29. “The Butterfly Siege” lasted 17 months and pitted the brilliance of Datu Ihsaan Nasiruddin of Marawi against the brutal ruthlessness of Sultan Abdul-Ubaidah’s master strategist, Hamid al-Din. Both men were legends in their abilities and for a long time advantage seemed to rest with the defenders, who were well stocked and prepared to weather the siege for up to three years. The turning point was a critical error by Hamid al-Din, who was tricked by a ruse engineered by Datu Ihsaan Nasiruddin to leave the northern face of the City of Muhannad vulnerable for the span of two hours. In those two hours, the City was breached and conquered. In recognition of his opponent’s prowess, Datu Ihsaan Nasiruddin requested clemency for Hamid al-Din. Prince Adnan Marawi granted it and ordered Hamid al-Din banished from the Sultanate in exchange for his life and freedom. The grateful man left immediately but was confronted by the remnants of the Guild of Grainsmen whose past Guildmasters Hamid al-Din had apparently offended. They burned him on the spot, despite the orders and protestations of both Datu Ihsaan Nasiruddin and Prince Adnan of Marawi. After which, the Grainsmen formally disbanded their Guild and placed themselves at the mercy of their new sovereign.
30. It became custom for the title of Prince to be applied to the ruler of the Sultanate regardless of gender.
31. Prince Adnan of Marawi was murdered as he sat in his bath. Yafiah Banan, a female intimate of the Blighted Sultana Jameela, stabbed him with a dagger coated with poison. When he was found, Prince Adnan of Marawi’s body was almost void of blood. An assassination attempt was also made against Lady Noor of Marawi, by Lady Aisha Banan, the younger sister of Lady Yafiah Banan. It was thwarted by the Lady Noor’s Corsair bodyguards that Prince Adnan of Marawi refused to have around him, stating that “the war is over”. In the days that followed, both assassins were executed and Lady Noor of Marawi ordered the Blighted Sultana Jameela to ingest the same poison that coated the blade that killed her husband. A revolt ensued but was quickly dealt with, with the heads of various supporters of the Blighted Sultana Jameela displayed on the outlying walls of the City of Muhannad.
32. Lady Noor of Marawi married the sole and sickly son of the Blighted Sultana Jameela, Prince Ziyad Muhannad, chained him in the prison where he died, unheralded, a year later. She ruled for the next 20 years in his name (c.f. “Lady Noor of Marawi, the Secret Prince”).
About the Author
Dean Francis Alfar is a Filipino playwright and fictionist whose works have been staged or published in various venues in his native country as well as abroad. His short stories have appeared in Strange Horizons, The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror, Rabid Transit: Menagerie, The Apex Book of World SF and the Exotic Gothic series, among others. He is the author of the novel Salamanca and the collection How to Traverse Terra Incognita. An advocate of the literature of the imagination, he is the publisher of the Philippine Speculative Fiction anthologies, an annual showcasing Filipino fictionists that he began in 2005. He is the recipient of multiple Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature, as well as the Manila Critics Circle National Book Award, Philippines Free Press Award and Gintong Aklat Award.
He lives in Manila with his wife, Nikki, and their two daughters, Sage and Rowan.
Copyright © Dean Francis Alfar 2012
Cover art and design by Lester Banzuelo and Adam David
ePub design and production by Flipside team
eISBN 978-971-9942-67-2
This e-book edition published 2012
by Flipside Publishing Services, Inc.
Quezon City, Philippines
flipside.ph
Publishing Notes
“Terminos” was first published in Rabid Transit: Menagerie, edited by Christopher Barzak, Alan Deniro, and Kristin Livdahl, Velocity Press, 2005.
“L’Aquilone du Estrellas (The Kite of Stars)” first appeared in Strange Horizons, January 2003; and subsequently in The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror Seventeenth Annual Collection, edited by Ellen Datlow, Kelly Link and Gavin Grant, St. Martin’s Press, 2004; and in Philippine Speculative Fiction Vol.1, Kestrel, 2005. In dramatic form, it received the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Award for Literature in 2004.
“Sábados con Fray Villalobos” was first published in A la Carte: Food & Fiction, edited byCecilia Brainard and Marily Orosa, Anvil Publishing, 2007.
“The Maiden and the Crocodile” appeared in Story Philippines, 2006.
“The Dragon in the Bell” first appeared in Philippines Free Press, June 2007.
“How Rosang Taba Won A Race” was first published in Philippines Free Press, July 2006. It received the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Award for Literature in 2006 for Short Story for Children.
“The Middle Prince” The Digest of Philippine Genre Stories, December 2006.
“An Excerpt from “Princes of the Kingdom” (Juventus: 1902), annotated by Frédéric Auguste Baheux-Armas, MLS, HOL, JMS.” was first published in Story Philippines, 2007
“The New Daughter” is original to this edition.
“In The Dim Plane” first appeared in The Digest of Philippine Genre Stories, August 2007.
“Into the Morning” first appeared in Bewildering Stories, July, 2007.
“Six from Downtown” was first published in Philippines Free Press, June 2006, and subsequently in Philippine Speculative Fiction Vol.2, December 2006. It received the Philippines Free Press Literary Award for Short Story in 2007.
“Four-Letter Words” was first published in Manual, December 2005.
“(push)” was first published in Milk magazine, September 2001.
“MaMachine” is original to this collection.
“Hollow Girl: A Romance” was first published in Latitude: Writing from the Philippines and Scotland, edited by Angelo R. Lacuesta and Toni Davidson, Anvil, 2006. In graphic form, it appeared as “Philippines, 2222” in Siglo: Passion, edited by Dean Francis Alfar & Vincent Michael Simbulan, Nautilus 2005. It received the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Award for Literature in the Futuristic Fiction category in 2004.
All stories © 2012 by Dean Francis Alfar
The Kite of Stars and Other Stories Page 16
