Princess of Dhagabad, The (6 page)

They solemnly enter the hall, replying with
nods to the low bows of the courtiers. Through the parted crowd
that holds absolutely still, they walk to the platform at the end
of the hall where richly embroidered pillows are piled under the
royal canopy. While they take their places on the pillows and the
crowd rearranges itself for a ceremonial greeting, careful
observers can catch a glimpse of the plain truth: the sultan and
the sultaness are just as nervous as everyone else.

Amid the general tension the usual formula of
greeting acquires the two-dimensional solemnity of a slow court
dance.

“Chamar Ali, the great sultan of Dhagabad,
greets his subjects!”

Backs are bent for a moment and then, as if
obeying an invisible signal, straighten up into the next movement.
Arms slowly move to point forward and up, toward the canopy, and
the hall freezes in the new figure of the dance.

“May he live forever!”

And again everything starts to move. The
courtiers resume their conversations, throwing side glances at the
canopy, and the tension grows and grows. As the sultan finally
gives the long-awaited signal, as the Ghullian slaves with knots of
muscle rippling under their black skin carry the marble table
closer to the royal canopy and place a gold-embroidered pillow upon
it, as the slave women carefully set on the pillow the mysterious
bronze bottle, the silence of the hall becomes almost palpable. A
barely noticeable sign of relief accompanies the long-expected
words that sound clearly in the giant hall:

“The princess of Dhagabad!”

The tiny figure clad in shining white robes
solemnly walks into the hall. She is barely twelve, but no one
doubts that long before she comes of age she will surpass all the
legendary beauties Dhagabad has ever known. Her movements bring to
mind the awkward purity and pointed alertness of a purebred foal.
Her fine features, somewhat exaggerated in a girl, add to the
anticipation of her grown up beauty—her thin oval face; her crown
of black hair; her smooth skin, unusually white for the hot desert
climate; and her huge dark-blue eyes that both a poet and a simple
shop-keeper could compare only to the deep luster of precious
sapphires. On top of it all, the princess has the vivid sparkle of
sharp intelligence that gives her classic features a special inner
glow, making it clear beyond doubt that the princess of Dhagabad
has no match. And today in her birthday robes she is shining in the
palace ceremonial hall like a beautiful jewel. Watching in
transfixed admiration the movements of their young mistress—how
she first approaches her parents to accept their blessing, and
finally turns to the marble table—the spectators forget their
anxiety for a while.

The nannies and the slave women of the
princess’s suite stop a few paces short of the marble table,
allowing the princess alone to walk inside the ring of guards. The
princess slowly approaches the bottle. Her heart is beating so fast
she can barely gather enough strength to touch her treasure. She
looks at the mysterious carving on the ancient bronze, the sealing
wax with its signet imprint, and the notch where the snake’s curves
touch the leaves of the olive branch. As if in a dream she reaches
out to the bottle, feeling the familiar cold metal under her
fingers. Her hand runs up the smooth surface of the bronze to stop
right at the sealed opening of the bottleneck.

The princess throws a glance at the marble
table, noticing a golden dagger prudently set here, the dagger of
the kind used to cut paper and open letters. She tries to interrupt
the smooth movement of her fingers up the bottle, to break contact
with the ancient mysterious object, to take up the golden dagger so
conveniently prepared for her. But some strange force keeps her
hand sliding up the metal, in spite of her certainty that her thin
fingers will slip off the bottle without disturbing her
grandmother’s seal.

The cork pops out with the ease of a silk
shawl sliding through a smooth golden ring. The empty bottle neck
draws her eyes, a black opening into unknown depths. And from
inside this black abyss, slowly and lazily twisting and curling
into rings, rise wisps of white smoke. The smoke pours out of the
bottle, filling the center of the hall, flooding it with a heady
juniper smell. White clouds circle around, enfolding the princess,
creating a curtain that for a while separates the marble table and
the space surrounding it from the crowd of courtiers, frozen in
terrified stillness.

Suddenly the clouds disappear without a
trace, as if blown away by an immaterial wind.

The crowd gasps.

A man kneels before the princess!

His dark handsome face, strong muscular
figure, the feline grace of his courteous bow, and his white shirt
and dark pants of silk, could easily belong to a nobleman or a
traveling prince. But no jewels, embroideries, or other signs of
distinction mark his simple garments. His thick dark hair is cut
much shorter than is customary for the sons of noble families. His
feet are bare, which sharply contradicts the refinement of his
clothes. A whisper comes across the hall, and the courtiers stretch
their necks trying to have a better look at the mysterious
stranger. And then the stranger raises his arms, and everyone
immediately sees the sign of distinction they searched for. A fatal
sign. The wrists of the newcomer are clad in iron. The foreign
prince is a slave.

The stranger speaks, dismissing all doubts,
easily covering the murmur rising in the hall with his rich deep
voice.

