by Donald Tyson
The smell of water that rose up from the depths filled me with such joy I cried out in triumph. It was curious that even without a nose I could discern scents. Whatever part the torturers had cut off, it was not the part required for smelling. Even had I not been able to smell it, I would have known the presence of water by the dampness in my throat as I breathed. A bend in the cave shut out the last faint glow of light from the entrance. My lust to rush forward was tempered by my fear of smashing my head on a projecting point of rock. I continued to wriggle deeper into the passage on my belly, soiling the cleanliness of my newly stolen thawb in the dust that lay on the cave floor.
The pupils of my eyes widened to the darkness. In the depths ahead, a faint glow reflected from the walls, so pallid that it vanished when looked at directly, but returned when viewed from the edge of sight. It became stronger as I approached, a greenish-yellow hue like the color of festering pus. A sound reached my ears, more welcome than any other I had ever heard, the drip of water into a pool. My passion made me intemperate, and I slid rather than crawled the last dozen feet down a slope that opened into a cavern. The natural dome of the space was high enough for standing. In a depression in the center of its floor lay a pool of clear water. Drops condensing upon the dome fell into the pool and disturbed its mirror surface with rings.
Every part of the ceiling and walls, and much of the floor, was covered by a glowing carpet of fungi. I put my hand to it and found it moist to the touch, with the softness of fur. As my palm brushed it, I heard a faint crackling such as might be made by dry grasses thrown onto a fire, but so faint that it could scarcely be distinguished even in the deep silence of the cave. The crackling produced a fine orange dust that hung in the air above the stems of the fungi. I touched one stem and saw the small ball at its end break open and emit the dust, which had the pleasing scent of spice. Amid the stalks of glowing fungi moved spiders of the purest white, in size no larger than the ball of the thumb. As the body of a spider brushed the stalks, the spore pods at their ends split and showered dust over the spider’s back and legs.
In my fascination, I forgot the pool of water for a time. Plucking a few stalks of the fungi, I put them into my mouth. The taste was bitter and burned my tongue, so I spat them out without chewing them. One of the white spiders crawled onto my finger and over my hand. It made no attempt to bite, even when I poked at it. Its back was covered with a layer of the orange dust. Reflecting that it might provide a source of nourishment in time of need, I put it into my mouth and chewed it. The taste was rich and resembled the flavor of almonds. I swallowed, then ate another spider, and a third. Caution made me stop. It would be best not to consume more than a few spiders, until the experiment revealed whether or not they were poisonous.
Cupping my hand, I dipped it into the pool and brought the water to my lips. It was pure and cool, with a faint sweetness on the tongue, as fine as any water I had ever tasted. By comparison, the brackish water of the Bedouins was like camel piss. I emptied the rest of the contents of the water skin into a hollow in one corner of the cavern and submerged the skin in the pool to fill it. Then I lowered my lips to the pool and drank until my stomach could hold no more.
By the glow of the fungus I saw my face for the first time and jerked my head away, heart racing. My appearance was worse in its reality than had been painted by my imagination. The dried and scabby skin of my face, stretched tight over the cheekbones and jaw, had the gauntness of death, and the illusion of a skull come to life was enhanced by the gaping black hole where my beautiful nose had resided, and the lack of hair and ears. Unwilling but resolute, I forced myself to gaze long at my reflection. I must know what others saw when they looked at me. No wonder the children of the caravan had laughed behind their hands.
Weariness overcame my body. I withdrew from the pool and found a bare ledge of rock upon which to sleep. The damp of the cavern made me shiver, and it amused me to think that it was cooler than I would have wished, after so recently enduring the killing heat of the desert. The spiders posed no threat. They did not leave the carpet of fungus, and in any case showed no trace of aggression. They had never been hunted and knew nothing of how to defend themselves. So it is with all soft and coddled creatures. So I was myself until the judgment of King Huban descended upon me. I felt pity for the innocence of the frail white things as I drifted into uneasy sleep.
In my dream I stood in the open desert beneath the sun, not naked but clothed in the garment of the dead man, and watched a spinning column of dust approach. Its dancing motions aroused only curiosity, until I realized that it moved directly toward where I stood. Then I tried to run from it, but the spinning pillar was faster. It roared as it approached with the howling voice of a demon, and glancing over my shoulder as I fled, I saw the brightness of countless eyes within its serpentine body. The column of wind enveloped me and bore me upward to the heavens.
I found myself standing unharmed in the center of a round chamber with a floor of black glass and walls of roughly cut stones that curved together overhead to form a pointed dome. From the center of the dome hung down a barbed lance of black metal. Its base appeared firmly fixed into the stonework, but I moved from beneath its point with unease. It radiated a kind of black light no brighter than starlight that made the air dance. As my eyes grew accustomed to this dim illumination, I noticed shifting shadows in the floor, and bent closer to look.
