Alhazred

by Donald Tyson

  “Where did it go? Did you see where it went?”

  Feeling no confidence in the accuracy of her direction, I crossed the square and entered the street. To my surprise, I recognized the outline of the ruined temple of Hermes on the left side of the deserted thoroughfare, and saw that I stood almost beneath the sign of the Green Peacock. I would have been easy prey had the inn been watched, but Farri’s men must have decided that I would not return that night. Or they were occupied with other matters. This last thought spurred my steps past the darkened inn and up the street, in the direction of my own house. I almost ran, but controlled myself. It would do no good to arrive exhausted of strength.

  The way from the house to the inn had not been convoluted. I remembered making two turns, and was reasonably sure that I found them in the darkness. Even so, it was a relief to recognize the front step of the house, where I had stood admiring the sunlight a few days earlier. The house had a different appearance in the night, but I recognized it by the narrow alley that separated it from the larger building on its left side, and by the diamond carving on the screens of its second level windows that overlooked the street.

  I paused at the corner and studied the street. Not a cat stirred. Stilling my breath, I listened but heard nothing. The hour must be very late, at least three of the clock. Relaxing my shoulders, I approached the door, my hand light on the hilt of my sheathed sword. Martala would not expect me to come in the night. I wondered how I could wake her without waking her neighbors. It was only then, as I stood on the elevated platform of packed clay that extended across the front of the house and separated it from the cobbles of the street, that I saw the black line of shadow along the edge of the door.

  My sword made no whisper as it left my scabbard. With its tip, I pushed the door inward slowly to avoid the squeal of hinges. The darkness beyond was absolute.

  Do you see anything, Sashi?

  The space beyond is empty, my love.

  I entered without sound, struggling to retrieve from my memory the arrangement of the rooms and furniture on the lower level. Martala was probably gone, taken by force while I wasted my time wandering the streets of Alexandria. The urge to shout in frustration made me clench my teeth, and so quiet was the night, I heard the faint grit of their edges. With gliding steps, I moved from room to room and satisfied myself that no one lurked behind the doors. The stairs creaked when I ascended to the second level. There was no way to prevent it. Each tread made its own unique noise. When I stood upon the landing and heard nothing, I allowed myself to relax. Martala was certainly gone. I decided to find a lamp and strike it aflame with my tinderbox to examine the rooms for any signs of her abductors.

  They waited for me in her bedroom. A hood was snatched from a lantern as I entered through the open doorway on soft steps, filling the room with candlelight. I saw Martala naked on the bed amid a tangle of sheets, her eyes closed. Farri sat beside her in a careless posture, his weight on his left arm, watching me with alert brown eyes. His right hand reached across to press the edge of a curved dagger to the girl’s throat. It was like the knives used by fishermen to gut fish. Blood reddened her dark hair at the temple and seeped in two thin streams from her nose. She did not move when the light flashed out from the lantern.

  At almost the same moment this image registered in my mind, my arms were seized from both sides and I was thrown facedown on to the floorboards at the foot of the bed. Someone ripped the sword from my grasp and rolled me over roughly. Other hands patted my body until they found the dagger at my waist and pulled it from its sheath. I felt the knobbed ends of the drawstring of Martala’s empty purse jerked loose from my belt, and the dragon scroll of the Old Ones removed from my inner pocket. The scroll lay on the bed beside Farri when his hired villains lifted me to my feet.

  Zayna grasped my right wrist, her fingers surprisingly powerful. She was dressed in the black cloak and tunic I had seen her wear at Memphis, but her head was bare. She shook a lock of short hair from her eye and smiled at me with her pale mouth. The man on my left I did not recognize, but I was confident he had not been among my attackers earlier that night. He showed no sign of sword wounds. The emotionless eyes in his sullen bearded face looked black in the glow from the soot-dimmed glass port of the lantern.

  “Bring the light closer,” Farri said.

