by Larry Niven
“Did you ask her age? She may have been older than she looked, by the magic of her Jinni lover.”
“My clever love. I never thought of that.”
“Or perhaps the Jinni set down near a caravan one night.”
Shahryar laughed long and loud. And presently he slept; but the night was already turning gray.
Four years ago Zaman had left Samarkand to live in his brother’s kingdom in the Banu Sasan. He had married Scheherezade’s sister, Dunyazad. Now they took their turns on the throne.
Now the old Wazir, Scheherezade’s and Dunyazad’s father, ruled Samarkand; but every two years Zaman returned to see how the kingdom progressed.
Zaman had been gone for nearly a month.
Dunyazad had been told of their coming. She arrived with a retinue almost before they had broken camp. Her manner was reserved and overly formal. Cosmetics failed to hide dark shadows beneath her eyes.
By noon they had reached the palace. Dunyazad handled practical matters well, showing her sister and brother-in-law to a suite of rooms, adding her own servants to their sparse retinue. There was fruit and spiced meat, a pitcher of sherbet, water for washing, and enough bedding to hold a small party.
When the servants were gone, Shahryar told his wife, “We must go out tonight.”
“Yes, my lord,” said Scheherezade. “Where? Why?”
“I did not know how much to tell you.”
“You have told me only that it was time to visit your brother’s house, to see that all is in order. Well, all seems in order.”
“But all is not. An accusation has been made. I must see for myself. I want you with me.”
An accusation. If she had been standing she would have fallen, for the blood draining from her head. “I hear and obey.”
“Then sleep now.”
Dunyazad’s dinner conversation was brittle-bright chatter interspersed with silences. Scheherezade and Shahryar retired early, pleading sleeplessness on the trip. And softly dressed themselves, and departed on bare feet.
“We need to enter the harem garden,” Shahryar told her. “Can you lead me in?”
“Not all harems are alike. I can enter. You would be killed, and I might be held as a harem concubine, if we were discovered. Your rank would not save you.”
“I know that, and it is just, but we must do this.” Shahryar’s scimitar was in his hand. “If I must kill a eunuch or two…well.”
Scheherezade led.
The entrance was guarded by two eunuchs. Scheherezade engaged them, asking questions about the doings of the harem, until Shahryar had crept past them. Then she alleged a desire to see inside.
She found a wide corridor with a fountain in the middle. The splashing water would cover minor noises. Someone may have seen them around a corner, and recognized the king, and decided not to meddle in politics; or not. Beyond the large, ornate fountain were wide doors leading to a darkened garden, guarded by a pair of armed eunuchs. To left and right were narrower corridors which must lead into the main body of the harem.
She stood pensively beside the fountain. Shahryar was crouched below its rim. She asked, “Must we enter?”
Shahryar mulled it. “Perhaps not, but we must see. Do you hear footsteps?”
“Left, the corridor.”
He sprinted. She strolled the long way around the fountain, to distract the guards. But the guards were watching the garden.
Shahryar had snuffed the torch. From the dark they watched Dunyazad pass through the doors. The guards’ eyes were on her.
Shahryar had found a window.
“I never wanted to spy on my sister,” Scheherezade whispered. “Must we do this?”
The garden was small. Dunyazad was in plain sight, walking as if she slept. Scheherezade noticed three low bushes; she jumped when one of them moved. A small sheep, or rather a lamb, got creakily to its feet and came to investigate the faces at the window. Scheherezade fondled its ears and peeked around it.
Dunyazad stopped beneath a wide tree and called softly. “Sa’ad al-Din Saood.”
A man dropped from the tree. He was big, muscular, black in the moonlight. He landed easily, softly, and took Dunyazad in his arms.
Scheherezade continued to look. The interloper was seated on the grass; Dunyazad was in his lap; they were locked in sexual congress. The sounds she made seemed wrung from her. The man made no sound at all, until Scheherezade heard him chuckle, once. His teeth gleamed, white and regular.
