Salaam: Hello (Arabic)

Kizzy had always been fascinated by knives.

She wasn't sure if it was the dull shine on a wooden handle, or the easy way they fit into her hands, hands that had been big since she was a child. Was it the thud as they hit the center of a wooden target, or the clean cut they made in a gentleman's cravat?

Kizzy did not know, but she did know she loved them, and nothing would ever change that.

Granted, Kizzy had grown into her big hands, and she didn't need to practice on targets anymore. Aside from which, cravats were much more easily untied, and at any rate, gentlemen with cravats rarely were to be seen near Kizzy. Attaching yourself to a group of traveling magicians had that effect, especially when the traveling took place in the Middle East.

Specifically, in Persia.

And that was where everything changed.

---

Moses Bazzi

I first met Kizzy Ferko in 1859, in Alexandria. We were still performing in the streets from time to time, and I am convinced it was a rare intervention of fate that we had been in that particular spot on one of Alexandria's busier streets. Kizzy had been traveling with a cousin and uncle who had let her wander free for the day; I can only assume they understood how her flights of fancy turn into her self-proclaimed truths, for we never had any trouble evading any search parties.

I initially saw Kizzy while she had her head bent over a bouquet of flowers at a the vendor's station that secretly held all of my entourage's equipment. We had gotten the vendor, named Jafar, out of a rather tight spot with some patrolmen, and he'd been loyal to us ever since. Even though the people in my entourage changed, he stayed on and carted our things about with an aura of independent pride. I liked Jafar; he was exactly who he claimed to be. No strings attached.

When Kizzy first joined, there had been eight of us. Myself, of course; Jorge-Carmen-Hugo, three young Spanish acrobats; a dwarf who sang like a man of six feet; and three other tagalongs who did nothing more than act as awed spectators to increase the change people dropped us, and occasionally they would play an oud or ney to add to our mystique.

I must admit, I am a premium magician. I know how people see; I have seen from the outside for much of my life, short though it has been. Jafar admits he thought an angel had swept down to save him when I frightened away the patrolmen who had been harassing him when we first met. In truth, it was fire, not a heavenly being, who sent the bullying men scurrying away. I have only faltered in my performing three times in my whole career.

The first time was my first witness of a murder.

The second was when Kizzy Ferko raised her eyes to mine as I was wrapped in a sheath of flame, and even as the flames licked at my toes, we smiled.

---

Even though I had trouble walking for two weeks due to burns, that smile was definately worth it. The triplets, Jorge-Carmen-Hugo, had a field day at my expense, but they immediately took to Kizzy Ferko, who was the same age as they were. Jafar had found the whole affair startling; he'd never seen me falter, and I was quite sure he was questioning my mortality.

I was enchanted by Kizzy Ferko even before I learned of her extraordinary talent. For Kizzy Ferko threw knives. Not like a young child throws a ball, mind you, but in the way that practiced soldiers will let fly an arrow from a bow, or in the way an assassin blows a poisoned dart into their target's flesh. And Kizzy was the most talented girl I'd ever met. Even Carmen's amazing agility had nothing on Kizzy's throws, which seemed effortless to me. She could part a man's hair down the middle without scratching his skull from fifty paces away with a flick of the wrist, and her knives kissed her targets, but never scratched.

It was quite obvious to me that Kizzy was exactly the kind of girl I'd fall in love with. I decided it was pointless to deny it, so I fell in love with her straightaway. I knew she liked me very much, and it took less than a month for her to admit she loved me.

Around that time, the dwarf in my group who sang was requested to become a permanent member of a wealthy house in Alexandria. He readily agreed; I knew he ached to be admired for his voice, not gawked at for his short stature, so we let him go on easy terms. Also, an Englishman by the name of Jack White approached us one day, having seen us the previous week each day, and asked if he might join us so he might receive some inspiration for a novel he had intended to start. I would have said no immediately, but Jack White turned out to be a clever ventriloquist— that is, he could sound as though he were speaking from where he most certainly was not.

