Jabril Halabi

It was early summer, and the day had been oppressively humid. Now, evening breezes swept through the streets of Agrabah, lifting the aroma of cooking meat in the marketplace, drifting over the heads of sleeping children, and guttering the lamp flames in scholars' windows. The sweet scent of orange blossoms crept into the palace on playful zephyrs, meandering through the garden into a chamber where Sultan Talal Sayegh hosted an evening of public discussion.

 

A comfortable, spreading man in his sixties, Talal had mastered the art of mixing business with pleasure.

 

Around a large carpet, under the dusky glow of iron chandeliers, he and twenty-four of his advisers, diplomats, and financial managers lounged on couches, making a low din of conversation. Talal had arranged for coffee and sweet tea on small tables, and for dishes of rice, lamb, aubergine and other vegetables. He thoughtfully held audience in this hall, where access to the garden through the loggia allowed drowsy guests to carry their conversations on a walk, and to refresh themselves in the night breeze.  Purple vistas of the glittering city, as well as the pervasive fragrance of flowers and shisha smoke, charmed the night.

 

Well, let it never be said that Talal Sayegh lacked style.

 

Yes, he had set up rather an elegant fortnightly ritual in this hall, and these nights pleased his heart as well as his ego. Each of Talal's ministers, while they happily enjoyed conversation with colleagues, also vied for the chance to educate and impress their sultan (whether all of them received this boon by the end of the night was another matter entirely). Talal basked in the glow of their regard, and mulled over the new information they provided him from each department of his administration. A skinny young scribe, seated cross-legged at a small mint-green writing desk behind the sultan, took down volumes with his reed pen.

 

Talal had even taken the liberty of inviting a philosopher, a humorist, and a mathematician to these discussion evenings, just to add some spice.

 

Some men discreetly turned away from the mathematician's and philosopher's abstruse musings. Others, however, genuinely enjoyed the intellectual challenge of listening. Talal, for his part, really liked it when the humorist teased him.

 

Not all members of Talal's senior staff were quite so jolly during these discussion evenings. It was no secret that the sultan was self-indulgently fickle about his conversation partners, and the list of people he invited into his salon had little to do with his true preferences. It's just that he thought it was a crying shame to discuss sordid matters of shekels and dinari on such lovely nights like this.

 

Most of Talal's financial men were forced to compete for his attention, many times spending several hours in the sultan's hall, waiting for a chance to speak to him... that might never come. Many of these men commiserated over coffee about this ignominious and inefficient state of affairs, but they eventually passed off Talal's eccentricity as a symptom of his advanced age, and went back to work.

 

Jabril Halabi was not like these men.

 

On his way to fourty years old, Jabril was bald on the top of his head, with an expanding paunch and protuberant brown eyes. He sagged resignedly into the couch's depths, and his cheek rested in his palm. Circles hung under his eyes, as if someone had pressed two large coins into the padded flesh. He looked mournful, like a genie forced to fetch water and vegetables when in one finger he knew he had the power to split apart the earth.

 

Jabril was manager of the army accounts, and son of Talal's greatest warrior, Saddaq Halabi... but Jabril could earn a nice sum, betting against the likelihood that the sultan would speak to him tonight.

 

Not that Jabril made bets, oh no. Saddaq had modeled for him a standard of "clean" behavior, which was rivaled in its stringency only by its self-conciousness. "Bad habits blacken the soul," he had advised his son, when warning him against 'the petty vices'.

 

Now approaching middle age, Jabril still occasionally wondered if there were crimes other than 'petty' that might blacken the soul...

 

But philosophy had always exhausted Jabril after only a few pages, so these moral inquiries never nettled him for long.

 

It had been twenty-five years since General Saddaq Halabi had claimed Ahsa Asmara for the sultan. That small settlement, which had by now become a small city, lay on the nearest edge of the mysterious, forbidding region known across the deserts as "The Land of the Black Sand". In Agrabah, Saddaq's victory had put his name on everybody's lips. Everyone spoke glowingly of the Halabi family and predicted a grand future for Saddaq's young son. Indeed, Jabril had experienced no trouble winning associates and constructing robust professional networks within the palace; this, even after an intractable leg injury drew his father away from public life.

 

Unfortunately, favor with the sultan was largely dependent on Talal's caprices, and one could not earn special privileges simply by having a famous father and performing diligent, antisocial ledger labor. As time went by, Jabril began to perceive that his trajectory had... plateaued.

 

He found himself nights at his accountant's desk with the tip of his reed pen mid-stroke on the ledger, as he reflected on Talal's blithe disregard for him. Jabril could not help but compare it with the bounty of Agrabah's love that had enfolded his muscular, full-bearded father, following the man's grand penetration of the Land of the Black Sand.

 

Slamming shut the ledger and resolutely putting away his pen, Jabril usually fled from these thoughts as he strode briskly home through the cool night, clutching at his chest as coffee-and-sweets-induced inflammation mingled with irritants of an emotional variety.

 

Jabril convinced himself that, in his career, he had somehow done something wrong... somehow missed a crucial step.

 

But all of that was changing, tonight.

 

Jabril had been attempting to pass the time making formulaic small talk with the manager of land taxation, but they had now run out of topics. Jabril's colleague turned to chat up his other neighbor, and though this sort of behavior usually offended Jabril, he used the opportunity tonight to take account of the time. When he had mentally reckoned how much had passed since he'd entered the sultan's chamber, his body tautened with a thrill. This night would end extraordinarily – he knew, he'd been there in the planning stages – and its conclusion was, oh, so near.

 

All that was required now was a bit of patience, and Jabril was well-practiced at performing that virtue.

 

A small hexagonal wooden table stood at the accountant's feet, and on it, a coffee pot glinted in the candle-dimness of the hall. Jabril had a small copper demitasse, and he leant to fill it, attempting to relax by inhaling the scent of the cardamom. He decided to see how Maziyar and Adhemar Anvari - Talal's ambassadors to Ramahdiya and Iznikora, respectively - were comporting themselves in this tense game of waiting.

 

Across the hall, Adhemar perched on the edge of his couch in the exact attitude of a famous sculpted thinker, listening to Talal's ambassador to Agios Varvaros pronounce and gesticulate from plump recumbence. Though Adhemar was quite tall, he moved about quietly and unobtrusively, like a widow at market. His seal-brown facial hair and large, limpid brown eyes resembled those of a small, bearded dog, members of whose breed Jabril had seen in diplomatic entourages from the northeastern kingdoms.

 

Though a cool-tempered observer might have described Adhemar's appearance as guileless, and found it endearing, Jabril wasn't fooled.

 

He plays at humility quite well, doesn't he? Jabril inwardly sneered. His memories of Adhemar's past clevernesses raced towards him like a wave, breaking over him repeatedly. Jabril resented the man for his cool intelligence. He decided that the ambassador must be listening intently to a dense exposition on the state of Varvaran politics, architecture, and oh, probably mathematics too.

 

An objective, cool-tempered observer would find that Adhemar's face was not characterized by the proud, open mouth of the lecturer. It was not volubility by which Adhemar inspired dislike; on the contrary, he disconcerted Jabril (among several others, in fact) with his parsimony of speech, and his tendency toward spells of thick-knitted-brow-and-carpet-calligraphy-staring as his mind eagerly chased comprehension. His predilection for unceasing private analysis and his calculatedly noncommittal half-smirks convinced Jabril that there was a small kernel of evil in the diplomat: one that fed gleefully on the social blunders of other men.

 

The accountant had shared these thoughts many times with Adhemar's handsome, charismatic, younger brother, Maziyar, with whom Jabril had for years been developing a workable - if not exactly easy - rapport. Maziyar smiled on Jabril's musings, and the accountant believed these smiles were borne of sympathy.

 

At this moment, in his current attitude of pupil to the Varvaran ambassador, Adhemar's back was turned sharply on Maziyar. The younger Anvari brother sat with the posture of a king, cool in a long straight black abaya buttoning at the neck, idly tapping his armrest. Garnets glinted at his knuckles, and his imperious gaze swept the hall. Wisps of silver would inevitably begin threading themselves through Maziyar's generous black curls, but - if you cornered him on the subject - Jabril would fondly predict the ambassador would only look better, the lucky jackal.

 

Maziyar had accumulated many admirers over the years, and Jabril was not least among them. As adolescents in the government school, the pair had frequently shared a study table, where Jabril had made the most queries and Maziyar had offered the most suggestions.  His charm always managed to soften any condescension that slipped from his laughing eyes and sensuous lips.

 

By contrast, Adhemar had studied alone, and longer, which earned him the habitual coldness of the two younger men. 

 

As Adhemar continued to nod his head during the Varvaran diplomat's monologue, Maziyar smiled knowingly. Jabril perceived that his friend was amused by Adhemar's intellectual foraging. The accountant felt comforted that he wasn't the only one who could see through the humble deceiver.

 

An objective, cool-tempered observer would have noticed by now that Adhemar was not actually deep in thought, but rather, was growing weary from the Varvaran diplomat's pet discourse on the preparation of yoghurt.

 

It has perhaps been established by now that it was precisely an objective, cool-tempered observer that Jabril was not.

 

The accountant leant forward on his plump elbow in order to check up on nine other men out of the twenty-five in attendance tonight. Each of said nine was around Jabril's age, provided reasonably warm company, and had recently professed loyalty to him. He knew he had Agrabah's cultural memory of Saddaq to thank for that, and he had made peace with this debt he owed to his father. Tonight, Jabril would pay it off.

 

The accountant looked forward to his friendships with these nine men growing much more comfortable in the coming years. He was pleased to see each appropriately wracked with nerves, like they should be, tonight, the accountant thought.  He mentally chastised Adhemar for his smooth, imperturbable front.  Some people have no sense of the seriousness of a situation...

 

As each of the nine returned scared glances to the son of Saddaq Halabi, Jabril relaxed back in the couch, satisfied.

 

Only about an hour more, now.

 

As he waited for the evening's close, when he would make the first great chess move of his life, Jabril dwelt on pleasant thoughts of the grand future his own son, Hamed, would enjoy.

A Man Called Destane

A week before the sultan's salon, Malakeh Anvari - that woman of high, fine features - woke from her afternoon sleep. This was a summertime ritual for all those who lived in the Seven Deserts. Across her bedroom wall, the sunlight fell, deepening through orange into scarlet. She looked to her side, and found she was alone in her bed. Maziyar had gone, and Malakeh remembered why. Her stomach sickened.

 

He had gone out because of her, and because of what she had suggested he do. Malakeh feared he would not come back... though she had not shared this with her husband.

 

Even in the summer heat, as she drew on an elegant, violet caftan, Malakeh felt very cold.

 

She flowed to her children's bedroom, and shook her boys, Mehrzad and Hadi, awake. She left her infant daughter, Aleia, for the maidservant to feed later. Strange how waiting for calamity is so quiet and so ordinary, she thought, bitterly.

 

The young servant now sat in the internal courtyard, chewing her meal, a sheen of sweat on her face. She had thrown open the blue, wooden shutters of Maziyar's house, allowing the smell of cooking to waft in from other houses. She had set the Anvari's low, sandalwood table with a large bronze platter of saffron rice, grilled lamb, and vegetables.

