Cassima’s Tale

By Akril

Part I

Prologue

The mid-afternoon sun shot its rays through a sea of clouds and upon the shimmering surface of the real, endless sea of the north. The rays bounced back and sprayed everywhere, imitating the great rolling whitecaps as they rose from the waters, only to crash back in defeat.

From the eyes of the gulls that sailed on the warm updrafts and the gentle zephyrs from lands unknown, there appeared to be a tiny spattering of dots set in the aquamarine seascape. As the birds drew closer, the dots revealed themselves to be tiny islands, the green of their foliage making them resemble emeralds set in gold, surrounded by the protection of a gargantuan, sapphire robe. There were four islands, one resembling a colon turned on its side, one tall and ominous with its many jagged peaks and mountains, one nearly covered in thick trees and shrubs, and the last one, though not the largest, seemed the grandest of them all.

A large palace was built in the center, surrounded by tiny villages and elegant gardens. The walls of the palace were not built of stone and mortar, like many castles in other kingdoms, but rather of light peach stucco, with Arabic designs winding their way up the sides along with the creepers and vines that reached up towards the windows. One tall tower protruded from the intersection point of two of the walls, with one small window looking out at the outside world. Within the tower was a single room, and within the room, two people were reading of kingdoms other than their own.

“You’ve heard all the poetry and stories concerning Atlantis, I’m sure,” said the older one.

“Most of it, I suppose,” replied the younger one. She brushed her black hair away from her face, moved closer to the other woman on the bed they were sitting on and turned her green eyes toward the open pages of the thick volume that the other woman was holding. “That Plato is a great storyteller.”

“He may be much more than that, daughter,” replied the woman, smiling back at her child with a face that was a near-perfect match in appearance and emotion, differing only in the years that set the two apart. With a delicate white hand, she turned over the page, revealing a beautiful, colored picture that spanned both of the leaves, etched in ink and paint, depicting a young man in steel armor, holding his sword tightly in both hands, kneeling before a blinding sun.

The girl gazed at it in awe. For the past few hours she had been swimming through an ocean of stories, tales from faraway lands, lands that never existed, lands that could only be seen by wizards and shamans, and the histories of the people that lived in the lands…gods, demons, giant reptiles with foot-long fangs and bat-like wings called dragons, spirits that inhabited every living thing, even rocks and trees, and then the stories of heroes who conquered these lands, heroes who faced death and danger, then faced it again when they failed, which they never seemed to do. They outwitted the most clever sorcerers and escaped the most vile predicaments, with their mighty swords flashing light and fire, running for no reason but to reach their goal, where they lived happily forever, so the story goes. The only thing that the girl noticed was that there were no female heroes in these stories. They always seemed to be either the damsel in distress, the luring temptress or even the malevolent witch. Hardly any of the stories had heroines, and that was the one thing that made her wonder.

Still, she enjoyed reading the ballads of bravery, and everything else in the stories. It was even more amazing when these epic tales were told in verse, how the words flowed and hopped and skipped over each other, leaving the girl guessing ahead of time which word that rhymed the best would come next. Some of the poems left her quiet for several minutes, but she had yet to hear one from her mother that made her decide to take a respite from the reading.

The girl’s mother seemed quite exhausted from both the weight of the volume on her legs and the soreness of her mouth from reciting the poems and stories from the book, with her daughter always begging her to read another. In a concealed act of desperation, the woman flipped through several of the weathered pages, catching brief glimpses of long, artful, sweeping calligraphy and brilliant drawings and paintings, with her daughter trying to persuade her to stop, only to be cut off as the pages flipped past her eyes.

Finally, the girl’s mother stopped at a page that seemed centuries older than the others, as if some spirit from a long ago past had slipped it in, and hoped that someone would eventually find it. The woman did feel a strange sensation in the air as she read the single, 11-line poem inscribed on the left page, bordered with arabesque patterns and mystical swirls of blue ink. Though the girl could see it and read it clearly, she still looked at her mother with a look that pleaded her to read it aloud. The two both knew that something written was always different when read by somebody. The woman cast a tired glance at her daughter, inhaled lightly, and read:

Scheherazade, of hero’s might

Weave your adventures day and night

Never falter, never fail

You’re the one who lives the tale

Do not fear the unsheathed knife

Your dreams and thoughts become your life

Fight demons in and out of you

Get through your woes and start anew

Do what your heart knows is true

When you find love and you are free,

Then a hero you will be.

When she finished reading, the young girl, who had previously been peering over the manuscript with the physical posture of a vulture, sat up straight and fell back slowly on the bed until she was lying down, her eyes gazing at the canopy of her bed with a strange emptiness in them, the strange beauty of the poem seeming to be progressively working itself into her mind. Finally, there was a poem, even if just one, that mentioned a heroine, a young woman from the Arabian Nights, in fact, the very creator of the magical tales. The poem was just that, yet more than that, the delicately interlocking lines seeming to weave an enchanted veil over her, leaving her almost literally spellbound. Her mother curiously leaned over her, with a mix of satisfaction and triumph in her face.

“Would you like to hear another one?” she asked, with the comfort of the realization that she had found the one poem that caused this final reaction in her child.

“No,” replied the girl softly, her eyes still studying the folds in the canopy above her, the verses of the poem racing across her memory like flying fish. “I think I’ll rest here for a while.”

“That’s fine,” replied her mother, rising from the edge of the bed and placing the thick book upon her daughter’s bedside table, leaving it open to the page on which the strange, enchanting poem was written. She paused to scan it once more before concluding her reply:

“It takes a lot of poetry to make you stop and think, doesn’t it, Cassima?”

Chapter 1:

King Caliphim, the ruler of the Land of the Green Isles was seated on his golden throne in the high-vaulted chamber of his palace, a beautifully handcrafted chair with red velvet cushions and a detailed, floral pattern decorating the back. Several inches from the left arm, adjacent to the king’s throne was another, identical seat, in which was sitting his wife, Allaria, who was wearing a pale silk dress embroidered with flowers at regular intervals. They were talking quietly, not loud enough so that the guards near the double doors at the end of the throne room could hear, but at a volume just high enough to let their words bounce off the walls and gradually dissipate into the air.

“Yes, I know Cassima is a young woman now,” said Allaria, gazing into her husband’s eyes with concern. “And no other man in this realm seems to be worthy of her hand. She hasn’t shown much interest in marriage, I’ll admit, but inside I’m sure she is willing to become a bride.”

Caliphim stroked his white beard pensively, his blue eyes gazing back at his wife’s. “True. Cassima has made good friends in the past, and she is a noble person to know. Alhazred has been asking about her frequently I the past months, and sometimes I wonder if he knows something about my daughter that I don’t. I think I’ll ask him about that now.”

The king rose slowly from his throne and walked down the length of the hall, his footfalls muffled on the brilliant red carpet. The guard dogs at the door stepped aside, their spears raised to a parallel with their stoic postures. Stepping through the two double-doors, Caliphim walked a short distance, then turned and ascended the flight of stairs to his left, or, from the viewpoint of anyone standing at the main doorway, the one to the right. It took him several seconds to reach the top, with his decades catching up on him and his strength fading. From the top of the staircase, Caliphim walked down the hallway, which was decorated with gold-plated portraits and large, ornate vases lining the walls. Allaria had been the main person behind the decoration of the castle when she and Caliphim were crowned and her first words on the interior of the palace were “It could use more a aesthetic atmosphere.”

Reaching the end of the hall, Caliphim turned and found his vizier, Abdul Alhazred sauntering his way, clothed in his clashing azure and rose-colored robes that he insisted upon wearing. His face, as it always did, bore its typical look of a serious advisor combined with a mind that was never short of “filled to the brim.” Upon seeing the king approaching, however, his mouth curled into an appreciative smile and his arms opened in an exuberant greeting.

“My Lord Caliphim, how pleasant to see you off that binding throne of yours! Is everything well?”

“Yes and no, Alhazred. Allaria and I are well, but our feelings about our daughter’s future are not.”

Alhazred’s face fell, but he only hesitated a short period of time before picking it and his self-assured air back up.

“My king, what is there that I can do to assist you? Surely there is something I can do to help!”

“Well,” said Caliphim, assuming the thoughtful, pondering expression of a long-lived monarch, “You know that I have trusted you for many years, and in all these years very little misfortune has befallen this kingdom. But lately there has been some unrest among the islands. And you know that I have asked you on numerous occasions…”

“And you know that I have answered on every one of these occasions that I know nothing of these peculiar goings-on, though truly I wish I did. Perhaps it is something hidden on one of the isles that the people do not wish to know about. It could be a malevolent force coming from somewhere outside this realm. It could even be…”

“You’ve told me all that you know and your many hypotheses over and over again, Alhazred,” said Caliphim said. “And they have gotten us nowhere. So I find I can do nothing more than let the issue rest for now. What concerns me now is Cassima.”

“The princess is well?” queried Alhazred.

“Of course she is well physically, it is the matter of marriage that I am speaking of.”

“Cassima is a beautiful girl,” Alhazred said affectionately, “And any man in the kingdom would be more than honored to know her, let alone wed her.”

“True, but my wife and I have found no such man,” replied Caliphim. “This is a small kingdom, and our only alternative seems to be a prince from the kingdoms beyond the Isles. Not many of our people are able to leave this land, but some have in the past, and have returned telling tales of lands totally different from ours, filled with fantastic beasts and countless varieties of people. Surely among all these people there has to be a prince suitable for my child.”

“Of course,” replied Alhazred, smiling again, “But again, I believe we have gone over this topic before, and my idea was to just let me think for a while. You know that great answers to such questions do not occur overnight.”

“It has been many nights since I first asked you about Cassima,” said Caliphim impatiently. “That was on her sixteenth birthday. Now she is almost into her eighteenth year, and I have received no enlightening solutions of this dilemma from you.”

“I don’t know what to say, my king,” Alhazred said. “It is hard to solve such problems in such a tiny realm as this, with barely any contact with the outer world. But as I’m sure you know, I have knowledge of powers that will enable all of us to gain what we seek. I have been studying the art of magic and I believe I have found some means of finding a prince for your daughter. But this requires practice, and I am not about to try such inexperienced, rash, advanced magic spells. But I promise you, I will be working as fast as my schedule will allow me to help you and your problem. Now, please excuse me, my liege.”

