"An Arabian Night: Nazin´s Dream" by Garon E. Whited

Praise be to Allah, the Merciful and Compassionate, in the daylight hours when men move abroad in the world, and in the hours of dawn and dusk, when men rise to their labors and settle to rest, and most especially in the hours of the night, when the world of men is wrapped in darkness, and strange things wander in the land of dreams.

Now come with me to a time that never was, a place that has never been, and hear a tale of that which never happened…

…in this world.

In the reign of the Sultan Azir ibn Fahed ibn Rashad ibn Turat ibn Ramed (may his name be praised forever), there was a poet and philosopher of some small accomplishment living in the city of Baghdad.  Like all poets, his heart was a trifle wilder than those of other men, his spirit quicker kindling in the fires of the passions, his wits sharper than was strictly good for him.  His name was Nazin.

It so happens that, in the eighth year of the Sultan’s reign, Nazin had the misfortune to fall in love.  While this is not always so much a disaster as many have made it out to be, it was calamitous in the extreme for Nazin.  The woman to whom his heart fled was Jezira Shadda, a whore of the streets.

His affections were returned in large measure, and many idle days did they pass in one another’s company.  Freely flowed the wine and many were the delicacies placed between lovers’ lips.  Musicians played bright songs when they danced, or soft songs when they wished to rest.  Pleasures of the flesh ran riot in the light of the setting sun and the waxing moon, ceasing only as the sun peeped over the edge of the world once more, when each would lie spent in the arms of the other.  In this manner did Nazin and Jezira spend their days.

But Nazin was not the Sultan, and his worldly wealth was not great.  In weeks, his resources were depleted, the wine ceased to flow, the songs no longer played, and Jezira… Jezira took herself to more profitable clientele, leaving Nazin to consider the folly of all flesh and the questionable wisdom of the heart.

In mere days did his debts come to haunt him.  Creditors asked for their money and many were the fine things of Nazin’s house that were sold to appease them.  Soft couches and fine tables, plates of porcelain and utensils of silver, even the fine hangings were stripped from the windows.  Even his house, with its small garden and toy fountain, was taken from him and given over to those to whom he had so indebted himself for the sake of his lover’s delight.  Nazin even surrendered the robes from his very body to appease the ravenous moneylenders, wearing only castoff garments in which none could find value.

With the loss of both fortune and reputation, his stories and poems and songs found no favor.  Worse, those formerly accounted as the poet’s friends, once so free with money, wine, and merriment, turned away from Nazin and sought him out no more.  The people who had praised him so during his prosperous years now heard not his pleas for aid.  Many were those who set their servants upon him, to beat Nazin for the amusement of their guests.  Others loosed their dogs upon him, to drive the new beggar away.

Yet the greatest misery of them all was the emptiness inside Nazin’s breast, for his love of Jezira was great and knew no relenting.  The lack of her whom he loved was as a great, yawning gulf at his side, always with him, and his days were filled with the constant struggle to not be drawn in.  But at night, when he lay upon the sun-warmed stones of the street, he fell again into that deep and blackened emptiness which haunted his steps.  In dreaming, he knew more keenly the loss of his heart and soul, only to weep and thrash in sleep like a man possessed.

At last, unable to bear his condition, he kept what little money he begged of passers-by, going without food for two days, that he might offer them as the purchase price of a vial of an apothecary’s friendly oblivion.  He took himself to the sukh—the marketplace—and sought out a man who might aid him.

“To craft such a potion is beyond the law of the Sultan,” the apothecary said, eyeing Nazin with distaste, “and the most deadly compound I may make under the law is also of great price for its true purpose.  Be off with you, before I summon a warden to kick you from the streets of the Jewel of Cities.”

“Noble merchant, I am now but a humble beggar,” replied Nazin.  “What little of fortune I possess, I hold here in my hand to offer you.  I have no home, no fine clothes, nor even food for an empty belly.  My body is stiff from sleeping on stones; my bones ache from the cuffs and kicks of all respectable citizens.  I have been spat upon and turned out of every place.  But these things are the veriest trifles, not even worthy of consideration, for the truest pain is that of the empty place where once my heart beat and throbbed.  It is gone from me, gone with her, and I have neither life nor breath without her.  All I ask is this poor shell of skin be granted leave to rest from its labor of housing a dead spirit, that the tenant of this house of flesh might seek oblivion.  I ask you, as a man who knows the value of a heart, to look on these poor coins not as a few pieces of copper, but as everything of value left in what was once a man.”

