Tony Preedy - Mustafa's Last Well

Inhalt

Imprint 3 Imprint All rights of distribution, also through movies, radio and television, photomechanical reproduction, sound carrier, electronic medium and reprinting in excerpts are reserved. © 2021 novum publishing ISBN print edition: 978-3-99107-637-7 ISBN e-book: 978-3-99107-638-4 Editor: Ashleigh Brassfield, DipEdit Cover images: Tom Wang, Jan Skwara, Wirestock, Wacomka | Dreamstime.com Cover design, layout & typesetting: novum publishing www.novum-publishing.co.uk

Disclaimer 4 Disclaimer The characters and events in this novel, as with the countries in which it takes place, are entirely fictitious and not intended to represent any real country or person alive or dead. Specifically, the tribal names of the characters are imaginary. The medieval practices described here are not necessarily in chronological context. The name of the country, Naamlah, in which most of the story is set was formed by combining the Arabic Naam, yes with lah, No.

Acknowledgements 5 Acknowledgements I am grateful to my friends; The late Geoff Bagley for revealing his experimental work with torsion waves, Zuaina al-Busaiidi for inspiring the novel and Patricia Lake for encouraging me to finish it.

List of characters 6 List of characters

Chapter 1 7

Chapter 2 12

Chapter 3 20

Chapter 4 27

Chapter 5 36

Chapter 6 42

Chapter 7 45

Chapter 8 50

Chapter 9 56

Chapter 10 62

Chapter 11 71

Chapter 12 76

Chapter 13 80

Chapter 14 84

Chapter 15 88

Chapter 16 90

Chapter 17 97

Chapter 18 103

Chapter 19 108

Chapter 20 112

Chapter 21 117

Chapter 22 121

Chapter 23 125

Chapter 24 126

Chapter 25 132

Chapter 26 137

Chapter 27 145

Chapter 28 148

Chapter 29 151

Chapter 30 158

Chapter 31 161

Chapter 32 164

Chapter 33 168

Chapter 34 177

Chapter 35 181

Chapter 36 184

Chapter 37 189

Chapter 38 197

Chapter 39 203

Chapter 40 206

Chapter 41 209

Chapter 42 215

Chapter 43 218

Chapter 44 223

Chapter 45 230

Chapter 46 237

Chapter 47 243

Appendix 250

Imprint

All rights of distribution, also through movies, radio and television, photomechanical reproduction, sound carrier, electronic medium and reprinting in excerpts are reserved.

© 2021 novum publishing

ISBN print edition: 978-3-99107-637-7

ISBN e-book: 978-3-99107-638-4

Editor: Ashleigh Brassfield, DipEdit

Cover images: Tom Wang, Jan Skwara, Wirestock, Wacomka | Dreamstime.com

Cover design, layout & typesetting: novum publishing

www.novum-publishing.co.uk

Disclaimer

The characters and events in this novel, as with the countries in which it takes place, are entirely fictitious and not intended to represent any real country or person alive or dead. Specifically, the tribal names of the characters are imaginary. The medieval practices described here are not necessarily in chronological context. The name of the country, Naamlah, in which most of the story is set was formed by combining the Arabic Naam, yes with lah, No.

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to my friends; The late Geoff Bagley for revealing his experimental work with torsion waves, Zuaina al-Busaiidi for inspiring the novel and Patricia Lake for encouraging me to finish it.

List of characters

Chapter 1

It is 1207 Hijri: AD 1776

The year in which America declares independence from Britain

Within seconds of the drum beat that proclaimed the start of the race, the small boy had fallen amongst the trampling feet of the pursuing camels. The child now lay whimpering motionless on the ground, surrounded by a cloud of dust. The camels that had been behind him had now passed by.

Mustafa al-Wyly, the 17-year-old son of a widowed date farmer, had accompanied his friend Issa, the crippled son of the local Imam, to the camel race. Mustafa’s father supplemented their meagre income from the date farm by divining for water when a well was required. This was an activity that Mustafa had been encouraged to take over, as the old man was becoming infirm. He had proved to be particularly adept at finding water but was not so enthusiastic when it became necessary to follow this up by digging the wells.

Today, Mustafa and Issa had joined the men who came in from their desert camps, as the camel race was a good excuse to avoid such work. Minutes before, as the owners gave their final encouragement and instructions to the children who were strapped behind their camel’s humps, a man of the al-Jaboo had removed a knife from his robe. Unseen in the excitement, he deftly wielded his knife to weaken the harness of the favourite’s jockey, who now lay on the ground before Mustafa. Mustafa ran towards the child and, as he would with an injured animal, moved his hands over the boy’s limbs. He detected only bruises; the soft broad footpads of the camels, and their natural instinct to avoid stepping on a living creature, had spared the child from broken bones. Unknown to Mustafa, the child had, like Issa, been lame since birth.

Mustafa and Issa had been friends since infancy, when Mustafa had first protected Issa from the taunts of older boys. Issa, had since birth, suffered from a weakness of his left leg which caused a conspicuous limp.

The child’s stunted growth had attracted him to the camel’s owner, who realised he could put the child to good use as a jockey because he was unlikely to put on weight as quickly as other small boys of his age.

Before the drumbeat, Mustafa and Issa had been arguing over which camel would win. Issa supported the light-coated favourite, imported from Somalia, from which the child had fallen, whilst Mustafa was loyal to the locally bred entry of his tribal leader. As his hands passed over the child’s lame left leg, Mustafa experienced a feeling of weakness, as though energy was leaving his body. The child, however, felt himself gently relaxing into unconsciousness. Those men who had supported the favourite had now lost interest in the outcome of the race, and with childlike curiosity gathered around Mustafa and the boy. No women were present, as they were not permitted to attend public gatherings. In this year, just as in medieval times, men assured them that their place was in their tent, even as many women of their faith of later generations would, even two centuries hence, be confined to their homes.

This was the crucial instant when the boy was healed of his disability. Neither healer nor patient had any understanding of how it had transpired. Two centuries later there would be those who claimed that it was an unconscious application of torsion wave energy. They would explain how the child’s DNA spiral became synchronised to the torsion wave field emanating from Mustafa’s DNA. As Mustafa was weakened by the energy imparted to the torsion field, the defective gene responsible for the child’s disability had been altered to replicate the corresponding gene in Mustafa’s DNA.

After several minutes, during which Mustafa silently prayed for assurance from the Almighty that he had done the child no harm, the child regained consciousness and started to clamber first onto all fours, and then to his feet, where he stood as erect as an athlete. After a quick conspiratorial smile directed at his saviour, the boy ran, for the first time in his short life, towards his angry, disappointed master.