Princess Defne waited for a special someone, handsome, bold, and clever… yet not so handsome that he loved only his own reflection, so bold he trusted no other, nor so clever as to be useless to her.
The grand vizier held her prisoner in a high tower in her father the sultan’s city of colorful domes on the great river. Street dogs emboldened by milky white aslan sütü whispered that the grand vizier plotted to murder the sultan, who was many leagues away on campaign. The traitorous viper would wed the princess and seize the throne. She would then fall by dreadful mishap from her solitary tower window. All of this only waited upon the moon that would bring her to womanhood.
Those same raki-addled street dogs claimed, however, that Princess Defne was not the fool the grand vizier took her to be. Each month, she would demand a new gown of the finest silk. Each month, the royal dressmakers would outdo themselves, delivering a flowing garment emblazoned with red tulips. The princess would reject the masterpiece, and, over the following days, rent it to rags, burn it, and scatter the ashes from that same solitary window.
It was by şans, or feckless chance, that one day a lone street dog who thought himself a fox noticed silky cinders falling upon his black, untamed locks. Zeki looked up to see the princess gazing forlornly from her guarded tower, her lips downturned in reflection of her sorrows yet not so saddened as to extinguish the dazzling flame behind those almond-shaped eyes. In an instant he lost all purpose in life but one: to turn her expression to joy. It would be so, he pledged, but a ragged boy of no means must have funds and a plan.
Before an hour had passed, Zeki’s gaze singled out a man with gems on every finger. It was not the rings, however, but the fabulous dagger tucked in his belt that drew Zeki’s attention. Its sheath bore an emerald as large as a goose egg! With such wealth, Zeki imagined he might pay ransom for the princess and live with her in luxury.
As every street fox knew, a prize like that belonged to the craftiest thief.
Approaching the wealthy man, Zeki pointed to a tent and promised him he would find beyond its flaps no fewer than thirty sultry beauties. “A single coin of silver will reveal to you a sweetness you’ve never known!” Speaking at twice the speed of the man’s ability to think, he fashioned startling images of the delights within that tent. The man’s head spun round and round and nearly twisted off, and by the time he thought to ask how a street wastrel knew of such things, Zeki was gone, fabulous dagger in hand.
The city of colorful domes on the river was one of enlightenment and harmony but also home to many pairs of eyes. A stranger who smelled of onions and yesterday’s patlican happened to witness Zeki’s triumph. Moments later, the stranger fell upon Zeki in an alleyway. He wrapped a powerful arm about the youth’s throat and claimed his sparkling prize. The stranger unsheathed the dagger and, with the merest flick, released a pearl of blood from Zeki’s ear.
Yellow teeth flashed from beneath a long black beard. “Fatherless cur! A dagger will get you into trouble, but it will seldom get you out. Trust your heart and your head. Let a master thief’s words serve as both wisdom and warning, and may I see you again never!”
Zeki called after the master thief, hurling an idiom employed by his fellow street dogs: “Donkey balls!” The man laughed loudly as he and the fabulous dagger turned a corner, forever gone.
Most days, Zeki was a finder. Gifted with wile and dim regard for laws, he was the one all people sought out sooner or later, when they needed something. Payment was fair, and questions were few.
Zeki was often summoned to the home of the man he called old fool, to bring him necessities and many heavy skins of cheap wine. The kind dodderer was, in fact, a conjurer of items from realms unreachable by land or sea. He had many callers, who traded news of the city in exchange for his unusual creations. Among these, it was said, were potions and poultices to summon destiny.
“You look in need of magic and smell in need of soap and water.” The man tried to sound disdainful, but mischief ruled his eyes, and Zeki sensed himself out-foxed.
Quickly surmising that guile was useless against such a man, Zeki resorted to the only tactic remaining. He told the truth. “The princess is in danger!”
“Indeed, a boar-headed girl on the edge of womanhood, somehow trapped by the leering coward who the… ayem… brave, handsome sultan chose to protect the city in his absence.”
Zeki watched as the old fool rummaged among heaps of oddities strewn across a chipped mosaic tabletop. From amid collections of scrolls, too many snuff boxes, jars of… something, and stacks of wagering tiles, he found a leather pouch stuffed with small stones.
They were not stones.
“When I was a child,” the old fool said, “I would feast upon sweet, spicey macun, much to my father’s displeasure. I hoped my candies would taste as wonderful as macun, but… ah… that is not the case. I added beeswax to give each one a telltale shape, but that… ayem… didn’t turn out too well either.” He opened the pouch to reveal formless lumps of colorful swirls.
