"You're wearing it now, I assume?" Excitement brightened Alizadeh's face.
"He always wears it," Kiram provided.
Javier lifted the medallion out from his vest. Its thick gold chain looked dull compared to the shining metal of the medallion itself. Though Kiram had seen it countless times he found himself transfixed by the heavy gold circle and the fine incantations that traced its surface.
Even Rafie cracked an eye open and after catching sight of the medallion he sat straight up. "Is that a ghost locket?"
"Indeed it is." Alizadeh gazed at the medallion with a keen, knowing expression. "The question is whose ghost inhabits it?"
Javier glanced to Kiram, his fingers curled protectively around the medallion.
"What on earth is a ghost locket?" Kiram asked, looking between Rafie and Alizadeh for an answer. Rafie shook his head and returned to his slump against the trunk of a plum tree.
"It is dangerous magic, born of greed or desperation" Alizadeh's eyes remained on the medallion as he spoke. "The incantations on a ghost locket hold a soul trapped between the living world that surrounds us and the realm of death"
"Why would anyone want to do that?" Kiram asked. Javier's expression was uncertain as well.
"Because sometimes it is very useful to be able to hold a soul- particularly if it has become a curse," Alizadeh replied, though it wasn't Kiram he looked at but Javier. "But more importantly, a soul trapped in a ghost locket can also be used as a door to a shajdi. Though in that case the woman or man whose soul is held within the locket must willingly participate in its creation" Alizadeh sighed heavily and one of his crows dropped to his shoulder and nudged its beak affectionately against his ear.
"No true Bahiim would ever take possession of a shajdi in such a manner. It's terribly cruel and an imperfect union in any case," Alizadeh went on, "but someone desperate with only a little training might attempt it not knowing the cost."
Kiram frowned as he tried to absorb everything Alizadeh was telling them. Javier's medallion wasn't just a protection but must have been integral to opening the white hell.
"You mean my ancestor, Calixto," Javier stated.
"Yes" Alizadeh replied. "But obviously not him alone. After all, he lived on to control the shajdi. Someone else made an immense sacrifice to give him that power"
Suddenly Kiram remembered the few pages of Calixto's diary that Javier had shown him, when he'd been looking for information concerning his hero, Yassin Lif-Harun. A terrible thought came to Kiram.
"Yassin" Javier said softly. He stole a glance to Kiram, then looked away almost guiltily. "The locket holds Yassin Lif-Harun's soul."
"Yassin Lif-Harun?" Rafie sat upright, incredulous. "Yassin Lif-Harun, the famous half-Haldiim astronomer?"
Even Alizadeh raised his brows in surprise.
Javier nodded sheepishly. "I know it sounds mad, but he and Calixto were close, very close." Again Javier's dark gaze darted to Kiram and this time Kiram knew exactly what Javier meant.
"They were lovers?" Kiram asked.
Javier nodded. "Calixto wrote about it in his diary, though he never did say how they opened the white-the shajdi. He only wrote that the Mirogoths were at the academy walls and none of them expected to survive. So they had nothing to lose."
"Yes, they would have seen it that way at the time." A look of sorrow passed over Alizadeh's face as he studied the medallion. "Yassin would have bound himself to Javier's ancestor, Calixto, with the most powerful of blood oaths, one that would last generations. Here you can see the symbols binding flesh and soul" Alizadeh reached out and pointed to a circle of tangled incantations.
Kiram felt an odd familiarity when looking at the symbols but he couldn't place where he'd seen them before. Most likely he was remembering them from countless nights lying with Javier.
"Once Yassin had bound his soul to Calixto's bloodline," Alizadeh's gaze moved over the incantations on the ghost locket as if he were reading them, "he would have taken his own life. Only in death could his soul have entered a shajdi. Then the bond between him and Calixto would have allowed Calixto to reach into the shajdi through him-"
"But that would mean that Yassin's soul was, and still is, stretched between life and death." Rafie's expression was deeply troubled.
"Yes." Alizadeh drew his hand back from Javier's medallion. "Half of his soul is held here in this locket, still sheltering Calixto's descendants and allowing them access to a shajdi without the benefit of Bahiim training. But the other half of Yassin was long ago drawn into the shajdi. His soul will have been distorted and shredded over the years. I can't say just how intact he would be after so much time."
Kiram was aware that he and Rafie and Alizadeh all turned their attention to Javier at that moment. Javier flushed slightly under their scrutiny.
"I don't know." Javier said quietly. "I haven't seen or heard him in at least six years. I had begun to think he had been some figment I'd dreamed up."
"But you did see him?" Alizadeh asked.
"I heard him more than saw him. When I was eight and nine he would speak to me in Cadeleonian and Haldiim and tell me things. He taught me how to call the white hell and to draw wards to protect myself. I only ever saw him in dreams."
"That does explain a number of things." Alizadeh gave Javier a crooked smile. "Your amazing fluency in the Haldiim language, why your home is protected by Bahiim spells, and most importantly how the shajdi has remained uncorrupted. Your ghost had some training as a Bahiim."
Kiram stared at the medallion, trying to imagine some spirit haunting it, but couldn't picture it. "What did he look like when you saw him?"
"A little like you." The flush coloring Javier's cheeks darkened slightly. "When I first saw you in my room wearing your prayer clothes, I thought for a moment that somehow you were him."
Remembering Javier's open flirtation that first day and his own awkward responses, Kiram felt his own cheeks growing warm. Thankfully, Javier had already turned his attention back to Alizadeh.
"Could Yassin have known that would happen to him when he did this?" Javier's voice was oddly strained. He wore the same stricken expression as he had during the autumn tournament when he had seen Enevir Helio's stallion broken and screaming in the mud.
"Perhaps we should ask the man himself,' Alizadeh suggested.
"You can do that?" Javier asked.
"Indeed I can." Alizadeh smiled. "Though I'll have to make a show of the effort, otherwise Rafie is going to know I'm recovered and he'll make me fetch my own lunch"
Rafie just rolled his eyes. Then he gestured for Kiram to come join him under the plum tree. Kiram moved quickly to his side, though his attention remained on Alizadeh and Javier.
"You must concentrate on Yassin, Javier." Alizadeh spoke softly. "Call him as you would have when you were a child."
Javier nodded and closed his eyes, cupping the medallion tenderly in his hands.
Alizadeh also closed his eyes and reached out with his left hand. He didn't touch the medallion. Instead he held his palm over it while folding his right hand against his chest. For a moment they both simply stood there.
Then air around Javier seemed to ripple as if distorted by waves of heat. Steadily the shadows of his body seemed to deepen and spread, rising off Javier like some strange dark steam-the way the shadow curse had risen from Fedeles. Kiram watched it, feeling uneasy.
As Kiram stared into the dark form he caught a glimpse of gold curls, faint flashes of white cloth and dark skin, but they disappeared almost as soon as he saw them.
Javier swayed as if asleep on his feet as Alizadeh traced a symbol in the air and spoke a terrible grating word. All at once the faint shadow coalesced into the form of a sharp-featured Haldiim youth. The heavy line of his jaw struck Kiram as Cadeleonian and his eyes were nearly as dark as Javier's. His slim form flickered between solidity and translucence, shuddering like a candle flame. His shadowy arms wrapped around Javier. His head rested against Javier's shoulder and he glared at Alizadeh.