Fic: Chronicles of Riddick, PG-13, bob, "The Night Journey"
Title: The Night Journey
Author: hossgal
Fandom: The Chronicles of Riddick
Rating: PG-13
Characters/pairing: Abu al-Walid, gen/bob
Summary: All deserts have water. 3600 words
Author's Notes: Title and verses from the Qur'an, as translated by N. J. Dawood. Written for the eid_fic challenge. Abu al-Walid is the Islamic priest commonly referred to in the movies as 'Imam'.
***
...I swear by the turning planets and by the stars that rise and set; by the fall of night and the first breath of morning: this is the word of a gracious and mighty messenger, held in honour by the Lord of the Throne, obeyed in heaven, faithful to his trust... 81:12-16, The Cessation
***
"I will take them," he told their fathers, "and keep them safe, and bring them home at journey's end."
The sun had broken free of the mountains, and cast long shadows across the courtyard. Morning prayers had long since past, and the hour to begin work, and still they had awaited the Imam and his announcement.
Not a one of the congregation had been on hajj - not true hajj, not to New Mecca. Omin al-Sandar's great-grandfather had stood, as a stripling boy, on the pavement before a great black stone, and seen the crowds surging in awe, and not known then what he had seen. But now Omin's beard was white as the sands on the seashore, and he repeated the tale his great-grandfather had told him in a high, thin voice.
Allah the merciful has given you his commands, Omin said. And the congregation had shifted, boots scuffing against the stones. They all proclaimed submission, they kept their prayers, they observed the fast in its appointed time, and the beggars of the town were kept in coveralls and hearty food by the coffers of the mosque. But for three generations there had not been one among them who went on hajj.
"I will go," Abu told them. "To New Mecca, and the younger mother-city. I will make my prayers at the holy shrine, where the angels brought Seyyid Ali Shah, and offer my praises there to the Mighty One. Who will come with me?"
Their eyes stayed downcast on the courtyard stones. They are ashamed, Abu realized, and angry.
Angry at him, who reminded them of their obligation, and that they had failed it.
It was Zaida, ever bold, who spoke first, her words ringing against the walls. "The Confederation will not grant us visas. It is sinful to waste the funds on bribes."
Abu felt the heat rise to his face, that his people were so easily swept aside. "Is this shirk? Or is this cowardice, that quakes before the unfaithful?"
"It is God who has made the charts of the stars and appointed the sector governors as his slaves. We must acknowledge the worlds as God has set his hand to them." Yusuf, his voice mild, spoke from where he sat on an iron chair. "Shall we imagine ourselves as the Great One, able to change the universe with a wave of the hand?"
Abu rubbed a hand over his face. Zaida and her compatriots smirked. They had never approved of Abu's appointment, had argued long and loud with every change that the Iman had instituted over the last two years. The silence dragged on. Merciful, Compassionate, give me your strength. The asked-for words did not come.
Yusuf sat back in his chair and went on. "But with the protection of God, we can do many things. Perhaps the authorities will not want such a large fee, if we choose carefully who we send." When Zaida would have protested, Yusuf went on, "For it is true, we are called to hajj, all of us, and those who can not risk the journey must support those who shall."
There was little that argument would gain, thereafter - but Zaida made an attempt that passed courageous, and lasted weeks. In the end, she withdrew her objections to the use of the community purse, and contented herself with forbidding her nephew to consider pledging the journey. Abu counted his blessings, and found them many.
In the end, three came with him. Boys, not men, for the security bonds were too much to bear for grown men. Three, and no more, fully a quarter of the children of their ages within the congregation.
"I will bring them home," he told their fathers, for only Ali had his mother's blessing, and she away on company business. "They will see the anointed place of God, and will remember it, all of their lives."
It was falsehood, even as he spoke it, but he did not know it then.
***
Do you not see how Allah causes the night to pass into the day and the day into the night? He has forced the sun and the moon into his service, each running for an appointed term. Luqman, 31:28
***
They left Aayat l'Albaab on a short-jump ferry, signed on as housekeeping crew. The duty day was long, but the work light. Abu spent much of his time overseeing the maintenance of the water system on a passenger deck, recollecting his years as his uncle's assistant. The rest of his effort he placed on encouraging the boys to attend to their study of the Recital and resisting the distractions of the ship, the diversions of the crew, and the stares of the passengers.
