Prologue: A Punishment to Fit the Crime

Sand roughened hands gripped the tops of Endymion's arms as they dragged him through a high arched hall of cold marble. His knees skimmed the floor and he felt the skin snag and tear on the rough edges of the marble tiles. He struggled to get to his feet but the momentum of their walking kept him from standing and walking on his own. They reached a stone door etched with drawings of grotesque monsters, mystical beings, and celebrated warriors. The Sultan's door. The slight pause they made allowed Endymion to climb to his feet and when they moved forward through the now open doorway he moved with more decorum and less pain.

"This is him?" the Sultan stood under a canopy, a scroll clasped in his hand.

"Yes, Your Majesty." the guards replied, keeping Endymion's arms in a firm grip.

The Sultan's frown turned to a grimace and he sighed, pulling off his high turban and running an aging hand through still dark hair. "You, boy, what do you have to say for yourself before you are sentenced to death?"

Endymion's throat went dry as though he had swallowed a glass of sand and he could not force himself to utter any words of defense. He bowed his head in reply.

"No words? Most men brought here for a death sentence at least have a final request." the Sultan chuckled grimly. "Very well. Slit his throat."

As the guard to Endymion's right drew a gleaming dagger from his belt the stone doors were thrown open once again as the princess ran headlong towards her father, her robes flaring behind her like wings.

"Father, no!" She fell at his feet and grabbed his robe in shaking hands as she bowed her head. "Please Father, do not kill him. I had a fair share in our indiscretion. It is not fair to kill him for an act I also committed."

The guard with the blade lowered his arm slightly as the Sultan's face softened at his daughter's tears. "My dear," he cooed in an undignified way. "You are a princess. He is but a commoner. There are laws that must be obeyed." His reassuring smile fell. "He broke the law when he looked upon your face; he defiled his soul when he dared to touch you. I must carry out his sentence."

"Please, Father…" she pleaded. "Anything but death, I could not bear to know he was killed on my behalf. I…I love him, Father." she sobbed.

Endymion's concern for his own life faded away as he stared awestruck at the audacity of the Princess's words.

The Sultan bent to wrap his arms around his daughter's slender shoulders and pulled her up, supporting her as her knees trembled. "Very well, my darling." he said. "He will not be sentenced to death, however you must know you cannot marry him. And any man who touches you who is not your husband is a criminal and must be punished."

"I understand, Father." she replied in a soft voice. She turned large, dark brown eyes on Endymion, tears streaking over her darkly tanned cheeks. "I want him to have a chance of a new life somewhere, where he may escape his reputation."

The Sultan sighed as he brushed away her tears. "Exile then." He turned to Endymion, a new hardness to his black eyes as he announced the new sentence. "Leave. Leave this palace, leave this city, leave this kingdom and never return. As long as you live, and your children and their children, you will never be welcome here again."

The guards released his arms, though he remained oblivious to the dark purple bruises quickly forming where their hands had been. His eyes were locked on the Princess's shining ones. She smiled grimly at him, but said nothing. There was nothing more to say.

"Go!" the Sultan roared, throwing a hand out towards Endymion. As if the gesture contained some kind of power, Endymion stumbled backwards, his bare heel striking the marble floor sharply before he turned and fled, oblivious to the pain in his arms, his feet, and his heart. He ran across the cold floor until he reached the outer courts where the marble turned to stone before it turned to sand. Running through the sand slowed him, but he did not stop. He plodded through, refusing to look back in case the Sultan saw from his balcony where he was no doubt watching and changed his mind about his sentence.

The moon shone over the sand as brightly as the sun, but with none of its warmth. He shivered in the cold desert night air yet refused to stop. He'd probably freeze to death anyway without the blood flow walking gave him. The Princess's eyes haunted him through the darkness. He glanced up at the stars and in their sparkling he saw the depths of her eyes as she looked at him that final time.

The sun rose slowly and with a burning ferocity that belied the cold temperatures of the night. The sand beneath Endymion's feet soon turned from cool to scorching and blisters formed on the sensitive arch without any support to keep it away from the hot sand. Sweat poured down his face and back but he did not stop. He could not stop. There was not a kingdom for leagues around, Aria being an oasis in the massive desert. Only the bravest of travelers and nomads dared to cross it. His sentence of exile would be as good as a death sentence unless Endymion could find a camp or a natural oasis.

