The Book of Wonders (5 page)

Zardi put her ear to the hard wood.

“Why my daughter?” she heard her father say in a cracked voice. “Shahryār, I have served you loyally. I have done all that you have asked.”

Zardi flinched. The sultan was here, in her house.

“Really, Faisal, did you think that just because you were my vizier that your daughter could not become my praisemaker?” There was a low hiss of breath. “You should be thanking me for the honor. Fate smiles on you, Faisal, for only this very evening my former praisemaker accidentally fell from the watchtower. Such a shame, she was only two days into her season.” The sultan tutted. “Oh well. Zubeyda has now taken her place in the watchtower, and in ninety days' time, as the sun reaches its zenith, it will be her turn to be hunted.”

N
inety days
. Blood flowed over Zardi's teeth as she bit down on her tongue to stop herself from crying out.
Ninety days until the Hunt
.

“You want thanks?” Baba snarled. “You tell me with a smile that you plan to kill my daughter and you think I should be pleased. You're deranged, Shahryār, rotten inside.”

The sultan growled with anger. “You forget yourself. You have no idea of what I am, or what I am still capable of.”

“Forgive me for raising my voice.” Zardi's father gave a shuddering sob. “Please, I beg you, release Zubeyda.”

The sultan laughed. “Oh, you are a worm of a man to beg. I saw your younger daughter tonight. Zardi, I believe?” The sultan said her name as if he enjoyed the shape of it in his mouth, and Zardi sunk her nails deep into the hardness of the door, wishing it was his face.

“She was ready to take action, her eyes full of fire. Shame on you that your child has more bravery in her little finger than you do in your whole body.” Shahryār laughed again. “I look forward to hunting her. But I must not be impatient, one daughter at a time.”

Her father screamed in rage. There was the thud of one body slamming into another. The sound of wood breaking.

“Baba!” Zardi pushed against the door but it was bolted shut.

“Move again, Faisal, and my guards will break your neck.” The sultan's voice from behind the door was as cold and flat as a blade.

“Why do you seek to destroy me?” Baba asked brokenly. “My entire family.”

“Because you would seek to destroy me,” the sultan snapped back. “You were told to discover whether the stories about Aladdin being alive were true. You reported that he was not, but my spies tell me differently. They say that as a baby, the prince of Arribitha was secretly smuggled from these shores. Now my enemies search for him, hoping he will lead a rebellion. Whispers of a revolution grow, and somewhere in the city of Sabra, a secret order of warriors has risen: the Varish. They train in the arts of assassination, fueled only by their desire to slay me. You let your ruler down, Faisal. My taking your elder daughter is your punishment, not a crude impulse. I have been planning it for many weeks, watching Zubeyda's every move. She was always going to be the next praisemaker.”

“Let her go, Sultan Shahryār.” Baba's voice was a whisper. “None of what you have heard is true. It is just rumor.”

“Rumor is dangerous!” The sound of a fist coming down on a table punched into Zardi's ears. “As my vizier you should have snuffed it out. For all I know you might be involved in this planned rebellion.” There was a sharp, brisk clap. “Guards, bind and gag him.”

Zardi jumped back as the library door flew open. She found herself looking up into the sultan's sharply carved face. Three guards stood at his back.

“Tsk, tsk, little one. Has no one told you not to listen at doors?” The sultan brought his face right up to hers. “You might not like what you hear.” He blinked, and Zardi could see a pair of red eyes tattooed onto his eyelids.

Even with his eyes closed he can see
, she thought, remembering the praisemaker's mournful voice from the watchtower.

Two guards dragged Baba forward. Zardi's fingers crept to the bow at her waist, but another of the sultan's guards was on her immediately, a saber at her throat.

“Why, you are like an angry kitten,” the sultan said approvingly. “All ferocity but no strength. Maybe I should just imprison you now so that you can join your sister for the Hunt?”

Baba gave a muffled cry through his gag and tried to break away from the guards who held him.

“Leave her alone,” a voice said from behind them. Despite the blade at her throat, Zardi turned to see Rhidan on the marble stairs. His normally spiky silver hair was even messier than usual, as if he had been raking his fingers through it again and again.

