The Many Assassinations of Samir, the Seller of Dreams by Daniel Nayeri

Author:Daniel Nayeri
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Levine Querido

CHAPTER EIGHT

Death by Dreaming

I am pausing my testimony here to say that if you’re looking for a humble servant who can read and write in common Sogdian and takes orders in a half dozen other languages—and who can pray for your soul and for your career—who will never steal from your house or menace your children, then you could do far worse than to look kindly on your friend, Monkey. I’ve matured since this part of the story and would know how to handle things. But I have nowhere to go, you see. And no food. I wouldn’t have to ride around with you. I could run alongside a horse or something.

I don’t need a lot of food.

I’m clean.

I’m—

Fine.

I guess there’s no value in a servant who has turned on his master.

But I wouldn’t turn on you.

You’ll see. I’m not proud of what I did. But he deserved his fate.

And you’re right. Maybe I deserve my fate as well.

Fine.

But if anything, I would say that now is the time to hire my services at a dramatically lower value than they’re worth.

I’ll let you think about it.

I have no intention to kill you.

For now, we were a ragged caravan assembling ourselves after a long night without rest. The sun had only just begun to rise as the innkeeper dragged the last of his smoldering furniture outside and took survey of the scorched walls. He had not yet made the connection between Samir’s arrival and the fire-dancer. Everyone agreed not to mention it.

The furrier grumbled his curses in Khotanese so that no one would understand him. He stacked his singed furs onto his pack mule and left us. As he shuffled off, I imagined he was saying the Khotanese equivalent of “good riddance!”

Even worse, the jeweler also left us. I would miss him. He was young enough to be my friend and had taught me how to tell the difference between pearls and glass beads. His good-bye was a remorseful glance, a nod to me, and a long sigh, before he ran to catch up with the furrier.

Samir had suffered the worst loss—his entire store of wool. And worse yet, I think, he had lost his faith in the family ties of the caravan. But without his merchandise, what was the furrier supposed to do? Swagger around expecting the whole world to open its arms to nothing but his smile? Was Samir really so childish as to believe every family was a happy one? Had he never met an orphan? I didn’t know what he expected when he imagined the caravan as a family, but I didn’t blame the furrier or the jeweler for rejecting it.

I watched Samir bargain with the herdsmen—who were also leaving our cursed convoy. He traded our pack mule for a Bactrian camel to help us cross the desert ahead.

I knew my master had fallen into despair when he took the herdsmen’s first offer without so much as a higgling nudge or a haggling speech.

The camel had a limp, louse-bitten quality, with its head hung low.

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