The Sleeper in the Sands (26 page)

It was now nearing twilight and in the western sky, above the mountain peaks, a half-dozen hues, from pink to green and gold, were dying the horizon. Reluctantly, I ordered our retreat from the valley. Yet already in the shadows strange figures were gathering, and as we neared the ravine which led back to the plain, so large numbers began to rise up from the boulders, as ants will emerge when a rock is disturbed. I and all my men were mounted on horses, and were riding down the pathway with all the speed we could muster, yet as I saw the figures of the
udar
ahead of us, their spindly limbs jerking and their slanted eyes afire, I dreaded that we had lingered in the valley far too late. ‘Faster!’ I cried. ‘Faster, for the love of Allah!’ Then we were amongst them and I could feel their fingers, horribly thin and long, pulling upon me, seeking to drag me down - but my sword was bright, and its edge razor-keen. I knew that all those I had felled would rise once again, for I had struck none of the demons a wound through the heart; yet I only wished at that moment to force my way through their ranks. And so I did at last, breaking free into the burning white dust of the ravine, and when I glanced behind me it was to see that most of my companions had broken through as well. Two of them, however, were still surrounded by a horde of the
udar,
their horses bucking and whinnying with fear, and even as I watched one of them screamed and was plucked from his saddle, then vanished beneath a sudden surging of the enemy. I heard a hellish slithering, hissing sound; and then a second scream. ‘Ride on,’ I cried to the others, ‘ride on to the Nile!’ as I wheeled and galloped back towards the head of the ravine. It was black with the
udar
now, and even as I charged I saw the second villager submerged. At the same moment, however, as though their ranks were the waves of a mighty sea, the ghools appeared to surge and rise, and I feared that they would break and flood down the ravine. The sun, I saw, behind the western hills, was on the verge of setting; yet as the final red beam began to fade away, so all the ranks of the
udar
stood suddenly frozen. Then they began to part, and as the last light of day vanished, so I saw that they were turning to gaze into the darkness, at someone . . . something . . . approaching from the valley. I could not penetrate the shadows, but I had no wish to stay to see what it was. I delayed my flight no longer, and kept riding until I had reached the banks of the Nile.

We crossed without hindrance -- and yet, gazing back into the darkness of the western bank, I dreaded to think what the night might now bring. The villagers had raised a wall between the pillars, and seemed to believe that they were safe behind it, but I could not put the darkness which I had sensed in the valley from my mind. In an effort to prepare for it further, I ordered all the wood that could be found to be gathered together and stacked in a line beyond our outer fortification. Then, when all had been completed, I retreated to the half-ruined mosque. Yet it was as though my prayers were weighted down, and Allah would not - or could not -- hear them.

I rose from my knees at last, puzzled and afraid, and passed again into the stony night. I began to wander through the pillared hallways of the temple, and as I did so I felt a sudden chill of recognition. I gazed behind me, around me, ahead. The chill grew more icy. For I was certain now that, ruined though it was, I could make sense of the form of the hallways of the temple, the pattern which it formed and its seemingly infinite processional route -- that once, years before, I had entered something similar.

I began to stumble across the sands, seeking the point which I knew would surely come, when the pillars came to an end and there was nothing instead but a tiny room, the innermost sanctuary, where in the temple of Lilatt-ah, the idol of a demoness had stood. I arrived at the point at last and discovered, to my relief, that there was nothing to be found save only rubble and sand. Yet even so, standing there, I felt my unease deepen, and again I knelt and sought to raise my thoughts in prayer. But at the same moment, from across the sands of the desert I heard the howling of a jackal, and at once I felt my mind clouded by a sickness, for it seemed that all the stone of the temple was melting, and that all its massive weight was become nothing but smoke. ‘This is a great wonder,’ I exclaimed to myself, ‘may Allah protect me!’ I rubbed my eyes; and when I opened them again, everything was as it had been before, and my sickness was gone. Yet I was certain now that the temple was surely damned; and rising to my feet, I sought out the merchant and asked him to show me the place where he had first discovered Leila, in accordance with the vision which he had been shown in his dream. He met my stare strangely; then led me through the temple, through the great halls of stone, to the very same place where I had just been kneeling, remembering the image of the idol of Lilatt-ah. ‘Here,’ the merchant said, pointing to the waste of dust and stone. ‘I discovered her here.’

