by Frank Lauria
"I want no money, sir," the boy said sharply.
Orient stopped and looked at him.
The boy was glaring at Orient, his eyes moist with a mixture of anger and shame. "I am Yousef. You save money for marketplace."
The boy was wearing a pale blue robe of some thick brocaded material. There was a pair of dark blue velvet slippers on his feet. He didn’t look like one of the ragged urchins who constantly offered tourists their services.
"What is it then?" Orient asked quietly, resting his hands on his knees and crouching down to head level with the boy.
"I am Yousef," the boy repeated. "Ahmehmet has sent me." His face was set, almost defiant.
"And who is Ahmehmet?" Orient asked, smiling.
The boy’s face relaxed. "He is my teacher," he said proudly.
"What does he want with me?"
"He does not say these things to me," Yousef murmured. "He told me find the English doctor who comes today. You come, please," the boy nodded, his face earnest and pleading.
Orient straightened up and looked down at him. "Okay," he signed, "I’ll come with you, Yousef. But if this is a child’s game, I shall be very angry."
The boy didn’t answer. He spun around and began walking quickly toward the center of the teeming square, turning around every few steps to make sure Orient was following.
As Orient ambled after him, he wasn’t sure why he had decided that this wasn’t another version of Trick the Tourist, a game which the Moroccan boys never tired of; motivated as much by a high-spirited sense of humor as an eye for profit.
But there was something in the boy’s carriage and manner that suggested a proud, truthful boy engaged in a serious occupation.
Yousef kept five steps ahead of Orient, weaving through the noisy knots of people in the square until he reached a small passageway between two of the hundreds of wooden stalls that bordered the square. He waited impatiently for Orient to catch up, then started ahead of him again, walking along a crowded, caked dirt path that ran between long rows of open tents that displayed everything from spare bicycle parts to dried frogs. Before they reached the end of the tented area Yousef ducked down a side path into the entrance of a wide tunnel.
The tunnel was another kind of marketplace. It was long and covered with slats and sheets of corrugated metal that let the sunlight trickle through thousands of cracks in the makeshift ceiling. This dim market was also filled with people walking back and forth between two solid rows of stalls that sold a wide variety of goods.
Orient had noticed earlier that there were very few European tourists in Marrakesh, in comparison with Tangier. And in this tunnel market there were no tourists at all. The people were all traditionally dressed in tribal robes and silk gowns. There were no traces of Western clothing except his own.
For a while longer, Orient followed the boy through what he discovered was a labyrinth of connecting tunnels all going deeper and farther away from the light. He began to have misgivings about following Yousef so far. No one knew where he was, including himself. If he had to find his way out of this maze in a hurry, it would be impossible. He was absolutely defenseless against a fast mugging or worse. His mind jumped back to the oozing presence in Presto’s room. Yousef turned another corner.
As they continued to walk, the crowds began to diminish but not completely, so that Orient was constantly dodging bicycles, wheelbarrows, and livestock as he picked his way through the people shuffling through the narrowing walkways, trying to keep pace with the boy ahead. Finally Yousef stopped in front of a shop displaying antique jewelry and artifacts, pulled the beaded curtains aside, and waited for Orient to enter.
Orient stepped inside a large room covered with rugs and furnished with plump brocaded pillows placed around the floor. There was a desk at the far end of the room on which rested an ornate gilt cash register. Next to the register was a vase filled with bright flowers.
"Welcome," a voice said in English from behind the desk. "You have journeyed long to reach us."
Orient’s mind froze. He saw a short man with curly, orange-hennaed hair stand up behind the desk. He was so small that he had been hidden by the flowers.
Orient immediately sensed that he knew the small man from somewhere. And he knew definitely where he had heard the man’s greeting before. The words were the traditional salutation between neophyte and teacher. He had heard them once before in Tibet.
"The journey is like the flow of water," Orient answered, using the formal reply to the greeting.
The man walked toward him smiling. He was wearing a green silk ruffled shirt and bell-bottom trousers made of multicolored velvet patches.
