Sidi laughed, startled. “Yellow? Why?”
“Your wives will be yellow.”
The dancing-girls, who had moved to the far side of the table, giggled in unison. Bagayoko pulled a gold coin from within his sleeve. “I will give you this gold dirham if you will show me your body.”
Elfelilet frowned prettily and blinked her kohl-smeared lashes. “Oh, learned Doctor, please spare us.”
“You will see my body, sir, if you have patience,” said the Sufferer. “As yet, the people of Audoghast laugh at my prophecies. I am doomed to tell the truth, which is harsh and cruel, and therefore absurd. As my fame grows, however, it will reach the ears of your Prince, who will then order you to remove me as a threat to public order. You will then sprinkle your favorite poison, powdered asp venom, into a bowl of chickpea soup I will receive from a customer. I bear you no grudge for this, as it will be your civic duty, and will relieve me of pain.”
“What an odd notion,” said Bagayoko, frowning. “I see no need for the Prince to call on my services. One of his spearmen could puncture you like a waterskin.”
“By then,” the prophet said, “my occult powers will have roused so much uneasiness that it will seem best to take extreme measures.”
“Well,” said Bagayoko, “that’s convenient, if exceedingly grotesque.”
“Unlike other prophets,” said the Sufferer, “I see the future not as one might wish it to be, but in all its cataclysmic and blind futility. That is why I have come here, to your delightful city. My numerous and totally accurate prophecies will vanish when this city does. This will spare the world any troublesome conflicts of predestination and free will.”
“He is a theologian!” the poet said. “A leper theologian—it’s a shame my professors in Timbuktu aren’t here to debate him!”
“You prophesy doom for our city?” said Manimenesh.
“Yes. I will be specific. This is the year 406 of the Prophet’s Hejira, and one thousand and fourteen years since the birth of Christ. In forty years, a puritan and fanatical cult of Moslems will arise, known as the Almoravids. At that time, Audoghast will be an ally of the Ghana Empire, who are idol-worshipers. Ibn Yasin, the warrior saint of the Almoravids, will condemn Audoghast as a nest of pagans. He will set his horde of desert marauders against the city; they will be enflamed by righteousness and greed. They will slaughter the men, and rape and enslave the women. Audoghast will be sacked, the wells will be poisoned, and the cropland will wither and blow away. In a hundred years, sand dunes will bury the ruins. In five hundred years, Audoghast will survive only as a few dozen lines of narrative in the travel books of Arab scholars.”
Khayali shifted his guitar. “But the libraries of Timbuktu are full of books on Audoghast, including, if I may say so, our immortal tradition of poetry.”
“I have not yet mentioned Timbuktu,” said the prophet, “which will be sacked by Moorish invaders led by a blond Spanish eunuch. They will feed the books to goats.”
The company burst into incredulous laughter. Unperturbed, the prophet said, “The ruin will be so general, so thorough, and so all-encompassing, that in future centuries it will be stated, and believed, that West Africa was always a land of savages.”
“Who in the world could make such a slander?” said the poet.
“They will be Europeans, who will emerge from their current squalid decline, and arm themselves with mighty sciences.”
“What happens then?” said Bagayoko, smiling.
“I can look at those future ages,” said the prophet, “but I prefer not to do so, as it makes my head hurt.”
“You prophesy, then,” said Manimenesh, “that our far-famed metropolis, with its towering mosques and armed militia, will be reduced to utter desolation.”
“Such is the truth, regrettable as it may be. You, and all you love, will leave no trace in this world, except a few lines in the writing of strangers.”
“And our city will fall to savage tribesmen?”
The Sufferer said, “No one here will witness the disaster to come. You will live out your lives, year after year, enjoying ease and luxury, not because you deserve it, but simply because of blind fate. In time you will forget this night; you will forget all I have said, just as the world will forget you and your city. When Audoghast falls, this boy Sidi, this son of a slave, will be the only survivor of this night’s gathering. By then he too will have forgotten Audoghast, which he has no cause to love. He will be a rich old merchant in Ch’ang-an, which is a Chinese city of such fantastic wealth that it could buy ten Audoghasts, and which will not be sacked and annihilated until a considerably later date.”
“This is madness,” said Watunan.
Bagayoko twirled a crusted lock of mud-smeared hair in his supple fingers. “Your gate-guard is a husky lad, friend Manimenesh. What say we have him bash this storm-crow’s head in, and haul him out to be hyena food?”
