Let’s see, he thought, his mind racing. If the bridge is approximately a hundred feet in length, and the entrance is roughly twenty-five feet below the top of the cliff …
“I’ve got an idea,” he said, “but you’re probably going to think I’m crazy.”
“Too late,” she said.
14
2006
“I can’t believe you talked me into this.”
Shirin was lying face down on the decrepit rope bridge, clutching a wooden plank with both hands. Flynn was lying directly behind her, doing the same. Smoke rose from the red-hot flames licking at the nearer end of the bridge, eating way at the ropes.
“Just hold tight,” he replied, “and brace for impact!”
Second thoughts assailed her. “But what if it can’t support our weight—”
The ropes burned through, and the bridge tore loose from its moorings. Still connected to the opposite end of the ravine, at least for the moment, it swung toward the cliff face with alarming speed, smacking into the unyielding stone with bone-jarring force. The impact bruised Shirin’s fingers and nearly caused her to lose her grip on the bridge, but she held on for dear life. Gravity tugged on her dangling legs until she managed to find a foothold on one of the planks below her.
“Flynn!” she shouted, once she caught her breath. “Did you make it?”
“Still hanging in there,” he replied from below her. “Literally.”
As hoped, the bridge had become a ladder, climbing up the side of the cliff. Risking a glance down, she spied Flynn holding onto the ladder right beneath her. Unfortunately, she also saw the flames at the bottom of the ladder climbing rapidly toward them, consuming the dry rope and wooden rungs. Smoke tickled her nostrils. A charred plank escaped the blazing ropes and plunged like a fallen angel toward the rapids far below, smoke and flames trailing behind it before it crashed into the foaming waters and disappeared from sight.
This is all my mother’s fault, Shirin thought. If she hadn’t filled my head with wild stories about Scheherazade …
Wasting no time, she and Flynn scrambled up the burning rope ladder until they reached the opening in the cliff face. Abandoning the ladder, she threw herself into the murky recess, then spun about to help pull Flynn into the cave entrance as well. To her relief, the gap was large enough to accommodate them both. He grinned at her in the dark.
“You see,” he said. “It worked!”
The flames reached their level, and they backed away from the heat. Moments later, the flaming remains of the ladder fell away from the cliff and plummeted from sight. Shirin gulped.
“Wait a second,” she said. “How are we supposed to get out of here now?”
Flynn shrugged. “One thing at a time, please. Let’s find that tomb first.”
His blasé attitude dumbfounded her, but she had no choice but to go along with it. “Just so you know, this is rather more peril than I’m accustomed to. I’m a scholar, not a daredevil.”
“That’s what I used to think, too,” he said.
Turning away from the opening, they faced a dark tunnel leading deeper into the mountainside. “A natural cave?” she asked.
“I don’t think so,” he said. “Watch out for booby traps.”
“Booby traps? Really?”
“There are always booby traps,” he said. “Or guardians, or guardians and booby traps.…”
She stared at him, aghast. “How is it you’re still alive?”
“Clean living and a well-rounded education?”
They advanced down the tunnel, which widened into a larger corridor that had obviously been shaped, at least in part, by human hands and artifice. Scenes from The Arabian Nights were carved into the walls on either side of them: Sinbad sailing the seas, an enchanted horse galloping above the clouds, Ali Baba discovering hidden treasure, Aladdin summoning the Genie from his Lamp.…
Shirin paused before the latter bas-relief carving. Was that really what this was all about? A quest for a magic lamp?
No, she scolded herself. Don’t be ridiculous. There’s no such thing as magic.
But a hidden tomb containing an original, handwritten copy of the Alf Layla? That was a discovery she could believe in, one that didn’t require her to throw all her common sense and sanity off a cliff, as it were. That was archaeology, not fantasy.
No matter what Flynn seemed to think.
Something crunched beneath her feet, and she jumped in fright, almost dropping her flashlight. Flynn turned his own light toward her, exposing the shattered bones of some small animal. A rat, perhaps, or some other rodent.
