Tales of Alhazred Read online

  “We need to get away from here and find a place to hide,” I said.

  There was no time. I doubt we could have hidden from them in any event, once they were aware of our presence within the citadel. They closed in around us with caution, but left us no avenue of flight.

  Altrus stepped toward the nearest monster. “Here I am,” he said.

  The girl and I closed in behind him and turned to face outward at the ring of creatures.

  I heard Altrus cry out and felt him stagger. I turned to look and was struck by some kind of net that stuck to my skin and clothing and would not come off. Nor could I break it. Struggling against it only tightened it around me.

  Martala turned to help me, and one of the creatures extruded a kind of sticky mass from its chest and dexterously stretched and worked it in its long arms into a net. This it did in a matter of a few seconds. Before I could warn the girl, the net was cast upon her, and she too was caught like a fly in a spider’s web.

  They took away our swords and daggers and carried us between them, four of them to each of us, so that we swung between them like trussed fowls. As they went, they made clicking noises. I realized they must be speaking a language of some kind. The sounds emanated not from their heads, but from their chests.

  “Where are they carrying us?” the girl asked.

  I twisted my head, the only part of my body I could still move, and looked past my shoulder.

  “The black sphere.”

  One of the monsters stood before the sphere and made a series of whistling tones that almost sounded like the melody of a flute. The black sphere did not appear to change, but suddenly the thing stepped forward and vanished.

  “They are taking us inside,” I said for the benefit of my companions.

  I was lifted toward the blackness, and suddenly I was elsewhere, being placed on a table and bound there with more of the sticky string the things seemed to extrude. Altrus and Martala were bound to similar tables, and then all three tables were rotated on their pivots so that they were upright. Everything around us was black and in shadows.

  “We can’t be inside the sphere,” Martala said. “This room is too large.”

  “They carried us into it, but we must have passed through it to some other place.”

  One of the creatures put its head close to my face and studied me. Its huge protruding eyes rolled in their sockets as it looked me up and down the length of my body. I felt one of the feelers on its head brush against my cheek and shuddered involuntarily. It was like being touched by the leg of a spider.

  The mouthparts of the creature opened from side to side and the long black tube I had seen earlier extended itself and forced its way into my mouth. I tried to keep my jaw clenched but the thing used the claws on the ends of its long forelegs to force my teeth apart.

  I felt the tube slide down my throat and further, inside my chest, until it forced its way into my stomach. It hurt, but only for a moment. A cool liquid spurted from the end of the tube into my stomach and numbed the pain.

  “Alhazred, what’s happening?” Martala cried out, and then began to choke.

  Rolling my eyes, I saw two other creatures insert their black tubes into the mouths of my companions. The table I was bound to felt as though it were slowly spinning.

  The three things that had violated us gathered in an open space on the floor and inclined their heads until they touched, then twined the twitching feelers on their heads together. They began to click rapidly. A blackness rolled over my vision and took my mind to a dark place.

  5.

  When I opened my eyes, Altrus and Martala were already awake. We were still attached to the upright tables by the strands of silvery web. My throat burned and my stomach rolled with nausea, but I did not vomit.

  “What did they do to us?” I asked in a croak. My lips were dry.

  “You mean other than fuck us in the mouths with their black cocks?”

  “Yes, Altrus, other than that.”

  “Nothing, so far, unless it was while we were all unconscious.”

  “What did they put inside us?” Martala asked fearfully. It was one of the few times I had seen the girl express fear.

  “Some kind of saliva that made us sleep.”

  “Nothing else?”

  I rolled my abdominal muscles experimentally. My stomach felt empty.

  “Nothing else.”

  She sagged visibly with relief.

  “We have to get out of here,” Altrus said.

  “I agree. How?”

  “My sword is the finest Damascus steel. It will cut anything, even this silver web, if I can only reach it.”

  Our naked swords and daggers had been placed on a round table on the other side of the room. I noticed for the first time that the room was also round. Roundness was important to these creatures. The citadel itself was round. From somewhere behind the black walls I heard the pulse and flow of liquids through pipes. That was good, it would help cover the sounds of our voices.

  Beside the swords was a long table similar to the tables that held us, but it was not elevated vertically. On it lay a corpse that had no head. Its torso had been cut open and laid wide with steel pins and hooks to expose its organs.

  “These things must be studying us to learn how our bodies work,” I speculated aloud.

  Neither the man nor the girl responded. They were accustomed to me talking to myself. Altrus began to thrash back and forth against his restrains so that the silver threads cut into his skin and drew droplets of blood.

  “Stop it, you fool; you’ll only injure yourself.”

  “We need to get out of here,” he repeated with more force.

  “Alhazred, there may be a way,” Martala said abruptly.

  “If you have an idea, don’t keep it to yourself. Tell us.”

  “Look over there, on that table. It’s a dead man.”

  “I’m inclined to agree, since it has no head.”

  “We’re necromancers.”

  I started to speak, then held my tongue. In the cellar of my house at Damascus, the girl and I had spent many nights working rituals to summon back the spirits of the dead into their decaying flesh. Most were failures, but a few had achieved a partial success. There might be a chance.

