Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1986

by Cahena (v3. 1)

  “Nobody here but me,” he said aloud, for the comfort of his own voice.

  “Am I nobody?”

  She stood within, a woman in a long dark cloak. Her short, curly hair seemed ivory pale. Her face was round, her dark lips full. She held a lamp, and now she blew on it, and up rose a murky flame. Her eyes on him were bright and silvery pale, like two coins.

  “You’ve come here, too,” Wulf said to her.

  “Come here? I live here.”

  The lamplight showed that she was amply symmetrical in her loosely folded cloak, deep-breasted, wide-hipped, mature but not old. Some would think her appetizing.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  “My name doesn’t matter. What’s yours?”

  “Wulf.”

  “I know your name; it’s come all the way to me, here in these parts. You fought those invaders off there to the east, you won the Cahena’s battle for her. I know her name, too. Come in.”

  He stepped into the entry. The air was stuffily close. “Tomb of the Christian Woman,” he said, looking into her pale eyes. “It seems older than Christianity.”

  She smiled. “I’d call it more than eight hundred years old. It was built for a king named Bocchus.”

  “Bacchus?”

  “Bocchus,” she corrected him. “Powerful Bocchus, warlike and stem.”

  “You sound as if you knew him,” said Wulf, and her full lips parted to show small, sharp teeth.

  “What if I said I did know him?” she half mocked. “Knew him so well that he put a curse on me when he died, told me to live forever in his tomb?”

  If it was a joke, Wulf didn’t understand it. He smiled back at her. “You don’t seem anything like eight hundred years old,” he said.

  “Come, let me show you the inside of this place.”

  They went together into an inner corridor. She carried the lamp high, and Wulf saw that the walls were of rough, rocky make. He heard a noise as of breathing. He counted the paces he made on their journey — about thirty, say something more than seventy-five feet. Then they were in a central chamber, rectangular, stone-floored. Against the far wall was what looked like a sort of dark couch or pallet.

  “Here,” she said, and led him to stand beside the couch. Stooping, she set the lamp on the floor and straightened again to look at him. Her eyes shone pallidly.

  “Wulf,” she half whispered, “do you know what love is?”

  “I know, to my sorrow,” he said, resting his sword point on the stones of the floor.

  “To your sorrow.” She leaned toward him. She seemed to have grown taller. “Love has been pain to you.”

  She smiled. Her teeth looked sharp as needles.

  “Your Cahena, Wulf,” she said. “She’s beautiful, isn’t she? Wise, isn’t she?”

  “You know about her,” said Wulf, not liking the idea.

  “I know about lots of things. I lie all day, numberless days, and all I do is think and know. Your Cahena is guided by voices. What if I sent those voices, what if her wisdom comes from me, to ruin her at last?”

  Wulf scowled and clamped his hand on the hilt of his sword. “Ruin her?” he said. “Why ruin her? Are you jealous of her?”

  “Perhaps I only envy her. She’s there, with all that power and worship, and I’m here alone, not understood, not spoken to. Do you love the Cahena, Wulf?”

  He kept his voice steady. “I think that any man who sees her wants to dare to love her.”

  “Do you dare love her?” she asked.

  Wulf was losing his temper. “How I feel about the Cahena doesn’t come into this conversation.”

  “Then you do love her.” The teeth showed again. “Shouldn’t we love?”

  He poked with his sword point at the dark pallet. Then, quickly, he stepped well clear of her and passed the sword so that his other hand held its broad blade. He lifted the cross hilt almost into her face.

  “That’s earth in your bed,” he said, quite levelly. “It makes me sure of what you are.”

  “Don’t!” she suddenly wailed, and fell back before the cross hilt. She put her back against the wall, flung out her arms.

  “So,” said Wulf, “it’s true that your sort can’t face the shape of the cross. You wouldn’t tell me your name. Shall I name you? Shall I call you Lamia?”

  She squeaked like a bat, so shrilly that his ears tingled.

  “Lamia,” he said, “I wish you a quiet, hungry evening.”

  She writhed. Wulf whirled and strode back into the darkness of the passage, his left hand on the wall to guide him.

