"Yes, Uncle!" they said, vying with each other for a favorable position. "We're ready."

Hasan whirled around splendidly like a heathen discus-thrower and flung the stone. It sailed high through the air and disappeared behind a hill. The boys were off immedi- ately, racing and shouldering each other aside in their separate but equal determination to win.

Now he could laugh. He let forth a bellow. Oh, for the confidence and faith of youth!

The boys topped the hill and dropped out of sight. Idly Hasan picked up the rod, resisting the temptation to tap it against the ground. He put the cap on his head. Such magic, if only it were real, would be the answer to all his problems!

He admired the fit of the cap, which seemed to have been made for him, and the balance of the rod. He felt like a king with crown and scepter. He would dispense the prizes with appropriate dignity!

The lad with the sore nose came over the hill carrying the stone, while his brother walked disconsolately behind. Hasan struck his royal pose and waited.

The boys looked around. "Where is our arbiter?" de- manded the winner.

"How should I know? Maybe he flew up to heaven to join the Enlightened One, or sank down into the earth like an ifrit."

"Very funny. He's got my rod."

"Well, you can't change now. The cap is mine."

"Then where is your cap?"

They looked at Hasan, then at each other, in seeming alarm. "Do you think he could have-?"

"He isn't here. We'd better find him before he gets away with our stuff! You take this side of the hill, and I'll check the far side."

Hasan held his pose, playing their game. Of course they had seen him wearing the cap, and had to feign invisibility for him or ruin the contest. He could wait. They'd 'accidently' discover him soon enough.

But their search did not abate in intensity as time pa.s.sed. Several times they looked directly at him, but with eyes unfocused and not even a knowing smile. This was a very serious game.

"He's taken them!" the winner said angrily. "Why did you have to blab about those properties?"

"Me! You were the one who-"

They were fighting again, this time with the redoubled bitterness of futility. Hasan automatically rushed up and extended his arm ...

. . . and couldn't see it. He flexed his fingers and stared.

He was invisible.

Shawahi exclaimed in surprise as her utensils bounced on the floor. "That wicked wh.o.r.e of a Queen has sent a demon to torment me!" she muttered, replacing a bamboo cup on the shelf. "If only I could remember my spells-"

The cup jostled off again. Shawahi stared, then backed off. "She did. A demon!" She shook her head, more in frustration than fear. "What mercy can I expect, seeing how abominably she deals with her own sister!"

Hasan took off the cap and appeared before her. "Her sister?"

"Hasan! What has happened to your reason? If the Queen-"

"The Queen will never see me."

"But she has been tormenting your wife! What will she do if she lays hands upon you again?"

"My wife!"

But Shawahi insisted on learning about his acquisition of the cap of invisibility before going further into the activities of the palace. Hasan sketched the events of the past day rapidly. "It seemed to be Allah's will that I possess these things," he said, a trifle guiltily, for he did not feel easy about the manner in which he had taken them. "I certainly had better use for them than those foolish boys."

"This is the way it was destined," she said. He had been afraid .that she would insist that he return the magic implements at once, yet for some reason she chose to overlook the impropriety. This did not ease his conscience.

"... and the princess Manar al-Sana arrived yesterday afternoon with her train, sooner than I expected, and went to the palace to-"

"Sana! Yesterday?"

"Yes. The same day the Queen banished you. She must have been very anxious for her children, to-Hasan! What is the matter?"

He had been so close. He had a.s.sumed it was a mer- chant caravan. If he had gone to meet it. ...

But even as Allah had willed that he possess the cap and the rod, He had made him pay for them by extending the quest. Hasan had not encountered his wife, and she had gone on into the city to visit the Queen.

The two boys ran to Sana as soon as they saw her. "Our father! O our father!" Nasir cried.

She strained them to her bosom. "What! Have you seen your sire?" Her eyes closed, for she knew that their father was far away, and she could not even admit, while her sister listened, that she knew his ident.i.ty.

But Shawahi was close enough to see the tears Sana tried to conceal, and overhear the murmured lament. "I wish I had never left him! If I knew any way to join him, I would take you to him now."

"But he was here!" Nasir insisted.

"Here!" Mansur echoed.

Sana embraced her boys again, half believing them. "I am the one who did this to myself and my children, and ruined my own house and the life of a fine man. I never knew how much I loved him, until I-"

Nur al-Huda had seen enough. "O wh.o.r.e, how did you come by these children? Did you marry secretly, or have you committed vile fornication?"

"O my sister, I never-"

"Sister, if you played the piece to a stranger, you deserve exemplary punishment. But if you married without our knowledge or permission, why did you abandon your husband and take away his children and bring them here? Why did you try to conceal their origin from us? Do you imagine we are so easily fooled?"

"Before Allah, O my sister, I-"

"Before Allah? What heathen mockery is this? Surely we are fortunate to have learned your case and revealed your condition and bared your nakedness! Guards!"

