The Sleeping Sands

by Nat Edwards

  Stationing his ferrashes to keep watch at the cave mouth, the Matamet entered the cave with Layard. He kept his long knife unsheathed as the tall Englishman led the way into the tomb, squinting in the dim light.

  The cave mouth led to an outer chamber, full of piles of scattered rubble from the recent rock-fall and broken, dust-covered belongings that Layard supposed to have belonged to the dervish. A sickly musk-stench told him that a family of jackals had taken residence. The Matamet kicked a round object across the floor to Layard. It was a rough ostrich-egg lamp, filled with grease and a crude wick.

  ‘Light it,’ he commanded.

  Layard pulled out his flint and knelt to light the lamp. As he tried to kindle a spark, he spoke over his shoulder to the Matamet.

  ‘Why will you not let me go?’ he demanded, ‘I remain under the protection of the Shah.’

  ‘Mr Layard, the protection of the Shah means very little out here,’ replied the Governor, impatiently. ‘Should I wish to kill you, I might do so with impunity. Should any part of your remains survive the jackals sufficiently to identify you, anyone would simply assume that you had run foul of the Beni Lam Arabs.’

  ‘I would expect the Governor of Isfahan to honour the Shah’s firman,’ replied Layard.

  ‘The Shah’s firman stands for nothing here,’ spat the Matamet.

  ‘So why do I still live?’ asked Layard.

  ‘You retain a purpose, Frank,’ replied the Matamet. ‘To be more correct, you retain two purposes. None among the people of Isfahan would dare to desecrate the Tomb of Daniel. Even the Beni Lam would not dare such a blasphemous act. Any Muslim that committed such a heinous crime would be condemned forever in the eyes of the people. I need the people to love me, Mr Layard, if I am to be the ruler that fate has destined me to become. My first purpose for you is simply to take responsibility for defiling this shrine.

  ‘Of course, it will be a great and happy coincidence that I will apprehend you as you leave the tomb and order that you be sent back to Isfahan, while arrangements can be made to hand you over to the British authorities at Karak. It will be with a heavy heart that I have to inform those authorities that, en route to Isfahan, you were set upon by a band of crazed religious fanatics and torn to pieces. My men, of course did everything they could to protect you, but the righteous anger of our people was just too overwhelming. The stone, of course, I will preserve for safe-keeping.’

  ‘I see,’ said Layard, standing with the lit lamp flickering dimly in his hand, ‘and my second purpose?’

  ‘To translate the inscriptions on the black stone. You heard where the dervish said the stone is buried,’ said the Matamet. ‘Now, you will dig it out.’

  He gestured with his knife blade that Layard should enter the inner chamber. Layard led the way through a narrow portal into an inner cave, set deep in the cliff. In the lamplight, he could make out a domed chamber, in the centre of which was a plain rectangular stone structure, half covered in flaking plaster. At the rear of the cave, beyond the structure, which could have been a stone coffin, was a carved wall, displaying the remains of some ancient relief. In the dim light, little could be distinguished of the weathered relief save for the figure of a man, his features worn and eroded by the years, standing between two beasts that resembled lions. The man’s arms were outstretched towards the creatures, whose great tongues lolled from their mouths, as if they were licking the man’s hands. The crack that had opened in the dome ran in a jagged arc across the roof of the cave and down the far wall, opening into a great dark fissure to the left of the figures, where the cave disappeared into a black void.

  ‘Five paces from the casket,’ intoned the Matamet, repeating Abd’ul Nebi’s instructions. ‘Dig there, below the carving of the man.’

  Layard walked to the rear of the stone structure, taking care to avoid the gulf where the floor had opened up.

  ‘With what do you expect me to dig?’ he asked the Matamet.

  ‘With your hands, Mr Layard.’

  ‘The stone has been buried for ten years,’ complained Layard, ‘I need a spade.’

  ‘I am not such a fool as to hand you a weapon, Frank. Dig with your hands. If you do not show some application, I will call my ferrashes and they will persuade you to show more effort.’

