He interrupted, “Look at any picture of a Christian deity or angel or saint. He or she is portrayed with a glowing halo, is that not so? It is a pretty fancy, but it was our fancy first. That halo imitates the light of our ever-burning flame, which in turn signifies the light of Ahura Mazda forever shining on His messengers and holy ones.”
That sounded likely enough that I could not dispute it, but neither would I concede it, of course. He went on:
“That is why we Zardushi have for centuries been persecuted and derided and dispersed and driven into exile. By Muslims and Jews and Christians alike. A people who pride themselves on possessing the only true religion must pretend that it came to them through some exclusive revelation. They do not like to be reminded that it merely derives from some other people’s original.”
I went back to the karwansarai that day, thinking: the Church is perhaps wise to demand faith and forbid reason in Christians. The more questions I ask, and the more answers I get, the less I seem to know of anything for certain. As I walked along, I scooped up a handful of snow from a snowbank I was passing, and I wadded it to a snowball. It was round and solid, like a certainty. But if I looked at it closely enough, its roundness really was a dense multitude of points and corners. If I held it long enough, its solidness would melt to water. That is the hazard in curiosity, I thought: all the certainties fragment and dissolve. A man curious enough and persistent enough might find even the round and solid ball of earth to be not so. He might be less proud of his faculty of reasoning when it left him with nothing whereon to stand. But then again, was not the truth a more solid foundation than illusion?
I forget whether it was on that day or another that I got back to the karwansarai to find that my father and Nostril had returned from their journey. The Hakim Khosro was there, too, and they were gathered about the sickbed of Uncle Mafio, all talking at once.
“ … Not in the city called Kabul. The Sultan Kutb-ud-Din now has a capital far to the southeast of there, a city called Delhi … .”
“No wonder you were gone so long,” said my uncle.
“ … Had to cross the vasty mountains, through a pass called the Khaibar …”
“ … Then clear across the land called Panjab …”
“Or properly Panch Ab,” the hakim put in, “meaning Five Rivers.”
“ … But worth the effort. The Sultan, like the Shah of Persia, was eager to send gifts of tribute and fealty to the Khakhan … .”
“ … So we now have an extra horse, laden with objects of gold and Kashmir cloth and rubies and …”
“But more important,” said my father, “how fares our patient Mafìo?”
“Empty,” growled my uncle, scratching his elbow. “From one end I have coughed out all my sputum, from the other I have spewed out every last turd and fart, and in between I have sweated out every last bead of perspiration. I am also infernally tired of being stuck all over wih paper charms and powdered all over like a bignè bun.”
“Otherwise, his condition is unchanged,” the Hakim Khosro said soberly. “My efforts to assist nature in a cure have not availed much. I am happy you are all together again, for I now wish you all to go from this place, and take the patient even closer to nature. Up, into the high mountains to the east, where the air is more clear and pure.”
“But cold,” my father objected. “As cold as charity. Can that be good for him?”
“Cold air is the cleanest air,” said the hakim. “I have determined that, by close observation and professional study. Witness: people who live in always cold climates, like the Russniaks, are a clean white of skin color; in hot climates, like the Indian Hindus, dirty brown or black. We Pakhtuni, living midway, are a sort of tan color. I urge you to take the patient, and take him soon, to those cold, clean, white mountain heights.”
When the hakim and we helped Uncle Mafio get up and get out of the goatskin wrappings and get dressed for the first time in weeks, we were dismayed to see how thin he had become. He looked even taller in his suddenly oversized clothes than he had seemed before, when his burliness had strained his clothes at the seams. He was also pale instead of ruddy, and his limbs were tremulous from disuse, but he proclaimed himself tremendously glad to be up and about. And later, in the hall of the karwansarai, when we dined that night, he bellowed to the other diners, in a voice as stentorian as ever, asking for the latest word on the mountain trails to the eastward.
Men from several other karwan trains responded, and told us of current conditions, and gave us much advice relevant to mountain travel. Or we hoped the advice was relevant, but we could not be sure, since no two of our informants seemed to agree on even the name of those mountains east of here.
One man said, “Those are the Himalaya, the Abode of the Snows. Before you go up into them, buy a phial of poppy juice to carry. In case of snowblindness, a few drops in the eyes will relieve the pain.”
And another man said, “Those are the Karakoram, the Black Mountains, the Cold Mountains. And the snow-fed waters up there are cold at all seasons of the year. Do not let your horses drink, except from a pail in which you have warmed the water a little, or they will be convulsed by cramps.”
And another said, “Those are the mountains called Hindu Kush, the Hindu Killers. In that hard terrain, a horse sometimes gets rebellious and unmanageable. Should that occur, simply tie the hair of the horse’s tail to its tongue, and it will quieten on the instant.”
And another said, “Those mountains are the Pai-Mir, meaning the Way to the Peaks. The only forage your horses will find yonder is the slate-colored, strong-smelling little shrub called burtsa. But your horses will always find it for you, and it is also good fuel for a fire, being naturally full of oil. Oddly enough, the greener it looks, the better the burtsa burns.”
And another said, “Those mountains are the Khwaja, the Masters. And up there the Masters make it impossible for you to lose your direction, even in the thickest storm. Just remember that every mountain is barren on its south face. If you see any trees or shrubs or growth at all, it is on the mountain’s north face.”
And another said, “Those mountains are the Muztagh, the Keepers. Try to get completely through and out of them before spring becomes summer, for then begins the Bad-i-sad-o-bist, the terrible Wind of One Hundred and Twenty Days.”
And yet another man said, “Those mountains are Solomon’s Throne, the Takht-i-Sulaiman. If you should encounter a whirlwind up there, you may be sure it issues from some cavern nearby, the den of one of the demons banished into that exile by the good King Solomon. Simply find that cavern and stop it with boulders, and the wind will die.”
So we packed and we paid for our keep and we said some goodbyes to those with whom we had got acquainted and again we moved on, my father and uncle and Nostril and I, riding our four mounts and leading a packhorse and two extra packhorses loaded with a princely amount of valuables. We went straight east from Balkh, through villages named Kholm and Qonduz and Taloqan, which seemed to exist only as marketplaces for the horse breeders who inhabit that grassy region. Everybody thereabout raises horses and is continually trading breed stallions and brood mares with his neighbors at the markets. The horses are fine ones, comparable to Arabians, though not so dainty in the shape of the head. Every breeder claims that his stock are descended from Alexander’s steed Bucephalas. Every breeder makes that claim for his stock only, which is ridiculous, with all the trading that goes on. Anyway, I never saw any horses there that had the peacock tail worn by Bucephalas in the illuminations to The Book of Alexander that I had pored over in my youth.