Tales of Alhazred Read online

  “My people are dying. I hear their screams. I must go to them.”

  He burst from the circle and ran to the entrance to the warren with me close at his heels. At every instant I expected the invisible creature of mist to take us from behind, but we reached the tunnels without incident. I heard the faint cries of distress when I was under the earth and ran behind Uto, but he was too quick for me and I lost him in the maze of the warren.

  There was no one to ask for directions. All the ghouls of the clan were gathered in the great feasting hall, and I had no notion how to find it.

  Do you know where we are, Sashi?

  I’m sorry, my love, I am as lost as you are.

  I wandered this way and that, down one tunnel and across another. The distant screams of the ghouls stopped but the warren remained deserted. I wondered if the thing had taken them all, and how I was to get out of the warren before it found me. An awareness of the weight of the yards of earth over my head pressed down upon me and squeezed my breath from my body. I began to sweat and shiver. I am not usually given to fear of confined spaces, but the uncertainty of whether the thing lurked in front of me or behind preyed upon my mind.

  4.

  Uto stepped out of a side passage some distance in front of me.

  “Thanks be to the Old Ones,” I said, wiping the chill sweat from my face with my hand. “What was that screaming about?”

  “The bane took two of my people, a female and a young one,” he said.

  “Did they see the creature?”

  “No. The mother of the child noticed that he was missing from the feasting hall, and when the mate of the female said the same about her, the rest of the fools panicked.”

  He had almost reached me. I drew my sword in one motion and set its point in his heart with a powerful thrust, then jerked the blade loose and danced back. He stared at me with amazement, and looked down at the black blood that gushed from the mouth of the wound. I crouched and held the bloody point of my sword up before me.

  Blood welled from the corners of his broad mouth. He coughed. “Have you gone mad?”

  “Cold steel ever has power over your kind,” I told him. “Is that why you prey on ghouls and not on men? Because ghouls use no steel?”

  Uto’s squat black body wavered like heat rising from the sands of the desert, and in his place stood the old mother of ghouls. She glared at me with hatred from her good eye. “How did you know?”

  I gestured at the string of red beads that hung around her neck with the point of my sword. “Uto’s beads are white.”

  She fingered the necklace with her talons and hissed in rage. Even with her lifeblood pulsing from the wound over her heart, she advanced toward me. “I will savor your flesh.”

  “How long have you hidden inside this old one?”

  She cackled horribly, the gore running down her chin. “Many generations of her kind.”

  She continued to advance, and I to retreat, holding my sword between us.

  “You need a living host of flesh to anchor you to this world,” I said with sudden insight. “Without it you cannot attain physical form.”

  “The old one and I made a pact,” it gurgled. “In return for permission to hide and sleep within her body, I heighten her endurance and prolong her life.”

  “Is that what you do between your killing cycles? Sleep?”

  She nodded, her black eye never leaving my face.

  “Does anything of the old female remain?”

  “Not much,” the creature admitted.

  “What were you going to do after you’d killed this clan? Sleep again?”

  “Until the next clan comes to claim this burying ground for its own, as Uto’s clan did so many years ago, and the cycle repeats itself.”

  Something stirred at the edges of her black skin.

  The creature comes forth, my love.

  The expression of cold, hard cruelty on the face of the old female ghoul became vague and confused. She clutched at the wound over her heart and staggered against the side of the tunnel.

  “How do you take your prey? Do you open a rent in this world through which to drag them?”

  My questions found no response from the old ghoul, who appeared to be dying.

  “Do not abandon me,” she croaked. “I need your strength.”

  She did not speak to me, but to the empty air between us.

  Alhazred, it strikes.

  At Sashi’s warning, I slashed the air with my sword and jumped back, only to feel the chill earth press against my shoulders. I had run out of tunnel.

  The old ghoul raised her finger and pointed at me, cackling with demented glee.

  A soft thing pressed against my face. The softness changed to needles of fire. In the darkness at the side of the tunnel, a rent appeared that was like a tear in a curtain, and through it I saw flickers of redness, like embers glowing in a grate on a hearth. As I looked at it, the gap widened.

  I drew my dagger from its ivory sheath with my left hand and slashed the air with both sword and knife. Even though I could not see my foe, I felt resistance as the sharp steel cut invisible substance.

  A shadow reared up behind the old female ghoul. She sensed a presence, but before she could turn, Uto had her in his talons. He tore out her throat and slashed her back. I saw the white of her spine in the gaping cuts as she fell forward with a dolorous moan. As the last of the air left her lungs, the thing that pressed its needles into my face also departed. I wiped the back of my left hand across my cheek and saw blood on it.

  Uto rose from his fighting crouch and came to me. His talons dripped gore, but his face wore a smile of contentment. “Your head is covered with a thousand little drops of blood,” he said.

  “The thing almost had me. Steel was not enough to stop it.”

  “I heard what you said about it needing a living host to hold it to this world.”

  “Thanks be to the Old Ones I was right.”

  He turned and regarded the pitiful, shriveled corpse of the hag. “How many generations did she live, do you think?”

