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So there we found ourselves, the wrack of the Caliph's embassy, with no hope but to try and find our way back home through a strange, hostile land.
The upper reaches of the Caucassians are a cold and godless place. The fog is thick and wet; it crawls in of the morning, leaves briefly at the time the sun is high, then comes creeping back long before sunset. We had been sodden as well-diggers from the moment we had stepped into the foothills. A treacherous place, those mountains: home of bear and wolf, covered in forest so thick that in places the sun was lost completely. Since we had no guide-indeed, it was several days before we saw any sign of inhabitants whatsoever-we wandered unsteered, losing half as much ground as we gained for walking in circles.
At last we were forced to admit our need for a trained local eye. In the middle slopes the trees grew so thick that fixing our direction was impossible for hours at a time. We were divining the location of Mecca by general discussion, and-blasphemy again-we probably spent as much time praying toward Aleppo as to Mecca. It seemed a choice between possible discovery and certain doom.
We came down by night and took a young man out of an isolated shepherd's hovel, as quietly as ex-brigands like ourselves (or at least like many of us, Ibn Fahad. My apologies!) could. The family did not wake, the dog did not bark; we were two leagues away before sunrise, I'm sure.
I felt sorry in a way for the young peasant-lout we'd kidnapped. He was a nice fellow, although fearfully stupid-I wonder if we are now an old, dull story with which he bores his children? In any case, once this young rustic-whose name as far as I could tell was unpronounceable by civilized tongues-realized that we were not ghosts or Ji
There was a slight feeling of celebration in the air that night, our first in days under the open skies. The soldiers cursed the lack of strong drink, but spirits were good nonetheless-even Ibn Fahad pried loose a smile.
As the under-vizier Walid told a humorous story, I looked about the camp. There were but two grim faces: the clerk Abdallah-which was to be expected, since he seemed a patently sour old devil-and the stolen peasant-boy. I walked over to him.
"Ho, young one," I said, "why do you look so downcast? Have you not realized that we are good-hearted, Godfearing men, and will not harm you?" He did not even raise his chin, which rested on his knees, shepherd-style, but he turned his eyes up to mine.
"It is not those things," he said in his awkward Arabic. "It is not you soldiers but… this place."
"Gloomy mountains they are indeed," I agreed, "but you have lived here all your young life. Why should it bother you?"
"Not this place. We never come here-it is unholy. The vampyr walks these peaks."
"Vampyr?" said I. "And what peasant-devil is that?"
He would say no more; I left him to his brooding and walked back to the fire.
The men all had a good laugh over the vampyr, making jesting guesses as to what type of beast it might be, but Ruad, the young mullah, waved his hands urgently.
"I have heard of such afreets," he said. "They are not to be laughed at by such a godless lot as yourselves."
He said this as a sort of scolding joke, but he wore a strange look on his round face; we listened with interest as he continued.
"The vampyr is a restless spirit. It is neither alive nor dead, and Shaitan possesses its soul utterly. It sleeps in a sepulcher by day, and when the moon rises it goes out to feed upon travelers, to drink their blood."
Some of the men again laughed loudly, but this time it rang false as a brass-merchant's smile.
"I have heard of these from one of our foreign visitors," said the under-vizier Walid quietly. "He told me of a plague of these vampyr in a village near Smyrna. All the inhabitants fled, and the village is still uninhabited today."
This reminded someone else (myself, perhaps) of a tale about an afreet with teeth growing on both sides of his head. Others followed with their own demon stories. The talk went on late into the night, and no one left the campfire until it had completely burned out.
By noon the next day we had left the heights and were passing back down into the dark, tree-blanketed ravines. When we stopped that night we were once more hidden from the stars, out of sight of Allah and the sky.
I remember waking up in the foredawn hours. My beard was wet with dew, and I was damnably tangled up in my cloak. A great, dark shape stood over me. I must confess to making a bit of a squawking noise.
"It's me," the shape hissed-it was Rifakh, one of the other soldiers.
"You gave me a turn."
Rifakh chuckled. "Thought I was that vampyr, eh? Sorry. Just stepping out for a piss." He stepped over me, and I heard him trampling the underbrush. I slipped back into sleep.
The sun was just barely over the horizon when I was again awakened, this time by Ibn Fahad tugging at my arm. I grumbled at him to leave me alone, but he had a grip on me like an alms-beggar.
"Rifakh's gone," he said. "Wake up. Have you seen him?"
"He walked on me in the middle of the night, on his way to go moisten a tree," I said. "He probably fell in the darkness and hit his head on something-have you looked?"
"Several times," Ibn Fahad responded. "All around the camp. No sign of him. Did he say anything to you?"
"Nothing interesting. Perhaps he has met the sister of our shepherd-boy, and is making the two-backed beast."
Ibn Fahad made a sour face at my crudity. "Perhaps not. Perhaps he has met some other beast."
"Don't worry," I said. "If he hasn't fallen down somewhere close by, he'll be back."
But he did not come back. When the rest of the men arose we had another long search, with no result. At noon we decided, reluctantly, to go on our way, hoping that if he had strayed somewhere he could catch up with us.
We hiked down into the valley, going farther and farther into the trees. There was no sign of Rifakh, although from time to time we stopped and shouted in case he was searching for us. We felt there was small risk of discovery, for that dark valley was as empty as a pauper's purse, but nevertheless, after a while the sound of our voices echoing back through the damp glades became unpleasant. We continued on in silence.
Twilight comes early in the bosom of the mountains; by midafternoon it was already becoming dark. Young Fawn-the name had stuck, against the youth's protests-who of all of us was the most disturbed by the disappearance of Rifakh, stopped the company suddenly, shouting: "Look there!"
We straightaway turned to see where he was pointing, but the thick trees and shadows revealed nothing.
"I saw a shape!" the young one said. "It was just a short way back, following us. Perhaps it is the missing soldier."
Naturally the men ran back to look, but though we scoured the bushes we could find no trace of anyone. We decided that the failing light had played Fawn a trick-that he had seen a hind or some such.
Two other times he called out that he saw a shape. The last time one of the other soldiers glimpsed it too: a dark, man-like form, moving rapidly beneath the trees a bow-shot away. Close inspection still yielded no evidence, and as the group trod wearily back to the path again Walid the under-vizier turned to Fawn with a hard, flat look.
"Perhaps it would be better, young master, if you talked no more of shadow-shapes."
"But I saw it!" the boy cried. "That soldier Mohammad saw it too!"
"I have no doubt of that," answered Walid al-Salameh, "but think on this: we have gone several times to see what it might be, and have found no sign of any living man. Perhaps our Rifakh is dead; perhaps he fell into a stream and drowned, or hit his head upon a rock. His spirit may be following us because it does not wish to stay in this unfamiliar place. That does not mean we want to go and find it."