“Alizar, tell me what you see through this,” she said, holding up the shard of the tablet.
Intrigued, he came forward, and closed one eye to see through the shard. He looked for a moment, then lifted his head and opened both eyes, then looked through the shard again. “I see a line,” he said. “A facet in the shard, perhaps.”
“Or perhaps not,” said Hannah, and she quickened her pace in the direction she was already going.
Gideon shook his head reluctantly as if commenting on the madness of it all, but followed.
Alizar stopped Hannah and pointed. Then he lifted the shard again, lowered it, and conferred with her.
“What is it?” asked Gideon.
Alizar smiled. “A cliff.”
Hannah smiled at the men, and lowered the shard to her chest.
Alizar and Gideon walked past her in silence to the edge of the tall cliff that overlooked a wide valley sprawling from east to west as far as the eye could see. The wind was surprisingly gentle, carrying a slight bit of moisture. Alizar licked his chapped lips and stared out over the endless expanse before him.
“Look. Look there!” Gideon raised his arm and pointed into the sky. Two black specks were soaring on an updraft, too far away to identify what they might be. The birds swung circles around the sun, then disappeared in the sky.
“And there,” Alizar added enthusiastically, spotting the tiniest glint of light at the western end of the valley near where the sun was dropping. A reverent smile spread across his lips.
“Could it be?” asked Gideon.
Hannah smiled. “Siwa.”
When they were all rejoined, Tarek found a steep trail carved by an ancient stream that descended the cliff. It took them most of the afternoon just to reach the valley floor. On the way down, the tallest of the two camels scraped the cliff and one of its canvas bags came untied, tumbling hundreds of feet into the valley below. They could hear it bouncing all the way down. The camel brayed loudly as if it was delighted to have discarded some of the load.
Sure enough, on the valley floor the dusty bag was lying within plain sight. They tied it back on the camel and began to walk through a maze of rocky passages, twenty meters tall, the boulders twisted into tortured shapes. There was no vegetation whatsoever. One passage gave way to the next, and the next. By evening, there was no way to tell which direction they were walking, and they had yet to find a way out of the passages. Eventually, the stars shone overhead, and Alizar waited to see the direction of their movement before walking any farther.
Hannah succumbed to her fatigue. “Please, Alizar. I need to rest.” Her eyes spoke more than her words. He agreed, and they stopped to camp in a circle of stones.
At last, they slept.
As the first light of morning paled the sky, Alizar awoke to the sound of a raven cawing. “Gebel Sekunder,” he whispered. And then he rose quickly and rallied the others. “In Alexander’s journal he describes a place called Gebel Sekunder where the ravens took he and his men to Siwa. I think this is that place. Be perfectly quiet. If another passes, we must follow it.”
Within the hour two more ravens passed, and they began to weave through the passageways. By mid-day, the caravan stepped into the welcome, blinding sunlight of the desert floor.
Hannah and Jemir spotted the five ravens circling high overhead, and so each of them, delirious with anticipation, drew upon their last reserves of energy to follow the birds. Gideon hoisted Hannah up onto the camel to let her ride and rest.
In the late afternoon of the intense desert heat, the caravan stopped as they sighted, as if in a dream, the unmistakable paladin of an oasis, tall date palms sprouting up around a shimmering lake. They shouted and cheered, throwing their hands up to the sky in gratitude.
So.
28
Exhausted, parched, and caked in grime and sweat, the men of the caravan ran full tilt to the edge of the lake, ecstatic whoops of joy bursting from their throats as they tore off their clothes and plunged into the cool spring as Hannah waded in the shallows. Startled, several white egrets took to the sky as flirtatious passerines disappeared into nappy reed beds overshadowed by towering palms that rustled and swayed in the hot, dry breeze. The craggy trunks masked the small, thin faces of the children hiding at the water’s edge.
After a good dip they returned to the sandy bank refreshed and flopped down on the shore in quixotic bliss. Following a timeless pause, it was Alizar’s voice, rumbling like a storm cloud, that broke their reverie. He stood at the edge of the water surveying the surrounding countryside. When his eyes came to rest on a strange mountain beyond the lake, his hands fell to his sides in astonishment. “My word…”
“What is it?” Gideon sprung to his feet and threw on his tunica to join Alizar. As he eyed the mound, he too, could not believe his eyes. “By the gods of my father,” he said.
“Impossible,” said Jemir, his jowls hanging agape.
“It cannot be real,” mused Tarek.
“What do you think it is?” asked Hannah.
“That, my dear—” said Alizar, tipping his head slowly in Hannah’s direction without taking his eyes off the magical vista before him, “—is the city of Siwa.”
It rose in the north straight out of the desert floor like a magnificent hive carved from one tremendous block of clay. Its color blended seamlessly into the rosy earth, and yet it was clear from the little windows and doors that speckled the exterior that this was no natural formation. The city of Siwa stood nearly as high as the lighthouse of Pharos, being stacked at least seven floors vertically, and spanning a length of about thirteen city blocks from one end to the other. Every little dwelling, shop, temple, and home was connected to the rest of the raised mound by winding narrow streets, tiny earthen bridges, and footholds sculpted into the walls for access to the higher levels. It was a living human honeycomb. And what was more, tiny particles of salt and limestone blown across the expansive desert had become embedded in the silt and mud used to construct the city, causing it to scintillate like a sanguineous ruby in the warm light of the sunset. The caravan gazed on it, spellbound.