  “There is no way to guess, but you may be certain of one thing: yours was not the first clan she charmed her way into. She and the bane of ghouls played that game many times.”

  He kicked the corpse in its face. “I would offer you a portion of the meat, but it will be days before it is ripe.”

  “No matter; I’m not hungry.”

  He came close to me. I resisted the urge to step back. He laid his bloody claw on my shoulder, staining my black thawb with red.

  “You have done a great service for the White Skull Clan this night. It will never be forgotten. If you have need of anything, ask a member of my clan and it shall be yours.”

  “The only thing I require now is a guide out of this maze of a warren.”

  He chuckled and set off along the tunnel, stepping on the dead face of the old female as he passed. I followed in silence. As I passed the corpse, I looked down. Her wizened features bore a peaceful expression.

  “Such is the end of all flesh,” I murmured to myself.

  Uto heard me and grunted derision. “The end of all flesh such as hers is in our bellies.”

  Against this practical statement I could find no argument.

  ¼

  Mountain of Shadows

  1.

  “I thought you had sworn an oath never to go on another quest.”

  From the heaving, rolling back of my camel, I looked across at the scarred mercenary who rode beside me. “It was more of a determination than an oath.”

  “I was growing bored with Damascus,” Martala said from my other side. “It’s good to be on the road again.”

  “Keep your road, girl,” Altrus said. “Give me an alehouse where I can sit and drink, and a featherbed in a brothel where I can sleep.”

  We were seven days to the north of Damascus, crusted with road dust and saddle sores. I had forgotten how much I hated camels. As if to remind me, the beast I rode turned its long
neck and spat on me. Cursing, I lashed at its head with the heel of my hand, but it extended its neck until it was beyond my reach. It was a measure of our weariness that neither of my companions laughed at me.

  “Are you certain this talisman will protect you from Nyar—”

  “Don’t speak his name,” I said quickly. “Even in this empty waste, never voice his true name aloud, for to speak it is to summon him.”

  Altrus snorted in contempt but did not dispute the censure. He was a man without fear. The name of the Crawling Chaos was no more to him than a word. It was a mark of his respect for me that he allowed me to close his lips.

  “How do you know this talisman will protect you from … him?” he went on, after a time had passed in silence.

  “Nothing is certain in this life. It is reputed that the talisman is infused with the living substance of the Keeper of Gates.”

  “Who?”

  Martala leaned forward in her saddle and framed a name silently with her lips.

  “What? Who is that?” Altrus asked, staring at her in puzzlement.

  “Yog-Sothoth,” I said, suppressing my irritation, and turned to the girl. “You can say the name Yog-Sothoth.”

  “One you can say, another you can’t say,” Altrus muttered. “I’m glad I’m not a necromancer. All the little rules would drive me mad.”

  “Yog-Sothoth is the lord of gateways, and has absolute power both to open and to seal them. If I can use his talisman to close the way against my foe, not even his power will be able to breach it.”

  We rounded the rocky shoulder of a low hill. In the distance reared our destination, the Mountain of Shadows. It stood tall against the horizon, true to its name, its black stone unbrightened by the sunlight falling on its slope.

  “I can’t be certain the talisman will keep away the one they call the Crawling Chaos,” I went on. “Yet if there is even a chance, it is a weapon I must possess. The next time he comes to amuse himself by toying with my life, I want to be prepared.”

  “No man can arm himself against the gods,” Altrus said with fatalism.

  “He is greater than the gods,” Martala said. “He is an Old One.”

  “How is it you first came to learn about this talisman? You never told me.”

  “Uto, leader of the White Skull Clan of ghouls, overheard a rumor of its existence whispered in the deep places of the earth by something not human.”

  “Why would a ghoul come to you with such a tale?” Altrus asked with suspicion.

  “Last month I did a trifling service for him. He is in my debt.”

  “Do you trust him?”

  “As well as I trust anyone. I am not by nature a trusting man, as you know.”

  His eyes lingered on the ravages of my face, and I saw a trace of pity there before he looked away. Both my companions were aware of my disfigurement, and while we were alone together I felt no need to hide my true appearance beneath the spell of glamour I wore while walking the streets of Damascus.

  All through the morning and into the afternoon we approached the foot of the black mountain across the dreary plain. The setting sun found us climbing the foothills on our weary beasts. Camels are not bred for climbing. Their complaints increased in both frequency and stridency.

  “Tomorrow we must tether these animals where there is water and forage, and leave them behind us,” Altrus said.

  “I never expected to ride them to the peak of the mountain.”

  “Is this talisman on its peak?”

  “That I don’t know. It is supposed to be here, somewhere, but what it looks like or where it lies concealed, I could not discover in my researches among the old chronicles.”

  “We’re being watched,” Martala said.

  I looked where she pointed. Atop a great boulder that was the size of a house I saw a brown desert rat. It sat on its haunches with its forepaws gathered together against its breast, like a scholarly monk, and eyed us intently without moving as we rode past.

  “Bold vermin, be gone,” Altrus shouted and waved his arm.The rat did not even twitch.

