Five Magic Spindles: A Collection of Sleeping Beauty Stories

by Rachel Kovaciny

  Now the king stepped forward. Laying his hand on the head of his baby daughter, who watched him with big, unworried eyes, he called out: “This is my daughter! Her name is Aplati-shamirat-yaftinu—My Heiress, Guardian of Our Beauty! He who marries her will be king in Gubla after me!”

  All the people cheered, waving palm branches and long brown arms.

  Now was the time for the blessings from the priests of Gubla’s twelve principal gods: the Great Lady of Gubla; the Benevolent Bull; the Thunderer of the Seven Anchors; the Sea; the Sun, Determiner of Destinies; the Warrior Girl; the twins Dusk and Dawn; the sisters Oily, Dewy, and Earthy; and, substituted for the usual god of serpents and scorpions, the new god, the God Who Answers. Each of the twelve had an altar and a priest standing ready to make that god’s favorite offering and to proclaim their own, shorter blessings for the princess.

  No one had volunteered to make the sacrifice for the God Who Answers; no one knew what kind of sacrifice he might like. And so, standing by the twelfth altar with his too large robes pooled on the ground around him was the most junior priest in all of Gubla, rubbing wretchedly at his nearly invisible beard.

  The first eleven sacrifices went on as steadily as the turning of the seasons. The priests sacrificed their rams, swans, grain, donkeys, lions; they shouted their blessings out toward the crowd. “The reign of her husband will bring peace with the south.” “The reign of her husband will bring the expansion of our borders and the growth of our power.” “The reign of her husband will last year after year, and every nation will tremble at his name.” As each one finished, the king’s servants went forward on their knees to pour out bags of gold and silver at the bases of the altars. The king’s nobles followed, bringing other gifts: a necklace of topazes for the Lady Sun, a golden footstool for the Bull.

  When the parade of gifts was finally finished, the priests turned to their youngest member, the newly appointed priest of the God Who Answers. He tugged on the rope that went around the neck of the washed and perfumed goat he was to sacrifice. The goat bawled irritably and refused to move. The young priest, shaking like water in an earthquake, turned his back on the king to wrestle with the goat.

  At that moment there was a horrible shriek.

  Everyone turned and looked up. There! On the roof of the Ladytemple, the figure of a man, his head tilted back toward the sky as he blew on the wailing horn! He blew until he ran out of breath then threw the horn down at the king’s head. Shokorru ducked. The man on the temple top glittered with the full regalia of the high priest; his robe was stiff with golden thread, and his turban gleamed with gemstones.

  “Kashap!” Shokorru roared. “Guards! Take him!” He waved his guardsmen toward the temple; several vanished inside at a run, looking for a way to the roof, while the others drew tight around their king. None of them had brought arrows to the princess’s dedication.

  Kashap gave a warbling yell then screamed, “The first man who touches me: may he be cursed! The serpent will always drop down upon him! The scorpion will ever curl below him! This will be for his destruction, for the destruction of his body, for the destruction of his form!” He keened again, and the people of Gubla shuddered. No one wanted to cross the high priest at the best of times, given the many rumors of his magical powers. And now—hadn’t he been thrown from the cliff into the mists between sea and land? How had he survived? He must be far more powerful than any of them had ever dreamed!

  “Get down from there!” the king shouted. “Kashap! You are no longer the high priest of Gubla! You have no right to wear those robes!”

  “Can a king change the will of the gods?” Kashap jeered. He waved his hands, and a black mist formed in the air, curling around him like a thundercloud. “You have insulted the God of Serpents by not asking for his blessing! So I will speak to you on his behalf. Hear me, King Shokorru! Hear me, all of you!

  “Hear the curse of the spurned one,

  The evil word of the one whose mouth is opened!

  A child is born to the king of Gubla,

  A female child to the warrior of Gubla,

  His daughter, guardian of its Beauty,

  His heiress, sustainer of his family!

  On the day of her sixteenth birthday,

  On the day of the daughter’s marriage,

  On the day that he chose so that he might reject me!

