Chapter Five: Dream Lord
‘You want him?’ Haroun repeated in disbelief. The tip of his sword wavered in confusion. ‘Why do you want him? Why? He brings misfortune to all who are near to him!’
‘Faraas’, the scribe said impatiently. He shouldered his way past Haroun and over to me. He hauled me up and began propelling me forward, but Haroun blocked his way.
‘Wait.’ The tip of his sword came up again. ‘The boy must be killed to stop the spread of evil. If he lives, he will eat the souls of the other children, and bring darkness to the camp.’
The scribe tutted. ‘Stop parroting what these old grey beards have told you,’ he gestured towards the elders who looked offended, ‘and have one jod of sense.’ He fumbled in his bisht, reaching for an inner pocket, and finally brought forth a dinar. ‘There. Said I’d pay, so there you are.’
Haroun stared at him. ‘You’d pay the price of a good milk-goat for one half-grown boy?’
‘Yes.’ Haroun caught the coin tossed to him, and the scribe led the way out of the circle, past the incredulous camp members who had only now grasped just what was happening, and had begun to murmur accordingly.
‘You must be mad!’ Haroun called after him. In spite of his protest, I saw him tuck the dinar into his sash. ‘Mad! Why do you want him, anyway?’
‘The boy interests me. You’ve got your money; the rest is my affair.’
In any business transaction, it is important to know the name of the other party, buyer or seller. Haroun yelled, ‘What’s your name, anyway?’
‘Qeisal-ben-Salathiel. Come along boy, don’t dawdle.’
I hurried after him to where the caravan had tethered their camels and horses; they would stay by them and sleep with their luggage. There was no point in pitching tents for just one night, so Maradin, the caravan leader, had simply made a fire, and the travellers would sleep beside it. This fire had been smothered when everyone had left to see the judgement of the elders, and the scribe, Qeisal, kicked at it, knocking away the covering of camel dung and releasing the smouldering flame trapped beneath. A tongue of bright fire leapt up, rejoicing in its new-found freedom, and spat out a happy spark, which danced and vanished in a second. Qeisal went and checked the camels’ tethers; when he came back, I was still standing by the fire, quietly watching him. A lot had been crammed into the past few minutes, and I was careful not to think more than was necessary. When I was ready, I would have questions, but now I didn’t know what to think, what to feel.
‘Sit down, boy, sit down,’ Qeisal exclaimed. I did so, and he asked, ‘What’s your name, boy?’
‘Rohsair.’
‘Who told you that?’ he asked. ‘Who gave you that name?’
‘I don’t know.’ Confused by something I had never really thought of before, I tried to explain. ‘I just… know that my name is Rohsair. I am Rohsair.’
Qeisal grinned in delight and leaned forward, his hand outstretched. I flinched away from his fingers, and he stopped, looking at me quizzically. ‘I won’t hurt you, you know. Sit still.’
‘I don’t like people touching me,’ I said in a hard voice. I didn’t know why this was, but I didn’t. The thought of people’s fingers touching my skin, crawling over my flesh like ants over a dead body was one of my deepest horrors. It governed my reactions around other people a lot.
‘I won’t hurt you,’ Qeisal repeated gently. ‘I just want to feel your heart-beat. Just that, nothing else.’ Before I could move away, he reached over and placed his hand on my chest. With a great effort, I held still, but remained tense as he felt my heart; he drew in an excited breath as he found the quick drub-drub knocking against his fingers.
He sat back, and asked his last question, his blue eyes almost spitting sparks in his excitement. ‘Boy - Rohsair, are your bones… hollow?’
‘Yes. You know they are,’ I added, a trifle resentfully. This man was asking questions that he already seemed to know the answers to, while I still didn’t know what was going on.
‘Yes!’ Qeisal cried. He beamed at me, reaching up to tuck in the end of his turban, which had slithered down again.
‘Yes, what?’
‘Yes, boy, you’re a Dream Lord!’ Qeisal said happily. ‘Where’s your phoenix?’
Resisting the impulse to goggle, I said, ‘Erm… I lost it.’
‘You lost your phoenix?’ Qeisal stared at me, then frowned sympathetically. ‘Oh, I’m sorry. Was it recently?’
‘No…’ I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. When I opened them, Qeisal was still there. ‘I don’t have a phoenix, have never had a phoenix, and I’m sorry, but I really don’t understand what you’re talking about.’
‘You’ve never heard of the Dream Lords?’ Qeisal asked, surprised. ‘The Masters of the Phoenixes? The Facts in Time?’
I shook my head, and he sighed. ‘Well, I suppose in a nomad camp like this… always moving on, never staying in one place to gather news…’ He got up and went to one of the nearby camels kneeling placidly on the sand, its dull, sandy-coloured side mottled with moving shadows cast by the fire. Qeisal rummaged in one of the packs set down near the animals and dug something out. He brought it back and handed it to me. It was a book. I had only seen two books before in my entire life; one of medicinal plants, and the other of the insides of the human body. Kumanne kept them wrapped up at the bottom of one of her boxes, and I had only seen them when I had broken my arm and stayed in her tent.
