The Radiant Science

An adventure for Mombasa PCs, working for Hassan’s Emporium.

Najma. Perfectly engineered clockwork starling.

Made from gold. Tiny diamond in its brain, held in place by gold filigree. Tiny chirping voice. Tells its tale in flowery archaic Arabic. Partly crushed. Stutters. Repeats itself. Can’t fly.

It was made by a prisoner. The prisoner wants to be free.

Bought by Juma Hassan, trader in wonders, from gold-toothed Omani dhow captain who found it crawling across the ground in the Mogadishu docks. Clearly trying to get aboard a boat. Already damaged when he found it - so he claims.

Two of its comrades still imprisoned in the Garesa fortified palace.

Built for a sultan of Zanzibar. Converted by the Italians into a museum. Blank crenellated white oblong flanked by palm trees on long neoclassical boulevard cutting through medieval heart of old Mogadishu. Cannons out the front. Khat-chewing Somali zaptié gendarmes in fez, boots, breeches patrolling with rifles, slouching in the shade.

Cesare de Vecchi. Governor of Italian Somaliland.

Turin lawyer. Great War captain. Helped organise March on Rome, Turin Massacre of 1922. Quadrumvir in Mussolini’s Grand Council of Fascism. Wrapping up successful campaign to bring Hobyo and Majeerteen coastal sultanates under Fascist control.

Allied with Chief Hersi Guray of the Habar Gidir clan. Ogaden interior district still overrun by rebel forces of Hersi Boqor, son of deposed sultan. Employs fierce camel cavalry of dubat irregulars in white sarongs and turbans to raid Abyssinia and pacify frontier.

Stockpile of mysterious artefacts in Garesa basement. Spends more time contemplating them each week. Won’t let anyone else in. Anonymous dhow brings shipments to him at irregular intervals. Sarcastic talking fish. Orange-eyed djinn in bottle. Wind-up marching dervish dolls. Gloomy homunculus with immobile legs of stone. Caged naked mole rat gnawing on gobbets of bloody flesh.

Cesare meets with the captain, Said, hairy-armed corsair from the Dhofar Mountains, in a small sticky taverna by the waterfront. Asks about radio experiments on captured Majeerteen soldiers at Francisco Crispi Lighthouse on Cape Guardafui - reinforced concrete fasces with huge stone axe blade. Informed of new breakthroughs in “la Scienza Radiosa” by Italian research outpost at “la Grotta dei Miracoli”.

Dhow crew seems deformed - strangely lopsided. Cheeky. Pick fights. Pallid under turbans. Dislike sun. Speak Soqotri among themselves. Bargain for raw flesh in Mogadishu markets. Act like they know something you don’t.

Heat. Flies. Dust. Palms. Wide roads. Warships in the harbour. Sentries on rooftops. Flags flying over modernist forts, warehouses, cinemas, customs offices - experimental architects given a free hand. Precise. White. Pure. Mathematically correct.

Stocky octagonal stone lighthouse looming above breakwater. Cathedral under construction. Triumphal arch going up.

Uniformed Blackshirt officers from the Fifth Legion of the Milizia Coloniale saunter down seaside promenades. Direct traffic. Bicker in cafes over tiny cups of espresso. Take riding crops to white-robed porters. Scream at them in Italian.

Adopt pose of exaggerated courtesy the second they notice European ladies watching. Invite them for aperol spritzes and negronis at the Italian Club. Aggressive if refused.

Tall, slender, graceful Somalis draped in loose-fitting cotton wander narrow streets between grey-white coral-stone buildings in preserved souk districts of Hamar Weyne and Shingani. Flatbread heaps. Khat pouches. Sacks of cloves and cardamom. Baskets of limes, tamarind, pomegranates, sardines. Goldsmiths. Frankincense. Myrrh. Incense burners. Cool maze of columns inside cone-domed Fakhr al-Din Mosque.

Desert nomads with waterskins made from entire goats turned inside-out. Boards with Koranic verses secured to sides of jangling camel caravans led by small thoughtful boys. Women in shady courtyards chattering by wells, drinking endless cups of black tea spiced with cinnamon and ginger. Qadiri Sufi dhikr circles cross-legged on mats, clutching prayer beads, shoes piled in a corner, ritually chanting 99 names of God.

Amerigo Dumini. Il Duce’s hitman.

Secret policeman. Blackshirt. Street fights with Arditi del Popolo. Assassinates socialist politician Giacomo Matteotti. Jailed. Granted amnesty. Demands Fascists pay his legal fees. Jailed again, this time for insulting Mussolini.

Released again. Departs for Italian Africa. Brags to everyone he meets that he’s “il Sicario del Duce.” Secretly tasked by Ur Group - deniable fascist occult research task force led by Julius Evola - with hunting Omar al-Mukhtar’s Senussi Order rebels.

Serapis cults in Sabratha. Ba’al worshippers among Leptis Magna Carthaginian ruins. Ritually scarred Garamantian lost tribes in Fezzan desert. Resurgent Knights of Malta making converts at Tripoli International Fair.

