The Eye of Istar: A Romance of the Land of No Return

by William Le Queux

I had actually set foot in the forbidden Land of the No Return!

But it was already the hour of the maghrib, and the fast dying day showed that the time I had spent in the wonderful dwelling of the Great Devourer, was longer than I had imagined. Remembering that at that hour Azala had opened her lattice and breathed to me her silent message of love, I sank upon my knees, and turning in the direction of prayer, went through my sunset devotions with an earnest fervency which I fear was unusual, thanking Allah in a loud and thrice-repeated Fatiha. Rising, and lifting my hands to heaven, I uttered the words that pilgrims repeat before the Black Stone in the Holy Ca’aba: “There is no God but Allah alone, Whose Covenant is Truth, and Whose Servant is Victorious. There is no God but Allah without Sharer; His is the Kingdom, to him be Praise, and He over all Things is potent.”

Then, having kissed my fingers, I made a meal from bananas I plucked from a neighbouring tree, and having slacked my thirst at a tiny stream, the water of which was as cool as that of the well Zem Zem, I skirted the forest for a considerable distance, but finding my further progress barred by a wide river, that, emerging from the wood, ran in serpentine wanderings around the base of the high, inaccessible mountains, I was compelled to plunge into the forest. Upon the tablets of Semiramis, it was stated that the unknown city of Ea had been built at a spot fifteen marches towards the sunrise, therefore in that direction I proceeded.

At first, the forest was rendered dark and gloomy by the entangled bushes, but the trees soon grew thinner, yet more luxurious. Many of them were in blossom; many bore strange fruits that I had never before beheld; while the ground was carpeted with moss and an abundance of bright-hued flowers. Everywhere was an air of peaceful repose. Birds were chattering before roosting in the branches above, the rays of the sinking sun gilded the leaves and fell in golden shafts across my path, a bubbling brook ran with rippling music over the pebbles, and the air was heavily laden with the subtle scent of a myriad perfumes. Presently, when I had penetrated the belt of forest and emerged into the open grassland, I stood in amazement, gazing upon one of the fairest and most picturesque landscapes that my wondering eyes had ever beheld.

The country I had entered was the dreaded kingdom of the Myriad Mysteries; yet, judging from its fertility and natural beauties, it appeared to me more like the paradise our Korân promises for our enjoyment than a land of dread. Indeed, as I stood there in the cool sunset hour, amid the fruitful trees, sweet flowers and smiling plains, bounded far away by ranges of purple mountains, I doubt whether it would have surprised me to have met in that veritable garden of delights the black-eyed houris which the Book of Everlasting Will describes as dwelling in pavilions, among trees of mauz and lote-trees free from thorns. Such, indeed, I thought, must be the dwelling-place prepared for the Companions of the Right Hand, for are they not promised couches adorned with gold and precious stones, under an extended shade, near a flowing water, and amidst fruits of abundance which shall not fail nor shall be forbidden to be gathered?

Slowly turning, I gazed back upon the Rock of Sin, the Moon-god, the name of which in the centuries that had passed had been so strangely corrupted by Arabs and pagans alike, and noticed that although from where I stood its summit looked similar in form to its aspect from the other side of the Lake of the Accursed, yet it was not so lofty here, and evidently this hitherto undiscovered region was considerably higher than the countries surrounding it, although even here the mountains forming its boundary were of great altitude, many of their summits being tipped with snow. Dark, frowning and mysterious, the rock rose high among the many peaks of the unknown range, while behind the giant crests to the left the western sky was literally ablaze, and the sun, having already disappeared, caused them to loom darkly in the shadows.

Out upon the plain I passed, keeping still to eastward, but soon the light blue veil of the mountains before me became tinted with violet and indigo, and finally settled into leaden death. Then night crept on, and the stars shone bright as diamonds in a sultan’s aigrette. During several silent hours I could discover no sign of man, but at length, when I had crossed the plain, with the moon lighting my footsteps like a lamp, I approached, at the foot of a hill, a wonderful colonnade of colossal stone columns, some of which had broken off half-way up and fallen, while across the quaintly-sculptured capitals of others there still remained great square blocks that had once supported a roof. Here and there in the vicinity were other columns, singly, and in twos and threes, while the intervening ground was covered with débris, over which crept a growth of tangled vegetation, as if striving to hide the ravages of time.

The great ruin, apparently of an ancient palace or temple, stood in desolate grandeur, ghostly in the white moonlight, while behind rose verdant hills, steep and difficult of ascent. Approaching close to the columns, through a mass of fallen masonry and wildly-luxuriant verdure, I examined them, and was struck by the enormous size of the blocks of stone from which they had been fashioned, and the curious and grotesque manner in which they had been sculptured with figures. The art was of the same character on these monoliths as upon the tablet of Semiramis, the beautiful and brilliant queen who was worshipped as a goddess. There were many representations of the Assyrian deity, and in places lines of cuneiform writing, but the suns and rains of ages had almost obliterated them, and had also caused much damage to the sculptured figures.

In the silence of the brilliant night I stood beneath those amazing relics of a forgotten civilisation and pictured the departed magnificence of the wonderful structure. There remained portions of an enormous gateway, with giant winged human figures carved out of huge blocks of stone; and on examining one of these I found a portion of an inscription, in long, thin lines of arrowheads, easily decipherable in the full light of the moon. After a little difficulty I succeeded in reading it as follows:—

“In the beginning of my everlasting reign there was revealed to me a dream. Merodach, the Great Lord, and Sin, the Illuminator of Heaven and Earth, stood round about me. Merodach spake to me, ‘O Semiramis, Queen of Babylon, with the horses of thy chariot come, the bricks of the House of Light make, and the Moon, the Great Lord within it caused to be raised his dwelling.’ Reverently I spake to the lord of the gods, Merodach, ‘This house, of which thou speakest, I will build, and the temple shall be the dwelling of the Moon-god in Ea’.”