Читать книгу The Desert Spear - Peter Brett V. - Страница 12

JARDIR WAS WHIPPED WITH the alagai tail for letting Abban live, the barbs tearing the flesh off his back, and the days without food were hard, but he embraced the penance as he did all pain. It did not matter.

He had netted an alagai.

Other warriors had cut the wings from the wind demon, staking it down in a warded circle to await the sun, but it was Jardir who brought it down, and everyone knew it. He could see it in the awed eyes of the other nie’Sharum, and the grudging respect of the dal’Sharum. Even the dama eyed him when they thought no one was looking.

On the fourth day, Jardir was weak with hunger as he made his way to the gruel line. He doubted he had the strength to fight even the weakest of the boys, but he strode to his usual place at the front of the line with a straight back. The others backed away, eyes respectfully down.

He was reaching out his bowl when Qeran caught his arm.

“No gruel for you today,” the drillmaster said. “Come with me.”

Jardir felt like a sand demon was trying to claw its way from his stomach, but he gave no complaint, handing his bowl to another boy and following the drillmaster across the camp.

Toward the Kaji pavilion.

Jardir’s face went cold. It could not be.

“No boy your age has entered the warrior’s pavilion in three hundred years,” Qeran said, as if reading his thoughts. “I think you are too young, and this may prove the end of you and a terrible waste for the Kaji, but the law is the law. When a boy nets his first demon on the wall, he is called to alagai’sharak.”

They entered the tent, and dozens of black-clad figures turned to eye him before returning to their food. Women served them, but not women like Jardir had seen before, covered from head to toe in thick black cloth. The veils of these women were gossamer and brightly colored, diaphanous clothes pulled tight against soft curves. Their arms and bellies were bare, save for jeweled adornments, and long slits in the sides of their pantaloons bared their smooth legs.

Jardir felt his face heat up at the sight, but no one else seemed to find it amiss. One warrior eyed the woman serving him for a moment, then dropped his kebab and grabbed her, slinging her over his shoulder. She laughed as he carried her to a curtained room filled with bright pillows.

“That will be your right, too, should you survive the coming night,” Qeran advised. “The Kaji need more warriors. It is the duty of men to provide them. If you acquit yourself well, you may earn yourself a wife to keep your home, but all dal’Sharum are expected to keep the jiwah’Sharum of their tribe with child.”

The sight of so many women in revealing clothes was overwhelming to Jardir, and he scanned their young faces, half expecting to see his sisters among them. He was speechless as the drillmaster led him to a pillow at the great table.

There was more food than he had ever seen in his life. Dates and raisins and rice and spiced lamb on skewers. Couscous and grape leaves wrapping steaming meats. His stomach churned, caught between hunger and lust.

“Eat well, and rest,” Qeran advised. “Tonight you will stand among men.” He slapped Jardir’s back and left the tent.

Jardir reached tentatively for a skewer of meat, but a hand quickly snatched it away. He looked to the offender, only to find Hasik staring back at him.

“You got lucky the other night, rat,” Hasik said. “Pray to Everam this day, for it will take more than luck to survive a night in the Maze.”

Jardir went with the other warriors to Sharik Hora to receive the blessings of the Damaji before the night’s battle. He had never been inside the temple of heroes’ bones before, and the sight dwarfed anything he might have imagined.

Everything inside Sharik Hora was built from the bleached and lacquered bones of dal’Sharum who had fallen in alagai’sharak. The twelve chairs of the Damaji on the great altar stood on calf bones and rested on warriors’ feet. The arms had once held spear and shield against demonkind. The seats were polished rib that had housed heroes’ hearts. The backs were made from spines that had stood tall in the night. The headrests were made from the skulls of men who sat at Everam’s side in Heaven. The twelve seats ringed the throne of the Andrah, built from the skulls of kai’Sharum, the captains of alagai’sharak.

Hundreds of skulls and spines made each of the dozens of huge chandeliers. Bones made up hundreds of benches where worshippers prayed. The altar. The chalices. The walls. The great domed ceiling. Warriors beyond count had protected this temple with their flesh, and built it with their bones.

The massive nave was circular, and its walls were pocked with a hundred small alcoves, housing whole skeletons on bone pedestals. These were Sharum Ka, First Warriors of the city.

Under the eyes of the dama, the kai’Sharum commanded the warriors of their respective tribes, but when the sun set, the Sharum Ka, appointed by the Andrah, commanded the kai’Sharum. The current Sharum Ka was Kaji like Jardir—a fact that filled him with great pride.

Jardir’s hands shook as he took it all in. The entire temple thrummed with honor and glory. His father, killed in a Majah raid and not alagai’sharak, was not remembered here, but Jardir dreamed that one day he might add his own bones to this hallowed place, bringing honor to his father, his sacrifice remembered long after he was gone. There was no greater honor than to become one, in this world and the next, with those who had given their lives before him, and those unborn, perhaps centuries hence, whose lives were yet to be given.