  On that day the child will perish,

  Will perish from a tiny wound;

  She is wounded by a spindle of juniper,

  She is slain by a yarn-spinner of wood!

  The Beauty of Gubla will fall into ruin,

  The fame of Gubla into desolation.

  In the midst of six distresses Gubla sinks,

  And in seven, evil will defile it!

  Then the vineyards and olive groves will turn to desert,

  The fields of the sown land fill with thorns and briars;

  Where the beasts of the field once grazed and drank,

  Now serpents and scorpions will make their homes.

  No one will pass through the land,

  And no one will dwell in it.

  This is the end of the Beauty of Gubla!”

  Kashap threw up his arms, black smoke pouring from behind him and filling the courtyard. The space filled with panicked cries as the people tried to run away from the black cloud, but it grew more quickly than a man could run, until the darkness covered the whole city of Gubla. Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, the smoke vanished.

  Shokorru, who had fallen to his knees from the force of his coughing, struggled to his feet. He grabbed a spear from one of his guardsmen and ran out to the edge of the dais, turning to aim at the roof of the palace. But Kashap was gone, vanished with his smoke.

  “My daughter!” the king said hoarsely.

  “She is well, my king,” said a soft, accented voice. Sitting on the edge of the dais was his wife Perakha, the baby held tightly in her arms. The nobleman who had been holding the child during the ritual was flat on his face, scraping dust onto his head and muttering aversion rituals.

  The omen reader came trembling toward the king. “What shall we do, O wild bull?” he asked in a voice that cracked. “Kashap has cursed the child and the city!”

  Shokorru growled and pulled at his beard.

  Perakha pressed her forehead to the top of her small daughter’s head. “Ah, Lord,” she whispered. If only she had been at home in her land far away. Then she would not have been afraid of Kashap’s curses.

  In her too tight hold, her baby squirmed and started to cry.

  “Hush now,” said a new voice. “Don’t be frightened, little one.” Perakha glanced up and found an old man looking down at her. His face was tired, and his hair was gray; he wore worn-out clothes on his back and worn-out sandals on his feet. He did not look like a man of Gubla.

  “Who are you?” King Shokorru barked. “Don’t speak to my wife!” With the guardsman’s spear still in his hand, he strode forward until he stood within striking distance of the old man.

  “Then I will speak to you,” the gray-haired man said. “I’ve come a long way.”

  “What king do you come from? Can’t you see that this is no time for a state message?” Shokorru asked him. “Speak to me some other time!”

  “I will speak now,” said the graybeard. “King Shokorru, I come to you on behalf of the God Who Answers.”

  Perakha looked up into his face. “Oh!” she said. “I know who you are.”

  “We’ve had enough of men speaking for the gods for one day,” the king said, jabbing his spear at the old man’s face. “No more!”

  “Not nearly enough,” the old stranger said, a fierce expression coming over his face. “Unless you like the cursed future that your priest has laid out for you?”

  “Please, my king,” Perakha asked, looking up with wide eyes.

  Shokorru looked at her and sighed. “Very well. Speak. But if you say something I do not like, I will kill you where you stand.”

 
; “Mmm,” said the stranger. “Hear this:

  “The words of the God Who Answers,

  The god of a people without a temple,

  The god of a people without a king;

  The god who made the earth and the skies,

  The god who stops the rain, and sends the sun across the far horizon.

  Hear the words of the God Who Answers.

  An enemy will come from the north,

  An adversary from the shores of the sea;

  Enemies from the far off isles,

  And adversaries from the distant coastlands,

  For they have made a treaty of hatred,

  And they have planned a plan of destruction.

  They will bring desolation on the empire of Arinna,

  They will destroy the cities of the Sea!”

  “What? Do you stand before me and dare to curse my city more?” Shokorru roared.

  The stranger frowned. “Listen,” he said.

  The priests and nobles on the dais waited for Shokorru to strike the old man dead, but he did nothing.

  “On the day of her sixteenth birthday,

  Your child will be wounded;

  Yet to die is only to fall asleep.

