Three crocodiles headed for us—and sheared away before getting close enough to bite. The perfume was working.
Then Sylvie changed her legs into a tail and dived. She had of course been teasing us by leaving her feet on so her legs could flex apart. She angled down into the dark water and disappeared. That was worse; how could we follow her if we could not see her?
I glanced at Duban. He nodded. Then a dim glow appeared, enough to enable us to see in the shadowed recesses. The siren was still descending. We followed. The fins really helped and, of course, this would be impossible without the breathing masks. The hoses must be bringing air in from somewhere else; the backpacks were not big enough to hold the amount we were breathing. But who cared, as long as they worked?
We reached the bottom, which really wasn’t far down. It was covered in what resembled seaweed, forming a dark green mat.
And there in the distance before us was a hill, not high enough to become an island, but it had its own colored foliage. It looked a lot like an island, as maybe it once had been. In the center was a mighty tree. That must be the Tree of Life, not bothered by the surrounding water.
A merman with a flaming sword appeared. “Begone, sons of Adam!” he cried. “Your kind is forbidden in these demesnes!”
How did he call out aloud, under water? And why wasn’t that sword promptly quenched?
We paused, dismayed. Then I realized. We had forgotten that Allah had posted an angel with a flaming sword to prevent men from returning to the Garden of Eden. The magical blade hardly cared about the water, or the stench of cursed perfume, but was surely quite capable of dismembering us. Did we really want to invoke the wrath of Allah?
Sylvie swam back to me and touched my flippered hand. I’ll handle this, she thought. Wait your chance.
“But that’s God’s angel!” I protested sub-vocally.
He’s male. Don’t listen. Then she let go and swam away from me.
Don’t listen? Don’t listen to what? To the wrathful angel? It wasn’t his words I feared, but his sword. However, I signaled the others to hold back.
Sylvie swam close to the angel. He raised his sword threateningly. “That applies to you too, infernal nymph.” Then he paused, listening. I heard the faintest trace of a devastatingly familiar song. The siren was singing to him! Faintly, so as not to catch the three of us, but definitely singing. Could this possibly work?
I clapped my flippers to my ears to block off the sound, and Sinbad and Duban copied my motion. They understood the siren’s eerie power.
The angel sheathed his sword and ran after her. Then he spread his arms in a swimming motion and lifted off the ground. It looked as if he were flying. As he was, in effect.
Sylvie continued her song as she swam just out of his reach. I saw that she had reverted her tail to legs, flashing him as she had us. That was less efficient for swimming, but considerably more efficient for luring. And, compelled by the eerie, potent song, he was going for it. He was indeed male, and it seemed no male could resist the siren’s compelling call. He had probably been on solitary duty for millennia, and really missed the pleasures of female company.
I shook myself out of my reverie. “Forward!” I tried to shout, but only blew off my breathing mask. Water rushed in, and I choked and coughed before I got it back in place. But Sinbad and Duban got my message, knowing that Sylvie had cleared the way for us. Allah might not be pleased at such time as he found out, but maybe he would understand that we were on a vital mission.
We swam on toward the island, I mean hill. Soon we reached it, and closed in on the tree. It was a widely spreading, handsome thing, with lovely, thick foliage.
Then a giant serpent appeared, slithering out of a hole in the ground. “Begone, sons of Adam!” he shouted. “Before I chomp you to death!”
A serpent speaking in human language? But he certainly looked big enough to do the job. We paused again.
Then I remembered how a serpent had spoken to Eve, and tempted her with the forbidden fruit. This must be part of that serpent’s punishment: to guard the tree forever, in case someone bypassed the water and the angel with the flaming sword. Allah evidently did not believe in half measures.
“Ah, I see you are surprised I speak your language,” the serpent said. “But I was educated in your country, in Bagdad.”
Bagdad? Not Baghdad? He was faking it, and had made a foolish error. But he was still big enough to eat us all.
I will handle him, Nylon thought. Then she slid off my finger, formed into a truly voluptuous lady serpent, and slithered by the male serpent with a come-hither wriggle that even I found evocative. Something about the way she disported her curves.
Mesmerized, the serpent followed her. What else could he do? She was emulating his ideal mate. This was her area of expertise, and there was none to match her in this respect.
We swam on to the tree and checked through the foliage. It had only one fruit on it, of an unfamiliar type, but it looked absolutely delicious. Yet I knew we couldn’t eat it; we needed it for the ship. I swam up and plucked it with my flippers, and put it in my backpack with the spare air. Then we swam hastily away, uncertain just how long Nylon could distract the serpent.
The return was routine. We simply swam to the surface and waved to the ship. The Flying Dutchman sailed to us, and in moments we were hauled back on deck. Soon Sylvie and Nylon reappeared, having completed their diversions, and I wrapped them around my fingers. Best of all, the swim had washed off the stink of the cursed perfume and we were approachable again.
Next question: how did we feed this fruit to the ship, since it didn’t eat? It was amazing how such an obvious challenge had never occurred to us beforehand.
“Feed the figurehead,” Jewel suggested.
Maybe that was it. The figurehead was the bust of a merman with a noble brow and piercing gaze, surely a Dutchman, whatever that was.
