Return to Xanadu

Return to Xanadu
Lawrence Watt-Evans

The life of a dancing girl in the Great Khan's service in the pleasure dome of Xanadu was not turning out quite as Dunyazad had expected.

Her mother and her older sister had always told her that it was really a simple enough existence-you trained in the womanly arts, and when the opportunity arose you draped yourself over your chosen lord and practiced those arts as best you could, pampering and enticing him. You made yourself an obedient plaything for a time-a few days, a few months, perhaps a year or two-and then, when he tired of you, you were consigned to his harem with his other women, to raise his children and train the younger girls. It wasn't a particularly exciting life, but there were certainly comforts and compensations.

No one had ever said anything about being snatched entirely out of Xanadu by strange magic, transported into a chilly wooden house where a hostile woman flung you a strange and difficult dress to wear, and where you were neglected, left alone by the hearth while your chosen lord, Walter Bayard, spent all his time talking with the other men.

Dunyazad had no idea why that woman, Kylliki, had seemed to be angry at her, but the attitude was unmistakable. The woman had hissed at her, like a serpent! And she acted in such bold and forward ways, not at all properly submissive, even while she kept herself wrapped up in heavy clothes that hid her charms from the men.

She seemed angry at everyone, really, but most especially at Dunyazad, yet Dunyazad was quite certain she had never done anything to upset the woman. Perhaps Kylliki had wanted Walter Bayard for herself? But she was married to the strange magician…

It was all too complicated for Dunyazad, who had never expected to need to think about such things. She lay wrapped in a bearskin by the hearth, staring in the direction that her Walter Bayard had gone, in the company of that horrible woman and the man her lord called Harold. She hadn't said a word when Kylliki and Harold had led Walter Bayard away-it was not her place to interfere in anyone else's business-but she did wonder what was going on. The oddest noises had drifted back to her.

And now the big bearded magician was chanting some long and complicated spell, and she couldn't hear anyone else at all.

That wasn't right. What had happened to her Walter Bayard? Why was he not speaking? Was he still with the others? Worried, she pushed away the bearskin and got to her feet. She padded quickly to the door of the room where the magician was speaking and glanced in.

Walter Bayard was not there. The big magician was there, working himself up into a frenzy, and Harold was there, and Kylliki, but not the man whose possession she had become.

She stepped through the door and asked, "Have you seen my lord?"

At that moment the magician completed his spell, and Dunyazad was swept up in a sudden whirlwind; color and light and sound swirled about her, and she felt herself falling.

And then she tumbled onto a familiar floor of tesselated black and white marble, landing in an awkward sprawl that neatly missed a nearby pile of cushions that would, had they been but a few inches to one side, have broken her fall nicely.

She blinked, then sat up and looked slowly around.

She was back home in Xanadu, amid the familiar pillars and arches of the main hall in the Khan's pleasure dome, pale in the light of a waning moon. The orchestra was in its accustomed place, but no one was playing; they, and half a dozen of her fellow handmaidens, were instead all staring silently at Dunyazad.

"What has happened?" she asked.

The others exchanged glances; then her cousin Aliyah spoke.

"O Beloved, surely thou knowest better than we what has transpired and brought thee to us once again."

"Indeed, I do not," said Dunyazad. "Tell me, I pray, what thou hast seen since last we spoke."

Aliyah glanced at the other women, and two or three of them nodded at her.

"O dearest cousin, know, then, that yestereve, when we sought thee and thy lord, thou wert nowhere to be found, and we wondered greatly thereat. It was as though thou had vanished 'tween one instant and the next. And from he of the breathing mouth, our lord Pete Brodsky, went up a lamentation that he had once more been foully deceived by Walter Bayard and by Harold Shea, whom he pronounced to be scoundrels, thieves and kidnappers and perhaps murderers. We bade him calm himself, and offered him freely of honeydew and milk, but he would have none of it. He railed at us and called us bawds and worse, in league with his tormentors, and thus he raged through all the night.

"And then, scarce a moment ago, as he once more fled my touch, and as my sisters and these musicians sought to calm him, Pete Brodsky vanished as if carried off by djinni, and thou, O Beloved, appeared in his place."

"I thank thee, O cousin," Dunyazad said. "Thy words are as clear as the ice far beneath our feet." It seemed plain enough what had occurred; that great bearded magician had first snatched Walter Bayard and herself to his other realm, and then sent her back in exhange for Pete Brodsky.

