Tales of Alhazred

by Donald Tyson

  We put our backs together.

  “Move away from the woman,” I told Martala.

  She did not hesitate, but came to us and stood with Altrus on his weak side, facing the leopard.

  “Are you in league with the changeling?” I asked Thylissa.

  She took a gliding step toward me, but stopped when I raised my sword. “The changeling is Hassan, my mate.”

  “Then the dead man we found with you—”

  “One of the men hired to protect the caravan from bandits. I never even learned his name.”

  “Did you kill your own father?” I said it in the hope that I could unsettle her nerves.

  She merely shrugged. “When the blood-rage takes us, we forget ourselves in the beast and scarce know what we do.”

  “You are a hellish thing and surely damned.”

  She grinned, not like a woman but like a beast, and lolled out her long red tongue. On it I saw a mark that was like the footprint of a leopard. “So are you, Alhazred.”

  This truth I could not dispute.

  “If you try to change yourself, I will put my blade through your heart. The old Bedouin woman told me that cold steel can kill your kind.”

  “She may be right, but we heal very quickly when we have fresh blood to lick. If you had been paying attention you might have noticed that my scratches healed, but I was quick to remake them when you were not watching me.”

  She took another gliding step toward me, barely seeming to move her leg beneath her dress, yet suddenly she was almost within range of a sword thrust. I held my blade at the ready, knowing I would get no more than one chance, if indeed I got so much as that.

  “The leopard is coming nearer, Alhazred,” Martala told me.

  “When it leaps, stab for its eyes and its throat,” I said.

  With a languid twisting of her body, Thylissa plucked off her burka and pulled her dress over her head. She stood naked. I saw by the graying light that indeed her scratches had healed. Her ivory skin seemed to glow with inner radiance. As I looked at her smooth, rounded belly, it rippled. The fingers of her hands became longer, and the nails turned into curved claws. I looked back at her face. Her nose and mouth were extending themselves into a snout, and her eyes no longer appeared even remotely human.

  Knowing I dared not hesitate any longer, I thrust with my sword point between her white breasts. She moved so quickly, I did not even see the motion of her arm, but my sword clattered on the rocks some distance away from where we stood. I transferred my dagger to my right hand.

  Again, the leopard laughed its coughing laugh. The sound was much nearer than before but I did not dare turn my head.

  “They are fast, Altrus. Very fast.”

  He made no answer. He was preparing himself to die and wanted to sell his life as dearly as he could.

  “This is the end, Alhazred. It has been amusing to toy with you. We will meet again in hell, and then we can play another game.”

  Fur suddenly appeared on her limbs and belly, and in an instant she was no longer a woman with the attributes of a leopard, but a leopard that reared on its hind legs. I prepared myself for death.

  The fletching of an arrow appeared as if by magic in her neck. Her eyes widened in surprise. More arrows sprouted from her body, and from somewhere behind me I heard the twang of bowstrings. The leopard that was Hassan roared in fury. I heard men cry out and scream, and the sound of battle, but did not dare take my eyes from the woman. Thylissa growled deep in her throat. Blood burst in clots from her jaws and ran down her neck as she tried to reach the arrow in her throat with her claws. She seemed to remember me, and suddenly lunged.

  I buried my dagger in her chest and hugged her close, expecting to feel her claws rend open my back to my spine, but instead she sagged against me, a dead weight, and slid slowly to the sand.

  Pushing myself away from her and dragging free my bloody dagger, I turned in time to see Altrus strike at the leopard with his sword. The keen blade cut halfway through the neck of the beast, and its snarling head dangled from what remained. It glared hatred at me and collapsed. I counted six arrows in its body.

  The Bedouin came down from the hills with caution. Some of them carried hunting bows. The headman of the village nudged the leopard’s head with the toe of his boot. As we looked at it, the body of the big cat seemed to shrivel in on itself and became that of a naked young man.

