{Tales} The Hakawati Speaks

[batkalim]

--The Hakawati explains why the Donkey brays, and the Hyena laughs even though his hind legs are short—


There was once a mason in the city of Taphis who was renown for his skill. This is of course before the desert swallowed that once gleaming city making it only a dreaming memory. The mason could with one mighty stoke of a maul knock from any mountain a perfect cube of rock two spans on a side. With hammer and chisel he could carve out intricate stone pieces that fit together like giant rock puzzles. It is said he built the basalt seal that guards the entrance to the Black Necropolis. So too did he build the fabled Eye of Kharled which to this day still marks each solstice and equinox and all the days of the year.

To aid him in his work, he had a donkey. Even though it was scrawny, the animal would carry the mason’s tools, or raw stone, or whatever else the mason needed to create such wonderful stoneworks. The donkey also had a beautiful voice and so melodious was it that it eased the drudgery of work for anyone hearing him sing. Wherever the mason went with his donkey, hearts lightened at the animal’s joyous singing.

Because the donkey served faithfully and never once complained about having to carry such heavy loads, the mason would not tie up the donkey at night. This suited the donkey just fine because even though the mason treated him well, the donkey did not much like the simple oats and grains the mason would feed him which is why the donkey was so skinny. At night the donkey would sneak away and into the gardens of the mason’s neighbors. There he would eat a carrot or two. Maybe a turnip or some lettuce. But never enough to make the neighbors suspicious that anything but perhaps a wild hare was gnawing on their vegetables.

This went on for so long that eventually the neighbors started stringing bells around their gardens to alarm them when something was sneaking into their vegetables. So, each night the donkey had to go further and further afield in order to find something he wanted to eat.

One night the donkey found himself far outside the city in one of the king’s pastures. Donkey knew it was the king’s pasture because he hauled the rock that his master used to build the tall stone walls which sectioned off the pastures and gardens. It then struck him that one of the gardens was a vast acreage of fig trees and he did so enjoy sweet figs. He sneaked quietly through one of the pastures, careful not to wake the sheep sleeping like puffy balls of cotton on the cool grass. When he came to the fig grove he found the opening in the wall now blocked by an iron gate with a heavy lock on it. Apparently the sheep liked gnawing on the fig bark so the king had the gate put there to keep them out.

Disappointed, the donkey turned to leave but stopped when someone whispered to him from the dark of the grove.

“I know you,” said the voice. “You are the mason’s singing donkey.”

The donkey turned to see who was whispering to him. He saw at first only lambent pale eyes glowing in the moonlight. “Who are you,” donkey asked, stepping closer to the gate. “Do I know you?”

“No, but I know you,” said the voice. Below the eyes donkey saw the gleam of large canines. Hyena smiled and pushed his wide muzzle through the gate. “What are you doing sneaking about in the moonlight like…” the Hyena paused barely able to contain a nervous laughter. “…well, sneaking about like Hyena in the dark?”

“I came for the figs,” said Donkey glad for the iron gate between him and Hyena. “But with this gate here, I will have to console myself with simple sheep grass.”

The Hyena’s lips twitched, a manic grin spreading across his face. “I came for supper, too. But thanks to your master building this wall and the king placing this gate in it, I cannot get to the sheep. But perhaps we can help each other.”

“I do not see how,” said Donkey.

“I could open the gate” explained Hyena. “ I’ll just bite the lock and crush it like brittle sheep bones. But that would make noise and wake the sheep which would in turn wake the shepherds and their dogs. However, if you sang a lullaby in that beautiful voice of yours I am sure the sheep would go right back to sleep. With the gate open both of us could go to the other side of the gate and have the dinner we want.”

“And how do I know you will not eat me, instead?”

“Silly donkey! If I ate you there would be no one to sing those fat, stupid sheep back to sleep and their bawwing and bleating would wake the shepherds.”

This seemed reasonable to the donkey who decided the risk was worth the reward of all those succulent figs. He agreed and started singing a soft lullaby. CHANK! Hyena clamped his jaws onto the lock, shattering the steel like splintering wood. A few of the sheep stirred but hearing the song, lay their drowsy heads back down.

“Tasty tasty red meat pasty,” snarled the Hyena who snatched up the closest sheep with those mangling jaws of his and instantly snapped the unfortunate sheep’s neck.”

True to his word, the Hyena did not look with hungry eyes to Donkey who gorged himself on delicious figs. After the two had eaten their fill, they rested for a bit before going their separate ways. And there they determined that as soon as the gate was discovered open, another lock would be placed on it. Since their new friendship was so mutually beneficial they agreed to meet again in two days and repeat the process.

This went on for several weeks, the donkey growing much more fat and healthy. So many sheep and so many figs were missing that the king ordered armed soldiers to stand watch to discover who was breaking the lock, stealing figs and taking sheep. But each morning the guards were found sleeping, lulled into dreams by the donkey’s hypnotic singing. The lock was always broken and more sheep and figs had disappeared.

“It must be a djiin,” one of the royal viziers told the king. “Those are the only things I can think of that could devour so many sheep and figs in such a short time. Only a djiin has the magic to break those locks and put those soldiers to sleep.”

“Then we shall build an unassailable gate with a lock even a genius cannot break,” said the king. “And there is only one man in all of Taphis that can build such a thing. Summon the mason!”

When the mason arrived at the palace he was taken before the king for a private audience. The King told the mason all that had happened and ordered the mason to build a stone gate impassable by any djiin.

“It may take a while,” said the mason. “Only one other stone gate and lock such as that exist and they seal the entrance to the Black Necropolis.”

“See to it,” commanded the king. “But this is to be a secret. I do not want to risk the djiin or anyone else to finding out what is being built. If you tell anyone I’ll have your head on a pike.”

The mason nodded and returned home. He knew he had to determine what manner of creature was breaking the lock in order to build a proper barrier so he decided to spend a few nights hiding at the gate in hopes of spotting the culprit. He packed some food and a few small tools in a knapsack and rested his large maul on his shoulder. Donkey looked at him, confused that the mason was not setting the tools on his back. “Am I not to carry your tools, master,” asked Donkey.

“Not this time,” said the mason. “You have earned a well deserved rest for all your service, so I shall not require you to help me. I will leave you untied and have put out a barrel of oats for you that will last several weeks but I should be back in a few days.” With that, the mason scratched Donkey behind the ears and set off for the gate.

That night Donkey went to meet Hyena at the gate not knowing his Master was hiding nearby. As usual, donkey sang to put the sheep and soldiers to sleep and Hyena gnawed off the lock. The mason was accustomed to Donkey’s lovely voice but he had been in hiding so long that he found himself nodding off before he could make himself known.

Hyena snapped up a fat sheep and Donkey began gorging himself on figs. Fear of a djiin had kept the harvesters away from that part of the fig grove, though, and the figs had sat so long on the tree that they began to over ripen and ferment. Soon, Donkey was standing on unsteady legs, drunk from eating so many fermenting figs.

“Do you know what,” Donkey said drunkenly loud to Hyena. “I feel like singing.”

“Shut up, fool,” hissed Hyena. He had been chuckling quietly to himself while eating a sheep but now he no longer laughed. “You will wake up the guards.”

“Pfft on the guards! I’m happy, friend, and I am going to sing!”

“Shut up, shut up, shut up,” snarled Hyena rising to his feet. “You drunken idiot. You will ruin everything.”

“What a dull fellow,” exclaimed Donkey. “Singing makes one happy . You are just envious you cannot sing and can only laugh. Even though I have never once heard you tell a joke!”

Hyena glanced over his shoulder to the sleeping guards not thirty feet away. His glowing eyes turned back to his drunken friend, all fat and tasty. “I swear I will rip out your throat if you wake up the guards,” said Hyena who could not help but snigger at the very thought of Donkey’s warm blood dripping from his mouth..

“See, that is not funny at all,” said Donkey who started singing loudly. Sheep lifted their heads and started bleating. Guards sat up rubbing the sleep from their eyes and the mason roused himself from slumber

Hyena snarled, sheep blood still staining his bone crunching teeth and charged at Donkey. The mason snatched up his maul and ran after Hyena. Hyena leaped, huge maw clamping onto Donkey’s throat. Donkey’s song ended in wet gurgling. The two tumbled to the ground. Hyena stood almost immediately but Donkey still lay on the ground, blood oozing from his neck.

Hyena tittered maniacally, and gulped down the torn, dripping meat dangling from his jaws. “Tasty tasty red meat pasty,” he guffawed.

CRUNCH, the mason slammed his maul down onto Hyena’s hips. The blow drove Hyena’s hips into the ground, crushing them. A stout beast, and heedless of pain when he had the taste of warm blood in his mouth, Hyena ran off but something was wrong. He looked over his shoulder at his now shorter hind legs and low, crushed hips. He could not help but laugh with insane abandon at how absurd he now looked. “Ah HA, HA! At least I have not lost my voice!” On he ran, laughing until his voice had passed beyond hearing of the mason and the guards.

The mason quickly bound Donkey’s wounds but the damage was done. No longer would Donkey speak or sing in his once beautiful voice. And to keep him from any more trouble, the mason always tied him at night.

From that moment on all donkey could do was bray like an idiot. Hyena found unnatural and devilish amusement in his crushed hips being the price for depriving Donkey of his voice. And that is why to this day Hyena still laughs whenever he thinks about it.

[batkalim]

--The Hakawati explains why the tribe of Ashem will trade gems to anyone but another Ashem tribesmen --

Because Pasha Hassan Bin Asini showed great generosity toward the Sultan of the Efreet, we Ashem now find lying in the sands of the deep desert colored gemstones of all kinds. Others envy this gift from the Efreet Sultan and the All Serpent, Glorious Set (May his gaze forever fall upon our enemies). They see only wealth in the glimmer of gems when in truth this gift is the reward for respect given to one of the lords of the endless sand. Because others do not revere or understand the true meaning of our finding these gems they sometimes seek to take advantage of this gift.

It is that greed which the current Motwihamreed once turned against a caravan of outsiders. What he did those years ago still ripples through the spirit world and feeds the glory of Set. Such is the power of the Motwihamreed, servant of the immortal Magi.

They came out of the east, a twisting caravan line over two hundred camels long. The dust rising from their passage through the desert could be seen over the horizon, clawing its way into the cloudless sky. They arrived at the oasis of Zaraba laden with eastern goods bound for the decadent western kingdoms and though they were not desert nomads they were shown hospitality and welcomed into Zaraba, for no man should thirst in the desert.

The caravan was populated mostly by merchants of Turan and Vendhya. Though these two peoples are often at war, mercantile greed knows no political border so the Turanians and the Vendhyans tolerated one another for the sake of coin. Also travelling with the caravan were yellow merchants from far off Khitai with their strange clothes and even stranger language.

Their goods aroused much excitement among the tribes encamped at the oasis. Fine Turanian silk of colors which have no names. Dark eyed Vendhyan slaves that writhed and twisted like charmed serpents. Odd incense and spices from Khitai. Excitement also spread among the merchants when they found we Ashem would pay in gems for the things we wanted and that we give little thought as to the value off those gems when we trade them.

It was into this frenzy of greed that the Motwihamreed came, passing through the makeshift souk and the grunting camels as nothing more than another simple nomad. Everywhere he walked he saw the hunger for jewels among the caravan merchants.

It was as he walked alone at the edge of the oasis one night that a voice came to him. “Do you see it, the shine of greed in their eyes” a voice asked the Motwihamreed.

The voice drifted on the wind but the Motwihamreed did not bother turning to face the speaker. Never would mortal eyes would see anything when the dead speak. “It is always there,” the Motwihamreed said to the severed spirit. “Like the cool beneath a rock or shade under a tree.”

“They will bleed the Ashem,” said the spirit, its voice drifting to the Motwihamreed’s left. ”And leave us with nothing but trinkets while they pass into the west as wealthy men.”

The Motwihamreed looked to his left. The whites of his eyes became as shadow and the Motwihamreed gazed with the eyes of the dead through the veil that divides the living and dead. The lost soul stood beside him. Black and gold veins twisted through the soul like gnarled tree roots. “Your soul bears the marks of a life spent wallowing like a pig in your own greed.”

“It was my undoing,” admitted the spirit. “My avarice earned me a knife across the throat. My life, unfulfilled, earned me an eternity walking the world unseen and unheard by the living. Except of course by those who walk the paths of both living and departed souls.”