“Surely, you were once a poet,” replied the astounded apothecary, “for your words move me.  For the phials and philters I concoct I have often been offered vast sums.  Once, a great lord gave me a purse of gems for a single night of dreams, and a queen of a distant land once kissed my brow in thanks for a remedy.  But never before in all the years I have practiced my art has a man offered me everything he has.

“Very well.  Give me the coins and return in a week.  You shall have your vial of forgetful dreams and peace.”

Nazin returned to begging for his bread upon the streets.  In due course, he collected a small, stoppered vial.

“Now be warned,” said the apothecary.  “This is very little, but very potent.  Many men pay dearly for even a taste of this.  It brings dreams of great clarity and strength, unlike any dreamt by sane men.  It is not meant to take life—indeed, what little you have cannot harm a strong man—but if consumed all at once by a man weakened and near death, it will surely prove fatal.  If such be your earnest desire, then wait to drink of it until you are at the end of your strength and your passing will be swift and pleasant.”

Nazin thanked the apothecary and set forth from the city, walking into the desert.  For three days and nights he traveled, without food or water, beneath a merciless sky of hot blue glass and a sun of hammered brass.  When he came to the ruins of a fallen temple, he threw himself down in the shade of a broken wall and there rested.  Shaking and weak, almost delirious from heat, thirst, and hunger, he unstoppered the vial and drank down the contents at a single gulp.

Nazin fell as though struck dead in that instant.

*   *   *

Nazin awoke in a hot, dry cave.  He was covered in dust and thirsty beyond all the reckoning of any nightmare, while his body ached from head to toe, as though pummeled.  Cool light flowed like silver honey over him, spilling down from the half-lidded eye of the moon, and gave him the wherewithal to see.

He groaned and closed his eyes.  His heart wept  in the deepest cavern of despair while his desiccated flesh had no tears to shed.  He cursed the apothecary and his potion for their fault, and cursed the life that clung so tenaciously to his flesh.

For hours did Nazin lay amid the sand and dust of the cave, trying in vain to weep, until the moonlight crept across the floor and touched a bright glimmer in the darkness.  The edge of light drew up along the half-buried form of a bottle.

Nazin, the man, neither knew nor cared.  The flesh that housed his spirit, however, was not of a mind to die.  He crawled to the bottle and drew it from the sand, pulled the stopper, and tilted it up to his lips.  Nothing issued therefrom, not even dust, and he threw the bottle from himself with all the strength remaining in his weakened frame.  Somewhere in the darkness, the sound of breaking glass was loud.

Nazin fell to the dust again, the last of his strength fled, and slipped down into a darkness of the spirit.

*   *   *

This waking was more pleasant.  The smell of water and green things drew him up from the black wells of despair by tickling the places in the poet’s soul that know only curiosity.  He opened his eyes and realized that his body knew no pains, nor hunger, nor thirst.

He lay within a silken sheet, hung between two great palms, swinging gently in the shade by a rippling pond.  A great, feathered fan bobbed up and down beside him, wafting a cooling breeze over his form.  Cloth, scented with jasmine and oil of roses, lay upon his brow.

“Aha!” boomed a huge, inhuman voice.  “I see my benefactor has awakened!”

Nazin sat up slowly, careful not to upset himself from his strange resting-place.  He looked and there beheld an overwhelming creature.  It was manlike in form, but huge.  It towered nine feet tall and at least three feet wide.  Arms the size of a strong man’s legs were folded across a chest no more soft than a wall of stone.  It wore a vest upon its body and trousers gathered at waist and ankles.  Its wrists bore the marks of having long worn chains, and its shaven head was bare.

“Well-met, human!” boomed the apparition.

Nazin stared for a long moment, torn between his fear and his hunger for the unknown.  But where there is no great desire to live, there is little enough to fear.

“I am Nazin,” he offered, and rose unsteadily to his feet.  “Forgive me, but I do not recall how I have been your benefactor.  Indeed, I am unable to aid even myself.  You must be mistaken.”

