Omar Khayyam - a life

by Harold Lamb

  Hassan lowered his head. "I have tasted the bitter kernel of the fruit of wisdom. There is no God. The religions of the world are like aging women; their beauty and fruitfulness are gone. They are shrinking to the dry bones of superstition; soon nothing will remain of them but the scraps of hair and hide and bone that are preserved like precious stones in the reliquaries and shrines. What is the Black Stone of Mecca but a strange stone that is like iron? If I could cry a message to the listeners of the earth, I would say, 'Overthrow all altars and thrones. They who sit upon the thrones and they who guard the altars are no more than common men shielding themselves behind lies.' It is true that the Moslems who pray to Allah are no wiser than the pagans who made offerings to the sun in the beginning of time. Is it not true?"

  "I know," Omar agreed, "that Malikshah is human enough. But if you take him from the throne, what will you put in his place?"

  "The first thing would be to do away with the throne and its slavery of bodies. Thou hast more wisdom than four Malikshahs. Why should we submit longer to this king-worship? Men have been working up from ignorance toward reason. In the end men will achieve to perfect reason. . . . Well, I made converts, companions—dissatisfied souls. Secretly we preached the new propaganda."

  For several moments Hassan was silent. "Thou hast seen the library, and thou hast talked with the Da'is. Thou knowest we seek to perfect our understanding of all things. But thou knowest also—deny it not—that the mass of Persians have ears and eyes for nothing but the Koran. We needed converts among the masses, for a few intellectuals have never accomplished anything—except to get themselves imprisoned or burned. So to the vulgar we preach the coming of the Mahdi, which is an old superstition in Persia. To the intelligent ones, we preach scientific enlightenment."

  Hassan shrugged, as if explaining the inevitable. "Is not life itself ordered in that wise? Does Nizam announce to the mullahs what he confides to you in his study?"

  "He takes care," Omar smiled, "not to do so."

  "You will find the doctrine made manifest in Plato. It is the very order of the universe. If you have light, you must have shadow. As a mate to man, you have woman. The twain fulfils one destiny. So our talim achieves unity by this very divergence —we have faithful converts among all classes."

  "Yet you make use of magic."

  "Why not? It is the highest wisdom."

  "For the common man, perhaps. Your messenger pigeons and trained eagles appear miraculous."

  "And for the intelligent ones, the 'arif, there is a higher magic. Certain arts I learned in Egypt——" Hassan stopped abruptly. "By what art did you prophesy to the prince, who is now Malikshah, the death of his father and the Roman emperor fifteen years ago?"

  On the point of answering, an instinct of warning checked Omar. "That miracle," he said calmly, "remains my secret."

  "As you will. I have uncovered my secrets to your eyes."

  "All but one."

  Hassan looked at him intently. "And that is?"

  "What the two highest ranks of your order believe—they who are above the Da'is, in Egypt."

  "Bismallah! I did not say they were in Egypt."

  "No," Omar admitted, "but I thought they might be."

  "You thought!" Hassan turned to pace the length of the room and back. "If that is an idle thought, what will your reasoning be? Khwaja Omar, in Babylon I admired you, and in Jerusalem I desired you for a companion. Since then years have passed, while I have achieved much, and you remain in the same position at court—nay, I think you have forfeited Nizam's patronage. Your road will not be so easy now, with that aged Arranger of the World as petulant as a ruffled hen.

  "Consider," he added, "what we of the new order have done for you. I bade Akroenos aid your fortunes, and he has done so faithfully. In the desert by the Euphrates he pulled you back from death; he has filled your palaces with luxuries, while he waited, and I waited for the moment when you should return to me. Admitted, that I watched your actions—as a friend seeking your friendship. Your new calendar, your books, the observatory at Nisapur—I admire every achievement. Do the leaders of Islam show favor to you in this manner? Does even Malikshah understand you as I do? Remember that in a change of mood or a moment's anger the Sultan may dismiss you from the Court. While to me you would be indispensable. Consider that, and come with me to see the strength of Alamut. Nay—" and Hassan smiled—"until now thou hast seen things only through the eyes of my followers. Now look through my eyes."

