It was a Woman, would swear I, save for her Wings, Lyon's-Haunches, and discombobulating, Nightingale's Voice...

8 safar 1328 A.H.

The island of Symi was our object, but this strange land, full of luscious-leaved, white-trunked trees that bear white apples, is our reality. What we have left behind to seek our fortune varies with our names and faces; our commonality is now Wonder: at the fruit, the blazing ruby-coloured tea, the strange Queen of this land, who flits from branch to branch at night, as the natives dance their spinning ode to her (a love ode, I am sure).

My name is Tariq. The lady of the land is the Gyrosphyrinx, like a Grecian sphinx or Babylonian Zu, the anti-griffin. She is a beautiful, stunningly-coiffured woman in her middle years, with a round face and soft eyes--one brown, one chalcedon. But she is also a man-eater and a fornicator-with-wolves and beasts. My governor, Al--h bless him, has bad me capture her. For the glory of the Everlasting Peace.

I will not fail.