The Five Fakirs of Faizabad (9 page)

S
teadily, like an elevator in a very tall building, the flying carpet ascended in the air alongside the rope. Above their heads were thick white clouds and little sign that there was anything at the top of the rope except yet more clouds. As they continued their inexorable ascent, both air temperature and pressure dropped quickly and a thin layer of hoarfrost began to turn the golden edge of the blue carpet white. After a while, Nimrod took pity on Groanin, whose teeth were chattering like castanets, and made a warm silver fox fur coat for his butler, as well as one for his nephew. For himself, he made a red fox fur coat because Nimrod was always very fond of the color red.

Only Zagreus didn’t seem to feel the cold, but then again, he didn’t feel very much at all.

“Thank you, sir,” said Groanin, shrinking into the warmth of the coat.

“Is that real fur?” asked Philippa.

“It is and it isn’t,” said Nimrod. “You see, it all depends what you mean by ‘real fur.’”

“Don’t you know that real fur is wrong?” said Philippa. “Synthetic fur is the ethical choice.”

“Oh, I agree,” said Nimrod. “But since I used djinn power to make these coats, then you can be assured that no animals were killed.”

“Hmm.” Philippa nodded. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

John was looking anxiously up the rope. “I think we’re nearing the end of the rope,” he said. “There are little bits of knotted string. And, in the knots, there are pieces of colored wool and paper, and cloth bags.”

“Those are prayers, and offerings of food,” said Nimrod. “From local people on the ground. The Berbers. Those probably get pulled up the rope by the fakir. An indication of the regard people hereabouts must have for him.”

“I suppose this is a bit like the Indian rope trick,” said Moo.

“I sincerely hope not,” said Nimrod. “The point of the Indian rope trick is to disappear at the top.”

“Oh, yes.” Moo pulled an old lady sort of face. “I never thought of that.”

At the top of the rope, the wind dropped and the clouds suddenly cleared to reveal a brilliantly blue sky bathed in bright, warm sunshine. The air seemed sweeter, too. As if someone had opened a box of strongly scented Turkish delight. Attached to the rope was a little triangular wooden platform, like a very small tree house, and sitting on the
platform, surrounded by flowerpots, was a tall, thin man with white hair and the longest beard the twins had ever seen. Everyone fell silent as Nimrod brought the flying carpet directly alongside the fakir.

Mr. Burton wore a thin brown robe and a set of amber beads, and on his forehead were four streaks of yellow paint. In front of his bare feet was a garland of beautiful flowers. But most curious of all were his bright blue eyes, which stared into the most distant distance, as if he could see far into the next world. Groanin, who had seen holy men before, was more fascinated with the rope, which wasn’t attached to anything at all. It just ended in a large knot, as if someone had tried to tie the rope to a very tall, faraway tree that had long-since vanished into thin air.

“What’s keeping it all up?” whispered Groanin. “The rope? The platform? The bloke with the beard? Everything.”

“Simply mind over matter,” explained Nimrod.

“Is that all?” said Groanin.

“No man is just his thoughts,” Nimrod told Groanin. “Sometimes it’s important to take a step back from thinking. And to feel.”

“Aye, perhaps you’re right at that,” admitted Groanin. “You could say that’s why I support Manchester City Football Club.”

“The rope stays up because the fakir
feels
that it stays up,” added Nimrod.

“That never worked for Manchester City.”

Nimrod got up, walked to the very edge of the carpet,
and bowed gravely to the fakir. Then he sat down again in front of the fakir and pressed his hands together in a gesture of respect and salutation.

“My name is Nimrod,” he said. “Possibly, you remember I was a close friend of Mr. Rakshasas who you served for many years. And like him, I am a djinn of the Marid tribe. In respect of your vow of silence I should like to step inside your head and meet with you, Mr. Burton.”

Nimrod waited for a moment before adding, “Alternatively, if your own level of enlightenment is sufficiently developed, you may communicate with me telepathically.”

For several minutes the fakir stayed motionless and silent. But after a while his breathing grew a little more noticeable. His chest moved perceptibly and the sound of a loud intake of breath was heard by all who sat upon the flying carpet. Finally, the fakir brought the palms of his own thin, leathery hands together and he spoke:

“That will not be necessary,” said Burton. His voice was surprisingly clear and strong for one who had not uttered a word in several years.

