The Core

‘And that help from Everam’s Reservoir is not forthcoming,’ Hasik agreed. ‘Their rear defences are pitiful.’

Jesan nodded. ‘We can take them at dawn.’

‘Dawn?’ Hasik asked.

‘The sun is setting,’ Jesan said. ‘We cannot attack men in the night.’

‘I have no master,’ Hasik said. ‘None to tell me what I cannot do. It is no less than the fish men did to us at Waning.’

‘We need not fall into all the infidel ways of the chin,’ Jesan said.

‘There are no infidel ways any more. We are free.’ Hasik turned to Orman. ‘Give the men an hour to rest their mounts, then we move in.’

In the dark of night, with the chin all in their tents or huddled around fires for warmth, unarmed and unarmoured, five hundred of Hasik’s best men struck.

The enemy camp was destroyed in the slaughter that followed, but Hasik was wiser than Prince Jayan had been, keeping the fires and carnage away from the enemy stores.

They cut a swathe through the fish men, never slowing as they broke through their lines and ascended the hill. The chin had built progressive fortifications, but all were aimed at an assault from the monastery walls, not one from behind. Soon the Eunuchs controlled the road fully, guarding Hasik’s back as he, Jesan, Orman, and Abban rode up to the gate.

Hasik drew a breath, but it was unnecessary. With a great clatter of chain and counterweight, the portcullis was raised to admit Hasik’s forces.

Dama Khevat and Kai Icha were waiting in the courtyard. Both were bloodied, the dama’s white robes stained red. If the old cleric had been drawn into the fighting, things were dire, indeed.

Khevat gave the shallow, superior bow of a dama to a Sharum. ‘Everam sent you in our darkest hour, son of Reklan …’

Hasik ignored him, turning to Orman and pointing. ‘Put a hundred fresh men on the walls. Another fifty to secure the courtyard.’

‘I need men in the basements, as well,’ Icha said. ‘There are chin gathered in the caverns below, forcing at the door …’

‘Another fifty to the basement,’ Hasik told Orman, not sparing him a glance. ‘Ready the rest to ride out again now that we control the gate.’

Icha clenched a fist. ‘We will crush them at dawn.’

Hasik deigned to look at him. ‘No, boy, we will crush them now, while they are scattered and bloody. Now, before they can flee with their supply, or dig in and hinder our rear guard.’

‘It is night …’ Khevat began.

Abban rolled his eyes. ‘Dama, please. You’ve already lost this argument once.’

Khevat’s eyes flicked to Abban, quivering with rage. ‘Why is this piece of offal still alive? I would have expected you to kill him long ago.’

‘You have always been low in your expectations,’ Hasik said.

‘He cut off your cock,’ Khevat growled.

‘And I ate his,’ Hasik agreed. ‘And then I cut the cocks from all my men, that none might think himself my better.’

Khevat paled. ‘That is an abomination …’

Hasik smiled, drawing his curved knife. ‘Pray to Everam you get used to it, Dama.’

9

The Majah

334 AR

‘The blood, Damajah.’

Inevera took the uncorked vial Ashia offered, decanting a few precious drops onto the dice in her palm. She closed her fingers, rolling the smooth, polished bones with practised skill to coat them evenly.

Kept sealed and cold, away from sunlight, the thick fluid still held a touch of magic, a fragrance of the owner’s soul. Enough to focus her dice and perhaps pry a few secrets from Everam, helping put order to the swirling chaos of futures before her.

It was a ritual Inevera performed daily, in the full dark before sunrise. Some futures were unknowable, too many convergences and divergences for her to glean a sense of likelihood. Others cut off abruptly, signifying her own death.

‘May I ask a question, Damajah?’ Ashia asked.

Inevera’s eyes flicked to the girl in annoyance. Ashia had changed in the weeks since Prince Asome’s coup – the Night of Hora. Having her own brother try to strangle her while her husband watched was enough to change any woman’s perspective on the world.

Even standing guard in her mistress’ pillow chamber, the Sharum’ting Ka wore her infant son, Kaji, slung across her belly. She would not be parted from the child for any reason, even in her sacred duty.

