Hasan’s mother was highly impressed, but Sana acted as though such trappings were commonplace.

  “Will you remove your veil, so that I may look upon your face?” Zubaydah requested politely enough. “There are no men here.”

  Sana removed her veil and allowed the queen to look upon her features. Immediately the ladies of the court gave a great sigh, put to shame by the light of her countenance, which was brighter than the moon and fairer than a day in spring. Zubaydah and all her company stared at Sana without uttering a word.

  Finally the queen arose and brought Sana to her couch, embracing her and seating the visitor beside herself. She called for a rich robe and took down the most splendid necklace for the guest. If there was malice in her mind, no trace of it showed in her attitude. “O liege lady of fair ones, you astound me and amaze my eyes. Surely Allah created you to give his followers a foretaste of paradise! Do you have any special skills?”

  “O my lady, I have a dress of feathers of unearthly handiwork. If I could place it before you, you would see something marvelous indeed, and all who witnessed it would talk of its wonder until the day they died.”

  “By all means. Where is this dress of yours?”

  “My husband’s mother has it. Ask her for it.”

  Zubaydah summoned the old woman, who had overheard only a trace of this conversation. “O my lady the pilgrimess,” she said, using the honorable address for aged females, “O my mother, go and fetch us the feather-dress, that we may appreciate the marvel she promises.”

  Hasan’s mother saw that all was lost, but she did her best. “O my Lady, this foolish damsel is mistaken. Who ever heard of a dress made of feathers? Only birds possess such things!”

  “She has it,” Sana insisted. “She keeps it in a chest buried in a storage closet in the back of the house.”

  Zubaydah took from her neck a chain of jewels worth the treasure of an empire. “I conjure you, O my mother, accept this necklace and bring the dress to us. Afterwards you may take back the dress but keep the necklace.”

  “I never saw such a dress! I don’t know what she’s talking about!”

  Zubaydah’s patience, never extensive, puffed away. “Masrur!” she called, and the giant eunuch strode into the hall. “Take this hag’s keys and go back to the house. Inside you’ll find a storage closet, near the back. Open it and see if there is a chest therein. Take it out and break it open and bring me what you find within it.”

  Masrur took the keys and departed. Despairingly, the old woman followed, weeping and moaning with regret that she had ever listened to Sana. The crafty maiden’s clamor for a bath had been nothing more than a trick leading to this! She watched the slave locate the feather-suit and wrap it carefully in a napkin and carry it to Zubaydah, who took it out and turned it over in her hands. She marveled at the beauty of its structure and the cleverness of its workmanship.

  Zubaydah passed it to Sana. “Is this the garment of which you spoke?”

  “Yes, O my lady!” She took it at once, joyfully. She examined it in detail and rejoiced to find that it was exactly as it had been before, whole and without a feather missing.

  Sana wrapped herself in the suit and lo! she became a spectacular bird. “Glory be to Allah, to whom belong all might and all majesty!” Zubaydah exclaimed, and all present were wonder struck.

  Sana walked up and down the hall with a graceful and swaying gait, looking so much like a bird that no one who had not seen the transformation would have recognized her as human. She danced and sported and spread her fair white wings so that every feather stood out, making patterns like enormous fans.

  “What do you think of that, my ladies?” she inquired, and her bill moved in the talking and her voice was the chirp of a bird.

  “We have never witnessed such a thing!” they replied.

  “What I am about to do is better yet!” And now she spread her wings and flapped them strongly and rose from the floor, flying toward the queen in a great swoop, while everyone stared in disbelief.

  “And even more,” she chortled grandly. She stood up, opened her suit so that she became half-woman again, and picked up her two sons. Nasir and Mansur clung to her, and she folded them to her bosom and closed the suit over them. She spread her wings and flew up into the high dome of the palace, where she perched on the sill of an open vent.

  “What a rare exhibition!” Zubaydah said. “Come down now and return to your lovely human shape, and we shall celebrate this incredible occasion.”

  “Far be it from me to return!” Sana cried, her voice now a cackle. “I will not give up my freedom so easily, now that I have recovered it. I’m going home!”

