18°41'34.2"N 12°55'10.6"E

  Bilma, Niger

  24.05.2024 – 05:00 UTC +01.00

  I stood outside the temple waiting for Yahaya. From the outside, it looked more decrepit and abandoned than it looked inside. Perhaps that woman regularly visited this place and maintained it.

  I pulled out my phone and tested the GPS app.

  We were on the outskirts of Bilma, in a residential area of the southern part of the city, quite on the other side of where we were before.

  Tiwalade’s Manifold Curse and what she called manypaths had brought us here. I couldn’t shake the feeling my newfound ability to tap into someone else’s heart had somehow allowed her to do that. That was frightening and exhilarating at the same time.

  Since my trip had started, I had discovered that my Calling enhanced my sense of the Nabd, and let me tune into other people. Last night, I tuned into whole groups of people. Made their hearts and lungs beat for me. This morning, first Tiwalade and then Yahaya; it was apparent that tuning into other Cursed meant enhancing their Curses too.

  Letting their souls spark, in a way, I envied. Sharara is what I had whispered to awaken it. And then Yahaya snapped – her monstrous limbs growing in length. A true testament of her Curse, and mine.

  And then tore Tiwalade to shreds.

  That should have felt like something, but beyond a tiny satisfaction of a successful hunt and finding Yahaya, nothing.

  A warm breeze shuffled my hair, carrying fine grains of sand. A reminder that Bilma was still an oasis, surrounded by dunes.

  I looked at my phone: it was almost noon. It would get very warm.

  That explained why there was no one walking in the street, even though most of the residential buildings looked full of life.

  “Hm,” I sighed. This neighborhood was not as green as the center of Bilma. No ivy was crawling on buildings, no palm trees were sprawling next to an oasis.

  Yahaya’s eerie voice startled me.

  “What happens next?” She asked.

  I glanced over my shoulder and then turned to her. She had just exited the temple, and under the sunlight, her dark skin looked paler than indoors. Her long robe did not look so ominous either, more like traditional outerwear. It reached the top of her head, respectfully covering it.

  Her eyes were deep within her skull, framing her face with an otherworldly aura. Cursed with mutations, usually had tells, but that was the only thing peculiar about her, at first glance.

  I could simply bring her to Aisa. But I was curious.

  “We walk back to the Cúró Jòró. And you explain to me what I need to know,” I said.

  She nodded as she started walking next to me. Street to street, under the hot sun, it would be a long walk back, but she had a lot to say. And I listened.

  “Tiwalade, rest her soul, was a student of mine. She was special in her own way, the way she could instill fear in minds. Mindmist, she called it. Unique, at least in these parts. I agreed to mentor her and let her Curses unravel.

  Her Ward Curse came in handy; I nourished it like mine. A ward of many paths. Leads you to unpredictable corners. And decisions.

  It is also the Curse that always hides the Inside Cliff. She learned to get in places others could not. Like me.

  However, after our latest visit to N’Djamena, she was unpredictable. Erratic, discordant. I caught her sneaking in and out at night. Stealing things, examining them.

  She became a liability, but I did not want to abandon her. I confronted her, and it almost cost me my life. It cost the lives of other disciples. Friends. I couldn’t tame her. She knew what I feared most, making my mind a frail toy in her hands.

  I ran away to find what turned her like that. Rabid.”

  We walked slowly through the streets, her quiet narration clarifying a story I was initially not interested in, but once she mentioned N’Djamena, it felt like pieces of the puzzle fitting together. That was where I was meant to go.

  “Is N’Djamena where Aisa had sent you?” I asked.

  “Is it Aisa that sent you?” Yahaya asked. I couldn’t help but notice her grin.

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  “Yes. I had my own encounters here. She tasked me to bring you to her.”

  “Dangerous woman. But not to us. She is mortal. We are beyond.”

  Her words made me uncomfortable as we walked. She spoke as if our Curses distinguished us from the rest, and that was not the way I had gotten used to thinking of myself. But was it wrong, really?

  She continued.

  “She is one of the heads of the Ngam Kúrà. Envoy of an empire past in this region. She employs me to monitor Bilma. To represent her where Curses matter. She pays handsomely, and she lets me be,” Yahaya said, “now that Tiwalade has been dealt with, I can reach out to Aisa once more.”

  We continued walking in silence.

  Yahaya showed no interest in asking anything about me or my story.