The Motwihamreed returned his gaze to the oasis. The living and dead worlds mixed together, one atop the other like stacks of colored glass. Each separate but neither distinct “The dead rarely come to me without wanting something.”

“The man that had me killed is in this caravan,” said the spirit. “My soul is tormented being so close to him, but I find I cling to him like wet linen to skin. I cannot be away for long before I am compelled to return. Yet for all the rage within me, I find I am impotent and cannot affect the living world to visit revenge upon him.”

The Motwihamreed considered the lost soul’s words. So many desperate spirits clawing at his mind for attention, begging his help. So many souls easily manipulated in their blind desire for vengeance upon the living. “Vengeance comes with a cost,” the Motwihamreed said, turning his shadowy eyes to the severed spirit. “I can give you what you desire but your soul will suffer a torment of imprisonment a thousand times worse than you now feel.”

The spirit replied without hesitation, “I will suffer agony for an eternity if it gives me the vengeance I desire.”

“Then so be it.”

The Motwihamreed had about him, as do many Ashem of importance, several gemstones and from these he produced a ruby. Holding the ruby in his left palm drew a kukri from his belt and pulled the curved blade across his left forearm to open one of the many old scars that webbed his arms. Blood black as an unlit tomb leaked from the open gash. It oozed along his arm, creeping like living tendrils to pool around the ruby in his palm.

The Motwihamreed mumbled the words of a language dead before the first pillars of Atlantis were raised and his eyes became as hard and dark as a scarab’s carapace. The living world passed beyond his sight, becoming mist and shadow. He beheld the world as the dead see it. Some say when this happens the Motwihamreed’s soul leaves his body to enter the dead lands and for a brief time he exists as both a living man and a severed soul, neither dead nor alive. It is whispered that he is, at this moment, the closest thing to a Magi that a mortal will ever see and live to tell about it.

With his right hand the Motwihamreed snatched the lost soul out of the shadow realms, dragging it back to the living world along with his own soul. The spirit’s essence shrouded his hand in shadow, trapped by the Motwihamreed’s will. With hands clasped together, pushing against one another, the Motwihamreed snarled out the final words of the ancient incantation, binding into the ruby the soul and his living blood.

The Motwihamreed held the ruby up to the moonlight. The blood still glistening on his arm crept back into the open gash, closing the wound as one might close up a burial shroud. The lost soul’s face, twisted in agony, glared from the crystalline prison. “You are now as bound to my will as you are to this stone,” the Motwihamreed said. “And so you will stay until the time is at hand for your vengeance.”

“The pain,” wailed the soul. “Unbearable.”

“That pain is now your power,” explained the Motwihamreed. “This ruby the lens by which you will project it into the living world.”

“And what vengeance is this,” demanded the soul. “Trapped in eternal agony!”

“This is the price of vengeance. I will trade you to the man that had you murdered. Though you are imprisoned, this stone will allow you to impose your will upon the man. To whisper to him in dreams. To make him covet this ruby more than life. Only at the end of his life will you be released from this prison. As you are released, his soul will not pass into the dead lands. Instead, it will be bound to the Black Necropolis where it will serve to slake the Magi’s insatiable hunger.”

The Motwihamreed did not tell this vengeful soul that it too would be bound to the Necropolis when it was released. Or that it did not matter who owned the ruby. The soul of whoever owned the ruby at their death would serve the Magi, extending the unlife of the Lich Lords at the expense of their soul being consumed and annihilated. It was then that he looked from the oasis across the desert and knew how he would punish not just the one merchant but all the merchants in the caravan.

He gazed across the desert with the eyes of the dead and beheld the dunes as they were generations before, carpeted with the dead after the battle of Zaraba. Men lay butchered, their pieces scattered as chaff to the wind. Uncounted souls, he knew, to be plucked from the dark realms and bound into gems for greedy merchants.

The Motwihamreed went to the Pasha who among all Ashem has the greatest wealth of gems. He told the Pasha he planned to bind the souls of Zaraba into gems and that those gems should be traded to the caravan merchants. “In time,” explained the Motwihamreed, “the souls of those owning the gem will be bound by their greed, trapped and enslaved to the Magi. The power of the Magi and of Set shall extend to the ends of the world.”

The Pasha did not argue that there were Ashem bones among the remains of Zaraba. If they were bound into gems, so be it. They might in death be made useful in serving Set and the Magi. And so it was that the Pasha sent a dozen slaves laden with gems into the desert with the Motwihamreed. At the ancient battlefield, the Motwihamreed enacted rights of such arcane power that that the color drained from his eyes, permanently turning them pale as the full moon.

Of the twelve slaves that went into the desert with the Motwihamreed, only two returned with the gems. They would not say what happened to the other ten slaves or how their bodies came to be crisscrossed with scars resembling the sigils carved into the basalt seal of the Black Necropolis.

Neither did the Motwihamreed return with the slaves but the Pasha knew the will of the Magi’s servant. The Pasha distributed the gems among the tribe of Ashem that camped about Zaraba and we used them to trade with the caravan. When the merchants left they carried those stones across the world. But some Ashem kept the stones which is why to this day when a person dies they are sometimes found with a gem in their clenched fist. Always the gem is dark and cloudy as if color and life had been drained from it. It is also why we Ashem do not trade gems to one another and only to outsiders.

[batkalim]

--The Hakawati tells the story of the Lone Ghaf Tree-
(Part 1 of 2)


In the deep desert, past the crumbling ruins of Chemanoptra stands a lone ghaf tree which, against all reason, should not be there. It sits at the edge of the Great Cleft beside the stone pylons of a rope bridge that rotted away long ago and leans over the rocky precipice as if gazing into the bottomless gash splitting the earth. For five hundred years it has grown in the rocky ground without water, its lengthening branches creeping ever deeper into the unknown depths.

Few people visit the cleft for it is known to be a black scar so deep it descends into Hell and is home to all manner of demons and ghouls. Those foolish enough to descend into the darkness do not return and though only an arrow’s flight across at its widest, it is so long that it takes two days to walk the length. Those who journey past the Great Cleft stop and wonder at the solitary tree leaning out over the abyss, though not for very long. They say the tree’s limbs reach plaintively into the cleft and when the wind stirs the ancient wood, the tree groans with such human-like anguish that it tears the heart to hear it for long.

This is how that solitary tree came to be.

One night during the final years of Chemanoptra’s decline a family of ghouls from the Cleft switched their newborn daughter with that of a rich merchant in the city. Under a moonless sky they sneaked into the merchant’s house quiet as shadows and made off with the merchant’s daughter while leaving their own in its place. Ghoul babies look perfectly human and both babies looked remarkably alike which is why the ghouls chose the merchant’s daughter.

At first the merchant and his wife suspected nothing but as time went on their daughter began to change. Because of her ghoulish heritage the girl grew taller and stronger than all the other girls and most of the boys. She had the appetite of a man and so little femininity that she went about only in boys clothes. Whenever someone teased her about it she would beat them with her fists. If somehow they managed to best her in a fight she would always return with a stick or metal rod to take revenge by breaking the offenders knuckles. She cared for no one and no one cared for her.

Despite her mean spirit and appearance, the merchant and his wife still loved her, thinking the ghoul child was their real daughter. But no matter how much tenderness and caring she was shown, the girl only grew worse as she grew older. One day she left and never returned. She was not missed or remembered fondly by anyone except her human parents who would just shake their heads wondering what they had done wrong raising such a horrid beast of a child.

The opposite was true for the merchant’s real daughter, Neela. Even though the ghouls treated her like a slave, Neela only grew kinder and more beautiful as she grew older. The ghouls found great amusement in berating Neela and telling her how ugly she was. They would even invite visiting ghouls and demons to ridicule the poor girl because of it. Having never seen another human Neela believed herself to be ugly because she looked so much different than the twisted ghouls. Never did it cross her mind that even in the deplorable conditions in which she was kept that she was growing into a beauty the likes of which inspires poets and artists.

One day when Neela was seventeen she was outside sweeping up in front of the ghoul cave under the watchful eye of the old hag of a ghoul mother when Keptek, a young man happened by. Keptek was a young nomad about the same age as Neela and had come to the cleft looking for a goat that had wandered from his flock. Curious as to what was over the edge of the jagged crevice, he lay on his stomach and peeked into the abyss.

Not far below he saw Neela sweeping dirt over the ledge in front of the ghoul cave. Though Neela was dressed in ragged cast off clothes with wild, unkempt hair, Keptek became mesmerized by her natural beauty. Never before had he seen such an exquisite girl, perfect in spite of her debased state. He started to call out to her but before he could, the old ghoul spotted him. With speed and strength unnatural to her age, the grey skinned hag snatched Neela by her thick black hair and threw the girl back into the cave.

The ghoul snarled at Keptek, baring her rotting, corpse teeth. “Go away, boy! Or I’ll slurp your slimy tripe and make a purse of your hairless nuts!” In a blink she disappeared into the cave. Rocks and boulders scattered about the cave mouth came alive, rolling and clattering over one another to seal up the entrance.

Keptek knew Neela was no ghoul. He was so stricken by her loveliness, he had fallen in love with only a look and vowed to take her away from the ghouls. Being a simple goatherd he knew he was no match for a ghoul but he did know of a sorceress in Chemanoptra who had a powerful dislike for the corpse eaters so he determined that he should seek her out and ask for help.

Inside the cave, Neela rose to her feet, rubbing her head. The ghouls often did things like drag her about by the hair or spit on her for no reason other than to remind Neela of her place as the ugly member of the family. So accustomed to the abuse was she that Neela accepted it as part of her life as an ugly slave daughter among a beautiful ghoul family. Neela did not ask why she had been thrown back into the cave. Instead she asked the old ghoul woman, “Mother, who was that boy looking down at us?”

“No one,” snapped the ghoul. “No one you need to worry about.”

“But he was ugly like me. Maybe…,” said Neela hesitantly, “maybe he needed a friend.”

The old ghoul backhanded Neela across the face, snapping the girls head to the side. “No one is as ugly as you, you stupid girl! Even if they were they’d wretch at the sight of you with your white teeth and smooth skin! Why, your tits are not even saggy like a wrinkled camel scrotum!”

Neela rubbed the side of her face. Though used to the abuse, it did not ease the pain when ghoulish hands disciplined her with their inhuman strength. Nor did it make the bruises fade any faster. “I’m sorry, mother,” whispered Neela

The ghoul hag sneered at Neela. “Shut up, you ugly little cow and get dinner ready. Your brothers will be home any time now.”

Once in Chemanoptra, Keptek sought out the sorceress who upon hearing of Keptek’s problem with ghouls took him immediately into her house to hear Keptek’s tale. “Ghouls will sometimes steal human babies to raise them as slaves or to breed more ghoul children” explained the Sorceress. “It is not an easy life due to ghoulish cruelty and most often the ghoul’s taste for human flesh means they eventually kill and eat the slave. But I have something that may help you. Come with me to my study and no matter what you see or hear you must not leave the room, understand?”

Keptek nodded and followed the sorceress into her inner study. The sorceress began taking vials of odd colored liquid and jars of strange powders from the many tall shelves. Occasionally she would go back for something new or to replace something she had taken and realized she did not need. She stoked a small kiln in the center of the room and began mixing these things over the low fire. She spoke words which Keptek could not understand and a circle of runes began glowing on the floor. Smoke rising from the kiln thickened and became trapped within the circle. Fire flashed within the roiling black cloud and it spoke to the sorceress in a voice that made Keptek’s spine quiver.

The sorceress and the smoke devil talked to one another in a strange, guttural language no human tongue could possibly speak. Though Keptek could not understand it, he felt certain the sorceress negotiated with the fiend. At last the sorceress nodded agreement and stepped into the column of black smoke. Snarls and grunts like those of angry, fighting boars filled the room A few minutes later the glowing runes faded and the smoke seeped into the floor like water into sand.

Breathing heavily, the sorceress, naked and sheened in sweat, turned to Keptek. Her robes lay in shreds about her. Long, angry red scratches covered her neck and breasts. She held in her hand out to Keptek. In it was a ring and a small vial. “Take these,” she said.

Keptek took the silver ring and vial of powder. “What are they?”

“The vial is sleeping powder,” said the sorceress. “Put it in the ghoul’s food and they will fall into slumber, giving you enough time to take the girl away.”

“But how will I get so close and how will I get her away?”

“Let me finish,” snapped the sorceress. “On your finger, turn the ring three times to the left and you will be as unnoticed to the ghouls as a rat in garbage. Turn it three times to the right and you will become swift as a horse. But be warned, the magic will not last forever.” The sorceress collapsed onto a couch, waved Keptek away and said with an increasing weariness and quieting voice. “Now go, I must rest.”

