Trafika Europe 6 - Arabesque

ibrahim al-koni

dwelling by strangling me with his bare hands after an innocent piece of advice from me awakened volcanic wrath in his breast? Advocate of envy, do you recall that I accompanied you in a caravan to the forestlands and that my commercial success there and the enthusiastic reception for my wares hurt your feelings so badly that on the way home youwaited forme to fall asleep and then stabbed me with an enchanted dagger, plundered all my possessions, and fled from that place, thinking you could flee from punishment? As for you, advocate of hatred, on your behalf I repaid a major debt and freed you from the captivity of a clan determined to take you as a slave to their encampments for your failure to repay it. Then you slit my throat with your blade to reward me for my good deed. Did you fools assume that a

person protected by good intentions could be harmed by a chokehold, a dagger thrust, or the slash of a sword? Cowards, don’t you know that innocents don’t die? Don’t you know why innocent people become immortal? Listen to a secret you’ll never hear again. Innocent people do not die, because they harbor in their hearts a ghoul named revenge. Innocent people do not die before they take their revenge. Innocent people do not even die if they take revenge, because revenge is the Law that prevents disorders and restores everything to equilibrium, because it is a talisman borrowed from the will of the Spirit World—not from the inhabitants of the wasteland.” The cunning strategist pulled the dread carpet out from under their bodies, and the fools fell together into a

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