Catherine Hapka - Prince of Persia: The Chronicle of Young Dastan

Chapter One

Stop, thief!

The boy ran faster, tightening his grip on the legs of the chicken clutched in his hands. The bird let out a squawk of protest. It was dangling upside down, a startled look in its beady black eyes.

Sorry, chick, the boy told it. He skidded to a stop on the dusty hard-packed street and glanced over his shoulder. I dont want to drop you. Not after I went to such pains to snatch you out from under your well-fed masters long nose.

The boys stomach rumbled as he imagined the fine meal the hen would make. Fine meals were few and far between for Dastan. Some Persian boys his age spent their time learning to ride and shoot.

They labored long hours studying arithmetic, music, and astronomy. But Dastan knew little of such things. He had lived on his own for so long he couldnt remember anything different. Instead of leisurely hours and learning, he spent his days just trying to survive on the gritty, crowded, dusty streets of the walled city of Nasaf, the seat of the Persian empire.

Someone stop that boy! the merchant howled as he pushed his way through the crowded market. Morning shoppers jostled each other as Dastan cut a path through them, rasising dust and the scent of saffron, baking bread, and animal dung.

A grubby, one-legged beggar was leaning against the stucco faade of a tile-makers shop. Too bad, he called out to the merchant in a hoarse, wheezy voice that sounded as dusty and dry as the desert outside the city walls. Your thief happens to be the fastest young fellow in Nasaf, so I hear. He winked at Dastan.

You flatter me, Utana, Dastan called back to the beggar. Then he turned and dashed down a narrow, crooked street, dodging around a group of chattering women and past a farmers oxcart piled high with onions.

Dastan scooped up a couple of onions that had fallen into the street, tucking them into his clothes. Then he paused, his heart pumping furiously, and glanced back again.

The merchant let out a string of curses. Shaking his fist at Dastan, he turned and disappeared into an alley, the full legs of his brightly colored silk pants flapping behind him.

He cant be giving up on you so easily, can he? Dastan said to the chicken, which was clucking softly as it swung like a pendulum in his hand.

Then he heard a great clattering of hooves against the hard-packed gravel. A second later, a downtrodden mule emerged onto the street, carrying the merchant on its back. A dog and several small children scattered before the creatures hooves.

Now Ive got you! the merchant roared triumphantly, shaking his fist at Dastan as he pounded the mules sides with his heels.

A real chase. This is more like it, Dastan murmured.

Dastan turned and ran directly toward the nearest building, a squat textile shop with a tiled roof. The bird let out a cluck of alarm as Dastan swung both arms to gain speed.

Dastan sprang upward, grabbing the edge of the roof with his free hand, the chicken struggling furiously in the other. He swung his legs up to one side, his bare toes digging into the tiles.

A second later he was upright, bounding easily up the steep roof. The tiles were already hot beneath the morning sun, but Dastans feet were so calloused that he barely felt them burn. when he reached the roofs peak, he balanced there a moment and peered down behind him.

On the street below, the merchant had yanked his mule to a halt. The mans eyes flashed with anger.

Get back down here and face me like a man! the man shouted.

Im not a man, Dastan taunted, swinging the chicken at his side. Im nothing but a piece of street trash. At least thats what you said when I asked for a bit of that pomegranate you were tossing to your goats yesterday.

Without waiting for a reply, Dastan turned and skittered down the far side of the roof. The sun-scorched rooftops of Nasaf lay before him, a vast patchwork that looked like the multicolored patterns in the elaborate silk and woolen rugs sold in many of the shops. Skipping easily across the narrow alley separating the tile roof he was on from the next one, Dastan squinted up at the sky with his sparkling eyes.

In proper society, it would be considered a bit late for breakfast, he told the chicken. But we street trash take what we can, when we can get it. Sorry, friend.

The chicken looked up at Dastan, cocked its head, and raised its wings in a gesture that looked almost like a shrug.

Some might claim that the kings palace was the heart of Nasaf. But to Dastan and the outcasts he surrounded himself with, a very different place was the center of their world. That place was the vast, stinking, fly-ridden garbage heap that lay just beyond the sprawling market area. Dastan and his fellow urchins spent much of their time sifting through this putrid wasteland, the easiest place to find something to eat without relying on charity or theft.

Dastan paused at the edge of a flat rooftop overlooking the trash heap and watched several children squabble over a couple of unripe figs. The eldest couldnt have been more than six or seven years old, and Dastan idly wondered how many years had passed since he had been that age. It did not matter. on the street, age was not remembered, or minded. Turning, he scanned the other street dwellers crawling over the refuse. They looked like a swarm of roaches feasting on days-old syrupy waste.

Most of the faces were familiar. There were few on the streets, young or old, who were unknown to the sharp-eyed Dastan. But his gaze passed over all of them, finally settling on a slim, wiry boy a few years older than he was. The boys dark hair stuck up at all angles from his head; he was dressed in rags with a tattered bit of hemp rope serving as a belt. At the moment, he was helping a wide-eyed little boy dig into a mound of rotting fruit.

The chicken, who had largely given up its fight, suddenly clucked and twitched.

Keep quiet, Dastan said, tucking the bird behind his back. I want to surprise Javed.

Dastan whistled and the wiry boy looked up immediately, his curious brown eyes searching the rooftops. when he spotted Dastan, he grinned and waved. He said something to the little boy he had been helping and then quickly hurried over to Dastan. As always, Javeds left arm was tucked inside his clothes. It had been badly burned in a fire that had killed his family a number of years earlier and was of little use to him now.

I see youve taken to the rooftops, little brother, Javed called with a grin as he came closer. Does that mean youve managed to enrage another of our esteemed local shopkeepers with your pillaging?

Something like that. Dastan held the chicken behind him. He shifted and squirmed in an attempt to hide it as it twitched and flapped around. Get up here and youll find out.