Tales of Alhazred

by Donald Tyson

  “The salts, as you call them, are the sacred bones of my people, which thieves have stolen from their places of eternal rest. For this, you shall pay. I swear it, by the war god Horus and by his father Osiris, god of the dead, and by his mother, Isis, queen of all magic. For this outrage you shall pay with your lives.”

  8.

  I drew my dagger and lunged toward him in a single motion. He raised one finger of his hand from the arm of his chair. One finger, and I stopped and hung motionless upon the air, like a fly in the web of a spider. My dagger dropped from my numb fingers. I heard it clatter on the floor.

  “You will be the first of your age to face the fury of my wrath.”

  I found to my surprise that I could still speak. “Before you kill me, tell me why you spared my life earlier. Why did you target my serving girl instead of me?”

  He shrugged his narrow shoulders beneath his white thawb. “I wished to remain undiscovered so that I could collect as many jars as possible. I hoped to discourage your investigation by intimidating you, but I see that I underestimated your perseverance.”

  “What do you intend to do with these jars?”

  He frowned at me, and I felt my body tremble with a fear so primal, I could not begin to control it.

  “Haven’t you listened to my words? Your people have committed an abomination, the desecration of our sacred dead. I must return them to their resting places. For your crime, you must all die.”

  “Not all of the necromancers experiment with the essential salts,” I said.

  “All of you must die,” he repeated.

  “The men of the caravans, the merchants, they had no knowledge of the offense they were committing. Spare them in their ignorance.”

  “I said, all of you must die.”

  It was only then that I understood his words. I stared at him, my jaw slack, unable to speak, my mind frozen with horror.

  In the depths of his black gaze there stirred amusement. “I have been studying your sacred texts. The Hebrew book regarding the plagues of Egypt is particularly fascinating. What it does not reveal is that the plagues were caused by magic, or that they represent the merest shadow of what may be unleashed on the race of men.”

  “My race is your race,” I was finally able to say.

  “My race is dead. I have nothing in common with the soulless hordes that infect this world in your barbarous times, when the true gods of the Black Lands have been forgotten and their temples defiled by dogs and harlots.”

  “Not everyone forgets the gods of Egypt,” I said in desperation. “Bast is still worshipped at Bubastis.”

  He did not hear me. His gaze had gone beyond my face to some vista only he could see. “I will wipe the papyrus clean and write new symbols upon it. All that is here now shall be forgotten. I will strike your names off the obelisk of time. It will be as though none of you ever existed.”

  I could not decide whether he was mad, or merely filled with a terrible righteousness.

  “You must die, Alhazred. I am not yet finished gathering the salts that have been stolen from my homeland. Come with me.”

  My body jerked like a puppet on strings, then began to follow him when he left the study. What chilled my heart as much as any other thing was the way he worked his magic with complete effortlessness and no display. It showed a skill far beyond any I had ever encountered.

  “You will disappear. No one will know what became of you. By the time your Council returns its attention to the problem of the missing salts, I will be ready to call down the plagues.”

  “What joy will be yours, when you have destroyed everything?” I asked him.

  He looked at me with contempt. “Do you believe I want to continue living in this degenerate age? When I have dealt with you all, I shall return to my salts in a suitable resting place for eternity. And there will be no one—no one, Alhazred—to disturb my rest.”

  He pointed toward the ragged open lawn. “Walk over there, so that I can kill you and get on with my work.”

  My body did as he ordered it to do and turned to face him. It was not that my resistance to his will was insufficient, but rather that I could not begin to resist.

  “And now, farewell. I almost regret killing you, half-blood. You are the most interesting of your kind in this age.”

  “Wait. Before you slay Alhazred, you must deal with us.”

  The shadows along the back of the house wavered, and suddenly there stood the necromancers of the Council, and the ghoul Uto with them.

  Hemiunu did not react. “I am impressed, Harkanos. Not many could veil their presence from me, even in my own age. How long have you been listening?”

  “Long enough to know that you are mad. The second birth has unbalanced your reason, Hemiunu.”

  “On the contrary, it has made my mind as clear as water. You must all die.”

  A strange contest began, not a battle of physical weapons but a battle of wills. The ancient and the necromancers of Damascus stood still and silent. The battle revealed itself only by small twitches and involuntary grunts of effort.

  A kind of halo appeared in front of Hemiunu. It had a faint blue glow that flickered. I realized that it was some kind of shield he had raised to turn aside the combined killing stroke of the Council. Alone, he stood against the eight of them, and he did not appear to be straining himself. I wondered why Uto did not attempt some attack, then realized Hemiunu held him in the same invisible bindings that he used to restrain my body. I never ceased struggling to free myself, but my efforts were useless.

  From the open back doorway of the house came an animal roar like that of an enraged bear. Dannu emerged at a run, throwing balls of lightning from his hands. They burst against the ancient one’s shield, and I saw him stagger for the first time. The Celt stopped as abruptly as though he had run into a wall. I felt him join the force of his will to the rest of the Council.

  The effort to sustain his shield, hold the Council motionless, and also keep Uto from attacking with his claws had divided Hemiunu’s will enough to weaken it, allowing Dannu to free himself from whatever spell controlled his mind. Now the ancient one had recaptured him and held him with the rest.

  I felt the invisible bindings around my body weaken and flicker in and out of existence. Was it possible that in his intense concentration, Hemiunu had forgotten about me? I was behind him. I did not dare try to burst free. He would have tightened his hold on me instantly. Instead, I contrived a distraction.

  In the night sky above our heads burst forth a rainbow of brightly glowing bands of color, accompanied by a noise like the singing of many voices. For an instant, Hemiunu raised his head to look up.

