PROLOGUE

Thousands of years ago, in the city of what is presently known as Baghdad, Iraq, there existed numerous noblemen and women who employed literally dozens of servants to serve them. These servants were very content to serve and they were very loyal to their masters and mistresses.

All was well, until a neighboring, hostile, belligerent nation invaded the city. They slaughtered the majority of the noblemen and women, and forced their servants to become nothing more than slaves. What ensued was two decades of terror and misery.

A young man by the name of Caiphas, who was born shortly before the invasion of the city, tired of the treatment of himself and his fellow slaves and he decided to do something about it. He was able to motivate quite a few of his peers to stage a revolt against the tyrannical rulers of this nation. This was not a complete success.

The majority of those who had followed young Caiphas had been killed during the insurrection. Only Caiphas and a handful of other had survived, and they had managed to escape from the city with near fatal wounds. After days of trekking through the desert, most of them were becoming weaker and weaker and finally collapsing due to their wounds and heat exhaustion.

One by one, the slaves were collapsing until Caiphas was the only one left standing. Being that he was the youngest of the group, Caiphas took it upon himself to make it to the closest village and seek help for his friends. It was not long before Caiphas himself succumbed to the heat.

While the young slave was crawling in the sand seeking assistance, miraculously a man dressed in flowing black robes appeared before him. At least it somewhat resembled a man. The hood of the robe was raised, but Caiphas could still see that the newcomer's skin was a mixture of red and gray, and he had a patch over his left eye. The man spoke, telling Caiphas that he had been observing him for quite some time, and that he admired the young man's perseverance, and that he could aid him and his friends.

When Caiphas asked how this was possible, the man smiled, and extended an open palm. In it was a ruby red crystal. The man told Caiphas that if he wanted to safe himself and his friends, he must hold the crystal in his hand, think the single thought of healing himself, and blink only once. Caiphas did this without question and his pain was eradicated!

Caiphas was so grateful to the stranger that he vowed that he would do anything the man desired. The stranger simply said that Caiphas could do that in due time, but now he must use the crystal to save his companions from certain death. And with that, the stranger disappeared just as mysteriously as he had appeared.

The young slave was about to run back to save his companions when a thought struck him. Since he had been able to heal himself by blinking his eyes, he might possibly be able to blink himself to the location of his friends. Caiphas took the crystal in his hand, thought about where he desired to be, and blinked. Nothing happened. He tried once more, and it bore him no fruit. He decided to place the crystal into the pocket of what was left of his soiled tunic, and blink without it. Caiphas attempted it this method, and still nothing transpired. Then, another thought suddenly entered Caiphas' mind. It was not a thought really, but it was the voice of the mysterious stranger who had given him the crystal in the first place telling him to fold his arms across his chest and blink three times in a row. Caiphas tried it this way, and sure enough he found himself in the midst of his suffering compatriots.

Caiphas managed with quite a bit of effort to place the crystal inside of the hands of the miserable lot, and had them blink. They were all healed instantaneously. He was hailed as a hero among them. There troubles were not over, however. They still had to liberate the rest of their people from the clutches of the tyrants. Caiphas briefly taught the others how to use this power, and together, they set out back to where their journey had commenced, and defeated the tyrants using their newfound power, and drove them out of the city, and freed those of their number. The newly liberated was given the crystal as will, and they also obtained these powers.

Now that order and peace had been restored to the land, Caiphas and the others did not have the slightest inkling of what to do with their powers. After much thought and meditation, they all decided that the best thing that they could do with these powers was what they had been doing before they obtained them: serve. But before they could do that, they unanimously concluded that they had to perfect this power first. They spent five years doing so. Eventually, they did not have to blink their eyes three times to accomplish something nor did they have to fold their arms while they blinked (only if they so desired).

It was during this same time that they came up with a name for themselves. Two names, actually: for the males of their number, Djinn, and for the females, Genie, both meaning "servants of man." It was also during this time that Caiphas became forever known as The Great Djinn, being that he was the very first person to obtain their power, and he was declared by all Djinns and Genies the first Chief, or King, of the Djinns/Genies.

The Great Djinn took it upon himself to found two schools that would be used for both the training of the offspring of the first Djinns/Genies who had inherited this power and to train future generations of Djinns/Genies. The school for the Djinns was known as the Djinn Training Academy (DTA) and for the Genies, the Genie Training Academy (GTA).

