Alhazred

by Donald Tyson

  “What is its nature?”

  “I’m not sure. It sounded like what the Christians do with their babies.”

  “Eat them, you mean?” I asked with a smile.

  She snorted in laughter.

  “Christians don’t eat babies. That’s just a fable. They eat their god.”

  The wagons were not on the side of the road, but drawn together in a ring in a hollow sheltered between low hills. The existence of a long-established hearth of blackened stones in the middle of the hollow showed that it had been used many times in the past. The hearth was larger than usual, too large to accommodate a pot. It was furnished with firewood, but it had not yet been ignited.

  While we cared for the shaggy horses, Belok stood apart with the men of the other wagons and talked to them in a low voice. From time to time, the men cast dark glances at us. I did not like the spark in the depths of their eyes, but said nothing to alarm the girl. Belok left the group and came over to us, a smile on his broad face.

  “The elders have agreed to allow you to witness the rite of the companion tonight. You are the first outsiders ever to see it.”

  “We are honored,” I told him.

  He nodded, glancing from me to the girl.

  “Say nothing during the rite, and keep to the background. The less you are noticed, the better.”

  As night fell, wood piled upon the open hearth was ignited. The crackling fire drew all the inhabitants of the wagons into the open. Some of the younger men carried flutes of curious construction, that appeared to my eye to be made of bone, and others flat drums inset around their rims with silver bangles. As the celebrants stood watching the sparks from the blazing fire ascend toward the stars, straw-covered flasks were passed from hand to hand. Each man or woman who received a flask took a drink from its open mouth and passed it on. The children were not denied the flasks, although the younger ones coughed and made wry faces after they swallowed. A youth who drank and laughed at the same time sprayed his mouthful of liquor into the fire, which roared up with the voice of an angry dragon, to the delight and amusement of the throng.

  The musicians began to beat the drums with curved sticks and make a trilling music with the flutes. The rest milled about, talking and laughing, faces flushed with excitement. Some of the older girls and youths began to dance around the fire, leaping from one foot to the other and raising their arms while shouting in unison.

  “I wonder what is in the flasks,” Martala murmured with a wistful note.

  We sat together on stones beside Naleen’s wagon, a few paces outside the circle of revelers.

  “Fortified spirits of wine,” I said, watching four of the older bearded men approach the fire. “Do not drink it. I want your wits about you tonight.”

  The four elders arranged themselves around the fire, so close that its flames must have been painful upon their bare cheeks and hands. One looked to be at least four-score years. His humped back did not disguise the vigor of his body, nor was there any weakness of age in his keen gaze. He turned toward the far side of the circle, and the music raggedly ceased. Following his gaze with my own, I saw a man carry a naked infant toward the fire in his outstretched hands. The baby lay cradled on his palms.

  He took his place at the fire with the four elders, standing close to the flames but holding the baby near his chest in the shelter of his arms so that its tender skin was not singed by the heat. The music resumed in a more rhythmic and purposeful way. A woman began to sing in a nasal voice. Soon other women joined in the song, their voices rising and falling with the trilling of the flutes. I could make out no words. The song was composed of extended vowels voiced deep in the throat and chest, so that they caused the night air to vibrate.

  The white-bearded elder with the hump between his shoulders began to make an invocation, raising his hands skyward while the musicians and singers swayed their bodies from side to side. He chanted in the tongue of the wagon race, his words unknown to me, save for the single repeated refrain a’ai y’gatu l’il ro’kanah Shub-Niggurath, which was spoken in the language of the Old Ones. As the chant rose in power, the father of the infant passed it through the flames and smoke to another elder, holding the child high to avoid burning it. A great shout went up from the gathering. The baby began to bawl in protest and kick its tiny naked feet. The second elder passed the child through the flames to a third, and another shout arose. In this way the babe was exchanged above the fire five times and returned to its father’s hands.

  So intense was my concentration on what was being done around the fire, I did not notice the goat until it bleated, its thin cries rising above the music. It was led into the circle on two ropes that were tied to its forelegs. Each rope was held by a girl dressed in a white gown, with a wreath of flowers and greenery about her forehead. One of the girls was Pula. Her face bore an expression of nervous expectancy. The goat, too, was wreathed in flowers, its coat so spotlessly white that I wondered if it had been treated with chalk. It moved without resistance as though in a daze.

  As the music quickened, the wordless keening of the singers intensified. A woman not much older than Martala left the throng and stepped to the side of the goat. She drew her long knife from her embroidered girdle. All the onlookers seized up metal pots, wooden bowls, and dry sticks which they had waiting beside them and began to bang them together, making a deafening din. The father of the infant turned from the fire and knelt on one knee, holding the baby close to the bewildered animal as the woman pulled back its head and slit its throat with a single stroke. A scarlet fountain gushed upon the naked infant, covering it with red from head to toe. The goat dropped to its knees, then collapsed dead before the pulses of blood from its throat ceased.

