Baraka had politely excused himself and left. The directions had proved accurate.
Years later, a ragged boy had appeared at a late night barracks meeting.
Baraka had heard a scuffle outside the tent where a meeting of military leaders was being held. He ran outside, pistol in hand. A guard was wrestling with a boy. When the colonel demanded to know what the fuss was about, the guard explained that one of the mountain people had gotten into the barracks area. The guard was trying to contain the boy, while keeping his nose as far away from him as possible.
Baraka could see that the boy's face was dirt caked and his hands and feet were black with travel. And the travel this boy had made, marked deep in his face, would subtract many a year from the far end of his life.
"A message, oh, Baraka. A message. For the extra food, an extra direction," cried the boy.
Baraka ordered the guard to release him. The boy fell to his knees to kiss the colonel's feet but Baraka raised him to his feet.
"Someday this will be a land where no man will kiss another man's feet," Baraka said. The generals had now emerged from the tent behind him and were looking at the boy. One whispered to another and then they all knew. This was the boy from the tribe of prophecy. One general said he was happy to see such a dirty creature, because at least everyone knew he wasn't from King Adras; everyone who served the king dressed well.
"Oh, Baraka, this then is the prophecy repaid unto you over these many years for the sustenance you gave."
"Speak, boy," said Baraka.
"Oh, Baraka, move tonight, for your enemy's wings are filled with the wine of destruction and you shall sit upon the great throne."
The generals hushed their conversation. How could anyone have known they were in the tent planning a revolution against King Adras?
Baraka looked at the boy. Finally, he said, "I will sit in no throne. I will not rule this land. But I will serve it."
One of the generals snorted a contemptuous laugh, noting the convenient timing. Baraka had been arguing for an immediate revolution; many of the generals had wanted to wait. And now this prophecy came, saying immediate revolution. Had the colonel ever really been lost in the mountains? he wondered.
A blood rage seized Baraka, and even as he drew his pistol to shoot the laughter off the face of the general, he knew that this time his rage served his good fortune, though this was usually just the opposite in others.
Baraka fired one shot into the mouth, and squeezed the second off at the nose. It caught the falling general in the right eye, which popped like a blood-filled balloon.
"Those who are not with me are against me," Baraka snarled, and thus that night the military took over the Lobynian government. What else could they do except follow a man who had a gun and was willing to risk his life, particularly while the King was in Switzerland with an air force chief of staff he wouldn't risk flying with.
When the king had not returned, the people's revolution was secure. A secret joke in some circles said that a man named Callahan from Jersey City had done more to change the history of the Middle East with a bottle of Seagram's Seven than all the Mirage jets that ever took off. Which was none of them.
That had been four years ago. It had been, Baraka remembered, a hot night, unlike tonight; he shivered in the open vehicle. He drank from a flask of water. Its warmth tasted good to him. At a large stone marker, he turned right. He had ordered this road built, ostensibly to create a gigantic religious crescent, but actually to give the mountain tribe an easier way to travel to Dapoli. He did not want such a journey to be a toll on one young boy's life again. To the best of his knowledge, no members of the mountain tribe had ever set foot on the road.
The land rover bumped across the rock and sand. It felt good to be out of the endless smooth hum of the main highway.
Fifteen miles along a very dry wash, wet perhaps twice a year, he felt something jump into the slow bouncing rover, grab him by the neck, and jerk him from the wheel. When he landed he could not stand up. His legs were numb from sitting for hours. He felt a rifle touch the temple of his head and someone took his pistol. He smelled the exhaust of the land rover that stood idling in the sand.
"Do not move, European pig," said a voice above him. When he turned his head to see who had said such a thing, he felt the muzzle of the gun press it down again into the dirt.
"I am Bedouin, Arab," said Baraka. "I am son of Bedouin and grandson of Bedouin, for ages upon ages and generation upon generation."
"You look like European. Italian."
"I am not. Not one drop of Italian blood," said Baraka hopefully. "I come searching for the wise man."
"There are many wise men."
"The one who calls himself Baktar."
"Baktar is dead these many years. Fifteen years is Baktar dead."
"That is impossible. Just four years ago he sent me a prophecy in payment for food."
"Oh. You are that one. Come with me."
Baraka felt the gun go from his head. He rose unsteadily in the light of the moon upon the rocky hillside that was part of what his people called the Mountains of the Moon, but the world called the Mountains of Hercules. He was led up a path and was surprised to see women scurry around his rover like so many desert bugs, carrying away blankets, a rifle, a bandolier, the canteens. No one bothered to turn off the engine. He knew then that these people would just leave his vehicle running until it was out of gas. He, Colonel Muammar Baraka, would die because he ran out of gas on a road that was built over billions of barrels of it. It was unthinkable.
Unthinkable, hell. It would probably happen. True, there was a gigantic spare tank along with the extra large rover tank, but still not enough to let it waste. He might be left with barely enough to get back to the main road. In the one hundred and thirty degree daytime heat of Lobynia, that would be the same as barely dying.
"Let me go back and turn off my car's engine."
"You go back nowhere. You go ahead. Up. Move."
"Please, I will reward you. I will give you a great reward."
"Up. Move. Up."
And Muammar Baraka, whom the world thought ruled this land, climbed upward along the sharp rocks that cut his knees and hands. His captor seemed to lope with ease up these very cliffs that were so hard for hin to climb. He realized that man not only does not rule land, he does not own it, but is a transient creature across its surface. Countries were not made from borders, but from people acknowledging some sort of common bond.
He was brought to a small fire, golden in the moon-washed chilly night. A man in rags, for these people lived in rags, sat before the fire and motioned the president of the nation to sit.
"Four years you govern this land, Muammar, and yet you come here in terror, do you not?" the man said.
"Yes. I seek further direction."
"And what do you give us in exchange?"
Muammar Baraka smelled a strange odor, and then he realized that the fire was burning dried animal droppings. The whole encampment reeked of human filth. He was used to air conditioning now and showers and cars and telephones. The Europeans had captured him, just as surely as if they put him in a cage. They had captured his soul, as they must have captured many a soul in this land. If he should live, he would outlaw electricity and ice cubes and air conditioning, except, of course, for hospitals. He would allow it in hospitals. And the world would call him crazy again, as they had when he had outlawed alcohol, reinstituted cutting off hands for thievery, forced women to wear the barakan again-the long sheetlike garment that covered everything but one eye.
He had done these things, and still the oil under the land flowed out and his people had not changed and he was their leader and he sat captive on a rocky hillside in the Mountains of the Moon which would still, in another hundred years when the oil was gone be called the Mountains of Hercules and his people would still burn animal droppings to keep warm.