“Tell me of the red-haired boy who dresses like a khaffit,” he commanded.
Abban bowed. “He is what the greenlanders call a Jongler, Deliverer. They are traveling storytellers and music makers who dress in bright colors to announce their craft. It is considered an honored profession, and its practitioners are often highly regarded figures of inspiration.”
Jardir nodded, digesting the knowledge. “He had power over the alagai with his music. Commanded them with it. What of that?”
Abban shrugged. “The tales of the Painted Man speak of such a one, who charms alagai with his magic, but I know nothing of this power. It is not common, I imagine.”
Rojer watched uneasily as the Krasians cast furtive glances his way. It was obvious they were talking about him, but while Rojer’s trained ear had already begun to isolate the sounds and patterns of their surprisingly musical tongue, understanding was still far off.
The Krasians both terrified and fascinated him, much as the Painted Man did. Rojer was a teller of stories as much as a fiddler, and he had woven many a tale of Krasia yet he had never met someone from that land. A thousand questions shouted in his head, but caught in a jumble before they could reach his tongue, because these weren’t the exotic princes of his stories. Rojer had ridden the road to Rizon and seen their handiwork. Cultured or no, these were murderers, rapists, and bandits.
Jardir glanced his way again, and before Rojer could avert his gaze, their eyes met. Rojer started, feeling like a cornered hare.
“Forgive me, we have been impolite,” Jardir said, bowing.
Rojer pretended to scratch his chest, but it was just an excuse to touch his talisman. He drew strength both from the medallion and the reassuring presence of Gared at his side. Not for the first time, Rojer was glad for the mighty woodcutter’s oath to keep him protected.
“No offense taken,” he said, nodding.
“There are no Jonglers among my people,” Jardir said. “Your profession interests us.”
“You don’t have musicians?” Rojer asked, shocked.
“We do,” Jardir said, “but in Krasia, music is used only to praise Everam, not to charm demons on the battlefield. Tell me, is this power common in the North?”
Rojer barked a laugh. “Not in the least.” He threw back his tea, wishing the cup held something stronger. “I can’t even teach it. Don’t know quite how I do it myself.”
“Perhaps Everam speaks to you,” Jardir suggested. “Perhaps He has blessed your line with this power. Have any of your sons shown promise?”
Rojer laughed again. “Sons? I’m not even married.”
The Krasians seemed shocked at this. “A man of your power should have many brides to bear him sons,” Jardir said.
Rojer chuckled, lifting his cup to them. “Agreed. I should have many brides.”
Leesha snorted. “I’d like to see you handle one.” Everyone on both sides of the table had a laugh at Rojer’s expense. He weathered it silently; jokes at his expense were nothing new in the Hollow, but he felt his cheeks coloring all the same. He looked at Jardir, only to find that the Krasian leader was not among those laughing.
“May I ask you a personal question, son of Jessum?” Jardir asked.
Rojer touched the medallion at his father’s name, but he nodded.
“How did you get that scar?” Jardir asked, pointing at the crippled hand Rojer had raised, missing two fingers and part of the palm besides. “It looks old, too old for you to have gotten it fighting alagai as a man, and it hinders you little, as if you’ve had it for many years.”
Rojer felt his blood run cold. His eyes flicked to the fat merchant prince in his bright silks; treated with such derision by his fellows because he was crippled. He wondered if the Krasians thought him less a man for having only half a hand.
Everyone else had stopped talking, waiting on Rojer’s answer. They had all been half listening anyway, but now everyone stared at them openly.
Rojer scowled. Are the Hollowers so different? he wondered. None of them, not even Leesha, had ever so much as mentioned his crippled hand, trying to pretend it didn’t exist, and then staring when they thought he wasn’t watching.
At least he’s honest about his curiosity, Rojer thought, looking back to Jardir. And I don’t give a coreling’s shit what he thinks of me.
“Demons broke through our wards when I was a child of three,” he said. “My father stood with an iron fireplace poker to hold them off while my mother fled with me. A flame demon leapt upon her back, biting though my hand and into her shoulder.”
