by Nat Edwards
‘It is Au Mohammed and his men,’ he gasped, ‘they are calling out the guards. We must run Effendi!’
Layard looked helplessly back at the prince, who was struggling in his long robes as the mullah dragged him back into the house.
‘Effendi!’
Layard turned and ran with Saleh as the Sheikh and his men came running into view, followed by a group of serbázes. The two ran into the dark maze of narrow streets behind the Sheikh’s house, the soldiers in pursuit.
Trusting to Saleh’s knowledge of the town, Layard followed the Lur, twisting and turning through one alley after another. Sometimes the noises of pursuit were distant, other times it sounded as if the soldiers were at his very heels. At length, the sound of the chase grew more distant and Saleh felt is safe enough to draw up in a narrow doorway.
‘You must leave the town now, Effendi,’ he whispered, ‘the town will soon be swarming with soldiers. If the boy’s tutor lets slip that it was you who attempted the rescue, the Matamet will be sure to throw you in jail.’
‘I cannot leave the boy,’ Layard replied.
‘I will keep watch on him,’ replied the Lur. ‘You can do more for him if you remain free. Go now, and come back with some men. There are some in the town who have no love for the Matamet and are still loyal to the Khan. I will seek them out. Together we shall mount a raid and free him. But you must go now! Here, this is the way to your horse.’
Saleh led the Englishman to where his horse had been tethered, ready to carry off Layard and the boy. In the streets behind them, they could hear fresh sounds of pursuit as more guards joined the search. From the west, Layard could hear the sounds of hoofbeats – horsemen cutting off his escape from the gate.
‘No time, Effendi,’ panted Saleh, ‘ride now – ride for the marshes!’
He slapped the horse’s rump as Layard galloped past the sleepy Shusteri gate-wardens and headed out into the night.
At the appointed rendezvous, there was no sign of Au Kerim or his men. Layard had little time to speculate whether the sound of the general alarm had driven them off as the hoofbeats of his own pursuers were closing upon him. He spurred his horse and galloped along the stony road.
The horse was a fine Arab mare, belonging to the Khan himself. Normally it would have been a more than a match for the Persian cavalry horses that followed behind. However, it had ridden a long road from the marshes without rest and was tired, while the Persians rode fresh mounts. Layard could hear the soldiers gaining on him, while his own horse laboured beneath him, hot foam on her sides. Realising he could not outrun his pursuers on the road, he jerked the reins sharply to one side and drove the horse into the scrubby hills by the side of the road. The country was dry and barren, punctuated by dense thickets of thorn-bushes and steep sided, winding gullies. Into this maze, Layard now careened wildly, turning his mount one way and then another to lose the pursuit; with each turn becoming lost deeper within the wilderness.
The horse snorted in pain as it turned its hoof on a large loose stone and stumbled down the side of a steep gully. Layard jumped clear as the horse fell and sprang quickly to its side, placing his hand on its flank and whispering to calm it. He knelt by the horse, listening to the night. A hawk mewed faintly. There was no sound of the soldiers.
Sighing with relief, Layard pulled the horse to its feet and remounted. He spurred her on to a trot, but the fall had made her lame. All the mare could manage was a slow, limping walk. Layard drove the flagging horse on for another mile or so in the dark. As the moon began to show through the clouds above, Layard came at last to a circular hollow, forming a dead end to the gully he had been following. There was a pungent chemical smell in the air and steam rose from vents in the ground, which looked black and sticky in the moonlight. Layard realised that it must be a naphtha well. He was faced with the choice of retracing his way on the lame horse, or camping for the night among the cloying bitumen fumes of the naphtha. He tugged at his horse’s reins to turn back, but the mare dropped her head and planted her feet firmly on the ground. She was too exhausted to go anywhere.
Layard dismounted and pulled off his saddle, making the horse fast to a thorn bush. He carried his carpet to a shelf of flat rock that seemed reasonably clear of naphtha fumes, spread it out and lay down on the ground. He looked up at the stars in some vain hope of orientating himself in the wilderness. Before he could focus on a single constellation, he had fallen into a deep sleep.
