Tales of Alhazred

by Donald Tyson

  “I’ve never heard of a Sinai leopard killing a mature camel.”

  Straightening my back, I scanned the rocky horizon with my hands over my brow to shield my eyes from the sun. Nothing moved on the earth or sky save for the vultures that hovered high above us, waiting. Even so, I had a sense of being watched.

  “Alhazred, Altrus. Over here!”

  Martala’s shout brought us running with swords drawn. She stood beside a low hill with a projecting ledge of rock that cast a deep shadow on the sand below it. As I got nearer, I stopped running and sheathed my sword.

  “Is she still alive?”

  “I think so.”

  In the shadow beneath the overhang lay a naked young woman. She sprawled unconscious on her belly with one knee drawn up and her arms spread. I saw scratches on her back and shoulders. Beside her on the sand was a wet mass that appeared to be vomit.

  Altrus put his sword away awkwardly with his left hand and bent to touch the woman on the neck. He held his hand there for some time. “She lives,” he said.

  “Pull her out from under the rock so that we can see if she is badly hurt.”

  He helped Martala pull her into the sunlight. I saw that her face was uncommonly white—almost as pale as my own. That usually meant wealth and a high birth, since only the rich high-born could keep out of the sun and avoid being tanned. In my own case, it was the result of my father, a djinn of the great desert, or so I have been told. The villagers in Yemen where I grew up liked to say that my mother had gone into the desert and opened her legs to a djinn, and this was why I had such pale skin and pale eyes. But this young woman had avoided a brown complexion in the more conventional manner.

  They turned her gently onto her back. Aside from a scrape across her belly, she appeared unhurt. She was surprisingly beautiful. Her breasts were small but shaped like bells, their nipples erect and dark. Between her white thighs, her mons had been plucked free of hair.

  “She must be from some palace or noble house,” Altrus said.

  “What is she doing here in the middle of Sinai?” Martala wondered.

  She brushed a few strands of long, dark hair away from the woman’s eyelids, who moaned softly. Her long eyelashes fluttered, but her eyes did not open.

  “She was traveling along the caravan road with the man. They were attacked by a leopard who killed the man and their camel. She managed to flee and hide beneath this ledge, and the beast ignored her because it had more than enough food.”

  “So it appears,” Altrus said.

  “You sound doubtful.”

  “Where are her clothes?”

  I looked around but could see no sign of the woman’s clothing. “The leopard tore them off her body. Look at the scratches.”

  “But where are they?”

  “It must have carried them off,” I said, with a ghoul’s shrug that meant I wanted no more argument.

  I walked back to the camel. The packs on its back did not appear to have been disturbed. I began to untie them. They could go behind Altrus, and when the woman was fit to ride she could sit behind Martala.

  “Sling her over my camel and lead it far enough ahead that she won’t smell the blood and the shit when she wakes up. We’ll make an early camp and tend to her cuts.”

  “A little help would be useful,” Martala said.

  I saw that Altrus was struggling to help her pick up the woman using only one hand.

  “Sometimes I forget that you were injured,” I told him, taking the arm of the unconscious woman from him and helping the girl push her over the back of my camel.

  “I wish it had not been my sword arm,” he said, flexing his fingers. “I can fight with my left hand, but not as well as I can with my right.”

  “It will come back,” I told him with confidence. “Look, already you can bend your fingers.”

  Privately, I wondered how long the recovery would take, and whether he would be a cripple for the rest of his days. Well, if it came to that, there were things the girl and I could do. Necromancy was a twisted root, but it usually found water.

  2.

  The sun was setting behind the western hills when she woke. Martala had already washed off the blood, wasting some of our precious water in the process, and dressed her in a blue dress she found in the woman’s travel pack. There was nothing for her feet. None of us carried much in the way of extra clothing.

