Harem Of Aman Akbar Part 7

When Um Aman perceived what was happening, she paled somewhat but showed her mettle by immediately, if carefully, prostrating herself and beginning to pray in earnest.

Despite the hot breeze of our pa.s.sing, we baked between the sizzling sky and the equally sizzling sand beneath it. This was worse heat than any I had endured in my life. It was far hotter than the city of Kharristan, hotter even than the clay ovens my mother made to bake her bread, hotter than the flames of cooking fires, or so it felt to me. Winter I understand well, and the warmth of summer has always been welcome to me, but this kind of heat was not fit for human life. Fear, blood and pain I can and have endured. But this heat drew the life from my body, sucked the vision from my eyes and sounds from my ears and sent the world spinning around me. I swooned.

At least I was not the only one to succ.u.mb, though all of the others were a good deal more accustomed to such heat than I. When I awoke only Um Aman was still alert but then, she was still in the throes of her recent religious experience, not only in body, as we all were, but in spirit as well. But she seemed to be having second thoughts, for now she was stretched out full length on the carpet, and squinting over the edge. I did not need to do likewise. What was below us was to be seen not just over the edge of the carpet, but extending on every side but one. Where before had stretched sand as far as the eye could see, now stretched water, a great blue sea of it. Um Aman's G.o.d did not do things by halves.

To the water, however, an end was in sight. For growing ever larger was a narrow ridge of brown, topped with green. Sea birds skimmed the air above us, mewing cattily, and as the distant land grew less distant, the roar of the water striking it grew more intense, competing with the bird cries. Aster stirred, opened her eyes, grimaced, and closed them again. Amollia woke as the rug climbed upward, perpendicular to the sheer cliff.

We gasped, shrieked and shuddered in turns as the carpet presented us with new concerns. Was it going to succeed in dodging all all of the taller trees of this thickly forested land? Would it find a clearing, or just land us in a tree top to fall or climb down as best we could? Would we perhaps be mistaken for a large bird of prey and be shot down by some conscientious archer? Would we ever touch ground again? Once there, would we be able to find anything to eat or drink? The last question especially began to concern me, along with another, more private matter suggested with forceful urgency by the incessant swish and pound of the water below. of the taller trees of this thickly forested land? Would it find a clearing, or just land us in a tree top to fall or climb down as best we could? Would we perhaps be mistaken for a large bird of prey and be shot down by some conscientious archer? Would we ever touch ground again? Once there, would we be able to find anything to eat or drink? The last question especially began to concern me, along with another, more private matter suggested with forceful urgency by the incessant swish and pound of the water below.

The rug settled downward through greenery sparked with flame-colored flowers and scented with a pungence that was a mixture of floral perfume and decay. The heavy fragrance, the raucous cries of the wild birds, the chirrup and chatter of other wild things hung in air denser than that in either the desert or in my own home near the steppes. I found it easier to breathe.

Easier yet did it become when the rug drifted to a stop as softly as a fallen leaf in front of a mud-brick structure baked a chalky white by the sun. It was unimpressive in size but the graceful lines of the facade were not those of a rude dwelling clumsily thrown together for shelter.

Flowering vines crawled up its sides and a walled terrace spread out before it, the stones gleaming like bones in the sunlight. Between the stones crept moss and the first trailings of new vines. I saw things slither into the shadows as the rug touched earth.

"Now where in the seven levels of h.e.l.l do you suppose this is?" Aster asked, whistling.

It was the wrong thing to say, and ungrateful, after we had been delivered from the desert so expeditiously.

"Shut your ignorant mouth," Um Aman said. "This is a shrine, a holy place."

"Well, wherever it is, it's on solid ground," Aster replied, stepping very quickly across the outer border of the carpet and onto the terrace. "And this poor orphan is going to make sure she stays here should another fit of piety overcome you, mother-in-law."

I leapt off behind her and joined the slithery things in the shadows and tall brush long enough to relieve the most pressing matter concerning me. Um Aman meanwhile was commanding the others to roll up the sacred carpet.

I pushed through the bushes and was stepping back onto the terrace when the first small stone struck me a glancing blow on the shoulder. My warrior's reflexes were somewhat dulled by the events of the day, but when I saw that the stone was followed by a shower of others on a day otherwise too clear for a hailstorm and heard my companions shout, I dove for the bushes again.