In the dark, the Mind sat, brooding and watching. Layard could hear its familiar, monstrous breath. It crawled closer to him, flowing like liquid around him. The black presence oozed around him and ran deep into the rocks themselves, bubbling and gurgling. Long tendrils of blackness, fluid and intelligent crept from the rocks and ran like snakes around Layard’s helpless form, coiling around his limbs and creeping up his body. He could feel the soft tickling presence on his neck as the tendrils wormed up and across his face, working closer to his nostrils and ears. He felt the subtle slithers of malice crawling into his skull. Around him the breathing grew deafening – it’s rhythmic machine sound pounding like thunder. The blackness bubbled and oozed from the rocks – now magnified and relentless. It flowed in a torrent over Layard, submerging him. Still the black flood rose. Layard knew that it was unstoppable; that it would not end until it had engulfed his world. As he sank back into the sticky, oozing blackness, he heard screaming.
Layard jerked awake – still screaming. The mare snorted angrily at him, disturbed from her sleep. In the pale morning sunlight, the thick billows of naphtha fumes swirled around him. Coughing, he staggered away from them, grabbing up his blanket. The mare still too lame to bear him, he took her bridle in his hand and turned from the hateful place. He was lost and alone once again.
CHAPTER 19
TO LAYARD THE DAY SEEMED TO LAST FOR EVER. The sun burned as a dim, liquid presence through a thick haze of heat and dust. Time seemed to hang, suspended from the flattened and blurred landscape; each distended second mocking the European’s microscopic progress as he led his horse across the expanse of dirt and thorn that the world had become. There were no birds; no calls of sheep or goats; no distant shouts of shepherds or caravan drivers. The unsteady crunch of boot and hoof was accompanied only by a droning buzz of insects, flattened and stretched by the viscous air. Step by faltering step, man and beast trudged on through the wilderness until at last, a cold breeze caused the man to look up. The sun was fading at last.
Dawn brought no respite for Layard. As the sun rose it discovered that the man was as lost as he had been the day before and the mare was as lame. Day followed day. The two walked on through each painful and endless hour and each sweltering day until at last the reddening sun would once more dip to the west. The certainty that each day would be the same as the one before hung as heavily on Layard’s heart as the certainty that each day his small store of supplies would be less. Then, as the sun set once more one evening, the monotony was broken.
An eerie, monstrous bellow echoed around the walls of the narrow valley that Layard had entered. He froze, startled by the sudden noise. It sounded once more, louder and more terrible than it had been before. Layard looked around, searching out shelter and trying to determine the origin of the awful cry. Ahead, the valley turned a sharp bend, marked by a tumble of fallen rocks. Above, deep fissures eaten into the walls by long-forgotten streams left dark, shadowy clefts that might offer a hiding place – or else be inhabited by the owner of that unearthly voice. The cry came again, still louder – filling Layard’s ears and echoing around the valley so that he could not tell whether the creature lay in wait ahead, above or was in close pursuit behind them.
The mare whinnied in fear and shook her head urgently. Layard tensed, his heart racing and every instinct urging him to run. Then a new noise reached his ears.
‘Yah Mohammed! Yah Allah! Yah Ali!’ came a loud chorus of shouts, followed by the unearthly bellow. It seemed now to Layard to be coming from the trail ahead; too c
lose now for any chance of flight. He steadied the horse and readied his gun, waiting to see what would appear from behind the fallen rocks ahead.
‘Yah Mohammed! Yah Allah! Yah Ali!’ came the cry again. Layard felt that he could pick out just a few distinct voices. As alien and strange as encountering them in that forsaken place was, Layard felt that they were somehow familiar. He waited.
Around the corner marched an odd-looking troupe of men, chanting and blowing long tuneless blasts on buffalo horns. Exhausted as he was, Layard knew three of them at once as the three dervishes he had met at the Sufi’s house in Isfahan. The fourth and most bizarrely costumed fellow also seemed familiar, though he could not at that moment place him. Layard shouted out a greeting and the men rushed towards him, crying out in joy.
‘Brother dervish, you are well!’ called out the tall black dervish, striding up and slapping Layard on the back.
‘I suppose you will be wanting to share our food and wine?’ grumbled the old dervish, ‘I shouldn’t expect you’ve managed to keep back any of yours.’
