Hidden Al-Khatib and the Astral-Calculus Chamber Where His Ascendant Shuddered

A close, contemplative quiet inhabits Al-Khatib House, heaviest in the abandoned calculus chamber where Tariq Mustafa Al-Khatib, born 1872 in Homs, once drafted natal charts and planetary predictions for merchants, caravan masters, and scholars of the madrasa. That trembling ascendant on his final chart lingers like a confession buried beneath numbers. His tools remain in tidy formation—yet no mind returns to reconcile the misalignment he left behind.

An Ascendant Threading the Astrologer’s Measured Discipline

Tariq learned his meticulous craft from his aunt Hana Al-Khatib, a respected numerist whose cracked abacus lies on a tasseled mat near the chamber’s corner. Dawn after dawn, he ground soot ink, aligned instruments to the slender shadow cast by the first light, and recalibrated planetary arcs by fingertip precision. His rhythms persist—astrolabes sorted by radius, parchment wheels nested by era, and faint chalk lines marking where he stabilized his elbow before defining each ascendant’s sweep. Even the worn depression along the desk edge records his leaning posture, breath held as he coaxed tangled cycles toward clarity.

A Quiet Strain That Pulled His Craft Off Its Intended Course

Rumor whispered that a prominent patron’s chart—delivered for an engagement celebration—held subtle inconsistencies in three planetary intervals, enough to raise uneasy murmurs among those who trusted Tariq’s once-unerring accuracy. In the interior corridor, Hana’s abacus pouch hangs torn at its seam. A parchment wheel rests crookedly near the wall, its pivot cracked. Beneath a carved damascene table sits a revision sheet, its ascendant values overwritten in trembling strokes. A faint trail of chalk dust marks a single stair tread, drifting in disordered grains—residue shaken loose from a hand no longer steady.

Only the faltering ascendant on his last diagram remains—an interrupted intention resting in unmoving air. Whatever halted Tariq’s practiced calculations endures unanswered.

Al-Khatib House remains abandoned still.