walked toward Hurmuzjard on the twelfth day, before dawn. The canal path was empty.
Dawn whitened the bricks of Hurmuzjard. The alleys filled with a sound had never heard from the inside — the scuff of sandals on packed earth, the slap of reins on donkey flanks, the low voices of men waking as they walked. The townspeople came out of their houses in a line, shoulders draped in bleached linen, arms loaded with flatbread and small oil skins. Children ran between the adults' legs, their bare feet stirring up dust that never settled. Flutes had already begun, far off, toward the south gate, a repetitive melody rising in fits through the still air.
stood at the edge of the main street, his back against the wall of a mudbrick house. He had left the plain before dawn, walked in darkness along the dried canal, skirting the city to the east to enter through the north gate. His sandals were full of hardened silt. His bag held the bronze axe he had taken from 's workshop on the day he left, the polished ash handle smelling of cedar.
A priest passed before him, carrying a smoking cup of incense. The priest's gaze slid over , paused a second on his dust-covered clothes, then moved on. He pressed toward the crowd pouring through the gates.
let himself be swept into the flow. Bodies pressed him. A woman struck his shoulder. An old man spat into the dust.
was ten paces away.
He walked with two craftsmen, his back bent, his tool bag on his shoulder. He did not turn around. He looked ahead. Toward the gate. Toward the feast.
lowered his eyes. The bag against his hip, heavy with his father's bronze, weighed more.
The flow separated them.
The south gate appeared, wide open, crowded with carts and donkeys. The sun climbed behind it, white and flat. The crowd poured through, pressed, toward the plain where the feast would last until evening. stopped three paces from the gate. Bodies kept passing around him, jostling him, brushing past.
A notable in a blue linen robe turned around. He saw standing still, his face turned toward the sky. The notable came closer.
"Aren't you coming?"
raised his eyes. The last stars were fading in the west, drowned in the white light. Nanna's crescent, thin and silver, was vanishing behind the edge of the sky. looked at it a long while, as though deciphering some invisible writing on the vault. The notable followed his gaze, uneasy. The astrologers of Ur read the stars at every dawn. A man who looked up like that, motionless, in a crowd that was leaving...
lowered his eyes. He said:
"I am sick."
The word fell low, almost inaudible amid the noise of the carts. Saqīm. The notable stepped back. His face tightened. He looked in the eyes, then at his clothes, then at his hands. He stepped back again. He turned toward the crowd and murmured something into a woman's ear. The murmur spread, fast, silent, like a crack in the silt. Plague. The plague. Bodies drew back. Those near pushed toward the gate, jostling, trampling children. A woman cried out. A man fell, got up, ran. In less than a minute, the street around was empty. The dust raised by the hooves still turned in the air, slow, gray.
stood still. He looked at the south gate. The last cart disappeared into the plain, dragging a fallen waterskin that bounced over the stones. Silence returned, different from the silence of the night. A silence of slammed doors, of dogs shut inside barking behind walls, of abandoned lamps smoking in empty houses. turned his back on the gate. He walked toward the center of the city.
The streets were deserted. For the first time, crossed Hurmuzjard without meeting a single gaze. He walked down the middle of the streets, not along the walls. His footsteps rang out on the worn clay flagstones. A door slammed somewhere in the wind. A dog barked at length, then fell silent. passed 's workshop. The door was shut, the latch down. He did not stop.
The temple stood at the center, the ziggurat looming over the flat rooftops. The great cedar doors stood open, as on every feast day, for the townspeople to leave their offerings before departing. crossed the threshold. He entered the inner courtyard, keeping to the left wall, not the center. His footsteps were silent on the stone flagstones.
A beggar slept against a pillar, one hand open on his belly. The waterskin at his feet was empty. He carried no spear. went around him. The smell of sour wine rose from his clothes.
The sanctuary opened before him, a long, low nave, vaulted in arched brick. The darkness was thick, broken only by the sesame-oil lamps burning on their copper stands, their yellow flames wavering in the draft. The smell of burnt incense and sheep fat stagnated, heavy, sweet, almost nauseating. The varnished brick columns lined up like silent guardians, their shadows dancing on the walls when the lamps trembled.
moved forward. His eyes adjusted. The idols stood out along the walls, dozens of them, arranged on stone pedestals. Some of cedar plated with thin gold leaf that reflected the light. Others of baked clay, painted in vivid colors flaked by time. Eyes of lapis lazuli, eyes of mother-of-pearl, crowns of sheep horn or copper. recognized his father's work on several of them — the curves of the cedar beneath the gold, the meticulous polish he himself had helped achieve in the workshop.
The offering tables spread before them, loaded with cold meats already beginning to set, fine flour cakes, and spoiled fruit. Flies buzzed, low, heavy, landing on the meats, flying off, returning. The sound was continuous, insistent, the only sound in the sanctuary.
stopped before a small clay idol, roughly his own height. The face was smooth, the eyes empty of lapis lazuli, the mouth a slit. He crouched before it. The offering table before his bare feet smelled of spilled honey and turning fat.
"Do you not eat?"
His voice was low, almost a murmur. It was lost in the buzzing of the flies. The idol did not move. Its stone eyes fixed on a point above 's head.
"What is wrong with you, that you do not speak?"
A fly landed on the clay forehead. It stayed a second, then flew off toward the meat.
stood. He took the axe from his bag. The ash handle was heavy, marked by the shape of 's grips. The blade, wide and short, had served for splitting hard wood. held it with both hands. The metal reflected the light of a nearby lamp.
