The Desert Prince

by Brett, Peter V.

  40

  DAMAJAH

  It’s easy to slip by the eunuchs and servants on my way to the Damajah’s chambers. When I’m slippery, I get fuzzy around the edges. Hard to notice. Hard to remember. I move so quick and quiet, it’s easy to dismiss me as a wisp of smoke or trick of light. I’m light as a feather, and can jump like a stone skipped across the water.

  I don’t know precisely where I’m going. I’ve never been in the Damajah’s private wing of the palace, and it is enormous. But I know what Inevera smells like, and it ent alomom powder. Her fragrance drifts along currents in the air, and I follow it like a burbling stream.

  I hear a powerful pair of heartbeats ahead, and breathe in, smelling oil, metal, and the dye used to keep warrior blacks from fading. These must be the guards Rojvah warned about.

  My sensitive fingers slip into invisible fissures in the walls, turning sticky as I climb to the ceiling and scurry along like a spider, passing unnoticed over two gold-cuffed eunuchs, armed and armored, with the white sleeves of holy guard.

  I drop behind them, silent as a shadow. There’s a gap at the base of the door they guard, and I squeeze through it like dough under a rolling pin.

  I circumvent a tighter door by slipping out a window and climbing along the wall, to one past the barrier. After that it gets harder. The doors are sealed with magic that binds their seams, and the windows are all shut.

  I’m getting close.

  Twice I wait long minutes for someone to pass through a portal, breezing through before it swings shut. Official business in the palace concluded at sunset, but it is early enough that servants are still bustling about.

  The third time I get tired of waiting, and examine the lock on a door. I’ve seen from the other portals that unlocking the door will disable the wards long enough to pass. I slide a slippery finger into the keyhole, probing for tumblers. I remember the pattern, and take out my picks.

  Hary Roller was teaching me more about being a Jongleur than just piping. There were juggling lessons, stories and jokes to memorize, pratfalls and tumbling to practice.

  And there was picking locks.

  Some nights, the biggest show is after the curtain falls, he liked to say.

  I pop the lock and quickly slip through, finding at last the Holy Residence—where Damajah keeps her personal chambers.

  Here the gates are sealed tight, great golden doors covered in wards and throbbing with magic. I feel the symbols tugging at my power like the door to the Bunker. Ent gonna squeeze through that.

  I search for a locking mechanism, but there ent one to be found. If it’s held fast by magic, I haven’t much hope of opening it. I decide to slip into the shadows and wait for someone to pass, but before I can move, I’m startled by the sudden click of a latch. I leap for the ceiling and stick there as the doors swing silently open, but the warrior on the other side easily finds me in the shadows.

  “You were not invited here, Darin asu Arlen.” I freeze as I recognize that stern, motherly tone. Kaji’s mother—Ashia—remembered from summers long past. The Sharum’ting Ka.

  Ashia wears a helm wrapped in a white turban, and a white veil over her mouth and nose; the rest of her is clad in Sharum blacks. Two short, close-combat spears cross her back in easy reach, along with a rounded shield, all of indestructible warded glass.

  I was always a little bit afraid of Kaji’s mam, and that ent changed with time. Micha hid what she was, but Ashia’s legend was too great to hide. There are songs about how she went into battle with infant Kaji strapped to her breast, a story often called for in taverns and around hearths even in Thesa. Hary Roller made me memorize it.

  But then I realize there’s more to fear than Kaji’s mam. Shadows detach from the hallway at my back, Sharum’ting materializing to surround me, spears pointed at my heart. Thought I was good at sneakin’, but it seems I’m still in the little kids’ classroom.

  They link shields as they approach, spears long enough to strike up at me from the floor. I get so scared I go slippery on instinct, losing my grip on the ceiling and tumbling down. I twist in midair, managing to land on my feet, but it’s a clumsy move and leaves me vulnerable.

  But the warriors don’t press the advantage and Ashia doesn’t reach for her spear. There’s no need. Slippery or not, I can’t get past the wall of spears around me without being spitted like a pig. My heart is beating like a cornered rabbit’s, making my whole body feel like it’s shaking.

