That year, the rainy season was even shorter than the year before, and afterward the land grew somewhat green; but soon the sun’s heat withered the greenery. People still relied on wheat for nourishment, cooking it in pots and eating it. Then they realized that wheat, too, was becoming scarce, […]

Rud still did not know what adverse effects that event would bring upon the lives of the people of Sialk and the inhabitants of other Iranian towns, including the people of Giyan. The first harmful consequence of the lake’s desiccation was that the people of Sialk were plagued by insects—especially […]

The earth kept trembling, the birds and the forest animals fled, and the lake churned as great, towering waves crashed against the hills. The Iran-ban shouted for everyone to reach the hilltops and lift their children upward. When the people of Sialk gathered atop the hill, they were so terrified […]

On the day Zab mounted the horse in that city and rode from one side to the other, the mouths of Giyan’s people fell open in astonishment; for until that day they had not seen a creature whose upper part resembled a human yet had four long limbs and could […]

From the day the crowing of the rooster was first heard in Sialk, when Rud was seen beneath the olive trees on the slope of the hill by the lake, two great changes took place in the life of her people. The first was that they began to use a […]