  “I must apologize for our poor hospitality,” he said to me. “We could not risk accepting the woman into our village. When you left, we followed you through the hills. We knew the changeling would attack at nightfall, but we never imagined there were two of them.”

  “We owe you our lives. I am called Alhazred. If you ever need assistance on any matter, send word to me at my house on the Lane of Scholars in Damascus, and I will come to you.”

  He nodded. “It is reward enough to rid the world of such foul creatures.”

  “How did you know your arrows would kill them?”

  “The old woman who spoke to you is very wise. She told us to dip the tips of our arrows in molten silver. This we did, and the silver coated the bronze points.”

  “When you return to your village, give the old woman our thanks.”

  He smiled.“I will do so. She said I should tell you that people are not always what they seem.”

  To make certain the changelings were truly dead, we finished cutting the head from the man, and then did the same to the corpse of the woman. We buried the heads separately from the bodies a little distance off the caravan road. Their work done, the Bedouin returned to their village.

  “You were right, I was wrong,” Martala said to me as we prepared our bedrolls for the night.

  “It’s never wrong to have compassion,” I told her. “But sometimes it is dangerous.”

  ¼

  Ancient Evil

  1.

  “Enough!” Harkanos roared.

  The squabble of voices stopped. The men and women seated at the long table in my great hall stared at the necromancer in shocked surprise. Most of them had never heard the gracious man raise his voice in anger. He stood at the foot of the table, leaning forward with his hands upon its polished surface, glaring with his clear gray eyes at the eight who sat on its sides. There was silence.

  “We have all agreed to let Alhazred arbitrate our dispute, and to accept whatever judgment he decides to render. The time for recrimination is over.”

  He sat down, and the eight pairs of eyes turned to me. As I stood, I tried not to let my intimidation show. These were the greatest necromancers in Damascus and they were not happy.

  “The problem I was asked to investigate by you of the Council is the recent shortage of acids, essential salts, and other materials necessary to our art that has occurred in the city. As you know, most of it comes from Egypt and is brought in by caravan. You will be happy to hear that I have found no reduction in the amounts of supplies being brought into Damascus.”

  “We know what is happening,” said a fat man with well-oiled hair and beard who was dressed in the robes of a merchant. He pointed across the table. “The Hound is buying up all the best salts for his own use.”

  The bald and clean shaven Egyptian named Chigaru el-Masri shook his head gravely. “Fayyad, you are mistaken. I am as much in the dark about these shortages as you are.”

  A handsome young man seated beside Chigaru pointed his slender hand indolently across the table. “Isn’t it more likely that our materials are being hoarded up so that they can later be sold at much higher prices? Who better to do this than Fayyad al-Majid, the one they call the Merchant.”

  An elderly man with a long white beard that reached almost to the table raised his hand with the palm outward in a placating gesture. “It is not for you, Baligh ibn Nazari, to accuse your elders without evidence.”

  “I thank you, Abdul-Basir,” Fayyad said. “Your wisdom is famed far beyond the bounds of the Lane of Scholars.”

  “If you will allow me to spe
ak,” I said.

  “Let the young Alhazred speak,” said the beautiful Kalila Salib. She smiled at me and nodded.

  “Thank you, Kalila. I know tempers are hot, and many accusations have passed up and down the lane, jumping from house to house like fire in the wind. I have inspected the houses of all who are present at this table, and I have found no evidence of hoarding.”

  “Thank you, Alhazred,” the Merchant said. “It pains me to have my honor questioned.”

  “No more than it pains me,” the Hound told him.

  “If the Egyptian shipments are not in any of our houses, then where are they?” Dannu the Celt demanded.

  “That I have as yet been unable to determine.”

  “Then what good are you?” muttered Jacob Hazan, the Kabbalist.

  “My companions and I made a thorough inquiry. We know the salts and acids are coming into Damascus. We know they are not being offered for sale at the usual dealers. We know they are not being hoarded in the house of anyone present at this table.”

