So there we found ourselves, the wrack of the Caliph"s emba.s.sy, with no hope but to try and find our way back home through a strange, hostile land.
The upper reaches of the Cauca.s.sians are a cold and G.o.dless place. The fog is thick and wet; it crawls in of the morning, leaves briefly at the time the sun is high, then comes creeping back long before sunset. We had been sodden as well-diggers from the moment we had stepped into the foothills. A treacherous place, those mountains: home of bear and wolf, covered in forest so thick that in places the sun was lost completely. Since we had no guide-indeed, it was several days before we saw any sign of inhabitants whatsoever-we wandered unsteered, losing half as much ground as we gained for walking in circles.
At last we were forced to admit our need for a trained local eye. In the middle slopes the trees grew so thick that fixing our direction was impossible for hours at a time. We were divining the location of Mecca by general discussion, and-blasphemy again-we probably spent as much time praying toward Aleppo as to Mecca. It seemed a choice between possible discovery and certain doom.
We came down by night and took a young man out of an isolated shepherd"s hovel, as quietly as ex-brigands like ourselves (or at least like many of us, Ibn Fahad. My apologies!) could. The family did not wake, the dog did not bark; we were two leagues away before sunrise, I"m sure.
I felt sorry in a way for the young peasant-lout we"d kidnapped. He was a nice fellow, although fearfully stupid-I wonder if we are now an old, dull story with which he bores his children? In any case, once this young rustic-whose name as far as I could tell was unp.r.o.nounceable by civilized tongues-realized that we were not ghosts or Jinni, and were not going to kill him on the spot, he calmed down and was quite useful. We began to make real progress, reaching the peak of the nearest ridge in two days.
There was a slight feeling of celebration in the air that night, our first in days under the open skies. The soldiers cursed the lack of strong drink, but spirits were good nonetheless-even Ibn Fahad pried loose a smile.
As the under-vizier Walid told a humorous story, I looked about the camp. There were but two grim faces: the clerk Abdallah-which was to be expected, since he seemed a patently sour old devil-and the stolen peasant-boy. I walked over to him.
"Ho, young one," I said, "why do you look so downcast? Have you not realized that we are good-hearted, G.o.dfearing men, and will not harm you?" He did not even raise his chin, which rested on his knees, shepherd-style, but he turned his eyes up to mine.
"It is not those things," he said in his awkward Arabic. "It is not you soldiers but... this place."
"Gloomy mountains they are indeed," I agreed, "but you have lived here all your young life. Why should it bother you?"
"Not this place. We never come here-it is unholy. The vampyr walks these peaks."
"Vampyr?" said I. "And what peasant-devil is that?"
He would say no more; I left him to his brooding and walked back to the fire.
The men all had a good laugh over the vampyr, making jesting guesses as to what type of beast it might be, but Ruad, the young mullah, waved his hands urgently.
"I have heard of such afreets," he said. "They are not to be laughed at by such a G.o.dless lot as yourselves."
He said this as a sort of scolding joke, but he wore a strange look on his round face; we listened with interest as he continued.
"The vampyr is a restless spirit. It is neither alive nor dead, and Shaitan possesses its soul utterly. It sleeps in a sepulcher by day, and when the moon rises it goes out to feed upon travelers, to drink their blood."
Some of the men again laughed loudly, but this time it rang false as a bra.s.s-merchant"s smile.
"I have heard of these from one of our foreign visitors," said the under-vizier Walid quietly. "He told me of a plague of these vampyr in a village near Smyrna. All the inhabitants fled, and the village is still uninhabited today."
This reminded someone else (myself, perhaps) of a tale about an afreet with teeth growing on both sides of his head. Others followed with their own demon stories. The talk went on late into the night, and no one left the campfire until it had completely burned out.
By noon the next day we had left the heights and were pa.s.sing back down into the dark, tree-blanketed ravines. When we stopped that night we were once more hidden from the stars, out of sight of Allah and the sky.
I remember waking up in the foredawn hours. My beard was wet with dew, and I was d.a.m.nably tangled up in my cloak. A great, dark shape stood over me. I must confess to making a bit of a squawking noise.
"It"s me," the shape hissed-it was Rifakh, one of the other soldiers.
"You gave me a turn."
