Princess of Dhagabad, The (10 page)

The episode with the Veriduan stallion
completely changed everyone’s attitude toward Hasan. Of course, he
is still feared for what a djinn is capable of, even without being
able to command his own magic. But now he is no longer looked upon
as a terrifying sorcerer of old tales, burdened by his slavery and
angered by his ages of imprisonment. By rushing to the princess’s
rescue he did the same thing any caring human being would have done
in his place, and this makes Hasan to some extent more
understandable to the inhabitants of the palace. The princess is
now allowed to be alone with him, and even to take walks with him
in the garden, including its very distant corners; and now the
princess is eagerly looking forward to showing Hasan her favorite
place.

The princess and Hasan walk around the
boulder and stop in front of the glade. The princess proudly looks
at her realm: thick silky grass, the even semicircle of the creek
running through its far end, the wall of the jasmine bushes, and
two giant magnolias whose branches and wide leaves create a ceiling
over this place, letting through only the finest web of delicate
sunbeams. The princess feels as if she just walked into the castle
of the queen of the fairies that mere mortals can see only as a
garden glade. She cannot help asking herself whether the djinn can
see the real face of this glade, and what he can see now, standing
beside her at the border of her realm.

“I want to show you something in the creek,”
the princess says, taking a decisive step into the glade.

The grass ends close to the edge of the
water, leaving a yellow streak of sand between the silky greenery
and the tickling water. The creek is carefully finding its way
among the rocks scattered in its bed, from time to time creating
tiny waterfalls and deep calm pools. The princess likes to sit on
the bank of this stream, imagining herself reduced to a size
whereby the grass looks like a forest and the deep pool with its
sandy banks and the tiny waterfall like a giant lake. At those
moments she dreams that there are peri living in the lake—the
spirits of air and water, mysterious phantom beauties—and that if
she makes just a tiny effort, she could for a while become one of
them, a part of the lake and the waterfalls.

The princess carefully puts her hand into the
water and brings out a piece of gravel. Its tiny facets of mica
glitter in the sun.

“Look at it, Hasan,” she murmurs.

She wants to tell him how the curves of the
stone fit her little hand, trying to tell her the mystery concealed
in its depth. Failing to find the right words, she holds out the
stone to him and carefully puts it into his palm. In Hasan’s large
hand the stone looks much smaller, but its wet surface still shines
mysteriously in the sun.

“There is a secret hidden in this stone,” the
princess says, “but it can only talk to your hand. Can you feel
it?”

She hesitantly looks into Hasan’s face, and
her heart leaps with joy. She sees in his eyes a reflection of her
own enchantment, of the same concentration she always feels
watching closely something as ordinary and as amazing as a piece of
gravel.

“Every stone hides something, princess,”
Hasan says softly. “Only this stone is able to tell of it better
than others.”

The princess quivers with excitement. She
brought Hasan here to share a game with him. Never, even in her
wildest fantasy, had she dreamed that he, by far the oldest and the
wisest creature she had ever known, would tell her that her
favorite game was—real.

“What does the stone tell you, Hasan?” she
asks quietly.

“I’ll show you, princess. Look closer.”

The princess carefully looks at the stone.
The effort makes her eyes water; the tiny specks of mica fuse into
a single golden glow. And then she sees, enclosed by the contour of
the stone, an amazing creature—like a tiny lizard, curled to
repeat the curves of the stone that so precisely fits her hand. The
creature sleeps, emanating a golden glow, silent like the gravel
that conceals it.

Tears fill the princess’s tired eyes forcing
her to blink, and the fiery lizard loses its shape, dissolving into
the golden sparkles of mica in the bright afternoon sun.

“I saw a creature inside the stone, Hasan,”
the princess whispers.

“It is one of the ways to see the essence of
the stone, princess,” Hasan says softly.

One of your first lessons in magic was to see
the essence of the stone. Only you had to do it all by yourself,
without the help of a mighty wizard, ready to share a part of his
vision with you, as you shared your vision with the princess. You
vaguely recall those times when you, a youth barely older than she
is now, studied the basics of magic with your first teacher, not
knowing even of such simple things as overcoming time.

You can barely remember the name of your
teacher, who, even during the times of your mortality, was already
a venerable old man, and who died, never learning the secret of
becoming immortal—before you lived your first century in this
world. You need several seconds to recall that name you uttered
once with such respect—Haannan. And the sound of this name rings in
your mind, bringing you back into his large airy room in a house
that was only a small distance from your Dimeshqian home.

The sage Haannan is trying to teach you
concentration, but you, young and careless, are having trouble with
the lesson.

“
Hasan,” patiently speaks the sage sitting
on the pillows across from you. “The first step of learning magic
is being able to concentrate. You cannot possibly succeed in doing
the simplest task without concentrating on it.”

You sigh, looking at a pile of smooth pebbles
lying in front of you on the floor.

“
Focus on these stones, Hasan,” the
teacher says. “Forget everything that is going on around you
now.”

For some time you try your best to fix your
eyes on the stones. A shadow of a palm leaf, which swings outside
in the blasts of the hot midday wind, runs over the floor next to
you; and, almost against your will, your gaze moves to follow.

“
Look at me, Hasan,” the teacher says
suddenly.

His tone is different now. You raise your
head and see merry sparkles dancing in his tranquil blue eyes.

