The Sleeper in the Sands

by Tom Holland

  Haroun did not answer, for he had turned and averted his gaze. The Caliph followed him, and took him by the arm. ‘O Haroun al-Vakhel,’ he said, ‘do not leave my side, for I would sooner be parted from a man of your wisdom than from my own existence.’

  Haroun gazed at him in surprise. ‘I had thought it was your intention to impale me on a stake, and abandon me to the crows.’

  ‘So I would have done, had you broken your vow and spilt blood, for a man untrue to his own words will surely prove untrue to his Prince. But now you shall discover how I value good faith. I here grant you the treasures of Lilatt-ah, and then I double them again.’

  But Haroun shook his head. ‘O Commander of the Faithful,’ he replied, ‘I cannot accept.’

  Again the Caliph’s brow began to grow dark. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You have said that a man should be true to his vows. I am sworn, from this point on, to be a student of the high and magical arts, for it is my wish to have the power to banish all mortal sickness and to heal the injuries of all those who are wounded. What need shall I have for wealth in such a life?’

  Still the Caliph frowned, but then suddenly he seized Haroun in his arms and kissed him on both cheeks. ‘Blessings be upon you,’ he cried, ‘for as Joseph was to Pharaoh, so you have been to me! I shall indeed grant the treasures of Lilatt-ah to the poor. And here, so that my memory may be ever more preserved and my goodness recalled, I shall build a holy mosque, where the Faithful may hourly offer praises to my name.’

  He pointed to the ruins of the bath-house. The flames had been extinguished, and men were starting to sift through the steaming, blackened rubble. One heaved up a corpse on to his shoulder, and Haroun would have turned away, but the Caliph was gazing at the body with fascination, his eyes gleaming brightly. Then suddenly, as he had done before, he began to shudder and turning to Haroun, clung to him with an implacable grip. ‘O Prince amongst counsellors,’ he whispered, ‘tell me the magic which you hope to seek out.’

  ‘That magic which King Solomon possessed, by virtue of his knowledge of the Secret Name of Allah.’

  ‘And what powers did it bring him?’

  ‘The power to command the Jinn, and all those spirits made of fire.’

  ‘And what could he order the Jinn to perform?’

  ‘Anything, O Prince, for there is no limit to their power.’

  The Caliph glanced across at the ruins of the bath-house, where another blackened corpse was being pulled out from the rubble. ‘Anything?’ he whispered.

  ‘Anything at all.’

  The Caliph breathed in deeply. ‘Then when you have discovered the Secret Name of Allah,’ he ordered, ‘you shall spell it out to me, and I shall have its letters inscribed upon the stonework of my mosque. For though I am the Caliph, yet there is a traitor abroad, who plots against the happiness of my sister and myself, threatening to rack our bodies with cruel tortures, and to imprint the marks of his vile fingers on our forms.’ He paused and once again glanced across at the bath-house, where corpses were now being laid out in a line. ‘He breathes upon delight, this traitor, he throws down palaces, he raises up tombs where once palaces stood. And his name, O Haroun - his name is bitter Death!’

  Across the lands where once he had ridden as a proud and mighty conqueror, Haroun now wandered as a humble student. Everywhere he sought out those who might best teach him wisdom, both true believers and infidels, whether they dwelled amidst the towers of Constantinople, or in the far-off temples of fabled Peking, or in lands across the oceans, where men abide beside the Angels. At the feet of a thousand and one different sages Haroun sat, so that at length he grew to be a mighty sage himself, and in the practice of the healing of the sick he had no rival. Such was his success that those whom he cured proclaimed him a sorcerer, for it seemed impossible to explain his skill in any other way. Never, it was declared, had there been a magician such as Haroun. He was proficient, it was whispered, in every hidden science. He could read the language of the stars, and of the beasts and of the birds, and the fire-bred jinn were held at his command. And some spoke of secrets more terrible by far, and when pressed would hint that he had the mastery even of the grave.