In Chemanoptra, Keptek gathered what supplies he could with the little money he had and hurried back to the cleft where he had spotted Neela two days earlier. He arrived at the spot just after dusk and as he drew closer he heard the sounds of thumping and of several voices.

[batkalim]

--The Hakawati tells the story of the Lone Ghaf Tree-
(Part 2 of 2)


Creeping close to the edge of the rift Keptek poked just enough of his head over to look down into the gloom. He saw nothing at first. Only the sounds of thumping and raspy voices echoed about in the deep ravine. Then he saw a thing leaping up out of the darkness and onto the ledge in front of the ghoul cave. It looked like a man split in half from head to crotch and stood on its one, thick leg. Keptek shrunk back from the edge. He had never seen a nasnas and thought them only made up stories meant to scare children into being good. Keptek looked back over the edge and soon three other nasnas joined the first, hopping up from deep in the gorge on their muscled leg. Shortly after, as many ghouls came crawling up the jagged face of the cliff.

“Is it true,” the first nasnas asked one of the ghouls. His tongue flopped out the side of his half head and he stuffed it back in with his one hand. “Is the girl ripe?”

“Mother says she is finally ripe enough,” said the ghoul. The others grinned. “After the soft skinned bitch serves dinner we’ll throw dice to see who breaks her open then we’ll all have a turns between her legs.” Cruel laughter spread among the ghouls and the half men in anticipation. The ghoul waved his hand and the rocks blocking the cave entrance fell away.

Keptek waited until they were all inside before climbing down to the ledge. He steeled himself to enter the cave. ‘As unnoticed as a rat in garbage,’ he remembered the sorceress saying. He slipped on the ring and turned it three times to the left. The world blurred. Everything rushed away from him as if he were falling down a deep hole. When his eyes focused once more he found the world much larger for he had shrunk to the size of a rat.

He hurried into the cave, climbing over and around the refuse that littered the floor. As the sorceress had said, the ghouls and the nasnas took no more notice of him than they did any of the rats scurrying about in the cave. Neela sat locked in a small cage at the back of the cave. Keptek hurried that way while the ghouls and nasnas drank and the hag mother cooked something more foul smelling than the rotting garbage on the floor.

Neela’s eyes brightened when she saw the little Keptek crawl into her cage. “You looked much bigger outside,” she said with a smile that could light the heavens.

“I am much bigger,” said Keptek. “I have a magic ring to make me small and to make me fast as a horse.” He held up the vial of powder. “And this,” he said, “to put the monsters to sleep so I can take you away.”

“We are the only monsters,” Neela said. “See how ugly we are compared to the others?”

Keptek shook his head. “Oh no. You are no monster like these wretched creatures. You are human, like me. You are more beautiful than a sky full of stars and I am here to take you back.” Keptek hurriedly explained what Neela’s ghoul “brothers” and their nasnas friends planned to do to her after dinner. He told her that the magic in the ring might not last long and he could grow back to full size at any moment so they had to be quick. Right then the ghoul mother came tromping over to the cage. Neela quickly scooped up Keptek and hid him in her hair.

The Ghoul mother unlocked the cage and dragged Neela out by the ankle. “Get to serving dinner,” she barked and kicked Neela toward the cook fire. “And hurry up; you have a surprise coming after dinner.” The ghouls and the nasnas drinking at the old table laughed and leered at Neela. She saw in their eyes the truth of what Keptek had said.

Neela hurried to the cook fire and leaned over the old pot full of a stew that nearly made her heave her stomach up. As she did this, Keptek emptied the vial into the stew. Neela then set Keptek on the floor and he went off to hide in the trash, hoping the monsters would fall asleep before he grew back to his normal size. Neela served the foul stew, ladling the horrid smelling gloppy stuff into bowls made of skulls. After no more than a few spoonfulls, all of the ghouls and nasnas had slumped over in sleep.

“It worked,” exclaimed Neela who quickly went back to where Keptek was hiding.

Keptek felt the ring on his finger turn of its own accord. Again his vision blurred and he felt as if he were being pushed up from a deep well into the daylight. The world shrank and once more found himself his normal size. When his eyes focused there stood before him the most beautiful girl he had ever seen and she gazed at him not just with her dark eyes but with an enthralled heart. As beautiful a girl as he found her, she found him as handsome a boy. He stood before her full of vigor and strength that only comes from youth. But it was the kindness and adoration in his eyes that captured her heart and it swelled with instant and true love for him.

Neela started to say something when one of the nasnas groaned and lifted his half head from the table. Stew spilled from the open half of his mouth. Being only half a man, the sleeping powder had put the nasnas only half asleep.

Keptek took Neela by the hand, ran past the waking nasnas and out of the cave.

Though still drowsy, the nasnas spotted with his one eye the fleeing humans. He pounded the table with his fist to wake the other nasnas and the ghouls. “Get up, get up! Someone steals the girl!” Startled awake, the others looked about in confusion for a moment then realized the slave was gone and with her, their chance to slake their rapacious desires. Ghoul and nasnas clambered after the fleeing humans.

Keptek and Neela climbed up the side of the ravine and reached the top of the cleft no sooner than had the nasnas and ghouls burst from the cave opening.

Neela looked back into the ravine and clenched Keptek’s arm. Ghouls scrambled up the cliff wall like spiders and the nasnas hopped from ledge to ledge using their overmuscled leg. “We can never out run them!”

“Yes we can,” said Keptek. “If I am fast as a horse.” He turned the ring three times to the right. Keptek’s stomach cramped and he grimaced in pain, falling to his hands and knees. His innards began to spasm, guts feeling as if they twisted in on themselves. The smoke devil must have tricked the sorceress! Keptek felt his muscles tear from his bones and it seemed he was about to burst from his own body like a snake shedding its skin. In three blinks of an eye the pain passed and Keptek stood, transformed into a fine bay stallion, the ring having become a silver horseshoe. “Get on,” he told Neela who quickly climbed onto his back and off he dashed.

Keptek quickly outpaced the ghouls but the nasnas kept up by leaping great distances with their one leg. With booming voices rolling from their half throats they hurled all manner of curses and lewd promises of what they would do to the humans. Keptek’s heart pounded to near bursting but he kept running over the wracked earth strewn with rocks and boulders. Still, the nasnas hounded them.

The sweat and lather on his horse skin grew slippery and despite Neela wrapping her arms tight about the thick horse neck, she slipped off. Keptek planted his hooves to the ground and skidded over loose rocks. One of the rocks dislodged the silver horseshoe. It bounced away and over the edge of the cleft. Keptek tumbled across the ground, becoming human once more.

Neela rushed to him to help him up. “I am sorry,” he said to her, battered and bruised by the rocks. “The ring is gone! We cannot escape now.”

The nasnas drew closer, the ghouls with their unnatural stamina not much farther behind. “Yes we can,” said Neela. “There is a rope bridge close by that crosses the Great Cleft. It sways too much for the nasnas to hop across and they will not get on it. If we can get to it and get to the other side we can cut the rope before the ghouls catch us.”

Neela and Keptek ran for the rope bridge, barely making it onto the creaking old thing ahead of the nasnas. As Neela said, the nasnas feared the bridge. Being only half men they were ungainly and unbalanced on a swaying rope bridge requiring two arms and two legs to navigate safely. Neela and Keptek had crossed half way when the ghouls finally arrived.

The hag screamed at the nasnas. “What are you doing you half-witted fools! They are getting away!”

“We’ll fall to our deaths if we cross that bridge you old hag,” snarled one of the nasnas.

The hag and her ghoul sons rushed onto the bridge after Neela and Keptek. “Then throw something at them,” ordered the old hag.

Nasnas, though half a man, are ten times stronger and so they started hurling rocks the size of a man’s head and some as big as a torso at the fleeing humans. The rocks fell like shooting stars about the swaying bridge, some so close that Keptek felt the wind as it passed. None hit Neela or Keptek but some managed to hit the bridge, bursting through old wood planks and sending the rope span swaying even more.

With Neela’s hand in his, Keptek was just a few steps from the other side when a large rock smashed into the bridge behind them. Wood splintered and rope snapped under the unbearable weight. The bridge fell away like strands of hair cut with a knife. The ghouls only half way across the bridge tumbled into the darkness. Keptek grasped with one hand at the remnants of the bridge to keep from falling in. His other hand held onto Neela’s but her small hand slipped from his grip and he watched her fall from sight into the eternal depths.

Eyes stinging with tears, Keptek clawed his way to the top of the ravine. Rocks hurled by the nasnas still fell about him but he gave them no heed. He just stared into the cleft and continued staring after the nasnas finally grew weary and left.

Keptek grew into a fine man but never married though there were many suitable women. All his days he mourned the loss of his one true love. Each year he returned to the cleft and stared into it, weeping. As Keptek grew older each time he visited he would spend more time weeping and staring into the bottomless crevice. One year he did not return from his sad pilgrimage. By this time Keptek was a very old man and the people of his village feared the worst. Men from his village went searching for Keptek and when they reached the Great Cleft they found Keptek had stood there so long that roots had grown from his feet and branches from his body.

And today he still stands, his branches reaching down into the forever darkness of the Great Cleft for a love that will never return.

[batkalim]

--The Hakawati tells the story of the Marble Prince--
(Part 1 of 3)

In the last days of the Garden of Shem, before the desert swallowed the last city and the sun wilted the last flower there was a city whose name is remembered only by time and the immortal Magi of Set. It was near the Pyrrhenian Mountains at the place now called the blue island because of the blue marble mined from a mountain rising above the desert. Once, though, this mountain was a true island in a valley lake which has since been filled by the ever deepening sands.

On the shores of that sparkling lake was the last of the garden cities, built with blue marble from the island at the lake’s center. Walking the streets, each building seemed finer than the last but the grandest of all was the palace. The high towers capped with silver spiraling domes reflected sunlight in dazzling rays across the city. Flying buttresses carved in the likeness of chained giants pushed against the palace, bracing the palace walls. Gardens surrounded the palace and it was among the shaded paths with quiet fountains that citizens would stroll, children would play and lovers meet.

A hundred years had passed since the Magi visited their wrath upon the Garden of Shem, blasting it to desert. Beyond the valley walls the sand stretched from fabled Turan in the east to the black pyramids of Stygia. Yet the marble city remained and to it came pilgrims and refugees and all other manner of people seeking respite from the ever growing wastelands.

The last prince of this last city lived a bachelor’s life within the blue palace. He was not deformed in body or mind nor did he have any malady or dark character to make him unattractive to women. The Prince enjoyed the company of women but was so exacting in his standards that he always found fault with any woman presented as a possible wife. Either they were too tall or too short or had the wrong color hair or otherwise failed to meet his standards of perfection. As time went on, the Prince’s viziers worried him daily that he should marry and produce an heir. The prince cast aside their concerns, telling the viziers that they fretted like old women and that there was plenty of time for him to find a suitable and perfect wife.

This went on for several years until one night the Prince dreamed he was walking the hidden paths in the gardens. As he walked, he grew older and the older he became, the more the garden withered and died. When he had become so old he could no longer walk, he sat on the edge of a broken fountain filled with dead leaves and wept for the dying garden. It was then that he saw a small boy and wherever the boy went, the garden came alive with color and the songs of birds.

When the prince woke he summoned his viziers. “I have ignored your words for too long,” he said to the learned men. “I have seen an omen in my dreams. Without an heir to carry on, the last of the great garden and this city will fall to ruin. Let it be known that I seek a wife.”

Soon, the Viziers began introducing fine, noble women from the best houses but the Prince found none of them to his liking. Next, daughters of Emirs and rich merchants were introduced to the Prince. Like the noble women before, they were suitable for marriage but none of them managed to capture the Prince’s heart or meet his idea of perfection. That was until one day while holding court, the Prince saw among the crowds of people waiting to be heard, a young woman of exquisite beauty with the dark skin and black hair common to those from the deep desert.

“Who is that,” the Prince asked his advisors.

“One of my apprentices,” said the astrologer. “She has only recently arrived and is, I think, from one of the nomad tribes. I was going to turn her away but she proved so quick of mind that I took her on as an apprentice.”

“I must meet her,” the Prince told his astrologer. “Arrange it.”