She clutched her chest, feeling her heart racing. “Sorry. That gave me a start.”
“No problem. Everybody gets spooked by their first hidden tomb.” Flynn knelt to inspect the bones. “Nothing too exciting here, though. Most likely Rattus norvegicus, the common brown rat—which, as it happens, is found on every continent except Antarctica.” He squinted at what was left of a broken skull. “Hmm. This appears to have been gnawed upon.”
“By what?”
“Something with very sharp teeth,” he surmised. “Possibly—”
A scuffling noise, coming from deeper within the mountain, interrupted him. Shirin spun toward the noise in time to glimpse a pair of luminous red eyes peering at them from the darkness. She raised her flashlight, hoping to expose the owner of the eyes, but the beam revealed only another stretch of corridor. The incarnadine eyes had vanished so quickly that she wondered if maybe her own eyes had deceived her.
“Did you see—?” she began.
“Two hellish red eyes spying on us?” Flynn said. “You bet.”
The obvious apprehension in his voice did little to ease Shirin’s nerves. She tightened her grip on her flashlight, in case she needed to use it as a club.
“Just another animal, perhaps, using this place as a lair?”
“We should be so lucky.” Flynn crept forward cautiously, seemingly intent on continuing their investigation despite the unknown creature ahead. His flashlight’s beam merged with hers. “Remember what I said about guardians before?”
Shirin stuck with him, partly for lack of any viable alternatives. “What kind of guardians, exactly?”
He paused at the end of the corridor, at what appeared to be the threshold to a larger chamber beyond. He swept his flashlight’s beam over the scene before them.
“The hungry kind, I’m guessing.”
Twin beams exposed a large, cavernous chamber littered with bones of varying shapes and sizes and species. The fleshless remains were strewn about carelessly, creating a jumble of loose bones. The smaller ones presumably belonged to rats and birds and other fauna, but some of the others … Shirin’s blood was chilled by the sight of a partial human skull and a ribcage, lying a few meters apart. A quick scan of the chamber suggested there were other human remains mixed in with the bones of animals. A broken femur was deeply scored, as though the flesh had been stripped from it by sharp fangs or claws. A rusty scimitar, broken in two, had apparently done its owner no good.
“Looks like we’re not the first people to find this tomb.” Flynn picked up the fallen sword hilt and examined it. A chipped metal blade lay a few feet away. “Approximately eleventh century, I estimate. Probably Turkish in origin.…”
Shirin’s mind reeled at the grisly discovery, her excitement over locating the lost tomb warring with an almost superstitious dread of what might still be lurking in the shadows, waiting to pounce on them at any moment. She was tempted to flee, but there was no place to go.
“W-what do you think happened to them?”
A maniacal cackle came from behind them, and they darted further into the cavern, kicking aside the larger bones and crunching the smaller ones beneath their boots. Chalky white droppings reeked to high heaven.
“Cackling,” Flynn muttered. “Have I mentioned how much I dislike cackling?”
A cord, strung low above the floor, snapped as the fleeing explorers ran through i
t. Bones rattled loudly as Flynn and Shirin were yanked off their feet by a net concealed beneath the gruesome debris. Before she knew it, Shirin found herself suspended high above the floor, trapped in the net with Flynn. They swung back and forth in the trap.
“A Guardian and a booby trap,” he muttered. “Figures.”
Torches, mounted in braziers upon the walls, flared to life simultaneously, lighting up the chamber—and revealing the inhuman being that had just captured them.
No, Shirin thought. This can’t be possible.
The creature resembled a cross between a cadaver and a hyena. Leprous white flesh was stretched tight over a bony form whose ribcage was visible beneath the skin. Tufted ears, tapering to a point, and a canine snout eliminated any possibility that the figure was human. Feral jaws bared a mouthful of sharp white teeth well suited to gnawing on bones. Coarse gray fur sprouted beneath the monster’s arms and across his shoulders. Elongated fingers and toes, each of which appeared to have one too many joints, ended in long yellow claws. A tattered loincloth protected the creature’s modesty, much to Shirin’s relief. Demonic red eyes gleefully inspected the hanging humans.
