The Storytellers' Bazaar

Here the maps are sung, not drawn, and the oldest road lives in a woman's voice.

I come into the bazaar at dusk, the hour Aurel-Khar wakes, and it is exactly as I left it five years ago: the storytellers on their rugs, the tea-sellers, the lamps strung between the stalls, the air thick with dust and jasmine and roasting grain. I know which rug is Yuli's — the…