* * *
The Qalif ordered a rapid excavation of the structure in the center of the lakebed. All day, humans lined up like ants to carry buckets filled with hardening sand and clay away from the structure, and to dump it onto the neighboring shores. Artisans worked with shovels and fine tools to chip away at the solidifying reddish-ocher mud—for the sun was baking it even as they worked—and soon enough they had cleared an ancient stone building of large rose granite bricks piled in ziggurat-stair formation, with a perfect square base of several hundred meters, and with four sealed entrances on each of the sides.
The Qalif himself, his royal feet bound in many layers of protective cotton, walked carefully through the mud and stood to observe the discovery. Flanked by bodyguards that never left his side—for he was a careful man—he paced the perimeter of the ancient structure from all sides, and noted the designs on the entrances, etched symbols of ancient writing.
On the eastern side, the entrance bore the outline of a bird. On the western side, there was a human hand, its five fingers splayed in greeting . . . or caution. On the southern side the doorway revealed a heavy lidded eye. Finally, on the northern side, there was something that resembled a gaping mouth with teeth, and then—as the artisans chiseled and chipped away the layers of clay—it took on the final shape of a serpent, and the teeth were but the regularly spaced scales along its ringed hide.
“What are these symbols? What significance? What language? I must know!” the Qalif muttered—a curious man by nature—and scholars were sent to observe and copy down the shapes onto scrolls.
At the same time, messengers were sent out into the wide expanses of the qalifate to find experts who might be able to reveal more about the nature of these hieroglyphs. Snake-charmers and birdcatchers and palm readers and eye physicians were called from the markets and the trade caravans, and with promises of rich reward they converged upon the drying mud of the missing lake.
In their midst was a young man, a foreigner, who had come with one south-bound caravan and was stopped along with the rest of his mercantile fellows, all trading in exotic species of birds.
The birdcatcher, Ruogo, had grown into a slim quiet youth, and his master’s rich wagons carried cages of sparrows and canaries, parrots and nightingales, pheasants and peacocks. All of the creatures were under his gentle care, for Ruogo had skilled hands where it came to handling the animals. He was also adept at binding and weaving nets and lures, and at catching the wild birds after lying in wait in patient silence.
“What exactly does the Qalif want from all of us?” Ruogo said to the bearded man next to him, a snake handler by the look of his workbasket and charming pipe. They stood in line at the shores of the former lake, to be questioned and allowed past the guards into the lakebed.
“And what do you think you can do for the Qalif?” retorted a beautiful youth just behind him, with disdainful and fierce eyes, wearing fine noble clothing and a prominent sword at his side.
Ruogo turned to consider the peculiar challenge. But before he could reply, the bearded snake charmer muttered, “Be careful, say nothing to him, birdcatcher. He is likely one of the local princely sons. The nobles in this land are known to take their boredom out on foreigners like us.”
Ruogo understood. And as the line advanced forward, he merely threw the noble youth a polite nod, and then looked away, intent on his own business.
Behind him the youth laughed.
Soon enough they moved up to the edge of the shoreline, where Ruogo was questioned, when his turn came.
“Do you know many species of birds? Will you be able to recognize a bird and its habits from an ancient picture in stone?”
“I know all the species in which men trade,” replied Ruogo humbly. “As far as images in stone, what I would know depends on the nature of the image itself.”
The Qalif’s scribe seemed to like the answer. “Come forward then,” he said. “If you render good services, you will be well-rewarded.” And while many others had been turned away, Ruogo was allowed to step forward into the drying mud.
They were made to walk in the soft, slippery lakebed without any foot protection beyond what they already had, and many men slipped and fell, or found their footwear rendered useless. After about ten steps, Ruogo decided to remove his poor ruined sandals, tied them together, slung them over his shoulders and walked barefoot in the sinking sludge.
Ruogo noticed that the bearded snake-man and the angry noble youth were among those who had been allowed to continue, and they ended up in the same order in which they had stood in line. The snake charmer was poor and barefoot already, but the youth had on a fine pair of boots, and they were now encrusted with drying dirt.
The excavated structure grew in size as they approached, taking on grandiose proportions, newly cleared marble stone shining polished and clean in places, and in others still caked with mud. At the walls, they were stopped again by soldiers and guards of the qalifate, and Ruogo was directed to follow a head scribe to the eastern-facing wall, and its sealed doorway with the bird shape.
“See this symbol?” said the head scribe to their group of birdcatchers and other fowl handlers, as they gathered near the entrance, “What do you make of it? What does it mean?”
