The stargazer’s servant. Максим Удовиченко

[16] of the city of Mema.[17]

      1.2 The stargazer's magical mysteries

      He worked hard and for his work was granted with 4 thousand mithqals but decided to receive the same sum twice. He could not have thought up anything better then to complain to the Emir that the money had been stolen from him.

      The Emir of Mema was so touched by Al-Majnun's story that, on the next day, with no delay, he called on the Supreme judge of the city, Abu-Al-Daud, and threatened him with the death penalty if he couldn't deliver the one who had stolen the money from the desolate and disadvantaged, but very willing and laborious Al-Majnun. The judge Abu-Al-Daud had very thoroughly searched for the thief but had found no one, because in the city there were no thieves.

      Then the judge went to Katib Al-Majnun's house and severely interrogated his servants, threatening them with death. Eventually one of Al-Majnun's women slaves, had to confess, under the judge's pressure, saying: "Nothing had been stolen from him, but he has put the money in the sack and covered it up with sand under the tree." She showed the place and the judge extracted the money and brought it to the Emir, reporting all the history.

      The Emir was angry at Al-Majnun and had to hunt him from the city to the country of nonbelievers, and people eaters.

      Al-Majnun stayed with the men-eaters for 4 years, then by personal request of the caliph's astrologer, had been returned back to the city and placed in Al-Farouk's service.

      The black man-eaters had not eaten АI-Majnun only because of the white color of his skin, insomuch as their strong tribal belief claimed that as if eating the whites was extremely harmful since they were not ripened, black on the other way, in their view, were quite ripened….

      Travelling down memory lane and mulling over on the misadventures, and about kindness and knowledgeability of the great astrologer and soothsayer, Al-Majnun did not notice, as the city was gently wrapped by the lowering twilight.

      After a while the full moon on a clear and cloudless sky, surrounded by a myriad of stars shined the caravan's way.

      Having reached the tent of Al-Farouk, he unloaded camels, tied on the cattle, arranged slaves on lodging for the night in the palm grove, not forgetting to distribute mats and allowing making fire. Finished with all the necessary procedures, he counted the quantity of water skins, sacks and jars, as well as the bags with the rests of gold dust and went in direction of his master's tent.

      Pushing aside the tent’s edge and calling for Al-Farouk, surprisingly discovered that the tent was empty.

      "Where could he be? After all, if his horse is here then…," Al-Majnun speculated, skirting the palm grove and striking into the wilderness.

      Having climbed on the sand dune, Al-Majnun grow numb with the scene that suddenly broke upon him. A fiery circle in the light of the moon and the stars glowed with the pictograms and magical characters with engraved mysterious symbols, that looked as though they had grown out of the sand. The stars whirled in a round dance over the glowing circle, creating a skied cover that bore a resemblance to the "Stellar Tabernacle".

      In the center of the circle was Al-Farouk, and before him, hanging in mid-air, was an opened book with glowing letters of unprecedented language, previously seen by anyone. The book pages turned over by itself, thus Al-Farouk wrote down something, continuously pronouncing some conjurations in the strange language.

      Scared Al-Majnun observes the Stargazer in the Stellar Tabernacle.

      He attentively kept watching over the events from under a big pile of stones, Al-Majnun suddenly heard the loud and indignant shouts of his master, – "How could it be?! What!!? More than nine centuries are to elapse?!! How does it come, the heritor will be found in 941 years from now!! What!! How is it possible there will be two of them!!? What does that mean, one will come from the North, and another…What?!! A half from the North, and a half from the East!!?" cried, exasperatedly the Great astrologer.

      "What…?!! My book containing all the ripest products of human wisdom, all the works, ancient and modern, which testify the presence and the rule of the Creator, the most precious knowledge of all my predecessors, will belong to swindlers and scoundrels!!!? What…?!! My priceless book of inherit wisdom will be used to kill cockroaches, and to cut a salty fish on it!!? Who is that, what's his name…L e о p о I d!!?".

      The loud indignation shouts of Al-Farouk were dissolved in the night desert, having responded, as it seemed to Al-Majnun, from somewhere out of the farness depth of the sands, with a slightly audible echo, carrying the words, – "That is the Will, that is the Will

      As soon as the last faintly distinguishable sounds of echo died away, getting lost somewhere in between the starry sky and magnificent sands of the ancient Sahara, instantaneously, both the book and a fiery circle with magic signs disappeared, leaving the great astrologer of the Caliph alone with the great and silent desert.

      "Now, it's necessary to hurry for sure!" muttered Al-Majnun under his nose, dexterously rolling down from a steep sandy slope.

      1.3 Al-Majnun contemplations

      However, whether the Caliph's great astrologer might have guessed about the existence of the other book, which his servant Al-Majnun secretly wrote for his inheritor, one should have very much doubted. Being in the country of black men eaters and awaiting to be eaten one day, he had begun drawing. Furtively getting a load of tribal cave drawings and taking from local jungle nature its rich, subtle and elaborate forms, he little by little, had risen from nature to drawing animals and human beings. Every time pursuing to catch something new from nature, something terrific, he found the process of drawing arduous and exhilarating.

      Примечания

      1

      Al-Majnun (مج نون) – in Arabic – the crank, a little touched.

      2

      Berbers – people who lived in the Libyan Sahara, which way back when Greeks named Berbers, that is "barbarians", pul

Примечания

1

Al-Majnun (مج نون) – in Arabic – the crank, a little touched.

2

Berbers – people who lived in the Libyan Sahara, which way back when Greeks named Berbers, that is "barbarians", pulled through from the Roman legionaries, and had to go deep into the desert to conduct their free nomadic life full of depravations. Berber tribes – Zenato, Sanhadja and Godalla, have appeared at the Atlantic coast of the Sahara in II century. In oases they dug wells, planted date palm trees and sowed sorgo. And today, those Saharawi, which are engaged in agriculture, conduct the genealogy from these tribes.

17

Mema is a region in Mali, Africa. A plain of alluvial deposits, it is situated north of Massina; west of Lake Debo and the Inner Niger Delta. Historically, Mema was one of the smaller Soninke states; it was also at one time a province of Ghana.