Hasan - A Novel Part 22

Morning came. Hours had pa.s.sed, seeming like minutes while they cowered in the gully listening to Magma's wrath. There was no sign of the Queen's army.

Even as the day brightened, the air filled with choking sulphurous fumes. A dense cloud of smoke rolled over, turning the day to night again. The blasts came louder, and the ground shook steadily.

Then there was a stillness.

"Is it over?" Hasan inquired hopefully.

Shawahi and Dahnash stared at him. "Over? Magma is a marid."

As though that explained everything. "Well maybe we'd better move on before the Queen finds us."

"Don't worry about the Queen. She'll be busy enough with Magma," Shawahi said, smiling to herself.

They began their trek, however, away from the moun- tain. The rumbles began again as they did so. "He's spotted them," Dahnash said.

"But why should he go after them, when we did it?"

"I framed them," Shawahi said.

An impenetrable swirl of smoke obscured the cone, and lightning flashed from that cloud into the surrounding air. Hot ash rained down upon them, making immediate cover necessary. Hasan was surprised to discover that the parti- cles, though white with heat, could be brushed off quickly from the skin without extreme effect. The party was able to proceed through the strange storm by holding bundles of large leaves overhead.

A wind came up, gentle at first, but rapidly increasing to violence. Dust blew into the eyes, nose and mouth. The world tasted of whirling ashes.

They were in the jungle now, blindly charging through trees and trailing vines. Wild beasts swarmed about them, but paid no attention to the human party. Even tigers and pythons were intent only upon escape. Hasan would have marveled at this unusual camaraderie of living things if he hadn't had other problems to take his attention.

The explosions resumed, louder than ever. Larger frag- ments fell from the sky, some the size of human heads.

They traveled desperate miles, but neither noise nor smoke seemed to diminish. The sound of Magma became a sustained roar, deafening the world with its power. Light ash covered every leaf of the jungle trees and carpeted the ground.

At last they could travel no more. Sana was sobbing and gasping for breath, her face grimed with dust, and Shawahi wasn't much better off. Even the ifrits seemed morose and tired.

Magma's cloud had formed into a pine tree many miles high, the last time Hasan had glimpsed it. He hoped the tree would not come crashing in their direction. All they could do was wait, tired and hungry and afraid.

"I think we're far enough away," Shawahi said.

All night Magma vented his fury into the sky. The trees of the forest shriveled and burned, and when the morning came the sun appeared only as a distant b.l.o.o.d.y ball behind a curtain of sickly yellow.

They ate what they could stomach, drank from the water bags the ifrits were still able to provide, and slept. There was nothing else to do, though the roiling dreams of the marid clothed their slumber in nightmare. Would they ever see a normal world again?

On the third day the earth jumped again with a cataclys- mic blast. Hasan was thrown to the ground, head spinning again with the violence of both external and internal rage. He tried to cover Sana, waiting for the hot fragments to smash into the ground, killing whom they would. Magma had multiplied his power manyfold . . .

Nothing happened.

A stiff wind lifted the smoke and haze to reveal the devastated jungle. Ash was inches deep over everything, and not a creature moved.

But Hasan's mind was empty. Magma was gone.

By mutual consent they traveled back to the mountain. The distance which had seemed interminable through the raining stone now became short. In hours they were back.

Hasan looked upon the scene, hardly crediting it. The cone was gone; the neighboring temple was gone; even the plain upon which the ifrits had battled the Queen's army was gone, and the protective gully. All that remained was a giant circular valley, a cauldron more than two thousand paces across, wisps of fog hovering above it. Waves of heat still emanated. "Magma did-this?"

Shawahi nodded. "He sleeps again-but he isn't gone. A marid is never gone." She stared wistfully at the place the temple had occupied. "All the records and artifacts of the Wak empire were there," she murmured. "Magma destroyed everything. I wonder if it was not too great a price to pay for the safety of three fugitives."

Hasan didn't know what to say. He felt painfully guilty about his overeager, ignorant desire to see the marid wake. True, the Queen had been a terror-but she was undoubtedly a capable ruler. How could he equate the success of his quest with the destruction of an empire?

They turned away and began to organize for the journey to Arabia. The four kings provided food and horses and a magnificent tent for the party to relax in before undertak- ing the hardships of travel.

