writerericgreene

[writerericgreene]

Speaking with Abdul

We sat in silence for a moment, whilst all around us the house bussled. A part of me still looked for Gamela, wondering where she was, what had happened to her. But in Abdul’s face I saw only a calm contentment, a gentle serene smile. 

“How did Abu Rais die? What happened to him?” 

A pained expression passed across Abdul’s face, and he sat forward. “Riders. They came at the dawn, nigh four weeks ago, when there were no patrols out riding, nobody watching. They were into our streets before we woke, at our very doors before we were armed.” 

He sighed, staring at the floor, and I could not see the expression on his face. “We lost half the village before we routed them. Men - warriors, boys, women, children. All of them, dead, in a great pit that we dug.” 

His fingers lifted, then. “Many of the older men are gone now - there are few enough of us left.” He gestured at the tattoo on his face. “I gave myself this, and I swore that I would not sacrifice the living to protect dead secrets.” 

“What do you mean?”

“We have been preparing since the raid. I intend to ride south, with all that we have. Here, on the edge of the great plain, is too exposed. The riders come at whim. They have slaughtered those of us who huddled in Muntasir.” He put his arm out, resting on my shoulder, staring intently into my face. “You were there, Karim - you saw what they did to my family, and to yours. Now, they come as they will, riding into Sayf. It may not be tonight, pray to the owl, and I pray it is not tomorrow - but they will come again. So we will ride south.”

He stared at me intently. “So tell me, Karim, my brother - what is it that you have found? What of the cities to the south?” 

I looked at Shaggea, and I sighed. 

“Abdul, there is nothing for us to the south. I have been to Bahra, where Shaggea comes from, and i have been to Kitab, which is yet further south. But the riders go as they will. I fought against them in Bahra, and saw Shaggea’s brothers killed at their hands. I rode into Kitab, and saw a town like Sayf - always watching, afraid, armed.” 

It was only then that I saw Abdul break. He did not shatter. He simply leant forward, his eyes wet, and I knew in that moment I had taken the last, precious support that he clung to. 

We sat in silence for a moment, Abdul hunched, bent forward. Around us the home still bustled. As the food was brought Abdul straightened, a sombre expression on his face. “Karim, we will need to speak more of this. But for now -” he spread his hands “we will celebrate your return.” 

[writerericgreene]

Kitab

Slowly, the people of Kitab nursed us to health. Shagea took longer to return to health than I did; he spent days in the bed, vomiting, retching. I sat by his side, tending him, slowly dribbling the water into his mouth when he could walk. After two days he could eat solids. Hikea sat by my side, watching while l slept. It took days for my own headache to recede, before the strength returned to my body. 

As Shagea slept, regaining his strength, Hikea and I spoke in low, quiet whispers. He was a young man, younger even than I was. But he had the benefit of a full apprenticeship. His father had been a storyteller before him, and he had trained Hikea from when he was old enough to talk; training him in the stories, in the tales, in the secrets of the Conclave. 

On the seventh day, Shagea could walk again. Pacing his slow, tentative steps, we walked through the ruins of Kitab. The buildings of Kitab are great domed structures, with soaring, arched roofs. Or, once they were. Now there were only the skeletons of the structures left, great soaring arches, capstones tumbled, stretching skywards like the bleached bones of some long dead monster. 

Hikea gestured at one of the buildings, larger than the others we had seen. “This was the academy, the heart of Kitab. It was here that the scholars would come to meet, to talk, to debate the latest ideas in philosophy, in alchemy, in the sciences.” 

We followed him as he wound his way between the buildings, then turned towards a set of stairs, inset next to one of the buildings. The stones of the steps were worn down, great drooping curves in the centre of each step, by centuries of wear. 

Below was only dark, until Hikea struck his flint against his torch, and the flame roared into light. The corridor was narrow and Shagea, still slow and weak, took tentative, trembling steps. The corridor slanted slowly downwards, until it turned, and then turned again. It was there that Hikea stood, carefully running his hand along the wall, until it found what he was seeking. He pulled, carefully, and a doorway slowly swung open from the rockface. 

He stepped through, and when we followed him, we stepped into the library of Kitab. 

Young one, it was larger than anything I had ever dreamed of. Here the library stretched as far as we could see, beyond the flickering light cast by the flame. Each shelf was tidy, books stacked, shelves stretching as high as the ceiling. 

Young one, in that moment I knew I had a choice. I had already dallied in Bahra, and the decision to journey to Kitab took more time. I had told Gamela that I would only be months, that I would return before a full year had passed. 

At night, crossing the desert, as we lay beneath the open stars, I had dreamt of her. I dreamt of her smile, the way that it light up her face. I dreamt of her touch, the warmth of her body next to mine. I craved her, and I yearned to travel back across the desert to her. 

But there was a selfish part of me, too, one that wanted to explore as far as the horizon would take me. So it was that as we stepped into the room, I knew that I faced a choice. I could easily spend months or even years here, reading the library of Kitab, learning all that Hikea could teach Shaggea and me. But even in the instant that I realised what decision I faced, I knew what would happen. 

Looking back, Hikea did not see the expression of concern that flickered over my face. Instead he walked us slowly along the shelves. There were histories, geographies, of the seven cities, and of the neighbouring kingdoms. There were philosophies, detailed treatises on the nature of Awhad, and the duty of every member of society within Awhad. There were natural histories, of the soil, the rivers, the agriculture of the kingdom that was the seven cities. But most importantly, young one, there were enormous shelves of books on alchemy. It was here that the very secrets of matter were contained; of laws, rules, that regulated how every element interacted with another. The scholars of Kitab, and of the seven cities, had moved far beyond the simple ideas of air, dirt, fire and water. Instead they had a detailed understanding, of how different elements combined, enabling them to control the world around them in a way that is magik to those who do not understand the powers they wielded. 

[writerericgreene]

Exodus from Muntasir

Hakem, all is lost. The tide that threatens is larger than the one we feared, and the forces that stand to protect the seven kingdoms are splintered, shattered beyond what I had feared. 

Let me start with our journey from Muntasir. We left early in the day, when the sun was still a smudge on the horizon, the light dark blue around us. The emissary’s caravan was one of the few pieces of ordered motion in the early morning. All around us were the refugees, fleeing what is to come. In the midst of the throng of people, all jostling, shoving, pushing, I saw a small girl from her family’s car. She fell back, her family unable to see her, her small hands flailing, crying plaintively in the dark. One of the soldiers carried her, holding her as she squalled, plain brown eyes furtive. It was only late in the day, when the sun hung high above, that she shrieked at the sight of her father. He wept tears of relief, prostrating himself in front of the emissary. We had only minutes before we, too, had to ride on. There is no end to the flood of people. It stretches out in front of us, camps strewn for miles around the road. 

