The Bones of the Old Ones

by Howard Andrew Jones

  “Where is Dabir?” I asked.

  “We have not yet reached the library.” Erragal sounded mildly irritated. “This is the chamber of cities.”

  Lydia remarked immediately that the intricate models were delightful. Mind, I was eager to set eyes upon Dabir and confirm his safety, so I did not let my attention wander. Yet I was not blind. So fine were the painted figures in the streets that you would have sworn real people had been shrunken and turned into tiny statues, though Erragal assured us this was no wizardry, and it had taken a very long while to mix the colors. There were all manner of cities, some built beside mountains with real flowing streams and others along coasts and others upon plains. Each was crafted with long straight roads, and Erragal pointed fondly to granaries, and aqueducts, and parks, as well as squares where folk might gather. As we passed on, he mentioned also that there was a way that lanterns might light each street at dusk, and a way that water would flow to each of a city’s houses, and other such things.

  “You should spread these ideas,” Lydia said as we neared another door.

  “Oh, I have,” he assured us. “But men are too troubled with the smaller things, and tend not to think for the longer term. Those who can rarely come to power.”

  “You could come to power,” Lydia suggested.

  Erragal opened the door for us, his thick lips widening in a sad smile. “I did, my dear, we did, Koury, Anzu, and I. You should have seen Nineveh’s aqueduct! And I built a great city named Harappa, with granaries just like those”—he pointed to his left—“and running water. Yet men destroyed her and her sister cities. Again and again we tried, once with a lovely dark-haired people of the islands south of Greece. They were my favorites.” His voice grew tired. “But nature herself brought an end to our plans there. I have washed my hands of it.”

  We walked into another hallway, the lanterns flaring ahead of us. “Pressure pads, beneath the floor,” he said in answer to my look, “are activated by our tread, and then the oil is released in the pipes within the walls, and ignited.”

  “You are a builder,” Lydia observed. “I was told you were a destroyer.”

  Erragal’s grin was mirthless. “To those who stood in the way. But I grew tired of creation, and destruction. Although, sometimes it takes greater strength to let things go.” He said this last as if to himself.

  While I puzzled over that, he spoke on. “I have seen the ebb and flow of men, women, children, entire tribes. Nations have climbed up, tottered to their feet, and strode mightily across the stage, only to stagger bloody through their final exit. So have your people come, so will they go. Only the language and stage dressing change.” He stopped before another bronze door shining with the images of shelves and scrolls. He put fingers to the handle, then faced us. “That is not quite true. Always there are clever new ways to draw blood.”

  At that he opened the door.

  Dabir sat on a low cushioned bench at a table, all three of the bone weapons propped in the corner. Next to him lay a set of rolled-up scrolls and a heap of food on shining golden plates. He smiled at the sight of me.

  What I first thought a small room lit by a half-dozen wall torches, I soon saw was a balcony overlooking a vast hall full of shelves, so many that aisles were formed between them. And each shelf was weighted down with scrolls. Truly, it must have seemed like heaven to Dabir, and one within reach, for a stairway stretched down to that central floor just beyond the table where he studied.

  “Have you found the texts instructive, scholar?” Erragal asked.

  Dabir climbed to his feet and bowed his head slowly, in great respect. “I have. Your notes are thorough.”

  “I remain impressed that you can read them.”

  “He is real?” I asked Lydia. “And not another spell, like the skeletons we fought?”

  “It is him,” the Greek said simply.

  “Skeletons?” Dabir asked me. His look of mingled concern and curiosity was so characteristic, I relinquished and finally sheathed my sword.

  “A test,” Erragal said breezily. “Now we four are here. Enkidu is en route to join us. We must get to work.”

  I could not help letting my attention stray to the platter of food.

  Dabir pointed to the scroll he’d set aside. “So the others draw magic from different sources?”

  “For the most part. Koury and Anzu work similar sorceries, as you see. But then, they came to immortality in the same way.”

  “How is that?” Lydia asked.

