The Bones of the Old Ones (Dabir and Asim) (40 page)

“Well,” I said, noticing that it hurt a little even to grin—I seemed to have pulled a neck muscle—“God be praised for your fine judgment and quick wit.”

I then noticed Najya staring at Lydia. “Lydia helped us,” I told her. “She worked hard to set things right.” I thought then of her promise to Lamashtu, and frowned. “Dabir, what are we to do? The witch will come for her.”

The Greek shifted in her seat. Her dark ringlets hung wild and unkempt as she lifted up her open pendant and pressed it for a long time to her lips. Quietly she lowered it, then faced me. “You would stand no chance against her, Asim.”

“But we cannot let her take you.”

I looked to Dabir, who stared fixedly at the fire while furiously rubbing the back of his ring, then back to the Greek.

She smiled, gently, as a man does when a young child says something foolish. Her careworn eyes roved over each of us. “Najya, I hope that … I hope that you will be well from here on out. I am glad you survived.”

“Asim says that you helped them,” Najya said guardedly. “I suppose I have that to thank you for.”

“You owe me no thanks.” Tired as she was, Lydia’s accent was more pronounced than usual. “I am surprised you can offer anything but curses.”

“I thought I would hate you,” Najya replied. “But I cannot muster the will. Perhaps I am too relieved, or too tired.”

“Do you feel any of the spirit still?” Lydia asked.

“Nay. I am wholly myself.”

Lydia looked over to me. “Asim, I forgive you my father’s death. He brought it upon himself.”

She sounded very much like someone saying her good-byes, and I checked with Dabir to gauge his reaction.

One last time Lydia looked at the woman beside me. “Najya, he is all that he seems to be, and nothing more. If you love him as I think you must, treasure him for that. It is a rare thing.”

“Lydia?” Dabir asked cautiously.

“Dabir.” She smiled then, and no matter her fatigue, she lit with a shadow of her beauty.

She reached out and touched the side of his face with one hand. His hair hung loose about his face, owing to the loss of our turbans, and she ran her fingers through it.

He met her eyes tenderly, then bent forward and put his lips gently to her forehead, kissing her very softly. She closed her eyes at his touch.

When they pulled apart, she smiled again, sadly, and I saw that her eyes were wet with tears. “I could have loved you,” she said, shuddering a little.

“Lydia?” Dabir asked.

“It will be hard for her to”—once more she shuddered, though it was for a longer time—“take me if I am already dead.”

“
No
—” Dabir’s words came out in a gasp, as though he had just been struck in the stomach.

“Do not be too sad…” She convulsed, and Dabir reached out for her.

“What have you done?” Dabir demanded, horrified.

“Poison. In my locket. A careful woman always keeps some on hand.” I think she meant to laugh, but she sucked in a painful breath instead.

Tears glistened in my friend’s eyes, and Lydia reached up to try and brush a drop from his face, but her hand was shaking. He took her in his arms.

She was a while dying, and it was hard to watch. Dabir murmured to her as she did so, and they spoke quietly together, but Najya and I did not listen, aye, and my love even cried a little, for she was of generous spirit.

Even after Lydia ceased movement, Dabir held her still, absently brushing her hair. It was only when he laid her down and closed her eyes that a vapor formed before us and Lamashtu appeared in its midst. She took longer to appear than she ever had before, perhaps because she was weakened.

I stood, shielding Najya with my body. I had no sword to draw, only a knife, so I put my good hand to it.

“You have come too late,” Dabir said, rising. “She has died.”

Lamashtu’s eyes were bloodshot, her eyes white and staring. She strode forward and stared down at the Greek woman’s body. “Who now will return my favor?”

“Do not look to her,” Dabir said. His eyes shone with tears. “For she has surely passed on to paradise.”

“You were her companions. You profited from her actions. The debt falls naturally to you.”

“You made no bargain with us,” Dabir said tiredly. “Your magic has no hold upon our blood.”

Her mouth twisted in rage. “I should slay you for your insolence!”

“You bargained, and lost. But we have lost as well, for she was our friend.”

She sneered. “I will remember you.” She looked then to the still body, and extended a hand to it, and Lydia’s corpse vanished in a burst of smoke. Najya gasped and Dabir’s eyes widened in shock.