"And water finds the thirsty man." The man finished the ritual greeting as he neared Orient. He bowed his head. "My home is yours, you are my favored guest."
"I think there may be some mistake," Orient said unevenly.
"There is no mistake," the man said gently. He turned to Yousef, who was standing near the beaded curtain. "Attend to your work," he said softly. The boy melted back through the curtain almost before he had finished speaking.
The man turned back to Orient. "If you think there is a mistake, then we must be sure," he said in careful English that contained a trace of French accent. The smile remained on his dark, creased face. He was very thin with prominent corded muscles in his neck, face, and wrists. His hands were tattooed, scarred, and callused. His smile wasn’t vacant, but seemed to be trying to hold back some deeper enthusiasm that was radiating from him. A torrent of joy that was pouring out through his large brown eyes.
It was that vibration of joy that calmed Orient’s thinking. He readied himself for the questioning that would be the next phase of greeting according to the ancient ceremony.
"Have you been traveling long?" the man asked. Orient wavered. He didn’t recall the question as part of the recognition ceremony. The man grunted and the smile was suddenly gone, replaced by an expression of mournful concern. "Come," he said finally, patting Orient’s arm. "You shall have tea with me." He moved toward the curtained doorway next to the desk.
Orient hesitated, then followed, his brain churning thoughts and sending up a spray of questions. Who was this shopkeeper and why had he sent for him? Why did he use the traditional greeting of the Serene Knowledge? Orient’s initiation was years in the past, but he had learned on that mountaintop that the path was a series of steps carved out by the winds of fate. He stopped at the threshold, removed his shoes, and went inside.
The floor of the inner room was also covered with thick rugs and the walls were draped with silken fabrics, embroidered with asymmetrical designs in gleaming metallic colors. As the fabrics moved, the colors rippled in the fight from the oil lamps standing on the floor near the large pillows which served as furniture. As they entered, a woman wearing a long yellow silk caftan and dark blue veil hurried out of the room.
Orient saw that a low table had been prepared between two of the pillows, next to one of the floor lamps. He eased himself down on a pillow and found it very comfortable.
The man poured two glasses of tea from a silver pot and sat down.
"I am Ahmehmet," he said, smiling.
"Why have you sent for me?" Orient asked.
Ahmehmet stroked his chin. "Perhaps I have been mistaken."
"The journey is strewn with illusions," Orient said as the half-forgotten words came rushing back into his mind.
"That is true." Ahmehmet picked up his glass and sipped some tea. "Then the journey will take a long time to complete."
Orient felt a sudden surge as Ahmehmet once more responded correctly. He looked around the room and realized that the brocaded symbols on the walls were occult designs taken from the Kaballa, the texts of early Semitic magic. The secret books of Moses. "The journey will complete itself in time," he said softly.
Ahmehmet’s eyes suddenly sharpened as he peered past the light and scrutinized Orient’s face. "Tell me," he said, studying Orient’s reaction closely, "do you know
the name of the card that sent you here?"
Orient was momentarily confused by the question. He understood that beyond the ceremony of recognition Ahmehmet genuinely wasn’t sure of Orient’s candidacy. Then he remembered the tarot card Joker had left with his ticket. "The card called the Fool," Orient answered.
Ahmehmet’s beaming smile returned. "So be it," he said.
Orient picked up his glass and sipped his mint tea. It was warm and sweet and soothing. He was very tired from the jumble of events that had begun when Raga received Doctor Six’s telegram. But then he had a quick doubt.
"The man who gave me this card," Orient said, looking into his glass, "was he sent by you?"
Ahmehmet didn’t answer for a moment. "No," he said. "The man who gave the card was acting in accord with his own fate. He is but a die cast by Allah. The man who gave you the card knows nothing of the path—or of the Nine Unknown Men."
Orient’s manner remained calm but his mind leaped as Ahmehmet spoke. Now there remained only one question. "And you know the Nine?" he asked.
Ahmehmet nodded. "It was Ku who sent you to me."