The Sharum stood at attention as the Damaji begged the blessings of Everam for the coming battle, and those of Kaji, the first Deliverer.

“Kaji,” they called, “Spear of Everam, Shar’Dama Ka, who unified the world and delivered us from the alagai in the first age, look down upon these brave warriors who go out into the night to carry on the eternal struggle, battling gai on Ala even as Everam battles Nie in Heaven. Bless them with courage and strength, that they might stand tall in the night, and see through to the dawn.”

The warded shield and heavy spear were the smallest and lightest Qeran could find, but Jardir still felt dwarfed by them. He was twelve, and the youngest of the assembled warriors was five years his senior. He pretended nothing was amiss as he headed to stand with them, but even the smallest towered over him.

“Nie’Sharum are tethered to another warrior their first night in the Maze,” Qeran said, “to ensure their will does not break when the alagai first come at them. It is a moment that tests the hearts of even the bravest warriors. The warrior assigned to you will be your ajin’pal, your blood brother. You will obey his every command and be bonded until death.”

Jardir nodded.

“If you survive the night, the dama’ting will come for you at dawn,” Qeran went on.

Jardir’s gaze snapped to his mentor. “The dama’ting?” he asked. He was not afraid to face alagai, but dama’ting still filled him with fear.

Qeran nodded. “One of them will come to predict your death,” he said, suppressing a shudder. “Only with her blessing will you be dal’Sharum.”

“They tell you when you’ll die?” Jardir asked, aghast. “I don’t wish to know.”

Qeran snorted. “They don’t tell you, boy. The future is for the dama’ting alone to know. But if a coward’s death is in your future, or greatness, they will know before you ever lose the bido.”

“I will not die a coward’s death,” Jardir said.

“No,” Qeran agreed, “I don’t think you will. But you may still die a fool’s death, if you don’t listen to your ajin’pal, or are not careful.”

“I will listen well,” Jardir promised.

“Hasik has volunteered to be your ajin’pal,” Qeran said, gesturing to the warrior.

Hasik had grown much in the two years since he had lost his bido. Seventeen years old and fleshed out with hard muscle by the rich food of the dal’Sharum, he was easily a foot taller than Jardir and twice his weight.

“Never fear.” Hasik smiled. “The son of piss will be safe with me.”

“The son of piss took down his first alagai a full three years sooner than you, Whistler,” Qeran reminded him. Hasik kept his smile in place, but his lip twitched.

“He will honor the Kaji tribe,” Hasik agreed. “If he survives.”

Jardir remembered the sound of his arm breaking, and Hasik’s promise afterward. He knew that Hasik would be looking for any sign of insubordination, any excuse to kill him before he lost his bido and became an equal.

So Jardir embraced the insult as he did pain, letting it pass through him harmlessly. He would not be provoked into failure right when a chance for glory was in his grasp. If he made it through this night, he would be dal’Sharum, the youngest in memory, and Hasik be damned.

Their unit waited in the second layer, hiding in an ambush pocket. A hidden pit stood at the center of a small clearing, soon to be filled with alagai awaiting the killing rays of the sun. Jardir tightened his grip on his spear and adjusted his shield to ease his shoulder. But for all their weight, the tether was heaviest of all. Four feet of leather connected his ankle to Hasik’s waist. He shifted his foot uncomfortably.

“If you do not keep up with me, I will spear you and cut the tether,” Hasik said. “I will not have my glory cut short because of you.”

“I will be as your shadow,” Jardir promised, and Hasik grunted. He slipped a small flask from his robes and removed the stopper, taking a long swig. He handed the flask to Jardir.

“Drink this, for courage,” he said.

“What is it?” Jardir asked, taking the flask and sniffing at the neck. He smelled cinnamon, but the scent stung his nostrils.

“Couzi,” Hasik said. “Fermented grain and cinnamon.”

Jardir’s eyes widened. “Dama Khevat says to drink of fermented grain or fruit is forbidden by the Evejah.”

Hasik laughed. “Nothing is forbidden to dal’Sharum in the Maze! Drink! The night is almost upon us!”

Jardir looked at him doubtfully, but throughout the ambush pocket, he saw other warriors swigging from similar flasks. He shrugged, putting the bottle to his lips and drinking deeply.

The couzi burned his throat, and he coughed, spitting some back up. He could feel the strong drink burning his insides and roiling in his stomach like a snake. Hasik laughed and slapped his back. “Now you are ready to face the alagai, rat!”

The couzi worked quickly, and Jardir looked up through glazed eyes. The Maze was filled with shadows as the sun dipped. Jardir watched the sky turn red, and then purple, finally becoming full dark. He could sense the alagai rising outside the city walls, and shuddered.

Great Kaji, Spear of Everam, he prayed, if it is true that across the centuries I come of your line, grant me courage to honor you and my ancestors.

