Tales of Alhazred

by Donald Tyson

  In keeping with the utilitarian nature of the fortress itself, the cloth chosen to cover the low dining table in the hall was the simplest white linen, and the dishes of food upon it were made from pewter or wood. The fire that crackled and sparked on the hearth behind my cushion gave an agreeable warmth to my back, for the air grew chill after sunset this high in the mountains. In one corner of the hall, four musicians made a pleasant music on stringed instruments that did not hinder the table conversation.

  The number seated at the table was less then twenty. Moawiya occupied its head. An elderly and somewhat corpulent man wrapped in a black robe, with gray hair peeking out beneath his turban and a long white beard that trailed down his chest, sat at the Caliph’s right hand. From the description I had been given, I knew this must be the holy man, Al-Burni ibn Mowabi. He seemed in a bad mood this night. He picked at his food with a scowl on his face and barely replied when spoken to, unless it was by the Caliph himself.

  Beside the sour old mullah sat an animated, cheerful man of about twenty summers with a scant black beard on his pointed chin and laughing gray eyes. This I knew from his description to be the Caliph’s noble friend, Wanassah, who had shared his exile. I could see why he would make good company in this wild mountain keep. He had a free and easy wit that he managed to use without offending anyone, and a pleasant smile.

  The only woman at the table was on the cushion at the Caliph’s left hand. Not even an expert application of face powder could disguise that she had seen more than thirty summers. Alyssia sat with her back perfectly vertical, as though balancing an invisible water jar on her head. Her glossy black hair was done up in an elaborate and impressive structure, and haunting dark eyes beneath thick, black eyebrows lent her an air of intrigue. Her silk dress was of Persian design and shimmered with iridescent colors in the firelight. When she glanced around the table, it was as though she were throwing black darts at the other guests. Whoever she looked at immediately turned toward her. It was an impressive display of personal power, and I was not immune to it. I found it difficult to take my eyes from her.

  Most of the other men at the table were young nobles or older military officers. The first group was in attendance to keep the Caliph entertained when he went riding or hunting in the mountains, and the second group to ensure his security while he was away from Damascus. None of them paid much attention to me.

  They knew who I was, of course. Gossip travels through a palace faster than a bad smell. Some of them may have been afraid of my reputation. If so, they did a good job concealing it. I was left undistracted to study those present in the hall, when I could turn my eyes away from the Persian woman. It was very likely that one of them had attempted the assassination with the pollen of the black lotus.

  The military men seemed interested in a tall, lean figure in black garments who stood quietly behind the Caliph, his dark gray eyes scanning the hall. They resented that a mercenary had been chosen over them to occupy this honored position as the Caliph’s personal bodyguard. That was my doing. I wanted someone I could trust close to Moawiya at all times. Altrus had agreed to the task with reluctance. He would have much preferred to remain in Damascus. The foppery and empty chatter of the royal court repelled him. But he was the most deadly man with a blade I had ever met, and, inasmuch as I trusted any living human being, I trusted him.

  Martala caught my eye as she leaned over an officer of the guard to refill his wine cup from her pitcher. I had caused the Caliph to place her among the female servants so that she could get close to the courtesans who were living at the fortress and sound them out for any gossip about the assassination attempt. An Egyptian by birth, from a family of tomb robbers who had pursued this profession for many generations, she was clever at this sort of game but hated playing the part of a servant.

  She jerked her head back toward the door that led to the kitchens. This conveyed nothing to me, so I merely raised my eyebrows. Frowning, she began to work her way around the table toward me.

  “The table of men is no place for a woman,” I heard Al-Burni say sourly to Wanassah, who laughed and made some joking remark I did not catch. With one eye on the girl, I watched the reaction of Alyssia and saw her painted lips quirk into the merest shadow of a smile.

  Martala bent over my shoulder as I held up my pewter cup. “Something is not right in the kitchen,” she whispered in my ear.

  Before I could speak, a young nobleman called to her for more wine and she was forced to move on.

  As I tried to think of some excuse to leave the table so that I might investigate the kitchen, Moawiya raised his hand for attention. The table became silent.

  “Only those who are my dearest friends or most trusted servants are ever asked to share the hunt with me at the Eagle’s Nest, this ancient keep that served me so well during my exile from Damascus.” He raised his wine cup. “I say to you all now, eat well, drink deep, and let us enjoy our time together, for none of us knows the hour of his passing.”

  The entire table drank with him, even the scowling holy man. He clapped his hands and gestured toward an attendant, who nodded and went into the kitchens.

  An older bald man I recognized as the senior cook at the palace at Damascus came forth bearing a round silver tray, on which rested an enormous pastry still steaming from the oven. There was genial applause from the table as he came across the hall with it held before him.

  The vague smile on my own lips slipped away. His eyes had a strange lack of focus, as though he stared off at the horizon, and his complexion was unnaturally pale in the firelight.

  I glanced at Martala, who watched me, not the cook. She nodded with a frown. Turning to the head of the table, I caught the roving eye of Altrus and inclined my head at the cook as he bent to deposit the tray before the Caliph.