The farmers in the fields have long since had to abandon any hospitality. They have no food to share. Some have hoarded, but dare only sell in secret, lest angry yells lead to angry blows, and they be torn apart by the tide of humanity that is washing south. 

Ever since we left Muntasir I have had the same sensation that I had in the grass plains, far north of the city. The sensation of being watched by a predator, the way a man’s hackles will rise when he walks through a forest, a wolf following silently behind. 

In the distance, there is motion. Always far away, on the horizon. Small shapes, flecks, moving. They shift quickly, going this way and that, with the urgency of fast riders. Not for them the slow, laborious motion of these caravans, pushing through the throngs of people that clog the road. 

All decorum is abandoned, as merchants pitch their tents next to farmers and beggars. All fleeing the same terror, all marching the same way. By the roadside we see the remains of where the riders have struck before. The arrows, piercing the abandoned carts; and the corpses. Some may have been buried, when first they were fleeing the city. Now they lie where they fall, and others move around them, still crowded into this desperate river of fleeing humanity. 

In the evening the emissary pitched his tent, and his guards ringed it, holding back those muttering outside. He does not have enough; the crowd here stretches farther than we can see. 

He offered me some of his finest wine; a rich, sweet drop, red as blood. 

“Drink well, scholar. Soon there will be little enough of this left.” 

I drank deeply, and it was like honey, and nectar, and the scent of spring in my mouth. 

He drank as well, deeply, and his lips were dyed red with the wine, drips of it smattered in his beard. Fear was on his face, a fear that I have not seen before. 

“What do you think it is that will be left?” 

We spoke of the great walls of Muntasir, and of whether they would hold against the horde that we had seen. We spoke of the great temple of Muntasir. Of the mine, of the great temple, of the court of the gods, still thronging with those seeking solace, now crowded with those in the grey robes of the conclave. 

“Aye, the mine will last. Little enough they can do to destroy the very stone that we mine the ore from; might as well to slaughter the rock and earth they stand on.” 

He sighed, and drank again, a great, deep draft. Looking into his eyes, I knew that he was terrified, and that he drank to reach for something at the very bottom of the bottle, some hope that had long since abandoned him. 

“And the rest of Muntasir?”

He shook his head, small droplets of wine splashing from his beard. 

“Not for five hundred years, since the great siege of Kitab, have enemies marched beneath the walls of one of the seven cities. Then it was raiders, marching across the mountains; enough to threaten those who ventured out of the city walls, but not enough to breach them. Now, these riders ... they will wash over Muntasir the way the tide washes over a piece of driftwood.”

“But the walls are high enough; broad enough to carry a chariot abreast them.” 

“Aye, but it matters not. Muntasir has not the food, nor the water supplies, to hold out. Her soldiers will grow weary. Then they will grow thirsty. Worst of all, when the food runs low they will go hungry. Then they will gnaw at themselves, and at others, with the desperation of the truly doomed.” 

“Do you not think the armies of the seven cities can relieve the city?” 

He laughed, his head thrown back, and it was a wry, dry laugh. 

“Cannot, and will not.” 

Hakem, I felt a great weight sink upon me then, so terrifying that I could barely breath, my heart pounding in my ears.

“Will not?”

When the emissary laughed again it was a dry, hollow laugh, with all the comfort of a death rattle. 

“Aye, will not. Do you know that when Kitab was besieged, it took Muntasir two years to send us troops? By the time they had arrived, the besiegers had laid siege long enough to leave the residents in the city starving, half-mad with hunger. In their desperation, or perhaps a desire to end it all, they threw open the gates of the city, and thousands died in single day, cut down in the streets. The blood ran so thick it covered the iron boots of those who marched through, swords in hand. The captain of the garrison, with most of his guard, held fast in the keep in the centre of the town. They lasted there for another six months, until the soldiers of Muntasir and the other cities arrived.” 

He laughed bitterly. “Then the soldiers of our glorious seven kingdoms slaughtered every one of the raiders; and all that they had taken from the city of Kitab - the books, the jewels, the precious ornaments - every piece of it was carried off, as the spoils that the relievers had conquered from the attackers. Not a piece was returned.” 

My face was white, my friend. How is it that as the enemy knocks at our very door, that there is division in the great council? 

“The soldiers of Kitab will not ride north? Not even for Awhad, for the sacred duty they owe, to join the other cities in the kingdom?”

The emissary spat then, his spittle deep red on the carpet, his face red and angry as he turned towards me. 

“Awhad? Awhad! Awhad is a lie that lets the strong prey on the weak, that lets Muntasir sink its claws deep into the other cities, teeth deep in their necks, all the while proclaiming friendship. For years, Muntasir has relied on the scholars of Kitab for its science, relied on the soldiers of Sayf to defend it, on the trade of Bahra, and the agriculture of the others, to sustain it. All the while Muntasir sucks, like a leech, on the industry of every other part of the kingdom, hoarding its miserly fortune, refusing to share the glory of the court or the gains of trade.” 

I was terrified, Hakem, afraid to press on, but I knew that I must. The emissary leant towards me as he spoke, spittle speckling my face, his finger waving; his rage so hot that I thought he would call the guards in to slaughter me as we sat there. But still, I had to know. 

“Are you not afraid that the riders will overcome Muntasir, that they will cripple it?”

He laughed, then, angry and happy all at once, a gleam in his eye. He took another deep draught, and his breath stank of the wine. 

“Aye, we crave it; we hope for it, we pray for it.” He looked around, as though worrying that some other pair of ears were listening. “We even arrange it, as much as we can.” 

“Why do you think it is that the city of Kitab takes such an interest, in the riders on the far north? Why do you think it is that Temulin, an upstart among the tribes, has been able to gather together so many of them to his banners, to unite the riders into a single force, the like of which the world has never seen before?” 

His hands were waving, gesturing, frantically. His fingers stabbed the air, as though emphasising every word that he spoke. 

“We have ridden north, to draw the riders south, away from their attacks on the weak farmers to the west of the great plain. To attack a city like Muntasir - that is foolish, even for a large army of riders, and yet they march south. In part - yes, in part - because we have supported those who would make the most crucial difference. Where two tribes fought, we have tried to encourage those who would attack Muntasir. Slowly, slowly, we have been able to bring them together, shaping them like clay, binding them one unto the other. “

Then the emissary laughed and clapped his hand, like a gleeful child. “Now it is that they march south, to crush Muntasir. When that city has fallen, crushed into the very dirt, they will have torn the heart out of the riders’ army, leaving it crippled and destroyed. Then, and only then, will our forces ride north. Kitab will assume its rightful place as a leader, the first city.” 

