by Donald Tyson
Surely this must be fabled Irem, said by storytellers to have been the most beautiful city in all the world, with a thousand towers that rose higher than any other towers built by men, yet so wicked in its ways that God cast it down in a great storm and buried it beneath the sand for eternity. The last part of the legend at least must be untrue, I reflected, as I crossed the valley floor toward the gate. The towers still stood. Yet as I drew nearer, I felt uncertainty. There was a disturbing silver light that played over the city, making it waver like heat rising from the desert beneath the sun. The same thinness that I had noticed in the wagons and camels of the ghost caravan showed itself in the walls and pillars, and grew more distinct with each step.
The illusion persisted almost within touching distance of the gate. As I reached out my hand, everything dissolved into shadows and ceased utterly. Before me lay only a few scattered stones and a broad sinkhole where the sand sloped gently inward. I stalked forward through the place where the gate had stood, cursing in a loud voice all ghosts and all mirages, both those under the sun and those beneath the moon. No doubt the treasure was a mirage also, I thought as I sat in discouragement on one of the rounded stones and drew up my water skin to drink.
In idle frustration I picked up a pebble and threw it at a rounded stone that projected from the sand a few paces away. I picked up a second pebble with the same intention, but the regularity of its surface made me hold it before my face. It glowed with its own light, and I realized that it was not a stone, but a fragment of pottery. I stood and looked around the sinkhole with greater care. The rounded boulders were glowing also, but very faintly. Crossing to one that was more exposed than the others, I dug with my hands around its base. Its sides were straight, and continued unbroken into the depths of the sand. It was not a boulder but the top of a stone pillar. The roughness of the weathering where the stone was exposed had deceived me. All around me were buried pillars.
“We have reached Irem. Show me its treasures.”
I cannot.
“Then what use are you?”
The bitterness in my voice earned me a reproving glance from Sashi when I closed my eyelids.
The nameless city is a place of wealth and secrets. So it was whispered on the wind.
“I believe djinn are more credulous of travelers’ tales even than men,” I told her.
Wandering into the shallow bowl that lay in the center of the irregular ring of pillars, I kicked at the sand and heard its soft rustle as it slid down the slope. The rounded hollow of the ground magnified it in my ear-holes. My annoyance was not with Sashi but with myself for placing trust in a fable. There was nothing here but sand. The dry rustle of the tumbling grains drew my gaze downward, and I saw that the sand had ceased to move where I had kicked it, yet the sound of its sliding had not ceased. Here was a mystery, though it seemed unlikely to make my fortune. I walked down the slope and stood in the center of the depression, turning slowly to find the source of the sound.
The rustle came from a shadow midway up the eastern slope. I approached it curiously, thinking the noise must be made by a serpent or other small burrowing creature. Only when I stood close was I able to see that the shadow was an opening at the side of a pillar that barely showed its top above the sand. I fell to my knees and crawled forward, listening. When my head came near the hole, I heard a faint echo of sifting sand, and felt coolness on my moist lips. I made a click with my tongue and heard the echoes dance beneath the earth. Beyond the hole lay a cavern of no small dimension.
For a moment, I hesitated. It was possible that I might be able to squirm my way into the narrow opening, but that did not mean I would be able to squirm my way out. The vent sloped downward, and it was always easier to slide down soft sand than climb up it. The absurdity of my qualms made me smile. It was not as though I could go back along the path I had traveled. What did life offer behind me? Very well, I thought, I would go forward, and take what chance fate provided.
Extending my arms, I slid them into the vent, then my head. It was taller than it was wide, so I turned my body onto its side and was able to force in my shoulders, and after them my hips. The sheath of my dagger ground against my thigh until I shifted it out of the way, along with Gor’s skull. As the opening narrowed, I felt a brief panic that I would be trapped upside down in the earth with only my sandal-clad feet projecting when the sun rose, a pretty sight for the vultures to pick at and puzzle over. I inched forward with my fingers by digging them into the sides of the passage, which had some firmness, and at last was rewarded when my body slid with sudden release down a slope of sand and came to rest a dozen feet beneath the hole, the outline of which glowed faintly with moonlight when I looked behind.
It was plain at a glance that I would never get out the way I had come in, therefore there was nothing else to do but search for some other passage from the cavern. When I moved from the slope of sand I discovered that the walls shone with tiny lights resembling stars. Looking more closely, I saw that the light came from small seashells embedded in the rock, each one glowing with its residual life-force to my enhanced vision. The glow was not enough to illuminate the cavern, but was sufficient to keep me from bumping into the walls of the cave, which sloped downward and widened as it descended.
The cave opened outward to a vast space that had been shaped by intelligent labor. At intervals massive pillars supported its vaulted roof. I stopped and held my breath, listening. From the darkness came the faint splash of a drop of water falling into a pool from a great height. Sniffing the air, I tried to discern the scent of water, but it if was present, it was so faint that I could not be sure whether I smelled it, or only imagined it. The space was like a great underground cistern, but many times larger than those I had seen at Sana’a. At intervals, openings led away through the curving wall to other chambers similar in design.
