The Bones of the Old Ones (Dabir and Asim)

by Howard Andrew Jones

  It twisted as I went down, throwing off my balance so that I did not land as I’d hoped. One of my knees bashed into its rock-hard thigh and I had to relinquish my grip on both its neck and my sword to catch myself. I scrambled through the mob-churned snow for my blade as I heard it rising behind me. I whirled, steel in hand, to face the impending attack.

  It was then that Noura moved in, ears down. She landed hard on its back with both forehooves, and there was a cracking noise, as of wood being broken. The thing rose a little before Noura stomped it again, whinnying the while, yet again it tried to push itself up.

  By the second time I had a plan. I sheathed my blade and while my adversary was half risen on creaking legs I charged into the monster and lifted it over my shoulder. Beneath that fabric I felt no flesh, only wood carved into limbs. It was a shock, but I did not break stride.

  One arm smacked me hard in the back—it had aimed for my kidney, I think—and then I dumped it deep into the bonfire, where it hit with a satisfying crash, kicking up flames and a spray of sparks. Folk cried out in horror, not knowing, as I did, that it was a creature of wood.

  It stood, clothing ablaze, and then folk screamed louder, for they saw the timber body beneath as the robes burned off. I snatched up a log and heaved blindly, taking the thing in the legs. It dropped, dislodging piled lumber to roll down across its body and partially bury itself.

  I was worried for Dabir and Najya, so I did not stay to see if the wooden man was truly finished. I snatched an axe leaning against the pile of firewood and hurried on as a horn blared from the old fortress.

  The crowd had spread out in a vast circle before Dabir, who warded the girl with a heavy pole probably snatched from a tent awning. Najya held Dabir’s sword at guard, watching wild-eyed, her breath misting the air. One of the soldiers I’d seen earlier near the fire whimpered as he crawled across the snow, his blade discarded, his face covered in blood. Two others lay twisted nearby.

  Koury’s lackey strode for Dabir, swinging gloved fists. Gaps in the now tattered face fabric showed nothing but a hand-polished globe. Likewise formed of wood was his smooth neck and what I saw of his right shoulder. He resembled nothing so much as a life-sized, highly articulated child’s toy somehow granted life.

  All this I perceived in an instant; the cowering crowd, Dabir shielding Najya. Yet there was another oddity I have not yet mentioned, for Koury now sat astride a mount himself. Astonished as I was by the tableau, some small part of me questioned how he had managed to conceal such a beast without calling notice to himself. Unlike the face of the wooden men, the head of the horse he rode was marvelously carved, with a black mane delineated in exquisite detail. Its mouth was partly open, its nostrils wide and round. Where its eyes should have been were two large onyx stones. No reins did Koury need—he sat saddle like a general, watching intently, as though he commanded the figures merely by looking at them.

  I called out to God and charged. Dabir saw me and advanced with the pole, striking hard at the legs of the wooden warrior, toppling it. I smashed the axe into the place where its spine should have been. A satisfying splintering sound resulted.

  But the thing barely slowed. Bending joints as no human could, it regained its feet in an instant, the axe poking out from its back like an obscene handle. I brought out my steel, unsure how I might truly stop it.

  I think that Koury might have kept on, but the arrival of horsemen, galloping from the fortress, decided the matter. Behind them ran a squad of soldiers.

  Koury shouted something at us that sounded very much like a curse, then turned tail on his carven beast and galloped at great speed down the avenue. The wooden man with the axe ran after at an inhuman pace. Women screamed as it passed. In a moment they were lost to sight beyond the crowd, which rushed for a better look at the departing figures and chattered amongst themselves. The one I’d cast in the fire did not follow, but burned brightly amidst the logs.

  I reached Dabir and he smiled at me, clapping me on the shoulder. “Well done. You are unharmed?”

  “Mostly. You?” I saw for the first time that the knuckles of his left hand were stained with blood.

  “The thing was faster than I thought,” he said, seeing the track of my eyes.

