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Continuation of White City of Zerzura. And Gordon, to his shame, could not stand upright. The Arab flashed decaying teeth. 'You are sick in the stomach and not a rider much. We rest until it is cooler. ' Where?' Gordon looked wildly round at the stifling and treeless land, totally missing a small sheltering wall, built long ago for this very purpose. The Arab extended its shade with his saddle rugs. From his bag, he took flat bread, goat cheese, and dry maggotty dates, which Gordon refused, gagging. assing the water carrier he said, 'You must drink. A little, many times.' Gordon's head was stabbing with pain. He lay down, collapsing into a thick, liquid darkness out of which a skull grinned back at him. The empty eye sockets smirked as its teeth clacked, 'I, Death, am mirror of your heart - you gaze on your life's masterpiece. Compassionless, shall you find joy? Only Love's friends shall look on Peace.' With super-human effort, he struggled back into consciousness of stifling heat, the camel's stink, and two stones being clacked together in a simple rhythm, by the young man as he droned away to himself. 'Where are you taking me? I demand to know.' 'Demand? What rights do you have?' The Arab was smiling. It was not a pleasant smile. 'I,' Gordon said firmly, 'I am an important oil engineer from Britain.' He bit his lip. What stupidity! This Islamic fanatic would now demand higher ransom. 'Britain is a first-class power. Our trade is essential to your country's prosperity. If you do not release me unharmed, your country will be penalised and you and your friends will be hunted to death.' The young man stretched his arms wide. 'This desert has swallowed up whole armies. Even the combined missiles of Britain and America will not annihilate it.' He removed a piece of date from decaying teeth with the point of a slender knife. 'We travel, you and I, to the lost City of Zerzura, milk-white as the dove of peace, resting beside its tree-lined lake. Its gates are locked, but at the entrance stands Horus with a silver key in his beak. Open, enter, but do not wake the inhabitants from their cursed slumber. Take only the treasure, as much as you can carry, and leave in silence. Never return, never return to the city of the sleeping dead.' ' Zerzura? I go to Dakhla.' The man might or might not be a bandit, but he was certainly insane. The Arab put down his stones calmly, saying, 'Your Royal Geographic Society of London once debated the site of Zerzura. Englishmen died searching this desert. And I alone know where it lies under the moving sand barkhans. I will give you a handful of its treasure, oh engineer from Cool Britannia.' He resaddled the camel. 'Time to travel.' Darkness came. A deep darkness, where rain-empty clouds drifted slowly across the skies, veiling the moon and the distant stars. The camel was warm as a rocking chair; the madman's chanting, mere background musack. Then Gordon was fully awake. The clouds had cleared and a bright moon shone on the white towers of Zerzura's gates, immediately in front of him. High as the camel's head, a stone falcon gazed directly into his eyes. He snatched the key from its beak and the carved wooden doors swung open onto a long empty street full of grey moon shadows. Walls crowded in on the two treasure seekers, walls pale as icebergs in the night chill. Only the black windows in upper storeys affirmed that people lived in these monstrous structures. Guide and camel strode steadily on until they paused by a tall tower. 'Kneel! Kneel!' Gordon ordered the camel in excitement. As he staggered to the ground, he wondered for the first time why this stranger was offering riches so freely to a despicable westerner. Surely, it was a trap but he was as excited by the lure of heaped treasures as if he was a child again, so he went boldly into the tower room. It was more fabulous than the stories of his youth. 'Take what you want,' and his guide handed him a leather bag. Rejecting the lure of huge goblets of gold, ceremonial swords with tarnished silver scabbards and jewellery fit for a president's wife, he crammed gold coins into the bag. As he left a chunk of raw gold caught his eye as it glittered in the moonlight. 'Take it too,' said the Arab, smiling greasily as he handed it to Gordon. As the engineer forced it into his pocket, he continued, 'Keep them very safe, important oilman from the first class military power.' As Gordon prepared to remount, a group of urchins ran towards him, hands outstretched their eyes, long lashed eyes, beseeching. They were thin, black as the night sky, their legs and arms striated with white scars. Their heads were hairless; their bellies extended like the thousand images from Rwanda, Kosova, Ethiopia. 'Oh God!' he cried aloud, forgetting the Berber's warning. He opened the bag and scattered its contents among the children. 'Take them, take them,' he implored them. 'Be happy, well-fed . . .' But the wraiths opened toothless mouths, shouting silent abuse, grabbing with translucent hands at Gordon's legs as his guide pushed him onto the camel, slapping it so it rose swiftly, almost unseating him. They raced along the road with the children swooping and diving at their heels, until they came at last to a ghost grey wall with a small exit doorway, a perfect example of Arabic keyhole design. Round it, were intricate traceries of curvilinear letters, whose meaning was suddenly, clear to Gordon. 