The Skull Throne

by Peter V. Brett

  “You seem nervous, Drillmaster,” Abban said. “How is it a man who stands fast before the alagai in darkness should fear to walk a street in the brightness of day?”

  Qeran spat on the ground. “This place is as much a Maze as any used to trap alagai.”

  Abban chuckled. “That is so, Drillmaster. The bazaar is made to trap purses instead of demons, but the idea is much the same. Customers are drawn in easily, but find egress more difficult. Streets twist and dead-end, and armies of merchants are ready to pounce on the unwary.”

  “It’s easy to know who the enemy is in the Maze,” Qeran said. “Men are brothers in the night, and alagai don’t come offering gifts and lies.” He looked around warily, dropping a hand to his purse as if to reassure himself it was there. “Here, everyone is an enemy.”

  “Not when you’re with me,” Abban said. “Here, I am Andrah and Sharum Ka both. Even now, people mark us together. Return tomorrow, and they will fall over themselves to find your favor, in hopes that you might bring good word of them to me.”

  Qeran spat again. “I have wives to shop the bazaar for me. Let us be about out business and be gone from this place.”

  “Soon enough,” Abban said. “You know your part?”

  Qeran grunted. “I have been breaking boys and building men from the pieces since before you were born, khaffit. Leave it to me.”

  “No lectures about the sacred black?” Abban asked.

  Qeran shrugged. “I have seen the boys. They are lax. Weak. Jurim and Shanjat spoiled them to turn them against you, and it will take a firm hand to turn them back. They will need to feel as nie’Sharum again.”

  Abban nodded. “Do this for me, Drillmaster, and you will be compensated beyond dreams of avarice.”

  Qeran dismissed the offer with a wave of disgust. “Pfagh. You have given me back sharak, son of Chabin. This is the least I can give in return. A man is nothing without the respect of his sons.”

  “This is the place,” Abban said, pointing to an eating establishment. The front porch was filled with patrons at low tables, taking midday meal, smoking, and drinking bitter Krasian coffee. Women scurried to and fro, bringing a steady stream of full cups and bowls from inside, returning with empties and jingling purses full of draki.

  Abban led them into the alleyway, rapping his crutch on a side entrance. A boy in tan opened the door, deftly catching the coin Abban flipped him as he escorted them down a rear stair.

  The clatter of dice and shouted bets filled the air, a sweet haze of pipe smoke. They stopped behind a curtain, watching as a group of Sharum drank couzi over a dicing table piled high with coin.

  “The dama’ting should … ah,” Abban said, spotting Asavi coming down the main stair. Her white robes stood out in the dark basement, but the men, intent on the wards carved into the dice faces, did not notice her approach until she was upon them.

  “What is this?!” Asavi shouted, and the Sharum all jumped. One of the men—Abban’s son Shusten—whirled toward her, spilling his cup. The dama’ting pretended to step back, but gave the sleeve of her robe a masterful flick, catching the spill.

  There was a tense silence as Asavi regarded her sleeve, none of the warriors even daring to breathe.

  Asavi touched the wetness, bringing her fingers to her nose. “Is this … couzi?” She shrieked the last word, and the men nearly pissed their bidos. Even Abban felt terrified, though he himself had arranged the meeting. It was a scene not unlike the one thirty years past, when his father, Chabin, accidentally spilled ink on a dama’s robe, and was put to death on the spot. He swallowed a lump at the memory. Perhaps it was fitting his sons should take a similar lesson.

  “Forgive me, dama’ting!” Shusten cried, snatching a cloth of dubious cleanliness and reaching out to grab her sleeve, blotting ineffectually at the stain. “I will clean …”

  “How dare you?!” Asavi cried, pulling her sleeve free of his grasp. She caught his wrist, pulling the arm straight and whirling to slam her open palm into the back of Shusten’s elbow. His arm broke with an audible snap, much as Chabin’s neck had.

  Shusten screamed, but it was choked off as the dama’ting struck again, this time at his throat. “You will clean it with your blood, fool!” She bent forward, kicking her right leg back and curling it up and over her head, kicking him in the face.

  “Beautiful,” Qeran whispered, watching her art. Abban glanced at him. He would never understand warriors.