  Someone standing in the dark corner by the window stepped forward and grasped the handle at the base of the lantern, elevating it from its table so that strange shadows danced over his features. Without surprise I recognized Hatero, my portly gardener. I wondered if his wife lurked elsewhere in the house.

  Farri took his dagger away from the unconscious girl’s throat and sheathed it at his waist, then picked up the scroll and examined its contents. He wore the expression of a man who savors honey upon his tongue.

  “I was told you made a copy of an ancient book,” he murmured in Greek. “This isn’t a copy.”

  What was the purpose in talk? I shrugged as I watched his eyes.

  “The value of this, coupled with the pouch of jewels I found earlier in the cupboard and the gold and silver in your other purse, is almost compensation enough for the trouble you caused me.”

  “I kept the girl by force,” I said, merely for the sake of saying something. “She never betrayed you.”

  He laughed. None of the others joined in his merriment.

  “By force? No one has ever forced this she-devil to do anything.”

  “It was a charm. I am a necromancer.”

  “I believe you, the part about you being a sorcerer,” he said, his grizzled face suddenly serious. “If you begin to mutter a charm, I will kill you at once, and then the girl.”

  “What do you want of me?”

  He looked at the others with wide eyes, gazing at each in turn. His daughter smiled and again jerked her head to move the hair from her eye.

  “What do I want? You stole what is mine. No man has ever done that and lived. You won’t be the first.”

  “You have the jewels, the scroll, even the girl. Why should you kill me?”

  He leaned forward so that his face brightened in the glow of the lantern.

  “Satisfaction,” he hissed.

  I saw my death in his eyes. Nothing I could say or do would change his purpose. Relaxing in the grasp that held my arms apart, I drew a deeper breath. I felt no fear. Perhaps when you die once, the fear of death departs. To my memory, my first death had occurred only four days ago. It seemed unkind of the fates that I should die twice in the span of a single week. I prepared myself like a true philosopher, and waited with complacence for the blade that would slit my throat or pierce my heart.

  Farri saw my thoughts written across my face, and shook his head with a smile.

  “You won’t die by the blade. I have a much more interesting end planned for you. I want Martala to see it. We’ll wait until she wakes. It seems only fitting that the woman who gave you life should witness your death.”

  He nodded at my surprise, enjoying our circumstances.

  “I know what she did for you. One of my men recognized your corpse as she brought it down the Nile. I was curious about what she wanted in Alexandria with your bitumen-coated remains, so I had this house watched, and discovered the books she bought and the alchemical substances she had delivered to her door. I knew she planned some necromancy, so I ordered my agent to make a copy of the text you stole from the Order of the Sphinx.”

  I glanced at Hatero. If he felt any satisfaction at his act of betrayal, his face did not show it.

  “Yes, I know about that scroll, too. I could have had Martala killed at any time in the past seven months, but I wanted her to bring back your life, so that I could end it again.”

  “Only a fool harbors so much hatred inside him.”

  “No one has called me that in many years.”

 
“Why did you attack me on the street? Why not wait for me to return here?”

  “Why take the chance that you would not return? I preferred to bring you here by force. As it happened, you returned on your own.”

  It was so quiet, I heard the candle gutter inside the lantern. Martala exhaled a long breath that sounded loud in the stillness. Her head rolled to the side.

  “Wash her face with cold water,” Farri told Hatero. “She’s slept long enough.”

  The gardener replaced the lantern on the table and drew from beneath it a white clay pitcher and brass basin in which a towel lay folded. He poured water into it to wet the towel, then walked around the bed with the basin in his hands and proceeded to wipe the blood from the nose and mouth of the girl. The cool touch of the cloth caused her eyelashes to flutter open. She looked directly at me, yet gave no sign of dismay or fear. Her composure surprised me. Perhaps she had only feigned unconsciousness and had been listening all the while.

