Shrine of the Desert Mage
Chapter 2: The Storyteller

Morning came to Ravan with little outward sign to mark the passing of one era and the dawn of a new. Few citizens were aware of any change at all; even those who'd participated in the chase through the darkness thought of it as nothing more than a thief in the night--an annoyance, to be sure, but scarcely an interruption in the peaceful flow of events that made the calendar of Ravan such a remarkably boring document.

The thoughts of Jafar al-Sharif were not upon such weighty matters as the change of worldly Cycles and the fate of all Parsina. The thoughts of Jafar al-Sharif were centered more on the rumblings in his belly and the lightness of his purse, which he'd emptied yesterday of its last few copper fals so his daughter Selima could buy some food for the day. And the thoughts of Jafar al-Sharif were centered on how he could fill up both belly and purse while yet making an honest living.

Like Hakem Rafi the blackhearted, Jafar al-Sharif was but lately come to the Holy City of Ravan. Like Hakem Rafi, he was finding his new home less than rewarding to a man of his peculiar talents. But there the similarities ended. Where Hakem Rafi stole men's money, Jafar al-Sharif stole only their attention; where Hakem Rafi killed people, Jafar al-Sharif killed naught but time. Jafar al-Sharif was, by both profession and inclination, a storyteller--and while some have argued that storytellers fulfill no useful purpose in life's plan, the harm he did was likewise minimal.

In his native Durkhash, Jafar al-Sharif had been justly renowned as one of the premier artisans of his craft. His patrons included the noblest families of the city, and more than a few times he'd been called upon to entertain King Ashtor himself. The death of his beloved wife Amineh had so driven Jafar to distraction, though, that he had no choice but to seek his fortune elsewhere. He'd come to Ravan in hopes of improving his lot--yet the only work he'd found here was telling bawdy stories in taverns for meals and drinks, a particularly demeaning occupation. Still, in the daytime, he searched for higher employment with hope ever strong that his true talents would be recognized and rewarded.

Jafar al-Sharif stopped his morning walk before the carved wooden gate of a wealthy home in the northwest quarter of the city, and paused to gather his nerve. Knowing that outward appearance was a vital asset to a storyteller he'd taken great pains to look the part. He was a tall man with a suitably handsome face, old enough to have streaks of gray prominent now in his well-kept beard. He was wearing the best of the three outfits he currently owned: the white sirwaal pants with the gold sash, the white kaftan with the gold sequined sleeves, his good niaal, and the mantle so heavily embroidered with gold thread it was hard to see the color of the original fabric. Only a person looking very closely would see how badly frayed the embroidery around the hem and the cuffs really was.

Straightening his lemon yellow turban, Jafar al-Sharif took a deep breath, stepped forward, and knocked authoritatively on the gate. After a few moments the door was opened by a crusty old man who, by his outfit, appeared to be one of the household domestics.

Jafar al-Sharif bowed and said in his deepest voice, "Salaam to thee, O worthy servant of a noble house. Please inform thy master that Jafar al-Sharif awaits his pleasure."

The old man gave a slight nod of acknowledgment and closed the door again. Minutes passed interminably. The gate had been opened just enough to allow the aroma of breakfast to escape and tantalize the storyteller's nostrils, and his nose reminded him how empty his belly was. Jafar al-Sharif stood and suffered until the door opened and the old man reappeared.

"My master says he knows no one named Jafar al-Sharif," he said in a thick Chudish accent, and started to close the gate again.

The storyteller moved forward just far enough that his foot rested against the gate near its hinges, not allowing it to close. He waved his arms in broad gestures as he spoke. "Allow me then, O valued servant, to correct the oversight which I'm sure is due solely to my having come but so recently to Ravan. In my native Durkhash I am widely renowned as Jafar the golden-tongued, Jafar the spellbinder, Jafar the spinner of a thousand thousand tales, Jafar the fablemaster…."

"A storyteller," the old man said with insight, and again would have closed the door had Jafar's foot not prevented it.

