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Which was true? Kaji’s account, or the first Inevera’s? Or were both full of lies and half-truths? Did the events of thirty-three hundred years ago even matter?
She ached for her mother’s arms, for the safety she felt when Soli roughed her thick black hair. But that hair was gone now, and Soli with it. Perhaps she would see him again, but more likely he would be killed in the Maze before she became dama’ting, if she ever did. She even felt a pang of regret for Kasaad and his drunken Sharum friends. Could she truly judge the actions of men forced into the Maze to needlessly face hordes of demons each night?
But for all her pain and turmoil, Inevera realized that even if she could wave a hand and take back the last two days, she wouldn’t. She had spent nine years in darkness, and now for the first time there was a flickering light.
Magic. They were teaching her hora magic.
Inevera thought back to her revulsion at the sight of the tiny demon bone Qeva had used to light the way to her foretelling. Could it only be a day ago? It seemed a lifetime. Now she wanted nothing more than to clutch a demon bone in her hand and cure men’s wounds with a wave.
She felt her heart thudding, and forced herself back into the rhythmic breathing of her centre. Soon she felt her body relaxing and was able to step outside it once more. The problems and questions continued to swirl around her, but they were more like blowing sand now, a nuisance that could be ignored.
She shuffled wordlessly along at the back of the nie’dama’ting food line, and managed to scrape a full bowl’s worth from the eunuchs this time. She ate in silence and was escorted back to the Vault with the other girls.
Findyourcentre! Melan had snapped at breakfast, just before the slap. Inevera almost wished she would do it again, just so she could remember what it was like to feel.
Was this what finding one’s centre meant? What it meant to be dama’ting? Did these women truly feel nothing as they looked into the future and made decisions that meant life or death for men and women alike – all the while living like Damaji in their great palaces, their every desire catered to?
When they were back in the Vault, the dama’ting left them to their nightly liberty until the wardlight faded. There was a heavy clicking of locks as she pulled the doors shut behind her. Inevera moved directly for her cot and the Evejah’ting that lay upon it.
She was barely aware that Melan was approaching her until she found herself flying through the air. She struck the ground hard, and a flash of pain brought her back to herself.
She looked up as she put her hands under her to rise. As in the baths, the other girls had formed a ring around her and Melan as the older girl approached.
She sighed. Notthis, again.
‘I am to teach you sharusahk,’ Melan said. ‘I am denied the Chamber of Shadows until you learn!’
Inevera slowly gave ground as Melan advanced until her back came to the ring of girls, and one of them shoved her forward.
‘Scorpion!’ Melan cried, bending smoothly at the waist and wrapping her arms around Inevera’s hips as her foot came up behind her, kicking Inevera square in the face.
Inevera fell back, stunned, and took several moments to recover herself before she got back to her feet. Melan continued to hold the pose.
‘Scorpion,’ the girls around them chanted, each falling into the pose themselves. ‘Scorpion. Scorpion …’
Inevera kept her breathing steady, and was surprised to find she was not afraid. Melan obviously meant to give her a beating, but it seemed pointless to resist. She doubted the girl would do her any lasting harm, and there was little she could do to stop it in any event. Best to submit for now, and learn what she could.
Her centre was strong as she assumed the scorpion pose, steady despite her rapidly swelling face.
Melan seemed more angry than ever at this response, as if expecting Inevera to cry and beg. Inevera pitied her in that moment. Melan’s own mother, Kenevah’s heir, had cast the bones that called her. What was all this anger and jealousy supposed to prove?
‘Wilting flower!’ Melan cried, moving in fast and low, thrusting the stiffened fingers of her right hand into Inevera’s abdomen.
There was a blunt pain, and Inevera lost all feeling in her legs, collapsing to the floor.
‘It is not just knowing how to strike,’ Melan said. ‘One must also know where.’ Before Inevera could find the control of her limbs to rise, Melan pinned her on her back, knees pressed into her upper arms, keeping them helpless and without leverage.
Melan reached out, pressing the knuckles of her index fingers hard into Inevera’s temples.
The pain was intense, like lightning arcing through her brain. She saw flashes of light and struggled helplessly, her breathing forgotten.
It seemed an eternity before Melan eased back, getting to her feet. Inevera lay there, breathing slowly until she could find her centre again.
