Verily there was lightning in Aklis as Shibli Bagarag flashed the Sword
over the clamouring beasts: the shape of the great palace stood forth
vividly, and a wide illumination struck up the streams, and gilded the
large hanging leaves, and drew the hills glimmeringly together, and
scattered fires on the flat faces of the rocks. Then the seven youths
said quickly, 'Away! out of Aklis, O Master of the Event! from city to
city of earth this light is visible, and men will know that Fate is in
travail, and an Event preparing for them, and Shagpat will be warned by
the portent; wherefore lose not the happy point of time on which thy star
is manifest.' And they cried again, 'Away! out of Aklis!' with gestures
of impatience, urging his departure.
Then said he, 'O youths, Sons of Aklis, it is written that gratitude is
the poor man's mine of wealth, and the rich man's flower of beauty; and I
have but that to give ye for all this aid and friendliness of yours.'
But they exclaimed, 'No aid or friendliness in Aklis! By the gall of the
Roc! it is well for thee thou camest armed with potent spells, and hadst
one to advise and inspirit thee, or thou wouldst have stayed here to
people Aklis, and grazed in a strange shape.'
Now, the seven waxed in impatience, and he laid their hands upon his head
and moved from them with Abarak, to where in the dusk the elephant that
had brought them stood. Then the elephant kneeled and took the twain upon
his back, and bore them across the dark land to that reach of the river
where the boat was moored in readiness. They entered the boat silently
among its drapery of lotuses, and the Veiled Figure ferried them over the
stream that rippled not with their motion. As they were crossing, desire
to know that Veiled Figure counselled Shibli Bagarag evilly to draw the
Sword again, and flash it, so that the veil became transparent. Then,
when Abarak turned to him for the reason of the flashing of the Sword, he
beheld the eyes of the youth fixed in horror, glaring as at sights beyond
the tomb. He said nought, but as the boat's-head whispered among the
reeds and long flowers of the opposite marge, he took Shibli Bagarag by
the shoulders and pushed him out of the boat, and leaped out likewise,
leading him from the marge forcibly, hurrying him forward from it, he at
the heels of the youth propelling him; and crying in out-of-breath voice
at intervals, 'What sight? what sight?' But the youth was powerless of
speech, and when at last he opened his lips, the little man shrank from
him, for he laughed as do the insane, a peal of laughter ended by gasps;
then a louder peal, presently softer; then a peal that started all the
echoes in Aklis. After awhile, as Abarak still cried in his ear, 'What
sight?' he looked at him with a large eye, saying querulously, 'Is it
written I shall be pushed by the shoulder through life? And is it in the
pursuit of further thwackings?'
Abarak heeded him not, crying still, 'What sight?' and Shibli Bagarag
lowered his tone, and jerked his body, pronouncing the name 'Rabesqurat!'
Then Abarak exclaimed, ''Tis as I weened. Oh, fool! to flash the Sword
and peer through the veil! Truly, there be few wits will bear that
sight!' On a sudden he cried, 'No cure but one, and that a sleep in the
bosom of the betrothed!'
Thereupon he hurried the youth yet faster across the dark lawns of Aklis
toward the passage of the Seventh Pillar, by which the twain had entered
that kingdom. And Shibli Bagarag saw as in a dream the shattered door,
shattered by the bar, remembering dimly as a thing distant in years the
netting of the Queen, and Noorna chained upon the pillar; he remembered
Shagpat even vacantly in his mind, as one sheaf of barley amid other
sheaves of the bearded field, so was he overcome by the awfulness of that
sight behind the veil of the Veiled Figure!
As they advanced to the passage, he was aware of an impediment to its
entrance, as it had been a wall of stone there; and seeing Abarak enter
the passage without let, he kicked hard in front at the invisible
obstruction, but there was no coming by. Abarak returned to him, and took
his right arm, and raised the sleeve from his wrist, and lo, the two
remaining hairs of Garraveen twisted round it in sapphire winds. Cried
he, 'Oh, the generosity of Gulrevaz! she has left these two hairs that he
may accomplish swiftly the destiny marked for him! but now, since his
gazing through that veil, he must part with them to get out of Aklis.'
And he muttered, 'His star is a strange one! one that leadeth him to
fortune by the path of frowns! to greatness by the aid of thwackings!
Truly the ways of Allah are wonderful!' Shibli Bagarag resisted him in
nothing, and Abarak loosed the two bright hairs from his wrist, and those
two hairs swelled and took glittering scales, and were sapphire snakes
with wings of intense emerald; and they rose in the air spirally
together, each over each, so that to see them one would fancy in the
darkness a fountain of sapphire waters flashed with the sheen of emerald.
When they had reached a height loftier than the topmost palace-towers of
Aklis, they descended like javelins into the earth, and in a moment
re-appeared, in the shape of Genii when they are charitably disposed to
them they visit; not much above the mortal size, nor overbright, save for
a certain fire in their eyes when they turned them; and they were clothed
each from head to foot in an armour of sapphire plates shot with steely
emerald. Surely the dragon-fly that darteth all day in the blaze over
pools is like what they were. Abarak bit his forefinger and said, 'Who be
ye, O sons of brilliance?'