Contents

International Acclaim forPaulo Coelho’sForeword

ProloguePart OnePart TwoEpilogueA Preview of Paulo Coelho’s:Warrior of the Light

Warrior of the Light:Prologue

About the AuthorAlso by Paulo CoelhoBack AdsCopyrightAbout the Publisher

International Acclaimfor Paulo Coelho’s

THE ALCHEMIST

“The story has the comiccharm, dramatic tension, andpsychological intensity of a

fairy tale, but it’s full ofspecific wisdom as well. . . .

A sweetly exotic tale for

young and old alike.”—Publishers Weekly

“Beneath this novel’scompelling story and the

shimmering elegance withwhich it’s told lies a bedrockof wisdom about following

one’s heart.”—Booklist

“As memorable and

meaningful as Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince.”

—Austin American-Statesman

“A touching, inspiring fable.”—Indianapolis Star

“A little poke in the ribs fromon high.”

—Detroit Free Press

“The Alchemist is a fabuloussuccess.”

—Der Spiegel (Germany)

“A remarkable tale about themost magical of all journeys:

the quest to fulfill one’sdestiny. I recommend The

Alchemist to anyone who ispassionately committed toclaiming the life of their

dreams—today.”

—Anthony Robbins, authorof Awaken the Giant Within

“An entrepreneurial tale ofuniversal wisdom we can

apply to the business of ourown lives.”

—Spencer Johnson, M.D.,author of Who Moved My

Cheese

“An adventure story full of

magic and wisdom.”—Rudolfo Anaya, author of

Bless Me, Ultima

“The Alchemist is a beautifulbook about magic, dreams,and the treasures we seek

elsewhere and then find at ourdoorstep.”

—Madonna in SonntagAktuell (Germany)

“The Alchemist is anunabashed delight and

inspirational wonder. Thisfable is a roseate amalgam of

spiritual quest, existentialpuzzle, lovely sensitivity, and

deep strength.”—Malcolm Boyd, author ofAre You Running with Me,

Jesus?

“Paulo Coelho knows the

secret of literary alchemy.”—Kenzaburo Oé, winner ofthe Nobel Prize in Literature

“A most tender and gentlestory. It is a rare gem of a

book, and will most certainlytouch the very core of everyheart earnestly seeking its

own destiny on the journey oflife.”

—Gerald G. Jampolsky,

M.D., coauthor of ChangeYour Mind, Change Your Life

and Love Is Letting Go ofFear

“Rarely do I come across astory with the directness andsimplicity of Coelho’s TheAlchemist. It lifts the reader

out of time and focusesthrough a believably unlikely

story on a young dreamerlooking for himself. A

beautiful story with a pointedmessage for every reader.”

—Joseph Girzone, author ofJoshua

“This is the type of book thatmakes you understand moreabout yourself and about life.

It has philosophy and isspiced with colors, flavors,

and subjects, like a fairy tale.A lovely book.”

—Yedi’ot Aharonot (Israel)

“A boy named Santiago joinsthe ranks of Candide and

Pinocchio by taking us on avery excellent adventure.”

—Paul Zindel, author of thePulitzer Prize–winning play

The Effect of Gamma Rays onMan-in-the-Moon Marigolds

“The mystic quality in the

odd adventures of the boy,Santiago, may bring not onlyhim but others who read this

fine book closer torecognizing and reachingtheir own inner destinies.”

—Charlotte Zolotow, authorof If You Listen

“Paulo Coelho gives you theinspiration to follow yourown dreams by seeing the

world through your own eyesand not someone else’s.”

—Lynn Andrews, author ofthe Medicine Woman series

“Nothing is impossible, suchis Coelho’s message, as longas you wish it with all your

heart. No other book bears somuch hope; small wonder itsauthor became a guru among

all those in search of the

meaning of life.”—Focus (Germany)

“The Alchemist is a trulypoetic book.”

—Welt am Sonntag(Germany)

“Dotted throughout the storyand illuminated in a poetic

style are metaphors and deepinsights that stir our

imagination and transport thereader on a fantastic journey

of the soul.”—Yomiuri Shimbun (Japan)

“The Alchemist brings tomind The Little Prince by

Saint-Exupéry and TheProphet by Khalil Gibran, as

well as biblical parables.”—Gazeta Wyborcza (Poland)

“The Alchemist is a beautifuland heartwarming story withan exotic flavor. . . . You mayor may not agree with PauloCoelho’s philosophy, but it’s

nonetheless a tale thatcomforts our hearts as much

as our souls.”—Bergensavisen (Norway)

“The Alchemist is like amodern-day The Little

Prince. A supreme andsimple book.”

—Milorad Pavic, author ofDictionary of the Khazars

“Among Latin Americanwriters, only Colombia’s

Gabriel Garcia Marquez ismore widely read than

Brazil’s Paulo Coelho.”—The Economist

Foreword

When The Alchemist was firstpublished twenty-five yearsago in my native Brazil, noone noticed. A bookseller inthe northeast corner of thecountry told me that only oneperson purchased a copy thefirst week of its release. Ittook another six months forthe bookseller to unload a

second copy—and that was tothe same person who boughtthe first! And who knowshow long it took to sell thethird.

By the end of the year, itwas clear to everyone thatThe Alchemist wasn’tworking. My originalpublisher decided to cut meloose and cancelled ourcontract. They wiped theirhands of the project and let

me take the book with me. Iwas forty-one and desperate.

But I never lost faith inthe book or ever wavered inmy vision. Why? Because itwas me in there, all of me,heart and soul. I was livingmy own metaphor. A mansets out on a journey,dreaming of a beautiful ormagical place, in pursuit ofsome unknown treasure. Atthe end of his journey, the

man realizes the treasure waswith him the entire time. Iwas following my PersonalLegend, and my treasure wasmy capacity to write. And Iwanted to share this treasurewith the world.

As I wrote in TheAlchemist, when you wantsomething, the wholeuniverse conspires to helpyou. I started knocking on thedoors of other publishers.

One opened, and thepublisher on the other sidebelieved in me and my bookand agreed to give TheAlchemist a second chance.Slowly, through word ofmouth, it finally started to sell—three thousand, then sixthousand, ten thousand—book by book, graduallythroughout the year.

Eight months later, anAmerican visiting Brazil

picked up a copy of TheAlchemist in a localbookstore. He wanted totranslate the book and helpme find a publisher in theUnited States. HarperCollinsagreed to bring it to anAmerican audience,publishing it with greatfanfare: ads in the New YorkTimes and influential newsmagazines, radio andtelevision interviews. But it

still took some time to sell,slowly finding its audience inthe United States by word ofmouth, just as it did in Brazil.And then one day, BillClinton was photographedleaving the White House witha copy. Then Madonna ravedabout the book to VanityFair, and people fromdifferent walks of life—fromRush Limbaugh and WillSmith to college students and

soccer moms—were suddenlytalking about it.

The Alchemist became aspontaneous—and organic—Phenomenon. The book hitthe New York Times bestsellerlist, an important milestonefor any author, and stayedthere for more than threehundred weeks. It has sincebeen translated into morethan eighty differentlanguages, the most translated

book by any living author,and is widely considered oneof the ten best books of thetwentieth century.

People continue to ask meif I knew The Alchemistwould be such a hugesuccess. The answer is no. Ihad no idea. How could I?When I sat down to write TheAlchemist, all I knew is that Iwanted to write about mysoul. I wanted to write about

my quest to find my treasure.I wanted to follow the omens,because I knew even then thatthe omens are the language ofGod.

Though The Alchemist isnow celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary, it is no relicof the past. The book is stillvery much alive. Like myheart and like my soul, itcontinues to live every day,because my heart and soul are

in it. And my heart and soulis your heart and soul. I amSantiago the shepherd boy insearch of my treasure, just asyou are Santiago the shepherdboy in search of your own.The story of one person is thestory of everyone, and oneman’s quest is the quest of allof humanity, which is why Ibelieve The Alchemistcontinues all these years laterto resonate with people from

different cultures all aroundthe world, touching thememotionally and spiritually,equally, without prejudice.

I re-read The Alchemistregularly and every time I doI experience the samesensations I felt when I wroteit. And here is what I feel. Ifeel happiness, because it isall of me, and all of yousimultaneously. I feelhappiness, too, because I

know I can never be alone.Wherever I go, peopleunderstand me. Theyunderstand my soul. Thiscontinues to give me hope.When I read about clashesaround the world—politicalclashes, economic clashes,cultural clashes—I amreminded that it is within ourpower to build a bridge to becrossed. Even if my neighbordoesn’t understand my

religion or understand mypolitics, he can understandmy story. If he canunderstand my story, thenhe’s never too far from me. Itis always within my power tobuild a bridge. There isalways a chance forreconciliation, a chance thatone day he and I will sitaround a table together andput an end to our history ofclashes. And on this day, he

will tell me his story and Iwill tell him mine.

— Paulo Coelho, 2014

Prologue

Translated by CliffordE. Landers

The alchemist picked up abook that someone in thecaravan had brought. Leafingthrough the pages, he found astory about Narcissus.

The alchemist knew thelegend of Narcissus, a youthwho knelt daily beside a laketo contemplate his ownbeauty. He was so fascinatedby himself that, one morning,he fell into the lake anddrowned. At the spot wherehe fell, a flower was born,which was called thenarcissus.

But this was not how theauthor of the book ended the

story.He said that when

Narcissus died, the goddessesof the forest appeared andfound the lake, which hadbeen fresh water, transformedinto a lake of salty tears.

“Why do you weep?” thegoddesses asked.

“I weep for Narcissus,”the lake replied.

“Ah, it is no surprise thatyou weep for Narcissus,” they

said, “for though we alwayspursued him in the forest, youalone could contemplate hisbeauty close at hand.”

“But . . . was Narcissusbeautiful?” the lake asked.

“Who better than you toknow that?” the goddessessaid in wonder. “After all, itwas by your banks that heknelt each day to contemplatehimself!”

The lake was silent for

some time. Finally, it said:“I weep for Narcissus, but

I never noticed that Narcissuswas beautiful. I weepbecause, each time he kneltbeside my banks, I could see,in the depths of his eyes, myown beauty reflected.”

“What a lovely story,” thealchemist thought.

THE BOY’S NAME WAS

SANTIAGO. DUSK was falling asthe boy arrived with his herdat an abandoned church. Theroof had fallen in long ago,and an enormous sycamorehad grown on the spot wherethe sacristy had once stood.

He decided to spend thenight there. He saw to it thatall the sheep entered throughthe ruined gate, and then laid

some planks across it toprevent the flock fromwandering away during thenight. There were no wolvesin the region, but once ananimal had strayed during thenight, and the boy had had tospend the entire next daysearching for it.

He swept the floor withhis jacket and lay down,using the book he had justfinished reading as a pillow.

He told himself that he wouldhave to start reading thickerbooks: they lasted longer, andmade more comfortablepillows.

It was still dark when heawoke, and, looking up, hecould see the stars throughthe half-destroyed roof.

I wanted to sleep a littlelonger, he thought. He hadhad the same dream that nightas a week ago, and once again

he had awakened before itended.

He arose and, taking uphis crook, began to awakenthe sheep that still slept. Hehad noticed that, as soon ashe awoke, most of hisanimals also began to stir. Itwas as if some mysteriousenergy bound his life to thatof the sheep, with whom hehad spent the past two years,leading them through the

countryside in search of foodand water. “They are so usedto me that they know myschedule,” he muttered.Thinking about that for amoment, he realized that itcould be the other wayaround: that it was he whohad become accustomed totheir schedule.

But there were certain ofthem who took a bit longer toawaken. The boy prodded

them, one by one, with hiscrook, calling each by name.He had always believed thatthe sheep were able tounderstand what he said. Sothere were times when heread them parts of his booksthat had made an impressionon him, or when he would tellthem of the loneliness or thehappiness of a shepherd in thefields. Sometimes he wouldcomment to them on the

things he had seen in thevillages they passed.

But for the past few dayshe had spoken to them aboutonly one thing: the girl, thedaughter of a merchant wholived in the village theywould reach in about fourdays. He had been to thevillage only once, the yearbefore. The merchant was theproprietor of a dry goodsshop, and he always

demanded that the sheep besheared in his presence, sothat he would not be cheated.A friend had told the boyabout the shop, and he hadtaken his sheep there.

“I need to sell some wool,”the boy told the merchant.

The shop was busy, andthe man asked the shepherd to

wait until the afternoon. Sothe boy sat on the steps of theshop and took a book fromhis bag.

“I didn’t know shepherdsknew how to read,” said agirl’s voice behind him.

The girl was typical of theregion of Andalusia, withflowing black hair, and eyesthat vaguely recalled theMoorish conquerors.

“Well, usually I learnmore from my sheep thanfrom books,” he answered.During the two hours thatthey talked, she told him shewas the merchant’s daughter,and spoke of life in thevillage, where each day waslike all the others. Theshepherd told her of theAndalusian countryside, andrelated the news from theother towns where he had

stopped. It was a pleasantchange from talking to hissheep.

“How did you learn toread?” the girl asked at onepoint.

“Like everybody learns,”he said. “In school.”

“Well, if you know howto read, why are you just ashepherd?”

The boy mumbled ananswer that allowed him to

avoid responding to herquestion. He was sure the girlwould never understand. Hewent on telling stories abouthis travels, and her bright,Moorish eyes went wide withfear and surprise. As the timepassed, the boy found himselfwishing that the day wouldnever end, that her fatherwould stay busy and keephim waiting for three days.He recognized that he was

feeling something he hadnever experienced before: thedesire to live in one placeforever. With the girl with theraven hair, his days wouldnever be the same again.

But finally the merchantappeared, and asked the boyto shear four sheep. He paidfor the wool and asked theshepherd to come back thefollowing year.

And now it was only fourdays before he would be backin that same village. He wasexcited, and at the same timeuneasy: maybe the girl hadalready forgotten him. Lots ofshepherds passed through,selling their wool.

“It doesn’t matter,” hesaid to his sheep. “I knowother girls in other places.”

But in his heart he knewthat it did matter. And heknew that shepherds, likeseamen and like travelingsalesmen, always found atown where there wassomeone who could makethem forget the joys ofcarefree wandering.

The day was dawning,and the shepherd urged hissheep in the direction of thesun. They never have to make

any decisions, he thought.Maybe that’s why theyalways stay close to me.

The only things thatconcerned the sheep werefood and water. As long asthe boy knew how to find thebest pastures in Andalusia,they would be his friends.Yes, their days were all thesame, with the seeminglyendless hours between sunriseand dusk; and they had never

read a book in their younglives, and didn’t understandwhen the boy told them aboutthe sights of the cities. Theywere content with just foodand water, and, in exchange,they generously gave of theirwool, their company, and—once in a while—their meat.

If I became a monstertoday, and decided to killthem, one by one, they wouldbecome aware only after most

of the flock had beenslaughtered, thought the boy.They trust me, and they’veforgotten how to rely on theirown instincts, because I leadthem to nourishment.

The boy was surprised athis thoughts. Maybe thechurch, with the sycamoregrowing from within, hadbeen haunted. It had causedhim to have the same dreamfor a second time, and it was

causing him to feel angertoward his faithfulcompanions. He drank a bitfrom the wine that remainedfrom his dinner of the nightbefore, and he gathered hisjacket closer to his body. Heknew that a few hours fromnow, with the sun at itszenith, the heat would be sogreat that he would not beable to lead his flock acrossthe fields. It was the time of

day when all of Spain sleptduring the summer. The heatlasted until nightfall, and allthat time he had to carry hisjacket. But when he thoughtto complain about the burdenof its weight, he rememberedthat, because he had thejacket, he had withstood thecold of the dawn.

We have to be preparedfor change, he thought, andhe was grateful for the

jacket’s weight and warmth.The jacket had a purpose,

and so did the boy. Hispurpose in life was to travel,and, after two years ofwalking the Andalusianterrain, he knew all the citiesof the region. He wasplanning, on this visit, toexplain to the girl how it wasthat a simple shepherd knewhow to read. That he hadattended a seminary until he

was sixteen. His parents hadwanted him to become apriest, and thereby a source ofpride for a simple farmfamily. They worked hardjust to have food and water,like the sheep. He had studiedLatin, Spanish, and theology.But ever since he had been achild, he had wanted to knowthe world, and this was muchmore important to him thanknowing God and learning

about man’s sins. Oneafternoon, on a visit to hisfamily, he had summoned upthe courage to tell his fatherthat he didn’t want to becomea priest. That he wanted totravel.

“People from all over theworld have passed throughthis village, son,” said his

father. “They come in searchof new things, but when theyleave they are basically thesame people they were whenthey arrived. They climb themountain to see the castle,and they wind up thinkingthat the past was better thanwhat we have now. Theyhave blond hair, or dark skin,but basically they’re the sameas the people who live righthere.”

“But I’d like to see thecastles in the towns wherethey live,” the boy explained.

“Those people, when theysee our land, say that theywould like to live hereforever,” his father continued.

“Well, I’d like to see theirland, and see how they live,”said his son.

“The people who comehere have a lot of money tospend, so they can afford to

travel,” his father said.“Amongst us, the only oneswho travel are theshepherds.”

“Well, then I’ll be ashepherd!”

His father said no more.The next day, he gave his sona pouch that held threeancient Spanish gold coins.

“I found these one day inthe fields. I wanted them tobe a part of your inheritance.

But use them to buy yourflock. Take to the fields, andsomeday you’ll learn that ourcountryside is the best, andour women are the mostbeautiful.”

And he gave the boy hisblessing. The boy could seein his father’s gaze a desire to

be able, himself, to travel theworld—a desire that was stillalive, despite his father’shaving had to bury it, overdozens of years, under theburden of struggling for waterto drink, food to eat, and thesame place to sleep everynight of his life.

The horizon was tinged with

red, and suddenly the sunappeared. The boy thoughtback to that conversation withhis father, and felt happy; hehad already seen many castlesand met many women (butnone the equal of the one whoawaited him several dayshence). He owned a jacket, abook that he could trade foranother, and a flock of sheep.But, most important, he wasable every day to live out his

dream. If he were to tire ofthe Andalusian fields, hecould sell his sheep and go tosea. By the time he had hadenough of the sea, he wouldalready have known othercities, other women, andother chances to be happy. Icouldn’t have found God inthe seminary, he thought, ashe looked at the sunrise.

Whenever he could, hesought out a new road to

travel. He had never been tothat ruined church before, inspite of having traveledthrough those parts manytimes. The world was hugeand inexhaustible; he hadonly to allow his sheep to setthe route for a while, and hewould discover otherinteresting things. Theproblem is that they don’teven realize that they’rewalking a new road every

day. They don’t see that thefields are new and the seasonschange. All they think aboutis food and water.

Maybe we’re all that way,the boy mused. Even me—Ihaven’t thought of otherwomen since I met themerchant’s daughter. Lookingat the sun, he calculated thathe would reach Tarifa beforemidday. There, he couldexchange his book for a

thicker one, fill his winebottle, shave, and have ahaircut; he had to preparehimself for his meeting withthe girl, and he didn’t want tothink about the possibilitythat some other shepherd,with a larger flock of sheep,had arrived there before himand asked for her hand.

It’s the possibility ofhaving a dream come truethat makes life interesting, he

thought, as he looked again atthe position of the sun, andhurried his pace. He hadsuddenly remembered that, inTarifa, there was an oldwoman who interpreteddreams.

The old woman led the boy toa room at the back of herhouse; it was separated from

her living room by a curtainof colored beads. The room’sfurnishings consisted of atable, an image of the SacredHeart of Jesus, and twochairs.

The woman sat down, andtold him to be seated as well.Then she took both of hishands in hers, and beganquietly to pray.

It sounded like a Gypsyprayer. The boy had already

had experience on the roadwith Gypsies; they alsotraveled, but they had noflocks of sheep. People saidthat Gypsies spent their livestricking others. It was alsosaid that they had a pact withthe devil, and that theykidnapped children and,taking them away to theirmysterious camps, madethem their slaves. As a child,the boy had always been

frightened to death that hewould be captured byGypsies, and this childhoodfear returned when the oldwoman took his hands inhers.

But she has the SacredHeart of Jesus there, hethought, trying to reassurehimself. He didn’t want hishand to begin trembling,showing the old woman thathe was fearful. He recited an

Our Father silently.“Very interesting,” said

the woman, never taking hereyes from the boy’s hands,and then she fell silent.

The boy was becomingnervous. His hands began totremble, and the womansensed it. He quickly pulledhis hands away.

“I didn’t come here tohave you read my palm,” hesaid, already regretting

having come. He thought fora moment that it would bebetter to pay her fee and leavewithout learning a thing, thathe was giving too muchimportance to his recurrentdream.

“You came so that youcould learn about yourdreams,” said the old woman.“And dreams are thelanguage of God. When hespeaks in our language, I can

interpret what he has said.But if he speaks in thelanguage of the soul, it is onlyyou who can understand. But,whichever it is, I’m going tocharge you for theconsultation.”

Another trick, the boythought. But he decided totake a chance. A shepherdalways takes his chances withwolves and with drought, andthat’s what makes a

shepherd’s life exciting.“I have had the same

dream twice,” he said. “Idreamed that I was in a fieldwith my sheep, when a childappeared and began to playwith the animals. I don’t likepeople to do that, because thesheep are afraid of strangers.But children always seem tobe able to play with themwithout frightening them. Idon’t know why. I don’t

know how animals know theage of human beings.”

“Tell me more about yourdream,” said the woman. “Ihave to get back to mycooking, and, since you don’thave much money, I can’tgive you a lot of time.”

“The child went onplaying with my sheep forquite a while,” continued theboy, a bit upset. “Andsuddenly, the child took me

by both hands and transportedme to the Egyptianpyramids.”

He paused for a momentto see if the woman knewwhat the Egyptian pyramids

were. But she said nothing.“Then, at the Egyptian

pyramids,”—he said the lastthree words slowly, so thatthe old woman wouldunderstand—“the child saidto me, ‘If you come here, youwill find a hidden treasure.’And, just as she was about toshow me the exact location, Iwoke up. Both times.”

The woman was silent forsome time. Then she again

took his hands and studiedthem carefully.

“I’m not going to chargeyou anything now,” she said.“But I want one-tenth of thetreasure, if you find it.”

The boy laughed—out ofhappiness. He was going tobe able to save the littlemoney he had because of adream about hidden treasure!

“Well, interpret thedream,” he said.

“First, swear to me.Swear that you will give meone-tenth of your treasure inexchange for what I am goingto tell you.”

The shepherd swore thathe would. The old womanasked him to swear againwhile looking at the image ofthe Sacred Heart of Jesus.

“It’s a dream in thelanguage of the world,” shesaid. “I can interpret it, but

the interpretation is verydifficult. That’s why I feelthat I deserve a part of whatyou find.

“And this is myinterpretation: you must go tothe Pyramids in Egypt. I havenever heard of them, but, if itwas a child who showed themto you, they exist. There youwill find a treasure that willmake you a rich man.”

The boy was surprised,

and then irritated. He didn’tneed to seek out the oldwoman for this! But then heremembered that he wasn’tgoing to have to payanything.

“I didn’t need to wastemy time just for this,” hesaid.

“I told you that yourdream was a difficult one. It’sthe simple things in life thatare the most extraordinary;

only wise men are able tounderstand them. And since Iam not wise, I have had tolearn other arts, such as thereading of palms.”

“Well, how am I going toget to Egypt?”

“I only interpret dreams. Idon’t know how to turn theminto reality. That’s why Ihave to live off what mydaughters provide me with.”

“And what if I never get

to Egypt?”“Then I don’t get paid. It

wouldn’t be the first time.”And the woman told the

boy to leave, saying she hadalready wasted too much timewith him.

So the boy wasdisappointed; he decided thathe would never again believein dreams. He rememberedthat he had a number ofthings he had to take care of:

he went to the market forsomething to eat, he tradedhis book for one that wasthicker, and he found a benchin the plaza where he couldsample the new wine he hadbought. The day was hot, andthe wine was refreshing. Thesheep were at the gates of thecity, in a stable that belongedto a friend. The boy knew alot of people in the city. Thatwas what made traveling

appeal to him—he alwaysmade new friends, and hedidn’t need to spend all of histime with them. Whensomeone sees the samepeople every day, as hadhappened with him at theseminary, they wind upbecoming a part of thatperson’s life. And then theywant the person to change. Ifsomeone isn’t what otherswant them to be, the others

become angry. Everyoneseems to have a clear idea ofhow other people should leadtheir lives, but none about hisor her own.

He decided to wait untilthe sun had sunk a bit lowerin the sky before followinghis flock back through thefields. Three days from now,he would be with themerchant’s daughter.

