As the King was haranguing Feshnavat, his nostril took in the steam of
the viands and the fresh odours of the wines, and he could delay no
longer to satisfy his craving, but caught up the goblet, and drank from
it till his visage streamed the tears of contentment. Lo, while he put
forth his hand tremblingly, as to continue the words of his condemnation
of the Vizier, the heavens were severed by a third flash, one exceeding
in fierceness the other flashes; and now the Great Hall rocked, and the
pillars and thrones trembled, and the eyes of Shagpat opened. He made no
motion, but sat like a wonder of stone, looking before him. Surely, Kadza
shrieked, and rushed forward to him from the crowd, yet he said nothing,
and was as one frozen. So the King cried, 'He waketh! the flashes
preceded his wakening! Now shall he see the vengeance of kings on his
enemies.' Thereupon he made a signal, and the scimitars of the guard were
in air over the head of Feshnavat, when darkness as of the dropping of
night fell upon all, and the darkness spake, saying, 'I am Abarak of the
Bar, preceder of the Event!'
Then it was light, but the ears of every soul present were pierced with
the wailing of wild animals, and on all sides from the Desert hundreds of
them were seen making toward the City, some swiftly, others at a heavy
pace; and when they were come near they crouched and fawned, and dropped
their dry tongues as in awe. There was the serpent, meek as before the
days of sin, and the leopard slinking to get among the legs of men, and
the lion came trundling along in utter flabbiness, raising not his head.
Soon the streets were thronged with elephants and lions and sullen
tigers, and wild cats and wolves, not a tail erect among them: great was
the marvel! So the King cried, 'We 're in the thick of wonders; banquet
we lightly while they increase upon us! What's yonder little man?' This
was Abarak that stood before the King, and exclaimed, 'I am the darkness
that announceth the mastery of the Event, as a shadow before the sun's
approach, and it is the Shaving of Shagpat!' The world darkened before
the eyes of the King when he heard this, and in a moment Abarak was
clutched by the soldiers of the guard, and dragged beside Feshnavat to
await the final blow; and this would have parted two heads from two
bodies at one stroke, but now Noorna bin Noorka entered the hall, veiled
and in the bright garb of a bride, with veiled attendants about her, and
the people opened to give her passage to the throne of the King. So she
said, 'Delay the stroke yet awhile, O Head of the Magnanimous! I am she
claimed by Shagpat; surely, I am bride of him that is Master of the
Event, and the hour of bridals is the hour of clemency.'
The King looked at Shagpat, perplexed; but the eye of Shagpat gazed as
into the distance of another world. Then said he, 'We shall hear nought
from the mouth of Shagpat till he is avenged, and till then he is silent
with exceeding wrath.' Hearing this, Noorna ran quickly to a window of
the Hall, and let loose a white dove from her bosom.
Then came there that flash which is recorded in old traditions as the
fourth of the flashes of thunderless lightnings, after the passing of
which, hundreds of fakirs that had been awaiting it saw nothing further
on this earth. Down through the Hall it swept; and lo! when the Kings and
the people recovered their sight to regard Shagpat, he was, one side of
him, clean shorn, the shaven side shining as the very moon!
Surely from that moment there was no longer aught mortal in the combat
that ensued. For now, while amazement and horror palsied all present, the
Genie Karaz, uttering a howl of fury, shot down the length of the Hall
like a black storm-bolt, and caught up Shagpat, and whirled off with him
into the air; and they beheld him dive and dodge the lightnings that
beset him from upper heaven, catching Shagpat from them, now by the
heels, now by the hair remaining one side his head. This lasted a full
hour, when the Genie paused a second, and made a sheer descent into the
earth. Then saw they the wings of Koorookh, each a league in length,
overshadow the entire land, and on the neck of the bird sat Shibli
Bagarag cleaving through the earth with his blade, and he sat on Koorookh
as the moon sits on the midnight. There was no light save the light shed
abroad by the flashes of the blade, and in these they beheld the air
suffocated with Afrites and Genii in a red and brown and white heat,
followers of Karaz. Strokes of the blade clove them, and their blood was
fire that flowed over the feathers of Koorookh, lighting him in a
conflagration; but the bird flew constantly to a fountain of earth below
and extinguished it. Then the battle recommenced, and the solid earth
yawned at the gashes made by the mighty blade, and its depths revealed
how Karaz was flying with Shagpat from circle to circle of the
under-regions, hurrying with him downward to the lowest circle, that was
flaming to points, like the hair of vast heads. Presently they saw a
wondrous quivering flash divide the Genie, and his heels and head fell
together in the abysses, leaving Shagpat prone on great brasiers of penal
flame. Then the blade made another hissing sweep over Shagpat, leaving
little of the wondrous growths on him save a topknot.
