by Tad Williams
“But...” the other began.
“Enough!” spat the chief clerk Abdallah. “You heard the under-vizier, young prankster. We shall have no more talk of your godless spirits. You will straightaway leave off telling such things!”
“Your concern is appreciated, Abdallah,” Walid said coldly, “but I do not require your help in this matter.” The vizier strode away.
I was almost glad the clerk had added his voice, because such ideas would not keep the journey in good order...but like the under-vizier I, too, had been rubbed and grated by the clerk’s highhandedness. I am sure others felt the same, for no more was said on the subject all evening.
Allah, though, always has the last word—and who are we to try to understand His ways? We bedded down a very quiet camp that night, the idea of poor Rifakh’s lost soul hanging unspoken in the air.
From a thin, unpleasant sleep I woke to find the camp in chaos. “It’s Mohammad, the soldier!” Fawn was crying. “He’s been killed! He’s dead!”
It was true. The mullah Ruad, first up in the morning, had found the man’s blanket empty, then found his body a few short yards out of the clearing.
“His throat has been slashed out,” said Ibn Fahad.
It looked like a wild beast had been at him. The ground beneath was dark with blood, and his eyes were wide open.
Above the cursing of the soldiers and the murmured holy words of the mullah, who looked quite green of face, I heard another sound. The young shepherd-lad, grimly silent all the day before, was rocking back and forth on the ground by the remains of the cook-fire, moaning.
“Vampyr...” he wept, “...vampyr, the vampyr...”
All the companions were, of course, completely unmanned by these events. While we buried Mohammad in a hastily dug grave those assembled darted glances over their shoulders into the forest vegetation. Even Ruad, as he spoke the words of the holy Koran, had trouble keeping his eyes down. Ibn Fahad and I agreed between ourselves to maintain that Mohammad had fallen prey to a wolf or some other beast, but our fellow travelers found it hard even to pretend agreement. Only the under-vizier and the clerk Abdallah seemed to have their wits fully about them, and Abdallah made no secret of his contempt for the others. We set out again at once.
Our company was somber that day—and no wonder. No one wished to speak of the obvious, nor did they have much stomach for talk of lighter things—it was a silent file of men that moved through the mountain fastnesses.
As the shadows of evening began to roll down, the dark shape was with us again, flitting along just in sight, disappearing for a while only to return, bobbing along behind us like a jackdaw. My skin was crawling—as you may well believe—though I tried to hide it.
We set camp, building a large fire and moving near to it, and had a sullen, close-cramped supper. Ibn Fahad, Abdallah, the vizier, and I were still speaking of the follower only as some beast. Abdallah may even have believed it—not from ordinary foolishness, but because he was the type of man who was unwilling to believe there might be anything he himself could not compass.
As we took turns standing guard the young mullah led the far from-sleepy men in prayer. The voices rose up with the smoke, neither seeming to be of much substance against the wind of those old, cold mountains.
I sidled over to the shepherd-lad. He’d become, if anything, more close-mouthed since the discovery of the morning.
“This ‘vampyr’ you spoke of...” I said quietly. “What do your people do to protect themselves from it?”
He looked up at me with a sad smile.
“Lock the doors.”
I stared across at the other men—young Fawn with clenched mouth and furrowed brow; the mullah Ruad, eyes closed, plump cheeks awash with sweat as he prayed; Ibn Fahad gazing coolly outward, ever outward—and then I returned the boy’s sad smile.
“No doors to lock, no windows to bar,” I said. “What else?”
“There is an herb we hang about our houses...” he said, and fumbled for the word in our unfamiliar language. After a moment he gave up. “It does not matter. We have none. None grows here.”
I leaned forward, putting my face next to his face. “For the love of God, boy, what else?”—I knew it was not a beast of the earth. I knew. I had seen that fluttering shadow.
“Well...” he mumbled, turning his face away, “...they say, some men do, that you can tell stories....”
“What!” I thought he had gone mad.
