Travel to the dream city

The tourist girl from Baku Sabina Veliyeva feels sudden weakness while walking through the harem of the Topkapi palace, her eyes get misted. When the mist dissipates the girl sees that all tourists disappeared, surprised she walks forward and faces the open doors of the large room lightened with candles. Inside are only women who play music on ancient instruments and dance. Sabina enters the room and music stops, everybody, including the lady with a golden crown at her head look at the girl with a great astonishment. The crowned woman asks Sabina who is she and why she is dressed so strange. Sabina answers she is a tourist but she feels nobody understands her. The girl is frightened and tries to run away but the young guys standing at the door catch the girl and put her on knees in front of the crowned lady. Sabina cries she is not willing to participate in their performance and asks the lady to stop playing her up. The lady looks at her with scorn and angrily asks Sabina how she dears to speak like this to the great Sultana Nurbanu, blessed mother of the lord of the world Sultan Murad, and she will order to whip a strange girl to make her confess the truth about who and why send her to the palace. Sabina falls unconscious, the Sultana tells the guards to take her to the harem`s hospital. Later the doctor comes to Nurbanu-Sultan and says the girl does not look like a devil-ridden despite her very odd speeches. The doctor shows the small device from the girl`s bag and says that according to her she lives in the 21-st century and this device is for seeing and hearing each other at very large distances. The sultana looks at the strange item with a confusion, suddenly the maid from the hospital enters the room crying that the girl disappeared, some mist wrapped her and then evaporated with the girl. The same day the crowd of tourists sees the girl in a long white dress sitting at the ground in front of the Topkapi gates and sobbing. Some guy with a sack comes through the crowd, he says people he is a friend of the girl and will deal with her. The guy tries calm the girl and asks where she lives. In the hotel where the guy brings Sabina she tells him her odd story. Tekin (that is the guy`s name) asks her not to go anywhere and to wait for news from him. II The same evening Tekin and his father come to Sabina. Tekin`s father is a professor Hilmi Yilmaz, who is a famous research of paranormal events. was shocked by the Sabina`s case but this just confirms his theory about the time portals. Once the professor met the very interesting note in the archive of the Topkapi museum dated to the middle of XX century. The workers repairing the library part of the palace were very surprised to see a white-beard man in a long aba in the lodging when they returned where after a lunch. The man had an ancient book in his hand and was looking around in a daze. When the workers asked how he turned to be in a locked room the old man astonished everybody saying his name was Mehmet Celebi and he has been a private doctor to the Sultan Murat the Third. The man was immediately taken to the psychiatric hospital where he spent the last days of his life. He died from the strong emotional upset, nobody came after him and all attempts to identify him were useless. When doctors showed him a medical note written in modern Turkish he could not read a word of it but demonstrated the perfect writing in Arabic alphabet. After telling this story professor tries to calm Sabina saying that such events can happen very rarely so she has nothing to be afraid anymore. Tekin offers to accompany Sabina during her next walk through the city. II In a couple of days Sabina and her new friend Tekin visit the archeological museum. Tekin offers her to look at the picture of the ancient Constantinople. Sabina comes close to the big picture at the wall, Tekin goes to some monument. Suddenly the girl feels something absorbing her into the picture. Sabina hear wind in her ears, she flies through some blue colored space and falls facedown into the sand. Sabina hears the noise of sea water and feels sprays on her skin. Somebody cries her in Greek to raise her head. The girl obeys and finds herself at the seaside, with some people, armed with swords and dressed in long chlamises. In front of the girl the golden galley swings at the water. The woman in a green sitting at the center of the galley ordes to bring the girl close to her. The armed men take the girl by hands and put her on the knees in front of the woman, who begin to ask questions in Greek as well. Sabina knows this language ad she understands the woman despite some old words in her speech. The questions are nearly the same asked by Nurbanu-sultan before, about Sabina`s wherefrom. One of the armed men orders strictly to answer the great empress Theodora! Sabina understands she is again dislocated in time, she answers carefully that she came from the future unwillingly, by some accident. The man offers to cut her head instantly, but the empress says to take the girl