by L-J Baker
Adijan groaned and prayed for death.
She woke to water dribbling down on her. The creaking, heaving insides of the ship ran with water. The thought of sinking appealed enormously to her – anything to make the rising and falling stop.
Zobeide lowered herself onto the side of the bunk. She frowned heavily as she massaged her hands. “The only person on board this Eye-forsaken vessel who is in worse condition than me is you. I suppose I have to be grateful the enchantment precludes me feeling seasick.”
Adijan grunted and tried to sit up. The ship lurched. Salt water gushed down the side of the hull to soak both of them.
Zobeide grabbed for the side of the bunk and winced. “Eye help us. If we should sink to the bottom of the sea, I’ll remain imprisoned for eternity. But should you die on this ship, and the necklace go to one of these unwholesome individuals, my existence would be –”
“Maggot!” Qaynu bellowed down the hatch. “Get up here, you lazy worm!”
“She cannot!” Zobeide called.
“This ain’t no passenger trip, Princess,” Qaynu called. “She gets up here or I come down and fetch her. She wouldn’t like making me do that.”
Adijan feebly tried to rise.
Zobeide pushed her back down and stood. “No matter how much you shout, bully, or punish her, she will remain unable to perform any useful function.”
“Sails don’t work themselves.”
“I’ll do it,” Zobeide said. “Whatever task you need her for, I shall complete. Leave her to rest.”
“Whatever you say, Princess. Get topside. Now!”
Adijan woke to darkness. She tried to roll onto her back and discovered she couldn’t because of a warm body pressing against her. “Shali?”
“I am not your ex-wife,” Zobeide whispered. “You’re dreaming.”
In the narrow confines of their bunk, it wasn’t possible to get further away than pressed against each other. The world swayed and creaked. Adijan felt as weak as a newborn and parched, but not in danger of retching. Above, a man snored like the death rattle of a donkey.
“I’m awake,” Adijan whispered.
“How do you feel?”
“Tired. Thirsty.”
Zobeide winced and moved with care. She shuffled off into the dark like a bent old woman. When she returned, cupping a bowl in her hands, Adijan could see the drawn look on Zobeide’s face.
Adijan sipped cautiously. The tepid water soothed the rancid inside of her mouth. Her stomach felt bruised and beaten, but it didn’t object to a dribble of water. Zobeide leaned back against the wooden upright and closed her eyes.
“You look like you want to sleep,” Adijan said.
“I wish I could. For a thousand nights.”
Zobeide reached out a hand for the bowl. A dark patch ran across her palm and the base of her thumb. It looked like she had bled.
“What did you do?” Adijan asked.
“A rope slipped. Have you finished drinking?”
Adijan captured Zobeide’s wrist and pulled her hand closer. “Ouch. This should be bound.”
Zobeide tugged her hand free. “Even had we something to use for the purpose, I’m unsure of its efficacy. Wounds and healing do not proceed normally under the enchantment.”
“Does that apply for it going bad?”
Zobeide frowned at her hand. “I have not experienced an open wound becoming infected.”
“How many have you had?”
“Some masters were more violent than others.”
“They beat you?”
“Ardashir allowed me to experience physical pain but not in such a manner that it threatened my existence. He didn’t intend me to die and find my release that way.”
Adijan drooped back onto the bunk.
“You can lie down,” Adijan said. “I won’t try anything. Promise.”
“I’m afraid it wouldn’t do you much good if you did. I don’t believe I could summon much counterfeit pleasure.”
Zobeide lay with her back against Adijan’s front. Adijan tugged her blanket up over them both. It felt very strange to be lying with a woman who wasn’t Shalimar. Even knowing it was Zobeide, and understanding Zobeide’s dislike of physical contact with her, Adijan had to restrain herself from slipping an arm around the warm body against her. Holding Shalimar was as natural as breathing.
“Did you try to kill yourself?” she whispered into Zobeide’s hair.
“At first. But it was to no avail. Then I realized my struggle was to retain my sanity and salvage what scraps I could of my personal integrity. Ardashir had defeated and humiliated me, but I refused to allow him to destroy me.”
