Tales of Wonder

by Jane Yolen

  “These are strange people,” thought Lateef, “the people who dwell in cities. Yet I am of their blood. My great-grandmother was a sister to theirs. Surely that is why I am such a tender one. Still,” he mused, “it is true that there is no remedy for death. I have heard that said many times in the desert. I have looked on many dead people, even in my short life, and have never known any of them to be cured.”

  And thinking about the caliph’s approaching death led him to think about the caliph’s dream. What could a man as rich and powerful as Al-Mansur desire so much that he might die of wanting? A horse, the boy said. But surely Al-Mansur could have any horse he wanted, any horse he dreamed of, any horse in his land.

  “Perhaps the horse I carry is the very horse of the caliph’s dream,” Lateef said to the weeping boy.

  At his words, the boy stopped his noise and looked up. “That is no horse, but a rag around your shoulders. A rag on a rag. The caliph is a great man, a giant. His dreams are big, too. He would laugh at such a jest should he see it.” The boy began to laugh, but quickly the laugh turned back into a wail and he lay down again in the dust.

  Lateef stroked the nose of the foal with one hand. “You are no jest to me, little brother,” he said. Then he stepped over the wailing boy, pushed through the line of weeping people, and entered a gate in the wall.

  Inside he saw the palace guards. They had taken off their great scimitars and, after laying the swords carefully on the ground, were rolling in the dirt and crying out their grief in tones even louder than the rest.

  Lateef walked past them all and mounted the steps, marveling at the patterns on the stairs and walls. Behind them were the hundreds of grieving people. He wondered what lay ahead.

  The Dream

  Room upon room seemed to open before Lateef, and he walked through each one as if in a dream. He—who had known only the tents of his sheik, thinking them rich beyond his greatest imaginings—could not even begin to comprehend the wonders that belonged to the caliph. The sheik’s desert tents now seemed but tattered remnants of an old beggar’s cloak.

  He followed a thread of sound, a wailing as thin and pure as a piece of spun gold. And when he found its beginning, he entered a room more splendid than any he had wandered in before.

  Pearl-encrusted oil lamps sat on ebony tables. Draperies of wine-and-gold-colored silks hung on the walls. The wind of fifty fans held by fifty slaves made the shadows from the lamplight dance about the floor and over the carved faces of the wooden window screens.

  In the center of the room was a mountain of pillows where a man lay, his head back and his bearded face bleached nearly as white as his robes and dulband. Only the red jewel of his turban had color. The ghost of his flesh hovered around his bones, for he had once been a large man, but was now shrunken with illness and age. His eyes were closed, but his lips moved in and out as he breathed. Around him were seven weeping women dressed in veils, their noses and mouths covered but their eyes eloquent with tears. Four old men, wringing their hands and making sour mouths, listened by the bed.

  As Lateef came closer, he could hear the man on the pillows speaking faintly.

  “In my dream,” the bearded man said, “I stood upon the brink of a river. I knew that I had to cross to the other side. But there was no boat to take me there, and the waters were too wild and cold to swim. As I stood on the bank, longing for the other side, a wind began to dance around me. It blew sand in my face. I brushed my hand across my eyes to clear them and, when I could see once more, there was a great horse standing before me. The wind came from its huge, shining wings, fanning the air. I leaped onto its back. It pumped those mighty wings once, twice. Then, with a leap, it rose into the air. I looked below, and the river was but a thin ribbon lying across a sandy vastness. I gave a great laugh, threw my hands above my head, and—laughing—fell from the horse and awoke again in my bed.”

  “It is the same dream, my caliph,” said the oldest man there, a man with a long white beard as fine as several silken threads.

  “Of course it is,” said the caliph. “But if I do not find that horse, I will die.” He sighed deeply, and his stomach moved up and down.

  The women began to wail again, but the old men shook their heads. The oldest spoke again.

  “Be reasonable, my caliph. To die for a dream?” he said.

