Starbook

by Ben Okri

  'Eat, eat, eat the world

  Conquer, conquer, conquer the world

  Rule, rule, rule the world

  I am the king, the king of the world.

  Blood, blood, blood in the world

  Death, death, death in the world

  Enslave, enslave, enslave the world

  I am the king, the king of the world.

  Take, take, take the world

  Destroy, destroy, destroy the world

  Hate, hate, hate the world

  I am the king, the king of the world.

  Unmake, unmake, unmake the world

  Evil, evil, evil in the world

  Darkness, darkness, darkness in the world

  I am the happy happy king of the world.

  Dance, dance, dance away this dream

  Drink, drink, drink away this stream

  Swallow, swallow, swallow the sun

  Then I, the king, will be the only one.

  Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha; Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!'

  And as the masquerade laughed its ugly laughter, the prince noticed that its dance, grown more ferocious, was actually beginning to destroy the world. Its dance began to break the kingdom's foundations. The land split open and all over, from far away and near by, the prince heard the cries of people falling into a gaping chasm that appeared under their feet. He heard huts and abodes collapsing, he heard voices screaming in an interminable fall, he heard trees crashing down and the forests shrieking.

  And the prince momentarily fell into a dream in which the heron stood clear, upright, majestic and bright. The heron stood in the middle of a space full of noble bronze figures; and among the figures was the maiden that he had been waiting for. He knew at once that she came from a family of bronze-casters, sculptors, a tribe of artists, a hidden race that lived away from all other peoples and tribes, so that they could listen to the oracles in the air and create forms in bronze and stone that warned of things to come, or things that haven't been done, or of disturbances to the realm, prophecies and revelations, or just forms that give a secret joy to some unknown self within. Such was the tribe she came from, a tribe that knew and kept the ancient secrets of bronze-casting, of divination through art, of healing through created forms, of the mysteries of creation. They were an underground tribe, who lived and created invisibly, not disdaining others, but knowing that the only way they could serve the land was to live their own way, with their own freedom, following their own magical and fluid laws, guided by constant intuitions and directives of the spirit, in accordance with the needs of the times. Such was the way of the maiden and her people.

  He knew now that he was extremely fortunate to have seen her at all the first time, and now he would have to persevere and be very lucky if he was ever going to see her again, and to inspire her love, and win her heart. For he had seen her, and dreamt of her, but she had never seen him, and didn't know that he even existed ...

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  And all the while, in the dream, the prince saw the radiant beauty of the heron, shining like a diamond in a dying world. And all of a sudden the prince heard a mighty tumult, the wailing and the crashing, and woke from his dream and saw the masquerade in its destruction of the world. At that moment the prince had the absurd notion that the destruction of the world was somehow delayed by keeping his attention on the heron, who, at that moment, had disappeared to a speck.

  And only when the masquerade began devouring the trees, eating up the shore, and drinking up the water of the river, drinking it dry, leaving only a deep chasm of a dry riverbed full of skeletons, only when the masquerade had eaten up the bushes, was breathing in all the air, and had begun to break off the sun and to devour it, bringing on night, only when the prince saw the body of the masquerade grow bigger and bigger till it was almost greater than the earth itself, and only when the masquerade was about to devour the prince himself, because of too much attention the prince had paid to it, only then did the prince remember the heron again.

  And the prince noticed that the heron had made a very minute movement, the tiniest, subtlest movement. And this movement, small though it was, proved enough for the reality, the mystery and the true luminous hidden magnificence of the heron to be revealed again. And when the prince regained his loyal gaze on the heron, seeing it as a radiant thing in a dying space, the prime living thing in a dead world, only then did the masquerade begin to diminish.

  But first the masquerade howled, it raged, it thundered, it leaked blood from all over its vast trunk, and blood and liverish fluids filled the hollow world and flowed into the riverbed and the river became a river of blood. And the sun shone out from all parts of the masquerade. And air leaked from its vents. And the heron became clear and white and stood tall and unveiled, in its unfolding, its true hieratic splendour. And then it pressed up gently its feet, and outstretched, with barely an effort, its wings. And like a king of space, a king of light, it flew above the blood-red river, and in its flight it changed all things. Its humble majesty restored a new attention to the world.

  And the masquerade tried to swat the heron, and to snatch it with its thousand hands and devour it with its seven heads. But the masquerade got all mixed up and so confused that it began a war against itself as it became self-entangled trying to kill the white heron sailing along nonchalantly, unaware, it seemed, that anything out of the ordinary was going on.