‘Wilting flower,’ the other girls began to chant, each flowing into the gesture as they did. ‘Wilting flower. Wilting flower …’
Inevera rose shakily to her feet and copied the move.
‘This is a tunnel asp,’ Qeva said to the girls, presenting a glass box for the nie’dama’ting to observe. Inside was a hollow bit of stone sitting on a sand floor, and within that hollow, a small coiled snake with dull grey scales. ‘There is no deadlier creature under the sun.’
Inevera and the other Betrothed leaned in for a better look. Months had passed, and the days had fallen into a rhythm of sorts, beginning as always with sharusahk and treating injured Sharum, followed by lessons, some shared with other girls her age, and others with Qeva alone.
‘It’s so tiny,’ she whispered.
‘Do not be fooled by its size,’ Qeva said. ‘Tunnel asp venom makes scorpion stings feel like sweet kisses. A single bite can kill a Sharum in minutes. The tunnel asp strikes quickly, then retreats to wait for its prey to die. It can afford to wait. Other animals will not feed on those it poisons, lest the venom kill them in turn.’ As she spoke, she took the lid off the box, rolling one of her silk sleeves up to the elbow. In one hand she held a small sand mouse by the tail. It squeaked and squirmed desperately, sensing the danger. She dropped it into the asp’s box, just in front of the hollow stone.
Instantly, the snake uncoiled, snapping at the mouse, but fast as it was, Qeva was faster. Her hand was a blur as she caught the snake behind its head and lifted it from the case. It thrashed at first, but Qeva’s grip was firm, and she cooed at it, stroking its head until it calmed.
‘We can force the asp to reveal its fangs by applying pressure to the base of its skull.’ She pressed with her thumb, and two curved fangs, previously flat against the roof of its mouth, extended. There was a tiny glass bottle on the table, its mouth covered with a thin membrane. Qeva pressed the fangs through this.
‘The poison sacs are on either side of its head, here and here.’ She pointed. ‘Squeezing will empty them into our vial.’ She did so, and a few drops fell into the glass. Qeva then dropped the snake back into the glass box, where it immediately coiled and stared at the mouse, head bobbing slowly from side to side. The mouse stared back, frozen in place save for its nose, which followed the dance of the snake’s head precisely. At last, the snake struck, biting but once before retreating into its stone hollow, leaving the mouse to thrash in the sand. In moments it stiffened and lay still.
‘Even milked of its poison, the bare residue on its fangs was more than enough to kill,’ Qeva said as the snake slithered from the hollow to claim its prize, its jaw unhitching to swallow the mouse whole. ‘The asp will feed, and sleep, and by this time tomorrow, its poison sacs will be full again.’ She held up the tiny bottle, which held perhaps three teardrops’ worth of venom. ‘This is enough to kill everyone in this room. Who can tell me how the antidote is prepared?’
Several girls raised their hands, but none faster than Inevera.
Inevera and the other girls knelt in a ring around the pile of pillows, their backs straight and their eyes attentive. In addition to the nie’dama’ting, there were several dal’ting girls in black headwraps, sent to study in the dama’ting palace before going to the great harem.
Qeva stripped off her white robe, even her hood and veil. Beneath, she wore diaphanous leggings that flowed like lavender smoke about her calves and thighs, ending in anklets tinkling with golden bells above her bare feet, the toenails painted to match the lavender cloth. Her top, too, was transparent, loose around her firm breasts, leaving her smooth midriff bare save for a golden chain that secured her black velvet hora pouch and a small vial. Dozens of golden bracelets jingled at her wrists. Her sex was uncovered, shaved smooth like the rest of her save for her eyebrows and thick black hair, which fell in lustrous ringlets, bound in gold. Only her face remained covered, her silk veil an opaque purple that accented the diaphanous lavender. Her body shone from scented oil.
In the back of the room, a trio of aging eunuchs began to play a steady rhythm on zurna, tombak, and kanun. Qeva beckoned, and Khavel approached. The muscular eunuch was clad, as usual, in nothing save his golden shackles and a silken loincloth that hung like a flag from his great, stiffened member. Like many of the girls, Inevera felt her eyes drawn to it like metal to a lodestone. She shifted uncomfortably.
