The Core

by Peter V. Brett

  Her eyes flicked to her son, watching the richest man in Krasia prostrate himself. There was a slight quirk to Asome’s lips. Perhaps he already had.

  I must find Abban, and soon.

  “Rise, my friend,” Asome said, beckoning with his spear. “Your presence is a vast improvement over the court khaffit.”

  “Few can abrade like my dear uncle,” Jamere said. “Inevera, he will return safely to us.”

  Asome nodded. “Or if he was lost on my brother’s ill-fated attack on the forest fortress and you are now a permanent member of my court, then that, too, is inevera. You may take the sixth step.”

  Jamere rolled smoothly to his feet, smiling as he climbed the steps. He stopped at the sixth, a step below the dais. His head was well below Asome’s, but close enough to whisper words so softly even Inevera strained to catch them without magic.

  “What is our first order of business?” Asome asked.

  Jamere consulted papers on his writing tablet, but it was all for show. Like his uncle, he had every word memorized. “The Kaji, Shar’Dama Ka.”

  The Kaji, the largest and most powerful tribe in Krasia, had lost both its leaders in the coup. Asome and Inevera, both Kaji themselves, had taken direct control of the tribe in the interim, but it weakened their ability to be impartial, especially with the Majah in rebellion.

  Asome turned to Inevera, but his words were loud enough for the entire court. “Mother, when will my sister return from the green lands to take up the black turban of Damaji’ting?”

  “The summons has been sent,” Inevera said. “Your sister will not forsake her responsibilities.”

  “Then where is she?!” Asome demanded. “We should have had an answer by now.”

  “Patience, my son,” Inevera counseled. “It is not as if you have produced a new Damaji for the Kaji.”

  “My son will be Damaji,” Asome said.

  “Your son is an infant,” Inevera reminded. “Patience.”

  Asome smiled. “Indeed. And so I have decided to appoint an interim Damaji, to hold the turban and speak for the council until my son earns his robes.”

  Jamere gave a signal, and the guards opened the doors to admit a small group of men. At their head was Dama Baden. A man of more than seventy, the dama’s paunch rounded the front of his robes like he carried a child. He leaned on a staff as he walked, but his eyes remained sharp, the look on his face triumphant as he moved to stand before the steps.

  Behind him walked two men. Shar’Dama Raji, Baden’s grandson and heir—another from Asome’s generation—and their kai’Sharum bodyguard.

  Cashiv.

  Inevera’s blood went cold at the sight of him. For years, Inevera had depended on anonymity to shield her family in the bazaar. The dama’ting wore veils to hide their identity, after all, and many women were named Inevera.

  But like Asome and Jamere, Cashiv and Inevera’s brother, Soli, had been lovers. He was one of the only people left alive who remembered the girl she had been, and who her family were.

  Her father, Kasaad, had slain Soli on learning he was push’ting, and while Cashiv had not dared defy the dama’ting and taken his revenge, he had not forgiven.

  Cashiv met her eyes, and she knew.

  “Baden has ever been a thorn in the side of the council,” Inevera said quietly for her son’s ears only. “He is greedy and power-hungry. He cannot be trusted.”

  Asome was unperturbed. “He has proven trustworthy to me.”

  “And what did he give you in return for his seat at the head of the council?” Inevera asked.

  Asome smiled. “Something beyond price.”

  Before Inevera could react, he turned back to Jamere. “Now that the council is complete once more, you may send in the Majah.”

  Baden’s entourage bowed and took their place at the head of the young Damaji as Jamere signaled the guards once more. The doors opened, and in stormed Damaji Aleveran. The man was not yet sixty, robust and dangerous.

  When Asome’s Majah brother Maji failed to kill Damaji Aleverak, Asome executed the Damaji personally, breaking the pact that had held peace between the Kaji and Majah since Ahmann took the throne. Asome had no other Majah dama brother to install as leader, and with the overwhelming support of his tribe, the black turban fell to Aleverak’s eldest son, Aleveran.

  Immediately Aleveran left the council, imprisoning Belina and reinstating the former Majah Damaji’ting, the ancient but formidable Chavis. The old woman walked at his back, every bit as angry. Aleverak’s honor had been boundless, and his murder had all the Majah sharpening their spears.

