The Eye of Ra

by Michael Asher

  Ahmad raced past me, slamming a new clip into the breech of his .303, ‘Ride, Omar, ride!’ he bellowed, swinging aboard his camel. ‘Leave him!’

  I bent over and whispered in David’s ear: ‘I’ll get them, Doc. I’ll never rest till I find out who’s behind this.’ I heard shouting. Sub-machine-gun fire spattered around me, and suddenly a very tall man came over the ridge — a faceless cameo figure toting an enormous revolver. I snap-fired a shot at him without even aiming, and heard a groan as he fell out of sight. Then I leapt on to Ghazal’s back, urged him up with my stick, and rode at a gallop out into the silent labyrinth of the desert night.

  43

  Not long before sun-up we couched the camels on the sandy shore of a lake without water, between melting black limestone walls, where we rested our aching bodies for an hour or so. Fool’s Dawn came — a slowly reddening aurora over the lip of the crags — and in the half-light the lake-bed glimmered, pure virgin white from long-deposited mineral salts. The rock gully was entirely blocked by a great transverse dune, like a dam, which would have trapped rainwater behind it, though whether fifty years ago or five thousand years was impossible to say. While Ahmad and Ghanim collected a pile of dried camel-dung for the fire, Mansur poked around in the sand, reading the surface intently with his good eye. The desert surface was history and geography to the Hawazim, and it was such attention to detail which made them brilliant trackers. Trifles which others missed might provide the balance between survival and extinction — even the track of a beetle or the spoor of a lizard told its own story. Suddenly he cried out ‘No God but God!’ and called us over to see some camel-tracks. ‘This is the she-camel that strayed from Salih wald Balla of al-Khadim!’ he announced. ‘You remember, Father! She was called Shatra, “The Clever One”, and she strayed four summers ago after her foal died. Salih tried to track her down, but she was lost in the gravel rej where he could no longer follow her.’

  ‘How can you be certain it’s her?’ I asked.

  ‘I know it’s her. I’ve seen her tracks before. Just like you can read your books, Omar, I can read the desert. I can remember the tracks of every camel I’ve ever seen.’

  Ahmad grinned. ‘The One-Eyed Warrior can even tell from its tracks whether a camel was brown or white!’

  ‘But seriously,’ I said, ‘how could a camel survive on its own out here?’

  Mansur pointed to some clumps of sedge, like miniature shrubs, along the edge of the dry lake. ‘Had,’ he said, ‘good nourishment for camels. That sedge will keep growing for four or five summers after a single rain. She probably wanders between here and the oasis fringes. But these tracks look fresh; I wonder if we could track her down.’

  ‘Forget it,’ Mukhtar said. ‘We’ve more important things to do.’

  Mansur didn’t mention the tracks again, but as we were packing away the coffee things, he came back with a handful of objects in his headcloth and emptied them in front of me like an offering. They were neolithic artefacts — a stone hand-axe of polished blue basalt, a couple of finely-knapped arrow-heads, a chopper, a cleaver and a long-bladed stone that looked like a primitive version of a Hawazim khanjar. ‘See!’ Mansur said. ‘These are Anaq things. Our forefathers lived here in Zep-Tepi, when there was water in this lake all the time!’

  The sun was already hot when we climbed out of the gully, and on the plateau above we sighted a great crescent of pink and apricot-coloured dunes, curving across our path. For a while Mukhtar and I rode together, letting our camels pace each other through the sand. ‘They were waiting for us at Kwayt,’ Mukhtar said solemnly, ‘and you knew, didn’t you, Omar; you sensed it. If we’d all gone into the rest-house together we’d have been dead meat now. Do you still deny you have the Power?’

  I hesitated. ‘I felt something in the Shining the other night,’ I said.

  He turned his old turtle-like eyes on me with interest. ‘What?’

  ‘I understood for the first time that we’re all part of one thing. I don’t mean just us, men and women, the Hawazim, even human beings, I mean everything — the insects, the birds, the grasses, the trees, the rocks, the desert, the sun, the moon, the clouds and the stars — we all...belong. It was the first really religious experience of my life.’

  Mukhtar’s eyes dropped and began trawling the desert again, picking out the tiny tracks, stones, blemishes and discolorations on the surface.

  ‘You saw the past and the future, didn’t you?’

