He married an oasis girl, and she bound him to the oasis.
3 The Diviner
Since his early childhood, women had used him in their stirring rituals as a medium charged with elucidating mysteries and furnishing them with news of loved ones who had traveled. Out of all the children whom women of the tribe used as mediums in their celebrations, which they normally called a séance, his reputation for prognostication spread. So the elders took charge of him, delighting in the birth of prophecy in the tribe’s settlements. Some searched his eyes for a sign and others made it their business to strip off his clothes to search for marks. Then they subjected him to an interrogation that lasted several nights. On completing this, they employed a cunning stratagem: they allowed him to play outdoors with the other children, but assigned a playmate to ask a question, so the child would not be intimidated by the presence of adults. They dispatched the boy, who was charged to return with an answer. They waited for several days before he brought back the response. When this prophecy was fulfilled, they announced to the tribe the birth of a diviner.
Many, however, were suspicious and — typically — denied the birth of prophecy. A rascal, who mocked the boy, accosted him, tossing a date to his hand and a malicious question to his face: “Do you think I’ll find my lost milking camel when I go out to search tomorrow?”
The boy immediately cast him a mysterious look before inquiring, “Did you say the camel is in milk and lost?” Without waiting for a reply, he continued, “Yes, indeed; you will find your lost she-camel.”
The wretch roared with maniacal laughter and then shouted to everyone: “Hear that? He said I’m going to find my lost milking camel, even though you all know perfectly well I don’t have either a milking camel or a lost one.” The assembly bellowed with laughter too.
The spirit world, however, decided to brand the rascal a liar and to vindicate the prophet, for a few days later — accompanied by a few companions — that man went out to search for truffles in the western plains, where he was bitten by a viper. His comrades scouted around for a passing caravan but found only a female camel, which bore him back to the encampments. Their astonishment was profound when they learned that the camel had not only been lost by one of the tribe’s nobles but was called “Milch Camel,” for her copious yield of milk. From then on, the scoffers left him alone and even the clever acknowledged his gift.
Even so, as he matured to manhood, he had more difficulty tapping into the prophetic visions that had burst into his heart when he was a child. Then the elite urged him to try solitude, and he began to head out to distant deserts — taking refuge in the mountains and secluding himself from the world there for days or weeks — so that he might bring reliable information home to the tribe. As time rushed past, he realized that solitude was not the only price paid for prophecy but only another link in a chain that terminated with what he came to call “the nightmare.” This is a lethal corridor, and he learned from experience that the only thing harder than leaving it is gaining access to it. He would disappear in waterless deserts and explore many different homelands, roam through redoubts, and lose his own identity in his quest, until the firebrand glowed and the passageway flashed with sparks transforming it from an entryway that was flooded with darkness into a corridor that glowed with a vision.
This effort drained him. His body did not merely burn with fever; he also felt empty, and this emptiness made him feel sad. He had tried repeatedly to renounce the whole business and put an end to this quest for inspiration, asking, “Why do I need prophetic vision? What’s the use of prophesying for a tribe that will eventually learn what is to come anyway? What’s the use of our discovery of secrets of the Unknown, if we cannot circumvent what the Unknown’s secrets bring us, whether for good or ill?”
He decided to give it all up, but people would not let him choose for himself or abandon this calling. An aged woman, almost one hundred years old, seized his hand to teach him a lesson the day he refused to consult the Unknown or to provide her with information concerning her three sons, who had left on a business trip to the forest lands years before and had not returned. When he told her that he had resigned, she shook her head in astonishment. Then, grasping his wrist, she asked him to step closer. She laughed scornfully at him and asked, “Do I hear right? Do you want to resign? Does a mother ever resign from nursing her infant? Does a bird resign from feeding its fledglings in the nest? Does the shepherd resign from caring for his flock? Do warriors resign from defending the tribes’ homelands? Does the sky resign from releasing rain for the earth?” She was silent for a moment — although she never released his wrist from the grip of her twig-like fingers — and then added as she gazed across the empty desert, “Don’t you understand that your resignation will turn the desert upside down? Don’t you know that prophetic vision is the diviner’s destiny and that prophesying is a duty and a debt for him? Don’t you know, son, that you did not choose your prophetic vision; it chose you? Don’t you know I will die tonight unless you promise to bring me news of my sons tomorrow? Don’t you know I live solely on the hope of seeing them again before I depart? Have you understood now that prophesying is not entertainment but hope?”
Then she released his hand. In her sad, weak eyes, he saw moisture building: tears. So he slipped away from her tent and hastened to the wastelands, to solitude, to his destiny. He rushed to fulfill his destiny so he could bring the aged lady her treasure — her family — because had he never done that again, mothers would not have nursed their infants, shepherds would not have cared for their herds, men would not have drawn their swords to protect their homelands, and the sky would no longer have given rain to the earth. The Law would have been shaken, and the world would have been convulsed and turned upside down.
He returned to the vast expanses of his destiny to learn that whenever a sacred passageway is unyielding, the explanation is that fever does not purify unless it burns the patient, that it does not give birth to a substance until it annihilates an existence, and that it does not revive a spirit until it slays a body.
He bore his destiny in his heart and wrestled with the spirit world until eventually times grew harsh. The desert suffered a lengthy drought, and the tribe was forced to split up, heading for different oases. Along with a few others, he had settled in this one, bearing sorrow in his mind and the burden of prophecy in his heart.
PART I Section 3: Questioning
1 Edahi
Roused after sunrise, he discovered a specter squatting nearby and staring inquisitively at him. He traded stare for stare, but the ghost did not shift position or say a word. So he asked, “Who are you?”
A cryptic smile flashed through the man’s eyes before he answered, “Is this the way to greet a guest?”
Hoisting himself up on his elbows, he gazed at the flood of light washing the brows of the distant sword-type dunes. He commented, “Each of us is the wasteland’s guest.”
“But custom decrees that the first to arrive acts as host. You are currently the wasteland’s master. I am merely an apparition who has come as a guest of the lord of the wasteland.”