He started to read the

book he had bought. On thevery first page it described aburial ceremony. And thenames of the people involvedwere very difficult topronounce. If he ever wrote abook, he thought, he wouldpresent one person at a time,so that the reader wouldn’thave to worry aboutmemorizing a lot of names.

When he was finally ableto concentrate on what he was

reading, he liked the bookbetter; the burial was on asnowy day, and he welcomedthe feeling of being cold. Ashe read on, an old man satdown at his side and tried tostrike up a conversation.

“What are they doing?”the old man asked, pointing atthe people in the plaza.

“Working,” the boyanswered dryly, making itlook as if he wanted to

concentrate on his reading.Actually, he was thinking

about shearing his sheep infront of the merchant’sdaughter, so that she couldsee that he was someone whowas capable of doing difficultthings. He had alreadyimagined the scene manytimes; every time, the girlbecame fascinated when heexplained that the sheep hadto be sheared from back to

front. He also tried toremember some good storiesto relate as he sheared thesheep. Most of them he hadread in books, but he wouldtell them as if they were fromhis personal experience. Shewould never know thedifference, because she didn’tknow how to read.

Meanwhile, the old manpersisted in his attempt tostrike up a conversation. He

said that he was tired andthirsty, and asked if he mighthave a sip of the boy’s wine.The boy offered his bottle,hoping that the old manwould leave him alone.

But the old man wanted totalk, and he asked the boywhat book he was reading.The boy was tempted to berude, and move to another

bench, but his father hadtaught him to be respectful ofthe elderly. So he held out thebook to the man—for tworeasons: first, that he, himself,wasn’t sure how to pronouncethe title; and second, that ifthe old man didn’t know howto read, he would probablyfeel ashamed and decide ofhis own accord to changebenches.

“Hmm . . .” said the old

man, looking at all sides ofthe book, as if it were somestrange object. “This is animportant book, but it’s reallyirritating.”

The boy was shocked.The old man knew how toread, and had already read thebook. And if the book wasirritating, as the old man hadsaid, the boy still had time tochange it for another.

“It’s a book that says the

same thing almost all theother books in the world say,”continued the old man. “Itdescribes people’s inability tochoose their own PersonalLegends. And it ends upsaying that everyone believesthe world’s greatest lie.”

“What’s the world’sgreatest lie?” the boy asked,completely surprised.

“It’s this: that at a certainpoint in our lives, we lose

control of what’s happeningto us, and our lives becomecontrolled by fate. That’s theworld’s greatest lie.”

“That’s never happened tome,” the boy said. “Theywanted me to be a priest, butI decided to become ashepherd.”

“Much better,” said theold man. “Because you reallylike to travel.”

“He knew what I was

thinking,” the boy said tohimself. The old man,meanwhile, was leafingthrough the book, withoutseeming to want to return it atall. The boy noticed that theman’s clothing was strange.He looked like an Arab,which was not unusual inthose parts. Africa was only afew hours from Tarifa; onehad only to cross the narrowstraits by boat. Arabs often

appeared in the city, shoppingand chanting their strangeprayers several times a day.

“Where are you from?”the boy asked.

“From many places.”“No one can be from

many places,” the boy said.“I’m a shepherd, and I havebeen to many places, but Icome from only one place—from a city near an ancientcastle. That’s where I was

born.”“Well then, we could say

that I was born in Salem.”The boy didn’t know

where Salem was, but hedidn’t want to ask, fearingthat he would appearignorant. He looked at thepeople in the plaza for awhile; they were coming andgoing, and all of them seemedto be very busy.

“So, what is Salem like?”

he asked, trying to get somesort of clue.

“It’s like it always hasbeen.”

No clue yet. But he knewthat Salem wasn’t inAndalusia. If it were, hewould already have heard ofit.

“And what do you do inSalem?” he insisted.

“What do I do in Salem?”The old man laughed. “Well,

I’m the king of Salem!”People say strange things,

the boy thought. Sometimesit’s better to be with thesheep, who don’t sayanything. And better still tobe alone with one’s books.They tell their incrediblestories at the time when youwant to hear them. But whenyou’re talking to people, theysay some things that are sostrange that you don’t know

how to continue theconversation.

“My name isMelchizedek,” said the oldman. “How many sheep doyou have?”

“Enough,” said the boy.He could see that the old manwanted to know more abouthis life.

“Well, then, we’ve got aproblem. I can’t help you ifyou feel you’ve got enough

sheep.”The boy was getting

irritated. He wasn’t asking forhelp. It was the old man whohad asked for a drink of hiswine, and had started theconversation.

“Give me my book,” theboy said. “I have to go andgather my sheep and getgoing.”

“Give me one-tenth ofyour sheep,” said the old

man, “and I’ll tell you how tofind the hidden treasure.”

The boy remembered hisdream, and suddenlyeverything was clear to him.The old woman hadn’tcharged him anything, but theold man—maybe he was herhusband—was going to find away to get much more moneyin exchange for informationabout something that didn’teven exist. The old man was

probably a Gypsy, too.But before the boy could

say anything, the old manleaned over, picked up astick, and began to write inthe sand of the plaza.Something bright reflectedfrom his chest with suchintensity that the boy wasmomentarily blinded. With amovement that was too quickfor someone his age, the mancovered whatever it was with

his cape. When his visionreturned to normal, the boywas able to read what the oldman had written in the sand.

There, in the sand of theplaza of that small city, theboy read the names of hisfather and his mother and thename of the seminary he hadattended. He read the name ofthe merchant’s daughter,which he hadn’t even known,and he read things he had

never told anyone.

“I’m the king of Salem,” theold man had said.

“Why would a king betalking with a shepherd?” theboy asked, awed andembarrassed.

“For several reasons. Butlet’s say that the mostimportant is that you have

succeeded in discoveringyour Personal Legend.”

The boy didn’t knowwhat a person’s “PersonalLegend” was.

“It’s what you havealways wanted to accomplish.Everyone, when they areyoung, knows what theirPersonal Legend is.

“At that point in theirlives, everything is clear andeverything is possible. They

are not afraid to dream, and toyearn for everything theywould like to see happen tothem in their lives. But, astime passes, a mysteriousforce begins to convince themthat it will be impossible forthem to realize their PersonalLegend.”

None of what the old manwas saying made much senseto the boy. But he wanted toknow what the “mysterious

force” was; the merchant’sdaughter would be impressedwhen he told her about that!

“It’s a force that appearsto be negative, but actuallyshows you how to realizeyour Personal Legend. Itprepares your spirit and yourwill, because there is onegreat truth on this planet:whoever you are, or whateverit is that you do, when youreally want something, it’s

because that desire originatedin the soul of the universe.It’s your mission on earth.”

“Even when all you wantto do is travel? Or marry thedaughter of a textilemerchant?”

“Yes, or even search fortreasure. The Soul of theWorld is nourished bypeople’s happiness. And alsoby unhappiness, envy, andjealousy. To realize one’s

Personal Legend is a person’sonly real obligation. Allthings are one.

“And, when you wantsomething, all the universeconspires in helping you toachieve it.”

They were both silent fora time, observing the plazaand the townspeople. It wasthe old man who spoke first.

“Why do you tend a flockof sheep?”

“Because I like to travel.”The old man pointed to a

baker standing in his shopwindow at one corner of theplaza. “When he was a child,that man wanted to travel,too. But he decided first tobuy his bakery and put somemoney aside. When he’s anold man, he’s going to spenda month in Africa. He neverrealized that people arecapable, at any time in their

lives, of doing what theydream of.”

“He should have decidedto become a shepherd,” theboy said.

“Well, he thought aboutthat,” the old man said. “Butbakers are more importantpeople than shepherds.Bakers have homes, whileshepherds sleep out in theopen. Parents would rathersee their children marry

bakers than shepherds.”The boy felt a pang in his

heart, thinking about themerchant’s daughter. Therewas surely a baker in hertown.

The old man continued,“In the long run, what peoplethink about shepherds andbakers becomes moreimportant for them than theirown Personal Legends.”

The old man leafed

through the book, and fell toreading a page he came to.The boy waited, and theninterrupted the old man justas he himself had beeninterrupted. “Why are youtelling me all this?”

“Because you are tryingto realize your PersonalLegend. And you are at thepoint where you’re about togive it all up.”

“And that’s when you

always appear on the scene?”“Not always in this way,

but I always appear in oneform or another. Sometimes Iappear in the form of asolution, or a good idea. Atother times, at a crucialmoment, I make it easier forthings to happen. There areother things I do, too, butmost of the time people don’trealize I’ve done them.”

The old man related that,

the week before, he had beenforced to appear before aminer, and had taken the formof a stone. The miner hadabandoned everything to gomining for emeralds. For fiveyears he had been working acertain river, and hadexamined hundreds ofthousands of stones lookingfor an emerald. The minerwas about to give it all up,right at the point when, if he

were to examine just onemore stone—just one more—he would find his emerald.Since the miner hadsacrificed everything to hisPersonal Legend, the old mandecided to become involved.He transformed himself into astone that rolled up to theminer’s foot. The miner, withall the anger and frustrationof his five fruitless years,picked up the stone and threw

it aside. But he had thrown itwith such force that it brokethe stone it fell upon, andthere, embedded in thebroken stone, was the mostbeautiful emerald in theworld.

“People learn, early intheir lives, what is theirreason for being,” said the oldman, with a certain bitterness.“Maybe that’s why they giveup on it so early, too. But

that’s the way it is.”The boy reminded the old

man that he had saidsomething about hiddentreasure.

“Treasure is uncovered bythe force of flowing water,and it is buried by the samecurrents,” said the old man.“If you want to learn aboutyour own treasure, you willhave to give me one-tenth ofyour flock.”

“What about one-tenth ofmy treasure?”

The old man lookeddisappointed. “If you start outby promising what you don’teven have yet, you’ll loseyour desire to work towardgetting it.”

The boy told him that hehad already promised to giveone-tenth of his treasure tothe Gypsy.

“Gypsies are experts at

getting people to do that,”sighed the old man. “In anycase, it’s good that you’velearned that everything in lifehas its price. This is what theWarriors of the Light try toteach.”

The old man returned thebook to the boy.

“Tomorrow, at this sametime, bring me a tenth of yourflock. And I will tell you howto find the hidden treasure.

Good afternoon.”And he vanished around

the corner of the plaza.

The boy began again to readhis book, but he was nolonger able to concentrate. Hewas tense and upset, becausehe knew that the old man wasright. He went over to thebakery and bought a loaf of

bread, thinking about whetheror not he should tell the bakerwhat the old man had saidabout him. Sometimes it’sbetter to leave things as theyare, he thought to himself,and decided to say nothing. Ifhe were to say anything, thebaker would spend three daysthinking about giving it allup, even though he had gottenused to the way things were.The boy could certainly resist

causing that kind of anxietyfor the baker. So he began towander through the city, andfound himself at the gates.There was a small buildingthere, with a window atwhich people bought ticketsto Africa. And he knew thatEgypt was in Africa.

“Can I help you?” askedthe man behind the window.

“Maybe tomorrow,” saidthe boy, moving away. If he

sold just one of his sheep,he’d have enough to get tothe other shore of the strait.The idea frightened him.

“Another dreamer,” saidthe ticket seller to hisassistant, watching the boywalk away. “He doesn’t haveenough money to travel.”

While standing at theticket window, the boy hadremembered his flock, anddecided he should go back to

being a shepherd. In twoyears he had learnedeverything aboutshepherding: he knew how toshear sheep, how to care forpregnant ewes, and how toprotect the sheep fromwolves. He knew all thefields and pastures ofAndalusia. And he knew whatwas the fair price for everyone of his animals.

He decided to return tohis friend’s stable by thelongest route possible. As he

walked past the city’s castle,he interrupted his return, andclimbed the stone ramp thatled to the top of the wall.From there, he could seeAfrica in the distance.Someone had once told himthat it was from there that theMoors had come, to occupyall of Spain.

He could see almost theentire city from where he sat,including the plaza where he

had talked with the old man.Curse the moment I met thatold man, he thought. He hadcome to the town only to finda woman who could interprethis dream. Neither the womannor the old man was at allimpressed by the fact that hewas a shepherd. They weresolitary individuals who nolonger believed in things, anddidn’t understand thatshepherds become attached to

their sheep. He kneweverything about eachmember of his flock: he knewwhich ones were lame, whichone was to give birth twomonths from now, and whichwere the laziest. He knewhow to shear them, and howto slaughter them. If he everdecided to leave them, theywould suffer.

The wind began to pickup. He knew that wind:

people called it the levanter,because on it the Moors hadcome from the Levant at theeastern end of theMediterranean.

The levanter increased inintensity. Here I am, betweenmy flock and my treasure, theboy thought. He had tochoose between something hehad become accustomed toand something he wanted tohave. There was also the

merchant’s daughter, but shewasn’t as important as hisflock, because she didn’tdepend on him. Maybe shedidn’t even remember him.He was sure that it made nodifference to her on whichday he appeared: for her,every day was the same, andwhen each day is the same asthe next, it’s because peoplefail to recognize the goodthings that happen in their

lives every day that the sunrises.

I left my father, mymother, and the town castlebehind. They have gottenused to my being away, andso have I. The sheep will getused to my not being there,too, the boy thought.

From where he sat, hecould observe the plaza.People continued to come andgo from the baker’s shop. A

young couple sat on thebench where he had talkedwith the old man, and theykissed.

“That baker . . .” he saidto himself, withoutcompleting the thought. Thelevanter was still gettingstronger, and he felt its forceon his face. That wind hadbrought the Moors, yes, but ithad also brought the smell ofthe desert and of veiled

women. It had brought with itthe sweat and the dreams ofmen who had once left tosearch for the unknown, andfor gold and adventure—andfor the Pyramids. The boy feltjealous of the freedom of thewind, and saw that he couldhave the same freedom. Therewas nothing to hold him backexcept himself. The sheep,the merchant’s daughter, andthe fields of Andalusia were

only steps along the way tohis Personal Legend.

The next day, the boy metthe old man at noon. Hebrought six sheep with him.

“I’m surprised,” the boysaid. “My friend bought allthe other sheep immediately.He said that he had alwaysdreamed of being a shepherd,and that it was a good omen.”

“That’s the way it alwaysis,” said the old man. “It’s

called the principle offavorability. When you playcards the first time, you arealmost sure to win.Beginner’s luck.”

“Why is that?”“Because there is a force

that wants you to realize yourPersonal Legend; it whetsyour appetite with a taste ofsuccess.”

Then the old man beganto inspect the sheep, and he

saw that one was lame. Theboy explained that it wasn’timportant, since that sheepwas the most intelligent of theflock, and produced the mostwool.

“Where is the treasure?”he asked.

“It’s in Egypt, near thePyramids.”

The boy was startled. Theold woman had said the samething. But she hadn’t charged

him anything.“In order to find the

treasure, you will have tofollow the omens. God hasprepared a path for everyoneto follow. You just have toread the omens that he left foryou.”

Before the boy couldreply, a butterfly appearedand fluttered between himand the old man. Heremembered something hisgrandfather had once told

him: that butterflies were agood omen. Like crickets,and like grasshoppers; likelizards and four-leaf clovers.

“That’s right,” said theold man, able to read theboy’s thoughts. “Just as yourgrandfather taught you. Theseare good omens.”

The old man opened hiscape, and the boy was struckby what he saw. The old manwore a breastplate of heavy

gold, covered with preciousstones. The boy recalled thebrilliance he had noticed onthe previous day.

He really was a king! Hemust be disguised to avoidencounters with thieves.

“Take these,” said the oldman, holding out a whitestone and a black stone thathad been embedded at thecenter of the breastplate.“They are called Urim and

Thummim. The blacksignifies ‘yes,’ and the white‘no.’ When you are unable toread the omens, they will helpyou to do so. Always ask anobjective question.

“But, if you can, try tomake your own decisions.The treasure is at thePyramids; that you alreadyknew. But I had to insist onthe payment of six sheepbecause I helped you to make

your decision.”The boy put the stones in

his pouch. From then on, hewould make his owndecisions.

“Don’t forget thateverything you deal with isonly one thing and nothingelse. And don’t forget thelanguage of omens. And,above all, don’t forget tofollow your Personal Legendthrough to its conclusion.

“But before I go, I want totell you a little story.

“A certain shopkeepersent his son to learn about thesecret of happiness from thewisest man in the world. Thelad wandered through thedesert for forty days, andfinally came upon a beautifulcastle, high atop a mountain.It was there that the wise manlived.

“Rather than finding a

saintly man, though, our hero,on entering the main room ofthe castle, saw a hive ofactivity: tradesmen came andwent, people were conversingin the corners, a smallorchestra was playing softmusic, and there was a tablecovered with platters of themost delicious food in thatpart of the world. The wiseman conversed witheveryone, and the boy had to

wait for two hours before itwas his turn to be given theman’s attention.

“The wise man listenedattentively to the boy’sexplanation of why he hadcome, but told him that hedidn’t have time just then toexplain the secret ofhappiness. He suggested thatthe boy look around thepalace and return in twohours.

“‘Meanwhile, I want toask you to do something,’said the wise man, handingthe boy a teaspoon that heldtwo drops of oil. ‘As youwander around, carry thisspoon with you withoutallowing the oil to spill.’

“The boy began climbingand descending the manystairways of the palace,keeping his eyes fixed on thespoon. After two hours, he

returned to the room wherethe wise man was.

“‘Well,’ asked the wiseman, ‘did you see the Persiantapestries that are hanging inmy dining hall? Did you seethe garden that it took themaster gardener ten years tocreate? Did you notice thebeautiful parchments in mylibrary?’

“The boy wasembarrassed, and confessed

that he had observed nothing.His only concern had beennot to spill the oil that thewise man had entrusted tohim.

“‘Then go back andobserve the marvels of myworld,’ said the wise man.‘You cannot trust a man ifyou don’t know his house.’

“Relieved, the boy pickedup the spoon and returned tohis exploration of the palace,

this time observing all of theworks of art on the ceilingsand the walls. He saw thegardens, the mountains allaround him, the beauty of theflowers, and the taste withwhich everything had beenselected. Upon returning tothe wise man, he related indetail everything he had seen.

“‘But where are the dropsof oil I entrusted to you?’asked the wise man.

“Looking down at thespoon he held, the boy sawthat the oil was gone.

“‘Well, there is only onepiece of advice I can giveyou,’ said the wisest of wisemen. ‘The secret of happinessis to see all the marvels of theworld, and never to forget thedrops of oil on the spoon.’”

The shepherd saidnothing. He had understoodthe story the old king had toldhim. A shepherd may like totravel, but he should neverforget about his sheep.

The old man looked at theboy and, with his hands heldtogether, made severalstrange gestures over theboy’s head. Then, taking hissheep, he walked away.

At the highest point in Tarifathere is an old fort, built bythe Moors. From atop itswalls, one can catch aglimpse of Africa.Melchizedek, the king ofSalem, sat on the wall of thefort that afternoon, and feltthe levanter blowing in hisface. The sheep fidgetednearby, uneasy with their new

owner and excited by somuch change. All theywanted was food and water.

Melchizedek watched asmall ship that was plowingits way out of the port. Hewould never again see theboy, just as he had never seenAbraham again after havingcharged him his one-tenthfee. That was his work.

The gods should not havedesires, because they don’t

have Personal Legends. Butthe king of Salem hopeddesperately that the boywould be successful.

It’s too bad that he’squickly going to forget myname, he thought. I shouldhave repeated it for him.Then when he spoke aboutme he would say that I amMelchizedek, the king ofSalem.

He looked to the skies,

feeling a bit abashed, andsaid, “I know it’s the vanityof vanities, as you said, myLord. But an old kingsometimes has to take somepride in himself.”

How strange Africa is,thought the boy.

He was sitting in a barvery much like the other bars

he had seen along the narrowstreets of Tangier. Some menwere smoking from a giganticpipe that they passed fromone to the other. In just a fewhours he had seen menwalking hand in hand, womenwith their faces covered, andpriests that climbed to thetops of towers and chanted—as everyone about him wentto their knees and placed theirforeheads on the ground.

“A practice of infidels,”he said to himself. As a childin church, he had alwayslooked at the image of SaintSantiago Matamoros on hiswhite horse, his swordunsheathed, and figures suchas these kneeling at his feet.The boy felt ill and terriblyalone. The infidels had anevil look about them.

Besides this, in the rushof his travels he had forgotten

a detail, just one detail, whichcould keep him from histreasure for a long time: onlyArabic was spoken in thiscountry.

The owner of the barapproached him, and the boypointed to a drink that hadbeen served at the next table.It turned out to be a bitter tea.The boy preferred wine.

But he didn’t need toworry about that right now.

What he had to be concernedabout was his treasure, andhow he was going to go aboutgetting it. The sale of hissheep had left him withenough money in his pouch,and the boy knew that inmoney there was magic;whoever has money is neverreally alone. Before long,maybe in just a few days, hewould be at the Pyramids. Anold man, with a breastplate of

gold, wouldn’t have lied justto acquire six sheep.

The old man had spokenabout signs and omens, and,as the boy was crossing thestrait, he had thought aboutomens. Yes, the old man hadknown what he was talkingabout: during the time the boyhad spent in the fields ofAndalusia, he had becomeused to learning which pathhe should take by observing

the ground and the sky. Hehad discovered that thepresence of a certain birdmeant that a snake wasnearby, and that a certainshrub was a sign that therewas water in the area. Thesheep had taught him that.

If God leads the sheep sowell, he will also lead a man,he thought, and that madehim feel better. The teaseemed less bitter.

“Who are you?” he hearda voice ask him in Spanish.

The boy was relieved. Hewas thinking about omens,and someone had appeared.

“How come you speakSpanish?” he asked. The newarrival was a young man inWestern dress, but the colorof his skin suggested he wasfrom this city. He was aboutthe same age and height asthe boy.

“Almost everyone herespeaks Spanish. We’re onlytwo hours from Spain.”

“Sit down, and let metreat you to something,” saidthe boy. “And ask for a glassof wine for me. I hate thistea.”

“There is no wine in thiscountry,” the young man said.“The religion here forbids it.”

The boy told him thenthat he needed to get to the

Pyramids. He almost began totell about his treasure, butdecided not to do so. If hedid, it was possible that theArab would want a part of itas payment for taking himthere. He remembered whatthe old man had said aboutoffering something you didn’teven have yet.

“I’d like you to take methere if you can. I can payyou to serve as my guide.”

“Do you have any ideahow to get there?” thenewcomer asked.

The boy noticed that theowner of the bar stoodnearby, listening attentivelyto their conversation. He feltuneasy at the man’s presence.But he had found a guide, anddidn’t want to miss out on anopportunity.

“You have to cross theentire Sahara desert,” said the

young man. “And to do that,you need money. I need toknow whether you haveenough.”

The boy thought it astrange question. But hetrusted in the old man, whohad said that, when you reallywant something, the universealways conspires in yourfavor.

He took his money fromhis pouch and showed it to

the young man. The owner ofthe bar came over and looked,as well. The two menexchanged some words inArabic, and the bar ownerseemed irritated.

“Let’s get out of here,”said the new arrival. “Hewants us to leave.”

The boy was relieved. Hegot up to pay the bill, but theowner grabbed him andbegan to speak to him in an

angry stream of words. Theboy was strong, and wantedto retaliate, but he was in aforeign country. His newfriend pushed the owneraside, and pulled the boyoutside with him. “He wantedyour money,” he said.“Tangier is not like the rest ofAfrica. This is a port, andevery port has its thieves.”

The boy trusted his newfriend. He had helped him out

in a dangerous situation. Hetook out his money andcounted it.

“We could get to thePyramids by tomorrow,” saidthe other, taking the money.“But I have to buy twocamels.”

They walked togetherthrough the narrow streets ofTangier. Everywhere therewere stalls with items forsale. They reached the center

of a large plaza where themarket was held. There werethousands of people there,arguing, selling, and buying;vegetables for sale amongstdaggers, and carpetsdisplayed alongside tobacco.But the boy never took hiseye off his new friend. Afterall, he had all his money. Hethought about asking him togive it back, but decided thatwould be unfriendly. He

knew nothing about thecustoms of the strange landhe was in.

“I’ll just watch him,” hesaid to himself. He knew hewas stronger than his friend.

Suddenly, there in themidst of all that confusion, hesaw the most beautiful swordhe had ever seen. Thescabbard was embossed insilver, and the handle wasblack and encrusted with

precious stones. The boypromised himself that, whenhe returned from Egypt, hewould buy that sword.

“Ask the owner of thatstall how much the swordcosts,” he said to his friend.Then he realized that he hadbeen distracted for a fewmoments, looking at thesword. His heart squeezed, asif his chest had suddenlycompressed it. He was afraid

to look around, because heknew what he would find. Hecontinued to look at thebeautiful sword for a bitlonger, until he summonedthe courage to turn around.