 

Malakeh knelt wordlessly with her sons around the maid's handiwork. She looked at the boys: her eldest, clever Mehrzad, at six, and little Hadi, at four, so eager to please. Maziyar's sons; his heirs, meant to grow up in his image, with his guidance. Malakeh was putting it all on the line... everything she and her husband were working for. It was a risk they had to take... she just hoped it was worth it.

 

"Is Dad already working again?" Mehrzad inquired, his face falling. "I know two verses of the poem now. I wanted to do it for him..."

 

Malakeh looked at her son, and over her eyes, whose shape a jeweler could have cut, was cast a cloud of concern.

 

"Perhaps tomorrow, Mehrzad... if tomorrow comes. Just eat now."

 

The boy looked at her oddly, before starting into his meal.

 

Meanwhile, the marketplace was just starting to fill up again. The luxurious, post-sleep calm hung about like a blanket around the shoulders. There was only a trickle of merchant chatter in the usually hive-like marketplace. Three hooded figures secreted through twisting streets, past green displays of fruit, colorful folded fabrics, and profusions of bronze lanterns with jewel-red and -green glass panes.

 

Merchants ignored the figures – one heavy one in white, two slimmer ones in dark gray – once it was clear they weren't shopping. The figures passed the coffeehouse, with its large fir wood lattice window, and the inviting smell of a fresh brew drifting through the arched doorway. Shops became fewer and fewer as they walked, before they found their junction.

 

Just before the three turned into a little alley, where sand piled up in the cracks and corners, they passed a lean man relaxing in a carved chair in the shade of an awning. The man was in his 40's, with wiry, pepper-and-salt stubble. He watched the sun slide by, and listened to younger merchants laughing and talking and agonizing about things that didn't matter. In the dark of his shop behind him, stout clay pots full of plants and powders lined the walls, and clusters of roots and bulbs hung from the ceiling. Sometimes, male clients joined him in a back room, where the man took out a collection of smooth, brightly hued stones, and arranged them in inscrutable patterns over the client's bare chest, while cedar wood burned in a small bowl.

 

The man noted the mysterious threesome: how they slunk by, keeping their features vague, and how they turned the corner with clearly only one destination in mind.

 

The man sighed, and got out of his chair to see how his neighbor received the three men.

 

Before a pale, sand-blasted wooden door in a sagging structure of pocked plaster, the three appeared to debate among themselves – perhaps about the merit of their pursuit, the older man thought – before one of the men in gray stepped forward, raised a hand glinting with garnet rings, and rapped on the door. An insolent silence followed his entreaty. Irritated, the man in gray brought his knuckles to the wood once again and rapped harder. Still, no one answered him.

 

The shopkeeper chose to speak up, suggesting they try the public house. The three turned sharply, studying him with narrowed gaze, but he merely shrugged and said, "He often goes there," before returning to his chair, thinking he would let them get on with the inevitable. The three swept by without sparing him a glance, and the old man wondered, with rapidly waning interest, how his disreputable neighbor would toy with the foolish three.

 

There was a public house a short walk hence. The man with the rings led them down a narrow, dusty stone stairwell, the temperature dropping perceptibly as they went. He pulled aside a curtain, revealing a dim, womb-like haunt. A few brass lamps glowed above a man preparing concoctions. The odor offended the heavy man's abstinent sensibilities, ground into him by force of pious, manly father. From a sea of narrow, octagonal wood tables winked the light of candles, making silhouettes of their hunched, shady occupants.

 

With a little thrill, the heavy man marveled that this was what dissipation looked like. Lone men nursed drinks and scads of friends chatted, while one pair played chess with goblets placed nearby. The noise was all enveloping. The second man in gray whispered, from under a large brown moustache, to his companions: "This is suitably private."

 

They wound their way through the morass, scanning faces, until the man with rings suddenly drew their attention to a single figure in a cobwebbed corner, who brooded over his own cup, beyond the flicker of a single oil lamp.

 

"That's him?" Jabril scoffed under his breath.

 

"Oh, surely not," Adhemar murmured. "He's dreadfully young for his reputation."

 

Maziyar was already striding towards the man's table.

 

The man at the table was perhaps in his late twenties, was lean, and had a short bob of black hair slightly wild from years of running hands through it. He clasped a goblet, intensely studying its embossed patterns. His brown eyes were sharp and angular. His V-shaped jaw, and the pained, wry smirk cleaving it might have been cut from glass. Maziyar put his hands in front of him, pressing his fingertips into the tabletop. The young man slowly lifted his head, and any irritation he might have expressed, dissembled into livid shock as soon as he saw Maziyar's face.

 

The young man looked away quickly, gathering his thoughts. A smile curled the corners of his mouth.

 

Jabril was confused. Adhemar was disturbed. He took hold of his younger brother's arm, but Maziyar jerked it free. He wouldn't be derailed from his task. He began the way he had planned to: "You are the magician known as... 'Destane', correct?"

 

"Yes, yes, I am," the smug young man answered, in a daze of happiness. "And how may I help you?"

 

Maziyar paused. "I'm sorry," he said. "Do you know me? Because I don't know you."

 

"No, of course you wouldn't," replied Destane, laughing softly at some private joke. By way of explanation, he added, quickly, "But a sorceror must travel, and be acquainted with different cultures. I've read some of your writings on Ramadiya,... and, yes, yes, it was you who I believe I saw in the archive one day."

 

"Ah," commented Maziyar, still a bit confused, but unmistakably flattered.

 

Adhemar still watched Destane carefully, searching for conclusive evidence of dishonesty.

 

"I would like proof that you are who you say you are," Jabril interrupted.

 

"You would, would you?" Destane inquired, accepting the challenge. With a flourish, he reached for the oil lamp, his right hand suddenly gloved. He grinned manically at the three, and pressed his finger to the lamp's bumpy metal surface.

 

The small flame leaped monstrously into a large undulating blade of white light, edges glowing blue. Maziyar and his company shied away from the sudden wave of heat. Smirking, Destane removed his finger. The flame extinguished, then reignited once again at an ordinary size. Destane repossessed his goblet, the glove blinking out of existence as he did so. The three government men were speechless.

 

Adhemar noted a thin odor, reminiscent of a humid reptile house. He observed that this was not the smell of burning lamp oil. On his travels far from Agrabah in service as Talal's ambassador, he had heard stories told of magic and its practitioners, but no one had ever hinted that you could smell magic! Despite himself, Adhemar was fascinated. He wondered if all sorcerors were forced to work enveloped by such a fetid stench, or if this was only intrinsic to Destane's magic? Unfortunately, the sorceror cut short Adhemar's excited reverie.

 

"Now," said Destane, all business. He took a swig from his goblet. "Have a seat."

 

Admiration evident on his face, Jabril seated himself, and Maziyar followed, looking quite pleased. At last deciding to humor Destane, Adhemar elegantly folded himself into the third seat.

 

Destane began: "Why have you come to me, today?"

 

Maziyar half-turned, and murmured to Adhemar and Jabril, "He'd do nicely. Don't you think?"

 

"Yes, I probably would," Destane responded impatiently, before either Adhemar or Jabril could comment. "What is it you want?"

 

Jabril issued him a further challenge. "We serve the sultan, and we'd like to change that arrangement," he said, his crescent-moon eyebrows climbing high on his forehead.

 

Destane's face split in a cunning smile.

 

"You've come to the right place," he said. His voice crept smoothly, like a cat, rising to preen coyly. "Not only do I have the capabilities you seek, I also couldn't care less who has the throne of Agrabah. So I will gladly help you reorder things. With whom do you intend to replace Talal Sayegh?"

 

Maziyar dropped one beringed hand on Jabril's ample shoulder, while he placed the other over his heart (privately, Adhemar found this gesture a mite too theatrical, but sufficient). Maziyar inclined his head, and pronounced, "Our dear friend, Jabril ibn Saddaq Halabi, son of the great war hero who conquered the Land of the Black Sand."

 

Jabril smiled with pleasure, before Destane scoffed. The heavy man's round eyes bulged, before narrowing dangerously.

 

Destane laughed until he saw Jabril's expression, then began waving his hands like white flags. "Oh-, no-" he managed, gasping with laughter. "I meant no disrespect; I'm sure you're quite worthy."

 

Jabril was not comforted.

 

"What I find amusing," the sorcerer clarified, waving a trembling index finger, "is your characterization of the Land of the Black Sand as 'conquered'. Yes, Ahsa Asmara answers only to Agrabah, but one outpost on the edge of that region does not qualify as mastery over the strange, wonderful creatures and alien peoples that I'm sure must live there."

 

The sorcerer's index finger folded, and for a moment, he was transported. Then he shook his head in disappointment, spitting: "So like a bureaucrat to exaggerate for his master, and peddle lies unquestioningly."

 

A muscle twitched in Maziyar's cheek. He'd just been getting to like this young man... Adhemar rolled his eyes, and laid a hand on his brother's arm. Maziyar reluctantly stilled.

 

Adhemar smoothed over Destane's jab with, "Well, perhaps when your initial work for us is done, we will contract your services as an official ethnographer for the new regime…" He turned to Jabril and added, "…with the sultan's blessing, of course."

 

"Mmmm, yes… that reminds me," Destane began, drumming his fingers on the table. "What were you planning on offering me for making Jabril the sultan?"

 

Maziyar started, and again, Adhemar touched his arm. Maziyar's coffee-black eyes flashed resentfully at his older brother. Adhemar only nodded in the direction of Jabril. "The sultan himself should be the font of beneficence," he advised. "What do you suggest, Jabril?"

 

Jabril, not yet the master of great wealth and unused to giving out large, extravagant gifts, realized uncomfortably that he had no inkling of the wide world of property, treasure, or eligible women that he might give to pacify Destane.

 

"Why don't you make the opening bid?" he asked the sorcerer, attempting to disguise the uncertainty in his voice.

 

The magician shut his eyes, smiling beatifically. He savored the moment, before launching into his petition, and it seemed as though he'd been waiting years to make it.

 

"In Ahsa Asmara, I would like a secluded, well-appointed retreat where I may live in comfort and do my research. I know exactly where such a property may be found, but the problem is... it's already occupied. Perhaps after you claim the sultanate, you can 'change that arrangement' for me?"

 

Maziyar affirmed, "Simple enough," and Adhemar just looked at him. Adhemar amended it with, "If you wish it, Jabril, my brother and I will work out a deal with the current tenants of this property of which the sorceror speaks. They will surely appreciate our obligation to reward Destane exceptionally."

 

Jabril nodded, feeling secure in the competence of the brothers Anvari, and marveling at how non-perverse the gift seemed. Aside from indulgence in alcohol, Destane seemed unexpectedly free of the petty vices. Out of curiosity, Jabril prodded, "You don't desire a large sum in gold and jewels? Are there no women you fancy?"

 

Adhemar said nothing, but looked away, annoyed that Jabril was offering more. But the sorcerer merely shook his head, and took a swig from his goblet.

 

"I won't need gold. With any servants I hire, I plan to use a different bargaining chip."

 

The three stared at him.

 

Destane feigned affront, his hand flying to his heart. "You three are filthy. Nothing so sordid as that."

 

"And women?" Jabril prompted, eager to corner the magician.

 

A strange bitterness infused Destane's face. He drank deeply, and for some reason, shot a distasteful look at Maziyar.

 

Destane's voice was flat, and grim. "My life experience has taught me that the helpless, indolent women you might proffer me tend to leave a bad taste in my mouth..."