Hakem, I fled before he could wake to his senses. Outside, in the cool night air, it seemed a nightmare, a strange thing that I must have misunderstood. But it makes, it seems a terrifying kind of sense. Why Kitab was the only city to listen to our warning, to pay our words heed. Why it is that the emissary has ridden north for so long, why it was that we waited for negotiations nigh a week at the great hall, only to learn that the riders were still pouring south. 

I stumbled past the guards in the darkness. Those on watch still stood there, stoic, as all around us the river of humanity, tents and camps and fires to the horizon, stretched into the darkness. 

Hakem, I fled. I unhobbled my horse, and rode before the emissary could call the guards. I rode through the dark, the road littered with abandoned carts, or with those too tired to even find their way off the road to collapse. 

By morning I was a good ride from the emissary, but still I rode, my horse exhausted and frothing. I have given my letter to a rider I encountered on the way; one travelling from Sayf to Bahra, but he assures me that it will return with another rider to Sayf. I hope you receive this, my friend. I am riding to Bahra; it seems safest at the moment. Come join me if you can; it may be a little safer. I dare not stay in Muntasir, nor venture to Kitab. Perhaps there will be some safety in Bahra. 

[writerericgreene]

Riding south

Hakem, the city is collapsing. Every day the Conclave of the Owl marches through the streets. They carry great banners with them; fluttering owls, with wings spread. Those who pray to it, they claim, will be spared the deluge to come. 

The refugees continue to flood south. They are pouring, pouring out the southern gates. Those who remain are mostly the army now. Every day the scouts ride north. Some days the expeditions return; covered in arrows, bleeding, torn, mauled by the monster that marches slowly south. Some nights the gates close, and not a single one of our scouts has returned. But every day, they tell us, the riders are marching further south. 

Now, now that the reports are finally here, of an army at their gates, the great council is beginning to muster its forces, but it is too late. Relays are riding in every direction. You will have seen in Muntasir, the assembling of the citizen levy, the forging of weapons, to arm the newly mustered army. It is not enough. It takes weeks, or even months, to assemble an army. It takes years to train a farmer to hold a weapon like a soldier. If we are lucky, we have days until they reach the gates of Muntasir. 

I will give this letter to the relay-riders at the southern gates tonight. Gods hope they are still riding. Every day comes word of another merchant house that is no longer travelling north, that will not accept goods sold in Muntasir, because it is considered too dangerous to bring them south. 

Friend, we have spoken of this for years, but can it really be that Muntasir will fall? How is it that all we attempted has come to nought? 

I will ride south the with emissary of Kitab in the morning. There are already reports that outriders are coming south from Temulin’s army; not yet approaching the city, but scavenging the weak, the unprotected caravans that flee the city. I will see on the morrow what truth there is to it. The emissary says that he will ride with all that remains of his personal guard, and has granted me permission to ride with him, as far as I can. 

Hakem, you should leave Sayf. Ride south - ride south as far as you can, to Kitab, to wherever it is that you will be safe. Should Muntasir fall, I do not know where else in our kingdom can stand. 

Already they are shuttering the great mine. It is strange to see the gears stop turning, and the road stand empty where once there was an endless procession of donkeys, trudging with their carts and bags, hauling the spoil dragged from the earth. 

I expect to wake tomorrow and see the sky bleeding tears, or a great shadow that hangs over us all. Instead, every day I wake to see a bright sun, and clear sky, feels eerie, as though there were something more amiss, some great danger still hidden behind the bright blue sky.  

[writerericgreene]

Arriving in Muntasir

Hakem, you will have seen the refugees. Muntasir is in chaos. No one knows what is happening, or if they know, they do not understand what it means. Every day more people pour south out of the city gate. Wagons, trailers, horses, even people laden, carrying their bags as they flee the doom that follows us. 

Word of what we had seen spread like wildfire. Within hours there were shrieks and yells in the court of the gods, and an enormous throng gathered by the shrine, that the Conclave of the Owl has built at Al-Rahman’s direction. Men and women screamed, yelled, threw themselves upon the statues of the owl. After all these years of warning, haranguing, and now, suddenly, they collapse into turmoil. 

They summoned the emissary to the great council, still dusty from the road. He took me with him. After all these years, futilely petitioning outside the doors of the great court, it was strange to walk through the great golden doors. Inside the room was packed, the upper benches lined with the throng of those who for years have denied my petitions, and now watched mutely as I stood next to the emissary on the floor of the great court itself. 

There, on the very golden benches, sat the representatives of each city. Kitab, Muntasir, Sayf, Sabah, Bahra, and the others. Their robes were resplendent, their beards long and well-groomed. When they spoke it was slowly, ponderously. 

“What is it that you come to report?”

The emissary spoke. He explained to them the threat that followed on our tails, the magnitude of the army gathering to our north, the very horde of people willing to pour over the seven cities. 

They listened, but when they spoke, it was clear they had not understood. 

[writerericgreene]

Returning south

Hakem, we are on the march again. We have been given, at the very least, our liberty. For now. 

It was on the seventh day that the Emissary emerged early from the great house, a grim expression on his face. I could not read whether it was terror or exhaustion. But he ordered us south, and as we gathered our caravan, none of those around us moved to interfere. As I mounted my horse I glanced back, wondering whether I would see Temulin watching. Of course, he was still inside, deep in discussion with his chiefs. But as we rode south, I realised that once again, shadowing us on the hilltops, were the guards. 

They have followed us all day, and no doubt stand guard, watching us from the hilltops as we sleep here in the valley below. 

As we marched, I rode by the Emissary, waiting to see if he would speak more of what transpired. His expression was tired, and at first he would not speak, politely brushing aside my questions. 

It was only when we were a half day’s ride from the camp, and the dense throng of tents had given way to the open fields, with the tents more widely scattered, that he glanced at me. 

“It was a strange conversation. Stranger than any I have had with other nations, as an emissary of Kitab.” 

I nodded, not willing to speak lest it break his flow. 

“They negotiate in a way that I have seen only in a few other places. Rather than one man saying to another, ‘This is what I want’, and then discussing what the other wants, instead ...” He sighed. “The riders speak in riddles, and it is not a language I speak well. They spoke to me of the way a pack of wolves may roam from its territory when it grew too large. They told me long, involved tales of how two eagles met, and when they had bred, their offspring covered the great plains, spreading far and wide.” 

He shook his head, staring out ahead of us, to where the soldiers rode, nervous, eyes twitching as they watched the horizon. 

“I spoke to them of the armies of the seven cities, of the warriors of Sayf and the other cities, of how they will die to defend their home. But it was only on the last day, when I spoke to them of a pack of wolves that were defending their territory against a lynx, that I felt them listening. I told of the wolves fighting to their own death, and the death of the lynx with them. Then it was that Temulin laughed, and told us to ride south, and carry word of what we had seen.” 

He sighed. “I fear we do not have much time.” 

We ride on. I hope that we will make it to Muntasir in time to alert the cities to the dangers that await. Beyond that, my friend, I am terrified for the seven cities, for the tide that will wash over them. 

