The Bones of the Old Ones (Dabir and Asim) (25 page)

I had figured out the club; I saw no reason that I could not work out the spear as well. “Yes. What are you planning?”

He shook his head. “We will talk when we land.”

We were on that carpet a very long time indeed, for it was a long way to Mosul even when soaring like a bird. Also, it was cold, and after the first hour we were forced to huddle together under Alexis’ outer robe, which we spread like a blanket.

I was dismayed that we had once again missed our prayers. It always seemed to me that in those times when they might do us the most good we had no opportunity for them. Also, there was the presence of Alexis to darken my mood. It seemed that all our journeys upon the carpet would be in the company of a corpse, surely an ill omen. I bethought then of Jibril’s body, still unburied, and I knew great sorrow, just as I knew that was likely nothing to what Dabir must be feeling.

Below us all was blue-gray where the snow threw back moonlight and black where it did not, outlining trees, rocks, or occasional buildings. One long winding patch of ink was a river and it silvered as we passed. After traveling a long while in silence, we began to drop lower and I could see flickers of light from dwellings glinting off objects outside. The carpet soon carried us a bowshot above Mosul’s walls, close enough for me to see two warriors talking over brazier coals. They did not see us, praise God, for they would surely have raised an alarm. Dabir advised Lydia so that our course changed now and again. We flew low enough over a block of buildings that I might well have stepped safely onto a roof.

Finally the carpet arrived above the dark rectangle of our courtyard and settled gently into it.

I realized how tense I’d been only when I began to relax in the familiar surroundings. I climbed slowly to my feet, discovering a few new pains, then helped Dabir bear the body of Alexis into one of our empty rooms. Dabir had promised Lydia he would be buried in the Christian cemetery south of the wall, and I would see that it was done personally. Our tread wakened a visibly startled Buthayna, who volunteered with surprisingly few words to stoke the fire and warm something for us.

Lydia waited to the side of the oven, eager for the warmth. I couldn’t suppress a grin when a bleary-eyed Rami stumbled into the kitchen to stare at us in shocked wonder. Dabir directed the lad and they both helped me to remove my armor. I was startled to catch Buthayna looking over at me with concern. I recalled then the multitude of red splashes staining my tunic and armor.

“It is not my blood,” I said.

A savage laugh then fell from her lips, and she kept on chuckling from time to time over the next quarter hour. Even Lydia traded a curious glance with me at this.

I was famished, so hungry that I hardly savored the rice and stewed vegetables Buthayna set before me. The Greek woman ate nearby, forced into proximity because we both desired to be near to the oven.

Dabir went to the adjoining room to pen a quick note to the governor and I heard him bid Rami take it to the palace straightaway. He returned after having changed, replaced his turban, and washed, then reluctantly agreed that we speak in the kitchen rather than the receiving room. He chased out Buthayna, pulled out a chest she kept her larger pots in, and sat down upon it with his back to the stone oven. “It is time for answers,” he told Lydia. “Clearly the ancients were right about the spirits: when they absorb enough life force, they become corporeal—at least temporarily.”

“Yes,” Lydia agreed.

“And somehow Erragal stored magic in the bones from one of these slain spirits?”

“Not just any slain spirits.” Lydia set her plate aside. “The most dangerous and bloodthirsty. He captured its life energy as it lay dying.”

“Why couldn’t the Sebitti find the bones on their own?”

“Erragal hid their power.” Lydia pointed over to the spear leaning in the corner by the club. “Unless you’re holding one, even the greatest mage can’t gauge the true extent of its power.” She briefly faced me to ask, with a slight frown, “How far south do you think the other one is?”

“It is hard to say,” I answered gruffly. I hadn’t realized that Dabir had said anything of the matter to her, and I wondered, for once, at his wisdom.

“We can discuss that later.” Dabir rested his hands on his knees. He was backlit by the firewood in the oven so that his beard hairs and a few stray turban fibers were sharply delineated. “What are these spirits, exactly?”

“I know only a little more than what the Sebitti told me. They may have lied. I’m sure now they lied about what they wanted the bones for.”

“What do you know about the spirits?”