“A great hawk!” said someone from the crowd. “I’ve seen such in the royal cages, and caught many myself.”
“No, surely it is a falcon! A fierce and noble creature of the air, appropriate to the god’s abode.”
“An eagle! It is the ruler of the air, the greatest bird of all.”
“But how can you tell?” Ruogo spoke up. “The image shows no wingspan, no grand tail. If anything, it looks like a simple northern field sparrow or a finch.”
Several other birdcatchers and vendors, older and more distinguished looking, glared at him. “What kind of nonsense? Who would put a lowly bird’s image upon a great temple?”
“I only suggest what I see,” Ruogo said, his brow furrowing in intensity.
The head scribe turned to him. “It is useful what you say. We need to know if this is a simple or dangerous symbol, and whether its presence indicates that the entrance is not to be tampered with. The last thing our Qalif wants is to insult the Hidden God whose abode this must be.”
“I understand, my lord.” Ruogo inclined his head in politeness to the scribe. “Then I might add that the bird is shown in profile, and its beak is neither overly long nor short, and its feet show three claws. Its tail is slim and medium-long, and there is no eye but a dot, which suggests a symbolic representation—it could be a number of ordinary birds, for no dramatic markings are emphasized. Maybe this is supposed to be a general image, that of any bird?”
In that moment there was a noisy commotion on the opposite side of the structure, where the entrance depicted a hand. Whatever the recommendations of the palmists and occult line readers had been, someone had attempted to open the sealed door, and now black thick smoke poured up into the heavens, for the insolent one had been struck by an unknown force and burned to ashes. There were screams of awe, servants and scribes scattering like rats, and the Qalif himself approached with his retinue of guards to observe the incident.
Ruogo and the bird specialists were forgotten, pushed aside by the flow of the crowd as all attention was focused on the western wall.
“Who dared to open the sacred door without my permission?” the Qalif cried. “No one is to touch anything, simply learn and then inform me!”
The scribe in charge of the palm readers came forward and then fell to lie flat before the Qalif, in obeisance. “No one, oh great one, no one alive . . .” he muttered. “The insolent one has been struck by the Hidden God himself, it is no doubt—behold, his ashes alone remain!”
In that moment, two more explosions of smoke and brightness came from the two remaining sides, north and south, with the entrances decorated by a serpent and the eye.
“In the name of all the great gods of this world, cease and desist!” the Qa
lif cried, his voice cracking in outrage. “No one is to approach the entrances again until we learn what has been attempted!” And then he pointed his finger to the prostrate head scribe. “You! What exactly was done before the divine punishment came?”
“My father, I can tell you exactly what came to pass,” said a bright young voice. And Ruogo recognized the intense noble-clad youth who carried a sword.
“Ah! It is the Qali!” someone hissed.
But the youth stepped forward and removed his head covering. Long raven-black hair spilled around the shoulders and covered the sword and the back, down to the youth’s ankles.
“Not the Qali, but the young brash Qalia, the lord’s daughter!” retorted someone else in the crowd near Ruogo.
Ruogo stared in curiosity, for he had never seen a woman in the clothes of a man before, nor one with such fierce manners or with such glorious long hair.
“What are you doing here, Lealla, my child?” said the Qalif, his voice growing soft and befuddled—for he was a doting father.
“The same thing all the rest of these people are doing,” she replied. “I am here to solve the mysteries of this ancient place.”
“But—” the Qalif said. “This is no place for my daughter.”
In the bright sun the maiden suddenly inclined her head so that her mane of hair which caught and swallowed all light falling upon it, rained to the mud at their feet. She remained bowed, heedless of its ends lying in the dirt.
“My sweet lord, father,” she said. “My place is ever at your side.”
“And what of Khoiram? Where is my son while his sister takes his place?” continued the Qalif with reproach which was quickly dissipating.
Lealla raised her face and swept her hair behind her and out of her way, while her eyes took on a living brightness. “Khoiram walks in the gardens, deep in esoteric thought. But he will come to you soon enough with the true answer to this mystery. There is no other, and you know it. None can match the brightness of thought of your son.”
“That remains to be seen . . .” the Qalif muttered. “Very well,” he continued. “Join me, my daughter, for I can use your fair company. But take care. This is a deceptive and dangerous place, and I will not have you fall into any harm. Therefore, touch nothing here without my consent!”
And then the Qalif returned his attention to the man wallowing in the dirt before him, the head scribe.