  “Can we work a ritual without being able to move?”

  “I think so,” she said.

  Martala was more skilful than I was at the necromantic arts. She had a natural gift for them. This was something I never admitted to others. It would undermine my growing reputation as a great necromancer, and that reputation was useful to me. It opened doors—and purses. Even the Caliph had taken favorable notice of me. Altrus knew the true state of things, so there was nothing to hide from him.

  “How do you wish to proceed?” I asked the girl.

  She named a ritual of reanimation we had worked not ten days ago, with a measure of success.

  “Do you remember the barbarous words?”

  “I do,” she said.

  “Then I will visualize the ritual circle and project it in my mind, while you recite the words of power.”

  It was a strange feeling, to try to work magic while bound hand and foot to a table. Most of magic functions in the mind, not in the external world, but magicians use the things of the world to direct and strengthen the ritual patterns in the mind. The world anchors magic with its solidity and density. We were trying to work it without that anchor, to perform the ritual purely on the mental level of imagination and force of will. It is immensely more difficult to do magic in this way.

  I concentrated on making the circle and its symbols and inscriptions so clear in my imagination that I could see them with my open eyes. Around the corpse on the table I projected mentally a triangle of manifestation while letting the ancient words of power Martala recited echo in my thoughts. These words were so old, their exact meaning had been forgotten, but they retained their potency in works of magic. Maybe they were the names of ancient and forgotten gods. No one kn
ew their origins, only that they held power that could be released by uttering them aloud.

  The girl stopped speaking. I looked across at her, and saw red trickle down her chin.

  “We need blood, Alhazred,” she said, then resumed the barbarous chant.

  I understood. Of all forms of magic, necromancy is most in need of the vitalizing and animating spirit that is concentrated in blood. The spirit that returns to the corpse must be fed if it is to move the dead flesh. I bit the corner of my mouth with my teeth and let the salty blood that welled in my mouth dribble from my lips. It would have been much more effective if the blood had been set beside the corpse, or smeared over the corpse.

  “Altrus, cut yourself,” I said.

  He grunted understanding. His hand lay near his wounded thigh. He worked his fingers toward the wound and dug them into it, opening it afresh so that it flowed red. The smell of blood reached my nose-hole. That was good. It would pervade the entire room.

  The ritual reached its climax. The girl and I both concentrated our wills on the corpse, projecting our combined purpose into it. For several minutes, nothing happened. Then one of the hands of the corpse twitched and lifted to grasp feebly at the air.

  “Concentrate, Alhazred,” Martala said between her teeth.

  “I am concentrating,” I told her.

  Then we had no energy for talk. All our awareness went into infusing our purpose into the flesh of the corpse. It began to tremble and shake until I feared it would fall to the floor, but instead, it abruptly sat up and slid its legs over the side of the table. In another moment it lurched to its feet and stood swaying. It was a ludicrous sight, to watch it stand there without its head, but the effort to send my will into it left me with no inclination to laugh.

  The dead flesh fumbled over the round table that supported our weapons and grabbed at the curved blade of my dagger, which lay outside its ivory sheath. The sharp edge of the blade sank deep into the fingers of the corpse, but no blood flowed from the wounds. The corpse twisted around and staggered across the floor to where Altrus hung.

  “Focus, Alhazred, focus,” Martala said, her face covered with silver beads of sweat.

  I realized my own face dripped as well. There was a dull ache between my eyebrows and the edges of my vision began to go dark as my sight narrowed upon the dagger. We both concentrated in making the corpse extend its arm toward the mercenary’s hand, which was held down at the wrist by the silver web.

  His clutching fingers brushed the hilt of the dagger twice, then closed around it. The headless corpse staggered as though invisible strings supporting it had been cut, and it fell to the floor.

  Altrus ignored it. He concentrated on turning the dagger in his hand until the sharp edge of the blade slid under one of the strands of the web. He began to work it back and forth. A strand parted, then another. The more strands of the web he cut, the easier it was to cut them. Once he got his arm free, he was able to free the rest of his body in minutes, and then cut the girl loose, and finally, me.

  I took my dagger and slid it into its sheath at my belt. We collected our other weapons and went to the door of the room. It opened on a corridor.

  “Which way?” Altrus asked.

  “When in doubt, go right.”

  Neither of them objected. I led them down the right side of the long passage, wondering where the black insect-things might be. We passed many doors, all of them locked shut. At the end of the passage was an arch made of the same shiny black substance as the walls and floor. I wondered where the light to see originated. It was not bright, but neither was it dark. I reached out my hand, and it passed through the shadow beneath the arch.

  “I’ll go first,” I said.

  “A wise plan,” Altrus said.

  “On second consideration, you will go first.”

  He shrugged and stepped through the shadow, vanishing from sight. Martala and I looked at each other. After several minutes, he came back.

  “Is the way safe?” I demanded.

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  “What does that mean?”

  He shrugged and stepped aside. “See for yourself.”