Alhazred turned and entered his study, closing and locking the door behind him. Caliphim gazed at the closed door and pondered the closed conversation that had just been concluded. Then, with a heavy sigh and a hope that his trusted advisor would remain true to his word, the king turned and began the slow journey back down the hall.

Chapter 2:

Dusk was slowly settling upon the tiny archipelago, the shadows from the tallest isle bringing an early night to all that lay east of it. Cassima, the young princess of the Green Isles was in her room, standing in front of her dressing table. She had changed into a casual, light blue dress, what her mother always told her was appropriate for wearing at meals. Only an hour or two remained before the bell for supper would ring, and the servants and guards would come flying from whatever task they were indulged in, drawn like iron to a magnet to the dining room, where some elegant meal would be waiting to be devoured.

Fit for a queen, right, thought Cassima, still studying the reflection of herself in the mirror. The face that she always saw whenever her mother was in front of her looked back. She was a near-perfect reflection of her mother: the long, black onyx hair, the emerald green eyes, and the clear, pale face. There was little that she saw that reminded her of her father, though, and Cassima sometimes wondered that if she had a brother, would he resemble her father? Her father’s hair and beard were gray and starting to turn white now. Her mother had told her that it was once black, just like hers and Cassima’s. The only real difference between him and his mother and daughter were his eyes: a piercing blue that few men, even young ones, possessed. However, Cassima had seen few men in her lifetime, and thus was unable to make a fair comparison of her father, or any of the other men she saw in the castle.

Alhazred was anything but a good man, even Cassima was right about that. He always seemed to have something on his mind that was the complete opposite of what someone was talking to him about. And then there were the guard dogs, an odd species that Caliphim said had originated from another island, were taken to the Isle of the Crown, and shortly afterwards, the isle had vanished…sunken, Cassima assumed, or otherwise moved to a new location. She supposed the guards could be considered human, since they were intelligent, walked upright and understood their loyalty to the Crown. Still, they were different, nonetheless…

Then there was Ulrica, the only female guard dog on the entire island, who lived in a tiny room in the basement. She was the royal nurse, and was always ready treat Cassima’s wounds whenever she fell out of a tree or tripped and fell on the hem of her dress. Even now, when Cassima was of age to marry, she still seemed to injure herself in the oddest ways, and Ulrica never asked any probing questions of the princess. But she still had much to talk about…

Cassima wetted her fingers in the large jug of water on her dressing table, lifted her hair up with the back of her hand and readjusted the golden locket she wore around her neck. The locket was in the shape of a heart with the insignia of a crown on the front. Inside were twin portraits of her parents, Caliphim and Allaria. Cassima’s mother had given the necklace to her when she was still very young, but old enough not to put anything that could be picked up in her mouth. Cassima had worn it every day since then, with the exceptions of the times that it had to be either polished, have a new clasp fastened, or when she unintentionally lost it, and in between that time and the time she or another person found it, the castle would be exploding with activity, every servant tripping over another servant in a desperate scramble to find her locket before everything fell apart completely.

A warbling note from the window of her room made Cassima turn her head. Her gray nightingale, Sing-Sing, was perched on the window ledge, eyeing her with curiosity. Actually, Sing-Sing wasn’t Cassima’s pet, just as no wild creatures are truly tamed, but was rather an orphaned fledgling that Cassima had found in the royal gardens, taken in and raised to adulthood. She and Sing-Sing had formed a close friendship, and many of the guards exchanged rumors that the bird and the princess could actually understand each other.

Cassima smiled, then glided to the window and extended her hand. The gray nightingale hopped onto her fingers, its magenta crest raised in excitement. Cassima raised her hand and the bird flapped into the air, coming to a rest on her left shoulder, where it affectionately nibbled her ear and twittered gently. The princess slowly walked over to her bedside table, where her eyes immediately fell upon the open pages of the old tome and the 11-line, mesmerizing poem written on the first page, the same way her mother had left it several days ago. Cassima paused and read the poem once to herself, then aloud, well aware of the influence spoken words can have upon a person.

Scheherazade, of hero’s might

Weave your adventures day and night

Never falter, never fail

You’re the one who lives the tale

Do not fear the unsheathed knife

Your dreams and thoughts become your life

Fight demons in and out of you

Get through your woes and start anew

Do what your heart knows is true

When you find love and you are free,

Then a hero you will be.

Again, the strange pulsation of energy moved through her, a slow warmth that enclosed her spine and limbs. Sing-Sing peered at Cassima with a combination of concern and that familiar, burning curiosity. For several minutes, she could hear nothing else but the poem echoing in her head.

Chapter 3:

A sudden knock on the door and a jingle of bells brought Cassima out of her trance with a start. She turned to the door and recited the familiar, generic phrase that one always uses when someone unknown is standing outside their door:

“Who is it?”

“It is Jollo, princess! May I come in?”

“Sure,” replied Cassima, turning and sitting down on her bed. The door of her room opened and in waltzed her father’s court jester, Jollo. The sight of him never failed to make Cassima laugh. He seemed to have a different combination of clothing for every day of the year. Today it was a crimson vest with a brilliant orange pair of pants that completely covered his boots but failed to muffle the sounds of the bells that were attached to the curved toes of each. His childish, bumbling voice topped off his clownish appearance. It was no wonder that everyone in the palace (with the exception of Alhazred) loved him.

“Cassima, dear, you seem a bit quieter than usual lately. I wanted to ask if anything was wrong.”

“Nothing is really wrong, Jollo,” said Cassima nonchalantly, “I think it was that poem that Mother read to me a few days ago. It was so beautiful and I don’t know why.”

“Which poem, Cassima?”

“The one on the left page of that open book,” said Cassima, gesturing to her table. Jollo jingled over to the open book and read the writing on the first page. As he did so, his eyes widened in silent awe, the same awe that Cassima felt when she heard it first.

“It is very pretty,” said Jollo, still spellbound by the verses, walking over and sitting on Cassima’s bed, next to her. “It’s almost like magic.”

“Magic? Jollo, you don’t mean those little tricks you always perform for Father and Mother, do you?”

“Oh no, those are just things that jesters like me learn to keep our audience confused. That’s what keeps their attention. But this poem of yours…it feels like genuine magic to me.”

“Wow. I thought that poem sounded magical, Jollo, but I had no idea that it might be…”

“It may not be, Cassima,” put in Jollo. “Maybe I’m just a dreamer who always calls things I can’t explain magic. That’s why I’ve always stuck to these little illusions and sleight-of-hand tricks.”

Cassima paused for a moment, trying to understand what her friend said. “Still,” she said after a few moments, “I just don’t see how you are able to do things like making birds and flowers appear without the aid of real magic.”

“There are many things someone can do without ‘real’ magic, princess,” said Jollo. “Why, I know how to summon the voices of the sea nymphs with just a glass goblet half-filled with water!”

“You’re joking, Jollo.”

“No, really, Cassima!” Jollo pleaded, pulling a wine glass out of his inner vest pocket. “I can prove it to you! Just bring me that jug of water from your dresser over there.”

Cassima rose slowly, as Sing-Sing trilled anxiously, walked across the room and picked up the pitcher and carried it back to the bed. Jollo took it from her and filled the goblet halfway. Then he dipped his finger in the water and rubbed it around the rim of the glass. A loud, piercing, throbbing note filled the room, like the echo of a bell only softer and more mysterious. It did sound as if the voices of the sea nymphs were passing through the room. Cassima listened in amazement, while Sing-Sing ruffled her feathers as if in jealousy.

“It’s not magic,” explained Jollo after the sound had died down. “It’s something called a glass harp. It’s quite simple, really. You can put more water in the goblet and it sounds different.” He filled the glass until it was about three quarters full and moved his finger around the circumference of the ring again. This time the note was deeper and fuller, but it still awed Cassima, drawing her closer to Jollo and his strange “instrument.”

“Here. You can play it,” said Jollo encouragingly, handing Cassima the glass. She eyed it carefully, trying to see if anything made this wine glass any different from any other wine glass, finding nothing, then raising her finger to the edge of the rim and running it around the glass counter-clockwise. No sound came from the glass, no sea-nymph song, and Cassima looked at Jollo in puzzlement, not understanding that he could make it make noise and she couldn’t.

“You have to put your finger in the water first,” said Jollo gently. Cassima obediently touched the water delicately with her finger, then wound it around the rim of the glass again. A rich, wailing tone filled the room, filling the ears of both human and bird. Cassima stopped, looked at the glass, then at Jollo and laughed like a child.

“It’s so amazing!” she cried. “And you say it’s not magic?”

“I promise you, Cassima, it isn’t!” chuckled Jollo. Cassima focused her attention back on the glass and began rubbing her finger around the rim, this time more rapidly, creating a resounding harmony that penetrated her mind just like the poem had. Imagine, she thought, if there were more than one! What amazing sounds that would make! It is like the sea-nymphs! It’s beautiful…

Just as she was starting to fall into the hypnotic rhythm of the glass harp, a sudden spark of pain hit her finger, causing her to snatch it away from the rim and press it between her lips.

“Ouch!” she exclaimed, spilling some of the water on the carpet. Drawing her hand away from her lips she saw that the tip of her right index finger had a sharp cut down its middle and was bleeding.

“Oh no,” shuddered Jollo, taking the glass from the girl and examining her injured finger. “That glass must’ve had a sharp edge! Oh, I’m so sorry, princess, I didn’t know…please don’t be angry…”

“Ow,” said Cassima. “I’m not angry, I’m just hurt. Merciless glass.”

“I think you should see Ulrica, princess,” said Jollo. “Would you like me to take you down to her?”

“No, no, Jollo. That’s all right. I’m not mad at you, you understand. Just the glass.”

“You’re as kind as your mother, Cassima. Well, I’ll clean up this mess and tell your parents what happened…”

“Please don’t, Jollo,” said Cassima, opening the door to her room. “I can tell them myself. Don’t fret about me just because I cut myself.”