When the Prince met the apprentice he became enraptured by the girl’s beauty and mind. Though a nomad, she understood the machine-works of stars, how they moved through the heavens and how they hinted at the future. She knew poetry and song and had the gentlest of touches which never failed to calm any worries troubling the Prince. And so they were soon married and the apprentice became a princess of the marble city. Within a year she bore a healthy young boy and for a month afterward the marble city celebrated the birth of an heir. The Prince no longer dreamed of the dying garden and without question gave to his wife anything she desired.

Some, though, were not so happy. A few of the viziers began to suspect something odd about their princess. She seemed brighter and wiser than most, often predicting things the viziers could not. The Prince began relying only on her counsel and ignoring that of his most trusted advisors, some of which had served his father and his grandfather. The Prince never questioned her decisions or actions and was so enthralled by her that some of the disgruntled viziers began to spread rumors that she was a djiin or sorceress come to enslave the Prince to her will.

The vizier holding the most distrust for the Princess was the court alchemist, a crooked fingered old man so stooped with age that it seemed he bore the weight of the sky on his back. Each year a feast was held in the palace to celebrate the Prince’s wedding anniversary and the alchemist decided this would be the perfect chance to free the Prince from the Princess. In his tower laboratory he created a metal that looked and acted like gold but which changed wine into poison. This metal he gave to a goldsmith to fashion into a chalice. The chalice he gave to a jeweler who adorned it with rubies and emeralds, the favorite jewels of the Princess. At the feast he presented the chalice to the Princess as a gift.

When the alchemist gave the chalice to the Princess, her slender fingers roamed covetously over the jewels. “How lovely,” she said. “I –must- drink from it.” The Princess held up the chalice for her favorite slave to fill with wine then offered it up to the Prince. “But you first, husband.”

“No!” shouted the alchemist. Musicians stopped playing. All conversation stopped and eyes turned to the alchemist.

“Why not,” asked the Princess. Her eyes, like a hungry serpent’s, stared needle sharp at the alchemist. That gaze held accusation and suspicion in unsettling contrast to her soft voice and smiling face. “We have all been drinking from the same wine, it is not poisoned. Here, taste for yourself.” The Princess handed the chalice to her slave who carried it to the alchemist. The alchemist stared at the cup but did not reach for it.

“Drink!” ordered the Princess.

Her voice carried an unworldly authority and the old alchemist felt compelled to take up the cup. His will subjugated by that of the Princess, he lifted the chalice and drank deeply. He died with bloody froth spilling from his mouth and the word “Sorceress” on his lips.

Soon after, it became quite hazardous to one’s health to be an advisor to the Prince. The astrologer fell from a high tower after disagreeing with the Princess over one of her star prophesies. After interrupting the Princess, the court physician choked on his own swollen tongue. One by one all of the Prince’s advisors met their end until only the Princess remained to counsel the Prince. If anyone challenged the Princess, she would hand them the golden wine chalice. None could resist the force of her will when she ordered them to drink. Even the Prince was convinced his wife was a sorceress but so enthralled by her was he that he continued to grant her every desire and allowed her to do as she wished. Eventually the Prince ruled in name only. Everyone knew the Princess held true power in the marble city, though no one would ever say such a thing for fear being made to drink from the chalice.

As the Prince’s son grew, he loved playing in the gardens. Because of the dream, the Prince encouraged this, hoping that it would help perpetuate the garden and hold back the encroaching sands that threatened to spill into the valley. One day when the boy was six he and the Prince were in the gardens playing at sword fighting with wooden swords. They would hide and sneak about, looking to ambush one another, mock sword fight for a few moments when an ambush was sprung, then start the game all over again.

While walking along one of the flowered paths looking for his son, the Prince came into a small glade with a fountain. There, he found his son pushed under the water by the Princess’ favorite slave. Enraged, the Prince struck a blow to the slave’s head that shattered the wooden sword and cracked the slave’s skull. The Prince lifted his son form the water and ran, calling for help. But there was no court physician and no one in the gardens. So fearful of the princess were the people of the marble city that they now avoided the gardens around the palace.

The Prince ran with his son’s limp body into the palace, pleading for help, but none of the palace guards or slaves knew what to do. He burst into his wife’s room and held up the still dripping body in his arms. “Do something!”

The Princess turned to her husband and fire raged in her dark eyes. “How dare you drip water on my silk rugs!”

The Prince stepped closer, offering up the little body so his wife might see it was their boy but the Princess backed away, face twisting in disgust as if the Prince offered up some dead dog. “This is our son,” wailed the Prince. “Your slave drowned him. Use your power. Save him!”

“Fool,” shouted the Princess, disdain and loathing in her voice. “Who do you think told the slave to drown this pathetic creature! It is no more fit to rule than you with your mewling love poems and sugar words. I am the power in this marble city. It, you, these frightened little roaches of subjects that scurry about, everything in this valley survives because I suffer it to. And I am finished suffering you.”

The Prince stood, struck dumb and motionless by confusion and despair at this betrayal. The Princess spoke words the Prince could not understand and shadows pooled about her. Pulling shadows from the air she twisted them into a whip and lashed the prince across the jaw. The skin ripped and where there should have been a gash, blue marble welled from the wound and hardened into a stone scab.

The Prince howled in pain and dropped his son’s body. His wife, like some vengeful demon chased him from the palace and through the city, slashing at him with the whip and hash-marking his body with marble scars. The prince fled the city, half man and half stone, with the Princess’ mocking laughter harrying him into the wilderness.

The Princess commanded the slave be brought to her so she could reward him for his service. When palace guards brought the slave’s body, the Princess howled with rage seeing the cracked open skull. With all her powers she could not mend the wound or restore the warmth of life to the slave’s body. The best she could do was summon his spirit and bind it to the body, trapping it between life and death. At the boy’s death there ceased to be an heir. Within days the garden began to wither and the sand began spilling into the valley. So she had the boy’s body brought to her that she might bind his soul to it and trap him between life and death just as she had done to the slave.

She ordered a mausoleum built in the garden to house the slave and the boy. On it she placed mystical wards and trapped guardian demons so that none but she could enter or disturb the bodies. By leaving her son trapped between life and death she stopped the Magi’s curse from swallowing the valley in sand. As for the her favorite slave, she visited the body every day, doting over it and promising one day to discover the secret of restoring him to life.

Years passed with the ageless Princess reigning in the marble city. Pilgrims and refugees from the desert stopped coming to the valley. Few that entered ever returned and those that did told tales of a mad sorceress ruling a city of people who were half human and half stone. They told of marble giants which walked the valley rim and with hands like shovels heaved the encroaching sand back into the desert. The Magi heard these rumors on the whispering desert wind and took notice. Being eternal, the Magi have the patience of eternity and a hundred years to them is no more significant than the passing of a day. But these rumors reminded them of the valley and that it was the last surviving remnant from the Garden of Shem. So it was that they once more set in motion their plans to bury the valley in sand.

[batkalim]

--The Hakawati tells the story of the Marble Prince—
(Part 2 of 3)

In the twenty-fifth year of the sorceress’ reign, a nomad rode into the valley. He came, as most any nomad, on a camel lightly packed with only the barest of necessities needed to survive the trackless sand. Near noon he stopped in a grove of orange trees to rest in their shade and eat a small lunch of nuts and berries. Far down the valley slope the lake glimmered with the fire of a million sun sparkles. Above the lake rose the Blue Island and on the lake shore the nomad saw the walls and silver spire roofs of the marble city.

“You should leave while you can,” said a voice.

The nomad looked around, seeing no one. “Unless my camel has suddenly learned how to talk, it is rude to speak from the shadows. Unless off course, you are a shadow in which case it is rude to interrupt the living.”

“I am no shadow,” said the Prince climbing from the orange tree beneath which the nomad sat. “Though I am a shadow of what I once was.”

The nomad motioned for the Prince to sit and following nomad hospitality, offered the prince some of the simple nuts and berries from his lunch. The Prince sat across from the nomad and took a few red berries to be polite but did not immediately eat them. “You are not frightened by my appearance?” asked the Prince.

The nomad shrugged. “There are tales of men in this valley who are half flesh and half stone. Why should I then be frightened upon meeting one?”

This caused the Prince to laugh and he relaxed, becoming at ease in the nomad’s company. “I suppose you are right.”

The nomad set the small bundle of fruits and nuts between them, a silent indicator that Prince could have more if he desired. “I am curious, though, as to how you came to be this way. I hope you will forgive me for saying that it does not appear natural. Neither are the marble giants I saw.”

The Prince placed one of the berries in his mouth and swallowed it, difficult as it was with his throat and neck being mostly marble. He told the nomad of how he was blinded by love and how the sorceress took advantage of that. He explained that even with his son preserved between life and death the desert still pushed into the valley and the Sorceress animated the marble giants to keep the desert at bay. He spoke about the demon guarded mausoleum where his son and the slave rested, preserved as living souls trapped in dead bodies, and how the sorceress still punishes him for what he did to the slave. “Every night of the full moon she appears to me,” said the Prince. “She beats me with a mystic shadow whip as punishment for what I did to the slave. Wherever the whip strikes, my flesh turns to marble. When I am completely stone, she rips off my skin and starts the process all over. For twenty five years have I lived this way. And for twenty five years shadow demons have done the same to those in the city which have displeased the sorceress.”

“Do you wish to again be Prince of the city, to have its people delivered of this sorceress and to have your son restored to you as he should be?”

“More than anything,” said the Prince. “But that is a dream I dare not entertain.”

The Nomad lifted his dark eyes to the sunlight falling through tree leaves and scratched the stubble on his chin. After a moment he nodded as if agreeing with a voice only he could hear and returned his gaze to Prince. “I have some knowledge of magic so I shall help you with your dream.”

At first stunned, the Prince started laughing. “You joke, friend! If you are a sorcerer you are the most ragged one I have ever seen stumble out of the desert.” The nomad’s face became harsh and the Prince stopped laughing, seeing that he had inadvertently insulted the nomad. “I am sorry. I did not mean to question your words.”

The nomad snorted. “One does not need silk robes and satin slippers to be an adept. The Magi do not care about such things.”

The Prince’s voice fell to a reverent whisper and he asked, “You… are the Motwihamreed?”

The nomad shook his head and said humbly, “No, Prince, I am not their chosen servant. I am just a walker in their ways. But if you wish to realize your dream, you must do as I ask.” Eager for help, the Prince agreed without question. “Good. I will go into the city. There is a full moon tonight and when the sorceress comes to you, you must incite her to beat you more savagely than ever. You must keep her occupied until sunrise. Once the sun is on the eastern horizon, tell her that a servant of the Magi has gone to the mausoleum and waits to kill her.”

The Prince ate another berry, watching the nomad climb onto the camel’s back. “And what will you do?”

The nomad looked down to the marble Prince and the Prince saw in the nomad’s eyes the same dark gleam as that in the Sorceress’ eyes. “I will do what I must,” said the nomad and turned his camel toward the city with a tug of the tasseled reins.

The nomad reached the city just as the sun was setting and found the tales of half stone people to be true. Most of the citizens visibly bore the same cruel marble scars as the Prince. It mattered not whether they were young, old man or woman, all carried scars from the Sorceress’ shadow demons imposing their sadistic cruelty at will. A stranger had not entered the city for many years so the nomad drew stares from the people who quickly turned away when he looked to them. When he tried to speak with the people they hurried away from him, rushing into open doors and side alleys. Being a nomad, he felt this to be quite rude even if the marble people were frightened of talking to him. If one does not wish to speak, at least say why or make up a polite excuse.

The only one who did speak was a little girl that had followed him at a distance from the city gates all the way to the garden entrance. “Do not go in there,” she told the nomad as he dismounted the camel.

The nomad looked to his camel. “And why not, friend camel? Seems a perfectly delightful garden.”

The child giggled. “Funny looking horses can’t talk. Camel is a funny name for a horse.”

The nomad looked to the girl whose childish curiosity stood greater than the fears and trepidations infecting the adults in the city. Two long marble scars slashed their way diagonally across the young girls face. One scar cut across her left eye, having turned the once wide, beautiful eye into a cold blue marble. The nomad smiled and patted the camel on the neck. “And what would you know about funny names for funny horses. You can’t be more than five or six. Hardly a horse expert.”

“I am seven,” corrected the girl in that precise and direct manner of children who perceive adults always misjudging their age.

The nomad rested a hand on his chest and offered the girl a small bow. “Do forgive me, young miss. But why should I not enter such a lovely garden?”