The entire ground beneath the lost city of Irem had been hollow, and it came to my mind that the thousand pillars of legend were perhaps not merely the pillars of its towers, but also the pillars that supported this hidden reservoir. It was a work of construction to rival the seven wonders of the world. I studied the slope of debris behind me, a mingling of sand and shaped blocks. Evidently the great voids beneath the city had collapsed, drawing down its buildings and forming the sink pit through which I had gained entry, but many chambers yet remained.
How many centuries had passed since water lapped at these stones? The same disaster that had buried the city deep under the sand must have cracked and emptied the underground cisterns that contained its riches—for the true wealth of a city in the midst of the Empty Space was water, and this wealth Irem had possessed in unimaginable abundance. I bent and rubbed the dust of the floor between my fingers. There was no trace of moisture. Again in the distance came the sound of a drop falling and striking the surface of a pool. It was not possible to determine its direction, and I wondered if it was the ghost of a sound, even as the glowing shells embedded in the stones were the visible ghosts of the dead creatures of an ancient sea.
A squeak and rustle in the dust aroused me from this meditation. The glowing form of a large rat approached without hesitation and began to nip and worry at the stocking-covered tip of my large toe, exposed between the bands of my sandals. A very obliging creature, I thought as I bent quickly to snatch it up and break its neck. Its blood was hot and sweet where I bit its throat. Tasting it on my tongue, I knew it would sustain me in the absence of water. I tore its fur with my teeth and was pleased to discover its flesh layered in fat. To a man accustomed to the meager fare of the Empty Space it was a feast. After eating until I was no longer hungry, I cut the best pieces that remained from the carcass and stored them in a folded rag in one of my pockets.
A bat flew silently past above my head, its wings bright against the darkness of the arched roof. Looking around with greater attention, I noticed a snake uncoiling itself from beneath a stone, and sev
eral spiders clinging to a pillar. This place, lost and forgotten though it might be, was far from lifeless. Scattered in irregular piles and drifts, as though left by the receding water, were pieces of wood. I picked up a small stick. It felt hard and dense, and exuded age. The wood must have formed part of the cistern’s structure when it had been in use, and been cast down along with the rest of the city by the cataclysm that buried it.
Keeping a wall close enough at hand that its glow did not vanish in the general gloom, I set off to explore the perimeter of the caverns. There were many rats, but they kept a polite distance. No doubt they smelled the blood of their kin on my fingers and face. Their glowing bodies bobbed like torches, winking in and out as they moved behind fallen stones or piles of old wood. Soon the effects of the spiders would wear off, and the darkness would be absolute. This prospect did not alarm me. I had grown used to the dark on the open desert, though the desert never knew so deep a blackness as subsisted below the earth. It would make exploration more difficult. I wondered if I should risk a second feeding on the spiders.
With a shrug, I opened the silk scarf in which I carried them and put three of the shriveled bodies in my mouth. I chewed them slowly as I wrapped the rest with care and returned them to their pocket. The only ill effect I had ever suffered from their use was a headache. Surely that was a small price to pay for the gift of second sight.
The first indication that I was not alone in the cisterns was the tang of wood smoke on the air. Following it with what was left of my nose, I saw the redness of firelight reflecting from the pillars before me and approached without sound, as I had learned to do by watching the ghouls. I peered around the edge of the wall into a secondary chamber. Flames danced in a hearth of stones on a low ledge of natural rock that the architect of the cisterns had not taken the trouble to remove during construction. The wall behind the ledge was hollow, so that the space above it formed a shallow cave.
The fire glowing in its bed of embers gave off almost no visible smoke, nor did the dense ancient wood crackle, but burned with a quiet hiss. Before it rested what appeared to be a disordered pile of sticks and old rags, until the heap moved, and I realized it was a living being. The creature sang to itself in a cracked voice, and muttered words. Some of the words I recognized as an ancient dialect of my own language, but others were wholly strange in my ears. I crept nearer, the better to hear what the creature said. It seemed wrapped up in its mutterings and did not notice my approach.
The face lined by the flames was human, but so leathered and creased with age that it appeared a grotesque carving in stone. Rank white hair matted in filth hung down its shoulders and back and sprouted from its pointed chin. About its hunched shoulders the creature clutched a dirty cloak of heavy wool of some indeterminate brown color. The hand that held the edge of the cloak was unnaturally large, like the hand of a giant, and the same was true of the creature’s shoulders, but by way of compensation the bulk of its legs beneath the folds of the cloak appeared withered.
My fascination was almost the cause of my death. As I worked my way around the side of a pillar to approach behind the creature, it sprang and twisted in the air, throwing itself backward toward me with its great arms outstretched and a ferocious expression on its face. I had time to notice the absence of teeth in its blackened gums as I darted backward. The thing rustled and scurried after me, but its stunted legs were no match for my quickness. It soon became tired of the chase, and stood hunched almost double, its hooked nose near the dust as it wheezed for breath.
“Wicked boy, to creep up on I’thakuah without bringing her a gift,” she croaked and spat, for by her words it was plain the creature was female.
“What gift would you have from me?” I asked.