  “You have outdone yourself tonight, Hazani,” Moawiya said with a smile.

  The cook did not respond. There was something unnatural in his crouched posture. I opened my lips to shout a warning just as he grabbed up the carving knife from the tray and stabbed at the young ruler’s heart.

  He was halted in mid-thrust by the point of Altrus’s sword. Its straight blade entered the cook’s neck at the pit of his throat and lodged against his spine, where it held him supported. Despite the gush of blood that spurted over the steaming crust of the pastry, the cook continued to try to push forward against the sword, and it took all of the considerable strength of the mercenary’s arm to hold him away from the cringing young Caliph.

  The table erupted into madness, with everyone leaping up to either flee or rush to their ruler’s aid. Through the milling bodies I saw Martala lean behind the cook and stab him in the kidney five or six times with her little dagger. Then some of the officers of the royal guard climbed onto the table and blocked my view. One stepped into the blood-covered pastry, slipped, and fell on it.

  As I stood up on my stiff legs, I noted Alyssia was well away from the table, her expression surprisingly composed. On the other side of the hall, Wanassah supported the aged holy man, Al-Burni, by the elbow. Both wore expressions of surprise mingled with horror.

  The cook was already dead when I reached the Caliph’s seat. I looked down at his bloody corpse with disappointment. Had he lived, he might have told me much.

  “It seems we have our assassin,” Moawiya said to me. He was trembling, and there was relief in his voice.

  “I don’t think we do.”

  “What do you mean, Alhazred? He’s right here.”

  I drew the Caliph aside so that the rest of the dinner guests would not hear my words. “That man was under a spell.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “His eyes. He was following the will of a mind not his own.”

  “Do you mean he was possessed?”

  “In a manner of speaking. It was not a demon who controlled him, but a man or a woman who planted the command to kill you in his mind at some time before the dinner began.”

  “But you can’t k
now this for certain,” he protested.

  I shrugged. “You asked for my help because of my expertise in matters of magic. You would be wise not to disregard what I say.”

  He thought for several minutes as the hall gradually returned to some semblance of order, and the blood-soaked corpse of the cook was carried away.

  “If you are correct, any of the three could have placed a spell on Hazani.”

  “A second attempt on your life has been made in less than a week,” I told him. “Whoever is behind them must be desperate to kill you.”

  He looked at me, and I saw fear in his eyes. “They are going to try again, aren’t they?”

  “They are going to keep trying until you are dead, unless we kill them first.”

  3.

  “Take this charm.” I pressed the folded square of parchment into Altrus’s hand.

  He unfolded it and looked at the design drawn upon it. “What does it do?”

  “Not much,” I admitted. “It should prevent you from being possessed as the cook was, and may ward off attacks by magic of a minor kind.”

  Altrus laughed and tucked the charm away in his black shirt. “You really are becoming a necromancer.”

  “My reputation is still far in excess of my abilities, but I have managed to learn a few tricks over the past year.”

  “Martala knows more than you do.”

  “Yes. She probably always will. She has a gift for necromancy.”

  He lounged in a padded chair in my sitting room, one leg thrown up over its arm and his fingers laced behind his head. “The cook’s strength was unnatural.”

  “You were lucky to stop him. The girl cut open his kidney and the loss of blood weakened him.”

  “Which of the three do you suspect?”

  “The woman.”

  “Why the woman?”

  “Moawiya is drifting away from her. She is ten years older than he. All her arts of lovemaking and her cosmetics can’t conceal the lines in her face. He’s ready to move on to someone else, and she knows it.”

  “But what would she gain by killing him?”

  “Revenge. It’s a potent motivator.”

  He thought about it and shook his head. “She is too cool, too calculating. She’s not going to allow his indifference to injure her feelings. If he does move on, she will ensure that she gets everything she can get for her years of service.”

  I shrugged. Maybe Altrus was right. Not all women were motivated only by emotions. “You should get back to the Caliph’s bedroom.”

  “Do you really expect something to happen tonight, only hours after the attempt in the dining hall?”

  “We can’t take the chance that his enemy will not strike. Another attempt so soon after the last would catch the royal guard off balance.”

  “I left six of the oafs watching over him while he slept. They are unimaginative but skilled at their job, and loyal enough as far as I can determine.”

  “Even so, I want you with him tonight.”

  I took out the parchment with the partially completed pentacle drawn on it and showed it to him. As he examined it, I told him how it had been found outside the door of the old mullah.

  “I was able to identify it, after I mulled over it for a few hours. It’s a summoning charm.”

  “What does it summon, or do I even want to know?”

  “It calls forth a kind of wraith that is partly in this world and partly in the next. It is a thing of shadow and darkness. As a consequence, it can move through walls and is not troubled by swords. One touch can freeze the blood in a man’s body and kill him without leaving so much as a bruise on his skin.”

  “Nasty.”

  “Whatever you do, you must not let it touch you. Its touch is death.”

  “How do I fight it?”

  “You don’t. You run from it, and you find the pentacle that summoned it and destroy it with fire.”

  “If I could find the pentacle before the wraith comes, it would save everyone a lot of screaming and dying.”