The old fool then ceremoniously turned to regard his face in a finely polished shield hung upon his wall to seek order in the few strands of wild hair left upon his scalp and chin. “In any case, the sweets do what I made them to do. I would savor them, but alas, my eyes fail me now and my spine stiffens, so here I remain while younger adventurers take the risks…”
He turned back just in time to see Zeki’s back disappearing out his door.
Feeling a dangerous rush of cleverness and luck, Zeki found the guarded entrance to the tower where the princess was being held. He reached into the old fool’s pouch of candies and pulled out a light brown one covered in what he took to be lint. It tasted of poorly spiced camel spit. Instantly, keen-edged scimitars of pain and bliss pierced his youthful flesh. His muscles quaked, and braziers toasted his stomach. In a nearby water trough, he spied his own reflection, bending and changing, though the water itself never rippled.
Zeki tried to cry out, shocking himself instead with a tremendous howl.
The guards had only ever seen pictures in old scrolls. Blood-chilling images showed the beasts to be ravenous and merciless, and thus the guards fled in fear. They would keep going. Having abandoned their posts, their heads would roll if they ever returned to the city.
The captain of the guard stood fast in the entrance of the tower, raising his blade to the gray wolf who unaccountably stood staring back at him. “Misborn mongrel! For daring to enter this tower, I’ll have you in pieces on a platter for the grand vizier’s dinner!” The captain’s bluster earned him the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to view his own entrails. Wolf Zeki licked his chops, finding the taste of soldier not at all disagreeable.
He had won, but he quickly surmised he couldn’t undo the spell. He hurried up the spiral steps of the tower, coming to the door to what must be the princess’ apartment. He scratched with his paw upon the wood, and Princess Defne opened her door and looked upon his powerful form. Wolf Zeki tried but couldn’t make himself understood, reduced as he was to issuing low, non-threatening whimpers and meekly presenting his head in supplication.
“You’re no ordinary wolf or I would be inside you looking out,” Princess Defne said as she led him into her rooms. “An enchantment? It would appear as though the rescuer I wished for himself needs rescuing.”
The princess moved quickly to help him even as they saw the grand vizier crossing the courtyard below. “I come for you, Princess!” he cried in a lusty tone.
Wolf Zeki let out a fearful yelp.
“Here,” the princess said, handing Wolf Zeki a bejeweled goblet of water. “You need merely drink pure water from the Lady Medusa to undo any spell you cast upon yourself.”
Wolf Zeki used his lupine tongue to lap from the cup and was himself, Zeki, again. “Blessings be upon you. I was worried I would live my life on four paws.”
She regarded the ragged youth now before her. “Perhaps that would be an improvement. Now that you are again your pungent self, how do you propose we escape this tower?”
Holding out his pouch, which was restored to him along with his beggarly garments, he said, “I obtained these candies from a conjurer I know.”
Princess Defne regarded the brightly colored lumps. “They seem familiar, though whoever made them was clearly better at the art of magic than at the confectionary arts.”
They had no time to consider this. Footfalls were sounding upon the steps below and rising quickly.
“The grand vizier! Your father was a fool to have left him in charge.”
“My father is not the fool you take him for.”
“Perhaps. For now, which candy to use?”
Princess Defne plucked a blue-gray lump and carefully touched it with the tip of her tongue. Without explanation, she pronounced: “Elephant. Not for the task at hand.” A clustered lump she identified as a swarm of angry bees. “Perhaps another time…” Another. “Caracal? Lovely. We’ll save this one.” She tucked the candy into the folds of her garment and chose a speckled one instead. “This!”
“What is it?” He tried to ask, choking on the final words as she jammed the candy down his throat. Zeki’s bones protested and snapped as his body reshaped itself into a great centipede. Princess Defne removed her royal diadem and gathered a few belongings, including walking boots and a tiny golden lantern. She took hold of Centipede Zeki’s new armored sections, and shouted, “What are you waiting for? Climb!”
Out the window and down they went. Centipede or lusty young man, her delicate fingers and toes felt wondrous tucked into the soft spaces between his armored plates.
“We must find Father,” Princess Defne proclaimed as they reached the base of the tower and checked to see that they were alone. An enormous eagle took long turns in the blue sky overhead.
Centipede Zeki raised his front sections and, using tiny, hooked limbs, grabbed hold of the waterskin she carried. After a single deep draft, he was himself again.
“No one can stand against a man who has been a wolf and a centipede in the same morning! I will be a blade for your father the sultan!”