  “Is it better to die of old age? To die of a disease? I think,” said the caliph, “that to die for a dream is the noblest course of all.”

  “Be reasonable, my caliph,” the old man tried again. “There is no such horse.”

  “Then how did I dream it?” asked Al-Mansur. “Can a man dream what is not? What can never be? If there is no such horse, then tell me, you who are the wisest of my people, what is the meaning of my dream?” He looked up at the men.

  “The river is the river of death,” said one adviser.

  “Or the river of life,” said the second.

  “Or the river of sleep, which runs between,” said the third.

  The women cried out again.

  “And the horse is your life,” said the one.

  “Or your death,” said the second.

  “Or it is the dream beyond, the great dream that all men and all women dream,” said the third.

  The caliph sat up straight and smiled at them. “But is it not possible that the dream might come true, that such things could exist? That someday a man will ride in the sky and look down on a river and see it as thin as a ribbon?” The caliph looked pityingly at his advisers. “Can we not dream what will be?”

  “If men were meant to fly,” said the oldest adviser, stroking his thin beard, “they would be born with feathers instead of hair. So it is written. And it is so.”

  The caliph puffed out his cheeks thoughtfully. “But in the days of my father’s fathers,” he said, “there were those who dared to dream of great wonders. And in time such wonders came into being in the land: the building of this palace, and of the road that now runs across the sand—these were but dreams once, and now they are real. Why do you tell me I should dream no more?”

  “Wonders in one year are commonplaces in another,” replied the old man. “And memory has a faulty tongue.”

  “But do not say this dream is impossible,” said the caliph. “I will not have it.” Yet even as he spoke the words, he sank back onto the pillows.

  Before the men could tell the caliph no once more, Lateef spoke. The horse on his shoulders lent him courage. “In the desert we say nothing is impossible, my caliph. What one man cannot do, another may.” He sank to his knees, ducked his head, and set the foal onto the floor. The little horse wobbled, and his tiny hooves clattered against the colorful tiles. “Perhaps, great Al-Mansur, this is the wonder of which you dreamed.”

  The caliph sat up again and laughed, his eyes nearly hidden in the flaps of his shriveled cheeks. The laugh put false color in his face. “I dreamed of a mighty horse, and you bring me a starveling foal. I dreamed of a flying white-winged wonder, and you bring me a brown mite almost too weak to walk.”

  But the oldest adviser looked more closely at the foal. He saw its tiny gray wings, frail as those of a dragonfly. And he saw a way to keep his caliph alive for a while longer. He spoke with great care. “Even a wonder may be weak in its youth,” he whispered to the caliph. “Look again, Al-Mansur.”

  The caliph looked again, saw the wings, and clapped his hands. “Perhaps,” he said, “I shall put off dying until this foal has grown. You, boy, shall live with it in its stall. You shall eat with it and exercise it. And when the wonder is big enough, you shall bring it to me once again, and I shall have my ride.” He sat up and put his feet over the side of the pillows. “And now, bring me some food and tell my people to stop their grieving. Their caliph shall not die for this dream—but live.”

  The Year

  And so it came to pass that Lateef, the slave of slaves, became Lateef the keeper of the winged foal. Yet his life was not so different as one might suppose. He slept
in the straw by the side of the horse, warming its body with his own. He was up before dawn drawing water from the well, filling a sack with grain, always feeding the horse before he dared to feed himself. And each day, besides, he brushed the horse’s long black mane and tail, grooming its sleek, dark sides.

  But he paid the most attention of all to the wondrous wings. He would take the fragile ribs in his hands and gently flex them, stretching the membranes until they were taut. In the cool, dark stable the membranes were a milky white, the color of old pearl. But outside, with the sun shining through, they were as iridescent as insect wings. So the caliph called the horse “Dragonfly.” But Lateef did not.

  “Brother,” he named the foal. “Wind Brother.” And he sang the name into the horse’s ears and blew a breath gently into the foal’s nostrils as was the custom among the desert dwellers. And he made the horse a song:

  Wind rider,

  Sun strider,

  The dreamer’s dream,

  Moon leaper,

  Star keeper,

  Are you what you seem?