Shahryar turned away. He slid slowly down the wall until he huddled at its base. He wrapped his face in his arms and sobbed.
A quick glance down the hall: the guards were facing away, standing rigidly with their scimitars before them. Their faces were immobile, but sweat set them gleaming. They could hardly avoid hearing.
Dunyazad and the interloper separated. The man chuckled again. They talked; Dunyazad seemed to be pleading. Then the man swarmed up the tree, very quickly and silently. Dunyazad sat huddled for a time. Then she stood, adjusted her clothing, and walked back inside.
“We must be out of here,” Scheherezade whispered.
Shahryar nodded. He stood slowly. She had been afraid he would not move at all.
He reached the fountain in a silent sprint, and crawled backward behind its cover. Perhaps that was unneeded. The guards were looking out at the garden, now that Dunyazad couldn’t see them, and they spoke in furious whispers. This must be agony for them, Scheherezade thought. They knew too much. How could their tale end but with a headsman’s ax?
Shahryar sat limp on the pillows. His face was ashen. “It’s like a recurring nightmare. How could this happen to us again? Has Allah decreed this as punishment for me and Zaman? Because once we behaved like rabid hyenas after our wives betrayed us—”
“What will you do?”
“I will not kill Dunyazad. I will not kill a woman ever again. Enough is enough!” He looked at her at last. “A woman came to me, one of your sister’s harem retinue. She got past the guards somehow, came to me in the roof garden. She said that Dunyazad was betraying my brother. I should have been enraged. I wasn’t. I was afraid.”
Scheherezade only nodded.
“I knew I should kill the old woman. Lying or not, her mouth must be shut. You agree?”
“I—”
“But I’ve killed too many women! So I put her in a cell and we set out for Zaman’s palace. But Zaman would kill Dunyazad, I think. And the children, because they might not be legitimate. How could she? She must know what a risk she takes.”
Scheherezade said, “Allah is not your enemy.”
“Do I have any enemy besides my own fate?”
“I think so.” For her life, Scheherezade had learned how to be tactful; but this was not a time for tact. “You must have been thinking of betrayal last night, when you told me the tale of the Jinni and the crystal casket. Well, the woman was a Jinni too.”
He stared at her. “The woman was a Jinni?”
“She was.”
“But how can you know?”
“There were no holes in the casket. A woman would have suffocated. And, really, my lord! Five hundred and seventy lovers? And Jinni fly, don’t they? Yours must have seen you and Zaman from leagues away, yet he came straight to you.”
“May Allah take my soul. Now.”
“Not yet, my lord. We have work before us.”
“But this is terrible! I’ve killed more than fifty women!”
“Far more. I can count, my lord. Three years, one each night—”
“No! I tried to live without a woman. I could not. Your father can count them, for he procured them for me. Each night I took a woman’s virginity, and each morning I slew her. But not one each night!
“The first half dozen, it felt like vengeance on all the breed of women. After the sixth I would have stopped. But she was not a virgin, and the tenth and eleventh weren’t either, and—I was mad, of course.”
“You were made mad.”
“Scheherez
ade, I took my revenge on women for three years, for the wrong our wives did to us and the wrong that woman did to her Jinni husband despite all of his extravagant precautions. But that was a lie, and she wasn’t even a woman!—You knew?”
“It was obvious. I knew you’d suffer if I told you, but it’s gone beyond that. Now what?”
For Shahryar had gone rigid. He said, “I thought I knew those grotesque syllables. My wife’s lover called out his name when…when. ‘Sa’ad al-Din Saood.’ It’s him. The same Jinni. Not a man. Again.”
“It would seem,” said Scheherezade, “that a pair of Jinni have chosen our family as exceptionally entertaining playthings. See how it fits. Zaman discovered his wife in adultery and slew both. A pair of Jinni saw. They wondered if you would do the same. One seduced your wife, which I grant must have been easy enough; the orgies sounded…well, practiced. Afterward they heard you and Zaman swear your oath. Everybody likes a good story, my heart. Everyone wants to improve it a little.”
