The Core

  “Eh?” Hasik asked.

  “It is summer,” Abban said. “The chin should have crops ripening in their fields, but your Eunuchs took them all, and burned the farmhouses for good measure.”

  “They can plant more,” Hasik said.

  “Indeed,” Abban agreed. “But without proper succor, the chin are too preoccupied with surviving the night to focus on the fields.”

  “How is that my concern?” Hasik asked.

  “They are your thralls,” Khevat said. “It is written in the Evejah that we must defend our thralls from the alagai as we do ourselves.”

  “The Evejah?!” Hasik laughed. “Where has the Evejah gotten us? Ahmann brandished the Evejah as he led us on his fool demon-killing quest. Now he’s thrown from a cliff, his son shot dead in chin land, and the rest of us cockless and filthy, fretting over cold months that would freeze our balls off, if we had any. I am done with alagai’sharak.”

  “You are correct, of course,” Abban said. “There is no profit in following the sacred text simply for Everam’s sake. But there is some wisdom in the proverbs. It would not be difficult to send out bands of Eunuchs to scour the chin fields of alagai, with full bellies our reward.”

  “Your belly remains full enough,” Hasik growled.

  Abban bowed his submission. “A suggestion, only.”

  “Refused,” Hasik said. “The alagai have not attacked us since we stopped attacking them.”

  “But they have grown thick in these lands,” Khevat said. “They prey upon the hamlets and Docktown now, but who can say what will happen if their numbers continue to increase? You saw what they did to the fish men.”

  “What of it?” Hasik laughed. “Should I lament the destruction of my enemies?”

  “Yes,” Khevat said, “if it comes as victory for Nie.”

  “Nie!” Hasik barked. “Everam! You clerics know two words, and work them into everything! There is no Nie! There is no Everam! No light and void in eternal combat. The alagai are animals. If anything, they deserve their heads scratched for setting the fish men and their ships aflame.”

  The words seemed madness. Abban did not understand how Hasik could have seen the cold, efficient way the demons dispatched the Laktonians and not fear them.

  Khevat, too, seemed flabbergasted. He threw up his hands. “Very well then, Eunuch Ka. How shall we handle the supply shortage?”

  “I’ll call for more raids,” Hasik said. “And tell Jesan, Orman, and the other kai that the one with the smallest haul will lose his left hand.”

  “Brilliant.” Abban felt nauseous.

  “Wise.” Khevat grit his teeth.

  Hasik smiled. “And we’ll send fresh scouts to the south. If the Damajah’s hold on Docktown grows weak enough, perhaps we can take it from her.”

  “Everam’s beard,” Icha whispered.

  “Do not be so shocked, boy,” Hasik said. “Did not your brother attempt the same when he sent Melan and Asavi to kill that shameless heasah? If you ask me, it’s time the Damajah learned some humility. Perhaps I’ll sew her cunt shut and keep her as a slave.”

  Khevat and Icha paled at the words, and Hasik got to his feet, his patience worn thin.

  Abban reached to collect his writing kit and pretended to slip, knocking over the ink bottle. The black liquid ran across the table, staining the dama’s faded white sleeve.

  “Watch out, fool!” Khevat growled, snatching his arm away.

  “Apologies, Dama.” Abban produced a kerchief that was passably clean, blotting Khevat’s sleeve. As he did, he slipped the tiny paper into the old cleric’s hand.

  Khevat stiffened slightly, but he did not betray the confidence. He palmed the paper and made his hand disappear into the robe as he made a show of examining the stained cuff. “Just go, khaffit. I will tend to it.”

  Hasik snorted, pulling Abban’s chair away from the desk. “A pleasure as always, Dama.”

  Abban caught the dama’s eye as the chair swiveled away, and they shared a knowing look.

  “I am surprised,” Abban ventured carefully as they walked back across the compound.

  “By what, khaffit?” Hasik asked.

  “That you trust your men to lead the raids instead of going yourself,” Abban said.

  Hasik laughed. “Eager to be rid of me, Abban? Do not think I would leave you here to scheme. You would join the raids slung over the back of my horse, just as we started.”