  It was not a great song, but Lateef whispered it over and over in an affectionate tone as he touched the horse, until it twitched its ears in reply. And the horse grew to love Lateef and would respond to his every command.

  Often the caliph would stand by the stall, holding on to the door for support while Lateef cleaned the horse. Or he would sit in a chair nearby while the horse’s wings were stretched and rubbed with oil. But whenever the caliph tried to come too close, both Lateef and the horse would tremble. Then the caliph would sigh, and a faint blush of color would stain his pale cheeks. “Ah, Dragonfly,” Al-Mansur would say, “do not forget that you are my dream. And I must ride my dream or die.”

  One day, when Lateef and the horse had both trembled at the caliph’s approach, and Al-Mansur had sighed and spoken, Lateef could control his tongue no longer. Bowing low, afraid to raise his head, he spoke. “O Caliph, if what you say is so, then you are no more free than I.”

  The caliph was silent for a moment, and when he spoke his voice was very soft. “No one is entirely free, child. Even I, Caliph Al-Mansur, have never been free to indulge my own dreams. To be good and wise, a ruler must make real the dreams of his people. But now, for once, I would have this dream, this wonder, for myself alone. For in some small way, the dreaming makes me feel I am free, though I know I am not.”

  Lateef shook his head, for he did not understand the caliph. How could a man who had everything no farther away than a handclap not be free? He raised his head to ask the caliph, but the man was gone. He did not come again to the stable, and his absence troubled Lateef.

  When a year had passed and Wind Brother’s sides had filled out, his mane and tail grown long and silky, the caliph sent word around to the stables that he would come the very next day to ride the winged horse. Now in all this time Wind Brother had never been mounted, nor had a saddle ever been placed upon his back. And never had he opened and shut his wings on his own. Lateef had been content to walk around the ring with the horse, his hand on Wind Brother’s neck. He had feared that if he were to sit on the horse’s back, his heels might accidentally do injury to the iridescent wings or that a saddle might crush a fragile rib.

  Lateef bowed low to the messenger. “Tell my caliph,” he said fearfully, “and with many respects, that the horse is not yet strong enough for a rider.”

  The messenger looked even more afraid than Lateef. “I dare not deliver such a message myself. You must go.”

  So Lateef entered the caliph’s room for the second time. Al-Mansur lay on the silken pillows as if he were only dreaming of life.

  “The horse, your … your Dragonfly,” stuttered Lateef, “he is not yet ready to be ridden.”

  “Then make him so,” said the caliph, barely raising himself up to speak. He sank back quickly, exhausted from the effort.

  Lateef started to protest, but the guards hurried him out of the room. As he walked down the long hall, the caliph’s oldest adviser followed him.

  “He must ride tomorrow,” said the old man, his thin beard weaving fantastic patterns in the air as he spoke. “It is his only wish. He is growing weak. Perhaps it will keep him alive. A man is alive as long as he can dream.”

  “But his dream is of my horse.”

  “The horse is not yours, but the caliph’s. His grain has kept the horse alive. You are but a slave,” said the old man, shaking his finger at Lateef. “A slave cannot own a horse.”

  “A slave can still be brother to the wind,” Lateef whispered, aghast at his tongue’s boldness, “as long as the wind wills it so.” But even as he spoke, he feared he had failed—failed the horse and failed the caliph—and in failing them both, failed himself.

  Allah’s Test

  In the morning Lateef was up early. He rubbed the horse’s sides with scented oils. He wove ribbons into its black mane. And all the while he crooned to the horse, “Oh, my brother, do not fail me as I fear I have failed you. Be humble. Take the caliph onto your back. For you are young and healthy, and he is old and sick. He is the dreamer and you are the dream.”

  The horse whickered softly and blew its warm breath on Lateef’s neck.

