The Ninety-Ninth Bride

by Catherine F. King

  “No closer!” shrieked the three voices at once. Dunya drew back—but she’d seen what she needed to. On that wretched tree, every leaf had a face. A woman’s face. And the leaves were keening.

  “The Sultana’s dowry gift. The Singing Tree.” The torch started to shake in Dunya’s hand. “But that tree was cut down. I saw the stump of it. You are… you can’t be… ”

  “We can’t be what?” asked a voice—Dunya thought of it as the second voice.

  “Trees don’t have ghosts.”

  “Clever,” murmured the first voice.

  “Put the pieces together,” said the second.

  “All living things have a spirit,” said the third.

  “I will find a holy man,” Dunya said. “I will get you freed. See you put at peace.”

  “Peace!” Three voices screamed. “There is no peace without justice! Justice!”

  Dunya hollered over the echoes, “Justice for what? Where did you come from?”

  “Blood,” came the answer, horribly low and earnest. “The blood of ninety-eight women, murdered in hatred, murdered without justice. A little blood seeped its way here, to the darkest shadows… a little blood from each woman, so a memory of each woman lingers here.”

  The murdered harem, Dunya thought. Terror clawed at her mind, but she would not give it the upper hand. She said, “I’m—I’m talking to ninety-eight ghosts?”

  “Ninety-eight remnants. Ninety-eight memories. Ninety-eight prayers of fury. The souls have gone; Allah alone knows where. The anger remains. We remain.”

  Silence fell. The echoes died away. Dunya stared at the little tree, clutching the torch with two shaking hands. She said, “I pity you, with all my heart I do. But… What should I do? The water… ”

  She was going to say, You are poisoning the water, but her mind worked quickly, and she saw it wasn’t true. The Sultan was the one poisoning the city. The Sultan, unbounded in his power, the Sultan who had acted with such cruelty to those under his protection.

  “Tell us,” begged the third voice, “You who come from the sunlight… ”

  “Tell us you will do something,” said the second voice.

  “Tell us you have some courage,” said the first voice.

  “I… ” Dunya tried to think of any action she could take, something she could do, but nothing came to mind. Talking wouldn’t work. Listening wouldn’t work. Nothing but dark water, and paths that ended in her own death. “I… I don’t know.”

  There was a sound like a great inhalation and then, a scream, not three screams at once, but ninety-eight. “Justice!” they howled. “Justice!” They repeated, stretching the word so loud and long.

  The third cry of “Justice!” shook Dunya to her bones. She dropped the torch. It fell into the water and guttered out.

  She would not scream. She would not panic. She backed up until she hit the wall. “I am not afraid,” she said, “I am not afraid.” The stairs were to her right. She would simply sidle to the right and pray not to fall into the water, pray that her memory had not failed her.

  She felt overwhelmed with sadness. She had reached the shadow guard, which meant the door.

  She fell through the door and raced up the stairs, not knowing if she was imagining the sensation of cold hands around her ankles. She ascended, and didn’t stop until—

  The firelight of the wine cellar. She fell to the flagstone floor and gave God thanks for fire and deliverance.

  “What happened? You look awful… ” Upalu was there, and she picked Dunya up with surprising strength and gentleness. “Let me take you someplace safe.”

  “Away… ” Dunya said, in what was almost a wail.

  “Yes, away from here.” Upalu didn’t ask any more questions until they reached the harem. There she snapped her fingers and called up a blazing fire, and Dunya, lain by the fire, started to warm up at once. “Did you see the spirit? Was it the Sultana’s ghost?”

  Dunya winced at the word “ghost,” and realized something else. The guard who had emanated sadness, was that the Sultana’s lover?

  “The singing tree,” Dunya said. “The singing tree that was the Sultana’s dowry-gift… it was cut down, but… there’s another one growing down there. And it’s… I don’t know that it’s a ghost, but it’s a remnant of something. Near a hundred ghosts, a mosaic of ghosts, something from each of the women the Sultan killed.”

  Upalu whistled through her teeth. “That’s a bad omen if ever I heard one.”

