The Ninety-Ninth Bride Read online

  The Ninety-Ninth Bride

  By Catherine Faris King

  Book Smugglers Publishing

  Copyright Information

  The Ninety-Ninth Bride

  Published by Book Smugglers Publishing

  Copyright © 2018 Catherine Faris King

  Cover Illustration by Reiko Murakami

  Cover Design © by GermanCreative

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  978-1-942302-72-8 (Ebook)

  978-1-942302-71-1 (Paperback)

  Book Design and Ebook Conversion by Thea James

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without written prior permission of the copyright owners. If you would like to use material from the book, please inquire at [email protected]

  To my mother and father

  Contents

  Cover

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Part One

  The Bride

  The Mad Sultan

  The Storyteller

  Part Two

  The Miserable Djinni

  The River Spirit and Her Grief

  The Mermaids' Parlay

  The Captain and the Djinni

  Waking Up

  The Princess

  The Singing Tree

  Part Three

  The Desert

  The Last Story

  The Vineyard

  Inspirations and Influences

  About the Author

  About the Artist

  Book Smugglers Publishing

  Prologue

  These are but a few of the races that inhabit our wrinkled world.

  This is how God made the mermaids:

  God lobbed a spitball into the ocean, and willed that mermaids should be, and should be custodians of all the waters He had made, but bound within those waters.

  This is how God made the djinn:

  God took six drops of His own blood, and willed that djinn should sprout from these, and be creatures of fire. Further, they should be bound by the number six, and be custodians of magic and justice, but bound to the things of this world.

  This is how God made the nasnas:

  God took a toenail clipping and halved it, and willed that nasnas should be, half people yet stern and strong, and that they should be custodians of the ways to the underworld, but always they should search for completion, first in this world, and then with God.

  This is how God made humankind:

  God took the clotted blood from His wound, and mixed it with earth, and willed that humans should be truly in His image, and custodians of all the world, responsible and willing.

  Part One

  The Bride

  Perhaps you have heard tell of a wise girl named Scheherazade. She was a clever student who listened to the talk of the scholars, the servants, and the stars. She was unlucky enough to live in an evil time, under the rule of a wild man. The Sultan of her Kingdom was driven mad over the betrayal of his wife. Scheherazade offered to become the King’s new bride. The King intended to kill her, as he had killed all his previous wives, but Scheherazade’s courage was undaunted and her wits were without limit. Instead of being his wife, she told him one thousand and one stories, each more dazzling than the one before, so enthralling that the King could not bear to kill her without hearing its ending—which always lurked in the night to come. By telling stories, Scheherazade kept her life, healed the King’s madness, and saved her Kingdom.

  Oh, yes… perhaps you have heard tell that she had a sister. She was named Dunyazhade. Less clever, less beautiful, and less brave, her main purpose was to listen to the stories that Scheherazade told.

  Perhaps you have not heard the whole story.

  Once upon a time, in Arabia, a girl was born in a city called Al-Rayyan. While the people celebrated and feasted, her mother struggled to bring her into the world.

  The child was born at midnight. “It’s a girl,” said the exhausted midwife. “Do you have a name for her?”

  The mother nodded, sweat clinging to her ashen brow. “Dunya,” she said, and held out her arms.

  The midwife gave Dunya to her mother. She pitied the young woman, who sounded like she was exhausted beyond endurance. The mother kept talking, rambling. “No. I have to live. I’ll fight for her. I’ll give her a place in her father’s household… will you take care of her? I’d rather… but that will do. Do you promise? Good. Thank you.”

  “Dunya—that name means ‘the world,’ doesn’t it?” asked the midwife. She turned from the mother and her child and poured water from an ewer to wash her hands, and thought the mother was a bit rude for not answering. Then, when her hands were dry, she turned around and saw.

  She regretted her impatience and gently took the little baby from the arms of Death. It wasn’t the first time she had undertaken this duty.

  “Don’t worry, Dunya,” she said to the little one. “Many live without mothers and get by fine. And your father is a mighty man. You’ll have a good place.”

  When the midwife told Dunya’s father of her mother’s death, he laid a hand over his eyes and sighed deeply.

  “I’m too old for this,” he said.

  Just a wall away, Al-Rayyan celebrated with all of its people—some of whom were even human. In the Generous City, djinn blew out enormous smoke rings on the rooftops, and mermaids surfaced in the torch-lit canals. Still, Death took away its share of souls that night, as on all nights. It was the Feast of the Sacrifice.

  “I’m too old for this,” Shareef had said, and he put his newest daughter in the care of his mother, apparently not thinking that she was too old for any of this.

  At first, Grandmother Aaliya did not like having another child to look after. She had done her share of that labor! And she had earned her rest, she said to anyone who would listen. But of Shareef’s three wives, they were each absorbed with their own children and their own affairs, and Shareef, the Grand Vizier of the Kingdom, blocked his ears to his mother’s reasoning. Eventually, Grandmother Aaliya grew tired of complaining. And the baby still needed looking after. Besides, what were servants for?