Orient relaxed on the pillow as Ahmehmet uttered the name of his teacher. No one except the followers of the Serene Knowledge knew that the venerable Ku had been his initiator. And no one except Ku could send him to another master. "I am of the fifth level," Ahmehmet was saying. "The youngest of the Nine." Orient said nothing but the feeling that he’d seen Ahmehmct before returned. "You have seen me once before," Ahmehmet said, picking out the thought. "This morning. Before you reached Marrakesh." Orient smiled as he recalled Ahmehmet as the button-blazoned juggler in his dream. He was sure of everything now.
As all his confusions, doubts, and anxieties dissolved into the clear liquid of calm flowing into his consciousness, Orient could hear the distant throbbing of drums from the marketplace somewhere outside.
CHAPTER 15
The first thing Orient was aware of when he awoke the next morning was the same faint, insistent pulse of the drums.
He peered through the dim light, adjusting himself to his new surroundings after a heavy sleep. He was in Ahmehmet’s house. He was alone in a small bedroom behind the inner room in back of the shop. The bed was a large pillow on the floor near the wall, and Orient was covered by heavy, brocaded silk spreads. His suitcase was on the floor near the bed. Ahmehmet had told Orient that Yousef would make arrangements with Orient’s hotel and secure his luggage. Orient had agreed immediately. As he would agree to anything Ahmehmet suggested.
Orient understood that he’d been led to Ahmehmet’s shop to undergo another phase of his psychic development. Years ago Orient had taken the path to Ku in Tibet as a neophyte, not even knowing if such a man as Ku existed, or if he was just another mountain legend. And when he had scaled the steep, frozen trail around the face of the low peak, after discharging his guides before the last ascent, he found Ku waiting for him. Waiting to guide him to the warm, fertile valley where he dwelled. A tiny valley that was a pocket of constant springtime amid the freezing tumult of the Himalayas.
There Orient had learned how to open the body and mind to the energies of the universe. He learned to manipulate the possibilities of his consciousness; to transmit thoughts, receive images, merge minds, and pierce dimensions of existence. He discovered the reality and purpose of his fate through a score of lifetimes. And he learned of the awesome power of the Nine Unknown Men.
Their power had never been spoken of directly, but Orient knew that each of the Nine Men held a facet of a science that encompassed the nature of the entire structure and purpose of the universe, including man’s function in the whole of existence.
Orient knew that his advanced powers of concentration were weak compared to the radiance of Ku’s mind, becoming an infinitesimally small microcosm when measured against the weight of Ku’s consciousness merged with eight others of similar capacity. If Orient could connect energy pulses with a glass of water and use the leverage to move the glass across a table with his will, then the combined energy from the merged wills of the Nine Unknown Men could change the position of the earth itself. What he had learned from Ku didn’t negate anything he’d ever learned before. Rather it had given all his knowledge a harmony as he came to understand his past studies as reflections of a single truth, beyond all possible existences.
And now he was here to learn another dimension of that truth. From a Berber shopkeeper who wore velvet bell-bottoms.
The sense of sure calm that had welled up within Orient’s troubled thoughts when he had recognized Ahmehmet as a colleague and emissary of Ku was still with him. His mind vibrated reassuring ripples of contentment. Orient was still aware of his love for Raga and the danger that surrounded Presto, but he felt secure in the presence of Ahmehmet, one of the Nine Unknown Men.
He got out of bed and began the Yang series of his meditation exercises. There on the floor, next to his bed, Orient’s consciousness retraced its evolution, going back around its spirals of time until it reached the beginning of all time, and all consciousness.
His mind remained fixed on that point even after he was roused from his meditation by Yousef.
The boy rolled in a large marble bathtub mounted on brass wheels and filled with steaming water that gave off the scent of orange blossom.
"Good morning," Yousef said stiffly. The boy seemed ill at ease in the presence of his teacher’s guest.
"Good morning, Yousef," Orient responded cheerfully. He added in Arabic, "I can speak your language, you know."
"Ahmehmet has asked me to speak English with you," Yousef murmured. "To improve speaking." He bowed. "Must go now. Ahmehmet is waiting."