  Dunya shook her head. “My ears are ringing.”

  “What happened to your torch?”

  “I dropped it.”

  “Well, it’s gone. You’re never going back there.”

  Dunya was silent.

  “Dunya, you have a knack with supernatural things, but this is way beyond you.” Upalu knelt by her. “You stay away from that pool, you hear me? So there’s a—whatever you want to call it, a multi-faced ghost hanging around. That’s as clear an omen as ever you could ask for.”

  “An omen of what?”

  “That it’s time to leave.”

  Dunya sat up. “What? Leave? Leave the Palace?”

  “Leave Al-Rayyan. The city follows how the Sultan goes, and the Sultan’s Palace is a cursed place, from its rooftops to its foundation. It’s time to leave; nothing good awaits this city.”

  “But Al-Rayyan is my home! I can’t leave it!”

  “What? People leave their homes all the time. It’s called growing up.”

  “But Zahra… ”

  “If I have the measure of her right, she’ll be fine whatever happens. People like her have a way of profiting no matter what.”

  “No, Upalu, I can’t leave. Al-Rayyan is my home.”

  “You did your best by it. But now it’s time to move on.”

  “I won’t,” said Dunya. “I can’t.”

  “You can,” Upalu corrected, “but you won’t.”

  There was a pause. “Will you leave?” Dunya asked.

  Upalu was a long time answering, so long that Dunya blurted out, “Don’t leave me. Be brave and stay with me. Please?”

  Upalu narrowed her eyes, and raked a hand through her hair. Smoke billowed up and her eyes sparked. “I’ll stay for now,” she said finally.

  “Thank you.” Dunya reached up to the djinni and gave her a tight hug. “I don’t know what I’m going to do now. But I won’t run away.”

  That resolve was sorely tested the next time Dunya saw the Sultan.

  Sayyid, she thought. His name is Sayyid. I must get used to using it.

  They were listening to Zahra’s newest story, Dunya with only half an ear. Her mind was with the Sultan. What could she do, to appease that spirit that dwelt in the reservoir? Could she somehow make the Sultan see the error of his ways, and resolve to be a better man?

  Dunya couldn’t think of a way how. She wanted to believe that some good dwelt in him, but he had murdered ninety-eight women who relied on his protection and care.

  She couldn’t look at him anymore. He might see the fury in her eyes, hear how her breath was coming fast and her hands were bunching into fists. It was new, this feeling. She was furious with him. I am not the one who should help him, she thought. Why does it have to fall to me? Why does everything fall to me?

  And her conscience piped up and said, Because you are the one who chooses to act.

  But what do I do this time? Dunya thought. And she didn’t have an answer for herself. For the first time the roads outside of Al-Rayyan beckoned.

  It was terrible. It was worse than hearing about storms, or the terrible Roc, king of the skies, or forty thieves concealed in oil jugs. Sitting there beside him almost completely defeated Dunya’s nerve, but she kept thinking, I must be brave. I must remain, for my city. For my city. For my city.

  Dunya found her eyes
straying to the windows, more and more often. She jumped when she realized she was lost in contemplation of leaping out the windows, landing softly, and running.

  Dunya was the first one to spot the sun rising in the east. When she did, she heaved a sigh and rubbed her forehead, listening again with half an ear as the Sultan told Zahra that she would finish the story in the next night, but first, he would get some sleep.

  Thank God Dunya thought, going to her own bed, but she did not sleep. The voices of the singing leaves were still ringing in her ears, and she twisted this way and that, until finally—

  She jumped when the door opened. “Dunya?” asked Zahra. “What is the matter?”

  Zahra sat on the bed beside her. “What is disturbing you?”

  In a rush, Dunya told Zahra about her visit to the reservoir, with her words falling over each other. She was very tired. “It’s worse than an ordinary ghost, Zahra. An ordinary ghost is just the spirit of one person, but this is the spirit of ninety-eight women, all of the women that—” Dunya swallowed. “Zahra, we have to do something.”

  “Perhaps a holy man,” Zahra said. “Don’t people usually call holy men at times like these?”