“Yes, majesty,” said Jollo, walking out the door, down the hallway and down the stairs. Cassima followed him down the stairs and across the main hall, through the basement door (which she opened with her left hand, her right one being inoperative with her injured finger) and down the stairs to the ground floor of the Castle of the Crown.

From there, Jollo turned to the left and walked down to his room, while Cassima continued down the corridor, into the guardroom and to a tiny room in one corner, hardly more than a closet. A thick cloth obscured the doorway. Cassima knocked on the wall beside the door, and a gruff, female voice snorted:

“Yes, who is it?”

“Cassima, Ulrica. Jollo said to come down here.”

“Another scrape, princess?”

“Well, yes,” said Cassima, not unwilling to not share such a minor injury. “Jollo was teaching me how to play the glass harp and the harp had a sharp string.”

“Ah,” said the voice again. A plump, female dog drew back the curtain and gestured for Cassima to come in. Cassima seated herself on a low stool. The dog examined her cut with probing eyes and whiskers, then began searching through a small pouch of doctoring supplies.

Ulrica wasn’t a purebred dog, like Saladin, Gruff, Rowlf and the other guards. She wasn’t sleek and shiny, nor was she short and squat like the bulldog guards. Her fur was scruffy, patchy and unkempt, Ulrica obviously paid little attention to the proverb, “physician, heal thyself.” She was of no specific breed, and in normal terms she would have been labeled a mutt, but neither she nor Cassima or any of the inhabitants of the castle called her that. She was stout for her size, but not grossly overweight. She was just, in short, different.

Ulrica turned around, clutching a roll of white cloth and a surgical knife in her round paws.

“Here. Let me bind your wound with this.”

Cassima extended her finger and the dog carefully wrapped the thin strip of fabric around the tip of the girl’s finger, then tying it off and smartly slicing off the end with her knife and shoving the remainder of the bandage back in her bag.

“I heard the two of you playing up there,” said Ulrica softly. “Very beautiful.”

“Thanks,” said Cassima. “Did you hear me talking to Jollo about the poem too?”

“No. I don’t hear everything, child.”

“Well, it’s something my mother read to me a few days ago. It’s incredible. It’s about that woman named She-hara…I never can remember how to pronounce it…’

“I think it is Sche-her-a-zade, Cassima,” said Ulrica, pronouncing each syllable for the princess. “And yes, I know her story.”

“”You seem to know everything,” remarked Cassima, squeezing her finger gently.

“I seem to, but I don’t,” said Ulrica. “By the way, I think that Scheherazade is not that different from you, Cassima.”

“Really? I never thought that…”

“You should. She was an ordinary woman who became a hero in such a simple way…And I think you have a hero’s potential, princess.”

Cassima was about to reply “I don’t think I do” when the supper bell rang and the halls sprang to life with activity. She rose from the stool and headed towards the door to the guardroom.

“Remember what I said, princess,” said Ulrica. “I smell deceit in this stronghold. I don’t know why, I just do. Be careful, Cassima.”

Cassima looked back at the old nurse for a moment, trying to decide whether to appear awed or humored. She never made her decision, for the increasing sound coming from above called her away from Ulrica’s room and up the stairs, into the dining hall where her parents awaited.

Chapter 4:

To a fellow member of the Black Cloak: Mordack, greetings from a fellow sorcerer, Grand Vizier to the Ruler of the Green Isles, Abdul Alhazred.

Pausing briefly to refill his pen, Alhazred quickly scanned the beginning of his letter and continued writing:

I have taken into account your extended admiration of the Princess Cassima, and have attempted to make your request beneficial to the both of us.

Again the vizier paused to read over another, older piece of parchment on the desk. His lamp lay inactive to one side, useless in the brilliant noontime sunlight coming in through his window.

As my last letter stated, my plan is in motion. My trustworthy servant, Shamir, has spread the necessary rumors and thus produced adequate unrest throughout the kingdom. No one has yet to accuse me as the rogue…

Here Alhazred crossed out the word “rogue” and tried to formulate a better word.

…as the villain…

He crossed this out as well, the term still not suitable for this formal note. After minutes of thought, Alhazred retrieved the elongated, narrow-necked, blue bottle from the right corner of the desk and uncorked it, quietly whispering into the mouth:

“Shamir! What is a good word for a man who is accused of evil deeds and has been in hiding for a long period of time?”

A high-pitched, mischievous voice came out of the vessel: “How about ‘Alhazred?’ Hee-hee-hee-heeee…”

“Not funny, Shamir! Be serious and answer! What word would best fit that description?”

“’Wrongdoer,’ Master?”

“No…too common.”

“’Blackguard?’”

“No…”

“’Snake in the grass?’”

“Ah-ha! That sounds good. Excellent. I’m corking you up now, Shamir.”

“Yes master,” said the voice as Alhazred jammed the stopper back into the bottle and placed it where it once was.

…as the snake in the grass behind the whole scheme. The King and Queen and sometimes even their nosy little daughter ask me if I know anything about it, but I always tell them I know nothing, but I will work on it.

Alhazred chuckled at his own joke, and resumed his writing:

Lately the royal couple has been asking me questions about their daughter, Cassima, since, as you know, she has come of age and no prince in the kingdom seems fit to wed her. I “hinted” that a man from another country would be the best, but not necessarily a prince…

Again he laughed, almost smearing the ink as he moved to refill his pen, which was still wet on the paper.

But still, no one suspects me. So, now to business:

Four nights from now, I will bring the princess out on the main beach, where you will easily arrive without stirring up anything. You will take her back to your island, where you can do whatever you wish with the girl. I suggest killing her, but I warn you not to leave any traces. Otherwise, you might be in trouble as well as me. Again, the date is four nights from now. Send your reply via my genie, Shamir, who undoubtedly will be there when he delivers this note…

As the vizier wrote, a slight hint of roses reached his nostrils. At first he assumed it was something blowing in from the window, a rogue breeze, perhaps, but as he tried to ignore it and continue his work, the hint slowly swelled into a full-blown solution, a strong blend of flowers and scents.

Sensing movement from behind his left shoulder, Alhazred slowly turned his head to the left, seeing nothing out of the ordinary until his head had nearly reached the point where it couldn’t turn any more, and then there was still nothing.

Confused and now paranoid, Alhazred twisted his head around to its normal, forward position and found another head looking over his right shoulder. It was Cassima. She was standing several feet from him, but still too close to be observing him from the door. In a desperate move, the vizier flung his arm over his still-moist letter and mashing it flat, realizing too late his mistake. Hissing and cursing under his breath, he turned to face the princess.

“What? What is it, princess?”

“I was going to ask you something, but since you seem so busy now, Alhazred…”

“No…I mean, yes…what did you want to ask me?” snarled Alhazred, trying to hide his secrecy behind a semi-friendly attitude.

“I think you know, Alhazred,” said Cassima, with an innocent, yet sassy demeanor. “Father has been asking you if you know anything about the tension between the isles, and you promised him a hundredfold that you would do something about it. And you don’t seem to be doing that to me.”

“I am, Cassima, and you are breaking my concentration!”

“You were laughing, and I don’t see what kind of concentration I could be breaking with you doing that.”

“All right, you little eves-dropper!” snapped Alhazred, flailing his pen with the hand that wasn’t stuck to his letter, “So I wasn’t working on solving the mysteries of the kingdom! I just happen to have other matters besides that! Are you satisfied now, princess??”

“Not quite. You’re up to something. You haven’t been showing yourself much lately.”

“It’s all in that tiny mind of yours, girl! Go tell that to someone with time on his hands!”

Cassima, quite used to such furious insults flying from her father’s vizier, replied: “It’s not all in my head, Alhazred. Ulrica told me that she sensed something as well.”

“That illegitimate mongrel says anything to be on your side! Name something she’s said that is her own word and thought, and I’ll be a winged basilisk!”

“I think it’s too late for that, Alhazred.”

“Get out of here, wench! Get out of here before I tell my genie to transform into a tumor and make a nest in that smart little brain of yours!”

“All right, I’m going, I’m going,” said Cassima, turning smartly on her heel and quickly walked out the door to his study, barely missing being speared with the vizier’s pen, which he had suddenly thrown in her direction, spraying ink everywhere before hitting the wall several inches from the door, then snapping off at the nib and falling with a clatter on the floor.

Still churning with fury, Alhazred peeled his arm from his letter, the impact of the two objects colliding had created a regular Rorschach pattern on his sleeve and the parchment, beyond examining, let alone reading. Swearing with rage, he crumpled the ruined letter and tossed it aside, pulled a new piece of paper out from the stack under his lamp, knocking it off the table, where it shattered on the floor, then pulled a new pen out of one of his drawers, nearly breaking the nib as he jabbed it into the inkwell and quickly scrawled out another letter, many times shorter than the previous attempt:

Mordack –

I’m bringing her to the beach tonight. Be there to take her to your isle. Don’t fail.

Signed,

Adbul Alhazred

Chapter 5:

Cassima’s sleep was restless that night. The memory of what Ulrica said about deception being within the castle kept her awake, often sitting up in her bed, staring at the canopy. And what she said about that woman being so much like her…her name… Schahere – again, she couldn’t remember the name…so long and ornate…just like the calligraphy of the poem itself. The poem…

Cassima rose from her bed and felt her way through the darkness, broken only by the light of the crescent moon, to her bedside table. The lantern beside her bed was glowing faintly, and in its glow she could just make out the poem, and its words…

Scheherazade, of hero’s might

Weave your adventures day and night…

A sudden noise, a muffled thud from the corridor caused Cassima to jump in surprise, her heart beating rapidly. But again, the mystical essence of the poem brought her back to it:

Never falter, never fail

You’re the one who lives the tale

Do not fear the unsheathed knife

Your dreams and thoughts become your life

Fight demons in and out of you…

Again, a noise broke the silence, this time closer to her bedroom door, though she was tempted to leave, she couldn’t break herself from the verses…

Get through your woes and start anew

Do what your heart knows is true…

Another crash from outside. This time it was too much. She couldn’t finish the poem. Cassima grabbed her lantern, flung open her door and stepped outside in her bare feet. It was cold in the castle halls, especially in her thin nightgown, pink silk embroidered with jasmines. Her gold locket felt like ice against her neck. With her free hand, she grasped it, the soft metal slowly growing warm in her grasp.

