The curse of drought was rampant in the land: One of the many evils of the
Satan, which brought its destructive force, together with its miseries, to
a small village bordering the vast desert of the dark continent. The
calamity brought with it a plague that cast the evil eye upon the villagers
with the chronic fever, the chill that inflames and the unclean spirit of
the breathing. Its foulness cursed the weak as well as the strong.
The miseries of the plague saw the felling of the little ones of the
village; many in turn were numbered and carried away by the all-seeing as
he searched out with his sickle and hourglass. Father Death gathered in the
early harvest, filling his basket, �One is born amongst men; one dies
amongst the reaper.�
The grieved parents accepted their fate; they put the belief upon the
Enlightened One who will carry the souls of their beloved to the
paradisical heavens. The bereaved ones flocked to their simple mosque and
bowed their bodies in the plea of prayer. The good people listened to the
suras of the Holy Book uttered passionately by their iman. The cleric
prayed to the most high to care for the spirit of the loved ones felled by
the stroke of the plague; pleading open hands from the congregation were
fowarded as the holy words were uttered.
Until the day when lovely Ya�itha, the charming daughter of the widow
Marian, was visited by the King of Death who brought the darkness that
spread her dust in an early grave: Her once beautiful body was reunited
with the earth and her soul with the spirit. The widow Marian could not
accept her bitter loss. She cried bitter tears and wailed endlessly of the
departing of her only child.
The villagers heard her moaning cries and they had no tears, no compassion
left from their overflowing cups to share in her grevious loss. Thus, for
her, there was only one recourse, which was to petition a known sorcerer
who delves in black magic, a sin of the faith. He possessed the powers of
deep enchantment; through the wizard�s mysterious ways she could
communicate with the spirit of the soul of her child, and the lovely one
would be united with her caring mother�s earthly being.
The socerer, who lived a frugal life in a cave carved in the nearby hills,
knew of secret incantations, magical potions and the spells of the
ancients. He was the emmisary of mystic diviners of the nether regions and
no one dared his ways. The seer knew of the ways of demons, the shadow
spirit and of the wicked angels who carried the burden of miseries to
humankind. The socerer was aware that these foul pests were inumerable; he
alone, through his witchery, knew of their numbers, as he was able to
discern them. As it was written in ancient texts, �Their number outweighs
the number of human beings on the earth. If men could see them, none could
stand them.�
The sorcerer was well known to all by the bent of his thin frame, covered
by a well-worn caftan with a turban-like covering on the white of his
flowing hair. The sound of his wooden staff beating the hard packed earth
and the shuffling of his slippered feet sent shivers to the passing
citizenery as he passed through the village: They gave the �figa� handsign
to ward off his �evil eye� as he passed them. The sighting of the withered
figure also caused fright amoung the wee ones and they cried out in terror ?
as they fled from his path.
Yet, when the members of the community were in need of his magic, they made
their way to the entrance to his cave on the climbing hills. Lotharios,
needing a small bag with a love potion of sacred plants or roots for their
wooing of a fair one, paid the coin and true to its spell saw wedded bliss.
His incantations against the sickness of the body, �in the name of Holy
One, uproot fever and sickness�; and by some miracle his words worked the
cure or the safe passage to paradise. Those who were under the damnation of
the evil spirit, the shadow spirit, the evil eye and evil tormentors found
relief in his bronze and copper amulets and spells written by the ancient
ones on crackly parchment.
The widow Marian was numbered as one of the petitioners who turned to the
socerer. Her pilgrimage was carried out despite her belief in the
faith, �Guide us on the straight path, the path of those who had been
favoured.� Yet, in the despartion to be united with her fair daughter
Ya�itha, scythed from her in the child�s early years, forced her to take
the different path. Her footfalls were heavy and weary in their tred and
her soul was filled with trepidation as she made her way on the beaten
track. The uphill climb was hard on her tired and worn body; relief was
expressed when her thonged sandals shuffled on the packed earth leading to
the opening of the cavern.
