Road to Ubar Pa - Nicholas Clapp [96]
Khuljan cut him off as he reached into the bag and withdrew a single arrow. He turned the shaft in his fingers. It was blank. He dropped it back into the bag. The kahin again shuffled the arrows. Khuljan drew again. It was the same arrow, blank. The king's jaw tightened; his eyes narrowed.
The kahin trembled as he shuffled the arrows a third time. He well remembered the time that Khuljan had asked the gods whether to avenge a cousin killed in a dispute over a camel. The king had drawn "the forbidder." Flying into a rage, he had flung the arrow at a sacred stone block and shouted, "You would avenge your cousin! Bite your cousin's zibb!" Later, though, Khuljan came to his senses, begged forgiveness, and took the unusual step of sacrificing a prize camel in honor of the god that dwelt in the offended rock.
The king withdrew the arrow on which was written "My Lord has commanded me." The soothsayer let out a sigh of relief and said, "The gods know best." Khuljan said nothing and left the temple. He chose to walk rather than ride to the knoll beyond the fortress, where his royal tent was pitched.
Once, centuries before, the religion of the 'Ad may have been more meaningful: it may have had an aura of wandering shepherds reaching for the stars. Once, a temple and its rites may have symbolized the world and its destiny, offering a glimpse of eternity. But no longer.7 Khuljan and his people were haunted by djinns and consumed by superstition. The gods in their dark chamber were irrational, crass, greedy. Truth be told, Khuljan cared more for his horse.
As it does in the desert, darkness came quickly to Ubar. One by one, oil lamps flickered to life in the king's tent, lit by his fool. The envoy recently returned from Persia awaited Khuljan, nodding gravely as the king announced that the requested tribute would be sent. The gods had ordained it. The envoy thought this prudent and wise, even if the Persian demand was usurious. He had seen for himself the might of Artaxerxes and the splendor of his new palace being built at Susa. It had an oven that could bake an entire ox or camel, so it could be served up whole at dinner. The envoy spoke of what it took and meant to be a Persian king: "an excess of greed, corrupt force, bold daring, momentary success."
Khuljan and his envoy went on to discuss the increasingly complex alliances and enmities of the People of 'Ad. This was not the first mission for the envoy. With his camel stick, he drew a map in the sand and pointed out the territories of rival and friendly kingdoms (see the map on [>]).
In the half of Arabia beholden to the Persians, the envoy noted that the Gerrhans were pirates by sea and brigands by land. Yet the 'Ad were on good terms with them; they were active trading partners. The Rhambanians were a no-account tribe with a puffed-up king. And the people of the Persian Gulf Island of the Two Springs were too distant to matter.
In the half of Arabia under the sway of Greece and Rome, the kingdoms of Ma'in, Saba, and Qataban were too far away to present problems, at least for the time being. It was the increasingly powerful kingdom of the Hadramaut that was troublesome. It was uncomfortably close to the land of 'Ad, and the envoy did not have to remind Khuljan of the adage "If on the trail you meet up with a Hadrami and a deadly snake, kill the Hadrami."
What a puzzle of kingdoms and peoples for such a remote land.
"Enough!"