But now was the hour struck when Rabesqurat could be held no longer
serving the ferry in Aklis; and the terrible Queen streamed in the sky,
like a red disastrous comet, and dived, eagle-like, into the depths,
re-ascending with Shagpat in her arms, cherishing him; and lo, there were
suddenly a thousand Shagpats multiplied about, and the hand of Shibli
Bagarag became exhausted with hewing at them. The scornful laugh of the
Queen was heard throughout earth as she triumphed over Shibli Bagarag
with hundreds of Shagpats, Illusions; and he knew not where to strike at
the Shagpat, and was losing all sleight of hand, dexterity, and cunning.
Noorna shrieked, thinking him lost; but Abarak seized his bar, and
leaning it in the direction of Aklis, blew a pellet from it that struck
on the eye of Aklis, and this sent out a stretching finger of beams, and
singled forth very Shagpat from the myriads of semblances, so that he
glowed and was ruddy, the rest cowering pale, and dissolving like
salt-grains in water.
Then saw earth and its inhabitants how the Genie Karaz re-ascended in the
shape of a vulture with a fire beak, pecking at the eyes of him that
wielded the Sword, so that he was bewildered and shook this way and that
over the neck of Koorookh, striking wildly, languidly cleaving towers and
palaces, and monuments of earth underneath him. Now, Shibli Bagarag
discerned his danger, and considered, 'The power of the Sword is to sever
brains and thoughts. Great is Allah! I'll seek my advantage in that.'
So he whirled Koorookh thrice in the crimson smoke of the atmosphere, and
put the blade between the first and second thought in the head of
Rabesqurat, whereby the sense of the combat became immediately confused
in her mind, and she used her powers as the fool does, equally against
all, for the sake of mischief solely--no longer mistress of her own
Illusions; and she began doubling and trebling Shibli Bagarag on the neck
of monstrous birds, speeding in draggled flightiness from one point of
the sky to another. Even in the terror of the combat, Shibli Bagarag was
fair to burst into a fit of violent laughter at the sight of the Queen
wagging her neck loosely, perking it like a mad raven; and he took heart,
and swept the blade rapidly over Shagpat as she dandled him, leaving
Shagpat but one hair remaining on him; yet was that the Identical; and it
arose, and was a serpent in his head, and from its jaws issued a river of
fiery serpents: these and a host of Afrites besieged Shibli Bagarag; and
now, to defend himself, he unloosed the twin Genii, Karavejis and
Veejravoosh, from the wrist of that hand which wielded the Sword of
Aklis, and these alternately interwound before and about him, and were
even as a glittering armour of emerald plates, warding from him the
assaults of the host; and lo! he flew, and the battle followed him over
blazing cities and lands on fire with the slanting hail of sparkles.
By this time every soul in the City of Shagpat, kings and people, all
save Abarak and Noorna bin Noorka, were overcome and prostrate with their
faces to the ground; but Noorna watched the conflict eagerly, and saw the
head of Shagpat sprouting incessant fresh crops of hair, despite the
pertinacious shearing of her betrothed. Then she smote her hands, and
cried, 'Yea! though I lose my beauty and the love of my betrothed, I must
join in this, or he'll be lost.' So, saying to Abarak, 'Watch over me,'
she went into the air, and, as she passed Rabesqurat, was multiplied into
twenty damsels of loveliness. Then Abarak beheld a scorpion following the
twenty in mid-air, and darting stings among them. Noorna tossed a ring,
and it fell in a circle of flame round the scorpion. So, while the
scorpion was shooting in squares to escape from the circle, the
fire-beaked vulture flew to it, and fluttered a dense rain which
swallowed the flame, and the scorpion and vulture assailed Noorna, that
was changed to a golden hawk in the midst of nineteen other golden hawks.
Now, as Rabesqurat came scudding by, and saw the encounter, she made the
twenty hawks a hundred. The Genie Karaz howled at her, and pinioned her
to a pillar below in the Desert, with Shagpat in her arms. But, as he
soared aloft to renew the fight with Noorna, Shibli Bagarag loosed to her
aid the Slaves of the Sword, and Abarak marked him slope to a distant
corner of earth, and reascend in a cloud, which drew swiftly over the
land toward the Great Hall. Lo, Shibli Bagarag stepped from it through a
casement of the Hall, and with him Shagpat, a slack weight, mated out of
all power of motion. Koorookh swooped low, on his back Baba Mustapha, and
Shibli Bagarag flung Abarak beside him on the bird. Then Koorookh whirred
off with them; and while the heavens raged, Shibli Bagarag prepared a
rapid lather, and dashed it over Shagpat, and commenced shearing him with
lightning sweeps of the blade. 'Twas as a racing wheel of fire to see
him! Suddenly he desisted, and wiped the sweat from his face. Then
calling on the name of Allah, he gave a last keen cunning sweep with the
blade, and following that, the earth awfully quaked and groaned, as if
speaking in the abysmal tongue the Mastery of the Event to all men. Aklis
was revealed in burning beams as of a sun, and the trouble of the air
ceased, vapours slowly curling to the four quarters. Shibli Bagarag had
smitten clean through the Identical! Terribly had Noorna and those that
aided her been oppressed by the multitude of their enemies; but, in a
moment these melted away, and Karaz, together with the scorpion that was
Goorelka, vanished. Day was on the baldness of Shagpat.