The Daylight War (36 page)

I
nevera strode through the darkened streets of the Desert Spear, feeling none of the apprehension she’d once experienced at being on the surface at night. Even if the dice had not already promised she would see the boy at dawn, three years had passed. Inevera’s
hora
pouch now contained bones enough to defend her from almost any assailant, demonic or otherwise, and only Qeva was still considered Inevera’s match at
sharusahk
.

It was peaceful, the ancient city at night. Beautiful. Inevera tried to peel back the years to a time when the paint and gilding had been fresh, the pillars and moulding unworn. To visualize what Krasia had been like before the Return, just three hundred years ago.

The image came readily, sweeping Inevera away in its wonder. The Desert Spear had been the seat of a vast empire at the height of its power, the city proper containing people in the millions.
Aqueducts made the desert bloom, and there were great univer
si
ties of medicine and science. Machines did the work of a
hundred
dal’ting
. Sharik Hora was still Everam’s greatest temple, but hundreds of others dotted the city and surrounding lands in praise of the Creator.

And there had been peace. The closest thing to war had been nomadic tribes outside the walls raiding one another for women or wells.

But then came the demons, and the fool Andrah who called for
alagai’sharak
even after it became clear the fighting wards were lost.

Inevera shivered and returned to herself. The empty city seemed no longer peaceful, no longer beautiful. It was a tomb, like the lost city of Anoch Sun, claimed by the sands thousands of years past. That would be the fate of all Krasia if the tide of attrition was not turned. Sharak Ka was coming, and if it came tomorrow, all humanity would lose.

‘
But that will not happen,’ she promised the empty streets. ‘I will not allow it.’

Inevera quickened her pace. Dawn was approaching, and she must perform her foretelling before the sun crested the horizon.

Drillmaster Qeran nodded as she approached, making no comment about her wandering unescorted in the dark. She had been expected, and
Sharum
did not question
dama’ting
in any event.

She had consulted the dice about this day many times over the years, but no matter how many ways she posed her questions, the
hora
were evasive, full of might-bes and unknown conditions. The future was a living thing, and could never be truly known. It rippled with change whenever someone used free will to make a choice.

But there had been pillars even among the ripples. Bits of truth she could glean. Numbers of steps and turns, given randomly, that enabled Inevera – after weeks spent poring over maps of the Maze – to calculate precisely where the boy would be found.

– You will know him on sight –
the dice had told her, but that was no great revelation. How many boys could there be, alone and weeping in the Maze?

– You will bear him many sons—

This had given Inevera pause.
Dama’ting
could take a man and bear his daughters in secret, but sons were forbidden outside marriage vows. The dice had told her she was fated to marry this boy. Perhaps he was not the Deliverer himself, but that one’s father. Perhaps the Shar’Dama Ka was meant to come from her own womb.

It was a thought so full of honour and power that her mind could hardly grasp it, but there was disappointment as well. The mother of Kaji was blessed above all, but it was the Damajah who whispered wisdom in the Deliverer’s ear and guided his way. It could be that another woman would share his bed and have his ear.

The thought grated on Inevera, and for a moment she lost her centre. Had she been insincere in her prayers? What was more important to her, saving her people, or taking the mantle of her namesake?

She inhaled slowly, feeling her breath, her life’s force, and letting it lead her back to her centre. With no hubris, she knew of no woman more worthy than herself to guide the Deliverer. Should she find such a woman, she would step aside. If not, she would marry him no matter the cost, even if it meant divorcing her husband, or marrying her own son.

– The Deliverer must have every advantage—

She heard cries ahead, the sound of violence, and forced herself to slow. She would not be in time to make a difference. When the dice spoke clear, they marked a fixed point, like a large stone jutting from time’s river. She was to find the boy alone and weeping. In effect, it had already happened, and it was pointless to resist such wind.

A
Sharum
appeared, laughing as he retied his pantaloons. His night veil hung loose about his neck, and there was blood on his lips. He stopped short, paling at the sight of her. Inevera said nothing, making note of his face as she raised an eyebrow and tilted her head back the way she had come. The warrior bowed and quickly shuffled past her, then turned and ran as fast as he could.

Inevera resumed her approach, hearing the boy’s sobbing. She kept her breath a steady rhythm, walking at her normal, steady glide. Turning the last corner she saw the boy shuddering on the ground. His bido was around his knees, and his shoulder bled where the
Sharum
had obviously bitten him when his lust reached its climax. There were other bruises and abrasions, but if they came from this assault or
alagai’sharak
,
she could not say.

He noticed her approach and looked up, tears glittering on his face in the starlight. And as foretold, she knew him.

The
nie’Sharum
she had met years ago, the night she finished her dice. Ahmann Jardir, who had embraced his pain and watched wordlessly as the
dama’ting
set his broken arm. Ahmann Jardir, who at twelve had somehow killed his first
alagai
and survived a night in the Maze. It seemed to be a glimpse of Everam’s holy plan.

She wondered for a moment if he would recognize her as well, but she was veiled now, and he had been dull with pain when they last met. The boy remained frozen for a moment, then remembered himself, quickly pulling up his bido as if it could cover the shame written clearly on his face.

