The Ghoul and the Grand Vizier

Once, long ago, when the desert winds whispered dusty words to the ears of the foolish and the wise alike, there was a terrible old crone that lived at the edge of a beautiful oasis. Here, she practiced black magic and curses day and night, until she became a matter of ill-repute in the local towns and villages.

Jafar, the Grand Vizier, wanted to build a home near the water, relishing the flowers and the free-flowing spring, the many bountiful palms that swayed, their underbellies bursting with dark, hairy coconuts, and the twists of vine that promised lush grapes for the vineyard. So he told the old witch she must leave, but she stubbornly refused. Incensed, he straightway had the terrible old woman cast into prison, where she was tormented day and night, night and day, and, by Allah, her ghost waits there to this very day.

The Grand Vizier, noting the obstinacy of the old witch, and realizing that she may move against him in all her exceptional power, had her dragged from her prison, taken to the marketplace, bound hand and foot, and beheaded. Before she died, she cast curses and imprecations on the assembled townsfolk, hurling great insults and blasphemies, and proclaiming, "Jafar, the Grand Vizier shall not sleep easy ever again! And, when he least expects it, death will overtake him and he'll perish most shamefully!"

But before she could say more, down came the great curved blade, severing her head from her neck, wherein it rolled into a basket, a bloody reminder of her magical reign.

(Some swear of course that the eyes still blinked, the tongue still wagged, and that a few curses were still falling from her lips. But others said this was a trick of the mind, and we can't pronounce judgment either way.)

Jafar built his lavish new home over the hovel of the witch. In time, while sitting in his garden at night, smoking his hookah, and listening to the chirp of the cicadas, he began to feel lonely. Staring up at the desert moon, he began to dream of a fair maiden to love.

And so he sought her high and low, riding his majestic steed, and finally, on one of his nightly sojourns he came across a young woman sitting amidst a bower of roses. She was singing such sweet and sorrowful melodies that his heart, (his very cold and bitter heart, we might add), was instantly melted. Jumping from his steed, he fell before her, upraised his hands, and asked that she marry him at once. The veiled young woman, perhaps embarrassed at such attentions, instantly demurred, saying, "Oh, you do me too much honor, kind sir! But I am promised to another, and so must decline your offer!" Forthwith, the Grand Vizier revealed who he was, and then exclaimed, "I am not asking that you marry me, I am commanding that you do so! For I am the Grand Vizier, and when I command a thing, it is accomplished!"

And with that, the young woman relented and married the Grand Vizier in a lavish ceremony in which great multitudes came to witness, and feast, and wine flowed like rivers and no expense was spared.

The Grand Vizier installed his young bride in his lavish new home, and she was waited on by many young serving wenches, and her apartments were bedecked with costly perfumes, with sandalwood and incense, and the opulence of her wardrobe was unsurpassed.

Anyone daring to offer offense to her would be instantly cast into prison. So the affairs of the Grand Vizier proceeded apace.

Well, the Grand Vizier and his new bride shared a vast, sprawling bed that was the softest and most pleasing that money could buy. One morning, waking from slumber, the Grand Vizier pulled back the sheets and revealed, to his astonishment, that there seemed to be dirt covering the foot of the bed, and dirty, muddy prints, emerging in a trail from the wall. The Grand Vizier exclaimed, "How can this be? For we have guards in the night around our bedroom, and each of them keeps an eager, watchful eye, and no one could have slipped in or slipped out, and left such dirty footprints!"

And so the Grand Vizier called together his most trusted inner circle of advisers and even his astrologer, and, while all of them agreed it was a most rare and alarming occurrence, none of them could guess as to what might be the cause. And so the Grand Vizier had the bedroom cleansed, and then the next night, as he lay down to sleep, he prayed to Allah to protect him from whatever might threaten him in the night.

The next morning the Grand Vizier awoke, and stretching and yawning, thrust back the bedding and looked down at the crisp white sheets. Aghast, he exclaimed, "What manner of evil has befallen me? For, yesterday I found muddy footprints in the bed, and a trail of muddy prints leading up to the wall, and today I find rose petals. Rose petals! Dried and brittle and brown, as if taken from a grave, and strewn along the foot of the bed, at the feet of my dear wife, who is still sleeping unaware! Oh, what other evil shall befall me?"

And, panicked, the Grand Vizier once more called forth his most trusted advisers, none of whom could tell him exactly what was occurring in the middle of the night.

