by D. J. Niko
No sooner had Gabriel agreed than he began to regret it. How could he possibly explain it to the elders? They spoke a different language, literally and figuratively. None of the ruminations of his mind would make sense to them. He couldn’t write down mathematical formulas or explain concepts like the interaction between ground heat and the atmosphere. They looked at the weather like their ancestors always had: intuitively. They knew rain was coming when they saw the scarabs burrowing in the sand. They knew the weather would get cooler when birds started flying south in great numbers. And they knew sandstorms were coming when they saw smoke on the horizon.
There was no smoke this night. The sky was clear, its indigo cloak illuminated by a dazzling, perfectly round moon. The elders were gathered in the communal tent, smoking their pipes and recounting stories from the past when Gabriel entered.
The room fell silent.
He worried everyone already knew what he was about to say and, worse, had prejudged him. He shook off his momentary desire to make for the door and stood firmly before them.
Hairan addressed his tribesmen in the authoritative tone his rank demanded. “Abyan has something to say to us. Listen carefully. His is a warning. Warnings are never to be taken lightly.”
Gabriel spoke in a combination of Bedouin dialect and hand gestures. “Brothers, friends. I am but a stranger to these lands and bow to your wisdom. I claim no authority over this council, but I humbly ask you to heed what I am about to say. I have cause to suspect a great wall of sand is heading in our direction as soon as midday tomorrow. The people must prepare for this now.”
“You realize this is a grave matter,” one elder said. “Why should we believe you?”
“Have you seen a vision?” another said.
“No, no visions. Just fact. The desert is too hot. Even the animals feel it.” Gabriel struggled to disguise his frustration. “It will rise up and revolt to bring itself back to a balanced state.”
“Tomorrow we ride for the oasis,” one of Hairan’s top lieutenants said. “If we take cover as you are suggesting, we will miss our turn in the fertile lands. This would be devastating for our people and for the animals.”
“But not taking cover would be far worse. You could lose lives and property. It would be a major setback for the tribe.”
The elders whispered among themselves, clearly weighing both sides of the equation.
As the deliberations became more heated, Hairan clapped to call for quiet. He turned to Gabriel. “You must take your leave now. We will discuss this matter in private, and we will inform you of our decision. Please … go.”
With a sense of foreboding, Gabriel exited the tent. He had been hopeful that the elders would be more reasonable, that when faced with the prospect of death and destruction, they would choose the safe route even if doing so wasn’t convenient. Now he wasn’t so sure.
They seemed to be divided, clearly unconvinced a random white man could have any knowledge of things they had learned through the wisdom of their ancestors. His kind had no jurisdiction here.
When Hairan finally walked out of the tent, his old eyes screwed up, Gabriel could tell what the verdict was.
“I will lead the caravan to the oasis tomorrow. We have no supplies, no water. If we do not go, we will surely suffer the consequences.”
Gabriel clutched his unruly blond hair, now so long it dusted his shoulders. “This is madness. I can see what’s happening here. I am not one of you, so you summarily dismiss me. You would rather risk lives than believe a white man. Is that it?”
“This isn’t about you, Abyan. What I believe is that the people’s livelihood is at stake. Their very survival. I will not put them in the way of peril.”
“And yet peril is exactly what you will face.”
”We have been through countless sandstorms and survived. We are not afraid.”
He pointed at the chief, fully aware it was a sign of disrespect. “You are being foolish. You will regret this.”
“When I asked you to present your case to the council, I also said you had to accept their decision. It shows bad character to go back on your word.”
Gabriel looked away, insulted. Hairan might as well have slapped him.
The chief softened his tone. “All will be well. You will see.”
Gabriel did not reward him with a reply or even a look in the eye.
Hairan turned and walked to his tent.
Da’ud signaled to Gabriel to come sit with him and his cronies by the fire. Handing him a pipe of tobacco, the young man said, “You look pale, Abyan. What has happened to you?”
“I don’t belong here, my friend. No matter how much I know or how I try to help, I will never be accepted. We both know that.”
“You are different from us. You do things a certain way, and we do them another way. That is not a bad thing.”
“Says who?”
“Our covenant. We believe no man is greater than another. Your knowledge and beliefs have a place in your society. We respect that. And you must respect our way of looking at the world.”
“You are too young to be talking like this.”
Da’ud laughed. “I’m not so young. I’m getting married before the next full moon. You will dance at my wedding, no?”
“You? Married?” Gabriel feigned shock. “Of course. I wouldn’t miss it. Besides, who else will pick you up when you drink too much of that camel-piss wine?”
Da’ud pointed to the pipe in Gabriel’s hand. “Or smoke too much of this camel dung.”
“Camel dung? That’s what I’ve been smoking all this time?” He took another puff. “Rather good.”
The two men laughed and shared a smoke. But even that lighthearted moment couldn’t lift Gabriel’s sense of dread.
It was the next evening when Gabriel saw the umber haze on the horizon. He had known with all his conviction this moment would arrive, though some part of him wished the elders had been right to dismiss him. He would sooner suffer the humiliation of a mistake than the full wrath of the desert wind. The caravan was still en route to the oasis, making use of all available light. The most they could hope for now was a swift, painless gale.