And while Shawahi stood by, helpless against the wrath of her Queen, the guards seized Sana roughly and pinned back her elbows and shackled her with iron. They knotted her lovely long hair over a pole and suspended her by it. The Queen strode up and tore off her sister's dress and beat her back so harshly with the cane that Sana screamed in agony. Her skin rose up in great long welts.

After that the Queen cursed her and cast her into a prison cell and sat down to write a letter to the King. Shawahi had to bring a sheet of the valuable writing paper made from the bark of certain trees and a vial of the brilliant ink. This service enabled her to look over the Queen's shoulder and read the characters as they were printed.

Nur al-Huda had been an excellent student in her youth, under Shawahi's tutelage, and her form was perfect. She began carefully at the bottom left corner of the sheet and placed symbol upon symbol in a vertical column until she reached the top, after which she began another column at the bottom.

The contents of the missive were quite fair: "There hath appeared in our land a man, mortal, by name Hasan, and our sister Manar al-Sana avoucheth that she is lawfully married to him according to the conventions of his country and that she bare him two sons whose origin she tried to conceal from us and from thee; nor did she discover this to us till there came to us this man who informed us that he wedded her in a far domain and tarried with her three years, after which she took her children and departed without his knowledge, only leaving word with his mother that he should look for her in the Isles of Wak. So we summoned the children, and when our servant Shawahi brought the boys before me I displayed them to this Hasan and was certified that they were indeed his sons and she his wife and that the story was true in every particular and that he was blameless for his quest, and the reproach and infamy of this matter rested with my sister. Now I feared the rending of the veil of honor before the folk of our isles, that it be revealed that a princess of Wak had cohabited with a heathen commoner and borne his children; so when this wanton, this traitress came to me I was incensed against her and hanged her up by the hair and bastinado'd her grievously and cast her into prison. Behold, I have acquainted thee with her case and it is thine to command, and whatso thou orderest that will we do. Thou knowest that in this affair is dishonor and disgrace to our name, and haply the islanders will hear of it, and our shame shall become amongst them a byword; wherefore it befitteth thee to return us an answer with all speed."

And she summoned an ifrit and instructed it to carry the message to the King and bring his reply with all haste.

Next morning the ifrit returned. "I thought the old boy was going to die of rage and shame," it said, pleased. "He wouldn't even keep your letter, but forced it back upon me. He's still got fire!"

"Begone!" Nur al-Huda snapped, s.n.a.t.c.hing the reply from the demon's hand. She had never been one to accept impertinence from the supernatural.

"But what shall I do with your original message? I don't want it."

"Hang it on a tree, for all I care!"

"Yes, mistress," it said, and vanished.

The King's reply was brief. "I commit her case to thee and give thee command over her life," it said. "If the matter be as thou sayest, dispose of her case without consulting me."

The Queen gave a grunt of satisfaction and sent for Manar al-Sana. They set the prisoner before her clad in haircloth, shackled and pinioned with her own hair. Sana stood abject and abashed, no longer flinching from the pain every movement brought from her welts. Shawahi knew she was calling to mind her former high estate and bemoaning her present humiliation and pain.

"Bring the ladder," the Queen directed her guards. Under her supervision they set it up, laid Sana upon it, and tied her supine with arms spread out and tied behind. They wound her hair about the rungs so that her head was immobile and uncomfortably tilted back. The two little boys stared uncomprehendingly.

Sana cried out, and wept, but the Queen had no pity, and no one in the palace dared offer the prisoner so much as a kind word. Such harsh treatment was in direct viola- tion of the principles of their religion-but they had to obey the Queen.

"O my sister," Sana sobbed, "how can your heart be hardened against me? Have you no mercy on me nor concern for these little children?"

The Queen only grew angry. "O wanton! O harlot! How shall I have compa.s.sion on you, O traitress?"

Sana tried to shake her head, but could not. "I appeal for judgment to the Lord of the Heavens! I am innocent of the things you revile me for. I have done no wh.o.r.edom. I am lawfully married to Hasan of Ba.s.sorah. Indeed, I should be angry with you because of your hardheartedness against me! How can you accuse me of harlotry without proof?"

The Queen did not reply immediately, and for that moment Shawahi hoped her heart had softened. But she was only considering her next action. "How dare you speak to me thus?"

Nur al-Huda now approached and struck Sana across the face and breast with her hands, battering again and again with such ferocity that the victim screamed and fainted.

"Water!" the Queen ordered, and servants dashed jars of it across Sana's upturned face until she revived, chok- ing. Her rough clothing was tight and disarrayed, and her fingers twisted helplessly under the chafing bonds. The water soaked down her hair and glistened on her face and dripped from the sodden ma.s.s of her upper garment. Her expression was hopeless; she was not lovely now.

But still she tried, lapsing into the mannerism she had picked up in Baghdad.

If I have sinned in any way, Or done ill deed and gone astray, I beg- "Dare you speak before your Queen in verse, O wh.o.r.e, and seek to excuse yourself for the mortal sins you are guilty of? I wish I could return your gigolo to you and see how much of your wickedness and lewdness you repented then! Will you disavow the commoner?"

Sana lay still, not answering.