Before long he heard the Horn of Sharak, followed by the retort of rock slingers on the outer wall. The cries of alagai began to echo through the Maze. “Ware!” a call came from above, and Jardir thought he recognized Shanjat’s voice. “Baiters approach! Four sand and one flame!”

Jardir swallowed hard. Glory was upon him.

With a cry of “Oot!” the Baiters ran full-tilt through the ambush point, veering only slightly to avoid the pits. Above, the Watchers lit oil fires in front of polished metal mirrors, and light flooded the area.

The sand demons ran in a pack, long tongues slavering over rows of razor-sharp teeth. They were the size of a man, but seemed smaller hunched down on all fours. Their long talons tore at the sand and stone of the Maze floor, and their spiked tails whipped back and forth through the air. Their gritty armor plates had few weaknesses.

The flame demon was smaller, the size of a small boy, with wicked talons and terrifying speed. Its tiny, diamond-hard iridescent scales overlapped seamlessly. Its eyes and mouth glowed with orange light, and Jardir recalled his lessons about the creature’s deadly firespit. Across the ambush point was a pool in which the warriors would attempt to drown it.

Once again, the sight of the alagai filled Jardir with utter loathing. The creatures were a plague upon the Ala, Nie’s taint come to infect the surface. And tonight, he would help send them screaming back into the abyss.

“Hold,” Hasik warned, feeling him tense. Jardir nodded, forcing himself to relax. The couzi continued to work its way through him, warming him from the night’s chill.

The alagai passed them by, intent on the Baiters. Two of them ran right out onto the tarp covering the demon pit, falling in with a shriek. The other sand demons pulled up short, but the flame dodged around, leaping onto the back of the slower Baiter. It dug its claws into the man’s back and bit hard into his shoulder. The warrior was knocked down, but he did not scream.

“Now!” the kai’Sharum cried, and led the charge from the ambush pocket.

Jardir let the warrior’s roar explode from his chest, thrumming in unison with his brothers in the night and carrying him forward with the others. They smashed into the two sand demons from behind, knocking them into the pit.

The kai’Sharum pivoted, launching his spear and knocking the flame demon from the Baiter’s back. The other Baiter dragged him to the safety of the wards, doing his best to stem the flow of blood.

There was a cry, and Jardir turned to see that the first sand demon to fall into the pit had caught its edge, the concealing tarp protecting its talons from the wards. It swung up out of the pit easily, biting off the nearest warrior’s leg at the knee. The warrior screamed as he was knocked into his fellows, opening a gap in the shield wall. The demon shrieked and dove into the opening, talons raking.

“Shield up!” Hasik called, and Jardir complied just in time to catch the full weight of the demon. He was knocked down, but not before the wards flared, throwing the alagai back. The demon landed in a coil and sprang at him again, but Jardir thrust his spear from his prone position, catching the demon between its breastplates. He braced the butt of the spear against the ground to create a fulcrum, and used the demon’s own momentum to hurl it away.

Still in midair, bolas from half a dozen warriors struck the demon, and it hit the ground bound tight. It began tearing at the ropes with its teeth, and Jardir could hear the bindings snap under pressure from its corded muscles. It would be free in moments.

The kai’Sharum signaled, and a pair of warriors broke off to harry the flame demon while the rest encircled the sand demon with a wall of interlocked shields. Whenever the demon struck at a warrior, those behind it stabbed with their spears. The weapons could not pierce its armor, but they stung nonetheless. When it turned to face its attackers, their shields snapped into place and those behind struck.

The Pit Warder had cleared the tarp from the wards, preventing the other alagai from escaping the pit, as the warriors began to force the demon toward it by advancing the shield wall. Eventually, the creature backed up to the pit’s edge, and the warriors there melted away.

Jardir was among those who thrust their spears to drive the demon past the one-way wards. “Everam’s light burn you!” he screamed as he stabbed. The demon backpedaled, and then fell into the pit.

It was the greatest moment of his life.

Jardir looked around the ambush point. Two dal’Sharum had the flame demon pinned underwater with their spears in a shallow drowning pool. The water steamed and boiled as the demon thrashed, but the warriors held it steady until the last twitch.

The wounded Baiter seemed well enough, but Moshkama, the warrior with the severed leg, lay in a pool of blood, gasping and pale. He caught Jardir’s eye and beckoned to him and Hasik, who went to him.

“Finish it,” he breathed. “I have no wish to live as a cripple.”

Jardir glanced at Hasik.

“Do it,” Hasik ordered. “It is not right to let him suffer.”

Jardir’s thoughts flashed to Abban. How much suffering had he condemned his friend to by not granting him a warrior’s death?

A dal’Sharum’s duty is to support his brothers in death, as well as life, Qeran had said.

