The Bones of the Old Ones (Dabir and Asim) (32 page)

“This will I do, Daughter. But, if you will forgive me, what further use will they serve?”

“They have used the bone weapons.” Najya frowned slightly. “Do you know how to unlock their secrets?”

“No, Daughter,” Enkidu admitted.

“I can master the secrets, O Daughter of the Frost,” Bersbek declared, fervently bobbing her head. Her accent was thick, her voice harsh, though somehow compelling.

“So you claim.” She calmly considered the shaman, who smiled almost stupidly in her eagerness. “You may study them here, with me. If you fail, I will learn the secrets from Dabir and Asim.”

“I can command them to tell you the secrets now,” Enkidu offered.

“No.” Najya’s voice was sharp.

“But they are foes,” Enkidu said. “Let us take the information from them, and be done.”

Najya scowled. “How is Asim later to wield the club if I slay him now?”

“Forgive me.” Enkidu hesitated. “Is it possible that the mortal form you wear interferes with your judgment?”

“Do not question me! They must be kept alive. Take Dabir from me. Asim remains. Bersbek, take the club into the treasure chamber and study it.”

I tensed, ready to battle. But I could offer no challenge, for Enkidu cowed us with such force that we allowed our swords to be removed without reaction. Dabir managed to look concerned as Enkidu guided him out.

Soon we were alone, Najya and I, save for two thickly built Khazar guards at either side of the threshold. Najya stood and then circled me slowly, as though she inspected me at the market.

I had thought over and again what I might say should I once more be in Najya’s presence, yet now I found nothing clever upon my lips. “I know that Najya is still there—I want to talk to her.”

“We are one.” Her voice was cool as steel in the snow. She stopped in front of me and peered up with merciless eyes. “Do you like what you see?”

Oh, sweet agony. I found myself speaking the truth, at least in part. “Aye, my heart still speeds at sight of you, and my breath catches at the sound of your voice.”

Her reply was a long time in coming. “This pleases me,” she said at last, and drew nearer. Her speech was hesitant. “It is strange. When you speak to me, I listen with more than my ears. The whole of this body is focused upon your intent. It is interesting, and somehow pleasant, and occurs when none of these others talk.” She paused. “I know all of these reactions come solely because the woman is drawn to you. But this form is useful to me; without it I could not command the allegiance of my followers. And the sensations this body provides interest me as well, and they do no harm.”

“I see.” A smile rose, unbidden, then faltered as I stared into eyes that should have been a rich brown and instead were ever-shifting shades of blue.

“I have a surprise for you. Come.” She lifted a canvas flap and passed into another section of the tent. I followed to find a chamber set with cushions and fur pelts, and, at its far end, a grisly ornament.

“What do you think?” Najya asked, as though she had just returned from the market with an especially choice selection of cloths.

It was a great block of ice, and frozen in its center was Koury. He stood tall and straight, defiant, though his last expression had been one of shock.

I stared through the ice at the dead man not because of any real fascination, but because I was not at all sure what I would say.

“I know how much he angered you. He lied to me,” she said with venom, “and he killed my husband. The woman’s husband,” she corrected quickly.

What do you say when your love has presented you with a cold corpse? “How long do you intend to leave him like this?” I asked.

“Forever, I think. He shall stand as warning and reminder to all who would oppose me. I thought you would be more pleased,” she said, watching my reaction.

“I am very happy,” I lied. Even I knew how badly I lied.

She stepped close. “The woman has wondered what it would be like, and I am curious. You will kiss me.”

I do not think I would have hesitated so long, under normal circumstances. Her lips were cold, her manner stiff at first, but she relaxed after a moment and I felt her arms go up around my neck. My own slid down to clasp her waist.

After a time she pulled back. Over her shoulder dead Koury’s eyes stared at me, lopsided and magnified through the ice.

“Oh,” she breathed, “that was very nice.”

It was then I noticed Najya’s own eyes were warmer, not quite so bright. And her manner was somehow more animated. “Is something wrong?” She sounded, now, beyond merely curious, as though she actually cared about my reaction.