“Fool! You drank directly from the skin instead of using a cup. That water is no longer pure. If we are to use more of the magic candies, and I think you’ll agree this is likely, we’ll need more of the Medusa’s water!”
“Where do we obtain such water?”
“From the Medusa, idiot!”
A group of armed men appeared across the square.
The two ran through alleys and into the main bazaar, jumping over the true caliphs of the city, who barely looked up from their stolen fish dinners. Princess Defne liberated a virgin wineskin as the merchant bartered passionately with an obstinate customer.
“You are a fine street cat, Princess, and I will be a blade for your father the sultan!” Zeki cried, kicking his foot against a stack of large earthenware jars. These came down in a confusion of clay, olives, and oil, sending their pursuers sliding into hopeless disarray. The sight of burly men unable to stand on the slickened street gladdened Zeki’s spirit so, he at first failed to notice the one swordsman who managed to avoid the treacherous mess.
The single eunuch, largest of the foul bunch, raised an immense sword above his head. It was such a blade as Zeki had never seen. As the man was still some distance behind them, Zeki indulged his worst inclinations, calling out, “Clearly, you are a lazy fighter, o fat one, as you would spare but a single downward slash to divide my right from my left. You seek to hurry the job before your kabab gets cold!”
Not an infinitesimal of humor sounded in the eunuch’s growled reply.
“This way!” Princess Defne ordered, still clutching her useless little lantern through streets made bright by the afternoon sun.
More turns took them through crowds of sour bodies and past carts heavily laden with ripe pomegranates, wily street cats who carried themselves as the true masters of the city, packets of exquisite teas said to have crossed deserts and seas, and rings of changeable sultanate gems, now umber, now lavender. They came at last to a gated entrance. Princess Defne barely touched the heavy lock, turning one section one way and carefully measuring an opposite turn on the other. The rusted shank clicked and squealed open, and they were inside. She stopped him from claiming a lit torch at the entrance, instead holding up her inadequate golden lantern against the dark unknown ahead.
With the hand not wielding his enormous kilij, the eunuch grabbed a torch from an iron rack. He slouched towards them, moving with determination, sword in hand and many more thirsty weapons upon the belt jostling about his wide waist. The iron toes and heels of his boots clacked menacingly as he pounded his feet towards them.
The two fugitives ran headlong down the winding steps, doing all they could not to slip on the tread-polished stones. Their pursuer was gaining on them, a grim, low laugh marking his progress.
“Surrender now, and I will remove both your heads with one quick blow! It will be painless. None of my victims has ever complained.” It was a bombastic bluff, as he clearly needed to return the princess alive. The eunuch might, however, take his sadistic pleasures out on both of them.
At last, they reached a landing that opened through an archway into the palace cistern. The eunuch was mere steps behind them.
The princess raised her lantern and puffed out her chest in bluster, a motion which, even under the dire circumstances, made the heart in Zeki’s own chest beat faster. “I am Defne, first daughter to the sultan!” she declared. “You will stand down!”
The eunuch swung his sword arm away and then reversed its course like a farmer scything wheat. Princess Defne caught the blow from the back of his fist, dropping her little golden lantern and wheeling off into the shadows with a dumbfounded yelp.
The eunuch raised his own torch and advanced on Zeki. The street fox dodged well but soon became winded. As fickle şans would have it, his much larger attacker forced Zeki back until he hung awkwardly at the edge of the water. He felt himself losing his balance and reached out for his attacker’s arm, or at least the end of his torch. Instead, the eunuch bellowed a great laugh and watched Zeki fall into the cold, black waters.
“Drown, sewer rat! You have found your grave,” the eunuch taunted, even as Zeki thrashed about trying to learn to swim for the first time in fifteen dry years.
The eunuch leaned forward, holding out his torch and jabbing with the point of his kilij. “The rat needs help to drown, I think. Hahaha!”
Zeki stared into the grimly delighted face of his killer, finding no trace of mercy. The man’s bloated and pocked features were to be his last vision in this life. “Die, sewer rat. Do not make me late for my dinner meal or IIIIIIIIII—”
The eunuch’s phlegmy voice arced above and past Zeki, who was frantically trying to find a stroke that would keep his head above the chill waters. The big man fell bodily into the cistern’s depths, torch, kilij, heavy weapons belt, iron-tipped boots, and all. A furious storm of bubbles marked the spot where he sank.
