Chapter Four
On the days that Erdu preaches, Nut roams the city. Many times he has listened to Erdu talk about the land of Eden and the tree with breasts, so he wanders the streets.
The streets are narrow and confusing. Dwellings are chaotically built on the ruins of the past. Everywhere there are ladders descending into crumbling passageways dimly lit by oil-filled clay pots, leading to workshops littered with bone chips and leather scraps, or neglected storerooms of molding grain. Forges glow in the subterranean darkness, trying mysteriously to make metal from stone.
Above this buried labyrinth, bathed in the brilliant daylight, are the whitewashed mud-brick dwellings where people eat and sleep and work and mate. Looming over the dwellings are the rock walls of the citadel, taller than four men.
A central marketplace dominates the community. Trade goods are piled on mats and hung from frameworks. There are baskets of dates and almonds, jugs of barley beer, skeins of woven wool, and racks of lambs and geese and rabbits, along with trays of carved figurines and necklaces of cowry shells, turquoise, flint, and malachite.
Outside the walls, camels and asses wait in corrals shaded from the blazing sun. Sheep and goats graze in the hills. And towering above everything are the mountain peaks surrounding the pass and the caravan trail.
* * *
Nut is standing in the dimness of an underground storehouse, watching a ferret devour a mouse. Suddenly he is snatched from behind and spun around. A man with wild eyes shakes him violently while screaming, “THE PROPHET WHO YOU SERVE IS A FALSE PROPHET! HE DOES NOT SPEAK TRUE!!!”
Then he clutches Nut tightly to his chest while speaking tenderly into his ear. “In the ancient days the Great Spirit became the Earth. His blood formed the rivers. His hair became the grass and the trees. His eyes became the Sun and the Moon. And the vermin that infested his body became humans.” He strokes Nut’s hair. “The Creator does not care for us. Cannot you see? We annoy Him.”
Nut struggles free and stumbles toward the light.
* * *
Erdu is preaching in the marketplace. It is a pleasant day, and he glories in describing eternal torment and the end of the world. A small crowd has gathered.
The ground begins to shake. First only slightly, hardly detectable, then in waves. People glance fearfully from one to another.
Erdu gasps. “No!” he wails. “NO! NO! NO!”
The shaking increases. The walls of the city sway like trees in a storm. Streets collapse and buildings tumble. Screaming people are swallowed in the wreckage. Urns shatter and oil spills across the ground and flames spread in sheets. Animals burst from their pens.
Nut grabs the blind man and hurriedly leads him through the chaos. As they flee, part of the city gate topples on Erdu. Nut somehow pulls him free from the rubble, but the blind man’s leg is crushed.
Flaming camels race to the horizon.
* * *
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