  Omar wanted nothing more than to rest, because his head throbbed strangely and the sunlight that crept through the embrasure danced up and down before his eyes. To match his wits against Hassan's was an ordeal. But Hassan did not seem inclined to give him time for reflection. Instead he led him down into the bowels of the mountain.

  Through corridors hewn out of limestone, Omar was taken to caverns where men labored at forges, and others tended furnaces wherein molten glass bubbled.

  "They brought this secret from Egypt," Hassan explained. "Why should glass be a rarity only found upon the Sultan's walls? My merchants sell it in the bazaars where only clay jugs and porcelain dishes were sold before."

  From the workshops he descended to storerooms filled with wine jars, bins of grain, and casks of honey. Summoning a slave with a torch he entered a space where sacks of rice were stacked to the ceiling.

  "Enough," he said, "to feed my people for two years in case of a siege."

  In the lowest level of the cellars they came upon wooden kegs beside the black mouth of a hole in the rock.

  "Listen," Hassan said.

  From the aperture came the splashing of water, falling into a pool.

  "When the earth was young," Hassan observed, "this channel of water must have been a small river, at a higher level. It ate its way here and there through the limestone, making most of the tunnels and caverns thou hast seen. Centuries ago, some human beings found their way into the upper caves, and in time they cut the passages and steps over which we have come. Ay, they made a temple here in the heart of the mountain—we found their altar. Come!"

  Omar realized that the structure of Alamut on the mountain summit might be no larger than another castle, but in the dephs of the rock it formed a mighty labyrinth. Wayfarers might pass by the outside for generations without suspecting the secret of the bowels of the mountain. Then, too, thousands of men could live here unobserved.

  Passing by one of the black sentries, who prostrated himself at his coming, Hassan opened a door at the end of a narrow tunnel and Omar found himself again in the cavern of the stone beast.

  It was silent enough now, without the distant music and the stir of the assembled Fidais. But the yellow flame leaped up from the fissure in the rock in front of the natural dais where the dancers had performed, before the claws of the beast. At times the bearded head stood out distinctly against the shadows; then when the flames sank, the cavern was plunged into darkness. Omar noticed what he had not perceived two nights ago, that the air was warm and tainted with the odor of oil.

  Even Hassan was silent a moment, contemplating the everlasting fire.

  "Who knows its secret?" he murmured. "Down there, somewhere, is oil of the kind the Greeks burned in their lamps. But how did the fire come in the first place and why does it endure without change? Surely it is older than the worship of the god Ra in Egypt; it is older than Zarathustra, and the first sun-worshipers adored it because it seemed magical to them. Ay, they were Magians."

  "They did not build the winged bull."

  "No, that is the work of the early Persians, who likewise worshiped fire. I have seen figures like it in the ruins of Xerxes' palace down below Isfahan. The Persians simply believed this site to be sacred because it had been a shrine of the earlier worship, and they built their beast to honor or propitiate the sacred fire. Now I hold Islamic ritual here—with certain innovations of my own—to edify my Fidais."

  The mood of meditation had left Hassan, and his cynicism returned. His words had the st
ing of steel.

  "And why not?" he laughed. "Did not Muhammad make a holy place of the rock in Jerusalem that the Roman priests had cherished because the Judean king David dreamed there? And what was the rock, before David? Perhaps a well, perhaps an idol of pagans."

  Yet in two minutes he looked and acted like another man. Striding from the cavern he turned into a dark passage that Omar had not noticed. A warm wind pushed them forward—and Omar realized why fire could burn and air be breathable in the maw of the mountain—around turn after turn until the darkness overhead became a half-light.

