The Bones of the Old Ones (Dabir and Asim) (3 page)

This in itself was an unusual observation from a woman, and the look I traded with Dabir did not go unnoticed by her. “I have seen many bouts,” she explained defensively. “My husband was an officer, my father a general.”

Dabir nodded. “Go on.”

“I tried to run, but Koury’s men were too fast. Too strong. They covered my eyes and forced a drink upon me. A sour drink. I did not swallow but it burned my mouth and I grew weak. The world spun for a long while.” She shook her head, troubled. “I really only have a few vague memories from then until I arrived here.”

I could well believe that she was the daughter of a military man, owing to the clarity and precision of her account.

“What happened when you arrived in Mosul?” Dabir asked.

Her look was sharp. “You mistake me. I do not remember entering the city. Suddenly I was upright and conscious in the street. Koury was there, talking with me—as though he had been speaking for a while and I should know exactly what he meant.”

“What was he saying?”

Again Najya shook her head. “There was some talk of finding a bone. I pretended I understood him, and when we neared the palace, I fled into the crowd.”

“A bone?” Buthanyna repeated, incredulous.

No one acknowledged her; it was not her place to speak, and she seemed to realize her etiquette breach because she shrank lower, as if to disappear.

“And that was when you found Rami,” Dabir prompted.

“Yes.”

“How long ago was this?”

“No more than an hour. Less, I think. Your boy was very brave,” she added. “He led me through a number of back streets. I do not think Koury could follow.”

“Let us hope.” Dabir looked as if he might say more, then asked, “How many pursue you?”

“In the square there was only Koury and two of his men. I did not see Gazi,” she added. “But Koury’s guards are incredibly strong. And there is something odd about them.”

“How do you mean?”

“They dress all in black and their faces are hooded. They do not speak.”

Dabir sat back and played with the band of his ring. And I studied Najya, mulling over her peculiar story. I could not fathom why someone would kidnap a Persian beauty, take her to a distant city, and command her to search for a skeleton, yet her very manner marked her as a speaker of truth.

“I think it best if you stay hidden for a while,” Dabir decided. “Please consider this your home until we can arrange for safe escort to Isfahan.”

She started to protest, but Dabir cut her off. “This is very important, Najya. Have your husband or family ever had dealings with magic, or its practitioners?”

I saw her lips part beneath her veil. After a moment, she shook her head. “No. I don’t think so.”

“Have you ever heard of the Sebitti?”

Again she shook her head. “No. Why?”

“It’s an old group with warrior wizards named Gazi and Koury. But I do not think it can be them.” Dabir said that last almost to himself. “Buthayna, see that she is given the guest suite, and please find a servant to attend her. One who can be trusted not to gossip, for our guest’s location must be secret.”

While the cook curtly acknowledged Dabir’s directives, I groaned inwardly. There was little more in the suite than a mattress and an old chest. It was hardly fitting accommodation for a noblewoman.

“You have been very kind,” Najya said, rising.

“It is nothing,” Dabir assured her. “Give me leave to look into the matter. You will be safe here, this I swear.”

“I would like to send word to my brother, in Isfahan,” Najya told him.

“Certainly. Buthayna, see that she has what she needs, and have Rami ask after a caravan bound there. He can start at the Bright Moon.”

“Yes, Honored One.” Buthayna rose stiffly and led the way through the curtain.

Najya turned to look back at us once more, then bowed her head and followed Buthayna.

“Who are these Sebitti?” I asked quietly as their steps receded. “I have never heard you mention them.”

“Why should I speak of fables?” Dabir frowned. “A mentor—a friend, really—was fascinated with them, and I recall only the broadest details.” He shook his head. “I just don’t understand why a ring of murderers and kidnappers would name two of their members after them. These aren’t common names.”

I felt a growing sense of unease. “You haven’t answered my question.”

Dabir’s expression was still troubled. “You have heard of the Seven Wise Men?” he asked. “The Seven Sages?”

“Aye. Who has not?” They were famed for their knowledge of all matters, both arcane and mundane, and legend held that folk in need, if they be of pure intent, could find them to ask advice.

