by Donald Tyson
“Not severely. Not yet. Before we kill you both, we want the scroll. If you tell us where you have hidden it, your deaths will be painless.”
There was no pretense that he would allow us to live. He believed pretense to be unnecessary. In this matter we were in agreement.
“Had the Elephant’s Foot burned, the scroll would have burned with it.”
He shrugged with indifference.
“Our orders are to destroy it or return it. And to kill both of you.”
“I am an agent of Nyarlathotep.”
“Perhaps he will protect you.”
Nyarlathotep cared nothing for my death, now that I had served his purpose. Feisel must have said as much to the head of the assassins. The speaking of the god’s name did not frighten him.
I touched my coat with my left hand over the hidden inner pocket that held the scroll, and felt the rounded knob of its roller under my fingers. The assassin noticed the motion. He extended his hand.
“Give it to me now, and save yourself the humiliation of having the coat cut from your back.”
Wordlessly, I took the scroll from its hiding place and extended it. He reached out for it, then flinched and cursed, drawing back his hand. When he again reached for the scroll, I saw a few drops of blood behind his middle knuckle.
One of his men slapped himself on the forehead.
“Hellish insects are hungry,” he said to his companion, and the other gave a short laugh.
As the leader reached again to take the scroll, I dropped it, grabbed his arm and pulled him off balance toward me. In an instant I stood behind his back with my dagger across his throat.
“Release your knife. Tell your companions to do the same.”
“Fool. We do not fear death.”
He stabbed back at my thigh with his dagger. As I twisted my body to avoid the thrust, he was somehow able to writhe out of my grasp. I felt his strength as he pivoted away, and knew that he would be a formidable opponent. The other two rushed forward to kill me. Martala’s legs had been left untied for walking. That was a mistake. She hooked a toe around the ankle of one man, and both she and the assassin fell together in a heap. The other two closed upon me, and I knew my death was near. The night felt so heavy, I could hardly breathe. It seemed to press upon me like an invisible blanket. I wondered if it was an effect of the poison, then heard the gasps from the assassins as they struggled for air.
We are attacked, Alhazred, Sashi said in my mind.
“Tell me something I don’t know,” I muttered aloud, drawing a forearm across my face in an effort to clear my sight, which was strangely darkened as though by a shadow, even though nothing blocked the rays of the moon.
The two assassins hesitated and faltered. They looked around in confusion and raised their arms as though to ward off invisible blows. Blinking at them, I saw small rents appear in their exposed skin as though by some magic. They were of a size such as might have been made by the sharp beaks of crows, but no sound of wings was heard on the stillness, only the grunts of pain of the two who stood reeling before me, and the curses of the third on the ground as he sought to disentangle himself from Martala’s legs.
Something cut my left arm just below the shoulder, and I felt a similar slash on my left ankle, like the bite of a rat. Ignoring these pricks, I stepped forward and thrust the point of my dagger between the ribs of the assassin closest to me. As my hand neared his chest, it seemed to pass through a layer of thickened air, and immediately the back of my hand was covered with tiny cuts that gushed blood but caused no pain.
Drop to the earth, Alhazred.
I obeyed Sashi without question. The third assassin managed to kick Martala away with his boot, and stood with a murderous rage. For a moment he stared at his companions, as one flailed the air with his hands like some lunatic and the other slowly crumpled to his knees. His trance was brief. He cried out and covered his cauled face with both his hands, which gushed blood in the few seconds I watched from the ground. He began to slash at the air with his dagger, uttering cries that echoed from the indifferent hills.
I crawled beside Martala and began to cut her bonds with my blood-soaked knife. When her arms were free, her own knife appeared in her hand, and I had a moment to wonder that the assassins had not discovered its hiding place. She started to struggle to her feet, but I held her down with an arm across her waist.
“Stay low,” I whispered. “Don’t move.”
We lay with our chests flat to the ground, watching the mad gyrations of the black-robed men. They behaved as though stung by a swarm of wasps, spinning and flailing their arms, yelps and grunts escaping between their barred teeth. The dagger of one man flew through the air as he forgot in his agonies to tighten his fingers on its hilt. I looked again, and saw that he had no fingers, only stumps that streamed blood. The blood-soaked silken caul was torn from his face as he spun on his heels, and he had no face. The other two fell to the ground, but the jerks of their bodies as they spasmed in agony showed that they were still under attack.
What are they? I asked Sashi silently in my mind.
They are vampire wraiths. I have never encountered them before, but have heard of their existence. They hunt in swarms, and feed on the life force in freshly flowing blood.
Are they djinn?
They are creatures of spirit, but not as I am.
If we lie still, will they ignore us?
I do not know, my love.
Can you defend us?
Perhaps, but it would mean leaving your body, and the poison has grown strong.
I leaned across to Martala, moving slowly so as not to attract attention to us.
“We will have to try to run,” I whispered into her ear. “Are you strong enough?”
She nodded, eyes meeting mine. Her mouth was still gagged, and I noticed absently that the rag had dried blood on it. I wondered how badly they had tortured her.
