The Desert Spear

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.