  And so, Dunya grew up in her grandmother’s quarters. She knew of the rest of her family, but they dwelled on the other side of the household, in a busier home. Dunya’s world was limited to Grandmother’s quarters and servants, livened by visits to Grandmother’s elderly friends.

  “Children should be seen, not heard,” her grandmother told her, gently but firmly. And so Dunya, on these visits, had nothing to do but listen.

  She didn’t understand most of the stories shared by Grandmother and her friends, but she knew they all had to do with people who were dead now. That lent them an eerie, almost sacred quality. They needed her full attention, even if she didn’t understand.

  It was a quiet life, with many rules to obey, and much to learn.

  When Dunya was thirteen, the announcement rang out across the Kingdom: the Sultan was to be wed.

  This meant a feast for all the people, common and noble; it meant a chance to make merry and celebrate; it meant that officers would return from the border skirmishes. It also meant gifts aplenty for the Sultan an
d new Sultana. And no one had to make a greater gift than the Grand Vizier.

  On this special occasion, Shareef and his first wife paid a visit to Grandmother Aaliya, to ask her for advice on the matter.

  “You shouldn’t have to shower him with gifts,” was Aaliya’s first remark. “You already offer your best counsel and loyalty. That should outweigh all the perfumes and dyes of the world.”

  “They should, but alas, they do not,” said Shareef. “Our Sultan is rather picky. He likes his shows of respect to be elaborate and frequent. I would like to impress him, without bankrupting our household.”

  “This is a wedding, isn’t it?” Aaliya asked. “Perhaps focus on what his bride might enjoy. Maybe one of your girls, offered in service to the Sultana. Dunya would make an excellent lady-in-waiting.”

  “Dunya?” said First Wife Noora. “But she’s too… ” she glanced at Dunya and swallowed whatever she would say next.

  “The girl is obedient, quiet, eager to please, and quite clever,” said Aaliya. “And it would put her in the eye of the court. She might marry well.”

  “Please, Mother, be sensible,” said Shareef. “Just look at her! She’s fragile, like her mother. She won’t live to see her wedding day.” He rolled his eyes when his mother and first wife spat against evil. “But you are right, about the Sultana. She’s very beautiful. I saw her portrait myself. Beautiful women are always vain. I shall buy a mirror for her, from the farthest country I can think of.” He turned abruptly, leaving the women behind. “Thank you, Mother.”

  “Don’t let me detain you,” said Aaliya, drily.

  When they left, Aaliya turned to what looked like a perfectly innocent curtain hanging against the wall. “Dunya! I know you are eavesdropping. Come out. I’m not mad.”

  Dunya crept out from behind the curtain. “Grandmother?” she said.

  “Don’t be afraid; eavesdropping is an ancient tradition in my family. What is it?”

  “Am I really… ” Dunya paused. “Will I truly not live to see my wedding day?”

  Grandmother clucked her tongue. “My son always imagines the worst. It makes him a good Vizier, but it is very bad for the family. You’ll live a long time, my dear. I shall speak to Death on your behalf. Come here and give your Sittou a hug.”

  Dunya hurried over and hugged her. Grandmother smelled like rosewater and tea. “You are going to live for a very long time,” Grandmother said again.

  “Grandmother… ” Dunya stared up at her grandmother with wide dark eyes.

  “What now?”

  “The Sultan loves the woman he’s marrying, right?” When Grandmother didn’t answer, Dunya went on, “He must, if she’s so beautiful and well-bred, like Father says.”

  “Or he married her for a bit of land, or a good opportunity to expand the business of the Kingdom. Marriages like that are another ancient tradition of our family. It’s why I married my husband. It’s why your mother married your father… .”

  But Dunya had heard enough. She slipped out of Grandmother’s arms and went to her own room. So that was the story of how she came to be! A marriage for a bit of land. Or for business opportunity. It seemed to Dunya, lying in bed and, for once, ignoring her grandmother’s calling voice, that she had a very small, measured life ahead of her, if her origin was as mean as all that.

  Grandmother came into Dunya’s room and stroked the girl’s dark hair, promising Dunya vaguely that she would be sure to marry well, and not to be sad, and Grandmother Aaliya was getting too old for all this.

  Dunya’s father invited a merchant of glass and mirrors into his home. All of the sons were welcomed to come and admire the merchant’s wares. The two elder daughters, along with Shareef’s wives, watched the proceedings from behind a screen, and whispered to intermediaries when they wished to purchase anything. The younger daughters, including Dunya, were allowed to examine the stall at arm’s length.

  While her brothers grabbed at pieces of glass, and wondered what they could get their father to purchase, Dunya hung back. She watched the merchant, a flighty and expressive man. He had come from outside the walls of her father’s estate. What was his life? What did he see, know, experience out there in the city?