But why? And what was she to do now, with her chosen lord gone?

Aliyah cleared her throat.

"O Beloved," she said, "why art thou dressed so strangely?"

Dunyazad blinked, and looked down at herself and the odd dress she wore. "This garment they gave me to wear, in the place in which I found myself," she said. She tried to snatch it off, but the heavy fabric snagged and bunched, and she succeeded only in catching it into a bundle beneath her arms.

"And what place was this? Where hast thou been?"

"Indeed, I know not," Dunyazad said as she tugged at the dress. "My lord and I were whisked thither in an instant by magic, and I was given this to wear but told nothing of my fate nor the nature of the land in which I found myself. I did as I was bid, but in the night my lord was awakened and led away, and when I sought him out a great black-bearded magician spoke a spell that sent me hither."

The other women exchanged glances.

"This sounds not unlike the doings of djinni or ifrits," said a woman named Zubaidah.

"O daughter of the moon, you speak words of unmistakable truth," Aliyah replied. "I fear my cousin has been deceived by enchanters. Surely these men, Walter Bayard and Pete Brodsky, and the others who appeared with them at the first, were not men at all, but demons! Remember thee, how a great voice spoke from nowhere, and said a mistake had been made? This must certainly have been an ifrit that had sent the strangers to us in error, for they were demons condemned to some dire netherworld!"

"My lord a demon?" Dunyazad asked, eyes wide. She had freed one arm from the entangling dress, but now she stopped her struggles with the garment still around her neck and her left arm still in its sleeve. "Think you so? But nay, he was kind-spoken and gentle, and sought to please me even as I served him!"

"Ah, the better to deceive you!" Zubaidah said. "And indeed, this marks him as a demon or ifrit, for what mortal man troubles himself with the desires of his slave?"

"I fear Zubaidah speaks truly, my cousin," Aliyah said. "You have been debauched by demons, and there is naught for it now but you must be slain, ere you further defile the Khan's refuge."

Dunyazad tensed. "Slain? Slain? Nay, sisters, I am unchanged, and as pure of a demon's taint as any of you!"

"O daughter of heaven, we cannot take that risk," said Aminah, who had not previously spoken. She raised her hands and clapped them sharply, three times, over her head.

Dunyazad did not wait for the scimitar-bearing eunuchs thus summoned; instead she sprang to her feet and ran, her bare feet slapping on the cold marble. The strange dress still hung from her shoulder, flapping behind her with every step.

She had seen the eunuchs at work before. Anything that disturbed the order and tranquility of Xanadu brought out the scimitars, and the best the creator of the disturbance could hope for would be to be flung into the frigid dungeons to await the Khan's whim. A mere slave, like herself, was more likely to be beheaded on the spot.

Dunyazad preferred to keep her head attached. She knew this was an indication of a certain perversity in her nature, a reluctance to be properly submissive to the will of those above her in the natural order, but nonetheless, she ran.

A moment later she emerged from the pavilion into the gardens, where the air was sweet with the scent of the trees; she stumbled across the grassy slope toward the chasm where rose the sacred river. Running hard, she burst through the cedars that guarded the stream's source; half running and half sliding, she staggered down the rocky banks, down toward the mighty fountain where the waters of the Alph sprayed up from the earth.

She hoped that the eunuchs would not follow her there; the place was both sacred and feared, and there was a very real danger that anyone caught in the water's blast would be drowned, or swept away, carried down through the forest and into the caverns beneath Xanadu.

As she neared the river's edge she stopped, throwing herself down on the bank; she had no desire to be washed away, into the icy caves five miles below. She lay panting for a moment, too stunned by her situation to think or speak or move.

Then she raised her eyes to the heavens, to the thin sliver of dying moon above. She saw no prospect of help there.

She knew she could not hide here forever. What would she eat? Where could she sleep? The air was cold, and she did not think she could bear it for long.

But if she came out of the chasm the eunuchs would find her, and chop off her head with their great curved swords. In fact, in time they would undoubtedly find her and drag her out and behead her even if she did not emerge; the river and fountain were not that greatly feared. She could scarcely expect them to not find her; all of Xanadu was but ten miles around.

She could not hope to escape from great Kubla's pleasure garden entirely; it was girdled with walls and towers. She was trapped.

And this, simply because Zubaidah thought that her lord Walter Bayard was a demon, rather than a man!

