Secondhand Sorcery

It was a brief announcement, only two sentences, repeated in Kurdish, Turkish, and English. There wasn’t even a picture. Nadia read it again anyway: Mr. Ferhat Erbal and his wife Deniz, both of Bayburt, have been arrested in connection with counterrevolutionary activity, and subsequently convicted of conspiring with the enemies of the Kurdish people. They are presently being held aboard the Lim Island penitentiary facility, pending execution on the second of March.

There were dozens of very similar messages on the page; the Confederation of Zîlan was apparently very busy rounding up accused subversives and putting them on something they could pass off as a trial. Nadia doubted whether anybody inside the new country paid any attention to those two names on the long, long list. Why should they? Nobody had ever heard of the Erbals, and hardly any of them had ever been to Bayburt.

Kemal only found out after the neighbors heard a violent break-in at their house this past Sunday, then went to check in the morning and found the young couple missing, the house smashed up. They went to the local police, who did their pitiful best but found nothing until the names appeared on the police blotter of an unrecognized country more than a hundred miles away. By which point it was Tuesday, and Nadia and company were tied up with Yuri in Syria.

Fatima laid it all out. “So a schoolteacher, who’s about eight months pregnant now, and her husband, who does what?”

Nadia shrugged. “I’m not sure. Something in an office. It might have something to do with wildlife or nature somehow? Government land management. Kemal wasn’t clear.”

“Whatever it is,” Fatima said, “they supposedly decided to start some unspecified shit in Kurdistan, which neither of them had ever been to, and the Kurds had enough people and were angry enough to send goons across their border to grab them, then put them on a trial and convict them within—“

“If you’re arguing that this is idiotic, save your breath,” Nadia told her. “Of course it’s idiotic. That is the entire point. These two are guilty of nothing beyond being related to Kemal, who is guilty of nothing but being our friend. And they were sure to mention where they are being held—where is Lim Island?”

Ruslan, of course, was ready with the facts, read off a screen in his most robotic cadence: “’Adir Island, known as Lim Island in Armenian, is the largest of Lake Van’s four islands, located near its northeastern coast. While the island was notable for being a temporary refuge during the Armenian Genocide, and formerly hosted a monastery, Adir Island today is uninhabited and contains nothing of note beyond the partial ruins of the monastery, now in poor condition.’”

“I didn’t hear a whole lot about a prison,” Yuri said.

“It might not even be, you know, a permanent facility,” Fatima said. “If it’s an island, it’s not a bad prison as-is. Just slap together some fences and tents and call it a day. That’s how all these shitty little wannabe countries get holding space on a budget.”

“It doesn’t matter what it is, if those two are being held there.” The stolen pickup was pulled over into a vacant lot, less than an hour from the Turkish border. March 2 was three days away. Plenty of time to travel—she checked—somewhat less than a thousand kilometers. But not enough time for any elaborate plans or clever ruses. Had Yefimov and his men known the Marshalls were out of the country when they did this? Almost certainly. They would have abducted Kemal himself, if he were not safe in the British base on Cyprus. Instead they threatened his daughter, son-in-law, and unborn grandson.

“Are we really gonna do this?” Yuri said. “I mean, shit, they might as well have sent a fuckin’ fancy formal invitation cordially inviting us to a trap.”

Fatima answered before Nadia could. “It’s not just about Kemal’s family. This is the third time now that they’ve fucked us. First in Ankara, then in Tatvan, now this. We have turf to defend, and a reputation to keep. We’re never going to have peace until Yefimov eats it. And he’s not invincible. Ruslan almost took him down last week. Noorlan and Aziz are both dead.”

“I don’t think he was really trying to hurt us, though,” Ruslan said. “It was more like he was playing with us. I don’t know what he would have done if Pangu hadn’t shown up and distracted him. He was winning before then.”

“But we still kicked his ass, didn’t we?” Fatima said with a glower. “And we didn’t even know he was there. He had us by surprise, and it was just the two of us, and he still lost.”

“The two of us, plus Keisha—“

“I’ll take Ézarine and Shum-Shum combined over Adesina any day.”

“But we will have to rescue a pair of civilians—a pair at least,” Nadia said. “We can’t just set the whole thing on fire, or blow it up. If they’re even there. That could be a lie.”

“We can count on Yefimov being there to spring a trap, though,” said Fatima. “If we can spot him first and waste him, it’s all good.”

Maria had been sitting out the entire conversation, which she couldn’t really follow, in the driver’s seat of the car, swigging water and eating some kind of stew cold from a can. Now she spoke up, in her usual Russian: “Do we have a new destination? This day is not getting any longer.”