I knew then that that same night we were surely bound to die, for I could be certain now that the temple was not a place of refuge at all, but of sorcery and of terror and of long-buried evil. And even as I stood there, grim-faced, with the merchant, I heard distant cries of warning and I knew that the
udar
had surely crossed the Nile. As I returned through the temple to the barricades, I met with crowds of the villagers fleeing the other way; and indeed, it was all I could do not to run in blind panic myself, for I imagined that beyond my sight, seeping down from the hills upon clouds of star-touched dust, an evil was approaching -- that same which I had sensed at dusk in the ravine.

Arrived at the barricades, I found my worst fears to be true. Massed before us, the
udar
stood in shadowy ranks, and I knew that the Nile had indeed been traversed. Turning to the villagers, I ordered all those who could not fight to join their fellows in retreat, while those few of us who remained, watching the hellish things gathering before us, prepared to consign ourselves to Allah’s mercy. Then packs of the demons began to glide across the sands, and suddenly they were upon us, scaling our wall, their eyes burning fiercely in the prickling darkness, as we sought desperately not to succumb to their assaults. Still our strength held; yet I could sense it failing; and looking out I could see ever blacker, denser groups of shadows, a whole mighty army preparing to move. Then slowly it began to roll forward, wave after endless wave, crashing against our swords in a mighty cloud of dust, yet never passing them, so that I almost dared to hope that Allah might indeed be with us. But then at last it came, the moment I had been expecting, and dreading in my soul: screams and cries of terror, as dark figures climbed across the summit of our wall.

‘Fire,’ I shouted, ‘bring me fire!’ A burning torch was passed into my hand, and I leapt from the wall on to the sands beyond, where the line of wood had been carefully stacked, dry and ready to be consumed by our flames. And so indeed, praise be to Allah, it came to pass; and the ghools shrank back, appalled by the light, and I called out to the villagers to pursue them from the wall. Upon our assault the ghools turned and fled, and I observed, as the flames began to coil into the sky, how some of them were greasy with the corpses of our foe, and how the moon itself seemed stained a burning red. Dimly through the smoke I saw the lines of the
udar
hesitate, then part. All across the battle scene, across the fields and the river, and the ruins of the temple, a silence fell, so that even the heavens seemed appalled by the moment.

I stood upon the wall. I pointed my sword towards the blood-red moon.
‘Allahu akbar!’
I cried. ‘Allah is most great!’

Nothing answered me.

But suddenly, as though the sands before me were living flesh, to crawl with dread, I sensed something stirring in the heavy air; and then Isis, beside me, threw her head back and howled.

I glanced round. My men, who moments before had been cheering with joy, now stood frozen and appalled, their arms dropped low; and then one, then two, and then the whole ragged line began suddenly to flee. I longed to join them; and indeed my own sword, in my own hand, had also dropped low. But I remained where I had been, upon the summit of the wall, and I turned again to gaze out beyond me.

The lines of the ghools still stood frozen and parted; but something was emerging from the gap they had formed. It was a figure, I realised, on a deathly white horse - and yet the horse was not so pale as its rider. His robes too were white, and rich with gleaming gold, and upon his head was a double crown - one white, the other red - such as I had seen, I realised, carved within the tombs of the Kings and upon the walls of the temple which stretched behind my back. Yet if ever he had been a Pharaoh of Egypt, he looked nothing like a mortal man any longer, for he seemed more hideous than the ugliest and most ghastly of the
udar,
and more ancient than the very dust and sand on which he rode. What nature of thing he might be - whether Afrit or Jinn, Phantom or Ghool -- I could not imagine; but I knew he held a power far beyond my mortal scope. Even from where I was standing, I could see the ice within his stare; and I imagined, as I met it, that my soul was burning up.

The figure reined in his horse. He turned, and pulled upon something, and I saw that he had been holding a rope in his hands. A form stumbled forward and I recognised one of the villagers, captured no doubt upon the western bank. The poor wretch was still just alive, and as the King reached down to seize him by the throat, the man began to writhe, and kick, and scream out prayers.