to the palace. Soon the galley accost, the empress and her escort move to the Golden Gates of the Emperor`s palace, Sabina is also brought to some small room of the palace and locked there. Soon a woman from the empress` escort come and show Sabina to follow her. They come to the very beautiful garden full of nice flowers and singing birds. The empress sitting on the golden throne orders Sabina to sit at her feet and to tell everything about her so-called time-travel. Sabina tell everything what happened to from the moment of the excursion to the Topkapi. Theodora listens very carefully first, but later says she could believe if not the absolutely crazy words about the future capture of the Empire`s capital by some tribe who would even have a new religion. Maybe the girl saw the great construction works near the palace, that is the emperor Justinian`s construction of the Haghia Sophia, that would be the world`s greatest temple. Could it be that it will be destroyed by some fighting pagans? Sabina is forced to answer that temple would not be destroyed but would be turned by Osmans into the Mosque, that is how they call their temples. And Islam would be the second largest religion of the world. Last words make Theodora furious, she cries: «damned pagan, I will cut your tongue». The frightened Sabina closes her face with hands, suddenly she hears the wind in her ears, blasts off and flies again. Then Sabina grounds on something hard. Sabina puts her hands down and finds herself at the chair with two women in white uniform standing close to her. The door opens and an elderly man enters. The shocked Sabina is not surprised too much to see professor Yilmaz, who orders women to go out, then takes another chair and sits against Sabina. Sabina`s eyes fill with tears, she asks what is happening. Professor answers that he works for some very powerful governmental organization which sponsored his researches on inventing a tiny time teleporter which had to start right in the Topkapi`s harem unit, where according to Hilmi`s accounts the time portal had to be. That device was put into the Sabina`a bag by Tekin, who was among the tourists when she entered the museum. They were expecting Sabina`s return but what happened in the archeological museum was unexpected. Hilmi was sure where were not any time portals but Tekin, who were involved on his father`s researches always was insisting on contrary and that was his idea to take a girl to the museum. «What happened to you, - Hilmi adds with a satisfied smile, - is absolutely gorgeous. We have made a revolutionary invention». That makes Sabina furious, she cries that twice she was within a hair of death, and nobody has a right to use people as a laboratory rat. Hilmi calls nurses, оne of them holds Sabina while the other makes a sedative injection. Then Hilmi says: «When you wake up you will be in your hotel. You have two options – to go home with an ultimate experience and maybe in future to write a nice story about it or to tell everybody about your dialogs with Nurbanu Sultan and empress Theodora. But the last one can bring you only to the psychiatric hospital». Afterwards he lefts the room. Sabina falls asleep. In a couple of days Sabina leaves for Baku, Tekin sees her off apologizing for what he had done on his father`s order and promises to visit the girl in Baku to make peace. Sabina says him good-bye coldly. Two persons watch them on apart. - So, Almaz-hanim? – professor Hilmi asks the tall woman in a white raincoat, - do you think we succeeded to help your daughter? The woman sighs heavily: - I do not know what to say, dear professor. I hope it is so. My girl fall into depression after her father`s death, she was even thinking about suicide… - And this made you to apply to our company. That was a right decision, we conduct the therapy which do not use any medicines to make the desperate one to value his life. -But my girl had tо experience a strong shock again! -Use the treatment appropriate to the ilness, - Hilmi smiles, - We were successful to convince your daughter that she moved to the past twice and was close to death. Sometimes it is necessary to force death to understand how beautiful is a life. You said your daughter likes science fiction stories and dreams to be a great writer. That is why we chose such scenario. Now she has a good base for her new story, - As soon as I return home I will send you the rest of money by invoice. For decorations, suits of actors, etc. But, - the woman stammered, - the drug you made my daughter drink... -Do not worry, this is an absolutely harmless hypnotic which was in her breakfast tea, we needed it to move Sabina from place to place while she was sleeping, for example from the Topkapi museum to the place of the historical movie shooting, and second time from the archeologcail museum to the seaside where she was waited by Arzu Kahraman – our nice and very talented actress as the empress Theodora with her formidable escort. This time Sabina`s mother sighs with relief. The airplane en route from Istanbul to Baku.