  Right now, the merchant was talking of his fine mirrors. “You see, long ago a djinni fell in love with a merry sand spirit. They danced together, they embraced, they made a garden of perfect glass out in the desert wastes. But, alas, the sand spirit perished in a windstorm, and the djinni wandered the wide deserts of Africa, looking for her love. But she found her way into a glassworks, where a cunning glazier—my grandfather!—imprisoned her within a little amulet. She provides the fire for our glassworks. So you see, every one of these pieces is infused with magic and mystery.”

  “A djinni?” asked Dunya’s second oldest brother. “This isn’t a nursery tale. Treat us like adults, please.”

  The merchant gave a little bow and stroked his beard with his hand.

  How strange, Dunya suddenly realized that everything she’d seen him do today had been done only with his right hand. And he had a left hand, but it flickered, now that she looked at it, like a shadow. And the left side of his face seemed to drag. Dunya remembered that her grandmother had warned about this. It was a stroke; it happened sometimes to the elderly or the very stressed.

  Dunya did not want to draw attention to herself, but she could not sit idly by if the man truly was in danger. She approached him, laying a hand upon his left arm.

  “Sir,” she asked, “Pardon my rudeness, but are you feeling quite well?”

  He looked at her, and his eye gleamed piercingly—his right eye, Dunya noticed. “Why do you ask?”

  “You haven’t lifted your left hand since entering the house. And your face lists to the side… ”

  To her surprise, he smiled. They were standing far enough away from the crowd that no one could overhear them.

  “You see very clearly,” he said. He pointed to his cart. “Do you see anything odd in those reflections?”

  Dunya turned, her gaze sweeping across the various mirrors in search of something amiss. But in each of their surfaces, the merchant’s reflection appeared just as he did in her eyes. “No, nothing odd,” she replied, and turned back to him.

  He had pulled out a small glass in a metal case. “This,” he said to her in a very low voice, “is more valuable than all the other mirrors I have, put together.”

  “Truly?” Dunya asked.

  He smiled again, and gave a little shrug. “Well, close enough.” He tilted it so that she could see his reflection. “Now what do you see?”

  Dunya stifled a gasp. In the mirror, the merchant appeared as only half of a person, as though he had been cleanly cut down the middle. One eye looked at her, half a mouth smiled at her. Where he was cut, rough stone gleamed back at her.

  Dunya looked up at him, and now she could see that his left half was sort of stitched onto his true self, an illusion, like a cloudbank.

  “You’re—” she stumbled, remembering the creature but not the name, “you’re a half… half-man? A nasnas,” she remembered at last.

  The man nodded. “You have the way of seeing true. It’s a rare gift. Cultivate it.”

  “I’ve never seen a half-person before,” Dunya said.

  The man frowned. “More people are halved than you may think, little one. Broken down the middle, searching for wholeness. I myself prefer the term nasnas.”

  “I apologize for my rudeness.” Dunya exclaimed, bowing quickly.

  “Dunya!” cried her father, having caught just this last exchange. “Are you bothering our guest?”

  “Not in the least, sire,” said the merchant. He caught Dunya’s eye again. This time, she dared to ask a question.

  “The story about the djinni, sir… was it true?”

  He shrugged and gave her a wink with his right eye. “
Let’s say it was half true.”

  In the end, the merchant sold no djinni-blown glass. Instead he sold a huge, circular mirror from Venice, the city on water, to Dunya’s father, and the Vizier indicated that that was sufficient expense for the day. The merchant packed up his wares and left the home without incident, except to look back at Dunya as he departed and tap his right eye knowingly. The day was over.

  It occurred to Dunya later that evening that perhaps a more appropriate reaction at that time would have been to say something like, But nasnas are only a story, or to reject the existence of nasnas immediately and shriek that the merchant was a liar, an imposter, a thief who wanted to swindle them out of their money. But she had instead been very phlegmatic from the first observation, and she decided that her reaction had been a good one.

  It was the Sultan’s wedding day.

  Shareef outfitted his family with great expense and great pride, and led the procession to the Palace. Dunya, outfitted with somewhat less expense than her sisters, nevertheless liked her new outfit all of springtime green and her eyes were wide with wonder as she entered the Palace for the first time.

  The Palace took Dunya’s breath away. Banners and flags crisscrossed the sky; the walls were the speckled color of eggshells, interrupted by carnelian. On the ground, there were fountains and gardens laid out so perfectly they must have mirrored Paradise—all fed, according to Dunya’s father, by a special cistern below the Palace itself. Its domed towers glowed in the sunset light, and there was a rumor of fireworks after nightfall.

  As the Vizier’s family processed through the courtyard—with Dunya, of course, taking the last place—they could glimpse other parts of the festivities. There was the ambassador’s courtyard, and a pavilion set up for the lesser nobility. Dunya’s older sister tarried to get a better look at the jugglers and tumblers rehearsing.

  The Vizier’s second wife chided her daughter for her immodesty. Dunya also tarried a moment, but no one chided her. She started to pay more attention to the route that they took.