It was Gideon who suggested they camp outside the city for the night, as the inhabitants might think them bandits if they arrived after sundown. Tarek was disappointed at this, but the others quickly agreed. They had no idea how their presence would be interpreted by the local people.
“Can I go spying?” Tarek asked Alizar, his voice crackling with excitement.
Alizar considered it, and then shook his head. “No. I think Gideon is right and we should wait till the morning.”
“But the Siwans will see our campfire. They will know we are here,” protested Tarek, chewing on a date.
“Then we make no fire tonight,” said Alizar.
So.
The following morning, Hannah awakened in surprise to find that she was surrounded by bright, curious eyes that belonged to dozens of dirty children who crouched all around her. She nudged Gideon, who roused with a groan and rubbed his eyes. It seemed to Hannah, fresh from dream, that these were not ordinary children at all, but otherworldly spirit children, some having hair and skin the color of the whitest sea foam, while others bore exotic traits of the nomadic desert tribes. A few had the pale golden skin, curved lips and slanted foreheads of the Egyptian people, while others looked distinctly Nubian like Jemir, with black skin, almond eyes and plump lips that quickly split into happy grins. One gamine little girl even had blue eyes paler than Alizar’s.
Gideon quickly reasoned that Alexander the Great’s army and presumably Cleopatra’s and Caesar’s attendants had contributed these Greek characteristics to the Siwan people, an interbreeding which had, over the last six hundred years or more, resulted in an abundance of albino and blue-eyed youngsters. Alizar too, propped himself up on his elbows to admire the beautiful children. “Welcome to Siwa,” he said.
The children began to squeal and chatter when the strangers awoke, calling back to unseen friends behind the palm trees to come and see. The caravan found they were further encircled by even more giggling children, who grabbed their hands and led them like prizes up the narrow path into the palatial city.
The men and Hannah were struck speechless, marveling at the stark interior of the raised city which was strong as stone and intricately sculpted at every turn in rounded corners, narrow windows, and curved steps. The Siwan people had relatively few possessions it seemed, as most of their baskets and pots were woven from palm fronds or formed from the same smooth clay as everything else; items of the civilized world like spades and animal harnesses they had probably acquired from trade with nomadic tribes like the Bedouin. The desert had literally baked everything they knew into permanent existence. With a little water they could dissolve a wall in a house to create a door, or in one day a family could add a room onto their dwelling for a newly married couple. Everywhere dusty goats hopped from ledge to ledge, or sat with their stubby legs curled beneath them on the highest roofs of the city. Occasionally, a solitary jeweled figure in long black and orange dress, her face hidden beneath a veil, would appear and then vanish into the labyrinth of the city.
Surprisingly, many of the Siwan people did not react to the presence of the caravan at all, but merely looked up, then went back to whatever they were doing: repairing walls, milking goats, carrying water, or brandishing sticks at overburdened donkeys. Others recognized the opportunity to make sales and rushed toward them with handfuls of brightly colored fruits and crude silver jewelry, jabbering in a language that sounded like the cacophony of birds to Hannah.
They walked on, turning their eyes in all directions as the children led them through the dusty streets that curved like the inside of a seashell. Alizar and Gideon, the two tallest men, were especially aware of how narrow the doors and passageways were, and how low. The Siwan people were considerably smaller than the Greeks, and quite used to crouching; the men felt like giants in their midst. Hannah, her thirst slaked at last, looked around herself in awe and delight, enjoying the way the stark landscape illuminated the atmosphere as if it had captured a thousand years of sunlight in stone.
As they continued through the labyrinth of the city, climbing steps, crossing bridges, and turning down curving narrow passages flanked by high steep walls, still more children flocked to the caravan leading Hannah and the others towards some unspoken destination deep in the heart of the magical city.
At the end of a long winding passage where laundry hung from long sticks jutting from the walls overhead, the children climbed a set of steep stairs that ran diagonally along the edge of a tall wall. At the top of the narrow steps sat a plump little opening that could hardly be called a door. They each had to enter on their knees, and even then it was a squeeze. Hannah crouched low and ducked her head.
On the other side, once her eyes adjusted to the dim light, she could see that they were in a small square anteroom with lofty ceilings. The sound of flies buzzing in their ears, they all sat shoulder to shoulder as the children crawled over them to sit between their feet or on their broad shoulders, examining their nostrils and beards, fingernails and freckles. An adolescent boy with thin insect legs that jutted from beneath his dusty loincloth clutched a staff and called through another doorway to someone behind the walls. Remarkably, Hannah felt no fear at all, only nervous excitement. However, beside her, Gideon shifted on his haunches and whispered to the others, “Trust no one.”