“I think not!” declared the giant.  “While tradition requires that whomever hold the vessel of a djinn is the master of that djinn, it says nothing of those who might break that vessel and free the one trapped within!  You did so, when you flung aside my bottle to shatter it against unyielding stone!  Well it is that you have done so, for now you have a mighty servant who will repay a debt, instead of a mighty slave that will obey your orders!”

“I have no need of a servant, or a slave,” Nazin replied, “for I am a beggar and a fool, and a lost fool, at that.  Go your way in peace, noble djinn, for I what I most desire is beyond any power of the world.”

With these words, the djinn stared at Nazin as one stares at a man gone mad.

“What is this?” it rumbled.  “A mortal man with a desire in his heart, and the aid of a djinn at his command, yet he will not seek it?  What is this desire of which you speak that leaves you so unmanned?”

“I love, and am not loved,” Nazin replied, simply.  “Has the might of the race of djinn any cure for this malady?” he asked.

The djinn’s expression of disbelief and irritation diminished and softened, becoming one of pity.

“It is a wise man who speaks to me,” it said, more softly, “and one more terribly accursed than ever was I!  Yet, if you will permit me, I will show you the might of the djinn that you so scorn and bend every effort to shatter your bonds even as you shattered mine!”

Nazin shrugged as the djinn spoke.

“It is one to me whether I live or die,” he said.  “What matters it to me if you unfold the mountains or turn the seas to gold?  Do as you will.”

With that, the djinn took Nazin in its arms and carried him as one carries a babe.  With a leap, the djinn took to the skies; its lower half became a whirlwind and they shot across the vault of the heavens as quickly as the shooting stars.

They came to a palace ringed about with pools and gardens, and there settled to the earth once more.  The djinn set Nazin down and walked with him in the gardens, which were filled with many exotic flowers and strange fruits.

“Taste of the fruits of the garden,” the djinn commanded.  Nazin plucked a fruit and ate it.

“Now,” said the djinn, “was that not the sweetest and most wonderful thing you have ever tasted?”

“The food of your garden is more sweet than wine or honey,” Nazin replied, “but it is bitter ashes beside the taste of a lover’s lips.”

The djinn frowned and stroked its chin with one great hand.  After a moment’s thought, it gestured toward the palace.

“Come!  Enter into the palace of a thousand delights!  There we shall find something to turn your despair into joy!”

Nazin walked with the djinn and entered the palace.  There, indeed, were a thousand delights, from the flesh of concubines to the intricate movements of the heavens.  From all places and things were joys drawn, whether they be from the basest passions to the most noble thoughts.  Words of poetry and song like spun gold and silver were given to Nazin to know.  The softest and finest of clothes were his to wear.  The food and drink of a thousand shores were placed between his lips to nourish his body.  For a thousand days, the djinn sought, time and time again, to touch the dark and empty place in Nazin’s spirit, always to no avail.

Yet the djinn are not accustomed to failure.  They are a proud race, and powerful.  Worse, djinn do not abandon debts, whether of honor or of revenge.  Yet, the debt to Nazin seemed impossible to repay.  Had it hair upon its head, the djinn would surely have torn it free.

At last, it admitted it could not solve this dilemma alone.  As unheard-of as this may be for any djinn, only an irredeemable debt of honor could overcome the overwhelming pride of their kind.  This problem was impossible.

The djinn left Nazin in the care of those servants within the palace and departed.  It flew across the width of the world until it came to the Palace of the Air, home of the Sultan of all Djinn, set high on the mountains near the middle of the world.  Here it landed and sought the others of its kind who dwelled there.  It met with them, questioned many at length, pondered all they knew or guessed, and it departed.

“Nazin,” said the djinn, when it returned, “I have pondered long on this puzzle of your heart, and I have found no solution.”

“It requires no solution,” Nazin said, softly.  “It is the way of things.  I love, yet am not loved.  There is no solution, and to think otherwise is folly.”

“Perhaps,” the djinn replied.  “But I am djinn, and we may indulge in folly if we choose!  Now!  Tell me all you know of love, for, despite our immortality, we know it not!  I cannot conquer that which I do not understand, so you, prisoner of love’s cruel chains, must explain your prison to me!”

“How can I explain it?” Nazin asked.  “If you do not know it, you cannot be told.”

