15

Erragal did not have the presence of Koury or Anzu, and did not radiate Lamashtu’s eerie sense of dread. Indeed, he barely reached even Lydia’s height. His hair was dark and receding, flecked with gray. He wore no turban. His off-white robe was well-tailored, it was true, belted with a purple wrap, but it was hardly sewn with demonic symbols—indeed, I had seen slaves of the caliph wearing more decorative cloth. His beard was short, and almost completely gray.

I could not even be sure that he was not some other Sebitti given to changing shape, but Lydia had no doubt, for she sank to one knee and bowed her head.

Dabir climbed to his feet. From his composure, you would think he was often woken from sleep to greet ancient wizards. “I bid you welcome to our home,” he said.

“I am not interested in your welcome,” Erragal replied, his voice thin and measured. “You are the one who hunted up my tools? Are you the ones who called forth the spirits?”

“The other Sebitti sought them first,” Dabir said. “We meant to keep the weapons from their hands.”

This gave him pause. I sensed this was not the answer he anticipated, for there was intensity to his next question. “Why?”

Lydia rose and backed up a step. One hand drifted toward the pouch still belted to her side, then slid away as Erragal’s gaze tracked there.

“Because they have lied, kidnapped, and murdered to obtain them,” Dabir answered. “Because they have caused an army of winter spirits to sheathe the land in ice and slay everything they come upon. We kept the bones,” Dabir continued, “so that we can use them against the spirits.”

There was no mistaking Erragal’s displeasure, for his frown deepened. Yet I had the sense Dabir’s answer had given him more to think about. A long moment passed.

“I shall talk further with you,” Erragal decided, then faced me. “Look across the river in a half hour’s time, and you shall see a signal.” He looked to Dabir. “What is your name?”

Dabir bowed. “I am Dabir Hashim ibn Khalil.”

“You are known as Dabir?”

“I am.”

“Let me see the tools.”

I glanced meaningfully at my friend as he bent to retrieve the spear. I came behind him, the club carried in two hands. I was not at all certain what Dabir thought of this development, and could not read his intentions, so I simply followed his lead.

Erragal reached out for my weapon first, and as his fingers brushed its surface his expression softened. He turned it almost in wonder, as though he were coming upon a favored toy of youth. I let him take it from me and he did so, in but one hand, despite his seeming frailty. A wistful smile crossed his face, and then he motioned Dabir closer. My friend stepped up to his side.

Erragal’s eyes met mine and his expression hardened again. “Meet me as I have said. I shall talk to your leader alone.”

I thought then that he meant to step outside the room, or even that he meant Lydia and me to leave, for I could never have guessed that the floor at their feet would suddenly flare with a red circle of energy, complete with mystic symbols. Even as I cried out and reached for my friend, he and the sorcerer winked away.

“Dabir!”

“They are gone,” Lydia said, as though I were an idiot.

“I know that! Get your carpet ready!”

“I will,” she said. “But, Asim—we must prepare. We may be walking into a trap.”

“A trap? For what? He has Dabir! He has the bones! Gather your notes, and your robes! Take Jibril’s book,” I added, then grabbed up my candle and raced for my chambers.

I took a brief moment to look again at my armor and see how stained and bent it truly was; the blood splattered over it looked like rust. Yet there was no other I might don. The links were cold against me, even with my clothes as a barrier. And my chest and shield arm complained. There was no help for either. It was as I was throwing open the chest to grab an old Persian shield gifted me by the caliph that Buthayna and Rami, roused by the commotion, hurried in to see what was happening.

I told them that their master had been stolen by a wizard and that the Greek woman and I were going after him. Buthanya’s brows furrowed as though she meant a tongue-lashing, then she said she would pack food and hurried off, her joints popping. I did not know when I would have the time to eat, but I looked forward to doing so.

Rami remained, his hair wild as a bird’s nest. I passed the candle over to him and he used it to light two more kept upon a shelf. He then helped me with the shield, marveling at the lion embossed upon its surface, mouth open in a profile roar.

“Captain,” he said hesitantly, “what happened to the lady Najya?”

I stared in shocked silence a moment, then blinked hard and offered a sad smile. Her fate would be long in explaining, so I simplified. “The wizards have her, too, Rami.”

His eyes went wide, and he followed with the most natural question in the world. “Will you rescue her?”

