The Bones of the Old Ones (Dabir and Asim)

by Howard Andrew Jones

  He considered her shrewdly.

  “You drove him away on purpose,” she continued.

  “I meant every word I said.” Dabir turned to me. “Help me brush out an area. Six paces wide should do.”

  Lydia continued her harangue as I set to shoving snow aside with my boot. “Oh, you pretended well. But I have only seen you lose your temper once, even amongst all that we have done.”

  “You do not know me that well,” Dabir said as he joined me.

  “Do not play games. I have your measure.” Her brow darkened. “Now you are readying a summoning circle. For Lamashtu?”

  “Yes.”

  I stopped, my boot in front of a widening mound of snow. “She tried to kill us Dabir,” I reminded him. “Jibril died, fighting her.”

  “Yes. But she knows how to wield Erragal’s staff.”

  Lydia threw up her hands. “You don’t know that! Erragal just said that she had used it once. He might have activated it and handed it off to her, like Asim did with me.”

  “That might be so.”

  We both carried on clearing snow.

  “And should you really be activating a circle inside another one?”

  Dabir looked blandly over to her. “The larger one isn’t active yet, is it?”

  “No,” she admitted grudgingly.

  “So there will be no problem.”

  Lydia threw up her hands. “No problem? You chased the most rational of the Sebitti off to contact the most deadly?”

  Dabir returned to his work. We had exposed a circle of sparse grass pressed low by snow.

  “Talk sense to him, Asim!”

  Dabir shot me a look.

  “It does seem a little desperate,” I admitted.

  “But we are desperate.” Dabir sounded wearily playful. At some level, Lydia’s worries amused him.

  “Surely,” I agreed.

  “Desperate?” Lydia frowned at me. “Asim’s too polite. He thinks you’re as crazy as I do! Lamashtu doesn’t work for free! What can you possibly offer her?”

  “Now is not the time for debate,” Dabir said.

  “But what are you hoping for?”

  “To work with people who ask fewer questions!” Dabir snapped, and whipped out his knife so suddenly that Lydia drew back. But Dabir crouched and cut into the ground, shaping the curve of a circle in the cold earth.

  Lydia announced she would have no part of things, and stomped back to the fire.

  Though I liked it not, I used my own knife to assist Dabir’s work. He seemed pleased enough with the result, though it was more a lopsided oval than a circle. He then set to work creating a second, inside it. I aided with this, also, and fought back the urge to ask any questions. “Perhaps Lydia could help you speed this along when you start carving the symbols.”

  “That would be nice. We are not dealing with a surplus of time.” He paused, looked up, then frowned as he realized he could not see around the hill. “We are crowding each other now anyway, Asim. I’m nearly done. Why don’t you keep an eye on the horizon?”

  I wiped dirt from my blade, sheathed it, and walked off to find Lydia beside the fire. Her jaw was set firmly.

  “He plans something foolish,” she said.

  “Surely he does.” I studied the skies to the east. The gray clouds sagged low over the white-blue blanket of snow shrouding the earth.

  “Are you not worried?”

  “Lydia,” I answered patiently, “we are at the point where anything we do is foolish. I pray to Allah that Dabir chooses wisely, but then he is expert at that kind of thing. As for me, I am sworn to guard him, so that whatever step he takes, I take with him. His risk is mine, and if we fall, I shall fall first.”

  She stared up at me, searching my eyes, and she looked as though she meant to curse for a long time. I was not in the mood for an outburst, and so I looked off toward Mosul, but she wouldn’t let the matter go.

  “Look at you. He told you to scan the horizon, so you do. Brave and loyal to a fault. You don’t know what he really plans, but you do not question.”

  “I trust him,” I said.

  “Yes”—she frowned sourly—“and he trusts you. I would that I had someone so loyal.” She muttered this last almost inaudibly.

  “You did,” I pointed out. “Those soldiers gave up their lives for you.”

  “They but followed orders.”

  “Then you do not value enough what that means. With his last breath, Alexis made me pledge to safeguard you.”

  Her stare grew more fixed upon me. “He did?”

  “Aye. He was most adamant.”

