The Desert Prince

by Brett, Peter V.

  The Damajah raises an eyebrow. “Try to leave this room, son of Arlen.”

  I glance again at the wards surrounding us. “Ay, but you know me,” I concede. “Majah left before I was ever born. Don’t reckon they’ll go to all the trouble of warding up an airtight cell on account of one scruffy greenblood.”

  “Indeed, it is easy to underestimate you,” Inevera says. “But like your father, you are more than you appear. Rojvah tells me you have a gift.”

  “Ay?” The mention of Da distracts me, and it takes a moment for the Damajah’s last words to register.

  She reaches out a hand. “Your pipes.”

  My hand drops protectively over the satchel I always carry. I’d sooner let the Damajah hold Mam’s knife, but we both know the statement was a request, and here in her place of power, a request is a command. I reach inside, clutching the instrument for a long moment before handing it to her.

  The Damajah takes the pipes respectfully, closing her eyes and gliding her fingertips lightly over the wood, feeling its energy. Then she opens her eyes, studying the pipes with night eyes. Like taking a breath, she pulls a wisp of magic through them and into herself, Reading it, like Mam taught me.

  “You cut the wood yourself,” she whispers. “Wove your own cord. Boiled your own glue. There is power in that, Darin Bales.”

  “Ay, well…” My fingers itch to snatch the instrument back. It’s mine, and I’ve never liked folk touching it, not even Hary. I could take it before she even knew I’d moved, but I reckon I’d come to regret it.

  “Why don’t you use hora to enhance the pipes’ resonance,” she asks, “as other alagai charmers do?”

  “ ’Cause I never wanted to be a demon charmer,” I say.

  “You will have to be, if you wish to make it to Desert Spear alive,” the Damajah says. Then, as if she had known all along, she reaches into her hora pouch, producing what looks like a warded silver shell on a delicate chain.

  The shell hums with power, evidence of a sliver of demonbone within. Inevera skillfully threads the chain through the cord that binds the reeds together, letting it hang like a tassel.

  I know what she’s doing, and she’s right. Hary would never have held off the corelings back home if his cello hadn’t been similarly enchanted.

  But then she lays out a brush and a bowl of pure black paint.

  “Ay!” I reach out as she raises the brush.

  “Tsst.” The hiss makes me jump, pulling back my hand instinctively. Before I recover, she begins her work, painting wards along the reeds. The symbols are beautiful, but still it feels like a violation, like she’s tattooing my arm without permission. With every stroke of the brush my muscles get tenser, until it feels like I’m vibrating.

  Before I know it, she’s done. “The shell will resonate and multiply the sound of your playing,” the Damajah says. “By placing your fingers on the wards along the reeds, you can control how many multiples it will take to fill a space.”

  Seems a complicated way to say the wards make it louder, but I bow as she returns the pipes, just happy to have them back in my hands. It’s an incredible gift, but Mam always says magic has a price, and I expect I’ll be paying it soon enough. “Thank you.”

  “General Cutter rides hard for Everam’s Bounty,” Inevera says. “He will be here in three days to collect you and his daughter.”

  Sooner than we thought. Too soon.

  “Then I’ll leave before he gets here,” I say.

  “The pact demands that I keep you and the daughter of Gared safe,” Inevera says. “If you try to leave the palace, the guards will stop you.”

  “If your guards can stop us,” I say, “we ent much good to Olive.”

  The Damajah does not reply, but there is amusement mixed in with the scent of her perfume, and that is all the answer I need.

  “Uncle Gared will be steamed,” I warn.

  The Damajah whisks a hand dismissively through the air. “He is only a man, and out of his depth. A few wails and false tears, and he’ll ride out from Everam’s Bounty believing you’ve run off again, and leave me blameless.”

  “Won’t be lyin’,” I say. “But he’ll come after us.”

  “Alas,” Inevera says. “The pact gives us the right to deny armed men passage through our lands, and with Ahmann gone, I may be helpless to stop my generals from enforcing it.”