“This is what my grandfather says. The vampyr will stop to hear the story you tell—if it is a good one—and if you continue it until daylight he must return to the...place of the dead.”
There was a sudden shriek. I leaped to my feet, fumbling for my knife...but it was only Ruad, who had put his foot against a hot coal. I sank down again, heart hammering.
“Stories?” I asked.
“I have only heard so,” he said, struggling for the right phrases. “We try to keep them farther away than that—they must come close to hear a man talking.”
Later, after the fire had gone down, we placed sentries and went to our blankets. I lay a long while thinking of what the Armenite boy had said before I slept.
A hideous screeching sound woke me. It was not yet dawn, and this time no one had burned himself on a glowing ember.
One of the two soldiers who had been standing picket lay on the forest floor, blood gouting from a great wound on the side of his head. In the torchlight it looked as though his skull had been smashed with a heavy cudgel. The other sentry was gone, but there was a terrible thrashing in the underbrush beyond the camp, and screams that would have sounded like an animal in a cruel trap but for the half-formed words that bubbled up from time to time.
We crouched, huddled, staring like startled rabbits. The screaming began to die away. Suddenly Ruad started up, heavy and clumsy getting to his feet. I saw tears in his eyes. “We...we must not leave our fellow to s-s-suffer so!” he cried, and looked around at all of us. I don’t think anyone could hold his eye except the clerk Abdallah. I could not.
“Be silent, fool!” the clerk said, heedless of blasphemy. “It is a wild beast. It is for these cowardly soldiers to attend to, not a man of God!”
The young mullah stared at him for a moment, and a change came over his face. The tears were still wet on his cheeks, but I saw his jaw firm and his shoulders square.
“No,” he said. “We cannot leave him to Shaitan’s servant. If you will not go to him, I will.” He rolled up the scroll he had been nervously fingering and kissed it. A shaft of moonlight played across the gold letters.
I tried to grab his arm as he went past me, but he shook me off with surprising strength, then moved toward the brush, where the screeching had died down to a low, broken moaning.
“Come back, you idiot!” Abdallah shrieked at him. “This is foolishness! Come back!”
The young holy man looked back over his shoulder, darting a look at Abdallah I could not easily describe, then turned around and continued forward, holding the parchment scroll before him as if it were a candle against the dark night.
“There is no God but Allah!” I heard him cry. “And Mohammad is His prophet!” Then he was gone.
After a long moment of silence there came the sound of the holy words of the Koran, chanted in an unsteady voice. We could hear the mullah making his ungraceful way out through the thicket. I was not the only one who held his breath.
Next there was crashing, and branches snapping, as though some huge beast was leaping through the brush; the mullah’s chanting became a howl. Men cursed helplessly. Before the cry had faded, though, another scream came—numbingly loud, the rage of a powerful animal, full of shock and surprise. It had words in it, although not in any tongue I had ever heard before...or since.
Another great thrashing, and then nothing but silence. We lit another fire and sat sleepless until dawn.
In the morning, despite my urgings, the company went to look for a trace of the sentry and the young pries
t. They found them both.
It made a grim picture, let me tell you, my friends. They hung upside down from the branches of a great tree. Their necks were torn, and they were white as chalk: all the blood had been drawn from them. We dragged the two stone-cold husks back to the camp-circle, and shortly thereafter buried them commonly with the other sentry, who had not survived his head wound.
One curious thing there was: on the ground beneath the hanging head of the young priest lay the remains of his holy scroll. It was scorched to black ash, and crumbled at my touch.
“So it was a cry of pain we heard,” said Ibn Fahad over my shoulder. “The devil-beast can be hurt, it appears.”
“Hurt, but not made to give over,” I observed. “And no other holy writings remain, nor any hands so holy to wield them, or mouth to speak them.” I looked pointedly over at Abdallah, who was giving unwanted instructions to the two remaining soldiers on how to spade the funeral dirt. I half-hoped one of them would take it on himself to brain the old meddler.
