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Ruin’s tired eyes were soft and sorry, and she raised a hand out of her black robe by way of explanation It ithered nearly to the bone, the skin as cracked and peeling as the desert, the nails blackened and split Pieces of her skin were slowly stripping away, blowing back froers in the hot air She folded her veils over the hand again and looked down in shame The se

“We would share our food, if you give us reason to pity you, and our water, which is more precious than amber, but you mustn’t touch my lady She is not well” The cat looked wretched, her eyes black and round, her spotted fur twitching under the predations of sand mites

The Djinn considered, her eyes narrowing She rubbed her nose with one painted hand—for the pal in and in on the scarlet loops where the lines of her hands ht have been, if she had any

“I am Scald,” she said at last, “and across six seas and nine deserts, I was one of the three Queens of Kash, and I had a crown of embers”

Rend pawed the soil “Why are you caged, Scald?”

The Djinn was quiet, her clouds dark and thoughtful “Across nine seas and six deserts, I laid siege to the city of Ajanabh…”

THE TALE OF THE

CAGE OF IVORY

AND THE CAGE

OF IRON

IN THE CITY OF KASH, THERE ARE SIX PALACES, six Thrones, and six Crowns Three Queens and three Kings there are, each in their house I was the Ember-Queen, andboulevard which was lined with Ixora and the Palaces of my sisters, the Tinder-Queen and the Ash-Queen So too , and the King of Flint and Steel When I call them my brothers and sisters, of course I by no means wish to indicate that they are any relation to ht from your heart Monarchs are members of a wide and varied fraternity, and this is all my connection to them

We are the inheritors of the Kingdom of Kashkash, as the first of the Djinn He spun all of the rest of us out of the smoke of his beard, and the black curls flowed over the face of the earth In the sacred fire of his heart ere first conceived, the immaculate flame His stare burned forests in their shade and caused even huh they are, to swoon before his majesty As his wispy children cavorted around him on the plains of the world, he exhorted thelory and ht

He told us that we had no need to build cities as the rest scrambled to do, but that cities would build themselves around us, for what man did not need fire? Thus he stood at the center of Shadukiam in the days before it knew that name The whole of the city swirled up around him, all those roses, all those dialittering city and out again, and still his na us, incandescent, radiant He was beautiful He was loved, for in his beard onders lesser Djinn could not dream of, lamps and jewels and scrolls of flame and cloud, which he would pluck from his body and distribute like bread He danced on the minaret tips of our first real homes and cried poetry to the blood-riddled sunsets, cried ho! For the thousand-year holocaust of the Djinn! And far below the rabble screas in those days did Kashkash grant the wishes? How h? We nains anoint their foreheads with ashes in , all these centuries hence

This is e tell to the world, with horns of brass and carnelian So I was told; so I believed while I grew, a child in the city of Kash, wishing for golden bells for my belt and sweet honey for my supper Thus we have told the world for century upon century Inand so far that I had to carry it at my hips in two baskets of woven silver, and the other children laughed at me, until their parents admonished thereat beard of KashkashI was taken away froolden spoons and a very nice sae world of royalty I was ten years of age, but ae, but we die out rather more quickly than other folk We flash and spark and die Those who are pressed by seals and trickery into lah on forever, as a coal will live if not struck alight And as a coal is not alive, so a Djinn confined is not This is the choice weThus at ten I was no child—butorphan without a breast

The Ash-Queen and the Hearth-King, Kohinoor and Khaamil, escortedone ofand beautiful, with burning ges in their noses Kohinoor was tall and thin as a herle spark in her, while Khaa skin undulating, cradling a huge topaz in his navel He had but one golden eye, the fla like a dervish The other socket was empty and burned black