  ‘Glimpses of it, yes. It was like reading tracks in the desert, knowing where they’d come from and where they were going.’

  ‘I’m an old man, Omar,’ Mukhtar said, without taking his eyes off the surface, ‘soon — today, tomorrow, next summer, I’ll be going with the Divine Spirit. That’s not important. What matters is the tribe. I have four good sons and I’m proud of them all. They are good men, courageous, generous, faithful, compassionate. You can’t ask more than that. But to be amnir you need all those things and more — call it intuition — an inkling of what lies ahead, the ability to navigate the caravan through the future. The Shining power. None of my sons has it. Only you have it, Omar.’

  ‘Thank you, Uncle,’ I said, ‘but I have a life to live, a life back in civilisation.’

  ‘Are you sure that’s really civilisation, the city, crowds, mad-ness, perversion of nature — the place where trails run out? People matter, not places: “He who strips himself naked will one day get cold.”’

  I was about to answer when Mansur let out a cry, pointing high up into the creaseless sky, where a tiny silver speck was floating, high up, leaving a trail of vapour. Mansur peered at it through his telescope. ‘That’s a spotter,’ he said, ‘and it’s heading straight for the Jilf.’

  As soon as we couched our camels under the Cave of Pictures, ‘Ali, Aysha and Elena came running to greet us. ‘Thanks to God for your safe return!’ Ali panted. ‘Aircraft flew low over us twice today, one at sunrise and the other just before noon. They must have been looking for us, because they circled like vultures.’

  ‘We spotted one of them,’ Mansur said.

  I hugged Elena tightly. ‘We were really worried about you,’ she said. Suddenly she noticed my blood-soaked shirt. ‘What is it, Jamie,’ she asked, ‘are you hurt?’

  ‘By God’s will no evil?’ Ali said.

  ‘We found a friend and lost one,’ I said. ‘It was Doc’s son David,’ I told Elena. ‘Doc’s dead. So is he, now — the government shot him.’

  ‘Oh, my God!’ Elena said, thrusting her knuckles into her mouth.

  ‘The mercy of God be upon him,’ Ali said.

  ‘We will take his price,’ Mukhtar growled. ‘Tell me about these aeroplanes, boy. Were the herds under cover?’

  ‘Thank God, they were. All the scouts and pickets managed to get under their camouflage-nets.’

  ‘Camouflage-nets!’ I exclaimed. ‘That’s new!’

  “Ali’s idea,’ said Mukhtar, with a touch of pride.

  ‘We made them ourselves,’ Ali said. ‘Our only defence against air-attack is to become invisible — we can hide the camels under them, too. By the way, Father, our scouts on the southern periphery also reported two helicopters in the distance. They didn’t come near us this time, but I think they’ll be back.’

  ‘Looks like the government means business,’ Mukhtar said. ‘I think so, Father, yes.’

  ‘From now on the herds graze only at night. No large parties in the wadis in daytime — only ones and twos. And double the number of scouts and lookouts.’

  While the herdsboys unsaddled our camels and set them to pasture, we climbed up to the cave, and settled around the coffee hearth. Later, in the last glow of sunset, the herdsboys brought us bowls of frothy camel’s milk straight from the udder. ‘Drink!’ Ahmad said, thrusting the bowl towards me. ‘We’ll make a city pipsqueak into a man yet!’

  ‘It’ll take a man to ride to Zerzura,’ I said. ‘Sure you’re up to it, cousin?’

  ‘Tell you what, Omar
: you ride and I’ll carry you and the camel!’

  ‘Did you ever hear of anyone finding Zerzura?’ Elena asked Mukhtar.

  He handed her his milk-bowl. ‘Drink!’ he said. ‘I did once meet a Hazmi who said he’d been there. He was pasturing his camels on the fringes of the Jilf here and one of his colts wandered into al-Khuraab — the Desolation. He followed it for days, till his water ran out. He was almost dead when he sighted this oasis full of palm-trees and grapevines, with a pool of water, and sure enough the colt was there. He said the dates were the most delicious ones he’d ever tasted. He collected dates and filled his skin with water. On the way back he ate the dates and dropped the stones every so often so as to be able to find his way back. When he got to the Jilf he got his brothers and cousins together and they set off to find the Lost Oasis. They never found it. They didn’t even find a single one of the stones he’d dropped. Zerzura can only be found by chance — and it can never be found twice.’

