Greg Egan - Zendegi

Helpfully, Zal’s tent was distinctly more ornate than the others; Martin could have sworn there was real gold thread in the design, or at least… whatever. A reddish-brown stallion was tied up right by the entrance; it regarded Martin irritably, and as he tried to squeeze past it, it began to neigh. Martin put a hand on its flank. ‘Sssh. Stay cool, buddy, and you might get to play Rakhsh in the sequel.’ That promise seemed to do the trick, or maybe it had caught a trace of its master’s scent on the intruder and deduced that Martin was here with Zal’s blessing.

He ducked into the tent. The silk brocade and khatam knickknacks were almost enough to blind a non-princely eye, but Martin scrabbled around beside the sleeping mat until the plain brown bag materialised from the clutter as a kind of absence of decoration that refused to go away. It was about the size of his hand, sealed with a knotted drawstring; it made no sound when Martin shook it, and when he squeezed it gently he felt nothing but a slight rearrangement of its contents beneath the material. Definitely not a dagger, nor lock-picking tools. Maybe a rolled-up piece of parchment?

Martin lifted his kameez and stuffed the bag down the front of his shalwar. The fabric bulged slightly, but the kameez would hide that. Whatever cultural specifics might plausibly be ascribed to this mutated version of a mediaeval poet’s tale of a much earlier time, Martin was fairly sure that the game’s rating precluded anyone patting down his groin.

The stallion snorted haughtily as he emerged from the tent, not quite betraying him, but making it clear that he was there only on sufferance. He moved quietly back the way he’d come, glad now of the mud on his clothes.

Then he stood at the edge of the river and bellowed, ‘Javeed! Pesaram! Koja’i?’

The reply came back instantly: happy, relieved, not quite tearful. ‘Baba! Inja hastam! Inja bia!’

Martin strode towards his son’s voice, oblivious to everything else around him, barely noticing the member of Zal’s retinue approaching him before the man stepped directly into his path.

‘Who are you?’

‘Forgive me, sir; I’ve been searching for my son.’ Martin looked past his interlocutor; Javeed was standing on a patch of bare ground between two men. One of them had a scimitar in a scabbard strapped to his back; Martin’s skin tingled with fear and revulsion, but he had to trust the game to have kept the threat abstract and muted. If anyone had waved a blade in Javeed’s face-

‘That’s not an answer.’

Martin forced himself to focus on the man blocking his way. ‘We were in the river, fishing; our boat struck a rock and went down. My son and I became separated. I swear, until now I was afraid he’d drowned.’

The man regarded him suspiciously, but a flicker of compassion crossed his face. Martin was sure he wasn’t human, but he wondered if he was one of the new-style Proxies that Nasim had mentioned, boosted with fragments of neural circuitry. Are you a dumb cousin of the thing I’ll leave behind? Martin wondered. Just human enough to react with real emotion to the idea of a drowned child?

The man with the scimitar said, ‘We thought he was a thief. Why didn’t he speak the truth?’

Martin said, ‘Sir, I apologise, but sometimes he goes crazy from the sun. His mind runs away from his work; all he can talk about is elephants.’

The third man laughed. ‘Elephants in “Lavosestan”? He’s got too much imagination to be a fisherman.’

Martin tried to appear deferential, though part of him was having trouble resisting the urge to grab a fallen tree branch and start clubbing everyone who continued to stand between him and his son. ‘As you say, sir. But he’s done no wrong, and we need to go back and drag out the boat while there’s still a chance to find it.’

The two men closest to Javeed exchanged glances. ‘Very well,’ said the one with the scimitar. They stood aside; Javeed ran to Martin and took his hand.

As they walked out of the camp Javeed said, ‘I thought you weren’t coming. I thought you were going to leave me there.’

Martin’s heart was pierced, but he forced himself to speak calmly. ‘I’d never do that. You know I’d never do that.’

Javeed said mournfully, ‘What will we tell Zal?’

‘It’s not what we’ll tell him, it’s what we’ll show him.’

‘Huh?’

Martin produced the bag, making as a big a show of it as he could. Javeed was enraptured.

‘You got it! What’s in it? What is it?’

‘I didn’t look inside. That would have been rude.’

Javeed flapped his arms and grimaced with impatience. ‘Give it to me! Let me look!’

‘Not a chance!’ Martin replied. ‘I’ll give it to you outside the prison, but only to carry, not to open. It’s Zal’s business what’s inside.’

All the way back into the city, Javeed kept begging for a peek, but it soon turned into a game; he was teasing Martin, he didn’t expect to get his way. Martin was giddy with relief; Javeed hadn’t really felt abandoned, and the delay in freeing him had been worth it in the end.

‘We should bring lunch for Zal,’ Javeed suggested.

‘Good idea.’ They bought some apples, grapes and pomegranates from the man who’d told them the way to the prison, then some cooked ground beef wrapped in flatbread from another shop.

At the prison, the warder seemed to have forgotten his previous bribe. ‘One visit a month! By royal decree!’ He started to close the gate, determined to follow the letter of the law until Martin reached into his money-belt and came up with a handful of amendments and exceptions.

As they entered the cell block, Zal was standing near the edge of his cage. ‘Father! Little Brother! What have you done? I don’t deserve this feast!’ They passed him the food and he shared it out among his cellmates.

When the warder left, Javeed approached the bars. ‘We got what you asked for,’ he whispered, holding the bag discreetly by his side. The other prisoners averted their eyes as the contraband changed hands.

‘Truly you are worthy of my praise and gratitude,’ Zal said. ‘Half of all I have is yours.’

Javeed shook his head. ‘Just the elephants.’

Zal smiled. ‘As you wish, Little Brother.’ He stepped back and unknotted the drawstring of the bag, then he pulled the mouth wide and drew out a golden feather.

Martin caught a flash of unease on Javeed’s face. ‘Are you okay?’ he whispered. They both knew what the feather meant, what it would bring.

Javeed nodded.

‘We can go now if you want to. We’ll sort out the elephants on the website.’

‘I want to stay,’ Javeed said. He added, barely audibly, ‘I want to see it.’

‘Father, do you have a flint with you?’ Zal asked Martin.

When Martin shook his head, one of the other prisoners produced a small grey stone that had been hidden in his clothes. He handed it to Zal, who clasped him gratefully on the shoulder.

Zal struck the flint against a bar of his cell, holding the feather in the same hand. ‘Thanks to God and King Hushang, for the gift of fire.’ Martin saw the spark, but nothing followed. Zal repeated the motion a second time, a third. Finally, the feather caught alight.

White smoke wafted across the prison. The feather blazed with an intense light, but remained unconsumed. The inmates stood and watched the flame, then one by one their knees buckled and they fell to the ground, asleep.

A voice echoed through the building, tender and outraged, loud enough to shake Martin’s teeth. ‘What is this injustice? Who has put my own sweet child in a cage?’

The Simorgh stood at the entrance from the courtyard, filling the doorway, stooped to fit. Its dog’s head alone was half the size of a man; its muscular raptor’s body, adorned with shimmering metallic feathers, was squeezed into the confined space – but rather than making it look trapped and trammelled, this only concentrated its power.