“My spirit is ready,” Moshkama croaked. With weak, shaking fingers, he pulled open his robe, moving aside the fired-clay armor plates sewn into the cloth and baring his chest. Jardir looked in his eyes and saw honor and courage. Things Abban had been severely lacking.

He thrust his spear with pride.

“You did well, rat,” Hasik said when the horns had blown, signaling that there were no alagai left alive and untrapped in the Maze. “I expected you to soak your bido, but you stood like a man.” He took another pull from the couzi flask and handed it to Jardir.

“Thank you,” Jardir said, drinking deeply, and pretending the harsh liquid did not burn his throat. Hasik still intimidated him, but it was true what the drillmasters said: Shedding blood together in the Maze had changed things. They were brothers now.

Hasik paced back and forth. “My blood is always on fire after alagai’sharak,” he said. “Nie damn the Damaji who decreed the great harem be sealed till dawn.” Several warriors grunted assent.

Jardir thought of the warrior carrying a jiwah’Sharum through the curtains that morning, and his face flushed.

Hasik caught the look. “That excites you, rat?” he laughed. “The son of piss is eager to take his first woman?”

Jardir said nothing.

“Bido or no, I think this one will still be a boy tomorrow!” another warrior, Manik, laughed. “He’s too young to know what the pillow dancers are truly for!”

Jardir opened his mouth, then snapped it shut again. They were provoking him on purpose. Whatever had happened in the Maze, he was still nie’Sharum until the dama’ting foresaw his death. Any of the warriors could still kill him for the slightest insolence.

Surprisingly, Hasik came to his defense.

“Leave the rat alone,” he said. “He’s my ajin’pal. You mock him, you mock me.”

Manik puffed up at the challenge, but Hasik was young and strong. They eyed each other for a moment before Manik spat in the dust.

“Bah,” he said. “It’s not worth the trouble of gutting you just to mock a boy.” He turned and strode off.

“Thank you,” Jardir said.

“It’s nothing,” Hasik replied, putting a hand on his shoulder. “It is the duty of ajin’pal to look out for each other, and you would not be the first boy to fear the pillow dancers more than the alagai. The dama’ting teach sexcraft to the jiwah’Sharum, but the drillmasters give no such lessons in the sharaji.”

Jardir felt his face flush, wondering what lay in store for him in the pillows behind the curtains when the veils were lifted.

“Do not fear,” Hasik said, clapping him on the shoulder. “I will teach you how to make a woman howl.”

They finished off the flask, and a wicked smile crossed Hasik’s face. “Come on, rat. I know of some fun we can find in the meantime.”

“Where are we going?” Jardir asked, stumbling as Hasik led him through the Maze. The couzi made his head spin, and his limbs watery. The walls seemed to move of their own accord.

Hasik turned, his smile wide. The gap in his teeth where Qeran had hit him on Jardir’s first night in the Kaji’sharaj was a black hole in the moonlight.

“Going?” Hasik asked. “We’re here.”

Jardir looked around in confusion, and in that moment, colored light exploded before his eyes as Hasik hit him hard in the face.

Before he could react, Hasik was upon him, pinning him facedown in the dust. “I promised to teach you to make a woman howl,” he said. “For this lesson, you will be the woman.”

“No!” Jardir cried, thrashing, but Hasik smashed his face into the ground, making his ears ring. Twisting one of Jardir’s arms behind his back, the heavy warrior held him down with one hand as he pulled down Jardir’s bido with the other.

“Looks like you get to lose the bido twice in one night, rat!” he laughed.

Jardir tasted blood and dirt in his mouth. He tried to open himself to the pain, but for once, the power was beyond him, and his cries echoed through the Maze.

He was still weeping when the dama’ting found him.

She glided like a ghost, her white robes softly stirring the dust with her passage. Jardir stopped his sobbing and stared. Then reality suddenly focused, and he scrambled to pull up his bido. Shame filled him, and he hid his face.

The dama’ting clicked her tongue. “On your feet, boy!” she snapped. “You stand your ground against alagai, but weep like a woman over this? Everam needs dal’Sharum, not khaffit!”

Jardir wished the walls of the Maze would fall and crush him, but one did not refuse the orders of a dama’ting. He got to his feet, palming away his tears and wiping his nose.

“That’s better,” the dama’ting said, “if late. I would hate to have come all the way out here to foretell the life of a coward.”

The words stung Jardir. He was no coward. “How did you find me?”

She psshed, waving a hand at him. “I knew to find you here years ago.”

Jardir stared at her, unbelieving, but it was clear from her stance that his belief mattered not at all to her. “Come here, boy, that I may have a better look at you,” she commanded.

Jardir did as he was told, and the dama’ting grabbed his face, turning it this way and that to catch the moonlight. “Young and strong,” she said. “But so are all who get this far. You’re younger than most, but that’s seldom a good thing.”

“Are you here to foretell my death?”

“Bold, too,” she muttered. “There may be hope for you yet. Kneel, boy.”