She cackled and bent until her head touched the stones at her feet, and she looked like nothing more than an oddly shaped boulder, apart from the shaking of her sides.
“No gift, yet already he asks for payment,” she muttered, her tiny dark eyes glittering at me from under heavy lids. “Ungrateful brat.”
With a sniff, she gathered her cloak about her and hobbled back to the ledge, then hopped up on it like a frog and settled herself on the flat stone that served her as a seat by the fire.
I approached warily, intent on probing the madness of this hag to determine whether she possessed anything of value. She was scarcely worth killing, and I doubted her blood would be as sweet as that of the rats.
Reminded by this thought of the meat I carried, I drew the rag that contained it from my robes and offered it to her.
“Here is a gift,” I told her. “Fresh meat. Eat it if you wish.”
Respect for her surprising quickness caused me to toss the bundle onto the ledge beside the fire. She snatched it up and unwrapped it eagerly. Drool oozed from the corners of her toothless mouth as she chewed and tore at the red meat with her hardened gums. In less than a dozen breaths the meat was gone.
“Was the gift to your liking?” I asked, marveling at the voraciousness of her appetite.
She leaned back and cackled until the spittle sprayed from her lips into the fire.
“Yes, yes, a perfect gift, you wasteful boy.”
“I had no need for it,” I told her. “The rats are many and easy to kill.”
“Easy for one whose limbs are long and quick,” she said with sudden bitterness, and the glance she cast me was filled with hatred.
“Do you live alone in this place?”
“No!” she roared, and slapped the ledge with her hand. It made the sound of brick striking brick. “One question. One question for one gift. That is the bargain.”
Moving sideways so that the fire would be between us as I approached the edge of the ledge, I considered this curious pronouncement. She must value her knowledge highly if she considered a single answer worth a full day’s meat.
I noticed in the shadows of her cave, at the edge of the fire glow, a pile of what appeared to be white stones. As I came near the ledge, I saw that they were skulls. The hag marked the direction of my gaze and nodded.
“My keepsakes,” she said, eyeing the skull tied to my waist. “You collect them also.”
“Only one,” I corrected her. “This is the skull of a friend. A ghoul of the Black Spring Clan.”
“Ghoul’s skull,” she muttered, the eagerness departing from her features. “No good, no good.”
Peering closer at the pile of skulls in the cave, I saw that they were all human. Those on the bottom of the pile were brown with age and repeated handling, but the one on top still had bits of flesh clinging to its surface.
“Where do you get these skulls, old woman?”
She raised her long finger and wagged it at me.
“You can’t trick me, boy. One question, one gift. That is the bargain.”
I stumbled and caught myself on the edge of the ledge. In the excitement of avoiding her attack, I had not noticed my increasing dizziness, or the sickness in the pit of my stomach. The shadows had begun to pulsate with each throb of blood through my brain, and my headache had grown more intense moment by moment, but I had ignored these signs in my preoccupation with the hag. With surprise, the realization came to me that I must be ill. The remains of the chewed rat spewed from my spasming belly onto the dust of the floor and I fell forward, unconscious before my face struck the stone.
Chapter 9
In my disordered dreams, the tall man in black bent over me and spoke, but I could not understand his words. Each time he raised his bony hand to draw aside his silk caul, I ran away into the darkness, but there was no escape. He always found me. At last he cornered me and removed his veil. It was the face of the witch I’thakuah, peering down into mine. Something cold and wet pressed against my lips. I sucked on it, and it washed the sour taste from my tongue. Closing my eyes, which I had not realized were open, I slept.
The warmth of the fire radiating against my side woke me from an unconsciousness as deep as death. My mind floated, detached from the lifeless doll of flesh and blood that lay on its back with its head turned toward the fire. With effort, I tried to lift my hand and felt one of my fingers twitch, then two. Life returned slowly to my limbs. I tilted my head upward and saw the witch seated in her customary place, watching me with keen black eyes that were like black raisins set in pastry. The memory of my sickness and collapse returned. I was able to raise my hand to my face. My right cheek felt bruised, but nothing else appeared damaged.
The witch held up the red and green silk cloth that contained my storehouse of spiders.
“You ate these?” she asked.
I nodded.
“You ate too many.”
My hand feebly fumbled around my waist in what I hoped was an unobtrusive movement. With relief I touched the bone hilt of my dagger. Why I felt relieved, I would not have been able to say, since I was so weak a child might have taken it away from me and used it to slit my throat. I wondered why the witch had not killed me. My water skin lay beside the fire, and I realized that it had not been a dream when I had seen her face leaning over mine, and had felt wetness on my lips.
“How long?” I asked.
She threw back her head and laughed harshly as though I had made a fine jest, then she spread her long arms to indicate the space around the fire.
“Do you see a water clock? A sun dial? There is no time here, fool.”
Forcing my shoulders up so that I sat supported on my arms behind me, I looked at the wall of the cistern beyond the firelight. Nothing glowed in the surface of the stone. The effects of the spiders had worn off. That meant at least a day had passed. My head began to throb. I closed my eyes, and in a few moments the pain between my eyebrows became less intense.