But others had survived the holocaust. The scouting ifrits brought in no less a person than Queen Nur al-Huda and several of her chief officers. They were dizzy and bemused, but her magic had saved them from death. They were all that was left of the magnificent amazon army.

The kings brought Hasan a throne of alabaster inlaid with jewels and pearls so that he could sit in judgment. They brought another of ivory plaited with glittering gold threads for the princess Manar al-Sana, and a third for Shawahi Zat al-Dawahi. There, near the brink of the disas- ter wrought by the marid of the mountain, the three awaited the prisoners.

The Queen was pinioned at the elbows and fettered at the feet, but her imperious beauty had not deserted her. She wore a flexible jacket of python skin, and did not look at all ashamed for the damage resulting from her intractable att.i.tude.

Shawahi was overcome by rage. Hasan had thought she was mellowing toward the Queen, now that the battle was over, but he had underestimated the wrath of a woman who had been betrayed.

"O harlot, O tyrant," Shawahi screeched from her throne. "Your recompense for your despicable deeds which have demolished the accomplishment of an empire shall be to be bound to the tails of two mares who have been denied water until their thirst is burning and who are released in sight of water; and two b.i.t.c.hes starved for a week shall be released to follow you and rend your skin. After that your flesh shall be cut off and fed to them piece by piece. How could you treat your own sister with such infamy, O strumpet, knowing that she was lawfully married in the sight of Allah, which these two worship? Women were not created except for men and to give them pleasure!"

Hasan looked at Sana, but her eyes were tightly closed. "Put these captives to the sword," he said.

Shawahi agreed vehemently. "Slay them all! Do not spare a single one!" She seemed to have forgotten her earlier laments about the demise of an empire. Slaying the Queen would hardly bring it back.

Sana opened her eyes and spoke to the Queen. "O my sister, what has come upon us? How can you be conquered and captive in your own country?"

"This is a mighty matter, sister," Nur al-Huda replied, while Hasan listened in wonder. "But it is true: this merchantman has gotten the mastery of us and all our realm. His army defeated ours." The Queen was making no apologies for her defeat.

"But he did it only by means of his cap and rod," Sana protested.

"True-but it was a fair encounter. I am in his power now and will accept his decision. My only regret is that there was ever misunderstanding between princesses of Wak."

Sana turned on Hasan. "What are you doing to my sister? What has she done to you to deserve punishment at your hands?"

"She tortured you. For that a thousand deaths are too little."

"But she had reason for everything she did. Wak does not recognize pagan marriage, nor is a princess allowed to take up with a commoner. But you-you have set my father's heart on fire for the loss of me. What will happen to him if he loses my sister also?"

Hasan looked at Shawahi in bewilderment. "She is young; she has a foolishly soft heart," the old woman said. "Isn't that the way you like her?"

"But the Queen-"

"What does it matter to you? If you want sternness of character, marry the Queen. You can do that now, you know, for you are the first to have conquered her. On the other hand, if you want Sana-"

Hasan bowed to the inevitable. It was easier to get along with women of any age if he didn't try too hard to make them fit man's logic. "It's your decision," he told his wife. "Do whatever you will."

She clapped her hands happily. "Release my sister and the other captives."

The ifrit kings looked as frustrated as Hasan felt, and Dahnash turned his back. But Sana jumped off her throne, ran to Nur al-Huda and embraced her tearfully.

"O my sister," said the Queen, "forgive me for the malice with which I treated you."

Hasan was reminded uncomfortably of his own early encounter with Bahram the Persian. Bahram had beaten him and treated him miserably, but pleaded for forgiveness when the situation had altered. He had trusted the man . . . and thereby learned a terrible lesson.

Yet this decision had also led to his discovery of the palace at Serendip, his meeting with the delightful sisters there, and his marriage to Sana herself. He would not change it now if it were in his power to do so.

Was it possible that Sana's foolish forgiveness of her treacherous and calculating sister would also lead to better things? Whatever was fated, Shawahi was right: Sana's beauty had won him, but it was her innocence that held him. Even the princesses of Serendip knew the meaning of vengeance-but not Sana.

Hasan stood, walked to the brink of Magma's chasm, and drew out the magic rod. Fate could no longer justify his possession of it. He broke it across his knee and threw the pieces into the chasm.

"You have given us our freedom," the four kings said. Then each in turn bowed formally to him and disappeared. The horses and supplies remained, and he knew he had done the right thing. It was the time for generosity.

