Vision of the hawks and warning of attack

The vision of the hawks and the warning of attack is the pivotal event in which Santiago, still a stranger at the Al-Fayoum oasis, demonstrates his growing mastery of the Language of the World by receiving and acting upon a prophetic omen. This episode transforms him from a passive seeker into an active instrument of destiny, saves the oasis from destruction, and brings him face-to-face with the alchemist, who will guide him through the final stage of his journey.

The Vision and Its Meaning

Santiago, having spent nearly a month at the oasis and fallen in love with Fatima, wandered into the desert one evening to think about the nature of love and possession. As he sat on a stone, hypnotized by the horizon, he looked up and saw a pair of hawks flying high in the sky. Their flight seemed to have no pattern, yet it made a certain kind of sense to him, though he could not grasp what it meant. He followed the movement of the birds, trying to read something into it, hoping the desert birds might explain to him the meaning of love without ownership. Feeling sleepy, he told himself he was learning the Language of the World, and that everything in the world was beginning to make sense—even the flight of the hawks. Suddenly, one of the hawks made a flashing dive through the sky, attacking the other. At that instant, a fleeting image came to the boy: an army, with its swords at the ready, riding into the oasis. The vision vanished immediately, but it shook him. He had heard of mirages—desires that, because of their intensity, materialized over the sands—but he certainly did not desire an army to invade the oasis. He tried to forget the vision and return to his meditation, concentrating on the pink shades of the desert and its stones, but something in his heart would not allow it. Remembering the old king's command to always heed the omens, he sensed that what he had seen was actually going to occur. He rose and made his way back toward the palm trees, perceiving that the desert was now safe but the oasis had become dangerous.

Reporting the Omen

Santiago found the camel driver seated at the base of a palm tree, observing the sunset. When the boy appeared from the other side of the dunes and announced that an army was coming, the camel driver initially responded that the desert fills men's hearts with visions. But the boy told him about the hawks—that he had been watching their flight and had suddenly felt himself plunged into the Soul of the World. The camel driver understood. He knew that any given thing on the face of the earth could reveal the history of all things; one could open a book to any page, look at a person's hand, turn a card, or watch the flight of birds, and find a connection with one's experience of the moment. It was not that those things revealed anything in themselves, but that people, looking at what was occurring around them, could find a means of penetration to the Soul of the World. The camel driver, who was not a fighter but had consulted seers in the past, recalled the words of the oldest seer he had ever sought out: that the future belongs to God, and God only rarely reveals it, and when he does so, it is for only one reason—it is a future that was written so as to be altered. God had shown the boy a part of the future, the camel driver thought, and he asked why the boy had been chosen to serve as God's instrument. He urged Santiago to go and speak to the tribal chieftains. When the boy protested that they would laugh at him, the camel driver insisted that the men of the desert were used to dealing with omens. He added that the chieftains believed that if Allah wanted them to know something, someone would tell them about it, and this time the person was Santiago. The boy thought of Fatima and decided to go.