 

Smiling impishly at Jabril, he added, "...and I do mean that literally."

 

Jabril made a scandalized sound. Adhemar looked away, blushing, and Maziyar gave Destane a pained look (though he privately wondered if Malakeh might be amenable to certain things).

 

"Well, I suppose now we know what sort of man you are, Destane," Jabril concluded smugly.

 

"Right," Maziyar sternly interjected, shifting uncomfortably in his seat (Adhemar rolled his eyes). "Back to business, if you please. Now, in a week, the sultan will be holding audience in his summer reception hall. We can arrange your presence as entertainment; no one will question this. While your reputation is dubious in some neighborhoods, most men groomed from youth for government work will not have heard the rumors."

 

"That's correct. You've certainly done your homework! You must have had quite a good source..." Destane teased.

 

Adhemar interrupted with something he felt was important: "What exactly do you intend to do with Talal and his men?"

 

"I will rid you of any men you specify," Destane answered easily.

 

"Yes, but in what manner?"

 

"Don't tell me you don't want to be surprised?" the magician wheedled.

 

Adhemar gave him a severe look.

 

"Oh, fine. I've got a special way of offing people that might not disturb your stomach. It renders the victim dormant, though not quite dead. I'll offer you a choice: either I can immediately refashion the victims' memories according to your specifications, allowing you to literally reorder the hierarchy, with none of your victims the wiser, or - if you wish it - I can waste no more time and dispose of them permanently."

 

Adhemar raised his eyebrows, finding this proposition quite reasonable, and feeling relieved that they could approach this in a non-violent manner. He opened his mouth to exclaim, happily, that the choice was simple, when Maziyar touched his arm.

 

Bewildered, Adhemar looked at his brother, who gazed on him smugly, his black eyes glittering with mirth. Adhemar knew his brother was being petty, but he was more annoyed that in an instance when Maziyar agreeably practiced deference to Jabril, the balance was swinging between civilized and warlike behavior.

 

He turned from his brother in disgust, and murmured to Jabril, "I'm sure you'll make the right choice."

 

Jabril swallowed nervously, as such an enormous responsibility lowered onto his shoulders. He nodded, and declared that he would state his choice in a week, after Destane had incapacitated Talal's court.

 

Suddenly, though, he found himself perplexed.  He narrowed his eyes at Destane. 

 

"Wait a minute... if you have this power to remove those who block your ambitions, then why haven't you taken this 'citadel' in Ahsa Asmara already?"

 

Destane smiled proudly.  "Ah, you're more intelligent than you look, I see... Well, Ahsa Asmara is... protected... from marauders and magicians by a very unique device..."

 

Adhemar nodded, as in the past he happened to have informed himself about the city, in lieu of traveling to it.  "Explicit permission from the governor is requisite for entry."

 

"That's right," Destane agreed.  "Those who attempt to enter without such permission are never successful.  Moreover, they are punished... severely."

 

Jabril tilted his crescent moon brows higher, in disbelief.  "No one is successful?  Not even you, with all your power?" 

 

Destane shook his head.  "Especially not me, with all my power."

 

Jabril folded his plump arms, and leaned back in his chair, satisfied.  "You truly need us, then."

 

Destane, shut his eyes, repressing the urge to hurl a barbed retort, and ground out: "That I do."

 

The three government men rose from the table. 

 

"Serve us faithfully, and we will get you what you desire," Jabril assured the sorcerer. 

 

With that, he joined his companions as they ascended to the nighttime street to return to their families.

Destane's Entertainment (Part 1)

 As Talal's discussion evening wore on, the sultan visibly wearied. His thoughts drifted, and his smiles grew more forced. After allowing his current conversation partner to say his piece, he cleared away in that moment as many as possible of the man's concerns, and bade his scribe take notes on the rest. Then he signaled two guards to herd out the lesser privileged of his associates.

 

Talal noted with mild curiosity that the two men were not the usual guards employed for this duty… but he brushed it off, assuming illness.

 

The guards ushered out precisely twelve men, including Jabril, Maziyar, and Adhemar. After carefully shutting and locking the double doors, the guards looked to Maziyar for guidance. Maziyar merely nodded, and they took up their posts guarding the doors from the outside.  Jabril, Maziyar, and Adhemar led their nine co-conspirators around to access the loggia.

      Through the arches, the full moon in starry blue firmament threw a long line of pure white half-discs along the floor, complemented by treacherously deep shadow. Through the dark, the men crept along silently, until they could peer into the room they had just exited.  There, they could see Destane standing in the middle of the large rug, bowing before the distinguished company.

 

Under the dim glow of chandeliers, his features were handsome, darkly sketched as under an artist's hand. He had assembled the grandest costume he could muster.  In a blue, utilitarian tunic, with his black trousers tucked into the tops of his curled brown boots, he already appeared competent and agile; but now he had acquired a fitted black satin blouse to wear under the tunic. He gestured widely, like a master of ceremonies, and the folds shimmered fantastically. Upping the ante, he'd giddily tied a wine-red sash about his waist and grabbed a big burgundy cape from his magician's closet. He made himself regal by donning a dark blue turban adorned with a garnet and black ostrich feather. All conspirators were breathless with admiration.

     Destane's leather glove was again on his arm; somewhat marring the effect, but Destane never fully sacrificed function for fashion. Though their co-conspirators held no presumptions about the gauntlet, having not seen what Destane could do with it, Maziyar and Adhemar kept their eyes pinned to Destane's weapon.

     "Your honorable selves! Great Sultan and assembled men," Destane began. "A panoply of visions awaits you! I call myself Destane, and I can see farther and deeper, and I can spin whimsies more fantastical, than any amateur magician you have likely encountered before."

     The Varvaran ambassador, who had been allowed to stay in honor of his close friendship with Talal, scoffed, "Prove it!"

     Destane's angular eyes narrowed as he sensed yet another dig from an aging, landed gentleman at his supposed inexperience. He would enjoy delivering them their fate a great deal more now. He took a steadying breath, and began to support his boast.

       He inquired casually, "Well, I suppose then this means you have already seen the likes of… fire-breathers?"

 

  He turned over his gauntleted right hand and suddenly appeared to palm a stone-gray oil lamp.

 

  This began to earn him the men's attention, and he saw many grimaces as he brought the long spout to his lips. From his hiding place in the shadows of the loggia, Jabril sickened to see the sorcerer's Adam's apple bob as the liquid poured down his throat. Destane grinned at his official spectators, and wiped his lips with the back of his bare hand, before opening his mouth wide and expelling a roaring flame that raced around the hall and traced calligraphic patterns among the bronze chandeliers. The long fiery curves twined and intertwined and unwound and eventually streamed back to Destane, who swallowed it all in one big gulp.

       Absurdly, he then requested a drink of water. His joke was well received, and Talal's grand vizier gladly raised his cup in offering. He gasped as the goblet slipped of its own accord from his grasp and hurtled across the hall. Destane caught it by the stem and drank, to great applause. Over the rim, he stole a glance at the Varvaran ambassador, who, he was gratified to see, sat with arms folded, watching the sorcerer with interest.

       Next, he removed the cape from his shoulders and folded it neatly, depositing it on a tea table. His hands went to his waist, and he began unwinding… two sashes?

 

  "I presume that you frequently receive visitors from the Far East," he said to the room. "So, you mustn't be ignorant of their magnificent, pearl-hunting leviathans."

       A murmur – first of confusion, then of dawning comprehension and electric anticipation – swept across the room.

 

   Adhemar thrilled at what Destane had hinted, and he squinted at the sorcerer's hands to watch the details.

 

  Garnet-colored sashes extending from his arms like extraordinarily long sleeves, Destane turned smoothly, trailing the sashes and wheeling them in huge loops, affecting an unmistakable dance typically performed by women.

  

  When his hips appeared to sway, there were nervous, unkind titters among his official spectators and doubtful looks exchanged among the conspirators. Maziyar smirked when Jabril averted his eyes, and it is unclear whether or not Adhemar noticed (though he might have blushed if he had). Destane ignored them all.

 

   In his gloved hand, the shimmering fabric thickened and began forming into a long scaly tube. A face with the geniality of a dog formed out of the end. As he completed the transfiguration, Destane held the second sash limp and allowed the creature to grab it with his teeth, which catalyzed the second sash's transformation. Two long, snake-like ruby dragons squirmed free of Destane's grasp, inadvertently swatting him away.

       Destane picked up a pair of copper teacups and enclosed them, one after the other, in his gloved palm. Unfolding his fingers, he revealed two pearls the same size as the cups. They glowed with a faint turquoise aura, as he placed an additional enchantment on them. Then Destane tossed the pearls.

 

   In the dim chamber, the pearls hung in midair, catching the golden glow from the lamps overhead. The dragons suddenly ceased chasing each other's tail, and in large undulating S-curves, rippled through the air after the will o' the wisps. Destane's audience gasped with pleasure as they craned their necks to watch candle-glow on glistening red scales and magical pearls. Then, just as the dragons were about to chomp down on their quarries, each pearl split four ways, and each of those split two ways, into 16 firefly pearls!

        Each dragon whirled about wildly, imminent success having been neatly snatched away. As if to huddle and strategize, the creatures flowed close to one another and appeared to intertwine, before it was clear that each smoothly redistributed its anatomy into four smaller dragons the size of bonsai trees, each of which then redistributed into two dragons small enough to curl up on the rim of a coffee cup. The hall was a flurry of red fairies clamoring for the spiraling gold pearls.

 

     When he'd had enough of the chaos, Destane snapped his gauntleted fingers, and the pearls froze in midair, before dropping into goblets and teacups. Predictably, the dragons dived after them, and there was a chorus of electric sizzles, followed by wisps of steam rising from the vessels. Several men leant over tentatively to inspect the drinks, and they saw the liquid, originally with an aspect of either amber or hematite, turn a lurid turquoise.

          Destane urged them to drink, and took a few swigs to encourage them.

        Some men, including the Varvaran ambassador, muttered about the unnatural color. Another whispered, "Nothing edible looks like that." However, some were rather more swayed by a childlike curiosity, and drank. The grand vizier – seated by Talal – compared notes with him. The vizier felt it tasted mostly of licorice and fennel, while Talal – seeing that his advisor drank the liquid and was not harmed – took a few sips and identified a spicy orange.

        Destane continued his boast. "Now, if all of this is old hat, then maybe you have also seen that most wondrous of wonders, a magic carpet?"

Destane's Entertainment (Part 2)

For this, the sorcerer retrieved his velvet cape from the tea table.  He rolled it into a tube between his fingers. A moment passed, and Destane snapped it open, unfurling a vision of wine-red fantastically embroidered with black and gold thread. He cocked an eyebrow at the sultan, and extended his bare hand in invitation.

 

Talal and his vizier exchanged significant looks. The sultan quietly self-deprecated about his age.  The vizier laid a reassuring hand on Talal's arm, before rising to step forward in his place.

 

Seeing this, Destane shrugged. "Have it your way, then. Shame to miss out."

 

The grand vizier, with a dark gray pointed beard and simple black caftan, was ten years younger than Talal and significantly more spry. He lowered himself into a sitting position on the carpet Destane had laid out. The sorcerer bent and trailed gauntleted fingers along the edge of the carpet.  The vizier could not keep himself from grinning, as the surface beneath him slowly undulated and lifted a foot off the ground.