He dismissed the ifrits of the chief, and trod wearily to the main tent. He was suddenly lonely.

But not for long. Sana joined him presently, and all the ravages of Magma's wrath faded to insignificance amid the delight she brought.

Next morning Queen Nur al-Huda came to him and kissed him with all the distant warmth she could muster. "My sister has told me all about you, Hasan. I know now that whatever your birth, you are an honorable man and a worthy husband to her. I'm sorry that I ever stood between you or caused you trouble in any way." And much as he had thought he hated this woman, he felt reluctant tears of grat.i.tude come to his eyes. Sana was not the only soft- hearted one.

What was it Shawahi had said about the Queen? That she would not let them go in peace . . . because he was a handsome man? Was it possible that she was not so differ- ent from her younger sister, after all? Her strange accep- tance of defeat. . . .

Shawahi came. Nur al-Huda turned to her. "O my venerable mother, I am deprived of all my troops, and no one can train new ones as well as you. Will you return with me and govern my armies again?"

The old woman huffed herself up angrily. "Return with you? I-" Then she paused, looked at Hasan, looked at the Queen, and seemed indefinably to regain the stature Hasan had observed the first time he met her. Shawahi had been powerful then, but had somehow become ineffective when deprived of her position. All that fell away now. "I think I'd better."

Make that three softhearts, Hasan thought. The Queen was really stronger than all of them, and had prevailed.

The Queen embraced Sana once more while Hasan felt strange sorrow at this parting of the two loveliest women in the world. Too bad it was forbidden to marry sisters. . . .

Then the Queen and her party rode south, and it was over. Never again would he have adventures to match these.

But Sana was beside him, radiant and enchanting, and it was all worthwhile. There were so many dear friends to meet again, and they would visit them all on the return: the King of the Land of Camphor, the Black Shaykh and his four elderly disciples, Uncle Ab, and of course the seven princesses of Serendip. His heart cheered as he thought of Rose, and he was eager to proceed.

"One minute, mortal."

It was Dahnash. "I'm on my own time now, mortal, so you know it means something," the ifrit said. "I just wanted you to know I've had a change of heart." He paused.

"One man is worth a thousand jinn," Dahnash said seriously. "Provided it is the right man." He smiled, saluted, and faded from view.

As the whirling dustcloud formed, Hasan was sure he heard a distinct "Ho ho!"

Author's Note

My thesis for my B.A. in Creative Writing from G.o.d- dard College in 1956 was the longest in the history of the college: 95,000 words. It was in fact my first novel, The Unstilled World. That novel was never published, though I later reworked a portion of it and that portion became Sos the Rope. Nine years later, in 1965, I completed my second, Chthon, which was my first to be published. In 1966 I completed the collaborative Pretender, though that did not see ma.s.s-market publication until 1985. My fourth novel, completed in January 1967, was Hasan. I think that of all the novels I have written, this one has the most remarkable history. So let's go back to the beginning.

My father read to me when I was young, and it is a tradition I carried on, reading to my daughter Penny. One of the things he introduced me to in that manner was The Arabian Nights-the tales of a Thousand Nights and a Night. Today few people seem to be conversant with these fabulous stories, and that's too bad. So I sought a way to bring them to the attention of contemporary readers. I obtained three translations of the Nights, one of them running to sixteen volumes, and read as much of them as I could, seeking the ideal Tale to adapt. I decided on "Hasan and the Bird Maiden," a phenomenal story that I had in all three versions. There were differences between them, of course; for example, the Mardrus & Mathers translation, which was rendered from Arabic to French, and from French to English, contains a scene wherein a giant breaks wind so forcefully as to blow Hasan across the landscape, but it also abridges the tale, ending it at the point Hasan finds the Bird Maiden again and borrows a flying suit for himself and flies home with her and the children. The most complete version is that presented in the Richard Burton translation, while those who prefer "family reading" should go to the Lane translation. All versions of all the Tales are well worth reading by those who like this sort of thing, as I do; I merely chose the particular Tale I deemed best for my purpose.

