“Yes?”
My song. I had it for the brief moment after my transformation, but now it felt farther away from me than ever before. My people. Except they were far, in Iyar, behind layers of walls, and I did not want to go back.
“My name,” I said at last. “I always thought Benesret would give it to me when I came back here, came back to her, ready at last to transform. But when I came back, she was gone.”
“They exiled her,” said Uiziya.
“Why?” I asked. “Why did they exile her?”
“Because they were afraid.”
Uiziya e Lali
The nameless man swallowed. Remembering, no doubt, the first time he came here with his lover Bashri-nai-Leylit, looking for the greatest carpet ever woven, to bring back to the Collector.
How Benesret greeted them, helped them. How she wove for them.
“Are you afraid of Benesret?” he asked at last.
I shrugged. “I am not afraid of death. I think I will welcome it. I would give my death to her willingly if only she would teach me.” Such raw yearning was in my voice that it scalded me, scared me. In response, the nameless man’s magical deepnames glittered for a moment in his mind, like warm stars flaring, then settled before I had a chance to see them clearly.
“I do not want you to die,” he blurted out, his eyes on the ground.
“You do not want me to die or to sell my carpet,” I said, frustration knotted with amusement in my voice. “What would you want me do, nameless man?”
“Nen-sasaïr.” The rustle of it was so soft on his lips I almost missed it. “It is just a way-name, until I am given one that is mine.”
“Nen-sasaïr,” I echoed. “Sandbirds, and . . . ?” I did not know the other word.
“The son of sandbirds. Nen: a son. I would be called my father’s son, if I was a Khana man.”
“You are a Khana man,” I said, but saying this, I knew that I would be rebuked.
“I do not fit anywhere,” he said. “Except that I fit with the sandbirds for a brief moment, when I put on the cloth of winds and the sandbirds came to me; when everything sang and swirled and I sang, too, I sang the dawnsong which had been forbidden to me all my life, a religious rite for the glory of Bird’s hidden brother, the singer god, Kimri.”
I remembered the melody from his ritual, yes, devastating and joyous, a promise, a cresting of dawn on his lips, in that moment when a dream was becoming, and the fragility of becoming was not yet revealed in nen-sasaïr’s heart. “Will you sing the dawnsong again?”
“No. Maybe. I don’t know. Sometimes I feel the god—Kimri—just there, behind me, waiting for my song where I cannot see. But I am silent. Khana women are forbidden to sing. I am a man—so I am allowed to sing, but I cannot. My body feels mine like never before; I am whole in my body, but my people will never accept my changing. The thought of it stoppers my throat.”
“You should talk to your people,” I said. “Talk to them before you decide whether or not they would accept you.”
His face flooded with a feeling I could not name. “I can’t, Uiziya. And I won’t. I want to talk to Benesret.”
His hand stirred the dry, hard ground by the carpet of sand, as if he wanted to touch the fringed knots and did not dare. He did not look up when he spoke. “We should find her. Perhaps she will teach you. Perhaps she will give me my name.”
I laughed so bitterly the strands of the carpet of sand shook and moved. “If she wanted to teach me, she would return, exiled or no—with all her power of death, with all her knowledge she would teach me. She weaves the white clothes for the Orphan’s assassins—do you think mere mortals would stop her? She came to my tent once . . .” I stopped. I did not want him to know my secret.
To master the weave of death you must embrace death. Are you ready?
I thought I was ready then, but I wasn’t. Afraid for my children. Myself. Perhaps I was ready now. But nen-sasaïr would reject me like all the others did when I told them. “You will not like me when you learn my secret. You will not want to journey with me.”
“Try me,” he said, his eyes still firmly on the ground. “If nothing else, I am brave.” In his mind, his magic flared again. He did not shroud his mind, so I could see it clearly: three deepnames of different lengths, a single-syllable, a two-syllable, and a threesyllable. A rare and powerful configuration that could not be easily defeated; the Builder’s Triangle, as it was called in his land.
My carpet stirred in response to this magic, the eddies and whirls of sand around slivers of bone that transformed for a moment into bejeweled lizards and snakes, then smoothed out again.
I did not want this moment to end.
It would end when he knew me better.
Everything ends. What would happen if he disdained me? I could just sell my carpet as I wanted. “Then I will show you. My secret. And then you’ll decide.”
“Yes,” nen-sasaïr said.
“If you’ll watch my carpet, I’ll go get provisions. And then we should travel south from here, travel in cool hours and rest when the sun is hottest.”
“Yes,” nen-sasaïr said again. Not questioning anything.
“How will you travel?” I asked him.
“On sand-skis. I’ll show you when you return.”
I saw no sand-skis. I wondered if he’d simply take my carpet and leave; but when I made my way back, my breath short from carrying supplies in the heat, my carpet was still there. And nen-sasaïr was still there, his slim, tall frame shifting on two longish, wide planes of bent wood.
In his mind, nen-sasaïr’s deepnames flared one by one: first the weakest, the three-syllable, like a thin line of light; then the two-syllable, a short, strong line; and finally, the single-syllable, bright like a star—the strongest of them. His deepnames connected to each other, light running between them until they formed a triangle, then spilled their power onto the sand-skis.
“The blades will float just above ground. It’s as if I am gliding on air.”
“Me too. On my carpet.” I wanted to smile at him, but I had forgotten how. The motion of my lips stretched my face in odd ways.
The Four Profound Weaves. A carpet of wind, a carpet of sand, a carpet of song, and a carpet of bones. Change, wanderlust, hope, and death.
Nen-sasaïr watched me intently as I breathed my deepnames into the carpet of sand. It floated, lifting me above ground, carrying me out of the encamp- ment, where the tents of my people swayed in the wind, empty. They all were trading, but I had not even tried to sell my carpet, and I did not look back. My weave of wanderlust floated over the boundary spirals drawn in the dust, over the guardian snakes that lifted their heads in recognition and farewell, then settled.
My past lay ahead, and its secrets. The wind and the sand to all sides. Behind me, nen-sasaïr followed.
I had woven the carpets of air and sand. Benesret’s great carpet had been made of song. Only death was missing now.
nen-sasaïr
We traveled in silence through the cooler hours—I on my sand-skis, Uiziya floating ahead of me, only slightly above ground. I had known her for forty years—no, I had only known her briefly, forty years ago. When we were both young. When I traveled with my lover Bashri-nai-Leylit on a desperate trading venture to find the greatest treasure ever woven, to buy our other lover’s life from the Collector.