Alhazred

by Donald Tyson

  Sashi, I said inwardly.

  Yes, my love?

  Leave me and locate where Zayna and Altrus have camped for the night.

  It will be as you say.

  I felt her slide through the pores of my skin and stream from my eyes, nose-hole, and parted lips. Martala cried in terror and jumped back, drawing her dagger. Perhaps I should have warned her.

  “This is Sashi,” I said when the djinn crouched on a rock before us, glowing with an eerie luminescence.

  Martala stared speechless at the spirit, who waggled her grotesque head at the girl before loping away on her long hind legs in the direction of the road.

  “Is that truly how she looks?”

  “It is,” I said, then corrected myself. “It is her true appearance while she is outside my skin.”

  We started on foot toward the north, where the road crossed through the hills. Without the second sight, progress over the loose stones and uneven ground would have been impossible. The only natural light came from the stars. Not even a sliver of moon rode the heavens. It was as dark as night ever became in the absence of a storm. I hoped that the darkness would provide the advantage I needed over Altrus.

  As we crawled on hands and knees to peer over the crest of a hill at the glowing ribbon of the caravan road that wound its way below, the shining body of the djinn returned through the night air, moving in quick little darts from side to side as though dancing weightlessly across the stones. I stood with open arms and let her enter my flesh.

  They are camped for the night in the northern hills, not far along the road to the east.

  “Tell me when we are close.”

  I will do so, my love.

  We descended to the road as noiselessly as we were able and followed its bright path eastward. The warning of the djinn enabled me to find the place where the two assassins had entered the hills. Remnants of their footprints still glowed on the ground. It was a natural canyon of no great depth. Brightly shining piles of old charcoal showed that its floor was often used as a stopping place by travelers. Their horses were tied to a small pile of stones.

  Altrus lay on his woven sleeping mat near a wall of rock at the rear of the canyon, covered with a blanket. Zayna sat further away with her back to the rock, legs crossed, her sword naked on her knee. As I watched, she slapped at her neck and cursed softly. The flying insect that had bitten her evaded her hand and escaped with her blood, glowing like a tiny lamp to my second sight. The horses stirred with unease and drew their tethers taunt. I wondered if they smelled our sweat.

  Saddles and packs lay piled in a heap next to the horses. Among their brightly radiant forms, the bow Zayna had used to attack the bandit brothers leaned unstrung across a saddle, its string wrapped around one of its curved ends. The quiver of arrows rested upright against the saddle. It was a poor way to handle such a fine bow. The string and the fletching of the arrows would be wet with night dew.

  For a time I considered the puzzle. Altrus lay closer to the horses than Zayna. If I attempted to get beside Zayna to cut her throat, I must pass near Altrus, and I had no confidence that I could do so without waking him. If I tossed a pebble to draw Zayna out from her place, the mercenary would wake. I wondered how well Farri’s daughter could see in the shadowed canyon, with only the stars for lanterns.

  Gesturing for Martala to remain where she crouched, I worked my way closer, approaching the campsite directly behind the horses. My movements were hidden by the restless stirrings of their legs, or so I hoped. The eye of the nearer animal rolled as it regarded the darkness with unease. I stood motionless as a pillar. The spiders gave me the advantage of seeing every loose pebble in my path, for the stones were impregnated with the bodies of tiny ancient creatures that glowed like flecks of silver in ink. Zayna cast her glance toward the horses with a frown on her face. She heard them moving but perceived no reason for their unease.

  Taking the bow into my hand, I withdrew a step behind the horses and set one end on the ground to string it. As I put pressure on the tapered and curved wood, it gave forth a small crack. I cursed silently to myself. A bow always complained when it was strung. Usually it was done so quickly that the sound passed unnoticed. Tonight I could not afford to make so familiar a noise. I slowly increased the strain on the bow, bending it down the width of a thumbnail before pausing.

  What at first had seemed like a good idea soon became a nightmare. Sweat dripped from my face and hands as I held the tension on the bow, using the weight of my body to bend it by tiny degrees so that it would emit no recognizable sound. The further the bow curved, the more strongly it resisted my push. When I became impatient and bent it more than I intended, it cracked softly, causing Zayna to glance at the horses. I waited for her to lose interest, then continued in the same way. My relief when the loop of the string finally slipped into place over the grooved end of the weapon was so great, I almost cried out. For several minutes I stood trembling, sweat running down my body.

  Martala had not moved. I saw that she held the naked blade of her little dagger next to her knee. With exquisite care, I stepped to the side of the horses and reached forward to slide an arrow from the quiver. It made no sound. I notched its fledged end to the string and aligned it against the first knuckle of my left hand where I gripped the leather lashing of the bow.

  Zayna jumped to her feet when she heard the bow bend as I drew the arrow to my ear. I shot her through the center of the chest where she stood. A groan escaped her lips, loud in the stillness, and her sword clattered on the stony ground. Altrus threw off his blanket and sat up, peering around in the darkness, which I knew must seem almost absolute to his eyes. He felt for the sword at his side and grasped the hilt.