Lydia shrugged. “In the days after the fall, we shared the earth with many strange beings. My people call them chionzoe, though yours would call them djinn,” she said with a hint of derision, “as though there were only one type of spirit. My ancestors thought them a kind of Titan, escaped from their prison when the gods were distracted. But the Sebitti say they were something else. Spirits from another realm that craved form and sustenance. They wandered down into the warm, soft places of the earth and they sucked the life force clean from everything in their path. They brought the cold with them when they came.

“People weren’t very clever then. They all lived in dirty villages, and they didn’t even have swords. They were no match for the ice that the snow spirits brought with them. They had to flee as cold spread across the land. And then, within a few years of each other, in the same tribe, the first Sebitti were born, Adapa and Erragal. A mage like that is born once in perhaps a thousand years, but here were two in the same region who could shape sorcery as easily as this ox beside me eats.”

I scowled but refrained from comment.

“They marshaled their people to fight the frost spirits with fire and magic, and discovered bones from slain spirits could be used to hit them when other objects couldn’t. As you deduced, when they consume life, they absorb its traits. Gazi’s magic worked a similar trick,” she added.

“Why didn’t that one you summoned turn into a giant lamb then?” I asked. “It was drinking sheeps’ blood, wasn’t it?” I could have mentioned that it didn’t become a bird or a replica of the slain wizard either.

She never answered my question. “Clearly the spirit killed a wolf or two in its time. They know what humans fear.”

“Let us stay focused,” Dabir said. “What happened next?”

“I was told Erragal used the bones to drive them back.” Her voice rose in admiration. “He captured the most dangerous of the spirits and divided its power among five weapons. Some part of it escaped his hold, though, and returned to the spirit realms.”

“The part you called back?”

“Yes. I suppose hate had kept the thing from dissipating, after all these years. It was challenging to find, but I did it,” she said with pride. “I just don’t understand why I couldn’t bend the will of that one I called.”

“You didn’t control the will of the first one,” Dabir pointed out, then shook his head as if regretting the observation. “Enough. What can you tell me about the Sebitti?”

She turned up her hands. “What do you want to know?”

“Let’s start with their abilities, and their weaknesses.”

She nodded at this. “Lamashtu may be the most powerful. She and Gazi certainly frightened me the most. She is smarter. She uses blood to power her sorcery, including her immortality. You saw what blood magic did to the old man? Well, she can throw spell after spell without much ceremony or effort. So long as she can get away to absorb more blood, she cannot be destroyed.”

“His name was Jibril,” Dabir corrected quietly. “What of the others?”

Lydia paused momentarily, out of politeness or a reasonable attempt at it, then continued. “I had seen little of Anzu’s ability until this evening. He seemed harmless … good-humored.” She paused. “None of the Sebitti really think of themselves as human anymore. I think Lamashtu looks on people as livestock, and Anzu views societies as grand experiments he likes to monitor. He’s the one who contacted me.”

“I see.”

“He told me once that he had visited my grandmother to provide her with the sorcerous secrets passed on to my father. I’m not sure if he meant to instill gratitude or claim authority. Apparently he’d been hoping one of my family would grow into the gifted sorcerer they were after.”

“So they had been grooming you?” Dabir prompted.

“He watches families or individuals who he thinks might have potential. He’s the one who found the woman, Najya.”

At that I let out a low oath.

She turned her head toward me. “You should blame him, not me, for what happened. It was my idea to leave the Persian’s soul in her body so she could help control the spirit. The Sebitti thought I should cast her out.”

“How kind of you,” Dabir said dryly. I am glad he spoke, for a cold rage had seized me, and I do not think I would have managed a controlled comment. “Her soul is still trapped in her body with the spirit’s. How long can it remain?”

“As long as she’s alive,” Lydia conceded. “But I don’t know how you can hope to save her. You’d have to subdue the spirit and force it into a banishing circle. How are you going to do that?”

“You got her into this situation,” I broke in. “You must get her out.”

“I don’t know how.”

This angered me further. “You give up too easily. You have destroyed her life. You must find a way.”

“That is easier said than done.”