The strength of the King, though, was something out of Hell. His grip tightened around his victim’s throat, until at last there was a cracking and the poor man fell still. Peace and blessings be upon him.

Still holding the corpse in one hand, the King began with his other to rip it apart.

‘No,’ I cried out, ‘no!’; but there was nothing I could do. I watched as the dead man’s body was ripped to shreds, then smeared by the demon on the horse across his own, so that his limbs and chest were beslobbered with blood. Then at last the corpse was dropped back upon the sands, and the King leaned back and screamed out to the sky - a scream, Allah willing, such as I shall never hear again. Even the moon, I imagined, as though curdled by the sound, seemed to thicken and grow a more cruel and violent red.

But then I watched the moon no more. The King was riding forward. I jumped from the wall and fled.

But at this point, Haroun saw the approach of morning and broke off from his tale. ‘O Prince of the Faithful,’ he said, ‘if you would care to return here tomorrow evening, then I shall relate to you what occurred within the temple of the sands.’

And so the Caliph did as Haroun suggested; and the following evening he returned to the mosque. And Haroun said:

I feared, O Prince, as I stumbled through the stone-littered sands of the temple, that my time had surely come, for our line had broken, our wall had been breached and there was nothing now to hold back the army of the ghools. Dimly, through the crackling of the flames, I could hear a tumult of cries, terrible and inhuman, and the thunder of a million footsteps; but chiefly it was the hoofbeats of the King upon his horse I most dreaded to hear. Yet even as I listened for them, I realised the tumult was starting to fade, and I felt a sudden strange sickness, as I had done before when I had heard the crying of the jackal, and imagined that the stone of the temple was smoke. I glanced behind me. ‘May Allah have mercy!’ I cried, for again all the stone seemed nothing but smoke. The magical talismans which had been carved into the pillars by the ancient pagans, and the figures of the kings and beast-headed jinn, appeared suddenly lined with deep-burning fire, and as I walked on through the temple so the fire blazed all the more. But everything else was silent now, and the light of the moon was silver once again. ‘What mystery is this?’ I thought, for in all the vast wreck I seemed utterly alone, save only for Isis, who still walked by my side. Together we continued through the courtyards and halls, across the rubble and the heaped dunes of shadow-dyed sands, until at last ahead of me I saw where the pillars fell away, the same place where I had thought that the ancient shrine must once have been, if it had followed the pattern of the temple of Lilatt-ah. And immediately I stood frozen with wonder and doubt; for it was there also, I remembered, that the merchant had found my wife.

Very slowly, at last, I began to walk forward. Still there was silence, not a single sound, not the stirring of a palm tree nor the murmur of a breeze. But then again I felt the sickness, so that I staggered and closed my eyes, and when I opened them it was to discover that the light of the moon was blotted out. Instead it now appeared there was a roof above my head, very black and low, and ahead of me a brazier ablaze with soft incense. I could not see what might lie beyond the clouds of purple smoke, but I saw Isis grow tense as she gazed ahead, and then suddenly she growled.

I stroked her and sought to comfort her, as I whispered to her to be silent; but as I spoke her name, so I heard the sound of laughter rising from the smoke-obscured darkness ahead. For a moment I stood frozen again, for I knew, O Prince, whose laughter it had been, and I scarcely knew what I should next expect to see or hear. But then I continued forward, seeking to dispel the smoke with my arms; and as I walked down the hall, through the clouds, I saw Leila, my wife, upon a golden throne. Her skull had been shaven, and she wore a high blue crown, with a cobra made of gold rising up above her brow. Her robes were long and white, her necklaces broad and fashioned from rich jewels. Her face was very pale, her lips bright red, and her eyes thickly lined with the blackest kohl. She seemed more lovely than ever, but somehow very strange, so that I felt as though I had never truly seen her before. I could not, in those first few moments, explain such a feeling -- yet it was sufficient to make me certain that she was a jinni as ancient as the temple all around us - as ancient, indeed, as the very sands themselves.