  “I miss those times,” Abban lied, and Hasik chuckled. “But I am pleased to have a roof over my head. It is only that you always seemed to take such…satisfaction in the conquest.”

  “I take my satisfaction in pig now,” Hasik said. “In bottom feeders, and in the pain of those who displease me. Remember that, khaffit.”

  Abban nodded. “Always, Eunuch Ka.”

  —

  A well-nursed Kaji napped on Ashia’s back as she and Briar watched the warriors ride from the monastery.

  “They’re sending out raiding parties,” Ashia noted. “Their supplies are low.”

  “Gonna come up empty,” Briar said. “Nothin’ left to raid.”

  Ashia began unwrapping the silks that bound Kaji’s pack to her. Briar looked confused as she pressed it into his hands. “Kaji will sleep for hours yet. Take him back to the briarpatch.”

  “What are you doing?” Briar asked.

  “The keep is as empty as we have ever seen it,” Ashia said. “There is no better time to scout within.”

  Briar made no move to strap on the pack. “I can do that.”

  “Your honor is boundless, Briar asu Relan,” Ashia said, “but I have contacts among my people that you do not. It must be me.”

  Briar hesitated, and Ashia moved to help him sling on the pack before he could argue. “If they catch you…”

  “They will not,” Ashia said. “I can scale the wall now amid the commotion, and will return before nightfall.”

  “Be careful,” Briar said.

  Ashia kissed his cheek. “You have my word, cousin.” She patted his bottom, and the boy took off running for the safety of his hidden cave on the cliff face. They had made improvements, so much that all three of them began to think of it as home, and had little eagerness for their mission.

  But the Damajah was counting on her, and Sharak Ka was in the balance.

  Ashia took a black scarf from her robe, twisting and wrapping it over her white headscarf in a proper man’s turban, a black veil loose around her neck.

  Seek the khaffit through the father of your father.

  It could only mean one thing. Dama Khevat, who had ruled this place before the coming of Hasik, was still alive within.

  It was a simple matter to circle around and scale the keep wall on the western side with the lake at her back. The morning sun cast her in shade, and all eyes were fixed on the warriors departing the gate. Hora in her boots and fingerless gloves allowed her to climb the sheer outer wall as easily as a spider.

  She kept to the shadows as she slipped over the wall, dialing the hora stones of her necklace to put a cushion of silence around her, blending her to her surroundings to appear little more than a diffuse blur.

  It was a needless precaution. The guards on duty were lax, thinking their walls great and high. She slipped by them and down into the courtyard easily.

  The place was filthy with refuse, stinking of urine and unwashed bodies, but the clutter provided ample places to hide as she scouted the keep. The few times she needed to cross a sunlit street, she seemed just another underfed dal’Sharum, her alagai’viran-stained clothes just as filthy as everyone else’s.

  It didn’t take long to find her grandfather’s chapel and slip past the guards, but he was not alone when she found him. Her cousin Icha was with him. She settled in to listen and wait for her cousin to leave before making contact.

  “He is a khaffit,” Icha was saying. “Do you trust him?”

  “Of course not,” Khevat said. “Abban would not hesitate to lie if it served his ends
.”

  “Then you cannot know it is truth,” Icha said.

  “But I believe it,” Khevat said. “Your brother, the Deliverer’s firstborn son, was not shot down in the Battle of Angiers. He was murdered by that…that…”

  “What if he was? Would that finally be a crime great enough for us to resist?” Icha laughed bitterly. “Hasik was right about one thing. We left Everam’s sight long ago. What does it matter, who killed who?”

  “What, indeed.” Khevat sighed.

  It was painful, listening to the broken spirit in their voices. Her grandfather had always been a huge, terrifying figure in her life. The patriarch, the final arbiter in their family. His words were sacrosanct.

  Now he was just a man, the front of his white robes stained yellow and smelling of urine. It seemed the rumors were true. Hasik had cut the manhood from every male in his fortress.

  The shame to her family was enough to make her weep, but there was no honor in filling tear bottles for the living. Before this was done, she would find Hasik and collect in blood.

  Icha left soon after, and she stalked her grandfather into his inner chamber. She was about to make contact when he sighed. “If you mean to kill me, Sharum, you may find it more difficult than you believe.”