“Well,” he cackled. “What have we here? More foolhardy grave robbers come to sate my appetite?”
Shirin’s skepticism shattered into a million pieces. “Is that really—?”
“A ghoul,” Flynn supplied. “Straight out of The Arabian Nights.”
Shirin was familiar with the legends, of course. A ghul was a demonic, shape-changing monster said to prey upon the bodies of the dead. According to the Alf Layla, they were known to haunt ruins, cemeteries, and tombs. But reading about them was one thing; actually laying eyes on one turned her entire world upside down—and suggested that Flynn had been right all along.
This is real. It’s all real.
Even the ghoul.
* * *
“Of course,” Flynn realized. “One of the brightest stars in the Perseus constellation is Algol, from the Arabic al-Ghul, meaning ‘the ghoul.’ That miniature constellation outside wasn’t just a grave marker. It contained a warning as well.” He slapped his forehead. “I really should have seen this coming.”
The ghoul licked his lips and patted his sunken stomach.
“Dark meat and white,” he chuckled, admiring his catch. His voice was as dry as the dusty bones beneath his feet. “A veritable feast.”
“Hold on.” Flynn clutched the metal sword hilt, even though it could be of little use against the ageless creature. “I thought ghouls only consumed the flesh of the dead. My companion and I are very much living.”
“Oh, I’ll kill you first,” the ghoul replied, unconcerned by Flynn’s objection, “then let you rot until you’re good and tasty. It will be a pleasant change from rats and spiders. It’s been ages since I’ve tasted man … or woman.”
Shirin shuddered beside Flynn. “This is real,” she murmured, more to herself than to him. “This is actually happening.”
“I’m afraid so.” He was impressed by how well she was coping, relatively speaking. Her entire worldview had just been altered irrevocably, yet she seemed to be holding it together, more or less. He resisted the temptation to tell her “I told you so.”
That probably wouldn’t be productive.
The ghoul crept toward them, drool dribbling from his muzzle. “Or perhaps I should keep one of you alive until I’ve finished consuming the other? No need to gorge on you both all at once.” His head swung from side to side, admiring his catch. “But which to eat first? Decisions, decisions…”
Flynn had no interest in becoming either the first or second course. He hadn’t spent all those years accumulating nearly two dozen degrees just to end up in a monster’s belly. That would be a tragic waste of his advanced education, and a sad ending to Shirin’s brilliant career as well.
“Any chance we can make a deal instead?” he asked.
“A deal, you say.” The ghoul eyed him speculatively, sounding intrigued despite his ravenous appetite. “What do you have to offer in exchange for your lives?”
Flynn had no idea at first, then remembered where he was: the Tomb of Scheherazade.
“A story?”
The ghoul’s eyes widened.
“A story,” he said longingly. “I haven’t heard a good story in even longer than it’s been since I tasted human flesh, and I’ve read and reread all the Storyteller’s famous tales for a thousand times a thousand nights.”
Flynn could believe it. He doubted the ghoul got out much.
“By the Storyteller, you mean Scheherazade, correct?”
“Who else?” the ghoul replied. “The sultan tasked me to guard the Storyteller’s resting place, compelling my obedience with a powerful enchantment cast by his grand vizier, but that was many centuries ago. How I crave a new story instead of an old one!”
New to you, Flynn thought. I think I can manage that.
“And if we tell you a story, one you’ve never heard before, will you let us go?”
“I make no promises, mortal.” The ghoul squatted on the floor, settling in to be entertained. “You’ll live as the long as the tale amuses me.”