  We both turned to Najya then, and her eyes shone bright even as she panted. She lowered Dabir’s sword slowly and it suddenly occurred to me that hers was a practiced stance. Either she had paid very close heed to the warriors she’d watched, or someone had trained her.

  Before I could ask, my friend Tarif, the scarred captain of the palace guard, arrived on his horse. He reined in before me as his eyes swept the area in astonishment. “Asim—what has happened?”

  “A wizard tried to kidnap this woman,” I said, which might have sounded comical if men had not been lying motionless in the blood-drenched snow. “We were taking her to the governor.”

  Tarif seemed only to half listen. His mind was clearly occupied with the fate of his men. “A wizard?”

  The guard who’d aided Dabir with the wooden man called to him, and Tarif nodded decisively. “Go on to His Excellency and report,” he said to us both. “I will sort this out and join you as I can.”

  As Tarif advanced to speak with his subordinates, I whistled Noura to me.

  My mount, a treasured gift from the caliph himself, trotted over at my summons but stamped and snorted, still agitated. I managed to calm her long enough that I might better inspect her wounds. I found that the left side of her face was swollen and deeply cut. I praised her for her bravery and despite her hurts I think she understood, for she lowered her head further and snorted softly. I led her by the reins toward the palace in the wake of Dabir and Najya, in the saddle once more.

  Stablehands ran forward as we passed beneath the palace’s entrance arch, and I demanded that a hakim come to look at my mare. Such was my demeanor that both groomsmen rushed away—to fetch the healer, I think—so I had to scare up a passing boy to bring me water and clean rags. I was reluctant to leave my horse in other hands, but the head stableman swiftly arrived, and owing to his assurances and Dabir’s poorly concealed impatience I yielded the matter to him. I hurried off across the courtyard after Dabir, already nearing the entrance, and Najya, who had lingered a little to see if I would come.

  The governor’s chamberlain, Farbod, met us at one of the palace’s two great sandalwood doors and, after introductions, escorted us through the entry halls. His staff struck the floor with every other step of his pointed slippers, producing a regular, steady thunk that put me in mind of a funeral drum. The high windows were shuttered against cold, so that darkness lay unusually thick in the hallway, and the flare of lanterns hung from the wall did little to push back the gloom. We came after him down the long, black passage, chafing behind the aged steward’s slow, steady tread.

  “This situation is even more troubling than it first appeared,” Dabir said quietly to us.

  Najya politely waited for him to continue, but I broke in. “You’re ‘troubled’?! Those men were made of wood! As was his horse—from where did it come?”

  “He pulled something from his pouch,” Dabir said, and his voice was halting. “And lo—it grew into the size you saw.”

  “Of course,” I said, “he is a wizard.” Why did it seem that we must forever contend with wizards to set things aright?

  “He is worse,” Dabir countered. “The Koury of ancient days was said to give life to creatures he fashioned from wood and clay. Just like this one.”

  “You think it is the same man? From thousands of years before?”

  “We just fought men of wood,” Dabir said fiercely. “I am willing to entertain the possibility. Najya, did you glimpse any other powers when you were with them?”

  “I saw only that they were amazing fighters,” she confessed.

  “Did Gazi work any magic?” Dabir demanded.

  The woman hesitated.

  “What did he do?”

  At the sound of Dabir’s rising voice,
Farbod glanced back over his shoulder. Almost we had reached the great doors.

  Dabir’s scrutiny seemed to wear down Najya’s hesitation.

  “He might have planned to work magic. He sliced my husband open and … I think he pulled forth his heart.” Her eyes were lit doubly by horror and outrage.

  Dabir looked as though he had been slapped. His whispered prayer was drowned out by the sound of the doors flung open from within by guardsmen. The right-hand one, Kharouf, with whom I sparred on occasion, nodded acknowledgment, then shifted to stand rigidly at attention, helm glinting under his turban cloth as Farbod led us past.

