03.23.08
The Ifrit’s Daughter
While this story was written as a background story for a Changeling game (as oh so very many of my stories are) I was careful to leave out anything that’s specific to Changeling and, therefore, subject to copyright and trademark law. It’s more ‘inspired by’ than ‘based on.’ It was fun to write, especially Mafut. Edited 5 October 2005.
At the western edge of the Sahara, long, long ago – before even the followers of the Christ arrived, never mind those of the Prophet Mohammed – there lived a maiden whose little sister was lost during a sandstorm. Back then, back before men forgot so much, everyone knew that sandstorms were caused by ifriti, and to go out into them was death. The maiden’s mother and aunts and older sisters wailed and tore at their hair and clothes, her father and brothers and uncles slashed their arms with hooked knives, and not one of them even thought of going out to try to find her. If the maiden’s younger sister weren’t dead already she soon would be, and it was suicide to go out during a storm. The maiden, whose name, alas, has not been passed down to us, was young enough and brave – or foolish – enough to not care. While her family was mourning, she wound a gauze veil across her eyes and a wool shawl across her nose and mouth, took up two bladders of water, and set off into the storm, determined to find her sister.
Most days, of course, the sandstorm would have stripped the maiden’s flesh from her bones and left them, like so many others, to bleach in the sun’s furnace. That day, however, the ifrit whose storm it was happened to be close by where the girl was stumbling through the howling wind and the sand that made noon-day as dark as a moonless night.
Curious, the ifrit created a small space where the storm wasn’t. The maiden, who had been leaning into the wind trying to stay upright, fell face-first into the sand. She pushed herself to her knees and began to unwind the veils from her head. When she was done, she was shocked but not surprised, to find the ifrit standing there in front of her. He was tall, dark-skinned, and his brass-feathered wings dripped fire to the sand of the desert.
He was also, she noted, very, very beautiful.
“Do you often go for a walk into a sandstorm?” he asked, and his voice was the clashing of brass, the roar of fire uncontrolled.
“Oddly, no. I can’t imagine why I never have before. It’s lovely out here, with the wind and the sand and every last bit of it all trying to kill me.”
“You’re not serious.”
“No, I’m not. Aren’t you insightful?”
“You’ve a wish to die? I can help with that.”
“Kind though your offer is, I’d really rather live a while longer.”
“And yet you came into my storm, knowing that it could cost you your life.”
“So I did.”
“Why?”
“My younger sister. She didn’t come back to us before your fine storm struck, and I feared her lost. So I came to look for her.”
“Why shouldn’t I kill both of you?”
“I’m sure I don’t know. Why haven’t you?”
“I was curious. It isn’t often a mortal walks into one of my storms of her own mind.”
“Mmm. And has your curiosity been satisfied?”
By this time, the maiden had gotten to her feet, and stood, afraid to her very core, but not showing it. And the ifrit was very beautiful, after all. He took her chin in his hand (her skin burned where he touched her, so that she wondered that it was not painful) and looked into her eyes. “Not entirely,” he said, and if the clashing of brass could be said to be soft, his voice was soft.
“What remains?”
“You are mortal, and yet you stand before me, unafraid.”
“I am not unafraid,” she told him.
“You hide it well.”
“Thank you,” the maiden said, bowing a fraction of a degree, though she never took her eyes from his. “Besides, I still must find my sister, and if I let myself be paralyzed with fear, I would fail.”
“Determined, aren’t you?”
“Oh, yes.”
“What will you give for her?”
“For my sister, alive and unharmed, I will live with you and lay with you and be your wife.”
The ifrit was startled by the maiden’s offer, enough that he took a step back. She was a comely young woman, with thick black hair, dark brown skin, and deep black almond-shaped eyes. (And his fingers still burned from where he’d touched her.) It was tempting. More than tempting.
Around them, the storm raged on. The ifrit stepped closer to the young woman and, turning her face up to his, kissed her. His lips were surprisingly soft, she thought, and so were the curls of his beard and moustaches. She closed her eyes and opened her mouth to him. His mouth tasted of cinnamon and pepper, and she drew at it as though she were hungry, and him the only food she had tasted for days.
And when they stopped for breath, she very deliberately stepped back and slapped the ifrit, hard. “I am not yet your wife,” she told him, stifling urges both to giggle at his expression and to apologize profusely. “Until I am, you will not take such liberties with me.”
