Alhazred

by Donald Tyson

  Even as the question occurred to me, I realized that my hesitation was pointless. Having come this far, I was not about to leave the well without trying the healing virtue of its water. I steeled my resolve with the reflection that I was a ghoul, and drank a mouthful. As soon as I swallowed the water, my throat constricted. The cramps began in my belly. Faintness took the strength from my limbs. Had I not been floating in the water, I would have fallen from the side of the well. Touching my face with one hand, I laughed bitterly, the sound of my laughter echoing from the dank stones with mockery into my ear holes. My face was unchanged. Where my nose should have been, there was only the familiar hole. I did not need to grope between my thighs to know that nothing hung there.

  “Why are you laughing?” the girl shouted in her tiny, distant voice.

  “I am amused at my own folly. Forget about me. Keep watch for the approach of anyone.”

  The shadow outline of her head withdrew from the staring eye of the well mouth.

  I had barely finished speaking when the vomit erupted from my lips. This induced another burst of laughter from my chest. I spat the sour contents of my stomach from my mouth. It would probably not be a wise idea to rinse it out with the water of the well, I thought.

  For several minutes I hung suspended in the glowing pool, watching my feet through the turbid water as I kicked them gently and pondered my fate. The water of the well was not to be the answer to my unspoken prayers. Well, what of it? I would find some other way to restore my face and manhood. In the greatness of the universe some method must exist by which I could be made whole. Damascus was the home of many necromancers and sages. Perhaps the answer was known among them.

  The most prudent course would have been to climb my way out of that poison pool, but disappointment made me reckless. I wondered if the other parts of the legend were also lies. If a holy relic of value lay at the bottom of the well, it might be worth at least a look. Perhaps it was of such a size and shape that I could carry it out on my back. Drawing a deep breath, I plunged my head into the water and turned my body, then pulled myself downward on the notched stone steps.

  The water was of no great depth, though more than deep enough to drown a man. In the shimmering shifting yellow light that was so difficult to look upon, I saw a kind of box about the size of a travel trunk, its flat sides covered with gold leaf. Carved figures rose up on either end. These also appeared gilded, and were probably made of wood, but the loops on its sides attracted my attention. They looked like metal, and might well be solid gold. No trace of corrosion or rust detracted from their smooth and shining surfaces. Pulling myself forward through the murky water, which was obscured by sediment stirred up by the motions of my limbs, I reached out to test the nature of one of the loops.

  Something slid from behind the box, or perhaps through its surface. I did not see its place of origin amid the clouds of mud. It flowed forth and uncoiled itself like a gigantic serpent of golden light, winding around and around the side of the well so that it encircled me. It thrust its head at my face and regarded me with its shining eyes. I released bubbles of my breath and paddled backward with my hands. Its face was human, resembling the face of a beautiful woman, but terrible in its severity, its eyes void of mercy or any other emotion. It opened its finely shaped lips, and its elongated teeth were like countless needles of ivory.

  Before I could kick off from the muck at the bottom of the well toward the surface, the shining glowing coils of its body fell all around me. They looked material to the sight, but their touch was insubstantial, like the brush of a silk scarf. Yet wherever they touched my limbs, they drew from them the heat of my body and left me numb. My terror mounted with my need to breathe. I became entangled in the coils of the creature as I fought. In desperation, I reached for my sword, only to remember leaving it on the ground beside my wallet.

  My fingers closed on something hard. It was a stick of the white wood I had used as a wedge to move the slabs of stone that covered the well. I jerked it from my belt and stabbed at the creature. To my surprise, the stick did not pass through its body, as my fists did, but sank into flesh. It emitted a kind of shriek under the water, either of pain or rage, and its coils withdrew from me. Still stabbing wildly in all directions, I found one of the steps on the side of the well with my hand and pulled my head above the surface. I wasted no time enjoying the air, but scrambled as swiftly as my body would move up the spiral stair until I hung wholly above the accursed pool. In my haste, the white shard of wood fell from my hand. It was so dense, it did not float but sank like a stone.

