A Thousand Nights

by E. K. Johnston

  He released my hair, but I was too weak to get away from him. I would be easy to smother now, if he wanted. He could display my hair next to his new lion mane. Instead, he spread my hair back out on the pillow and began to comb it.

  “Your sister did this,” he said to me. “When you were small.”

  “Yes,” I said to him. I hated to tell him any truths, but hating gave me strength now. “She would do it still, if I still lived in our father’s tents, and I would comb her hair as well.”

  “We have not spoken of her in some time,” he said to me. “Did you see the maps I had? They show where all of my wives have come from.”

  “I saw,” I said to him. “There have been very many of us.”

  “There have,” he agreed. “So many that soon I may start again. I do not have to go in order, you know. I might return to any village I like. I might return for your sister.”

  “She will be married by then,” I told him. I would make it true if it killed me to do it. “Our father brings a man back with him in the caravan, and she will love him.”

  “Then who will keep your dead?” he asked me.

  I barely heard him. As soon as I spoke my tale to him, my head raged again. It was like the copper fire, only worse. If I were a well in the desert, then I had been in use for generations, and I had nothing but a scraped bottom to offer any who came to fill their water jars.

  The viper struck.

  He left the comb and my hair, and held my hands beside my face. He used his own weight to hold me down, even though I could no more get away from him than I could fly. I felt every hard muscle of his body pressing against mine. He was, I thought in the part of my mind that did not scream, very lucky I had already vomited up everything I had in my stomach, or he would have worn it on his face as he hovered mere inches from me.

  “Have you not learned, star of my skies?” he said to me. His voice hissed in my ears. I did not see a man’s face, but a viper’s hood. “We are the same, you and I. That is why I cannot kill you, and why you do not die.”

  I would not believe him. He was no smallgod and I was no demon. We were not the same. We were the opposite. He must know that.

  “You think it is not true?” he said to me. “You think I do not speak words to men and have them come true the way you speak words to women? You think I could not reach into your soul and take it, as easily as you reach into the soul of your sister, and bend her to your will?”

  No! That was not how I did my work at all. I spun and made things new. He forced out craft where there was no want of it, and sped it up so fast that its makers could not control it. I might have changed the path of my sister’s life, but I took no one’s soul.

  “You doubt me, but I will prove it to you,” he said to me.

  He rolled off of me, the absence of his weight a welcome relief, but he did not let go of my hands, and so the relief was short-lived as he pulled me to sit in front of him. My head screamed and my stomach heaved, but he did not stop. He called the cold light, and I recoiled, thinking it would burn me worse than I already was.

  Instead, the light flared and my head cleared. It was though a cool drink had been poured down my throat and cool water put all over my body. My stomach settled and the pain stopped. I watched, horror-struck, as the cold light licked my arms like fire consuming dry wood in a camp hearth, reaching as high up as my elbows before returning back to Lo-Melkhiin’s hands.

  Then the copper fire coiled between us, and my breathing stilled. I was a gage-tree, roots scrambling for water, and the wadi was at its highest flood. I traced the water’s source, expecting to find my way back to my sister. Instead, it was as though every wadi in the desert was feeding me. I wanted more and more, and Lo-Melkhiin was making me strong enough to get it. This was more fire than I had used to ward the spinning room. This was enough fire to shield the whole qasr, with enough left over besides. I thought of my sister and the husband I had conjured for her. Now he would come, as surely as the sun would rise tomorrow.

  Lo-Melkhiin sank his fingernails deep into my skin, bringing small crescents of blood welling up around them. This new pain brought me back to him, and away from foolish desert dreams. His viper’s smile was uncontrollable now, and he leered at me like I was his perfect thing, to do with as he liked.

  I would not, I swore. I would never.

  “Well, my love,” he said to me, passing me a cup of juice, “it seems we will need each other for a little bit longer after all.”