  Shusten fell back, nose shattered, and crashed into the dicing table, sending coin and couzi scattering in all directions. The Sharum broke away, far less worried about their money than the dama’ting’s wrath.

  Asavi strode in, continuing the beating. Shusten attempted to crawl away, but a kick to his thigh collapsed his leg. The next kick was to his balls and even Qeran winced at the whimper Shusten gave at the blow, blood bubbling from his broken nose.

  A bit of the spray of blood and snot spotted Asavi’s robe, and she gave a growl, pulling the curved knife from her belt.

  “No, dama’ting!” Fahki, Shusten’s elder brother, cried, rushing to interpose himself. “Mercy, for Everam’s sake!”

  Fahki was unarmed, hands open in supplication. He was careful to avoid touching the dama’ting, but Asavi moved like a dancer, slipping a leg in his path. Her cry was quite convincing as Fahki stumbled into her, bearing them both to the dirty wooden floor.

  “Your cue, Drillmaster,” Abban said, but Qeran was already moving. He threw open the curtain, careful not to reveal Abban’s presence, and strode into the room.

  “What is the meaning of this?!” Qeran roared, his voice like thunder in the low-ceilinged room. He snatched Fahki by the collar of his robe, hauling him off the dama’ting.

  Asavi glared at him. “Are these drunkards your men, Drillmaster?” she demanded.

  Qeran bowed deeply, slamming Fahki’s head into the floorboards in the process. “No, Dama’ting. I was taking my meal in the establishment above and heard the commotion.” Still holding Fahki, who choked and gagged at the grip on his collar, he reached a hand out to Asavi.

  The dama’ting took the offered hand and he pulled her to her feet, turning to cast a glare over the men cowering against the walls. “Shall I kill them for you?”

  It seemed a ludicrous statement, a single warrior threatening to kill close to a dozen men, but it was a threat all took very seriously. One did not take on the red veil of a drillmaster easily, and Qeran was well known to all the warriors of the Kaji, a living legend in both alagai’sharak and the training grounds.

  Asavi, too, cast her eyes over the men for long, tense seconds. At last, she shook her head.

  “You men,” she called to the cowering warriors. “Tear the black from these two.”

  “No!” Fahki screamed, but the men, his spear brothers a moment before, were deaf to his cries as they moved in. Qeran threw him to the men and one of them caught him with a spear shaft under the chin, choking out any resistance as half a dozen men eagerly tore his Sharum robes from him. Shusten was unable to put up even a token resistance, moaning as the remaining warriors stripped him.

  How quickly the fabled loyalty of Sharum fades when put to the test, Abban mused. They would do anything to get back in the dama’ting’s good grace.

  “You are khaffit now,” Asavi told the naked men. She looked at Fahki’s shriveled manhood and gave a snort. “Perhaps you always should have been. Return to your fathers in shame.”

  One of the warriors knelt before her, placing his hands and forehead on the floor in absolute supplication. “They are brothers, dama’ting,” he said, “their father is khaffit.”

  “Fitting,” Asavi said. “The fig lands close to the tree.” She turned to regard the other warriors. “As for the rest of you, you will go to Sharik Hora and repent. You will not take food or drink for three days in penance, and if I learn you have so much as touched a cup of couzi—or dice—again, you will share their fate.”

  The warriors gaped a moment,
until Asavi clapped her hands in a sharp retort that made them all jump. “Now!”

  Practically pissing their bidos, the warriors hurriedly backed out of the room, bowing repeatedly and saying “Thank you, Dama’ting,” over and over. They stumbled into one another as they bottlenecked at the stairwell, turning and running up the steps as fast as their sandaled feet could carry them.

  Asavi cast one last disgusted glance at the naked men. “Drillmaster, dispose of these pitiful excuses for men.”

  Qeran bowed. “Yes, Dama’ting.”

  Fahki and Shusten blinked in the dim lamplight as the hoods were pulled from their heads. They were tied to chairs in an underground chamber. Both had been “softened,” as Qeran put it, bruises still swollen and red, not yet gone to purple. Shusten’s arm had been set in plaster and his nose splinted. Both had been dressed in ragged shirts and pants of khaffit tan.

  “My prodigal sons return,” Abban said. “Though perhaps not as proud as when I saw you last.”