Hairan rode next to Gabriel. “It appears your predictions were true.” He turned to the caravan and spoke at the top of his voice. “We will make camp here. Tie down the camels and fill some sandbags. Make haste. A storm comes our way.”
The Bedouins scrambled to fill sandbags, which would act as weights to hold down tents and supplies. This part of the desert was nothing but sculpted dunes. No trees, no shrubs, nothing to impede the wind. It was the worst possible scenario. He surveyed the tribesmen. None of them looked agitated. They just went about their preparations as they would any typical day’s chores. Two women even made a fire for tea, anticipating that the storm was still a couple of hours away.
Within an hour, the storm had gotten closer and appeared far more ominous. A rolling mushroom cloud of dust glowing orange in the twilight grew out of the ground. Rolling toward them, it engulfed more sand and swelled until it eclipsed the sky. The equivalent of a tsunami on land, the sixty-foot wall of angry sand thundered forward in a fierce bid to stomp these helpless people into oblivion.
The hiss of the advancing cloud drowned out the tribesmen’s voices and the camels’ wails.
The warm rush of fear-tinged adrenaline filled Gabriel’s senses. He had seen nature’s fury before, in another time, another place—and though the details of his past were still sketchy, he knew that what he’d seen was much worse than anything an angry desert could muster, for it had been brought forth by the most sinister workings of men.
He wrapped his headdress tightly around his face, taking care not to leave even a hairline opening through which the sand could enter. It was time to take shelter. Through the indigo gauze of his veil, he looked for the others. Some were hunkering down behind a dune inside a perimeter of blankets tied together. The women were huddled inside a tent, trying to quiet their howling childr
en, for whom there was no comfort. One tiny boy, choking with the dust already thick in the air, bolted out of the tent, falling as he ran up a dune to escape the madness. His mother screamed hysterically after him.
Gabriel bade her stay in the tent and ran after the boy himself. “Come here, you little devil,” he shouted in English, unable under stress to recall any Bedouin words. “You will die. Do you hear me? You will die!”
He was surprised how fast the toddler could run, his feet accustomed to the sinking sands of the desert.
Gabriel struggled for air. The tempest was almost upon them. “Stop, damn you. Stop right now, or you will kill us both.”
The ground had gone dark in the cloud’s shadow. Gabriel looked over his shoulder and saw the massive wall of sand approach with violent speed. Any second now it would swallow them. He resisted the urge to panic and turned back to the boy. The little one was on all fours, crying and coughing so hard vomit spewed from his mouth. Gabriel fell on top of him, sheltering his tiny body with his arms as the apocalyptic cloud swept over.
The next few minutes or hours—Gabriel wasn’t sure—were endless. He felt as if he were in a tomb deep underground, unable to breathe or hear or see. His senses were prisoners of the eternal dust. All he could feel were the frenzied grains of sand whipping his hunched back with no remorse. The feeling was akin to being dragged by a truck across a gritty dirt road. Sure his back was raw and bleeding, he tried to transcend the pain by making sense of what was happening.
It is the way of nature to seek balance. Balance is necessary for all living things. Out of calamity comes balance and order. He kept repeating the mantra in his mind, but he was not strong enough to believe it. His thoughts turned to doom. His mind’s eye was flooded with images of darkness and fire, vicious clouds of smoke from which there was no escape, people lying dead at his feet, trees as black and brittle as spent charcoal. He saw the pale blue eyes of a boy staring at him vacantly, frozen in death. He gritted his teeth to prevent the sobs from spewing forth, and his mouth filled with the metallic taste of sand granules scraping at his teeth and gums like coarse sandpaper. The sobs came anyway, then the screams of despair, then nothing.
The next thing he felt was a stick poking his ribs.
“Abyan. Abyan.” The voice of Hairan was muffled, as if he were talking from behind a glass wall.
Gabriel rose slowly, pounds of sand rolling off his head and body. He ripped his headdress off his face and gasped for air.
Day was breaking.
“I must have passed out.” He suddenly remembered his tiny companion. “The boy.” Alarmed by his own caliginous thoughts, he clawed at the sand. “Where is the boy?”
“He is with his mother. She is very grateful that you saved his life.”
“And the others?”
Hairan fell silent. A vague mist covered his ebony eyes.
Gabriel looked down at the makeshift camp and saw very little commotion. The women’s tent had been ripped to shreds. Bits of burlap attached to tent posts fluttered in a weak breeze. What was left of the fabric was strewn here and yonder. The men’s protective barrier of blankets, rickety to begin with, had vanished, probably swallowed by the voracious monster of dust. He heard crying—but not ordinary crying. These were the rhythmic lamentations of a requiem. His heart sank.
“The desert takes what she wants,” Hairan said.
The two men walked down the dune to survey the damage. Gabriel felt sick. Men pulled out bodies from sandy graves and checked them for signs of life. Those not breathing were laid in a pile to receive a proper burial later. A dozen or so were in the pile already. A young woman fell to her knees and with her hands muffled a heart-wrenching scream.