“How did you survive this?” Jardir asked. “Did your father save you?”
Rojer shook his head. “My father was dead by then. My mother killed the flame demon, and pushed me into a bolt-hole.”
There were gasps around the table, and even Jardir’s eyes widened sharply.
“Your mother killed a flame demon?” he asked.
Rojer nodded. “Pulled it off me and drowned it in a water trough. The water boiled and left her arms blistered and red by the time its thrashing stopped.”
“Oh, Rojer, how terrible!” Leesha moaned. “You never told me any of that!”
Rojer shrugged. “You never asked. No one’s ever asked me about my hand before. Everyone, even you, avoids it with their eyes.”
“I always thought you wanted privacy,” Leesha said. “I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable by calling attention to your…”
“Deformity?” Rojer supplied, irritated by the pity in her voice.
Jardir stood sharply, his face enraged. Everyone on both sides of the table tensed, ready in an instant to fight or flee.
“That is an alagai scar!” he shouted, reaching across the table and grabbing Rojer’s hand, holding it up for all to see. “Nie take any who look upon you in pity; this is a badge of honor!
“Scars show our defiance of the alagai!” he shouted. “And of Nie Herself! They tell Her we have looked at the maw of Her abyss, and spit in it.
“Hasik!” Jardir pointed to the largest of his warriors. At his command, the warrior stood and opened his armored robe, showing a semicircle of tooth marks that covered half his torso.
“Clay demon,” he said, his accent thick. “Big,” he added, spreading his arms.
Jardir turned to Gared and narrowed his eyes in challenge.
“Not bad,” Gared grunted. “Reckon I got it beat, though.” He pulled the shirt from his muscled chest, turning to reveal a thick line of claw marks running from his right shoulder to his left hip. “Woodie got me good,” he said. “Smaller man mighta been cut in half.”
Rojer watched in wonder as it went around the room like a little ripple, people on both sides of the table standing up to show scars and shouting their stories, arguing over whose were bigger. After the last year in the Hollow, there was hardly a person in town who didn’t have at least one.
But there was no air of regret in the room. People were roaring with laughter as near misses were recalled and sometimes pantomimed, even the Krasians slapping their knees in delight. Rojer looked to Wonda, the girl’s face horribly scarred, and saw her smiling for the first time he could recall.
When the cacophony was at it highest, Jardir stood upon his bench like a master Jongleur. “Let the alagaisee our scars, and despair!” he cried, removing his own robe.
Muscles rippled along his olive skin, but it was not that which drew amazed gasps from every mouth in the room. It was his scars. They were wards. Hundreds of them, perhaps thousands, cut into his skin like the tattoos of the Painted Man.
“Night, maybe he is the Deliverer,” Rojer muttered.
CHAPTER 25
ANY PRICE
333 AR SPRING
“YOU’D BEST LIMP QUICKER,” Hasik told Abban with a laugh, “or you will be left behind in the darkness.”
Abban grimaced in pain, sweat running in rivulets down his thick-jowled face. Ahmann set a brutal pace back to the Krasian camp, and he strode ahead with Ashan, leaving poo
r Abban stuck between Hasik and Shanjat, two men who had tortured him since childhood and did worse now.
Just a week earlier, Hasik had raped one of Abban’s daughters when he came to their pavilion to deliver a message. The time before, it was one of his wives. Jurim and Shanjat had made a point of taking Abban’s nie’Sharum sons under their wing in the Kaji’sharaj, instilling in them such a disgust of their khaffit father that Abban’s heart felt torn. All the Spears of the Deliverer jeered and spat at him, striking him at their pleasure when the Shar’Dama Ka was not about. They all knew Ahmann from of old, and resented that Abban had the Deliverer’s ear as they did not. Abban knew that if he ever fell from Ahmann’s favor, his life would be short indeed.
But the moment they left the forbidding generated by the giant ward of Deliverer’s Hollow, Abban felt his skin crawling, and he was forced to accept that there was nothing the Sharum could do to him that would make him too prideful to beg their protection in the night.
Such was the fate of khaffit.
