The Sleeping Sands

by Nat Edwards

  ‘I don’t need an infidel to authenticate the tomb,’ snapped back the dervish. ‘I have watched the grave for years, as my brothers have before me, in an unbroken line thousands of years long - to the time when Caliph Umar commanded us to do so.’

  ‘But if the tomb is indeed that of the prophet Daniel,’ urged Layard, ‘I will need to inspect it. I have already found several false tombs that were wrongly attributed to him.’

  ‘Bah’ spat the dervish, ‘that only shows the wisdom of Umar. He made thirteen tombs and guarded them with powerful incantations so that the true tomb could never be found. Our brethren he instructed to keep watch down the years over each.’

  ‘Be careful what you say,’ said the seyyid, a note of tension in his voice. ‘The Shia believe that Umar Ibn al-Khattab was an usurper – an enemy of Ali. Ali is venerated in Dizful. It would not do for the people here to find out that a follower of Umar is among them.’

  ‘It makes no difference to me,’ said the dervish, ‘I and my brethren are free-thinkers. We know what we know. Whether Caliph Umar knew right from wrong is up to the Shiites and Sunnis to fight over. We remember. We hold the secrets that others have clouded with their dogma and fanaticism.’

  ‘You are a Sufi?’ asked Layard.

  ‘What of it,’ said the dervish scowling at him.

  ‘It’s just that I don’t understand how such a free-thinker as you could conspire to hide the truth,’ replied Layard.

  ‘That’s right,’ interjected Seyyid Kerim, ‘if you do not know whether Umar was a good or bad man, why carry out his orders over all these years?’

  ‘Twelve hundred years ago, when the Caliph’s forces took the Castle of Tastar, they found a tomb containing a perfectly preserved body,’ answered the dervish. ‘They also found writings carved in strange letters on a black stone. They could not read the writing, so they took it to the Caliph. Umar was a learned and wise man – he was the only man alive who could read the scriptures. He read that the man was the prophet Daniel and saw that the writings contained many prophecies of things yet to come. The knowledge made him powerful but he feared that, in time others may learn to read them. He knew that he could not destroy such a sacred text nor could he risk copying the words down in Arabic as others may come to read them. Instead, the Caliph ordered the stone buried with the prophet, set into a rock in a new tomb. He had twelve other graves created so that men might be confounded should they wish to desecrate the prophet’s tomb and read the scriptures. He ordered my brotherhood to watch over the tomb to keep it safe and left instructions so that, in time of need, the prophet’s writings could help his descendants.

  ‘Over the years, some of the tombs were discovered and destroyed. Others were engulfed by floods when rivers changed their course or torn asunder by earthquakes. Now only three remain.’

  ‘I have been to the others,’ said Layard. ‘None is genuine. Is yours then the real tomb?’

  The dervish was silent.

  ‘Abd’ul Nebi, answer,’ commanded the seyyid.

  The dervish nodded and looked at the floor.

  ‘And what of the black stone?’ asked Layard.

  ‘Almost ten years ago,’ replied the dervish, ‘in the year of the Mamesenni rebellion, I encountered another infidel – a European like you –‘ he gestured at Layard, ‘snooping around the tomb with a gang of Arabs. I chased him and his ruffians away. The next morning, I found that the rock where the black stone had been set was scorched and split asunder and the rock was shattered.’

  The dervish paused, glowering at Layard.

  ‘I can only assume that the Frank and his thieves used naphtha to break the rock in an attempt to steal the black stone,’ he said. ‘I reburied the fragments of the black stone in the tomb but from that day things have never been the same.’

  ‘In the tomb, do you mean?’ asked Layard.

  ‘In the world,’ said the dervish, sadly.

  ‘From the day the stone was broken,’ he continued, ‘the plague has raged across the land. Bandits have come into our land. Dams have broken and roads washed away. The crops have failed and the livestock have died. People have disappeared. Slowly the land has emptied save for the Beni Lam marauders. All of our misfortunes stem from that time. Do you see now why I will not have an infidel at the tomb?’

  ‘I will touch nothing,’ promised Layard. ‘I only wish to make some notes and some drawings.’

  ‘I can vouch for the Frank,’ said the seyyid. ‘He is a good man.’

