Ibrahim al-Koni - Anubis - A Desert Novel

THE WANDERER’S PROPHECY about a son who set off in search of his father awakened in my chest a forgotten longing for my child. So I began to hunt for news of his fate, but the vast desert had swallowed him. Wanderers, herdsmen, and leaders of caravans brought me no news of him. Instead, they provided me with information about plots being hatched between key figures in the assembly on the one hand and elite figures in the palace on the other. It was reported that the “Master of the Troop,” as he was known by inhabitants of the oasis had chopped off the head of the leader of the sons of Seth, whose intentions he suspected, and that he had chosen a puppet from that tribe to replace him. Then he dismissed the leader of the sons of Yeth from the assembly, as well, for saying too openly that raiding desert tribes was a dangerous adventure that would result in an unnecessary amount of bloodshed. He also replaced him with a puppet from the tribe. He was not content with that but conspired against the lady of the oasis. He abducted her beloved poet, who disappeared without a trace. It was reported that he had killed and then buried him in a rugged area of the southern oasis. Others said he did not bury him but handed him over to the ironworkers to cremate in the smelting furnaces, in order to obliterate all traces. People expected the wily strategist to seize the throne next, but this spurious leader was more cunning than the dolts suspected. He headed for the bedchamber rather than the throne and ruled the oasis from there. He took the priestess for his consort but left her on the throne as a scarecrow, an empty shell, to cast dust in people’s eyes. Meanwhile he hid himself behind the scarecrow’s body, thus gaining power surreptitiously. The spirit world, however, was eventually victorious, once it took charge of the matter.

Time gushed forth and the oasis’ army conquered the desert, but this suzerainty did not last long. As continued raids multiplied the tax burdens of the inhabitants of the oasis, people were ruined, the condition of the oasis was undermined, and the spell rebounded on the sorcerer. The oasis received painful blows, and its influence over the desert diminished gradually. Times looked bleak, and the oasis retreated to a defensive position. Next it lost its ability to defend itself and consented to pay tribute, so the victors’ swords would allow people to brood about their rout inside the confines of their shell. I was upset by the fate of my oasis, which had once been known throughout the entire desert for its prosperity and happiness. Tranquil, it had been sheltered from the ravages of time throughout the history of all its generations. Soon after I wondered with a wounded man’s passion about the true nature of epochs and about the caprices of time, I received an answer from the desert’s shejinni, who visited me in my hermitage one day. Disguised in the ragged clothing of an aged priestess of the southern deserts, she was accompanied by two maids, one of whom clung to her right hand, while the other was hanging onto her left one. Her procession was preceded by coveys of demon spirits masquerading as slaves and by an entourage of servants and vassals. The shejinni took me by the hand and led me away from the others. She told me that just as water evaporates, sand scatters, and stone crumbles, the world has three time periods. Yesterday’s time is fraudulent, because no amount of wisdom will suffice to reclaim it. Tomorrow’s time is a figment of the imagination, because it has not arrived and perhaps never will, no matter how certain we feel. Today’s time is a dream, for we possess no argument that it exists, since its ignobility makes it a bridge, the head of which disappears into what is to happen, whereas its rear end is immersed in what is over and done with. Then she spoke about the nature of the days, saying that each period of time is divisible into units, the heart of which lies in an hour. The hour’s heart is in the day. The day’s is in what people refer as an age, because this miracle is divisible into twenty-four periods, each of which conceals a life. On concluding with the names of these divisions, she questioned my resolve: “What more than this do you want, man? What do you desire from your world, wretch? Is being born and not being born equivalent for you, scion of futility?” A look of futility was traced on my forehead, glittered in my eye, and encircled my body. Since my destiny seemed to cause her pain, she decided to favor me with a final prophecy: “Those who have lived are not on a par with those who have not, for he who has lived, has lived, even if he has now perished. Someone who was never born, however, leaves behind no memories, trace, or existence. Believe me: the spirit world has been especially compassionate to you. It has favored you, inspired you, entrusted you with its sententiae, and granted you a life that has endured for ages, which greedy folk deem the winking of an eye. You have received twenty-three of your life’s periods. Once you emerge from the false dawn stage, you’ll lack only your morning. If you’ve learned to live, then you’ll have succeeded. If you’ve failed to learn, you’ve lost. Know, finally, that loss does not consist in vanishing and passing out of existence but in not knowing how to begin life afresh.” Then she turned away, mounted her steed, and rode off.

At that time I had withdrawn into my self. Within my unknown reaches I had dug tunnels, anterooms, and vaults. So I headed for the sanctuary, since I was discovering what I had once discovered on sensing that if I cried out, I would receive a response invisible to the eye, inaudible by the ear, and unimaginable by the human heart. I groped my way from there to guide myself to prophetic aphorisms, wrestle with talismans, and unravel convoluted symbols in order to record in characters the prophetic sayings. I engraved these signs in my heart and bore them for a time deep in my recesses until eventually I found myself inscribing them on solid walls with shards of rock. I toured the caves and explored the caverns so I could confide to solid rock my worries, animating the hard surface with my longing, entrusting to it my truth, and making it a guardian over my life story, which might thus be conveyed to future generations. I also traced what my heart had told me on pieces of leather I branded with fire and hid in many caves. My heart, however, spoke to me of the superiority, trustworthiness, and passion of stone. Therefore I entrusted my heart to stone, which I made the guardian for my passion. I appointed it the trustee for my longing and my revelations, because a whisper informed me that my time was wasting away, that my days were vanishing, and that my morning was nigh.

THE HOSTILE TRIBES tightened their stranglehold over the oasis, and the people suffered cruelly from oppressive taxes. The assembly’s specialists in false doctrine learned that there is no turning back for foolhardy persons who have committed evil hastily, for they cannot limit the price of repentance to surrendering and paying tribute to the victor. The price is, rather, unlimited, never-ending submission. This is what happened to the oasis in its risky campaign against neighboring tribes. News reached me of the people’s anger and unhappiness with the rule by falsehood’s partisans, who treated them to stinging humiliation and doled out bitter hunger to their offspring. Repeated rebellions were brutally suppressed. Nobles of the three tribes assembled, debated, and flung accusations at each other, before they managed to craft a course of action that would protect them, according to their calculations, against the twin evils of being hemmed in by the walls of the oasis and of being attacked by enemies coming from beyond those walls. In keeping with this strategy, they called on each other to advocate a retreat to the surrounding deserts, where they would seek protection from the desert, which has never disappointed anyone who has appealed to it for aid. Thus they would gain a free hand to stave off their enemies and to safeguard the oasis, but from outside. Meanwhile, vassals and agents from the tribes of Seth competed with each other to manage the affairs of the oasis, hiding their actions behind the priestess, that hollow scarecrow.