Princess of Dhagabad, The (26 page)

The princess listens to him enchanted,
absorbed in the endless dance of the tiny tongue of flame.

“Why would anybody need to destroy such a
beautiful cult, Hasan?”

“The kings of Aeth, after the establishment
of their realm on the shores of Ghull, were suspicious of the cult
from the very beginning. The priestesses of the cult wielded too
much influence among the people.”

“Priestesses?” the princess asks, once again
remembering Zobeide.

“Like in the Cult of the Elements, only women
could serve this cult. And the Aethian kings didn’t like that at
all. Finally, King Amenankhor from the Eighth Dynasty ordered the
temple destroyed.”

“But you just said that the temple stands
even now!” The princess looks up, forgetting both her tiredness and
her flame.

“The people of the kingdom were unable to
move a single stone of the ancient walls, so instead of destroying
it the king ordered them to build a pyramid tomb around the temple,
the same kind of tomb that was traditionally built for important
members of the royal family. It was meant to symbolically bury the
ancient cult.”

“So, what did become of the temple,
Hasan?”

“The temple is still concealed inside one of
the pyramid tombs, princess. Unlike other tombs that usually have a
secret entrance left behind by the builders, this particular one
has solid walls on all four sides. The king believed that the giant
stone blocks would prevent evil from getting out.”

“I would so much like to see this temple,
Hasan!”

“Nothing could be easier, princess.”

“But it is almost nightfall now, and tomorrow
morning I have a riding lesson. I have so little time, Hasan!”

“Why don’t we go there after your lesson,
princess?”

“Why do I have to study all the time, Hasan?
I mean, I like riding—and history and philosophy are not bad,
either—but why do I have to learn needlework, for instance? I can
never become as good as Zulbagad, anyway!”

“I think your nannies are generally better at
answering this question than I am, princess.”

“Yes, I know: the future sultaness must know
everything that has to do with housekeeping. But I am so bad at it,
Hasan!”

Hasan smiles gently at her.

“Everyone is born for a certain destiny,
princess,” he says softly. “It is something that’s very hard to
change.”

“True,” the princess sadly agrees. “But
tomorrow we are going to see the temple, and no one can keep us
from doing that!” she adds with finality.

For a while they sit in silence, watching the
flame.

“Do you remember when I had that nightmare
and I asked you to stay with me?” the princess asks wistfully. She
remembers everything that happened that night and blushes, but the
dancing flame somehow absorbs her awkwardness, leaving only her
wish to share the details of her strange dream with Hasan.

“Of course I remember, princess.” The
princess feels in Hasan’s voice that he also remembers everything
that happened, no less than she does, and she feels herself blush
again.

“I often have the same dream,” she says.
“Only sometimes it is much more frightening than usual. I dream of
walking in a desert, but at the same time I know I am really
surrounded by an invisible garden. And there is an ancient
beautiful temple standing in the middle of the garden, a temple I
have to enter at any cost…” The princess stops, overwhelmed by
her memory.

Suddenly she feels a deadly stillness in the
room, as if Hasan has not only stopped moving, but breathing as
well, as if he has suddenly turned to stone and become one with the
wall he is leaning on.

“Hasan?” the princess calls. “What is the
matter, Hasan?”

“Please, go on, princess,” Hasan says, and
she hears in his voice something amazingly similar to a plea.

“The temple is beautiful, and at the same
time gloomy. And I know I would be able to enter it only when
something very important happens in my life. I also know very well
that the garden is there, but I am completely unable to see it. I
can see only the desert.”

She looks at Hasan again, overwhelmed by the
feeling of a strange significance in her words—as if she suddenly
sees a glimpse of a mystery, according to the expression on Hasan’s
face—so terrible that she would never dare ask him about it. The
princess shivers at the sight of his frozen gaze, in which she sees
the newly awakened pain like that she saw the moment they first
met. She feels as if something terrible is going to happen, as if
some evil, stirred by her words, will break loose and bring them to
some irreversible harm. Fighting through her terror, she calls out
to him:

“Are you listening to me, Hasan?”

You are listening to her, holding on to her
every word. And yet, at the same time, your thoughts are
transported to a great distance, to the long-forgotten past,
outside the world you know so well. How could this girl, who has
seen nothing of life, know of the endless desert? How could the
ancient mysterious temple possibly enter her dreams? How could this
sacred knowledge, open only to the wisest of the wise, touch her
mind? Where does she get this inner perception that allows her to
see the endless desert and the temple that reigns over its sands?
Perhaps there is another way of obtaining absolute knowledge, a way
undiscovered by any sages and scholars, a way that allows one to
become all-powerful without walking the path of wisdom. Perhaps
this young girl, with one step, can reach the stage that took you
millennia to attain. Perhaps very soon she will undergo the
terrible transformation.

But feeling with the depths of your being the
pureness of her childlike mind, the sharpness of her curiosity, and
her desire to learn as much as she can, you feel that her
mysterious involvement in the high secrets of eternity makes her
inaccessible to the suffering that you had to undergo. You feel
with your all-knowing mind that, in spite of her unusual vision, in
spite of her interest in everything new, in spite of all that you
share in common that brings the two of you so close together, she
will never be a djinn.