The girl shook her head and her voice lowered. “The Princess won’t like it. She does not like anything.” The girl looked suddenly to the garden, fear in her eye. She winced remembering the pain of a demon’s whip across her face for innocently daring to compare her sister to the Princess. Her voice raised and she spoke quickly and loudly to the garden, “I mean the Princess is more pretty than my sister.”

“I am certain she is,” assured the nomad in a voice which calmed the girl. He crouched to the small girl’s height and beckoned her over. “Come here, child, I have a favor to ask of you.”

The girl walked closer to the nomad, her dirty little feet and shins shuffling beneath a ragged hemmed dress of course linen. “What is it?”

“Well, you see, I have to go into the garden and my funny horse hates to be alone. Could you stay and keep him company?”

The little girl shook her head. “I have to be home before the first star comes out. That is when the shadows come alive.”

The nomad placed the braided reins in the girl’s small hands. “Then I will make a bargain with you. If I do not return by the time the first star lights the sky, then you may keep my funny horse for your own. Just tell him, ‘Friend Camel, friend Camel it’s time we must travel. We’re now all alone and it’s time to go home.’ and he will follow wherever you lead.”

“Really?”

“These are my words and by Set I swear to them,” said the nomad resting a hand on the girl’s head. He then stood, whispered something to the camel and walked into the gardens.

The nomad came to the mausoleum just as the first star was winking to life in the sky. It was larger than most of the common houses in the marble city and consumed the entirety of a small clearing. Old trees with trunks thick as cattle ringed the clearing, their ancient boughs spreading over the mausoleum roof. Thick vines grew up the sides of the mausoleum like black veins, twisted and deformed by the magic which warded the mausoleum and kept bound the guardian demons. The nomad waited for the moon to rise and approached the mausoleum.

The sigil of the Magi lay carved into the vault doors and glimmered like lambent cat eyes under the moonlight. The magi drew a knife and dragged it savagely across his palm. Blood, black and thick as pitch, oozed from his hand. He muttered words last heard in ancient Acheron and pressed his hand against the sigil. Blood crept through the carved channels and once it blacked out the sigil’s glow, the vault doors groaned open.

The nomad cut a strip of cloth from his robes and bound his hand before crossing the threshold into the mausoleum. He walked the dark halls and columned rooms looking for the bodies of the slave and little prince. The echoes of his footfalls failed to return, swallowed by the darkness. All around him the eyes of unknown things stared from the dark and from places beyond the realm of mortal men.

He found the inert bodies at the center of the mausoleum in a circular room. Long silk curtains hung limp from spiraling columns ringing the room and wavering light fell from perpetual flame candles on an iron chandelier near the ceiling. The slave rested on a large, ornate marble slab with bas reliefs of entwined lovers decorating the sides and the little boy on a simple slate pedestal. When the nomad passed through the curtains and crossed the boundary of light cast by the candles, a wind spiraled through the room. Candle flames grew, twisting and dancing together in the vortex. A heat like the desert sun radiated from the growing flame, forcing the Nomad back, his arm rising to shield his face.

As violently as the firestorm began, it ended with column of flames falling on the floor to leave standing in the crypt a black scaled efreet twice as tall as any man. The edges of his scales glowed red as if hot coals burned within him. Ruby fire eyes looked to the nomad and as the efreet spoke, black smoke billowed from his fanged mouth. “Ah, meat at last!” Grinning, the demon raised his fist to crush the intruder

The nomad offered a deep, respectful bow to the efreet, not raising his eyes to the demon. “Most noble and esteemed efreet,” he said quickly. “I beg of you, in your great wisdom and terrible power to hear my humble words before I am made a meal.”

The efreet looked with suspicion upon the nomad but stayed his hand. Even the hungriest of Efreet, being vain and selfish creatures, may be stalled by flattery. “Speak,” commanded the burning demon. “And if I find your words agreeable, I promise to make your death quick.”

The Nomad stood upright and looked the demon in the eye. “If it pleases the great lord, this humble servant has come to break the chains than bind him to this place and, if it pleases his imminence, to unchain others of his kind that may be trapped here.”

The efreet motioned to the candles. “Once, we were as numerous as these candles but the others were weak and I alone remain.”

The nomad looked up to the chandelier. Seven rings of seven candles each made up the large iron chandelier. “Then the great lord has slain the weak and taken their power as is the way of the burning sand. No doubt in order to face your captor and free yourself.”

A low, angry rumble welled up from deep within the demon and his voice carried a hatred which only demons of the infernal realms might harbor against another being. “The death of the sorceress is the only thing that will free me. She keeps my name in an amulet under her robes. I have challenged her many times, tried to take back my name, but always am I subdued and humbled before her power. And you, little man, look no more than a wandering nomad. What could a pitiful mortal like you do that I cannot?”

The nomad pulled the bandage from his hand and held up the ichor encrusted palm for the efreet to see. “I am just a man but I serve the will of the Magi as did the Sorceress once.”

The efreet studied the nomad and grunted. A gout of fire puffed from his slit nostrils. “So that is how you opened the sigil, with the blood of the Magi. But you are not the Motwihamreed. I know, for it is the Motwihamreed that has bound me to this place and to her service.”

The nomad stepped closer, no longer bothering to humble himself before the demon. “She has disregarded the will of the Magi, used her power to isolate herself from them and make herself ruler of this valley. The Magi have sent me to rid themselves of their apostate Motwihamreed.”

The efreet said nothing at first. Black smoke wreathing the demon’s face obscured any expression the nomad might have used to gauge the efreet’s thoughts. The nomad held his cut hand at his side, working the wound open once more in case he needed to call on the power of the Magi to stop the demon. The demon took a breath and let it out slow. Heat like that of a stoked kiln washed over the nomad and the efreet asked, “What must I do to help, little man?”

The nomad looked to the slave’s inert body then to the demon. “Friend, all you must do is eat.”

[batkalim]

--The Hakawati tells the story of the Marble Prince—
(Part 3 of 3)

The large iron chandelier with its perpetual candles dangled by a thick chain and with the help of the efreet’s great strength, the nomad lowered the heavy iron ring enough that he could reach the hooks decorating the chandelier’s black metal crossbeams. He removed the fine clothes in which the sorceress had dressed the slave and from the chandelier hooks hung the slave by the ankles as if he was a gazelle strung up for butchering.

After removing his own clothes, the nomad calmly and with careful slices, started skinning the slave. He worked for hours until just before dawn when he had finally peeled away the flesh in one large flayed hide. This he shook out like a long blanket and laid it bloody side up on the floor. Speaking words only the Magi and their servant know, the nomad opened his palm once more and used the black blood to smear arcane symbols on the inside of the man hide. Satisfied with his work, the nomad took up the skin and began wrapping it around him, pulling the scalp and face up over his own as if it were the hood of a cloak. The slave suit clung to the nomad like wet satin. Cuts sealed themselves, encasing the nomad in the slave’s skin until the nomad became the perfect likeness of the slave.

The nomad threw his clothes to the bloody pool beneath the skinned slave and started dressing in the slave’s clothes. “There is not much time before sunrise,” he told the efreet. “Eat your fill of the slave then go but leave enough of the body that it is recognized as the remains of a man.”

The efreet gorged himself on the slave. Each famished bite tore great hunks of flesh from the body. Each belch from the fire demon stifled the air with the stench of burnt meat. When the demon finished, only a leg and part of the torso dangled from the chandelier. As the first rays of morning rose over the horizon, the efreet disappeared in a column of fire which quickly dissipated and rejoined the small flickering candle flames from which he had formed. “Keep your bargain,” warned the discorporate demon.

The nomad hid behind one of the many curtains and waited. Soon after the sun rose above the city walls, the mausoleum grew frigid and the nomad’s breath passed his lips in small white clouds. Shadows thrown by the candles oozed like living slime to gather between two of the columns ringing the room Out of that gathered gloom stepped the Sorceress whipping a wretched, marble skinned man before her. The marble prince fell prostrate, exhausted, limbs burdened by the weight of his marble skin.

The Sorceress lifted her shadow whip and snarled, “If you lie about the nomad…” But the blow did not fall. Her eyes moved quickly from the mangled corpse and the bloody clothes to the empty marble dais where her slave lover once lay. She rushed to the marble slab, a hand sliding over the cold stone in disbelief. “No! What has happened!”

“A man came,” said the nomad stepping hesitantly from behind the curtain.

The Sorceress looked to the nomad but saw her lover made living flesh. Her anger forgotten, she stared at the nomad in wonder and disbelief. “How is this possible?”

“I don’t know,” lied the nomad. “The man called to my spirit and breathed life into me. He said I would live only if I helped him kill you. That is when the demon came.” The nomad nodded to the chandelier. “And that is what the demon did to him.”

The Prince, seeing the mangled corpse and the nomad’s bloody clothes pounded his stone fists against the floor in despair. “He failed!”

The Sorceress laughed as only one can after a cruel victory. Raising her face to the domed ceiling she shouted triumphantly, “You have no power here, Magi! You walking corpses! You relics of a forgotten age! Here, I am the eternal darkness that commands life and death, not you!” The Sorceress laughed again and looked to the nomad, an unhindered desire growing in her dark eyes. “Come to me, lover. Let me feel your warmth against me once more. Here, on this marble dais before the man who once thought himself my husband.”

The lure of her voice and unnatural force of her will drew the nomad toward the Sorceress. He found himself wanting to obey, to do as she wished without question. His own will faltered, returning only once he was a few steps from the dais. He stopped and took a step back.

“What is wrong,” demanded the Sorceress. “Why do you hesitate?”

Thinking quickly, the nomad told the Sorceress, “As the man died, he threatened that a demon would take the form of my mistress. If you are really my love, you can easily prove it with three feats only she could perform.”

“Name them,” said the Sorceress, “and you will see that I am no more demon than you.”

The nomad cut his eyes quickly to the Prince. “If you are she, then there is no more reason to punish the prince for what he did to me. It is within your power to restore him.”

The Sorceress turned her face to the Prince who still moaned over the misfortune of believing the nomad to be dead. “A pitiful excuse for a man but so be it,” she said and spat at the Prince. The spit landed on the back of the Prince’s head. The darkened wet spot grew across the marble and as it did, the blue stone melted away, leaving flushed skin behind.

The nomad knew the difficulty of undoing another’s sorcery, especially the complex conjurations and rituals required to animate the marble giants. He knew as well that commanding them from afar was a feat which would weaken the Sorceress so he told her, “If you are my love, you can summon the shovel giants and order them into the lake.”

The Sorceress readily agreed, as blinded by love for the slave as the Prince had once been blinded by love for her. “If this brings you into my arms, then I will make it so.” The Sorceress closed her eyes and raised her hands. She spoke in the tongue of the Magi and her hands writhed like a puppeteer with strings dangling from the fingers. In this manner she remained until mid morning when the head of the last marble giant disappeared beneath the lake. Drained, she lay back on the marble slab and breathed heavily.

“One last test,” said the nomad “Demons do not have hearts.” He stood over her and loosened the laces at the front of her robe.

Weakened, she offered no resistance, nor would have since it was the hand of her lover opening her robes. She shivered with anticipation and welcomed his broad hand pressing between her breasts, his warm palm covering the demon amulet and her heart. After years of doting over his cold body without feeling his touch, the Sorceress became lost in it. Her eyes closed and she held her breath, wanting so much more and when she opened her lips to tell him so, his mouth crushed to hers. Ecstasy in the eager surging of lips and wrestling tongues lasted but a moment, shattered when he bit into her tongue. With a jerk off his head he tore the tongue from her mouth and spit out the bloody lump, robbing her of any magic words. Her eyes snapped open. Her lover’s face hovered over her, eyes black as pitch and skin falling onto her in rotting chunks. Blood welled in her mouth, turning her scream into a wet, choking gurgle.

The nomad clamped his hands around her throat, squeezing. “We are done with you,” said the nomad in a hollow, reedy voice as if his throat was suddenly unaccustomed to speaking. The voice of the Magi. She remembered that terrible sound and the vengeance that often followed. The Sorceress shook her head. Her mind reeled. Blood of the Magi flowed through the nomad and where their blood flowed so might they manifest, if only for a moment, to visit their eternal retribution on the living.

The Sorceress wailed, her nub of a tongue forming thick, unintelligible words begging for mercy. She clawed at the nomads arms trying to free herself but only tore away her lover’s skin. Black blood leaked from the scratches and surged like tiny black rivers down the nomad’s arm. The black streams twisted their way along her neck and face to force their way into her mouth and ears. They found her heart, her lungs, squeezing them in black coils until her body shuddered and life escaped her. But not her soul. That, those living black streams captured and pulled out of her as they withdrew from her corpse.

