Ancient magic is an advantage in the battle for the modern Middle East
Here Be Jinn
Fieldwork in Mesopotamia Book 1
by Dennis Tsarson
Genre: Contemporary Mythic Fantasy Action
Adventure
Ancient and unknown forces have been unleashed in war-ravaged Iraq.
When Elliott Gildart decides to join an
archeological dig in the drylands of northern Iraq, he expects a break from his
monotonous job. But the discovery of an unusual and out-of-place megalithic
platform turns exploration into a risky undertaking and leaves Elliott facing a
future he’s not sure he’s prepared for.
Meanwhile, Neil Feaver and his cameraman,
Jake Parvis, stumble upon their own strange developments while filming a
documentary about Iraq’s ongoing civil war. Saved from imminent danger by a
mysterious stranger, they soon learn that lost magic and mystical artifacts
have fallen into the wrong hands. Now, everyone finds themselves caught in the
crisis, involving coalition forces, Islamist militants, and enigmatic factions
that have existed since the times of the Ancient Near East.
As terrifying forces align, can they prevent
impending peril? Or will ancient magic be enough to turn the tides?
EXCERPT
Here Be Jinn
At first
glance, the drylands could have been mistaken for a desert. An arid and mostly
lifeless landscape, they appeared to spread on and on with no end in sight. Yet
when Elliott jumped out of the land cruiser, the crumbling feeling beneath his
feet indicated that it was not sand but parched soil that he stood upon. He
looked around the area. The terrain was uneven; many mounds of different sizes
dotted the landscape, rising from the earth like boils on burnt skin.
And, of
course, there was the heat. It might have been only February, but for somebody
who hailed from lands of a significantly colder climate, it was unbearable.
Elliott swore that had it not been for the baseball cap covering his blond
head, the wall of heat would have brought him down on the ground unconscious.
The door of one of the off-road vehicles opened. Mergham was the first to step
out, followed by Lauren, who jumped out with her usual grace. They were then
joined outside by another colleague: Mr Akhmad. A local of Iraqi Kurdistan who
had met up with them in Erbil. He was some years younger than Mergham and
noticeably bigger in muscle mass. He had been described as a local guide and
logistics co-ordinator by Mergham, and this made him the third part of the
triumvirate in charge of the dig alongside Lauren and the author himself.
Elliott
was not a geography expert—he wasn’t sure if these drylands even had an
official name. Yet here he was, at the end of the known world, countless miles
away from the perpetual dullness of urban life and the wretched call centre.
Still, though their small fleet of four-wheel-drives had brought them to the
middle of nowhere, they were not just left there in the wilderness. A small
camp had already been set up. He could see the pointed shapes of two dozen
tents about a hundred metres away. As he had been informed, a couple of people
affiliated with the dig had arrived at the site some days beforehand.
“Ladies
and gentlemen!” Dr Mergham spoke after summoning all the arrivals in a ring
around him. “We’ve made it! This will be our camp for the next couple of
months.”
“Woo-hoo!”
shouted one of the team members. This comical cry of joy was followed by a
brief round of chuckling from a few others.
“Yes, I am
sure you are all excited,” Mergham continued, smiling himself, “but first
please give a round of applause for the man without whom you would not be
seeing this camp here.” He gestured towards the man standing to his left. “Mr
Akhmad!”
People
clapped, and they clapped sincerely.
“Thank
you,” Akhmad said, his voice laced with a strong accent, lightly bowing his
head. “Thank you.”
“Perhaps
you could give the team an orientation tour of this camp?” Mergham suggested.
“Of
course.”
The camp
was not big, but neither was the group: there were just over twenty of them.
The main operations tent, a fabric pavilion, was located in the centre of the
encampment; it stood out amongst its neighbours in length, width, and height.
Next to it was a gazebo used for the storage of equipment. Nearby was the one
for supplies, and another chosen to store finds. One was set up as a kitchen.
Other than that, the campsite did not have a special plan or layout; the
individual tents were pitched at random. Shower tents as well as toilet tents
could be found a short distance away from the main cluster. The team were
introduced to the people who were already on-site: three assistant
archaeologists and the cook.
Their
guided walk ended back at their vehicles’ location. Then their first assignment
began; they had to unload the supplies they’d brought with them and bring them
to the storage gazebo. Naturally, three people were exempt from it—it was not
hard to guess who. And once this task was done, with everything out of the
vehicles and sorted, they received payment…in the form of another excursion,
now led by Mergham himself.
The sun
was still shining far above them when they set out towards the archaeological
site. Clutching a map in his hand, Leonard led them deeper into their new and
unusual surroundings, this unexplored wilderness. They walked for about ten or
so minutes, through flat land and mounds, until the site appeared before them.
