A Tale of Two Sorcerers, Sinister Cutlass [the unexpected everything txt] 📗

long scaly tube. A face with the geniality of a dog formed out of the end. As he completed the transfiguration, Destane held the second sash limp and allowed the creature to grab it with his teeth, which catalyzed the second sash's transformation. Two long, snake-like ruby dragons squirmed free of Destane's grasp, inadvertently swatting him away.

       Destane picked up a pair of copper teacups and enclosed them, one after the other, in his gloved palm. Unfolding his fingers, he revealed two pearls the same size as the cups. They glowed with a faint turquoise aura, as he placed an additional enchantment on them. Then Destane tossed the pearls.

 

   In the dim chamber, the pearls hung in midair, catching the golden glow from the lamps overhead. The dragons suddenly ceased chasing each other's tail, and in large undulating S-curves, rippled through the air after the will o' the wisps. Destane's audience gasped with pleasure as they craned their necks to watch candle-glow on glistening red scales and magical pearls. Then, just as the dragons were about to chomp down on their quarries, each pearl split four ways, and each of those split two ways, into 16 firefly pearls!

        Each dragon whirled about wildly, imminent success having been neatly snatched away. As if to huddle and strategize, the creatures flowed close to one another and appeared to intertwine, before it was clear that each smoothly redistributed its anatomy into four smaller dragons the size of bonsai trees, each of which then redistributed into two dragons small enough to curl up on the rim of a coffee cup. The hall was a flurry of red fairies clamoring for the spiraling gold pearls.

 

     When he'd had enough of the chaos, Destane snapped his gauntleted fingers, and the pearls froze in midair, before dropping into goblets and teacups. Predictably, the dragons dived after them, and there was a chorus of electric sizzles, followed by wisps of steam rising from the vessels. Several men leant over tentatively to inspect the drinks, and they saw the liquid, originally with an aspect of either amber or hematite, turn a lurid turquoise.

          Destane urged them to drink, and took a few swigs to encourage them.

        Some men, including the Varvaran ambassador, muttered about the unnatural color. Another whispered, "Nothing edible looks like that." However, some were rather more swayed by a childlike curiosity, and drank. The grand vizier – seated by Talal – compared notes with him. The vizier felt it tasted mostly of licorice and fennel, while Talal – seeing that his advisor drank the liquid and was not harmed – took a few sips and identified a spicy orange.

        Destane continued his boast. "Now, if all of this is old hat, then maybe you have also seen that most wondrous of wonders, a magic carpet?"

Destane's Entertainment (Part 2)

For this, the sorcerer retrieved his velvet cape from the tea table.  He rolled it into a tube between his fingers. A moment passed, and Destane snapped it open, unfurling a vision of wine-red fantastically embroidered with black and gold thread. He cocked an eyebrow at the sultan, and extended his bare hand in invitation.

 

Talal and his vizier exchanged significant looks. The sultan quietly self-deprecated about his age.  The vizier laid a reassuring hand on Talal's arm, before rising to step forward in his place.

 

Seeing this, Destane shrugged. "Have it your way, then. Shame to miss out."

 

The grand vizier, with a dark gray pointed beard and simple black caftan, was ten years younger than Talal and significantly more spry. He lowered himself into a sitting position on the carpet Destane had laid out. The sorcerer bent and trailed gauntleted fingers along the edge of the carpet.  The vizier could not keep himself from grinning, as the surface beneath him slowly undulated and lifted a foot off the ground.

 

Destane turned his right wrist, and in doing so, he cloaked from view the men in the loggia.  Then he looked down on the carpet, miming its undulation with his gloved fingers. The vizier on his magical transport sailed off through the arches, past shadowy conspirators, over the darkened gardens, and he soon was flying over a sea of lamplights.

 

The squat, domed government school and the towers of the university and observatory glittered with the lights of late-night adherents. They stood taller than the myriad houses of people and houses of commerce, like rocks sticking up out of the ocean. The river resembled a floating island of thick, dark ocean weed. Some few lights blinked from boats drifting along, like strange creatures from the deep, with a glow embedded in their skins. The steep hills around Agrabah seemed like distant shores, enticing the explorer to see if the mystery of those still, grand, moon-washed dunes beyond was intriguing enough to risk encountering snakes, marauders, or the elemental power of sandstorms.

 

The breeze whipped through the vizier's hair, and whisked away his striped turban.  He decided not to care; he felt like a child again. He stretched out on his stomach and folded his arms over the edge of the carpet. He gazed down upon his city appreciatively, thinking about how long he had served and how long he had gone without ever seeing it like this. He thought it extraordinary that an ordinary man such as himself could watch from above, like a free, incorporeal spirit. What a rare, unexpected gift this was!

