Sands and Starlight - A Bejewelled Fairytale

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The vast expanse of the Silversands stood between Baradir and the wide, swift-flowing Ahvadannar, and the Kemasar Wilds beyond, for he had traversed but three days’ worth of the bleak desert to reach the night market. Many days of privation and danger lay before him; too many to brave alone?

Early in the morning, when the fiery sun had not long since soared above the horizon, Baradir set the saddle upon Talee’s back, draped her heavy blue blankets over, and mounted: the better to see, from such a height, and to save his feet from the pale, burning sand besides. But before he set his little caravan in motion, Fasee and Hanee falling into their accustomed places beside their strongest sister, he drew forth from inside his cloak a prize possession: a jewel.

It was not a thing that would have attracted much notice, or brought a great price, anywhere but at the night markets, for it was naught but a globe of crystal-clear quartz. Perfect it might be, in its shape and clarity, but only his left eye perceived the depths concealed within the sphere, or the drift of mist and air, like sleeping clouds, that stirred at its heart.

He held the trinket high, his strong, sun-darkened fingers clasped tightly around it.

At first, the jewel remained tranquil, and his hopes rose. But then a spark of lightning lit at its core, and cloudy wisps gathered and darkened and began to roil.

‘A day at most,’ he informed Talee, and put away the jewel. ‘Time, then, to waken Iskandar’s “little spirits”.’ He kept the bottle close at hand, like the jewel, and soon retrieved it. Had it somehow procured for itself a still deeper coat of grime, since last night? Truly, the glass wore dirt like strings of the finest jewels. Baradir polished it upon a fold of his dark cloak, and again caught that glimpse of pale light stirring to life within. Nothing like firelight, that sleepy glimmer, or the sun’s fierce glow. No, it was the serene shimmer of moonlight on rainwater…

He carried the bottle to his mouth and put his lips to the glass. He spoke to it in a language no longer known, save to some sparse few sorcerers of the arcane, and with every slippery, coiling syllable that met the air, the light grew stronger.

The glass chilled beneath his fingers: the cool not of ice but of deep river waters. Dew blossomed on its surface, and ran down the sides.

And he felt himself drawn, clear and true, to the north-west.

‘Thank you,’ he told it, in the same ancient tongue, and set Talee’s face to the north-west.

All the long day through, he kept the mysterious bottle in his left hand, and followed the course it set. And by nightfall, the distant branches of an oasis appeared on the featureless horizon: shade, and water, and safety.

His spirits rose at the sight, and Talee lifted her bristled nose to the wind, scenting lush vegetation upon the air. But something else caught her senses, too, for when he urged her to quicken her weary pace, she dug her toes into the sand and came to a halt.

‘Talee, Talee, we are so close, do not give up now.’ He stroked her neck, whispered soothing words, and waited with as much patience as he could muster. Her coarse fur was thick with sand and dirt, and his hand came away much begrimed, but this he ignored. ‘Talee, just a little farther. Come now, onward.’

She would not move. And then came Fasee and Hanee, leaving their places in the line to flank their sister, and the three drew together into a wary, miserable knot.

Baradir’s heart sank. He had seen this behaviour before, and it augured nothing good. As his camels dipped their heads low and huddled together, he sat straighter, chin lifted, eyes scanning the sky.

Nothing yet appeared of the disaster to come but a quickening of the wind, and a stirring of the sand beneath Talee’s feet. Clouds roiled in the firmament, piled high; were the two related?

‘How long?’ he murmured. They might reach the oasis within half an hour, an hour at most, but that was not soon enough. He withdrew his clear jewel again, almost dropping it in his haste, and held it up. The glass flashed and churned, all turbulence; he put it away, and dismounted.

The wind blew from the east. Hastening as much as he could, coaxing his camels along with a mixture of comforting words and sharp pokes, he led his little party towards the beckoning oasis, praying for time enough. But the wind whipped the folds of his cloak around his body, and stole the scarf from his hair, and the sands began to dance.

He stopped, and fumbled through Hanee’s load of bags for a treasure, almost impossible to discover among the layers of silks and cottons stored therein. Fool that he was, for he had arranged it thus deliberately; anyone looking for a small bundle of embroidered silk among his effects would never find it in time… and now nor could he.

