The Bones of the Old Ones

by Howard Andrew Jones

  “Do you have Jibril’s book?” I asked her.

  “Yes.”

  “And any other notes that were useful?”

  “I know my business, Asim,” she said. “I have not asked if your sword was sharp, have I?”

  Now that question felt like the rake of a lion’s claw. Often when danger loomed Dabir made that same jest, mocking something foolish Jaffar had once said. For all that it was grown tired, at that moment I would have given much to have him ask it of me. Lydia’s arched brows drew together quizzically at my discomfiture, then she shrugged, apparently deciding it was not worth her time to inquire further.

  It was only then, in the dim light of our lantern, that I finally got a good look at the carpet. I shook my head at the madness that it should carry us so far. It had once been very colorful, but its reds were washed out to a dirty brown and the greens to a dull gray. Faded flowers and leaves were worked all about its border. I could not really examine the black stallion rearing at its center, for Lydia sat down across it. I could not help thinking that our last two journeys had begun with the death of a friend; I prayed fervently that another was not shortly to follow.

  Buthayna hurried out with a canvas bag that she passed on to Lydia, then stepped back, blinking, as the Greek took her seat on the fabric.

  “What are you doing?” the cook demanded of me.

  “Preparing to go,” I said.

  At any other time I might have relished her confusion. Perhaps she thought the Greek woman was at prayer; in any event, the old woman simply ignored our doings and wagged a finger at me, saying, “You bring him back, Captain. You shall never be forgiven if you fail, and the caliph himself will curse you.”

  She was surely right, and I nodded as I sank down onto the carpet behind Lydia. “Let us be off,” I said.

  While Buthayna and Rami looked on, Lydia put hands to the faded gold oval which circled the horse and we rose slowly into the air. Buthayna gasped and her eyes fairly bugged out of her head. I heard the boy cry out in pleased astonishment as we soared away.

  “I shall take us high and toward the river,” she said, “and we will see what there is to be seen.”

  “Fine, as long as we avoid the walls. Why did Erragal do this?”

  She looked over her shoulder at me, meeting my eyes for a time. She did not reply, though, until she looked away. “He is curious about us, Asim. I think he fully meant to blast us into oblivion, but he did not find what he expected.”

  “What do you think he expected?”

  “Someone else. A different story.”

  I mulled this over as we sailed out across the city rooftops and empty streets. The stars shimmered under a cloudless sky, and there was wind only because of our passage.

  “What does he want with the weapons?”

  “He fought once against the frost spirits. We can hope he means to do so once more. I’m wondering if that staff he carried was another one of the bones.”

  “I didn’t see any figures on it,” I said.

  Her voice grew sharp. “Do you think he’d carve instructions on the side of his own staff?”

  I thought that was a fair point, though I also wondered if she might be leaping to conclusions.

  We passed well above the river wall, looking down over the silent docks, when I saw a blue flame soar up into the sky from deep in the vast ruins of Nineveh. I later learned that watchmen throughout the city noted it in alarm, and that the governor himself was wakened so that he might decide how best to deal with it.

  Lydia guided us down to the snow-shrouded mound where the azure flames licked at the sky. Nothing fueled it. More wizardry. All about us were snow-banked broken walls and columns. Of Erragal there was no sign. Our destination, though, was clearly marked, for a perfectly square hole gaped beside the fire, the flickering of which revealed stone steps leading into the earth.

  The moment that the carpet came to rest, I rose and peered down the gloomy stairwell. I had not thought to pack a lantern. Dabir would have anticipated this wrinkle and prepared for it, and once more I felt a pang.

  “This fire gives no heat,” Lydia said. She raised her hands to the flames, though her interest was not so great that she dared to touch them.

  There was no point commenting. Sorcerous showmanship and secrets wearied me.

  “We should take the carpet with us,” Lydia suggested.

  She meant to make me a packhorse, which did not suit me. “If I am to carry it, how will I defend us?”