[writerericgreene]

Waiting for negotiations with the riders

Hakem, it is worse than our darkest fears. We have been here three days. Time here feels different, as though it moves at a strange pace, slow as treacle. Perhaps it gallops at others. 

We sit in the centre of a great plain, flat as far as the eye can see. In the far distance the hills mark the horizon. Here, in the centre of what they call the Gathering Plain, is the great house. It is a sparse structure - made of wood, and perhaps only two stories high. But it is the only building, that we would think worthy of the name, in the entire plain. All else is their tents, as far as the eye stretches, from here to the very horizon. 

They are short, squat, wooden structures. Ugly and ungainly, they remind me of nothing so much as a misshapen cocoon, swollen to the point of bursting. But they are above all practical; as we approached we saw some households pitching their tents. It was a quick process, even for those that can accommodate twenty. They start with central pillars, and then skeleton frames that hang around this, draping layers of rich felt over it, to keep the inside cool in summer, and warm in winter. 

These structures stretch as far as I can see, Hakem. It is as you expected; hundreds of thousands of them, perhaps millions, all gathered in one place. Each swears allegiance to a clan leader, who leads their small clans of ten or twenty families. In turn, those clan leaders swear to the leaders of their factions. So up, through the tribes, and then the nations, until it is the ten chiefs of the rider nations that gather in the great house. 

They walk in every morning, from their diverse camps, trailed by their followers. It is hard to pick them. They do not wear strange garb, and there is nothing in their clothing that signifies their rank, except for the way that their fellows defer to them. But at the great hall, there is a distinction; the leaders of the ten nations walk in, leaving their entourages behind. 

They are all inconspicuous, except, that is, for Temulin. He walks taller than any other of the riders around him, by a good half a head. While the other chiefs do not have any distinguishing garments, Temulin wears a wolf pelt, draped across his broad shoulders. They say that it is the pelt of a pack leader that he slew, when he was alone and surrounded at fifteen. To look at the man, you would believe the tale. 

He commands great respect among his fellows. He is a natural warrior, and to see the way he handles a knife or bow so easily, in the moments when they compete in feats of arms, is to understand that most warriors pale before him, that he is an artist of the blade, gifted with it in the way some artists are to carve, sculpt, and paint. But more than that, he is a brilliant thinker. There is a sharpness in his eyes that is like encountering a lion on the plain. The man is constantly thinking, understanding the land, the nations, the people around him. The stories about him are legion, and it is hard to know which even have a chance of being true. But in all of them, there is an element of cunning; an understanding of the people around him, of how to turn the slightest advantage in decisive victory. As a young man, they say, he was born without kin, an orphan in a land that values kinship above all else. But with canny befriending, blood oaths, and a marriage, he has made himself a part of one of the most powerful families in one of the most powerful nations. 

But it takes more than that to bring together the ten nations. To hear the stories, the ten nations were at each other’s throats, conflict spinning out from family to family, from our very borders in the south, across the great plain, and as far north as the frozen wastes, where the riders tread across perpetually frozen snow, and if the stories are to be believed, they ride monstrous horses with enormous horns, rather than the ones we encounter. But it was Temulin who unified them. With a victory over the other factions in his nation, he was able to unify them. Then, wielding a very nation of riders, he was able to subdue the others, one clan at a time. It was only when he had unified seven of the ten nations that the others thought to band together, to seek his defeat. 

He marched to meet them, great hordes of riders pouring towards each other across the plain. But before they were to meet, he led a lightening march of his bodyguard - the silver wolves, they call themselves - across the plain, penetrating to the very heart of his enemy’s encampment. There, he plunged into their tent, defeating their guards with the blades in his hands. Then, when he held their lives in his hand, he swore that he did not want their deaths, but their obedience; that without it, he could not lead the nations of the riders to the glorious victory he foretold, against those who were not born of the great plain. 

They swore their obedience to him, and so he united the ten nations without destroying them. To see this disparate group, brought together: each one of them so individual, so fiercely unwilling to compromise, you would understand what a feat this is, Hakem. It takes constant monitoring by Temulin to maintain the alliance; here soothing a quarrel between two leaders, there meting out justice, ensuring there is grazing and spoils for all. Hakem, this is an army larger than we have ever seen before, and they are set to march. 

I would send word, but we have no way of sending anything from this camp. We will be lucky to leave it alive, if we do. 

Every day the Emissary goes to sit with the leaders of the nations in the great hall. It has been three days, and I fear that it has only begun. Each day he goes in, determined. Every evening, after they have spoken, he emerges, spent, exhausted. He will not speak of what it is they discuss. 

I cannot imagine whether they negotiate a ransom for the safety of the seven kingdoms; but can a ransom save us, if we do not have the arms to do so? 

I hope that one day, Hakem, you can read this letter, but I do not know if I will leave to hand it to a courier. 

[writerericgreene]

The storyman of Kitab

When I awoke, my head still ached. I vomited, heaving, retching the water. It splattered on the floor, making the floor slick. I was in a bed. 

“It may come up again. Keep drinking.” 

Then there was a gourd at my lips. I drank deeply, great, gulping drafts of cool water. My head was split in two. In the distance I could hear Shagea groaning. It was minutes before I could focus my vision. Opposite me sat a small figure. He was young, with close-cropped brown hair. His face was tattooed - spread across it, an owl, with its wings extended. 

“You are a storyman?”

“Aye. And lucky for you. If I’d not been there in the shadows when you stumbled into Kitab, Fatan would have slaughtered you where you stood.” 

“Kitab still has a storyman?”

“Aye. If you are the storyman that you are, then we must speak more. It’s been many years, in my grandfather’s time, since Kitab had a storyman visit from another of the seven cities. My name is Hikea. I have been the storyman since the death of my father, Hikmat.” 

Hikea spoke quietly but confidently. As we spoke, I would come to learn that he was the most well-learned storyman I had met, even more than Abu-Rais. Kitab, above all the other cities I saw, had preserved that which was lost. It even had a conclave that included two storymen. As Hikea became the storyman on his father’s death, he completed his apprenticeship, and took his own apprentice, a young man named Tulab. 

[writerericgreene]

Arriving in Kitab

After our horses were taken by the creatures, young one, we walked across the desert. It was slow, painstaking, with the sun beating down on us at every step. We stank, too, as we dared not waste a drop of the precious urine, whose scent was such a valuable disguise to move undisturbed through the territory of a great worm. 

We found one oasis, and it carried us a few more days, but always our water ran low, perpetually threatening to leave us stranded in the hot sun. The sun beat down on us, and the wind was hot, scouring at us with the grains of sand it flung against us. 

When we saw the cit of Kitab in the difference, I thought perhaps we had gone mad. My mouth too parched to speak, I simply pointed. Shagea nodded, and we staggered on. We had no water that night. 

