aeli?”
The house is covered in cloth. Some of it’s jewel-toned silk, velvety shadows rippling over it, and some is block-printed flowers. The garden is full of it, with thick sheets hanging round the path, the chanticleer and its broken-bottle chimes a warped shadow. When he finds the red door, the kitchen is unrecognizable with reds and blues and pinks, with swirls of vines and delicate, faded poppies there. He can’t find the incense burner or the dented old teakettle.
He’s never heard hama play this song before. It doesn’t have the feel of his fingers on the strings, or the deep rich notes of his oud, and it’s not tuned well enough.
He doesn’t know who else would be playing in his house, and the sound’s drifting from the bedroom, so it’s there he goes. The walls are covered in dark crushed velvet.
He runs the back of his hand over it and leaves something darker glistening in the folds; the thick skin of his knuckles is broken, busted open, blood smeared on his scarred fingers. He thinks to go back and find the junia, or perhaps to find one of the little compartments behind the cloth – he’s never been on the stairs, but he knows there’s bandages and more, hidden here somewhere. His throat is dry; he’ll find hama, and then the water.
This hallway is long, and there are corridors that lead off to many places. There should be lanterns lit. He wonders if he should go and get the prefect; he’s not so good at finding his way here, he should’ve remembered.
He finds it still, just following the song. Somebody else is in there, singing with hama. It’s cheap white cotton hung over the doorway, mottled with old sweat-stains, fraying. There’s a place where the cotton has worn thin, and a tiny hole. He has to bend down to look through it.
“Yer daoa said so t’ me!”
He starts awake, his heart racing. He blinks, and blinks, and blinks, but doesn’t see – until there’s a soft glow at the edge of his sight. His eyes adjust. He shivers and pulls the blanket closer about him.
The woven wool is rough under his fingers. He doesn’t remember a blanket; the last thing he remembers – he sits up, easing back against the wood and heaving a sigh. His throat is faintly dry. In the chill, he can smell dust and sand and sweat, but also woodsmoke and dried spices.
“Oh, adame,” comes a familiar, ringing voice, “a foolish man hacks at the tree that bears fruit he covets.” There’s an intricate tangle of notes, and then a burst of raucous laughter.
“Show us you’ve the fruits, then, Inis,” the first voice shoots back. “Play arogun e’úwas.”
He took his sandals off somewhere in the evening, before he fell asleep. Now, wrapping the blanket round his shoulders, he slips into them. The night air is bracing; the smells are louder, and his stomach aches. At some distance, a break in the dark – a pit with a healthy fire and a broad, shallow clay pot. It sheds light over a spread of blankets over the well-trod sand. There are a few more more, only a little distant.
Closest the wagon, the light limns a familiar shape, glimpsed sidelong – a cloud of hair, red prickling at its edges; a curved, twisted silhouette. Inis is sitting with her legs crossed, an instrument in her lap. It’s not an oud; he doesn’t know what it is, except that it’s oblong, with a stretch of hide underneath the strings and a long, elegant neck.
Nearby, ada’na Ole sits, rapt, an expression not quite a frown on her face. Closer sits another wick with a narrow face and a nose that’s been broken many times, his grin a twist of lines on his face.
“Úquwidi, I said I’d play it before the night was out, and I will.” Inis’ callused fingers dance over the strings, then she shrugs. “If you know the words.”
“Who doesn’t know the words? Except for dzúm’dzapirred hair.”
Inis laughs. “Bhe. You’ll sing, adame, of the lady that comes from the waters of the Turga, and I’ll do the qalqa?”
He takes a few steps out from the wagons, wincing at the ache in his thighs. He feels oddly light-headed, still dry-mouthed, but Inis is playing, and the rough-voiced wick is launching into lilting Mugrobi. The dunes are distant silhouettes, he notices first, and the sky –
He stands with his face tilted upward, dumb, ‘til he catches a familiar face by the fire. He waddles to join them. A clap has started up. Not too distant, the fire licks off a broad face with a jagged scar, but he does not look.