  She grumbled something in Greek. While she huffily rolled up the fabric under the eerie blue light, I drew my sword and took one step onto the old stairs. Instantly the fire behind us vanished, and a warm red light ignited below, although its source, at the bottom of the stairs, could not be seen.

  It seemed we needed no lantern after all.

  I led the way down, cloak over my battered armor, shield on one arm, sword in hand. Behind me Lydia walked slowly, the carpet hugged between her arms. It trailed on the ground beside her.

  Deep we went, and though the stairs were old, they were hardly worn. While their edges crumbled, I thought age, not use, was the culprit.

  We were forty steps down before we saw the torches flickering in the hands of crouching stone bird-men. The statues flanked immense doors fashioned all of bronze, shining with the wicked luster of reflected flame. I stared carefully at both sculpted abominations upon our arrival. Lydia, puffing, lowered the carpet to the flagstones before the doors. Neither statue seemed inclined to move, praise God. A rough recess was carved just past the bird-headed thing on the left. Within it a round bronze plate the size of a shield hung from two chains. I sheathed my sword and contemplated lifting the old hammer beside the bronze. Just then, the doors swung inward on silent hinges.

  No one stood in the space beyond. I had the sense of a great void opening before us, but there was naught but blackness to be seen. And then a pair of torches lit, one on either side of us at head height. We stood not in a chamber, but at one end of a long square corridor some three spear lengths wide and perhaps as tall. A moment later, twenty paces on, another pair of torches lit, and after twenty more another, and on and on, for the length of Mosul’s grand boulevard. I had never seen one so long, even in the palaces of Baghdad, and I contemplated it in stunned silence until Lydia dropped the carpet.

  “I’m not carrying that thing any farther,” she said.

  “Leave it, then.”

  She scowled, but did as I bade.

  I led the way forward, hand to hilt. Lydia followed after a last backward glance.

  The floor was flat and even, and I saw after a few steps that it was formed of black marble, veined with other colors—streaks of white that resembled striations of clouds, and little flecks of red and gold. Polished to a high sheen, it mirrored both ourselves and the flare of the torches, and threw the sound of our footfalls back to us.

  After we had advanced past the first six pairs of torches Lydia remarked that those behind us were extinguishing in pairs.

  Eventually we arrived before another set of bronze doors, taller even than those that had opened onto this place, for the cavern had grown higher by degrees. These did not open, and this time no gong was present, nor alcove.

  I glanced back. All but the torches just behind us had now died. A ringing thud reached us from far away. The first doors had shut.

  “We’re sealed in,” Lydia said, though she did not sound terribly worried. In fact, a faint smile played over her features. She stood straighter and used her fingers to rake back her curling hair.

  A moment later the double doors swung open. Another hall stretched before us, lit likewise with pair upon pair of torches, but whereas the corridor behind us had been of smooth stone, the walls ahead were set with intricate and colorful bas-relief. This hall stretched on two to three hundred paces, I think, and at its far end, in a throne of black marble, sat Erragal, grown triple his former size. His head reached halfway to the ceiling. At either side stood a
giant man draped in black robes, features hidden by deep hoods. Both held gleaming spears in the hand farthest from the throne.

  They moved not at all.

  The images along the wall were all of fabulous beasts, armored hosts, and long-tressed women, painted with vibrant colors. Sometimes there were seascapes, and sometimes mountains, and once there was a sunset of glorious red and gold.

  One thing else I noted—the hall grew subtly smaller as we advanced, though it retained the semblance of its dimensions.

  By the time we had closed within twenty paces of Erragal, it was apparent that he was no more than man-sized, and that the ceiling was closer to our heads than it had been. The pictures to right and left of us were smaller than those that had opened the room.

  The wizard frowned down at us. “Your arrival is timely. I have what I require from your leader; now I need only the woman. Warrior, you may go.”

  I’m not sure what I had expected, but it was not this. “I shall go nowhere without Dabir.” I slid out in front of Lydia. “And you shall not have the woman—she is under my protection.”

