Watcher Records

Arabian Bureau; from the archives. Cross-ref: Iman Fasil

From the concluding report of al-Arabi of Toledo:

No one knows how old she is, but that is the way of things with many immortals.

Mysterious are the ways of Allah, that have led me to this city - I, no more than an apprentice Watcher when my master's Immortal faced this unknown, a mere woman, in the marketplace of Toledo. My master's charge, the poet Ben said al-Magribi, had taken heads without mercy during his long tenure under Watcher surveillance. He was a wizard of the sword, but the woman he faced that night was his superior. After she had taken the head, she helped herself to her victim's clothing and veil, and also his blade. Before, she had been dressed as a slave woman. She left the body stripped, and went her way a male warrior of the Magreb. My master and I, true to the precepts of the Watchers, left our previous charge and followed her.

We sent word of her to Salamanca, and a messenger from the Watchers of Iberia commanded us to consider her our new charge. We followed her from Iberia to Algeria and from Algeria to Egypt and from Egypt to Damascus. Each time she met another immortal, they fought and she won and, after taking the head, assumed her defeated foe's clothing and identity. If she learned her victim's name before the challenge, she took that too. She metamorphosed from the likeness of boy to girl to man to woman without hesitation.

I grew from boy to man following her. My master surrendered himself to Allah during the year she spent in Constantinople, wearing the identity of a blind songstress nicknamed 'The Bird'. I continued as her Watcher. I married my beloved Fatima, mother of my sons, during my charge's sojourn in Jerusalem, at which time she was called Ali and then Afrah and then Yeleni; when she took the head of the caravan-bashi Ibn al-Talia of Yarkash and assumed his duties, removing to India, I moved my family there. My sons grew from boys to men. I found my own apprentice among them, and raised him - my own Ali, comrade and treasure - in the ways of the Watchers. We changed our appearances and identities almost as often as she did, to stay hidden from her.

My son Ali was fated to be my successor. Was he not begotten and born during the two years she was named 'Ali' and thus I gave him the name of my Immortal?

Never have we learned her true name or origin. With each quickening she is reborn. She is as the sages teach, the chameleon who transforms herself to match any country, or the phoenix who rekindles her infancy from the pyre. Truly wonderful are the miracles of Allah!

But there was one time, in Persia, in the city of Sultaniyah . . . She was caught by another Immortal, and they fought, and she was outmatched and fled the field, as wise Immortals do when they are able. It is my Immortal's trait to double back and shadow her opponent at such times. She will observe an adversary for many days sometimes, before resuming the battle, and at such times, she is invariably victorious.

She did this in Sultaniyah. The challenger was Haiim of the Twelfth Tribe, one of the old ones of her kind, his origin obscure but his great age to be guessed at in his name, Haiim, 'the Living' in the Hebrew language. Their bout lasted for many days, intense as a war campaign. After she took his quickening, she stooped over the body and seemed to fall into a trance. I was able to come closer, something I was never bold enough to do before; but I was then of an age when I felt myself like a bridegroom to this woman, though she is not a woman but an afrit and surely she is older than many empires on the earth. I was like a young and ardent bridegroom, in love with her face and the mystery of her powers, and I dared to steal near to her.

She did not see me. She was weeping over Haiim's body, and then she said to the body, "I am not worthy, but I will walk in your shoes," and assumed his clothing and weapon, as is her way.

She does not suffer from the dread Dark Quickening; I have observed her closely enough to be sure of that. I believe she is offering homage to those she beheads.

Surely the reason she does this will remain forever a secret known only to her and Allah, who knows all secrets everywhere.

I was an old man, and she was the young folly of a learned mystic in Alexandria, when we learned from our sources in her household that she contemplated the pilgrimage to Mecca. Much was my rejoicing. Was this not the crown of my life? Only let me follow her this one final journey, and I could surrender her surveillance to my son Ali. He is a grown man now, ready to be her Watcher. I will become as a caliph upon the day when I can call myself Haji; it is time for me to renounce the world, and spend my final years napping in the sun.

It was during the stoning of Satan, outside the gates of holy Mecca, that she first encountered her nemesis, Iman Fasil. Because they were in a holy place, they did no more than exchange glances. But I knew from her demeanor that she had recognized another of her kind. They met again three days later, at the Zamzam well, and at this time they agreed to rendezvous outside Mecca, after their hajj was complete. My son Ali took the task of following this Fasil, since he lacked a Watcher of his own. We did not dream that a young unknown like this fool of Frankish origins, could take the head of my Durr-i Bakht.

Her last words, when she knew herself doomed, were, "I have lately been the Pearl of Fortune. Take the lives of your foes and give thanks to Allah, and you will be blessed" but the upstart Fasil only spat upon her, saying, "You are but a woman," and then she began to tell him something, perhaps her true name, but he beheaded her without listening. I believe he has doomed himself, and I curse him, as a Watcher, for silencing her before we could learn her secret.

My son and I buried the body in the sands of the Arabian coast. I have written this, my last chronicle of the Chameleon of Iberia, and now I will put the papers into Ali's hands and send him away, for it is my time too to die. Ali will follow Iman Fasil. I will watch over Durr-i Bakht's grave, and be buried too in it. Watcher and Immortal are bound like lovers, though it is a hidden love and the beloved must never be approached. But when one's Immortal is a woman and beautiful, as mine was, it is a Watcher's tragedy that he can never woo the bride he binds his life to.

Posted July 13th 2005.