The Bones of the Old Ones (Dabir and Asim)

by Howard Andrew Jones

  Dabir opened one of the doors. While he paused on the threshold for his eyes to adjust, I took the lamb meat from Abdul and told him to post men about the building’s exterior. Najya and I then followed Dabir through the doors, in time to hear a rough-edged voice call his name in pleased surprise.

  I found myself in a rectangular room stuffed with papyrus and writing utensils and books of all sorts, organized on wall shelves and chests. Dim squares of sunlight shone high on the walls through small, screened windows.

  A diminutive, potbellied man in his middle years was coming out from behind a counter, his face bright with a lopsided smile that showed small, well-tended teeth. He and Dabir embraced and exchanged warm greetings, and I thought then to observe him more closely, as Dabir might do. I could not quite guess his lineage. Azeri, perhaps, although he had something of the look of a Kurd as well. His robe was brown with frayed blue trim, worn thin in places, as was his carefully trimmed beard. The man resembled his store—both were somewhat shabby, but well-ordered.

  “Why did you not send word of your coming?” Jibril said as they stepped apart.

  “There was no time,” Dabir replied. “And for that I am sorry. We need your help.”

  “It will be my pleasure.” I think Jibril meant to address me next, but his eyes were drawn to Najya, where they remained. He looked as though he had suddenly found horse droppings in his stew pot.

  Dabir introduced her as though untroubled by Jibril’s reaction. “This is Najya binta Alimah, daughter of the famed general Delir al Khayr.”

  Najya pulled down her hood to greet him, and her fine, straight black hair shone as she bowed her head.

  “By God and his angels,” Jibril said breathlessly. “This is beyond me, Dabir.”

  I did not know how he could tell anything simply by looking at her, nor, obviously, could Najya, whose face fell.

  “This matter is far beyond me,” Dabir countered. “I need your help.”

  Jibril shook his head quickly. “There is a woman in Raqqa—”

  “I need you, Jibril. We barely reached you alive, even with a full escort of soldiers. We have little time.”

  Jibril threw up his hands. “This is what you bring me, after all these years?”

  “He brought a lamb, also,” I said.

  Both Jibril and Dabir fixed me with the same peculiar look, and I realized then how foolish I’d sounded.

  Two men a little younger than me emerged from a curtained doorway behind the counter. They were taller than Jibril, and a little wider, but strongly resembled him. Gruffly he introduced his sons as they made glad cries to Dabir, who grinned more broadly than I’d seen in days.

  I think the sight of his family embracing Dabir so fondly is what finally brought Jibril around, for his frown eased slowly into a wistful smile. “Yes, yes,” he said. “We will have time for a visit. Ilias, Dabir has brought us a lamb. See that your wife gets to fixing it, then we can all feast together. But now Dabir and I must talk.”

  Ilias seemed almost as pleased to lay sight on the lamb as he had Dabir, and took it gratefully. The other brother, Muhsin, clapped Dabir once more upon the shoulders and said he wished his own sons to meet him.

  Then Jibril chased them away and tried to look dourly at us. He turned at last to me.

  “You must be Captain Asim.” Something in the piercing way he considered me reminded me of my friend. “Dabir has told me much of you in his letters.”

  “I am honored to meet you,” I replied.

  “I don’t know that you should be. Come, though, all of you. Let’s see what you’ve gotten me involved with.”

  He barred the outer doors, then beckoned us to follow him deeper into the building. We passed through another room of the shop very similar to the first, and then we four were seated in an inner room upon worn but comfortable cushions. Jibril told us this was the chamber where he showed visitors his most valuable items. It smelled, like the rest of the place, of parchment and old stone.

  While a young girl poured tea for us, I looked around and was struck by how much it resembled our receiving room in Mosul, complete to cubbyholes with odd sculptures and curiosities and a small, high window in one wall. I grinned over at Dabir. “There is something familiar here,” I told him softly.

  He nodded distractedly, watching Jibril, who waited impatiently for his granddaughter, or daughter—I was never sure—to depart. He bade her to close the lone door and, once she did so, arched an eyebrow at Dabir, which was somehow both a criticism and an invitation to speak.

