Once there was a band of thieves who lived somewhere out in the desert. One night one of them crept into the city under cover of nightfall and intoned the sweetest of words into a young girls ear amidst flavored wine and man's revelry leading them to spend the night together. By the morning when the girl awoke the man was gone and before long it was clear she was with child. 

Many years had passed and the child, named Marjana, was now a young woman of sixteen years. Never having known her father she lived as a peasant of the city and tended to her mother and her livelihood. Blessed with a sharp mind, agile figure, and resourceful cunning to survive she made sure the days for her mother were not without bread and water and a place always with roof and blanket. However her mother did not like to talk of her father and so simple as that Marjana knew little of the man.

However it so happened tragedy was before Marjana. Her mother was taken ill with a fever and the women who tended her after some days said it was without hope. It was not long before the truth was certain and so her mother drew her close and with sweat damp and beaded on her brow told Marjana of her father. Of how she met him one night and how Marjana came to be, that he was surely a thief and a bandit, and that since that night she had never seen him again. She told her daughter that she was sorry she had to speak it but with her soon passing on it was only right she would finally know where she came from and who her father was. 

Marjana was in a bland shock as she listend to the words of her mother. That very night, not long after, Marjana's mother died. The women bade Marjana their sorrows and bid the child get fresh air to bring peace to herself. And so Marjana went out in the night and lost herself in wine and drink.

Still in a daze she awoke in the morning to have the sun greet her with dry-mouth and cracked eyes. As she walked she felt little, and lost and confused at what was for her now, so she wandered the streets without thought or purpose. Eventually she came to a certain square which had a fountain in its center where many congregated for the purposes of the day. It was here, though no one knew, that a Djinn had been floating invisible above. He had been there all day waiting for the right person for him to reveal himself. When Marjana entered the square he at once sensed a desperate spirit and alighted down to her as she was coming just under an archway that fanned off into a small alley.

The Djinn appeared so only she could see him and floated in front of her. "Greetings my child, a beautiful day, promises abound as blossoms if only we choose to water them".  Marjana taken aback immediately was unsure if what she saw and heard were true or apparition of her mind, but quick-witted as she was grew in confidence that this was indeed no dream or imagination but real. "For some perhaps, but for most thorns await he who grabs for such flowers." The Djinn smiled and took on quickly this was a girl of perhaps poor means and desperation, yes, but also of intellect and cleverness. "Such is indeed true but today I may be able to provide you the gloves you need to gain any goal you intend with hands unscathed." Marjana with her eyes flared and her mouth thin retorted "Gifts so nice are rarely given freely". His smile did not leave him and told her that if she was successful in a small favor for him he would oblige her with what she required. Marjana told him it was impossible for him to help her -- saying that there was nothing she could want but to take revenge on the man who left her and her mother, making her life so wanting and leaving her mother for dead. But this was not possible, she knew not who the man was, nor where he was, nor what he looked like. It was a hopeless thought. 

But the Djinn with soft but weighted words told her that he knew of her want and could surely entrust her with what she needed to sate it, on his word. Marjana detected a sincerity and gave a nod that deigned at least to hear him out. So the Djinn told her of his intentions, his quest, there was a princess who lived in the palace that he thought more lovely and more beautiful than he had seen of any mortal in centuries. He wanted to have her but was shackled by the untold law of the Djinn that for a Djinn to have a human, the human must always be the one who approaches first with desire, otherwise such trysts are forbidden. And so he wished Marjana to simply deliver a letter of poetry that would surely place her in the mood of want so when the Djinn presented himself she would be taken with him at first sight. Marjana told him that is fine for him but it does nothing for her -- at this moment the Djinn entered her mind and showed her an image of the very man she sought. Marjana came out from this incursion and saw the Djinn staring at her knowingly and she with a look herself accepted the deal.

Marjana knew the city well and how to maneuver through it. She crept toward the rear of the palace being sure to not be detected by any guard, silently crossed the moat surrounding the palace, and then scaled the alabaster wall which let her descend into the palace's gardens. The princess was residing under a pear tree with many rugs playing with her kitten, of black hair with tall, thin ears. Marjana approached the princess as if she had come from the entrance to the garden and said she was a courier for the literary society of the city who had crafted a poem in her honor. The princess was naturally flattered and thanked Marjana and bid her away.

Marjana returned to the Djinn and told him all was taken care of and that if he went to the one he desired soon she would surely be found agreeable to his design. The Djinn was happy but soon became graver and serious "Now for your part..." he said. "You want to take revenge upon your father who does not deserve the name, very well. Here is a dagger, take it, and look on it closely. For this dagger I have fashioned for you; when you hold it it will draw your hand naturally to whom you seek to use it on. And finally when close it will soften the sounds of your steps so you may creep to the throat of your victim without any betrayal of your intent." Marjana held the dagger in her hand and indescribably felt a kind of pull, her hand being slowly guided to a certain direction.