  “I’m afraid that this spirit will only be appeased by—by the Sultan’s actions, and Allah knows I can’t get him to do anything. But you could—surely you could get him to… ”

  “What can I do? What influence do you think I have over him?”

  “Your stories… ”

  Zahra said nothing. Dunya sighed. “We have to do something to get that… that thing out of the reservoir. It’s evil… ”

  “No, the spirit that you speak of is not evil,” Zahra said firmly. “They may not be human, but ghosts seek justice above all else. If you must revile them, reserve a little pity for them, at least. Dunya, I know that you were married to the Sultan.”

  Dunya stared at Zahra. That marriage had been so long ago, she herself had half-forgotten it. For so long, having Zahra in the place of the Sultana had been just so much better, Dunya hadn’t thought… Now she listened.

  “You have a choice, though. You can leave Al-Rayyan. You do not have to remain in his household. Leave now, and I will pave your way so that you are forgotten and free.”

  “But my city,” Dunya protested. “My city needs me.”

  Zahra smiled. “You really are a daughter of Al-Rayyan,” she said, “ever giving. Well, sleep now. You need it.”

  Dunya slept an unusually long time that day. She woke up and began to form plans. I’ll get Upalu, we’ll head to the Demon’s Market, then I’ll find that kind imam and we’ll go from there, and then she realized, it was already late afternoon.

  Dunya could not remember the last time she had slept so late. She bolted out of bed, dressed herself in a hurry, and ran towards the harem, her blue scarf in her hand.

  By the entrance to the harem she stopped and looked around. The stump of the miraculous singing tree had long since been dug up. A few roses grew there now, noticeably smaller and younger plants than those around them.

  The singing tree had been magic made tame. Now Dunya was dealing with magic poisoned, or gone rotted, or somehow gone wrong.

  “What will I do?” she sighed. She crossed into the harem and stopped. Something was different. She looked around.The curtains were drawn back, and the scent of smoke that clung to Upalu was gone.

  “Upalu?” she called. And that’s when she heard heavy footsteps and realized the other thing wrong. All of the lamps were gone. There were no lamps scattered on the floor or neatly arranged on tables. The only light was from the sun—all the braziers were gone, as well.

  The source of the footsteps came into view. It was a man, a member of the Sultan’s personal guard. Dunya felt a chill of remembrance. This man had also been a wedding gift, part of the squadron of soldiers from Ethiopia.

  “You,” he said. “You’re the Princess?”

  “Y—yes,” Dunya managed to say.

  There was a pause, and the man said, in an undertone, “Get out of here. Now.”

  “You hear someone?” came a call from an adjoining room.

  The soldier talking to Dunya turned towards the voice. “I didn’t hear anything,” he said. “Told you, this place is haunted.” He caught Dunya’s eye. “Go,” he mouthed.

  “My friend,” Dunya said. Her fist tightened around the blue scarf in her hand. “Where is my friend?”

  “I don’t know,” he whispered. Then he turned and walked away, seemingly unconcerned.

  Dunya backed away and found herself outside the harem. Don’t run, she thought. If you run, you draw attention to yourself.

  “Where would she go?” Dunya twisted her scarf, then, in a decisive motion, set it over her hair. She set off in the direction of the Palace kitchens.

  The kitchens were as busy as ever. People jostled past Dunya when she headed towards the fireplaces. But the first fireplace had no djinni there, nor the second, nor the third.

  “Upalu!” Dunya resorted to standing on tiptoe and calling, “Upalu!” But her voice barely even carried over the yells of the head chefs, and no one looked her way.

  She grabbed some food and headed for the workshops. Maybe Upalu had taken refuge in a forge. After the workshops, Dunya sought out the library. Upalu had never gone there, for fear of starting a fire, but maybe? Who knew?

  Finally, the Lotus Gardens. No luck. Dunya sank onto a bench. The sun was low, and golden light got into her eyes.

  Is she in the city? she asked herself. I’ll just go to the Demon’s Market and come right back, she promised herself. She got up and hurried to the main Palace gate.

