A Thousand Nights (30 page)

“We will never leave,” Lo-Melkhiin said to me. “Why would we, when we have everything we want here? Your people may struggle and rise up against us from time to time, but we do
not die. We will crush them. We can crush them right now, if we choose.”

Lo-Melkhiin got off his horse and came over to where I stood. None of his kin followed me. He came right up to me, grasping my shoulders. His fingers bit into my skin, but I would not
flinch.

“Wife,” he said to me, and to me alone. “Here is the only bargain you will get from me tonight. Fight with me, overthrow my kin here in the desert where we stand right now, and
I will leave your people. You will tell them their rebellion is over, that you are my hostage and they must not rise up again. Only help me defeat my kin first, and I will save yours.”

I did not doubt that we could do it. Even the slight touch of his fingers on my arms surged with power, and neither of us was really trying. The beings in the mist were only half formed. I knew
my fire and the cold light Lo-Melkhiin had at his command would be enough to send them into the sand for an age, if we put forth the effort. My family would be safe. I would be safe. But
Lo-Melkhiin would have a demon in him still, and with my power beside him, I shuddered to think what the demon could do.

“How can I trust you if you betray your own kind?” I said to him. I would compromise with him no longer. He had given me what I needed, and my sister’s wedding had provided me
with the rest. I was stronger here than I had ever been in the qasr, powered by the dancers that circled the fires between my father’s tents. “How can I give the safety of my family to
someone who has no regard for his own? You have not even asked about your mother. I will never join you.”

“Very well,” he said to me, and went back to his horse. He climbed astride it, and turned to the mist. “My wife has forsaken her own kind, spurning my offer as she has. Go to
the tents of her father. Take whatever you want from them.”

I screamed then, but I could not stall the mist. It streaked away from us through the night, toward the place where my family danced at my sister’s wedding. I put some of the copper fire
into my scream, so that they would have some warning, but it did them no good. They could not stop the mist as it pulled children into cook fires and buried men alive in sand.

“Lo-Melkhiin!” I screamed at him. “I beg you, husband, make them stop!”

“I cannot,” he said to me, the viper in his eyes. His mother was wrong. There was no part of the boy she had loved still inside him. “They are mad with it, can’t you see?
Nothing can make them stop now. Watch your world burn, light of my heart. Tomorrow we will find another one and burn that too.”

I turned from him, and stretched out everywhere with the copper fire. He did not stop me, or he could not, and I went amidst my father’s tents to the ruin and terror I saw there. I pulled
my oldest brother from the sand. He coughed, spewing grains of it in all directions, and then lay still. I quelled every fire I could find, lamps and candles, cook fires and hearths, but so many of
the children were already burned. My sister stood with one arm around both my mother and her mother, and the mist parted around them. I could not imagine that they would be spared, but then I
looked closely and saw that each of them wore a necklace made of that bright metal.

“Sister,” I cried to her, hoping that she would hear. “The metal will protect you. Get it to as many as you can!”

She did hear, for she began to run. I could not stay with her. There were too many others that had been burned or buried. I could not save them all.

“Not so human after all,” the mist said to me, with voices beyond counting and no faces at all. “And yet, not powerful enough to fight us. Only good enough to clean up the
mess.”

I needed more hands, but even with the copper fire, I had only two. It was not fair. There were so many of them, and I stood alone in the desert, having nothing to fight them with. A wooden ball
rolled to a stop at my feet. A lamp sat beside it. And a bolt of orange cloth with gold thread. Above, I heard a great bird scream. I knew that I had made them, not called them or found them. They
had not been, and then I wished for them, and they were. If I wanted help, I would have to make it.

I brought forth all the copper fire I could muster, and threw it out into the desert. The demons did not know the desert well, for all that they lived here. They did not use it as my people did.
They did not know its moods and its temper: which animals were common, what secrets those creatures carried. I would fight them with the very things they scorned, and the desert itself would be my
hands.

I found the lizards that baked in the sun and crawled into the oleander at night. They were large ones, the size of a sheep at full growth. I set a fire in their bellies, and turned them out to
do battle for me. They burned so hot, they streaked through the mist and seared it. I could hear Lo-Melkhiin’s kin scream, and the sound was like my sister’s laughter to my ears.

I took the horses that the southernmost traders had brought with them. They were fleet-footed and could run in the sand even during the hottest part of the day. I gave them horns made from the
pale man’s metal to strike at the half-formed bodies of Lo-Melkhiin’s kin, and where they pierced the mist, dark ichor fell into the sand.

Sand-crows I woke and brought forth from their nests. When Lo-Melkhiin’s kin struck them down, they caught fire and flew again, their talons shod in the same bright metal that their
northern cousins wore. They sliced at the mist, herding it away from my people.

The goats came to me, curious and eager, and they took cleverness from my copper fire like it was a salt lick I held for them. They made traps to catch the mist in baskets, and shut it up in
tents. The mist howled in fury, but my spritely goats only laughed at them and took to new mischief.

There were fires again, burning out of control in the hearthstones and fire pits. I called on the wadi toads, who always knew when the floods were coming, and made them hands to carry water
with. They extinguished the flames, and when they poured water on burned skin, the skin was healed.

Last, I waked the hives, and brought out the bees. They could not see in the dark, so I used my copper fire to light their way. They went to every person they could find, carrying small scraps
of the pale man’s bright metal, and made sure that everyone was warded against the mist.

My head was pounding, and my throat was dry. The creatures I had made battled for me, and I stood in the sand and wept from pain and exhaustion. My people wailed and screamed their losses,
mourning for those I had been too slow to save from living burial or the fire’s fury. I wanted to kill Lo-Melkhiin for what he had brought down upon my family. Finally, I shared my
sister’s anger.

