“Then what?”
“Then he changed into a snake after I stabbed him with the knife.”
“A snake?”
A murmur ran through the group. Voices were raised. The warrior laughed, but Ewar did not make a sound or join the uproar. The fool shouted, “I swear he changed into a hideous snake before he turned into a girl.”
The group murmured amongst themselves once more. The sage Elelli said disapprovingly, “At times you say he changed into a snake. At other times you say he changed into a girl.”
“At first he morphed into a snake. Then he morphed into a girl. When I saw Temarit flailing around in a pool of blood, I couldn’t believe it.”
The diviner asked, “Why don’t you confess that you went to the home of the jenny master to kill your sweetheart in revenge?”
“I did not go to kill the girl. I went to kill the stranger who has devastated our oasis, but he dispersed like a mirage to leave behind. . ”
The diviner interrupted, “Do you admit that you went to the stranger’s home to kill him?”
Again the fool searched their eyes for assistance but encountered only disapproval or indifference. He turned for help to the ruler in the corner, but Ewar hid his eyes behind his veil, as if he had decided to absent himself. He said desperately, “I don’t deny that I wanted to kill the stranger. I told you from the first day that he had ulterior motives, but you did not believe me. You did not believe me even after he caused the women to miscarry with his lethal herbs, which I saw him throw into the spring’s water with my own eyes. Yes, certainly, I wanted to kill the strategist, but he defeated me, because I thought he was only a cunning strategist. I did not suspect that he was also a sorcerer; but I never thought of killing Temarit.”
The diviner and the sage exchanged a glance. Elelli asked, “But who gave you permission to kill the stranger?”
Edahi immediately replied, “Do I need to wait for permission from the council to kill a killer?”
The diviner said, “We haven’t received a single piece of evidence to substantiate your murder accusation against him.”
“I saw him throw the suspect herbs into the water.”
“Even if we believed you, throwing herbs into the water can hardly be considered proof.”
The fool stared the diviner straight in the eye. He stared at him until his pupil disappeared from sight. He asked confidently, “Doesn’t the evil one’s public declaration, repeated night and day, suffice as proof?”
Then he bowed his head and added regretfully, “You don’t want evidence. You’re waiting for annihilation, not for evidence. For this reason, I decided to take the matter into my own hands, and I don’t regret it at all.”
“Do you admit you would have killed the strategist if you had not killed the girl?”
“Definitely.”
Then he corrected his statement: “But he beat me. If I had known he was a sorcerer, he wouldn’t have beaten me.”
Stillness followed. Then they consulted one another, first in whispers, next out loud, and finally in public debate. The diviner repeated loudly a prophetic aphorism he attributed to the lost Law: “An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. If a killer isn’t slain, the Law will be diminished.”
He repeated this three times. Then silence reigned. The elders heard wisdom’s ring in this maxim, but the punishment filled them with dread. The sage attempted to ease the matter by returning to his interrogation of the accused: “Idiocy has never been an evil, but the evil is insanity. So skip the metamorphosis story now and tell us the way you used to speak with us in olden times when you were our companion in the counciclass="underline" Did you discuss the matter with someone who directed you to punish the stranger without a verdict from the assembly?”
The men exchanged knowing glances, but the accused did not turn his head in anyone’s direction. He looked down at the ground before him and shook his head no.
The sage said, “But you were seen leaving the ruler’s home that night before you went to the stranger’s mausoleum. Did you discuss your intentions with him?”
The accused looked toward the chief, but Ewar did not utter a sound or uncover his eyes. So he bowed his head again and said, “Certainly not!”
“Why not?”
“I was not obliged to discuss my plans with people.”
“Are you sure?”
The fool gazed at him with a hurt expression and did not reply. There was a long silence. Finally the sage proclaimed, as though reciting an elegy: “We have loved you as a fool, because idiocy assures certainty. We have disavowed you as a killer, because murder is a form of insanity. We have acquired you through your idiocy, because in your idiocy is your presence of mind. We have lost you through your loss of your intellect, because when the intellect is lost, the man is lost. So farewell, former comrade. Farewell!”
3 The Story
Isan had finished eating supper and was setting off to roam the empty countryside in response to a call to wander, but a specter blocked his path before he could shoot away. So the two faced off atop the mound, which was composed of the tombs of the ancients and surmounted by the ancient mausoleum. They confronted each other for a long time. In the end, the chief said, “Here I’ve donned the night to visit a man who once saved my life out of hatred not love.”
“Which do you prefer: a man who kills you from love or one who saves your life out of hatred?”
“I can’t begin to answer this riddle.”
He bowed to invite his visitor to be seated. They sat down, facing each other. The jenny master said, “How could the question not be a riddle when everything in this desert is a riddle? Our life is a riddle. Our death is a riddle. Our passage through this world of ours is a riddle.”
His companion groaned with pain. After a silence, he said, “The fact is that I would not have set aside my self-esteem to come to you after we parted had the riddle you mentioned not generated another one.”
The strategist opted for silence and so the visitor completed his statement: “I merely want you to confess to the assembly that you are able to shape-shift.”
“Shape-shift?”
His companion said nothing, and so the strategist asked, “What good would my admission that I can shape-shift do?”
Ewar replied with sudden zeal, “It will help. If you admit that, the penalty will be altered to banishment.”
“Banishment?”
“Exile. He will spend the rest of his days as a rootless wanderer; just the way you’ve always wanted him to live.”
“Can a man become a wayfarer after the time has passed?”
“I don’t understand.”
The strategist was still. After a silence, he said, “But how can the punishment be changed when the result of the crime is the same?”
“The elders think this will lighten the punishment considerably.”
“Do you mean to say that your Law makes a distinction between killing a woman and killing a man?”
“Certainly not.”
“Or that it distinguishes between a stranger and a resident?”
“Certainly not.”
Ewar fell silent. After a pause, he said, “There’s another secret to the matter that I’ll share with you if you tell me the secret of metamorphosis.”
“Ha, ha. . is this a deal?”
“Everything in our world is a deal.”
“How can you ask me to confess to something that I haven’t done?”
“You’re not going to disappoint me?”