  My legs felt as though they were filled with lead, and my bowels still twisted with cramps. I spat the taste of the foul water from my mouth and started to climb up the notches. I took my time ascending, so that it was twice as prolonged as my descent. It would not have been wise to slip and fall back into the pool, for the thing that protected the box would surely have drowned me. All the while I muttered a string of curses under my breath. My mood was murderous. I had hung all my hopes on the virtues of this well, and in reward for my faith had nearly left my corpse in it.

  Martala helped me climb out of the well mouth. I shook her off. Something in my eyes made her step back and keep her silence. I looked around, and found what I sought, a stone the size of my head. Picking it up in both hands to my waist, I shuffled over and dropped it into the well, then listened with deep satisfaction to the sound as it struck the water. It was followed by a thrashing, as though the water in the well began to boil. I chuckled, and found another rock.

  After dropping a dozen large stones into the well, my fury began to dim. Fatigue overcame me, and I staggered to one of the flat slabs that had covered the opening and sat upon it. Martala came close but did not touch me. I would not have knocked her hand away. My anger spent, I was left with only a wry appreciation of my own folly.

  “The water is poison,” I said. “The holy thing is a box. Some spirit or angel of the Hebrews protects it.”

  “What will we do?” she asked quietly.

  I spat. The taste of the well water still fouled my mouth. My guts rolled and I repressed the urge to vomit, knowing that my stomach was empty.

  “Leave this accursed place. We will travel west, to Damascus. That is where all the great necromancers of this world dwell, or so it is said. Maybe one of them knows the secret of restoring limbs that have been cut off.”

  She accepted my decision with her usual lack of argument. She enjoyed bickering about small things, but seldom opposed me on matters of importance.

  I gathered up the scattered sticks of white wood and carried them back to our sleeping place. How much they would bring in the markets at Damascus, I could not guess, but one had saved my life, and I was disposed to value them. As I bent over my travel wallet to replace these sticks within it, a mocking laughter floated across the valley.

  Dropping the wallet, I snatched up my sword and whipped it in an arc to send its sheath clattering across the stones. The girl drew her dagger, eyes wide with dread. We both knew the voice.

  Chapter 50

  Why Altrus chose not to kill us both at the well puzzled me more with each day that passed. I could imagine no reason for him to withhold his sword. Had it been any other mercenary, he might hesitate to face both of us at the same time, but I knew that Altrus possessed the skill to kill us with ease. In any case, timidity was not a part of his nature. He followed us to gain the scroll of the Old Ones. It made no sense to me that he would delay the achievement of his purpose.

  After the sound of his laughter faded, we waited with our backs touching for his approach. When he failed to come, I began to explore the rim of the valley, and at last climbed to the crest of one of the hills. He had withdrawn himself with such swiftness and skill, no trace remained to betray his presence. I searched the ground for footprints but found only my own and those of the girl. Even so, it was several hours before
I felt confident enough to return for the scabbard and sheath my sword. The weight of it was a mockery at my waist. Altrus could beat the blade from my hand with a dozen strokes.

  We traveled west, moving with haste, doing our best to conceal our tracks, and sleeping in hollows and caves when we found them. It was not until we left the ferry that carried us across the Euphrates that I began to hope we had escaped his pursuit. The river marked the boundary of the land of the Persians. I welcomed the dryness of the hill country after the green monotony of the southern plain. Even though we traveled far from Yemen, I felt that I was returned to the land of my own people. Those we encountered spoke Arabic more often than not.

  Ever westward we worked our way through the barren hills, until we encountered a caravan road that was said to lead to Damascus. I debated with myself the wisdom of following the road, knowing that Altrus must be somewhere behind. There was no real faith in my heart that we could shake off his dogged pursuit so easily. At length, I decided that it would be wiser to keep to the road, but to disguise ourselves amid the many caravans and riders who used it. Alone in the hills we would be easy to track, but amid the multitude of scholars, mercenaries, traders, pilgrims, and wanderers who followed the road, we might indeed lose ourselves and remain hidden.