“We’re still going across the border,” Nadia told her, then switched to English for the others. “We can decide how we’re going to help them on the way back. There will be time.”

There really wasn’t, of course; the truck was poorly set up for discussion and they had no access to fresh information on the move. Ruslan and Fatima took turns on milch duty in the back seat, refilling the little flask Yuri had used as a kitty last night. It wasn’t much of a reserve, but it was all they had. Yuri was still banished to the gunner’s station in the bed, under strict orders not to actually shoot anything. Nadia kept to the passenger seat, frowning at maps on Fatima’s phone in the vain hope that a brilliant plan would leap out at her. When it didn’t, she took her turn at the gun, shivering in the frigid wind.

Ten hours later they pulled into one of the tiny villages which had made a deal with Fatima and Ruslan’s imaginary Emir of Diyarbakir. The handful of Kurds living there weren’t happy to see them, or impressed with the complete lack of help and support they’d received since they signed on two weeks ago. They still agreed to let them stay the night, and even to feed them—after Kizil Khan struck down one of their sheep, and used its death to alleviate a half-dozen cases of arthritis while the villagers cooked the carcass for dinner.

Nadia was pretty tired by that point, but still asked around for news. It wasn’t encouraging; everyone she spoke to was aware that Russia was controlling the new government of Zîlan, and didn’t care. If it came down to a brutal western-backed counteroffensive by whatever was left of the Ankara government, or rule by the puppets of tyrants who would mostly ignore them, they knew which they preferred.

It wasn’t clear, at present, if this area was part of Zîlan or not. Foreigners in trucks like theirs, bolstered by the odd tank or APC, ran up and down the highways in convoys, looking to push back the opposition in this place or that. The people of little villages like this only saw them when they came around to ‘solicit’ donations for the cause, and there wasn’t much left to ‘give.’

“They will stop asking soon,” one old woman predicted, through her grandson’s interpretation. The boy’s father had joined up with a local volunteer militia last week, and rode circuit around the district. “We are too poor to be worth robbing, but they will want men, and after men boys. It has happened before. That is why my son is not here. Better to fight for us than for them.”

“We can help with that,” Fatima told her grandson, who’d learned decent English at some boarding school more than a year ago, and still remembered some of of it. “The Emir has us doing other work right now, but in a couple of days we should be back to restore order.”

The boy translated for the old woman, who considered for a long moment, grunted, and nodded. She’d believe it when she saw it. Nadia couldn’t blame her for being skeptical, and said goodbye, only for Fatima to flag her down for a talk just outside the door.

“On second thought, maybe we ought to lay down the law now,” she said. “What say we take out one of the foreign merc outfits in the morning?”

“We’re awfully short on time,” Nadia said.

“We’re even shorter on money and supplies,” Fatima retorted. “We can get plenty of both in two hours, and maybe some intel too. Plus building cred with the locals—that never hurts.”

Nadia thought it over. They could easily get to Lim Island tomorrow, even with a stop on the way, and whatever foreign muscle was terrorizing their immediate area would not have any kind of paraphysical support. Fatima was more experienced than any of them in this sort of warlord business. If she thought it was a good idea … “All right, fine. But we make it quick, and do it clean.”

“Of course.” Fatima sounded offended that Nadia would suggest otherwise.

It took more time than she expected. They got up a little before dawn, which was still not very early at this time of year, and lost an hour learning where the various local infestations of foreign militants could be found, and deciding which one to hit. They settled on Yad-al-Muminin, a band of Islamist desperadoes with roots in Egypt, of all places. This meant a significant drive to the west, well out of their way, but they sounded like the most revolting and also the most isolated. The other candidates were too likely to go whining to Russia, America, or some other foreign power they might care about. The rescue would work much better if their enemies didn’t know where they were.

Actually taking them down was trivially easy. They had an established headquarters (a former elementary school) in a bedraggled little town, where they ran a number of the usual horrible rackets while posing as a government. At the time of their visit, there were twenty-seven men in and around the building. Kizil Khan landed on the roof and inflicted twenty-seven cases of crippling muscle atrophy, then disappeared. The five of them were then free to stroll in and take their pick of the loot while the men sat gasping and helpless in chairs, or on the floor.

Nadia made sure to take all the guns and ammunition, and dumped any drugs she found down the toilet, ignoring the eye-rolls she got from her siblings in the process. Fatima and Maria did the interrogations, though they didn’t learn much of use; these men were bottom-feeders. When they were finished, they drove off in three separate heavily loaded SUVs, leaving their battered battlewagon behind.

