Tales of Alhazred Read online

  “I will need a chisel and a hammer.”

  Before I could finish the words, these tools were in her hands. She extended them to me and I took them.

  “Hurry, human. My brothers call out to me.”

  I was glad I could not hear them.When I set the blade of the steel chisel against the lead, Sashi cried out in my mind.

  Stop, Alhazred, I cannot bear the pain.

  “Of course,” I murmured, annoyed with myself for my carelessness. “I should have realized. You are a djinn. Not as powerful as these others, but still a djinn. You must leave my body, Sashi, while I open this seal.”

  She did not argue. I knew she would have died with me, had such a thing been necessary, but a temporary separation was not fatal to our union. We had separated before in the past, and reunited. I stood with my arms at my sides and allowed her to pour herself out of my eyes and through the hole where my nose had been and past my parted lips. There was a kind of pulling on my skin, and then a sense of emptiness and aloneness that I did not like. I had grown accustomed to Sashi’s presence within me and felt incomplete without her.

  I looked around the valley but could not see her. She was invisible to normal sight. In my house at Damascus I possessed the dried bodies of certain white spiders that when ingested would have allowed me to see her true form, but I had none with me.

  “I will enable you to see your companion,” Allesalasallah said. She made a gesture in the air with her hand, and Sashi appeared, as though made of normal flesh

  She hopped across the sand on her elongated legs, turning her round head with its bat-like ears to stare at me through enormous black eyes. When she saw me watching her, she smiled and revealed a wide and lipless mouth filled with needle-like teeth.

  “This won’t take long, my love.” I told her aloud.

  She nodded her head to show that she had heard me.

  Setting the point of the chisel on the band of lead that surrounded the edge of the seal, I began to chip at it and lift it with taps of the hammer. The lead peeled up like the skin of an orange. I worked the chisel around the seal, shifting my position to keep the best possible angle, until at last I returned to my original place. The last of the lead dropped away from the brass lid of the vessel.

  “Lift it out, Alhazred,” Allesalasallah said, emotion filling her voice. The agony of her anticipation was painful to hear.

  I hammered the corner of the chisel between the edge of the seal and the mouth of the vessel, then used it to pry the seal upward. A small crack formed and I heard air rush into the vessel. Hammering some more, I got the shaft of the chisel between the lid and the side. Some force seemed to hold it in place, but I could feel it weakening. I muttered a charm of opening that I knew. In the past, I had found it useful for opening locked doors or chests.

  “Recite the charm again,” Allesalasallah directed.

  I did so with greater focus of mind, and felt the last of the resistance fall away.

  The bronze seal flipped through the air as a great rush of wind blasted out of the vessel. Far more wind came out than could ever possibly have been contained within it. In my head, not with my ears, I heard a moaning and crying and groaning, as from a multitude released from torment.

  All around me on the sand of the valley stood semi-human giants. Some were male and others female. Some faces were beautiful and others grotesque. They towered over me like the lotus pillars in the Egyptian temple at Karnack, which I had walked between on one of my travels.

  A male djinn freed from the vessel, who may have been their leader, spoke to Allesalasallah in the language of the djinn, and she answered. A shout went up to the heavens from dozens of throats, and I saw joy on their countenances. Then they turned their attention to me, and a silence fell over the valley.

  “You spoke of a reward,” I said to Allesalasallah.

  She smiled at me in a way I did not like.

  “Doesn’t it trouble you that you have unleashed beings who hate your race, and who will work untold suffering on countless humans in the coming centuries?”

  “Not at all,” I answered truly. “I stopped thinking of myself as human when I became a ghoul. I care nothing about what happens to humanity. You may revenge yourselves on it as you will.”

  “So we shall,” she said, and again I did not like her look.

  Sashi, come back into me, I thought.

  The little djinn leapt forward and embraced my upper body with all four of her long limbs. I felt her pressing herself into me through the openings in my head and the pores in my skin.

  I am returned, my love.

  Good, I told her. We may need to move quickly.

  “For centuries my brothers and sisters have waited for the chance to inflict torment on mankind,” Allesalasallah said. “Now a man stands before them.”

  “A man who set them free from their prison,” I reminded her.

  “They are aware of what you did. It is for this reason they will make your suffering brief.”

  I ran to the bronze seal and snatched it up from the sand. It was heavier than it looked. Without pausing, I returned to the brazen vessel and climbed into its opening, drawing the seal down over the mouth as quickly as possible without jamming my fingers in the crack.

  4.

  “Are you in pain, Sashi?”

  No, my dear one.

  It was as I had hoped. Once the mouth of the vessel was opened, it was possible for a djinn to enter into it and abide within it without suffering in the body. Yet when resealed, the vessel was impenetrable to the djinn from without.

  From the dark interior, I heard the giant djinn talking and arguing amongst themselves. They did not sound pleased with me. I had retreated to the one place on this terrestrial globe where they could not follow. The seal of Solomon, and the bands of holy texts that encircled the vessel, prevented them from entering it, or indeed from even touching the exterior surface.

  “Alhazred, come out of there,” Allesalasallah said in a commanding tone from near to the outside of the vessel.