  Thus Dabir set to telling him all that we’d experienced since Najya had entered our lives. Jibril interrupted often with shrewd questions to improve his understanding. I had seen Dabir politely deferential many times, for a man who did not practice social niceties had no place in court, but with Jibril, he was uncharacteristically hesitant, as if he chose each word with great care. It made him seem younger somehow, and I could well imagine a beardless Dabir reporting other matters in this very room a decade earlier. As Jibril listened, his expressions drifted from curiosity to horror to astonishment and back again, though at no point did he offer suggestion or interpretation. Occasionally he asked a question of me, and he asked a number of Najya concerning her interactions with Koury and Gazi, though I learned nothing new from what she said.

  Najya sat stiff-backed upon the cushion provided her, at my right hand, and strove mightily to look self-possessed. She did not entirely succeed, for she had pinned great hopes upon this man and eagerness was writ upon her manner. Dabir mentioned for the first time in front of her his worries that a spirit had been bonded to her and she stiffened further as her eyes narrowed above her veil.

  When Dabir finished at last, Jibril reached up and stroked his beard. There were two white lines in that field of black, and it was these through which he dragged his fingers.

  “You do not look as surprised as I expected,” Dabir told him.

  “Oh, I am surprised,” Jibril said. “I assure you. How could I not be?”

  “I’d have thought you’d be as startled I’d met actual Sebitti as you would if I’d talked with an angel.”

  “Not as much,” Jibril said cryptically.

  “Can you help her?” I interrupted.

  “I suppose I will have to try,” Jibril said soberly. “But her farr troubles, me. I am not sure I have the strength to aid her. And I am a little out of practice.”

  “I would be very grateful,” Najya emphasized.

  Jibril favored her with a tight smile and bowed his head.

  “What do you mean by ‘farr’?” I asked.

  “All living creatures have farr,” Jibril said brusquely, but went on. “It is a kind of energy that extends around them. Only a few have the ability to see it. Most are holy men.” He flashed a lopsided smile. “Others, like me, are simply cursed with the sight from birth.”

  “Do not say that,” Dabir told him quietly.

  Najya addressed him in a tense whisper. “What did you see? About me? In my farr?”

  “I am no great seer.” Jabril waved away the question.

  “None of us see farr at all,” Dabir reminded him soberly. “What is it you saw?”

  Jibril shifted uncomfortably. “The way a farr looks varies, depending upon the emotions, physical health, even the sensitivity to the spirit world.”

  “And what of mine?” Najya asked, so forcefully it sounded more command than request.

  “Yours is strong. Very strong.” Jibril cleared his throat. “But with something dark fluttering at its edge. And there is something else. I am not sure how to explain the matter.” He paused to gather his thoughts. “It is like a rip in the world that follows in your wake.”

  “A rip?” Najya repeated, incredulous.

  “Yes,” Jibril said quickly, “a tear, I think, between our world and that of some other realm. I’ve seen something like it, once, but it was fixed at the site of an old battlefield. Yours moves. It’s a wonder to me none of you can sense it
.”

  “I have sensed it,” Najya confirmed bitterly. “But I did not know what to think. For a long while I have felt as though something else has been trying to seize hold of me, or that it watches from inside me. I was afraid I was going mad, on top of everything else.”

  “Perhaps we should have discussed the spirit’s presence sooner,” Dabir offered, sensing her consternation, “but I did not want to worry you unnecessarily and I could not be certain until Jibril’s reaction confirmed my fears.”

  She nodded once, shortly. “That was … kind of you. However.” Her eyes flicked briefly to touch my own, and they were steely. “I wish you to conceal nothing further. I wish to know everything, no matter how bad.”

  Dabir bowed his head to her.

  “This may get much worse,” Jibril warned.

  Najya laughed shortly, without humor. “I have seen my husband’s heart torn from his body, been taken by wizards, and played unwilling host to a vengeful spirit. I do not think it can get much worse.”

