The Apex Book of World SF

by Mahvesh Murad

  “Here.” Sai handed her a bundle. “Of all the gifts the women brought, these were the only things my relatives weren’t much keen on. I’m sure you can have it.”

  Hase opened the bundle and found two spindles of fine gold and silver threads. She turned the spools in her hands, feeling the fine filigree of each thread, and sighed. “These must be expensive enough that someone may like to save them for later use. Is it certain that Hase can have it?”

  “We are dye masters here, not for embroidery or even weaving.” Sai smiled at Hase encouragingly. “But you like patterns, I’ve heard? That’s why you’ve come all the way here, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.” She nodded, a slow, languid inclination of her heavy, masked head. “On my island, we need more colors, more patterns. Patterns, especially, to be reflected on the beloved children of the Island. I must study.”

  “You mean you can decide what colors and patterns your babies will bear?” Sai leaned forward eagerly.

  “No, sir. We create new patterns, we discover more colors, but our goddess alone can decide. We all wish to please our goddess.”

  Sai frowned, confused. Hase almost smiled at that.

  After a moment of silence, she said quietly, “These look as though they represent the young wives themselves. They are so different and yet, they go so well with each other.”

  Sai, leaning in closer to hear her better, laughed. “Are you being sarcastic?”

  “No, sir! They are lovely, those two.”

  She had said this a little louder, but still, the third son did not lean back. She knew what that meant. And though everything was awkward with her heavy pot, the hard wooden ground, the thin futon, this time Hase smiled. The pot weighed her down, pinned her to the floor, as if Sai’s eyes intent on her covered face weren’t enough to affix her there already.

  When she was alone again, Hase pulled the spindles Sai had given her out from the folds of her sleeves. She placed them on the ground beside her futon, then changed her mind and put them on the pillow and carefully laid her heavy head beside them. The two colors filled her reflected sight, shimmering and twining in cruel beauty, fueling rather than smothering her desire.

  The next day, Hase walked dreamily through the dyed cloths fluttering in the wind, being dried. Some bore glue for patterns to be washed away later, and some still had strings marking the fabric for simpler patterns. A few plain cloths with no patters at all fluttered alongside these elaborate designs, forming a small sea of color and texture upon which Hase and her metal potted head were afloat. Her heavy head swiveled in wonder, slowly, taking in all of the colors and styles. She had to memorize all these patterns, for the dye masters would never teach her how to make them. The blues. The whites. Everything in between. But just then she heard a voice, interrupting her quiet study. “You seem to have had a very good time last night.”

  Startled, Hase spun around, searching for the source of the voice though she already knew its owner. She walked on in between the waves of cloths, currents and bubbles, seaweeds of patterns, toward the voice. At the end of the last row, she found her.

  Hase bowed as well as she could, and asked: “Was that statement aimed at me, mistress?”

  Trills of blue, a line of silver. For a moment, the older of the two wives—the one Hase called in her mind Silver—looked away from her. “Why did you come here? What is it you want from us?”

  “I come to learn about dyeing…”

  “Oh, do you? So seducing our brother-in-law was part of your plan?”

  Hase shook her head; that was all she could do.

  “With a face like yours it must be really easy to lie, isn’t it? Are you even really from that Island everybody’s talking about? Does it even exist? Did you think looking ordinary would make us feel you’re one of us, or did you think we’d be too easy to deceive, so you didn’t bother mocking those colors and patterns of the Island’s people?” The elder wife’s anger and spite burned in her eyes.

  Involuntarily, Hase raised her hand through Silver’s tirade, resting it gently over a nearby cloth and marveling at its fine knots and textures. She tried to imagine the pattern the knots might make eventually, and failed. “My patterns, I guess, are in my head.”

  Silver frowned. “In your head? What are you talking about?”

