THE MAGIC FOUNTAIN

An Untold Tale of Scheherazade

Copyright 1999, by Christopher Leeson

Verses from "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam"

Prologue

"The worldly hope men set their hearts upon

Turns ashes -- or it prospers; and anon,

Like snow upon the desert's dusty face

Lighting a little hour or two -- is gone."

"I am the maid Scheherazade, teller of tales. Many are the wonders of the East, but in all the lands of the Faithful, what story is more marvelous than that of Prince Ali and the Magic Fountain?

"Many years ago, a good emir by the name of Haroon held court in the royal city of Damascus. Allah the Bountiful blessed this noble-hearted monarch with a son and a daughter -- Ali, strong, and honest, and Ayeesha, exquisite of form and possessing eyes which might captivate even the djinn of the desert.

"Ali, obedient and dutiful, agreed to marry the beautiful princess Badiat, the daughter of the sultan of Edessa. But his sister Ayeesha, alas, was headstrong and refused all of her many suitors. Though the emir was kindly and patient, it rended his heart that he had reached his elderly years and as yet had no grandchild to dandle in his arms.

"Upon the day that the caravan of Princess Badiat arrived in Damascus, the common people of Damascus thronged the streets joyfully. But, alas, of all the emir's subjects, one of them alone did not rejoice.

"For many years, the Emir Haroon had been well-advised by Rasheed, his high-minded vizier. Unfortunately, after Rasheed was taken to Paradise, his clever son, Lord Achmed, was elevated to his sire's place. Though Achmed was a man of wit, accomplishment, and charm, he nursed a wicked heart and a secret ambition. This ambition, sad to say, was to tumble down the ancient dynasty of Haroon and mount the gilded throne in Ali's stead. To take the coveted scepter by means of guile, the crafty vizier realized that he must first eliminate his youthful rival.

"To achieve this evil end, Lord Achmed plotted long and hard. Finally, with the help of his devious and unscrupulous magician, Yusuf, he at long last hit upon a cruel scheme. And from this conspiracy of scoundrels comes our tale . . . ."

Chapter One

"The moving finger writes; and, having writ,

Moves on: nor all thy piety nor wit

Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,

Nor all thy tears wash out a word of it."

Yusuf the wizard climbed breathlessly to the topmost prison cell in Achmed's palace. Notwithstanding his years and his heavy burden, he at last reached the highest landing of the tower. The bewhiskered jailor offered a reverent greeting: "Sire, may Allah shower His blessings upon your gray head."

The wizard looked past him, at the prison door. "Is the Crusader dog prepared?"

"He has been bound, wise mullah."

"Good. Speak not a word of what you may discover after I depart, Guard. This is the business of the lofty lords, and it would be sad if loose talk cost an honest man his head!"

"Yes, Great One!" the man nodded emphatically.

"Unlock the door, and then return to the guard room until I call you back."

The jailor did as told and the fleshy wizard waddled wearily into the cell. There, he set his burden, a bucket of water, down upon the straw-strewn floor and straightened himself.

He looked about the dim interior with frowning, ferret eyes. The cell, he observed, was not the worst that Achmed, the cruel vizier, owned. It possessed a cot, table, stool, basin, and a window letting in the morning light. Many a noble captive of war had been held for ransom in that selfsame tower. These days, as the Crusader armies struggled with the Sons of the Faithful the length and breadth of the Holy Land, it was occasionally used so again.

Chains rattled and Yusuf turned to regard the Frankish knight fettered to the wall. This was a tow-headed young man with light-colored stubble on firm cheeks. The sorcerer judged him to be well-born, but Achmed had eschewed the demand for ransom. Instead, if this morning's experiment proved successful, the scion of distant France would simply vanish from the face of the earth.

The noble son muttered an oath against his visitor, though he had no inkling of the stranger's intentions. Yusuf ignored the indecipherable insult while he took a small vial from his scrip. This he unstopped and poured its clear liquid contents into the bucket of well-water. Very carefully then, lest some of the polluted mix slosh upon his legs, the portly conjurer picked up the pail, placed one hand under its bottom rim, and slowly brought it back for a mighty cast. . . .

Lord Achmed was a connoisseur of many things, women not least of all. He had taken no wife, for his ambitions required a lady of royal rank and none were to be had. Nonetheless, many an odalisque filled his harem, such as the blonde girl at his side, his most recent acquisition.

"You are the most lovely woman I have ever crushed to my chest," he told the concubine. "What is your name?

The girl looked up nervously. "Sheba, Master. Have you forgotten?"

He gave a short, sharp laugh. "Saucy one! I have a hundred slave girls and dancers, so how may I remember every single one of them by name?! Yet, I believe that I shall recollect your name after this, little Sheba. Tell me -- do you dance?"

"No, my lord," Sheba replied with a shake of her head. "I am only a peasant girl."

Achmed touched her cheek. "Nay, be not so humble. Allah often prepares a fate for mortals which confounds the circumstances of their birth. You were born to dwell in the homes of the mighty and sleep on silken sheets, not to ravage your peerless skin toiling under the remorseless sun."

Sheba looked away in sorrow. "I would gladly give up house and complexion alike, if I might only return home! My aged parents need me. The tax collectors seized me when my father could not pay all he owed. Help us, Lord!"

"What am I to do, foolish one? Taxes must be paid or the kingdom will fall. Besides, now that I have seen you, should I deny myself your beauty? 'Tis a pity that you cannot dance, but I will have you trained! As long as you please me, sweet Sheba, you shall have a place here in my harem."

"As master wishes," the girl replied sadly.

The handsome official ran his manicured fingers through her spun-gold hair. "Your coloration beguiles me. You are Circassian?"

"Yes, mighty Lord," she nodded. "My mother was the Circassian concubine of a wealthy merchant. My father, a Circassian also, served in Emir Haroon's army. One day he saw my mother-to-be drawing water from the public fountain. He was so taken with her grace that he went to her master and purchased her for a wife."

Achmed grinned appreciatively. "If your mother was as beautiful as you are today, it is easy to understand how a man might offer her marriage and respectability."

"I do not know, sire," Sheba demurred.

At that moment Achmed's chief steward, Mongi, entered the lord's hall and prostrated himself upon the porcelain tiles.

"What is it, slave? Why do you disturb us at such a time?"

"The magician Yusuf waits without, O Master. Shall I send him away?"

Lines of anticipation etched the vizier's crafty features. "No; bring him to me. But first, take these anemone blossoms away with you. What may be said hereafter is not for innocent ears like theirs."

The steward rose, glanced to the cluster of women, and clapped his hands. The concubines and dancing girls scrambled to their feet and followed after him like so many ducklings. Achmed stood up and straightened his robes. A moment later he heard the pad of heavy feet advancing in satin slippers.

"Achmed, Hawk of the Desert, Keeper of the Sword, Lord of --"

"Spare me, Yusuf," Achmed said. "I have no objection to flattery, except when it is like yours -- perfunctory and insincere. Give me the man who knows how to flatter from the heart, flatter with unswerving love and admiration, and I will make him great in this land."

"I have happy news, Mighty One," pressed the wizard.

Achmed arched his eyebrows. "Was your -- experiment -- successful?"

The older man drew an empty flask from his brocade robe. "Very much so. The effect was all that we could have hoped for!"

"You tested it upon the Crusader?"

"Yes, my lord."

"Come! I must see the wretch!"

A quarter-hour later, as they left the Crusader's cell, Achmed rubbed his hands with glee. "It is incredible! Better far than simple assassination! Unfortunately, it may be impossible for you to get close to Ali. He is well-guarded and he does not trust you -- with good reason, I may add."

Yusuf grinned proudly. "I have traveled far and have acquired many amazing items of magic, Lord. One of my finest is a magic jewel which makes the holder invisible to the human eye. Ali will never know that I am near."

Achmed scowled. "You have such a marvel and you have not told me?!"

"I have only lately purchased it in Persia," the old man wheedled.

Achmed shrugged. "Then go swiftly, fool! Do your job well, and I shall make you as wealthy as a lord!"

Yusuf bowed and backed away. "I live to obey, Munificent Patron!"

Left alone, Achmed returned to the cell to take a last look at the prisoner. Then, with cruel satisfaction, he closed the heavy door and turned the key in the lock.

On their way to the emir's palace, Ali and his life-long friend Lord Hassan took the shortcut through the gardens. Their conversation was suddenly cut short by a rope of silken sheets dropping down from above. They looked up at the summit of the garden wall.

"A thief!" muttered Hassan, gripping his sword hilt.

But Ali's sharp ears picked out the sound of feminine breathing overhead. "No -- it is a flight from the seraglio! Hush!"

The young men concealed themselves behind the hedge to observe. A moment later, as a girl in harem garments climbed agilely to the ground, they pounced. Her kohled eyes turned wildly upon the prince as he lay hold of her.

"Ayeesha!" Ali shouted in recognition. "What are you doing away from the women's quarters?"

"Unhand me!" she demanded. "I would see the caravan of Princess Badiat parade through the town. Everyone else is free to do so, except us prisoners of the harem!"

"If you would be so adventurous," Ali admonished, "at least be not so shameless. Cover your face!"

She raised her chin defiantly and met his stern eyes. "Cover your own, Brother! Is my face more shameful than yours?"

Hassan averted his gaze, for no decent man permitted himself to look at a princess' unveiled visage. "Ah, perhaps I should leave you two alone?" he suggested.

Ali answered without looking back. "Yes, it is well that you do, Hassan. Join me at the hawk cages after I make my daily call upon the emir, my father."

When Hassan had vanished around the corner, he felt more at liberty to discuss his sister's misdeed. "Ayeesha, explain yourself!"

She folded her sleek arms peevishly. "I am tired of being cooped up and treated like a child! If you were me, would you not feel the same?"

He shook his head in exasperation. "It is your own fault that your life is idle and unfulfilling, Sister. Had you taken a husband, as Father has wanted, you would now be the mistress of your own home."

She threw up her hands. "Marriage would change nothing, except the face of my jailer."

He took her shoulders and brought her around to face him. "He would be no jailer! He would be thy lover and thy mate. He would treasure thee above all the gold of the earth."

"And imprison me, too, just like the gold of the earth. I wish I were a peasant woman. Such as they can at least walk. Better still, I would be a dancing girl out among song and laughter."

"You are blessed to be the daughter of the mightiest ruler in Syria. Why canst thou not be grateful that Allah has blessed thee?"

"Because it's not fair, Ali! You simply do not understand. Being a princess is nothing like being a prince. You have everything and I have nothing."

"You are wrong, little wren," he demurred, stroking his sister's cheek. "Why do you think that I am more free than you?"

"You are! You are father's favorite, and his heir."

He sighed. "Would that I had an older brother to be both! Being heir and favorite means that I must fulfill our father's onerous expectations. And what is my reward? Why should I crave to be emir?"

"Thy fame shall live forever, Ali. You shall make all men obey thee!"

He grinned ironically. "Yes, all emirs are remembered. Some are remembered only for being sots or fools. Even a good monarch must do many things for which he ought to be ashamed. How would it serve my honor to levy high taxes upon people who already had little enough, or order a thief's hand lopped off? Or send young men to die in battle -- perhaps one of them a son of thine?

Ayeesha laughed in exasperation. "You would have me a mother already? Have you not forgotten to wed me first?"

Ali's glance was full of regret. "I have long-hoped that you would marry my friend Hassan. The two of you got along so well when we were children together."

Her expression hardened. "We are no longer children, Ali, and much has changed. Hassan is your friend, not mine. He is a noble-hearted and comely man, no doubt, but I feel no magic when I look into his face. He is almost as much my brother as you are!"

"I feel the same," confessed Ali. "He is like the brother I have never had. But Hassan is not truly your brother and he would make a fine husband."

"Then marry him yourself!"

He grasped her more firmly. "Ayeesha! Thy tongue is as sharp as an adder's tooth! Wit ill-becomes a woman's hopes for happy matrimony! I pity the man who finally takes thee to wife!"

"Fine, brother! Then let me marry no one at all -- least of all Hassan."

"Why least of all?" Ali asked disappointedly.

"Because Hassan would indeed take me -- but only to please you. He loves me no more than I love him. Think, Ali! He never speaks of me when alone in your company -- does he?"

Ali tried to remember such an occasion, but was stumped. "Not in so many words --"

"Good!"

"What do you mean `good?' You need a husband and Hassan would be the best man in all Syria. Delay no longer, little quail. People already call a maid a spinster at the age of eighteen!"

"Why put such grief upon me, Ali? Are you my brother or my father?"

"Father and son think alike."

"More the pity!" Ayeesha scoffed as she wriggled out of his grasp.

At that moment two matrons from the harem hurried up to the royal pair and bowed to the prince.

"Praise be, Prince Ali," said the older of the two servants.

"May Allah be with you, grandmothers."

The second matron now turned toward Ayeesha, saying: "Princess, please return with us before you provoke a scandal!"

"Why a scandal? Liberty is no one's scandal. The animals are less than I, or so they say, but yet they are more free."

"The horses, mules, and cattle are not free," Ali reminded her.

She hung her head. "'Tis true. All who are conquered are not free!"

The prince placed his hand upon his sister's shoulder. "You are not conquered, white dove. You are loved more than you know."

She shook him off irritably. "Would that Allah gave me another kind of love, and let you make do with mine -- then you may tell me whether you like it or not!"

"Do not say such wicked things, Princess," the older matron chided. "Sometime Allah hears foolish utterances and makes them come to pass -- to teach us the price of folly. Now, come along, dear one."

Ayeesha looked appealing toward Ali, but he only shook his head.

"There is nothing to do for it. You must go back," he told her.

"The parade --!"

"I will not see it either."

"Why? She is your bride!"

"She is only another burden that I, as prince, must bear. You will surely meet the princess Badiat even before I do. She will be housed in the women's quarters."

"Imprisoned, you mean!"

"Your words, not mine," he replied with a patient smile.

Ayeesha returned a doleful glance, then allowed the attendants to guide her away. Ali watched them go with a shake of his head.

Two hours later, Ali released his hawk, which began circling at a great height over its master's head. Below, the prince's party advanced through the brush with dogs to flush the game. As the desert quails whirred from the thickets, the raptor saw the birds and dived in for the kill. Having made a clean strike, the well-trained creature returned to its master bearing its prize.

"'Tis but a pale form of hunting," mused Ali to Hassan as he tugged the game bird from his pet's claws. "It is the hawk which does all the work."

His friend shrugged. "Yet I cannot help but admire these birds."

"Why?"

"Look how your falcon overcomes its own nature, which is to feast upon its own kill. Instead, it leaves it for his master to profit by."

"Training is all," Ali mused absently, not much interested in the subject. "I myself am being rigorously prepared to be my father's successor."

Hassan looked up. "But that is not against your true nature, surely."

"Of course it is not," he replied tonelessly. Then, not wanting to betray his sullen mood, he forced a bit of cheer into his baritone. "Hawks are tame sport! Give me a boar spear and a bit of danger any day."

"As you say, but boars are few and far away," Hassan reminded him.

"That is true," he sighed, and changed the subject. "I hope you took no offense at Ayeesha."

His friend smiled broadly. "How can one be offended by a girl who makes him laugh so hard?"

"Yes, that one delights even as she infuriates," the heir of Damascus nodded.

Hassan slapped his comrade upon the shoulder. "How do you feel, Ali -- you who are soon to be the groom of the most sought-after princess in all Syria? What did the old woman who examined her last year say?"

Ali shrugged. "She said that the princess is beautiful, and that Allah has favored me. She is, however, older than most brides -- already she is Ayeesha's age."

"That is old!" Hassan said with a sympathetic grimace.

"Her sire has been trying to arrange this marriage for over three years, but my father long pretended to be considering other prospects, simply to drive the dowry up."

"Your father was always a practical man."

Ali shook his head. "Once Father's price was met, I would have had to marry her even if she had had the aspect of a crocodile! I will not even be permitted to see her face until after the ceremony."

"That is the way with us of high rank. Nonetheless, it is good to be wed. A man needs sons. If I could only find a highborn lady who is as lovely as that concubine in the tent of Mufti the Bedouin --"

The emir's son laughed. "Now there was a vision of loveliness!" he concurred. "The best of his harem."

"I will have a better seraglio someday," Hassan said with a chuckle. "Then I, master of all I survey, will permit my wives and concubines to ply my naked body with caresses and mount me one after another. And the winner shall be she who first draws forth my vital juices."

"And what will the winner win?" Ali inquired .

Undaunted, Hassan replied: "She who wins this contest should receive a precious jewel into her hand, while the losers get nothing but a thwack upon their beautiful behinds with the girl-whip. After that, I think, each of them shall take care to be more amorous the next time. It is a privilege for a girl to be summoned to her master's pillows, after all."

"I would do even better," Ali averred, not to be out-done.

"How better?"

The prince raised his finger like a pedagogue giving a lesson. "Each member of my harem should be picked for possessing one particular adeptness or charm. One girl should possess the most satiny, delicious calves in all the East. Another should own the most perfect thighs; and still another would have hands which are the softest of all -- and she would use them to induce me to valorous deeds of manhood."

Hassan nodded, thoroughly enjoying his comrade's flight of fantasy. "I think you speak not of any mortal harem, but the garden of the houris in Paradise."

"Women are like hawks. If trained, they may perform marvels. I have heard of how whip-masters employed by slavers can take the rudest country maid and, in a few weeks time, make her perform like a houri. -- But I have not finished describing my harem."

"Then do go on!"

"Still another slave girl shall be possessed of the most perfect large, firm, and round breasts. She will kneel before me and cup those soft melons of flesh against my zubb and, moving back and forth, create the illusion that I am probing her maidenly kus."

"I am most interested in that thigh-slave you mentioned," Hassan admitted whimsically.

Ali grinned, knowing that beautiful legs on a woman pleased his friend more than any other feminine charm. "My thigh-slave will clench my excited scepter between her satiny columns until it is incited to heroic performance. The calf-slave shall, of course, do likewise with her own special charms."

"Breasts, legs, calves. Do you never receive Mouth Magic in this harem of yours?"

"Every day!" Ali exclaimed. "I should naturally appoint a sucking-slave, one whose soft, rosy lips will nibble, lick, and breathe warmly upon me. But best of all, she will engorge the entire head of my rutting serpent, exciting it with her tongue, until she draws forth its full venom."

Ali went on, waxing fancifully about a toe-slave skilled in tickling him with her toes alone, and a derriere-slave, who must offer up her satiny globes to his mighty sword-of-pleasure. And this latter maid, the prince emphasized, would be chosen also for her sharpness of speech and defiant temper. This stipulation surprised Hassan and his look moved Ali to explain that it is ever the proud and querulous girl which a man takes special pleasure in switching. A shrew tamed, he said, was ever to be prized above any dull, passive girl. And if the shrew also has a beautiful bottom to receive his stinging discipline, then her master is rendered twice happy.

Hassan cocked one eye. "They are all slaves in your harem, I see; will you have no wife?"

Ali shrugged. "Every monarch must have four wives, and so shall I! Badiat will be the first of these, of course, as her father will have purchased that rank for her. God willing, I would keep the four of them pregnant all the time."

"What is the pleasure in that?" Hassan queried with a frown. "The pride of a large family?"

The prince shook his head. "The pleasure is that I would then need to see each of them only twice a year: Once when I plant my seed, and once more when I inspect the harvest."

Hassan continued to smile, but he was sensing sourness under his friend's extravagant foolery. Ali was not a sour man by nature, but he had tended to sourness oftentimes these late days, even in his humor.

"Well," Hassan said with a frown, "I must consult the captain of the horse. Now that I am made a bey of the royal troop I can but spare but little time for sport."

Ali nodded. "And I need go back to my father's councilors, who will blather at me until evening prayer on the theories of policy."

"I pity you," commiserated his friend.

Ali looked off into the distance. "Each man's fate is written upon his forehead at birth, and none may change a letter of the sentence."

Hassan, too, chose to wax philosophical. "If we knew what that sentence read, would we be happier or only the more aggrieved?"

"I know not," Ali sighed resignedly. "But my immediate fate is to bathe off the sweat of the hunt. Shall we meet again after evening prayer?"

"I should be pleased," his comrade affirmed.

Ayeesha had spent the afternoon sitting moodily in a corner of the women's quarters. She barely heard the soft footsteps behind her.

"You are Princess Ayeesha, soon to be my sister?" asked someone standing behind her.

The princess turned and espied a slim, dark-complected young woman of about eighteen standing over her. "Princess Badiat?" Ayeesha inquired, rising. "Welcome. It is true, I am the sister of your husband-to-be."

Badiat extended her hand. "I am pleased to meet you. One needs a kindly companion in a strange city; I hope that you shall be mine."

Ayeesha regarded the stranger quizzically. "You seem angry, Princess. A difficult journey?"

"A journey that ends too soon," the Edessan replied acridly. "I have never been outside my father's palace before. Now, again, after a brief viewing of fields and towns, I am again caged. Only the place has changed, nothing else. How do you bear it?"

The Damascene looked at her new acquaintance with renewed interest. "I was speaking on just that subject with my brother."

Badiat frowned. "With my betrothed?"

"Why frown so? Ali is a fine man!"

The bride-to-be shrugged. "I saw him once at my father's court, through a screen. He was a fair enough figure of a youth, I suppose."

Ayeesha touched Badiat's hand. "You will love him, as I do."

"You have a soft touch," remarked the princess suddenly. "Does my touch please you also?"

"Princess, I --"

"We shall have many hours together, I do not doubt. Perhaps we shall become -- good friends."

"I hope we shall, my princess --" murmured Ayeesha with a wondering glance.

Chapter Two

"'Tis all a chequer-board of nights and days

Where Destiny with Men for pieces plays:

Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays,

And one by one back in the closet lays."

Helping Ali descend into the waist-deep water, the bath-slave Aram failed to detect the stealthy footfalls of an unseen intruder. The wizard Yusuf, not yet absolutely confident of the Gem of Invisibility's power, paused and swallowed hard. Again he held clutched the glazed vial, now refilled. He had begun to hope that he might act with impunity, when Ali suddenly cast a glance his way. The old man quailed, but the prince's eyes moved fluidly past him, at which event the conspirator sucked in a deep breath of relief.

This inopportune gasp Ali actually did hear, and so frowningly scanned the chamber, while Yusuf stood frozen in place, too frightened even to breathe. Yet the prince saw nothing, and when Aram passed him the bottle of ointment, he poured a puddle of the oil into his palm and commenced to rub it into his own muscular arms and chest. With Ali and the servant both distracted, Yusuf carefully unstopped the flask and stepped to the edge of the bath-pit. Then, with trembling-yet-careful fingers, he evacuated the clear contents into the water with only the tiniest tinkling sound.

As the magical substance spread and reached Ali, something like a thousand pin-pricks benumbed the youth's flesh, and he let out a gasp of startlement. His knees failing under him, he thrust out his arms to catch the tile coping, lest he go under. He succeeded in this, but the servant above was already crying out in surprise and dismay:

"Master!" cried Aram. "This cannot be!"

Dazed, the son of Haroon looked up at him.

"What?" he murmured, and only belatedly realized that his voice sounded strange.

"You have changed!"

Dazed, Ali wondered why the man's eyes seemed to be starting from their sockets. Then he looked down at himself.

And screamed.

The Emir Haroon paced back and forth in front of his councilors, feeling much older than he was. The wise men of Damascus themselves appeared uncustomarily perplexed, and, out of reverence, and a certain squeamishness, refrained from looking at the cloaked figure of Ali. The latter was standing apart, side by side with Hassan, his face hidden by a close-wrapped kaffiyeh.

Lord Babur finally breached the tense silence with a platitude: "Sorcery is afoot, great Haroon. The culprit must be found and punished!"

The emir tore at his grey hair. "Oh, woe!" he wailed. "Should the sultan of Edessa discover this catastrophe, Ali's marriage to Badiat shall be doomed! Our own people may turn against us as a throne cursed of God! Our whole dynasty is ended! I no longer have an heir!"

"Majesty!" cried Ali. "It is not so! I am alive!"

Achmed, amused by the sound of the prince's voice, smiled unctuously at the shrouded figure with words calculated to wound: "Of course you understand what the emir is saying, O Royal One. The people will shun a prince under an enchantment such as yours. But hopefully, by the grace of Allah, we shall in time find the means to take this degrading spell from your person. But until then, alas, what His Eminence says is true."

He then turned toward the emir, saying: "Ali's wedding to Badiat is now impossible, Great One, but we dare not lose the alliance with Edessa. Therefore, another noble suitor must be found for the princess -- and swiftly."

"Do not despair, Mighty Emir," interjected the councilor Madani, "I fear that I know what has befallen Ali -- and there is yet hope for him."

Ali perked up. "What hope? Explain!"

"There is a spring called the Fountain of Marshan. He or she who bathes in its waters is --"

"Is what?" demanded Emir Haroon.

". . . is changed as Prince Ali has been changed." He went on to explain the legend in detail.

Achmed tensed. "And you suppose that an enemy has cursed Prince Ali with the water of this fountain?" he queried, keeping his tone controlled.

"I do. Fortunately, a little fresh water from the same spring will instantly remove the curse."

"Then I must go to the spring!" cried Ali.

"I, too, have heard of this evil fountain," put in another councilor, Aziz by name. "It is a long journey from here -- at the city of Marshan, far away to the north of the mountains of Persia, where the mountains end and the steppe land of Khwarizm begins."

"I do not care how far I must go!" the prince exclaimed. "I will not live as -- as --" His words choked off, their taste too bitter to utter.

"Be warned, Ali," said Madani with immense gravity. "The legends say that for the curse to be removed, the sufferer must do no dishonor to his original shape, and therefore must conduct himself accordingly."

Ali stepped determinably forward: "What does that mean? Do not speak in riddles!"

Madani explained his meaning carefully, and Ali's eyes grew wide in anger. "Why do you even make mention of such a thing?! By Allah's Sword, what do you take me for?!"

Councilor Aziz interposed himself between Madani and Ali. "Peace, Your Grace. Our colleague means only to say that no one knows what subtle changes this sorcery may have wrought in your blameless nature."

"My nature is exactly what it has always been!" exclaimed the emir's son. "Or," he demanded through clenched teeth, "have you noticed some alteration?"

"None at all," the elder replied with a reverential bow.

The emir slammed his fist against the arm of his chair. "We shall seek for the culprit! He may have more of the magic water, and thus the curse may be lifted at once. But if our search does not avail us, then we must waste no time." He swung toward Hassan.

The young warrior straightened. "Yes, Mighty One?"

"Hassan, you shall prepare an expedition to Khwarizm at once! Accompany Ali to the spring -- and do not return until my son is restored."

"Why do you not let me prepare the expedition myself, Father?" Ali asked in perplexity. "It will help keep my mind off this terrible condition."

"How can you speak to warriors and camel-sellers as you are, my son?" his father answered. "No one would recognize you, and you must not tell a soul your identity, lest the scandal shame our entire house, our ancestors' memory even!"

The prince blinked with startlement. "Am I a thing of disdain to you now, Father? Why? I have done no wrong and am responsible in no way for what has befallen me."

"No, of course you are not! But we must be discrete. Besides, you are too distraught to do such exacting work. Let Hassan see to these difficult matters."

"Why should I?" Ali answered defiantly. "Whatever else I may have become, Majesty, I have not become a child nor a fool!"

Achmed spoke up, not wanting the council to end before he cast blame away from himself: "That bath servant of the prince's may be a part of the plot. He should be put to the torture at once."

Ali raised his hand. "No! He is innocent. -- I feel it. It is an evil thing to torture a good servant on mere suspicion, and I will not have it done on my account!"

"Of course, of course," vacillated the emir, "but he must at least be closely questioned. If, in the process, he behaves in a guilty manner --"

He dropped the subject and addressed the others: "Gentlemen, come; we must sort this matter out carefully."

The emir withdrew and the councilors stepped briskly after him, leaving Ali and Hassan behind. The prince looked askance at the warrior at his side.

Before Hassan could encourage or commiserate, there came a shout from Achmed in the adjacent chamber. "Hassan, you come also. This concerns your journey!"

The prince's comrade looked bemusedly at Ali. "Excuse me, my friend. I will rejoin you as soon as possible."

Now left alone, Ali spun about with a shout of frustration and stormed away.

Achmed, once more surrounded by a crowd of his women, received Yusuf for the second time that day. The latter was accompanied this time by a tall, muscular warrior in the garments of a ghazi.

The vizier pushed a doe-eyed concubine away, commanding: "Begone, all of you!" As the women scrambled from the suite, Achmed beckoned Yusuf and his bodyguard closer. The latter watched the departing dancers and concubines with avid interest.

"Visions of loveliness, lord," the ghazi rumbled, his accent betraying an Egyptian origin.

"Yes, indeed," Achmed affirmed distractedly. "You should see them when they dance."

"Aye," nodded the big swordsman, "that is the sort of woman for me -- a dancing girl, like my mother was."

"I take it that you are Mahmood, Yusuf's bodyguard?" said Achmed.

"That is so, lord," affirmed Yusuf. "I would have lost my life many a time during my travels, except that the stalwart Mahmood stood at my side."

"You are welcome here, warrior," Achmed said.

Mahmood gave a dignified bow. "Thank you, Mighty Vizier."

The Turkish grandee put his beringed hand upon the old wizard's back. "Yusuf, you should have seen Prince Ali! He was wrapped up like a bedouin! It was all I could do to keep from laughing! "

Yusuf grinned. "You forget that I saw him in the bath -- not wrapped, but naked! The spectacle was even more amazing than you can imagine!"

"And if I have my way, he will wear that shape for the rest of his life!" the vizier vowed determinedly. "Tell me, Sorcerer, have you come up with some plan to prevent Ali from ever again regaining his natural shape?"

"Yes indeed, Lord. Have I ever failed you?"

Achmed listened carefully to his learned cohort and then nodded. "I do like what I hear. How should we bring it about? Do you suggest violence?"

"Alas, lord, for the magic to work, Ali must act willingly, enthusiastically, even."

"He will never do that!"

"I agree. For that reason we must resort to magic once more."

"What do you mean?"

"I have a potion which comes from the city of Marshan also." Yusuf summarized the peculiar nature of the cantrip.

"But how do we know that the potion you purchased was true and pure?" Achmed asked edgily.

"I am confident, Esteemed One, but if you would set your mind at ease, I suggest that we test it upon the knight in the tower while you observe."

Achmed rubbed his beard thoughtfully, his lips drawing into a tight, thin smile. "And perhaps I shall do more than merely observe."

Yusuf led his master Achmed and his servant Mahmood to the Crusader's cell, whereupon Achmed sent the guards away and unlocked the door. On entering, they espied a blonde woman of about nineteen or twenty years of age wearing the rood-decorated tabard and hose of the infidel Crusaders.

Standing defiantly on the opposite side of a small table, the blonde snarled: "Sorcier! Va-t'en! Je ne suis pas un caprice pour votre amusement!"

"The knight, I think, resents being turned into a woman," Yusuf grinned toward Achmed. "And yet he makes such a pretty virgin girl!" Then, regarding the captive once again, he said, "We must fetter her." He passed the cup he was holding to the vizier. "Please hold this vessel, my lord."

Achmed received the chalice and his two underlings went after the Frankish maid. She shouted a foreign obscenity and seized an earthenware pitcher to throw at Yusuf's head. The old man ducked, but Mahmood charged. The French girl eluded his grasp for a moment, but he soon had her locked in his herculean arms. The Egyptian and his master dragged their prize to a wooden pillar, from whence a set of manacles depended. While Mahmood held her, the magician clicked the iron cuffs shut about her wrists.

"Cochons! Je vous tourai!" shrieked the fettered blonde, the echoes of her cry ringing through the tower.

Achmed now stepped forward. The girl's red-faced rage, her flashing blue eyes, the disarray of her hair, came across as feral beauty. "Very good," he said. "Now leave us alone. I will administer the potion and observe its effects personally."

Yusuf half-bowed in assent and drew Mahmood after him. Achmed watched the door close, then held the cup of wine up before his captive's nose. The bouquet was heavy and sweet.

"You are thirsty, are not you, Sir Knight? Let it not be said that I do not see to my captives' needs." He nudged the goblet to her lips. "Here, take this. I know how you French like wine. All the world knows you for a race of drunkards."

After a circumspect taste, the French girl yielded to her thirst and drank in large gulps. Finally, sated, she sighed and sagged in her bonds. Achmed watched avidly. After just a moment, the grandee noticed the girl's shiver. This shiver, whatever its cause, seemed to leave her as swiftly as it had come, and she was suddenly looking up, blinking at him with bedazzled eyes.

Had the spell worked? Achmed, deciding that it was time test it, groped the girl's tabard.

No sooner had he pinched her breast than she rebuked him: "A bas les mains, abatardi puant que vous etes!"

"You do not like being touched, my lotus?" he mocked. "Why should that be? I have heard that French girls are all whores, though I do not know whether they were speaking figuratively or literally. We must decide the matter for ourselves."

Achmed prodded the girl with insolent fingers. "Conchon!" the transformed knight yelled at the top of her lungs.