All three assassins lay in heaps of bloody flesh on the stone-strewn ground. Nothing moved but the air around them, which had the appearance of black smoke, so thickly did the wraiths cluster above their bodies, seeking blood.
“Now,” I said, and leapt to my feet.
Almost immediately, I felt the air thicken around my head. Without turning to look behind, I ran along the path toward the mouth of the valley. Martala’s footfalls and her snorts of breath through her nose told me she followed close at my heels.
As we ran, we left the oppression in the air behind us. It seemed that these creatures could not pursue their prey swiftly. We would have faired well had not Martala set her foot on a loose stone and stumbled. I heard her fall and stopped to help her to her feet. It was the work of only a few moments, but it was enough to allow the invisible fiends to close the gap. They attacked my eyes and I was forced to cover them with my hands to protect them, rendering me blind and incapable of flight. I heard Martala’s muted cries of terror beside me as we sat upon the ground and hunched our heads and shoulders in a futile effort to defend our faces.
Something left my body. Fatigue and pain descended upon my limbs like the hammer of a blacksmith. At first, I thought I could not move. It was a great effort just to take a breath. When I gathered my wits, I was able to open my eyes. I saw that the black smoke hung all around us, swirling and churning with fury, but some invisible barrier kept it at bay. Poor Martala’s face was covered with small cuts, but her eyes had not been damaged. At least her beautiful lips were protected by the gag. As I watched, she struggled to work her fingers beneath its edges to tear it away, but it was too tight.
“We must keep running,” I said, my words strangely slurred. The earth spun beneath me.
I struggled to my feet and would surely have fallen had Martala not caught me beneath the arm. We began to run once more, slower than before, but whatever barrier Sashi had erecte
d around us was sufficient to keep most of the tiny flying devils away from our flesh. A few got through to vex us, but not so many as would sap our strength. We had little strength to spare, either of us. In spite of her torture and bondage, Martala was the stronger, and I realized how much Sashi had been doing over the past few days to protect me from the poison. Every joint in my body ached as though transfixed by a red-hot spike.
We stumbled from the valley, our feeble strength exhausted, and fell together to the ground. I raised my weary head and looked back, but there was no sign of any pursuit in the moonlight. Whether I could have seen the things in the air at that distance, I had no way to know. I only knew that we would run no further until we had rested. Martala laid her head upon my chest and put her arms around my shoulders. She could only gasp little puffs of air through her flared nostrils.
Making the painful effort to move my arm, I drew my dagger and cut the gag from her face. She gasped the cool night air with gratitude as the dirty rag peeled away from her sweating and blood-stained cheeks.
“Are we safe?” she asked.
I made no answer, since I knew no answer. Something surrounded my body, and for an instant fear leapt into my heart. Then I realized it was Sashi, returned to me. As she penetrated my skin, the pain diminished to the dull ache I had grown accustomed to, and my strength returned. No, not my strength, I corrected myself, merely an illusion of my strength. I had witnessed that night how thin was the illusion.
Martala licked her dry lips with the tip of her tongue.
“The scroll.”
“I’ll retrieve it in the morning, if it is still there,” I told her. “As for the rest of the night, we have work to do.”
She stared at me as though I had gone insane.
“We must consult the oracle of Amun in the temple of pillars. The ghouls say it will know where the antidote to the poison may be found.”
Chapter 28
We washed the blood from our faces and hands at the first public well we encountered after returning to the city. The damage to Martala’s face appeared severe, but when the blood was wiped away, I saw that the cuts made by the wraiths were tiny, no larger than the end of my fingernails, and curved in little crescents. They were thin, with smooth edges, like the cuts of a razor, and slow to cease bleeding, but when they did stop at last, they left little trace other than a hair-thin red line.
The well stood in a walled square, deserted due to the late hour. It was in a little-traveled section of the decaying city of Thebes. I made Martala take off her dress and chemise upon the elevated stone platform that surrounded its sides. She did not wish to expose herself, but I wanted to see what the assassins had done to her. Her belly and breasts were covered with bruises, though no bones were broken. The insides of her thighs were also bruised.
“How did they miss your dagger?”
She laughed scornfully, forgetting her embarrassment in the memory.
“They held me down on my back on the floor of our room and raised the hem of my dress over my head so that I was blinded and my body exposed. The fools never thought to look at my arms.”
“Did they rape you?”
She scowled and turned away, snatching back her chemise and putting it on with impatient motions.
“What does it matter? I told them nothing.”
“They are food for ghouls.”
She smiled at the thought and slid her dress over her head, then smoothed her long dark hair with her hand as she fitted her head scarf and tightened the embroidered band around her waist.
“Follow me.”
I stepped from the well platform and strode across the square to an archway leading to a more populous section of the city.
“Where are we going?” she asked, skipping behind me to catch up.
“We need workmen.”
