No one knows how their situation was disclosed and how people learned their fear of blades, but the people of the desert soon started using blades to take vengeance on the residents of the Spirit World. They stripped the tongues of their scabbards and affixed lethal blades near the heads of infants, whom the jinn customarily kidnap in their swaddling clothes to swap for children from their own community. Then they terrified the wretches and expelled them to the farthest corners of the badlands.
From that day forward, the body of the dagger has been an amulet. But fools neglected the hilt and left it hanging in the air. Then enemies took possession of it and aimed it at the chests of their children one day.
4
Today, as well, the dagger seeks help from the talisman sketched on the tongue; the ancient talisman finds a way for it to escape from the flask. It dives into the void of the sky, bathes its ravenous tongue in the flood of light, and plucks, from a dusk-time rendezvous, a prophecy that will eventually carve out an existence for it with the edge of the blade.
The dagger emerged from its prison, and the blade rattled in the throat while it licked the blood of the black kid. It rattled with a sarcasm that wasn’t grasped because it wasn’t understood.
The hilt disappeared in the master’s palm, and the blade plunged into the flesh of the neck. It followed its ancient Way, cut the network, severed the ropes of arteries, and penetrated the veins in which the fountain of life flows. It mangled the rough pass, severed the strings, crossed into the stream to drink from the copious deluge. But it would be absurd for the tongue of prophecy to quench its thirst from the spring of the lie.
5
The tongue leapt from the cavity, and the blade fled from the body of the sacrificial offering. It descended nearby and hid its thirsty head in the dirt. The master released the hilt; then the long fettered demon of the blade liberated itself. It circled the heavens in an instant, and when it returned to the confines of the wasteland with a prophecy, the messenger of the Spirit World had ascended the temple mount. He approached the temple stealthily — thin and stern. Bending down, he seized the hilt at once, exploiting the master’s error. So he preceded him to the lethal throne, since the master needed to receive his punishment at once, because the sovereign forgot that the hilt would revert to being a blade if the commander set it aside for even an hour.
The blade settled in the throat of the master of the blade that evening, because the Spirit World wanted to exchange prophecy for the lie and wished to tell the diviner that the person possessing the hilt of the dagger should be extraordinarily cautious, because the sovereign who errs once inevitably errs for the first and last time.
XII THE TORRENTS
Water, gentle, yielding, and pure, is good for washing away the filth of men. Therein lies its humaneness. When one looks at it, it may appear black or it may appear white. Therein lies its subtlety. When measuring it, one cannot use a leveling stick as with grain, but when the vessel is full, it stops accumulating. Therein lies its rectitude. There is no place into which it will not flow, yet it stops on reaching its proper level. Therein lies its righteousness. Men all rush upward; it alone rushes downward. Therein lies its sense of humility.
1
The north breathed winds that diffused the fragrance of moisture; the gloomy horizon encircled the northern mountains with a noble belt that always took on the color of dawn; the distant clouds grew thicker, presaging an assault; bolts of lightning ripped through their august gloom with an insistent gleam that twisted in tongues as fast as fiery whips only to die out with a swiftness reminiscent of the mystery of prophecy.
The wait did not last long.
The black clouds assaulted the thirsty wasteland like enemy hordes. The storm advanced as if wishing to caress the naked badlands and threw down at first large drops the size of the foam that fine camel stallions expectorate in mating season. Then the rain poured down. It poured down plentifully. The downfall stirred up dust in the void and the thirsty earth was taken by surprise. It spluttered with the insatiable appetite of someone who always wants more and then, overcome by greed, chokes on his serving and spits back up what he has swallowed. The expanses paved with stone slabs drank first; then the deserts covered with carpets of pebbles imitated them. Next the deluge flooded the terraces and slipped secretly down natural conduits to the ravines, which carried it to washes coated with layers of soft earth. Then the sandy valley bottoms seized the water with the longing of passionate lovers. Meanwhile the clay lowlands drank in less time and the water rose again to collect in level patches, but this stasis did not last long. The ravines pushed down a new heavenly stream, and the earth received from the sky a new supplement. The upper valleys brought a greater share. Then the demon in the flask of the patch of ground grew restless and rushed off on a course that began with a humane, rational chain but that increased in insanity as it advanced. This insanity was fed by the many ravines that intersected the valley’s banks, and the flood borrowed nourishing momentum from the sky. As these gifts accumulated, the frenzy increased. The water abandoned its own name to become a demon that had appropriated the name torrent!
2
The torrent outstripped the cloud’s slow advance and reached the farthest deserts downstream, surprising creatures that roamed the wasteland over which shone the harsh rays of a cloud-free sun.
The demon grew increasingly delirious and stretched out a stealthy hand to seize sacrificial offerings. It snatched bird nests from the trunks of the retem shrubs. Small eggs marked with murky, dark colors floated to the surface, and newborn chicks covered in yellow down appeared at the tip of the voracious tongue, fussing and releasing cries of farewell. Meanwhile the mothers fluttered over the insane current with the alarm of a tribe subjected unexpectedly to a raid.
In areas further downstream, in the expanses where the earth of the valley bottoms was soft and the burrows many, the demon’s hand reached down to extract victims from the deepest holes. Mice fled from aggressive snakes, snakes fled from brutal hedgehogs, and hedgehogs fled from terrifying men. The demon put its sacrificial victims in its satchel and stormed through other clefts to take other victims from other species: hares, dung beetles, lizards large and small, and young gazelles. It did not acquire more significant victims until it reached the wide lower valleys, where herds of sheep and camels grazed and herdsmen chatted around bonfires, entertaining themselves by exchanging riddles, vying in poetry, and raising their voices in mournful songs. Then they returned from the realms of longing to discuss again the punishing drought and the vacillating flow of time. The demon surprised the lower pastures to seize the most significant sacrificial offerings.
It surprised the herdsmen by night. Then it caught the sheep, goats, and kids off guard and claimed a terrifying share of the herds. Next it attacked the owners of the herds, corralling them on small islands that rose in the hearts of the large, flooded lower valleys. At first it carefully laid siege to its victims while waiting for the support it would receive from the deluge via other tributary ravines, water courses, and wadis. It grew stronger with the abundant rain in the North when the earth became saturated with water and propelled a plentiful amount to the lower valleys. The deluge poured forth, the water level rose in the valley bottoms, and frightening waves gushed on to the farthest plains. The current swept away the meager islands, and the demon washed over its stranded victims to throw them into the dreadful floodwaters. The herdsmen fought back courageously. They clung to retem trees and deployed palm-fiber ropes, contending with the rising waters with poles, but the demon also fought desperately and did not yield until it had seized human victims.