“Scorpions?” Emma asked. She nearly stumbled over Tristan, who had again lifted his leg next to a pillar.
“Shhh!” the servant hissed as he put his finger to his lips. Emma looked around, but all she saw were two lizards that looked nothing like scorpions.
“And when Sahim comes himself?” Emma whispered. “What happens then?”
“The Master of Evil has many demands!” the servant whispered back. He had stopped in front of a door that was so tall even he could barely reach the handle. “The last time he took all of the caliph’s tame golden flamingos, and he commanded that everything blue in the palace be burned. Even though the caliph’s dromedary loves nothing better than blue grapes. Oh, it is terrible!” And with a deep, very deep sigh, he opened the massive door.
4
NO FRIENDLY WELCOME
The throne of the caliph of Barakash looked like the lounge chair of a giant. Yet sitting on top of the gold-embroidered cushions was a boy barely older than Emma. His feet rested on the hump of a honey-golden dromedary that lay on its knees in front of the throne, chewing on something in a rather halfhearted way. Lounging on a sumptuous cushion next to the dromedary was a big woman with a beard and blue patterns on her face. She was sipping tea from a cup.
Emma would have loved to take a closer look at the dromedary, but the servant (who was called Hashim, by the way) threw himself flat on the ground and made frantic signals for Emma to do the same.
“Forgive me, oh Maimun, most exalted navel of the world!” he called without taking his nose off the floor tiles. “Forgive me for disturbing you and your honorable grandmother at such an early hour. But this strangely clad girl claims she is bearing a message from Karim.”
“Karim?”
The caliph leaned forward on his throne to give Emma a curious look.
“Leave us alone!” the caliph ordered the servant, who immediately backed away with a thousand curtsies.
“Could I maybe get up, please?” Emma asked. The stone tiles had a beautiful pattern, but they were horribly cold.
The caliph frowned—and nodded. “You shall be permitted,” he said. “Where do you come from? You look strange, as though you fell into a sack of flour.”
“Where I come from a lot of people look like this,” Emma answered. She wasn’t sure whether she should feel insulted or not.
“Really?” Maimun said. He brushed a jet-black strand of hair from his forehead. “I’ve heard stories about places like that, but I’ve always thought them to be fairy tales.” Then he shot a frown at Tristan, who had started growling at the dromedary. “Girls and dogs are usually forbidden from entering the palace,” Maimun observed. “If your dog bites my dromedary, I’ll have to throw him into the dungeon.”
“He never bites,” Emma said, as she pulled Tristan back by his tail. “He just likes to act dangerous. Now, do you want to hear my message or not?” She was losing patience with the caliph and had already decided not to like him, no matter what Karim thought about him.
Maimun, however, crossed his arms and gave Emma a scornful look. “If your message really is from Karim,” he said, “then it is the message of a traitor. Karim abandoned Barakash! He ran from Sahim like a dog from a lion.”
“My dog would never run from a lion!” Emma shouted. “And Karim didn’t run away, either. You should be ashamed for even thinking that of him.” She pulled the green bottle from under her bathrobe and put it on the floor.
A pale-blue Karim drifted out of the neck of the bottle. He took shape and bowed to the caliph, his patterned grandmother, and the dromedary.
“Karim!” Maimun called out. His eyes went so wide that his eyebrows disappeared under the edge of his turban. Emma was just wondering how Maimun got down from his enormous throne, when he skipped onto his dromedary’s hump and slid to the floor.
“Where have you been, Karim?” Maimun cried, running toward the genie. “Sahim dried out all our wells. He stole my flamingos and my Barbary sheep, and he dragged all my treasure into his palace. My subjects, my grandmother, my dromedary, even I—all of Barakash has nothing to eat but dried bread. And still Sahim keeps coming with new demands. Oh, Karim!” He flung his arms around the genie’s neck. “How could you abandon us like that? Every day I called your name a hundred times, but you never came!”
“Well, now he’s here!” the blue-patterned grandmother said as she rose from her pillows. “But look at him! He’s as pale as diluted grape juice and as thin as a carpet tassel.”
