by Donald Tyson
Through the gap in her dirty woolen cloak I saw her breasts hanging down her chest like two empty leather bags. A tangle of curly white hair covered her groin, which she made no attempt to conceal by closing her knees. I turned to the hissing embers of the fire. The wood in this place was so hard and dry, it burned almost without flame, like charcoal.
“Why do you live here?” I asked.
“No more questions,” she barked. “The bargain is—”
“I know, one question for one gift. No questions. Conversation.”
She seemed to consider this, her ugly head cocked to one side. I thought she had forgotten me. She began to sing to herself in a toneless voice.
“This is my place,” she said at last, as though speaking to herself. “No danger here. No time. I do my work.”
What work this ancient hag could possibly perform alone in a hole beneath the earth was beyond my imagination.
“Long ago I lived in the city above. After the earth shook and the buildings fell, I came here. There are many fat rats. The rats in the valley were few and scrawny.”
The coherence of her speech surprised me. She was not so senile as I had supposed.
“You lived in Irem before it fell,” I said, voicing it as a statement.
She glanced at me coyly.
“I am older than I look.”
A single white louse dropped from her tangled hair. She picked it up in her quick fingers and turned it over in the firelight, then ate it.
“You do your work,” I said, hoping to induce her to speak more freely.
“I listen at the crack to the ones who dwell below in the nameless place. I gather information and sift it.”
“You gather information,” I repeated tonelessly.
“Many secrets are mine of things above and below. I teach them to those who bring me gifts.”
“You might have killed me, but you did not.”
She moved so quickly, I had no chance even to flinch away before my jaw was cupped in one of her enormous hands. Upon her stunted legs she might be awkward, but within the length of her body she could stretch with the speed of a striking serpent. Her hand forced my chin up as she regarded me with her black eyes.
“You are the only man I’thakuah has ever seen who is uglier than she.”
With a cackle like the rasp of a dry hinge, she released me and leaned back to her sitting stone. I glanced at the pile of skulls. She followed my gaze with her own.
“Pretty boys. All so pretty. I ate their faces.”
Picking up my water skin, I slung its strap over my shoulder. It did not feel lighter than it had before. Perhaps the hag did not need to drink, I reflected. With greater care I picked up the silk cloth containing the spiders from beside her, but she appeared not to notice. She sat gazing into the embers, muttering to herself in some language I had never before heard spoken.
“I will hunt, and bring gifts.”
She nodded.
“Good. Go hunt. Bring gifts.”
Strength had returned to my limbs, though my thighs still trembled when I stood. Climbing from the ledge, I felt my way into the darkness of the cisterns beyond the glow of the embers. It was necessary to move slowly to avoid tripping on stones fallen from the roof and tangles of wood. No doubt the witch knew every step of the cisterns with her eyes closed, having dwelt here for so many unnumbered years. I would be at a fatal disadvantage without the second sight of the spiders, should she decide to kill me and eat my face, ugly though it might be. Even so, I could not risk becoming poisoned by taking the spiders so soon after having been overcome by their effects. They were more dangerous than I had supposed.
It was not possible to become lost in the cisterns if the outer wall was kept continually within touching distance on one side. There were many round chambers, linked by short arched passages to a larger central space. Access must have been obtained by the city dwellers from openings in the roof. Doors in the walls would be useless when the cisterns were filled with water. I wondered how the water had entered to fill this vast space, and what its source might have been.
At one place where the wall of an outer chamber was natural rock rather than shaped stones, I came upon a fissure that ran up from the floor higher than I could reach. A faint breeze stirred the hairs of my eyebrows as I put my face into the opening. The way was narrow, but by turning my body to the side I found that I could slide between the rough walls of stone. The bottom of the cleft had filled with rubble and dust, and gave support for walking. I might have gone further, but a rustle in the darkness and the quiet sounds of a large creature sniffing the air quelled my curiosity. I slid backward and emerged to continue my exploration by touch of the water chambers. In my mind I noted the location of the crack so that I could return to it more quickly when I wished to probe its depths.
The care I took in my blind progress was repaid when I crossed to the middle of the central chamber. As I slid a foot forward, the stones of the floor ended on empty space. Dropping to my knees, I crawled to the void and felt the edge with my hands. It curved around and eventually returned to itself. Within the center of the space was the mouth of a well. It seemed unlikely to me that such a well would be used to drain the chambers, so I reasoned it must be one of the inlets for the spring or fountain that had kept them filled, before the failure of the water source. I dropped a pebble into the well and heard nothing.
For my own future security, I dragged some pieces of wood from a pile of rubble and laid them at the edge of the well so that they completely surrounded it. At least I would not wander over the edge in the darkness without some warning of my peril.
