A Thousand Nights (14 page)

Until I got one that did not die. The first night she was mine, I did not bring the full force of my power to bear upon her. I was curious. This one had spirit. She had drawn my attention
deliberately, and I did not know why until she was ahorse and we rode away. She had put herself before me to spare her sister, and that was something that had not happened before.

The second night she did not die, I mocked her and made her speak to me. The third night, I gave her all of the fire I had, and still she lived.

She was not of my kind, yet there was some power to her that was not human, not quite. She did not die, and I wondered if I might at last have found a queen for whom I could set the desert
on fire.

ON THE THIRTIETH NIGHT after I wed Lo-Melkhiin, he came to my rooms and did not leave them after he released my hands.

Instead, he settled back on the soft silk pillows at the head of my bed. I still sat at the foot, dressed for sleep. The serving girls had extinguished all the lamps but the one that burned next
to us, and the hour-candle that stood in the corner. The air was heavy with perfume, a scent I did not care for, and I did not like the weight of it in my lungs. I was not wearing my veil, could
not hide my face from him, so I thought of a stone that did not move and held myself still. He smiled his hunter-smile at me.

“You have lived with me longer now than any have, my wife,” he said to me. “Why do you think that is?”

I could not tell if he knew the reason, or if he expected me to know. He did not mock me anymore when he spoke to me. Rather, he was hard and cruel, like a desert storm: visible for hours before
it struck, but only to be endured, not evaded. I had preferred the mocking. At least then, he had not paid me much heed.

“I do not know, my lord,” I said to him. “Perhaps my smallgod smiles on me, and his power is greater than yours.”

Now he smiled like a viper, like I had poked him with a stick.

“The others had smallgods,” he said to me. “That did not save them.”

He said words like Sokath, His Eyes Uncovered might have done, but in his mouth, they were harsh. When the Skeptic spoke, it was to encourage new thought. When Lo-Melkhiin spoke, it was to
obliterate through fear.

“Our father’s father’s father was a good man when he lived,” I said to him. “We have prayed to him for many years, and left him great offerings.”

“I wonder, what do you think would happen to your smallgod if I ordered your burying hill burned?” He said blasphemy like it was nothing. To him, it was. “Have you seen burning
bone, my wife? It starts like a roasted goat, but then the meat strips away to feed the fire until the bone is left naked and alone. It twists and shatters, marrow leaking onto the flames, until
only dust is left.”

“That is what happens to everything, my lord,” I said to him. “If only the fire can be made hot enough.”

“Would you like to see it?” he asked.

“No,” I said to him. “I have seen it before, when we have collected marrow for our use. I do not need to see waste.”

“You are not curious?” he asked. “You do not wish to know how the world works?”

“I am, and I do,” I said to him. “But I would rather be patient and learn things in their own time, than force knowledge where it causes destruction.”

“Did the sheep teach you such common sense?” he asked.

“No, my lord.” For the first time since he had dropped my hands, I looked into his face. “I learned that from the goats.”

He laughed, a true laugh with his head thrown back and his mouth wide, and I could not hide my surprise. The cruelty was gone—no monster could have made that noise—and I thought
about what Lo-Melkhiin’s mother had said to me the night of the starfall watching. If there was a good man in Lo-Melkhiin somewhere, I had just seen my first real glimpse of him.

No, my second. He had watered his horse with his own hands when we crossed the desert, and had not pushed the animals beyond their endurance.

“Why did you heal your mother?” I asked him then.

He sat up, surprised at my question, all trace of laughter gone from his eyes.

“It is what any good son would do,” he said to me. “Is it not?”

“It is,” I said to him. “But you are not her good son.”

He looked at me sharply. He had tested me before, as goats test a new minder, and now I was testing him. I was not even sure what my question had meant, only that the words had come to me when I
needed them—threads from Sokath, His Eyes Uncovered and from Lo-Melkhiin’s mother both. It was clear to me that the words had meant a great deal to
him
, though, and now I had
another puzzle, regardless of his answer.

“I cured my mother because I had the power to do it, and because she was ill, and because it suited me,” he said to me. “Does that answer suit you?”

“Yes, my lord,” I said to him, the picture of meekness. It was the way my mother spoke to our father when she had won, but wanted to let him preserve his dignity.

Lo-Melkhiin smiled at me, not a hunter or a viper this time, but not quite a man either—or at least, not the kind of man I wanted in my bed.

“I think we will do very well together, my wife,” he said to me.

“If I do not die,” I said to him.

“If you do not die,” he said to me. He reached out and wound one hand into the fabric of my sleeping gown, pulling it toward him. “Now, come up here and go to sleep on your
pillows. If the serving girls find you down there in the morning, they will think you have angered me. Rather, I find you a delight.”