  Cursing silently, Layard set the lamp on the corner of the stone casket and paced out five steps towards the rear wall. He knelt and began to scrabble at the hard, packed earth of the cave floor, painfully and infinitesimally scratching dirt. His nails split and his fingers became raw and scraped. In the close, muggy air of the tomb, sweat dripped from his forehead and splashed onto the earth.

  ‘This will take forever,’ he said to the Matamet.

  ‘I have plenty of time,’ replied the Governor. ‘I have waited for many years for this stone, Mr Layard. A few more hours will make little difference.’

  ‘What is the stone to you?’

  ‘Is it not clear? I was a foreigner who was carried off from my people to live in a strange land – just like Daniel. I was a slave who rose to prominence – just like Daniel. I have become the one upon whom the State relies – just like Daniel. I am the inheritor of Daniel. Just as he foretold the end of Babylon and the rise of Persia, now I come to mark the end of the Persians and the rise of a new power.’

  ‘What power is that,’ said Layard, scraping away more dirt with his bleeding fingers.

  ‘Daniel left secrets for his inheritors,’ answered the Matamet, his shrill voice beginning to rise even higher. ‘He set down prophecies of things to come; prophecies that could bring power for those who might understand them and use them to their advantage. He set down incantations to influence the hearts of men and control the minds of savage beasts. The Caliph used that knowledge to dispossess his rivals. He used Daniel’s incantations to set terrible guardians over the tombs – children of a yet more ancient power in this land. Now I will use that knowledge and that power, at the head of my armies, to bring a new order to Persia.’

  ‘You’re deluded,’ scoffed Layard, ‘no ancient writings can give you that power.’

  ‘You are wrong, Frank,’ said the Matamet, his voice rising still. ‘Already I have extended my armies to encompass the tribes of Khuzistan. With the fall of Kala Tul, I now command the most feared fighters in all of Persia. While the old fool of a Shah looks anxiously to the West, fearing an attack from the British, I will mass my troops and fall down upon him – and at the head of my armies shall march a terrible force, bound to my command by the wisdom of Daniel.’

  ‘You are mad,’ cried Layard, unable to contain his anger. ‘Your own forces will rebel against you should you march on the Shah. The Bakhtiari will never fight for you – not while one member of Mehemet Taki Khan’s household remains to rally them against you.’

  ‘Ah, but they will not remain so for long,’ replied the Matamet, his eyes glinting in the lamplight. ‘My agents are hunting down the last of the Khan’s brothers and his impudent whelp of a son. They will soon be in my grasp. As for his wife – why just yesterday I received a message from Abd’ullah Khan of the Boheramedi, offering to hand the Khanum and her sister over to me. They will soon be enjoying the gentle attentions of my ferrashes.’

  Layard cursed and began to rise, meaning to spring on the Matamet. Before he could stand, however, he felt the cold point of the eunuch’s knife at his throat. With preternatural speed and stealth, the Matamet had crept silently to his side. As he spoke, Layard could feel his breath on the back of his neck.

  ‘Do not allow me to distract you from your labours, Mr Layard,’ he whispered. ‘Keep digging.’

  Trembling with rage, his eyes stinging from sweat and tears, Layard continued to scratch away at the dirt with his numb bleeding hands. As he began to loosen the hard baked earth and stones on the surface, lumps began to break away and the digging began to make better progress. It was, however, still painfully slow. The lamp flame began to splutter and spit as the last reserve of grease began to burn
out and the light became gradually dimmer. Then, when Layard felt that his battered hands could dig no more, he felt the corner of something hard and rectangular buried in the dirt. Encouraged to find new reserves of strength, he scraped frantically at the corner, removing crumbling aggregations of stones and dried earth to reveal at last a small cedar-wood box. He pulled it loose and set it on the stone casket. The box was about eighteen inches long and a foot in both breadth and depth. On its surface, the remnants of painted symbols could just be seen – now too faded to be properly read.

  With a shout of triumph, the Matamet pushed Layard away from the box. Using his dagger, he roughly pried the lid from the box and tipped it up, spilling its contents out onto the surface of the stone casket.

  For a moment, the Matamet stood, silently transfixed.

  ‘The scriptures of Daniel!’ he hissed in triumph.