“I do not understand why you treat these chin weaklings as though they were true men,” Ashan said to Ahmann as they walked.
“These people are strong,” Ahmann replied. “Even their women have alagai scars.”
“Their women are brazen like harlots,” Ashan said, “and should see more of the back of their husbands’ hands. The one who leads them is worst of all! I cannot believe you let her scold you like a…a…”
“Dama’ting?” Ahmann asked.
“More like the Damajah,” Ashan said. “And this woman is neither.”
Ahmann’s face twitched slightly, a barely noticeable sign of irritation that nevertheless would have sent Abban running for cover if there had been any to run to.
But Ahmann kept his temper. “Think, Ashan,” he said. “Should I waste warriors conquering these people for Sharak Ka when they fight the alagai already?”
“They do not fight under you, Shar’Dama Ka,” Ashan pointed out. “The Evejah commands that all warriors obey the Deliverer for Sharak Ka to be won.”
Ahmann nodded. “And so it shall be. But I did not unite the tribes of Krasia by killing men. Unity came from mixing my blood with theirs by marrying their dama’ting. I see no reason not to do the same in the North.”
“You would marry that…that…” Ashan was incredulous.
“That what?” Ahmann asked. “That beautiful woman who kills alagai with a wave of her hand, and wards like a sorceress of old?” He lifted the warded cloak she had given him and held it up to his face, closing his eyes and inhaling deeply. “Even the scent of her intoxicates me. I must have her.”
“She isn’t even Evejan!” Ashan spat. “She is an infidel!”
“Even infidels are part of Everam’s plan, my friend,” Ahmann said. “Can you not see it? The only tribe in the North that fights alagai’sharak is led by a woman, a Northern healer blessed with powers never before seen. By marrying her, I can add their strength to our own without a drop of red blood spilled. It is as if Everam Himself has arranged the match. I can feel His will thrumming in me, and it will not be denied.”
Ashan looked ready to argue further, but it was clear Ahmann considered the matter closed. He scowled, but he bowed. “As the Deliverer wills,” he said through gritted teeth.
They reached the camp at last, and Abban breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that Ahmann’s pavilion was raised and waiting. The dal’Sharum surrounded it, sleeping in shifts and ever alert for any threat, demon or otherwise.
“Abban, meet with me,” Ahmann said. “Shanjat and Ashan, see to the men.”
Damaji and kai’Sharum exchanged a bitter look, but they gave no argument and left to comply. Hasik moved to follow Ahmann, but Ahmann stopped him with a look.
“I do not require a bodyguard to meet with a khaffit,” Ahmann said.
Hasik bowed. “When you did not give me another assignment, Deliverer, I assumed my place was with you.”
“My pavilion could use raising,” Abban suggested.
Ahmann nodded. “Hasik, see to it.”
Hasik looked up at Abban, murder in his eyes, but Abban, safe behind Ahmann, gave not the obsequious bow of a khaffit but a full mocking grin.
Abban turned and stepped into the pavilion, holding the tent flap for Ahmann to enter. The impotent rage on Hasik’s face as he closed the flap was poor recompense for his daughter’s virginity, but Abban took his revenge where he could find it.
Jardir turned to Abban once they were alone.
“I apologize for striking you,” he said. “It was—”
“Meant to impress the woman, I know,” Abban cut him off. “And it would have been a fair bargain had it worked, but these chin see the world differently than we do.”
Jardir nodded, thinking of how the Par’chin used to defend Abban. “Our cultures are a natural insult to each other. I should have known better.”
“One must take especial care when dealing with chin,” Abban agreed.
Jardir lifted the Spear of Kaji. “I am a warrior, Abban. My strategies are for conquering men and killing alagai. I am not good at the sort of…manipulation,” he spat the word, “that you and Inevera excel at.”
“Lies have always been bile on your lips, Ahmann,” Abban agreed, with a bow that seemed equal parts deferential and mocking.
“So how do I claim this woman?” Jardir asked. “I saw her eyes upon me. Do you think she has the liberty of dama’ting to choose her husband, or should I approach her father?”