 

He thought vaguely that he must give Talal a somewhat tempered report, so as not to disappoint him for missing out. But the vizier felt annoyed that such a disappointing, practical notion should occur to him in the midst of an experience gifted him by a man who seemed to wield the powers of heaven. It further occurred to him that one ought to be disturbed by the fact that a mere man should hold such godlike power.

 

But the vizier wished to shake the mantle of complicated adulthood a little while longer, so he stilled his thoughts and savored the spicy, gold-dusted, violet night.

The carpet serenely glided back into the sultan's gallery, and the vizier stood and took the sorcerer's uncovered hand as he stepped to the ground. He was smiling as he returned to sit next to Talal, and the others applauded his bravery.

 

Destane pinched a corner of the carpet with his gauntleted hand, and the embroidery rapidly unraveled and flowed in long striations of black and gold into that one corner, and back into his fingertips. The carpet fell limp, a velvet cape once more, and Destane reaffixed it to his shoulders.

"Privileged gentlemen," he began, looking like the cat that ate the canary. "I may seem insultingly young, but perhaps, after all, I have shown you a few secrets you hadn't bargained for?"

 

He shot a venomous look at the Varvaran ambassador, who gave a wry, good-natured smile, and raised a hand in capitulation.

"The best part… is that you have not even seen the best I have to offer," the sorcerer tempted.

 

Destane gestured at a silver platter bearing some scraps of bulgur mixed with mint leaves and tahini on a tea table by Talal's feet, and inquired, "Are you done with that?"

 

Talal himself, it seemed, did not care to draw the sorcerer's attention, and responded by gesturing pathetically at the food still on the plate, at a loss for how to correct it for the sorcerer. "No worries," Destane assured him, and extended his gauntleted hand.

 

The platter floated over to him, and he swirled his hand over it, the debris vanishing. He took it in both hands, and held it in front of him. The audience could see themselves as shadows reflected dimly in it. Destane then uttered a stream of incomprehensible words at the mirror, before its surface clouded and seemed to ripple, like the surface of a lake. The sorcerer allowed the mirror to expand in his grasp, and he caused it to float upwards so that all men could see clearly what emerged from within.

 

He boasted, "Any magician can show you wonders, drops of exotica from lands far away…. Almost none of them can show you these worlds as they actually are. But I can..."

 

The surface of the mirror turned deep blue and began to glow with an aqueous light. In it, only leagues of empty blue could be seen. Then suddenly, the dim outline of an impossibly large mammal could be seen through the deep. It passed slowly and smoothly, and reactions ranged from unnerved to fascinated. In particular, the mathematician, philosopher, grand vizier, as well as the concealed Adhemar, stared in awe.

 

The huge, graceful shape floated past the frame, and the image in the mirror imperceptibly changed into another expanse of water, surrounding a mountain of coral, orbited by a plethora of fish, as vibrant and multi-hued as the contents of a treasure chest. In the sea soil were embedded large hunks of stone, carved in the likeness of gods and pharaohs, lost and abandoned for thousands of years.  The sight humbled all men present.

 

All in the audience suddenly gasped when the very familiar face of a flesh-and-blood woman appeared.  Shaded by palm leaves, she wore a tall blue helmet, and she lifting her beautiful chin proudly.  Her eyes smoked with the kohl drawn to giver her eyes of Ra, and her lips were red and full.

 

The philosopher and mathematician muttered in disbelief, "But she's been dead for thousands of years…."

 

The humorist was amused and amazed by what he saw in the mirror, but found himself amused equally by watching his fellow spectators.

 

Several other men refused to believe their eyes.  As they watched, the woman did not stand in the stiff, painted profile by which they knew her; she continued, insolently, to blink her large eyes, to quirk her lips coyly, jealously, at her gaunt husband, who had appeared opposite her.  His head was shaven, his chest bare, and he ate bits of fruit and meat, while she was deprived the pleasure by an assistant who currently painted her. 

 

The woman was most definitely alive, and several men in the audience made a low din of furiously whispered debate. Had the sorcerer truly brought a dead woman to life? Or was he merely showing a cunning representation of her? It all looked so real through the mirror… a few men, including Talal, decided to forego skepticism and simply enjoy the woman's charms.

 

"That's right, Excellencies," Destane said. "Not only can I show you deep in the oceans, where no man has been able to tread, but I can also show you things that have happened long ago, as well as things that have yet to occur."

 

The vision of Nefertiti dissolved and coalesced into visions of pale-skinned, yellow- and brown-haired men, who wore metal armor of a style as yet unseen on their neighbors in the far West. The men were striding and preening and pronouncing before groups of subdued characters, whom seemed neither to comprehend the strangers, nor take them very seriously. They wore colorful fabric, feathers in their long dark hair, and they resembled the people from high northern plains who wore thick coats and lived in yurts, except in one respect: many had flattened their foreheads to an absurd degree. Some of the men in