  Ashia blinked. He had sensed her? Impossible.

  “Grandfather.” She unwrapped the black silk to reveal her white headscarf and veil.

  “Ashia?!” Khevat whirled to gape at her. “Everam’s beard, girl, what are you doing here?”

  “I was sent by the Damajah,” Ashia said. “Seek the khaffit through the father of your father, the dice said.”

  What little life had returned to Khevat seemed to leave him then, his aura diffusing as his shoulder slumped. “I do not know what purpose Everam might have, sending you to this forsaken place.”

  “They say the monastery had fallen to Nie,” Ashia said. “That is reason enough.”

  “I do not deny it,” Khevat said. “Hasik has given up alagai’sharak. He does not fight for Nie, perhaps, but neither does he resist. He lets Her grow unchecked like a greenland coward.”

  “What of the khaffit?” Ashia asked. “The dice foretell he yet has a part to play.”

  “Alive,” Khevat said, “but you will not get to him easily. Hasik keeps him close, attending him personally. The khaffit is precious to him. He is seen with Hasik, or not at all.”

  “I am here to rescue him, if I can,” Ashia said. “Will you help me?”

  “The dice sent you here, to ask my help in rescuing the khaffit?” Khevat’s aura flared again. “A lifetime I have served Everam, but sniveling Abban is worth more to the Damajah than I?”

  “Abban is a khaffit,” Ashia said. “Hannu Pash branded him a sniveling coward, and so he is. Tell me, Grandfather, what is your excuse?”

  Khevat’s eyes widened. “How dare you, girl…?!”

  “How dare I what?” Ashia said. “Hasik murdered my cousin. He cut your manhood away, and broke pact with Everam, abandoning alagai’sharak with Sharak Ka already begun. Yet you do nothing but cower and serve him.”

  “To stand against Hasik is to die,” Khevat said.

  “Was it not you who taught me that there was no path to Heaven, but to die in Everam’s name?” Ashia asked.

  Khevat blew out a breath. “Even if I wished to help you, rescuing Abban will be nigh impossible. The khaffit is still fat, with one leg lame and the other foot mangled. Even if you could use hora to bear the weight, you would find the man…unwieldy, and Hasik would be close on your heels.”

  “Then perhaps it is time to put an end to Hasik,” Ashia said.

  “Hasik is powerful, child.” Khevat spread his hands sadly. “And I am…not what I once was.”

  “What you were was the voice of right and wrong in our house,” Ashia said. “In our tribe. Now you will let the man who murdered the Deliverer’s son walk free because you fear death?”

  “I hope you never understand that there are fates worse than death, granddaughter.”

  Ashia spat on the ground. “I was trained by Enkido. My master’s spirit was undimmed by the loss of his cock, nor his sharusahk slowed. If you have not the heart to kill this rabid dog, then I will do it.”

  Khevat’s aura crackled to life again. “Do not speak down to me about Enkido, girl. I knew your master long before you were born. I knew him when he was a skinny boy in a tan bido. I selected the drillmasters to train him in Hannu Pash, and when he lost his bido, I took him into Sharik Hora and trained him myself. I knew him when he ran the Maze with his spear brothers, howling at the moon and glorying at every kill. I gave him counsel when that glory faded, leaving him unfulfilled.”

  He reached out with sudden swiftness, grabbing Ashia by the arm. She attempted to block, but her grandfather was more skilled than she credited him for, and he twisted her into a submission hold, smashing her face-first into the stone wall of the chapel. “So trust me when I tell you, beware the Eunuch Ka. If you underestimate him, even for an instant, you will die.”

  Ashia put a foot against the wall and kicked off, striking a convergence point in her grandfather’s arm that weakened the hold enough for her to break free.

  “Then help me,” she said.

  Something of the man she had known crept back into her grandfather’s eyes. “The chin had a secret way into the fortress from below. Hasik has been seeking it in the maze of tunnels. If the Damajah’s dice can divine its location…”

  Ashia shook her head. “The dice cannot help here, but I know someone who can.”

  —

  For a brief time, the briarpatch was a place of laughter. Briar and Kaji might only be distant cousins, but already they had taken to each other as brothers. Briar doted on the boy, chasing him around the cave, teaching him new words, delighting in his innocence.