  I had put on the spell of glamour that hides my disfigured face in preparation for her awakening. I find it easier to conceal my features from strangers than to try to explain what turned me into a monster. King Huban of Yemen, whom I sincerely hoped was burning in hell, had punished me for deflowering his daughter by having my ears and nose cut off, and my cheeks slashed. He had also severed my manhood and fed these body parts to me after roasting them in front of me on a charcoal grill. It was not a story I was fond of repeating. Fortunately, I had learned a simple spell that restored my face for a time to its former prettiness.

  She sat up suddenly with a stifled cry and stared all around her at things only she could see. After a few moments her mind cleared and she became aware of us watching her. Raising her hand, she touched its back to her lips.

  “Where is Hassan?”

  I looked at Martala and nodded toward the woman. Martala went to her and sat beside her. Smiling, she took the woman’s hand in hers. The woman did not resist.

  “Is that the name of the man you traveled with?”

  She nodded, eyes round with fear.

  “He is dead. He was killed by the beast that attacked you.”

  The agony of this news bent her over. She began to sob and moan, rocking back and forth. Martala stayed with her. I did not try to talk to her while she was like that, but went to water the camels. We had less water than I would have liked, given our progress up the peninsula. The rocky hills were many and steep, and the road poor.

  Later, after she had cried herself dry of tears, I returned to her. All this while Altrus said nothing, but merely watched her from the rock on which he sat.

  “What is your name and who are you?” I asked. I have little patience for coddling the weak.

  “My name is Thylissa. My father is—my father was Kazim ibn Hajjar, a merchant. We were coming north from the Feiran Oasis with his caravan when we began to be attacked night after night by a beast that came slinking out of the darkness and took us, one by one. It took the camels as well, and the horses, until only Hassan Alfarsi, my husband-to-be, and I were left. Last night it came for Hassan.”

  I looked at Altrus to see if he thought she was telling the truth. He raised his eyebrows and shrugged.

  “You are saying that a single beast killed your father’s entire caravan?”

  She nodded.

  “We saw no signs of slaughter on the road.”

  “The beast dragged its prey from our campsites before it killed them. We could hear their dying screams in the darkness.”

  “Can you tell us what this beast looks like?” Martala asked.

  She stared at each of us in turn, her eyes wild with the memory. “I never saw it clearly. It came silently and moved swiftly. I only glimpsed the flash of its bloody claws in the moonlight and heard the screams of the men and the camels. When it attacked, Hassan hid me under our supply cart. In the end we had to leave the cart behind, since there was nothing left alive to pull it. We hid it in the hills in case we were able to come back for it.”

  Her father must have been a man of wealth. She was obviously well educated, and ill-prepared to face the harsh realities life had so recently pressed upon her.

  “Hassan’s body …” she began.

  “We can’t bring it with us,” I told her. “We have no way to prepare it, and not enough water to sustain us as it is without the added burden of a rotting corpse.”

  “I understand. Was the body terribly mutilated?”

  She waited with apprehension as I framed my words.

  “The beast damaged his body, but it did not harm his
face.”

  She sagged in upon herself. “That is some comfort, at least. Thank you.”

  “You have nothing to fear now,” Altrus told her. “We will take you to a place where you will be safe.”

  “You don’t understand,” she said, shaking her head so that her long hair fell over her eyes and gave her a mad look. “The beast is still out there, watching and waiting. It will come for me next—and for you.”

  “If so, we will be waiting for it.”

  We carried no oil for a cooking stove. I gave Thylissa some of our dried and salted beef to gnaw at. The meat was as hard as strips of raw leather, but softened enough to swallow when chewed. She ate a small portion but did not seem hungry. The horror of her ordeal had obviously taken away her appetite.

  As twilight grayed the sky and filled the hollow in which we had made camp with shadow, Martala prepared to light an oil lamp. I stopped her. It was scarcely needed since the moon rising in the east was nearly full, and it would have dulled our night vision. I wanted to be able to see when the beast attacked, if it attacked us.

