29^th July 2009 AD, 03:00
Check­point Delta, Green Zone, Baghdad

Knock, knock.

“Pri­vate Ack­er­mann here to relieve you, sir!” shouted a voice from below. Sergeant New­ton peered over the side of the guard tower and saw the Pri­vate star­ing up at him eagerly. Far too early in the morn­ing, New­ton thought. What on Earth does he drink to make him so chirpy?

“Come on up, Ackermann.”

“Yes sir!”

Ackermann’s foot­steps up the metal stairs were rhyth­mic and reg­u­lar, and the Sergeant halfway drifted into a doze by count­ing them as the Pri­vate walked. Fifty-seven, fifty-eight. New­ton opened his eyes just as Ackermann’s foot hit the top step.

“Ready to relieve you, sir!” said Ack­er­mann, saluting.

“As you were, Pri­vate,” sighed New­ton. “Did you bring the oil?”

“Yes sir!”

“Jolly good. She’s been creak­ing in the wind a bit,” New­ton said, pat­ting the 50-calibre machine gun that looked down over the walls, ready and wait­ing to meet what­ever threat might be await­ing it today.

It hadn’t been fired in two and a half years.

“I’ll sort her out, sir, don’t you worry.”

“Well, I’m gonna hit the sack then,” said Newton.

“Tak­ing com­mand of the watch­tower, sir!” He saluted again.

“Yeah. Thanks,” said New­ton, giv­ing a half-hearted salute back before mak­ing his way, unsteady and irreg­u­larly, down the steps again.

Three weeks to go, New­ton thought as he sloped back to the mess hall for a din­ner that he’d rather fall asleep in than eat. Three weeks until I get out of this place. War wasn’t fun, but at least it was some­thing. There was some­thing to care about, some­thing to make you feel alive. But man­ning the watch­tower, forc­ing your­self to be on alert for a threat that may never come, while all the while you baked in the shade and the whistling wind echoed in your ears… It was the bore­dom. Nobody ever trained you for the boredom.

329 BC
Shahryar’s Palace, on the banks of the Tigris

Dear­est Scheherazade, she read. She slumped down onto the bed as her eyes scanned the mood of the let­ter that had been left for her.

This great Empire of ours lies crum­bling now, a mere reflec­tion of the won­der we knew in our youth. And so it has come to the point that I must leave with it, lest I be stuck behind, for­ever a shadow of what I was. No, my love, do not ask where I have gone. One day, when my Empire is strong again, I may return to tell you the tale – or I may be gone for­ever. From this early point in our future, I can­not see what may become with any clarity.

Though my essence lay in Earthly power, prone to ebb and flow with tri­umph and defeat, yours does not. So many sto­ries you did learn and tell in days of old, and many more since I granted you your free­dom, and so many more will con­tinue to flow through your beau­ti­ful mind until the end of time. For sto­ries are immor­tal, only gath­er­ing pace with time, never dimin­ish­ing as the Empire has.

Thus, though what remains of the Empire must be left to our eldest son to admin­is­ter, this palace I leave solely to you. May you hear vis­i­tors from the far cor­ners of the Earth come to share their tales with you, and may you in turn share those sto­ries with oth­ers; edu­cate them, inspire them, trans­fix them as you did to me all those years ago.

Your hus­band,

Shahryar.

Scheherazade threw her­self back­wards onto the bed, let­ting the let­ter float slowly to the floor. She wept for days.

29^th July 2009 AD, 04:13
Check­point Delta, Green Zone, Baghdad

The chanted song echoed out from the mosques through the streets of Bagh­dad, call­ing the faith­ful to prayer. Atop the watch­tower, Pri­vate Ack­er­mann scowled at the night. He was a light sleeper, and the pre-dawn prayers had woken him every day until he was assigned the early morn­ing watch. Then it was the evening prayers that stopped him get­ting to sleep at night. In self-defence he’d taken up heavy coffee-drinking and just blazed through it all, not sleep­ing at all some nights.

Crazy fuck­ing reli­gion, he thought. Nobody gets any rest in this city.

Prayers ended, and peo­ple started drift­ing out into the streets. A few min­utes later, a car drove by and parked next to the watch­tower on the other side of the wall. Ack­er­mann aimed the spot­light at the dri­ver as he stepped out.

“Hey you!” Ack­er­mann shouted. “You can’t park there! Read the signs!”