  “I don’t believe that would be in my interests,” I told her.

  “We won’t harm you. We never meant to harm you. We want to reward you for your great service.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  A great roaring shook the vessel like a bronze bell.

  “Come out at once,” a deep voice rumbled. “If you do not obey me, your torments will extend for years.”

  I realized it was still Allesalasallah talking to me, but her anger had caused her to use her true voice.

  “It’s really quite comfortable in here,” I told her. “All it needs is a feather mattress, an oil lamp, perhaps a writing desk and a small rug.”

  Angry roaring from different quarters was the only response.

  “You cannot stay in there for more than a day, or at most two days. The heat of the sun will roast you, and you have no water.”

  I looked up at the feather-thin crack of light around the seal, and wondered if enough air was getting through the crack to prevent me from suffocating to death. If not, the need for water was the least of my worries.

  “We don’t need to kill you ourselves,” the djinn spoke in her newly harsh voice. “We will bury you alive beneath the sands.”

  “Wait,” I told her. “I will come out, if you grant me one request.”

  “You ask for the granting of a wish?” She sounded intrigued in spite of herself.

  “Yes, a wish. Grant me one wish. It is little enough for releasing seventy-two djinn from their bondage.”

  She spoke to the other djinn in their language, and I listened while they conversed for several minutes, but I understood not a word.

  What are they saying, Sashi? Do you know their language?

  One says they have no need to grant you a wish, that it is better to let you die beneath the sands. Another says that it would be amusing to turn your wish against you. Still another reminds the rest that it is a tradition to grant wishes to those who
do the djinn services.

  A shadow fell across the crack around the seal.

  “Alhazred?” Allesalasallah said in her soft womanly voice. “We have decided to grant you a wish. You may choose anything your heart desires, but of course you must not ask us to harm ourselves or destroy ourselves, for that we will not do.”

  I considered the matter intensely for several seconds. It was vital that I did not ask for something which the djinn believed would actually thwart their intention to kill me. I knew they would never knowingly agree to anything that would rob them of my painful termination. Their lust for vengeance against humanity was too keen. If I asked for too much, they would simply deny it. I must ask for something plausible that yet still left them a way to kill me. Once they agreed to grant me my wish, I could be reasonably sure they would not betray their sworn word.

  Will they keep their word once they give it? I asked Sashi.

  Yes, my love. But they will try to twist your wish against you.

  “Alhazred? Can you still hear me?”

  “I ask only this, Allesalasallah of the Seventh Circle—that all of your brothers and sisters leave this place without harming me, and swear never to harm me or any member of my household in any way, direct or indirect, at any future time.”

  She spoke to the other djinn, and they conversed amongst themselves.

  Alhazred, it is not my place to correct you, but there is a fatal flaw in your conditions.

  I smiled but said nothing to Sashi.

  “My brothers and sisters have all agreed to your terms, necromancer, and have sworn oaths not to violate them.”

  “Good. Let them go from this place, and trouble me and mine no more.”

  A great stirring of wind sent sand hissing against the sides of the brazen vessel. Some of it even found its way through the crack around the seal and made me cough and cover my mouth with the fabric of my thawb.

  When the wind died away, I stood up and used my arms to push the seal out of the neck of my temporary prison.

  At least it will not become my tomb, I thought as I crawled out to the sand.

  The valley was deserted, except for the slender, black-robed figure of Allesalasallah. She smiled at me with amusement, and watched me with bright interest, as a cat watches a mouse it has just caught.

  “All my brothers and sisters have departed, as you wished, and none will harm you or your household from this time forward forevermore.”

  “It is good,” I told her. “Now carry me back to Damascus.”

  She laughed. “Why should I carry your corpse to Damascus?”

  “My corpse?” I said, feigning surprise.

  “You fool. My brethren swore not to harm you, but I made no such oath.”

  I stared at her with an expression of scorn. “Do you really think I fear you, Allesalasallah of the Seventh Circle? I am a necromancer of vast occult knowledge. You are no more to me than a buzzing fly of the desert. Be gone. I grow weary of your company. Or if you believe you can contest against me, do your worst and witness your futility. Your presence bores me.”

  Her face darkened as though covered by a shadow and twisted into something less than human. I saw rage mount in waves within her. Her form expanded and lengthened upward, until she stood not less than thirty cubits, towering over me like a man who prepares to step on an insect.

  “What arrogance. Everyone calls you mad, and I see they speak the truth. Do you imagine that your puny magic can stand against a djinn of the Seventh Circle? I am older than these hills, older even than your vile and verminous species.

  You dare to speak to me in such a tone? I will burn the flesh from your bones.”

  She raised her arm and began to gesture while intoning a barbarous word of power.

  I did not hesitate, but dove backward and snatched up the bronze seal in my hands, balancing it before me as I crouched behind and beneath it, while taking care not to let my fingers project beyond its edge.

  The blue sky split with a blinding flash of white light. A bolt of crackling fire arched down upon me. It struck the seal of Solomon and rebounded upon Allesalasallah, whose towering body was immediately engulfed in blue flame. She screamed and became a turning vortex, but the fire did not go out. Instead, it blazed more intensely. The vortex lost its cohesion and the flames expanded outward.