All around him was themarket, with people coming

and going, shouting andbuying, and the aroma ofstrange foods . . . but nowherecould he find his newcompanion.

The boy wanted tobelieve that his friend hadsimply become separatedfrom him by accident. Hedecided to stay right there andawait his return. As hewaited, a priest climbed to thetop of a nearby tower and

began his chant; everyone inthe market fell to their knees,touched their foreheads to theground, and took up thechant. Then, like a colony ofworker ants, they dismantledtheir stalls and left.

The sun began itsdeparture, as well. The boywatched it through itstrajectory for some time, untilit was hidden behind thewhite houses surrounding the

plaza. He recalled that whenthe sun had risen thatmorning, he was on anothercontinent, still a shepherdwith sixty sheep, and lookingforward to meeting with agirl. That morning he hadknown everything that wasgoing to happen to him as hewalked through the familiarfields. But now, as the sunbegan to set, he was in adifferent country, a stranger

in a strange land, where hecouldn’t even speak thelanguage. He was no longer ashepherd, and he had nothing,not even the money to returnand start everything over.

All this happenedbetween sunrise and sunset,the boy thought. He wasfeeling sorry for himself, andlamenting the fact that his lifecould have changed sosuddenly and so drastically.

He was so ashamed thathe wanted to cry. He hadnever even wept in front ofhis own sheep. But themarketplace was empty, andhe was far from home, so hewept. He wept because Godwas unfair, and because thiswas the way God repaid thosewho believed in their dreams.

When I had my sheep, Iwas happy, and I made thosearound me happy. People saw

me coming and welcomedme, he thought. But now I’msad and alone. I’m going tobecome bitter and distrustfulof people because one personbetrayed me. I’m going tohate those who have foundtheir treasure because I neverfound mine. And I’m going tohold on to what little I have,because I’m too insignificantto conquer the world.

He opened his pouch to

see what was left of hispossessions; maybe there wasa bit left of the sandwich hehad eaten on the ship. But allhe found was the heavy book,his jacket, and the two stonesthe old man had given him.

As he looked at thestones, he felt relieved forsome reason. He hadexchanged six sheep for twoprecious stones that had beentaken from a gold breastplate.

He could sell the stones andbuy a return ticket. But thistime I’ll be smarter, the boythought, removing them fromthe pouch so he could putthem in his pocket. This wasa port town, and the onlytruthful thing his friend hadtold him was that port townsare full of thieves.

Now he understood whythe owner of the bar had beenso upset: he was trying to tellhim not to trust that man.“I’m like everyone else—I

see the world in terms ofwhat I would like to seehappen, not what actuallydoes.”

He ran his fingers slowlyover the stones, sensing theirtemperature and feeling theirsurfaces. They were histreasure. Just handling themmade him feel better. Theyreminded him of the old man.

“When you wantsomething, all the universe

conspires in helping you toachieve it,” he had said.

The boy was trying tounderstand the truth of whatthe old man had said. Therehe was in the emptymarketplace, without a cent tohis name, and with not asheep to guard through thenight. But the stones wereproof that he had met with aking—a king who knew ofthe boy’s past.

“They’re called Urim andThummim, and they can helpyou to read the omens.” Theboy put the stones back in thepouch and decided to do anexperiment. The old man hadsaid to ask very clearquestions, and to do that, theboy had to know what hewanted. So, he asked if theold man’s blessing was stillwith him.

He took out one of the

stones. It was “yes.”“Am I going to find my

treasure?” he asked.He stuck his hand into the

pouch, and felt around forone of the stones. As he didso, both of them pushedthrough a hole in the pouchand fell to the ground. Theboy had never even noticedthat there was a hole in hispouch. He knelt down to findUrim and Thummim and put

them back in the pouch. Butas he saw them lying there onthe ground, another phrasecame to his mind.

“Learn to recognizeomens, and follow them,” theold king had said.

An omen. The boy smiledto himself. He picked up thetwo stones and put them backin his pouch. He didn’tconsider mending the hole—the stones could fall through

any time they wanted. He hadlearned that there were certainthings one shouldn’t askabout, so as not to flee fromone’s own Personal Legend.“I promised that I wouldmake my own decisions,” hesaid to himself.

But the stones had toldhim that the old man was stillwith him, and that made himfeel more confident. Helooked around at the empty

plaza again, feeling lessdesperate than before. Thiswasn’t a strange place; it wasa new one.

After all, what he hadalways wanted was just that:to know new places. Even ifhe never got to the Pyramids,he had already traveledfarther than any shepherd heknew. Oh, if they only knewhow different things are justtwo hours by ship from where

they are, he thought.Although his new world atthe moment was just anempty marketplace, he hadalready seen it when it wasteeming with life, and hewould never forget it. Heremembered the sword. Ithurt him a bit to think aboutit, but he had never seen onelike it before. As he musedabout these things, he realizedthat he had to choose between

thinking of himself as thepoor victim of a thief and asan adventurer in quest of histreasure.

“I’m an adventurer,looking for treasure,” he saidto himself.

He was shaken intowakefulness by someone. Hehad fallen asleep in the

middle of the marketplace,and life in the plaza wasabout to resume.

Looking around, hesought his sheep, and thenrealized that he was in a newworld. But instead of beingsaddened, he was happy. Heno longer had to seek outfood and water for the sheep;he could go in search of histreasure, instead. He had not acent in his pocket, but he had

faith. He had decided, thenight before, that he would beas much an adventurer as theones he had admired inbooks.

He walked slowly throughthe market. The merchantswere assembling their stalls,and the boy helped a candyseller to do his. The candyseller had a smile on his face:he was happy, aware of whathis life was about, and ready

to begin a day’s work. Hissmile reminded the boy of theold man—the mysterious oldking he had met. “This candymerchant isn’t making candyso that later he can travel ormarry a shopkeeper’sdaughter. He’s doing itbecause it’s what he wants todo,” thought the boy. Herealized that he could do thesame thing the old man haddone—sense whether a

person was near to or farfrom his Personal Legend.Just by looking at them. It’seasy, and yet I’ve never doneit before, he thought.

When the stall wasassembled, the candy selleroffered the boy the first sweethe had made for the day. Theboy thanked him, ate it, andwent on his way. When hehad gone only a shortdistance, he realized that,

while they were erecting thestall, one of them had spokenArabic and the other Spanish.

And they had understoodeach other perfectly well.

There must be a languagethat doesn’t depend on words,the boy thought. I’ve alreadyhad that experience with mysheep, and now it’shappening with people.

He was learning a lot ofnew things. Some of them

were things that he hadalready experienced, andweren’t really new, but thathe had never perceivedbefore. And he hadn’tperceived them because hehad become accustomed tothem. He realized: If I canlearn to understand thislanguage without words, I canlearn to understand the world.

Relaxed and unhurried, heresolved that he would walk

through the narrow streets ofTangier. Only in that waywould he be able to read theomens. He knew it wouldrequire a lot of patience, butshepherds know all aboutpatience. Once again he sawthat, in that strange land, hewas applying the samelessons he had learned withhis sheep.

“All things are one,” theold man had said.

The crystal merchant awokewith the day, and felt thesame anxiety that he feltevery morning. He had beenin the same place for thirtyyears: a shop at the top of ahilly street where fewcustomers passed. Now it wastoo late to change anything—the only thing he had everlearned to do was to buy and

sell crystal glassware. Therehad been a time when manypeople knew of his shop:Arab merchants, French andEnglish geologists, Germansoldiers who were alwayswell-heeled. In those days ithad been wonderful to beselling crystal, and he hadthought how he wouldbecome rich, and havebeautiful women at his side ashe grew older.

But, as time passed,Tangier had changed. Thenearby city of Ceuta hadgrown faster than Tangier,and business had fallen off.Neighbors moved away, andthere remained only a fewsmall shops on the hill. Andno one was going to climb thehill just to browse through afew small shops.

But the crystal merchanthad no choice. He had lived

thirty years of his life buyingand selling crystal pieces, andnow it was too late to doanything else.

He spent the entiremorning observing theinfrequent comings andgoings in the street. He haddone this for years, and knewthe schedule of everyone whopassed. But, just beforelunchtime, a boy stopped infront of the shop. He was

dressed normally, but thepracticed eyes of the crystalmerchant could see that theboy had no money to spend.Nevertheless, the merchantdecided to delay his lunch fora few minutes until the boymoved on.

A card hanging in thedoorway announced that

several languages werespoken in the shop. The boysaw a man appear behind thecounter.

“I can clean up thoseglasses in the window, if youwant,” said the boy. “Theway they look now, nobody isgoing to want to buy them.”

The man looked at himwithout responding.

“In exchange, you couldgive me something to eat.”

The man still saidnothing, and the boy sensedthat he was going to have tomake a decision. In hispouch, he had his jacket—hecertainly wasn’t going toneed it in the desert. Takingthe jacket out, he began toclean the glasses. In half anhour, he had cleaned all theglasses in the window, and, ashe was doing so, twocustomers had entered the

shop and bought somecrystal.

When he had completedthe cleaning, he asked theman for something to eat.“Let’s go and have somelunch,” said the crystalmerchant.

He put a sign on the door,and they went to a small cafénearby. As they sat down atthe only table in the place, thecrystal merchant laughed.

“You didn’t have to do

any cleaning,” he said. “TheKoran requires me to feed ahungry person.”

“Well then, why did youlet me do it?” the boy asked.

“Because the crystal wasdirty. And both you and Ineeded to cleanse our mindsof negative thoughts.”

When they had eaten, themerchant turned to the boyand said, “I’d like you towork in my shop. Two

customers came in todaywhile you were working, andthat’s a good omen.”

People talk a lot aboutomens, thought the shepherd.But they really don’t knowwhat they’re saying. Just as Ihadn’t realized that for somany years I had beenspeaking a language withoutwords to my sheep.

“Do you want to go towork for me?” the merchant

asked.“I can work for the rest of

today,” the boy answered.“I’ll work all night, untildawn, and I’ll clean everypiece of crystal in your shop.In return, I need money to getto Egypt tomorrow.”

The merchant laughed.“Even if you cleaned mycrystal for an entire year . . .even if you earned a goodcommission selling every

piece, you would still have toborrow money to get toEgypt. There are thousands ofkilometers of desert betweenhere and there.”

There was a moment ofsilence so profound that itseemed the city was asleep.No sound from the bazaars,no arguments among themerchants, no men climbingto the towers to chant. Nohope, no adventure, no old

kings or Personal Legends, notreasure, and no Pyramids. Itwas as if the world had fallensilent because the boy’s soulhad. He sat there, staringblankly through the door ofthe café, wishing that he haddied, and that everythingwould end forever at thatmoment.

The merchant lookedanxiously at the boy. All thejoy he had seen that morning

had suddenly disappeared.“I can give you the money

you need to get back to yourcountry, my son,” said thecrystal merchant.

The boy said nothing. Hegot up, adjusted his clothing,and picked up his pouch.

“I’ll work for you,” hesaid.

And after another longsilence, he added, “I needmoney to buy some sheep.”

THE BOY HAD BEEN WORKING

FOR THE crystal merchant foralmost a month, and he couldsee that it wasn’t exactly thekind of job that would makehim happy. The merchantspent the entire daymumbling behind the counter,telling the boy to be carefulwith the pieces and not tobreak anything.

But he stayed with the job

because the merchant,although he was an oldgrouch, treated him fairly; theboy received a goodcommission for each piece hesold, and had already beenable to put some moneyaside. That morning he haddone some calculating: if hecontinued to work every dayas he had been, he wouldneed a whole year to be ableto buy some sheep.

“I’d like to build a displaycase for the crystal,” the boysaid to the merchant. “Wecould place it outside, andattract those people who passat the bottom of the hill.”

“I’ve never had onebefore,” the merchantanswered. “People will passby and bump into it, andpieces will be broken.”

“Well, when I took mysheep through the fields some

of them might have died if wehad come upon a snake. Butthat’s the way life is withsheep and with shepherds.”

The merchant turned to acustomer who wanted threecrystal glasses. He wasselling better than ever . . . asif time had turned back to theold days when the street hadbeen one of Tangier’s majorattractions.

“Business has really

improved,” he said to the boy,after the customer had left.“I’m doing much better, andsoon you’ll be able to returnto your sheep. Why ask moreout of life?”

“Because we have torespond to omens,” the boysaid, almost without meaningto; then he regretted what hehad said, because themerchant had never met theking.

“It’s called the principleof favorability, beginner’sluck. Because life wants youto achieve your PersonalLegend,” the old king hadsaid.

But the merchantunderstood what the boy hadsaid. The boy’s very presencein the shop was an omen, and,as time passed and moneywas pouring into the cashdrawer, he had no regrets

about having hired the boy.The boy was being paid moremoney than he deserved,because the merchant,thinking that sales wouldn’tamount to much, had offeredthe boy a high commissionrate. He had assumed hewould soon return to hissheep.

“Why did you want to getto the Pyramids?” he asked,to get away from the business

of the display.“Because I’ve always

heard about them,” the boyanswered, saying nothingabout his dream. The treasurewas now nothing but apainful memory, and he triedto avoid thinking about it.

“I don’t know anyonearound here who would wantto cross the desert just to seethe Pyramids,” said themerchant. “They’re just a pile

of stones. You could buildone in your backyard.”

“You’ve never haddreams of travel,” said theboy, turning to wait on acustomer who had entered theshop.

Two days later, themerchant spoke to the boyabout the display.

“I don’t much likechange,” he said. “You and Iaren’t like Hassan, that rich

merchant. If he makes abuying mistake, it doesn’taffect him much. But we twohave to live with ourmistakes.”

That’s true enough, theboy thought, ruefully.

“Why did you think weshould have the display?”

“I want to get back to mysheep faster. We have to takeadvantage when luck is onour side, and do as much to

help it as it’s doing to help us.It’s called the principle offavorability. Or beginner’sluck.”

The merchant was silentfor a few moments. Then hesaid, “The Prophet gave usthe Koran, and left us justfive obligations to satisfyduring our lives. The mostimportant is to believe only inthe one true God. The othersare to pray five times a day,

fast during Ramadan, and becharitable to the poor.”

He stopped there. Hiseyes filled with tears as hespoke of the Prophet. He wasa devout man, and, even withall his impatience, he wantedto live his life in accordancewith Muslim law.

“What’s the fifthobligation?” the boy asked.

“Two days ago, you saidthat I had never dreamed of

travel,” the merchantanswered. “The fifthobligation of every Muslim isa pilgrimage. We are obliged,at least once in our lives, tovisit the holy city of Mecca.

“Mecca is a lot fartheraway than the Pyramids.When I was young, all Iwanted to do was put togetherenough money to start thisshop. I thought that somedayI’d be rich, and could go to

Mecca. I began to make somemoney, but I could neverbring myself to leavesomeone in charge of theshop; the crystals are delicatethings. At the same time,people were passing my shopall the time, heading forMecca. Some of them wererich pilgrims, traveling incaravans with servants andcamels, but most of thepeople making the pilgrimage

were poorer than I.“All who went there were

happy at having done so.They placed the symbols ofthe pilgrimage on the doors oftheir houses. One of them, acobbler who made his livingmending boots, said that hehad traveled for almost a yearthrough the desert, but that hegot more tired when he had towalk through the streets ofTangier buying his leather.”

“Well, why don’t you goto Mecca now?” asked theboy.

“Because it’s the thoughtof Mecca that keeps me alive.That’s what helps me facethese days that are all thesame, these mute crystals onthe shelves, and lunch anddinner at that same horriblecafé. I’m afraid that if mydream is realized, I’ll have noreason to go on living.

“You dream about yoursheep and the Pyramids, butyou’re different from me,because you want to realizeyour dreams. I just want todream about Mecca. I’vealready imagined a thousandtimes crossing the desert,arriving at the Plaza of theSacred Stone, the seven timesI walk around it beforeallowing myself to touch it.I’ve already imagined the

people who would be at myside, and those in front of me,and the conversations andprayers we would share. ButI’m afraid that it would all bea disappointment, so I preferjust to dream about it.”

That day, the merchantgave the boy permission tobuild the display. Noteveryone can see his dreamscome true in the same way.

Two more months passed,and the shelf brought manycustomers into the crystalshop. The boy estimated that,if he worked for six moremonths, he could return toSpain and buy sixty sheep,and yet another sixty. In lessthan a year, he would havedoubled his flock, and hewould be able to do business

with the Arabs, because hewas now able to speak theirstrange language. Since thatmorning in the marketplace,he had never again made useof Urim and Thummim,because Egypt was now justas distant a dream for him aswas Mecca for the merchant.Anyway, the boy had becomehappy in his work, andthought all the time about theday when he would

disembark at Tarifa as awinner.

“You must always knowwhat it is that you want,” theold king had said. The boyknew, and was now workingtoward it. Maybe it was histreasure to have wound up inthat strange land, met up witha thief, and doubled the sizeof his flock without spendinga cent.

He was proud of himself.

He had learned someimportant things, like how todeal in crystal, and about thelanguage without words . . .and about omens. Oneafternoon he had seen a manat the top of the hill,complaining that it wasimpossible to find a decentplace to get something todrink after such a climb. Theboy, accustomed torecognizing omens, spoke to

the merchant.“Let’s sell tea to the

people who climb the hill.”“Lots of places sell tea

around here,” the merchantsaid.

“But we could sell tea incrystal glasses. The peoplewill enjoy the tea and want tobuy the glasses. I have beentold that beauty is the greatseducer of men.”

The merchant didn’t

respond, but that afternoon,after saying his prayers andclosing the shop, he invitedthe boy to sit with him andshare his hookah, that strangepipe used by the Arabs.

“What is it you’re lookingfor?” asked the old merchant.

“I’ve already told you. Ineed to buy my sheep back,so I have to earn the money todo so.”

The merchant put somenew coals in the hookah, andinhaled deeply.

“I’ve had this shop forthirty years. I know goodcrystal from bad, andeverything else there is to

know about crystal. I knowits dimensions and how itbehaves. If we serve tea incrystal, the shop is going toexpand. And then I’ll have tochange my way of life.”

“Well, isn’t that good?”“I’m already used to the

way things are. Before youcame, I was thinking abouthow much time I had wastedin the same place, while myfriends had moved on, and

either went bankrupt or didbetter than they had before. Itmade me very depressed.Now, I can see that it hasn’tbeen too bad. The shop isexactly the size I alwayswanted it to be. I don’t wantto change anything, because Idon’t know how to deal withchange. I’m used to the way Iam.”

The boy didn’t knowwhat to say. The old man

continued, “You have been areal blessing to me. Today, Iunderstand something I didn’tsee before: every blessingignored becomes a curse. Idon’t want anything else inlife. But you are forcing meto look at wealth and athorizons I have never known.Now that I have seen them,and now that I see howimmense my possibilities are,I’m going to feel worse than I

did before you arrived.Because I know the things Ishould be able to accomplish,and I don’t want to do so.”

It’s good I refrained fromsaying anything to the bakerin Tarifa, thought the boy tohimself.

They went on smokingthe pipe for a while as the sunbegan to set. They wereconversing in Arabic, and theboy was proud of himself for

being able to do so. There hadbeen a time when he thoughtthat his sheep could teach himeverything he needed to knowabout the world. But theycould never have taught himArabic.

There are probably otherthings in the world that thesheep can’t teach me, thoughtthe boy as he regarded the oldmerchant. All they ever do,really, is look for food and

water. And maybe it wasn’tthat they were teaching me,but that I was learning fromthem.

“Maktub,” the merchantsaid, finally.

“What does that mean?”“You would have to have

been born an Arab tounderstand,” he answered.“But in your language itwould be something like ‘It iswritten.’”

And, as he smothered thecoals in the hookah, he toldthe boy that he could begin tosell tea in the crystal glasses.Sometimes, there’s just noway to hold back the river.

The men climbed the hill, andthey were tired when theyreached the top. But therethey saw a crystal shop that

offered refreshing mint tea.They went in to drink the tea,which was served in beautifulcrystal glasses.

“My wife never thoughtof this,” said one, and hebought some crystal—he wasentertaining guests that night,and the guests would beimpressed by the beauty ofthe glassware. The other manremarked that tea was alwaysmore delicious when it was

served in crystal, because thearoma was retained. The thirdsaid that it was a tradition inthe Orient to use crystalglasses for tea because it hadmagical powers.

Before long, the newsspread, and a great manypeople began to climb the hillto see the shop that was doingsomething new in a trade thatwas so old. Other shops wereopened that served tea in

crystal, but they weren’t atthe top of a hill, and they hadlittle business.

Eventually, the merchanthad to hire two moreemployees. He began toimport enormous quantities oftea, along with his crystal,and his shop was sought outby men and women with athirst for things new.

And, in that way, themonths passed.

The boy awoke before dawn.It had been eleven monthsand nine days since he hadfirst set foot on the Africancontinent.

He dressed in his Arabianclothing of white linen,bought especially for this day.He put his headcloth in placeand secured it with a ringmade of camel skin. Wearing

his new sandals, hedescended the stairs silently.

The city was stillsleeping. He prepared himselfa sandwich and drank somehot tea from a crystal glass.Then he sat in the sun-filleddoorway, smoking thehookah.

He smoked in silence,thinking of nothing, andlistening to the sound of thewind that brought the scent of

the desert. When he hadfinished his smoke, hereached into one of hispockets, and sat there for afew moments, regarding whathe had withdrawn.

It was a bundle of money.Enough to buy himself ahundred and twenty sheep, areturn ticket, and a license toimport products from Africainto his own country.

He waited patiently for

the merchant to awaken andopen the shop. Then the twowent off to have some moretea.

“I’m leaving today,” saidthe boy. “I have the money Ineed to buy my sheep. Andyou have the money you needto go to Mecca.”

The old man said nothing.“Will you give me your

blessing?” asked the boy.“You have helped me.” The

man continued to prepare histea, saying nothing. Then heturned to the boy.

“I am proud of you,” hesaid. “You brought a newfeeling into my crystal shop.But you know that I’m notgoing to go to Mecca. Just asyou know that you’re notgoing to buy your sheep.”

“Who told you that?”asked the boy, startled.

“Maktub,” said the old

crystal merchant.And he gave the boy his

blessing.

The boy went to his room andpacked his belongings. Theyfilled three sacks. As he wasleaving, he saw, in the cornerof the room, his oldshepherd’s pouch. It wasbunched up, and he had

hardly thought of it for a longtime. As he took his jacketout of the pouch, thinking togive it to someone in thestreet, the two stones fell tothe floor. Urim andThummim.

It made the boy think ofthe old king, and it startledhim to realize how long it hadbeen since he had thought ofhim. For nearly a year, he hadbeen working incessantly,

thinking only of putting asideenough money so that hecould return to Spain withpride.

“Never stop dreaming,”the old king had said.“Follow the omens.”

The boy picked up Urimand Thummim, and, onceagain, had the strangesensation that the old kingwas nearby. He had workedhard for a year, and the

omens were that it was timeto go.

I’m going to go back todoing just what I did before,the boy thought. Even thoughthe sheep didn’t teach me tospeak Arabic.

But the sheep had taughthim something even moreimportant: that there was alanguage in the world thateveryone understood, alanguage the boy had used

throughout the time that hewas trying to improve thingsat the shop. It was thelanguage of enthusiasm, ofthings accomplished withlove and purpose, and as partof a search for somethingbelieved in and desired.Tangier was no longer astrange city, and he felt that,just as he had conquered thisplace, he could conquer theworld.

“When you wantsomething, all the universeconspires to help you achieveit,” the old king had said.

But the old king hadn’tsaid anything about beingrobbed, or about endless

deserts, or about people whoknow what their dreams arebut don’t want to realizethem. The old king hadn’ttold him that the Pyramidswere just a pile of stones, orthat anyone could build onein his backyard. And he hadforgotten to mention that,when you have enoughmoney to buy a flock largerthan the one you had before,you should buy it.

The boy picked up hispouch and put it with hisother things. He went downthe stairs and found themerchant waiting on a foreigncouple, while two othercustomers walked about theshop, drinking tea fromcrystal glasses. It was moreactivity than usual for thistime of the morning. Fromwhere he stood, he saw forthe first time that the old

merchant’s hair was verymuch like the hair of the oldking. He remembered thesmile of the candy seller, onhis first day in Tangier, whenhe had nothing to eat andnowhere to go—that smilehad also been like the oldking’s smile.

It’s almost as if he hadbeen here and left his mark,he thought. And yet, none ofthese people has ever met the

old king. On the other hand,he said that he alwaysappeared to help those whoare trying to realize theirPersonal Legend.

He left without sayinggood-bye to the crystalmerchant. He didn’t want tocry with the other peoplethere. He was going to missthe place and all the goodthings he had learned. He wasmore confident in himself,

though, and felt as though hecould conquer the world.

