By Maradas Graham

There was a saying among the desert people of old, "Love conquers all, then sand covers the rest". No one is exactly sure where this saying originated, for though many cultures believe that "love conquers all", the phrase tends to stop there. The stories your investigative teller-of-tales has heard speak of forbidden love and slighted honor, and though the reality may lie elsewhere, who wants truth when fiction will suffice? Not your humble author, and my guess is, not you either, curious readers.

There was once, in the ancient deserts, before the sands were caught up in the hourglass to measure time, the son of a merchant prince who was very handsome and very unhappy. Though he lived his life surrounded by luxurious silks from beyond the mountains, nubile slave girls to attend his every desire, and fine spices to flavour his meat and drink, the man was still very lonely. What he truly wanted was love, not pleasure, and an hours conversation, rather than days and days of bartering over trade. His life was one of solitude and boredom, and he could not see the beauty of the things before him, instead choosing to wrap himself in his own discontent.

Still, fate decreed that one day the merchant caravan of the mans father should pass by another merchant caravan, recently come from a great city of trade. There were many great cities in those days. The mans father, and the head merchant from the other caravan got to haggling about spices and ivory and gems, when the man saw a woman unlike anything he had ever seen. She was stuck between several other slaves in the middle of the caravan, but even in the dim of the tent he could make out that she was quite different. For one, her skin was pale white, like the fresh milk of a camel (a mythical beast of sorts), and her hair was the fine yellow of the sands when the sun touches them. At this time, all of the desert people were dark, with tan skin to protect them from the cruel sun, and black hair and eyes, so this woman was truly remarkable. Also, she was dressed in much-ripped clothing of a curious nature. It seemed to cover her from neck to foot, but leave the tops of her bosoms quite uncovered, plus some tight constraint seemed to squeeze her waist in, as to make her look underfed and sickly. Still, to his eyes, she was exotic and quite beautiful.

The woman was obviously terrified, and quite obviously a captive, for there are no slaves born in the desert lands with hair and skin of such colors. The man knew that he must possess this woman as his own, though surely the price would be steep. He went to his father and begged that the old man come and view the prize he had found. The old man praised her as truly remarkable, and the two returned to the other merchant to ask for her price. It was quite high, and the merchant was unwilling to be talked down, but the look of desperation in the sons eye made him think that perhaps he should take the offer before the offer turned ugly. So with posthaste, the golden creature was swept from the tents and onto the back of the sons camel. As they rode off, the son held tightly to his treasure.

At first, the woman was very afraid of the man and his old father, but she obeyed their orders silently, perhaps with the fear of what would happen should she not. Everyday the son would try and engage the woman in conversation, and everyday she listened to him as she went about her chores but said not a word. This did not daunt the man, though, for he was in love with the woman and wanted only for her to feel at ease with him. Time passed, and the woman became accustomed to the ways of the desert, and finally began even to care for her master, the merchants son. The old man viewed this with displeasure. He had a mind for his son to marry the wealthy oldest daughter of another merchant prince, and did not much care for the growing bond between his son and this slave girl. He watched them carefully, and when the sparks of love began to burn within the slave woman for his son, the old merchant saw them.

It began innocently enough. Though she was a slave, the woman was not born a slave, and her loneliness eventually overcame her fear of her master. When he would speak to her, she would speak back, and soon woke up each morning looking forward to the days conversation, even if it were about something so simple as the direction from which the sands were blowing. It was a reluctant love, for she was being kept as if in a prison by this man, but soon neither could deny what they felt. The highborn merchant prince swore his undying love unto the yellow-haired slave woman, and she swore hers unto him. In those next fast days, she told him much of her lands, a far and distant place where all was green and there was fresh water in abundance. It seemed a land worthy of a genie tale, but she swore by it, and so he believed her. He vowed that as soon as he could save his fortune, they would return to her green lands and live together as free equals.

This, of course, was not to be. The old man had secretly witnessed their vows of love, and was not about to have his only son run off to some foreign land, instead of staying in the desert and marrying the merchant princess like a good son would. He arranged to have the woman sold, and did it while his son was off at market. When the man returned to find his true love gone, he was angry beyond control with his father. He grabbed his father up by the shoulders and shook him with great rage, and then flung him to the floor of the tent. The mans father was very old, and very frail, and in his extreme hate and anger, the son had forgotten this. When he knelt beside his father, he did not hear a breath of life. The man was consumed in guilt, and also in fear, for his father had died without revealing the location of the slave woman.

The man fled to the slave markets, but the old man had been clever and not sold her on the block. The man asked the heads of all the merchant houses, but the old man had been still more clever and not sold her to the slaving families. The man searched the desert, and the cities of the desert, and the ports at the end of the desert, but he could not find his true love in any of those places. She was already long, long gone, travelling to foreign lands with a man in wrapped white clothing. Still, the man could not give up searching for her. He spent years and years looking, and when hope finally left him, he went to the green lands she had described to him, to live out his days alone.

For a time he lived in the cool, green valley, but his heart longed without ceasing for the golden hair of his love, and the soft touch of her pale hands. The one day, as if it a dream, he saw her before him at the crossroads between towns. She was older, as was he, and several blond children were trotting along beside her. With a cry of joy, the man grabbed her up in his arms and swung her around, but when he set her on the ground, her eyes were not filled with the joy he had expected. They were instead filled with tears and a look of anger. He swore again his love to her, but her reply was cold, that if he had loved her, he would never have let his father sell her. She was free now, and wed, and the children hers.

The man was struck down by the shock of disbelief. He had left his deserts to look for her, had grown old searching for her, had killed his father for love of her, and she had as much as forgotten him.

With a heavy heart, the man returned to his home and built up the fire in his cold stone kitchen. He decided then to return to his home in the desert.

When at last he returned to the sands, little had changed. The sands had moved and covered, as they do, but all else was as he left it. The man rummaged through his things and took his fathers old sword, then he piled all his belongings into a heap inside the tent, and set the tent ablaze. Crying out a curse against love, the man plunged the blade into his heart, and fell forward into the fire.

Unbeknownst to him, the woman had never truly forgotten him, and upon seeing his loving face had immediately known what she would do, though she had hated herself for knowing it. Leaving a note for her husband and children, she had left her home. The same night that he set out for the deserts, she had come to his house, and finding him gone had followed after him. And so, as the blade plunged into his heart, and he fell into the fire, who should come upon the great blaze but the very woman whom he had died loving! She shrieked in horror, "Stop, Stop!" But it was too late. She watched as the hot fire turned her loves body to ashes. Unable to bear the pain of losing him again, the woman flung herself into the fire, and was consumed by the flames.

When the pale ridge of dawn broke over the horizon, gentle reader, the fire had burned, and nothing remained of the two lovers but black ash. Then, as the winds kicked up, the sand rolled over and covered the ash, and there was nothing left of them. The story of this tragic love spread, however, throughout the desert, for such a great love is not soon forgotten, nor such a great tragedy, but soon even the stories were forgotten. Love had conquered all, and finally brought the fated pair back together, but sand had covered the rest. Maybe not a true story, but a sad story, for there is no tale of love quite like tragic love. It cannot be avoided.