With a cry of fear, I leapt away and pressed my back against the wall, seeking to grip the stones with my fingertips and lift my feet. Beneath the floor was a vast chamber larger than the greatest cavern. Were the glass of the floor to shatter, the fall would be fatal, yet there was nowhere else to stand. I peered down in fascination, standing on my toes with the wall at my back. Dimly through the dark glass, tiny figures moved. I observed these vague specks as does a man who towers like a giant over the mound of ants and watches their insignificant comings and goings, before dashing down his heel to obliterate them. They were ranked in circular bands in a kind of amphitheater, but so great was the distance, of their appearance or purpose I could discern nothing.
The air at the center of the chamber, directly beneath the barbed lance, shimmered like rising heat and became a cloud of black mist. Or it may be that the mist was always there, and in my fascination for the chamber beneath the floor I merely failed to notice. This sooty cloud pulsated and grew larger, descending to the floor, where it assumed the shape of the faceless man who haunted my dreams, seated in an ornate chair of gleaming ebony. Again, I looked from side to side for a door. It was a futile gesture. There was no door.
“You have unlocked one gate,” he said in his hollow, hissing tones. “Swear allegiance to me, and all other gates will swing wide.”
“Why do you care for my allegiance? I am nothing to you.”
“I collect men. Once I gathered other things to my service, but now, in this time, I collect men.”
“Are you a god?” I asked in wonder, greatly fearing to hear the answer.
He made a scornful sound in his throat.
“Your gods dance beneath my feet at my pleasure. I am much more than a god of this sphere.”
A memory came into my mind, a fragment from a book that I had read years before, a book of mad fantasy and necromantic spells. It had been written by a Jew at Babylon during the time of the captivity of that people, but the name of the scribe escaped me. Only a part of a single fable remained, the story of a race of gods who were not gods, and who were said to rule the gods of earth and to make them dance at their pleasure. It was curious that such an obscure fable should rise in my thoughts at this moment.
He lifted his arm, all except the fingers of his hand concealed within his long sleeve, and I shrank away in fear, but some power compelled me to walk toward his throne on stiffened knees. When I stood at his feet, he reached toward me. His fingernails were black and elongated, like the talons of a hawk. Using the ti
p of his first finger, he scratched the skin of my forehead so that my blood ran down on either side of the hole that had been my nose.
“By this mark my worshippers shall know you as one of my own.”
“What is your name, lord?” I asked, my voice quavering.
He reached up to unhook his black silk caul, and let it fall from the dark well of his face. I stared at the stars in its depths. Something stirred there, approaching upward from the blackness with terrifying haste. Before I could draw away, a million flying black beetles erupted from the shadow and surrounded me in a spinning column. Their droning wings thundered in my ears. I heard the dark man speak, but his words were overwhelmed by the sound of wings.
Chapter 4
I woke in the spider cavern, the soft drip of the water echoing in my ears. My body felt refreshed, a sure indication that I had slept many hours. Dusk could not be long away. For some reason, I hesitated to piss within the cavern, and decided to wait until I reached the entrance to the cave, where I would lie until the coming of night. There was a lightness to my head, as though I had drunk half a bottle of wine, and my tongue tingled. If it was an effect of the spiders I had consumed, it was uncommonly pleasant.
Rising to my feet, I untied the silk kerchief from my neck and shook out its wrinkles above the rock that had served as my bed. My body swayed slightly, but it was not difficult to retain my balance. I began to collect spiders from the walls of the cavern, laying them on the outspread cloth and slapping them lightly with my hand to kill them without destroying their bodies. In a short while over a hundred spiders lay upon the striped silk, their legs curled under their bodies in death. I tied up the cloth with care to form a purse and placed it within an inner pocket of my thawb. The desert robe contained four pockets, two in each breast arranged one above the other.
When I crawled from the cavern and up the long channel of the cave, I discovered with surprise that dusk was falling. The entire span of the day I had slept without waking. I emerged and relieved my bladder, then sat for a time watching the stars appear one by one in the sky. The world seemed strangely altered, the air more alive, the stones and sand softly glowing. With unsteady steps I left the valley and made my way to the caravan road. I stopped on the side of a hill overlooking the road and stared down at it in wonder. The road glowed bright silver, as though it were a channel of water flowing beneath the moon. A desert mouse ran past, and I saw that its body also glowed silver. I raised my hand to my face. Light danced upon my fingers, faint but impossible to deny.
The urge to laugh was almost too strong to suppress. It would not be wise to surrender to it. Sounds carried far across the desert, and who knew what might be hunting in the darkness? I descended to the road and followed it with slow steps eastward, pausing from time to time to turn myself in a complete circle and gaze in admiration at the subtle alteration in the world. There was no danger of wandering off the road through carelessness. It shone like a beacon.
A flicker upon the sands drew my attention to the north. It danced and floated, a cloud of moonlight that changed its shape moment by moment as it moved across the desert with the irregular darts and pauses of a butterfly. Never had I seen any similar creature, nor did I remember hearing such a thing described. The thought came that it must be some kind of djinn.
As I watched, my eyes distinguished its form from the obscuring glow. Elongated legs that folded beneath its haunches allowed it to hop across the sand. A large head with expanded mobile ears like those of a bat surmounted its slender body, and framed enormous black eyes and a wide mouth filled with needle-like teeth. The forelegs of the djinn were gracefully tapered, its hands like those of a woman. It was a creature of the airy element, beautiful in its delicacy. I gazed at it in admiration as it hopped and darted nearer. It became aware of my attention, and its movements quickened as though with interest. While I continued to walk along the road it circled me, always remaining at a distance as though attracted yet at the same moment frightened by my awareness of its presence.
