In that era, oasis citizens learned about houses that shelter women who offer enjoyment to any man who pays her a fee.
Back in that era, too, the hero — Ah’llum — left the oasis, led by one of his slaves. He pronounced a withering jeremiad before slipping through the Gate of the Western Hammada, where the wasteland swallowed him once and for all. It was said back then that the hero had decided to save himself. The original ancestors had been the first to warn against lingering long on an earth where there were many women, because women were like armies of locusts, which inevitably bring disaster when they enter the homes of a people.
Forgetful folks did not know that prophecy in the desert travels only via the tongues of the blind. People from ancient times have learned from experience that only a person who has lost his sight is granted the blessing of insight. For this reason, the sages believed in blind clairvoyants and disavowed sighted claimants to prophecy. For this reason, too, blind diviners were the most renowned in the desert; they did not err in seeing — in their tenebrous darkness — what the Spirit World was planning.
4
The wait for the prophecy did not last long.
The wait for the prophecy was not prolonged, because the Unknown, which administers its affairs in the Spirit World, ignores fools who are beguiled by a fraudulent blessing they mistake for an eternal paradise. The Unknown, which weaves together threads of danger in dark crannies, pays no heed when stupid men rely on enjoyment and devote themselves to lethal fun and games that spawn lassitude. Ignoble lassitude — which spares no one who succumbs to it — makes a fool of, dandles, and seduces its victim till he is reassured by its embraces. Then it draws the sword of danger from its scabbard and plunges the blade in the victim’s throat up to the hilt.
Stupid men drowned in luxury and yielded to the embrace that claimed it would grant them lost happiness. Then, like specters disguised as belles, it led them astray only to cast them into the mouth of the dragon. The ignoble specter plucked memory from the minds of the griots, replacing it with forgetfulness. This was evident when they forgot the first commandment, which says that woman resembles a serpent, whose evil threatens you until you decapitate it, and that you behead a woman by beheading the man who stands behind her.
No one knows how that happened.
No one knows how one of these men abducted the daughter of the leader from Azjirr. This dread hero gathered armies from all the tribes and marched them to besiege the miserable oasis in a manner unprecedented in all the desert’s long history.
The sorcerer awoke at dawn one day and mounted the roof terrace of his fortress as he normally did each morning. Then by the dawn’s dim light, he found encircling the walls from every direction — swarming like locusts — as many soldiers as there are pebbles. The empty countryside was black with them all the way to the farthest horizons.
THE BEAUTY
1
Couriers from the raiding warriors arrived shortly after daybreak with a message for the governor of the oasis. They dismounted and approached the sorcerer to present him with the strangest message. From a linen wrapper, they produced a ravishing doll that represented a beautiful young woman, whose large, kohl-rimmed eyes gleamed with a captivating smile. Her oval cheeks, which were fashioned from an elephant’s tusk, were rouged a dark red. Braids of black hair cascaded from her head to fall over a jutting breast as taut as a bowstring. A kerchief the blood red color of a sorrel hibiscus blossom was fastened around her head. Her loose-fitting dress, which was gleaming white, was adorned with talismanic designs embroidered with silk thread. Around her ivory neck hung a massive necklace made of coral imported from countries situated on the seashores of the North.
The dazzled sorcerer examined the doll and murmured in the whisper a person uses to address himself: “This is the most ingenious doll I’ve ever seen! This is the most marvelous one I’ve ever encountered!” Then the couriers handed him the second half of the message: a genuine skull — depressing and dark — that dirt and time had ravaged, corroding its bones in places. The uncanny sign in its empty eye sockets would certainly have afflicted with tremors anyone who saw it. This skull was wrapped in a worn snakeskin, which the sorcerer removed. A pronounced pallor crept across his face, and he muttered with alarm he did not succeed in hiding: “What’s this?”
But the couriers did not respond to his question with a single word. They left him — as he clutched the doll in his right hand and the skull in the left — and rode away.
2
The leader ordered the oasis’s covens of diviners to be brought to him and then placed the message before them. He stood over them, waiting for their interpretation. Although enthusiasts, counterfeiters, and imposters have always welcomed invitations like these (perhaps to flaunt their gifts before the crowd), they differed in their readings of the message’s symbolism and did not succeed in deciphering the meaning that the author of the message had concealed in the symbol — despite the enticement of the generous reward the governor had announced for anyone who offered a convincing interpretation.
Feeling desperate, the governor dispatched the herald again.
The herald made the rounds of the streets and passed through the markets of itinerant caravans, shouting out the call while emphasizing his master’s promise to reward generously anyone who found in himself a genuine aptitude for deciphering the message from the leader of the foreign coalition.
Shortly before evening fell, a member of a passing caravan approached the palace and announced that in his group there was a cunning tactician whose ability to decipher news of the age was unparalleled in the tribes of the South or the cities of the North. He added that the sly dog had refused to come, because he disdained man’s affairs and claimed that his mission was not to decipher people’s messages, but to unlock the symbols of the heavens’ revelations.
The governor was delighted and sent his soldiers to fetch this foreign adviser. When the guards returned, accompanied by the guest, the setting sun was pouring twilight rays generously on the walls of the glorious fortress.
3
He was a specter as dark as coal — a perfectly formed black man. The oasis had never seen a person with such well-proportioned features; he had a lean build, tall stature, and straight nose. His eyes had a friendly look, although the stillness of his pupils reminded people of the absent look of eternal wanderers and hermits.
The governor placed before him the charming doll and stared at the man’s eyes with intense curiosity. Then he stretched out his hand to present the skull to him.
The cunning tactician gazed at the message indifferently. No, no — that look was not genuine indifference; it was another type of look. The sorcerer seemed to have discerned the glance’s symbolism, because he acted to forestall the master of the sign from voicing his idea.
The governor said, “Don’t tell me that my message is a script from a heavenly message, not a human one. Know that the fate of this nation, which has fed you when you were hungry and kept you safe from fear — just as it has fed and offered security to many before you — is concealed in the damn riddle you hold in your hands. So beware!”