"More than some mere street-chanter, I assure you," said Jafar, striving still to keep the desperation out of his voice. "My repertoire is the most complete in all Parsina, suitable for any occasion. I have sagas of history and stories with morals to educate the young men of the household…."

"They already have teachers," the old man interrupted.

"Stories of love to touch the heart, stories of adventure to chill the blood, stories of magic to astound the mind," Jafar continued undaunted, his hands waving with serpentine grace to emphasize his words. "I have stories of manners to charm the ladies and stories of erotic delights to please the most jaded of men. My stories speak to the soul as well as to the ear, lifting it to soar through the air like a hawk on the desert currents…."

"We don't need a storyteller."

"Ah, you only believe that because you've never heard my talents for yourself. Your voice marks you as a native of illustrious Chudistan. Surely you were raised on tales of King Bhered and the Varanhi Knights. What Chudish boy doesn't grow up dreaming of Khanseranno, the Jeweled City, and its beautiful warrior queen, Moranna? Announce me to your master, let me regale his table, and I'll make those tales live again for you."

"My master isn't Chudish and those stories wouldn't interest him," the gatekeeper said stubbornly.

"Then I have others that will. What man does not need to forget the cares of his worldly day, to fly on wings of song and fable to another land beyond his own? What noble table is complete without the entertainment only a fablemaster can provide, to regale household and guests alike with tales of other times and other climes? I ask you, sir…."

"We've already got a poet," the old servant said.

"A poet? A poet?" Jafar al-Sharif straightened his back and drew himself up even taller, towering over the shorter figure of the old man. "Surely a man of your intelligence, of your Chudish discernment, knows better than that. Consider, O illustrious doorkeeper, what is a poet? Merely a rhymer, a juggler of words in clever order. I do not mean to speak ill of poets, far from it; poets have been some of my dearest companions. I myself, from time to time, have been heard to say an occasional rhyme. A man whose table boasts both a storyteller and a poet is justly renowned as a learned man indeed, for all knowledge and all beauty are available at his command.

"But to retain a poet in place of a storyteller is rankest folly. That is the valuing of style above content, the frame more than the picture. Poetry supports and enhances a story; it does not substitute for it. A man who keeps just a poet would go through the world with one ear and one eye when he could easily have two at his disposal. A poet alone…."

The old servant had heard more than enough. He slammed the gate so hard that Jafar al-Sharif had to pull back his foot lest his ankle be shattered.

"May thy nose grow warts on the inside, O guzzler of camel's piss." Jafar spat the Chudish curse at the now-vanished gatekeeper--but not loudly enough, he hoped, to really be heard. He was in no position to alienate anyone in Ravan, no matter how rude or abrupt they were.

Instead he turned his feet northward along the Street of Jewelers and walked along, muttering to himself. "Thus is Jafar, confidant of kings, brought low. Forced to argue with menials about the worthiness of art, forced to justify my own existence to an ignorant Chudistani who knows nothing about talent and cares even less."

He kicked at a clot of dirt in the road at his feet and, in a voice to mock the servant's, repeated, "We've already got a poet. Now all thou needst is a brain, son of a monkey's sputum."

He tried again at other gates and other houses throughout the morning, but his reception was largely the same. Storytellers were not in vogue in Ravan these days. Poets, it seemed, were all the rage. Every rich merchant and noble household sponsored at least one, if not an entire stable of the creatures--yet no one was willing to spend a dirham for a storyteller of substance and art.

Jafar's spirits sank lower with each rejection. To be unwanted is a bad thing, but to know one has a proven talent and to be outcast because it is unpopular is devastating. Jafar's eyes were cast hopelessly downward as he at last gave up his attempts for the day and began making his way through the now-busy streets of Ravan to the caravanserai where he and Selima currently dwelled. Perhaps tonight he could find some other tavern where his stories were fresh and his welcome hadn't been worn out.

