Susan Fletcher - Alphabet of Dreams

by Susan Fletcher

  Now Zoya cleared her throat. “So. He craves to meet him.”

  “Who?” I looked at her in alarm. “The Scythian? Meet Babak?”

  She nodded.

  “No.”

  “He’s a kindly man. I can sense these things.”

  “No.”

  “As you wish.” She bowed mockingly. “I’ll bide by your wishes, oh high-and-mighty one. But I could squeeze more coppers from him if he met Babak.”

  I could see where this was headed. “I should never have trusted you,” I said.

  Something flared in her eyes; they went hard. “Don’t worry. I’ll say no. Meantimes …” She pulled a length of brown linen from her tunic. “His brother’d like a dream too.”

  His brother, and his sister, and his sister’s husband, and his sister’s husband’s mother. All wanted Babak to dream for them. I had to tell him. No, I had to ask him. It is not right to steal a person’s dreams without his permission. Even if it is for his own good.

  So, after he woke from his nap, I came to sit beside him, in the narrow shaft of light that slanted down from the opening above. He leaned against me, the kitten in his lap. “Shirak,” he called him now. Little lion. I combed my fingers through Babak’s tangled mop of hair and asked him, “Do you remember that dream you had, the one about the baby? The Scythian baby?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Well, it came true.”

  He wiggled his tooth with his tongue.

  “Did you know it would?”

  “It was a true dream.”

  I drew away from him, looked down into his face, half in shadow, half in light. “How? How did you know?”

  He shrugged. “I just knew.”

  I wanted to ask him more, ask again if he’d been visited with other dreams like this. But I’d tried before, and my questions had only annoyed him. Likely, he didn’t understand these dreams any better than I. “Babak,” I said, “does it trouble you to dream like this? Like the dream about the baby? Like the dream about the mountains and the shaggy beasts? Does it … cause you pain?”

  “No,” he said. “They were good dreams.”

  “But if they had been bad dreams …”

  “I don’t like bad dreams,” he said.

  For a full year after we had fled Susa with Suren, Babak had had nightmares whenever he slept. Many a time we had huddled at the side of some road or other—hungry, cold, exhausted—trying to wake Babak as he screamed in terror, trying to comfort him afterward. Many a time I had wanted to curse my father for bringing down this misery upon us.

  King Phraates was an evil man. I knew that. But still …

  The wreck of our lives these past three years. Hiding. Begging. Stealing. Seeking in vain for kinsmen or friends. At last coming to this loathsome place, the City of the Dead.

  “Babak,” I said, snuggling against him again, “if you sleep with this next to your skin”—I showed him the brown cloth—“you might have a dream about the man who owns it. And if you do, he will give us some coppers.”

  “Like the man with the baby?”

  “Yes, like him.”

  “And we can buy melons? Those round melons with the yellow meat, and the big green ones, and—”

  He would fix on melons; their size and shape made them difficult to steal.

  “And,” I broke in, “we can save the coins for passage to Palmyra, where we might find—”

  His face fell. “I don’t care about Palmyra!”

  “Yes you do!” I said. “In Palmyra—”

  “I don’t care.”

  I sighed. I had spoken so much about Palmyra that he’d wearied of hearing of it, especially since Palmyra had caused Suren to go away. There was no purpose in arguing with him now. No purpose in bringing up aunts and uncles he likely didn’t remember. No purpose in raising his hopes about our mother.

  Still, he deserved something for this dreamwork. “Very well. But you will have to tell me your dreams, Babak. You will have to tell them right away.”

  “And you will buy melons?”

  I nodded.

  “Two kinds, the green meat and the yellow meat?”

  “Yes, Babak.”

  “And dates? And roasted chickpeas?”

  He drove a hard bargain, this one. “If I can’t steal them, I’ll buy them,” I said. “After you’ve told me your dreams and after someone has paid us for them.”

  He smiled that luminous smile of his, so full of joy.

  “Babak. If you ever want to stop, just tell me. Do you promise? I don’t want you doing this if it hurts you in any way.”

