Princess of Dhagabad, The (37 page)

“Only charlatans read the stars,” Hasan says,
grinning. “Didn’t Shogat tell you that?”

“Step aside, slave!” Agabei’s voice
threatens. “Give me the girl!”

“Her destiny lies elsewhere,” Hasan says
again. “She will never be a djinn.”

“Let her speak for herself.” Shogat’s deep
voice hypnotizes. “Tell us, girl, do you want to know everything?
Do you want to be able to dance like me, so that kingdoms fall at
your feet from seeing you dance? Do you want absolute power and
absolute might?”

The princess floats away upon her beautiful
voice over the smooth glass dunes. She can see herself dancing in a
great hall, as all around her kingdoms fall, scores die, temples
collapse… Temples! She suddenly remembers the soundless hall, the
crimson beam, the clouds of sand.

“You destroyed my temple!” she exclaims.

“It is not your temple,” Shogat says. “That
temple has been standing in the desert since the beginning of time
and will remain there for ages to come. Neither I nor you can
foresee its end. You saw the vision of the temple falling because
you don’t need the temple anymore. You will never go to your temple
again. It is unimportant compared to eternity.”

“Think, girl! You will have absolute
knowledge and absolute power,” Agabei says. “We will save you from
suffering in the endless desert. With our guidance you will become
all-powerful without paying the terrible price. True, you will be a
slave, but is that really so bad? Is it so bad for Hasan to be a
slave?”

The princess is floating again and all the
world, everything she sees beneath her, belongs to her.

Except one thing.

“Hasan! What will become of Hasan?” she
exclaims.

“Hasan will serve me too,” Agabei replies.
“You will be together. Think of it.”

“Three all-powerful slaves to one ordinary
sorcerer?” Hasan laughs. “You have big plans, caliph!”

“I am not so foolish as to become
all-powerful when my slaves have absolute power,” Agabei hisses. “I
am not such an idiot as to comprehend all the knowledge and then
let myself be tortured for thousands of years in a bronze bottle in
an endless desert.”

“Wait.” Hasan’s grin widens. “If your soul is
worthy enough, the bottle could be made of gold!”

“Silence, slave!”

“I am not your slave,” Hasan points out.
“Although, it seems, you are greatly tempting my mistress to become
your slave girl. I am sure she cannot possibly resist.”

“Are you a djinn too, Shogat?” the princess
asks.

“Yes, girl,” Shogat says sadly.

“How did you become all-powerful?”

“I was the priestess of the Great Goddess and
became all-powerful through dance. It is hard to explain.”

The princess feels small and weak among these
perfect, mighty, immortal creatures; and again she shudders at the
sharp feeling of injustice. Agabei and she are masters here, and
Shogat and Hasan, far more worthy and wise, are slaves.

“Are you happy, Shogat?” she asks.

The dancer’s gaze becomes distant. “Agabei
saved me from the tortures of the desert. Everyone admires me and I
can dance however much I want. How can I possibly be unhappy?”

The sadness in Shogat’s voice is unbearable.
I am happy, happy, happy—happy because I cannot be unhappy.
Happy at the will of my master.

What about you, Hasan, are you happy…? You
are a slave but you are always at the side someone you love. She is
attached to you, but, although you belong to her with your heart
and soul, she will never be yours. Never, because you are a slave,
a spirit, a djinn.

“I don’t want to be a djinn,” the princess
says. “But more than that I don’t want to be your slave, Caliph
Agabei.”

The glass that covers the dunes cracks, sand
breaks loose, and, swept by the wind, flies all around, settling
over the writhing crests, covering all in sight. Broken clouds fall
apart into tiny grains of sand and fall on the ground like dry
rain. A crimson sun rises over the horizon, and the princess sees
the temple in the distance, ghostly but unharmed. A beautiful
garden surrounds the temple but the princess hasn’t the power to
see it.

The sifting sound of dry sand falling on the
ground in an endless curtain is broken at times by a disorderly
choir of voices coming from a great distance. The princess is
trying without much success to catch bits of words as she slowly
comes back from her trance, beginning to make out phrases,
recognizing distinct voices in the noise around her.

“Praise the gods, she is coming to!”
That
sounds like the voice of Nanny Zulfia.

“Sand! There is sand on her!”

“It must be the wind. Close the window,
nanny,” another, commanding voice says; and she recognizes, this
time without doubt, the voice of her mother. She slowly opens her
eyes to see her mother bent over her, and makes out a word spoken
clearly as if addressed directly to her: “Princess!”

Does it mean that I have completely come to
my senses, if I am being addressed? Does it mean that if I try
hard, I may be able to answer?

“Mother…” she whispers, barely audibly,
having a hard time forcing her lips to obey her.

“You scared us to death, princess!” She hears
in her mother’s voice great relief, and a less obvious doubt that
it is yet time to feel relieved. “You were unconscious for several
hours!” the sultaness exclaims. “Prince Amir has sent servants to
inquire about your condition three times.”