“Say not such things,” commanded the djinn.  “I know much of you, Nazin of Baghdad, and of what has brought you to this pass.  You were a poet, Nazin ibn Kulad, and you will make me understand this human thing you call ‘love’.  I have said it!  Now begin!”

So Nazin the Poet spoke to the djinn of love.  For two days and nights Nazin spoke, with a voice that echoed with unbridled rage and trembled with bottomless sadness, sang with delight beyond any the flesh might endure, whispered with gentleness known only to those in love.

At the end of the second night, Nazin slept the sleep of exhaustion, and the djinn thought long and hard upon the words of the poet.  When it had thought, it summoned ink and paper and awaited Nazin’s awakening.  When Nazin’s eyes opened, it touched Nazin on the head with one giant finger.

“Write,” the djinn commanded.  “Write what you have told me of love, that I may show others who may understand it more easily than I.”

And Nazin wrote.  He wrote for day after day, week after week, in prose, poetry, and song.  What else could he have done?  He was gripped by the fever that comes when the words demand to be set free, and they flowed in a torrent of ink upon the parchment.

The djinn read as quickly as Nazin wrote, and thought more quickly still.  The djinn are not born of man and woman, male and female; they are creatures without a true form, taking whatever shape best pleases them.  Sexless, genderless, they do not know the gentle roughness between men and women as mortals know it.  Nor do they understand the strange attraction of man to woman and woman to man.  Something about it has always been, perhaps always will be, elusive.

Yet not unattainable, or so the djinn of Nazin believed.  This thing seemed a madness—it has always seemed a madness—but a madness not without method, and perhaps some measure of merit.

At last, the poet’s words ran dry.  Empty of all things, he was taken to the garden and placed besides a fountain, there to lie in enchanted sleep until it suited the pleasure of the djinn to awaken him.

To and fro upon the face of the earth did the djinn roam, seeking after knowledge.  With the full powers of an unchained djinn did it pry into the mysteries of the heart, to learn and grow wise in the ways of it.  At length, it returned to the gardens of the palace with the final prize upon its quest:  Jezira Shadda, the woman whom Nazin loved.

“Look,” bade the djinn.  “See him sleeping there, enchanted into slumber by my power.  Tell me of him.”

Jezira, frightened though she was by her sudden removal from the city and the power of the djinn, answered it by saying:

“He is just a man, and a foolish one.  He values nothing but the feelings in his heart, for he is a poet.  He knows nothing of the things of value in the world.”

“And what are these things of value?” rumbled the djinn, eyes glinting.

“Gold, of course,” answered Jezira.  She smiled at the djinn and licked her lips in the fashion men found most pleasing.  “Gold and jewels are the gifts of greatest value, and often do men give of them to such as I.”

The djinn laughed aloud, and it seemed the thunder of the skies found a home within its throat.  Jezira’s eyes widened and she shrank back from the mighty figure’s mirth.

“Gold and jewels, yes,” roared the djinn.  “Gold you shall have in abundance, a palace of it, and jewels larger than your arms can encircle!” it declared. “Gems brighter than the noonday sun shall illuminate this palace!  And will that serve you well as the greatest things upon the earth?”

“Yes!” Jezira shouted, greed overcoming terror.  “Yes!  Yes, please!”

“Then it is so!” declared the djinn, and the great hands clapped with a boom.

In that instant, Jezira found herself within a palace of solid gold!  Cast of a single mold, the walls, floors, and ceilings were shiny with the yellow luster of that most precious of metals.  But the windows!  The rays of the Sun shone through them and threw the gleams of countless facets through the air, for the windows, huge as they were, each was a single, gargantuan gem!  Diamond and emerald, ruby and sapphire, topaz and opal, all set within the walls as a jeweler might set one of their smaller brethren in a pendant.

The djinn held up the tiny castle, no larger than a woman’s fist, and peered within.  The tiny figure of the ecstatic Jezira was easily visible as she ran through the golden palace.

“Such are the greatest of all things,” said the djinn, softly.  “Enjoy them, treasure them, for you shall have these and no others for what few days remain of your life.  I have spoken.”

The djinn set the toy palace down in a sunny place and turned away.