He did, and the dama’ting knelt with him, spreading a white cloth to protect her pristine robes from the dust of the Maze.

“What do I care for your death?” she asked. “I am here to foretell your life. Death is between you and Everam.”

She reached into her robes, pulling forth a small pouch made from thick black felt. She loosened the drawstrings, pouring its contents into her free hand with a clatter. Jardir saw over a dozen objects, black and smooth like obsidian, carved with wards that glowed redly in the dark.

“The alagai hora,” she said, lifting the objects toward him. Jardir gasped and recoiled at the name. She held the polished bones of demons, cut into many-sided dice. Even without touching them, Jardir could feel the dull throb of their evil magic.

“Back to cowardice?” the dama’ting asked mildly. “What is the purpose of wards, if not to turn alagai magic to our own ends?”

Jardir steeled himself, leaning back in.

“Hold out your arm,” she commanded, placing the felt bag in her lap and laying the dice on it. She reached into her robes, drawing forth a sharp curved blade etched with wards.

Jardir held out his arm, willing it not to shake. The cut was quick, and the dama’ting squeezed the wound, smearing her hand with blood. She took up the alagai hora in both hands, shaking them.

“Everam, giver of light and life, I beseech you, give this lowly servant knowledge of what is to come. Tell me of Ahmann, son of Hoshkamin, last scion of the line of Jardir, the seventh son of Kaji.”

As she shook the dice, their glow increased, flaring through her fingers until it seemed she held hot coals. She cast them down, scattering the bones on the ground before them.

She put her hands on her knees and hunched forward, studying the glowing markings. Her eyes widened and she hissed. Suddenly oblivious to the dirt that marred her pure white robes, the dama’ting crawled about intently, reading the pattern as the pulsing glow of the wards slowly faded. “These bones must have been exposed to light,” she muttered, gathering them up.

Again she cut him and made the incantation, shaking vigorously, and again the dice flared. She threw them down.

“This cannot be!” she cried, snatching up the dice and throwing a third time. Even Jardir could tell that the pattern remained unchanged.

“What is it?” he dared to ask. “What do you see?”

The dama’ting looked up at him, and her eyes narrowed. “The future is not yours to know, boy,” she said. Jardir recoiled at the anger in her tone, unsure if it was due to his impertinence or what she had seen.

Or both. What had the dice told her? His mind flashed back to the pottery he had allowed Abban to steal from Baha kad’Everam, and wondered if she could see that sin, as well.

The dama’ting collected the bones and returned them to the pouch before rising. She tucked the pouch away and shook the dust from her robes.

“Return to the Kaji pavilion and spend the remainder of the night in prayer,” she ordered, vanishing in the shadows so quickly Jardir wondered if she had truly been there at all.

Qeran kicked him awake while the warriors still slept all around him. “Up, rat,” the drillmaster said. “The dama has called for you.”

“Am I to lose my bido?” Jardir asked.

“The men say you fought well in the night,” Qeran said, “but that’s not for me to decide. Only dama may give a nie’Sharum his blacks.”

The drillmaster escorted him to the inner chambers of Sharik Hora. The cool stone floor felt hallowed under Jardir’s bare feet.

“Drillmaster, may I ask a question?” Jardir said.

“This may be the last you ask of me as your instructor,” Qeran said, “so make it good.”

“When the dama’ting came for you, how many times did she throw the dice?”

The drillmaster glanced at him. “Once. They only ever throw once. The dice never lie.”

Jardir wanted to say more, but they turned a corner and Dama Khevat was waiting for him. Khevat was the harshest of Jardir’s instructors, the one who had called him the son of camel’s piss and thrown him into the waste pits for his insolence.

The drillmaster put a hand on Jardir’s shoulder. “Mind your tongue if you would keep it, boy,” he muttered.

“Everam be with you,” Khevat greeted them. The drillmaster bowed, and Jardir did the same. A nod from the dama, and Qeran turned on his heel and vanished.

Khevat ushered Jardir into a small, windowless room filled with sheaves of paper and smelling of ink and lamp oil. It seemed a place more suited to a khaffit or a woman, but even here the bones of men filled the room. They formed the seat Jardir was directed to, and the desk Khevat sat behind. Even the sheaves of paper were held down by skulls.

“You continue to surprise me, son of Hoshkamin,” Khevat said. “I did not believe you when you said you would win glory enough for you and your father both, but you seem determined to prove me wrong.”

Jardir shrugged. “I have only done as any warrior would do.”

Khevat chuckled. “The warriors I have known are not so modest. A kill wholly your own and five assists, at what? Thirteen?”

“Twelve,” Jardir said.

“Twelve,” Khevat repeated. “And you helped Moshkama die last night. Few nie’Sharum would have the heart for that.”

“It was his time,” Jardir said.