Dunyazad did not believe that; she was quite sure that he was a mortal. That black-bearded magician might be an ifrit, but surely not Walter!

She remembered how the magician had called to Pete Brodsky and pulled him from Xanadu into that other world, and wished she could summon her lord back to her side, so that he could prove to the eunuchs and the other women that he was only a man, and not a demon.

A thought struck her. Perhaps she could summon him, just as the black-bearded enchanter had. After all, the Alph was sacred and therefore magical, and perhaps that magic would allow her lord to hear her.

There could be no harm in trying.

"Walter!" she cried. "Oh, my lord Walter Bayard, return to me! Come to me, I beg you!" She could scarcely hear her own wail over the roaring torrent of the river-but still, she received an answer.

"Who calls?" a man's voice asked.

It was not the voice of Walter Bayard, nor that echoing voice from nowhere, but Dunyazad was not so foolish as to waste any opportunity. "It is I, Dunyazad," she cried.

"Dunyazad? I know no Dunyazad," the voice replied. "Who are you?"

"I am but a dancing girl in the service of the Great Khan, Kubla."

"A dancing girl?"

"Indeed, your most humble slave. Pray, to whom am I privileged to speak?"

"Why, none other than the Khan you serve."

Dunyazad's eyes widened, and she dropped her head, pressing her forehead against the grassy slope. "Your pardon, noble Khan! I did not mean to disturb you!"

"Nonetheless, you have done so-and I am in truth disturbed that I hear your voice, but cannot see you. Where are you, my slave Dunyazad?"

"I… I am in the chasm where the sacred river rises from the earth, O Great Khan."

"Indeed! That is almost a mile from where I sit; surely, this is magic at work. And why are you in this place? For surely, you know it has been forbidden you."

"Of a certainty, O dread master! Yet I bethought me I had nothing to lose, for my own sisters in your harem have risen against me, and condemned me to death-and have made the gravest of errors thereby, I assure you, O Light of the World!"

"Have they? Tell me your tale, O Dunyazad, that I may see how you came to be where you should not, and perhaps why the magic of this place allows me to hear your voice-though in truth, yours is not the first voice I have heard thus. But a few days ago I thought I heard my grandfather's voice, prophesying war… " His voice trailed off, and Dunyazad hesitated, but then the Khan spoke again.

"Tell me your tale, woman!"

Dunyazad did her best to gather her wits, and then began.

"Some days ago, O lord, there appeared among us four men, clad in strange garb. In accordance with our customs and your instructions, the household made them welcome with song and dance, and fed them upon honeydew…»

She went on to describe how a great voice had spoken, whereupon Harold Shea and Vaclav Polacek had vanished, never to return, and how she and the other women had tried to comfort the remaining two, Walter Bayard and Pete Brodsky, upon the loss of their companions. She explained that she had found her breast broadened in the company of Walter Bayard, and that she had served him as best she could during his stay-and how when he, in turn, had been snatched away by magic, she had been taken with him, but only briefly, before being sent back in exchange for Pete Brodsky.

And she admitted how this had been seen as demonic by her compatriots, and how she had fled to the chasm, where the magic of the place had carried her voice to the Khan.

"Surely, O Khan," she concluded, "this is a sign from the heavens. Why would my voice be heard by the lord of all Xanadu, emperor of China and Asia, if not because you alone have the power to make right what is wrong, and rescind the sentence of death my sisters have passed upon me?" Sudden inspiration struck, and she added, "Perhaps this is in some way connected with your grandfather's prophecy. Perhaps my death will bring about this war, and sparing me will avert the catastrophe! I have dealt with strange lords and powerful magicians, and they may have caught me up in their schemes. Why risk angering them by slaying me?"

"Why, indeed?" the Khan mused. "In truth, your story concerns me, and I am inclined to let you live-but how are matters best put right? Perhaps there will be war if you die-or perhaps if you live! And if I allow you to live, can I send you back to the harem without stirring discontent among the women there? Perhaps a squabble among my concubines is the promised conflict, and no more than that."

Dunyazad started to speak, but before she could get a word out the Khan continued, "I do not pretend to omniscience; that is not within the sphere of mortal men. I think we must consult another. I have sent my court magician, my aide de camp, a mighty sorcerer, to find you. Let us ask him what he would suggest."

A new voice spoke, and Dunyazad looked up at the sound to see a trim, white-haired man in a fine robe standing over her. He wore a small triangular beard and an elegant mustache.