After a few minutes, Achmed began to notice a gentling of his victim's attitude. Was it the effect of the potion? Emboldened, the vizier took his victim by the waist and crushed her against himself, forcing hungry kisses upon her mouth. She thrashed about and aimed a knee at his crouch, but he was too quick for her.

"Allez-vous-en, vase Arabe!" she growled, and Achmed surmised that her words had amounted to an insult of the vilest kind.

"Do you impugn me, by proud beauty?" he inquired whimsically. "You will be punished for that."

He drew his father's bejeweled dagger; the girl froze as Achmed poised the keen blade under her chin. But instead of cutting her, he merely severed the tie at her throat.

"I want to see you naked," explained Achmed as he pulled her tunic down. "If your beauty pleases me, you shall be permitted to live as a concubine for the rest of your life."

The bare-footed knight kicked at Achmed's shins futilely while the vizier cut away those parts of her garments which would not yield to main strength. "Ahh, yes," he murmured, "I am impressed, truly. Some fool told me that Western women were small-breasted, but you are as generously-endowed as any Circassian beauty."

He touched her now-bared bosom, while the girl tried to shake him off. Achmed laughed at her mortification; the knight was easy prey for the Syrian in her present form. And he knew from experience how to deal with an indignant, chained girl.

Maliciously, Achmed sank to his knees and hooked his thumbs into the knight's waistband. His attempt to drag down her hose incited the knight to kicking again. Annoyed, Achmed left her hose bunched at her knees, where it would seriously impede her ability to kick with efficacy.

From his current perspective, Achmed inspected the curling gold below the Frank's little belly. The vizier placed his hands upon her buttocks, kneading them with vigor while his prey twisted right and left.

Eager to subject his prisoner to new indignities, the vizier took hold of her knees and bent to kiss her inner thighs. Oblivious to her growling cries, the Turk worked his way up along the blemishless flesh to the fair nest above. He touched his tongue to her clitoris -- the zambur, as his people called it -- giving it a mischievous flick, which caused the girl to leap.

Achmed doubted that a raw slave had ever given him so much pleasure before. His continued ministrations brought a gasping staccato from the girl, music to his ears. Finally, he desisted, got up, and wiped his mouth on his kerchief.

Strands of amber hair were pasted to the maid's moist face and her limbs quivered with sensation and emotion. He saw her slick sheen of perspiration -- the product, he was sure, not of air temperature, but of sexual heat. Did Achmed also detect a trace of feminine musk over the usual prison odors?

The Turk decided that he did, and so pressed his agenda. He picked up the leather collar which he had brought along and enjoyed the look of horror the Frankish maid showed when she saw the collar yawn open. Instead of thrashing about this time, the blonde simply hung there with eyes wide, her lips agape. The prisoner's demeanor made it easy for Achmed to fit the dark leather around her swan-like neck.

Was she stunned only? he wondered. Yusuf had said that the potion had three elements to its makeup. The first induced into a woman who drank it an insatiable sexual need. The second inspired a craving for bondage, for wearing the symbols of subjugation and submitting to the domination of a master. The third created a passionate fixation upon the first man which her dazed glance fixed upon. Taken together, the three elements of the potion created a wild and lusty female slave. This was the fate which the grandee dearly desired to inflict upon Ali.

Achmed had by now notched the belt in place with these taunting words:

"At this moment, you cease to be a free man or even a woman captive. You are chattel. There shall be no purpose to your life hereafter, except the pleasing of those who hold power over you!"

Achmed stepped back to feast his eyes upon the circlet she now wore. The collar was not the fashion of Syria, but came from the lands east of Baghdad. Nonetheless, he very much liked the look of it upon the neck of a beautiful thrall. The item was, in fact, the girl's only garment above the knees. Though she didn't understand his words, the French prisoner comprehended the symbolism of his act and her expression transformed from one of anger to dismay.

Achmed surprised her by unlocking the manacles. So taken aback was she that, instead of darting away, or springing for his throat, she collapsed into his arms. Atremble with triumph and desire, the vizier lowered her to the floor. As she lay on the old straw, the Saracen stripped off her over-sized boots, then her hose, leaving her just the collar.

"What an addition you shall make to the seraglio which finally claims you!" prophesied the Turk, his lips drawn back in a rictus of sadistic mirth. Then, without further taunts, he opened his trousers to liberate his blood-gorged manhood.

The French girl stared.

"Like it, Crusader? It shall be yours -- in a sense."

The vizier stooped to grab a mass of her golden hair, and thereby pulled her up to her knees. Then he took his aroused organ in his other hand.

"Taste my zubb, infidel whore!"

The girl averted her gaze.

Angry, Achmed stood up, adjusted his breeches, and yelled: "-- Yusuf, you fool!"

When the old man had shuffled back into the cell, the vizier pointed an accusing finger at him. "The potion has no effect!"

"You are too precipitate, Lord," Yusuf counseled plaintively. "I have seen how the Marshanese use the potion. It is assuredly an effective means to tame a defiant female. The more she is forced to yield to the impulses it inspires, the greater grows its dominance over her emotions. And this is the royal mix of the cantrip, which is the most potent of all."

Achmed made a scoffing noise. "She doesn't seem to love me in the least."

"Be patient," the magician urged.

The Turk was only partially mollified as he made a new assessment of the girl. Her fair eyes were bloodshot and watery, her shoulders trembled, her breasts heaved.

The sight might have brought pity to another heart, but not to Achmed's. "You Crusaders invade our land, you rape, you pillage," he inveighed. "All of you cannot be punished -- but you are one who shall pay for his sins in hard coin! Do you know what the words `Mouth Magic' mean, you stupid little barbarian?"

The French girl reacted and Achmed laughed. "I see you do understand!" grinned the Syrian. "You must have learned all the words that filthy, Christian-loving whores use." He pointed to his formidable scepter. "Mouth Magic!"

The indignant Frank shook her head and effected to crawl away. The Saracen took the sash from his robe and, in a flash, had his fair prisoner bound belly-down to an iron floor-ring. Then he took his leather belt from his pantaloons.

"Mouth Magic now, little whore? I am waiting."

She shook her head furiously. "No! Jamais!"

Achmed struck. The Crusader yelled in pain and struggled to free herself, but the Syrian's knots were too clever. Achmed delivered one blow after another, until he left his victim gasping, her mouth full of straw. His vengeful impulse momentarily satisfied, Achmed set aside the belt and told Yusuf to fetch a pitcher of water.

From this, the official refreshed himself, and then condescendingly put the cup to his slave's lips, who drank so eagerly that should she coughed in swallowing. Achmed, anticipating the fulfillment of his desires, now scowled at Yusuf, saying, "Go now. I resume my private audience with our foreign guest."

When the wizard was gone, Achmed spoke sneeringly to the girl: "Mouth Magic, my little heifer, or --" he showed her the strap, "-- more of this?"

"Oui! Mouth magic!" she moaned -- in dread, of course, but yet perhaps her ready capitulation was motivated by something more even more compelling than the stinging touch of the strap.

Achmed arranged the girl on her hands and knees, then seated himself upon the prison stool. By means of a handful of her hair, he brought his slave's face to his loins. The vizier continued to hold her with one hand while he again freed his erection and commenced to rub it against the French girl's tight-clenched lips.

"Open your mouth, strumpet!" he directed, pantomiming the action which he wanted.

The Frank moved to comply, if woefully slow. Impatient, Achmed thrust the corona of his penis between her lips and felt its warm, wet envelopment.

"Suck! Suck, bitch, -- suck!" Achmed commanded, pulling her hair. By this means, and groaning encouragement from time to time, he exacted a satisfactory, if unpolished, performance.

Without warning, Achmed pushed the maid away, so that she fell back on the straw. The Saracen got to his feet and kicked the pantaloons from his ankles. Then, unsure whether to resist or not, his captive permitted him to take a mastering grasp upon her. His knees strategically placed between her spread legs, the vizier smiled at the way her nipples stood straight-out, stiff little pink-brown cones.

Confronted by such evidence of female heat, Achmed could control himself no longer. Consequently, he moved swiftly to burden her with his weight and she cried out in surprise. At first his action was to subject her to a rough, angry foreplay -- pawing and groping -- the sort of treatment that a whore could expect from a conquering soldier. Her wet face he covered in big, slavering kisses, interspaced with painful love-bites. The girl, pinned to the straw, could do nothing but cry out and struggle ineffectively against the hurt -- a hurt which was increasingly registering in her mind and emotions as pleasure.

Achmed felt about to burst, but he did not want to spend himself upon her thighs.

"Ah, my bitch, you have raped many daughters of the Faithful, I do not doubt. It is time for restitution. How shall it feel to be a sword no longer, but a scabbard put to the service of other men's weapons?"

She shuddered and her look of fear-mixed-with-need pleased him. "You are as hot as a brazier in wintertide, my beauty. I see in your famished eyes that you want to fuck, and fuck you shall! Do you know that word, my darling little harlot -- `fuck?'"

There was a capitulation in the French girl's psyche as the potion overwhelmed her. She had no presence of mind except to nod. "Oui, Maitre! `Fuck!' Jai compris! Penetre-me! Fuck! Fuck moi, Maitre!"

Achmed knew the tones of lust when he heard them, and so he placed his stiff length to the center of her vulva, and, with his victim moaning in near-delirium, he thrust.

She shrieked in her instant of violation. Her reaction was an aphrodisiac to the Turk, who pumped furiously, with long, slamming strokes. He continued until the woman shuddered under him and he shouted triumphantly as her hips arched and she was transported. He let himself go, pouring himself out in a series of spasmodic bursts. A man of vigor, Achmed continued thrusting as long as he had anything left to give.

Achmed at last rolled away. He immediately felt the girl tugging at his arm.

"Mon Deui!" she gasped. "C'est bon! C'est bon! Plus!"

When her lover proved unresponsive, the French maid groped at him, tried to roll him over on top of herself again.

Weary, Achmed pushed his ardent lover back but, to his annoyance, she held on to his leg, yammering: "Maitre! Fuck moi! Mas fuck!"

"No, Crusader, I am not here for your pleasure," he taunted as he stared into the cobwebs of the ceiling. "But I may tell your jailers that they may do as they please with you. Would you like that, my insatiable harlot?"

She didn't understand. Achmed grinned in anticipation of that soon-to-arrive moment when she would understand her fate fully. Then he rose, dressed, and then called his fellow conspirators back into the cell.

"She came like a bitch in heat!" the vizier laughed. "A man only this morning, tonight she climaxes like the hottest whore in Tyre!"

"Now you know that the potion works," said Yusuf proudly. "A man or woman who surrenders himself, or herself, to one of his former sex, so long as he was willing when he did so, is forever trapped in the shape which the waters have imposed."

"For once you have not blundered, old fool. That is, if the legend is true. Douse the slut with some more of the magic water tonight, just to make sure that she cannot be restored. If she cannot be, then it shall be clear that Ali cannot be, either."

"I will do so, my lord. But what about afterwards? The girl knows too much. She cannot speak our language as yet, but in time --?

Achmed frowned. Clearly, the Crusader must be sent away, killed, or have her tongue cut out.

"Tell me, wizard, will this delectable slut die of love for me if I send her from the city?"

"No, if a love-slave finds her ardor rejected, the spell will simply fade away in a few days. But the love-need only will go from her; she shall not be freed from her craving for sex and bondage. These drives will possess her, I understand, until the end of her childbearing years."

"She is able to conceive?"

"I have been to Marshan and so I know it to be true."

Achmed nodded, satisfied. "Death is too kind for a Christian dog -- I mean, a Christian bitch. I promised that I would make her a concubine, and so I shall. I know a slave-trader who is buying women for Abyssinia."

Yusuf inclined his head. "You are wise as well as merciful, Exulted One."

"No time for banter, Yusuf! You must follow Ali and Hassan's expedition. As soon as you are able, you must put the royal potion of Maiden's Ruin into his food or drink."

"Must it be the royal potion, Sire? As I say, the love spell is fragile, unless the sufferer's love is returned."

Achmed gave a toss of his hand. "Ali must lose his maidenhead as quickly as possible, and a slut in the grip of love-madness will not preserve her virginity as much as an hour. We play for dangerous stakes, Yusuf; we must win with devastating swiftness, or all might be lost."

"It is a vile revenge, Lord," spoke up Mahmood for the first time. "Why not simply use the power of the Gem of Invisibility to bring an assassin to the prince?"

The vizier shook his head. "That is too unimaginative, and it would not satisfy my hate. Debased as he is, Ali may live and suffer, but be forever denied the throne. And if I become emir, my first act shall be to place him under the tyranny of whip-mistresses for training as one of my concubines, or even as a lowly barracks-room belly dancer, to entertain my soldiers."

Achmed noticed Yusuf's doleful expression. "What ails you now, Wizard?"

"You say I must travel yet again. My bones ache for rest, Lord. I have grown too old for these long journeys."

"I can trust no one else! Do what I ask one final time and then retire with ten chests of gold for your own!"

"Yes, Exulted One," Yusuf capitulated, moved as much by fear as by greed.

Achmed turned to face the bodyguard. "And you, Mahmood? Will you go with your master?"

"A man can always use more gold, Lord, but my happiness requires much more."

The grandee regarded the Egyptian through a cocked eye. "Just how great is your ambition, ghazi?"

"I would give up my wandering forever," replied Mahmood, "if I could but open a simple hostel in my native Egypt and make it prosper."

"That is nothing," exclaimed the official. "I can make you the master of ten taverns."

"I do not need ten, Great One. So much responsibility would leave me no time for wife and family, and therefore for all which makes for a life of contentment. There is only one thing which I lack."

"What?"

"It is too much to ask."

"Ask anyway, dolt! We have little time for false modesty."

Mahmood nodded. "Lord Achmed is famous for the beauty of his harem."

"That is so. What of it?"

"I have already espied one in it whom I cannot but deem the most beautiful woman in all the world."

Achmed shook his head. "It is impudence, warrior, to aspire to a concubine who has previously graced my own bed! Yet I will not haggle with time so short. To destroy the heir of Haroon, I would gladly lay even my own sister at your feet. Serve your master well, come back successful, and the girl is yours. -- More than that, you shall also have a chest of gold to buy that hostel of yours!"

"Then I am your man," replied the bodyguard gratefully, clutching his scabbard in solemn pledge.

Achmed clasped both their hands, sealing their pact of rogues.

Chapter Three

"Then to the rolling Heav'n itself I cried,

Asking, "What lamp had Destiny to guide

Her little children stumbling in the dark?"

And -- "A blind understanding!" Heav'n replied."

That night, the young woman whom Ali had become lay in a bed of deep despondency. Nerves frayed, afflicted by grief, she yearned for the slumber which eluded her.

Suddenly, she heard footsteps behind the curtains.

"Aram!" Ali called out irritably. "I told you to go to bed! Stop dragging your feet around!"

Then the prince heard an answering gasp of surprise, a gasp which told her that it was not the bath slave tiptoeing about, but an intruder! She seized her dagger from the nightstand.

"What --? Who is it?"

A figure emerged tentatively into the lamplight. "Where is my brother, maid?" the intruder demanded puzzledly. "And why are you lying alone in his bed with your face masked?"

"Ayeesha!" the prince blurted in recognition.

"Do you know me, slave? Would I also know you under that dust veil?"

"Ayeesha!" the masked maiden exclaimed urgently. "Do not shout or call for the guards.""

"What are you talking about, girl?"

"I am no girl!" the prince declared despondently. "I -- I am Ali!"

Ayeesha stepped closer. "Ali? What sort of fool do you take me for? Your voice is a girl's. Your figure is also a girl's, though you wear a man's gown!"

"Let me explain!"

And explain Ali did. Though Ayeesha refused to believe the wild tale at first, she plied the masked female with many questions and was finally convinced.

"Oh, Brother, what an incredible story!"

A moment of awkward silence ensued, then Ali asked: "Why hast thou come?"

"Gossip says that you were about to depart on a long pilgrimage to the East," she explained. "This made no sense, as everyone knew you were to marry the Princess Badiat but a few days hence. And if some sudden religious passion had taken hold of thee, I knew that my brother would at least visit me before he departed. Something seemed very wrong."

"Something is very wrong," Ali whispered miserably.

She touched her sibling's arm. "Do not grieve so."

"Why should I not grieve? If you were suddenly made a male, would you not feel as humiliated as I do?"

Ayeesha sat back on her heels and shook her head sadly. "No, I would be pleased."

Ali looked up, incredulous. "Thou would jest so at a time like this?!"

"I speak the purest truth, Brother! In this world men may do everything and women nothing. If you go to Marshan, as you say thoust will, I beg thee, return with a bottle of the fountain water -- for me. I would rather be your younger brother than any kind of a sister!"

Ali slumped back into the pillows, shaking her head. "I do not understand you. I never have."

"Nor do I understand why you must hide your face from even me, dear Ali. Has this magic made thee ugly?"

The prince gave a deep sigh. "No, not ugly. But -- my appearance -- it would shock thee. Thou more than any other, perhaps."

"Do not treat me so, Ali. I am not squeamish. Now that I am warned, I expect to see nought but a stranger's face."

The sound Ali made was half a laugh, half a moan. "It will not seem so strange. Councilor Madani explained to us in council what has happened. He said that the curse of the fountain does not simply change a man. It makes him over into the image of that one which he --"

"Which he what? "

"Which he holds in his own mind to be the most beautiful in all the world."

"Oh, no, Ali -- thou hast not taken the shape of one of your own slave girls, or some belly dancer of the marketplace? My poor, poor dear brother!"

Ali closed her eyes. "No, it is nothing like that. Perhaps it is less bad. Or maybe it is worse. I do not know."

"Then show me. I shall not quail."

Ali turned away in declination, but Ayeesha squeezed the maid's hand. Reluctantly, Ali faced her sister again and drew down the dust veil.

"Brother, you -- you look like --" gasped the princess in amazement.

"Yes," nodded Ali. "I look like -- you. . . ."

Scheherazade says:

"Before many days had passed, Ali and Hassan's caravan set out for the East, replete with many horses, pack camels, and thirty loyal warriors on horseback. But as swiftly as the royal party traveled, a small group of its enemies traveled just as swiftly in pursuit -- Yusuf and Mahmood, protected by a few trusted hirelings from Achmed's personal guard.

"Once far out in the desert, the cunning Yusuf hoped to steal into Ali's night-camp and place the cruel bewitchment of Maiden's Ruin upon him. But, alas, a great sandstorm swept the wilderness and concealed the tracks of the larger party. As they searched doggedly for their unsuspecting quarry, Yusuf and Mahmood became hopelessly lost in the wind-blown wastes, falling many, many leagues behind.

"The journey was a long one and, as the long weeks passed, the strain began to tell upon the royal questers. And despondency fell especially hard upon the young man who was a man no longer."

They had crossed the borders of Persia that morning, and the slow beasts were rambling along dry runs, and gullies that scored the parched terrain. Scrub weed dotted the landscape, and this humble growth was the only growth in a landscape burned barren by Shaitan's fiery breath. At last, one night amid the dunes of inner Persia, Hassan gave the order to pause and make camp and before long the men were serving out their rations of rice, camel milk, butter, and a bit of hare-meat taken in the last hunt. Ali, as was her wont, said nothing, ate swiftly, and then withdrew alone beyond the glow of the firelight. Hassan had noticed the prince's solemn departure with a heavy heart. He had always been reluctant to disturb his friend while possessed by such a mood, but yet Ali's grief seemed to be unending.

Rising quietly, Hassan quietly sloughed through the deep sand until he stood close behind the one whom he honored above all others in the world. Ali must have heard the rattle of the sand under his feet, but deigned not to look back.

"Ali, the night is cold, my prince. Come back by the fire."

"Leave me, Hassan. I know when to come out of the cold."

Hassan persisted: "At least uncover your face, Ali. What is the point in hiding it from us out here in the desert? I, at least, already know what Ayeesha looks like." He reached out to draw down her dust veil.

Ali struck at his hand. "I said leave me!"

Hassan stood, his broad shoulders rigid with rebuke. "I have been mistaken. I thought that we were a guard of honor following a prince. Now I see that we are merely escorting a modest girl of the palace -- one who veils her face, one who humbly demurs from speaking when men are present, one who seeks seclusion --"

With a wild cry, Ali sprang at Hassan. The warrior dodged the wild blow and the girl's feet slipped in the loose sand and she would have fallen face-down, except that her comrade threw his arms around her in time.

The prince fought hard to get out of his grasp. "Jackal!" she yelled. "Release me! If this had befallen you, never would I treat you so!"

He released her and she staggered back "You might not," Hassan admitted, "but I hope I would not act so foolishly about what could not be helped.""

Ali faced away from him and wrapped her arms about herself. The bey of horse softened his tone: "I see one whom I have loved like a brother becoming a stranger. It is a loss which I cannot bear."

"I wish I were a beast down on four legs rather than a woman!" the prince whispered.

"You cannot mean that, Ali."

"I do! It is better to be pitied than laughed at!"

Hassan lay a hand upon the maid's shoulder. "No one is laughing at you. I am your friend, and these men are your most faithful retainers."

"What are they saying then?" she demanded with balled fists. "That this curse is the judgement of Allah?"

"Nothing of the kind!"

"Why not?"

"What do you mean, `Why not?'"

Ali now settled dejectedly to the ground. "I meant that it makes sense, Hassan. -- You of all men know how I used to talk. Did I not confide to you that I was reluctant to assume the responsibilities of my birth? This is Allah's vengeance."

Hassan dropped down beside her. "No, my friend, it is only the evil deed of some sorcerer. Allah does not avenge Himself for every small shortcoming in a man. Is He not called `el-Rahman,' the Merciful? If He were as vengeful against me as you believe He has been against you, I would be a donkey by now, not a man."

"So you say, but I know in my soul that I have been unworthy."

Hassan shook his head emphatically. "I cannot see it! And you, too, will know Allah's will when we reach Marshan and restore you. Then no one except us few shall ever know that you were once bewitched."

Ali looked into his face and Hassan saw the agonizing uncertainty in her brown eyes. "But what if our quest fails? What will my life be then? Shall I take a room in the women's quarters next to Ayeesha's? Shall my father have two daughters? Should he announce a rich dowry and find for me a mate?"

The warrior, listening with astonishment, at last comprehended the cruel fantasies which were driving his friend to despair. "Whatever your fate," he said, "God alone knows it. But, Allah willing, I shall stand forever at your side." He reached again for her veil.

Ali caught the wrist in mid-course, but this time no anger flamed in her almond eyes. She instead clasped it in a way to convey trust and reconciliation, and then drew down the mask herself.

Scheherazade says:

"The friendship of Ali and Hassan, strong before that night upon the dunes, grew ever deeper.

"After months of taxing travel, the royal caravan at long last reached its desired goal -- the city Marshan, which lay at the margin of the mountain ranges of Persia and the vast steppe country of Khwarizm.

"Yet, days before the soldiers of Damascus drew near to Marshan, its sultan had been forewarned by his watchful outriders. Hence, a guard of honor was dispatched to great the visitors and to escort Ali and Hassan to the palace as honored guests."

The palace steward met the Syrian visitors and ushered Prince Ali and Lord Hassan to quarters worthy of their dignity.

"Wait," remarked Ali as the man turned to withdraw, keeping her voice low and gruff so that the steward would not suspect her secret.

"Sire?" the rotund little man asked.

"We have heard very strange tales concerning Marshan."

"Ah, yes," nodded the servant, suppressing a smile. "No doubt these stories concern the magic fountain of Marshan."

"Yes," agreed Ali. "Does such an amazing thing truly exist?"

"I believe it exists," grinned the jovial steward, "for I have seen it perform its miracle many times. You may see it for yourselves, since, as it happens, some men will be transformed tomorrow."

"Transformed? Why would any man wish to subject himself to such a ghastly fate?" Hassan demanded.

"Not by any choice of their own, be assured! The sultan's nephew and his bravo friends gambled themselves into debt and then robbed some outlying villages to pay their moneylenders. They dressed as bandits and hoped that bandits would be blamed for their evil deeds. But Allah was not deceived, and He caused them to be discovered. The most guilty of them have been condemned to be cast into the Fountain, to be afterwards trained as slave girls."

Hassan and Ali exchanged perplexed glances.

"You say that the chastisement is public?" asked the Syrian warrior.

"Of course! What is more edifying than to see those who break Allah's commandments being punished by His own miracle? The infliction of punishment always draws a large crowd. Would it please our honored guests to witness it also?"

Hassan shook his head dubiously. "I do not think --"

"No," broke in Ali, touching Hassan's arm. "We must."

The steward bowed. "You shall see that the power of the fountain is exactly as I have told you, Great Prince."

The next morning Hassan and Ali saw something of Marshan, a wealthy, well-adorned city, with prosperous-looking subjects going hither and thither on their business. Slave girls thronged the streets and Hassan noted that they were not dressed with the same modesty that their Syrian counterparts displayed.

The Damascenes passed by a slave market which was poorly attended this morning -- probably because the punishment was drawing so many people away from the bazaar. Regardless, the women on display were young and beautiful.

"Fountain girls," remarked their escort, a captain of Marshan.

"What do you mean?" rumbled Ali.

"These are rebels who were captured last spring," explained the officer. "They were cast into the fountain and then trained to give pleasure as servant girls and concubines. Because rebellion is a most terrible crime, they are earmarked to be sold only to foreign caravaneers. It is the wish of the magistrates that the woe of their sex and slavery be increased by exile from their native city."

"What land would want such accursed creatures?" the prince inquired.

The captain gave a short laugh. "The fountain girls of Marshan are eagerly sought by connoisseurs of female flesh in India, Persia, and Khwarizm. Some men are pleased to hear cries of pain and mortification from nubile girls who were once, perhaps, as virile and well-endowed as they."

"Does that please the men of Marshan also?" asked Hassan.

Their guide shrugged. "It is a matter of taste. But most Marshanese think about fountain girls very little, if at all. Their kind is too commonplace hereabout to concern any serious man."

Hassan could not believe that `fountain girls' could ever be considered commonplace. Marshan seemed to him a wicked town, like Sodom in days of old. The warrior looked up into the sky, as if half-expecting the dark clouds of the city's coming destruction to be descending from Allah's abode!

Ali pointed to a nude woman chained to a wall. Her collar told the prince that the prisoner was a slave. "Is such a public display not a scandal here?"

"Not at all!" answered the officer. "Exhibition is one means for a master to punish a displeasing concubine."

"It is a harsh punishment!"

The Marshanese shook his head. "No blood flows and shame leaves no scars. As punishments go, it is merciful."

"She, too, is a fountain girl?" the prince asked tensely.

"Very likely. A fountain girl is not reared to obedience to men and so often requires much discipline -- until she is finally broken like any other spirited filly to the wearing of the bridle."

Hassan shuddered despite the heat.

They passed through the main city port, and before long they reached the precincts of the fountain. Hassan had expected to see a small pool fed by a spring. It was, in fact, a large pond whose edge was trimmed with a stone-block coping. An imposing edifice stood on the opposite bank and this, their guide explained, was a law court. Many trials were held within it, and many of the condemned, he assured them, were sent to the fountain.

How intimidating it must be, Hassan reasoned, for the felon to be tried in a courtroom overlooking the magic water. That there would be any crime in Marshan at all almost defied belief.

A large crowd had massed up near the water's edge. Undaunted, the captain nudged his horse slowly into the midst of it, shouting, "Make way! Make way for the sultan's royal guests!"

The mob parted and the captain dismounted near the water's edge. Ali and Hassan, did likewise, sliding down from their saddles to stand at either side of him. Hassan espied a group of guards and a smaller group of distinguished-looking elders. These latter, wearing immaculate robes and pure white muslin turbans, he supposed must be the presiding magistrates.

Two captives stood between the guards, their hands tied in front of them. Surveying the pair sternly, one of the magistrates commanded: "Bring forward Kislar Ibn Aglar."

Two of the guards shoved the felon up before the judge.

"Have you anything to say before sentence is enacted?" the later queried.

"There is no justice in Marshan!" the young felon declared indignantly. "I am an innocent man. I fell in with bad companions, true, but I always sought to dissuade them from deeds of rascality."

Though the young man had spoken with apparent sincerity, Hassan knew that many rogues were skilled and shameless liars and so he did not know whether he should sympathize or not.

A magistrate raised his hand to silence the man's pleading. "Our evidence finds you were in fact the worst of a bad lot, that you were indefatigable in egging on your despicable comrades to ever more horrendous offenses. For that reason, Kislar Ibn Aglar, it is meet that you be punished first." He then gestured to the guards.

The two men obligingly dragged the felon to the edge of the pool, though Kislar dug in his heels and fought them all the way. A third guard came forward with a looped rope, which he slipped over the head of Ibn Aglar and slid taut about his waist.

That being done, the guards seized their charge by the arms and legs, picked him up, rocked him back and forth, and hurled him out into the water, well beyond the stone coping.

The felon apparently couldn't swim, or was simply too shocked to try, for he splashed frantically and yelled obscene imprecations. Amid all noise of churning water, Hassan very quickly discerned that the manly howl of terror had become a woman's shrill.

This seemed to be the sign for the guards to draw the felon back to the bank via the attached rope.

"Are the guards not afraid to touch the water?" Ali asked of the captain beside her.

The Marshanese shook his head. "The guards who perform this duty are transformed women. They have taken wives, and so cannot be changed by the waters again."

Hassan blenched. This was a mad place -- and he dearly wished to be away from it in haste.

The crowd craned its necks to see what sort of woman Kislar had turned into, but for the moment the felon was left to lie like a great wet mass of laundry at the feet of the official party.

Next Lord Dwar was summoned up before the other judge. The sultan's nephew appeared craven, begging, importuning, incoherent. Hassan shook his head. Kislar's unctuous pleading had been the apex of manly fortitude by comparison.

The judge stilled Dwar with a shout: "You are a disgrace to your noble family line! They have disowned you, cast you out. All you have to say has been said before. Naught is left to do, except to see that the punishment mandated by law is carried out!"

At his signal, the guards handled Dwar as they had handed his co-conspirator. A scant two minutes later a figure gasping in a woman's voice was drawn out of the pool.

"Is Lord Dwar the highest-ranked personage ever to be so punished, Captain?" Hassan asked.

"Not so," the officer replied. "The fifth sultan of the first dynasty was also so punished."

"A sultan?" exclaimed Hassan. "How can that be?"

"The man was an unworthy cur," the guide explained with knitted brows. "He lied, he cheated, he committed adultery with other men's wives. The Fifth Sultan broke every stricture of the Koran. Never since the days of Nimrod has there been a man more evil upon a throne of grace."

"That is saying much," remarked Hassan.

"It only gives the Fifth Sultan his due," affirmed the officer. "In his youth, instead of training for war, he went away to Isfahan to study law. While there he defamed his own city and espoused the virtue of our foes, he hated Marshan and esteemed all who hated it also. He returned and was made governor of a province, married a wicked woman, and together they plotted with greedy money-lenders to enrich themselves from the pain of the unfortunate. He even summoned the wife of one of his officials to his chamber and violated her with barbarous cruelty. Perhaps he did likewise with others, but only this one had courage to speak.

When the Fourth Sultan died, his wicked son became as bad a sultan as he had been a governor. He secretly debauched the young daughters of good families, those who had been sent to the palace under his protection as royal wards.

Hassan glanced away. Such a catalog of evil could never have been the career of any living man. Surely the Fifth Sultan was only a myth, an imaginative cautionary tale of how depraved a prince may be. But, to the Syrian's surprise, the captain's catalogue of depravity was only begun:

"The Fifth Sultan surely did not believe in Allah, though he swore false oaths in the name of the Most High. Indeed, the wicked sultan made war upon all of his people who did not espouse hatred of God, even forbidding the symbols of Ramadan to be raised during the Holy Month.

"But, strange to say, as fierce and rapacious as the misbegotten sultan was toward the weak and innocent, he was by nature the least of men. His evil wife had become sultana, and she was harsh and forward in her manner, oftentimes discoursing in public as if she were a man, and using words that made even harlots blush. This harridan witch was permitted by her weak husband to perform magisterial functions traditionally forbidden to her sex. She even had leave to command the royal ministers and to voice her ignorance and shrill imprecations at all the meetings of the royal council.

"The wicked sultana engaged and dismissed servants of the state and, far worse, she was heard to boast that Marshan had two sultans, meaning that she was one of them -- and her craven lord accepted this insult." The captain shook his head in disgust. "For such an affront a true man would have ordered such an unnatural consort to be quartered between running stallions!

"Oh, the sins of that man! His father had already raised the taxes greatly, but the first royal act of the son was to exact a tribute much higher still. Out of the industry of our people great wealth came to the treasury, even more than his extravagance found the means to spend, but the Fifth Sultan would never reduce his onerous assessments upon the people.

"He made the worst of men mighty in the courts and these rogues honored not the Koranic law, but their own capricious whim alone. At last, tired of the need to buy forgiveness from the people by false weeping in public address with quivering lip and red eyes, the Cursed of God imported foreign soldiers, Turks from inner Khwarizm who knew not Allah, and lewd Indians who daily shed blood at the pagan altars of beast-faced demons. Henceforth the free people of Marshan lived like conquered wretches under foreign occupation. Those who protested the sultan's misdeeds were callously murdered by his hired assassins, and their bodies left in gardens, sewers, and parks.