  There, spread out on the surface of the casket, were six irregular fragments. They were of some hard, glassy black stone, their rough broken edges glinting in the light. On the surface of each could be seen dozens upon dozens of lines in tiny, densely packed cuneiform script, interspersed by figures and symbols that Layard could not recognise.

  ‘When you have translated these for me,’ hissed the Matamet, ‘I shall be the One upon whom the State relies no longer. I shall be the State itself. Every drop of blood I have spilled has been for this moment.’

  As he spoke, a sudden terrible roaring issued from the crack, filling the chamber with a deafening noise. Startled, the Matamet spun around to face the fissure, a look of sudden fear on his face. Without thinking, Layard leaped forward and grabbed up the stone fragments. The Matamet shrieked in rage and lurched forward, raising his knife and screaming for his guards.

  Layard jumped clear of the eunuch’s wildly flailing knife and backed towards the chamber door, expecting at any moment to be seized by the ferrashes. The Matamet called for his guards again, but none answered. He began to move forward, his face white in the faint reflected light from the doorway. There was a second great bellow, so loud this time that both men instinctively crouched down, Layard still cradling the stone fragments. The Matamet was the first to his feet, leaping towards the cowed Englishman with a look of insane hate on his usually passionless face. At that moment, a tremor shook the cave and a few small stones, dislodged from the cracked roof, came tumbling down as the Matamet lunged forward with his dagger towards Layard. A small rock hit the Matamet’s outstretched hand and he dropped the knife with an angry yelp. Undeterred he sprang forward and grabbed Layard’s shoulders with two great wet pudgy hands.

  Pressing the stone fragments to his body with a crooked left arm, Layard clawed at the Governor’s face, feeling his fingers sliding on cold, damp flesh. The Matamet swatted Layard’s hand away with his arm and clamped his hand on the Englishman’s throat. Despite his soft and flaccid appearance, the eunuch had an unnatural strength. Layard’s vision began to swim as he felt the Matamet’s grip tighten crushingly on his throat. He thrust his free hand once more at the Governor’s face, gouging with his thumb at the Matamet’s left eye. He felt his legs weakening and spots danced before his eyes as the Governor crushed the life from him. With a final effort, he jabbed his thumb as hard as he could into the Matamet’s eye, feeling a sudden squelching abatement of resistance as his thumb sank into the socket.

  With an animal squeal of pain the Matamet released his stranglehold and staggered back, clutching at his face. A second tremor began to shake the cave as more rocks began to fall, stirring up clouds of dirt and plaster dust. A huge roar filled the cave, seeming no longer to emanate from the fissure but from everywhere within the chamber itself. Layard staggered back, feeling for the doorway behind him. In the clouds of dust, he could make out the form of the Matamet, shrieking in rage, his left hand raised to his bloodied face. The Matamet stooped and picked up his long, curved dagger. With a cry of vengeful triumph he advanced on Layard, his one good eye filled with hate. The tremor and the roaring continued, as if a great storm was ravaging the interior of the cave. Fearing to turn his back on the Matamet, Layard groped frantically for the door, but could not find it. The Matamet stepped forward, surrounded by the billowing clouds of dust – in his hatred for Layard oblivious to the rocks falling around him; to the terrible roaring and the quaking earth. In the clouds of dust behind the Matamet, Layard saw something huge and dark begin to form. It was a great shadow, congealing out of the darkness that was flowing from the fissure in the cave wall. The darkness seemed to flow and billow like the clouds of dust themselves and then to take a more solid form. The awful ear-splitting roaring was coming from within the shadow. The darkness seemed to pulse and grow, inching closer. Unaware of the shadow forming behind him, the Matamet was intent only on his prey. He staggered forward, struggling to keep his footing as the ground shuddered and bucked beneath him.