All sorts of things were wrong, of course, not the least of which was the frozen curio that faced me. But I was not so foolish that I failed to discern the difference in her eye color meant Najya’s influence was waxing. I thought of what I might say or do to strengthen it further.

I took her hand, and she started in surprise. Her fingers were cold, cold as dead Koury’s prison.

“You have your revenge,” I said. “He wronged you, and he has died.” I took up her other hand. I felt her flesh warming to my touch, and as her eyes searched mine I found more and more brown within their depths. “Now put these other things from you. Leave this place. Come away with me.”

Her brows wrinkled in bewilderment as I dropped to one knee, so that I would not stand above her.

“Forgive me,” I said, “for I do not know how it is done among Persians. But I will ask your hand of you, and of your family. Aye, I would journey to ask it of the old man in the mountain if that is what I must do to have you betrothed to me. I am but a soldier, but one who has risen far, so I do not think that they would be ashamed for you to be with me.”

“They would not,” she said softly. Her hands trembled in mine.

I forgot all around me. “I do not know if you need only the months and days prescribed by the Holy Koran, or if your people demand more time to properly mourn, but I shall wait however long so that I might have you always in my home, for you dwell already within my heart.”

“Asim.” My name fell from her lips as low as a word whispered in a dream, and I knew then that she loved me, and that I had her, safe.

“Leave this place,” I said, “and this madness.”

“Madness?” Her voice was suddenly sharp.

I climbed to my feet, and she seemed momentarily thunderstruck, as if I had dazed her. I thought, then, that she and the spirit warred. Her eyes glowed, then faded, and she shook her head.

“Najya, you’re still there!” I squeezed her hands, desperate to retain my connection to her. “I see it in your face, no matter your unearthly eyes! You aren’t a monster. You cannot want this—”

“I do what I please,” she said, and as her own hands tightened I felt heat and life and strength failing me as if I had been dealt a hard blow. Her eyes blazed blue as I sank to my knees. She bent with me, still holding on, relinquishing me at last so that I knelt shivering at her feet. “You may return when you wish to apologize,” she spat. “Go!”

She spoke to the Khazars, ordering them to guide me, but to spread word that I had her leave to walk free so long as I did not venture beyond the sentry lines. As I rose on shaking legs, one led me out into what had transformed into a double lane of tents, for the Khazars had worked swiftly. We walked only a bowshot away, to one with sentinels, and there my guard held conversation with the two on duty, pointing at me. He spoke to me in halting Arabic. “The daughter … gives you free walk … in camp. You. Not the man inside. Leave camp and die.” Then one of them cast the tent flap aside and motioned me in.

I bowed my head to him—what else was I to do?—and I entered.

Dabir waited within, walking back and forth across richly brocaded carpets spread around a fire pit. He turned and exhaled at sight of me, looking relieved. He then asked if I was hungry, and swept a hand toward platters laid near the central fire. On it were bowls of cheeses and dried meats, but I had no hunger. I was thirsty, though, and I reached for a squat jug and lifted up a bowl.

“I’m not sure you’ll want that,” Dabir told me.

“What is it?”

“Mare’s milk. Fermented.”

I brought it up to my nose and discovered the scent profoundly sour.

“Allah! Do they mean to sicken us?”

“No, this is what they drink.”

“Why?” I asked.

“To get drunk. I do not know why Allah could not have forbidden the drinking of
this
—perhaps God assumed we would have better sense. Now, what happened?”

I proceeded then to tell him all that had transpired. I grew more dejected as I spoke, and sank down finally beside the fire. “I almost had her, Dabir. I had her at the forefront. I could even see it in her eyes.”

At this he grimaced sympathetically. He started to say something, then paused and looked over his shoulder at the entrance, for we heard the approach of men without.

Someone called “Easy!” and there were various grunts, as of men shifting some heavy burden. We both stood as the tent flap was held open and bright light beamed into the chamber, along with a blast of cold air. A single hairy face peered in at us, then got out of the way as turbanless men bore a glistening burden, carting the thing at their waists. So large was the object that it took some six straining Persians and Arabs, all tightly clustered about one another, to carry it into our tent. They took only a few small steps at a time, coaxed all the while by a short Khazar man with a huge nose, who provided helpful nuggets of advice like “Steady” and “Watch your step.”