He was a common priest, not a hermit sundered from the world. He was unfamiliar with the shimmering dress of the men and women who swayed down the corridors, laughing and consuming all manner of intoxicants, but he was not amazed, nor awed. Likewise, he knew the games and holo-tracks of the crew to be shirk, and forbidden, but the noises and conversation were only minor irritants.
The boys, being boys, loved every instant of it. Abu did not begrudge them the experience, but despaired of the lasting impact of this short time among the unfaithful. He insisted they attend to their prayers, chastised them for only the most blatant infractions of the journey vow, and prompted them with lessons from the wisdom of the Prophet.
They took rebuke and lessons alike with good grace. The older boys - cousins who had been raised as brothers since they could walk - were both more serious and more frivolous. Eager on one hand to set aside a child's manner and take up the tasks of men, they were, in the manner of all youth, easily distracted by the unknown women and the lure of the comradeship of the younger crew. They came shamefaced to tell of what they had seen and done, to be lectured against it, and went out again, resolving to not fail again. Abu did not delude himself into thinking their convictions would remain inviolate.
Ali, still shy among strangers, and sensitive to the stares drawn by his white headdress, was more isolated by age. He clung close to Abu, even when the other boys had left their small quarters and gone exploring. And it was Ali who asked, to Abu's discomfort: "Imam, while we are on hajj, are we the people we were before?"
Thinking only that the boy was feeling lost among so many strangers, the Imam assured him that they were as they had always been. "We grow closer to God, as we come closer to our destination. But we are who we have ever been, only more perfect."
Ali thumbed the pages of his book. "But, Imam, you are not the same here. You speak differently to these people."
It was well that Ali had his eyes downcast, so that he could not see the grimace that passed over Abu's face. God's voice, speaking through the youngest child. "It may appear so. But consider this, at length - is it I who have changed, or it merely that you have not seen me among these unbelievers? Allah himself tells us that we are to be honorable in all our dealings with others - be they faithful or unbelievers. But we are not to treat them as our brothers, until they have declared themselves to be of God."
Ali had nodded, and, as Abu had directed, went off to consider what had been said.
They spent three weeks on the passenger ferry. At they disembarked, and presented themselves at the slip where Hunter Graznia docked. The passengers here were a different sort than those on the ferry - courser, louder, and in a way, more familiar.
At the Tangnia System, they would find a place amongst a group of the faithful, likewise pilgrims. Berths had been promised on a ship dedicated to the Tangnia-New Mecca route.
When the crew usurered them into their places and guided the boys in their webbing, Abu felt himself relax for the first time in a month. Long months in cryosleep, but the boys would be secure, and free from temptations. On the other side, there would be the short journey among other believers, and then the City itself.
***
...It is Allah who splits the seed and the fruit-stone. He brings forth the living from the dead, and the dead from the living. Such is Allah. How then can you turn away from him? He kindles the light of dawn. He has ordained the night for rest and the sun and moon for reckoning. Such is the ordinance of Allah, the Mighty One, the All-knowing. It is He that has created for the stars, so that they may guide you in the darkness of land and sea. 6:96-98, Cattle
***
The earth was dry, the crust was like over-heated brass. It fractured under every blow. Suleiman and Hassan were weeping as they scrapped away handfuls of gravel.
So was Abu.
"It is as God has ordained," he told them. "God's will moves the sun and the stars, and the lives of us all. We have no need to fear what comes to pass, so long as we remain faithful to God."
Paris, the collector of antiquities, had given them a white sheet to use as a winding cloth. They had washed the blood from Ali's face - from what had been Ali's face. But when they took away the outer covering to lay the pale-bound corpse in the grave, the red stain had seeped through. Hassan backed away from the basin, taking two steps on trembling knees before falling to his knees and vomiting again and again.
It was, Abu realized, mostly water.
A lesser man would have cursed, then, remembering Ali's delight in the blue light, the clear water, the life and rescue that the solar still had promised. A lesser man, who had not submitted himself to the will of God.