Yet another noise from down the hall, this time around the corner. With her heart and gait quickening, Cassima walked down the hall, expecting to see Alhazred, some dark wizard or a trained assassin. But surprisingly, it was none of these.

It was Shamir Shamazel, Alhazred’s genie. She seldom saw him without his master, and seeing him here, clad in his silly, pointed turban, golden eyes, baggy pants and large, overly decorated necklace shocked her more than any wizard or murderer could have.

“Oooooh, Princess Cassima!” Shamir said in his high-pitched, impish voice, his eyes twinkling. “Didn’t expect to find you outside your room in the dead of night!”

“”Shamir…it was you making those noises, wasn’t it?” asked Cassima, that being the only question she could think of offhand.

“I fear so, princess. So sorry to disturb your beauty rest!”

“Oh, you’re forgiven, Shamir,” said Cassima, suspecting his usual tricks and pranks that he occasionally pulled, especially on her.

“Yes, princess,” said Shamir, his voice suddenly softer and more solemn. “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I’ll have to take you somewhere.”

“What? What do you mean?” Cassima asked, shocked that this normally benign genie would suddenly make such a hostile comment. It had to be a joke…

“I cannot tell you, princess,” said Shamir, suddenly making a move to seize Cassima’s free hand. She jerked it out of the way, then, in an attempt to wake whoever was sleeping nearby and summon help, she let the lantern the was carrying fly from her grasp, hoping for a good, solid crash against the wall. The stucco walls of the palace could not burn.

But the lantern didn’t crash. In fact, at the same time Cassima sent it flying, Shamir pointed his hand directly at the airborne lamp and seemed to “catch” it in midair…only his hand didn’t touch it. Instead, the lantern was floating just above the carpet. As if in mockery, Shamir played with it, twirling it around and making it swerve and dip, but never once letting it fall.

“Can’t make any noise, princess,” he said with a hint of sadness in his voice and another flash of his yellow eyes. “You must come with me.” Here he gently set the lantern down and out of Cassima’s reach.

“Where do you think you’re taking me?” snapped Cassima, her voice rising in volume. “If you think you’re…”

Suddenly an empty feeling exploded in Cassima’s throat, and at the same time her speech stopped, leaving her mute and even more shocked than she had been before. Grasping her hand to her throat and struggling to speak, she glared at Shamir, who was clutching something in one of his hands. What did you do, she tried to say, only expelling air but leaving the genie with the impression that she wasn’t happy.

“Sorry,” whispered Shamir. “I had to take that from you as well. No noise, princess. Now you must come with me. My master will not approve of my being late.”

What?? rasped Cassima, her eyes widening with terror. Alhazred? Commanding you to capture me? But why? Where? What…

There was no time for asking questions or even trying to ask them, for Shamir had pointed his other hand at her and her wrists had snapped together in some kind of invisible bond, rendering her helpless. Still Cassima refused to move.

Seeing that she would not be led anywhere, Shamir grabbed her around the waist and before Cassima could break his grasp, their bodies were enveloped in a cloud of smoke, and when it cleared, there was a smell of salt in the air and a light wind around their legs. They were standing on the beach of the Isle of the Crown, with the sea before them and the path to the village behind. In her silk nightdress, Cassima was shivering within seconds. Her awe at the sudden change in setting turned to rage when she noticed Alhazred standing near the shore, looking out at the waves.

You, she tried to yell in her silenced state, I knew you were plotting something! What else have you done that you haven’t told anybody but your nefarious genie and your outlaw allies –

“Shamir?” asked Alhazred, as if Cassima weren’t there, “I think it is safe to give the little wildcat back her speech now. No one can hear her, no matter how loud she is.”

Shamir flicked open his hand, and the empty space in Cassima’s throat was instantly replenished.

“ – If my father knew about this,” yelled Cassima, not even noticing that she was once again capable of talking, “He would have you serving as mortar in the basement walls!”

“I’m afraid that will not happen, my dear Cassima,” said Alhazred aloofly. “And even if it does, you will not be here to witness it.”

“What do you mean? What’s going on?”

Alhazred did not answer. He simply stood with his eyes on the horizon, as he had been since Cassima and Shamir arrived. The princess was still trying to free herself from the genie’s arms, but only succeeding in flopping like a fish and twisting about like a person possessed. After a few minutes, Alhazred stamped his foot in frustration and again looked out over the water.

“Confound it! Where is that boarish oaf of a sorcerer! He should have been here minutes ago!”

“Sorcerer? Alhazred, I knew you were in cahoots with someone dark, but an actual sorcerer…you must be from that…”

“Finally! Here he is!” roared Alhazred, squinting his eyes at the heavens.

“Here comes whaaa-aa-aaaa – “ Cassima’s mouth dropped open before she could finish her sentence. A brilliant, pulsing red light was screaming across the water, creating an eerie, sanguineous reflection on the now churning waves, heading straight for the beach they were standing on. Unable to face it any longer, Cassima closed her eyes and prayed that the light would destroy her gently, but before she could cry for help, the light stopped. Every part of it seemed to stop. The glow, the motion, the color, and even the chaos it carried.

Daring to peer through the meshes of her lashes that blocked her nearly-closed eyes, Cassima saw a strange, dark figure floating several feet above the shoreline. Opening her eyelids fully, she noted that the figure was a man, with tenebrous, bark-like skin, pale, gray eyes and a black goatee similar to Alhazred’s. He wore dark clothes and a long black cape that floated around his feet. He was standing – or from her view, floating – on a pillow of gray smoke, giving him an appearance of a classic genie, except he did not appear willing to do her bidding at all. In fact, it seemed to be quite the opposite.

“Cassima,” he purred in a voice nearly identical to Alhazred’s when he was flattering someone. “I am the wizard Mordack. How pleasant to meet you here tonight.”

Chapter 6:

“Alhazred, who is this man?” Cassima asked, ignoring the wizard’s introduction.

“I think he clearly told you, princess,” said Alhazred, with an ugly, curling smile not unlike a snake’s grin.

“Please excuse the physical roughness needed to bring you here, princess,” said Mordack in the same, crooning drawl. “But I’m afraid you’re coming with me now.”

Cassima gave Shamir a good kick in the leg with her bare foot and finally broke free, standing before the morbid wizard with the ferocity of a tiger.

“It’s bad enough that your friend Alhazred made his genie drag me from my room in the middle of the night and down to this barren beach to almost get blinded by your approaching entourage of fire, brimstone and who knows what! If this is your idea of a joke, I’m not in the mood for it!”

Mordack raised an eyebrow and still stared at Cassima with those cold, gray eyes. “This is not a joke, young Cassima,” he said coolly. “Sorry that you were so disillusioned into believing that it was.”

He slowly turned his head to face Alhazred. “I’ll take her to my island, like you said, Alhazred.”

“And then you’ll kill her?” asked Alhazred. Cassima staggered in shock as the vizier’s face contorted into an expression of glee and greed. Her locket beat against her chest from the outside just as her heart was beating at it, only from the inside.

“Kill her?? No,” said Mordack, looking shocked at his companion’s suggestion. For the first time, Cassima felt what seemed like good feelings towards him. “I couldn’t kill a beautiful little jewel like this. I’ll only take her where no one on this island can get to. I promise you that, brother of the Black Cloak.”

Again, rage overflowed in Cassima’s heart as she looked back and forth to Alhazred, the traitor, and Mordack, the one who was going to take her from her home and family…it couldn’t be happening…

“Guards!!” Cassima screamed. “Guards! Help! Alhazred has betrayed the Crown! Guards!!” Though within she knew that her screams were useless, she continued crying for help until Mordack twirled the fingers on one of his hands, causing her to spin around and fly into his chest.

“Farewell, Alhazred,” said Mordack loudly, over Cassima’s yells and cries. “I may meet you again…but Cassima will not. I assure you.”

“You’d better teleport out of here now before she wakes the whole island,” snapped Alhazred hurriedly.

“Well…” said Mordack, showing a touch of embarrassment for the first time, “I…I…can’t teleport.”

“You what?!?” roared Alhazred loudly. “I ask you to take the girl away quickly and you show up saying you can’t teleport!?! One of the most basic wizarding tricks and you can’t do it…”

“I’m sorry,” pleaded Mordack, “I can’t teleport…at least not with two people. I can handle myself, but if I tried it with this girl, she might be left here.”

“Well, why don’t you give it a try?” snarled Cassima, now trying to break his grasp as she had with Shamir’s.

“Shut up!” said Mordack, squeezing her tighter until she was almost breathless. “The only form of self-transportation I can do with more than one being is the form I demonstrated when I arrived. It is similar to flying, only I am protected from other airborne objects like birds and dragons. I also do it in order to achieve a grand entrance, like I just did.”

Dragons? thought Cassima worriedly. Where are we going?

“It takes only a few minutes, an hour at the most,” Mordack went on, “And I can reach my isle in no time. It is just down the northern sea and over Serenia. Well…I’ll be leaving now.”

“Noooo!” Cassima wailed as Alhazred grinned again and waved good-bye and Shamir did the same. At the same time the cloud she and Mordack were on turned around and shot into the night sky. A reddish cloud enveloped them, and although she could still breathe, Cassima felt the thinning of the air and the strong winds pushing against them as they coursed through the stars. Clouds streaked by like long, white snakes and stars became comets at the speed she and Mordack were going.

After several minutes, light began to appear and soon the sky was its typical, calm, azure blue. Cassima was mournful and at the same time furious that she couldn’t enjoy it. The dark wizard, appearing no darker than he was in the night, was still clutching her waist, giving her the message that he could squeeze the air out of her if she tried to get out of his arms. But there would be no harm in just asking him something…

“Mordack,” she yelled over the noise, remembering what Alhazred had called him. “What did you mean when you said ‘we’re going to my island?’”

“I meant what I said,” said Mordack, his voice rippling backwards with the fierce winds. “You and I are going to my island. It is my own creation. I’m sure you will like it.”