  “Is that why you rescued me?”

  “In part,” I said. “But you are our comrade.”

  “‘Our comrade’?”

  “Our friend,” I explained.

  She stared, as though she had suddenly heard that fish could speak, or that horses played shatranj. To hide her surprise, she turned her head. A long moment passed, and I scanned the horizon. It had not changed. There was only the vast white expanse, and the blowing wind.

  “I didn’t understand at first,” Lydia said. Her voice was slow and quiet, but great passion roiled beneath. “I thought you were a thug.”

  “I would not have attacked your father if he had not held a knife to Jaffar,” I said. That was not an apology, for I did not regret killing the man. I just wanted her to see the situation clearly.

  “I know that,” she said peevishly. “My father”—she paused to suck in a long breath—“wasn’t a good man.”

  I grunted in surprise.

  “You thought I didn’t know that?”

  “I assumed you hated me because I killed him.”

  “And for what I thought you were.”

  “A thug, you said.”

  “A thoughtless lackey. And I thought Dabir was little better; a clever servant. Unquestioning. Blindly obedient to the established order.” She turned to look at him. Dabir’s back blocked sight of his work, but we could hear the sound of his blade scratching into the soil. “Scheming and fawning and scrabbling for place like everyone else.”

  “Why would you say that?” I asked. “Dabir’s no bootlicker.”

  “And it’s a wonder he’s risen so far.” She laughed to herself, glanced at me. “A week ago, if someone had told me my feelings would be hurt because Dabir ibn Khalil did not trust me, I would have…”

  “Cursed him?” I suggested.

  “Likely.”

  “He does trust you,” I said. “He has asked for your help.”

  She sighed at me. “Don’t you see, he’s planning something, but he will not tell us. You, because you would not approve, and me, because he thinks I might betray him.”

  “If you want him to trust you,” I said, “you must trust him.”

  She studied me for a moment, and the wind tugged at her coat. She muttered something then in Greek, and extended her hand. “May I borrow your knife?”

  I handed it to her hilt first.

  “My thanks.” She turned and walked over to Dabir.

  She joined my friend and, working mostly in silence, they drew in the strange symbols that were almost familiar to me now. After a time Dabir sat back, and Lydia looked between the circle and his ring, which he rubbed absently as he contemplated the curling lines and wedges and triangles.

  I joined them. “There is nothing coming, yet.”

  “Good. They will surely be here soon.” He frowned at the circle.

  “What is the trouble?” I asked.

  “I believe I have spelled Lamashtu’s name properly, but I cannot be certain about the lettering. Jibril’s notes were a little unclear on this point, because once he finally had it working he did not record confirmed findings. By then,” he said, “he was through with magics.”

  “With sorcery it is the intent, often, that matters more,” Lydia offered.

  “Then this will have to do. If she comes,” Dabir added with a sharp look to us both, “I am to do the negotiating. Is t
hat clear?”

  We agreed that it was.

  “Asim, you say there’s a little more energy left in the club. Let’s reserve the spear, and use your club to activate this circle.”

  “Now?”

  Dabir let out a long breath and nodded. He was exhausted, of course. He climbed to his feet, extended his arms in a long stretch that also conjured a yawn, then gathered himself. He stepped over to retrieve the spear. “I will keep this on hand. In case Lamahstu proves less receptive.”

  “Allah forbid.” I lifted the club, ran the form through my mind, and set the heavy end upon the circle. The club of Herakles did not light as brightly as previous, but still took up its brave glow. Apart from noticing that my own senses could not extend more than a few paces, the first thing I saw was that Lydia’s farr was different. The blackness about her was not so pronounced, and the silvers were bolder. Dabir, too, had changed. All of his colors had a fuzzy edge, as though ebbing with his strength.

  The paired ovals in the ground and the symbols between them flared with energy. Nothing else, though, happened at all.

  “Where is she?” I asked.

  “Behind you,” purred a low feminine voice, and we turned as one to find a stocky woman in white dress, her face pale as the moon, her straight hair dark as the night.

