The Many Assassinations of Samir the Seller of Dreams Read online

  This is an Arthur A. Levine book

  Published by Levine Querido

  www.levinequerido.com • [email protected]

  Levine Querido is distributed by Chronicle Books, LLC

  Text copyright © 2023 by Daniel Nayeri

  Illustrations copyright © 2023 by Daniel Miyares

  All rights reserved

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2022945159

  Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-64614-303-0

  Ebook ISBN: 978-1-64614-331-3 (Reflowable EPUB)

  Published March 2023

  To Alexandra

  brighter than all the gems

  in all the eyes

  in every court

  of every queen

  in this world

  and the world of make-believe.

  You, my merchant’s crown

  CONTENTS

            CHAPTER ONE     The First Time I Was Stoned to Death…

           CHAPTER TWO     Monkey, Donkey, Master, Mule

          CHAPTER THREE     The Expensive Nature of Love

           CHAPTER FOUR     Our Well-Being Hindered by a Well Being Hindered

             CHAPTER FIVE     A List of Killers and Reasons for Killing

               CHAPTER SIX     Enter the Viking Berserker

         CHAPTER SEVEN     A Little Sleep, a Little Folding of the Hands to Rest

         CHAPTER EIGHT     Death by Dreaming

           CHAPTER NINE     Enter the Mongol Gunner

            CHAPTER TEN     The Buyer of Dreams

      CHAPTER ELEVEN     Ablutions and Pollutions

      CHAPTER TWELVE     A Quick Aside

   CHAPTER THIRTEEN     Enter the Rogue Legion of the Roman Army

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN     The End of My Testimony

       CHAPTER FIFTEEN     The Cost of Six Bolts of Silk

       CHAPTER SIXTEEN     The Expansive Nature of Love

  Author’s Note

  Bibliography

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  About the Illustrator

  Some Notes on This Book’s Production

  In the eleventh century, the Silk Road was a network of dirt roads and mountain passes that spanned from Xi’an in China to Baghdad, controlled at every outpost by local warlords and traveled by motley caravans of thieves, merchants, and scholars. It was three times longer than the Wild West, crossed deserts as barren as Antarctica, and stranded more men to die than the Seven Seas. No one dared it alone. No one traveled the entire length, and no one defied the four capital kings … except for a fellow named Cid, and that evil beast was likely just a fairy tale.

  —JONAS LINDSAY, Professor Emeritus

  CHAPTER ONE

  The First Time I Was Stoned to Death …

  The first time I was stoned to death by an angry mob, I was not even a criminal. I had not stolen so much as a sumac berry, though I will admit now that I deserved the punishment. It was dusk, but the desert stones still sizzled from the daytime sun.

  I ran like an injured animal as quickly as I could, which was not quick because I was shoeless. In the Tarim Basin, the sand could cook bread faster than a tandoor oven. Stones flew in the air and struck me in the head, one and then another.

  I screamed.

  I screamed with my whole neck.

  “Help! Help! I am a dying child! Grown men are stoning me as we speak!”

  I screamed even though there was no one around to hear my prayers except for God, and it was not His will at the moment to spare me.

  I ran more.

  Behind me rolled a thundering cloud of dirt and grit and ash. From inside the cloud, I could hear the sneezes and grumbling of Brother Mariz and Brother Koor. I knew them, of course, the monks in the dust cloud chasing after me, swinging their old swords in the air in the manner of those unaccustomed to sword-swinging.

  From the back of the crowd, two of the older men hurled rocks, but they had to slow down to pick up more as they ran and struggled to stay in range.

  Whenever a stone hit my shoulder or my back, I would yowl like a dog, hoping to light some sort of pity in their hearts, even though—as I said—I knew these men, and this was the kindness of their hearts.

  I felt warm blood streaming down my cheek.

  I screamed some more. “Help! Help!”

  A chase down a mountain is only running and screaming.