"Ah, my pelagic young spark, cast up on a strange shore in this dark valley," he said. "We must choose your destiny wisely, lest darkness fall upon Xanadu, eh?"

"As you say, my lord," Dunyazad replied, though she did not understand all the words he had used. This man was oddly reassuring; his expression seemed kind and full of humor.

"You say your name is… Dunyazad?"

"Yes, O master."

"Whatever is someone named Dunyazad doing in Kubla Khan's Xanadu?"

Dunyazad blinked in surprise. "I am told I was born here. Where else should I be, O lord? Surely not in that strange wooden house…»

"No, of course not. You're clearly more suited for a marble palace-but Xanadu? I would say you would be more at home in perhaps Samarkand-in-Asia, don't you think?"

"I… I do not know, O learned master."

"Well, I know, and I'd like to see things put right. I think we can find a better home for you."

"As my lord desires."

"Are you happy in your role as a dancing girl? You certainly have the figure for it, but you speak well-might you do better in another line of work?"

"I live but to please my master." She prostrated herself again.

"Yet you had the spunk to run out here to the chasm, didn't you?"

"As you say, O moon of wisdom."

"I can see that someone's been flinging people hither and yon through other worlds-the black-bearded magician, these four men, these are clearly not any of the Khan's subjects! Perhaps you belong in another realm entirely. Sending you to one would remove you from Xanadu, so that you could create no more disturbance, but would not require your death-which I'm sure would please you!"

Dunyazad did not dare reply to this.

«Hmmm…» the magician said, clasping his hands. "A beautiful young woman named Dunyazad who can tell a story when the need arises, and who dares to speak even to a king in order to preserve her life-where can we find a place for you?" He closed his eyes thoughtfully, then opened them and smiled. "My dear," he said, "I think I know exactly where you belong."

"At the side of my lord, Walter Bayard?" Dunyazad asked. "Or with my sister in the Khan's harem?"

"I think not. Oh, a lord you shall have, and a sister, but not Walter Bayard, nor a place in the Khan's harem. Now, sit up, child, and let me do this properly."

Dunyazad obeyed, as the magician began to chant. He walked around her on the grassy slope, gesturing, until he had woven a circle around her thrice-a magical circle that glowed golden in the gloom.

"I'll keep an eye on you at first," the magician said, as he completed the final circuit. "Just call out if you think I have it wrong, and I'll fetch you back to Xanadu."

And then there was the now-familiar feeling of dislocation, and she found herself falling.

This time she landed squarely on waiting cushions, and looked around.

At first she did not recognize her surroundings. She was clearly in a palace; the walls were gleaming marble, pierced by dozens of pointed arches adorned with fine filigree, and the furnishings were extravagantly fine and beautiful.

She frowned, puzzled. She was sure she had never been in this place before, yet it somehow seemed familiar.

And then a beautiful dark-haired woman entered through one of the arches, and said, "Sister? Are you well?"

Dunyazad turned and recognized her older sister, Shahrazad. "I am not certain," she said.

"Our husbands await us in the courtyard; shall I tell them you are ill?"

"Husbands?" Dunyazad knew that she had never married in Xanadu-but her life there was already beginning to seem distant and dreamlike, while the world around her grew ever more familiar.

"Of course-my beloved lord King Shahryar, and his brother, your own King Shahzaman. We were to ride to the hills for a holiday; had you forgotten? Has a fever blurred your thoughts?"

A king, her husband? That seemed like a childhood fantasy, but it also somehow seemed right. "Perhaps it has," Dunyazad said as she rose from the cushions. "I dreamed of a stately pleasure dome, with caves of ice… " Then she shook her head. "But that's nonsense."

Her memories of Xanadu were fading, memories of her life in this palace returning. She dimly recalled the magician's final words, offering to snatch her back to Xanadu-but why would she ever want to return there?

This was where she belonged. She knew that beyond any possibility of doubt.

Somewhere else, a magician smiled. "Well, that's put right, finally! Whatever was she doing in Xanadu, I wonder?" He shrugged, and turned his attention to other matters.

In the palace, Dunyazad flung aside the dress Kylliki had given her and accepted the robes a servant held out. "Come, sister," she said, taking Shahrazad's hand. "Let us join our husbands for our ride." She laughed. "And perhaps on the way you can tell me a story!"