The Dream: Tanibor, #1

By A. Shoaibi

In a land where ancient myths come alive and political tensions run high, Riad finds himself caught in a web of secrets, sorcery, and destiny. From the bustling markets in the city  to the mystical deserts of Marib, "Tanibor" is a gripping young adult fantasy that delves deep into the heart of Arabian folklore, mythology and modern-day struggles.

When Riad stumbles upon a mysterious leather book, he unknowingly sets off a chain of events that will lead him into the heart of a conflict older than time itself. Guided by Mammon, a young man with a mysterious past, and Ameer, a wise elder with secrets of his own, Riad must navigate a world filled with treacherous tribes, ancient spells, and enigmatic guardians.

As they journey through perilous deserts and hidden worlds, the trio encounters a cast of unforgettable characters, from fierce Sheikhs to cunning sorcerers, each playing a role in the unfolding destiny of their world. 

Will Riad unlock the secrets of the leather book and fulfill his destiny? Or will the northern tribes succeed in their ruthless quest for power?

Discover a world of magic, politics, and ancient secrets in this enthralling tale of courage, friendship, and destiny. Perfect for fans of unique cultural narratives and fast-paced fantasy adventures.

• Language: English
• Publisher: A. Shoaibi
• Release date: Sep 29, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223521754

A. Shoaibi

A. Shoaibi is an author shaped by a life rich in extraordinary experiences. With stories that blur the line between reality and imagination, this writer invites you to question the boundaries we often take for granted. Prepare for narratives that are as thought-provoking as they are entertaining, all grounded in the wisdom of a life well-lived. [e-mail]

Book preview

It was dark, and we could barely see the ground. Every step carried a risk of falling into one of the fields beneath us. I was gasping for air as I am not used to walking through mountain fields and climbing their retaining walls.

We didn’t exchange a word, and we just followed the poor light that was coming out of the small electric torch that Mammon, who was walking in front of us, was carrying in his hand and pointing it to the ground ahead of us.

They were breathing heavily while my heart was pounding and about to jump from its place. Every cell in my body was sweating, and my eyes were burning because of the sweat, although I was wiping my eyes and forehead with my sleeve every couple of minutes.

The good news here was that I was getting more concerned about my heart than the relatively not too far-away howling of what I hoped to be stray dogs. Not to mention the close growling that I managed to convince myself was imaginary.

Mammon stopped again for the 18th or 19th time and said wall. Everyone knew what to do. He climbed the stone wall. Then Ameer looked at me and nodded with his head in an authoritative gesture, asking me to climb the wall. I hesitated for a second, but his terrified eyes made that hesitation vanish, and I jumped to climb the wall while he pushed my backside up, and Mammon reached with his hand to help me pull myself up; then Ameer followed without needing any help.

We were lucky that it wasn’t the rainy season, and no crops were growing in the fields; otherwise, it was going to be a hell of a walk through these fields.

Since we started this journey, I couldn’t shake the feeling that we were being watched. But before we get to that, I think I should explain how I got here first.

1

My name is Riad, 24 years old, and single. Being single at this age is no exception in my community because the only relationship that is acceptable here is marriage, and due to economic factors, the average age for marriage is 25 years old and above.

I still live in my family's house, which is the norm here and the default mode for unmarried or divorced individuals. I come from a large family consisting of seven siblings, including four boys and three girls, as well as a mother, a stepmother, and a father.

That’s enough introduction at the moment, but I promise you that you will know more about me throughout the story.

However, let me take this chance to introduce you to my family as they are an important part of my life. I will start with my siblings because they are the easiest to introduce. But before I do that, you need to be aware that as siblings, we are divided into two teams by mothers.

Team A (which is my team):

Aya:

Role: Sister

Description: She is 4 years younger than me, still in university, studying something. She is one of the main references that my parents use to show me how lazy and what a failure I am when they are angry at me. She is a hardworking and overachieving individual, successful in anything she does. She started her business, or rather businesses, when she was still in high school. Her first business was baking cakes for different occasions and celebrations. At the beginning of her business, she managed to set the kitchen on fire twice, and we ended up living on takeaways for a few weeks each time. But later, her business flourished and was successful. She added cooking classes, where she taught young girls how to cook, and fashion design to her portfolio, making a good name for herself in the community. Over the past two years, she became an extreme feminist and started a new business coaching women on independence and how to challenge men. This business seems to be doing very well since she managed to buy herself a car, becoming the 2nd car owner in the house after my father. Her business appears to be impacting the community, as the divorce rate is skyrocketing. She sees me as a disgrace and a dark spot on the bright picture she is portraying for herself. To be fair, she sees everyone in the family the same way she sees me, including our parents. The only difference is that she considers our parents as assets for her businesses due to their social network and influence in the community. She tries to please them all the time, but you can clearly see that her effort is not genuine. As for me, I don’t hate her, but I have never liked her.