 

Destane turned his right wrist, and in doing so, he cloaked from view the men in the loggia.  Then he looked down on the carpet, miming its undulation with his gloved fingers. The vizier on his magical transport sailed off through the arches, past shadowy conspirators, over the darkened gardens, and he soon was flying over a sea of lamplights.

 

The squat, domed government school and the towers of the university and observatory glittered with the lights of late-night adherents. They stood taller than the myriad houses of people and houses of commerce, like rocks sticking up out of the ocean. The river resembled a floating island of thick, dark ocean weed. Some few lights blinked from boats drifting along, like strange creatures from the deep, with a glow embedded in their skins. The steep hills around Agrabah seemed like distant shores, enticing the explorer to see if the mystery of those still, grand, moon-washed dunes beyond was intriguing enough to risk encountering snakes, marauders, or the elemental power of sandstorms.

 

The breeze whipped through the vizier's hair, and whisked away his striped turban.  He decided not to care; he felt like a child again. He stretched out on his stomach and folded his arms over the edge of the carpet. He gazed down upon his city appreciatively, thinking about how long he had served and how long he had gone without ever seeing it like this. He thought it extraordinary that an ordinary man such as himself could watch from above, like a free, incorporeal spirit. What a rare, unexpected gift this was!

 

He thought vaguely that he must give Talal a somewhat tempered report, so as not to disappoint him for missing out. But the vizier felt annoyed that such a disappointing, practical notion should occur to him in the midst of an experience gifted him by a man who seemed to wield the powers of heaven. It further occurred to him that one ought to be disturbed by the fact that a mere man should hold such godlike power.

 

But the vizier wished to shake the mantle of complicated adulthood a little while longer, so he stilled his thoughts and savored the spicy, gold-dusted, violet night.

The carpet serenely glided back into the sultan's gallery, and the vizier stood and took the sorcerer's uncovered hand as he stepped to the ground. He was smiling as he returned to sit next to Talal, and the others applauded his bravery.

 

Destane pinched a corner of the carpet with his gauntleted hand, and the embroidery rapidly unraveled and flowed in long striations of black and gold into that one corner, and back into his fingertips. The carpet fell limp, a velvet cape once more, and Destane reaffixed it to his shoulders.

"Privileged gentlemen," he began, looking like the cat that ate the canary. "I may seem insultingly young, but perhaps, after all, I have shown you a few secrets you hadn't bargained for?"

 

He shot a venomous look at the Varvaran ambassador, who gave a wry, good-natured smile, and raised a hand in capitulation.

"The best part… is that you have not even seen the best I have to offer," the sorcerer tempted.

 

Destane gestured at a silver platter bearing some scraps of bulgur mixed with mint leaves and tahini on a tea table by Talal's feet, and inquired, "Are you done with that?"

 

Talal himself, it seemed, did not care to draw the sorcerer's attention, and responded by gesturing pathetically at the food still on the plate, at a loss for how to correct it for the sorcerer. "No worries," Destane assured him, and extended his gauntleted hand.

 

The platter floated over to him, and he swirled his hand over it, the debris vanishing. He took it in both hands, and held it in front of him. The audience could see themselves as shadows reflected dimly in it. Destane then uttered a stream of incomprehensible words at the mirror, before its surface clouded and seemed to ripple, like the surface of a lake. The sorcerer allowed the mirror to expand in his grasp, and he caused it to float upwards so that all men could see clearly what emerged from within.

 

He boasted, "Any magician can show you wonders, drops of exotica from lands far away…. Almost none of them can show you these worlds as they actually are. But I can..."

 

The surface of the mirror turned deep blue and began to glow with an aqueous light. In it, only leagues of empty blue could be seen. Then suddenly, the dim outline of an impossibly large mammal could be seen through the deep. It passed slowly and smoothly, and reactions ranged from unnerved to fascinated. In particular, the mathematician, philosopher, grand vizier, as well as the concealed Adhemar, stared in awe.

 

The huge, graceful shape floated past the frame, and the image in the mirror imperceptibly changed into another expanse of water, surrounding a mountain of coral, orbited by a plethora of fish, as vibrant and multi-hued as the contents of a treasure chest. In the sea soil were embedded large hunks of stone, carved in the likeness of gods and pharaohs, lost and abandoned for thousands of years.  The sight humbled all men present.

 

All in the audience suddenly gasped when the very familiar face of a flesh-and-blood woman appeared.  Shaded by palm leaves, she wore a tall blue helmet, and she lifting her beautiful chin proudly.  Her eyes smoked with the kohl drawn to giver her eyes of Ra, and her lips were red and full.

 

The philosopher and mathematician muttered in disbelief, "But she's been dead for thousands of years…."

 

The humorist was amused and amazed by what he saw in the mirror, but found himself amused equally by watching his fellow spectators.

 

Several other men refused to believe their eyes.  As they watched, the woman did not stand in the stiff, painted profile by which they knew her; she continued, insolently, to blink her large eyes, to quirk her lips coyly, jealously, at her gaunt husband, who had appeared opposite her.  His head was shaven, his chest bare, and he ate bits of fruit and meat, while she was deprived the pleasure by an assistant who currently painted her. 

 

The woman was most definitely alive, and several men in the audience made a low din of furiously whispered debate. Had the sorcerer truly brought a dead woman to life? Or was he merely showing a cunning representation of her? It all looked so real through the mirror… a few men, including Talal, decided to forego skepticism and simply enjoy the woman's charms.

 

"That's right, Excellencies," Destane said. "Not only can I show you deep in the oceans, where no man has been able to tread, but I can also show you things that have happened long ago, as well as things that have yet to occur."

 

The vision of Nefertiti dissolved and coalesced into visions of pale-skinned, yellow- and brown-haired men, who wore metal armor of a style as yet unseen on their neighbors in the far West. The men were striding and preening and pronouncing before groups of subdued characters, whom seemed neither to comprehend the strangers, nor take them very seriously. They wore colorful fabric, feathers in their long dark hair, and they resembled the people from high northern plains who wore thick coats and lived in yurts, except in one respect: many had flattened their foreheads to an absurd degree. Some of the men in the sultan's hall chuckled, while others began to suggest among themselves that the sorcerer was simply making up fancies.

 

In the mirror there appeared several shimmering bands of colored air in a far northern clime, and then the mirror saw only starry black firmament. As the men watched, a blue-and-white marble, streaked with green, rolled into view. It hung in the sparkling velvet black, and the men were transfixed… and at a loss. It was a sight they had neither seen, nor ever imagined. The sultan spoke up on behalf of all assembled: "What is this lovely bauble in the night sky, sorcerer?"

 

Destane was silent, and appeared not to know.

 

And then he did a curious thing.

 

He shut his eyes tight as if to withdraw something from his memory.

 

His eyeballs darted to and fro beneath the lids. When his eyes fluttered open, he replied in a sort of daze, as though even he struggled to believe what was coming out of his mouth: "It... is our home, great one. All of existence: land, water, animals, and people."

 

As the marble revolved within the scope of the mirror, he made a gesture at a particular brown patch, and said, "Here is where we are; we're so tiny you can't even see us."

 

He looked back at his silent audience, some of whom had by now begun to think Destane was losing his mind. No longer a humorous, charismatic entertainer, he was now either truly insane or playing at insanity in a twisted game. Several held burning questions.

 

"How?" asked the vizier.

 

"He's a charlatan," the mathematician snarled dismissively, thinking that settled everything.

 

"The most compelling explanation… is trickery," admitted the philosopher.

 

The Varvaran ambassador leant on his elbow, his cheek in his palm, his eyebrow cocked expectantly, as he gazed at Destane. The sorcerer felt familiar prickles of resentment, but he forced himself to remain calm. He gave a full-body shrug, and countered, "I don't invent these visions… they are simply... given to me."

 

"And who gives them to you?" continued the vizier.

 

Destane smiled. "The first rule is never to share secrets of the trade, especially not with non-initiates."

 

In the amused tone of a rich, powerful man who steadfastly won't be disturbed by anything these young upstarts may throw at him, the Varvaran ambassador sneered, "How convenient."

 

Destane sighed heavily, and hung his head.  These distinguished men in fine robes on couches might aspire to be pleasant and amicable with him, even playful and open-minded, but Destane saw that could extend their good will only so far.  In the end, as usual, he was the recipient of disbelief, confusion, and scorn.

 

"Gentlemen," he began.

 

The lightheartedness had left him.

 

"It has been… illuminating… to share secrets and wonders with you tonight. Such powerful men… yet you have seen so little. It's rather strange. Well, perhaps some day, each of you will have the opportunity to remedy this. Yes, I think you might all have the chance to travel the world… carried on the desert winds."

 

Destane's Entertainment (Part 3)

 Some men frowned at Destane's strange phrasing, but no one had any time to anticipate what came next.

 

The sorcerer tugged a small pouch from within his tunic, and pinched out a bit of gray sand. Clenching it within his gauntleted hand, he magically empowered it in an aquamarine glow, and blew it across his palm. Enchanted grains swirled about Talal for a moment, before he coughed, and promptly disintegrated in a fleshy mound of sand, rapidly turning gray.

 

The mathematician, humorist, and some of the younger, spryer men scattered, leaping for the loggia or for the doors.

 

Destane turned his wrist, allowing the concealment spell to fall from his co-conspirators, and they restrained those very surprised men who tried to escape through the loggia. The sorceror demolished them with ease.

 

Those who pounded against the locked double doors dissolved amid helpless cries as Destane picked them off, one by one.

 

The sorcerer made quick work of the older, less mobile men – the philosopher seemed to receive his demise with vague curiosity. The Varvaran ambassador, being old and rotund, sat in resolute disbelief before Destane transfigured him.

 

The vizier scrambled, eyes widening as several alarming thoughts collided in his head like a line of dominoes. Miraculous, fabulous Destane… was really just a common assassin. His unholy power that could take the vizier soaring could also reduce him a to a dead substance lower than all animals. How this evening he had risen so high and would sink so low, beyond redemption, if he didn't run fast enough. He lunged for the door, farther than his legs could carry him, and lost his balance, hitting the floor as a messy spray of gray grains.

 

The sorcerer stood amid deafening silence in a large, dusty hall, brushing grains off his clothes. Thirteen piles of sand lay strewn across the marble floor, gritting up the carpet and couch cushions. Sand grains mixed with bulgur on platters, and silted the cups of turquoise once-coffee and once-tea. It looked like a tropical archipelago in each teacup and goblet.

 

Destane panted with exertion, and his co-conspirators reeled from the wave of reptile stench. As his breathing slowed to normal, Destane waved his hand and conjured a huge brass hourglass, the size of a clerk's desk.  He carefully lowered it onto its side, the way a father would lay a small child to sleep. Then he unscrewed the brass top and magically incised the top bulb around its diameter, removing the hemispherical glass cap.

 

With a directive gauntleted finger, he indicated for all of the sand to slide along the floor and over couches and carpet into the open glass bulb, like sending so many naughty dogs to the kennel.

 

When it was done, he replaced the glass cap, mending the incision under the aquamarine glow of his gauntlet, and screwed the brass cap back on.

 

Finally, he shrank the hourglass and fitted it with a leather cord, proffering it to Jabril to wear as a pendant. Jabril took the hourglass and studied it. He looked pleased.

 

"Have you made your choice, my sultan?" Destane inquired.