  “How long?” I ask as Ashia stalks in.

  She pauses. “What?”

  “How long have they been following me?” I say.

  Ashia’s eyes crinkle behind her veil, and I smell her amusement. “Since you left your quarters, young prince.”

  Much as I hate to admit it, Rojvah was right. “Guarding or spying?”

  Again, amusement. “Both, of course. It is unwise to come unsummoned to the Holy Residence, son of Par’chin. Even for you.”

  “Need answers,” I say.

  “Are they worth your life?”

  “Don’t think so,” I reply, “but seein’ as Olive may die without them, ent got much choice but to take the risk.”

  “The Damajah is aware of the danger to Olive Paper,” Ashia says. “If there is anything to be done—”

  “Ent good enough,” I cut in, surprising her. Ashia ent accustomed to being interrupted. The look she gives makes me feel like I’m five summers old and in for a trip to the woodshed. “And it ent just Olive in trouble.”

  Ashia tilts her head at me.

  “Tracked the Majah myself until they hid the trail,” I say, loud enough for all to hear. “They had Nanny Micha slung over a horse alongside Olive.”

  The Sharum’ting say nothing, but their breathing changes, and their collective smell becomes a mix of worry, doubt, and slowly rising anger. Micha was one of their own.

  “Damajah didn’t tell you that part, did she?” I ask.

  Ashia’s scent changes to one of challenge, and I realize I’ve made another mistake. Thought mentioning Micha would get sympathy, but like with Arick, I’ve misunderstood how the Krasians look at the world.

  There is a hiss as Ashia’s short spears come out of their harnesses. With a quick twist she marries the ends of them together into a weapon taller than she is, with a foot of sharpened glass at either end. There is a glow of magic about her. She’ll be as fast as I am, and going slippery won’t stop those blades from cleaving me in two.

  “What the Damajah tells us is what we are meant to know,” the Sharum’ting Ka says in a low, dangerous voice. “Our lives are hers. Micha vah Ahmann understands this, even if you do not. Micha is a kai’Sharum’ting of Everam’s spear sisters. Her glorious deeds have already assured her place in Heaven. Either she is working even now to free Olive, or she has died honorably in the attempt.”

  Mam told me never to get on my knees in Krasia, but I do it now, placing my hands on the floor. “Sorry. Mam always said my nose gets me into trouble. Din’t mean any offense.”

  “Even as a child you never wanted trouble,” Ashia says, “but you were always finding it.”

  “Still need to see your boss,” I say.

  Ashia steps aside, opening a path into the Holy Residence. “You are fortunate, then, son of Arlen. She has been expecting you.”

  * * *

  —

  “You must be very brave, or very foolish, coming in here uninvited, son of Arlen.” The Damajah kneels facing away from me, staring at the pattern of the dice on the cloth before her.

  It’s so portrait-perfect I know it’s a pose, meant to put a scare into me. Creator knows, any other time, it might have worked, but I’m getting tired of Krasian head games.

  “Ay, well.” I stick my hands in my pockets. “Mam always says my da had more sack than sense. Might be we’ve got something in common after all.”
/>
  “That is a common trait in men who die young.” Inevera’s words wipe the smile from my face. “And in great men. Which will you be?”

  “You’re the one who sees the future,” I say.

  “I knew you would come,” Inevera’s voice is distant as she gazes at the dice, her silk veils illuminated in their soft glow, “though in truth I expected it to be sooner.”

  Everyone, it seems, expects me to be braver than I am. “Sorry to disappoint.”

  The Damajah shrugs. “That is not a bad thing. It shows you are not arrogant or unduly impulsive, regardless of how much…sack you carry.”

  “Did the dice tell you that, when you cast in my mother’s blood?” I’m supposed to be here for Olive, but there are things I need to understand about myself, as well, and Inevera may be the only person left alive who can help.