The ifrit scowled at the maiden, his eyes hard as glass under flaming brows. She glared back at him, not giving an inch. Suddenly, his stormy expression cleared, and he grinned. “This is going to be very interesting,” he said. “By all means, let us be married.”
Scowling to keep from grinning like a fool, the maiden asked, “And my sister?”
“She is still alive, unharmed, burrowed into the sand like a beetle.”
“Good.” Just to be confusing, and because she’d liked it the first time, the maiden kissed the ifrit again. Impossible as it had seemed, the second kiss was even better than the first. The thought that if the pattern held she might die from pleasure flitted through her mind.
Together, they found the maiden’s sister and took her back to her family. Soon after the maiden and the ifrit were wed, and they fought almost constantly, each being more passionate than the other.
They were, despite – or because of – the fighting, deliriously happy together, and together they lived for a long, long time.
~`~
“Tahiyya Tahiyya Tahiyya Tahiyya.”
“Yes, darling?”
“Nothing. I just like saying your name. Tah-hee-yah. Linda is positively boring.”
“It isn’t either boring.”
“It’s like mayonnaise on Wonder Bread.”
“Darling, ‘Linda’ means ‘beautiful’ in Latin and most of the languages that evolved from it. It’s a very nice name and it suits you.” Tahiyya’s English was perfect, though not even vaguely American. She’d been born in Morocco, went to boarding schools in France and England, and sounds like an NPR reporter. She’s also gorgeous: six foot two, skinny at two hundred some pounds, hard to describe without talking about coffee and chocolate. My best friend. And, well.
You’ll see.
It was Friday, which meant that Tahi’s roommate was off for the weekend with her boyfriend (who had an apartment off-campus) and we were smoking the very excellent weed that she always seemed to have on hand. I’d happily listen to her read a Microsoft End-User Licensing Agreement. She was wearing a yellow gauzy long-sleeved shirt and old blue jeans with one knee out that made me want to poke a couple fingers in so I could see if the skin on the inside of her knee was as soft as it looked.
“If you say so.” Me, I was not gorgeous. I’d always thought I was fairly tall for a girl until I met Tahi – I grew like crazy when I was eleven and didn’t stop until I was five nine. I was pale and covered with freckles so close they could just about hold hands and be a tan, and my hair was about two inches, uneven, and cobalt blue over light brown. For the record, I was wearing a black t-shirt with “I Will Not Fix Your Computer” on it, tan cargo shorts, green socks with dinosaurs printed on them, and a really old pair of black Chucks reinforced with duck tape.
“I do say so. More tea?” Tahi always said it was uncivilized to smoke pot without tea, which usually meant green tea with mint and lots of sugar.
“You’re too kind.” She knew I wasn’t making fun of her with the exaggerated politeness but about three meta-levels up, something like making fun of making fun of people who make fun of people who are just naturally very formal the way Tahi is. She understands.
~`~
We’d met in an aikido class. Being the two largest women there, we got paired up a lot for tying-each-other-in-knots practice. It’s a good thing she’s so sociable – if it’d been up to me I’d never have said anything that wasn’t directly related to aikido. She started it. No, really. She got talking to me and got me talking, and by the time we were back in our street clothes I found myself saying, “Hey, do you want to get some coffee or something?”
Tahi smiled, and the world fell out from under my feet. Metaphorically speaking, of course. The actual ground stayed resolutely unmoved. “Yes, thanks. I’d rather like that.”
So we went and got coffee, and we talked. “Tell me about you,” I told her. I wanted to know everything.
“I’m one of my favourite topics, darling. What would you like to know?”
“Start with the basics, I guess. How tall are you, anyway? I was guessing eight feet, but that can’t be right.”
Tahiyya smiled and shook her head. “Not quite eight feet, no. I’m one eighty-eight, that’s, um. Um um um. Six feet is one eighty-three, and five centimetres is just about two inches, so six foot two inches?”
“Six two, seriously? God, you’re a giant.”
“Seriously. And I weigh ninety-two kilos. Call it…” Tahiyya frowned and counted on her fingers as she did the conversion. “About two hundred five pounds.”
“You’re skinny is what you are. I don’t care how much you say you weigh.”
“Well, I run a lot.”
“Filthy habit.”
Tahiyya grinned, sharing the joke, and I felt my stomach flip. I prayed that it didn’t show too much. “I know.”
“So what about you?”
