The Tower (12 page)

‘Well, then, I can tell you that whoever carved those figures had heard of Pliny! Do you know how many fakes have been cunningly fabricated by well-read travellers over the last couple of centuries?’

‘I beg to differ with you, sir. The chances that a traveller arrived at this very point during the last century or two with the intention of creating an archaeological forgery are close to nil. What’s more, allow me to remind you that I am something of an expert on primitive art, and I can assure you that those carvings are very ancient indeed. I cannot hazard a precise date, but I would say they go back to the early Bronze Age, at the very least. We’re speaking of over five thousand years ago. I hope you understand, sir. It’s obvious that no one believes in the existence of such a being, but it would be interesting to decipher the symbolism hidden behind this type of representation.’

His subordinate’s insistence irritated Jobert, who was already tense because of the difficulties inherent in their advance. He cut him off sharply. ‘The subject is closed, Captain Bonnier. In the future you are to keep any such considerations to yourself. That is an order. Goodnight.’

Bonnier clicked his heels and withdrew.

K
ALAAT
H
ALLAKI STOOD OUT
at the top of the hill that dominated the oasis of Wadi Addir, the sky behind it darkening as the sun sank into the expanse of sand. Sparrows took to the air from the trees dotting the orchards and gardens, soaring to the castle bastions that were bleached white by the sun of infinite summers, while on high a hawk spread its wings in solemn flight. All at once, in the silence that precedes the deep peace of the evening, a woman’s song rang out from the tallest tower, soft at first and then more intense, high and warbling, a hymn sweet and agonizing, which rose like a silver stream towards the evening star. The swallows’ chirping stopped and the bleating of the sheep died down as if nature were intent on listening to the elegy flowing from the veiled figure that had appeared on the ramparts of the immense fortress. Then, in an instant, the melody was distorted into a shrill, delirious scream that dissolved into heartbroken weeping.

The oasis below was immersed in the light of dusk. The tops of the palms swayed in the evening breeze and the walls of the castle all around were enveloped in twilight as in the glow of a fire. The dying sun was mirrored in the canals that divided the terrain into verdant squares of emerald green nestled between the silvery waters and the golden sands.

Against the disc of the sun sinking at the horizon there appeared a swarm of warriors wrapped in a cloud of golden dust. They were returning from battle, bearing their wounded and the memory, perhaps, of their dead left unburied on the Sand of Ghosts.

The woman had disappeared. In her place stood the black-cloaked figure of her husband, the lord of that place, Rasaf el Kebir. He trained his eyes on the throng of warriors, trying to count them as a shepherd does his sheep as they return to the fold in the evening. He could make out at their head a man wrapped in a light blue
barrakan
, gripping a purple standard: their commander, Amir. He recognized the silvery shields of the mailed lancers on horseback and the riflemen on their fast
mehari.
Their losses did not seem to be too great; but as the army approached and he could distinguish between one man and another and even make out their spears, he was overwhelmed with astonishment as his gaze fell upon something that no one had ever seen under the walls of Kalaat Hallaki. A prisoner! Bound to a saddle, his hands in chains behind his back. For the first time in living memory, a prisoner had been taken!

He hurried down the stairs and ran into the courtyard as the gate was swinging open to allow the warriors to enter. Amir was the first to dismount, handing the standard to a footman as Rasaf rushed forward to embrace him. As the wounded were being seen to, the woman’s sobbing could suddenly be heard again from above.

‘Where is she?’ Amir asked.

Rasaf raised his head towards a stair that led up to the women’s quarters.

‘They caught us by surprise again, damn them. They spring out of the sand, all at once, hundreds of them, from every direction. Their energy seems to have no limits. Even after they’re down, and you think they’re dead, that’s when they suddenly pounce. Many of our men were wounded that way.’

Rasaf’s expression was full of anguish. ‘We must find a passage! The time is coming. I can no longer sleep at night, nor find peace by day.’

Amir gestured behind him. ‘We have a prisoner!’

‘I saw him,’ replied Rasaf, ‘although I couldn’t believe my eyes.’