You didn’t have to like someone to admire them.
Adijan carried her thin gruel and dry bread to where Zobeide sat against the side of the ship with her eyes closed.
“You could go back into the necklace for the duration of the trip,” Adijan said.
“No. For many years I yearned for life in the wider world.”
“Yeah, but not quite like this, I bet.”
“Not exactly, no.”
Adijan ate, then wiped the last smears of gruel from the bowl with a crust.
“But I can pretend I’m alive,” Zobeide said.
“You never lived like this. Working from sunrise to sunset at hard, sweaty, boring work.”
“No. But even Qaynu’s petty vindictiveness is preferable to –”
“Sucking a fat man’s poker?”
“I was going to say enslavement. But I am still not free.”
“Getting closer.”
Adijan carried her bowl back to the bucket, rinsed it, and stacked it. The mate, wreathed in foul smoke from his pipe, poured a cup of wine. Adijan stared.
“Your ration,” he said.
Adijan ran her tongue over her lips.
“Take it.” He thrust it at her. “Don’t just stand there.”
Adijan carried the cup back to the side. The date wine was a deep brown. She couldn’t smell it over the brisk sea breeze and didn’t risk lifting it close to her nose. Eye, she wanted to taste it. Her mouth watered in readiness. Just a sip. What would that hurt? No one would know. Except, she would.
With a convulsive jerk of her arm, she tossed the wine over the side. A few drops splashed her hand. After staring for agonized moments, she sucked them off. The sharp taste sent a warm shudder from tongue to toes. She stared miserably at the empty cup and plunged it in the dirty washing water.
Zobeide smiled at her when she returned. “You have three weeks and three days remaining.”
“That’s more than half my time gone.” Adijan hugged her legs and rested her chin on her knee. “How long do you think it’s going to take to find Baktar and get him to free you?”
“He lives in the city. A short walk from the dock.”
“If he’s still alive and still there.”
“He will be there.”
Adijan frowned. “Even if it has only been two or three years since you were enchanted, how can you be sure he hasn’t moved house? Or city?”
“Enchanters rarely move. And if he has built another residence, he will be easy to locate.”
Conjuring up the expansive memory of Remarzaman’s palace in Ul-Feyakeh, Adijan conceded Zobeide might have a point.
Adijan stretched on top of her blanket. Zobeide perched on the side of the bunk.
“Three weeks and two days for me,” Adijan said. “Four days for you. I know how I’m going to celebrate. Me and Shali.”
Zobeide averted her face.
“Eye, it seems like forever since I even saw her, let alone held her. She has the most amazing smile. It’s like her whole body and soul are smiling, not just her lips. She can make you feel happy just because she is. She loves people to be happy. I don’t know anyone who can resist Shali’s smile.”
Adijan smiled up at the planking without seeing the crude graffiti.
“She was smiling when I first saw her,” she said. “She was watching th
is street performer. Puppeteer. There were some kids around him and Shali. I thought I’d been in love before. A crush on this woman who worked for Auntie. A girl who lived down the street. That sort of thing, but standing there, staring at Shali’s smile… it was like life reached down with a hammer and smacked me on the head. I ran out of my work, followed a complete stranger through the streets, then ran back to a fruit stall so I could stand in the doorway of her parents’ house holding an orange. I risked dying of embarrassment. But Shalimar smiled at me, thanked me for the orange, and told me my name felt nice in her mouth. She wanted to be my friend.”
In the stuffy, stinking hold, Adijan grinned to herself.
“I’d never met anyone like her,” she said. “Shali tells you what she thinks and feels. Most people would get themselves into all sorts of trouble doing that, but Shali sees the good in everyone and everything, so she sees a brighter, nicer world than most of us.”
“She’s nothing like you, then,” Zobeide said.