  The boys looks at him, squinting until their eyes adjusted to the light. Qeran stood a step behind Abban, arms crossed, and Fahki’s eyes widened at the sight of him. Abban could see understanding dawn.

  Perhaps they are not total fools, he thought, pleased. Warrior sons were bad enough. If they proved fools as well, he would just as soon kill them and have done. He had other sons, though none more by Shamavah, the only wife who truly mattered to him. For her sake, he must try to pull these back into his fold.

  “Why are they bound?” Abban asked. “Surely my own sons pose no threat to me. There is no need for such shameful treatment.”

  Qeran grunted, pulling a knife as he went over, cutting their bonds. The boys groaned, massaging ankles and wrists to restore blood blow. Shusten looked weak and chastened, but Fahki still had defiance in his eyes.

  “Abban.” He spat on the floor, a pinkish froth of blood and saliva. He looked to his brother. “Our father is bitter we proved his betters and rose above his station. He has found a way to bribe a dama’ting to drag us back to his world of commerce and khaffit.”

  “You are khaffit now, too,” Abban reminded him.

  “You took our blacks in deception,” Fahki growled. “We are still Sharum in the eyes of Everam, better than all the khaffit scum in Everam’s Bounty.”

  Abban put a hand to his chest. “I took your blacks? Was it me who put cups of couzi and dice in your hands? Was it me who tore the robes from your backs? Your own brothers were happy to do it, to save themselves. Your loss of status is a product of your own foolishness. I warned you what would happen if you kept to dice and drink. The black does not put you above Everam’s law.”

  Fahki rolled his eyes. “Since when do you care for Everam’s law, Father? Half your fortune comes from couzi.”

  Abban chuckled. “I do not deny it, but I am smart enough not to dice away my profits, or to drink in public.”

  He limped over to the third chair in the room, easing himself down and peering at them between the humps of his camel-headed crutch. “As for your being better than khaffit, we shall soon put that to the test. You will be fed and given a night’s sleep. In the morning, you’ll be given a spear and shield and set against one of my kha’Sharum guards. Any one. You may choose.”

  Fahki snorted. “I will kill him in less time than it took you to limp your fat carcass across the room, old man.”

  Qeran barked a laugh at that. “If you last five minutes, I will give you the robes off my back and my own good name.”

  The smug look fell from Fahki’s face at that. “Why do you serve this khaffit, Drillmaster? You trained the Deliverer himself. You sully your good name with every order you take from beneath you. What price did you demand, to sell your honor to a pig-eater?”

  Qeran walked over to Fahki, bending low as if to whisper an answer. Fahki, the fool boy, leaned in to hear.

  Qeran’s punch knocked him out of his chair and onto the floor. Fahki coughed, spitting a wad of blood and the shards of a broken tooth onto the stone floor.

  “Your father may allow you to speak to him with such disrespect …” Qeran said.

  “For now,” Abban cut in.

  “For now,” Qeran agreed. “But as you say, I am a drillmaster of the Sharum. I have trained countless warriors, and claim their kills as my own. A million alagai have I shown the sun, boy, and I owe you no explanations. For every insolent word you cast my way, I will break a part of you.”

  Qeran smiled as Fahki glared at him. “Yes. Come at me. I see it in your eyes. Come and test your mettle. Abban has two sons. Perhaps he won’t miss one.”

  “I daresay I don’t need either, if they are fool enough to attack you, Drillmaster,” Abban said.

  Fahki breathed deeply, muscles knotted, but he stayed on the ground.

  Abban nodded. “The beginning of wisdom. Perhaps there is hope for you yet.”

  Fahki chose the smallest and weakest looking of the kha’Sharum to challenge in the yard the next day. Skinny and bespectacled, the man seemed no match for Fahki, who was tall and thick like his father.

  All of clan Haman was summoned to witness the event. Abban had the inner ring around the combatants filled with women, Fahki’s sisters, cousins, aunts, and stepmothers. The kha’Sharum and chi’Sharum watched eagerly, as did all of the workers in Abban’s employ, given time off simply to add to the boy’s humiliation.

  Fahki circled warily, spinning his spear in an impressive—if pointless—display. The spectacled kha’Sharum watched him coolly, not bothering to circle. He was Sharach, and carried an alagai-catcher instead of a spear. The long hollow pole ended in a loop of woven cable that the warrior could tighten with a lever on the shaft.