  ‘If it can only be found by chance, how on earth can we find it?’ Elena asked.

  Mukhtar shook his head slowly. ‘Only the Divine Spirit knows,’ he said.

  We left the Siq just after sunrise next morning, a trail of termites on the endless flats of al-Ghul. There were nine of us in the party: myself, Elena, my uncle Mukhtar, Ahmad, Mansur and four volunteers from the rest of the clan, riding the best camels avail-able. Elena had been favoured with Ahmad’s champion racer, al-Jadi — ‘The Pole Star’, while I rode my old friend Ghazal. The day was calm, without a breath of wind, and the sky was a polished sapphire touching every horizon. On the fringes of the Jilf there was a belt of coarse yellow grasses raised by the occasional rain, and further on we found thorn trees twisted into spectral shapes by the ghibli. By noon, though, we’d come to a shelf overlooking a sandslope that dropped two hundred yards into a vast plain — a sterile, featureless ocean of open desert that seemed to go on for ever. As we halted to survey it, Mukhtar said, ‘We call this plain the Khuraab — the Desolation — nothing lives down there, no insects, no snakes, not even a lizard. There isn’t a single leaf or clump of grass for the camels, and not a drop of water until we reach the al-Muhandis well. If we don’t get back to the Jilf within two weeks, the camels will die.’

  For three days we rode towards a horizon that never seemed to get any closer. Sand alternated with alkali flats, where the surface glistened so blindingly that it made your eyes hurt. The Desolation was utterly featureless, as if we’d crossed a time-warp and entered another dimension of reality. When we halted for a gourd of water, we would huddle together and speak in hushed voices, looking over our shoulders at the emptiness as if it were watching us with bad intent. Even the camels felt it, for as we rode they would press themselves together flank to flank. The days dragged on interminably as we seemed to mark time in a trembling, diaphanous haze that smouldered on and on to the ends of the earth. I once asked my uncle where he thought we’d end up if we rode day after day in a straight line, and he considered my question carefully, as if trying to fathom whether I meant to mock him. ‘We’d fall off the edge of the world, of course,’ he said, ‘into the Sea of Darkness from which there’s no return.’

  By noon on the third day we’d sighted the Wolf’s Fangs through shrouds of sand-mist, and in the evening we camped at its foot in a crescent-shaped pocket of sand. We dumped our gear, hobbled the camels and fitted their nose-bags, then threw ourselves down, exhausted. There was no time to rest, though. A camel-dung fire had to be lit and a meal cooked. Ahmad made Hawazim bread — a flat loaf baked in the sand under the fire — and we ate it with sour camel’s milk from our skins. Afterwards, as we sipped scalding tea and smoked our pipes, I asked my uncle if he’d ever heard of the quicksands Hilmi had told us about. ‘Only in legends and stories,’ he said. ‘They’re called Abu Simm — the Place of Poison — and they say that in old times whole herds of camels and armies disappeared into them. There’s supposed to be an island in the middle of them where a hoard of treasure is buried.’

  ‘How can you distinguish the quicksands?’

  ‘Often they look exactly like the desert all around, but some-times there’s a giveaway pattern on the surface. There’s no water under them, no mud as you’d find in the Qattara Depression salt-bogs — Abu Simm is pure drumsand.’

  ‘What’s drumsand?’ Elena asked.

  ‘There’s a sort of crepitation when it subsides,’ I said, ‘like somebody rubbing the skin of a drum.’

  ‘But you can guide us through them, Mukhtar?’ she enquired. ‘In a place like Abu Simm, only the Divine Spirit can be your guide.’

  When the tea was finished and the pipes smoked out, we simply fell on our backs and stared at the stars. Here in the open desert, they crowded the sky. I saw the Great Bear, Draco, Taurus, the Pleiades, and not far above the horizon, Orion, with Sirius scintillating brightly below. ‘See that, Omar,’ Mukhtar said, pointing to Sirius.

  ‘That’s al-Mirzin. When it lies low on the horizon like that, you know that the hot season’s coming.’

  ‘That means we’re going to need more water.’

  ‘Exactly, and it’s already low. We’re going to be thirsty before we make the well.’

  ‘Tell me, Uncle,’ I said, ‘did you know that al-Mirzin has a dark companion, a sister-star that we can’t see?’

