Summary

“I've come to the end of my book” (146). So begins the last chapter, in which the narrator says that he had shoved his unfinished book into a drawer where it stayed for sixteen years until two weeks ago when he had a visitor. Now, he says, he knows that of all his books this is the one he loves the most. He speculates whether it is better to write about someone else or about oneself and confesses that he prefers the latter.

First, he explains that using his experience as an astrologer, he resigned his position as imperial astrologer just in time because his successor was beheaded and his sovereign dethroned. The sultan had helped him to escape from the soldiers who blamed him for the huge weapon's curse and their defeat. He remained in Istanbul despite rumors that he wasn't who he said...