Oh sure, Cassima thought, hoping that the sorcerer wasn’t a mind reader. There didn’t seem to be anything else to do but enjoy the ride. One wrong move and he could probably just drop her. Her locket was wildly dancing in the air, and it seemed ready to break free, but Cassima grasped it firmly with her hands, determined not to let go of the one thing she had to remind her of her parents.

The clouds they were passing through suddenly cleared and the pearly ocean appeared hundreds of feet below them. But there wasn’t just ocean, there was also land below, a huge, mountainous piece of terra firma set in the sea, with a beach skirting the coastline. The peaks of the mountains rose through the curtains of clouds and out of sight, even from the two airborne humans.

“What is that?” Cassima cried.

“Serenia, girl,” said Mordack. “Just a large continent connected to the land of Daventry. It’s also home to that infernal, soft wizard Crispinophur…”

Cassima wasn’t listening to what Mordack said after “Daventry.” She had heard the name before in stories and myths told by her mother, as well as Serenia. Could this mean that this wizard was taking her to one of these lands? He said it was an island…were there islands off the coast of Serenia?

With her dreams growing stronger and her grip growing weaker, Cassima’s locket suddenly whipped back and the golden chain snapped. She made a desperate grab for it as it fell, but Mordack seized her wrist and glared at her maliciously.

“Do not try that again,” he growled, “Unless you want to fall the rest of the way to my island!”

“But my locket!” Cassima screamed. “I can’t lose it! It’s the only thing I have of my home!”

“You just lost it,” snapped Mordack, squeezing her chest tighter. “It’s probably landed on that beach down there, but I’m not going down just for some scrap of jewelry! And you also have that pretty dress you’re wearing, so stop complaining!”

Cassima suddenly realized that she was still wearing her nightgown, and other than that, she had nothing on. Her face felt hot, and she closed her eyes and pursed her lips, not wanting to think about it anymore.

Finally, they began to descend. The air grew humid and salty with the smell of the sea and a thick, black mist replaced the white clouds. As they flew on, almost skimming the surface of the sea, the red aura surrounding them dissolved and Cassima could clearly see something coming out of the mist. It wasn’t moving, but since they were still flying along at a fair speed, it seemed like it was.

“It” vaguely resembled an island, but looked more like a frozen volcano, with lava pouring into the sea, but the majority of it seemed to be floating above the water. On the “island” was a castle; a castle being the thing it was most similar to, which appeared as if it had grown out of the rocks like a malignant fungus. It was repulsive to look at, and Cassima found herself turning away to avoid the nauseating feeling that was growing in her. The water beneath their feet was black, just like the mist surrounding them. As they drew closer, with no sign of slowing down, Cassima began to feel the same anxiety that she had when Mordack’s fireball was first streaking towards her and she felt it was going to crash into her. Now it was the reverse, it seemed that she was going to crash into the land, but the wizard? Who knows what he would think of that…

Before she could think any more, they had swooped upwards over a narrow, rocky beach and equally rocky path, over the heads of two twin serpents with hostile eyes that seemed to glow as they passed, and finally skidding to a stop on a flat, stone pathway, which would have led to the iron portcullis barring the massive doorway before them, but for some reason, it was rived halfway down, leaving a wide gap between them and the gate.

Before Cassima could say anything, Mordack reached into one of his pockets and pulled out a long, thin, ebony wand, then pointed it at the gap. A tiny, white spark shot out of the tip of the wand and the gap suddenly vanished. It was as if the sides of the path had grown together like skin closing over a wound. Mordack then raised his wand at the gate, which sprang open like a mousetrap, opening into a gloomy, uninviting hall. Cassima could not make out anything inside.

The wizard swiftly crossed the once empty space in the road and gestured for Cassima to follow. The princess was reluctant at first, but when Mordack’s hand tightened on his wand, she decided to do what he commanded. Her actions were not a second too soon, for as soon as she stepped over the gate threshold, the path split again, revealing the wide, gaping hole again.

“Inside,” Mordack said coldly, stepping inside the castle. Cassima silently shrugged and followed him inside. As soon as she was standing in what she decided was the main hall of the castle, the portcullis fell shut with a loud crash behind her. There was no way back now.

Chapter 7:

“All right, Cassima,” said Mordack when the dust from the crash finally settled, smoothing back his flat hair and his cape, “Now to talk about why I brought you here.”

Cassima said nothing; her emotions and morals were too strong to let her make a snappy retort.

“Alhazred has told me about you, and how beautiful you were, even as a child. Of course, I can’t tell you what else he told me, but the one thing I was certain of when I met you in person: You are indeed a beautiful creature.”

“Thanks,” replied Cassima indifferently, trying to look at the least ugly furnishing in the hall they were in. Everything was covered in dust or rat-eaten cloths. Cobweb-laced chandeliers, in many cases more web than metal, clung to the ceiling like bats, looking ready to fall at any moment. A plain, undecorated door was in the left wall, leading to another section of the castle. Further down the hall was a long dining table, in no better condition than the rest of the place, with at least ten chairs set along it, though it was obvious they were rarely used. The legs of some were rotting, as were the backs. Near the end of the hall was another doorway, giving no hint as to where it led.

“So that is why I’ve brought you here, Cassima.”

“Because you like the way I look? That’s it?”

“No, of course not,” said Mordack, pausing for effect. Suddenly he dropped to one knee before Cassima and extended a hand (the one that wasn’t on his wand). “I have brought you here so I can wed you. Will you marry me, o sweet princess of the Isles?”

It was a long time before Cassima realized what Mordack had asked her. A dozen comebacks flashed through her mind, but none reached her lips. All that she actually said was:

“What?”

“I asked you to marry me, young Cassima. That’s all I’m asking.”

You must be insane. You drag me from my family and my homeland to this primordial rock in the ocean, far away from any human life and ask me to be your wife? You’re worse than Alhazred. You’re worse than that man who decided to slaughter every bride he took the day after he married, until…

Until she came. She-hera…Shahara…However you pronounce it, Cassima thought. She was the only one who stood up to him. That’s what I’ll do. I’m not giving my life to this emaciated pig.

“No.”

“What did you say, my dear?”

“No. I would never marry you, even if my life depended on it. You’re selfish and unscrupulous. No woman in the world would make a choice like that, and I won’t either.”

Mordack’s face seemed to whittle itself into a twisted, evil, narrow-eyed grimace that drilled itself into Cassima’s mind as he tightened the grip on his wand until there was a sound of splintering wood. She feared that her opinion that death would be better than marriage to him was going to suddenly come true. If that is the case, Cassima said to herself, I’m not going to go down pleading for forgiveness. A true hero faces death without fear. Go ahead. Kill me now, if you think you can…

After several dragging seconds, Mordack did something that Cassima would never forget. His face softened, he slid his wand back into his pocket and looked at her with an expression of defeat.

“Very well,” he replied. “You are lucky that you are so beautiful. Otherwise I would have killed you.”

I still think that brains are better than beauty, Cassima thought, still shaking in her terror.

“But I still give you the opportunity to marry me. After several years of doing what I have decided you should do, you may think differently.”

Nothing could be worse than you. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Feeding dragons, assisting Charon in the Underworld, living in a cell for eternity…

“From this moment on, you will serve as the scullery maid for this castle. You will scrub the floors, clean the tables, prepare the meals and look after the beasts…”

“What?!?” Cassima shrieked, much louder than she had when she first realized Alhazred was a traitor. “A scullery maid? Me?? In this decrepit monstrosity of a castle on this barren island in the middle of…Wait. Did you say ‘beasts’?”

“Of course. You don’t think my only protection is a pair of stone snakes and an incomplete path, do you? I have several beasts within the castle walls that capture any intruders who should happen to…”

A loud rumbling cut Mordack off. The walls and floor began to shake, and presently a huge monster came galloping through the door near the end of the hall. Its head resembled an antelope’s, with sweeping horns and a long, narrow snout, but its eyes were red and a wild mane of hair went down the ridge of its back. Its front feet were cloven, but gargantuan in size, the hooves almost as large as shields, with spindly legs coming out of a fat, scaly body. Its hind feet were as different as they could be, instead of hooves, the creature had thick, reptilian claws that dug into the stone floor as it ran, its scorpion-like tail whipping around like a cat-o’-nine-tails.

As it neared, Mordack calmly raised his hand and the beast stopped, dropped back on its enormous back legs and sat still as a statue, waiting for what its master had to say.

“Scalawag! I told you to never, ever stampede through the castle like that again! You know what I do to creatures who disobey me!”

The beast bowed guiltily and lowered its slender head until it rested on its front hooves.

“This is the Princess Cassima,” said Mordack, gesturing to Cassima. “You and your fellows will not hurt her in any way unless she does something she isn’t told.”

Cassima eyed Mordack suspiciously and was about to say something, but the presence of the huge creature directly in front of her silenced her completely.

“Now, Cassima,” continued Mordack, “Your first task will be scrubbing the scullery floor, through the door farthest from us and to the left. It has not been cleaned in years. From there, you will go on to polishing the statues in the hall to your left, cleaning the dining table and fixing my dinner.”

“What?” shouted Cassima. “All this? In my dressing gown?!?”

“No, you frivolous girl! Like I said, in the castle! Trying to humor me will not make your task any easier. Now move!!”

Mordack gave Cassima a hard shove in her back, sending her sprawling across the hard, stone floor and onto her knees. Lifting herself up slowly and wincing in pain, she could hear Mordack speaking behind her in a dragging, admonishing drawl:

“You’d better hurry up, princess. I don’t tolerate dawdling in my castle…”

Out of the corner of her eye, Cassima could see the wizard’s hand going for his wand again, and she was about to dodge the blast of light that she expected to spurt out of the business-end of the long, slender rod, but instead of an electrical surge hitting her in the back, there was a sharp crack and a singeing flame of pain that sent her sprawling again. Mordack hadn’t used the wand as a wand. Instead he had used it as a whip or a schoolmaster’s cane, and with a very similar infliction on Cassima as she limped towards the back of the room, clutching the place where the wand had hit her.

“A very useful tool,” Mordack remarked casually. “When magic apparently isn’t adequate, the typical ‘brute force’ strategy is always a sure bet. Now move.”