There was no way to do it without crawling, which irked me. If he had let me go, I might have stood and walked, but he didn’t, so I was forced on my hands and knees like a babe. I put my
head on the pillow, as far from his as I could, and he smoothed the gown back over my knees before lying down beside me. Though he was within arm’s reach, he did not touch me. Instead, he
leaned over to put out the lamp. Just before the darkness swallowed us both, I saw that copper fire leap from him to me, though we did not make contact.

Was this the last night, then, I could not help but wonder. There were so many ways to kill a person while they slept. He did not have a knife on his person, I was certain, but his robe was in
reach of the bed, and if there was a knife there, he might stab me while I slumbered. He could wrap his long fingers around my neck, or use the ties from the bed hangings to cut off the air to my
lungs. He could place one of the pillows over my nose and mouth.

He did none of those things. He turned on his side, facing away from me, and I counted his breaths until they were even. As determined as I was to stay awake, the softness of his breathing
lulled me, and I drifted between one blink and the next. I saw the line of his shoulders faintly silhouetted by the hour-candle when my eyes were open, and my sister’s strong hands with a
grinding stone when they were shut. I wanted my sister, wanted her spirit and her sharp tongue, and the comfort her presence gave me. My blinks became longer, until I saw Lo-Melkhiin no longer.

Our mothers sat close by her, weaving broadcloth by passing the shuttle back and forth between them. It was not fine work, but it was good work, the sort I had hoped to emulate when I was a
child. While I watched, my sister’s mother looked at the shells and shook her head. They were not fine enough, I knew, though I had not heard her say it. They must be ground so hard that they
forgot the animals they used to house, the place where they used to live. There must be nothing of their old power left. Only then could they be put to priestly use.

My sister ground the shells again. I put my ghostly hands on her shoulders, and felt the tired ache there. Grinding was rough work, even a small amount. My mother and my sister’s mother
were always careful to make sure that the grinding of grain was a job shared by many, because if one person did it too often, it would twist their whole body. We were lucky to be healthy and to
have enough men and women to do the job. My brothers had told us that others, not so well-off as us, were forced to spend so much time grinding that they could not lie flat on their backs, nor
spread their fingers out, nor even walk properly any longer.

I did not know who did that job in the qasr. I had not yet ventured into the kitchens. I did not know if Lo-Melkhiin bought flour. He could afford it, surely. I had not set hand to a
grinding-stone, nor to any work harder than spinning, since I had left our father’s tents. I had grown city-soft. Perhaps the desert sun would break me, if I ever went outside the walls
again. The dream began to fade, my eyes clouding over, as I doubted myself. I did not want to lose this vision of my sister, but I did not know how to hold on to it.

Sokath, His Eyes Uncovered had called me strong, and I had not died, so maybe he was right. I tightened my fingers on my sister’s shoulders, the way I had touched Firh Stonetouched the
night of the starfall party, and the dream became clear to me again. I could feel her muscles now, and the heat of her skin under her shirt. In the tent with just our mothers, they had taken off
their veils and tunics. It was cooler that way, and easier to work in the desert heat.

I kneaded my sister’s shoulders the way my mother kneaded bread dough, and felt the ache lessen. Her breath came to her lungs, and she pushed the stones together harder than she had
before. We did the work together, like we had when we stitched the dishdashah, only this time we whispered no secrets to one another. I did not think she would hear me, even if I tried, and by the
time I thought to, my sister’s mother had taken the stone from her hands, nodding and smiling at a job well done. I would have to remember, when next I dreamed, to see if I could talk as well
as touch.

My sister raised one hand to her shoulder, as though to massage her aches herself. Her fingers passed right through mine, but I felt them do it. For just a breath, I thought she might feel them
too, but she shook herself, and that shook me back into my bed in Lo-Melkhiin’s qasr, far away.

It was daylight when I woke, still reaching for my sister’s touch. Lo-Melkhiin was gone. A new hour-candle burned on the table, and there was my tea, steaming beside it. The lamp was
unlit—there was no need for it when the sun was up—but it was polished brightly. Beside it, painted gold, was a wooden ball.

I RETURNED TO THE SPINNING ROOM, and found I was made welcome there. Grief and resilience are odd emotions, I was coming to understand. Before, the women had not wanted to
become attached to me, as they assumed I would not survive. Now that I did not die, they were letting their guard down. I wondered what would happen when I did die, and how long it would take their
hearts to soften again afterward. If I had been a nobler sort, I might have scorned their friendship to spare them future pain, but I was lonely, and as common as our father’s goats.