Full of dark forebodings, the Grand Vizier once more had the bed cleansed, yet never informed his wife, who slept through the morning and thus missed the discovery of the rose petals and the dirt, what was transpiring. That night, before retiring, he prayed feverishly that he and his young bride might be protected from any evil that might try and accost them as they slept.

But in the middle of the night, as he tossed and turned fitfully in uneasy dreams, the Grand Vizier, Jafar, was awakened by someone crawling into his bed. He turned over, and with wonder, by the pale, trickling moonlight, he saw that the body that was getting into bed with him, pulling the covers back and sliding between the sheets, was none other than his new bride! Aghast, he began to inch away from her, and, suddenly, his legs struck something that was lodged in the bed, something cold, and sleek, and hard.

He pulled back the covers and, to his shock and horror, he put out his hand and grasped a ...single bone!

He dropped it suddenly, feeling prickles of fear wash across his neck. The next morning, as his wife still slept beside him, he called for his servants, his most trusted ones.

"See," he said, "I have found this bone in my bed, where it shouldn't be. Tell me: is this the bone of a man, or a monkey?"

And about half of the servants proclaimed it to be one, and the other half, the other.

One of the servants, a young man named Khalid, was reputed to have the gift of prophecy, and the second sight. He said, "Oh, my Master, I fear for what this may portend! Let me wait up with you tonight, in the darkness,and see where it is your wife goes, and why she brings back with her a single bone, which I cannot doubt once belonged to a living man!"

And so the Grand Vizier, quite at the end of his rope, allowed it to be so. That night, Khalid crouched in a darkened corner of the room, while the Grand Vizier fell gradually asleep. Once the Grand Vizier was snoring soundly, Khalid began to see the form of his wife rustle on the bed, cast back the bed clothing and arise like a sleepwalker, going to the window, throwing back the sash, opening the glass, and, jumping upon the window seal like an animal, crouching there for a moment before taking off into the night. Cautiously, Khalid followed her.

She led him to a cemetery. There, she began to crouch and crawl among the tombs.

Her eyes grew suddenly wild, he hair became long and grey, her face took on a death-like pallor, and her hands became long, ragged claws, with talons in place of nails. She quickly began to dig up a fresh grave and pulled from it the cadaver of a young boy.

She quickly thrust its feet into her mouth and devoured every rotting morsel of the young man, her throat bulging, her eyes burning with fire, and gore dripping from her chin. She then thrust the bones back into the grave, carefully refilled the hole, and proceeded to the next repast.

All night she did this, until the cock crowed and the sun rose in the Eastern sky, to burn the day with its vengeance.

Khalid followed the thing, the ghūl, or ghoul in our language, back to Jafar's bed chamber, where she slipped back between the sheets, as a sleepwalker might, and never once awoke. Khalid woke his master that morning, saying, "I have seen an evil thing this night! I have seen how the dead drink the blood and eat the flesh of the living. For it is that, for them, the blood is the life."

And Khalid told his master everything that he saw so that Jafar the Grand Vizier was beside himself with terror and grief. But Khalid then conceived of a plan wherein he might take the ghoul unawares. He said, "I will sleep in your bed tonight, my Master, for I know of a way in which the great evil of this foul being might be put to rest!"

And that night, the Grand Vizier did not sleep in his royal bed chamber, but, after assuring himself that the Ghoul had entered the strange, half-asleep state of enchantment which was neither wakefulness or slumber, crept from the chamber, trading places with Khalid, who had a stake of sharpened holly. Khalid lay down, and placed the stake between his legs, pointing up right.

The Ghoul crept from the bed chamber, as always, and went to the window, and threw it open, and was off into the night. When she returned, dragging behind her a long, winding, and filthy burial cloth, she saw the bedclothes and the sharpened stake beneath. Thinking that her husband was ready to consummate their marriage, she exclaimed, "Oh, you are aroused my love! Come, let us make love so that you may sire an heir for which to leave your vast fortune when you die!"

And, jumping upon the sharpened stake, the Ghoul impaled herself, the point of the stake thrusting up through her mouth, and blood and gruesome bits shooting like a horrible fountain from her throat.

The body then crumbled to dust. The Grand Vizier was overjoyed, and made Khalid the head of his household, and the heir to his will.

And the moral of this story is: never trust that all is what it seems, whether it be beautiful or not. For even in beauty lie the seeds of death and decay.

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