  His eyes, large and black and soft, seemed to search my face.

  “We don’t have to get money for Palmyra with your dreams. We’ll find another way. I don’t mind.”

  “Yes you do,” he said.

  I sighed. I could hide some things from him, but not what I felt deeply. “I would mind it more if the dreaming hurt you in some way. Do you understand?”

  He nodded. But I knew he wanted to please me. Would do nearly anything to please me—once he got over being stubborn—no matter the harm to himself.

  This still felt like sin, someway.

  But I would watch him very carefully. I would protect him. From Zoya. From the Scythians.

  Palmyra. Our old life.

  It stirred again within me—familiar now, and dark. I squeezed Babak’s shoulders, then leaped to my feet, startling the kitten, who hissed fiercely and arched his back. I paced back and forth across the chamber.

  Restless, restless.

  Hunger. More powerful than before. Hunger for the life we had lost; hunger that fed on hope. Hunger so strong, I yearned to sweep all else aside to satisfy it.

  CHAPTER 8

  SLIT-NOSE

  After that, they kept him dreaming. Twice a day—once during the afternoon rest in the heat of the day, and once at night. There was an uncle, too, who wanted a dream, and cousins, and the cousins’ wives and husbands, and their cousins; and some of them, after they’d had one dream, wanted another. Babak dreamed of a profitable trade of salt. Of a bride at a wedding party. Of a winning toss of dice. Of an old man’s recovery from a rash of painful boils. He dreamed of feasts and betrothals and more babies. He dreamed again of travel to this other land.

  The first Scythian requested more dreams for himself; we tried using the lynx-fur hat from before, but no dream came. So Zoya came back with his sash and then his undertunic and then his cloak, all of which gave rise to new dreams. Only once did Babak have a nightmare, a dream of revenge and blood. Zoya took word to the Scythian that Babak would never again dream for that person. If he had another nightmare, she said, the dreams would cease.

  Babak took the garments willingly enough. Except for the one nightmare, he didn’t seem to mind the dreaming. He seemed to relish, once he was in a mood to tell, the attention he received. He doled out wedges of melon like a bountiful lord and took pride in being of use.

  Over the following weeks some of the dreams came true. The salt trade, for one, and the winning toss of dice. The old man’s boils began to heal. Others did not come true—weddings, babies, journeys. “These are deeper into the future,” Zoya said. “The Scythians know this. They believe.”

  “But why?” I asked. “Why do they believe the dreams of a child? How long are they willing to wait for the dreams to come true?”

  Zoya tugged at a hair on her chin. “A wine merchant, when he craves to sell his wares, pours out a taste for his buyers. If the taste is good, the buyer takes on faith that the rest’ll be so as well. So it is with Babak’s dreams. Some have come to pass—a taste—and that’ll do for now. With dreams, even more than with wine, folks want to believe.”

  But there was something else, I knew. All of Babak’s dreams were true in this one sense: They expressed truly the wishes of the dream buyers—wishes the Scythians had not revealed to Zoya. To divine the deep desires of a person’s heart … well, this, too, was a wonder. Sufficient, as Zoya had said, fo
r a time.

  We ventured into the marketplace again. The Scythians, Zoya assured us, would not accost us. She would meet only with the one for whom Babak had had the first dream, and he would neither describe us to others nor point us out. She told him that if he, or any of his clan, approached us, the dreams would cease.

  It was different in Rhagae since the Magus and his entourage had come. More crowded—even after some of the merchants of the original caravan, impatient with the long stopover, formed a smaller caravan and continued east. The marketplace now bustled with servants running to and fro, snapping up the finest food and goods. They were full of themselves, these servants. They would ignore you unless you got in their way, then they would peer down their noses at you, as if you were lower than a centipede. Flute and horn and tambour blared from the street corners; the city teemed with musicians, some from the Magus’s caravan and more who hoped to join it. A juggler flung an arc of bright leather balls overhead, and a conjurer produced baby birds from his mouth.

  Rumor had it this Magus was staying here for a time to enjoy the healing waters before resuming his way east to his home in Margiana.

