Spindle

by E. K. Johnston

  “My princess,” Maram said, and I realized that Zahrah was standing just behind him.

  There were still guards standing at each of her elbows, though they no longer supported her. She was straight-backed, and had covered her face with her veil, which she had never done in front of us before. I noticed that they had taken her shoes. He didn’t know then, the Maker King’s son, how far she could go in bare feet.

  “Your captors, my love,” he said to her, bowing slightly from the waist. “Now you can see that you have nothing further to fear from them.”

  Zahrah said nothing and did not so much as move her head, though her shoulders trembled a little bit. She had put the veil up as a defense, so that Maram could not read her face. I hoped he merely thought she was being modest in front of her fiancé and so many of his men. I couldn’t see her either, but I knew she would be fuming. It was rage that shook her, not fear.

  “What shall we do with them, your highness?” asked the guard who had carried Arwa. I sensed a great reluctance in his tone, and fear coursed through me. This man was expecting to receive a terrible order, and he would hate it, but he would carry it out.

  The Maker King’s son looked at us for a long moment, as though he expected us to beg. We wouldn’t, of course; and I knew Zahrah wouldn’t either.

  “Bring them,” he said. “We will return with these miscreants to the castle of King Qasim.”

  I let out a whisper of a breath, but did not dare show more relief than that. We would not die here in the sand.

  “But do not worry, my love,” Maram continued. “We will take them to your father, and then we will have them executed at your command, so that all your subjects will know how much you love me.”

  He knew. His vicious grin gave it all away. He knew that we had not kidnapped Zahrah, that she had come with us of her own accord. And he knew that she cared for us, though I could not imagine he knew why or how much. That didn’t matter to him. He had five creatures to torment, using our pain against each other, and when he was done he would get to keep her to torment further. Saoud couldn’t reach for me with the guards behind us, but he did lean into my shoulder as much as he dared. The weight of him, slight as it was, reminded me that I could still die here in the sand if I did something reckless.

  On my other side, Arwa hadn’t so much as flinched at the prince’s declaration, and I was inordinately proud of her. Tariq was breathing slowly, measured air going in and out, like he was spinning and wanted to match his breathing to the rhythm of his work. I took a deep breath and tried to do the same thing, but I felt it slip away from me immediately.

  “Get them on their feet,” the prince said.

  “What about the girl?” said one of the guards.

  Maram looked at Arwa for the first time, measuring her worth, as if one such as he could possibly fathom it.

  “She has made her choice,” he said. “She can live with it, for the time she has left.”

  He turned then and went back toward the encampment. They had not brought their horses with them, so we would all walk. The guards who stood with Zahrah led her behind their prince, while the rest of them turned their attention to us.

  They did not bind us. There was no reason to. The desert had been a poor escape plan, as we had already learned, and there were many more of them than there were of us. Even if they needed to get a horse from their camp, they would still run us down soon enough if we made a break for it. Instead they searched us, taking knives and belts and going through our packs. None of these were returned, except for Arwa’s. The guard who looked through her things was the same guard who had carried her out of the cave. He removed nearly everything from her pack, and then made a face like he had accidentally touched a hot cooking pot before returning the bag to her. One of his comrades leaned over to question him, and I did not hear the murmured reply, but clearly all the guards who did were in agreement.

  I looked at Arwa, whose face was a determined mask. She looked at me for a brief second and her eyes flashed with something like satisfaction, though I couldn’t guess the cause. Saoud looked relieved as well, and I wondered what in the world Arwa was carrying that she was so glad to keep while the men who had captured us were equally glad to let her. She pulled her veil over her face, as Zahrah had done, and I wished it was a bit windier so that the rest of us would have the excuse to do the same with our kafiyyahs. As it was, we were forced to march toward the camp with every defense taken from us.

  The camp was a messy place, laid out with no regard for order or basic sanitation. We were taken to a small tent, and the four of us were shoved inside with little ceremony. I knew that there would be at least two guards posted outside, and that the thin walls of the tent would do nothing to cover the sound of our voices if we tried to speak to one another.