A few moments passed and then a stooped, formally clad elder appeared in the hollow of a small open passage that led out of the room. He wore long robes the color of sand decorated with black stripes, and for a moment Hannah thought perhaps he might be a scribe, until she noticed that one of the man’s long black sleeves concealed a withered hand. As he came closer, Hannah saw that this was not his only misfortune. Both his eyes were capped by snowy cataracts, a condition that she had seen many times among the elder shepherds of Sinai, which afflicted many desert dwellers due to the harsh conditions of the climate. The old priest sensed the strangers before him and smiled politely, taking a seat in front of them, swatting the flies away.
“Welcome, Welcome. Omar-the-Goat, I am,” said the elder in broken Egyptian. Then he coughed violently and spat on the floor. Tarek looked at Gideon, who looked at Alizar, who looked back at Jemir, who looked at Hannah. No one knew quite what to do, but since Tarek and Alizar were the only two among them who spoke Egyptian, they responded by introducing themselves, and then Alizar explained where they were from.
This pleased the old man who laughed, coughed, spat, and then said cheerfully, “The dung of your people has not been smelled here for a thousand years! Delighted we are you have come.”
“Is he the king?” Gideon leaned in toward Alizar.
“No,” whispered Alizar in Greek. “A magician or possibly a priest. I suspect he seldom has visitors. It could be the first time in half a century he has even spoken Egyptian to anyone.”
The priest nodded his head, as though he understood. Then he said, “Fruit we have for you, our guests.” Then he whispered to the crouching boy with the staff who leapt to his feet and rushed off, returning with a tray of the most beautiful food any of them had seen in weeks. There were perfect white grapes, blood oranges, dates, figs, glassy plums and a sweet red fruit that Hannah had never seen before that looked exactly like a tomato.
When they had eaten a little and praised the food to their host, Alizar opened his palm and rained silver coins on the straw mat before them. “We would like to consult the Oracle of Amun-Ra,” he said. “Can you take us there?”
Omar-the-Goat pressed his lips together and cast his limp gaze down to the floor for a long time. “No oracle,” he said.
“No oracle?” asked Alizar.
“No oracle,” said the old priest, scooping up the coins with his good hand as though he could see them perfectly, dropping them into the leather satchel at his hip. “No, no, no oracle today. Come tomorrow.”
Alizar began to protest, but Omar-the-Goat shook his head and resolutely held up the palm of his hand. “Tomorrow, tomorrow,” he said, and then he shooed the men and children out of the room as though they were chickens.
So.
The next nine days played out in precisely the same manner. Every morning the caravan would awaken to the flaming desert sun and the round, peaceful eyes of the children watching them sleep. The children would then rush them into the city to see the blind old priest who would feed them fresh fruit and announce happily when they inquired about the Oracle of Amun-Ra, “Tomorrow.”
“What should we do, Alizar?” asked Gideon, whose dark beard was growing in, gradually erasing the scar along his cheek. “The Kahmsin winds are approaching. If we do not leave soon, I fear we will be stranded here.”
Alizar poked at the campfire with a stick and a spray of sparks flew up and vanished in between the constellations. “The new moon is five days off. I believe this is why he is making us wait.”
“What if I go exploring the cliffs to the north of the city? I have seen people up there,” said Tarek, “and dwellings.”
“No, I think we should be patient,” said Alizar. “If by the new moon he does not agree to take us to the oracle, then I permit you to explore, Tarek.”
Tarek let out a sigh, but did not argue.
On the morning of the new moon, the caravan gathered at the mouth of the city and followed the children to see Omar-the-Goat. Right away, the routine shifted. Alizar smiled a knowing smile at the others as the children proceeded to lead them, not up the stairs like before, but behind the city and up a steep slope where a row of little huts stood huddled together like birds on a short branch. Eventually they came to a wide vista overlooking the entire valley where a large rectangular temple made of the same ruddy clay as everything else rose up impressively; its twenty or so c
olumns of red granite were ornamented with intricate carvings depicting the story of one of the Egyptian pharaohs, presumably Akhenaton, given the long goose-like curve of his neck and the round belly. A mammoth obelisk stood in the courtyard just as Alexander the Great had described in his journals.
“Omm Beyda,” whispered Alizar.
The Temple of Amun-Ra.
So.
The children scattered and disappeared with whoops of excitement, leaving the caravan outside the temple to wait in the growing heat of the day. At first they stood and paced eagerly, but as time wore on they realized that an immediate audience with the oracle was not in store. Tarek took out a sheet of parchment and a sprig of charcoal he had sharpened on a stone that morning and began to take impressions of the carvings. Hannah and Alizar opted to recline against the shade of the wall and chat while Gideon and Jemir played several rounds of tipstone, a game where two opponents used alabaster balls rolled at a distance toward a triangular configuration of twenty rectangular stones, ten white and ten black, in attempts to tip the opponent’s stones while leaving their own upright. Tarek remained reticent seated on the wide cliff overlooking the palace of the king and queen with its four sprawling courtyards and tremendous statues set at specific intervals to catch the sunlight, statues that according to legend would speak at certain times of day.
“Do you imagine we will be going home soon, Alizar?” Hannah’s eyes looked hollow and dim. In the last several days, her optimistic curiosity had been replaced with deepening concern.
Written in the Ashes Page 32