Chapter 20:: The Factory , the Storm and the List

On that windy day, in the time before everything else happened, Himalaya was sitting at her usual spot under the jackfruit tree, her hair being blown about by the soft whooshes in the sea-draughts. Her Tanhai was hovering in front of her, changing with every new breeze that blew, now a shimmering curtain making the sea look distant and filmy, now a little whirlpool of softly billowing sand.

Him had been skulking around in her mother’s hidden cellar-library a little more frequently; it had been easy to slip away now that it was the season for seastorms. Her mother’s smiles always grew a little distant at this time, and everyone in Ishtahar was occupied with battling something that even magic couldn’t counter. And besides, as Him told her Tanhai, who’s ever noticed me when I want to get some work done?

And in the gloomy recesses of the library Him had found another book on Tanhais. The earlier one had mentioned them cautiously as a mysterious power that very few magicmakers had, and had moved on to the next chapter quickly, almost as if the writers were ashamed to admit they knew nothing about a Tanhai at all, and were hoping no one would notice that they didn’t want to know much more.

But this one, this book was different. It had a queer golden star on its cover out of which runes unfurled in a big spiral and led on into the book, like a strange road waiting to be discovered. And Him had followed, and discovered spidery handwriting in the language she understood (for of course Ma taught me well, didn’t she, she told the Tanhai defiantly), almost like a translation. And then, she paused for one of her dramatic sighs, we found out about you.

When you’ve finished with your story, the Tanhai replied acerbically, maybe we could go do something more productive, like sneak around the marketplace again.

Don’t interrupt my Moment, said Him, almost-smiling. Because this is what I’ve been waiting for all my life.

You have?

Of course! Don’t you realise what the book told us? That you’re special! Tanhais like you are hard to find – most of the others have forms and shapes, they don’t change constantly! Their owners can’t See through their essences like I can through yours. How else do you think I’ve been able to find out about this place? Most Tanhais don’t do that strange thing you do when I want to See or Hear, they don’t become half-solid windows in the air that shine and get all silvery, and they don’t show their owners things that are happening elsewhere in the world.

Village, it corrected her dryly. Village. What world are you talking about? Your world is this – this village and this house and the sea and the Factory

Oh yes, the Factory. Him leaned back against the tree and pulled at her nosepin, suddenly frowning. Why haven’t we been able to See into it all this while?

The people of Ishtahar never left it, and no one ever came to the village. Whatever they needed to subsist on was delivered to the village at night, but no one knew how the delivery happened, and those who knew weren’t about to speak. That had been Him's conclusion. But there were whispers that she Heard through the Tanhai, and most of the whispers said it had something to do with the Factory.

“It has to be the Factory”, they told Him when she asked, surprising her initially into thinking they were telling the truth. “All we have is the sea to the front of us and the Factory behind us on the craggy mountain.”

And to reach the mountain you’d have to go through the wadi, which is a long wide stretch of blackness, and of course no one wants to cross The Blackness even if they have magic. Every Ishtahria has that story ready for me. Is there anything new? Him asked impatiently.

No, said the Tanhai. No, there isn’t. And we can’t See for miles around it, so the only things we see are what everyone else sees.

The Factory quivered all day, ostensibly sending out spurts of things into the air. Every Ishtahria claimed to see something different in the things it spewed out. Clouds of purple smoke, brilliant ruby-like arrows, sinister spirals of sickly yellow vapour.

All of which, of course, is another Ishtahria tradition of Confusing the Young One, Him told the Tanhai. I have no magic, so I can’t possibly see what comes out of it, and therefore they can tell me whatever they want to about it. How long do you think it will be before they figure out that I know it sends out nothing? That the Factory’s topmost turrets are hidden by that cloud, the one that swirls and changes every minute and has those dark shapes moving around in it? Even Ma doesn’t see it.

Or pretends not to, said the Tanhai.

Him frowned again, and her eyes, for the smallest moment, turned inky with anger. And then she looked up at the Tanhai with the look on her face that made it a little more iridescent.

I don’t know what to do about Ma, she told it. What can you do with a mother who won’t speak about anything that must be spoken about? It’s all very well to be beautiful and mysterious, but in a mother it breaks your heart. It’s as if she’s living in another world sometimes. She paused. Which is why the book is important.

Because it’ll help you fix things? The Tanhai wasn’t mocking her anymore.

That’s what the book said, didn’t it? That essence Tanhais – what is the word it used… Posheedah? Are you a Posheedah? – Posheedah Tanhais can only belong to a person born of a human, an ordinary mortal, and a sorcerer. Think of that. Not a magicmaker, but a sorcerer, someone infinitely more powerful. And my father's alive, I know he is. So that must mean my father –

– Is so dangerous that your mother prefers to keep him hidden. The Tanhai changed again and turned almost transparent. Then again, maybe he’s so powerful that finding out that his daughter is little Him of Ishtahar is going to be very unsavoury for him

Him grinned and her face changed into a creature from another world – not entirely beautiful, perhaps, but with a certain fairylike quality that not many had seen to be able to define it. Either way, my mother is protecting my interests. Is that what you’re trying to say?

Yes. So you had better return to your ten-year-old self and go run her errands. Laila will be watching for you.

I hope that terrible husband of hers won’t be there.

What, Trismegistus? What could he do, brandish his beard at you?

Him grinned again. To Laila’s little house then. She really shouldn’t keep Ma waiting during the season of seastorms – something inside her tightened involuntarily, like it always did when she thought of Ma, her Ma with her fine sad eyes.

And on that windy afternoon, as a little seaside village prepared for a storm, Him of Ishtahar and her very special Posheedah Tanhai made a list.

Get out of village. She frowned as she stowed it away in her head. Get out of village. Find Father. Do something terrible to him for what he has done to my mother. No, bring him back to her. No, make him pay.

Decide!

Get out of village, then Find Father First and then Decide What to Do. It isn’t much, but it’s a start.

And she scratched her knee lazily, ran out of the gate and skipped down to the square in the best little-girl way she knew. As she passed various clumps of elders they put their hands and grins away into various pockets and started talking of boats and mortar.

Careful with the sprightliness, the Tanhai said. They’ll grow suspicious.

Neither noticed the black butterfly struggling against the gale above their heads.