“I don’t know exactly,” I lied. Two hundred sixty-seven pounds. And I’m five inches shorter than you. “It’s been a while since I was on a scale.”
I don’t think she believed me, but she let it go. “At least you’ve got curves, darling. I’m all straight lines and angles.” Personally I thought she had very nice curves, just subtle ones. My body is not in any way subtle.
“How’d you wind up here?”
“Daddy’s parents are in Colorado Springs. They wanted me to go to school there and live with them, and I wanted to go somewhere I’d be on my own. This was the compromise we worked out. Besides, the University of Denver has a perfectly adequate journalism program.”
“That’s your major?”
Tahi spread her hands wide in something like a shrug. Her hands weren’t pretty; they were big and knob-knuckled and scarred with blunt fingertips and short nails. I’d heard people muttering about transsexuals around her, but she’s not – she’s just very, very tall. Though she’s athletic, a very good runner and a decent soccer goalie (”football goalkeeper, love,” corrects the Tahi-voice in my mind), she does not play basketball and isn’t interested in playing it. “I haven’t officially decided yet. There’s that, or English Literature, or any number of things. You?”
“Electronic engineering,” I said. “I like math and I’m completely gadget-oriented, so it was a natural.”
“What do you mean, gadget-oriented?”
“Well, like this,” I said. Of course I had my cell phone with me – a Blackberry Pearl I got because it was neat (and refurbished), not because I really needed it. I pulled it out of my pocket and slid it across the table to Tahi. “On the stock model, the traclit thing here is white. Mine’s blue ’cause I took an alcohol marker to it, see?”
She looked a little confused, but was at least still listening politely. “I’ve a feeling I’m going to regret asking, but what’s a ‘traclit?’”
My ears got a little red and I couldn’t meet her eyes. “Um. It’s a combination of trackball and clitoris. ’cause it’s sort of shaped like one, and when you rub it things happen.”
Tahi looked like she was trying to stifle a laugh. “Oh, I see. Hm. I can’t think of anything to say at this point that isn’t innuendo.”
“I did start it,” I mumbled. “How about a change of subject, then?”
“Certainly. Your go, I think.”
“Back to the family thing. Where are your parents at?”
Tahi looked just a little sad and fiddled with her coffee, stirring it more than it needed. “Maman is in Iran taking photos of the more famous mosques. I think she’s in Qom right now, but it’s been a week since I’ve had word from her. Daddy’s in Ethiopia helping to open a new Hamlin Fistula Hospital in Harrar.”
“Seriously? I’ve heard of that hospital, they do amazing stuff.”
“Daddy is, to quote him, ‘an inveterate bleeding heart’ so yes, seriously. His parents are a bit on the conservative side, so they’re not sure whether they’re proud of him for doing what amounts to charity work for not much money or to be disappointed that he’s not making much money doing what amounts to charity work. It’s all very complicated, you see.”
“I do see. Did they split up or something?”
“Oh no, they’re still all woogly in love with each other. It’s just that their work is really really important to them, and it takes them all over the place. They see each other a few weeks a year. I think if they actually had to live in one place, together, they’d both go mad and kill each other in six months.” She looked wistful and fidgeted with her coffee. “So what about yours?”
I felt vaguely ashamed that my parents weren’t nearly as interesting as Tahi’s, and then worse for feeling ashamed of them. Oh, the joys of self-esteem issues. “Dad’s a bartender, mom drives a bus for the city. We’re very boring people.”
Tahiyya leaned across the table to poke me in the sternum, hard. “Ow!”
“Stop that. If you were boring I’d not be asking. So your parents were poor?” she asked, glaring at me.
“Uh, yeah,” I said, rubbing the spot where she’d poked me. Doomed, said the voice in the back of my head. You’re doomed. What do you mean doomed? I wailed. You’re in love with her already, and you’re afraid she won’t love you back. Shut up, brain, or I’ll poke you with a Q-Tip! Whatever.
“But they’ve managed to raise you – any siblings?”
“An older sister, a younger brother. Melanie got pregnant her last year of school – high school, that is – and she’s still living at home with the folks and her boy Tanner. He’s three now and Mel’s working on her GED. Brian’s still in school and wants to join the Navy when he gets out. I’m the first in the family to go to college.”
“See?” Tahi said, smiling. I felt actually physically warmer when she smiled, and I couldn’t help but smile back. Damned brain. “That’s an accomplishment right there. They raised three fine children, if your sibs are anything like you, and they’ve managed to send you to college.”