 

Jabril smiled at the address. He replied, "Get rid of them."

 

The sorcerer arched his brow, as if he did not expect this from the stout man shyly testing his newfound powers. A few men exchanged significant, shocked looks, as if they hadn't expected to co-sign on such a harsh punishment (though some appeared unsurprised). Maziyar looked thrilled by this new, strong Jabril, while Adhemar was paralyzed with shock.

 

"But… my liege… why?" he finally managed.

 

Maziyar rolled his eyes. Jabril's round brown eyes deadened as he looked at Adhemar.

 

"Every powerful sultanate begins with a strong first act, sweeping away the vestiges of the past," Jabril explained. "To legitimize myself and our regime, I'm convinced we must eliminate Talal and choice members of his court in a straight-forward, aggressive, honest manner… not in this vindictive, snake-hearted way that you obviously advocate. After all, we are men on the battlefield with axes in hand, not women in the kitchen with poison vials. Our legitimacy in the eyes of our people, our allies, and our enemies, depends on our willingness to plunge in the knife."

 

"But Destane could probably enchant innumerable people… as many as we need!" Adhemar protested, forgetting his well-practiced deference to his new sultan.

 

Jabril, still in the process of coalescing an arrogance and sense of entitlement befitting his new station, responded coolly, without anger: "My regime won't be built upon a messy, unsustainable lie."

 

Adhemar exhaled in defeat and hung his head. Maziyar watched him from beneath his lashes, waiting to see how his brother would retort. Adhemar swallowed, and when he looked up, his eyes had cooled.

 

He was ready to let his officially sanctioned subordination to Jabril carry the weight of moral responsibility for what happened next.

 

"Well, then, must we do away with Kouri and Bishara?" he said, referring to the mathematician and philosopher. "Their loss would be a shameful waste to the empire."

 

Jabril waved his hand dismissively. "There will be other intellectuals to tickle you with their treatises, Adhemar," he condescended, and some other men chuckled amongst themselves. Adhemar held a stiff upper lip.

 

Destane extended a gauntleted hand for the hourglass, and grinned. "If that is your choice, then I will deal with this, and send Talal's regime sailing off on a world tour."

 

"Commensurate with my new post, I believe I should be present when you do that," Jabril stated, not appearing quite as commanding as his phrasing when he met the sorcerer's eyes.

 

"You do, do you?" Destane joked.

 

Jabril's eyes flashed angrily, but he said nothing, and Destane decided to capitulate, since that reaction had been sufficiently boring.

 

Adhemar laid a hand on his brother's arm and whispered harshly, "Even you must realize we have to do something about the families."

 

Maziyar regarded him thoughtfully, without scorn, and Adhemar indicated Jabril and Destane. He hissed, "Tell them…" between his teeth.

 

Maziyar stepped forward, hands folded behind his back. He was a long, dutiful pillar of black. "Perhaps we should deal with the immediate kin of the deceased before you commit them to the ether?"

 

Jabril looked at his new grand vizier and was thoughtful. "Their sons might pose a threat…" he mused.

 

"Not all of their sons remain in Agrabah," one man noted.

 

"But most do," put in another.

 

"We'll deal with them all in due time," Jabril decided. "Tonight, Maziyar, you and I will direct Destane through the families. The rest of you have my gratitude and are dismissed to cloister your own families tonight. You are free to relieve yourselves of this oppressive stench."

 

"At last," muttered one man.

 

"Miraculousness notwithstanding," another commented. "I would never willingly exercise such power it if this rankness is the price."

 

"Gentlemen," Destane cried in mock innocence. "Surely you have all had that experience of forgetting your own body odor?"

 

Several men turned in disgust and vacated the hall through the double doors. A few rallied around one who cleverly countered, "But it wasn't there when you performed for Talal and his men?"

 

With his nose in the air, Destane responded, "I'm a professional. I can mask it when it seems appropriate."

 

The inquisitor gave him a funny look before leaving the hall with the rest of his company. Smirking, Destane exited via the loggia in a sweep of blood red cape, Jabril following in his wake.

 

Left alone, Maziyar faced his brother. He gave Adhemar a severe look for effectively shunting the dirty work onto him, but Adhemar only waved his brother away. "Go," he told Maziyar, and noted bitterly, "First act as Grand Vizier!"

 

Sourly, Maziyar went off in the direction Destane and Jabril had gone.

 

Adhemar, clutching the bisht tightly around him so his hands wouldn't shake, swept off in a dark frenzy.

 

Destane's Entertainment (Part 4)

 Outside the palace wall, the torches guttered. It was nearly midnight, and Adhemar hurried along the causeway. He hoped his wife, Sümeyra, would be asleep by now, so he wouldn't have to endure her being beautiful, good, and wifely.

 

She would be intolerably open, as she always was, always yielding without question to his greedy arms. She would read him like a book in her native Iznikoran, rather than in the language of Agrabah with which she had struggled when he brought her here. She would draw out the thorn in his side before he was able to convincingly pretend it wasn't there. Then he would have to explain how he acquired it…

 

Adhemar wanted to collapse in the sheets in his lightless room and forget himself.

 

The street where he lived was a chasm of deep night, lightened only by the moon, and empty of people. Adhemar shuffled quickly to the two-story structure he shared with his wife and two children, and turned the key in the lock. He leant in, easing open the wooden door, and through the gloom he heard the baby's mewling.

 

Adhemar winced and inwardly cursed. Shutting the door as quietly as he could, he crept across the flagstone floor and fled into his study.

 

In the hot shadows of the bedroom, Sümeyra suffered under sweat-dampened sheets and under her curtains of curly dark hair. She cradled a little head in her shoulder, but the baby only cried and fussed. Sümeyra had tried to get him to feed, but he only buried his face in her arm. She'd sung some low strains, but he might as well have not heard her.

 

This was not Sümeyra's first child, and she was becoming annoyed that her son did not deem her efforts sufficient. A headache began to pulse in her temples, and she thought she heard her husband escape into his study before she could summon him for help. Not that she should need to, she thought; this was her job, after all.

 

Still, she wanted to sleep, and her son was making this impossible.

 

There was a soft padding of tiny feet on the stone floor, and Sümeyra squeezed her eyes shut in exasperation. Oh, wonderful. The other one's loose. A path of tiny pressures on the bed, and a three-year-old girl poked her head into Sümeyra's hot circle of distress. Some reflected moonlight found its way through the two rectangular windows and shone on the girl's large dark eyes as she looked at the squirming baby in her mother's arms.

 

"No, no, no, Mayya… go back to sleep," Sümeyra pleaded softly, running a hand through her daughter's inky hair. "Jafar will be alright. I promise I will get him to shut up soon."

 

"Why won't 'e go to sleep?" the girl asked, and she touched the wisp-soft hair on her brother's sweat-dampened head experimentally. Her tiny finger trailed down his smooth, plump cheek and arm. "Maybe 'e's thirsty?" she suggested.

 

"No, Mayyadah, he isn't. It's probably the heat that's bothering him. I should get up and draw a bat-...-th...."

 

Sümeyra faltered as she noticed that her son's cries had precipitously disappeared once her daughter touched him.

 

He now grasped Mayyadah's small finger, studying her with large, uncomprehending, black eyes. In the dim light reflected from his sister's face, it was just barely apparent that his stunned confusion and curiosity melted into a dimpled, tongue-tipped smile.

 

Mayyadah giggled and uncurled her brother's fingers from her own pointer.  She tickled his stomach, earning a cascade of giggles from him. Sümeyra smiled warmly on the pair and felt relieved and thought it was just a little bit strange that a tiny girl could have the composure and wherewithal to so quickly and confidently calm a fussy infant. Indeed, she even felt a bit jealous.

 

In his study, behind closed doors through which Sümeyra and Mayyadah knew not to enter, Adhemar leant over a rosewood desk, his head buried in his arms. Against the cool surface, his head sagged in sleep; he was lost to the world. An inkwell, reed pen, and two ink-marked pieces of paper rested near his arms.

 

Adhemar had a younger brother, Farshad, who governed the city of the Anvari family's origin, who had aged into serenity and tolerance, and who could be counted on in his mature years to return a letter from Adhemar with solicitousness and a written balm of sustained, reasonable thought.

 

But in this case, regarding news of the deeds of Jabril's contingent, Adhemar felt that it wouldn't do to risk early exposure by putting the sordid information immediately in the post. Feeling thus stifled, he had resolutely written two letters. On the first paper was written:

 

 

My dear brother,

 

 Tonight, our family has both risen higher and sunken lower than imaginable. Maziyar, Jabril, and I contracted a magician, who calls himself 'Destane', to assist us in staging a coup against Talal Sayegh. He enthusiastically agreed to our proposition, and thoroughly enchanted the sultan and several of his advisors and friends, before dispatching them all to an anonymous, shameful fate.

 

Farshad, I saw a young man in his 20s wield the powers of heaven, and reduce thirteen rich, dutiful lives to lifeless mounds of gray sand and release the lot into the desert.

 

I suppose one must look at it as a mercy that he will terminate the families in the same way – at least they will not live to sustain the loss of their fathers, brothers, and cousins.

 

 Jabril ibn Saddaq Halabi is our new sultan, and Maziyar his grand vizier. I served them faithfully, according to their wishes, though I admit I forgot my place and asserted the notion that Destane might enchant the minds of Agrabah, and beyond, if necessary – the demon surely had the power. Jabril contradicted me, and demanded a violent action in order to bolster his claim to rule.

 

Frankly, Farshad, I believe he has long waited for just such a chance to spectacularly establish his personal legitimacy on a number of levels.

 

 It is difficult for me to express this, but I realize that my participation in this affair will change the course of, and shape the rest of my life, my children's lives, and our lives. The multitude of possible manifestations of these changes, which I cannot hope to imagine accurately at this stage, terrifies me.

 

 I hope that you are able to travel to Agrabah soon, and comfort me with your keen mind and attentive heart.

 

 

On the paper he would actually send his brother was written merely:

 

 

 

Farshad,

 

 Jabril has claimed the sultanate, and appointed Maziyar his grand vizier. He has not yet divined a purpose for me, so at present I will continue in my capacity as an ambassador.

 

Please visit Agrabah as soon as you are able. We have much to discuss.

 

 Your solicitous brother, Adhemar

 

A Sleepless Night

 Some hours past midnight, Maziyar Anvari strode swiftly home, a long black shadow slipping through the gauzy darkness, having lately parted ways with Jabril and Destane.

 

Only the scholarly might be awake now, lamp flames glowing in the windows of their studies, but no such private room faced upon the street, so only menacing moonlight illuminated Maziyar's way. At last, he reached his own house, and he flowed through the dark ground floor, heading – knowingly – for the courtyard beyond.

 

In the shade of a fig tree in the center, a female figure sat on a bench. She leant forward pensively, her wrists straining as she gripped the edge. Under the touch of the moon, bangles glinted at her wrists.

 

She appeared like an ancient weeping woman in marble bas relief, her gown in sculptural folds and her hair in glassy waves.

 

Malakeh, who was not actually weeping, lifted her head at the sound of her husband's footfalls on the flagstones. She rose and extended her arms to him, and they impulsively crashed together, Maziyar's arms curling about her waist, and Malakeh's elbows on his shoulders as she grasped his head and kissed him deeply.