We rose early the next morning. My head ached, splitting with the pain of my thirst, and we staggered onwards. As the ruins of Kitab grew larger in the distance, I thought that I might weep with relief. 

They rose slowly, achingly slowly above us. Unlike the slender spires of Bahra, the ruins of Kitab left low, brown ruins, hugging the horizon. As we drew closer the sand shifted slowly, becoming coarser and darker, but it was still desert that surrounded the city. 

The walls had fallen long ago, leaving their stones tumbled and strewn across the sand. Within the walls, some of the structures that were once Kitab still stood. Low buildings, houses, but none of the soaring columns or enormous temples that dominated Muntasir. 

As we drew closer I listened, head still aching, for the shouts or calls of recognition. There was nothing. No noise greeted as we walked past the first edges of the city, passing into the empty streets. Our footsteps were the only noise. 

It was in the very centre of the city that was once Kitab that we found the well. Its stones were still standing, lining the walls of the well that sank below us. Its water looked cool, fresh, and so inviting. Head splitting, I was about to lean forward, when I suddenly grabbed Shagea. 

“Stop.” My voice rasped, dry as sandpaper, and he turned to me, his face a mask of rage. 

“A trap.” 

“Aye! And better spotted than most, stranger.” 

The voice came from behind us, strong and clear. I turned, head still aching, as a figure emerged from the shadows. He was a tall man, slender. He moved calmly, and spoke as though he did not hold a bow, arrow nocked towards us. 

“There are another ten in the shadows. So have no wise conniptions. Instead best to tell me what manner of beings you are, and what you seek.” 

I fell to my knees. “Water. Water.” 

“Aye, ye shall have some. When ye tell us who ye are, and what ye seek.” 

It was a struggle to pronounce the words. “I am a storyman, come from Muntasir, from Sayf and from Bahra, to seek what was lost.” 

“Aye, and I have the treasures of the seven cities, hidden in my boot.” 

“The owl flies far, carrying that which was hidden.” 

“May be you’ve walked far enough across the desert that ye think ye can speak gibberish, and take it mean something,” he drew the bow a little tauter. 

“Thabet, hold!” The other voice called from the shadows, and then a second figure was approaching. I was starting to black out, collapsing to my knees, when the figure stood over me. 

The last thing I remembered was the shadowy figure leaning over me. “But the owl flies true, and always carries its young.” 

[writerericgreene]

Training Shagea

In the evenings, after I had wandered amongst the spires of Bahra, I would sit with the men of the town around the firepit. It was a deep pit, dug low, filled with the ash of a thousand fires. But on most nights it was only a low fire that burned, the scraps they had found in the scraggly bushes that grew around the town. Sometimes there were songs. Other times there were stories, or the silence of those who know that tomorrow will be no different than today. 

There stories were not the tales of the storymen Mahfouz had told Abdul and I as children, or that we had learned from Abu-Rais. Instead, they were the quiet tales that flow between fishermen, of creatures taller than you can imagine, of stranger seen in their fathers’ time. 

It was as I was sitting quietly by the fire one night that Tawfik turned to me. “You have fought and killed with a blade, have you not, stranger?” 

I nodded. 

“Will you train us?”

I knew little enough, only the few things that Abu Rais had drilled into us. But it was more than they had, and so I taught them what I could. They were willing learners, but most of the village’s men were old, worn with years of fishing from the prow of a boat, fingers thick and sturdy, shoulders worn and sloped. 

It was Shagea and Zakir, Tawfik’s sons, who had true promise. They were only sixteen, still young enough that they could learn a new motion without thinking, lithe enough that they could train all night and still not tire the next morning. 

So it was the twins that I trained. Every night, after I returned from Bahra, I would drill them on the motions I had taught them the night before. They were the basic steps of swordcraft, enough to handle a blade and little more, but it was something for them to drill them, hour after hour, until they could swing, and block. It was weeks before they could feel confident hefting a blade, but it made some small difference. Their father and others still held the great clubs they had carved, but the boys wielded their swords proudly, even with their shorter reach and lighter feel. 

[writerericgreene]

The journey to Kitab

I could not stay there forever, young one. Even the great hospitality of the townspeople began to wear thin, and I knew that I must move on. So I began to gather my things, scanning hungrily through the last shelves in the tower for any that I had not yet at least looked at. 

On the day of my departure, the townspeople gathered at the edge of the town. I had packed the meagre food I had been able to gather, and the dried flesh of two rabbits I’d been able to catch. It wasn’t much, but it would last me a few days. 

Tawfik’s son Shagea rode my other horse. He sat uncomfortably on it, still unused to the feel of the saddle and the motion of the horse beneath him. His family clustered around him, his mother clinging tight, weeping. Her voice was hoarse. “One taken by the blade of a rider! This one rides off into the desert with another rider!” 

She shrieked, grabbing at Tawfik. “How can you? You monster!” He shook his head, and held her to him, but he did not tell Shagea to dismount. 

I stared at the small town, the collapsing hovels behind me, and then we rode out. They watched us until they were only small specks on the horizon, and the rise and fall of the sand dunes between us made us invisible. 

Shagea did not weep, or look back. He rode on, uncomfortable, and it was only as I drew closer that I could see the tight line of his mouth. 

“It gets easier.” 

He glanced over, his face a mask of grief. “The saddle grows softer?”

“No. Your ass fits the saddle.”

We chuckled, and rode on. The sun rose, and hung in the sky above, and as night began to fall it arced slowly into the horizon, turning the sky a deep red. We camped on the sand, hobbling the horses, throwing our bundles on the ground to serve as pillows. I was glad then that Shagea was not a chatterer, trying to fill the silence. It was a futile effort, as the quiet around us absorbed every word that we uttered, swallowing it. 

It was as the first stars were beginning to pin prick that I heard the rumbling. It sounded as though it were something far off, a great stirring in the distance. I sat up, and when I looked over I saw that Shagea was turning, listening intently. 

The sound seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, a thrumming that filled our ears, our minds, as though it were shifting the very earth itself. 

That was when I realised. It was coming towards us. Through the sand. 

“Shagea! Up! Run!” 

He followed me without questioning, and we sprinted, running across the dunes, sand flying, kicked up as our feet dug in. The horses nickered and whinnied, craning after us, anxious in the deep dark, shuffling against their hobbles. 

The rumbling in the dark grew louder, thunderous, until it seemed that the very earth itself were about to split apart. As we ran I yelled at Shagea, my voice almost drowned by the crescendo. 

“Run right! Right!” 

We had to separate. Had to make ourselves as small, as quiet, as inconsequential as possible. If it truly was a worm, it was the only thing that could save us. 

Then suddenly the noise broke, and the thunderous groan was replaced by the silent shifting of sand. I turned to look, and young one, I was terrified. 