“But why is Dunyazad—”
“We’ll have to ask.”
“He threatened me,” she said.
Scheherezade wondered what Shahryar would say now. You chose dishonor over death? But her husband only sipped his coffee.
“I was in my garden the evening after Zaman departed. I heard a laugh from all around me. A whirlwind snatched me into the air, flew after the caravan, circled high over my husband’s tent! Then came to earth leagues ahead of the encampment. I was rigid with fear. I kept thinking, What would my sister do?”
“Scream.”
“I screamed, I begged, I pissed myself, I vomited into the wind. When I reached the ground I ran. The whirlwind became a man twenty feet tall. He ambled alongside me with a big crystal casket under his arm, until I fell over with black spots before my eyes. Then he set the casket down, and unlocked it, and a woman came out.”
“By Allah, it really is him, and I am not mad!” Shahryar exclaimed. “Was she slant-eyed, with yellow—”
“She was me! Do you know how many mirrors there are in this palace? I’ve been avoiding them ever since, but I can’t avoid him. He has my image, my self!”
“I think I see,” said Scheherezade. “Calm down, Dunyazad. Have some coffee. Try to think of it as a tale.”
“They took their pleasure in every position Zaman and I have ever tried, and one that I don’t think any human shapes could take. Nauseating. They didn’t stop till morning. The woman grinned at me and said that they would…perform, she said. Perform in my harem, and then in the palace itself, and then in the public square, until all the land knew that Dunyazad is a whore. Or the…the male might take his pleasure with me for one night.”
“He lied, of course,” Scheherezade said.
“Of course he lied. Every night for eight nights now. I—” She stopped. Suddenly her fingernails were digging runnels down her cheeks. Scheherezade quickly snatched her hands away, and held them.
“Why do they do this?” Shahryar wondered. “My love, in all the tales about Jinni, have they ever gotten a woman with child?”
She thought. “No. Never.”
“Good.” He might be thinking that at least the succession was safe. “It’s not for that, then. But why?”
“Power. Dunyazad, my sister, how does it feel?”
Dunyazad looked at the king.
“No secrets now!” Scheherezade snapped. “We need to know everything, to fight this thing—”
“We can’t fight Jinni!”
“The fisherman did. Aladdin had to fight too. So. How does it feel?”
“He makes me—He makes my body—” She couldn’t go on.
“Better than a human lover?”
She nodded.
“He makes your body betray you. My husband, he drove you and your brother to a madness never seen before. Do you remember the tales of Caliph Haroun al-Rashid? The woman in the trunk?”
“Yes. The Caliph found a man who had strangled his wife, then chopped her to pieces. She was innocent, but he believed the words of a malicious slave he had never seen before or since. The Caliph freed the man, and found him a wife from among his own courtiers! That bothered me, Scheherezade. I would never have done that. And he freed the slave, and two women who tried to murder their sister and killed her betrothed—”
“He did it to be admired for his mercy, to feel his power of life and death. So it is with the Jinni. He feels his power over all of us. Even women play games of power in their harems.”
“What can we do?”
“We must learn as much as we can. Dunyazad, what do the sheep in the garden have to do with the Jinni?”
“What? Nothing. They’re Persian lambs. A trader brought them as a gift. Four of them. One disappeared night before last. The Jinni ate it, hooves and wool and bones and all.”
“He’s getting bored,” Scheherezade said. “He gave you one more thing you’ll have to lie about. We’ll have to do something soon.”
Dunyazad poured more coffee. Her hands shook but nothing spilled. “Magic rings, lamps, bottles. Sister, have you ever seen one? Are you carrying one?”
“Not I. But Jinni can be made drunk, and slain while drunk. Can you procure wine?”
“Wine!” Dunyazad laughed. “No, there’s no wine in this palace. Once Zaman allowed wine to be brought for foreign visitors. Once in four years, and after the Sheik departed we poured the rest of it out. Sister, it’s hopeless!”