It was no great hindrance to performance, Inevera had learned. The bodies Ashia left in her wake during the coup attested to that. Like his mother, Kaji could be preternaturally silent when he wished. Inevera had looked into his aura and seen how the slowing of his mother’s heart affected his own. He would be a great Watcher one day.

At times of his choosing, though, Kaji could make his voice known throughout the Damajah’s chambers. His laughter made feet laden with duty step lighter, and his screams could jar even Inevera from her centre.

But even as he took on some of his mother’s traits, she was taking on his. Ashia would never have dared interrupt Inevera’s casting ritual before.

‘Ask,’ Inevera said. Ashia had risked everything in bringing Kaji and his grandmother Kajivah to her on the Night of Hora. Inevera’s eunuchs and spear sisters were perhaps the only people in Krasia she trusted completely, and Ashia knew it. With her child’s fate tied to her own, it was not surprising she had begun to assert a voice in it.

‘Why do you waste time seeking the khaffit when enemies mount in this very palace?’ Ashia asked.

Because my husband is dead, Inevera thought, but didn’t say. Nie had piled many stones atop her, but all of them came from the foundation broken by Ahmann’s fall. The Par’chin’s unforeseen challenge had created such a divergence as to throw decades of careful planning to the dogs. Inevera had tied her fate too closely to Ahmann, certain that he was the Deliverer. Certain that, in the end, he could not fail. Together, their power had been absolute.

Now he was dead, along with so many others. Now there were spears everywhere, pointing at her heart, the heart of everything she and Ahmann had built.

Even her Jiwah Sen could no longer be trusted. All save Belina now had their sons in direct control of their respective tribes. They had their own wealth, their own power. They had become wilful, and Inevera’s tools to bring them in line were few.

—Your fates are intertwined— the dice said of Inevera and Abban. They needed to pool their strength to bend with the wind of Ahmann’s passing.

‘Because Everam does not care what weights we bear,’ Inevera said. ‘Everam cares about one thing, and one thing only.’

Ashia nodded. ‘Sharak Ka.’

‘Something your husband has forgotten,’ Inevera said. ‘His efforts in the night were for political gain. He has the throne, but no strategy in the First War. Someone must keep focus on that. The khaffit is an advantage, and every advantage must be seized. If Abban does not return soon, I fear he will find his nephew has taken everything from him and given it to Asome.’

And with that, she closed her eyes and whispered her prayer to Everam, feeling the alagai hora warm her fingers as their power was called forth, tuned to Abban’s aura.

She threw, watching the wards of prophecy flare, twisting the dice into a glimpse into the unknowable.

—The man who is not a man has him.—

Inevera breathed, keeping her centre. If Hasik had Abban, the khaffit’s prospects were grim, but Hasik took no greater pleasure than in the suffering of others. He would not want to kill Abban right away. He would hurt him, over and over, until Abban bled out from a thousand cuts.

Perhaps there was time.

‘Hasik,’ Inevera said. Ashia needed no further instruction, moving quickly to the cold room where Inevera stored the blood of almost every man, woman, and child of note in Krasia.

Normally, Inevera would cleanse the dice between throws, but since Abban’s and Hasik’s fates were now tied, she left his essence to help the spell. Ashia returned with Hasik’s blood, and Inevera fell into her breath, relaxing as she freshly coated the sticky dice.

‘Everam, giver of light and life,’ she prayed. ‘Your children need answers. I beg you for knowledge of Hasik asu Reklan am’Kez am’Kaji, former brother-in-law to Shar’Dama Ka. Where can he be found?’

—Spreading like poison in the North.—

—Nie’s power grows in him.—

—He has turned from Sharak Ka.—

‘Shar’Dama Ka!’ The guards stamped their spears as Asome entered the throne room.

Inevera lounged on her bed of pillows atop the dais beside the electrum-coated Skull Throne. Her pose was practised, artfully appearing relaxed, disinterested, and submissive when she was anything but.

Inevera could not deny her second son looked the part. Like his father, he now wore a warrior’s black under his white outer robe. He carried expert forgeries of the Spear and Crown of Kaji. From a distance, they were indistinguishable from the originals, lost when the Par’chin carried Ahmann into darkness.

