Gold Dust

6

At the entrance to where the two mountains faced one another, in an open waste that stretched on forever, stood the shrine of the Magus, tucked into the folds of a lonely hillside. In the past, the tomb had had frequent visitors, even religious teachers and scholars. No one had considered it an idolatrous object. Everyone agreed that it belonged to a Muslim from Arabia who had been witness to the early Islamic conquests, a companion of the Prophet who had died of thirst in the desert while fighting on behalf of God’s religion. Nomads of the desert sought out the saint, sometimes visiting the monument alone, sometimes coming in large groups. They would sacrifice animals to him, spilling the blood of their offerings before the shrine. That was until the pagan soothsayer from Kano arrived. ‘The crow’ as people called him, was an old black man who wore a necklace of river oyster shells around his leathered neck. On his head, he wore a black turban, and his silky, broad robes were of the same color. The man traveled alone on an emaciated she-camel, and stayed away from other people. He chewed tobacco and would spit in the faces of curious children and people who got too close. It was this fearsome witch doctor who first demolished the myth of the shrine.

The stone base of the shrine was triangular. At the top, the image of the god was set into the body of a large stone. Its neckless head sat directly on the torso. Its enigmatic features suggested it had been worshiped for millennia. Only rocks accustomed to receiving supplications over the eons could ever take on such features. The idol evoked tenderness and harshness, mercy and vengeance, wisdom and arrogance, and above all, patience — the patience of immortals well acquainted with the treachery of time and the loneliness of existence. The god’s right eye and cheek had been devoured by a millennium of dust and sand blown by the hot southern winds. The left side, in contrast, still bore testimony to the sad history of the desert. It faced the northern mountain, looking heavenward toward a peak that was wrapped in a pale blue turban. The remains of ancient bones lay scattered around the idol. Some had crumbled, while the vestiges of others — other animal sacrifices — remained intact.

The witch doctor had undone the myth of the shrine by reading the symbols engraved on the pedestal of the idol. He said they spelled the name of an ancient Saharan god. He went on to decipher the ancient Tifinagh alphabet, but he refused to reveal the hidden truth that had been buried at the feet of the god. Months later, he was found dead in a nearby plain. No one had ever been able to get him to disclose the secret of the pagan talismans.

At the shrine, Ukhayyad forced the splotched piebald to kneel. He stood there a long time, attempting to divine the secrets of the desert from the structure of the inscrutable idol. Finally, he prostrated himself, raised his hands and cried, “O lord of the desert, god of the ancients! I promise to offer up to you one fat camel of sound body and mind. Cure my piebald of his malignant disease and protect him from the madness of silphium! You are the all hearing, the all knowing.” He poured dust from the shrine all over the Mahri’s half-consumed body, then lay down and slept until the desert burst forth with the light of dawn. He made a cup of green tea, then made his way to the desolate western pastures.

That night, he had dreamed that the piebald was drowning in the valley. A flash flood swept over and swallowed him up. Ukhayyad clutched at the camel’s reins and fought the cold water. He tore at the animal from one side, while the torrent tugged at the Mahri from the other. The camel stumbled onto its front knees more than once, then sank beneath the violent waters until his head went under. Ukhayyad resisted the water’s pull, yanking at the halter from the other end. Blood poured from the nostrils of the struggling beast. Had he torn the muzzle at the bridle? The struggle went on for a long time — a very long time — until the fury calmed and the dark waters began to recede across the roaring valley. To his astonishment, he saw that the murky water had been transformed into demons who, like the water, were pulling at the Mahri by the tail, intent on dragging the animal into a dark abyss. Ukhayyad awoke from the nightmare to see the first blaze as it pierced the twilight of dawn.

He thought a long time about this sign. Dreams at shrines call for the expertise of soothsayer interpretation. Sheikh Musa was well versed in the kinds of visions that took place around Muslim saints’ tombs. But only the witch doctors of Kano had the special competence to read visions inspired by ancient tombs, pagan tombs. Kano soothsayers often traveled with merchant caravans in the desert — but where could Ukhayyad find one? One could not treat the revelations of shrines lightly. To seek out the knowledge of scholars at any cost was no less a duty in Muslim law than pursuing holy war. That is what the sheikhs said. But where could he find a scholar of shrines in this empty waste? Where would he come across someone who knew how to read the signs of heathen idols?

His maternal grandfather had been wise in these matters. Whenever he had dreamed, he would not rise from his bed until they brought him soothsayers who could interpret the dream for him. The whole tribe remembered how he liked to say, “If God ever sends you a warning, and its secret is revealed to you, you must pause and take heed. If you do not, you will have no one but yourself to blame.” He was a firm believer in the treachery of two things — time and people — and neither failed to disappoint. No misdeed ever surprised him, nor did any enemy ever catch him off guard. Everyone agreed that his wisdom sprang entirely from the attention he paid to occult signs. It was said that even death did not take him by surprise. One night, he dreamed of the fabled lote tree, said by some tribes to exist in the middle of the western desert next to the spring whose waters grant immortality. In his dream, he drank from that pool. In the morning, the soothsayer told him, “Ready yourself for a journey. What you have seen is the lote tree at the furthest reaches of existence.” So he prepared his burial shroud, washed his body with ritual care, and donned his finest clothing, then waited for the King of Death. He did this each day for a week after the dream, until he breathed his last.