"Now then," I said, "I"ll go first, for at home I was the one called upon most often to tell tales, and I have a good fund of them. Some of you may sleep, but not all-there should always be two or three awake in case the teller falters or forgets. We cannot know if this will keep the creature at bay, but we should take no chances."
So I began, telling first the story of The Four Clever Brothers. It was early, and no one was ready to sleep; all listened attentively as I spun it out, adding details here, stretching a description there.
When it ended I was applauded, and straight away began telling the story of the carpet merchant Salim and his unfaithful wife. That was perhaps not a good choice-it is a story about a vengeful djinn, and about death; but I went on nonetheless, finished it, then told two more.
As I was finishing the fourth story, about a brave orphan who finds a cave of jewels, I glimpsed a strange thing.
The fire was beginning to die down, and as I looked out over the flames I saw movement in the forest. The under-vizier Walid was directly across from me, and beyond his once-splendid robes a dark shape lurked. It came no closer than the edge of the trees, staying just out of the fire"s flickering light. I lost my voice for a moment then and stuttered, but quickly caught up the thread and finished. No one had noticed, I was sure.
I asked for the waterskin and motioned for Walid al-Salameh to continue. He took up with a tale of the rivalry beyond two wealthy houses in his native Isfahan. One or two of the others wrapped themselves tightly in their cloaks and lay down, staring up as they listened, watching the sparks rise into the darkness.
I pulled my hood down low on my brow to shield my gaze, and squinted out past Walid"s shoulder. The dark shape had moved a little nearer now to the lapping glow of the campfire.
It was man-shaped, that I could see fairly well, though it clung close to the trunk of a tree at clearing"s edge. Its face was in darkness; two ember-red eyes unblinkingly reflected the firelight. It seemed clothed in rags, but that could have been a trick of the shadows.
Huddled in the darkness a stone-throw away, it was listening.
I turned my head slowly across the circle. Most eyes were on the under-vizier; Fawn had curtained his in sleep. But Ibn Fahad, too, was staring out into the darkness. I suppose he felt my gaze, for he turned to me and nodded slightly: he had seen it too.
We went on until dawn, the men taking turns sleeping as one of the others told stories-mostly tales they had heard as children, occasionally of an adventure that had befallen them. Ibn Fahad and I said nothing of the dark shape that watched. Somewhere in the hour before dawn it disappeared.
It was a sleepy group that took to the trail that day, but we had all lived through the night. This alone put the men in better spirits, and we covered much ground.
That night we again sat around the fire. I told the story of The Gazelle King, and The Enchanted Peac.o.c.k, and The Little Man with No Name, each of them longer and more complicated than the one before. Everyone except the clerk Abdallah contributed something-Abdallah and the shepherd-boy, that is. The chief-clerk said repeatedly that he had never wasted his time on foolishness such as learning stories. We were understandably reluctant to press our self-preservation into such unwilling hands.
The Armenite boy, our guide, sat quietly all the evening and listened to the men yarning away in a tongue that was not his own. When the moon had risen through the treetops, the shadow returned and stood silently outside the clearing. I saw the peasant lad look up. He saw it, I know, but like Ibn Fahad and I, he held his silence.
The next day brought us two catastrophes. As we were striking camp in the morning, happily no fewer than when we had set down the night before, the local lad took the waterskins down to the river that threaded the bottom of the ravine. When a long hour had pa.s.sed and he had not returned, we went fearfully down to look for him.
He was gone. All but one of the waterskins lay on the streambank. He had filled them first.
The men were panicky. "The vampyr has taken him!" they cried.
"What does that foul creature need with a waterskin?" pointed out al-Salameh.
"He"s right," I said. "No, I"m afraid our young friend has merely jumped ship, so to speak. I suppose he thinks his chances of getting back are better if he is alone."
I wondered... I still wonder... if he made it back. He was not a bad fellow: witness the fact that he took only one waterbag, and left us the rest.
Thus, we found ourselves once more without a guide. Fortunately, I had discussed with him the general direction, and he had told Ibn Fahad and myself of the larger landmarks... but it was nevertheless with sunken hearts that we proceeded.
Later that day, in the early afternoon, the second blow fell.
We were coming up out of the valley, climbing diagonally along the steep side of the ravine. The d.a.m.ned Cauca.s.sian fogs had slimed the rocks and turned the ground soggy; the footing was treacherous.
Achmed, the older of the remaining pike-men, had been walking poorly all day. He had bad joints, anyway, he said; and the cold nights had been making them worse.
