Road to Ubar Pa - Nicholas Clapp [92]
21. Khuljan's City
IN THE LAND OF 'AD, in Arabia Felix, a moonlit late summer's night in 350 B.C.1
Roped four abreast, the column of camels shuffled across the desert plain. Their drivers intermittently dozed in the saddle, then jerked awake, often just in time to keep from pitching to the ground as a camel stumbled, which they occasionally did when moving by night. An old man, "as old as 'Ad," his companions joked, cleared his throat and chanted...
After the sun has set, in the watches of the night,
May the god of the moon whiten our faces...2
The first caravan of the year, it was larger than usual, for its camels were laden not only with frankincense but with bags of rock salt. The salt was for a contingent of stonemasons and their apprentices, who were following on foot. The time had come to enlarge Ubar's temple and enclose and fortify its spring. Six days had passed since the caravan left the Dhofar Mountains. The little water left in the goatskins was fetid, barely drinkable.
Off to the east, the sky lightened. When the sun rose this day they didn't stop to rest but kept on. In protest, the camels pitifully gurgled, then brayed and balked. Their drivers were tempted to strike them but didn't, for it would damage their qualities. Instead they shouted, "Evil pestilence upon you!" and "Come to you death!" In their hearts they meant nothing of the kind, for their camels were their life.
It was a sharp-eyed boy who first spotted a tiny smudge of green on the horizon, appearing, then vanishing in a mirage.
"Hai! Our deliverance. Ubar," breathed the old man, as he had for most of his forty years.
Drawing closer and wending up the low hill surmounted by Ubar's old temple, the caravan was met by the small garrison—no more than a dozen men—that stood watch over the site during the hottest months. The camel drivers unloaded their cargo of salt and frankincense. After resting for a few days, they would return to the mountains for another load. The stonemasons unpacked their sledges and chisels and examined the site. They hammered at the limestone rising from the sand to the west of the temple. It was of adequate quality, and quarrying it would create a dry moat, a bonus to the fortification of Ubar. The stonemasons splashed in the water of the settlement's clear, cool spring, had their fill of fresh dates, then slept through the afternoon and night.
Up well before dawn the next day, the masons saw to the digging of shallow trenches to the south of the temple. They lined the trenches with goat droppings, then packed in a layer of rock salt. By midafternoon they were able to step back and view the footings of an inner and outer gate. As protection against djinns, they drove spikes into the ground at the gate's four corners.
From the shadows of the nearby temple a kahin, a soothsayer-priest, came forth. He rapped a hide drum with his knuckles, slowly at first. Two girls stepped forth from the temple, dancing. The older led and the younger followed, imitating, as best she could, her partner's spontaneous movements. They danced upon the salt. The kahin beat his drum faster, as fast as he could. The dancers' stampings and gyrations were frenzied now. Camel drivers drifted over from their camp and joined the masons in clapping to the rhythm of the dance, accented now by the bleating of a tethered goat.
With a cry of "For the face of the lord of the moon!" the kahin unsheathed a dagger and slashed the goat's throat. He lifted the animal and carried it about so that its blood would fall on the gate's four corners. The girl dancers pressed their hands in the blood, and raised them high to the accompaniment of wild ululations. For good measure, the kahin carried the dying, bleeding goat down the hillside, where more trenches would be dug and walls and towers would rise. That evening, the meat of the goat was divided, one measure to the kahin and four to the masons, builders of a new Ubar.
In the heat and dust of the next few weeks, the gate was fitted with heavy wooden doors