Scorpion Soup by Tahir Shah Page B

centre of the cavern, was a golden basin filled with squirming black scorpions. Beside it was a pitcher. Without haste, the skeleton witch filled the pitcher from the stream, and filled the basin, boiling the scorpions alive.
    When they had cooked sufficiently, she cupped her bony hands together, and quaffed a few drops of the scorpion soup.
    Instantly, the witch’s skeleton was overlaid with arteries and veins, with muscles, tissue, and skin. But, rather than being haggard and old as she had so recently been, she was restored to the radiance of her youth. Her skin was pink and fresh, her eyes bright green, her long hair blonde and vibrant.
    Examining her delicate features in the soup’s oily surface, the witch grinned.
    ‘Now I am ready,’ she said.
    Moving sleekly through the cavern, she stopped at a stone slab at the east end of the floor. There was dried blood on the sides, as if someone had at one time scrabbled desperately to open it.
    Leaning down, the witch blew very softly, and the stone crumbled into dust.
    Beneath, in another cavern, was a library – a vast and imposing library – thousands and thousands of books. Each was devoted to the dark arts, each one bound in identical blue morocco leather, all covered in dust.
    The witch climbed down a cedar ladder until she reached the parquet floor, and began hunting the volume she had come for.
    ‘What are you searching for?’ said a voice.
    The witch looked around.
    ‘Who… who’s there?’
    ‘I am the library,’ the voice replied. ‘Tell me the book you wish for, and I will give it to you.’
    ‘A talking library?’ hissed the witch.
    ‘But, of course,’ said the shelves.
    ‘The spell to travel in time,’ said the witch. ‘I want it! Give it to me at once!’
    A warm wind ripped through the chamber, and when it had gone, an over-sized tome was sitting squarely on the central table.
    ‘Page six hundred and nine,’ said the voice.
    The witch pulled back the cover and thumbed her way through the book.
    ‘Six hundred…’ she said aloud… ‘and nine.’
    Squinting to read the uneven print, she scanned the page.
    ‘This is no spell,’ she said gruffly.
    ‘Of course it is,’ said the library. ‘You must read it to activate its power.’
    And so the witch took a deep breath, and read:

The Clockmaker’s Bride
    There was a family of Persian clockmakers whose work was patronised by the rich, and whose expertise reached the attention of the sultan himself. Obsessed with mechanical devices, the ruler ordered for the artisan to be brought before him.
    The clockmaker was brought to the rose garden in which the sultan was reclining on a spacious divan.
    ‘I shall make for you a clock with many faces, Your Imperialness,’ he said obsequiously. ‘I will design it to show the time in every realm, with the hemispheres and the planets as well – each of them revolving around Your Excellency’s own shadow.’
    The sultan touched a hand to his chin. He liked people grovelling, and so did not speak until he was sure there was no more fawning to come. Then he said:
    ‘I have an entire wing of the palace filled with clocks! I have big clocks and small clocks, clocks fashioned from gold and silver, from ivory and the rarest of wood. I have clocks that chime, and others that play dainty tunes. I have clocks that open up to reveal yet more clocks, and have clocks that tell the time in ways you yourself have never imagined to be possible!’
    The clockmaker glanced at the gravel beneath his feet. He didn’t want to say it, but it seemed as though the sultan had enough clocks already. Just as he was about to say something suitably fawning, the sultan beckoned him closer.
    Apprehensively, the clockmaker approached the royal divan.
    ‘I do not want a clock,’ said the sultan.
    ‘Ah,’ intoned the clockmaker.
    ‘No, no,’ the sultan said. ‘Not a clock… but a chair . I want a chair instead.’
    The clockmaker frowned.
    ‘Then, I shall find a great