‘Leave us,’ Inevera said quietly, and the weavers dropped their hoops and scrambled to their feet, hurrying past. Even veiled, Inevera thought she recognized a few of them.

‘You’ve cost me an afternoon’s work, at least,’ Manvah said. ‘Likely more, since those crows will caw about nothing else for days.’

Inevera loosened her veil, letting it fall from her face. ‘Mother, it’s me. Inevera.’

Manvah looked up, but there was no surprise or recognition in her eyes. ‘I was given to understand dama’ting had no family.’

‘They would not be pleased to know I’m here,’ Inevera admitted. ‘But I am still your daughter.’

Manvah snorted, going back to her work. ‘My daughter would not stand around with so much weaving to be done.’ She glanced up. ‘Unless you’ve forgotten how?’

Inevera gave a snort so like her mother’s, it gave her a moment’s pause. Then she smiled, replacing her veil and slipping off her sandals. She sat on a clean blanket and took a half-finished hoop between her feet, tsking. ‘You’ve prospered to have Krisha and her sisters weaving for you,’ she removed several strands before reaching for the pile of fresh fronds, ‘but their work is still sloppy.’

Manvah grunted. ‘Much has changed since your father became khaffit, but not that much.’

‘Do you know the truth of how it happened?’ Inevera asked.

Manvah nodded. ‘He confessed to all. At first I wanted to kill him myself, but Kasaad hasn’t touched a couzi bottle or dicing cup since, and turned out to be a better haggler than a warrior. I’ve even managed to purchase sister-wives.’ She sighed. ‘Ironic we should all be more proud married to a khaffit than a Sharum, but your father chose well when he named you. Everam wills as Everam will.’

As they wove, Inevera related the events of her last few years. She held nothing back, up to and including her first throw of the dice, and what they said – something she had told no one else.

Manvah looked at her curiously. ‘These demon dice you say speak for Everam. Did you consult them about coming here today?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘But it was always my intent to see you again once I took the veil.’

‘What if the dice had told you not to?’ Manvah asked.

Inevera looked at her, and for a moment considered lying.

‘Then I would not have come,’ she said at last.

Manvah nodded. ‘What did they tell you? About today?’

‘That you will always speak true to me,’ Inevera said, ‘even when I do not wish to hear.’

The flesh around Manvah’s eyes crinkled, and Inevera knew she was smiling. ‘A mother’s duty.’

‘What should I do?’ Inevera pressed. ‘What did the dice mean?’

Manvah shrugged. ‘That you should go to the Maze on the one thousand and seventy-seventh dawn.’

Inevera was astonished. ‘That’s it? That’s your advice? I may meet the Deliverer in three years, and you want me to just … not think on it?’

‘Fret over it if you prefer,’ Manvah said. ‘But the years will pass no faster.’ She looked pointedly at Inevera. ‘I’m certain you can find a way to be productive in the meantime. If not, I have plenty of weaving to be done.’

Inevera finished her basket. ‘You’re right, of course.’ She stood to add it to the pile, noting as she did that even the cloth she sat upon had left dust on the posterior of her pristine robes. ‘But I accept your invitation to come weave with you again,’ she brushed at herself, sending dust flying, ‘provided you can arrange a cleaner place to sit.’

‘I’ll purchase white silk for your precious dama’ting bottom,’ Manvah said, ‘but you’ll weave till the cost is off the ledger.’

Inevera smiled. ‘At three draki a basket, that could take years.’

Manvah’s eyes crinkled. ‘A lifetime, if I buy fresh silk each visit. A dama’ting should have no less.’

9

Ahmann
308–313 AR

Inevera 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 universities 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.