The World Above (19 page)

Take my mother, for instance. Of course she did not remain in the World Below. As soon as Robin and I had settled things between us, and Jack and Shannon had done the same, Jack tossed his magic bean over his shoulder and returned to the World Below.

Eager to see the place for herself, Shannon clambered down right after him, a choice that made me love her all the more. One week later, first the top of Jack’s head, then the top of Shannon’s, and finally the top of my mother’s head appeared. After sixteen years, Celine Marchand was finally home. She rode to Robin’s castle perched on Verité’s broad, swayed back, looking every inch the duchess that she was.

Though Robin and I were both on hand to greet her, it was Steel who helped my mother to dismount, going down on one knee before her as soon as both of her feet were firmly on the ground.

“My lady,” he said. “I don’t expect you to remember me, but . . .”

“But I do know you,” my mother answered, wonder in her tone. “You are the seneschal’s son . . . Gerard. My husband loved you well.”

Steel looked up into my mother’s face, the tears plain in his eyes. “As I loved him,” he replied. “It would be my very great honor to serve you, my lady, in whatever capacity you care to name.”

“Now wait just a minute,” Robin protested.

And suddenly all of us were laughing. Steel got to his feet. My mother gave him her hand.

“Let me think on the matter,” she said. “I would hate to alienate the new duke by stealing away the friend he needs the most.”

My mother did think about it, and apparently doing this required that she spend large amounts of time in Steel’s company. A week after the double wedding that united Jack and Shannon, and Robin and me, Mama and Steel departed together for the castle that had once been my mother’s home. Her adventure, her new life, doesn’t have a happily ever after just quite yet, but even I can see the path that it might take to her door.

And what of Sean? He makes his home in the Greenwood, by the riverbank where Shannon and I slept our first night in the forest, keeping his eye on the top of that last beanstalk. That is where Jack threw his last bean, the one that brought Mama back to the World Above. But with Mama, Jack, and Shannon all climbing up together, there was no one in the World Below to chop down the beanstalk.

Someday, perhaps, another girl seeking adventure will find it. She, too, will climb up a magic beanstalk to discover what lies above.

And if she doesn’t, there’s still one magic bean left. Robin and I keep it right were Mama did, in a white sugar bowl decorated with pale pink roses. She gave it to us as a wedding present, along with the portrait of her and my father. The painting now hangs in our own great hall. The sugar bowl sits on my dressing table, its contents safe and sound. The magic bean waits, patiently, for the next adventure to come along.

If You Would Know

A story is alive, as you and I are.

It is rounded by muscle and sinew. Rushed with blood. Layered with skin, both rough and smooth. At its core lies soft marrow of hard, white bone. A story beats with the heart of every person who has ever strained ears to listen. on the breath of the storyteller, it soars. Until its images and deeds become so real you can them in the air, shimmering like oases on the horizon line.

A story can fly like a bee, so straight and swift you catch only the hum of its passing. Or move so slowly it seems motionless, curled in upon itself like a snake in the sun. It can vanish like smoke before the wind. Linger like perfume in the nose. Change with every telling, yet always remain the same.

I am a storyteller, like my mother before me and hers before her. These things I know.

Yet, in spite of all this, I have told no story for almost more years than I care to remember. Perhaps that is why I have the need to tell one now.

Not just any story. My story. The tale of a girl named Shahrazad.

You sit up a little straighter in your chair. “But wait!” I hear you cry. “I have no need to hear, to read, this story. I have heard it many times before.”

And this may be true, I must admit. For my story is not a new one. It is old, even us I am new old.

Though you cannot see me (not quite yet, for you have not yet truly decided to enter the life of this story), I smile. I take no offense at your objection. I can be patient, as anyone who knows even the smallest portion of my tale must know.

I watch, as your hand hovers in midair above the page. Will you go forward, or back? Turn the page, or close the cover?

There is a pause.

Then from across the space that separates us. I see the change come over you. Your hand, so still and steady just a moment ago, now trembles in a slight movement toward the next page. . . .

I smile again, for I know that you are mine now.

Or, to be more precise, you are the story’s.

For I recognize the thing that has happened: You have felt the tantalizing brush of surprise. And, close upon its heels, so swift nothing on earth could have prevented its coming, anticipation.

This tale, which you thought so long asleep as to be incapable of offering anything new, has given an unexpected stretch, reached out, and caught you in its arms. Even as your mind thought to refuse, your heart reached back, already surrendering to the story’s ancient spell.

Can you see me now? Not as I am, but at I was?