I thought to tell him not all tales ended happily, or that some people were beyond saving. In the end, though, I tightened the shield strap on my aching arm and told him what I most wished. “I will,” I said, “and when I marry her, I shall give you a place of honor at the feast, for being her friend when she had no others, and for bringing her into my life.” I tousled his hair and he grinned up at me in confidence. He had no fear that I would fail, for he was young. “Find some gloves for the Greek woman,” I suggested.

He said he would, and dashed away.

Buthayna hit me with useless advice as I passed through the kitchen into the courtyard, where Lydia already waited beside the carpet. I supposed she herself had borne it to its location, for she breathed heavily. Rami followed a moment later with gloves, and Lydia took them as if they were hers by right. Perhaps Lydia was only distracted, but I thought of Najya by contrast, who, no matter her high station and trials, had found the time to be kind to a stable boy.

“Do you have Jibril’s book?” I asked her.

“Yes.”

“And any other notes that were useful?”

“I know my business, Asim,” she said. “I have not asked if your sword was sharp, have I?”

Now that question felt like the rake of a lion’s claw. Often when danger loomed Dabir made that same jest, mocking something foolish Jaffar had once said. For all that it was grown tired, at that moment I would have given much to have him ask it of me. Lydia’s arched brows drew together quizzically at my discomfiture, then she shrugged, apparently deciding it was not worth her time to inquire further.

It was only then, in the dim light of our lantern, that I finally got a good look at the carpet. I shook my head at the madness that it should carry us so far. It had once been very colorful, but its reds were washed out to a dirty brown and the greens to a dull gray. Faded flowers and leaves were worked all about its border. I could not really examine the black stallion rearing at its center, for Lydia sat down across it. I could not help thinking that our last two journeys had begun with the death of a friend; I prayed fervently that another was not shortly to follow.

Buthayna hurried out with a canvas bag that she passed on to Lydia, then stepped back, blinking, as the Greek took her seat on the fabric.

“What are you doing?” the cook demanded of me.

“Preparing to go,” I said.

At any other time I might have relished her confusion. Perhaps she thought the Greek woman was at prayer; in any event, the old woman simply ignored our doings and wagged a finger at me, saying, “You bring him back, Captain. You shall never be forgiven if you fail, and the caliph himself will curse you.”

She was surely right, and I nodded as I sank down onto the carpet behind Lydia. “Let us be off,” I said.

While Buthayna and Rami looked on, Lydia put hands to the faded gold oval which circled the horse and we rose slowly into the air. Buthayna gasped and her eyes fairly bugged out of her head. I heard the boy cry out in pleased astonishment as we soared away.

“I shall take us high and toward the river,” she said, “and we will see what there is to be seen.”

“Fine, as long as we avoid the walls. Why did Erragal do this?”

She looked over her shoulder at me, meeting my eyes for a time. She did not reply, though, until she looked away. “He is curious about us, Asim. I think he fully meant to blast us into oblivion, but he did not find what he expected.”

“What do you think he expected?”

“Someone else. A different story.”

I mulled this over as we sailed out across the city rooftops and empty streets. The stars shimmered under a cloudless sky, and there was wind only because of our passage.

“What does he want with the weapons?”

“He fought once against the frost spirits. We can hope he means to do so once more. I’m wondering if that staff he carried was another one of the bones.”

“I didn’t see any figures on it,” I said.

Her voice grew sharp. “Do you think he’d carve instructions on the side of his own staff?”

I thought that was a fair point, though I also wondered if she might be leaping to conclusions.

We passed well above the river wall, looking down over the silent docks, when I saw a blue flame soar up into the sky from deep in the vast ruins of Nineveh. I later learned that watchmen throughout the city noted it in alarm, and that the governor himself was wakened so that he might decide how best to deal with it.

Lydia guided us down to the snow-shrouded mound where the azure flames licked at the sky. Nothing fueled it. More wizardry. All about us were snow-banked broken walls and columns. Of Erragal there was no sign. Our destination, though, was clearly marked, for a perfectly square hole gaped beside the fire, the flickering of which revealed stone steps leading into the earth.

The moment that the carpet came to rest, I rose and peered down the gloomy stairwell. I had not thought to pack a lantern. Dabir would have anticipated this wrinkle and prepared for it, and once more I felt a pang.

“This fire gives no heat,” Lydia said. She raised her hands to the flames, though her interest was not so great that she dared to touch them.