  AFTER LO-MELKHIIN HAD cleared my head with his cold fire, he left me, and I finally ventured out into the day. It was after noon, and I was terrified to meet anyone who might guess what I had done, so I did not venture past the water garden. The fountain’s song did not soothe me today. Instead, it reminded me that I was not in the desert; that such a thing could only exist near Lo-Melkhiin, thanks to his power. It sang and played when no one watched it, surely, but it was his. And so was I.

  I went into the baths. At this time of day, there was but one attendant, and she dozed in the heat by the coal basket, ready to stoke the fires that heated the water if need be, but otherwise resting. I did not wake her. I passed into the room with the hot steam, leaving my shift on the floor as I climbed the steps to reach the bench. It was not hot like the air of the desert, which dried as it blew past one, but hot like soup—like blood—and as I breathed it in, I wilted.

  I slid off the bench, trying to get to the cooler air at the door. My skin was slick with sweat and it took me a moment to find my feet, but I stumbled back down the steps, gasping as the air cooled. The attendant was there, woken by my clumsy flailing. She helped me into the hot pool, and brought me a cup of cool hibiscus tea.

  “Lady-bless, you must be careful in the steam room,” she said to me. “Stand closer to the door next time.”

  I nodded. I wasn’t sure if I ever wanted to go back in the room again. The pool I sat in might have been a cooking pot, the water was so hot, and that was enough for me. When she thought I had borne enough, the attendant took me to a cooler pool, and laid down soap and a soft brush by the side of it.

  “I wish for a harder brush,” I said to her.

  She looked at me as a spinner eyes wool, or like a cook weighs flour.

  “Lady-bless, you do not need it,” she said to me. “Your skin—”

  I held up a hand and she stopped. “I know,” I said to her. “You and the others who labor here have done well turning my desert hide into a city skin.” She blushed, and I continued to speak. “But I wish for a harder brush.”

  She nodded, and left to fetch it. She was right. I did not need it. My skin had lost its desert roughness, even my hands, which had been worked the hardest. But I could feel Lo-Melkhiin’s touch, the cold fire up to my elbows, and worse, the press of him against me as he held me down, and I wanted to be rid of that.

  The attendant returned with the brush, and I lathered it with soap. I began to scrub, a sandstorm on my bare skin—no, the storm that hardened the camel bones—pressing down as hard as I could and dragging mercilessly across the surface. I was not content to wash away Lo-Melkhiin. I wanted the whole qasr, the whole city gone from my memory.

  “Lady-bless!” cried the attendant, returning with a fresh shift. Heedless of her own clothing, she plunged into the pool beside me, and wrestled the brush away. I fought her. The girl who had herded sheep and who had raced across the desert sands with my sister, our dark hair flying in the wind, might have won, but I was in the city now, soft and kept and wrapped in silk, and no match for a girl who carried coal.

  She threw the brush clear of the pool so I could not reach it, and examined my arms and back and belly. There were scratches there, but nothing bled. I had not had time to start my legs.

  “No more of this today,” she said to me, and pulled me from the tub. I did not resist her.

  She took me to a stone platform and made me lie down on it. I thought it would be cold against my skin, but the fire that heated the water must have he
ated it too. This was the constant warmth of stone, radiating out to soothe me where the steam and water had failed. The attendant got out a soft brush, and soap scented with lavender, and washed me like I was a child. She poured water out of a bowl to rinse me, rather than send me back to the pool, and washed my front when she finished my back. Only when she had touched nearly every part of me, from my forehead to my toes, did she send me back to the pool. I did not like to admit it, but I felt better.

  “Is that how you wash the sick and the old, when they come here?” I asked her. I pulled my hands lazily through the water, and laid my head back on the side where the stone was wet.

  “No, lady-bless,” she said to me. She had taken a comb and was sitting behind me to brush out my hair. “That is how we would wash the queen, if she would let us.”

  They had only ever put me in the pool before, but I knew if they had tried this when I was in a mood to fight them, I would not have let them. I raised my chin so that I could see her as she sat behind me, combing my hair. She was smiling.

