The Brother and Sister

Once, in a far-distant country, a Queen gave birth to two children; a boy named Orisson and a girl named Thiora but they were both so weak and ill that it was feared that, before long, they would die.

So, at the behest of the Queen’s husband, the finest doctors in all the land were called to the royal palace to examine the children but, no matter how or what they tried, none was able to cure them.

Then, one day, a mysterious stranger appeared in the palace, a man dressed from head to foot in a suit of jet black with a long black beard and a black turban wound upon his head, who claimed to be a powerful wizard and that he knew how to cure the children but would only cure them if he could take one of them away with him.

“You must toss this coin up in the air”, he said, handing a silver coin to the king , “If it comes up heads then I shall take the girl and if it comes up tails, the boy but if you refuse to toss the coin then I shall not cure them and they will both, I am very certain, perish and very soon”.

The King and Queen were horrified and outraged by the man’s proposition but they did not want their children to die and so the king suggested to his wife that they pretend to accept the man’s terms.

“But, as soon as he has cured our children we will have him arrested and put to death”, he whispered to the queen.

Reluctantly his wife agreed and the king flipped the coin in the air and, spinning six times, it landed in his palm heads side up.

Then the black suited wizard, pouring the glowing contents of a vial into a small golden spoon fed it to the two children and, immediately, they both began to recover, their pale cheeks becoming rosy and their eyes becoming bright.

Now, seeing that his children had been cured, the king immediately ordered his guards to arrest the mysterious man, however, the moment that he gave this order, the wizard merely laughed and, sweeping his long black cloak around him vanished into nothing leaving only his echoing laughter behind and, when the king once more looked down at his two children, horrorstruck, he saw that one of them, the girl, had also disappeared from her cot.

When the Queen discovered what had happened, her heart felt crushed and she wanted to take her own life but her husband told her, “You have to look after the boy. Think about him. The girl is gone but there is still the boy”.

Then the king ordered that the wizards coin be buried in a coffin and a cream coloured headstone be placed over it with the name of the princess who had been abducted etched upon it in pink and gold.

“From now on Thiora is buried in that grave. She died of her sickness”, he declared to all his soldiers and servants, “And let no one ever mention what truly happened on this day or they shall die of something far worse”.

Now, 20 years went past and the boy grew up to be a young man and, because it is what he had always been told and because it was forbidden to tell him the truth, he believed that his sister had died of sickness as an infant.

But then he began to have rather strange, frightening and bewildering dreams.

Every night he would dream of waking up in his bed, feeling anxious and upset, sweat pouring from his brow and then, lying on the bed beside him he would see a silver coin and want to pick it up but, before he could grip it, the coin would always leap off of his bed and roll, on its edge, across the floor.

Getting up from his bed, he would follow the coin and it would roll out of his room and bounce down the spiralling marble palace stairs and then out into the courtyard where his sister was buried.

In a trance like daze he would go after the coin down the stairs and out into the courtyard and then he would see it spinning, all by itself, upon her grave.

Reaching down and snatching hold of the coin he would look at it and on one side he would always see his face and, on the other, the face of a young woman.

“Who are you?”, he would ask, “My sister? Thiora?”.

But then the face upon the coin would always cry out, “I am not dead”.

“What can it mean?”, he would question his mother and father the next morning but they would always reply, “Nothing. It is just a dream and nothing more. Forget about it and be happy”.

But he could not forget about it and the dreams would not stop. In fact, they became more and more vivid and sometimes he would see the grave dug up with only the coin lying at the bottom of it.

Then, one day, he said to his parents, “I will have some servants dig up the grave. I must know if my sister is really buried there or if it is just the coin from my dreams that is buried there”.

And, knowing that they could not keep it a secret any longer, the king and queen broke down and told their son everything about what had happened to his sister.

They expected him to be angry with them but he only seemed more hopeful.

“If half of my dream is true, about the coin, the other half may be true”, he said, “My sister may still be alive and I may still be reunited with her”.

Then without a moment’s thought the young man ordered for the grave of his sister to be dug up and, just as he had dreamed, at the bottom was nothing but the silver coin.

Picking up the coin he studied both sides. It looked just like an ordinary coin with a unicorn on one side and a crowned head upon the other but then the crowned head became that face he had seen, time and again, in his dreams, the face of his sister Thiora.

“At last, my brother”, she said, “I’ve tried so hard to reach you. I thought that we would never see each other again”.

Then Thiora told her brother that she was the prisoner of an evil wizard called Mathullus and Orisson, drawing his sword vowed that he would save her if only he could find her.

“You need only flip the coin and think of me”, said Thiora, “And we will be together”.