  I would have thought that the hubbub would make it easier to be inconspicuous, and yet somehow this was not true. Merchants looked at us more closely now that we were buying food. Remembered us, in a way they had not when we were just part of the ever-present flow of beggars and thieves. This made it difficult to steal, where it’s best to be as unremarkable as a flea. We had been invisible so long—we had survived by being invisible—that being noticed set wrong with me.

  The back of my neck was forever prickling. I felt watched—even when I could see no one watching. I tried to tell myself that I was just on edge about the dreams, about Babak, but my sense of unease buzzed about me like a meddlesome fly. There were so many more strangers in the city now, and some of them seemed … alert … in a way I’d never marked before. Once, as I was bargaining for a melon, Babak startled and looked up quickly. Following the direction of his gaze, I saw a horse-archer with a creased, weathered face and a cropped beard streaked with gray. He had watchful eyes that missed nothing—and a slit through one nostril. The man shot Babak a sharp glance. I broke off with haggling and hustled Babak away. When I looked back, the man’s keen gaze had swept round to another quarter.

  “Why did you jump, Babak?” I asked.

  He shrugged, and that was all I could get out of him.

  I’d seen this man before, giving orders to the Magus’s servants. Still, he did not look rich and pampered, like many of the Magus’s men. Though a dagger hung from a fine scabbard at his waist, his leather boots were worn and scuffed, his gray wool tunic unadorned but for thin felt bands at the neck and wrists.

  Another day, two weeks after the dream about the shaggy beasts, I caught a Scythian staring at us, bold as you please. Not the Scythian. This one was much leaner, with only a single tattoo that I could see.

  A plague on that first Scythian! Clearly his tongue had been flapping! We ducked into an alley, then another, then climbed through a portion of the old palace ruins and took a circuitous way home. When I confronted Zoya, she patted my cheek as if I were Babak’s age. “You fret overmuch, Mitra.”

  “Ramin!”

  “Eh, yes, of course. But think you: Why would the Scythian tell? He wants the dreams to go on. I’ll wager he’s collected a purseful of copper for them from friends and kin. Why would he give away the source?”

  Even so—though we had to be more careful, though we were seen now in a way we had not been before—our bellies were fuller. I could think more clearly. Care for us better. As for Babak …

  Well. There was more meat on his ribs. His arms and legs looked less like skin-covered bones. But, though his face had filled out too, I had noticed something troubling of late: Dark circles had appeared beneath his eyes. And something else, even more disturbing. At times he would stare off into space, humming or singing softly to himself. When I asked what was amiss, he seemed to come back from a far place. He told me that all was well.

  I didn’t—quite—believe him.

  But our cache of coppers grew—four for each dream. I bought a small pouch for them, and when it grew heavy, I exchanged some of the copper for silver. I took them out one night, the silver coins, after Babak was asleep. I shifted them from hand to hand, reveled in the weight of them. When Suren returned …

  A pang of uneasiness seized me as I remembered how I had pushed him to go. My hands stilled.

  Where was he? Why hadn’t he returned?

  I tried to stifle the voice inside that whispered that Suren had been gone too long, that the dreaming for coin couldn’t last, that word of it would get out, that something ill was happening to Babak.

  It didn’t have to last, I told the voice. Not for long. Only long enough to amass passage to Palmyra. When we had it—Suren or no Suren—we would go.

  This dreaming, I told myself firmly, was all to the good.

  Some days after the incident with the thin Scythian I caught sight of him again, standing beside the man with the slit in his nose. I made to slip behind a heavy-laden porter, but too late. “There,” the Scythian said, loud enough for me to hear. “There they are.”