  “Asim?” Lydia asked quietly from behind me. I think she meant some word of warning, but Erragal interrupted.

  “Of course. You have been inconvenienced.” The wizard clapped his hands. The robed figure on the left stepped forward, making an unsettling clacking noise as it moved. I peered close to see what sort of fingers clasped his spear, but the folds of his sleeve concealed how it gripped it. The other robed figure leaned his spear against the side of the throne and turned, bending. When he faced us once more, his sleeves had fallen back to show shriveled, skeletal fingers, wrapped about a small chest, its lid open. The thing advanced slowly to us, clicking the while. I watched, repulsed. It paused three paces from me, and I could look within the chest upon a riot of gold coins. Also there were rings, each crusted with diamonds, afire with rubies, glowing with emeralds and sapphires, and I saw part of a strand of what must have been a necklace of immense pearls.

  If Erragal meant to impress me, he did not succeed, for I have looked on suchlike before. I turned to regard him. “Treasures worthy of a prince,” I said.

  “Or a king,” Erragal countered. “But I shall give them to you, if you leave directly.”

  Was this recluse insane? “I shall not leave without Dabir,” I repeated.

  “Dabir and the woman are of use to me,” Erragal explained. “I have no need of you. Take the treasure and go.”

  I was tired in general, and of wizards and magics in particular, and a foul mood wrapped me. “What manner of host are you, old one? You kidnap my friend. You try to bribe me to disregard my duty. You demand I abandon this woman. If you mean to fight me, then get to it, for I will not leave without my charges.”

  Erragal stood and looked down at me from the first of three stairs that led to his throne. For a long while our eyes locked, and then his hands thrust from his sleeves and on the instant a screen of blue fire flared before me, stretching the length of the room. I threw back one arm to shield Lydia and raised my blade with the other.

  Three figures then walked from that fire, amber skeletons with horned skulls and low-slung jaws bristling with fangs. A sapphire flame floated in each of their rib cages where a heart should have been, and their bony hands gripped emerald-studded maces.

  As the one on my left raised its mace I smashed my shield through its rib cage. The rim lit blue as it carried through to the creature’s spine.

  The skeleton fell into fragments, and its heart went out. I had no time to watch bones clatter on marble, for my next opponent was already swinging. I jumped back, parallel to the flame. My new adversary advanced; the other crept up on the side opposite the flickering wall.

  Lydia stepped to my side and lifted her palm, fingers extended, to her mouth. She blew, and dark ash whirled up and into one of the warriors. The thing’s bones were eaten away with dark blotches, and it caved in upon itself.

  She turned to deal with the other, but I felt no sense of victory. I knew there was but one real chance. I leapt into the blue flames.

  They burned me not at all; in fact, I landed unharmed beyond them on two feet and darted for the throne where Erragal stood, looking not so much surprised as reflective. He raised one hand and his robed guardian slipped suddenly between us, his weapon raised up like a staff.

  I swept down at the guard’s legs without breaking stride up the steps; the staff lashed out to block me, but I barreled on. I slammed into him with the shield and heard a crack. The thing clattered limply against the throne, a misshapen lump wrapped in cloth. I extended my sword to Erragal’s neck. “Yield!” I said through gritted teeth. “And cease this game play!”

  This time his gaze was frozen in surprise, and I thought for a moment that he dared not meet my eyes.

  And then I heard the sound of a man clapping from some distance behind. The Erragal I threatened faded away to nothing. Snarling, I whirled to take in the altered scene around me.

  The fire had vanished; the demon skeletons were gone, as was the one that had offered treasure. Lydia was unharmed, and advanced warily, surveying the room. Before me was a robe draped over protruding bones. Erragal, though, grinned up at me from the stair, a swords length below.

  “I meant to test your mettle, warrior,” he announced. “You have done well. Now you have but to pledge loyalty to me, as Dabir has done, and I shall reunite you.”