  A vendor made his way through the crowd, selling candied nuts.

  At last Fahki’s tension reached a breaking point, and he charged, spear leading. The warrior batted the point aside and had the loop around Fahki’s neck in an instant, whipping the pole and turning the momentum of his attack against him. Fahki had to leap head over heels and flip himself onto his back simply to keep from having his neck broken.

  A twist of the pole, and Fahki was on his stomach. Abban nodded to his daughter Cielvah, and the girl stepped forward, carrying a short leather lash.

  “Apologies, brother,” she said, pulling Fahki’s pantaloons and bido down. The boy thrashed, but the kha’Sharum tightened the noose and kept him prone.

  Abban looked to Shusten, standing by his side. His son had his eyes on the ground, unable to watch, but he flinched with every sound of the lash, and wept at his brother’s humiliation.

  “I trust, my son, this lesson is not lost on you,” Abban said.

  “No, Father,” Shusten said.

  Abban nodded. “Good. I hope your brother is as wise. If you prove worthy, Qeran will train you and Fahki properly, and you will rise to kha’Sharum.”

  The Sharach warrior escorted Fahki over to Abban at the end of his pole. The boy’s face was red with shame under the tear-streaked grime of the yard. Abban nodded to the warrior, who released Fahki and stood at attention.

  “This is Lifan,” Abban said, gesturing to the Sharach. “He will be your tutor.”

  Shusten looked at him. “You said Drillmaster Qeran …”

  “Would teach you to fight, yes,” Abban said. “If you prove worthy. Lifan will tutor you in reading, writing, and mathematics. Lessons your mother began, abandoned when you were called to Hannu Pash. You will hop to his every command. When you can read without moving your lips and do sums without your fingers, we shall discuss whether you will be allowed to hold a spear again.”

  CHAPTER 7

  MORE SACK THAN SENSE

  333 AR AUTUMN

  Jardir gaped at the Par’chin, seeking signs of deceit—or madness—in his aura. But the Par’chin was calm, focused, and very serious.

  Jardir opened his mouth, then closed it again. The Par’chin laughed.

  “If this is some jest, Par’chin, it will be the end of my patience
…”

  The son of Jeph remained relaxed, waving him down. In a show of trust, he backed away till his back struck the window, then slid down to sit on the floor amidst the broken bits of his chair. “No jest. Know it’s a lot to wrap your thoughts around. Plenty of questions, ay? Take your time, and start throwing them when you’re ready.”

  Jardir stiffened, unsure. The heat of battle was fading, but his muscles were bunched for action, knowing the Par’chin could be upon him the moment he let down his guard.

  But in his heart, he did not believe it. The Par’chin was many things, but he was not a liar. His casual posture reminded Jardir of the countless hours had they spent interrogating each other, talking about everything under the sun as they fought to understand each other’s language and culture. The Par’chin’s relaxed demeanor had always put Jardir at ease in a way he never was with his own people.

  He looked to the bed, but like the chair it was a wreckage, broken by the force of his leap. Instead he backed to the window opposite the Par’chin, sliding to the floor to mirror him. He remained alert to attack, but the Par’chin was right. There was nothing to be gained in fighting each other before dawn came to even the odds.

  Rivalries must be put aside when night falls, the Evejah said.

  “How can we get to the abyss?” Jardir asked, picking a question at random out of the many swirling in his thoughts. “You can mist as the alagai do, but I cannot.”

  “Don’t need to,” the Par’chin said. “There are land routes. The minds take human captives and keep them alive in the Core.” He spat on the floor. “Keeps their brains fresh.”

  “We must journey to the underworld to save those lost souls,” Jardir guessed. “Then Everam will …”

  The Par’chin sighed loudly, rolling his eyes. “If you’re going to make a fresh guess at ‘Everam’s plan’ every time I tell you something new, we’re going to be here a long time, Ahmann.”

  Jardir scowled, but the Par’chin had a point. He nodded. “Continue, please.”

  “Dunno if there’s much worth saving in any event.” The Par’chin’s eyes were sad and distant. “The minds consider empty brains a delicacy. Imagine dozens of generations, living and dying in darkness, eating moss and lichen, cattle for the slaughter. Denied clothes or even language. Ent human anymore. Become something else. Dark, twisted, and savage.”