The widow greyish eyes, set deeply in a wrinkled, careworn faced slowly
adjusted to dark of the interior filled with the unknown and the smells of
sorcery. She was hesitant, but the sound of the gruff voice of the socerer
was heard as it beckoned her to enter the cave. She made her way to an
aged figure standing near a patterned rug set near a low burning fire. The
coin was passed and the widow Marian was told to set herself on a far
corner of the carpet.
Marian was given a bitter drink, which the socerer prompted her to finish
to the last dregs, despite its acidy taste. Marian was enveloped by the
potion and she fell in a deep trance; her sightless eyes searched the
unseeing and unknown. Flashes of brilliant light coursed through her orbs;
coloured sparkles appeared leading her sightless eyes through myriads of
shapes and lines. Suddenly Marian saw the first steps through the dark,
lined by shining smooth pebbles, leading to the journey of a sought-after
rendevous.
Then a gnarled old man was sighted in her hypnotic eyes. Marian watched as
the socerer spun on his veined legs three times to the right, then three
times to the right; then he dropped to a sitting position. The diviner�s
aged old eyes were opened in an unseeing trance. From his thin colourless
lips, set on a heavily wrinkled face, an incantation was called out, �In
the name of Abraxas, find the flesh, find the bones of Ya�itha, the
daughter of Marian, Yah, Yah, Yah... � It was called out again and the dark
of the cavern turn to the brilliance of a delightful promenade of extreme
beauty and delight.
Marian took hold of the coloured kerchief of the socerer as he led her for
minutes and hours. They went for days parched by the rays of the sun, and
through cool evenings glowing with the brilliant light of shooting stars.
Marian and socerer climbed mountains above the clouds that touched the blue
mist of the heavens. They journeyed across plains filled with growing wild
grasses and grazing and frolicking animals. The two travellers rested their
weary bodies under the palms along watered oasises in the boundless
deserts. They passed through limitless forests, darker than the depths of
the neverland, and so obscure that is was neither night nor day, black nor
white.
Marian and the socerer travelled far and wide in endless time till they
reached the ornate gates between the earthly and the spirit. It led to an
enchanted garden, whose soft earth was perfumed by myrhh and
frankincence, �the oil of all oil ointments.� Three murmuring rivers
bordered the pleasure ground, which flowed sirenely to the endless seas.
The flowers there were of a myriad of colours and the fruits of the trees
hung double on the boughs. The abundant rain of the heaven, whose sign of
its blessed vapours was in coloured rainbows, watered the fruitful and
delightful offering. The garden, planted in the warm bosom of valley near
the climbing hills, was truely a morsel of high paradise.
Marian, mother of Ya�itha gave a cry of joy when she sighted a small figure
seated under a bower of roses, �I see in my heart, clouds and lights dart,
part quicksilver in the clouds, part blood on the sea. When the night will
come, we will be joined anon.�
A calm spell rested upon the delightful garden; a delicate light of the
bewitching evening bathed the infinite transparency of the bordering
waters; enchantment led the eye down quiet vistas. The trees whispered
quietly as the solitudes were filled with the Spirit of Him; only cries of
the reunion was heard above the silent sphere:
Once when Marian looked, the glance upon glance, was passed always, but now
she looked upon the angel of her gaze; �Oh my dear Ya�itha, Oh Ya�itha.�
The staff of the socerer beat in rhythm as the bent old man passed the
final resting-place of the earthlings. He knew of the scything of Terror of
Affliction, the Terror of Plagues that cursed the land through the miseries
of drought and damning fever and chills. The sorcerer looked, with rheumy
eyes, at the graves; each with a a small engraved grave stone - one was
inscribed with cursive script �Ya�itha, daughter of Marian, joined the
spirit of her sixth year with the All Seeing� - the second written by a
crude hand was etched, �Marian, mother of Ya�itha�.
The spirit of Marian was joined for all eternity with the spirit of Ya�itha
and together, in the bower of the All-seeing; they �shall never be afraid
of the terrors by night... Nor of the pestilence that walks in darkness.
Nor of the destruction that wastes at noonday...