Alhazred

by Donald Tyson

  “Why do you drink here?” I asked when the shop owner was out of hearing. “Surely there are better places?”

  “Alas, no, not in the northern section of Memphis.”

  “The part I walked through did have a desolate aspect,” I agreed.

  He took a deep drink from his cup.

  “Little wonder. The Amir is having the buildings pulled apart, and the stones shipped down river to the new city of Fustat.”

  “What of the people who live in them?”

  He shrugged philosophically, with the air of a man who is sure that he has a roof waiting for him at the end of the day.

  “They are cast out, and must fend for themselves. Most have gone down river to Fustat, where there is much work to be had for laborers and craftsmen.”

  “Surely those who have lived all their lives here resent this destruction of their city?”

  “What can we do? You are our lords and masters.”

  He smiled faintly in apology, and waved his hand.

  “I don’t mean you personally, of course, but the army of Mohammed that rules this land from Babylon.”

  “Babylon? Don’t you mean Damascus?”

  He laughed.

  “There is an old fortress at Fustat that they call Babylon. That is where the Muslim troops are quartered.”

  All this was useful information, but had nothing to do with his reasons for being under the tail of the Sphinx by moonlight. I wondered how to approach the subject. His furtive movements in my dream, and the care with which he had taken to conceal his face before entering under the Sphinx, indicated that it was a matter of great secrecy. He would never speak of it in casual conversation, and I did not believe he was a man I could easily cause to become drunk.

  Glancing around to be sure no one else in the wine shop was near enough to hear, I leaned forward.

  “I have not been completely honest with you. Like yourself, I am a seeker after wisdom. Indeed, it was the quest for arcane knowledge that drew me to this land.”

  “What do you consider arcane?” he asked with a wary smile, studying my face.

  “You are a man of sophistication, so I will speak freely. The arts of sorcery and necromancy.”

  “These arts are forbidden, as I am sure you know,” he said.

  “Forbidden, but not forgotten, not in this ancient land.”

  He pursed his lips and considered whether to answer.

  “True. There are necromancers on the Nile, just as there were in the age of the pharaohs. They conceal their identities, for discovery to the authorities means swift execution.”

  “I wish you to introduce me to them.”

  His eyes widened under his heavy brows, and he laughed.

  “What makes you believe that I know anything about such forbidden matters?”

  When I held up my index finger, he fell silent. I waited until his gaze rested upon the tip of my finger, then lowered it to the surface of the table and traced the symbol I had seen him use to expose the hidden door beneath the tail of the Sphinx.

  With a choked cry, he leapt to his feet, knocking over his wine cup in the process. He stared around wildly, his eyes lingering on the door. Smoothly, so as not to frighten him, I stood and laid my hand on his shoulder.

  “Do not fear. Your secret is safe,” I murmured.

  Everyone in the shop stopped talking to watch our little pantomime. Dru realized he was the object of attention and forced an unconvincing smile onto his face.

  “How clumsy,” he said in a loud voice. “I’ve spilled wine all over myself.”

  The proprietor of the shop bustled over with a rag, making sympathetic noises, and brushed off the hem of the scholar’s tunic, then wiped the table. We sat down as though nothing had happened, smiling and joking as two old friends. When he saw that we no longer held the attention of the other patrons of the shop, Dru leaned across the table.

  “How do you know that symbol?”

  “It was revealed to me in a dream.”

  “Alhazred, this is nothing to jest about.”

  In a few words I described my dream, telling him how I had gone in the company of a tall man wearing a caul of black silk to the plateau of the pyramids, where I had seen Dru enter beneath the tail of the Sphinx. When I described the dark man, his face became even paler than normal, so that I was sure he would faint. I pushed my cup across the table.

  “Take a drink, my friend.”

  He shook his head, staring at me with mingled terror and awe.

  “This dark figure in your dream, does he have a name?”

  “Nyarlathotep,” I whispered.

  He clutched my hand and squeezed painfully. I do not believe he was even aware of doing it.

  “Never utter his name aloud, Alhazred.”

  “I know nothing of him, other than that he appears in my dreams,” I said carelessly, extracting my hand from the vise of his fingers.

  “Why would he visit your dreams?” he said, more to himself than to me.

  “He wants me to serve him in some way, but of what way I can be of service, I am ignorant.”

  He nodded, thinking furiously to himself. He had the look of a man about to lapse into a fit, and I thought it best for us to leave the wine shop before we attracted more attention. I drew him to his feet and led him out the door with my arm around his shoulder, as though supporting him in his drunkenness.

  “The leader of my order must speak to you. The god of chaos has called you to Egypt for a purpose.”

  “I am eager to meet with your leader, who must be a man of great wisdom.”

  “So he is,” Dru said. “And he is my father.”

  “Take me to him, then.”

  The scholar shook his head.

  “He is in Fustat, along with most of the members of my order. I am only in Memphis on a buying mission. My ship will sail down river as soon as it loads the cargo that is presently being readied for it on the docks, but that will not be until tomorrow morning.”

