Free The Stone Light by Kai Meyer Page A

another, until he gradually lost all orientation, even though he’d only been going straight the entire time. How far behind him was the door? A hundred yards, or only ten, fifteen?
    Gradually he was able to make out shapes behind the silk, angled silhouettes, pieces of furniture perhaps. At the same time the damp, moldy smell of Venice was overlaid with an exotic scent, a whole explosion of smells. They reminded him of the strange spices he’d once stolen from a merchant’s storeroom, years before.
    On the other side of the curtain lay another world.
    The ground was strewn with sand, so high that his boots sank into it without hitting any firm ground. The ceiling was hung with lengths of dark blue material, which provided a sharp contrast to the surrounding lightness, like an evening sky over the desert. And then he realized that this was exactly the impression that all this was supposed to awaken: the illusion of a desert landscape, completely artificial, and yet so different from anything that one could ever find in Venice. There were no painted dunes, no statues of camels or Bedouins; nothing here was real, and still it all seemed as convincing as an actual visit to the desert—at least to Serafin, who’d never left the lagoon.
    Several islands of soft cushions were piled up in the center of this wondrous place. The spicy smell came from bowls, from which hair-thin columns of smoke were curling up. Between the cushions was a pedestal of coarse sandstone and on it, heavy and blocky, stood a round water basin of the same material. The surface was a good three feet in diameter and was stirring slightly. Behind the basin stood a woman, only her upper body visible. She had thrust her right arm into the water up to the elbow. At first Serafin thought she was stirring it, but then he saw that she was holding her arm completely still.
    She looked up and smiled. “Serafin,” she said, and he found it quite astonishing how melodious his name sounded when such a creature spoke it.
    She was beautiful, perhaps the most beautiful woman that he’d ever seen—and as the messenger boy of Umberto, who wove magic fabrics for Venice’s noblewomen, he’d encountered many a beauty. She had smooth, raven-black hair, so long that the ends disappeared behind the edge of the sandstone vessel. Her slender body was clothed in skintight material, napped like fine fur and of the same yellow as the curtains. Large, hazelnut brown eyes inspected him. Her lips were full and dark red, although he was certain that she wore no makeup. The skin of her face and her left hand, resting on the edge of the basin, were dark, not black like one of the Moors, of whom there were several in Venice, but tanned dark by the sun.
    And then, in a flash, he knew.
    She was an Egyptian.
    He knew it with absolute certainty, before she directed another word to him or could introduce herself. The leader of the rebellion against the Egyptians was an
Egyptian.
    “Have no fear,” she said, when she noticed that he recoiled a step. “You are in safety. No one here will do anything bad to you.” A spark of regret burned in her eyes as she took her right arm out of the water and laid it in front of her on the stone rim. Neither hand nor arm was wet. There was no trace of water beading on her skin or on the strange material of her clothing.
    “Who are you?” He had the feeling he was stammering terribly. He had every reason to.
    “Lalapeya,” said the woman. “I don’t believe you know the language from which this name comes.”
    “Egyptian?” He felt brave, downright daring, when he said this one word.
    Her laugh was very clear, almost melodic. “Egyptian? Oh no, absolutely not. This name was already old when the first pharaohs mounted their golden thrones many thousands of years ago.”
    And with that she came out from behind the basin in a strange, flowing movement that disconcerted Serafin and confused him—until he saw her legs.
    She had four of them.
    The