Three Names of the Hidden God

This book is a work of fiction. All characters, names, locations, and events portrayed in this book are fictional or used in an imaginary manner to entertain, and any resemblance to any real people, situations, or incidents is purely coincidental.

THREE NAMES OF THE HIDDEN GOD

(A Compass Rose Story)

Vera Nazarian

Copyright ©
2007 by Vera Nazarian

All Rights Reserved.

Except for use in reviews, reproduction of this work in any form is prohibited without the permission of the publisher.

Cover Design Copyright © 2012 by Vera Nazarian

Kindle Ebook Reprint Edition

January 31, 2012

A Publication of

Norilana Books

P. O. Box 209

Highgate Center, VT 05459-0209

http://www.norilana.com/

Published in the United States of America

THREE NAMES OF THE HIDDEN GOD

by Vera Nazarian

T
he world holds as many gods as there are directions radiating outward from the heart of the Compass Rose.

There are gods who must blaze across the spheres in pure glorious light. There are gods
who prefer to remain in the shadows, folded cleverly upon themselves like feathers in a dove’s gray wing, doling out tiny motes of grace to the famished worshippers. There are gods who choose to be submerged in the lowest places of darkness, with forms huge and heavy and malleable, containing so many possibilities that they may not remain in any other shape than primeval clay.

And then, it is said, there is the one god who hides and can be found in none of the divine places.

For the most part, the god—he, she, or it—stays hidden so well that nothing is known about it, her, or him. Indeed, it is a fair question whether the Hidden God exists at all.

* * *

W
hen Ruogo the youngest birdcatcher found the dead bird, it was too late for it. It was lying cold and tiny on the ground, partially hidden by the fallen leaves of the great backyard tree. A miracle that the household cats had not gotten to it—or maybe they had, and this was just an abandoned victim of a feline game.

There was something particularly sad abou
t the remains. The boy picked up the little bird and examined it, seeing that it had been but a hatchling, its tawny feathers consisting of fluff and bits of its rosy-gray tiny body stained with newborn moisture. Then he put it in the front of his apron and carried it inside the house, only to be scolded by the elders.

“
Why do you waste your time with hopeless things? Make yourself useful instead by returning with a net filled with the living, not the dead,” said an old master birdcatcher as he bound together bark and twigs in the workroom. He was the one who made the most intricate cages in the shape of great buildings and houses and temples, for the nobles’ fancy.

The dark-haired boy listened to the reprimand, the olive skin of his face showing no discolor
ation brought about by shame. His gray eyes were blank, concealing any possible cleverness, and he merely lowered his gaze when the elder was done speaking. And that gaze continued to observe the dead bird.

When excused, Ruogo took the bird
’s corpse, still in the folds of his apron, to the rear of the house and out into the back yard, where the old trash pit made itself known by its thick stench from many paces away. Just at the edges of the hole he paused, considering—while others constantly walked past him and threw in various rubbish, since this was a busy household.

“
Either do your business or move aside, boy,” they told him, and yet he remained, frozen.

It would take but a moment to toss in the little corpse, and forget it, forever. Do this and go on wi
th the course of his life.

But the gods had other plans for Ruogo.

And the boy wrinkled his brow in a profound gesture of resignation, and eventually turned away from the edge of the pit. He returned to the house, the dead bird still with him.

In his tiny
closet of a room that he shared with four other children apprentices, there had been an old wooden box. His grandmother, who’d died two summers ago, left Ruogo very little in the way of possessions, and this was his one most prized object. It was hardly larger than a tobacco box, and possibly once held someone’s small jewelry pouch. Delicate patterns of varicolored wood inlay covered its top that swung up on twin hinges. Inside, lined with soft fabric, Ruogo stored his treasures. One was a pendant of carved jade, shaped like a bird—the symbol of his apprenticeship, given to him when he was brought to the Birdcatcher House. Another was a small knife for fingernail grooming that he found on the street, and a couple of other pretty trinket stones also discovered on the ground.

Ruogo did not think twice but opened the box and emptied its contents on the worn blanket of his pallet. Reaching into his apron, he put the small corpse of the bird on top of the fabric, then covered the box once again with a soundless mo
vement.

And then Ruogo put the box away where it always sat, gathered his other treasures and stuck them under his blanket and went back to his ordinary chores.

Thus, from this one simple action, his story becomes important.

* * *

M
any years later, in a great desert
qalifate
that lies sprawled along the shores of Lake Veil, the salt-rich waters of which stand in grim solitude among the boundless sands, people woke up one morning to a miracle.

The Qalif himself witnessed the miracle from the windows of his
bedchamber as he stood to stretch and squint as he always did at the rising sun that would be reflected in blinding persimmon glory upon the eastern shores of the lake.

Rubbing his eyes, the Qalif stared out of the window, then called his First Wife. The
plump-breasted Qalifa replied with a lazy moan, then rose from the perfumed silk and stood at his side.

“
Oh!” exclaimed the Qalifa, coming fully awake, and putting her smooth hand upon her lord’s shoulder. “The lake! Where is it?”

For indeed, the lake call
ed Veil was gone.

In its place stretched a dull brownish quagmire of mud and sand, ugly and already drying solid in the sun, revealing underwater growth and occasional puddles filled with squirming water creatures and flapping fish. The sun would fry them
alive in a matter of hours.

The water from the lake had drained away somewhere
—where? how?—as though overnight a god breathed upon the lake and swallowed it in one divine gulp—either from above or below.

All that remained was this mud and desolation.

And one other thing. In the center of the former lake, in the deepest part of the bed, was a mud-covered bulky shape, vaguely resembling a structure.

At first, no one paid any attention to it, so shocked and terrified they had been by the disappearance of the l
ake. The residents of the
qalifate
congregated along its shores, bewailing the loss of water to the skies—never mind that it had always been useless and salty, and the meager wildlife it housed made for poor fishing. Some dared to walk the mud, carefully venturing deeper from the shoreline, afraid that any moment the water might return and drown them.

Priests of all the gods from all the temples were called, and they stood chanting, incense and burning sacrifices wafting up through the rapidly heating air,
while the tops of their shaven heads cooked likewise in the sun. . . .

Until someone pointed to the strange thing of mud, a great mound rising in the middle of the lake. At first glance it appeared to be a natural growth, a rock formation. But then a sharp
-eyed priest noticed the regularity of its slopes and the angular stairs cut into the muddy rock, indicating a structure. The priest counted the number of stairs, observed their placement, and found a repeating pattern of threes, the highest of all divine groupings.

Awe and terror filled him at the implications of the discovery. The priest whispered his suspicions into the ear of his superior who heard him out and then raised his staff to acknowledge the truth revealed to them. The pronouncement was made an
d immediately a cry went up from all the shores.

The legendary temple of the Hidden God was found. It had to be it and none other, for here all things came in threes and such was the number consecrated only to the Hidden God. Indeed, suddenly they could th
ink back and remember that the lake itself had been called “Veil” for a reason—it hid something.

And now, the answer was before them, covered by hundreds of pounds of sand and mud.

* * *

T
he 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-bou
nd 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 conside
r 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 wa
s 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 e
nded 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, ta
king 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.