Red Star Tales

by Yvonne Howell

  Tanya snickered. The professor’s glasses flashed as he glared at her.

  “Oh, those girls! They’re forever… They do just fine, but show them a man in uniform and it’s all over. So be it. Have some tea, settle in, and we’ll see.”

  In the end, everything worked out. When the professor learned that I’m a geologist and therefore familiar with archeology, he completely got over the shock of my showing up.

  The next morning, the Nur-i-Desht observatory really did strike me as an exceptionally agreeable place. Atop a high, rocky hill stood a semicircular wall, on the far side of which was a squat tower. Both ends of the wall were straddled by massive arches resting on thick, cube-shaped bases. Between the cubes, a beautiful Arabian-style portico had survived that retained the traces of gold lettering against a turquoise background. Between the tower and the arches, a deep, funnel-shaped hole had been dug and lined with tufa. Most of the hole was taken up by the precisely sculpted concave marble arc of an astronomical quadrant that descended and then rose in two pieces with a space between them. Some sorts of symbols and markings had been carved into the sides of the arc. Shallow steps, carved with perfect regularity, descended in parallel with the arc.

  The professor did not linger at the observatory.

  “We’ve already examined everything here,” he told me. “Now we’ll be working over there.” And he gestured toward the end of the wall’s right-hand wing, near which stood the remains of crumbling arches and a narrow, spired tower. “As you see, the astronomical observatory is well preserved. Of course the bronze parts of the quadrant’s arc and other instruments were plundered long ago, back before the Mongol invasion. But this spot, where we’ll be continuing our investigation, must have been where the instruments were stored, the star maps and books, and the astronomers may have lived here. Part of the building was carved out of the cliff. We still need to figure out what some of the entrances, wells, and caverns were used for. Whatever was built on top has collapsed, piles of crushed stone and sand are blocking the entrances to the spaces below, and I still don’t have a clear understanding of this building. It looks more like a little fort than an observatory… Well, let’s get to work…” And with that, the professor plunged under an archway crusted with dust and covered in dry grass.

  All three of us followed him.

  It was pleasantly cool in the semidarkness of the square room under the arch. Arming myself with a hoe-like instrument – a ketmen – and, following the professor’s instructions, I got down to work raking away the pile of earth and stone that had accumulated as the neighboring arch settled. I was going full steam and dripping with sweat. The piles of earth I was excavating kept growing on either side of the room. The professor, very pleased, ordered me to rest and took charge of the ketmen himself. Then Tanya did some digging, and I took another turn. We were immersed in sweat and dust for a long time before we finally broke through to a low, spacious cavern that was barely illuminated through slits in the rocks supporting the arches above. The professor and Tanya were immediately drawn to some smooth stone tablets piled in a corner. Nothing in this dark and featureless cavern interested me, so I began to examine the adjoining rooms. Doorless passages as narrow as slits connected another three caverns which, unlike the first ones, had high ceilings. They were all completely empty, but at the end of the second room stood a broad, sturdy cylindrical structure of gray stone. Around the outside of the cylinder wound a narrow, crumbling staircase, the top of which disappeared into a chaos of debris obstructing a square hatch. Lower down the cylinder, some black openings, so small even a rat couldn’t fit through, caught my eye. I looked into one, and spent a long time studying the darkness until I thought I could detect a faint glow. I took another look, and again I saw a barely discernible light. I called the professor. He reluctantly tore himself away from his examination of the tablets and followed me. I pointed out the cylindrical structure, but the professor did not express the slightest interest.

  “Look, Tanya,” he said to the young woman walking behind him, “that’s the base of the outside tower, the one that looks like a minaret. That’s the only thing that survived: it was built of the strongest diabase.”

  To my comment that there seemed to be a glimmer of light inside, the professor replied:

  “But what could possibly be there? Some sort of decorative tile fell in. They accessed the tower using the outer staircase, and the only reason they kept it hollow was to economize on materials. There’s no way to get inside.”

  He started to head back, but stopped short:

  “Now here’s something that really is important!”