With his gaze so low, he could not miss the glint of gold as it shone from the corner of a doorway. Thinking at first it might be a coin, he moved closer and saw that it was merely gold thread along the bottom of a long rectangular piece of good white linen. The gold was stitched in a design he recognized as lettering, but the words meant nothing to him. Reading was not among the talents of Jafar al-Sharif. He could hear any story once and know it forever in all its detail, but the mystery of the written word was still beyond his grasp. It was a trait he shared with most men of his time.

Jafar the storyteller bent over and picked up the discarded cloth. He knew enough of such matters to tell it was a valuable piece of fabric--too valuable to be simply lying about in the street. Since it had been lying near a doorway his first thought was that the owner of this building must have dropped it--but the building was a large warehouse, currently empty. The words sewn on the bottom of the cloth might be some blessing or invocation, but they would not reveal the name of the owner; no one sewed names onto cloth because a fine piece of fabric could be handed down from generation to generation, reworn and remade in a variety of guises. There simply was no clue to the original owner of the cloth, and so Jafar assumed it was his to find and keep and use as he would.

The cloth was finely done, but ironically enough it was of little use to him because there wasn't enough of it to sell. There was real gold in the thread, but to pull the embroidery apart would devalue the entire piece.

"O great lord Oromasd, mysterious indeed are thy gifts," Jafar mused. "If I had found food, or money with which to buy food, I would have been eternally grateful for thy bounty. Instead, thou givest me a cloth I can neither eat nor sell. I wonder, sometimes, at thy sense of perversity."

He was about to discard the cloth once again when an unselfish thought struck him. True, the cloth was useless to him, but his daughter Selima might have some use for it. She'd been wearing her late mother's dresses a year now, and even they were becoming threadbare. It had been so long since she'd had anything new of her own. Jafar had seen her eyeing with envy the beautifully dressed women of Ravan, but Selima had made no complaint, no protest of her lot in life. She deserved at least a token of his parental love for her patience and good spirits.

Jafar al-Sharif looked at the fabric again and smiled, picturing his beautiful Selima wearing it draped over her head and down her back. He could hear her laughter in the ears of his imagination, and he could picture her smile lighting up an entire room with its glow. This cloth would be a gift for Selima, then, courtesy of her father and the great lord Oromasd. Jafar might be in little demand as a storyteller and unable to earn even their daily food, but he vowed there was no one, king or peasant, on the face of this earth who would surpass him in parental affection.

With his love for his daughter warming his heart, Jafar al-Sharif tenderly folded the newfound fabric and held it to his chest as he walked slowly back home.

Near the central fountain in the maidan of Ravan, behind the King's Bazaar, was the caravanserai where Jafar and his daughter currently made their home. This was a large two-story building with a wide courtyard and a central fountain of its own. Merchants and pilgrims from all corners of Parsina stayed here on their travels through Ravan; merchandise was stored in ground floor rooms around the courtyard while the travelers themselves slept in the upper floor rooms, alone or in dormitories depending on their situation. The landlord of the caravanserai appraised each new guest upon arrival according to the cut of his clothing, the weight of his purse, and the value of his merchandise, and was licensed by the throne to charge each according to his ability to pay. The fees from the richer patrons more than made up for the loss on the poorer ones.

As the poorest among the poor, Jafar al-Sharif and Selima occupied the worst room in the caravanserai, a small enclosure beneath the stairs next to the stables, a room where usually only saddles and horse trappings were stored. The caravanserai landlord, taking some measure of pity on this pair, allowed them to watch over the stables so they might occasionally receive payment from generous travelers to guard their mounts. This payment, small though it was, had enabled them to live for the past few months since arriving in Ravan; but now, with the coming of summer, there would be fewer visitors to the Holy City and fewer beasts in the caravanserai to care for.

As Jafar al-Sharif entered the caravanserai he could see Selima squatting beside the entrance to the stables, idly tracing pictures in the dust on the ground. She did not see him, and the storyteller stopped to look at the beautiful daughter he had raised while she was thus posed in fragile innocence.