  Rumour, then, was the constant herald of Haroun. Long before his arrival back in Cairo, it had announced his return to his native land and the Caliph, who had been awaiting him impatiently, ordered guards to be placed on every city gate. At length Haroun was glimpsed upon the northern road, and an escort rode out at once to meet him and take him to the Commander of the Faithful. Haroun accompanied them wordlessly, although he was observed, as he passed the half-completed mosque by the Bab al-Futuh, to smile very faintly and shake his head just once. But still he remained silent until at last, in the throne room, he was left alone with the Caliph, who rose to kiss him and hold him in his arms.

  ‘O Prince amongst magicians,’ the Caliph exclaimed, ‘the fame of your sorcery has spread across the world!’

  But Haroun shook his head. ‘O Commander of the Faithful,’ he replied, ‘I have no knowledge whatsoever of the magical arts.’

  The Caliph gazed at him in disbelief. ‘But it is said you can cure almost every disease.’

  ‘It needs no sorcery, O Prince, to tend and heal the sick.’

  The Caliph’s stare hardened. ‘You have failed, then, to uncover the Secret Name of Allah?’

  ‘His name, O Prince, cannot be uncovered by mortal hand, not without the guidance of the celestial Angels, may peace and blessings be forever on their heads!’

  The Caliph clenched his fist and brought it down hard, once, then twice. ‘You are certain?’ he demanded.

  ‘Certain, O Prince. For when I left you, I travelled through many far countries and many strange lands, until at last I reached the Mountains of Kaf, where the Jinn will often walk amongst men and talk to them of the mysteries of this and far off worlds. It is for this reason that the people of the Mountains of Kaf are accounted the wisest of men, for there is little they do not know or understand. Yet even they have never learned the Secret Name of Allah -- and when I asked them, they shuddered and seemed suddenly to grow pale.’

  The Caliph gnawed at his lower lip, then brought down his clenched fist violently again. ‘It seems, then,’ he whispered, ‘that the stonework of my mosque will stay blank after all.’ He spun round and strode across to a window where he stood in silence a long while, gazing out at the garden below. ‘My sister . . .’ he murmured at last. He turned to Haroun, and beckoned him across. ‘My sister.’ The Caliph pointed through the window and Haroun saw, seated by a fountain, the Princess Sitt al-Mulq, lovelier than the fairest of the flowers of the garden. ‘Must she die?’ the Caliph whispered. ‘Must she truly grow old and pass into the grave?’

  ‘She is a rose, O Prince. Roses must fade.’

  ‘No.’ The Caliph had whispered this very softly, so that when he suddenly swung round with a slim silver knife in his hand, Haroun was taken by surprise. ‘No!’ the Caliph smiled. He raised the blade against Haroun’s throat. ‘You are concealing things from me.’

  ‘I am a true believer, O Prince. Only the angels and the prophets have ever known the Secret Name of Allah.’

  ‘Then why, when you questioned the sages of Kaf, did they grow pale at the very mention of it?’

  ‘Because they knew that I was seeking a way to conquer death.’

  ‘There is another way, then?’

  ‘Indeed, O Prince.’ Haroun paused suddenly, and his brow grew very dark, but then he winced as he felt the Caliph press the knife against his throat. ‘For I have seen the proof of it myself,’ he continued, ‘in the accursed city of Lilatt-ah, and I know that it is the way of blackest necromancy.’

  The Caliph smiled very bitterly. ‘You razed Lilatt-ah, did you not, and made it one with the sands?’

  Haroun nodded slowly.

  ‘Then you were a fool,’ the Caliph whispered, ‘and worse, a traitor to your Prince.’

  ‘And yet it was you, O Caliph, who
ordered it destroyed.’

  ‘Then you should have gazed into my soul and glimpsed there my secretmost desire, for did you not understand, O Haroun, that in truth I had desired the wisdom of that city for myself?’

  Haroun stood motionless and did not reply to this, and after a moment the Caliph smiled once again. ‘Oh yes,’ he nodded, ‘you understand me well enough.’ He drew the knife across the curve of Haroun’s throat, so that a very thin line of blood rose from the welt. He touched the wound, then inspected his fingertip. ‘I was a fool to spare you, I should have had you slain.’ He tasted the blood. ‘Yet reveal to me what you learned upon the Mountains of Kaf, and it may be that I will keep you alive after all’ There was a long silence.

