"Get up, go into our apartments, and put on dry clothing," Maju commanded her daughter. "Then go to my chest and bring me the length of cloth you will find inside."

Though her spirit still felt bruised, Shahrazad did as her mother commanded, for she understood that this was the only way Maju would give her an answer—with a story.

While Shahrazad changed into dry clothes, Maju the Storyteller stood in the water, her blind eyes cast downward. As if she could see the pool Shahrazad loved so well, now bloody and sullied. And from her eyes there fell two tears, one each from the left eye and the right. As Maju's tears struck the water, the pool was cleansed, and the water ran clear once more.

When Shahrazad returned, she found her mother sitting beside the fountain, her skirts already dry. At the sound of her daughters footsteps, Maju held out a hand.

"What have you brought me?" she inquired.

Shahrazad reached out and placed a length of cloth into her mothers hand. It was silk as fine and sheer as gossamer, the same color blue as the stones that lined the fountain. Shahrazad watched as Maju brushed her fingers across the surface of the cloth, and she felt the hair rise on her arms.

For she knew that woven into the cloth so finely that only the hands of the storyteller could discover it, there was a tale waiting to be told. And she knew that this was the true storyteller's art. Not the speaking aloud, for that was something anyone might do, but the deciphering of the tale woven into the cloth. A secret known only to the drabardi.

"Ah!" Maju said when she was finished. "You have chosen well, my little one."

Shahrazad made a sound that might have been a laugh and plopped down beside her mother on the edge of the fountain.

"It was hardly a choice," she said. "That was the only piece of cloth in the whole trunk."

"That's as it should be," Maju replied with a smile.'Tor it means that this story is yours. Will you hear it?"

"I will," said Shahrazad.

"Then I will give you its name," said her mother. "It is called..."

Chapter 2

T H E T A L E O F T H E G I R L W H O W I S H E D T O B E W H A T S H E W A S N O T

"Once" Maju the Storyteller murmured as her fingers whispered across the silk, "there lived a girl who was very unhappy, for it seemed to her that no one loved her for what she was.

"Though she was the child of a king—a princess—she was not prized. For in a land that valued beauty above all other attributes, she was not beautiful. In a land where only men could rule, she was not a son.

And so it seemed to her that although others looked upon her all day, they never saw her worth. Instead, they saw only their own disappointment.

"Yet there was one place in the palace of her father where the girl was happy. That was a small pool set beneath a pomegranate tree in the corner of a secluded garden."

At this, Shahraze day, whenad stirred, but the voice of Maju the Storyteller never faltered.

"She would sit beside it all day, watching the goldfish glide along the bottom. One day, when she was feeling particularly sad, the girl spoke her thoughts aloud:

"'Oh, lovely fish!' She sighed. 'How I wish that I were one of you! For then I would have a place in the world, and I would be admired, for all who look upon you exclaim over your loveliness.'

"Now, the princess was young, and so she did not know that it is not always wise to speak your innermost thoughts aloud. For you never know who might be listening. On this day, just as the princess was bemoaning her fate, a djinn was passing by. No sooner did he hear the princess's words than he swooped down and appeared to her in the garden.

"At the sight of a djinn suddenly materializing out of thin air, the princess was understandably alarmed. She leaped to her feet, prepared to flee. But the djinn spoke, and at his words, she halted.

'"Do not fear me, princess,' said the djinn. 'For, I have the power to grant the first wish of your heart.'

'"Tell me what it is then,' said the princess. For she knew that djinns did not always deal fairly with mortals.

'"That is simple,' the djinn replied.'You wish to be a goldfish in that pool of water—a thing which is easily done. But because you are a princess, I will do more. I will grant you two wishes instead of merely one. The first will transform you, as you desire.'

"The heart of the princess had begun to beat so hard she feared her chest would split wide open before she could speak.

"And the second?*

'"Will return you to your true form once more. You have only to say the word and all shall be as I have spoken.'

"'What is the word? asked the princess.

"The djinn pronounced a word of great magic. The princess repeated it, savoring the way the strange syllables rolled across her tongue. In the next instant her voice had ceased, for she was a girl no longer, but a beautiful goldfish swimming in the water.

"The djinn stared down at her for a moment. ‘Lovely princess, I cannot leave you yet,' he murmured.

'For I would see how this wish spins out.' So he made himself invisible and hid himself in the branches of the pomegranate tree. Though a djinn is many things, he is curious, above all else.

"Several days went by. No one seemed to notice that the princess was missing. The djinn kept watch over the fish in the pool from the branches of the pomegranate tree. He thought that he had done his work well, for the princess was the loveliest color gold of all.

"On the fourth day following the princess's transformation, the djinn's vigilance had its reward. As he watched, invisible, from the branches of the tree, two courtiers appeared at opposite ends of the secluded garden. Ah! When they saw each other, great were their exclamations of pleasure and false surprise!

"One, who was no less than a prince—the king's designated heir and cousin to the princess—gestured the other over to the pool. He seated himself at the water's edge, trailing his fingers in the water. Thinking he might have food, the goldfish gathered around. But the young prince had no thought to feed anything other than his own ambition.

'"All is in readiness?' he inquired, being careful to keep his voice low.

"His companion nodded. All is as you have commanded, Highness,' he replied.'Tomorrow, when you walk here in the early morning with the king, I will be hidden in the branches of this tree, which stretches out above the pool. At your signal, I will fall upon him and hold his head beneath the water until he moves no more.'

'"Then I will be king,' the young prince said. And you shall have your reward.'

“And so the conspirators embraced each other and departed.

"Now, when the princess heard this plan, she was greatly alarmed. For, though the djinn's magic word had transformed her outward shape to that of a fish, she was still a girl in her heart and mind. A young girl who loved her father. The princess swam round and round the pool, trying to think of a way to warn him.

"Should she speak the magic word now? If she did, she would be herself again. She could go to her father at once. But what if he refused to see her? For the bitter truth was that the king did not often have time for his daughter. Of all those who saw the princess only for what she was not, her father was chief among them. Had he even noticed she was

"No, the princess thought. She would wait until the morrow. The moment before the conspirators prepared to strike, she would speak the magic word, be restored to her true form, and warn her father. He would have no choice but to believe her then. She would prove her worth at last, and her father would see how much she loved him.