“We shall not give up,” Dabir promised. “And I may know how we can get her into that circle.”

At that, my interest and hope surged as one. But Dabir made clear that now was not the time by holding up a hand. “Right now I need more answers. Lydia, Najya’s spirit seems to be strengthening all the time. Is that because of the snow women the spirit sends out? Do they gather life force for her?”

“I think so.”

Dabir frowned. “Well. Let us get back to our discussion of the Sebitti. What of Koury?”

“His powers I think you know. He can shape wood, and clay to a lesser extent, then command it to do as he wishes. He has a few other tricks, but if he is separated from the container that houses his figurines, he does not seem so dangerous. He is their current leader, but he might be the weakest. Perhaps he is the best planner.”

Someone who commanded such unstoppable beasts did not strike me as weak.

Dabir pressed ahead. “And what of Anzu’s weaknesses?”

“He’s adept at sneaking in or out of places unseen, but I had no idea he was so deadly until I saw him in combat. He may be more formidable than I first thought.”

“Could Lamashtu have survived Jibril’s attack?”

“Probably. She can vanish almost instantly, and heal herself with blood magic. Anzu once told me he was fairly sure she didn’t need most of her organs anymore.”

“Are any other Sebitti working with them?”

“Isn’t that enough?” she joked. She saw neither of us smiling, and she sighed. “Erragal’s had nothing to do with any of them for generations, though he was once mentor to Anzu and Koury. And he might have long ago been Lamashtu’s lover. Gazi joked about that. It was hard to know what he meant, though. He was the maddest of them all.”

I would have liked to hear more about Gazi, but Dabir changed the subject. “How about Enkidu? Or Adapa?”

“Adapa’s been dead for millennia, and Enkidu wanders in the wilderness. They really weren’t a united group,” Lydia went on. “Ever. There have been larger and smaller numbers of them at various times, and only occasionally have they joined forces. And all have found different paths to sorcery and immortality.”

“And how many others work with them?”

“Each has a few dozen followers and servants. All of them are normal humans except for Lamashtu’s.” Lydia licked her lips. “I saw one of hers, once. She passes on part of her blood magic to her followers. Their only vulnerabilities are extremes of temperature. They are preternaturally strong and fast, so long as they have regular access to blood.”

Dabir fell silent and rubbed the side of Sabirah’s ring with his thumb. Light from the oven struck the stone so that for a brief moment it seemed alive with emerald fire. “You knew all this,” he continued finally, “and their powers, and yet you turned against them. Do you wish for death?”

“My powers measure up to theirs,” Lydia said haughtily. “With these bones, and the spirits at my command, I could stand against any or all of them. Or, I thought I could,” she finished with a bitter twist of her mouth.

“But why challenge them?”

“They told me they would give me power to do what I wished with the empire. But the longer I was among them, the more I doubted. They had agreed too readily. And,” she added, puckering her lips in disgust, “I tired of being treated like a lackey. I saw they meant to cast me aside as soon as I was no longer useful.”

This seemed to satisfy Dabir. “And how is it you came to us?”

“I knew the Sebitti were on the move, in force, and followed secretly to see where they went. They thought I had moved off to ready my numbers to assist them.”

“How did you know they were on the move?”

“I am not without resources of my own.” She sounded pleased with herself.

“Resources? Explain.”

“A woman has to keep some secrets.” She flashed a sly smile.

Dabir might as well have been made from stone, so little impact did her charm have upon him. “Lydia, if we are to work together, I have to know what you can do. If you have some other tools or talents that can be useful, you must tell me.”

Her playful lilt had faded. “You will not like it.”

“I haven’t liked any of this,” Dabir said. His voice was clipped. “My mentor is dead. He was the closest thing to a father I have known. Dozens, perhaps hundreds, have perished, including the entire population of at least one village. Men, women, and children. None of them would be dead but for you, and Najya and her husband would still live peacefully in Isfahan.”

She smiled without mirth. “Now we are down to it, aren’t we? You blame me. If the Sebitti had not found me, they would have found someone else for their work. And if they had not found Najya, it would have been some other.”