The Djinn bid her "Good luck..." and disappeared before her, surely off to his affair on the princess. Marjana meanwhile saw that the dagger pointed east outside the city into the Kha'labal and so her mind became set at once. She went home where she grabbed a cloak for a cold desert night and some provisions of cheese, grapes, and dates which she stuffed in her small bag and thus she was off.

After many hours Marjana had long exited the city and was on foot in the desert , a risk indeed, though precise her mind was certainly not rational, it being bent on nothing her purpose: the dagger and its endless compass. It was at night when the air grew cold that the dagger suddenly started to point down towards the sand rather than along the desert, it was here that the sand did seem odd enough as if it had been touched or marked recently. Marjana dug briefly and then uncovered a kind of tunnel that descended down into the earth. Before long she found herself in a giant cavern system filled to brim with sand and echoes of what lay below. The dagger had resumed in its compass and so Marjana followed. Up banks and down dunes of sand and rock left and right twisting and turning the dagger sped Marjana until before long her eyes detected the glow of firelight and the sound of speech. She crept quietly towards it and stationed herself at some distance away, as if when a person is the size of a fig to the eye. There was a kind of encampment against a giant rock-face which had the firelight dance in tongues upon it, along the end of the face in a corner there was heaps of treasure and gold. Suddenly it dawned on Marjana that this was no random assemblage of bandits, these were the The Forty, and no sooner did it dawn that her father was one of these men. 

Her mind though remained unmoved with its intent. Marjana would wait till they fell asleep from their wine and laughter and then she would approach closer. While she waited she took note of the mountains of gold and small piles of rubies and emeralds, gilt weaponry, and decorations of the finest craft, it did nothing short of impress her. Soon all the men had fallen asleep and so Marjana moved towards their camp. As soft-footed and nimble as she was as she approached the dagger indeed took away the sound of her very self and Marjana felt as if she was as the fire in the place, weightless and scenery. The dagger picked between many of the sleeping men, one after the other it passed over them, like the angel of death sparing their miserable sins, until finally the dagger grew heavy and weighted towards a single soul while Marjana's arm seem to grow in strength. Immediately she recognized the man, the features of the complexion and visage were unmistakable, it was herself as she had seen in the well so many times upon getting water. Marjana saw visions of her life, of her peasantry, or squalor, or humiliation, of the whips she recieved when on a job for hire so she could feed her or buy medicine for her mother, the gruel she had to eat when she showed late to the food dispensary after a long day heaving rocks and beams of wood which was for a man's frame and bulk, of the whoops and yiyiyis in the streets as she walked that would not be tolerated had she had a father to protect her honor and guard her from such disrespect, how her mother had kept them in the same place even though better opportunities lay beyond because she wanted to put faith that her father would one day return --- the girl was brought back to what her eyes could see rather than her memory as a blood-curdling scream was let out and the man below her waist was pulsing ribbons of blood out from his neck where the dagger had pierced clean through to the other side. The other men awoke to the howlish gurgles as Marjana shared eyes for the first and last time ever with her father. Those eyes glazed quickly and the man, not any father of her's, died quickly. 

Marjana was caught. No dagger could save her now, no silent escape was possible, no amount of cleverness or skill could outdo her from this situation. She would die here and she was resigned to it. But something was awry... the remaing thieves seemed to be in bemusement at the happening, Marjana equally so by their lack of action. It was after many minutes where one man who seemed to command some level of respect and veteran status of the men said "Your name my lady", Marjana spoke it, he nodded his head, "what is it we do now?" Marjana looked at him with searching eyes and an slight upturned and crooked chin, he went on sensing the confusion "You command us, you are our leader now, for you have killed our former leader of us, The Forty Thieves, it is to you we look for our design." You see Marjana had created something unyet known to the legendary traditions of The Forty. It is law of their band that no women may be of their group, know of their whereabouts, or be involved in their activities/interests, no families may be allowed, and no wives. However there is another tradition to their law as well, when the leader of their band is killed it is who killed him that takes his place. So Marjana by killing her father, though she had not known this, as he had only recently ascended by vote to be the leader of the band as the previous had died in a raid, had herself by the first tradition of the band become the leader of The Forty. This is the legend of how a girl became a leader of the skilled men of the desert. True or not we do not know, but it is said that since there have been more tales common in the speech of traveling men of being waylayed and accosted, stolen from, ransomed, and bribed to corruption.