Tired of being a target for Mordack and his deformed beast, Cassima stomped down the length of the hall and through the hallway to the left of the dining table. From there, she walked through a narrow corridor decorated with more of the ghoulish sculptures and decorations, as well as a devilish pipe organ against the right wall, and into a cobwebby kitchen, with a high, vaulted ceiling, a dead fireplace with coals that looked centuries old rotting in the hearth, pots and pans cluttering a nearby counter and a decaying, wooden table in the center of the room. A rusty bucket filled with brackish water stood near one of the legs, beckoning Cassima to start working, along with a dirty cloth hanging over the rim.

Sighing, Cassima knelt down beside the bucket, her knees still raw and bleeding from Mordack’s first push, and her back still stinging from his second blow. Grimacing in distaste, she picked up the moth-eaten cloth and dipped it into the gray water, using the same method she had seen the servants of her own castle use. Squeezing most of the liquid out, Cassima then slapped the cloth down on the floor and began rubbing the stones with a circular motion. A few minutes of this revealed a floor that was barely distinguishable from the dirty floor. Sighing again, Cassima dipped the cloth in the bucket again and crawled over to another unclean spot.

As she scrubbed the scullery floor and silently lamented over her already ruined nightgown, a soft grunt over her shoulder caught her attention. It was the beast that had almost stampeded her and Mordack upon their arrival, the one Mordack had called “Scalawag.” A very unflattering name, but still, it seemed to fit. He had somehow crept in behind her without making a sound. In spite of the clamor he made when he first appeared, Scalawag was apparently able of moving silently on his big, flat feet. He was peering at her with immense curiosity, his antelope’s head with its big, dewy eyes seeming remarkably innocent, in spite of the scorpion’s tail dangling over his back.

As Cassima looked into his eyes, she realized for the first time that her own eyes were stinging. The coldness of the castle must have caused her to forget her emotions, but now the site of the naïve, emotionless beast somehow made her aware of what she was feeling inside.

“I’m crying, aren’t I?” she asked Scalawag, her voice choked up with her sudden grief. Though he made no verbal reply, Cassima swore that Scalawag actually nodded.

Chapter 8:

After several hours of toil that day, as the sun was setting in the west and the shadows became long and red within the castle walls, Cassima was finally reaching the end of her work as she put the last finishing touches on Mordack’s dinner, a large, pale fish that had been sitting beside the fireplace.

After several hours beforehand, Cassima had finally gotten the fire burning (which was difficult considering the greenness of the wood supplied), skewered the fish on the fireplace poker and held it over the flames. Scalawag proved to be remarkably helpful to Cassima, showing her how to cook the fish and which herbs to season it with, and she assumed that he had been a cook for Mordack before but had been excused because of his awkward handling skills. Perhaps another beast, a breed with actual hands and digits prepared the food before Cassima became a scullery girl.

After the fish was ready, Cassima washed off one of the crusty plates and a set of silverware and placed the steaming food on the plate. After a brief pondering of what Mordack would want to drink, Scalawag again came to her rescue and pointed out a stash of old wine bottles beneath one of the cupboards in the other half of the kitchen. An old, oak door at the back of the kitchen interested her immensely, but the wizard’s tight schedule wouldn’t let her venture any further.

Her day had been filled with rushing back and forth, trying to find the rooms that Mordack had specified in his instructions. When she took too long to start her next task after completing another, Mordack would suddenly appear in a cloud of smoke and bellow at her like a crazed Minotaur, asking why she wasn’t working and how she was supposed to follow orders until Cassima could get a word in edgewise and explain that she didn’t know where the room her next chore entailed was. Mordack would then give her a brief description of the room and vanish to an unknown place.

At first this confused Cassima, for from what she had heard Alhazred say, Mordack couldn’t teleport, but then she remembered Mordack explaining that he could not teleport with more than one person, but he could by himself. His reappearances were quite less puzzling after that was cleared up.

Cassima’s mind had become a labyrinth of maps, directions running through her memory like flying ribbons, replaying every direction to each room in the castle, struggling to hold on to them…from the main hall, the corridor goes to the left, up the stairs is the observatory, left from there is Mordack’s room, try not to go in there often, down from there is his library, don’t go in there either, right from the observatory is the laboratory, go there only to clean, starting from the main hall again, the second door to the left goes past the organ, into the kitchen, the cellar I guess it is, and that door…

“Cassimaaaaaaaaa!” bellowed Mordack’s voice, from the dining room. His usual dull “explosion” that occurred whenever he appeared in the teleportation fashion hadn’t happened, so instead he must have walked down the stairs from his room…or his lab, wherever he was…

“I’m coming!” yelled Cassima angrily, pouring the wine from one of them more ancient bottles into a rough, glass goblet. The goblet reminded her of something that had happened at her home a few days ago…something that had to do with the bandage on her right index finger…But the shock of the events that had taken place in the last few hours had wiped almost all her memories of her dear home from her mind. If only she could remember, though…

Snatching a blotchy, wool napkin from a shelf, Cassima gathered up the fork, knife, goblet and plate in her two hands and carried it all through the corridor with the morbid organ with the stone head that seemed to follow her wherever she went (with Scalawag quietly clumping behind her), and into the dining hall. Mordack sat at the head of the table, drumming his brown hands on the wood, which was noticeably cleaner, thanks to Cassima’s scrubbing and polishing. Cassima set the dish before Mordack, placing the utensils, napkin and drink in the proper places her mother had indicated to her many years ago, insisting that it was an essential thing to know as a woman, then Cassima stepped back, awaiting whatever task Mordack was going to assign her next.

Far from giving her orders, Mordack instantly became engrossed with his food, examining it thoroughly from every angle and sniffing it cautiously, as if he was concerned that it was poisoned.

“Not bad for a first attempt, princess,” said Mordack flatly. “None of my beasts have ever cooked this well.” At these words, Scalawag sulked away from Cassima and slouched down in a corner. “You may sit down if you want,” he offered.

Reluctantly, Cassima sat down in the chair at the opposite end of the table, as far away from the wizard as she could. Though Mordack examined her several times through the course of his meal, Cassima never so much as made eye contact with him. Instead she studied the ragged front of her nightgown, which looked just like something a scullery girl would wear. The worn away part revealed a more than discreet view of her legs, making Cassima feel extremely insecure, even when her legs were entirely hidden from Mordack’s sight. Who knows, maybe he could see through solid wood…

“I’m sure this day has been a bit much for you and your royal weaknesses,” said Mordack in the same, indifferent voice.

Shut up, you, said Cassima to herself, hoping that Mordack couldn’t hear her. Mordack looked at her with an expression giving her the idea that that he had, but his features then relaxed as he threw a fish bone over his shoulder, where it bounced across the floor for a short distance. Scalawag pricked up his ears, spotted the bone and pounced on it like a cat, gnawing on it as if it was the only food he had eaten in days. From the looks of it, it probably was.

“I’m also sure,” continued Mordack, “That you would not appreciate doing these chores all day tomorrow.”

Cassima did not raise her head to look at him.

“Or the next few weeks…”

Still, Mordack got nothing but silence from the other end of the table.

“Months…”

Silence.

“Years…”

Finally Cassima looked at him, her narrow emerald eyes black in the shadow of her tangled hair.

“There is an alternative to this, of course, princess,” said Mordack lightly.

Cassima blinked slowly, her gaze penetrating the wizard’s gray eyes unerringly.

“As I said this morning, the only way you will get out of this miserable life is to marry me. Surely you’ve had a change of heart by now, my dear princess.”

What I need is a change of clothes, thought Cassima wrathfully.

“Well? Will you do me the honor of being my bride, Cassima?”

“No.”

“Are you quite certain, dear?”

“Yes, I’m certain. No. Absolutely not, Mordack. I’ll never marry you. I thought I said that clearly today.”

“Very well,” said Mordack, his hand reaching towards his wand. Cassima, seeing it coming, sprang out of her chair and towards the door to the kitchen. “You will start work at sunup tomorrow. I will give you your instructions then.”

“What am I going to eat?” shouted Cassima. “I can’t work without food!”

“Find something in the kitchen,” growled Mordack, putting his wand away. “A few scraps of bread or some dry beans. I always keep a good supply of food in there.”

“But you don’t cook it yourself!”

“”I have more important things to do, girl! That’s what you are for!”

“Where am I going to sleep tonight?” asked Cassima, since they were both in a fairly open question-and-answer state. “I haven’t seen any spare bedrooms anywhere!”

“Sleep on the floor, silly princess!” snapped Mordack, as if Cassima slept that way every day of her life.

“What??” yelled Cassima, for the fourth time that day. “On the floor?”

“You’ve got a nice echo there,” remarked Mordack. “And yes, that’s what I said, on the floor. You can pile some of the potato sacks in a corner, make a little bed for yourself. Just don’t snooze the day away! Now get out of my sight!”

As Cassima turned away, Mordack drained the wine out of his goblet and threw it at her as she ran for the door. An explosion of glass hit the floor near Cassima’s foot, some of the slivers hitting her in the heel. She ran all the way back to the kitchen, where she slumped to the floor in a corner of the room, crying softly.

When she finally became conscious of the pieces of glass stuck in her heel and the blood oozing from them, she slowly pulled them out on by one, wincing in pain with each extraction.

Feeling very much like the Greek hero Achilles, Cassima limped over to one of the cupboards and opened it, finding a stale loaf of bread within. Forcing herself to eat half of the bland confection over several minutes, Cassima shoved what was left of the loaf back in the cupboard, then walked across the room and found a pile of rotting sacks in one of the corners and pulled them over to her own corner until she had achieved a nice, thick layer, then lay down upon the sacks, still crying as she struggled to sleep, trying not to think of her mother, who was probably weeping just like she was.

Chapter 9:

Cassima’s sleep on the hard, stone floor was a restless one, which was normal for someone who had slept in a canopied bed all her life. When she finally succumbed to her tiredness after many hours of tossing and turning, it seemed only a few minutes more before Mordack was shaking her awake.

“Lazy little minx! The sun has already risen and I ordered you to be up no later than sunrise!”

Cassima squinted through her sticky eyes at the furrowed, dark forehead and even darker eyes that were glaring at her.

“What?”