It was to be a night of surprises. Walking around a bend in the road, I saw standing beside a small mound of stones the figure of a woman. Her body glowed even as mine. She stood naked with her back to me, unaware of my approach. As I drew near, the strangeness of her nature revealed itself. Through the glowing mist of her transparent torso I was able to distinguish the rocks that lay beyond her on the desert.
Stopping behind her almost near enough to touch, I spoke. She trembled and slowly turned. Her face lacked all expression, and her open eyes showed only the whites, without their centers. Her lips parted and a faint sound came forth. I leaned nearer to hear. She stepped toward me and raised her hand to touch my face before I could draw back, but her hand passed through the flesh and bone of my head. I felt it go through me like a cold splash of water. Again she reached out, and put her hand through my chest. Her fingers brushed my heart but did me no harm. With an expression of regret, or perhaps disappointment, she slowly turned back to face the mound of stones at her feet.
She was a ghost, and the mound her grave. Never before had I seen a ghost, yet I felt unafraid. What could not touch my skin threatened little harm. I realized that my ability to see her must be due to the white spiders I had consumed the previous morning, and that the same was true for the darting djinn that watched and circled. I passed my hand through her naked back. She shuddered but did not step away, as though lacking the strength to respond. How many years had she stood alone, guarding her remains in the night? The grave was old, its stones scattered and weathered, almost hidden by sand. Even so, it might contain something of value.
When I had thrown aside the large stones, I drew my dagger and dug into the sand. It had packed beneath the stones over time and came away in pieces that crumbled in my hands. The ghost of the woman became agitated. She tried to grasp my shoulders and pull me away, but her hands passed through my body. Her shrieks of frustration sighed in my ears like the wind. I ignored her and went on with my digging until I exposed the shroud of the corpse. It ripped as I drew it from the hole, spilling its burden of bones. The grave was very old. With disappointment, I picked through the bones for any pieces of gold or silver. The grave clothes of the corpse had rotted away. Any jewelry of base metals had corroded to nothingness with the years. There was no gold.
A cloud of light surrounded me, pressing over my face and stifling my breath like a layer of cloth. I recognized the sensation, having felt it before after opening the grave of the Bedouin. The djinn had wrapped its arms around me and was pressing its hands over my mouth and the ruin of my nose in an attempt to suffocate me. With a shrug of annoyance, I cast it off and went on with my search, but it returned like a buzzing fly, pressing its body through mine. At last, I reached the end of my patience and stood.
“You want the corpse?” I asked the spirit. “Very well, take it.”
The creature appeared to understand me. At once it ceased its futile efforts to stifle my breath and descended on the pile of brown bones. The ghost gave out a piteous wail and tried to push the djinn out of the grave, but the djinn ignored her. As it passed its slender fingers through the bones, I saw a golden mist arise from the bones and enter the spirit’s gaping mouth. For a moment the mist swirled within the gaunt torso of the spirit, like smoke in a bottle, contrasting with the more silver radiance of its own essence, then it faded and spread through the djinn’s limbs, making them glow more brightly. The ghost of the woman cried out once and vanished upward into the night sky in a streak of light.
“At least one of us has fed.”
Disappointment at the lack of any useful object in the grave made me bitter. Leaving the spirit to digest its meal, I continued along the road, my head still spinning pleasantly from the effects of the spiders. I had not walked a dozen steps when I saw it from the corner of my eye, hopping in graceful bounds on its long hind legs as it kept pace beside me. I ignored the creature, thi
nking that it would lose interest and go away, but it began to dance in circles around me. After walking more than an hour, I stopped and faced it.
“What do you want with me?”
As though it had waited for me to speak, it loped nearer with graceful little hops and put its face close to mine, staring directly into my eyes. I saw that its face, and indeed its entire body, was covered in a fine fur. Its eyes had no lids, and were completely black and nearly as large around as my fists. Its lipless mouth quirked up at the corners, revealing its curved teeth, like the teeth of a comb.
“I may be ugly,” I said, “but you are no houri of Paradise yourself.”
It moved its face forward without warning so that its head passed into my own. I cried out in disgust and tried to pull my head away, but it held my neck and head in its arms and followed my motions, so that its spectral head remained embedded in mine. Dimly but clearly, I heard in my thoughts a single whispered word.
Friend.
I stopped struggling to free my head from its embrace, since the effort was futile.
“Did you speak?”
Friend to wanderer.
“I don’t need any friends.”
Useful to wanderer.
“How can you be useful?”
I will teach you. I know many secrets. Many places of concealment. Hidden things.
My interest quickened. With sufficient wealth I could buy the things I needed to survive from passing caravans, and would not need to scavenge the desert.
“Do you mean treasure? You know were treasure is hidden?”
Yes, if you wish. Treasures.
“What do you want in return for leading me to these treasures?”