“But I’m going back tothe fields that I know, to takecare of my flock again.” Hesaid that to himself withcertainty, but he was nolonger happy with hisdecision. He had worked foran entire year to make adream come true, and thatdream, minute by minute,was becoming less important.

Maybe because that wasn’treally his dream.

Who knows . . . maybeit’s better to be like thecrystal merchant: never go toMecca, and just go throughlife wanting to do so, hethought, again trying toconvince himself. But as heheld Urim and Thummim inhis hand, they had transmittedto him the strength and willof the old king. By

coincidence—or maybe itwas an omen, the boy thought—he came to the bar he hadentered on his first day there.The thief wasn’t there, andthe owner brought him a cupof tea.

I can always go back tobeing a shepherd, the boythought. I learned how to carefor sheep, and I haven’tforgotten how that’s done.But maybe I’ll never have

another chance to get to thePyramids in Egypt. The oldman wore a breastplate ofgold, and he knew about mypast. He really was a king, awise king.

The hills of Andalusiawere only two hours away,but there was an entire desertbetween him and thePyramids. Yet the boy feltthat there was another way toregard his situation: he was

actually two hours closer tohis treasure . . . the fact thatthe two hours had stretchedinto an entire year didn’tmatter.

I know why I want to getback to my flock, he thought.I understand sheep; they’reno longer a problem, and theycan be good friends. On theother hand, I don’t know ifthe desert can be a friend, andit’s in the desert that I have to

search for my treasure. If Idon’t find it, I can always gohome. I finally have enoughmoney, and all the time Ineed. Why not?

He suddenly felttremendously happy. Hecould always go back tobeing a shepherd. He couldalways become a crystalsalesman again. Maybe theworld had other hiddentreasures, but he had a dream,

and he had met with a king.That doesn’t happen to justanyone!

He was planning as he leftthe bar. He had rememberedthat one of the crystalmerchant’s supplierstransported his crystal bymeans of caravans thatcrossed the desert. He heldUrim and Thummim in hishand; because of those twostones, he was once again on

the way to his treasure.“I am always nearby,

when someone wants torealize their PersonalLegend,” the old king hadtold him.

What could it cost to goover to the supplier’swarehouse and find out if thePyramids were really that faraway?

The Englishman was sittingon a bench in a structure thatsmelled of animals, sweat,and dust; it was partwarehouse, part corral. Inever thought I’d end up in aplace like this, he thought, ashe leafed through the pages ofa chemical journal. Ten yearsat the university, and here Iam in a corral.

But he had to move on.He believed in omens. All hislife and all his studies were

aimed at finding the one truelanguage of the universe.First he had studiedEsperanto, then the world’sreligions, and now it wasalchemy. He knew how tospeak Esperanto, heunderstood all the majorreligions well, but he wasn’tyet an alchemist. He hadunraveled the truths behindimportant questions, but hisstudies had taken him to a

point beyond which he couldnot seem to go. He had triedin vain to establish arelationship with analchemist. But the alchemistswere strange people, whothought only aboutthemselves, and almostalways refused to help him.Who knows, maybe they hadfailed to discover the secret ofthe Master Work—thePhilosopher’s Stone—and for

this reason kept theirknowledge to themselves.

He had already spentmuch of the fortune left tohim by his father, fruitlesslyseeking the Philosopher’sStone. He had spentenormous amounts of time atthe great libraries of theworld, and had purchased allthe rarest and most importantvolumes on alchemy. In onehe had read that, many years

ago, a famous Arabianalchemist had visited Europe.It was said that he was morethan two hundred years old,and that he had discoveredthe Philosopher’s Stone andthe Elixir of Life. TheEnglishman had beenprofoundly impressed by thestory. But he would neverhave thought it more than justa myth, had not a friend of his—returning from an

archaeological expedition inthe desert—told him about anArab that was possessed ofexceptional powers.

“He lives at the Al-Fayoum oasis,” his friend hadsaid. “And people say that heis two hundred years old, andis able to transform any metalinto gold.”

The Englishman could notcontain his excitement. Hecanceled all his commitments

and pulled together the mostimportant of his books, andnow here he was, sittinginside a dusty, smellywarehouse. Outside, a hugecaravan was being preparedfor a crossing of the Sahara,and was scheduled to passthrough Al-Fayoum.

I’m going to find thatdamned alchemist, theEnglishman thought. And theodor of the animals became a

bit more tolerable.A young Arab, also

loaded down with baggage,entered, and greeted theEnglishman.

“Where are you bound?”asked the young Arab.

“I’m going into thedesert,” the man answered,turning back to his reading.He didn’t want anyconversation at this point.What he needed to do was

review all he had learned overthe years, because thealchemist would certainly puthim to the test.

The young Arab took outa book and began to read. Thebook was written in Spanish.That’s good, thought theEnglishman. He spokeSpanish better than Arabic,and, if this boy was going toAl-Fayoum, there would besomeone to talk to when there

were no other importantthings to do.

“That’s strange,” said theboy, as he tried once again toread the burial scene thatbegan the book. “I’ve beentrying for two years to readthis book, and I never get pastthese first few pages.” Evenwithout a king to provide an

interruption, he was unable toconcentrate.

He still had some doubtsabout the decision he hadmade. But he was able tounderstand one thing: makinga decision was only thebeginning of things. Whensomeone makes a decision, heis really diving into a strongcurrent that will carry him toplaces he had never dreamedof when he first made the

decision.When I decided to seek

out my treasure, I neverimagined that I’d wind upworking in a crystal shop, hethought. And joining thiscaravan may have been mydecision, but where it goes isgoing to be a mystery to me.

Nearby was theEnglishman, reading a book.He seemed unfriendly, andhad looked irritated when the

boy had entered. They mighteven have become friends,but the Englishman closed offthe conversation.

The boy closed his book.He felt that he didn’t want todo anything that might makehim look like the Englishman.He took Urim and Thummimfrom his pocket, and beganplaying with them.

The stranger shouted,“Urim and Thummim!”

In a flash the boy putthem back in his pocket.

“They’re not for sale,” hesaid.

“They’re not worthmuch,” the Englishmananswered. “They’re onlymade of rock crystal, andthere are millions of rockcrystals in the earth. Butthose who know about suchthings would know that thoseare Urim and Thummim. I

didn’t know that they hadthem in this part of theworld.”

“They were given to meas a present by a king,” theboy said.

The stranger didn’tanswer; instead, he put hishand in his pocket, and tookout two stones that were thesame as the boy’s.

“Did you say a king?” heasked.

“I guess you don’t believethat a king would talk tosomeone like me, ashepherd,” he said, wantingto end the conversation.

“Not at all. It wasshepherds who were the firstto recognize a king that therest of the world refused toacknowledge. So, it’s notsurprising that kings wouldtalk to shepherds.”

And he went on, fearing

that the boy wouldn’tunderstand what he wastalking about, “It’s in theBible. The same book thattaught me about Urim andThummim. These stones werethe only form of divinationpermitted by God. The priestscarried them in a goldenbreastplate.”

The boy was suddenlyhappy to be there at thewarehouse.

“Maybe this is an omen,”said the Englishman, halfaloud.

“Who told you aboutomens?” The boy’s interestwas increasing by themoment.

“Everything in life is anomen,” said the Englishman,now closing the journal hewas reading. “There is auniversal language,understood by everybody, but

already forgotten. I am insearch of that universallanguage, among other things.That’s why I’m here. I haveto find a man who knows thatuniversal language. Analchemist.”

The conversation wasinterrupted by the warehouseboss.

“You’re in luck, youtwo,” the fat Arab said.“There’s a caravan leaving

today for Al-Fayoum.”“But I’m going to Egypt,”

the boy said.“Al-Fayoum is in Egypt,”

said the Arab. “What kind ofArab are you?”

“That’s a good luckomen,” the Englishman said,after the fat Arab had goneout. “If I could, I’d write ahuge encyclopedia just aboutthe words luck andcoincidence. It’s with those

words that the universallanguage is written.”

He told the boy it was nocoincidence that he had methim with Urim andThummim in his hand. Andhe asked the boy if he, too,were in search of thealchemist.

“I’m looking for atreasure,” said the boy, and heimmediately regretted havingsaid it. But the Englishman

appeared not to attach anyimportance to it.

“In a way, so am I,” hesaid.

“I don’t even know whatalchemy is,” the boy wassaying, when the warehouseboss called to them to comeoutside.

“I’m the leader of the

caravan,” said a dark-eyed,bearded man. “I hold thepower of life and death forevery person I take with me.The desert is a capriciouslady, and sometimes shedrives men crazy.”

There were almost twohundred people gatheredthere, and four hundredanimals—camels, horses,mules, and fowl. In the crowdwere women, children, and a

number of men with swordsat their belts and rifles slungon their shoulders. TheEnglishman had severalsuitcases filled with books.There was a babble of noise,and the leader had to repeathimself several times foreveryone to understand whathe was saying.

“There are a lot ofdifferent people here, andeach has his own God. Butthe only God I serve is Allah,and in his name I swear that I

will do everything possibleonce again to win out overthe desert. But I want eachand every one of you to swearby the God you believe inthat you will follow myorders no matter what. In thedesert, disobedience meansdeath.”

There was a murmur fromthe crowd. Each wasswearing quietly to his or herown God. The boy swore to

Jesus Christ. The Englishmansaid nothing. And the murmurlasted longer than a simplevow would have. The peoplewere also praying to heavenfor protection.

A long note was soundedon a bugle, and everyonemounted up. The boy and theEnglishman had boughtcamels, and climbeduncertainly onto their backs.The boy felt sorry for the

Englishman’s camel, loadeddown as he was with thecases of books.

“There’s no such thing ascoincidence,” said theEnglishman, picking up theconversation where it hadbeen interrupted in thewarehouse. “I’m here becausea friend of mine heard of anArab who . . .”

But the caravan began tomove, and it was impossible

to hear what the Englishmanwas saying. The boy knewwhat he was about todescribe, though: themysterious chain that linksone thing to another, the samechain that had caused him tobecome a shepherd, that hadcaused his recurring dream,that had brought him to a citynear Africa, to find a king,and to be robbed in order tomeet a crystal merchant, and

. . .The closer one gets to

realizing his PersonalLegend, the more thatPersonal Legend becomes histrue reason for being, thoughtthe boy.

The caravan movedtoward the east. It traveledduring the morning, haltedwhen the sun was at itsstrongest, and resumed late inthe afternoon. The boy spoke

very little with theEnglishman, who spent mostof his time with his books.

The boy observed insilence the progress of theanimals and people across thedesert. Now everything wasquite different from how itwas that day they had set out:then, there had beenconfusion and shouting, thecries of children and thewhinnying of animals, all

mixed with the nervousorders of the guides and themerchants.

But, in the desert, therewas only the sound of theeternal wind, and of thehoofbeats of the animals.Even the guides spoke verylittle to one another.

“I’ve crossed these sandsmany times,” said one of thecamel drivers one night. “Butthe desert is so huge, and the

horizons so distant, that theymake a person feel small, andas if he should remain silent.”

The boy understoodintuitively what he meant,even without ever having setfoot in the desert before.Whenever he saw the sea, ora fire, he fell silent, impressedby their elemental force.

I’ve learned things fromthe sheep, and I’ve learnedthings from crystal, he

thought. I can learnsomething from the desert,too. It seems old and wise.

The wind never stopped,and the boy remembered theday he had sat at the fort inTarifa with this same windblowing in his face. Itreminded him of the woolfrom his sheep . . . his sheepwho were now seeking foodand water in the fields ofAndalusia, as they always

had.“They’re not my sheep

anymore,” he said to himself,without nostalgia. “Theymust be used to their newshepherd, and have probablyalready forgotten me. That’sgood. Creatures like thesheep, that are used totraveling, know about movingon.”

He thought of themerchant’s daughter, and was

sure that she had probablymarried. Perhaps to a baker,or to another shepherd whocould read and could tell herexciting stories—after all, heprobably wasn’t the only one.But he was excited at hisintuitive understanding of thecamel driver’s comment:maybe he was also learningthe universal language thatdeals with the past and thepresent of all people.

“Hunches,” his mother usedto call them. The boy wasbeginning to understand thatintuition is really a suddenimmersion of the soul into theuniversal current of life,where the histories of allpeople are connected, and weare able to know everything,because it’s all written there.

“Maktub,” the boy said,remembering the crystalmerchant.

The desert was all sand insome stretches, and rocky inothers. When the caravan wasblocked by a boulder, it hadto go around it; if there was alarge rocky area, they had tomake a major detour. If thesand was too fine for theanimals’ hooves, they soughta way where the sand wasmore substantial. In someplaces, the ground wascovered with the salt of dried-

up lakes. The animals balkedat such places, and the cameldrivers were forced todismount and unburden theircharges. The drivers carriedthe freight themselves oversuch treacherous footing, andthen reloaded the camels. If aguide were to fall ill or die,the camel drivers would drawlots and appoint a new one.

But all this happened forone basic reason: no matter

how many detours andadjustments it made, thecaravan moved toward thesame compass point. Onceobstacles were overcome, itreturned to its course,sighting on a star thatindicated the location of theoasis. When the people sawthat star shining in themorning sky, they knew theywere on the right coursetoward water, palm trees,

shelter, and other people. Itwas only the Englishman whowas unaware of all this; hewas, for the most part,immersed in reading hisbooks.

The boy, too, had hisbook, and he had tried to readit during the first few days ofthe journey. But he found itmuch more interesting toobserve the caravan and listento the wind. As soon as hehad learned to know hiscamel better, and to establisha relationship with him, hethrew the book away.Although the boy haddeveloped a superstition that

each time he opened the bookhe would learn somethingimportant, he decided it wasan unnecessary burden.

He became friendly withthe camel driver who traveledalongside him. At night, asthey sat around the fire, theboy related to the driver hisadventures as a shepherd.

During one of theseconversations, the driver toldof his own life.

“I used to live near ElCairum,” he said. “I had myorchard, my children, and alife that would change not atall until I died. One year,when the crop was the bestever, we all went to Mecca,and I satisfied the only unmetobligation in my life. I coulddie happily, and that made mefeel good.

“One day, the earth beganto tremble, and the Nile

overflowed its banks. It wassomething that I thoughtcould happen only to others,never to me. My neighborsfeared they would lose alltheir olive trees in the flood,and my wife was afraid thatwe would lose our children. Ithought that everything Iowned would be destroyed.

“The land was ruined, andI had to find some other wayto earn a living. So now I’m a

camel driver. But that disastertaught me to understand theword of Allah: people neednot fear the unknown if theyare capable of achieving whatthey need and want.

“We are afraid of losingwhat we have, whether it’sour life or our possessionsand property. But this fearevaporates when weunderstand that our lifestories and the history of the

world were written by thesame hand.”

Sometimes, their caravanmet with another. One alwayshad something that the otherneeded—as if everythingwere indeed written by onehand. As they sat around thefire, the camel driversexchanged information aboutwindstorms, and told storiesabout the desert.

At other times,

mysterious, hooded menwould appear; they wereBedouins who didsurveillance along thecaravan route. They providedwarnings about thieves andbarbarian tribes. They camein silence and departed thesame way, dressed in blackgarments that showed onlytheir eyes. One night, a cameldriver came to the fire wherethe Englishman and the boy

were sitting. “There arerumors of tribal wars,” hetold them.

The three fell silent. Theboy noted that there was asense of fear in the air, eventhough no one said anything.Once again he wasexperiencing the languagewithout words . . . theuniversal language.

The Englishman asked ifthey were in danger.

“Once you get into thedesert, there’s no goingback,” said the camel driver.“And, when you can’t goback, you have to worry onlyabout the best way of movingforward. The rest is up toAllah, including the danger.”

And he concluded bysaying the mysterious word:“Maktub.”

“You should pay moreattention to the caravan,” the

boy said to the Englishman,after the camel driver had left.“We make a lot of detours,but we’re always heading forthe same destination.”

“And you ought to readmore about the world,”answered the Englishman.“Books are like caravans inthat respect.”

The immense collectionof people and animals beganto travel faster. The days had

always been silent, but now,even the nights—when thetravelers were accustomed totalking around the fires—hadalso become quiet. And, oneday, the leader of the caravanmade the decision that thefires should no longer belighted, so as not to attractattention to the caravan.

The travelers adopted thepractice of arranging theanimals in a circle at night,

sleeping together in the centeras protection against thenocturnal cold. And theleader posted armed sentinelsat the fringes of the group.

The Englishman wasunable to sleep one night. Hecalled to the boy, and theytook a walk along the dunessurrounding the encampment.There was a full moon, andthe boy told the Englishmanthe story of his life.

The Englishman wasfascinated with the part aboutthe progress achieved at thecrystal shop after the boybegan working there.

“That’s the principle thatgoverns all things,” he said.“In alchemy, it’s called theSoul of the World. When youwant something with all yourheart, that’s when you areclosest to the Soul of theWorld. It’s always a positive

force.”He also said that this was

not just a human gift, thateverything on the face of theearth had a soul, whethermineral, vegetable, or animal—or even just a simplethought.

“Everything on earth isbeing continuouslytransformed, because theearth is alive . . . and it has asoul. We are part of that soul,

so we rarely recognize that itis working for us. But in thecrystal shop you probablyrealized that even the glasseswere collaborating in yoursuccess.”

The boy thought aboutthat for a while as he lookedat the moon and the bleachedsands. “I have watched thecaravan as it crossed thedesert,” he said. “The caravanand the desert speak the same

language, and it’s for thatreason that the desert allowsthe crossing. It’s going to testthe caravan’s every step tosee if it’s in time, and, if it is,we will make it to the oasis.”

“If either of us had joinedthis caravan based only onpersonal courage, but withoutunderstanding that language,this journey would have beenmuch more difficult.”

They stood there looking

at the moon.“That’s the magic of

omens,” said the boy. “I’veseen how the guides read thesigns of the desert, and howthe soul of the caravan speaksto the soul of the desert.”

The Englishman said, “I’dbetter pay more attention tothe caravan.”

“And I’d better read yourbooks,” said the boy.

They were strange books.They spoke about mercury,salt, dragons, and kings, andhe didn’t understand any of it.But there was one idea thatseemed to repeat itselfthroughout all the books: allthings are the manifestationof one thing only.

In one of the books helearned that the most

important text in the literatureof alchemy contained only afew lines, and had beeninscribed on the surface of anemerald.

“It’s the Emerald Tablet,”said the Englishman, proudthat he might teach somethingto the boy.

“Well, then, why do weneed all these books?” theboy asked.

“So that we can

understand those few lines,”the Englishman answered,without appearing really tobelieve what he had said.

The book that mostinterested the boy told thestories of the famousalchemists. They were menwho had dedicated theirentire lives to the purificationof metals in their laboratories;they believed that, if a metalwere heated for many years,

it would free itself of all itsindividual properties, andwhat was left would be theSoul of the World. This Soulof the World allowed them tounderstand anything on theface of the earth, because itwas the language with whichall things communicated.They called that discovery theMaster Work—it was partliquid and part solid.

“Can’t you just observe

men and omens in order tounderstand the language?” theboy asked.

“You have a mania forsimplifying everything,”answered the Englishman,irritated. “Alchemy is aserious discipline. Every stephas to be followed exactly asit was followed by themasters.”

The boy learned that theliquid part of the Master

Work was called the Elixir ofLife, and that it cured allillnesses; it also kept thealchemist from growing old.And the solid part was calledthe Philosopher’s Stone.

“It’s not easy to find thePhilosopher’s Stone,” said theEnglishman. “The alchemistsspent years in theirlaboratories, observing thefire that purified the metals.They spent so much time

close to the fire that graduallythey gave up the vanities ofthe world. They discoveredthat the purification of themetals had led to apurification of themselves.”

The boy thought about thecrystal merchant. He had saidthat it was a good thing forthe boy to clean the crystalpieces, so that he could freehimself from negativethoughts. The boy was

becoming more and moreconvinced that alchemy couldbe learned in one’s daily life.

“Also,” said theEnglishman, “thePhilosopher’s Stone has afascinating property. A smallsliver of the stone cantransform large quantities ofmetal into gold.”

Having heard that, theboy became even moreinterested in alchemy. He

thought that, with somepatience, he’d be able totransform everything intogold. He read the lives of thevarious people who hadsucceeded in doing so:Helvétius, Elias, Fulcanelli,and Geber. They werefascinating stories: each ofthem lived out his PersonalLegend to the end. Theytraveled, spoke with wisemen, performed miracles for

the incredulous, and ownedthe Philosopher’s Stone andthe Elixir of Life.

But when the boy wantedto learn how to achieve theMaster Work, he becamecompletely lost. There werejust drawings, codedinstructions, and obscuretexts.

“Why do they make things socomplicated?” he asked theEnglishman one night. Theboy had noticed that theEnglishman was irritable, andmissed his books.

“So that those who havethe responsibility forunderstanding canunderstand,” he said.“Imagine if everyone wentaround transforming lead intogold. Gold would lose its

value.“It’s only those who are

persistent, and willing tostudy things deeply, whoachieve the Master Work.That’s why I’m here in themiddle of the desert. I’mseeking a true alchemist whowill help me to decipher thecodes.”

“When were these bookswritten?” the boy asked.

“Many centuries ago.”

“They didn’t have theprinting press in those days,”the boy argued. “There wasno way for everybody toknow about alchemy. Whydid they use such strangelanguage, with so manydrawings?”

The Englishman didn’tanswer him directly. He saidthat for the past few days hehad been paying attention tohow the caravan operated, but

that he hadn’t learnedanything new. The only thinghe had noticed was that talkof war was becoming moreand more frequent.

Then one day the boyreturned the books to theEnglishman. “Did you learnanything?” the Englishmanasked, eager to hear what it

might be. He needed someoneto talk to so as to avoidthinking about the possibilityof war.

“I learned that the worldhas a soul, and that whoeverunderstands that soul can alsounderstand the language ofthings. I learned that manyalchemists realized theirPersonal Legends, and woundup discovering the Soul of theWorld, the Philosopher’s

Stone, and the Elixir of Life.“But, above all, I learned

that these things are all sosimple that they could bewritten on the surface of anemerald.”

The Englishman wasdisappointed. The years ofresearch, the magic symbols,the strange words, and thelaboratory equipment . . .none of this had made animpression on the boy. His

soul must be too primitive tounderstand those things, hethought.

He took back his booksand packed them away againin their bags.

“Go back to watching thecaravan,” he said. “Thatdidn’t teach me anything,either.”

The boy went back tocontemplating the silence ofthe desert, and the sand raised

by the animals. “Everyonehas his or her own way oflearning things,” he said tohimself. “His way isn’t thesame as mine, nor mine ashis. But we’re both in searchof our Personal Legends, andI respect him for that.”

The caravan began to travelday and night. The hooded

Bedouins reappeared moreand more frequently, and thecamel driver—who hadbecome a good friend of theboy’s—explained that the warbetween the tribes hadalready begun. The caravanwould be very lucky to reachthe oasis.

The animals wereexhausted, and the men talkedamong themselves less andless. The silence was the

worst aspect of the night,when the mere groan of acamel—which before hadbeen nothing but the groan ofa camel—now frightenedeveryone, because it mightsignal a raid.

The camel driver, though,seemed not to be veryconcerned with the threat ofwar.

“I’m alive,” he said to theboy, as they ate a bunch of

dates one night, with no firesand no moon. “When I’meating, that’s all I think about.If I’m on the march, I justconcentrate on marching. If Ihave to fight, it will be just asgood a day to die as anyother.

“Because I don’t live ineither my past or my future.I’m interested only in thepresent. If you canconcentrate always on the

present, you’ll be a happyman. You’ll see that there islife in the desert, that thereare stars in the heavens, andthat tribesmen fight becausethey are part of the humanrace. Life will be a party foryou, a grand festival, becauselife is the moment we’reliving right now.”

Two nights later, as hewas getting ready to beddown, the boy looked for the

star they followed everynight. He thought that thehorizon was a bit lower thanit had been, because heseemed to see stars on thedesert itself.

“It’s the oasis,” said thecamel driver.

“Well, why don’t we gothere right now?” the boyasked.

“Because we have tosleep.”

The boy awoke as the sun

rose. There, in front of him,where the small stars hadbeen the night before, was anendless row of date palms,stretching across the entiredesert.

“We’ve done it!” said theEnglishman, who had alsoawakened early.

But the boy was quiet. Hewas at home with the silenceof the desert, and he wascontent just to look at the

trees. He still had a long wayto go to reach the Pyramids,and someday this morningwould just be a memory. Butthis was the present moment—the party the camel driverhad mentioned—and hewanted to live it as he did thelessons of his past and hisdreams of the future.Although the vision of thedate palms would someday bejust a memory, right now it

signified shade, water, and arefuge from the war.Yesterday, the camel’s groansignaled danger, and now arow of date palms couldherald a miracle.

