Shahnameh - The Book of Kings (Synopsis, Part VI)

The March into Mazinderan

Kai Kaous – son of Kai Kobad. Rules as king. Is plotted against by Ahriman himself, who’s angry that Iran’s escaped being under evil’s power for so long.

Ahriman plots and sends Deev disguised as singer to Shah. Song went on about how the land of Mazinderan was great and caused Shah to want it. Comparison to Jemshid. All of a sudden he wants to go to war against the Deevs, and nobles are scared crapless, so of course they send for Zal again. Zal will only interfere because of duty to God and Iran, otherwise would leave to fail in Kai Kaous’ folly. Tried to petition not to go into Mazinderan, land of the Deevs, but it didn’t work.

So they all go to Mazinderan, and Kai Kaous orders Gew (war commander?) to take a city, sparing not even women and children because “they too are children of Deevs.”

They plunder for a week, but on the eighth day the King of Mazinderan hears about it and sends word to the White Deev, who is powerful and strong and thinks Iranians will run when he comes in the night. Covered them in dark clouds and couldn’t see anything even when morning came.

So the Iranians remain in Mazinderan under guard of the White Deev, who gives the King of Mazinderan back all his booty, and sings praises to Ahriman. They’re blind and captive, and Kai Kaous finally sees what an idiot he’s been, and somehow he gets a letter to Zal (how does he write when he and everyone else is blind?).

But Zal is 200 years old at this point and so he sends Rustem upon Rakush, even though Mommy doesn’t want him to go. They make great time, Rustem kills a donkey for dinner, and the horse kills a lion who wanted to eat both of them in the middle of the night and is reproached by Rustem for not waking him.

Next day, they almost die of thirst, eat another wild ass, and make camp in the domain of a dragon. Rakush wakes Rustem up three times (getting yelled at each time) before Rustem finally sees the dragon. And they kill it. Poor dragon.

Next day, he finds a table all set for dinner in the middle of the wilderness, and finds nothing suspicious about this. So he eats, drinks, and decides to sing. Too bad that the table was set by magicians and a witch hears his song. But he tells her to drink to Ormuzd, and then she is revealed.

So he finally makes it into Mazinderan, and it’s very dark still. Correction. They wander through a land of blackness. Who knows where they are exactly. The horse is driving. So they get through the dark, which seems a good time for Rustem to take a nap, and Rakush eats someone’s sown field at Rustem’s direction, and the owner gets a bit upset. Problem is, he pissed off Rustem, who rips off his ears. Other problem is, Earless Guy takes this issue to Aulad, the ruler of the land.

Aulad wants to know what Rustem is doing, why he disturbed the peace, and swears to destroy him. Rustem brags about how indestructible he is, then lives up to it by slaughtering the whole army. Aulad runs crying, but Rustem lassoes him and gets information on where the Shah and his men are being held, plus the location of the White Deev. Aulad is taken with Rustem as a guide.

Arzang – commander of army of Mazinderan, who charges at Rustem when he gets there. Rustem chops off his head, hangs it on his saddle, and this causes everyone to be faint of spirit and kill themselves by accident as they fight each other in the confusion rather than the enemy. How nice to have the problem solved so easily.

Still on the way to rescue Kai Kaous....everyone thinks the shah’s lost it when he says he hears Rustem, until Tehemten, “the stout of limb” (NFI) shows up and verifies somehow. Kai Kaous tells him to straightaway get off and kill the White Deev before he hears and has time to bring backups that even Rustem can’t defeat.

Aulad gives him the secret of defeating Deevs, in that they sleep during the brightest part of they day. So Rustem goes in, shouting his name like an idiot rather than killing each one quietly, but it works and the guards die. He gets to the White Deev, who’s also sleeping and somehow didn’t hear all the noise prior and wake up. Rustem gets a boulder thrown at him, they wrestle, and then Rustem chops his head off, cut his heart out, and apparently saved all the blood, because pouring the White Deev’s blood in the eyes of the blind is apparently the cure. Then the men kill their jailers, who apparently weren’t already dead.

Kai Kaous wants peace and sends a message to the king of Mazinderan. Peace, it seems, involves Mazinderan paying tribute to Iran. This doesn’t go over so well. So Rustem takes another message, and the whole Mazinderanian army comes to greet him. So Rustem uproots a giant tree and chucks it javelin-style. A giant tries to crush his hand and fails. So a knight tries and actually gets through with some pain, but then Rustem decides he can’t be weak and crushes the guy’s hand entirely.

Rustem claims to be a slave, perhaps in order to intimidate, and the King of Mazinderan sends him away – tries to send gifts, but Rustem’s mad now and refuses them. Battle ensues. Battle rages for a week, Kai Kaous decides to pray to Ormuzd to win for the glory of Iran itself, and Rustem goes to strike down the King of Mazinderan, who calls upon magic to turn himself into a rock. So he takes the rock to the shah. Aulad gets the throne of Mazinderan instead for helping Rustem, and swears allegiance to Shah.