  The prince was fascinated. The heron didn't notice, or didn't seem to see, or register the existence of, the masquerade. And in its not-knowing it caused the greatest damage of all. For the masquerade, wielding its thousand swords, spears, bows and arrows and lethal instruments of war, had unleashed a mighty battle against itself. It had cut off some of its own heads in its attempts to slay the heron; it had blinded itself with its poisoned spears; and had, eventually, pierced its own heart, in the most ferocious battle ever witnessed by human eyes.

  What a battle it was, this self-battle of the masquerade. The clash of mighty armies never produced more cries, more anguish, more tragedy, more blood, more agony, or more drama and destruction than the battle of the masquerade against itself, against its many selves. And then, with a sigh that released all the air of the world back into the spaces, the masquerade fell slowly into the blood-filled river. And the sun, freed from its mouth as it drowned, changed and purified the water.

  The sun rose in majesty from the far side of the red river, and its light restored the world to itself.

  And in the distance, herald of a new dawn, soared the heron, flying gently as a breeze, borne aloft by the gentlest light.

  The prince bade it farewell with tears in his eyes.

  And still the maiden did not appear.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The prince made his way home through a forest that bristled with prying eyes. When he got back to the village he noticed the silence in the air. He had not heard the silence before, and it puzzled him. He noticed the shadows that hung over the huts and abodes. He hadn't seen them before. He also noticed that between all things, between the trees, between the huts, between the walls and the gates, there were indistinguishable forms, like invisible beings investing the air with wavy shapes, that he had never noticed before. All this troubled him.

  Then he saw something new on the faces of the people of the kingdom, the faces of the men, women and children who greeted him on the way to the palace. And what he saw was something that wasn't there before, something that even the people didn't know they had on their faces. It was something akin to the shadow of doom. The prince hurried on, in apprehension.

  In the palace he summoned the elders to the presence of the king and asked to be taken to the shrines, to the oracles. He wanted to consult the diviners, the soothsayers. He wanted to be told about the guardian spirits of the kingdom. He wanted to know the disposition of the gods and the mood of the ancestors. He wanted to know the legends and genealogies and the origin of monsters, of shadow forms, of spirits, of evil beings, and of the forces that warred against the w
elfare of the kingdom. He wanted to know the origin of evil in the world. And the king roared with laughter as he listened to the requests of his son ...

  The elders protested at how much the young prince was, with his perfectly reasonable, but slightly unseasonable requests, wasting their time. They should, they said, be deliberating on important matters of state.

  'Like what?' roared the king.

  'Like collecting taxes ...'

  The king bellowed with laughter.

  'And what else?'

  The elders enumerated items of significant state concern.

  'But you never discuss these things at all,' the king said, sternly. 'You squabble endlessly, you exchange wise but useless proverbs, you engage in excellent subtleties of reasoning, you endlessly postpone coming to a decision about anything, you waste the time with slippery words in which your meanings cannot be understood, in which your positions or attitudes cannot be detected, you are always waiting to see which way the wind blows, always protecting your interests and ensuring your continued presence on the council of elders, you spend the time doing profitable business with one another, advancing your privileges, acquiring wives, furthering the interests of your children, families and tribes... In fact can you remember the last time you came to a collective decision about anything?'

  'Many times, your majesty,' cried one elder.

  'Name one, then,' replied the king.

  There was silence. Then the elders consulted among themselves. They consulted a long time and soon began to squabble in low voices. The king roared with his characteristic laughter, and said:

  'You see! The decisions that are taken happen by themselves in the very mouth of the crisis. So don't complain about the request of the prince. He is my heir, and future king. His request is legitimate. Do what he asks.'

  The elders turned and stared at the prince. He looked upon them innocently, and noticed that there were signs on their faces that he could not read. They asked for some time in which to prepare themselves, but the prince said it had to be now. There was no time, he said. It was urgent. So they adjourned to the council rooms and they told him, one by one, as in a ritual chorus, the genealogy of monsters, the origin of evil beings, the permutations of dark forms. They took him to the shrines, and consulted the oracles, gained signs about the disposition of the gods and the mood of the ancestors, and were told conflicting myths about the origin of evil in the world.