Selima was a blossom entering her fifteenth summer. Though veiled and covered now in public, Jafar knew her long black hair flowed like a midnight river down her back and her black eyes glowed like jet, set off by a complexion as radiant as the moon on its fourteenth night. Her breasts were as ripe pomegranates and her slender hips swayed enticingly when she moved. Dressed as she was now, in one of her mother's old gowns, she made Jafar's heart ache anew at his loss. He recalled the first time he'd seen his lovely Amineh unveiled on their wedding day, when he realized his parents had arranged a marriage even better than he could have hoped for.

The thought of marriage brought a brief cloud over Jafar's face as he realized Selima would soon be ripe for marriage herself. He frowned when he thought of his failure as a father to provide her with a suitable dowry. Beautiful though she was, no decent man would consider her without a good bride price, and Jafar was not going to allow just anyone to steal away the treasure of his life. There had to be a way, somehow, to assure Selima the future happiness his daughter deserved.

As he stood there lost in these dismal thoughts, Selima looked over and spotted him, and jumped up to run to his side. Only as she approached did she notice his drawn expression, and she realized his search today must have been as fruitless as it had been in the days and weeks before.

"Oh Father," she said sadly. "Still no luck?"

"Poets!" Jafar exclaimed with disgust, waving his arms about. "All they want is poets. Imagine--Ravan, a city out of legend, denying its own heritage for poetry. It's obscene, a travesty."

Selima put her arms around her father's waist and held herself tightly to him. "If they want poets, Father, why not be a poet? It can't be too hard if so many others can do it. I've heard you recite poetry, you're very good. I'll bet you'd be the best and certainly the handsomest poet in all Ravan."

Jafar shook his head. "When Oromasd gives you a specific talent, it's prostitution to demean it. It's bad enough I have to spin my tales for drunkards in taverns. I'd sooner spend my life guarding stables than twisting my talents into the wrong channels. Besides, I have serious doubts about any place that would scorn storytellers and revere poets."

He disentangled himself from Selima and walked across the courtyard to their tiny room, where he sat down disconsolately on the trunk that contained the few worldly possessions they still hadn't sold. Selima followed him, her eyes filled with sadness for the agonies of her poor father.

"I regret the day I ever let you convince me to leave Durkhash," he said, burying his face momentarily in his hands. "I was known and respected there. I could have become shaykh of the storytellers if I'd stayed. Here I'm just a stablehand with unseemly pretensions."

Selima knelt beside him, removed her milfa so her full face was showing, and put her slender arms around his shoulders. "You knew as well as I did that Durkhash was no longer for you. In the last year, since Mother died, you told no stories. You wandered the streets like one of those old men who sit near the fountains and babble to anyone who'll listen."

"I loved Amineh very much," Jafar said quietly. "I miss her terribly."

"I loved her too, and I miss her no less than you do," Selima insisted strongly. "But Oromasd has seen fit to leave us both among the living, so living is what we must do. A month of mourning is fit and proper, but over a year borders on obsession. When I heard they were lacking storytellers in Ravan I knew it would be the place to rejuvenate you."

"And instead it's only made me feel more alone, more unwanted," Jafar said. "Were it not for my love of you, I'd have ended my life long ago."

"I'll hear no more of such nonsense," Selima said. Taking her father's head in her hands, she turned it forcefully until his face stared directly into her own. "O my father, you are a wonderful man still in the prime of your years. I've seen women turn their heads to follow you when you walk through the streets. I've watched their eyes admire you even through the modesty of their milfas. If Ravan does not appreciate such a master storyteller, then Ravan is only the poorer for its ignorance. There are plenty of other cities, hundreds of places to go where a man of your talents will be justly appreciated."

Jafar al-Sharif smiled wanly and returned his daughter's hug. "How did an old liar like me raise such a practical, levelheaded daughter?"

"With your honest love and your gentle wisdom," Selima replied affectionately.

Jafar smiled and, digging into his pocket, pulled out the piece of cloth. "I brought you a present."