  Lamashtu. Her face was plain and expressionless, and her farr was a web of midnight darkness. “You have called; I have come. Though if you mean to fight me—”

  Dabir was blunt. “Erragal is dead.”

  Lamashtu let out a short laugh, peered at us, then laughed again. “This is a strange bluff.”

  “No,” Lydia told her. “Gazi is dead.”

  “And good riddance,” she said.

  “Koury is dead,” Lydia continued.

  “He was ever too arrogant. And what about his little helper, Anzu? Has he crept away?”

  “More or less,” Dabir answered.

  “But what ploy of Erragal’s can this be?” she asked. “He and I ceased playing games against each other centuries ago.” She looked to right and left, as if she expected Erragal to step suddenly from hiding.

  “He fell in freeing us,” I said.

  “In freeing you? Now I know you lie.”

  “He was after the weapons, really,” Dabir said. “We just happened to be holding them.”

  “What’s left of him lies yonder,” I said.

  She followed my gaze. She stared with those remorseless eyes for a long moment, then strode nimbly over, keeping us in her sight. Then she bent and cast back the robe to reveal the bloody hunk of man that had been a portion of the world’s greatest wizard.

  Realization spread slowly over Lamahtu’s face, and then long unused muscles twitched along her jaw and brow. Grief came to her, as water comes sometimes to the deep desert, raging, destructive, and unfamiliar. Her teeth showed, and she struggled mightily to hold herself in check. Her farr rolled like a black thunderhead. “Have you called me to gloat?”

  Dabir shook his head. “No. I called you to help finish what he began. His last work.”

  She cast the robe angrily over his remains and spun to face us full-on. “I have no need of his stupid works. His pointless plans for the ignorants who shall never perceive his worth!”

  It was strange, to my thought, that she might hold all that the man did in contempt. Yet she had loved him, in her way.

  “You and yours set the spirit free,” Dabir said in a measured tone of voice. “Erragal died trying to ready the means to send her back.” He tipped his spear, slowly, toward the horizon. “We stand in the midst of a great banishing circle that he has hidden in the snow. Usarshra is sure to come, before long, to retrieve the final weapons, and what is left of the power in the club. When she does, we will send her and her spirit army back to the cold hell from whence they came. We cannot do it,” he finished, “without your help. We need to know how to unlock the magics of Erragal’s staff.”

  “He did not tell you?”

  “No.”

  “Perhaps I should take it, in memory of him.”

  “You could do that,” Dabir said. “But I think if you had truly desired one of the bones, he would have gifted one to you centuries ago.”

  Her eyes narrowed, as though by doing so she might see Dabir better. “You are right,” she admitted. “They are powerful, but their magic is … uncomfortable to me.” She paused and considered Dabir with a crafty, covetous look I did not like. “I shall help you if you help me. We shall trade favors.”

  “What sort of favors?” Dabir asked.

  “There is no need for a bargain,” Lydia objected. “You need the world unfrozen as much as we do.”

  Dabir shot Lydia a warning glance before returning his attention to Lamashtu.

  “Child,” Lamashtu told Lydia, “I always profit from chaos, though some pleases me less than others.” She stepped nearer Dabir. “Those are my terms. The favor is unspecified, as of yet, for I have not yet decided what it shall be. But you must swear a blood oath unto me, to bind it.”

  “We can swear no oath,” Dabir said, “that breaks the commandants of Allah, or the teachings of Muhammad, may peace be upon him.”

  I nodded solemnly in agreement.

  She bared her teeth. “You would make conditions?” Her face contorted in wrath and I think she readied to curse us, but then Lydia’s voice rose up behind us.

  “I pledge,” she said, “without condition!”

  “No!” Dabir cried, turning to her. Before me I saw Lamashtu’s face shift into a smile and then she winked away, only to appear beside Lydia. The Greek woman had raised one hand, bleeding. Her other held a slim knife, dripping with her own blood. Lamashtu clasped the bleeding palm, then pressed her lips to it.

  “No,” Dabir said weakly.