  The shadow manifested huge and menacing above the oblivious form of the Governor. Layard stepped backwards, his face now turned in terror toward the awful looming presence. As he staggered back, his groping arm found the void of the doorway and he pitched backwards, slipping on loose rubble and plunging to the floor. Suddenly conscious of the thing behind him, the Matamet turned, and yelled in terror as he perceived what was in the tomb with him. With a shrill cry he began to run for the doorway, stumbling helplessly on the pitching, rubble-strewn floor. Whining and clawing at his blood-streaked face, he lurched desperately through the billowing dust; a blinded white-faced apparition engulfed by shadow. At that moment there came a crashing and rending of rocks as a final great tremor shook the cave and the roof of the tomb came crashing down upon them. As Layard felt rocks rain down upon him, he heard a last long drawn-out cry from Manuchar Ali Khan, the Mu’temedi-Dowla. The eunuch’s unearthly, gurgling high-pitched scream was matched in an awful duet by a great and terrible voice. Ancient and hate-filled, that second voice roared louder until it eclipsed the first; filling Layard’s ears as he slipped into unconsciousness.

  CHAPTER 22

  LAYARD AWOKE TO FIND HE WAS LYING IN A POOL OF SUNLIGHT AT THE MOUTH OF THE OUTER CHAMBER. Around him were piles of rubble, where the roof had collapsed. The dust still hung in the air, thick and billowing in the shafts of light that streamed in through the ceiling of the dome. He tried to move. Every muscle in his body seemed to silently scream as he rolled over onto his side and struggled to a sitting position, propping himself against the outer wall. Of the inner chamber there was no sign. The roof had collapsed completely, a great pile of rocks sealing off the chamber. No sounds came from within. No birds could be heard outside the tomb, in the ghostly silence that followed the tremors. The only sounds were the buzzing of flies outside and a strange, irregular rasping sound that Layard at last realised was the sound of his own breathing.

  At length, with effort, Layard managed to pull himself to his feet. He looked at the rubble around about. There was no sign of the black stone fragments. He walked haltingly to the collapsed doorway to the inner chamber and inspected it. Tons of fallen rock had sealed it. Neither was there a sign of the Matamet. Layard limped from the outer chamber, into the daylight.

  There, he found the Matamet’s ferrashes. They were lying scattered around the doorway, in small pools of rapidly congealing blood, their throats neatly cut. A small swarm of flies had already gathered around each. A few yards across the wide ledge in front of the cave, two tall Lur tribesmen were loading baggage onto the horses that Layard and Abd’ul Nebi had ridden to the tomb. They were in the process of packing six black stone fragments into a small wooden crate. Mounted on a grey mare, supervising them was a neatly dressed European who barked out commands in barely accented Persian.

  Layard walked slowly towards the men. The European turned to him and spoke in English.

  ‘Ah, Mr Layard, you’re awake,’ he observed. ‘I expect you’re thirsty.’

  He gave a short command to one of the Lurs, who handed Layard a canteen of water. Layard drank deeply from the canteen,
eyeing the men suspiciously over its rim.

  ‘You can keep that, if you want,’ said the man, ‘I imagine you’ll need it.’

  Layard screwed the cap onto the canteen and studied the man. His face was familiar, yet Layard could not place him.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he asked in a cracked voice.

  ‘Retrieving these artefacts, so that they can be properly cared for and studied,’ replied the man. ‘You have been of great assistance, Mr Layard, but I feel that it would perhaps be better if the Royal Geographical Society took it from here.’

  A dim memory returned to Layard, of a meeting he had attended in Kensington, so many months before. Sir Charles Fellows had led the meeting, briefing Layard on how he should best travel in the East and on which equipment would be best for his task. His Uncle William was there too, interspersing the conversation with an embellishment of light-hearted quips. One or two other Society members had been in attendance too, to share their experiences of some of the countries through which Layard must travel. At the back of the room, another man had sat, silently throughout. No-one introduced him to Layard and he had slipped out before the discussion ended, so that Layard had no opportunity to introduce himself to the man. Now, in the shadow of the great mound of Susa, the same man sat mounted before Layard.

  ‘But you can’t just take them,’ protested Layard, ‘I have to take them back – to see if I can use them to free the Khan-‘

  ‘Mr Layard,’ cut in the man, ‘need I remind you that you are here on the instructions of the Society. You have done your work well, albeit with some unnecessary political diversions. However, your work is now done. It would not be wise to remain here any longer. We will take the fragments back to London – which is, I am sure you agree, the proper place for them.’