But I also operated on another level. I recognized in this tale a historic basis. The pattern of some genuine explora- tion was there, masked by the magic explanations provided by those who did not understand or did not believe the truth. What was the truth? I researched to discover it-and believe I succeeded. Hasan traveled to Ceylon-now called Sri Lanka, but which I called Serendip, because of the story of the Three Princes of Serendip, who always found what they weren't looking for. In the 18th century Horace Walpole used this story to coin the word "serendipity." Serendip was the original name for Ceylon. The descrip- tions in the Tale of Hasan align with this interpretation. Hasan later traveled through India to Tibet, where a wise man sent him along to China (Cathay), then down the coast to Indo-China, Malay, and finally Sumatra. Thus the map of Hasan's travels is the map of Asia, and the differ- ing cultures he encountered are those of that continent. I had to do quite a bit of research and adjustment, for if the distances described in the original Tale are taken literally, the Isle of Wak would be fifty thousand miles from Asia Minor (twice the circ.u.mference of the Earth) yet would speak the same language. Now the medieval Arab empire was large, but not that large. In the year 800 a.d. it extended all the way from southern France to western India, embracing more territory than the Roman empire at its height. But Asia is larger than that, and more diversi- fied. I compromised on a journey of about twelve thousand miles, and tried to present the real languages and cultures he would have encountered.

I found an interesting sidelight when I researched the Arab empire. The conquest of the region was explosive and generally gentle by historic standards. By that I mean that the conquerors did not practice genocide or leave mountains of severed heads in their wake, though there was plenty of blood shed. They did not impose their culture on their subjects; instead they avidly absorbed all that their civilized subjects had to offer. They became civilized, and made a kind of golden age that put to shame the relatively barbaric domain of Charlemagne in the west. The "Dark Age" was dark only in Europe. The subject peoples of the Arab world saw the advantage in conform- ing to the ways of the conquerors, and adopted them by stages. This is where I see the lesson of history: what is truly most important to people-their politics, their reli- gion, or their language? The subject peoples of Asia, Africa and Europe gave up first their politics, so that must have been least important. Then they yielded their reli- gions, adopting Allah. Finally they let go their several languages in favor of the language of Arabia. I suspect that they, like most of the world's people, had invested most effort in their language, and least in their political struc- tures. People value what they have worked for. Yet today we are in an arms race that has the potential to destroy the world, in the name of politics, while our language and literacy decline.

And so, in the course of my research, I became im- mersed in the world of Harun al-Rashid of 800 A.D. I discovered the joys of vicarious travel, and indeed it seemed that I had been there. I had researched the Babylonian Empire of 539 b.c. for Pretender, and found it fascinating; this was even more so. Such experiences were gradually leading me from fantasy to archaeology. Certainly I am interested in the future-but the future is guesswork, while the past is available via research. In many cases my novels have impact on my outlook, and Hasan had more than most. I remain glad I did it, even though it really isn't my novel; it's merely a retelling of a tale more than a thousand years old. I hope that my readers have shared some mea- sure of my enthusiasm for it.

So how did Hasan fare on the market? I couldn't even find a publisher for it! Larry Ashmead at Doubleday heard of the project and asked to see it, but rejected it on the basis of a sample as inadequate. (The sample was the beginning up to Hasan's first encounter with Rose.) Ballantine rejected it as not fitting within its ambience. I kept trying, through 1967 and 1968: Ace, Lancer, Avon, Fawcett, McGraw Hill, Harper & Row, Viking, F&SF (sample chapters), Dell. Hardcovers, paperbacks, maga- zines-all rejects. Avon responded in a fast three weeks, while Lancer took almost five months and only returned the ma.n.u.script after two queries.

Seeing that I was making no headway the conventional way, I tried an unconventional approach. I believed in my novel, and felt that the a.s.sorted editors were demonstrating bad judgment. I'm not partial to the judgment of review- ers, either, who sometimes strike me as failed writers looking for failures in what others manage to get pub- lished. But if the one type didn't appreciate my novel, maybe the other type would. I wrote to the fan reviewer, Richard Delap, and asked whether he would be willing to review my novel unpublished. Flattered, he agreed, and I sent him the carbon. He did publish his review, in a fanzine, and the review was favorable. Delap found fault with several of my published novels, but Hasan he really liked, and I don't think this was because of the circ.u.m- stance. It was just his kind of novel. Meanwhile, Walker was in the process of rejecting it, giving a progress report in two months but returning it in four. That made twelve bounces.