“True,” grunted Ibn Fahad. “Well, I have my doubts on how cold steel will fare, also.”
“As do I. But it could be there is yet a way we may save ourselves. The shepherd-boy told me of it. I will explain when we stop at mid-day.”
“I will be waiting eagerly,” said Ibn Fahad, favoring me with his half-smile. “I am glad to see someone else is thinking and planning beside myself. But perhaps you should tell us your plan on the march. Our daylight hours are becoming precious as blood, now. As a matter of fact, I think from now on we shall have to do without burial services.”
Well, there we were in a very nasty fix. As we walked I explained my plan to the group; they listened silently, downcast, like men condemned to death—not an unreasonable attitude, in all truth.
“Now, here’s the thing,” I told them. “If this young lout’s idea of tale-telling will work, we shall have to spend our nights yarning away. We may have to begin taking stops for sleeping in the daylight. Every moment walking, then, is precious—we must keep the pace up or we will die in these damned, haunted mountains. Also, while you walk, think of stories. From what the lad says we may have another ten days or a fortnight to go until we escape this country. We shall soon run out of things to tell about, unless you dig deep into your memories.”
There was grumbling, but it was too dispirited a group to offer much protest.
“Be silent, unless you have a better idea,” said Ibn Fahad. “Masrur is quite correct—although, if what I suspect is true, it may be the first time in his life he finds himself in that position.” He threw me a wicked grin, and one of the soldiers snickered. It was a good sound to hear.
We had a short mid-day rest—most of us got at least an hour’s sleep on the rocky ground—and then we walked on until the beginning of twilight. We were in the bottom of a long, thickly forested ravine, where we promptly built a large fire to keep away some of the darkness of the valley floor. Ah, but fire is a good friend!
Gathered around the blaze, the men cooked strips of venison on the ends of green sticks. We passed the waterskin and wished it was more—not for the first time.
“Now then,” I said, “I’ll go first, for at home I was the one called upon most often to tell tales, and I have a good fund of them. Some of you may sleep, but not all—there should always be two or three awake in case the teller falters or forgets. We cannot know if this will keep the creature at bay, but we should take no chances.”
So I began, telling first the story of The Four Clever Brothers. It was early, and no one was ready to sleep; all listened attentively as I spun it out, adding details here, stretching a description there.
When it ended I was applauded, and straight away began telling the story of the carpet merchant Salim and his unfaithful wife. That was perhaps not a good choice—it is a story about a vengeful djinn, and about death; but I went on nonetheless, finished it, then told two more.
As I was finishing the fourth story, about a brave orphan who finds a cave of jewels, I glimpsed a strange thing.
The fire was beginning to die down, and as I looked out over the flames I saw movement in the forest. The under-vizier Walid was directly across from me, and beyond his once-splendid robes a dark shape lurked. It came no closer than the edge of the trees, staying just out of the fire’s flickering light. I lost my voice for a moment then and stuttered, but quickly caught up the thread and finished. No one had noticed, I was sure.
I asked for the waterskin and motioned for Walid al-Salameh to continue. He took up with a tale of the rivalry beyond two wealthy houses in his native Isfahan. One or two of the others wrapped themselves tightly in their cloaks and lay down, staring up as they listened, watching the sparks rise into the darkness.
I pulled my hood down low on my brow to shield my gaze, and squinted out past Walid’s shoulder. The dark shape had moved a little nearer now to the lapping glow of the campfire.
It was man-shaped, that I could see fairly well, though it clung close to the trunk of a tree at clearing’s edge. Its face was in darkness; two ember-red eyes unblinkingly reflected the firelight. It seemed clothed in rags, but that could have been a trick of the shadows.
Huddled in the darkness a stone-throw away, it was listening.
I turned my head slowly across the circle. Most eyes were on the vizier; Fawn had curtained his in sleep. But Ibn Fahad, too, was staring out into the darkness. I suppose he felt my gaze, for he turned to me and nodded slightly: he had seen it too.
