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.
At this season, the grazing lands were covered by snow, so we could not see how the verdure thinned out as we went eastward. But we knew it did so, because the ground under the snow got pebbly, then rocky, and the villages ceased to be, and there was only an infrequent and inadequate karwansarai along the trail. After we had passed the last village, a cluster of piled-stone huts which called itself Keshem, in the foothills preceding the mountains, we had to make our own stopping places perhaps three nights out of four. That was not an idyllic way to live, sleeping under tents and under our chapons in snow and chill and wind, and generally having to dine on dried or salted travel rations.
We had worried that the outdoor life would be especially hard on Uncle Mafio. But he made no complaint even when we healthier ones did. He maintained that he was feeling better in that sharp, cold air, as the Hakim Khosro had predicted, and his cough had lessened and did not lately bring up any blood. He allowed the rest of us to take over what heavy work had to be done, but he would not let us shorten the marches on his account, and each day he sat his saddle or, on the rougher stretches, walked beside his horse, as indefatigably as any of us. We were not hurrying, anyway, for we knew we would have to halt for the rest of the winter as soon as we came up against the mountain ramparts. Also, after a while on that hard trail, living on hard rations, the rest of us were nearly as gaunt as Uncle Mafio was, and not eager to exert ourselves. Only Nostril kept his paunch, but it looked now less integral to him, like a separate melon he was carrying under his clothes.
When we came to the Ab-e-Panj River, we followed its broad valley upstream to the eastward, and from then on we were going uphill, ever higher above the level of the rest of the world. To speak of a valley ordinarily brings to mind a depression in the earth, but that one is many farsakhs wide and is lower only in relation to the mountains that rise far off on either side of it. If it were anywhere else in the world, that valley would not be on the world, but immeasurably far above it, high among the clouds, unseeable by mortal eyes, unattainable, like Heaven. Not that the valley resembles Heaven in any way, I hasten to say, it being cold and hard and inhospitable, not balmy and soft and welcoming.
The landscape was unvarying: the wide valley of tumbled rocks and scrub growth, all humped under quilts of snow; the white-water river running through; and far away on both sides the tooth-white, tooth-sharp mountains. Nothing ever changed there but the light, which ranged from sunrises colored like gilded peaches to sunsets colored like roses on fire, and, in between, skies so blue they were near to purple, except when the valley was roofed by clouds of wet gray wool wringing out snow or sleet.
The ground was nowhere level, being all a clutter of boulders and rocks and talus that we had to thread our way around or gingerly make our way across. But, apart from those ups and downs, our continuous climb was imperceptible to our sight, and we might almost have supposed that we were still on the plains. For, each night when we stopped to camp, the mountains on either horizon seemed identically high to those of the night before. But that was only because the mountains were getting higher, the farther we climbed that up-sloping valley. It was like going up a staircase where the banister always keeps pace with you and, if you do not look over, you do not realize that everything beyond is dropping down and away from you.
Nevertheless, we had various means of knowing that we were climbing all the time. One was the behavior of our horses. We two-legged creatures, when we occasionally dismounted to walk for a while, might not have been physically aware that each step forward was also a trifle higher, but the animals with legs fore and aft knew well that they always stood or moved at an incline. And, horses having good sense, they slyly exaggerated their trudging walk to make it seem a plodding labor, so that we would not press them to move faster.