  “Yes, it would. Which is why I want you to return to the Caliph’s private rooms and make a quiet search of his personal things—his clothing, his bed, his writing desk, his wardrobe. If a completed successor to this partly finished pentacle exists, it can only do its evil work when placed near to him, or on his person.”

  “How near?”

  “It will have to be in his bedroom. When activated from a distance, the pentacle calls the wraith, and the creature then recognizes the man it is to kill by his appearance.”

  “I can’t very well search the royal bed while the Caliph is sleeping in it.”

  “Just do your best.”

  Altrus chose not to argue, but pushed himself to his feet. He did not share my budding admiration for Moawiya. To him it was just a job, but I knew he would do it well.

  Martala entered as he was leaving. He murmured her name in passing and went out the door.

  “How are the women’s quarters?” I asked her.

  “Asleep, for the most part.”

  Something in her eyes made me smile.

  “What have you discovered?”

  “The Caliph’s Persian mistress has taken a young lover.”

  “You saw them together?”

  “When she left her rooms, I followed her. She met him in an alcove off the passageway, and they went to an empty storeroom to fuck.”

  “Don’t keep me in suspense. Who is he?”

  “Wanassah, the Caliph’s young friend.”

  “She must like them young and innocent,” I murmured, thinking about this information.

  “Do you think they plot together?”

  I shook my head. “Who can say? Alyssia may be using this foolish young nobleman as an instrument against the Caliph. Or he may merely be insurance against her expulsion from the palace.”

  “Either way, Wanassah is not showing great loyalty to his boyhood friend,” she said.

  Martala placed a great store in the virtue of loyalty. I found this an admirable quality in her nature but did not share it. In my experience, men were loyal when it suited their own purposes.

  I gave her the protective charm I had prepared for her, and told her to hide it somewhere in her clothing. She did not argue but did as I directed. Then I showed her the uncompleted pentacle and explained what I conjectured to be its purpose.

  She examined it with curiosity, turning it this way and that, and wrinkled her nose. “It has a funny smell.”

  I took it and sniffed it. Even though King Huban of Yemen had my nose and other important body parts cut off for violating the virginity of his daughter, I can still smell almost as well as the average person. By holding the parchment near my face, I was able to detect a faint sweetness. It was vaguely familiar, but at that moment with everything else that was on my mind I could not place it.

  “I don’t see why anyone would be in haste to kill the Caliph,” she murmured. “What has he done to warrant such frantic hatred?”

  “Nothing that I know about,” I admitted. “Moawiya himself can think of no reason why any of the three we suspect would seek his death.”

  “Can we be sure the assassin is not someone else entirely?”

  “I am sure of nothing. It must be one who has close access to his chambers, and who knows his habits. Other than that, it could be anyone.”

  A woman’s high-pitched shriek sounded faintly through the closed door of my room. I stared at Martala, and she stared back at me with wide gray eyes. After a moment, another scream came, but this time it was cut off in the middle.

  There was no need to speak. I checked that my sword and dagger were still hanging on my belt, and we ran together out of the room and down the passage toward the Caliph’s private rooms.

  4.

  Even had we not known where to go, the irregular screams and cries of alarm would have drawn us. We came upon a servant woman lying lifeless in the middle of the corridor, her arms outstretched and fingers spread, as though she had b
een trying to ward something off when she fell forward onto her face. We did not pause but ran past her. My heart sickened at the thought that we would be too late. I had not really believed another attempt would be made this night, so soon after the failure at dinner. It was clear that the assassin did not know the meaning of patience.

  The initial screams had roused other servants and guests and brought the soldiers of the royal guard running. This was unfortunate for all of them. We began to find their bodies in increasing numbers as we drew nearer to the Caliph’s chambers. They lay across each other where they had fallen like sticks of firewood.

  Rounding a corner, we almost stumbled into the wraith. I put out my arm and pushed Martala back and behind me.

  It was an uncanny thing, a flickering, floating black shadow of irregular shape that somewhat resembled a monk in a cloak and hood. This was an illusion, for the shape of it was not human at all, but the mind seeks to find the human form in rocks and in the twisted stumps of trees. So did my mind suggest that the changing shadow that faded and blurred was the shape of a man, even though I knew it was not. It did not move in the usual way by a continuous progress, but periodically it dimmed and seemed to leap forward several paces and reform its nebulous void on the empty air. It sent forth slender filaments that were like long black threads, and these floated on the air in front of it. When it dimmed and danced forward, it was along these threads of darkness.

  The progress it made was slow, but inexorable. As we watched from behind, a royal guard stepped forward to slash at it with his sword. The blade passed through it without effect, but the man dropped dead with an expression of surprise on his frozen gaping mouth and staring eyes. Another guard wavered, then backed away from it making a whimpering noise in his throat. The wraith, in contrast, was utterly silent.

  “We have to stop it,” Martala said. “It will kill Altrus.”

  She was right. The mercenary would not be able to resist the impulse to fight the thing, and when his sword touched it, he would die an instant death, his blood frozen in his veins.