“No, this is important. It suggests that if you have the habits of superstition now, then there must have been a time when you believed.”
“I…” she began, then stopped, heaved a sigh, and made herself stop pushing against the topic. She liked and respected Singh too much to be rude. “Okay, let me say this—I used to believe. Sure. Most people used to. But the more I learn about the history of religion through the evolution of culture, the less valid the core beliefs are to me.”
“And now you believe in nothing?” he asked. “Can you truly say that? Nothing at all beyond what is measured and measureable?”
Lizzie looked down at her water bottle and tore at the label with her thumbnail. “I… I’m not sure.”
“Ah,” he said.
She glared at him. “That doesn’t mean I believe. What I mean is that I’m not arrogant enough to say there’s nothing out there. I’m saying that I, personally, don’t believe.”
“But you accept the possibility?”
“As a scientist I guess I have to.”
“Fair enough. Now, suppose for a moment that there are phenomena such as angels or demons. If, for the sake of argument, they do exist, what do you think they might be?”
Lizzie checked her reflex to dismiss the question and gave it some thought.
“You mean angels and demons in the biblical sense?”
“That’s a useful starting place.”
“I suppose,” she said, “that I’ve reached a point in my beliefs where I’m more willing to accept that the universe is much bigger than we can possibly know or understand. Advances in our understanding of particle physics and quantum physics have changed what we now believe are the foundations of the universe. Superstring theory and all that produced some belief in multiple and perhaps infinite dimensions. The discovery of exoplanets in what they call the Goldilocks zone around distant suns has increased the likelihood and mathematical probability of extraterrestrial life. Hadron colliders are changing and expanding what we believe about the Big Bang. And on and on. We have useful theories for a tiny fraction about how the structure of reality works, and we know even less.”
Singh nodded.
“So, if there are events like ghosts or demons or whatever, then it is reasonable to postulate that they are some kind of scientific events of a kind we do not yet understand and have not figured out how to study or measure.”
“Only that?” asked Singh.
“It’s as far as I can go.”
“For example… if you found a book of spells that belonged to a great and noble but extinct culture, would you risk reading it aloud while following any prescribed rituals?”
“I have read spells out loud while translating them.”
“Have you done so while performing the rituals, though?”
“Well… no, but that doesn’t change anything,” she said.
“Does it not? What if the spell was one that, if performed precisely according to instructions, was supposed to cause a storm?”
“I’d read it.”
“What if that spell would cause the death of a child? Not through ritual sacrifice, nothing directly by your hand, but as something intended to cause sickness. Would you read it then?”
She said nothing.
Singh nodded as if she had, though. “Tell me one thing more,” he said, “do you believe in good and evil?”
Lizzie shook her head. “I believe in human good and evil. But supernatural? No. I’ll budge as far as thinking of forces that are, energetically, positive and negative. Or things that have different aspects depending on how they are handled and applied. Electricity that powers a heart monitor versus lightning striking an airplane. Fire for cooking versus fire that burns down a building.”
Singh smiled and did not comment on that. He rose to his feet, finished his water, and tossed the bottle into a recycle bin. He gestured to the wooden club that now lay in the center of the mat. What he said was, “There is a lot I still need to teach you.”
Lizzie did not believe for one second that he was talking about unarmed combat.
9
UNESCO Field Team
Ghōr Province, Afghanistan
Nine Days Ago
“Oh, god, Dr. Muhammad…we have to stop them!”
The young Korean man who stood trembling in the open doorway was streaked with dirt and blood and there was madness in his eyes. The older man inside the small hut they were using as a field office, Dr. Abdul Muhammad, jumped to his feet and hurried over just in time to catch the newcomer as he fell. He lowered the young Korean carefully to the floor, shocked as he saw the ragged lips of wounds that had crusted over with scabs but which leaked blood and pus. Were they knife wounds?
“My god, Sagikkun,” gasped Muhammad. “Who did this?”