  “Very well. I will meet you on the northern docks in the morning, after I collect my belongings and my servant from the inn.”

  He seemed reluctant to allow me to go out of his sight, but at last agreed to my arrangement. I left him standing in the street and made my way back toward the inn.

  Martala sat with crossed legs on the floor of our room beneath the coolness of the open window. On the other side of the street, through the open screens of the opposite house, I saw the young householder’s wife sweeping with her broom. She glanced at me with an expression I could not define and continued with her work. Martala had already eaten, but had possessed the forethought to buy an extra plate of roast breast of fowl and boiled peppers, along with a piece of bread. I sat on the edge of the bed facing her and ate this cold fare from my lap while she watched.

  “The stable keeper was distraught over the death of his best mule,” she said. “He wept when I told him how it fell from a ledge of rock and broke its neck.”

  “The gold coin will solace him.”

  She averted her pale eyes for a moment, and I realized she had not given him the coin, but had divided it and paid for the mule with only part of the money. The rest she had kept for herself.

  I tore with my teeth at the meat of the fowl. It was from a bird I could not identify, and as tough as old boot leather, with the same dryness and lack of flavor. Having experimentally gnawed at the leather of my sandals while hungry in the desert, I knew the taste well. The bread was a day old and dried out, but more tender than the bird. Even so, it was food, and would nourish my body.

  Martala took amused notice of the uncommon time I spent chewing a shred of the fowl.

  “The cook left the service of the inn yesterday. Your meal was prepared by the innkeeper’s wife—she of
the long face and disapproving expression.”

  I swallowed with difficulty, reminding myself that I was a ghoul.

  “Tomorrow morning I sail for Fustat. You may come with me if you wish, since it serves my purpose to have a servant.”

  “I am no one’s servant,” she said hotly, ice-gray eyes blazing.

  “It is a pose, nothing more. I have presented myself as a man of wealth. Such a man would not travel without at least one servant.”

  “Why do we go to Fustat?”

  In few words I described my dream, and how I had recognized the man in the street as the same who had passed under the Sphinx. To my surprise, she did not scoff, but merely nodded.

  “I have had such dreams, not about this dark man but about matters of importance in my life. It is always wise to heed them.”

  “It is for my own purposes that I go. This order of sages may possess knowledge I can turn to use. Let the dark man believe I am his servant, while I pursue my own ends.”

  “What are those ends?”

  I gestured with my greasy fingers at my face and then to my groin.

  “I was not always as you see me with your scryer’s vision. Once I was a whole man, and I will be whole again. I seek the magic to restore my body.”

  She nodded, satisfied with this explanation. The restoration of my body was a quest material enough for her comprehension, as I had known it would be.

  “Very well, Alhazred, I will pretend to be your servant, even as you pretend to serve the dark man.” She smiled to herself. “I wonder who he pretends to serve?”

  To this, I had no answer.

  The night was uncommonly warm. I took off my Muslim coat, undershirt, and surwal, then lay upon the feather-filled mattress of the bed on my back. Martala curled up naked on the floor beneath the open window, its screens wide to admit any faint trace of a breeze. As the sweat trickled from my chest and rolled down my sides beneath my arms, I envied her whatever coolness of the night air found its way over the windowsill, and considered giving her the bed and taking her place on the floor, but decided it was not fitting for a man of wealth to give his bed to his servant. With a silent laugh, I rolled on to my shoulder, facing the window, and let myself sink into sleep.

  Through the vague depths of some troubled dream the beautiful face of Sashi swam into view. I thought she had come to make love to me, and in my imagination opened my arms to receive her, but the expression in her almond eyes remained serious.

  Wake up, my love, there is danger.

  “What danger, Sashi?” I muttered in my sleep.

  With urgency, she reached forward and grabbed me by the hands. Her strength was strangely out of proportion for her slender body. She jerked me forward until my teeth rattled.

  Wake up, Alhazred!

  I started to awareness on the mattress and opened my eyes, listening. The night was as silent as it ever becomes in the midst of a city. A faint moon glow shone through the open window, illuminating the huddled form of Martala where I had last seen her. Slow deep breaths gave indication that she slept. For a minute or two I lay still, my heart thudding in my chest. No sound came from outside the bolted door. At last I relaxed and allowed myself to breathe normally. I was about to say something harsh to Sashi when a shadow moved outside the window.

  At first I thought someone climbed from the street on a rope or ladder, but the motion that attracted my eye was further away than the windowsill, and I realized the wooden screens of the window across the street were slowly widening. So gradual was their movement that it could not be seen at a glance, but only by the change in the position of the edges of the screens over the span of seconds. I observed their parting with fascination, and wondered what they might reveal.

  A shadow shifted in their gap, the same dark shadow I had seen move through their latticework before the screens parted. As it leaned outward, it resolved itself into a man in a dark cloak. The cloak parted momentarily, and polished silver at his waist caught the moonlight and gleamed with a chill radiance. His shoulders were narrow, his arms thin. More than this I could not observe, for his eyes were covered by a visor that hung from a kind of skullcap of black metal, leaving only the lower part of his nose and his mouth exposed. His masked face and dark clothing merged well with the night, but not well enough to deceive the eyes of a ghoul.