The dama’ting laughed. ‘As you can see, already Khavel is prepared for his duty. But a man should always be tantalized to the point of madness before being allowed to sheathe his spear.’ She took Khavel’s arm and pivoted, using the eunuch’s own weight to throw him onto the pillows.
Then she began to dance. Her hips swayed in time to the music, even as she beat a complementary rhythm on the tiny brass cymbals attached to her thumbs and forefingers. The golden bells on her ankles and the bracelets on her wrists added to the spell as she gyrated around the bed of pillows, her feet as quick and sure as they were at sharusahk. Indeed, many of the movements she made were the same as those practised each morning in the hours before sunrise.
Khavel stared at her, mesmerized like the mouse before the tunnel asp. His loincloth was taut, seemingly about to tear, and his great muscles were no different, tense and defined, veins pulsing with the pounding of his blood.
It went on until Inevera began to feel dizzy. The room was hot, filled with sweet incense smoke, and she began to sway to the music and the dama’ting’s endless rhythm. The other girls were no less affected, all watching intently as the Bride stalked her hapless prey.
Finally, Qeva struck, moving to the pillows and tugging Khavel’s loincloth away to reveal his proud spear. She ran a finger along its length, and the tongueless eunuch moaned. Taking the vial from her waist chain, she dribbled oil into her palm and rubbed her hands together until both had a coating of the slick substance.
‘There are seven strokes laid down by the Damajah, as she told of the nights she lay with Kaji,’ the dama’ting said, reaching for Khavel’s member. ‘Watch closely as I demonstrate each one.’
Khavel soon threw his head back, moaning again, but the Bride squeezed tightly at the base of his mushroom-like tip, cooing softly as she waited for him to calm again. ‘Though Khavel is stoneless – the men you will lie with will not be. In their loins lie the future generations of Krasia, and the Evejah’ting commands that none of their seed be spilled or swallowed.’
Several more times, the dama’ting’s ministrations brought poor Khavel to the brink, but each time, she applied pressure and patience until he regained control.
‘Seven strokes,’ the dama’ting said, as she moved to mount the eunuch, ‘but there are seventy and seven ways to lie with a man. This is the first, JiwahSuperior. It is not enough to simply move up and down his spear. You must … twist.’ She demonstrated, using many of the same gyrations of her dance, now practically applied.
‘When you control a man’s loins in the pillows, you control him,’ the dama’ting said, ‘and you can ensure your own pleasure besides. Most men barely know where to put it, and will simply hump like a dog if given their liberty.’
As she stretched for morning sharusahk, Inevera’s muscles ached from countless hours spent practising the pillow dance. There were tiny calluses on her fingertips where the brass cymbals were held, and her feet were red with blisters. She would smooth them with pumice in the bath later.
But though she was stiff and sore, Inevera felt strong. Stronger than she had ever felt, even when hauling great stacks of baskets through the bazaar. She was ready to assume the sharukin, but Qeva did not remove her robe. Instead she beckoned the girls to form a ring around her, and summoned a muscular eunuch. It was not Khavel this time, but one named Enkido.
Like the other eunuchs, Enkido spoke with his hands in an intricate language of gestures that Inevera and the other nie’dama’ting learned as part of their studies. The dama’ting could give their servants complex commands with quick gestures, and receive equally detailed answers on the rare occasions when one was required.
But the similarity ended there. Unlike the other eunuchs, Enkido was always clad in black robes, though he still wore the gold shackles of servitude. His veil was red, meaning he had been a Sharum drillmaster before coming to the Dama’ting Palace, an expert in sharusahk and a master of the Maze. It was said that he had killed many alagai, fathered many sons, and taught many warriors before falling under a dama’ting’s spell and willingly allowing his stones and tongue to be cut from him.
Inevera heard he continued to wear the black to hide the terrible scars he incurred as a Sharum, but when the dama’ting clapped her hands, he pulled off the robe and she gasped aloud, as did several of the younger girls.
He did have scars, but they were long healed – more badges of honour than unsightly blemishes. It was not that which made the girls gasp, but the tattoos on his shaved, muscular skin. All over his body, there were lines and small circles, the black markings running up his limbs and all over his torso, onto his neck and shaved head.