We squeezed the fruit and caught the juice in a cup. Then I held on to the prow of the ship, swung around before the figurehead, and put the cup to the Dutchman’s mouth. I tipped it. Much of it spilled down off his chin, but some soaked into the cracks around the mouth. Then the mouth opened, and more went in. The figurehead was animating!
“Well done, King Aladdin!” the head said. “Now get out of my face.”
I was so surprised I almost fell into the sea. I scrambled back to the deck. How had this wooden thing not only come to life, but known my name?
The figure turned his head around and gazed at all of us. “What’s this I see arrayed before me? Several idiotic oafs and some fair maidens, so at least it’s not a total loss.”
“Now wait a minute!” I protested stupidly. “We’re not idiots!”
The figure focused on me. “Oh yes you are,” he said with infinite scorn. “And fools to boot. You wasted your entire effort.”
That began to get to me. “How can you say that? You’re just an old wooden carving. What do you know?”
“I know everything,” he replied. “Because I have just tasted of the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge.”
“The tree of—?” I began, stunned.
“Yes, you utter dope! You sought the Tree of Life, but you got the wrong tree! You were too dull to get the hint when you encountered the Serpent associated with it. Instead of recharging your ship, you bequeathed the knowledge of the universe to its figurehead. You are simply too stupid to live.”
I exchanged a glance of sheer dismay with the others. I was indeed an idiot.
Chapter Seven
Jewel came to my rescue. “Knowledge or not, Aladdin is still the master of this ship, and you must do his bidding.”
The figurehead, once a wooden statue but now animated supernaturally, laughed. He tried to throw back his head, but was limited in his range. He settled for a curt nod. “Foolish woman. I know everything, including the nature of the curse that binds this ship and those who serve upon it.” It now closed its eyes and mumbled something incomprehensible. “
There. The curse has been properly reversed. I am my own captain and I have freed those who were forced to serve on board.”
Indeed, before our very eyes, the many ghostly sailors that populated the ship began disappearing.
“Then how will you steer your ship without a crew?” demanded Sinbad, stepping forward.
“Fool! I am the ship.”
And with that, the main sails sprang open. I saw the ship’s wheel turn rapidly on its own volition, and the great ship began moving with the wind.
“And thanks to your foolish king, I have been revivified, too. As they say, two birds with one stone.”
“Where are you taking us?” I asked, as the ship began picking up speed, cutting across the wide lake.
“Here is a riddle for you, King Aladdin: if one possesses all of the knowledge of the universe, what is left to learn?”
I blinked, stumped, aware that, in my haste to procure the sacred fruit, I might have inadvertently doomed the entire earth. As the hot desert air blasted over me, as the distant shore sped rapidly past, I could think of no answer other than, “Nothing is left to learn.”
“Precisely.”
“But that does not answer my question: where are you taking us?”
“He’s taking us to the one being who can still teach us something,” said Duban, stepping forward.
I blinked at the lad, always surprised to hear the deep wisdom that came from his innocent face.
“He is right, of course. From the mouths of babes and all that,” said the figurehead, grinning. “The earth no longer holds much interest for me. And certainly there is nothing left to gain from humans.” He suddenly raised his once-wooden arms, and as he did so the ship lifted from the lake and took to the air.
“But I don’t understand,” I said. “What being? Where are we going?”
And then it hit me as we rapidly rose into the sky, higher than we ever had before.
“Allah,” I said.
“Allah, God, the Creator, the Source, whatever you want to call him, for he goes by many names,” said the figurehead, shouting above the wind. “We’re going to Him, and I know just where he resides.”
* * *
We moved away from the figurehead and gathered near the bow as the ship continued steering itself. Booms swung and sails trimmed. All on their own accord. Somehow, I found this more frightening than when the ghosts had performed the same duties. Below, the hot desert sand quickly fell away. Now whole mountain ranges came into view. We were higher than we had ever been before, and only going higher. The air up here seemed far more difficult to breathe. Indeed, I saw Sinbad taking deep, futile breaths.
Queen Nylon and Sylvie Siren both sprang from my fingers, transformed in mid-air, and landed deftly on bare feet.
“The air is indeed thinner up here, Aladdin,” said Queen Nylon, responding to my thoughts. “Soon, none of us will be able to breathe. Although Sylvie and I are immortal, we cannot survive long without the elements of earth. In this case, what is known as oxygen.”
“Where is it taking us?” said Jewel. Her neck was beginning to strain with the effort of breathing.
“I read its mind,” said Myrrh. “A scary mind. Full of wild notions. But one notion stood out above the others. He’s taking us to a hole in the sky. He calls it a wormhole. He believes it will take us to another dimension, as he calls the place where Allah resides.”
“We are familiar with such portals,” said Sylvie Siren. “And I assure you, that humans aboard a flying ship will not survive. In fact, it is doubtful that Queen Nylon, Nydea and I will survive.”
The air was getting noticeably colder—and stronger. And even as the wind thundered over us, it seemed deprived of this crucial oxygen, of which Queen Nylon spoke. Apparently, this element was necessary for thinking straight, because my brain seemed even more stubborn than normal.