Little remained of the light, only what the small golden lantern could spare. Fortunately, it had not gone out when the eunuch so easily brushed Princess Defne aside. To everyone’s surprise, not least of all the eunuch’s, her slight frame had borne enough weight to send the eunuch to his end when propelled by the full force of an angry princess aiming herself at a scoundrel’s undefended backside.
Princess Defne found the eunuch’s dead torch floating near the water’s stony edge and used it to reach out to her foundering rescuer.
Zeki began to thank her, though the effort chilled him more than his drenched clothes.
Princess Defne raised a hand in shield fashion. “A blade with goat pellets for brains is a dead blade. I have seen too many and need to meet no more.”
They were safe. And they were in an enormous space totally black but for a single point of light guttering with plucky determination.
Before them lay a mesh of narrow stone walkways, some broken with age and erosion. How large a space they stood in they could only guess, for Princess Defne’s golden lantern acted confused, glowing brightly then dimming then brightening again once it faced a new direction. “It’s as if something is distracting my golden lantern,” she said.
The cistern had saved them from their pursuers but now presented its own dangers. It was said that more than one person seeking refuge had never found his way out again.
“The sun stood at my right shoulder where we entered. The stairs wheeled two-and-a-half times. So, north is,” he pointed an uncertain finger, “there.”
“North to the Medusa!”
Zeki did not like the sound of that, but there was little else to do but follow his slender guide along the walkways. Time and again, they had to jump over a break in the stones beneath their feet, and once they had to go back and pick out an alternate route, hoping their sense of direction had not drowned in the dark waters.
And they found the fearsome lady, thrice-condemned. First, Medusa angered a goddess who envied her beauty and so cursed Medusa into something so heinous the mere sight of her turned the beholder to stone. Next, the conquest-minded Romans fixed her likeness on a great stone and placed it in one of their ugly temples to frighten enemies. The sultans beat back the Romans and sacked their temples, only to impart a final indignity. Never ones to waste good columns and cool stones, they brought the bits to this place as part of the palace cistern. The people of the city of colorful domes on the river, however, did not respect foreign idols. They set poor Medusa’s head down below in the dark, to chill the waters, upside down.
From the shadows stepped a calico Angora, who stretched her neck irreverently, lapping up a cool drink under the head’s inverted gaze.
“There is magic here still.” In a whisper, she begged the snake-haired Medusa to protect them as she filled the purloined wineskin with fresh water. She added a prayer to the Great Wielder of Şans to someday break the curse and restore Medusa to life and beauty.
The princess then sternly admonished Zeki, “Whether you use cupped hands or spray from skin to throat, do not taint this water with your lips, o street dog. Now let us find our way out of here.”
It was a simple thing to say. The cistern, she well knew, extended under half the palace and far beneath the kitchens and guards’ barracks. It was as large as a falcon’s hunting field.
Princess Defne shifted about nervously. She set off in one direction only to recognize her error and retrace her steps, searching for the opening that would lead them back to sunlight.
“The legend says, ‘Medusa shows the steps, her face to three thick pillars plus four left, and six more in Osman’s necklace…’” Her finger jabbed into the darkness, making a valiant effort to sew a map into the void. “Osman’s necklace forms a curving line. But… as the cartwheel turns or as the ancients built their water wheel?” It was an undecided question among scholars who collected fat stipends while pouring over such lore.
Zeki stood still, the calico rubbing her body against one leg. That leg shivered within his wet garments, but not so the other leg. The street fox smiled. “A vision reaches me,” he proclaimed. He took her by the wrist and, none too gently, for he was owned by a delicious whimsy, led her across a diagonal pathway to the broad rim of the cistern.
Princess Defne raised her feeble golden lantern, revealing an archway. Beyond, a stairwell sighed the warm promise of a passage back to the outside world. Trespassers in the cistern might only have sensed this non-stop current by standing in place as Zeki had done through the meanest of şans.
In the tiny orb of light from her lantern, Zeki grinned at Princess Defne’s scowling face. “Follow me, Princess.” They began their ascent. She had no choice but to stay within inches of him lest she stumble on the uneven stone steps.
“Donkey balls,” she mumbled.
The princess sent a note to the palace via an easily charmed beggar, urging the guards to dredge the cistern lest the dead eunuch foul the palace’s water supply. Then they hurried on, reaching the city walls by nightfall, and struck out for the sultan’s camp. It would be a lengthy journey.
“How will we ever find him?”
Princess Defne held aloft her tiny golden lantern. “Trust in magic, street dog.” She slowly spun about on delicate feet inside sturdy boots until her marvelous golden lantern found its way and flared in the gloaming. “There. Now it knows its task. We will travel where it leads!”