We have been dead since the crash, he thought, remembering the perfect clarity of the thin air, the way his head had swum, the numbness in his hands. Every hour has been a gift.
"Come," he said to Hassan. "Pray with us, and know that God is good. He is the one who gives us light, and guides our way."
And then night fell, and Hassan died.
Abu stared at the shredded flesh, at the ruin that had been a living child. Beside him, Suleiman's breath came in great heaves. The gasps echoed throughout the chamber, beating against the steel walls like moths against lamp-glass.
"Come," he said, putting a hand on Suleiman's shoulder. "Come away. We can not bury him now. Remember that God is great, and all things pass as God has ordained."
He held that foremost in his mind - oh! You who are All-Merciful, All-Knowing, Creator of All - through the terrors that followed. The others quarreled - vicious, ugly words - as they struggled to deny the reality that they found around them. Abu had no answers either, nor the words to bring comfort in the absence of knowledge. In the ever-present darkness.
It was as though he was back among his congregation, arguing with Zaida and her husband and the rest of her friends. Only here there was little to be gained by calling on the words of the Prophet, and the light they looked for was only fire.
There is more, Abu told himself, watching the rest as they collected the bundles of illuminated plastic, setting the generator upright and securing it with relevant hands.God is the only guidance I need, he prayed, the bright tubing held tight in his fists. The rest is only illusion.
He believed it. Suleiman might, for all that he clung close to the circle of light. But the rest did not.
And when that false light failed, no matter that Abu counseled reconciliation, the inertia of violence held sway.
It came to him, when relief washed over his thoughts, that their rescue might not be what they thought it - that having been saved by bloodshed, they had only been further damned. God has ordained. Could this be the shield that God has placed between us and the darkness? The darkness could not hide the dark stains that covered Riddick's hands. Is this the light that I have asked for?
Abu opened his mouth to ask, but Riddick turned away, back into the darkness, back to the dead things that littered the ground. Abu stared after him. Surely a messenger of God would not...would be different.
His words to Ali, on the ferry, came back to him then. Perhaps an angel would appear differently, did the angel walk among men. He pushed the thought away. God is the only light I need, he prayed again, firmly.
The sand was still warm when he knelt. Sweat slicked his forearms as he rubbed dust over his hands. "Pray with me," he said, beckoning Fry and the boy - the girl - Jack closer. The squeals of the beasts could still be heard as they fought over the body of the bounty hunter. They shuffled closer, Suleiman making them four, the boy the only one who could complete the responses to the Imam's prayers.
At the end, he looked around the circle of sweating, fearful faces. He said, "We can only deny God - God can not deny us. He will not forsake us, and he will remain faithful." He paused, waiting for them to add their own prayers.
"God, please, just a little light," Fry muttered. It was graceless. It was perfect. Insha'allah.
He carried that with him, as he went to Riddick, and it sustained him against the murderer's sneers. Insha'allah. Just a little light. God loves the little things, he told himself - the perfection of a single letter, an infant child, a drop of water. Just a little light.
And then Allah granted them water, as the moisture in the cooling air condensed, and the falling rain put out the light.
He swallowed back his anger at the traitor storm. Ali had prayed for water. But when Suleiman was ripped from his arms, the sash burning a stripe across his palm, it was too much.
He did not know what he screamed at the sky, only that it was nothing against the fury in his heart - why? you who have given all, what offense have I done?
He clawed at the air, and then, falling, at the ground. The earth had become mud, coating his hands and clinging to his garments. His breath was ragged, and his throat burned.
The woman and the child had to drag him into their shelter. He huddled against the wall, his sodden clothes frigid, his arms and legs shuddering.
We have been dead since the crash. There is nothing that will come after. The light had failed. The rain had betrayed them. And the man who had saved them would leave them to die.
It was then that he lifted his head, and found the rock ceiling covered in slugs - each plump body glowing fitfully, like a tear of the blue star.
He stood, and put out a hand, and ran his finger over the back of one of the insects. It stirred under the touch, and turned to him, tiny feet playing over his skin. In the commingled light, the faces of the others were ghostly pale, as if they, too, had clothed themselves for hajj.