His foot stuck in a thick mound of sand and he tripped, sprawling on the hot sand. Though it burned his already sun burned skin he did not try to get back up. He breathed heavily and his legs ached from walking through the molasses like sand. It was a good hour before Endymion was able to resume walking and it was without the urgency for which he had started his journey. He no longer had to fear the Sultan's guards pursuing him. It was too far even for their camels to trek for someone as defenseless as him. The sun was once again falling from the sky, resting briefly on the horizon before it was swallowed by the sand dunes.

Endymion relished the brief comfortable atmosphere before the moon chilled the air and raised bumps on his red and blistered flesh. He could not continue like this much longer. Already he felt the severe effects of sweating all day with no drink of water. He tongue was as dry as he throat had been at the altar of the Sultan and his head ached from the glare of the sun. A freezing breeze slapped him across the cheek and his teeth began to chatter beyond his control. He would die in this desert, after the Princess had risked her father's wrath to spare him, he would die.

He began to stumble from his dehydration and exhaustion and when he fell the second time he did not think he would ever get up again. He managed to turn onto his back so that he could stare up into the pin-pricked velvet that was the sky. The moon turned everything silver and he felt like he was lying in a pool of the metal, melted down by the day's heat. The stars became the Princess's eyes again and he thought that if he must die, he would die facing his sin.

Endymion did not know when he blacked out, or when he awoke. He did know that instead of rough sand, his head rested on a lump of fur and his burns had been coated with a cooling salve. He sat up slowly, his head spinning with the effort.

"Easy, tiger," a female voice echoed from outside the tent he realized he was in. A woman emerged through the burlap flap, a bucket of what sounded like water clutched in one hand and a loaf of bread in the other. She was tall, so tall her ebony locks seemed to brush the ceiling of the tent. Everything about her was large and elegant, she moved like a warrior, gracefully yet with purpose. Her large eyes reflected golden in the lamplight thrown from a corner of the tent. She wore a strange garment of leather which wrapped around her chest and hips, but hid little else. Her black hair was wound into an elaborate braid which crowned her head and trailed down her back, creating a striking contrast between the darkness of her hair and the darkness of her skin. She almost seemed like another creature. "In your present condition I wouldn't even think of getting up."

"Who are you? Where am I?" Endymion asked, easing back down on the furs spread over the sand.

"There will be time for questions once you've rested fully." She kneeled beside him, dipping a ladle in the bucket of water and holding it to his peeling lips. "Slowly, now." He sipped the water, its sweet, coolness satiating his throat. Once he had drank the whole ladle full, the woman handed him the bread and he nibbled on it slowly as he watched her warily.

"Who are you?" he asked again once he'd finished the bread and drank another ladle full of water.

The woman chuckled and stood to her full height, placing wide, yet slender hands on defined hips. "I am Rei," she replied. "Your rescuer. Now, go back to sleep. You must be well rested to meet the rest of the tribe."

"Tribe? You are not traveling alone?" he asked as he pulled a fur over him, careful of his burns.

"In this desert? I would be a fool to travel alone." she chuckled before extinguishing the lamp and exiting the tent.

Endymion strained to listen for any voices but could only hear the sigh of the wind and a distant bird warning its prey of its approach. He mused over the woman's strange appearance and what he had stumbled into, but his eyelids began to droop and he soon fell asleep.

The next time Endymion awoke, sunlight was streaming through the tent flap and a fresh loaf of bread and bucket of water stood beside his makeshift bed. He sat up gingerly, remembering his lightheadedness the night before. His head didn't spin and even his burns felt better. He noticed the salve had been refreshed as well and she flushed as he wondered who had been so near and yet had not awoken him. He ate the bread, still slowly in case his stomach should turn against him and drank a ladle of water.

"Good morning," Rei called as she burst through the tent flap, this time her leather ensemble covered by a leather cape which protected her skin against the sun. "Feeling better?"

"Yes, much, thanks to your help, I believe?" he nodded to his burns already fading to a light pink.

