Kthaahthikha

IV - 1500

'It was nearing dawn, when a sound crept through that excavation as grim as any ever voiced. it was the sound of a man going mad, and I know it for it startled all to wakefulness, and set us running to the central chamber where Kozlov lay, a gibbering idiot, upon the floor before the stone. The stone itself, as i looked at it, seemed to throb with double light, and I shiver even now at the thought of it. But what is most curious is that the icons cut into its face shimmered and shone themselves , and seemed to grow out of the rock even though, when I blink, they were once more simple mortal cuts in an unfathomable thing.

'Carried Kozlov out of the chamber and decided not to return there. What it was that had drawn him into it was uncertain, although one might hazard a guess, but the source of the madness of the poor man was unfathomable. He lay upon the floor howling like a dog, tearing at his skin until we were forced to tie him with his shirts, and loosed countless streams of Russian incomprehensible to me with its speed, interspersed with mutterings of some tongue with a far more arabic little. Words such as Khahir, and Nyathremir, and some lengthy euphonic ramble that caught us all where we stood fearful, coming from the mouth of the gruff Russian.

'It was certain, however, that we would not spend another night in that place. When the sun rose on that glittering, snow-swept coast we made for our boat and, enfolded in our coats, rowed with all our might to south. That night a lantern to starboard summoned us to the ship, and we told our strange tale to the captain. He listened unspeaking to my narrative, and had us locate the place as best we might. But he declined to investigate - allegedly due to the time we had allready wasted in the north, and the ever-worsening weather. However I suspect that it was more a fear born of the once level-headed Kozlov.'

Alim looked at me, a querying expression on his face, no doubt expecting some response or other. By now the embers were faint indeed, and only the ghosts of our expressions showed amidst the silver-grey stretch of desert that rolled all about us.

'How does this prove anything?' I asked.

'It does not,' by itself,' said the Moor. 'But observe.'

He drew close to me and, in the faint glow of the fire, he etched a crude figure in the sand. It was a diamond, with a line across each corner, and a circle at its heart.

'This figure it was that I saw carved all about that white rock, and I saw it also carved into a cliff face in Arabia, and again on a squat idol that a fellow trader - a good, honest man who would sooner cut his own throat than speak false - claimed to have discovered in a shrine on the Caspian coast, that the locals attested was the sacred site of forest demons who would passed through the region from time to time. In such periods all the townsfolk would hide away within their houses, and through the trees at night would drift beautiful, ageless forms that whispered of strange things in tongues that none could decipher. But, intriguingly, my good friend mentioned without prompting that these spirits were said to hail from the city of Kaiyra, which bears a very remarkable similarity to the word 'Khahir'.'

Now I conceeded curiosity, and admitted to having been, if not convinced, then certainly aroused in my curiosity. I promised that I should not fail to look-up this trader if I ever came to be in Turkey, for he ran a small haberdashery in the middle quarter of town.

'I must agree,' I said as I drifted towards sleep, 'that if you are not spinning some fanciful yarn, this situation is simply fantastic in its contents.'

When i awoke the next day the Moor had gone, but by my head lay a slip of paper weighted-down with a lump of rock. On it he had written a brief letter summarising the facts once more, in case I had forgotten, and telling of a house where he could be found when he was not travelling.

I continued into the desert, pushing-on, and in time I was intercepted by a tribe of Bedhouin. Rather than killng me, as I had expected, or allowing me to stay, as I had hoped, they simply took my camel and equipment and fired a few half-heart shots after me as i fled into the dunes. Several days later I stumbled across a squad of legionaries, and was allowed to travel with them back to the coast.

Before returning to England in failure, I payed a call on my Moorish friend, who was living in a small white-washed building that contained a shop below and a small apartment above. His wife was a dimure woman who brought us coffee and tobacco, although I graciously declined the latter on the grounds that i had heard, somewhere, that it was bad for my health. In truth, it may be, but the fact is that I cannot stand the taste and smell of it.

We sat ina balconied window overlooking a market street, the sun falling red and gold down into the west. It was here, one evening, that Alim broached once more the subject of the city.

Dammit, but they appear to be shrinking. Is this so? I can't really tell. Oh well.