Seven Veils of Seth Read Online Free

beings.”
    â€œWhat is the Law save words of advice from the jinn to the desert’s inhabitants?”
    â€œReally?”
    â€œHave you forgotten that Mandam, the desert people’s forefather, wasn’t expelled from Waw until the day his mouth devoured a fruit from the orchard?”
    â€œOh . . . Mandam. . . .”
    â€œThe mouth is the weak spot that led to our expulsion from the orchard and turned our world into a desert. Do you know the status of the mouth in customary law?”
    â€œI’m not a diviner; how would I know?”
    â€œA man’s mouth is comparable in every respect to the secret a woman conceals between her legs.”
    Silence reigned. He gazed at the faces of the other beauties and saw they really were a troupe of female jinnis. He submerged his body in the water. He dove to conceal not merely his body but head, face, and mouth. He decided to safeguard his mouth by hiding it beneath the water so the torrent would create a veil from its flow, but he heard the she-jinni say, “The mouth is man’s weak spot. Beware!”
    He dove into the water and disappeared up to his shoulders, neck, ears, and eyes. Then he submerged his whole head. He vanished, and the veil was complete, the veil of water. He held his breath and kept still for a protracted period. He swallowed some water but held his breath as long as he could. Then he sprang up to gulp in the air voraciously. He staggered and tumbled back before gaining his balance. He started to suck in air through his mouth and nostrils again, filling his chest. On discovering that the troupe of beauties had vanished, he assumed they really were children of the spirit world. He remembered what the priestess had said about man’s weak spot and laughed. He guffawed tipsily, reveling in the laughter. Then . . . then, rage overwhelmed him. At first he could not think why. Soon he discovered the reason. He wanted Tamuli and she desired him too. She liked his audacity but would not forgive his restraint. So she had decided to punish him, to avenge herself on him. Thus she had recited the myth of the mouth, of the weak spot, and of the grandfather banished from Waw because of the morsel he had stolen from the orchard. She had decided to mock him in front of her companions in order to humiliate and punish him for cowardice. She had decided to say he had no right to reach a hand into woman’s orchard unless he was certain he was capable of plucking the fruit, because woman is like an enemy territory, which you do not raid unless you possess the courage to kill, because otherwise you will be killed. She had in effect told him: “Woman, too, is an arena where you will definitely meet defeat unless you resolve from the beginning to conquer.” He had unintentionally insulted her with his idiotic response and had revealed his ignorance of the secrets of passion to the covey accompanying her.
    Choked with rage, he beat the water with both hands. Then, hoping they would hear his maxim, he shouted as loudly as he could: “Hear my law, wretched spawn of the jinn: Unless a man bares his weak spot to a beauty, he will never win her.” He guffawed with insane laughter while slapping the water.

3 The Water
    Singing water’s praises, he crawled out of the spring and remembered the last time he had plunged into a torrent. That had been when the Amehru Ravine had flooded in the Tassili region, more than a year before. He chanted an ancient song in which the poet praised his master – water – in recondite verses. He had previously chanted these refrains repeatedly without ever discerning their secret meaning as clearly as he did now on emerging from the spring-fed pool. He said, “The bard was right to take water for his Beloved, since it’s the only entity that traverses the heavens to fall subsequently to the pits, inundating even the darkest, most remote areas. It cleanses itself in lights supernal