  I ran at him with the stealth of a ghoul and drove the point of my sword through his heart from the back. He cried out: the most dolorous wail I have ever heard. The blue shield before him vanished, and in an instant he was a smoking column of blackened cinders that crumbled and fell to the grass.

  9.

  Once again we were gathered in the great hall of my house around the long table. It was not a formal meeting of the Council. Martala and Altrus were there. My manservant Borka had brought up the finest of the vintages stored in the cellar by the previous owner of my house, a necromancer named Hapla, who despite his other faults had excellent taste in wine. People stood or sat talking in pairs or small groups that merged and broke apart as the topics of conversation changed. Emotions were light, almost cheerful. I realized it was the nearest thing to a social gathering I had ever held in the house.

  “If Uto had not gone to you, I would surely be dead,” I told Harkanos.

  “Once I understood what we were facing, I knew it would take the combined magic of the entire Council to oppose this ancient mage.”

  “It would still not have been enough, had Dannu not broken his bonds.”

  “And had you not used your sword. For all our magic, Alhazred, a blade of good Damascus steel can still end our lives. It is a humbling truth that all necromancers do well t
o remember.”

  “It’s something I always bear in mind,” Altrus said, approaching with a cup of wine in his hand.

  “I know you wanted to be in the fight, but it was vital that you protect Martala so that Hemiunu could not use her against me.”

  “She was safe enough,” he said with a grin. “She lay snoring in her bed all night while I sat up and read a book.”

  “Boredom will make a scholar of anyone,” the girl said. “And I do not snore. Alhazred, tell this oaf that I do not snore.”

  “Look there,” I said, pointing behind her. “Chigaru is beckoning me.”

  I crossed the floor to where the Hound stood beside the Merchant.

  “Alhazred, we were just remarking on how well you handled this terrible affair of the salts,” Chigaru said.

  “You have a wisdom beyond your years,” Fayyad said. “Now that the danger is past, we have agreed that it would be wisest for us all to put this unpleasantness behind us. It serves no purpose for us to feud amongst ourselves. It’s bad for business.”

  “I agree,” I said, eyeing the two. “I have been talking with Harkanos, and we both believe that nothing would be served by seeking to place blame in this unfortunate series of events.”

  “Very wise, very just,” Chigaru said, nodding his bald head.

  “The Caliph’s trust in you is not misplaced,” Fayyad said.

  “Provided Fayyad is willing to compensate us all for the money we lost while forced to purchase our supplies at inflated prices due to the shortages created by the thefts.”

  The smile fell from the Merchant’s face, then gradually returned as he thought about it. “You are right, my dear boy, I was the cause of this confusion, and it is only just that I pay restitution for my error in judgment.”

  Across the room, Baligh caught my eye and raised his glass. Kalila and Mahibah, who stood talking to the handsome young necromancer, turned and did the same.

  “You are the hero of the day,” Chigaru said, with just a trace of bitterness beneath his ingratiating tone.

  “The hero is Dannu,” I said. “If he had not burst forth from the house when he did, we would have lost everything.”

  “I never imagined an ancient mage could be so powerful,” Fayyad said with awe. “Do you really believe he would have called down the plagues of Egypt?”

  “I do. He was a man whose people, their customs, their gods, were lost in the past, and he knew there was no way to return to them. He would have destroyed this entire world, or at least made a good attempt.”

  Dannu approached, weaving as he walked across the floor, and the Hound and the Merchant drifted away. He slapped me on the shoulder. I saw that he was half-drunk, but at least he was happy in his cups.

  “We saved the day, Alhazred, me with my lightning balls and you with your good Damascus blade.”

  “We all owe you our lives,” I said sincerely.

  “No, we owe you our lives.” He frowned and seemed to sober. “He took all I could cast at him. He would still have defeated us all but for your sword. I never knew a man could move with such stealth and swiftness. You have hidden talents.”

  The chatter and the wine began to make my head spin. I excused myself and stepped out my front door into my courtyard. Dawn had not yet arrived, but it threatened on the eastern horizon. I stood leaning against one of pink marble pillars that supported the projecting upper story of my house, breathing deeply the cool air.

  A shifting of shadow against shadow caught my eye. Uto approached in the customary crouching posture of ghouls.

  “You should come inside,” I told him.

  He shook his hairless head. “The lights, too bright for these eyes.”

  “I think they are too bright for these eyes as well,” I told him, pointing at my face.

  “I did not mean to deceive you, Alhazred. Harkanos thought it best that we follow and watch you from a distance, in case you needed help.”

  “Everyone deceives everyone, Uto; you know that. You are a ghoul.”

  “And so are you, my friend.” He patted me awkwardly on the shoulder with his clawed hand. “Why don’t we ghouls leave this noise and brightness and walk together for a time while the night lingers.”

  I left my house behind me without a backward look.

  ¼

  About the Author

  DONALD TYSON was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He writes a broad range of fiction and nonfiction based in the Western esoteric tradition. He is the author of the novel Alhazred, and the nonfiction works Grimoire of the Necronomicon, The 13 Gates of the Necronomicon, Necronomicon: The Wanderings of Alhazred, and the Necronomicon Tarot, all by Llewellyn. Most recently, his short novel The Lovecraft Coven was published by Hippocampus Press. He lives in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, with his wife, Jenny, their American bulldog, Ares, and their Siamese cat, Hermes.

  About the Artist

  FRANK WALLS is an artist and sculptor who works in the book and game publishing industries. He has

  created numerous illustrations and designs for clients

  such as Fantasy Flight Games, Dark Regions Press, Shock Totem Press, Wizards of the Coast, and many others. He works digitally, traditionally, and in ceramics. In addition to his freelance work he teaches Digital Art and Design classes, and spends his spare time designing board and video games.