The Bones of the Old Ones (Dabir and Asim) (41 page)

That the stories of Herakles were leftovers from Stone Age legends is no theory of mine, but of the undeservedly neglected speculative fiction writer Manly Wade Wellman. Wellman is better known today for his stories of John—sometimes referred to as Silver John—who wanders the Appalachians with his silver-stringed guitar fighting creatures man was not meant to know, but Wellman based an early cycle of pulp stories around a neolithic hero, Hok, whom he intended as the man whose exploits had been misremembered as the adventures of the Greek hero. The tomb found by Dabir and Asim is not meant to be Hok’s, but the prehistoric Herakles in this book was inspired by Wellman’s musings. The look of the tomb itself is loosely based on the prehistoric hilltop ruins in southern Anatolia known as Göbekli Tepe, which form the oldest known religious structure in the history of mankind.

The Herakles stories were not the only myth cycle I plundered for this tale. Legends with groups of seven are to be found all over the ancient Middle East. There were indeed stories of a group known as the Sebetti, though so far as I have been able to learn they were more like an anthropomorphic depiction of destructive forces of nature than individuals. There were also legends of seven sages, led by Adapa, who refused an elixir of immortality. I saw no reason not to combine these and other bits of ancient mythology, including the names of some gods, heroes, and monsters, to ground incidents more firmly in the setting, although I freely invented other pieces and sewed it all together into what hopefully feels like one cloth. As to pure fantasy, the Khazars did
not
have a doomsday cult that welcomed the world’s end in ice. In the eighth century, the Khazars were a large nomadic group, and both men and women were known for their ferocity in battle. Shortly after the time period of this book, all the Khazar tribes are said to have converted to Judaism, and that conversion may well have been under way among some of the tribes in the late eight century, although historical details are scarce.

Any real historical figures were far offstage in this particular book, but Jaffar and the caliph Harun al-Rashid were quite real. Jaffar was not yet vizier, but would soon replace his father in that post. Most of the scholars and reference books mentioned or consulted by Dabir and Jibril really did exist, once, but are now only known because of mentions in other texts or fragments of texts. Sometimes only the reputation of said authors remains. Poor Ocnus might have been brilliant; we have little to go on now but the opinion of one or two other writers who did not care for him, which may be a worse fate for an author even than to be completely forgotten.

Speaking of authors, if Mosul and some of the other locations of this book have been brought to life, it is thanks in no small part to the travelogue of Ibn Jubayr, who described most of the cities I depicted. He was writing some two centuries after the time of Harun al-Rashid, but we can assume that most of the important places looked quite similar in both eras, for technology had changed little. Ancient Mosul was pretty much leveled by the Mongols, which means that any details aside from major landmarks mentioned by Ibn Jubayr are my own invention, although many of the more curious items were real—the number of universities along the river, for instance. Harran, heat-blasted though it was, really had long been famed for its school and scholars, and Ibn Jubayr describes its roofed marketplace.

I strove to portray the tension on the border of the caliphate exactly as it was in these years, and there truly was a long series of forts between the Byzantine Greeks and the Abbasid caliphate, who were intermittently at war; there would be peace for a few months or a year, and then more attacks. When you imagine this warfare, though, you should not think of modern fighting, or even ancient campaigns of conquest like those of Alexander or even Belisarius. These conflicts seem to have been more like extended raids to acquire loot and slaves rather than territory, although some cities did change hands multiple times.

A few words should be spared to the drinking of alcohol in the eighth century. Islamic tradition relays that the Koran was revealed to Muhammad by the Archangel Gabriel over many years, and earlier revelations concerning alcohol discouraged but did not forbid its consumption. The later revelations seem fairly clear on the matter, but those who wished to drink had many excuses, including mentions of it in older passages of the Koran, and in the eighth century wine was widely available and widely consumed. Some explained away the drinking of alcohol with legalese (taught that not one drop should be consumed, drinkers would spill one drop, then drink—and no, that doesn’t quite make sense to me, either, but let he who is without sin throw the first grape). Some would drink, then ask forgiveness, or try to reinterpret the Koran’s injunctions to mean something other than complete abstention. One way around, of course, was by imbibing sorts of alcohol not expressly forbidden—alcohol made from something other than grapes or dates. Later religious writers would point out that the revelations should be interpreted to mean
any
sort of intoxicant is off limits, but those writings didn’t seem to have come along at this time even if some imams are almost certain to have been speaking of the matter to their congregations.