We went on until dawn, the men taking turns sleeping as one of the others told stories—mostly tales they had heard as children, occasionally of an adventure that had befallen them. Ibn Fahad and I said nothing of the dark shape that watched. Somewhere in the hour before dawn it disappeared.
It was a sleepy group that took to the trail that day, but we had all lived through the night. This alone put the men in better spirits, and we covered much ground.
That night we again sat around the fire. I told the story of The Gazelle King, and The Enchanted Peacock, and The Little Man with No Name, each of them longer and more complicated than the one before. Everyone except the clerk Abdallah contributed something—Abdallah and the shepherd-boy, that is. The chief-clerk said repeatedly that he had never wasted his time on foolishness such as learning stories. We were understandably reluctant to press our self-preservation into such unwilling hands.
The Armenite boy, our guide, sat quietly all the evening and listened to the men yarning away in a tongue that was not his own. When the moon had risen through the treetops, the shadow returned and stood silently outside the clearing. I saw the peasant lad look up. He saw it, I know, but like Ibn Fahad and I, he held his silence.
The next day brought us two catastrophes. As we were striking camp in the morning, happily no fewer than when we had set down the night before, the local lad took the waterskins down to the river that threaded the bottom of the ravine. When a long hour had passed and he had not returned, we went fearfully down to look for him.
He was gone. All but one of the waterskins lay on the streambank. He had filled them first.
The men were panicky. “The vampyr has taken him!” they cried.
“What does that foul creature need with a waterskin?” pointed out al-Salameh.
“He’s right,” I said. “No, I’m afraid our young friend has merely jumped ship, so to speak. I suppose he thinks his chances of getting back are better if he is alone.”
I wondered...I still wonder...if he made it back. He was not a bad fellow: witness the fact that he took only one water-bag, and left us the rest.
Thus, we found ourselves once more without a guide. Fortunately, I had discussed with him the general direction, and he had told Ibn Fahad and myself of the larger landmarks...but it was nevertheless with sunken hearts that we proceeded.
Later that day, in the early afternoon, the second blow fell.
We were coming up out of the valley, climbing diagonally along the steep side of the rav
ine. The damned Caucassian fogs had slimed the rocks and turned the ground soggy; the footing was treacherous.
Achmed, the older of the remaining pike-men, had been walking poorly all day. He had bad joints, anyway, he said; and the cold nights had been making them worse.
We had stopped to rest on an outcropping of rock that jutted from the valley wall; Achmed, the last in line, was just catching up to us when he slipped. He fell heavily onto his side and slid several feet down the muddy slope.
Ibn Fahad jumped up to look for a rope, but before he could get one from the bottom of his pack the other soldier—named Bekir, if memory serves—clambered down the grade to help his comrade.
He got a grip on Achmed’s tunic, and was just turning around to catch Ibn Fahad’s rope when the leg of the older man buckled beneath him and he fell backward. Bekir, caught off his balance, pitched back as well, his hand caught in the neck of Achmed’s tunic, and the two of them rolled end over end down the slope. Before anyone could so much as cry out they had both disappeared over the edge, like a wine jug rolling off a table-top. Just that sudden.
To fall such a distance certainly killed them.
We could not find the bodies, of course...could not even climb back down the ravine to look. Ibn Fahad’s remark about burials had taken on a terrible, ironic truth. We could but press on, now a party of five—myself, Ibn Fahad, the under-vizier Walid, Abdallah the clerk, and young Fawn. I doubt that there was a single one of our number who did not wonder which of us would next meet death in that lonesome place.
Ah, by Allah most high, I have never been so sick of the sound of my own voice as I was by the time nine more nights had passed. Ibn Fahad, I know, would say that I have never understood how sick everyone becomes of the sound of my voice—am I correct, old friend? But I was tired of it, tired of talking all night, tired of racking my brain for stories, tired of listening to the cracked voices of Walid and Ibn Fahad, tired to sickness of the damp, gray, oppressive mountains.