Inevera watched Ahmann, seeing recognition in his eyes as they took in the khaffit.
The voice from his past.
Inevera looked closer, studying the man’s face. She had to look past the thick jowls and cast back years, but at last recalled the boy who had carried Ahmann to the dama’ting pavilion all those years ago. A boy who had visited the pavilion himself years later, and left with a limp the dama’ting were not sure would ever heal. Abban, son of Chabin, the merchant who used to sell couzi to her father. That was reason enough to dislike him.
‘What makes you think you are worthy to stand here among men?’ Ahmann demanded. The anger in his tone surprised her. Perhaps the debt of his past was to be collected, rather than paid. Why else would a khaffit come to the First Warrior’s palace and risk his wrath?
‘Apologies, great one.’ Abban dropped to his knees and pressed his forehead into the dirt.
‘Look at you,’ Ahmann snarled. ‘You dress like a woman and flaunt your tainted wealth as if it is not an insult to everything we believe. I should have let you fall.’
Fall? Inevera wondered.
‘Please, great master,’ Abban said. ‘I mean no insult. I am only here to translate.’
‘Translate?’ Ahmann glanced up and noticed the Northerner for the first time. ‘A chin?’ Ahmann turned to Ashan. ‘You called me here to speak to a chin?’
‘Listen to his words,’ Ashan urged. ‘You will see.’
Ahmann studied the greenlander a long time, then shrugged. ‘Speak, and be quick about it,’ he told Abban. ‘Your presence offends me.’
‘This is Arlen asu Jeph am’Bales am’Brook,’ Abban said, gesturing to the Messenger. ‘Late out of Fort Rizon to the north, he brings you greetings, and begs to fight alongside the men of Krasia tonight in alagai’sharak.’
Ahmann gasped, and Inevera, too, felt a wave of shock. A Northerner who wished to fight was like a fish asking to swim in hot sand.
The men began to argue over whether the man’s wish should be granted, but Inevera ignored them. ‘Husband,’ she said quietly, touching Ahmann’s arm. ‘If the chin wishes to stand in the Maze like a Sharum, then he must have a foretelling.’
Inevera led the greenlander to a casting chamber. Ahmann insisted on accompanying her, and she could think of no easy way to deny him. He was naïve at times, but her husband was no fool. He sensed her interest in the man, and if the Northerner were indeed his zahven, he could likely sense that, too.
‘Hold out your arm, Arlen, son of Jeph,’ he told the Northerner when she drew her knife. The chin frowned but didn’t hesitate to roll up his sleeve and hold out his arm.
Brave, Inevera thought as she made the cut. The dice seemed to hum in her hands as she shook and threw.
A chill ran down her spine as she read the result.
No …
She pressed her thumb into the chin’s wound. He grunted but did not resist. Inevera wet the dice afresh and threw them again.
And a third time.
The fate of Arlen asu Jeph am’Bales am’Brook spread out before her, the same on the third throw as it had on the first. Inevera had cast the bones for countless warriors, but never since Ahmann had she seen the like.
Could he be the Deliverer? She glanced at the greenlander. He was not much to look at, neither short nor tall, his hair the colour of sand and his face bare like a khaffit. He wasn’t uncomely, but neither was he as handsome as Ahmann.
But his eyes were hard like her husband’s, and the same potentials buzzed around him like insects drawn to a lamp – futures where men called him Deliverer, where he was martyred, or died alone, or failed, driving humanity into extinction.
If only I could take husbands like Ahmann takes wives. Her mind ran through the possibilities, but in the end it was impossible. Her powers were not infinite, and even a dama’ting could not take two mortal husbands. Just one pushed the boundaries. This greenlander, for all his potential, could not be the leader her people followed, and there could not be two such men, north and south. The land was not big enough for both. They would tear it asunder, losing Sharak Ka in the process.
And so it must be Ahmann.
‘He can fight.’ She put away her dice and daubed the cut, soaking up the welling blood. She administered a salve and bound the chin’s wound with fresh cloth, pocketing the bloody one.
Ahmann and the chin left the chamber immediately, and she could hear her husband shouting orders in the hall. She knelt and drew her dice once more, squeezing the bloody cloth over them.
