A Thousand Nights

by E. K. Johnston

  Lo-Melkhiin’s mother had a strip of purple cloth around her wrist. I saw it now, when she raised her hands to me. Her face was lit by the lamps that burned inside the tent, and the lion-mane wig cast a tawny aura around her.

  “I will pray,” she said to me. “Not to the smallgods of my own family, as I have done before. They are far from here, near the blue desert, and maybe they are too busy with the blue desert’s troubles to hear me. I will pray to the smallgod who sits in my tent, and who is married to my son.”

  I was not surprised that she knew. It seemed that my sister had done her job well and spread the story of my smallgod to everyone who might listen, just as she had promised on the day Lo-Melkhiin took me to be his wife.

  “Lady mother,” I said to her. “I cannot fight a war.”

  “Daughter of my heart,” she said to me. “You have been fighting a war since you decided to take your sister’s place. Only keep fighting it now, and we shall see who stands at the end—demons or smallgods.”

  I went out from the tent, where my sister was waiting for me. I did not ask if she had heard. I did not care if she had. I looked into her face and saw a light of hope, one that sang for blood and fighting to get the end she desired. I was less willing to face deaths other than my own. I did not know how we had changed so much since I had left her, and yet I knew that I had caused her to change.

  We went back to the tent that our mothers shared, and there was a basin of clear water there. I halted, confused by it, and my sister laughed at me. Her laugh was still the same.

  “Sister of mine,” she said to me, “I will still wed tonight.”

  Our mothers came, and we washed together. It was not as easy as the baths in the qasr, but it was familiar. We shared the water bowl and the soft soap made from ashes and sheep fat. We rinsed the lather from our bodies. My mother sang to us—the old songs, not any of the new ones they were singing for me—and when the desert air had dried us, we began to dress.

  As she had said, my sister would take no pins from me to do her hair. It hung to her waist, straight and black and uncoiled. We put her veil over the top, securing it with the bone pins that she had worn the day before. Her dishdashah was yellow, as I had seen in the dream; there, if I looked to see it, would be the spot of blood. I did not look. She wore no shoes, and so I left mine off too. They could not have borne dancing in the desert sand, in any case.

  My dress was blue, and as plain as I could manage. The serving girl had brought it, but I sent her back to wait with Lo-Melkhiin’s mother, and told her that my sister and mothers were help enough for me. I did not braid my hair either, but let it fall as my sister had done. It was unseemly that a married woman should wear her hair loose under her veil, but I thought that if any man tried to criticize me, I would only remind him whom it was he sought to wage war against.

  As we dressed and my mother sang, the words of Lo-Melkhiin’s mother weighed heavy on my spirit. She was so sure he was a good man. I had seen flashes of that, or else I thought I had, but I was not certain that there would be enough to resurrect him. If my father and his men were successful, there would be a dead king and no one to take his place. It would be as Sokath, His Eyes Uncovered had feared—a dead king and no one but the grasping merchants and petty lords to take his place. We would fight until the children who tended the sheep were old, if they did not die fighting themselves.

  My dress was such a simple thing, for all it had come from the qasr, because I did not wish to outshine my sister on the day she wed. If I could think of a solution as simple as the dress, it would be better for everyone, but my mind was too full of worry to think. When I closed my eyes to focus, I saw my father’s blood on Lo-Melkhiin’s hands, and my brother’s children with no fathers left to care for them. There were too many people here, and too much noise. I could feel the copper fire burning inside of me, but I could not direct it. When I tried to spin it, it unwound. When I tried to weave it, it tangled.

  My mother painted my face with kohl, and my sister’s, too. I had to be patient. I had to get through the wedding feast and the dancing, and then, when the night was quiet, I would try to find a good path for my copper fire to take. If it made me ill, Lo-Melkhiin would not be here to heal me, but there was nothing I could do about that. I had to make hard choices at every turn, it seemed, but I needed make none of them yet.

  My mother pulled me to my feet, and turned me slowly around before her. “My daughters are here together again,” she said to us. “And I am glad.”

  My sister smiled, her heart showing in her eyes. I tried to do the same, but all I could manage was the smile itself. Quickly I pinned up my veil, hiding from all of them at once.

  I DO NOT REMEMBER THE WORDS the priest spoke at my sister’s wedding. He did not speak for very long, I am sure, because it was already nearing sunset when my sister went to stand before him, and he could not marry anyone in the dark. Such rituals must be completed while the sun is in the sky.

  The pale man wore a tunic and breeches in the desert style, but with a wide belt from his homeland that was nothing like any we might make. I thought it suited him. He had broader shoulders than my father or my brothers, and the belt showed them off. He still looked pale, but as he stood beside my sister, he did not look like something the desert would eat or dry out to dust.

  When the words were said, and the first mead was poured, my sister brought the cup to my father and to her mother, and then to my mother. They drank, and she took the cup to me and to each of my brothers. She poured a little into the sand, for her brother taken by the flood when we were small, and then again for the smallgods, though the wink she directed at me when she did it belied her sacred motions. The cup should next have gone to the pale man’s family, but he had none here, so she gave it to the priest instead, and the priest drank until the cup was empty.

