Travellers to Isfahan
by David Barber
For a while now, travellers to Isfahan had been few.
During the reign of the late ruler, it was avoided for obvious reasons. After the earthquake that felled the Palace of the Red Emperors, the city’s sole attraction was its market, where visitors of discernment might purchase an elfling talisman, glass that enlarged things, or likenesses of the emperor carved from the thigh bones of his enemies.
The traveller employed a guide called Jamshidi, who was eager to please, though sly. He led Ivris Lot through a maze of stalls, waving away sellers and dismissing their wares. Doubtless he had arrangements with chosen merchants.
“Very ancient,” began one, proffering a dragon’s tooth at a price so trifling it meant robbing himself and depriving his children.
“Very rare,” the merchant added, though a dozen more lay on his stall.
Ivris Lot towered over them, radiating confidence and good health, with none of the caution of an experienced traveller, and Jamshidi could not fathom how he had journeyed so far with his purse intact.
Jamshidi’s father, a man wary of the world, had related the tale of a jeweller who swallowed his most precious gems to keep them safe on his travels. The practicalities of this still haunted Jamshidi.
“And why would I want this?” asked Ivris Lot.
Jamshidi and the merchant exchanged glances.
“Dragons were magical creatures,” explained the merchant.
“Perhaps it is a dragon’s tooth, perhaps not. I have seen skulls with such teeth half-buried and turned to stone,” Ivris mused. “Perhaps it is an ancient magic.”
His guide’s gold-toothed smile faded.
The merchant was less perceptive, or more optimistic. He held up a long, slender figurine, still daubed with red ochre, its expression cruel and sneering.
“Bone statues of the Red Emperor are rare now. When ground to a powder and consumed, they are said to have reviving powers. For men, you understand?”
“Like magic,” he added hopefully.
Ivris raised an eyebrow. “You seem to know much about magic.”
Jamshidi took him aside. “I see you are not here for trinkets. I know of a sorcerer in the desert, if that is what interests you.”
Ivris merely shrugged, knowing anything more would inflate the price. He was sure this sorcerer would be mentioned again.
They set out perched on local beasts, long-legged and imperious.
“I am crossing a desert and getting sea-sick,” laughed Ivris, as their mounts swayed and lurched over the sands.
“How far is this place?” he asked later, less amused.
Jamshidi did not answer, but instead whispered that they were being followed.
“Yes, by those fellows on horseback.”
“They are not good men, but perhaps we could offer them money to pass unharmed—”
“Wait,” cried Jamshidi, as Ivris urged his beast into motion. “Where are you going?”
“To speak with them.”
Ivris dismounted and drew his sword. He went armed like all sensible travellers, though Jamshidi had never seen him draw his weapon before.
The leader spurred his mount forward and, at the last possible moment, Ivris rolled aside, his blade hamstringing the horse. Mount and rider fell, and Ivris stepped clear of the thrashing animal to stab its dazed rider through the throat. It was all over in an instant.
He ended the beast’s suffering, then confronted the remaining two riders.
They conferred in a tongue Ivris did not understand. A valuable horse lost. Not easy pickings after all. This game was not worth the candle. They shook their fists at Ivris, or perhaps Jamshidi, and turned their mounts away.
“My beast was stubborn and refused to move,” explained his guide. “Else I would have come to your aid.”
Ivris Lot was wiping his blade. “Normally I would not strike the horse, but the fellow used his animal as a weapon.”
So, a swordsman, but one in need of magic for some reason. Jamshidi wondered if this changed things. He would need to warn Jemal somehow.
“A trackless waste and a dearth of travellers,” mused Ivris. “You wonder how they found us.”
Jamshidi shrugged eloquently. “The desert is a place of mysteries.”
Ivris Lot considered this, then also shrugged.
Much later, well past the heat of midday, they came upon low, sprawling buildings that seemed to merge into the desert.
Jamshidi pulled at the bell-rope. “The sorcerer Jemal will have sensed our coming. If he approves, the gate will—”
An old man with threadbare robes and thin legs opened the gate just wide enough for them to squeeze through.
“This apprentice will take you to his master,” explained Jamshidi. “I shall wait here because of the danger.”
“Danger?”
