Secrets in a Desert

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley, but when there were, that’s when you knew he was out and about the Valley floor. Occasionally, when the dragons come out, the desert night vibrates with their low, deep crackles. His dragons are his guard dogs, his watchers, his hunters. And all knew that when someone went into the Valley, it wasn’t a guarantee that they would come out.

Mahjoor neighs as Sultana Falak bint Bahat opens his padlock door. His big soft eyes turning to meet her generous green ones. “Sabah Al-Khayr.” ‘Good morning,’ the princess cooes.

His existence is certain amongst the villagers on the Hill even though few survivors have ever claimed to see him. He is described as a tall, dark Turk. With broad shoulders and a fistful of beard. Few have claimed to have looked him in the eyes, which are described as the entrance of hell itself.

On her tiptoes, the princess reaches for the saddle which is hung on the exiting padlock door. A marker has been engraved into the side of the saddle in gold, a seal hinting to its belonging as property of the Sultan, Bahat ibn Aslan. The leather is deep and rich in color, and her reflection in the saddle is clear as day as it has been polished by the finest oil in Arabia.

Regardless of the man’s rare appearance, his dragons live strong and plentiful as they occasionally target the bedouins’ flock. Missing or dead sheep, camels, and goats whose bodies are left with seven-inch teeth marks, remain a regular disturbance amongst the simple Bedouins on the Hill. “Baba can hardly keep track of every Bedouin who comes and asks for the government to pay back what a dragon took, even with Baba being Sultan of the Empire,” Sultana says and Mahjoor snorts as if in agreement with her.

After buckling the saddle under Mahjoor’s round yet firm belly, she starts for the harness hung on the brick wall. Her waist-length, golden wavy hair follows closely behind her as it sways in unison. Sultana Falak was her father’s most prized possession. Beautiful and bright, her assets made her powerful as well as her position in the Empire. Just short of twenty-one years of age, she already had many suitors come and ask for her hand in marriage. But the Sultan knew better than to give his daughter to someone she didn’t like. “He knows I would kill him,” Falak says and chuckles to herself, reminiscing over her close relationship with her father. After they lost Falak’s mother in the war a decade ago, they became each other’s Noor.

As dangerous and cruel the whole of Arabia thought this Turk was, the Sultan continued to ensue that he was a good man. Falak now remembers how fond her father is of Agha Junaid ibn Parsa, the name of this mysterious and absent general officer, appointed by the Sultan personally. “He saved us when no one else could,” the Sultan would say to his daughter when the General Officer was brought up due to his dragons running rampant. “We owe him, he owes us nothing,” he would say. The Sultan had appointed the stranger a decade ago when the war was killing too fast to save any. Falak had been just shy of ten years old, and her mother had already been taken and killed by the enemy.

“Baba never wants to talk about what happened to Mama,” Falak says out loud to herself in the stall as she buckles the brass bits around Mahjoor’s upward bent nose. But deep down she knew it was bad, as Falak remembers the horrors of the war when she was a child. It is her and the Sultan that provide each other comfort when they suffer from nightmares. The Agha was a young man at the time of his entitlement and Falak’s father had entrusted him with the safety of the people and the kingdom — to which the General was successful. As Keeper of the dragons, Junaid ibn Parsa was the least likely to save the kingdom from complete ruin. At the time, the general officers of the Sultan doubted his decision to leave the fate of the Empire to Junaid when he had proposed a plan to Bahat.

Falak cloaks the top of her head and guides Mahjoor out of his stall, his heavy steel hooves dropping one by one on the stone floor. The Sultana always goes for an early ride in the morning, just as the sun starts to rise over the vast desert dunes. Today, there is a breeze. She mounts Mahjoor and starts towards the outskirts of the castle. The wind combs through her hair, and she finds her grip in the stirrups. “Alhamdullilah,” she breathes out, as she smiles in gratitude.

After Junaid had proved himself worthy of keeping the Empire safe, the Sultan and his daughter especially, Sultan Bahat appointed him ‘Agha’ of the castle. But instead of taking the Sultan’s offer to live in the finest General quarters of the estate, Agha insisted he stay and reside with his dragons. He supposedly lives in the middle of the Valley, surrounded by vast desert planes for a few miles on all sides. Agha had insisted on this and said he would be able to better protect the Sultan, his daughter and his people if he stayed right where he was already.

Falak shifts her hips and Mahjoor starts to trot.

As Sultan of the Empire, there is of course always a threat to her father’s well-being and herself included. For a decade, Agha Junaid has been able to keep enemies at bay with the help of the dragons as well as the fleet of men that the Sultan had gifted to him. Once in a while, when there is business to be discussed in regard to the security of the kingdom, Agha meets with the Sultan at night. Sometimes they meet at the castle, other times at Agha’s estate, depending on who needs to repay the favor of tea and hospitality, but they always meet at night and in the dark. Falak never dared to confront the Sultan with the rumors she hears about Agha, especially when Bahat was so fond of the Turk. And so she continues to trust her father regarding the people he brings into their lives and the ones he puts in charge of the kingdom.

Falak shifts Mahjoor into a canter.

Even with all the trouble the dragons bring to the Bedouins, the Sultan always covers for the man and his faults. This is the noble character of Bahat. Recently, there hasn’t been a dragon sighting for weeks. In fact, it has been awfully quiet. This was unusual and the Sultan doesn’t know what to make of it. Falak remembers she overheard her father mentioning to his advisor that he was planning to check on Agha.

Falak and Mahjoor are now at running speed, as they travel, down through the Hill and the simple houses of the Bedouins to the outskirts of town where the Valley begins. It’s a race against the sun — to get there before the light fully rises above the desert horizon. Zipping through and through, they start to hear laughter and the first stirring of waking life coming from the Bedouin homes. It was a pleasure for them, to see that their princess doesn’t forget about the simple people, to see that she is humble and generous and that she loves to spend time with her origins. It is the wake-up call for the Bedouins on the Hill, the Sultana and her horse, Mahjoor, sprinting down to where the Valley starts and the Hill ends. Alas, the pair reach a clearing and the Bedouins come out to greet the Sultana. But before she could hear anyone call her name, before any child had the chance to run up and feed Mahjoor sugar cubes, the Sultana let out a scream. There in the clearing, at the bottom of the Hill, just where the Valley begins, lay a dragon. Only this one wasn’t alive. It was dead, and its head had been severed.