  They were shadowed by a small army of Sharum bodyguards. They were outnumbered by the Spears of the Deliverer lining the walls of the courtroom, but the men were alert, ready to fight and die to protect their leaders.

  “Damaji Aleveran!” Asome called without preamble. “I call upon you and your Damaji’ting to kneel before the Skull Throne and take your rightful places on the aisle. Do this, and all will be forgiven.”

  “Forgiven?” Aleveran snarled. “I am not the one who has committed a crime, boy. I am not the one who sullied this council chamber.”

  “Ware your words, Damaji,” Hoshkamin warned, and around the room warriors tensed. “You stand before Shar’Dama Ka.”

  Aleveran looked ready to spit on the ground, but Chavis laid a hand on his shoulder, and he thought better of it.

  “Shar’Dama Ka is dead,” he said. “The Majah will not bow before a usurper who uses hora magics to murder in the night.”

  Hoshkamin’s eyes narrowed, but Asome was wise enough to keep things from escalating. “Stand down, brother.”

  “Sharak Sun still rages, Damaji,” Asome said, “and Sharak Ka looms. Krasia must be unified if there is any hope of victory. I wish no further bloodshed over the matter. Stand for your tribe as your father did.”

  “How can I stand before the man who murdered him?” Aleveran demanded.

  “How, indeed?” Inevera asked, drawing all eyes to her. It was known in the palace, if not beyond, that Asome had attempted to kill her, as well. “You would not be the first Damaji to lose his father in the struggle for the throne. We are all bound to serve Everam’s will.”

  Damaji’ting Chavis stepped forward. “In that we agree. But Everam’s will has always been a mystery. I have consulted the hora, and the Creator has given me an answer to our problem.”

  Inevera’s eyes narrowed, wondering what the old woman was playing at. She wished she could pull the curtains shut, that she might view Chavis’ aura. “The hora have said nothing of the sort to me.”

  “Fortunate, then, there remain some with more experience.” Chavis’ smile was benevolent condescension. Inevera smiled in reply, wishing she could simply take out her hora wand and blast the woman from existence.

  “What do you propose?” Asome asked.

  Aleveran’s next words shocked the court into silence.

  “That the Majah take their spoils and return to the Desert Spear.”

  —

  Inevera and Asome knelt on the pillows of her private casting chamber off to one side of the throne room. Two curtained doorways separated the chamber from the bright sunlight of the throne room. Bathed in darkness, Inevera relaxed slightly at the restoration of her powers.

  The relief was short-lived as she looked at her son, glowing in Everam’s light almost as intensely as his father had. His aura was flat and even, the result of a lifetime of meditation training. Dama grandmasters deep in meditation presented an aura of flat white, but even the most skilled practitioners could not entirely control the emotions running along their surface aura during periods of activity. There would be flares as he absorbed new information.

  She wondered what he saw when he looked at her, how skilled he had become at reading the constantly shifting colors and patterns for secrets others wished to keep hidden.

  “Where is my family?” Inevera demanded.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Asome said.
His aura showed the lie, but she could not tell if it was a loss of control at her sudden demand, or if he allowed her to see it.

  Inevera Drew on the magic of the large hora stone hidden in the flooring beneath her pillow. Asome squinted as her aura brightened, and though he kept it from his face, she saw a flare of fear across his aura. “Do not lie to me, boy.”

  The fear left his aura as Asome glanced around the room. “This is the room where Father lay with Leesha Paper, is it not?”

  Inevera blinked as Asome looked down at his pillow. “Perhaps he took her on this very spot! She was a filthy chin, of course, but comely enough, if one likes that sort of thing. I hear you redecorated with fire when they were done.”

  He knew how to cut at her. Inevera gave him credit for that. She bent against wind of it, face serene, giving him nothing. “And where did you kneel, when you sucked Cashiv’s cock?”

  Asome’s grin was wicked. “I won’t be sucking Cashiv’s cock. That will be Grandfather Kasaad’s duty, if you do not return Kaji to me. At least, until Cashiv decides to kill him.”