Suppressing the ancient pain now awake inside
you with a new force, seeing her confusion, and trying to reassure
her and calm her, you break out of the bonds of your terror and,
meeting her eyes, gently smile at her.

Chapter 15. The Sacred Dance

A sudden whirl grabs the princess, and the
palace walls disappear without a trace. Looking down, the princess
shuts her eyes for a moment and gets a firmer hold of Hasan’s arm.
They are flying in the air without any visible support. Right below
their feet, endless sands are shining an unbearable yellow under
the blazing desert sun. Straight ahead, the princess sees a rapidly
approaching line of green, with glimpses of water barely showing
through the leaves.

“Where are we, Hasan?” the princess yells
through the wind.

“There, ahead of us, is the Great River
Ghull, princess.”

Adjusting to the breathtakingly fast flight,
the princess finally finds enough courage to look around. The
riding lesson that ended only a few minutes ago seems to her now as
distant and unreal as a chapter in a book read in a hurry. She is
completely absorbed in the whistle of the wind in her ears that
brings the smells of the sun and the sands, in the endless open
space of the desert crossed by the wide, blue-green line of the
river and the thickets surrounding it. To the right, at the edge of
the line of green, she can see something that looks at first like a
rough spot on the smooth desert sand. Then the roughness shapes
itself into something resembling the castles that children build
out of sand. From where she is, the princess can see five big
castles and several small ones, scattered at their feet. Each
castle points at the sky with a sharp tip, flat surfaces running
down its four sides. Each castle casts a triangular shadow on the
sand, black as darkness itself.

“The pyramid tombs!” the princess exclaims.
“Hasan, I see the pyramid tombs!”

The stone giants appear to be slowly growing
as they approach. The princess can now see the rough spots etched
with time on the walls of the pyramids. Descending closer to the
ground, she also realizes that even the small pyramids at the feet
of the large ones could easily accommodate the al-Gulsulim mosque
in Dhagabad with all its domes and towers. As for the bigger
pyramids, from that distance she cannot even comprehend them as
something made by man.

The princess slowly flies down to the sand,
and for a second she feels as if in front of her, on the edge of
the desert, stretch a ridge of mountains and peaks of unusually
even, triangular shapes. She can now see about ten pyramid tombs
that, crowded together, shielding each other, seem to extend
endlessly into the desert.

“They are so big, Hasan,” the princess
whispers, holding the djinn tightly by the arm. “The smallest of
them is probably bigger that our palace.”

“Actually, they are not quite so big,
princess,” Hasan says, narrowing his eyes to observe the unusual
view with hidden satisfaction. “They were built to appear bigger
than they really are.”

“Which of them hides the Temple, Hasan? Or,
rather, let me guess by myself. I think it must be the biggest
one!”

“It would be too obvious to hide the temple
in the biggest one, princess. The king wanted to conceal it for the
ages to come.”

“In that case, is it the smallest one?”

“The smallest one would be also too obvious,
princess. It would be too easy to find.”

“They are so much alike, Hasan. And yet, they
are very different. I cannot even tell how they differ, but it
seems to me I would always be able to tell them apart.”

“First of all, they are slightly different in
size, princess. But King Amenankhor thought of that, too. He
ordered two identical pyramids built, one of which should have
served as a tomb for his younger brother, Ptahankhtep, and the
other—to bury the accursed temple.”

“Those two pyramids seem identical to me,
Hasan.”

“Only from the point where we stand,
princess. Actually, the identical pyramids are those two. They are
built some distance apart from each other in the group, so they
would be very hard to compare. At the same time, if you look for
two identical pyramids, sooner or later you are bound to find them.
Yet, even then, you wouldn’t be able to tell which pyramid you
should enter to find the temple—to say nothing of the difficulties
of entering a pyramid without any kind of a door.”

“Do all these precautions mean that there
were people who actually wanted to find the temple?”

“The Cult of the Dance had its followers,
princess. By no means everyone wanted to get rid of the old
temple.”

“How would we be able to reach the temple
through this desert, Hasan? It is so far from here…”

“Hold on to me, princess.”

Together with Hasan the princess takes a step
forward and cries out, covering her face with her hands. The wall
of the furthest pyramid rushes at her with such speed that it seems
as if, completing the step, she will smash herself against the
rock. But, carefully putting down her foot, she feels under the
sole of her sandal the rough grains of the dense sand that
surrounds the pyramids. Cool shade cast by their walls in the
setting sun surrounds her with soft dusk, so different from the
blazing yellow of the open desert they just left. Turning back, she
thinks she can see the place where they stood with Hasan, only
moments ago. From here it looks as if this place is right on the
edge of the thicket that runs along the shoreline. The princess
carefully exhales the air that, as she just realized, froze in her
lungs during that terrifying step.

“What was that, Hasan?” she asks with a
slightly trembling voice.

“I thought it would be faster this way.”

The princess hears a chuckle in his voice but
she has no energy to pursue that. Deep inside, along with fright,
she also feels like laughing. And more—a breathtaking desire to
repeat once again that headlong step, safely holding Hasan’s
hand.