A word should also be spared for shatranj, which readers will have probably inferred is a forerunner to chess, with similar pieces. One of the biggest differences between the games is that there is no queen in shatranj, and the corresponding vizier is not nearly as powerful. Late in the book, when Dabir mentions drawing out the queen, he is making an analogy to drawing out the king in shatranj, but uses a female title because the person they’re drawing out is, of course, a woman. In final editing I realized those in the know about shatranj might think I was confused about the pieces, and those who didn’t might assume the game had a queen. Rather than contorting the surrounding prose to explain shatranj pieces and show Asim deducing Dabir’s meaning, I decided to leave the text as it was, and explain matters here.

In the writing of
The Bones of the Old Ones
I strove to simulate the people and period, but it must be remembered that this is a story of fiction, with fantastic elements, and there is much invention here, and in homage to the ancient tales of
The Arabian Nights
glitter is emphasized a little more than grit. Some names and concepts are simplified (for instance, the Greeks in this story would have thought of themselves as Romans, and the folk of the caliphate likely would have referred to them as Roumi). Some of the reference texts Dabir is reading probably weren’t available yet, and it is unlikely, though not completely impossible, that
The Iliad
had been translated and accessible, for it was scientific works that Arab translators found of greatest interest. It is improbable that the ancient languages Dabir and Jibril can read were still understood at the time, though not completely beyond the realms of possibility.

Those seeking a more realistic description of life in these times can find a number of suggestions in the afterword to
The Desert of Souls.
Most of those same books were as useful in the writing of this book as that one, although this time I leaned even more heavily on the aforementioned Ibn Jubayr. I used three other sources, new to me, and will continue to use them moving forward. The first is a primary resource (translated by John Alden Williams) entitled
The Early Abbasi Empire
, by Al-Tabari, who, among other things, wrote an account of the important events and people of the Abbasid caliphate, setting down the events of the reign of Harun al-Rashid only a few generations after the caliph’s death. I found Amira K. Bennison’s
The Great Caliphs
highly engaging and full of interesting insight and anecdotes that brought the eighth century and its ruling set to life. Hugh Kennedy’s
When Baghdad Ruled the Muslim World
was enlightening as well, and I recommend both books to readers interested in an entertaining and authoritative overview of the Abbasid caliphate.

Also by Howard Andrew Jones

The Desert of Souls

The Waters of Eternity

About the Author

When not helping run his small family farm or spending time with his amazing wife and children, Howard can be found hunched over his laptop or notebook, mumbling about flashing swords and doom-haunted towers. He has worked variously as a TV cameraman, a book editor, a recycling consultant, and a college writing instructor. He was instrumental in the rebirth of interest in Harold Lamb’s historical fiction, and has assembled and edited eight collections of Lamb’s work for the University of Nebraska Press. Prior to their first novel-length adventure,
The Desert of Souls,
his characters Dabir and Asim appeared in short stories in a variety of publications, and most of those adventures have been compiled in the short-story collection
The Waters of Eternity.
He blogs regularly at the
Black Gate
Web site (
www.blackgate.com
) and maintains a Web outpost of his own at
www.howardandrewjones.com
.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS.

An imprint of St. Martin’s Press.

THE BONES OF THE OLD ONES.
Copyright © 2012 by Howard Andrew Jones. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.thomasdunnebooks.com

www.stmartins.com

Cover design by Ervin Serrano

Cover illustration by Steve Stone

The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

Jones, Howard A.

The bones of the old ones / Howard Andrew Jones.—1st ed.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-312-64675-2 (hardcover)

ISBN 978-1-250-01513-6 (e-book)

1. Human remains (Archaeology)—Iran—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3610.O62535B66 2012