"At long last, the people rose in anger and though the sultan's hirelings killed many, they could not defy the will of all the people of the town. Indeed, the hosts in the streets were greatly augmented by hordes of ruined and oppressed farmers and shepherds from the hinterlands, who came to the city bearing scythes and lion-spears. The cowardly sultan was at last taken. He, along with his evil minions and his unwomanly wife, was cast into the pool."

"Women are so punished, too?" asked Hassan.

The captain nodded. "Sometimes. The sultana was sent as a man to the salt quarries, to use her strength to carry heavy baskets beneath the broiling sun or the cold wind of the season, ever groaning under the threat of the lash."

"What happened to the sultan?" Ali asked, forgetting to modulate her voice. Its pitch brought a look of puzzlement to the captain's eyes and he looked about, supposing that some woman of the crowd had spoken. Nonetheless, he answered the question:

"There was a foreign king, a cruel man, but one whom the Fifth Sultan had often attacked. He did this not to protect his people, but merely to dispel the contention that he was a coward who had refused to serve in his father's armies. To this king was the sultan sold as a slave girl. It is said that for many weeks the Fifth Sultan was kept naked and chained by the neck under the royal dining hall. She was not permitted to speak, except to whine for food and water like a bitch. Furthermore, whip-mistresses rigorously trained her to please the men who sat at the king's table by the means of her hands and her mouth, even while they feasted. When she was permitted the relief of copulation, it came as an assailment from behind, without gentling kisses or soothing caresses."

"What happened then?"

The captain shrugged. "It is unclear. With time, most people ceased to inquire after the Fifth Sultan. I think, too, that her captor wearied of the amusement which she had afforded him. There are divers stories of the subsequent fate of the Most Wretched of Allah, but none are more than rumor."

Hassan shook his head in disbelief. What sultanate would allow its master, even one of very evil repute, to be treated so by a foreign rival? A clean axe upon the neck of a fallen monarch was to be expected, but the degradation of a sultan degraded his city also. This was further proof to him that the story was not true.

An agitation in the crowd around them brought Hassan's attention back to the matter at hand. The judges had resumed the punishment of the felons after a brief recess.

"Because you two were the leaders of your despicable band," one addressed the prostrate Dwar and Kislar, "because you are high-born, and your deeds are therefore are rendered the more deplorable, your punishment shall come first. By the law of the sultan, I declare each of you slave. Guards, strip the bondmaids!"

The guards commenced to tear the sodden garments from the convicted robbers. When the condemned pair were finally rolled out of their voluminous garments, they lay revealed as two nude women. One of them was yellow-haired, like a Circassian. The other was olive-complected, with black, flowing tresses. Both were slimly voluptuous.

The onlooking mob huzzahed loudly and Hassan heard some bawdy comments. The guards quickly bound the girls and, in a nonce, the punished conspirators were tied back-to-back, after which Kislar and Dwar were carried up the bank and set before a screen of lathes.

This screen was intended to protect their skin from the sun somewhat but, because it was latticed, it allowed the curious to gape at the condemned ones from all the cardinal points, like beasts in a menagerie.

Afterwards, the young hellions who had followed Dwar and Kislar were punished. These were not stripped and displayed immediately, though a magistrate did pronounce all of them chattel. Finally, bound hand and foot and thrown into donkey carts, the rogues were taken away, while the two ringleaders were slung up into a cart of their own. The ne'er-do-wells of the town and a large number of lewd little boys walked beside the conveyances as they rolled away. The latter taunted the wagons' occupants raucously while the guards made certain that the boisterousness did not get out of hand.

Hassan shook his head in disapproval and only then did it cross his mind that Ali should simply go to the edge of the water and plunge in. In fact, when he saw his friend gazing contemplatively in that direction, he half-expected that she was prepared to do just that. But, for whatever reason, the heir of Damascus turned away from the fountain, received her horse from the boy who held it, and swung up into the saddle.

Chapter Four

"Think, in this batter'd caravanserai

Whose doorways are alternate Night and Day,

How sultan after sultan with his pomp

Abode his hour or two, and went his way."

Ali and Hassan kept close to their own quarters until twilight and did not speak together before they received the sultan's invitation to dine. Donning raiment suitable for the occasion, the pair accompanied the palace stewards to the royal feast. Ali wore a deeply-cowled robe, this strange choice of attire being explained away as part of a pilgrim's vow. When circumstances forced her to speak, she, as before, kept her voice throaty and deep.

The Sultan Moustafa of Marshan was a tall, dark man in his thirties, displaying the demeanor of an enlightened and well-lettered prince. He was a convivial host, presenting jugglers, musicians, acrobats, and dancers for his guests' entertainment. Servants bearing flasks and trays wove in and out of the crowd, supplying all their culinary needs, while across from Ali and Hassan a raven-haired beauty performed a belly dance to the rhythm of zithers and rattles.

Hassan graciously acknowledged the lavish display: "We are amazed by the wealth of your land, Mighty Sultan. It bespeaks an industrious people and a wise stewardship."

The black-bearded sovereign smiled in pride. "Long ago, before a desert traveler discovered the magical fountain, there was not even a village here, only the camp of an audacious bandit band in the mountains overhead. These preyed upon passing caravans to kidnap travelers, whom they cast into the fountain and sold afterwards in foreign markets. But escaping, the traveler sought help from the cities of the plain, and so the robbers were at last overthrown and well-punished."

"My prince and I have seen the magic fountain today, O Sultan, and witnessed its terrible power. We have since wondered why your good people have not destroyed such an abominable thing long ago."

"Destroy our magic fountain?" the sultan replied with brows arched. "Never! It is the eighth wonder of the world."

"It is an affront before Allah!" admonished Hassan, his politeness strained.

The sultan beamed with good nature. "No work of Allah is an affront, Lord Hassan. It is only how men use God's gifts that make for good or ill. Let me tell you a story, my friends:

"In the last century a holy man of the Nestorian faith came to our land and did long meditation before our fountain, endeavoring to divine whether it was a gift of God, or an evil tool of Shaitan, the prince of demons.

"He returned to our city after a few days with wonder in his eyes, saying that the angel Gabriel had appeared to tell him the secret of the fountain.

"When Allah created Adam, said the sage, He later made Woman from the Man's body to be his companion. But the first woman was not like the women of today, despite the stories which would have it so. No, Eve was another man, junior to Adam because Adam had been created first, but Eve was like him in all his parts -- and, as we know, Adam was made in the image of God.

"When Eve sinned and led her companion into sin also, Allah was exceedingly wrought and sent the angel Michael to smite the ground of Eden. From the place he struck, a fountain flowed forth, and the archangel placed into its waters the mighty power of God. Then he said to the man Eve, `You shall no longer be complete in yourself, but you shall live in eagerness for your mate's embrace and contribute to his increase, and he shall be called husband and be your master in all things.'

"Then the archangel cast Eve into the fountain, and she came forth changed, less perfect in the image of God, perhaps, but more beautiful in the eyes of her husband -- yea, beautiful beyond all his previous dreams of beauty. Only now did Eve possess all the divers parts of the woman as we know Woman today. And, as God decreed, Adam was smitten with passion for Eve, as Eve was smitten with passion for Adam.

"Then Michael said to the fallen pair, `As Eve was desirous of eating of the fruit of the tree, the fruit shall be placed upon Adam's body, and Eve will forever be desirous of consuming the fruit, and the hunger shall be of the loins, and the throat that shall engorge it shall be the throat of that second mouth which God hast provided. Moreover, any who enter the fountain from this day forth shall be changed, so that Eve's descendants shall know the glory of God. Hence, if he is like Adam, he will become like Eve, and if like Eve, like Adam.'"

"Majesty, are you saying that this land is the old Eden?" inquired Hassan skeptically.

"I repeat only what the holy man averred," replied the genial sultan, "as our ancestors have passed his words down to our generation. This is a fine land, I will not deny, but not so fine, I think, as Eden was. Allah, who is all-wise and all-powerful, may cause a fountain that flows in one place to flow again later at another place. He is Allah."

"A strange gift of God," remarked the Syrian warrior. "Of what possible use is the fountain to mortals, Majesty? We have seen in it only an object of terror. What can it offer mankind but punishment, and a cruel satisfaction to those who inflict it?"

The sultan shook his comely head. "No, warrior, you know little of what you speak. God is good. His fountain is good. It is our fount of increase. It is the flowing source of all our wealth."

"Your wealth? I do not understand."

Moustafa made a broad gesture. "Why, have you not seen our abundance?"

"I have seen it," answered the Syrian, "but what does it have to do with the fountain?"

"Why, it is only by the grace of Allah we have ten ewes for every ram, ten cows for every bull, ten hens for every cock. Our flocks grow so swiftly that it taxes our people's ingenuity just to tend them, and our merchants who travel far to take the abundant surplus to market."

Hassan only now realized that more females inevitably meant more increase, but nonetheless refused to change his mind. "Think of the misery that the fountain brings to human beings!"

"What misery, young lord? If an accident happens, if a clumsy sot falls into the magical waters by misstep, no harm is done. He can simply re-immerse himself and all shall be as before. Instead, think of Allah's blessing upon the parents of Marshan! Chance never need deny a father the son he yearns for. My father had twenty sons and not one daughter. The magic does not change children, but when my daughters come of the age my family shall be similarly blessed!"

Hassan stared open-mouthed. "Your people want no daughters at all? How does your population grow?"

"Daughters are greatly valued!" the sultan assured him. "The rareness of a free woman in Marshan makes her especially precious. Even a peasant's daughter may have her pick of a dozen wealthy husbands. I think that there is no land in all the realms of the Prophet that prizes its girl-children more highly. Alas, few parents desire a girl. Such is the custom of our race, which harkens back to the days when we were a poor wandering people who needed many warriors to defend the herds against man and beast."

"A kingdom so poor in womenfolk must soon wither and die, Majesty, even if your flocks of brute beasts increase beyond measure."

"We are not so desperate as all that, Lord Hassan," the sultan replied with an amiable shake of his head. "Our wealth allows us to purchase young females from afar -- indeed the fairest in all the world are brought to our door!"

Hassan inclined his head toward the belly dancer. "So I see. From what land does this sultry beauty hail?"

The performer was a striking, slim-hipped girl whose breasts strained ripely against a halter bright with metal sequins. Realizing that the men were speaking about her, the slave's eyes flashed with fire and allure.

"She comes from no land but our own," Moustafa remarked as he beckoned the dancer near enough to reach out and stroke a nude thigh. "This one was Ben Jakhar, a notorious robber --"

Ali gasped; Hassan could scarcely believe his ears. Ben Jakhar was certainly no woman's name.

"As you already know," the sultan went on, "unworthy men -- thieves, rioters, traitors -- all who are judged guilty of breaking the laws of Allah or man, -- are cast into the waters of the fountain. Changed into women, they are set to performing useful tasks, like this one."

"We understand some of your practices, Great One," said Hassan slowly, trying to keep his voice from shaking, "though my mind still revolts at thought of them! Surely there is a better way to deal with wrongdoing than by such an unnatural transformation. Bitter wretches must make poor servants."

The sultan gave a short laugh. "The wretches, as you call them, are well-trained in giving service and pleasure. Moreover, our ancestors discovered a potion which sweetens the most sour disposition. We call it, `Maiden's Ruin.'"

At that moment the belly dancer winked at Hassan, who looked uncomfortably away.

"Enough talk of magic," proclaimed Sultan Moustafa. "Perhaps you will desire more manly sport hereafter. I have desired of late to take my huntsmen into the heights to track and slay the savage mountain lion. Tomorrow would be a fine day for a hunt!"

Hassan endeavored to answer for both himself and the Syrian prince. "Thank you Mighty Sultan, but --"

"That would be most enjoyable, Great One," broke in Ali.

Moustafa nodded with pleasure. "Later tonight might I not send a girl or two to entertain you gentlemen?" He looked with particular interest at Ali, whose voice seemed to betray a very young man.

To spare his friend embarrassment, Hassan spoke up: "A girl like Ben Jakhar? I think not, Majesty!"

The lord of Marshan shook his head. "Be assured, lords -- only women-born shall be selected for you, as no doubt you would prefer. I myself do not understand the prejudice, but many of our visitors think as you do -- at least until they have dwelt with us for some little while."

"Hassan may do as he pleases, Great Sultan," said Ali, "but I have sworn at the royal mosque of Damascus to practice the grace of chastity until the success of our pilgrimage is fully attained."

The sultan gave the speaker an understanding glance. "Then I shall send you a story-telling girl only, young prince. You are under no compulsion to abstain from the diversion of flute, song, and story, I assume?"

"No indeed, Majesty, none," responded Ali, somewhat abashed to realize that the monarch was speaking to him as to a child.

"Then so it shall be!" pronounced Moustafa with a clap of his hands.

Hassan and Ali both felt the need to speak privately, and so they excused themselves at an early hour and returned to the prince's chamber.

Hassan, more than a little overwhelmed with the day's events, unburdened himself without preamble: "Ali -- why did you not end your cruel ordeal when you were at the fountain? And if you would not do so then, why did you not simply inform the sultan exactly why we came? It would have made everything so much easier."

Ali squared off with her friend in umbrage. "And let strangers gossip about my humiliation for the next hundred years, like they still gossip about the Fifth Sultan? For the love of Allah, let me salvage what little pride I have left!"

"All right, then," replied Hassan, "just what do you intend to do?"

The Damascene prince paced while she looked ahead: "We have found that they allow visitors to take water from the fountain at will. It is free to all and they do not even post a guard. One of our guards shall simply draw some magic water hour when few others are present, and then I shall bathe in private. Once I do, this nightmare shall be at an end and no one will be the wiser."

"I hope so, my friend," Hassan murmured, doubting the wisdom of making something so essentially simple so unnecessarily complex.

Ali flopped down on the bed and crossed her black boots. "What I wouldn't give to return to a normal life," she sighed, then seemed to reflect. "Ayeesha wants just the opposite," the prince said suddenly. "Hassan, can you believe that she actually asked me to bring her back a bottle of the magical water?"

This did surprise Hassan, though he knew Ayeesha for an exasperating hoyden. "She's a strange girl. I always found her a willful child when we all used to play together."

"I -- regard -- you both so well," Ali confessed haltingly. "I have never understood why you two never felt any mutual attraction."

Hassan looked soberly at his comrade. This was certainly a fair question, but one to which Hassan had no good answer. "I don't know. She certainly is beautiful --" He caught himself. To say that Ayeesha was beautiful was also to say that Ali was beautiful.

"Ah, but she is too disputant," he continued edgily. "A woman should be more --" He caught himself again. To say that a woman should be more compliant to the wishes of those responsible for her was also to imply that Ali should be the same. Hassan certainly didn't mean that.

"I mean," he said quickly, "she blames all of life's troubles on males. A women like that will always make life a curse for any man who stands close to her."

Ali seemed not to have picked up on any of her friend's verbal titubations. "She hates her confinement, that's all," the prince said with a grimace. "She envies a man's freedom, even though I have tried to explain that so much of what seems to be freedom is simply obligations and restrictions in ritual disguise." The male-dressed maid then gave a bitter laugh. "I have ceased to believe that any choice makes a human being happy in the end. What happiness does choice impart to these people of Marshan?"

Hassan scowled. "I see no choice exercised here. Girl-children are transformed to suit the needs of their families, men are metamorphosed in punishment for their crimes. As for Ayeesha, she would set herself against a way of life that a thousand generations of men and women have found fulfilling. What if a few individuals occasionally resent what society demands of them? There will always be malcontents. The rules were made to help guide people to happiness and productive lives. Ayeesha could be happy, too, if she would only accept her fate."

Ali sank back, her eyes closed. "One instinctively accepts the way things are," she mused, "-- accepts the world which he was born into, but does anyone ever actually understand it?"

Hassan shrugged. "There are many kinds of understanding. Other peoples have other ways. I envy the infidels, sometimes, except for their false beliefs concerning God. The Frankish knight may at least pay court to a lady of his choice. We of the Faithful may only marry those whom our parents choose for us. My father will doubtlessly select a daughter-in-law whom I have never seen or spoken to, one whom I know nothing of. The Franks, or so I understand it, may see their beloved's face many times before they decide to wed."

"Is their way so much better than ours?" questioned Ali. "Would not a woman who is permitted to mingle daily with men soon become bawdy and impure?"

Hassan smiled. "Is bawdy and impure always bad in a woman? I have heard that Crusader maidens go riding with their men, hawk with them, try their hand together at archery, or jointly explore the bazaars --" Hassan checked himself once more, although this time he was unsure exactly why.

"But these are idle fancies," the lord concluded uncomfortably. "We are what we are, and we live as our people have always lived, which is all that Allah demands of us. I am more concerned about another matter."

"What other matter?"

"This lion hunt. It is too dangerous."

Ali sent him a puzzled stare. "Since when have you lacked the valor for hunting lions?"

"I mean too dangerous for you!" Hassan clarified impatiently. "Ali, please, save the lion-hunting for -- for later. In only one more day you may hunt wild beasts to your heart's content."

Ali's puzzlement had become a glare. "Do not try me, Hassan! Today or tomorrow, I am no weakling -- not ever!"

Hassan threw up his hands. "And so you always demonstrate this strength of yours by getting angry! Why can we not speak like we used to without that demon of discord always sitting on your shoulder?"

"It is only because you are always trying to patronize me! Even as I am, I am still twice the man you ever were, so do not tell me what I may or may not do!"

"Twice the man?! By Allah -- If your sister spoke to you the way you speak to me, you would --" He checked himself to silence. What had he meant to say? That Ali would have put Ayeesha over his knee?

Ali sprang up, fists clenched. "I am not my sister!"

This time Hassan did not seek to mollify. "No! She has more sense!"

Ali leaped at him with a cry of anger. Hassan shrugged off her blow, spun her about, and seized her at the waist. Ali began to kick his shins and they both fell down into the pillows. Hassan ended their tussle by pinning her under him. With their emotion subsiding, they discovered that their faces were close enough for each to smell the other's nectar-scented breath.

Embarrassed, Hassan released Ali, who hurriedly rolled away.

"It is folly to quarrel and come to blows," jabbered Hassan, drawing away and standing. "I am restless tonight, and sharp-tempered, too. I think I actually shall need that girl which the sultan offered me."

Ali looked up in annoyance. "You have not needed a girl since we left Damascus! Why do you need one now?"

"If I want a girl, of what concern is it to you?"

"No concern!" Ali exclaimed bitterly. "Do as you please!" Under her breath she muttered, "Whoremaster!"

Hassan had heard the insult, but chose not to fling back a barb of his own. "We will speak later, when you are -- more yourself!"

Then the warrior stalked off. In exiting, he nearly charged into a slave girl on the other side of the door. She might have been listening to the argument, he realized, but didn't really care as he pushed by, ignoring her muttered apology. Warned in time, Ali raised her cowl again and, her face in shadow, she met the maid coming in.

The newcomer dropped her gaze and did obeisance.

"You are the girl which the sultan promised to send me?" the prince asked in that low, throaty rumble which was the closest she could come to masculine elocution.

"Yes, O Prince. My name is Katya. I sing, recite, and play the zither."

The heir of Haroon pitched herself down on the bed again, her arms folded petulantly. "Then sing, damn it!"

Hassan stared out the window while the slave girl Halima prepared his bed. Although he had asked a steward that a concubine to be sent to him, he had so far hardly glanced in her direction.

"Halima," he suddenly asked, "I have wondered --"

The girl lowered her gaze. "Wondered what, Lord Hassan?"

"Do you feel yourself cursed?"

She looked up, surprised. "For being a slave, lord?"

"For being a woman."

"Of course not, my lord. Why should one?"

Even Hassan was uncertain where his train of thought was leading him. "Allah permits the women of Marshan to change their fate. Have you never considered going to the fountain?"

"No, never," she answered as if he had suggested something incredible, "-- not even if the sultan would allow it! And he would never permit any slave girl that privilege."

Because Hassan said nothing more immediately, the girl supposed that he had abandoned his strange query. "The bed awaits, noble master," she reminded him. "How else may Halima please her lord?"

His glance betrayed a profound inner disquiet. "You may advise me, little bird. Tell me -- can a man ever be friends with a woman? I mean, as he may be friends with another man?" Hassan realized immediately that such a question sounded absurd.

Yet Halima did not hesitate to reply. "Why should he wish to be friends with a woman, Lord, unless he has lost hope of ever becoming her lover?"

This was not what Hassan had hoped to hear and he shook his head. "A man cannot take to bed every woman whom he cares about."

"Not his mother, not his sisters, nor his close female relation," the girl agreed, "but regarding all others, what obstacle may there be?" Then she added knowingly, "Does Master speak with some particular lady in mind?"

Hassan retreated behind conventions then, flashing a false smile her way. "Be quiet, lovely one, and kiss me."

The Sultan reclined upon his pillows smoking a hookah while slave girls nestled close about him. The performing belly dancer had reached the climax of her demonstration, the zills on her fingers chiming brightly as her lean, exercised torso undulated with the suppleness of a python. The sultan suddenly stirred.

"The rest of you, away! Dancer, sit down beside me."

The slave girls sprang up and raced from the chamber. The dancing girl ceased her motions and approached her lord obediently. Moustafa took her arm and helped her to settle down beside him on the edge of his cushions.

"Fair One," he addressed the exquisite brunette, "all I know is that you were once Ben Jakhar the bandit."

She lowered her glance, alerted. It often meant trouble and additional punishment whenever a master brought up her past life of crime.

"I recollect," the sultan went on, "that you plagued our hinterland for some few years before being taken and condemned. In truth, I heard no more of Jakhar until the Minister of the Accounts dispatched you to me as a gift." His tone became sweeter, more intimate. "By what name did thy former master address thee, Delight of my Eyes?"

The girl smiled. "Danya, Great Sultan."

"Yes, of course, Danya," he nodded, recalling. "A pretty name. I have watched you often since your arrival, little dove. You are to the senses what food is to the gullet."

Her expression grew sly. "I have been trained to please, Mighty Master -- most especially the appetites."

"Haw!" laughed the Moustafa. "I do like your forwardness! Why do you not bewail your fate, as other girls from the fountain sometimes do?"

There was whimsy in Danya's olive features. "I am content, Noble King. Banditry was a hard life, and the bandit leader must be cruel to his followers no less than to his victims. I was often hated; no one hates me now. My burden is lightened."

"And your present burden is not heavy? You were free up in the mountains, a commander of men. Now you are a slave, ordered to serve, one who may be disciplined at the pleasure of her masters."

The belly dancer rested her arm on a tasseled pillow. "Yet I live in a palace and I sleep on silken sheets. I have food to eat, and my companions are among the most beautiful women in all the world. Is not an occasional switching a small price to pay for so much of Allah's bounty?"

The sultan noted how charmingly the light of the brazier danced in his companion's kohled eyes. "Then you do not hate being either a woman or a slave?" he inquired.

"Do you hate being a man and master, Mighty Sovereign?

He was taken aback. "No, why should I?"

"Must it be otherwise with me?"

"Our circumstances are nothing alike!"

Without immediate reply, the belly dancer drew a de-thorned rose from a water-filled bowl and laid it upon the sultan's lap. Then she selected a second blossom, which she inserted into her ebony hair. "This a wise man taught me, Supreme One. Two lives are like two roses. Which of these roses is better than the other?"

The handsome sultan frowned thoughtfully. "How may I judge? Some roses are better than others, I am sure, but these two appear to be of identical quality."

"Is Allah's gift of life not identical to all also, my sultan?"

He shrugged. "All lives are different. Some persons are men, some are women. Some are sick, some are fit. Some are young, some are old. Some know grief, some know contentment. You life is not at all like mine."

She gazed wistfully at the roses in the bowl. "Our lives are different, Mighty Master, but our gifts of life are equal."

He regarded her now with added pleasure. "You surely were born a man, my pet, for no woman could express a like thought in words so simple. Is there any wonder that I permit no woman to enter my chambers who was not born a man? -- Save for my wives, of course," he added with a sigh. "That is one of the sacrifices a sultan must endure for the good of his people."

"I grieve for your sacrifice, my liege," Danya answered carefully, lest her words betray sarcasm.

The sultan smiled broadly. He had known hundreds of fountain girls, yet they all still fascinated him. He played with the silken fringe upon Danya's halter. "Tell me, my lovely, when you were a man, how many girls did you make love to?"

She hesitated ever so slightly before replying. "As many as I wanted, Sire. I raided villages. I sold free women to foreign caravans. Sometimes I even gave women to the magistrates of Marshan, for some of them were corrupt. I was audacious, even reckless, but venality in high officials makes bandit recklessness a safe practice, and I was for a long time given a free rein in exchange for what I provided."

This confession drew no reaction from Moustafa; he had fought official corruption for his whole reign. Some officeholders were eventually unmasked and punished, but some never were. As he recalled, the testimony of Ben Jakhar had led to the fall of several bribe-taking scoundrels. But, no doubt, some of his present magistrates were playing the same old game with the bandits of the present day. A monarch's conflict with evil was never-ending.

He ran the back of his hand over the girl's powdered cheek. That Ben Jakhar had been a genuine villain, he knew well, but he put that fact out of mind and simply asked: "Were the women beautiful?"

She met his eyes, as few of his slave girls had the effrontery to do. "Many were not, Great One. His Majesty knows that the gift of beauty is given out all too sparingly. But, alas, the fountain condemned me to take the shape of the most alluring dancing girl whom I had ever raped --"

The sultan cocked his head. "You say that so matter-of-factly. Does the memory of your evil deed not bring you regret and shame?"

She shrugged. "I have myself been raped many times since then, Transcendent Lord; must I forever feel guilty for that which I have long-since atoned? My trainers knew of my crimes, of course, and so were particularly harsh with me."

Moustafa smiled. He somehow doubted that this sly minx had ever experienced a twinge of guilt in all her life, either as a man or a woman. "How harsh were they?" he asked. "You do not seem scarred by your ordeal. You are sweet and saucy, no brute beast battered into cowed tameness."

Danya's smile revealed dual rows of small, blue-white teeth. "Your masters of the whip do not seek to make fountain-girls dully tame," she explained, smiling though her glance seemed troubled. "They desire superb and actively-seductive female slaves."

Moustafa lifted a brow. "Then I must compliment the whip-masters of Marshan, for you are magnificent. How is it that you have learned your lessons so well?"

"A girl under the whip is strongly motivated, Sire."

He chuckled, pleased by her sense of humor. "I expect that thou art right." Then another thought came to him: "How many men hast thou pleased?"

Her glance lowered. "Very many. Many of your visitors have asked for me since I was brought to the palace. Also, my former master oftentimes sent me to his guests' chambers."

"If that is so, tell me this -- who has more pleasure in the arms of the other? Man or woman?"

Danya looked into Moustafa's dark eyes searchingly, wondering whether the truth or an artful lie would better serve his pleasure. She decided to venture the truth. "The woman, Mighty Sultan."

This surprised the sovereign. A man, he knew, might take his pick of many women. Even a poor man had the means to sample the charms of countless harlots. The woman, on the other hand, had to submit to him who deigns to exercise power over her, either through marriage or by purchase.

"Why the woman?" he asked. "When I crush to by breast one who is beautiful, clean of limb, fresh of breath, and sweetly-scented, I cannot image that the woman under me enjoys half so much pleasure as I do."

Danya smiled. "So I believed, too, until Allah made me wise. Think, Mighty Master: A man is never free of the worry that a woman wants something of him, but seldom does he precisely know her desire. A woman, on the contrary, always knows what a man wants, and is fully endowed by Allah for the giving of it. For that reason she is at liberty to concentrate upon sensation, and full concentration is necessary to achieve perfect pleasure."

"Interesting," remarked the sultan, teasing the pendant depending from her earlobe. "Thou hast answered well, my quail. I would reward thee. Tell me what would please thee most, lovely Danya? Freedom?"

The belly dancer's lips parted in surprise, but any sense of opportunity quickly subsided into resignation. "No, not freedom, Master. I can never to a man again and it is hard for a woman to live free." She gave a rueful laugh. "Should I become a bandit again as I am?! A bigger bandit would simply take me into his powerful hands, strip me, and then throw me to the ground and do his will -- or else sell me for three copper pieces at the nearest caravansary. Or perhaps he would first do the one, and then the other."

"Far more than three copper pieces, I think," ventured the sultan admiringly. "But you could become a free dancer."

She shook her head. "Should I leave my home in the palace for the straw tick of a traveling show? Would I not have to submit to every man of the troop, and then be beaten by their jealous wives for a seductress? And what should I do when this beauty fades? A free woman of elderly years is not cared out in the world half so well as she who attains old age in the palace."

"But you must want something, my bright-eyes."

"Truly, Master, I do."

The avid gleam in the girl's irises told the monarch not to promise too much. "Do not ask for the world, lovely Danya. You are only a slave, after all."

"Yes, Master," the girl said with bowed head.

"-- And, besides, I think that you have as yet suffered little enough as a woman for all the evil you have done the world as a man."

Danya was undaunted by his frankness. Empty flatteries are soon forgotten, she knew; what her lord was offering was an honest pact, one in which both parties understood their respective places. "I ask not the world, Master --," she assured him, "-- only the chance to serve you better -- to become a more valuable retainer."

"In what capacity might you serve me better than the one in which you serve now?"

"I would become a master of the whip and create from rebellious clay many wonderful new slave girls for Marshan," Danya answered excitedly.

"A mistress of the whip, you mean."

"Yes, Great One," she sighed. "I still misspeak myself sometimes. My desire is only this, Great Sultan: Let this unworthy one become a trainer of those wretches newly-condemned at the fountain. Let me with my own hands strip them of their male attire and reduce them through stern discipline to naked, seductive houris."

Moustafa grinned, intrigued. "You would especially like to train fountain girls""

"Especially," the dancer replied with a cruel gleam.

"Perhaps then you can advise me," he suggested.

"Yes, Master?"

Did you know that my worthless nephew was brought back from the fountain earlier this day?"

"Yes, my sultan," Danya nodded. "The whole palace was talking about it. I hear that he -- she -- is blond and very beautiful."

"Yes, he -- uh, she -- is. I wish to take a personal interest in the punishment of Dwar, along with all his -- her -- riotous companions. They brought great shame to their families, one of which is my own, and their punishment should be one which is spoken of for many years to come."

"May this humble slave ask what has been done with the malefactors thus far?" Danya hated the lords Dwar and Kislar. Both had been frequent guests of her old master and, sometimes, they had made riotous sport with her.

The sultan's words intruded in upon the dancing girl's vengeful thoughts. "I have ordered them stripped and collared, and placed in cages in the plaza. The cages are small and they must sleep curled up like dogs; they cannot stand, except on their hands and knees. They are not permitted to touch their food, but must eat it from the hand of any who proffers it. They have been told that they shall remain as caged beasts on public display until each of them, in her own good time, has begged for the privilege of being placed under whip to be trained as a woman, slave, and pleasure-giver."

"An excellent beginning, O Worthy One," Danya said with trembling excitement.

"What should we do next, after Dwar has humbly requested to become a slave girl?"

The dancing girl licked her painted lips. "At the smallest rebellion or word of insolence, I would have her lovely bottom caressed by the girl-whip. Not a rag of clothing must she be permitted, other than her collar, until she has demonstrated perfect obedience to the slightest whim of her trainers."

"Is that the way you were treated?" asked the sultan.

The dancer blenched. "Yes."

"Was it terrible?"

"It seemed terrible then."

"And later?"

"It became a mix of terror and pleasure -- at least after a cup of Maiden's Ruin was poured down my throat."

"Would you not also give Dwar and her wretched companions Maiden's Ruin?"

Her midnight ringlets jiggled with the force of her head-shake. "Not at first, O Master. I would wish Dwar to remain a technical virgin, tortured by the false hope that she might escape and restore herself in the fountain. In the meantime, without first using the potion, I would make her familiar with all the indignities of her new sex, even with male penetration. The first time she feels an object within her, it should come by way of the Gate of Shaitan, and not even by a male's pleasurable rut, but with an unyielding instrument." Then she added: "The slave pens have many tools designed for this purpose."

"Go on," said Moustafa.

"For Lord Dwar in particular I would select one of daunting length and girth. I would wish to hear her cry out in pain, not merely in shame. But I would also take care that she should not be harmed and rendered useless for future usage. Instead, let her remain fit enough to give many years of pleasure to any dedicated Sodomite who fancies her lovely cheeks."

"Ah, but you are wicked djinniya, my sweet one. Tell me more."

"I would save Dwar's and Kislar's true maidenhead for their purchasers to take."

Moustafa frowned. "This I do not favor. The longer one delays placing the seal of perpetual womanhood upon a fountain girl, the greater is the chance that she will find a way to regain her former shape and flee justice. Nor would I make Dwar the darling of some great man in whose eyes she might find tenderness. Better that she becomes the currency of many men, especially those callous rakes who would regard her as simply a toy of the moment and move on."