Eyad:

Role: Brother

Description: My parents’ favourite son, and I am not being biased here; it's a fact known to everyone in the house. He is 6 years younger than me and managed to finish high school, either by a miracle or corruption, with the latter seeming most probable. He has no plans to pursue higher education, and my parents haven't dared to speak to him about it. He crashed my father’s car a few times within one year, and my father's response each time was, 'The main thing is that you are okay, my son. The crash was God’s will, and we have to accept it.' When I accidentally broke a vase at home last year, my father's response was to call me inappropriate names and force me to buy another vase twice as expensive. Eyad is another wealthy individual in the house, just like Aya, if not richer. But unlike Aya, no one knows where his money is coming from, and he doesn’t invest in assets, but rather in clothes and daily pleasures. He doesn’t talk much in general, and regarding me, he decided long ago that I don’t exist. He wouldn’t exchange a word with me for months, and he will only talk to me if he has an inquiry about something or if he needs legal advice because of my studies, and also because I was known in the house as the walking library. The way he approaches me goes like this: 'Hey you, what's the sentence for breaking someone’s leg?' Or 'What's the sentence for blackmailing somebody?' Lately, his questions have been showing interesting developments because he has been asking about sentences for smuggling drugs, leading gangs, and manslaughter. Although I felt my blood run cold every time he asked me one of those questions, I always told myself that he is just a curious boy with a wild imagination.

Mazen:

Role: Brother

Description: He is 10 years old, and for some reason, we forget about him most of the time. He is quiet, lives in his own world, is religious, and apparently doing very well in school. I know this not because it's one of my areas of interest, but because one of his teachers is an acquaintance of mine, and he never shuts up about how brilliant and intelligent my brother is every time he sees me. There's not much to say about a 10-year-old, but the only thing that annoys me about him is the deep look of disappointment that appears in his eyes every time he looks at me.

Team B (Referred to as the enemies during wartime between mothers):

Amjad:

Role: Half Brother

Description: Another 10 years old, he is just one month younger than Mazen, which shows you how busy my father was. I don’t know much about him other than he's spoiled, lazy, and you would always see him with food either in his mouth or in his hand. The only physical contact I had with him was when he was 2 years old, and I tried to kiss him. He screamed as if I was stabbing him with a knife, and his mum came running from the kitchen to take him away from me. Later that day when she told the story to my father, she swore by God that she saw me punching her son in the face. Since then, I decided to keep a 5-meter distance every time I encounter him.

Iman:

Role: Half Sister

Description: 5 years old, and all I know about her is that she can swear, because she does that every time she sees me.

Sumaya:

Role: Half Sister

Description: No information available.

Murad:

Role: Father

Description: Describing this man is not easy, as he can be the most caring and loving person in the world at times, yet as cold as ice at others. He comes from a well-known family and was the only child of my grandparents, both of whom have passed away in recent years. His relationship with my mother is not the best, but they respect each other's boundaries, and he attempts not to favor one wife over the other, although that doesn't always work. As a father, he leaves the upbringing of his children to his wives while providing and supervising. He works in a high-ranking position in the local authority and has strong connections to decision-makers in the capital. He hired me to be his assistant while I was still in high school, keeping me under his supervision all the time. Even after I completed my law studies, he didn't allow me to work elsewhere because he relied heavily on me to manage some of his responsibilities and couldn't trust anyone else to do so. Although I wasn't keen on continuing to work for him, it did provide me with certain advantages, such as exposure to a good social network and some influence. However, two months ago, out of the blue, my father informed me that I could no longer work for him, as the nature of his job had changed, and he suggested I find another job. He didn't provide much explanation; he simply dropped that bombshell and left for the capital.