He looked at the row of idols. The silence of the sanctuary thickened. The buzzing of the flies seemed to recede, becoming a distant background noise. He heard his own breath, steady, calm. Blood pounded at his temples. His fingers tightened on the handle.
He raised the axe.
The first blow struck the clay idol at the neck. The sound was sharp, brutal, enormous in the silence — a crack of dry clay, then the shock of the head falling on the stone flagstones and rolling. froze. He listened. The guard was still snoring, on the other side of the wall. The buzzing of the flies resumed, indifferent.
He approached the next one. Gilded cedar. He raised the axe. The blow entered the flank, splitting the wood, revealing the raw grain beneath the gold leaf. The crowned head broke free, rolled onto the offering table, dragged a cake down in its fall. The meat slid, hit the ground. The flies rose in a cloud, buzzing, furious.
He moved to the next. Black ebony. The bronze bounced on the hard wood, leaving a pale gash. He struck a second time. The wood gave, split in two, the mother-of-pearl eyes leaped from their sockets and rolled across the flagstones, white and blind. He struck a third time. The idol collapsed into two halves, the stone pedestal shaking under the impact.
He stopped. His arms burned. Sweat ran into his eyes, stinging. He wiped his brow with the back of his left hand, feeling the gold and clay dust mix there. He looked at what he had done. Three idols on the ground. Debris, stone eyes, fragments of gold thin as paper crumpling under his sandals. The air was thick with fine dust, white and golden, turning in the lamplight.
He pushed a lock of hair from his forehead. He approached the next one. Limestone. The axe slid on the smooth surface, deviating. The rebound jarred his wrists, cutting open his left palm. Blood ran, warm, down the ash handle. He did not stop. He struck at an angle, finding the edge. The stone shattered, sharp shards flying through the air, one fragment hitting his shoulder, tearing a hole in his tunic. He kept going.
The rhythm quickened. The crash became continuous, chopped by silences growing shorter and shorter. Wood splitting. Clay collapsing. Gold peeling away. Stone shattering. The offering tables overturned, meats mixing with the debris, cakes crushed under the feet of falling statues. The flies swirled in spirals, deafening, drowning the sound of the blows beneath their furious buzzing.
A soft-wood idol tipped over slowly, without a blow, striking another that fell in turn, dragging a cascade of three, four statues that collapsed in a crash of wood and gold. stopped, gasping. The blood on his palm had dried, gluing his hand to the handle. His muscles trembled. He drove the axe into the ground, just long enough to catch his breath.
A sound outside. Wheels on the courtyard flagstones. Voices. froze, the axe half-raised. His heart pounded against his ribs. The voices passed, distant, moving off toward the other side of the temple. The sound faded.
He approached the last idol.
It stood at the back of the sanctuary, alone and upright amid the wreckage. Taller than the others, three times the height of a man. It was the great god of the city, Nanna, crowned with three rows of bronze horns that cast crossed shadows on the vault. The body was covered with thick plates of gold nailed onto the cedar. Its lapis lazuli eyes, immense and ringed in silver, stared into the empty nave. Its gilded arms stretched forward, palms open above the broken tables. The lamplight danced on its metallic torso, giving it an immobile and heavy presence.
was out of breath. His arms hung at his sides, heavy, numb. Sweat glued his tunic to his back. He approached the pedestal. The polished gold reflected his silhouette, distorted, covered in white dust. He looked at the statue. The stone eyes seemed fixed on him, motionless and indifferent in the gloom.
He did not raise the axe.
He lifted the weapon by the leather strap hanging at his belt. He passed the strap around the statue's metal neck, just beneath the golden chin. The axe hung, heavy, the blade against the gilded chest, the ash handle swinging slowly. He stepped back three paces. He looked.
The wreckage. The debris. The stone eyes scattered about. The trampled meat. And in the middle, standing, untouched, the great idol with the axe at its neck.
He turned on his heel. He walked toward the sanctuary door. The guard was still snoring against his pillar. passed him, his footsteps silent on the courtyard flagstones. The cedar door closed behind him, slow, without a sound.
He took three steps. The dust of the temple was still on his sandals. His fingers were bruised by the axe's vibrations. The blood on his left palm had dried into a brown line.
He stopped.
A sound of wheels, in the distance. Then another. Then voices. Not the flutes of the feast. Low, weary voices, coming back.
The first cart appeared at the corner of the street. A donkey pulling a cart of white linen. Two women seated in the back, their veils lowered over their faces. The man leading the donkey raised his eyes. He saw standing in the middle of the street. He slowed. His eyes went from 's face to his hands, to the white dust on his shoulders, to his empty belt where 's axe no longer hung. The man clicked his tongue and passed without a word.
But behind him, the street filled quickly. Families, men with shoulders gray with dust, weary adolescents stopped. They recognized .
Silence settled, heavy and charged. A young man stepped sideways to block the corner of the street. Others followed him. Without cries, without aggressive gestures, they formed a dense half-circle, a wall of white linen thickening by the moment. They left an empty space of ten paces around , but that space was closing in slowly.
did not turn back toward the temple. He looked at the south gate at the end of the street, a hundred paces off, and at the sky darkening above it. His fingers closed around the empty leather buckle of his belt. Not to strike. To hold on.
The silence held.
They said: "Who has done this to our gods? He is indeed among the wrongdoers." They said: "We heard a young man mention them; he is called Abraham."
Surah Al-Anbiya, 21:59-60