts.

Ommad cowered small and still beneath his low-lying bramble, but not quiet enough. In shock, he'd hunched motionless as a stone during the slaughter, but in the ringing silence after the final death screams, he began to tremble. He was still clutching his pruning tool like a weapon when the huge clawed feet stopped in front of his hiding place.

The foliage jerked away, catching Ommad's robes and dragging him upright. The demon inspected him, determined that he was alive, and raised a clawed hand.

"No!" Ommad wailed, slicing the air with his pruning tool. The sharp edge caught the demon's wrist, digging into leathery skin. The creature paused for an instant, looking almost puzzled. Then it twitched its wrist, snapping the iron blade, and followed through with its blow.

Ommad's pain was brief, his final cry short.