Zendegi

‘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.

Martin touched Javeed’s hand and they backed away slowly towards the prison’s far wall. However many Brownie points they’d earned with its foster-son, they did not want to be standing in this creature’s path when it decided to move.

Zal knelt and lowered his face. ‘My beloved protector, I am ashamed to ask for your help. You see with your own eyes where my carelessness has brought me. But I must find a way to marry Rudabeh without turning her family against mine. Give me this chance to salvage my fortune, and I will not disgrace myself again.’

Martin looked down at Javeed; he was not unafraid, but he was utterly engrossed. Javeed’s hair was a few shades lighter than that of the average Tehrani; nobody had ever spurned him because of it, least of all his parents, but that didn’t seem to be the point. And whatever resonance he’d found in the story of Zal’s childhood, he seemed to have taken consolation in the idea that his hero’s abandonment had gained him a strange kind of love and protection, more fierce, more powerful than the human kind he’d lost.

The Simorgh charged, a blur of flowing muscle and outstretched talons wreathed in gold. Javeed flinched, emitting an involuntary whimper. Martin said, ‘Enough,’ and brought them out.

He waited in the whiteness for the motor to free him, then he heard Nasim pull off the cage. He flipped up the goggles himself.

‘Everything okay?’ Nasim asked. Martin wasn’t sure if she’d watched the whole session, but in any case he wasn’t in the mood to start analysing the implications for the Proxy of all the choices he’d made.

‘Yeah. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.’

‘Right.’