“If you’re going to be my scullery girl, you must learn to follow orders! Now up!”

A sudden jolt from Mordack’s wand made Cassima suddenly stand up rigidly, as if she were tied against a stake. Her mind, though still exhausted, now felt like it was in the grasp of an iron fist.

“That’s better,” said Mordack in satisfaction. “Now for your chores: You will start off fixing my breakfast and sweeping the floor in my laboratory. Then I want you to organize the cupboards in the kitchen and polish the metal parts of the machine on the upper story of the lab.”

“Mmm,” said Cassima dully, unable to comprehend what was going on in her half-conscious state. Mordack solemnly nodded and vanished. Cassima’s rigid transfixion seemed to vanish, and she fell to the floor like a dropped marionette. Slowly riding to her feet again, she began groping around in the cupboards of the kitchen, searching for something suitable for breakfast.

After several minutes, Cassima managed to cook up a mediocre pot of porridge, leaving just enough for herself. Mordack ate this without comment, ordering Cassima to do the rest of his previous chores. Cassima’s weary body was barely able to start, let alone complete the chore of sweeping the entire laboratory with the bristly, stiff bush of a broom. More than once she found herself falling asleep with her arm resting on the broom’s handle. The first time this happened, she woke herself up, but the second time, she was awakened by Mordack’s roaring voice, yelling at her to wake up and get back to work.

The rest of the day was all an endless blur of falling asleep, trying to stay awake, getting admonished by the wizard and moving on to the next chore. Then came dinner. This time it was a roast, but where it came from Cassima had no idea. The fish she had prepared the night before surely came from the waters surrounding the island (if indeed fish could survive that mess), but where would a roast come from?

This question was still burning in Cassima’s mind as she slowly carried the steaming piece of meat to the dining table, where Mordack waited impatiently. As she set the food before him, she gently asked the wizard:

“Mordack? Where do you get this and all the other food on this island? I can understand the fish’s origin, but what about the vegetables and meat that I’ve seen in the kitchen?”

After chomping through several bites of beef without reply, Mordack grinned slightly and said:

“Don’t you know? You’ve known me long enough to make a good assumption, no?”

Cassima shook her head.

“Well, it’s stolen,” said Mordack lightly.

“Stolen?” Cassima asked, horrified (though knowing a wizard like Mordack, it hardly seemed horrifying, more like “typical”).

“Of course,” Mordack said. “You know that the mainland of Serenia has a small town near the mountain range? There’s enough for me to get by on. I simply spy on one of their humble abodes through my crystal ball…”

Crystal ball? Cassima thought excitedly. This awful wizard has something as amazing as a crystal ball??

“…And then I just transport it here as quickly as that. No one knows where I live, so I am perfectly safe, with no alibis necessary to support me.”

You keep speaking using the singular pronouns, thought Cassima. Are you forgetting that I’m here now?

“And again, I ask you…will you marry me so that I will no longer remain the lonesome vagabond that I am? I could fashion us a beautiful island paradise in the middle of the sea, where the gardens are always in bloom and we have servants to tend to our every need, and you never have to wear those filthy rags again!”

These “rags” were my silk nightclothes, thought Cassima angrily. And you wouldn’t do something like that if your alternative would be marrying a Cyclops.

“No,” said Cassima. “I told you twice, and I’ll tell you again. My answer will always be no.”

“All right,” said Mordack after a brief pause. “Get out of here, scullery girl, and don’t let me see your dirty face until morning.”

Gladly, thought Cassima as she ran away from the table, through the corridor and into the kitchen, where she gratefully lay down on her bed of sacks, where she was asleep within minutes.

The next several weeks turned out to be one endless stream of work for Cassima. Every day Mordack would shake her awake (except for the rare occasions when she woke up on her own), give Cassima her orders, breakfast always preceding the rest of the chores, then fix the wizard his meal, to the room of the first task, repeat for the next, the next and the next, get scolded by the wizard for dallying, work a bit quicker, try not to fall asleep, get confronted by the wizard again to tell Cassima what to do next, do what he said, then the next chore, then dinner, a few scraps for her, and to bed.

Every hour Cassima secretly mourned the loss of her home and family, everything she had taken for granted, now gone forever. All because of that vizier Alhazred. If only she could get off the island and find a way back home, she could tell her parents everything, and Alhazred would be doing work lower than what Cassima was doing now. But there was no way off the island, and Mordack’s rambling stories of how he had battled sea serpents in his attempt to create the island were no consolation. These facts made Cassima grieve even more, but with Mordack’s non-stop chores hitting her at every hour of every day, there seemed to be no time even for grief.

Her ruined nightgown soon became unsuitable for wearing, so several nights before she got rid of it completely, Cassima scavenged the basement for a needle and thread, finally finding a nice supply of the latter in a large rat’s nest behind a large barrel. The needle she never found, instead she found a good substitute for one: a large fishhook on one of the many dirty, stone windowsills, obviously for the beasts Mordack kept that were capable of handling a hook and a line to catch the fish that strayed out into the stagnant waters surrounding the isle.

Using the fishhook and the coarse thread, Cassima sewed some of the potato sacks together with the limited needlepoint skills her mother had taught her, making an uncomfortable, but sturdy dress, tied about the waist with a frayed rope belt, one that she assumed made her look just like one of the captive princesses in her fairy tales. Again, she vaguely remembered the words to a strange poem from her distant past:

Do not fear the unsheathed knife

Your dreams and thoughts become your life

Sighing heavily in realization of the strange irony, Cassima threw what was left of her silk nightgown out one of the highest windows, not bothering to watch it flutter down like a dying bird, falling to the sharp rocks below. She continued to work in her new attire, ignoring Mordack’s snide remarks about her appearance, and still refusing his nightly request to marry him, no matter how furious he became.

Her body became dirty and coarse, and she had no opportunity to bathe, not even in the salty seawater. Her bare feet became so callused that using pumice on them would do no good – her feet had achieved the very texture of pumice, matching her hardened mind and fading memories as the endless stream of nearly identical days marched by.

One day, however, when black clouds were releasing torrents of rain down upon the castle (the castle seeming to be the only place the rain was coming to), Mordack was busy in his laboratory, stoking the fire in the large, rectangular furnace in order to keep it alight, a task that he insisted was accomplished purely with a trained, magic-oriented mind, though Cassima could not see why.

It was obvious that he was going to spend most of the day brooding over his fire, so Cassima decided to take advantage of this. Since there still were no obvious means of escape she could uncover, she decided to explore the one thing that hadn’t left her mind from the first day she arrived: the wooden door in the back of the kitchen.

Quietly, using the same skills she had developed sneaking out of her room in the castle of the Green Isles at night to visit the gardens, Cassima crept down the length of the kitchen and lifted the heavy brass ring on the door. It wasn’t locked. Giving the ring a firm pull, she slowly drew the door open, praying that it wouldn’t creak or make any revealing noise, no matter how small. Mordack, it seemed, could hear anything she did.

When the opening between the door and the wall was wide enough, Cassima quickly slipped through and found herself in the tenebrous space on the other side of the door. After a few minutes, her eyes became used to the pressing darkness and strained to identify the strange room she was in. When her efforts yielded no real result, she walked forward a few steps, to see how far the corridor was. After a few paces, the wall suddenly made a sharp turn and the corridor made a 90-degree turn to the left. Cassima walked in the direction the hall pointed her until another wall rose up in front of her. This time the hall forked, one path leading to the right, and one to the left.

Cassima then realized just what she had stepped into. It was the same thing Theseus had walked into on his quest to find the Minotaur.

It was a labyrinth.

Chapter 10:

In her sudden excitement, Cassima was about to dart into the dank passages and see what there was to explore, her imagination running wild with possibilities: a subterranean tunnel to the Green Isles, a magic portal to Serenia, a way to summon help, a trove of treasure with a potion that could do away with Mordack…

But her sensibility stopped her from going more than two steps down the right fork. In a maze like this she could surely get lost, and who knows what beasts could be lurking in the shadows, ready to punish her as Mordack bade them to do if she disobeyed…and this maze was surely not a place that he would allow her to wander through…

Do what Theseus did, thought Cassima. Of course. She skipped back to the door and pried it open carefully. It was fortunate that she left it partially open, for when she tried the handle, it wouldn’t budge. It must be stuck, thought Cassima. On one of the shelves in the kitchen, under a pile of dried squashes were the few yards of thick thread left over from sewing her dress. Gathering up the small bundle, Cassima walked out the door again and tied the end of the string to the handle of the door.

Letting the thread trail behind her on the floor, she gently gripped the ball of thread in her hand and continued down the corridor. At the first junction, she turned right and continued down until she came to the next junction. Here she turned left, then right again. It didn’t really matter which way she went, because the thread would always guide her back to her starting point. The only real danger seemed to be getting caught by Mordack or by one of his beasts, which, even though she had seen only one, Cassima assumed there were more somewhere in the castle, and this labyrinth seemed to be an ideal place for them to lurk.

Maybe I should’ve brought a dagger, like Theseus also did, she thought. But what in this castle is even close to a dagger? One of those dull kitchen knives? Any beasts that caught me with something like that’d probably laugh themselves senseless.

As if alerted by her thoughts, a sudden scuffling made by a rat-sized animal came from ahead of her. Cassima stopped, listening tenaciously until the scuffling died away. Sighing quietly in relief, Cassima continued through the maze.

She was still suspicious as to what she would find, or indeed could. The walls of the maze were thick and plain, with no sign of there being a secret door hidden in any of them. The floor and ceiling were of equal blandness, not made of stone and mortar, like the rest of the castle, but instead of a dark gray, solid substance, similar to the stucco of her former home, but with a touch much like stone, rough and cold as ice.

The ball of thread in Cassima’s hand was dwindling rapidly, and she was still getting nowhere. She was ready to turn around and try another path, when suddenly a low, sonorous sound echoed through the maze. It was difficult to place what the sound was, but it seemed strangely unthreatening. Again, the short, abrupt noise resounded down the hall she was standing in.