There was no point commenting. Sorcerous showmanship and secrets wearied me.

“We should take the carpet with us,” Lydia suggested.

She meant to make me a packhorse, which did not suit me. “If I am to carry it, how will I defend us?”

She grumbled something in Greek. While she huffily rolled up the fabric under the eerie blue light, I drew my sword and took one step onto the old stairs. Instantly the fire behind us vanished, and a warm red light ignited below, although its source, at the bottom of the stairs, could not be seen.

It seemed we needed no lantern after all.

I led the way down, cloak over my battered armor, shield on one arm, sword in hand. Behind me Lydia walked slowly, the carpet hugged between her arms. It trailed on the ground beside her.

Deep we went, and though the stairs were old, they were hardly worn. While their edges crumbled, I thought age, not use, was the culprit.

We were forty steps down before we saw the torches flickering in the hands of crouching stone bird-men. The statues flanked immense doors fashioned all of bronze, shining with the wicked luster of reflected flame. I stared carefully at both sculpted abominations upon our arrival. Lydia, puffing, lowered the carpet to the flagstones before the doors. Neither statue seemed inclined to move, praise God. A rough recess was carved just past the bird-headed thing on the left. Within it a round bronze plate the size of a shield hung from two chains. I sheathed my sword and contemplated lifting the old hammer beside the bronze. Just then, the doors swung inward on silent hinges.

No one stood in the space beyond. I had the sense of a great void opening before us, but there was naught but blackness to be seen. And then a pair of torches lit, one on either side of us at head height. We stood not in a chamber, but at one end of a long square corridor some three spear lengths wide and perhaps as tall. A moment later, twenty paces on, another pair of torches lit, and after twenty more another, and on and on, for the length of Mosul’s grand boulevard. I had never seen one so long, even in the palaces of Baghdad, and I contemplated it in stunned silence until Lydia dropped the carpet.

“I’m not carrying that thing any farther,” she said.

“Leave it, then.”

She scowled, but did as I bade.

I led the way forward, hand to hilt. Lydia followed after a last backward glance.

The floor was flat and even, and I saw after a few steps that it was formed of black marble, veined with other colors—streaks of white that resembled striations of clouds, and little flecks of red and gold. Polished to a high sheen, it mirrored both ourselves and the flare of the torches, and threw the sound of our footfalls back to us.

After we had advanced past the first six pairs of torches Lydia remarked that those behind us were extinguishing in pairs.

Eventually we arrived before another set of bronze doors, taller even than those that had opened onto this place, for the cavern had grown higher by degrees. These did not open, and this time no gong was present, nor alcove.

I glanced back. All but the torches just behind us had now died. A ringing thud reached us from far away. The first doors had shut.

“We’re sealed in,” Lydia said, though she did not sound terribly worried. In fact, a faint smile played over her features. She stood straighter and used her fingers to rake back her curling hair.

A moment later the double doors swung open. Another hall stretched before us, lit likewise with pair upon pair of torches, but whereas the corridor behind us had been of smooth stone, the walls ahead were set with intricate and colorful bas-relief. This hall stretched on two to three hundred paces, I think, and at its far end, in a throne of black marble, sat Erragal, grown triple his former size. His head reached halfway to the ceiling. At either side stood a giant man draped in black robes, features hidden by deep hoods. Both held gleaming spears in the hand farthest from the throne.

They moved not at all.

The images along the wall were all of fabulous beasts, armored hosts, and long-tressed women, painted with vibrant colors. Sometimes there were seascapes, and sometimes mountains, and once there was a sunset of glorious red and gold.

One thing else I noted—the hall grew subtly smaller as we advanced, though it retained the semblance of its dimensions.

By the time we had closed within twenty paces of Erragal, it was apparent that he was no more than man-sized, and that the ceiling was closer to our heads than it had been. The pictures to right and left of us were smaller than those that had opened the room.

The wizard frowned down at us. “Your arrival is timely. I have what I require from your leader; now I need only the woman. Warrior, you may go.”

I’m not sure what I had expected, but it was not this. “I shall go nowhere without Dabir.” I slid out in front of Lydia. “And you shall not have the woman—she is under my protection.”

“Asim?” Lydia asked quietly from behind me. I think she meant some word of warning, but Erragal interrupted.