Growing desperate, he unhooked the bag and turned it upside down over the sand, heedless of his precious fabrics tumbling to the ground. There — a flash of lapis-blue and sea-green and gold gilt thread. He snatched it up, unwound the ribbons that secured its precise folds, and held it carefully aloft. One of its scant remaining folds he undid, with deliberate care.

The silk leapt from his hands and sprang into life, spilling forth billows of silk brocade and linen and fine cotton. Reams of coloured fabric danced upon the spiralling winds, and then, draping themselves over nothing in particular, they became a tent, richly appointed and expansive. A split in the front opened itself wide and tied its two sides up, and a soft light shone from within, inviting Baradir inside.

Not an instant too soon, for the winds howled, now, around his ears, hurling sand and dust into his flinching face. He looked up, and wished he had not, for a wall of pale sand roared towards him, distant yet but closing far too fast. And, as he had feared, no ordinary sand storm was this, for the storm-clouds on the horizon had built higher and heavier, dark purple like an old bruise, and shot through with lightning.

Not a drop of rain fell. Instead, the air swirling about his ears shrieked and howled with unearthly voices, and his skin tingled and burned. The arcane winds of an unnatural storm. He stared, half mesmerised, dwarfed and vulnerable beneath the oncoming onslaught as the sky darkened.

Night swallowed the desert, all at once, and Fasee began to tremble.

‘Move,’ he ordered himself, and took a gulp of air. Moving with tremulous haste, he took up the lead-ropes of his three beloved camels and half dragged them through the split in the silks. With a faint whisper, the makeshift door closed itself up behind him, and left him alone with his beasts in a space of prismatic colour.

The tempest abated, the buffeting winds fading to nothing. Baradir’s ears rang in the sudden silence. He cast a quick, uneasy glance up at the silken roof of his shelter, but it held. Of course it held. Nothing could assail his pavilion for long. That was one of the problems with the thing.

Its capricious nature was another. Baradir dared not draw aside the silks to see where, in all the kingdoms, he would emerge once he left the pavilion’s shelter; not yet. He only knew that it would be anywhere but where he had gone in.

Fasee trembled still. He spoke to her and her sisters in gentle tones as he settled them in their customary corner. An oversized samavar, like Iskandar’s but larger and less ornate, awaited a word from him to leap into life; he gave it, and presently poured out the weak tea favoured by his camels, and the stronger tea he preferred for himself. He soaked dried lemon and orange peel in the cooling waters before he imbibed the beverage, and laced the concoction with orange flower water. Seating himself cross-legged in the centre of the pavilion, he let his weary gaze wander the flimsy walls of his compact abode as he drank, his soul as much refreshed by the light and colour as was his body by the brew. The silks were vividly painted, like stained glass; images of far-off, beloved Sulanah surrounded him, a vision of the city as it had been in his youth. Every scene was drawn directly from his own memories, fixed there by enchantments that were, in these diminished days, beyond his power.

How many folds remained in the silk? A scant few. And yet, he must leave the familiar space, and soon. Always, he must leave.

But first, he could sleep — for once, in perfect safety.

Baradir wound himself in precious Xingqing blankets: cloud-light and cool, sun-velvet and warm, they were all things at need, and so priceless he dared not remove them from the pavilion. Once, and only once, had he stepped beyond his silken walls and found himself in that enchanted kingdom, a place any trader like himself would give an eye to behold.

These, too, he must someday lose.

Baradir lay alone, eyes open upon the florid walls of the only home he knew, until weariness swallowed him down into slumber.

 

He woke with the importunate woman, Yasmine, in his thoughts. Curiously well-informed as to his history, she was; so desirous had he been of dispensing with her company, he had not given the fact much thought. Not only had she correctly guessed his identity, she had betrayed a more comprehensive knowledge of his life than he had imagined anyone could now possess, save himself. And how had she chanced to be in just the bazaar he had, at length, chosen to visit, and on the right night? On the watch for him, yes; she had said as much. But how had she known?

And what was she doing stalking the Starlight Bazaars, so far from home, in search of Ibn Samar?

Word of his travels was circulating. Iskandar had said as much. But Iskandar, at least,...