"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.