“I may yet have use for her,” Lamashtu said with a mocking smile, and she disappeared as well.

There was no consoling Dabir then, and I sorrowed both for him and for Lydia. It was a bad end that had come to her, but a valiant one. I was to pray many times that she had escaped whatever Lamashtu planned.

We had no way to travel after that. Lydia’s carpet had carried her to the Khazar camp and it likely remained there. The bull was destroyed, and the Khazar horses were long departed. No food was left us, and we had only the clothes upon our backs. Both spear and staff were drained of energy and dessicated, even had we known how to wield the latter. We would surely have starved and frozen if a caravan had not chanced upon us that evening. We did not try to explain ourselves, and I cannot be sure they would have given aid if Dabir and I had not shown our medallions.

By the time we reached Mosul a day later, the snow was melting. Spring came early that year, and before very long the trees leafed out and the birds sang in their branches. It was most welcome, and more wondrous than ever after the winter we’d suffered.

Upon our return, Najya was hosted by the governor. I healed well, and swiftly, for I was a strong man, and still relatively young. Even before my pains had subsided I was in fine enough shape to tell the governor all that had transpired on our journey, and so it was that I was there on hand to see Abdul and the rest of the men return to the city. He had been wounded by Anzu, but Kharouf had doubled back for him. They, too, had a tale to tell, of combat with a great dragon of snow. They had fashioned torches to fight the thing, and all but three had come through alive, though Ishaq had been frozen near to death in the monster’s coiling tail. It gladdened my heart to see them, and the governor gifted them with many fine garments and other honors. It may be that you have heard the song Abdul’s cousin wrote of the affair, for it is still popular in the north today.

The wooden horse was placed on the ledge above our curio shelf, as we both thought fitting. It sat there for long years as we accumulated other mementos. I have it with me now, as I write this in the tower. The bull, alas, had vanished in the flood, its magic spent, along with any fragments of the club of Herakles, which I would much rather have retained. We had thought also to bury Erragal’s remains, but never found them.

The caliph shortly received word of the whole affair and commanded us to report to Baghdad so that he might hear all of the details in person. Being the just and noble ruler that he was, though, he gave us a deferral, that I might address important matters in Isfahan, which I shall now relate.

After a few days of rest I called upon Najya at the governor’s residence. Things were much more formal and proper there at the palace with the crisis passed, with handmaidens waiting just beyond the curtains.

My first marriage had been arranged by my parents, which had been well and good, and my second through my second wife’s mother, so I had never before directly broached marriage with the woman I hoped to wed. I had faced down all manner of horrors in the preceding days, yet I found I must summon a greater form of courage as I sat down beside her. She looked very lovely that day, dressed as she was in white and blue, her hair lustrous and well brushed. As she fixed those wondrous eyes upon me I lost most sense of what I had planned to say.

“I have been looking forward to riding with you in Isfahan,” I managed finally, “and seeing these flowers you spoke of.”

“That would be very nice,” she replied, then watched expectantly.

I cleared my throat. “I was wondering if you would prefer to ride with me, as I am, or if you would rather I be a married man, first. To you, I mean.”

Ah, she was merciless, and she insisted later that she found my discomfort charming. All innocently she blinked and said, “I am not sure I follow what you mean.”

“I am asking,” I said, “whether you would, ah, want to be married to me.”

Still she waited, so that I struggled on to fill the silence. I did not want her thinking that I meant to go against the wisdom of the Holy Koran and form a secret agreement between us. “Naturally I will call upon your family in Isfahan, and speak with them. And…” I thought to assure her I would move her things to Mosul, then worried she wouldn’t be happy to live so far from home, then remembered her family might not want her taken so far away. “But … if you say nay, I shall not trouble them,” I finished lamely.

She waited only a moment more before finally taking pity upon me. “I shall say yes,” she told me. “Yes, a hundred times would I say it.” She raised her hand to my cheek and I swear that moment was like being kissed for the very first time. And great happiness did I know.

