Free Goblins and Ghosties by Maggie Pearson Page A

masterpiece?’
    â€˜There is an eclipse of the sun I must observe or all my research will have been for nothing.’
    And so it went on, until only one was left, the philosopher Sidi Rahal. ‘Who can read the mind of a djinni? Perhaps one life will satisfy him after all,’ he said.
    He didn’t want to die, any more than the others did. As he walked up to the cave mouth he was just as afraid as they would have been, wondering what hideous death the djinni had in store.
    Behind the boulder he could hear the pent-up waters roaring like a monster seeking for a way out.
    He’d expected the djinni to be waiting for him, but there seemed to be no one about, apart from a wizened old man leaning on a wooden staff.
    â€˜Are you looking for the djinni?’ he asked.
    â€˜Er, yes,’ said Sidi Rahal.
    â€˜You’ve found him,’ said the old man.
    â€˜You’re the djinni?’
    â€˜ That’s me. I take it you’re one of the forty wise men of the council. What happened to the others?’
    â€˜They… er… I’m afraid they were busy,’ said Sidi Rahal.
    â€˜Not so busy they couldn’t spare the time to watch you die,’ observed the djinni.
    Sidi Rahal looked back the way he’d come. There were the other thirty-nine wise men, carefully keeping their distance. ‘Can we just get on with it?’ he said.
    â€˜If that’s what you want,’ said the djinni.
    â€˜I’d much rather live,’ said Sidi Rahal.
    The djinni smiled. ‘I’m sure you would, little man. But we can’t always have what we want. Look at me. I asked for forty wise men willing to give their lives for the sake of the city. All I got was you. Ah well. Never mind.’
    Then, the djinni began to change his shape. He grew taller, broader, stronger, greener. He roared and the sound was like thunder. Lightning flashed all around. He raised his great fist and Sidi Rahal closed his eyes, waiting for the fatal blow to strike.
    He heard an ear-splitting crunch but felt nothing.
    â€˜Was that it?’ he wondered. ‘Am I dead?’
    Cautiously, he opened his eyes and saw that the boulder holding the river back had been shattered into a thousand pieces, the djinni had vanished and he, Sidi Rahal, was still very much alive.
    Not so the thirty-nine wise men who had only seconds to live. They thought they’d found a safe place to stand. It never crossed their minds that the djinni might change the course of the river until they saw the huge wave of water thundering down the mountainside towards them. They turned to flee, but there was nowhere to go, no time even to pray for mercy before, in a swirling, foaming torrent of water, they were all swept away.
    So the djinni got his tribute of forty lives – all bar one. Why he’d been allowed to live was something Sidi Rahal would never know for sure. Who can read the mind of a djinni? Perhaps if the others had come willingly, the djinni would have spared them, too.
    As it was, he’d asked for forty wise men brave enough to die for their city. All he got were fools and cowards. That, so they say, is why the river still takes its tribute of forty lives every year. A child playing too close to the water’s edge, a young man taking a swim after a night out, a woman reaching after a piece of washing that’s drifting away.
    That’s why its local name is the River of Death.

The Cold Lady
    Japan
    It was quite the worst time of year for a journey, but the old man insisted his business in the city couldn’t wait till spring. So what was a good son to do, but go with him? As it turned out, they were lucky with the weather until they were part way home. Then, the blizzard struck. And what a blizzard! The wind howled in their ears like a thousand devils and the snow was an unbroken white curtain, swirling about them.
    Still the young man would have pressed on as long as he could make out the road at