by Tad Williams
“Bring us the rest of the wine, Baba—or have you drunk it all?”
Baba pulled at his grizzled chin. “Ah...ah, but you drank it, Master. You and Master Ibn Fahad took the last four jars with you when you went to shoot arrows at the weathercock.”
“Just as I suspected,” Masrur nodded. “Well, get on across the bazaar to Abu Jamir’s place, wake up his manservant, and bring back several jugs. The good Jamir says we must have it now.”
Baba disappeared. The chagrined Abu Jamir was cheerfully back-thumped by the other guests.
“A story, a story!” someone shouted. “A tale!”
“Oh, yes, a tale of your travels, Master Masrur!” This was young Hassan, sinfully drunk. No one minded. His eyes were bright, and he was full of innocent stupidity. “Someone said you have traveled to the green lands of the north.”
“The north...?” Masrur grumbled, waving his hand as though confronted with something unclean. “No, lad, no...that I cannot give to you.” His face clouded and he slumped back on his cushions; his tarbooshed head swayed.
Ibn Fahad knew Masrur like he knew his horses—indeed, Masrur was the only human that could claim so much of Ibn Fahad’s attention. He had seen his old comrade drink twice this quantity and still dance like a dervish on the walls of Baghdad, but he thought he could guess the reason for this sudden incapacity.
“Oh, Masrur, please!” Hassan had not given up; he was as unshakeable as a young falcon with its first prey beneath its talons. “Tell us of the north. Tell us of the infidels!”
“A good Moslem should not show such interest in unbelievers.” Abu Jamir sniffed piously, shaking the last drops from a wine jug. “If Masrur does not wish to tell a tale, let him be.”
“Hah!” snorted the host, recovering somewhat. “You only seek to stall me, Jamir, so that my throat shall not be so dry when your wine arrives. No, I have no fear of speaking of unbelievers: Allah would not have given them a place in the world for their own if they had not some use. Rather it is...certain other things that happened which make me hesitate.” He gazed kindly on young Hassan, who in the depths of his drunkenness looked about to cry. “Do not despair, eggling. Perhaps it would do me good to unfold this story. I have kept the details long inside.” He emptied the dregs of another jar into his cup. “I still feel it so strongly, though—bitter, bitter times. Why don’t you tell the story, my good friend?” he said over his shoulder to Ibn Fahad. “You played as much a part as did I.”
“No,” Ibn Fahad replied. Drunken puppy Hassan emitted a strangled cry of despair.
“But why, old comrade?” Masrur asked, pivoting his bulk to stare in amazement. “Did the experience so chill even your heart?”
Ibn Fahad glowered. “Because I know better. As soon as I start you will interrupt, adding details here, magnifying there, then saying: ‘No, no, I cannot speak of it! Continue, old friend!’ Before I have taken another breath you will interrupt me again. You know you will wind up doing all the talking, Masrur. Why do you not start from the beginning and save me my breath?”
All laughed but Masrur, who put on a look of wounded solicitousness. “Of course, old friend,” he murmured. “I had no idea that you harbored such grievances. Of course I shall tell the tale.” A broad wink was offered to the table. “No sacrifice is too great for a friendship such as ours. Poke up the fire, will you, Baba? Ah, he’s gone. Hassan, will you be so kind?”
When the youth was again seated Masrur took a swallow, stroked his beard, and began.
In those days [Masrur said], I myself was but a lowly soldier in the service of Harun al-Rashid, may Allah grant him health. I was young, strong, a man who loved wine more than he should—but what soldier does not?—and a good deal more trim and comely than you see me today.
My troop received a commission to accompany a caravan going north, bound for the land of the Armenites beyond the Caucassian Mountains. A certain prince of that people had sent a great store of gifts as tribute to the Caliph, inviting him to open a route for trade between his principality and our caliphate. Harun al-Rashid, wisest of wise men that he is, did not exactly make the camels groan beneath the weight of the gifts that he sent in return; but he sent several courtiers, including the under-vizier Walid al-Salameh, to speak for him and to assure this Armenite prince that rich rewards would follow when the route over the Caucassians was opened for good.