By the time Dabir and I and Najya—and her female chaperones (for this was a trip planned with all propriety, rather than expediency)—reached Isfahan, our fame had resided there awhile, though it bore only a strained resemblance to the truth. Some folk had already heard of our adventure in the Desert of Souls and the saving of Baghdad, and now their eyes goggled at the sight of us, for the tale of Dabir’s monster slaying had reached them over the caravan trails. I, too, was not unknown, and Najya’s brother and family met me warmly.

Spring was in full bloom by the time of our wedding feast, surely among the most splendid that I ever attended, and unquestionably the most lively, for there were storytellers and acrobats, and fine drummers and other such things, and all folk who were there, even those who came troubled, were seen to be smiling and laughing. The caliph gifted us with a tremendous chest of treasure, and Jaffar sent up a great bundle of beautiful cloths and a pair of very fine white horses. Seats of honor went to Dabir, of course, and also to Rami, who had never traveled farther than the fields of Mosul before. He beamed as though he had been appointed caliph for a day. Mosul’s governor also was there, with many fine gifts, and Shabouh, and Abdul, and Ishaq and the other soldiers who’d escorted us to Harran and proudly guarded us on the journey to and from Mosul. And Buthayna came. She kept her distance from all the richly arrayed folk, though she found time to bake a heavenly selection of sweet cakes.

The celebration went on for three days, and I handed out nearly as many fine presents as those given to my wife and me. Dabir presented a copy of the
Iliad
to me, one illuminated as grandly as a fine Koran. When I reminded him he had lost the bet, he only laughed and said that he hoped I would read it anyway. I did, eventually, and discovered that the story had many splendid moments, even if its end was abrupt.

But among all the presents was one most puzzling, for a long caravan arrived as we were dining on the second day and there was some confusion, for everyone thought it a grand gift for my bride and me. Instead it proved to be an allotment of scrolls and stone tablets that the caravan master delivered to Dabir, along with a single short letter initialed only with an A:

I have removed most of the contents of Erragal’s library, for it is no longer secure, but I thought you might enjoy these selections. Perhaps you will accept them as some small token of apology.

I thought Dabir would be better pleased to have such a gift, yet he frowned. “If Anzu means to make a project of me, he shall be disappointed.” He ended up turning the entire collection over to his favorite institution of the north, the library of Iskander, in Mosul, though you should not think he kept from reading the texts. He also sent most of his own half of the treasures bestowed upon him by the governor and the caliph—a great deal of which had been recovered from the Khazar camp—on to the family of Jibril, whose body the governor went to great pains to recover and inter with honors.

But let me speak again now of Najya, who became so natural a part of my life that it swiftly grew difficult to recall how I had managed without her. Long were we together, and almost always did we find happiness in each other’s arms, for we were better matched than most couples. While she never again demonstrated any sign of Usarshra’s presence, I never doubted that a strong spark of something mystical remained within her. But then all wise men know their women are touched with magic.

These were not the end of my adventures with Dabir, of course. I am sorely tempted to speak on about our summons to Baghdad, and the curious sword gifted to me there by Jaffar, and the whole black plot that swept up Sabirah’s husband upon our arrival, but I shall save that for another time, for this tale is done.

Afterword

Many times I’ve said that my chief source of inspiration rises from the adventure stories that have thrilled me since I first began reading, most especially the tales of Harold Lamb, Robert E. Howard, and Leigh Brackett, although my wife will tell you it was Roger Zelazny I was trying hardest to imitate for many years. I loved his splendid imagination and plot twists and his flawed, opinionated narrators, particularly Corwin of Amber. I probably read Zelazny’s first Amber series more times than any other books in my youth, with the possible exception of Harold Lamb’s
The Curved Saber
and Fritz Leiber’s
Swords Against Death,
which was the first sword-and-sorcery collection I ever laid hands on, and by sheer luck contains the most solid run of the adventures of the great rogues, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser.
Swords Against Death
did not, however, print the map I saw in another book of the pair’s adventures. On that map, among all the glorious place names that dripped storytelling promise was a worn-down mountain range far to the north named the Bones of the Old Ones. I don’t recall Fafhrd or the Mouser ever spending much time there, and I always wanted to know more about the region. The bones in this book ended up being very different from Leiber’s mountains, but they would not have existed at all if I had not spent long moments savoring that map.