"Ah, Cunning One, you would not make the rascals rich men's concubines, but public whores of the lowest order," Danya observed with ill-concealed delight.

The sultan nodded. "Until Dwar's womanhood is made permanent, he -- she -- must be kept under close guard. -- But say, we have not finished training my wayward nephew, have we?"

"By no means, Sire," replied Danya, her breathing hot and excited. "If I were a whip-mistress, Dwar and her sluttish compatriots would not leave my domain before they were well-versed in all the most degrading particulars of the harlot's art, most especially the sundry techniques of Mouth Magic. First I would compel each of them to kneel before the `saddle' in the training suite and suck the bronze until her jaws ache, but afterwards I would chain her in a room with empty chairs which are accessible from the street. There, under the threat of the lash, a girl must serve any stranger -- be he handsome, ugly, young, or old -- any male at all who seats himself before her."

"For just one day?"

"For many days, except during the Holy Month, of course, from dawn to dusk."

"Will not some angry girls bite?"

"Yes, sometimes, Wise One. But they are given only men of the street to service at first. If they bite even these lowly ones, they will be terribly punished. Only when a slave girl learns not to bite will she be considered ready to learn the finer arts of the harlot's metier."

"I do not know whether to pity or envy any fountain girl who is thrown at your feet. When, exactly, would you force the magic potion down Dwar's unwilling throat?"

"Only when she has been made grudgingly obedient under harsh slave-discipline. By that time she will have practiced many of the lewd skills of harlotry, but will yet be resentful and sulky about performing them. Only when a fountain girl has becomes obedient through stern compulsion is she ready for the first element of Maiden's Ruin."

"Only the first element -- the potion of need?"

Danya nodded. "Let Dwar and Kislar become sluts in body, but remain arrogant males in their mind, abhorring women's ways, but experiencing unmanly compulsions which they cannot resist. Only when the magic in their bellies has driven them to commit every degrading act of passion written in the Book of the Houri should they have the second portion of Maiden's Ruin, the potion of the slave."

"I do like the way that you would go about training a fountain girl," the sultan affirmed.

"The second element will make Dwar desirous of bondage," Danya continued eagerly. "Then when discipline itself becomes her passion, should Dwar be instructed in the more intricate duties which her masters may select for her. It was only when the potion had moved me to that cruel extreme -- ruled by passion, desirous of ravishment and bondage -- that I was taught the dance. So should it be with them!"

"If Dwar ever became like you, I should say that he -- she -- was well-trained."

Danya paused and looked up. "What exactly shall Dwar's future duties be, my liege?"

"I have been considering that," he replied. "But what of the draft of love, the third portion of Maiden's Ruin?"

She tossed her head. "Perhaps Dwar need never have it. Why make an evil one happy by permitting her to love? Some man may desire a slave to love him but, if so, it should be left to him to decide."

Moustafa smiled. It was clear that Ben Jakhar cared little about fountain girls once they left the domain of the whip-masters.

"I have been thinking of buying a brothel," he revealed, "selling all the girls already in it and staffing it with Dwar and his friends. It is my wish that all the fees placed between their breasts shall go to pay back the victims of their crimes."

Danya murmured in delight. "This is good, Master, but may a slave make an added suggestion?"

"Is that not what I have been urging you to do for the past half hour?" he reminded her benignly.

"Yes, my lord. I only mean to say that I would have them trained not only as whores, but as belly dancers. As dancing girls they would not be able to hide their shame in dark rooms. But let them not entertain in comfortable homes and palaces, or even in a public hostel where they may have the joy of sleeping on the same tick every night. Instead, put them in Gypsy wagons and take them from village to village to perform day after day, year after year. Where once they went to rob and spread terror, let them give delight.

"Once they have aroused their humble audience with their beauty and skill, let them do the horizontal dance from dusk to dawn in the clench of any man who pays their wardens some tiny price -- a sheep skin, a basket of melons, some small measure of corn. And if Allah wills it, let Dwar, who has taken sacks of loot from poor people who could ill-afford it, take yet another -- a belly swollen with some camel-driver's son."

"I like your ideas well," said the monarch, "and I shall speak to my chief of whip-masters about them."

Danya looked askance; from his words it did not appear that Moustafa intended to appoint her as one of those who would be wielding the whip.

"Tell me, delectable Danya, were you, too, forced to drink the draft of love?"

The dancing girl blenched. "No, Master."

"A slave and a whore you may be, but yet you still have the presence of mind to weave cruel fantasies. Might not that heart of thine, aflame with passion, bring to thee gentler thoughts?"

"Please, Master," she murmured.

"Why do you fear love, my sweet?"

She glanced down. "I fear it because she who loves without limit, without calculation, is truly a slave."

"And you are not truly a slave?"

"Only to the second degree."

He stroked her hair. "I think love has been the one thing sadly lacking in your life, wild one. You have felt the cruel whip, but I think you need more than a whip to soften that harsh edge you still retain. On that day on which you are suckling at thy breast the precious babe sired by one whom you worship above all others, will you still desire to be a pitiless mistress of discipline?"

Danya's heart beat loudly, her breathing grew ragged, but she dared not protest. "I am yours to command, Mighty One -- but the woman who is gentle and loving is not always she who gives a man the most delight."

"True enough," he conceded, then graciously changed the subject. "You have asked me for a favor which is very easy to grant, my lovely. But a girl who was a bandit and who to this day still yearns to do cruel things is still untamed. One such as her should not be permitted to evade the just punishment that was intended."

He settled back into his pillows. "Moreover, one who is both female and beautiful should remain powerless." He smiled thoughtfully. "Powerlessness adds to a woman's charms. No, Danya, you are not yet ready to rule in the cellars of the whip-masters. Instead, it is meet that you should continue to do the bidding of masters and give pleasure which harms no one. You shall dance by day, and by night you shall yield your kisses freely to whosoever holds your body close to his."

"I will not always be young or beautiful," Danya reminded him solemnly. "In time no one will desire me to dance, nor to impart my kisses."

He touched her forehead, then her cheek, his fingers communicating both compassion and appreciation. "Your beauty need not fade for some twenty years at least. If in that time you are always a good servant, respectful of your sisters in bondage no less than you must be of her masters, your wish may be granted."

"Thank you, Master," Danya acknowledged joylessly.

"Even so," Moustafa went on, "I hope that when the time comes your request to your lord shall be to do a kindness for some other who is less fortunate than yourself. But, if that is not the case, your time of penance shall still be judged fairly served -- and Marshan shall always stand in need of a good mistress of the whip."

The dancing girl nodded, trying not to let her dejection show. Twenty years was a long time.

The sultan read her thoughts like a poem on a page. "Yet I have promised to give thee a gift here and now, and deign not to be forsworn. What would make thee cheerful, Lotus?"

She shook her head. "I know not what. I may yet have a need at some future time, O Sultan. May I be permitted to appeal to your beneficence some other day, when the occasion arises?"

He smiled broadly. "Of course, Fragrant One. -- That is, if you will do me one small favor before you return to the women's quarters."

"Name it, Master!"

"Perform Mouth Magic for me."

She blinked, but her false smile did not fade.

"It is a humbling act," he explained, "and you still remain greatly in need of humbling -- my fierce-hearted caracal."

Chapter Five

"Up from Earth's centre through the seventh gate

I rose, and on the throne of Saturn sate,

And many knots unravel'd by the road;

But not the knot of human death and fate."

In the dark of the evening, two very dissimilar-looking men stealthily approached the sultan's palace.

"It is very dangerous for you to enter into the palace by night," Mahmood warned his master Yusuf. "In this land they throw spies into that accursed fountain!"

"I have the Gem of Invisibility," he reminded his servant, undaunted. "I need but walk softly. I did not become a wizard through timidity."

Mahmood looked at his venerable employer doubtfully. Yusuf had never struck him as the bravest of men. "How shall you find Ali? The palace is huge!"

The sorcerer frowned. "That is a problem, yes."

Just then, a manservant in a fine coat stepped through the servant's exit of the palace. Yusuf decided that he looked like one who held some rank and responsibility, and so hailed him amiably.

"Good man! They say the noble Prince Ali of Damascus visits the palace tonight. Would you convey to him a gift of mine?"

The servant eyed the stranger circumspectly. "What have I to gain if I do?" he asked stiffly.

A greedy thrall, thought Yusuf, but at least a man who demands a bribe usually does not talk about it later. God save the conspirator from the guilty conscience of an honest man! The wizard bade the man to wait as he plucked a small purse from the folds of his burnoose. "You have this to gain, faithful steward!" he said, holding out the inducement. "I trust it is large enough to satisfy so small a favor."

The servant took the bag, felt its heft, then smiled. "Thank you, Lord."

"Excellent!" nodded the crafty magician. He subsequently drew a jeweled dagger from his belt, saying, "Tell Ali that this token comes from one who admires his great kingdom greatly, one who has heard many stories celebrating the benevolence of his pious father."

"What name shall I convey?"

"Ah, tell him `Abdul of Baghdad' sends it!"

The servant gave an unctuous bow and went back into the palace.

"What was that for -- `Abdul'?" asked Mahmood with a cocked eye.

His master then drew the oft-referred-to magic gem from his vast pocket and, before the bodyguard's wondering eyes, the old man faded away. "I will simply follow the greedy rogue to Ali's chamber," explained a disembodied voice.

"Aye," said Mahmood with a short, soft laugh, "if he does not sell the dagger to some sly street vendor instead!"

"I will slice off his ear with it, if he does! Wait for me, faithful friend. Should I do not return by sun-up, go your separate way and speak well of me to your grandchildren!"

The warrior listened to the old man's heavy footfalls and puffing breath recede to silence. Such a one as Yusuf made life interesting, Mahmood thought. Nor was he a bad master; the Egyptian knew he would miss the alchemist keenly if he saw no more of him.

A few turns, twists, and a flight of stairs brought the greedy servant to the door of Ali's chamber, which he tapped upon lightly. The transformed prince bade the singing-girl Katya to answer.

"A gift from a friend -- one Abdul of Baghdad, young sire," the steward addressed the prince over the maid's head.

Ali arose from her mattress indifferently. "There must be a million Abduls in Baghdad," she grumbled. "He would be some merchant currying favor, I suppose."

She reached out her hand and accepted the blade. The servant couldn't help but notice what fine, tapered fingers this lad from Syria possessed. Then, with a bow, he withdrew and Katya closed the door. Ali simply tossed the dagger upon her mound of baggage and returned to bed. Katya resumed her place and recommenced her song.

"With them the seed of Wisdom did I sow,

And with my own hand labour'd it to grow:

And this was all the harvest that I reap'd --

I came like water, and like wind I go."

Ali listened for some while, but poetry was no palliative for her troubled mood. "Enough, girl!" she suddenly pronounced. "Bring me a cup of mineral water!"

At just that moment the door latch clicked and the portal swung slowly inward, as if moved by a draft. Katya went to it and peered down the empty hall; seeing nothing, she shrugged and closed it again. While she was so occupied, neither the singer nor the prince detected Yusuf's soft stride upon the tiles.

The cunning sorcerer approached the stand upon which Katya had been preparing Ali's drink. He carefully unstopped the flask and poured the magical bane which it carried into the cup.

Katya innocently picked up the tainted vessel and presented it to Ali who, without much thought, or even without much thirst, took a sip. She at once grimaced with distaste; in sweet water the potion inevitably produced a stale flavor. Ali spewed the sample back into the cup, only a few drops of it having flowed down her throat. "Your water is spoiled by alkali," she mumbled sourly.

In mere moments however, even this tiny portion of the elixir began to evoke a strange stirring within the soul of the prince.

Ali looked oddly at the girl and decided that she wanted no woman's company this night. "I wish to go to sleep," she lied. "You are dismissed!"

In her haste to obey, the singing-slave did not hear Yusuf's clumsy stride following behind her. The sorcerer thought it meet to withdraw for now, but did not intend to leave the palace until he was absolutely certain that Ali's maidenhead was lost. That pleasant duty would have to be left to some other man, however, since old Yusuf was well aware of his own limitations in regard to the rites of Priapus.

Once Katya was gone, Ali leaned back upon the pillow, bedeviled by unaccustomed impulses. Try as she might, she was unable to banish them.

Restless, Ali got up and paced back and forth. The sight of her masked reflection in the mirror brought forth a frown. Only now did the prince realize how ridiculous a cowl worn indoors made her appear. She loosened its ties, shook the hood from her head, and studied her bare face -- a thing which she had but infrequently done during the last few months.

How it astonished her to think that this was her own visage. The girl in the mirror looked like Ayeesha, exactly so, and how sublimely beautiful was Ayeesha.

Ali glanced over her shoulder to make sure that she was alone, and then dropped her cloak and opened her shirt. She surveyed her reflected breasts for a long moment, and then touched them with halting fingers; the tactile sensation made her shiver. Then she reaffirmed her privacy before undoing her sash and letting drop her pantaloons. These fell in a silken heap about her ankles, leaving her standing there in shirttails.

The prince frowned, appreciating how lovely these legs were; surely no dancing girl had ever sported better. Was that a good thing, or something to be ashamed of? Why was it so difficult to see the answer to so simple a question?

Her bad feelings about her body reaffirmed, Ali closed her eyes in anguish. What had begun as an act of self-examination had become like a guilty spying upon her own sister.

Ali started to correct her disarray with shaking fingers, and it was well that she did so, for suddenly someone called her name from without.

"One moment," Ali replied as she struggled to finish her dressing. She had recognized the voice as Kerboga's, the Sudanese captain of her guard. As soon as she was presentable, she answered, "Enter, Captain!"

The armored African admitted himself with head held low. Ali, standing behind the door, realized belatedly that her face was still uncovered. In all these months she had never let her guards look upon her transformed visage. Consequently, the prince turned her back to the man and fumbled to raise her snarled cowl.

"My prince," addressed the officer, "what shall be your orders for the morrow? I would have asked Lord Hassan, but I believe he is -- presently occupied."

Ali found that she was far less interested in tommorow's orders than with exactly how Hassan was occupied, so she replied: "None."

"My prince?"

"I mean, I am not sure. Let me decide at dawn. Come back then."

"As you wish, Your Grace."

Then, as her Captain withdrew and closed the door, Ali belatedly remembered that she had promised to accompany the sultan's hunting party and so she hurried to the door.

"Captain! Wait! I would --"

As the portal swung open she came face to face with the tall young man standing on the threshold. She shuddered as if struck by a chill wind and, as suddenly, her flesh grew hot, as if brushed by a sirocco. Dazed, Ali reeled.

"Ali," blurted Hassan, catching hold of his friend before she fell. "Are you all right?"

Ali looked up, light-headed.

"I-I thought you went to your quarters -- and were not alone," stammered the prince.

"The girl is still there," Hassan explained, "but she is not so diverting as I had hoped. It is my fault, not hers. My mind is vexed. That quarrel we had inures me to pleasure as much as it does to sleep. May I come in?"

"Ah, yes! Please!" Seemingly of their own volition, Ali's hands pushed the cowl down once more.

The oddness of her tone and manner brought a frown to Hassan's handsome features. "Ali, are -- you well?"

"Why do you ask?" the prince responded, leaning awkwardly back against a table.

"You are perspiring, though the night breeze is a cool one."

"I am very w-well," she stammered, "and -- and am glad that you came by. You need not apologize -- really. The quarrel was my fault entirely."

"I would not say that. I --"

"Can you stay long enough to share a cup?" she hurried on with a crooked smile.

Hassan shook his head. "I need to rest if we are going lion-hunting tomorrow morning. I only wanted to put that foolish argument behind us."

Ali bit her lip. "I-I don't know that I will go hunting tomorrow."

"My prince?"

"I've lost my taste for lion-hunting of a sudden, Hassan. Perhaps we should simply ride out across the plains tomorrow morning."

"The sultan would scarcely like to do that!"

"I mean we two would go alone."

"Just ride?" he asked, puzzled. "We have ridden a thousand miles already."

Ali shrugged. "Our eyes were closed then. We have hardly once taken time to appreciate the simple beauties of the desert. And when did we ever stand shoulder to shoulder to watch the sun rise?"

The peculiar image she conjured made Hassan slightly ill-at-ease. "Well, if you'd like to do so. . ." he began hesitantly. "I -- I am glad that you are being more reasonable about this hunting business. There will be time enough for dangerous sport later on. But, hunting or no, if we are going to rise before dawn, we will both need our sleep."

He backed away, inexplicably put on guard by the odd expression in Ali's eyes, and the untypical tone of her voice. "Goodnight -- my friend."

The last thing the prince wanted was for Hassan to leave so soon. "Wait, there's no need of haste --"

She ran clumsily to fetch a flask of wine and the toe of her boot caught the leg of an incense-burner. Hassan's arms shout out to save her from a fall.

"You must be as tired as I," the warrior said with a nervous grin. "You are falling all over yourself! Get some rest, Ali, and I will see you in the morning!"

He exited swiftly, not looking back. Ali realized that she wanted to follow him back to his room? Why? Frustrated, confused, she flopped belly-first upon the bed and beat at it with her fists.

"Prince Ali --?!" Katya cried, scurrying back into the bed chamber. "What is it? Why do you cry out so?"

Ali awoke with a start. Blurry-eyed, she realized that she must have been crying out in her sleep.

Making no reply to the slave, Ali tried to remember a dream which was rapidly fading rapidly. There had been a man from the desert, she recalled. He had seized her, carried her away into the wild, stripped the male clothing from her body --

Belatedly Ali realized that the singing-girl was staring. The prince threw a corner of the sheet over her naked face.

It was too late.

"Sire," the maid gasped, "-- you are no prince. You are -- you are a maiden dressed up as a man! Why?"

Ali knew she that was caught. If her mind were not sleep-dulled she might have made up a lie, but at the moment lacked the wits for deception. "I will tell you," she murmured after a brief silence, "but I beg you tell no one else. My secret is a disgrace to my family."

Katya regarded the royal maiden doubtfully. To know the secrets of the great ones was to be placed into danger, but by nature she was of an implacably curious bent.

"If you need a friend, my -- my princess, I will be one," she offered coaxingly.

Feeling trapped, needing someone to talk to, Ali told her story, briefly but truthfully, ending it with: "So the wise men who serve my father told me to come to Marshan and bathe in its fountain, and this process is supposed to wash away the curse. From what I have since learned, that would seem to be the truth."

To Katya, this confession sounded plausible and a little sad. "Why have you not gone to the fountain already, my prince?"

Ali shook her head dolefully. "I did not want to go unless I could go in secret. But for some reason I have started to wonder whether going might be a mistake."

"Why is that?" Katya asked concernedly.

"It is strange, but I think it has something to do with my friend Hassan."

Katya squeaked in inspiration. She had heard a snatch of their argument earlier and she now realized that only two people deeply in love could quarrel so. "It happens sometimes to those who are washed by the fountain!" she told the prince.

"What happens?"

"You have fallen in love with the handsome lord!"

Katya's suggestion took Ali aback, but the servant was jabbering on excitedly: "You have been a woman for many weeks, Prince Ali, and it has changed your heart."

"No, it cannot be!"

"It can! You have traveled so long in the company of the charming Lord Hassan that now you love him. Say it is true!"

Ali shook her head emphatically. "Love? I have always loved him as a friend, comrade, brother --"

Katya smiled. "But now your heart tells you that there is yet another way to love him -- the best way of all. Think, Prince Ali, this passion that fires your heart may be the will of Allah." But then the singing girl had a terrible thought. "But be warned, Your Grace -- if you go to Lord Hassan and do all that your heart dictates, you may not be able to take your former shape again."

What a terrifying idea! Ali fell back across the bed. "What should I do?" she asked miserably.

The slave gave Ali a hug. "It is hard being a woman in love. I know because I have been in love a hundred times. But I am sure that your friend loves you, too. How could he not?" She touched Ali's cheek. "You are so lovely."

"I am not lovely! I am unnatural! I am loathsome!"

"Loathsome, sweet princess? Not in Marshan. What seems so strange to people of foreign lands is commonplace to us. You are beauty incarnate, even in those silly garments. Surely Lord Hassan believes so, too."

"You called me a princess!" Ali noted incredulously.

"If you go to Lord Hassan," the singer explained, "you will truly become a princess. Look in the mirror, Master. What do you see? Has Allah not given you this comely form and brought you to this land in order to place a terrible choice before you?"

"All choices are Allah's," Ali reminded the girl dejectedly. "Who can know the will of the All-Wise?"

"Before you do something foolish, Dear Master, would it not be wise to discover the nature of your own heart?"

"The heart does not matter. Only a man can take a throne!"

Katya pressed Ali's hands betwixt her own. "Will a throne make you happy, sweet princess? Will it make Allah any the gladder for you? The Merciful loves all his sons and daughters alike. Besides, they say that the only throne a woman needs is the bed of her true love, the only scepter her heart desires is his mighty sword of passion. And the only subject dear to her are the children which fierce love shall quicken inside her womb.

Ali stared ashen-faced. Hassan? Passion? Children? This conversation was developing much too swiftly!

"I know why you are afraid," Katya pronounced wisely. "All your life you have been a boy, and even after you assumed a woman's shape you continued to live as one. How can you hope to understand the inner cries you are now hearing?"

"Women are inferior to men! The lives they live are humble and deplorable!"

"Does Allah scorn the humble? No, my lord. And my life is not deplorable. Would it not be sweet to put away one's pride and kneel at the foot of a man you love, knowing that you exist only for him to command?"

"No! It would not!" said Ali with a wild shake of her head.

"I know whereof I speak, O Prince. You must ask yourself: Are all kings happy? Are all slaves sad?"

"I know nothing of slaves," Ali replied, "but I know that my father the emir is often far from happy."

Katya kissed her cheek in sympathy. "What Allah intends must come to pass. In your heart of hearts, you may truly be a mighty king, and, if so, God shall guide you to a manly throne; you must never doubt that. Or you may instead be only a lissome maiden who longs for love. If the latter be true, He will instead lead you gently into the arms of a master."

Ali wished that the second prospect had sounded more horrifying. "This confusion is like torture!" she said, grasping her skull.

"Allah desires that we learn and grow wise," Katya assured her. "Let us use this night to discover your true nature, O Prince. Then you will know whether you should go to the fountain, or instead go to the embrace of Lord Hassan."

"Me with Hassan? Never!"

"I will call my good friend Danya!" suggested Katya pertly. "She is more clever than I. Also, she was born a man, just like you were. She will understand your sad dilemma, as I may never hope to. Shall I fetch her?"

"I don't want anyone else to know!"

"One more person to share your pain cannot hurt you," the singing-girl pleaded sweetly.

"Perhaps," Ali conceded reluctantly.

Ali had finally given her halting consent and Katya dashed off. But now, alone, she felt alarmed. What, exactly, had she agreed to?

Before Ali had completely analyzed the conversation, Katya stole back into the room carrying a basket. As far as the prince could tell, this contained garments. The young woman who followed her, Danya presumably, was the same belly dancer who had earlier entertained before the sultan -- Ben Jakhar. Ali shrunk inwardly. What sort of love-lorn advisor could a mountain bandit make?

Danya did obeisance, then beheld the transformed prince wonderingly. "Your clothes tell me you are Prince Ali indeed," said the dancing girl, "but nothing else declares you so. This is not unusual in Marshan, but tell me truly, is the lady a maid of the fountain, or does Katya mislead me in mischief?"

"This is a mistake," Ali stated nervously. "I should not --"

But Katya took her hand. "You are frightened, Princess; that is natural. But think of the dashing Lord Hassan. Would it not be sweet to be crushed in his arms, to feel your face covered by his longing kisses?" She bent to pluck a garment from the basket. "--See, I have brought you these things from the harem."

Ali startled. "For me?"

"This morning you arose a boy, Prince Ali," teased Danya merrily. "Would it not be interesting to go to bed this night as a harem girl -- even if it is for only one night of your life?"

Ali could only stare incredulously.

"Have you bathed, Princess?" Danya asked.

Ali nodded absently. "Before the feast."

The dancer nodded. "That will do, as we have little time. We must hurry, O Prince; there is much to do before Lord Hassan grows too weary to receive a lady."

"Wait!" exclaimed Ali. "I barely spoke of the matter with Katya. I fear she has assumed too much. I cannot do this! I would destroy our friendship should I appeared before Hassan in these foolish woman-things."

"That is why the prince is fortunate Katya sought me out," Danya replied confidently. "I have a plan to overcome what is only a small difficulty. Lord Hassan will never know it is you because he shall be blindfolded and told that you are another person. If all goes well, you may stay with him, if not, you may leave and he will never be the wiser."

Ali looked askance. "What are you talking about?"

Danya explained her idea in full and Ali grasped the girl's devious design.

"Let us do her face first," suggested Katya.

Danya nodded eagerly and guided Ali to a chair. "Sit, my princess -- I mean, my prince. I shall make you a delight to behold."

"I haven't agreed to any of this," Ali declared, digging in her heels.

"When you see how beautiful you are, you will agree to all things," Katya assured the prince as she coaxed her into a chair.

Danya worked quickly and with great skill, outlining Ali's eyes with night-black kohl, applying powder and rouge to her cheeks. The prince's lips she painted a soft red, and then arranged her black hair into glossy flows. To complete the effect, the Damascene's nails, both of hands and feet, were manicured and painted to match the color of her lips.

Even Katya had not expected such a miracle to emerge from Danya's cosmetic art. She clapped delightedly, saying, "Take a look in the mirror, Prince Ali."

Doubtfully, Ali squirmed about to see her reflected image. She gasped. It was no face she would ever have recognized, not even as Ayeesha's. Ayeesha was a princess; this was the face of a slave, a concubine or belly dancer.

"I cannot do this!" she muttered, seeking to rise.

Katya gently pressed her down. "Do not fear, Princess. Your face is lovely!" She glanced over her shoulder to inquire, "What is next, Danya?"

"Her male attire must not leave this room with her." Danya shifted toward Ali. "My prince, may I assist you in disrobing?"

Danya took the absence of refusal for assent and, trembling with excitement, immediately set about her task. She had long fantasized stripping a raw fountain girl and putting her in the degrading raiment of a female slave. Surely Allah was kind!

Ali could not help but cover her breasts with her hands when her torso was laid bare. Danya went on to take away the prince's shoes and pantaloons, rendering her naked.

Katya's constant coaxing persuaded Ali to remain seated while Danya applied fragrant powder to her bosom with a soft patch of fleece -- an application which was unbearably ticklish.

Katya now bent down close and looked with kindly light into the prince's eyes. "You are shy as a girl. Were you also shy as a man?"

"No!" Ali exclaimed indignantly. "I conquered a score of boars with my spear. I've killed warriors in battle!"

"It is well you are not shy," the former Ben Jakhar put in. "A slave girl is not permitted modesty."

Ali glanced up sourly. "I am no slave!"

"Certainly you are not, my prince, but yet you must impersonate one tonight -- and must do so well enough to deceive Lord Hassan. Is that not what you want? Would you rather send Katya and me away?"

"Oh, do not, my prince!" Katya pleaded. "Though you may become an emir one day, you may be forever sad and lonely. At least taste both cups of wine which Allah sets before you before you compare the bouquet."

Ali frowned, not in anger, but with inner conflict.

"You are beautiful, mistress," Danya assured her as she dabbed rose water over Ali's ticklish flesh. "How can you doubt that Lord Hassan will love you?"

"But I do not want him to love me. I mean, I am sure that he could not love me. What I feel for him is -- I mean --"

"If you love him, dear princess, you shall be able to make him love you, also," Katya promised.

"This wing of the palace is not private enough to do what must be done," Danya confided to Ali. "We may be looked in upon by servants or by your own guards. I know of a place much more private than this one, and at this hour there shall be no one about to interrupt us."

"What place?"

"The slave-training room."

Ali leaped to her feet. "Are you having sport with me?!"

"Not at all," the belly dancer replied and, without more explanation, Danya drew one of the remaining items from the basket -- a collar such as palace slave girls wore.

"Only slaves may go about unnoted at this time of the evening," Danya told the prince. "Let me place this about your neck -- as a disguise only."

"No!" snarled Ali. "It is demeaning!"

"If you say `no,' sire," Danya replied with lowered head, "we know not how to serve you. If the prince has no more need of us, we unworthy ones must beg to take our leave."

"What is it that you wish to accomplish?" the prince inquired uncertainly.

"We must show you how to behave as the sort of woman that a noble lord like your friend most desires," Danya explained with apparent earnestness.

"And if I do not like your manner of instruction?"

"Then you may return here immediately. Unless --"

"Unless what?"

"Unless you give us orders not to permit your release until after a certain span of time has passed."

Ali sent her a suspicious look. "Why should I do that?"

"Because it takes great courage to stand up to rigors of a slave girl's training. Unless you are under some self-imposed restraint, you shall surely lack the fortitude to continue it for more than a few minutes."

"I am soldier-trained! I am monarch-trained."

"And I was a bandit, a strong warrior in my own right," Ben Jakhar reminded her. "Yet I have learned that to be a slave girl requires great courage, resistance to discomfort, and an unbending strength of purpose."

"I fear nothing," avowed Ali. "I could endure anything that you two slaves could endure, unless your purpose is to do far worse -- to cut me with knives, burn me with irons, or remove my eyes or tongue."

"Do you think we are mad, O Prince? We wish you no harm. But it is well-attested that a disobedient girl never does learn her lessons. And such an uncouth one could never deceive Lord Hassan, not even blindfolded."

Ali was no fool. Perhaps Katya was as naive as she appeared, but this Danya was of different substance. That she would savor having a prince of the blood under her switch Ali did not doubt. But this prospect, strangely enough, did not much daunt the heir of Damascus. To her way of thinking, the mortification of this woman-flesh might have been exactly what she needed. She wanted to hate her body, to reaffirm her desire to escape its prison. If left to her own devices, Ali was not at all certain that she could long resist going to Hassan and, once there, saying or doing something foolish.

If these rascally slave girls only succeeded in showing her how demeaning and intolerable was a woman's life, it would be all to the good. Purged of her foolery at last, Ali could go to the fountain in the morning, and no one would ever have to know that she had been tempted to sleep in Hassan's arms.

"No one will see us?" Ali queried doubtfully.

"No one!" Danya promised her. She stepped behind the prince with the collar in her hand. "May I, Your Grace?" The prince said nothing, and so, as was her wont, Dany acted, boldly cincturing the black leather circlet. The prince reached up to touch the bejeweled circlet at her throat, then regarded herself in the mirror. She blinked in disbelief. Naked, painted, collared, she looked like a captive girl on a public auction block.

Katya now picked some clothing from the basket, and Ali could see that it was a simple, mostly-red harem costume -- an embroidered girdle, a skirt of veils, and a midriff-baring halter.

"The night travels on fleet wings," the dancing-slave cautioned her companions. "The princess must not be cheated of her opportunity to experience life as she has never before known it."

Chapter Six

"Of threats of Hell and hopes of Paradise!

One thing at least is certain -- this life flies;

One thing is certain, and the rest is lies;

The flower that once has blown forever dies."

The two slave-maids led the disguised Ali along unfamiliar passages by the light of an oil lamp. Suddenly a powerful striding broke the erstwhile silence.

"A guard!" whispered Danya over her shoulder. "Do as we do,

Princess."

A big man advanced out of the shadowy distance, his swagger heavy and confident.

"What are you maids up to?" the guard demanded as the slave girls bent low.

"We are being sent to attend the newcomers from the West, O Master," Danya answered. "The sultan has showered great favor upon them."

His white teeth flashed. "A great favor indeed! The Great One sends the strangers three of the fairest flowers in his royal garden! I do not doubt but that these outlanders shall be well-attended!" He then regarded Ali with a crooked grin. "Ah, but what blossom is this?"

Ali glanced away. "Ay -- Ayeesha," she stammered.

"Ayeesha?" repeated the guard. "It fits you well! Are you new in the palace?"

"Yes -- Master," the Damascene replied, still not looking at him.

The man arched his thick brows. "Are you a new-trained fountain girl?"

"She is," Danya put in.

The guard smiled. "Ah! And what crime did she commit?"

"Do not delay us, Warrior," Danya pleaded. "We may be whipped."

"All beautiful women should be whipped now and then -- and you fountain girls need whipping more than any, Ben Jakhar." He shook his head. "But like you I cannot tarry! Be on your way and serve our noble visitors well!"

The guard sauntered on, pleased to have stolen a moment in the society of three beautiful women. The latter waited until his stride had faded to silence, then continued down the dimly-lit corridor.

"Thank Allah that the guard was so smitten by Ayeesha that he

failed to ask why I carried a lamp through halls which are already

well-lighted," jabbered Katya.

"You need not call me Ayeesha now that the guard is gone!" the

girl in red reminded her sourly.

"You gave yourself that name, O Prince," remarked Danya.

"Like the guard has said, it fits you well."

"It is my sister's name."

"Is she as lovely as you?" asked the singing girl.

"She looks exactly like me."

Katya and Danya exchanged glances.

"Let us not tarry," whispered Ali, sorry for having revealed a secret so personal.