Young Ken Sagikkun, a graduate assistant from Seoul National University, was a thin, bookish fellow. A gentle person with a real interest in antiquities and their preservation. He had come to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and volunteered for the dangerous field world here and in surrounding regions overrun by the Taliban, al-Qaeda and ISIL, many times risking his life to smuggle out sacred artifacts and works of great importance from mosques and churches, tombs and shrines before the extremists could erase them with sledgehammers, bullets, torches and bombs. It was bitter, frustrating work, with only marginal armed support from the military arm of the U.N.
It was clear that Sagikkun was at the end of his strength, so Muhammad quickly fetched water and a first aid kit and leaned out of the hut to call for help. People came running, including the team’s nurse. It was an irony when there were fourteen doctors but none of them physicians. Muhammad’s field was religious studies and he was a tenured professor at Cairo University.
Everyone crowded around the injured graduate assistant, and as the nurse began cutting away his clothes, her movements slowed and then stopped. She raised her eyes to Dr. Muhammad and gave a single, tight shake of her head. Then she went back to work, trying to stanch wounds that had already bled too much. The injuries looked days old, but it was clear that they had opened up during his journey back from wherever he’d been attacked to the UNESCO camp.
Muhammad leaned close and stroked the young man’s face, brushing his damp hair away from his fevered eyes.
“Ken,” he said gently, “can you tell me who did this? And where?”
Speaking was nearly beyond the wounded man. He struggled and struggled and finally got two words out. “Turquoise… M-m-mountain…”
Muhammad gasped. “What about it?”
“Not… not… the minaret…” wheezed Sagikkun. “B-b-below… below…”
He coughed and blood flecked his lips and chin. What little light that burned in his eyes was dwindling to a fading spark.
“Are you saying there is something beneath the minaret?” demanded Muhammad. “That area has been picked clean by the Taliban and looters.”
Sagikkun shook his head. “N-no… below… far below. You can’t… let them… find it…”
“Find what?”
“B-book. They… want it… They m-must be—st-stopped…” He sagged back, spent from trying to speak. Blood bubbled at the corners of his mouth and in each nostril.
“Who did this to you? Was it the Taliban?”
Sagikkun shook his head weakly. A tear broke from the corner of his eye and ran down his cheek to his ear. He tried to speak but lacked the power to do more than mouth a single word. A horrible word.
“Daesh.”
Then a fit of coughing swept through him and the wounded man convulsed as if he’d been punched in the stomach. He curled into a fetal ball, trembling and twitching and gasping before settling down into a terminal and dreadful stillness.
Muhammad sagged back, closing his eyes and murmuring a prayer to Allah for the soul of Ken Sagikkun. And a prayer for them all.
“What did he mean?” asked the nurse, who was new to the team and unfamiliar with
the political and factional subtleties here in this troubled region. “Is that someone’s name?”
“No,” said Muhammad, shaking his head and looking at her. “It’s the name of a group who claim to be the soldiers of god, but who are the enemies of all who truly believe. They rarely come to this part of Afghanistan, but they have become bold lately.” He wanted to spit but there were too many people around, and so he swallowed the spit. It tasted like bile. It tasted like hatred. “Daesh is what we call the madmen who call themselves al-Dawla al-Islamiya fil Iraq wa al-Sham.” He paused and then said it more plainly, hating the taste of the word on his lips. “ISIL.”
10
UNESCO Field Team
Ghōr Province, Afghanistan
Eight Days Ago
The body of Ken Sagikkun was wrapped in a body bag and shipped to the United Nations Assistance Mission base in Kabul, where it was scheduled for transport back to Seoul.
Once it had been taken away from the UNESCO camp, Dr. Muhammad held an emergency meeting of his senior staff and invited the captain from the closest U.N. garrison to attend. Muhammad spread out a detailed map of the region and tapped a point marked as Firozkoh, located in the remote Shahrak district.