  I smile. Helpless, this woman ent, but Krasians like their head games.

  41

  DUSK RUNNER

  I pinch a few things on my way back. Nothing irreplaceable or sentimental, but the palace is full of fancy baubles just lying about, and we’ll need money for supplies on the road south. Even if we had time to pack, getting Selen out of the palace will be tricky enough without having to ruck too much gear.

  “Took you long enough,” Selen says as I slip through the cracked window into our chambers.

  “Where are Rojvah and Arick?” I ask as I drop down beside her, listening carefully. The twins are gone, and even the spies in the walls have pulled stakes for the night. We’re alone.

  “They got tired of watching me pace around the room and went off to bed,” Selen says. “Which is just as well, since I was getting close to punching Rojvah in the mouth just to wipe off that smug smile.”

  I’m flattered. Usually it’s me losing sleep to worry. Selen can doze through most anything. “Should’ve slept while you had the chance. We’re leaving. Now.”

  Selen doesn’t argue, or ask questions. She simply nods, fetching our weathered packs, already stuffed with clothing. I can hear the clink of our warded glass armor plates weighing the bottoms. “Refilled our canteens, but there ent much in the way of food. Just some nuts and dried fruit I pocketed when no one was looking.”

  I realize she’s been planning this all along. Probably since the moment her da said he was coming to get us. Seems like everyone expected me to find my stones sooner.

  “That’s all right.” I reach into the many pockets of my jacket and pants, producing a small jade vase, a marble statuette, a silver tray, and a pair of golden candlesticks.

  “You little thief!” Selen’s smile drives off a bit of my embarrassment, but the relief is short-lived. We have work to do.

  I retrieve my bow and quiver while Selen harnesses her spear and slings her shield over her.

  “Best to leave the wooden armor behind,” I say. “Carrying too much to be very sneaky, already.”

  “Won’t miss it,” Selen says.

  “Ay?” I’m a little surprised. “You took care of that armor like it was your own babe on the road.”

  “Da taught us early to take care of armor,” Selen says. “Anythin’ you bet your life on is worth a polish every night. But that ripping thing was hot as the Core, and clunky. Shaped for a man. Krasian armor is downright comfortable by comparison—stronger, lighter, and flexible so you can move.”

  “Ay, fair,” I concede. I love my Krasian silk, but I don’t expect I’ll ever use the armor plates. Warded glass won’t turn slippery when I do, and I feel ill at the thought of all those plates shifting and squeezing against my skin.

  “How do we get past the guards outside the door?” Selen asks.

  “Same way I did,” I say.

  Selen glances at the window. “You gonna carry me up there?”

  I’d love to say yes. It’s what the hero should say, ay? It’s what Da would do, or Olive. I don’t like touching most folk, but I wouldn’t mind if it was Selen.

  It’s a nice little fantasy, but I ent that strong, and I know it. Selen alone outweighs me, not to mention all our gear.

  There’s a silk pull rope in our chambers to summon servants. I climb the wall and use Mam’s knife to slice it right where it meets the ceiling, dropping it to Selen. “Tie this around your waist.”

  “Ent gonna be long
enough,” she warns.

  “Don’t need it too long,” I say. “Got something else in mind.”

  * * *

  —

  “Darin Bales,” Selen growls into the wind as we step onto the wardwork ledge outside our window. “If we die, I’m going to kill you.”

  I laugh. “Just like walking a log.”

  “Log ent three inches wide,” Selen says. “That’s a stick.”

  Anything wide enough for a cat is a country stroll for me, but I know other folks ent the same way.

  Selen looks nervously at the drop—more than six stories down into a garden full of stone paths that would dash us both apart. “You sure this is going to work?”

  “Ent gonna let you fall,” I say, pressing slippery fingers into the cracks of the wall, then turning sticky. “Honest word.”

  She nods, taking up the slack of the rope that ties us together. She pulls hard against my makeshift harness before testing her weight to the rope, but I suck in, almost becoming part of the wall. The rope is secure.