Rifakh chuckled. "Thought I was that vampyr, eh? Sorry. Just stepping out for a p.i.s.s." He stepped over me, and I heard him trampling the underbrush. I slipped back into sleep.
The sun was just barely over the horizon when I was again awakened, this time by Ibn Fahad tugging at my arm. I grumbled at him to leave me alone, but he had a grip on me like an alms-beggar.
"Rifakh"s gone," he said. "Wake up. Have you seen him?"
"He walked on me in the middle of the night, on his way to go moisten a tree," I said. "He probably fell in the darkness and hit his head on something-have you looked?"
"Several times," Ibn Fahad responded. "All around the camp. No sign of him. Did he say anything to you?"
"Nothing interesting. Perhaps he has met the sister of our shepherd-boy, and is making the two-backed beast."
Ibn Fahad made a sour face at my crudity. "Perhaps not. Perhaps he has met some other beast."
"Don"t worry," I said. "If he hasn"t fallen down somewhere close by, he"ll be back."
But he did not come back. When the rest of the men arose we had another long search, with no result. At noon we decided, reluctantly, to go on our way, hoping that if he had strayed somewhere he could catch up with us.
We hiked down into the valley, going farther and farther into the trees. There was no sign of Rifakh, although from time to time we stopped and shouted in case he was searching for us. We felt there was small risk of discovery, for that dark valley was as empty as a pauper"s purse, but nevertheless, after a while the sound of our voices echoing back through the damp glades became unpleasant. We continued on in silence.
Twilight comes early in the bosom of the mountains; by midafternoon it was already becoming dark. Young Fawn-the name had stuck, against the youth"s protests-who of all of us was the most disturbed by the disappearance of Rifakh, stopped the company suddenly, shouting: "Look there!"
We straightaway turned to see where he was pointing, but the thick trees and shadows revealed nothing.
"I saw a shape!" the young one said. "It was just a short way back, following us. Perhaps it is the missing soldier."
Naturally the men ran back to look, but though we scoured the bushes we could find no trace of anyone. We decided that the failing light had played Fawn a trick-that he had seen a hind or some such.
Two other times he called out that he saw a shape. The last time one of the other soldiers glimpsed it too: a dark, man-like form, moving rapidly beneath the trees a bow-shot away. Close inspection still yielded no evidence, and as the group trod wearily back to the path again Walid the under-vizier turned to Fawn with a hard, flat look.
"Perhaps it would be better, young master, if you talked no more of shadow-shapes."
"But I saw it!" the boy cried. "That soldier Mohammad saw it too!"
"I have no doubt of that," answered Walid al-Salameh, "but think on this: we have gone several times to see what it might be, and have found no sign of any living man. Perhaps our Rifakh is dead; perhaps he fell into a stream and drowned, or hit his head upon a rock. His spirit may be following us because it does not wish to stay in this unfamiliar place. That does not mean we want to go and find it."
"But..." the other began.
"Enough!" spat the chief-clerk Abdallah. "You heard the under-vizier, young prankster. We shall have no more talk of your G.o.dless spirits. You will straightaway leave off telling such things!"
"Your concern is appreciated, Abdallah," Walid said coldly, "but I do not require your help in this matter." The vizier strode away.
I was almost glad the clerk had added his voice, because such ideas would not keep the journey in good order... but like the under-vizier I, too, had been rubbed and grated by the clerk"s highhandedness. I am sure others felt the same, for no more was said on the subject all evening.
Allah, though, always has the last word-and who are we to try to understand His ways? We bedded down a very quiet camp that night, the idea of poor Rifakh"s lost soul hanging unspoken in the air.
From a thin, unpleasant sleep I woke to find the camp in chaos. "It"s Mohammad, the soldier!" Fawn was crying. "He"s been killed! He"s dead!"
It was true. The mullah Ruad, first up in the morning, had found the man"s blanket empty, then found his body a few short yards out of the clearing.
"His throat has been slashed out," said Ibn Fahad.
It looked like a wild beast had been at him. The ground beneath was dark with blood, and his eyes were wide open.
Above the cursing of the soldiers and the murmured holy words of the mullah, who looked quite green of face, I heard another sound. The young shepherd-lad, grimly silent all the day before, was rocking back and forth on the ground by the remains of the cook-fire, moaning.
