Three Names of the Hidden God Page 2

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  Many years later, in a great desert qalifate that lies sprawled along the shores of Lake Veil, the salt-rich waters of which stand in grim solitude among the boundless sands, people woke up one morning to a miracle.

  The Qalif himself witnessed the miracle from the windows of his bedchamber as he stood to stretch and squint as he always did at the rising sun that would be reflected in blinding persimmon glory upon the eastern shores of the lake.

  Rubbing his eyes, the Qalif stared out of the window, then called his First Wife. The plump-breasted Qalifa replied with a lazy moan, then rose from the perfumed silk and stood at his side.

  “Oh!” exclaimed the Qalifa, coming fully awake, and putting her smooth hand upon her lord’s shoulder. “The lake! Where is it?”

  For indeed, the lake called Veil was gone.

  In its place stretched a dull brownish quagmire of mud and sand, ugly and already drying solid in the sun, revealing underwater growth and occasional puddles filled with squirming water creatures and flapping fish. The sun would fry them alive in a matter of hours.

  The water from the lake had drained away somewhere—where? how?—as though overnight a god breathed upon the lake and swallowed it in one divine gulp—either from above or below.

  All that remained was this mud and desolation.

  And one other thing. In the center of the former lake, in the deepest part of the bed, was a mud-covered bulky shape, vaguely resembling a structure.

  At first, no one paid any attention to it, so shocked and terrified they had been by the disappearance of the lake. The residents of the qalifate congregated along its shores, bewailing the loss of water to the skies—never mind that it had always been useless and salty, and the meager wildlife it housed made for poor fishing. Some dared to walk the mud, carefully venturing deeper from the shoreline, afraid that any moment the water might return and drown them.

  Priests of all the gods from all the temples were called, and they stood chanting, incense and burning sacrifices wafting up through the rapidly heating air, while the tops of their shaven heads cooked likewise in the sun. . . .

  Until someone pointed to the strange thing of mud, a great mound rising in the middle of the lake. At first glance it appeared to be a natural growth, a rock formation. But then a sharp-eyed priest noticed the regularity of its slopes and the angular stairs cut into the muddy rock, indicating a structure. The priest counted the number of stairs, observed their placement, and found a repeating pattern of threes, the highest of all divine groupings.

  Awe and terror filled him at the implications of the discovery. The priest whispered his suspicions into the ear of his superior who heard him out and then raised his staff to acknowledge the truth revealed to them. The pronouncement was made and immediately a cry went up from all the shores.

  The legendary temple of the Hidden God was found. It had to be it and none other, for here all things came in threes and such was the number consecrated only to the Hidden God. Indeed, suddenly they could think back and remember that the lake itself had been called “Veil” for a reason—it hid something.

  And now, the answer was before them, covered by hundreds of pounds of sand and mud.