The world speaks manylanguages, the boy thought.

The times rush past, and sodo the caravans, thought the

alchemist, as he watched thehundreds of people andanimals arriving at the oasis.People were shouting at thenew arrivals, dust obscuredthe desert sun, and thechildren of the oasis werebursting with excitement atthe arrival of the strangers.The alchemist saw the tribalchiefs greet the leader of thecaravan, and converse withhim at length.

But none of that matteredto the alchemist. He hadalready seen many peoplecome and go, and the desertremained as it was. He hadseen kings and beggarswalking the desert sands. Thedunes were changedconstantly by the wind, yetthese were the same sands hehad known since he was achild. He always enjoyedseeing the happiness that the

travelers experienced when,after weeks of yellow sandand blue sky, they first sawthe green of the date palms.Maybe God created the desertso that man could appreciatethe date trees, he thought.

He decided to concentrateon more practical matters. Heknew that in the caravan therewas a man to whom he was toteach some of his secrets. Theomens had told him so. He

didn’t know the man yet, buthis practiced eye wouldrecognize him when heappeared. He hoped that itwould be someone as capableas his previous apprentice.

I don’t know why thesethings have to be transmittedby word of mouth, hethought. It wasn’t exactly thatthey were secrets; Godrevealed his secrets easily toall his creatures.

He had only oneexplanation for this fact:things have to be transmittedthis way because they weremade up from the pure life,and this kind of life cannot becaptured in pictures or words.

Because people becomefascinated with pictures andwords, and wind up forgettingthe Language of the World.

The boy couldn’t believewhat he was seeing: the oasis,rather than being just a wellsurrounded by a few palmtrees—as he had seen once ina geography book—wasmuch larger than many townsback in Spain. There werethree hundred wells, fiftythousand date trees, andinnumerable colored tentsspread among them.

“It looks like A Thousand

and One Nights,” said theEnglishman, impatient tomeet with the alchemist.

They were surrounded bychildren, curious to look atthe animals and people thatwere arriving. The men of theoasis wanted to know if theyhad seen any fighting, and thewomen competed with oneanother for access to the clothand precious stones broughtby the merchants. The silence

of the desert was a distantdream; the travelers in thecaravan were talkingincessantly, laughing andshouting, as if they hademerged from the spiritualworld and found themselvesonce again in the world ofpeople. They were relievedand happy.

They had been takingcareful precautions in thedesert, but the camel driver

explained to the boy thatoases were always consideredto be neutral territories,because the majority of theinhabitants were women andchildren. There were oasesthroughout the desert, but thetribesmen fought in thedesert, leaving the oases asplaces of refuge.

With some difficulty, theleader of the caravan broughtall his people together and

gave them his instructions.The group was to remainthere at the oasis until theconflict between the tribeswas over. Since they werevisitors, they would have toshare living space with thosewho lived there, and wouldbe given the bestaccommodations. That wasthe law of hospitality. Thenhe asked that everyone,including his own sentinels,

hand over their arms to themen appointed by the tribalchieftains.

“Those are the rules ofwar,” the leader explained.“The oases may not shelterarmies or troops.”

To the boy’s surprise, theEnglishman took a chrome-plated revolver out of his bagand gave it to the men whowere collecting the arms.

“Why a revolver?” heasked.

“It helped me to trust inpeople,” the Englishmananswered.

Meanwhile, the boy

thought about his treasure.The closer he got to therealization of his dream, themore difficult things became.It seemed as if what the oldking had called “beginner’sluck” were no longerfunctioning. In his pursuit ofthe dream, he was beingconstantly subjected to testsof his persistence andcourage. So he could not behasty, nor impatient. If he

pushed forward impulsively,he would fail to see the signsand omens left by God alonghis path.

God placed them alongmy path. He had surprisedhimself with the thought.Until then, he had consideredthe omens to be things of thisworld. Like eating orsleeping, or like seeking loveor finding a job. He had neverthought of them in terms of a

language used by God toindicate what he should do.

“Don’t be impatient,” herepeated to himself. “It’s likethe camel driver said: ‘Eatwhen it’s time to eat. Andmove along when it’s time tomove along.’”

That first day, everyoneslept from exhaustion,including the Englishman.The boy was assigned a placefar from his friend, in a tent

with five other young men ofabout his age. They werepeople of the desert, andclamored to hear his storiesabout the great cities.

The boy told them abouthis life as a shepherd, andwas about to tell them of hisexperiences at the crystalshop when the Englishmancame into the tent.

“I’ve been looking foryou all morning,” he said, as

he led the boy outside. “Ineed you to help me find outwhere the alchemist lives.”

First, they tried to findhim on their own. Analchemist would probablylive in a manner that wasdifferent from that of the restof the people at the oasis, andit was likely that in his tent anoven was continuouslyburning. They searchedeverywhere, and found that

the oasis was much largerthan they could haveimagined; there werehundreds of tents.

“We’ve wasted almost theentire day,” said theEnglishman, sitting downwith the boy near one of thewells.

“Maybe we’d better asksomeone,” the boy suggested.

The Englishman didn’twant to tell others about his

reasons for being at the oasis,and couldn’t make up hismind. But, finally, he agreedthat the boy, who spoke betterArabic than he, should do so.The boy approached a womanwho had come to the well tofill a goatskin with water.

“Good afternoon, ma’am.I’m trying to find out wherethe alchemist lives here at theoasis.”

The woman said she had

never heard of such a person,and hurried away. But beforeshe fled, she advised the boythat he had better not try toconverse with women whowere dressed in black,because they were marriedwomen. He should respecttradition.

The Englishman wasdisappointed. It seemed hehad made the long journey fornothing. The boy was also

saddened; his friend was inpursuit of his PersonalLegend. And, when someonewas in such pursuit, the entireuniverse made an effort tohelp him succeed—that’swhat the old king had said.He couldn’t have been wrong.

“I had never heard ofalchemists before,” the boysaid. “Maybe no one here has,either.”

The Englishman’s eyes lit

up. “That’s it! Maybe no onehere knows what an alchemistis! Find out who it is whocures the people’s illnesses!”

Several women dressed inblack came to the well forwater, but the boy wouldspeak to none of them,despite the Englishman’sinsistence. Then a manapproached.

“Do you know someonehere who cures people’s

illnesses?” the boy asked.“Allah cures our

illnesses,” said the man,clearly frightened of thestrangers. “You’re lookingfor witch doctors.” He spokesome verses from the Koran,and moved on.

Another man appeared.He was older, and wascarrying a small bucket. Theboy repeated his question.

“Why do you want to findthat sort of person?” the Arabasked.

“Because my friend herehas traveled for many monthsin order to meet with him,”the boy said.

“If such a man is here atthe oasis, he must be the very

powerful one,” said the oldman after thinking for a fewmoments. “Not even the tribalchieftains are able to see himwhen they want to. Onlywhen he consents.

“Wait for the end of thewar. Then leave with thecaravan. Don’t try to enterinto the life of the oasis,” hesaid, and walked away.

But the Englishman wasexultant. They were on the

right track.Finally, a young woman

approached who was notdressed in black. She had avessel on her shoulder, andher head was covered by aveil, but her face wasuncovered. The boyapproached her to ask aboutthe alchemist.

At that moment, it seemedto him that time stood still,and the Soul of the World

surged within him. When helooked into her dark eyes, andsaw that her lips were poisedbetween a laugh and silence,he learned the most importantpart of the language that allthe world spoke—thelanguage that everyone onearth was capable ofunderstanding in their heart.It was love. Something olderthan humanity, more ancientthan the desert. Something

that exerted the same forcewhenever two pairs of eyesmet, as had theirs here at thewell. She smiled, and thatwas certainly an omen—theomen he had been awaiting,without even knowing hewas, for all his life. The omenhe had sought to find with hissheep and in his books, in thecrystals and in the silence ofthe desert.

It was the pure Language

of the World. It required noexplanation, just as theuniverse needs none as ittravels through endless time.What the boy felt at thatmoment was that he was inthe presence of the onlywoman in his life, and that,with no need for words, sherecognized the same thing.He was more certain of itthan of anything in the world.He had been told by his

parents and grandparents thathe must fall in love and reallyknow a person beforebecoming committed. Butmaybe people who felt thatway had never learned theuniversal language. Because,when you know thatlanguage, it’s easy tounderstand that someone inthe world awaits you, whetherit’s in the middle of the desertor in some great city. And

when two such peopleencounter each other, andtheir eyes meet, the past andthe future becomeunimportant. There is onlythat moment, and theincredible certainty thateverything under the sun hasbeen written by one handonly. It is the hand thatevokes love, and creates atwin soul for every person inthe world. Without such love,

one’s dreams would have nomeaning.

Maktub, thought the boy.The Englishman shook

the boy: “Come on, ask her!”The boy stepped closer to

the girl, and when she smiled,he did the same.

“What’s your name?” heasked.

“Fatima,” the girl said,averting her eyes.

“That’s what some

women in my country arecalled.”

“It’s the name of theProphet’s daughter,” Fatimasaid. “The invaders carriedthe name everywhere.” Thebeautiful girl spoke of theinvaders with pride.

The Englishman proddedhim, and the boy asked herabout the man who curedpeople’s illnesses.

“That’s the man who

knows all the secrets of theworld,” she said. “Hecommunicates with the geniesof the desert.”

The genies were thespirits of good and evil. Andthe girl pointed to the south,indicating that it was there thestrange man lived. Then shefilled her vessel with waterand left.

The Englishmanvanished, too, gone to find

the alchemist. And the boysat there by the well for along time, remembering thatone day in Tarifa the levanterhad brought to him theperfume of that woman, andrealizing that he had lovedher before he even knew sheexisted. He knew that his lovefor her would enable him todiscover every treasure in theworld.

The next day, the boy

returned to the well, hopingto see the girl. To hissurprise, the Englishman wasthere, looking out at thedesert.

“I waited all afternoonand evening,” he said. “Heappeared with the first starsof evening. I told him what Iwas seeking, and he asked meif I had ever transformed leadinto gold. I told him that waswhat I had come here tolearn.

“He told me I should tryto do so. That’s all he said:‘Go and try.’”

The boy didn’t say

anything. The poorEnglishman had traveled allthis way, only to be told thathe should repeat what he hadalready done so many times.

“So, then try,” he said tothe Englishman.

“That’s what I’m going todo. I’m going to start now.”

As the Englishman left,Fatima arrived and filled hervessel with water.

“I came to tell you just

one thing,” the boy said. “Iwant you to be my wife. Ilove you.”

The girl dropped thecontainer, and the waterspilled.

“I’m going to wait herefor you every day. I havecrossed the desert in search ofa treasure that is somewherenear the Pyramids, and forme, the war seemed a curse.But now it’s a blessing,

because it brought me toyou.”

“The war is going to endsomeday,” the girl said.

The boy looked aroundhim at the date palms. Hereminded himself that he hadbeen a shepherd, and that hecould be a shepherd again.Fatima was more importantthan his treasure.

“The tribesmen arealways in search of treasure,”

the girl said, as if she hadguessed what he wasthinking. “And the women ofthe desert are proud of theirtribesmen.”

She refilled her vessel andleft.

The boy went to the wellevery day to meet withFatima. He told her about hislife as a shepherd, about theking, and about the crystalshop. They became friends,

and except for the fifteenminutes he spent with her,each day seemed that it wouldnever pass. When he hadbeen at the oasis for almost amonth, the leader of thecaravan called a meeting ofall of the people travelingwith him.

“We don’t know when thewar will end, so we can’tcontinue our journey,” hesaid. “The battles may last for

a long time, perhaps evenyears. There are powerfulforces on both sides, and thewar is important to botharmies. It’s not a battle ofgood against evil. It’s a warbetween forces that arefighting for the balance ofpower, and, when that type ofbattle begins, it lasts longerthan others—because Allah ison both sides.”

The people went back to

where they were living, andthe boy went to meet withFatima that afternoon. He toldher about the morning’smeeting. “The day after wemet,” Fatima said, “you toldme that you loved me. Then,you taught me something ofthe universal language andthe Soul of the World.Because of that, I havebecome a part of you.”

The boy listened to the

sound of her voice, andthought it to be morebeautiful than the sound ofthe wind in the date palms.

“I have been waiting foryou here at this oasis for along time. I have forgottenabout my past, about mytraditions, and the way inwhich men of the desertexpect women to behave.Ever since I was a child, Ihave dreamed that the desert

would bring me a wonderfulpresent. Now, my present hasarrived, and it’s you.”

The boy wanted to takeher hand. But Fatima’s handsheld to the handles of her jug.

“You have told me aboutyour dreams, about the oldking and your treasure. Andyou’ve told me about omens.So now, I fear nothing,because it was those omensthat brought you to me. And I

am a part of your dream, apart of your Personal Legend,as you call it.

“That’s why I want you tocontinue toward your goal. Ifyou have to wait until the waris over, then wait. But if youhave to go before then, go onin pursuit of your dream. Thedunes are changed by thewind, but the desert neverchanges. That’s the way itwill be with our love for each

other.“Maktub,” she said. “If I

am really a part of yourdream, you’ll come back oneday.”

The boy was sad as he lefther that day. He thought of allthe married shepherds he hadknown. They had a difficulttime convincing their wivesthat they had to go off intodistant fields. Love requiredthem to stay with the people

they loved.He told Fatima that, at

their next meeting.“The desert takes our men

from us, and they don’talways return,” she said. “Weknow that, and we are used toit. Those who don’t returnbecome a part of the clouds, apart of the animals that hidein the ravines and of thewater that comes from theearth. They become a part of

everything . . . they becomethe Soul of the World.

“Some do come back.And then the other womenare happy because theybelieve that their men mayone day return, as well. I usedto look at those women andenvy them their happiness.Now, I too will be one of thewomen who wait.

“I’m a desert woman, andI’m proud of that. I want my

husband to wander as free asthe wind that shapes thedunes. And, if I have to, I willaccept the fact that he hasbecome a part of the clouds,and the animals, and thewater of the desert.”

The boy went to look forthe Englishman. He wanted totell him about Fatima. He wassurprised when he saw thatthe Englishman had builthimself a furnace outside his

tent. It was a strange furnace,fueled by firewood, with atransparent flask heating ontop. As the Englishman staredout at the desert, his eyesseemed brighter than they hadwhen he was reading hisbooks.

“This is the first phase ofthe job,” he said. “I have toseparate out the sulfur. To dothat successfully, I must haveno fear of failure. It was my

fear of failure that first keptme from attempting theMaster Work. Now, I’mbeginning what I could havestarted ten years ago. But I’mhappy at least that I didn’twait twenty years.”

He continued to feed thefire, and the boy stayed onuntil the desert turned pink inthe setting sun. He felt theurge to go out into the desert,to see if its silence held the

answers to his questions.He wandered for a while,

keeping the date palms of theoasis within sight. He listenedto the wind, and felt thestones beneath his feet. Hereand there, he found a shell,and realized that the desert, inremote times, had been a sea.He sat on a stone, andallowed himself to becomehypnotized by the horizon.He tried to deal with the

concept of love as distinctfrom possession, and couldn’tseparate them. But Fatimawas a woman of the desert,and, if anything could helphim to understand, it was thedesert.

As he sat there thinking,he sensed movement abovehim. Looking up, he saw apair of hawks flying high inthe sky.

He watched the hawks as

they drifted on the wind.Although their flightappeared to have no pattern,it made a certain kind ofsense to the boy. It was justthat he couldn’t grasp what itmeant. He followed themovement of the birds, tryingto read something into it.Maybe these desert birdscould explain to him themeaning of love withoutownership.

He felt sleepy. In hisheart, he wanted to remainawake, but he also wanted tosleep. “I am learning the

Language of the World, andeverything in the world isbeginning to make sense tome . . . even the flight of thehawks,” he said to himself.And, in that mood, he wasgrateful to be in love. Whenyou are in love, things makeeven more sense, he thought.

Suddenly, one of thehawks made a flashing divethrough the sky, attacking theother. As it did so, a sudden,

fleeting image came to theboy: an army, with its swordsat the ready, riding into theoasis. The vision vanishedimmediately, but it hadshaken him. He had heardpeople speak of mirages, andhad already seen somehimself: they were desiresthat, because of theirintensity, materialized overthe sands of the desert. But hecertainly didn’t desire that an

army invade the oasis.He wanted to forget about

the vision, and return to hismeditation. He tried again toconcentrate on the pinkshades of the desert, and itsstones. But there wassomething there in his heartthat wouldn’t allow him to doso.

“Always heed theomens,” the old king hadsaid. The boy recalled what

he had seen in the vision, andsensed that it was actuallygoing to occur.

He rose, and made hisway back toward the palmtrees. Once again, heperceived the many languagesin the things about him: thistime, the desert was safe, andit was the oasis that hadbecome dangerous.

The camel driver wasseated at the base of a palm

tree, observing the sunset. Hesaw the boy appear from theother side of the dunes.

“An army is coming,” theboy said. “I had a vision.”

“The desert fills men’shearts with visions,” thecamel driver answered.

But the boy told himabout the hawks: that he hadbeen watching their flight andhad suddenly felt himself tohave plunged to the Soul of

the World.The camel driver

understood what the boy wassaying. He knew that anygiven thing on the face of theearth could reveal the historyof all things. One could opena book to any page, or look ata person’s hand; one couldturn a card, or watch theflight of the birds . . .whatever the thing observed,one could find a connection

with his experience of themoment. Actually, it wasn’tthat those things, inthemselves, revealed anythingat all; it was just that people,looking at what wasoccurring around them, couldfind a means of penetration tothe Soul of the World.

The desert was full ofmen who earned their livingbased on the ease with whichthey could penetrate to the

Soul of the World. They wereknown as seers, and theywere held in fear by womenand the elderly. Tribesmenwere also wary of consultingthem, because it would beimpossible to be effective inbattle if one knew that he wasfated to die. The tribesmenpreferred the taste of battle,and the thrill of not knowingwhat the outcome would be;the future was already written

by Allah, and what he hadwritten was always for thegood of man. So thetribesmen lived only for thepresent, because the presentwas full of surprises, and theyhad to be aware of manythings: Where was theenemy’s sword? Where washis horse? What kind of blowshould one deliver next inorder to remain alive? Thecamel driver was not a

fighter, and he had consultedwith seers. Many of them hadbeen right about what theysaid, while some had beenwrong. Then, one day, theoldest seer he had ever soughtout (and the one most to befeared) had asked why thecamel driver was sointerested in the future.

“Well . . . so I can dothings,” he had responded.“And so I can change those

things that I don’t want tohappen.”

“But then they wouldn’tbe a part of your future,” theseer had said.

“Well, maybe I just wantto know the future so I canprepare myself for what’scoming.”

“If good things arecoming, they will be apleasant surprise,” said theseer. “If bad things are, and

you know in advance, youwill suffer greatly before theyeven occur.”

“I want to know about thefuture because I’m a man,”the camel driver had said tothe seer. “And men alwayslive their lives based on thefuture.”

The seer was a specialistin the casting of twigs; hethrew them on the ground,and made interpretations

based on how they fell. Thatday, he didn’t make a cast.He wrapped the twigs in apiece of cloth and put themback in his bag.

“I make my livingforecasting the future forpeople,” he said. “I know thescience of the twigs, and Iknow how to use them topenetrate to the place whereall is written. There, I canread the past, discover what

has already been forgotten,and understand the omensthat are here in the present.

“When people consultme, it’s not that I’m readingthe future; I am guessing atthe future. The future belongsto God, and it is only he whoreveals it, under extraordinarycircumstances. How do Iguess at the future? Based onthe omens of the present. Thesecret is here in the present. If

you pay attention to thepresent, you can improveupon it. And, if you improveon the present, what comeslater will also be better.Forget about the future, andlive each day according to theteachings, confident that Godloves his children. Each day,in itself, brings with it aneternity.”

The camel driver hadasked what the circumstances

were under which God wouldallow him to see the future.

“Only when he, himself,reveals it. And God onlyrarely reveals the future.When he does so, it is foronly one reason: it’s a futurethat was written so as to bealtered.”

God had shown the boy apart of the future, the cameldriver thought. Why was itthat he wanted the boy to

serve as his instrument?“Go and speak to the

tribal chieftains,” said thecamel driver. “Tell themabout the armies that areapproaching.”

“They’ll laugh at me.”“They are men of the

desert, and the men of thedesert are used to dealingwith omens.”

“Well, then, theyprobably already know.”

“They’re not concernedwith that right now. Theybelieve that if they have toknow about something Allahwants them to know,someone will tell them aboutit. It has happened manytimes before. But, this time,the person is you.”

The boy thought ofFatima. And he decided hewould go to see the chiefs ofthe tribes.

The boy approached theguard at the front of the hugewhite tent at the center of theoasis.

“I want to see thechieftains. I’ve broughtomens from the desert.”

Without responding, theguard entered the tent, wherehe remained for some time.When he emerged, it was

with a young Arab, dressed inwhite and gold. The boy toldthe younger man what he hadseen, and the man asked himto wait there. He disappearedinto the tent.

Night fell, and anassortment of fighting menand merchants entered andexited the tent. One by one,the campfires wereextinguished, and the oasisfell as quiet as the desert.

Only the lights in the greattent remained. During all thistime, the boy thought aboutFatima, and he was stillunable to understand his lastconversation with her.

Finally, after hours ofwaiting, the guard bade theboy enter. The boy wasastonished by what he sawinside. Never could he haveimagined that, there in themiddle of the desert, there

existed a tent like this one.The ground was covered withthe most beautiful carpets hehad ever walked upon, andfrom the top of the structurehung lamps of handwroughtgold, each with a lightedcandle. The tribal chieftainswere seated at the back of thetent in a semicircle, restingupon richly embroidered silkcushions. Servants came andwent with silver trays laden

with spices and tea. Otherservants maintained the firesin the hookahs. Theatmosphere was suffused withthe sweet scent of smoke.

There were eightchieftains, but the boy couldsee immediately which ofthem was the most important:an Arab dressed in white andgold, seated at the center ofthe semicircle. At his sidewas the young Arab the boy

had spoken with earlier.

“Who is this stranger whospeaks of omens?” asked oneof the chieftains, eyeing theboy.

“It is I,” the boyanswered. And he told whathe had seen.

“Why would the desertreveal such things to astranger, when it knows thatwe have been here forgenerations?” said another ofthe chieftains.

“Because my eyes are notyet accustomed to the desert,”the boy said. “I can see thingsthat eyes habituated to thedesert might not see.”

And also because I knowabout the Soul of the World,he thought to himself.

“The oasis is neutralground. No one attacks anoasis,” said a third chieftain.

“I can only tell you what Isaw. If you don’t want to

believe me, you don’t have todo anything about it.”

The men fell into ananimated discussion. Theyspoke in an Arabic dialectthat the boy didn’tunderstand, but, when hemade to leave, the guard toldhim to stay. The boy becamefearful; the omens told himthat something was wrong.He regretted having spoken tothe camel driver about what

he had seen in the desert.Suddenly, the elder at the

center smiled almostimperceptibly, and the boyfelt better. The man hadn’tparticipated in the discussion,and, in fact, hadn’t said aword up to that point. But theboy was already used to theLanguage of the World, andhe could feel the vibrations ofpeace throughout the tent.Now his intuition was that he

had been right in coming.The discussion ended.

The chieftains were silent fora few moments as theylistened to what the old manwas saying. Then he turned tothe boy: this time hisexpression was cold anddistant.

“Two thousand years ago,in a distant land, a man whobelieved in dreams wasthrown into a dungeon and

then sold as a slave,” the oldman said, now in the dialectthe boy understood. “Ourmerchants bought that man,and brought him to Egypt. Allof us know that whoeverbelieves in dreams alsoknows how to interpretthem.”

The elder continued,“When the pharaoh dreamedof cows that were thin andcows that were fat, this man

I’m speaking of rescuedEgypt from famine. His namewas Joseph. He, too, was astranger in a strange land, likeyou, and he was probablyabout your age.”

He paused, and his eyeswere still unfriendly.

“We always observe theTradition. The Traditionsaved Egypt from famine inthose days, and made theEgyptians the wealthiest of

peoples. The Traditionteaches men how to cross thedesert, and how their childrenshould marry. The Traditionsays that an oasis is neutralterritory, because both sideshave oases, and so both arevulnerable.”

No one said a word as theold man continued.

“But the Tradition alsosays that we should believethe messages of the desert.

Everything we know wastaught to us by the desert.”