  Hase stroked the cloth again, trying to coax the pattern into life. “Yes. I’m the head pattern designer of my clan, as I have told the great mistress here.” She recalled Sai’s mother in her finest robes, her eyes cold as she assessed Hase and her claims. “I have to extract the patterns from my head, and to do that, I need to know more ways to express the patterns, of course!” Hase’s voice rose in pitch, in eagerness and fervor. Her potted head glittered in the sunlight. “But, but the people in this region, especially the dye masters, wouldn’t allow the dye or dyeing methods out of the region. We—my aunts, and other guardians and I, of course, of course—had to promise I wouldn’t take any—any!—indigo out of this place when we arranged my apprenticeship here! But nobody can prevent me from taking these blues and whites and everything else with me inside my head! And…what is the matter?”

  Silver had backed away from Hase, the hate in her eyes faded into wariness and fear at Hase’s rambling outburst.

  At Silver’s discomfort, Hase immediately reverted to her usual quiet demeanor. “Forgive me, I shouldn’t have kept our young mistress standing here, listening to Hase’s useless babblings! Did I answer the question well enough?”

  Silver shook her head. “I…no. Not at all. Now, there are only more questions than before.”

  “Forgive me, mistress. Please, pardon my rudeness!”

  “Don’t.” Silver raised a hand toward Hase, who had just taken one step closer to her. “Come no closer. And don’t you dare look at me like that.”

  “Like what, mistress?”

  But Silver just waved her hand and walked away in a flutter of silk, leaving Hase standing amid the sea of patterned cloth, her face as smooth and impassive as ever.

  Sai’s words were always gentle. Hase felt as though she could fall asleep listening to him.

  “Is it true,” the young man asked, waking her up from her reverie, “that on the Island, some people change their colors as they grow old? I heard that from one of the relatives; they’d heard that somewhere along the trip here.”

  Hase inclined her potted head. “Some do, yes. I know a person whose eyes changed from light green to viridian, yellow, and eventually brown, like leaves. They crumbled in the end, and the person went blind.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “That person knew what was going to happen and worked hard to prepare for it. It’s not that bad, when things are predictable like that.”

  After a while he sighed. “I cannot imagine the life of your people.”

  “There is no need, sir.”

  “But I want to. I want to know more about you.”

  Hase turned from Sai and remained silent, playing with the twines of silver and gold spindles he had given her.

  In her eyes she wove her patterns of gold and silver. With occasional blue that punctuated the new design, it shaped hearts and veins.

  But then, just before she could wholly grasp the new pattern, her heavy head was yanked back as another pair of hands held onto her shoulders. Her shoulders ached under the hands’ vice-like grip, pain blossoming in sharp edges and radiating from her chest. And yet, despite the ache, Hase felt the most bitter edge of frustration at losing the pattern she had been imagining, weaving in her eyes.

  Below her, Hase could see a large basin of water as the pair of hands holding her shoulders yanked backwards further and the other hands pulling at the pot on her head went the other direction. She coughed, and heard a young servant’s voice: “Mistress, if we go any further she might be sick, or even, she might die. I wouldn’t be able to explain to our masters what happened, if asked.”

  “Simple, tell them you punished her because she had stolen
the gold and silver threads.” Silver’s calm voice. “If she dies, it’s an accident.”

  She’d have preferred drowning in the dye pot, especially now with the new indigo being brewed, the bubbles from fermentation slowly blooming like a nebula over the dark liquid. But that would spoil the new dye. Through the pain she imagined the dye’s warmth, the smell, explosion of stars as the liquid rushed into her head. Hase shivered.

  Behind her, the younger of the wives burst out laughing, her voice full of gold dust. “Then let me do it! I want to choke her with my own hands!”

  Silver glowered at Gold. “Are you stupid? We cannot do it ourselves. We are going to say that the servant did it to impress us, of his own will. Be careful not to get your robe wet or touch anything that could prove we were here.”

  At that, the servant boy’s hands loosened a little from Hase’s shoulders. Hase whimpered as she heard Gold make a frustrated noise.

  “Anyway.” Silver came around to where Hase could see her, and crouched down to flash the two spindles of thread. “These are confiscated. You don’t need them, anyway, do you? Because the patterns are all in your head, like you said.”