"Demons!" Um Aman shrieked. "Demons have possessed the shrine!"

Aster dropped to a squat, covering her face and head with arms and elbows, but Amollia took my example and scrambled out of range into the foliage.

"They're not demons!" she yelled back, half-laughing. "They're only monkeys. Look on the roof! Just monkeys throwing stones." But she stopped "laughing a moment later as one of the stones struck Um Aman squarely on the top of the head. The old woman keeled over and lay very still.

We both called to Aster but she was clenched tightly into herself. I plunged through the shrubbery and in two bounds reached Um Aman. Amollia burst from cover as I did, and between us we unpried Aster and shoved her toward the bushes while we dragged Um Aman with us.

But as we retreated, the monkeys, little bullies, advanced, screaming imprecations, waving their hairy arms, jumping up and down, and mugging in a way that might have been comical except for the stones. They leapt from the roof and hopped toward us, each with a sloping, lopsided gait alternating standing on hind feet while supporting themselves with the knuckles of their hands, when they weren't using those hands to lob stones at us. I almost lost an eye to one, and my s.h.i.+ns, stomach, arms and back were pulverized before we reached the trees.

Who would have supposed you could hear a handclap amidst all the noise and confusion? And yet, when it came, it was louder than every other noise, and for a moment not only the monkeys stopped chattering, but the sea birds ceased crying, the ocean ceased roaring, and all of the sounds of that thick and teeming forest stilled.

Who could clap such a clap? The G.o.d of the carpet himself? Another djinn? A chieftain, perhaps, like Marid Khan? I turned, expecting to see someone like that. Instead a short, dark woman, obviously out of breath, stepped out of the trees and panted, "There now. There now. Friends."

The monkeys stopped and looked at her. And she looked at them, familiarly, as if they were indeed friends. She put a hand to the breast of her simple orange garment, which looked like a sort of turban for the body, wrapped and draped to cover anything strategic. When she had regained her breath somewhat, she shook the gnarled walking stick she carried in their direction. "What have you been doing in my absence, eh? Trouble again? Can't I leave you alone for a single afternoon without you cluttering up the courtyard? For holy animals, you've got no respect." And she leaned over and began picking up rocks until we slunk back out of the bushes and she looked up at us, unsurprised. "Visitors. That's it, of course. No wonder the racket. How did you get here? Must have flown. I've been camped on the path to the village since yesterday evening."

"Who are you?" Aster asked.

"I'm a holy woman. What do I look like? I keep this shrine for Saint Selima, these monkeys are sacred to her, and if you'll pardon me, I've had a busy morning talking to a cranky tigress. Help me pick up some of these rocks, will you? Can't have a cluttered shrine."

Amollia stayed her hand as she stretched it toward another rock. "I beg your pardon, holy one, but our mother-in-law was injured by your guardian beasts."

The holy woman looked shocked and perhaps a little pleased. "Really? You mean they hit something?" She examined a rock quizzically. "Well, well."

Dropping the rock, she accompanied us to where Um Aman lay. I started to grab the old woman's arm to drag her into the shrine and the holy woman slapped impatiently at me. "Not that way. You'll kill her. We must carry her on on something." something."

"The rug," Aster said, snapping her fingers, then looked from Amollia to me uncertainly. "That is, if you think we can trust it to stay on the ground."

But Amollia had already taken the hint and unrolled the carpet beside Um Aman.

I waited for the holy woman to direct us as to the best means of transporting Um Aman but the shrine's keeper was staring instead at the carpet.

"G.o.d is is merciful and compa.s.sionate," she said. merciful and compa.s.sionate," she said.

"Careful with your praying around that rug, with all respect, wise one," I cautioned. "It might take off and fly again like it did with us."

"With you? You flew upon the sacred prayer rug of Saint Selima?"

"That's how we got here."

"My prayers were answered," she said.

"You were praying to get us out of the desert too?"