  So we sat in silence and discomfort again, and waited for an end we did not know; though we knew it would be a while before we saw it. I thought of my mother, and wondered if she would ever learn what had become of me. She would have heard about Zahrah’s kidnapping, of course. She might have seen the prince ride past on his way to her rescue. I didn’t know if she would guess my part in it, if she would take the pieces—my leaving her, Zahrah’s disappearance, the executions—and spin them into the thread of the true tale. I wanted her to die at peace, if she could. As I almost certainly would not.

  But that was not my thread to spin.

  THE GUARD CAME FOR ARWA as soon as the sun rose the next morning. We hadn’t been given any blankets, so we had all slept in a pile together against the chill of the desert night. It had taken a long time to fall asleep, since we were spun so tight and stretching at the seams, and so we were groggy when the flap was opened. When we saw the guard’s intent, Saoud did finally fight him. It was over before I could join in, with Saoud bleeding from the mouth and nose, and Arwa gone anyway with not so much as a glance from the guard who carried her. When I tried to open the tent flap to see where they were taking her, I was pushed back with a staff to the belly. It was the first time anyone had ever hit me outside of the practice ring, and it was several minutes before I could breathe properly.

  By the time I had recovered, Saoud’s nose had stopped bleeding. Tariq was sitting up, his face pale as he watched us, though he gave no other sign of distress. I was so proud of him, and of Arwa too, even though I wanted their freedom more than I wanted their strength.

  “What can we do?” Tariq asked. It was the first time any of us had really spoken in hours, and it was a question I did not know the answer to.

  “I think we must do our best to survive the trip back to the castle,” I said. “We can’t give the prince any reason to kill us between now and then.”

  “So we can die in Kharuf, before the king and queen themselves?” Saoud asked.

  “I don’t think Qasim and Rasima would allow it,” I said. “They will listen to Zahrah. They might even recognize us, or at least the resemblance to our parents. I don’t think they would really execute us.”

  “The prince would,” Saoud pointed out. “What if he makes it a condition of his marriage? What if he calls Zahrah’s reputation into question and says the only way for her to clear it is for her to give the order? What if it is a choice between us and Kharuf?”

  He hadn’t said anything I had not already thought of, but hearing it in words made it worse. He was right, of course. The Maker King’s son was as cruel as the rumors suggested, and it was clear he wanted us to die—not just for some perception of justice, but because it would hurt Zahrah and show her that she was in his control.

  “It is the only hope we have,” Tariq said.

  I was so tired of hope, but it had got us this far, and even though we were fools to trust it, Tariq was right. We fell silent again, aware that there were guards outside, and listened to the camp move around us. They must have been preparing to pack up and go back to Kharuf, but they were clearly no more orderly now than they had been when establishing camp in the first place. It was ag
gravating to be idle, even though there was nothing we could possibly do. My only consolation was that whatever they were doing to Arwa could not have been too painful, because we did not hear her scream.

  After what felt like an eternity, Arwa was dumped through the tent flap. Saoud caught her around the waist and pulled her toward him, checking automatically for injuries to her head and hands.

  “It’s all right, I’m all right,” she said, pushing him off. Still, she sat right next to him when he let her be.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “You were right about the demon,” Arwa said. “It’s here, and it wants Zahrah very badly. Only, it was angry because she’s not good enough at making things. They made me sew with her, and they’re getting a loom for this afternoon. I told her that Yashaa was the only weaver, so they’d take him next.”

  I was a decent enough weaver, though I lacked practice. I could put up a show of it, though, and presumably if they needed us to teach Zahrah how to do it, there was no one of their number that was particularly skilled. Selfishly, I was glad that I would get out of the tent, not to mention see her again.

  “How is she?” Tariq asked.

  “She’s fine,” Arwa said. “We couldn’t talk very much. The demon watched us while we worked. It was terrible, Yashaa. Its eyes were terrible, and it wouldn’t stop looking. Zahrah kept working, though, like it didn’t bother her at all. She’s so brave, Yashaa. She’s our princess.”