  Then my father clapped his hands, and the women brought out the roasted goat and the baskets of sweet figs and dates. There were baskets of breads and pots of honey. Everyone pretended not to notice when the children ate only sweets, but when my youngest brother would have done the same thing, they laughed at him. It was a merry party, but I could not forget the army in whose midst I sat.

  “Sister, put your thoughts away,” my sister said to me. Her eyes were dancing, and her face was lit with joy. “There are sentries and guards aplenty. We would know if Lo-Melkhiin marched against us tonight.”

  I did not tell her that I was less certain. She might not have believed me, and even if she did, she could not have helped. I remembered that I wore a veil, and that if I pretended, none would know the expression on my face. I had only to make sure my body sat the way a happy girl at her sister’s wedding would sit. I looked across the fire at where Lo-Melkhiin’s mother sat. If she could do this, knowing what she did, then so could I.

  A drum was brought, and pipes, and my father stood to begin the dancing. My brothers joined him, and they paced up and down the lines where people sat eating. Their steps were measured and familiar to me, the dances that my family did to welcome a new person to it. I had seen my father dance at all of my brothers’ weddings, and at the birth of each child. After they had gone up and down one full circuit, my oldest brother pulled the pale man up to join them. His steps were not perfect, but he did an admirable job of trying, and we clapped and cheered from where we sat.

  When they were done, the drums beat faster. This time all the men, from the oldest greybeard to the youngest walking boy, took to their feet and danced. These steps were simpler, not special to any one family, but rather shared amongst all who called a wadi home. This was the dance of men in the desert, those who were strong enough to live here, those who did not fear the hammer of the sun. I felt cold as I watched them, though I never stopped clapping and cheering. I knew that if they fought Lo-Melkhiin, many of them would die.

  The men danced until all the stars were out, and the moon had more than cleared the horizon. Then they took their seats again, and fell upon the feast
as though they hadn’t been eating their fill less than half an hour before. Mead was brought, and cool water from the well, and they laughed as they drank.

  My mother and my sister’s mother brought out tambourines made from tortoise shells and copper beads, and shook them as they sat. The men laughed as my sister took one of them and threw me the other. She ought to have given it to one of my brother’s wives, but I supposed that no one here considered me to be married for long. Lo-Melkhiin’s mother did not protest. She only looked a little bit sad as I rose to stand beside my sister.

  We had done this dance only once before, when my third brother was married. It was the first time we had been old enough to do it, but we had seen it many times before, and my mother and my sister’s mother made sure we knew the steps. I knew my sister was praying to my smallgod out of habit, asking for her pins to stay steady and the ties of her dishdashah to hold. Again, my prayers stuck in my throat, so I settled for calling up the copper fire and using it to fix the pins and ties for both of us. In Lo-Melkhiin’s qasr, I had thought of those things as armor, the only way a woman might be shielded. Now, I knew it to be true.

  My sister beat her tambourine four times upon the palm of her hand, and I beat four times in answer. This put the rhythm in our bones, and the feeling of the dance in our blood. We beat four times together, and then we began to spin.

  We walked in a broad circle, feet light on the sand and hair flying behind us under our veils. We dragged our toes in the right places, outlining the shape of a tent as we moved, and then stepped inside the marks to continue dancing. Now the women who sat and watched us had the rhythm, and began to clap.

  They had set torches burning, because lamps would not be bright enough, and I saw the light gleam off the copper beads as my sister shook her tambourine. I matched each of her movements, spinning in the sand, as we mapped out the tent and the things that would be inside it. Here was where my sister’s cook fire would be, and here she would put her loom. When children came, they would sleep in the corner, while my sister and her husband would sleep closer to the door. We laid down rugs to keep the sand from getting into everything, and lined the sides with heavy pillows to keep out creatures that might harm those who slept within.

  I was careful as we danced—not to keep track of the steps, but to control my copper fire. I did not wish to call any of the things we danced for into being. My sister’s wedding was grand enough without adding anything uncanny, and I feared that if I did, I would be too sick afterward to reason with anyone about their planned attack. Instead, I kept the copper fire spooled inside of me, apart from the dance, and separate in my thoughts. I found that I could do the steps without thinking about them, and I put all of my concentration into keeping the fire where it was. The men began to clap too, and with the added rhythm I sank into the fire entirely, my feet never missing their mark.

  I no longer danced upon the sand; or rather, I did, but I was above it as well. Like a sand-crow, I circled the tents in the dark, seeing where the torches burned and how the men standing guard were given roast goat and water, but only enough mead for luck. I saw the new tent that had been set up for my sister and her husband. It was not the tent they would live in, but it was enough for them until they could pick a place to set their stakes. I looked down at myself, dancing steadily beside my sister, and then cast my gaze out into the desert to see what was coming toward us in the night.

  The guards would not have seen them. I knew that, the way I knew that they could not stop them, either. There was only one man in their number, who rode on a horse and set their pace. That was Lo-Melkhiin. Those who came with him were not men. For whatever reason, the demons he brought did not walk in men’s bodies. I guessed it was because they were stronger that way. Or because they wanted to take the bodies of those they found here, offered up like the feast my father served for my sister’s wedding.

