A Thousand Nights (29 page)

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 what 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.