The Steel Seraglio

The Steel Seraglio
Mike Carey, Linda Carey & Louise Carey
Artwork by Nimit Malavia

ChiZine Publications

The Steel Seraglio
© 2012 by by Mike Carey, Linda Carey & Louise Carey
Cover artwork © 2012 by Erik Mohr
Interior Illustrations © 2012 by Nimit Malavia
Interior design © 2011 by Samantha Beiko

All rights reserved.

Published by ChiZine Publications

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either a product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

EPub Edition MARCH 2012 ISBN: 978-1-92746-904-0

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CHIZINE PUBLICATIONS
Toronto, Canada
www.chizinepub.com
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Edited and copyedited by Sandra Kasturi
Proofread by Chris Edwards

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $20.1 million in writing and publishing throughout Canada.

Published with the generous assistance of the Ontario Arts Council.

To Davey and Ben, with all our love

Once there was a city of women.

Its rulers were women, as were its judges and advisors. Female architects had laid out its streets and houses, and female masons had raised them. Its army was well provided and well trained, for though the city was isolated, in a remote desert region, it had had enemies in its time. And its arts and sciences flourished. Though there were few reports of anyone having visited the city—few, indeed, who could say in what direction it lay—its productions were well-known. From where else could they have come, the scrolls of poetry, the calligraphy and silk paintings, that circulated among the wealthy and earned exorbitant prices for any merchant lucky enough to get hold of one? Words and images to equal those of the masters, but no master laid claim to them, and where the master’s imprint should be there would appear a woman’s name: Soraya, Noor, Farhat; or an unfamiliar symbol of feather, leaf or flower.

The stories of the city spread far and wide. It was said that there were women physicians there with the skill to cure all diseases; even (though some called the notion blasphemous) women philosophers, scholars and divines. And some went further—in that city, they said, was the source of wisdom itself: a book containing all knowledge.

It was this rumour that prompted an adventurer to set out, without any map or more directions than could be found in drunken travellers’ tales, to search for the city of women. A book of all knowledge! What long-tormenting questions could be answered, what hidden treasures discovered! And, he concluded, if this book of knowledge could confer such benefits on a commune of women, what vistas of opportunity might it open to a hero?

He took only two camels, and travelled for many months: at first confidently, following the hints and directions of the old men’s stories into the deep desert. When the landmarks failed and the sun began to scorch his eyes, he slept by day and found his way by the stars. One camel dropped in its harness and died, then the other. And there came a day when his last skin of water was empty, and wandering on an endless plain of sand and rocks which was unmarked by so much as a thistle, he came at last upon his own tracks. The horizon was a vast circle around him: ochre and dun on all sides, pitiless blue above. The heat pressed him downwards. He fell to his knees, and then onto his face beneath the unblinking sun.

He awoke to a gentle rocking motion and a glare of light that dazzled his eyes. He was being carried on a litter by four black-robed figures, while a fifth walked beside him. As he blinked upwards this one held a little flask to his lips, bending towards him solicitously as he drank. Above her veil, her eyes shone black as olives. The drink was sweet and searingly strong, and the traveller spluttered and tried to rise, but his companion laid a hand on his arm and told him to be still. We have carried you for two days, she said. If you give us no more trouble we can reach the city by nightfall.

Her voice, though sweet, was full of command, and her hand was strong. The traveller obeyed her, and as he lay and listened to the quiet talk of his bearers, it came to him that all five were women, though they carried him along with no more trouble or ceremony than a sick child. He could not make out their speech, or his delirium prevented him from understanding them. He lay still, shielding his face against the sun’s dazzle and watching the women’s slender figures out of the corners of his eyes. Many times he slept and woke again; his bearers disturbed him only to give him water. It was darkening towards evening when the women finally slowed, and the horizon on all sides burned with sunset. He strained to see the position of the sun, but it was behind him, or else cut off by the shapes of buildings that rose like a mirage to block the horizon beyond his feet.

They entered the city as night was falling, and its walls blazed like gold in the low sun and in the light of a thousand torches. Two women pulled the heavy gates closed behind them; the traveller saw with wonder that both were uncovered: bare-headed and bare-armed. And his escorts, after setting his litter on the ground and helping him to rise, took off their own veils. At first shame overcame him and he could not look at them—but was he not a hero? Had he not faced death itself to gain this place? Taking courage, he raised his eyes to the woman nearest to him, who returned his gaze gravely. Her face was of surpassing loveliness, though her hair was threaded with grey.

Is this . . .
he asked her, and his voice was a dry chirp like a cricket’s.
Is this the city of fair ladies, of which I have heard in legend?

This is Bessa
, she answered.
As to what you have heard in legend, I cannot tell.

Bessa was one of the names the traveller had heard from his drunken informants. In his head the book of knowledge was already opening its pages to him, but he managed to guard his tongue and asked only that he might see something of the city. His voice was still harsh with lack of use, and his compliments and courtesies sounded strained in his own ears. But his hosts seemed unconcerned, and one of their number stepped forward and offered to lead him. The girl’s mouth made the traveller think of rose petals, and for some time he found it hard to look away from her face at the marvels around them. But they were marvels that she showed him.

He saw domes and towers there, he swore afterwards; gushing fountains, houses hung with vines and gardens of jewelled fruit. The torch-lit streets were filled with a cheerful din of voices, like the marketplaces of the towns he knew at home, with merchants, citizens, idlers each holding on to the last light of the day and a little beyond, to drink one last cup, make one last bargain before going home. But here the voices were all of women. He saw them packing up stalls, leading camels, selling wine and drinking it at outdoor booths: women of all ages and kinds. Some were round-breasted and slender; some stately, as tall as himself. All were uncovered; all, to the traveller’s fevered eyes, as beautiful as the stars. Yet they were dressed plainly, some in desert robes, others in what seemed men’s working clothes. There were silver-haired matrons, young mothers with babes, small children who giggled and pointed at the stranger.