Sabhadiq

Lost City of the Sands

In Nemedian tradition, Sabhadiq (/.sɑːb ħaˈdiːk/; Nemidic: σαβε αλ’Ηαδαύιϙ, “Seven Gardens”) is a long lost city which once stood as an important and prosperous market stop on the Spice Road, deep within the Empty Sector of the Alcafran Desert. According to several common versions of the legend, Sabhadiq was destroyed by a natural disaster as a punishment from God. Other iterations of the story suggest the city thrives even today, shielded from the view of modern outsiders by a mystical force that is considered both a blessing and a curse by its inhabitants.

In all retellings of the tale, Sabhadiq is described as a city endowed with wealth and prosperity beyond imagination, possessed of a treasury bursting with gold, silver and precious gemstones of every type and size. But despite its long history and great power, excessive pride and defiance of divine authority ultimately led to the city’s obliteration. Scholars often suggest Sabhadiq may be an earlier name for the Kalimaic city of Aruum, whose King Mutahad dared to defy God, and therefor suffered the wrathful vengeance of Anahu'ana.

The legend of Sabhadiq entered western literature along with many other Nemedian folk tales in the early eighteenth centurí, when it was included in Volume 1 of André Guimond’s translation of The Nemedian Nights, published in 1706. The legend is retold in “The Story of Faizel bin Karim and the City of Gold,” wherein a young boy, searching for a she-camall gone astray, stumbles upon a wondrous abandoned city, implied to be Sabhadiq, where he discovers a trove of gold and pearls. The story created great interest in the fabled lost city, which has continued even into modern times.

Etymology

The name Sabhadiq is derived from the Nemidic sabe (σαβε, “seven”) + hadiq (ηαδιϙ, “garden”). The name Aruum comes from ar’Ruum, the Nemidic name for the southern Beidúin tribe known in the West as the Aruumites, presumed to be from the area of Wadi ar’Ruum (origin unknown).

Description

In the written record, as well as oral tradition, Sabhadiq is described as a magnificent city of 50,000 souls located in the very heart of al’Qit-ar’Farig at the convergence of seven well-traveled camall paths. Surrounded by the sand sea, it was the only source of water within seven days’ distance in any direction. Girded by an imposing white wall, its seven gilt iorn gates stood 40 dihrae (nearly 20 yds) tall and were protected by seven high towers. Seven palaces of gold were occupied by the king, his family, his harim and his viziers, and seven palaces of silver housed the seven great families of the tribe.

The streets were lined with tall dát-pailms and all manner of fruit-laden tree. Monuments of bronz and marbal adorned all the high places. Seven streams coursed through the city, flowing from seven fountains fed by seven springs. Seven merchant caravans entered the city every day, carrying precious goods and wares from throughout the Jeneb, to be bought and sold at the Bazar al’Kabir, as the Great Market in the center of the city was called. And seven caravans departed every day as well, heading north along the Spice Road to trade in foreign lands, or returning home with their profits, or laden with imported goods procured through shrewd trading.

The city was led by a proud and decisive Malik, respected by his people and feared by his enemies, sometimes called “King Mut” and other times called “King Ghur.” His Malaka, Queen Barrah, was renowned far and wide for her virtue, piety and beauty. The people of Sabhadiq were protected by a powerful army consisting of 1000 swordsmen, 1000 spearmen, 1000 archers, 1000 slingers and 1000 charioteers, and the city had not been attacked in living memory.

The Legend

In the age that followed the Inundation, after the death of Nuh, King Mut (also called Ghur) ruled over the city of Sabhadiq. Ancient, and prosperous by virtue of its advantageous location on the fabled Spice Road, the city had amassed enormous riches, and its vaults were filled with gold and silver, sumptuous oils, fine textiles, precious gemstones and other rare and exotic treasures, all of which endowed its king with great prestige and power.

As time passed, many visitors to the city – travelers and pilgrims, merchants and traders, emissaries and ambassadors from foreign lands – sought favor from King Mut through flattery and sycophancy, playing upon his vanity by extolling his virtues and reckoning him as the source of the city’s prosperity and prominence in the world. Each obsequience added length to King Mut’s ghitaˈ, and in the fullness of time his was the largest ghitaˈ ever seen. It was then that King Mut, in his prideful mind, conceived the notion that he was lord of all the world, and deserved a monument befitting his station.

So King Mut convened all the Sheiks of the eUshayra and revealed to them his decree that they should build for him in the center of the city a tower of red jaspis, to a height of 1000 dihrae, and adorned with glittering diamaints, rúibís, emarailds and péarls. Atop the tower they were to place an idol of his likeness, cast of pure gold, so that all who gazed upon it would recognize Mut as King of the World.

For seven times seven years the people labored on King Mut’s Tower. During all that time, the Priest, Ali al’Kahin, and the Sage, Maryamia, counseled King Mut to abandon his vainglorious project. Yet the king would not relent. When the time finally came to place the golden idol at the apex of the tower, Ali al’Kahin and Maryamia pleaded with the king to erect a monument to God in its place, which enraged King Mut, who had them slain on the spot.