When they reached the slave quarters, Katya set about lighting its lamps while Ali looked about with renewed misgivings. It was a barely-finished series of chambers, their stony starkness intimidating. The simple furnishings -- rough divans, some chairs, and some devices fitted with various restraints, reminded her of a prison.

Danya had picked up a sand-clock which she set down upon a table next to the prince.

"What is this?" Ali asked, her mouth dry.

"We have the gravest doubts that we can teach anything to a free man, especially a prince," said the dancing girl with apparent diffidence.

"Then why did you bring me here at all?"

"We believe that, if we are permitted, we may teach a woman much, particularly if that woman is a slave."

"I don't understand," Ali returned suspiciously.

"These sands take two hours to run out," explained Danya. "That is the span of a normal training session for a fountain girl. It is also all the time we may spare, if you truly wish to meet with the handsome lord Hassan tonight."

Ali was unsure whether that was her true wish at all. In a way, it was exactly what she was trying to prevent herself from doing. "What is your point?"

"We have great reason to fear you."

Ali grimaced. "Fear me?"

"Yes," Danya nodded gravely. "If you should deem yourself insulted tonight, you need only ask our master, the sultan, to have us torn us to pieces between wild horses, or subjected to lingering torture. That is a wicked and undeserved fate for humble servants who only wish to help you."

"I would not do that!" Ali protested truthfully.

"So you say, Master. But free persons may change their mind without penalty. That is the joy of being free. Believe me, Your

Grace, I know the difference."

"You were once a bandit, or so I hear."

Danya nodded. "That is true. And you were once a prince. We must accept the judgements of Allah and go on from there."

"Or the judgment of Shaitan," Ali corrected her.

"If we cleave to Allah's grace, Shaitan has no power over us," the belly dancer assured her. "And what we receive from the Merciful One's hands is only what we have justly deserved. "God is great," she whispered with lowered head.

"Well, God is great, yes," muttered Ali, "but I am not a capricious scoundrel either. If I must, will swear an oath in promise not to seek redress for any indignity done to me this night, short of some outrageous cruelty in defiance of promise, such as permanent scarring or crippling!"

Danya lifted her glance, smiling. "That would be helpful, O Glorious Prince, but perhaps not entirely sufficient."

"Not entirely sufficient?" Ali echoed, exasperated. "What else does a slave require if the word of a prince counts for nothing?"

"Bear with us, Prince Ali. Our life and limb are at stake. Many who are well-born in Marshan tell lies to slaves. Is it so different in Damascus?" When Ali made no answer, Danya dared to continue: "I have a plan. May I explain it, Heir of Damascus?"

"Yes, do."

Danya took a deep breath and began: "You are empowered to dispense justice in your own land, are you not, Prince Ali?"

"Of course, I must defer to my father the emir in matters of appeal."

"But among your own people in this foreign land, your power is absolute."

"It is absolute," she nodded. "I could order any one of my companions to strike off the head of any other."

"In your land, is a woman ever condemned to slavery?"

Ali frowned. "Oftentimes. For harlotry, thieving, blasphemy, for many reasons. My father has always preferred to spare a woman's life, if possible -- particularly if she is beautiful."

"Your father is wise, O Scion of Damascus. Slavery punishes a beautiful woman far more than death ever could. Tell me, Prince, is a person sometimes sentenced to slavery for only a limited period of time, and then restored to his goods and dignity?"

Ali shrugged. "We have penal servitude for a man to work out his fines or debts, such as in the quarries. He will labor under the lash like a true slave, though he is considered a convict, which is a status of greater honor. But there is no stricture that I know of which prohibits the law from imposing a temporary status of slavery. Nor can I believe that such a sentence would offend either the mighty or the lowly, though the master involved may resent losing his slave."

"All this is good to hear," nodded Danya. "Listen to what this humble servant proposes. For two hours only, hours whose passage will be marked by the shifting sands of this clock, the Great Prince shall place himself into true slavery. Moreover, you shall nominate Katya and myself as your whip-masters. That is, we shall be charged to train you in the deportment of a female slave."

Ali stared with dumbfoundment.

Danya hurriedly went on. "Unless you are a slave, we do not dare use any means of discipline to induce you to learn great lessons swiftly. You may in fact refuse to do any undignified thing asked of you, and we shall not dare to do so much as to speak harshly in rebuke."

The sultan's transformed son grimaced thoughtfully. These could be a very bad two hours, as girls could be cunning and cruel creatures. Worse, one of them had the soul of a mountain bandit. Yet, Ali was a war-leader who had not feared to clash with Greeks, Crusaders, and the wild renegades of the desert, though capture by the latter would certainly have meant being cut to pieces and fed to the ants.

"What sort of discipline do you speak?"

"Commonplace chastisement only, O Prince. Some blows of the girl-whip, probably less than twenty. Some brief chaining must be expected, perhaps even some spanking. You may be held and tickled," she was careful to add, remembering Ali's extreme reaction when she had applied the fleece.

"What plain discipline is that?" Ali scoffed, not supposing it to be nearly enough to compel obedience from a warrior.

"It is not the degree of pain which teaches a slave her place," Danya explained, "but the understanding that pain may be applied because she is truly in another's power. Be assured, nonetheless, that the prince shall leave this room two hours hence, fit, blemishless, and beautiful. Only, we think, he shall be wiser in the ways of the world and more appreciative of his womanhood."

Ali still searched the dancer's face distrustfully.

"Cut off my head two hours from now, Heir of Damascus, if I play thee false with my words -- or ask the sultan to do it in thy stead. I only ask that thou show'st mercy to Katya, even should I be denied the same."

Ali suspicion seemed to quell somewhat.

"That is all I can say to assure you, O Prince," Danya concluded. "Would you return to your bed now, or instead seek knowledge not attainable by you elsewhere?"

"Oh, Your Grace," pleaded Katya, "do not fear for your heart to be opened."

Ali raised her chin proudly. "I can endure two hours of bedevilment, if it is only what a mere girl might expect to endure." She in fact anticipated a bad experience, though hopefully not a fatal one. If she came out of her ordeal hating womanhood and its despicable cravings, all to the good.

Katya kissed the prince delightedly, while Danya pressed her for an oath, suggesting the language to be used.

"I, Ali Ibn Haroon," the prince swore, "for wicked and lewd thoughts, for desires which are unseemly to a prince of lofty birth, am hereby sentenced to forfeit, for two hours time, the status of a free man and be instead recognized as a woman and a slave. As chattel I shall be turned over to those here present, who shall act as whip-mistresses and instruct me in such arts as have hitherto been agreed." She took hold of the sand-clock. "As I turn this clock, may the sentence be carried out."

Ali turned over the clock.

And by that act, she had become a slave girl.

Ali looked up at her companions anxiously, almost as if expecting them to fall upon her with blows and kicks.

Both girls were quiet, though, and Katya looked to Danya, who from the beginning had appeared to be the natural leader of the pair.

Ali shifted uncomfortably. She felt a little smaller, a little more uneasy, than she had just a moment before.

"We shall call you Ayeesha," Danya declared, breaking the silence, "or Pretty Slave, or Stupid Girl, or anything that comes to mind."

Ali pursed her lips, listening quietly.

"When you are given an order," Danya instructed, "you must reply Yes, Mistress.' In fact, you shall call me Master' or even Master Jakhar,' and address Katya as Mistress' or `Mistress Katya.' Is that understood?"

Ali nodded, then belatedly added, "Yes, Master. Yes, Mistress."

Danya regarded her, satisfied. "Very well, Slave, but guard against all insolence for the term of your slavery, even the insolence of the eyes. You know how a thrall should act before a master. You must assume that attitude."

Ali drew an uneven breath. She did indeed know, in a general way, what was expected of a slave girl, but the whole idea of acting in that guise seemed very undignified.

Danya had gone to a wall-array and without a moment's hesitation, she took down what was known to slave-trainers as a "girl-whip." This, a specialized tool, was fashioned of soft material and felt very supple and elastic to the grasp. The blow of it, she knew from wielding it and experiencing it, would sting a maid like the fires of Shaitan, but would not mar her flesh.

The prince's stare fixated upon the device between the dancing girl's slender fingers. The anxiety she betrayed pleased Danya, for fear and respect were cast from the same ingot.

"If you are obedient, Ayeesha," she said in a strong, even voice, "there need be no reason to switch you. But a wise judge decreed that if you should tax our patience with either hesitancy or insolence, your correction must be swift and memorable."

Ali was quite aware that the girl-whip would hurt somewhat, but it was far from the heavy flagellums that flayed the backs of punished males. The switch, she judged, would probably do more hurt to the pride than to the body, but, even so, the prince had no wish to sample it unnecessarily.

"Yes, Master Jakhar," Ali acknowledged.

"She's so sweet and lovely!" Katya piped. "--Isn't she good, -- uh, Jakhar?"

"Yes," affirmed Danya, "I think our lovely Ayeesha shall train very well."

The dancer touched Ali's arm with the supple lash and the prince blenched despite her determination to be stolid. "First," said Master Jakhar, "you must reorder your thinking. Assumptions suitable for a prince are entirely inappropriate to a slave girl." She pointed to one side, where a glittering gem depended from a fishing line and hung at about waist-level in front of a mirror. "Go and kneel down before that dangling bauble."

When Ali had complied, the gem hung at her eye-level. She averted her gaze from the mirror behind it, not liking the image it cast back.

Danya moved a lamp so that the light made the faceted gem scintillate brightly. "Do not look away from the gem or you shall earn a switching," she warned her charge. Ali focused on the jewel then, noticing that her own breathing was causing it to rotate slowly, sending tiny rainbow flashes into her eyes.

Danya moved up behind her. "You are overwrought, Pretty Slave, and so must relax before we go on. When you are reposed, when your thoughts are focused, you shall at last be ripe for instruction. Empty your mind, Lovely One, gaze into your own reflected eyes behind the crystal."

While Ali performed this meditative exercise, Danya took Katya to the other side of the room and whispered so that the girl in red could not hear:

"Katya," asked Danya, "what is the outcome that you desire for Prince Ali this night?"

"I only wish her to be happy," the other girl responded earnestly.

"Can we leave it up to her to decide what is best for the attainment of happiness?"

The singing slave shook her head. "I do not believe so. The yearning to be a man again is very strong in a fountain girl before she receives the magic potion."

Danya couldn't help but wince and Katya gasped, "Oh, I am sorry, dear friend. I sometimes forget --"

"Never mind; you are right," sighed the dancer. "Ali can not see anything beyond her duty to assume her father's throne."

"That is so, but I think it will not make her happy."

"What do you think would give her joy?"

Katya's eyes flashed with excitement. "The handsome Lord Hassan!"

"I agree," nodded Danya. "We shall be blessed of Allah if we serve his will."

"What would you do?"

"Here is my plan," the dancing girl answered. "We will drive Ali to ecstasy and bring her to the point of climax repeatedly, only to deny her the release she craves. After two hours she will have no more control over her actions than a bitch in heat, and then shall be ready at last to go to Lord Hassan's chamber."

"Ohhh," Katya cooed excitedly, "it is a cunning plan. But I hope that Halima does not waste all Lord Hassan's seed before we are ready."

"Halima is with Hassan now?"

The singing girl nodded. "That is bad?"

Danya strained her pretty brow. "Not necessarily, not as long as Halima does not take the edge off the lord's ardor." Danya gripped Katya's arm urgently. "Listen, you must go to Halima at once and tell her not to encourage the foreign lord. She must in fact use her wiles to distract him from any such thought. Under no circumstances should Lord Hassan be permitted to expend his virile power before Prince Ali has come to him."

Katya shivered. "Oh, this is a dangerous game we are playing, Danya. And who knows if it is truly the will of Allah?"

Danya tweaked her friend's chin encouragingly. "That which is not the will of Allah, blessed be His name, cannot succeed. If that which we do is His will, we cannot fail."

This satisfied Katya's uneasy conscience and she turned swiftly to go, but Danya still held her back, saying, "Not so fast! There are yet a few more items which you must fetch for us."

The belly dancer appreciated the trance-like expression the prince had by this time assumed. The slackness of her features, the unblinking stare, told Danya that her charge had entered into a profoundly-altered state.

Danya had not only suffered the cruel arts of the whip-masters, but she had also learned from their ingenuity. The dangling gem induced a receptive state of mind during which any instructions imparted to a subject under its power would remain in his mind for a long while, guiding his actions like an unseen master.

The dancing girl reflected soberly upon the formidable task ahead. What usually took a whip-master weeks to carry out, she must accomplish in a mere two hours. "Maiden's Ruin," she knew, would attain all her ends instantly, but any fool could apply the magic potion effectively. Danya would not have used it even if she had possessed a vial of it. Success or failure at all costs was not her aim. What she hoped to achieve tonight was, in fact, not even about Ali, but about Danya -- and Danya alone. It was about the exhilaration of exercising power long-denied her. The whole purpose of this adventure was nothing less than the vindication of herself to herself. To press on too timidly was to fail; to press on too ruthlessly was to court painful death. How was it best to proceed?

Katya seemed to believe that Ali could be persuaded by mere coaxing to accept a male lover, but Danya doubted that. Katya had never been male and did not understand these things. The transformed prince had been in the company of Hassan for many weeks and so far had not even recognized the meaning of the emotions bedeviling her. If she was to surrender to love, Ali had to undergo an inner transformation as shocking as the passage of a babe from the womb into the light. To achieve it, the Damascene maid must worked as by a skillful smith, purified, heated like raw iron, plunged into icy water for tempering. The end was the transmogrification of crude iron into gleaming Damascus steel.

Danya carefully passed her hand in front of Ali's eyes; the latter did not blink. The former Ben Jakhar now drew a hopeful breath; Ali was perhaps ready for the next step, a crucial one. Upon it, ultimately, the entire outcome of this exercise might hinge.

"I will tell you what you must do, and you shall remember," the dancing girl began, as if about to recite from scripture.

Danya had only just finished her task when Katya came back toting another basketful of items under one arm and a pail of water in her free hand. The ex-bandit consulted the sand-clock hastily. More than a half-hour of the two appointed had already passed.

The singing girl set down her load, as happy as a puppy. "Everything went well! I think Allah does indeed favor us!"

"Good," the preoccupied dancer smiled, kneeling over the basket to draw out the britches, boots, blouse, keffiyeh, and dust-veil of a ghazi. She changed clothes quickly and then placed her hands akimbo, her booted feet wide with bravura. "How do I look?" she put to her companion.

"Like a dancing girl in man's clothes," Katya giggled.

Danya raised a warning fist. "A female who giggles is one who will soon be struck." Then she shrugged resignedly and lowered her arm. "At least Ali will have none to compare me with."

"What next?" inquired her excited helpmate.

Danya explained and the cunning of the plan fired the singing girl's already-overwrought imagination. Deeming that it was now time, Danya crossed over to the kneeling Ali.

"Ayeesha!" said Danya sharply. "Wake up!"

The prince snapped wide-awake, blinking uncomprehendingly. It seemed only a moment that she had first regarded the dangling gem. Danya took her by the right arm and Katya by her left.

"As a woman you can oft expect to be bound by your lover," Danya remarked didactically. "You should therefore become accustomed to such treatment." Standing Ali up straight, they guided her to the wall, in which manacles were fixed. Still beset by the daze of a wakened sleeper, she only came to herself as the cold iron clicked around her wrists. She scowled with perplexity, then watched her whip-mistresses' faces warily.

Danya ran her fingertips lightly over Ali's naked belly and upper chest, then touched her breast through the fabric of the halter. The maidenly globe constrained within felt admirably firm and the dancer smiled. "Allah has favored you, sweet Ayeesha," she said. "Or rather, has favored the one who will make you his lover."

Ali turned her face away.

Danya now deftly undid the hooks of Ali's halter, a garment designed to be easily removed from a shackled female, and cast it to one side. The Damascene's cheeks burned to feel the cool cellar draft upon her bare breasts, but she jutted her chin angrily.

Amused, Danya pressed herself up against the prisoner and grasped her derriere in both hands. "Ahh," the woman-once-a-man sighed, "these are firm enough to hold a male high aloft forever. From the front or from the rear, your endowments are every man's dream of Paradise, little dove."

She continued her physical teasing, playing her hungry fingers over Ali's bottom, kneading the solid flesh, pinching it mischievously and, when Ali refused to cry out, pinching it even harder until she won a tight grimace from her victim. Such stoicism as Ali displayed annoyed Danya, but the would-be whip-mistress was patiently resourceful, already planning the vengeance which she would take.

But the time for throwing Ali into the throes of helplessness was not quite ripe.

"You perhaps have not learned yet how much delight a woman's nipples may afford her," Danya suggested. She touched Ali's pubis. "I know not why, but a touch there is felt as far away as here, in what is called the `zambur.' Or are you different from other women?"

Her baiting won no answer other than a murderous glare. "She has beautiful brown eyes," Danya thought and commenced to stroke Ali's areolae with her thumbs, which attention quickened and stiffened the pink-brown nipples rapidly. The writhing of Ali's facial lips told her tormentor what she was feeling behind her other lips.

"Teats are made for sucking." Danya informed her captive archly. "I have heard of women being unwillingly sent into ecstasy by the mouth of a nursing babe. I know myself, too, that a lover's mouth may turn the proudest of fountain girls into soft clay." Having given fair warning, she bent to take a nipple between her lips.

Ali gasped for air and her breasts palpitated while the dancer teased them with her vigorous suction and fluttering tongue.

"You like it!" Danya exulted, releasing the mammilla. "Why, you were surely born for female pleasure-slavery. What a crime to place you upon a throne instead of into the bed of a brash and virile conqueror!"

Ali did not like these words and arched her neck defiantly. Yet, as Danya resumed the pleasuring, resistance was forgotten in the fever of sensation.

Before long, Danya again paused and this time called her helper: "Katya, assist me!"

The two palace slaves now worked in tandem, playing with the prince's breasts -- kissing them, subjecting them to the ministrations of their tongues, sucking their erect little towers. Sometimes they would nip the latter and though Ali would grimace, she refused to say so much as "Ouch!"

Even so, the Damascene's face took on the aspect of one in torture and she lapsed into semi-consciousness.

Danya read her reaction and feared that Ali was close to climax. For that reason she pushed Katya away and pinched Ali's breasts smartly.

Ali released a little yelp of pain and threw her head up glassy-eyed. Her back arched against the stone wall, like a woman about to spend uncontrollably, but she failed to go into orgasm. Her grimace told them all they needed to know about her craving and discomfort.

"Bring a cup of wine," the dancer instructed the singer and, when it was fetched, Danya put it to the prisoner's lips, hoping that a few glasses of it would make the prince tipsy, but not falling-down drunk. The aim was to reduce her inhibitions, but not deaden her needs.

While mischief and power-joy drove Danya, Katya was moved instead by sympathy. "Wasn't that wonderful, Ali?" she said, stroking the prince's beaded cheek. It doesn't have to happen just this once. You could enjoy it again and again. Every day, even. It is all up to you."

Ali only shook her head, the exact meaning of which the singer could not interpret.

"You do not cry out," accused Danya, shouldering Katya aside. "This does not please your masters."

Ali faced her boldly and spoke through gritted teeth: "I have no masters!"

Danya slapped the prince; the echo of the smarting blow rebounded between the adamantine walls.

"Ahh!" Ali blurted in astonishment.

"You continue to be such a proud male under the skin," Danya chided her severely. "A woman cries, she struggles, she begs like a coward, but you are too stiff-necked!"

"Go to Shaitan!" came the hissing response.

Danya struck her again -- hard enough to drive home a point, but not to do grave hurt. Driven too far, the dancer knew, the prince might seek for both their lives later on. Danya nonetheless believed that light discipline would only add to Ali's excitement and, ultimately, pleasure. At least that had been the dancer's own experience during her first days as a chained female captive.

"Tell us, what are you so proud of?"

When Ali remained silent, Danya pinched her nipple.

"Shaitan's curse upon you!" Ali shouted. "My pride is my faith, my family, my country."

"How many girls have you slept with, Pretty Slave? Or were you of that degraded sort who preferred small boys instead?"

Stung by the insinuation, Ali replied harshly: "Allah instills a man with a desire for women so why should he not give full vent to it?"

Danya nodded knowingly. The lady protested too much; was it possible that Ali, who must have taken his sport with many slave girls, nursed a secret guilt? If so, careful conditioning might turn that inner unease into a desire for punishment. And any slave who craved punishment became a slave of the truest sort.

"Well then, if your ways were pleasing to Allah, is it not strange that the magic of Marshan should reach all the way to distant Damascus and choose you, of all people, as its victim?"

"It is no judgement on me!" Ali fired back. "It is the doing of a traitor!"

"Oftentimes God uses evil men to do such work as he intends for some good purpose. Why should you not believe that it is the will of Allah that you should be a woman and fulfill your destiny in that shape?"

Ali looked away again.

"Can it be that Allah placed you into a woman's shell because it is appropriate for you?"

When Ali still made no reply, she went on: "Or is it that you have committed the sin of false pride which needs humbling at the hands of the Almighty?"

Ali shifted, but her features exuded defiance.

"Very well, we shall just have to see whether you are by nature a man, or a woman."

Without saying more, Danya undid the tie around Ali's waist, causing the gossamer skirt to slide down her thighs to her knees. The prince, dismayed, widened her stance to arrest its descent, but this only allowed her tormentor to slip her fingers between her thighs. The prince shuddered.

"What is wrong?" Danya asked with feigned innocence while she coiled the Damascene's pubic hair about her slender fingers.

"Nothing!" Ali growled.

Danya began to tickle, which made her captive lurch. "So?" the dancer laughed purringly, "You are ticklish! Surely the All-Wise knows that a ticklish girl is the easiest of all to discipline, yet he has taken care to render you so." Danya looked back at her confederate. "-- Katya! It is the will of Allah that the prince should be prepared for the most severe of tickling experiences."

Chapter Seven

"And if the wine you drink, the lip you press,

End in the nothing, all things end in -- Yes.

Then fancy while thou art; thou art but what

Thou shalt be nothing -- thou shalt not be less."

The singing girl fetched a wooden rod a foot in length and an inch in thickness, and which supporting a leg-iron at either end. This device of the whip-masters they fitted just below Ali's knees. When the shackles were in place, Ali's unprotected state increased her feeling of vulnerability three-fold. She apprehensively searched the faces of her captors.

Danya went speedily to a cabinet and came back with a beaker full of small camel-hair brushes, one of which she drew and touched to her own upper lip. She immediately had to rub the spot with her finger to drive the tickle away. Then the dancer drew a second brush and handed it to Katya before confronting Ali once more.

"You have the courage of a prince," she said, "and so you should not need to fear the next test that Allah sets before you. Can you silently endure the touch of the camel hair, proving your claim to manhood, or shall your anguished cries tell us that we have discovered a weak girl?"

Ali did not fear a brush, but the exaggerated warning made her wonder what Danya was leaving unsaid. In answer, the would-be whip-mistress touched the camel hair to the underside of the prince's left breast.

Ali gasped.

Danya was pleased to see the apprehension in her victim. Before, during her own training, the dancing girl had not known what true torment was until the whip-masters had brought the tickling brushes into play. Now, happy to inflict what had once been inflicted upon her, she began to brush Ali's left globe, the gasps evoked growing louder or softer with the variated pressure.

Danya suddenly spoke over her shoulder:

"Katya, now you try it."

Katya stepped up and gave Ali an encouraging smile, as if delighting in the chance to give naughty pleasure to one who had been denied it. The singing-girl therefore proceeded to apply the tip of the brush to Ali's right breast, tickling the prisoner's nipple, which rapidly grew hard. A moan broke from the sufferer's throat, causing Katya to pause, so Danya poked her in the ribs to hurry her on.

Resuming, Katya worked to see how much more she could make Ali's points swell and stiffen, tickling her lightly-pigmented areola and at times swishing the nipple itself. But when she sank to her knees and touched the camel hair to the prince's labia, Danya seized her hand.

"It is too soon for that," the dancer advised sternly. "See the maiden's distraught state? Soothe her distress away with your mouth to show that you are sorry."

Reared to ways of the harem, this suggestion daunted the singer not at all. She pressed her open mouth to Ali's kus and lapped it fondly. When her pupil responded with involuntary murmurs which might have been of pleasure, Danya put her hand on her friend's shoulder and redirected her with an inclination of her head.

Understanding, Katya stood up and once more set about titillating Ali's breasts, kissing them, sucking each excited little tower in turn while lightly fingering the other. It was obvious to both girls that the captive liked this massage better than she had the torture of the brush.

Danya soon adjudged that it was time for another sip of wine, and so nudged Katya aside in order to offer Ali a quarter-cupful. This the Damascene needed desperately and drank with a loud slurping sound.

The breathless prince was given just a moment to rest before Danya placed her own brush inside the tiny crater of her navel and began to swirl it. How she savored her prisoner's increasingly beet-red and strained expression! The tickling continued until the sanguine flush had suffused the prince's entire body, darkening especially her cheeks and breasts.

"Shout and beg," Danya advised the girl, "writhe your loins, let the tears stream, and I will stop at once. All I seek is to show that you are no more able to endure punishment than a thousand other girls." No more able to endure, in fact, than Ben Jakhar had been herself.

No plea for mercy but only a stubborn rebuke showed in the prince's glare.

Danya desisted reluctantly. "You are too mulish. Why can you not accept Allah's judgement gracefully?" Unanswered, she said: "You shall answer all questions put to you, or we shall apply the brush to even more sensitive parts of your anatomy."

When still no reply came, Danya said ominously, "If that is your attitude, you shall learn what true tickling is!"

"Uhhh," Ali groaned as Danya slowly passed her finger over her furred womanhood, the membranes twitching and fluttering at the touch. At last the would-be-whip-mistress inserted her slim index finger to the last knuckle and felt Ali's subsequent lurch. Giving her prisoner just a moment to appreciate the novelty of having a foreign object lodged between her labia, Danya proceeded to agitate her impudent digit back and forth, until she detected a pronounced quiver in her victim's vaginal muscles.

Now Danya forced her member deeper still, until she had arrived at the inner membrane which preceded the vaginal sheath. Then, unexpectedly, Danya withdrew.

Through watering eyes Ali watched the would-be whip-master transfer the brush into her right hand and place its tip against her belly, commencing to swish it broadly, as if writing an exuberant script in a flowing hand. The dancer insidiously worked the calligraphy ever nearer to Ali's shivering kus.

Now the time had come to plunge Ali to the Seventh Circle of Hell. Danya commenced plying the brush back and forth over the moistened gate of Allah's Paradise, causing the bound girl to buck, but she lacked the freedom of movement needed to thwart the dancing girl's whimsical attack.

As Danya cunningly played the evil implement over Ali's vulva, she was taken by surprise by the prisoner's cry:

"Allah's Mercy, I cannot bear more!"

Danya paused a moment to challenge her. "A man could endure a great deal more, but we must suppose that a girl cannot. Cry out as you will, but do not assume a slave's plea shall shorten her punishment."

Danya resumed her pleasant occupation and Ali let out a renewed cry of anguish, twisting wildly, flinging her hips to and fro, gasping and giving out incoherent moans and mews. How the chains rattled to her motions -- the dance to music of the tortured slave!

Ben Jakhar knew that now was the time to draw the coral gates of Ali's vulva apart with the fingers of her left hand and assail the princess in her most private bower. The effect of applying her brush to Ali's clitoris was amazing, causing the Damascene to burst out with a wild shriek, her face flushed as red as a sunset. Danya felt no pity, not even when hot teardrops fell from above and splotched her arms, and thus continued the torment, well able to imagine what the prince was experiencing. It was not long before Ali's labia were contracting into a tight pout, offering easily passage to her trainer's probing brush. Simultaneously, her zambur asserted itself strongly, and Danya obligingly made it, too, one of the special targets of her camel-tufted instrument.

Yet she proceeded with wariness and, anticipating that Ali was again nearing climax, she reluctantly desisted.

"Now?" Katya asked eagerly.

"Yes, by Allah, what do you think?! Now!"

Katya splashed a cup of cold water into Ali's face and the latter cried out, falling forward, held up only by her manacles. Ali did not subsequently resist when her trainers unshackled her. Indeed, she was hardly aware that they were doing so.

"Mouth Magic is one if the most humbling disciplines a girl may be put to, as well as that which gives the most pleasure to men," Danya instructed Ali, her tone exaggeratedly pedagogic. "But, of course, you must know this already."

Ali again beheld the object before which she had been instructed to kneel -- a man's cock-stand cast in bronze, its antique surface a green verdigris. A small hole cast into its end simulated a meatus, and below the jutting sculpture hung a small leather bag, this last burdened with two large marbles. The chair upon which Ben Jakhar was now seated something like a saddle and the bronze piece rearing up in front of her could have been part of her own body.

"Touch the marbles, lovely Ayeesha," Master Jakhar instructed her, "but gently."

Ali, though inwardly resistant, did so.

"Now tickle them with your fingertips."

Again, the prince obeyed, if sourly.

Ben Jakhar was remembering how she, as a bandit leader, had once cut off the head of a clumsy maid who had bungled such instruction so much that he had cried out in pain. Danya had since regretted that hasty act -- not from remorse, for her heart was proud, but simply because she had grown more sexually sophisticated. Her trainers had taught her that there were many forms of revenge which might be inflicted upon a beautiful female without bringing about her death or mutilation.

"Place your hands about the shaft, Ayeesha," Danya commanded, "and stroke its length as if it were a treasure of gold. You know what I am talking about. -- Yes, that's right, but squeeze firmly and then release. -- No, not just once, Stupid Girl, repeatedly!

"All right, Pretty Slave," Danya said, noting how much Ali's performance had improved, "hold the stones in your hands and touch the sac with your tongue." She supervised this exercise closely and found it sub-standard. "No, not with a limp tongue; stiffen it, allow the man to feel it! Shaitan! Why does this simple business come so hard to our ignorant little slave? All you need to do is what many a girl has already done to you! You should be already half-trained!"

She kept Ali practicing rigorously for a quarter hour, then gave a new order: "Place your tongue under a jewel and lift it. When you have raised it about an inch, flick your tongue."

Seething, Ali brought her lingua in contact with the marble-laden sac and tried to do as told. Before long, Danya decided it was time to move on to other techniques: "Now, Ayeesha, be a good little slave and suck thy master's zubb."

Ali looked up angrily.

Danya felt peerless and powerful, like she had done when captive girls had knelt before her as a man in her mountain fastness. "You must obey," she said in a rumble, "or you shall be punished. Obedience, you shall find, may also be a pleasure. You are beginning to appreciate that, my wanton one, are you not?"

Though shivering with indignation, Ali engorged the bronze organ. Watching Ali suck, Danya realized that her pleasure was a detached one. The truth be told, she felt very little animosity toward the prince, and thus, correspondingly, less delight in her degradation. In fact, it was not Ali whom she would have most liked to see kneeling before the saddle, it was Lord Dwar. The thought of Dwar on her knees, naked, collared, with painted lips and kohled eyes, her cheeks ripe with blush, the air sweet with her florid perfume mingled with body sweat, her blonde head bobbing as she licked and sucked, sighing with weariness as she learned how to please a man --

When Ali least expected it, her whip-master pressed a plunger built into the chair, pumping a thick, burning concoction up through the meatus of the bronze zubb. Ali, shocked, spit it out without a thought for the consequences.

Danya laughed. "It is only a paste of salt, Indian pepper, and vinegar. It is supposed to be bad-tasting; when a fountain girl tastes a man's honey it shall seem pleasant by comparison. You are expected to swallow spice-draught, no matter how much it burns your throat."

"You perverted bitch!" the Syrian exploded pushing herself to herself up. "I've had enough!"

"Kneel and resume your practice," Danya ordered her imperiously.

"Go to the Hells!" the transformed prince cursed as she sprang to her feet and went to retrieve her discarded clothing.

Danya had expected this to happen eventually, and in fact was surprised only that the prince's threshold of humiliation had been so high. The crisis had to be met swiftly but calmly she knew, and so the dancer rose at once, exclaiming: "Kat, help me!"

Together they took the collared prisoner in hand, Danya firmly, Katya half-heartedly.

"Do you know what you're doing?" the anxious singer asked her friend, visions of wild horses galloping through her mind.

"If we let her go now, when she is so angry, she may very well call the sultan's guard!"

"By the Almighty, I shall!" Ali growled, too furious to remember the oath she had sworn.

"Let us take her to the table," Danya gasped. Ali was wrestling fiercely and Katya's help was half-hearted, so it was difficult for the lithe dancer to play the part of a jailor. It was also humiliating to one who had been the herculean Ben Jakhar that a supple girl such as Ali could give her such a fight.

Nonetheless, Ali was immediately thrown face-down over the edge of the table mounted with manacles, and Danya held her down while Katya shackled her.

Breathless themselves, the palace slaves permitted Ali just a brief respite, then, noting that the prisoner had calmed a little, Danya picked up the girl-whip.

"Ayeesha, for violence against your trainers, for calling a master bad names, you shall receive ten strokes. This is a very light punishment; I have seen girls suffer ten times ten blows for offenses even less than yours."

For a moment her words were drowned out by Ali's cursing.