  For a moment Inevera lost her center. An instant only, but Asome did not miss it, his aura showing satisfaction at the tiny victory.

  “Your father forgave Kasaad’s sins,” Inevera said. “He will go clean to Everam.”

  “He murdered your brother for being push’ting,” Asome said. “Perhaps that is why you hid them from us. You knew I might not be as forgiving as Father.”

  “Shar’Dama Ka must be merciful,” Inevera said.

  “Only Everam’s mercy is infinite.” Asome shrugged. “You have kept our families so separate that I will not weep at the loss.”

  Inevera herself had only recently reconciled with her father over the crime. It weighed on her, but there was never a choice. Her prisoners were her strongest leverage against Asome, and she could not give that up, even for her father’s life. “And Manvah?”

  “Will be kept safely in my custody,” Asome said. “Accorded every courtesy befitting the mother of the Damajah. As I trust my Tikka is.”

  Inevera gave a shallow nod. “Of course. Now let us discuss your failure to bring the Majah into the fold as you stumbled up the seven steps.”

  Irritation pricked Asome’s aura even as he smiled. “How is it different from Father’s own rise? Father, too, was unable to quell the Majah fully. They have been a plague on unity since Kaji defeated Majah in Domin Sharum three thousand years ago.”

  “If you had waited until Maji was older…”

  Asome waved the idea away. “I knew my brother better than you, Mother. I grew up with him in Sharik Hora. He was never going to grow enough to defeat Aleverak, hora stones or no. It was inevera he fail.”

  “And what was your plan in that eventuality?” Inevera asked.

  “There are only two choices,” Asome said. “Find something that will appease them into accepting the new order, or force them into submission.”

  “At what cost?” Inevera asked. “The Majah are too numerous. Open war will destroy our forces just as Sharak Ka is nigh.”

  “We could let them go,” Asome said, “but that weakens us as well. The greenlanders already outnumber us.”

  Inevera reached into her hora pouch, producing her electrum-coated dice. “These are questions for Everam.”

  —

  Inevera raised her curved knife. “Hold out your arm.”

  Aleveran’s aura was stone, but his eyes flicked to Chavis. The Damaji’ting gave a slight nod, and Aleveran rolled his sleeve, arm steady as he extended it.

  She made a quick, shallow cut, enough blood for the spell and not a drop more. No need to antagonize the Majah any further.

  “Everam, Creator of Heaven and Ala, Giver of Light and Life, your children need guidance. Should Damaji Aleveran lead his people back to the Desert Spear?”

  The dice flared as she shook. She and Chavis leaned in the moment the dice settled from her throw. Their eyes flicked from symbol to symbol, taking in the orientation of the dice to one another and to due east, where Everam’s light was born each day. Even then, there were many interpretations, all potential futures. Reading the most likely was an art dama’ting spent lifetimes perfecting, and even the most skilled often disagreed.

  “If the gates of the Desert Spear close behind the Majah, they will not open again without bloodshed.” Inevera glanced at Chavis to see if she would dispute the reading, but the old woman only grunted in assent.

  “It is inevera,” Chavis said. “Ahmann Jardir was a false Deliverer, and his armies are destined to fail. The Desert Spear is our last hope.”

  “I do not know what they taught in the Chamber of Shadows when you were young, Damaji’ting,” Inevera said, “but we teach nie’dama’ting not to assume what the dice do not tell.”

  “Perhaps our armies risk failure because the Majah desert in our hour of need,” Asome noted. “Slinking away to hide like khaffit as all mankind unites against Nie.”

  “No one is uniting behind you, boy,” Aleveran said. “Already your army is a fraction of your father’s, eroding more each day. Would you add warring in the streets to the attrition?”

  “I will make you leader of the council of Damaji, as your father was,” Asome said. “You will stand above all save the throne.”

  Aleveran shook his head. “To the abyss with your council. I will not bow to a man who broke sacred law to murder my father in the night.”

  Inevera looked to Chavis. “Let us consult the dice again.”

  “You have had your question in Aleveran’s blood,” Chavis said. “Now Asome will surrender his arm for a question of mine.”

  Asome stiffened, pulling up to his full height. “I am Shar’Dama Ka. You presume to ask for my blood?”

