by Paulo Coelho
The boy wanted to take her hand. But Fatima’s hands held to the handles of her jug.
“You have told me about your dreams, about the old king and your treasure. And you’ve told me about omens. So now, I fear nothing, because it was those omens that brought you to me. And I am a part of your dream, a part of your Personal Legend, as you call it.
“That’s why I want you to continue toward your goal. If you have to wait until the war is over, then wait. But if you have to go before then, go on in pursuit of your dream. The dunes are changed by the wind, but the desert never changes. That’s the way it will be with our love for each other.
“Maktub,” she said. “If I am really a part of your dream, you’ll come back one day.”
The boy was sad as he left her that day. He thought of all the married shepherds he had known. They had a difficult time convincing their wives that they had to go off into distant fields. Love required them to stay with the people they loved.
He told Fatima that, at their next meeting.
“The desert takes our men from us, and they don’t always return,” she said. “We know that, and we are used to it. Those who don’t return become a part of the clouds, a part of the animals that hide in the ravines and of the water that comes from the earth. They become a part of everything…they become the Soul of the World.
“Some do come back. And then the other women are happy because they believe that their men may one day return, as well. I used to look at those women and envy them their happiness. Now, I too will be one of the women who wait.
“I’m a desert woman, and I’m proud of that. I want my husband to wander as free as the wind that shapes the dunes. And, if I have to, I will accept the fact that he has become a part of the clouds, and the animals, and the water of the desert.”
The boy went to look for the Englishman. He wanted to tell him about Fatima. He was surprised when he saw that the Englishman had built himself a furnace outside his tent. It was a strange furnace, fueled by firewood, with a transparent flask heating on top. As the Englishman stared out at the desert, his eyes seemed brighter than they had when he was reading his books.
“This is the first phase of the job,” he said. “I have to separate out the sulfur. To do that successfully, I must have no fear of failure. It was my fear of failure that first kept me from attempting the Master Work. Now, I’m beginning what I could have started ten years ago. But I’m happy at least that I didn’t wait twenty years.”
He continued to feed the fire, and the boy stayed on until the desert turned pink in the setting sun. He felt the urge to go out into the desert, to see if its silence held the answers to his questions.
He wandered for a while, keeping the date palms of the oasis within sight. He listened to the wind, and felt the stones beneath his feet. Here and there, he found a shell, and realized that the desert, in remote times, had been a sea. He sat on a stone, and allowed himself to become hypnotized by the horizon. He tried to deal with the concept of love as distinct from possession, and couldn’t separate them. But Fatima was a woman of the desert, and, if anything could help him to understand, it was the desert.
As he sat there thinking, he sensed movement above him. Looking up, he saw a pair of hawks flying high in the sky.
He watched the hawks as they drifted on the wind. Although their flight appeared to have no pattern, it made a certain kind of sense to the boy. It was just that he couldn’t grasp what it meant. He followed the movement of the birds, trying to read something into it. Maybe these desert birds could explain to him the meaning of love without ownership.
He felt sleepy. In his heart, he wanted to remain awake, but he also wanted to sleep. “I am learning the Language of the World, and everything in the world is beginning to make sense to me…even the flight of the hawks,” he said to himself. And, in that mood, he was grateful to be in love. When you are in love, things make even more sense, he thought.
Suddenly, one of the hawks made a flashing dive through the sky, attacking the other. As it did so, a sudden, fleeting image came to the boy: an army, with its swords at the ready, riding into the oasis. The vision vanished immediately, but it had shaken him. He had heard people speak of mirages, and had already seen some himself: they were desires that, because of their intensity, materialized over the sands of the desert. But he certainly didn’t desire that an army invade the oasis.
He wanted to forget about the vision, and return to his meditation. He tried again to concentrate on the pink shades of the desert, and its stones. But there was something there in his heart that wouldn’t allow him to do so.
“Always heed the omens,” the old king had said. The boy recalled what he had seen in the vision, and sensed that it was actually going to occur.
He rose, and made his way back toward the palm trees. Once again, he perceived the many languages in the things about him: this time, the desert was safe, and it was the oasis that had become dangerous.
The camel driver was seated at the base of a palm tree, observing the sunset. He saw the boy appear from the other side of the dunes.
“An army is coming,” the boy said. “I had a vision.”
“The desert fills men’s hearts with visions,” the camel driver answered.
But the boy told him about the hawks: that he had been watching their flight and had suddenly felt himself to have plunged to the Soul of the World.
The camel driver understood what the boy was saying. He knew that any given thing on the face of the earth could reveal the history of all things. One could open a book to any page, or look at a person’s hand; one could turn a card, or watch the flight of the birds…whatever the thing observed, one could find a connection with his experience of the moment. Actually, it wasn’t that those things, in themselves, revealed anything at all; it was just that people, looking at what was occurring around them, could find a means of penetration to the Soul of the World.