When the stone rolled away, and Riddick's face, still sneering, appeared, Imam could not say, as Jack could, never had a doubt.
He stared back at Riddick's face, at the harness of yellow lights, the rain gleaming on his skin. "There is my God," he said, and would have gone to his knees, if Fry had not seized him by the hand, and drawn him forth, out of the cave, and back into the night.
***
The fate of each man We have bound about his neck. On the Day of Resurrection We shall confront him with a book spread wide open, saying: 'Here is your book: read it. Enough for you on this day that your own soul should call you to account.' 17:14-15, The Night Journey
***
The darkness was thick about Abu when he woke, and for a moment he panicked, the nightmare weaving together the hours of lasting darkness and the night that now lay over the city.
The new city, where he had taken refuge, for he had never returned to Aayat l'Albaab.
He buried his face in shaking hands, willing his shuddering breathing to slow. When he could sit up right, he pushed the blanket away and fumbled on the nightstand for his spectacles-case. When the mattress shifted, his wife woke and rolled over, one hand reaching for him, eyes unfocused. The light from the high window was enough to see the high arch of her abdomen, where their child still slept.
"Prayer to make up for," he whispered. She raised her head, her hand dropping back on his pillow. A good woman, long used to his wakings in the dark hours. A better wife than he deserved. She would come with him, he knew, if he asked.
She had questioned him, in the early days of their marriage, when the compulsion had driven him from his bed, crashing about in the darkness until he found a lamp, the sudden light driving sleep from both their eyes. He would fumbled to the cabinet and his prayer rug, spreading it with shaking hands, shaking his head when she called to him from the bedroom.
She had come to her knees beside him, not out of fear of God, but of fear for him. Beloved, what is it? What is it that you pray for?
He would have shaken off her hand, but her grip was firm, and her voice full of tears.
The whole of the truth would have taken all the night and the next day to tell. He had said, I offer praises to God the All-Mighty, the All-Merciful. Truth, but only a faded shadow of the entirety of his purpose. He had prayed it would be enough.
But she had shaken her head, and said, You praise God in the daylight, you offer thanksgiving with every waking breath. What do you pray for, now, in the darkness?
Strength I have seen in another, he said, thinking of the pilot, and her weakness that had become stony resolve.
And?
Forgiveness for my own weakness. Four faces swam before his vision - four children, all lost. Jack had not died on that planet of night, but she was lost none the less. Four lives that had slid through his open fingers like dust.
And?
Vision. He took a deep breath. In darkness.
He did not know why that satisfied her, but she had nodded, and asked no more. Arranging her robe, she took her place beside him, and remained with him, praying, until the morning broke grey and cold over the city.
Now she only murmured Allah akbar and burrowed deeper into the bedclothes. The skin of her shoulder warmed his fingers. She sighed when he drew his hand away.
Walking carefully, he made his way down the stairs and into the common room. The plumbing hissed as water filled the sink - clear, clean, sending ripples of reflection over the counter and the ceiling. He stood over the sink, remembering Johns, the settlers, the strange man with his heathen relics. Fry, who had tried to kill them all, who had saved what she could.
And Riddick.
He plunged his hands into the basin, sluicing water over his forearms. The faces scattered into ripples.
Beneath his bare feet, the carpet was thick, familiar. He bowed, knelt, bent his face to the rug, breathing in the scents of cedar, dust, and wool.
All deserts have water, he had told the pilot Fry, on the other side of the darkness.
Un-noted, tears trickled down his face. They fell when he bowed again, soaking into the weave, the carpet wicking the moisture away.
***
In the name of Allah the Compassionate, the Merciful; Praise be to Allah, Lord of the Creation, the Merciful, King of Judgment-day! You alone we worship, and to You alone we pray for help. Guide us to the straight path, the path of those whom You have favored, not of those who have incurred Your wrath, nor of those who have gone astray. 1:1-9, The Exordium
***
Feedback of all sorts welcomed. Postive, not positive, concrit - bring it on.
***
I have a full handful of promised fics in progress that are not done. I have even more in various stages of completion. How it happens that the impulse hits you, and you sit down, and a day later have a complete story...God works in mysterious ways.