As he spoke he looked beyond Amir’s shoulders to behold the Enemy: the scorpion of the desert, the denizen of the Sand of Ghosts. The prisoner’s head was wrapped in a turban, knotted at the neck, which completely covered his face. The fabric had small holes slashed at the eyes and mouth. His bare chest was tattooed with a horrifying mask. Two curved blades hung from his belt, like the claws of a scorpion. The lower part of his body was covered by long, black camel-hair trousers. His skin was dry and very thick, as wrinkled as an old man’s, but his physical vigour was incredible. Every yank he made at his chains threatened to topple the four gigantic lancers who held him down on all sides.

‘How did you do it?’ Rasaf asked. ‘None of us has ever managed to capture one of them.’

‘They are not invulnerable,’ said Amir. ‘Your ancestor Prince Abu Sarg once wrote that they were terrified of fire. When we saw that this one had separated from the rest to finish off one of our men who was trying to drag himself off the battlefield, my mounted guards encircled him with a ring of naphtha and set fire to it with a gunshot. His terror was so great that he lost consciousness. And so we captured him. He’s yours, my lord. Do with him as you wish.’

‘Fire,’ murmured Rasaf. ‘Fire will get us through! But how can we light enough flames to open a passage? It’s just not possible. Even if we felled all the trees in the oasis, even if we took down all the cedar beams in the castle, it wouldn’t be enough.’

A flash lit Amir’s eyes. ‘Perhaps there is a way. If you allow me to draw upon the treasure of the ancestors in the Horse’s Crypt.’

Rasaf’s head dropped as the suffocated wailing of his woman continued to rain down from above. As if she sensed the presence of the enemy.

‘The treasure of the ancestors,’ repeated Rasaf. ‘Even if I gave you permission, you know that it’s almost impossible to open the crypt . . .’

He turned towards the prisoner, who had finally been bound, in the centre of the courtyard. Rasaf approached him, overcoming the disgust the creature aroused in him, and stretched out his hand towards the edge of the turban that covered his face.

‘No!’ shouted Amir. ‘Don’t do it! No one can see a Blemmyae in the face! Your bride, Rasaf ! Think of your bride . . . how her mind has been ravaged, destroyed for ever!’

Rasaf retracted his hand. ‘Not for ever, Amir. We shall succeed in opening a passage to the Place of Knowledge and we shall take her there on the appointed day. But now this scorpion must be destroyed. Take him out of the oasis and burn him. Then grind his bones in a mortar and sprinkle the dust in the desert.’

Amir gestured to a group of warriors, who approached the prisoner. He writhed and struggled, letting out strange sounds like a terror-stricken animal as they dragged him away from the castle.

Rasaf turned and went up the stair slowly, his head low. He walked down a long corridor punctuated by wide Moorish windows that looked out on the western desert until he found himself before a door. He opened it and entered with a quiet step. Lying on the bed was an incredibly beautiful dark-skinned woman whose gaze wandered absently to the arabesqued beams on the ceiling. He caressed her forehead lightly, then brought a bench near the bed and sat watching her silently. When she closed her eyes as if she were dozing off, he rose and went up to the castle bastions. The moon appeared in the east while the flames that were devouring the prisoner’s limbs rose to the west.

W
HEN HE SAW
A
MIR
turn from the blaze and mount his horse to ride back to the castle, Rasaf went down to his apartments. He awaited him there by lamplight, sitting near the great window that gave onto the desert.

‘Do you truly believe that we can open a passage to the Tower of Solitude?’ he asked as soon as he heard Amir enter.

‘I do,’ replied Amir. ‘And today I had the proof that we will succeed. The Blemmyae are terrified of fire.’

‘How can you be certain?’

‘The reason they fear it is because they’ve never seen it. No one knows what they live on in that inferno of sand and wind, but there is nothing in their territory that can catch fire. Give me the chance to draw from the treasure in the Horse’s Crypt. I will go to Hit in Mesopotamia, where a spring of naphtha flows, and I will bargain with the tribes that live there. I will buy an enormous quantity of it and bring it all the way back here by camel, inside thousands of skins. And when the day arrives, our warriors will advance all the way to the Tower of Solitude protected by two walls of fire. I have heard that there are rifles which are immensely more powerful and precise than those we have: I will buy them as well, if you allow me to take from the treasure.’

‘I would do anything for my bride to regain her lost reason . . . anything. You cannot understand my torment, Amir. To see her body at the height of its splendour and then to look upon those empty eyes, staring into the void . . . to hear the agony in her song whenever the nightmare takes over . . .’