"Oh no, that wasn't me. You should thank Ami when you meet her. She's our medic, not that we need her much." Rei chuckled as if at a private joke.

"So, there are more than one of you." Endymion assured himself.

"Of course, as I said last night, we are a tribe. You will meet them when you join us all for the midday meal later. Before then however, you must bathe and change those horrendous clothes." Rei frowned at his appearance. "You cannot meet Beryl as you are now."

"Who's Beryl?"

"The leader of the tribe. You will need her approval to travel with us until we reach the nearest village. Without that…" Rei drew her finger across her dark neck.

Endymion gulped at how nearly he had already come to death. He did not relish having to endure that again. Rei pulled a wash tub from another corner of the tent and filled it after only three trips to wherever they got their water from. She left Endymion with a bar of lye soap and a rough pad to scrub himself, along with strict instructions to thoroughly clean himself as Beryl valued cleanliness in her tribal members. She also left him a clean garment to change into which when he dressed himself turned out to be a variation of her outfit only altered to cover a man. He threw the accompanying cape over it and called for Rei to alert her he was finished bathing but she did not respond. He stepped over to the tent flap and peered through the crack she had left, searching for any sign of the other tribal members.

Tents were erected all around him in the same fashion as Rei's though of varying sizes. He noticed the tent that stood in what seemed to be a circle of tents was the largest and most elaborate. No doubt Beryl occupied that tent. Rei's face appeared in the crack and Endymion stumbled back as she threw back the tent flap, smiling mischievously at him.

"Ready to meet my sisters?"

Endymion blinked. "Sisters? Are there no men in this tribe?"

Rei laughed, grabbing the buckets used in his bath and depositing them in a corner of the tent. "Of course not! We have no need of men in this tribe. You are, in fact, the first man we have entertained in quite a while."

Heedless of his new reservations Rei threw open the tent flap and waved him out into the open air. He stepped out cautiously, expecting an ambush of some kind but nothing stirred. Indeed, the tents were set up in a circular fashion, protecting the large tent in the middle beside which stood a solidly built well, the source of his bath and drinking water.

"Where is everyone?" he pondered aloud.

"We tend to stay out of the roasting sun as you well know." Rei explained, leading him towards a slightly larger tent adjacent to her own. "This is our leisure tent, where we eat and spend our free time. Be prepared to be stared at." She warned, her hand hovering over the tightly sealed tent flap. She loosened it and pulled it aside, stepping in and holding the flap open for him.

He stepped into the cool shade and froze as ten sets of eyes locked on him with hunter like precision. They were all dressed like Rei in leather garments covering their chests and hips, their capes draped over the ground to form their seats. None of them seemed to possess the openness of Rei. They stared at him warily, some even with disgust as he followed Rei's example and spread his leather cape beside hers, seating himself.

"My sisters, I trust you will show sympathy and kindness to this weary traveler." Rei introduced, meeting several of their gazes with authority. A few of them nodded, some even smiled. One however, continued to watch him with a look of disgust.

"Sister Minako, is something the matter?" Rei asked, noting her deep grimace.

"Indeed, if you will step outside with me I will inform you of the problem." Minako spat, standing quickly and exiting the tent. Rei sighed and followed her, pulling her cape from the ground and over her shoulders in a well-practiced and fluid movement Endymion admired. Left alone with the other nine women, he felt awkward and out of place, though slightly more comfortable without the disapproving gaze of Minako. It was almost as if she knew his shame. But of course she couldn't. Word could not have spread this far this fast.

"Would you like a kebab?" one of the women asked, holding a charred piece of meat speared with a metal rod out to him.

His stomach rumbled after his meager snacks of bread and he gladly accepted the meat, smiling at the woman as she returned to the back tent flap and continued cooking over a low fire, fanning the smoke away from the tent flap. He chewed the meat slowly, observing the women as they resumed what they were doing before he intruded. They were all tall, like Rei, and dark skinned, the color of wet sand compared, and larger in bearing than anyone he'd ever met, though they were all well-shaped. He'd heard tales of women warriors from far away lands, but he wasn't sure if these were of the same caliber.