I had to duck my head and look away. Was I blushing? Yeah, I was blushing. Damn it. “I guess.”
“Trust me, darling.”
~`~
I did trust her. We started making a habit of getting together after aikido class, though we drank water as often as we had coffee. And then we started getting high on weekends and talking or watching movies or just reading. Which brings us back to where I started my story.
Tahi’s fingers brushed mine as she handed me back my teacup. I wrapped my hands around it for the warmth and closed my eyes. Deep breaths, I told myself. No hyperventilating. It’s not attractive. She had this gorgeous glossy black hair, but I’d never seen it loose – usually she wore it the way she did tonight, parted down the middle and twisted into a pair of small tight knots behind each ear. Or in a single bun or a French braid. “Thanks,” I said. The weed helped keep me from being too nervous. “You know, I’ve never seen you with your hair down?”
Tahi picked at the hem of her shirt and didn’t quite look at me. “Haven’t you? I suppose I do keep it up most of the time, don’t I?”
“How come?”
“It gets unruly, darling.”
“Would it be all right if I took it down? I’d love to see it that way.”
Tahi sucked her bottom lip between her teeth, then nodded. “If you like.” She turned around; I scooted in closer, and started to pull out the pins that held her hair (mostly) in place. The back of Tahi’s neck had short soft feathery hairs; she shivered as my breath moved them. I shivered too, and my nose bumped into the back of her head.
“Tahi?”
“Yes, darling?”
“Can I tell you something? It’s kind of important.”
“Of course, darling. What is it?” She started to turn around to face me, but I put my hands on her shoulders, not pushing, just resting there.
“Please, I don’t think I can do this if you’re looking at me.”
“Gracious. It must be important.” Tahi relaxed so her back was square to me again. “Do go on; I promise not to look.”
“I.” I swallowed, trying to push my heart back down where it belonged. My hands fell into my lap. “I love you, Tahi. I have since I first met you, I think.”
Tahi was quiet for what seemed like years, but was probably really only twenty seconds or so. She let out a breath and leaned back into me and pulled on my hands so I was holding her. “This is a tremendous gift you’ve given me, Linda. I don’t know what to say. Though I sort of wish you didn’t.”
“You don’t. I’m sorry. I. I won’t mention it again.” I could hear my heart breaking.
“Oh, Linda.” Tahi turned around so she was kneeling in front of me and took my face in her big hands, almost hot against my so-cold skin. “Darling, I’ll not make you look at me, but hear me, please. Do give me a chance, won’t you?”
“You don’t like girls,” I mumbled. How could my tears be so hot when I was so cold inside? “It’s okay, I should’ve known that, I’m sorry.”
“Damn you Lin, don’t you fucking go away on me,” Tahi said. She sounded angry and a little scared. I looked up at her and she looked so worried and I hated myself for making her feel that way. “And don’t you dare apologise.” She rested her forehead against mine and closed her eyes. “I don’t like girls,” she said slowly. “Not the way you mean. Rather, I haven’t thought about fancying girls. But I like you very much. Let me give it a try? Please.”
And then she kissed me. As kisses go it wasn’t all that great. I was still crying – and crying ugly, not the pretty teardrop rolls down the cheek thing but really crying with my nose full of snot and everything. Tahiyya hadn’t kissed a girl before and was a little hesitant about it. But that was all right. She went and got me some Kleenex and more tea (tea is her cure for nearly every ill) and stroked my hair until I finally stopped crying, got my sinuses to quit flooding, and gathered what was left of my dignity.
“Thank you, Tahi,” I told her. I didn’t quite feel like grinning, not just yet, but the faint smile I was wearing felt right.
“For what, darling?”
“For giving me a chance. For not being repulsed. For not going away.”
“Linda, you’re utterly adorable. And very brave, also. What you did took a lot of courage.”
“Thanks.”
“Darling, you’re entirely welcome. Weren’t you in the middle of something?”
“Huh?”
“You wanted to see me with my hair down?”
“Oh! Yes. Please.”
Tahiyya turned round again so her back was to me. “You’d best carry on then.”
Carry on? Carry on what? That’s my brain, always got my back. Oh, it means keep doing what you’re doing. Once I pulled out the array of bobby pins that held the buns in place, Tahi’s hair was a mass of heavy, warm, curly, black hair that fell halfway down her back. I combed it out with my fingers, taking my time with it. I couldn’t help putting my nose in for a sniff; she smelled amazing. “Holy shit, Tahi.”
