Spindle

by E. K. Johnston

  “Maram, why is this spinner still alive?” the demon said.

  “Because I haven’t decided how he is going to die,” the prince told it. “He and his cohorts kidnapped my beloved, and I must determine an appropriate punishment for them. Also, they have been useful. My men cannot teach her what you want her to know.”

  “But this one loves her,” the demon said, and I flinched to hear the words from this terrible being. I hadn’t said them yet myself, not out loud, and now Zahrah had heard the truth from this monster.

  “How delightful,” Maram replied, and he sounded truly joyous. I had their full attention now. “I’ll make her light his pyre with her own hands. If he’s very, very lucky, I’ll make sure he’s dead before I make her start the fire.”

  There is an odd sort of freedom that accompanies the pronouncement of your own death from a person who has the power to do it. I reached out and squeezed Zahrah’s hand. It didn’t matter if he broke all of my fingers. I needed her to know that it was all right. That I didn’t blame her if she chose Kharuf over me. I had always known she might have to.

  Maram smiled and called for a guard. He did not hit me again.

  “Take these two back to the prison tent,” the prince said. “My fiancée must learn another lesson, it seems.”

  “Yes, your highness,” said the guard. His voice was oddly muffled.

  “And make sure they’re fed something,” Maram said. “They have a long walk ahead of them.”

  The guard pulled Zahrah to her feet. While he had her, I would not resist. He took us back through the mess of a camp to the tent where the others were. There was a bucket of water on the ground by the flap, and Tariq was washing his hands in it.

  “They let us out to use the privy, such as it is,” he said.

  The guard looked at Zahrah, who shook her head, and then to me. I nodded, and he took me to the foul and hastily dug pit that the prince’s men were using for their privy. When we returned, he dismissed the guards for their dinner and shoved me into the tent. He didn’t close the flap behind me, and we were grateful for the air. He sat down, a naked sword across his knees, so that he was half facing us, and half facing the camp. Then he unwrapped his kafiyyah, and I saw why he had disguised his voice.

  “Father?” Saoud gasped, for here indeed sat the man who had taught us to fight with staves and survive in the forest. “What are you doing here?”

  “I might ask the same of you, my son,” he said. “I left you all in safety.”

  I thought of a thousand things at the same time. I had missed him so much when my mother sent him away, and I knew that my feelings paled beside Saoud’s. I wished he had stayed with us at the crossroad camp. I wished we had met him before now, when we might have been saved. Now, though we could not all be saved, maybe some of us could be. Maybe Arwa and Tariq and Saoud.

  “My mother sent us to the Maker King’s court,” I said. “But we didn’t want to go, so we took our chances in Kharuf.”

  “I imagine it is quite a tale,” he said, looking at Zahrah. “Except now it is quite a mess.”

  “Father,” Saoud said. “We did our best.”

  “I know you did, Saoud,” he said. “And there is something I must tell you. I ask you only to remember where you are—and that we will all be in great danger if you make a lot of noise.”

  We all nodded, and he turned to look at us. His eyes were different, I noticed. That was why I hadn’t recognized him in the tent, when he’d obscured his voice. His face was the same, as was his speech now that he wasn’t muffling it, but his eyes were strange.

  “Saoud, I swear to you that I am your father still,” he said. “But there is another that I share this body with, and he is the one who might be able to save us.”

  “I don’t understand,” Saoud said. “What do you mean?”

  “When the desert king was made good, the Storyteller Queen broke the demon out of him,” Saoud’s father said. “The demon was sent to the iron mountains with all of its kin, but it was made good too, by the power of the Storyteller Queen’s words.”

  “No,” said Saoud. “I don’t believe it.”

  “It’s true,” he said. “I met the demon in the mountains several years ago. It knew that there was mischief afoot between Kharuf and Qamih, that one of its own kin would bring us trouble, and it begged my help. It swore it would not risk me unnecessarily, and it swore it would do its best to protect you, and so I accepted its offer.”

  “That’s when you started to teach us to fight,” Tariq said. “It was the demon.”

  “Yes,” he said. “I wanted you to be ready, though I never imagined you would need to be ready for this. And the demon kept its word. Look at my eyes and remember how I used to be. That is because the demon rested and let me be unremarkable for as long as it could. But now we need it, and so I have given it permission to take more of my mind for its own.”

  Saoud turned away and looked into the dark corner of the tent. I couldn’t imagine what he felt. The father he thought had left him behind had been in truth another creature altogether, and now he must have been second-guessing every conversation they’d had. I was past anger and confusion. Thanks to the demon I had faced today, I was numb to everything except the pain in my hand, and the cold determination to save Zahrah if I could…and the others if I could not.

  “What can we do?” said Zahrah. She believed him, because she could see the truth with her gift. “Can you take me so that the other demon can’t?”

  “No,” he said. “She has made you so that only she can have you. I am sorry. I would if I could.”

  “Then what?” I said. “What can we do?”

  “I cannot face the demon queen alone,” he said. “She has fed on the Maker Kings for years, and I have had only what was willingly given to me. She would crush me before my fighting her did any good.”

