Free The Ports and Portals of the Zelaznids by Dr. Paul-Thomas Ferguson Page A

trudged up a steep path.  Then I saw a curtained doorway, faintlie illumined by a yellow light from within.  This light grew brighter as the old man drew back the curtain and swept his hand forward , bidding me enter.
         It was a modest hovel, not altogether different from those I had seen in a dozen poor villages .   In size, I calculated that its length matched the heights of four men, and it s width, three men.  The floor was hard-packed dirt, covered with reeds, atop which were various blankets and cushions.  The curved walls were made of tanned hide.  In the centre of th is single room - a rather incongruous addition given the humble s urroundings - was a cast-iron stove , its metal pipe extending through the peaked roof.  The light in the room came from a small oil lamp on a low table , though it did not seem possible to me that the light that I had seen in the darkness could have come from this diminutive source.
         “ Welcome to my home.”
         “Where are the others?” I asked him.
         “Did I speak of others?” he smiled.
         “You did indeed when you called this ‘our mountain’.”
         The old man nodded, “Yes, there are others, but you need not concern yourself with the m .  Now is the time for you to rest.”
         “But how,” I asked, “do you survive in such a place?”
         He did not at first answer, but met my gaze with his dark and weathered face, the weak yellow glow of the lamp deepening the lines up on it .
         “Let us first,” he whispered, “ discuss what you seek in these mountains.”
         B ecause he was my host , I told him of my travels , sparing no detail.  I spoke of my desire to hear the voice of the people, to record their stories, and to take something of them with me so that I might show their hearts and souls to a world that otherwise would never know them.   As I spoke, he looked at me and nodded, though whether this was from understanding or habit I could not say.
         “And what if you could not show these things to the world, as you say?”
         “I do not understand what you mean.”
        “I mean,” he explained, “if you knew that you might never tell others of the voices you have heard , or the stories you have learned, would you then be so anxious to hear and learn such things?”
         I considered t his a moment then shrugged, “I sought such knowledge long before I thought to write of it.  If I was unable to write or speak, I would yet endeavor to learn all that I might .”
         Here the old man’s eyes closed and his head bowed.  When he looked up at me, it seemed as though he had sh ed decades of age, looking everie inch a man of vigour and intelligence.
         “Learn all that you may?  And so you shall.  I am called Father Hooshyar, and I am the leader of the Zelaznids.”
     
    T
    hey lived, the Zelaznid peoples, in the mountains high above the cit tie of Astrábád, where the deep brown hills meet the river Attuk, in th e valley that the y called Quiqanyu.  As I have said, this was not a great and fertile land, but it served the needs of the people, even though the y numbered in the hundreds.  I t would be some time before I learned how they accomplished this ; first I needed to earn their trust.
         In the beginning, I saw no one but Hooshyar, who knew enough of men to see into their hearts.  He thus saw that I told the truth, and so, through him, I came to know the Zelaznid peoples as had no outsider before me.
         I remained in the old man’s hut for more than a month, learning from the mouth of Hooshyar the historie of his people.  This consisted of those stories which I have alreadie related in these pages, as well as those events which had transpired since the disappearance of the Zelaznid peoples from the village of Sang-e.  The storie, in brief, was this.
         The reunited Zelaznid people, upon hearing that the soldiers