  From the first caravan we overtook we were able to buy apparel better suited to the long journey that lay in front of us than the scholarly garments of the Sons of Sirius, which had become so filthy with mud and dust that their color was more brown than white. One of the merchants possessed a store of used robes, scarves, turbans, hats, and footwear, bundled in sacks over the backs of two camels. When I asked where he had acquired such an abundance of secondhand garments, he said he had bartered for them the day before from a passing wagon. By his satisfied expression, I gathered that he had paid an uncommonly low price, but he took pains to charge me as much as my temper would bear.

  Martala did not attempt to disguise herself as a boy, since there seemed little to gain by the subterfuge, but let her dark hair hang freely over her shoulders beneath a new silk head scarf of a deep blue scattered with golden stars. She chose a loose-legged surwal and a simple chemise, both of white cotton, worn beneath a woman’s thawb deep blue in color and richly embroidered with beads at the neck and down the front. The thawb was wool, as was the black cloak that covered it and hung down almost to her feet. With the autumnal equinox passed, cooler nights had forced travelers to change from summer cotton to winter wool.

  The voluminous cloak was cut in the Persian fashion, with square corners and a hood that hung down in the back. It concealed the new short sword belted at her waist, which I purchased from another merchant of the caravan who traded in edged weapons. The width of its blade made me hesitate to buy it, fearing it would be too heavy for the girl to use, but when I had her make practice cuts in the air, I saw that her arm was strong enough to swing its weight. I took back my ivory-hilted dagger and bought Martala a dagger with a short straight blade of the kind she preferred. She slid its sheath into the furred top of her right boot.

  For my part, I rummaged in the bags of clothes so long, the merchant began to roll his eyes with impatience, until at last I found a thawb with an open neck slit down the front that had inner pockets. It was an ugly color midway between green and yellow, with overbold tiraz bands at the sleeves, but its deep pockets were sufficient compensation for my injured sensibilities. To wear beneath it, I chose a white cotton shirt with a long tail, and over it an outer cloak of brown camel hair that was cut round at the corners, as are all sensible cloaks. I purchased a broad belt of leather for my sword, preferring a belt to a baldric, which tended to swing about.

  I refused to sell our castoff scholar’s robes to the greedy merchant, who sought them for the value of their linen. At the first chance, I went into the hills and hid them beneath a stone along with the infernal shoes, the thin soles of which had worn in holes. It was certain Altrus would recognize the robes, even at a distance, both from their lack of ornament and their slender cut. For several minutes I debated in my mind whether to hide the leather travel wallets along with the robes, but at last decided with reluctance to keep them, since we had no other way to conveniently carry our possessions.

  We returned to the road and made good speed in our new boots, which showed little wear from their former owners. Martala swore that hers fitted perfectly. Mine pinched the small toe on my left foot, but not enough to be troublesome.

  The way ran uncommonly broad for a caravan track, each section well maintained by the local ruler, so I was not unduly surprised when we passed three wagons drawn by teams of dust-caked weary ponies. It was proof of the high quality of the road that it could be traveled by wagon. They were of a design I had not seen in my wanderings. Each was painted bright yellow, and enclosed by an arched wooden canopy, so that it resembled a little house. At the front of the canopy, above the seat of the woman who held the reins, was drawn in red paint a sign that resembled an eye, but turned on to its corner so that it stood upright.