  When the last of the flames died away, and nothing remained on the sand where Allesalasallah had stood but black ashes, I cautiously emerged from under the bronze seal. The fire had melted its surface so that nothing remained of the pentagram within the pentagon, or the words of the Hebrew holy verse. I slowly approached the ashes, alert for any deception, but the valley was empty. If the other djinn watched, they watched from a distance. I hoped they would remember their oaths.

  You are a wonder of duplicity, my love.

  “Thank you, Sashi. That is high praise, coming from a djinn.”

  How did you know the trick would work?

  “I remembered a story of the Greeks, about the hero Theseus and his confrontation with a terrible creature known as a Gorgon, whose very glance could turn a man to stone.”

  How did this Theseus defeat such a monster?

  “He polished his shield so that it became a mirror, and used it to reflect the destructive ray of the Gorgon’s glance back at her, turning her to stone with her own weapon.”

  Theseus was very clever, my beloved, yet not so clever, I think, as you.

  “No more praise, Sashi, you will make me blush.”

  You are the first man ever to destroy a djinn of the Seventh Circle.

  I stared around at the desert valley with disgust. “Were I truly clever, I would have found a way to make the hag carry us home before destroying her. As it is, we must walk.”

  It is not the first time, my love.

  Nor is it likely to be the last, I thought, but saved the moisture in my breath for the ordeal ahead.

  ¼

  Isle of the Dead

  1.

  The rain was so heavy and hard-driven by the storm winds that it was difficult to separate the sea from the air. I felt sand under the toes of my flailing boots and pushed myself forward through the surging water to what I thought was a beach. Soon I was crawling on my hands and knees through the foaming surf, thunder crashing in my ears above the howl of the storm and flickers of lightning blinding my night vision. There were trees ahead and a hill, that much I saw by each flash of lightning. I pushed myself to my feet, but found that the days at sea had taken away my land legs. I sat down on the sand before I fell down.

  Above the wind and rain I heard my name shouted.

  “Alhazred!”

  “Here!” I yelled through my cupped hands.

  Altrus staggered into view, supported under one shoulder by the slight figure of Martala. Lightning flashed, and I saw that something was wrong with his right thigh. A patch of blood had seeped from a rent in his pants.

  There was little point in trying to talk above the shriek of the wind. I picked myself up from the wreckage of what had once been our ship and now lay strewn all around me on the sand, and made my way with my companions toward the line of trees at the head of the beach.

  The trees cut the force of the wind, so that the drops of rain no longer felt like pebbles. We sat beneath the best cover we could find and huddled with our heads together.

  “What happened to the ship?” Altrus shouted. “One moment I was in my hammock, asleep, and the next I was in the water.”

  “I think we struck a sandbar,” I told him. “It broke the hull open and brought down the mainmast.”

  “Are we on the coast of Arabia?” the girl shouted.

  “We were too far from land. This must be an island.”

  “Curse the Caliph and his diplomacy,” the mercenary said. “We should be home in Damascus, not castaways in the middle of the Red Sea.”

  “When Moawiya asked me to carry his letter to King Yanni at Sana’a, I could scarcely refuse. He knew that Yanni and I grew
up together as brothers in the royal palace.”

  “You should have made up some excuse. No good ever comes from meddling in politics.”

  “The meeting went well enough. Better than I expected. My mistake was deciding to take a ship for our return instead of traveling overland.”

  “When you take ship you put your life in the hands of the gods.”

  “What happened to your leg?”

  “I don’t know. Something gashed it when I went over the side.”

  “It’s not a deep wound, but it has a nasty look,” Martala said.

  “Don’t worry, I won’t slow you down,” Altrus said.

  “Just don’t die on us. We don’t want to have to bring you back to life a second time.”

  The mercenary shuddered. “Don’t even say such a thing. It is not an experience I ever want to repeat.”

  I knew what he meant. I, too, had been returned to life from the dead by a necromantic reconstitution of my essential salts, and it was the second most unpleasant experience I had ever suffered.

  The most unpleasant was when Yanni’s father, the late King Huban of Yemen, had cut off my ears, nose, and private parts, roasted them on a brazier in front of my eyes, then forced me to eat them as punishment for defiling the purity of his daughter.

  When I went about in public, I wore a spell of glamour to make my face appear normal. Yanni had been astonished to see his lost foster-brother, whom he assumed to be dead, miraculously returned not only to life, but to normal appearance. He had agreed to the terms set by the Caliph in the matter of a dispute over caravan travel rights, and I had been returning to Damascus with good news and a royal letter for the Caliph. Alas, the letter was at the bottom of the Red Sea, along with my ship and her crew, unless it chanced any had survived to reach this island.

  “I looked at the captain’s chart for this section of the coast before we wrecked,” I told them. “There was no island on it.”

  “What does that mean?” Martala asked.

  I shrugged. “The chart must have been faulty. It’s not as though islands move from one place to another.”

  “Don’t be too certain of that,” Altrus said.