Karim cast a sad look down at himself. “I am not to blame for my pitiful condition, oh grandmother of the greatest of all caliphs!” he said. “Sahim’s scorpions stole my nose ring while I was sleeping. You know that we blue genies sleep at midday, when the sun makes even the stones sweat.”
“Ah yes, the midday nap of the blue genies!” Maimun’s grandmother grimaced. “Such careless folly, since every child knows that the midday hour belongs to the yellow genies and that they use their time for nothing but evil.”
“Well, it happened!” Karim retorted testily. “And the sea lurched me back and forth for more than a hundred days and a hundred nights, until this pale flower of a frigid land”—he bowed so deeply to Emma that she blushed—“freed me from my glassy prison. She selflessly turned her back on her home to join me with her black-nosed friend so that together we may retrieve my ring. So be it, or may my name no longer be Karim the Beardless!”
Maimun (who really wasn’t much bigger than Emma, either) eyed Emma and Tristan with incredulous respect. His grandmother, however, didn’t seem too impressed by Karim’s report.
“Hear, hear!” she grumbled, which Emma didn’t think was very polite at all. “And how are you lot going to do that? Sahim is, after all, the most powerful of the yellow genies.”
“Well, Karim is the mightiest of the blue genies, Grandmother!” Maimun called out.
“Even if he doesn’t really look like it at the moment,” Karim added. He tried to puff himself up a little, but he only managed to grow a pathetic two and a half inches. The dromedary grunted its contempt and spat a couple of pomegranate seeds onto the throne.
“What about Sahim’s spiders?” the blue-patterned grandmother asked. She shoved a banana between the dromedary’s yellow teeth. “They are as snappish as desert cats! And his scorpions—”
Karim interrupted her impatiently. “Their venom can’t harm a genie!”
“What spiders?” Emma asked uneasily. But nobody paid any attention to her. Only the dromedary’s sleepy eyes watched her and Tristan.
“You just keep talking, you pale shadow of a genie!” the blue-patterned grandmother barked at Karim. “Yet I tell you, you are crazy if you think you can take the ring from Sahim’s palace with nobody but a flour-faced girl and her sausage-legged dog for help!”
Emma was just about to say something very unfriendly to the big old lady, when the guard came storming into the chamber. He dropped to the ground ten steps from the throne and dragged himself a little farther along the cold stone tiles before coming to a halt in front of the first step. “He’s coming!” he panted. “He’s coming, oh jewel of Barakash!”
That same instant, a scorching-hot wind blew into the chamber, and Karim disappeared into his bottle faster than anyone could have whispered his name.
5
THE YELLOW GENIE
Mustard-yellow smoke billowed into the throne room. It rose right up to the golden ceiling, and the air got so hot that Emma began to feel like a crumpet in an oven. At first there were just two hideous amber-yellow eyes staring out of the swirling mist. Then the smoke solidified into arms and legs, a massive belly, and a head with lips, on which sat the nastiest smile Emma had ever seen. “Greeeetiings, Maimun!” Sahim thundered as he drifted under the ceiling like a giant sulfur cloud. “Did you miss me?”
Maimun called back, “Yes, like a mosquito’s sting. Like an abscess. I missed you like I’d miss the bite of a snake!” He tried to sound brave, but his trembling voice gave hi
m away. “What are you doing here again? We have nothing left for you. Absolutely nothing.”
“Haaa!” the yellow genie roared. “I’ll find something, believe me.”
The dromedary stuck its yellow head out from under the throne. Its tail twitched nervously.
Sahim looked around disapprovingly. “There really doesn’t seem to be much left to take, little caliph! Your throne is too uncomfortable for me, your rugs are all already in my palace, your date preserves sweeten my days, your sand larks sing me to sleep, and you can keep your patterned and eternally grumpy grandmother. However . . .”
Emma’s knees went as soft as melting butter as Sahim’s cat eyes fixed on her.