“There is rather a lot of it, hmm?” Tahi agreed, sounding amused. She turned round (her hair slid through my hands like something living) to sit facing me. “So. What do you think?”
“Um. I think you’re fucking gorgeous.”
“Flatterer.”
Tahi grinned at me and I felt my heart stutter. “Oh, god.”
“Hardly that, darling.” Her grin faded to a smile, but her eyes were still full of mischief. “You know, I’m not sure I got the best impression the first time.”
“Huh?”
“That kiss. I don’t think I got you at your best. Maybe we should try again?”
I don’t remember crossing the space between us. It felt like one moment she’d just said I should kiss her again, the next I was there, one hand in her hair, the other on her waist pulling her to me and her mouth was open just a little and she tasted like sugar and mint tea and weed and her tongue was in my mouth and even the snarky voice in the back of my head that hates me joined the chorus of it’s real she’s really here she’s really real oh my god she feels looks smells tastes so good.
Finally I felt like I was going to pass out and I had to pull back, panting for breath. Tahi was breathing a little harder too. “Oh thank you thank you thank you thank you,” I kept saying under my breath.
“You’re welcome, love.”
“Hey, wait a minute.”
“Hmm?”
“What did you mean when you said you wished I didn’t, didn’t love you?”
Tahi sighed, picked up my hand in both of hers, kissed the palm, and held onto it loosely, as if she’d forgotten about it. “I didn’t mean.” Another sigh. “Well, I did mean. As if wishing changed anything. Darling, please do believe me, it’s not because I don’t like you. You’re just lovely and I could just snuggle down into the folds of your shiny shiny brain and live there happily. But I seem to hurt people who love me in the end and I’d rather not see you hurt that way. Especially if it’s me hurting you.”
“It doesn’t have to end badly, Tahi,” I said softly.
“No, but it does always seem to.”
“How many times is ‘always,’ anyway?”
That got a small laugh and a somewhat bitter smile. “Touché, love. Twice. Poor data, I know, but it’s all I’ve got.”
I leaned in and kissed her again. “It’s worth the risk, Tahi. You are worth it.”
We didn’t make love that night. We kissed a lot, held on to each other, and somehow managed to fall asleep tangled up with each other in Tahi’s narrow dorm bed. My mouth felt like there were socks in it when I woke up, but that was the only real side effect of the night before. It wasn’t the first time I’d woken up in Tahi’s room, but it was the first time I’d woken up in her bed. She wasn’t in it; I looked and found her sitting in a desk chair, wearing a ludicrously pretty grass-green robe over creamy white pajamas and pointing a camera at me. She took three quick shots and set it down. “Hi there.”
“Uh, hi. Morning. You been up long?” My bladder let me know that however long Tahi had been up, I’d been asleep a while, and I got up to hurry to the bathroom. As I went past, Tahi was starting to laugh.
“Oh, I wish I’d still had my camera to hand! The look on your face was just brilliant.”
“What?” I called through the door. Peeing is one of life’s great blessings. It’s almost better than sleep.
“The way your eyes went wide, it was lovely, darling.”
Mutter mutter flush scratch mutter. I don’t wake up well. To help deal with the socks in my mouth, I borrowed some toothpaste and scrubbed as well as I could with my finger. Much better. A little water pushed my hair back from my head, and I was almost presentable. Vaguely.
“I hope you don’t mind,” Tahi told me. She handed me a cup of black tea that turned out to have honey in it and waved me towards her bed. “I liked the way you looked while you were sleeping very much, and I wanted to capture it. If you want, I’ll give you the card so you can delete them yourself.”
The tea was too hot for me; I set it aside and looked at Tahi. It looked like she’d been up for a while. Her hair wasn’t as under as much control as usual, but she’d put it up in an untidy pile of curls on top of her head. Had showered, I thought. “It’s fine. But don’t show ‘em to anybody else without checking with me first?”
“Of course. Wouldn’t dream of it.” She got up from her chair, came over to where I was sitting on the edge of the bed, and pushed me back to climb up on top of me, on her hands and knees.
“Hi,” I said, looking up at her. I don’t know what my brain thought was going on, but my body sure liked her being that close.
