Chapter 188
"A broken circle," she whispered, repeating Arya's words like a child reciting a lesson she had failed to understand for far too long.
"Why a broken circle? Why not a complete one? What were they searching for in Sa'd's house that forced them to tear apart the three chambers in the lower courtyard, draw a circle of ash and olive oil in the middle of the yard, and leave this map behind in the 'aliyah instead of taking it with them?"
She stopped, swallowed hard, then continued in a quieter voice, almost a whisper.
"Or perhaps... they left it on purpose. Just like at Abdullah's house. Just like at Mush'ab's house. They deliberately left clues, Arya. Not because they forgot. Not because they were in a hurry. But because they wanted those clues to be found. They wanted us to follow them. They wanted us to reach the very same conclusion they arrived at from the beginning: that nothing can stop what has already begun."
In the darkest corner of the 'aliyah, where the moonlight never reached because the pinkish-red brick walls were too thick and the ventilation openings had been tightly sealed with woven palm fronds, Nirma discovered a sheet of parchment she accidentally stepped on. Her invisible foot sensed a texture different from the packed-earth floor beneath it, rougher, drier, and more fragile, like a dead leaf in the middle of the dry season.
She knelt and carefully picked up the parchment. Her invisible fingers brushed against its coarse surface, and beneath the dim light filtering through the cracks in the opposite wall, she recognized the handwriting immediately.
It was the handwriting of Sa'd ibn ar-Rabi', based on the samples she had once seen in the agents' reports regarding the prominent families of the Khazraj tribe. The script was firm yet hurried, the handwriting of a man who never had enough time because business constantly demanded that he move from one place to another, from one transaction to the next, from one agreement to an even more profitable one.
"O Messenger of Allah, I saw them, creatures that do not breathe yet speak, surrounding my house three nights ago. They did not enter. They only observed. I have already instructed my family to..."
The letter ended abruptly in the middle of the sentence. There was no sign that the parchment had been torn, nor had the ink run dry. The writing simply stopped, as though the pen had suddenly slipped from trembling hands, trembling with fear, or perhaps because those hands themselves had been seized by someone who had no intention of allowing the letter to be finished.
"He wrote this on the last night before he was abducted," Nirma said. Her voice emerged from beneath her veil with deliberate calm, as though she were struggling not to reveal what she truly felt: fear, pity, anger. Because emotion, in an investigation like this, was the greatest enemy. It made you careless. It made you forget that behind every victim lay a story that was never tragic enough to make you stop, yet always tragic enough to make you want to.
"'Creatures that do not breathe yet speak.' That's exactly what he wrote."
Arya, who had been busy scanning the fabric map with his recording device, pale blue light sweeping across every inch of the canvas, preserving every stitch, every symbol, and every thread that might contain DNA or dust particles from the thirtieth century, lifted his head the moment he heard the word "breathe."
His sharp eyes fixed upon the letter in Nirma's hands, and for several seconds he stood perfectly still, like a statue, like someone who had just been reminded of something he had spent years trying to forget.
"Creatures that do not breathe," he murmured softly, his voice nearly swallowed by the silence, like a whisper rising from a grave, or a prayer that no longer knew where it was meant to be directed.
"Now we've heard that phrase from Sa'd ibn ar-Rabi', words recorded only three nights before he was abducted from his home in Medina in 625 CE. A coincidence, Nirma? Or a pattern? And if it truly is a pattern... what does it mean?"
They left the 'aliyah carrying a burden heavier than before, not merely because of the unfinished letter and the embroidered map, but because every step down the creaking wooden staircase felt like a descent toward a bottomless abyss, one where every answer gave birth only to new questions, and every question led deeper into a darkness never bright enough to reveal anything beyond the shadows of themselves.
When they reached the central courtyard once again, Nirma decided not to leave through the still-open double doors.
Her left eye became fixed on a chamber at the very back of the compound.
It was not one of the ruined chambers, nor one whose walls had been dismantled with surgical precision. It was the storage room Sa'd used for dates and leather, its door woven from thick palm fronds. Yet from the narrow gaps in that woven door seeped an odor that had no place in a storehouse of dates.
It was a foul, metallic smell, like meat left too long at room temperature, like burnt hair, like something dead that had never been buried.
"I need to check something," she said, her voice carrying the unwavering certainty of a decision that required no debate.
Arya said nothing in response. He simply nodded before pressing the button on his wrist once more, ensuring that their bodies remained invisible, that they were still safe for the time being, and that no agents were stationed near the storage room. According to the live data he had intercepted, the agents were too busy arguing at the entrance over whether they should report the discovery of the ash-and-olive-oil circle to their superiors or conceal it for fear of being judged incompetent.
Within that endless argument, Nirma and Arya found an opening, an opening like light slipping through a crack in a wall, like a breath between two heartbeats, like an opportunity that would never present itself a second time.
"Sa'd stored dates and leather here, not bones and hair."
Arya muttered behind Nirma as they stepped into the dark chamber, darker than any of the others because it had no ventilation whatsoever. Sa'd had intentionally sealed every opening to keep moisture from ruining his delicate merchandise. Within that darkness, Nirma relied on her sense of smell, sharper than that of an ordinary human after years of training in waterless deserts and nameless cities.
The foul odor grew stronger as she approached the deepest corner of the room.
It was not the smell of fish. It was not the smell of blood. It was the scent of something organic yet no longer alive, something that had once belonged to a body but had since been separated, cleaned, gathered, and stored inside a wooden chest that felt unnaturally cold beneath Nirma's fingertips, far too cold for wood resting inside a windowless room in the middle of the desert.
To be continued…