  “Then where are they?” the Celt demanded, his red beard bristling.

  I spread my hands. “We found no evidence that they are leaving the city. They are still somewhere in Damascus. We were unable to determine where they are, or who is stealing them.”

  “What makes you believe they are being stolen?” asked an elderly woman with graying hair and a noble bearing.

  “No one is being enriched, Mahibah. If these materials were bought, someone who has handled them would come into money, and would spend it.”

  “You would know this?”

  “My companion, Altrus, has many contacts in the alehouses and brothels of the city. He is certain.”

  “Are we to take the word of a drunkard who frequents brothels?” Fayyad demanded.

  “There is more information circulating in the brothels than you would imagine,” Kalila told him with a smile.

  “Yes, we all know of your former profession, before you began to raise the dead so that they could speak last words of comfort to their grieving families.”

  “I’m not ashamed of it,” she said. “I was a harlot, and a good one.”

  “In any event, I can find no fault with any of you,” I said. “Therefore it is my judgment that we share the salts, acids, and other matter of the Egyptian shipments that remain available equally, until the next caravan arrives.”

  “There are not enough salts to go around,” Chigaru objected. “How am I to continue my work?”

  “Why should we assume that the next shipment won’t be stolen?” Baligh asked.

  “My companions and I will continue to investigate the matter,” I told him.

  “I hope you have better fortune than you’ve had thus far, Alhazred,” he said with a vague smile.

  There were grunts of affirmation from both sides.

  I smiled to conceal my frustration and met the gaze of Harkanos at the far end of the table. He shrugged, as if to say, it went as well as I had reason to expect. I sat down, and Harkanos stood.

  “Alhazred has given us his judgment. I know I speak for all of you when I say we thank him for his efforts.”

  “Much good they did,” Fayyad muttered sourly.

  “If you are dissatisfied, find the thief yourself,” Chigaru told him.

  “I will be looking, don’t believe otherwise. And if I do find the thief, he will rue the day he was born.”

  This was no idle threat. Any of the men and women at the table were capable of calling up horrors that were almost too hideous to contemplate.

  2.

  “That went well,” Martala said.

  “How would you know?” I asked.

  “We were listening at the door,” Altrus said.

  The necromancers of the Council had left my house for their own houses along the length of the Lane of Scholars, even Harkanos, who stayed last to thank me for taking on the task of arbitrator.

  “I only hope I was able to head off a feud,” I told the mercenary as I poured golden wine from a crystal decanter into a goblet of smoky blue glass.

  He came over and filled two goblets, passing one to the girl and sampling his own. He nodded at me with approval. It was better wine than he was accustomed to. He spent most of his nights gambling in the alehouses or whoring in the brothels. As I had tried to make my visitors understand, that was one of the reasons he was so useful to me. No one had a better grasp of the gossip of Damascus than Altrus.

  He transferred his goblet to his left hand and worked the fingers of his right hand, clenching and opening his fist.

  “Does the arm still trouble you?”

  “It’s almost back to normal. Every so often my fingers tingle, that’s all.”

  It was over six weeks since he had suffered the paralyzing injury to his right arm at Sinai Monastery. I was relieved that it had not crippled him.

  “Is there any news about the most recent caravan from Egypt?”

  “Nothing.” He drank half his wine in one swallow. “If anyone knows what happened to the necromantic supplies, he isn’t talking.”

  “We need to discover what is going on. The necromancers won’t be patient forever. Harkanos gained us a pause of hostilities, but tempers will become heated if there are not enough salts to work with, and each suspects the others of hoarding them.”

  “I wouldn’t put it past that oily Fayyad al-Majid to be lying,” Martala said. “If anyone knows how to conceal stolen goods, he does.”

  “Why would he do it?” I asked. “He deals mostly in potions, philtres, unguents and charms. He uses mummy dust and the bones of the dead, but I doubt he raises them to life very often.”