Qeisal flicked to the page he wanted, and on it, I saw a painted picture above a large block of writing. The picture was of a man with a large bird, somewhat smaller than a vulture on his wrist. It had dull yellow plumage with a speckled breast; its dark orange tail was long and low sweeping, and on its head was a crest of similar dark orange feathers. Its long hooked beak and talons were black, and its large eye was a bright blue.
‘What is that bird?’ I asked, pointing to the picture.
‘That’s a phoenix. Look, it says underneath.’
‘I can’t read.’
Qeisal sighed, then brightened. ‘Never mind, I’ll teach you on the way.’
‘On the way where?’
Qeisal leaned forward, his face serious, almost grave. ‘Rohsair, you are a Dream Lord. You’ve got to learn how to act like one, so you’ll travel with me to my home in Iskander. You can study from the library there, and I’ll teach you what I know. Even though I’m not a Dream Lord myself, I’ve met them in the past, and I know how the Dreaming works.’
My mind was still having an inordinate amount of difficulty adjusting to this new concept. ‘But I still don’t understand,’ I said, almost pleading for knowledge. ‘What is a Dream Lord?’
Qeisal pointed to the writing in the book beneath the picture of the phoenix. ‘This is what Lahmud Ashraf says.’ He took the book from my nerveless fingers, and read aloud, almost chanted,
‘They know who they are from the moment their existence begins. They hold onto their name, for that is all they have that stays the same. They are the fixed point in an ever-shifting, ever-changing world. Time flows around them, like water around a stone; they are Facts in the timeline of this universe. But this, their greatest blessing, is also their greatest curse, for they wander the world of Dreams in eternal youth, and their loved ones age and die around them. They can never be with anyone for their whole life, for their whole life is forever. They are doomed to wander alone for eternity; they are the Dream Lords; they stretch on for as long as Time itself, and their legacy is memory. Dreams turn to Nightmares; the kings of countries die and are buried and are succeeded; everything changes. But the Dream Lords stay the same.’
There was a small silence. I could hear one of the camels groan as it shifted on the sand. ‘That is what you are, Rohsair,’ Qeisal said softly. ‘A Dream Lord. Come with me, and I’ll teach you. In Iskander there are more Dream Lords, and you can learn from them as well.’
‘Learn from who?’ Maradin stepped into the firelight and squatted down on his heels beside Qeisal, while Zara began setting out the bed-fleeces.
‘Rohsair’s travelling with us,’ Qeisal said. ‘I’ll pay for him.’
Maradin nodded affably, but did not ask why. Instead he asked me, ‘What did you do to make them hate you so much?’ He jerked a thumb over his shoulder to indicate the rest of the camp.
‘The boy’s a Dream Lord,’ Qeisal supplied, when I simply shrugged, ‘and to this uneducated lot of nomads, that’s something to be feared. Just because they don’t understand a thing, they destroy it. Think what they could learn by studying this boy instead of trying to kill him instead!’
Maradin nodded. ‘A Dream Lord, eh? I’ve heard tell of those folk. It’s said that they cause mirages in the desert. They lure travellers on to wells that aren’t there, and steal their valuables when they die of thirst.’
‘Ignorance and superstition,’ said Qeisal contemptuously.
I sat and let their conversation flow over me. Lahmud’s words were fresh in my mind, and I could not help but feel a little scared by the words he had used. A Dream Lord… their legacy is memory… Their curse, though… that doesn’t effect me. I’ve got no loved ones to see die. Was that thought comforting or not?
٭ص
The caravan left the next morning. Maradin led the train of camels through the tents, heading towards the open desert. I led Qeisal’s camel, a tall, dusty animal who had been introduced to me as Kaffí; she looked down her nose at me with a bored expression, but responded to my touch upon her halter.
Camp children tagged along for a little, their interest piqued by the events of the previous night, but their parents soon called them away. Many adults stopped what they were doing and watched us leave. I saw Kumanne and Sharifah standing in the doorway of their tent, watching me, but when I caught their eyes, Kumanne looked away, and Sharifah made the sign of the wheat ear. I saw the sign against evil a lot as we passed through; men and women sketched it in the air openly or hid their fingers behind their backs, depending on whether they favoured defiance or caution in dealing with wickedness.
I felt a turmoil of emotions as I left the people I had known for my entire life. Sadness, yes; sorrow and regret. Regret as I realised that I could never be a part of them; these hard-working men and women with a perpetual restlessness in their hearts, and the itch in their feet that only travelling over the desert sands would scratch. They lived in a world of their own; a clique with their own rules and customs that I could never conform to, no matter how hard I tried.
We left the tents behind, and saw the open desert spread before us like a white blanket, a vast expanse of heated sand. Then I heard footsteps behind us, and Nathu’s voice screaming out the old malediction. ‘Mar of darkness! Mar of darkness and empty souls!’
I tightened my grip on Kaffí’s halter, the red woven braid digging into my palm, and set my face towards the desert ahead. I would not hear that cry again until many years later.
- - -
Mar: Brat, bad child.
Faraas: Rubbish, rot.
Jod: Smallest amount possible; very minute
It really was so good...I couldn't find any errors. Really. I know, I'm always so nitpicky, but this was good.
great imagery