“So you have heard of my venture.” He raised a brow. “And what say you? I saw your bag of relics; I know you have some way of locating them. Most travelers would be lucky to come across one relic in their lifetime, but you sell them as if they are sesame dates. If anyone can find the relic I am seeking, it is you.”
The Midnight Merchant did not respond, only stared coolly at the sultan as if sizing him up. Though Layla had carried herself with the same pride, there had been a lightheartedness to her. The woman before him now may as well have been made of stone.
At last, she spoke. “The question is not what I gain from this endeavor, but what I will lose if I do not accept.”
The sultan smiled. A crooked smile that so reminded Mazen of Omar that it made his heart twist. “Smart woman. You are a citizen of Madinne, and you will do as I command, or openly defy me. And you know what happens to those who defy me.”
The air in the diwan became tense.
His father had always had a penchant for violence. He had softened after marrying Mazen’s mother, but he was still the man who’d started the jinn hunts after her death and, before her arrival, killed a dozen of his wives without batting an eyelash. Before he’d handed the responsibility over to Omar, he’d been the first murderous King of the Forty Thieves, leading his own companions on jinn-hunting quests. Yes, his father was adept at the art of punishment.
Mazen could never—would never—deny that truth, even when he tried to forget it.
Being stripped of one’s titles and exiled to the desert would be the mildest sentence the sultan offered. At worst, he would seek vengeance, and no one could run from him then. He had men all over the desert; there was nowhere to hide.
The sultan spread his hands. “I am generous, however, and wish to pay you. Name a price. Any price. I can make you rich beyond your wildest dreams, al-Nazari.”
“Yuba…，” Mazen said softly. The sultan’s harsh grimace faded when he glanced at him. Mazen cleared his throat and said, “What if this relic is impossible to find?”
The sultan scoffed. “‘Impossible’ is an excuse offered by failures. No, the relic exists, and I will find it.” He looked at Loulie. “You will find it.”
“And?” She clenched her hands in her lap. “What is this impossible relic I am being forced to find?”
On the sultan’s command, Hakim took out a map—the same one he had shown Rasul—and handed it to the sultan. His father unrolled it, found the Western Sandsea, and tapped the sunken jinn city of Dhahab. The merchant inhaled sharply.
“Long ago, the first sultan buried an ancient relic in the Western Sandsea. It is the most powerful relic in the world, for it contains a living, breathing jinn bound to the service of the one who finds it. There is a story passed down in our family, a legend that describes how the relic was created and where it was buried. It is a secret of the royal family, but I will share it with you now in the hope that it will convince you of the truth.”
His father had told this story many times now, but never the way Mazen’s mother had. She had been a storyteller. Mazen was a storyteller, and it always made him anxious to hear his father tell his version with only the barest details.
“Yuba,” he said softly. “Please, let me tell the tale.”
His father paused. The Midnight Merchant raised her brows. Mazen cringed at the looks on their faces. “The story is in the details, and I know all of them.” An impromptu plan was forming in his mind. If he could not openly dissent, then maybe he could convince his father the same way his mother once had.
The sultan agreed, but only once Mazen refreshed himself with food and drink. After eating from a platter of nuts and drinking a glass of water, Mazen straightened, clasped his hands, and spoke in a voice that rose above the sound of the whistling leaves and the chattering birds.
“Father, brothers, Midnight Merchant, allow me to share with you an ancient tale.”
The Tale of Amir and the Lamp
Neither here nor there, but long ago…
There once lived a Bedouin sheikh named Amir, who was known for his golden heart and cunning mind. He had a younger brother, a valiant warrior named Ghazi, who was strong of heart and body. Many peaceful years passed under their leadership until one year, there came a Storm Season unlike any other. The winds were so fierce they tore down the tribe’s tents, the sun so hot it dried up water and blistered the people’s skin.
Journeying had never been so difficult, and the brothers were at a loss for how to provide for their people. Then one day, the tribe chanced upon an ocean of shifting sand and knew they could go no farther, for they had reached the dreaded Sandsea. It was then, staring at that endless expanse of sinking sand, that Amir had an idea.