  “You can’t go!” she cried behind him, but he went. He did not run, but he went swiftly. He was at the door and through it. He sprang upward into the night with the moon swimming overhead. He ran toward where his horse waited.

  “No!” her voice beat at him from behind. She must have followed him to the door. The horse whinnied in recognition of him. He ripped the bridle from its tether, mounted, and rode away at a swift trot that he urged into a canter.

  He had known what that woman, that devil-woman was. She had been a peril to him, but he had warded her off, had thrust aside the spell she had tried. She had spoken of love. Love had wounded Wulf, but love could not destroy him. Certainly not the kind of love that Lamia had meant to give him.

  * * *

  XIX

  Back at the hut where his party had been lodged, Wulf turned his horse over to Smarja and went in. Bhakrann sat up in a corner.

  “You look as if you’d seen a ghost, Wulf,” he said.

  “I’ve seen worse than that,” growled Wulf. “Somebody bring the chiefs of this place here. I’ll tell them about it.”

  Cham hurried to fetch back three men and a gaunt, gray woman. They sat cross-legged on the floor. Wulf stared at them.

  “A woman’s there at that tomb,” he said. “She isn’t a Christian woman, not exactly a woman.” Scowling, he sought for words. “Maybe she’s called that because, lifetimes ago, Christianity was an ugly word here. The Goths and Vandals could be unpleasant — but let that pass.”

  “Then what is she?” asked the old woman, who was a sort of priestess of a belief Wulf did not know. “Is she dead or alive?”

  “Not truly one or the other,” Wulf told her. “A demon, if you like to say that. The Greeks called such a thing a lamia, sometimes a mormo, sometimes an empusa. When I was at Constantinople, Huns in the cavalry told me about creatures along their river Dana, what the Romans call the river Danuvius. At night, such a being rises from a bed of earth and drinks living blood. Blood of animals if that’s all it can get, but blood of men and women if it can get that.”

  They all goggled nervously, even Bhakrann. “You’re sure?” prompted the priestess, huddling her mantle around her.

  “Yes, and I’m also sure that she can be done away with,” said Wulf. “She’s terrible at night, but she’s powerless by day. We’ll go there tomorrow at sunrise to destroy her.”

  “Not I,” vowed one of the listeners. “Not for anything.”

  “I’ll go,” declared Bhakrann. “I shouldn’t have skulked here last night. Do you know how to kill her, Wulf?”

  “Yes. Sunrise tomorrow, then. But for now, I’ve said enough and more than enough. I want some sleep.”

  For Wulf was tired. He had seldom been so tired in his life.

  At dawn, Wulf found a stout length of hardwood, and with his dagger sharpened it to a lean point. “Do we have any garlic?” he asked.

  “Lots of it,” said Cham, fetching a handful of cloves from a saddlebag.

  “Bring it along and let’s go.”

  They saddled up, Wulf and Bhakrann and Smarja and Cham. Of the villagers, only the gaunt priestess dared join them. They rode to the great domed tomb under a murky rising sun, dismounted, and left Smarja to hold the horses. Wulf led the way, carrying his sharpened stake. The others drew back as he descended into the entry and shoved the door open.

  She lay just inside, jumbled in her cloak. Her half-open
ed silver eyes brooded. Her teeth showed. Wulf hooked a hand in her armpit and dragged her out and up into the open. She lay flaccidly on her back. The others stared.

  “Give me the garlic,” said Wulf, and Cham put it into his hand. Wulf dragged the limp jaw down and stuffed the garlic into the mouth. A sound as of retching came from somewhere.

  “Pick up that big stone, Bhakrann,” directed Wulf, and set the point of the stake to her motionless breast. “Now, hit it the hardest blow you can. Drive it in.”

  Grim-faced, Bhakrann lifted the heavy stone high in both hands and brought it down with all his strength. The point went deeply in, as into muddy soil, went through flesh and bone. The blank face writhed, she squeaked like a bat. Then she went slack all over.

  “It killed her,” said Bhakrann, staring at a trickle of thick dark blood.

  “We’ll make sure, the way I’ve heard in stories,” said Wulf, and dragged the body to level ground. “Pick up wood, lots of it. But stay here, you priestess. Say your best prayer to ward off bad magic.”

