~ The Sage's Tale ~
A Burning Premonition
The Tale and Testimony of the Mad Arab
Near Al-Baihah, Irak ~ Ten Years Ago...
The sun was so hot it almost baked him alive. He knew it was never good to travel near such evil places as the desert at this time of year, the clues he had been given... this was not something he could ignore. The book, it was all that was important.
Sweat beaded down his face as Zalchan's camel trotted uneasily, packets of food and water swinging at his side, and his servant, an Arab youth named Ali who spoke little, and knew to obey orders of his master.
Zalchan looked around him - nothing but dry earth. Truly, this is the land of the Dead. he thought, a place deserving of a work such as this. He looked to one of the bags strapped to his camel... his most precious cargo.
He and his servant had travelled from Isfahan in Persia south and west, to southern Irak, a land of the Jalayir, a Mongol tribe that cared little for Arab or Islamic affairs for that matter. Passing through the lush plains of river Al Furat, called by the Christians the Euphrates, he travelled even further south, into the dead lands, the lands of the ancients. But this was exactly where he wanted to go...
He had to see. Zalchan just had to know for himself.
The book he had on him was the work of a man many had called 'Mad', however all the same his books were labeled by the old Islamic Clerics as dangerous, and were hidden away. It was indeed a most dangerous text however... it was the fabled recordings of instructions to the divine - infallible incantations of the ancients, to contact the Djinn world - It was the book of the dead ones, the book of those whom stirred under the moon, it was Al Azif, the Necronomicon. The written work itself, a collection of the translated rituals and incantations of the ancient ones, was said so powerful, in the end it was said it destroyed it's own author Abd al Hazred, called 'The Mad Arab'...
Zalchan remembered the story and writings he had researched in the Libraries at Baghdad, Damascus and Alexandria well;
Indeed, Abd al Hazred lived during the time of the Caliphs of the Omayyads, heirs of Muhammad, at the city of Damascus.
Abd al Hazred
Writer of the 'Al Azif'
Abd al Hazred, an Arab and a Christian during the Caliphate of the Omayyads was a scholar and somewhat of a mystic. Around the Christian year 730, he made a scholarly expedition and had travelled to many fabled and forbidden places of the ancients, the Temples of Babylon and Ur, and even to the lost fabled city of the Sands, Iram, which Allah in the Quran tells us was destroyed for it's sinful decadance in times of old.
Yet within these places there still held the mystical and astrological knowledge of the Ancients from these temples and from the inhabitants of Iram, which is said to be inhabited by the djinn now.
Abd al Hazred supposedly at the
fabled city of Iram, Atlantis of the Sands
Within these fabled places, Abd al Hazred studied for over a decade, mastering them, and translating their ancient rituals and writings, in secret.
Then he recorded it all... yet even as he had warned the readers that he would not last long after he had recorded these forbidden things, he was mysteriously kidnapped and tortured, his tongue being cut out among other most terrible vices placed upon the man... however, his 'great work' had still survived him, despite mysterious and unknown efforts against the mysterious work's creation. Yet Zalchan Khalil-Shen only had parts of the manuscript; much of it's completed incantations were removed, some parts destroyed. He needed to match them with the original works, that Abd al Hazred had said the ancients had created. He needed to find the temples...
Zalchan Khalil-Shen studies the ancient
languages and writings
And so, eventually locating recent translations and scripts helping him learn the languages of the ancients and Canaanites, he had eventually pieced each and every part of the puzzle together.
The unique skills taught within the works were also said by al Hazred not to be toyed with, for one of The Mad Arab's followers was most painfully devoured, in a public square within Jerusalem by one such demon he had summoned, in front of many terrified witnesses. Zalchan had even confirmed the accounts from the Library in Baghdad, as little left of it as there was after the eastern invasions.
So it had all truly happened... He wondered. Every source on the subject was backed up by accounts and writings, and his reseaches all lead to the same places.
A Temple of the Ancients at Ur...
While these thoughts occupied his mind, the great building, temple, it came into view. It was enormous, truly a massive work of the ancients... a place Abd al Hazred had been to himself, and where he had reportedly completed his writings on the Incantation of the Gates, the important section of the book not to be found almost anywhere else.
Arriving at the foot of the temple, he paid no attention to his servant boy, who knew to stay behind and watch the camels as he began to climb the tall and browned steps which seemed to endlessly lead to the sky.
This was the Temple of Ur. Finding his way to the top, and into a small entrace - not totally undug, he drops inside, seeing only the light from the sun above shining in.
Inside the ruined temple...
Zalchan seemed to enjoy the cool air of the inside of the temple much more. It was much cooler indeed... still, he made his way down the short passageway, and into a turn, which, had a wall panel, with writing carefully carved into it. It was exactly what he was looking for.
Going through the satchel he carried around his shoulder, Zalchan Khalil-Shen removed a book, written in Arabic, 'On the translation of Old Languages into Allah's Own', and browses through it, and then, taking his own jar of ink out and a quill, he begins to fasion text on a clean parchiment of paper he places on the flat stone ground, meticulously looking through the book and the text on the wall, copying it work for word...
He copied the words as quickly as he could, reading them aloud as he did so. As he wrote, he began to feel nervous... as if he was being watched. He certainly did not feel alone, within that old and dark place. Forgetting these things, the Sage turned and wrote the final phrases;
As he stroked down the words and terms, Zalchan seemed to feel sheepishly tired. The journey south and east, from Damascus, had taken much out of him, and he had smoke much kif the entire way there, as Abd al Hazred had promoted, in order to calmly approach the entire thing...
He read the words he had copied, with the proper pronunciation as noted in his books...
Then, it all came together in his mind. These people were to powerful, too great to fall... had they suffered the same fate Al Hazred told of? Kutulu...
He saw it, the greatness of what they once were. The temple he was within must have been used as the gate, to the stars and astral plane, of which Zalchan had learned Abd al Hazred insisted could be reached, through the proper gates and incantations...
As he finished writing he felt the eyes watching him..
By Allah, begone.. He thinks, hoping that his paranoias would not get the best of him...
Still, ye yawned, he had felt like he had awoken from a deep sleep.
Zalchan notices an ancient statue
The statue made him quite nervous. He decided he had copied everything he needed, and turning from the hideous statue, Zalchan strode out of the shadows of the ruined temple of Ur, and to the steps...
But something was amiss. Where was his servant boy? The camels were surely there as he had left them and the servant, yet surely the boy was mad if he was to sneak off without a camel, in this hot plain in the middle of nowhere? the whole thing made no sense to him...
And then he saw it. The boys tunic, on the ground... torn, and with stains of fresh blood on it.
But there was no person for miles... no blood on the sand. No body either...
Taking this as a bad omen, the Sage, with his forbidden texts completed, decided to leave this damned and accursed place.
Zalchan Khalil-Shen returns home...
Without his servant
