A Thousand Nights Read online

  “The smallgods hear of so many sad things, so many hopeless wants and desires,” she said. “Let them hear laughter for a time.”

  I did not laugh now, and clouds roiled through the desert in my mind. In vain, I tried to call the blue sky into focus, but it would not come, and the smooth sand was punctured in many places by sharp rock, and by bushes with thorns so long they would pierce a lamb’s heart, if the creature stumbled into them. I opened my eyes, and lamented my failure. Perhaps I really was too far away from the places of my dead to pray.

  On the top of the wooden chest in the corner of my room, there lay folded the dishdashah that my sister and I had made, the one that someone had brought to me when I wished for it. I rose and crossed the room to get it, bare feet used to rug-covered marble floors at last. Holding it in my hands, I returned to my seat on the bed and closed my eyes once more.

  This time, I did not call the desert. Instead I saw my sister’s hands as we worked the embroidery into the fine fabric. I heard her voice, whispering in my ear. And there was something more, something else deeper in the vision. I let go of the focus on my breathing, and fell into it.

  It was a regular sound, rhythmic and comforting. It was the loom on which the cloth had been made. I did not know who had crafted the cloth—our father had brought it with him when he returned with the caravan—but I could feel her hands on the shuttle, the way her fingers picked apart the strings of the warp to make a pattern for the weft. The cloth of my dishdashah had been of deepest purple, a mark of our father’s wealth. The weaving this time was the brightest orange, with fine gold thread added as an accent every half-handspan or so. Though the color was less rich, the pattern and weight of the fabric made it priceless. This would dress a queen.

  I felt the strength of the weaving, and called it toward myself. I saw orange fire run from the fabric to my hands, and though the color was not bleached from the cloth, I felt stronger, calmer. I thought I could call the blue sky desert now, but found I no longer needed it.

  When I opened my eyes, a serving girl was kneeling at the foot of my bed. I had not seen her before, and wished that there might be some consistency in the women who came into my rooms. She had not interrupted me, and I was glad of it. Her eyes were wide, but I did not know the reason until I looked down at my hands, still holding the dishdashah. It was pale in the sunlight of my room, but undeniable nonetheless: the copper-colored glow that enveloped my hands and the dark purple silk. Alarmed, I opened my fingers and the dishdashah fell, taking that strange light with it.

  “Lady-bless,” breathed the girl, and I thought she might fully genuflect before me. At least she did not flee in fear.

  “Pay no mind to it,” I said to her. “The smallgods show favor in ways we cannot always understand.”

  “Yes, lady-bless,” she said, but it was clear that she did not think the light was from a smallgod any more than I did. She took a breath and stood. “My lord will have a grand feast tonight,” she said, as though nothing had happened. “There is a star shower, and he has called upon Skeptics and Priests to debate the matter. He bids you to come, else he will not see you.”

  I wondered if that meant I was safe tonight. If I did not go, Lo-Melkhiin would not see me, and could not kill me. If I went, he would surely not kill me in front of the others. I felt that chill again, as when I had awoken, but it was less because of the copper fire I had called to myself. Lo-Melkhiin would not kill me with his hands, I was sure of it. There was some strange power to him, even as there was some strange power to me, and I would not learn of it hiding in my room, or from the women as they crafted.

  “I will go,” I told her, and she smiled at me.

  She helped me to dress then, in a light shift for the morning, as I would soon begin preparing for what was to come. I broke my fast with flatbread and oil, and then was taken away to the baths. The preparations were even more elaborate than they had been for my wedding night, presumably because this occasion called for a more involved hairstyle than had been required on that evening. I sat for hours as I was scrubbed, pumiced, hennaed, plaited, and coiled. It was warm and I could have drifted into the weaving trance, or even called up the blue sky desert, but I was concerned that if I made the attempt, that strange light would reappear. I did not wish to startle my attendants. Instead, I sat and listened to their talk.

  “Last year, my lord only called upon the Skeptics,” the henna mistress said, dark brown hands working patterns on my skin. “The Priests were angry, but of course they could say nothing about it.”