“Indeed,” Khevat said. “Moshkama had no sons. As his brother in death, it will fall to you to bleach his bones for Sharik Hora.”

Jardir bowed. “I am honored.”

“Your dama’ting came to me last night,” Khevat said.

Jardir looked up eagerly. “I am to lose my bido?”

Khevat shook his head. “You are too young, she says. Returning you to alagai’sharak without further training and time to grow will only cost the Kaji a warrior.”

“I am not afraid to die,” Jardir said, “if that is inevera.”

“Spoken like a true Sharum,” Khevat said, “but it is not that simple. You are denied the Maze by her decree until you are older.”

Jardir scowled. “So I must return to the Kaji’sharaj in shame after standing among men?”

The dama shook his head. “The law is clear on that. No boy who sees the Sharum pavilion is permitted to return to the sharaj.”

“But if I cannot go there, and I cannot stand with the men…,” Jardir began, and suddenly the depth of his predicament became clear.

“I…will become khaffit?” he asked, stark terror overcoming him for the first time in his life. His fear of the dama’ting was nothing compared to this. He felt the blood leave his face as he remembered the sight of Abban begging for his life.

I will die first, he thought. I will attack the first dal’Sharum I see, and give him no choice but to kill me. Better dead than khaffit.

“No,” the dama said, and Jardir felt his heart begin to beat again. “Perhaps such things do not matter to the dama’ting, since even the lowliest khaffit is above a woman, but I will see no warrior fall so low when his every challenge has been met. Since the time of Shar’Dama Ka, no boy who has shed alagai blood in the Maze has been refused the black. The dama’ting dishonors us all with her decree, and handmaiden of Everam or not, she is only a woman, and cannot understand what that would do to the hearts of all Sharum.”

“Then what will become of me?” Jardir asked.

“You will be taken into Sharik Hora,” Khevat said. “I have already spoken to Damaji Amadeveram. With his blessing, not even the dama’ting can deny you that.”

“I am to become a cleric?” Jardir asked. He tried to mask his displeasure, but his voice cracked, and he knew he had failed.

Khevat chuckled. “No, boy, your destiny is still the Maze, but you will train here with us until you are ready. Study hard, and you may make kai’Sharum while others your age still wear bidos.”

“This will be your cell,” Khevat said, leading Jardir to a chamber deep in the bowels of Sharik Hora. The room was a ten-by-ten square cut into the sandstone with a hard cot in one corner. There was a heavy wooden door, but it had no latch or bar. The only light came from a lamp in the corridor, filtering through the barred window in the door. Compared to the communal space and stone floor of the Kaji’sharaj, even this would have seemed luxury, if not for the shame that brought him here, and the pleasures of the Kaji pavilion that he was denied.

“You will fast here and excise the demons from your mind,” Khevat said. “Your training begins on the morrow.” He left, his footsteps receding in the hall until all was silent.

Jardir fell upon the cot, crossing his arms in front of him to support his head. But lying on his stomach made him think of Hasik, and rage and shame flared in him until it became unbearable. He leapt to his feet and grasped the cot, shouting as he smashed it against the wall. He threw it down, kicking the wood and tearing the cloth until he stood panting and hoarse amid a pile of splinters and thread.

Suddenly realizing what he had done, Jardir straightened, but there was no response to his commotion. He swept the wreckage into a corner and began a sharukin. The practiced series of sharusahk movements centered him as no prayer ever could.

The events of the last week swirled around him. Abban was khaffit now. Jardir felt shame at that, but he embraced the feeling, and saw the truth beneath. Abban had been khaffit all along, and Hannu Pash had shown it. Jardir had delayed Everam’s will, but he had not stopped it. No man could.

Inevera, he thought, and embraced the loss.

He thought of the glory and elation at killing demons in the Maze, and accepted that it might be many years before he could feel such joy again. The dice had spoken.

Inevera.

He thought again of Hasik, but it was not inevera. There, he had failed. He had been a fool to drink couzi in the Maze. A fool to trust Hasik. A fool to lower his guard.

The pain of his body and the passing of blood he had already embraced. Even the humiliation. He had seen other boys in sharaj mounted, and could embrace the feeling. What he could not embrace was the fact that even now Hasik strutted among the dal’Sharum thinking he had won, that Jardir was broken.

Jardir scowled. Perhaps I am broken, he conceded silently, but broken bones heal stronger, and I will have my day in the sun.

Night came, signaled only by the extinguishing of the lamp in the hall, leaving his cell in utter blackness. Jardir didn’t mind the dark. No wards in the world could match those of Sharik Hora, and even without them, the spirits of warriors without number guarded the temple. Any alagai setting foot in this hallowed place would be burned away as if it had seen the sun.

Jardir could not have slept even if he had wanted to, so he continued his sharukin, repeating the movements over and over until they were a part of him, as natural as breathing.