 

When they both stopped for breath, panting, Malakeh still tangled her fingers in her husband's curls, desiring to bury him in the warmth of her relief, gratitude, and admiration. She breathed him in, and caught a scent of magic, like stormy air, and she involuntarily rocked against his hips.

 

When her logical thought caught up with her, her cheeks burned. She looked sharply at him, mortified. Maziyar smiled at her, merely bemused, black eyes glittering hopefully. To reclaim some dignity, she gently pressed her palm against her husband's chest, putting some inches between them.

 

"Is it done?" she asked.

 

"For tonight," Maziyar murmured, looking a bit put out. He rubbed her shoulder, and a silence fell between them.

 

Malakeh timidly ventured, "I worried what he'd do to you… and it would have been all my fault…"

 

Maziyar shook his head. "He needs us right now. He has one short-term ambition, and he needs to use Jabril's royal authority as leverage in order to achieve it. Malakeh, beauty, you've played a distinguished role in ensuring the greatest success to date for my family."

 

Malakeh's lips curled, her proud smile tightening to anxiousness. She trailed fastidiously maintained fingertips along his sculpted cheekbone, and murmured, "He won't always need you."

 

"We'll deal with that when we come to it, won't we?" Maziyar assured her, his voice rising slightly. He captured her wandering fingers and gave the knuckles a slow kiss.

 

His confidence… what a rich, tasty thing that was, Malakeh thought. How fatly intoxicating. How it thrillingly enlivened his otherwise hard features, and enticed one to hope and to let him lead, instead of to think for oneself. He dreamed longer distances than he strategized. However pathetically diffident Adhemar was, Maziyar truly did need his brother. This Malakeh understood. And there was something Maziyar needed to understand.

 

"Promise me you won't allow the sorceror to come anywhere near our family, " she pressed. "Warn me when he will be received at the palace... for the children's sake."

 

"Of course," Maziyar replied, laughing lightly. "Did you imagine you would be socializing with him on those occasions? You are a presumptious woman!"

 

Malakeh smiled weakly.

 

"Still," Maziyar continued. "I'm glad you told me, before I might have invited him to dine with us."

 

His wife's jewel eyes expanded and her cultivated black eyebrows furrowed in an expression of aristocratic terror.

 

Maziyar laughed sympathetically. Before – and after – everything else, Malakeh believed the man who called himself Destane to bear the muck and the mind of the streets. Even on her best days, she regarded the notion of feeding and entertaining such creatures at one's own expense as a quixotic, self-righteous venture divorced from good sense. One practices discipline – not indulgence – with stray dogs.

 

"Oh, what must that magician have done to earn your bitter distaste?" a mirthful Maziyar mused aloud, idly fondling a jet-black spiral of Malakeh's hair. Then he thought of an agreeably concrete question that he felt would shed light on the matter. "What does your father think of him?"

 

"Well, naturally, " said Malakeh, shaking her head as though it was obvious. "He thinks of him as a coarse malignance, who can, unfortunately, make himself useful."

 

"On that occasion you told me about… when your father hired him for a magical hand in financial assistance–"

 

"Don't call it that," Malakeh hissed, wincing.

 

Maziyar smirked. "On that occasion… did Destane cheat him in some way?" he continued.

 

Malakeh was silent.

 

Then she answered, "Yes."

 

After another odd pause, she elaborated, "Destane was not faithful to the terms of agreement, and betrayed my father's trust."

 

Malakeh carefully watched her husband's face as she said this, and she put in a bid for sympathy: "There was much bitterness on both sides… I won't forgive him for that."

 

Maziyar nodded, thoughtfully, and encircled his wife with his arm, leading her back to the house. After inhaling his strange scent again, however, Malakeh tugged on her husband's waist and forcibly led him into the kitchen, where she bade him sit. Maziyar watched as she seized the maid's big copper pot - something the elegant, soft-fingered Malakeh never touched - and marched back out into the courtyard.

 

He marveled when she returned moments later from the ornamental pond, heaving the sloshing vessel. She trembled a bit under its weight, but an insane urgency propelled her. She snatched one of the maid's cleaning cloths, and her surprised husband scrambled to unhook the buttons running down the center of his severe black robe.

 

It would have been quite reasonable for Maziyar to begin questioning the source of this unnatural zeal which drove his wife to kneel at his feet and scrub his skin, to willingly sacrifice the integrity of her fine gown and her regal bearing... especially when he could clean himself just as well.

 

But that sort of cool, dispassionate inquiry was more in Adhemar's nature than Maziyar's, and the younger brother happily gave himself to oblivion as his wife's long, wet fingers kneaded through his curls and massaged his scalp.

 

**************************

 

When Jabril arrived at his house in the dead of night, the place was silent. His wife, Pareesa, was a still mound under the sheet and a welter of black hair on the pillow. Her girlishly round cheeks and unconcerned eyebrows exuded serenity. Jabril sank onto the bed next to her, and she didn't stir; she'd been asleep for a couple of hours already. She did not sense Jabril's sweating, magic-reeking presence, so he simply lay there, with no attempt to cleanse himself, and let his thoughts wash over him instead.

 

He marveled at the night's events. He thought of his own powerful decision, so much bolder than any choice he'd made in the past. It was a pragmatic, thoughtful decision; anybody could see that. The energy and might that both freighted and flowed in the wake of that decision… he glowed with it. He had never felt so competent and respected, the way his men followed his orders, even if they objected to them or struggled against them as Adhemar had.

 

Adhemar was always so cool and collected, one who discretely conducted debate, who issued good advice only after he had thoroughly vetted it. For the vetting process and the debate to be taken out of his hands, for Adhemar to publically scrabble so frantically for it… Jabril found it a refreshing change. Maybe this humbling experience would make Adhemar more tolerable, he mused.

 

These thoughts did not help Jabril sleep; rather, they quickened the blood, inducing him to defensiveness and sending his mind along the tracks of well-practiced imagined dialogues between himself and a legion of other men. Things he should have said, things he'd like to say.

 

He could not help reflecting then on the wives and children of some of them, whom he'd visited earlier tonight, with Maziyar and Destane.

 

Due to the lateness of the hour, most of the households had retired to sleep, and Destane's arrival by their bedsides had no more registered with them than the arrival of the more benign Sandman. However, some of the wives had decided to stay up and wait for their husbands, sometimes accompanied by small sons who relished the opportunity to stay up late, like 'important' people. The women had greeted Jabril, Maziyar, and Destane with surprise and confusion: neither the sorceror nor the ambassador were known to them, and though for at least fifteen years everyone had known that the great Saddaq Halabi had a son, very few knew him personally or cared to learn what he looked like.

 

The women were discomfited, Jabril had noted, in the mundane way that women encountering men in the absence of their husbands always were. As he and Destane had persuaded themselves inside, the better to inform the women about their lately departed husbands, the discomfort had immediately bloomed into suspicion. Nevertheless, even when Destane conjured a new hourglass in front of them, they neither suspected nor preempted exactly what the sorceror would do to them.

 

Their protests and their fright had then and did now conspire to overwhelm Jabril, as he lay sleeplessly next to his wife. But as a grown man, if he didn't have the discipline and conviction to carry out his plans and achieve his goals (or worse, failed in these pursuits because of an excess of sentimentality!), then what did he have? Why should he deserve anything, why should his wife respect and honor him, if he couldn't do what all men should be able to do?

 

It was the best choice, Jabril assured himself, to do what he did to the families. They would be nothing, and be accorded no respect or kindness, without their husbands and fathers. It was better that they not be made to suffer this mortal coil in the wake of a deceased patriarch.

 

Jabril shut his eyes, but he might just as well still have been staring at the wooden boards of the floor above, for all the sweet oblivion it conferred upon him. He rolled onto his side and decided he should start restricting the coffee he drank in the evenings.

 

Adhemar and Sümeyra

In the bed where Sümeyra had slept, Adhemar dozed alone. Dark gold sunlight stretched yawning tendrils across the stone window sill, lightening the room like a dream. The sweat of the night had dried, leaving an all-too-evanescent coolness. There was the delicate clink of glass and a trickle of pouring water from the kitchen as Sümeyra brewed two cups of tea. A breeze glided in through the shutters, dandling her dark curls and caressing her face, but her grimace didn't lift.

 

Her husband's recent nocturnal comings and goings (little explained and of dubious purpose), coupled with his lying abed this late, made her anticipate he had something uncomfortable he needed to tell her. She was also annoyed at him, because she would not breakfast without him, and yet, this ritual preceded her walk to collect ingredients from the market. Even now, she knew, most merchants had set up their wares and were haggling with mothers and maidservants over the nice, fat eggplants and cucumbers, over the ripest pomegranates. Sümeyra faced the long task of careful selection and committed bargaining, and the shops would close at midday if she didn't get going! The man simply has no idea, she thought.

 

She placed the glasses on a tray with some small spoons and, out of habit, placed two sugar cubes by each glass. Her shoulders sagged as she exhaled. Of course, it's only natural for someone who's never cooked for himself, she thought. Sümeyra wasn't bitter; rather, she was indifferent. She retired from battles rather than throw herself into them. Reticence, grace, and thick skin were necessities for her life in Adhemar's world, as well as byproducts of it.

 

On her way to the bedroom with the etched copper tray, Sümeyra passed the sitting room. There, Mayyadah lay on her stomach on the cool wooden settee, stark naked and riffling through a book that was clearly Adhemar's. Though her daughter was just three years old, Sümeyra had seen her this past year looking at the books she had brought from her parents' home in Iznikora, many day's travel away. When Sümeyra spoke sternly, the girl looked up with wide guilty eyes.

 

"Mayyadah! Put that back before your father wakes up! And at least put on a shift; we're going to market soon."

 

On the force of her mother's mood, the girl scurried to Adhemar's study. After her, Sümeyra called more softly, "Go to your room and watch Jafar for a bit, alright?"

 

Without waiting for an answer, Sümeyra returned to her bedroom and gently shut the door behind her. On a low brass tea table at the foot of the bed, she placed the tray and went to her husband's side to prod him.

 

Blearily, Adhemar opened his lids a fraction and studied his wife, with her expectant face and the challenging jut of her jaw.

 

"There's tea," she blurted.

 

As Adhemar freed himself from the grip of sleep, Sümeyra retrieved the cups and placed the warm vessel in his hand. He sniffed the mint, his moustache twitching, and Sümeyra impatiently took a sip of her own.

 

"It's late," she said.

 

He did not look at her, while he inhaled the clean, warm vapors. "I know. I woke up at my desk in the depths of night and tried to fall asleep again in here."

 

This wasn't out of the ordinary for Adhemar, but even so, a part of Sümeyra quaked in fear as he shunned the intimacy of eye contact and grimly regarded his tea.

 

Her father, in Iznikora, would do the same thing when as a young girl she acted inconsiderately, and Sümeyra would know that quick correction was expected of her. It stung and embarrassed her. On her husband's face, when it was he - and not she - who had some explaining to do, it simply galled her.

 

"What is it, then?" she snapped.

 

Adhemar appeared to be considering the best way to frame his response, before he decided to just hang it all and drop bluntly, "We're going to be living in the palace now."

 

It sounded like a joke to Sümeyra, but her husband's body language hinted at darker implications. Alarmed, she began, "But the sultan–"

 

"–is Jabril Halabi now. He will be doing things a bit differently."

 

She could not suppress a soft gasp. She thought for a moment. "…. Last night?"