  Then Lateef took the horse out into the ring.

  Soon the caliph came, borne in a chair that was carried by four strong men. Behind them came the caliph’s advisers. Then, in order of their importance, came the caliph’s wives. Finally, led in by the armed guards, came the men and women and children of Akbir, for the word had gone out to the souks and mosques: “Come see Caliph Al-Mansur ride his dream.”

  Only then, when Lateef saw how many people waited and watched, did he truly become afraid. What would happen if the caliph failed in front of all these people? Would they blame the horse for not bearing the caliph’s weight? Would they blame Lateef for not training the horse well? Or would they blame the caliph? Failure, after all, was for slaves, not for rulers.

  The caliph was helped from his chair, but then he signaled his people away. Slowly he approached the horse. Putting his hand to the horse’s nose, he let Wind Brother smell him. He moved his hand carefully along the horse’s flanks, touching the wings in a curious, tentative gesture, as if he had never really seen them clearly before. He spoke softly, so that only the horse and Lateef could hear: “I am the dreamer, you are the dream. I think I am ready to ride.”

  Lateef waited.

  The horse waited.

  All the men and women and children of Akbir waited.

  Suddenly, so swiftly it surprised them all, the caliph took a deep breath and leaped onto the horse’s back. He sat very tall on Wind Brother, his hands twisted in the horse’s mane, his legs carefully in front of the wings. Eyes closed, the caliph smiled. And his smile was a child’s, sweetly content.

  For a long, breath-held moment, nothing happened. Then the horse gave a mighty shudder and reared back on his hind legs. He spun around and dropped onto all fours, arching his back. The caliph, still smiling, flew into the air and landed heavily on the ground. He did not get up again.

  The horse did not move, even when Lateef ran over to him and touched his nose, his neck, his side. But as Lateef swung himself astride, he felt the horse’s flanks trembling.

  “Be not afraid,” Lateef whispered to the horse. “I am here. What they try to do to you, they must do to me first. In this I will not fail you.”

  The chief of the caliph’s guards ran toward the boy and the horse, his great silver scimitar raised above his head. As the scimitar began to sing its death song on the trip down through the air, Lateef leaned forward, guarding the horse’s neck with his own. But he did not feel any blow. All he felt was a rush of wind as the horse began to pump its mighty wings for the first time.

  Lateef turned his head. Above them he could still see the image of the silver sword. Then at his knee he felt a hand. He looked down. A boy about his own age stood there, in white robes, with a white dulband on his head. In the turban’s center was the ca
liph’s red jewel.

  “I am free and ready to ride,” the boy said, a shadowy smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

  “Then mount, my brother,” whispered Lateef, putting his hand down and pulling the boy up behind him. “Ride your dream.”

  With a mighty motion, the horse’s wings pumped once again, filling with air and sky. He lifted them beyond the sword, beyond the walls of the palace. They circled the minarets once, and Lateef looked down. He could see a crowd gathering around the fallen figures of a caliph, a horse, a ragged boy. Only here and there was a man or a woman or a child who dared to look up, who saw the dream-riders in the sky.

  And then they were gone, the three: over a river that was a thin ribbon in the sand, over the changing patterns of the desert, to the place where there are neither slaves nor rulers and where all living beings truly dwell as brothers—the palace of the winds.

  The Golden Balls

  Not all princesses are selfish. No. But it is an occupational hazard. Perhaps it is even in the genes, inbred along with fine, thin noses and high arches, along with slender fingers and a swanlike neck.

  There was a princess once endowed with all those graces at birth. Her father—a robust sort, given to hunting and sharing bones with his dogs—had married well. That meant his wife came with properly and looks, and was gracious enough to expire after producing an heir. The heir was a boy who looked a lot like his father and screamed in similar lusty tones from one wetnurse to another until he found an ample breast that pleased him.

  The heir was not the firstborn, however. He came second, after a sister. But primogeniture ruled him first. First at school, first at play, first in the hearts of his countrymen.