We left Baghdad in grand style, pennants flying, the shields of the soldiers flashing like golden dinars, and the Caliph’s gifts bundled onto the backs of a gang of evil, contrary donkeys.
We followed the banks of the faithful Tigris, resting several days at Mosul, then continued through the eastern edge of Anatolia. Already as we mounted northward the land was beginning to change, the clean sands giving way to rocky hills and scrub. The weather was colder, and the skies gray, as though Allah’s face was turned away from that country, but the men were not unhappy to be out from under the desert sun. Our pace was good; there was not a hint of danger except the occasional wolf howling at night beyond the circles of the campfires. Before two months had passed we had reached the foothills of the Caucassians—what is called the steppe country.
For those of you who have not strayed far from our Baghdad, I should tell you that the northern lands are like nothing you have seen. The trees there grow so close together you could not throw a stone five paces without striking one. The land itself seems always dark—the trees mask the sun before the afternoon is properly finished—and the ground is damp. But, in truth, the novelty of it fades quickly, and before long it seems that the smell of decay is always with you. We caravaneers had been over eight weeks a-traveling, and the bite of homesickness was strong, but we contented ourselves with the thought of the accommodations that would be ours when we reached the palace of the prince, laden as we were with our Caliph’s good wishes—and the tangible proof thereof.
We had just crossed the high mountain passes and begun our journey down when disaster struck.
We were encamped one night in a box canyon, a thousand steep feet below the summit of the tall Caucassian peaks. The fires were not much but glowing coals, and nearly all the camp was asleep except for two men standing sentry. I was wrapped in my bedroll, dreaming of how I would spend my earnings, when a terrible shriek awakened me. Sitting groggily upright, I was promptly knocked down by some bulky thing tumbling onto me. A moment’s horrified examination showed that it was one of the sentries, throat pierced with an arrow, eyes bulging with his final surprise. Suddenly there was a chorus of howls from the hillside above. All I could think of was wolves, that the wolves were coming down on us; in my witless state I could make no sense of the arrow at all.
Even as the others sprang up around me the camp was suddenly filled with leaping, whooping shadows. Another arrow hissed past my face in the darkness, and then something crashed against my bare head, filling the nighttime with a great splash of light that illuminated nothing. I fell back, insensible.
I could not tell how long I had journeyed in that deeper darkness when I was finally roused by a sharp boot prodding at my ribcage.
I looked up at a tall, cruel figure, cast by the cloud-curtained morning sun in bold silhouette. As my sight adjusted I saw a knife-thin face, dark-browed and fierce, with mustachios long as a Tartar herdsman’s. I felt sure that whoever had struck me had returned to finish the job, and I struggled weakly to pull my dagger from my sash. This terrifying figure merely lifted one of his pointy boots and trod delicately on my wrist, saying in perfect Arabic: “Wonders of Allah, this is the dirtiest man I have ever seen.”
It was Ibn Fahad, of course. The caravan had been of good size, and he had been riding with the Armenite and the under-vizier—not back with the hoi polloi—so we had never spoken. Now you see how we first truly met: me on my back, covered with mud, blood, and spit; and Ibn Fahad standing over me like a rich man examining carrots in the bazaar. Infamy!
Ibn Fahad had been blessed with what I would come later to know
as his usual luck. When the bandits—who must have been following us for some days—came down upon us in the night, Ibn Fahad had been voiding his bladder some way downslope. Running back at the sound of the first cries, he had sent more than a few mountain bandits down to Hell courtesy of his swift sword, but they were too many. He pulled together a small group of survivors from the main party and they fought their way free, then fled along the mountain in the darkness listening to the screams echoing behind them, cursing their small numbers and ignorance of the country.
Coming back in the light of day to scavenge for supplies, as well as ascertain the nature of our attackers, Ibn Fahad had found me—a fact he has never allowed me to forget, and for which I have never allowed him to evade responsibility.
While my wounds and bandit-spites were doctored, Ibn Fahad introduced me to the few survivors of our once-great caravan.
