The Steel Seraglio

by Mike Carey

  Her niece visited her the following year, bringing with her the book and also her baby daughter.

  “I’ll tell her all the stories when she’s old enough,” she promised. “But I hoped you could show me the original volume, in my grandmother’s language.”

  The old woman nodded and went to fetch the book. They pored over it together, the old one squinting in an effort to make out the black writing that had been so clear to her in her youth, as she pointed out this or that familiar word, and showed how the meanings of the whole had first begun to appear to her. The younger woman listened and looked attentively, while the baby dabbed a fat finger at each page in turn.

  When they reached the final page, the young woman exclaimed in pleasure.

  “There’s a picture! You didn’t tell me, Auntie.”

  “It’s the only one,” the old woman said. “That’s the sign of the writer.”

  The book ended with a list of names, in tight columns taking up a page and most of its reverse. Below them the first writer had added:

  These gave their lives so that the people would live. The story of Bessa is their story, and we who live on keep them alive in the telling.

  And to this I give my name.

  The page was signed with one symbol: a weeping eye.

  The old woman sighed. “Of course,” she said, “it’s all just a fable. A tale of heathen folk and far-off lands.”

  “Perhaps,” said the young woman. “But she might come to read it differently.”

  “Ma,” added the baby, and tapped the book with a soft hand.

  The Tale of Tales

  The mechanism by which stories are transmitted is a strange one. My tears survive, but my story will be refracted into many stories. They will call me the woman who cried tears which turned to pearls. They will call me she whose tears restored sight to the blind. They will say that where my tears fell, flowers grew. They will say that my weeping filled oceans and drowned cities. All of these tales are true, and none of them are. The only thing that has ever sprung from my grief was words. They were the only thing, and all things. And they are what endures, now that my tears have finally ceased.

  Many stories are told about what became of the inhabitants of the City of Women. There are those who ascribe to the outlandish theory that they never left Bessa at all. They live still within its walls, hiding from sight in a series of underground tunnels of ingenious design. They have grown resistant to the poison which the Lion cast into their wells, but as a result of drinking it every day they are all become monstrous in stature and rapacious in desire, and prey on incautious male travellers to gratify their concupiscence. This tale is mostly repeated in slurred accents in the many drinking dens of Ibu Kim, where for some reason the thought of tall, feral women with insatiable sexual appetites has a certain appeal.

  More conservative commentators aver that the Bessans disbanded, trickling in dribs and drabs into Perdondaris, Agorath, Jawahir and Gharia. Those who tell this story add, with a knowing look, that if you know where to go in those great cities, you may still be able to purchase yourself a shawl of Bessan weave, an embroidered tapestry or a book of poetry.

  Some say that they wandered in the wilderness until their food and water were spent, and that the desert was their last resting place.

  Others tell the same tale in a different way: the people of Bessa never dispersed to settle in other cities, nor did they die on their wanderings. Instead, they became a desert nation, roaming the wastes without cease and earning their living by trading with the travellers they met on their way. Bandits sitting around the fire in the deep desert, when the flames dip low and the world becomes a dark bowl filled with stars, will speak in hushed tones of the city of the heat haze, whose buildings and people seem to emanate from the sand itself. It springs up to offer comfort to the weary wayfarer, a city of dust and incense. And its inhabitants are, according to some, of the city of Bessa, and according to others this is a lie, and the two cities have no connection.

  All the storytellers agree on one detail. The standing stones of Bessa’s main gate, on which the archivist and librarian of Bessa inscribed the names of the dead, are standing still. Millennia may pass, and their ink will not fade.

  All else of truth is shrouded in darkness. Those who know most, say least.

  Zuleika and I bade goodbye to Anwar Das on the outskirts of Perdondaris, and purchased a small house outside the walls of that city. We live there now. There is a pleasing completeness to it—we arrived in the place the concubines were bound for, only many years later, and on our own terms. Our house is quiet, and there is plenty of room for those scrolls I managed to bring with me. Most, of course, remain in Bessa’s Library. It is still intact: it was built to stand through many sieges, though there will be no more. I have seen its fate. The next incursion into Bessa is a wave of scavengers, who find the Library and its scrolls largely untouched, and sell the latter to the cities nearby for a tidy profit. The Library stands on, forlorn and imposing in a city of ruin and rubble. Eventually, it is the last building left. Travellers passing that way will look upon it, and on the standing stones of the city gates, and grow thoughtful, thinking of things that were and things which might have been.

  Our days are passed in quiet joy, though that joy is often tinged with sadness. We read each other poetry, and I write still, but Zuleika will never regain the use of her left arm. Our home is a delight to us, and over the years our conversations, loud with laughter in the evenings or whispered across the pillows at night, have seeped into its walls like incense into wood, so that everything in it seems to bear the signature of our happiness. Still, there are days when the angle of the light, or the scent of spices on the breeze, or a certain quality in the voices we hear in the market, will recall to the both of us the home that we lost. Then we walk through Perdondaris in silence, our minds traversing the streets and squares of another city, a city which exists no longer in wood and stone, but in thoughts and memories, ink and parchment.

  Bessa was scattered on the wind, destroyed, yet also sown, like those plants whose seeds are released only by the ravages of fire. Its words survive, borne in minds and on lips, lying dormant in dreams. I end this tale here, but it is but a thread in the vast tapestry of tales, which has no end. From the weeper, tears. From the City of Women, a diaspora. Moving slowly through the desert of ages, traversing those distances of space and time. They may be far off, or they may be yet to come.

  Baraha, barahinei.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  This book wouldn't have happened at all if it hadn’t been for a fortuitous encounter at Eastercon 2010 between us (well, two of the three of us) and Sandra Kasturi and Brett Savory, of ChiZine. The encouragement and practical help they gave us in shaping what was then a fairly fuzzy and vestigial idea into a fully working book with actual words and punctuation marks goes beyond praise. The rest of the ChiZine posse (Helen and Laura Marshall, Sam Beiko) are similarly amazing. To paraphrase Isaac Walton, the time you spend with them is not deducted from your lifespan.

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  Linda, Louise and Mike Carey are three writers living in North London. Sometimes they write together, sometimes alone.

  Louise wrote The Diary of a London Schoolgirl for the website of the London Metropolitan Archive. She also co-wrote the graphic novel Confessions of a Blabbermouth with Mike.

  Linda, writing as A.J. Lake, authored the Darkest Age fantasy trilogy. She has also written for TV, most notably for the German fantasy animation series Meadowlands.

  Mike has written extensively in the comics field, where his credits include Lucifer, Hellblazer, X-Men and The Unwritten (nominated for both the Eisner and Hugo Awards). He is also the author of the Felix Castor novels, and of the X-Men Destiny console game for Activision. He is currently writing a movie screenplay, Silent War, for Slingshot Studios and Intrepid Pictures.

 
They share their crowded house with two other writers/artists, a cat, and several stick insects.

  ABOUT THE ARTIST

  Nimit Malavia is an award-winning illustrator from Ottawa, Canada. Born in 1987, he received his degree in illustration from Sheridan College. Nimit has produced work for clients including Marvel Comics, Shopify, The National Post and 20th Century Fox. He has also exhibited internationally in galleries in Berlin, London, Los Angeles, Miami and Toronto. He works to live, but really, it’s more like he lives to work. You can find more information about Nimit at www.nimitmalavia.com.