  We unrolled our sleeping rolls.

  “I’ll take the early watch,” Altrus said.

  “Very well,” I agreed. “Wake me at midnight.”

  I lay down on my bedroll and pulled my blanket over me, wondering if any scorpions lurked nearby. Directly overhead, the planet Mars glared down with his unwinking red eye. The rising moon frosted the rocky hills all around us with whiteness, giving the hollow a dreamlike appearance. There was no wind. Only the grunts and shuffling feet of the camels broke the silence. At some point I fell asleep.

  3.

  A scream woke me. I threw off my blanket and leapt to my feet, my sword in my hand before I realized I had drawn it. The moon was descending in the west but still cast enough light to see. Martala stood blinking sleep from her eyes, her dagger in her hand. She stared at me.

  “Where’s Altrus?”

  I looked around. The camels were restlessly shifting and pulling against their stakes. They smelled something that made them afraid.

  “Thylissa’s gone.”

  We stood close together and listened. There was little else we could do. For a while we heard nothing but the camels. Then the night air was rent with a scream that was not human, but was unlike any I had ever heard. It chilled my blood and sent an icy shiver along my spine.

  “A big cat,” the girl said.

  “I think it came from the west. You stay here and protect the camels. I’ll try to find Altrus.”

  She was not happy to remain, but she did not argue with me.

  The skin between my shoulders crawled as I crept through the hills, trying to walk without a sound. This I could do better than most men. My time as a ghoul among the Black Spring Clan had taught me how to move silently in darkness when on a hunting party. Tonight I did not know if I was hunting something, or if something was hunting me.

  A shadow moved at the corner of my eye. I crouched and brought my sword point up. It approached nearer, and I saw that it was Thylissa.

  “What is happening?” she whispered.

  “Be silent.”

  We listened. I was aware of the subtle scent of the woman, and even felt the heat from her body, she stood so close.

  There came the soft crunch of pebbles.

  “Get behind me,” I said.

  Altrus appeared. He carried his sword high in his left hand. He stared hard at Thylissa.

  “What did you see?”

  “Nothing,” he admitted. “I thought I heard something and went to take a look. That’s when this happened.”

  He turned, and I saw that his back was rent by a slash across his shoulders. The blood that soaked his thawb looked black in the moonlight.

  “I sensed something coming and crouched, but it still caught me with one of its claws. When I turned, it was gone. The thing is quick, Alhazred.”

  “We’d better get back to camp. Martala is alone.”

  The girl was relieved to see us. Altrus stripped himself to his drawers and she began to clean his wound. It was not deep, little more than a scratch, but it ran the full width of his shoulders.

  “Just the tip of its claw, but it cut your thawb open like a razor.” I told him.

  He grunted. “If I don’t stop getting injured, I won’t be any use to you.”

  I turned to the woman. “Why did you leave the campsite?”

  “I had to relieve myself.”

  “In future, when you need to relieve yourself, come to me or Altrus first. I don’t want you to be alone at night.”

  She nodded.

  “I’m surprised this leopard, if that’s what it is, didn’t try to take one of the camels or the girl while the rest of us were in the hills,” I told Altrus.

  “If I had been a bit slower it would have taken me. I felt the power of its foreleg. It is not a small beast.”

  “Why does it hunt us? It’s not natural. The dead camel we left behind us on the road, to say nothing of Hassan, would feed it for a week.”

  Thylissa caught her breath at her lover’s name. I paid no attention. I was not in a mood to humor her womanly weaknesses. Indeed, it was my strong inclination to bind her and leave her behind us, so that the beast could feast on her flesh while we distanced ourselves from it. Martala was watching me as these thoughts passed through my mind, and she frowned in reproach. Sometimes it seemed that the girl could read my very thoughts, so well did she know me.

  For the rest of the night I stood watch. Altrus slept. I could tell by his snoring. I doubt the girl or the woman were able to sleep. Martala occupied part of the time by sewing together the back of Altrus’s thawb. It was a relief to see the dawn.