‘Of course not,’ scoffed the albino, ‘our brother has foresworn earthly delights so as to cleanse his body and mind to receive spiritual enlightenment.’
‘My word, it’s Mr Layard, isn’t it?’ exclaimed the fourth. ‘So you are the one we have been seeking.’
Layard peered at the man, whom he now perceived to be a fellow European, though dressed in the most barbarous rendition of Eastern costume he had ever seen. The face was familiar yet still Layard had no recollection of how he knew it – nor of how he could have forgotten such a striking individual.
‘I’m sorry,’ stammered Layard, ‘I don’t seem to-‘
‘Oh, but where are my manners?’ cried the man, ‘George Lackland, at your service.’
He bowed, deeply, causing his tall conical felt hat to topple into the dirt. Scooping it up, he added, ‘we were introduced briefly at Sir Charles Wherry’s residence in Damascus but I fear you were too much diminished by your recent privations to have paid me much attention.’
‘Lackland,’ said Layard, glancing briefly at the black dervish, who winked and grinned a broad gold-capped smile in return, ‘of course. I’m sorry I momentarily forgot. What brings the four of you here?’
‘Time enough for that later!’ snapped the ancient dervish. ‘Let us make camp for the night and get some food into our bellies.’
Fed and fuelled by a flask of strong arak, produced by the oldest of their number, Layard and his companions talked long into the night. Layard asked the dervishes of his location. They explained that he had travelled from the naphtha spring towards the road to Kala Tul – as if drawn back to the mountain castle by instinct. Welcome as this news was, what interested Layard far more was that the company had news of Mehemet Taki Khan and his family.
‘We have often relied on the charity of the Khan,’ explained the albino dervish, ‘so we naturally sought him out when we came into his territories.’
‘An unwholesome, blasted country it is too,’ interrupted the ancient, ‘naked of man and beast and riddled by plague. Why, if I had realised it was you we were destined to seek in this blighted wilderness, I would have stayed in Isfahan!’
‘Shut up you old goat, and drink some more arak!’ laughed the black dervish, picking up the albino’s story. ‘As my brother indicates, the country is empty – but we at last found news of the Khan when we came to the edge of the marshes.’
‘He had waited for news of you,’ explained the albino, cutting back in. ‘when his brother returned to the marshes, he brought news of the hue and cry that had been raised against you. Au Kerim had been surprised by a troop of serbázes and had been forced to flee from Shuster. When you failed to return, the Khan despaired of ever rescuing his son. He has retreated to the Ch’ab stronghold of Fellahiyah, where he makes ready to surrender to the Matamet.’
‘When we left Fellahiyah, the Khan had ordered Au Kerim to return to Shuster to search for you,’ said the oldest dervish, swigging at his flask. ‘His orders are that if he does not find you and the boy, he is to negotiate the surrender of Mehemet Taki Khan.’
‘It seems, Mr Layard,’ observed Lackland sunnily, ‘that the fate of nations has somehow become interwoven with your own destiny. How thrilling that must be.’
‘You are a fool if you think the fate of the Khan brings me anything but sorrow,’ snarled Layard. ‘What are you doing here anyway?’
‘Ah, yes,’ chirped Lackland, ‘I had almost forgotten. Signs and omens my dear Sir. I have been much beset these past weeks by signs and omens – haven’t barely been able to move for ‘em.’
‘What signs?’ demanded Layard angrily.
‘Ah, they mean little to the uninitiated,’ said Lackland, airily, ‘a broken twig here, an eagle’s cry there – whispers in the desert winds. But, to an adept and one who has walked alone in the wilderness; they speak volumes. Part by part, I pieced together a message that I must deliver, though until today I had no idea to whom I should deliver it.’
‘Enough of this,’ said Layard, rising in irritation, ‘my friends are on the verge of capture and defeat – I don’t know why I am even listening to you.’
‘Brother, you would be wise to listen to Mr Lackland,’ said the black dervish, ‘he has walked through the same dark places you must visit.’
‘What, then is this message?’ said Layard, tersely.
