Margaret French
In the prosperous Golden City, in an unspecified Middle East, the humble shoemaker Tack finds himself coming to blows with a thief who has entered his shop and ends up on the Grand Vizier Zig-Zag, who orders his arrest (while the thief manages to escape). Tack is sentenced to death, but the young princess Yum-Yum takes pity on him and saves him momentarily by ordering him to repair her shoes. The spark strikes between the two, but the thief has a very ambitious project in mind: to steal the golden spheres that protect the city from the top of an imposing minaret. Thus begins a flurry of adventures that will see Tack and Yum-Yum grapple with the enemies of the kingdom.
It is written among the limitless constellations of the celestial heavens, and in the depths of the emerald seas, and upon every grain of sand in the vast deserts, that the world which we see is an outward and visible dream, of an inward and invisible reality ... Once upon a time there was a golden city. In the center of the golden city, atop the tallest minaret, were three golden balls. The ancients had prophesied that if the three golden balls were ever taken away, harmony would yield to discord, and the city would fall to destruction and death. But... the mystics had also foretold that the city might be saved by the simplest soul with the smallest and simplest of things. In the city there dwelt a lowly shoemaker, who was known as Tack the Cobbler. Also in the city... existed a Thief, who shall be... nameless.
