The Ports and Portals of the Zelaznids (9 page)

     To be sure,
the journie
was
slow-going
. 
And yet
, within the space of some few months,
Qutughai and
the Zelaznids
were
encamped within sight of the walls of Kabul.  A
nother
night on
the
cold plain
s, this time along the shores of a
frozen lake
,
was
hardlie to their liking
with their destination standing before them. 
But
they had arrived
after the cittie gates
had been closed and locked
for the evening, so
the travelers had little choice but to sleep on the cold ground once more.

     The Zelaznids were not alone in th
is
, for
there were numerous other travelers who had reached
Kabul too late to gain entr
ie
this night
. 
And
there were others who,
accustomed to making their way
in the world with few valuables (who could not imagine the luxurie of
a down-filled
mattress), likewise slept aground
out of a sense of economie
.  These
varied groups
,
along
with th
e Zelaznids,
formed a grand camp
filled with hundreds of souls
.

    
T
he Zelaznids soon found themselves the subject of much interest
in the encampment
, for they had by far the largest contin
g
ent.  Qutughai, though suffering from a fever that had
come
upon him during the
trip
from
Feyzabad
,
forced himself to go
from camp to camp, asking
(in a somewhat broken Arabic tongue
acquired through the efforts of Dalganj)
if the
travelers
had
ever
heard tell of
a people
calling themselves
the
Zelaznids.

     To his inquiries, Qutughai received no positive
answer
until he met a group of travelers from distant Arabia.  Within their midst, the governor-general encountered a mystic of middle age, a wizened fellow who kept apart from his companions and did not speak while Qutughai conversed with the
m
. 
But
once th
e
leader of the Salabadi exiles took his leave of the Arabs, the
strange mystic
approach
ed
Qutughai.

     “Can it
truly
be,”
the curious stranger
asked, “that you seek the Zelaznids?”

     “
S
o I do, as you no doubt heard me
tell
your companions
.”

    
T
he mystic beckoned Qutughai closer, so that they might
speak
in private conference.

     “Then I
beseech you to hold close your counsel, for you will find none but enemies in the
district
of Kabul.”

     Hearing this, Qutughai begged the strange
fellow
to explain who he was and what he knew of the Zelaznid people.  The
mystic
thus
told his strange tale.

     “I am called Abdul Hazred.  My home, when I was able to call it such,
lay
in the mountains of
the
Yemeni,
far
fr
om
this place.  There I
was
reared amongst shepherds and
fishermen
,
learning the old ways of
our
people.  My tribe
did
not
hold to the same ideas as those of
its
neighbours; though most
amongst us had taken up the call of the Prophet,
[36]
we were not in full accord with
his
teachings
.
  I am descended of a strange and varied lineage, one
which
holds as part of its bloodline a branch of those ancient
Zelaznids
that you seek.  Sit close and I will speak of what I know.

     “Mine is an ancient familie and has trod the Yemeni hills for as long as man has walked this Earth.  Before the great tribes crossed the
desert of
Arabia
we were there, tending our flocks and harvesting the bounties of the sea.  My people
looked
to the old gods
,
as they had for a thousand years and more before leaving the shores and crossing the mountains to dwell at the edge of the desert.

     “
O
ne hundred years before the coming of the Prophet, there appeared in the midst
of these simple tribesmen twentie
or more persons, men and women with some few children.  No one knew from whence they came
or
how
they had done so, for these people
did seem to spring
out of
the Earth and descend from the high
mountain of that ancient and revered Shu’ayb.
[37]

     “These people call
ed
themselves Zelaznids and claimed to be
part
of an ancient trib
e
which had fled the world and whose generations had lived for c
enturies in a peaceful and emptie
land
,
unreachable by
either
caravan or caravel.
[38]
  Yet, according to these strange travelers, they had not been entirelie absent from the world of men, for they had, us
ing
means known to
none but
them, made passage from one world to another,
in search of
‘ports’
more
to their liking
, using ‘portals’ that were scattered all over the world
.  On
e
such port
al
, they claimed, was on the mountain
from
which they had appeared.