‘How can Ahmann take the son of Jeph’s power for his own?’ she asked as she threw.
– When the zahven finds power, he will share the secret with his true friends, but die before giving it up.—
Inevera quickly scooped the dice back into the pouch, getting to her feet and exiting the casting chamber. Ahmann was down the hall, about to leave for the training grounds. She caught his arm.
‘The chin will be instrumental in your rise to Shar’Dama Ka,’ she whispered. ‘Embrace him as a brother, but keep him within reach of your spear. One day you must kill him, if you are to be hailed as Deliverer.’
Alarms burned in the city that night, echoed by bells and the screams of women throughout the Undercity. The first wall had been breached.
It was unthinkable. Unheard of.
And yet it was Waning, and the dice had said Ahmann was to meet his zahven. Had the greenlander killed him? What if they had not been speaking of the greenlander? What if Alagai Ka had indeed risen this night and Ahmann was facing him this very moment? Was he ready if Sharak Ka began tonight?
It seemed the next morning that it had, and he was. A rock demon had smashed open the great gate, slaughtering warriors by the score and clearing the way for hundreds of other alagai. Such a thing had not occurred in the history of the Desert Spear, a calamity great enough to chill the blood of the bravest man.
But Ahmann had beaten them back, resealing the gates and rescuing countless warriors. He and the greenlander had faced the rock demon together on the Maze floor and trapped it for the sun. It was only by sheer luck it had escaped.
But the price had been high. Over a third of Krasia’s warriors dead in one night, and the demon, it happened, was a personal foe of the greenlander. The Andrah had wanted him dead, and Ahmann had put his reputation on the line to save the man in open defiance of his leader, calling him Par’chin, the brave outsider. It was only the broad support of the Sharum and key dama that had saved the Northerner and kept Ahmann’s head on his shoulders.
‘I will need more of the Par’chin’s blood,’ Inevera said.
Ahmann laughed. ‘Easily done. The Par’chin bleeds often in the Maze, but always at great cost to the alagai.’ The next time he brought her a rag so soaked in the greenlander’s blood that it filled an entire vial when squeezed. Inevera had attached a piece of hora to the glass under layers of opaque glaze and warded it for cold to preserve its essence.
Inevera herself served the Par’chin tea the night he brought the spear. Ahmann looked at her incredulously, but she wanted to get as close to the item as possible. The greenlander said nothing of its origins as the other Sharum gazed at the spear in wonder, but he had privately admitted to Ahmann that he had taken it from the ruins of the holy city of Anoch Sun.
The heavy curtains of the dining chamber were pulled tight, and she wore her warded circlet. It was years since she last served tea, but the precise movements of the ritual had been ingrained in her as nie’dama’ting, letting her focus on the spear. It glowed like the sun itself in Everam’s light – power that could only come from a demon bone core. The hundreds of interconnected wards were beauty beyond belief, and the metal was something she had never seen before.
‘You honour me, Dama’ting,’ the Par’chin said when she bent to fill his cup. His Krasian was flawless, his manners impeccable. His smile was without guile. Either he was a master thief, every expression sheer artistry, or he did not realize what her p
eople did to grave robbers.
‘The honour is ours, Par’chin,’ she said. ‘You are the only Northerner ever to add your spear to ours.’ And to dare look us in the eye as you attempt to steal from us, she added silently.
She looked back to the spear. She longed to examine it properly, but dama’ting were expressly forbidden to touch weapons. A great irony, as this spear had unquestionably been made by one.
That it was a genuine Sunian artefact with a demon bone core was already beyond doubt. Regardless of its origin, the spear would bite the alagai like no weapon in millennia. But in the time of the Shar’Dama Ka there had been many such weapons, carried by the sons and lieutenants of Kaji. Was this one of those, or was it truly the Spear of Kaji, made from the sacred metal by the Damajah herself? There was one way to be sure.
It took only the slightest flick of her arm to hook the flowing white silk of her sleeve on the point of the spear. It came up with her as she straightened, then tore the cloth.
Inevera gasped and pretended to stumble, spilling the tea. Around the low table, kneeling Sharum averted their gazes that they not witness her embarrassment, but the Par’chin was quick, catching the teapot with one hand and steadying her with the other.