  “O my daughter!” Hasan’s mother cried. “How can you desert Hasan, who loves you with all his heart and who will die wretchedly if he loses you?”

  Sana paused. “O mother of my husband,” she chirped, “indeed it irks me to part from you, for your heart is good; but your son surprised me in my innocence and captured me by force, and there was nothing I could do but yield myself to him after he had seen my shame and deprived me of my freedom. Moreover he is not my husband, for I am not a Moslem, nor do my people recognize your marriage-customs. But if your son grows lonely and desires to see me again, let him come to me in the Isles of Wak!”

  With that she took flight and disappeared from their view, while the old woman wept and beat her face and swooned away from misery.

  Zubaydah caught her up and led her to the couch. “O my lady,” the old woman cried, “what have you done!”

  “O my lady the pilgrimess, I did not dream this would happen,” Zubaydah replied. Somehow she didn’t sound as miserable as she might. Certainly she had no problem remaining. The Caliph would never see the bird-maiden now. “If you had told me everything and warned me of her powers, I would never have given her the feather-dress. I did not know she was of the flying jinn. But what good are words? I intended no evil; please forgive me for the injury I have done you.”

  There was nothing the old woman could do except to answer shortly “I forgive you!” and go home.

  And at home she fasted in sorrow and spent her days in misery, pining for her lost daughter-in-law and grandchildren. She cursed the queen and cursed herself more, afraid of what would happen when Hasan returned. She dug three graves in the courtyard to represent the lost members of the household and spent her days and nights in a mournful watch, unable to assuage her grief.

  To be concluded

  1970

  Hasan

  Piers Anthony concludes his epic novel of adventure and enchantment in the land of the Arabian Nights as Hasan sets out on his greatest quest: the journey to the magical Isles of Wak to regain his beloved Sana, the Bird-Maiden!

  Second of Two parts

  SYNOPSIS

  HASAN was only a youthful goldsmith when BAHRAM, the Persian Alchemist, offered to teach him the means of turning base metal into gold. Naive, trusting, HASAN was easily guiled by the magician’s tongue; they ate bread and salt together, and then the Persian drugged a sweetcake. When next HASAN regained consciousness they were aboard a vessel, bound for the distant isle of Serendip. BAHRAM had kidnapped him, and had stripped his old mother’s house of its wealth and goods in the bargain!

  After some adventure, the boat landed them on Serendip, where BAHRAM summoned three camels by beating upon a magical drum. There then commensed an arduous overland journey inland to the great mountain that divided the island. When they reached the foot of its sheer cliffs, BAHRAM told HASAN that he desired the lad to fetch for him a certain article from the top of the mountain; this article was the rarest ingredient in the potion which turned base metal to gold. “Follow my instructions and do not play me false, and you and I shall share appropriately in the profit,” the wiley Persian told him, and HASAN despite his doubts and misgivings allowed himself to be again convinced by the man. BAHRAM slew a camel, gutted it, and sewed HASAN inside it, and then retreated. After a time a roc flew down, investigated the dead camel, and flew back with it—and HASAN inside it—to its lair on the mountain top. Once there, HASAN cut his way free, collected the article he had been bid to fetch, and threw it down to BAHRAM. He then asked the magician how he was to descend, and BAHRAM laughed and told him it was obvious. “O, I have known some handsome lads, but none quite so foolish as you!” BAHRAM said. “Why, you jump down, boy!” And at this HASAN understood the meaning of the heaps of human bones that littered the mountain top. He was not the first fool to be gulled by BAHRAM’s deceitful tongue.

  Left for dead, HASAN by luck discovered a series of chains fastened to the cliff face, hidden to all but the most searching eye, and descended them to the jungle below.

  Earlier, when journeying with BAHRAM to the mountain, they had passed in the distance a palace of green domes. HASAN had inquired after it, but BAHRAM had told him only that it was a place of ghouls and devils. Since they had seen no other sign of habitation, and because he could not believe such a beautiful palace could be the work or dwelling place of evil spirits, HASAN now struck out in the direction of that palace.

