Chapter 206
After Umar finally followed the others—Ali, Zubair, Sa'd, Abbad, Zaid, and Abdullah—into the house of Anas ibn an-Nadhr, his steps still carrying the lingering tremor of anger that had not yet completely subsided, Arya immediately flicked his left hand several times, shaking off the drops of blood that had begun to collect between his fingers.
The blood was not flowing because Umar's slash had truly struck its target—for had the blade made direct contact with his skin, his hand would probably have been severed and left upon the dew-soaked ground—but because of the gust unleashed by the swing itself, an invisible current strong enough to tear through the thin layer of invisibility technology wrapped around his wrist, so that even the slightest flaw, as tiny as the split end of a single strand of hair, was enough to leave a small wound gaping across his skin, a wound that did not hurt yet bled all the same, reminding him that no technology of any future era could ever completely protect the human body from the wind driven by a sword wielded by a hand that never hesitated.
"Thank goodness," Arya whispered, his voice carrying a tone he had not revealed throughout the many years he had wandered across countless timelines, the tone of someone who had just watched death pass before him and realized that, tonight, it had chosen not to take him home.
"I've never experienced a miracle like this during all my travels through time—not when I was still one of the high-ranking officers of the Temporal Cross-Police, nor after I left and became a fugitive hunted by my own former colleagues."
Nirma, upon hearing those words, did not immediately believe that what had happened to Arya was merely a miracle, because in her experience as an agent trained never to trust anything that could not be measured with data, miracles were simply a word people used when they lacked an adequate explanation, and Nirma despised being in a position where she had no explanation.
She instinctively looked to the right and left, her remaining left eye scanning every corner of Anas's courtyard, now slowly illuminated by the brightening light of dawn, searching for something—a trace, a clue, some piece of evidence—that could explain why Umar's sword, after already touching Arya's skin, had suddenly stopped, why the force of its swing had failed to sever his hand and instead damaged only such a tiny portion of the technology, why an unseen force had chosen to wound but not to kill, to warn but not to punish.
Nirma drew in a long breath—a breath that felt like swallowing shattered glass that did not cut her flesh yet scraped something deep inside her chest, something for which no human language possessed a name, because it had been born from the meeting between the dawn breaking over the eastern horizon and the silence left behind by Umar ibn al-Khattab's departure.
"Let's get out of here, Arya," she whispered, her voice emerging from beneath her veil with a tone that was calm but not fragile, as flat as the surface of a lake on a morning far too peaceful to promise anything good.
"There's no point staying here any longer. We need to find the well that leads into the chamber beneath Masjid Dhirar before they finish searching Anas's house and realize there's something far stranger here than simply an empty residence."
Hearing that, Arya nodded quickly—so quickly that the droplets of blood between his fingers scattered through the air like tiny fireworks that never had the chance to ignite—and a faint smile appeared upon his dry lips, a smile he had never shown during all those years spent drowning in data, coordinates, and ownerless files, the smile of a man who had wandered through the desert for far too long before finally catching sight of a date palm on the horizon.
"So you finally said it, Nirma. I've been waiting to hear those words ever since Umar nearly chopped off my hand," he replied.
His voice trembled at the end of the sentence, not because of fear but because of relief, relief like a bowstring finally released after hours of being drawn taut by trembling fingers.
With that relief, the two of them began walking away—slowly, almost painfully slowly, like two shadows unwilling to attract attention even though nothing remained in the courtyard except the white camel with the yellow light hovering above it, the white camel that remained still, remained steadfast, continued bestowing its mercy in a way no handbook issued to temporal agents could ever explain.
As Nirma was about to take her thirty-third step—she had been counting.
Not because she wanted to count, but because inside a mind trained never to overlook even the smallest detail, numbers were the only anchor amid an ocean of uncertainty—something happened within her chest that neither logic nor data nor the algorithms she had learned at headquarters could explain.
It was not a sound, because her ears caught nothing except the whisper of the dawn breeze carrying the scent of damp earth from the date grove to the south.
It was not movement, because her left eye—the only eye that still faithfully granted her light amid the darkness—saw no silhouette, no shadow, nothing moving except the fronds of the date palms swaying in the wind.
But her chest—the chest she had forced to remain as calm as water inside a glass that never spilled despite the trembling hand holding it—suddenly became something else.
It became a space too narrow for her heart, which seemed to swell without warning.
It became a corridor too dark for her breath, which suddenly found no path forward.
It became a well too deep for the prayer she had never spoken.
Without realizing it, without planning it, without permission from the rational part of her mind that kept insisting there was nothing behind her except Anas's house now being entered by Ali, Zubair, Abbad, and the others, Nirma stopped.
Her thirty-third step never touched the ground because she froze in mid-stride, like a statue suddenly brought to life by one curse only to be frozen again by another even stronger.
When she slowly turned her head back—so slowly, as though she knew that what she was about to see might change everything, or perhaps nothing at all—all she found was empty air, the thinning veil of mist, and far in the distance, above the unmoving white camel, the yellow light still remained.
It did nothing.
It said nothing.
It simply waited.
It waited for news from the small team that had entered Anas's house.
It waited for Umar, Ali, and Zubair to emerge with a report about what they had found—or failed to find—within the courtyard that concealed the bottomless portal, within the attic containing the metal capsule filled with long strands of hair and the message left by an old man, within the dry well that held no water yet gave off the scent of electricity and ozone that had no place in the seventh century.
Arya, who had already taken his thirty-fourth step—he had been counting as well, because ever since Nirma had said, "Let's get out of here," numbers had become the only thing preventing him from sprinting as fast as he could away from Anas's courtyard, which had suddenly begun to feel like a trap with no escape—felt something strange before his eyes ever saw it.
Not because he possessed a sixth sense or supernatural abilities he had never confessed to Nirma, but because after years of living as a fugitive hunted by his own former comrades, he had learned that silence suddenly breaking was a sign of danger, yet silence suddenly becoming even quieter was the sign that danger was already inside your chest, breathing with your lungs, beating with your heart.
"Nirma?" he called softly, stopping at his thirty-fourth step as he turned to his right, facing his companion, who still stood frozen with her head turned backward toward Anas's house, toward the yellow light that had never gone out.
To be continued…