When the door of his cell creaked open, Jardir was instantly aware. Recalling his first night in the Kaji’sharaj, he slipped silently to the side of the door in the darkness and assumed a fighting stance. If the nie’dama sought to give him a similar welcome, it would be to their regret.

“If I wished you harm, I would not have sent you here for training,” said a familiar woman’s voice. A red light sprang to life, illuminating the dama’ting he had met the night before. She held a small flame demon skull, carved with wards that glowed fiercely in the darkness. The light found her already staring right into his eyes, as if she had known where he stood all along.

“You didn’t send me here,” Jardir dared to say. “You told Dama Khevat to send me back to the Kaji’sharaj in shame!”

“As I knew he would never do,” the dama’ting said, ignoring his accusatory tone. “Nor would he have made you khaffit. The only path left to him was to send you here.”

“Without honor,” Jardir said, clenching his fists.

“In safety!” the dama’ting hissed, raising the alagai skull. The wards flared brighter, and a gout of flame coughed from its maw. Jardir felt the flash of heat on his face and recoiled.

“Do not presume to judge me, nie’Sharum,” the dama’ting said. “I will act as I think best, and you will do as you are bidden.”

Jardir felt his back strike the wall, and realized he could retreat no farther. He nodded.

“Learn everything you can in your time here,” she commanded as she left. “Sharak Ka is coming.”

The words struck Jardir like a physical blow. Sharak Ka. The final battle was coming, and he would fight in it. All his worldly concerns vanished in that instant, as she closed the door and left him in darkness once more.

The lamp in the hall flickered back to life after some time, and there was a light tap at the door. Jardir opened it to Khevat’s youngest son, Ashan. He was a slender boy, clad in a bido that extended upward to wrap over one shoulder, marking him as nie’dama, a cleric in training. He wore a white veil over his mouth, and Jardir knew that meant he was in his first year of training, when nie’dama were not allowed to speak.

The boy nodded in greeting, then took in the wreckage of the cot in the corner. He winked and gave a slight bow, as if Jardir had somehow passed a secret test. Ashan jerked his head down the hall, then headed that way himself. Jardir took his meaning and followed.

They came to a wide chamber with a floor of polished marble. Dozens of dama and nie’dama, perhaps every one in the tribe, stood there, feet planted, practicing the sharukin. The boy waved a hand for Jardir to follow, and the two took their places in the nie lines, joining in the slow dance, bodies flowing from pose to pose, the entire room breathing in unison.

There were many forms Jardir was unfamiliar with, and the experience was quite unlike the brutal lessons to which he was accustomed, where Qeran and Kaval shouted curses at the boys, whipping any whose form was not perfect, and demanding that they flow faster and faster still. The dama practiced in silence, their only instruction watching the lead dama and one another. Jardir thought the clerics pampered and weak.

After an hour, the session ended. Immediately a buzz of conversation started as the dama broke into clusters and left the room. Jardir’s companion signaled him to remain, and they clustered with the other nie’dama.

“You have a new brother,” Dama Khevat told the boys, gesturing to Jardir. “With only twelve years under his bido, Jardir, son of Hoshkamin, has alagai blood on his hands. He will stay and learn the ways of the dama until the dama’ting deem him old enough to don his blacks.”

The other boys nodded silently, bowing to Jardir.

“Ashan,” the dama called. “Jardir will need help with his sharusahk. You will teach him.” Ashan nodded.

Jardir snorted. A nie’dama? Teach him? Ashan was no older than he was, and Jardir waited ahead of boys years his senior in the nie’Sharum gruel line.

“You feel you need no instruction?” Khevat asked.

“No, of course not, honored dama,” Jardir said quickly, bowing to the cleric.

“But you feel Ashan is not worthy to instruct you?” Khevat pressed. “After all, he is only nie’dama, a novice not yet old enough to speak, and you have stood with men in alagai’sharak.”

Jardir shrugged helplessly, feeling that very thing, but fearing a trap.

“Very well,” Khevat said. “You will spar with Ashan. When you defeat him, I will assign you a more worthy instructor.”

The other novices backed away, forming a ring on the polished marble floor. Ashan stood in its center and bowed to Jardir.

Jardir cast one last glance at Dama Khevat, then bowed in return. “Apologies, Ashan,” he said as they closed, “but I must defeat you.”

Ashan said nothing, assuming a sharusahk battle stance. Jardir did likewise, and Khevat clapped his hands.

“Begin!” the dama called.

Jardir shot forward, his stiffened fingers going for Ashan’s throat. The move would put the boy out of the fight quickly, yet do no permanent harm.

But Ashan surprised him, pivoting smoothly from Jardir’s path and delivering a kick to his side that sent him sprawling.

Jardir rolled quickly to his feet, cursing himself for underestimating the boy. He came in again, his defenses set, and feinted a punch to Ashan’s jaw. When the boy moved to block, Jardir spun, feinting an elbow jab to his opposite kidney. Again Ashan shifted, positioning himself correctly, and Jardir spun back again, delivering the real blow—a leg sweep that he would complement with an elbow to the chest, putting the nie’dama flat on his back.