If the water had fountained up from this vent to fill the cisterns, there must be an outflow, or several outflows, high in the walls to maintain a constant level, but I had not encountered any in my partial circuit of the chambers. Perhaps they were well above my head, if they existed, and might for all I knew be too narrow to crawl through. Thus far, the only potential safe exit from this place I had found was the fissure. I might, with much work, dig my way out the way I had entered, but long before I escaped to the surface I’thakuah would have me by the heels. I could slay her when she slept, I thought, if indeed she ever did sleep. She seemed not to require water, and there was something inhuman in the shape of her body, shriveled with age though it might be. Surely no common woman could live the centuries she claimed to have lived. It might be dangerous to attempt to kill her. I decided to wait and learn what I could before I took this course.
The rats were easy to catch, even in total darkness. I heard them squeaking and the rustle of their long naked tails in the dust. They were accustomed to avoid the lunges of the witch, and knew enough to stay just beyond her reach, but did not move quickly enough to flee when I dashed forward and fell on them, clutching them to my chest. I took care to explore the space where I hunted before attempting these sudden rushes, so that I would not dash out my brains on a pillar or some angled beam. I killed four rats, one for myself and three for the witch. Mine I ate standing in the darkness with the other carcasses at my feet. The water in the eyeballs was almost tasteless. Moving with greater confidence, I returned the way I had come, the rats swinging by their tails in my hand.
She still sat before her fire, feeding small bits of wood into it. Somewhere she must have hidden flint and tinder, and a blade for shaving the ancient wood into slivers of kindling, or she would never be able to restart the fire were it to burn itself out. The fire would keep the rats at bay while she slept, if she ever did sleep. Perhaps she needed its heat for her crippled limbs. At the scuff of my sandals in the dust she raised her head and sniffed the air with her hooked nose.
Climbing onto the ledge, I dropped the rats beside the fire.
“Three gifts.”
“You shall have three answers,” she said, gazing up at me with what I guessed w
as intended to be a smile.
Without ceremony, she tore out the throat of each rat in turn with her powerful fingers and sucked its blood, then gnawed the flesh from one of the carcasses. The other two she set aside. I watched in fascination. So powerful were her fingers, she had little need for a knife. Were she to grip my throat in her enormous hands, she could snap my neck as easily as I had snapped the necks of the rats.
“Ask your first question, and I will teach you.”
On the return across the cistern floor, I had considered what to ask. One question seemed more pressing than any other, so I asked it first.
“Is there a safe way out of this place that leads to the surface?”
“Yes.”
I waited for her to continue, but she merely stared at me with glittering eyes, an expression of amusement on her face. I realized that I would need to phrase my questions more carefully if I was to gain any useful elaboration. The witch had played this game for centuries, but I was new to its rules.
“What are the directions that would allow me to leave this place and make my way to the surface?”
Amusement turned to annoyance, when she found she could not answer my second question with a single word.
“Go to the crack in the wall and enter it, provided your body is thin enough to fit,” she said, eyeing me with an appraising glance. “Descend to the nameless city and go out from it through the gates of golden light to the dry river. By following the riverbed, you will emerge from under the ground.”
The directions were clear and easy to comprehend. I wondered what she was not telling me. Almost I asked it as my third question, but curiosity at her mention of the city without a name overcame my prudence.
“What is the nameless city?”
She nodded with satisfaction, knowing that I could not resist asking about the city. It must have been a favorite topic, since she chose to speak at length.
“Before men came to this place, a race of creatures unlike any other dwelt here beneath the surface in a city of countless rooms and halls cut into the solid rock. Ages past they raised their herds in the valley above, but when the land became blighted by a great catastrophe, they retreated underground and began to shape their city. Though their wisdom was vast, after uncounted ages their crafts began to fail them, until they could no longer raise sufficient food in their tunnels. They needed a new source of meat, for they ate only meat, and devised a plan to attract men to the valley. With their arts they channeled upward a portion of the mighty river that flowed beneath their city so that it formed a spring in the valley. Men who happened upon the water settled beside it and eventually a city of many pillars arose that was called Irem.
“For uncounted generations the two races lived together, one city above the other. The dwellers below hid themselves from the dwellers above. The men shaped natural cavities already present in the rock to make these great chambers to hold their precious water. The other race, that has no name in the languages of men, took their food by stealth from among the people of Irem, at first only a few, but as their arts failed them, more and more in order to survive. A cult of the lower dwellers grew up among men, who offered sacrifices to those rarely glimpsed things of the nameless city that ventured up to the foundations of Irem. Travelers passing through the city on the caravan road sometimes went to their beds, and were never seen again.
“The kings of Irem were ruthless and full of craft. They made laws against dealing with the dwellers beneath, and killed all those who defied them, yet when they wished to learn of the magic that only the dwellers below possessed, they trafficked with them in secret and offered their own slaves, children, and concubines as meat. The nameless race took care never to offend the kings too greatly, but it is said that they made the mistake of abducting a king’s favorite wife. This so enraged the king, he ordered his army to enter the city below and exterminate all that lived in its halls. The older race fought back but were no match for the soldiers. Just as they were on the point of defeat, the earth shook and drew the city of Irem into itself, so that not a second life was spared of citizen or slave, nor even of beast. I alone survived. In terror the soldiers fled the halls of the nameless city and were slaughtered from behind by the dwellers beneath. With no source of meat, they dwindled and at last abandoned their city, and now all is dead both above and below, as you see.”