“It’s not. The Afrits don’t know that I know what they are. Perhaps we can tell them a tale.”
“What?”
“Tell them a story. What else have I to fight with? Dunyazad, you must show me through every part of the harem. My husband, you may not come. We shall return in a few hours.”
The harem was small by the standards of the day. Zaman’s peers might have mocked if they knew how empty it was.
They met a dozen servants, women and eunuchs, including a lean eunuch doctor named Saburin. There were two concubines, virgins, kept ready for visitors. “Zaman had a bad time of it,” Dunyazad said. “He still doesn’t trust any woman except me and possibly you. It means I must do all the supervising myself.”
“Shahryar’s the same way.”
She found a large room, windowless, with only one doorway, and a curtain to cover it. There were benches and tables and a small bed. Scheherezade nodded. “What is it used for?”
“If one of the women becomes ill, we put her here. The night air can be blocked off. One can fill it with poppy fumes or whatever smokes Saburin calls for. It’s apart from the other quarters, in case she has something contagious.”
“Good! Perfect. Now, does the Afrit spend all of his time in the tree?”
“In daylight I see no sign of him, and the guards saw nothing when the lamb disappeared. I must come to him after dark.”
“How soon after dark? Always at the same time?”
Dunyazad sighed. “I wait until I feel safe. But I’ve been careless, my sister. It isn’t only his threats. It’s…I’m coming to like it.”
“Ah.”
“He knows me inside and out! How can I—”
“Concentrate, sister. He doesn’t know when you will come? Have you ever come as early as sunset?”
“No, never that early. Only after pitch dark. These last two days I came early, to get it over with!”
“Or as late as morning?”
“No. Wait. The second night I couldn’t make myself move. I came very late. We were still together when I saw colors in my robe. I ran.”
“Well, we must take a risk. Now, quickly, get me workmen and paint and a brazier and a great pot of wax, and wood to make a door! He’s never been in the harem itself?”
“No, never.”
“I need the bedclothes from your chamber. Unwashed, I hope. Curtains hung here and here. And I need something else, but I’ll see to that myself.”
“I’ve thought of something else.”
Scheherezade listened, then nodded. “You ha
ve a gift. See to it they don’t use too much perfume or too little poppy smoke!”
She found her husband pacing their quarters. He smelled of exertion. “I practiced swordplay with one of the men who instruct Zaman’s sons. He had children by three of his concubines, you know, before the curse fell on us. But time passed and you were still gone—”
“Yes. I have a plan.” She talked rapidly.
He listened, and mulled it after she had finished, and presently said, “There are two Jinni. You plan to attack two Jinni, without me?”
“You can’t enter a king’s harem, my lord.”
“And if everything goes exactly right, you might trap one?”
“We’ll ransom him. The female will have to agree. All we want is to be left alone, after all.”
“They’re known liars, Scheherezade!”
“Then you think of something!”
It was as if he held his rage wriggling in both fists. “Allah has not made me clever enough!”
“Then help! I need a seal of Solomon, with certain inscriptions. I’ve drawn a picture. I hope I remembered it right. Find a jeweler. Find the best! Have it for me by sunset.”
“You don’t understand money. I’ll send servants to hire six jewelers. We’ll use the best seal.”
“I will be very glad when this is over.”
The garden wasn’t large, but it was a wonderful place, full of color and fragrances, the colors dimming with the dusk. Sounds of traffic came over the high wall: the last merchants going home. Eunuchs moved about lighting torches, while Dunyazad showed her sister around.
The lambs were curious and friendly. “In Persia they use the wool from the lambs, not the sheep. Hazad treats them like pets.” She named them. She was trying to seem bright and cheerful, but her voice was brittle.
She seemed to be avoiding the big tree in the center.
Scheherezade led her to it nonetheless. It was huge and strong; it dominated the enclosure. When Scheherezade peered up into it she saw only textured darkness.
And when she turned to her sister, Dunyazad was gaping, her hands at her throat. She wasn’t breathing.