The dri­ver looked up, one arm giv­ing a kind of half-shrug while the other shielded his eyes against the spotlight.

“Fuck,” mut­tered Ack­er­mann. “Uh, Tawaquf! Ia, er… hunaka… Shit, I can’t– Shit, he’s running!”

Ack­er­mann grabbed his radio. “Cen­tral, Check­point Delta. Cen­tral, Check­point Delta. Sus­pi­cious activ­ity out­side the wall. Sus­pect has–”

But he would say no more. The force and the fire of the car’s explo­sion set off shaped charges along the wall, placed ear­lier that morn­ing as Sergeant New­ton had been blun­der­ing dream­ily about the top of the tower. The charges blew the wall to pieces, engulf­ing the watch­tower beyond it in a hell of burn­ing and twisted metal. Pri­vate Ackermann’s world turned blind­ing white, then there was the briefest sen­sa­tion of falling, and he lay still on the tarmac.

29^th July 2009 AD, 04:16
Shahryar’s Palace (Mythic Earth)

“Scheherazade.”

The for­mer Queen rolled over in her sleep, and groaned.

“Scheherazade, wake up.”

She rolled back again and blinked her eyes open. In the flick­er­ing oil-light, all she could see was a shadow loom­ing over her.

“Who is it?”

“It’s me, you fool. Shahryar.”

“Shahryar?” Scheherazade sat up and flung her arms around his neck. “But you… you said you were going away! How is it that you are back so soon?”

“Oh, my dear Scheherazade,” sighed the once-King of Per­sia. “I am afraid it is not soon.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s been rather a long time since you fell asleep. Two thou­sand years.”

“Two thou­sand years?”

“I’m sorry. It’s com­pli­cated, and I don’t have much time to explain. We’re under attack, but our old Empire is long-gone. Only this palace remains, but it’s not quite on Earth anymore–”

“Not quite on Earth?”

“That’s com­pli­cated too. I’m send­ing some peo­ple to help you. Now get dressed, and head to the throne room as quickly as you can. I have to go–”

“You have to go again? Why can’t you just stay here and explain what’s going on?”

“I will, my love, before the week is out. I promise.” And with that, he vanished.

Scheherazade waved her hand though the space he had occu­pied, and met no resistance.

“Shahryar?” she called out. There there was no reply.

She dressed quickly, find­ing her clothes hang­ing just as they had the pre­vi­ous night. The room looked the same, smelt the same, every­thing felt the same. It couldn’t really have been two thou­sand years. That’s ridicu­lous. But then she thought of some of the thou­sand and one sto­ries she had told her hus­band all those years ago, and began to won­der. Isn’t it?

The ser­vants who passed her on her way to the throne room all looked the same, acted the same. Did they know how much time had passed, or had they awoken nor­mally that morning?

Scheherazade reached the throne room, and sat down gen­tly in her throne to the side of and slightly behind Shahryar’s. She had still never sat in her husband’s, even though he had sup­pos­edly given the palace to her two – or two thou­sand and two – years ago.

Well then, she thought. What am I sup­posed to do sit­ting here?

And then, as if some­one was pay­ing atten­tion to her thoughts, it hap­pened. Every­thing hap­pened, all at once, in her head or out­side, she could not tell.

The palace being built.

The king tak­ing his first wife, who cheated on him.

The king’s mad­ness, his search, his hun­dred nights of pas­sion, the hun­dred grisly morn­ings when the girls’ blood was shed.

Scheherazade offer­ing her­self to the king.

The thou­sand and one sto­ries, one com­pleted each night as she began the next.

Her free­dom, her life with the king, their children.

The king’s dis­ap­pear­ance, and Scheherazade’s life afterward.

The fall of the great Per­sian Empire, and the rise of Islam.

The Mon­gols and the Ottomans, the Arabs and the British.

The Iraq of King Faisal and the Iraq of Sad­dam Hussein.

The Gulf War and the War on Terror.

The Green Zone, and the bomb which blew apart its walls…

As sud­denly as it had started, it stopped again. Scheherazade sat quiv­er­ing in her throne, feel­ing every day of two thou­sand years old.

She slowly opened her eyes, dread­ing what she might see – but she saw her own palace, just as it always was. And in the cen­tre of the room, five fig­ures who looked just as con­fused as she was.

Scheherazade stood, hop­ing she didn’t come across as any­where near as shaken up as she felt.

“Greet­ings, strangers,” she said, “and wel­come to the Court of Scheherazade.”