  I ran down into the valley toward an oasis where a grove of poplar trees swayed like lantern flames. A caravan huddled in the bits of shade they offered, sleeping away the heat of the day. I hoped the low-lying crags would be too much for the old men and they would stumble.

  But let this be a lesson.

  If ever you are being executed for crimes against God (but have not committed any as far as your heart can tell) and feel righteous anger back at your enemy, and you look back as you jump down the rocky hills, hoping your pursuers will stumble and crack their stubborn skulls open, then are you any better than they are? And more important, are you watching where you’re going?

  The answer is no.

  I was not watching where I was going and so I took an ignorant step, a loose rock shifted under my foot, I careened forward, flailed my arms, screamed again, “Help?” and slammed face-first into the dirt. I saw white.

  Here, for a moment, I was dead to the world.

  I had been stoned to death by an angry mob.

  I do not remember anything.

  I must have rolled the rest of the way onto the desert floor.

  That is where I returned to life only a few seconds later.

  I will admit I was disappointed.

  * * *

  The last thought I had before crashing down the ravine was that if you are an orphan, anyone can kill you, and no one will cry. I am a twice-orphan. First my parents died, then the old widow who took me in. And in fact, before these men were my murderers, they were my new family. I suppose I am a thrice-orphan now.

  When I awoke at the bottom of the valley, I could see the camel drivers and horsemen of the caravan positioning themselves between their herds and the mob of men running down the hills, swinging swords and screaming, “Nothing Something! Two is two!” They were almost on top of me.

  I scrambled to my feet. A stone skipped across my head. I shrieked and sprinted toward the caravan in the oasis. My legs bled from half a dozen cuts.

  Brother Ferz caught up to me, but he had been my best friend in the temple. When I cleaned the bread baskets, I would collect the crumbs and bring them to the pigeons he cared for in the firelight tower. I looked back as I ran. He loomed above me. Maybe he was sorry. I don’t know. Instead of his sword, he swung a young myrtle branch that whipped across my shoulders. He also shouted the law I had broken, “Nothing Something. Two is two,” but it didn’t sound like a curse when he said it.

  I replied with more screams as the branch cut me, and I sped up.

  I waved my arms at the caravan guards and hoped they would take pity on me. I was dizzy. My mouth had more dirt than tongue in it. As I ran to them, the guards drew their swords. A demon on my shoulder—who was never my friend—whispered in my ear, “You are not worth a battle. They will hand you over to your murderers.” But even in despair, I would never listen to a demon.

  I ran up to one of the caravan guards and tried to reach for his belt, but he stepped away. I fell to my knees to grab his bootstraps, but he kicked at me. He tried to keep me away without touching me. He spat on the ground between us, but I crawled over it anyway.

  I said, “Please. I beg you.”

  “Khafeh!” said the guard in a gruff voice. I didn’t know his people’s tongue but didn’t need to. He wanted calm. The camels were stirring at the noise. But the tarpan horses were especially susceptible to panic—probably because they are such short animals, and like children, they can’t look grown men in the eye.

  The brothers arrived at the oasis and stopped short. Brother Zesht elbowed forward and shouted, “Stand aside and we’ll take what’s ours.”

  “Che megeh?” said one guard to another.

  The other shrugged.

  Everyone but me had a sword.

  The merchants finally roused themselves from their naps under the poplar trees. Through the guard’s legs, I could see a round man arise from a Persian rug. Beside him was an ancient and bedraggled donkey, who did not get up and may have been dead.

  The man removed a set of bronze eyeshades he had been using to sleep. On his balding head, he placed a cone-shaped felt hat. He was not old and not young, not tall or short, not rushed as he walked toward us, and not at all worried. He smiled through his reddish brown mustache and though I had too much dirt and blood in my eyes to see sharply, I thought for a slight moment he winked at me. In short, he was a kind fool who had no sense that he was walking into the standoff of two amateur armies.