Looming where our horses had stood in the darkness was the head of a great worm. Truly three horse-lengths wide, the creature had swallowed them, its mouth still grinding. Its head was as large as a building, great teeth swelling, sharp as knives, long as spears. Its flesh was a dark, dull red, like dried blood. Its body towered over us, as high as three men, and it might only have been a part of its neck, its great length still buried deep in the sand from which it emerged. 

I stood, motionless, my heart pounding in my chest, sweat trickling down my face. To my left, Shagea also stood motionless, silent. I did not know whether he was frozen in awe, or terrified into silence. 

The great beast’s head swung, back and forth, craning this way and that, as though it were searching in the dark. I spoke as quietly as I knew how, my voice softer than a whisper in a breeze. 

“Do not move. Your life depends on becoming a statue.” 

We stood, still, for what might have been only minutes, but felt like years. The great creature’s head swung low, snuffling at the ground, and as it went this way and that we saw the teeth, glinting in the starlight. The breath it exhaled stank of carrion and decay, and it made the snuffling noises as though it were scenting, searching. Finally, slowly, it sank back into the sand, the ground shifting around us, dunes rising and falling. 

We stumbled, halting, and then stood frozen as the ground slowly returned to rest, and the monstrous thrumming sank back into silence. It was then that the words of The Ways of the Great Creatures returned to me. 

“Shagea, as your life depends upon it, you must urinate.” 

There was a moment’s silence, and then through the dark came a low chuckle. “I have already done it.” 

I let the warmth trickle down my leg, and I felt a sudden sense of relief. The words of that long lost scholar had aided me once again, gathering the scraps he’d had from those who’d long ago encountered the great worms. 

The young woman nodded. “But why encounter a great worm there, in the midst of the emptiness?”

The old man sighed. “I did not expect it. But I know now, that to set out across a great desert, that has been empty for years, in a large party, is to court disaster. I had only escaped on my own because I was a single traveller. The noise of two was bound to draw them.” 

[writerericgreene]

The worms

Young one, I spent days in that tower. There was so much to explore, and so little time. The town near what was once Bahra had no ink, no vellum, nothing to transcribe what was once there, and so many of the scrolls had faded, rotting away, crumbling to dust at the touch. Entire shelves where there was only dust to the touch. 

Every morning I walked over, climbing those tall stairs as the sun was still rising. I would sit for hours, poring over the scrolls, jumping eagerly from one to the next. Even with all that was gone and lost, there was still so much there to discover. 

It was there that I found The Ways of the Great Creatures and Their Taming. It was a strange treatise, written time beyond memory by some scholar, gathering the scraps of information from travellers’ accounts, from the tales told by merchants as they passed across the oceans, through the deserts or the great heights, the peaks that surround Sayf to the West. Tales of mysterious creatures: the worms, the wyverns, the kraken. But others, too, that we had not heard of. The megalith, the great shark that devours ships, its mouth wider than a great colosseum. The Ahool, a bat with wings that span broader than a chariot’s length, flapping quietly through the night sky. The scaly creatures that swim in the swamps, spending hours beneath the water, breathing through the dark gills that flap beneath their necks. 

But so much, young one, was hard to interpret. Imagine reading a scroll where the words have faded until you strain to read them, even in the brightest day. Chunks of the scroll are missing, slowly rotting and crumbling away. But when you can read the words, they write in a world you have never lived in. The author of the The Ways of the Great Creatures was a scholar who lived surrounded by books, able to visit the great libraries of Bahra and other cities. He casually referred to accounts by alchemists, astronomers, navigators, sailors and merchants, to scientists I had never heard of. To try and find these other pieces was a hope beyond hope, but so much was scrambled, simply strewn across the shelves. 

It was in Bahra, too, that I found a history of Muntasir. Strange that it should be there, when so much of the city was gone, and its own library had no copy of the volume. Still, it was there that I first read about the gold mine to the north of Muntasir, that had lead to its very establishment, and that had created so much of the wealth that Muntasir flaunted as it ruled first among equals after the Awhad. The gold that gilded the ancient temples, the gold that bought the soldiers, the merchants, and the priests. The gold that was wrought and hammered into the fabled crown of Muntasir, heavier than any man can bear to stand under. 

I memoized all that I could, committing it to memory. Each day I would return to the town, and they were still grateful enough to share their food with me, the little that they had. Each night, as I walked back, I would contemplate the kraken that lurked beneath those waves. 

When I asked Tawfik, he just shrugged. “It has always been there. It is the guardian of our town. We deliver our dead to it, and it protects us, from the waves, and the dangers that threaten in the water.” 

“What happens if you should fall into the water?”

“Then we are a gift to the kraken.” 

“But it never touches the boats?”

“Never. We paint a symbol on the bottom of our boats, and it protects us from the kraken.” 

I read through The Ways of the Great Creatures, and it was there that I found the answer. It was buried in an account by a sailor who had journeyed far, to a distant land named Hukterre. On his return, he bought with him an account of the great creatures, that they spared the boats who painted giant eyes underneath them before they set into the water. Sailors said that the kraken mistook them for other kraken, sparing their kin, whether out of wisdom or mercy. 

That evening I asked Tawfik what would happen if they took out a boat that was not painted with the eyes of the kraken beneath it. “It would not be marked for protection; the creature would eat it.” 

Others told me that it had happened in their grandfathers’ time; a foolish young man who said that the paintings made no difference, that the creature was tamed, and would not attack a boat. 

“He was a gift to the kraken.” 

A silence settled on the conversation, and the fire sank lower as the embers crackled and glowed.

[writerericgreene]

The secrets of Bahra (continued)

The next morning we walked together. The town was quiet, still mourning the loss of those who had fallen. Tawfik had gathered with others, standing at the edge of the town, staring out at the desert. When I said that I was walking back to Bahra he just nodded absent-mindedly. They talked about the last attacks, and how far apart they had been. 

Muntasira walked slowly, with a slight stop, but she was determined. The beach was dry and hot to our left, the waves lapping at the sand. 

“How long has the kraken been there, in the water? Where I come from they think the kraken a creature of myth. I thought they were gone from the world.” 

She laughed. “Not from ours. It’s been there since I were a child.” We walked on, and as the spires of Bahra drew closer she sighed. 

“Tawfik’s father, Aziz, was a storyman, and a good leader. He told us of the city that was, of Bahra, the city that was once part of a glorious kingdom. He told tales of the mighty fleets that had set sail from Bahra, crossing the oceans, travelling to majestic, far-off lands.” 

"He passed his stories on to you?”

“Aye, he did. He told me why it was that Muntasira was a good name, a great name, for one of our great cities. He told me many of the tales. When a rider came, many years ago, across the desert like you, seeking word of the old ways, I sat with them, and learnt the tales of what once was.” 

