“The blame is not mine, mortal,” said the djinn. “Need spurred me on. Understand all, and forgive. Know that my mother, the Great Spirit Dazrah, in a moment of oversight allowed herself to be ravished by a djinn of the Host of Evil some twenty years ago. She then gave birth to my brother Dalzel, who—since Good and Evil do not breed well together—proved weak and white and undersized. My mother could not tolerate Dalzel and gave him to me to bring up. I lavished every care upon him as he grew. So you can imagine my horror and sorrow when he proved to inherit the nature of his Evil sire. His first act, when he came of age, was to steal my life and hide it, thereby making me his slave.”

“Come again?” said the soldier. “You mean you’re dead?”

“Not at all,” said Hasruel. “We djinns are not as you mortals, ignorant man. We can die only if one small portion of us is destroyed. For this reason all djinns prudently remove that small part from our persons and hide it. As I did. But when I instructed Dalzel how to hide his own life, I lovingly and rashly told him where my life was hidden. And he instantly took my life into his power, forcing me to do his bidding or die.”

“Now we come to it,” said Abdullah. “His bidding was to steal Flower-in-the-Night.”

“Correction,” said Hasruel. “My brother inherits a grandeur of mind from his mother, Great Dazrah. He ordered me to steal every princess in the world. A moment’s thought will show you the sense in this. My brother is of an age to marry, but he is of a birth so mixed that no female among djinns will countenance him. He is forced to resort to mortal women. But since he is a djinn, naturally only those females of the highest blood will serve.”

“My heart bleeds for your brother,” remarked Abdullah. “Could he not be satisfied with less than all?”

“Why should he be?” asked Hasruel. “He commands my power now. He gave the matter careful thought. And seeing clearly that his princesses would not be able to walk on air as we djinns do, he first ordered me to steal a certain moving castle belonging to a wizard in this land of Ingary in which to house his brides, and then he ordered me to commence stealing princesses. This I am now engaged in doing. But naturally at the same time I am laying plans of my own. For each princess that I take, I arrange to leave behind at least one injured lover or disappointed prince, who might be persuaded to attempt to rescue her. In order to do this, the lover will have to challenge my brother and wrest from him the secret hiding place of my life.”