  ‘If we can’t see it, how can you know it’s there?’

  ‘It’s been seen by machines.’

  ‘Aach! Machines! Well, I didn’t know, but I can tell you one thing about al-Mirzin, Omar: that’s where the Ancient Ones came from — the ones who built the temples, and brought us the gift of the Shining.’

  When we awoke next morning we found ourselves on the edge of another great sand-flat, alive with wild colours. As we rode on later, Mukhtar pointed out strange sights — firefly flashes that darted out of nowhere, giant dust-devils whirling across the land-scape, steamy mirages that suggested tropical lakes. ‘These are the works of Jinns,’ he said, ‘sent to spin our heads.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Who knows the ways of Jinns? Perhaps there’s a great treasure ahead they want to stop us finding. In the legends they say Abu Simm is inhabited by a race of human ticks, half-man half-dog, who will kill you to suck your blood. But that’s just a story for scaring children.’

  ‘It’s not the Jinns outside you have to worry about,’ Mansur said, darkly, ‘it’s the Jinns inside. Jinns love desolate places. They wait there for endless ages until they find a human body to take over, then they possess you. That’s what happened to Hilmi, of course.’

  ‘God protect us from the Stoned Devil!’ Mukhtar said.

  There were strange noises, too, inexplicable rumblings, clickings, whistlings and chatterings which Mukhtar said were the voices of the Jinns. ‘If a Jinn calls your name, don’t answer, Omar,’ he told me. ‘If you do, you’ll be dead within a year!’

  Once we passed through a whole forest of yardangs, giant stone pedestals carved by wind and sand into the shapes of mushrooms and artichokes. ‘The Devil’s graveyard!’ Mukhtar called it. A hush fell over the company until the weird sculptures were long gone. The only sound was the slosh of water in the waterbags, the creak of the saddles, and the soft crunch of the camels’ pads on the sand. After the yardangs the sand-flats became featureless again, and once more I had the overpowering impression we were going nowhere, marking time on the same spot. Some time after noon, though, Mukhtar halted to point out a ragged line of glittering objects which appeared to be just short of the skyline. ‘Are those real or another illusion?’ Elena asked. ‘And if they’re real, what are they?’

  We padded on towards them, but it was impossible to say what they were, or even how big — these sand-flats demolished any sense of scale. They were the only blemish on the desert’s surface, and could have been vast objects far away, or tiny objects near by. It wasn’t until we’d come almost up to them that Mukhtar suddenly shouted, ‘Bones! The bones of camels!’

  At precisely th
at moment an invisible hand reached out and squeezed the inside of my head. I grunted in pain as a split-second image of Elena disappearing into deep sand pulsed through my mind. There was a scream of ‘Jamie!’ from behind me, and a dreadful creaking of silicon particles as wave upon wave of sand collapsed. I turned to see Elena’s camel — al-Jadi — thrashing in liquid sand up to its hocks, squealing in terror. This was no illusion. I dropped my headrope and leapt off my camel. The others had halted, frozen to the spot, wary that their next step would take them into the sough.

  ‘Stay where the bones are!’ I bawled. ‘That must be solid ground!’

  They couched their camels by the bones and were about to run towards us, when Mukhtar roared, ‘No! Only me and Ahmad! Otherwise someone else will be sucked in.’

  ‘Jamie! Help!’ Elena screeched. Al-Jadi was already wallowing up to his shoulders, and she was squirming, preparing to jump off his back. I steadied my feet and extended my arms to catch her.

  ‘Stay where you are, Elena!’ Mukhtar bellowed, running to help me. ‘Don’t jump!’ It was too late. She jumped, missed my arms and plunged into the sand up to her waist. Behind her, the camel gurgled and bleated with fear, vomiting up globs of green cud. I knelt and whipped off my shamagh, casting one end to her. She struggled violently, lurched for it and missed. Her efforts took her further down, almost to her armpits now. I took three deep breaths to guard myself against panic and tried to recall what I knew about drumsand. On most sand surfaces the grains were compacted together, but drumsand was formed in deep basins where the grains had been built up by winds into loose layers, with tiny air-pockets between, so that any pressure immediately forced them to compact and collapse. As the layers collapsed, anyone or anything in them would be sucked down to the bottom of the pit, and some of these pits were big enough to swallow a tank.