“They are the Sebitti.”

“I’ve never heard them called by that name.”

“It is from old Ashur. Their legend was born in that ancient time.”

“So these kidnappers have taken the names of wise men?” Now I understood Dabir’s confusion, and laughed. “If they meant to intimidate, wouldn’t they assume a more frightening alias?”

“I think you’re confusing wise with good. The people of Ashur, brutal as they were, dared speak of the Sebitti only in whispers.”

I had learned a little of the folk of Ashur, who some call the Assyrians, and knew they had been a warrior people, ruled by blood-mad kings. Anyone who they feared must be dangerous indeed. Thus I began to feel a vague foreboding. “Why?” I asked.

Dabir’s voice was grim. “They believed that when the lord of the underworld grew displeased, he sent forth the Sebitti to slay both beasts and men so that they might be more humble.”

I tried to imagine the gentle, and sedentary, wise men of legend riding forth with swords and chuckled.

“So you understand my interest,” Dabir finished.

“I do, but I don’t understand your aim. If the lady has been kidnapped, we should turn her over to the governor or a judge, don’t you think?”

He mulled this over, then shook his head. “Her story intrigues me…” His voice trailed off, and I thought for a moment he would explain further, but he did not.

Dabir’s curiosity could lead him down dangerous paths. It was true that I felt badly for the woman, who would have to bear the shame of what had happened, and it was true that the circumstances were peculiar, but I did not see that our involvement was especially useful to her. And then another thought dawned upon me, one that I did not voice. Dabir mooned still for his lost love, Sabirah. He seldom spoke of her, but often stared at the emerald ring she had given him. It would surely be good for him to focus on another woman, and this Najya was a pretty one. Perhaps his interest had been piqued in more than one way.

I nodded as if his arguments made sense. “What do you mean to do?”

“I will make inquiries. Harith the innkeeper. Some of your friends in the guard. Captain Fakhir, or Captain Tarif. Surely one of them has heard of a kidnapping ring or strangers to the city matching these descriptions. Our guest strikes me as being quite memorable.”

I had feared for a moment that he would be dragging me to one of Mosul’s universities. “That does not sound nearly as bad as I had thought.”

Dabir stopped in midstride, where I’d followed him into the hall. He turned with a knowing look. “You will stay here, and guard the woman.”

Now that I did not care for. “The caliph charged me with guarding you,” I reminded him. “You keep forgetting—”

“Asim, Najya is in far greater danger than I. If the kidnappers track her to the house, who will defend her? Buthayna? Rami? You must stay.”

At the shake of my head, he added, “I will be careful, and I will return, or send word, by midday prayers.”

There was clearly no moving him, and I couldn’t argue that the woman needed no guard, so I merely frowned at his departing back and set to securing the house.

The caliph’s largesse had afforded us a spacious building on a corner in a quiet neighborhood. There were three entrances: that off the main street, the stables that opened onto a side street, and the servant’s entrance in the wall. This last I had insisted be boarded up when Dabir purchased the place, for with merely two servants we had no need of a special door. Most homes in Mosul lacked street-level windows, and ours was no different, though the second floor boasted several. I made sure that all of these shutters were barred and warned Buthayna to admit no one, then crossed the courtyard to inspect the stables.

The outer doors I locked from within, and all else seemed in order, so I returned in under a quarter hour, only to have the cook emerge from the shadows and press something toward me.

“One of your soldier friends brought this,” she croaked. The object crackled in her hands as she shook it, and I recognized it for a sealed letter.

“Which friend … wait, how did you get this?”

“It was delivered.”

I paused before speaking, lest I say something I might regret, while she returned to her cooking pot and began to stir. Though the rest of our home might be sparse, we had an exceptionally well-furnished kitchen, and one built inside the home, a luxury unavailable to most. Buthayna had gleefully claimed it as her own once she joined us from the governor’s staff.

“I thought I had made clear,” I said, once I regained my composure, “that the door was to remain closed and that only I was to answer it.”

“So you did, but someone was at the door, and you were out in the stalls, so what was I to do?”