“Oh, no. She’s probably one of the few people in creation who’d like both me and you.” Adijan’s grin faded. “It’s probably why she put up with me. I suppose only someone like Shali would’ve lived so long with me getting drunk and deeper into debt. Not only lived with me, but sung, too. You know, I never meant it to be like that. Not with her. I was supposed to take care of her.”
“In my judgment, the solution isn’t beyond your grasp. You’re already working on eliminating your drinking habit. As for a means of support, Baktar and I shall reward you handsomely.”
Adijan considered that. It wouldn’t be sufficient to rescue Shalimar from becoming the fourth or fifth Mrs. Murad only to put her through another four years of unhappiness. She had to stay off the wine. Zobeide was right: she ought to consider the future. If she could keep some money, she should be able to start her own business. Buy that donkey. Or two. And employ someone to work for her, so she wouldn’t always be away from home. Perhaps she could do some deal with Fakir. She’d buy goods in other cities and bring them to Qahtan for distribution from his warehouse. He’d let her know if she was spending too much time at work and neglecting Shali.
Only much later, when they sweated on deck, did Adijan realize Zobeide had not made a single snotty remark about her loving women or put her down when she talked about Shali.
Adijan leaned over the railing. All thumbs, she had already incurred the wrath of the man making running repairs to one of the hull planks. On her voyage back, she was going to be an honored passenger and sit on a cushion under an awning on the foredeck – not get abused as useless by everyone from the captain to the cabin boy.
“’Ware!”
Adijan straightened and peered up at the man in the rigging. He pointed and shouted warning again. That way lay open sea. She couldn’t see a sail or any indication of another ship. What did he see? There. A black shape. Just above the horizon. Above?
The shape grew with unbelievable speed. Nothing could fly that fast. Adijan had never seen a bird that huge. Her mouth opened. That was no bird or dragon, but three people sitting on a rug flying about half a dozen body lengths above the waves. Sunlight flashed off jewels in the turbans of the two men at the back. The one at the front wore a billowing robe that flapped loosely behind him.
Zobeide stepped to Adijan’s side. She squinted and gripped the rail. Her whole body strained toward the sea as though she might leap overboard. “Can you see him? What does he look like? My eyes are better for reading than for long distances.”
The flying rug whizzed past within a hundred paces of the side. None of the three men looked at the ship. The gold fringing on the rear of the rug waved like hundreds of tiny fingers.
“There are three of them,” Adijan said. “Three men.”
“Three?” Zobeide frowned.
“The two at the back look stinking rich. Jewelry. Flashy turbans. Swords,” Adijan said. “The one at the front has a big, bushy beard. Billowy yellow robe. The rug is red and brown.”
“He would be the enchanter,” Zobeide said. “What of his features? The man at the front. Did he have a thin, bent nose?”
“Hard to tell. There was some grey in his beard.”
Zobeide bit her lip.
“Was it Baktar?” Adijan asked.
“It may have been Ardashir. Then again, it might have been another enchanter entirely. It is not unknown for those with smaller legacies to lower themselves to hiring carpet rides.” Zobeide shook her head. “It might be anyone. I wish I had seen him. Do you think he saw us?”
“No. Rich men don’t pay much attention to the dirt beneath their feet. If it had been that dung-licking dog Ardashir, would he have done something to you if he’d seen you?”
“I’m not sure. He might wish to gloat. Or he might ignore me to hammer home how far beneath his attention I have fallen. Not that he –”
“Maggot!” the sailor called up to Adijan. “Have you died?”
Later, Adijan dunked her hard bread into the gruel to make it edible and picked up their interrupted conversation. “That limp worm Ardashir isn’t going to take it lying down when you’re free and go after his balls, is he?”
“That will not be your concern. You shall be rewarded when Baktar frees us. My reckoning with Ardashir will not involve you.”
While Adijan ate, Zobeide frowned up at the stars past the top of the mast.
“Did that famous poem, which I don’t have,” Adijan said, “tell why that scab did this to you?”
“No.”
“When I asked before, you got all snotty and didn’t answer me. Can I make you tell me?”
Zobeide turned a hard stare on her. “That would be within the bounds of the compulsion.”