“What is that girl there?” the yellow genie boomed. “By all the grains of sand in the desert! The little thing is as pale as the belly of a scorpion. Is she always that pale, or did the sight of me make her so?” Sahim put his finger under Emma’s chin. “And that yellow hair. Ahhh!” The genie leaned in so close that his breath made Emma’s cheeks go red. “You know, little caliph, I love everything yellow, and truly I have never seen a girl with yellow hair. I think I’ve decided what I’ll take today.”
Tristan poked his head out from under Emma’s bathrobe and let out a deep growl. Emma quickly gave him a warning nudge with her foot. Who knew what a yellow genie might do to a noodle-tailed dog that growled at him?
But Sahim just laughed. He laughed so loudly that the pillars all around them trembled, and the dromedary crept so far under the throne that its hump got stuck. “Yesss, give me the girl, little caliph!” Sahim thundered. He ballooned until he nearly filled the whole hall with his toxic yellow body. “I wanted to take your dromedary today, but I like the girl better. And I’ll take the dwarf dog as well. Nobody has dared to growl at me like that in more than three hundred years.”
Emma’s heart nearly stopped. Sweat dripped off the tip of her nose, and her fear felt like a stone in her throat, but this was too much. “Never!” she screeched at his horrible eyes. “Who do you think you are, you stinky blob of smoke? That is my dog!”
“Noooo, Sandy Head. Now he’s miiiine!” Sahim howled. “Just like you!” And his giant fingers reached for Tristan’s noodle tail, but the dog spun around and dashed off as though he had eight legs and not just four.
“Yes! Run, Tristan! Run!” Emma screamed.
But Sahim laughed again. Then he shook himself like a wet dog, and from his turban poured scores of pincer-snapping scorpions and ink-black spiders. The spiders wrapped Emma up like a silkworm, and the scorpions, their tails raised menacingly, herded Tristan back to their master.
“Sahim, let them go!” Maimun called out. “They are my guests, and they are under my protection. I will give you my last barrel of honeyed dates for them.”
“Your protection? Hahahaaaa! You can’t protect anyone. Not even your own city. Come and get your guests, if you can!” Sahim boomed, while the scorpions and the spiders crawled back into his turban. “I’ll fetch those dates another time—together with your dromedary.” And before Emma could free herself from the disgustingly sticky spider threads, the yellow genie grabbed her and Tristan with his scalding-hot fingers and whirled them both off.
6
THE PALACE BENEATH THE SAND
Sahim flew so fast that Emma could barely breathe. His fingers burnt her neck, and Tristan’s ears were nearly blown off. Barakash had long vanished beyond the horizon. An endless sea of sand stretched beneath them, and Sahim’s shadow flitted across the dunes like a giant thundercloud. But then the yellow genie slowed his flight. He dove down toward a group of rocks that stuck rather forlornly out of the sand and landed between them with a big thud.
“You’ve gotten even paler!” Sahim breathed into Emma’s face. “Did you not like the flight, my little golden bug?” Then he took a deep breath; when his cheeks ballooned like melons, he blew into the sand. The tiny grains flurried up, until they even covered the sun. They burned in Emma’s eyes and clogged up her ears. Tristan snapped at them and got a mouthful of crunchy sand. And when the yellow clouds finally sank back, there stood a crumbling palace. Sand poured out of its windows and covered its walls like the icing on a cake. The entrance was so tall that Sahim barely had to duck his head to float through. The inside was as hot as the heart of a fire and as dark as if no beam of sunlight ever entered. But the yellow genie spread so much light that Emma could easily make out all the piles of gold and precious stones Sahim had amassed in his long and evil life.
There was treasure everywhere, in the halls and chambers, even in the corridors Emma and Tristan got dragged along. Sahim blew into the darkness, and a thousand torches flared up. Golden cages hung from a soot-black ceiling. From behind the bars came whistles, hisses, and growls. And before Emma could realize what was happening, she and Tristan had also been stuffed into one of the cages.
“Ahhh!” the yellow genie warbled as he peered through the bars with his cat eyes. “Yes, you are an excellent addition to my collection. And as for your dog, my servants may have to roll him in turmeric powder!”
Tristan barked and snapped at Sahim’s nose, but he just stubbed his snout on the cage bars. The yellow genie laughed so loudly that sand came raining down from the palace ceiling.