 

Adhemar nodded.

 

"…. Are you telling me," she got out, incredulously, "...that Jabril Halabi, the accountant son of Saddaq, won a duel against one of Talal's best warriors?"

 

Adhemar sipped some more mint tea. His left hand, gripping the sheet, flexed and unflexed fitfully. "There was a sorcerer," he said, staring vacantly over the glass's gold rim.

 

When this did not earn a response from Sümeyra, he finally looked at her.

 

Her face, a twisted mask of disbelief, slid reluctantly into credulity.

 

Her mud-brown eyes wide with alarm and now curiousity, she managed, "I… I didn't think they existed. I read fairy stories about them… long before we were ever married. I suppose I always wondered, but…. I never saw one."

 

Adhemar gazed at her, grateful to discuss something speculative and impersonal, if only for the moment. "You would not recognize them on sight, I think," he said. "But maybe by the smell. Their magic can be smelt. This sorcerer called himself Destane, and he smelt humid, like dirt after a rainstorm, or like a house where snakes are kept."

 

Sümeyra made a face. "You met him? And he left you… unharmed?"

 

"He's not politically ambitious," he explained. "He seems to have lived in Agrabah for quite some time,"– this earned him a look of horror from his wife – "simply practicing magic, I suppose. He lives in a run-down hovel in an alley. If he'd had designs on the throne… we'd be living in a very different city right now."

 

Adhemar turned, uncomfortably, back to his tea. The gears were turning in Sümeyra's head.

 

"It was you who hired him," she concluded.

 

"Jabril, Maziyar, and I did, on a suggestion from Maziyar's wife."

 

A dark look came over Sümeyra's face.

 

Her voice was low, freighted with suspicion: "How did Malakeh know of the sorcerer?"

 

"According to Maziyar, she told him that Destane had done a job for her parents some years back… well, I suppose the sorcerer has to pay for his food and oil somehow."

 

Sümeyra said nothing. She thought only of Malakeh, with her beautiful, imperious profile, and the way her lips had quirked in distaste – that subtle, elegant movement – in the days when Sümeyra struggled with the dialect in Agrabah, when Sümeyra had misguidedly shared anecdotes from her past as a tradesman's daughter.

 

Malakeh's thoughts on Sümeyra's roughness, so prettily suppressed when Maziyar proposed small suppers for the two couples, fluttered out easily enough when the wives were alone.

 

Yes, why shouldn't that woman know about someone as awful as Destane? Sümeyra thought bitterly.

 

"What did he do to the sultan? And his men?" she asked.

 

Adhemar again considered his response. With a heavy heart, he feared what she would think of him, when she knew exactly what he had sanctioned. Then he noticed how she sounded rather more curious than mortified or reproachful.

 

Adhemar changed tack.

 

Honestly interested, he asked his wife, "What do you think he did?"

 

This question frightened Sümeyra.

 

"I... I suppose he killed them all." She felt dirtied for having expressed this, and replied, angrily, "I don't know! You were there – you tell me!"

 

Adhemar flinched, but decided he could be candid now.

 

"He transformed the whole lot into sand and scattered them into the desert."

 

This gave Sümeyra pause.

 

"No one would ever find all of those grains…." she murmured.

 

"Exactly."

 

Adhemar waited a moment for Sümeyra to follow the trail of her thoughts. He prompted, "What do you think of that?"

 

Feeling examined again, Sümeyra fled from his gaze, dropping her eyes to her knees.  She muttered, "I can scarcely believe it.

 

Adhemar watched her.

 

Sümeyra stood up suddenly from the bed, muttering, "It's time to be getting on." She collected the tray, with sugar cubes untouched, and swept out of the bedroom.

 

The Sultan and the Hero of Agrabah

 When the bedroom was half-full with pink early daylight, Pareesa stretched pleasurably and relaxed on her pillow, contemplating the prospect of the new day.

 

She breathed in an acrid odor that was distinct from, and stranger than, the usual morning funk. Like stormy weather, but definitely less electric and more dubiously organic. She rolled over and was disturbed to find it emanating from her husband.

 

She considered waking him immediately and persuading him to wash. A flurry of domestic counter-arguments swarmed through her mind, so instead, she quickly climbed out of the sheets, threw on a loose robe, and vacated the room.

 

An hour later, when the growing light forcibly awoke Jabril, he turned to see Pareesa had gone. Pulling on a robe for modesty, he went into the sitting room, and found his wife fully dressed and groomed, reading from an anthology of poems to chubby little Hamed, who – at three years old – may or may not have been listening as he sat on the floor and played with his mother's embroidered gold slippers.

 

"Where's Dad?" Jabril asked.

 

Pareesa looked at him meaningfully. "He felt like sleeping on the roof last night. I went to help him down for breakfast, but he wanted to see you first. He wanted to make sure he had a chance to talk to you before you left in the morning."

 

Jabril experienced a sudden coldness at this news, and he turned to go access the ladder to the roof.

 

"Please…" Pareesa began, and Jabril looked at her impatiently.

 

"Please could you quickly clean up for breakfast," she continued, her nostrils flaring. "The rice is getting cold."

 

Jabril sniffed his arm, and tersely nodded before whirling out of the room.

 

*****************************

 

Jabril pushed open the trapdoor to the roof and saw his father seated on a sleeping mat with his back to his son. He was watching the sea of city roofs and the red ridged mountains through the cool morning mist, which was quickly clarifying in the hot, rising sun. Jabril walked over and seated himself cross-legged next to his father.

 

Saddaq rested back on his wrists, one leg curled in at the knee, with his bad leg extended and relaxed. These days, in his early sixties, a significant portion of Saddaq's warrior bulk had drifted south, and in his sable hair and full beard there was a mess of gray. He looked at his son seriously.

 

"Something strange happened last night while you were out," he said.

 

"Ye-ess?" Jabril prompted impatiently, scanning his father's eyes.

 

Saddaq gestured in a few directions, with large, powerful hands. "I heard shouts coming from houses… it was there, there, there, and over there."

 

Jabril acknowledged, innocently, that it was unusual to hear unrelated shouts in a large variety of locations over such a short period of time.

 

"Could it be thieves?" Saddaq wondered.

 

Jabril shrugged. "Might be."

 

Saddaq laid a hand, weighted with righteousness, on Jabril's arm. "Jabril," he said. "It pains me no end, but I can't protect your wife and son the way I ought to be able to. I think we should discuss our strategy in case of–"

 

"It wasn't thieves, Saddaq," Jabril suddenly snapped, jerking away his arm.

 

He bristled at his father's assumption that any man other than Pareesa's husband should protect Pareesa and Hamed, and at his father's failure to recognize this assertion as offensive.

 

A shade behind Saddaq's eyes slammed down, and he waited grimly for an explanation. A small, ancient part of Jabril began quaking at this look in his father's eyes. But Jabril wasn't a boy anymore, he reminded himself, and he pressed forward.

 

"It was the sorcerer, Destane, and I was with him."

 

Saddaq's eyes expanded in rage.

 

"Why were you assisting such a deviant in his evil works?!" he cried.

 

Jabril forced himself to stay stone cold and articulate. "Because we were doing what needed to be done."

 

"You had better explain," Saddaq whispered dangerously.

 

"Gladly. With Destane's assistance, my team of twelve has wrested the sultanate from Talal Sayegh and disposed of him and his most loyal supporters. What you heard was Destane dealing with the families in like fashion."

 

Saddaq just stared at his son.

 

"Destane has transformed them into sand, and released them into the desert," Jabril continued. "I will reward him richly for his services with some property in Ahsa Asmara. He will always have the Halabi to thank: you for his city, and me for his home."

 

Saddaq seemed to have lost the ability to speak.

 

"Father!" Jabril demanded, his eyes fierce. "Have I not finally achieved something in this world that is worthy of the son of General Halabi, the Conqueror?!"

 

Saddaq looked away, snorting derisively.

 

Jabril was floored by this response.

 

"What more would you have me do, oh great one?!" he cried incredulously. "Your son controls the empire, and your grandson will never know a life in which he was not destined to rule. Stories of our family will go down in the annals of history!"

 

Saddaq looked pityingly at his son.

 

A stranger receiving this glance from Saddaq might for an instant expect the old warrior to enfold him in a sympathetic embrace, but Jabril had long ago learned to see his father's expression as laced with condescension.

 

Saddaq sighed ponderously, and explained, "You've committed treason, and in doing so, you've stooped to using those beastly men who exercise without moral compunction a set of powers outstripping all acceptable limits. If you can't understand what is wrong with this, then you have learned nothing."

 

Jabril stared stonily at his father.

 

"You've made a mockery of fair combat," Saddaq went on. "As a consequence, your 'achievement' means nothing."

 

A moment passed in which the warrior's discharged gift of profundity expanded like a balloon in the still morning air, filling up the cracks in Jabril's consciousness, threatening resistant tendrils of thought with suffocation.

 

Jabril sighed heavily, and clambered to his feet. He looked down his nose at his gravely disappointed father, earthbound by his injury. "You can lay out a dish of platitudes if you want, but I'm your son, and I understand you. I have no doubt that when you were conducting your campaigns you would have happily hired a sorcerer if you thought he would provide a tactical advantage," he spat. (Or, Jabril thought, if you'd even known where to find one...)

 

Jabril percieved that, after this accusation, Saddaq couldn't possibly have stored up an honest argument sufficient to sustain his air of unflappable moral authority.

 

However, he never saw so much as a crack appear in his father's mask of solemn condemnation. He only caught a flicker of defensive posturing in Saddaq's calculating, evaluating, deep brown eyes.

 

Jabril scoffed.

 

In frustraton, he turned on his heel and strode back over to the trapdoor. Saddaq still said nothing, allowing Jabril's argument the indignity of disregard. This tactic does not in general win arguments, except when used by a father.

 

"If you are expecting me to express remorse, or to glory in self-abasement at your feet…." Jabril sneered, lifting up the trapdoor, "… Then you need to wake up."

 

He gave a little mocking bow, and indicated the interior of the house. "Wake up and have some breakfast, why don't you?"

 

With that, Jabril descended the ladder and slammed the door shut on his father.

 

Pareesa tried to complain as Jabril swept out of the house and turned toward the palace, but he stonewalled her.

 

Pareesa didn't have the energy for fuming.

 

Resigned, she went to climb the ladder and assist Jabril's father.

 

Whispers in the Marketplace (Part 1)

 Adhemar emerged from his bedroom to find Sümeyra pouring her tea over one of the curling green plants she kept. When she met his eyes, all creatures would have run from her stare.

 

Her husband quickly averted his eyes, straightened his green bisht, and exited the house.

 

Sümeyra went to the room where her children slept. There were two bare bottoms on the cool stone floor, and there was a continuous babble as Mayyadah taught her brother to pick up the dried dates when she bounced a ball.

 

Sümeyra was too deeply mired in disappointment for the sight to charm her. She noted that, as often happened, her daughter showed the maturity to watch after her brother, but failed to complete much simpler tasks.

 

"I tell you to get dressed, Mayya, and you go and double the number of undressed limbs?" she managed, sweetly. "Better fix that now. We're going."

 

The girl sighed, abandoning the game. She trotted over to the pile of clothes folded at the foot of her bed, while Sümeyra hoisted up the baby to wrap him. As Mayyadah wiggled into a little black shift, Sümeyra added, "I'm going to call on Pareesa today, so you'll need to play nicely with Hamed."