We had stopped to rest on an outcropping of rock that jutted from the valley wall; and Achmed, the last in line, was just catching up to us when he slipped. He fell heavily onto his side and slid several feet down the muddy slope.
Ibn Fahad jumped up to look for a rope, but before he could get one from the bottom of his pack the other soldier-named Bekir, if memory serves-clambered down the grade to help his comrade.
He got a grip on Achmed"s tunic, and was just turning around to catch Ibn Fahad"s rope when the leg of the older man buckled beneath him and he fell backward. Bekir, caught off his balance, pitched back as well, his hand caught in the neck of Achmed"s tunic, and the two of them rolled end over end down the slope. Before anyone could so much as cry out they had both disappeared over the edge, like a wine jug rolling off a table-top. Just that sudden.
To fall such a distance certainly killed them.
We could not find the bodies, of course... could not even climb back down the ravine to look. Ibn Fahad"s remark about burials had taken on a terrible, ironic truth. We could but press on, now a party of five-myself, Ibn Fahad, the under-vizier Walid, Abdallah the clerk, and young Fawn. I doubt that there was a single one of our number who did not wonder which of us would next meet death in that lonesome place.
Ah, by Allah most high, I have never been so sick of the sound of my own voice as I was by the time nine more nights had pa.s.sed. Ibn Fahad, I know, would say that I have never understood how sick everyone becomes of the sound of my voice-am I correct, old friend? But I was tired of it, tired of talking all night, tired of racking my brain for stories, tired of listening to the cracked voices of Walid and Ibn Fahad, tired to sickness of the damp, gray, oppressive mountains.
All were now aware of the haunting shade that stood outside our fire at night, waiting and listening. Young Fawn, in particular, could hardly hold up his turn at tale-telling, so much did his voice tremble.
Abdallah grew steadily colder and colder, congealing like rendered fat. The thing which followed was no respecter of his cynicism or his mathematics, and would not be banished for all the scorn he could muster. The skinny chief-clerk did not turn out to us, though, to support the story-circle, but sat silently and walked apart. Despite our terrible mutual danger he avoided our company as much as possible.
The tenth night after the loss of Achmed and Bekir we were running out of tales. We had been ground down by our circ.u.mstances, and were ourselves become nearly as shadowy as that which we feared.
Walid al-Salameh was droning on about some ancient bit of minor intrigue in the court of the Emperor Darius of Persia. Ibn Fahad leaned toward me, lowering his voice so that neither Abdallah or Fawn-whose expression was one of complete and hopeless despair-could hear.
"Did you notice," he whispered, "that our guest has made no appearance tonight?"
"It has not escaped me," I said. "I hardly think it a good sign, however. If our talk no longer interests the creature, how long can it be until its thoughts return to our other uses?"
"I fear you"re right," he responded, and gave a scratchy, painful chuckle. "There"s a good three or four more days walking, and hard walking at that, until we reach the bottom of these mountains and come once more onto the plain, at which point we might hope the devil-beast would leave us."
"Ibn Fahad," I said, shaking my head as I looked across at Fawn"s drawn, pale face, "I fear we shall not manage..."
As if to point up the truth of my fears, Walid here stopped his speech, coughing violently. I gave him to drink of the waterskin, but when he had finished he did not begin anew; he only sat looking darkly, as one lost, out to the forest.
"Good vizier," I asked, "can you continue?"
He said nothing, and I quickly spoke in his place, trying to pick up the threads of a tale I had not been attending to. Walid leaned back, exhausted and breathing raggedly. Abdallah clucked his tongue in disgust. If I had not been fearfully occupied, I would have struck the clerk.
Just as I was beginning to find my way, inventing a continuation of the vizier"s Darian political meanderings, there came a shock that pa.s.sed through all of us like a cold wind, and a new shadow appeared at the edge of the clearing. The vampyr had joined us.
Walid moaned and sat up, huddling by the fire. I faltered for a moment but went on. The candle-flame eyes regarded us unblinkingly, and the shadow shook for a moment as if folding great wings.
Suddenly Fawn leaped to his feet, swaying unsteadily. I lost the strands of the story completely and stared up at him in amazement.
"Creature!" he screamed. "h.e.l.l-sp.a.w.n! Why do you torment us in this way? Why, why, why?"
Ibn Fahad reached up to pull him down, but the young man danced away like a shying horse. His mouth hung open and his eyes were starting from their dark-rimmed sockets.
"You great beast!" he continued to shriek. "Why do you toy with us? Why do you not just kill me-kill us all, set us free from this terrible, terrible..."
And with that he walked forward-away from the fire, toward the thing that crouched at forest"s edge.