  “The Skeptics said that the stars are not smallgods, but rock and fire,” said the girl whose job it was to pick the bath salts.

  “Who lights a fire hot enough to burn rock, then?” said the henna mistress. “And how does it stay aflame in the sky with no one to tend it?”

  “I am sure the Skeptics have an answer,” the girl said.

  “Of course they do.” The henna mistress finished with my arms, and began to comb the dye into my hair—for the scent, not the color. “But in hearing their answers and the answers from the Priests, we see a clearer picture of the sky.”

  They continued to argue as they worked on my hair, and I withdrew into my thoughts in spite of my determinations otherwise. We did not have Skeptics in our father’s tents. They lived only in the city, and in some of the larger villages. Unlike Priests, who can work alone, Skeptics require the company of their fellows so that they can debate the great questions they have set themselves to. Small villages and encampments can spare folk to tend to the bones of the dead and the altars of the smallgods, but they cannot always spare a man to do nothing but think, no matter how great his thoughts. I had never met a Skeptic, and tonight I would.

  I was unfamiliar with what, exactly, was accorded to me by my rank. While the servants deferred to me, and Firh Stonetouched had been respectful, I was unsure if I could command. If I spoke to a Skeptic, he would likely disregard me as a simple tent-born girl, come to die at Lo-Melkhiin’s hand as all the others before me had done. Perhaps my continued life would be interesting enough to garner me the conversation I required. I wished to ask about the power of smallgods, if any knew how far their power reached. I knew the Priests’ answer already, because I had had it from my mother, but now I wanted another opinion.

  When my hair was done to satisfaction, the women brought me fruit to eat, and took some time to rest before the final steps of my decoration. I learned how to sit with the mass of coiled braids upon my head, and how to handle a cup without ruining the tattoos on my fingers and wrists. The henna mistress watched me closely, and then nodded her approval.

  “Do not worry overmuch about courtly manners tonight, lady-bless,” she said, her voice low and close to my ear. “It will be torchlight only, and standing to eat. With luck, all eyes will be upon the stars.”

  “With luck,” I said, and smiled. She smiled back, uncertainly at first, but then a true smile when she saw that I was not afraid.

  At last it grew dark, and it was time to dress for dinner. The dressing mistress cut me out of the shift I wore, because they could not pull it over my head. A new one was brought, with lacing in the back, and they tied me into it.

  “This is a dishdashah for standing,” the dressing mistress said to me. “You must not sit unless one of your own attendants is close by to help you stand again. It will not fall apart while you stand, but if you bend, you will loosen the fastenings, and then they will not hold when you move again.”

  They brought out the garment. I could not keep the surprise from my face. The light cast by the oil lamps flickered, but shone brighter than the tallow candles we used in the tents. It was not murky or dim, because the tiles in the bathing rooms reflected the light cast by the lamps, and magnified it so that it was as bright as it had been during the day. There was no mistaking what I saw, though I blinked several times to make sure I had not strayed into a vision.

  The fabric was as orange as fire, and woven through with gold so t
hat it, like the tiles, glimmered in the lamplight. The heavy silk whispered as the dressing mistress wrapped it around me, stopping now and then to do the fastenings while her assistants held the cloth in place. Even the pattern in the warp matched the vision I had seen.

  “It was made especially for your coloring, lady-bless,” the dressing mistress said. She had clearly mistaken the cause of my awe. “We had not heard about the gold thread, though. That was a surprise to all.”

  “Indeed,” I said, carefully running one finger across the fabric. It rippled, variations in color running over the top of it like wispy clouds through a hot summer sky, but much more brilliant to look at.

  “You will even stand out in the dark,” said the henna mistress. “Perhaps some eyes will stray from the stars after all.”

  I stood quietly as they finished, their excitement about the dishdashah quelling the last of their fears that I would die tonight. I no longer had that fear either, but a new one was growing in its place. I still wished to speak to a Skeptic, but now I would have to be even more careful about what I said. I had never heard of a person who dreamed the future while they still lived. Sometimes a smallgod gave guidance, but it was always vague. My vision had been strikingly specific. I closed my eyes, and once again reached for that blue sky desert, as I had so many times before I had come to this place. It came as soon as I bade it, but it was different this time than it had been before.