One was Susri al-Din—a cheerful lad, fresh-faced and smooth-cheeked as young Hassan here, dressed in the robes of a rich merchant’s son. The soldiers who had survived rather liked him, and called him “Fawn,” to tease him for his wide-eyed good looks. There was a skinny wretch of a chief clerk named Abdallah, purse-mouthed and iron-eyed, and an indecently plump young mullah, who had just left the madrasa and was getting a rather rude introduction to life outside the seminary. Ruad, the mullah, looked as though he would prefer to be drinking and laughing with the soldiers—beside myself and Ibn Fahad there were four or five more of these—while Abdallah the prim-faced clerk looked as though he should be the one who never lifted his head out of the Koran. Well, in a way that was true, since for a man like Abdallah the balance book is the Holy Book, may Allah forgive such blasphemy.
There was one other, notable for the extreme richness of his robes, the extreme whiteness of his beard, and the vast weight of his personal jewelry—Walid al-Salameh, the under-vizier to His Eminence the Caliph Harun al-Rashid. Walid was the most important man of the whole party. He was also, surprisingly, not a bad fellow at all.
So there we found ourselves, the wrack of the caliph’s embassy, with no hope but to try and find our way back home through a strange, hostile land.
The upper reaches of the Caucassians are a cold and godless place. The fog is thick and wet; it crawls in of the morning, leaves briefly at the time the sun is high, then comes creeping back long before sunset. We had been sodden as well-diggers from the moment we had stepped into the foothills. A treacherous place, those mountains: home of bear and wolf, covered in forest so thick that in places the sun was lost completely. Since we had no guide—indeed, it was several days before we saw any sign of inhabitants whatsoever—we wandered unsteered, losing half as much ground as we gained for walking in circles.
At last we were forced to admit our need for a trained local eye. In the middle slopes the trees grew so thick that fixing our direction was impossible for hours at a time. We were divining the location of Mecca by general discussion, and—blasphemy again—we probably spent as much time praying toward Aleppo as to Mecca. It seemed a choice between possible discovery and certain doom.
We came down by night and took a young man out of an isolated shepherd’s hovel, as quietly as ex-brigands like ourselves (or at least like many of us, Ibn Fahad. My apologies!) could. The family did not wake, the dog did not bark; we were two leagues away before sunrise, I’m sure.
I felt sorry in a way for the young peasant-lout we’d kidnapped. He was a nice fellow, although fearfully stupid—I wonder if we are now an old, dull story with which he bores his children? In any case, once this young rustic—whose name as far as I could tell was unpronounceable by civilized tongues—realized that we were not ghosts or Jinni, and were not going to kill him on the spot, he calmed down and was quite useful. We began to make real progress, reaching the peak of the nearest ridge in two days.
There was a slight feeling of celebration in the air that night, our first in days under the open skies. The soldiers cursed the lack of strong drink, but spirits were good nonetheless—even Ibn Fahad pried loose a smile.
As the under-vizier Walid told a humorous story, I looked about the camp. There were but two grim faces: the clerk Abdallah—which was to be expected, since he seemed a patently sour old devil—and the stolen peasant-boy. I walked over to him.
“Ho, young one,” I said, “why do you look so downcast? Have you not realized that we are good-hearted, Godfearing men, and will not harm you?” He did not even raise his chin, which rested on his knees, shepherd-style, but he turned his eyes up to mine.
“It is not those things,” he said in his awkward Arabic. “It is not you soldiers but...this place.”
“Gloomy mountains they are indeed,” I agreed, “but you have lived here all your young life. Why should it bother you?”
“Not this place. We never come here—it is unholy. The vampyr walks these peaks.”
“Vampyr?” said I. “And what peasant-devil is that?”
He would say no more; I left him to his brooding and walked back to the fire.
The men all had a good laugh over the vampyr, making jesting guesses as to what type of beast it might be, but Ruad, the young mullah, waved his hands urgently.
“I have heard of such afreets,” he said. “They are not to be laughed at by such a godless lot as yourselves.”
He said this as a sort of scolding joke, but he wore a strange look on his round face; we listened with interest as he continued.