“Magic wastes the flesh of those that use it.” He lowered his voice. “This one is younger than you.”
The apprentice knew he was being talked about and grinned with all three teeth.
“A mistake just to leave,” advised Jamshidi. “If that is what you were thinking. The sorcerer will already have made preparations, at some cost to himself. Magic makes its users cruel, and he would not forgive.”
He searched Ivris Lot’s face for clues. “Unless we bribe this one and go?”
“No,” said Ivris, “we shall press on together, you and I. Without regard for danger.”
He stood with his hand on the hilt of his sword, blocking the gate, Jamshidi now realised.
They trailed the apprentice down a long corridor and into a cavernous room, where an alembic bubbled and steamed. A candle sitting on a skull provided the only light. After a dramatic pause, a figure stepped from the shadows.
“I am Jemal the Sorcerer,” he announced, then froze.
“Jamshidi, you fool! What have you done? This one is a true sorcerer. Can you not see that?”
“No, he is a swordsman,” protested Jamshidi, annoyed with Jemal for ruining his last chance of opening the traveller’s purse. “I saw him fight.”
Ivris Lot smiled at his faithful guide. “It was the sword, not I. A simple enough magic.”
“Honoured one,” pleaded Jemal, wringing his hands. “I am no rival. It is only hedge-witchery and fortune-telling-”
“Be silent,” ordered Ivris Lot. “I seek something. I shall know what when I find it. I sensed it here in a dream.”
“Ah, the riddle of dreams,” agreed Jemal. “Though I do not know what you hope to find.”
He dismissed the alembic, the raven chained to its perch, the skull. “All this is for the gullible, but take what you wish.”
“Stay,” Ivris said sharply, halting Jamshidi as he sidled out the door. Too late, Jamshidi understood what Jemal had meant.
Ivris ordered wall hangings pulled down in a cloud of dust, and light from high windows slanted across the room. There was bedding in one corner, and shelves crammed with oddments of Jemal’s trade.
“There are curious things here,” said Ivris. “How did you get them?”
“They were left behind. By a true sorcerer from the time of the Red Emperor. Jamshidi had the idea to use his dwelling and his reputation.”
Jemal glanced around and sighed. “Such were his powers, this place shone like a jewel in the desert, while I am reduced to potions and trickery.”
“This sorcerer... What was his name?”
“No one knew his name.”
“Where are you going?” said Jamshidi, as Ivris brushed past. At the gate, Jamshidi saw the traveller facing Jemal’s apprentice.
“Let me pass!” ordered Ivris, and Jamshidi knew he would have leapt from a cliff to obey that voice.
A curious ripple went through the apprentice, like heat shimmering in the desert. Gone was the threadbare robe and the old man. A taller figure in black stretched as if from sleep.
“You!” cried Ivris Lot. “I knew there was something here!”
“You sensed the jewel inside my skull. You should have been more wary, but I have been that old one, with all his aches and pains, for so long even reality was deceived.”
Ivris shook his head. “How could you be so patient?”
“I had no choice; travellers avoided the Red Emperor.”
“Ah, the earthquake was you.”
“I summoned and, in time, I knew someone would come.”
“Well then,” said Ivris Lot. “How shall we do this?”
“I hear you are a swordsman now.”
The other also had a sword in his hand, and the two clashed blades in a flurry of blows.
Jamshidi knew he should run, as Jemal had done, but flashes of light from the blades dazed him, and the two fought impossibly fast, a blur of motion that raised dust from the ground like heat devils.
They were suddenly still, and Ivris Lot no longer had a sword. Panting, he held up a hand.
“Wait, so you sent me a dream?”
In his shoes, Jamshidi would also have played for time.
“I will explain how clever I have been afterwards,” said the nameless sorcerer.
“Afterwards?”
It was the first time Jamshidi had seen anything like disquiet in Ivris Lot.
“After I take the jewel from your head, and make you an old man, bound to my will. How else do sorcerers gain power except by taking it from others?”
Without looking, the sorcerer beckoned Jamshidi from hiding. Unable to resist, he stumbled forward. “I did not know—”
“Be silent. Return to the marketplace and wait. Already other travellers dream of coming to Isfahan.”
Copyright © 2022 by David Barber
