Princess of Dhagabad, The (11 page)

Trying to walk as noiselessly as she can on
the smooth marble floor, Alamid, daughter of the master of
ceremonies, carefully lifts the heavy curtain over the entrance to
the princess’s bedroom. She knows that the princess and Hasan are
in there by themselves, and all her being is filled with a sweetly
shameful desire to catch them doing something forbidden. During the
past month, after the episode with that stupid horse, the princess
seems to spend too much time alone with her new slave. She seems to
pay too much attention to this mysterious creature in his
attractive human form, forgetting her other activities, forgetting
Alamid, who up to now was considered in the palace to be the
princess’s best friend. Alamid wants to learn more about the person
who has deprived her of her most distinguished privilege.

She pulls the edge of the curtain further
back, finally opening it enough to be able to see the whole room
from her velvet hideout. She sees the princess cuddled in her bed.
The flame of the lantern, quivering in the gentle, barely
perceptible movements of the night air, lights up in orange and
yellow patches her profile, her half-opened mouth, the deep curve
connecting her forehead and her nose, which seems to Alamid to look
too smug in the wavering, uneven light. The dancing patches of
light make the princess’s cheek look unnaturally red; and her black
hair, loosely arranged for the night, blends with the shadow,
merging into the darkness of the unlit wall, making the princess’s
head look almost like a part of the pattern on the tapestry behind
her. The princess seems to be completely absorbed in something; her
attention is directed toward someone concealed from Alamid by the
heavy tassel decorating the curtain, hanging right in front of her
face. Holding her breath, Alamid carefully extends her head a
little bit farther out from behind the heavy velvet, finally seeing
the object of her curiosity.

Like other inhabitants of the palace Alamid
had seen the djinn many times. As the princess’s good friend she
even saw him at close range and heard the short phrases he
exchanged with his mistress. But never had Alamid seen what the
princess and Hasan do when they are alone, and her wild
thirteen-year-old imagination draws the most incredible pictures in
her mind.

Sitting at the head of the princess’s bed,
Hasan is turned almost directly toward Alamid, and the light of the
lantern falls straight on him, giving her a good view of his face
and figure. Lazily quivering shadows, thrown by the uneven light,
make his slender body and his dark face look almost devilish.
Unwittingly admiring the graceful ease of his pose, Alamid feels at
the same time some hidden force emanating from him. Almost against
her will she finds herself giving in to this force which, she
believes, must seem irresistible to any living being. And at the
same time she sees something in his features that she feels is
capable of making any living being trust this force as something
unconditionally good. Or, perhaps, good is not the word. Rather,
looking at him one doesn’t care anymore whether he is good or bad,
whether he wishes for your happiness or your sorrow; but all other
feelings fall away before the overwhelming desire to belong to him
entirely.

Alamid shakes her head. Without doubt, all
this is just an illusion created by the unsteady flame of the
lantern. The real question is, what are they doing over there, in
the dark, at such a late hour? It seems that the djinn has
something in his hands, something he is looking at all the time,
something that draws his attention more than the princess at his
side. Looking closer, Alamid sees his lips move, as if he is
talking—or telling something. Their poses do not change. The scene
is static.
Looks like there is nothing really happening
here
, Alamid thinks.
Honestly, this princess is such a baby!
As if she never notices how handsome her new slave is, as if she
really sees him only as an immortal spirit, all-powerful sorcerer,
and wizard. As if she doesn’t realize that this unusual freedom,
granted only to her, could allow her to
… Alamid flushes from
the daring of her thought and, moving the curtain completely aside,
steps into the room.

She stops at the edge of the dim circle of
lantern light, not hiding herself anymore, but wanting to see as
much as she can before her presence is noticed. At this distance,
Hasan’s steady voice that up to now sounded like nothing more than
a monotonous hum, finally shapes itself into words.

“
In great anger the supreme god Garran
left the temple of his mother, the goddess Aygelle, and was about
to strike down Avallahaim and its surroundings, but his hand froze
in midair. So fair were the lands of Avallahaim that even his great
anger could not drive him to strike down all this beauty.”

Now Alamid can make out the object in the
djinn’s hands—a book with a heavy carved cover and pages brown with
age. Straining her eyes, Alamid sees that the pages are covered not
with letters and words, but with some strange elaborate signs. She
seems to recall that Avallahaim is a land that lies very far from
Dhagabad, at least a month’s travel. She also remembers that the
Avallahaim sages coming to Dhagabad talk to each other in a strange
tongue in which all the sounds seem to be pronounced entirely
without the help of the vocal chords, as if squeezed out through
the teeth. In must be, Alamid guesses, that this book is written in
the language of Avallahaim and no one except the djinn is able to
read it. Alamid feels another sting of jealousy, remembering how
quickly and easily Hasan has come to occupy a central place in the
life of her royal friend, and, unable to stand aside anymore, makes
the final step into the circle of light.

“Alamid?” the princess asks, surprised.

The djinn looks up from the book, and for a
moment it seems to Alamid that the uneven shadows shifting across
his face shape it into a sarcastic smile. Alamid has the unpleasant
feeling that Hasan not only knew of her presence from the very
minute she lifted the corner of the heavy curtain, but that he also
knows precisely all her jealous thoughts. She forces herself to
look away from his face, covered in shadows, and absentmindedly
smiles at the princess.

“I—I came to say goodnight, princess.”