“I am your slave, mistress.”

“Who are you?” the princess whispers in
bewilderment.

“My name is Hasan, mistress. I am a
djinn.”

You are all-powerful and the law of nature
forbids an all-powerful one to belong to himself. It would be too
dangerous for the world. Submitting to the forces that protect the
world from danger, you are doomed to become a slave at the very
moment you become all-powerful. You become a slave of a tiny
container, whose size and shape are determined the same way your
looks were determined at your birth. You die in the physical sense
but your spirit becomes immortal. And, for all the knowledge that
was granted to you in your life, you, imprisoned in your container,
are now doomed to bear the suffering, the joint suffering of body
and mind. This suffering gives birth to a new spirit, a spirit that
puts its ultimate power at peace with its imprisonment, a spirit
that belongs entirely to the container, just as the container can
entirely belong to anyone who is able to take possession of it.

The container that imprisons your spirit was
created in a desert that lies beyond the known world, the endless
desert that does not know time or space, where only the hot sands
under the rise and fall of the eternal sun form mountainous dunes
under the blasts of the merciless wind. You are doomed to remain
here, endlessly enduring your transformation, and submitting,
infinitely submitting… Only when you submit and surrender
completely may you return to the world you know, this time not as a
powerful wizard or as a mortal fool, but as an immortal spirit, a
slave of a container, able to create any miracle at the order of
any mortal, but not of your own will.

And when, among the blasts of wind and sand,
the burning needles that pierce you through, you are picked up by
the strong hand of a woman with a commanding posture—a woman that
appeared god knows how in this empty cruel desert—when she wraps
your container in a rough cloth, finally shielding you from your
tormentors, when she brings you to a cool room, with tinkling
fountains and giant, magnificently thick leaves rustling outside
the window, and removes the deeply set cork, so that in a moment
you are able to become one with the cool air and to unravel all the
giant power of your spirit, you fall to your knees at the feet of
this strange woman and, not wanting to notice the wicked lines
around her mouth, the greedy sparks in her dark impenetrable eyes,
you exclaim:

“
I am your slave, mistress!”

In bewilderment the princess studies the man
kneeling before her. Of course, she knows about djinns. Many of her
favorite books tell of those mighty slaves imprisoned in tiny
containers and destined to grant wishes to unfair and demanding
masters. She always wished that these mysterious creatures would
exist in real life. But she never thought that she would become the
owner of one of them! And now, looking at the man in front of
her—who doesn’t really differ in looks from any other palace slave
except, perhaps, in the simple elegance of his clothes and in some
special inner dignity—she doesn’t really know what to do.

“Rise, Hasan,” she whispers.

The djinn springs lightly up from the floor
and stands before her.

His movement breaks the enchanted stillness
of the crowd of courtiers. The hall erupts with activity; guards
grasp their weapons, searching for a sign from their captain who
stands close to the royal canopy; nannies step forward protectively
surrounding their ward. The sultaness speaks hotly to the sultan
among the increasing rumble of the courtiers. And the princess,
motionless amid all the bustle around her, has no strength to draw
her eyes from the face of her new slave.

The direct gaze of his quiet gray eyes sends
shivers through her body. She sinks into his eyes, as if falling
into an abyss, confronting depths of time she cannot comprehend.
She feels a wisdom many thousands of times greater than she could
ever comprehend. She shudders at the thought that this perfect
creature was forced to endure the imprisonment in the bronze
bottle, shaking from her memory of how stupidly she behaved around
the bottle, not knowing that he was inside and could most likely
see and hear everything that happened. At the same time, she feels
in the depths of her heart some disturbingly strange pleasure in
knowing that someone so perfect and wise belongs to her completely
and she can do anything she wants with him…

The last thought makes her blush with shame.
How can she think of commanding this ancient wizard, even in his
youthful shape? How dare she, looking into his eyes, overwhelmed by
their depth, think of her own wishes? How can she, standing near a
source of such power, even remember her own life? She knows nothing
about this creature that books describe as a spirit, an element, a
demon burdened by his slavery and thinking only of destroying the
world. But sinking with all her being, losing herself in his eyes,
she cannot find in them any evil thought or any desire for
destruction. Nor can she find any other feelings in them similar to
those usually called human emotions. Sinking deeper and deeper into
his eyes she sees nothing familiar, since her young mind has not
yet faced eternal wisdom and eternal pain.

You look into her dark-blue eyes, trying to
learn more about your new mistress, feeling with all your being
every one of her feelings, absorbing them, so that none of her
wishes will ever be surprising to you. Many times have you seen her
through the bronze of your container and you know everything there
is to know about her. And yet you have never looked her straight in
the eyes, never felt her shiver before your might, never tasted the
sweetness of her realization that she can rule you as she pleases,
and her burden of shame that this realization bears sweetness for
her…