The desert was full of men who earned their living based on the ease with which they could penetrate to the Soul of the World. They were known as seers, and they were held in fear by women and the elderly. Tribesmen were also wary of consulting them, because it would be impossible to be effective in battle if one knew that he was fated to die. The tribesmen preferred the taste of battle, and the thrill of not knowing what the outcome would be; the future was already written by Allah, and what he had written was always for the good of man. So the tribesmen lived only for the present, because the present was full of surprises, and they had to be aware of many things: Where was the enemy’s sword? Where was his horse? What kind of blow should one deliver next in order to remain alive? The camel driver was not a fighter, and he had consulted with seers. Many of them had been right about what they said, while some had been wrong. Then, one day, the oldest seer he had ever sought out (and the one most to be feared) had asked why the camel driver was so interested in the future.
“Well…so I can do things,” he had responded. “And so I can change those things that I don’t want to happen.”
“But then they wouldn’t be a part of your future,” the seer had said.
“Well, maybe I just want to know the future so I can prepare myself for what’s coming.”
“If good things are coming, they will be a pleasant surprise,” said the seer. “If bad things are, and you know in advance, you will suffer greatly before they even occur.”
“I want to know about the future because I’m a man,” the camel driver had said to the seer. “And men always live their lives based on the future.”
The seer was a specialist in the casting of twigs; he threw them on the ground, and made interpretations based on how they fell. That day, he didn’t make a cast. He wrapped the twigs in a piece of cloth and put them back in his bag.
“I make my living forecasting the future for people,” he said. “I know the science of the twigs, and I know how to use them to penetrate to the place where all is written. There, I can read the past, discover what has alrea
dy been forgotten, and understand the omens that are here in the present.
“When people consult me, it’s not that I’m reading the future; I am guessing at the future. The future belongs to God, and it is only he who reveals it, under extraordinary circumstances. How do I guess at the future? Based on the omens of the present. The secret is here in the present. If you pay attention to the present, you can improve upon it. And, if you improve on the present, what comes later will also be better. Forget about the future, and live each day according to the teachings, confident that God loves his children. Each day, in itself, brings with it an eternity.”
The camel driver had asked what the circumstances were under which God would allow him to see the future.
“Only when he, himself, reveals it. And God only rarely reveals the future. When he does so, it is for only one reason: it’s a future that was written so as to be altered.”
God had shown the boy a part of the future, the camel driver thought. Why was it that he wanted the boy to serve as his instrument?
“Go and speak to the tribal chieftains,” said the camel driver. “Tell them about the armies that are approaching.”
“They’ll laugh at me.”
“They are men of the desert, and the men of the desert are used to dealing with omens.”
“Well, then, they probably already know.”
“They’re not concerned with that right now. They believe that if they have to know about something Allah wants them to know, someone will tell them about it. It has happened many times before. But, this time, the person is you.”
The boy thought of Fatima. And he decided he would go to see the chiefs of the tribes.
THE BOY APPROACHED THE GUARD AT THE FRONT OF THE huge white tent at the center of the oasis.
“I want to see the chieftains. I’ve brought omens from the desert.”
Without responding, the guard entered the tent, where he remained for some time. When he emerged, it was with a young Arab, dressed in white and gold. The boy told the younger man what he had seen, and the man asked him to wait there. He disappeared into the tent.
Night fell, and an assortment of fighting men and merchants entered and exited the tent. One by one, the campfires were extinguished, and the oasis fell as quiet as the desert. Only the lights in the great tent remained. During all this time, the boy thought about Fatima, and he was still unable to understand his last conversation with her.
Finally, after hours of waiting, the guard bade the boy enter. The boy was astonished by what he saw inside. Never could he have imagined that, there in the middle of the desert, there existed a tent like this one. The ground was covered with the most beautiful carpets he had ever walked upon, and from the top of the structure hung lamps of handwrought gold, each with a lighted candle. The tribal chieftains were seated at the back of the tent in a semicircle, resting upon richly embroidered silk cushions. Servants came and went with silver trays laden with spices and tea. Other servants maintained the fires in the hookahs. The atmosphere was suffused with the sweet scent of smoke.
There were eight chieftains, but the boy could see immediately which of them was the most important: an Arab dressed in white and gold, seated at the center of the semicircle. At his side was the young Arab the boy had spoken with earlier.
“Who is this stranger who speaks of omens?” asked one of the chieftains, eyeing the boy.
“It is I,” the boy answered. And he told what he had seen.
“Why would the desert reveal such things to a stranger, when it knows that we have been here for generations?” said another of the chieftains.
“Because my eyes are not yet accustomed to the desert,” the boy said. “I can see things that eyes habituated to the desert might not see.”
And also because I know about the Soul of the World, he thought to himself.
“The oasis is neutral ground. No one attacks an oasis,” said a third chieftain.
“I can only tell you what I saw. If you don’t want to believe me, you don’t have to do anything about it.”
The men fell into an animated discussion. They spoke in an Arabic dialect that the boy didn’t understand, but, when he made to leave, the guard told him to stay. The boy became fearful; the omens told him that something was wrong. He regretted having spoken to the camel driver about what he had seen in the desert.