‘Then allow me to leave as soon as possible. There’s no more time. And let Arad leave as well. I will meet her in the Horse’s Crypt on the third day of the new moon of Nisan.’

‘Arad!’

‘Yes,’ replied Amir. ‘Your daughter and I have tested ourselves thousands of times. We cannot fail.’

‘You’ve thought of everything then. You’ve been planning this for a long time . . .’

‘Yes, my lord. Your daughter cannot bear her mother’s folly.’

‘But it’s a terrible risk, Amir. How can I risk the life of my daughter to save her mother?’

‘Life itself is a terrible risk, Rasaf, from the moment we first see the light. Let us leave now, I beg you. The time is right. We cannot abandon the task that lies before us. It is not by chance that our people have managed to survive for so many centuries in this marvellous and forgotten place. We must win. Please, allow us to take the keys and to go.’

Rasaf lowered his head. ‘Does Arad know you want to leave so soon?’

‘Arad wants it as well and is ready to leave at any moment to reach the appointed place. I shall speak to her this very night.’

‘Go, then,’ said Rasaf. He opened a coffer of cedar wood, rimmed in iron, and took out a small rosewood case. He opened it and showed Amir two arrowheads lying on red leather. One had a square tip, while the other was shaped like a star.

‘Choose your arrowhead, Amir. Arad will take the other.’

Amir gazed at the two shining steel tips, then chose the star.

‘The most difficult and the most deadly,’ said Rasaf. ‘The wound it provokes is devastating. Incurable. Do not fail, Amir. I could not bear it.’

‘I will not fail,’ he said. ‘Farewell, Rasaf. Tomorrow I shall leave as soon as possible.’

‘Farewell, Amir. May God protect you.’

A
MIR LEFT THE ROOM
, walked down to the courtyard and headed towards the spring, sure that he would find Arad there at this hour. There she was, her sheer white gown fluttering in the moonlight on the evening breeze that had descended upon the oasis. Her gracious figure and long gazelle’s legs showed through the light fabric. She was a ravishing sight in the glow of the full moon reflected in the crystalline spring: she seemed to be bathing in the diaphanous light which flooded the air as if it were a lake without shores or a bottom. She could remain in silence for hours, listening to the voices that came from the gardens and the desert, breathing in the wind-borne scents of blossoms hidden in distant, arid valleys.

Amir loved her profoundly, with a proud, moody love, and even if Arad had never spoken to him openly about her own feelings, he was sure that no woman could prefer another to him in all of Kalaat Hallaki. No one could rival him in courage, generosity or devotion. He was certain that one day he would sway her, that passion would consume her like the fire that devoured the endless plains of grass beyond the sea of sand at the end of every summer.

‘Arad.’

The woman turned towards him and smiled.

‘Arad, your father has agreed. We will open the Horse’s Crypt and take what we need from the treasure accumulated by our ancestors. And when the time comes, I will open the way to the Tower of Solitude so that your mother may regain the reason that was stripped from her the day she was kidnapped and held prisoner by the Blemmyae. I will leave tomorrow. And you too must leave as soon as you can, if you want to be at the appointed place on the third day of the new moon of Nisan.’ He stretched out his hand and showed her the tip of the arrow. ‘It’s a game we’ve played since we were children, but this time the tips will be of tempered steel. Neither of us can fail.’

‘I am not afraid,’ said Arad, taking the arrowhead into her own hands.

‘Will you love me if I lead the warriors through the Sand of Ghosts and your mother’s reason is restored?’

‘Yes. I will love you then.’

Amir lowered his gaze and seemed to be watching her reflection in the water of the spring. ‘Why not now?’ he asked, without daring to look her in the eyes.

‘Because . . . it’s what my father wants, it’s what our people want, but . . . my soul is oppressed by sadness whenever my mother’s madness flies from the highest tower of Kalaat Hallaki.’

‘Arad, every time I have risked my life in battle, I’ve wondered if I might die without having tasted your lips, your breasts, the rose between your thighs, if I might die without ever having slept in your hyacinth-scented bed and, every time, the thought filled me with despair. I would die without ever having lived. Can you understand me, Arad?’