We drew closer to the ruins now. There was still something eerie about the bone white stone, about the silence that hung over them, completely uninhabited. 

“But Tawfik’s father was killed when he was a young boy, and the men who were leaders after him would not tolerate a woman to be the story teller. So they banned the tales; I am not to tell them, not even amongst the women, as we sit separately.” 

“They are fools.” 

She sighed. “Aye, they were fools, but they were fools with clubs and the will to rule our little town, and so they won. And when Tawfik grew older, he could not see me as any more than the foolish old woman who’d sat in the corner when he was a boy, and ... and I will not go casting my treasures before cattle who will trample on pearls.” 

“I thank you for sharing with me.” 

“Ay. But I’ll have something to ask of ye in return, stranger.” 

I followed her as she walked carefully through the empty streets, at times stepping over a stone here, under a crumbling arch there. Eventually she came to a slender doorway in a wall, set back so that it was barely visible unless you stood in front of it. She stepped through, and I followed her, as she began climbing the stairs. 

There were dozens of them, and so we ascended the narrow, windowless winding steps of the tower. When she stopped it was some time later, and I could not tell how much higher we were. 

“In Bahra, in the city that was, the spires were a great glory. From their peaks they could look out over the oceans, and see the ships that were approaching. The merchants valued it for their trading, to know which ship was fastest, and closest in to shore. The sailors would ask for the reports of the weather, the way the clouds rolled over the ocean to plan the launches.” 

She turned a corner, and we came to a small platform. There was a doorway, and she stepped through. “Here, then, is what was left of the once great city of Bahra. These volumes, carried up by my husband from a dingy room beneath the city. There was no danger now, he said, of the riders walking up some long forgotten stairwell. All they want are slaves, and the few fish and crops we manage to scratch out by the sea.” 

All along the walls, the shelves were lined with scrolls. The staircase extended upwards, and with it, the shelves. At every level, there were books, and shelves, past where I could see around the bend of the stairwell. 

Muntasira stood in the doorway, watching me for a moment. “Make sure that you carry what you can with you, stranger. What you stay here will crumble into dust, so take with you all that you can.” 

Then she began her slow, silent walk down the stairs. 

[writerericgreene]

The secrets of Bahra

The town mourned those who had fallen. There was weeping, and wailing. At the next sunset, those who remained farewelled the dead. They gathered by the shore, where the waves washed in. The sun glinted off the water as they paddled their boats out, laden with the bodies of the dead. 

Their dirge rose, slow and mournful over the water. Then the first body slipped in. It barely splashed the water, simply sinking beneath the waves. Then the second. At the third, there was movement in the water. Something large, slinking in the shadows, its shape hard to make out in the shifting shadows and bouncing beams of the sinking sun. 

Four more bodies they let slip into the water, each vanishing without a noise, and then the water began to thresh and flail. I saw a tentacle rising as the boats began to wind their way back to shore. Still the water churned, as though a great turmoil was just beneath the surface. The dirge still rose, and only ceased when the boats landed, and the last sailor had stepped back on to land. 

As we walked back towards the town, I felt a pinch at my elbow. I saw an older woman, her hair greying, her back stooped. She sighed. “We must talk. Wait a little while.” 

Others passed in the gathering gloom as we stood there. 

“I saw you watching the water. You have not seen a sea burial before?” 

I shook my head.

“First the sharks come, then the larger creatures. In Bahra, we are blessed with a kraken, that lives beneath the waves of our bay.” I stared at her, horrified. Every morning, those boats had sailed out, gathering the fish, and returned, every night, while that creature lurked beneath? 

She smiled a wry smile. “There is much you do not know, stranger. My son Tawfik is a good leader, but there is much he, too, does not know. Walk with me tomorrow to the fallen city, and I will tell you of the Bahra that once was, that my son and his villagers have forgotten.” 

[writerericgreene]

The labyrinths

Halem, you do not understand what am I seeing here. If the conclave of the owl is meeting in Sayf, then it is because it is already travelling from here, spreading like a sickness. That small group that you see on your street is only the first symptoms, my friend. Here, it has grown into something much, much larger. 

Now, when al-Rahman speaks in the streets, hundreds gather by him. He speaks to them of the corruption of the city, of the corruption of the great court, of the bribery and venality that festers and spreads from above. They crowd to him, from every walk of life: beggars, street-walkers, artisans, crafters, merchants and soldiers. Even some of those who tend the other altars in the court of the gods gather to hear what he says. 

He has taken our work - your work - the barest grain of fact, and built around it a story that bears no resemblance, a tale of something completely unrelated. To hear him tell, the date that he foretells is the date when the sky will split open, the heavens rent, and rain wash over the earth. The tide, he calls it, a tide of cleansing that will sweep away the imperfections, the unclean and the unjust. 

Halem, you should know - in the early days, when it was still only dozens that listened to him, when I thought that he was a curiosity, rather than a risk, he came to me, and spoke with me. He asked about the dates. He asked what it was we were doing: when I told him of our plans, to seek to petition the great court, he laughed in my face. Halem, he had a strange smile on his face then. 

“What would you do, if you knew that nothing you could do would ever shift the great court, if you knew that it was a waste of time, that they will never listen to that which does not please them?”

“What do you mean?”

“What if you knew that your every effort to persuade them would fail. What then?”

Halem, I did not think, I simply spoke. “If I knew there was nothing I could do to prevent the coming calamity, then I would seek to preserve what I could. I would seek out the knowledge that is precious, and record it for those who come after - to make sure that those who follow us know something of what we have gained.” 

Since then, my friend, every day he speaks of gathering treasures, of preserving what can be saved from the coming tide. It is not two days hence, brother, that he came again to my quarters. 

Now, when I seek meetings, to petition those who may attend the great court, there are none who will meet with me. They ask if we are connected to the disturbances of the conclave of the owl in the court of the gods, and many will not even meet with me at all. I fear that they have done great harm to our cause. 

But al-Rahman - he will always speak to me. So he came to me, and asked me to follow him. I followed, not thinking anything of it, that we would go to his home, perhaps, or a coffee house. Instead, Halem, he lead me deep into the labyrinth beneath the city. It was simple enough; just a small trapdoor, near the court of the gods; a small corridor, leading, I thought, to a basement. 

Instead, Halem, it lead to a network of tunnels that spreads beneath the entire city. Some of them must have been built centuries ago, as waste tunnels. Others were built to connect buildings. Still others have extended the network, for purposes unknown to us now. But now they stretch for miles, beneath the very city. You may know some of the old entrances in Sayf; we never ventured near as children, all those stories we had heard of spectres and worms, wandering beneath. But now, now - al-Rahman took me wandering, for hours it seemed, in the dark, the only light the flickering from his torch. 