  She rappels down to a ward, carved in relief on the palace wall, with ridges just wide enough for her hands and feet to catch a brief hold. The moment she’s secure, I skitter down the wall after her.

  “Night that’s unsettling,” Selen says.

  “Demon blood has advantages,” I say, but then Selen’s foot slips, and she drops before I can secure myself again. I’m pulled free save for one sticky hand, and my arm screams as the rope goes taut with our collective weight.

  To her credit, Selen doesn’t cry out, but I can’t keep from groaning in pain. It feels like the flesh of my hand will tear off, or my arm pull from its socket. I hang on desperately until the swinging of the rope eases enough for me to latch on with my other hand and feet.

  “Put your feet on the wall,” I say, trying to keep the strain from my voice. “Gonna walk us down.”

  I keep three limbs locked to the wall at all times as I steadily climb down, sucking in to keep from doing myself serious harm as we make our way to the garden. At last, Selen touches down and I drop the last ten feet.

  “Well done,” a silky voice says, “but if you’d asked us, we could have just taken you out the royal passage.”

  I’ve got Mam’s knife in hand before the voice registers. I look up and see Rojvah and Arick approaching from a hidden bower, their scents masked by the flowers. Rojvah wears a warded shawl around her shoulders, much like Mam’s Cloak of Unsight. Even to me, she looks blurry, like I must appear to folk when I’m slippery.

  Arick has abandoned his multicolored silk for Sharum blacks. I can hear plates of warded glass shifting between the layers. He carries a spear and shield, and looks every inch the dal’Sharum warrior, save for the kamanj slung over his back.

  “What are you doing?” I hiss, worried we will be overheard. White-sleeved guards patrol the grounds, and they are not known for laxity.

  “Making sure you don’t die in the desert,” Arick says.

  “You can’t stop us.” Selen pops the button on the spear harness on her back, loosening the weapon. “We’re going.”

  “You misunderstand,” Rojvah says.

  “Olive Paper is family,” Arick says. “We will no more abandon her to Majah scum than you.”

  A lump forms in my throat at the words. For all my doubts about where I stand with my Krasian cousins, here they are, ready to step into harm’s way for us.

  But it ent right. Much as I want company on this trip, it’s selfish to put them at risk. “No.”

  “Do not mistake us, cousin,” Rojvah says. “We are not asking permission. You know nothing of the desert waste, and though you speak our language, you will be out of your depth when you reach Desert Spear.”

  “Hate to say it, but they’ve got a point,” Selen says.

  They do, but I’m not ready to concede just yet. “You ent been to the desert any more’n us.”

  “It’s in our blood,” Arick says.

  “Always comes back to blood,” I say. “Green blood, desert blood, alagai blood. None of it means a corespawned thing to me.”

  “Be that as it may,” Rojvah says, “the waste shaped our people. For three thousand years, the tribes of Krasia called it our home. It darkened our skin and dictated our clothes and cooking. Every sacred scripture, every song we sing, every cautionary tale we tell children, all take place in the Krasian desert.”

  “We were learning to survive the sands and flats before we learned to roll over,” Arick says.

  I can’t argue that, so I don’t. “Say you’re right. Even if this works, you’ll be in for a world of trouble when you get back.”

  Arick shrugs. “The path to glory is full of danger, and victors are seldom punished for disobedience.”

  “You are not victors, yet,” a deeper voice intones. I turn in surprise to see Kaji, shocked that he was able to sneak up on me. No one’s ever gotten the drop on me before tonight, and now it’s happening at every turn. Maybe I ent as sneaky as I think.

  “Back inside, all of you, and this will be forgotten,” Kaji says. “Force me to call the guard, and you will face punishment for disobedience without the shield of glory.”

  “Olive Paper is your blood, too,” Selen says. “If you don’t have the stones to go after her, then someone needs to.”

  The words, spoken by a woman, no less, are a challenge to the ego that would set most Krasian men into a fit, but Kaji’s always been unflappable. Never could get a read on him like I can other folk.