Suddenly, the elder at the center smiled almost imperceptibly, and the boy felt better. The man hadn’t participated in the discussion, and, in fact, hadn’t said a word up to that point. But the boy was already used to the Language of the World, and he could feel the vibrations of peace throughout the tent. Now his intuition was that he had been right in coming.
The discussion ended. The chieftains were silent for a few moments as they listened to what the old man was saying. Then he turned to the boy: this time his expression was cold and distant.
“Two thousand years ago, in a distant land, a man who believed in dreams was thrown into a dungeon and then sold as a slave,” the old man said, now in the dialect the boy understood. “Our merchants bought that man, and brought him to Egypt. All of us know that whoever believes in dreams also knows how to interpret them.”
The elder continued, “When the pharaoh dreamed of cows that were thin and cows that were fat, this man I’m speaking of rescued Egypt from famine. His name was Joseph. He, too, was a stranger in a strange land, like you, and he was probably about your age.”
He paused, and his eyes were still unfriendly.
“We always observe the Tradition. The Tradition saved Egypt from famine in those days, and made the Egyptians the wealthiest of peoples. The Tradition teaches men how to cross the desert, and how their children should marry. The Tradition says that an oasis is neutral territory, because both sides have oases, and so both are vulnerable.”
No one said a word as the old man continued.
“But the Tradition also says that we should believe the messages of the desert. Everything we know was taught to us by the desert.”
The old man gave a signal, and everyone stood. The meeting was over. The hookahs were extinguished, and the guards stood at attention. The boy made ready to leave, but the old man spoke again:
“Tomorrow, we are going to break the agreement that says that no one at the oasis may carry arms. Throughout the entire day we will be on the lookout for our enemies. When the sun sets, the men will once again surrender their arms to me. For every ten dead men among our enemies, you will receive a piece of gold.
“But arms cannot be drawn unless they also go into battle. Arms are as capricious as the desert, and, if they are not used, the next time they might not function. If at least one of them hasn’t been used by the end of the day tomorrow, one will be used on you.”
When the boy left the tent, the oasis was illuminated only by the light of the full moon. He was twenty minutes from his tent, and began to make his way there.
He was alarmed by what had happened. He had succeeded in reaching through to the Soul of the World, and now the price for having done so might be his life. It was a frightening bet. But he had been making risky bets ever since the day he had sold his sheep to pursue his Personal Legend. And, as the camel driver had said, to die tomorrow was no worse than dying on any other day. Every day was there to be lived or to mark one’s departure from this world. Everything depended on one word: “Maktub.”
Walking along in the silence, he had no regrets. If he died tomorrow, it would be because God was not willing to change the future. He would at least have died after having crossed the strait, after having worked in a crystal shop, and after having known the silence of the desert and Fatima’s eyes. He had lived every one of his days intensely since he had left home so long ago. If he died tomorrow, he would already have seen more than other shepherds, and he was proud of that.
Suddenly he heard a thundering sound, and he was thrown to the ground by a wind such as he had never known. The area was swirling in dust so intense that it hid the
moon from view. Before him was an enormous white horse, rearing over him with a frightening scream.
When the blinding dust had settled a bit, the boy trembled at what he saw. Astride the animal was a horseman dressed completely in black, with a falcon perched on his left shoulder. He wore a turban and his entire face, except for his eyes, was covered with a black kerchief. He appeared to be a messenger from the desert, but his presence was much more powerful than that of a mere messenger.
The strange horseman drew an enormous, curved sword from a scabbard mounted on his saddle. The steel of its blade glittered in the light of the moon.
“Who dares to read the meaning of the flight of the hawks?” he demanded, so loudly that his words seemed to echo through the fifty thousand palm trees of Al-Fayoum.
“It is I who dared to do so,” said the boy. He was reminded of the image of Santiago Matamoros, mounted on his white horse, with the infidels beneath his hooves. This man looked exactly the same, except that now the roles were reversed.
“It is I who dared to do so,” he repeated, and he lowered his head to receive a blow from the sword. “Many lives will be saved, because I was able to see through to the Soul of the World.”
The sword didn’t fall. Instead, the stranger lowered it slowly, until the point touched the boy’s forehead. It drew a droplet of blood.
The horseman was completely immobile, as was the boy. It didn’t even occur to the boy to flee. In his heart, he felt a strange sense of joy: he was about to die in pursuit of his Personal Legend. And for Fatima. The omens had been true, after all. Here he was, face-to-face with his enemy, but there was no need to be concerned about dying—the Soul of the World awaited him, and he would soon be a part of it. And, tomorrow, his enemy would also be a part of that Soul.
The stranger continued to hold the sword at the boy’s forehead. “Why did you read the flight of the birds?”
“I read only what the birds wanted to tell me. They wanted to save the oasis. Tomorrow all of you will die, because there are more men at the oasis than you have.”