The dark ichor retreated within the nomad, no longer staining his eyes or dripping from his closing wounds. The nomad jerked free the demon amulet from around the Sorceress’ neck and tossed it on the floor near the chandelier. “My promise is kept.”

The efreet manifested in a fountain of flame and smoke from the candles. It lifted the name amulet in a clawed hand and gazed into it. The demon’s true name hovered in the gemstone and upon seeing his name, the efreet clutched the amulet in his hand. “We efreet have long memories,” it said to the nomad. “I shall not forget this. Nor will I forget that you did not gaze at my name. Just as I have slain the weak and taken their power so too have you, most honored Motwihamreed.” The efreet offered a humble bow before blue flame engulfed it and the demon disappeared, leaving the candles dark.

“What about my son,” asked the Prince. “You promised to restore my son to me.”

The nomad looked at his left hand, flexing the fingers until they split through the slave skin. Shreds of the slave suit dangled in loose ribbons from the nomad, a man in the ragged skin of another. “Yes, I did,” said the nomad, though not to the Prince but to some whisper that only brushed the nomad’s ear.

The nomad walked around the ornate marble slab to the small slate one on which the Prince’s son lay. He tugged on the index and middle fingers of his left hand, pulling them into log, black claws. Jabbing the claws under the chin of the boy, he lifted the body. The nomad blew into the boy’s face, expelling the trapped spirit. With the soul removed, twenty five years of suspended decay consumed the body. The child’s bones clattered to the floor, leaving a small skull in the palm of the nomad’s hands, two long claws poking from the empty sockets.

“What are you doing!” The Prince lunged, hands reaching for the nomad’s neck.

The nomad spun, held the skull up to the Prince and hissed some profane word of dark magic. The Prince’s bones cracked like dry wood and jagged bone splinters stabbed through the skin. The Prince fell before the nomad in an agonized heap. The nomad dropped the boy’s skull beside the Prince. “I promised to return your son as he should be and there he is.”

In the distance rose a hiss like that of a million whispers. The nomad pulled the remains of the slave scalp back over his head and let it bunch at the back of his neck. He closed his eyes and listened to the whispers. He heard every grain of sand pouring over the valley rim, felt in his very being the sand avalanching down the valley like sheets sliding down the side of a collapsing dune. “Motwihamreed,” the sand whispered. He knew then he had broken the barriers so at last the Magi’s wrath might ride a great wave of sand sent to bury the last of Shem’s Garden.

[batkalim]

--The Hakawati tells the story of King Haradda and the Stone Sleep—
(Part 1 of 3)

Many generations ago there was once a king named Haradda who ruled the City of Tel Qatir. It is the same Tel Qatir we know today as a waypoint for caravans travelling to and returning from the east. Though, in the days of King Haradda the city was much larger. Like many kings, Haradda was fond of grand monuments and displays of his regal might. A few of his statues and obelisks may still be seen in the desert around Tel Qatir which mark the city’s ancient boundaries.

One day while checking his reflection in a silver mirror, the king noticed a single grey hair in his beard. It stood out so boldly against the rest of his black beard that the king wondered why no one had told him it was there. He immediately summoned his advisors and asked them why he had not been informed about the grey in his beard.

The advisors, both the men of learning and the men of soldierly valor were at first confused why the king would ask such a thing. The advisors murmured among themselves for a few moments before the Chief Vizier, Heptek, spoke. “It is only natural, sir. The grey comes with age.” Heptek stroked his own beard. “Why, mine is almost half grey and many of us have seen only grey for more years than we can remember.”

“Yes,” said the king. “The more grey in our beards the closer to death we grow. This hair in my beard has reminded me that no man lives forever except in the minds of the living. I have given no thought to it all these years but now it is time to start building my tomb and funerary temple so that my memory will endure.”

“Very well, then,” said Heptek, “I shall summon the architects.”

“Tell them it must be the grandest of all tombs,” commanded the king. “And not built of common stone from our quarry. Mine must be built of a stone fit to house my memory. When people see my tomb they must not think it is just another corpse house but must know it is the tomb of King Haradda and look upon it with awe.”

The architects drafted plans to rival the devotional temples in the Pyramid Fields of Saqqra. Though it was to be the most exquisite and expansive tomb complex the world had seen, King Haradda would not let one brick be set or statue raised until the most unique stone could be found to build his tomb.

So it was that the king sent scouts from Tel Qatir to look for a stone that had yet been seen by men. For many months no word came. King Haradda grew more worried with each grey hair that appeared. Though assured by Heptek and his other advisors he had many years to live, the king began to fear death would snatch him away before his tomb was even begun. A year had passed before one of the scouts returned with news he had found a quarry.

Though a year had passed, the scout’s face marked the passage of twenty or more. Where once he bore the face of youth, his features now sagged, his face gaunt and fatigued with age. At first none recognized him and he was turned away from the palace as nothing more than an addle minded fool until, that is, he produced an old leather badge given to the King’s scouts.

When brought to the King, the scout spoke in softly as if even the breath in his lungs had become old and weak. “Great King, I have found a place where the stone is like no other in the entire world. It is a place that looks as if the gods have carved out a vast circle in the earth and pulled it out as one might pull a cork from a bottle or a plug from a barrel. The quarry is deeper than the Black Pyramid is tall and is hemmed with sheer, unclimbable cliffs. The only way to the floor is by a long gorge on the north face that descends into the pit.”

“And what is so special about this quarry,” asked the King.

The scout hesitated. Concern and fear mixed on his face. “Great King, the rocks… they whisper and sing.”

“Impossible,” scoffed several of the advisors. “The man had obviously gone mad. Senile!” Only Heptek said nothing. He just tugged on his greying beard, considering the magic that may have aged a young man so rapidly might very well have caused stone to sing.

The king held up a hand to silence his advisors and asked the scout, “Are you saying that the rocks are alive?”

“Oh no, Great King. Only a mad man or a fool would believe that,” said the scout. A few of the advisors grumbled, shaking their heads. “But there are times when the silver light of the full moon fills the quarry that one might hear whispers coming from the very ground and walls of the pit. Most are of a tongue I do not understand. Some sound lost and some as if they sing a funeral dirge. Others sing in ways I can only describe as the lay songs of lost heroes.”

“And where is this pit,” Heptek asked the scout.

“Far to the south, Grand Vizier, beyond the reach of the desert. Where the Ilbar mountains begin.”

Heptek leaned close to the king to whisper to him. “My King, that is the Land of Demons and a place no man should walk. You see what it has done to this man.”

But King Haradda would not be convinced. He determined that his tomb should be made of the whispering stone and ordered an expedition to establish a camp at the quarry and begin mining stone. The King led the expedition with the scout acting as guide and Heptek as scholar. Twenty five soldiers and one hundred slaves left Tel Qatir for the long march south to the Ilbar Mountains.

The desert gave way to the low, scrub covered Ilbar foothills and then the rugged Ilbar Mountains. As the land grew taller and jagged, spirits fell. The soldiers no longer sang their marching songs. The slaves no longer chanted with the rhythm of pushing and hauling wagons across the rough ground. Everywhere the shadows seemed deeper; the sun less warm and even King Haradda reluctantly admitted that he felt as if the shadows were watching them. Eventually the wagons could no longer navigate the broken mountain trails and had to be left behind along with men to watch over them.

The day they left the wagons behind, Heptek rode his horse beside the king. “If wagons cannot get to the quarry then the stone cannot be carted out,” he said.

The king waved a dismissive hand. “Then we will have the slaves carry it out. Or you will have them build a road from here to the quarry. If it takes a hundred, a thousand, or ten thousand more slaves, I will have this stone for my tomb.”

The expedition continued another four days deeper into the mountains. Each day the scout grew weaker and visibly older. Whispers passed among the soldiers and slaves the scout had been cursed. Those told to bring him meals did so reluctantly, often laying the meal outside his tent and calling to him before hurrying away. No one would put their tent near the scout's and the aging scout found his tent beyond the light of campfires and watchful sentry eyes.

The evening of the fourth day two slaves were bringing the scout his evening meal. So fearful were they that neither would visit the tent alone. At the edge of the camp’s firelight where the mountain night shadows grew unnaturally dark, the shorter of the two slaves stopped. The other continued a few steps before stopping and looking back. “What is it,” the tall slave whispered.

The shorter slave nodded in the direction of the scout’s tent. “He is cursed,” said the shorter slave. “He will be the death of us all.”

“We will certainly die if we just stand here,” said the taller slave. “There is no knowing what demons lurk out here in the night. Let’s just leave the bowl and hurry back.”

The shorter slave began walking slowly, whispering to his friend. “If we kill him, we can break the curse and flee.”

“Into the night? Are you mad? Besides, the guards are expecting us back soon.”

“I’d rather take my chances with the night demons than be worked to death in the quarry. You heard the King say we would have to carry the stone back to the wagons.”

The taller slave glanced anxiously between the camp and the scout’s tent. A soldier stood watch at the edge of the firelight but the slaves knew that the solder would not be paying much attention to the scout’s tent. No one looked that way very long for fear of being marked by the scout’s curse. It felt so much colder in the darkness but at least there was a chance at life if they managed to avoid the demons. “How do we do it,” he asked.

“Simple,” explained the short slave showing his friend a sharp piece of flint he had hidden in his sleeve. “You take one of the rocks lying about and sneak up to the tent. I’ll follow a moment later and set the bowl out far enough that the old scout has to come out to get it. When he does, you bash him over the head with the rock then I will cut his throat and we will escape into the night.

The slaves put their plan into motion. The taller slave, with a fist sized rock in his hand, crept up to the tent and waited. Whispers floated about inside the tent, the crazy old scout talking to himself. The tall slave crouched and motioned for his friend to hurry up.

The short slave set down the bowl and called for the scout. Nothing. Just the whispers inside the tent. The slaves looked to one another wondering why the scout did not appear. Growing nervous at the unintelligible whispers he heard, the tall slave silently urged his friend to call out once more. The short slave called for the scout again and the tent flaps rustled.

The tall slave leaped, rock raised high over his head and struck a blow across the side of the head. Dazed, King Haradda stumbled a few feet and fell to the ground, blood leaking from his ear.

“Fool,” shouted the short slave. “That’s the King!”

The scout, right behind the king, looked to the two slaves. “Guards,” he yelled falling back into his tent and grabbing for his sword. “Guards! The King is attacked!”

“Kill him,” screamed the short slave, pulling the flint edge from his sleeve. “Kill him quick!”

The slaves burst into the tent and fell upon the old scout. Feeble as he was, his sword proved no deterrent to the murderous slaves. Though his body had grown weak, his voice still carried through the night, calling for guards even as his life gurgled from his throat. The slaves fled into the night, torch carrying guards fast on their heels.

Heptek arrived within moments to find the king sitting on the ground, a half dozen soldiers standing cordon around him with torches and facing out into the darkness. “My King,” said Heptek hurrying to King Haradda. “What treachery is this?”

“Slaves,” spat the King. He held his hand to his ear. Blood still leaked between his fingers and down his arm, dark little rivulets in the wavering torchlight. “The curs killed the scout and ran off. Damn them! The scout said we would be at the quarry tomorrow!”

A soldier rushed into the circle of light cast by the ring of torches around the king and knelt. He offered a quick bow of his head. “King Haradda, we have caught the assassins!”

“Where,” demanded the king, standing.

The soldier pointed out into the darkness where glow of a torch danced in the distance. So small it seemed nothing but the last dying ember of a fire consumed by the very darkness. “There, my lord. At the edge of a cliff.”

“Then come,” said the king to Heptek and the soldiers around him. “Let us see the faces of these assassins before I have them flayed off.”

The taller slave stood, back to the cliff edge and hemmed in by a semicircle of soldiers. His eyes moved nervously from soldier to soldier and the blades leveled at him. Light from a single torch barely reached to the edge of the cliff, being swallowed by the dark chasm beyond.

The king pushed into the semicircle. “Where is the other,” he asked, seeing only the tall slave.

“He fell off the cliff as we were chasing them,” said the soldier holding the torch. “This one almost fell but we found him hanging on to the edge and pulled him up.”

The king regarded the slave. Rock scrapes covered his arms and legs. The first welling bruises of fists having pummeled him into submission had just started welling on his face and shoulders. The slave shrunk away as King Haradda approached him and his foot slid close to the edge of the precipice. Rocks clattered down the face of the cliff, the sound fading in the distance. The King grabbed the slave by the wrist. “Why,” asked the King.