  “It could get worse,” Jibril said, his look steady and ominous. He did not explain further, and no one asked for details, not even Najya.

  She did have another question, though. “Why did they pick me?”

  “Because your farr is very strong,” Jibril answered. “You already have a close connection to the spirit world. It is even greater than my own,” he admitted.

  “But I cannot see farr.”

  “Nevertheless. I suppose that your strength and openness to certain energies make you suitable for the magics they performed. Now. Let me draw up a circle and I will see about severing the spirit’s connection with you.”

  “What of the spear?” Dabir asked.

  Jibril glanced over to where the weapon stood, still wrapped in its leathers, in a corner.

  “First we will see to the woman. Now get up. I want you to move the cushions and roll up the carpets. This room will work as well as any. I shall be back shortly.”

  So saying, he departed, and Dabir and Najya and I set to work. The other two seemed uninclined to speech, and I was not sure what to say. For all the tension in the air, speaking of it felt like a trip cord to set off what would surely be a painful trap.

  Thankfully, it was not long before the older scholar returned, bearing a wicker basket, from which he pulled forth a heavily weathered, leatherbound book. In a clipped, precise manner he commanded Dabir to draw out a circle four paces across, with an inner circle a foot from its edge. My friend stepped immediately over to the basket, withdrew some chalk, and set to work. Jibril joined Dabir, scribbling strange symbols and signs in the space between the circles, all the time consulting the old book.

  Najya watched all, pensively, and I studied her, trying to decide if the guilt I felt was truly earned. I had held off from confirming her suspicions that night I’d dueled her both because Dabir seemed unwilling to discuss it, and because I had not wished to have her alarm the men. Surely it had been the proper course. Yet now I think she felt more alone than ever. I found myself sidling closer, and before I knew what I meant to say, I spoke to her. “I am sorry.”

  In a flash those brown eyes were upon my own, searching critically. I felt uncharacteristically small. Yet she did not speak, and once more I found myself floundering. “You were already upset that night, when you told me you were afraid something else was trying to control you. I did not want”—I cleared my throat—“I did not want you to feel worse.”

  “I understand,” she said, and returned to watching Dabir and Jibril work with the chalk. Something in her posture loosened a little. “Do you think he can do it?” she asked quietly.

  It took me a moment to follow the trail of her thought. “Jibril seems very wise,” I told her. “And I have never known Dabir to fail where it really counts. He will not relent until he finds a solution.”

  She nodded but did not speak.

  I knew not what else to say. I wondered about the soldiers outside, but reasoned that they needed no further instruction. Thus I remained with her.

  Once Dabir was done drawing, he offered to hold the book Jibril kept peering at, but the older man told him everything within was coded. “Better that no one else knows its contents,” he added. “I have peered a little further than a man should, and God and the angels may find me wanting.”

  Dabir withdrew to watch with folded arms as his mentor worked his way around the circle. It was another few minutes before he was complete, and then another longer while as Jibril meticulously inspected every inch. “It must be exact,” he said, almost to himself. “Exact.” He bent down and thickened a line beside a letter that resembled a snake swallowing a tree branch. Finally, after what was probably another quarter hour, he stepped back. “I think we are ready. Najya, I will need you to sit in this circle.”

  She inclined her head and moved to comply. I handed her a cushion to sit on as she stepped into the circle’s midst. She set it down, then lowered herself with serene poise.

  “Do not be frightened,” Jibril instructed. “You may see magics, but you will not be harmed so long as you remain seated. Whatever you do, you must not cross the circle, or touch its edge.”

  “I understand.” From her bold answer you might have thought that she had sat a hundred times in such circles, and was daily witness to the work of sorcerers.

  Once more the door opened; this time it was Jibril’s elder son, Muhsin, bearing a small, steaming bucket. The coppery tang of blood thickened the air. The young man’s lips turned down disapprovingly as he placed the bucket beside his father.

  “And you used the proper blade?” Jibril asked.

  “Just as you said,” Muhsin whispered.

