A Thousand Nights (9 page)

“With luck,” I said, and smiled. She smiled back, uncertainly at first, but then a true smile when she saw that I was not afraid.

At last it grew dark, and it was time to dress for dinner. The dressing mistress cut me out of the shift I wore, because they could not pull it over my head. A new one was brought, with lacing
in the back, and they tied me into it.

“This is a dishdashah for standing,” the dressing mistress said to me. “You must not sit unless one of your own attendants is close by to help you stand again. It will not fall
apart while you stand, but if you bend, you will loosen the fastenings, and then they will not hold when you move again.”

They brought out the garment. I could not keep the surprise from my face. The light cast by the oil lamps flickered, but shone brighter than the tallow candles we used in the tents. It was not
murky or dim, because the tiles in the bathing rooms reflected the light cast by the lamps, and magnified it so that it was as bright as it had been during the day. There was no mistaking what I
saw, though I blinked several times to make sure I had not strayed into a vision.

The fabric was as orange as fire, and woven through with gold so that it, like the tiles, glimmered in the lamplight. The heavy silk whispered as the dressing mistress wrapped it around me,
stopping now and then to do the fastenings while her assistants held the cloth in place. Even the pattern in the warp matched the vision I had seen.

“It was made especially for your coloring, lady-bless,” the dressing mistress said. She had clearly mistaken the cause of my awe. “We had not heard about the gold thread,
though. That was a surprise to all.”

“Indeed,” I said, carefully running one finger across the fabric. It rippled, variations in color running over the top of it like wispy clouds through a hot summer sky, but much more
brilliant to look at.

“You will even stand out in the dark,” said the henna mistress. “Perhaps some eyes will stray from the stars after all.”

I stood quietly as they finished, their excitement about the dishdashah quelling the last of their fears that I would die tonight. I no longer had that fear either, but a new one was growing in
its place. I still wished to speak to a Skeptic, but now I would have to be even more careful about what I said. I had never heard of a person who dreamed the future while they still lived.
Sometimes a smallgod gave guidance, but it was always vague. My vision had been strikingly specific. I closed my eyes, and once again reached for that blue sky desert, as I had so many times before
I had come to this place. It came as soon as I bade it, but it was different this time than it had been before.

The sky was still a brilliant blue, and the sand a smooth brown, but it was no longer unadorned. I could see, as I had never seen before, how the sky was woven together, how the sand was made a
part of the pattern, and how the two pieces were joined at the hem along the far horizon. My heart sped up, and I thought at first that I was afraid; but then I opened my eyes, and I saw how the
women looked at me, like I was a queen in truth, and I knew that it was not fear I felt, rushing along with the blood through my veins.

L
o-Melkhiin knew her well, that first one. He knew what she looked like. Her scent. The shape of her smile. He remembered her for a long time,
because he loved her. I remembered her because I stole her.

She was shorter than Lo-Melkhiin was, and her face was lit with joy all throughout the wedding ceremony and the feast that followed. The people did not know what was to come, not yet. They
had not even begun to suspect. All they knew was that Lo-Melkhiin was happy to wed, at last, and their lands were slowly recovering from misrule. They did not yet understand that there would be a
price. Lo-Melkhiin knew, of course, and he screamed and raged, but he could do nothing to stop me.

When the food was eaten and the songs were sung, they put Lo-Melkhiin and his bride to bed in a silk-hung room with wide windows for the moonlight. Lo-Melkhiin stood in the pale space on the
floor, and she came to him, dark hair bleeding color under the silver glow. The night air was desert-cool, but her lips on his were warm. For a moment, Lo-Melkhiin was overcome. He stopped his
voiceless screams at her touch, warmed by her kiss. When I tightened his hands on her slim waist, he remembered, and screamed anew.

I was clumsy, that first night. The cold light worked too quickly, and she was too in love with the man she thought she had married. It would take me time, and several more wives, to refine
my methods. I think, had I been better able to control myself, she might have lived to see the next day. She might have lived to see the next ten. I would learn in the nights to come that fear
burned swiftly, but love burned strong. Both were useful, which was fortunate, because soon enough no one loved Lo-Melkhiin anymore.

None of that mattered that night. I took what I required from her, and made Lo-Melkhiin watch as she shriveled and wilted under his hands. Her dark hair turned grey, then silver, and finally
white. Her eyes lost their spirited glow, and became dull things within her skull. Her skin drew tight across her bones, and then sagged as her bones failed within her. My only real complaint was
that she never screamed, but Lo-Melkhiin did enough of that for both of them.

In the morning, when the serving girls woke Lo-Melkhiin, it was with cries of fear and distress at the sight of the thing with which I shared his marriage bed. I feigned distress as well,
and did so good a job at it that I was believed. She was buried, and I pretended to mourn even while the lands prospered. But a lord cannot be unwed, and before long, the council begged Lo-Melkhiin
to set aside his supposed grief and marry again. They did not have to beg very hard.

The second wedding was much the same as were the ones that followed it. If there were rumblings that Lo-Melkhiin should not wed again, they were as quiet as the footfalls of a wild dog
hunting in the desert. Time passed and girls died, and eventually there were too many for even the Skeptics to explain away. But the land prospered, and there was peace, and Lo-Melkhiin asked again
to be married. The men of the council decided, then, the sort of girls to sacrifice, and the law was handed down.