  “Zayna, what is it?” he hissed.

  He heard the woman’s corpse crumple to the earth. A horse neighed in alarm, and I saw him stare straight at me. As I fumbled for a second arrow, he found his feet and started toward me. I knew I must draw and fire quickly, unless I wished to find myself fighting for my life. When I pulled the arrow to my cheek, the dew-wetted string of the bow snapped with a force that jarred the bones in both my hands.

  Altrus was almost upon me before my sword cleared its scabbard. How he fought in the darkness is a mystery. He seemed able to feel my blade as I cut the air, and he blocked it with disquieting ease. Had it not been for the excited prancing of the horses at the ends of the tethers, driving us apart, he would have killed me within moments. Even so, I would surely have died had I fought him alone.

  I heard him cry out in agony, and for the first time realized that as we battled, Martala had worked her way behind him. She pulled her dagger from between his shoulder blades, brightness dripping from its edge to the stones. Of all the things that shine in the second sight of the white spiders, nothing shines brighter than fresh blood. I felt the resistance of his robes give way beneath the slashing stroke of my sword, and the hardness of his ribs against the thrusting point of steel.

  Maddened by the scent of blood, one of the horses broke its tether and stumbled between us. Altrus grasped its streaming mane in his left hand and threw his right leg over its back. When it bolted from the canyon in terror, I saw him clinging precariously to its side, only partially upon its back, the tip of the sword he would not release trailing the ground and casting up sparks where it struck on stones.

  Chapter 37

  The next five days passed monotonously, a pleasant change of pace. I am not a man to complain about lack of excitement. Boredom never killed anyone. It seemed prudent to choose campsites that were easy to defend from approach in the darkness, and we kept watch in turns, one asleep while the other sat listening to the night sounds. There was little wood along the road for the making of fires, so we ate our travel provisions cold. The girl did not complain.

  She spent the early hours of the first night restlessly shifting on her sleeping rug, startin
g at pebbles rolled by the hooves of the horses and the squeak of rats. I almost felt sorry for her when I gave her the second watch and lay down beneath my cloak. In the light of morning it was clear to see that she had not slept at all. The next night I told her to take the first watch, on the assumption that she might sleep if she were tired enough, and we continued this practice to the river.

  Altrus we neither saw by day nor heard by night.

  “Maybe he returned to Iskanderun,” Martala said, speaking her thoughts aloud.

  We guided our dusty and fatigued horses along the road as it wound its way over the plain of brown grasses and low shrubs that replaced the hills when we neared the Euphrates. Out of habit I scanned the horizon for movement. We were alone. Over the entire journey we had encountered only a single caravan, making its way to the sea with its score of camels heavily laden with bags of spices and bolts of silk.

  “He was badly wounded,” I observed. “He must have been or he would have killed us by now.”

  “My dagger struck deep,” she said with satisfaction.

  “Let us hope he lies crawling with maggots and flies amid the hills.”

  “May the Goddess make it so.”

  Not for a moment did I believe it, and neither did she.

  On the fifth day after our battle with Altrus the grasses became greener and taller. Flocks of birds flew overhead with uncanny precision, turning and diving through the air in unison like a single creature as the sunlight flashed on the white of their angled wings. I smelled the river before we saw it. The smell was rich and muddy, with a tang of decay.

  The Euphrates was as much a disappointment as the Syrian Gates. From its ancient reputation as a great river, I expected it to have the same broad majesty as the Nile, but it was narrow and twisted, with rocks projecting above its swiftly moving waters. They were green with the slime of the innumerable reeds and lilies that grew in shallow pools at its edge. The more traveled branch of the road followed the river southward, divided from the water by a barrier of dense green willows, their leaves so thick in places that I could not see through them, even from the back of my horse. The flies had no trouble penetrating them. I sweated and cursed as they drew my blood.

  We came upon a gathering of buildings thatched over with sun-yellowed reeds. The lower part of the houses were of unmortared field stones, the upper part of irregular reddish mud brick. It would be pretentious to call it a town, although it boasted a wall of sorts. The road continued along the river bank, but no man with sanity travels by land when he can travel by water. I glanced at Martala and inclined my head toward the gateway of the place. She nodded and turned her horse after mine, too tired to speak.

  The inhabitants surprised me by their physical beauty. Many had reddish hair and fair skin. They were tall and of well-proportioned limbs, the remnant of the Greek army of Alexander, perhaps. The women wore no veils, but stared at us without shyness when we rode into the marketplace. The men paid little attention, and the children watched in respectful silence. Even the dogs refrained from barking or nipping at the heels of our travel-weary mounts.

  We left our horses to be cared for at the public stable and continued on foot across the marketplace to the river. It was a relief to stretch my legs after so many hours in the saddle. The wooden docks supported by massive piles were extensive enough to have served a much more populous village. Numerous flat-bottomed river craft floated on the water, some much larger than others, their bows tied to vertical poles inserted into the mud beneath the river. Both bow and stern upturned in much the same way as the Egyptian reed boats, but these were made from wooden planks overlapped like the scales of a fish. Short masts with furled sails extended from the middle of their decks. It puzzled me to imagine what use a sail would serve in this swift current.