"I was praying that the carpet, stolen from the floor of the holiest of all holy places in Sindupore, would someday find its way back. The Saint wove it with her own hands, miracles in each fiber, unlike some of those other rugs which were simply woven by ordinary mortals and later enchanted by magicians and sorcerers who had to depend upon an overlaying spell to make them fly. Not only is there holiness in every knot, but the carpet is large enough for even the largest of beasts to pray to G.o.d properly." She shook her head wonderingly then knelt beside Um Aman. "But what are we standing here talking for? I thought you wanted me to help this woman."

When she had bandaged and prayed over Um Aman and made her comfortable on one side of the shrine, the holy woman, named Fatima, brought forth a basket of fruit, a loaf of bread and a skin of water, upon which we pounced without hesitation or apology.

"So," she said when we were done, "you must be very devout to have activated the sacred carpet of Saint Selima."

"The carpet flew for the pious mother of our unfortunate husband, holy one," Amollia said. "We are not of your people."

"Obviously. Nor of my faith either, is that what you're trying to tell me? Don't be shy. It's no great shame to be an infidel. Everybody has to start somewhere." She dug around in a corner for a moment and returned with a clay bowl full of sweets. "Saint Selima is very popular here." She thrust the bowl out to me. "You're the lightest, the tallest, and the least like us. The most infidel-looking of all. You first. Pick a sweet. The choicest. Go ahead." I tried to demur, for her overbearing liberality unsettled me, but she pushed at me again so I took something melting and sticky and popped it in my mouth.

Then she said. "If you aren't believers and your husband's mother didn't know she was bringing the sacred carpet back to its maker's resting place, then I take it devotion didn't bring you. What then?"

"Desperation, holy one," Amollia answered.

"Ah," she said wisely.

"You see, holy one," Aster explained, "the Emir from whom we acquired your saint's rug-and don't ask me how he got it-also drove us from the city after one of his wives turned our husband into an a.s.s."

"An a.s.s?"

"A white one," Aster nodded.

"It would be," Fatima said. "Such transformations used to be common in these lands. They are not particularly difficult to undo, however, if you can get the person who invoked-"

"The curse to revoke it? So we've been informed," Aster said drily. "But the problem is that the djinns bottle is still with the Emir, our husband is still with Marid Khan in the desert, the woman who cursed him is somewhere called Sindupore, and all we have left is this." She fished in her sleeve and brought forth the stopper to the djinns bottle, which I had given her to hide when we were forced to surrender our other loot to Marid Khan.

Fatima took the cork from her. "But, my dear, this is a very great deal. Without this cork, the djinn cannot be contained in his bottle. While the Emir holds the residence of the ifrit's soul, and can control him somewhat by threat of destroying it, he cannot fully avail himself of the djinns power until he holds the cork bearing the seal of Suleiman."

"So that's what that smoke-footed fiend was going on about with his riddles about wine," Aster said.

"No doubt that is also why he was so suspiciously helpful," Amollia added.

"No doubt. As for the woman... where in Sindupore did you say she was?"

"First we have to find Sindupore," I reminded her.

Fatima shook her head.

"Do you mean to say we are here?" Aster asked. This time the holy woman nodded.

"Perhaps," she said, "I can be of more help if you tell me the whole story."

When we had told her all there was to tell the day was well into afternoon and it was raining hard in the courtyard outside. Our tale took longer than usual to tell because she insisted on verifying each point with each of us, and would hop up and go attend to some ch.o.r.e-picking up rocks until it started raining, spooning water between Um Aman's lips, chasing away a monkey, just as we got to the important parts, and whoever was talking would have to start all over again.

"And that is all?" she asked brightly, small plump fingers interlaced over her crossed legs, round face nodding from one of us to the next, seemingly inquisitive but perhaps slightly bored. Certainly not surprised or overcome with awe, dread, pity or disgust at our circ.u.mstances. I began to feel more hopeful.

"That is all," Aster said. "And for this humble person it has been quite enough. I begin to long for the flower boats of Willow Lake."

"Have you some means to help us, wise one?" Amollia asked. "Could you cast bones or examine chicken entrails as the seeress in Kharristan did to help us find Aman Akbar once more?"

"We-ell, no, I'm not much for bones. Saint Selima was much more interested in living creatures than dead ones and I would be risking my share of paradise to cut open a poor chicken just to ask stupid questions about that which is already written anyway. However, I have something perhaps better."