  The sky was still a brilliant blue, and the sand a smooth brown, but it was no longer unadorned. I could see, as I had never seen before, how the sky was woven together, how the sand was made a part of the pattern, and how the two pieces were joined at the hem along the far horizon. My heart sped up, and I thought at first that I was afraid; but then I opened my eyes, and I saw how the women looked at me, like I was a queen in truth, and I knew that it was not fear I felt, rushing along with the blood through my veins.

  Lo-Melkhiin knew her well, that first one. He knew what she looked like. Her scent. The shape of her smile. He remembered her for a long time, because he loved her. I remembered her because I stole her.

  She was shorter than Lo-Melkhiin was, and her face was lit with joy all throughout the wedding ceremony and the feast that followed. The people did not know what was to come, not yet. They had not even begun to suspect. All they knew was that Lo-Melkhiin was happy to wed, at last, and their lands were slowly recovering from misrule. They did not yet understand that there would be a price. Lo-Melkhiin knew, of course, and he screamed and raged, but he could do nothing to stop me.

  When the food was eaten and the songs were sung, they put Lo-Melkhiin and his bride to bed in a silk-hung room with wide windows for the moonlight. Lo-Melkhiin stood in the pale space on the floor, and she came to him, dark hair bleeding color under the silver glow. The night air was desert-cool, but her lips on his were warm. For a moment, Lo-Melkhiin was overcome. He stopped his voiceless screams at her touch, warmed by her kiss. When I tightened his hands on her slim waist, he remembered, and screamed anew.

  I was clumsy, that first night. The cold light worked too quickly, and she was too in love with the man she thought she had married. It would take me time, and several more wives, to refine my methods. I think, had I been better able to control myself, she might have lived to see the next day. She might have lived to see the next ten. I would learn in the nights to come that fear burned swiftly, but love burned strong. Both were useful, which was fortunate, because soon enough no one loved Lo-Melkhiin anymore.

  None of that mattered that night. I took what I required from her, and made Lo-Melkhiin watch as she shriveled and wilted under his hands. Her dark hair turned grey, then silver, and finally white. Her eyes lost their spirited glow, and became dull things within her skull. Her skin drew tight across her bones, and then sagged as her bones failed within her. My only real complaint was that she never screamed, but Lo-Melkhiin did enough of that for both of them.

  In the morning, when the serving girls woke Lo-Melkhiin, it was with cries of fear and distress at the sight of the thing with which I shared his marriage bed. I feigned distress as well, and did so good a job at it that I was believed. She was buried, and I pretended to mourn even while the lands prospered. But a lord cannot be unwed, and before long, the council begged Lo-Melkhiin to set aside his supposed grief and marry again. They did not have to beg very hard.

  The second wedding was much the same as were the ones that followed it. If there were rumblings that Lo-Melkhiin should not wed again, they were as quiet as the footfalls of a wild dog hunting in the desert. Time passed and girls died, and eventually there were too many for even the Skeptics to explain away. But the land prospered, and there was peace, and Lo-Melkhiin asked again to be married. The men of the council decided, then, the sort of girls to sacrifice, and the law was handed down.

  I cared not for the laws and rules of Lo-Melkhiin’s council. I cared only for the strength of the power I took from his wives, as they came to his bed, and for the pain I caused to the body I had taken. In time he twisted; his agony lessened, and became a dull thing that I could barely provoke. My power did not wane, however, and I found I could still taunt him with the fragility of our victims. And so we continued. Together.

  WHEN THE HENNA MISTRESS and the others were done with me, one of the footmen came and took me to a garden I had not been into before. It was at the base of the qasr wall, and its entrance was hidden by a door carved to look as though it were part of the wall. I had looked at it and never seen what was hidden there. Lo-Melkhiin’s mother waited for me by a worn statue. It did not have the unsettling eyes I had become accustomed to seeing in the qasr gardens. For some reason, it made me feel more at ease, even though I still had no idea what awaited me this night.