“For that, Doctor,” said the Sufferer, “I will tell you the manner of your death. You will be killed by the Ghanaian royal guard, while attempting to kill the crown prince by blowing a subtle poison into his anus with a hollow reed.”
Bagayoko started. “You idiot, there is no crown prince.”
“He was conceived yesterday.”
Bagayoko turned impatiently to the host. “Let us rid ourselves of this prodigy!”
Manimenesh nodded sternly. “Sufferer, you have insulted my guests and my city. You are lucky to leave my home alive.”
The Sufferer hauled himself with agonizing slowness to his single foot. “Your boy spoke to me of your generosity.”
“What! Not one copper for your driveling.”
“Give me one of the gold dirhams from your purse. Otherwise I shall be forced to continue prophesying, and in a more intimate vein.”
Manimenesh considered this. “Perhaps it’s best.” He threw Sidi a coin. “Give this to the madman and escort him back to his raving-booth.”
They waited in tormented patience as the fortune-teller creaked and crutched, with painful slowness, into the darkness.
Manimenesh, brusquely, threw out his red velvet sleeves and clapped for wine. “Give us a song, Khayali.”
The poet pulled the cowl of his cloak over his head. “My head rings with an awful silence,” he said. “I see all waymarks effaced, the joyous pleasances converted into barren wilderness. Jackals resort here, ghosts frolic, and demons sport; the gracious halls, and rich boudoirs, that once shone like the sun, now, overwhelmed by desolation, seem like the gaping mouths of savage beasts!” He looked at the dancing-girls, his eyes brimming with tears. “I picture these maidens, lying beneath the dust, or dispersed to distant parts and far regions, scattered by the hand of exile, torn to pieces by the fingers of expatriation.”
Manimenesh smiled on him kindly. “My boy,” he said, “if others cannot hear your songs, or embrace these women, or drink this wine, the loss is not ours, but theirs. Let us, then, enjoy all three, and let those unborn do the regretting.”
“Your patron is wise,” said Ibn Watunan, patting the poet on the shoulder. “You see him here, favored by Allah with every luxury; and you saw that filthy madman, bedeviled by plague. That lunatic, who pretends to great wisdom, only croaks of ruin; while our industrious friend makes the world a better place, by fostering nobility and learning. Could God forsake a city like this, with all its charms, to bring about that fool’s disgusting prophesies?” He lifted his cup to Elfelilet, and drank deeply.
“But delightful Audoghast,” said the poet, weeping. “All our loveliness, lost to the sands.”
“The world is wide,” said Bagayoko, “and the years are long. It is not for us to claim immortality, not even if we are poets. But take comfort, my friend. Even if these walls and buildings crumble, there will always be a place like Audoghast, as long as men love profit! The mines are inexhaustible, and elephants are thick as fleas. Mother Africa will always give us gold and ivory.”
“Always?” said the poet hopefully, dab
bing at his eyes.
“Well, surely there are always slaves,” said Manimenesh, and smiled, and winked. The others laughed with him, and there was joy again.
BRUCE STERLING was born in 1954 in Brownsville, Texas, and apart from several years in southern India has lived in Texas all his life. The author sold his first story in 1976, and his short fiction—regularly nominated for the Hugo and Nebula Awards—has appeared in Universe, Omni, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, and elsewhere. Novels by Bruce Sterling include Involution Ocean (1977), The Artificial Kid (1980), Schismatrix (1985), Islands in the Net (1988), and the forthcoming Difference Engine, in collaboration with William Gibson; Sterling also has edited Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology (1986), one of the most critically acclaimed compilations of the present decade. The author describes his Crystal Express collection as “shining bits of fractal prose precipitated from the supersaturated solution of the eighties milieu. Kinda handy to have ’em all assembled here before things get really strange.”
RICK LIEDER was born in 1954 in Detroit, Michigan, where he currently works as a computer artist and commercial photographer. Entirely self-taught, Lieder has been particularly influenced by surrealism and German expressionism. He has contributed illustrations to several books and magazines, as well as exhibiting his fine art in galleries in Michigan and Canada. Constantly experimenting, Lieder takes advantage of any accidents that occur during the creation of his images and hopes that his pictures provoke a sense of mystery and wonder. He has been so upset by the destruction of the world’s rain forests that parts of his body are devolving in sympathy.
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