Author: hossgal
Fandom: The Chronicles of Riddick
Rating: PG-13
Characters/pairing: Abu al-Walid, gen/bob
Summary: All deserts have water. 3600 words
Author's Notes: Title and verses from the Qur'an, as translated by N. J. Dawood. Written for the eid_fic challenge. Abu al-Walid is the Islamic priest commonly referred to in the movies as 'Imam'.
***
...I swear by the turning planets and by the stars that rise and set; by the fall of night and the first breath of morning: this is the word of a gracious and mighty messenger, held in honour by the Lord of the Throne, obeyed in heaven, faithful to his trust... 81:12-16, The Cessation
***
"I will take them," he told their fathers, "and keep them safe, and bring them home at journey's end."
The sun had broken free of the mountains, and cast long shadows across the courtyard. Morning prayers had long since past, and the hour to begin work, and still they had awaited the Imam and his announcement.
Not a one of the congregation had been on hajj - not true hajj, not to New Mecca. Omin al-Sandar's great-grandfather had stood, as a stripling boy, on the pavement before a great black stone, and seen the crowds surging in awe, and not known then what he had seen. But now Omin's beard was white as the sands on the seashore, and he repeated the tale his great-grandfather had told him in a high, thin voice.
Allah the merciful has given you his commands, Omin said. And the congregation had shifted, boots scuffing against the stones. They all proclaimed submission, they kept their prayers, they observed the fast in its appointed time, and the beggars of the town were kept in coveralls and hearty food by the coffers of the mosque. But for three generations there had not been one among them who went on hajj.
"I will go," Abu told them. "To New Mecca, and the younger mother-city. I will make my prayers at the holy shrine, where the angels brought Seyyid Ali Shah, and offer my praises there to the Mighty One. Who will come with me?"
Their eyes stayed downcast on the courtyard stones. They are ashamed, Abu realized, and angry.
Angry at him, who reminded them of their obligation, and that they had failed it.
It was Zaida, ever bold, who spoke first, her words ringing against the walls. "The Confederation will not grant us visas. It is sinful to waste the funds on bribes."
Abu felt the heat rise to his face, that his people were so easily swept aside. "Is this shirk? Or is this cowardice, that quakes before the unfaithful?"
"It is God who has made the charts of the stars and appointed the sector governors as his slaves. We must acknowledge the worlds as God has set his hand to them." Yusuf, his voice mild, spoke from where he sat on an iron chair. "Shall we imagine ourselves as the Great One, able to change the universe with a wave of the hand?"
Abu rubbed a hand over his face. Zaida and her compatriots smirked. They had never approved of Abu's appointment, had argued long and loud with every change that the Iman had instituted over the last two years. The silence dragged on. Merciful, Compassionate, give me your strength. The asked-for words did not come.
Yusuf sat back in his chair and went on. "But with the protection of God, we can do many things. Perhaps the authorities will not want such a large fee, if we choose carefully who we send." When Zaida would have protested, Yusuf went on, "For it is true, we are called to hajj, all of us, and those who can not risk the journey must support those who shall."
There was little that argument would gain, thereafter - but Zaida made an attempt that passed courageous, and lasted weeks. In the end, she withdrew her objections to the use of the community purse, and contented herself with forbidding her nephew to consider pledging the journey. Abu counted his blessings, and found them many.
In the end, three came with him. Boys, not men, for the security bonds were too much to bear for grown men. Three, and no more, fully a quarter of the children of their ages within the congregation.
"I will bring them home," he told their fathers, for only Ali had his mother's blessing, and she away on company business. "They will see the anointed place of God, and will remember it, all of their lives."
It was falsehood, even as he spoke it, but he did not know it then.
***
Do you not see how Allah causes the night to pass into the day and the day into the night? He has forced the sun and the moon into his service, each running for an appointed term. Luqman, 31:28
***
They left Aayat l'Albaab on a short-jump ferry, signed on as housekeeping crew. The duty day was long, but the work light. Abu spent much of his time overseeing the maintenance of the water system on a passenger deck, recollecting his years as his uncle's assistant. The rest of his effort he placed on encouraging the boys to attend to their study of the Recital and resisting the distractions of the ship, the diversions of the crew, and the stares of the passengers.