The slave said nothing but the King’s question was whispered back to him from the depths of the black pit. The king looked past the slave. An echo, he thought, from the chasm, or gorge or whatever lay hidden by the darkness beyond the lip of the cliff. “How deep is this rift,” the king asked his soldiers.

“We don’t know, my lord,” said the torch bearing soldier. The other slave fell and his screams became lost.”

“Forever lost,” came a whisper from the darkness. The soldiers looked to each other, gripping their swords tighter. The darkness spoke but none dared say so for fear it may reply to them or that some nightmare thing might slither from the black nothing, whispering madness in their ears.

King Haradda took the torch and handed it to the slave. He unfastened his belt and with it, lashed the slave’s hand tight to the torch. Unsure what to do, the slave held the torch, looking at the ground. Saying nothing, King Haradda pushed the slave over the cliff. The King watched torchlight fall into the darkness, becoming smaller, the slave’s scream dwindling until suddenly cut off with a wet thump against the quarry floor. The slave’s screams lingered as a whisper among the rocks, twisted for a brief moment by the cliff walls into a fading laughter.

Behind King Haradda the full moon crested jagged mountains and the far rim of the quarry shone like a white fang in the silver light.

[batkalim]

--The Hakawati tells the story of Stone Sleep—
(Part 2 of 3)

The whispers faded with the morning sun and the light of day revealed the truth of the old scout’s words. Sheer cliffs fell two hundred feet or more into the pit which lay littered with rubble and boulders. Small copses of trees and brush lay scattered on the crater floor stubbornly clinging to life in the rocky ground. The only way to the quarry floor was a steep gorge at the north excavated by ancient hands.

In all of his recounting to the King about the quarry, the scout never mentioned the embattled wall and gatehouse at the base of the gorge which guarded the entrance to the pit. Neither did he mention the statues to either side of the old rusted portcullis. Human in shape only, twisted abominations stood carved into the wall, towering over the King and his expedition. On the left a headless statue of a man with a gaping mouth on its chest and smaller jagged toothed mouths on the palms. To the right of the gate stood an emaciated female statue with breasts carved to resemble bulging, unblinking eyes.

“What are they,” King Haradda asked Heptek.

“Guardians perhaps,” said the scholar. “Ancient gods or demons. Which, I cannot say. But they stand facing out from the pit as do the fortifications on the gatehouse. This was built to keep men out of the quarry.

No sounds of the expedition’s movements bounced and echoed through the gorge. Noises fell dead as if the very sound hesitated to go further or was absorbed by gorge walls and sentinel statues. Several of the soldiers and many slaves balked at passing beneath the yawning portcullis with its rusty spikes dangling like rotting teeth. King Haradda struck one of the hesitating slaves with a whip. “They are only statues and this is only a guard house! You are not children to be frightened of ancient relics. Keep moving!”

The upper areas of the little keep had fallen into decay. Portions of the roof and wall having collapsed into the small gatehouse made the ramparts dangerous and unusable. Only brightly colored rock lizards moved over the rubble looking for places to sun themselves. The portcullis gears had rusted in place, locking the iron gate open so there would be no bolting the gates to prevent frightened slaves or soldiers from running in the night. What the king believed to be old stables was large enough to house the slaves with only a few soldiers to stand watch at the only doors leading out. The soldiers found quarter in old store rooms and wherever else they could stake out space for themselves. Never, though, near any of the life sized replicas of the towering sentinels which often stood on opposite sides of doors and archways within the small keep.

The king took for himself a room with a single shuttered window looking out onto the quarry. Of all the rooms in the gatehouse only this one had been preserved as it must have been when last inhabited. Though centuries of dust covered everything, the chairs were still sturdy, their red and green cushions soft, the bed large and inviting with down pillows as comforting as the day they were first stuffed. Shelves lined the walls; stacked floor to ceiling with all manner of old scrolls and books.

Heptek walked through the room with King Haradda, his scholar’s eye on the tomes and rolls of papyrus. “These might hold some hidden knowledge about this place,” he said carefully pulling at a scroll. The edge crumbled to dust beneath his fingers. “However, we must be careful with them. I advise you, my King, to choose another room.”

The King laughed and leaned on the window sill to look out over the quarry. “Why, Heptek? So you can sequester yourself in here with these moldering old relics?”

“While that thought does appeal to my scholarly mind, the reason is much more practical,” said Heptek. “Rot and mold consumes the rest of the gatehouse yet this room alone is untouched by time. Some unnatural force must have preserved this one room for some reason. It would not be wise to spend more time here than necessary. At least not until we understand more about this place.”

“There is nothing to understand. We all heard the whispers under the full moon last night. Out there are whispering stones and I will have them for my tomb.” King Haradda pushed away from the window. “If you wish, stay here, cradling these old books as you might a fragile lover. You have until I return. I am going into the quarry to see these stones up close.”

The King took three soldiers with him and walked out the gatehouse into the quarry. For fifty yards beyond the gatehouse, the crater floor was mostly clear of debris but beyond that, rubble choked the massive pit. From the top of the quarry and even from the gatehouse the rubble did not seem bad but once on the floor, the King found he and the soldiers had to climb over and around boulders littering the ground like a child’s discarded toys. The small copses of trees seen from the lip of the pit were masses of tangled briar and bramble making passage into the dense knots of twisted trees impossible.

The king and the three soldiers had been crawling through the rubble until nearly dusk when they realized they could no longer see the gatehouse. The king climbed onto a large, flat granite slab to look around. He looked north, the direction the gatehouse should be but in the deepening gloom, and because of the boulder cluttered ground he could not see the gatehouse at the base of the cliff walls.

Thunder rolled in the distance and King Haradda looked south to the source. All around the skies remained clear. A plume of dust rose in the distance, crawling and clawing its way into the sky and for a brief moment King Haradda saw within the cloud of dust, the shadow of a giant stomping the ground with thunderous footfalls.

“There,” called one of the soldiers pointing north. “A fire!” The first fires of the evening had been lit at the gatehouse, their dull orange light acting as a beacon.

“Hurry,” urged King Haradda. “Back to the keep before the giant sees us!”

The king and his soldiers scrambled over the broken ground. “The King, the King,” whispered some of the stones as Haradda hurried by. Others laughed, mocking the fear driven urgency with which Haradda and the soldiers rushed back to the keep. The great thuds of giant footfalls echoed through the quarry and the dust cloud grew larger in the south. Both the sound and the dust faded only as the last dying rays of sunlight slipped behind the mountains.

The rising of the full moon brought more voices in the quarry. They wept and laughed, sang and lamented in unknown tongues. Beyond the comforting light of fire and torch at the gatehouse, stone rattled against stone and indistinct shadows moved through the night. King Haradda watched them from the window of his room while Heptek explained what he had found among the old books.

Heptek sat at a small table, crumbling scrolls and dry rotting books spread out before him. He carefully closed one of the books and set it aside. “My King, it has been the habit of man for as long as he has existed to entomb the dead. Whether to honor them or to preserve their memory or to lock them away so they will not threaten the living, man has marked the end of life with tombs and mausoleums and crypts so the dead might slumber in their unlit sepulchers among the treasures of their life. No wonder is it that the living often risk life and soul to rob the dead of their riches. So long has man crawled over the face of the world that there exist long forgotten places where the dead have been laid. One of these lost places is the necropolis known to scholars of antiquity as Stone Sleep. I believe that is what we have found.”

“And that is what these books and scrolls say?” asked the king. “That this is a valley of the dead?”

“Most of these writings are in a language I do not understand,” admitted Heptek. “The few I can interpret are in a dialect that has not been used for two hundred years but the words are clear enough. This is Stone Sleep.”

King Haradda rapped his knuckles on the stone window sill. “Fitting, then, that stone from a lost necropolis should build my tomb.”

Heptek tugged on his beard, a nervous habit of his when he felt he was about to suggest a thing counter to the King’s wishes. “My King, we cannot stay. Stone Sleep is a demon necropolis. Entombed beneath the ground and in the walls of this pit are things which belong in the deepest of hells. Disturbing the stone that seals their crypts may release something far more malevolent than a giant.”

“You worry like an old woman,” grumbled the King. “Like the tallest tree, even a giant can be felled and I am no more worried about the corpse of a demon than I am any other rotting husk stuffed away and forgotten. Tomorrow we will start gathering stone.” Heptek, seeing that the King had set his mind to stay, nodded his acquiescence and excused himself, taking one of the books with him.

That night soon after falling into a deep sleep, the King was awakened by a voice calling his name. He sat up in bed, rubbing the sleep from his face. “Who is there,” he asked, still drowsy.

“You must leave this place,” said a breathy female voice.

King Haradda looked in the direction of the voice. A tall shaft of moonlight poured through the open window, falling on the floor and the opposite wall. Where the moonlight illuminated the wall, stone rippled like a banner in a lazy wind. From the wall stepped a woman, the stone wrapping and clinging to her like wet satin to naked skin.

“What are you,” asked the king. “A dream?”

The stone woman stood in the beam of moonlight and looked to King Haradda with unblinking, statue eyes. “King Granite does not abide mortals in Stone Sleep,” she said. “When he comes for you, he will grind your bones to dust.”

“King Granite?” asked Haradda, confused. “You mean the giant?”

The stone woman walked toward the window, her footfalls remarkably soft, as if she were made of air. She stayed within the moonbeam, never breaking the boundary of the silver light. “King Granite has watched over Stone Sleep since before your great grandfathers were weaned. He was once a warden and allows only other wardens to pass unmolested through Stone Sleep. And you, man-king, are no warden.”

“King Haradda pulled back the covers and sat on the edge of the bed. “These wardens. Who are they? Where are they?”

The statue woman climbed up onto the window sill. Moonlike pouring around her cast a long, thin shadow across the floor and wall. She looked out over the rubble and the shadows that moved across the broken ground. The shades skulking at the edge of the torchlight at the base of the gateehouse wall stopped to gaze upon her. “The wardens once kept watch in Stone Sleep. They sealed away the dead in secret places, marked the crypt stones with sigils so that demon corpses would not roam the night. They gave King Granite his soul but the wardens have been gone for many generations now. Only king granite remains to stand vigil over Stone Sleep and he has gone mad.”

King Haradda watched her shadow, how it stretched long and skeletal along the floor. The emaciated sentinel statue with eyes for breasts might better have cast the shadow than the stone woman’s inviting curves. Gazing at the malnourished shadow suddenly made the king uneasy and he turned his attention back to the statue woman. “If the giant will not harm the wardens, then how do we become wardens?”

The woman turned her face to Haradda. “Give up your foolish quest, man-king. It is a quest for the sake of vanity. Let the stones sleep.”

“But you must tell me how to become a warden,” said the king as if addressing some commoner. “A tomb of whispering stones. No such thing exists in all the world and I will have it!”

The statue woman looked away from Haradda and lifted her face to the moon. Whispers from the rocks and shadows in the quarry called to her like lovers after a long absence. “Do you hear them calling?” she asked in a voice husky with desire. “Only during the three nights of the full moon can the demon spirits of Stone Sleep find their voices and move as shadows in the living world. And only on the third night might I walk in the beautiful light and hear their songs. Do what you will, man-king. I have wasted too much time with you. If you see me again it is because you sing to me. Pray you see me no more,” she said and stepped out of the window.

King Haradda rushed to the window but there was no broken statue upon the ground. Just the songs of whispering spirits fading into the distance.

[batkalim]

--The Hakawati tells the story of Stone Sleep—
(Part 3 of 3)

The next morning King Haradda told Heptek what had happened and everything the stone woman had said. Heptek listened closely, inspecting the wall from which the woman had emerged. It showed no signs of distress or disturbance and after a few moments of thought, Heptek said to the king, “A demon, I think. They can take many forms and it is known that sometimes their true form is revealed in their shadow which would explain why hers was so different than her physical shape. The fact that she said the demon spirits only manifest under a full moon and that she herself manifests only on the last night of it lends weight to this creature being a demon of some sort. Count yourself lucky that it could only manifest in moonlight.”

King Haradda gazed out the window. Below, where the stone woman would have broken to pieces, soldiers finished gathering the slaves together in order to start pulling stone from the quarry. “What about these wardens she spoke of and the giant?”

Heptek continued inspecting the wall, running a hand over it. “I have seen mention of the wardens in a few of the books I can translate. King Granite is mentioned as their leader. Nowhere have I found mention of a giant.”