  The oracles were bewildering in what they said. The world is upside-down, has turned on its axis, the people live in a dream, and death has come to wake them up in long lines of ants that walk into the seas. The kingdoms do not look out, do not see. The outside world comes with fire and blinding light, in silence, bearing new words that will destroy old worlds. A dream of chains, a trick that makes people two in magic glasses, young lions raided, villages with nests destroyed, war dances silenced, gods in flames, ancestors forgotten, an earthquake in which the earth does not quake but the people are made dumb for a hundred and forty years, a new sun that rises from the red river in time, and after the exodus of hope and dreams a people made new with the fire of the gods, made new and beautiful and aware and gifted, blessed. But only after the years in the wilderness, and after the songs of the dead, and after the lamentation of flowers, and after the rebirth of rivers, and the reuniting of brothers and sisters across the great seas of life and death.

  These things the oracle uttered.

  The disposition of the gods was more oblique.

  They stand on the edge of burning stars, the heavens are not reflected on earth, darkness comes between their messages and our eyes, lost is the way handed down to you by your wise ancestors who came from elsewhere bringing wisdom and guidance to the new heaven, gone are the gold-makers. Find the masters of the tradition. The gods stand in harmony in the centre of the source, but we have lost the lantern.

  The mood of the ancestors was obscure. They spoke, but in a language the diviners could not understand. They sang, but the interpreters could not hear the words, nor could they hear the music.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The prince fell asleep amid all this confusion, and was borne lightly to his bed. That night the dark forms, the shadows over the huts, and the invisible beings in between things came to him. They paid him a visit in his sleep. The ancestors spoke to him in songs and dances that were like words. The gods appeared to him and showed him signs and indications that baffled him. Briefly, in a flash, he was shown the origin of evil in the world. On a higher plane an angel had disobeyed the supreme being; and man, high in the scheme of things, disobeyed too and lost his vigilance, and broke the axis of heaven. And in order to create a higher state for all men, he descended into unreality, preyed on by the disobedient angel and his gang of higher spirits. And the prince saw that evil was ignorance, was darkness, and was confined only to the earth and the lower spheres of the universe.

  He saw that evil was related only to mortality and the lowly souls. Beyond the lower spheres the prince saw that all was light. He saw that evil served its function, which was to provide the opposition needed for the light to grow, and keep growing; for there can be no good without evil, no light without darkness, day without night. But the destination of the soul was beyond good and evil, darkness and light, beyond it all. Evil was the ladder by which the difficult ascension was made. Evil was not the only way for the ascension, for the ascension was simpler by grace, goodness, love and natural flight – but evil was the one thing that humanity, in its blindness, was prey to, must overcome, transcend, and turn into light. Evil was a battle or a non-battle which humanity must win and overcome consciously in itself if it is to regain its former place, or find a new place, in heaven.

  The prince was shown all this and understood it all in a flash, and much more besides. And what the ancestors said to him in songs, in music and in dances he absorbed but forgot, and would remember much later, in time, when needed, and when events so terrible would spring them out in his mind as his own thoughts, his own deeds.

  But that night the visitations he attracted from the evil forms (to see them is to be seen by them), the shadows over things (they go where they must grow), and the ambiguous beings between things (if the space is there they fill up the air; if the space is not light, they grow there in might) – the visitations were so strong that they troubled the prince's sleep.

  They occupied the prince's dreams because he was an open soul and gave all things habitation, and was not yet strong enough or fortified enough to resist such inhabitation. For this possession was part of the ritual fortification. First the soul must be infected with that which it will become impervious to; if it survives the attack, the foundation becomes impregnable; if it doesn't, a good person perishes, and has to begin again from where they left off the struggle. So it was with the prince.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The dreams he had were monstrous. The evil forms that visited him and the shadows over things that descended on him and the visions of the night were so terrible that a great unease entered his spirit. His dreams were mixed and confusing; and monsters with teeth all over their bodies appeared beside him and began to eat of his flesh, till only his heart remained. Liverish spirits with snake-like legs and eyes that reflected what they saw and bodies crawling with white worms slid into him and danced and wriggled in his being. A host of evil-looking critters took up occupation in his brain and held long meetings about how to conquer the kingdom of his soul.

  And then he saw unspeakable acts of witchcraft and dark cultic activities – power-seekers who ate the brains of newborn babies, women who poisoned their husbands and married their brothers, men who murdered their wives and buried them in farmlands, warriors who beheaded the conquered and danced at night with their skulls under a luminous moon. The prince saw so much evil and he was the home of so many kinds of nightmare beings that he became ill. He fell into a deep illness because of all the evils in the kingdom that he was shown in his dreams. All the hidden evils af
fected him so powerfully that he slid into a profound sickness that lasted a long time.