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revelry of gold and begins to stalk the shadows, hunting the apparition of the lion.

And finds, after hours of searching, what he knew would be waiting, in a dark corner of the city’s outer walls, the thing of his vision, the red manticore with the triple row of teeth. The manticorc has blue eyes and a mannish face and its voice is half—trumpet and half-flute. It is fast as the wind, its nails are corkscrew talons and its tail hurls poisone& quills. It loves to feed on human flesh . . . a brawl is taking place. Knives hissing in the silence, at times the clash of metal against metal. Hamza recognizes the men under attack: Khalid, Salman, Bilal. A lion himself now, Hamza draws his sword, roars the silence into shreds, runs forward as fast as sixty—year—old legs will go. His friends’ assailants are unrecognizable behind their masks.

It has been a night of masks. Walking the debauched Jahilian streets, his heart full of bile, Hamza has seen men and women in the guise of eagles, jackals, horses, gryphons, salamanders, wart—hogs, rocs; welling up from the murk of the alleys have come two-headed amphisbaenae and the winged bulls known as Assyrian sphinxes. Djinns, houris, demons populate the city on this night of phantasmagoria and lust. But only now, in this dark place, does he see the red masks he’s been looking for. The manlion masks: he rushes towards his fate.

In the grip of a self-destructive unhappiness the three disciples had started drinking, and owing to their unfamiliarity with alcohol they were soon not just intoxicated but stupid-drunk. They stood in a small piazza and started abusing the passers—by, and after a while the water—carrier Khalid brandished his water—skin, boasting. He could destroy the city, he carried the ultimate weapon. Water: it would cleanse Jahilia the filthy, wash it away, so that a new start could be made from the purified white sand. That was when the lion—men started chasing them, and after a long pursuit they were cornered, the booziness draining out of them on account of their fear, they were staring into the red masks of death when Hamza arrived just in time.

. . . Gibreel floats above the city watching the fight. It’s quickly over once Hamza gets to the scene. Two masked assailants run away, two lie dead. Bilal, Khalid and Salman have been cut, but not too badly. Graver than their wounds is the news behind the lion—masks of the dead. “Hind’s brothers,” Hamza recognizes. “Things are finishing for us now.”

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