Disclaimer: The Endless were created by Neil Gaiman and are copyright DC
Comics. They are being used without permission, and no money is being made
from this work of fan fiction.

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NOTE: This story is based on the plot of "Tales in the Sand" from Sandman
#9 (the prologue of The Doll's House), and quotations taken directly from
it are marked with an asterisk (*). This retelling, however, is my own.

Contains some mature subject matter.

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A Women's Tale, Never Told to Men
by Sirocco


"There is another version of the tale. That is the tale the women tell each
other, in their private language that the men-children are not taught, and
that the old men are too wise to learn. And in that version of the tale
perhaps things happened differently. But then, that is a women's tale, and
it is never told to men."*

---------

The men believe they know this story. They think it is a secret, one that
is to be passed from the older men to the younger, those just crossing the
threshold of manhood. They think they know the truth. But they know only
part of it.

I shall tell you the truth.

It is true that there was a vast and wonderful City made all of glass,
where the first people dwelt, and that they were of our tribe. It is true
that the City had a queen, and that her name was Nada, and that she was a
good queen to her people.

She was very beautiful, and the men of the City, from the oldest
grandfather to the young smooth-cheeked boys, wished to take her as a wife.
But she was their queen, and worthy of nothing less than a king, so none
dared approach her.

The women of the tribe were concerned, for Nada had no husband, and a queen
must have heirs. Nada knew of all the men in the City, and while there were
good men among them, there was not one who touched her heart. But she did
not despair, for although love can bring pleasure, it can also bring great
pain, and make one weak and foolish. Nada was strong and wise, and love was
not for her.

Again the women of the tribe entreated her to find herself a man, for a
beautiful woman alone is a dangerous thing: she is sport for men, and a
threat to women. But the men of the City knew they were not worthy of her,
and so Nada remained alone.

"Where, then, is the man for me?"* she asked, but the women had no answer
for her.

And so Nada said, "Then I shall take no husband, for there is no man in the
City who touches my heart."

The Endless are greater than gods, and far more terrible. They have petty
rivalries amongst themselves just as we do, but gods and mortals both must
pay the price.

Desire heard Nada's declaration, and to Desire her words were a challenge.
Why it chose to toy with its own sibling is not for me to know; the Endless
do what they will.

A stranger arrived in the City, and from the moment Nada gazed upon him,
something stirred within her, something she had felt for no man before.
Some say that love and desire are the same thing, while others say they
have nothing to do with each other; it is merely coincidence that they
sometimes occur together. Who am I to say which is right and which is
wrong? Whatever Nada felt for this stranger, she called it love, and that
will have to do.

The following day the young queen sought out the stranger in her City, but
could not find him. So she enlisted the help of the Bird-King, who commands
all the birds of the air, who see things that we do not. But the birds had
not seen him, save one, the weaverbird. And when the Bird-King heard the
weaverbird's tale, he said to her, "So, this is no man, no god, but
something else. Forget him, Nada. Find a breathing man made of blood and
bone and flesh and skin.

"This other can never be yours."*

Nada left with her heart full of sorrow, but she would have done well to
heed the Bird-King's words and forget the stranger. But the little
weaverbird, cunning and full of mischief, approached Nada and told her of a
way she could find her lost love. The bird told her of a tree of fiery
berries that grew on the mountains of the sun. If Nada were to eat one of
the berries, said the bird, the berry would lead her to the one she loved.

Had Nada told the weaverbird to leave her, all would have been well for
her; but Desire had its hand on her heart, and Nada was intrigued by the
weaverbird's words. The little bird, always eager to cause trouble, quickly
offered to go to the tree, and bring Nada one of its berries. This indeed
it did, and Nada, her judgment clouded by love, and believing the
weaverbird had done her a great service, promised everlasting safety to it
and its kind in this land.

The men believe this is why we do not eat the flesh of the weaverbird, and
why we allow them to weave their nests in our village. They do not know the
true reason: that the weaverbird is a agent of Desire, and we must take
care never to provoke Desire, for it may turn on us in a heartbeat, and
destroy us.

So Nada swallowed the berry that the weaverbird had brought her, and it
burned within her until she fell into a deep sleep, and her spirit awoke in
the Dreamworld. She found a road, and began walking along it, and presently
she came across a palace, for the berry had brought her to this place. It
was the palace of the Kai'ckul the Dreamlord, and she found him on his
throne.

She should have kept her love within her own heart, and never again spoken
aloud of it, for she knew that the man she sought was more than a man or a
god. But love loosened her tongue and she told the Dreamlord of the
stranger, and of her love for him.

The Lord of Dreams revealed his face to her, and she saw he was the
stranger whom she loved. And whatever he felt for her, he called it love
also.

And Nada, when she realized what she had done, spat out the flaming berry,
and was gone from the Dreamworld. But Kai'ckul followed her into the waking
world.

He sought to make her his bride, the queen of his realm, to rule over the
dreamers until the end of time. She would be a goddess, and more.