  She will sleep, but her breath is in her.

  She will sleep, with all your kingdom—

  Gubla will sleep, both men and beasts.

  Thorns and briars will grow around it,

  Scorpions and snakes will dwell on its border,

  But all within will sleep in safety.

  The enemy from the sea will see it,

  The adversary will see and turn away.

  ‘There is no plunder to be taken from Gubla,

  There is no wealth to be gained from this thornfield!’

  Thus shall Gubla escape the sea band;

  If the city sleeps, then she sleeps peacefully.”

  “But how shall we wake, good seer?” asked Perakha in a small voice.

  He smiled at her.

  “The city sleeps till a man is sent,

  A noble heart from a far off place.

  Caught by a dream, he journeys to Gubla;

  Seized by a vision, he follows the road.

  He will not be stopped by serpents and scorpions;

  He will not be stopped by an evil curse.

  Though seven evils shall defend it,

  Yet seven strokes shall surely smite it!

  A faithful heart, a brave traveler,

  A warlike shepherd for the city of Gubla.

  He will wake your daughter, who guards your beauty;

  He will know her among the thousands of Gubla,

  And the thousands of Gubla will wake with her.

  Then you will know that the God Who Answers

  Is the one who brought all these things to pass.

  This is the declaration of the God Who Answers.”

  “That is a better prophecy,” Shokorru said, lowering his spear.

  “I said the words I was sent to say,” the stranger said sternly. “I would not have changed them at your request.” He looked down at Perakha. “Do you want to stay here, little one, or would you rather go home to your people?”

  Perakha held her daughter close. “I will stay here, good seer.”

  “Peace, then,” he said, and vanished.

  Everyone stared for a long moment then rushed forward. But there was no sign of the old stranger.

  Chapter 2

  SMALL PALLI BELIEVED HERSELF to be the most ordinary princess in all the cities of the Sea. Like her older sisters, she lived in the Palace of the King’s Women, where she learned the things of women: how to weave and dye and paint and make pots; how to sew and mend and braid hair. (Palli did not learn how to spin, though. Her-father-the-king had forbidden it.) She was not as pretty as her glorious oldest sister, Shapsh-yishma-tsalati; nor was she as pleasantly ugly as her favorite of the-king-her-father’s wives, Shiunan-ashui. Even her nickname was very ordinary. After the curse on her naming day, no one wanted to call her “Aplati-shamirat-yaftinu.” Speaking her name might anger the gods. So she, like dozens of other girls in Gubla, was called Palli, “My daughter.”

  Palli was different from her older sisters in only three things.

  The first thing was the story of her naming day. Every first day of the week, Mother gathered Palli into her arms. “How are you, my lily of the valley?” she would whisper, her black eyes lighting with her smile. Then she would tell the story of that day. As Palli grew up, she came to believe that her mother was very brave. She was not afraid to repeat the curse that Kashap had laid on her. She was not afraid to say Palli’s name: “My Heiress, the Guardian of Our Beauty.”

  Mother often smiled with her eyes, but she only smiled with her mouth when she spoke of the prophet from far away. “You will have a great trouble, my lily,” Mother always said. “But you will be delivered, and by enduring you will save all Gubla.”

  Palli did not know how she could save anyone. But if all she had to do was sleep—well, she could do that! She slept every night. When her other small sisters wondered why Palli went so willingly to bed, Palli only blinked at them and said, “It is good practice.”

  So the story of her naming day was the first thing that was different about Palli.

  The second thing was cut from the same cloth. Because Palli was her father’s heiress and would one day marry the next king of Gubla, she was brought out every year on the day of the Beautification of Gubla and made to stand behind her father. So she watched as he and the priests offered the sacrifices that were meant to appease the gods for any blemishes on Gubla’s Beauty. Every year she heard her father proclaim, “I am the Guardian of Gubla’s Beauty, and I have guarded it! And here is my daughter who will guard it after me!”