He was a common priest, not a hermit sundered from the world. He was unfamiliar with the shimmering dress of the men and women who swayed down the corridors, laughing and consuming all manner of intoxicants, but he was not amazed, nor awed. Likewise, he knew the games and holo-tracks of the crew to be shirk, and forbidden, but the noises and conversation were only minor irritants.
The boys, being boys, loved every instant of it. Abu did not begrudge them the experience, but despaired of the lasting impact of this short time among the unfaithful. He insisted they attend to their prayers, chastised them for only the most blatant infractions of the journey vow, and prompted them with lessons from the wisdom of the Prophet.
They took rebuke and lessons alike with good grace. The older boys - cousins who had been raised as brothers since they could walk - were both more serious and more frivolous. Eager on one hand to set aside a child's manner and take up the tasks of men, they were, in the manner of all youth, easily distracted by the unknown women and the lure of the comradeship of the younger crew. They came shamefaced to tell of what they had seen and done, to be lectured against it, and went out again, resolving to not fail again. Abu did not delude himself into thinking their convictions would remain inviolate.
Ali, still shy among strangers, and sensitive to the stares drawn by his white headdress, was more isolated by age. He clung close to Abu, even when the other boys had left their small quarters and gone exploring. And it was Ali who asked, to Abu's discomfort: "Imam, while we are on hajj, are we the people we were before?"
Thinking only that the boy was feeling lost among so many strangers, the Imam assured him that they were as they had always been. "We grow closer to God, as we come closer to our destination. But we are who we have ever been, only more perfect."
Ali thumbed the pages of his book. "But, Imam, you are not the same here. You speak differently to these people."
It was well that Ali had his eyes downcast, so that he could not see the grimace that passed over Abu's face. God's voice, speaking through the youngest child. "It may appear so. But consider this, at length - is it I who have changed, or it merely that you have not seen me among these unbelievers? Allah himself tells us that we are to be honorable in all our dealings with others - be they faithful or unbelievers. But we are not to treat them as our brothers, until they have declared themselves to be of God."
Ali had nodded, and, as Abu had directed, went off to consider what had been said.
They spent three weeks on the passenger ferry. At they disembarked, and presented themselves at the slip where Hunter Graznia docked. The passengers here were a different sort than those on the ferry - courser, louder, and in a way, more familiar.
At the Tangnia System, they would find a place amongst a group of the faithful, likewise pilgrims. Berths had been promised on a ship dedicated to the Tangnia-New Mecca route.
When the crew usurered them into their places and guided the boys in their webbing, Abu felt himself relax for the first time in a month. Long months in cryosleep, but the boys would be secure, and free from temptations. On the other side, there would be the short journey among other believers, and then the City itself.
***
...It is Allah who splits the seed and the fruit-stone. He brings forth the living from the dead, and the dead from the living. Such is Allah. How then can you turn away from him? He kindles the light of dawn. He has ordained the night for rest and the sun and moon for reckoning. Such is the ordinance of Allah, the Mighty One, the All-knowing. It is He that has created for the stars, so that they may guide you in the darkness of land and sea. 6:96-98, Cattle
***
The earth was dry, the crust was like over-heated brass. It fractured under every blow. Suleiman and Hassan were weeping as they scrapped away handfuls of gravel.
So was Abu.
"It is as God has ordained," he told them. "God's will moves the sun and the stars, and the lives of us all. We have no need to fear what comes to pass, so long as we remain faithful to God."
Paris, the collector of antiquities, had given them a white sheet to use as a winding cloth. They had washed the blood from Ali's face - from what had been Ali's face. But when they took away the outer covering to lay the pale-bound corpse in the grave, the red stain had seeped through. Hassan backed away from the basin, taking two steps on trembling knees before falling to his knees and vomiting again and again.
It was, Abu realized, mostly water.
A lesser man would have cursed, then, remembering Ali's delight in the blue light, the clear water, the life and rescue that the solar still had promised. A lesser man, who had not submitted himself to the will of God.