  Erragal hesitated only a moment. “Flowers. They were ugly little things, growing only in the mouths of caves in the northern Zagros, in the spring. They’re long gone, now, along with most of those who drank the draught brewed from them.”

  Lydia crept a little closer. “And what is Enkidu’s secret?”

  “And mine?” Erragal’s head turned to consider her. “You do not wish to seem rude, but … well, you do not want to know mine. It would make you … uncomfortable and it is irrelevant as it cannot happen again. Enkidu is like Adapa was. He draws sustenance somehow from the world itself. And Lamashtu is more like Gazi, though she does not feast on hearts. I used to think her a monster,” he added, “but she and Anzu are the only ones I ever speak with anymore.”

  “You said Enkidu is our ally,” Dabir objected.

  “He is my oldest living friend,” Erragal agreed. “But his perspective is more akin to the beasts of the field. It is hard to find much to say to each other.” He shifted smoothly to Lydia. “Now, Lady, let me see your banishing circle.”

  “I will be honored.” Lydia said. However, she delayed and when she spoke again she sounded as though she were unloading a burden. “There’s something that’s bothered me for a while, and I was wondering if you could answer. Do you know what the other Sebitti want with the bones?” She paused, but before Erragal could answer she spoke on, and there was a rare nervous quaver in her voice. “I thought they were going to use them to control the frost spirits—as a threat to those who would not follow them—but I couldn’t control the spirits when I tried it. Is there something I missed?”

  “I cannot say what they are truly after,” Erragal answered slowly, “though I now know why Anzu and Lamashtu both contacted me in recent years and spoke, in a roundabout way, of the old weapons.”

  “Do they have direct experience with them?” Dabir asked.

  “Lamashtu does,” Erragal answered. “She wielded mine, once, to aid me.”

  “So is she the one who told the others about them?” Lydia asked.

  “Possibly they learned more from her, but Koury and Anzu studied with me for long years. I strove to teach them more than sorceries. History. Philosophy. Laws. Duties. They knew about the old ones, and their bones, and the brother and sister wizards who had preceded them. But I do not think anyone, even me, could use one of these things to compel those spirits to follow commands.” His voice was tight. “I have tried contacting my sister and brothers, to ask, but they do not deign to answer. So. Whatever they are about,” he concluded shortly, “they know that I would not approve. Now, Lady, while your company pleases me, we have work before us, and I am certain our time is limited.”

  I had only passing interest in the discussion that followed, for I cared solely about the result, and could hardly follow a talk about energy flows and linking symbols and other strangeness. I looked over our immediate surroundings while they examined Lydia’s papers, then finally took off my shield, lifted some of the duck onto one of the ridiculous golden plates, drizzled the sauce over it, and ate. The meal did not wash away my worries exactly, although the flavors proved a delight. The throb of my injuries was dulled, and if the dark clouds had not precisely lifted, they had thinned a little.

  Erragal listened attentively, making comments that Lydia hurried to scribble on the parchment. “We will have to conceal the circle,” he said. “They’ll hardly want to cross into the thing if they see it. Once we burn it into the ground, I’ll cover it over with snow.”

/>   “Won’t it be obvious that you’ve shifted snow?” I asked.

  “I can manage it,” he answered with a droll smile.

  “What about … the woman that the frost spirit controls?” I asked.

  The Sebitti nodded sagely. “Dabir has spoken to me about her. These are powerful sorceries we work. Anyone caught up within them is in danger. Much will depend upon her strength of will, and luck.” He paused, looking off into space as though he had heard some important sound the rest of us had missed. I had seen that distracted, focused look before, and recently, and I realized I knew it from when Lydia’s sentry had been attacked.

  Erragal stood, and his brows drew together like storm clouds. “My home here is under attack.”

  Even as Dabir and I rose he raised a hand to us. “I will see to it,” he said darkly.

  Lydia spoke up eagerly. “Allow me to offer my aid.”

  His eyes raked her, then he took up the bone staff and strode for the door. “Very well. Come with me. You two stay here and keep to the work.”

  Lydia glanced back once, at Dabir, I think, as she left, and then it was we two, alone with the bones and the vast hall of books.

