Three Names of the Hidden God Read Online Free

terrified men. He watched as brother and sister stood above the body of their slain patriarch, both radiant in wicked, unearthly beauty. And something made him draw his gaze for a moment upon the closest gate of the temple, the one with the carved bird image.
    It was softly moving.
    The doors fell inward in silence, placing the shapes of the Qali and Qalia in silhouette against the gaping darkness revealed. Then, gasps came from the crowd on all directions of the structure. All four doors had opened, and the crowd noticed that the dark within was like a void, an infinite nothingness that pulled to itself.
    Out of that nothingness sounded a voice.
    A wrongful death , it said from all the four entrances, rumbling in deep echoes that sent shudders and raised hair along the skin of everyone in the crowd. One must now come forth and be punished, or you will all be.
    A pause and then there were cries among the multitude. “ The Hidden God speaks!”
    The young Qali who s tood before his father’s slain body, went still. His sister turned to stare at the gaping entrance, while the Qali’s and the late Qalif’s mingled bodyguards still had not reacted, restrained with indecision and split loyalties.
    But Lealla quickly searched the crowd and her gaze rested on Ruogo. She pointed at him suddenly, saying “You!” And then, to the nearest guards, “This one, this birdcatcher—quickly, take him inside the temple to satisfy the God!”
    Ruogo had no time to protest. He found himself alone as the crowd parted on both sides of him. And then two burly warriors of the qalifate took hold of his arms and bodily carried him to the temple.
    The doorway gaped and then he was pushed inside the ancient structure. And the next moment, doors shut behind hi m.
    Absolute darkness came like an ocean, and he, but a speck of seaweed floating many fathoms deep.
    And then the voice of the deity sounded, this time soft and intimate. You are not the one.
    Ruogo blinked, and somehow his stifling terror vanished, effaced by the cavernous peace of what was around him. Although his eyes were not acclimated to the night, he could almost perceive an outline of someone , a silhouette of a lesser degree of darkness among the perfect void.
    Ruogo stood, and it never occurred to him to kneel or make any mortal gestures of obeisance. This was a different, true place, requiring no ritual, no superfluous layers of meaning between man and god.
    “ I’m not the one—indeed, a no one,” Ruogo said to the god. “I was forced against my will to come before you. Not a hero, not a villain, just the wrong man at the wrong time.”
    As soon as you made the choice to open your mouth and speak out in defense of what is real, you were noticed and you became someone , said the Hidden God. Now, go back outside and bring me the dead body of the victim and the living body of the true murderer.
    “ But,” Ruogo said, “there are guards! They will not allow me! What can I, a poor birdcatcher, do?”
    Go!
    A thousand needles of pain and excitement hit him simultaneously and Ruogo could do nothing but obey as he turned around in the darkness and sprinted to where he last remembered the door.
    He pushed it open with a feather-touch. Remarkable, considering its weight.
    On the other side, there was sunlight and . . . birds .
    The worl d was filled with them.
    The birds blackened the sky like bees from a disturbed hive and covered the mud of the lakebed in varicolored speckled dots. They flew, rose, circled, sat and preened, fluttered around, pecked each other in anger, sped in pursuit, t eemed in madness. Sparrows, hawks, canaries, falcons, finches, eagles, pheasants, magpies, hummingbirds, parrots, jays, peacocks—Ruogo recognized these breeds and others with his practiced eye.
    There were no people.
    Only birds.
    Ruogo stood petrified at the entrance of the temple and considered what was to be done, and what miracle the Hidden God had wrought. His glance slid to the place