“Of course. You have been inconvenienced.” The wizard clapped his hands. The robed figure on the left stepped forward, making an unsettling clacking noise as it moved. I peered close to see what sort of fingers clasped his spear, but the folds of his sleeve concealed how it gripped it. The other robed figure leaned his spear against the side of the throne and turned, bending. When he faced us once more, his sleeves had fallen back to show shriveled, skeletal fingers, wrapped about a small chest, its lid open. The thing advanced slowly to us, clicking the while. I watched, repulsed. It paused three paces from me, and I could look within the chest upon a riot of gold coins. Also there were rings, each crusted with diamonds, afire with rubies, glowing with emeralds and sapphires, and I saw part of a strand of what must have been a necklace of immense pearls.

If Erragal meant to impress me, he did not succeed, for I have looked on suchlike before. I turned to regard him. “Treasures worthy of a prince,” I said.

“Or a king,” Erragal countered. “But I shall give them to you, if you leave directly.”

Was this recluse insane? “I shall not leave without Dabir,” I repeated.

“Dabir and the woman are of use to me,” Erragal explained. “I have no need of you. Take the treasure and go.”

I was tired in general, and of wizards and magics in particular, and a foul mood wrapped me. “What manner of host are you, old one? You kidnap my friend. You try to bribe me to disregard my duty. You demand I abandon this woman. If you mean to fight me, then get to it, for I will not leave without my charges.”

Erragal stood and looked down at me from the first of three stairs that led to his throne. For a long while our eyes locked, and then his hands thrust from his sleeves and on the instant a screen of blue fire flared before me, stretching the length of the room. I threw back one arm to shield Lydia and raised my blade with the other.

Three figures then walked from that fire, amber skeletons with horned skulls and low-slung jaws bristling with fangs. A sapphire flame floated in each of their rib cages where a heart should have been, and their bony hands gripped emerald-studded maces.

As the one on my left raised its mace I smashed my shield through its rib cage. The rim lit blue as it carried through to the creature’s spine.

The skeleton fell into fragments, and its heart went out. I had no time to watch bones clatter on marble, for my next opponent was already swinging. I jumped back, parallel to the flame. My new adversary advanced; the other crept up on the side opposite the flickering wall.

Lydia stepped to my side and lifted her palm, fingers extended, to her mouth. She blew, and dark ash whirled up and into one of the warriors. The thing’s bones were eaten away with dark blotches, and it caved in upon itself.

She turned to deal with the other, but I felt no sense of victory. I knew there was but one real chance. I leapt into the blue flames.

They burned me not at all; in fact, I landed unharmed beyond them on two feet and darted for the throne where Erragal stood, looking not so much surprised as reflective. He raised one hand and his robed guardian slipped suddenly between us, his weapon raised up like a staff.

I swept down at the guard’s legs without breaking stride up the steps; the staff lashed out to block me, but I barreled on. I slammed into him with the shield and heard a crack. The thing clattered limply against the throne, a misshapen lump wrapped in cloth. I extended my sword to Erragal’s neck. “Yield!” I said through gritted teeth. “And cease this game play!”

This time his gaze was frozen in surprise, and I thought for a moment that he dared not meet my eyes.

And then I heard the sound of a man clapping from some distance behind. The Erragal I threatened faded away to nothing. Snarling, I whirled to take in the altered scene around me.

The fire had vanished; the demon skeletons were gone, as was the one that had offered treasure. Lydia was unharmed, and advanced warily, surveying the room. Before me was a robe draped over protruding bones. Erragal, though, grinned up at me from the stair, a swords length below.

“I meant to test your mettle, warrior,” he announced. “You have done well. Now you have but to pledge loyalty to me, as Dabir has done, and I shall reunite you.”

I growled. “I shall pledge loyalty to no one until I know for what they stand. Man, wizard, djinn, or angel. You took my friend from me. Show me that he is safe, then we can talk of pacts and loyalties.”

His teeth showed white in his beard. “The scholar spoke of your loyalty,” he said, “and bravery, and also of your wisdom, which he said most overlooked.”

“More games?” I demanded.

Erragal shook his head and addressed me gravely. “This was a test, not a game. Sheath your sword, Captain Asim, for you have passed it.”

I glared down at the old wizard, conscious once again of the pains from the combat of the night before.