  There he entered a courtyard to surprise two sisters at chess, both without their veils. The younger one, ROSE, impulsively adopted HASAN as her brother—and this, as it developed, for good reason.

  ROSE is the youngest of seven sisters—HASAN learns the names of them all, but thinks of them as ELDEST, SECOND, THIRD, etc., but for ROSE (it was SIXTH and ROSE he first met in the courtyard)—whose father is a mighty king in the land of Sind. The King, so ROSE says, became a convert to the True Belief in Allah, but since his people remained faithful to the Hindu religion, he would marry his daughters to none of them, but instead exiled them in this magnificent palace on Serendip, where he would upon occasion visit them, and from which they sometimes returned his visits. They are lonely for the company of a son of Adam, and welcome HASAN, but had he not become their brother he would not have been allowed to remain alive. On the other hand, as their brother HASAN cannot avail himself of more than sisterly companionship from them, and although he came to love them all, it was sometimes a matter of frustration for him.

  He spent some months with them and then it was learned that BAHRAM had returned to the mountain’s foot with a new captive youth. Backed by the seven sisters, decked out in armor, HASAN rode out to challenge BAHRAM and seek his revenge. This he did, slaying the Persian when that man lept upon him and impaled himself on HASAN’s sword. But HASAN was troubled by the vision BAHRAM had summoned up to disuade him: his mother, haggard and near death’s door, weeping before a tomb. It was HASAN’s. She was bewailing his desertion and probable death.

  Nonetheless, HASAN returned to the palace with the seven sisters, after setting free the captive youth and awarding him all BAHRAM’s possessions. And once more surrounded by magnificence, HASAN put all thoughts of his mother from him.

  It came to pass that the sisters were summoned to visit their father, and departed the palace, leaving HASAN alone there. In his loneliness he wandered about its many gardens and courtyards, its chambers and apartments, finding little pleasure in his solitude. Finally, going against all warning, he unlocked the single door he was told to leave locked, finding beyond it only an empty room and a stair that spiralled upwards. He climbed the stair to find himself upon the palace roof, there to discover another garden, loveliest of all, a pavilion, and a pool. As he looked about him, ten magnificent birds flew out of the sky, larger than eagles, but smaller than rocs. They landed upon the roof garden, opened their feather garments, and stepped out of them as lovely young women. Then, while HASAN looked out from his hiding place, they swam and played in the pool. HASAN had never before looked upon the nude charms of such beautiful women, and his heart went out to the one who was obviously their princess. She was lovelier than any woman he had ever seen! All too soon, the women dried themselves, donned their bird-suits, transforming themselves once more into birds, and flew away. HASAN was left desconsolate, heartbroken with unrequited yearning.

  When the sisters returned, they found HASAN a sickly shadow of himself, for he had not eaten or slept since the day he had spied upon the bird-maidens—and although he had watched for them again each day, they had not returned. HASAN finally confessed what he had done to ROSE, telling her of his broken heart. Poor ROSE—pledged to be his sister, she loved him quite as much as he did his beautiful bird-maiden. But she schemed with him a plan whereby he might capture his love. With her help he set up a watch on the rooftop garden, and when the bird-maidens flew again down from the sky, he waited his chance and then stole his beloved’s suit of feathers, hiding it in the bottom of a trunk in his apartment. And when she discovered it was gone, she set up a cry, and she and her handmaidens searched the rooftop gardens for it, to no avail. Then, at dusk, the others deserted her, flying off into the sky, and HASAN captured her and took her down into the palace.

  There the sisters helped him, translating his avowal of love to her in her own strange language, and arranging her marriage to him. Her name was SANA, and ROSE told her HASAN had burned the suit of feathers, so she assented to become HASAN’s wife.

  There followed a period of forty days of wedded bliss, during which time HASAN learned something of SANA’s language and she of his, and he found her intelligent, clever, but docile. Then he dreamed a dream in which he saw his mother, near to the brink of death, mourning over the tomb of her lost son, and it shocked him with the knowledge of his own selfishness.