  “That does not bode well,” Dabir said.

  “He seems more than capable,” I offered, though I felt a stab of worry myself. “Why doesn’t his staff have symbols on it like the others?”

  “He crafted the others for ordinary men,” Dabir said, “and left instructions on their sides so that their descendants, or friends, if they fell in battle, could wield them. He did not mean anyone else to use his, which is a little more powerful yet.”

  I glanced up at the door, to make absolutely sure I could not hear Erragal. Even still, I kept my voice low. “Did you tell him about Gazi?”

  “That we fought and killed him? Aye.”

  “Well, what did he say?”

  “Merely that Gazi’s been mad for a very long time. Erragal wasn’t upset so much as impressed.”

  “That,” I said slowly, “is a better outcome than I had hoped for. Why did you say anything to him about it?”

  “He warned me that he could see lies by looking at me. I am not sure that it’s true, but I knew also that if we were to work together he had to trust me.”

  “It seems that he does. What’s this he has you studying?”

  Dabir’s smile was a little sly. “The magics of our enemies.”

  Surely I had misheard him. “You do not mean to work them?”

  “I am no wizard,” Dabir said. “I’m learning their weaknesses, so I might counter their magics. As Jibril used to do, by breaking them. Erragal taught Anzu and Koury much of what they know. He has countless texts on magics and their working. And that is not all. My God, Asim, do you see that library?” He turned and regarded it, his eyes alight with desire. “I could spend a lifetime here. I wish,” he finished, suddenly reflective, “that Jibril could have seen this.” He fell silent and glanced over to the door, for he had heard, like me, footsteps in the hall, though they were strange.

  I stood. “That may be one of Erragal’s servants,” I said, though the skeleton had walked in boots and did not clomp awkwardly.

  “That sounds like wood on stone,” Dabir said, rising.

  We looked at each other with the same dire thought in mind, then both picked up our weapons. The footsteps drew closer and stopped in front of the door.

  16

  There was a metallic thump against the door as something hard was hammered into it, and then it swung sharply outward, revealing a peculiar figure: a bull with a crowned and bearded man’s head reaching to the height of the generous doorway and filling it almost completely. It was carved all of wood, and was stained mostly black, save for large gray wings that were folded at its sides. Its unblinking eyes were bright green jewels, and its sharp metal teeth were coated red with blood still trickling down its curling beard.

  I can assure you that sight was unique in all my long experience, before or since. Dabir grabbed up a bunch of the documents and shoved them under one arm. At my shout to move we raced down the stairs, but as we ran, two of the scrolls shook loose and bounced down the steps before us. Dabir let out a little cough of dismay and bent to chase one but I yelled for him to run on.

  I risked a backward look. The monster was at the head of the stairs, where it glared down at us with those dead, unblinking eyes. By the time we reached the central floor it had begun to stomp its way down. One of its knee joints cracked loudly each time a leg bent.

  Dabir ran between the lines of tall shelves, the spear swinging in one hand. The aisles were but a horse length wide, and the shelves, stuffed full mostly with scrolls wound tightly around wooden rods, stretched well above our heads toward the ceiling far beyond. Light flared in sconces set high on the wall, which meant the aisles were little more than dark alleys.

  “That’s got to be one of Koury’s monsters!” I said. “The Sebitti have followed us here!”

  “Aye—pray that blood is not Lydia’s or Erragal’s,” Dabir said over his shoulder.

  While that was fine sentiment, the way the monster gained on us it seemed important to pray that the thing would not shortly be decorated with our own blood. “Do you know where you’re going?”

  “Away from that thing!”

  That also was fine sentiment, but I had a thought. “Go up! Dabir—climb the shelves!”

  He skidded to a stop, glanced back at me in surprise, then, spear lengthwise in one hand, grabbed the shelf and pulled himself up. I heard him groan as a scroll crunched under one foot, but by planting boots carefully in cubbyholes he was soon grasping the bookcase height. The arched ceiling loomed a full story overhead.