"Oh Father, we have no money for such things."

"Not everything requires money, though that's less true in Ravan than elsewhere. Oromasd sent this to me specifically for you to wear, to make you even more beautiful than you already are." He unfolded the cloth to show it to her in its entirety.

Selima stared at the fabric, her expression a curious mixture of amazement and practicality. "It is very pretty," she said cautiously.

"Stand up, let me try it on you." Selima rose obediently and her father draped the cloth over the top of her head and down her back and shoulders.

"I thought you might use it for a head scarf of some kind." Jafar stepped back to examine the effect more fully. In the dim light, with the whiteness of the fabric billowing around her, Selima looked even more like a ghostly reflection of his beloved Amineh.

Unaware of her father's inspection, Selima was appraising the gift carefully. "It's the wrong color for an abaaya, and it's too long for a taraha, and the fabric really isn't proper. It's cut in a rectangle, which is awkward, and I can't recut it without ruining the embroidery…."

She looked up to see her father's face, crestfallen at her criticism of his present. Selima went over to him and hugged him yet again. "O Father, forgive a silly daughter. I didn't mean to complain. The fabric is lovely, it truly is, and I'm not used to such richness. I only meant I'd have to study the cloth carefully if I want to use it properly. I didn't want to ruin it by foolishly cutting it up or adapting it to some minor purpose. This gift is so beautiful it must be shown off in the best possible manner. I'll have to give the matter great thought so I don't waste the present you've brought me."

Jafar laughed. Looking down into his daughter's beautiful face he said, "Your mother taught you well how to humor an old man's moods. The cloth cost me nothing but the effort to bend down and pick it up from the street. My only hope is that it gives you pleasure. If it does that, then I'm happy; if not, you can throw it back onto the street and we're no worse off than we were before."

"I will keep it, O my loving and generous father," Selima insisted. "It is beautiful, it does please me, and I'll find some use for it that does honor to you, the giver." She took the cloth from her head, folded it with exaggerated reverence, and placed it atop the trunk that was their sole furnishing in the tiny room.

Turning back to her father, her face was bright with hope. "Oh Father, Abdoul the draper gave me ten fals this morning to watch his camels. We can eat again today!"

"Oromasd be praised," Jafar said. "My stomach was complaining of its emptiness so loudly I could barely hear what you were saying. Have we any food left on hand?"

"None. I was waiting for you to come home so you could guard the stables while I went off to shop. Some rice and leeks, I think, and maybe enough left over for some fruit if we're lucky."

Jafar nodded glumly. He was becoming very tired of rice and leeks, but they could afford little else these days. "Don't forget, go to the stall of One-Eyed Habib. The food's of poor quality, but his prices are cheap and he won't cheat you."

Selima nodded as she once more donned her milfa. "My father's wisdom guides me in all things," she said--and then she was gone, her niaal flying across the bricks of the courtyard and out into the street beyond.

Jafar al-Sharif walked slowly from his room to the stable entrance, where he took up his familiar position on the stool by the doorway. The air here reeked of camels, horses, and asses, and all their dung, all their piss, all their sweat. Jafar thanked Oromasd he did not have to clean out the stalls. There were stablehands to do that; they were better paid than he was, but they earned it well. His task was merely to sit here and make sure no thieves absconded with the travelers' beasts.

The stablehands were gone now, and Jafar was alone in the stable. "Poets," he said again as he thought of the day's humiliation. "No good can come of a city that ignores the meat and laps at the gravy. It's decadence, that's what it is. Mark my words, the Holy City of Ravan is on the decline if it casts out its storytellers. Nothing but doom and destruction can come from forgetting the past and bathing in the meaningless perfumes of idle rhymers."

To his right, a camel snorted. Jafar al-Sharif looked over and nodded. "See, even the dumb beasts agree with me." He turned his eyes heavenward. "O noble lord Oromasd, is it really too much to expect thee to give the people of thy Holy City as much good sense as thou gavest a camel?"

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