  Soon a strip of blue sky was visible far above them, and the sheer rock walls of a chasm took shape on either hand. They had to climb over masses of broken rock until Hassan strode full into the glare of the setting sun at the end of the chasm. Then he stopped, flinging up both arms.

  "Oh, my devoted ones! May the blessing of paradise be yours, and the strength of Allah strengthen your arms!"

  He was standing above a natural amphitheatre. Behind him on either side the chasm towered the cliff wall that was Ala / ;mut's foundation. The amphitheatre was really a plateau half way down the mountain-side. It swarmed with white garbed figures, running from clay huts and throwing themselves face down before Hassan. Omar recognized the hundreds of Fidais who had watched the sword dance in the cavern. This shelf of the mountain apparently was their barrack, and he thought that there must be some way down from it to the valley below.

  "To our lord—the peace!" they cried.

  Poised so, his magnificent voice still echoing up the cliff wall, Hassan looked like a prophet able to lead his chosen ones to any promised land. He did not prolong the moment; instead he turned back into the chasm, drawing Omar with him.

  Without slackening his pace he went from the lowest level of his stronghold up to the sheer summit. When Omar saw the sun again, they stepped out upon the broad rampart where the wind clutched at them.

  The sun was setting, and three young Fidais who seemed to be sentries had laid aside their weapons to pray.

  "Hast thou ever before beheld a miracle?" Hassan whispered to Omar. "Then watch."

  Stooping above the youths he laid his hands on the bowed shoulders. They looked up, startled, into the face of their lord. Their eyes fastened upon his.

  Then his voice rang out:

  "Lo, your time hath come, and paradise awaits you. I release you. Leap!"

  The last word was like the snap of a whip. Three slender figures quivered and jumped to the parapet. Omar saw one face transfigured with eagerness, and one distorted with a growing horror.

  Two of the Fidais vanished over the parapet. The third swayed, his eyes closed.

  "Thou also," Hassan urged, almost gently.

  The third sentry fell rather than leaped into space. Clutching the parapet, Omar watched his dwindling figure spinning after the others—three white balls of fluttering cloth that bounced from the sloping cliff to vanish into the trees hundreds of feet below.

  '"You see," Hassan said, his eyes bright, "what obedience is given me. Is even Malikshah obeyed thus?"

  "I saw three lives cast away for nothing."

  "Nay, for a proof. What are three lives worth in themselves? Before this sun, that is sinking now, rises again, a thousand human maggots will have crawled into oblivion and another thousand will be spawned upon his dunghill that is our world."

  With his foot Hassan thrust the discarded spears against the parapet. "Now thou hast seen a little, only a little, of my power. Wilt thou be my companion, and take thy place among the Da'is? Thy work will be in astronomy and mathematics as it is now."

  "Here, in Alamut?"

  "Nay, in the world. As thou wert before. Ask for what thou wilt—for the girl Zoë, or the Alexandrine books. I promise thee—and my promises do not fail—that the wealth and honor thou hast now is a small matter beside what will come to thee at my hand."

  Omar looked down into the darkening valley. "And if I will not?"

  "I cannot now send thee back to Nisapur. Until certain events have transpired, thou wilt abide here as thou art. Afterward, if it be thy wish thou mayest depart."

  For a moment Omar was silent. "Give me a week," he stipulated, "to make the decision."

  "Certainly," Hassan seemed relieved. "At the end of the week I shall await thine answer. Until then, my slaves within the walls are thine to command."

  Within his chamber, Omar sighed with relief. It was good to be alone for the first time, and he had learned some surprising things. He was filled with admiration for Hassan's genius, and he wondered how the leader of the new order had found the wealth needed to sustain his following. Hassan had mentioned some articles of trade, and of course Akroenos could draw a profit from a camel dying of the mange; but Hassan must have some other source of wealth that he had not chosen to explain.

  A remark of Ghazali, the mystic, flashed through his mind: "Any shrine is better than self worship."2

  If human beings were in reality no more than intelligent animals, then Hassan's new order was logically the best that could be expected—a hierarchy of scientific minds directed by a single leader of unquenchable purpose.