Lo-Melkhiin was close to me, and somehow a war raged across his face. His body was unmoving as his mind fought against itself. His horse was dead; pure terror had burst the poor beast’s
heart. Around us, the fighting was starting to diminish. If we were to have peace, it would be soon. There was a bright dagger, not a copper one, in my hand.

“Lady-bless,” said my bees. “The mist is caught. Where shall we put it?”

I could think of only one place where Lo-Melkhiin’s kin might be safely taken. It was so far that I did not know if my power was sufficient to the journey, but I knew I must try, even if
it was too much for me. The knife vanished. I had chosen my end.

“North,” I said to them. “Take them to the mountains where the bright metal sits in the ground. May it bind them there for all the ages of men.”

“We go, we go!” said the bees and the fiery crows and the lizards, which had grown wings from their burning bellies.

They went up into the sky, and Lo-Melkhiin screamed to see them go, but he could not reach them. I watched them disappear from my eyes, but I could feel when they landed in the mountains.
Lo-Melkhiin’s kin writhed there, weakening, and could not escape.

“Star of my heart,” Lo-Melkhiin said. His rage was spent, but he was a viper still. “Now we have only one another.”

I would not go back to him. I would die first. My death was no longer his; I would have it here, in my desert, on the sand beneath the starry sky. It would never belong to him.

My copper fire was at its end. There was enough left for only five more words, the shortest story ever told, made with threads that frayed almost before they could be spoken. I could save myself
with them, I knew. Or I could save Lo-Melkhiin.

I thought of a qasr without a king. I thought of merchants who did not care what the desert did. I thought of my father, who deserved better, and of my sister, who deserved the best. I thought
of a ball and a lamp and a bolt of cloth, all made because I wanted them to be. It did not matter if Lo-Melkhiin’s mother was wrong. I could make it so that she was right.

Five more words, and then I could sleep. My head would no longer pound. My throat would no longer burn. It would be quiet and still. Perhaps I would dream of the creatures I had made. I would
like to see what they became in the morning when the sun came up. Lo-Melkhiin’s artisans had made such new wonders, yet I did not think there had been new animals since the world was born;
now I had made six of them. I hoped they would do good when I was gone.

Five more words. I could feel them on my tongue. There would be peace in the whole desert, not just in parts of it. Not just for the nobles of Lo-Melkhiin’s court, but for the common folk
of the qasr as well. For everyone. My father’s caravan. My mother’s tent. All through the sand desert. In every village and in every district inside the city walls. I would speak for
them. Five more words, and it would be done.

Lo-Melkhiin is a good man
.

THERE WAS A LION ABOVE ME when I woke, a lion with the face of a woman, and so I thought I dreamed.

“Daughter of my heart,” said Lo-Melkhiin’s mother to me. “You have my thanks.”

I sat up. I thought my head would split, but after a moment, the ground stopped heaving and the pain left me. I reached for the copper fire inside me, but it was gone. Nothing remained that
could be burned.

“Sister?” The lamp that lit my sister’s face burned with a clear light. “Sister, you live!”

I was as surprised as she was to learn it. Yet I could feel my heart and hear my own breath. I had faced Lo-Melkhiin and lived, again. I wanted to run and dance on the shifting sand, but I was
not sure my legs would hold me up to do it.

“Daughter of mine,” my father said. “Let us bear you back to your tent.”

He stooped to carry me, as he had not done since I was brought out of my mother’s tent for the first time, but I held up a hand.

“Where is Lo-Melkhiin?” I said to them. “Where is my husband?”

“He is dead,” my sister said to me. “Sister, you have killed him.”

“No,” I said to her. “He lives, I am sure of it. Where is his body?”

Lo-Melkhiin’s mother pointed to where he lay, and I crawled toward it. My father was surprised, and did not think to help. Lo-Melkhiin’s face was the color of ashes. There was blood
on his lips, and his breath was so shallow that I listened for nearly a minute before I heard it.

“He lives!” I said to them. “Help him, please!”

They stared at me as though I had stood in the sun too long and baked out my thoughts, all except for Lo-Melkhiin’s mother, who looked at the ground.

“Sister,” my sister said to me. “Why?”

“I have saved him,” I said to them. I made my voice as loud as I could, so that any who were close by would hear me. “You saw the battle that was fought. You did not fight men.
You battled demons, and so did I. You saw the power and the new creatures that were made. I tell you, he is saved. When he wakes, he will be the good king again. The demon is gone and will worry us
no longer.”

“Daughter of mine,” said my father. “Are you sure?”

“Father,” I said to him. “I know it as I know my sister’s face. I know it as I know my mother’s voice. I know it as I know myself. Lo-Melkhiin is a good
man.”

My father carried him, leaving me to my oldest brother, whose lungs had been cleared of sand. Many of the tents were down, struck in the fighting, but enough stood to house the wounded and the
dead; there was one for me and Lo-Melkhiin.

We were set there, and then left, except for my sister and for Lo-Melkhiin’s mother. The boy came in, his arms burned, and behind him the old woman and serving girl. They wept to see me,
and I kissed them. Then I turned to where my husband lay, and waited for him to wake.

Outside my tent, my mother and my sister’s mother began their rites for the dead. Everyone who had died here would be buried with my family’s bones, including my youngest brother and
my oldest brother’s sons. It would take them more than one night to do it, even with help from the other visitors who wore the priestly-whites, but it would be done.

“I am sorry, sister of mine,” I said to her. “I did not mean to turn your wedding into a funeral.”

“Do not be foolish, sister,” she said to me. “If not for you, we would all lie dead, and no one would be left to perform the rites.”