Finds papyrus scroll in mortuary temple of Hatshepsut describing pilgrimage to mythical wonderland of Punt.

Land of the Macrobians. Long-lived reverse Hyperboreans - hot instead of cold. Astonishingly rich merchant cities in the Horn of Africa where all the world’s wealth accumulates and peasants live like kings. Ports of Opone and Rhapta at crossroads between Axum and Azania, Serendib and Mountains of the Moon.

Treasure vault and tomb of legendary Queen Arawelo.

Builder of flying castles. Slayer of seven-headed serpent. Oppressor and castrator of old bald ugly men. Led female army into Hell - captured Iblis, infernal blacksmith, father of all djinn. Bound him to her service. Tasked him with making trinkets to glorify her reign.

Buried alive with all her wealth at height of her power and beauty, so her legacy would not be poisoned by tales of her decline. Lost eighth voyage of Sinbad the Sailor describes descent into her Cave of Miracles. Brass sparrow presented to court of Haroun al-Rashid - promises secret of immortality to anyone who can liberate its creator.

Dumini follows clues to island of Socotra.

Hajhir Massif foothills. Hospitable curly-haired Hadhrami shepherds. Dense canopies of dragon’s-blood trees bleeding crimson sap. Steep-sloping palm-lined wadi. Crystal-pure water trickles from cavern mouth.

Bejewelled ecosystem of sparkling speleothems. Delicate branching calcite frostwork. Luminous fungi. Opal veins in walls. Foot-worn paths. Cold still air disrupted by sulphurous belches from below.

Sailors’ graffiti - Brahmi, Ge’ez, Nabataean, Ancient South Arabic, Palmyrene, Bactrian, Greek. Warnings - those who enter don’t come out.

Clusters of round mud huts like swallows’ nests on ledges above icy black torrents. Stunted blue engineer gnomes in loincloths, goatees, topknots. Copper tubing. Bubbling alembics. Steam-belching machines that serve no obvious purpose. Mermaids lounging on rocks. Translucent fish in water that speak Arabic - tell wonderful tales of underwater adventures. Promise to grant wishes if caught. Have no power to do this. Taste great.

Banquet hall. Blood-dyed tapestries - obscene images of slaughter. Cultivated ghouls feasting on human bones. Captured sailors in cages. Mostly illiterate. Pleading for mercy. Ghouls refuse to believe they’re as stupid as they seem - petulantly demand poetry in exchange for life. Table headed by Ahmad ibn Majid, “The Lion of the Sea” - 1400s poet-cartographer with endless font of maritime stories.

Piratical monkeys sitting on vast hoard of treasure - battered brass, porcelain, old nails, empty glass jars, gramophone records. Sail out at night to raid boats of unlucky Arab fishermen who are never believed. Captain Shar - yellow fangs, turban, scimitar, white stripe down his back - offers what he believes to be a priceless fortune in exchange for modern weapons. Will attempt to take them by force if refused.

Flesh-eating eusocial naked mole-rats. Patiently gnaw at earth. Attack in swarms. Chew flesh off bone. Store remains in larders. Slippery. Hard to kill. Set primitive traps. Brooding obese hive queen. Monkeys like to mock them. Tunnel network bridges Guardafui Strait. Rotting human limbs sometimes found sticking out of volcanic heaps of earth in middle of Somalian desert - now you know why.

One-eyed Iblis toiling at machine forge in vast smoky pit.

Huge. Blue. Turban. Pointy beard. Lower body cloud of smoke. Bombastic laugh. Makes jokes. Does impersonations. Pleased to receive visitors. Seems to be having a good time. Kit of thousand gleaming tools, each one subtly different. Gnomes on assembly line doing grunt work - fashioned from chunks of his own essence whenever he needs more.

Laboriously fashioning metal automata that run wild through caves. Dancers. Wasps. Trains. Knights. Gryphons. Beetles. Rhinoceri. Centaurs. Jewelled peacocks. Six-armed goddesses. Invented monstrosities. Slave galleys walking on oars. Birds designed to carry messages to the outside world.

Dumini has taken over his indenture. Set him to making weapons.

Soldiers with gilded spears. Serpents with electric fangs. Lifelike spike-filled odalisques. Flying bombs. Intercontinental rockets. Hypnotic radio frequencies. Intelligent diseases - microscopic cogwork that metallises flesh.

Engineers on loan from Fiat extract new scientific principles from his designs. Aircraft manufacturer Giovanni Caproni studying the birds.

Fascist sentries patrol caves - establish electric light system and underground research camps. Mole-rats take about one a week.

At centre of complex, above forge - indestructible translucent resin pillars support roof of silent vault. Guarded by coiling dragon. Each one holds perfectly preserved nude body of Macrobian noble - not dead but sleeping. Awaiting resurrection. Gigantic piles of treasure scattered over floor - gold dinars, silver dirhams, rubies, emeralds, diamonds, pearls.

Arawelo in largest pillar. Eyes wide open. Immobile. Seems to study you. Dragon watches her carefully. Iblis’ indenture can never be broken so long as she’s alive. Entire complex collapses the second she dies - all treasure dragged to Hell.