But although Nada was young, and mortal, she was also wise. She had her own
realm, the City of Glass, that was mortal as she was, and hers to rule by
right. To give herself to the Dreamlord would be an affront to all the laws
of what is and must be, and the world would suffer greatly for it.

So she turned herself into a gazelle (for in those days people still knew
the secret ways), and ran so that no man could hope to catch her. But he
was more than a man, and he became a hunter, and caught up to her, and
killed Gazelle-Nada; for it is the way of men to kill that which they
desire, and cannot have.

She became a woman once more, and when still he would not let her be, she
picked up a sharp stone and broke her maidenhead on it. If Kai'ckul had
been but a man, he would have turned from her on the spot. For when it
comes to choosing a wife, more than the sharpness of your mind or the skill
of your fingers at preparing meals or weaving cloth; more even than the
beauty of your face and neck or the firmness of your breasts and buttocks
or the broadness of your hips, men value this thing in a bride above all
else.

But he was more than a man, and to her joy and her dismay, he spoke these
words that no mortal man shall ever speak to a woman: "What matters your
body to me?"*

At that, Nada could resist him no longer, for Desire had them both firmly
in its grasp. They joined with each other in whatever way it is given for
the Endless to couple with mortals, if such a way exists. They say that
every living thing dreamed of love that night, but whether those were sweet
dreams or nightmares, I cannot say.

Now this is the part of the story the men do not tell.

Kai'ckul had given Nada his seed; and just as the seed of gods is never
void, neither was that of the Dreamlord. When they awoke entwined in one
another, Nada knew she was with child, and the Dreamlord knew it as well.

And he said to her, "Now you are bound to me, and must agree to be my wife;
for you carry my offspring within you."

And Nada's heart was filled with elation and dread together: for she
carried the babe of her true love in her belly; and such a thing should
never happen in the natural way of things.

No mortal man would have her now, for although she was still a queen and
still possessed of her beauty, she was no longer a virgin and she would
soon grow heavy with a child of the Endless. This did not matter to Nada,
for she had found her love, and wanted no mortal man. But neither could she
remain by Kai'ckul's side.

The men tell of how the rising sun saw them together, and cast a fireball
down upon the City of Glass, destroying all who lived there. But they do
not tell of how the babe in Nada's belly burned as well, burned more
intensely than the fire-berry that had led Nada to the Dreamlord's realm.

They do not tell of how Nada felt the death-screams of each and every one
of her people as they were consumed by the flames, and that the child in
her blazed anew as each soul was taken by Death, as if condemning her for
the very act that brought it into being.

And because her people were dead, and because the Dreamlord would never
leave her while she yet lived, she embraced him one final time; and
throwing herself from the mountaintop where they had lain together, she
followed her people into the realm of Grandmother Death, and took their
unborn child with her. And although the child wanted to live, as any new
life does, it was wise like its mother, and understood that only ill would
come from its creation.

Kai'ckul had seen Nada's city destroyed, but cared not. For what do the
lives of mortals matter to such as the Endless? He found Nada's spirit and
berated her for refusing him. Perhaps he was taken by jealousy that Nada
had chosen Grandmother Death's realm over his own; perhaps he was angry
that she had denied him the fruit of his seed; I cannot say that either.
Again he demanded she consent to be his queen, and in the very next breath
he vowed to condemn her to everlasting torment if she went against his
desires. And still he called her his love, for this is what love is to men.

Nada knew what her reply must be: her people had perished because she had
spent a night in the Dreamlord's arms, and that was but the beginning. The
voices of the wise women of her City, the mothers and aunts and
grandmothers, now silenced by death, spoke clearly to her, for she was also
dead.

"Hear our words, O daughter. He offers you eternal life at his side, but
that is a gift mortals were not meant to have. No more harm can befall us,
but the world will pay the price. Though you do not know it, you possess
great power. If you stay with him, every living thing will suffer for your
love. If you refuse him, the pain will be yours alone, and _that_ you can
endure (for women know pain, but are not broken by it).

"For he is more than a man, but a man for all that; he will make you great
promises, but one day he will grow tired of you, and seek a new love, and
you will be left with less than nothing.

"Yet what a man cannot have as his plaything, and cannot control, he must
punish or destroy. He could not kill you, for you did that to yourself. But
he can do worse than kill you. And you are strong, and know your own mind,
and keep your own counsel. And for that he will make you pay."

Nada heard the words of the wise women, and knew in her heart that they
were right. And she gave the Dreamlord her answer.

There are those who will say that love can never be wrong, no matter what
form it takes. They say that love will right all wrongs, will conquer all
evils, will make this world a better place.

That is blind foolishness. Do not believe it. Love has its proper place, as
do all other things under the sun. But know this: love will hurt whomever
it pleases. It should not be regarded lightly, as a game, but rather with
great wariness, as one regards a beautiful flower that is deadly poison to
the touch.

"For love is no part of the Dreamworld. Love belongs to Desire, and Desire
is always cruel."*



*Quotation taken from the original story.