To bribe us into agreeing to let him join us, Jack White had also brought a girl with him who was most curious in appearance and voice. She had little talent for anything, we discovered later, but she had white hair, white skin, and her eyes were a pale, icy blue that seemed closer to white than an actual color. Her voice as well was strange: it seemed to me to be like a ney, the reed end-blown flute one of our tagalongs liked to play.

I had little choice but to let him join us, for he was a very good ventriloquist, and what was more astonishing than an outre girl who made a wonderful ventriloquist's dummy?

Kizzy, who declared the white girl to be German after talking to her in Arabic, dubbed her Schneewittchen, Snow White, after the fairy tale princess. I had no idea how she knew the newly christened Schneewittchen was German, nor how she knew anything about German fairy tales.

Three years passed in which our group became much more sought after and infamous in the courts of various high-ranking peoples in various countries. We moved from Egypt to Plestine and Arabia. In January of 1862, we found ouselves in the Eastern stretches of the Ottoman Empire, in the town of As Samawah, where Uruk, the largest city in Sumer, once stood.

We had just finished entertaining in the city's square to the delight of the citizens when our tagalongs, the rather untalented players of the ney and oud, disappeared. The very same hour, a man came to us in the street, bowing politely and introducing himself as Persian. He told the seven of us (myself, Kizzy Ferko, Jorge-Carmen-Hugo, Jack White, and Schneewittchen) were invited to Mazanderan court to perform for the shah-in-shah and sultana.

We accepted the invitation, of course, and the man, Afshin, seemed much relieved. I suspect he would have been killed had we not agreed to come. We left that very day, Jafar in tow. He had followed us faithfully across many lands, and although Afshin pursed his lips about it, I refused to leave him in As Samawah, where his bits of foolishness would certainly bring him much trouble.

Everywhere we stopped, however, we were invited to perform, so it took many months to reach our destination.

We arrived in Persia's capital on 22 Muharram A.H. 1279 (19 July 1862 by Kizzy Ferko's European dates) and Afshin bid us stay at a fine inn which his father owned while he fetched the man he whispered 'knew all'.

Jack White, who apparently had been to Persia before, told me confidently that Afshin of course meant the Daroga. I merely shrugged, but Kizzy was quite certain Jack White knew what he was talking about, seeing as he had understood Afshin's Persian. She seemed to have a very dim opinion of Europeans, despite being one herself.

We were welcomed very hospitably by Afshin's father, who bowed very low to us and offered us cool water to refresh ourselves. We accepted; Jack White, however, pursed his lips and muttered something about wine. Kizzy gave him a rude look and told him it was forbidden for Muslims to consume the stuff, and Afshin's father seemed quite relieved. Jack White merely gave a stiff apology and sent Kizzy a death glance.

We drank the water offered to us and moved outside to allow Jorge-Carmen-Hugo some freedom of movement. They hated to be confined, and the inn was cramped, even for me.

We did not wander very far from the inn's entrance, seeing as that was where Afshin had told us to be, and Kizzy sat down to sharpen her favorite knife. Jafar stayed in the inn, having begged me to be able to stay there instead of going to see the greater presences of the shah and sultana. Jack White had covered Schneewittchen's unearthly complexion with a long robe and a heavy veil, and I could just see her eyes darting about curiously.

An hour passed and the sun was beginning to set before we once again saw Afshin, this time leading another man who commanded great respect from all those whose eyes he met. Kizzy stood when I pointed him out to her, and her knife and sharpening kit went back into the folds of her clothes as Afshin bowed to the man who I assumed to be the man who knew all, the Daroga, and disappeared into the dispesing crowds of the streets.

The Daroga appraoched us, and I readied myself to be intimidating, which to me meant no blinking that the Daroga could see, and no smiles. I was quite sure the Daroga was not sent to us to befriend us, even if that happened. He needed my respect before I could like him. Kizzy took my hand, realizing my plans to indimidate the older man. He stopped a few paces from us, and I stared at him.