  ‘Think upon your oath to my father,’ the Caliph pressed. ‘You are sworn, O Haroun, to obey me in all things.’

  But still Haroun paused. ‘The secret,’ he said at last, ‘is forever buried, and cannot be restored into the light of this world. For the past is a darkness in which much should stay hidden, lest it appal and endanger the gaze of the now.’

  ‘Yet still I would know what the secret is.’

  For several long minutes, Haroun remained silent. Then he breathed in deeply. You are the Caliph,’ he murmured, ‘the Appointed One of Allah.’ He turned back to the window. Beyond the gardens and the palace wall, beyond the mosques of the city and the silver of the Nile, he could see where the pyramids of Ghiza rose, like the sails of distant ships above a surf of silver haze. As Haroun gazed upon them, so he narrowed his eyes. ‘When I spoke to the sages of Kaf,’ he said slowly, ‘pressing them to tell me what the secrets of life and death might be, they shook their heads and asked me to state my native land. I did so. At once, they began to laugh. I asked them why. And then they answered me that I should not have wandered to all the ends of the earth, but stayed where I was born. For in Egypt, they told me, buried within its monstrous, immeasurable walls of stone, within its palaces and temples, within its tombs quarried out from the very bowels of the earth, mysteries of prodigious power had once been known, mysteries more terrible than human word could say, mysteries as ancient as the very sands themselves - for Egypt, they said, had been the birthplace of all magic’

  ‘And this magic . . .’ -- the Caliph licked his lips, his eyes bright like fire - ‘had it taught how the secrets of the grave might be revealed?’

  Haroun shrugged. ‘The language of the Ancients is silent now,’ he said, ‘and there is no one who can read it.’ Then he paused; he turned to the window and gazed again towards the distant pyramids. ‘Yet in the Mountains of Kaf,’ he murmured softly, ‘there is a tradition still preserved.’

  ‘Tell it to me!’

  ‘I heard it from a sage very learned in secret wisdom. It is damnable, and must be a horror to the ears of all believers.’

  Yet I would hear it,’ proclaimed the Caliph, ‘though it were Iblis himself who had spoken it!’

  Haroun smiled faintly. ‘It was, as I said, a learned sage of Kaf. What he related to me, he had found in an infidel book -- and this, O Prince, is how he told me the tale:

  THE TALE TOLD BY THE SAGE OF THE MOUNTAINS OF KAF

  You should know, O Egyptian, that of all the many lands of this earth, yours is the most ancient kingdom by far. For it was there that the Jinn first fell to earth, having blazed through the sky more brightly than the stars. And many took the forms of strange cross-bred monsters, and appeared to men with the heads of dogs, and of birds and of cats, and of every kind of beast, so that the ignorant believed the Jinn to be gods. But there were some of the Jinn who were true believers, and who walked in the path of the love of Allah.

  The greatest of all these bore the name of Osiris. He was the first king to rule over sacred Egypt, for until the time of the coming of the Jinn to that land, man had been as savage and wild as any beast; but Osiris taught his people the arts of how to live, so that the first cities began to rise upon the banks of the Nile, and the first monuments of stone, within which the mysteries of the stars were enshrined. Nor was there anything which Osiris could not teach, so that the period of his reign was later called the First Time -- for it was then that true wisdom had first been opened up to man.

  By the side of Osiris was his sister and his Queen, Isis, the fairest and most cunning of the Jinn, and his brother, Seth, who sheltered evil in his heart. For Seth was proud, and envious of Osiris, and wanted the throne of Egypt for himself; and so he conceived a plot to dispose of the King. He invited his brother to a banquet and then, when the festivities were reaching their height, he ordered gifts and treasures to be brought into the hall. The most splendid of all these was a chest, fashioned from the rarest cedars and gilded with patterns of wondrous beauty; and Seth promised it to the man who could fit in it the best. But he had prepared it beforehand, to ensure that it was his brother who would win the competition; and when Osiris lay down inside the chest, Seth gave the command for its lid to be brought out and hammered down with nails. Then he ordered the chest to be flung into the Nile, and so it was that it soon became the coffin of Osiris.