No sooner had the golden idol of Mut been placed atop the shining red tower, than the skies became black, and the ground began to shudder. At that moment the wrath of God rained down from the heavens upon the city of Sabhadiq, toppling King Mut’s Tower, and all the palaces and houses along with it, and the walls of the city too, with their seven towers and seven gates, until nothing was left standing. And then a fierce Riyahramli blew for seven days, obscuring all traces of the city beneath the desert’s shifting sands.

In the alternative conclusion, the city was not destroyed. Rather, the seven day Riyahramli pressed sand against the gates of the city, sealing them forever, and scoured away the seven roads leading to them. God then set a Ru’hirasa there, armed with a sword of fire and a shield of light, to safeguard that no traveler or trader would ever find the way to Sabhadiq again. And though the people of the city live on in the comfort and splendor of their vast and ancient wealth, their lack of intercourse with the outside world has left them frozen in time, doomed to remain locked in the ancient ways, passed over by the modern world.

History

It remains a point of contention among modern historians whether Sabhadiq ever existed as an actual city at all. Some relegate the matter to the realm of myth and fantasy. Yet others acknowledge the long historical record that took the reality of the place for granted, and remain open to the possibility that the legend may indeed be grounded in fact.

Ancient References

Firhúlah of Prudon¹ (c. 60 BCS – c. 24 CA), the ancient Raionian geographer, philosopher and historian who lived in Pithicasia and Érevon during the late Mílesian Age, includes a place he calls Margaˈmór anˈFhásaigh (“Great Desert Market”) in the lengthy account of the Jeneb contained in his Geográfaíocht (“Geography”), a descriptive history of the nations of the world known during his lifetime. Some scholars believe that may be a reference to Sabhadiq.

Many historians and theologians believe the destruction of the city of Aruum, described in the Kalima as an example of God’s vengeance against transgressors, is a reference to Sabhadiq.

The mid-ninth century Cyrontian al-Kindi Map places a city called Megále Emporía (Μεγάλη Εμπορία) in the Alcafran Desert. Most cartographers agree it is meant to depict the location of Sabhadiq, but cannot agree on the accuracy of its placement. Several modern adventurers have used the al-Kindi Map as a guide for their exploration in search of the lost city.

The Götterheim Landkarte, published in 1433 by Rüdiger Meindl, shows a walled city called Rum in the eastern Alcafran.

Modern Exploration

The introduction of Sabhadiq to a western audience through The Nemedian Nights resulted in a fervor to learn more about the exotic desert lands of the east, contributing to the development of the young science of archaeology and triggering a wave of exploration that has continued into modern times.

While serving as a colonel with the intelligence forces of the Western Alliance during the 1913 – 1914 Alcafran Campaign, noted Alamnian archeologist, explorer and writer E.T. Torrance (1888 – 1935), known to history as “Torrance of Nemedia,” heard for the first time the legend of Sabhadiq, and took an immediate interest in the place. It became his lifelong obsession to find the lost city.

Inspired by the Great Desert Race of 1931, Sir Prescott Blevins, who in 1921 became the first westerner to cross the Alcafran desert from east to west on camallback, claimed to have been shown on that journey a wide track, said to be the way to a lost city whose wicked people had been destroyed by the wrath of God. He set out in the spring of 1932 to find the forgotten road, which he had marked on a map, and to follow it in search of the riches of Sabhadiq. He found no lost city in the sands, but did relate his adventure in a letter to Torrance, who commented at the time that the best way to search for Sabhadiq would be by airship.²

In 1935, Torrance himself set out on a well-financed expedition to find the lost city of Sabhadiq utilizing a caravan of half-track vehicles. Celebrated as the first mechanized attempt to locate the elusive fabled city, the caravan of five Citron DT-325s set out across the red sands of the Alcafran Desert from the oasis town of ˈalf Nakhil on 9 Marts 1935, never to be heard from again. No trace of the 1935 Torrance Expedition has ever been found.

In 1942, Salizean archeologist Eugen Auer set out in search of the lost city, but instead of finding the ruins of a large settlement, he found only scant evidence of an ancient tower and a portion of a wall dating back 2000 years, adjacent to a deep circular hollow in the ground that appeared to be the remains of an extinct volcano or the remnants of a meteorite impact. Scientists have since confirmed a third centurí impact event as the most likely cause of the depression in the sands. Excavation at the site remains ongoing.

---

¹ Called “Stavrota” in the East.
² No such effort has ever been undertaken.

Sabhadiq

σαβε αλ’Ηαδαύιϙ

---

LOST CITY

---

The Lost City of Sabhadiq (Artist's Rendering)

Do you not know the punishment of Mutahad?
Do you forget how Anahu'ana smote the Aruumites?
Remember proud Aruum of the seven lofty gates –
Of the seven great fountains and the seven golden palaces,
Oppressor of her people and corrupt of heart.
So Anahu'ana poured upon her the scourge of punishment.
Remember Anahu'ana, observer of all nations.

^{-- Kashifat alˈKalima, Fasl alˈSahwa, 8 - 14}

---

^{Image Credits:
Credit: frenta / Adobe Stock}