  I remembered the demon’s stare and did not doubt him. I saw Arwa shudder and knew she had felt it too.

  “But I can take care of the prince,” he said.

  “What happens to my father if you do?” Saoud asked. “Maram is rumored to be a good fighter, and I know that you are better than he is, but he has an army.”

  Saoud’s father made no answer, and Saoud looked away.

  “How does that help us?” Arwa said. “If the prince dies, his men may fall into disarray, but there is still the demon, and we’ll have to face it without you.”

  “The piskeys know we’re here,” Tariq said. “Or at least that we were headed in this direction. If they are watching, they might come to our aid.”

  “It’s their task to do so,” Saoud’s father, or the demon in him, said. “And after I fight the Maker King’s son, the demon will have to reveal itself openly to pursue you. That will certainly get their attention.”

  “So we run,” I said. “And we hope.”

  I locked eyes with Saoud.

  “It’ll have to be fast,” he said. “We’ll have to go without recovering our gear.”

  He looked sideways at Arwa, who nodded. She still had her bag. Saoud looked at his father, who regarded him gravely.

  “I made a promise to your father.” This was the demon speaking. “I promised him that I would never make him do anything he didn’t want to do. I can’t, in truth. The Storyteller Queen made me good, and so I cannot force him to do this against his will. Do you believe me?”

  “I have no choice,” Saoud said. He looked at where his father sat, the demon flickering in his eyes.

  “Yes you do, Saoud,” I said. “You have trusted me, and you have trusted Zahrah, and you have trusted hope. We have made terrible plans, and you have done all you could to see them through. One more time, for me and for us. One more choice.”

  Saoud blinked, and I saw that there were tears in his eyes. He couldn’t reach out to his father, in case someone happened by. We had already risked too much, talking this long. I felt my own eyes water, and missed my mother with a sudden flare of feeling. I wiped my eyes
with my hand, and looked back at Saoud. This was his moment, and his grief. I would be ready for him when he needed me.

  “I believe you,” Saoud said. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too,” said his father. “Tell your children about me and teach them what I taught you.”

  “I will,” said Saoud.

  “We all will,” said Arwa.

  “When the fight begins, you will know it,” said the demon. “Be ready. And be strong.”

  We couldn’t tell him that we heard him. We couldn’t thank him. We couldn’t say good-bye. Because as soon as he had said the words, another guard brought him his dinner and sent him to his tent, and we never saw him again.

  DESPITE OUR BEST ATTEMPTS, none of us slept very much that night. They brought us a poor supper of—what else—boiled vetch. Tariq took one look at it and began to laugh so hard I thought he might have trouble drawing breath. Indeed, soon enough he stopped making any sound at all, except for wheezing helplessly as he tried to calm down. Zahrah took his face in both her hands, forcing him to look at her, and then guided his breathing to match hers, even and deep, until he could be safely left to breathe on his own. It was difficult to choke down any food at all after that, but we knew we would need all the help we could get the next day, so we did our best.

  Then, without talking, so that the guard outside would be unaware of what we were doing, Saoud did his best to make a map of Kharuf from what he remembered of the map that had been taken with his pack. It was a poor representation, which matched our poor plan, but escape was the priority. Saoud sketched out a straight line to where he thought the castle was. The ground we would cross was open and hilly, like most of Kharuf. If we were pursued by horsemen, we would be caught. We had to hope that they would be so put off by the death of the Maker King’s son that it would take them time to reorganize. If their camp was any indication, we did not think too optimistically of them.

  It was the demon that was the greatest threat, of course. We had no iron left, and it was unlikely that we would be able to get any on our way out of the camp, unless we stumbled upon it. Saoud’s father had trained us with iron knives and still carried an iron sword, so we supposed that the demon’s weakness to the metal was something we could not depend on. Without the creatures, we would be helpless.

  “I think we’d be better to run for it,” said Saoud, “and not waste time trying to find tools that might not help us very much.”

  “They helped us with the bear,” Arwa pointed out.

  “The bear was a physical animal, though,” I reminded her. “You’ve seen the demon. Do you think we could cut it?”

  She nodded and shuddered, and I realized she had not told us what the demon had said or done to her. Zahrah put an arm around her shoulders and shook her head at me. It wasn’t something I could fix, I realized, and so we would deal with it later, in that time none of us were sure we were going to have.

  It got darker and darker, and Saoud put his makeshift map away. We knew that we should sleep, but I felt like there was too much to think about. I thought I might fly apart. This was worse than when we had crossed Kharuf and were unable to spin. Instead of sleeping, I watched my friends get quieter and quieter, retreating into thoughts I couldn’t share and couldn’t heal. It was not a feeling I enjoyed. Zahrah slid her hand into mine, and it hurt, but I didn’t let go.

  At last Tariq sighed and cast himself on the bare floor of the tent. They hadn’t put down a rug for us, so we were at the mercy of any insect that might come burrowing though the light material of the tent floor. Still, it was what we had, and tomorrow night we would have no tent at all. As we watched, Tariq curled in on himself, as though willing himself to sleep.