  Telling the sisters that he must return to his own home, he summoned up a caravan of animals with BAHRAM’s magic drum, and with his wife took leave of the palace. The sisters loaded him down with gifts of gold and other wealth, and demanded he visit them regularly. ROSE fainted with sorrow at his leave-taking.

  Returning to his native town of Bassorah, HASAN found his mother as he had dreamed her. But when he presented himself, his beautiful wife, and his great wealth to her, it cheered her greatly, and she returned once more to the realm of life.

  The old house was hardly suitable any longer—it was a hovel after the palace of the seven sisters—so HASAN moved his family to Baghdad, where he acquired the mansion of a former wazir, the ranking minister to the Caliph preceding Harun al-Rashid, the present Caliph. There in the next three years SANA bore him two sons, NASIR and MANSUR, and they lived in peace and happiness. But in time HASAN came to realize he was bored. He possessed everything he had dreamed of as an immature youth—but he missed the adventure he had once known. And he had not visited his sisters on Serendip, as he had promised.

  Beset by nostalgia and longing, he decided to make the trip at once. Taking his mother aside, he confided in her the secret of the feathered garment still hidden in his old trunk, telling her never to allow SANA to know of it, else she might don it and fly away with their two sons. He did not know it, but his wife overheard his entire conversation.

  After he had left, SANA took herself to the Hammam, the public bath, where every lady and slave-woman was forced to exclaim over her exceeding beauty. Their envy was made no less by the fact that she had birthed two sons, since most women quickly lost their beauty after motherhood. News of SANA was brought to the LADY ZUBAYDAH, chief wife of the Caliph himself, and she commanded SANA, HASAN’s mother, and the two sons be brought to her that she might see SANA’s beauty for herself. Once presented to LADY ZUBAYDAH, SANA made the request that her feathered garment be fetched so that she might amaze and delight the LADY with it. Despite the protests of HASAN’s mother, this was done. Delighted, SANA donned the garment, gathered up her two small sons, and flew away, leaving HASAN’s mother with this parting message: “O mother of my husband,” she chirped, “indeed it irks me to part from you, for your heart is good; but your son surprised me in my innocence and captured me by force, and there was nothing I could do but yield myself to him after he had seen my shame and deprived me of my freedom. Moreover, he is not my husband, for I am not a Moslem, nor do my people recognize your marriage-customs. But if your son grows lonely and desires to see me again, let him come to me in the Isles of Wak!”

  The LADY ZUBAYDAH was not sorry to see this potential rival gone, and was happy for it, but HASAN’s mother dug three graves in the courtyard of their home to represent the lost members of the household and spent her days and nights in a mournful watch, unable to assuage her grief.

  And HASAN, when he returned to find his wife and sons gone, prostrated himself with grief, tearing his clothes, buffetting his face and throwing himself to the floor like a madman.

  Chapter Seven

  “O my brother,” Rose exclaimed with mixed emotions. “What is the matter, that you should come again so soon after we saw you last? It has hardly been two months.”

  Hasan had certainly ridden hard. “I’ve lost my wife,” he said, then clung to her for support.

  Rose screamed, and the other princesses gathered around, not knowing how to comfort him. The thing had happened while he was visiting with them, and they felt in part responsible for his misfortune.

  “By Allah!” Rose swore bitterly. “How many times I meant to make you bum that feather-suit. Some evil spirit made me forget. Don’t you have any idea at all where she went?”

  “All she said was ‘Let him come to me in the Isles of Wak.’ ”

  Eldest brightened. “Wak? That’s her home.”

  Sixth, the librarian, was not enthusiastic. “That doesn’t help us, sister. She may be there, but no one else can follow her.”

  “But I must!” Hasan protested. “I cannot live without my wife and sons! Is there no one who can help me?”

  The sisters exchanged bleak glances. Suddenly Rose jumped up. “What about Uncle Ab? He knows everything!”

  Eldest nodded thoughtfully. “He could tell us whether it is possible, at least.”

  “What are you talking about?” Hasan asked.