  “No! Please, I need them! They are my inspiration!”

  Silver smiled her cold, cold smile. Hase tried to reach out for the spindles, but the servant boy pulled her back. She heard Gold laughing again, saw Silver tuck the spindles into her sleeve.

  Hase could feel her aunts’ frustration. She wasn’t making enough progress. Seeing the color of indigo change in impossible gradation, learning simple knots that revealed unexpected patterns weren’t enough yet for her to create new, satisfying designs. She needed inspiration, and it seemed as though the people here were determined to snatch away that inspiration just when she thought she had found it.

  Until one night, at the far end of the house, where she found the three young nobles.

  She watched as they tangled and disentangled, making new patterns for her every second. The unreliable screen of organdy, which they must have chosen so that they would be seen, provided her with even more inspirations, as it swayed and added a sheen to their passion. Patterns, patterns, patterns.

  “What is it that we don’t have and the pot girl does?” Silver’s cool voice carried through the night as she gracefully moved to ride the man.

  “The pot hides her face and lets me see my own lovely self on it,” Sai said breezily. Gold sighed with pleasure behind them.

  “And also,” he said, pushing up a little to grab at Silver’s buttocks, “she is from an island full of treasures. Why not make her a slave of mine, let her serve as a liaison between us and the Island?”

  “Did you say ‘us’?” Gold crawled up from behind Sai and kissed him upside down.

  “Besides.” Sai lay fully down again and reached out to touch Gold now. “She looks ordinary, I mean, apart from that pot, but who knows what her children will look like? I know her aunts have the colors, because she just told me, because she trusts me, so why not her children?”

  “So then you can sell them?”

  “Or we could give them to the high generals or perhaps even the Emperor!”

  The three all laughed. Then Silver said, while Gold’s laughing voice was still trilling in the air: “How did you make her trust you? She doesn’t have a face, it’s hard to tell what she thinks. Even if you’re good at putting up with your own face staring back at you.”

  “Oh, that was easy. Just being kind to her is more than enough. Treat her as a woman, as no one else does around here, and she’s yours.”

  Gold laughed. Sai chuckled. Silver grinned and licked her lips as she cast her glance upward. “Really? If that’s true, you must be a very, very undemanding person, aren’t you, Pot Head?”

  Sai followed Silver’s eyes. Hase, previously hidden in the dimness of the corridor behind the screen, stepped into the light and moaned softly, her sigh swaying the cotton organdy in front of her. Sai bolted upright, pushing Silver off him. “Hase!”

  Silver let out a laugh, a trilling of cold, cruel bells. “Oh, Sai, didn’t you know she uses this path to get to that stupid cot of hers in the storehouse? You should have paid more attention! If you intended to fool her long enough so that she would take you to that stupid Island, that is!”

  Sai looked embarrassed, seemed to be searching for the right words. But soon he gave up, knowing there were no right words to save face with Hase. He looked at her mouth, her smooth, potted head and spoke. “Yes, I was using you, but you had to know this. Why else would I, a man with a rank, place special favor upon an odd girl like you if it weren’t to use you?”

  None of the three could read Hase’s face, of course, with that mirrored helmet of hers. But they could see her shaking. Silver and Gold looked pleased. Sai still looked a little embarrassed, a little uncertain, despite his declaration.

  “So why don’t we make a child here?” Gold said.

  Taking that as an invitation, Hase stepped over the threshold, pushing the organdy out of the way. “But why? Why are you so interested in me?” she asked.

  Sai frowned. “No, I told you, I’m more interested in your…”

  But Hase wasn’t listening to him. She crouched down, not to face him, but to face Silver beside him. “You are like a cold fire that seeks to burn me out.”

  Silver’s grin became wider. “Of course, I hate you, your pot, your behavior, your strangeness—”

  “Am I? Am I strange enough? Everybody says I’m plain, with my ordinary hair, my ordinary skin, my plain colors. Everybody’s disappointed!”

  “What?”

  She turned to Sai. “And to you, yes, I don’t mind having your genes. We always need more variations.”