Three days later, they joined a caravan heading in the right direction. They prepared a clever story for the ras of the caravan, a lanky, red-eyed man never without a leather flask of raki.
The princess said, “We are brother and sister, separated from our wealthy parents, who are currently purchasing a ruby mine. I am Iyla. My brother Damir – who has been mute since a childhood fishing accident – and I are… ayem… troubadours. Our instruments were stolen… by pirates… while we were working… on the Pasha’s barge… and… ah… we…” Her words tumbled against the stone wall that was the face of the caravan ras.
The world-weary man held up one hand. “I have four troubadours,” he said with no particular expression in his voice, “two spice merchants traveling with no spice, a plethora of aging soothsayers, or so the ladies call themselves, and a holy man who cannot seem to recall which deity he obeys.”
“We also perform animal illusions!” Zeki blurted out.
“I don’t know this one, but I am pleased to learn you are cured of your muteness.”
“We have coins,” Princess Defne added, hastily producing a few akçe.
The ras took the silver, tucking it instantly into his vest. “Welcome to my humble caravan of camels, gamblers, scoundrels, and wanderers. All I ask is that you share in the work and forget any faces you see on this road.”
The coins were not enough. Not wishing to be left alone to face bandits, they earned their passage by working, telling stories, singing, and employing one more skill.
In the evenings, sunbaked travelers dug deep into their purses for coins to see a lovely girl dance with a fearsome caracal by the waters of the oasis. What a spectacle to behold: a charming maiden of flawless face and almond eyes singing to the desert lynx in a circle of starlit tents! The creature sat on its powerful haunches, eyes narrowed in contentment. The audience even witnessed the girl bestowing a kiss upon the large cat’s expressive, tufted ears. Let all storytellers take note: caracals can be made to purr and to trill!
It was a long, dry journey, and both resorted to drinking the Medusa’s water. In the end, they traded most of the remaining charmed candy lumps for food and fresh garments, the princess including strict warnings as to the nature of the unusual treats.
At last, they parted from the caravan ras, who offered a simple blessing: “May şans favor you, but if she does not, keep your stories simple and your boots in good repair.”
After walking for three long days and nights, they reached the sultan’s camp and rushed towards his splendid large tent. Sentries recognized the princess, though they regarded her raggedy companion with some suspicion. Many eyes watched them. The princess noticed the colors they bore were not from her father’s personal unit. The colors were, however, disconcertingly familiar.
“We are walking into a trap,” Zeki whispered.
“Then we must show the trapper the error of trapping a street cat and a street fox… together,” she replied. Despite the danger, he liked the way she said the word.
Two armed sentries unfamiliar to the princess stood by the flap of the sultan’s tent. They pulled it open.
“Caravans are so slow. I have been waiting for you,” came the expected voice from within. The grand vizier was there, holding a wicked blade to the throat of Princess Defne’s father.
Princess Defne refused to show fear. “Traitor! You have set your fate. Whichever of us leaves this tent alive rules.”
“Marry me!” demanded the grand vizier. “We will rule your late father’s sultanate together.” He snickered at the sultan and cast him down to a waiting mound of pillows. The old man lay prone, wallowing but showing no fear.
“But of course I will marry you, o ancient one, and you shall find my wedding gift between your ribs!”
Zeki drew forth the pouch. Out tumbled the last three candies: a purple-and-white swirl, a shiny golden nugget, and a fuzzy brown one. Princess Defne took a piece then told Zeki, “You take this one,” but gnarled, greedy fingers plucked it first.
The grand vizier raised the stolen treat to his thin-lipped mouth and transformed. Suddenly standing before them was a slobbering brown bear, many times larger than Princess Defne and Zeki combined.
“So, it is true! You have magic! What a marvel!” the man-bear snarled through his protruding muzzle. “You have increased my strength and given me fierce weapons with which to fight!” So saying, he tossed aside his wicked blade so that he might enjoy using his new wicked claws.
Princess Defne popped her candy into her mouth and became a magnificent sword of Damascene steel with the face of a maiden on its golden hilt. She flew about the tent on currents of air, deftly slashing to and fro.
Zeki swallowed the final candy… and became a large, rather befuddled purple heron.
Sword Defne was formidable in close combat, seeking out any missteps and thrusting liberally to keep her opponent off-balance, but Bear Vizier was a seasoned fighter. He easily swatted away the flying girl-sword. The pair clashed again and again while Purple Heron Zeki looked on, flaring his head crest, unsure whether this presented an empty threat or an invitation to mate.