And so, Orisson flipped the coin high in the air and it spun round six times and, when it landed again in his palm, looking round, he saw that he was no longer in the royal palace but in the tower of the evil Mathullus and, standing in front of him, wearing a long silver wedding gown he saw his sister Thiora, tears of joy spilling from her eyes.

“But why are you dressed to be married?”, he asked, confused.

“Because Mathullus wishes to replace our father as king and to have me as his queen. Every day he feeds me elixirs and potions and hangs charms about me hoping to make me fall in love with him”, she said, “I tell him that love cannot be brewed in a cauldron but he will not listen”.

Then, however, they heard the evil wizard climbing up the side of the tower and, looking out of the tower window,  Orisson saw the wizard climbing up using two large, sharp sickles to grip onto the stone.

“Quick! Quick!”, cried Thiora, “We must stop him from climbing up”.

And so the two of them seized hold of anything they could find in the evil magicians tower; large books full of magical spells and bottles filled with magic potions and hurled them at Mathullus but this only angered the magician making him climb more quickly.

“Arrgh! When I get to the top of this tower”, he roared, snarling and glaring at Orisson, “Then I shall make you pay for destroying my precious magical items. I will turn you into a suckling pig and roast you on a spit”.

But then Orisson picked up a green bottle that had a genie inside it and he was about to throw it too when the genie cried out, “Stop! Stop! Don’t throw me. Uncork this bottle and let me loose and I shall grant you three wishes, I promise”.

Orisson didn’t know what was the right thing to do, for he knew that Genies, because they were demons of a kind, were dangerous and treacherous beings but he had little choice for the magician was getting closer to the top of the tower with every passing second.

Suddenly, however, the prince had an idea and, uncorking the bottle he let the genie out.

All at once the room filled up with a green luminous smoke as the genie poured from the bottle neck and, as it did, he heard the genie begin to bellow with laughter that echoed round the room.

“Ha, ha, ha!”, it said, “I tricked you! Now I am free; free to squash you like bug”.

But then, just as the genie was half way out of the bottle, Orisson put the cork back in.

“What’s this?”, said the genie, whose top half had begun to materialise, gazing down and realizing that he had no legs or feet, “Open the bottle again, you snivelling worm, my bottom half is still inside”.

“No”, said Orisson, shaking his head, “Not till you grant me those three wishes you promised”.

The genie groaned with disappointment, “Oh very well”, he said with a sigh, “What is it that you want?”.

Now over the edge of the window ledge Orisson saw something large and black clambering into the room but it was not Mathullus, at least not in his human form, but an enormous black spider hissing, in an unearthly voice, “Hee-hee. I have you, now. Trapped like flies!”

 

“Firstly, send the magician Mathullus…err…that Spider creature away to a place he or it cannot escape from”, asked Orisson.

“Very well”, replied the Genie and, blinking his eyes, the Genie made the giant spider turn into a black mist and vanish on the wind.

“Good”, said Orisson, seeing the Spider creature disappear and sighing with relief, “Secondly,Take me and my sister back to the palace that is our home”.

The Genie laughed.

“Is that all?”, he said, “Why that’s child’s play”.

And then, with another blink of his eyes, the Genie transported them, instantly, back to the throne room of their palace.

“Only one wish left now”, said the Genie with a wicked grin, ”And then you must uncork the bottle and if you do not, young prince. Well, legs or no legs, I’ll squash you like a bug”.

“Very well”, said Orisson, “But you may find this wish harder to grant. Impossible even”.

“What?”, scoffed the Genie, “Impossible, for me! Huh! Nothing is impossible for a Genie as great and as powerful as I!”.

“And what if it is?”, asked Orisson.

“If I can’t grant your wish, why then I’ll go back in the bottle, gladly”, said the Genie, “But, as I’ve said, there’s no wish in the universe I can’t grant”.

“Do you swear?”, asked Orisson, “Do you swear by all that is sacred; by Allah himself that you will return to the bottle if you cannot grant the wish?”.

“I do”, said the Genie.

“Well then”, said Orisson, “My wish… is that you will not grant my wish”.

“What?”, asked the Genie, disappointed, “Is that all? Well then I won’t grant your wish”.

“Oh but if you don’t grant my wish then you do grant my wish”, replied Orisson, smiling, “You see it’s a paradox”.

The Genie now saw that he had been tricked but, alas, he had sworn by Allah himself that he would go back into the bottle if he couldn’t grant Orissons wish and so he did; Orison pulled out the cork and the Genie, turning himself once again into luminous smoke went back inside.

Now, whirling round, Thiora let out a cry of happiness that she was finally free from Mathullus and home again and, entering and seeing them, their mother and father rushed to embrace them both and, their eyes overflowing with tears of joy, welcome them home and, together, they lived very happily ever after.