Ruslan reversed most but not all of the damage he had done as they made their way out of the town—at least, he said he did, but Nadia wasn’t going to take the time to check. It was possible he had simply killed them, and that was arguably kinder than leaving those men disarmed in the midst of their victims. If not, a few might escape, and perhaps turn their lives around. Nadia couldn’t do everything.

All that remained was the four-hour trek into Zîlan, in a convoy. Yuri of course went with his concubine, and Nadia elected to ride with Fatima, leaving Ruslan to handle the middle truck alone. They still didn’t know for a fact that the Erbals were being kept on the island, but at least they were better prepared now.

“So, why is it called a ‘Dublin Run,’ anyway?” Nadia asked in the last half-hour before they crossed into enemy territory.

“You don’t know that? August 1992,” Fatima answered. “The second or third time the Brits used people like us in public. The IRA was dug in deep inside the city, multiple positions. So they stuck Aurora’s emissor on a motorbike and had her haul ass across town. The last group was just starting to wonder what had happened to the first when she took them out.”

“Zîlan is a much bigger area than Dublin, though.”

Fatima shrugged. “So what? Same principle. Yefimov’s not god, girlfriend. He can’t cover hundreds of square miles in espers, and we inflict radio silence wherever we go. Momentum is our friend. We’re wasted on defense.”

“If you say so,” Nadia said, sinking down into the passenger seat.

There was no question of trying to bluff their way through the checkpoint, that was clear; as a group, they could hardly be more conspicuous, and Nadia assumed every guard and lackey had been given their descriptions anyway. They approached the first checkpoint at reckless speed, unfurling Kizil Khan on the last hundred meters. Nobody fired a shot, and they only stopped a moment to clear the barricade from the road.

Ruslan’s voice crackled on their new handset once they were clear. “I’m going to have to do some healing soon,” he said. “He’s getting a little cranky just taking and taking like this.”

“Roger that,” Fatima replied. “This is war,” she added, before Nadia could say anything.

“I know.”

So far as they knew—they weren’t going to stop and ask around—the heartland of Zîlan was a quiet and orderly place these days, and once they were past the border it looked it. Gasoline was expensive, but that was true everywhere, and there were no signs of shortages or rationing for that or anything else. Nobody stopped them or even gave them a second glance that Nadia could see.

“You reckon they’re shipping stuff in from the ol’ rodina?” Fatima said.

“Russia has plenty of oil,” Nadia replied. “And they want this place quiet and peaceful, if they can get it that way.”

“Not hard, if you have Snowdrop.” But they hadn’t seen any glass-covered figures yet. It troubled Nadia to think that foreign puppet rule might have actually been good for this region. Not only because it made their own efforts seem pathetic; every neat, orderly street full of people going about their business without fear impressed on her the sheer power they were up against, that could so easily throw up a wall against the general disorder that ruled outside. She wondered how much damage the four of them would cause on their way out—if they even made it that far.

The island was tucked up against the far edge of Lake Van; they couldn’t even catch a glimpse of it until they made their way around a long and broad spur extending twenty or more miles to the northeast of the main body of water. Nadia kept her face against the window, binoculars out, as soon as they rounded that tip. It was almost 1800 now, close to sunset, and amber light glittered off the lake.

It was easy to miss the prison, when she saw it, because it glittered in much the same way. Nobody gave the order to stop; all three drivers in their little caravan simply slowed down at the same time, and finally pulled over so they could see what they were up against.

Lim Island was only a couple of kilometers long, and not even one wide. That was still plenty of space for a conventional prison, or even a reasonably large prison camp. But Yefimov—it was obvious in hindsight—hadn’t burdened his government with the time, bother, and expense of building either. Why should he, when he could make it himself?

It reminded Nadia of Fatih, where Akritas had crudely slapped together a monstrous tower for a Kremlin. This was less, and also more, impressive. The entire island, from what she could see through the glare shining into her binoculars, was covered in glass, shaped into an elegant pinnacled form like a cathedral. She couldn’t see a speck of ground; enormous flying buttresses reached out and sank their arms into the water. A long line of blinding light ran from the island’s nearest point to the shore. That would be the only point of access, she guessed. No need for boats and ferries when you have a bridge.

It wouldn’t be at all difficult to destroy, she thought. Even ordinary humans could shatter glass with a scream. Ézarine could annihilate it in seconds. Getting any of them into it would be difficult. Getting two people out of it alive might well be impossible.