"Vampyr... " he wept, "...vampyr, the vampyr..."
All the companions were, of course, completely unmanned by these events. While we buried Mohammad in a hastily dug grave, those a.s.sembled darted glances over their shoulders into the forest vegetation. Even Ruad, as he spoke the words of the holy Koran, had trouble keeping his eyes down. Ibn Fahad and I agreed between ourselves to maintain that Mohammad had fallen prey to a wolf or some other beast, but our fellow travelers found it hard even to pretend agreement. Only the under-vizier and the clerk Abdallah seemed to have their wits fully about them, and Abdallah made no secret of his contempt for the others. We set out again at once.
Our company was somber that day-and no wonder. No one wished to speak of the obvious, nor did they have much stomach for talk of lighter things-it was a silent file of men that moved through the mountain fastnesses.
As the shadows of evening began to roll down, the dark shape was with us again, flitting along just in sight, disappearing for a while only to return, bobbing along behind us like a jackdaw. My skin was crawling-as you may well believe-though I tried to hide it.
We set camp, building a large fire and moving near to it, and had a sullen, close-cramped supper. Ibn Fahad, Abdallah, the under-vizier, and I were still speaking of the follower only as some beast. Abdallah may even have believed it-not from ordinary foolishness, but because he was the type of man who was unwilling to believe there might be anything he himself could not compa.s.s.
As we took turns standing guard the young mullah led the far-from-sleepy men in prayer. The voices rose up with the smoke, neither seeming to be of much substance against the wind of those old, cold mountains.
I sidled over to the shepherd-lad. He"d become, if anything, more close-mouthed since the discovery of the morning.
"This "vampyr" you spoke of..." I said quietly. "What do your people do to protect themselves from it?"
He looked up at me with a sad smile.
"Lock the doors."
I stared across at the other men-young Fawn with clenched mouth and furrowed brow; the mullah Ruad, eyes closed, plump cheeks awash with sweat as he prayed; Ibn Fahad gazing coolly outward, ever outward-and then I returned the boy"s sad smile.
"No doors to lock, no windows to bar," I said. "What else?"
"There is an herb we hang about our houses..." he said, and fumbled for the word in our unfamiliar language. After a moment he gave up. "It does not matter. We have none. None grows here."
I leaned forward, putting my face next to his face. "For the love of G.o.d, boy, what else?"- I knew it was not a beast of the Earth. I knew. I had seen that fluttering shadow.
"Well..." he mumbled, turning his face away, "... they say, some men do, that you can tell stories...."
"What!" I thought he had gone mad.
"This is what my grandfather says. The vampyr will stop to hear the story you tell-if it is a good one-and if you continue it until daylight he must return to the... place of the dead."
There was a sudden shriek. I leaped to my feet, fumbling for my knife... but it was only Ruad, who had put his foot against a hot coal. I sank down again, heart hammering.
"Stories?" I asked.
"I have only heard so," he said, struggling for the right phrases. "We try to keep them farther away than that-they must come close to hear a man talking."
Later, after the fire had gone down, we placed sentries and went to our blankets. I lay a long while thinking of what the Armenite boy had said before I slept.
A hideous screeching sound woke me. It was not yet dawn, and this time no one had burned himself on a glowing ember.
One of the two soldiers who had been standing picket lay on the forest floor, blood gouting from a great wound on the side of his head. In the torchlight it looked as though his skull had been smashed with a heavy cudgel. The other sentry was gone, but there was a terrible thrashing in the underbrush beyond the camp, and screams that would have sounded like an animal in a cruel trap but for the half-formed words that bubbled up from time to time.
We crouched, huddled, staring like startled rabbits. The screaming began to die away. Suddenly Ruad started up, heavy and clumsy getting to his feet. I saw tears in his eyes. "We... we must not leave our fellow to s-s-suffer so!" he cried, and looked around at all of us. I don"t think anyone could hold his eye except the clerk Abdallah. I could not.
"Be silent, fool!" the clerk said, heedless of blasphemy. "It is a wild beast. It is for these cowardly soldiers to attend to, not a man of G.o.d!"