“Where is Dabir?” I roared, coming sideways down the stairs so that I might watch both the robed skeleton and the wizard.

“In the library,” Erragal returned calmly, “learning the weaknesses of our enemies. Come. I will take you there.”

I reached the bottom of the stairs. I did not yet sheathe my sword, but I did not point it at him.

Lydia advanced to stand near me. “How are we to judge you?”

“That is a fair question,” he sighed after a time. “But I am not in a mood to humor you. Let me instead offer the hospitality of a true host. First, if you do not mind, I will raise my servant once more.” One hand gestured negligently to the throne.

At the shuffling on those steps I turned my steel in that direction, for the skeletal thing climbed once more to its feet and lifted its weapon.

Erragal showed us a palm. “It will not fight you lest you attack me,” he said.

It came slowly down past us and stepped ahead to the curtained area behind the throne. With one browned, bony hand, it lifted the fabric in front of us to reveal a small antechamber leading off into four man-sized hallways. The wizard strode for the one directly across from us.

“Dabir’s plan is rather clever,” Erragal said conversationally. “It destroys the bones, which I should probably have done ages ago, and uses their energy to good purpose. I am looking forward to seeing your notes, Lady Doukas, about the circle within the circle.”

We started down the hall. These walls, too, were decorated with friezes, though here they were of folk setting stones and sighting down measuring sticks.

I could not help wondering if this was another trap.

Apparently Lydia still wondered the same, for she sounded skeptical. “What has Dabir told you?”

“How you plan to lure the spirits. Even with three working bones we may be hard-pressed to power so great a circle, but my own magics should supplement the effort. And I have contacted Enkidu, who is on his way to assist.”

“Three?” she asked. “So the staff you have is one of them?”

“Oh, yes. Through it I felt one of the others activated from half a world away.”

I grunted. It would be good to have allies, though I would remain unsure of him at least until I laid eyes upon Dabir. “Why do you want to help?”

His gaze shifted, and for a moment he was not the busy host, but a stern and powerful-looking man. “I am allowing you to help me,” he said forcefully. “My brothers and sister shall not use my tools without permission. And those arrogant fools have opened the way through for the ‘frost spirits,’ as you call them. Again. My oldest and greatest friend died in the last battle against them. They shall not return.”

“So you sensed us using the club—why did you care?” Lydia asked. “You obviously haven’t cared about them for years. Why come looking for the tools now?”

“I am not so removed, young woman. Even in the south land I grew aware of the rising power of the snow spirits here. I had not troubled over them for generations,” he added.

“Do you always lair here,” I asked, “beneath these ruins?”

He flashed a half smile. “Not often, anymore. Once this city was mine. Or rather, I built it for King Senacherib. From time to time, I, too, have played at ordering the world of men.”

I wondered what he meant by that.

He stopped at a door and gestured to me.

My eyes passed over the three square panels that adorned it, each depicting bearded scholars studying texts, and then I grasped the handle and pulled. It opened far more easily than you might have supposed, being as light to my hand as a slim block of wood, and I studied its edge. I had never seen a door so finely balanced.

On its other side was an immense chamber, large enough to fit most of a palace. It was filled with tables, neatly arranged in rows that were topped with model cities. Lamps burned on poles set every few feet.

“Where is Dabir?” I asked.

“We have not yet reached the library.” Erragal sounded mildly irritated. “This is the chamber of cities.”

Lydia remarked immediately that the intricate models were delightful. Mind, I was eager to set eyes upon Dabir and confirm his safety, so I did not let my attention wander. Yet I was not blind. So fine were the painted figures in the streets that you would have sworn real people had been shrunken and turned into tiny statues, though Erragal assured us this was no wizardry, and it had taken a very long while to mix the colors. There were all manner of cities, some built beside mountains with real flowing streams and others along coasts and others upon plains. Each was crafted with long straight roads, and Erragal pointed fondly to granaries, and aqueducts, and parks, as well as squares where folk might gather. As we passed on, he mentioned also that there was a way that lanterns might light each street at dusk, and a way that water would flow to each of a city’s houses, and other such things.

“You should spread these ideas,” Lydia said as we neared another door.

“Oh, I have,” he assured us. “But men are too troubled with the smaller things, and tend not to think for the longer term. Those who can rarely come to power.”

“You could come to power,” Lydia suggested.