But the indomitable Qalia was not to be put aside. “As I was saying, my lord father,” the maiden continued, resuming her willful tone, “I can tell you exactly what happened. These fool overseers of your men gave the command to force open the doors all at once, so that men who were struck by the god had no time to exclaim, much less warn the others. They touched the doors near the sealed edges. I saw them all move to it, heedless of your own wise warning, and—”
“How did you see them all,” Ruogo interrupted suddenly, “when they were all on different sides of this structure?”
The Qalia turned to him and there was icy cold in her expression, ice over anger. “What?”
But Ruogo was undaunted. Wind swept tendrils of his equally dark hair into his face and he squinted against the sun, but not against the sudden inexplicable hatred he saw in her expression.
“You dare speak back to me, birdcatcher?”
Ruogo watched her and did not blink. “With respect, I simply ask a reasonable question. How could you, standing only steps away from me, see what happened on the opposite side of these walls?”
“It is not of your concern.” If her words could cut him, they would have used dull lingering blades to cause additional torment.
“What?” the Qalif interrupted.
“My lord . . .” On the muddy ground, the head scribe continued to grovel. “I can explain, in truth! I was ordered by—”
But in that peculiar moment Lealla, fierce daughter of the Qalif, drew steel, the cool blade hanging at her side. With one smooth motion it left the sheath and in a moment its tip was resting at the back of the scribe’s neck.
“Silence!” she said, and the man on the ground stilled. “Do not befoul the air with your lies—for it will be lies that will come forth from you. And as far as this one—”
And then the Qalia stepped away and sheathed her sword, and suddenly Ruogo found himself facing two cool, intense eyes—and it seemed there was nothing in the world but those eyes, no face, no crowd, no heat of sun, nothing.
“This one,” repeated Lealla, boring into him with inexplicable fury. “He is clever and has a smooth tongue but not enough judgment to keep him out of trouble. Well, what do you say now, birdcatcher?”
Ruogo looked down at the mud at his feet. “Whatever I say now,” he replied quietly, “will be misconstrued.”
The bizarre tension was dispelled by the Qalif himself, his laughter.
“Why pick on this poor youth, my dear child?” said the Qalif. “He did ask you a reasonable—as he insists—question. And now I too am curious. How came you to be aware of each of the different places at once, when walls separated you from them?”
The maiden blanched, but did not lose a moment in answering. “As soon as the edges of the walls were cleared of mud, I had mirrors installed, my lord father. Knowing ahead that miracles might befall us, I wanted to witness all and miss nothing.”
“Mirrors?”
She pointed to the corners of the structure where indeed something white blazed in the sun, a spot of reflected fire. “Angled mirrors that show what is on the other side and around the corner. My own conceit, father. How do you think I can spy so well on my lazy serving maids?”
The Qalif’s mouth parted in surprise. “But—how can you see anything from the distance? These mirrors are tiny.”
Lealla touched her right hand to her throat and brought out a tiny golden device on a chain. “It is a magnifying lens of glass carved in such a manner that allows me to see from a distance. The same kind that your physicians use to look at tiny objects.”
“Amazing!” the Qalif exclaimed. “You are a wonder, my daughter. If only my son had half of your wits and vision—”
Something terrible and bright settled in the Qalia’s eyes at the mention of the son. She said nothing, only lowered her gaze.
“Enough interruptions, then,” said the Qalif. “I want to know how to open those doors safely without incurring the wrath of the Hidden God.”
“Forgive me for speaking one last time, my lord,” Ruogo said. “But from where we stand, there are only two mirrors, enough to show two other sides, not the very opposite third. In addition, even if equipped with a clever spying glass, it is impossible for one man or woman to see two things that are happening simultaneously in different places, much less three.”
The Qalif frowned. “An excellent observation, young man,” he said. “You are clever.”
The Qalia was staring at Ruogo with a look that intended to kill. But her father was quite taken with him, and he said, “Come forward, tell me, what is your name, birdcatcher? For, I see you are among their group.”
“I am Ruogo,” he replied, with a deep bow.
“Tell me, Ruogo,” the Qalif said, “What do you think of this door closest to us?”
Ruogo hesitated only a moment. “I am not sure, my lord. But it seems this is a symbolic representation. The bird indicates either all birds in general, or it is a character symbol for something else. Something that your scribes might know better than any of us in the bird trade.”
This earned him some angry looks from the other birdcatchers.
In that moment, the Qalif’s daughter, who had been glancing around them peculiarly all this time, exclaimed, “Khoiram! My lord father, your son comes!”
Everyone turned to see a slender young man approach with a small retinue of bodyguards. He was elegant and dressed in silk, and his head was covered with a small turban. All of him shone in the sun, especially the fine gilded scabbard of his long sword. The lines of his face converged into beauty that
was almost feminine, and he walked through the mud with an odd lightness, as though he was floating over it in the air—even his footwear appeared unstained.