The Evejah forbade male clerics from blade weapons, and none save the Deliverer had worn a crown in centuries. They were a message to all that Asome had transcended.

At his back was Inevera’s third son, Hoshkamin the Sharum Ka, followed by their ten Damaji brothers, each fifteen years old and commanding an entire tribe. All of them looked worshipfully at their elder brother.

As he drew closer, Inevera could see his spear and crown didn’t have a fraction of the wardings engraved into the originals, but she had observed them in Everam’s light, and they glowed with power not to be underestimated. Made from electrum and priceless gems with cores of alagai hora, they were covered in the familiar fluid scripts of Melan and Asavi. A betrayal months in the making.

The Damaji wore a single warded gemstone in their black turbans. Gems were effective for conducting and focusing magic, and each had been warded by his Damaji’ting mother to give him some small powers.

But Asome’s crown – like Ahmann’s – had nine horns, each set with a different gemstone. Even Inevera could not guess the full extent of Asome’s magic when he wore it, and she had never seen him outside his wing of the palace without it.

Likely she could still overwhelm him in a battle of magic, but not easily or without risk, and Asome knew it. He was careful not to test his magic against his mother.

Ahmann, confident in his powers and position, had kept his courtroom shielded from sunlight, that he and Inevera might use magic freely. Asome had torn down the thick fabric blocking the great windows of the Deliverer’s court, bathing it in light from east and west and proclaiming court only be held in Everam’s light.

She wanted to believe it was because he feared her, but in her heart Inevera knew it was wisdom, not fear, that guided his actions.

There is too much of me in you, my son, Inevera thought sadly.

‘Mother.’ Asome reached the top of the steps and gave a slight bow.

‘My son.’ Inevera extended a hand.

Asome could not in politeness refuse, but he was careful as a snake handler as he took her hand and bent to kiss the air above it, offering her no advantage in grip or balance.

‘If I meant to throw you from this dais, I would have done it weeks ago.’ Inevera’s voice was too low for others in the court to hear.

Asome gave her a peck and pulled smoothly back. ‘Unless the dice told you to wait.’ He turned and went to his throne. ‘They have ever been more important to you than blood.’

Below, similar gazes crossed the aisle as the new Damaji and their Damaji’ting mothers met eyes. For centuries, they had been groups of twelve, but since the Night of Hora there remained only ten of each.

Dama Jamere stepped forward from the writing podium Abban had occupied for so long. Since the disappearance of his uncle, the young dama had been left in full command of Abban’s vast holdings and inherited his uncle’s place in the Deliverer’s court.

Jamere knelt before the steps, putting his hands on the floor and his head between them. ‘You honour the court with your presence, Deliverer.’

Like Abban, Jamere was utterly corrupt. But where his uncle had been corrupt in ways Ahmann and Inevera could use, Jamere’s loyalties were unreadable, even when she peered into his aura in Everam’s light.

And Asome knew Jamere from Sharik Hora. They were of an age, and Inevera hadn’t needed to see his aura to know they had been lovers. Asome and Asukaji were infamous in their class of nie’dama, and there were few boys unwilling to lie with them in hope of finding favour with their powerful families. With Asukaji dead, how long before Asome resumed his ways?

Her eyes flicked to her son, watching the richest man in Krasia prostrate himself. There was a slight quirk to Asome’s lips. Perhaps he already had.

I must find Abban, and soon.

‘Rise, my friend,’ Asome said, beckoning with his spear. ‘Your presence is a vast improvement over the court khaffit.’

‘Few can abrade like my dear uncle,’ Jamere said. ‘Inevera, he will return safely to us.’

Asome nodded. ‘Or if he was lost on my brother’s ill-fated attack on the forest fortress and you are now a permanent member of my court, then that, too, is inevera. You may take the sixth step.’

Jamere rolled smoothly to his feet, smiling as he climbed the steps. He stopped at the sixth, a step below the dais. His head was well below Asome’s, but close enough to whisper words so softly even Inevera strained to catch them without magic.

‘What is our first order of business?’ Asome asked.

Jamere consulted papers on his writing tablet, but it was all for show. Like his uncle, he had every word memorized. ‘The Kaji, Shar’Dama Ka.’