  I felt the tambourine shake and was back in my body, the dance complete. My sister stood beside me, unbent, though I knew she was as winded as I was, and she smiled under her veil.

  “You see, sister,” she said to me. “Tonight we have all the luck we need.”

  Again, I held my tongue. I could have said to her that demons were coming, but when she looked into the desert, she would see only Lo-Melkhiin on a horse, and she might try to kill him herself. She had never lacked for spirit, and the idea of that scared me to my bones.

  “Yes, sister,” I said to her, calling on the copper fire again, willing it to be so. “Tonight we have good luck.”

  My mother took the tambourines, and the other women stood to do their own dance where we had trod. I took no outstretched hand, ducking away from all of them when they might have pulled me back into the dance. Instead, I went away from the fires, away from the sights and sounds and smells of the wedding, and into the dark, where I might have a clear head to think.

  Perhaps if I went to Lo-Melkhiin, he would take me and turn back, content to hold me hostage in his qasr. If I took his mother with me, we would have an even greater chance. When I looked for her, though, I saw that she sat with four of my mother’s brothers and their wives. They would not let her out of their sight, even if she went with me. If I went into the desert, I would go alone.

  I returned to my mother’s tent and took off my fine dishdashah and veil. My sister’s priestly-whites were there, and I put them on. I feared no blasphemy. She had worn them when she prayed to my smallgod. I was allowed to wear them now. I pinned on the white veil, and put on the slippers that completed the regalia. I would take no piece of the shrine with me, as my sister would have done. I did not need a scrap of the purple cloth, or the eggshell lamp, or any of the flowers that had been left as offerings. I was enough on my own.

  I left the sound of dancing and celebration behind me. I did not pray or sing as I walked. I only called on the copper fire in my chest, and felt the spool unwind. Threads of fire went to each of my fingers and toes. My eyes bloomed with it, and they sharpened the hearing in my ears. This was all the armor I needed now, or so I hoped.

  And I walked into the desert alone to meet my husband, where he rode with my doom behind him at last.

  I HEARD LO-MELKHIIN LAUGHING, and knew he saw me where I walked. My sister’s priestly-whites were newly washed, and gleamed in the moonlight. I was not hard to see. When I heard my husband laugh, I stopped and waited. I had come this far. My doom could come to me.

  “Star of my skies, you did not need to come out to greet us,” said Lo-Melkhiin when he was close enough that he did not need to shout. There was no hint of a good man about him. If I wanted one, I would have to make one, as I had made the pale man for my sister. “We are quite happy to go among the tents your father has pitched on the wadi. We wish to see them.”

  “Please,” I said to him. “Take me back to the qasr and use me as your hostage there. Make them send you your mother. Tell them that they must never rebel, or you will kill me.”

  “Human lives are nothing to us,” said one of Lo-Melkhiin’s kin. “Our brother does not care about your life, even if he wears a human body and has married you in a human rite.”

  “My kin speak true,” Lo-Melkhiin said to me. “Except I do find some value in your life. I will take you, and I will still burn your father and your brothers and all who stand with them until they are ashes to be mixed with the desert sand.”

  “Please,” I said again to him. “Spare them, and I will give you the power that I have.”

  “Humans have no power,” said another of Lo-Melkhiin’s kin. “Or at least they have no power in comparison to ours. How else would we take them and spend their lives so easily?”

  I could see them more clearly now. At first, it had looked like Lo-Melkhiin sat on a horse and was surrounded by a white mist, like the steam that rose from the coals in the qasr bathhouse when you poured water on them directly. Now I could see figures in the mist. They were tall, arms and legs too long, and though I could not see their faces clearly, I did not like wh
at little I saw.

  “This one has power,” said Lo-Melkhiin to his kin. “But she cannot give it to me. She is not to be worried over, though. If she uses too much, she becomes ill, and only I can save her from it.”

  “Please,” I said to him, a third time. “Leave us; leave, Lo-Melkhiin, and return with your kin to wherever you came from.”

  At this they all laughed, the sound screeching along my nerves.

  “We will never leave,” Lo-Melkhiin said to me. “Why would we, when we have everything we want here? Your people may struggle and rise up against us from time to time, but we do not die. We will crush them. We can crush them right now, if we choose.”

  Lo-Melkhiin got off his horse and came over to where I stood. None of his kin followed me. He came right up to me, grasping my shoulders. His fingers bit into my skin, but I would not flinch.

  “Wife,” he said to me, and to me alone. “Here is the only bargain you will get from me tonight. Fight with me, overthrow my kin here in the desert where we stand right now, and I will leave your people. You will tell them their rebellion is over, that you are my hostage and they must not rise up again. Only help me defeat my kin first, and I will save yours.”

  I did not doubt that we could do it. Even the slight touch of his fingers on my arms surged with power, and neither of us was really trying. The beings in the mist were only half formed. I knew my fire and the cold light Lo-Melkhiin had at his command would be enough to send them into the sand for an age, if we put forth the effort. My family would be safe. I would be safe. But Lo-Melkhiin would have a demon in him still, and with my power beside him, I shuddered to think what the demon could do.