“Greetings, my father.” His voice carried on the wind, more virile than could be expected out of such a delicate frame. “After much pondering, I am here to solve the mystery for you and to open the gates of this temple.”
Lealla watched her brother with proud adulation.
The Qalif was somewhat less impressed. “You’ve decided to join us, my son—good.” His words were guarded and there was no change in his expression.
The Qali stopped before his father and gave him an impeccable bow which by its perfection somehow managed to be insulting. He straightened, saying, “Tell all your men to rise out of the mud and step fifty feet away from the temple. It is for their safety.”
The Qalif motioned to the prostrate head scribe and all the rest of them, including the guards, to rise and step back. “What will you do?” he asked his son.
Ruogo backed away with the rest of the crowd and watched in curiosity. The heat of the day beat down upon them, and there was a moment of expectant silence.
“Well?” the Qalif said.
The handsome Qali smiled. “This,” he said. And with a flowing movement he drew his long sword and ran his father through with the blade.
The crowd screamed. For a moment there was shock, then panic; guards lunging forward too late, scribes and birdcatchers and snake charmers and palm readers scattering in every direction. But the murderer son held his father in a last embrace, and as the older man’s lifeblood ran scarlet upon silk, spattered on the mud and their mingled clothing, the daughter of the Qalif drew her hands up and cried, “Silence! Fall back! No one dare lay hands upon the new Qalif of this realm!”
Her words held such furious power that once again everyone froze.
Her father, blood pouring from his lips, stared in disbelief at his daughter’s betrayal. “Not you . . . Lealla,” he whispered. “No, not you.” He slumped, released from Khoiram’s hold, and sank on his knees in the mud.
“All this time, father, you wasted your love on the wrong child,” Lealla hissed. “If you’d only loved you son and not your daughter, you would still be alive now. But you disdained him, since childhood. All his learning, his grace and wisdom, all in vain! And so we have arranged your downfall through occult methods—Khoiram drained the lake by means of sorcery so that you would come unguarded and bound only with curiosity. At my orders, explosive powder was sprinkled. Not some forgotten god, it was I—my will was carried out when they forced the doors, so that you would know terror, so that you would feel weak. For it’s what you are, weak and impotent, an old blind fool. But enough! Now my brother will rule and I will rule at his side. All these years of waiting, all these endless days . . . it is only him I loved.”
The Qalif was on his last moments. “I have loved you both . . . my children,” he said on his final breath. “My son chose not to see it, chose the path of darkness.” He gasped, a whole-body shudder passing through him. And then he raised his gaze and he said, “I do not curse you, my son, my daughter, though it is within my right. Instead, I ask that you see the truth of what you have done. May the sun never set for you until you do.”
And with these words the old Qalif fell motionless into the drying mud of Lake Veil.
Ruogo had been squeezed back by the movement of the crowd together with all the others, and he was now pressed from all sides by terrified men. He watched as brother and sister stood above the body of their slain patriarch, both radiant in wicked, unearthly beauty. And something made him draw his gaze for a moment upon the closest gate of the temple, the one with the carved bird image.
It was softly moving.
The doors fell inward in silence, placing the shapes of the Qali and Qalia in silhouette against the gaping darkness revealed. Then, gasps came from the crowd on all directions of the structure. All four doors had opened, and the crowd noticed that the dark within was like a void, an infinite nothingness that pulled to itself.
Out of that nothingness sounded a voice.
A wrongful death, it said from all the four entrances, rumbling in deep echoes that sent shudders and raised hair along the skin of everyone in the crowd. One must now come forth and be punished, or you will all be.
A pause and then there were cries among the multitude. “The Hidden God speaks!”
The young Qali who stood before his father’s slain body, went still. His sister turned to stare at the gaping entrance, while the Qali’s and the late Qalif’s mingled bodyguards still had not reacted, restrained with indecision and split loyalties.
But Lealla quickly searched the crowd and her gaze rested on Ruogo. She pointed at him suddenly, saying “You!” And then, to the nearest guards, “This one, this birdcatcher—quickly, take him inside the temple to satisfy the God!”
Ruogo had no time to protest. He found himself alone as the crowd parted on both sides of him. And then two burly warriors of the qalifate took hold of his arms and bodily carried him to the temple.
The doorway gaped and then he was pushed inside the ancient structure. And the next moment, doors shut behind him.
Absolute darkness came like an ocean, and he, but a speck of seaweed floating many fathoms deep.