  Arwa kissed my cheek, and Saoud’s, as she had done when she was still a baby that we carried because it was too dangerous to set her down. Then she huddled beside Tariq, her arms wrapped around her pack so tightly that I didn’t think anyone would be able to pry it from her. It was all we had left, and I didn’t even know what was inside it. There had never been any good time to ask.

  It got darker, and my thoughts were no more quieted than they had been before. We heard a chorus of wadi toads, though they were all but covered by the noise made by the soldiers who sat around their campfires and celebrated the end of their hunt. They were going home, or at least closer to it, and they had nothing to fear at the end of the journey.

  I thought Saoud would sleep, or at least lie down and pretend to, but instead he sat up for a long time. This might be the only chance he had, I realized, to mourn the certain death of his father. We would have no opportunity tomorrow, and after that we could not say when we would have any respite at all. Saoud had promised to remember and to teach his own children about his father’s bravery, but if Saoud died too, then there would be no one to carry the tale.

  “If we fail,” Zahrah said, “if we fail, and you die, and I have to wed the Maker King’s son, I will tell the truth, for as long as I can. Before the demon takes me, I will tell anyone who listens that you all were my rescuers, not my captors, and that we tried to save Kharuf. I will tell them what we learned about the demons and the good creatures who live in the mountains. I will tell them about your father, about his sacrifices for us and for a kingdom that would have been proud to adopt him and his son.”

  Saoud said nothing, but we knew he heard. She could promise him nothing more. The time for promises was done. We would make this last march together or not at all. So Saoud sat in vigil for his father, who was dead and not-yet-dead, and Zahrah and I sat with him, her hand in mine.

  “I wondered why he was so eager to leave me,” Saoud said, after he had been quiet for so long that I began to wonder if he had managed to fall asleep sitting up. “Why didn’t he tell me?”

  “Would you have let him?” Zahrah asked. Her voice was kind and sincere. She would have made such an excellent queen for Kharuf. “Would you have understood? Would anyone?”

  I thought of the children we had been, bound and burdened by life at the crossroad camp. Directionless, and without any prospects beyond inheriting the meager work our parents did. No, we would not have understood. My mother would have driven Saoud’s father out, and Saoud along with him, and I would have lost my brother before I truly loved him.

  “No,” said Saoud. “And even if I had, no one else would have.”

  “Your father loves you,” she said. “And he helped make you strong. He wanted something better for you, and this was how he got it.”

  Saoud looked at her, and the tears that had been shining in his eyes began to fall. He leaned forward into her arms and wept. She held him, and I put my hands on his shoulders, and he mourned the father he had lost, and the father he would lose tomorrow. I had thought I would shed tears for him as well, but I found that I couldn’t. Perhaps I had nothing left. At last, Saoud straightened. He bowed to Zahrah and pressed his forehead to mine, and then he crawled beside Arwa and collapsed into a fitful sleep.

  Zahrah shifted and leaned against my shoulder. I put my arm around her, and she squeezed my hand. I hissed with pain.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I forgot.”

  “So did I,” I admitted. “It seems like the least of my worries at the moment.”

  “Is it broken?” she asked. “I couldn’t tell from how the guard hit you.”

  “No,” I said. “Just swollen. The prince wanted pain, not infirmity.”

  “Everything I feared about him is true,” she said. “He will ruin Kharuf just to watch it burn.”

  “And the demon will ruin Qamih,” I told her. “But that is not a solution, to lose both countries. Our ancestress did not cross the desert for that.”

  “So we run,” she said. “And hope we are caught by one of the Storyteller Queen’s creatures before we are caught by the demon.”

  “It’s a terrible plan,” I said.

  “Someday, Yashaa,” she said, “you will have a good plan. I know it.”

  I kissed her, a
nd the squalor and terror of Prince Maram’s camp faded around us, discarded like burrs and clods of dirt pulled from new-washed wool. There was only her, and there was only me, and there was our foolish dream that everything was going to be all right.

  “Does your head hurt?” I asked, when we stopped to breathe.

  “It passes more quickly now,” she said, not entirely answering the question.

  “Does it feel safe?” As if safe were possible for us.

  “Not as safe as this,” she said and kissed me again, her hands making fists in the cloth of my tunic as if she never intended to let me go.

  When she pulled away, still holding on to me, she was crying. I wiped her cheeks with my thumbs, which was not particularly effective, and she did her best to smile.

  “I’m scared,” she said. “And I’m sorry. If I had stayed in the tower, none of this would have happened.”

  “I spent most of the day trying to apologize to Arwa and Tariq for the same thing,” I told her. “But there is nothing to apologize for. We made our choices, and we agreed on them when we did. We had to try, Zahrah, and we don’t regret it.”

  “I know,” she said. “But I still feel sorry for it. And angry that there is nothing I can do.”

  “I was angry for a long time,” I told her. “And then I found something better.”

  “Flatterer,” she said, but she laughed a little bit when she said it, and I knew that for however brief a time, I had made her feel better.

  “Can you sleep?” I asked. My own mind whirled, a map of Kharuf spread across it with all the obstacles between us and Zahrah’s castle starkly visible on it.