  Lamashtu stepped back, triumphant, and licked her bloody lips as she smiled at Dabir. “I meant not only to teach you the secret of the staff, but to loan you my own magics. Now you must but watch as she wields it. Great, though, must her services be, for now she owes for the three of you!” She turned to Lydia. “For one day I gift you a portion of my magic.” Again the Sebitti pressed her lips to Lydia’s hand, and drank deep. God help me, for because of the club I saw more than the shudder of the Greek as she cast back her head. I witnessed the energy flowing between the two, saw the darkness pass through from the ancient sorceress to Lydia. The woman stumbled, and would have fallen had not Dabir reached out to catch her.

  Lamashtu cackled. “I shall return for you, my sweet Greek. Fare you well!” And with that she vanished, though her laughter hung in the air a moment after.

  Lydia blinked. She turned her noticeably paler face to Dabir, who still held to her.

  “You should not have done that,” he told her.

  “We had no choice.”

  I stared at her farr. It flowed in turmoil, but, you may not believe this, no matter the influx of darkness from Lamashtu, the silver strands in Lydia’s energies burned more brightly than ever.

  “I told you to let me bargain!” Dabir’s voice rose, and his mouth twisted in torment.

  “Stop speaking of what is done!” Lydia shouted, standing straight. “There was nothing else we might offer her!” She wiped something from her eyes. “I have the pattern of the staff now, in my mind. And the magics … I may just have saved us, Dabir.” With that she turned back to the fire and walked stiffly for the staff.

  Dabir did not move.

  I let go of the club then so that whatever energy remained would not be wasted, and put a hand to my friend’s shoulder.

  “She did not have to do that,” he whispered fiercely. “I cannot fix this!”

  “She wants to help,” I said.

  Dabir sagged against the spear, head down, then slowly straightened his shoulders. “Come, Asim.”

  We joined Lydia at the fire, and she watched him through lowered lashes.

  “So,” Dabir said in a heavy tone. “There are two circles, created by Anzu and Erragal
. The obvious one that will protect us. And the great outer one that Erragal concealed. You shall use the staff to defend us with the smaller circle, and the spear shall be used for the larger banishing.”

  “Will that be enough?” I asked. “Anzu said it would take a great sorcerer besides.”

  “I am a great sorcerer,” Lydia asserted. “For today, at least.” Lydia stared down at her hands, flexing fingers. I sensed, somehow, that she considered her own farr. She then studied the distance for a time. “There will probably be enough power to banish the lesser spirits. But what will we do if it doesn’t bind Usarshra?”

  “We will do almost exactly what the Sebitti planned. When Usarshra is threatened, she will widen the portal to call in more energy, more resources. I will then use the words of shaping to destroy the spirits.”

  Lydia stared at him. “How…”

  “Erragal had me study Koury’s magics, that I might counter them. Remember?”

  A smile dawned slowly over Lydia’s face. “But you did not say that to either Anzu or Lamashtu,” she said.

  “No. And I did not want either of you to reveal, through word or gesture, what I planned. I did not think…” His eyes sought Lydia’s.

  “Wait a moment,” I said. “You know the words of creation?”

  “I know the words of dissolution,” he said, “to counter Koury’s. And I have reasoned out a few more things.”

  Lydia laughed with joy. “You are a genius, Dabir!” She smiled at me, then took his hand. “You can remake everything as we wish! We can do what Anzu wanted, but to our ways. Why, we could reshape time itself!” She paused, her expression falling. “Why do you look like that?”

  “Even if I knew enough to do such things, where would I stop?” Dabir asked. “Should I remake the day when Jibril died, or the moment when you pledged troth to the Sebitti? What about the day my wife perished with my newborn son? Might I undo that moment? It is a string of pearls, Lydia, and more, for if I reshape one thing, who is to say what others would happen.”

  She growled in frustration. “Don’t you see what we might do?”

  “First,” Dabir said calmly, “I am not certain that I can even succeed. The only magic of Koury’s or Erragal’s I have worked was to get these beasts moving. I will be manipulating the very fabric of reality, and I have but a few words with which to guide me. Second, I shall only undo these otherworldly invaders. Nothing else shall I change. That is the work of God, and I am but a man.”