I felt my blood boil, yet did not curse. “Buthayna, you are not to open the door today unless it is Dabir, or this servant girl he wants to attend our guest. Do you understand?”

“As you wish.” She turned back to her doings.

“If I am out in the stables, or up the stairs, you are to come and
find
me.”

“As you wish,” she repeated carelessly.

“Now who delivered this?”

“That big soldier from the palace.”

“Abdul?”

“The polite one,” she growled pointedly. “Yes.”

“Thank you,” I said as pleasantly as I could, and left her.

I returned to the sitting room and studied the brown paper in interest. The seal was familiar, for it had come from my former master in faraway Baghdad. Jaffar had sent letters addressed to the both of us in the last year, but this one was labeled solely for Dabir.

I am not a petty man, but I was rankled that Jaffar had not seen fit to put both our names on the letter so that I might straightaway read his news. Dabir and I had both, after all, been his servants, I for far longer. Likely it had merely been an oversight, but I would make no assumptions.

I was still frowning down at the thing when there came a rap at the door. I sighed, tucking the missive into my robe, rising quickly lest the cook decide to ignore me once more.

She shouted at me from her den. “There is someone at the door, Captain!”

I advanced to slide back the eyehole, thinking to find the servant girl she’d sent for.

Instead I saw a tall, silver-haired gentleman with light-green eyes. Behind him stood two men garbed all in black, with deep hoods.

The kidnappers had arrived.

2

“I have come for my daughter,” the fellow told me in a deep, stern voice. I could not quite place his accent, although it sounded a little Persian. “I have been told that you have her.”

I was rarely a quick thinker unless a weapon was in my hand, and I was momentarily troubled by his assertion. Might he have the truth of it, and Najya be the liar?

“Open the door and return her to me immediately,” he continued, “or I shall call forth a judge.”

If he meant to threaten me with mention of a judge, he surely had no idea with whom he spoke. Dabir and I were not only honored by the caliph, we were sometimes cup companions with the governor of Mosul. “Who are you?” I asked.

He glared, giving the impression he could see more than my shaded eye through the little opening, and I studied him in greater detail. I saw one unused to bending to any man. Indeed, he held his head as though he were accustomed to instant obedience. He was slim and straight-backed and as tall as myself. His beard and the hair that showed beneath his turban were gray, but here was no old man, rather one who had prematurely silvered. His thick robes, finely trimmed, must have warded him completely from the cold, for he looked not the least bit uncomfortable.

“I am Koury ibn Muhannad,” the fellow said, his breath steaming. “Do you intend to speak to me from behind the door?” The disdain all but dripped from his voice.

I slammed home the eye slot, then opened the door and stepped forward to fill the portal. My size did not seem to trouble this Koury.

“I am Asim el Abbas,” I said.

“And do you have my daughter?”

I checked his men. Neither of them wore weapons or moved forward. Neither of them, in fact, moved at all. Both stood with their left arms raised to belt level at the same angle, their right hanging at their sides. I knew not what to make of this, unless they were especially disciplined soldiers whose master desired a uniform presentation.

Koury awaited reply.

My oldest brother, Tariq, may peace be upon him, once told me that each time you lie you foreswear a little of your own soul. As a boy I had accepted his words without question; as a man I better understood his meaning. Some lies are surely necessary, but I strove always to avoid them.

“It is true that a woman has come to ask help of my friend, the scholar Dabir,” I said. “She may or may not be your daughter.”

He nodded once, and his eyes were calculating. “The mystery can easily be solved. Bring her to me that we may see one another.”

This was such a reasonable suggestion I was not sure what to do with it. I found myself stalling that I might gain more time to think. “What does your daughter look like?”

“She is well dressed, and very beautiful, with black hair and large brown eyes. Is this the woman who came to you?”

Instead of answering, I asked, “How did you lose her?”

Koury’s mouth narrowed to a thin line, but he replied. “She is a girl of wild notions since her poor husband was murdered before her. She grew frightened in the marketplace and fled.”

Surely the man looked wealthy enough to be Najya’s father, and he even had an explanation ready for Najya’s strange story—except, of course, that Najya had claimed to be the daughter of a famous, departed general.