  4.

  At first light we set off on our camels at a walking pace, following the faint traces of the caravan road through the hills. It was not a well-traveled road, since goods could be moved so much more easily by ship. Most of the larger towns in the Sinai were on the coast. The caravan road served smaller inland communities, such as the one that had grown up near the Mount Sinai Monastery, and the village at the Feiran Oasis.

  “Last night was the first night in two weeks that the beast failed to make a kill,” Thylissa said from her seat behind Martala.

  “It wasn’t for lack of trying,” Altrus said.

  “Do you think it is still following us?” Martala asked her.

  “Oh yes, of a certainty. We never heard or saw it during the day, but at night it was always there, just beyond the light of our lamps. No matter what precautions we took, it killed something, and on most nights it took more than one.”

  “The way you describe its behavior, it almost sounds as though it is driven by some kind of malicious resolve,” I said.

  “I don’t know about that,” she said with a shrug.

  “If we had left you beneath that ledge of rock, do you think it would have followed us?”

  “It would have killed me last night, of that I am certain.”

  “Are you so sure?” Altrus asked, watching her from the back of his camel.

  “Yes, I am,” she said, and turned to me. “You saved my life. I can never repay you.”

  “I ask for no payment.”

  “Even so, I thank you with all my heart.”

  I saw Martala glance at Altrus and roll her pale gray eyes. Pity is not a part of my nature, but I almost felt pity for Thylissa, attempting to use her feminine charms on a man with nothing below his belly but scars and a hole. She would have been better advised to try to charm Altrus, not that it would have done her any good. His heart is even colder and more cynical than mine.

  “We’re approaching a village,” Altrus said.

  I looked at the hills ahead, and saw a thin line of smoke rising from behind one of them. A cooking fire. After riding a while longer, I smelled the smoke, and something more. Water. In the desert, water has a distinctive smell. I find that I lose the ability to smell it when I stay long in Damascus, but when I travel it returns to m
e.

  We rounded the hill and came upon a Bedouin village built beside a small wadi. There were a few date trees and a patch of grass that grew where the water lay close beneath the surface. The huts of the nomads were made of flat stones piled up to make walls, with reeds plastered with mud for roofs. There were no more than twenty or so huts and other structures. It was a seasonal village. The Bedouin lived here for part of the year, and left when their herd exhausted the grass. We were fortunate enough to arrive while the village was occupied.

  The wadi meant two things: we were not going to run out of water, and we could dispose of the woman.

  The Bedouin accepted us with stoic fatalism. They could not control who came along the road, and were accustomed to dealing with all types of travelers. They fed us, cared for our animals, and gave us one of the huts in which to sleep.

  The scattering of children who were not working stood at a small distance and watched us with solemn eyes. Among them was an ancient crone with a hunched back who leaned on her walking staff and stared unwinking. If ever a woman had the natural power of the evil eye, it was this shrivelled, toothless witch, swathed in black from head to toe. She seemed particularly interested in Thylissa. Her rheumy eyes seldom left the young woman.

  “Why is that hag staring at me?” she asked while we sat in front of our hut, eating the food the women of the village had provided.

  “She’s old,” Martala said. “Her mind is probably gone. Pay no attention.”

  5.

  As twilight fell, the others entered the hut to sleep. I went aside to piss on a bush.

  The crone approached me as I finished. “You are a man of the arts,” she said in a voice like a rusty hinge.

  “What arts would those be, old mother?”

  She hawked and spat to the side, glaring at me. “The arts of magic. Don’t play the fool with me, Alhazred. I have something to say to you.”

  I admit, I was startled when she used my name. Then I realized she had probably overheard it spoken by one of my companions.

  “Magic is forbidden by the laws of the Prophet,” I said.

  “What has the Prophet to do with us? We worship older gods.”