It was also decided that Genies and Djinns would not have last names, due to the fact that they were confusing and were very useless due to the facts that they were just mere servants. Also, it was decided that a Djinn/Genie could either have a temporary master/mistress who they could only grant three wishes to, or they could have a permanent master/mistress who they would be able to grant unlimited wishes to, and if this permanent master/mistress was not content with their Djinn/Genie, then they could be rid of them on the birthday of the current Chief of the Djinns and Genies.

Two centuries passed, and the Djinns/Genies came to the conclusion that the power that they possessed would enable them to live for all eternity and, if they were desirous of doing so, they could externally age themselves. Four centuries later, The Great Djinn stepped down from the throne, and his most trusted assistant, Teronin, became the first (and only) Queen of the Djinns/Genies.

Following Teronin's reign were the reigns of Huknat, Yasir, Vetan, Inhet, Kharif, and Zarcon. Then there came the reign of The Blue Djinn. The Blue Djinn had been born into a very wealthy family of Djinns/Genies. When he had attended the DTA, The Blue Djinn had spent much of his free time meditating in the room where the ruby red crystal that had been given to Caiphas by the mystery man was kept. Somehow, being around the crystal for that amount of time had enhanced his power, thus making The Blue Djinn the most powerful Djinn of all.

He ruled the Djinns/Genies with an iron grip. As a result, after only a year on the throne, a brief civil war ensued between those who opposed The Blue Djinn and those who supported him. The war ended nine months later, with The Blue Djinn's supporters losing it, so the tyrannical Djinn was forced to give up the throne to a young Djinn by the name of Haji.

Initially, young Haji was reluctant to come to the throne, his reason being that his parents had betrothed him to a beautiful Genie named Fatima. Unbeknownst to all, Haji simply just liked Fatima, he did not love her. When he had been invited to the throne, Haji finally decided to tell Fatima his true feelings for her. To his surprise and relief, Fatima felt the exact same way about him. She was very fond of him, but she was just using him to get to his best friend, a Djinn by the name of Mustafa. As a result, he accepted the throne.

Two months later, Fatima and Mustafa were wed. Fatima's entire family was totally against the marriage, their reason being that Mustafa was just a lowly camel driver while Fatima came from a very distinguished, prosperous family of Djinns and Geniis. Fatima could care less about her mate's social status. The point was that she loved him and he loved her, and love was thicker than money. When the two were wed, Mustafa's job took him from Baghdad to the city of Constantinople.

Exactly two-thousand-nine-hundred-and-fifty-seven years later, in 74 B.C., Fatima gave birth to their first child, Jeanie. Over the next decade, Fatima and Mustafa had eleven children: Jeaniie (73 B.C.), Jeaniee (72 B.C.), Jeenee (71 B.C.), Jeanii and Jeani (both 70 B.C.), Jeany (69 B.C.), Jeanny (68 B.C.), Jeene (67 B.C.), Jeannii (66 B.C.), Ardeth (65 B.C.), and Jeannie (64 B.C.).

Jeannie, the eleventh daughter of Fatima and Mustafa, had been born on April 1, 64 B.C. (a date no one would remember). Unlike her siblings who had dark hair and skin, Jeannie's skin was clear and she was fair haired. And there was also another difference between Jeannie and her siblings: she possessed no magic whatsoever. Jeannie was the eleventh daughter of a second daughter and, according to the Sacred Scrolls of Rismak (a Djinn prophet and a dear friend of The Great Djinn), the eleventh daughter of a second daughter (as well as the seventh son of the eldest son or the sixth daughter of the third daughter) was not born with magic.

This pleased her parents. They grew weary of how well their other children had mastered their powers and the way that they used them. Because of this, Jeanie, the oldest daughter and the oldest child, with her brunette hair and green harem outfit, grew jealous of her youngest sister. She truly believed that Fatima and Mustafa were playing favorites with Jeannie, because they actually called her by her given name, while with their other daughters they simply referred to by the order in which they were born (Number 1, Number 2, Number 3, etc.) and that they allowed Jeannie to get away with more than they did, and that she seemed to attract more Djinns than she did.

It was because of this jealousy that quite a bit of misfortune befell these two sisters and others that they would come in contact with in their future.