As usual, Jack White spoke first.

"Greetings," Jack White's voice said from behind the man. Jack smirked in his English way when the Daroga quickly turned his head to peer about, suspicious. "I am here," Jack said again, this time his voice pitching from the man's right.

Having witnessed enough humiliation on the guard's part, Jorge-Carmen-Hugo moved forward as one, their sinuous bodies flowing as they moved over and around each other and the still smirking Jack White until Carmen stood between her brothers before the man. The three dipped their heads, and Carmen uttered, "Salaam," in her hoarse, deep voice, the sentiment followed by Jorge and Hugo. They moved back, and Kizzy and I looked at the man expectantly.

He bowed to us, and spoke in Persian. "Salaam. I am Nadir Khan, of Mazanderan Court."

"The Daroga," Jack White informed the others, this time his voice coming from his person, which seemed to relieve Nadir Khan to no end, despite Jack's strange knowledge.

I still did not blink, but I decided an introduction was in order. "I am Moses Bazzi. This is Kizzy Ferko, that is Jack White--" Jack gave a toothy smile-- "and this is Jorge-Carmen-Hugo." I pointed in the triplets' general direction, setting up an amusement for myself when he did not know who was who.

"I welcome you to Persia—"

"A trifle late for that, Daroga," I said, still not blinking. "We have been in Persia for more than five days. Perhaps you would care to welcome us to Mazanderan Court, once you have taken us there?"

Nadir Khan smiled lightly. "Of course."

---

The Daroga

There were seven of them. I had not been informed of their numbers, only of where to meet them. I had certainly not expected such young people, nor such a varied group. One was certainly from an Arabic nation, but I was not sure at the time of the origin of a set of three of them, two boys and a girl who appeared to be siblings.

The shah-in-shah's mother, the sultana, had bade me fetch the band of magicians, if that was what they all were. I truly was dumbfounded by them at first sight: they were like nothing I had seen before. There was a definite unity among them, but there also lingered a deviousness that was most evident in the three siblings who I took to be acrobats. Their lithe bodies were sinuous and seemed to be simply cords of muscle. Their three faces were all simply constructed; the features were average and the eyes were all small and dark.

They seemed harmless enough as they darted about their four companions, garbed in thin flowing material. But I am quite sure they had been well equipped to protect themselves. If not by their own capable bodies, then by hidden weapons on their person.

When I first saw the group, I was foolishly relieved to see the darkest of the seven, the one I was sure was an Arab. He was also very slim, and he wore nothing to cover his torso. He wore loose pants and was lightly clasping the hand of an unthreatening light-skinned girl who seemed younger but was nearly as tall. Two others stood slightly behind, a blatantly British man with yellow hair and light eyes who seemed to guard a figure that I guessed to be a woman. I could see nothing of her person, only the dark clothes surrounding her, and it was unnerving, to say the least.

It was the Englishman who spoke first, his accent cutting through his atrocious Persian.

"Greetings," he said, but his voice came from behind me! I was vastly startled, and it showed: I spun about on my feet only to hear the Englishman speak again from my right. "I am here," the voice said, laughing at me.

I turned back, realizing the man must be an ventriloquist and surprised I had been shocked. I was approached by the three acrobats, who moved in the most unusual pattern I had ever seen around each other and the Englishman. When they stopped, the girl stood between her brothers, as I supposed them to be, and all three bowed in unison.

"Salaam," they said. The two boys spoke scarcely above a whisper, but the girl's voice was curiously deep, and hoarse, almost sensual, if I dared say so.

Then, the three moved back and turned, giving me a perfect view of the dark boy and his companion. Instinctively, I bowed and greeted them.