The way she told this tale showed that it was not the first time she had related it. I wondered how many other disciples had sat by her fire and listened to the same words. Probably as many as the number of skulls that composed her pyramid of trophies. Sooner or later, she would try to kill me as she had killed all the others.
Weariness overcame me in a wave and left my limbs trembling with fatigue and my eyelids heavy. I stretched out beside the fire on my side and continued to watch her through the shimmerings of heat that rose from the embers, still mumbling to herself as though she talked to invisible visitors. Drawing my dagger, I slid it close to my chest and held its hilt in my curled fingers as my eyes closed.
When I awoke, there was silence. Without changing the rhythms of my breaths, I parted my eyelids barely enough to see that the witch was gone from her place and the fire had burned low from lack of tending. A rustle came from the shadows at the back of the shallow cave. Tilting my head slowly so that the movement would not be noticed, I saw the witch squatting over an exposed cleft in the floor that had been covered by a flat stone. She cackled softly to herself and took from the hole something that flashed and shimmered. Light danced over the roof of the cave and the face of the witch. It was a mirror of no great size in an ornately wrought frame of silver.
Setting the mirror upright against a stone where she could see herself in its depths, she reached again into the hole and drew forth a shimmering chain set with jewels that seemed to glow with their own inner fire. They were of many colors, like the opal, not smoky within but clear and bright as diamond. The witch fastened this chain around her neck and admired herself from several angles in the looking glass, making little mewing sounds of pleasure. From the hole she took a thing like a tiara made of heavy gold set with rubies and balanced it upon her tangled thicket of hair. It did not sit firmly but wobbled as though about to fall, and I saw that it had not been shaped for a human skull. Several rings set with jewels she took from the hiding place and slid over her fingers. Even her giant hands were too small for their hoops. They slipped around under the weight of their stones, so that she repeatedly had to turn them to admire her hands in the mirror.
You see, my love, there is treasure here.
I will never doubt you again, honorable spirit, I said to the djinn in my mind.
As though she had heard my thoughts, I’thakuah hissed and turned to look at me. Her eyes glittered like black pearls, framed by the glowing multicolored stones of the chain and the rubies in her hair. I let the slits beneath my eyelids close and continued to draw slow breaths, my heart thudding in my chest. The bone hilt of the dagger still pressed against my fingers near my chest, but I did not dare to close them more tightly around it. After several breaths, I parted my eyelids and saw the witch replacing her treasures into their hole. She put the mirror in last, after gazing for a long while at her face in its depths, then covered the hole with the flat rock.
With uncanny silence she pushed herself up to her feet and hobbled to the fire, where she gathered up the two uneaten rats by their tails. Moving to the edge of the ledge, she let herself down to the floor of the cistern. A single backward look she cast me to assure herself that I had not stirred, then like a shadow she merged into the darkness. I heard the soft rustle of her cloak as its hem dragged behind her in the dust.
How good her ears were I had no way of knowing, or whether she could truly see through the utter blackness of the artificial caverns, but my curiosity compelled me to rise and follow the sound of her cloak, moving with what I hoped was greater
stealth. She did not hug the wall but set out boldly across the open floor, avoiding the debris with the skill of repeated practice. It helped my progress that I followed in her path, since she chose the easiest way for her stunted legs, walking around anything she might have to climb over. Even so, it was difficult to follow noiselessly. I could not approach too near or the smell of my body would betray my presence. When I hung back, I sometimes crept into the stones or beams she had skirted. By walking bent over with my hands extended in front of my body at the level of my shins to feel my way, I somehow avoided stumbling.
The sudden silence made me halt and still my breaths. To my eyes the darkness was absolute, but for all I knew I stood in plain sight of the witch. I bent lower in an attempt to make my body appear no more than another pile of stones. The silence lengthened, and I began to worry that the crafty hag was creeping around to steal upon me from behind, when she spoke aloud in a strange guttural language that echoed, as though she were speaking into a great bell. She could not be more than six paces in front of where I stood. Cool air touched my cheek, and I realized that the witch had made her way to the fissure in the rock wall and was speaking into its depths.
A second voice replied in the same strange language. It was deeper than the voice of the witch yet soft, and slurred as though the mouth that formed the words had not been designed for speech. I’thakuah spoke again more briefly. A rustle came from the fissure as something was thrown into its depths, and soon after a second similar sound. I heard the click of claws on stone and the slither of a heavy body. Something was grabbed up from the loose rubble at the floor of the crack. A moment later came the unmistakable tinkle of silver striking the stones that lined the floor of the cistern. The witch made a little noise of delight in her throat and felt about in the dust until she located the object, which I took to be a ring or some similar trinket.