  And the professor pointed beyond the protruding frame of a narrow doorway to a crumbling cavern wall. Under the rubble was a barely visible step – apparently the beginning of a staircase leading someplace below.

  “You see, Tanya, I told you that there had to be another level, a third story, the lowest. This is the first way down that we’ve managed to discover. Here’s where we’ll dig. What time is it, Ivan Timofeyevich?” the professor asked, apparently struck by a sudden thought.

  “Almost five.”

  “Well! That explains why I’m so hungry. Let’s head up right away.”

  Above ground, we were met with dry heat and blinding light that dazzled the eyes after the darkness under the arches. I made way for Tanya and the professor to pass me and stayed behind to get a better look around from atop the observatory mound. On the level ground to the left of the mound stood our two tents. Both the mound and this flat area sat on the summit of a broad, dome-shaped hill, part of a group of eight similar hills covered in sparse, wiry grass that was nothing like the cheerful green grass of our north. The angular tips of black stones sprinkled with coarse sand poked through its bristles. The stones protruding out from under a thin cover of earth on the observatory’s hill were of a different, lighter shade. So in terms of hue, the observatory mound stood out rather sharply among its black brethren.

  The nine hills clustered together at the edge of a boundless plain that gradually sloped downward toward the south, while to the west, my right, almost at the very horizon, rose a jagged strip of distant, snow-topped mountains. On that same side, the plain was intersected by a narrow, winding ribbon of molten steel; the river ran down from the mountains, skirted the observatory hill and, turning eastward, was lost amid the sands. Below the observatory, the yellow steppe spread in every direction, dotted with bushes of silver wormwood and thorny blue acanthus plants. Farther in the distance, to the north, the steppe was outlined at the edge of the sands by a dark ribbon of saxaul trees.

  Calm, expanse, pure mountain air, and the blue of a heavy sultriness overhead…

  What a lucky twist of fate had brought me here! What more could my soul require? I was seized by a joyous feeling of conciliation with myself and with nature.

  “Ivan Timofeyevich,” I heard Vyachik, Tanya’s brother, calling me. “Suppertime!”

  “Where did you disappear to?” Tanya asked by way of greeting. “I had a marvelous swim, and I wanted to ask you along. We’re going to eat now, so swimming will have to wait till evening.”

  After supper and a brief rest, we again went to dig out the stairway the professor had discovered. It led into a broad cavity carved out of the sandstone and was filled from top to bottom with all sorts of debris. Given the pace of progress, it was clear that several days of our combined effort would be needed to excavate the stairway.

  After we finished our day’s work, I reminded Tanya of her promise. She led me down a narrow path along the riverbank to the foot of the second hill. I followed her in silence, listening to the steady sound of the rapids, whose fast trickles fractured the sunlight. At a turn in the stream, Tanya stopped.

  “Sit here and wait for me. Vyachik and I built a dam so the water would be waist deep.”

  She disappeared behind a bluff in the riverbank, and I lay down on the prickly grass and pointed my face to catch the weak breeze. The babbling of t
he stream lulled me to sleep.

  “You fell asleep? Hurry up. It’s marvelous!”

  Fresh and cheerful, Tanya stood before me – the unblemished beauty of youth in harmony with the water and sun. I jumped up and descended the steep bank. Before me I discovered a small weir across from a miniscule sandy beach. Two twisted saplings, like sentries, guarded this pristine bath from the low right bank. I quickly figured out how to lie down without being swept away by the cold current. The swim was amazingly refreshing. Back at the tents, the professor and Vyachik awaited us with tea.

  “How did you like your swim?” the professor inquired. “Ah, let’s put the geologist to the test! You didn’t notice anything in the river? No? My dear major, you’ve forgotten everything on the battlefield! We know from the chronicles that the ancient name of the river is ‘Ekik,’ which means carnelian. And you can find red stones among the pebbles in the riverbed. Take a look when you have a chance.”