  “It was well done,” I said to her. “Thank you.”

  “Only, be sure you eat,” she said to me. “Or you will feel ill again.”

  She coiled my braid in a simple loop, apologizing as she pinned it that she had no skill with hair, and helped me dry and dress. I went back to the water garden and sat in the shade until the sun went behind the walls. Then the henna mistress found me and bustled me inside.

  “Lady-bless, we must hurry,” she said to me. “It is well you bathed already today, for now we have no time.”

  “What has happened?” I asked her. I let her steer me to a seat and watched her light the lamps and lay out her pots and stylus on a cloth.

  “A caravan has come, and asked for an audience with Lo-Melkhiin,” she said to me. “He has granted it to them, and said that you must join him too.”

  I must play queen, is what he meant. I had spent enough time upset with Lo-Melkhiin today. I would not spend any more, unless he gave me good reason.

  The henna mistress drew her designs quickly. She only marked my skin where it would be seen, instead of putting on the secret symbols to wear under my dress as she had done before. Though she was swift, her work was not sloppy. She made not a single brushstroke out of place. The instant she was done, I was swarmed by the women who did my hair and dress, as if I stood at the center of the flock with a salt-lick in my hands and the goats had finally noticed it. They did not chatter as they worked, and there was none of the soft comfort in their hands that I had come to look forward to, but they were efficient and neat; before long, I was inked and dressed and veiled, and ready to go out to whatever awaited me.

  I stepped into slippers so fine they might have been spun by silk-spiders. The henna mistress kissed me between my eyes, the only place my veil did not cover my face.

  “You are ready,” she said to me. “Sit straight. They will look at you and see only a veil, even the king. Hear everything, and remember that if you smile or grimace, they will not see you. Only stay silent, and they will never know your heart.”

  She was correct, of course, and I made myself relax. The veil I wore now was heavier than the one I usually had on when Lo-Melkhiin came to my rooms. That was gauze and whispers, meant to hide nothing. Dressed as I was now, I was hidden from everyone. They might stare at me for an hour, admire the fine red fabric of my dishdashah, and the bright gold embroidery that lined the hems and collar, but they would never know my thoughts.

  A serving girl took me to the hall where Lo-Melkhiin gave audience. He did not do it often, preferring to meet his supplicants informally. I knew the truth of that, though. He did not need to awe any of his own subjects; they were already afraid of him. He did have to touch them to influence them, however, and that was difficult in the audience hall. Whoever it was that came tonight, they must not be from the city.

  Lo-Melkhiin stood at a doorway, waiting for me. His tunic was gold, embroidered in red, and his breeches were red as well. We would look a matched set, and remind all who gazed upon us that gold and blood were two things Lo-Melkhiin had aplenty.

  “Star of my skies, you take my breath from my body,” he said to me, and held out his arm. I took it. “Come, see how it is to be a queen.”

  He led me through the door and into a broad, bright room I had not seen during my explorations of the qasr. A hundred lamps, some hanging from the high ceiling and some on tables or attached to the columns, gleamed with clear light. Geometric designs made of hundreds of pieces of glass, most no bigger than my thumbnail, glittered on the walls. The floor was a white stone, polished so much it shone, and the rugs laid upon it were of the finest silk.

  Such a waste, to walk on them.

  Lo-Melkhiin took me to a raised dais, where there was a large cushion. He handed me off to the side of it, a girl appearing from nowhere to help me arrange my skirt and ensure my veil was still securely fastened, and then he sat down beside me. When he was settled, he nodded to the man who stood on the floor beside him. The man carried a large wooden staff, bigger than a shepherd would use; at Lo-Melkhiin’s signal, he hammered the butt of it on the floor three measured times.

  At the far end of the hall, the great doors were pulled open. Six men stood there, and when their way was clear, they walked slowly into the room. It was hard for me to see in great detail through my veil when they were that far away, but I could tell that they were not men of the city. Their capes were the color worn by men who crossed the desert with the caravans.