  “Olive vah Ahmann is not forgotten.” Kaji’s voice is soothing. Calm. “The Majah will be dealt with for this offense.”

  “Majah went back to the desert because your da murdered their Damaji,” I remind him. “They hit back, now you hit them and they swear revenge. On and on and on. When does it end?”

  “Never,” Rojvah says. “The Kaji and the Majah have been in blood feud through the rise and fall of the old world, and since the Return. Only when my grandfather united the tribes did they hold a fragile peace.”

  “Bring an army to their doorstep, you’ll have another three thousand years of blood,” I say, “and it still ent guaranteed to get Olive back.”

  “You think you can?” Kaji sounds unconvinced.

  “Won’t start a war, we fail,” I say.

  “But you’ll put more of my family at risk,” Kaji says.

  “I ent your family,” Selen says.

  “Ay,” I add, “and tell me I can’t stand by Olive, then I ent, either.”

  Kaji scowls, but he sweeps a hand out into the night. “Go, then. But my cousins stay here.”

  Arick steps forward, gesturing to his black robe. “Look at me.”

  “You look like a Sharum, cousin,” Kaji says, “but you are not one. The blacks are for men who have killed alagai.”

  “How can I kill one, if you will not let me serve?” Arick demands.

  “That was not my decision,” Kaji says. “I spoke to Grandfather on your behalf, but his decision is law.”

  “Grandfather is gone, Kaji.” The pleading in Arick’s voice makes me uncomfortable, like I’m listening in to something private. “You sit the throne, at least for now. Your decision is law. You can let me be the person we both know I am, not the fraud Grandfather demands.”

  “You’re no fraud, cousin,” Kaji says. “Your father’s magic—”

  “Has far better practitioners than me, and we both know it,” Arick cuts in. “I need this, cousin. Better I die on alagai talons, than live my life as the court fool.”

  Kaji remains calm, like he was floating on his back in a summer pond. But he has no quick reply, and that’s a rarity.

  He turns, meeting Rojvah’s eyes. She touches a choker at her throat. “In the desert, we can all be who we wish to be.”

  At last Kaji gives a short nod. “E
veram’s blessings upon you.” He turns, heading into the shadows of the wall. “I saw nothing.”

  I’d expected a similarly unpleasant climb of the palace wall, but Arick and Rojvah scoff, taking us through a hidden tunnel reserved for the royal family.

  We exit into a plaza down the street from the palace, ringed with giant warded obelisks. In the shadow of the post across from us, four horses nicker softly. They’re hidden from sight, but I can smell the oiled leather saddlebags and the supplies within.

  A familiar shape emerges, holding the reins of a powerful young courser, laden with provisions.

  “Abban.” I can’t believe it. Did everyone but me know we were leaving tonight?

  “I owed you a horse, son of Arlen, and by Everam, I am a man who pays his debts.”

  “And the other horses?” I ask. “All that tack?”

  “Prince Arick and Princess Rojvah have their own animals, and full coffers to pay for provisions.” Abban smiles. “You, of course, will have to pay for Princess Selen’s horse, and the other supplies.”

  I frown. I read Da’s journals about haggling, but there’s no haggle for empty pockets. “How much?”

  Abban produces a small writing slate, running down the list with his pencil. “I’d say one small jade vase, one marble statuette, one silver tray, and a pair of golden candlesticks.”

  I laugh, pulling the items from my pockets. Damajah’s funnier than I gave her credit for. I hand them over and go to the beautiful young colt. Grandda had horses on the farm, but I’ve always spooked them for some reason. I know my way around tack and care, but ent spent much time in the saddle.

  I reckon this one’s about my age in horse summers, lean and long-legged, but still with a bit of growing to do. His coat is so brown it’s almost black, and there are wards cut into his hooves, painted silver. He looks moody, uncomfortable with the bridle, but I can smell he ent scared.

  “Is the son of Arlen pleased?” Abban asks. “May I mark my debt to your family paid in full?”

  “Ay,” I say, taking an apple from my pack. “He’s perfect. What’s his name?”