"The cane!" It was presented, and Nur al-Huda bared her arms, took it up, and beat her sister along the length of her body.

"Admit your guilt!" the Queen demanded, panting.

Sana's mouth was bruised and swollen where the hard cane had struck. Droplets of pink were spattered where the blows had cut lips against teeth and thrown the b.l.o.o.d.y spittle out. "How can I curse the man I love?" she cried.

"The whip!" It was a length of plaited thongs st.u.r.dy enough to sting an elephant into full flight. The Queen brought it down across Sana's body with such force that her clothing was shredded in the narrow band it struck. More blows followed, and huge stripes showed across her hips and stomach. She was unconscious again.

Shawahi could take no more. She fled from the scene, weeping and cursing the Queen.

Nur al-Huda had not forgotten this suspect witness. "Fetch her to me!" she cried to the guards.

They caught Shawahi and dragged her back, then threw her on the floor and held her there. The Queen raised her whip and beat the old woman ruthlessly until she knew no more.

"Drag this ill-omened hag out on her face and dump her in the street with the rest of the garbage."

"And indeed," Shawahi finished, "the Queen repents of letting you go. She has sent men after you, promising a hundred pounds of gold and my former rank in her service to the man who brings you back. She has sworn that when she has you again she will execute you and your wife and your children together."

Hasan realized that all this had happened while he played a foolish game with sorcerer's sons. He had laughed while his wife was being tortured!

"O my mother! I have brought dishonor and destruction upon my family and upon you. What can I do to deliver my wife and children from this tyrannical Queen and to restore your position to you?"

"This was not your fault, Hasan. Save yourself before the Queen's minions capture you."

"I must undo the damage I have done. I must save my wife from torment."

"How can you rescue her from the Queen? Nur al-Huda has all the power of Wak at her command. Go and hide yourself, O my son, and may your G.o.d grant you safe-conduct from this cursed land."

"No!" But Hasan was in despair. There didn't seem to be any avenues open to him. Sana would die, unless- "Shawahi! The magic implements!"

She looked at him with dawning hope. "The cap and rod! I had forgotten. Glory be to Him who quickens the bones, though they be old and rotten as mine!"

"Do you know anything about these things?" Hasan still hadn't tried the rod, partly because he was afraid it would work. How could he control seven kings of the jinn?

Shawahi was overjoyed now. "I know the rod and I know its maker, who was my instructor in the science of sorcery. He was a mighty magician and spent a hundred and thirty-five years working on this rod and this cap before he died. And I heard him say to his two boys, 'O my sons, these two things are not of your lot, though I fashioned them for you, for there will come a stranger from a far country who will take them from you by force, and you shall not be able to prevent it.' They replied, 'O our father, tell us in what manner he will avail to take them,' but he said, 'I wot not, except that this stranger will be given the signal of success by a message left in a tree in his path by an ifrit.' And O my son, now I realize that you are the one he spoke of, and the implements are yours by divine will. By means of these you shall surely save your wife and children, for even the magic of the Queen cannot prevail against these things."

So the rod and cap were his, to do with as he liked.

How intricate were the mechanisms of fate! "But how can I make my wife and children invisible, when there is only one cap? I would not trust my family to the jinn." He had not forgotten Dahnash.

Shawahi smiled. "Pay attention and I'll tell you how. I refuse to deal with the wicked Queen, after the foul fash- ion she has used us all. I have a mind to go to the caves of the magicians and stay there until I die. But you, O my son, have much to gain yet from this world. Don your cap and take your rod in hand and enter the place where your wife and children are. Untie Sana and smite the earth with the rod, saying 'Be ye present, O servants of these en- graved!' whereupon the jinn will appear. One should pres- ent himself as one of the chiefs of the tribes, and you can command him whatever you wish."

Hasan was swayed by her certainty, but not enough. "How can I trust these jinn?"

"As long as you hold the rod, you have absolute com- mand. There is no counterspell or evasion they can make to do you harm. It took the magician a hundred and thirty-five years to counteract everything, but he did it. Just tell the jinn to bore a hole in the wall to let you out, and to hold back the Queen's guards, if you're worried about too close a contact with the servants of the rod." She rubbed her eyes, and Hasan could see that she had bruises.

"Now let me rest my brittle bones in sleep; the beating the Queen gave me disheartens me somewhat."

"Yes, my mother," Hasan said contritely. He picked up the rod, set the cap on his head, and disappeared.

Five steps from the house he paused. Did the cap really work? Of course it did-yet new doubt a.s.sailed him. He needed one more confirmation.

He tiptoed back into the house. Shawahi had left the main room, probably seeking out a couch. He moved about, looking for her.

The rod clattered loudly against a wall. Irritated, he set it down. He couldn't have it giving him away, and it was hard to keep it clear of obstructions when he couldn't see it. He noted that it resumed visibility the moment his hand left it.

He spied Shawahi lying on a mat, her eyes closed. He crept beside her, opened his mouth-and saw how tired and broken she was. She had not deceived him about the beating; black marks were on her arms and neck, and there was dirt in her hair where it had rubbed against the ground.