  There was so much foot traffic, it took her longer than usual to get to the Demon’s Market. When she got there, her feet steered her to the one place she knew where djinn liked to congregate: Upalu had said she liked the café, once, on a bright winter day.

  The café was full of hookah smoke and the aroma of very strong coffee. Dunya shouldered her way into the room and looked around for a cinnamon-colored scarf, and then looked again, praying for a friendly face, anyone who might help.

  And no one did. Why would they? She was invisible.

  Dunya hesitated. She considered flagging down a server, but thought, what would she say? She left, and realized that the stars were coming out.

  Dunya swore by everything she could think of, and resolved she would check just one more café, and then return to the Palace.

  Three cafés later and she still hadn’t found her and there was an urgent voice in her head screaming at her to return to the Palace. So she turned back towards the Palace, whispering, “I’m sorry, Upalu,” over and over.

  The moon was bright and shining when she finally reached the Sultan’s suite. Standing before the door were two of the Sultan’s personal guard, as inscrutable as ever. It was so late.

  Zahra can’t start the stories without me, Dunya thought, pulling down her blue scarf. What if… what if…

  She stopped between the two guards. Dunya laid her palms on the door. She felt—what did she feel? Reluctant. She thought, I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to keep living through this charade.

  “I have to,” she muttered, and pushed the door open.

  Zahra was on the bed—the worst had not come to pass—and the Sultan was pacing.

  “There you are,” Zahra said. “Come, sit by me.”

  “Where were you?” the Sultan asked her.

  “The kitchens. I was hungry.” Dunya sketched a curtsy.

  She had almost reached the bed when the Sultan asked, “Why do you spend so much time in the harem?” When Dunya turned to him, he said, “I do keep an eye on what happens in my Palace. What’s in the harem for you?”

  Dunya glanced at Zahra. No help forthcoming. Dunya said, “I, um, it was where my father first brought me. There are… memories.”r />
  “Memories. So you’re a bit sentimental. That’s sweet, in a young lady.”

  “Husband,” said Zahra, “come sit by me.”

  “I don’t feel like stories tonight,” the Sultan commented. A shock went through Dunya. Zahra’s smile froze. “Now, the harem,” he said, “A beautifully designed area, I always thought. The screens, the cushions—the chessboards. I was there just earlier today. There was a chess game in progress. The players were gone.” He turned and fixed Dunya with a half-smile. “Do you play chess against yourself?”

  “Yes,” was the prompt reply. “I do. I’m the best opponent I know.”

  “So no one passes time in the harem with you?”

  Dunya said, “No, I’m quite by myself.”

  “You know what else the harem has in abundance? My old aunt used to collect them—brass, copper, tin—”

  “Collect what, dear?” Zahra asked.

  “Lamps, of course.”

  Lamps. Djinn. Upalu. Dunya’s hands clenched around the sheets. Be calm, she thought, Don’t give anything away. Where is he going with this?

  “As those lamps are technically mine now, I took the liberty of confiscating them.” His eyes glanced up, gauging Dunya for a reaction.

  She cleared her throat. “As is your right.”

  “I will have them destroyed in the morning. The smiths are already notified.”

  “That is also your right.” Dunya forced her hands to relax.

  The Sultan stepped closer to her. “I wonder what I’ll find,” he said, “when they’re all melted down?”

  Upalu would have looked him in the eye and said, A lot of hot metal. Dunya felt very keenly that she was not Upalu. She bit her tongue.

  “What… will… I… find?” Sultan towered over her.

  Zahra, help me, Dunya thought desperately, but Zahra was silent.

  “You won’t find anything,” Dunya said at last. “There’s nothing to find.”

  “Nothing? Then how is it that a squeaking little nothing like yourself manages to grab so much power? Charm? Beauty?” He barked a laugh. “I got the idea from listening to Zahra’s stories. Which number was it? Perhaps number sixty? Or six hundred? My head is stuffed with the damn things. I’m hardly good for anything now but stories. This one is so old it creaks. The motherless daughter finds a djinni, wins its loyalty with kindness or her pure heart or—some contrivance. She somehow comes to marry a prince and rule the kingdom. Well, I don’t like that story much.”