Then he drifted to an enormous spiderweb that stretched like a hammock from one end of the hall to the other. Sahim sank into it with a deep sigh. “Servants! Bring me honeyed dates!” he yelled. From the darkness emerged two pale spirits. They were of a faint yellow color, like slices of lemon cut too thin, and they were teetering under the weight of a bowl the size of a bathtub. With constant bows, they set the bowl on Sahim’s naked belly.
The sight made Emma’s stomach rumble. She hadn’t eaten anything since before she’d found Karim’s bottle on the beach. But then she had a terrifying thought. “Do you also dip your prisoners in honey and eat them?” she called out with a trembling voice to the hungry genie.
Sahim grabbed one of his servants and used him to wipe some honey off his chin. His fanged teeth glistened in the torchlight. “Nonsense,” he grunted. “They don’t taste nice. I just collect them because they are yellow. And their fear gives me strength. Yellow genies love the smell of fear; there is no better scent. And now I want to sleep, so be quiet, or I’ll stuff your mouth with sand.” Sahim sank back with a burp and immediately started snoring.
Emma felt her fear drowning in rage like a fly in the sea. She rattled the cage and screamed, “Let me out of here right now! Just you wait until Karim gets here. He’ll put you in a bottle, and you know what I will do then? I’ll spit in it—that’s what!”
Suddenly all the other cages fell silent. Hundreds of pairs of eyes were fixed on Emma.
“Karim?” With a growl that sounded like a hungry lion, Sahim sat up in his hammock. “What do you, little slug, know of Karim? There no longer is any Karim. I threw him into the sea. Do you want to see his nose ring?” Sahim flicked his finger against the ring hanging from his oversized earlobe. “There it is. Looks good on me, doesn’t it? And now let me sleep, or I’ll dip you and your dog in honey after all!”
The genie turned away with an angry grunt and started snoring again. The spiders came crawling out of his turban and began to mend the threads of the web that had torn under Sahim’s weight.
The golden cages were oozing despair.
“You do believe that Karim will come to rescue us, right?” Emma whispered to Tristan.
He licked her nose—definitely an encouraging answer.
“Then everything’s fine,” she mumbled, and dug her face into his back. But sleeping in a cage wasn’t easy, even if it was a golden one.
7
A COOL WIND
It turned out to be a horrible night. (Even more horrible than when one of Emma’s brothers had poured dishwashing soap into her nose.) Tristan slept as though he was in the most peaceful place on earth, but Emma couldn’t keep her eyes closed. I shouldn’t have opened that bottle! she thought at least thre
e hundred and thirty-five times while she stared into the darkness. The yellow genie snored so loudly that her ears began to hurt. A new day dawned, but the only sign of that was a few stray rays of sunshine trickling through the old walls and onto Sahim’s nose.
After his breakfast, which consisted of countless little fragrant cakes, the yellow genie set off to pay a visit to Barakash’s neighboring kingdom. His pale servants dusted the treasure with peacock feathers and threw dry bread into the cages.
Most of the animals in Sahim’s collection were ones Emma had never seen before. But there were also sand-colored foxes with batlike ears, lizards with spikes on their tails, and long-necked flamingos that poked their beaks through the bars.
Emma wondered how long they’d been here. With every hour she spent in her awful cage, her hope that Karim would come to rescue her shrank a little more. And when Sahim returned that evening to drop into his spiderweb, that hope was barely as big as a pea. A very, very small pea.
The yellow genie devoured a sack of pomegranates and thirteen cinnamon cakes before going to sleep. The torches died one by one, until Sahim’s pale-yellow belly was the only thing glowing in the dark. And Emma felt a tear run down her cheek.
“Oh, Tristan! I don’t think Karim will come!” she whispered. “Would you mind cheering me up a bit? You could lick that tear off my cheek, maybe?”
But Tristan just lifted his head.
A cool breeze brushed over Emma’s face. It drifted so cool and damp through the old palace that Sahim shuddered in his sleep and tossed and turned on his hammock.
Emma and the Blue Genie Page 2