  ‘I can pay, too,’ said Layard, taking out his purse and handing it to the dervish. ‘Take it – it’s all I have.’

  Abd’ul Nebi weighed the purse in his hand, looking from Seyyid Kerim to Layard.

  ‘Take Mr Layard to the tomb and I will see to it that no-one in Dizful discovers your sympathies for Caliph Umar,’ added the seyyid.

  ‘Even should I wish to take him there, the Beni Lam Arabs are at large. It is too dangerous.’

  ‘Abd’ul Nebi,’ said the Englishman quietly, ‘in my quest for this tomb, I have abandoned comfort, security and all that I knew and loved. I have been assaulted, chased, robbed, cheated and abducted. I have endured wild beasts and terrors beyond your imagining. I have seen my friends and companions killed and lost the closest thing I have known to a family. For the sake of this tomb, I have turned my back on that which I hold most dear in all the world.’

  Abd’ul Nebi began to speak, but something in Layard’s eye caused the words to stick in his mouth. He cowered slightly before the tall European.

  ‘Now, ask yourself this,’ continued Layard, stepping closer to the dervish, and carefully enunciating each word, ‘which do you consider to be the greater danger; facing the Beni Lam Arabs or being the last man in the world who stands between me and finding the object of my quest?’

  * * *

  Layard and the dervish rode silently together through the desert.

  After a lengthy argument and the repeated representations of Seyyid Kerim, Abd’ul Nebi had reluctantly agreed to take Layard to the tomb. He had stipulated a number of conditions, however. Layard was to accompany the dervish alone, both so that a smaller party might escape detection by the Beni Lam and so that the Foreigner might not work any violence on the tomb and attempt to carry off any treasures. He was to dress in Arab costume – little problem for Layard, who possessed nothing else – and the two were to stay only a short while at the tomb.

  ‘If the Beni Lam catch us,’ said the dervish, ‘we will be stripped to the skin without a word. They know me, however and, out of respect for the tomb, they might stop with our clothes and let us keep our skins. It depends very much on their mood.’

  The first night out from Dizful, Abd’ul Nebi found shelter for the travellers in the house of the headman of Kala Nasr, a small village belonging to the tomb. The village was almost deserted, save for the headman and his family. He told them fearfully that roving bands of Beni Lam had been seen on the plain that lay between the village and the tomb. He and the dervish prevailed on Layard to return to Dizful, but to no avail. Less than a day’s ride remained between him and the tomb. He felt that he could face a hundred bands of Beni Lam for a chance to bring his quest to an end.

  He sat late into the night, his journal spread across his lap, quizzing the dervish over and over about the history of the tomb and his stories of Tastar, Caliph Umar and the false tombs. He made the dervish repeat the story from beginning to end – interrupting him to clarify details and the correct spellings of names. Leafing through his notes, he asked the dervish about stories of other tombs and shrines that he had heard on his travels and showed him sketches of monuments and ruins that he had visited; demanding the dervish comment on a particular inscription here or a figure there.

  The moon arced over the desert. The dervish complained of fatigue and begged to be allowed to retire to bed but Layard persisted in his questioning. Abd’ul Nebi looked once more into the eyes of the Englishman and decided that it would be wise to concede t
o his wishes. The tall foreigner had taken on the appearance of a man possessed. The dervish could see that nothing he might say could sway the man from his purpose. For Layard himself, as he questioned the dervish and carefully noted down each detail, he felt as if two divided parts of his self were being channelled together into a single point of clarity. Layard the adventurer-scholar, in whom the Society had seen such potential, saw forming before him the imminent culmination of his investigations. Layard the lost and defeated wanderer could sense some indefinable resolution to his ordeals.

  Hiding somewhere in the shadows behind these two Layards was a third entity – that Abd’ul Nebi glimpsed every now and then in the Englishman’s eyes. Unacknowledged by Layard, this third self was driven by a simple unspoken hope – that George Lackland’s prophecy might be true and that finding the tomb might bring an end to the Matamet’s authority. Unspoken and unnamed this third self wanted only the chance for revenge. However unconscious of this was Layard, surrounded by his notes and diagrams, something in the dark sensed it; the faintest vibration of a kindred soul. As the men finally settled down to sleep for the few short hours before dawn, a single, awful cry rang out in the distant desert, followed immediately by the faintest rumble of thunder.