  "After all," Omar reflected, "Plato's republic would have been a stupid place. A lot of schoolmasters arguing about happiness."

  It would not be so bad, to live in Alamut with such a companion as Zoë, in a place that was like an observatory,of all the world. He would not have to dispute with Nizam or Ghazali or his own conscience. And that would be a relief. But he discovered that he did not wish to be the servant of a man like Hassan.

  If he served Hassan, he could not get his own work done. And he had barely begun to test his theory, that the earth revolved through space instead of remaining motionless in the center of the universe.

  "I do not think Hassan would release me, in any case," he mused. "No, he would not dare, after what I have seen. I would be kept here, a prisoner. That is certain. So I will have to escape, before the week is ended."

  After making his decision, he thought regretfully of Zoë's loveliness.

  Omar's first concern was with the unknown drug. This strange distortion of his senses and the following visions came not from wine alone—he knew the effects of wine too well, to think that. The thing that tampered with his brain was stronger; it came in the smoke of braziers, and in the cups he drank. He wanted to be rid of it, because he had need of all his faculties.*

  *[Actually the drug employed by Hassan was hashish, or Indian hemp. This was before the time of the use of opium in Persia, and hashish was almost unknown until Hassan introduced it. So its effect appeared miraculous to his Fidais, who became habitués in its use and could, of course, obtain it from no other source. In time they became known as hashishin, hashish users—hence the derivation of our word assassins.]

  It was simple enough to pretend to fall into a rage and command the little black slave never to put a brazier within his room again. But he suspected that if he refused the spiced wine brought to his room the drug would be administered in some other way. The unseen watchers must believe that he was taking the drug daily.

  So he protested that the goblets brought to his room at noon and at night were not sufficient; he would like a jar of the precious liquid always beside him. A great jar was brought him—Hassan must have wished that during this week he should partake freely of the drug—and one cup of it convinced Omar that it had the same stupefying effect as the draughts given him at first.

  "And now," he assured the jar, "every night the valley shall drink of thee."

  When it became dark, while the black slave was out of the room, Omar filled the bowl from the jar and poured the drugged wine out the embrasure without tasting it. But he found, when he tried to sleep, that he craved his accustomed draught.

  It was hard to lie there athirst and smell the fragrance of the jar beside him. Once he got up and went to it, only to throw himself back on his sleeping quilt, his limbs quivering with the effort.

  The next ni
ght, although he felt the same desire, he made no motion to touch the jar, and by the fourth night he was sleeping normally without thought of it, except to wonder anew at its power over a human body.

  Meanwhile under pretense of making observations of the sky, he had examined the wall of Alamut along the circuit of its ramparts, without finding any point where it would be possible to climb down. In stories he had read often enough of gifted captives who wove ropes of women's hair or shredded blankets and slid over such walls, but it seemed to him that it was easier to tell such tales than to act them.

  Several times he ventured down into the subterranean passages only to be turned back by the armed guards at the door of the fire temple. These guards had nothing to say, because they were mutes. And he satisfied himself that no weapons were kept within the castle—only the giant negroes and the Fidais who manned the walls and gates went armed, and they took their weapons away with them when relieved.

  He could not make his way to the quarters of the Fidais. And as for winning over one of the guards, he might as well have entered into conversation with tigers. Besides, they were always posted in groups of three or seven.

  "The logic of it is," he mused, "that if I can't go over or under the walls I must go through them. And the only way through is by one of the gates."

  The great entrance gate was closed at night. A lantern glowed above it and seven Fidais sat there on watch. Only once did Omar see a man go out at night, by the small postern across the courtyard. This man was a tall Da'i and he showed a writing to the three guards, who unlocked the postern for him.

  When Omar left his chamber after nightfall, he knew that watchers in the corridor followed him. Escape by night was impossible.