  “Your blood now may spare the blood of many of our people,” Chavis said. “If you are Shar’Dama Ka, you are wise enough to see that.”

  Doubt flickered across Asome’s aura. He started to look to Inevera for advice, but thought better of it. He rolled his sleeve and held out his arm as Aleveran had.

  “Everam, Creator of Heaven and Ala, Giver of Light and Life,” Chavis shook the dice after coating them in his blood, “your children need guidance. Should Damaji Aleveran bow before Asome asu Ahmann am’Jardir am’Kaji?”

  She threw, and again the women bent together, studying the dice. As before, one answer was stronger than the others.

  “No.”

  Inevera nodded to Asome, confirming the word as Chavis spoke it, but she could see he did not trust her.

  “If you cannot stay, take your people to Everam’s Reservoir,” Asome said. “Fine lands, rich with water and as green as the Bounty. I give you those lands, to claim for Everam.”

  Aleveran shook his head. “Take the land just as the waters of the fish men thaw and they renew their assaults? I will not be your buffer against the greenlanders after they scattered your brother’s armies. Take it yourself, and leave us Everam’s Bounty.”

  “I would sooner have your head,” Asome growled.

  “Try and take it now,” Aleveran dared. “Or let us go in peace, a last bulwark against the forces of Nie.”

  CHAPTER 10

  FAMILY MATTERS

  334 AR

  Beware, sister, Jarvah’s fingers said. I have never seen the Damajah so angry.

  Ashia found her center in the comforting weight of Kaji sleeping in his sling as the Damajah stormed into the room. With the windows covered, she glowed and crackled in Everam’s light.

  “He has my family,” the Damajah growled.

  Ashia tilted her head. Her family? Ashia and her spear sisters were Inevera’s nieces after all. The Deliverer was lost, Jayan was dead, and Asome sat the throne. Who was she referring to? “Apologies, Damajah, but I do not understand.”

  Inevera’s eyes found hers. The Damajah’s gaze was unnerving under any circumstances, but now it burned with such intensity, Ashia wished she could look away.

  “My mother and father, Manvah and
Kasaad, yet live,” the Damajah said. “Until recently, they remained anonymous in the bazaar. Even the Deliverer himself did not learn of them until just before his fall.”

  Ashia blinked. She and her spear sisters followed the Damajah everywhere, but even they barely knew her, it seemed.

  “Asome discovered and hostaged them,” Ashia said.

  “Dama Baden’s bodyguard Cashiv knew of them.” Micha jumped as the Damajah spat. “I should have killed him long ago.”

  The Damajah shook her head. “This cannot stand. As soon as the sun sets, take your spear sisters to my son’s wing of the palace and find them.”

  Ashia put a protective hand over Kaji at her breast. “I cannot take my son into Asome’s wing. Micha and Jarvah…”

  The Damajah’s eyes flared, and her aura brightened until it became difficult to look at her. Ashia put up a hand, lest she be blinded.

  “They. Have. My. Mother.” The Damajah bit the words off, each striking like a lash. “I have tolerated your insolence long enough, Sharum’ting Ka. You will not send your little sisters into danger alone. You will do as I command. Kaji will be safe with his grandmother in the Vault.”

  Ashia slipped down to her knees, putting her hands on the floor. She bowed, touching her forehead between them. “Yes, Damajah.”

  “Asome gave reason to believe they were in the royal suite,” the Damajah said. “No doubt he wishes to know his grandparents better. Begin your search there, and plant a hora stone in his chambers to give me an ear there.”

  Ashia nodded. “Of course, Damajah.”

  “When you have their location, bring it to me and I will retrieve them myself.”

  Ashia looked up at that, horrified. Inevera still flared bright with power, and she closed her eyes against it. “Damajah! You cannot expose yourself so.”

  “It is inevera,” the Damajah said.

  —

  Ashia made her way through a series of hidden passages down into the Damajah’s underpalace, only recently cut into the bowels of the hill beneath the greenland duke’s palace.

  The smooth rock walls glittered with wardlight, the symbols running along them proof against demon and mortal intrusion both. Here, the Damajah worked her deepest magics and secured her most precious treasures.