“Nazin,” it said, softly, “my kind know nothing of love, but your words are unlike any of men before you.  Never have we desired to know anything of this affliction you acclaim as the most sublime of all things, yet you move me to curiosity.  So sleep, poet and storyteller; sleep until the rains come and wake you, then return home.”

*   *   *

The rains fell upon the sleeping poet for some time before he woke.  He lifted the soaked rags of his shirt and squeezed water from them, then spread them to gather the rain again.  He did so, over and over, until his thirst was slaked and he could stand without fainting.

The ruined temple lay all about him, just as it had when he laid himself down to die.

With great weariness and greater sadness, Nazin turned his feet toward the city once more.  The potion had drawn him into the depths of dreams, but he had surfaced from the depths, despite his desire to sink therein and be no more.  And such strange dreams, of djinn and a garden and a palace and love…

Nazin returned to the city and to his begging.  For six days, he begged for his bread on the streets and received both charity and cruelty, as is the lot of a beggar.

On the seventh day, as he begged alms from a noble gentleman, he was struck upon the head and dazed.  People passed about him as he lay upon the street, stepping around and over him, until someone in a litter called to the bearers to halt.  Nazin was lifted and moved, and he muttered as his head spun and whirled.  Movement made him even more dizzy, and he lapsed into silence.

When sense returned to him, he was upon a low couch.  A great, feathered fan blew a gentle breeze to cool him, and a cloth was on his brow, scented with jasmine and oil of roses.

“Djinn?” he muttered, opening his eyes.

“Nazin?” asked a soft voice.  He turned his gaze to behold Jezira.

“Jezira,” he said, clasping his hands in a gesture of respect.

“Rest now, my Nazin,” she said, and kissed his cheek.  “Tomorrow, when you are stronger, we will walk in my garden and we will speak of many things.  For now, eat and drink.  Grow strong, for I do not wish to lose you again.”  She called for watered wine and delicious foods, which she gave to him, sip by sip and mouthful by mouthful with her own soft hands.

Nazin grew strong again under her care, for she looked upon him with eyes neither unkind or displeased.  With every day, she lavished upon him greater and greater affection, until the poet’s heart was as warm as a lover’s touch, as filled as a mother’s womb.

They walked together in the privacy of her garden, and her hand stole into his.

“My Nazin,” she said, for she called him nothing else, “will you stay with me and write your poems and stories and songs?”

“If it is your desire,” he said, “I will.”

“It is my desire,” she replied, “for long have I wished to hear your voice and read your words once more.  More, to feel your touch upon me and your breath within my ears.”

“Then these things you shall have,” Nazin replied, “and all the love they may bear.”

“I am pleased, and will give you whatever love may be within me to give, my Nazin, for it is yours and no other’s.  I have spoken.”

*   *   *

For threescore years and ten did Nazin and Jezira live within her house, and Jezira loved him, him and no other, much to the dismay of all whom she had once welcomed as patrons and guests in her home.  Nazin wrote his poems and sang his songs for her, and they lived together as once Nazin had lived alone.  But the poetry of Nazin found great favor in these latter days, and many said he had been vouchsafed a vision.  Others claimed he had finally found love, and so his poet’s heart wrote only what it knew.

Whatever the case, Nazin lived and loved Jezira until their years upon the earth were great.

One night, Nazin laid himself down with Jezira and slept.  From that sleep, he did not awaken, but passed his last breath while encircled in his lover’s arms.

In the days that followed, the House of Nazin was divided in many ways, for there was no heir to the lovers.  According to the will of Nazin, everything was sold for whatever it would bring, and the money divided among the beggars of the street.  This was done, for the instructions he had written were very clear, and witnessed by many.

Yet two things of the house were never to be found.  The first, and the one that caused the most confusion, was Jezira herself.  She had vanished in the night, like a puff of smoke upon the whirlwind.  Some said she crumbled to dust when the life of Nazin fled; others say she followed after him, so strong was her devotion.  Perhaps only Jezira herself knows the truth, and she is nowhere to be found.

The second missing thing was hardly even noticed; it was a small thing, barely the size of a woman’s fist, but it graced the mantle of the House of Nazin from the day of his return to the day of his departure. 

Perhaps it shares the fate of Jezira herself, for no one ever discovered what became of a toy palace, decked with gemstones, made all of gold.