  The monster closed quickly, and was less than a full spear cast off now. There was no good way to climb while holding that club, so I handed it up to Dabir.

  “Hurry!”

  An unkillable monster with bloodstained metal teeth was but a leopard’s spring away and closing fast, so I can assure you I started up with great haste. I did not care so much as Dabir that jamming my feet into cubbyholes destroyed ancient works. The next moment I was halfway over the lip of the bookcase, and the monster had skidded to a stop. The pointed crown carved at the top of its head was only a hand span below my dangling boot, and I thought at any moment to feel those teeth tearing off my toes. Yet it did not, or could not, leap vertically, and with Dabir hauling on my arm I was quickly standing atop what seemed a most sturdy board.

  The monster could not look up very well. The best it could manage was to turn its head and tilt slightly, so that it could take us in with one eye.

  “A design flaw,” Dabir noted.

  I grunted. “Go!”

  He picked up his spear and took up running once more, this time atop the bookcase. It had not been a bad idea at all, for the case housed scrolls both from left and right, which meant its top was almost as wide as one of the aisles. There were two more sets of aisles and bookcases between us and the left wall, and three between us and the right.

  The monster galloped along below, its head cocked at an angle that would have been uncomfortable to any living creature.

  “Look for another door,” Dabir called to me.

  Even the finest plans have their challenges, and after a few paces more I discovered one when Dabir put on a burst of speed. By the time I realized what he was doing, it was too late to offer criticism.

  There were periodic breaks in the lines of shelves, wider by several feet than the space between cases. Dabir had seen this and was preparing for a leap.

  My warning cry died before I voiced it, for he was already airborne. He was ever agile, as I have mentioned, and landed crouched on two feet, as though he had spent many years working as an acrobat. I frowned a little, and raced at the gap myself. The monster paced me on the right, and it may be I spent a moment too long staring at the horrible thing, because I stumbled as I landed. If it had not been for Dabir’s steadying arm I would have tumbled right over the edge.


  He pointed across the aisles. “There is our way out.”

  This lane between the bookcases stretched to both walls. Set in the farthest was a large wooden door. “I hope it’s unlocked.”

  “Let us run a little farther on this case, then leap aisle to aisle.”

  I immediately saw the merit to this plan—the monster would have farther to run, and would also lose sight of us. The flaw, of course, was that we had more leaping to do, and there would be less space to build speed. Yet what other choice did we have? I followed him twenty paces while the monster kept up with us. Then Dabir turned, quick as a rabbit, backstepped to the far edge of the case, and hurtled across the empty space. He landed almost as finely as he had on the longer jump, the spear held out in both hands before him.

  I picked up my courage and followed. I landed more ably than the last time, though there was an ominous creak of timber as I hit.

  “Good,” Dabir said. “Let’s keep moving!”

  This we did, and we jumped between two more cases. I took Dabir’s spear as he lowered himself to the floor. The moment his boots hit the tile we heard something that sounded rather like thunder, and the ground shook.

  Surely that did not bode well.

  I handed him the weapons and slipped down, then Dabir and I ran for the door.

  Distantly I heard shouts; closer at hand came the swift approach of huge wooden hooves on tile. The damned thing could not only see, apparently it could hear, for it had followed, and now galloped between the cases toward us.

  It was only twenty lengths behind when Dabir reached the door, which fortunately opened at his hand. The monster was at my heels as I darted to safety. Dabir slammed the door closed and pressed his back to it even as a mighty echoing thump rang against the wood.

  Dabir was knocked several paces back by the force of the monster’s strike against the door. I threw down the club and pressed with him against the barrier in time to feel it tremor mightily beneath my hands.

  I glanced quickly to either side, and started at sight of what I first took to be men. We were surrounded by life-sized statues on stone plinths, each facing the narrow lane that led down the midst of the long rectangular room. There were dozens of them, and the twin pairs of lanterns flickering along the walls set their shadows moving in the gloom. I think I might have been even more troubled by the sight if there had not been a wooden monster with bloodstained teeth hammering on the door behind me.