by Mike Carey
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 both it and its scrolls largely untouched, and sell the latter to the cities nearby for a tidy profit. The library stands on, forlorn and imposing as the city crumbles around it. 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 saffron on the breeze, or a certain quality in the voices we hear in the market, will recall to us both the home that we lost. On these days 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 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
Thanks to Camden Ford for his indispensable advice on materials science. Without him, our gold would never have melted and Rem’s secret weapon would have backfired.
Copyright
A Gollancz eBook
Copyright © Mike Carey, Linda Carey and Louise Carey 2013
All rights reserved
The right of Mike Carey, Linda Carey and Louise Carey to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in Great Britain in 2013 by
Gollancz
The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
Orion House
5 Upper Saint Martin’s Lane
London WC2H 9EA
An Hachette UK Company
This eBook first published in 2013 by Gollancz.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978 0 575 13269 6
All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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