“
Forget the seriousness of the task,
Hasan,” he says. “Let’s play a game. Let’s pretend that you can see
the inner glow of these stones.”

“
The inner glow, teacher?”

“
I am telling you that every one of these
stones is shining with its own inner light. Let’s see if you can
name the colors of these lights.”

“
But how?”

“
You are too tense, Hasan. Concentration
has nothing to do with tension. Try to relax.”

You lower your eyes again to stare at the
accursed pile of stones that in spite of all your effort still
remains for you just a handful of plain river pebbles.

“
Don’t pay any attention to their shape,
Hasan. Try to focus on the essence of the stones, and not on their
looks.”

You feel a wave of fatigue sweeping over you.
You don’t care anymore whether you will ever be able to see the
inner glow of the stones or lift them with your gaze, which was the
initial purpose of today’s lesson. You are not looking at the
stones now, letting your tired eyes stare through them to follow
the white lines woven in the carpet, guessing the shapes of those
lines in the place concealed by the gray pile of pebbles. But you
cannot see clearly anymore. All the shapes are diffusing before
your unfocused gaze. You don’t see anything defined in its outline.
All you see is a dark mass that was a pile of stones just a moment
ago, the dim and unclear shapes of the white ornaments on the old
worn carpet, a fuzzy, many-colored spot that shimmers with
different shades of the seven spectral colors…a colored spot?

You jump to your feet, forgetting your
tiredness.

“
I saw the colors!” You feel so
overwhelmed you can barely breathe. “Many colors! Every stone has
its own color!”

The teacher laughs at your excitement.

“
Very good, Hasan” he says. “You were able
to concentrate and see the essence of the stone. Now, sit
down.”

Still trembling, you settle back into your
place.

“
Now you should find no difficulty in
moving, even lifting, one of these stones,” the teacher
says.

“
But how?” You still cannot forget the
vision of the transparent rainbow that just now shone before your
eyes in the place of a lifeless gray pile.

“
You must manage to see the glow again,
Hasan. But do not stop this time. You must become familiar with
this glow, define for yourself the color of the glow originating
from each individual stone. Only then will you be able to do what
you want with them.”

You relax, searching for the now-familiar
state of mind, making the white lines on the carpet diffuse before
your eyes, making the pile of pebbles become a single gray mass.
This time you manage to catch the moment when the stones in front
of you start to shine. At first you cannot determine which light
comes from each individual stone. Then you notice that the pebble
lying on top, the one shaped almost like a disk, is spreading
yellow light around it, and that the yellow on one side seems green
because of the overlapping blue glow coming from the elongated
stone closest to it, the one that bears a dimple on its smooth
side.

“
Can you see it, Hasan?” the teacher
asks.

“
Yes,” you whisper, afraid to move, afraid
to scare off this unbelievable sight. You feel as if you are
peering into something sacred, carefully hidden from the human
eyes, a quality of these simple stones that makes them seem almost
alive.

“
Try to separate the glow of one stone
from the others, Hasan,” the teacher says.

“Separate—how?” you ask, keeping all your
attention on the colorful radiance in front of you.

“
Choose one stone and look at its glow
separately. Don’t let the glow of other stones interfere with it.
Make its color look pure to your eye.”

You choose the elongated stone with the
dimple, carefully separating its blue light from the surrounding
yellows, reds, and greens. Gradually you start to feel that the
chosen stone is floating in a basket woven of blue light that
doesn’t let it touch other stones in the pile.

“
Now lift it, Hasan,” the teacher
says.

You suddenly realize that the teacher’s
request doesn’t raise any questions in your mind. You somehow know
that by simply pulling at the blue basket with your gaze you will
be able to make the stone float up from the pile and rise to any
height within this large room. Almost without thinking, completely
absorbed in your new perception, you gently pull the stone out of
the pile of others, so similar in looks and so different in their
essences, and make it float through the air straight to your
teacher, lowering the dim blue shape into his open hand.

Tears of wonder fill your eyes, washing away
the colorful glow, bringing you back to the familiar airy room
covered with a worn carpet, where the specks of dust circle and
dance in the slanting beams of sunlight coming through the narrow
windows. Relieved, you lean back against the wall, looking at
Haannan with a smile.

“
You are very talented, Hasan,” the sage
says. “If you study hard, you will achieve a lot.”

“
I never knew inanimate objects could
glow.”

“
There are many ways to make the objects
float. The glow is just a game meant to explain to you these
ways.”

“
A game, teacher?”

“
We just played that the stones can glow,
Hasan. And that game helped you lift the stone with your
gaze.”

“
A game? But I saw them glowing with my
own eyes, teacher!”

“
Maybe if I had offered you another game,
you would have seen something different.”

Back then you didn’t understand him. But you
forever remembered the joy of seeing the many-colored spot in the
place of a pile of gray river pebbles, of making a simple rock
float up like a bubble of soap and easily fly into the teacher’s
outstretched hand. And from that day on, the basics of learning
magic forever linked in your mind with the word “game.” Playing
games, you studied under sage Haannan’s guidance, easily learning
things that seemed impossible to his other pupils. Perhaps this
feeling of constantly playing games, sometimes difficult but always
fascinating, was the thing that set you on your way, leading you
from those games to the state of wisdom unknown to your teacher,
leading you through all the stages of knowledge straight to your
terrible end.

Chapter 6. Eyes of Desire