  Amid the bang of pans and the shouted voices, two of the elders picked up the carcass of the beast by its limp legs and cast it directly upon the fire. A crackle went up from its blazing white hide. The hump-backed senior took the baby out of the hands of the father. He elevated the blood-drenched infant directly above the flames, holding it as high as his arms allowed to avoid the worst of the heat, which must still have been intense upon the backs of his hands and forearms.

  Martala touched my arm. I glanced at her, and she pointed upward. High above the fire, a kind of mist formed in the night sky. It mingled with the rising smoke yet was not of the same color. Nor did it ascend and disperse with the smoke, but coalesced and fell downward in an unnatural manner. A tongue of this pale mist extended itself toward the infant like the inquisitive head of a serpent.

  The moment the mist touched the infant, the crowd of watchers ceased their clamor, and the wail of the baby was cut off as though smothered. In the eerie silence that followed, the mist formed a mask over its tiny face and entered it through the seven openings of its head. As the last tendril of mist curled between its lips, it turned its head to the side with strange precision, and its small eyes shone with awareness in which there was no trace of innocence. It seemed to gaze directly at me with a malicious intent that sent a shiver of dread along my spine.

  A yellow and white cloth was given to the woman who killed the goat. She took the silent baby from the bent elder and wrapped it with loving care. I realized that she must be the mother of the child. The father came to her and they gazed down at the babe in her arms with expressions of bliss.

  Once again, the music began, but more carefree and less purposeful than before. The effects of the straw-covered flasks made the beat of the drums irregular. The gathering broke into couples and small groups. Men gave women leering glances and drew them away from the light of the fire, or tumbled them to the rough grass and rolled on top of them. It was a scene Bacchus would have approved.

  The white-bearded elder took a young man of some fifteen years by the hand and led him over to Pula, who stood in her white gown, trembling. He smiled and joined her hand with the hand of the youth, who leaned forward a
nd whispered something into her ear. She blushed, but her eyes flashed with pleasure. They walked together away from the fire and into the darkness beyond the ring of wagons. The old man laughed and went to Belok, who stood watching with an expression of drunken good humor.

  “Where is he taking the girl?” Martala asked.

  “That is a foolish question.”

  All the travelers were drunk, even the children. No one watched us. Men chased the women like satyrs, their tunics hiked up to reveal their lust, and the women were too dizzy to run far even had they wished to escape.

  Martala’s eyes widened with comprehension.

  “She is only thirteen years old.”

  “Old enough, to judge by the stains on her linen,” I murmured. “Didn’t you notice them when her grandmother boiled her clothes?”

  She shook her head, an expression of outrage on her face. From this response, I guessed that she remembered her first experience of love, which had not been agreeable.

  “I am going to follow them. Pula may need my help.”

  “As you wish,” I murmured, glancing around to see if we were being watched. “Guard your back. I dislike the way the men talked together before the ritual. Stay close so that I can find you quickly.”

  She nodded and slipped away in the darkness, moving with moderate skill in the direction taken by the blushing girl and her lover.

  I made my way to the back of Naleen’s wagon. By good fortune it was turned slightly away from the fire, so that its doors were in shadow. Reaching to open them, I hesitated. The witch had vanished at the end of the ritual, probably in the company of some lusty young man, but I had not noticed her departure. If she was inside the wagon, I would have to kill her. This I was happy to do, but it might arouse an outcry and bring the entire encampment down around my ear-holes. I was almost certain the witch was not in the wagon. Grasping the latch, I lifted it and opened the right side of the door, then climbed the step into the dark interior and closed the door behind me.

  Enough light from the fire came through the window in the left side to show that I was alone. I went directly to the sandalwood shrine and laid my hands on its doors, feeling the wooden studs.

  Sashi, do you remember which of these projections the witch pushed?

  Of course, dear love.

  Press them.

  I felt her flow into my arms and hands like a cool trickle of spring water. My fingers tingled and twitched. She took control of my hands and used them to manipulate the locking mechanism of the doors. With a soft click, they fell open.

  I stared long into the shrine, deep in thought. What I was about to do was irrevocable. It would force me to flee the wagons before the rising of the sun, or Naleen would have me strangled, along with the girl, if she herself did not slit our throats. Yet it was time to leave. Damascus could not be more than a few days’ travel. Once inside the city walls I wanted nothing to do with the yellow wagons or their fanatical inhabitants.

  In my nervous state of awareness, the glaring eyes of the black idol seemed to watch me with malice. I felt repugnance to touch its stone surface, but found it dry and warm as though heated by some inner flame. I drew my dagger from its sheath and used its point to pry at the silver setting that held the emerald in the rolled lips of its vulva. It popped out and I caught it in the palm of my other hand. It was the size of a small grape. After glancing at it in the light from the window to assure myself that I had not damaged it, I slipped it into a pocket.

  The loot from the caravan was kept in two large oak strongboxes strapped to the underside of the wagon. They were bound with black iron and locked. Even were I able to force the locks, I could not have lifted their lids without unstrapping them from their places beneath the floor. Nor could I have carried more than a fraction of the precious objects away. Putting the treasure chests out of my mind, I looked around the interior of the wagon for something else worth stealing. It was a disappointing search. The few books of the witch were of no interest to me and possessed scant value in the marketplace. Her store of herbs and stones were the common stock of any village wise woman, apart from a few substances that I did not recognize.