“Here it is!” the author declared, extending his hand as he gripped the map even harder. “This is the place we’ll be excavating.”
***
As Neil
struggled in the sandy haze, he felt the ground underneath his feet dissolve.
He found himself falling, plunging into this strange sinkhole. Sand irritated
his eyes, and tears blurred his vision. The continuing plunge made his heart
race at an impossible rate, subjected to pressure that felt strong enough to
rip it into pieces before he hit the bottom of this enormous pit.
Then a
hand clasped his wrist in a grip as solid as that of a handcuff. Neil’s whole
body jerked as his fall suddenly ceased.
“Got you!”
a familiar voice sounded from nearby.
Neil
blinked intensively until his vision recovered. He gave his surroundings a
brief look. What he saw left him shocked and trembling. He was dangling in the
air with Nouri’s grasp being all that that kept him from continuing his fall.
The guard’s grip was tight and solid, but his position was as precarious as
Neil’s. He’d braced himself against the wall of the pit, clinging to a dagger
he’d implanted in the rock. The situation was dire. The dagger was not planted
strongly enough to bear the weight of two men. Tremors ran through Neil’s body
as the blade slid out of the wall bit by bit. He looked down; he could see the
bottom of the pit far below. Not even the luckiest man in the world would
survive a fall from such a height.
“What are
we going to do?” Neil called out to Nouri, his raised voice edging on
hysterical.
“I am
going to try to make our landing as safe as possible,” the guard responded.
“How?!”
“Have
faith. And don’t make any sudden movements.”
Nouri
pushed back against the wall with his foot. The movement tore the blade out,
sending the duo falling.
Nouri’s
grasp on Neil’s wrist remained just as strong, but that brought the reporter
zero comfort. He shut his eyes tightly, his heart pounding. Neil was certain
that this second plunge lasted mere moments. But his mind mistook every second
for a minute. He was sure that he would smash against the pit’s floor head
first, yet some unknown force flipped him in the air, making him land on his
feet like a cat. Still, the impact was hard. He gritted his teeth as his feet
cried out in pain. Nouri’s supportive grip kept him from collapsing.
“Are you
alright?” the guard asked.
“Yes,”
Neil hissed through still-gritted teeth before letting go of his hand.
It took
him a few more moments to steady himself. Then his gaze began to wander around
the place. The pit was wide; three or four university lecture rooms would have
fitted in easily. Looking above, he could not see the crack they had fallen
through; it was as if the crevice that had swallowed them had been sealed
again. No sunrays appeared to reach the bottom of the pit from above, yet there
had to be some source of light slithering into this underground cavern through
some unnoticeable holes, keeping the space relatively well illuminated.
It was
bright enough to allow Neil to recognise the grotesque figure a few feet away
from the duo. The thing lay sprawled on the ground. Nouri’s sword stuck out of
its body in a sign of victory, but Neil found it hard to overcome the
disturbing feeling that this monster might suddenly get back on its feet. He
kept watching it for a while to drive away his doubts. The body did not
convulse a single time, and relief washed over him.
Neil
looked to the left, and what he saw astonished him. The façade of a building
stood there underneath countless layers of sand, dirt, and gravel, built out of
large stone slabs. The entranceway was wide enough for two people to walk in
side by side; if a grown man had sat on the shoulders of one of them, a few
inches would have still separated his head from the large stone block that
served as the entrance’s lintel. It stood there, pulsing with enigmas. The
identity of the builders, the way it had ended up deep below ground—questions
kept popping up in his mind.
Nouri
walked towards his vanquished foe, grabbed the sword by the hilt, and pulled it
out of the corpse. On any other occasion, the blade would have been stained
crimson with blood, but the steel remained spotless, as if it had just been
taken out of an armoury. Neil had stopped being amazed by this point; the
cavalcade of miracles that day had proven that nothing was impossible.
Within
moments, the creature’s hideous form began to undergo its own type of
decomposition. Flesh quickly turned into sand, and the sand evaporated into air
right before Neil’s eyes.
Sword in
hand, Nouri stood tense, looking in every direction, searching the place for
something…or someone.
“What…the
hell…was that…thing?” Neil said between breaths, pointing at the empty space
where the corpse had lain.
“A daeva.”
Nouri turned to him. “Or, more specifically, a desert daeva.”
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About the Author
A self-described amateur scholar, Dennis Tsarson has been interested in the world’s mythology and folklore traditions since reading Greek myths as a boy. That interest grew into an undergraduate degree in history and archeological training, which he incorporates into his fantasy retellings while travelling the globe. When he’s not writing or exploring new countries and their cultural histories, you can find him settled in the United Kingdom, studying the comparative tendencies in folktales around the world.
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I enjoyed the excerpt. Sounds like a good story.
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