The old man gave asignal, and everyone stood.The meeting was over. Thehookahs were extinguished,and the guards stood atattention. The boy madeready to leave, but the oldman spoke again:

“Tomorrow, we are goingto break the agreement thatsays that no one at the oasis

may carry arms. Throughoutthe entire day we will be onthe lookout for our enemies.When the sun sets, the menwill once again surrendertheir arms to me. For everyten dead men among ourenemies, you will receive apiece of gold.

“But arms cannot bedrawn unless they also gointo battle. Arms are ascapricious as the desert, and,

if they are not used, the nexttime they might not function.If at least one of them hasn’tbeen used by the end of theday tomorrow, one will beused on you.”

When the boy left thetent, the oasis was illuminatedonly by the light of the fullmoon. He was twentyminutes from his tent, andbegan to make his way there.

He was alarmed by what

had happened. He hadsucceeded in reachingthrough to the Soul of theWorld, and now the price forhaving done so might be hislife. It was a frightening bet.But he had been making riskybets ever since the day he hadsold his sheep to pursue hisPersonal Legend. And, as thecamel driver had said, to dietomorrow was no worse thandying on any other day.

Every day was there to belived or to mark one’sdeparture from this world.Everything depended on oneword: “Maktub.”

Walking along in thesilence, he had no regrets. Ifhe died tomorrow, it wouldbe because God was notwilling to change the future.He would at least have diedafter having crossed the strait,after having worked in a

crystal shop, and after havingknown the silence of thedesert and Fatima’s eyes. Hehad lived every one of hisdays intensely since he hadleft home so long ago. If hedied tomorrow, he wouldalready have seen more thanother shepherds, and he wasproud of that.

Suddenly he heard athundering sound, and he wasthrown to the ground by a

wind such as he had neverknown. The area was swirlingin dust so intense that it hidthe moon from view. Beforehim was an enormous whitehorse, rearing over him with afrightening scream.

When the blinding dusthad settled a bit, the boytrembled at what he saw.Astride the animal was ahorseman dressed completelyin black, with a falcon

perched on his left shoulder.He wore a turban and hisentire face, except for hiseyes, was covered with ablack kerchief. He appearedto be a messenger from thedesert, but his presence wasmuch more powerful thanthat of a mere messenger.

The strange horsemandrew an enormous, curvedsword from a scabbardmounted on his saddle. Thesteel of its blade glittered inthe light of the moon.

“Who dares to read themeaning of the flight of thehawks?” he demanded, soloudly that his words seemedto echo through the fiftythousand palm trees of Al-

Fayoum.“It is I who dared to do

so,” said the boy. He wasreminded of the image ofSantiago Matamoros,mounted on his white horse,with the infidels beneath hishooves. This man lookedexactly the same, except thatnow the roles were reversed.

“It is I who dared to doso,” he repeated, and helowered his head to receive a

blow from the sword. “Manylives will be saved, because Iwas able to see through to theSoul of the World.”

The sword didn’t fall.Instead, the stranger loweredit slowly, until the pointtouched the boy’s forehead. Itdrew a droplet of blood.

The horseman wascompletely immobile, as wasthe boy. It didn’t even occurto the boy to flee. In his heart,

he felt a strange sense of joy:he was about to die in pursuitof his Personal Legend. Andfor Fatima. The omens hadbeen true, after all. Here hewas, face-to-face with hisenemy, but there was no needto be concerned about dying—the Soul of the Worldawaited him, and he wouldsoon be a part of it. And,tomorrow, his enemy wouldalso be a part of that Soul.

The stranger continued tohold the sword at the boy’sforehead. “Why did you readthe flight of the birds?”

“I read only what thebirds wanted to tell me. Theywanted to save the oasis.Tomorrow all of you will die,because there are more menat the oasis than you have.”

The sword remainedwhere it was. “Who are youto change what Allah has

willed?”“Allah created the armies,

and he also created thehawks. Allah taught me thelanguage of the birds.Everything has been writtenby the same hand,” the boysaid, remembering the cameldriver’s words.

The stranger withdrew thesword from the boy’sforehead, and the boy feltimmensely relieved. But he

still couldn’t flee.“Be careful with your

prognostications,” said thestranger. “When something iswritten, there is no way tochange it.”

“All I saw was an army,”said the boy. “I didn’t see theoutcome of the battle.”

The stranger seemedsatisfied with the answer. Buthe kept the sword in his hand.“What is a stranger doing in a

strange land?”“I am following my

Personal Legend. It’s notsomething you wouldunderstand.”

The stranger placed hissword in its scabbard, and theboy relaxed.

“I had to test yourcourage,” the stranger said.“Courage is the quality mostessential to understanding theLanguage of the World.”

The boy was surprised.The stranger was speaking ofthings that very few peopleknew about.

“You must not let up,even after having come sofar,” he continued. “You mustlove the desert, but nevertrust it completely. Becausethe desert tests all men: itchallenges every step, andkills those who becomedistracted.”

What he said remindedthe boy of the old king.

“If the warriors comehere, and your head is still onyour shoulders at sunset,come and find me,” said thestranger.

The same hand that hadbrandished the sword nowheld a whip. The horse rearedagain, raising a cloud of dust.

“Where do you live?”shouted the boy, as the

horseman rode away.The hand with the whip

pointed to the south.The boy had met the

alchemist.

Next morning, there were twothousand armed menscattered throughout the palmtrees at Al-Fayoum. Beforethe sun had reached its high

point, five hundred tribesmenappeared on the horizon. Themounted troops entered theoasis from the north; itappeared to be a peacefulexpedition, but they allcarried arms hidden in theirrobes. When they reached thewhite tent at the center of Al-Fayoum, they withdrew theirscimitars and rifles. And theyattacked an empty tent.

The men of the oasis

surrounded the horsemenfrom the desert and withinhalf an hour all but one of theintruders were dead. Thechildren had been kept at theother side of a grove of palmtrees, and saw nothing ofwhat had happened. Thewomen had remained in theirtents, praying for thesafekeeping of theirhusbands, and saw nothing ofthe battle, either. Were it not

for the bodies there on theground, it would haveappeared to be a normal dayat the oasis.

The only tribesmanspared was the commander ofthe battalion. That afternoon,he was brought before thetribal chieftains, who askedhim why he had violated theTradition. The commandersaid that his men had beenstarving and thirsty,

exhausted from many days ofbattle, and had decided totake the oasis so as to be ableto return to the war.

The tribal chieftain saidthat he felt sorry for thetribesmen, but that theTradition was sacred. Hecondemned the commander todeath without honor. Ratherthan being killed by a bladeor a bullet, he was hangedfrom a dead palm tree, where

his body twisted in the desertwind.

The tribal chieftain calledfor the boy, and presentedhim with fifty pieces of gold.He repeated his story aboutJoseph of Egypt, and askedthe boy to become thecounselor of the oasis.

When the sun had set, and the

first stars made theirappearance, the boy started towalk to the south. Heeventually sighted a singletent, and a group of Arabspassing by told the boy that itwas a place inhabited bygenies. But the boy sat downand waited.

Not until the moon washigh did the alchemist rideinto view. He carried twodead hawks over his shoulder.

“I am here,” the boy said.“You shouldn’t be here,”

the alchemist answered. “Oris it your Personal Legendthat brings you here?”

“With the wars betweenthe tribes, it’s impossible tocross the desert. So I havecome here.”

The alchemist dismountedfrom his horse, and signaledthat the boy should enter thetent with him. It was a tent

like many at the oasis. Theboy looked around for theovens and other apparatusused in alchemy, but sawnone. There were only somebooks in a pile, a smallcooking stove, and thecarpets, covered withmysterious designs.

“Sit down. We’ll havesomething to drink and eatthese hawks,” said thealchemist.

The boy suspected thatthey were the same hawks hehad seen on the day before,but he said nothing. Thealchemist lighted the fire, andsoon a delicious aroma filledthe tent. It was better than thescent of the hookahs.

“Why did you want to seeme?” the boy asked.

“Because of the omens,”the alchemist answered. “Thewind told me you would be

coming, and that you wouldneed help.”

“It’s not I the wind spokeabout. It’s the other foreigner,the Englishman. He’s the onethat’s looking for you.”

“He has other things to dofirst. But he’s on the righttrack. He has begun to try tounderstand the desert.”

“And what about me?”“When a person really

desires something, all the

universe conspires to helpthat person to realize hisdream,” said the alchemist,echoing the words of the oldking. The boy understood.Another person was there tohelp him toward his PersonalLegend.

“So you are going toinstruct me?”

“No. You already knowall you need to know. I amonly going to point you in the

direction of your treasure.”“But there’s a tribal war,”

the boy reiterated.“I know what’s happening

in the desert.”“I have already found my

treasure. I have a camel, Ihave my money from thecrystal shop, and I have fiftygold pieces. In my owncountry, I would be a richman.”

“But none of that is from

the Pyramids,” said thealchemist.

“I also have Fatima. Sheis a treasure greater thananything else I have won.”

“She wasn’t found at thePyramids, either.”

They ate in silence. Thealchemist opened a bottle andpoured a red liquid into theboy’s cup. It was the mostdelicious wine he had evertasted.

“Isn’t wine prohibitedhere?” the boy asked

“It’s not what entersmen’s mouths that’s evil,”said the alchemist. “It’s whatcomes out of their mouthsthat is.”

The alchemist was a bitdaunting, but, as the boydrank the wine, he relaxed.After they finished eatingthey sat outside the tent,under a moon so brilliant that

it made the stars pale.“Drink and enjoy

yourself,” said the alchemist,noticing that the boy wasfeeling happier. “Rest welltonight, as if you were awarrior preparing for combat.Remember that whereveryour heart is, there you willfind your treasure. You’vegot to find the treasure, sothat everything you havelearned along the way can

make sense.“Tomorrow, sell your

camel and buy a horse.Camels are traitorous: theywalk thousands of paces andnever seem to tire. Thensuddenly, they kneel and die.But horses tire bit by bit. Youalways know how much youcan ask of them, and when itis that they are about to die.”

The following night, the boyappeared at the alchemist’stent with a horse. Thealchemist was ready, and hemounted his own steed andplaced the falcon on his leftshoulder. He said to the boy,“Show me where there is lifeout in the desert. Only thosewho can see such signs of lifeare able to find treasure.”

They began to ride outover the sands, with the moon

lighting their way. I don’tknow if I’ll be able to findlife in the desert, the boythought. I don’t know thedesert that well yet.

He wanted to say so to thealchemist, but he was afraidof the man. They reached therocky place where the boyhad seen the hawks in thesky, but now there was onlysilence and the wind.

“I don’t know how to find

life in the desert,” the boysaid. “I know that there is lifehere, but I don’t know whereto look.”

“Life attracts life,” thealchemist answered.

And then the boyunderstood. He loosened thereins on his horse, whogalloped forward over therocks and sand. The alchemistfollowed as the boy’s horseran for almost half an hour.

They could no longer see thepalms of the oasis—only thegigantic moon above them,and its silver reflections fromthe stones of the desert.Suddenly, for no apparentreason, the boy’s horse beganto slow.

“There’s life here,” theboy said to the alchemist. “Idon’t know the language ofthe desert, but my horseknows the language of life.”

They dismounted, and thealchemist said nothing.Advancing slowly, theysearched among the stones.The alchemist stoppedabruptly, and bent to theground. There was a holethere among the stones. Thealchemist put his hand intothe hole, and then his entirearm, up to his shoulder.Something was moving there,and the alchemist’s eyes—the

boy could see only his eyes—squinted with his effort. Hisarm seemed to be battlingwith whatever was in thehole. Then, with a motion thatstartled the boy, he withdrewhis arm and leaped to his feet.In his hand, he grasped asnake by the tail.

The boy leapt as well, butaway from the alchemist. Thesnake fought frantically,making hissing sounds that

shattered the silence of thedesert. It was a cobra, whosevenom could kill a person inminutes.

“Watch out for hisvenom,” the boy said. Buteven though the alchemisthad put his hand in the hole,and had surely already beenbitten, his expression wascalm. “The alchemist is twohundred years old,” theEnglishman had told him. He

must know how to deal withthe snakes of the desert.

The boy watched as hiscompanion went to his horseand withdrew a scimitar.With its blade, he drew acircle in the sand, and then heplaced the snake within it.The serpent relaxedimmediately.

“Not to worry,” said thealchemist. “He won’t leavethe circle. You found life inthe desert, the omen that Ineeded.”

“Why was that soimportant?”

“Because the Pyramidsare surrounded by the desert.”The boy didn’t want to talkabout the Pyramids. His heartwas heavy, and he had beenmelancholy since theprevious night. To continuehis search for the treasuremeant that he had to abandonFatima.

“I’m going to guide you

across the desert,” thealchemist said.

“I want to stay at theoasis,” the boy answered.“I’ve found Fatima, and, asfar as I’m concerned, she’sworth more than treasure.”

“Fatima is a woman of thedesert,” said the alchemist.“She knows that men have togo away in order to return.And she already has hertreasure: it’s you. Now she

expects that you will findwhat it is you’re looking for.”

“Well, what if I decide tostay?”

“Let me tell you what willhappen. You’ll be thecounselor of the oasis. Youhave enough gold to buymany sheep and manycamels. You’ll marry Fatima,and you’ll both be happy fora year. You’ll learn to lovethe desert, and you’ll get to

know every one of the fiftythousand palms. You’ll watchthem as they grow,demonstrating how the worldis always changing. Andyou’ll get better and better atunderstanding omens,because the desert is the bestteacher there is.

“Sometime during thesecond year, you’ll rememberabout the treasure. The omenswill begin insistently to speak

of it, and you’ll try to ignorethem. You’ll use yourknowledge for the welfare ofthe oasis and its inhabitants.The tribal chieftains willappreciate what you do. Andyour camels will bring youwealth and power.

“During the third year, theomens will continue to speakof your treasure and yourPersonal Legend. You’ll walkaround, night after night, at

the oasis, and Fatima will beunhappy because she’ll feel itwas she who interrupted yourquest. But you will love her,and she’ll return your love.You’ll remember that shenever asked you to stay,because a woman of thedesert knows that she mustawait her man. So you won’tblame her. But many timesyou’ll walk the sands of thedesert, thinking that maybe

you could have left . . . thatyou could have trusted morein your love for Fatima.Because what kept you at theoasis was your own fear thatyou might never come back.At that point, the omens willtell you that your treasure isburied forever.

“Then, sometime duringthe fourth year, the omenswill abandon you, becauseyou’ve stopped listening to

them. The tribal chieftainswill see that, and you’ll bedismissed from your positionas counselor. But, by then,you’ll be a rich merchant,with many camels and a greatdeal of merchandise. You’llspend the rest of your daysknowing that you didn’tpursue your Personal Legend,and that now it’s too late.

“You must understandthat love never keeps a man

from pursuing his PersonalLegend. If he abandons thatpursuit, it’s because it wasn’ttrue love . . . the love thatspeaks the Language of theWorld.”

The alchemist erased thecircle in the sand, and thesnake slithered away amongthe rocks. The boyremembered the crystalmerchant who had alwayswanted to go to Mecca, and

the Englishman in search ofthe alchemist. He thought ofthe woman who had trusted inthe desert. And he looked outover the desert that hadbrought him to the woman heloved.

They mounted theirhorses, and this time it wasthe boy who followed thealchemist back to the oasis.The wind brought the soundsof the oasis to them, and the

boy tried to hear Fatima’svoice.

But that night, as he hadwatched the cobra within thecircle, the strange horsemanwith the falcon on hisshoulder had spoken of loveand treasure, of the women ofthe desert and of his PersonalLegend.

“I’m going with you,” theboy said. And he immediatelyfelt peace in his heart.

“We’ll leave tomorrowbefore sunrise,” was thealchemist’s only response.

The boy spent a sleeplessnight. Two hours beforedawn, he awoke one of theboys who slept in his tent,and asked him to show himwhere Fatima lived. Theywent to her tent, and the boy

gave his friend enough goldto buy a sheep.

Then he asked his friendto go into the tent whereFatima was sleeping, and toawaken her and tell her thathe was waiting outside. Theyoung Arab did as he wasasked, and was given enoughgold to buy yet another sheep.

“Now leave us alone,”said the boy to the youngArab. The Arab returned to

his tent to sleep, proud tohave helped the counselor ofthe oasis, and happy at havingenough money to buy himselfsome sheep.

Fatima appeared at theentrance to the tent. The twowalked out among the palms.The boy knew that it was aviolation of the Tradition, butthat didn’t matter to him now.

“I’m going away,” hesaid. “And I want you to

know that I’m coming back. Ilove you because . . .”

“Don’t say anything,”Fatima interrupted. “One isloved because one is loved.No reason is needed forloving.”

But the boy continued, “Ihad a dream, and I met with aking. I sold crystal andcrossed the desert. And,because the tribes declaredwar, I went to the well,

seeking the alchemist. So, Ilove you because the entireuniverse conspired to help mefind you.”

The two embraced. It wasthe first time either hadtouched the other.

“I’ll be back,” the boysaid.

“Before this, I alwayslooked to the desert withlonging,” said Fatima. “Nowit will be with hope. My

father went away one day, buthe returned to my mother,and he has always come backsince then.”

They said nothing else.They walked a bit fartheramong the palms, and thenthe boy left her at theentrance to her tent.

“I’ll return, just as yourfather came back to yourmother,” he said.

He saw that Fatima’s eyes

were filled with tears.“You’re crying?”“I’m a woman of the

desert,” she said, averting herface. “But above all, I’m awoman.”

Fatima went back to hertent, and, when daylightcame, she went out to do thechores she had done foryears. But everything hadchanged. The boy was nolonger at the oasis, and the

oasis would never again havethe same meaning it had hadonly yesterday. It would nolonger be a place with fiftythousand palm trees and threehundred wells, where thepilgrims arrived, relieved atthe end of their long journeys.From that day on, the oasiswould be an empty place forher.

From that day on, it wasthe desert that would be

important. She would look toit every day, and would try toguess which star the boy wasfollowing in search of histreasure. She would have tosend her kisses on the wind,hoping that the wind wouldtouch the boy’s face, andwould tell him that she wasalive. That she was waitingfor him, a woman awaiting acourageous man in search ofhis treasure. From that day

on, the desert would representonly one thing to her: thehope for his return.

“Don’t think about whatyou’ve left behind,” thealchemist said to the boy asthey began to ride across thesands of the desert.“Everything is written in theSoul of the World, and there

it will stay forever.”“Men dream more about

coming home than aboutleaving,” the boy said. Hewas already reaccustomed tothe desert’s silence.

“If what one finds is madeof pure matter, it will neverspoil. And one can alwayscome back. If what you hadfound was only a moment oflight, like the explosion of astar, you would find nothing

on your return.”The man was speaking

the language of alchemy. Butthe boy knew that he wasreferring to Fatima.

It was difficult not tothink about what he had leftbehind. The desert, with its

endless monotony, put him todreaming. The boy could stillsee the palm trees, the wells,and the face of the woman heloved. He could see theEnglishman at hisexperiments, and the cameldriver who was a teacherwithout realizing it. Maybethe alchemist has never beenin love, the boy thought.

The alchemist rode infront, with the falcon on his

shoulder. The bird knew thelanguage of the desert well,and whenever they stopped,he flew off in search of game.On the first day he returnedwith a rabbit, and on thesecond with two birds.

At night, they spread theirsleeping gear and kept theirfires hidden. The desertnights were cold, and werebecoming darker and darkeras the phases of the moon

passed. They went on for aweek, speaking only of theprecautions they needed tofollow in order to avoid thebattles between the tribes.The war continued, and attimes the wind carried thesweet, sickly smell of blood.Battles had been foughtnearby, and the windreminded the boy that therewas the language of omens,always ready to show him

what his eyes had failed toobserve.

On the seventh day, thealchemist decided to makecamp earlier than usual. Thefalcon flew off to find game,and the alchemist offered hiswater container to the boy.

“You are almost at theend of your journey,” said thealchemist. “I congratulate youfor having pursued yourPersonal Legend.”

“And you’ve told menothing along the way,” saidthe boy. “I thought you weregoing to teach me some of thethings you know. A whileago, I rode through the desertwith a man who had books onalchemy. But I wasn’t able tolearn anything from them.”

“There is only one way tolearn,” the alchemistanswered. “It’s throughaction. Everything you need

to know you have learnedthrough your journey. Youneed to learn only one thingmore.”

The boy wanted to knowwhat that was, but thealchemist was searching thehorizon, looking for thefalcon.

“Why are you called thealchemist?”

“Because that’s what Iam.”

“And what went wrongwhen other alchemists tried tomake gold and were unable todo so?”

“They were looking onlyfor gold,” his companionanswered. “They wereseeking the treasure of theirPersonal Legend, withoutwanting actually to live outthe Personal Legend.”

“What is it that I still needto know?” the boy asked.

But the alchemistcontinued to look to thehorizon. And finally thefalcon returned with theirmeal. They dug a hole and littheir fire in it, so that the lightof the flames would not beseen.

“I’m an alchemist simplybecause I’m an alchemist,” hesaid, as he prepared the meal.“I learned the science frommy grandfather, who learned

from his father, and so on,back to the creation of theworld. In those times, theMaster Work could be writtensimply on an emerald. Butmen began to reject simplethings, and to write tracts,interpretations, andphilosophical studies. Theyalso began to feel that theyknew a better way than othershad. Yet the Emerald Tabletis still alive today.”

“What was written on theEmerald Tablet?” the boywanted to know.

The alchemist began todraw in the sand, andcompleted his drawing in lessthan five minutes. As hedrew, the boy thought of theold king, and the plaza wherethey had met that day; itseemed as if it had takenplace years and years ago.

“This is what was written

on the Emerald Tablet,” saidthe alchemist, when he hadfinished.

The boy tried to read whatwas written in the sand.

“It’s a code,” said theboy, a bit disappointed. “Itlooks like what I saw in theEnglishman’s books.”

“No,” the alchemistanswered. “It’s like the flightof those two hawks; it can’tbe understood by reason

alone. The Emerald Tablet isa direct passage to the Soul ofthe World.

“The wise menunderstood that this naturalworld is only an image and acopy of paradise. Theexistence of this world issimply a guarantee that thereexists a world that is perfect.God created the world so that,through its visible objects,men could understand his

spiritual teachings and themarvels of his wisdom.That’s what I mean byaction.”

“Should I understand theEmerald Tablet?” the boyasked.

“Perhaps, if you were in alaboratory of alchemy, thiswould be the right time tostudy the best way tounderstand the EmeraldTablet. But you are in the

desert. So immerse yourselfin it. The desert will give youan understanding of theworld; in fact, anything onthe face of the earth will dothat. You don’t even have tounderstand the desert: all youhave to do is contemplate asimple grain of sand, and youwill see in it all the marvelsof creation.”

“How do I immersemyself in the desert?”

“Listen to your heart. Itknows all things, because itcame from the Soul of theWorld, and it will one day

return there.”

They crossed the desert foranother two days in silence.The alchemist had becomemuch more cautious, becausethey were approaching thearea where the most violentbattles were being waged. Asthey moved along, the boytried to listen to his heart.

It was not easy to do; inearlier times, his heart hadalways been ready to tell itsstory, but lately that wasn’ttrue. There had been timeswhen his heart spent hourstelling of its sadness, and atother times it became soemotional over the desertsunrise that the boy had tohide his tears. His heart beatfastest when it spoke to theboy of treasure, and more

slowly when the boy staredentranced at the endlesshorizons of the desert. But hisheart was never quiet, evenwhen the boy and thealchemist had fallen intosilence.

“Why do we have tolisten to our hearts?” the boyasked, when they had madecamp that day.

“Because, wherever yourheart is, that is where you’ll

find your treasure.”“But my heart is

agitated,” the boy said. “It hasits dreams, it gets emotional,and it’s become passionateover a woman of the desert. Itasks things of me, and itkeeps me from sleeping manynights, when I’m thinkingabout her.”

“Well, that’s good. Yourheart is alive. Keep listeningto what it has to say.”

During the next threedays, the two travelers passedby a number of armedtribesmen, and saw others onthe horizon. The boy’s heartbegan to speak of fear. It toldhim stories it had heard fromthe Soul of the World, storiesof men who sought to findtheir treasure and neversucceeded. Sometimes itfrightened the boy with theidea that he might not find his

treasure, or that he might diethere in the desert. At othertimes, it told the boy that itwas satisfied: it had foundlove and riches.

“My heart is a traitor,” theboy said to the alchemist,when they had paused to restthe horses. “It doesn’t wantme to go on.”

“That makes sense,” thealchemist answered.“Naturally it’s afraid that, in

pursuing your dream, youmight lose everything you’vewon.”

“Well, then, why should Ilisten to my heart?”

“Because you will neveragain be able to keep it quiet.Even if you pretend not tohave heard what it tells you, itwill always be there insideyou, repeating to you whatyou’re thinking about life andabout the world.”