“Thank you.” Nimrod was grateful that Mr. Burton had spoken to him so quickly; at the same time, however, he was surprised that a long-kept vow of silence had been abandoned with such alacrity.

“What brings you to this place that is no place?” asked the fakir.

“Mr. Burton, I’ll be honest with you. I need your advice.”

“Nimrod, is it?”

Nimrod nodded.

“I have heard of you,” said Burton. “Mr. Rakshasas often used to speak of you when you were a boy. Tell me. How is my former master?”

“He died,” said Nimrod. “An accident. Most unfortunate.”

“I’m sad to hear it,” said Burton. “He was the wisest person I ever met. And yet it seems to me that I should have felt something if he was indeed dead. Yes, I ought to have felt something, perhaps. No matter. Tell me, Nimrod. The children who accompany you. Are they djinn like yourself? And were they, too, friends of Mr. Rakshasas?”

“Yes,” said Nimrod. “They are djinn. The boy is my nephew, John, and the girl is my niece, Philippa. And they were as fond of the old man as I was.”

“If, as you say, they were fond of Mr. Rakshasas, then they will know his mind as well as their own. And they will be able to answer three simple riddles that were told to me by him more than two decades ago.”

“We only have to join our minds for you to be sure about that,” said Nimrod. “Perhaps I could join you in spirit and then we should know each other’s thoughts.”

But Mr. Burton shook his head. “But what if you are an evil djinn?” he asked. “If I let you into my mind, you might take control of it. And what then?”

Nimrod nodded. “You make a good point,” he allowed.

“If the boy and the girl can answer three simple riddles,” said Mr. Burton, “then I will agree to help you. For only
then will I know that you and they are what you say you are. Friends of Mr. Rakshasas.”

“Blimey,” muttered Groanin. “It was hard enough to understand old Rakshasas even when he was trying to make sense, let alone when he was giving you a riddle.”

“Wouldn’t you prefer me to answer your riddles?” Nimrod asked Mr. Burton.

“Sure, the wolf never found a better messenger than himself,” said Burton with a Rakshasas-like twinkle in his eye. “You might be what you say you are. But sometimes it’s best to judge the wolf by its cubs.”

“True,” admitted Nimrod. “And sometimes the youngest thorns
are
the sharpest.”

Nimrod waved the twins toward him.

The twins came over beside Nimrod and sat down in front of the fakir.

“Welcome,” said Burton. “It’s nice to meet children again. Especially nice when these are children of the lamp.”

“Have you been here very long?” Philippa asked Burton.

“Yes,” said Burton. “So long that I’d almost forgotten that such a thing as a child even existed.”

“That is a long time,” said Philippa.

“Don’t you get lonely?” asked John.

“Long loneliness is better than bad company,” said Burton. “And truth speaks even though the tongue were dead.”

“Whatever that means,” muttered Groanin.

“What’s the first riddle?” asked Philippa.

“A woman gave birth to five children,” said Burton. “And
exactly half of them were sons. And her husband said, ‘How can this be?’ And, indeed, please enlighten me: How can it be so?”

John frowned and scratched his head as he tried to imagine one of the children as a freakish half boy, half girl. But Philippa was already answering Burton’s riddle.

“If exactly half of her children were sons, then all five of her children were sons,” she said. “Because no one can be half of anything.”

Burton nodded. “You answer well, child,” he said.

John winced. Five children who were five sons. How else could there have been exactly half of them who were sons? It seemed obvious now that Philippa had given the answer. But all riddles were a bit like that.

Burton produced a large, silver inkwell and placed it in front of Nimrod and the twins, and then a fountain pen. He unscrewed the body of the pen and, squeezing the little reservoir, allowed one drop of black ink to drop into the inkwell.

“Now, please tell me this: Exactly how many such drops of ink can be dropped into this empty inkwell?”

John stared at the inkwell. He was certain that a bottle of ink held about twenty-five mills of ink, and that the well itself was large enough to have room for two such bottles, and that each drop of ink was perhaps a tenth of a milliliter, and that …

“The well is no longer empty after you put one drop of ink into it,” said Philippa. “Therefore the answer is just one drop of ink.”

“Once again, you answer well,” Burton told Philippa.