Who is prince Amir?
the princess
thinks. Then reality comes back to her with a snap.

“Where is Hasan, mother?” she asks, trying to
sit up on the bed and feeling weak from the effort.

“Hasan again, gods forgive!” Zeinab grumbles,
and the princess hears the relief in her voice. “I told you, your
majesty. She is always like that. The first thing she asks when she
wakes up: ‘Where is Hasan?’”

“Let it be, nanny,” the sultaness says
firmly. “The princess is ill.” And, turning to the princess, she
adds gently: “Hasan is sitting over there, princess. While you were
unconscious he was meditating all the time. Maybe he helped
you.”

The princess turns her head with difficulty
and sees Hasan sitting on a pillow in the corner of the room, his
legs crossed, his arms relaxed along his body. His face looks
drawn, his hair is covered with sand, but he is smiling at the
princess.

“Hasan…” she whispers.

“It is all over, princess. Everything’s all
right.” Hasan smiles, and she feels in his voice the secret that
connects the two of them with an invisible bond, a secret to all
but themselves.

The princess turns back to her mother.

“Did Caliph Agabei leave, mother?” she asks
anxiously.

“Not yet.” She can hear the displeasure in
her mother’s voice. It seems, the princess thinks, that the
sultaness must have asked for him to leave but was turned down. “We
cannot force him to leave,” the sultaness continues reluctantly, as
if repeating someone else’s words. “He is our guest—but we won’t
let him near you,” she adds hurriedly. “Hasan told me
everything.”

The princess turns to look at Hasan again;
his gaze confirms to her that the secret stays just between the two
of them, and that the sultaness will never understand it.

“Told you what, mother?” the princess
asks.

“Let’s talk about it later, when you feel
better.”

“Tell me now, mother!” the princess insists,
not from fear but from curiosity. She knows very well that Hasan
told no one of what really happened, and she is curious to know
what his version was.

“Very well, princess, I’ll tell you.” The
sultaness’s gaze is full of anxiety. “But don’t be afraid. Hasan is
here, he can protect you from anything.”

“I am not afraid, mother,” the princess
urges. “Tell me.”

“Listen, then. Caliph Agabei is a sorcerer.
He fell in love with you and was trying to use his magic to make
you marry him. And when his magic failed he asked his mighty slave
Shogat to help enchant you. All her evil power was in the flower
she threw at you. If Hasan had not caught the flower, had you but
touched it, you would have fallen in love with the caliph and
nothing could have possibly made you feel otherwise.”

Well, that version seems to be accurate
enough,
the princess thinks. Suddenly she remembers something
that bothered her all this time, something she doesn’t understand
herself.

“What about the bracelet?” she asks.

“What bracelet?” The sultaness looks
disturbed, and helplessly turns to the nannies.

“This one, mother. The one Hasan gave me.”
The princess raises her arm with the bracelet still on her wrist,
and only now takes a closer look at it. Green, semitransparent
stones set in silver form a chain running around her wrist. The
princess admires the soft glow of the stones, the color of which,
she now sees, is formed by tiny green dots, dispersed throughout
the stone.

“She is feeling worse, your majesty. She is
talking nonsense again,” Zulfia suggests.

“This is not nonsense, your majesty,” Hasan
interferes. “I really did give this bracelet to the princess. I
just did not have time to tell you.”

“Tell me now, Hasan,” the sultaness urges him
impatiently, studying the unusual piece of jewelry on her
daughter’s wrist.

“When the princess was walking around the
guests and approached the caliph,” Hasan explains, “he started to
work his magic on her. He wanted to kiss the princess’s hand, and
if he had touched her she would have been enchanted. To stop him, I
pretended I was picking up a bracelet the princess dropped.”

“Hasan threw himself between me and the
caliph, mother. He did not let the caliph touch me. I did not
understand what was happening. Hasan was crawling on the floor so
awkwardly—and you should have seen how dismayed the wicked caliph
was!”

“Nasty old man!” the sultaness exclaims
heartily, looking toward the door with newfound determination.
“Listen, princess. I will make the caliph leave sooner. But neither
your father, nor Prince Amir, will ever believe such a story. All
they know is that you were not feeling well at the feast, do you
understand? You are a big girl now, about to get married. It’s time
for you to learn to deceive men. A little lie and everyone is
happy. It’s the truth that can sometimes get you into trouble.”

The princess looks at her, not daring to
believe that she is hearing such words from her mother, and
understanding at the same time that the sultaness is trying hard to
make her life easier for her. Her entire being resists such a way
of dealing with the problem, but she has no energy to discuss it
now.

She turns her head again and meets Hasan’s
eyes, immediately forgetting her everyday problems, enjoying a new
feeling of closeness to the djinn—the special feeling of a secret
that binds them together.