  Farri winced as he pushed himself up from the bed. His years pressed on him, I perceived, so that the joints of his crippled leg stiffened when he sat long. He tossed the priceless dragon scroll onto the mattress and made his way to the footboard. His daughter and his hired man drew me to the side and tightened their grasp on my arms as he confronted me. Though he was a small man with a hunched back, dressed in the dirty tunic of a beggar, he stood with a confidence that demanded attention.

  He glanced at Martala, who managed to sit up.

  “Hold her.”

  Hatero set the basin on the bed and took her left wrist in his two hands. She made no attempt to resist or to cover her nakedness. Her eyes never left me. I turned to look at the spiteful face of Zayna.

  “I like you better in your green dress and red surwal. They suit you,” I said, merely for the sake of saying something that might delay for a few moments the inevitable.

  “You should have died at Memphis,” she hissed.

  Studying her face and that of her father so close together, I saw the resemblance of blood. They had the same small brown eyes in which danced the light of fanaticism, the same tight mouth devoid of compassion.

  “You were clumsy,” I said in a taunting tone. “A pity about the house matron.”

  “I’m glad she failed,” Farri said. “This is better.”

  “What do you intend?”

  “It is written in the holy books of the Jews that man is raised up from the dust, and to the dust he returns. Or perhaps I should say, to the salts.”

  The needle of fear that stabbed my heart could not be hidden from his keen gaze. He savored it.

  “Long have I pored over the necromancy that raised you from the dead, studying and practicing its incantation. How fitting that it should be used to return you to the grave.”

  He raised his hand, and I stiffened my body for a blow from his fist, but he merely drew a symbol upon the air that I recognized with dread in my throat. It was the coda draconis. His words became plain. By the Head of the Dragon are the dead raised from their salts, and by the Tail of the Dragon are they returned to them. He began to murmur in the language of the Old Ones the words of the incantation that would deprive me of my brief second life. Despair overwhelmed me. There was no time, no time for anything.

  As he finished the chant and stared at me with a look of the purest hatred mingled with triumph, I held my breath, my body rigid as stone. The thuds of my heart in my chest counted the seconds. Slowly, I released the air from my lungs. Farri’s joy became doubt, then confusion. He repeated the symbol and the chant, with the same result.

  Martala’s laughter made him turn with the quickness of an old wolf.

  “Had you spent more time studying the art of necromancy, and wasted less memorizing your copy of the scroll, you would have learned that there are two ways of restoring the dead to life. The priests under the Sphinx use the first method, but I used the second.”

  Only then did I remember a fragment of conversation between Feisel and his son. Dru had spoken about a way of giving natural life to the dead, life that could not be revoked by symbol or word. The priests made no use of it, since it was not suited to their purposes. It was more convenient to them to be able to return a resurrected body to its salts for easy keeping.

  Farri started toward the bed with a murderous expression, then restrained himself and straightened his back, as much as his crooked back could be made straight.

  “You are a clever girl, Martala. That is why I do not kill you. In the past you were useful to me, and you shall be useful again.”

  He turned to me, a veil of amusement concealing his frustration.

  “Nothing has changed, necromancer. I will still return you to dust, but with this.”

  Drawing his dagger from its sheath at his waist, he extended it at the level of my heart for a killing thrust.

  Chapter 34

  You have something that belongs to me.” The quiet words drew Farri around in a fighting crouch, a snarl on his unlovely lips. Altrus leaned against the frame of the open door, his crossed arms exposed through the gap at the front of his cloak, which also revealed his sword hilt. He stepped forward into the flickering glow of the lantern and glanced around the room. Everyone stood as though staked to the floor. His appearance had the suddenness of an apparition. I wondered how he had mounted the stairs without causing the treads to squeak.

  “You must be Farri,” he said, his keen gaze settling on the old beggar. “You were imprudent to make an enemy of my master.”

  Farri straightened from his crouch and relaxed.

  “Your master?”

  “He has a deep purse and a long memory. Did you really imagine you could send this fool to steal from him? Did you think the loss of the scroll would not be noticed?”

  Farri’s smile was deadly.

  “There is only one fool in this room. A dead fool.”