Qeva dropped her robe as well and they stood nude, facing each other, though as always she kept her veil in place. She motioned, and Enkido attacked, moving with sudden, frightening speed. He outweighed the woman twice over, but it did not seem to slow him as they grappled and he put her quickly into a submission hold, lifting her feet from the ground so she could find no leverage.
But the dama’ting seemed unconcerned. She shifted slightly, then drove two stiffened fingers into one of the tattooed points on his chest. Immediately one of his arms slackened, and she pulled it away like the arm of a toddler, twisting from his grasp and flipping him onto his back.
‘All of Everam’s creatures are guided by lines of power and points of convergence, where their muscles, tendons, bones, and energy meet,’ the dama’ting said. ‘These are places of great strength, but also vulnerability. Touch the right place, and even the most powerful will lose their strength.’
She beckoned and again the warrior attacked, this time refusing to grapple, striking with lightning-fast kicks and quick, snapping punches like the strikes of a tunnel asp.
But the dama’ting bent like a palm in a windstorm, flowing this way and that, his blows never striking home. Finally, she reached out almost gently while he was mid-kick, pressing one of the points marked on his supporting leg. It collapsed under him, and while Enkido managed to control his fall and quickly come upright, his leg was now slack and would not support him. He stood balanced on the other, hands up protectively as he waited on the dama’ting’s command.
Instead, she turned back to the girls. ‘Trained in Sharik Hora, Enkido was the greatest sharusahk master the Kaji Sharum had known in a hundred years. No man of any tribe could stand against him, and alagai quailed at the sight of him. More than one dama’ting sought his seed to bless their daughters, and through them he learned of our art. But though he begged time and again, he was forbidden to learn it. The Damajah teaches that no man can be trusted with the secrets of flesh. At last, the Damaji’ting took pity on him, and told him that only by yielding his tongue and his freedom would he be allowed to glimpse our secrets. He broke his spear over his knee right there, using the point to cut out his tongue and sever his own manhood, root and stones. Bleeding to death, he laid them at the Damaji’ting’s feet. No longer a man, he was healed and blessed with the right to aid in your training. You will accord him every honour.’
As one, Inevera and the other girls bowed to Enkido. Though he was only a eunuch, he looked at them all with the stern eye of a drillmaster assessing his nie’Sharum, and when he spoke with his hands, the girls quickly obeyed.
Inevera kept her hand on the Evejah’ting but did not open it, eyes closed as she recited the holy verse:
‘And from the sacred metal did the Damajah forge the three holy treasures of Kaji.
First, the cloak,
Sacredmetalhammeredintosupplethread,
Sewnintothefinestwhitesilkwithwardsofunsight.
Monthsshelaboured,
AtEveram’s will,
Untiltheeyesofthe alagai slidfromKajiinhisraiment,
Aseasilyasherfingerscoatedinkanisoil,
Slidalonghisskin.
Second, the spear,
Sacredmetalpoundedthinasvellum,
Etchedwithwards,
Rolledseventy-seven times about a shaft of hora.
Thebladeshemadeofthesamesheet,
Foldedandfusedwith hora dust
Seventimesseventytimes
InthefiresofNie’s abyss.
Ayearshelaboured,
AtEveram’s will,
Untiltheedgeshegroundwithdiamonddust,
CouldcuttheskinofNieHerself.
Last, the crown,
Sacredmetalwardedonbothsides,
Maskingthemanypowerssheblesseduponit.
Fusedtoacircletcutfromtheskullofademonprince.
Theninepointsprincelinghorns,
Eachsetwithagemtofocusitsuniquepower.
Tenyearsshelaboured,
AtEveram’s will,
UntilthedemonlordhimselfcouldnottouchthethoughtsofKaji,
NorapproachiftheShar’Dama Ka did not will it.
Withthesetreasures, Kaji became the most feared of all warriors,
AndthecowardlyprincesofNie
Fledthefieldwheneverhedrewthefoldsofhiscloak.’
Qeva nodded as Inevera finished, gesturing to the workbench the nie’dama’ting had gathered around, where bowls of metal filings were arranged, ready to be melted down. ‘Precious metals conduct magic better than base ones. Silver is better than copper, gold better than silver. But the transfer is never perfect. There is always loss.’