  Excavating the lowest level proved to be more difficult than anticipated. The downward sloping cavity kept filling up with showers of earth and stone. I had already been working four days from morning to late at night. My muscles were infused with new strength. It was as if fresh new feelings were emerging from some unknown corner of my soul, like the green shoots of spring – feelings just as infinitely calm and bright as the nature around me. I was possessed by a confident joy in life: fatigue and unhappiness almost vanished from memory. As it should be for any completely healthy person, my body ceased to exist; all I was conscious of was the pleasure of abundant energy. Now I can break these feelings down into separate elements, but back then it was different and they were expressed, actually, in a sense of heightened delight in the land where the Nur-i-Desht ruins were located. I racked my brain, trying to understand the secret behind the enchantment of these desolate rocky hills and forlorn ruins amid a baking ring of steppe and sand. I shared my impressions with Tanya and the professor. They agreed with me.

  “I have to admit, I don’t understand it at all,” Matvei Andreyevich said. “I only know that I’ve never felt as well as I do here.”

  “‘Well’ is putting it mildly,” Tanya chimed in. “For my part, I’m filled with radiant joy. It seems to me that this ancient observatory is a temple… I can’t really express it clearly… the earth, the sky, the sun, and something mysterious and beautiful that imperceptibly permeates this ungoverned space. I’ve seen plenty of much more beautiful places, but I’ve never been as captivated as I am by these seemingly unimpressive ruins.”

  Another workday ended after dark, but I had no desire to sleep.

  Night came. We lay down by the campfire. At the zenith of the black cupola above us shone blue Vega; from the west, golden Arcturus twinkled like an owl’s eye. The stardust of the Milky Way radiated a silvery heat.

  Just above the horizon, red Antares was gleaming; and to the right were the faint contours of Sagittarius, the Archer. There lies the center of the monstrous sidereal wheel of the Galaxy – the central “sun” of our Universe. We will never see it – the Galaxy’s axis is hidden behind a gigantic curtain of black. These countless worlds must also contain life – alien and diverse. Off in the inaccessible distance, they are inhabited by beings like us, possessed of the power of thought… And there I was, beguiled, looking up at these worlds with a sense of yearning, unsettled by a vague premonition of the impending greatness of humankind’s destiny. But great only once we manage to overcome the dark brutish forces that still dominate the earth, obstinately, bestially eroding – destroying – the precious advances of human thought and imagination.

  “Are you sleeping, Ivan Timofeyevich?” the professor’s voice broke the silence.

  “No, I’m looking at the stars… They are especially clear and close here.”

  “Yes, they knew what they were doing when they built the observatory; the air here is exceptionally translucent. Then again, the sky is translucent and vibrant almost everywhere in Central Asia. That’s why the people here are expert stargazers. You know, the Kyrgyz call the North Star the sky’s silver stake. Three horses are tied to that stake. Four wolves are eternally chasing the horses, but they are never able to catch them. When they do, it will be the end of the world. Isn’t that a poetic way to look at Ursa Major’s rotation?”

  “Very nice, Matvei Andreyevich! I recall reading somewhere about the sky in the Southern Hemisphere. High up, where the Southern Cross glimmers, there is a bright star cloud in the Milky Way, and next to it is an absolutely black spot – a huge, pear-shaped cluster of dark matter. The first seafarers called it the Coalsack. An ancient Australian legend sees this spot as a gaping hole, a chasm in the sky, and another legend sees it as the incarnation of evil in the form of an Australian ostrich, the emu. The emu is at the foot of a tree formed by the stars of the Southern Cross where it lies in wait for an opossum who has taken refuge in the tree’s branches. When the emu catches the opossum, the world will come to an end.”

  “Similar story, different animals,” the professor replied lazily.

  “Tell me please, Matvei Andreyevich: who ‘knew what they were doing’ when they created Nur-i-Desht? When was it built, and why is it in such a deserted spot?”

  “Uyghur astronomers were working here, pupils of Arab wise men. And the place became uninhabited after the Mongol invasion. There are ruins all around here, signs of habitation. There’s no doubt that seven hundred years ago this was a thriving, populous place. You need a lot of knowledge and skill to build an observatory like this.”

