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Presently Mura'ash and Gharib arrived at the City of Carnelian and Castle of Gold to find the gates open and none left to give them news; whereupon they entered and Mura'ash led Gharib that he might show him the city, whose walls were builded of emeralds and its gates of red carnelian, with studs of silver, and the terrace-roofs of its houses and mansions reposed upon beams of lign aloes and sandle-wood.
The estrade at the upper end was hung and carpeted with brocaded silks of various colours and thereon stood two thrones of red gold, inlaid with pearls and jewels. So Mura'ash and Gharib sat down on Barkan's thrones and held high state in the Palace of Gold. And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say. When it was the Six Hundred and Fifty-eighth Night,
So they snatched up their arms and fell one upon other, whilst the Marids shore off their heads, as a reaper eareth grain, crying, "God is Most Great! We are the lads of King Gharib, the friend of Mura'ash, King of the Jinn!"
So Kurajan and Kaylajan returned to Mura'ash and Gharib; and acquainted them with that which had happened, whereat Gharib finding the two sitting together felt heart at ease and said, "Allah abundantly requite you!" So he called for three noble steeds and mounting, he and Gharib and Sahim, set out with a thousand Marids, as they were a piece of a mountain cloven lengthwise.
He giveth aid and victory and He forsaketh those who deny Him, worshipping Fire and not the Almighty King!" Presently quoth Mura'ash, "Thou art a sorcerer and hast bewitched my Goddess, so that this thing hath befallen her." Gharib replied, "O madman, an the fire had soul or sense it would have warded off from self all that hurteth it."
And they told him all that had passed, whereupon he cried out to Sahim, "Saddle me one of the chargers that King Mura'ash gave me." Said Sahim, "O my brother, wilt thou do battle with the Jinn?" So Sahim saddled him a sorrel horse of the horses of the Jinn, as he were a castle strong among castles, and he armed and mounting, rode out with the legions of the Jinn, hauberk'd cap-a-pie.
Then they abode three days in the palace, the scouting Marids returned with the news that Barkan had fled to the Mountain Kaf and craved protection of the Blue King who granted it; whereupon quoth Mura'ash to Gharib, "What sayest thou, O my brother?" and quoth Gharib, "Except we attack them they will attack us."
Quoth Gharib, "Who is thy son, and who hath seen him?" Quoth Mura'ash "Were ye not in the Valley of Springs and did ye not see my son there, in the guise of a bird, and did ye not shoot at him with wooden bolts that he died?"
Replied Mura'ash, "The palace and all that therein is, live stock and dead, are the prize of thy right hand; for, hadst thou not devised a stratagem to destroy the Blue King and Barkan, they had cut us off to the last one: wherefore the treasure is thy treasure and the folk thy thralls."
The Sorcerer thanked him and would have put Gharib to death, as he lay senseless under Bhang; but a man of his people withheld him saying, "O Sage, an thou slay him, his friend King Mura'ash will fall on us with all his Ifrits and lay waste our realm."
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