Came a letter from Ted White. Now my relations with White had been mixed, and I feared something I had said somewhere was setting him off. But no, he had seen the review and wanted to see the novel. The top copy wasn't back from Walker yet, so I sent him the carbon May 10, 1969. May 29 came his phone call: he was buying it for Fantastic Stories. He could only pay a penny a word, and by his estimate that 87,000 word novel was only 70,000 words long, so that meant $700. No, he wasn't trying to cheat me; Ted White was on a tight budget and honestly didn't know how to calculate wordage. When he ran the novel, in two installments, its full length manifested, and squeezed out part of his own editorial. I was so glad to get the sale, after a dozen rejections, that I wasn't about to quibble about wordage. The novel was well received by the readers, and I remember the entire matter with plea- sure. My persistence and innovative marketing, combined with Richard Delap's willingness to give fair coverage to an unpublished ma.n.u.script, and Ted White's ac.u.men in seeking material combined to put this novel in print and make a special kind of history, and I don't believe that any of us ever regretted this. I don't think any other novel has been sold that way, before or since. Though I have my differences with Ted White, I regard him as a better writer than credited, and an excellent editor. I speak as one who has had some terrible editing on occasion. As for Richard Delap, I still take issue with many of his reviews, but somehow I don't bear him the malice I reserve for other reviewers.

Meanwhile I continued to try the book market, and picked up rejections from Pocket Books' new Trident im- print and Macmillan. Then I had word from my collabora- tor on two other novels, Robert Margroff, that he had been to a convention and met the editor at Berkely, who was eager for material. So I sent Hasan there-and in. just seventeen days had an acceptance. Berkely paid an ad- vance of $1500 against six percent royalties. That money, coming as it did at the time some others were inst.i.tuting a blacklist against me and when I had a.s.sumed the expense of moving to a larger house to accommodate our expand- ing family, in late 1969, was a G.o.dsend; it eased a finan- cial bind. Thus Hasan helped my finances as well as my mind. So now I had fourteen rejections and two sales. Then Berkely changed editors, and the new editor, in the manner of that kind, wouldn't publish what the old one had bought. Hasan was written off-that is, they simply never published it. I kept the money, but had no book publication.

Enter fandom again. Both Richard Delap and Ted White had been basically creatures of fandom, though of course Ted had become professional. Another fan, Robert Regi- nald, wrote to ask me for biographical and bibliographical information, as he was compiling a book about genre authors. I obliged, not expecting much; these projects come and go and few amount to anything spectacular. But this one was spectacular; in 1970 he published Stella Nova under the imprint "Unicorn & Son" and it was a phenom- enal production, with information on several hundred genre writers. Later he set up his own publishing house, Borgo Press, devoted mainly to a series of critical booklets on genre authors. He expressed interest in Hasan, which he had read in the magazine version. So I signed a contract with him, and the novel had its third sale, and was pub- lished in a nice small-press edition in 1977.

An editor at Dell read that edition and bought it for ma.s.s-market publication. That publisher had rejected it, a decade before, but the change of editors can blow fair as well as foul. Fourth sale. It was published in December 1979. Its success was not spectacular, and it was allowed to go out of print. Then in 1984 Tor picked up most of my out-of-print novels, Hasan included, for republication un- der its imprint. Fifth sale. Which I think concludes the most remarkable of my marketing histories: fourteen bounces, five sales, and the first sale the result of a fanzine review of the unsold ma.n.u.script. The lesson here, I be- lieve, is never to give up hope. My success, in this and in general, owes as much to determination as to talent.

There is a contemporary Bird Maiden. She is one of my fantasy fans-I happen to have a number of these-who also works with raptors. These are birds of prey: hawks and such. No, no rocs; there don't seem to be many of those around these days. She cares for the injured ones, and when they recover, sends them back to the wild. Naturally I dubbed her the Bird Maiden, and now she even answers to that appelation. And, naturally, at the time I was shaping up this edition of Hasan, the Bird Maiden phoned. She was on her way from the American Midwest to Europe, where birds really are maidens, to study fan- tasy there. She didn't know I was working on this novel, and I forgot to mention it; it really was coincidence, if you believe in that phenomenon. Well, I hope she finds her Hasan, too. Or maybe a roc.

Do I plan to do more Arabian Nights Tales adaptations? Originally I was open to that notion, but somewhere in the course of the struggle to get Hasan into print my eagerness flagged. I believe I put just as much effort into this novel as I do into those I generate from scratch, and its success has been less than those others. But those who like this type of story need not be concerned; go to the library and check out one of the major translations mentioned here (don't bother with the children's versions) and start read- ing. It's good stuff.