The Audience with the Chieftains

Santiago approached the guard at the front of the huge white tent at the center of the oasis and demanded to see the chieftains, saying he had brought omens from the desert. The guard entered the tent and emerged with a young Arab dressed in white and gold, to whom the boy repeated what he had seen. The young man asked him to wait. Night fell, and an assortment of fighting men and merchants entered and exited the tent. One by one, the campfires were extinguished, and the oasis fell as quiet as the desert, with only the lights in the great tent remaining. During all this time, the boy thought about Fatima, still unable to understand his last conversation with her. Finally, after hours of waiting, the guard bade him enter. Inside, the boy was astonished: the ground was covered with the most beautiful carpets he had ever walked upon, and from the top of the structure hung lamps of hand-wrought gold, each with a lighted candle. The eight tribal chieftains were seated at the back in a semicircle, resting upon richly embroidered silk cushions, while servants came and went with silver trays laden with spices and tea, and other servants maintained the fires in the hookahs. The atmosphere was suffused with the sweet scent of smoke. The boy could see immediately which of the chieftains was the most important: an Arab dressed in white and gold, seated at the center of the semicircle, with the young Arab at his side. One chieftain asked who this stranger was who spoke of omens, and the boy answered, telling what he had seen. Another chieftain questioned why the desert would reveal such things to a stranger when it knew that they had been there for generations. The boy replied that his eyes were not yet accustomed to the desert, so he could see things that eyes habituated to the desert might not see. A third chieftain insisted that the oasis was neutral ground and that no one attacks an oasis. The boy simply said he could only tell them what he saw, and if they did not want to believe him, they did not have to do anything about it. The men fell into an animated discussion in an Arabic dialect the boy did not understand, and when he made to leave, the guard told him to stay. The boy became fearful, regretting having spoken. Then the elder at the center smiled almost imperceptibly, and the boy felt better; the man had not participated in the discussion, but the boy, now used to the Language of the World, could feel the vibrations of peace throughout the tent. The discussion ended, and the old man turned to the boy, his expression cold and distant. He told the story of Joseph, who two thousand years ago in a distant land had been thrown into a dungeon and sold as a slave, but who rescued Egypt from famine by interpreting the pharaoh's dream of thin and fat cows. The elder noted that Joseph, too, was a stranger in a strange land, about the boy's age. He then declared that the Tradition says an oasis is neutral territory because both sides have oases and are vulnerable, but the Tradition also says they should believe the messages of the desert, for everything they knew was taught to them by the desert. He gave a signal, and everyone stood. The old man announced that the next day they would break the agreement that no one at the oasis may carry arms; they would be on the lookout for their enemies all day, and at sunset the men would once again surrender their arms to him. For every ten dead enemies, the boy would receive a piece of gold. But he warned that arms cannot be drawn unless they also go into battle, and if at least one of them had not been used by the end of the day, one would be used on the boy.

The Battle and Its Aftermath

The next morning, two thousand armed men were scattered throughout the palm trees at Al-Fayoum. Before the sun had reached its high point, five hundred tribesmen appeared on the horizon. The mounted troops entered the oasis from the north, appearing to be a peaceful expedition, but they all carried arms hidden in their robes. When they reached the white tent at the center of Al-Fayoum, they withdrew their scimitars and rifles and attacked an empty tent. The men of the oasis surrounded the horsemen, and within half an hour all but one of the intruders were dead. The children had been kept at the other side of a grove of palm trees and saw nothing; the women had remained in their tents, praying for the safekeeping of their husbands. Were it not for the bodies on the ground, it would have appeared to be a normal day at the oasis. The only tribesman spared was the commander of the battalion, who was brought before the tribal chieftains that afternoon. He said his men had been starving, thirsty, and exhausted from many days of battle, and had decided to take the oasis so as to be able to return to the war. The tribal chieftain said he felt sorry for the tribesmen, but the Tradition was sacred, and he condemned the commander to death without honor. Rather than being killed by a blade or a bullet, the commander was hanged from a dead palm tree, where his body twisted in the desert wind. The tribal chieftain then called for the boy, presented him with fifty pieces of gold, repeated the story of Joseph of Egypt, and asked the boy to become the counselor of the oasis.

The Encounter with the Alchemist

That same night, as Santiago walked back to his tent through the moonlit oasis, he was thrown to the ground by a sudden, thundering wind. Before him reared an enormous white horse, and astride it was a horseman dressed completely in black, with a falcon perched on his left shoulder. The horseman drew an enormous curved sword, its steel glittering in the moonlight, and demanded to know who dared to read the meaning of the flight of the hawks. The boy, reminded of the image of Santiago Matamoros but with the roles reversed, answered that it was he who dared, and that many lives would be saved because he was able to see through to the Soul of the World. The stranger lowered the sword until its point touched the boy's forehead, drawing a droplet of blood. The boy felt a strange sense of joy, believing he was about to die in pursuit of his destiny and for Fatima. But the stranger withdrew the sword, saying he had had to test the boy's courage, for courage is the quality most essential to understanding the Language of the World. He told the boy that he must not let up even after having come so far, and that he must love the desert but never trust it completely, because the desert tests all men. He instructed the boy to come and find him if his head was still on his shoulders at sunset. As the horseman rode away, pointing to the south, the boy realized he had met the alchemist.