I lost track of the way, of the twists and turns, until eventually, we came to a place where the tunnel branched. There, in a turn, he showed me a cunningly hidden doorway, almost invisible to the eye, unless you know where to look. 

Inside, Halem, inside ... he has gathered a treasure trove. Of books, of weapons, of very jewels themselves. The entire room is close to overflowing, and he tells me that he has three others. 

“Look, now” he gestures, magnificently. “See what your vision has wrought. Let those who have the wisdom of the owl see the danger that is coming, and be prepared. Let the wicked and corrupt perish with the foolish.” 

Halem, be careful. Al-Rahman is more dangerous than I imagined. I do not know what he is planning; but now none of my messages to the great court are answered, and I fear we will never hear a petition there. 

[writerericgreene]

The crowds

Halem, they flock to him. Every day that I see him in the court of the gods, the crowds grow larger. 

At first, he came to me every day. He had questions, so many questions, about the mathematics, about the predictions, about when the riders would come, how many they would be. 

We spoke a little about what we should do - what is it, that if those gathered in the court of the gods ask for guidance, we should recommend? I spoke of petitioning the great court, of the need for armies to march to the border, but al-Rahman had no interest in it. 

“The great court will act only when it is in their interest, but for now, they are too greedy, too eager to rip more out of the cities than to spend to protect them.” He sighed. “It is not Awhad.” 

He spoke instead of protecting things, of saving that which can be preserved, of treasures hidden out of sight in the labyrinths, of standing on that which can be trusted. 

I have spent my days in petitioning, waiting at the great courts, talking to those who can give me access. But when I walk through the court of the gods I often see him there. Al-Rahman, holding forth. He never mentions the riders. When they ask whence the tide will come, he talks about blood flowing like an ocean, about the earth cracking open, about people falling before a scythe. But they listen, Halem - they listen!  

The crowds are not large, but they will stand and listen for hours. He talks of how the tide is coming because of corruption in the great court, because of the failures of the leaders of the seven cities, because of the immoral wealth of the great merchants. He speaks, and they listen. For the most part they appear to be the down-trodden, those who wander the court of gods, for no other reason than that they have no where else to lay to sleep. But some are better dressed; merchants, clerks, traders. Not those who reside in the great houses, but educated people, still fragrant from the baths. 

Halem, I have made no progress with the petitioning. At every turn people ignore me, or will not answer my queries. But Al-Rahman has found his audience, and it is growing. He no longer comes to me with questions every day; it is as though he has everything he needs, and now, slowly and carefully, he is sharpening his story, slowly grinding away the imperfections, until it is sharp and deadly. 

I seek your wisdom, my friend. Give me your thoughts. 

[writerericgreene]

The conclave of the owl

It has been some time since I wrote, Halem. It has been a strange time. 

My attempts to seek an audience at the great court have come to nought. I’ve written to you elsewhere of the hours spent waiting, petitioning, of the long days spent in gardens, palaces, courtyards and coffee houses, seeking someone who may be able to give me entrance. I will not dull your time with them again. 

Something ... strange, has happened, however, that I think we should consider. It happened after one of the more dispiriting days. I had spent the afternoon with the secretary of one of the great traders, master of a commercial empire that stretches from Bahra, to Kitab, Muntasir and Sayf, in metals, spices, rare goods and foodstuffs. His secretary was disinclined to interest; try and persuade him as I might, he refused to look at our figures, our calculations, at the warnings you have so eloquently spelt out. 

When I had finished entreating him, he looked down at me with total disdain. As though the mere act of tilting his head back, and peering down his nostrils, were a source of great disappointment. “So you wish to tell me, scholar, that with your musty robes and dry papers, you have discerned a great danger threatening the kingdom? That the whole kingdom must act together, to prevent the loss of the seven cities, or else a great tide will wash over us all?”

I thought, for the barest instant, that I had penetrated his scepticism, and I dared to hope that he might advance our warning. I nodded, enthusiastically. 

He burst out laughing once more, and told me that I should go and ply my children’s stories down at the court of the gods. And Halem, I must confess that I did. Perhaps it was that I was tired, tired of the rejection of our figures, of our calculations, of the ignorance of those who disbelieve that which they do not understand, because it inconveniences them. So I walked that way, towards the court of the gods. 

It was swarming with people at the end of the day. Many came for succour, seeking some hope, some deliverance from the misery of their lives. Others came to mock, to laugh, to amuse themselves. Others were there, shilling their own stories. They wandered back and forth. Some yelled. Others spoke reasonably, gesturing. 

So I stood, in a quiet spot, and I called out “Heed me, oh people of Muntasir! A great danger is coming! If ye heed not, ye will be destroyed!” I did not do it because I thought it would avail us anything, but because I thought it would not matter, and I was frustrated. So I yelled, into the crowd, my voice caught up, barely discernible amongst the din. 

“A tide is coming, one that will sweep over the seven cities. Nothing will be left standing. Neither crop, nor man nor woman, nor any of the great wonders of the seven cities will survive the great tide, unless ye heed my warning!” 

Do you know, Halem, that they listened? It was not many - only a few. A bare handful of them. But they listened. Perhaps it was that I looked different, dressed in my finest robes from my visit, while many of the others wore grimy unwashed garments. Perhaps it was my bearing. Perhaps it was that many of those proclaiming in loud voices promised riches, if you would only worship their gods. All I foretold was doom. 

“What should we do?” one voice called. 

“Tell your friends, tell your neighbours, tell all who will listen. Tell them that a great tide is coming.”

“Can we do nothing else?”

“Gather that which you can. Save the books that you can, the treatises, the treasures that you would preserve from the tide.” 

“Can we escape it?”

“No. The tide will swallow everything in its path.” 

By now my heart was beating quickly. I stopped, and though a few lingered, most walked on. But it was then that I heard a voice to my left. 

“You tell a good story.” 

He was a slim man, with a slender beard, and a soft-spoken voice. “I am al-Rahman - your story intrigued me.” His handshake was surprisingly firm, as though he were gripping to something for very life. 

“Many come here with stories of the riches their gods will provide, in hopes of attracting worshippers. You come here with a story of death and destruction.” 

He followed me as I walked away from the market, more drifting than walking, as though he were somehow following without any volition on his part. 

“But your story attracts listeners. It taps into a fear that I think sits in the heart of many.” He gestured upwards as we passed by the door of the great temple, glittering gold in the sun. “Something that stinks so much of corruption, of exploitation, can only last so long. It is a blasphemy against Awhad, and I think many understand it, but do not know how to speak it.” 

He turned to me. “You are not a speaker, but I am. I would speak for you, if you will tell me more. Tell me of the tide that is coming. Tell me what we can do, for i would listen.” 

Halem, I would hear your thoughts. It is a strange one; but who are we to turn away those who are eager to listen to our warning?