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“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.
