Rabih Alameddine - The Hakawati

The first gate was agate and guarded by a red demon in the shape of a gargoyle with a wolf’s head. “Hackneyed,” muttered Isaac.

“I seek payment,” said the guard, in a voice that sounded like a lap-dog’s yelp.

Majnoun took a gold coin. He paused for an instant. “No, I will not pay.” He raised his hands, and a gush of fire shot out of them, blasting the gate.

“But that is not allowed,” whimpered the trembling guard as Majnoun walked by. “You cannot enter without permission. You must surrender something.”

Isaac smacked the demon and followed the rest down the path.

“Your style is so different from your mother’s,” said Elijah. “More Vesuvian, if one were to hazard a description.”

The demon of the second gate was not so lucky. He took the form of a giant snake, coiled behind his emerald gate, and hissed poison at the invaders. Majnoun roasted him and pushed through. The bats attacked after the third gate. Elijah swung his arms in the air to unleash his own bats, but Majnoun was much too quick. He exhaled, and the bats fell dead in mid-flight. He shattered the fourth gate with a snap of his fingers. The crows and ravens appeared after the fifth gate. Every one of them exploded when he looked in their direction. Majnoun and his company of imps moved through a cloud of black feathers. When the hordes of walking dead came after the sixth gate, he dispatched them with a flick of his wrist.

After the seventh gate, the fierce Cerberus blocked the path. He was massive, bigger than any demon. “Date cake?” asked Elijah, holding the gift out.

One of the heads snarled, baring its teeth, and the other two barked. Majnoun yawned, and the dog was reduced to ashes. The company followed the path.

“I would like to know who taught you all this,” said Isaac. “I certainly did not.”

“Nor did I,” added Ishmael.

“I surrendered,” said Majnoun.

Hannya towered in her underground lair in her most menacing guise. “Swear that you will not attack me,” said the monster to Majnoun. “Swear that you and yours will leave me alone for now and forever, that none of you will molest me — not you, not Fatima, not Afreet-Jehanam, and certainly not those silly dolls you travel with.” The monster, inhabiting her largest size, was surprised that Majnoun had entered her lair in his awkward human teenage form. Her hair grazed the ceiling, and her arms reached from one end of the cave to the other. Dozens of demons of various shapes and kinds, frozen and imprisoned in translucent egg-shaped crystals, cluttered the lair. Majnoun’s mother, Fatima, was in a half-shell, a sword hanging over her unconscious head.

“If you do not swear,” the monster said, “she dies. If you swear, she lives. Give me your word that none of you will try to kill me and I will release your mother. All of us can go on as we were before, pretending that nothing happened.”

The imps could not keep still. Isaac chomped his teeth. Ishmael cracked his knuckles. Job snarled.

“Release my mother,” said Majnoun.

“Leave me,” roared the monster. “It is enough that I will not set eyes on any of you again.”

The red pigeon circled in the dark sky until he saw his mistress lounging around a campfire with her seven friends. “What does the message say?” asked Maysoura.

“Every evening, the witch brews a potion that gives her fighters inhuman strength,” Layla said. “The men line up at the cauldron in the morning.”

“What are we to do?” asked Soumaya.

“Well,” said Lama, “we do have a potion expert. What do you think, Lubna?”

“Me?” asked Lubna. “How would I know what to do about a potion like that? If I did, I would be wealthy. The one thing I do know is that if a potion is to succeed, all the ingredients must be mixed exactly right. If Othman can throw something into the brew, it will be ruined.”

“He cannot get close enough,” Layla said. “Maybe we can — or at least our pigeons can.”

“Brilliant,” cried Umm Jihan. “I have trained my pigeons to be strong. They can even carry a small olive branch.”

“What should we add to the brew?” asked Rania.

“We cannot drop anything large,” said Layla, “or it will be noticed. No olive branches.”

“I have sage,” said Soumaya, “and coriander.”

“I have a better idea,” said Lubna. “My pigeons will hate me, but I do know how to make one special potion. It comes in handy every now and then.”

“Inspired,” said Layla. “That is positively inspired.”

“My poor pigeons,” said Lubna. “I will try to explain to them that the effect will not last long and their bowels will settle in time.”

In the morning, the Mongolian queen’s men drank the odd-tasting potion out of the cauldron. As soon as the first was within range of Taboush’s sword, his severed head lay on the dry earth with an immortalized look of shock. The second soldier to accept Taboush’s challenge fared no better and was dispatched in seconds. The sorceress cursed her cauldron. “Have you nothing better?” cried Taboush. “Is there no warrior worthy of being killed by my sword?”

Layla mounted her mare and descended to the jousting field. “Allow me,” she said to Taboush. She sat up in her saddle and let out a cry. “You ignorant barbarian. You are nothing but an amateur, a pretender, not a queen. I heap insults and curses upon you. If you have any honor, heed my call. Your minions are not worthy of our warrior and never will be. I proclaim you to be as insignificant as your underlings. Come out and prove me wrong.”

The witch queen fumed. “A kingdom that sends its whores to defend its honor has none.” She turned to one of her Mongolians. “Come with me. I must prepare. I will teach that scarlet harlot a lesson that will serve her well when she arrives in hell.” She entered her yak-skin tent, followed by the Mongolian. “She calls me a pretender? I will show her what a real queen’s wrath looks like. I will bring down the force of thunder upon her head. By the way, I do like all that blood around your collar. I shall have all my warriors follow your sartorial example.”

When the queen rode out to meet her challenger, Taboush warned Layla, “Be careful. She is a mighty witch. How are you going to fight her?”

“I can tell by the way she holds her head that she is not a sorceress, let alone mighty. She is my beloved.”

Othman, dressed in the Mongolian queen’s garb, trotted up to them. “The wicked witch no longer breathes. I do not think her men will offer much resistance now.”

Taboush blared his war horn, and the army of innocents attacked their enemy. The battle was short-lived, for the barbarians surrendered quickly, having lost the will to fight. The hero of the lands traveled to Kirkuk, where he was to rule, and Othman, Layla, and their friends returned to Cairo.

Fatima’s eyes sprang open as she was being carried aloft by Noah, Elijah, Ezra, and Jacob. She saw the mossy cave with shards of marble embedded in the ceiling, the remnants of a shattered gate. “Stop,” she demanded, still groggy. “Put me down.” She looked around and directed her question to Majnoun, “Where is your brother?”

“My brother is no more.”

Fatima disentangled herself from the arms of the imps and stood up. She measured her surroundings and held out her hand, and Job placed her talisman in it. She marched back down the path, followed by the imps and her son, who kept staring at the ground before him.

She stormed into Hannya’s lair, and the ground shuddered with each step, the walls quaked with her rage. “Explain yourself before you die,” Fatima commanded. “Why did you kill my son? Did you not consider the consequences?”