She stood and went to stand at the opposite railing with her back to Adijan.
Adijan rinsed her bowl and returned it to the pile before joining Zobeide, who didn’t acknowledge her presence. “Did I say something wrong?”
“I’d foolishly overlooked the fact that you still hold complete power over me. The reminder was unsettling. Mistress.”
“Oh. Look, I’m sorry. I’m really curious. But you’re right. It wouldn’t have been fair to have made you tell me if you didn’t want to.”
“You could ask me.”
“Yeah. I suppose I could. But you don’t have to tell me. Although, I did tell you about me making an idiot of myself over Shali with the orange.”
Zobeide raised an eyebrow. “I certainly wouldn’t classify my actions with your courtship. But, in all honesty, it was a foolish miscalculation. With disastrous consequences.”
One of the sailors began playing a reed pipe. Others joined in with whistling and clapping. Zobeide signaled Adijan to follow her forward, where it was quieter.
“Encouraged by certain signs, and a man whose judgment was otherwise impeccable, I challenged Ardashir for his legacy,” Zobeide said. “The time was not ripe. Ardashir took great offence. His defeat of me was, on all counts, comprehensive. To demonstrate his over-mastery of me, and to discourage any thoughts of revenge on the part of Baktar, Ardashir made quite an example of me.”
“You know, I thought I’d got used to not understanding half of what you say. But I didn’t get most of that. When you say legacy, you don’t mean grandma leaving you her favorite lamp when she dies, do you?”
“A legacy is what makes an enchanter an enchanter. Have you had occasion to observe that there are not as many enchanters as one might predict from what is, by anyone’s standards, a rewarding and fascinating occupation?”
“I have noticed they don’t beg in the street for their next meal.”
Zobeide nodded. “Lucrative, too. Yes. All round, a highly respectable and respected profession. But the practitioners are limited to those possessed of a legacy and their apprentices. A legacy is the accumulated knowledge of one’s predecessors and includes alchemical formulae, magical incantations, and methods for accessing and harnessing the powers of creation. You can imagine how jealously
an enchanter would guard such a resource.”
“You tried to steal this Ardashir’s magic and stuff?”
“Not steal. Challenge for control of. As was my right.”
Adijan leaned her elbows on the railing and supported her chin in her hands. In the starlight, the waves looked like the rise and fall of black blood of the earth itself. “So, you were trying to become an enchanter by taking this Ardashir’s magical stuff from him?”
“In essence, that is correct. I was his apprentice.”
“So that’s how you know so much about enchantments and whatnot.” Adijan frowned. “So, this Ardashir beat you. But I don’t see why he had to be such a poker about it. Wasn’t it enough that you didn’t get his legacy?”
“Ardashir enjoys a reputation as a peerlessly skilled practitioner. He has achieved this through many years of dedicated toil and the bent of his personality. He is not a man whom you would find amiable.”
“I already guessed that.”
“To others, though, his single-mindedness, his towering intellect which suffers no fools, and his fierce guarding of his legacy, are qualities to be admired.”
“Rich, arrogant, and stuck-up. And you liked him.”
“Unlike yourself, I cannot find anything reprehensible in genuine superiority of mind and person.”
Adijan smiled. “You do surprise me.”
After a pause, Zobeide looked down at Adijan. “You’re making oblique reference to myself. You could be correct. My failing was hubris.”
“I never met the wormy donkey licker – and don’t want to – but I’m willing to bet every last curl I ever earn that he’s not half the person you are, no matter what he thinks of himself.”
Adijan captured one of Zobeide’s wrists and turned her hand over to show the healing rope scar. “Not much pride in that, but plenty of honest sweat. And I bet he wouldn’t have lasted half as long if you’d done to him what he did to you. Why did he do it? And don’t tell me that forcing you into sexual slavery was admirable or respectable.”
Zobeide frowned down at her hand. “No. In that, he was motivated by vindictiveness. Spite. Fear.”
“You are going to make the scabby pustule pay for what he did to you?”