  Those men came into the city often enough. The serving girls talked about markets and bazaars when they did my hair. But they had not said that some traders come to the qasr, and certainly they had made no mention of any traders gaining audience with Lo-Melkhiin.

  Thinking of him made me look his way. As the henna mistress said, I did not move from my straight position, but rather I slid my eyes across under my veil. The viper’s smile was back upon his mouth, though it was softened by something I did not recognize. Perhaps he could not be fully cruel here, where he spoke with men who brought wealth in trade. Perhaps the dark spot in his mind was stronger here, in the room where Lo-Melkhiin should serve his people.

  When I looked back, the caravan men were on their knees, their faces on the floor before us. Their capes caught my eye again. Now that they were close enough for me to see them clearly, I realized the patterns along the borders were ones I recognized, though they were stitched in purple, which was an expensive color to wear into the desert.

  “Welcome, master of the caravan,” Lo-Melkhiin said. “And welcome to your sons.”

  They raised their faces from the floor, and I looked into the eyes of my brothers and my father.

  When my kind first began to take, when we pulled weavers from their beds, and smiths from their forges, I was young enough to wonder why it was so easy. The older ones told me it was because men were weak, because they could not fight us. They lived only to serve.

  But I was not so sure.

  My first weaver was old, and he did not scream when I pulled him away from his wife. I set a picture of her before him, younger and with fewer lines around her eyes, and he wove happily for me without stopping to eat or drink. In the end, his fingers bled and stained the cloth, but I liked the pattern, so I cut it from the warp before I set fire to the loom, weaver and all.

  My first smith was old, but he could still pull the air and raise the hammer. He worked without crucible or tongs when I showed him his children, still alive. In truth, they had died in a sandstorm and left him alone with his craft and his age. He had no hands at all when he was done, but I had pretty gold.

  My first glassmaker blinded himself in the fires he used to glaze his work. My first spinner used his own finger bones for a spindle. And all of them came to me without a struggle, when they thought I had something they wanted.

  Lo-Melkhiin was my first challenge: the first time I knew that I was correct, and my elders had it wrong. He did not wish to serve me,
and I thought it was not just because he was already a king. Lo-Melkhiin fought until I showed him his mother, wasting away to her death in the hot sand. It was that image, the idea of her death, that weakened him enough for me to grasp him; and then it was only a matter of time until I shut him away inside his own mind.

  After that, with Lo-Melkhiin’s hands and Lo-Melkhiin’s voice, it was easy. Merchants fell over themselves to please me, and I rewarded them. Men did great works, and knew it was because I was their patron. My army was strong and my coffers were full, and if I had cared who was in my bed, I would have wanted for nothing there, either.

  But it was not me they served, and I could not forget it. They thought they served Lo-Melkhiin.

  It galled me. The man I had taken in the desert was all but gone, a screaming wraith whose voice delighted me alone, and still they told stories of his power and his wisdom in the lands I ruled. I had done my task too well, taken so discreetly that no one even knew what I had done. My own kind, content to stay in the desert and pick off artisans one at a time, were ignorant of my accomplishments, and I had nothing but another man’s hands and another man’s name.

  But she knew—the girl I had found in the desert and taken for my wife. The one who did not die. She knew that I was more than what I seemed. That galled me, too, that she could know I was not a man and yet still sit there, weaving, while I stared at her. She could lie beside me in the night and not fear that I would murder her. It almost made me want to do it out of spite, except that then I would have been alone with my secret once more.

  I went to the women in the spinning room, but they had made no great things. Their thread snarled and their weavings fouled the looms on which they worked. She had spent too much time with them, and they were part of her world to begin with: the world of women. I had made a mistake, and I would not make it again.

  I did as my kind had done, taking craftsmen one at a time to steal their work and their hands and their blood. Then, I had taken a king, and his kingdom had laid itself at my feet. That was how I had to go on now. I had to start with her, and when she was mine, she would bring the women with her.