  But he knew Ashia was in terrible danger every moment she scouted the monastery. When Kaji finally fell into a second nap, Briar paced the cave like a nightwolf, clenching and unclenching his fists.

  Was this what Dehlia felt when he went off scouting? The worry Ragen and Elissa spoke of? It was painful. Intolerable. He didn’t understand how they bore it. He glanced at sleeping Kaji. Could he leave the boy? Just for a short time while he made sure…

  “Made sure what?” he growled to himself. Ashia was like him. She was fast, and quiet, and knew how to pass unseen. She was as strong as he was, and a better fighter. Either she was safe, or she was in trouble enough that Briar was more likely to get captured himself—leaving Kaji alone and defenseless—than he was to effect a rescue.

  So he paced.

  It was growing dark when a rustle of the hogroot vines alerted him. He was at the cave mouth in an instant, watching Ashia rappel down.

  “Briar. All is well?”

  Briar nodded. “What did you find?”

  “My grandfather lives,” Ashia said. “And my cousin Icha. They will help us, but we must act soon, for Waning is upon us. The khaffit is confined to a wheeled chair, held in one of the Shepherd’s acolyte cells. Do you know them?”

  Briar nodded. “Have to cross the yard to get to the wall. Won’t be easy with a wheeled chair. Can your grandfather open the small gate?”

  “Not without drawing attention we would be better to avoid,” Ashia said. “He spoke of a hidden tunnel into the keep.”

  “Ay,” Briar said. “Know it. Few parts ent friendly to a chair. Might manage, but not if we’ve got spears after us.”

  “Grandfather says they have failed to find the path,” Ashia said. “If we can get to the tunnels unseen and cover our tracks, they’ll never catch us.”

  Briar frowned. “Don’t make sense. Tunnels’re a little confusing, but if the Sharum know it’s there, they should have found it. Only thing really protecting it was that no one knew it was there.”

  “It seems Hasik wants the knowledge to die again,” Ashia said. “He won’t let his warriors explore the tunnels.”

  “Or he’s found it, an
d your grandfather’s leading you into a trap.”

  Ashia opened her mouth as if to argue for her family’s honor, then closed it again, unsure. She crossed her arms. “Waning comes tomorrow night, Briar. If we don’t rescue the khaffit tomorrow while the sun shines, we may not have another chance.”

  Briar shrugged. “So what? Wouldn’t have this mess if not for him. Why’s his life worth risking the three of ours?”

  “My mission—” Ashia began.

  “Core with your mission!” Briar barked. “We can—”

  “We can what?!” Ashia cut him off. “Flee to the Hollow? To Miln in the mountains where they make weapons of fire to slaughter our people? There is nowhere to flee Sharak Ka, Briar. It will find us if we flee to the ends of Ala. You saw what the demons did to the fish men and their boats. They will come for us all, in our turn. You can hide in your briarpatch and wait as they burn the world around you, but that is not my way. The Damajah says rescuing the khaffit will deal a blow to the alagai and that is worth risking my life. Kaji’s life.”

  Kaji stirred at the sound of his name. “Mama?”

  Ashia went to him, loosening her robe to free a breast, but her eyes did not leave Briar. “It is up to you to decide if it is worth risking yours.”

  —

  Dawn twilight had chased the alagai away as Ashia and Briar picked their way down the cliffs. Kaji was in his pack on Ashia’s back, and she kept her breathing steady and even as she glanced down at the dizzying drop. Alone, she would not have given thought to the height, but with her son on her back, she was thankful the cliff face remained in shadow and she could use the hora in her boots and gloves to cling to the surface.

  There was a tiny scrap of beach at the bottom, and, hidden behind scrub and some thick vines of alagai’viran, a small cave.

  “Is this it?” she asked. “So close, all this time?”

  Briar shook his head. He’d been even quieter than usual since their words the night before. He pulled away the vines, revealing a small boat hidden in the shallow cave. He dragged it onto the beach, checked it over, and slid it into the water.

  “Climb in.” He held the boat steady as Ashia nimbly hopped in, her feet in perfect balance as the small craft rocked from her weight.