The Bones of the Old Ones (Dabir and Asim) (27 page)

I grunted.

She licked her lips. She opened her mouth, then closed it. I do not think I had ever seen her hesitate before, and I recognized that she was working herself up to speak.

“What is it?”

“Tell me about the ring he wears,” she said suddenly.

I did not immediately answer, for I found myself wondering why she asked this.

From the bashful way her eyes dropped, she either felt awkward, or had practiced the look well. “The one he always taps,” she said haltingly. “He said only that a friend had given it to him, though he said it was not you.”

“The ring is not magic.”

Her look was withering. “I am curious, not covetous. He did not wear it, when first I met him.”

“Your memory is as fine as his.”

“But not as fine as hers. Who was she?”

I considered the lovely Greek woman carefully. “How did you know a woman gave it to him?”

“I only guessed, until just now. He referred to a student of great memory. So he was tutor to a woman?”

“Little more than a girl,” I admitted. “But she was very brave. And she could be as sharp-tongued as you, though she was gentle.” I thought then of Sabirah sitting together with Dabir, chattering with him, and I remembered once more her simple wish that could never be granted, that she might wake each day and look upon Dabir. And I was filled then with great sorrow for my friend, and the girl. I thought, too, of Najya, and admitted to myself that, like Sabirah and Dabir, the chances were high that we should forever be apart.

Lydia misread my expression. “You were fond of her,” she said slowly.

“She talked too much,” I said, “but I like her well enough. My friend loved her with all his heart, and she with hers, and I think that they would have been very happy together. But she is married to another man, and he has only the emerald now to remember her by. I wish he would cease thinking of her.”

She looked back at him, lying there. “Do you know, when I first learned that you two lived together and that neither of you were married, I thought…” Her voice faltered.

I did not follow her meaning.

Dabir stirred, and we two turned to stare at him. He snorted once and fell back asleep.

“I’m sorry,” she said, and I blinked, for I had never thought to hear those words from her. About anything. I was still not sure how to respond, so she spoke on. “I see now that you are not just his guard, but his brother.”

“Yes,” I agreed, irritated. “What is it that you want, Lydia?”

She searched my face for sign of ridicule. “What do you mean?”

“You know what sort of man he is. And you know what sort of woman you are. You can see farr. Just as I saw it, when holding the club.” I indicated the weapon lying near Dabir’s hand.

Her brow furrowed. “It is not my fault if I have had to make harder choices than either of you.”

“You think we have faced no trials?”

“I think that they have not troubled you overmuch,” she said, her tone sharp. “Your farr is uncolored by doubt.”

“My farr is unstained by dark deeds,” I said, “though it has surely grown blacker in
your
company.”

Her cheeks reddened and her chin rose defiantly. Dabir turned in the blanket, almost as though he sensed the coming torrent as surely as myself.

But Lydia did not speak. Instead she stilled, her eyes fixed upon the distance. They widened in alarm, then sought my own. “Something is coming,” she said. She whirled, bent to Dabir, and shook his shoulder.

“What is it?” I asked. My friend stirred and blinked groggily.

“One of my sentries just vanished,” she told Dabir.

He sat up.

“Only another necromancer could have sensed it,” Lydia continued, “much less destroyed it in one blow.”

I stepped over a book to lay hand upon the haft of the club.

The curtain into the room parted suddenly and Lydia and I both looked over to find a small, neatly dressed man in an off-white robe with the hood turned down. He stared at us from the threshold. In one hand he carried a thick white staff.

The fellow did not advance. He took in the room critically, pausing to consider the three of us.

His accent was so pronounced that it took me a moment to comprehend him. “I am Erragal,” he said. “I am here for my tools.”

15

Erragal did not have the presence of Koury or Anzu, and did not radiate Lamashtu’s eerie sense of dread. Indeed, he barely reached even Lydia’s height. His hair was dark and receding, flecked with gray. He wore no turban. His off-white robe was well-tailored, it was true, belted with a purple wrap, but it was hardly sewn with demonic symbols—indeed, I had seen slaves of the caliph wearing more decorative cloth. His beard was short, and almost completely gray.

