The Genie and the Art Thieves

By Rose Cudaback

According to everything that this author has read about Genies, there are many types, and the having different types of assignments and powers. They are similar to humans in many ways, having varying preferences and desires and giftings and powers. Genies even can die. They can fall in love. There are even female genies. Some genies live on the dark side. Others can be benevolent. Some can fly around and relocate at will. Others are born in a location and there they stay, until circumstances cause them to be moved, either by a decree by a more powerful force, or by being transported in a container to a new location. Our Genie, Hamza of Baghdad, falls into the benevolent category. He is not a flying genie, and has not as yet discovered all of his giftings and powers. We meet him at the beginning of his journey, when he is still relatively young, and seemingly not too bright. One has to wonder how many disasters it will take for him to wise up. You, Dear Reader, are invited to come along for the ride."

R.C.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 13, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503544345

Rose Cudaback

Rose Cudaback was born on January 6, 1942, in Southern California. Her family had no television until she was nearly a teenager. Reading aloud was the family's main source of entertainment in the evening before bed. It was cozy, sitting by the fireplace in their bathrobes, while Mamma read aloud. There was usually a chapter book going, mostly about pioneer families involved in the Westward Movement, where they put everything they had in a covered wagon and headed out to homestead land in the new territories. After that, Mamma would read a "fairy story", sometimes taken from the Arabian Nights. Daddy provided all of the scary sound effects. Although these stories had an important influence on her thought life, she will always maintain that her basic core values came from the Bible, which is the most important book in her life.

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Copyright © 2015 by Rose Cudaback.

ISBN:      eBook         978-1-5035-4434-5

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 03/06/2015

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Contents

Dedication

Preface

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Acknowledgements

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my mother, Erma W. Bye, with a grateful heart for the hours and hours she spent in the evenings, reading aloud to her little family. Nothing could possibly replace the sense of delicious anticipation that I felt, snuggled up next to her on the couch in front of the fireplace, freshly bathed, dressed in a hand-made flannel nightie and store bought bathrobe, with my hair in rag curls. I watched, wide eyed, as she picked up the book. I shuddered with excitement, as I heard those wondrous words, Once upon a time…

R.C.

Preface

Beginning sometime in the 1920s with dashing heroes like Rudolph Valentino, American cinematic art has brought to our movie theaters and then later right into our living rooms by means of television, the very romantic and almost totally westernized stories of sheiks and genies; magic lamps and flying carpets; caves full of treasure; sultans walking the streets of their cities disguised as beggars; dancing slave girls with murderous daggers concealed beneath their veils; captive princesses, and charming thieves, played by handsome actors with flashing blue eyes.

Alas, I was exposed to all of this at an impressionable age. I sat starry eyed as Tony Curtis climbed in and out of windows and escaped with the fabulous jewels of the sultan, running barefooted over the roof tops of a Bagdad that probably never existed. In my heart of hearts, I wanted to believe in the tales of dark and sinister magic and daring do that brought the hero and heroine to the very brink of disaster, yet might, actually lead them to triumph over the bad guy with some improbable help from a genie.

Jinn, or Genies as they are called in Western cultures, are most prevalent in the Middle East, mostly among people who practice Islam. And so it is that I introduce to you, dear reader, the Genie Hamza of Bagdad, being truly a Genie born of the western imagination of a star struck girl from California

Chapter One

Topkapi Palace, Istanbul, Turkey, 1665

Emine, servant girl to the Sultan’s harem could not believe her good fortune. She was standing in the shadows of the entrance to the private apartments of the sultan, when she heard the housekeeper talking to the eunuch in charge of the pools.

No need to scatter gardenia petals on the water tonight. Their royal personages and most of the family and servants will be staying at the palace at Edirne for an unspecified period of time. Just keep things clean and don’t let the waters cool off too much. I know that they will advise me a day or two in advance of their return.

With no further comment, the two parted: he to his pools and she to cover the many beds and couches and other furnishings against the ever-present dust.

Emine, (whose name means ‘trustworthy, or loyal’ in Turkish), immediately lighted a small candle and rushed headlong into the apartments of Her Royal Majesty. She was hoping that some of the royal jewels might have been left behind. She looked in all of the obvious places, with no luck; but, then, her eye caught a glimmer. Lo and Behold, on the bed of the Royal Princess, there glimmered a ring; the very ring she had been coveting since her arrival at the harem two years ago. It was solid gold and very heavy; a pigeon-blood ruby the size of a hummingbird’s egg was set in two golden hands, that seemed to be presenting it to the viewer as an homage. The wrists of these hands were crossed, and the arms formed the basic ring.

It belongs to the Sultan’s mother. I have seen her wearing it. She must have dropped it by accident. They left in a hurry. She probably thinks she has lost it at Edirne! thought Emine, exultantly. In her greed and excitement to get hold of the ring, she let go ever so slightly of the candle stub. It fell on the gossamer bed coverings, and immediately a flaming conflagration began to move from bed to draperies to carpets to furniture coverings to curtains It rushed with a roar down the hallway and entered several other rooms at once. The heat was ghastly.

Terrified, Emine clutched the ring tight in her fist and ran. The fire moved swiftly. The heat was turning the palace into a furnace of white hot flames. The sound was demonic-like nothing thing she had ever heard before. Knowing what would be her fate if she were discovered, Emine ran out of the apartments and into the kitchen gardens, where she was struck on the head by a piece of blazing window frame, knocking her unconscious. Her limp body fell into the herb beds beside the inferno that had once been the palace kitchens.

According to history, the buildings housing the Palace of Justice, the Council of State, the Treasury, the Land Registry Office, most of the harem from the Carriage Gate to the apartment of the Sultan’s mother, and the kitchens were totally destroyed.

The Sultan and his mother arrived next day to assess the damage. The guards had found the unfortunate Emine, lying unconscious with the ruby ring clutched in her hand. They had thrown her into a small