“The vampyr is a restless spirit. It is neither alive nor dead, and Shaitan possesses its soul utterly. It sleeps in a sepulcher by day, and when the moon rises it goes out to feed upon travelers, to drink their blood.”
Some of the men again laughed loudly, but this time it rang false as a brassmerchant’s smile.
“I have heard of these from one of our foreign visitors,” said the under-vizier Walid quietly. “He told me of a plague of these vampyr in a village near Smyrna. All the inhabitants fled, and the village is still uninhabited today.”
This reminded someone else (myself, perhaps) of a tale about an afreet with teeth growing on both sides of his head. Others followed with their own demon stories. The talk went on late into the night, and no one left the campfire until it had completely burned out.
By noon the next day we had left the heights and were passing back down into the dark, tree-blanketed ravines. When we stopped that night we were once more hidden from the stars, out of sight of Allah and the sky.
I remember waking up in the foredawn hours. My beard was wet with dew, and I was damnably tangled up in my cloak. A great, dark shape stood over me. I must confess to making a bit of a squawking noise.
“It’s me,” the shape hissed—it was Rifakh, one of the other soldiers.
“You gave me a turn.”
Rifakh chuckled. “Thought I was that vamper, eh? Sorry. Just stepping out for a piss.” He stepped over me, and I heard him trampling the underbrush. I slipped back into sleep.
The sun was just barely over the horizon when I was again awakened, this time by Ibn Fahad tugging at my arm. I grumbled at him to leave me alone, but he had a grip on me like an alms-beggar.
“Rifakh’s gone,” he said. “Wake up. Have you seen him?”
“He walked on me in the middle of the night, on his way to go moisten a tree,” I said. “He probably fell in the darkness and hit his head on something—have you looked?”
“Several times,” Ibn Fahad responded. “All around the camp. No sign of him. Did he say anything to you?”
“Nothing interesting. Perhaps he has met the sister of our shepherd-boy, and is making the two-backed beast.”
Ibn Fahad made a sour face at my crudity. “Perhaps not. Perhaps he has met some other beast.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “If he hasn’t fallen down somewhere close by, he’ll be back.”
But he did not come back. When the rest of the men arose we had another long search, with no result. At noon we decided, reluctantly, to go on our way, hoping that if he had
strayed somewhere he could catch up with us.
We hiked down into the valley, going farther and farther into the trees. There was no sign of Rifakh, although from time to time we stopped and shouted in case he was searching for us. We felt there was small risk of discovery, for that dark valley was as empty as a pauper’s purse, but nevertheless, after a while the sound of our voices echoing back through the damp glades became unpleasant. We continued on in silence.
Twilight comes early in the bosom of the mountains; by midafternoon it was already becoming dark. Young Fawn—the name had stuck, against the youth’s protests—who of all of us was the most disturbed by the disappearance of Rifakh, stopped the company suddenly, shouting: “Look there!”
We straightaway turned to see where he was pointing, but the thick trees and shadows revealed nothing.
“I saw a shape!” the young one said. “It was just a short way back, following us. Perhaps it is the missing soldier.”
Naturally the men ran back to look, but though we scoured the bushes we could find no trace of anyone. We decided that the failing light had played Fawn a trick—that he had seen a hind or somesuch.
Two other times he called out that he saw a shape. The last time one of the other soldiers glimpsed it too: a dark, manlike form, moving rapidly beneath the trees a bow-shot away. Close inspection still yielded no evidence, and as the group trod wearily back to the path again Walid the under-vizier turned to Fawn with a hard, flat look.
“Perhaps it would be better, young master, if you talked no more of shadowshapes.”
“But I saw it!” the boy cried. “That soldier Mohammad saw it too!”
“I have no doubt of that,” answered Walid al-Salameh, “but think on this: we have gone several times to see what it might be, and have found no sign of any living man. Perhaps our Rifakh is dead; perhaps he fell into a stream and drowned, or hit his head upon a rock. His spirit may be following us because it does not wish to stay in this unfamiliar place. That does not mean we want to go and find it.”