  The priestess trembled as she chattered something. Wulf and the others ranged after fuel. Then they laid a pyre and dragged the body upon it. More wood went on top, and more, as high as a man’s waist, with handfuls of dry grass poked in here and there. Bhakrann scraped flint and steel, his hands steady at the scraping. The grass flared up, a flurry of flame burst out of the wood.

  They stayed clear of the heat and smoke, the priestess muttering all the while. Wulf did not know the gods she called by name. Once they all went to fetch more wood. At last — and it was midmorning by then — the pyre had burned down to black ashes and glowing embers. Among the embers they saw bits of charred bone.

  “Your village can visit this tomb safely now,” Wulf told the priestess. “Let’s go back and have breakfast. I’m hungry.”

  Breakfast was eaten in the presence of a stream of visitors, loudly thanking Wulf, praising him. He bade them take example of the dead she-devil’s defeat and the tomb where she had ruled, told them not to fear fear, to face fear, to make fear be afraid. He and his friends packed their gear, turned their horses eastward again, and rode away with the villagers staring worshipfully after them. Bhakrann rode beside Wulf.

  “I never killed a woman before,” said Bhakrann. “Did you?”

  “Don’t say that it was a woman. Say that it was a lamia.”

  “Do you feel all right about it?”

  “I feel free,” said Wulf. “Just free. When we camp tonight, let’s have a swim in the sea.”

  They swam in the moonlight, and ate fish that Cham and Smarja speared in the shallows. Wulf slept soundly, the soundest since they had left Bulla Regia, and did not dream. Some sort of peace had come upon him. Riding next day, he tried to explain that peace to himself.

  “You’re serious,” observed Bhakrann, ambling beside Wulf. “You think.”

  “Often I think,” said Wulf. “Just now, I’d better think about how we’ll report on all these people, and on what happened at the Tomb of the Christian Woman.”

  “Ahi, you think we destroyed an enemy there.”

  “Yes.” Wulf nodded.

  And perhaps he had defeated an enemy within himself. The Cahena had made one of her enigmatic decisions. As once she had drawn Wulf to her, now she had drawn Khalid. She could cast spells, as the Lamia creature had tried to cast a spell on Wulf and had failed. Maybe he could be free of the spell of the Cahena, the dream of the Cahena.

  Day after day they traveled. The weather grew warmer, and sometimes there was rain. At every town they revisited, the people hailed them as friends, as triumphant warriors. They reached Bulla Regia and turned south to come at last to Thrysdus. The Cahena herself came to the main gate to greet them, smiling radiantly. To Wulf she looked as beautiful as she had looked the first time he had seen her. At her side walked Khalid, turbaned and rich-robed, with a great gold rosary at his neck. He salaamed low to Wulf. “I’m glad to see you back safe and in good health,” he said.

  The Cahena led them to her council chamber. Ketriazar and Daris were there, and Djalout. Wulf told of their journey, of the general friendliness of the seacoast settlements, and described in detail his adventure at the Tomb of the Christian Woman. They heard him with earnest attention.

  “I take it this Lamia, as you call her, frightened you,” said Ketriazar when Wulf had finished. “It’s hard to think of you being afraid.”

  “The unknown can terrify,” put in Djalout. “Things like the thing Wulf met and destroyed aren’t so rare in the world. Both Jews and Arabs wear charms to keep them away. Lilim, they’re called — is that another name for Lamia? And the Lamia has been reported in Libya, not so far away from where we’re sitting.”

  “I don’t want to meet one, by whatever name,” said Daris.

  “She talked to you about love, Wulf,” said the Cahena, her eyes brilliant.

  “The love she talked was greedy. A love that drank blood. A love that would kill.”

  “Is love like that?” the Cahena asked.

  “Not with me,” Wulf replied, meeting her gaze. “I won’t die for love. I’d rather die in battle.”

  He felt uncomfortable. Perhaps it was his sticky, sweaty tunic. He would change it soon.

  “You say that she knew about me,” the Cahena reminded.

  “Yes, and she said she might overthrow you,” said Wulf. “Well, she can’t do that now. We burned her to ashes.”