But one thought did surface and I turned to my son immediately. “Duban, can you fashion more breathing devices?”
The boy nodded and tried—but apparently his magic also needed this precious oxygen. My mind raced, and seemed only to be growing foggier and foggier. Wind and clothing billowed as we all began shivering. Below, the mountain range looked like nothing more than a crack in the dirt. The desert itself was just great swatches of yellows and browns. On the far horizon, I could see the great sea appearing.
How much time did we have before all the oxygen in the air was gone, or before we all froze to death? I didn’t know, but I gathered it would be soon. My brain seemed to be shutting down.
“I have a suggestion,” said my blessed wife suddenly.
“Hurry!” I gasped.
“The ship claims to have all knowledge of the universe...” she paused, gasping for air. “And now seeks the presence of Allah, the source of all knowledge.”
“Go on,” I urged.
“Then let’s tell him a story,” she said, and I could see the cords standing out on her neck as she struggled for air. “A story in which he does not know the ending.”
“I don’t understand—”
“Yes!” shouted Myrrh, catching on immediately. “He might be all-knowing but he cannot possibly know how our story would end.”
“And to hear the ending, he must abandon his journey to Allah,” said Duban.
Perhaps I was the dullest and thickest of them all, but it surely seemed like all had caught on to the idea faster than I. But when my wife’s wisdom finally blossomed in my oxygen-deprived brain, I saw the beauty of it.
“A story without end!” I shouted. “But who among us is the greatest storyteller?”
“I will do it,” said Jewel. “I’ve been telling Duban stories since the day he was born.”
With that settled we all appeared at the ship’s figurehead, who turned and looked at us scornfully. “Enjoy your precious few minutes alive, humans and nymphs. One way or another, you will meet your maker.” It faced forward again and closed it eyes.
“Perhaps,” I said.
“There is no perhaps,” said the figurehead, this time not even bothering to turn toward me. “You have nothing that I want, and there’s nothing that you know, that I don’t know.”
“Except one thing,” I said.
Now I had its attention. It turned toward me and seemed amused. “And what is that, King Aladdin?”
“The conclusion to our story.”
“I know all stories,” it said dismissively.
“But not this story,” said Jewel, stepping forward.
Chapter Eight
I wondered what kind of story Jewel would tell. She was a woman of many qualities, but I had not heard her do this before. I hoped it would not be some soft, dull femalish narrative.
“Once upon a time, there was a sweet girl named Idris,” she began.
Oh, Hades! But we were stuck with it. All we could do was listen, and hope the arrogant figurehead found it interesting. Because otherwise we were all doomed.
* * *
Idris Ifrit was one of the djinn kind, of which there were many in the old days. She was a carefree creature, floating about the landscape, a playful adventurous spirit with more than a hint of mischief. Since she could assume any likeness she chose, she was outstandingly pretty when in human form. She especially liked to tease mortal men by pretending to be one of their kind until they tried to hold her and kiss her; then she dissipated in smoke and laughter, leaving them aroused without satisfaction. What a joke on them!
One day she happened upon a mortal king as he went his way, traveling from one city to another with his retinue. She had heard of him; he was Solomon, reputed to be very wise. She could not resist testing that; was he smart enough to handle an alert air spirit? She assumed solid form, bypassed his guards, entered his tent, and flashed him with her outstanding young body.
“And who are you, fair maiden?” he inquired, interested. Mortal men of any age were interested; it was their nature, just as it was her nature to tease them.
“I am Idris,” she
said, letting her garment slide down to reveal an increasing amount of her ripe torso. “Idris Ifrit.”
He did not seem surprised. “So you are one of the djinn kind.”
“What of it?” she asked, dropping her garment to her waist. In a moment he would be under her spell, as any mortal man would be.
“You are banned from my kingdom.”
“Really?” She let it drop the rest of the way. “And what are you going to do about it?” She took a breath that was likely to make his mortal eyes pop out. She so loved teasing pompous men!
“This,” he said, catching her arm with his hand. Then, before she could dissipate into smoke, he crammed her into a tiny green bottle. She had not known he could do that; no other mortal could. By the time she turned around inside it, he had put in the stopper and sealed it with his royal seal. She was unable to push out; the seal was powerful magic. She was caught.
This was a lesson she would not soon forget. This king had the power to enforce his edicts. “All right,” she said. “I will leave your kingdom. Now let me out.”
But she discovered to her horror that he was not even paying attention to her. He simply tossed the bottle into a bin with hundreds of other bottles and went to sleep. No amount of hammering against the green glass sufficed; he didn’t care.
The bottles contained other djinni, male and female, no more able to escape than she was. She could see them struggling with growing despair. What a monster this Solomon was! He certainly had no sense of humor about a little innocent teasing.
In a few days the bin of bottles was unceremoniously carried in a wagon to a ship in the harbor. The ship took the collection out to sea. There, far from land, it was dumped into the choppy waters. The bottles were all made of heavy glass; they slowly sank. Some were swallowed by fish; some disappeared into the gloom below. Hers was caught by a wayward current and borne swiftly away from any possible land.