  The visor must have obstructed his vision in the uncertain moonlight, which did not penetrate far into my room. He raised a slender white hand and tipped it away from his face, locking it upright to reveal a soft countenance and large dark eyes lined with kohl. With surprise, I realized that it was not the face of a man at all, but a young woman of some twenty years. She might have been beautiful, were it not for a hardness around her thin mouth when she clenched her square jaw.

  She drew back, and I heard a strange sound, a kind of creaking such as might be made by a dried reed when it is bowed. Her arm extended through the window, with something upright in her clenched fist, and there was the sound of tightening twine.

  Even before I realized what the noises signified, I rolled off the opposite side of the bed and threw myself to the floor. My naked body made a sound like a sack of turnips when it struck. The air whistled, and something cut into the feather mattress where my back had pressed only a moment before.

  “Alhazred?” Martala’s voice was faint with sleep.

  “If you value your life, keep your head down,” I hissed.

  Crawling on my belly around the foot of the bed, I saw her crouched on hands and knees under the window. No sound came from across the street. Was the assassin waiting for a second chance, or had she fled? I slid to the wall and gained my feet, then approached the window from the side. With caution, I peered around the edge and immediately drew back my head. The thrum of the bowstring and the hiss of the arrow were followed immediately by a thud as the arrow embedded itself in the brick wall of the room on the opposite side of my bed.

  Through the window I heard a door rattle open, followed moments later by a second door, and running footfalls on the paving stones of the street. I risked another look. Nothing moved in the oblong of shadow that was the opposite window.

  “What’s going on?” Martala murmured, drowsiness blurring her voice.

  I pulled her to her feet and drew her across the floor to the bed. The arrow had passed into the mattress at an angle so that it had vanished from sight, but when I pulled the mattress out of its frame, we saw it embedded in the side rail of the bed. I worked it back and forth to remove it, taking care not to touch its metal tip. Perhaps it had not been poisoned, but there was no reason to assume so. Handing Martala the arrow, I extracted the other from the wall. It was identical. Both were flat black in color, even to their fledging and tips, and bore no marking or symbols of any kind.

  “Farri is persistent,” I murmured.

  “Yes, that is his only virtue.”

  She nodded with a grim expression when I described what I had seen in the moonlight, before leaping to the floor to preserve my life.

  “Zayna, Farri’s daughter. At one time she was his chief assassin. If she is in Memphis, Farri cannot be far behind.”

  “You told me nothing about a daughter.”

  She shrugged her white shoulders.

  “I’ve never met her. She lives in Alexandria. Before I came to Bubastis, she had some sort of argument with her father and left in anger.”

  “It seems they have reconciled.”

  There would be no rest for me until I knew what had taken place in the house across the street. Peering down from my window, I saw that its front door hung ajar. I told the girl to remain in the room and out of sight as I threw my coat over my naked limbs, and made sure that my dagger was still in its sheath when I slung its baldric around my head and shoulder. I worked my way softly down the stairwell of the inn and unbolted the front
door. The hour was late enough that nothing stirred in the street.

  The gaping front door gave the house across the way an abandoned look. Feeling the grit of the paving stones against my bare feet, I stepped over the sewage channel in the middle of the street and eased my shoulders sideways through the gap in the door, then drew it shut behind me. I had to feel my way through the black interior toward the stairs, listening all the while with my breath stilled in my throat. What I expected to find, I do not know, but when I felt a sticky wetness under my toes in the upper hallway, it was without a sense of surprise. I leaned over and touched the face of a woman. Her cheeks were cold beneath my fingers. They told me what my eyes could not. I felt her long black hair spread around her head like a halo, half of it soaked in the blood that had gushed from the slash in her throat.

  Standing in the darkness in her drying blood, I remembered the curious expression on her face when I had seen her sweeping the room, after my return to the inn. Had the assassin been in the room, watching her? Had she heard my talk with Martala, and learned that we sailed to Fustat in the morning? There was no way to know, but it would be safest to assume that in one way or another Farri would learn we had traveled to Fustat. The time for carelessness was past. I found myself curiously eager that Farri did know my destination. It was apparent that the only way to end these attempts on my life would be to kill him.

  Chapter 21

  Fustat had the chaotic look of a city not grown from natural roots, but imposed upon the land. Everything remained half finished. The roads were muddy tracks. The docks consisted of wooden logs that held frames of rutted, compressed earth. Elegant buildings of polished stones stolen from the temples of Memphis rose beside rude huts of clay or tents of camel hair. Despite its rough face, the new city held an air of purpose. Men labored or hurried about on errands with the inner assurance that their work was important. Memphis, for all its grandeur and beauty, lacked this frantic energy. That it was being built upon the eastern bank of the river, the direction of the rising sun, whereas Memphis occupied the west bank where the sun sets, only seemed to emphasize the distinction.