I cared not for the laws and rules of Lo-Melkhiin’s council. I cared only for the strength of the power I took from his wives, as they came to his bed, and for the pain I caused to the
body I had taken. In time he twisted; his agony lessened, and became a dull thing that I could barely provoke. My power did not wane, however, and I found I could still taunt him with the fragility
of our victims. And so we continued. Together.

WHEN THE HENNA MISTRESS and the others were done with me, one of the footmen came and took me to a garden I had not been into before. It was at the base of the qasr wall, and
its entrance was hidden by a door carved to look as though it were part of the wall. I had looked at it and never seen what was hidden there. Lo-Melkhiin’s mother waited for me by a worn
statue. It did not have the unsettling eyes I had become accustomed to seeing in the qasr gardens. For some reason, it made me feel more at ease, even though I still had no idea what awaited me
this night.

Lo-Melkhiin’s mother was even paler in the dark, and bore no henna on her skin as I did. As always, her head was crowned with her lion’s-mane wig, the sandy-colored hair bleached
white under the stars the same way the desert paled under the night sky. Her dishdashah was darker than mine—blue, or maybe purple—I could not tell with such little illumination. It was
simply cut and sewed, with no embroidery and no thread like the gold that highlighted mine. I wondered if I was overdressed, but when she saw me she only nodded, and then raised a hand to fix one
of the curls that had come loose while I walked.

“Your dresser missed a pin,” she said to me. I felt her thin fingers against my scalp as she anchored the curl to the same pin as its neighbor. She pulled my veil forward slightly to
cover the mistake. “You must be sure to hold your head still.”

“I will, my lady mother,” I said to her.

She nodded again and took my arm in hers. We walked away from the comfort of the statue’s gaze to the sally port in the qasr wall. This, I realized, was why the garden was hidden. The
sally port was likely concealed from the outside as well, to keep enemies unaware of its exact location. I wondered how many within the walls knew of its location. I wondered if Lo-Melkhiin’s
mother only showed it to me now because she knew that I might die. Even if I lived, there were few whom I could tell.

The qasr walls were wide enough that the sally port was more a tunnel than a door. Lo-Melkhiin’s mother did not need a lamp in the darkness under the stones, and I followed her because
there was nothing else I could do. We did not go all the way to the exit, which would have taken us outside the qasr walls altogether, but instead turned to the side. There was, to my surprise, a
door, and behind that, a narrow stair. This we took to the top of the wall, and I breathed cool night air without palace perfumes for the first time in all the days since I had been taken in my
sister’s stead.

“Come,” said Lo-Melkhiin’s mother to me, after I had filled my lungs three times.

We went around the top of the wall. I saw the familiar gardens below me on one side, and the unfamiliar city on the other. The gardens were dark; even the customary lamps were unlit tonight for
the star-falling party. The city, stretching out into the desert from the safety of the qasr wall, was lit up with hundreds of little lights. Lo-Melkhiin was no tyrant, it seemed; or at least, not
one who would demand a city’s darkness for his own sake.

I did my best not to look out at the desert and think about my sister. Did she know that stars would fall this night? Such a thing had not happened before in our lifetimes. If a Skeptic was
required to predict the fall, then my sister would know nothing of it. I did not know if the priestly crafts of my mother and of my sister’s mother were profound enough to foretell such an
event. Would the sheep be unsettled? I did not imagine they would. They would sleep through the entire thing—unless a star landed beside them—and be none the wiser. Would the night
watchman see the stars fall and raise the alarm, not knowing what it meant?

In all the preparation, I had not given much thought to the actual event. I did not know if the stars would fall to the sand itself. Lo-Melkhiin’s mother was not afraid, which gave me
courage, but I did not like the idea that something that was a part of the sky would not remain so. I pushed my fear away. If I was not afraid of the qasr’s master, I decided, I would be
afraid of nothing else.

At length we came to a wide place atop the wall, where flat stones made a balcony that stretched from an elaborately decorated door to the edge of the wall itself. It was the size of the space
between all the tents our father owned, the common area where all the women sat outside to spin and card, and where the night’s fire roasted sheep and gave light to the evening tales. There
was no fire here, though. And the people who stood about were unfamiliar, and formally attired.

Lo-Melkhiin’s mother put a hand on my arm and guided me across the balcony to stand by the door. There we stood and waited as more people arrived. There were Priests in white robes and
others I took to be Skeptics in robes of varying shades. There was Firh Stonetouched, in breeches and a tunic lined with some decoration I could not see in the dim light. There were others, men of
Lo-Melkhiin’s court and their wives, all dressed in fine cloth that was wasted without torches and lamps to parade it. Only my dishdashah, with its gold thread, showed its quality. No one
looked at me for very long, but they could not help pausing before their eyes slid past me in the dark.

Our father’s tents saw no shortage of happy gatherings. We celebrated the Longest Day and the Longest Night, and those two days when the dark and light of the sky were held at balance. We
danced for the lambing and again for the shearing. When our father and my brothers returned from the caravan with traded goods instead of carded wool and spun yarn, we welcomed them with fire and
song and food. My mother and my sister’s mother danced for the dead and for the rain, alone in the sacred caves. Even after my sister’s brother died, we sang for the joys of his life,
and wished him well wherever his bones had come to their rest.