  The cavernous hall was actually better lit than usual, owing to a row of smoking braziers beside each pillar that marched to the settee facing the door. Though the governor was not a warrior or huntsman, his walls were adorned with shields and crossed weapons from different lands and different times: lances, swords, pikes, spears, even axes, all in a variety of lengths and styles. Lovely woven banners hung at the heights of columns. I had studied those decorations on prior days and knew that each was threaded with the words of God from the Holy Koran. Most were concerned with justice and righteousness and the giving of alms, but also there were passages praising the glory of Allah, the most merciful. They had replaced the dusty standards of long-forgotten combatants, I had been told.

  I but glanced at them as Farbod guided us on to the governor, who was warming his hands over a brazier just below the settee. A slight fellow with a thin brown beard shot through with gray, he was dressed in fine black and wore a green turban to memorialize his pilgrimage to Mecca. He stood looking over a weathered scroll beside the old astrologer Shabouh, whose jowly face was lined with worry.

  Farbod stopped with a commanding thump of his staff and the governor waited for him to announce us, though he could see perfectly well who we were. Certain ceremonies had always to be observed, and he knew Farbod relished the roles of his office.

  “Dabir ibn Khalil and Asim el Abbas are here to speak with you, Governor.” Farbod bowed with grave dignity. “They have arrived with Najya binta Alimah, of Isfahan.”

  “Thank you, Farbod,” the governor said, his thin voice low and formal. The governor inclined his narrow head, then addressed us in his more customary tone. “Peace be upon you,” he said.

  We returned his greeting, Najya replying more formally a moment later.

  The governor nodded to her, then glanced at his chamberlain. “Farbod, you may go.”

  The elder bowed to the governor, backed past us, then turned his thick frame rather smartly and exited while his master beckoned us close.

  “A soldier ran in to report unwelcome news,” he said. “Is it true that you were attacked in the street before the palace?”

  “Therein lies a tale, Excellency,” Dabir replied.

  “Speak, then.”

  Dabir proceeded to tell the governor that Najya had come to us because she was pursued by the same men who’d ambushed us in the square. He did not get far, for none of us could fail to note that the woman’s attention was riveted by something on my left.

  “What is the matter, young lady?” the governor asked.

  “I would like to see that spear,” she said flatly as she stepped past.

  “Of course. Be my guest.” The governor’s hand waved belated permission; he turned back to Dabir with an expression of bemusement that transformed into mild irritation when the scholar, frowning, broke off his report to follow Najya. The governor wrinkled his brow at me instead. I offered empty palms and went after Dabir.

  Najya was apparently fascinated by an ivory spear thrown in sharp relief before its shadow on the pale wall. It was long as a cavalry lance, and hung a few feet below a heavy, dark axe. The latter seemed the better weapon to me, but the woman had eyes only for the spear.

  I wondered why I had never paid it heed before this moment, and I suppose it was because I had not expected to see anything strange upon the governor’s walls, or that it was usually hidden in the shadows.

  The old spear was carved all from a single piece, haft and blade, though I could scarcely imagine the size of the animal from which it had come. The tawny surface was exceptionally smooth save for strange carvings of sticklike men bearing spears against … the shapes were indeterminate. Blobs with fangs? The art was rudimentary. Upon the blade was a slightly larger and more detailed image of a manlike figure charging with a spear at another figure twice his size.

  Najya advanced slowly toward it, her gaze unwavering.

  Dabir had come up beside her. “Is this what you seek?”

  The woman flinched almost as if physically assaulted, and stopped her forward progression. She turned her head to him and blinked as if clearing her vision.

  “Yes.” Breathing heavily, she looked again at the weapon, then at Dabir. The governor and Shabouh joined us, their expressions puzzled.

  “It is like hearing a distant horn,” Najya continued in a distracted way. “The closer I come to one, the better I hear the call.”

  “How many do you hear?” Dabir asked.

  “Four.” She was no longer looking at him. “This one is loudest because the others are so far away.”

  “How long have you felt this pull?” Dabir asked.

  She stared at him for a long moment and something changed in her eyes.

  “What is happening, Dabir?” the governor asked. “Is she afflicted with madness?”