“What will you do if I do not?” the sultan asked, looking at Rhidan with a strange intensity.

“I'll fight you.” Rhidan's voice was unsteady, but he took more steps down the stairs. “I'll fight you a-and you'll be sorry.”

The sultan snorted. “Is that all you will do?” He looked disappointed. “Not yet fully hatched, I see, young Rhidan. But surely it can't be long.” The sultan clicked his fingers at the tattooed guard towering over Zardi and the soldier withdrew his saber. “I will leave your precious Zardi alone, but remember this kindness when the time comes. You and I will stand together one day.”

The sultan's eyes slid to Zardi. “We will see each other again, angry kitten. I promise to keep your father safe—under lock and key, in fact.” He gave a bark of laughter. “He can keep your sister company until the day of the Hunt. And when I return with my slain prey, he will truly be sorry for failing me. And that sorrow will be the last thing he thinks of before I kill him.”

The sultan stalked toward the door, his guards dragging Baba behind him.

Zardi's eyes met her father's. She expected to see fear in their depths, but she found something else entirely. She saw love for her, regret, and a plea. Her whole life she had struggled to understand her father, but in that instant, before he was dragged out of the door and into the night, she did.

There's only one thing left to do
, Zardi realized. She began to climb the stairs to her bedroom.

Rhidan grabbed her hand as she passed. “We have to talk,” he urged. “What are we going to do about your father, about Zubeyda?”

Zardi couldn't look at him. Rhidan was as good at reading her face as he was at reading a book of epigrams. She couldn't risk him guessing her plan. “I need you to tell Nonna what has happened,” she said, refusing to meet his gaze. “We'll talk in the morning.” Impulsively, Zardi hugged him. He smelled fresh and cool like rainwater. “Thank you for standing up for me.”

She ran up the rest of the steps before Rhidan could respond. Once inside her room, she lit the lanterns and bolted the door shut before walking over to the mirror on the dressing-table at the end of her chamber.

Staring at her reflection, Zardi unpinned her scarf and pulled the long rope of her braid over her shoulder. She unraveled it, feeling its unruly thickness beneath her fingertips. A memory of her sister teaching her how to braid hair when she was just four years old caught and held her fast. Zubeyda had been so patient, sitting with her as she practiced intertwining the three strands again and again. She could almost hear Zubeyda's squeal of delight, feel her sister's hugs and kisses when she had finally got the braid right.

In the sheet of glass, Zardi gazed at the oval face, long nose, strong jaw, and the black eyebrows that swept upward like two cormorant wings above hazel eyes. She willed herself to remember this image of herself, for it was time to remove it from the world. She would not let the sultan come for her.

Reaching into the dressing-table drawer, she picked up a dagger with an ivory hilt. The blade glinted fiercely in the candlelight.
This was it
.

Taking a deep breath, Zardi grabbed a handful of hair and cut through the locks with one clean slice. She opened her hand and let the strands fall to the ground but refused to look at herself in the mirror. She couldn't stop now. Not until her transformation was complete.

She took another handful of her thick ebony locks and cut again, and then again. The blade took on a life of its own, hacking away until most of her waist-length hair was on the floor. At last, she faced her reflection.

Zardi, reinvented.

She put the dagger down and ran her fingers through her new choppy haircut. With the weight of her long tresses gone, her hair curled tightly and she looked just like a boy. A boy who could convince a boat's captain to take her on as a member of his crew. A boy who could get to Sabra and find the secret order of warriors who sought to destroy the sultan. It was what her father would want her to do—she was sure of it.

Crossing over to the chest in the corner of the room, she took out the plain leather bag her grandmother had given her as a birthday present that morning and packed a bar of soap and a muslin facecloth. She then took the carved falcon that Sinbad had given her from her pocket and placed that into her bag as well. Her lucky charm.

Zardi stared around her room, realizing she didn't have much else to take. She couldn't take any of her knee-length tunics or trousers because their swirls of embroidery would instantly give her away as a girl. Where was she going to get boys' clothing?