  Walking to the very end of the docks, I peered down the stream and saw a donkey on a beaten track that followed the edge of the water, pulling one such vessel on a rope against the flow, while two boatmen assisted its progress and kept it away from the reeds with long poles. Both wore white linen robes trimmed with pale blue that resembled thawbs, having loose sleeves that hung down below their elbows, and brimless white caps that clung tight to their heads. They appeared impervious to the biting flies that swarmed up in clouds from the shallows at the edge of the river, disturbed by the ripples.

  The girl who rode the donkey could not have been older than seven or eight years. She minded the flies no more than the men, even though they lit and crawled over the dark hair that cascaded in waves down her back. A blue dress protected her arms with its long sleeves, but the skirt ended at her knees, and the ungathered cuffs of her white surwal left her ankles and feet bare. She grinned when she saw my eyes upon her, showing teeth like pearls.

  As we stood idly watching the cargo bales from one of the larger vessels unloaded onto the dockside, amid much cursing and rough talk from the boatmen, I noticed the pilot of the donkey-drawn craft eye us with a shrewd glance. He stood uncommonly tall, with a back as upright as the shaft of an ash spear, and a flowing white beard and bushy white eyebrows that seemed to burst forth like cat’s fur from under the tight rim of his cap. His hollow cheeks accentuated the noble thrust of his nose, its bridge as sharp as an axe blade. He turned to help his passengers, evidently a merchant and his wife, onto the dock. While his crewman unloaded the merchant’s belongings, he approached us with an inquiring expression.

  “Are you seeking to hire? My name is Yarku and my boat is the best on the river.” This was said without pretension.

  The language he spoke rang strange in my ears. Thanks to the finger of Nectanebus, I had no trouble comprehending his words, but out of long habit I pretended not to understand, and he repeated his question in Greek. I admitted that we intended to hire a boat to take us down the river, and eyed his vessel doubtfully. It was so narrow, I could have touched both gunnels by lying across it, without the need to stretch out my arms.

  “Will it hold the two of us and our horses?”

  He made a gesture with his hand, dismissing my concern.

  “Only two horses? I’ve taken four.”

  “When can you be ready to depart?”

  He raised his bushy eyebrows in surprise.

  “You wish to leave today?”

  I smiled tightly, wondering to myself how this old fellow came to have so much nose while I had none at all.

  “Your town is charming, whatever may be its name—”

  “Meskene.”

  “But we have no dealings here,” I finished.

  “What is your destination?”

  “We seek the ruins of the ancient city named Babylon,” Martala said in a pleasant tone. “Do you know of them?”

  His tanned cheeks paled beneath their web work of wrinkles. The boatmen laboring nearby fell silent and eyed us with unease.

  “I know it,” he admitted with reluctance. “It is a place accursed. Only a madman would go there.”

  I smiled to disarm him, but he only hardened his mouth, thinking that I mocked his warning.

  “What is the nature of this curse?”

  “Death.” He spat the word at me. “All who go there die.”

  “Even so, that is our destination. If you are frightened of the place, you can put us on land some distance up river, and we will ride the last few miles.”

  “That isn’t necessary. The ruins are not on the water, although they are close to it.”

  “Will you take us there?”

  He hesitated, then shrugged his bony shoulders. The unspoken words were plain. If we were mad enough to go there, he would bear no responsibility for our fate.

  We fixed on a price, and he promised to have the boat ready for us, with our horses and belongings loaded, in an hour. There was just time to visit a tavern and buy a cooked meal of fresh river fish fried in a pan and newly
baked bread. The tavern beer tasted good after the dust of the road.

  “How long do you think it will take us to reach the ruins?” Martala asked with her mouth full of crust.

  We sat at a small table in the corner of the shadowy common room, away from the ears of its other patrons. So many were travelers like ourselves, we attracted not a glance.

  “At least two weeks, but probably nearer three. It is a long distance. Ask that bearded Cassandra when we board the boat.”

  She laughed, and had to push the bread back between her lips with her fingers.

  “Aren’t you frightened by his prophecy?” I said with a grim smile.

  She snorted and drank from her wooden flagon, then wiped her lips with the back of her hand.

  “We’re necromancers. What fears can death hold for us?”

  Her bold words surprised me, but I admitted to myself they carried some truth. Why should a man resurrected from his own corpse fear death? In my heart I did not feel so cheerful. Only a fool ignores a warning of danger.

  When we returned to the dockside, the food suddenly became leaden in my stomach. Not only had Yarku loaded our horses, but also his donkey. The little girl sat astride its back in the stern, which seemed sensible, for I could not see an open place as wide as my hand on the flat deck planks in the bottom of the vessel for her to stand. It rode so low in the river, the ripples washed no more than half a cubit below the midpoint of its gunnels.

  The bearded old man saw my expression of dismay and hurried over to us with a reassuring smile that Charon must have given the shades of the dead just before they crossed the Styx.

  He ushered us into the boat with gentle proddings of his long fingers.