I could not even be sure that he was not some other Sebitti given to changing shape, but Lydia had no doubt, for she sank to one knee and bowed her head.

Dabir climbed to his feet. From his composure, you would think he was often woken from sleep to greet ancient wizards. “I bid you welcome to our home,” he said.

“I am not interested in your welcome,” Erragal replied, his voice thin and measured. “You are the one who hunted up my tools? Are you the ones who called forth the spirits?”

“The other Sebitti sought them first,” Dabir said. “We meant to keep the weapons from their hands.”

This gave him pause. I sensed this was not the answer he anticipated, for there was intensity to his next question. “Why?”

Lydia rose and backed up a step. One hand drifted toward the pouch still belted to her side, then slid away as Erragal’s gaze tracked there.

“Because they have lied, kidnapped, and murdered to obtain them,” Dabir answered. “Because they have caused an army of winter spirits to sheathe the land in ice and slay everything they come upon. We kept the bones,” Dabir continued, “so that we can use them against the spirits.”

There was no mistaking Erragal’s displeasure, for his frown deepened. Yet I had the sense Dabir’s answer had given him more to think about. A long moment passed.

“I shall talk further with you,” Erragal decided, then faced me. “Look across the river in a half hour’s time, and you shall see a signal.” He looked to Dabir. “What is your name?”

Dabir bowed. “I am Dabir Hashim ibn Khalil.”

“You are known as Dabir?”

“I am.”

“Let me see the tools.”

I glanced meaningfully at my friend as he bent to retrieve the spear. I came behind him, the club carried in two hands. I was not at all certain what Dabir thought of this development, and could not read his intentions, so I simply followed his lead.

Erragal reached out for my weapon first, and as his fingers brushed its surface his expression softened. He turned it almost in wonder, as though he were coming upon a favored toy of youth. I let him take it from me and he did so, in but one hand, despite his seeming frailty. A wistful smile crossed his face, and then he motioned Dabir closer. My friend stepped up to his side.

Erragal’s eyes met mine and his expression hardened again. “Meet me as I have said. I shall talk to your leader alone.”

I thought then that he meant to step outside the room, or even that he meant Lydia and me to leave, for I could never have guessed that the floor at their feet would suddenly flare with a red circle of energy, complete with mystic symbols. Even as I cried out and reached for my friend, he and the sorcerer winked away.

“Dabir!”

“They are gone,” Lydia said, as though I were an idiot.

“I know that! Get your carpet ready!”

“I will,” she said. “But, Asim—we must prepare. We may be walking into a trap.”

“A trap? For what? He has Dabir! He has the bones! Gather your notes, and your robes! Take Jibril’s book,” I added, then grabbed up my candle and raced for my chambers.

I took a brief moment to look again at my armor and see how stained and bent it truly was; the blood splattered over it looked like rust. Yet there was no other I might don. The links were cold against me, even with my clothes as a barrier. And my chest and shield arm complained. There was no help for either. It was as I was throwing open the chest to grab an old Persian shield gifted me by the caliph that Buthayna and Rami, roused by the commotion, hurried in to see what was happening.

I told them that their master had been stolen by a wizard and that the Greek woman and I were going after him. Buthanya’s brows furrowed as though she meant a tongue-lashing, then she said she would pack food and hurried off, her joints popping. I did not know when I would have the time to eat, but I looked forward to doing so.

Rami remained, his hair wild as a bird’s nest. I passed the candle over to him and he used it to light two more kept upon a shelf. He then helped me with the shield, marveling at the lion embossed upon its surface, mouth open in a profile roar.

“Captain,” he said hesitantly, “what happened to the lady Najya?”

I stared in shocked silence a moment, then blinked hard and offered a sad smile. Her fate would be long in explaining, so I simplified. “The wizards have her, too, Rami.”

His eyes went wide, and he followed with the most natural question in the world. “Will you rescue her?”