  He approached and placed a meaty paw on a guard’s shoulder. “Well now, what’s this, my good man? Do we have guests?”

  The guard kept his eyes on the sword-wielding m
ob, but answered, “Meekhan een bacherah sang bezanan.”

  The merchant looked at me, then at the monks, then laughed and said, “Excuse us.” He spoke with the guards in their language. The monks shifted. We all took a moment to catch our breath. I could feel my wounds pumping blood out of my body in the rhythm of my heartbeats. I am not very large, you see, and only just twelve years in this life of sorrow. I wondered when I would run dry.

  The portly merchant looked over his shoulder during his conversation with the guards and shouted back at the camp, “Rasseem? Rasseem, you sleeping beauty, arise and come, come!”

  “Don’t shout at me,” hissed a new voice. A skeletal man slithered out from between several camels, where he must have been hiding. He was the opposite of a beauty. The air wheezed through his crooked teeth as he approached.

  “Rasseem, we have guests,” said the first merchant.

  The man named Rasseem looked at the mob and the guards. Then he looked down at me as though I was a worm. “Don’t be a fool, Samir. Let them have their prey. Night is coming.”

  Samir smiled at the murderous faces and spoke through the side of his mustache. “Nonsense, we could do some business before we’ve even reached the market.”

  “They’re monks. They don’t want to buy anything.”

  “Monks? Really?”

  “That’s why they’re dressed the same.”

  “Nonsense,” said Samir. “That just means they buy their linens in bulk, as all wise men do. And we have wondrous textiles to sell.”

  I could hear Brother Zesht clear his throat to speak, but neither merchant was listening.

  Rasseem clicked his tongue again. He whispered so that only Samir and I could hear, “You cheat them, and they’ll curse us.”

  “Who’s cheating?” said Samir. “I’m offended, Rasseem.” He raised his voice and puffed his chest and spoke so everyone could hear him. “I am famous from the courts of Chang’an to the caliphate of Baghdad for my honesty. They speak of my bargains among the tongueless island tribes—they click about me, like you do, Rasseem.”

  “They’ll curse us, you’ll see.” Rasseem attempted a snort, but the dust in the air made him cough. Samir patted him on the back, jostling more dust from his clothes. As he knocked the smaller man about, Samir held up a finger at the monks, to remain patient.

  “St-stop it!” said Rasseem. “I’m not a child.”

  “Go ahead, burp, it will make you feel better.”

  Rasseem wrestled himself free of the friendly beating and straightened his tunic. It seemed so obvious that Rasseem hated him. I thought maybe Samir lived in a world of his own making, as children do. Children younger than me.

  Samir sighed with great satisfaction. “There,” he said, turning to the mob. “Excuse us, honorable friends and servants of the one God, whose holy name is … Elohim?”

  The monks scowled. We were not Jews, as he had assumed by calling on the name of their God. Samir stammered on. “… Which is, of course, only one of the ninety-nine names of Allah, of whom the Holy Prophet spoke?”

  The men stirred. A few in the back averted their gaze. We were not Mussalmans either. Brother Zesht’s frown—as hard as a pistachio—was unmoved. Samir continued. “Blessings be to him and his followers, though I’m not personally one. It’s the Krishna for me …”

  Still nothing from the monks. “… that is, if I were a Hindustani, which, as a Sogdian, I am not. Though, I have been to the mango groves. We could use one of their monsoons in this infernal desert heat, couldn’t we?” Samir chuckled a solicitous chuckle.

  “They’re fire-worshippers, you pig-eating mongrel,” hissed Rasseem.

  “Ah! Zoroastrians!” said Samir, opening his arms wide and stepping over me as if I were a puddle. His cloak was as perfumed as a harem. “The faith of my own people. Do you know Mani? No? He’s doing some very interesting things on the subject of fire, but it’s Zoroaster all the way for me. Nice to meet you, brothers.” In fact we were not Zoroastrians either, but this was the closest Samir was likely to get, and I don’t think anyone wanted to go on with the guessing.