'Honour the orphan; feed the needy; do not love wealth with an ardent love, and your Lord shall give to you and you shall be satisfied.' Gordon bent low on the camel's neck as it stepped delicately over the threshold and the children melted away like mist in the morning sun. The saddle squeaked and the sand whispered under the camel's feet as they padded on through the desert. The moon disappeared behind cloud again, and when Gordon looked back once, he could see nothing of Zerzura. Gradually dawn revealed a new landscape under a dry but overcast sky. The black topped yellow crags had disappeared, and in their place stretched a pure white limestone scarp that Gordon stupidly thought was snow before his eyes adjusted to reality. The Arab was singing again, 'He who gives to this world's poor, though all his life has been debased, shall stand among the loved of God - a child shall lead you into grace.' The Beloved of Allah? The nomad terrorists. The truth punched him in his sick and aching stomach - this insane activist was taking him to some secret hideaway and Gordon had stupidly given away all his ransom money. What use was such a gesture in a world like this? Then he remembered the gold ore in his pocket. He clutched at it, his passport back home. Then the Arab pointed south. 'Farafra Oasis. Halfway to Dakhla.' Suddenly Gordon could pick out the green of cultivation among tiny houses the colour of sand. Slowly, very slowly, the oasis drew nearer. 'At the petrol station you will no doubt find Ahmet of Baharia, anxious for your wellbeing.' Totally bewildered, Gordon fumbled in his pocket for a tip. The Arab smiled, knelt his camel, and helped Gordon down. Then he leapt onto the beast himself. As he rode back into the desert, he was still singing his senseless ditties, 'Awake, child soul! Cloud-covered moon, shine through the mist that veils his eyes! I am the Threshold - Love, pass through the keyhole door to Paradise.' The petrol station was churning out endless Arabic pop songs of men's virility and women's breasts as the Englishman staggered across the road. Sitting in his truck Ahmet of Baharia was talking to the garage owner. 'You are OK, sir. OK! I have been so troubled when you not arrive at Dakhla. The car? Break down? Where?' Gordon waved vaguely north. 'And how you come here?' Gordon described his guide and the two Egyptians conferred swiftly. Ahmet said, 'That will be Ismail, the camel trader. He knows all the desert routes.' 'His English was good,' said Gordon. 'Even his songs were in English.' He handed Ahmet all the cash he could spare, and gave him his address. 'I'll forward compensation.' 'It is my pleasure you are safe, sir.' 'Zerzura,' Gordon said. 'Why is this great city not on your maps?' 'Zerzura? No such place.' 'Great white walls, towers, and houses. Homeless children.' He put his hand in his pocket. 'Look what Ismail gave me.' Fool! to let them see his last gold stone. But he already had it on his palm. Ahmet was staring at his face and said gently, like one speaking to an idiot or a child, 'You have crossed the White Desert, sir, on your way here. A famous tourist attraction. It is limestone blocks, huge, strange shapes made by heating and freezing in the desert air. Only desert dogs live there ... and the white owls ... and in the sand, you will find these copro, er - coprolites. That is - stone like turd, sir.' Humiliated, Gordon, the oil-engineer and geologist said nothing. 'It is iron, sir. Some marcasite perhaps. Not very valuable, but very interesting. And when you arrive in Dakhla, remember to visit the Hotel Oasis which my brother owns.' Gordon hired a broken-down Farafra truck and drove slowly towards Dakhla. He was still bewildered and afraid. Something hard and bitter had been broken inside him, and he did not know how to deal with this new knowledge. He only knew that his well-planned future had dissolved like Zerzura, and tomorrow was chock-full of new opportunities. The two Egyptians watched his cloud of dust. Ahmet leaned against his truck. 'And why did he promise this extra to me?' he mused. 'Your hire car is a write-off.' 'My very thought.' His friend kicked the coprolite that Gordon had flung away. 'Lost city of Zerzura! A good joke!' 'So Ismail has developed a sense of humour!' They both roared with laughter. 'Ismail the crow singing English songs!' said Ahmet. 'Spice Girls on camels next!' 'But Ismail travels with his brother and many camels. Never alone.' Ahmet was thoughtful again. 'True.' 'He speaks no English.' The other nodded. 'So who was the saviour of that fool?' 'Who knows?' Ahmet's friend became serious. 'Allah has many servants to help those in trouble.' They both gazed out at the secretive and barren landscape beyond the palm tree gardens. His friend started giggling again. 'These tourists! The desert sends them mad.' 'I don't want any more mad tourists like that one,' said Ahmet, thinking of his hire car. 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