  I cast my eyes over the crowded shelves of the cupboard. As I suspected, the emerald was the only thing of outstanding worth in the wagon. With a noise of disgust deep in my throat, I began to shut the cupboard doors. A loud tinkling arose from the bottom shelf, and I remembered the row of glass bottles. Words the holy man had spoken on the road tickled the edge of my memory. It was something about souls. I had not listened after dismissing his ramblings as empty gossip.

  I knelt on the floor and bent my head low. There were seven bottles on the shelf, identical in size and shape, cylinders of clear glass that narrowed slightly at their broad mouths, which were stoppered with cork and green wax. The bottle on the right end of the row appeared brighter than the others. I peered close at its side. A weight of some kind hung inside from the rim on a thread, just above a small pool of noxious amber liquid. As I watched, the weight moved and tapped the inside surface of the glass. Cloudiness filled the space above the liquid, forming a fine condensation on the inside of the bottle that ran down in rivulets.

  Sashi, what is inside this bottle?

  She was silent for several moments.

  A spirit, dear heart. The spirit of a man.

  Can you understand what it is trying to say?

  Of course. It wishes to be released.

  How should I release it?

  You must break the bottle. That is all you must do.

  I sat back on my heels, listening to the annoying tinkle of the weight against the glass while I considered this odd request. I cared nothing about the magic of the witch. Who she chose to imprison in her bottles was none of my concern.

  Does each of these bottles contain a soul?

  Yes, my love. The others are asleep. They dream.

  Why is this one making so much noise?

  Its will is stronger than the others.

  Tell it that if I break the bottle, it may attract the notice of the witch.

  As I spoke these words in my mind, the tinkling became more violent. I could not hear its thoughts, but it could hear mine.

  I have no reason to help you, I thought, and several reasons not to help.

  Ignoring the tinkling, I began to close the doors of the cupboard.

  Alhazred, it says that you are in great danger. If you release it from its prison, it will tell you how to save yourself.

  Again I leaned back on my heels and regarded the smoky cylinder of glass, my hands still on the doors.

  Tell me what the danger is, and then I will release you.

  The tinkling slowed, then ceased for a moment before resuming.

  It says that it has no reason to trust you. How can it be sure you will fulfill your pledge?

  I laughed with bitterness.

  “You have no more reason to trust me than you do the witch,” I murmured aloud. “Yet consider that I care nothing for your fate, while it is evident that the witch hates you.”

  The silence lasted for a score of heartbeats. Then the tinkling resumed with a methodical rhythm. Sashi’s face swam before my sight in the dimness of the wagon, wearing an expression of alarm.

  The spirit says that the men of the wagons intend to strangle you and the girl in the morning, before returning to the road. You must flee tonight.

  “I thought we had gained their trust,” I murmured. “Why would they kill us now?”

  She cocked her lovely head to the side as though listening to the tinkle of glass.

  The old man with the bent back and the white beard demands your death. He thinks you have seen too many of their secrets, and cannot be trusted. He has authority over the others. Naleen and Belok cannot defy him.

  The old man had moved w
ith assurance among the travelers, and had presided over the rite of the companion. It was not to be wondered that he possessed the power to issue judgments. Every people must have its lawgivers, even a race so diverse and free as the Thugians.

  “Tell me this, did the witch try to change the mind of the old man?”

  Sashi listened, then solemnly shook her head.

  I had expected as much. The friendship offered by Naleen extended only as far as her acquisition of my store of useful bits of magic. In her eyes, how could I be more than a sacrifice for her goddess? Those excluded from the covenant with Shub-Niggurath were lesser beings, scarcely above the beasts.

  “Your warning is meaningless,” I told the spirit. “I have already determined to depart this place.”

  I am the enemy of your enemy.

  I considered my options, and made my decision.

  “I will free you.”

  The weight in the bottle tinked three times against the glass and became silent. I gathered up all seven of the bottles in my arms and carried them out of the wagon beneath the drape of my cloak. They were an awkward handful, but I took care not to drop them on the hard ground. Glancing around the clearing, I saw that no one watched me. A few girls danced drunkenly to the notes from a solitary piper. Men lay on the grass where they had fallen, snoring in their sleep. From beyond the range of the firelight floated a woman’s wild laughter. It ascended in a shriek of delight.

  I walked to the fire and knelt as though to warm myself. With quick movements, I placed the bottles into the bed of embers, pressing them down so that they would not be noticed by anyone who chanced to pass.

  There was little time. I went from the circle of wagons in the direction taken by Martala. She met me as I walked down the slope of a low hill. Weak light from the waning crescent of the moon illuminated her face. Recognizing me, she shook her head with disapproval.

  “That girl has the soul of a whore,” she muttered. “You would not believe what she is doing with the young man. Come and look.”