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For all the days and nights he remained in the tower, Shahrayar had grappled with his wife's final words. They had been as a curse upon him, eating away like a cancer in his soul. For after so great and unexpected a betrayal, Shahrayar could find no way to believe it was possible to find a woman who would see his heart truly and so come to know it, yet be unafraid to have her own heart seen and known.
For even though she had deceived him in all else, in this Shahrayar perceived that his wife had spoken truly: Treachery could hide where it was least expected, even in the heart of the one he loved and trusted most.
And, so, at the last, Shahrayar could find but one solution: He determined to set love and trust aside. In this way only could he be secure. And so he cast them from his heart. And as he did, he felt a pain so great that for many days and nights he lay senseless, as if dead, upon the tower floor. Then the day came when Shahrayar awoke and found the pain had left him. Now he felt nothing at all. He had become as the stones beneath him: Hard. Unyielding. Cold.
So he rose from the floor, and descended from the tower, and set about ruling his kingdom once more.
And now, at last, we come to Shahrazad.
Shahrayar's first act upon descending from the tower was to send for the vizier. He stayed locked in chambers with him for many hours. At the end of this time, the vizier went forth and issued a proclamation in the king's name. Copies were made and sent throughout the kingdom so that, even in the farthest reaches of his land, Shahrayar's will might be known.
Now, I have told you that the vizier had served both Shahrayar and Shahrayar's father before him. The days of the vizier's youth were long over, yet never had he seemed old. His mind and body were still strong and vigorous. But as he stood upon the great steps of the palace, the vizier's hand shook as it held the king's proclamation. And those who heard him noted that his voice trembled as he read it aloud.
"Hear now the word of your king," the vizier proclaimed. "Dire plots have been laid against him, as you all know. He could forswear the company of women forever. But, as he is both king and man, it is right and fitting that he have a wife. Learn, then, how your king will marry and yet shield himself from harm.
"Once a month, at the full of the moon, will King Shahrayar take a maiden for a wife. But, lest she plot against him as one before her has, she will be his wife for one night only. On the morning following the wedding night, she will lose her life. This course will King Shahrayar follow each month for as long as his reign lasts, save for this thing only:
"If a maiden will come forward to wed him of her own free will, she alone will know the direst conse-quence. All those who follow her will be only close confined. They may keep their lives, but give up the outside world forever.
"All this shall be as I have proclaimed, for it is the will of King Shahrayar."
With this, the vizier finished speaking, rolled up the proclamation bearing the great seal of the king, and vanished back inside the walls of the palace. No sooner had he done so than the love Shahrayar's people bore him began to turn to hate. For who among them would wish such a fate upon one of their daughters? How could they honor a king who exacted such a terrible price upon his subjects? The span of time it had taken the vizier to proclaim Shahrayar's will: That was how long it took for his people to turn against him and his once well-ordered kingdom to begin a descent into chaos.
As the days to the full moon drew to a close and no maiden came forward, despair spread throughout the land like a thick and choking fog. People retreated inside their homes and barred their doors, even to those they loved the most. The camels of the great trade caravans became so cranky they refused to travel.
Commerce and trade came to a halt—even in far away Samarkand. Shazaman sent an urgent message to his brother, urging him to bend his will to another course and set aside what now he must surely acknowledge as madness.
Shahrayar climbed his tower, tore the message into a thousand pieces, and scattered it like leaves from the tower walls.
Finally, the night before the full moon arrived. On that night, Shahrazad left her apartments, made her way to the rooms of her father, prostrated herself before him and said, "I would beg a boon of you, my father."
Glad for the distraction, the vizier turned from his balcony where he had been watching the moon on its journey through the sky. Never had he known his daughter to ask an unreasonable thing. The truth was, she rarely asked for anything at all. So he crossed the room without hesitation, raised her to her feet, and answered, "Whatever your heart desires that I may grant is yours, my Shahrazad."
"Do you swear this will be so even before you hear it?" asked Shahrazad.
Though she could not see it, the vizier cocked an eyebrow. Rarely was his eldest daughter so forceful.
It was young Dinarzad, still a child, who made demands.
"I do so swear," he told her.
"Then, hear me, Father," said Shahrazad. "First know that above all things else, I love and honor you.
What I shall ask of you will be a difficult thing for you to bear. The boon I would have is that you present me to the king as his bride-to-be tomorrow. I ask this of my own free will, and you must grant it, for so you did swear."
Now, when the vizier heard his daughter's request, great was his horror! Never in his wildest dreams would he have believed that Shahrazad would ask such a thing.
"Have you taken leave of your senses?!" he exclaimed. "Think what you ask!"
"My father," Shahrazad answered steadily, "I have. Do you think I would ask such a thing lightly?"
The vizier began to pace around the room, his long robes swirling about him. So great was his distress that all signs of age left him, and he was as a young man once more.
"I wish you had not asked it at all! Aside from your mother's death, my greatest pain has been that my own people did not embrace you and Maju in their hearts. Why sacrifice yourself to save them now?"
Shahrazad tilted her head to one side, listening until she heard her father's pacing footsteps bring him once more near her. Then she reached out and seized him by the arm.
"Be still, Father," she said. "And be comforted. For this task, while it seems hopeless, is the one for which I was born."
All of a sudden the vizier's agitation left him. Once more, he felt old. Older than when he had seen Maju lowered into her grave. Older even than when he had read King Shahrayar's proclamation to the people and seen fear replace love in their eyes.
"How can this be?" he asked. “I do not understand you, Shahrazad."
Shahrazad heard the pain and weariness in her father's voice. Her heart was struck with sorrow, though she did not let it weaken her resolve. She slipped her hand into the crook of his arm.
"Come, Father," she said. "Guide me to a seat and then sit down beside me, and I will tell you of my last hours with Maju the Storyteller, whom we both loved."
So the vizier did as Shahrazad asked, and Shahrazad revealed to him all that Maju had told her before she died.
"Do you not remember, my father, that it was foretold at her own birth that Maju would come to bear the greatest of all the drabardi, the storytellers?"
"I remember," answered the vizier.
"I am Maju's only child," Shahrazad continued. "Therefore, I must be that storyteller."