"Better than prophecy?" Aster asked, the doubt clear in her voice. It was plain that she was thinking, as I had often had occasion to do myself, that priests and shamans were always quick to a.s.sure you that you didn't really want them to do the real magic you did did want them to do when they could do for you some trick they had meant to do all along because they already had their quite unmagical preparations made to perform it. want them to do when they could do for you some trick they had meant to do all along because they already had their quite unmagical preparations made to perform it.

Fatima, however, quite literally made no bones about magic having connection with the help she planned to offer. "Oh yes, I have much more reliable help than prophecy. I have monkeys."

"We want to find him, not stone him," Aster said.

But Fatima had already padded on her bare feet back to the threshold and, thrusting her hands outside into the rain, clapped them once, hard.

Thereupon it rained monkeys as well as water for several moments. She spoke to these monkeys slowly and seriously, explaining what she wished them to do, pausing only to make sure her descriptions of Aman Akbar and other princ.i.p.al persons were accurately detailed, and soon they scampered from the doorway and their chattering was lost as they sprang into the forest and disappeared. "All the jungle will soon know of your search. We have only to wait."

"It is a pleasant place to wait," Amollia said in a tired, dreamy voice. "Very like my home. We were having the monsoon rains there when I left."

My eyes followed hers to the dull, faintly yellow-gray skies, the tossing fronds and branches blurred by the slanting silver-beaded veil splattering into the puddles on the terrace. I failed to see why anyone would be sentimental about such weather.

After three days, waiting became tiresome. Um Aman, when she opened her eyes, was not truly awake. She drifted in and out of sleep filled with nightmare mumblings and thras.h.i.+ngs. She made less sense than usual when she was awake, and was, incredibly, even nastier and more hostile than she had previously been.

Fatima appeared unconcerned. "That she wakes at all is a good sign. Be patient."

But it became increasingly difficult to be patient, for clearly we were in Fatima's way. Her morning was normally spent in prayer, contemplation, gardening and hearing the supplications of pilgrims to the shrine. While we stayed with her, we were the only pilgrims. Afternoons she was accustomed to spend tending the shrine, sweeping, was.h.i.+ng and cleaning up the dung of Saint Selima's sacred animals. With us there, she cut her contemplations short to care for Um Aman. Afternoons, during the rains, too many of us crowded inside the little shrine for her to have enough room to do any sort of work, though if the rains weren't too heavy or started late, we all tried to help clean up the dung of the many rats, monkeys, mongooses and other small... and sometimes not so small... animals who visited the shrine.

"Is this position of yours hereditary?" Aster asked Fatima as we sat around staring at each other one afternoon. Fatima's hands were filled with a half-finished basket, while I sharpened my knife and Amollia infused fruit juice into Um Aman. Fatima missed a st.i.tch with her river gra.s.s, hissed, and raised her head, her lips pursed with irritation at yet one more interruption.

"Hereditary? Hereditary? What do you mean hereditary?"

"I mean, was this Selima an ancestor of yours or something? Is that why you have this job keeping her shrine?"

"No, of course not. She was a saint, a great teacher, a miracle worker and a friend to animals. You've already seen how she can make prayer rugs fly and how all animals honor her. She could talk to them, you know. And since this shrine is filled with her essence and I have lived here these many years, I can also talk with them. But not because I'm a relative or any such nonsense as that. My own folk aren't even from this land. They're nomads."

"How came you to dwell here then?" Aster asked, tilting her head at an angle that looked as if she had practiced it specifically to lend her an air of childlike innocence and charm. She was bored and already knew all she cared to about the rest of us. Our hostess provided her with hope of diversion and she wasn't going to be put off easily. "Did the saint give you this house as a reward for your work?"

"No, no, nothing like that. When I served Selima she had no house. We roamed the jungle and ministered to the animals and prayed all the time." She gave up and set the basket aside, looking wistfully past us through the open door and out into the jungle. "My feet hurt constantly when I began to follow her. All those years I spent sitting on my behind made me soft. But I come from people who are great walkers and it was a real pleasure to be a.s.sociated with someone like Selima after all the nastiness of the seraglio!"

"Where was that?" Aster pried.

"Oh, where I used to live. My father made an alliance, and I was part of the agreement, along with several camels and some pretty good horses and bolts and bolts of cloth," she sighed.