We have been dead since the crash, he thought, remembering the perfect clarity of the thin air, the way his head had swum, the numbness in his hands. Every hour has been a gift.
"Come," he said to Hassan. "Pray with us, and know that God is good. He is the one who gives us light, and guides our way."
And then night fell, and Hassan died.
Abu stared at the shredded flesh, at the ruin that had been a living child. Beside him, Suleiman's breath came in great heaves. The gasps echoed throughout the chamber, beating against the steel walls like moths against lamp-glass.
"Come," he said, putting a hand on Suleiman's shoulder. "Come away. We can not bury him now. Remember that God is great, and all things pass as God has ordained."
He held that foremost in his mind - oh! You who are All-Merciful, All-Knowing, Creator of All - through the terrors that followed. The others quarreled - vicious, ugly words - as they struggled to deny the reality that they found around them. Abu had no answers either, nor the words to bring comfort in the absence of knowledge. In the ever-present darkness.
It was as though he was back among his congregation, arguing with Zaida and her husband and the rest of her friends. Only here there was little to be gained by calling on the words of the Prophet, and the light they looked for was only fire.
There is more, Abu told himself, watching the rest as they collected the bundles of illuminated plastic, setting the generator upright and securing it with relevant hands.God is the only guidance I need, he prayed, the bright tubing held tight in his fists. The rest is only illusion.
He believed it. Suleiman might, for all that he clung close to the circle of light. But the rest did not.
And when that false light failed, no matter that Abu counseled reconciliation, the inertia of violence held sway.
It came to him, when relief washed over his thoughts, that their rescue might not be what they thought it - that having been saved by bloodshed, they had only been further damned. God has ordained. Could this be the shield that God has placed between us and the darkness? The darkness could not hide the dark stains that covered Riddick's hands. Is this the light that I have asked for?
Abu opened his mouth to ask, but Riddick turned away, back into the darkness, back to the dead things that littered the ground. Abu stared after him. Surely a messenger of God would not...would be different.
His words to Ali, on the ferry, came back to him then. Perhaps an angel would appear differently, did the angel walk among men. He pushed the thought away. God is the only light I need, he prayed again, firmly.
The sand was still warm when he knelt. Sweat slicked his forearms as he rubbed dust over his hands. "Pray with me," he said, beckoning Fry and the boy - the girl - Jack closer. The squeals of the beasts could still be heard as they fought over the body of the bounty hunter. They shuffled closer, Suleiman making them four, the boy the only one who could complete the responses to the Imam's prayers.
At the end, he looked around the circle of sweating, fearful faces. He said, "We can only deny God - God can not deny us. He will not forsake us, and he will remain faithful." He paused, waiting for them to add their own prayers.
"God, please, just a little light," Fry muttered. It was graceless. It was perfect. Insha'allah.
He carried that with him, as he went to Riddick, and it sustained him against the murderer's sneers. Insha'allah. Just a little light. God loves the little things, he told himself - the perfection of a single letter, an infant child, a drop of water. Just a little light.
And then Allah granted them water, as the moisture in the cooling air condensed, and the falling rain put out the light.
He swallowed back his anger at the traitor storm. Ali had prayed for water. But when Suleiman was ripped from his arms, the sash burning a stripe across his palm, it was too much.
He did not know what he screamed at the sky, only that it was nothing against the fury in his heart - why? you who have given all, what offense have I done?
He clawed at the air, and then, falling, at the ground. The earth had become mud, coating his hands and clinging to his garments. His breath was ragged, and his throat burned.
The woman and the child had to drag him into their shelter. He huddled against the wall, his sodden clothes frigid, his arms and legs shuddering.
We have been dead since the crash. There is nothing that will come after. The light had failed. The rain had betrayed them. And the man who had saved them would leave them to die.
It was then that he lifted his head, and found the rock ceiling covered in slugs - each plump body glowing fitfully, like a tear of the blue star.
He stood, and put out a hand, and ran his finger over the back of one of the insects. It stirred under the touch, and turned to him, tiny feet playing over his skin. In the commingled light, the faces of the others were ghostly pale, as if they, too, had clothed themselves for hajj.