  It was cold comfort, but it was better than nothing. We had nothing to eat for breakfast, and no lunch was brought either. After our long days on trail rations, we were used to light meals, or missing them altogether, but they hadn’t brought us any water, and that was going to be a more immediate problem. We had not drunk a lot yesterday while we were in hiding, and I knew that headaches and general malaise would only be the beginning if we didn’t get water soon.

  “I’m sorry we lost the salt boxes,” Arwa said quietly. “Prince Maram threw them in a fire pit when the demon told him they were piskey-made.”

  “I think he hates everything that is beautiful just because it’s not his,” Tariq said. “It must be a lonely way to live.”

  “I don’t pity him for it,” Saoud said. “I pity everyone who has to live under his boot.”

  “Soon that will be all of Kharuf as well,” I said.

  “With luck,” Saoud said darkly, “we will still be alive to see it.”

  He did not sound particularly hopeful, and we lapsed into silence again. I tried to think of how to tell them I was sorry for landing them all here, but every time I thought of words that might work, I remembered that Saoud had followed us of his own volition, and both Arwa and Tariq had offered as many suggestions as I had, back in the mountain pass. They had followed me here because they wanted to, not because I had made them, and if it was a bad end, then they would meet it on their own terms. The only thing I could really apologize for was raising the specter of hope again when it was all clearly lost, but even that sentiment rang hollow with me when I tried to give it voice.

  Before I could think of anything, the tent flap opened again and a larger guard beckoned to me. I left the tent on my feet, my hands raised to protect my eyes from the light, and followed the guard through the haphazardly arranged tents until we stood before the tent that was clearly the best one. The cloth was dyed, to begin with, and there were clerestories in the uppermost areas of the peak, letting daylight in so that oil or candle smoke wouldn’t make the air inside the tent stuffy. It was held in place by bronze pegs instead of iron. I shuddered when I recalled the reason for that detail.

  We went into the tent, and I was immediately shoved forward onto my knees. Prince Maram sat on an ornately carved wooden chair, which I thought a foolish waste, as someone had to carry it while the prince rode on horseback. Beside him on a collection of pillows sat Zahrah. There was a frame in her lap with the warp already set, and a collection of cloth strips behind her. Judging by the colors, the strips had once been someone’s uniform. At least they hadn’t used our spare clothes.

  “Spinner,” said the prince, “I am told you can weave as well?”

  “I can,” I said. I was not his subject, and I would not grant him his title. The guard behind me pressed his staff into the back of my knee, pushing it into the ground, but I made no noise.

  “I see,” said the prince. He didn’t sound impressed, either by my supposed talents at weaving or by my defiance. “It has come to my attention that my fiancée’s lessons are incomplete. You will show her how to weave, as it is a skill all ladies ought to have.”

  The slight emphasis he put on “ladies” did not go unnoticed, but I said nothing further. I nodded and then moved to stand up so that I could go to where Zahrah was sitting. The guard pressed his staff down again, and I froze.

  “You may crawl, Spinner,” the prince said. “If you are lucky, I won’t make you crawl all the way back to my beloved’s castle.”

  I crawled. The guards laughed as I seated myself near Zahrah, and then the prince, seemingly bored of the game, dismissed most of them.

  “Like this, my princess,” I said, trying to sound formal, as I had done those days in the hidden valley.

  I took the loom from her lap and selected a piece of cloth. We wouldn’t be making anything in particular. The loom was too small for real work. Instead, she would learn the mechanics of how to weave the cloth as though it were a true lesson, and she would later move on to other projects. It wasn’t real weaving, just the motions of it, as though they only needed to say she had woven something, and didn’t care if she actually could.

  I worked the first strip of cloth through the warp and then selected a piece of cloth for her. Our fingers brushed as I passed the loom back to her. Prince Maram, who had been watching dispassionately, nodded to the guard who stood beside me, and the guard cracked me across the knuckles with his sheathed dagger. It didn’t break my fingers, but it hurt them. They would be swollen later, particularly if I kept weaving now, which I would obviously have to. Lessons, then, for Zahrah, in weaving, torture, and the prince’s absolute control.