"You are blessed with a perfect derriere," Danya continued when the Damascene had paused for breath. "A man might seek for such through all the markets of the East and not discover a better. But be warned; many a men will take pleasure in spanking and switching such a work of art. That is good for a girl; let us hope that fate sends thee a strong and virile master who will use thee exactly as Allah intended."

Ali had stopped blaspheming and gathered her breath, steeling herself for the coming pain. Danya took a comfortable position, then delivered a smack squarely across the girl's buttocks.

This blow won just a tiny lurch from Ali, but Danya knew how much the girl-whip hurt. She administered four more strokes and Ali flinched pronouncedly at each, but steadfastly refused to cry out.

This stubbornness offended Danya. "Whipping you is like beating a camel pack!" she complained. "Shout! Bounce your bottom! Let your master know you are suffering terrible distress. Stubborn pride will make a whip-master very angry, for you are telling him that he is not strong and that you do not hold him in fear. -- And a girl is very unwise to insult those who hold power over her."

In truth, each blow of the switch had stung Ali like a lick of fire, but damn the dancer to Shaitan! she thought, she would never exhibit weakness with slaves looking on.

Danya resumed the chastisement, the last five blows, like the earlier ones, being sharp and swift. Finally, the whip-master tossed the lash aside. Time was so critically short that all she could do was press ahead.

"All you fountain girls are afraid of penetration," the belly dancer told the prince matter-of-factly. "It would be a shame should Lord Hassan desired to enter and you withdrew like a frightened virgin. Therefore, the sooner you have experienced the pleasure of a man's zubb, the better."

Ali looked back in apprehension, her face pale.

Danya tilted her head proudly. "However, we should not want to diminish you in the eyes of your lover, since the maidenhead is all that separates the virgin from the harlot. So we shall initiate you to womanhood's sweet mystery by way of your lesser gate of pleasure." That said, she picked up an item from the table and passed it to Katya.

Ali twisted disconcertedly in her bonds, knowing very well the meaning of her term. Katya stepped near at that point and soothed the prince with soft words: "Now, now, Ali -- I mean Ayeesha -- what we're going to do next isn't any kind of punishment. It shall feel very good, in fact. Once you feel the pleasure that a man's big zubb affords you, you shall worship it and be glad that you shall be a woman in the arms of the mighty beast who owns it."

Katya lubricated the phallic object with olive oil and positioned it relative to Ali's body. Slowly, and with solicitous circumspection, she inserted it. She sighed softly, knowing full well what the prince was experiencing.

Ali's eyes widened. The strange intrusion felt like nothing she knew, except, perhaps, a reverse bowel movement. The dildo felt much wider and longer than it was, and the sensation of its inexorable entry overwhelmed all other thoughts and feelings.

"A girl's backside was not made for this sort of thing," Katya apologized, "but it may suggest the pleasure you shall know when Lord Hassan is filling you with his rampant tower of flesh. Does not the thought of being so used by a man make your woman's lips wet?"

Ali gave a tiny murmur of discomfort.

"It would be hurtful should I move it too vigorously," Katya confided garrulously, "but a little motion shall nonetheless impart the sweetest sort of pain."

Katya jogged the leather phallus very circumspectly, simulating the thoughtful ministrations of a lover. The inanimate object was a poor substitute for flesh, alas, but she thought that its very insufficiency might instill into Ali the yearning to have more and better.

Danya shifted restlessly, but with rapt attention. She had thought from the beginning that Katya's technique as a whip-mistress was insipid, but yet Ali appeared to be responding to it. The dancer noticed that her kus was becoming wet with erotic honey. In fact, her pleasure seemed to be growing so hugely so quickly that Danya thought it prudent to intervene.

"Aragg!" Ali cried as cold water sloshed over her head.

Danya stood back, letting Ali spit and sneeze while Katya wiped the droplets off her own arms.

"What did you do that for?!" Ali complained.

Danya slapped her smartly across her still-sore buttocks. "No questions, slave. One condemned to the chain must simply accept and endure."

The belly dancer undid one manacle at a time and turned Ali over upon her back, causing the prince to fear that her revised position meant that she was about to be tickled again.

"We must move on swiftly," Danya cautioned her companion. "Let us first teach our slave a passive art which, though delightful, shall not overtax her."

She took a seat above Ali and brought her lips down to the prisoner's. "I will be placing my tongue inside your mouth, and you will not permit yourself to gag, nor resist in any way."

Some men, the dancer knew, liked initiative in their women, while still others were affronted by it. Danya desired to impress upon Ali that it is ever the woman who must read her lover's tastes and needs. A man, she must come to understand, was under no obligation to fulfill his partner's desires in any way -- a fact that had oftentimes driven Danya herself to distraction.

As an object lesson, therefore, the male-clad girl urged Ali's teeth apart with her tongue. The intrusion was tentative at first, mere play with her partner's lingua, the tickling of her gums. As Ali settled down to accept it, the keffiyehed woman began thrusting more deeply, teasing Ali's tongue, encouraging it to join in the frolic. Ali shivered and broke out in gooseflesh as Danya's hands went to her pupil's breasts, tickling them with her thumbs, making their quiescent buds reassert themselves and get hard.

The dancer, at length, desisted and drew back, drying her lips on her sleeve. "You kiss well," she complimented the shackled captive. "You could make a man very happy indeed."

Ali's lips pursed, her brows knit.

"Too tame for you?" Danya asked teasingly. "I know that a kiss is nothing new to you, sweet one, but there are other experiences which you may like better -- those which only a woman is privileged to know. -- Katya!"

Ali saw the singer step forward, felt her hands grasp her hips. The girl was kneeling, her head lowering as if in reverence -- but Katya's intention became clear when the prince felt a wet tickle upon her lower abdomen.

The singing girl's impudent lips were soon playing all over the bound maid's thighs. Ali tried to wriggle away, but her bonds made that object impossible.

The Damascene could do no more than moan as Katya's tongue slithered between the folds of her vulva. The captive's back arched involuntarily as her muscles tightened, but strain to defy it though she might, the pleasure of the harem girl's determined cunnilingus waxed ever sharper. She felt like a crumbling wall, trying to stand up to the pitiless grind of the besieger's mole. As it went on she knew she could not endure for long, but must collapse. Once again that peculiar heat was beginning to suffuse her loins, but it swiftly spread to her breasts, her cheeks. . . .

Cold water.

"We have no time to indulge your insatiable need for pleasure, naughty girl," remarked Danya, who was now filling the water cup with more wine to offer her pupil. "There is only time left to dress you for Lord Hassan."

It was all over? As she took the tart beverage into her mouth, Ali could scarcely believe that liberty was at hand; the last two hours had been an ordeal that she feared must stretch into an eternity. But instead of experiencing relief at the prospect of freedom, she felt a tinge of panic instead. The Damascene did not feel the least bit ready to encounter Hassan -- either as a lover or a friend.

Danya unshackled Ali and permitted her a moment to rest. Katya returned from a visit to the basket clutching some midnight-blue garments. These, the singer knew, were similar in fabric and cut to what Halima was wearing this night.

Ali now sat up and rubbed herself between the legs. This simple massage comforted her somewhat, but it also induced an even greater sense of erotic urgency. She had hoped that the pain of her ordeal would have stifled her physical needs, but for reasons quite incomprehensible to her, the opposite appeared to be true.

Katya set the garments aside and dipped a cloth into the bucket of water. "Hurry, lovely one, hurry. Your sweating body must be refreshed and scented, so that it shall not offend the nose of Lord Hassan! This shall be a night to remember for as long as you shall live!"

By the time the sands had run out, Ali had been sponge-bathed, her facial paint refreshened, and clad in the blue halter, veil, wrap, and harem briefs. All this while she had half-disbelieved that the girls were actually willing to relinquish their power over her, even though they were going about their duties with bowed head while their graceful body-language affirmed that the natural order had been restored.

The pair had been harsh with her, but had they broken any of their promises? Ali wondered. Perhaps not, though admittedly she had not understood the true nature of that which she had agreed to subject herself to. Regardless, if the girls had deceived her, she had at least anticipated such a possibility from the beginning and had accepted it with eyes open. It would ill-become a prince to pretend otherwise now.

Ali beheld herself in the mirror. "It is mad to think I could go to Hassan like this!" she exclaimed. "He would think that I have lost my mind."

"Not so, lella," Katya counseled respectfully, addressing Ali as 'lady' in the language of the Prophet. He will think that his dreams have come true."

"You do not understand! He will never disobey my father. He is a man of honor!"

Danya laughed. "Do not worry -- women who have no honor know how to deal with gentlemen who do. This unworthy slave has told you before that he shall be blindfolded." She held up a small bottle. "Here, Princess. It is the very perfume that Halima is wearing tonight. Let us dab it upon your limbs also."

Ali regarded the vial warily. "Why? Is it magic?"

"Not magic, lella, but a ruse. Lord Hassan's eyes shall be stopped, but not his nose." She turned to the singing girl: "Go warn Halima that we are ready. And tell me what she has to say."

Halima had been feeding Lord Hassan one grape at a time. The game was a most diverting one, requiring that he should take it from between her breasts without using his hands.

Suddenly there came a tapping at the door -- three raps followed by two, the signal which Halima had been told to expect. The slave girl perked up. "Allow me to see who it is, Master."

"Yes, go," the young warrior sighed, sinking back into his pillow. He had grown confused by Halima's manner, unsure whether the girl wished to lie with him or not. Whenever he settled down to sleep, she had taken it upon herself to stimulate and amuse him. When he began to think it would be pleasant to have her, she distracted him with some snatch of song or a bit of foolery. He might have taken what he wanted at will, since that was his right, but he had been too ambivalent after his last encounter with Ali to know what he really wanted from her.

Halima peered out into the corridor.

"How do you fare?" Katya asked anxiously.

"All is well so far, Kat, but hurry! I do not think I can fend off his eager groping much longer."

"We will be back very soon -- along with the girl who loves him!"

The concubine shook her head. "I am very afraid that we shall get ourselves into trouble playing tricks upon the sultan's honored guest."

"Please, do not give up, Halima! A woman's happiness hangs in the balance."

Halima placed her hands over her ears. "Do not tell me more! The more I know, the harder the beating to come!"

Katya darted away and the pleasure slave returned to the bed. Hassan felt a new surge of excitement and smiled up at her, deigning to run a caressing hand over one naked thigh. Though he was troubled of heart, Halima's poetry, her scent, and her soft touch were yet making his blood warm.

The heir of Damascus beheld her own reflection in the training-room mirror. Could Hassan have recognized her dressed this way? He had never seen her limbs bare, or the swell of her cleavage. As for the kohled eyes which showed above the line of her gossamer veil, they might have belonged to any young concubine.

"What do you feel when you see yourself adorned so?" asked Danya, who had by now reexchanged her ill-fitting male garb for the costume of the harem.

Ali answered with a whisper, a lump in her throat. "Wonder, and shame!"

"Why shame? Beauty is the gift of Allah."

Ali shook her head. "This beauty is my sister's, not mine."

Danya frowned. Ali was still too full of doubt. She fell back upon her final subterfuge and clapped her hands three times, pronouncing: "Ayeesha!"

Ali's body stiffened.

"Raise your head and look at yourself in the mirror," Danya commanded.

As Ali obeyed, Danya felt immense relief. The commands which she had placed into the Damascene's entranced mind two hours before still lingered.

"Tell me, Pretty Slave, why did Allah place a houri such as you into this world?"

"To give pleasure to men."

"What variety of pleasure?"

"All varieties. The pleasure of the smile, the pleasure of the voice, the pleasure of the touch, the pleasure of the eye, the pleasure of scent. And most of all the pleasure of the couch."

"You remember, good. Continue to remember my words when you are with Lord Hassan. I shall be with you there, guiding you."

Ali nodded slowly.

"Now you will awaken," pronounced Danya, "and forget that we have just spoken."

Ali relaxed, then looked about puzzled. She thought that Danya had just been speaking to her, but the sense of her words eluded her.

Just then, Katya hurried back into the chamber. "I talked to Halima!" bubbled the singing-girl.

Danya took hold of her and drew her aside. "Tell me in private. Ayeesha has too much on her mind just now." She had said the latter loudly enough for the Damascene to hear.

"All is ready," Katya whispered. "Halima waits for us! But we must hurry -- Lord Hassan has a great and terrible need for a woman!"

"I see," murmured Danya, turning back to Ali, her mien grave. "I don't know if this is good news or bad, my prince," she advised solemnly.

"What?"

"Halima could not restrain the lord's ardor!" Danya lied. "He took her, not once, but four times, compelling her to perform at the very limit of her skill. Alas, she is a gabbadzah, which is a courtesan trained to take all which a man has to offer. Your comrade received much pleasure tonight, but, alas, after four times in the embrace of Halima, it is impossible that he has more seed to give to another."

Ali's face heated with a flush. "No seed?"

"None whatever! At least you shall be safe from the consequences of sweet love, my princess, however passionate it should become. But you dare not be coy, or he will be flaccid throughout your encounter and neither he nor you shall experience joy. I am a courtesan myself, and so I understand these things, dear lella."

Ali shifted uneasily. This was good news, was it not?

"I'm not sure. . ." Ali began.

"Take courage, prince." Danya again explained her plan.

Her carefully-chosen words did not dispel Ali's look of doubt. "If I do not get away undiscovered," she whispered, "it will destroy our friendship."

"The lightning destroys a tree only to permit another to grow in its place," the dancer reminded her. "That is the way of things."

The blue-clad girl only shook her head. Danya, sighing heavily, decided that Ali needed still another mug of the strong wine.

Chapter Eight

"There was a door to which I found no key:

There was a veil past which I could not see.

Some little talk awhile of me and thee

There seemed -- and then no more of thee and me."

The tapping sounded anew upon Hassan's door; he irritably propped himself up on one elbow and demanded: "What fool is it who goes about the palace knocking at this hour?"

"An old woman of the chamber pots," Halima explained hastily. "The poor dear can never remember which suites she has already visited." The concubine looked back at the egress and shouted: "Go away old woman! We need no more of you tonight."

The truth was, however, that Halima knew very well that the tapper had been Katya again, the rhythmic tap being the signal that it was time for Halima to begin the deception of Lord Hassan. Taking a deep breath, the concubine remarked: "Such a handsome master must surely have made love to many different women between Damascus and Marshan."

He regarded her with a wan smile and lamented, "Not so. I have traveled many months without once having enjoyed the company of any maid."

"Why, Master?"

The warrior glanced away. "It is hard to explain. When the heart is sick it may hold no pleasure; joy seeps away like rain upon the sand."

"I think I understand," nodded Halima. "The master misses some excellent woman who waits for him at home."

"Home?" Hassan echoed ruefully. "-- Would that I had someone waiting for me in Damascus." Then he shrugged. "It is my own fault; I have placed affection in abeyance while my father seeks for a suitable daughter-in-law."

"I see," said Halima. "But it is not possible that my master does not have a woman whom he loves! Tell me I am right, Lord. You are so plainly sad. Does she whom you love spurn you? Does she belong to another? Are your families divided by feud?"

He shook his head. "No such simple happenstance, lovely Halima. Allah tantalizes me with my lady's succulence, and yet will not let me taste of the fruit."

"Allah works in mysterious ways."

"That is so," Hassan agreed, though he had no real hope.

"I have a plan to lighten your heart! Let me be the girl whom you love!"

Hassan broke into laughter. "You tempt me, sweet one, but the soul needs choose its own mate, and mine, sorry to say, has not chosen you."

Halima's glow was undimmed. "I understand, Master, but we of Marshan have a game which never fails to ease a lovelorn heart such as yours."

He smiled wonderingly. "Marshan has many games, it seems. Well, of what sort of game do you speak, my delight? If this woe might be lightened, it would be a miracle even greater than that of magic fountain."

"It is simple, brave lord. You will wear a blindfold and pretend I am the unique woman of your heart. I will say not a word, no matter how ardently you court me. In this way you shall not lose the illusion that I am your secret lady-love. You may speak boldly, though, and let your doleful heart give vent to all the passion pent up within, so that it will cease to afflict you."

"I have my doubts that anything shall cheer me, dove, but your game sounds intriguing. You are certain you will not feel slighted when I profess love for another?"

"I will feel nothing -- nothing but joy, I mean, Master. My happiness is your happiness."

Halima removed her scarf, a bit of scented silk, and tied it about his eyes. "These are the last words that shall pass my lips tonight, my lord -- until, that is, you discover me curled up beside you in the light of dawn. Before then you must not under any circumstances take off the scarf; it is said to be very unlucky to do so."

"Very well, proceed," Hassan sighed patiently.

Instead of touching him, Halima scurried to the door, behind which stood Ali, Danya, and Katya. Halima noted that the new girl, the mysterious object of all this subterfuge, had come veiled like a harem girl, but her demeanor suggested uneasiness, as if she also feared a whipping. Halima bustled past them out into the hall, whispering, "Quickly!" Danya thanked her with a flashing smile and then nudged Ali into the room, pushing the door shut behind her. Then the cunning minx took a wooden wedge out of her bag, and this she slipped under the door crack so that the portal would not open until it was removed.

Ali no sooner found herself in the chamber than the warrior-trained youth felt the cold touch of panic. She turned in retreat, but found the door locked! Those fiendish women! she thought in exasperation. Without pondering their motives, Ali turned anxiously to behold the man lying in bed, whereupon her uncertainty worsened.

Then, out of nowhere, she thought she heard a whisper, though in truth it was only in her mind:

"This is the man you love, Ayeesha -- your brother, your twin, your friend, your strong right arm, your complement, your confidant. Feel again the yearning which you confessed to Katya and to me. Let love be a gentle breeze which carries you lightly into his arms, like a feather into the storm."

Ali gasped and glanced about nervously. Was this her heart speaking? Strange djinn held sway this night, assuredly! But the bracing words did soothe, did encourage. . . .

"Halima," Hassan called bemusedly from the bed, "are you playing some silly joke on me? Where did you go?"

Ali snapped alert, knowing that if she did not immediately take Halima's place Hassan would take off his blindfold and see her -- his friend -- dressed as a harem girl. What a disaster! He would think her a fool, a despicable creature like the eunuchs of the seraglio.

"If you do not go to him, all which you have suffered this night shall be for naught. Approach him, sweet Ayeesha. Excite him with your touch."

Ali lurched forward, placed her knee upon the mattress, and touched Hassan's arm. At once his suspicions were assuaged.

"My beloved, is that you?"

Ali knew that she must keep silent.

"You are beautiful, my houri," Hassan whispered, avoiding saying the name of his beloved, a name which he did not want anyone, not even a concubine of Marshan, to know. "Thy face is the Evening Star, thy voice is song! My heart aches for thee. Let me press thy hand in mine."

Ali tentatively touched Hassan's fingers.

His firm hand clenched hers, held it a moment, and then swept it to his lips. Breathing deeply, he said, "Ahhh, you are wearing perfume."

He ran his hand up along her arm, then lightly over her silk garments, his eager fingers plucking at the midnight fabric, but enjoying even more the feel of her bare midriff and smooth thighs. Ali, experiencing this, could not help but shiver.

"Soul of my soul, thou art nearly naked and come to me in the garments of a slave! This is good. How often I have imagined you dressed so. Thy body was not made for austere dress, but for silk, bangles, and bracelets. Allah has fashioned your feet for satin shoes, and your ripe bosom for straining halters."

His explorations continued, following the trail of nudity from her cleavage to her throat. "Thou art veiled," Hassan murmured as he pressed the gossamer fabric. "That is how it should be. From this day forward, precious one, let no man other than myself look upon thy lovely face, for from now on you belong to me."

The hand then slid under Ali's hair and came to rest upon her silken nape. "Kiss me, child of the desert," he urged with the urgency of a man coming from the heated waste and beholding a reflective pool.

Kiss Hassan? Ali squirmed at the very thought of it. If she kissed him and he then should discover her, what could she say? How angry he would be, how depraved she would appear.

But Hassan would not wait for the consent of a slave. He boldly swept aside her veil and entrapped her mouth with his own. Ali cringed; the texture of his upper lip and chin, the clove-scent of his breath, his manly cologne, made the experience very different from any which her lips had previously known.

Though daunted, Ali yet dared not struggle; a concubine like Halima, she apprehended, would never have struggled. The slightest mistake in her behavior would surely alert Hassan to the falsity of the game. She glanced up to Heaven, wishing that she had never come; but now that she was here, Ali was desperate to get through the whole night without betraying her identity. Thank Allah that Hassan had utterly spent himself upon Halima, or she never would have dared to stay!

The young man's tongue invaded her mouth and swirled around inside, trying to provoke a "tongue war." So shocked was Ali that she was about to push free, despite her determination to endure, when her inner voice returned:

"How pleasant are a man's kisses, Ayeesha. Open your soul, become the willing receptacle for the love that Hassan would bestow upon you. Love and Pleasure are the food for the starving spirit, sweet maiden. Feel the gnaw of your hunger, your desire to yield to it. Dare to feast. . . ."

Once again the ghostly counsel calmed her, helped her to find interest in the sensation of kissing. If this act was evil, she suddenly found herself avowing, then it was her evil alone. Her comrade, at least, was untainted by like vileness, since, unlike her, he believed that he was kissing the person he loved.

But then, with a sense of strange irony, Ali comprehended that she, too, was doing that. Love Hassan? Yes, but no! Not that way!

Abruptly, the warrior's lips released hers, but only to say, "Let me take off thy halter."

Ali stiffened. Unheedful of her reluctance, her companion skillfully removed the tiny garment and the prince felt the cool of the night air on her bared breasts. But what made for startling contrast was the simultaneous warm they received from Hassan's feverish exhales. The lingering kisses upon her bare bosom made her skin prickle and her breath come in gulps.

"He is touching the mountains of your womanhood, Ali. Savor it. Open your heart to your need for it! Feel the overwhelming craving in your loins."

And, in truth, as Hassan kissed the Damascene's breasts, it was almost as if he were kissing the secret place between her thighs. It caused her to recall Danya's warning that some wonderful connection existed between these distant places in the designs of Allah. Ali uttered tiny sounds of confusion as her comrade's oral worship continued unabated, and these Hassan interpreted as sweet sighs of passion.

At that point the warrior eased himself back, whispering: "Light of my Life, how often I have wanted to kiss thee, to run my hands over thy sublime form. Yet, had I done so, thou wouldst have hated me, reviled me, driven me from thy presence and I would have perished of loneliness. . . ."

Ali's eyes burned. Of whom did he speak? She now understood the intensity with which Hassan's vast heart could love, but it was equally clear that he loved another. Part of her wished she might leap from a mountaintop in despair, and still another part of her wanted to slay the mystery harlot for whom her friend's soul yearned.

"I have not been able to make love for months," whispered Hassan between kisses. "Since I first beheld thy beauty, every woman whom I embrace slowly transforms into thy image. If only I could rid myself of such thoughts that make me a traitor, a monster."

Ali could not understand her friend's intense anguish. What was the object of this terrible, tormenting love? Hassan had never confided in her, though they had been as close as brothers. Why had he feared to speak of his pain? Did he fear derision? The fool! How could one who was as tortured as herself fail to commiserate with another entrapped in love's coils?

"Dearest," sighed Hassan, "I have had a vision, a terrible vision that has afflicted me. I am ashamed to even speak of it."

Ali looked into the handsome face, barely illuminated by the diffuse moonlight, mystified by his avowal.

"In my vision," he continued, "thou comest into my tent garbed very plainly. I suppose then thou only wish to discuss some matter of business, but without a spoken word thou instead divest thyself of thy travel garments, until thou stand naked and perfect before me. I am amazed, for from thy bosom to thy toes thou art the fairest houri of Paradise. I long to see thy face, but thy dust veil is removed last of all. When it falls, I see to my amazement that thou art wearing a collar fit only for the lowliest of caravan chattel, but it sets off thy beauty as if it was created only for thee."

Hassan ran his fingertips over the collar which Ali wore.

"I am unable to rise, unable to speak," he declared in passion's throes, "for thy face and form have transfixed me. Then thou sinkest to thy hands and knees and creep nearer like a wild she-beast. The fire in thy eyes burns so ferally that I would be alarmed, except that by thy collar I know thee for a tame creature.

"You come closer then, ever closer, until thou bendest thy head and thy tongue tickles the toes of my feet. Oh, my love, do that for me now, I beg it of thee!"

His earnest words had very nearly bewitched Ali. A moment later he truthfully declared: "Oh, glorious Allah, the incomparable she-beast is licking my toes as in my dream! Wonderful!

Hardly aware of what she was doing, Ali continued delighting her comrade when he suddenly shifted and declared: "Now, my she-beast, kiss my ankles to my shins, kiss me over my knees, and up along my thighs."

Ali did not know how she might avoid doing this without risking discovery, but to her surprise and for the first time in her life, she discovered that the contact of hair with her tongue did not revolt her.

Hassan spread his knees. "Now my inner thighs, beloved beast."

Ali hesitated, but complied; his thigh-flesh felt hot against her lips and nose. Suddenly she gasped to notice how Hassan's great scepter was rising in stimulation.

"See Man's great minaret, Ali?" Danya's voice whispered. "What verse of poetry, what treasure of the craftsman's art compares? It is for that which all women yearn. It fires thy blood, the conflagration is unbearable. The scepter of Man is the Mystery, the Tree of Life; it is the Forbidden Fruit placed there for the seduction of Eve. It is the Temptation that conquered the First Woman and all the daughters which have come after her."

"Now, Precious," Hassan rasped, "do what my she-beast does. Touch my scrip of jewels with thy magic tongue."

Ali's mind whirled and she looked about frantically for a route of escape. The windows were sealed against thieves with arabesque grates, and the door, of course offered no salvation at all. Knowing that Hassan would unmask himself if she delayed too long, she parted her lips and slowly extended her lingua.

"Ayeee!" Hassan cried delightedly.

"Is it not a joy to be worshipping upon your knees before the scepter of Man?" Danya said. "Man thrives by conquest, and Woman by surrender. You are coming to understand the joy of surrender. . . ."

When Hassan shook with pleasure, his manhood blood-gorged and hard, Ali drew back to behold the display in wonder. What preternatural virility his mighty organ evinced, that it might still rise like a minaret even after so many rounds of unbridled passion with Halima the gabbadzah!

"Oh, now, my sweet, do not delay!" pleaded Hassan. "I cannot endure! Bless me with the magic of thy mouth."

It was well that the warrior could not see Ali's expression just then.

"Do not turn your face away, Ayeesha. Mouth Magic is the Woman's joy. It is the supreme capitulation of feminine pride, of feminine independence to the sway of Man."

Steeling herself, the prince tentatively touched her pink tongue to the knob that surmounted his cock-stand. Hassan reacted as warmth spread through his jewels and his zubb grew larger with each wild beat of his heart, rearing ever higher and looking more and more formidable. "Take it between thy cheeks, beloved," Hassan moaned, "I cannot bear the delay!"

Almost carried away by what she was doing, Ali opened her mouth wide and took in the noble pole-arm; again the nobleman trembled. The maid commenced to give oral pleasure, though she hardly knew how.

But as her lips and mouth played, memories flooded back, sweet memories of sweet concubines and how wise they were in the arts of the bed chamber. Inspired, she slipped her tongue all around the helmet-like head of his Fruit and then renewed her sucking with ever-increasing vigor. With waxing boldness, she pumped her dilated lips up and down as Hassan's scepter throbbed with urgency. Suddenly she realized that he was moving his hips, pushing himself ever more deeply into her torrid mouth, without even knowing it.

"Remember, my princess, your pleasure is not the reason you are here. A woman's lot is to give of herself unstintingly. Focus upon his enjoyment alone, upon nothing save his arousal."

Ali's cheeks were hollowed, her fluid tongue playing over his entrapped majesty, her jaws distending as she sucked harder and faster. Hassan, shuddering and groaning, felt his seed straining to come, but he checked himself with a mighty effort, not desiring to end the pleasure so soon. "Stop, my desert beast, stop," he gasped. "Bring me some wine."

Ali did stop immediately, naively supposing that she had not done well, or that his words expressed frustration for having no seed. Reassured though inexplicably disappointed, she rolled from the bed and went to the table, where a tray of refreshments waited.

The Damascene prince dried her lips with a napkin, then hurriedly gulped down a cup of the amber-colored liquor. Only belatedly did she realize that a slave might drink only when bidden -- but, happily, Hassan was blindfolded, and apparently had not heard. Admonishing herself for carelessness, Ali filled her companion's cup and served him as she herself had been served by many a slave girl before.

Refreshed, Hassan set the cup on the floor and reached out to grasp Ali's leg. The warrior played his fingers upon her flesh until they were plucking at the narrowest part of her briefs.

"Thy precious bottom obsesses me," he whispered hoarsely, cupping one of her buttocks. "I have watched it for hours bouncing upon a horse's saddle! Allah has daily shown me Paradise, but has also placed his Angel of the Flaming Sword between me and thee, forbidding me to pass."

"When did my agony begin?" Hassan asked in plaintive sorrow. "Never did I dare to speak of my passion, or reach out to embrace thee. I have ridden out into the desert alone sometimes, to declare the love which I cannot confess to you to the wind-blown dunes instead, until my throat burns like the heated sand of midday!"

A descending tear tickled Ali's nose. Hassan, you fool! she silently accused, no woman alive is worthy of you! Why weep for one who can never be yours? There are --

There are what? she wondered at the meaning of her own unspoken words. That others loved him? Who, exactly, did she mean? Ali hardly yet dared confess the answer even to herself.

The warrior now grasped her waist, massaging it with his strong thumbs. "I've undressed thee with my eyes a thousand times, Perfect One. Let me render thee as Allah made you, and revel in your nakedness pressed against mine."

It was a good thing that Hassan could not see Ali's face as he stripped her of her briefs and she felt her companion's maleness stir against her thigh, felt his hungry hands stroke her now-naked bottom. He pinched it suddenly and she gave a leap, though the prince still did not cry out.

Pleased by her movements, Hassan ran a hand betwixt the girl's warm thighs, advancing it up against her trembling kus. Ali's flesh broke out in fine beads of perspiration, the scent of which mingled with the floridness of her perfume, arousing the warrior all the more.

"He is touching you," Danya whispered. "Your modesty cannot endure. You are becoming like hot, flowing wax. You must have relief, and relief is something that only a man's virility can afford you. . . ."

Her companion was teasing her labia minora, calling forth a rich flow of lubricants. Then the lord, before Ali had reconciled herself to his original assault, united his index and middle fingers into a kind of zubb and fed them fully and deeply into the object of his desire. "Ohhhhhh!" she ejaculated.

It puzzled Hassan to encounter the obstruction. How could the girl be a virgin? he wondered, before realizing the dimensions of the sultan's generosity -- giving him a virgin trained in the practices of love. How appropriate; the woman whom he loved was a virgin also.

"I love thee, deeply, truly, and forever," he sighed. "After tonight, my heart will be as ashes; I cannot bear it any longer to have thee near but yet be unable to seize thee in my embrace. I shall never return to Damascus, dear one. Instead I shall go south, to the Persians and seek service in the shah's army. I wish to forget thy face and form, for they have broken my heart. I would remember thee, Soul of my Soul, only as we have been tonight, a man and woman in the throes of sweet love. Oh, how happy we might have been, had only God been kinder!"

Ali listened in horror. Was Hassan leaving in fact, or was this only a fantasy spun from his passion and heartbreak? They must not part -- not ever! She silently vowed that if her dear friend refused to return home, then she would not do so either. Let her father find a husband for Ayeesha and make him his heir. Hassan must not be left to wander the barren world without a comrade to share his pain. Indeed, his comrade's pain would be even greater than his own.

Ali was so lost in thought that Hassan's next words took her by surprise:

"Yield to me, Dearest," he rasped. "Let my arrow of love reach thy beating heart."

Ali might have leaped from the bed had not Danya's words returned yet again:

"Do not fear the warrior's mighty pole arm, my princess. The wound of this spear is a tender one. The act of surrender is the Supreme Mystery, the open grimoire; it is that secret which no man may know. Taste the Fruit of Eden; the lips which Allah has given you are burning to taste of it."

Hassan, seeking entry between her befurred lips, wondered at the sudden stiffness in his lover's body. Had she inexplicably turned cold. . . ?

"As Eve gained Knowledge from the Fruit, so may you, also, Ayeesha. -- All of Woman's secrets, save one, shall be acquired by you this night -- all secrets, save one alone, and this last mystery, too, can be yours through the miracle of the Fruit."

Gaining courage, Ali lifted herself just enough to make entry possible and as his intrusion deepened, the prince's feverish mind raced back to many previous nights of love, of pleasantly-scented slave girls clutched in her, then his, arms. Instead of stifling her present ardor, it inexplicably excited it.

Now the maid of Damascus, almost automatically, began to push herself forward with little lurches, hardly aware that she was accepting her lover's advance, until, of a sudden, she felt a little tear of pain deep inside.

"I. . ." Hassan mewed beneath her, ". . . I have taken your maidenhead! Praise be to Allah! I am the first."