 

Mayyadah sighed ponderously, and wandered out to get the market basket. She mumbled little half-hearted "no"s, and Sümeyra rolled her eyes.

 

"You're not going to be this willful in a couple of years, are you?" she murmured to her son, but Jafar only looked to the side and busied himself with eating his own hand.

 

**************************

 

Mayyadah was swinging the basket as Sümeyra, with her son sitting on her arm, stepped up to the Halabi house. Pareesa answered the door, and as she opened it, Sumeyra could see that Saddaq, that mountainous man, had collapsed on a divan before the low table which bore their breakfast.

 

On the floor, Hamed placidly chewed his food, while the older man never took a bite.  He looked defeated.

 

Sümeyra could see that Pareesa's large, round eyes were haunted, too.

 

"Let's talk," said Sümeyra.

 

"Yes, please," Pareesa assented, thirstily.

 

The young wife directed Hamed to finish eating, and she attended to her father-in-law. "I'm going to help Sümeyra at the market. I'll be back by midday," she assured, dropping a kiss on his forehead.

 

The large man nodded wordlessly.

 

Pareesa bent down to speak to Mayyadah. "Here, let me take the basket."

 

The girl hesitated, and her little fingers curled tighter around the handle.

 

"Mayyadah…" Sümeyra warned.

 

"No, no…" the girl managed, looking confused. On market day, this was her basket.

 

"It will become too heavy for you, Mayyadah," the sweet Pareesa explained (the woman was 10 years younger than Sümeyra). She wrapped her plump fingers around the handle and gently tugged it out of Mayyadah's grasp. "You can help your mother collect some vegetables, how about that?"

 

The girl gave a little moan, and Pareesa patted her head. "Go walk with Hamed now, why don't you?"

 

Mayyadah rubbed at the spot on her head where the woman had patted it, and she reluctantly fell into step next to the boy. Hamed held an intricate golden toy, lacquered purple and green, with many interlocking parts. As the girl watched, Hamed became further absorbed in the toy and did not meet her eyes.

 

The women walked almost shoulder-to-shoulder, long brown robes swishing. In a low voice, Sümeyra began: "This must be quite a shock for you… being now married to the sultan."

 

Pareesa flushed pleasurably. "Yes… and my son, now heir to the throne! I never expected such a change. I thought I would be a good mother if I raised him to follow his father, and become a valued member of Talal or Salman's staff. Now there will be so many more expectations… so much more specialized education…."

 

Pareesa suddenly clutched the older woman's arm gravely. "Sümeyra?"

 

"Yes, what is it?" asked Sümeyra.

 

"It's a terrible thing to say, but I'm worried about my husband."

 

"In what way?"

 

"He wasn't raised for the sultanate from the cradle, like the prince. He doesn't know how to rule. I fear he won't be able to lead the empire."

 

Sümeyra looked away, and she decided not to confess the doubts that had flooded her mind when Adhemar had revealed to her the identity of the new sultan. Instead, she tried to assuage the younger woman's fears.

 

"I'm sure Maziyar and my husband will guide him carefully, and soundly. They will overcome this trial."

 

"Yes, I can only hope so. I think he shall depend greatly on your husband's wisdom, Sümeyra."

 

Sümeyra smiled bitterly.

 

Pareesa was just about to ask after that, when a cry erupted from her son.

 

Hamed was going red, while Mayyadah peacefully examined the pretty toy in her hands. Hamed's cries grew as the girl continued to play with his toy, unpunished.

 

Pareesa looked expectantly at Sümeyra.

 

The older woman bowed her head, blushing deeply. 

 

Sümeyra rallied her strength, and was stern.  "Mayyadah, return the toy to Hamed, now."

 

"No," the little girl replied easily.

 

Pareesa's eyes rounded in shock.

 

Sümeyra burned from the accusatory shade she detected in the younger woman's expression. "You will give the toy to Pareesa, then," she ground out, pronouncing each word furiously.

 

The little girl could not seriously question the combined authority of the two women. She reluctantly handed the toy to Pareesa, who did not pat her head this time. Pareesa returned the toy to her son.

 

"I'm sorry," Sümeyra said. "Mayyadah has a mind of her own. It doesn't matter what you tell her; she always considers obedience optional."

 

It was just then that the girl snatched the toy again, and Hamed cried out in protest.

 

"Mayyadah?!" Sümeyra cried out, exasperated and embarrassed.

 

Pareesa stared coldly at the girl, and laid a hand on the toy in the girl's grasp. Mayyadah pulled at it defensively, sure that the woman would just give it back to Hamed so he could ignore her.

 

"Give it to me now, Mayyadah."

 

The girl relinquished it when Pareesa added, "Nobody gets the toy."

 

Mayyadah was familiar with this phrase from Sümeyra's mouth. Resigned, she fell back into stride with Hamed, and she watched the little curlicues of dust puffing up around her small shoes. Hamed's plump chin fell upon his chest, as he had no toy to play with now.

 

"You weren't lying about her, were you?" commented Pareesa.

 

Sümeyra sighed. She put her free arm around her quiet, observant son, and cradled him against her chest. She kissed his forehead, and said nothing.

 

Across the river was the marketplace. An ancient stone bridge arched up before the mothers and their children. Mayyadah could see the first shops just beyond the end of the bridge.

 

Remembering her typical market day excitement, she bounded ahead of the others, her dusty black shift flapping around her ankles. She happily scaled the bridge to its apex, stopping to hop up and down and peep over the edge at the course of the river, that lazy slide of blue, as it wound its way out of the city. She ran down the other side, out of sight.

 

"Aren't you going to call her back?" Pareesa inquired of Sümeyra, as they themselves scaled the bridge.

 

"She'll come back when she wants to play with her brother," Sümeyra assured her, bouncing the baby on her arm. "She may not be an obedient child, but she is a loyal one."

 

Now deprived of his toy, Hamed jogged before them, attempting to catch up with Mayyadah. Sümeyra chuckled.

 

"See how quickly he forgets my daughter's crime!"

 

"I should hope he always remains quick to forgive," Pareesa defended. "It's a virtue."

 

Sümeyra thought about Pareesa's approach to dealing with her own husband.

 

"Well," Sümeyra sighed. "It will make his life simpler."

 

The marketplace was full of activity. There were flashes of vibrant color as textile merchants folded and displayed their fabrics. There was the clatter and singing of jewelry, oil lamps, and other brassware changing hands. Everywhere, there was the buzz of women and maidservants haggling over objects, nudging their ideal prices up to compromise.  Merchant friends laughed and jocularly sought deep discounts from one another.

 

At mid-morning, the sun's warmth was growing, but shade from the tiered houses on either side was languid and cool. The air was redolent with the smoky fragrance of spitting meat and vegetables, with the mixed scents from a whole spectrum of spices and powders, with aromatic tendrils flowing from the coffeehouse.

Sümeyra saw her daughter and Hamed some distance off, accepting gratuitous pieces of fresh cooked lamb from Ali, her meat merchant. Satisfied, she turned with Pareesa to begin measuring out a bagful of brown rice at Hosseini's stall.

 

Whispers in the Marketplace (Part 2)

Hamed had found that when Mayyadah asked the meat man for a treat, she got some juicy, spicy grilled lamb on a stick. When he stood next to her, so did he.

 

He decided to follow her.

 

The girl had rituals. Hamed followed her to a man who sold tobacco and hashish. The man had a table under an awning for transactions, and he surrounded himself with twists of tobacco and a myriad glasses of hashish.

 

Mayyadah gripped the edge of his table, and hoisted herself on tiptoe in order to take in all the smells. Her beaming head swung about and her little nostrils flared as she audibly inhaled. Hamed sniffed the mixture a few times, and he was not particularly moved.

 

The man who worked at the table paused over his ledger, and regarded his short little visitors. His face twisted in a wry smirk, and he teased Mayyadah: "Do you notice anything different in the bouquet today?"

 

"No," the girl replied with a smile, and she toddled on to the next diversion.

 

Hamed followed her to a textiles shop. The girl leaped to touch different fabrics. There was no rhyme or reason to her choices; she merely followed her eyes: a violet as bright as a prince's garments, a teal deeper than the green of any plants Sümeyra kept, and a red with the vibrance of sunset. Hamed noticed how the merchant had arranged the fabrics by color. His round, dark eyes traveled over a continuous spectrum of saturated color, well organized by a careful hand.

 

Hamed liked this shop. He wanted to stay and brush his little fingers over the robes with looping goldwork, but Mayyadah was moving on.

 

They came upon a rug shop. A short bridge arched overhead, between the rug shop and the building opposite. The merchant had hung his most prized rug from the bridge ledge, where it swayed gently in the breeze. Mayyadah peered into the shop, which looked to be cavernous.

 

She turned to smile broadly at Hamed. "Wait 'ere, and count. Then come find me," she said, before bolting into the dark of the shop.

Hamed didn't know how long to count, and he had only heard his mother's maidservant say a few numbers before, so he repeated those before cautiously creeping into the shop.

 

The floor was covered in rugs, straightened out for display, rolled into tubes, and piled by the walls. A staircase in the corner led up to the second floor and and provided bridge access. More rugs than Hamed could count hung from the second floor gallery. He marveled at the red, green, gold, and black. It was all so impossibly wonderful.

 

He almost forgot he was supposed to be finding Mayyadah, until he heard a tiny voice sing out, "'Ahhh-med..."

 

Hamed turned about in confusion. He looked round and round, but he only saw rugs. He peeked behind hanging rugs, looked under the staircase, and as he passed a pile of rolled up carpets, he didn't notice them stir as a small figure climbed out from underneath the tubes, and lunged at him.

 

Hamed was face-down on the soft carpet as Mayyadah cackled and tickled him. The boy at first cried out, then began laughing. He rolled over, and fought to push her away.

 

"Now you 'ide!" she cried, and ran to the front of the shop to shut her eyes and count. Hamed caught his breath, and decided to hide behind a hanging carpet.

 

Mayyadah found him quite quickly. Hamed was studying his concealing rug with dreamy eyes. He didn't bother to move from his woven shade as Mayyadah ran to hide. He vaguely heard the staircase creak a few times.

 

When the boy dutifully emerged and went to check under the stairs again, the girl lost her patience and called "'Ahmed!" from the second floor gallery. Hamed looked up to see the girl clambering over the railing and taking hold of the side of the carpet. 

 

The merchant, who had come in to see what the children were up to, unfortunately saw this as well.

 

He stood, horror-stricken, as the girl leaped.

 

Mayyadah gave a gleeful cry, and her weight jerked the whole carpet over the railing. 

 

She landed in a pile of smaller rugs, the large one tumbling in huge folds over her. Hamed giggled uncontrollably as the merchant gaped.

 

Finally, the man strode over and rolled back the rug to reveal an exuberantly proud, and panting girl. He gave her a withering look, and pointed to the front of his shop.

 

"Take your game outside," he ordered.

 

Mayyadah and Hamed bashfully wandered back out into the street. She snuck a small smile at him.

 

The girl craned her neck, and she saw her mother with Jafar and Hamed's mother gathering vegetables.

 

"C'mon," she said, and Hamed followed her under the arch of the footbridge, deeper into the marketplace.

 

Impressum

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 01.09.2015

Alle Rechte vorbehalten