When the stone rolled away, and Riddick's face, still sneering, appeared, Imam could not say, as Jack could, never had a doubt.
He stared back at Riddick's face, at the harness of yellow lights, the rain gleaming on his skin. "There is my God," he said, and would have gone to his knees, if Fry had not seized him by the hand, and drawn him forth, out of the cave, and back into the night.
***
The fate of each man We have bound about his neck. On the Day of Resurrection We shall confront him with a book spread wide open, saying: 'Here is your book: read it. Enough for you on this day that your own soul should call you to account.' 17:14-15, The Night Journey
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The darkness was thick about Abu when he woke, and for a moment he panicked, the nightmare weaving together the hours of lasting darkness and the night that now lay over the city.
The new city, where he had taken refuge, for he had never returned to Aayat l'Albaab.
He buried his face in shaking hands, willing his shuddering breathing to slow. When he could sit up right, he pushed the blanket away and fumbled on the nightstand for his spectacles-case. When the mattress shifted, his wife woke and rolled over, one hand reaching for him, eyes unfocused. The light from the high window was enough to see the high arch of her abdomen, where their child still slept.
"Prayer to make up for," he whispered. She raised her head, her hand dropping back on his pillow. A good woman, long used to his wakings in the dark hours. A better wife than he deserved. She would come with him, he knew, if he asked.
She had questioned him, in the early days of their marriage, when the compulsion had driven him from his bed, crashing about in the darkness until he found a lamp, the sudden light driving sleep from both their eyes. He would fumbled to the cabinet and his prayer rug, spreading it with shaking hands, shaking his head when she called to him from the bedroom.
She had come to her knees beside him, not out of fear of God, but of fear for him. Beloved, what is it? What is it that you pray for?
He would have shaken off her hand, but her grip was firm, and her voice full of tears.
The whole of the truth would have taken all the night and the next day to tell. He had said, I offer praises to God the All-Mighty, the All-Merciful. Truth, but only a faded shadow of the entirety of his purpose. He had prayed it would be enough.
But she had shaken her head, and said, You praise God in the daylight, you offer thanksgiving with every waking breath. What do you pray for, now, in the darkness?
Strength I have seen in another, he said, thinking of the pilot, and her weakness that had become stony resolve.
And?
Forgiveness for my own weakness. Four faces swam before his vision - four children, all lost. Jack had not died on that planet of night, but she was lost none the less. Four lives that had slid through his open fingers like dust.
And?
Vision. He took a deep breath. In darkness.
He did not know why that satisfied her, but she had nodded, and asked no more. Arranging her robe, she took her place beside him, and remained with him, praying, until the morning broke grey and cold over the city.
Now she only murmured Allah akbar and burrowed deeper into the bedclothes. The skin of her shoulder warmed his fingers. She sighed when he drew his hand away.
Walking carefully, he made his way down the stairs and into the common room. The plumbing hissed as water filled the sink - clear, clean, sending ripples of reflection over the counter and the ceiling. He stood over the sink, remembering Johns, the settlers, the strange man with his heathen relics. Fry, who had tried to kill them all, who had saved what she could.
And Riddick.
He plunged his hands into the basin, sluicing water over his forearms. The faces scattered into ripples.
Beneath his bare feet, the carpet was thick, familiar. He bowed, knelt, bent his face to the rug, breathing in the scents of cedar, dust, and wool.
All deserts have water, he had told the pilot Fry, on the other side of the darkness.
Un-noted, tears trickled down his face. They fell when he bowed again, soaking into the weave, the carpet wicking the moisture away.
***
In the name of Allah the Compassionate, the Merciful; Praise be to Allah, Lord of the Creation, the Merciful, King of Judgment-day! You alone we worship, and to You alone we pray for help. Guide us to the straight path, the path of those whom You have favored, not of those who have incurred Your wrath, nor of those who have gone astray. 1:1-9, The Exordium
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Feedback of all sorts welcomed. Postive, not positive, concrit - bring it on.
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I have a full handful of promised fics in progress that are not done. I have even more in various stages of completion. How it happens that the impulse hits you, and you sit down, and a day later have a complete story...God works in mysterious ways.