He flashed us an evil smile. “Set him here.” He pointed to a spot beside Dabir, several paces from the fire in the tent’s center.

The laborers slowly maneuvered toward Dabir, who stepped away, though he watched, fascinated.

“Upright, set it up,” called the bulbous-nosed spokesman, but his charges were already tilting their burden, and it was then that I understood what they carried, for I had caught a glimpse of Koury’s hair within the ice.

Dabir had not seen, though, and his eyes widened in disbelief as the laborers set down their strange burden with a final grunt.

“Go,” their master said.

As they were turning I was startled to recognize one of them for our neighbor the jeweler. “Rashid!”

The heavyset merchant turned, his weary eyes widening as he noticed us for the first time. “Asim! What are you—”

“Silence!” shouted his master.

“Have they taken Mosul?” I asked. “Are they—”

“Silence!” Big Nose kicked at Rashid, who hurried after the other prisoners. He then bowed with a smirk and exited. Only then did the fellow who’d been holding the tent flap enter, and we found ourselves in the company of Enkidu. He frowned at us and crossed his arms.

“We have a visitor,” I said to Dabir.

Dabir was clearly quite astonished to see dead Koury there in the ice, but turned from consideration of him to address the live Sebitti.

“Why have you come?” he asked.

“The Daughter of the Frost asked me to convey that since you did not like Koury in her tent, she has decided to keep all of her problem men in one place. It is to remind you what awaits you, should you displease her once more.”

Enkidu frowned then at us.

Dabir glanced at me. “He is still wondering why we weren’t killed.”

“I have nothing against you personally.” The Sebitti sounded almost apologetic. “But there is much at stake, and you two are dangerous and unpredictable. It would be safer to eliminate you.”

“What is at stake, Enkidu?” Dabir asked, walking closer. “Why do you stand against the other Sebitti? Why did you betray your friend Erragal?”

The wizard raised his face to stare out the round opening in the roof through which the smoke of our fire curled. When he finally spoke, his voice was heavy. “Koury thought he could remake the world so that it is better for humans. Erragal, too, once thought this. But things have grown worse and worse with the rise of cities. The plains and rivers are thick with the stench of man and his works. Things were better when there were fewer.”

“But you are a man,” Dabir pointed out.

“I am,” he agreed.

“Yet you would kill them all?”

“The Daughter of the Frost will level the great cities,” he conceded.

“Then men will die out!”

“No. Frost cannot reach the warmer lands. When the ice comes, people will live again as once they did, closer to the earth and its creatures. We are not above them.”

“So you will blast man into the ignorant past … and then lead them?” Dabir ventured.

“I have no wish to lead them. That was Koury. Nor do I wish to be worshiped, like Lamashtu or Gazi. Nor entertained, like Anzu.”

Dabir paused for a moment, then watched shrewdly for Enkidu’s reaction. “You are a man who hesitates to kill old friends, but will be the deaths of millions of strangers.”

“It is for man’s own good, and the good of the world, which they place themselves above. They are grown arrogant.”

Dabir shook his head. “And you are not?”

“I have grown wise. You are but children. You cannot understand.”

“And what do these Khazars want?” my friend asked.

“They think the daughter shall lead them to paradise, for they believe the world will end with her coming.”

“You do not?” Dabir challenged.

He shook his head. “I have lost count of the temples I have seen rise up to gods. Did gods ever save the temples, or the people who worshiped there, when the end came for them? The world goes on without them.”

“Only the righteous pass on to paradise,” I pointed out, irritated.

“What is paradise, but a flowering field under a clear sky? Who needs more? Yet I see I waste my breath. To tell a man to seek happiness in this world, or that his god does not exist, is like telling him his sister is ugly. Even when it is true, he cannot abide it. Let the Khazars serve the daughter as they want. May it bring them happiness.”

“And will you be happy, to have so much blood on your hands?”

“Blood can be washed off with clean water.”

He started to turn away, but Dabir called his name once more, and he halted. “She does not trust you. Else she would have had you command us to speak the secrets before her. She does not want you to have that power, Enkidu.”