The Kaji, the largest and most powerful tribe in Krasia, had lost both its leaders in the coup. Asome and Inevera, both Kaji themselves, had taken direct control of the tribe in the interim, but it weakened their ability to be impartial, especially with the Majah in rebellion.

Asome turned to Inevera, but his words were loud enough for the entire court. ‘Mother, when will my sister return from the green lands to take up the black turban of Damaji’ting?’

‘The summons has been sent,’ Inevera said. ‘Your sister will not forsake her responsibilities.’

‘Then where is she?!’ Asome demanded. ‘We should have had an answer by now.’

‘Patience, my son,’ Inevera counselled. ‘It is not as if you have produced a new Damaji for the Kaji.’

‘My son will be Damaji,’ Asome said.

‘Your son is an infant,’ Inevera reminded. ‘Patience.’

Asome smiled. ‘Indeed. And so I have decided to appoint an interim Damaji, to hold the turban and speak for the council until my son earns his robes.’

Jamere gave a signal, and the guards opened the doors to admit a small group of men. At their head was Dama Baden. A man of more than seventy, the dama’s paunch rounded the front of his robes like he carried a child. He leaned on a staff as he walked, but his eyes remained sharp, the look on his face triumphant as he moved to stand before the steps.

Behind him walked two men. Shar’Dama Raji, Baden’s grandson and heir – another from Asome’s generation – and their kai’Sharum bodyguard.

Cashiv.

Inevera’s blood went cold at the sight of him. For years, Inevera had depended on anonymity to shield her family in the bazaar. The dama’ting wore veils to hide their identity, after all, and many women were named Inevera.

But like Asome and Jamere, Cashiv and Inevera’s brother, Soli, had been lovers. He was one of the only people left alive who remembered the girl she had been, and who her family were.

Her father, Kasaad, had slain Soli on learning he was push’ting, and while Cashiv had not dared defy the dama’ting and taken his revenge, he had not forgiven.

Cashiv met her eyes, and she knew.

‘Baden has ever been a thorn in the side of the council,’ Inevera said quietly for her son’s ears only. ‘He is greedy and power-hungry. He cannot be trusted.’

Asome was unperturbed. ‘He has proven trustworthy to me.’

‘And what did he give you in return for his seat at the head of the council?’ Inevera asked.

Asome smiled. ‘Something beyond price.’

Before Inevera could react, he turned back to Jamere. ‘Now that the council is complete once more, you may send in the Majah.’

Baden’s entourage bowed and took their place at the head of the young Damaji as Jamere signalled the guards once more. The doors opened, and in stormed Damaji Aleveran. The man was not yet sixty, robust and dangerous.

When Asome’s Majah brother Maji failed to kill Damaji Aleverak, Asome executed the Damaji personally, breaking the pact that had held peace between the Kaji and Majah since Ahmann took the throne. Asome had no other Majah dama brother to install as leader, and with the overwhelming support of his tribe, the black turban fell to Aleverak’s eldest son, Aleveran.

Immediately Aleveran left the council, imprisoning Belina and reinstating the former Majah Damaji’ting, the ancient but formidable Chavis. The old woman walked at his back, every bit as angry. Aleverak’s honour had been boundless, and his murder had all the Majah sharpening their spears.

They were shadowed by a small army of Sharum bodyguards. They were outnumbered by the Spears of the Deliverer lining the walls of the courtroom, but the men were alert, ready to fight and die to protect their leaders.

‘Damaji Aleveran!’ Asome called without preamble. ‘I call upon you and your Damaji’ting to kneel before the Skull Throne and take your rightful places on the aisle. Do this, and all will be forgiven.’

‘Forgiven?’ Aleveran snarled. ‘I am not the one who has committed a crime, boy. I am not the one who sullied this council chamber.’

‘Ware your words, Damaji,’ Hoshkamin warned, and around the room warriors tensed. ‘You stand before Shar’Dama Ka.’

Aleveran looked ready to spit on the ground, but Chavis laid a hand on his shoulder, and he thought better of it.

‘Shar’Dama Ka is dead,’ he said. ‘The Majah will not bow before a usurper who uses hora magics to murder in the night.’

Hoshkamin’s eyes narrowed, but Asome was wise enough to keep things from escalating. ‘Stand down, brother.’