The dark boy introduced the group. He was Moses Bazzi; the three acrobats were Jorge, Carmen, and Hugo, and I realized them to be Spanish. The Englishman was Jack White, and Moses Bazzi's companion was Kizzy Ferko. Moses Bazzi gave no hint of the identity of the cloaked figure, and I did not ask. I merely began to welcome the party to Persia, but Moses Bazzi interrupted me.

"A trifle late for that, daroga," he said. "We have been in Persia for more than five days. Perhaps you would care to welcome us to Mazanderan Court, once you have taken us there?"

I smiled lightly, hiding my shock at the boy's audacity. He had to be less than twenty, yet he spoke to me as though he was my better. "Of course," was the only thing I could say to that, and then I turned to lead them to Mazanderan Court.

Mazanderan Court is a very grand place, golden and shining in the Persian sun like nothing else in the country. There is a unique splendor to the grand architecture and the people who inhabit the place. Something beautiful and dark, sinister and oozing with danger lurks in Mazanderan Court. Court magicians shrouded in shadow instilled fear deep into the hearts of those who dared stand up to those who ruled there, and the shah ruled with absolute power. None dared speak ill of him in his presence, save for his mother, the khanum, the sultana.

As I led the group of seven to Mazanderan Court, none of us spoke. Jorge, Carmen, and Hugo, the acrobats, moved about the group and inspected their surroundings with unabashed curiosity, the likes of which I have not seen before nor after. The others moved with no brazenness, and they moved with relaxed strides.

I must confess I was still slightly uneasy around them at this point. The predatory grace of the sinewy siblings showed me how easily they could render me immobile, and the English ventriloquist reminded me of someone with the same skills, and more, who I would rather have not thought of at that moment, not to mention his robed and hidden companion. Moses Bazzi, the slim boy whose talent I did not know at the time, seemed never to blink, and his gaze was unwavering and penetrating.

The only of the companions who had not made me the least restive was Moses Bazzi's accompaniment, the girl named Kizzy Ferko. She seemed to be as ordinary as Europeans were, though I admit I knew little of Europeans at the time. Kizzy Ferko was the only one who had offered the merest hint of a smile or compassionate glance at my humiliation by the ventriloquist Jack White.

I found no need to turn back to see if they followed along the streets, for the constant darting about of the Spanish trio was as good of a telltale sign as any that the rest were not far behind.

The three acrobats seemed fascinated by the bustle of the streets, though I am sure they had seen the same sort of thing before. I imagine now it must have been some vague amusement of theirs to see the expressions of those they approached, for I recall catching their small dark gazes and seeing laughter in them.

When I reached the great gate that separated Mazanderan Court from the common civilians, I paused and waited for them all to stand near me. I glanced at Moses Bazzi before speaking.

"I welcome you, formally, to Mazanderan Court, palace and abode of the shah-in-shah and sultana."

Jack White's voice spoke from high above me. "Astounding."

I only assume he spoke about the gate, for nothing else seemed extraordinary to me. Though I had been there so long, perhaps the beauty had lessened some for my eyes. I did catch a slight smirk on the features of Moses Bazzi, and Kizzy Ferko lifted a hand to cover her smiling mouth. I noticed right away how large her hand was, and how much strength rested in her wrists and arms. At that moment, I questioned how harmless she was, but I still had no inkling as to what she might be famous for.

Jack White's companion turned to look at me before speaking in the Englishman's ear. He looked at me as well, his voice coming from his person now. "This is Schneewittchen. It means 'Snow White' in German, daroga." I bowed formally to Schneewittchen, surprised I had learned anything about her. "She will come up to join you, daroga, but do not touch her." I was surprised, but nodded so as to reassure the Englishman I would not touch his (for I did indeed consider the robed girl 'his') Schneewittchen. I even linked my hands behind my back to further satisfy him.

Schneewittchen promptly appeared by my side, and I felt her gaze on me from behind her veil. "Salaam," she said. I replied in kind, and then she spoke again in that unearthly voice of hers. "Guten tag." I recognized the language as German, but I admit I knew no German. I merely nodded, realizing she meant to test my knowledge of different languages. She switched back to Arabic, and I realized she must not know Persian. "Is Persia very different from Egypt, daroga?" she inquired.