  The body of the King, still secured within the cedar chest, was borne upon the currents of the Nile into the sea, where it was lost upon the vast expanse of the waters. But Isis, who was a magician of incomparable power, and who had read all the mysteries of the universe, did not despair when she learned the news of her husband’s fate. Instead, she set out to discover where his body might be, and having wandered through every land to the very ends of the world, at length -- for Allah is great and ever merciful -- she met with success. The chest was still intact, and when she opened up the lid she found that the corpse of Osiris was perfectly preserved, and his body bathed in a beauteous odour, sweeter than the sweetest scent of a rose. She journeyed with the body of Osiris back to Egypt, and when she arrived there laid it carefully out, for it was her intention -- great were her powers! -- to perform a terrible and wondrous act of magic.

  But Seth, who had been spying on his sister, learned of her intentions and was able to seize back the body of Osiris. Then, in the fury of his jealousy, he dismembered the corpse into fourteen parts and scattered them far and wide, for he hoped in this way that he would secure his throne at last. But Isis was still undaunted and, wandering the world a second time, she was able to find and gather the fragments of the corpse and piece them all together. It was then that she performed her act of fearful magic -- for she had learned from the angels the Secret Name of Allah. Bending low across her husband’s face, she whispered it into his parted lips; and as she did so, all the stars and the moon stood still and the heavens themselves seemed to shudder at the sound, for never before had the sacred word been spoken. And what that word might be, there is no one who can say -- for there has never been a secret more terrible or deadly. Therefore, O Egyptian, beware of it! For to hear it, to speak it, is to risk destruction!

  But Isis was the most cunning of the fire-bred Jinn, and when she had spoken her magic into the mouth of her husband’s corpse, it began to breathe and to stir, and its life was restored. Then Isis mounted his body, and his sperm was mingled with the outflow of her blood, and from this union a tiny child was born. And in time this child became the new King of Egypt; for Allah, whose sight is never sleeping, rose him up to manhood and made his hand strong. Then there was terrible war, for Seth still claimed the royal throne, and he led an army of evil Jinn, all those who had refused to bow down before Allah. But it is related - for Allah knows all! -- how their power was at last destroyed and overthrown, and Seth and his followers were banished to the deserts. And Seth became the Prince of all things dark -- and he is that same one whom the Faithful in this present age name Iblis.

  And you should know, O Egyptian, that his followers may still be found, haunting the evil places of the world, the deserts and the tombs of the long-dead Kings. Keep away from such ghools and their works, O Egyptian! For if they are disturbed, then they will be a horror and a wonder to you, for their prey is the lonely
traveller and their food is mortal flesh. But Allah is merciful! Praise be to His name!

  And when Haroun al-Vakhel had finished this story, he bowed his head and lapsed into silence. But the Caliph al-Hakim, who had been listening with a rapt and motionless attention, seized him by the arms. ‘O Master of wise words,’ he exclaimed, ‘this Tale of the Sage of the Mountains of Kaf is indeed a remarkable one! But tell me - after the great Queen Isis had spoken the sacred word and brought her royal husband back to life, was there nowhere in Egypt where the word was written down?’

  ‘O Prince,’ Haroun replied, ‘even if there had been, I have told you the warning I was given, that it would be a danger and a blasphemy to seek the secret out.’

  ‘Even so, if it could be found, I would read it. For am I not the Appointed of Allah? And are there not stones left blank in my mosque, to receive the imprint of His holy name?’

  But Haroun shook his head. ‘It is true,’ he answered, ‘that the Sage of the Mountains of Kaf told me of a strange and ancient tradition. For it is said that there were priests in Egypt who guarded the Secret Name, but that at length they grew proud and fell into evil. And so they built a temple to the Secret Name, and they worshipped it as a god - yes, and Isis and Osiris too, although there is only one God, and His name is Allah.’

  The Caliph stood frozen a long while, gazing out at where his sister sat, the Princess Sitt al-Mulq. ‘And this temple,’ he whispered at last, ‘where might it be found?’

  ‘It was destroyed.’

  The Caliph gazed at him in disbelief. ‘By whom?’