  The professor stopped short. Something had happened. At first I couldn’t figure out just what it was. By the second jolt it became clear that the earth had started to shake beneath us, as if a wave of stone was rippling across the surface. At almost the same moment we heard a distant roar that seemed to come from deep below us. The dishware clattered in its crate and the tower of wood in our campfire collapsed. The jolts came one after another.

  It all ended just as unexpectedly as it began. In the sudden silence we could hear dislodged rocks tumbling down the slopes and the sound of something spilling into the observatory ruins.

  In the morning, when we showed up at the spot where we had been working every day, we were met by startling changes caused by the nighttime earthquake. The left side of our dirt pile had collapsed, revealing a shallow niche in the wall to the right in the shape of a pointed arch. Inside the niche, covered with dust and clumps of earth, we could see a stone tablet with a string of symbols written in Arabic Kufic lettering, utterly unintelligible to the uninitiated.1 Excited about the discovery but, at the same time, upset that the staircase had been buried again, we quickly brushed off the inscription that for so many centuries had been hidden under the dry, dusty earth. The letters on the smooth, bluish tablet were deeply engraved and covered with some sort of beautiful orange glaze with a shimmer of green. Tanya and the professor took on the task of deciphering the inscription while Vyachik and I got to work clearing the stairway.

  Matvei Andreyevich straightened up and issued a loud sigh:

  “Too bad! Nothing important! Although it does confirm information already preserved in the historical record. The inscription says that by order of such-and-such, in such-and-such year, in the month of Qaus – that’s Sagittarius in Arabic, Tanya?”

  “Yes.”

  “So, in November, construction was completed in the area of Nur-i-Desht, by the river Ekik, on the hill… what is that, Tanya?”

  “I don’t quite understand the name – something like shining chalice.”

  “How poetic! On Shining Chalice Hill, on the site where royal paints had previously been mined… Aha, this is up your alley, major. Where are the remnants of these mines and what might they have been mining?”

  “I don’t know; I haven’t noticed any mines.”

  “You were a geologist, weren’t you?” the professor asked in feigned indignation.

  “Wait, Matvei Andreyevich. I’ll finish digging out your stairway, then
let me go wander around for a few hours. A geologist just might come in handy. So far, I’ve been walking the same route every day: the river to the cavern, the river to the tent.”

  “Aha!” the professor burst out laughing. “You’ve been walking in an archeologist’s shoes for a while, your nose to the ground. But you’re right: we should proclaim a day off. There will be no digging tomorrow – take a walk around, do some investigating. Tanya, of course, will deal with the laundry… No? What’s going on? You also want to walk around, learn some geology? Well, well…”

  “What else does the inscription say, Matvei Andreyevich?” I interrupted the professor.

  “Next it says: to commemorate a great deed, this inscription has been made and an ancient vase with a description of the construction has been interred inside a wall.”

  “But professor, finding the vase would be extremely important in studying the observatory, wouldn’t it?”

  “Of course. But it doesn’t say where it was interred. Obviously, it must be in the foundation. How will we find it? We can’t even get the staircase dug out.”

  In the morning, hoping to shoot some wildfowl, I asked Vyachik for the Berdan shotgun. The professor saw Tanya and me off with a derisive farewell speech, and we embarked on our journey around the Nur-i-Desht hills. Apparently, none of the members of the little expedition had strayed far from the ruins, since all their time had been spent working. The day was exceptionally sultry and quiet, and there was not the slightest hint of a breeze to chase away the dry heat rising out of the rocky soil. After a long time walking across the hills and clambering up and down slopes, we were overcome by thirst. We walked down to the stream, drank our fill, and started to wade barefoot through the riverbed. Large pebbles slid around underfoot. Through the clear water, among black and gray pebbles, multicolored pieces of opal and chalcedony, smoothed by the current, occasionally caught our eye. We were both absorbed in hunting for beautiful stones, and only once our feet had turned numb with cold did we climb up onto the bank and start to warm ourselves on the stony shore as we sorted through our loot.