A young woman of seventeen years. Straight and slim, my hair and eyes as black as the ebony wood chest that was the only possession my mother brought with her when she married my father. My skin, the color of rich, sweet honey. Others who have told my tale have said that I was beautiful. But I can see with no eyes but my own, and so I am no judge.

Are you ready to hear my greatest secret? The one that I have never spoken? You know only a small part of my story. What I am about to relate has never before been told.

I see you set the book down into your lap with a thunk. “But how can this be?” you ask. All have heard of the storyteller so gifted with words that she told tales for one thousand and one nights in a row. With her gift, her voice alone, she saved her own life and that of countless others. Through the years, this story has been handed down, with never a hint at anything left out. How, then, can what I claim be true? How can there be anything more?

Listen now. Listen truly. Fall under my storyteller’s spell. Did I not say that a story could change in the telling yet remain the same in its innermost soul?

Did you truly believe that what you had been told was all there was to know?

Did you ever stop to wonder how the spirit of a man, once a wise and benevolent king, could so lose its way as to plan to make a maiden a bride at night and take her life the very next morning? Did you ever wonder how such a spirit, gone so far astray, could find its way into the light once more?

Was it truly done with words alone?

Or could it be that there was something more?

Something kept long hidden. Held back, untold. A story within a story. Not just the trunk and limbs, which have been told countless times, but something new. Something only I can tell you.

Forget all that you think you know about me. Remember that what you have heard was always told by others. You have never heard me tell my own tale before. No one has, for I have never told it. I will tell it to you now.

Listen to my name as I send it across the years. Do you not hear its power? The way the very syllables are hard and soft all at once, even as I was? They illuminate and darken. Reveal and conceal.

Whisper it now, and my story begins.

Shahrazad. Shahrazad.
Shahrazad.

How the Story Begins

Once, in days so long past even the graybeards among you remember them only in stories, there lived a king who had two sons. Their names were Shahrayar and Shazaman.

Now, this king was a wise man. Where other rulers raised up their sons in jealousy and anger, keeping themselves strong by causing those around them to be weak, this king streangthened himself by making those around him strong, He raised up his sons in harmony and love. And so, at his passing, his kingdom reaped not the whirlwind, but a great reward. For the princes did not quarrel over their father’s earthly goods. Instead, Shahrayar, the eldest, said to his brother, Shazaman, “Hear my words, O Shazaman! You are my brother, and I love you well. Though I am oldest and could, by law, rule all, instead I will make a differnt choice. Hear now what I propose:

“The kingdom of our father is a vast one. Let us then divide it between us, each attending to his own domains and never making war upon the other. In this way, our people will know peace and all will prosper.”

To which Shazaman replied, “Firstborn of our father, my brother, Shahrayar! Truly you are our father’s worthy successor for, even in your greatness, you seek to do me honor. And, as I love you no less than you love me, I will therefore be satisfied with the lands you grane me and never seek to overthrow, you.”

Then Shahrayar divided the kingdom, keeping for himself the vast lands of India Indochina. But to his brother he gave the city of Samarkand, the trade routes and the lands thereof—all jewels of great value.

And so the brothers embraced each other and parted.

But all this is yet to come, for I have let the story run on ahead of itself.

Now, at his father’s death, Shahrayar inherited not only the king’s lands. He also inherited his court and palace. He inherited courtiers and advisors. Chief among them, most high and highly prized, was his vizier. A fitting title! One which means, “the one who bears burdens.”

What burdens this vizier was to bear in the service of his young king shall soon be told.

The vizier was older than his new master, being more of Shahrayar’s father’s age, and he had two daughters. Though they were far apart in years, they were close in love. The younger was a child of ten as this tale opens. Her name was Dinarzad. The elder was a young woman of seventeen. She was called Shahrazad.

Dinarzad’s mother had been a great lady at court. But Shahrazad’s mother had come from afar. Ah! Many were the tales told about her: Maju the Storyteller.

As a young man the vizier had led the forces of Shahrayar’s father to a great victory, deep in the heart of India. When he returned home, he brought with him a bride, daughter of a people both fierce and pround. They lived not in cities and settlements as others did, but traveled always from place to place, as if their true home in the world had yet to be found. They obeyed the laws of all the lands they passed through, yet made alliances with none.

Greatly honored among them were
drabardi
—the tellers of stories and fortunes. It was whispered that the vizier’s young wife was greater than all the
drabardi
who had come before her. So great was her gift that her people wept and cast themselves upon the ground when they understood that she meant to part from them. For, once gone, she would become a stranger and could never return. So said their customs. And it had been prophesied at Maju’s birth that in her time, she would come to bear the greatest
drabardi
of them all.