The Skull Throne

The cheering increased, with women wailing in love and devotion. Inevera saw more than one woman openly weeping, and couldn’t believe it.

“Too many of us are forgetting who we are and where we come from, lowering our veils and coveting the immodest dress of the Northern women. Women daring to wear colors, as if they were the Damajah herself!” Kajivah swept a hand at Inevera, and there were boos and hisses. Inevera knew they were directed at immodest women, but she could not help but prickle at the sound of hisses to her name.

“The Damajah was wise in giving the Holy Mother this task,” Ashan said. “The people love her.”

Inevera was not so sure. It seemed harmless enough, asking Kajivah to plan feasts. It kept her busy and out of Inevera’s way. But somehow the fool woman was winning the hearts of the people with her uneducated ways and conservative values. It was a time of change for their people. They could not continue the insular ways they had developed over centuries in the Desert Spear if they were to win Sharak Sun.

Kajivah showed no sign of slowing, warming to a sermon like a dama who’d caught the Sharum with dice and couzi. For a woman with an empty head, Kajivah could talk for hours if unchecked.

Inevera stood, and instantly the crowd fell silent, women falling to their knees and putting hands on the floor as the men, from Damaji to Sharum, bowed deeply.

The sight used to comfort her. A reminder of her power and divine status. But there was power, too, in leading the cheers of the crowd. Too much, perhaps, for a simple woman like Kajivah.

“The Holy Mother is indeed humble,” Inevera said. “For none has worked harder to prepare this grand feast than Kajivah herself.” The crowd roared again, and Inevera grit her teeth. “We can do her no greater honor than sitting to it. In Everam’s name, let us begin the feast.”

“I fear we may have opened a djinn bottle with that one,” Inevera said.

Her mother, Manvah, sipped her tea. It was her first visit to the royal chambers, but if she was impressed by the opulence around her, she gave no sign.

“Having dealt with the woman directly, I would have to agree,” Manvah said. Manvah’s pavilion in the new bazaar provided many of the implements used in the Waning feast, earning her an invitation. Her khaffit husband, Kasaad, had been asked not to attend.

It had been a risk, slipping her in for a private audience, but Inevera needed her mother now more than ever. The eunuch who ushered her through the secret passages had been drugged. He would wake with no memory of the woman, and with her veil in place Manvah would look like any other woman as she slipped out from the passage into the public section of the palace.

“I thought her a poor haggler at first, but after enduring a few of her tantrums, I see I undercharged.” Manvah shook her head. “I’m afraid I advised you poorly in this case, daughter. I will deduct it from your debt.”

Inevera smiled. It was a joke between them, for Manvah made Inevera, the Damajah, weave palm for her whenever her daughter came to her for advice.

“They aren’t an act,” Inevera said. Manvah had taught her early how a proper tantrum could aid in haggling, but it was always calculated. A good haggler never lost their temper.

Kajivah had no control over hers.

“Yet the people love her,” Manvah said. “Even dama’ting hop when she speaks.”

“Nie take me if I can understand why,” Inevera said.

“It’s simple enough,” Manvah said. “It is a time of great upheaval for our people, leaving many without sure footing. Kajivah gives them that, speaking in a way the masses can understand. She walks among them, knows them. You spend your time here in the palace, far removed.”

“If she were not the Deliverer’s mother, I would poison her and be done,” Inevera said.

“Ahmann would not appreciate that upon his return,” Manvah said. “Not even you could hide such a thing from the divine sight of Shar’Dama Ka.”

“No.” Inevera dropped her eyes. “But Ahmann is not coming back.”

Manvah looked at her in surprise. “What? Have your dice told you this?”

“Not directly,” Inevera said. “But they made reference to the corpse of Shar’Dama Ka, and I can see him in no futures. Barring a miracle of Everam, our people must go on without him until I can make another.”

“Make?” Manvah asked.

“Of all the mysteries the dice have revealed to me,” Inevera said, “none struck so hard as the knowledge that Deliverers are made, not born. The dice will guide me to his successor, and how to shape him.”

Inevera expected Manvah to gasp as she had, but in typical fashion, Manvah absorbed the information with a grunt and went on. “Who will it be, then? Not Ashan, surely. Jayan? Asome?”

Inevera sighed. “The moment I cast the dice for Ahmann, a boy of nine, I saw the potential in him. I would have thought it a fluke, but after years of searching I found it in another, the Par’chin, who was younger than Asome. Never before or since those two have I seen a boy or man with even the hope of following the Deliverer’s path. One of my sons may yet need to take the throne, but they will only be holding it for the one to come next.”

“None rise willingly from a throne once it is sat,” Manvah said.

“And so it is my hope to hold them off as long as I can,” Inevera said. “There is still time, Everam willing. Neither boy has proven himself in any significant way. Without deeds, neither of them can wrest power from the Andrah. My concern this day is how to keep Kajivah in check.”

“I hate to suggest it,” Manvah said, “but the answer may well be spending more time with her.”

Inevera stared at her blankly.

“And making your raiment a touch more modest.” Only the corners of Manvah’s mouth were touched by her smile, but it was unmistakable.

Ashia watched impassively as Asome cut his hand, squeezing blood over Melan’s dice.

Her husband had done this often since word of the impending attack on Docktown had come to them. Asome’s hands were covered in bandages.

Asome and Asukaji still stared at the process in fascination. Growing into womanhood in the Dama’ting Palace, Ashia had seen the casting ritual countless times, but even she found her eyes drawn to it. There was beauty in the alagai hora, and mystery. She tracked the dice as Melan threw, breath held in anticipation of that exquisite moment when the dice were struck from their natural trajectory, moved by the hand of Everam.

She knew in her heart the power came from the bones and the wards, but Ashia did not believe any but the Brides of Everam could summon His hand. To any other, they would just be dice.

But for all their power and closeness to Everam, Ashia did not covet white robes and dama blood. She, too, felt Everam’s touch. It thrummed through her when she killed alagai. Not the magic, though that was a heady sensation of its own. She felt it even that first night, when she killed with an unwarded spear. There was a sense of rightness, an utter calm and surety that she did His good work. It was her purpose in life. The gift of Sharum blood.

Melan looked up, veiled face glowing red in the wardlight. “Tonight. The divergence is now, or it will never be. When Jayan returns, he will come for the Skull Throne. If you do not act tonight, he will take it.”