  This was almost the only time Palli saw her father when she was young, so she always looked forward to it. Her father was a very great king, she was sure; strong and wise. She hoped—oh, so much!—that she could save his city for him when the time came. Then perhaps he would smile at her as her mother did.

  These first two things—the story of Palli’s naming day and her part in the ritual of Beautification—were things everybody knew, but the third thing that made Palli different was something nobody else knew.

  She saw things.

  Not ordinary things, but odd things. Things out of the stories her beautiful sister Tsalat told.

  “Hold my hand, Palli,” said Tsalat. “It’s a long way down.”

  They were walking along the edge of the sea cliffs, looking north toward the harbor. Tsalat, who was almost thirty years old and oversaw everything to do with the Palace of Women, was much taller than delicate Palli, even though Palli had been growing a lot.

  Palli curled her fingers happily through Tsalat’s and smiled up at her, using only her eyes. She was nine years old, and the seven years until her wedding day seemed like a lifetime.

  “You are so quiet, Palli-palli. What are you thinking about?” asked her big sister.

  Palli looked out at the sea, which ran roughly here over the rocky shallows. A mist of spray hid the shoreline. “I’m thinking about the road to the Deeps,” Palli said at last. “In stories, if you pass through the mist between sea and land, you will find yourself on the road to the Deeps.”

  Tsalat looked down at Palli, worry in her brown eyes. “But why would you want to take that road, Palli? Haven’t I told you enough stories about the dangers in the Deeps?”

  “Kashap must have gone there,” Palli answered, still staring out to sea. “That’s why he didn’t die. That’s how he had the power to . . . to curse us.”

  “Hush, Palli. Don’t say his name.”

  “I’m not afraid,” Palli said. “The God Who Answers is stronger than any old serpent god.”

  “Palli,” Tsalat said, “promise me you won’t try to go to the Deeps. Many people try to go, but most find only the current and drown; or else they find the rocks. Promise me.”

  “I won’t go to the Deeps, T
salat,” Palli promised obediently. This was no great sacrifice. There were, after all, other magical places. To the north, there was the Double Mountain towering over a realm that could only be reached through moonlight mirages. To the south, near Uzu, there was the Cedar Forest, which on foggy nights became a strange, strange land. And, of course, there was the road to Far Horizon, which began where the sea met the sky.

  Sometimes Palli thought about going to one of those places. Surely just going to sleep wasn’t enough to protect Gubla? Surely there was something else that she should do?

  A shape in the ocean caught her eye, and she stopped, digging in her heels when Tsalat tried to tug her forward. “Wait!”

  A great black shadow like a ziggurat glided just under the water. Then it rose, water pouring from its black scales. As it rolled onto its side, showing the paler gray of its belly, it fixed Palli with a great orange eye. She knew that it saw her, even across all that distance. “You are beautiful,” she whispered.

  “What are you looking at, Palli?”

  “It’s the Litan,” Palli whispered.

  “The sea monster? Where, Palli-palli?” Tsalat laughed.

  “There,” Palli said, pointing.

  “That’s just a raft of logs, little sister, waiting to be floated down to the Black Land.”

  Rafts don’t have eyes, Palli thought, as the Litan completed its roll and sank back into the Deeps. Rafts don’t look back at you.

  Shiunan-ashui—who despite being one of the king’s wives was even younger than Tsalat—did not tell stories. She was from the great kingdom of Arinna, far to the north. “Prophecies, prophecies,” she scolded Perakha. “Stop filling that child’s heads with prophecies! They never come out the way you expect. We know that in Arinna. You fish-bellied sea-coasters rely too much on your gods.”

  Perakha shook her head. They had had this conversation many times. “I rely only on the God Who Answers,” she gave the well-worn reply. “His prophecy will come true.”

  “Palli girl,” Shiunan-ashui said, putting her hands on her wide hips. “You need to concentrate on practical things. Like how to be pleasant to this man you are supposed to marry in, what, six years now? He’ll be stuck with you, so you need to learn how to make him happy. I’ll teach you how to make perfume. Come here, help me grind this.”