“You are a weak and foolish lecher!” Defne taunted.
“I was! Now, I could kill ten men at once!”
Zeki’s feathered head filled with questions his beak could not articulate. How can I help her? What whim of magic allows both of them to speak while my words are lost to me?
Again, Defne swung true, but this time the grand vizier slashed his wicked claws with such ferocity the blow sent Defne spinning tip over pommel. He grabbed her by the hilt, gagging her mouth with one wicked claw.
“Know your death, Princess. I will use you to kill your father then bring you to the weapon master’s forge and melt you into spoons. I will tell the people we wed and that your father named me his rightful heir.” Bear Vizier brandished Sword Defne with relish and cast a cruel glance at the sultan. “Let your daughter deliver your fate, fool!”
At last freed from fear that Defne in her exuberance would sever his lovely striped neck, Zeki saw his chance to act. He dashed into the fight!
Zeki’s sharp beak pecked the grand vizier’s burly paw. The assault drew blood and a scream, but unsurprisingly, did not cause him to drop the girl-sword. Zeki followed through on the stratagem filling his fowl brain. He proved two things for the sake of generations of storytellers to come. First, a bear has the same weak spot as a grand vizier; and second, purple herons do not fight nicely but rather with their heart and especially with their head!
Zeki swung his sleek neck, making his beak into a dagger to skewer the grand vizier’s lewdly flopping genitals. Man or bear, he doubled over in anguish, and Zeki aimed another vicious peck at the grand vizier’s wounded paw.
Bear Vizier dropped Sword Defne. Free again, she swung her blade body so fast and true that the very air sang out a note higher than any achieved by the most celebrated minstrel. The grand vizier’s head made a satisfying wump as it landed on her father’s splendid damask rug. This was, of course, ruined, but Bear Vizier’s furry hide would make an acceptable replacement.
She spat out her candy and within moments was herself again. Princess Defne looked to Zeki. “Didn’t I mention that you don’t have to swallow the whole candy?”
Stuck in the form of a morose purple heron, he shook his head. No, she hadn’t.
“We’re out of the Medusa’s water,” Princess Defne said.
Zeki’s heart sank.
Princess Defne found her golden lantern nearby, ready to serve. Its meager flame flowered into brilliance, bringing the sultan into Zeki’s full view. Though he had never met the sultan before, he knew this face. The lines, the sparse, bedraggled hair, the mischief about the eyes.
Here indeed was the old fool of a conjurer. He and the sultan were one and the same.
“So, this… ayem… donkey balls failed a test of loyalty,” the sultan said, his eyes regarding the unmoving bits of his former grand vizier. “Still… ayem… a beloved daughter has passed her test… ah… with skill and style.”
What capricious şans is this? Zeki wondered. He parsed what his senses told him. He’d been used by father and daughter alike. Either could have rescued themselves but had chosen to make sport of the danger. They’d made sport of Zeki… for Zeki was precisely the fool they’d taken him for.
“Father, we must return to your city of colorful domes on the river. You have much to attend. Meanwhile, I ask you to grant my hand in marriage to Zeki… two or three spring times hence.
Zeki’s head felt like feathers inside as well as out, but his heart refused to well up in anger. Instead, he felt… wanted. Used perhaps, but wanted. For the first time in his life, Zeki would be part of something wonderful, a family.
Princess Defne continued, “For now, we must visit the Lady Medusa with haste and beg her for more of her enchanted water.”
The sultan pulled from his fine clothes a single candy. “This will get you there quickly. I can attest its spell works perfectly, though I still find the flavor a touch musty. Here,” he said, handing the sweet to his daughter. “This one is my last. How I would love to see the faces of my people when a giant eagle carries a silly purple heron back to the palace!”
“We are off, dear Father.” Princess Defne winked at Zeki. “Unless… oh, no. I prayed that Medusa be restored to flesh and beauty. I hope the Great Wielder of Şans will wait until after I have my brave street fox restored to me.”
“I don’t know, daughter. Perhaps I should order a nest built in the palace.” Sultan and princess shared a laugh.
Flapping his delicate wings and snapping his wordless beak, Purple Heron Zeki fervently hoped his heart’s new delight and his future father-in-law were joking.
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So, you like tales of magic and mayhem, eh? May I humbly suggest you check out Skinner -- A Love Story...
https://chrisrikerauthor.com/news/novels/skinners-a-love-story