  After we walked for a good fifteen minutes, I saw a Baobab tree among the palm trees that decorated the central street we were walking on. Looking at the Upside-Down tree reminded my brother back at the Inn. I stopped.

  I searched in my pocket for the bloodied piece of paper tissue, the one that was covered in my brother’s and his assailant’s blood. I squeezed it in my hands and closed my eyes, still holding it in my pocket.

  “What do you hear?” Yahaya asked.

  “I can’t shake the feeling that someone wants me to stay in this city for some reason. And someone I care about got hurt,” I explained, “but not by you.”

  “That’s not what I asked.”

  I opened my eyes to meet her wet, inquiring eyes. She nodded, and I closed my eyes again.

  “Nothing,” I answered, “A faint pulse only. Somewhere in Bilma. Impossible to trace.”

  “That’s not true, open your eyes. That is unnecessary,” she said and touched my arm. I opened my eyes again.

  “Do you not hear the people around you?”

  I tried to take in the scene of the street we were on. People were crossing the street, entering a tall multi-story building surrounded by palm trees. Two men passed right next to us and looked at us before walking past us. A woman speaking on her cell phone crossed the street, holding a child by her hand.

  “I hear their Nabd. Sure. They all have blood,” I answered.

  “It is good, what you hear. Nabd is more than blood. Nabd flows and passes through all of us. And,” she emphasized, “it leaves traces in all of us.”

  I looked around me. Was I supposed to sense something I was missing all these days?

  People walking past stared at me staring at them, until eventually I looked down awkwardly. This was not helpful.

  “You will figure it out,” Yahaya smiled, “let’s go around. I know a shortcut through the oasis.”

  It took a good while to reach the other side of the oasis.

  Then I followed her onto a bus, giving me a nice tour of the East side of Bilma. The Kaouar Cliffs were in the middle of this part of the town. I could see them through the bus window. Broken edges, unshaped, towering: they oversaw the city.

  We did not speak until we reached the alley outside her hideout. Once more, the boundaries of the manifold ward hid the Inside Cliff behind a wall of vines and two houses. No one could enter before unraveling the ward first.

  “Won’t you come inside? I can prepare a meal, and we can talk through everything,” Yahaya said.

  “I know better than stepping into your ward and getting trapped like that girl,” I responded, her expression turning sour, “you might have skipped that part of the story, but I can piece things together.”

  “Yes, I sealed the manifold onto her. I had to contain her, and I did,” she said.

  Her eyes followed me as I walked closer away, in arm’s distance. I lowered my voice.

  “So, we can have a candid chat here. You said I am a magnet. To other Cursed.”

  Once I got my answers, I could decide whether working with this witch could benefit me at all. Or whether I should even let her go into her hide-out; I could lure her into Aisa’s club instead.

  Yahaya revealed her white and yellow teeth under the widest of smiles.

  “No, you misunderstood me. You are not just a magnet to other Cursed. You are a magnet to tragedy and curses, Cursed people and Callings included, like me. More dangers will follow your path, and your Calling will draw you to them like a moth.”

  Each of her words felt like another chain tied on my legs, more weight pulling me down a river.

  “My Calling helps me survive.”

  “Your Calling breeds Catastrophe. For the people around you,” Yahaya said and turned to the wall. She lifted her arms, ready to unfold the ward that was hiding her hideout.

  I lifted my arm and pointed right at her, freezing her in place. I held my breath, and as I did, I could feel her heart rate dropping. She tried to move her hand, in vain.

  “If you are trying to bait my anger, we know how this ends.” I made her turn and walk to me.

  “I am only trying to warn you, dear,” she said, in a monotonous voice, while she slowly headed in my direction, “it led you to the Ngam Kúrà . It led you to me. It is keeping you here until you are done with this town. Aisa trusts me to protect her interests, but my Calling is now to serve you, whatever you may herald.”

  “I have no intention of harming anyone.”

  She stared at my hand, extended as it was, pointed in her direction. It was a smoking gun, holding on to her heart.

  I lowered it, and she was free again.

  “Since you don’t intend to harm me, I would like to return and rest. You should do the same, Catastrophe.”

  She waited for my reaction. I did not try to stop her.

  She then promptly turned back, facing the vine-covered wall that hid the entrance to her manifold ward.

  “My name is Khalida,” I said. Not Catastrophe.

  “See you soon, Khalida.”