“Hullo.” She kissed me, and I was very glad that I’d done something to make my mouth taste less like old socks. After that, I noticed two things: the robe was actual silk, and her body wrapped in silk was getting close to the top of my list of favorite things in the world.
“Um.” I swallowed. “That’s a nice thing to wake up to.”
“Oh good.” Tahi let herself relax so she was lying on top of me with her head on my shoulder. I could feel her breath on my neck. “I know I said I didn’t want to have sex right away last night. But this morning? I want you desperately.”
My eyes must have gone really wide just then. “You what?”
“Want you. Lust after you, darling. I don’t sleep much and spending the night that close to you, well. I had a lot of time to think.”
“Uh. What if your roommate gets back?”
“Are you trying to find reasons not to? You could just say no, love.”
“Oh god no! Nonono. I mean, yes. I want you. I just don’t want to be interrupted.”
Tahiyya grinned and kissed me again, got up, and put the chair in front of the hall door. “There. At least we’ll have a moment’s warning if she does come back, but I doubt I’ll see her until tomorrow evening.”
“Oh, good.”
~`~
The desert went on forever. I’m going to die, thought Tahiyya. She had no idea how long she’d been walking, and she was thirsty. Tahi had done drugs before, even had a few drug-fuelled hallucinations, but this was different, more real than hallucinations and less real than the baked yellow stone of the pyramids. On some level she knew she had stumbled into another world, the way Alice had stumbled and fallen through the looking-glass into an impossible garden.
By this time, she had forgotten what led her out into the sand. A voice? Music? A scent? She didn’t know, and was beginning to think it didn’t matter. Whatever it had been, it was gone now and there was nothing left but endless dunes and killing heat and the white sun overhead. And one tall brown girl, lost and afraid. She looked behind to see that within ten feet her footprints had completely disappeared. There was nothing for it but to trudge up one side of a dune and slide down another.
The day never ended. The sun never moved in the sky. There weren’t even mirages to break up the monotony of a world of sand. No bones, noted Tahi’s mind in a dry quiet voice. When I die here, there will be nothing left, nothing for my parents to bury.
“Fuck it,” Tahi said eventually. Her voice rasped in her dry throat. “I’m not doing this any more.” Her ass thudded into the sand. It was hot, but the landing didn’t hurt. “I’m not doing this bloody film shit where I stagger over the dunes until I collapse and crawl until I can’t any more and die with sand all over my face. If everywhere is the same as right here, what’s the point? I might as well sit and wait for whatever it is to come to me.”
Is there any real distinction between falling asleep and passing out? Under normal circumstances, surely, but “normal” did not include an endless vista of rippled sand and an unmoving sun in the burning sky. Whatever Tahiyya might have called it, it was not the desert and she fell gratefully into it, a stone in deep water.
Are you sure you want this one?
“Yes yes I’m sure. Mine, dog. I’ll piss a circle round her if you really need it. Don’t you have other things to do? Bones to dig up? Testicles to lick?”
There was a snarl like someone tearing linen, if linen were a gigantic prehistoric dog. It was weird enough that Tahi thought it worth the effort of opening her eyes. Or an eye at least. No sense going off half-cocked. The desert was gone, replaced by a very large room built from red stone. The ceiling was lost in shadow (or maybe night), and the nearest columns were at least a few kilometres away. Some people were standing nearby. Their number kept changing, fluctuating between two and everyone. At least they might’ve been people. It was hard to tell. The bodies were shaped like people, the heads weren’t. Cat, crocodile, jackal – that might be the dog – cow, warthog, hawk, owl, elephant, hare, hippo, baboon. Their voices rumbled in the background, and a part of Tahi’s mind wondered how she could understand them, since they seemed to each be speaking a different language.
One day you will go too far, cat.
“And then we’ll see whose teeth are sharper, won’t we?”
I look forward to it.
“Me too, puppydog. Don’t have too much fun without me.” Between one moment and the next, the number of people dropped and finally stablilised at one. The one that was left crouched down where she could see that she was a woman, naked, and wearing the head of a tawny-furred, black-eared cat “Hi. I bet you’re wondering why I asked you here today.”
“Not really. Takes too much energy. Pretty, though.”
“See, I told that dog he wouldn’t like you. He’d wouldn’t get that joke if I wrote it on the back of the sun’s chariot and he chased it forever.” An ear flicked; the cat’s whiskers pushed forward. “But I do. And I forgive you. Admirable, really, wit like that after an experience like you’ve had. A cat thing, though. Dog, not so much. Too literal-minded, dogs.”