"It didn't suit you, living there?"

"No. No, indeed. I didn't care for it and in fact, when I was heavy with my child, I almost died simply from sadness. But that's when the Valideh, the woman who ran the harem, invited Selima to speak to us. Hearing her changed my whole life. As soon as my child was born and I was free of my obligation, I found her again. I was her devoted disciple until she died. Then I built this shrine with my own hands-well, I did have a little help from the men in the village, but I paid them with some of the jewels I had from the old days in the palace. It's not a bad life. Interesting even. Her bones being buried beneath the shrine still provide us with miracles occasionally, so steeped in holiness was she, and the animals are much better company than I was used to before I became her disciple."

"But what of your child?" Aster asked.

Fatima pressed her lips together and gave Aster a penetrating look under which she s.h.i.+fted uncomfortably. "The harem favorite was barren. My child was given to her to raise as her own."

"He must have been a horrible man, your husband," I said. Not even my mother's relatives would do such a thing.

"Not at all," Fatima said lightly, fussing again with her basketry. "Considering his position, his isolation from all for which G.o.d had made him responsible, the poor advice he received, and his ill health, he was a very good man. I was sadly grieved to hear of his death but almost... almost I am glad of what happened. My life has been more useful since I left the harem. Here I can help. Not all of the people in this land are believers, for it has only been enfolded in G.o.d's compa.s.sionate care since we trounced the former King in battle four years ago."

She sighed and smiled nostalgically. "The countryside smoked for months and there was a whole wall built by the harem of the heads of the former King's supporters. I do the will of G.o.d and Selima more peacefully, of course. I try to make the best use I can of what G.o.d has been good enough to grant me in the way of worldly items and also use certain talents taught me by the saint to keep the people safe from the animals and the other way around. It can be very tiring. Snakes will forget themselves and crawl into the homes of men, where one or the other are apt to perish from the contact. Tigers grow old or become weary of chasing their usual swift prey and s.n.a.t.c.h children from the village instead, if one doesn't speak most severely with them and see that they are provided with other fare."

"A useful talent," Amollia said. "I only hope it can help us find Aman Akbar."

It is not a wise idea to speak of hope in the shrine of a saint any more than it is to speak of wishes around an uncommitted djinn if you would prefer not to have swift and unpredictable results. Hardly had Amollia finished speaking when we were deluged with a throng of wet monkeys, who swung in from the jungle, pattered across the terrace, and began simultaneously jumping up and down and chattering at Fatima in what little s.p.a.ce there was in the shrine.

Fatima grunted and turned to us with a satisfied nod. "They have news of the woman who transformed your husband. She and her escort traveled through the jungle, on the road leading to the capital at Bukesh but a short time ago. This was reported by the beasts who dwell in the jungle this side of the mountains. Those of the agricultural area nearer Bukesh have not yet replied."

I sheathed my knife and rose to my feet, outraging an oversensitive monkey upon whose tail I trod with my bare foot. "Then we must go to the capital and find her. The djinn said she was probably intended as a present for the young King."

"You surely don't mean to go now?" Aster asked.

I did. The odor of the room full of wet monkeys was sufficient to make me anxious to go even if their news had not been.

"But Rasa, you can't go alone," Amollia said. "And our husband's mother cannot travel, so at least one of us must remain until she can."

"That is not so," Fatima said quickly, absolutely beaming at me. "I can look after her well enough without you. Since Selima's carpet brought her to me, you might almost say it's a mandate from the saint herself that I do so. In the usual way of things, I would counsel that you follow G.o.d's will and not seek to interfere, but since you're unbelievers, you're not likely to do that, are you? Besides, maybe it is written that you are to go."

"A certain seeress in Kharristan has said as much, holy one," I volunteered, and drew a glare from Aster.

"That seeress didn't figure on us three unprotected women having to march alone through a jungle full of hungry tigers and rock-throwing monkeys," she objected.

"Why, you must think nothing of such dangers, my dear Lady Aster," Fatima said so cheerily I began to prefer her less effusive moods. "Have you not been the guests of Selima's shrine, and am I not keeper of that same shrine? Do you seriously think I'd encourage you to go abroad in the jungle so dear to Saint Selima without some talisman of her protection?"