  “We…what?”

  Hase moved on her hands and knees, scampering toward Gold. “Oh, I love the way you laugh. Like gold dust exploding and filling the space. Laugh! Laugh, laugh, laugh at me!”

  By then, even Gold was frowning with discomfort, and the silence drew out between the four.

  “You are disgusting,” Silver spat, breaking the quiet.

  “Yes!” Hase turned around to her. “Yes, I’m disgusting! I love being bullied! I love being punished! Bully me! Punish me! You like it too, don’t you!”

  The three young people slowly backed away from Hase. She swiveled her heavy smooth head back and forth between Silver and Gold—Sai was no use now for her, not paying enough attention to her and therefore, misunderstanding her. Of course, in retrospect, all the questions he had asked her were about the Island, not Hase herself. Gold was nicely cruel, but she was more like a small child, always looking for a new toy. She’d probably tire of Hase sooner or later. So she looked at Silver, whose hateful stare almost choked Hase, like a flood of warm indigo dye.

  Trills of silver, quiver of gold.

  “Aunts,” Hase whispered, grinning impossibly wide, resembling a huge-headed, one-eye monster. “I finally found what I needed. My offering to our goddess!”

  Silver backed further away on her hands and buttocks, eyes shining with fear. Her terror made a sharp pang run through Hase, a shiver that wove new patterns, a shiver that pierced colorful stitches over her bright darkness, her white-out canvas.

  Silver winced at her own reflection on the mirror of Hase’s helmet; what she didn’t, couldn’t know was that it was a mirror both outside and inside alike. The inner mirror was always connected to the server, where her aunts received and observed every pattern Hase formed. The outer mirror projected and transferred information of the outside world onto Hase’s brain, in the place of her long-crumbled eyes. Pains and hurts, both physical and psychological, inspired her more than anything; they had known that much through years of observation. That was why her aunts had sent her to this strangely feudal place—as much for the pain as for the rare colors and dyes that weren’t allowed to be exported.

  “I’m the head designer of the clan, you see,” Hase said, smiling her eyeless, reflective smile. “We need more patterns, colors, an
d shapes to satisfy our goddess. Favor of our goddess means wealth, and wealth means we will be able to afford a more expensive, lighter-smaller-better helmet for me. But if you prefer me in this heavy old thing, if you’d bully me more in this thing, I want to keep wearing it forever!”

  Hase’s breath came in quick pants of arousal and excitement, while Silver’s breathing turned ragged with terror. Hase could hear Gold making strange noises, like choking, like gagging, like she was about to vomit. No noise, no move could be heard from Sai. Has he fainted? Hase queried halfheartedly. Useless youngest boy.

  “What do you want?” Silver choked out.

  Hase shifted into a seiza position. “I want you inside my helmet.” She thought for a split second, and then, waved her hands in excited denial. “Not you, but the copy of your mental map, so that you’d keep on inspiring me.” She stopped her hands and placed them on her chest, and crooned, “Yes, those eyes. I want your eyes, spiteful, hateful, always on me. Don’t worry, it won’t hurt you!”

  “I don’t understand.” Silver backed away further, frantically looking for an exit. “If I let you do that, you will leave us alone?”

  Hase’s cheeks and lips were enough to tell Silver that the pot headed girl was disappointed. “I thought you wanted to keep me around, to hate me, to laugh at me. But yes, if you let me have your copy, I’d simply go home with it. And I’ll send you treasures with the patterns you inspired, if you’d like that.”

  Quietly, slowly, as to not startle Hase into excitement again, Silver shifted to sit cross-legged. “Do send them, then. You are going to be rich, right? Why not us, too?” Silver’s eyes turned calculating, momentarily forgetting her fear.

  Hase grinned wide again. Behind them Gold started to sob. “Sister, no! What if she’s lying about not hurting you?”

  “I am not!” Hase whipped her large head back, wobbling slightly, making Gold jump. “It’s just like…drawing a picture of her! Surely you’ve been drawn a portrait before? A beautiful person like you? Did it hurt you, ever?”