Azmati sacrificed himself to stop Jahan's Shōnin ritual. I wrote this to pay respect to a great man.

Originally shared by Hank Johnson

Azmati sacrificed himself to stop Jahan's Shōnin ritual. I wrote this to pay respect to a great man.

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I’ll tell you how I first met Mirza Maskeen Azmati. I was taking fire outside a small village just west of Kandahar. I was flying solo... as usual. Comes with the territory. Most of the time these little skirmishes are easy enough to squeeze out of. You find a hole. You hide. You take them out one by one. But they had me pinned and were closing in from everywhere. I slammed in my last clip and prepared for the worst when all of a sudden this ornate, jingly truck calmly rolls around the corner and directly into the line of fire. The truck takes a few hits and a bearded fellow starts swearing at the Talibs in Dari. Then he leans out the front door in my direction.

"You look like you need a ride, my friend." He said, in perfect English.

It was a ride that lasted longer than I ever expected.

I hid in the back of the truck curled up in the choking dust of a half ton of carpets until we arrived in Kabul. He pulled me into his shop and we sat on the floor and ate palau with our hands and drank green tea. I asked him what his name was, he said Mirza Maskeen Azmati, and I (rudely) laughed for about thirty seconds. He smiled and said, “My father was a Kipling fan.” He told me his family had been trading carpets since when the silk route was only a thinly worn path across the continent. 

Carpets are storytellers, he said. Ancient myths and legends are hidden within the weaves and the fibers: The secret knowledge of a thousand years. His father had taught him how to read the weaves before he ever saw an alphabet. I told him I believed that without hesitation. He smiled. I wondered for a second if he knew I was going to say that. I thanked him for the meal, and he scrawled a number on yellowing receipt paper and pressed it into my hand.

"You may need a ride again." He said.

After that, I called on Azmati once, then twice. Soon he and I were a fast team. He would be the front man, scoping out an area for me and acting as translator. I shared some of my tradecraft with him. When times were easy, we'd talk about history and technology and physics and myths. There was much shared common ground. 

At the time I thought Azmati put himself on the line with me because he was bored, because he craved danger and adventure. Now, things are so much clearer. He had known who I was all along - not just American Spec-Ops, but something more - a sensitive? 13MAGNUS? I don’t know, but he was tuned in to my past and my future. Perhaps it was written into the weaves of one of his carpets.

He shepherded me on my clumsy path towards destiny. And in the end, he paid a price so much higher than I would have ever asked to bring me to here and now. When Jahan began her Shōnin stone ritual, Azmati leapt into action, pushing me aside and stabbing an ancient knife (that he had somehow had the foresight to leave in the chamber) deep into it. He knew it would end him. He looked me in the eye and told me he had left a message for me, and I should find it -- that now was my moment to run. The room exploded in light and energy. I lost consciousness and awoke somewhere else… I was whole again, and I knew everything that I have ever known.

And then I ran. There would be a time to mourn Azmati, but it was not then.

There’s no reason to keep secrets, now that the Shōnin stone has exposed so much. Azmati was 13MAGNUS. His family had carried and preserved ancient knowledge about XM and the Shapers for thousands of years. They had built walls to protect our world from Anti-Magnus and the N'zeer using systems so complex that modern science is only beginning to see its first few pixels resolve. 

And somehow, Azmati knew that I was destined to become 13MAGNUS as well. To slowly learn its secrets and carry its mission forward.

Azmati, my friend. I hope the ride you're on now is more comfortable than that damned truck of yours. Goodbye.