     “This news, coming as it did in such a strange way and resembling nothing that the people of
Sanaá had ever heard, was rejected by most within earshot of the Zelaznids.  Yet others welcomed the newcomers and sought to querie them in order to learn whether the Zelaznids spoke the truth or were but jesting.

     “And so the Zelaznids settle
d
in the midst of my familie, and befriend
ed
them, and
taught
them
, and learn
ed
from them, and wed
ded
with them, and bec
a
me one with them. 
And
more than a few of the old tribesmen began to speak of other worlds and no longer th
ought
of the old gods.  In place of these deities, they imagined an all-powerful force or being, to whose wisdom and mercie all were subject.

     “
W
hen the Prophet came,
speaking of one god,
the people of Sanaá
thus
followed him
readilie
, eager for the
gifts
that
accompanied his promise of
protection.  For the sake of securitie, my people, even those who held to the ways of the Zelaznids, converted and sent their daughters to wed with the Prophet and his advisors.  These conversions, it
may be said
, were largelie in name, for there were those who yet held true to the old ways
;
and
there were
still
others who gave to their children the teachings of the Zelaznids within the solace of their homes.

     “Two generations passed in this way, and my ancestors did much as they always had
:
paying
tribute to those who controlled the cittie while
secretlie
believing whatever they wished.  The Prophet, having met his end, left lesser men to follow in his stead.  The
y
kept their governors in place and maintained their hold on my people. 
But
no
sword could pierce their souls
.

     O
ut of that curious
line a
peculiar
person
emerged,
my namesake: Abd-al-Hazred.
[39]

     “Hazred was reared of an intellectual father, one who knew well the old ways
;
and of a learned mother, one who was descended of that Zelaznid tribe.  Out of this, Abd-al-Hazred
be
came a
soul in possession of much
knowledge, one who
did not fail, even from a young age, to
question his elders
concerning the inconsistencie of t
heir beliefs.

     “This precocious spirit served
him
well
in partnership with
his intellect, but made of him an out
cast in the cittie
of Sanaá, a place
whose residents
had no wish to anger the representative of the Banu Umayyah.
[40]
  Hence, when Abd-al-Hazred became a man, he
ventured into the
southern reaches of the
Arabian Desert in search of that knowledge which he had yet to discover.

     “Ten years Abd-al-Hazred spen
t
alone in the Roba El Khaliyeh
[41]
without speaking to another of his kind.  Yet he was not without companionship, for the Roba El Khaliye
h
is said
to be the home of numerous
spirits.

     “
When he returned to Sanaá, he reenter
ed
the societie
he had left,
wedding
a young girl and entering into the trade of a scribe.
 
But
serenitie in
this life was not
to be; f
or Abd-al-Hazred
could not help but
sp
eak of those
things
which
he had seen in the desert
.

     “H
is words frightened the people of
Sanaá
.  They would not hear him tell
of crossing into another world,
or of his
visit
to
fabulous Irem, the Cit
tie
of Pillars.
[42]
 
And
when he spoke of
the discoveries he made beneath the ruins of
that
forgotten desert
place
, which pointed to
the
existence of an ancient race of beings older than mankind, it was charitie
that
kept th
ose
ignorant folk from
puttin
g him to his dea
th for such
blasphemies.

     “Abd-al-Hazred
thus was allowed to
live
,
but
he feared that this would not long be the case should he remain
in the place of his birth. 
Therefore
he
took
his wife and child a
way from
the cittie of Sanaá by caravan
.  Together, they
travel
ed
to ancient Babylon
and
then to
Egypt, where he explored the ruins of Memphis.

     “
At last, Abd-al-Hazred
settled his growing
familie in Damascus, where he once more
took on the work
of a scribe. 
There
, taking advantage of that anonymitie which a man might find in such a
large
cittie, he wrote the dreaded
al-Azif
.
[43]

     “This work, misunderstood and reviled as it was,
pleased the government not at all. 
Arrested for heresie,
Hazred
was determined to be a heretic and
confined to
a madhouse
.  F
or
some few years
,
his wife waited for her husband to be returned
to her
,
doing the
best she could to support their children
. 
M
ean
while
,
the
authorities ban
ned
Abd-al-Hazred’s
al-Azif
.
[44]