  “They told me you would be born in darkness,” she says again.

  “Ay, but that ent all,” I say.

  “It is dangerous to have knowledge of one’s own future,” the Damajah whispers. “The burden can lead to choices we might not otherwise make, choices that can have…consequences.”

  “I’m already burdened,” I say. “It wasn’t just Olive Leesha cast for, that night.”

  The Damajah whirls so suddenly I leap backward, going slippery. Frictionless, my feet slide back as if I were on polished ice.

  “There was another prophecy, and you kept it from me?!” The wand comes off her belt, and with a flick, she activates wards all around the room. Like Aunt Leesha’s, they will keep sound from escaping, but I can see that’s not all. They keep me from escaping, as well.

  I take a deep breath, solidifying. I’m in her place of power, and the Damajah knows magic a lot better than me. Nothing to gain trying to run, or fight. “You kept something from me, so we’re even.”

  She raises the hora wand, its wards burning with an angry light. “Even?! My husband is missing! I haven’t heard from him since…”

  “Since when?” I ask when she trails off.

  The Damajah shakes her head. “Nothing more for you, son of Arlen. Tell me what you know, or I will throw you in a cell even you cannot escape.”

  I shake my head, planting my feet and crossing my arms. “Your husband is missing, ay. So is my mam. And Aunt Leesha and Olive Paper. But what I know ent got anything to do with where they went. Aunt Leesha said so. It’s my prophecy, and it makes no sense. But maybe, combined with yours…”

  The Damajah looks at me a long time, but her hora wand slowly dims. At last she returns it to her belt. “Come kneel with me, son of Arlen.”

  She returns to her casting cloth, gathering her scattered dice with a practiced sweep of her hand. I kneel across from her, amazed at the change in her aura. A moment ago, she was furious. More than willing to hurt me. Now she is calm as still water.

  “You may not like what you hear,” she says softly.

  I shrug. “Don’t like much of anything these days, but things keep happening all the same.”

  She closes her eyes, her voice taking on that distant quality it had when she was staring at the dice.

  “A boy of limitless potential, and a future of despair.” I shudder at the Damajah’s whisper. “He will be born in darkness, and will carry it inside him.”

  The words are recited like an ancient cradle rhyme, something replayed in her mind countless times over the last fifteen summers, hoping to glean…what?

  “What does it mean?” I ask. “Darkness inside me? A future of despair?”

  “The darkness could mean the magic you carry within you,” the Damajah says. “Power born in darkness like you, that cannot withstand the light.”

  I think of the pain of sunrise. Of my “alagai blood.”

  “Despair might mean the burden of growing up without a father,” the Damajah says.

  “And my ‘limitless potential’?” I ask.

  Inevera shrugs. “All potential is limitless. It may be the prophecy has already come to pass, but prophecies are tricky things, and there is always a deeper meaning. Whatever is coming, you have a part to play, I think.”

  She returns the alagai hora to a pouch at her waist, and I relax a little. “I have kept my side of our bargain, son of Arlen. Now tell me what the Mistress of Hollow saw in her dice.”

  I close my eyes. Like Inevera, the words come easily, replayed a thousand times in my mind since that night in Aunt Leesha’s study. They have haunted me.

  “The father waits below in darkness for his progeny to return.”

  The Damajah’s eyes narrow as they meet mine. I shake my head slightly to let my hair fall over my eyes, but she keeps staring, seeing right through. “You think this is about the Par’chin.”

  “What else could it be?” I ask. “My blood, my father. It means he might still be down there, stuck like a cork in a jug.”

  “Perhaps,” Inevera says. “But it is not that simple. Alagai Ka is the Father of Demons. Ahmann is your bloodfather. You and Olive are both his children, in a sense.”

  “Hadn’t thought of that,” I admit.

  “Why should you?” Inevera asks. “You have no skill at prophecy. Even Leesha Paper came to the practice late in life. But she was too prideful and you too stubborn to share with me.”

  “Ent bein’ stubborn,” I say. “It’s personal. It’s about my da. I feel it in my bones.”