  Samir scooped up the free hand of Brother Zesht and shook it vigorously with both of his. The monk dropped the rock in his other hand in order to keep his shoulder in its socket.

  “Good fortune, good fortune!” said Samir, grinning with his bushy mustache. He slung an arm over the monk leader’s shoulder and said, “Come with us to the cold water. You must be parched from your chasing. I am Samir, the Seller of Dreams. I’ll pull your first drink from the well myself. What is that woebegone creature for, anyhow? He certainly didn’t steal anything, shoeless monkey that he is.” They glanced at me; I looked down at my bleeding feet.

  “He is the filth of a dog,” said the head monk, ripping a small tear into his sleeve to show his disgust. “A servant of the defiler, Shaytan. Friend of devils and lies.”

  I will tell you that only days before I had shined the lanterns of the temple so diligently that Brother Zesht himself tousled my hair and held me to his side and said, “You are a good creature,” and I had felt proud. Maybe this was all the hand of Providence, to visit humility upon me for that pride. I don’t know.

  “I see,” said Samir, nodding gravely. “A misguided disciple. And now that you’ve walloped him with this tremendous spanking, what now, friend? Could he become a slave?”

  The head monk made his answer silence—the executioner’s melody.

  “Oh,” said Samir. They walked through the caravan to the stone well. The other brothers accompanied them. One of the monks, I couldn’t tell which, kicked me so that I would stand and follow. Rasseem split off to whisper among the others in the caravan and settle their worries. The camel driver and the horseman readied their herds for the night’s travel. An old blacksmith struggled to hoist a small anvil onto a yak.

  Samir drew the bucket from the well and spirited a cup from the folds of his silk embroidered caftan. He presented it to the stern customer with a smile. The monk drank, and then refilled the cup for his brothers. The caravan bustled with activity as it began the next leg of its journey.

  I noticed that Rasseem had slunk away without so much as a nod once he had seen there was no benefit for him. He must have been somewhere in the throng of horses, camels, mules, and travelers—all carrying whatever packs they could.

  “Listen, my brother,” said Samir. “Be sensible. The moon will be dark tonight and you are a long way from home. How will you find your way back?” The eyes of Brother Zesht betrayed a subtle acknowledgment of this worry. I saw it because I knew him. Samir, the Seller of Dreams, I realized, could read such cryptic tablets of the inner mind as a false prophet could read tea leaves or knucklebones. Samir seized his opportunity. “Like any shepherd, you must lead the fellows back, yes? The night is a deadly cold blanket for lost travelers, my glorious archmonk.”

  The last of the caravan jostled past, revealing the stiff, blind donkey I had seen earlier sleeping beside Samir, and a pack mule, loitering nearby. Samir quickened his speech. “But I am your humble servant, honorable sir, and though my poverty is my shame, for a fellow Zoroastrian, I could part with several torches to light your path, a waterskin to slake your thirst, some dried figs, a few handfuls of gooseberries—you must be peckish from all that shouting—and several metalwork knives, plus a belt to hang them on, that I have just procured from the new blacksmith in our caravan. He’s very good, and next time you have a child who needs killing, you won’t need to run around looking for sharp rocks.”

  The archmonk nodded with appreciation for the practicality of Samir’s argument. “This, my brother, I would give to you, as I would put my own head into the sand if you needed a rock to sit on.” Samir paused. I have been to markets to run errands for the brothers, so I know that this was the customary moment for the monk to present his own courtesies, to insist on paying a fair price—a better-than-fair price. Instead Brother Zesht seemed to be counting the men with him, to better inform Samir of the right number of free things to give them. Samir interrupted his own pause. “But you see, I would have barely anything left to sell. Of course, I know that you would suffer such loss for me, if circumstances were reversed.”

  “Of course, of course. Ten torches please,” said the archmonk. “And the brothers prefer goji berries if you have them, instead of gooseberries.”