The Sleeping Sands (40 page)

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 to 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 the 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?’

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.