  The girl and I stepped through the shadow together. I expected the courtyard in the citadel, but we found ourselves standing beside the black sphere on a high ledge that overlooked a valley. It was all rock and sand. Across the valley we saw citadels similar to the one on the island. There were dozens of them. All of them looked deserted, presumably because it was the time of sleep for the creatures. I looked up. A small red ball burned in a black sky that was filled with impossibly bright stars.

  “This is not our world,” I said.

  6.

  The air was strangely hot and dry in my lungs. It burned in a way that did not feel healthy.

  “We should not stay here long,” Martala said.

  “Wait a while. Look at that construction.”

  I pointed at two bridges that spanned the gorge between where we stood and the hill on the other side that sloped down into the valley of citadels. One bridge was narrow and looked old and worn-out. The other was wider, newer, but only half finished. On the ledge not far from where we stood were various building materials and tools that had been left by the workmen after their period of labor.

  “The monsters are building a new bridge to reach our world more easily,” the girl said.

  “But notice how the bridges are constructed. They are supported by ropes hung from either side of the gulf.”

  “I see what you intend. We can use such a rope to climb down the side of the citadel wall and escape.”

  I continued to study the building materials, and noticed a wooden spool wound around its waist with a silvery strand the thickness of my little finger. “This must be the rope used for the bridge. We can take it back with us.”

  “Let’s get it and get out of here. I do not like this place. The sun burns my skin.”

  The spool was too heavy to lift. Fortunately, its ends were rounded, and the girl and I were able to tip it over and roll it back through the side of the black sphere.

  Altrus waited for us with his arms folded on his chest. “We should have turned left.”

  I did not lower my dignity by answering, but merely pointed at the spool. He understood its purpose immediately. I led the way back along the passage, he and Martala rolling the spool behind me. The passage was still empty, but I wondered how long it would remain so. The black creatures must all be asleep, I reasoned, but we had no way to know how long they slept or when they would awaken.

  At the other end of the corridor we encountered a similar arch of shadow.

  “If this leads to another strange land …” Altrus said.

  “This time, I’ll go first.” Before he could argue, I stepped through the shadow and stood looking around.

  It was the courtyard of the citadel, and it was late afternoon to judge by the angle of the sun, which was yellow and familiar. The others did not wait for me to report back to them, but stepped out together and stood beside me.

  “Let’s get this strange rope to the top of the wall and get out of this place,” Altrus said, his face red and sweating from his exertions with the spool.

  “Wait awhile,” I told him with my hand raised.

  I stood staring at the blue sky, thinking, while Altrus scowled and fought to hold his temper.

  “Alhazred, we need to leave now.”

  “These creatures have done great insult to us, would you agree?”

  “Yes, I agree, and we need to get out of here.”

  “I am of a mind to leave in such a manner that will remind them of us after we are gone.”

  “What do you plan to do? We can’t burn the citadel. It’s made of brick and stone.”

  “We could cut all the walking dead into pieces and deprive the monsters of their workers,” Martala suggested.

  “An excellent idea, but I fear it would take too long,” I told her.

  “Then what, Alhazred?”<
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  “Find a wagon, and load it full of stones or bricks.”

  They knew me well enough not to argue when I used that tone, but they looked at each other as they went to do as I directed.

  By the time Altrus and Martala brought the loaded wagon back to the courtyard, I had finished my own task and stood waiting for them.

  Altrus scowled at the silver rope that trailed off the spool and out through the entrance to the courtyard. “What is the purpose of all this?” he demanded.

  “Patience, my friend; you will see in good time.”

  I unspooled more of the rope to the extent I thought necessary and began to wrap the rest around the wagon and its heavy load, passing the lightened spool over its top and under its belly. After a while, the others helped me. I used all that was left on the spool to wrap the wagon tightly and tied off the end of the rope.

  “Now what?” Martala demanded.

  “Now we push the wagon into the sphere.”

  She frowned in confusion but she said nothing. Even with the three of us, it was no easy task. We managed to get the wagon rolling, and Altrus guided it from the front while the girl and I pushed from the rear with the excess rope trailing behind us.

  “Don’t stop,” I said as we passed through the black shadow and entered the long passage. I was gratified to find that the wagon fit in the passage. I would have looked like a fool had it not. We grunted and strained along.

  As the wagon exited the shadow arch on the far end, I shouted in warning, “Altrus, jump to the side, quickly.”

  He needed no prompting. The edge of the cliff was only a dozen paces from the sphere and the wagon rolled directly toward it. The girl and I continued to push until the wagon went off the edge. I grabbed her arm and pulled her away from the rope, which made a hiss as it whipped along the ground and slid over the cliff after the falling wagon.

  The rope jerked tight and held for only an instant, then continued to slide into the gulf. Half a dozen heartbeats later, a mass of splintered timber and bent iron strapping burst forth from the side of the black sphere with a deafening crash and hurtled over the cliff.

  We approached the edge cautiously, and were in time to see the wagon strike the rocks at the bottom. It exploded in flying fragments of brick, wood and stone.