  Lo-Melkhiin’s mother was even paler in the dark, and bore no henna on her skin as I did. As always, her head was crowned with her lion’s-mane wig, the sandy-colored hair bleached white under the stars the same way the desert paled under the night sky. Her dishdashah was darker than mine—blue, or maybe purple—I could not tell with such little illumination. It was simply cut and sewed, with no embroidery and no thread like the gold that highlighted mine. I wondered if I was overdressed, but when she saw me she only nodded, and then raised a hand to fix one of the curls that had come loose while I walked.

  “Your dresser missed a pin,” she said to me. I felt her thin fingers against my scalp as she anchored the curl to the same pin as its neighbor. She pulled my veil forward slightly to cover the mistake. “You must be sure to hold your head still.”

  “I will, my lady mother,” I said to her.

  She nodded again and took my arm in hers. We walked away from the comfort of the statue’s gaze to the sally port in the qasr wall. This, I realized, was why the garden was hidden. The sally port was likely concealed from the outside as well, to keep enemies unaware of its exact location. I wondered how many within the walls knew of its location. I wondered if Lo-Melkhiin’s mother only showed it to me now because she knew that I might die. Even if I lived, there were few whom I could tell.

  The qasr walls were wide enough that the sally port was more a tunnel than a door. Lo-Melkhiin’s mother did not need a lamp in the darkness under the stones, and I followed her because there was nothing else I could do. We did not go all the way to the exit, which would have taken us outside the qasr walls altogether, but instead turned to the side. There was, to my surprise, a door, and behind that, a narrow stair. This we took to the top of the wall, and I breathed cool night air without palace perfumes for the first time in all the days since I had been taken in my sister’s stead.

  “Come,” said Lo-Melkhiin’s mother to me, after I had filled my lungs three times.

  We went around the top of the wall. I saw the familiar gardens below me on one side, and the unfamiliar city on the other. The gardens were dark; even the customary lamps were unlit tonight for the star-falling party. The city, stretching out into the desert from the safety of the qasr wall, was lit up
with hundreds of little lights. Lo-Melkhiin was no tyrant, it seemed; or at least, not one who would demand a city’s darkness for his own sake.

  I did my best not to look out at the desert and think about my sister. Did she know that stars would fall this night? Such a thing had not happened before in our lifetimes. If a Skeptic was required to predict the fall, then my sister would know nothing of it. I did not know if the priestly crafts of my mother and of my sister’s mother were profound enough to foretell such an event. Would the sheep be unsettled? I did not imagine they would. They would sleep through the entire thing—unless a star landed beside them—and be none the wiser. Would the night watchman see the stars fall and raise the alarm, not knowing what it meant?

  In all the preparation, I had not given much thought to the actual event. I did not know if the stars would fall to the sand itself. Lo-Melkhiin’s mother was not afraid, which gave me courage, but I did not like the idea that something that was a part of the sky would not remain so. I pushed my fear away. If I was not afraid of the qasr’s master, I decided, I would be afraid of nothing else.

  At length we came to a wide place atop the wall, where flat stones made a balcony that stretched from an elaborately decorated door to the edge of the wall itself. It was the size of the space between all the tents our father owned, the common area where all the women sat outside to spin and card, and where the night’s fire roasted sheep and gave light to the evening tales. There was no fire here, though. And the people who stood about were unfamiliar, and formally attired.

  Lo-Melkhiin’s mother put a hand on my arm and guided me across the balcony to stand by the door. There we stood and waited as more people arrived. There were Priests in white robes and others I took to be Skeptics in robes of varying shades. There was Firh Stonetouched, in breeches and a tunic lined with some decoration I could not see in the dim light. There were others, men of Lo-Melkhiin’s court and their wives, all dressed in fine cloth that was wasted without torches and lamps to parade it. Only my dishdashah, with its gold thread, showed its quality. No one looked at me for very long, but they could not help pausing before their eyes slid past me in the dark.