“Dama’ting have their liberty because their fathers are not known,” Abban said. “Mistress Leesha made a point of introducing us to her father, and then gave you the cloak, a clear sign she is open to courting. An ordinary maiden might give a fine robe to a suitor, but her gift is one worthy of the Deliverer.”
“So it should only be a matter of arranging a dower with her father,” Jardir said.
Abban shook his head. “Erny is a hard negotiator, but he will be the simple part. I would be more concerned that the Damajah might oppose the match, and the Damaji support her.”
“I will kill any Damaji who defies me in this,” Jardir said, “even Ashan.”
“What message will that send to your army, Ahmann,” Abban asked, “when their leader kills his own Damaji for the sake of a chin woman?”
Jardir scowled. “What does it matter? Inevera has no reason to oppose it.”
Abban shrugged. “I only suggest it because the Damajah may find she has difficulty dominating this Northern woman as she does your other Jiwah Sen.”
Jardir knew Abban was right. He had always thought Inevera the most powerful woman in the world, but this Leesha of Deliverer’s Hollow seemed to rival her in every way. She would not play the role of a lesser wife, and Inevera would tolerate nothing less.
“But it is that very indomitability that I must have beside me, if I am to lead the chin to Sharak Ka,” Jardir said. “Perhaps I can marry her in secret.”
Abban shook his head. “Word of the union would reach the Damajah eventually, and she could cancel it with a word, which Leesha’s tribe might take as an unbearable insult.”
Jardir shook his head. “There is a way. This is Everam’s will. I can feel it.”
“Perhaps…” Abban began, twisting his fingers through the curl of his oiled beard.
“Yes?” Jardir asked.
Abban was silent a moment, but then shook his head and waved his hand dismissively. “Only a thought that did not hold water when filled.”
“What thought?” Jardir asked, and his tone made it clear he would not ask again.
“Ah,” Abban said, “I had only wondered, what if the Damajah were only your Krasian Jiwah Ka? If that were so, there might be wisdom to appointing a Northern Jiwah Ka as well, to arrange marriages to chin in the green lands.”
Abban shook his head. “But not even Kaji ever had two Jiwah Ka.”
Jardir rubbed his fingers together, feeling the smooth scars of the wards cut into his skin a
s he pondered.
“Kaji lived three thousand years ago,” he said at last, “and the sacred texts are incomplete. Who is to say for certain how many Jiwah Ka he had?”
When clever Abban did not immediately reply, Jardir smiled. “You will go tomorrow to the house of Leesha’s father to settle your debt,” he commanded, “and to learn what dower he asks for her.”
Abban bowed and turned to go.
Abban smiled to the greenlanders as he limped through the village on his camel-headed crutch. They stared at him, many mistrustful, but while his crutch was an invitation for violence against him in Krasia, it seemed to have the opposite effect among the chin. They would be ashamed of themselves to hit a man who could not properly defend himself, just as they were ashamed to hit a woman. It explained why their women took such liberties.
Abban found he liked the green lands more and more as time went by. The weather was neither unbearably hot nor unbearably cold, whereas the desert held both extremes, and there was abundance in the North like nothing Abban had ever dreamed. The possibilities for profit were endless. Already his wives and children were making a fortune in Everam’s Bounty, and most of the green lands were as yet untapped. In Krasia, he was wealthy, but still only considered half a man. In the North, he could live like a Damaji.
Not for the first time, Abban wondered at Ahmann’s true thoughts. Did he truly believe himself the Deliverer, and that such things as marrying this woman were Everam’s will, or was that just a pretense for power?
If it were any other man, Abban would have thought the latter, but Ahmann had always been naïvely true about such things, and might well harbor such delusions of grandeur.
It was ridiculous, of course, but the belief in his divinity shared by almost every man, woman, and child in Krasia gave Ahmann such tremendous power that it almost didn’t matter if it was true or not. Either way, Abban served the most powerful man in the world, and if they had not returned to their old friendship, they had at least fallen into its patterns.
The Desert Spear (demon) Page 54