“She’s a clever girl that Philippa,” Groanin told Moo. “I said …”

“Yes, I heard you the first time,” said Moo.

John could have kicked himself. Once again, the answer seemed so obvious now that his sister had said it. What was more, he could see how he’d wasted time in a pointless math calculation of the inkwell’s capacity when the question had really been about words and their proper meaning. And he told himself he simply had to answer the third riddle himself otherwise he’d never hear the end of it. As if to underline this fact, Philippa shot him a look that only a brother with a sister could ever have recognized. A smirking, triumphant look that said, “You’re a dork.”

“What’s the third riddle?” John asked Burton, even more anxious to prove himself now.

“Please tell me this,” said Burton. “Yes, tell me what is better than heaven, but worse than hell? Every poor man has this, yet the richest man in the world has need of it. And if you eat it, you will surely die. What is it that I speak of?”

John racked his brains and glanced sideways at his sister. Being a twin and given to an almost telepathic knowledge of what his sister was thinking — and vice versa — he even tried to sneak a look into Philippa’s mind, but instead he found her thoughts blocked to him and her eyes staring back at his.

“Looking for something?” she asked.

“No, nothing,” he said, and redoubled his effort to arrive at a solution before she did.

“Of course,” she whispered. “That’s it. That’s the answer.”

“What is?” said John, aware that he had said or thought something important that Philippa had picked up on. But what? What was it that he had said? He didn’t know.

“Well, go on,” she urged. “Tell him, John. Don’t keep everyone in suspense.”

John smiled thinly as a fourth riddle now confounded him: the riddle of how he had solved the riddle. He wrung his brain, like a wet sponge, with thinking for a moment and then shook his head. “Er no, I don’t think I did solve it,” he said. “At least, if I did, then I don’t know how.”

Philippa shrugged. “You said it.”

John shook his head again, this time more irritated than before. “Nothing,” he said. “I said nothing. I don’t know the stupid answer, you idiot.”

“That’s the answer,” said Philippa. “Idiot yourself.”

“What is?” John sounded very exasperated.

“Nothing.”

John shook his head again. There were times — and this was one of them — when he felt like the dumbest djinn ever to billow out of a bottle. “Tell me,” he said. “Don’t be such a dork, Phil.”

“Nothing,” repeated Philippa. “Nothing’s the answer.”

“There has to be an answer,” said John. “It wouldn’t be a proper riddle if there wasn’t an answer.”

Philippa gave up on him and turned to face Burton. “Nothing is the answer,” she told the old fakir. “Nothing is better than heaven, and nothing is worse than hell. Every poor man has nothing, yet the richest man in the world has
need of nothing. And if you eat nothing, then you will surely die.” She nodded. “It’s just what Mr. Rakshasas would have said.”

“Once again, you answer well, girl,” said Burton.

John cursed himself for his own stupidity. It was true. He remembered now. He’d said “nothing” after Philippa had asked him what he thought he was doing trying to sneak a look inside her thoughts. The answer had been right on his lips and even then he’d not understood.

“Never mind, John,” said his uncle Nimrod. “We can’t all be Stephen Hawking.”

Burton smiled and placed a friendly hand on John’s head. “Calm yourself, boy. And recognize that the true pleasure of a riddle is, as in life, finding your own pathway to the right answer. And though wisdom is good in the beginning, it is better at the end. ‘Tis afterward that everything is understood.”

“That’s easy to say,” said John, who was still beating himself up inside his own head.

“No matter how tall your grandfather was, boy, you always have to do your own growing.”

“You will help me then?” asked Nimrod and, seeing Mr. Burton nod, he described the problem that had brought them all the way from London. “A group of religious scoundrels, mendicant fakirs most probably, but certainly part of a fraternity that is governed by laws of an uncommon or secret nature, seems to be bent on bringing about some change in the amount of luck that exists in the world. The question is, why? What do they hope to achieve?”

“Hmm. That is interesting. But you’ll forgive me, Nimrod, if I say that I’m tired. This has been a busy day for me. You must come again tomorrow and we shall speak some more.”

“We’ve only been here ten minutes,” whispered Groanin.

“I think we have to respect the wishes of the fakir,” Moo told him. “After all, it’s we who are disturbing his peace and soliciting his help. It’s what’s called diplomacy.”