I thought to tell him not all tales ended happily, or that some people were beyond saving. In the end, though, I tightened the shield strap on my aching arm and told him what I most wished. “I will,” I said, “and when I marry her, I shall give you a place of honor at the feast, for being her friend when she had no others, and for bringing her into my life.” I tousled his hair and he grinned up at me in confidence. He had no fear that I would fail, for he was young. “Find some gloves for the Greek woman,” I suggested.

He said he would, and dashed away.

Buthayna hit me with useless advice as I passed through the kitchen into the courtyard, where Lydia already waited beside the carpet. I supposed she herself had borne it to its location, for she breathed heavily. Rami followed a moment later with gloves, and Lydia took them as if they were hers by right. Perhaps Lydia was only distracted, but I thought of Najya by contrast, who, no matter her high station and trials, had found the time to be kind to a stable boy.

“Do you have Jibril’s book?” I asked her.

“Yes.”

“And any other notes that were useful?”

“I know my business, Asim,” she said. “I have not asked if your sword was sharp, have I?”

Now that question felt like the rake of a lion’s claw. Often when danger loomed Dabir made that same jest, mocking something foolish Jaffar had once said. For all that it was grown tired, at that moment I would have given much to have him ask it of me. Lydia’s arched brows drew together quizzically at my discomfiture, then she shrugged, apparently deciding it was not worth her time to inquire further.

It was only then, in the dim light of our lantern, that I finally got a good look at the carpet. I shook my head at the madness that it should carry us so far. It had once been very colorful, but its reds were washed out to a dirty brown and the greens to a dull gray. Faded flowers and leaves were worked all about its border. I could not really examine the black stallion rearing at its center, for Lydia sat down across it. I could not help thinking that our last two journeys had begun with the death of a friend; I prayed fervently that another was not shortly to follow.

Buthayna hurried out with a canvas bag that she passed on to Lydia, then stepped back, blinking, as the Greek took her seat on the fabric.

“What are you doing?” the cook demanded of me.

“Preparing to go,” I said.

At any other time I might have relished her confusion. Perhaps she thought the Greek woman was at prayer; in any event, the old woman simply ignored our doings and wagged a finger at me, saying, “You bring him back, Captain. You shall never be forgiven if you fail, and the caliph himself will curse you.”

She was surely right, and I nodded as I sank down onto the carpet behind Lydia. “Let us be off,” I said.

While Buthayna and Rami looked on, Lydia put hands to the faded gold oval which circled the horse and we rose slowly into the air. Buthayna gasped and her eyes fairly bugged out of her head. I heard the boy cry out in pleased astonishment as we soared away.

“I shall take us high and toward the river,” she said, “and we will see what there is to be seen.”

“Fine, as long as we avoid the walls. Why did Erragal do this?”

She looked over her shoulder at me, meeting my eyes for a time. She did not reply, though, until she looked away. “He is curious about us, Asim. I think he fully meant to blast us into oblivion, but he did not find what he expected.”

“What do you think he expected?”

“Someone else. A different story.”

I mulled this over as we sailed out across the city rooftops and empty streets. The stars shimmered under a cloudless sky, and there was wind only because of our passage.

“What does he want with the weapons?”

“He fought once against the frost spirits. We can hope he means to do so once more. I’m wondering if that staff he carried was another one of the bones.”

“I didn’t see any figures on it,” I said.

Her voice grew sharp. “Do you think he’d carve instructions on the side of his own staff?”

I thought that was a fair point, though I also wondered if she might be leaping to conclusions.

We passed well above the river wall, looking down over the silent docks, when I saw a blue flame soar up into the sky from deep in the vast ruins of Nineveh. I later learned that watchmen throughout the city noted it in alarm, and that the governor himself was wakened so that he might decide how best to deal with it.

Lydia guided us down to the snow-shrouded mound where the azure flames licked at the sky. Nothing fueled it. More wizardry. All about us were snow-banked broken walls and columns. Of Erragal there was no sign. Our destination, though, was clearly marked, for a perfectly square hole gaped beside the fire, the flickering of which revealed stone steps leading into the earth.

The moment that the carpet came to rest, I rose and peered down the gloomy stairwell. I had not thought to pack a lantern. Dabir would have anticipated this wrinkle and prepared for it, and once more I felt a pang.