Seven Veils of Seth Read Online Free Page A

and returns to hide in the lowlands. It explores the unknown as a creator when it turns to vapor and returns to earth as a created object when it becomes visible.” Then he asked aloud, “Who are you, water?” He answered, “Like us, water, you’re on a journey. Like us, you are launched on your migration by a fire. Like us, you recuperate by regaining the homeland.” He lay down under a palm tree and murmured the ancient song for a while. Then he observed, “Fire makes us fathers. Water makes us mothers.” He hoisted himself on his elbows and watched dusk’s flood spill over the calm pool, dazzling the eye with a captivating, golden reflection. Two lovers – the sky’s light and the earth’s water – exchanged a playful and meaningful look. This flirtation continued for a time till prophecy gushed forth in his heart. He grinned with a strategist’s malice and then muttered, “Beloved of long standing, I will fulfill my pledge to you. With your assistance, master, I will wreak vengeance, since vengeance is not really punishment unless our master water plays a part.” He inhaled the scent of the field – of the trees, mud, oasis crops and of the humidity that perfumed the air – until he felt dizzy. He laughed quietly before reaching in his kit to extract a dismal-looking cloth. Dropping it on his lap, he focused on his singing again. He leaned over the piece of fabric, never ceasing his mysterious refrain. Like the forest-land priests who never execute their mysterious rites without first reciting spells, he swayed back and forth to the haunting melody as he gazed at the surface of the nearby pool. He reached for the cloth and held it by the end so the rows of charms printed in white lines across the cloth were visible. These had faded, either from wear or perhaps from long exposure to the desert’s sunlight. When he fastened this end to his forehead, another amulet was visible in the veil’s “tongue.” This charm was stuffed into a case made of an unusual type of leather, which was also embossed with magical symbols. He began to wrap this alarming veil around his head as he intoned mysterious lingo like forest dwellers’ cant. Then he fell silent and reminded himself privately that the time had come for him to draw on his inner reserves and to twist his serpentine veil around his head to hide from the world his ears, which the shrew had recently likened to donkey ears. Women are descended from such a wily creature! Anyone who thought he could hide something from this community, even once, was a fool a thousand times over. The beauty had perspicaciously and instantly observed what he had concealed from mankind for ages. She had immediately seen his ears and had similarly discovered his tail. She had not seen the tail hiding behind his back or the one lurking between his thighs; she had glimpsed his real tail, his secret tail, his tail that had eluded the most cunning analysts. From that day forward, he would admit that woman is the mistress of cunning and the sovereign of all tacticians. She had been right to say: “Man should not expose his head.” When he exposes his head he actually exposes his intentions. A man who exposes his intentions is not a man or – for that matter – a woman. The head is man’s vulnerable point, not because it is crowned with the two horns that fools perceive as ears, but because it hides secrets. It hides thoughts, which – should they be laid bare – will reveal his true vulnerability. The concealed weak point is in the mouth, in the tongue, in the mystery that hides within the tongue. It is not the same as the body’s weak spot, which dangles between the thighs. Glory to the veil! Veils truly are glorious, because a message needs a veil. Prophecy would not be prophecy unless concealed behind a veil.
    After fastening the veil securely round his head, he approached the