Orient was finished with his bath but still hadn’t finished dressing when two veiled women entered the room, rolled away the bathtub, then returned to straighten up the room. He threw on a shirt and went into the next room.
Ahmehrnet was sitting on a pillow next to a low table set with various bowls of food and a pot of tea. When he saw Orient he smiled and nodded. "Come, Doctor. Eat. You must be hungry after your sleep."
"Thank you," Orient said as he sat down on the other side of the table. He was hungry. He hadn’t eaten anything since leaving Tangier. He reached for one of the tall glasses of orange juice on the table.
"Your friend in the hospital is still unconscious."
Orient looked at Ahmehmet. "Do you know him?"
Ahmehmet’s smile became regretful. "No. About your friend I know no more than any performer in the square. His condition is the cause of much gossip here in Marrakesh." Orient picked up a steaming bowl of thick brown soup in both hands and took a sip. It was delicious.
"I know only that you were sent to me for expansion to the second level." Ahmehmet took a long, gold-tinged wooden pipe from the table and dipped the curved clay head into a smooth leather pouch dangling from his belt. He filled the bowl, then struck a match and lit it, sharply scenting the air. "Your fate and mine coincide. But we both have many fates, and many choices. Your friend is but one path of your choice. And my concern is only for your choice here."
Orient finished the soup and poured himself a glass of tea. "My choice is to remain until it is clear that I must leave."
Ahmehmet nodded and puffed his pipe. He inhaled and held the pipe out to Orient who politely refused, taking instead one of his own hand-wrapped cigarettes from his silver case. He placed the case on the table in front of Ahmehmet.
The small shopkeeper picked up the cigarette case and studied the mandala design on its surface.
Orient felt a nudge at the base of his brain and understood that Ahmehmet was establishing a rapport with the mandala design and entering a state of empathy with Orient’s consciousness.
"You have been standing at the crossroads of your fate for a long time," Ahmehmet said softly. "Your karma and your work are intertwined. You must choose a path carefully or lose your direction. The choice will be yours. I can only give you tools to use for your quest. But you must cho
ose the direction yourself." With a sharp whiff he blew the hard, round ash of kif from the bowl of his pipe, sending the gray chunk rolling onto a plate. Then he took the clay bowl off the gold-circled wooden stem and cleaned it carefully. "This morning I have business in my shop," he said slowly. "Yousef will take you to Djemma el Fna. You should get to know the marketplace during your time with us." He picked up the silver cigarette case and handed it to Orient. "Do you know what Djemma el Fna means in the Berber tongue?"
Orient smiled. "It means Mosque of Rebirth."
Ahmehmet’s bony face creased into a grin. "So be it," he said. "Hamndullah."
"Hamndullah." Orient replied in Arabic. "Thank the God."
For the rest of the afternoon Orient wandered through the bustling maze of tunnels behind the square. Yousef walked by his side, letting Orient go where he wished but always nearby in case he was needed. "How old are you?" Orient asked, trying to overcome the boy’s shyness.
"I will be ten years," Yousef said impassively.
"Can you show me the way to the square, where the acrobats are?"
"Of course." Yousef stepped up his pace and turned a corner. He led Orient through a series of narrow paths to Djemma el Fna Square.
As they crossed the large tented market, the sounds of bells, flutes, tambourines, and drums rose in proportion to the amount of people and activity in the area. Orient followed Yousef through the gap between the rows of wooden stalls and found himself in the square, standing at the edge of the swirl of movement and noise. He stopped to watch a group of dancers, their beaded coats flapping and their bodies weaving in time to the cymbals and tambourines in their jerking hands; all perfectly attuned to each other’s minute variations on the basic pulse of rhythm.
Yousef grew impatient and started moving away from the circle around the dancers. Orient went with him through the knots of people watching the various performers.
As he passed a large ring of people, he saw a trio of bare-chested men. One man was balanced high on the shoulders of the other two, standing above the heads of the spectators. The three were balanced on the shoulders of three other men who were invisible on the ground behind the crowd.