"End this now!" Fawn shouted, and fell to his knees only a few strides from the smoldering red eyes, sobbing like a child.
"Stupid boy, get back!" I cried. Before I could get up to pull him back-and I would have, I swear by Allah"s name-there was a great rushing noise, and the black shape was gone, the lamps of its stare extinguished. Then, as we pulled the shuddering youth back to the campfire, something rustled in the trees. On the opposite side of the campfire one of the near branches suddenly bobbed beneath the weight of a strange new fruit-a black fruit with red-lit eyes. It made an awful croaking noise.
In our shock it was a few moments before we realized that the deep, rasping sound was speech-and the words were Arabic!
"...It... was... you..." it said, "...who chose... to play the game this way..."
Almost strangest of all, I would swear that this thing had never spoken our language before, never even heard it until we had wandered lost into the mountains. Something of its halting inflections, its strange hesitations, made me guess it had learned our speech from listening all these nights to our campfire stories.
"Demon!" shrilled Abdallah. "What manner of creature are you?!"
"You know... very well what kind of... thing I am, man. You may none of you know how, or why... but by now, you know what I am."
"Why... why do you torment us so?!" shouted Fawn, writhing in Ibn Fahad"s strong grasp.
"Why does the... serpent kill... a rabbit? The serpent does not... hate. It kills to live, as do I... as do you."
Abdallah lurched forward a step. "We do not slaughter our fellow men like this, devil-sp.a.w.n!"
"C-c-clerk!" the black shape hissed, and dropped down from the tree. "C-close your foolish mouth! You push me too far!" It bobbed, as if agitated. "The curse of human ways! Even now you provoke me more than you should, you huffing... insect!
Enough!"
The vampyr seemed to leap upward, and with a great rattling of leaves he scuttled away along the limb of a tall tree. I was fumbling for my sword, but before I could find it the creature spoke again from his high perch.
"The young one asked me why I "toy" with you. I do not. If I do not kill, I will suffer. More than I suffer already.
"Despite what this clerk says, though, I am not a creature without... without feelings as men have them. Less and less do I wish to destroy you.
"For the first time in a great age I have listened to the sound of human voices that were not screams of fear. I have approached a circle of men without the barking of dogs, and have listened to them talk.
"It has almost been like being a man again."
"And this is how you show your pleasure?" the under-vizier Walid asked, teeth chattering. "By k-k-killing us?"
"I am what I am," said the beast. "... But for all that, you have inspired a certain desire for companionship. It puts me in mind of things that I can barely remember.
"I propose that we make a... bargain," said the vampyr. "A... wager?"
I had found my sword, and Ibn Fahad had drawn his as well, but we both knew we could not kill a thing like this-a red-eyed demon that could leap five cubits in the air and had learned to speak our language in a fortnight.
"No bargains with Shaitan!" spat the clerk Abdallah.
"What do you mean?" I demanded, inwardly marveling that such an unlikely dialogue should ever take place on the earth. "Pay no attention to the..." I curled my lip, "... holy man." Abdallah shot me a venomous glance.
"Hear me, then," the creature said, and in the deep recesses of the tree seemed once more to unfold and stretch great wings. "Hear me. I must kill to live, and my nature is such that I cannot choose to die. That is the way of things.
"I offer you now, however, the chance to win safe pa.s.sage out of my domain, these hills. We shall have a contest, a wager if you like; if you best me you shall go freely, and I shall turn once more to the musty, slow-blooded peasants of the local valleys."
Ibn Fahad laughed bitterly. "What, are we to fight you then? So be it!"
"I would snap your spine like a dry branch," croaked the black shape. "No, you have held me these many nights telling stories; it is story-telling that will win you safe pa.s.sage. We will have a contest, one that will suit my whims: we shall relate the saddest of all stories. That is my demand. You may tell three, I will tell only one. If you can best me with any or all, you shall go unhindered by me."
"And if we lose?" I cried. "And who shall judge?"
"You may judge," it said, and the deep, thick voice took on a tone of grim amus.e.m.e.nt. "If you can look into my eyes and tell me that you have bested my sad tale... why, then I shall believe you.
"If you lose," it said, "then one of your number shall come to me, and pay the price of your defeat. Those are my terms, otherwise I shall hunt you down one at a time-for in truth, your present tale-telling has begun to lose my interest."
Ibn Fahad darted a worried look in my direction. Fawn and the others stared at the demon-shape in mute terror and astonishment.
"We shall... we shall give you our decision at sunset tomorrow," I said. "We must be allowed to think and talk."