Nabila:

Role: Mother

Description: A typical Arabic housewife, her primary concern is her children. She not only wants them to be successful but to be the best, which often involves extensive comparisons with cousins, other relatives, and sometimes even fictional TV characters. At the end of the day, her intentions are good. She and my father got married at a young age; in fact, they are distant cousins, and their marriage was arranged. It was evident that they were not particularly happy together, but divorce was not an option in our family's traditions. She loves her children, yet she also complains about them. For instance, she takes pride in my intelligence but has complained to almost everybody we know, and even some we don't, about how lazy I am. I completed my studies early but without appearing to exert much effort, which she interprets as laziness. I also continued to work for my father after finishing my studies, suggesting a preference for easy money over the hard work of forging my own path in life. Recently, things have worsened after my father fired me, making me officially unemployed, and apparently, becoming unemployed is the worst thing that can happen to one's mother.

Bushra:

Role: Stepmother

Description: A witch.

2

It has been two months since I stopped working for my father. I was spending most of my time in my father’s home office library, which is detached from the house and has its own garden and entrance to maintain the family's privacy.

It was the perfect spot for me for a few reasons.

A: I didn’t want to go out to avoid acquaintances who would ask for favours related to my father’s work.

B: My mother and the other women in the house are not allowed to come here, which means I am safe from listening to my mother’s complaints and passive-aggressive jokes about me not working.

Add to that the fact that my father is not using the office at the moment because he has been in the capital for a long time. The only people I see here are Ameer and his son Mammon.

Ameer has been working for my father for as long as I can remember. He takes care of the office and the garden by cleaning and tidying up. He receives guests and serves them hot drinks and such. He is in his mid-40s and physically he is shorter and thinner than the average man in our area. He comes from a small village in the mountains, and people in his village used to be well known for using sorcery and dealing with Jinn and Demons. But over the past 30 years, things have changed as more and more people stopped believing in these sorts of things. That put the village out of business and resulted in migration toward the city to look for jobs to provide for their families. Mostly, men and teenage boys move to the city, leaving their families behind and trying to visit them on a weekly or monthly basis.

Now, you might think that Ameer is a dangerous and scary man because of his village reputation. But the truth is, he is the most terrified man I have ever seen. Every time I look at him, his eyes remind me of the famous painting The Scream by Edvard Munch. He lives with his son in a small room that is attached to the office. His son Mammon is a teenager who left school to do labour work in the city to help his father provide for their big family in the village.

C: The main reason for choosing the library is that this room used to be a storage until 3 years ago when I convinced my father to turn it into a library to add an intellectual touch to the office. He didn’t do much, actually; he just gave me the green light, and I invested my time and money to turn it into a nice and cozy place with comfortable sofas and a small terrace that opens to the garden. I have spent a fortune on book fairs purchasing hundreds of titles in different subjects such as history, physics, psychology, philosophy, and a very good number of fiction books. There is just one empty shelf on the left side, which was filled with motivational and self-help books until a few months ago when I realized that purchasing such books was a big mistake. I donated them to the public library in our area.

Anyway, the plan was to spend some time in this retreat reading and reflecting before I decide what my next step was going to be.

But things never go according to plan.

My days were perfectly structured: reading, napping, researching, or writing depending on what was on my schedule. Then, I would go out for a quick walk in the evening when the roads were empty and head back to my bedroom to sleep. At meal times, I would go to the house, get something to eat for myself and Ameer, as Mammon always ate outside. We ate together and maybe exchanged a few words about how the day was going, and nothing more than that. Afterward, he would go do his own thing, and I would do mine.

However, over the past few days, I noticed that Ameer kept staring at me. Every time I looked at him, he pretended to be doing some work around the place or in the garden or just playing with his fingers like a little boy. It was clear that he wanted to talk to me about something, but he didn’t have the confidence or courage to approach me. I could have asked him what the matter was and gotten it over with, but I chose not to. I was worried he might ask for some money, although he had never asked me for any before. But my father had been away for over two months, and maybe he hadn’t been paid his salary yet. So, I was just trying to avoid the awkwardness of the conversation because I was so broke, and I would feel bad to turn him down. Therefore, the safest option was to ignore the whole thing.

One evening, Mammon came home from work and was talking to his father in the garden. I was looking at them through the glass door of the terrace. I couldn’t hear what they were saying because they were talking in whispers, and to be precise, they were angry whispers. I could sense that from the look on Mammon’s face and the way he was moving his hands around. He actually looked disappointed and angry at the same time. But then his right hand’s gestures became more authoritative as he pointed toward the library, or to be more specific, he was pointing at me.

Here they come; it seems that Mammon won the argument because Ameer turned around and started walking toward the library, with Mammon following him. As I watched them approach, I found myself silently saying, Please, God, make it anything but money.

They walked through the terrace, and Ameer knocked on the glass door while I was looking at him. This was weird because usually, they would just open it and enter the room.