The young mullah stared at him for a moment, and a change came over his face. The tears were still wet on his cheeks, but I saw his jaw firm and his shoulders square."
"No," he said. "We cannot leave him to Shaitan"s servant. If you will not go to him, I will." He rolled up the scroll he had been nervously fingering and kissed it. A shaft of moonlight played across the gold letters.
I tried to grab his arm as he went past me, but he shook me off with surprising strength, then moved toward the brush, where the screeching had died down to a low, broken moaning.
"Come back, you idiot!" Abdallah shrieked at him. "This is foolishness! Come back!"
The young holy man looked back over his shoulder, darting a look at Abdallah I could not easily describe, then turned around and continued forward, holding the parchment scroll before him as if it were a candle against the dark night.
"There is no G.o.d but Allah!" I heard him cry, "and Mohammad is His prophet!" Then he was gone.
After a long moment of silence there came the sound of the holy words of the Koran, chanted in an unsteady voice. We could hear the mullah making his ungraceful way out through the thicket. I was not the only one who held his breath.
Next there was crashing, and branches snapping, as though some huge beast was leaping through the brush; the mullah"s chanting became a howl. Men cursed helplessly. Before the cry had faded, though, another scream came-numbingly loud, the rage of a powerful animal, full of shock and surprise. It had words in it, although not in any tongue I had ever heard before... or since.
Another great thrashing, and then nothing but silence. We lit another fire and sat sleepless until dawn.
In the morning, despite my urgings, the company went to look for trace of the sentry and the young priest. They found them both.
It made a grim picture, let me tell you, my friends. They hung upside down from the branches of a great tree. Their necks were torn, and they were white as chalk: all the blood had been drawn from them. We dragged the two stone-cold husks back to the camp-circle, and shortly thereafter buried them commonly with the other sentry, who had not survived his head wound.
One curious thing there was: on the ground beneath the hanging head of the young priest lay the remains of his holy scroll. It was scorched to black ash, and crumbled at my touch.
"So it was a cry of pain we heard," said Ibn Fahad over my shoulder. "The devil-beast can be hurt, it appears."
"Hurt, but not made to give over," I observed. "And no other holy writings remain, nor any hands so holy to wield them, or mouth to speak them." I looked pointedly over at Abdallah, who was giving unwanted instructions to the two remaining soldiers on how to spade the funeral dirt. I half-hoped one of them would take it on himself to brain the old meddler.
"True," grunted Ibn Fahad. "Well, I have my doubts on how cold steel will fare, also."
"As do I. But it could be there is yet a way we may save ourselves. The shepherd-boy told me of it. I will explain when we stop at mid-day."
"I will be waiting eagerly," said Ibn Fahad, favoring me with his half-smile. "I am glad to see someone else is thinking and planning beside myself. But perhaps you should tell us your plan on the march. Our daylight hours are becoming precious as blood, now. As a matter of fact, I think from now on we shall have to do without burial services."
Well, there we were in a very nasty fix. As we walked I explained my plan to the group; they listened silently, downcast, like men condemned to death-not an unreasonable att.i.tude, in all truth.
"Now, here"s the thing," I told them. "If this young lout"s idea of tale-telling will work, we shall have to spend our nights yarning away. We may have to begin taking stops for sleeping in the daylight. Every moment walking, then, is precious-we must keep the pace up or we will die in these d.a.m.ned, haunted mountains. Also, while you walk, think of stories. From what the lad says we may have another ten days or a fortnight to go until we escape this country. We shall soon run out of things to tell about unless you dig deep into your memories."
There was grumbling, but it was too dispirited a group to offer much protest.
"Be silent, unless you have a better idea," said Ibn Fahad. "Masrur is quite correct-although, if what I suspect is true, it may be the first time in his life he finds himself in that position." He threw me a wicked grin, and one of the soldiers snickered. It was a good sound to hear.
We had a short mid-day rest-most of us got at least an hour"s sleep on the rocky ground-and then we walked on until the beginning of twilight. We were in the bottom of a long, thickly forested ravine, where we promptly built a large fire to keep away some of the darkness of the valley floor. Ah, but fire is a good friend!
Gathered around the blaze, the men cooked strips of venison on the ends of green sticks. We pa.s.sed the waterskin and wished it was more-not for the first time.