“His ancestors?”
“The Spirit World. For a man obsessed by poetry, the Spirit World is, quite simply, his homeland. I mean that a poet obtains by inspiration what sages do not obtain through the sovereignty of the intellect.”
“Do you think so highly of poets?”
“The poet is the only man about whom there is no fear of his becoming lost in the labyrinth, because he is the only creature who came to this wasteland as a lost wanderer.”
“We merely need to search for a poet to rule over us on our behalf.”
“I fear you won’t be able to find the poet I am talking about.”
“You shouldn’t think so poorly of us.”
“I also fear that our comrade may have gotten ahead of me and thought ill of our master who reclines in the tomb, if he thinks that the leader of eternity deserves the title of poet merely because he amused himself with some vile verses in his youth.”
“The fact is that I have almost lost my way again….”
“I was trying to say that our leader was a true poet. I mean he wasn’t a poet because he recited couplets about passionate love or some other inane subject; he was a poet greater than all the others whom desert tribes have known, because he dandled in his heart a treasure named ‘nobility.’”
“It won’t be difficult for us to find among the people a poet who hides in his heart this quality that you call a treasure.”
“Far from it!”
“What do you mean?”
“I fear we will never be able to.”
“Is it reasonable for us to lack a single noble person in all these dwellings?”
“What I really fear is talking constantly with two different tongues.”
Their comrade fell silent, and stillness pervaded the meeting.
Outside, in a place near the temple’s walls, a muffled, evil, hoarse chortle echoed, immediately reminding listeners of the ignoble laughter that passersby commonly heard when they approached the mysterious scarecrow placed in the fields.
3
“If leadership is so hazardous and dangerous, then our only choice is to go with the slumbering leader.”
Amasis the Younger, out of all the council members, was the man most inclined to yield and most cautious about speaking his mind. So his peers were astonished on each of the infrequent occasions when he allowed himself to leave the redoubt of silence to divulge a diffident opinion to them.
Astonishment washed over them on this day too, and they exchanged meaningful looks. The silence, however, did not last long because this notion provoked a reaction from the chief merchant, who snapped at his colleague’s face: “I find it odd that you did not discern this idea’s danger before allowing it to spill from your tongue.”
“Danger?”
“The gravest danger! Did you, like many others, think me stupid the day I relied on the support of the masses to impose on the council the choice of a puppet who stumbles over the earth on two feet?”
“Actually, I still find it odd that you should have been the first to request a puppet who stumbles on two feet yesterday but today come to threaten us with how dangerous it is to sit on the throne of leadership.”
“What I did yesterday was motivated by a desire to advance commerce, to advance the life of this oasis. What I am saying today about sovereignty stems from a fear that you will all suffer the same fate as Aggulli. Do you find fault with this?”
“No one is finding fault, but it isn’t hard for someone listening to all of you argue to realize that the easiest alternative is for us to rely on the rock of the tomb and to seek a prophecy as we did in the past and as our ancestors did before us.”
“I wasn’t discussing leadership to scare you. I sincerely wished to call your attention to a secret quality that the Spirit World has placed in sovereignty, ever since people first found a sovereign over their heads.”
“No one questions your intentions, but it’s hard for anyone to accept the label ‘murderer.’”
The man with two veils cast him a disparaging look and said sarcastically, “Although I admit you were the last to plant the blade in the victim’s heart, I fear that your hesitation won’t wipe the dead man’s blood from your hands.”
The hero interjected, “We must stop this. We didn’t come to discuss something we did with a single hand to rescue the life of the oasis.”
The chief merchant raised his voice argumentatively: “Why are voices raised in the council in an attempt to send us back today to a place we left yesterday, if our objective truly is advancing the life of the oasis?”
Ah’llum asked, “To what place is our colleague referring?”
“Doesn’t our friend wish us to give up and revert to the old way?”
“We all believe that an oasis without a governor is like a headless body. We all know that commerce without a master is like a herd without a herdsman, because we have become entrepreneurs — like all the other residents of the oasis. But we must find a way to escape from our dilemma. Why don’t you finally say which of us you think is best qualified to become the governor?”
Awaiting a reply, they directed heads wrapped in veils toward their colleague, but the chief merchant’s eyes fled to the ceiling, and his right hand repeatedly massaged his left wrist. Then, with the cryptic phrasing of a diviner attempting to discern a prophecy in the void, he said, “I fear the best plan would be to confer leadership on someone who is not present with us now.”
Imaswan Wandarran clapped his hands together and shouted, “Lately riddles seem destined to become our language.”
Ah’llum, however, gestured for him not to be hasty. Like someone sighting the bearer of glad tidings in the distance, he told the chief merchant: “Not so fast! Slow down! I think I have found the talisman’s key. I bet you’re referring to the venerable elder. Am I right?”
A smile glinted in the eyes of the man with two veils, and rubbing his hands together jubilantly he returned from his journey to the ceiling. “You’re right. I actually didn’t mean any other creature.”
The council members exchanged glances that were a confused mixture of anxiety and astonishment. Ah’llum entered the fray with a solemn question: “Are you mocking us?”
Fiddling with his hands, the chief merchant replied frigidly, “Mocking you never once crossed my mind.”
“But … but I’m sure you realize that the venerable elder has had no foothold in our world for a very long time.”
“A person without a foothold in our world is the most appropriate creature to head our world.”
“Are you mocking us?”
“Have you forgotten that I once said in this council that our mistake lay in continuing to treat commanders in chief like creatures of our world, when everything shows that they become creatures of another type, tracing their descent to alternative homelands, the day they consent to don the mantles of leadership?”
“Emmamma has quit all homelands. Emmamma has lived on the borders of the Spirit World for a long time. How can someone who has taken the Spirit World for a homeland become our governor? How can we convince people that this is right? How can we deflect their scorn? How can we shield ourselves against their anger?”
“This is the goal. The aim is for us to allow people of eternity to enjoy their absence in eternity and to leave the affairs of this world to people of the world.”
“What are you saying?”
“Only a person who has traversed a long stage in the Unknown can realize that our world is a game inside a game.”
“Won’t you proceed a stage further so we may understand the talisman’s allusion?”