‘Sharak Sun still rages, Damaji,’ Asome said, ‘and Sharak Ka looms. Krasia must be unified if there is any hope of victory. I wish no further bloodshed over the matter. Stand for your tribe as your father did.’

‘How can I stand before the man who murdered him?’ Aleveran demanded.

‘How, indeed?’ Inevera asked, drawing all eyes to her. It was known in the palace, if not beyond, that Asome had attempted to kill her, as well. ‘You would not be the first Damaji to lose his father in the struggle for the throne. We are all bound to serve Everam’s will.’

Damaji’ting Chavis stepped forward. ‘In that we agree. But Everam’s will has always been a mystery. I have consulted the hora, and the Creator has given me an answer to our problem.’

Inevera’s eyes narrowed, wondering what the old woman was playing at. She wished she could pull the curtains shut, that she might view Chavis’ aura. ‘The hora have said nothing of the sort to me.’

‘Fortunate, then, there remain some with more experience.’ Chavis’ smile was benevolent condescension. Inevera smiled in reply, wishing she could simply take out her hora wand and blast the woman from existence.

‘What do you propose?’ Asome asked.

Aleveran’s next words shocked the court into silence.

‘That the Majah take their spoils and return to the Desert Spear.’

Inevera and Asome knelt on the pillows of her private casting chamber off to one side of the throne room. Two curtained doorways separated the chamber from the bright sunlight of the throne room. Bathed in darkness, Inevera relaxed slightly at the restoration of her powers.

The relief was short-lived as she looked at her son, glowing in Everam’s light almost as intensely as his father had. His aura was flat and even, the result of a lifetime of meditation training. Dama grandmasters deep in meditation presented an aura of flat white, but even the most skilled practitioners could not entirely control the emotions running along their surface aura during periods of activity. There would be flares as he absorbed new information.

She wondered what he saw when he looked at her, how skilled he had become at reading the constantly shifting colours and patterns for secrets others wished to keep hidden.

‘Where is my family?’ Inevera demanded.

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Asome said. His aura showed the lie, but she could not tell if it was a loss of control at her sudden demand, or if he allowed her to see it.

Inevera Drew on the magic of the large hora stone hidden in the flooring beneath her pillow. Asome squinted as her aura brightened, and though he kept it from his face, she saw a flare of fear across his aura. ‘Do not lie to me, boy.’

The fear left his aura as Asome glanced around the room. ‘This is the room where Father lay with Leesha Paper, is it not?’

Inevera blinked as Asome looked down at his pillow. ‘Perhaps he took her on this very spot! She was a filthy chin, of course, but comely enough, if one likes that sort of thing. I hear you redecorated with fire when they were done.’

He knew how to cut at her. Inevera gave him credit for that. She bent against wind of it, face serene, giving him nothing. ‘And where did you kneel, when you sucked Cashiv’s cock?’

Asome’s grin was wicked. ‘I won’t be sucking Cashiv’s cock. That will be Grandfather Kasaad’s duty, if you do not return Kaji to me. At least, until Cashiv decides to kill him.’

For a moment Inevera lost her centre. An instant only, but Asome did not miss it, his aura showing satisfaction at the tiny victory.

‘Your father forgave Kasaad’s sins,’ Inevera said. ‘He will go clean to Everam.’

‘He murdered your brother for being push’ting,’ Asome said. ‘Perhaps that is why you hid them from us. You knew I might not be as forgiving as Father.’

‘Shar’Dama Ka must be merciful,’ Inevera said.

‘Only Everam’s mercy is infinite.’ Asome shrugged. ‘You have kept our families so separate that I will not weep at the loss.’

Inevera herself had only recently reconciled with her father over the crime. It weighed on her, but there was never a choice. Her prisoners were her strongest leverage against Asome, and she could not give that up, even for her father’s life. ‘And Manvah?’

‘Will be kept safely in my custody,’ Asome said. ‘Accorded every courtesy befitting the mother of the Damajah. As I trust my Tikka is.’

Inevera gave a shallow nod. ‘Of course. Now let us discuss your failure to bring the Majah into the fold as you stumbled up the seven steps.’