“Come, sit, Alamid.” The princess pulls up
her legs to make room in an absent, needless gesture, since her bed
is really big enough to fit at least a dozen thirteen-year-olds,
even ones as tall and shapely as Alamid.

Alamid carefully lowers herself onto a corner
of the princess’s bed, trying to convince herself that her
presence, her participation in this bedtime reading, is perfectly
natural and wanted by everyone in the room.

“Hasan was reading me the Avallahaim myth of
the dragon,” the princess explains. “I found this book in the
library but I could never read it without Hasan.”

“How interesting,” Alamid says with
indifference. She is much more interested in the djinn, who, as she
now notices, is not sitting on the pillows at all, but floating in
the air about a cubit above the floor. He looks calmly into space,
waiting for the signal to resume his reading; but it seems to
Alamid that his eyes, though not directed to her, are piercing her
through, making her every shameful thought, her every little lie,
echo in her heart with an unpleasant sting.

“Go on, Hasan,” the princess says sleepily,
curling into her blanket. The djinn readily resumes reading.

“
The goddess Aygelle wanted to distract
her son, the great Garran, and to avert the danger to fair
Avallahaim. She created a vision, both beautiful and terrifying, a
vision of a creature with the body of a snake, the claws of an
eagle, the wings of a bat, and the head of a lizard. The phantom
creature floated in the air, breathing fire, blowing its fiery
breath over the angered Garran. Garran, admiring the vision, tore
off a giant piece of rock and carved from it a body for the fiery
creature. Thus a being was born that all the later myths call a
dragon, and this dragon loved Garran, its creator, with a great
love. This love and the creature that embodied it became symbols of
life and prosperity in fair Avallahaim…”

Hasan’s voice dies away; his eyes rise from
the book and move over the princess curled in her bed. Her breath
is even, her eyes are closed, she is—asleep?

Panicked, Alamid looks around the room. She
never expected the princess to fall asleep leaving her alone with
the djinn. She never realized that the princess’s presence created
protection for her from this strange creature, who really, in spite
of his handsome looks, is a horrible sorcerer, the limits of whose
power Alamid cannot even imagine. She suppresses her urge to wake
the princess, unable to avoid the terrifying allure of being alone
with Hasan. Or, maybe, she is not afraid of him, but of the fact
that he knows all the truth about her? Alamid shuts her eyes in a
wild hope that the djinn will disappear, evaporate into thin air,
since it must be impossible for him to exist when his mistress, to
whom he belongs so completely, is asleep. Carefully opening her
eyes again, she freezes, meeting Hasan’s impenetrable gaze, in
which she seems to detect something suspiciously close to
sarcasm.

“You don’t have to be afraid of me, Alamid,”
he says. Alamid with her active imagination seems to hear a chuckle
in his quiet voice.

Alamid opens her mouth to say something, but
no words come to mind. Most of all she wants to jump up and run
away. But at the same time a part of her feels a strange longing to
stay and perhaps even to step forward and touch his relaxed arm
resting on his bent knee, an arm whose strong muscles are clearly
outlined under the fine silk of the sleeve. These two wishes
intertwine, overwhelming her to the extent that she is unable to
speak at all, and only a barely audible sigh escapes her lips.

All clear thoughts have left Alamid’s
confused mind, replacing her favorite verbal deductions with visual
images. How horrible is this sarcastic smile that haunts her, these
calm impenetrable eyes that would not leave her face, this
devilish, devilishly attractive look. What if he purposely put the
princess to sleep with his magic in order to be alone with Alamid?
What does he want with her? A sweet feeling of helplessness
overwhelms Alamid and, closing her eyes and shivering from the
feelings she is unable to hold back, she reaches out with her hand
to the place where the djinn is floating in the air in front of
her, and where his muscular arm is resting on his knee, open to her
touch.

You look at this girl in front of you, amazed
at how different she is from your mistress, the princess of
Dhagabad. But it is not the physical difference between the tall,
dark and wide-faced Alamid and the fragile white-skinned princess
that strikes you, nor is it the difference in emotions overwhelming
each of them, emotions that fill Alamid with a desire to command
people, whereas the princess dreams only of being transported into
the world of her favorite books. This unlikeness that amazes you
comes from the difference in the ability of these two girls to face
the truth. You feel with all your being the emotions of Alamid,
who, closing her eyes and giving in completely to the flow of her
desires, is stretching out an uncertain hand towards you. But the
dissonance within her true self, and of her complete inability to
face this truth, rings inside you like a false chord. You see how
this inability makes her so vulnerable in your presence, for your
immortal eyes are able to see right through her, perceiving every
one of the feelings that arise in her soul. You see how this fear
to find herself face-to-face with her true being fights in her with
the destructive desire to test herself by reaching out her hand
toward you in spite of the complete inequality of your strength, in
spite of her full realization of the possible consequences of such
a careless action. Curiosity is still alive in her heart, but this
curiosity itself only makes more obvious her dissimilarity to your
young mistress, whose thoughts, heard by you even through her
semislumber, completely lack any fear of her own wishes and are
filled only with an unquenchable desire to learn something new
about the outside world. Suddenly you realize that her childlike
desire for knowledge is similar to the feeling that guided you at
the very beginning of your own journey. And, feeling this strange
closeness to the sleeping girl and the understandable awareness of
the wakeful one, ready to meet the touch of her outstretched hand
and knowing that this scene cannot end peacefully, you remove the
substance from your body, making it ghostly as is appropriate for
an immortal spirit.