Ali now knew herself deflowered, but she had no time to contemplate the implications as Hassan's movements were growing bolder. It was as if he had made some mystical transition from petitioner to demanding master. Ali's mind and emotions reeled, wondering if this change on his part was the effect of magic, the Mystery which might only become known at the breaking of the Seal?

Without fully recognizing her experience as a pleasant or a painful one, Ali opened her knees without conscious thought, making their act of union easier and unconsciously acknowledging her submission to male dominion. So engaged were they that neither noticed the door opening and closing behind them, as if animated by a ghost. A couple less oblivious to their surroundings might have wondered whether Shaitan himself had not stepped through that portal to spy upon some evil work of his in progress.

Full entry. Hassan's throaty vocalizations had changed from murmurs to yells. Ali, too, groaned loudly to feel the solidness of his pelvic bones slamming against the soft cushion of her Mons Venus.

"Move, experience, savor," whispered Ali's ghostly advisor. "Eat of the Fruit; take its blessed juices into thy body."

Ali's breath came roughly, her hips by now having fallen into a natural rhythm that evolved rapidly from a simple backward-forward gyration to the present sinuous flow, which was like waves surging upon a beach. The wild copulation swept her mind and soul away, sent shivers of pleasure though every particle of her body.

"Move, Ali. Just one more thrust, and one more after that. Your loins are starved and need gorge themselves with pleasure. You have been too long denied. Become one with your lover; let your insatiable need be the whip that drives you. Your craving is your master, you are its surrendered slave. You cannot stop submitting to this man's mastery. You have found your life's meaning, and it is all that you shall ever want to do, forever."

But because, or in spite of these words of encouragement, Ali suddenly remembered the danger she courted. If Hassan should not be absolutely spent, she thought with alarm, should he have but even one drop of seed remaining, Allah might condemn her to be forever the wild, craving, and submissive creature which she had inexplicably become. Ali did not, could not, doom herself to eternal womanhood -- not while Hassan's heart belonged without reserve to someone else!

But as strong as her fears were, her body's need was equal to them. Ali felt herself close to release, close to that long-denied woman's reward, but she also knew that she must break away -- at once -- whether Hassan removed his blindfold or not. The price of not doing so was much too high, for it was death by broken heart!

Her movements had already become discordant, and Hassan sensed it. But the warrior, refusing to interrupt the building tempo, locked his hands about her derriere, holding her firmly in place while he did his will with her. Ali for the first time was being subjected to his full strength and realized with dismay that her own maidenly power was as nothing compared to it.

Panicking, she was on the verge of shouting, "Stop!" when Hassan cried out in a passion too overwhelming for secrecy:

"I'm fucking you, Ali! Blessed God, I am fucking my sweet Ali! Take my seed and let it fill you, my beloved! Be a maid, not a man! Let live and die as we are!"

Ali could not believe what she had heard and cried out in astonishment: "Allah! I don't know what to do! What is your will?!"

At that instant Allah's will was known. Hassan released a heated surge, touching off a wild orgasmic response in Ali. The maid of Damascus shrieked as her virgin blood mixed faithfully with the virile seed of her lover. . . .

Chapter Nine

"Ah, Love! could thou and I with Fate conspire

To grasp this sorry scheme of things entire,

Would not we shatter it to bits -- and then

Re-mould it nearer to the heart's desire!"

Falling forward, Ali wrapped her arms around Hassan's neck, but the warrior, half-strangled, pushed her away and tore off his blindfold.

"Let go of me, trollop! Would you choke me to death?!"

"Do not call me that, Hassan. I have done you wrong, but only for love. Please forgive me."

Hassan sat bolt upright and tore off his blindfold. "Ali!?"

The naked girl on the pillow next to him could be no other. She fearfully touched his arm. "I am sorry. Do not hate me."

Incredulous, the warrior rolled out of reach and stood up. "Do you realize what you have done?!" Hassan jabbered. " -- Merciful God, what have I done?!

"You have done nothing;" the princess pleaded, "place the blame upon me, or upon fate, do not think that you have done wrong."

Hassan suddenly looked ill. "Was it you to whom I said all those things?" he demanded.

She cast her glance to the pillow under her cheek. "Your words brought me great joy."

Hassan backed away. "We are accursed -- both of God and --"

Suddenly, a low laugh sounded in the space around them. Hassan spun about, but though he scanned every cranny, saw no one.

"There is an invisible djinn in this room!" he declared fiercely. "Oh, foul spirit, you thing of mischief -- now I understand! It was your wicked magic which beguiled Ali and brought us to grief!"

He seized his scimitar and began waving it about. "I will cleave thy horned head from thy shaggy shoulders, O Djinn, and send thee back to Shaitan's tormenting fires!"

The whirring edge slashed close to Yusuf's nose; in dodging back the old man slipped upon Ali's dropped shawl and fell heavily -- so heavily, in fact, that the Gem of Invisibility jarred from his hand and rolled away under the furniture, quite out of his reach.

Both Hassan and Ali gasped to see the notorious wizard of Damascus congeal out of thin air.

"Foul fiend, so you take a familiar guise, do you?!" shouted the warrior. "Do no think to deceive us with a mortal guise. I shall sever you in twain as the monster I know you for!" He raised the sword for a killing blow.

"Mercy, Lord Hassan!" Yusuf cried out in his native Arabic.

"So, demon, you speak the tongue of Mohammed!" Hassan exclaimed. Then doubt crossed his nimble mind. "Art thou a djinn, truly, or just a man?"

"Would you let a djinn go free?" Yusuf whined.

"Fool! I would cut off a djinn's head!"

"Then I am a man, mortal born and bred; I humbly beg thy clemency, noble lord!"

"Yusuf!" growled Hassan, "I think it is you. Vile old trickster, what are you doing here?!"

The explanation dawned on Hassan's quick mind and he glanced back at Ali. "I believe that we have found thy secret enemy!"

"Yusuf?" Ali said with a confused blink.

"It makes sense! This one was long absent from Damascus, and then he reappeared just before you were enchanted. Oh, why did Allah blind us to the truth?!"

He turned back to the magician in cold fury. "Speak, old dog, why have you done this?"

"I have done nothing," pleaded the conspirator. "-- I mean, not much!"

Hassan seized him by the beard. "Tell that to the Sultan of Marshan, O wind from a donkey! The noble sovereign shall surely cast you into the accursed fountain -- which shall be fair vengeance!"

"Pity, Lord! I do not hate our noble prince. I was but a cat's paw."

Ali sprang out of bed, a sheet clutched about her nakedness. "That makes sense, Hassan! Why should this decrepit old wizard bear me a personal grudge? -- Speak, Yusuf, who sent you?!"

"I dare not say . . ."

"You dare not be silent!" warned Hassan. "Either speak to us now, or to the law-givers of the sultan tomorrow! -- Tell me first, how you render your fat bulk unseeable!" When the old man seemed to waver, the warrior pressed his sword-point to his throat.

Yusuf was soon babbling out the entire story of the accursed bath, the magical gem, and how Achmed had sent him hither with "Maiden's Ruin."

"So Achmed was behind this!" exclaimed the princess as she fingered the magical gem. "My father's throne is in danger! -- And what shall befall my sister if the foul conspirator sets his designs upon wedding her?!"

"In truth, only Achmed could be behind this!" Hassan ruminated bitterly. "He has always hated you, Ali, and now we know the reason! You have alone have stood in the way of his traitorous ambitions." Desiring someone to strike, the warrior seized Yusuf and shook him hard, saying, "Sorcerer, name your death!"

Ali restrained her friend. "Be easy, Hassan. I know that this man acted out of greed and spineless servility, but perhaps he has only acted as a tool of fate."

Hassan looked back. "What are you saying?"

Ali's words came tentatively, like a blind man's fingers probing a strange corridor. "I know not what myself, Hassan," she said. "All I know is that I do not hate anyone for what has befallen me. I would not have the blood of this old schemer upon my hands, as long as he faithfully assists us in thwarting Achmed's cruel plot."

"If you give the word, he shall live," Hassan nodded slowly, then glared into Yusuf's face, his jaw set in ire.

"Do you understand us, fool? You are the goldfish we need to catch the larger carp! Swear by whatever demon you hold dear to give Emir Haroon evidence against Achmed, otherwise you shall know the harsh justice of Marshan."

"The Emir shall slay me in torture!" the old conjurer protested.

"You have earned cruel death many times over, schemer, but we shall request the emir's clemency once you have named the traitor -- though I fear that His Majesty's anger will be no hotter against you than against us."

"I will tell the noble emir all, O Wise Youth," the magician yammered, supposing that a probable execution several months down the road was not half so daunting as an immediate dip into the magic pool.

"That is good," Ali said to Hassan. "Let our captain keep him under guard until we set out for home. But, for now, we must talk over other important matters."

"What matters?" he asked concernedly.

Ali looked away. "In the dawn's light, I must go to the fountain."

Hassan's jaw dropped. "I do not understand, Ali. -- What good can the fountain do you now, if the legends be true?"

The princess shrugged. "I must do what my father bade me to do. If the remedy fails, as I expect it will, then the cause shall be from my own folly and the will of Allah, not by willful disobedience."

Worry clouded Hassan's handsome visage. "Ali, forgive me, what you say is true, but -- I mean, I am selfish, I know -- but --"

Ali now understood absolutely that Hassan desired her as a woman. She set him at ease with a smile and touched his stubbly cheek. "Was I in joy when I received thy seed? I do not know. But I stand in joy of its memory. Once this man is taken away, canst thou not receive me into thy embrace again? Surely there is no stricture against a girl of the fountain surrendering to her lover twice before she bathes in the magical waters."

Hassan stood stupefied. "Ali, are you certain? If there remains even the remote possibility that you may yet reverse this strange fate -- ?"

The princess' eyes were brave, if dewy. "I am certain of nothing, Hassan, except that I belong to you and never want to cease belonging. I know not whether joy or sorrow lies beyond the next portal, my love, but happiness to me has never meant becoming the husband of Badiat, nor even the sovereign of a mighty kingdom."

Hassan took Ali about the waist, drew her face close to his, and whispered into her ear: "I do not believe that either of those things would make me happy either. Nor am I any longer content to wait for my father to select a daughter-in-law for himself. If all the women of the earth were lain at my feet, and all the houris of Paradise, too, I would choose you."

A shiver ran through the princess and she pressed her cheek to his chest. "Then we both must have the courage to choose happiness."

Hassan lifted her chin with his finger, then his mouth began to tilt toward hers.

"If she is so happy," Yusuf broke in hopefully, "you have me to credit for it. Why not let me go in fair reward?"

"Be silent, fool," warned Hassan with a backward scowl. "Be content that Ali has deigned to show you mercy!"

Yusuf shook his head. He would have to settle for that, yet these young people seemed to be distressingly ungrateful. . .

Scheherazade says:

"Ali bathed in the waters of the magic fountain thereafter as she had vowed to, but by the will of Allah emerged wearing the beguiling shape of her sister Ayeesha. It will not be wrong to say that neither Ali nor Hassan suffered remorse.

"Ali, desiring to purchase serving maids for her homeward journey, sought for Danya and Katya to serve her in this regard, promising that each should be freed upon reaching Damascus and thereafter would be kept in honorable appointments.

"Katya was eager to serve the princess, but Danya demurred, unless she should be appointed a whip-mistress in the royal harem. The Damascene accepted the terms and thereafter went to the sultan.

"The sultan of Marshan was loath to lose the beautiful Danya, but the latter now laid claim to her promised boon, requesting her sale to Princess Ali. So her lord had no honorable recourse other than to let her go, albeit reluctantly.

"Ali and Hassan commenced their homeward trail and by the time the royal train had arrived at glorious Damascus, the two slave girls had made Ali wise in the lascivious ways of the harem; each night, clasped in fond embrace, the princess demonstrated to her lover all that the day's instruction had imparted. Yet a baleful shadow still loomed over the young couple's otherwise perfect bliss, and that was the certain wrath of Ali's father."

Fuming, Emir Haroon paced back and forth while Hassan and Ali looked on apprehensively.

"This is a disaster!" wailed the emir. "-- Tell me, Ali, who outraged you?! Not all the wastes of Khwarizm shall hide him from my judgment!"

Hassan stepped forward, like a felon striding manfully to the gallows. "We never intended to deceive you, Sire. No stranger and no enemy did Ali wrong. Your son's fate is solely my responsibility."

The monarch stared uncomprehending. "What are you saying, Hassan? In what way were you responsible?"

Shoulders back showing all the fatalistic courage of his Destiny-ruled race, the warrior confessed: "I have made love to Ali, Sire, and I have done this because I favor her above all other women and desire her for a wife."

For an instant Haroon stared, his eyes the size of moons, then he shouted: "Traitor! You will be castrated and your diced testicles stuffed down your throat!"

Ali swiftly interposed herself between her father and her chosen mate. "No, Father! Spare him! I was much more responsible than he!"

"Why should I spare him?" demanded Haroon, red-faced. "He has taken away my son, my heir --"

"It was the judgment of Allah, Father," the maid pleaded. "If Hassan was Destiny's agent in depriving you of one thing, Great Sovereign, he has also been God's tool in giving you back something even more precious."

"What could be more precious?!" Haroon demanded in sorrow.

She opened her voluminous gown. Haroon stumbled back upon his chair at the sight of her figure.

"-- A grandchild!" Ali smiled abashedly.

Shock silenced the old man, but only momentarily. "This is a curse upon our house," he wailed, clawing his face, "and we are naught but ghosts fluttering away to disgrace and perdition."

In the women's quarters not long afterwards, Ali's sister Ayeesha and his betrothed lay resting side by side.

"It has been so many months," lamented Ayeesha. "I fear that Ali must have fallen prey to bandits, or sand storms."

"May he never return," Badiat murmured, pressing her nose to the princess' shoulder.

Ayeesha sat up, aghast.

"How can you say that?"

The Edessan touched her companion's breast soothingly. "If he returns, it means we two must be parted."

"Badiat! I love him!"

"And I love you, Ayeesha. For your sake, I wish no ill upon the brother whom you love. But you are as aware as I that your Ali stands between us."

"He should so stand! It is his right! I never intended for this to happen."

Badiat smiled coaxingly. "We do not do wrong, precious one. It happens all the time. How else can women in harems endure?"

Ayeesha looked up into her face, wounded. "This has been no empty dalliance to pass the time, Badiat -- at least not for me."

Now the bride-to-be also sat up. "It is not for me, either! How can you think otherwise?!

Leaning closer, Ayeesha whispered, "All I think -- all I know -- is that I love you."

Badiat kissed the Damascene's lips, then drew her against herself.

The soft pad of satin slippers alerted the guilty pair.

One of the eunuch attendants entered and, bowing, said: "Princess Ayeesha. A visitor. She claims to have news concerning your brother."

"About Ali?!" the princess exclaimed, glancing nervously at Badiat; each of them bore an expression of dismay, but, in fact, the sources of their dread were very different.

Ayeesha dressed and soon met the visitors in the designated chamber. Two were unveiled strangers whom she took for slaves, but there was also a third -- a young woman in a saltah of embroidered velvet. Ayeesha paused before the three, unsure how to greet them, but already the saltah-clad maid was unfixing her gossamer veil. When Ayeesha recognized the face of Ali unrestored acute pain transformed her wondering features.

"Dear Ali," she moaned and stepped with burning eyes into her brother's waiting embrace.

"Beloved sister," the latter sighed.

"Ali!" gasped Ayeesha as her flat belly touched the rotund firmness under the other's loose garment. Of its own accord, her hand went dropped down to probe the evidence of Ali's strange adventure.

"Do not be alarmed," said Ali with a woebegone smile, "and do not pity me."

"Ali, how --?

The former prince took Ayeesha's hands in her own. "I did not plan this, Allah knows," she said, "but our destiny is not something that we ourselves may choose. Even so, I look ahead with happy anticipation. It may be that Haroon's grandchild is destined for great deeds. The more this child grows and fills me, the larger becomes my joy, and also Hassan's."

"Hassan?" Ayeesha muttered, hoping that she had misunderstood.

"It is a long tale to tell."

"Tell it, or I shall go mad, Brother."

And, sighing, the princess Ali told all.

Scheherazade says:

"Learning of Yusuf's capture in Marshan, Mahmood despaired of effecting his master's rescue, so instead returned with all possible haste to Damascus.

"Once there, ever faithful to an employer, Mahmood warned Achmed of Ali's imminent return. The daring vizier did not panic, but instead sent orders to his guards to intercept the royal party and slay all who rode with it. But before they could mount, word came that Hassan and Ali had already entered the city gate.

"Assassination being no longer an option, Achmed resigned himself to flight and life-long exile."

"I have no time for you, bodyguard," declared the harried Achmed. "What do you want? To take service with me, now that your master is in chains?"

Mahmood shook his head. "No, my lord, I would be gone from Syria, but cannot depart without fair payment for service given. I would claim the girl whom the Great One once did promise me!"

"Service?" Achmed cried in exasperation. "Thanks to that fool Yusuf I am a ruined man!"

Mahmood faced off with the official boldly. "That is not through any fault of mine, lord! I have done all which was required of me, and have furthermore brought the warning which may yet save your life. Who would gainsay my right to fair recompense?!"

"Eleebs yenik!" Achmed snarled, cursing the impudent Mahmood to the devil. He was angry enough to call the guards, but instead decided to settle with the Egyptian and be rid of him once and for all.

"Slave," the official called to an attendant, "take this lout to the harem-keeper and tell him to surrender any girl whom this man pleases to take." Then, swinging back toward Mahmood, he said: "Small use such baggage will be to me after this day! Now, both of you, begone!"

As Mahmood bowed and departed on the heels of the slave, the vizier picked up his hastily-packed satchel of gold and jewels and made for his escape route. He intended to go without guards, for hired men-at-arms were likely to strike him down for the reward which the emir would surely place upon his head. All those around him served for crass gain only; none knew that fact better than himself.

The grandee drew up short as the rear door to his apartment opened to reveal Lord Hassan.

"Hold, villain!" the nobleman warned.

Achmed sprang back and laughed bitterly. "Hold? For what, Hassan? For torture and death?" He cast aside his burden and drew his gleaming blade. "Rather would I die with a sword in my hand!"

"As you prefer." The far-traveled warrior armed himself likewise and advanced.

Achmed struck first and the servants fled as the chamber rang with Damascus steel. Hassan, no mean fighter himself, was surprised by Achmed's polished skill. "You fence well for a knave!" he complemented grudgingly.

Achmed vaunted: "While you have been riding down Bedouin scum unworthy of a warrior's stroke, I have been training with Syria's greatest swordsmen!"

"Not so, scoundrel!" Hassan declared. "I am the best swordsman in Syria!"

The warrior pressed his attack and, drawn by the clangor, guards hurried into the room, but Hassan these warned off: "I am here with a royal warrant to arrest the traitor Achmed. Raise an edge in his defense and your own lives shall be forfeit!"

"Don't listen!" Achmed cried. "Kill him!"

Perhaps because they had no deep love for the man who paid their wage, or perhaps because they knew that the courtyard teemed with royal guardsmen, the warriors lowered their blades and shrank away.

Achmed fought bitterly for his life thereafter, while Hassan dueled for the honor of his lady. Allah alone may know which of the combatants might have prevailed had the vizier not stepped over the edge of the fishpond and fallen helplessly into the water.

Hassan leaped in and placed the point of his scimitar against his opponent's neck, forcing him to drop his sword.

"Kill me swiftly, dog," Achmed panted, "for the sake of my noble father's name, let me die honorably at your hands rather than endure the infamy of public execution."

Hassan did not immediately reply, but took a vial from his scrip and unstopped it, saying: "You are a miscreant unworthy of chivalry, Achmed, but Ali sought and received permission from the emir to choose your form of your punishment." He poured the contents of the bottle into the pond.

So swiftly did the change come that even Hassan, who had seen the magic at work in Marshan, was amazed. "Ah, excellent!" he laughed.

The girl who now occupied Achmed's robes seemed almost lost in their volume, but her indignant squeals could leave no one in doubt of her sex.

"I'll kill you for this," Achmed cried, making a grab for her fallen sword. Hassan merely kicked the weapon out of reach and pushed the woman back down.

"No one shall know of your terrible crime," Hassan informed his fair captive. "It will be put about that Ali perished of fever in a distant land, and that Vizier Achmed fled away into obscurity after the clerks discovered his petty embezzlements. Of course, if you instead desire that your shameful fate be generally known, it is up to you."

With a shriek of fury, Achmed dipped an arm into the water and splashed a handful full of it into Hassan's face.

"Hah, dog!" she exulted. "Now you will be as weak as I, and I will kill you with pleasure!"

But Hassan remained unchanged.

"As Yusuf has said," the warrior explained triumphantly while mopping his face, "the magic is expended upon its first victim, unless it is afterwards refreshed. And while Ali and I indeed brought back a supply of the mystical water for possible future use, it is already under close guard and you shall not have it."

Achmed regarded her conqueror with fury but, unheeding of her clenched teeth and poisonous glare, the warrior insolently bent and snatched off the vizier's turban, releasing from under it a mass of long, blonde hair. "You are a pretty one," he observed grinning, "or you shall be soon with your face painted and your unsuitable male garments exchanged for veils and girdles of the weaker sex."

Just then Mongi, Achmed's senior steward, tip-toed in, anxious to learn whether his master had been undone by the cacophonous swordplay.

Seeing the vizier nowhere, he asked, "Sire, what is happening? What has befallen the lord Achmed?" He glanced curiously at the sodden female in the pond. "Ah, er, lord -- has the slave Sheba offended thee?"

Achmed turned her face away; better to die than let her disgrace be the gossip of her own palace.

"Sheba?" echoed Hassan. "Have you seen this girl before?"

"Why, yes, Lord. She is the master's favorite."

"Excellent," Hassan replied with an inspired grin. "Go now! Tell everyone that your master Achmed has eluded me, but is a hunted fugitive. If found, he will be summarily put to death like a thief caught in the act, and his slayer shall receive a great reward."

Surprised, but not much upset, the steward bowed and withdrew to spread the word. Achmed stared up at her captor in puzzlement.

"Achmed," Hassan began, "what shall I do with you now?"

The transformed vizier arched her neck proudly. "I do not fear death, Hassan. Only be quick about it and do not taunt me!"

"As I have said, I do not want your life, Achmed. Ali only desires that you shall do no more harm to others."

Achmed exploded: "Fool! You have not seen true harm as yet! I shall be restored, I swear, even if I must go all the way to Marshan myself!"

Hassan shook his head derisively. "There are bandits on the road to Marshan and it is a dangerous trek for one lone wench. Even if you should instead approach a caravan for passage, its master will doubtless place fetters upon your wrists and trade you away for camel fodder."

"Dog!" the fallen grandee shrilled, hating the thought of such a fate and trying to provoke her enemy into homicide. "I will be avenged! When I am a man again, I will go to the Turks and the Mongols and arouse them against the city of Damascus!"

"Do not make me angry, Achmed!"

"I will turn the city over to ten days of looting!"

Hassan clenched his hilt. "I warn you --!"

"I will have you dragged to death behind wild horses! I will throw your pretty Ali to the army! Ah, yes, that's it -- I shall take special pleasure in avenging myself in the humiliation of your Prince Ali."

Provoked by such insolence, Hassan reached and dragged the girl from the fishpond. Pinning her under his knee, he unstopped a vial and shoved it into her open mouth. Taken by surprise, Achmed tried to spit out its gurgling discharge, but a shake induced her to swallow.

"What --?! Poison?!" she cried, coughing and gasping.

Before he answered, Hassan cast his cloak over the maiden's head, effectively blinding her. "They call it 'Maiden's Ruin,'" he explained as Achmed struggled. "I had hoped not to need deal with you so harshly, but you leave me no choice."

The girl continued clawing at the enveloping fabric, but Hassan seized her wrists. "Do not tear the mask away," he warned, "or you will be possessed by a passionate desire for the first man whom you see, be he lord or beggar. And if you fall in love with me be warned; I should make you Ali's most humble handmaiden, spurned by me and ever under the switch of the old women of the harem."

This frightful threat quelled Achmed's struggle. Subsequently, the warrior made a blindfold of his kerchief and reached under the obscuring cloak to tie it in place. Not yet done, he proceeded to strip his prisoner naked, easily overcoming the strength of her slim arms. Finally, the warrior picked her up and placed her inside the large chest which he had earlier noticed against the wall. He closed the trunk lid, but did not lock it.

"Beware, Achmed," Hassan cautioned. "The first man who removes your blindfold will be the fortunate one to whom you shall give your heart and your virtue." Achmed ceased to shout at that point and Hassan stepped out into the corridor in order to hail a servant.

"Send for the harem girl Sheba! -- And be quick about it!" he commanded. The man bowed deeply and hurried away.

Before long, the slave Sheba was ushered into the room and found Hassan sitting upon a large chest. The young warrior nodded approvingly at sight of the maid, for she was indeed the very image of the transformed vizier; by extension, how beautiful would Achmed herself be in the scant and revealing garments of the seraglio.

"The traitor Achmed has fled in fear of the emir's judgment," Hassan informed the concubine. "He shall not return, and so you may be set free. Do you have any family to return to?"

"Yes, my lord!" she replied, amazed by his offer. "My village lies not far south of here. I was taken from it by tax collectors only last year."

"I act with the authority of the emir," said Hassan, "to settle Achmed's remaining affairs. It would please me to send you back to your loved ones." He pointed to the rear door. "Go down and address yourself to the royal captain at the foot of the stairs. Tell him to place you under the protection of Lord Hassan."

When the grateful concubine had gone on her way, Hassan summoned additional servants into the room and told them that he had placed Sheba into the trunk that she might be carried in it back to women's quarters. They were to put the chest in some private but unlocked chamber and leave it there. The maid must be allowed to emerge from the chest and rejoin the women of the harem whenever it pleased her. These odd instructions amazed the servants greatly, but they had observed many of the strange games of passion that lords played with their slave girls.

Watching the ark being borne off, Hassan expected that Achmed would be taken for Sheba. As a fair prisoner of a harem she would be harmless enough in the future -- preoccupation with sex, bondage, and love would give her no time to plot evil deeds. He briefly wondered what her ultimate fate would be, but then gave a dismissing shrug. The answer did not really interest him.

The warrior sighed. It had been a long, hard day. The serious work of settling Achmed's affairs lay ahead, but they could wait until later. Returning to his troop, he placed the real Sheba up into the saddle in front of him. Then, casting a satisfied glance back at Achmed's palace, he gave spur to his spirited mount.

Ali had told Ayeesha all, and had even demonstrated Yusuf's fabulous Gem of Invisibility. Wonder-struck, Ayeesha bided her time until the hour when she knew Ali napped, then stole back and stole the precious gem from her sibling's belongings.

Invoking the stone's miraculous power, Ayeesha slipped out of the women's quarters unseen. She made swift passage to her father's dungeon, easily avoiding the sentries in the guard room, where she lifted the master key ring from its peg. It required only a short search to locate what she sought: the cell wherein Yusuf was chained.

The door opening of itself surprised the morose old wizard, but not so much Ayeesha's materialization. Before he could say a word, she put a knife to his heart.

"Ali!" the old man babbled. "Did you spare me in Marshan only to murder me now?" At that instant he noticed that this Ali did not look exactly the same. "You have your figure back! Oh, my poor lad! Did you lose the child?"

"Fool! It is me, Ayeesha."

"Ayeesha?" The wizard blinked in confusion, then recalled that the girl Katya had once mentioned that Ali resembled his sister --

"Be silent!" the princess barked. "Ali has told me all you have done! -- You have destroyed our dynasty, but with your help something might be saved from the ruins!"

"What do you want?" the magician asked through dry, trembling lips.

She explained her terms and the old man slapped his forehead in dismay. "Your father would tear me to pieces!"

"He may do so anyway, old schemer. Nonetheless, do what I ask and I will afterwards release you outside. Be swift or clever after that and you may save your worthless life!"

"Agreed!" The sorcerer declared, holding up his manacles. "Quickly, Princess --!"

Satisfied, Ayeesha unlocked the man's fetters, saying: "You will come with me, back to your workshop. Attempt to escape and you shall die!"

"How shall we win free? The guards are outside!" he reminded her.

She flashed the Gem of Invisibility before his eyes. We shall touch it together! But should you attempt to take it from me, I will shout for the guards -- if I do not gut you first!"

"Ah, yes," grinned the magician. "You are clever as well as audacious, my beauty."

Achmed had been conveyed to the women's quarters, but fearful of succumbing to Maiden's Ruin, she lay quiet inside the trunk until all outside was silent. Then the transformed vizier pushed the lid open and found herself in a storeroom with an arabesque grate over its sole window. Only then did the maid have the presence of mind to look down at her strange new body and touch it.

She moaned with loathing. So much had happened that it made her head spin. A plan! She needed a plan. First, the spell of Maiden's Ruin had to be lifted -- otherwise love and passion might cause her to cease missing her natural form. It would take a wizard to nullify the effects of the passion potion, surely, but there were several such whom she knew of. Alas, the one who would serve her needs best, Yusuf, was out of reach in the palace dungeon, probably awaiting death. Could she search his workshop for some vial of the magical fountain water which still might be there from his first trip to Marshan? Yes, that was it!

Escape from the seraglio had to come first. Achmed inspected the window grate, but saw no means to remove it without tools. Suddenly, footsteps sounded behind the door and she covered her eyes until the door opened and a matron spoke. "Sheba! So here you are, bad girl! It is for you that we have been searching."

Achmed opened her eyes. "Zagiba," she yammered, "I must leave this place. You must help me!"

"Are you mad, girl?" the woman replied, amazed. "Even if the master is fallen, we must keep to our allotted place. We shall soon have new masters." Then she shouted over her shoulder, "The one we have sought is in here!"

Helpers came in and Zagiba directed them in the dressing of Achmed -- into a loose-fitting white blouse and a patterned skirt, both of the popular Sudanese style, set off by red leather shoes and large earrings. Finally they painted her face and conveyed her to a receiving room. Her eyes had remained stubbornly shut thus far, but when they released her she felt a looming presence.

"Yes, it is you, my beauty," the presence rumbled. "How many other blond houris might be found in one palace? I have waited a long time to gaze upon thee. Approach me!"

Achmed was shoved forward and the speaking man took her by the arm.

"Ah, your beauty is even more perfect than I have imagined --" he said, "-- and I have passed many long hours imagining every aspect of it."

Suddenly Achmed recognized the deep, resonant voice. It was Mahmood, Yusuf's bodyguard! A jolt of hope lanced through the girl, but yet she did not know whether to ask for his help or to seek to end this encounter as soon as possible. Perhaps the Egyptian knew his way around his former master's workshop and could provide her with the magical water.

"Why will you not look at me, my sweet?"

She thought swiftly, saying, "I -- I would desire to be alone with thee, my new master, before I lift my eyes to thy face."

The mighty man gave a bursting laugh: "By Allah, that is fitting! -- You of the harem, leave us two alone!"

The attendants departed, and Mahmood put one arm lightly around the captive beauty he had come to claim. "Now open thy beautiful orbs, sweet one!"

"No -- we must talk first!"

"Talk? You are a strange wench! This is how I speak to a beautiful woman!" He slammed a kiss across her mouth, so startling Achmed that her eyes popped open -- and she found herself staring into the dark, commanding irises of the mighty bodyguard. A shiver coursed through her body and she staggered from his grasp.

"Your eyes are as pretty as I remembered!" the Egyptian exclaimed. "Whatever Hassan wanted with you, I am glad that he did not take you away with him; there is no other in Damascus whom I desire half so much."

Achmed swallowed hard and pressed back against the chamber wall, her breasts palpitating wildly.

The big man reached into his backpack, saying, "First, I must mark you as my property, just as they do in the East."

Achmed gasped to see the object which appeared in the warrior's large hands. She tried to duck away, but Mahmood seized her and, pressing her flush against the wall, placed the circlet of black leather about her throat. He released her then and observed with amusement as the cursing woman tried to tear the locked device off.

He thought he could watch her all day, so much did her beauty and body excite him, but Mahmood knew that he must flee the city as soon as possible. Yusuf might have named him for a fellow conspirator and given the royal guard his description.

"We cannot tarry here;" he advised sternly. "Our caravan leaves at dawn."

"No!" cried Achmed, trying to evade his grasp. The giant swept her off her feet and slung her over his shoulder like a hunter's downed quarry.

"Let me go!" she shrieked, but he silenced her with a slap on the buttocks and bore her away kicking and beating her fists upon his massive back. She might have spared herself the exertion; it was like pounding upon a granite mountainside.

"You are a caracal, truly," he laughed, "but a true man knows how to make a wildcat as mild as a purring tabby!"

Ayeesha had returned to the harem, lurking near the bathing room until its chattering bathers had gone away. Then, stripping herself, she poured Yusuf's flask into the scented water. Finally, uttering a breathless prayer, the princess of Damascus leaped into the now-enchanted pool.

No sooner had her head re-broken the surface than an attendant entered and shouted with indignation:

"What rogue are you? Your head shall be -- Wait, I know you. You are Prince Ali!"