But the leg Jardir meant to sweep was not where it was supposed to be, and his kick met only air. Ashan caught his leg, using Jardir’s own strength against him as he followed through with the exact move Jardir had planned. As Jardir fell, Ashan drove an elbow into his chest that blasted the breath from him. He hit the marble floor hard, banging his head, but was moving to rise before he felt the pain. He would not allow himself to be defeated!

Before he had set his hands and feet, though, they were kicked out from under him. He hit the floor again and felt a foot pin the small of his back. His flailing left leg was caught, as was his right arm, and Ashan pulled hard, threatening to twist the limbs from their sockets.

Jardir screamed, his eyes blurring in pain. He embraced the feeling, and when his vision cleared, he caught a glimpse of a dama’ting, watching him from the shadowed arch to the hall.

She shook her veiled head and walked away.

Deep in the bowels of Sharik Hora, Jardir could not tell night from day. He slept when the dama told him to sleep, ate when they gave him food, and followed their commands in between. There were a handful of dal’Sharum in the temple as well, training to be kai’Sharum, but no nie’Sharum save him. He was the least of the least, and when he thought of how those who had once leapt to his commands, Shanjat and Jurim and the others, might be losing their bidos even now, the shame threatened to overwhelm him.

For the first year, he was Ashan’s shadow. Without uttering a sound, the nie’dama taught Jardir what he needed to survive among the clerics. When to pray, when to kneel, how to bow, and how to fight.

Jardir had severely underestimated the fighting skills of the dama. They might be denied the spear, but the least of them was a match for any two dal’Sharum in the art of the empty hand.

But combat was something Jardir understood. He threw himself into the training, losing his shame in the endlessly flowing forms. Even after the lamps were extinguished each night, Jardir practiced the sharukin for hours in the darkness of his tiny cell.

After the tanners had taken Moshkama’s skin, Jardir and Ashan took the body and boiled it in oil, fishing out the bones and bleaching them in the sun atop the bone minarets that climbed into the desert sky. The jiwah’Sharum had filled three tear bottles over his body, and these were mixed with the lacquer they used to paint the bones before laying them out for the artisans. Moshkama’s bones and the tears of his mourners would add to the glory of Sharik Hora, and Jardir dreamed of the day he, too, would become one with the holy temple.

There were other tasks, less satisfying, less honorable. He spent hours each day learning to speak on paper, using a stick to copy the words of the Evejah into a box of sand as he recited them aloud. It seemed a useless art, unfit for a warrior, but Jardir heeded the dama’ting’s words and worked hard, mastering the letters quickly. From there he learned mathematics, history, philosophy, and finally warding. This, he devoured hungrily. Anything that might hurt or hinder the alagai received his utter devotion.

Drillmaster Qeran came several times a week, spending hours honing Jardir’s spearwork, while the dama loremasters taught him tactics and the history of war dating back to the time of the Deliverer.

“War is more than prowess on the field,” Dama Khevat said. “The Evejah tells us that war is, at its crux, deception.”

“Deception?” Jardir asked.

Khevat nodded. “As you might feint with your spear, so too must the wise leader misdirect his foe before battle is ever joined. When strong, he must appear weak. When weak, he must seem ready to fight. When near enough to strike, he must seem too far to threaten. When regrouping, he must make his enemies believe attack is imminent. It is thus he makes the enemy waste their strength while husbanding his own.”

Jardir cocked his head. “Is it not more honorable to meet the enemy head-on?”

“We did not build the Great Maze so that we could sally forth and meet the alagai head-on,” Khevat said. “There is no greater honor than victory, and to achieve victory, you must seize every advantage, great and small. This is the essence of war, and war is the essence of all things, from the lowest khaffit haggling in the bazaar to the Andrah hearing petitions in his palace.”

“I understand,” Jardir said.

“Deceit depends on secrecy,” Khevat went on. “If spies can learn of your deceptions, they take away all your strength. A great leader must hold his deceit so close that even his inner circle and sometimes even he himself does not think on it until the time to strike.”

“But why make war at all, Dama?” Jardir dared to ask.

“Eh?” Khevat replied.

“We are all Everam’s children,” Jardir said. “The enemy is the alagai. We need every man to stand against him, yet we kill one another under the sun every day.” Khevat looked at him, and Jardir was not sure if the dama was annoyed or pleased with the question.

“Unity,” the dama replied at last. “In war men stand together, and it is that collective power that makes them strong. In the words of Kaji himself during his conquest of the green lands, Unity is worth any price of blood. Against the night and Nie’s untold legions, better a hundred thousand men standing together than a hundred million cowering by themselves. Remember that always, Ahmann.”

Jardir bowed. “I will, Dama.”