‘Thank you, Par’chin.’ Inevera looked to where the spear had rolled on the floor, seeing what she had hoped. Along its length was a thin, almost imperceptible seam. Without her wardsight, it might have been invisible.
The seam where the Damajah had rolled the thin sheet of sacred metal about the core.
The Par’chin had brought back the Spear of Kaji.
‘Tonight is the night,’ Inevera said, pacing in excitement. She had known the Par’chin would find power, but this was beyond her wildest dreams. ‘Long have I foreseen this. Kill him and take the spear. At dawn, you will declare yourself Shar’Dama Ka, and a month from now you will rule all Krasia.’
She was already plotting his ascent. The Andrah would move to have him stopped or killed, but the Sharum were already more loyal to Jardir. If the warriors witnessed Ahmann killing alagai on the Maze floor, they would flock to him in droves, starting with those most beholden to him.
‘No,’ Ahmann said.
It took a moment for the word to register. ‘The Krevakh and the Sharach will declare for you immediately, but the Kaji and Majah will take a hard line against … Eh?’ She turned back to face him. ‘The prophecy …’
‘The prophecy be damned,’ Ahmann said. ‘I will not murder my friend, no matter what the demon bones tell you. I will not rob him. I am the Sharum Ka, not a thief in the night.’
Inevera’s flash of anger was more than even she could bend against. She slapped him, the retort echoing off the stone walls. ‘A fool is what you are! Now is the moment of divergence, when what might be becomes what will. By dawn, one of you will be declared Deliverer. It is up to you to decide if it will be the Sharum Ka of the Desert Spear, or a grave-robbing chin from the North.’
‘I tire of your prophecies and divergences,’ Ahmann said, ‘you and all the dama’ting! All just guesses meant to manipulate men to your will. But I will not betray my friend for you, no matter what you pretend to see in those warded lumps of alagai shit!’
Inevera felt as if everything she had built for over twenty years was crashing down around her. Had she come so far only to fail because her fool husband had not the spine to kill a man who had defiled the grave of Kaji? She shrieked and raised her hand to strike him again, but Ahmann caught her wrist and lifted it high. She struggled for a moment, but he was stronger than her by far.
‘Do not force me to hurt you,’ he warned.
Now he dared threaten her? The words brought Inevera back to herself. A lifetime of training with Enkido had taught her strength could be taken with a touch. She twisted, driving stiffened fingers to break the line of energy in his shoulder. The arm holding her went limp and she twisted out of his grasp, slipping back a step to straighten her robes as she breathed back to centre.
‘You keep thinking the dama’ting defenceless, my husband, though you of all people should know better.’ She took his numb hand in hers, twisting the arm out straight as she pressed her other thumb into the pressure point in his shoulder, restoring the line of energy.
‘You are no thief if you are only reclaiming what is already yours by right.’
‘Mine?’ Ahmann asked.
‘Who is the thief?’ Inevera asked. ‘The chin who robs the grave of Kaji, or you, his blood kin, who takes back what was stolen?’
‘We do not know it is the Spear of Kaji he holds,’ Ahmann said.
Inevera crossed her arms. ‘You know. You knew the moment you laid eyes on it, just as you’ve known all along that this day would come. I never hid this fate from you.’
Ahmann said nothing, and Inevera knew she was reaching him. She touched his arm. ‘If you prefer, I can put a potion in his tea. His passing will be quick.’
‘No!’ Ahmann shouted, pulling away. ‘Always the path of least honour with you! The Par’chin is no khaffit, to be put down like a dog! He deserves a warrior’s death.’
I have him, Inevera thought. ‘Then give him one. Now, before alagai’sharak begins and the power of the spear is known.’
But Ahmann shook his head, and she knew he would not be swayed. ‘If it is to be done, I will do it in the Maze.’
The next morning, Ahmann returned to the Palace of the Sharum Ka triumphant, the Spear of Kaji held high for all to see. Sharum cheered and dama looked on – some in religious fervour, others in terror. Their world was about to change forever, and any with half a mind knew it.