And then the voice of the deity sounded, this time soft and intimate. You are not the one.
Ruogo blinked, and somehow his stifling terror vanished, effaced by the cavernous peace of what was around him. Although his eyes were not acclimated to the night, he could almost perceive an outline of someone, a silhouette of a lesser degree of darkness among the perfect void.
Ruogo stood, and it never occurred to him to kneel or make any mortal gestures of obeisance. This was a different, true place, requiring no ritual, no superfluous layers of meaning between man and god.
“I’m not the one—indeed, a no one,” Ruogo said to the god. “I was forced against my will to come before you. Not a hero, not a villain, just the wrong man at the wrong time.”
As soon as you made the choice to open your mouth and speak out in defense of what is real, you were noticed and you became someone, said the Hidden God. Now, go back outside and bring me the dead body of the victim and the living body of the true murderer.
“But,” Ruogo said, “there are guards! They will not allow me! What can I, a poor birdcatcher, do?”
Go!
A thousand needles of pain and excitement hit him simultaneously and Ruogo could do nothing but obey as he turned around in the darkness and sprinted to where he last remembered the door.
He pushed it open with a feather-touch. Remarkable, considering its weight.
On the other side, there was sunlight and . . . birds.
The world was filled with them.
The birds blackened the sky like bees from a disturbed hive and covered the mud of the lakebed in varicolored speckled dots. They flew, rose, circled, sat and preened, fluttered around, pecked each other in anger, sped in pursuit, teemed in madness. Sparrows, hawks, canaries, falcons, finches, eagles, pheasants, magpies, hummingbirds, parrots, jays, peacocks—Ruogo recognized these breeds and others with his practiced eye.
There were no people.
Only birds.
Ruogo stood petrified at the entrance of the temple and considered what was to be done, and what miracle the Hidden God had wrought. His glance slid to the place where he had last seen the murderer brother and sister and the fallen Qalif’s body.
Amid the swirling madness of the flying and roosting fowl, he noticed two crows sitting very still, and between them, a fallen third.
And somehow without a doubt Ruogo knew who they were.
But—how to catch them?
Ruogo thought of the lures and ropes in his belt pouch. He thought of seed and bread crumbs in the other pouch, of dried worms and netting.
And then he thought, These are not true birds.
Ruogo took out a knife from his belt, an
d he used it to cut the palm of his left hand. And then he stepped forward, moving very slowly, and stretched his hand forth, palm down, so that his blood dripped on the mud in a trail of scarlet crumbs.
One of the crows, a raven, rotated its eye then its head to stare. And the next instant it hopped forward, drawn by the spilled blood, by the smell of life-death, and began to peck at the earth.
Ruogo pulled out his net and threw, so that it landed over the raven, and then he tightened it. Too late, the raven flapped its wings for it was now caught.
The other crow screamed in fury, and Ruogo knew exactly what she would do. Not blood here, but love was the lure, love for her brother, no matter how twisted.
And the crow came at him, beating her wings, flying up to peck at his eyes and hands that held her brother captive in the net.
But Ruogo was a master of his trade. With his one free hand he threw a length of rope with a loop, and it caught around her neck, past the beak. He lassoed it, pulled tight, then quickly bound her feet which was how one secured fowl, and the crow was his prisoner just as her brother.
After the two living crows were secured at his belt, struggling in futility, Ruogo stepped toward the third. He bent over the dead body of the old raven, while the multitudes of birds screamed and roiled around him in the sky, occluding the sun.
With sorrow and care he picked up the dead bird and then carried all three back into the temple.
Darkness returned all around, the captured crows screamed in fear, and the dim shape of the God shimmered before him.
You have done well, birdcatcher, sounded the intimate voice. And now I will reward you with three of my names. They are Mercy, Wonder, and Fulfillment. I have many other names, but in this world of three dimensions I may only be known by a sequence of three.
“What must I do with your three names, oh Great One?” Ruogo whispered.
Knowing them you must now observe the world with different eyes. You will now look for my names in all things.
And immediately Ruogo felt the crows disappear from his grasp and instead they were back in human form, somewhere nearby in the darkness. Ruogo knew, in that instant, true wonder.
Lealla screamed, and her brother Khoiram’s cry also sounded, the lingering echo of a thwarted hunting bird. They were to go unpunished by the God, Ruogo sensed, and with a wrenching in his heart he knew pity and mercy.
Finally, a gasp of divine breath. The dead Qalif’s body shuddered. And in the darkness he arose and was a corpse no longer.
The God’s voice filled the temple. And thus you know fulfillment.