The King turned from the window. “The stone woman-“

“Demon,” corrected Heptek, poking the wall with a boney finger.

King Haradda bristled at being corrected but let it pass since Heptek was correct more often than not. “She said the giant would not bother the wardens. Find in those musty old writings a way for us to become wardens,” said King Haradda heading to the door. “I’m going into the Stone Sleep with the men to start quarrying stone.”

The King kept the slave work parties close together, initially clearing paths into the rubble, snaking around the larger boulders and stockpiling the removed rocks near the gatehouse. This went on until after midday with the work gangs making slow progress across the rugged and cluttered crater floor. A winding path only a hundred or so yards had been cleared when the forward-most work party started running back down the path.

King Haradda standing atop a large boulder half way along the path was the first to see the slaves sprinting back. Behind them the ground rose up. Huge boulders rolled and crashed against one another, drowning out the frightened screams. A colossus arose, forming from the rubble. Constructed of rocks and boulders held together by some unnatural force, the tumorous-looking monstrosity raised a boulder fist the size of a house and BOOM, smashed it down on the fleeing slaves. The ground shook as if a mountain had fallen from the sky and King Haradda fell from his rocky vantage.

Slave and soldier alike fled back to the gatehouse with the granite giant‘s rock feet stomping after them. King Granite stopped at the ring of cleared ground around the gatehouse and hurled rocks at the fleeing men until all had found shelter within the gatehouse. Towards nightfall the boulder giant trod back into the crater, smashing rocks with feet and fist to obliterate the path cleared by men.

For three days this went on. No matter which direction the path was cleared, King Granite rose from the rubble to destroy the path and paint the rocks with bloody smears that were once men. The stockpiles of stone from path clearing grew slowly but they were of smaller pieces, unsuited for anything but brick and path works. Not the large rocks out of which masons might hew foundation stones for King Haradda’s tomb.

The third night, Heptek went to the King who, as usual, was looking out over the quarry from his bedroom window. “I believe I have found something,” said Heptek. “There is mention of a ritual in one of the scrolls that indoctrinates a person into the cadre of wardens. At least that is the best that I can translate.”

“What must be done,” asked King Haradda.

Heptek tugged on his beard, hesitating.

“Out with it,” commanded the king.

“As best I can tell, a symbol like a gaping mouth must be carved into the chest with a knife made of stone from the crater. Chants and supplications are made to some entity which is the spirit of Stone Sleep as best I can translate. Then the palms are cut, more entreaties to the spirit are offered as the person bleeds and if they do not bleed to death before the prayers are finished, they then become a warden.” Heptek paused, again tugging on his beard.

“Something bothers you about this?” asked the king.

“I cannot translate the ritual prayers,” said Heptek. “They are in a language unknown to me and there is no way to know what they say. This is not a ritual you should undergo, my king. Perhaps a slave or two might be used to test the validity of this rite.”

King Haradda nodded his agreement. “Very well. Choose five slaves and perform the ritual on them. In the morning we will send them out alone to clear a path. If the rock giant kills them we will know the rite is false.”

Heptek did as the king wished. Five slaves were chosen, bound and forced to undergo the ritual. In the morning they were sent out on their own to gather rocks. The king watched from his window. The slaves worked until nightfall and never did the stones come alive. That night King Haradda ordered five more slaves should have the ritual performed on them and again the marked slaves worked the entire next day undisturbed by King Granite.

Satisfied that the ritual would keep the workers safe so they could gather stone, King Haradda commanded all the slaves and soldiers to submit to the ritual. Slaves that balked or resisted were put to the sword and their bodies left in the mountains for scavengers. To inspire his soldiers, King Haradda underwent the ritual as well, gashing his palms and carving with his own hand the symbol on his chest.

After all the rituals were performed, King Haradda told Heptek, “Keep the slaves gathering stone to fill the wagons we left behind. I will return to Tel Qatir and bring back more slaves, stone masons wagons, ox and all that we need to pull the stone from this place and build my tomb.”

Heptek, true to King Haradda’s wishes, kept the slaves working to gather rock from Stone Sleep while the king was gone. After nearly a month of working, Heptek began to notice changes in the marked slaves and soldiers. Whether it was the hint of grey hairs or the subtle wrinkling at the corners of the eyes, Heptek watched as each man grew older. He spent days at a time buried in the old books and scrolls, looking for an explanation, fearing that the king as well would be aging beyond his years.

So engrossed in trying to find the cause of the aging was Heptek that the nights of the next full moon he forgot to close the shutters to the king’s room where he had been reading. On the last night of the full moon a rustle of paper in the still air drew his attention from the book he was reading. A pale silver shaft of moonlight angled from the window to fall across a stack of books and scrolls in a corner of the room. A woman made of paper rose from the pile, her skin a patchwork of scrolls and old books pages.

Seeing he was near to the beam of moonlight and wanting to be out of arms reach of the light, Heptek rose so fast he knocked over the chair in which he had been sitting. “What do you want, demon,” he asked, standing so the small table was between him and the paper woman.

The paper woman stepped to the opposite side of the table from Heptek but remained within the moonbeam. “Only what is mine,” she said in a soft voice like sand sliding down a dune.

Heptek glanced to her shadow, a tall, frail thing contrasting to the form she had assumed. He waved her off. “There is nothing for you here, demon. Be gone.”

“All is mine,” said the woman. She looked to Heptek’s hands, his chest then into his eyes. She cocked her head to the side, an inquisitive little movement. “But not you. Why have you not given me your heart like the others?”

A terrible realization settled in Heptek’s mind. The ritual to be made a warden was not only to protect a person from the rage of King Granite. It bound the person’s essence to Stone Sleep and to the guardian spirit of the necropolis. “You are Amhes-La, the spirit of Stone Sleep mentioned in the rites of the wardens.”

“It is one of the names mortal men have given me.”

“Then it is you that make the men age.” Heptek walked toward the window but remained beyond the reach of the moonbeam.

Amhes-La walked within the moonbeam, shadowing Heptek’s movements “No, you make them older by sending them to carry rocks out of Stone Sleep. The wardens are as bound to Stone Sleep as I or King Granite. Aging and eventual death is the punishment for leaving this place.” Amhes-La stopped and looked around the room then back to Heptek. “I have not heard the man-king’s heartbeat in many weeks. He must be far away.”

“He is. And he shall not return,” lied Heptek. He stood by the window a few feet outside of the moonbeam.

“Then he shall die,” said Amhes-La. “The further a warden goes, the faster they age.” She closed her paper eyes and turned her face to the full moon. “Perhaps another heart will sing to me if the man-king does not return. You have given me so many. Surely there is a worthy one among them.”

“What do you mean,” demanded Heptek edging closer to the window.

Amhes-La stood in the moonbeam, eyes still closed and chest rising as if reveling in the rapturous touch of an unseen lover. “King Granite grows weary. The soul that gives him form is the last of the original wardens to accept the sacred mantle of king. It is so very old that it no longer sings to me. Like an old man, it forgets. But there must always be a King in Stone Sleep. A King to sing to me and preserve the sanctity of this ancient necropolis.”

“Well, you will not have my king!” Heptek lunged for the window and slammed the shutters closed.

Cut off from the moonlight, Amhes-La’s paper form dissipated into a cloud of twisting black ash and as it settled to the floor, her voice faded like a distant echo. “The king must sing to the queen and by the next moon, I will again hear songs.”

Heptek immediately wrote a message for King Haradda, urging the king to return to Stone Sleep without delay. Heptek sealed the message and gave it to one of the soldiers along with his horse, telling the soldier to deliver the message to the king and to waste not one moment. Heptek did not tell the soldier that old age would consume his body like a cancer once he left Stone Sleep on his mission.

The next day, Heptek ordered that all stone should be piled in the cleared area by the keep and that none was to be taken to the wagons until King Haradda had returned. In this way he hoped to preserve the men until he had found a way to break the spirit bindings for them and the King.

A month passed without word from the messenger or King Haradda. As the next full moon approached, Heptek had not found a way to break the spirit binding. He feared that the King was already dead having now been away from Stone Sleep for two months and that by the end of the full moon, Amhes-La would claim a soul to replace that of King Granite.

The first night of the full moon, having not discovered a way to sever the soul binding, he ordered the slaves put to the sword and their bodies were piled among the stacks of stone they had gathered. The second night of the full moon, he ordered that preparations should be made to leave Stone Sleep. To spare the men the agony of premature aging and death, he secretly poisoned the food and wine being prepared for their evening meal.

The last night of the full moon Heptek shuttered the windows and sequestered himself in the king’s room. He had not undergone the ritual and felt safe from Amhes-La as long as no moonlight entered the room. Throughout the keep the corpses of soldiers slumped where they had died, half eaten bits of food spilling from purple, twisted lips.

Outside, the whispering stones called to Amhes-La and to the souls of poisoned soldiers wandering the gatehouse halls. Twice in the night when the whispers faded, something banged at the shutters from outside. Each time, Heptek threw himself against the shutters to bolster them against whatever tried breaching the room by heaving itself against the heavy shutters. Shortly after the second attempt to break in, the whispering stones began calling in an unknown language until there was one clear voice rising above them.

“What has happened!” It was King Haradda’s voice outside the window.

Heptek threw open the shutters. The light of the full moon bathed everything in a pale light. Below, among the neat stacks of stone and piles of slave corpses stood King Haradda. Several soldiers stood around him, poking at the corpses with spears. “My King! You are alive!”

Haradda looked up to the Window. Stooped with age and hair as white as bleached bone, his voice though thin still carried regal authority. “What is the meaning of all this,” he demanded. “I return with men and slaves to mine stone and find those I left behind dead!”

“You must leave, now!” begged Heptek. “She will come for you!”

Amhes-La stepped from the king’s moon shadow into the light. She manifested in her true form, an emaciated woman a head taller than any man. Her empty eye sockets looked into the distance as might a blind woman but the large eyes that formed her breasts gazed with a deep hunger on the king and his soldiers.

“Kill the demon!” shouted Heptek.

The soldiers rushed forward. Amhes-La breathed in the direction of the nearest one and he wasted away, collapsing to the ground and nothing but skin hanging from bones as if starved to death in just a few steps. The others faltered, backing away, pointing the heads of trembling spears towards Amhes-La. The eyes on her chest slid over the piles of corpses and she waved a grey skinned hand toward the soldiers. “They are yours,” said the demon. “Kill them and any you find in the mountains beyond Stone Sleep.” Amhes-La turned to the king. “But this one is mine.”

Slave cadavers twitched and started to rise. They turned their dead, milky eyes to the living soldiers. The soldiers dropped their spears and ran. The risen loped after them. Those which could not walk pulled themselves along the ground. A hundred dead rose at the word of Amhes-La, their singular murderous purpose to destroy any living thing they found until they themselves were either destroyed or rotted away.

Heptek ran from the window and out the room. He had to help the king, somehow. Shuffling feet moved about the keep. Men screamed, overcome by the horde of unliving pouring through the keep. He rushed down the stairs but stopped half way. Three poisoned soldiers trod up the stairs, their mouths still agape from the agonizing death. Heptek snatched a dead torch from a wall sconce. “Out of my way, “he commanded and struck at the soldiers with the torch, trying to knock them over. The soldiers replied with hacking blades and clawing fingers until Heptek no longer screamed.

Outside, Amhes-La turned to the king. He stared into her large breast-eyes and found himself unable to move, mesmerized by the gaze. She set a hand on his shoulder and his fine robes moldered and rotted off. Haradda stood naked before her, a bent old man whose body sagged in folds atop unsteady legs. She walked into the rubble, guiding King Haradda with the hand on his shoulder

“Your body is old but your soul is young,” Amhes-La said to Haradda. “Give me your heart and you will sing for me as have others through the ages.” The ritual scar on Haradda’s chest opened into a toothless mouth. Amhes-La reached in and pulled Haradda’s heart, the center of his soul, from the gaping maw. Haradda’s lifeless body collapsed at her feet.

Amhes-La threw the heart into the night. Were it landed, rocks gathered about it like iron to lodestone. On that spot rose the new King Granite whose soul, Haradda’s soul, called to Amhes-La like a forlorn lover in captivity. King Haradda found his whispering tomb, surrounded by the demon spirits and rocks of Stone Sleep. To this day, on the last night of the full moon, Haradda’s soul still sings to Amhes-La, bound to her as any King is to his Queen.