Laborers were not hard to locate, even at that late hour. The wine shops were filled with them. It soon became apparent that we would find no workmen who were sober, so I hired two that were drunk, a fat man with strong shoulders, and his younger and more slender brother. From their incessant chatter, I gathered their names were Yamas and Han. Both agreed to dig for us, and swore that they owned tools for digging. We followed behind them out of the wine shop and through the dark streets to their hovel of a house, where they kept their picks and spades. They walked ahead of us, singing loudly, each with an arm around the shoulder of the other. The song was unfamiliar, but I noted that the fat man had a fair voice, though the wine slurred his words.
As they slung their bags of tools over their backs, I caught the attention of the older man.
“How can we get across the river?”
Yamas blinked at me. I repeated the question twice. At last he grinned, showing surprisingly even white teeth.
“My brother has a boat.”
The skinny one, who listened with his mouth partly open, nodded.
“Take us to the boat.”
Again we trailed after these singing louts, who made enough noise to wake the dead from their winding sheets. I felt annoyed that we were attracting so much attention, then reflected that we would be dismissed as a band of drunken fools. It was a better concealment than if we crept through the shadows.
The boat was the most miserable thing I have ever seen borne upon water, apart from the excrement of pigs. It was made in the Egyptian style of sodden reeds tied together, with a sweeping bow and stern that rose to the height of my head as I balanced uneasily on the loose and rotting planks that lined its bottom. Han waved impatiently for the girl to go next. When Martala climbed aboard, it sank an alarming distance.
“Are you sure it will hold the four of us?” I asked the fat man.
“Yes, yes,” he said with impatience, throwing his sack of tools down beside our feet.
He climbed ponderously over the bundled reeds that formed the boat’s rounded edge, and it swayed and dipped until the surface of the Nile was no more than a few finger’s breadth lower than the lowest part of the side.
At least his brother showed familiarity with the craft. Han cast in his tools and hopped into the stern with accustomed ease, in spite of his drunken state. The boat shuddered and sank again until the water kissed the top of its sides. Sitting on the bench in the bow, I noticed wetness in the bottom through the soles of my boots, and glanced at Martala beside me. Her eyes were saucers of milk in the moonlight.
“Sit down before you tip us,” the younger brother grumbled at the elder.
The fat man sat abruptly with a faint splash in the wetness at our feet. The boat wobbled and shipped silver streaks of the river over both sides. With a curse, he pushed himself up and backward until his broad buttocks rested on the woven reeds of the middle bench. The little craft steadied and ceased to fill.
“There’s a tin pan under your seat,” the young man told me casually as he set the tiller into place and worked it back and forth to propel us away from the dock.
I passed the pan to Martala and she began to bail with a will. It was the only thing that kept us above the surface of the river, since the water seeped and slopped in as fast as she cast it out.
The side to side motion of the long oar was not quite enough to maintain us against the current of the river, but through good fortune the wind was in our favor and blew us across toward the eastern bank, while partially sustaining us against its flow. Even drunk, the slender brother knew what he was doing. Much to my surprise, we reached the other shore.
Martala hiked up her dress and chemise around her waist, giving the fat brother a clear view of her white flanks as she leapt out. She splashed through the shallows with no regard to how wet she became, so thankful was she to be on solid ground once again.
“No need to get wet,” Yamas called after her. “I would have carried you.”
I debated whether to risk havi
ng the corpulent oaf carry me to dry land on his shoulders, then decided it was safer to splash through the mud after the girl. Stripping off my clothes, I bundle them onto my head and stepped like a crane through the nodding reeds. I dressed while the brothers pulled the bow of the boat up on the bank, tied it securely to a rotting stump, and lifted out their tools.
“Where are we digging?” Yamas asked. The boat ride had begun to take the warm glow off his drunkenness, and his voice was both clearer and less cheerful.
“Do you know where the temple of pillars lies?”
“The big temple of Amun, you mean? Everyone knows it.”
I gestured broadly for him to lead the way. He walked past us, looking at me curiously. His brother began to sing once again, but he did not join in.
Martala moved closer to me.
“Where are we going?” she asked in Greek.
I glanced at the brothers. They gave no sign of understanding what she had said.
“The leader of the ghoul clan told me where to find an oracle that knows the antidote to the poison.”
“What is this oracle?”
“I know nothing about it, only where it lies hidden.”
We walked along a broad paved avenue lined with statues toward the entrance of the greatest temple I had ever seen. Even comparison with the alien wonders accessed through the star chamber of portals did not diminish its grandeur. Its massive pillars soared to the heavens, and it extended back further than my eye could follow in the uncertain light of the waning moon. Although the roof had fallen in, most of the temple remained standing. To walk among its pillars was to enter a forest of stone, ancient beyond the reckoning of years.
The two Copts rolled their eyes fearfully. Even the younger brother felt the weight of centuries and fell silent. It was easy to imagine that ghosts walked between the pillars, unseen but not unperceived. Every so often a chillness touched my face, like the brush of wet silk.
I had no leisure to gawk in wonder with the others. I reviewed the directions given to me by Hakka and led my nervous little band deeper into the shadows, counting the pillars as I went. When I was sure I had found the right spot, I stomped a large flat paving stone with the heel of my boot. The clink of the stone echoed from the walls.