Just like Scheherazade, Flynn thought. Well, if she could pull it off for a thousand and one nights, I should be able get us through tonight at least.…
“Fair enough.” Flynn cleared his throat and began. “Once upon a time there was an industrious young student who loved learning and wanted to stay in school forever.…”
He started strong, regaling the ghoul with his own early exploits as the Librarian, but keeping a story going for hours proved more arduous than he expected, both physically and mentally. After the first few hours, he found his energy flagging. He was tired and hungry, and his mouth felt as dry as the dusty bones littering the chamber. His tongue grew heavy and sticky and clumsy, so that just trying to string words together felt like laying bricks, and it didn’t help that he was already worn out from their long hike into the mountains. He would have killed for a glass of water, but his canteen was empty. Glancing furtively at his watch, he saw that dawn was still hours away. They still had a long evening ahead of them, and the ghoul was showing no sign of wanting to call it a night.
“Um, any chance we can take a brief intermission?” he asked.
The ghoul’s stomach rumbled. “Well, I suppose we could pause for a bite to eat.…”
“Never mind,” Flynn said. “Forget I asked.”
He tried to muster enough saliva to continue his story.
“And then the brave Librarian set out on another quest, for another legendary relic—”
The ghoul yawned. “Yes, yes, just like before and the time before that. I’m getting bored … and hungry.”
Everyone’s a critic, Flynn thought. “All right, let’s skip ahead to something fresher.” He tried to kick-start his brain, which was feeling more sluggish by the moment. Maybe he needed to venture beyond autobiography into something more fictional, some old story lurking at the back of his memory. “So then, after his quest, the hero set out on a fateful trip, departing from a tropic port on a three-hour cruise—”
“Let me guess,” the ghoul interrupted. “There’s a shipwreck, and he’s marooned on a deserted island as Sinbad the Sailor so often was.” He scowled impatiently. “I know this one.”
Flynn gulped aridly. “Um, did I mention the millionaire and his wife?”
Snarling, the ghoul dropped to all fours and … changed. His contours blurred momentarily, like watercolors running in the rain, as he effortlessly transformed into a large, gray hyena. His hackles bristled and he bared his fangs. Flynn and Shirin gasped in unison, even as the startled Librarian realized that they probably should have seen this coming.
Ghouls were supposed to be shape-shifters, after all.
“Sit! Stay!” Flynn called out. “No need to do anything rash. I’ve still got plenty of stories left!”
The ghoul shifted back into his original form. “Such as?”
&nb
sp; “Um, well, that is…”
Flynn knew that, in theory, he knew centuries of stories that were after the ghoul’s time, but how many of them were truly new? It was often said, he recalled, that there were really only seven or so basic plots, and he guessed that the ghoul was more than familiar with all of them. More importantly, his brain had hit a brick wall when it came to thinking up yet another story; his mind went blank, like an actor forgetting his lines onstage in front of a hostile audience. Flop sweat dripped from his face as he felt a possibly fatal case of writer’s block coming on.
It’s not fair, he thought. I’m a Librarian, not a storyteller.
“I’m waiting,” the ghoul said, “but not for much longer.”
Flynn opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He figured he was about to go from entertainment to refreshments when Shirin spoke up instead.
“And also aboard that boat was a young maiden, who had always loved the old tales, but never truly believed in them … except in the deepest recesses of her heart. She grew up in a land ruled by a cruel tyrant, where women were not always accorded the respect they deserved, yet she dreamed of becoming a great scholar, although many in her family disapproved. Shirin, they told her night after night, day after day, why can’t you just marry a nice boy and start a family? But she loved books more than anything else and wanted to protect them from the passage of time.…”
The ghoul settled back down onto the floor. “Go on,” he said.
“I’m only just beginning,” she promised him. “One day, the maiden left her home to pursue her dream, no matter what obstacles lay before her, and sought to prove herself to the most venerable scholars and teachers in the great city of Baghdad, that fabled center of learning.…”
Flynn sighed in relief as Shirin picked up the story and ran with it, giving him a literally life-saving break.
Seems like what I really needed was not inspiration but a collaborator.
As it turned out, Shirin had plenty of stories, unique to her own life and experiences. Stories poured out of her: her early years and studies, a failed romance that ended in heartbreak, and then the war and all the hardships and dangers she had endured over the last few years.