“This is the Turquoise Mountain,” he said. “It was the capitol of the Ghorid dynasty, part of the latter Persian Empire, and flourished here in the tenth century. Back then it was a wonder of the world and one of the most magnificent cities of that age. However, two centuries later Ögedei Khan, son of Genghis Khan, overran and destroyed it. All that remained was the Minaret of Jam, which is one of our world heritage sites. Legend has it that the city was an important business center for a Jewish trading group. Archaeologists found tombstones that support this. Evidence, in fact, of many cultures visiting and trading in Firozkoh have been established. Until now the principle danger to the site has been looters looking for gold or other treasures that might have been hidden to keep them from the Mongols. However, if poor Mr. Sagikkun is correct, then it may be threatened in a more comprehensive way by ISIL. The multicultural heritage would be anathema to them, and the presence of Jews, however long ago, would be more than enough for them to want to destroy the site as a statement. They want to erase all traces of religious history that does not coincide with their warped view of Islam.”
The captain gave a sober nod. “I can confirm that we have had reports of ISIL activity in that area.”
Muhammad felt his heart sink.
“But,” began one of the UNESCO staff, “is there anything left for them to loot? I thought everything of value was already sold in markets in Kabul, Teheran and Heart.”
Someone else asked, “What was the book that Ken mentioned, doctor? You went white as a ghost when he said that it was in danger.”
When Muhammad did not immediately respond everyone turned to look at him. “Mr. Sagikkun may, um… have found something that has been sought for thousands of years. Not gold or jewels, not even the bones of a saint.” He paused and licked his lips nervously. “It is one of the most dangerous books in the history of the world.”
“What book is this?” demanded the captain.
Muhammad’s face was pale and his eyes were filled with shadows. “It is a book on how to invoke demons.”
There was a beat and then some guarded laughter. The captain gave Muhammad a small, tolerant, placating smile. “Demons, doctor? Surely that is the least of our worries. ISIL and the Taliban are pretty handy with suicide vests, IEDs, car bombs and RPGs.”
“Yes, they do a great deal of damage with those kinds of weapons, captain,” said the scientist, “and you may laugh at the thought of such a thing as a demon. As a scientist I am a professional skeptic of anything I can’t measure or evaluate. However, I am also a man of faith, as are the Daesh. Not the same faith, of course, because I don’t believe that they serve Allah in any way. You are a Christian, are you not?”
The captain nodded. “I’m a Catholic.”
“Your Bible tells of Jesus casting out demons. They are mentioned in the Torah as well, and there are demons in the Koran. So, consider this, captain: what if demons are real? No, don’t laugh, consider the point. What if they exist? There have been rumors of your own General Patton making deals with demons to fight the Panzer divisions, and certainly Hitler believed in them. His Thule society sought them as part of their attempt to use the occult sciences against the Allies. That is not just in Indiana Jones movies. That is historical fact. Have you, captain, never prayed to a saint before a battle? Or an angel? Why are they more real to you than the demons the Bible insists are their enemies?”
The captain said nothing. No one spoke.
“Now go another step with it,” said Muhammad. “ISIL is dangerous but it is small. It cannot put a mechanized army into the field that could stand up to the United Nations or the Americans. The Taliban could not face the Russians or the Americans in a fair fight. Both groups have had to use subterfuge, sabotage, hit-and-run tactics in order to wage their war. So, given that they do believe, and since demons are part of their belief, is it so difficult to believe they might want to take any risk to obtain something that could be a weapon more powerful than the vast military might they face?”
“But a demon…” said the captain.
“Yes,” said Muhammad. “A demon. Certainly it sounds absurd, but… tell me captain, what if it is as real as the saints to whom you pray? What if there is a demon and ISIL can invoke it and direct its supernatural power against you. Against us all?”