Rei returned through the tent flap without Minako, her engaging smile gone and a frown pulling down the corners of her mouth. She glanced at Endymion and he caught the edge of what seemed to be contempt before she crossed the room and whispered in another of the tribeswoman's ears. That woman shot a startled, disgusted glance at Endymion before nodding and standing, throwing her cape over her shoulders in the same easy way as Rei. They approached Endymion slowly and he felt a surge of fear at the determined look in their eyes.

"You have not been completely honest with us, Endymion." Rei began, circling him.

He dropped the kebab and stood slowly. "What do you mean?"

The other woman laughed. "You know perfectly well what we mean."

"Makoto," Rei warned. "Why don't you tell us how you came to be lost in the desert?"

A lump rose in Endymion's throat and a cold sweat began on his brow. "I…I was traveling and got lost." he forced out, taking a step back as Makoto and Rei stepped closer.

"Very general answer. Could you give us more specifics…such as why were you traveling? Why were you traveling alone?" Rei urged him on, crossing strong arms over her chest.

Endymion swallowed. He somehow knew he could not lie to these women. And he knew whose side they would assume. "I was exiled by the Sultan of Aria."

"If only that were your only crime, we could forgive it." Makoto spat. "Tell us…tell us all why you were exiled!"

Endymion shirked under the furrowed glares of the women. The silence seemed massive and the spitting meat on the hot coals added a grim aspect to the atmosphere. "I had…an affair with the Sultan's daughter."

"Underemphasizing again!" Minako turned to the women with a flare of her sapphire eyes. "He broke her heart. He lied to her, used her, and then cast her aside." A gasp met her revelation, followed by angry murmuring as the women stood and stepped towards Endymion. He was the mouse in a cage full of cats. There would be no escape.

"How do you know how I came to be here?"

"Minako has the Gift of Truth, a trait you obviously undervalue." Makoto snarled.

"There is no crime as horrendous in our tribe as breaking the heart of a woman." Rei explained as she stepped even closer. In a flash, she grasped his arm, Makoto his other and they were dragging him from the tent and into the tribal leader's tent. He flashed back to the Sultan's palace and the guards who had dragged him into the Sultan's chamber. These tribal women were no difference. Their grips were as strong, if not stronger, their fingers digging into his muscles until they seemed to clench his very bones.

Beryl's tent was dark and thick with a perfume similar to the Sultan's garden roses. A single lantern was lit and it hung on a hook over a large and heavily ornamented throne that seemed to be made of jade and encrusted with precious gems. A dark figure sat on this throne, her chin propped on her fist as she watched Rei and Makoto drag Endymion through the tent door and throw him at her feet.

"Well, well, well…" Beryl chuckled. "A man who has broken a woman's heart. Isn't that just so…" she paused, her chuckle dissipating into a growl. "Familiar." she stood with a suddenness that startled even her tribeswomen and grabbed the leather that covered Endymion's chest, jerking him up to her eye level, lifting him clean off his feet. "You are despicable. Your crime is great in our eyes, greater that you would have the audacity to remain in our camp and leech off our hospitality. I should kill you right now." She contemplated him with her angry jade-colored eyes before dropping him with a grunt of disgust.

"No," she finally said, walking past her throne and lighting another lantern so that the tent's features were thrown into definition. "That would be a blessing. When a woman's heart is broken, she does not physically die. If only you could, and so many have ended their own lives because of your sex. No, she must suffer until her death. And so should you." A large, low pot sat in the middle of the tent, filled to the brim with roses, the cause of the smell in the air. Beryl stroked a velvet bud with a large, slender finger, her touch barely moving the bud, belying the gentleness of her touch.

"My sisters," she announced, turning to the crowd of tribeswomen who had assembled as she tended her flowers. "We must hold counsel to decide his punishment. Form the Sacred Circle."

They gathered noiselessly around the roses, throwing their capes down before settling into a cross-legged sitting position and taking the hands of their neighbors. Beryl removed her heavy, fur-lined cloak of deep burgundy, revealing a light, flowing, fitted robe of jade and accented with a golden belt, fitting it the curvature of her waist. She settled as gracefully as a swan, taking the hands of Rei and Minako and closing her eyes.