  Dabir faced him only briefly. “I beg your patience, Governor.”

  Najya blinked hard as a man will when trying to stave off sleep while standing sentry. “What is it you said?”

  Dabir studied her for a moment before speaking: “You say that you are pulled toward the spear. How long have you felt that?”

  She looked down and away, and when she replied her voice was very soft. “I do not wish you to think me foolish, so I did not speak of it. I’m afraid this is something that the wizard has done. I never … I just wish to return home.” She raised her head and then, almost against her will, faced the wall and the spear once more. She took a half step toward it.

  Dabir interposed his body between the wall and the woman. His voice was kind but firm. “I do not recommend coming any closer to that weapon.”

  She only stared at him.

  “Why should she not?” the governor asked. “What is happening?”

  My friend looked as though he were about to make some sobering pronouncement. Instead, he asked him a question. “Do you know from where this spear comes?”

  “It was on the wall of the palace when I was appointed to my post,” the governor answered. “So were most of these.” He turned reluctantly to the astrologer. “Shabouh, you served the previous governor. Do you know anything of it?”

  Shabouh bowed his gray head. “It has always hung here, Excellency, at least to my knowledge. I honestly paid it no heed until now. Farbod, perhaps, knows more.”

  It was then Najya lunged suddenly past Dabir and grabbed the weapon.

  3

  I darted after without thinking. Neither Dabir nor I were ones to touch women unasked, but we both lay hold of her arms.

  Yet there was no moving her. Najya’s whole body had gone rigid and she was fastened to the spear as surely as if she were bolted to the thing. She began to shake, as men will when they have the falling sickness, and she gripped the haft so tightly that her knuckles turned white.

  “Pry free her thumbs!” Dabir shouted to me.

  As I slid my hand beneath hers, my palm pressed against the surface of the spear, and a cold spread through me such as men must face when they die upon the mountaintops. I shuddered violently in the sudden chill and my mind flooded with jarring and disjointed images. I stood upon a plain sheathed everywhere in ice and snow. The sky was a slate-gray tombstone. A village of thatched round huts lay beneath a thick sheet of frost and snow. Strange beasts stomped across a frozen river, followed by giant manlike beings with long silvery hair and shining white skin. Fur-clad warriors
charged with flint-tipped spears. Bodies lay strewn like leaves over the icy ground, stained red beneath them. A bearded man stared back at me through a slab of ice, his mouth open in a silent scream.

  The visions vanished the moment I pulled Najya free with trembling hands. She collapsed senseless in my arms.

  Dabir was there on my other side, demanding to know if she was all right, and what had happened to me. I lifted the woman in my arms and spoke with a trembling jaw. “The weapon is cursed,” I told him. “Its touch froze me to the bone.”

  “Place her upon the settee,” the governor ordered, and this I did, casting a blanket over her that I found upon the back of the furniture. By this time the guards had rushed forward, and the governor sent Kharouf running for the hakim.

  “She lives,” Dabir said, and he pulled fingers back from Najya’s neck.

  The woman’s face was pale as the white marble inlays in the patterned floor. She shifted very slightly beneath the blanket, but did not open her eyes.

  The governor frowned down at her, then turned to us, drawing himself up to his full height. Though we each topped him by at least half a head, we bowed in deference. “Explain,” he commanded.

  Dabir then relayed, in short, succinct sentences, all that we had experienced since Najya’s arrival. I would have left to stand over a brazier, but I did not wish to appear disrespectful

  The governor’s expression grew more and more grave as he listened, but he asked no questions. My friend finished by pointing to the weapon on the column. “It seems, Your Excellency, that the wizard Koury captured Najya to aid him in finding this unusual spear.”

  “That thing?” the governor asked. “But why should anyone want it?”

  Before Dabir could answer, the reception doors thumped open and Tarif of the palace guard walked in. He was trailed by four soldiers, each holding the corner of a canvas. Upon that canvas lay the blackened figure of the wooden man I had consigned to flames. One of the arm joints still smoldered. Tarif came to a halt six feet from the dais, and bowed.