“Well that explains everything,” Tahi muttered, letting her eye fall back closed. “I’m dying, and this is my brain entertaining myself in the process.”
“Odd you should mention dying. It’s not a sure thing, you know.”
“S’pose not,” Tahi mumbled. “What’s in it for me?”
“You can stop being funny now, walker girl. I already said I like you.”
“‘kay.” Neither of them said anything. Tahi got the idea that the cat woman would wait forever if she had to, or at least a good minute longer than she would. She opened her eye again. The woman was all cat now, not quite a metre of body and half that length of tail. “So. Why did you ask me here?”
“I’ve got a proposition for you, little walker. It’s a big old world out there, you might just see a lot of it, not all of it is going to like you. I can help with the parts that won’t like you, and I get to go interesting places and see people and talk to someone whose voice I haven’t been hearing for five thousand years.”
“Which explains why I’m here.”
“Well, you’re here here because you’re dying, you got that part right.”
“Because I’m fucking brilliant, I know.”
“Thing is, you’ve got a choice. One way, there’s a balance and a feather and the Eater of Souls. The other way is, well, the other way.”
“Back to the desert?”
“For a while. But the one you go back to has an edge.”
“I don’t want to go back to the desert.”
“You can’t stay here. Here won’t be here that long, and if you’re still here when it isn’t, you won’t either. Even the Eater of Souls is better than that.”
“Are you sure?”
A callused thumb peeled her eyelid back so a woman with the grey eyes the cat had had could glare at her. Two eyes against one didn’t seem fair, but she’d have to open the other one to summon reinforcements. “Yes I’m bloody sure, twit. I’ve been nothing. You don’t want to be nothing.”
“All right.” Tahi sighed. Things were getting to be way too interesting. “The other way. Not the balance and the feather and the Eater of Souls. They’ll be here when I get back.”
“Bet your narrow ass they will.” The woman – she was wearing her cat face again – bent and kissed her on the forehead. She felt better. No sand under her eyelids, in her sinuses, in places that didn’t bear thinking about. Her tongue wasn’t a piece of dry meat filling her mouth any more. “Get up and walk, walker. I’ll be right behind you.”
Tahiyya stood up and brushed sand off her clothes. They weren’t what she remembered wearing. Skirts, robes, keffiyah and veil, sashes, sandals. Very bright colors, none of them matching. “Don’t look behind me, yes?”
“You’ve heard this one before. But right. Go on and take the third left. There are some people there you’ll want to meet.”
“Who?” Tahiyya walked on, feeling the sway of her skirts, the heat of the red stone through her sandals, the rough texture of the wall as her fingertips brushed along it.
“People like you.”
“Would you please elaborate?”
“The Brass Sands Travelling Bazaar and Improbabilitorium.”
“The what?”
“It’s hard to explain with words. You’ll see when you get there.”
“So what people?”
“Two-souled folk. One human, one not, and the both of them in the same body. I imagine it feels rather odd. You might know some of them as Faeries.”
“Which makes me?”
“Faery. A walker. The ifrit’s daughter and one of Anansi’s get. It’ll get you into quite a bit of trouble, some of it very likely fatal, but you’ll like that.”
“Sounds terribly exciting.”
“Sometimes, yes. I’ll be there to help. For a price.”
“Ah. And if I don’t agree, it’s the feather and the balance and the Eater of Souls?”
“Nope. That choice was made already. This is something else.”
“What do I get?”
“My protection, healing when you need it, and my company. It’s no small thing, not on the road you’ve set your feet on.”
“Probably not. So what’s the price?”
“An oath, of course. I was once known for being a fast runner, so each day you’ll run for at least one atur. You’ll keep your body free from hair. And, hm. How do you feel about pork?”
“It’s all right, I suppose.”
“Okay, no more pork for you. Touch nothing that came from a pig.”
“Why?”
“Why not? I’m allowed to be arbitrary.”
“Yes.”
“Yes?”
“I mean yes, I agree. What’s an atur?”
“A measure of distance. I’ll show you tomorrow.”
“And why the hair?”
“I’m sure you can find out, clever girl that you are. Do some research.”
“Okay. What’s your name?”
“Names have power, ifrit’s daughter. Ask instead how I’m called.”
“How shall I call you then?”
“Call me Mafut.”