  “Prophecy is like that,” Inevera says. “It is tempting to let our feelings guide us, to let emotion read the dice instead of logic. That is why the dice are so dangerous in untrained hands. We will always see what we want to see, if we let ourselves.”

  “Wanting something doesn’t make it wrong,” I say.

  “But it is illogical.” The Damajah points to a hearth against the wall, burning with crackling orange flame. “The abyss is not a bottle. It is a fire. The flames that heat Ala from within even as the sun does without.” There is a pop as fire licks a pocket of moisture, and sparks fly from the wood.

  “The sparks are brighter than the flame,” she whispers, “if only for a moment. So it was with your father. His flare cleansed the alagai from our lands, but it consumed him.”

  “But the energy ent gone,” I say. “Spark turns to heat.”

  “And with his heat, Arlen asu Jeph burned the alagai from our cities,” the Damajah says, “and in so doing, sent his spirit on the lonely path to be judged by Everam. Your father awaits you, I have no doubt, but it is in Heaven, not Ala.”

  “How can you possibly know that?” Mam always said, once a Tender starts telling you what happens when you die, it’s time to stop listening, because they’re just spinning tampweed tales.

  “Some things,” the Damajah says, “must be taken on faith. I too know what it is like to have your parents taken from you, but do not let your desire to have them return color a prophecy you do not understand.”

  “Do you understand it?” I ask.

  There is a ripple in the Damajah’s aura. I imagine she’s not used to people asking her such blunt questions.

  “Ay, thought not,” I say. “Guess we’re both letting faith get in the way.”

  “Tsst,” the Damajah hisses, and I know I’ve struck a nerve. It’s a mad game, antagonizing her like this, but when adults won’t take you seriously, sometimes it’s the only tool left in the shed.

  “The dice are not a map to follow,” Inevera says, “or an equation to solve. It can take months or years to find meaning in a throw. Many are not understood fully until after they come to pass.”

  “Don’t have months,” I say. “Can’t just sit here waiting for Uncle Gared.”

  “My honored husband said as much.” The Damajah’s tone is careful and measured. “Now he has disappeared. I will not let you or Princess Selen risk yourselves further. You will return to Hollow and its greatwards until we can l
earn more.”

  “Even if it takes months,” I say. “Or years.”

  “I see we understand each other,” Inevera says.

  “This ent the first time my bloodfather’s disappeared,” I say. “Last time, he came back with me.”

  “Indeed,” the Damajah agrees. “I have learned not to underestimate my husband, but you are not him, Darin Bales. Nor are you your father.”

  She’s got the right of that, but it still cuts to hear. “Ay. Know that. But maybe I can do something they can’t.”

  “And what is that?” The Damajah smells amused.

  “The dice told you that if Bloodfather returns to Desert Spear, he would make things worse.”

  “How do you know that?” she asks.

  “Ears like a bat, Mam says.”

  “The Majah are numerous,” Inevera says. “Their city lies across an unforgiving terrain, fortified around the only arable land for many miles. Thousands will die if we try to force their gates open. No one, not even Olive Paper, is worth such a price. If she is there, it is Everam’s will, we must trust in Everam to bring her through.”

  If a drawn curtain brings pain enough for me to scream, what would a week or more be like under the desert sun? Yet still, against my better judgment, the words come to my lips. “What if someone else went?”

  The Damajah snorts. “You? What makes you think you can succeed where the Shar’Dama Ka could not?”

  I smile. “Limitless potential?”

  That gets a full laugh from her, something I wouldn’t have thought possible. Her scent is absolutely delighted, and I use it as an opening to press the case.

  “Bloodfather is bound by treaties, but I ent. Maybe it would start a ruckus if he went down there, but if I’m caught…” I lift my empty hands, palms out. “Just another chin to them, ent I?”

  “Do not underestimate the Majah,” Inevera says. “You will be caught.”

  I shrug. “Don’t matter. Ent a cell that can hold me.”