  The men started awake and lay still and silent, listening.

  ‘Jackals,’ said Abd’ul Nebi, unprompted, after five minutes of silence.

  ‘Of course,’ said Layard, sounding as unconvinced as had the dervish.

  No more cries came – only the sound of two hearts pounding in the night.

  The next day, the plain was deserted. As the two men crossed its unnaturally empty wilderness, a vast mound began to be visible in the distance.

  ‘That is Shush,’ pointed the dervish, ‘the Tomb of Daniel lies there.’

  ‘The ancient city of Susa,’ murmured Layard, ‘the Shushan of the Book of Daniel. It looks almost as big as the mound of Babylon.’

  ‘It was just as beautiful,’ replied the dervish, a distant, longing look in his eyes. ‘My family came here from Egypt to help the Persians build it. It once was a gleaming marble city keeping watch over a green fertile plain; teeming with gardens, orchards and villages. Now only I remain and the ravaged lands all about stretch far and barren in every direction.’

  ‘Your family came to build the city of Susa?’ asked Layard with some incredulity.

  ‘Our family annals date all the way back to that time,’ replied the dervish proudly, ‘but the Beni Lam destroyed them. Now I am the last and when I go there will be none left to tell the story.’

  He turned to Layard, with tears in his eyes and continued, bitterly, ‘if the stone had not been destroyed, the Beni Lam would never have come to this place. This is why I did not want a Frank to come again to the tomb.’

  In the shadow of the mound of Susa, a narrow gorge was made by a small river. At a steep curve in the defile was a craggy outcrop, towering high over the stream below. Cut half into the cliff was a tall conical dome, appearing to Layard’s eyes like an enormous white pine cone. A narrow path wound along the edge of the cliff, opening into a broad flat shelf before the entrance to the tomb, which formed a cave in the rock.

  ‘Wai!’ shrieked the as the two men led their mounts along the narrow path to the tomb. ‘Look – the prophet’s tomb - it has been torn asunder!’

  From the dark cave-mouth to the pointed top of the dome, a deep ragged black crack zig-zagged its way across the tomb. Against the white marble, the wound looked evil and unnatural. The edges of the scar looked sharp and fresh and brightly edged sharp fragments of rubble were scattered around the cave entrance. The dervish dropped to his knees, clutching at his head in horror.

  ‘This is the last disgrace,’ he wailed, ‘the Tomb of Nebbi Daniel himself has been defiled. I will take you no further!’

  There was a faint scrabble of rocks and the sound of a heavy tread in the dirt behind them.

  ‘Ah, but you have done your duty well, dervish,’ purred a high-pitched feminine voice, ‘you may soon rest at peace.’

  Layard, spun around, grabbing for his gun but before he could retrieve it from his saddle, four strong arms had seized him.

  ‘Mr Layard,’ droned the familiar voice, ‘it appears that we share the same interests in antiquity. What fortunate timing. This will be an illuminating visit indeed.’

  The Matamet stood beside the kneeling form of Abd’ul Nebi, holding a long curved knife to the dervish’s neck. He had stepped out from the cover of an outcrop with four huge ferrashes, two of whom now pinioned Layard while one pressed down on the dervish’s shoulders and the other took possession of the travellers’ horses.

  Layard cursed. Distracted by the damage to the tomb and Abd’ul Nebi’s outrage, he had not noticed the Matamet and his men crouched in waiting behind the rocks. The ambush was complete.

  ‘That is uncharacteristic language for an Englishman,’ trilled the Matamet, his eyebrows raised in mock surprise. ‘And it is you British who have the nerve to accuse we Orientals of being uncivilised. There are clearly many things you still have to learn about the East, my young friend.’

  The Matamet nodded condescendingly to Layard, his bulbous head wobbling sickeningly on an approximation of a neck, consisting of rolls of translucent pallid flesh.