  Farri’s daughter released my wrist to draw her sword. She sidled toward her father, moving on the toes of her boots with the grace of a dancer. Altrus continued to stand with arms folded. From the corner of my eye I saw Hatero get up from the bed and draw a dagger from his belt. The naked blade trembled in his hand as he held it ready near his thigh. I caught Martala’s gaze and glanced at the lantern. Understanding passed between us.

  She leaned forward and picked up the brass basin of water that had been used to wash her face, then in a single motion hurled it across at the lantern on the table. Its edge shattered the glass ports and its contents quenched the flame of the candle before any other person in the room could think to move. I spun and drove my knee upward into the groin of the heavyset bearded man who still clutched my left arm. His meaty thigh deflected the blow, but as I expected, he released me to draw his sword. The steel made a familiar sound in the darkness as it slid over the brass guard of his scabbard, a sound repeated from the doorway.

  “Kill him!” Farri cried.

  Boot leather scuffed the floorboards, and steel struck on steel. The murk was almost absolute. All I could discern were vague outlines of blackness on deeper blackness. I slid my body along the wall to the corner of the room, then across to the head of the bed. Martala stood beside it, invisible in the gloom, but I smelled her sweat and felt her heat. When my hand brushed her, she flinched aside, then clutched my arm with chill fingers. I pressed her cheek with my palm in reassurance.

  A shrill whistle cut the air, and in moments boots thundered up the staircase. They belonged to more than one, but how many more and whether Farri’s men or companions of Altrus I could not judge. The room became a very dangerous place.

  Martala felt for my hand and pressed something hard into it. I recognized the leather-bound hilt of my Damascus blade. She must have marked its location in her mind before putting out the light, and then seized it in the darkness. Its balanced weight brought reassurance, though I d
ared not extend it before us. One touch of its point would draw a furious attack impossible to parry in this ink.

  The battle would surely have caught us up, were it not for the reluctance of Farri and Zayna to move from their places. The only way to distinguish each other was by remembered location and by their harsh shouts. Altrus suffered no such constraint on his movements. He said nothing, but darted and slashed among the others. The fight milled this way and that, making escape impossible. Curses, grunts, and cries of pain were punctuated by the occasional spark of steel on steel, flashing a vivid picture on the darkness. While the combat grew more heated, my eyes adjusted to the dim moonlight sifting through the diamond-patterned window screens. I pulled Martala toward the far corner, where I hoped the light would not reach.

  Cries of alarm echoed in the street amid a swelling babble of excited voices, as the clash of swords attracted the attention of neighbors and brought them out of their houses.

  “Stay close behind me,” I murmured into Martala’s ear.

  Stepping to the bed, I pulled the sack of the feather mattress from its box and tilted it upright, holding its edges in both hands. The grip of my right hand was awkward since I did not dare release my sword. With a murmured curse at the absurdity of human existence, I ran forward toward where I knew the door to be. The mattress hit the flailing body of a man and drove him back into another. I used my weight to push them through the open doorway onto the hall landing. Outside the room, darkness was complete. My foot tripped on the edge of the mattress and I fell forward. The bodies on the other side of the soft barrier thrust back, and I found myself tumbling through the air down the stairs. By good fortune I ended my descent on top of the pile rather than beneath it, still clutching my weapon.

  “Martala?”

  “I am here.” Her voice came close behind me.

  Pushing to my feet, I groped in the darkness until I found her hand, then drew her toward the dim rectangle of the open doorway and into the street. The bewildered gathering of neighbors, most of them barefoot in their sleeping caps and gowns, parted with frightened faces to let us pass. They stared after us at the girl’s white buttocks as we ran down the street. She grasped something in her free hand but I did not stop to look at it. I took the first turning to the left, and when we had gone far enough to leave the muffled curses of the fight behind us, I drew the girl into an alcove of shadow that was the entrance to a house. The locked door came as no surprise. I had not hoped to gain entrance, but only to avoid the gaze of any who chanced to pass.