Kharzai did not begin his journey through my story worlds in the form you see him here in KAZ or most of the other stories he appears in on this site. Originally born in my mind sometime in 2005 he was just supposed to be a goofy sidekick with a violent streak. At the time I was working as an IT Guy for a government agency that took more than a year to provide me clearance to do my job. I was literally sitting at my desk staring out the window at the helicopter training school of the local muncipal airport watching the bright red two seater with the strangely long rotor shaft rise fifty feet, hover, rotate 360°, then descend and do it all again, all day long. The choice was simple, lose my mind staring at all of the computers not break, ever, or write a novel.
As my imagination wandered in the swirling eddies of air current being thrust outward by the helicopter blades like invisible carnation flowers Kharzai literally erupted whole cloth in to the world, jumping out of a sedan in the Iranian desert like Thing One with a gun. I had no idea who or what he was until he introduced himself to the titular character of Karl’s Last Flight in chapter 4 of that book:
“First off,” Karl said, “who are you guys and what are you doing here?”
“Well,” Kharzai said, “we are, as you asked earlier, smugglers, mercenaries, and spies...sort of. I am an officer of the American CIA, born and raised in the lovely yet unendingly tedious cornfields of Indiana to Iranian expatriates who had worked for the Shah until the seventies. I’ve been in-country here for nearly three years trying to help avoid the current situation, which it seems, much to my chagrin, I have failed to do.”
And there he was. Simple character, a CIA Hitman of sorts with a comic edge. I finished that book, published it and started right into a next novel, 65 Below. Kharzai was not in that book, but boy was he jibber jabbering in my head the whole time I wrote it. Faithful Warrior and Midnight Sun see him return in a much more developed version of the same character but with a whole different way of thinking after devastating personal losses. Then in the ICE HAMMER series Kharzai takes on the role of second lead for large parts of the trilogy as he joins a team of guerilla leaders fighting back against invaders in Alaska.
As Ice Hammer was wrapping up in the opening months of 2020 I was asked to write an entry for an anthology titled Legends of the Werewolf Hunter. It had to be related to a theme and refer to character(s) from the story world of Brian Easton’s Autobiography of a Werewolf Hunter series (great books, highly recommend getting a copy…the audiobook narrator is pretty amazing too!).
I had an idea for a character that had been simmering in my brain pot for months: Argan the Warrior.
Elevator pitch: Argan, former Emperor from before the Flood who is cursed to live and love and be horribly killed by some ancient monster he created in his days of power, meets an ancient werewolf progenitor whose line is from just as ancient a root and they fight each other to the death in Ancient Akkadia in the Palace of Sargon the Great.
The idea took off and all of a sudden, Argan comes strolling through the halls of the bronze age palace of the first emperor of this second age of men with guess who at his shoulder? Kharzai, all dressed up in the fancy Sumerian uniform of the royal guard, the Shadows of the Bastard King.
HOW THE HECK DID HE GET IN HERE? I shouted in my own head. This must be a relative from way back when or something.
But then Kharzai sat me down and explained a few things that, after fourteen years working together, he felt it was time I should know. He confided in me that the reason he always survives virtually unscathed through the often brutal violence of my previous novels is due to the simple fact that he is not actually human. He just looks like one. A strange one indeed, and fully anatomically correct, but still just a facsimile of sorts.
Kharzai revealed that he is not from Iran, or even from ancient Elam as stated in KAZ, that is just where he was placed when initially set to his task. He is, in truth, an inter-dimensional being sent by the Creator to aid and assist mankind. He is not one of a kind in the general sense, as there are many like him, millions probably. But not all of his fellows remained faithful to their Lord, and since the Rebellion of the Fallen Ones there has been war between their kinds, usually via human proxy. Kharzai chose the side of the Creator because, in his words at the time, “Well, duh.”
Kharzai and his kind are referred to by many names in many cultures, but for the sake of simple continuity in my stories they are most often compared to Djinn, the often malevolent spirits that manifest themselves in physical form to aid or curse humans. A third or more of the Djinn that exist on earth are among the ranks of the rebels and cannot be trusted for anything good. That said, Kharzai is also adamant, whether they are good or bad Djinn, they are not in any circumstance to be imagined as goofy blue “Genie” bufoons from the cartoons. They are mighty spiritual beings who are in some religions considered gods in their own rights. He has never lived in a bottle or a lamp, and he does NOT sing and dance … usually … except for special occasions maybe.
Encounters between good Djinn are fairly rare, as they are typically quite busy and not all are assigned to earth. There are after all very many other worlds out there.