Her heart pounded once, a heavy throb going out to this brave boy who had suffered such humiliation when he should be triumphant. She wanted to go to him and fold him in her arms, but the dice had been clear.

– Make him a man—

She hardened herself and clicked her tongue like the crack of a whip.

‘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
!’

A look of anguish crossed the boy’s face for an instant, but he embraced it, getting to his feet and palming away his tears.

‘That’s better,’ Inevera said, ‘if late. I would hate to have come all the way out here to foretell the life of a coward.’

The boy snarled, and Inevera smiled inwardly. There was steel in him, if unforged. ‘How did you find me?’

Inevera psshed, dismissing the question with a wave. ‘I knew to find you here years ago.’

He stared at her, unbelieving, but his belief meant nothing to her. ‘Come here, boy, that I may have a better look at you.’

She grabbed his face, turning it this way and that to catch the moonlight. ‘Young and strong. 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?’ Ahmann asked.

‘Bold, too,’ she muttered, and again suppressed a smile. ‘There may be hope for you yet. Kneel, boy.’

He did, and she spread a white prayer cloth in the dust of the Maze, kneeling with him.

‘What do I care for your death?’ she asked. ‘I am here to foretell your life. Death is between you and Everam.’

She opened her
hora
pouch, emptying the precious dice into her hand, throbbing with power. Dawn was approaching quickly. If she were to read him, it must be now.

Ahmann’s eyes widened at the sight, and she lifted the objects towards him. ‘The
alagai
hora
.’

He recoiled. Inevera could not blame him for it, remembering her own reaction the first time she had seen demon bone, but if there was weakness in him, it must be crushed.

‘Back to cowardice?’ she asked mildly. ‘What is the purpose of wards, if not to turn
alagai
magic to our own ends?’

Ahmann swallowed and leaned back in.

He
finds
his
centre
quickly
,
she thought, and there was a strange pride in it. Had she not first taught him to embrace pain?

‘Hold out your arm,’ she commanded, drawing her curved knife, the jewelled hilt of silver with etched wards on the steel blade.

Ahmann’s arm did not shake as she cut and 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.’

She could feel the dice flaring with power as she shook. ‘Is he the Deliverer reborn?’ she murmured, too low for the boy to hear.

And she threw.

Inevera lost all sense of centre as she leaned in, staring hungrily at the dice as they settled into a pattern in the dust of the Maze. The first symbols made her blood run cold.

– The Deliverer is not born. He is made.—

She hissed, crawling in the dust, mindless of how it clung to her pure white robes as she studied the rest of the pattern.

– This one may be, but if he takes the veil or knows a woman
before his time, he will die and his path to Shar’Dama Ka will be lost.—

Made
, not born? The boy before her
might
be the Deliverer? Impossible.

‘These bones must have been exposed to light,’ she muttered, gathering them up and cutting the boy again for a second throw, more vigorous than the first.

But despite the move, the dice fell in precisely the same pattern.

‘This cannot be!’ she cried, snatching up the dice and throwing a third time, putting a spin on the
hora
as she did.

But still, the pattern remained the same.

‘What is it?’ Ahmann dared to ask. ‘What do you see?’

Inevera looked up at him, and her eyes narrowed. ‘The future is not yours to know, boy.’ He drew back at that, and she returned the bones to her pouch before rising and shaking the dust from her robes. All the while she breathed, reaching for her centre though her heart was pounding in her chest.

She looked at the boy. He was only twelve, uncomprehending of the enormity of the burden that hovered around him in the endless possibilities of the future.

‘Return to the Kaji pavilion and spend the remainder of the night in prayer,’ she ordered, and left without so much as a backward glance.

Inevera walked slowly back out of the Maze. Dama Khevat, Damaji Amadeveram’s liaison to the Kaji
Sharum
, would be waiting for her. Likely the whole tribe was holding their breath, as they did whenever it was time to read a potential
Sharum
at the end of his
Hannu
Pash
. But the tribe did not concern her. It was Khevat. The
dama
was shrewd and powerful, from a family with ties all the way back to the first Deliverer’s advisors. He was in full favour of his
Damaji
, the Sharum Ka, and the Andrah himself. Even a
dama’ting
was wise to step carefully about one such as Dama Khevat.

But what could she tell him? Traditionally, there were but two answers to a reading: yes and no. Yes, this boy is worthy to take the black veil of warrior and be called a man. No, this boy is a coward or weakling who will break like brittle steel when struck. The
dama’ting
saw more in the foretellings, of course, glimpses and possibilities, but these things were not for men to know, not even the
dama
.

It was possible to give a bit of detail. The dice often showed untapped potential, giving glimpses of futures where they make names for themselves as Warders or marksmen or leading men. These last were watched closely by the
dama
,
and after a year the best of them were sent to Sharik Hora for
kai’Sharum
training.

Sometimes the dice spoke of failings. Bloodlust. Stupidity. Pride. Every
Sharum
had his share, and the
dama’ting
rarely spoke them unless they were apt to bring down others around them with their folly.

But once Inevera gave Ahmann the black, these would be mere hints and suggestions the
dama
and the Sharum Ka could heed or ignore as they saw fit.