The officer did not reply. He listened, he smiled thinly, he shook his head, and he left. No U.N. forces were assigned to the defense of Firozkoh or anything that might be buried beneath the lonely Minaret of Jam. The bone tossed to the UNESCO team, out of respect for Dr. Muhammad’s international standing, was a series of drone fly-bys, but the cameras and thermal imaging sensors revealed no signs of current human presence. The conclusion was that the late Ken Sagikkun had been hallucinating and incoherent as a result of his injuries—inflicted by person or persons unknown—and exacerbated by exposure. No additional action was deemed warranted.
Dr. Muhammad and his people sat there, lost and frightened.
Then the scientist went back to his tent, pulled the flaps closed and made a call. He waited through seven rings before it was answered by Mahip Singh.
11
United Nations Assistance Mission Base
Kabul, Afghanistan
Six Days Ago
When the logistics officer came to the morgue to oversee the handling of Ken Sagikkun’s corpse, he was startled to discover that it was gone. The body bag was there, but the body had vanished. No DNA was recovered from the inside of the body bag, and no trace of the corpse was ever found.
When the UNESCO staff were contacted about the mystery, they could find no official records of a Ken Sagikkun in the databases. When Dr. Muhammad, frustrated by the bureaucratic mishandling, called Seoul University he was told that no such person had ever enrolled there. And the dean of students went as far as to ask if Muhammad was making some kind of odd joke.
“Why? What’s funny about any of this?” demanded the scientist.“Well,” said the dean, “it’s the surname.”
“What about it?”
“It’s not really a surname, is it?” asked the dean.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s surely some kind alias. Or some kind of joke, though under the circumstances it’s a bit inappropriate.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Well,” said the dean, “the word ‘Sagikkun’ means ‘trickster.’”
12
The Minaret of Jam
Forty Minutes Ago
“I don’t see anyone,” whispered Lizzie.
She and Singh lay side-by-side on a slab of rock that had once been a wall centuries ago. Weeds and the leaves from a water-starved tree kept them in shade, but it was blisteringly hot. A scorpion scuttled across the sand not six inches from her nose, and Lizzie n
early screamed. However, Singh reached out and with a gentle brush of his gloved hand, sent the scorpion skittering down the slope. Irritated but unwilling to press the argument, the scorpion turned and scuttled away. Singh barely looked at it and went back to studying the area around the minaret.
I’ll never be that calm, thought Lizzie.
It annoyed the crap out of her that Singh did not even seem to care that the rock on which they lay was about six inches from the surface of the sun. Bastard. For her part, Lizzie felt like the heat had melted off what little body fat she had. If they stayed out here much longer all of her that would ever be found would be a bleached skeleton with frizzy hair.
Singh raised his binoculars. They were designed to keep the lenses shaded so as not to catch sun reflections. He studied the landscape for a while and she heard him grunt softly. He handed them to her.
“Tell me what you see,” he murmured.
She took the glasses and studied the scene. Lizzie knew that there had been a great city here once, but it was hard to believe. Some chunks of old bricks and misshapen rocks that had once belonged to the palace, fortifications, pottery kilns and a cemetery, but now the debris was crusted over with the dust of centuries. Of the fabled city called Turquoise Mountain, only the Minaret of Jam yet stood, though it was battered and fragile.
The minaret was two hundred and three feet high, Lizzie knew, and was built in the late twelfth century, completed in 1190. It was made of baked bricks and surrounded by what had once been lovely decorations and glazing. The tower rested on an octagonal base and two wooden balconies that once supported lanterns to help guide the faithful to prayer. The lovely spire was widely believed to have been the inspiration for the Qutub Minar in Delhi. It should, in her opinion, have been preserved, respected, and treasured.
Now the balconies were splintered and much of the kufic and nashki calligraphy was gone, chopped away by so-called jihadists. Even the verses from the Koran had been marred and disfigured. The minaret had been placed on the UNESCO World Heritage list, and the fact that this spot was so difficult to reach had created a false and ultimately futile hope that it would be safe. It was not, though. The Friday Mosque to which it had been attached had long since been washed away in a flood, and vandalism and erosion conspired together over centuries to bring the tower itself to the edge of destruction.
The Demons of King Solomon Page 19