"What?" muttered Ayeesha, looking down at herself, touching the firm pectorals that should have belonged to a muscular male, not a maiden of the women's quarter. For all her desperate planning, she had scarcely believed the miracle could happen. She had changed! The princess reached for the mirror which lay upon the tiles and held it to her face, beholding the handsome features reflected therein.

I am Prince Ali! she -- now he -- thought, amazed. This was incomprehensible!

Or was it? As Ayeesha considered the matter, it all seemed logical. Had he ever known a man more perfectly fashioned than his brother? Was not Ali the ideal by which all other men had to be measured?

The princess looked up, stammering: "Ah -- ah, these are my father's rooms; I have the right to be here." Gaining confidence, he added: "I have already visited my sister and she urged me to -- to talk with Princess Badiat about our impending wedding. Fetch my betrothed to me at once, slave!"

The eunuch, put into his place, did obeisance and dashed away. Moments later, silken slippers padding in the next room announced the arrival of the beautiful Badiat.

"Princess," Ayeesha grinned from the water.

The Edessan, pausing in the archway, regarded him coldly. "I was told to report to your presence, my prince," she explained with a toss of her head. "The man commands and the woman obeys, so I am here."

"Love is never so simple as that, my precious," Ayeesha replied with an admiring smile.

Badiat's features set in a moue. "How can you love me?! You hurried away from Damascus as soon as I arrived, and were gone for months. It was the most humiliating insult that I was ever subjected to!"

Ayeesha shook his head. "Would that it might have been otherwise. I was under a constraint of which I cannot speak. Yet a day never passed during all my travels that I have not longed to be with you."

This avowal surprised Badiat and she regarded him anew. This Prince Ali was a handsome man -- as much as she could see of him above the water. "How strange," she remarked, frowning in puzzlement, "the more you talk, the more I sense I know you so much better than I do."

"I felt exactly the same when you entered this chamber," the young man replied. "It is said that those born to be together ever react so."

Badiat fell into confusion. Attractive this prince was, but what of Ayeesha who had been faithful with her all these months? Pride reasserted itself and she folded her slim arms, her chin high. "Feel as you please about me; it matters nothing to a slave. And I am only your slave, though you shall call me wife."

The youth reached out a dripping arm. "Nay, I will call you friend, and better half. I will call you lover, and mate, but never slave, for so thou never shall be to me."

"Names matter not. What makes a woman a slave is the way she is treated."

He smiled again, and how his bright teeth dazzled her. "Beloved, I shall treat you like a precious treasure."

Feeling disloyal to Ayeesha, Badiat answered sternly: "And no doubt I shall be locked away like a precious treasure!"

"Never!" Ayeesha declared. "You shall stand at my side always. Do you suppose that I believe myself greater or better than the woman whose heart is as one with mine?"

She looked at him uncertainly. This was by no means the chilly introduction to Prince Ali that Badiat had been expecting -- far from it! How passionate and sincere were the tones the handsome prince used. Was he only an unctuous deceiver, or was Ali really so unlike the other men whom she had known -- her father and brothers?

Suddenly Ayeesha positioned himself to climb from the bath. The Edessan reacted with a gasp, exclaiming:

"Do not!"

Ayeesha settled back into the water nonplussed, his cheeks warming. "I forget myself, Lady. I beg your pardon; I did not intend to offend thy eyes."

But, to his surprise, Badiat was casting off her own garments. "And I hope that thy eyes are not offended by me."

Distracted by the unaccustomed reaction of his body to the princess' beauty, Ayeesha forgot to warn her of danger. The next instant, his lover boldly knifed into the water beside him.

"Badiat, don't!" the false Ali cried when it was already too late.

"Why?" sputtered the princess, rising nereid-like, so close that her legs touched his under the surface.

"You -- you --" stammered Ali.

"Why does my forwardness upset you so much?" she challenged, wiping her face with her hands and starting to feel very foolish. "Do you think I am too forward? Alas, you are after all like the common run of men." She turned away and began to climb over the coping.

Ayeesha stayed her with a firm hand. "Forgive me! I was only momentarily startled," he explained. "Praise be to Allah -- you have not changed!"

"You speak in riddles, my prince," the girl said bemusedly, settling back into the pool.

He drew her to him, her wet breasts mashing against his bare chest, sending a shiver through them both, despite the warmth of the water. "When you are near me," Ayeesha murmured, "I do not care to speak at all." Badiat's irises, close to his, seemed to shimmer in the lamplight. She tilted her lips invitingly, and Ayeesha pressed them hungrily against his own.

Chapter Ten

"The mighty Mahmud, the victorious Lord,

That all the misbelieving and black horde

Of fears and sorrows that infest the soul

Scatters and slays with his enchanted sword."

Mahmood cast the heat-swooned Achmed down upon his inn room bed and, without giving her time to recover, tied her wrists to the bedposts and then stood back, shaking his head. The ride from Achmed's palace had alerted him to her bilious temper. If she were really such a querulous girl, he had to be strong with her from the very start -- either that or else suffer years of pointless quarrels and peevish disobedience.

The fallen vizier came to slowly; then, discovering her wrists bound, she tugged furiously.

"Thy ill-disposition surprises me," Mahmood said. "If a girl has not learned her manners in the house of Achmed, she must learn them from a master who shall be less patient!"

The bound maid yowled her thousandth obscenity at Mahmood, but the latter ignored her, bent near, and began caressing her cheeks, lips, and throat with nibbling kisses.

Before long, he changed his tact, pushing her billowy blouse up to her neck, the better to appreciate the charms of her bosom.

"No!" she cried out.

"I would see the glories that Allah has bestowed upon you," he murmured breathily.

"It was not Allah! It was that damned Hassan!"

"Hassan? What dost thou mean, my delight? Didst the high-born rogue do insult or injury to thee?"

"Kill him for me!" she snarled through clenched teeth.

He grinned. "Someday, perhaps, but only if my lovely one persuades me through acts of sweet and lascivious love."

"Kill him -- then kill yourself!"

The giant shook his head. Truly, the Circassian's beauty concealed the spirit of a fiery virago. More determined than ever to tame her, he pressed his face to her firm young breasts, deliberately tickling with beard and moustache. Achmed writhed in anguish, all the while raining invectives down upon Mahmood's head.

"I will not cease to caress you so long as you are rude and querulous with me, sweet one," Mahmood warned. Achmed looked scornfully away, her lips pursed, and so the Egyptian decided that he must do something which she could not ignore. Accordingly, he proceeded to tongue her rosy mammillae, taking each nipple between his lips in turn, sucking forcefully, as if to draw milk. As he had hoped, Achmed proved unable to ignore that. How she moved, how quickly her pert nipples became straining pink towers!

Mahmood at last stood up in order to remove Achmed's red shoes and, afterwards, her patterned skirt.

"Leave that alone!" she barked.

"Nay, my desert flower, you are my possession and I would revel in thy womanly glory."

Once he had displayed her bare from her chest to her toes, the bodyguard ran his fingers lightly over the exposed skin, then bent close to spread tongue-kisses over her ticklish little belly and inner thighs.

"Stop!" she cried, this time more a plea than an order.

"I shall stop whenever it pleases me, delight of my eyes," Mahmood said with a laugh. "That you are a lusty wench is plain, but if you would have me be gentle to you, you must be graceful with me." He then stroked her fair tresses, asking, "Do you have a name?"

Achmed blinked. However bad her situation was, it could only get worse if she told the truth. "Uh -- I am called Sheba, Master."

"Tell me then, little Sheba, are you skilled in making love to a man?"

She glared up at him. "Of course not! The whole idea is obscene!"

Mahmood drew back and thundered: "I did not expect such an answer from one of Achmed's women! I have been cheated! By Allah, I will take you back!"

"No, do not --!" Then Achmed bit her tongue. Why, the blonde girl wondered, did it suddenly seem worse to be a prisoner of the seraglio than a captive of this lusty man in his shabby inn room?

It pleased Mahmood to have a threat to hang over her head. "If you would not be taken back," he teased, "you must kiss me with good cheer and ardor! Open your mouth and let us entwine our tongues like serpents in mating!"

Achmed stared up venomously. "You will not live so long!"

He chuckled. "An ill-tempered trull indeed! You do not know what you risk by thy defiance, proud one. I learned in faraway Marshan a technique which quells the most insolent temper, and will acquaint you with it anon if you do not beg me for forgiveness."

"May camels drag you through the cesspits of Hell!" the bound maid cursed.

He nodded, determined to do what he must. After binding her ankles to the bedposts so that she lay spread-eagled, he plucked the scarlet feather from his turban and touched its tip to that place of supreme interest betwixt her thighs.

"Yaah!" cried Achmed, moving her hips as far away as she could.

"You do not like it?" queried Mahmood with amusement. "That is too bad, since a disobedient girl must learn the full consequences of insult and defiance."

The tickling continued for a while as the prisoner screamed invectives and fought to tear herself free. Mahmood only paused when it seemed certain that she must faint.

"I cannot bear it, you degenerate dog!" Achmed panted as soon as she had breath to speak.

The Egyptian grimaced annoyedly. "You still insult me, foolish one? Well then, your punishment must continue until you are as sweet and mild as a ewe before her ram." He resumed his labor of love, winning another shriek from Achmed as she thrust her hips from side to side. The harried maid sought to turn herself over, but the cords thwarted her and the more she yowled, the more certain was Mahmood that he had found the best means in which to tame a girl unused to love and submission.

"No! For the love of Allah, stop!" the girl finally burst out. "Oh, God, I am in Shaitan's hell!" A spasm shook the long-suffering Achmed from head to toe, her labia drawing into a pucker which displayed a throbbing zambur already enlarged by the hot blood coursing through her.

Mahmood feasted his eyes, judging, nonetheless, that it was time to give his fair prisoner a few minutes of respite. Consequently, he sat back on the heels of his hands. "Tell me, little Sheba," he asked a moment later, "who is master here?"

Achmed blinked her way though tear-blurred eyes. "Y-You are master, Master!" she stammered grudgingly, hoping that this slight concession would spare her more tickling.

"And what are you?"

She turned away.

"I cannot hear you!" he boomed.

"A slave!" she whispered though gritted teeth. "Only a slave!"

"Superb!" he laughed. "Thou hast declared thyself a slave and acknowledged me thy master! Thus thy fate is sealed, sweet Sheba. A slave is never permitted to recant her surrender; now that thou hast declared thy lowly status, thy life must be one of obedient service and lusty pleasure-giving!"

Pretending not to notice her murderous glare, the Egyptian rose and poured himself a cup of wine. Then filling another, he placed it between the girl's parched lips. Achmed drank sloppily, the cool beverage spilling copiously upon her breasts.

Mahmood gave into whim and lapped up the drops with his flicking tongue. It tickled, but Achmed, clenching her teeth and shutting her eyes, refrained from insult.

At last desisting, the big man asked, "Are you ready to kiss your master as a tame slave should, or must he use the feather additionally?

Her face paled. "No, not the feather!"

"The kiss or the feather. Which shall it be?"

She shut her eyes and wailed: "Oh, Allah, what did I do to deserve this cruel fate?!"

Mahmood silenced her invocation with a powerful kiss. For fear of the feather, Achmed submitted, though, if the truth be told, Maiden's Ruin had raised her to a high pitch of excitement. Before long their tongues were amorously engaged.

Satisfied and breathless, Mahmood rested back. "Kissing is good, little Sheba. But there is something much better."

"Do not tickle me!" she implored.

He began to loosen her ankles. "Prepare thyself to bestow Mouth Magic!"

Achmed, overcome with surprise, managed to exclaim: "Never! I will not do it!"

He frowned. "No Mouth Magic? Why, my pet? Surely you must have humbly knelt before Achmed's chair, if no other."

"No! I never did!"

He set his head at a curious cock. "That amazes me, my golden one, for though he was evil, I took Achmed for a true man. Nonetheless, if it is Allah's will that I should be the first to take the virginity of thy mouth, I shall be pleased."

"You will not!" she shouted, tearing at her bonds. "Even if you tickle me to death I shall never do such a thing!"

"Is that your final word, my lusty wench?"

"It is, you carrion-eater of the graveyard!"

"Ah, my love, how you do vex me."

He had by now loosened her wrist-bindings, but only to retie her in a new position -- on her belly. Then the bodyguard slipped the leather belt from around his waist and doubled it up in his strong hands.

"The fate of the disobedient girl is a harsh one," he warned. "After I have made thee smart, we shall enjoy Mouth Magic together!"

It was with much less than his full strength that Mahmood delivered the first leathery blow across Achmed's derriere. Despite his forbearance, the latter yelled at the top of her lungs. Mahmood delivered additional smacks with calm deliberateness, until Achmed's cries grew feeble and her body lost the strength to bounce and shift.

Bending over her ear, he asked, "Mouth Magic, my love?"

Achmed, her face red, her pillow wet, nodded and Mahmood, pleased, untied her. Though he remained wary, there seemed to be little fight left in the girl; this respite afforded him the opportunity to strip off the Sudanese blouse and render her adorably nude, except for her collar and earrings, which he felt set off her beauty marvelously. Finally, the giant released his hold and the maid fell back across the bed, dazed and panting.

A short rest revived Achmed who, gathering her courage, scowled Mahmood's way. The giant, noting her rapid recovery, decided to test the limits of her obedience, and so made her kneel on the floor while he sat on the edge of the bed with his knees separated.

"We will begin simply," Mahmood informed her and then, noting the rebellious fire which flashed anew in her watery eyes, he added: "Do not pout so! A man desires a cheerful partner."

Achmed looked away in quandary. What more disaster would this day bring? How could she reach Marshan unless escorted by a man? But what man would serve her ends unless she first won him by yielding her virginity?

Mahmood was talking: "-- stick out your tongue, my lamb." Achmed beheld the spectacle in front of her; the bold bodyguard had by now freed his mighty member from his drawers. Placing a hand behind Achmed's head, he proceeded to draw his slave's face close in. Instinctively, she concealed her lingua behind pursed lips.

"Stick out your tongue, Morning Star," he reiterated. Resigned to play for time and opportunity, Achmed did so grudgingly. As Mahmood rubbed himself against its slick surface, the taste of him made Achmed flinch in horror.

"Do not offend thy master with an ugly grimace, or thy lovely bottom will directly suffer," he admonished. "And do not drool," he went on; "it is unattractive. Instead, swallow!"

Perforce, Achmed applied herself and did better Mouth Magic.

"By Allah, you may not be so difficult to train as I first supposed. What a woman I have won!"

He released her, the struggle to constrain himself writ large upon his bearded face.

"May I rise now, -- Master?" Achmed asked, using the offensive term bitterly.

"Nay! Lie down upon the bed. I yearn to stroke my scepter betwixt thy soft mountains!"

Achmed looked furtively about and then, espying no ready avenue of escape, lay down supinely. The bodyguard seated himself on her belly, most of his weight supported by his knees, which were sunk deeply into the mattress.

"Hold thy lovelies together," he instructed the girl, "and form of them a mountain pass for my caravan!"

Achmed did as told and the man wasted little time in placing his long, excited zubb between her breasts. What followed was very pleasurable for the warrior, though the maid's expression continued sour.

"Stick out your tongue again," said Mahmood. "It shall be the mountain stream and each time my caravan journeys into the mountains, my lead camel will drink!"

Achmed cast her pleading eyes up to the abode of Allah. . . .

Emir Haroon, Ali, Hassan, and the royal councilors had again gathered to discuss the terrible ramifications of Ali's problem. Suddenly there was a ruckus in the antechamber. "What is this disruption?" demanded the beleaguered emir.

"Let me see my father!" insisted a voice from without -- a man's voice which sounded strangely familiar.

A dark-haired youth entered, wrapped in a woman's jubbeh.

"By Allah!" one grandee cried out in amazement. "It is Prince Ali!"

All eyes turned toward the gravid young woman sitting beside Hassan, then they returned in bafflement to the intruder.

"Ali? Am I dreaming?" declared the emir.

"I am Ayeesha, Father," the strangely-clad youth said. "Yusuf possessed one last flask of the magic water, and I applied it to my own bath."

"How is that possible? Yusuf is moldering in my prison!" the monarch declared.

"No longer!" said Ayeesha. "I freed him in exchange for a necessary favor. My pardon, Great One. If I have earned punishment, I will accept it humbly."

"The magician must be found! This outrage must be reversed!"

"That's not possible, Father," the false Ali announced with brave resignation. "I knew what your will would be, so I took special care to cast off my male virginity in the arms of Princess Badiat."

"Ayee!" cried the emir, tearing at his hair. "Why must an old man be tormented this way? Our house shall be the laughingstock of the entire world!"

Mahmood at last dismounted.

"Are we finished, Master?" Achmed moaned as the weight left her and she could once again breathe freely.

"Foolish one, as yet you have not given me true Mouth Magic."

Achmed reached out toward the cobwebs overhead. "Allah, I am a sinner, I admit it! Make me a camel, an unclean pig, make me any sort of low beast -- but not a lustful man's slave girl!"

"Insolent woman! Stop this mad wailing! Would you be strapped again?!"

Achmed blenched.

Seeing her distress, the big Egyptian felt sorry for her and tenderly nuzzled her golden hair. "You must obey me tonight, my pearl," he urged, "then forever afterwards I shall be gentle with thee."

She looked up, unable to respond.

Still determined to impress upon her his strength of will, Mahmood steeled himself to harshness. He took a position to receive Mouth Magic, placing Achmed before him on her knees. The latter beheld her master's increasingly rampant cock-stand with even graver misgivings than before.

"Do not try my patience," Mahmood chaffed. "Thou knowest very well what is expected of thee."

Achmed knew only too well. Dreading the alternative even more than the act itself, she fumblingly took the Tree of Life between her lips; it filled her whole mouth. With a shudder, the slave girl commenced a very tentative fellatio.

"Deeper, wench!" rumbled Mahmood impatiently. "Use more tongue." He directed her at her task for a few minutes but, chaffing with dissatisfaction at Achmed's technique, pushed her head in towards him until she couldn't breath. Noting his overzealous mistake, the ghazi quickly pulled her away by the hair, coughing and spitting.

"I did not intend to do that," the Egyptian began, then thought better of apologizing so early in their relationship. "We shall do something else," he said with forced gruffness. At that, the giant swept her up into his brawny arms and laid her prone across the mattress. "Patting her buttocks fondly, he said, "Ever since I first saw that lovely posterior of thine, I have longed to pass through Shaitan's Gate."

"Shaitan's Gate?" Achmed echoed. "Not that!"

"Yes, Shaitan's Gate, my love. Or wouldst thou feel the strap again?!"

She looked away miserably. "No, Master."

Nodding acknowledgment, Mahmood poured a little olive oil over his fingers and this he used to lubricate his slave where lubrication was necessary. Then, once having dried his hands upon a towel, he took a seat upon the humble wooden dikkeh which was part of the room's meager furnishings. "Now, my pretty one," the warrior instructed tapping his thigh, "come here and sit!"

She pushed herself up, rose, and inched toward him on bare feet. Mahmood took her arm, drew her down, and positioned her face-forward. He then placed his hands about her breasts and made great play with them, which action caused Achmed to gasp and writhe.

Monitoring with pleasure his partner's growing excitement, the giant gradually moved one hand lower, to pass under her buttock. Then he moved so deftly that before she knew it he had lifted her slightly, permitting him to impale her with his long, thick weapon.

Crying out in startlement, Achmed attempted to wriggle free, but a hand on her bosom and another about her waist held her firmly. When she at last settled, Mahmood began to play with her breasts with his left hand, and her kus with his right; her resultant writhing created a pleasurable friction with the hugeness which he had lodged inside her. The three-way stimulation eventually began to overwhelm the stubborn resistance of a woman already suffering from the craving need imposed by Maiden's Ruin.

Suddenly her eyes started wide and she cried out: "No, Allah! Have mercy! Do not make me come! Spare me this shame at least! Do not make me come like a trollop in rapture!"

Achmed's first female orgasm took her with a rush -- rich, full, and glorious, arching her spine, throwing her head back, while her nails dug into her partner's flesh. And Mahmood, delighted by her transport, did not desist from his aggressive love-play until the wretched concubine had come twice more. Only when Achmed was driven to a helpless swoon of exhaustion did Mahmood desist -- whereupon he freed her, swung her up in his arms, and carried her to bed.

"Rest a moment, little houri," he said. "After I have refreshed my body and yours, we shall experience even better than before the joys of Mouth Magic."

Ayeesha was leaning against the doorjamb, arms crossed, waiting for the elders' debate to end. Finally, the group nodded in what appeared to be consensus and their spokesman, Madani, addressed the emir:

"This is not an insurmountable disaster, Sire. Wise and wonderful are the ways of Allah!"

"What are you dullards babbling about?" the monarch growled.

"We have a solution to all our problems. Let Ali marry Lord Hassan as Ayeesha, and let Ayeesha marry Badiat as Ali. Ayeesha may succeed you as your son; the dynasty which she sires shall be yours and the people need never know that anything is amiss!"

Haroon looked at the old sage incredulously. "Think of the good of our kingdom!" he exclaimed. "How can I give the realm over to an untried girl --"

Ali, overhearing, crossed the room to her father. "Ayeesha is bright and bold, Majesty! Why should she not assume those obligations which I cannot?"

"But I trained you, not her!" the old man reminded his erstwhile son.

"Allah willing, you shall be granted time to instruct her as you instructed me. She may yet become the best-prepared ruler of our line. Certainly she shall have insights that none of our ancestors were ever privileged to possess."

The monarch shook his head wearily. "This is too much for me!"

"Think it over carefully, Sire," one of the councilors urged.

Ayeesha stepped up to Ali at that juncture, saying, "I cannot do this to you, Brother. I would feel like a thief, a usurper."

The transformed prince glanced back at her, smiling sympathetically. "You have chosen to be our father's son, Ayeesha, and therefore must accept the burden which goes with it. I cannot rule as I am and, to speak truthfully, I never desired to rule in any case. I had simply bowed to what I thought was Allah's will. But now we know that what Allah truly desires is for you to rule one day."

"I wanted only a little freedom and the love of Badiat, not a throne," Ayeesha protested.

"It is not easy to be a man, I know," Ali commiserated. "I am more fortunate than you; from being empty, my life has suddenly become full." Princess Ali suddenly winced and touched her swollen abdomen. "Perhaps too full!"

Hassan stepped up beside them and took his beloved into his arms. Ayeesha embraced them both together.

"The deceit may work!" the emir exclaimed. "After all, who is so mad as to suspect the truth? We must announce the marriages at once! Call a celebration!"

"Truly," Mahmood gasped, "this is Mouth Magic!" He looked down at his lovely slave hard at work. "Wicked minx," he laughed breathlessly, "-- you were -- born for -- the pleasing of men. . . ." Suddenly the giant pushed her away, declaring, "Enough of that, girl! If my seed is to reach thy belly, better it should travel by another route!"

Achmed drew back, wiping her lips on the back of her arm. The Egyptian, hitherto teetering on the brink, swiftly regained command of himself and, his voice tense with strain, said: "How didst thou become so wise in some ways, and yet remain so infernally innocent in others?"

The vizier's face crinkled in a way that her master found very pretty while she tried to think of a plausible excuse, which was a form of the truth: "I watched the shameless women of Achmed's harem perform their lewd acts, but was not expected to do as they did!"

Her master fondled her throat, saying, "Hereafter you must do all which you saw those wanton stumpets do -- and much more which I shall teach you myself. In Egypt, men will anoint your tiny feet with coin."

Achmed looked up at him alarmedly. "You will make me a harlot?!"

Mahmood scowled indignantly. "Of course not! I am no bawd! You shall dance in the hostel which I shall own, but none shall touch you. -- None save I!" Then he smiled in anticipation. "But you shall feel my touch very often indeed -- and my touch shall be a deep one!"

"Me, a dancing girl?" Achmed mewed. "Ogled, fondled, -- and pinched by strangers?"

"Doubtless." Taking her in hand, he slipped his fingers between her thighs and, feeling her warm, moist fur, said: "You are too proud; serving common men in abject humility shall be good for you."

Though her blood was afire with Maiden's Ruin, Achmed was by no means forgetful of the hazards which threatened her. "Master, have pity! I am a virgin!"

"Virgin? I should have guessed it! Did thy poltroon of a master do nothing except watch thee dance?!"

Achmed replied apprehensively: "I -- I cannot dance. I was never taught!"

"Wallah!" he cried. "You are nothing but a raw village girl!"

"If my master says so. I cannot help being what I am!"

His frown quickly mellowed; she was too lovely, too much his heart's desire, for him to stay angry for very long. "Whatever you are, it is good enough, lotus blossom. My sisters are accomplished dancers; you shall learn what you need to know from them, just as they learned from our mother. Your fiery gambols shall draw customers the length and breadth of Cairo. As for your perplexing virginity, it is a easily cured." He pressed her to the pillow beside him.

"No, Mas --" she objected as his mouth smothered hers.

How could she resist his unbending will? His strength was vast, his need great, and his foreplay fierce as his hands explored her helpless, responding body. The ensorceled Achmed was brought along to a high pitch of excitement by increments, despite her decision to avoid feeling passion. Then Mahmood, having already delayed his pleasure for as long as possible, brought his aching member to delight's threshold.

"Uhhgh!" Achmed groaned as Mahmood's thick weapon pushed inside her, his way made easy by her copious lubricant. Desperately, she rallied her thoughts, determined to refuse pleasurable reaction, focusing instead upon pain, anger, and repugnance.

But the feeling of fullness was more pleasing than painful as the heavy probe plumbed the soft, slick hallway of her virginity. He pressed himself forward an inch at a time, mindful of her tightness, her inexperience, desiring of not just taking pleasure, but in giving it also. The sinuous movement of Achmed's hips, her gasps and moans, suggested that he was succeeding. Finally, the whole of his mighty zubb had been enveloped by her hair-fringed virgin kus.

Now that Achmed was impaled to the limit, Mahmood began to pump with a power beyond any he had unleashed before, deep-shafting the tidy slave under him with insistent regularity. With each deep-plumbing stroke her breasts shook, her shoulders shuddered, and her breath came in rasping snatches.

The vow to feel anger and repugnance forgotten, Achmed gradually began to move in concert with her master. Her blood aflame with need, she was, unbeknownst to herself, lurching her hips upward to anticipate his every plunge, her body instinctively seeking the crescendo of its ultimate violation.

Never had a man made love to a girl prisoner with more joy; never had a female slave reacted more lasciviously. Achmed was being progressively drawn into a forgetful delirium, her hands sliding over her partner's sweat-filmed back, digging into his hips, as she instinctively pulled him toward herself. Then, trembling, groaning, the collared blond spent wildly and Mahmood permitted his own long-delayed release into the heart of her throes, delivering a hot flood into the body of the woman he clutched, her wail of defloration ringing shrilly in his ears.

Sated at long last, the giant rolled lazily to his back, and regarded the concubine at his side. "I think my seed has found rich delta soil," he murmured.

The bleary Achmed turned toward him -- a frazzled, perspiring beauty with inflamed eyes and trembling lips. Only now, too late, she realized that she had forgotten to focus upon either repugnance or anger. Allah! Was her fate sealed? She fearfully touched her breasts, her inner thighs now wet with love's secretions, and let out a long, mournful keen.

"Silly one!" said Mahmood, placing his hands over her lips. "You will wake the neighbors. Why the woe?"

He took his hand away and her fearful eyes met his. "I am nothing," she whispered frantically. "You shall sell me on the block the day that you tire of me. I have become like a domestic beast!"

Mahmood gripped her firmly, kissed her runneled cheeks and tasted the salt upon them. "You are no beast to me, my Circassian queen, but a treasure. If you love me I shall never sell you. Moreover, when that happy day arrives when you bear me a son, I shall make you my bride."

"By Allah!" she cried, touching her pubis. "I did not think of that!"

Mahmood patted her warm little belly. "I have been thinking of it since the first hour that my eyes rested upon thy beauty. May Allah grant that our son already grows within thy womb. But son or nay, you need do no more than be sweet and caring with me and I shall cherish thee for as long as I live."

She shook her head, her face drained of color. "How may I promise that? I do not think that I have ever loved anyone."

Undaunted, Mahmood stroked her cheek. "I know there is love in you, desirable one, and we shall find it together. I regret that I cannot bestow the comfort and luxury which a mighty vizier might have, but I pledge my right arm to thy protection. I would yield up my life to keep thee safe from all the world's dangers."

Achmed looked at him, finally comprehending that what he offered was the closest thing to security that a friendless, clanless woman could ever hope to attain. "Truly?" asked the sweat-bedewed girl, trying hard to imagine what her future was to be.

"For certain! Ever since I first saw thee in Achmed's harem, I have desired thee. Not a night passed during my long travels that I did not see thy matchless face resting on the headrest beside me. Thou art my every dream come true."

Dazed, the Circassian beauty gave back a tight smile. "Does my master love me so much then that he will not punish me hereafter?"

"Ha!" he laughed. "I love thee so much that I shall spread thy legs and apply the feather without pity the first time you misbehave!"

Once this might have appalled Achmed, but not the one now called Sheba, whose passions had been awakened by the pitiless enchantment of Maiden's Ruin. "One cannot help but misbehave, at least once in a while," she at last remarked.

"You minx! You will need much tickling, I think!"

Achmed sank back into the pillow. "So be it," she murmured, a strange look in her eyes. "But sometimes a girl may need more than tickling."

He smiled. "What do you mean?"

"The best of girls must occasionally be strapped."

"Is that so?" the Egyptian asked with surprise and delight. "Then, my sassy little pet, when exactly should a girl be strapped?"

She shrugged. "I would make a girl's bottom sore whenever her master desires pleasure and she is disinclined to yield it." That had been the rule in Achmed's harem, of course. Oddly enough, she still thought it a good rule.

Mahmood pinched her nearest nipple playfully and Achmed let out a short gasp. "Do you anticipate that a girl whom I but recently acquired shall need many strappings?"

"Not many," Achmed smiled, her eyes half-closed, her heart beating with excitement. She was thinking how what had gone on for the last hour would happen again and again, would form the fabric of the life which Allah had chosen for her.

Mahmood, aroused beyond constraint, pulled his slave against himself. "Allah is kind," he said.

"Allah is also wise," Achmed whispered, her lips hungry for a master's proud and insolent kisses.

Scheherazade says:

"And so by Allah's will, all those who were changed by the magical fountain lived long and happily. Ayeesha married Badiat and one day became emir of Damascus, ruling wisely and well, except for one mistake. It is the nature of untypical women to believe that all women believe exactly as they do. Ayeesha overruled his sage councilors and made unwise laws which enhanced the status of his former sex. As to be expected, neither the men nor women of Damascus esteemed highly an emir who so willfully trampled upon their centuried traditions. For this reason, but for no other, Ayeesha achieved neither the wide fame nor the profound affection which the Damascenes had formerly bestowed upon the great Haroon, despite the continuing prosperity of the kingdom.

"She who had been the bandit Ben Jakhar, became a whip-mistress in Damascus, exactly as Ali had promised, but it was not the will of Allah that she should long continue in that cruel profession. Bewitched by Maiden's Ruin, Danya was powerless to resist the lure of the marketplace where, disguised as a slave girl, she would occasionally dance for coppers and sport lustily with strangers. Before a year had passed, a fierce desert sheikh grew enamored of the mysterious dancer of the suks and the night came when this man of proud command abducted her away. Hot was his vast desert domain, but hotter still was the flame which his masterful love-making kindled in the once-cold heart of the former mountain bandid. Some say that Danya, in the commanding arms of her master, came to experience not only the first and second parts of slavery, but the third as well -- and that she loved with drumming heart and tearful eyes more abjectly than any maid bewitched by Maiden's Ruin ever loved. Yet, others decry this tale as rumor and say that people know nothing whatever of the true fate of Danya.

"Ali became Hassan's wife and that brave warrior had neither cause nor desire to adorn his harem with another. From their love issued many fine sons and beautiful daughters. When it came to pass that a fever swept the East and carried off the emir and heir, Hassan's eldest son ascended the throne. This younger Hassan ever-valued the wise council of his noble father and learned mother. Consequently, under their sagacious guidance, Ayeesha's repressive laws were at last done away with and the people returned to their time-honored ways. Hassan's line endured in high esteem until the all-conquering Mongols seized the land and drove the descendants of Haroon into exile.

"As for the fair Achmed, she was soon carried away to distant Egypt. In that place the ex-bodyguard purchased a fine hostel and set his winsome wench to work as the belly dancer known as Sheba. Instructed by Mahmood's sisters, Achlmed pleased her lord's lusty patrons much. It came to pass that the beauteous Circassian slave girl presented her master with three fair-haired daughters and, after them, a strong, vigorous son. True to his plighted word, the faithful Mahmood made Cairo's fairest dancer his wedded bride.

"Did Achmed ever long for the cup of ambition which implacable Fate had torn from her lips? None but Allah may read the secrets of the human heart, but the wise one shave written that the cup of ambition is only one of the transfigurations of the Cup of Life -- and many of the vintages held by the Cup of Life are exceedingly sweet to the taste."

End

Special thanks to "Citizen" (Citizen@GalaxyCorp.com) for his generous assistance in editing the text of the preceding novel.