  “Good. Now leave the room. Do not enter until I emerge, regardless of what you hear.”

  The man bestowed a dark look upon us. “May Allah and all the angels shine down upon you,” he said, then left. It was a blessing I had not heard before and I thought it peculiar.

  “Let us be on with this,” Jibril said. “The blood cannot cool.”

  “What manner of blood is it?” I asked, uneasy lest I receive the wrong answer.

  “Goat’s blood. Slain only moments ago with a special knife.” Jibril paused only briefly to reach once more into the wicker basket. From it he produced an amulet on a silver chain, then hung it from his neck. Mostly it was black, as wide as a girl’s fist and inscribed with a silver hexagon set with a small crystal in each of its five corners.

  “You two,” he said to us as he reached down for the bucket, “must stand back. If the spirit gets loose, it will likely come for the closest of us. And you don’t have amulets.”

  I would have asked him what the amulet was for, but he was already cradling the bucket and carefully tilting its mouth forward with one hand as he bent toward the lines upon the stone. Blood spattered down upon the symbols etched between the circles as Jabril moved to each of them in turn.

  Najya watched the grisly rain of liquid without seeming concern. When Jibril finished his circuit both circles and every symbol between them flared with ruby light, stretching upward half the length of a sword. Najya started but kept her seat and her fixed composure.

  Jibril lowered his knees to the stone floor, his face upturned with closed eyes, and uttered strange syllables.

  Dabir moved over to me. “Do not disrupt him,” he said quietly, “in the midst of spell work. Even if there are more surprises.”

  “What sort of surprises?”

  My curiosity was sated before he could answer, for Najya gasped and threw back her head, her back arching. Her face twitched and shook as though she were in pain.

  I knew better than to cross the circle, but my desire to do so must have been communicated by my stance, for Dabir tightly grasped my arm. “Do nothing,” he cautioned. “Entering the circle is liable to kill you and put all of us at risk.”

  “What is happening?” I asked.

  “I believe the spirit is fighting to retain its hold.”

  Najya moa
ned, then let out a longer, higher sound that rose suddenly into a keening cry.

  Jibril still chanted.

  “It’s working, isn’t it?” I hoped aloud.

  Najya’s voice stilled and she raised her head, eyes glowing blue as the flame’s center. Her teeth were gritted as she climbed shakily to her feet and put one foot toward the circle’s edge. It was a small space—it took but one more step before she was beside it.

  “Do not cross it!” I called out.

  “That’s not Najya,” Dabir told me, which I had guessed.

  Jibril’s chanting intensified.

  She raised one hand, then the other, and thrust them before her. The sorcerous circuit’s light rose to meet her palms, a glowing, transparent wall. She pushed forward. The energy crackled about her fingers.

  I turned to Dabir. “Is this supposed to happen? What should we do?”

  Dabir’s frown deepened and he cast a troubled look to his old mentor, rocking back and forth, still chanting. “We must trust Jibril.”

  As Najya—or, rather, the spirit within her—braced with more strength against the wall, the circle’s lights brightened, until the whole room seemed aflame, from cubbyholes to furnishings to slatted windows. Her brow wrinkled with effort, and the cold light within her eyes blazed fiercely.

  The barrier flared dazzlingly, flickered, and suddenly Najya staggered through, wrapped in red sorcerous energy, like lightning caught on the horns of cattle.

  Jibril scrambled out of the way. Najya screamed, then sank to the floor with all the grace of an empty vegetable sack. The sorcerous energy around her vanished as suddenly as it had begun. She sat limply, head drooping, utterly spent.

  I grew conscious then that Dabir had been gripping my arm for a long while—and that Jibril was covered in sweat.

  “God and his angels!” Jibril breathed. His eyes were wide.

  “Is she all right?” I asked.

  Jibril did not answer.

  So I hurried to Najya, who looked up at me with sad, tired eyes. Tentatively I smiled. “Najya? Did it work?”

  “Work?” Jibril repeated from behind. “No, it didn’t work! The spirit broke the barrier! A working barrier! It’s beyond belief!”