  ‘Your arrival is fortuitous indeed, Mr Layard,’ he continued in his odd emotionless monotone. ‘My business having been concluded at Shuster, I thought that I might show a little more interest in the investigations of my English friend. I received a message from Dizful that I might expect to find you here and rode through the night to meet you. I confess that I was beginning to doubt the accuracy of my information – yet here you are. It will, I have no doubt, prove most enlightening to explore this monument alongside such a distinguished antiquary as you, Mr Layard.’

  ‘With respect, Governor,’ replied Layard, ‘I am in a hurry to return to Dizful. I had not intended remaining long here. Perhaps we could make an arrangement to explore the ruins together at some future date that is more convenient?’

  The Matamet made an almost imperceptible movement with his finger. One of the ferrashes holding Layard struck the Englishman in the stomach with an enormous heavy fist. Layard said something that sounded like ‘woof’ and sagged in the ferrashes’ grasp.

  ‘Let us dispense with our silly pleasantries, Mr Layard,’ droned the Matamet, ‘we both know the object of your investigation in this place – just as we both know that you have no choice but to comply with my wishes. You only live because I suspect you may provide some use in the interpretation of certain artefacts I am interested in. Just as you,’ at this he turned to the dervish, pressing the point of his dagger a little deeper into the kneeling man’s neck, ‘only survive because I need to know the location of those artefacts.’

  The Matamet reached down and grasped Abd’ul Nebi’s face with his free hand, tilting it up to expose more of the dervish’s neck.

  ‘Tell me, holy man,’ he intoned, ‘where is the black stone?’

  ‘Gone, Your Excellency’ stammered the dervish, ‘long ago – it was broken.’

  The Matamet made a tutting noise and, with a swiftness that belied his bulk, placed his dagger beneath the dervish’s left ear and, with a flicking twist of his pudgy wrist, sliced the ear neatly off.

  The dervish let out a shrill scream and clutched at his head, blood gushing between his fingers. Making a strange high-pitched humming noise, that sounded to Layard like some sort of attempt to soothe the wounded man, the Matamet produced a scented silk cloth and pressed it to the dervish’s wound. He took Abd’ul’s hand and placed it gently on the cloth.

  ‘That will help to stem the bleeding,’ he said. ‘Now that we are all clear that there is little to be gained in failing to answer my questions completely to my satisfaction, we may continue. I repeat, where is the black stone?’

  ‘It was broken,’ howled Abd’ul, grasping the sodden cloth to his head, ‘years ago, Excellency – but I saved th
e fragments.’

  He broke off, moaning in pain.

  The Matamet took the point of his knife and pressed it softly to the lower lid of Abd’ul Nebi’s right eye; pushing firmly against the eyeball.

  ‘You do not want to make me repeat my question a third time,’ he said flatly – the menace of his action if anything intensified by the absence of feeling in his flaccid voice.

  ‘I buried it, Excellency,’ cried out the dervish, ‘I buried it in the tomb. The fragments lie in a box in the inner chamber, behind the stone casket.’

  ‘Where, exactly,’ said the Matamet, slowly increasing the pressure of the blade against the dervish’s eye, so that a tiny bead of red appeared at its point.’

  ‘Five paces from the centre of the casket towards the wall,’ sobbed the dervish, ‘just below the carving of a man between two lions.’

  ‘Excellent, my son,’ purred the Matamet, removing the knife. ‘You have served your duty well. Now, it is at an end.’

  He nodded to the ferrash standing over Abd’ul, who swung his fist down in a great arc so that it smashed into the dervish’s temple with a stomach-churning crunch. Abd’ul Nebi pitched to the side without a cry and lay, face down and motionless in the dirt. The ferrash placed his booted foot against the dervish’s body and rolled it to the edge of the path. With a grunt, he gave one last great kick and the dervish’s lifeless form disappeared from sight with a scrabble of loose stones.

  The Matamet stooped to pick up a dark object from the ground. It was the blood-soaked cloth. He gingerly used it to gather up the dervish’s severed ear. Holding the gory package delicately between thumb and forefinger, he walked to the edge of the path and, with a pained expression, dropped it into the gorge.

  ‘Mr Layard,’ he said, turning once more to the Englishman, ‘it appears that you and I are to have the privilege of bringing to light a great mystery. Will you join me?’