I was quiet for a moment before replying, surprised by her question. "It is different. We are both ancient countries, with different customs and languages. We are more different than Europeans realize, I am afraid. But we are both Muslim countries."

"I see," she answered, and was silent again, looking at me as I turned forward again. After a moment she turned and let Jack White escort her once more.

I then passed through the gates, the four guards standing around them bowing to us. The seven all followed me (or at least Jorge, Carmen, and Hugo did) for a few footsteps before turning back. I pivoted to regard the gate to see Schneewittchen standing beneath them, her head tilted back and her arms spread wide. I spotted her white fingers. They were not white like Jack White's were, but they were white like Russian snow or clouds.

Jack White must have seen me staring, for he quickly moved to Schneewittchen's side and blocked my view of her. But before he could fully bring her back from her private moment of what I guessed to be ecstasy, she let out a hum that made all the hairs on my body stand on end.

The sound was primal and utterly uninhibited. It was perhaps even more unreal because I could not see a whiff of her, nor did I have any idea what she looked like. The sound disturbed one of the guards at the gate as well, and he shifted his weight. I only watched as Jack White roused the girl from the privacy of her thoughts, and then I turned back to continue to the palace.

Jorge, Carmen, and Hugo resumed wandering around us, and they seemed as scouts inspecting their surroundings. They moved through the air as if they were swimming, and approached those they studied very closely. One of the boys moved very closely to two odalisques and put his face a hand's breadth from theirs. He made a sudden squawking noise and the two girls shrieked in unison and raced away from his laughing form, running into a shocked eunuch who had come to inspect the sound. The two girls quickly raced away from us, and the eunuch turned an angry eye upon me. I gave him a harsh look and he turned away. It would do no good if they should be punished while under my watch.

We made our way past the private apartments of various officials and guests at court, and then past the harem, before reaching the palace itself. I paused before the grand doors, and they gathered around me.

"The shah-in-shah has given you a great honor by inviting you to Mazanderan Court," I said, speaking in Arabic for Schneewittchen. Moses Bazzi, however, pursed his lip, as I looked at each of them in turn, and I realized he thought I believed they were simpletons. I switched to Persian so as not to insult them. "His mother, the sultana, will be in attendance as well. Remember to show them due respect." With a simple wave of his hand, Moses Bazzi bade me lead the way inside.

I looked at the guards on either side of the door, swords strapped to their sides, and they bowed and obliged my silent request. They swung the door open, and I passed through the doors after the group.

I moved to the front once more and led them down the long hall until we stopped before a heavy red curtain that separated us from the room the sultana and shah-in-shah were in. They moved about, and then the curtain was suddenly thrust aside by a gloved hand.

A tall, darkly garbed man stopped from just behind the curtains, partially hidden behind the other half of them. It was Erik, one of the sultana's favorites who had been commissioned by the shah in the beginning. He glared out at the group with dislike.

Schneewittchen was less than a short stone-throw's away from him, having moved to feel the material of the curtains. The rest were farther back, and Erik's gaze rested on the hidden visage of the girl.

I was behind Schneewittchen, but Erik later told me she pulled at a string tied loosely around her waist and simply pushed the obstructive cloak away from her. I was shocked by the girls appearance: her entire body was whiter than snow, from her hair to her skin. Even her gown, which flowed down and hugged her slim form was white. She appeared fascinated by the full-face mask Erik wore, which was almost as white as her skin, and she moved forward to touch it. I do not know if she had any intentions of removing it, but Erik pulled back, eyes sparkling dangerously.

At his sudden movement, Schneewittchen gave a soft noise that was not quite a discernible sound, her hand wavering before her, and then she fell as a dancer to the ground, her hand falling last.

A knife whistled past my ear.