  Khalid tweaked the point of his beard. “What might have happened to her spirit?” he wondered. “We Arabs call such things ifrits, demons.”

  “Let’s change the subject,” said the Cahena. “Khalid” — and a caress came into her voice — “you’ve suggested a policy to me. Tell this council your thoughts.”

  Khalid looked from one to another of the group, as though thinking what to say. Finally he spoke:

  “I’ll remind you that Hassan himself, and most of his officers, are Arabs who have been Moslems all their lives. But this army of his comes from everywhere, from conquered tribes, many of them here in Africa. It’s made up of men who make a loud pretense of being Moslems, but they were converted with swords at their throats.”

  “True.” Djalout nodded.

  “They follow Hassan because they want to conquer and plunder.”

  “True,” said Djalout again.

  “Here in this land, the Imazighen have cities and property,” went on Khalid. “Herds, orchards, fields of grain. These hordes that Hassan commands, they want those things.” Again he looked around at them. “Loot is what they’re after. What if there was nothing for them to conquer and steal?”

  He waited for somebody to say something.

  “What you mean is to leave them no loot,” said Daris at last.

  “That’s just what he means,” declared the Cahena. “Level our towns, lay our fields waste, leave nothing. We can do it. The Imazighen have been wanderers, have lived lifetimes in the wilderness. It sounds like good wisdom to me.”

  “And to me,” said Ketriazar weightily. “My people live in tents. They can move wherever they like — camp one place, camp another. If I said to do it, they’d do it.”

  “My tribe would do the same,” Daris seconded him.

  “What about Lartius?” wondered Djalout. “What about Yaunis?”

  “They’ll have to do what I command,” said the Cahena. “I follow Khalid’s advice here, leave the Moslems no profit in another invasion.” She lifted a hand in dismissal. “That’s all for now, you may go. But stay here with me, Wulf.”

  The others departed. Khalid looked back at Wulf once. Wulf sat opposite the Cahena and waited. When they were alone, she smiled radiantly.

  “We haven’t seen much of each other lately,” she almost purred.

  “I’ve been away for two months on your orders, Lady Cahena.”

  She pursed her mouth. “You won’t call me Daia?”

  “I don’t think I should.”

  “Suit yourself. But tell me more abou
t this thing at the tomb, the one you call Lamia.”

  He told her his adventure, in detail. She nodded as she listened.

  “And she said those things about me, as if she knew me,” the Cahena said when he finished. “Said she helped me, but she didn’t say she liked me. Was she an enemy, far away there at our backs?”

  “Not anymore,” said Wulf. “She’s nothing but ashes now. She doesn’t exist in this world, maybe not in the next.”

  The Cahena leaned toward him. “Wulf,” she said, “what about us?”

  “I do my best to carry out your orders.”

  “Have you forgotten —”

  “I’ve forgotten nothing.”

  She leaned closer, as once she had leaned to him in the days before Khalid came.

  “Love,” she said softly. “You’ve said that you loved me. Shouldn’t love make us wise, make us sensible?”

  He did not lean back to her. He frowned silently for a moment. The Lamia, too, had spoken of love, had offered it. At last he said:

  “I don’t agree that love does that. When you’re in love you need to be wise and sensible, but it doesn’t work like that. Love confuses you. You’re blinded by lightning flashes, you’re deafened by rolling thunder. Your blood races, your heart beats like a drum, you believe dreams and not realities. You’re not rational.”

  She was quickly on her feet, and so was he. Her splendid eyes glittered fiercely.

  “You’re irritating,” she said between set teeth.

  “You asked me a question about love and I answered it as well as I could.”

  She motioned at the door. “Perhaps you’d better go.”

  “Perhaps so.”

  She prodded his back with her eyes as he left. At his quarters, he stripped off his travel-fouled garments and put on a dark red Moslem robe and slippers with turned-up toes. He went to the bath and lay for long minutes in a steaming tub, scrubbing himself thoroughly. The bath attendant trimmed his beard and cut his hair. Then Wulf returned to his room and sat on the cushioned bed-shelf. He poured himself a cup of wine, and thought.