  Altrus opened his purse and drew from it a copper coin. He threw it at the rat with murderous intention, but his aim was poor. The coin struck the stone near the rat’s feet with a metallic ring and flew away, the rays of the sun glinting on its polished sides as it tumbled through the air. The rat stared at the mercenary with its black eyes, and I almost imagined I saw contempt in its posture. With a leisurely flick of its long tail, it turned and jumped out of sight on the far side of the boulder.

  “I have heard it rumored that the Crawling Chaos can spy upon his enemies through the eyes of desert creatures,” the girl said.

  “Where would you hear such a thing?”

  “Your neighbors in the Lane of Scholars have servants. When I walk with them to the marketplace to buy your food and drink, we talk.”

  “Better for you to choose a less perilous subject of conversation.”

  “We are always discreet.”

  “Where Nyar— where he is concerned, the very bricks of the walls may listen.”

  2.

  We left the camels tethered at the place where we had made camp the previous evening, beside a spring that bubbled from the rocks into a deep pool. I would have hobbled them, but Altrus pointed out that this would leave the beasts defenseless should they be attacked by wolves. I was forced to trust that the presence of water and grass would keep them in that place, even should they break their tethers. The prospect of recrossing the desert plain on foot did not appeal to me.

  After climbing for hours a succession of slopes, we came upon a kind of pathway more suited to mountain goats than to men. It wound its way over knife-edged ridges and along the sides of deep chasms, never wide enough to walk two abreast.

  “At least this path shows that the mountain is inhabited,” Martala observed.

  “One of its inhabitants waits for us behind that rock,” Altrus murmured.

  The girl and I accepted this information without comment. We were both aware of how keen was the mercenary’s foresense of danger.

  I bowed my head and feigned a cough as I put on the spell of glamour that conceals my disfigurement. I am not embarrassed by how I look, but strangers tend to react with hostility when they see my true features.

  A man in a long black robe stepped into view from behind a boulder. He was slender of body but mature of years, with a shaved skull, and full lips that were almost womanly. He stood in the path, regarding us with impassive dark eyes, his hands concealed in the sleeves of his robe at his waist. His posture was very like that of the rat.

  “What do you seek in this place?” he asked in a cultured voice. To my surprise, he spoke in Greek.

  I answered him in the same language.

  “We are contemplatives. We intend to meditate and pray on the summit of the mountain.”

  There was no need to translate the words for my companions. Both had a traveler’s knowledge of the Greek tongue.

  His eyes examined each of us in turn, but his face betrayed no indication of his thoughts.

  “You are welcome to sleep and eat at the Monastery of Saint John during the term of your devotions.”

  “That is most generous. We accept your hospitality.”

  He nodded. “I will inform my brothers of your arrival. Continue on the path. You will reach the gates of the monastery before sunset.”

  He closed his eyes and muttered words under his breath, then seemed to listen.

  “Your sleeping chambers are being prepared for your arrival. You will dine with us this evening.”

  Before I could thank him again, he slowly lifted off the ground and floated upon the air above my head. It was an impressive display of levitation. He drifted up the slope and was soon hidden behind the hills.

  “Now that’s what I call magic,” Altrus said. “Why don’t you ever do anything like that?”

  “I have no need to make such vulgar displays.”

  Martala giggled
but said nothing.

  We continued along the path.

  “This is a strange location for a Christian monastic order,” the mercenary said at length.

  “We don’t know that the monks are Christian.”

  “They speak Greek. What else can they be?”

  I shrugged my shoulders after the manner of a ghoul. It was a gesture that said nothing and asked for no response.

  After a while, we came to a rushing torrent of water that cascaded down the steep slope in the belly of a narrow gorge and thundered across the path. The frothing white cataract was too wide to leap across and too swift to wade. Off the side of the path, it fell sheer in a waterfall for several hundred feet before crashing upon the rocks far below.

  “There’s no way we can cross it,” Altrus shouted near my ear. The thunder of the water made conversation difficult.

  “We’ll have to go back and find another route.”

  “Alhazred, look.” Martala grasped my arm and pointed into the air.

  Above our heads floated another of the black-robed monks. This one was older than the monk who had spoken to us. He did not deign to acknowledge our notice of him, but merely traced a sign upon the air with his hand.

  The rushing stream slowly lifted itself away from the path, attracted by his hand the way straw is drawn to polished amber.

  “I think he means for us to go underneath it,” I shouted.

  They regarded me without enthusiasm. There was ample room to walk beneath the arching torrent, but should it suddenly fall back into place, anyone caught beneath it was certain to be swept over the cliff edge to the rocks below.

  “I’ll go first,” Altrus shouted. He went forward, hesitated, and then with one quick glance upward at the floating monk, ducked his head and hastened beneath the water.

  “You go next,” I told the girl.

  She seemed inclined to argue, but I cut short her words with a gesture, and she followed the mercenary to the other side.

  I went after them. The rocks of the path were slick and worn smooth by the action of the torrent. The thunder of the mass of water passing above my head made me dizzy. Altrus caught my hand as I emerged from beneath it and pulled me to a more secure standing place.