"As you wish," said the vampyr. "But if you accept my challenge, the game must begin then. After all, we have only a few more days to spend together." And at this the terrible creature laughed, a sound like the bark being pulled from the trunk of a rotted tree. Then the shadow was gone.
In the end we had to accede to the creature"s wager, of course. We knew he was not wrong in his a.s.sessment of us-we were just wagging our beards over the nightly campfire, no longer even listening to our own tales. Whatever magic had held the vampyr at bay had drained out like meal from a torn sack.
I racked my poor brains all afternoon for stories of sadness, but could think of nothing that seemed to fit, that seemed significant enough for the vital purpose at hand. I had been doing most of the talking for several nights running, and had exhausted virtually every story I had ever heard-and I was never much good at making them up, as Ibn Fahad will attest. Yes, go ahead and smile, old comrade.
Actually, it was Ibn Fahad who volunteered the first tale. I asked him what it was, but he would not tell me. "Let me save what potency it may have," he said. The under-vizier Walid also had something he deemed suitable, I was racking my brain fruitlessly for a third time when young Fawn piped up that he would tell a tale himself. I looked him over, rosy cheeks and long-lashed eyes, and asked him what he could possibly know of sadness. Even as I spoke I realized my cruelty, standing as we all did in the shadow of death or worse; but it was too late to take it back.
Fawn did not flinch. He was folding his cloak as he sat cross-ankled on the ground, folding and unfolding it. He looked up and said: "I shall tell a sad story about love. All the saddest stories are about love."
These young shavetails, I thought-although I was not ten years his senior-a sad story about love. But I could not think of better, and was forced to give in.
We walked as fast and far as we could that day, as if hoping that somehow, against all reason, we should find ourselves out of the gloomy, mist-sodden hills. But when twilight came the vast bulk of the mountains still hung above us. We made camp on the porch of a great standing rock, as though protection at our backs would avail us of something if the night went badly.
The fire had only just taken hold, and the sun had dipped below the rim of the hills a moment before, when a cold wind made the branches of the trees whip back and forth. We knew without speaking, without looking at one another, that the creature had come.
"Have you made your decision?" The harsh voice from the trees sounded strange, as if its owner was trying to speak lightly, carelessly-but I only heard death in those cold syllables.
"We have," said Ibn Fahad, drawing himself up out of his involuntary half-crouch to stand erect. "We will accept your wager. Do you wish to begin?"
"Oh, no..." the thing said, and made a flapping noise. "That would take all of the... suspense from the contest, would it not? No, I insist that you begin."
"I am first, then," Ibn Fahad said, looking around our circle for confirmation. The dark shape moved abruptly toward us. Before we could scatter the vampyr stopped, a few short steps away.
"Do not fear," it grated. Close to one"s ear the voice was even odder and more strained. "I have come nearer to hear the story and see the teller-for surely that is part of any tale-but I shall move no farther. Begin."
Everybody but myself stared into the fire, hugging their knees, keeping their eyes averted from the bundle of darkness that sat at our shoulders. I had the fire between myself and the creature, and felt safer than if I had sat like Walid and Abdallah, with nothing between the beast and my back but cold ground.
The vampyr sat hunched, as if imitating our posture, its eyes hooded so that only a flicker of scarlet light, like a half-buried brand, showed through the slit. It was black, this manlike thing-not black as a Negro, mind you, but black as burnt steel, black as the mouth of a cave. It bore the aspect of someone dead of the plague. Rags wrapped it, mouldering, filthy bits of cloth, rotten as old bread... but the curve of its back spoke of terrible life-a great black cricket poised to jump.
Ibn Fahad"s Story Many years ago [he began], I traveled for a good time in Egypt. I was indigent, then, and journeyed wherever the prospect of payment for a sword arm beckoned.
I found myself at last in the household guard of a rich merchant in Alexandria. I was happy enough there; and I enjoyed walking in the busy streets, so unlike the village in which I was born.
One summer evening I found myself walking down an unfamiliar street. It emptied out into a little square that sat below the front of an old mosque. The square was full of people, merchants and fishwives, a juggler or two, but most of the crowd was drawn up to the facade of the mosque, pressed in close together.
At first, as I strolled across the square, I thought prayers were about to begin, but it was still some time until sunset. I wondered if perhaps some notable imam was speaking from the mosque steps, but as I approached I could see that all the a.s.sembly were staring upward, craning their necks back as if the sun itself, on its way to its western mooring, had become snagged on one of the minarets.
But instead of the sun, what stood on the onion-shaped dome was the silhouette of a man, who seemed to be staring out toward the horizon.