From where Cassima stood, it seemed to be coming from around the corner several feet ahead of her and to her left. She was not afraid of the sound, or even who or what the sound could be coming from, but she was still very apprehensive. But then…she remembered the lines of a poem from her past. The one about the hero…and how Ulrica had said the princess was like her. Heroes don’t turn back because of a frightening noise. They go on and see just what it is.

With a sense of strength, Cassima cautiously walked down the corridor and turned the corner. The hall turned again, then once more, spiraling to what turned out to be a dead end…but this dead end was occupied.

Squatting in the corner of the maze was a huge, broad beast. His tiny red eyes, peering out of a head tiny in proportion to the rest of his body, shining like his large, sharp teeth, watched Cassima closely. His feet were large and flat, resembling those of an elephant or a rhinoceros. The only visible hair he had sprouted out of the top of his head, a ratty brown color, was bound with a metal hairpin, making his appearance altogether a little ridiculous.

Cassima wasn’t sure how to react. The beast seemed capable of capturing her immediately and bringing her to Mordack, who could, for all she knew, be over with his fire-stoking and now looking for her. But in spite of his fierce features, the beast looked almost benign, and in a way playful…but again, one can’t judge people that way…or beasts.

Cassima stepped forward shakily and reached out to touch the beast’s topknot. The beast looked temporarily befuddled, then suddenly jumped into the air about a foot and came down with a sickening thud, nearly flattening Cassima’s toes. She stepped back in terror, breathing much faster than she had before when she first saw the creature, which appeared just as mellow as he had before, but this time he bore a hint of malice.

“Sorry,” said Cassima timidly, not knowing what else to say.

“Dink,” replied the creature. The sound his voice was the same noise that Cassima had heard twice in the corridor, though the reason he made that sound she didn’t know. But he seemed capable of speech, unlike Scalawag, and was also friendly, unlike Mordack, who thought that a good attitude was something that was wasted on his slaves.

“I hope I didn’t startle you,” whispered Cassima, trying to at least get their friendship started on a good note.

“Dink,” said the beast again.

“Does Mordack keep you down here?”

“Dink.”

“Well, Scalawag is allowed to roam the castle, I thought you would too.”

“Dink.”

“I guess you don’t know me…uh…beast…”

“Dink.”

“My name is Princess Cassima. From the Land of the Green Isles. Mordack kidnapped me and brought me here.”

“Dink…Dink…Dink.”

“Is that all you’re going to say to me?” Cassima asked, the beast’s repetitive speech both irritating and amusing her.

“Dink.”

“Well…you’re one of the only friendly creatures on this island. I hope I can see you again…uh…er…”

“Dink.”

“Yes, Dink.”

Cassima left Dink in his corner, since he had no inclination of going with her. Following her thread back to one of the junctions where she had originally gone to the left, Cassima decided to head right this time. As she was walking through the twisting corridors and abrupt corners, a loud scuffling noise sounded again. It was coming from behind her this time. She whirled around quickly and spotted the sound’s source immediately: a small, brightly colored creature scurrying across one of the walls of the labyrinth.

It looked like a four-legged spider, but it seemed more mammalian than arachnid. It was a brilliant chartreuse, the first color that Cassima had seen in the dull castle she was standing in. As it drew nearer to her, the animal suddenly stopped and peered at her curiously, curiously in that it had no visible head or eyes.

After examining the stranger thoroughly, the creature rapidly crawled down the wall, turned a corner and vanished, the noise gradually fading with it. Shrugging her shoulders, Cassima continued her way down the corridor, wondering if she would meet another of the odd organisms, which also seemed to be harmless, and almost cute in their appearance.

After a few more minutes, Cassima heard yet another noise, not dull and resounding like Dink’s monosyllabic voice, and not swift and scuttling like the sound of the wall-crawling creature. This was a loud, thundering sound of hoof-beats on stone. It was not as thunderous as Scalawag’s, but much more like the hooves of a goat or a horse, not like the plate-sized feet Scalawag had.

The beats grew louder and louder until the floor under Cassima’s feet began vibrating, then a strange, large, blue beast rounded a corner in front of her and stopped inches from the tips of her toes. This beast was definitely more colorful than Dink or Scalawag, and more bizarre still. Cassima could recognize no familiar animal traits in the creature’s appearance.

What it seemed to be was a hairless, slim, blue monstrosity with strange, curling horns wrapped around its head like a ram. Its legs were coiled around themselves as well, making it run and walk bowlegged. From the side, with the exception of the color, it resembled a human ear more than anything else. The arms of the beast were actually quite human, with thick, knobby fingers that looked capable of a good grip.

But like Dink, this creature did not look at all like it was eager to capture Cassima at all. It also appeared very friendly. Using the same approach she had with Dink, Cassima attempted to start a conversation with the beast.

“Hello. My name is Cassima. Princess Cassima. Of the Green Isles?”

The beast regarded her out of its beady, black eyes but made no vocal response.

“Do you have a name?”

The beast shook its head slowly. Apparently it understood her quite clearly. Not only that, but it could communicate without a voice. Obviously this was something Mordack had taught it.

“I see. Mordack keeps you down here?”

The beast shook its head again.

“You can go anywhere on this island?”

The beast nodded.

“But not off it?”

The beast shook its head.

“There’s no way off this island?”

Another headshake, but this time a more reluctant one.

“No way that you know of, you mean?”

An exuberant nod. After a short pause, Cassima asked the beast a question that she should have asked at the beginning of their conversation:

“You don’t like Mordack, do you?”

An exaggerated headshake followed by a ferocious gnashing of its goat-like teeth.

“You’re not alone, then.”

Suddenly, from above the maze came the worst possible voice Cassima wished to hear in her predicament. The wizard’s voice, bellowing:

“Cassiiiimaaaaaaaa!”

Chapter 11:

“Oh no,” Cassima cried. “He’s going to paralyze me with his wand if he finds me here! I’ve got to get back to the maze door!”

The blue beast blinked in surprise and grew tense, its back legs coiled like springs. Cassima turned and ran back through the maze, following the thread and rapidly coiling it back up as she moved. It was a few seconds before she realized that the beast was running behind her. She spun around and looked it in the eyes, for a moment unaware of her trouble.

“You want to follow me?”

The beast nodded, but its eyes flicked up towards the ceiling, noting that he knew what was going on.

Again, Cassima turned and raced through the labyrinth of tunnels, turns and twists until she finally reached the door and the true terror of her predicament finally hit her.

The door was closed. Either the wind blew it shut – if there was any wind – or some other creature in this maze had accidentally slammed it shut. Praying that the door had only been stuck when she tried it from the inside, Cassima yanked on the handle with all her strength. The door remained still. She tried the handle with both hands, but it was no use.

“It must be locked from this side!” she wailed in despair and horror. “And I can’t pick locks! How can I get back into the castle? He’ll skin me!”

The beast was eyeing her and the door in deep contemplation, then the solution seemed to come to him. He gently grasped her arm with his large paw-like hand and looked into her green eyes pleadingly, as if asking for her trust.

“You want me to come with you?” Cassima asked. “You know another door?”

The beast shrugged, then nodded. Before Cassima could ask anything more, the creature pulled her to its side and faced the wall to the left of the wooden door. Suddenly, there was a low humming sound and a rectangular, black hole appeared in the wall, just the size and shape a door would have. Gripping her arm more tightly, the beast then leapt through the doorway, which sealed itself behind them, revealing nothing but darkness. In the next minute, there was another hum and another door opened, this time leading into the grand hall of the castle. Cassima had no idea how this could be, since the labyrinth was beneath the castle, but very little was impossible in this place.

Before Cassima had time to thank the creature, it had disappeared through the door, which vanished at once. In the next instant, Mordack poofed into the room, with one of his “darker” expressions plastered across his face.

“Cassima! Where have you been? If you’ve been sleeping on the job again, I’ll…”

“No! I haven’t been sleeping, Mordack!” Cassima shouted, quickly stuffing her ball of thread into a pocket.

“I’ll accept your excuse for now. It’s time for you to sweep the kitchen. It’s still as filthy as ever.”

“I just cleaned it two days ago!”

“I have noticed no difference. Now move!”

With her head held high, Cassima stomped back to the kitchen to do what Mordack ordered. As she found the bristly broom and began the tedious task of sweeping the floor, she curiously eyed the basement door, wondering where the strange blue creature was and whether she would get a chance to thank him, or even explore the maze some more…

He didn’t even have a name…

As the months dragged on, Mordack grew increasingly more and more vicious as Cassima continued to refuse his questions to marry her. The time she spent working and the time she spent sleeping began to grow imbalanced, the former gaining the upper hand. The upside to this was that she was free to wander the castle at night, while Mordack snored away in his over-decorated, grotesque bedchamber.

The first place Cassima decided to investigate on one of her sleepless nights was the library. Though she wasn’t as desperate as a person in danger of losing her life, her need to get off the island was growing with her master’s malicious temper. Since the beast in the maze had indicated there was no ordinary way to escape the castle, perhaps the way out was by magic, and being the captive of an amateur wizard, there was no way Cassima wasn’t going to find anything on magic in his library.

The library of the castle was a high-ceilinged chamber, with iron stools and strange implements scattered everywhere. The table was scattered with scrolls and papers, which Cassima decided not to move, in case Mordack noticed. The shelves on all sides of the room were crammed with books, all of them ancient and falling apart. Cassima started with the shelf to the right of the desk, with no particular goal in mind. Anything that looked interesting (and was written in a familiar language) she would read.

Perhaps I could find a spell that could turn me into a bird, Cassima pondered. But then how would I become human again once I reached the isles? Not only that, but how would I find my way…oh well. There has to be a way off this rock…

During the hours that she searched the book-packed room, in the few scraps of parchment that were written in her language, she found nothing that would aid in her escape. Spells to prepare food, to charm animals (that must have been Mordack’s spell when he tamed his beasts), create rain and drought…none were in the least bit helpful. Disappointed and aware that her time in the library was limited, Cassima turned to leave, but then her eye fell upon something different, resting on the large desk at the back wall of the room. It was the only thing that truly seemed familiar to her in the library: a tiny, detailed model of a sailboat. She had never seen a real one, but the pictures from her storybooks were real enough. For some reason, she was intrigued by the craftsmanship of the little craft, and briefly pondered the po