Rhidan
, a voice whispered inside her. Zardi shook her head. She couldn't involve him in her plan. He'd insist on going with her and she wouldn't take him into danger. Her stomach twisted in protest at her decision to leave him. They had grown up together, done everything together. Rhidan was not her brother, he was her twin heartbeat. Zardi kneaded the thin skin around her eyes, forcing herself to collect her thoughts. She'd go to the laundry room and grab a pile of Rhidan's dirty clothes. They might be a bit smelly but she had little choice.

Kneeling down, she pulled a carved sandalwood moneybox from under the bed. She flipped the lid and tipped the box upside down. Silver coins became rain, landing softly on the richly carpeted floor. She trembled as she saw the imprinted face of the sultan on the metal discs, but she forced herself to touch the coins and count them. Sixty dirhams. Not much.
But enough to get me to Sabra if I offer to help on deck as well
.

The idea of finally fulfilling her dream, leaving Taraket and sailing on a boat, made her breath catch.
Wait, Zardi
, she told herself firmly. If her plan was to work she needed to get hold of the clothes, but she couldn't leave her room until everyone was asleep.

She sat at the dressing table with a piece of parchment and her reed and inkpot, wondering how to say good-bye. She couldn't give away too much of her plan in case the sultan's guards ever found it.

In the end, a few lines said it all.

To Nonna and Rhidan
,

I must leave. Try not to worry about me, just believe that I'll come back to you, and when I do, I'll have found a way to save Zubeyda and Baba. The hunter will become the hunted
.

I love you both
.

Z

She looked at the words she'd scratched on the paper, nervousness making her hand shake. Now that she'd written the words, her quest felt frighteningly real. She'd devote her every living breath to finding a way to destroy the sultan and stop his tyranny. Give her life, if need be, to rescue Zubeyda and Baba. Zardi watched the black ink dry on the page, and in her mind's eye the ebony lines and curves blurred and became the cruel planes of Shahryār's face. “I'll find a way to stop you,” she whispered into the quiet room. “I'll search the whole world if I have to.”

Zardi waited until the house had finally settled into sleep and, with her bag over one shoulder and her archer's belt with its quiver around her waist, she quietly unbolted her door. She crept into the laundry room, a squat outhouse to the side of the villa. By the moon's chalky light she took a sheet from the drying stone and tore it into strips before binding her chest. For the first time in her life she was grateful for her boyish form and that she didn't have the curves of her sister. She then changed into one of Rhidan's outfits, a white tunic over loose pants, and stuffed more of his clothing into her bag.

Zardi took one last look at her home, thinking of Nonna and Rhidan sleeping inside. The stone building looked peaceful, its tiled walls of azure and gold warm and welcoming. But the desolate streets of the city waited for her. She knew that the sultan's guards watched from the towers of the city, even after dark, or lurked around corners, eager to catch someone out after curfew. Her throat began to burn. She desperately wanted to walk back into the house and crawl into bed. She wanted to wake up in the morning and shake her head as Zubeyda managed to convince Baba to let her buy a new dress for the thousandth time, or sit in the kitchen and hear Nonna singing to herself as she made breakfast. “If I stay I'll never find a way to stop the sultan,” she reminded herself out loud. “I'll never find a way to save Zubeyda and Baba.”
Or myself
. Zardi trapped the last thought and pushed it down deep.

Squeezing her eyes shut against the tears that wanted to fall, she walked away, leaving the villa behind. Wending her way through the streets that led out to the port, she ran through her plan. First she needed to reach the docks without being detected by the guards. Then she'd hide beneath the pier for the rest of the night. At sunrise she would find a boat getting ready to depart for Sabra and offer its captain her services as a temporary deckhand.

She kept to the edges of the path where the shadows were thick as molasses. Soon the grandeur of the villas gave way to squat buildings with flat, woven roofs and collapsing walls. Ragged tents filled the spaces between the buildings. There was evidence everywhere of how little the sultan cared for his subjects, how he was breaking the poor with his greed for high taxes.