  The wagons moved slowly, rocking from side to side, accompanied by small herds of bleating goats driven along the open margin of the road by dirty-faced children wielding switches. Men of varying ages walked next to the enormous spoked wheels, which at times became trapped in ruts, so that the shaggy little horses needed help from their masters to free them. The men wore no weapons of any kind, unlike their women, who kept long knives in their richly embroidered girdles. On each wagon a woman controlled the horses from a bench at the front. Other women rode within, but occasionally projected their scarf-covered heads through the side windows or back door to harangue the men in their strange tongue. It had an eastern taste in my ear, but was unknown to the flesh of Nectanebus. The swarthy race of the wagons also spoke Arabic, but uttered it with a barbaric accent that made their words difficult to comprehend.

  “Have you ever seen wagons like these?” I asked the girl as we made our way past them. They also traveled westward, but at less than a walking pace.

  “There is a people that go in wagons up and down the roads of the Delta,” she said, squinting through the cloud of dust at the leading conveyance. “They are like these, but different.”

  One of the men by the huge rear wheel tilted up his head and eyed her from beneath the broad brim of his felt hat. Malignancy glittered in his black eye. I looked at him with a mild expression, wondering how the flesh of his corpse would taste.

  “They are traveling tinkers and fortunetellers, a harmless folk always welcome in the villages of Egypt because of the trade goods they carry.”

  “These men do not look harmless,” I murmured so that only she could hear.

  “These wagons are different. I have never seen this ugly yellow color, or this red eye, along the Nile.”

  “Perhaps they are a different clan, and these are their clan markings.”

  She had no answer. We left the lumbering wagon and its surly brood behind us, but the puzzle of their nature stayed in the back of my thoughts. When we overtook a group of seven pilgrims walking single file on their way to Damascus, I asked their leader about the piss-colored wagons.

  “Stay away from them,” he said, making the sign of the evil eye with his hand as we walked beside him.

  “Are they dangerous?” Martala asked. She had veiled all but her eyes with her scarf to avoid the disapproval of these holy men.

  He wagged his head with vigor, making his long black beard ripple on his chest.

  “They are thieves and murderers. Some say even worse things about them, that the women divine the future with evil stones, and imprison the souls of their enemies in glass bottles, and that the men sell their first-born sons to Shaitan.”

  “Shocking,” Martala agreed. “Why does the army of the Prophet not put them to the sword?”

  He spread his hands, the joints of his fingers knobbed like plums with the disease of sti
ffness.

  “None are more adept in the ways of deception. Do not talk to them, for you will get only lies, and like as not, a knife in your back.”

  When I had verified to my satisfaction that he knew nothing more about the wagon people than these few bits of gossip, we moved onward, passing another great caravan before the onset of twilight. Our pace carried us faster along the road than most of the traffic. None except those mounted on horseback overtook us. Altrus almost certainly traveled by horse. Our new cloaks concealed us well, but we were betrayed by our number. He had only to keep alert for a man and a woman, or a man and a boy, moving along the road without company.

  As full darkness descended, we left the road in search of a place to sleep. I noticed one of the yellow wagons drawn up under a tree in an open patch of ragged grass, the ponies tethered and the goats within a rough stockade of stakes driven into the ground. No one moved near the wagon. Mindful of the warning of the holy man, I kept my distance as we started past. The sound of a deep male voice intoning words within the canopy floated to us on the still night air. Other voices answered in unison, in what had the quality of a religious rite. With perfect clarity, I heard the words a’ai y’gatu l’il ro’kanah Shub-Niggurath.

  Had the Goat With A Thousand Young herself risen from a fissure in the earth, I would not have been more amazed. To hear the name of Shub-Niggurath chanted by these homeless vagabonds was surprise enough, but to hear it spoken in the language of the Old Ones defied rational explanation. I stopped and listened to the rest of the rite, straining to make out every word. Most of it was in the language of the wagon people, which I did not understand. At the end of the rite, I left the wagon and led the girl into the hills, where we found a hollow with a ledge of rock at its back that was difficult to approach without being seen.

  We made a cold meal from our travel wallets in the darkness. There was sufficient dry wood for a fire, but I wanted no beacon to attract Altrus, should it happen that he followed so close behind us.