  I growled. “I shall pledge loyalty to no one until I know for what they stand. Man, wizard, djinn, or angel. You took my friend from me. Show me that he is safe, then we can talk of pacts and loyalties.”

  His teeth showed white in his beard. “The scholar spoke of your loyalty,” he said, “and bravery, and also of your wisdom, which he said most overlooked.”

  “More games?” I demanded.

  Erragal shook his head and addressed me gravely. “This was a test, not a game. Sheath your sword, Captain Asim, for you have passed it.”

  I glared down at the old wizard, conscious once again of the pains from the combat of the night before.

  “Where is Dabir?” I roared, coming sideways down the stairs so that I might watch both the robed skeleton and the wizard.

  “In the library,” Erragal returned calmly, “learning the weaknesses of our enemies. Come. I will take you there.”

  I reached the bottom of the stairs. I did not yet sheathe my sword, but I did not point it at him.

  Lydia advanced to stand near me. “How are we to judge you?”

  “That is a fair question,” he sighed after a time. “But I am not in a mood to humor you. Let me instead offer the hospitality of a true host. First, if you do not mind, I will raise my servant once more.” One hand gestured negligently to the throne.

  At the shuffling on those steps I turned my steel in that direction, for the skeletal thing climbed once more to its feet and lifted its weapon.

  Erragal showed us a palm. “It will not fight you lest you attack me,” he said.

  It came slowly down past us and stepped ahead to the curtained area behind the throne. With one browned, bony hand, it lifted the fabric in front of us to reveal a small antechamber leading off into four man-sized hallways. The wizard strode for the one directly across from us.

  “Dabir’s plan is rather clever,” Erragal said conversationally. “It destroys the bones, which I should probably have done ages ago, and uses their energy to good purpose. I am looking forward to seeing your notes, Lady Doukas, about the circle within the circle.”

  We started down the hall. These walls, too, were decorated with friezes, though here they were of folk setting stones and sighting down measuring sticks.

  I could not help wondering if this was another trap.

  Apparently Lydia still wondered the same, for she sounded skeptical. “What has Dabir told you?”

  “How you plan to lure the spirits. Even with three working bones we may be hard-pressed to power so great a circle, but my own magics should supplement the eff
ort. And I have contacted Enkidu, who is on his way to assist.”

  “Three?” she asked. “So the staff you have is one of them?”

  “Oh, yes. Through it I felt one of the others activated from half a world away.”

  I grunted. It would be good to have allies, though I would remain unsure of him at least until I laid eyes upon Dabir. “Why do you want to help?”

  His gaze shifted, and for a moment he was not the busy host, but a stern and powerful-looking man. “I am allowing you to help me,” he said forcefully. “My brothers and sister shall not use my tools without permission. And those arrogant fools have opened the way through for the ‘frost spirits,’ as you call them. Again. My oldest and greatest friend died in the last battle against them. They shall not return.”

  “So you sensed us using the club—why did you care?” Lydia asked. “You obviously haven’t cared about them for years. Why come looking for the tools now?”

  “I am not so removed, young woman. Even in the south land I grew aware of the rising power of the snow spirits here. I had not troubled over them for generations,” he added.

  “Do you always lair here,” I asked, “beneath these ruins?”

  He flashed a half smile. “Not often, anymore. Once this city was mine. Or rather, I built it for King Senacherib. From time to time, I, too, have played at ordering the world of men.”

  I wondered what he meant by that.

  He stopped at a door and gestured to me.

  My eyes passed over the three square panels that adorned it, each depicting bearded scholars studying texts, and then I grasped the handle and pulled. It opened far more easily than you might have supposed, being as light to my hand as a slim block of wood, and I studied its edge. I had never seen a door so finely balanced.

  On its other side was an immense chamber, large enough to fit most of a palace. It was filled with tables, neatly arranged in rows that were topped with model cities. Lamps burned on poles set every few feet.