  “No one really knows what you necromancers get up to in your cellars,” Altrus said. “You are a secretive lot.”

  “True. That makes our investigation more difficult.”

  “If I keep asking questions, eventually someone will talk.”

  “You can be very persuasive,” I agreed.

  “I think no one’s talked because no one knows anything,” Martala said.

  “It makes so little sense,” I told her. “Only we necromancers in the Lane of Scholars have any use for the essential salts of the dead and powdered mummy and strong acids that were taken. They would be useless to others.”

  “Useless, maybe, but not valueless,” Altrus pointed out.

  “But nobody’s tried to sell them.”

  “That we know about. It may be that one of your friends at the table has already bought the supplies from Egypt, but is keeping quiet about it.”

  “I suppose it’s possible,” I agreed. “Well, we can’t do anything more tonight. I’m going to bed.”

  “I’m off to the alehouse,” he said, setting down his empty goblet.

  “I’m coming to bed with you,” Martala said to me.

  The girl still maintained her habit of sleeping in my bed, even though she had her own room in my house. I had grown accustomed to her weight and warmth beside me. So much so that when she was not there, I would often lie awake. The fact that I had been made a eunuch by King Huban of Yemen prevented us from engaging in more energetic sports, but I liked having the girl sleep beside me.

  We were both in the habit of sleeping naked when we lay in my large bed. A cooling breeze blew through the wooden screens over the windows, but the white cotton sheets were more than enough to keep us from being chilled. I lay on my back, staring into the dark with one hand behind my head. The girl lay on her side, facing away from me. I could hear her soft snores and knew she was already asleep.

  Following the intrusion of the djinn Xhalarhinni into my bedroom, I had strengthened the protective wards around my house, and believed it to be near-impregnable against magical attacks. Imagine my surprise when an apparition began to form itself in the darkness above the bed.

  I reached over and shook the girl by her shoulder. She did not wake. My sword and dagger were across the room with my clothing. Watching the glowing green tendrils twist and form themselve
s from the empty air above my head, I doubted steel would have any effect. I should have rolled from the bed to the floor but did not want to leave the sleeping girl unprotected.

  The green glow formed itself into an inhuman face with hollow black eyes. It spoke to me. “Alhazred, do not pursue the matter of the Egyptian salts. If you do, the girl will die.”

  “Who are you who violates the privacy of my bedchamber and threatens me?”

  “One you do not wish to anger.”

  I made a gesture of banishing on the air. “Be gone.”

  The face laughed. Its voice was distorted. I did not recognize it as the voice of anyone I knew. “Heed this warning. There will be no other.”

  The glowing countenance scattered silently into a myriad of pale green sparks that spread and faded, leaving no trace to show they had ever existed.

  3.

  “It’s not often you accompany me to the marketplace,” Martala said as we crossed the busy street between the carts and entered the walled city market of Damascus.

  “I want to look around and listen to the talk of the merchants. Maybe one of them will mention the Egyptian salts.”

  “Unlikely.”

  I did not argue. My real reason for being with her was to protect her from harm. The apparition on my ceiling may have been insubstantial, but I knew its threats were not.

  With half an ear and half a mind, I followed the girl from stall to stall as she purchased the things needed by any great household. Ordinarily she was accompanied by a servant, but I had told the man that he was not needed. Soon I was weighed down with parcels and bags.

  I lingered in the shade of a striped awning while the girl haggled for pepper. She had a gift for bargaining and always paid the lowest prices of anyone I sent to the marketplace, which is the main reason I sent her so often. In any case, she enjoyed it and I would not deprive her of that enjoyment.

  A scrap of conversation made me turn my head.

  “—the walled garden of his house is filled with Egyptian jars. I never saw so many jars in one place before.”

  “What’s in them? Anything of value?”

  “Dust. Nothing but dust. I think he’s mad. He has a mad look about him, as though he listens to voices no one else can hear.”