“Her beloved,” said one of the men, scraping the cocktail of sand and sweat off his face. “Dead.”
When they ripped the veil from the young man’s face, Gabriel realized it was Da’ud. His skin had the sickening gray pallor of departed life. He had suffocated like the others. Gabriel fell to his knees and heaved, nothing issuing from his throat but a thread of slimy saliva. He was utterly spent, physically and emotionally.
Damn you, Hairan. Damn you and your council of fools. None of this had to happen. These people did not have to die. He wanted to bellow his anger at Hairan but thought better of it. He knew a scene like that would only make things worse for these people, who had their own grief to deal with. Instead, he joined the other men in their grim task of searching for the dead.
The mass burial took place in the afternoon, when the bodies were returned to the earth and covered with a thin film of sand. Over time, the shifting desert would engulf her sons and daughters. Their flesh would feed the scarabs, ants, and scorpions; their bones would calcify the sands. The burial was without ceremony. Loved ones simply left a pile of the deceased’s clothes at the head of the grave, a symbol of letting go and an offering to passersby in need. Nothing was wasted in the desert, least of all tears.
Gabriel sat alone for the rest of the evening, grieving in his own way. He smoked Da’ud’s pipe, which the young man’s betrothed had given Gabriel at the burial.
“You shared this pipe,” she had said. “It belongs with you now.”
His anger had subsided and been replaced by a profound sense of despair. The world he’d found was as cruel as the one he’d left.
Hairan sat next to him. “I am sorry, Abyan. Sorry for your loss.”
“What do you know of my loss?”
“I can see it in your expression. You are different.”
“Well, saying good-bye to friends will do that to a man.” Gabriel made no attempt to mask his bitterness.
“I do not understand your anger. Da’ud, your friend, would not have understood it. It is the way of all life. Death comes to all living things. We do not will when it comes. It happens according to the plan.”
Tears obscured Gabriel’s vision, his emotion equal parts frustration and grief. How could he explain to this simple nomad that there was no plan, that man and man alone created destiny? He knew he could not penetrate the armor of faith that enshrouded the desert dweller. He wiped his eyes haphazardly with his palms, took a deep breath, and stared at the sky, wondering if he would ever find peace.
Hairan invaded the silence. “We could not foresee that the sandstorm would be catastrophic. And yet you knew. How?”
Gabriel sighed and spoke in a softer tone. “I cannot explain it to you, Shaykh. The things I know are my own burden.”
Hairan put a gentle arm around his shoulder. “You remember who you are, don’t you?”
“Yes. And I wish I didn’t.”
Eight
My friend Daniel,
It is my humble duty to inform you the inscriptions you have found are not what I thought them to be— that is, an innocuous account of nomadic life. There is a message here, a warning perhaps, though without the benefit of the full text I cannot give you but a partial explanation. The passage you left with me translates thus:
Great tongues of fire will cover the land.
The tainted air will feed the flames.
Smoke will rise to the heavens with a terrible fury
Until all life is devoured and there is nothing
But the eternal silence.
Something strange is at work here. When I consulted my sources at Yemrehana Krestos, they were reluctant to discuss it. They demanded to know where the inscriptions were found and who else knew about them. I told them nothing, of course. I have never known these peaceful men to be so unsettled.
I caution you and Sarah to be vigilant. It seems these are murky waters you are treading.
Best wishes,
Rada Kabede
After reading the letter, Sarah was more convinced than ever that the tenth saint lay prostrate before her. In silence she surveyed the skeleton, fixing her gaze on his severed rib cage. The eternal silence. Death. Could he have been describing his own fatal moment? Could he have foreseen it before he fell to the lance-blade? Perha
ps he was a prophet of some sort. That could explain his sanctity.
To complicate matters, the report from the radiocarbon dating lab arrived in her in-box sometime during the night. For the most part, it was consistent with her suspicions, but some things still didn’t make sense.
When her phone rang, she already knew who it was. She was certain Professor Simon, whom the lab had copied on the report, would want to discuss the curious nature of the findings.
She answered cheerfully. “Professor, did you receive—”
”Are you alone?”
“I’m in the lab. There is no one else here. Is something wrong?”
“Listen very carefully, Sarah. I had a call from the Minister of Culture today. Apparently, your expedition has been the subject of discussion in very high circles. It seems there has been a little too much attention on the Cambridge project, thanks to this Mr. Kabede’s murder. Yesterday, investigators went through his office and found certain objects that connect him to you. There were files in his computer marked Aksum Expedition. They contained only notes, but that was enough to rouse their suspicions. Then they snooped around and got eyewitness reports of his dining with you and Daniel Madigan. The final blow came when his secretary confessed that on the night before his death Mr. Kabede handed her a letter to courier over to Dr. Madigan.”
Sarah went numb.
“Sarah? Are you there?”
It was as though an invisible hand had gripped her throat. “I’m here,” she whispered.
“Where is this letter?”
“I have it. It arrived this morning.”
“Well? What does it say?”
Sarah read the contents to the professor.