‘The fate of those you love will be in the hands of the One upon Whom the State relies until the very day you find that which you seek,’ recited Lackland. ‘But the thing you seek brings with it a price.’
‘A price?’ asked Layard.
‘Death’ came the reply.
Layard resolved that night to return to Shuster and meet Au Kerim. He felt that no matter what, he should attempt to postpone any surrender to the Matamet. The dervishes agreed to lead Layard to Shuster and to do what little they could to assist with an attempt to free Hussein Kuli.
The first problem was the question of mounts. On foot, the party would take several days to reach Shuster and time was fast running out. The dervishes solved this problem in a pragmatic fashion. After half a day’s march, the company came upon a small settlement of nomads. The dervishes marched up to the largest tent, chanting, ‘Yah Mohammed! Yah Allah! Yah Ali!’ and announced that they had been sent there by Allah to bless an offering of horses that would bring eternal glory to the giver. The nomads, being of a practical nature, politely suggested that the dervishes might be mistaken and that, indeed, it may have been another tribe who were destined to make the offering. Not wishing to offend the holy men, they kindly offered to share with them a meal of flat bread and sheep’s milk in front of their tent. At sight of the offer the oldest dervish started leaping about, blowing on his buffalo horn. The black dervish jumped up and, with apparently superhuman strength ripped the tent from its mooring, so that it collapsed upon the nomads, whom the albino dervish began to belabour with his iron mace.
Lackland, who had already sat down in anticipation of the meal, remained seated on a carpet, picking at the now abandoned dishes and explaining the dervishes’ actions to Layard.
‘The people here believe all dervishes to be under the protection of Ali,’ he said between mouthfuls, ‘so they won’t harm them. In fact, if these nomads raise a finger against our companions, there is a good chance their neighbours will turn against them. It will not be long before our hosts see the error of their ways and embrace their duty to Allah.’
Lackland proved right. By the time he had eaten the last morsels of the meal, the headman of the camp had promised to give up five fresh horses, if only the dervishes might leave with his blessing. Upon hearing this, the oldest dervish blew an even louder and longer blast on his horn and then shouted angrily at the headman, insisting that the wretch had so displeased Allah by his impious lack of charity that he must now hand over a skin of wine too. Within a few minutes, the party was on its way, well mounted on fresh horses.
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sp; ‘It is good to see the faithful treading a path of righteousness – even in these troubled times,’ observed the oldest dervish, taking a swig from his wineskin as they rode towards Shuster.
The news at Shuster was troubling. While Layard, Lackland and his brothers waited on the outskirts of the town, the albino dervish went alone to seek news. He returned two hours later, accompanied by Saleh the Lur, who quickly appraised Layard of the situation.
‘Au Kerim Khan has been captured,’ he told Layard. ‘He came to the canals near the town, asking for news of you among the Shusteris. One of the Matamet’s spies saw him and led a group of ferrashes to seize him. He is held in a house with Ali Naghi Khan and Shefi’a Khan. The Matamet tries to maintain the illusion that they are willing guests, so they are quite free to move about the house, but they are watched all the time and their weapons and horses have been denied them.’
‘And the boy?’ asked Layard, anxiously.
‘Hussein Kuli is well,’ said Saleh, ‘and still in house of Au Mohammed Zamaun.’
‘And his idiot tutor?’
‘He has fled, Effendi,’ Saleh spat meaningfully into the dirt.
‘The plague has returned to Shuster,’ he said, frowning, ‘before even the first victim had died, that coward had packed his things and ridden away on the Khan’s fine horse.’
‘The plague?’ asked Layard, ‘has it spread so far then? How bad is it?’
‘Not yet so bad, Effendi,’ replied the Lur. ‘There have been a few cases among the Matamet’s men, where the camp is crowded, and among the poorer people of the town. But the Shusteris remember not ten years back when 20,000 were lost to it. The town was one of the first to fall to the darkness that came to these lands – and once more it has come back on the heels of the Matamet.’
He spat again, emphatically.
‘Always the same, Effendi,’ he said, ‘men are found dead – their faces twisted in such horror. There are whispers among the tribesmen that the Matamet’s treachery at threatening to murder the Khan’s son has brought back the plague as a punishment.’