“You mean I shouldlisten, even if it’streasonous?”

“Treason is a blow thatcomes unexpectedly. If youknow your heart well, it willnever be able to do that toyou. Because you’ll know itsdreams and wishes, and willknow how to deal with them.

“You will never be able toescape from your heart. Soit’s better to listen to what it

has to say. That way, you’llnever have to fear anunanticipated blow.”

The boy continued tolisten to his heart as theycrossed the desert. He cameto understand its dodges andtricks, and to accept it as itwas. He lost his fear, andforgot about his need to goback to the oasis, because,one afternoon, his heart toldhim that it was happy. “Even

though I complainsometimes,” it said, “it’sbecause I’m the heart of aperson, and people’s heartsare that way. People areafraid to pursue their mostimportant dreams, becausethey feel that they don’tdeserve them, or that they’llbe unable to achieve them.We, their hearts, becomefearful just thinking of lovedones who go away forever, or

of moments that could havebeen good but weren’t, or oftreasures that might havebeen found but were foreverhidden in the sands. Because,when these things happen, wesuffer terribly.”

“My heart is afraid that itwill have to suffer,” the boytold the alchemist one nightas they looked up at themoonless sky.

“Tell your heart that the

fear of suffering is worse thanthe suffering itself. And thatno heart has ever sufferedwhen it goes in search of itsdreams, because every secondof the search is a second’sencounter with God and witheternity.”

“Every second of thesearch is an encounter withGod,” the boy told his heart.“When I have been trulysearching for my treasure,

every day has been luminous,because I’ve known thatevery hour was a part of thedream that I would find it.When I have been trulysearching for my treasure,I’ve discovered things alongthe way that I never wouldhave seen had I not had thecourage to try things thatseemed impossible for ashepherd to achieve.”

So his heart was quiet for

an entire afternoon. Thatnight, the boy slept deeply,and, when he awoke, his heartbegan to tell him things thatcame from the Soul of theWorld. It said that all peoplewho are happy have Godwithin them. And thathappiness could be found in agrain of sand from the desert,as the alchemist had said.Because a grain of sand is amoment of creation, and the

universe has taken millions ofyears to create it. “Everyoneon earth has a treasure thatawaits him,” his heart said.“We, people’s hearts, seldomsay much about thosetreasures, because people nolonger want to go in search ofthem. We speak of them onlyto children. Later, we simplylet life proceed, in its owndirection, toward its own fate.But, unfortunately, very few

follow the path laid out forthem—the path to theirPersonal Legends, and tohappiness. Most people seethe world as a threateningplace, and, because they do,the world turns out, indeed, tobe a threatening place.

“So, we, their hearts,speak more and more softly.We never stop speaking out,but we begin to hope that ourwords won’t be heard: we

don’t want people to sufferbecause they don’t followtheir hearts.”

“Why don’t people’shearts tell them to continue tofollow their dreams?” the boyasked the alchemist.

“Because that’s whatmakes a heart suffer most,and hearts don’t like tosuffer.”

From then on, the boyunderstood his heart. He

asked it, please, never to stopspeaking to him. He askedthat, when he wandered farfrom his dreams, his heartpress him and sound thealarm. The boy swore that,every time he heard thealarm, he would heed itsmessage.

That night, he told all ofthis to the alchemist. And thealchemist understood that theboy’s heart had returned to

the Soul of the World.“So what should I do

now?” the boy asked.“Continue in the direction

of the Pyramids,” said thealchemist. “And continue topay heed to the omens. Yourheart is still capable ofshowing you where thetreasure is.”

“Is that the one thing Istill needed to know?”

“No,” the alchemist

answered. “What you stillneed to know is this: before adream is realized, the Soul ofthe World tests everythingthat was learned along theway. It does this not becauseit is evil, but so that we can,in addition to realizing ourdreams, master the lessonswe’ve learned as we’vemoved toward that dream.That’s the point at whichmost people give up. It’s the

point at which, as we say inthe language of the desert,one ‘dies of thirst just whenthe palm trees have appearedon the horizon.’

“Every search begins withbeginner’s luck. And everysearch ends with the victor’sbeing severely tested.”

The boy remembered anold proverb from his country.It said that the darkest hour ofthe night came just before the

dawn.

On the following day, thefirst clear sign of dangerappeared. Three armedtribesmen approached, andasked what the boy and thealchemist were doing there.

“I’m hunting with myfalcon,” the alchemistanswered.

“We’re going to have tosearch you to see whetheryou’re armed,” one of thetribesmen said.

The alchemist dismountedslowly, and the boy did thesame.

“Why are you carryingmoney?” asked the tribesman,when he had searched theboy’s bag.

“I need it to get to thePyramids,” he said.

The tribesman who wassearching the alchemist’sbelongings found a smallcrystal flask filled with aliquid, and a yellow glass eggthat was slightly larger than achicken’s egg.

“What are these things?”he asked.

“That’s the Philosopher’sStone and the Elixir of Life.It’s the Master Work of thealchemists. Whoever

swallows that elixir willnever be sick again, and afragment from that stoneturns any metal into gold.”

The Arabs laughed athim, and the alchemistlaughed along. They thoughthis answer was amusing, andthey allowed the boy and thealchemist to proceed with allof their belongings.

“Are you crazy?” the boyasked the alchemist, when

they had moved on. “Whatdid you do that for?”

“To show you one oflife’s simple lessons,” thealchemist answered. “Whenyou possess great treasureswithin you, and try to tellothers of them, seldom areyou believed.”

They continued across thedesert. With every day thatpassed, the boy’s heartbecame more and more silent.

It no longer wanted to knowabout things of the past orfuture; it was content simplyto contemplate the desert, andto drink with the boy from theSoul of the World. The boyand his heart had becomefriends, and neither wascapable now of betraying theother.

When his heart spoke tohim, it was to provide astimulus to the boy, and to

give him strength, becausethe days of silence there inthe desert were wearisome.His heart told the boy whathis strongest qualities were:his courage in having givenup his sheep and in trying tolive out his Personal Legend,and his enthusiasm during thetime he had worked at thecrystal shop.

And his heart told himsomething else that the boy

had never noticed: it told theboy of dangers that hadthreatened him, but that hehad never perceived. Hisheart said that one time it hadhidden the rifle the boy hadtaken from his father, becauseof the possibility that the boymight wound himself. And itreminded the boy of the daywhen he had been ill andvomiting out in the fields,after which he had fallen into

a deep sleep. There had beentwo thieves farther ahead whowere planning to steal theboy’s sheep and murder him.But, since the boy hadn’tpassed by, they had decidedto move on, thinking that hehad changed his route.

“Does a man’s heartalways help him?” the boyasked the alchemist.

“Mostly just the hearts ofthose who are trying to

realize their PersonalLegends. But they do helpchildren, drunkards, and theelderly, too.”

“Does that mean that I’llnever run into danger?”

“It means only that theheart does what it can,” thealchemist said.

One afternoon, theypassed by the encampment ofone of the tribes. At eachcorner of the camp were

Arabs garbed in beautifulwhite robes, with arms at theready. The men weresmoking their hookahs andtrading stories from thebattlefield. No one paid anyattention to the two travelers.

“There’s no danger,” theboy said, when they hadmoved on past theencampment.

The alchemist soundedangry: “Trust in your heart,

but never forget that you’re inthe desert. When men are atwar with one another, theSoul of the World can hearthe screams of battle. No onefails to suffer theconsequences of everythingunder the sun.”

All things are one, theboy thought. And then, as ifthe desert wanted todemonstrate that thealchemist was right, two

horsemen appeared frombehind the travelers.

“You can’t go anyfarther,” one of them said.“You’re in the area where thetribes are at war.”

“I’m not going very far,”the alchemist answered,looking straight into the eyesof the horsemen. They weresilent for a moment, and thenagreed that the boy and thealchemist could move along.

The boy watched theexchange with fascination.“You dominated thosehorsemen with the way youlooked at them,” he said.

“Your eyes show thestrength of your soul,”answered the alchemist.

That’s true, the boythought. He had noticed that,in the midst of the multitudeof armed men back at theencampment, there had been

one who stared fixedly at thetwo. He had been so far awaythat his face wasn’t evenvisible. But the boy wascertain that he had beenlooking at them.

Finally, when they hadcrossed the mountain rangethat extended along the entirehorizon, the alchemist saidthat they were only two daysfrom the Pyramids.

“If we’re going to go our

separate ways soon,” the boysaid, “then teach me aboutalchemy.”

“You already know aboutalchemy. It is aboutpenetrating to the Soul of theWorld, and discovering thetreasure that has beenreserved for you.”

“No, that’s not what Imean. I’m talking abouttransforming lead into gold.”

The alchemist fell as

silent as the desert, andanswered the boy only afterthey had stopped to eat.

“Everything in theuniverse evolved,” he said.“And, for wise men, gold isthe metal that evolved thefurthest. Don’t ask me why; Idon’t know why. I just knowthat the Tradition is alwaysright.

“Men have neverunderstood the words of the

wise. So gold, instead ofbeing seen as a symbol ofevolution, became the basisfor conflict.”

“There are manylanguages spoken by things,”the boy said. “There was atime when, for me, a camel’swhinnying was nothing morethan whinnying. Then itbecame a signal of danger.And, finally, it became just awhinny again.”

But then he stopped. Thealchemist probably alreadyknew all that.

“I have known truealchemists,” the alchemistcontinued. “They lockedthemselves in theirlaboratories, and tried toevolve, as gold had. And theyfound the Philosopher’sStone, because theyunderstood that whensomething evolves,

everything around that thingevolves as well.

“Others stumbled uponthe stone by accident. Theyalready had the gift, and theirsouls were readier for suchthings than the souls ofothers. But they don’t count.They’re quite rare.

“And then there were theothers, who were interestedonly in gold. They neverfound the secret. They forgot

that lead, copper, and ironhave their own PersonalLegends to fulfill. Andanyone who interferes withthe Personal Legend ofanother thing never willdiscover his own.”

The alchemist’s wordsechoed out like a curse. Hereached over and picked up ashell from the ground.

“This desert was once asea,” he said.

“I noticed that,” the boyanswered.

The alchemist told theboy to place the shell over hisear. He had done that many

times when he was a child,and had heard the sound ofthe sea.

“The sea has lived on inthis shell, because that’s itsPersonal Legend. And it willnever cease doing so until thedesert is once again coveredby water.”

They mounted theirhorses, and rode out in thedirection of the Pyramids ofEgypt.

The sun was setting when theboy’s heart sounded a dangersignal. They were surroundedby gigantic dunes, and theboy looked at the alchemist tosee whether he had sensedanything. But he appeared tobe unaware of any danger.Five minutes later, the boysaw two horsemen waitingahead of them. Before he

could say anything to thealchemist, the two horsemenhad become ten, and then ahundred. And then they wereeverywhere in the dunes.

They were tribesmendressed in blue, with blackrings surrounding theirturbans. Their faces werehidden behind blue veils, withonly their eyes showing.

Even from a distance,their eyes conveyed the

strength of their souls. Andtheir eyes spoke of death.

The two were taken to anearby military camp. Asoldier shoved the boy andthe alchemist into a tentwhere the chief was holding ameeting with his staff.

“These are the spies,” saidone of the men.

“We’re just travelers,” thealchemist answered.

“You were seen at theenemy camp three days ago.And you were talking withone of the troops there.”

“I’m just a man whowanders the desert and knowsthe stars,” said the alchemist.“I have no information abouttroops or about the movementof the tribes. I was simplyacting as a guide for my

friend here.”“Who is your friend?” the

chief asked.“An alchemist,” said the

alchemist. “He understandsthe forces of nature. And hewants to show you hisextraordinary powers.”

The boy listened quietly.And fearfully.

“What is a foreignerdoing here?” asked another ofthe men.

“He has brought money togive to your tribe,” said thealchemist, before the boycould say a word. Andseizing the boy’s bag, thealchemist gave the gold coinsto the chief.

The Arab accepted themwithout a word. There wasenough there to buy a lot ofweapons.

“What is an alchemist?”he asked, finally.

“It’s a man whounderstands nature and theworld. If he wanted to, hecould destroy this camp justwith the force of the wind.”

The men laughed. Theywere used to the ravages ofwar, and knew that the windcould not deliver them a fatalblow. Yet each felt his heartbeat a bit faster. They weremen of the desert, and theywere fearful of sorcerers.

“I want to see him do it,”said the chief.

“He needs three days,”answered the alchemist. “Heis going to transform himselfinto the wind, just todemonstrate his powers. If hecan’t do so, we humbly offeryou our lives, for the honor ofyour tribe.”

“You can’t offer mesomething that is alreadymine,” the chief said,

arrogantly. But he granted thetravelers three days.

The boy was shaking withfear, but the alchemist helpedhim out of the tent.

“Don’t let them see thatyou’re afraid,” the alchemistsaid. “They are brave men,and they despise cowards.”

But the boy couldn’t evenspeak. He was able to do soonly after they had walkedthrough the center of the

camp. There was no need toimprison them: the Arabssimply confiscated theirhorses. So, once again, theworld had demonstrated itsmany languages: the desertonly moments ago had beenendless and free, and now itwas an impenetrable wall.

“You gave themeverything I had!” the boysaid. “Everything I’ve savedin my entire life!”

“Well, what good wouldit be to you if you had todie?” the alchemist answered.“Your money saved us forthree days. It’s not often thatmoney saves a person’s life.”

But the boy was toofrightened to listen to wordsof wisdom. He had no ideahow he was going totransform himself into thewind. He wasn’t analchemist!

The alchemist asked oneof the soldiers for some tea,and poured some on the boy’swrists. A wave of reliefwashed over him, and thealchemist muttered somewords that the boy didn’tunderstand.

“Don’t give in to yourfears,” said the alchemist, in astrangely gentle voice. “Ifyou do, you won’t be able totalk to your heart.”

“But I have no idea howto turn myself into the wind.”

“If a person is living outhis Personal Legend, heknows everything he needs toknow. There is only one thingthat makes a dreamimpossible to achieve: thefear of failure.”

“I’m not afraid of failing.It’s just that I don’t knowhow to turn myself into thewind.”

“Well, you’ll have tolearn; your life depends onit.”

“But what if I can’t?”“Then you’ll die in the

midst of trying to realize yourPersonal Legend. That’s a lotbetter than dying like millionsof other people, who nevereven knew what theirPersonal Legends were.

“But don’t worry,” thealchemist continued. “Usually

the threat of death makespeople a lot more aware oftheir lives.”

The first day passed. Therewas a major battle nearby,and a number of woundedwere brought back to thecamp. The dead soldiers werereplaced by others, and lifewent on. Death doesn’t

change anything, the boythought.

“You could have diedlater on,” a soldier said to thebody of one of hiscompanions. “You couldhave died after peace hadbeen declared. But, in anycase, you were going to die.”

At the end of the day, theboy went looking for thealchemist, who had taken hisfalcon out into the desert.

“I still have no idea howto turn myself into the wind,”the boy repeated.

“Remember what I toldyou: the world is only thevisible aspect of God. Andthat what alchemy does is tobring spiritual perfection intocontact with the materialplane.”

“What are you doing?”“Feeding my falcon.”“If I’m not able to turn

myself into the wind, we’regoing to die,” the boy said.“Why feed your falcon?”

“You’re the one who maydie,” the alchemist said. “Ialready know how to turnmyself into the wind.”

On the second day, the boyclimbed to the top of a cliffnear the camp. The sentinels

allowed him to go; they hadalready heard about thesorcerer who could turnhimself into the wind, andthey didn’t want to go nearhim. In any case, the desertwas impassable.

He spent the entireafternoon of the second daylooking out over the desert,and listening to his heart. Theboy knew the desert sensedhis fear.

They both spoke the samelanguage.

On the third day, the chiefmet with his officers. Hecalled the alchemist to themeeting and said, “Let’s gosee the boy who turns himselfinto the wind.”

“Let’s,” the alchemistanswered.

The boy took them to thecliff where he had been onthe previous day. He toldthem all to be seated.

“It’s going to takeawhile,” the boy said.

“We’re in no hurry,” thechief answered. “We are menof the desert.”

The boy looked out at thehorizon. There weremountains in the distance.And there were dunes, rocks,

and plants that insisted onliving where survival seemedimpossible. There was thedesert that he had wanderedfor so many months; despiteall that time, he knew only asmall part of it. Within thatsmall part, he had found anEnglishman, caravans, tribalwars, and an oasis with fiftythousand palm trees and threehundred wells.

“What do you want heretoday?” the desert asked him.“Didn’t you spend enough

time looking at meyesterday?”

“Somewhere you areholding the person I love,”the boy said. “So, when Ilook out over your sands, Iam also looking at her. I wantto return to her, and I needyour help so that I can turnmyself into the wind.”

“What is love?” the desertasked.

“Love is the falcon’s

flight over your sands.Because for him, you are agreen field, from which healways returns with game. Heknows your rocks, yourdunes, and your mountains,and you are generous to him.”

“The falcon’s beak carriesbits of me, myself,” the desertsaid. “For years, I care for hisgame, feeding it with the littlewater that I have, and then Ishow him where the game is.

And, one day, as I enjoy thefact that his game thrives onmy surface, the falcon divesout of the sky, and takes awaywhat I’ve created.”

“But that’s why youcreated the game in the firstplace,” the boy answered.“To nourish the falcon. Andthe falcon then nourishesman. And, eventually, manwill nourish your sands,where the game will once

again flourish. That’s how theworld goes.”

“So is that what love is?”“Yes, that’s what love is.

It’s what makes the gamebecome the falcon, the falconbecome man, and man, in histurn, the desert. It’s whatturns lead into gold, andmakes the gold return to theearth.”

“I don’t understand whatyou’re talking about,” the

desert said.“But you can at least

understand that somewhere inyour sands there is a womanwaiting for me. And that’swhy I have to turn myselfinto the wind.”

The desert didn’t answerhim for a few moments.

Then it told him, “I’llgive you my sands to help thewind to blow, but, alone, Ican’t do anything. You have

to ask for help from thewind.”

A breeze began to blow.The tribesmen watched theboy from a distance, talkingamong themselves in alanguage that the boycouldn’t understand.

The alchemist smiled.The wind approached the

boy and touched his face. Itknew of the boy’s talk withthe desert, because the winds

know everything. They blowacross the world without abirthplace, and with no placeto die.

“Help me,” the boy said.“One day you carried thevoice of my loved one tome.”

“Who taught you to speakthe language of the desert andthe wind?”

“My heart,” the boyanswered.

The wind has manynames. In that part of theworld, it was called thesirocco, because it broughtmoisture from the oceans tothe east. In the distant landthe boy came from, theycalled it the levanter, becausethey believed that it broughtwith it the sands of the desert,and the screams of theMoorish wars. Perhaps, in theplaces beyond the pastures

where his sheep lived, menthought that the wind camefrom Andalusia. But,actually, the wind came fromno place at all, nor did it go toany place; that’s why it wasstronger than the desert.Someone might one day planttrees in the desert, and evenraise sheep there, but neverwould they harness the wind.

“You can’t be the wind,”the wind said. “We’re two

very different things.”“That’s not true,” the boy

said. “I learned thealchemist’s secrets in mytravels. I have inside me thewinds, the deserts, the oceans,the stars, and everythingcreated in the universe. Wewere all made by the samehand, and we have the samesoul. I want to be like you,able to reach every corner ofthe world, cross the seas,

blow away the sands thatcover my treasure, and carrythe voice of the woman Ilove.”

“I heard what you weretalking about the other daywith the alchemist,” the windsaid. “He said that everythinghas its own Personal Legend.But people can’t turnthemselves into the wind.”

“Just teach me to be thewind for a few moments,” the

boy said. “So you and I cantalk about the limitlesspossibilities of people and thewinds.”

The wind’s curiosity wasaroused, something that hadnever happened before. Itwanted to talk about thosethings, but it didn’t knowhow to turn a man into thewind. And look how manythings the wind already knewhow to do! It created deserts,

sank ships, felled entireforests, and blew throughcities filled with music andstrange noises. It felt that ithad no limits, yet here was aboy saying that there wereother things the wind shouldbe able to do.

“This is what we calllove,” the boy said, seeingthat the wind was close togranting what he requested.“When you are loved, you

can do anything in creation.When you are loved, there’sno need at all to understandwhat’s happening, becauseeverything happens withinyou, and even men can turnthemselves into the wind. Aslong as the wind helps, ofcourse.”

The wind was a proudbeing, and it was becomingirritated with what the boywas saying. It commenced to

blow harder, raising thedesert sands. But finally ithad to recognize that, evenmaking its way around theworld, it didn’t know how toturn a man into the wind. Andit knew nothing about love.

“In my travels around theworld, I’ve often seen peoplespeaking of love and lookingtoward the heavens,” thewind said, furious at havingto acknowledge its own

limitations. “Maybe it’s betterto ask heaven.”

“Well then, help me dothat,” the boy said. “Fill thisplace with a sandstorm sostrong that it blots out thesun. Then I can look toheaven without blindingmyself.”

So the wind blew with allits strength, and the sky wasfilled with sand. The sun wasturned into a golden disk.

At the camp, it wasdifficult to see anything. Themen of the desert werealready familiar with thatwind. They called it thesimum, and it was worse thana storm at sea. Their horsescried out, and all theirweapons were filled withsand.

On the heights, one of thecommanders turned to thechief and said, “Maybe we

had better end this!”They could barely see the

boy. Their faces were coveredwith the blue cloths, and theireyes showed fear.

“Let’s stop this,” anothercommander said.

“I want to see thegreatness of Allah,” the chiefsaid, with respect. “I want tosee how a man turns himselfinto the wind.”

But he made a mental

note of the names of the twomen who had expressed theirfear. As soon as the windstopped, he was going toremove them from theircommands, because true menof the desert are not afraid.

“The wind told me thatyou know about love,” theboy said to the sun. “If youknow about love, you mustalso know about the Soul ofthe World, because it’s made

of love.”“From where I am,” the

sun said, “I can see the Soulof the World. Itcommunicates with my soul,and together we cause theplants to grow and the sheepto seek out shade. Fromwhere I am—and I’m a longway from the earth—Ilearned how to love. I knowthat if I came even a little bitcloser to the earth, everything

there would die, and the Soulof the World would no longerexist. So we contemplate eachother, and we want eachother, and I give it life andwarmth, and it gives me myreason for living.”

“So you know aboutlove,” the boy said.

“And I know the Soul ofthe World, because we havetalked at great length to eachother during this endless trip

through the universe. It tellsme that its greatest problem isthat, up until now, only theminerals and vegetablesunderstand that all things areone. That there’s no need foriron to be the same as copper,or copper the same as gold.Each performs its own exactfunction as a unique being,and everything would be asymphony of peace if thehand that wrote all this had

stopped on the fifth day ofcreation.

“But there was a sixthday,” the sun went on.

“You are wise, becauseyou observe everything froma distance,” the boy said.“But you don’t know aboutlove. If there hadn’t been asixth day, man would notexist; copper would alwaysbe just copper, and lead justlead. It’s true that everything

has its Personal Legend, butone day that Personal Legendwill be realized. So eachthing has to transform itselfinto something better, and toacquire a new PersonalLegend, until, someday, theSoul of the World becomesone thing only.”

The sun thought aboutthat, and decided to shinemore brightly. The wind,which was enjoying the

conversation, started to blowwith greater force, so that thesun would not blind the boy.

“This is why alchemyexists,” the boy said. “So thateveryone will search for histreasure, find it, and thenwant to be better than he wasin his former life. Lead willplay its role until the worldhas no further need for lead;and then lead will have toturn itself into gold.

“That’s what alchemistsdo. They show that, when westrive to become better thanwe are, everything around usbecomes better, too.”

“Well, why did you saythat I don’t know aboutlove?” the sun asked the boy.

“Because it’s not love tobe static like the desert, nor isit love to roam the world likethe wind. And it’s not love tosee everything from a

distance, like you do. Love isthe force that transforms andimproves the Soul of theWorld. When I first reachedthrough to it, I thought theSoul of the World wasperfect. But later, I could seethat it was like other aspectsof creation, and had its ownpassions and wars. It is wewho nourish the Soul of theWorld, and the world we livein will be either better or

worse, depending on whetherwe become better or worse.And that’s where the powerof love comes in. Becausewhen we love, we alwaysstrive to become better thanwe are.”

“So what do you want ofme?” the sun asked.

“I want you to help meturn myself into the wind,”the boy answered.

“Nature knows me as the

wisest being in creation,” thesun said. “But I don’t knowhow to turn you into thewind.”

“Then, whom should Iask?”