Erragal opened the door for us, his thick lips widening in a sad smile. “I did, my dear, we did, Koury, Anzu, and I. You should have seen Nineveh’s aqueduct! And I built a great city named Harappa, with granaries just like those”—he pointed to his left—“and running water. Yet men destroyed her and her sister cities. Again and again we tried, once with a lovely dark-haired people of the islands south of Greece. They were my favorites.” His voice grew tired. “But nature herself brought an end to our plans there. I have washed my hands of it.”

We walked into another hallway, the lanterns flaring ahead of us. “Pressure pads, beneath the floor,” he said in answer to my look, “are activated by our tread, and then the oil is released in the pipes within the walls, and ignited.”

“You are a builder,” Lydia observed. “I was told you were a destroyer.”

Erragal’s grin was mirthless. “To those who stood in the way. But I grew tired of creation, and destruction. Although, sometimes it takes greater strength to let things go.” He said this last as if to himself.

While I puzzled over that, he spoke on. “I have seen the ebb and flow of men, women, children, entire tribes. Nations have climbed up, tottered to their feet, and strode mightily across the stage, only to stagger bloody through their final exit. So have your people come, so will they go. Only the language and stage dressing change.” He stopped before another bronze door shining with the images of shelves and scrolls. He put fingers to the handle, then faced us. “That is not quite true. Always there are clever new ways to draw blood.”

At that he opened the door.

Dabir sat on a low cushioned bench at a table, all three of the bone weapons propped in the corner. Next to him lay a set of rolled-up scrolls and a heap of food on shining golden plates. He smiled at the sight of me.

What I first thought a small room lit by a half-dozen wall torches, I soon saw was a balcony overlooking a vast hall full of shelves, so many that aisles were formed between them. And each shelf was weighted down with scrolls. Truly, it must have seemed like heaven to Dabir, and one within reach, for a stairway stretched down to that central floor just beyond the table where he studied.

“Have you found the texts instructive, scholar?” Erragal asked.

Dabir climbed to his feet and bowed his head slowly, in great respect. “I have. Your notes are thorough.”

“I remain impressed that you can read them.”

“He is real?” I asked Lydia. “And not another spell, like the skeletons we fought?”

“It is him,” the Greek said simply.

“Skeletons?” Dabir asked me. His look of mingled concern and curiosity was so characteristic, I relinquished and finally sheathed my sword.

“A test,” Erragal said breezily. “Now we four are here. Enkidu is en route to join us. We must get to work.”

I could not help letting my attention stray to the platter of food.

Dabir pointed to the scroll he’d set aside. “So the others draw magic from different sources?”

“For the most part. Koury and Anzu work similar sorceries, as you see. But then, they came to immortality in the same way.”

“How is that?” Lydia asked.

Erragal hesitated only a moment. “Flowers. They were ugly little things, growing only in the mouths of caves in the northern Zagros, in the spring. They’re long gone, now, along with most of those who drank the draught brewed from them.”

Lydia crept a little closer. “And what is Enkidu’s secret?”

“And mine?” Erragal’s head turned to consider her. “You do not wish to seem rude, but … well, you do not want to know mine. It would make you … uncomfortable and it is irrelevant as it cannot happen again. Enkidu is like Adapa was. He draws sustenance somehow from the world itself. And Lamashtu is more like Gazi, though she does not feast on hearts. I used to think her a monster,” he added, “but she and Anzu are the only ones I ever speak with anymore.”

“You said Enkidu is our ally,” Dabir objected.

“He is my oldest living friend,” Erragal agreed. “But his perspective is more akin to the beasts of the field. It is hard to find much to say to each other.” He shifted smoothly to Lydia. “Now, Lady, let me see your banishing circle.”

“I will be honored.” Lydia said. However, she delayed and when she spoke again she sounded as though she were unloading a burden. “There’s something that’s bothered me for a while, and I was wondering if you could answer. Do you know what the other Sebitti want with the bones?” She paused, but before Erragal could answer she spoke on, and there was a rare nervous quaver in her voice. “I thought they were going to use them to control the frost spirits—as a threat to those who would not follow them—but I couldn’t control the spirits when I tried it. Is there something I missed?”

“I cannot say what they are truly after,” Erragal answered slowly, “though I now know why Anzu and Lamashtu both contacted me in recent years and spoke, in a roundabout way, of the old weapons.”

“Do they have direct experience with them?” Dabir asked.