  May he go to the dogs! I snatched Babak’s hand and darted down an alley. Looking back, I saw that we were followed—not by the Scythian, but by Slit-Nose. I made for the palace ruins. He was new to the city; he was not as nimble as we; surely we would lose him there. But he was fast. “Wait!” he called. I cut round a water carrier, startling him into dropping his metal cup, then dodged between a portly merchant and a wood-carver. Babak tripped and stumbled headlong into the legs of a juggler; leather balls went flying in all directions. “Babak!” I gasped. The juggler let fly with a hail of curses, his voice high and reedy. I picked up my brother and ran through what remained of the old stone colonnade. I dodged the beggars encamped in the main hall, then set Babak down and pulled him over a heap of shattered stone, then down a tottery stairwell, then zigged and zagged with him through the dark stone underpassageways and came at last to squat inside a small storage chamber.

  There. Slit-Nose would never find us now. “Sister, why are we hiding?” Babak asked.

  “Shh!”

  We huddled together, our bodies heaving with breath—but we both knew how to breathe hard without sound.

  Footsteps, coming down the stairs. They stopped, started again, moved closer, stopped.

  No. He could not have followed us so far!

  Then a voice, deep and measured: “I’ll not harm you. I crave only to talk.”

  Bloodbeat pounded in my ears so loud I feared he could hear it too.

  “The Magus has heard of your brother’s dreams. He wishes to speak with you—both of you. Not to compel you—nay. But he’ll reward you well.”

  In the dim light I could make out a man’s shape—a darker dark just outside the chamber where we crouched. I set a hand on Babak’s chest. Quiet. Don’t move.

  A pebble skittered across the floor, came to rest near my foot. Clutching Babak’s hand, I bolted from our hiding place, bounced off of something—Slit-Nose. He scooped up Babak in his arms; Babak was screaming, kicking. I grabbed the man’s arm with both hands, sank my teeth deep into the flesh of it, tasted blood, saw Babak poke a bony elbow into the man’s eye. He roared out a curse; Babak slipped from his grasp; I shoved him into a crumbling tunnel formed by a heap of fallen stone and timbers. I followed Babak, squeezing between rock and wood, until we found a way out on the other side. I could hear the man above, clambering over the rubble, but it was a large, misshapen heap; it had slowed him down. Just ahead, another stairway, and beyond, the light of day. We were almost there….

  “Wait!” Slit-Nose called from somewhere behind us. “I’ll not harm you! Wait!”

  We burst out from under the rubble. Up the stairs, into the crowded streets, down one alley and then another, over a crumbling wall and through a neglected garden. Another alley. Another
street. Through the city gates:

  Away.

  CHAPTER 9

  PEBBLES and STONES

  As we left Rhagae and headed up the rocky slope to the City of the Dead, I began to seethe. That loose-lipped, double-dealing Scythian! He had agreed that no one was to approach us in the marketplace. His entire family was getting dreams from Babak—at no small profit to him, most like. And now this! I would tell Zoya there would be no more dreams. No more!

  “Wait, slow down!” I turned back to see Babak stumbling up the hill behind me. I halted, trying to stopper down my rage for his sake, but it steamed up through the cracks and fogged my head. “What does he think he’s doing?” I demanded of Babak. “Pointing us out to the Magus’s man! There’ll be no more dreams for them—that I promise.”

  Babak stepped back, stared up at me with huge, scared eyes. Scared of me, I realized. I took in a sharp breath, held it, then tried to breathe out what was in me that was frightening him. “Don’t fret,” I said, pulling him against me, rubbing his back. So bony he was, and light. Cricket light. “Tsk, little one. No need to fear.”

  And perhaps, I thought, that was true. Perhaps there was no need to fear. The Magus’s man had made no move to follow us, so far as I could tell. And, “Not to compel you,” he had said. Besides, the Magi abhorred a lie … so our grandmother had ever told me.

  By the time the City of the Dead loomed before us, Babak had settled a bit—and so had I.

  Not for long.

  Chink.

  A pebble hit not a forearm’s length in front of us. I looked round, trying to find the source of it.

  Chink. Smack.

  Another pebble, then a larger stone, one to the right of us, the other, left. Babak sheltered himself behind me; I squinted up at the caves, against the glare of the sun. Three people—four, perhaps—stood at the lip of a chamber that opened to air above us.

  “Go ’way!” someone said.