The sun thought for aminute. The wind waslistening closely, and wantedto tell every corner of theworld that the sun’s wisdomhad its limitations. That itwas unable to deal with this

boy who spoke the Languageof the World.

“Speak to the hand thatwrote all,” said the sun.

The wind screamed withdelight, and blew harder thanever. The tents were beingblown from their ties to theearth, and the animals werebeing freed from their tethers.On the cliff, the men clutchedat each other as they soughtto keep from being blown

away.The boy turned to the

hand that wrote all. As he didso, he sensed that theuniverse had fallen silent, andhe decided not to speak.

A current of love rushedfrom his heart, and the boybegan to pray. It was a prayerthat he had never said before,because it was a prayerwithout words or pleas. Hisprayer didn’t give thanks for

his sheep having found newpastures; it didn’t ask that theboy be able to sell morecrystal; and it didn’t beseechthat the woman he had metcontinue to await his return.In the silence, the boyunderstood that the desert, thewind, and the sun were alsotrying to understand the signswritten by the hand, and wereseeking to follow their paths,and to understand what had

been written on a singleemerald. He saw that omenswere scattered throughout theearth and in space, and thatthere was no reason orsignificance attached to theirappearance; he could see thatnot the deserts, nor the winds,nor the sun, nor people knewwhy they had been created.But that the hand had areason for all of this, and thatonly the hand could perform

miracles, or transform the seainto a desert . . . or a man intothe wind. Because only thehand understood that it was alarger design that had movedthe universe to the point atwhich six days of creationhad evolved into a MasterWork.

The boy reached throughto the Soul of the World, andsaw that it was a part of theSoul of God. And he saw that

the Soul of God was his ownsoul. And that he, a boy,could perform miracles.

The simum blew that day as ithad never blown before. Forgenerations thereafter, theArabs recounted the legend ofa boy who had turned himselfinto the wind, almostdestroying a military camp, in

defiance of the most powerfulchief in the desert.

When the simum ceasedto blow, everyone looked tothe place where the boy hadbeen. But he was no longerthere; he was standing next toa sand-covered sentinel, onthe far side of the camp.

The men were terrified athis sorcery. But there weretwo people who weresmiling: the alchemist,

because he had found hisperfect disciple, and the chief,because that disciple hadunderstood the glory of God.

The following day, thegeneral bade the boy and thealchemist farewell, andprovided them with an escortparty to accompany them asfar as they chose.

They rode for the entire day.Toward the end of theafternoon, they came upon aCoptic monastery. Thealchemist dismounted, andtold the escorts they couldreturn to the camp.

“From here on, you willbe alone,” the alchemist said.“You are only three hoursfrom the Pyramids.”

“Thank you,” said theboy. “You taught me the

Language of the World.”“I only invoked what you

already knew.”

The alchemist knocked on

the gate of the monastery. Amonk dressed in black cameto the gates. They spoke for afew minutes in the Coptictongue, and the alchemistbade the boy enter.

“I asked him to let me usethe kitchen for a while,” thealchemist smiled.

They went to the kitchenat the back of the monastery.The alchemist lighted the fire,and the monk brought him

some lead, which thealchemist placed in an ironpan. When the lead hadbecome liquid, the alchemisttook from his pouch thestrange yellow egg. Hescraped from it a sliver asthin as a hair, wrapped it inwax, and added it to the panin which the lead had melted.

The mixture took on areddish color, almost thecolor of blood. The alchemist

removed the pan from thefire, and set it aside to cool.As he did so, he talked withthe monk about the tribalwars.

“I think they’re going tolast for a long time,” he saidto the monk.

The monk was irritated.The caravans had beenstopped at Giza for sometime, waiting for the wars toend. “But God’s will be

done,” the monk said.“Exactly,” answered the

alchemist.When the pan had cooled,

the monk and the boy lookedat it, dazzled. The lead haddried into the shape of thepan, but it was no longer lead.It was gold.

“Will I learn to do thatsomeday?” the boy asked.

“This was my PersonalLegend, not yours,” the

alchemist answered. “But Iwanted to show you that itwas possible.”

They returned to the gatesof the monastery. There, thealchemist separated the diskinto four parts.

“This is for you,” he said,holding one of the parts out tothe monk. “It’s for yourgenerosity to the pilgrims.”

“But this payment goeswell beyond my generosity,”

the monk responded.“Don’t say that again.

Life might be listening, andgive you less the next time.”

The alchemist turned tothe boy. “This is for you. Tomake up for what you gave tothe general.”

The boy was about to saythat it was much more than hehad given the general. But hekept quiet, because he hadheard what the alchemist said

to the monk.“And this is for me,” said

the alchemist, keeping one ofthe parts. “Because I have toreturn to the desert, wherethere are tribal wars.”

He took the fourth partand handed it to the monk.

“This is for the boy. If heever needs it.”

“But I’m going in searchof my treasure,” the boy said.“I’m very close to it now.”

“And I’m certain you’llfind it,” the alchemist said.

“Then why this?”“Because you have

already lost your savingstwice. Once to the thief, andonce to the general. I’m anold, superstitious Arab, and Ibelieve in our proverbs.There’s one that says,‘Everything that happensonce can never happen again.But everything that happens

twice will surely happen athird time.’” They mountedtheir horses.

“I want to tell you a storyabout dreams,” said thealchemist.

The boy brought his horsecloser.

“In ancient Rome, at thetime of Emperor Tiberius,

there lived a good man whohad two sons. One was in themilitary, and had been sent tothe most distant regions of theempire. The other son was apoet, and delighted all ofRome with his beautifulverses.

“One night, the father hada dream. An angel appearedto him, and told him that thewords of one of his sonswould be learned and

repeated throughout the worldfor all generations to come.The father woke from hisdream grateful and crying,because life was generous,and had revealed to himsomething any father wouldbe proud to know.

“Shortly thereafter, thefather died as he tried to savea child who was about to becrushed by the wheels of achariot. Since he had lived his

entire life in a manner thatwas correct and fair, he wentdirectly to heaven, where hemet the angel that hadappeared in his dream.

“‘You were always agood man,’ the angel said tohim. ‘You lived your life in aloving way, and died withdignity. I can now grant youany wish you desire.’

“‘Life was good to me,’the man said. ‘When you

appeared in my dream, I feltthat all my efforts had beenrewarded, because my son’spoems will be read by menfor generations to come. Idon’t want anything formyself. But any father wouldbe proud of the fameachieved by one whom hehad cared for as a child, andeducated as he grew up.Sometime in the distantfuture, I would like to see my

son’s words.’“The angel touched the

man’s shoulder, and theywere both projected far intothe future. They were in animmense setting, surroundedby thousands of peoplespeaking a strange language.

“The man wept withhappiness.

“‘I knew that my son’spoems were immortal,’ hesaid to the angel through his

tears. ‘Can you please tell mewhich of my son’s poemsthese people are repeating?’

“The angel came closer tothe man, and, withtenderness, led him to abench nearby, where they satdown.

“‘The verses of your sonwho was the poet were verypopular in Rome,’ the angelsaid. ‘Everyone loved themand enjoyed them. But when

the reign of Tiberius ended,his poems were forgotten.The words you’re hearingnow are those of your son inthe military.’

“The man looked at theangel in surprise.

“‘Your son went to serveat a distant place, and becamea centurion. He was just andgood. One afternoon, one ofhis servants fell ill, and itappeared that he would die.

Your son had heard of a rabbiwho was able to cureillnesses, and he rode out fordays and days in search ofthis man. Along the way, helearned that the man he wasseeking was the Son of God.He met others who had beencured by him, and theyinstructed your son in theman’s teachings. And so,despite the fact that he was aRoman centurion, he

converted to their faith.Shortly thereafter, he reachedthe place where the man hewas looking for was visiting.’

“‘He told the man thatone of his servants wasgravely ill, and the rabbimade ready to go to his housewith him. But the centurionwas a man of faith, and,looking into the eyes of therabbi, he knew that he wassurely in the presence of the

Son of God.’“‘And this is what your

son said,’ the angel told theman. ‘These are the words hesaid to the rabbi at that point,and they have never beenforgotten: “My Lord, I am notworthy that you should comeunder my roof. But onlyspeak a word and my servantwill be healed.” ’”

The alchemist said, “Nomatter what he does, every

person on earth plays acentral role in the history ofthe world. And normally hedoesn’t know it.”

The boy smiled. He hadnever imagined that questionsabout life would be of suchimportance to a shepherd.

“Good-bye,” thealchemist said.

“Good-bye,” said the boy.

The boy rode along throughthe desert for several hours,listening avidly to what hisheart had to say. It was hisheart that would tell himwhere his treasure washidden.

“Where your treasure is,there also will be your heart,”the alchemist had told him.

But his heart wasspeaking of other things.With pride, it told the story of

a shepherd who had left hisflock to follow a dream hehad on two differentoccasions. It told of PersonalLegend, and of the many menwho had wandered in searchof distant lands or beautifulwomen, confronting thepeople of their times withtheir preconceived notions. Itspoke of journeys,discoveries, books, andchange.

As he was about to climbyet another dune, his heartwhispered, “Be aware of theplace where you are broughtto tears. That’s where I am,and that’s where yourtreasure is.”

The boy climbed the duneslowly. A full moon roseagain in the starry sky: it hadbeen a month since he had setforth from the oasis. Themoonlight cast shadows

through the dunes, creatingthe appearance of a rollingsea; it reminded the boy ofthe day when that horse hadreared in the desert, and hehad come to know thealchemist. And the moon fellon the desert’s silence, and ona man’s journey in search oftreasure.

When he reached the topof the dune, his heart leapt.There, illuminated by the

light of the moon and thebrightness of the desert, stoodthe solemn and majesticPyramids of Egypt.

The boy fell to his kneesand wept. He thanked Godfor making him believe in hisPersonal Legend, and forleading him to meet a king, amerchant, an Englishman,and an alchemist. And aboveall for his having met awoman of the desert who had

told him that love wouldnever keep a man from hisPersonal Legend.

If he wanted to, he couldnow return to the oasis, goback to Fatima, and live hislife as a simple shepherd.After all, the alchemistcontinued to live in thedesert, even though heunderstood the Language ofthe World, and knew how totransform lead into gold. He

didn’t need to demonstratehis science and art to anyone.The boy told himself that, onthe way toward realizing hisown Personal Legend, he hadlearned all he needed toknow, and had experiencedeverything he might havedreamed of.

But here he was, at thepoint of finding his treasure,and he reminded himself thatno project is completed until

its objective has beenachieved. The boy looked atthe sands around him, andsaw that, where his tears hadfallen, a scarab beetle wasscuttling through the sand.During his time in the desert,he had learned that, in Egypt,the scarab beetles are asymbol of God.

Another omen! The boybegan to dig into the dune. Ashe did so, he thought of whatthe crystal merchant had oncesaid: that anyone could builda pyramid in his backyard.The boy could see now thathe couldn’t do so if he placed

stone upon stone for the restof his life.

Throughout the night, theboy dug at the place he hadchosen, but found nothing.He felt weighted down by thecenturies of time since thePyramids had been built. Buthe didn’t stop. He struggledto continue digging as hefought the wind, which oftenblew the sand back into theexcavation. His hands were

abraded and exhausted, but helistened to his heart. It hadtold him to dig where histears fell.

As he was attempting topull out the rocks heencountered, he heardfootsteps. Several figuresapproached him. Their backswere to the moonlight, andthe boy could see neither theireyes nor their faces.

“What are you doing

here?” one of the figuresdemanded.

Because he was terrified,the boy didn’t answer. He hadfound where his treasure was,and was frightened at whatmight happen.

“We’re refugees from thetribal wars, and we needmoney,” the other figure said.“What are you hiding there?”

“I’m not hidinganything,” the boy answered.

But one of them seizedthe boy and yanked him backout of the hole. Another, whowas searching the boy’s bags,found the piece of gold.

“There’s gold here,” hesaid.

The moon shone on theface of the Arab who hadseized him, and in the man’seyes the boy saw death.

“He’s probably got moregold hidden in the ground.”

They made the boycontinue digging, but hefound nothing. As the sunrose, the men began to beatthe boy. He was bruised andbleeding, his clothing wastorn to shreds, and he felt thatdeath was near.

“What good is money toyou if you’re going to die?It’s not often that money cansave someone’s life,” thealchemist had said. Finally,

the boy screamed at the men,“I’m digging for treasure!”And, although his mouth wasbleeding and swollen, he toldhis attackers that he had twicedreamed of a treasure hiddennear the Pyramids of Egypt.

The man who appeared tobe the leader of the groupspoke to one of the others:“Leave him. He doesn’t haveanything else. He must havestolen this gold.”

The boy fell to the sand,nearly unconscious. Theleader shook him and said,“We’re leaving.”

But before they left, hecame back to the boy andsaid, “You’re not going todie. You’ll live, and you’lllearn that a man shouldn’t beso stupid. Two years ago,right here on this spot, I had arecurrent dream, too. Idreamed that I should travel

to the fields of Spain and lookfor a ruined church whereshepherds and their sheepslept. In my dream, there wasa sycamore growing out ofthe ruins of the sacristy, and Iwas told that, if I dug at theroots of the sycamore, Iwould find a hidden treasure.But I’m not so stupid as tocross an entire desert justbecause of a recurrentdream.”

And they disappeared.The boy stood up shakily,

and looked once more at thePyramids. They seemed tolaugh at him, and he laughedback, his heart bursting withjoy.

Because now he knewwhere his treasure was.

Epilogue

The boy reached the small,abandoned church just asnight was falling. Thesycamore was still there inthe sacristy, and the starscould still be seen through thehalf-destroyed roof. Heremembered the time he hadbeen there with his sheep; ithad been a peaceful night . . .

except for the dream.Now he was here not with

his flock, but with a shovel.He sat looking at the sky

for a long time. Then he tookfrom his knapsack a bottle ofwine, and drank some. Heremembered the night in thedesert when he had sat withthe alchemist, as they lookedat the stars and drank winetogether. He thought of themany roads he had traveled,

and of the strange way Godhad chosen to show him histreasure. If he hadn’t believedin the significance ofrecurrent dreams, he wouldnot have met the Gypsywoman, the king, the thief, or. . . “Well, it’s a long list. Butthe path was written in theomens, and there was no wayI could go wrong,” he said tohimself.

He fell asleep, and when

he awoke the sun was alreadyhigh. He began to dig at thebase of the sycamore.

“You old sorcerer,” theboy shouted up to the sky.“You knew the whole story.You even left a bit of gold atthe monastery so I could getback to this church. Themonk laughed when he sawme come back in tatters.Couldn’t you have saved mefrom that?”

“No,” he heard a voice onthe wind say. “If I had toldyou, you wouldn’t have seenthe Pyramids. They’rebeautiful, aren’t they?”

The boy smiled, andcontinued digging. Half anhour later, his shovel hitsomething solid. An hourlater, he had before him achest of Spanish gold coins.There were also preciousstones, gold masks adorned

with red and white feathers,and stone statues embeddedwith jewels. The spoils of aconquest that the country hadlong ago forgotten, and thatsome conquistador had failedto tell his children about.

The boy took out Urimand Thummim from his bag.He had used the two stonesonly once, one morning whenhe was at a marketplace. Hislife and his path had always

provided him with enoughomens.

He placed Urim andThummim in the chest. Theywere also a part of his newtreasure, because they were areminder of the old king,whom he would never seeagain.

It’s true; life really isgenerous to those who pursuetheir Personal Legend, theboy thought. Then he

remembered that he had toget to Tarifa so he could giveone-tenth of his treasure tothe Gypsy woman, as he hadpromised. Those Gypsies arereally smart, he thought.Maybe it was because theymoved around so much.

The wind began to blowagain. It was the levanter, thewind that came from Africa.It didn’t bring with it thesmell of the desert, nor the

threat of Moorish invasion.Instead, it brought the scentof a perfume he knew well,and the touch of a kiss—akiss that came from far away,slowly, slowly, until it restedon his lips.

The boy smiled. It wasthe first time she had donethat.

“I’m coming, Fatima,” hesaid.

An inspirational companionto The Alchemist that invitesus to live out our dreams, toembrace the uncertainty oflife, and to rise to meet ourown unique destiny. In hisinimitable style, PauloCoelho presents a collectionof philosophical stories thatwill delight and guide seekerseverywhere and help bringout the Warrior of Lightwithin each of us.

Warrior of the Light

PROLOGUE

“Just off the beach to the westof the village lies an island,and on it is a vast temple withmany bells,” said the woman.

The boy noticed that shewas dressed strangely andhad a veil covering her head.He had never seen her before.

“Have you ever visited

that temple?” she asked. “Gothere and tell me what youthink of it?”

Seduced by the woman’sbeauty, the boy went to theplace she had indicated. Hesat down on the beach andstared out at the horizon, buthe saw only what he alwayssaw: blue sky and ocean.

Disappointed, he walkedto a nearby fishing villageand asked if anyone there

knew about an island and atemple.

“Oh, that was many yearsago, when my great-grandparents were alive,”said an old fisherman. “Therewas an earthquake, and theisland was swallowed up bythe sea. But although we canno longer see the island, wecan still hear the temple bellswhen the ocean sets themswinging down below.”

The boy went back to thebeach and tried to hear thebells. He spent the wholeafternoon there, but all heheard was the noise of thewaves and the cries of theseagulls.

When night fell, hisparents came looking for him.The following morning, hewent back to the beach; hecould not believe that such abeautiful woman would have

lied to him. If she everreturned, he could tell herthat, although he had not seenthe island, he had heard thetemple bells set ringing by themotion of the waves.

Many months passed; thewoman did not return and theboy forgot all about her; nowhe was convinced that heneeded to discover the richesand treasures in thesubmerged temple. If he

could hear the bells, he wouldbe able to locate it andsalvage the treasure hiddenbelow.

He lost interest in schooland even in his friends. Hebecame the butt of all theother children’s jokes. Theyused to say: “He’s not like us.He prefers to sit looking atthe sea because he’s afraid ofbeing beaten in our games.”

And they all laughed to

see the boy sitting on theshore.

Although he still couldnot hear the old temple bellsringing, the boy learned aboutother things. He began torealize that he had grown soused to the sound of thewaves that he was no longerdistracted by them. Soon afterthat, he became used to thecries of the seagulls, thebuzzing of the bees and the

wind blowing amongst thepalm trees.

Six months after his firstconversation with the woman,the boy could sit thereoblivious to all other noises,but he still could not hear thebells from the drownedtemple.

Fishermen came andtalked to him, insisting thatthey had heard the bells.

But the boy never did.

Some time later, however,the fishermen changed theirtune: “You spend far toomuch time thinking about thebells beneath the sea. Forgetabout them and go back toplaying with your friends.Perhaps it’s only fishermenwho can hear them.”

After almost a year, theboy thought: “Perhaps they’reright. I would do better togrow up and become a

fisherman and come down tothis beach every morning,because I’ve come to love ithere.” And he thought too:“Perhaps it’s just anotherlegend and the bells were allshattered during theearthquake and have neverrung out since.”

That afternoon, hedecided to go back home.

He walked down to theocean to say goodbye. He

looked once more at thenatural world around him andbecause he was no longerconcerned about the bells, hecould again smile at thebeauty of the seagulls’ cries,the roar of the sea, and thewind blowing in the palmtrees. Far off, he heard thesound of his friends playingand he felt glad to think thathe would soon resume hischildhood games.

The boy was happy and—as only a child can—he feltgrateful for being alive. Hewas sure that he had notwasted his time, for he hadlearned to contemplate Natureand to respect it.

Then, because he waslistening to the sea, theseagulls, the wind in the palmtrees, and the voices of hisfriends playing, he also heardthe first bell.

And then another.And another, until, to his

great joy, all the bells in thedrowned temple were ringing.

Years later, when he wasa grown man, he returned tothe village and to the beach ofhis childhood. He no longerdreamed of finding treasure atthe bottom of the sea; perhapsthat had all been a product ofhis imagination, and he hadnever really heard the

submerged bells ring out onone lost childhood afternoon.Even so, he decided to walkfor a while along the beach,to listen to the noise of thewind and to the cries of theseagulls.

Imagine his surprisewhen, there on the beach, hesaw the woman who had firstspoken to him about theisland and its temple.

“What are you doing

here?” he asked.“I was waiting for you,”

she replied.He noticed that, despite

the passing years, the womanlooked exactly the same; theveil hiding her hair had notfaded with time.

She handed him a bluenotebook full of blank pages.

“Write: A Warrior of theLight values a child’s eyesbecause they are able to look

at the world withoutbitterness. When he wants tofind out if the person besidehim is worthy of his trust, hetries to see him as a childwould.”

“What is a Warrior of theLight?”

“You already know that,”she replied with a smile. “Heis someone capable ofunderstanding the miracle oflife, of fighting to the last for

something he believes in—and of hearing the bells thatthe waves set ringing on theseabed.”

He had never thought ofhimself as a Warrior of theLight. The woman seemed toread his thoughts. “Everyoneis capable of these things.And, though no one thinks ofhimself as a Warrior of theLight, we all are.”

He looked at the blank

pages in the notebook. Thewoman smiled again.

“Write about theWarrior,” she said.

About the Author

Photo by Xavier González

PAULO COELHO was bornin Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Hisown life has in many waysbeen as varied and unusual asthe protagonists of hisinternationally acclaimednovels. Like them, PauloCoelho has followed a dreamin a quest for fulfillment. Hisown dream, to be a writer,met with frustrationthroughout much of his earlyadult life, a time in which he

worked at variousprofessions, some of themmaterially rewarding butspiritually unfulfilling. “Ialways knew,” he says, “thatmy Personal Legend, to use aterm from alchemy, was towrite.” He was thirty-eightwhen he published his firstbook.

In 1970, after decidingthat law school was not forhim, he traveled through

much of South America,North Africa, Mexico, andEurope. Returning to Brazilafter two years, he began asuccessful career as a popularsongwriter. In 1974, he wasimprisoned for a short timeby the military dictatorshipthen ruling in Brazil. In 1980,he experienced one of thedefining moments of his life:he walked the five hundred–plus mile Road of Santiago de

Compostela in northwesternSpain. On this ancienthighway, used for centuriesby pilgrims from France toget to the cathedral said tohouse the remains of St.James, he achieved a self-awareness and a spiritualawakening that he laterdescribed in The Pilgrimage.

Paulo Coelho once saidthat following your dream islike learning a foreign

language; you will makemistakes but you will getthere in the end. In 1988, hepublished The Alchemist, anovel that explores thistheme, and it launched him asan international bestsellingauthor. Specifically, PauloCoelho is recognized for hispowerful storytellingtechnique and the profoundspiritual insights he blendsseamlessly into his parables.

His books have sold over 150million copies worldwide. Awinner of numerous literaryprizes, he has been a memberof the Brazilian Academy ofLetters since 2002. PauloCoelho is also a prominentspeaker for humanitariancauses. In 2007, he wasnamed a United NationsMessenger of Peace.

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Warrior of the Light

The Valkyries

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The Zahir

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Veronika Decides to Die

By the River Piedra I SatDown and Wept

The Devil and Miss Prym

The Witch of Portobello

The Fifth Mountain

The Winner Stands Alone

Aleph

Manuscript Found in Accra

The Illustrated Alchemist

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Copyright

This book is an English version of OAlquimista, the Portuguese originaledition, published in Brazil by EditoraRocco Ltd. (Rio de Janeiro). Copyright© 1988 by Paulo Coelho. This editionwas prepared by Alan R. Clarke inconsultation with Paulo Coelho.

A previous paperback edition waspublished in 1994 byHarperSanFrancisco, a division ofHarperCollins Publishers. AHarperFlamingo edition was publishedin 1998. A previous Harper Perenialpaperback edition was published in1998.

THE ALCHEMIST (25th AnniversaryEdition). English version copyright ©1993 by Paulo Coelho and Alan R.Clarke. Foreword © 2014 by PauloCoelho. Prologue translation copyright© 1998 by HarperCollins Publishers,Inc. Illustrations © 2014 by James NoelSmith. All rights reserved underInternational and Pan-American

Copyright Conventions. By payment ofthe required fees, you have beengranted the nonexclusive,nontransferable right to access and readthe text of this e-book on-screen. Nopart of this text may be reproduced,transmitted, downloaded, decompiled,reverse-engineered, or stored in orintroduced into any information storageand retrieval system, in any form or byany means, whether electronic ormechanical, now known or hereafterinvented, without the express writtenpermission of HarperCollins e-books.

HarperCollins website:http://www.harpercollins.com

HarperCollins®, ®, andHarperOne™ are trademarks ofHarperCollins Publishers, Inc.FIRST HARPERCOLLINS HARDCOVEREDITION PUBLISHED IN 1993.

ISBN 978–0–06–231500–7EPub Edition January 2015 ISBN9780062416216

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