But though he looked every inch the proud, fearless leader, his eyes were haunted. He was surrounded by a crowd of lieutenants and sycophants, but Inevera knew it was imperative she speak to him alone immediately. She gestured, sending her little sisters. No man would impede a dama’ting, and the eleven Jiwah Sen quickly formed an impenetrable ring around Ahmann, cutting him off from the others and guiding him to a private chamber where they might speak freely.
‘What happened?’ she demanded. ‘Is the Par’chin—’
‘Gone,’ Ahmann cut her off. ‘I put the spear between his eyes and left his body out on the dunes, far from the city walls.’
‘Thank Everam,’ Inevera exhaled, unclenching muscles she hadn’t even realized were held tight. Even the dice had not been able to say with certainty that he would murder his friend.
And it was murder, despite the honeyed words she’d used to make bitter betrayal easier to swallow. The greenlander was a godless grave robber, but he had not been raised to Everam’s truths, and she would have robbed the grave of Kaji herself had she known where it lay and what it contained. Already she counselled Ahmann to return there as soon as possible.
She reached out, putting a hand on his shoulder. ‘I am sorry for your loss, husband. He was an honourable man.’
Ahmann pulled his shoulder roughly from her grasp. ‘What would you know of honour?’
He stormed away from her, going into the small shrine to Everam where he said his private prayers. Inevera did not attempt to follow, but she turned her earring, breathing deeply as she listened to her husband weep.
Was Ahmann the Deliverer? If such a man was made and not born, would she ever know for sure if she had succeeded, short of him killing Alagai’ting Ka, the Mother of All Demons?
Surely Inevera had seized advantages for him, but if it was anyone, it had to be him. He had excelled at every test in his life, and even if he took it by force, the spear had come to him as if by fate. Any other man would have stabbed the greenlander without a second thought, but for all his power and station, Ahmann still wept over the betrayal.
Would he have seized the moment, if she had not commanded it? Even if she had never met him? If he was the strong but illiterate and racist animal that the Kaji’sharaj usually produced, would he have befriended the Par’chin all the same, and killed him when it was time? Was there something divine in Ahmann that w
ould have clawed its way to power no matter how low his station?
She did not know.
‘Today,’ Ahmann said as Inevera helped him into his armoured robes.
It was almost half a year since he took the spear, the last press for the Palace of the Andrah. He could have taken the city sooner if he had wished for vast bloodshed, but Ahmann was content to wait and let men come to him, as more did each day.
‘We have more men inside the palace than he does now,’ Ahmann said. ‘They will open the gates at dawn, killing the last remaining Sharum who hold to the old ways. By noon I will sit the Skull Throne. I will send a runner when it is safe for you and your Jiwah Sen to enter.’
Inevera nodded as if this were great news, though she had listened in on his secret meetings with his generals and confirmed his conclusions with the dice. She had needed to say or do little once the spear was in Ahmann’s hands. She had groomed him to conquer and lead, and he took to those things like a bird to the sky.
Ahmann left to meet his men, and Inevera called her little sisters. They stripped her of her white silken robes, and she stepped into the steaming bath where Everalia and Thalaja waited to scrub her skin and massage her with scented oil.
‘Bring me my red pillow dancing silks,’ she told Qasha, who hurried to comply.
‘Clever,’ Belina said, smiling. ‘You will wear them under your whites, the quicker to help our husband celebrate his rise.’
Inevera threw back her head and laughed. ‘Oh, little sister. I am never wearing my whites again.’
Inevera lay on the pillows beside the Skull Throne of Sharik Hora. The temple of heroes’ bones itself was their palace now, and there was old magic here. Not as flashy as that given by demon bones, but no less potent. Millions of men had died proudly to decorate this place, their spirits bound to the stone.
Knowing their ancestors were watching made her feel all the more wanton, lying on a bed of silk pillows clad only in transparent silk. The pants were slit up each leg, gathered with gold at the cuffs, and would flash long strips of bare leg as she moved. The top was a long strip of silk that barely covered her breasts, and did nothing to hide them. It was tied in a simple knot beneath her shoulder blades, the long ends streaming loose along her arms and fastened to golden bracelets. Her hair was oiled and bound in gold.