  I risked a look at her, desperate to know if they had done the same to Arwa, even though Arwa had claimed she was fine. Zahrah gave the tiniest shake of her head and then raised a hand to her temple to cover the movement.

  “My love, does your head ache?” asked Maram, his tone indicating that he already knew the answer to his question. “You must keep practicing. I have been told that will ease your suffering.”

  He meant her headache only, not the rest of her pain.

  Zahrah began to weave. As always, she was beautiful at her work, even though the circumstances were abhorrent. She missed none of the cross strings in the warp, even on her first attempt, and was able to keep each line tightly aligned with the one above it with little effort. As she continued, a manic energy like I had never seen before lit her eyes, the only part of her I could see under her veil. I tried to think like Tariq, and wondered what was different now, and then I knew: the demon. Somehow it was driving her.

  My hand was throbbing as I helped her begin the next row, careful not to touch her. There were so many magics upon her: the demon’s to hurt, and the creatures’ to inspire. She would feel all of those things at once. I was so proud of her for not fracturing under the pressure. But then, halfway through a line, she froze. She took a deep breath and looked up past my shoulder. I started to follow her gaze, and Prince Maram stood up out of his chair as the tent flap moved and a person who was not a person came into sight.

  “Lady,” Prince Maram said. “Have you come to see our progress?”

  “I have,” said the most terrible voice I had ever heard. Every part of me rebelled against her, but I couldn’t flee. And even if I could have, I wouldn’t have left Zahrah alone.

  “Come, my little rose,” said the demon queen. I hated it for using that name. That was our name, and she made it seem like Zahrah was a thing that could be cultivated and picke
d. “Let me see what you have made.”

  THE DEMON IGNORED ME, so I watched it as it circled the tent. It looked almost human except for its color, and the way that it held its head at strange angles. Instead of walking, it glided along the floor, moving first slowly and then much too fast. It made me sick to my stomach to look at it for long. When we’d fought the bear, the demon in it had been weaker, and we’d had iron. I sensed this demon was much stronger, and the iron I carried had already been taken from me.

  It reached Zahrah and put a hand on her shoulder. Somehow Zahrah didn’t shudder at the touch. She held up the loom, showing the work she’d done so far as though the demon were a favored aunt or teacher, like my mother. The demon laid a finger, or a fingerlike appendage, on the frame, and an odd light suffused both of them. Prince Maram didn’t appear to notice anything, and neither did the demon, but when I looked at Zahrah’s eyes, I knew that she could see the light, too, and that she didn’t know what it meant either.

  “Do you feel better now, my little rose?” the demon asked.

  “Yes,” said Zahrah, iron and thorns. “I do, thank you.”

  “It is so difficult to learn these tasks late in life,” the demon said. “You ought to have learned them as a child. It would not have hurt so much then, and you wouldn’t need my help to make the pain stop.”

  “I have dealt with pain all my life,” said Zahrah. “It is a gift.”

  The demon recoiled at the last word, remembering its jailors, I hoped, and the misery and suffering it had felt in the mountains.

  “You have so many gifts, my love,” said Maram. “It gives me such pleasure to watch you use them.”

  The demon seemed to realize for the first time that I was in the room. It turned and looked at me, and I was glad I was still sitting or I might have fallen over. We had heard stories of the King-Who-Was-Good, who was made good, and how he had suffered before that. How the demons had come to the Storyteller Queen’s family and burned them alive at her sister’s wedding. It had not prepared me for the malice I felt directed toward me now. It didn’t just want us to die; it wanted us to suffer. I knew it would not stop at Kharuf. It would have Qamih too, and the desert, and the world, if it could. Maram must be stupid if he didn’t see this part of it. Or perhaps he knew and just didn’t care. From what I had seen of him so far, I wouldn’t think it too far a stretch for him.