"Oh, great One," the tribeswomen chanted, raising their hands towards the roses. "We come to You, imploring Your Wisdom, Your Guidance, Your Power to deal with this infidel. By the power of Your Sanctification, we Pray." they bowed their heads and kissed their joined hands before raising their eyes once more to Beryl.

"As I said before, his punishment should be one of long term suffering. What I ask of you, my sisters, is what sort of method should we enact?"

"I am not opposed to a slow death of a thousand cuts." Makoto chimed in quickly, shooting Endymion a nasty look.

"But in begging for death he would eventually find relief. The princess will not be so lucky." Beryl said stoically as the voice of reason.

They were silent as each contemplated the proper punishment to inflict on Endymion. As the tribeswomen talked, Endymion surveyed the tent, searching for an escape. The circle of women blocked the most obvious exit, and the tent had been so well erected that no edge fluttered that he might escape through. He wished he had a knife to pierce the material of the tent but there were none lying in view. He was trapped. Trapped by the Sultan, trapped by the desert, and now trapped by the vindictive women who assembled before him. To flee past them would be pointless. They were larger and stronger, and outnumbered him completely.

"I believe I may have the answer, sisters." Beryl finally said, after another lengthy meditation. She stood fluidly, the tribe standing with her as though connected by some unseen cord. She moved closer to her pot of roses and bent over them, smoothing the velvet buds and caressing the full-blown flowers as they reached for her arm. She plucked a full rose from the center and held it to her nose, taking in the rich scent. "My precious creations," she cooed, rubbing the petals against her cheek. She turned her lips to them and kissed it. A bubbling shadow erupted from the petals, flowing over her hands and falling to the floor where it snaked over the floor, threading its darkness through their legs. Endymion stepped back but he could not escape the shadow as it wound around his ankles. His feet instantly cooled, yet he felt no pain as he'd expected. He looked back up to Beryl and noticed that where the rose had been, she now clutched an ebony lamp with an elaborately braided handle.

The tribeswomen smiled and nodded at each other as Beryl held it up to the light for them to examine. "Eternal servitude," Makoto grinned and snickered. "So much worse than the death of a thousand cuts."

"Indeed," Beryl agreed, turning a cat-like smile on Endymion and extending a long, slender hand. "Come, boy."

That unseen force which caused the tribeswomen to rise with Beryl wrapped around his waist and jerked him forward, causing his head to snap back with the sudden force. Her strong hand gripped his forearm, nails digging into his sunburned flesh.

"You will be bound to this lamp, forced to grant whoever shall find it three wishes, after which you will be returned to the lamp until it shall next be found."

Her words were smooth, yet malicious, and a chill raised the hairs on the back of Endymion's neck as his fate was announced.

"You're…" he began, his voice choked. "You're not human."

Beryl laughed, raising a mocking eyebrow. "Of course not, silly boy. We are greater than mere humans. We are the tribe of si'lats."

Endymion gasped and Beryl's grip tightened.

"It would have been better had you died in that desert." Beryl continued. "Now, let us begin your imprisonment."

The tribeswomen moved in a tight circle around them, clasping their hands and murmuring a low chant.

"Power of the sands, I command thee!" Beryl called, her voice resounding in Endymion's ears. "Clasp this mortal in your claws of vengeance, master his soul, and mould him to this lamp of eternity."

Pulsing began in the palm of Beryl's hand which gripped Endymion's arm and it vibrated through his bones, taking root in his chest. He gasped at the unseen force clenched his heart, cutting off his air, ceasing its beating.

"Enslave him with your winds; fill him with your fire. Turn him, turn him into the lowest of our kind, the lowest of the jinn. A slave to man…a slave to woman."

Endymion felt his skin tighten over his muscles and the world began to grow around him. The si'lats changed to giantesses. Then to gods. His lungs constricted with the need for air, his veins for the pulse of blood. His vision blurred as the chanting grew to singing.

"Let eternity be his punishment." Beryl finished in a rasping voice, touching the lamp to Endymion's forehead.

He screamed as it seared the flesh there, as his whole body convulsed and twisted to fill the hollow of the lamp, screamed until he had no room left to scream. The last glimpse of the world before he was sealed away was of Beryl's triumphant smile.