Read Online Princess of Dhagabad, The by Anna Kashina - Free Book Online Page A

activity, returns to his usual
indifference.

    “Drink it, princess.”
    The princess, not yet recovered from her
trance, takes a cup of hot steaming drink from Nanny Fatima. A sip,
filled with aromas of herbs and flowers, fills her body with
pleasant warmth. Somebody wraps a blanket around her, someone’s
hands slip a pillow under her back, and she, leaning back in
relief, looks around.
    An unusual excitement fills her chambers. The
slave women crowded around her are talking all at once, somebody is
patting the princess on the head, and she sees the sultaness
sitting in front of her, and the dark shape of Nimeth at her
back.
    “What’s the matter with her, Hasan?” the
sultaness asks, worriedly.
    “The princess will recover any moment,” Hasan
says softly. “She came under the spell of my word.”
    “You put a spell on her with your magic!”
    “This word wasn’t magic, your majesty. It was
just a part of my knowledge. I cannot use my magic without the
princess’s orders.”
    The princess sits up on the pillows. “Mother,
Hasan saved me! You saw it, didn’t you?”
    The sultaness sighs in relief. “You scared me
to death, princess! How could you jump in front of a wild horse
like that!”
    “It is not the princess’s fault, your
majesty,” Nimeth says. “It was just an accident.”
    “It was all my fault!” Airagad moans. “Why
did I have to drag the princess out into the yard!”
    “It is nobody’s fault,” Nimeth says
peacefully. “Luckily, Hasan was near.”
    “Now you can see that Hasan is not dangerous,
can’t you, mother?” the princess demands. “He saved me even though
I never ordered him to!”
    The sultaness slowly raises her eyes to look
at the djinn.
    “I must apologize, Hasan,” she says
reluctantly. “I never believed you wished the princess well.”
    “The only purpose of my existence is to serve
the princess,” he says quietly.

    Do you really believe the words you just
said? Do you really know what is, or ever was, the purpose of your
existence? Are you aware of the power that made you rush to her
rescue, when she, frozen with fright, didn’t even remember that you
existed? Or of the power that allowed you to speak of your own will
the word of the language of the highest order, mastered only by the
most learned mages? Perhaps you heard her silent plea that she was
unable to say aloud. Or perhaps the purpose of your existence
really is to serve your mortal mistress, to whom you belong
entirely by the will of the unknown powers that rule your
destiny?
    You watch how she, still shivering with the
terror she lived through, is slowly regaining her senses after the
word you threw by her ear, just as the black stallion is now
regaining his senses in the hands of the Veriduan grooms, and as
the wind you quieted is now slowly resuming its careful gusts. And
you think of how little you know about your destiny and about the
fate of the djinns, belonging entirely to their containers and thus
to any mortal who, one way or another, came to possess them.

Chapter 5. The Essence of a Stone
     

    You never thought much about the fate of the
djinns. Starting out on your way to absolute power you never
believed that your knowledge about the world could have a limit,
that your marvelous existence among books, talks with wise people,
mysteries gradually opening to your widening vision, would suddenly
come to an end. The old formula that everyone had been taught since
childhood kept its place somewhere in your mind, constantly
reminding you, in an inner voice resembling the voice of your
childhood teacher, that the world is endless and unknowable, that
absolute knowledge is unattainable, and that absolute power belongs
only to the gods. Even the smoldering scroll that caught your eye
in a dusty corner of the Dimeshqian library didn’t alert you—at
least not at first.
    Trying with difficulty to make out on the
age-darkened parchment the faded hieroglyphs of the dead language
Agrit, you were