“Lamashtu does,” Erragal answered. “She wielded mine, once, to aid me.”

“So is she the one who told the others about them?” Lydia asked.

“Possibly they learned more from her, but Koury and Anzu studied with me for long years. I strove to teach them more than sorceries. History. Philosophy. Laws. Duties. They knew about the old ones, and their bones, and the brother and sister wizards who had preceded them. But I do not think anyone, even me, could use one of these things to compel those spirits to follow commands.” His voice was tight. “I have tried contacting my sister and brothers, to ask, but they do not deign to answer. So. Whatever they are about,” he concluded shortly, “they know that I would not approve. Now, Lady, while your company pleases me, we have work before us, and I am certain our time is limited.”

I had only passing interest in the discussion that followed, for I cared solely about the result, and could hardly follow a talk about energy flows and linking symbols and other strangeness. I looked over our immediate surroundings while they examined Lydia’s papers, then finally took off my shield, lifted some of the duck onto one of the ridiculous golden plates, drizzled the sauce over it, and ate. The meal did not wash away my worries exactly, although the flavors proved a delight. The throb of my injuries was dulled, and if the dark clouds had not precisely lifted, they had thinned a little.

Erragal listened attentively, making comments that Lydia hurried to scribble on the parchment. “We will have to conceal the circle,” he said. “They’ll hardly want to cross into the thing if they see it. Once we burn it into the ground, I’ll cover it over with snow.”

“Won’t it be obvious that you’ve shifted snow?” I asked.

“I can manage it,” he answered with a droll smile.

“What about … the woman that the frost spirit controls?” I asked.

The Sebitti nodded sagely. “Dabir has spoken to me about her. These are powerful sorceries we work. Anyone caught up within them is in danger. Much will depend upon her strength of will, and luck.” He paused, looking off into space as though he had heard some important sound the rest of us had missed. I had seen that distracted, focused look before, and recently, and I realized I knew it from when Lydia’s sentry had been attacked.

Erragal stood, and his brows drew together like storm clouds. “My home here is under attack.”

Even as Dabir and I rose he raised a hand to us. “I will see to it,” he said darkly.

Lydia spoke up eagerly. “Allow me to offer my aid.”

His eyes raked her, then he took up the bone staff and strode for the door. “Very well. Come with me. You two stay here and keep to the work.”

Lydia glanced back once, at Dabir, I think, as she left, and then it was we two, alone with the bones and the vast hall of books.

“That does not bode well,” Dabir said.

“He seems more than capable,” I offered, though I felt a stab of worry myself. “Why doesn’t his staff have symbols on it like the others?”

“He crafted the others for ordinary men,” Dabir said, “and left instructions on their sides so that their descendants, or friends, if they fell in battle, could wield them. He did not mean anyone else to use his, which is a little more powerful yet.”

I glanced up at the door, to make absolutely sure I could not hear Erragal. Even still, I kept my voice low. “Did you tell him about Gazi?”

“That we fought and killed him? Aye.”

“Well, what did he say?”

“Merely that Gazi’s been mad for a very long time. Erragal wasn’t upset so much as impressed.”

“That,” I said slowly, “is a better outcome than I had hoped for. Why did you say anything to him about it?”

“He warned me that he could see lies by looking at me. I am not sure that it’s true, but I knew also that if we were to work together he had to trust me.”

“It seems that he does. What’s this he has you studying?”

Dabir’s smile was a little sly. “The magics of our enemies.”

Surely I had misheard him. “You do not mean to work them?”

“I am no wizard,” Dabir said. “I’m learning their weaknesses, so I might counter their magics. As Jibril used to do, by breaking them. Erragal taught Anzu and Koury much of what they know. He has countless texts on magics and their working. And that is not all. My God, Asim, do you see that library?” He turned and regarded it, his eyes alight with desire. “I could spend a lifetime here. I wish,” he finished, suddenly reflective, “that Jibril could have seen this.” He fell silent and glanced over to the door, for he had heard, like me, footsteps in the hall, though they were strange.

I stood. “That may be one of Erragal’s servants,” I said, though the skeleton had walked in boots and did not clomp awkwardly.

“That sounds like wood on stone,” Dabir said, rising.

We looked at each other with the same dire thought in mind, then both picked up our weapons. The footsteps drew closer and stopped in front of the door.